Tuesdays are CRAZY days!!!

Yesterday was probably our most hectic Tuesday in a long time! We bypassed chores & household responsibilities to get to the store first thing in the morning. If we didn't go then, we wouldn't get a chance for the rest of the day. (And it was NECESSARY to get some yogurt for Jolie and I-- we have thrush which is the biggest anti-nursing thing in the world, and regardless of whatever doctors and "experts" prescribe, say, or claim, yogurt and the accompanying live cultures are the best way to get rid of it. I had gotten lazy about eating it because I don't really like it, but this is certainly a very painful reminder of why I want to it eat every day- too much info I'm sure.)

Then we spent the rest of the morning reading a book (Changes for Kit) for Nyah's Liberty Girls, which started at 12:30. Usually we don't have to cram the whole book into the morning before Nyah's activity, but this one was rescheduled to be a week early. We took about an hour break in the middle of the morning to work on some hummingbird feeders we are making, but these turned out to be more complex and less easy than the directions seemed. I'll be posting more on these at a later date, like when we finish them.

I had volunteered to help with Nyah's Liberty Girl activity, so I had to pack the whole house into my little red baby bag. Liberty Girls is 3 hours , which was a long time to be in someone else's house, but we had fun with all the girls. They do activities similar to those in Activity Days, and usually based on the American Girl books they are reading, as well as a book discussion and time to play together. Nyah really likes it, but most of the time I pick her up a little early because 3 hours can be a looooooooong time for her.

Playing in the backyard-

After Liberty Girls we had about 45 minutes before we had to leave for soccer practices. The little girls only had 30 minute naps, but it also meant they were ready for bed earlier. The next two pictures show a major difference in coaching styles.

Nyah's team seems to spend a huge amount of time listening to their coach lecture, which is like torture for Nyah. When I can watch her, she is bouncing from one place to the next- standing up, hopping on one foot, sitting down, kneeling down, sitting on her ball and so on. I bet it drives her coach crazy, but I wish he would let them run around and play!

On the other hand, Austin's team is always running around and doing some type of drills.

Nyah playing in the sand during Austin's practice-- and I just want to point out how totally cool Nyah is because she wore a SKIRT to soccer practice. You can't really tell in the pictures, but I LOVE IT!!

Jolie figuring out how to slide on her own. You can see I am about to jump in and save her from doing the splits, but she works it out on her own.

Olivia climbing the ladder on her own. (the boy shouting "everyone your going to die" in the background is Austin, he was playing tag with a groups of boys at the playground during Nyah's practice)


We got home about 6:45, and thankfully I had found ten minutes earlier in the day to toss a roast into the crockpot, otherwise we would have had pb&j's. I hadn't found the time to clean up the kitchen table (covered in plastic bottles, the drill, hammer and nails, 2x4 for hammering on, plastic red flowers, green pipe cleaner, dirty socks?, books, etc.) so we ate at the counter.

Playing at the Park

I feel like we are living at parks these days. With soccer practices and games, and our home school group park days, I am spending a huge amount of time pushing my sweet girls in the swings. Why do kids love swings? I'm sure I did when I was younger, but these days I get nauseous every time! Thankfully Olivia also loves to slide so I get a break sometimes.

Home school park day:

Austin and Nyah with their good friend Laura, another Star Wars lover.
Look- its ME!!

From Austin's soccer game today:

Olivia loves to play so we took a break from the game to go to the playground for a bit.

Kurt and I were going to evenly divide the kids between us, but when it was time to go (A & N both started their games at 8am) we realized the car seats are in one car, and they are too complicated to move around. And with Jolie still nursing I ended up with them both, which is okay, but makes it hard to watch the soccer game.

Jolie sticks out her tongue when she is working hard.

Austin is the goalie, and unfortunately, none of my close-up shots turned out.

There were a lot of army helicopters out this morning, and Olivia thought they were too noisy. The background noise in the video with both girls swinging is a helicopter flying by.

Jolie loves to swing!!

Kids at Hutchings Museum

We had a great time at the museum. We were able to do so many fun things, so I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of us doing them!! The kids were able to hang out in jail, play around with the morse code and telegraph machines, try on period hats, grind indian corn with rocks, handle indian pottery, examine rocks and minerals and fossils up close. I was very impressed with the size of the collections and all the activities for the kids. Here are the few pictures of the kids I did take:

Nyah lifting Jolie to look inside this slot.

