Nesting

Some expectant mommies feather their nest by painting the nursery, sewing bedding, picking out clothes.  Me?  I buy shelves and organize!

Don't get me started on the saga that is the mismatched IKEA shelves.  Apparently, holding out to buy the same piece from the same line at the same store doesn't do you any good if you wait too long.  They no longer offer that color, size or door style.  I was absolutely disgusted.  You cannot begin to imagine how much the lack of symmetry bothers me if I open the door to that obsession.  So I hid the new shelf in the corner as best I could and filled it up.

I'm planning to do school in the dining room next year, so now all of our school resources are in one place.  I did such a good job of purging the shelves that I even ended up with room to grow.  All of our art supplies are here, too, and I've got the table covered with a cheap clear, vinyl tablecloth so it is ready to go when they want to grab a bucket of supplies and some paper and create.  It's fun that both girls are at an age where I can trust them with this now (at least at the table).

I covered some diaper boxes in fabric and filled them with board books on the lower shelves for little hands to grab easily.  In theory, our littlest will understand the concept of "no" and "don't eat the books" by the time he can reach the third shelf.  My two lower cabinets have locks on them that A can operate by herself and that's where I'm going to put her school workboxes.  More on that later, but I'm super excited about this method of organizing our assignments.

What you don't see is the extra purging of toys and books I had to do in C's room so that I could move some of our grown-up books onto the high shelves in there.  This has been a process, y'all.  I still need to reclaim some wall space in the dining room for hanging art work, maps and posters.  That will be a gradual migration of our current decor to the living room, I think.  Then some major wall patching since we have some shelves anchored to the wall.  That's probably why I haven't started with that yet.  All in good time.

For now, I'm quite pleased with the results and trying to restrain myself from breaking into the school goodies too soon.  We've already enjoyed the ease of doing art at the big table with supplies at arm's reach.  And they can help clean up, too.  Isn't it a cozy, particle-board nest?

Total Mommy Cleanse

For the last 36 hours I have been holed up in a local hotel room all by myself.  I'll pause a moment to let the full magnitude of those last three words fully dawn upon you.  It has been blessedly silent.  The clack of my keys is the only noise I hear as I try to document this wonderful retreat in the minutes I have before check-out.

I asked for this weekend several months ago, knowing I would need a concentrated block of time to plan next year's school curriculum for A's kindergarten year.  So I ordered my books and lugged them along and have spent my time familiarizing myself with the schedule and books, filling in extras, planning field trips, and surfing forums for great ideas.  I feel like I'm in a good place to start this fall, considering I will have minimal capacity for further planning between now and then.

But I have also relished the independence of this weekend...eating my meals whenever and wherever I wanted, not sharing the food on my plate, and being able to read a book in silence while I ate.  Waking when my body was ready, bathing at my leisure, watching tv without consideration of its audience, popping in and out of my car for multiple errands within an hour.  All these things help to detox my mind, my attitude, my motivation and fortify me to return to the hardest job I'll ever love.  It's a total mommy cleanse and I didn't have to drink anything nasty.

Many, many thanks to J for making this time possible.  Thank you for investing in our children while I was away, for caring about their education and supporting me in homeschooling, and for loving me enough to know when I need a good cleanse.  I promise to only do it once a year.

School Progress

We're about ten weeks into the first year of homeschooling.  That includes one intentional week off and several unintentional days off.  Naturally, we are behind on what I had planned for us thus far, but I'm pleased with our progress.  It feels good that I am learning along the way as well...about myself, my daughter, our relationship with each other.

I saw a light bulb moment this week as we practiced skip counting by 2's.  That was so encouraging to see her get it and think through it.  We've been working on counting to 100, and now we're moving into skip counting for math.  We've talked about the color wheel for art and had some practice blending colors. We've begun handwriting a little earlier than I planned, but she's doing well.  We need more free practice, though.

