Scheduling Our Homeschool

I have to admit I was a pretty laid-back homeschooler. We didn't have a set schedule that we followed every day. Instead, I tried to cultivate good habits with lots of flexibility.

Early on I discovered that it was best for me to get up early, before the children did, to have a chance for some quiet time and to mentally prepare for the day. If I slept in and didn't get up until they came and woke me, it seemed like we were running behind all day. Generally I tried to get up between 6:30 and 7:00, and be ready to start school by about 9:00.

The "seat work" (written work) was most challenging for my kids, so I found that it was good to start the day at the table working on math, spelling, and language arts while the kids were still fresh. After about an hour, we would take a break and have a snack. The kids could run around a little bit and I could change a load of laundry or something like that. 

After the break, we came back together for the "fun" part of the school day... the time when Mom reads to the kids. Sometimes we would cuddle on my bed, or sit on the porch swing or a blanket in the yard. Most often, I sat on the couch and the kids played on the floor while I read to them. I found they actually listened better if their hands were busy.

Most days, in the early years, we were finished with school before lunch time. Early afternoons were designated as "quiet time." The girls outgrew naps at about age 4 or 5, but we still observed the down time for several more years. Mostly it gave me a break in the middle of the day... and I feel like it was good for the kids to learn to entertain themselves quietly. Late afternoons were for playing outside or running errands.

As the girls got older, they spent more hours doing school, and were able to work more independently. I did continue to read aloud to them all the way through high school, as they enjoyed that, and it gave us wonderful opportunities to discuss what they were learning.

We made homeschooling and learning part of our lifestyle, so it was easy to keep a flexible schedule.

This glimpse at "a day in the life of a homeschooler" is part of Sonlight's 25th anniversary blog party.

Canyon of Danger - review

Book 3 of Susan K. Marlow's Goldtown Adventures series has just come out!

Canyon of Danger continues the adventures of 12-year-old Jem Coulter and his sister Ellie during the waning days of the California gold rush. Pa has to be gone for a few days and leaves Jem in charge of the ranch. Jem is excited about this new responsibility... until everything starts to go wrong. It's a great story for tweens about making wise choices and being dependable. You can read an excerpt here.

 Susan's books are well-written and engaging, even for us "kids" who are a "little" older than her target demographic. She offers lapbooks and free study guides to go along with each title which makes them great for homeschoolers.

The fourth book in this series, River of Peril, will be out in the Spring of 2014. You can also read my previous reviews of Book 1: Badge of Honor and Book 2: Tunnel of Gold.

Thank you to Kregel for sending me a review copy.

Fragmented Thoughts for November

I have a love-hate relationship with the month of November. 

It's the month I was born, 

as well as the month I was married, 

so double reasons to celebrate, 

in addition to Thanksgiving.

My children presented me with this lovely bouquet of mums 

in honor of our anniversary last week.

They bought their dad candy.

The other part of their gift was a series of pictures

they had a friend take of them at a local park.

I was so pleased!

I told them they could do that as a gift for us for any occasion.

 Speaking of mums, the ones in my flower bed 

have been blooming since early September.

Some of the blossoms are beginning to fade, 

but the plant is still putting out buds, too.

That's two months and counting of bloom time.

This is the fourth year I've had them.

Isn't that wonderful?

 With the ever-shortening daylight hours and the drizzly gray skies

(which is what I hate about November),

I appreciate the bright spot in my front flower bed...

 ...and the still-fresh Jack-o-lanterns on the front step

which I plan to leave up until after Thanksgiving,

or until they start to soften, whichever comes first.

 An early snow this week reminded us that, ready-or-not, winter is upon us.

We've winterized the trailer and put away the bikes and lawn furniture,

and are turning our attention to more indoor pursuits.

Happy November!

Home Movie Stills

Among the "thou-shalt-not-touch" treasures tucked away in the secret storage places of my parents' bedroom was a movie camera. I don't remember where it came from. Perhaps my mother got it with S&H Green Stamps or something. What I do remember is that we had no projector for watching any home movies that had been filmed on it, so on the rare occasions we were able to borrow a projector, watching Our Movies was a Big Deal.

There was the reel of my parents' wedding (taken, I'm sure, on someone else's camera)... and the reel of me as a baby... and then a gap of about 5 years. The third reel starts when my youngest brother was a baby. Now that I think about it, that must have been about when we got our own movie camera, because there's a good bit of footage that year, relatively speaking.

