7 Quick Takes - catching up

1) We took a family hike at the local lake a while back on a nice day.

We have every intention of being a "naturey" family - we want to be a rough and tumble, play outside, hike around, survive in the wild-kind-of-family.  But as much as we try to live and encourage that, it is a tough "way" to learn, especially for littles (and perhaps we do not "teach" as well or as often as we could/should).  Thus, when we chose a three-mile-hike for our "family adventure" we did not expect it to be quite so grueling.  I mean, seriously, we live in Kansas.  If the land slopes at all we consider it a hill and we have NO CONCEPT of serious climbing or underbrush or anything that makes a "trail" really a challenge.  How hard can a little three-mile-trek be?  Well, the older kids (Rebekah, Samuel, Jacob, and Paul) did totally fine - carried their packs, kept up, enjoyed the "nature," and generally were helpful and pleasant.  Other than wanting to stop for water and snacks all too often (but in their defense we did not eat lunch - just brought hefty snacks - and we began our hike at about 1pm).  Even Miriam hiked pretty-much the whole thing (Gordie only carried her in a pack for a few minutes in the beginning) and had no trouble.  

Zipporah on the other hand managed to make everyone's lives a bit "less fun."  In her defense, it was naptime, and it was windy - not cold, but rather windy.  I had Rebekah carrying her in a soft backpack carrier to begin with because being in my third-trimester of this pregnancy I was not sure how I would do carrying both babies.  Gordie was wearing Miriam in the framed backpack carrier at this time.  Soon Zipporah grew tired of Rebekah and after trying her on Gordie, I tried to wear her.  She continued to fuss in every possible combination - hard carrier, soft carrier, mom or dad, etc.  Finally I figured I would just carry her in my arms if that would make her stop crying!!  But alas, even in my arms, she was frustrated and I had forgotten a blanket, so the wind kept stirring her and keeping her from dozing off.  We ended up skipping a bit of trail and cutting over to make it a touch shorter.  Zipporah cried for at least half of the hike and refused to be satiated.  Then, as we were SURE she would just crash out in the car, she showed us by staying awake the whole fifty-minute drive home!

Miriam and Paul trucking right along.  ---Yes, this is what "hiking" looks like in Kansas - not quite as fun as those areas in other states with trees, rivers, hills, mountains, etc., but it is our home and we do the best we can.

What an adventure.  But we did have fun and maybe when we try it again, not during "naptime" we will have more pleasant results.

2) Rebekah made a special gift for Grandma's birthday.

Whenever the kids visit Grandma (Gordie's mom), she has a few "rules" that go something like: "No whining, no crying, no shouting, no pouting."  She is often repeating those while the kids are there.  So Rebekah decided to make some signs for Grandma with those rules.

"No Shouting, No Pouting Zone.  Proceed with CAUTION."  I helped her outline the letters so you could see them better, but she did all the painting, including the background, by herself.

"No whining, no crying zone."  This one was done, in entirety, by Rebekah.

3) Paul "officially" finished all of his school work on Tuesday.

I should note, he finished everything but a few science lessons (which I have to read to him) about three weeks ago.  But now, he has every possible lesson and activity complete - and he was not even required to do it all - 95% in his major courses and 85% in his Science would be considered "mastery" (as they simply do more of a pass-fail-thing for our virtual school = either you master it our you do it again until you do).  Anyhow, as much as you might think "way to go Paul!!" I am not really celebrating and actually asked his teacher if she could find some more work for him!  This is because a bored Paul is a distracting Paul and one that begs for computer games all day.  While the games are educational, they can still be distracting to his siblings, plus all that screen time.  It is a battle now with him.  Although I have more "busy work" worksheets, handwriting, etc - Paul is smart and can get into his "lessons" on the school website, so he KNOWS he does not have any left and anything I tell him to do is not "official" - thus he does not have to.  Who ever thought something like finishing school early would have any detriment?  Only with Paul. . . 

3) The other kids are doing pretty-well on school work.