About three weeks ago, we hit a total wall with reading lessons.  I called my sister for advice while A bawled in her room.  I knew I couldn't give up because it would reinforce her giving up.  We were at an impasse.  My sister gave me a very encouraging pep talk and some great advice.  Unfortunately, it was heavy on the "make learning fun" ideas, which are my Achille's heel.

It was true, though.  I was trying to make A learn how to read like I would study for a graduate exam.  Just trudge through the dry workbook, check it off for the day, and be done.  I totally lack in the "fun" department.  So we took a week off, then spent another week just reading through BOB books.  This week, I only have two workbook lessons on the plan plus some phonics bingo, BOB books, and new library books for her to read aloud.

We're using a new chart that shows her what we're doing for school each day and she can stamp it done when we are done.  It also has space for an attitude face at the bottom of each day (another of my sister's great ideas).  She gets three chances (two eyes and a nose) to change a bad attitude before the face ends up frowning.  If we make it to the end of the day with no frown, then it gets a smile.  I printed out a hundred chart and posted that where she can stamp how many books she has read.  We've made it to 12 in a week.

I'm learning to be flexible.  She's learning to talk to me about what she's feeling instead of digging her heels into a nasty attitude.  I'm learning that breaks are good and I have such incredible examples of well-done homeschool.  I still need help, and will always need help, with making learning enjoyable.  I need to take that into account when I choose my curriculum.  My goal is to foster a love for learning and that won't happen if it's no fun.  I'm so glad we started this year, to have this ramp-up time, this learning curve before kindergarten.  I know I'll keep learning about us as the years progress, but I'm grateful for a practice year.

First Day of School

Today was A's first official day of homeschool!  We've been looking forward to it for a while now.  Here's the excited girl in her first-day-of-school dress.

We did art and reading today.  For art, she practiced drawing rectangles so she could make stick people with "muscles."  We also made a first day of school time capsule and filled it with a sample of her handwriting, her painted handprint, a piece of yarn as tall as she is, and a drawing she made.  If I remember where I put it, we'll take it back out in the spring to marvel at her progress.  Here's our little art student...

And our eager tag-along

C decided today that she wanted to try sitting on the potty.  I was amazed that we managed to accomplish any goals for the day in spite of 3-5 trips to the bathroom so she could sit on the potty and play with the toilet paper.  Hopefully, she'll forget all about it for a few more months.

We've been doing reading all summer, so it was nothing new.  Even though I know A has a big capacity for words, I'm still impressed at her progress and how quickly she is catching on to each new phonics rule.  Today, I introduced the "nch" and "tch" endings.  She read with confidence, "Tex will clench his drink in his left hand.  Tex will crunch his thin chips and sip his soft drink."

Throw in the usual dishes and laundry, some time playing baby turtles on the floor, giving "swimming" lessons in the ball pit, and letting the little mommy put her big kiddo to bed and you have a very full day.

It's no trite thing to say that God gets all the glory for the success of this day.  I absolutely cannot do this in my own strength.  To God be the glory for the things HE has done!!

Overwhelmed

I've been feeling really overwhelmed lately.  Lots of transition and new beginnings at our house.  I've been putting together a sketchy lesson plan for our first year of homeschool and trying to pull together some activities to keep C busy while I do lessons with A.  That has taken up a lot of my personal bandwidth this summer.  (That's how nerds communicate their capacity to process information.  I try to speak geek with my hubby whenever I can and sometimes it overflows into meat space.  That's where nerds have to interact with real people in real space instead of over the interwebs.)

We're also in the midst of changing our guest room/office into a playroom/guestroom.  We've moved the bedroom suite out and brought in a sleeper sofa, thereby insuring that no one will ever sleep overnight at my house again.  I'm trying to clear the room of it's old purpose and figure out it's new purpose without spending any money.  For now, that means a mountain of papers that need to be shredded or filed.  The encouraging thing is that if you wait two years to file your paperwork, a lot of it will be obsolete by the time you file and you can just throw it away.

Once the paper is clear, I'm wrestling with what I really want to put in the room so that A can enjoy it vs. not wanting C to decorate my walls with said enjoyment.  I enjoy these kinds of dilemmas and the energy that comes with a new configuration, but it's been keeping me up at night and that's not cool.