I was five that year, and utterly convinced that if the movie camera was recording, I should probably perform. That is to say, show off. The footage of my newborn brother has me turning somersaults in the background.

The footage of the five of us children playing on our swing set has me running around like a maniac, "checking" on the baby, picking up the ball, prancing here and there. It's down-right embarrassing is what it is!

Fifteen or twenty years ago we had our old home movie reels transferred to VHS tape, and then later on to DVD. I was very surprised to discover that the full length production of the home movies from my childhood only amounted to about 20 minutes of footage total. That would be because, while we did have a camera, movie film was costly... and having the film developed was costlier still. Not only is the footage very brief, it is also very poor quality as a result of the film being left in the camera too long before developing.

(I know it makes me sound like an old woman to marvel at how far technology has come in my lifetime... but I can't help it. It's true.)

My parent's 50th anniversary is coming up in a few months, so I've been working on a PowerPoint presentation for the occasion. I was looking for some pictures of a particular period of time and couldn't find some that I thought we had. Then I remembered that it was actually footage on our old home movies. So I popped the DVD in the computer and attempted to capture some screen shots. That worked out okay except for the poor quality of the original, but there's not much I can do about that at this point.

The funny thing was, though, I found myself deleting the stills of me showing off. "Silly little girl!" I thought. "I'll teach her a lesson. If she's going to show off like that, she can't be in my PowerPoint!" And then I literally laughed out loud at myself. Not only was the "silly little girl" me... that was more than 40 years ago!

Yeah. Turns out I didn't grow up to be a movie star.

Co-op Classes

Our once-a-week homeschool co-op started this week. I think it's going to be a great year!

Each student has the opportunity to take up to 3 classes per 8-week trimester. Becky's classes for this fall are: Science, Guitar, and Home Ec. I'm glad she has the opportunity to do her science labs in a classroom setting... and guitar's not something I could teach her at all. She took guitar last year, too, and really enjoyed it, so is happy to get to continue it. Home Ec is mostly just for fun, but I expect she'll learn a lot in that class, as well. This first week the girls made no-bake cookies. Yum!

Each parent is required to teach at least 2 classes per year. Silly me agreed to teach 2 classes this trimester. I don't know what I was thinking!

Yes, I do. I love teaching, and I'd just as soon teach as assist in a class. So I'm teaching a teen lit class on The Lord of the Rings trilogy (one book per trimester), and I'm also teaching a preschool lit class. I have to admit that having those classes back-to-back was pretty intense this week, but now that I've gotten to know the kids a little I'll know better how to plan for next week.

I have 9 students in my Lord of the Rings class. I had assigned reading to do before the first class, and I was so proud that every single student came to class having done their homework. They are very enthusiastic about this series. Honestly, I agreed to teach this class because several were begging for it after my Hobbit class last year, and not because it's my favorite genre of literature. Not surprisingly, the kids know way more trivial details about Middle Earth than I ever cared to know. However, I think we'll have great class discussions using the Progeny Press study guide to bring in scriptural applications to the story.

My preschool class theme is "Storybook Friends." There are 8 little ones in this class. Some are 3 and some are 4, and the difference between the two ages is very obvious. It's amazing the difference one year makes in attention span at that age. The children are adorable, though, even if they are wiggly. It's been years since I've worked with preschoolers, so I'm really looking forward to it. My storybook theme this week was Curious George. I read Curious George and Curious George Takes a Job to the children. I made little "puppets" for each them by printing out bookmarks and gluing "George" to a popsicle stick. The kids loved banging the popsicle stick on the table while we played "Five Little Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed." I also found an adorable oversize Curious George coloring book at WalMart that I tore apart and distributed among the children. They had fun coloring and/or scribbling depending on their abilities. Next week's theme will be Winnie-the-Pooh.

The fall trimester runs through the months of September and October, then we'll have a two-month break for November and December before the winter trimester starts up in January. I'm sure it will go by fast.

I'm trying to savor each moment of my last year of homeschooling.

Tunnel of Gold - review

Tunnel of Gold is the second installment in Susan K. Marlow's Goldtown Adventure series for tweens. Twelve-year-old Jem is caught in the thick of things when trouble erupts in Goldtown with a disagreement between the rich mine owner and the Chinese immigrants over the rights to a previously abandoned mine. Jem, his younger sister Ellie, and greenhorn cousin Nathan, are trying to do what they can to help the sheriff-- Jem's pa. Then along comes a new boy. Chad Carter is the son of an out-of-town investor who is in Goldtown on business. When Chad learns the whole story, he joins with the other kids in their efforts to save the town.

