7 Quick Takes - some of my most random thoughts/experiences for today

1) Nothing gets the blood flowing like your seven-year-old hollering, "Mom, there is a spider in my room!  IT IS A BROWN RECLUSE!!"  Although I suppose it "could" have been a brown recluse, he was telling me he could tell because of the green dot on the back. . . ummm, last I checked BR spiders had that fiddle thing.  Anyhow, this one was so small, it was either a baby (eek!!) or one of those regular little spiders (you know the ones).  I'm banking on it being the second choice and am praying there is not a nest of BR spiders tucked into my children's room this evening.  I am so tired of spiders right now.

2) I am 3.5 months postpartum and if you were to draw me on a comic strip, I would look like I was glowing because of all the hair I am shedding.  I am CONSTANTLY losing hair and it is EVERYWHERE - on my clothes, on the floor, in the food, on the toys, wrapped in the baby's hand.  I am almost ready to shave my head. . . but then I remember a woman with six kids who homeschools and drives a van like mine does NOT need another reason for people to stare in her general direction.

3) Miriam's latest phrase is "HELP MEEUM!!"  She gets so flustered sometimes (most of the time) when she cannot do something, so she runs around frantically to either me or one of the older children crying for help.  It is quite annoying to me to have my "inner zen" attacked (I just want to scream "CALM DOWN" every time I hear her - which as we all know would be a little counter productive.) by her frantic tone.  Yet, often the fix is so quick and she immediately calms.  Even just addressing her problem, even if I do not give her what she wants, is enough for her to stop her intense wail of a cry for help.

4) I vacuumed the rug today and Rebekah asked who was coming over.  I'm fairly certain my kids believe that if we did not have house guests we would never clean.  But perhaps a little bit of me believes that, too. . . 

5) I keep my calendar in an excel file (I make it up myself and have been using/adapting the same file for the past five years or so) and I think it might have become corrupted (oh no!!) as it will no longer print or register that any page exists for printing.  It is the weirdest problem I have EVER had with a computer file.  In any case, I saved it as a different version (at the hubby's suggestion) and was able to print the October page so crisis averted. . . for now.

6) Zipporah  is taking after her big sister Rebekah in her sleeping habits.  She sleeps like crazy (10-12 hours a night, often going to bed as early as 6:30pm if I let her).  She naps great, too.  Yes, I am aware that by sharing this with everyone it will cease to be true, but honestly I'm amazed by her right now!!  She is such a great addition to the family.  Everyone loves her.  (And yes, I probably would/will still love her when she starts teething and decides sleep is for the weak and crying is much better.)

7) And to combine two of my previous topics for this final point. . . my shedding hairs seem to always fall on the backs of my arms. . . which is also (oddly enough) were I have been finding spiders, either crawling on me (eek!) or bites.  So now, every few minutes (it seems - probably more like three or four times a day in reality) I am frantically looking at the backs of my arms to double-check that it is in fact my hair tickling me and not a spider!! 

Rebekah's 9th Birthday

So back in June, our newest family member decided to join us outside the womb (with a little assistance,of course).  And in the midst of recovering and learning to take care of six children, I missed blogging about my oldest daughter's 9th birthday, which was in July.  Since this is my blog and I make up the rules, I have decided it is ok to blog about it now. . . in October and she is lucky she is getting  a post at all.

We were at Grandpa and Grandma's house the day before Rebekah's actual birthday, planning to come home that day.  But Uncle Erik (prompted, no doubt by his two daughters) spontaneously asked if Rebekah would like to stay with him for a few days.  As much as we tried to say no (Rebekah is my NUMBER ONE helper around the house!!) we were unable to convince her that coming back home with her family would be as fun as staying with her cousins.  The catch is that with her gone, we did not exactly celebrate her birthday without here back at home.  Then she got back into town on the same day as Zipporah's baptism.  And while we had a cake for both of them, letting them share the day of celebration, overall, Rebekah's birthday was largely underplayed.

But she did not complain. . . because generally she just does not do that.  So I will continue with a "birthday post of sorts," in this spirit of gratitude for the amazing young woman Rebekah is becoming.

