Contraband

It's been less than a week since we've been done with school.

We've worked hard to accomplish this goal, and to be free to enjoy summer in all its splendor.

How then can it be possible that my little old man asks me for school work to do every day?  I've explained to him how exciting it is to have no school work, and he seems thrilled every time.  And yet...around the house I consistently find papers he has privately assigned himself.  His stashes are littered with penmanship practice, arithmetic problems and reading books.

A love of learning is a beautiful thing.  It's just kind of humorous that he hides his interest so stealthily, honing his skills in secret.  Perhaps he doesn't want to burst my bubble, but I'm on to him nonetheless.

Scott's Interview

This was officially a preschool interview, but it'll count!  Here is Scott's take on my queries.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
I want to be--hmm--something special.  A sailor.  They look out for treasure and sailboats.  That's cool.

How old will you be when you are grown up?
Maybe when I'm 49.

If you could do anything you wanted for the whole day, what would you do?
I would look for treasure--I mean I won't look for it, I'll sail a boat.  Remember how you turn the boat?  Like use things to turn like this way.

Then I'll do painting, like paint a house or yard or slide or playground or cup.

What do you love most about your family?
Mommy and Daddy and Cara and Allie.  I love you in my heart.

Scott's Favorite Recipe:
I like toast.  You put it in the thing that pops it up and it will pop it up for you and then you put butter on it and then you can eat it.  And cereal.  You get it out and pour cereal in there and pour some milk in there and then you take a spoon and eat it.

Kindergarten Traditions

Scott manfully colored and figured his way through kindergarten, officially finishing yesterday.  Cara has yet to finish up first grade.  As I am slowly trying to wrap my mind around all the grading and sorting coming my way, I somehow ran across something from last year that I meant to include on the blog.  It's a kindergarten tradition of sorts...the interview.

I asked the kids the following questions and recorded their profound replies for posterity last year as Cara finished up her first school year.

Kindergarten Interview with Cara:

What do you want to be when you grow up?
I want to be a teacher, 'cause it's fun to teach and teachers are really smart and have a nice brain.

How old will you be when you are grown up?
I want to be 10.

If you could do anything you wanted for the whole day, what would you do?
Science.  I really forget, but I know science is a healthy thing, so science.  Mmm-hmmm.

What do you love most about your family?
'Cause they love me.  'Cause you've been kind to me and Daddy been going to work for me and our whole family.

Tell me how to make your favorite recipe.
It's homemade noodles.  It's really easy.  Like put the noodles in a pan or something like that and kind of put some food in on it and stuff and give it a little mix and stuff.  It's the best meal that I like.  Eat it with chicken and stuff like that.


Stay tuned for Scott's interview tomorrow!

When It Clicks...

I have to say, there are many exciting 'aha!' moments in homeschooling.   One of the best parts of teaching your children is that you see and can appreciate every step of their learning.  Cara is now starting her last quarter of first grade, and Scott is in his last quarter of kindergarten.  We've come to a new stage in reading.

For the last month or so, Cara has begun reading chapter books independently.  She has devoured twelve American Girl books, two Ramona books, Heidi (abridged), Treasure Island (abridged), the first of the Boxcar Children books, and five or six other miscellaneous chapter books.  She'll read through an entire book per day.  I'm astonished!  She can actually tell me intricate details of the plots.  It seems like this stage has come out of nowhere.  Suddenly she can read anything.  I have to say, this has brought back so many memories of the books I read during elementary.  It has also had the added bonus of fewer toys laying around the house for me to trip on.  With all that reading, she has hardly played with toys lately.

And as for Scott, yesterday during quiet time, he came out of the room and blurted out to me, "Mom!  Can you believe that the New York Yankees bought Babe Ruth for the astounding amount of $125,000?".  Yeah, he's doing great, too.