Inside there was a black light on and you

could see some flourescent, glowing rocks.

Hanging with someone's femur
Playing with a mold of a T-rex tooth Mold of Allosaurus claw

We're going to the zoo!!

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

How about you, you, you?

You can come too, too, too

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.

(Chorus of "Going to the Zoo")

Today was the Home School Day at the Hogle Zoo--all homeschoolers (and I'm thinking anyone else who showed up because the ticket stands were closed) were able to get in free. This was my first "major" outing, on my own, with all 4 kids and it was hectic.

Moments of Annoyance: 1. Of course my kids assured me they didn't need to use the bathroom as we passed one on the way to lunch, but 5 minutes later when the younger 2 and lunch was unpacked they had to go really bad. loading everything bakc onto the stroller at top speed and dashing to the bathroom, we fortunately made it in time.

2. So it wasn't a surprise when I was horribly tempted to let Nyah wet her pants later when we were minutes into the Reptile house, Jolie almost asleep in the sling and Olivia ecstatic to be out of the stroller, having passed a bathroom just before going inside. Ah, the trials of motherhood. By the time we trooped back outside through the crowds, reloaded unhappy toddler back into the stroller, went to the bathroom, back to the reptile house, unloaded and back inside with all the crowds, I was frazzled and ready to leave. So we raced through when sadly, its probably the place we would have liked to spend the most time. Oh well, next time we'll make it our first stop and hopefully it won't be as busy earlier in the day.

Lesson learned: As the mom you know your kids will have to go to the bathroom sometime so you might as well make them while you are by a bathroom.

Thankfully there were plenty of enjoyable parts to the trip as well. We arrived just after it opened and the Zoo was the quietest I've ever seen it. As a result, we were able to do some things I had planned on avoiding like the train and carousel rides, and playing at the playground. At last year's home school day the weather was nicer and we arrived later so there were lots more people. Olivia loved the train until the man's voice came through the intercom and startled her, so she cried for the first part of the ride.

While it is always exciting to see the exotic animals, like elephants, rhinos, gorillas, and lots more, I was especially interested to see the animals we have been studying in science lately. We saw a striped skunk, bats, squirrels, and cotton-tail rabbits. Unfortunately, the prairie dogs and marmots weren't out, but we did see a wild weasel, not part of the zoo exhibits, but just living there, scurrying around. We also saw a number of birds of prey--bald eagles, hawks, owls, and a kestrel. I'll post most of these pictures on my homeschool blog.

Sadly, I didn't take enough pictures--my hands were too busy!!

Highlight of our visit--petting a Chinchilla.

Happy Jo

Slide--Olivia's favorite!!

We expect Nyah to hatch any day now :)

Austin the Explorer

What a sweet girl!

Being eaten by a crocodile

Happy Valentine's Day!

The kids have had a great Valentine's Day. On Friday, the 13th (didn't even think about that until way past- no bad luck here!) we had a Valentine's party with our homeschool group. The kids had a blast exchanging valentines, playing with friends, and eat chocolate dipped strawberries, pretzels, marshmallows, and so one. I love how they can spend hours pouring over the cards long after the candy is gone.

Valentine's morning Nyah came in early to wake me up and tell me Valentine didn't bring her anything--for whatever reason I think she was thinking there's someone like the Easter Bunny of Santa for Valentine's Day. When I told her our family would exchange valentines later she looked so puzzled. Here is a picture of all 4 of them happily playing and laughing together, early Valentine's morning.

In the afternoon we went to the Timpanogos Monument Visitor's Center for a Kids in Nature program, featuring Birds of Prey. The kids had a great time and were amazed at the many birds we were able to see. I'll be posting more pictures of the birds of prey at my homeschool blog. We plan on visiting in the summer to go through the cave. If anyone wants to come let me know what weekend you'll come visit and we can go together.

Austin has the wing span of a Turkey Vulture.

Nyah also has a wingspan of a Turkey Vulture.

I don't remember Olivia's, and her head is covering the bird name, but it looks like a Falcon or Hawk.

Beautiful even covered with snow!