Not to make you think Paul is the only one working around here.  Jacob should be done with his lessons in about two weeks (just before the baby comes if we can stay on track) and Rebekah had her spelling and vocabulary for the year done by Christmas.  Samuel wrapped up his vocabulary a couple days ago and spelling is close behind.  I still anticipate doing some work into the summer, but mostly that is because I am going to be giving the kiddos a hefty break after the baby comes.  In any case, I feel like we have a much better handle on things this year, as compared to last year, and I don't think the kids will mind finishing up a few things.  Especially classes like German are really fun as they incorporate a ton of games and such, so having them open over the summer will probably be a bonus.

4) We finally renewed our museum membership.

'We are really blessed to have an AMAZING museum here in town and the cost of membership is really affordable.  Seriously, two visits and I have gotten my money's worth from our yearly family cost.  It is great.

Miriam is on the far right, pictured with some friends here.

Zipporah checking out the spider.

Jacob and Samuel having some spider fun.

5) This might sound bad, but Zipporah has been reminding me of a puppy lately.

Seriously, she has to weasel in around my legs - especially in the kitchen, and get herself into whatever I am doing.  It is kinda cute when I'm sitting on the floor and she comes over to sit by me (well, ON me if at all possible, but with my growing belly, she has to settle for beside these days).  In the mornings she will often follow me from room to room, close on my heels to be sure I do not disappear into an alternate universe.  But. . . she is also growing up by leaps and bounds and will even play outside (in our fenced-in yard) by herself sometimes!!  So I'm sure I will miss being the center of her attention soon, but goodness right now she often wears me out by the end of the day!

6) Miriam is turning from her sweet sweet self to "a child with a bit more spunk."

I think that is the best way to put it.  In other words, she is beginning to get quite an attitude about things!  And my rough-and-tumble girl is suddenly coming to me with tears over every little thing.  I realize this is simply part of growing up, but I am already looking forward to the conclusion of this "stage" of development!

Random picture of Rebekah pulling Miriam and Zipporah in the wagon - to the corner and back.  This has become one of the girls' favorite activities!

7) We are in the process of remodeling the downstairs bathroom.

Our bathrooms are both in need of serious updating, the downstairs is going first because Daddy wanted to pull out the shower and add a tub/shower combo. . . a tub especially for tall people to enjoy.  We got one that is six-feet-long and super-deep.  It is SO NICE already!!  The only thing is that since the tub is already in "use-able" condition (aka you can fill it and the drain works), someone seems to have lost his motivation to get on with finished the rest of the bathroom!  But I'm sure he will eventually get it done - no need to keep reminding him about it every six months or anything - haha :)

And if you made it this far, enjoy another random picture. . . 

Starting the School Year 2015-2016

Here the kids are after daily Mass this morning, ready to get into the school routine.

(And the kids were actually really well-behaved at church today!  Praise God!!  :)

Without further ado, here is our line-up for this year.

Miriam refused to leave Rebekah's side.  We had to bribe her out of the picture for the next shot.

Silly Miriam again!  She wanted to be in ALL the pictures :)

Pfew, getting these pictures was tough!  Big thanks to Rebekah for helping find the blocks we needed and wrangling the little ones.  Here is to a great school year of loving and learning and learning to love and loving to learn.  God bless us all!

7 Quick Takes for Friday

1) I rearranged the kitchen.

A while back I had purchased a tall cabinet for the kitchen because I do not have lots of cabinet space.  Unfortunately the cabinet did not fit well (as poor planning on my part not realizing there was a window and a vent in the way of where it was supposed to go) and even though it had been in the kitchen for several years I recently concluded (with the help of a boldly commenting husband) that it was not such a great piece of furniture to have there.

The most obvious solution would be to remodel the kitchen, which is on the "to do someday" list, but at the moment time and money are short for this project.  Instead I moved in two pieces of "furniture" that Gordie had picked up at one of his work auctions (thankfully his work is always auctioning off stuff to employees as they continue to update and expand).  So now I have a new wooden cabinet (on wheels) and a metal cabinet (not exactly elegant, but SOLID).  They definitely get the job done and I like having the window again.  The kitchen is much more open and inviting this way.

Side Note: I would have SWORN I had a picture of the kitchen like this - at least in the background of something else, but alas, I have looked for a good 15 minutes and come up with nothing, so just trust me, it is better now.

I was waiting to take a picture until it was clean, then it dawned on me that would probably never happen while the kids are home!  So ignore the mess and enjoy the concept of an open window in the kitchen.