A Reading Update

We've been enjoying our time off school the last couple months.  The older babies have been reading here and there for their library reading program, as well as our usual Bible and reading aloud time just after lunch. I'm very pleased to announce that we've begun to read an abridged version of Swiss Family Robinson together after lunch.  It's been a big hit--full of animals and imagination and excitement.  In fact, I have to say, it was one of my personal favorites growing up.

As for me, I'm continuing through Agatha Christie's autobiography, a really intriguing read.  She has a light style, but I've actually learned quite a lot about the culture of her time and class.  I'd highly recommend it, and I'm only halfway through.  In fact, Hercule Poirot has just begun to develop.  There are so many adventures to come!  It's also full of all sorts of quirky observations, such as her assertion that when in love, a woman has her beauty heightened; she glows.  A man looks uglier because he's feeling so smitten and worthless.  Hmmm...I have seen this on occasion, but I'm not so sure it's a hard and fast rule.  At any rate, it's a very interesting thought!

I also recently bought and finished a book of a more practical nature.  It's called Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman.  I plan to review it soon (well, as soon as I get around to it anyway), and I've already begun to implement some of her suggestions with success.  It has been great food for thought for me personally, as well as an encouragement.

I'm very excited about what the school year has to hold for Scott and Cara.  I'm really looking forward to the day when they can sit down and read a chapter book on their own, and they'll be quite a bit closer after this year's worth of learning.

I don't know about you, but there are some books I associate with certain events in my life.  I remember what I was reading when we were house hunting, during visits to family growing up, during my early married years (ie...before kids when I had time to read on a regular basis).   What a joy to look back at this summer and remember what we were all reading!

A Girl After My Own Heart...

We've begun studying a little bit of geography in our social studies time recently.  Today we finished up talking about Mexico.  Since I was a little too cheapie to purchase the kids each their own book to color in, we've been doing some drawings after looking at the pictures.  Today they were drawing a pinata (no, Spanish doctorate brother, I can't figure out how to put the symbol over the n, but I do know that it's missing at least!).

Cara's drawing, as usual is very detailed and colorful.  She really loves to draw and makes simple drawings really come to life and have a story (unlike her minimalist brother who draws a few strokes in black and calls it a day).  She drew a lovely pinata with her arms and hands swinging a large bat.  Small circles of brown were spewing forth from the damaged pinata.  I was a little puzzled why she didn't color the candy brightly, since she's a rainbow-colored type of girl.  I asked her about it.

She looked at me and smiled a demure little smirk.  "Mom," she said, "That's my pinata.  It's full of all chocolate of course."

Of course.  I really should have known...after all, the pinata of my dreams is also full of chocolate.  That's what is known as generational sin, I guess!

Phew...

Okay, we made it through the holiday rush!  Even though the Christmas season is merry and lovely, we're very ready to settle into the cold winter doldrums.  Even the weather participated by giving us our first snow...of course, that was rather not lovely for our poor relatives trying to get home on the sheets of ice they call roads in Tennessee and Kentucky, but here it's only rather pretty.

I was planning on starting school again today...really I was.  However...I have learned something during my first few months of schooling.  Once school starts, I can kiss any big jobs goodbye for awhile.  So, I consider it very important to tackle the piles of rubble all over the house and actually clean out the kitchen and bathroom really well.  Once school starts, it'll be just keeping my head above water housework-wise anyway.

Of course, the children began to weep softly when I told them.  They begged, "Mom, we were really counting on being able to put the new toys away and get back to learning something each day!".

Not really.

In fact, it sounded like the ball just dropped when I told them.  Jumping, screaming...if they'd had confetti, it would have been flying, too.  They don't know yet that they have to clean their room today...even under the beds!  (Cue devious music).

The break has been lovely, but getting things back to normal is also lovely!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday break.  Now let's raise our glass to the return of the routine...really, I still have some sparkling grape juice to use up.  C'mon kids!  Special juice for breakfast!