School in the New Year

This year we are going to be participating in some new activities. You may have noticed some new things on my sidebar. We are doing an Artist Study, currently of Jackson Pollock. We will have a new painting each month and spend a little time discussing biographical information, but the main goal is for the kids to be able to recognize the artist's work, which is why each painting will be featured for a two week period. We have always been doing poetry, but I've decided to include it on the blog. The kids spend the week writing the poem in their english journals, and then draw a picture to go with them when they are done. At the end of each week I'll post their illustrations.

We are also going to participate in some weekly activities hosted by other blogs. We are doing Sketch Tuesday from Harmony Art Mom-- basically a drawing assignment that I wasn't sure how my kids would react to, but they loved the first one so we will continue.

We will also be doing Winter Wednesdays and Outdoor Hour Challange from Handbook of Nature Study. Any encouragement to spend time in the great outdoors is welcome to us all.

I'm toying with the idea of doing the A B See Photo Meme/Foto Fridays, but haven't decided for sure yet. This is a year long photo assignment of finding pictures for each letter of the alphabet and posting them on Fridays. Wait--yes I have, I've decided, I'm doing it, and I've told you all so now I have to.

One reason I love to Homeschool . . .

While many a man, woman, and child spent their day inside a classroom/work office longingly gazing at the great outdoors, my kids and I hit the slopes--well, the hill at the park with snow sled in tow and hot cocoa in thermoses. We had a blast! Austin and Nyah practiced going down in many different styles, most impressively standing up like a snowboarder, which is what they've recently decided they want to be when they grow-up. Olivia didn't want to stop "sliding" and even Jolie got into the action a little unintentionally. Warning: Baby car seats are slippery on packed snow and ice. Having moved to St. George when I was 10 I'd forgotten how much fun snow can be, all the cold and such, but I had a great time and had to keep insisting I would ride with Olivia so I could have a turn too.

Only bad news: Forgot my camera, so no pictures except on cell phone, and I should have run errands before getting big wet spot on rear end. Maybe I should add snow pants to Christmas list.

I challenge everyone, everywhere to take a snow day and have a fabulous time!!

More about curriculum

Another thing we do daily is reading poetry, usually at lunch time. We've read through Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" and are reading A.A. Milne's "When We Were Young" right now. We only read one or two poems each day. The last thing that we do each day is what we call our "projects." The kids each pick a subject that they want to learn more about and we find out all we can about it. After a few weeks, or even a couple months depending on the kids' interest, they do a presentation of what they have learned. This can be an oral report to the family, a poster, writing a book, etc. They decide how they want to do it. Our last projects, Austin wrote about Ninjas and Nyah wrote about Pirates. Right now Austin is learning about Samurai and Nyah picked Dragons. These projects are a challenge for my patience, as I gather all the resources and am the primary reader, but it helps them see how to pick and plan a project. As they get older my involvement will be nonexistent (Ideally right?).

We also do a number of subjects on a weekly basis, spending only one or two days per week on them.
History:
Church history-- Doctrine and Covenant Stories published by the LDS church
American history--A First Book in American History by Edward Eggleston (Which I won't continue using next year) and biographies. We read Pocahontas and the Strangers and John Billington-Friend of Squanto, both by Clyde Robert Bulla, which haven't been my favorite biographies. Next year we will be taking a completely different approach to history.
Historical Stories--Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Literature: Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit, Parables from Nature by Margarat Gatty, Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, and Aesop's Fables. We also almost always have a book on CD we are listening to in the car, we read tons of picture books, and occasionally we read a chapter book together depending on what else we are covering. I also try to have at least one day a week for creative writing, where the kids will dictate while I type on the computer.
Geography: We have been reading a chapter of Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling C. Holling and maping to route taken by Paddle on blank maps of the Great Lakes area. The kids have really enjoyed this and we will continue this next year with a couple more of Holling's books.
Natural History/Science: We alternate reading from James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot, The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess, and library books about an assigned subject for each term, which is currently Birds (Mammals last term, Wildflowers next). We've read a number of Thornton Burgess books in the past, such as Old Mother Wind, so Austin and Nyah are familiar with the animal characters that are throughout all his books.
Note: Ambleside Online divides the school year into three terms and some subjects are assigned for the length of a term. These are Nature Study, Artist Study, and Composer Study.
Artist: Last term we studied Da Vinci, this term is Rembrandt, and next term will be Jan Van Eyck and Grunwalde. We spend a little bit of time learning the history of these artists, but mostly focus on recognizing their work.
Composer: Last term we listened to Russian Nationalists (Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussourgsky, Borodin), this term we are listening to Handel, and next term will be Camille Saint-Saens and Hector Berlioz. Again, we learn a little about the composers, but mostly focus on listening to their work.