Fans of Susan's previous series will recognize Chad's name as the older brother of Andi Carter--the main character in Circle C Adventures. It was neat to think about this story taking place 16 years earlier, before Andi was born, when her father was still alive and her brother was a kid.

Susan's books are well-written and engaging, even for us "kids" who are a "little" older than her target demographic. She offers lapbooks and free study guides to go along with each title which makes them great for homeschoolers. The third book in this series, Canyon of Danger, will be out in the fall. You can read my review of the first book, Badge of Honor, here.

Travel Fragments

It's been a busy, productive week. No time on Friday to post fragments... but who says they have to be posted on a Friday, right? I mean, it's not like I get around to posting fragments every Friday anyway. Today's fragments are related to travel. Mostly because I doubt you'd be very interested in the nitty-gritty of the workshops I attended in my training this week.

I love to people-watch when I fly. The airport is such a melting-pot of cultures and lifestyles. You just never know what you might see. The cutest reunion I witnessed was the little boy tightly clinging to Nana's hand and gazing up at her adoringly, while Daddy walked ahead of them with Nana's luggage. Nana was talking to her tiny grandson and clutching a hand-lettered sign reading "Nana" in large letters. Apparently, the little fella had stood beside the limo drivers holding up his sign as they waited for Nana to come from her gate.

As I stood in the line to go through security at the Denver airport, dreading the indignity of the ordeal, I smiled as I watched a family in line ahead of me with two young children. The mother was holding two tiny backpacks. The little girl asked for hers. "You can have it back after we go through security," her mother told her. "The security people have to check it first."

"Why?" the little girl wanted to know.

"It's their job," was Mommy's simple reply. I guess that's really what it boils down to, isn't it? I tried to have a pleasant attitude as I took off my shoes and disassembled my luggage to pass through the scanners and x-rays, and then put it all back together again on the other side.

Flying Southwest airlines this time, I had been told that if you check in online 24 hours before your flight, you can board sooner. Seats are first-come/first-serve, so the early boarders get the pick of the seats. I checked in at exactly 24 hours (to the minute!) before my flight, and my boarding number was still B17, so there were a lot of people ahead of me... but a lot behind me, too. That was okay. Mainly I wanted an aisle seat (to have room for my long legs) toward the front of the plane.

As I boarded, the first aisle seat available was in the front row with plenty of leg room. I was tempted, but I didn't see a place to put my carry-on bag, so I decided on move on back a bit.

Row 4 had a pleasant-looking older gentleman in the window seat with both the middle and the aisle seats open. I chose that one. I was hopeful that the flight wouldn't be full, so that the middle seat would stay empty. It did.

My seatmate and I exchanged friendly hellos and then we both took out books to read as we waited to take off. Once we reached cruising altitude the old guy took out his iPod and put in earbuds. Then he started bopping his head and softly singing along with his music. I was smiling on the inside. Before long he dozed off.

After a bit the flight attendant came along and offered tiny bags of pretzels and peanuts. She didn't disturb my seatmate. Later as she was serving drinks he woke up. Then she came around again to finish distributing snacks. She started to offer them to me again and then noticed that I already had some. My "friend" said, "I didn't get any!"

"How did we miss you?" the attendant wanted to know.

"I think she brought hers with her," the old guy told her, referring to me.

"No. You were snoozing when they came around before," I told him.

"Oh! Was I sleeping? Well, that's what old people do!" he said. I had to laugh because that's exactly what I was thinking.

As we approached Spokane, I noticed the flight attendant taping to the wall a page from a spiral notebook featuring a neatly drawn and hand-colored picture of a Southwest plane in blue-crayoned sky. Aww... some child on the flight had presented it to the staff and they were putting it up where everyone could enjoy it.

After we landed I made my way to baggage claim. Soon after I got there, the red light starting blinking and the whistle sounded to alert us that the carousel was starting to move. Three little boys standing nearby started jumping up and down in excitement. I turned to smile at their mother. She smiled back, "The highlight of their day!" she said.

"Do they happen to be the ones who drew the picture that the flight attendant taped to the wall?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "My oldest did that. We had a flight from Florida to Denver this morning, and he did one on that flight, too. Keeps 'em busy!"

