Anniversary

Kevin and I have been married 12 years! We took a few days to go to Yosemite alone. We had only a vague plan and no reservations. The only thing left was unheated tent cabins which the clerk told us were $100 a night, not willing to pay that we went to the car and called a reservation line and booked one for $50, then went back to the counter and told them we had reservations.

We hiked as much as I could as a six month pregnant lady. Kevin took lots of pictures, getting half dome from many angles. We drove up to a mountain point that overlooked the valley, which was particularly beautiful.

I wish we could have gotten more pictures of the animals. We saw families of mule deer that didn't flinch when we came within ten yards. We had two raccoons come and look at our dinner plates. We saw watched a crow repeat its call over and over in the Sequoia forest, and we saw an animal that had the markings of a raccoon, but the build of a ferret. It was rather nice, slow and peaceful.

Safetyville

We had lots of fun at Safetyville this week. The kids were taken on a one hour tour. After the tour the kids got an hour to explore and practice what they had learned all throughout the miniature town.
They got to raise and lower the guards for the railroad tracks and practice waiting for the train to go by.
They got to practice dialing 9-1-1 and talking to the operator. The emergency they described was always the same, "my brother broke his neck."
They got to practice staying on the sidewalk.
They learned to stop-drop and roll.
Sethie's favorite part was just hanging out on the railroad tracks. It took a lot of convincing to get him to leave these.

They were setting up for Halloween, so we got a picture with their props.

Needle Felt Pumpkins

I feel like I am in catch up mood lately. You know that phase when you are running behind on everything rather than actively planning and working your plan- ie., doing those things that are most important. Last week I planned to do several fall projects with the children. They have been begging me to do more with the wool, and I keep saying I would get to it. So one day at almost bedtime, I invited them all on my bed and told them we would make pumpkins. I showed the older two how to use the barbed needle and then I helped the younger three. It was so cute to watch them all concentrating, and they were so pleased with their results.

Create your own visitor map!

Another House Offer

We are putting an offer in on another home. I would love this one, 5 bed, 3 bath, 3 car garage, two story, quiet neighborhood, near a nature walk and creek, and also a park, has five fruit trees and a raised bed veggie garden on a larger lot. We are offering more than asking but I am not going to hold my breath. To all those who think this is a great time to buy, it is, if you have infinite amounts of patience as your papers sit on a banker's desk for months until they get around to it, in the meantime you have to hope the house doesn't foreclose, and your lender stays in business long enough for the whole deal to come together. I feel like I'm boxing-round two, here I come. Lots of fun.

Brennen Lost His First Tooth

He was coming up with theories as to where the toothfairy gets the money-she flies around at night and picks up all the money people have lost on the sidewalks when they were walking around. Then he told me he knew what she did with all the teeth-she builds sculptures which she then lowers to the bottom of the ocean, so if you swim down there will be many beautiful things to see. He then said, "but the toothfairy could be my mom, it is something I will have to investigate further."

What My Kids Do When I Am Working

So what do my kids do when I am on a webex meeting for work?
They build blanket lands in the backyard...

or they draw all over themselves with inkpads.

I'm grateful for mute.

Needle Felting

As I am studying wool, I have been wanting to learn about needle felting. The younger three boys and I took a walk in Old Town Elk Grove and saw a little art studio that was offering a class on needle felting. I jumped at the chance, and learned a lot of the basics from it. I made this rabbit, which took about six hours. I did not have the finer gauge needle for the finishing, and I am not sure how I like the front fluff, but as my kids played with it all of the real rabbit hair in the front came out anyway, it probably looks better now=). My daughter wants a dog to go with her dolls (who are on a wagon train, right now, and need a good guard dog that can also hunt), so I will probably work with her to make that next.

Tech Museum

We went to the Tech Museum in San Jose a few weeks ago. This is a really neat museum! There were very few other people there so the kids pretty much got the run of it. Everything was hands on and included things from interactive globes that showed the effects of recent disasters, design stations for robots and roller coasters (the kids then got to ride a simulation of the roller coaster they designed). It had a room on earthquakes with a simulator, a computer/shadow interactive wall, where you could catch the shadows which would then interact with your shadow, a wall of music, etc.
Here is Aubrey using a pulley and ramp in tandem with other children who used various other simple machines in a system they set up and designed to get a ball from one place to another. She and Brennen spent over an hour on this exhibit alone.
Brennen is using a remote control to guide an underwater robot, which is similar to one that might take pictures of the ocean floor. In another part of the museum he used a computer to build six different robots for different purposes, such as deep sea, outer space etc. That was the exhibit he was most absorbed in.
Logan is next to the jet pack simulator. To be honest I can't remember what this one was=). It is a cross section of something that goes into space and the kids could climb in, that's all I remember of this one.
Kamron is working in the green energy room here. He had to tweak solar panels so that the maximum amount of energy could be gathered from the sun. In that room the kids also built windmills, placed them in wind tunnels and watched the gauges to see how much energy they could get from them. They also had to build water wheel type things to be placed in a dam that when the maximum amount of energy was produced it would light a tower all the way to the top. So much of this had to do with angles of the various things that it was a nice tie-in to what he is studying in math also.