So this is the schoolwork we try like to complete each week, but as with most things we have to adjust for everyday life happenings, temperments, and interest (the kids and mine), so some weeks are definitely more productive than others. We don't take "official" holidays, spring breaks, or summer vacation, but school throughout the year, taking days off as we need them for doctor visits, grocery shopping, or traveling. This flexibility is one of my favorite things. As mentioned, we've been staying with my parents for almost five weeks (who's counting? ME!) to oversee our house for sale and we've been able to continue our schoolwork. Thankfully we are headed home this weekend--YEAH!

Curriculum

Hello again! Olivia's down for a nap and the kids are watching a cartoon so I have a few minutes. For our homeschool curriculum we use a wide variety of resources. I am very interested in the Charlotte Mason approach--Charlotte Mason was an English Christian educator from the 19th century. We somewhat follow the free curriculum of Ambleside Online at http://www.amblesideonline.org/ , but there are also several areas where we do different things than suggested. I teach Austin and Nyah the same things (Ambleside's Year 1), and even though they are at different places in their learning what we do is flexible enough that they are both learning.
Subjects recommended daily are:
Penmanship/Copywork: I don't use a penmanship program, as I figure that when they are willing to write, they can do it how it feels most comfortable for now. Writing seems to still be a physical struggle for both of them so I keep it light--if we are writing for phonics or math I won't do writing in other areas. Nyah almost always starts letters and numbers at the bottom or where most of us probably end ours--its just how her brain works. I haven't started copywork as suggested by Ambleside for this reason as well.
Phonics: We aren't using a specific phonics program. We stared Englemann's 100 Easy Lessons, but found it to be too stressful for all concerned. Austin had far more success with a Reader Rabbit computer game and can now read--He's still pretty intimidated by reading books no matter how easy, and Nyah isn't quite ready yet. I don't feel there's a need to be in a hurry. We are currently using Easy Lessons for Teaching Word Families for our phonics and word building.
Math: This year I didn't use one of the complete math programs Ambleside suggests, but used a lot of different things--library books (http://www.livingmath.net/ and Math Through Children's Literature), workbooks (simple ones from Wal-Mart or Barnes & Noble), and created my own word problems, activities, etc., to supplement when they needed extra practice in an area (like subtraction). I think for this next year we may use Math-U-See, as I wonder if a program might give us more structure and consistency, but I'll look over a friend's before I decide.
Foreign Language: We are currently not doing this. I started using sign language at the beginning of the year as this is something I've had a little previous experience with, but it ultimately just died off. I've talked with Kurt about him teaching the kids portuguese, as that is the language he knows, and though he's done a few lessons with them, it isn't close to daily or even regularly. Sometimes Papa will speak French with them, but again not a regular happening. Something for us to aspire to I suppose :)
That's enough school talk for today. Austin and Nyah are doing well, as Olivia is going to be running circles around us any day now. Love you all!

Homeschooling

We'll see how much info I get in before duty calls! We first started planning on homeschooling when Austin was 3 and Nyah was 2. There are lots of reasons why--political, social, etc., but mostly I enjoy their company and being with them. I'm not a slave to them throughout the day (they are independently involved in play and other activities most of the day), and after realizing I could do preschool learning with them at home I also realized we could continue to do the other grade levels as well. So I began researching the many options and tons of information available about homeschooling and feel we have made a decision that is the best for us at this time. We are constantly evaluating how things are going and what the future holds for us.

I don't feel like my kids are super geniuses or that what we are learning surpasses what kids in public school are learning. We do have a different way of learning from public schools and spend our time focusing on subjects that are different from many first grade and kindergarten classes. My kids may know more about pirates and ninjas than other kid their age, but these are subjects we have spent more time learning about. On the other hand we don't spend time drilling on the days of the week or months of the year or math facts, so my kids may know less about these areas than public school kids their ages.

I plan on giving more info on what our "curriculum" includes and what resources we use, but Olivia's awake from her nap and her typing just doesn't make as much sense as mine!