By then the boys were bumbling about their Daddy trying to "help" him claim their luggage. They desperately wanted to be the one to grab the bags off the carousel but Daddy wouldn't let them. He lifted each bag onto the floor and then told the little guys to "take that to Mommy." Immediately, they would come back to offer more assistant. Reminded me of puppies.

Those are the incidents that kept me smiling as I traveled to Denver and back this week.

Frag-Blogging

I have been receiving some gentle nudges that it's time to blog again. The thing is, in my mind, blogging should be story-telling. If I wanted to just talk about the weather or what we had for dinner, I could just tweet about that... or post it to Facebook... and be done. Blogging is more fun for me because I love stories!  And sometimes I just haven't got a story. So that's where Frag-Blogging comes in. You can blame Mrs. 4444 and Keetha! Somehow they've managed to convince me that it's okay to gather up a bunch of fragmented pieces of almost-stories, weave them together, and voila! Blog-worthy story!

And so, we've had snow. Well, duh. It's January. In Idaho. So, yeah. There ya go.

I have to admit, there's something magical about watching falling snow pile up. I am kinda enjoying the way it's been coming this year. We've had several snowstorms with thaws in between, which keeps the white stuff fresh and pretty.

Cookie likes to lie in the window and watch the snow... and keep an eye out for any interesting passersby. She loves in play in the snow when it's deep and fresh. She pounces around in it like a puppy, rather than the more sedate 7-year-old lady dog she usually is. It is very fun to watch her.

What's not so fun is driving in it, though the snow plows are pretty good about keeping the main roads cleared off. The snow was coming down pretty heavy on Monday morning as Becky and I headed back to co-op.

Speaking of co-op, since this is a fragmented post, this term I am helping with a class of little girls (1st to 3rd grade) who are learning to crochet. Let me rephrase that. They are "learning" to crochet. See the difference? They think they are learning. Mostly they sit and hold their balls of yarn and crochet hooks, and giggle. One-by-one, the other teacher and I put our arms around them to guide their little hands to hold the hook and manipulate the yarn in just the right way, while they watch intently. I don't think they've caught on much yet, but this was just the first class. It will be interesting to see what progress they make by the end of 8 weeks.

On to the next fragment... Tuesday evening we had a birthday dinner at Olive Garden.

Our family had received a gift card to Olive Garden for Christmas, so we decided to go there for Laura's birthday. We also invited her BFF to join us.

And while they are "grown up" young ladies, legally adults and all that... they mostly just sat and giggled. Wonder when they outgrow the giggle stage?

Anyway, it was a lovely dinner.

Other than that, we've mostly just kept the home-fires burning (figuratively, since we don't have a real fireplace)... fought a virus that's going around...

...and tried to stay warm!

Hope you're having a good January!

The Antique Buggy

Imagine, if you will, a young mommy in the late 1960s out for a walk with her baby. In your mind, what does that baby stroller look like? Maybe bright and plasticky, with shiny chrome metal bars and such? Yeah, me, too. (Go ahead. Google "baby stroller 1960s" and you'll see what I mean.)

Whatever you had pictured, it was probably not this, huh?

 Believe it or not, that picture was taken in 1966... and the dimpled little charmer? Yep, that's me!

You see, by nature and of necessity, my mother has always been quite frugal. When she needed a stroller for her firstborn baby, she and Dad went to the auction house to look for a bargain.

Alas, there were no strollers to be found. The only thing available was an antique wicker baby buggy circa 1925. Since it was forty years old and so shabby, they were able to get it for $10. Mother declared she liked it better than a stroller anyway, so they brought it home... and plopped me in it for many a happy walk.

I think I remember Mother telling how she used it to cart her wash from their apartment to the laundry room on the premises. She would set me in the back, and put the basket of clothes in the front.

 It was a very generous buggy. Plenty of room for two happy tots. In the picture above, aunt Rachel and I are considering how I should scoot over and make room for her.

See there? This arrangement works out nicely!

 Here I'm sharing with my twin cousins. The girl twin gets to ride in the buggy with me, while the boy twin demonstrates his strong muscles by "pushing" us. I wonder how far he managed to get us on the grassy surface. Looks like some wise adult had probably lifted the buggy over off the sidewalk to slow his progress. Runaway babies would not be good.