Reason #1 that Rebekah is amazing:

She has such a sweet soul.  I have quite a collection of holy cards and they seem to keep growing (charities love to send that kind of stuff).  I usually give them to Rebekah to use as bookmarks.  After going through a basket of "stuff" (you know, that "stuff' that collects everywhere like plaque and is just difficult to keep up with!! - but I digress) I gave her a fairly large pile of cards.  I expected her to put them in her desk.  But later I discovered she had concluded there were too many for her desk.  So instead, she took some sticky tack and put the religious pictures up ALL OVER the house.  Seriously, they were EVERYWHERE: Below the car key hook, on the front door, on the dryer, on the bathroom mirror, below the crucifix in my bedroom, even on the OUTSIDE part of the back door.  You could barely walk two steps without encountering one.  It was very sweet.  In the picture below you can see one by our holy water font.

Reason #2 that Rebekah is so amazing:

She gently leads us all toward holiness.  The other morning I noticed the little note beside the holy water font (as shown in the picture above).  She wanted to remind us to use the holy water.  This font and her sign are beside the doorway to the kitchen.  A doorway everyone walks through multiple times during the day.  A well-thought-out plan, there, Rebekah!

Reason #3 that Rebekah is so amazing:

She has a heartfelt generosity that knows no bounds.  A while back we were over playing with our neighbors in the late afternoon and dinnertime was approaching.  I commented on what we were having for dinner (as I believe it was in the crockpot or the oven - whatever the case, it was almost ready for us to eat) and our neighbors said they had not started dinner yet so it would be a while before they ate.  Unbeknownst to me, Rebekah slipped back into our house at this point and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the neighbors, so they would not have to wait so long for dinner!  Then, about ten minutes later I gathered our crew and started heading back to our house.  Out came Rebekah with the sandwiches that she proudly presented to our neighbors.

Rebekah, you are certainly one of the greatest gifts I have received!  Such a wonderful big sister and role model for us all.  I thank God for the young lady you are becoming and pray He will continue to bless you, today, forever ago on your actual birthday,  and always!

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  

(Ephesians 1:16)

Our Online School Experience. . . so far

As I mentioned in a previous post, the children are "attending" an online public school.  To give a little history, all of the older three children have attended a public preschool.  The oldest, Rebekah, also attended a Catholic school for two years.  For the past two years we have homeschooled on our own (with an eclectic approach).  Now, with three in school we are giving the virtual school a try.  So without further ado. . . 

Pros:

1) CHEAP!!  It is $97 per kid, and that includes everything.  They even send a computer if you need one, no extra charge.

2) All the planning is DONE.  No serious prep work required.  Sometimes you need to print things or gather materials (such as for science experiments), but they have it all laid out for you under "advance prep" for "tomorrow" or "the week" and for all your children or just one.

3) Lots of computer work and that keeps the kids interested.  Each lesson is "recorded" online.  

Some of them will read something along the lines of, "This lesson is 'offline' so gather materials (which they have a link to, so you can see what they look like and print them if you want - or go find them in your workbooks/textbooks/teacher's manuals) and follow the activity guide."  Then you click to the next screen and mark the lesson complete.

Other lessons will have some information that the students read through and a question or two to answer on the computer (and then it will tell them if their answer is right, etc), with each screen.  With the younger ones it has lots of games and simple instructions, for example, "Click the object that is a square" - or "Sort all the shapes into the correct bins."  I REALLY like the online work for vocabulary words.  They are hearing the words pronounced correctly and the definitions, often while seeing pictures to reinforce.  It is handy for phonics games, for Jacob, also.

They also have links to games during the lesson.  There is a math game about germs that the kids really like.  They do math problems to get the goop to flow and neutralize the germs.  There are also spelling games.  These are played online and I have saved the links to them, so we can pull them out whenever we want (not just when the link comes up in a lesson) and Samuel especially likes those.  He asks to play them on weekends and in his free time.

4) I like the vocabulary words chosen so far and I am glad they are teaching to learn definitions from the context, but also having them check in the dictionary to be sure.