The metal cabinet.  Not exactly glamorous, but very sturdy!!  We had the old dishwasher her and I was waiting for Gordie to fix it and apparently Gordie thought I was just keeping it for storage!  Minor miscommunication! - LOL

2) Rebekah made a Lego chess set.

Paul received a Lego Ideas book for his birthday (from his brother, Samuel, actually) and a chess set was one of the ideas.  I think Rebekah did a great job.

3) We recently picked up another bookshelf at a local dorm sale.

This has allowed me to put our "educational" toys in closer reach (out in the front room, rather than tucked away in the study) and the middle shelf has our current school books.  

4) We got rid of another couch.

The TV room couch finally sold and now we have cushions on the floor.  I think they are more comfortable.  They potentially seat more - as we have LOTS of cushions!  They can potentially be moved anywhere, and they make awesome forts!  Winning all the way around in my opinion!

5) Gordie is in the local community theater summer production of Legally Blonde.

6) White boards keep my children happy for hours.

Seriously, the boys played with those things ALL DAY yesterday!  They seem to never get old.

7) School work.

Yep, we still have some school work here to finish up. Rebekah hopes to be done by the end of June.  Samuel could be done in about three days if he hits it hard.  Just a few things to finish up.  But then next week I am planning to start implementing "daily work" for Jacob (a math worksheet, a writing worksheet, and reading one book to Mom) and I have a learning Latin program (with DVD presentations - so no work on Mom's part) that Rebekah wants to try.  Also, we have a chemistry book we were working on last summer and all the kids are eager to get back to that - especially the experiments.

Happy Friday :)

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.

School Days. . .

These are a few of my favorite things. . . 

We are homeschooling again this year.  As difficult as it can be to prepare for (and to survive), the more I do it, the more I cannot imagine going back to traditional school.

This year we are trying something a little different as we have enrolled in an online virtual public school.  So it is "public school" at home.  There are pros and cons with it for us.

There is quite a bit of computer work involved in their studies and they all enjoy that A LOT!  It makes this method "fresh" and "new," and even "fun!"

But there is still lots of book work and traditional reading and writing going on, as well.  We are slowly getting in the groove of how things work.

I am hoping to finally put together "my part" of their schooling this weekend.  (Since Catholicism and Scripture are not offered at a public school.)  Likewise, our Sacred Space could use a face lift and our daily prayer has been sporadic (as we have not quite mastered the new schedule yet).  Although I have some guilt about not starting/doing these things sooner, I keep reminding myself that I am still recovering from/adjusting to this new baby!!  So I need to cut myself a little slack now and again.

We have had one of our upstairs bedrooms termed "the study" for the past several years, and we have attempted to do school work in it for a couple, but this year, it finally seems to be working!!  I believe the secret is having ME in the study with them.  I used to get them started and expect them to do their work, while I went and sat in "the comfy chair" in the living room (away from them).  Although this was great for nursing the baby, the children really need me by their side as they work, even if it is just for moral support.

Here is our current set-up.  The little table is for Paul and Miriam.  They do not do much school yet, but we have a plethora of educational toys that they enjoy.  Then the desk Rebekah is at in this picture is actually Samuel's desk.  Jacob is sitting on my chair (the blue one ) which is truly part of the secret this year.  My husband picked up this chair at a work auction and it is amazing.  It is VERY comfortable and obviously has wheels, so I can scoot over by each of the children as needed.

In this picture, Paul is at the computer Rebekah likes to use.  And the table beside it with the tall chair is where Jacob sits.

Rebekah also has a large desk we inherited from my mom.  It is good for her as she likes to collect stuff (twigs, leaves, craft stuff, cards, etc) and this desk has lots of places to put "stuff."

Everybody loves whiteboards here.

Here are the majority of our "educational toys."  I considered tidying them all up for the picture and then promptly decided a "real life" shot would be much easier and realistic, to boot!  :)

I guess the heart of our homeschooling can really be summed up in an encounter I had the other day.  I was making dinner and Rebekah came to ask me if I "had time" to come help her.  And although it was a simple request, I just felt it resonate deep down.  I love "having time" for them.  I LOVE sitting beside them and helping them learn.  Through the insanity and struggle with schedules and children wearing their "grumpy pants," I feel blessed beyond measure each and every day.