Little Old Man Thoughts On Laura Ingalls Wilder

We have just finished reading the book Little House in the Big Woods aloud at lunch time.  Our usual routine includes me reading a chapter or so as the kids are finishing up their lunches.  (It's a nice, calming influence at a somewhat tired time of day).

Cara has had plenty to say throughout the book, as any of you who know her would have probably guessed.  Every remark about hair or dresses or how much they love Pa brought forth a gush of excitement from my little girl.  Allie would usually grunt her agreement between mouthfuls thus, "Dash da ma ma nash na nee!"  Interesting.

My little old man, however, has remained eerily mute through the entire book.  He was listening I could tell, but he said nothing...until this week.  We had finally made it to the second to last page in the book.  Ma was making a large meal for the field workers.  Just as Laura Ingalls Wilder described all the food they had prepared being put onto the table, Scott had some input.

He put down his sandwich and blurted out in excitement, "Wow, Mom!  That sounds really good!"

Leave it to Scott to think with his stomach...even in a book review!

School Update #3

We start our school day with the Pledge of Allegiance and a patriotic song.  One of our goals for our children that homeschoolers sometimes overlook is for them to know the different parts of citizenship and patriotism.  Since this is included in the A Beka Bible curriculum, it's pretty easy to include.  The first few weeks, the patriotic song has been "My Country 'Tis of Thee".  We've now moved on to "The Star Spangled Banner".

Our first day with a new song, I usually sing it for the kids, then we gradually learn it and sing it regularly together.  The first day, I gave them my heart-felt rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner".  Scott stood there mutely as I belted it out.  Then, as soon as I finished, he began to clap, then shouted, "Play ball!".

This is Reds player, Scott Rolen.  My Scott thinks his middle name is Rolen...seriously. 

Hmmm...I think he watches too many baseball games!  I'm glad it seemed familiar, though.  Hopefully he'll start associating it with our country sometime soon!

Just because it was cute...School Update #2

We were reviewing our letters yesterday during school.  We reviewed what capital B looks like, then moved on to little b.  Cara said...

"Mom, it looks like you before Allie was born!  It has a big, fat belly, too!"


...At least she didn't say it looked like me now!

School Update #1

Well, we've officially started Flower Princess and the Little Old Man in Kindergarten and Pre-school, respectively.  Yes, we are homeschooling, and even though I don't consider Scott's participation mandatory past Bible time, he is our academic guru and chooses to sit in for the additional hour and fifteen minutes.  They are very different in their learning styles, however.  We've always known this...she's into writing and art, he's into memorizing and core subjects.  She painstakingly perfects each crayon stroke to make a masterpiece of every worksheet, he mechanically colors everything black for a more efficient use of his time.

The chuckle of today came during phonics time...Cara's phonics time, that is, which Scott always audits.  They were supposed to use the word on the card in a sentence.  Here is an example of the variance in personalities.

The word is 'pen'.

Cara: "The beautiful girl needed a pencil to write down how much she loved her friend, but she couldn't find one, (animated, shocked look) so she asked the kind boy if she could use his PEN and he said yes, then she could write the note to her friend and color it with five beautiful colors, and he saw it and loved the way she colored the big letters all golden and told her that she was pretty, and then they got married with a rainbow in the sky."

Scott: "I like PENS."

The word is 'sun'.

Cara: "The little girl with golden hair looked outside  (huge eyes, moving of imaginary curtains) and she was so sad to see it raining on the very day of her birthday party, (exasperated look accompanied by slight foot stomp) but she remembered it wasn't for a while still, so he hoped and hoped and hoped and then prayed that it would be a lovely day, then after eating her lunch of peanut butter and jelly and very yummy watermelon (belly rubbing) she looked out the window and saw the SUN outside was shining so bright and sparkly to make her birthday party so very very special for her and her beautiful friends who got all dressed up with dresses and crowns."

Scott: "I like the SUN to shine for baseball."

I don't know where she gets the nack for coming up with strange, illogical stories...(that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)