The reason we're changing the room around is to accommodate a new home group that we'll be leading this year.  I found out last week that we don't start the new group until mid-September, so that has helped me breathe a little bit.  I was thinking we only had two weeks to figure out the new room, what our group is going to study, our schedule for the fall, find a sitter for the group's kids, etc.  Two extra weeks helps a lot.

But I don't handle transition very well.  I sleep better when everything is settled.  I want the decisions to be made, the schedule mapped out, duties delegated, prep work done.  I want to have a great beginning for our new school year and our new home group, and I want to think it through enough that we finish well, too.  Until we're off and running, I'll be fidgeting with ideas and questions, wondering what the optimal solution is to each scenario.

I've been listening to podcasts from our previous church and have been reminded that unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain (Psalm 127:1).  I don't like spinning my wheels, so I pray we've heard rightly, that we'll keep our ears tuned to His voice and that God will be glorified in our home, through our family.  And if God is building it, it seems much less overwhelming.

School Plans

In case you didn't know, I'm really excited about starting school in earnest with A this fall. I've been reading some great books recommended by trusted friends who have been homeschooling for years, trying to wrap my head around the different philosophies, methodologies, programs and curricula available. It's quite overwhelming. I feel very blessed to have so many wise Christian sisters who are further down this path already and can shed light on potential hazards and helps.

Some helpful reading I've been doing:

Top 100 Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy - great section that explains the general philosophies of homeschooling as well as quizzes to help you understand which style might work best with your family's needs and goals; then a fabulous wealth of info on all manner of curriculum and how they rate on criteria that are important to you

The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise - we've definitely gotten on board with the philosophy of classical Christian education and this book is soooo helpful! Detailed recommendations by grade and subject that are realistic and attainable. I felt infinitely better about starting with a 4-year-old after reading the appropriate parts of this book.

Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt - neat book about how to choose books for your children that will nurture their heart and mind; includes age-appropriate lists of titles to look for

So for this fall, my broad goals are learning to read and write. We're going to do one at a time, starting with reading. Then we'll start in on formal handwriting once she's comfortable with reading. For reading, I'm using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise (available at my local library) and we invested in a set of BOB Books beginning readers. I'll get all our other easy readers at the library, cross-referencing the recommendations in The Well-Trained Mind and Honey for a Child's Heart. We're going to read, read, read, read. I'll read aloud to her, she'll read aloud to me, and she'll read on her own. We've already been ramping up our reading time and I love that our house is littered with books.

For handwriting, I went with Zaner-Bloser's handwriting style (mainly because the book seemed very thorough for the price). I think this will be fairly straightforward, but that could be my naivete talking.

I plan to pepper in some math and science in the form of everyday, household exploration. We'll also read lots of library books with math and science stories/concepts, thanks to the incredible lists in my reference books. I sprang for Family Math for Young Children because I do not just randomly generate great math ideas, and while my husband does, I'm betting he won't be around when I need to pull a math lesson out of my hat. I'm also hoping to have fun with art using Baby Lambs Book of Art. Both of these books will span multiple years and children.

Last, but certainly not least, we will read the Bible and lots of books about the Bible. I was gifted a beautiful story Bible when A was born and am just now realizing how highly recommended and wonderful it is. We've also got a great church library that I hope to work through repeatedly. Somehow, I want to gather the family together for this part of our education. I'm not sure how it's going to look yet, but J is working with me on ideas of how to merge our schedules for this all-important responsibility. We want to start on character training too, so I got Character Building for Families. Review said it was naturally scripted, concise and easy to do with little prep. Sounds like a good way to tackle the most important part of our children's training, doesn't it?!

As usual, I have probably bitten off more than we can chew. That's part of the excitement, I think. I'm going to maintain the broad goals for reading and writing, and establishing a family time for imparting biblical wisdom. Anything else we do will be gravy. Rich, exciting, calorie-dense gravy that will also probably be full of messy lumps. After all, I'm learning right along with her.