5) The online classes (in blackboard) are enjoyable and I think Rebekah learns some from them.  I like her learning some from another adult (besides me) and I like to see her interacting with other kids she does not know (even though it is in the virtual world).  (Only Rebekah does these - two per week, one in reading and one in math - because they do 3rd grade and up in them, I believe.)

6) Our "Education Specialists" (aka "teachers") are very friendly and helpful.  (In case you were curious, my title is "learning coach" which I think fits well.)  Plus, it helps to be held accountable to someone else.  They talk with me and each student about twice a month, unless we have problems, questions, etc., as they are available anytime (within reason).

7) Having our workload set for us gives me a sense of what "the real world" expects us to be accomplishing in a given day, week, month, etc.  If nothing else it is helping me get a picture in my head of how our time should be/could be spent in a given day.

Cons:

(I would like to preface here, that I do not claim to be an expert.  I could have misunderstood or flat-out "missed" some of the instructions or I could be doing some things "the hard way," without realizing it!  I am not perfect, so some of these cons could potentially just be "user error." )

1) The lessons are repetitive and often have less content than I would expect.  Imagine the homework they send home from school when your child is sick.  Now imagine your child being sick every day of the year.  That is basically how virtual school goes.  In my experience, homeschool curriculum can be more in-depth as the student is more focused and one-on-one learning is so effective.  But these lessons could be picked up and taught to 20 kids pretty easily.  I'm not faulting them for it.  They are most likely written by a school teacher.  But, as I said, from my experience, school done at home does not need to be structured quite the same way and having one child do repeated activities that were meant to be spread about over a larger class, can be tedious and boring at times.

For example, Samuel needed to count from 1 to 500.  They had him practicing little snip-its of counting from here or there (count from 99 to 155 and count from 345 to 389, etc).  Then they had an animated kid counting (on the computer) and Samuel listening - to different parts.  For the 40 minutes he spent listening and doing his worksheets for this lesson, I should have just had him count to me from 1 to 500 (as I figured he probably could) and been done in 5 minutes.

2) It is a lot of computer work.  Now, I would not say it is too much, but if you are wanting to be basically "unplugged," this is not the path for you.  Plus, the lessons are all online on their server.  The other day, their server was down. . . that was a little frustrating.  But our education specialist said that happens maybe once a year, if that.

3) Some of the content is not what I would pick.  For example, Jacob is reading fairy tales for his Kindergarten literature.  The first one we read was Goldilocks.  In this version, the wolf eats the grandma and then the girl.  Then the hunter hears him snoring and sees them in his throat, so pulls them out and the wolf runs away.  When we got to the part about the wolf eating the grandma, Jacob said, "I don't like this story. Can we stop now?"  He was so distraught!  Then after we finished the story he said, "Wolves don't REALLY eat people do they?"  My answer, "well, not normally people IN CABINS."  Of all the literature in the world, are you telling me they could not find some that would not give my Kindergarten nightmares about wolves eating people?!?!  Sheesh.

4) Although the materials are plentiful, they are a bit confusing!  Rebekah has about six different books she works from for her Language Arts.  Two of them are writing books.  One is solely grammar, but there is grammar in her "Language Skills" book also!  She also has a literature book, a spelling book, and a vocabulary book!!  It is rather confusing many days to figure out what book she is supposed to be in - and even what page to be on!  (As she skips around some, too.)  It does not seem very systematic to me.

5) Obviously, there is no religion course since this is a "public school" so I am trying to supplement that on the side myself.  I suppose that keeps it separate so they realize that studying the Catholic faith and the Bible are not really just school subjects, but at the same time, I do think they should be spending time each day putting their heart and soul into understanding our faith and studying Scripture.  In my head it is perhaps the most important "subject" of all.

* Obviously I will have much more to say about this by the end of the year, but I wanted to get my thoughts out now while I am thinking about them.  I am quite curious to see how long it will take us to finish and if we will end up working through the summer or if we end up finishing early.  Although there is a progress page online that shows where we are, it is difficult for me to get a sense of how fast we are really moving and to anticipate if we will be able to keep that pace, or what other distractions, etc will come up along the way.