 And then, a year or so later, we had twins of our own! Girl twins. So Mommy pushed the baby sisters in the buggy while I pulled a wagon for the puppy to ride in. I wonder how far we got with that set-up? Looks to me like that puppy required a good deal of cuddling and not so much riding in the wagon.

 Not quite two years after that we got a baby brother, and he had his turn in the buggy. Some teens from our church came by to help with the little ones, and took us all for a walk. I remember we girls had strict instructions to hold on to the buggy and not let go.

Regrettably, I couldn't find a picture of my youngest brother in the buggy... because yes, the following year, there was still another baby. Probably we didn't have a camera, or maybe couldn't afford film for the camera, during his buggy-riding days.

After that, the buggy went into storage for many years.

And then, in the 1990s, my mother got it out again. By then it was too wobbly and delicate to be used in any practical way, but it made a perfect photo prop for those grandbabies!

My firstborn baby...

...and then my second one...

...followed by nine cousins over the next few years.

Mother finally relinquished the buggy to my care not too long ago. I am very happy to have it in my living room. We've had a "family" of porcelain dolls cuddled together in it for awhile. I think I'd like to put something different in it now. I'm not sure what, but I'll think of something.

So, for this week's Vintage Thingy Thursday, that's the story of the second half of the life of my antique wicker baby buggy. I'd be very curious to know the stories it could tell of the first half of its life, wouldn't you?

Malapropisms

I love unintentional malapropisms. They make me smile.

My youngest daughter, who has auditory processing delays, uses them quite frequently... but she gets a little frustrated when we ask her to repeat what she said because we aren't sure we heard it right. That clues her in that she used the wrong word, so she'll usually just "Hmph! Never mind!"

Her latest one that I especially enjoyed was when she told me Sunday that she has two "Timothy sets" that we can get out and display at Christmas time. I was a little puzzled until she explained further that a Timothy set has a Baby Jesus... and Mary... and Joseph. (Though there's a problem with Joseph's staff. It won't stay in his hand.) Nativity set! Of course. Yes, that does sound a little bit like Timothy!

Yesterday at co-op I was helping in a class where the teacher was demonstrating some optical illusions. The little girls in the class were very impressed. "It's an optical delusion!" exclaimed one.

Don'tcha love it?

Sea, Sand, and Sky

We stayed at Turtle Rock RV Park.

We practically had the beach to ourselves.

Becky turning cartwheels on the soft sand.

"Log Henge" constructed by our kids.

Rainbow -- Monday morning.

Sunset -- Tuesday evening.

Sunset -- Wednesday evening.

Sunset -- Thursday evening.

Buffalo Round-up Day Trip

 On Tuesday the weather was perfect for a day trip. We had made plans to drive over to the National Bison Range Wildlife Refuge to see the annual buffalo round-up. It is always the first Monday and Tuesday of October. Our homeschool co-op meets on Mondays, so Tuesday was our only option. Now that we have an 8-passenger SUV, we were able to invite some friends to go along.

Our rig is affectionately known as "Duh Bible-Study Fwuck" so dubbed by the passenger in the middle. Our friends come to our Bible Study on Wednesday nights, and so the Little Guy has decided that our name must be Bible-Study, since whenever they say they are going to Bible Study they end up at our house! He's all into "fwucks" and "fwains" so he recognizes our Excursion. He definitely added extra-fun moments to our day. It's been awhile since we've had a 2-year-old around.

The Clark Fork River was particularly beautiful reflecting the bright sunshine and blue sky. It was a gorgeous drive.

We saw several antelope on a hillside in the Bison Range before we got to where they were rounding up the buffalo. They are hard to see in the picture, since they blend in with the grass... and I don't have much of a zoom lens on my camera.

The buffalo round-up itself was not quite as dramatic as it has been in years past, since they've started using Jeeps instead of horses to drive the bison in. It was still fun to watch.

There were a few horses around, though. We saw two or three riders, but they weren't out in the range with the wildlife. Just riding around the barn and parking area. I'm not sure why. For crowd control? Atmosphere? Whatever.

On our way home we saw a herd of Bighorn Sheep. They appear to be fenced in, but I don't think they are really. I think they've just come down off the mountain. But I could be wrong. I don't really know.

Other wildlife we saw (but didn't photograph) included a mule deer, a golden eagle, a bald eagle, and a wild turkey. No bears or moose. Too bad.

We came home through the mountains over Thompson Pass. It had been a fun day.

I think our next adventure will be an apple-picking expedition. Stay tuned.