I had an interesting question I had never had before as a homeschooling Mom. I was talking to a mom and when she found out I was pregnant with my sixth and I homeschooled she asked, "So are you just hoping they turn out?" As always the perfect answer didn't come right then, I said something about not going on a hope, but I was pretty sure everything would turn out alright. As I thought about it later I have to wonder who is going more on hope-the parent who turns the child over to another adult, because that is the adult assigned to them and that adult is supposed to follow somebodies goals-not the parent's goals, not the adult's goals-just somebodies that have come down to the adult in some almost unknown fashion, and doing this six hours a day, nine months a year is what will help make these kids alright. Hopefully. Or is the child more likely to turn out alright when under the direction of a self-sacrificing parent who is constantly monitoring the growth of character, knowledge and skills and tieing them into the goals the parent has for that child and the goals that child has for himself? The second scenario may have hope involved, but it certainly has more hard work and careful thought than the first. In either case there are no guarantees, but I think in most cases the degree of parental involvement and child's ability to have a say in where he wants to go in life will bring more growth towards positive ends than another scenario.

First Wet Felting

The kids and I tried our hands at wet felting last week. It took us longer than the directions said (about 2.5 hours total), so we had to break it into two days.
We took wool roving, and soapy water, then built up a ball.
We took turns squishy the ball in warm soapy water. Here is Seth having his turn. Playing in bubbles, what more can a two-year-old ask for?
After covering the ball with plastic we added the next layer and squished in soapy water again. This was repeated for the remaining four layers.
After this was all nicely worked and squished, we cut into each layer forming the flower. We then rinsed it and set it out to dry.
Here is the final flower stacked.

New Introductions in Preschool

I work from lists-many lists. I have just received a large order of Montessori materials and was researching logical orders of introductions, which I placed on a list. I then decided to add some of the other areas to the list. This list would be appropriate to start between 2.5 and 4.5 years. It is not going to all make sense, but for those familiar with the Montessori materials, and some Waldorf materials they may understand it. About one new item is introduced a day. After the item/lesson is introduced it is left out for the child to work on as he pleases. When items are no longer appropriate for the boys they are removed from the preschool cupboards, to be reintroduced later as is, with variations or not at all. Without further ado, here is my list-



Knobbed cylinders
Stacking blocks (pink tower)
Color box 1
“Los Pollitos,” “Lavender’s Blue” 1-3, “Knives and Forks” handrhyme
Art Folders 1-1

Cuisenaire Rods staircase
Tactile boards match-gradation

Fabric Box 1
Storytelling with props
Matching seeds
Baking Bread
Baby to Mother animals matching
Poetry memorization 1
Mozart Mouse 1 Music time

Japanese Painting Board
Pour beans
Geometric shapes
Mozart Mouse 1 Music time
Water Color Painting with yellow and story
Geometric insets
Art Folders 1-2

Nuts and Bolts
Music with parachute etc.
Sorting bears by color
Pouring rice
Classify shells

Wet felting
“Cabballito Blanco,” “A Wise Old Owl,” “Skip to My Lou”
Storytelling with props
Magnetic sorting
Baking
Spoon beans
Color wheel
Mozart Mouse 1 Music time
Poetry memorization 2
Fabric Box 2
Geometry gradation of sizes
Dusting
Leaf rubbing
Art Folders 1-3
Sound cylinders
Set up nature table
Mozart Mouse 1 Music time
Sand and paint wooden animal
Folding a napkin
Sorting bears by size
3-part language cards
Poetry memorization 3
String beads
Knobbed cylinders extension
Is it an insect file folder
Storytelling with props

“Arre, caballito,” “The Lion and the Unicorn” “Little Mice”
Watercolor painting with blue and story

Art Folders 2-1
Sound cylinder extension
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
Change nature table
Sorting by size blindfolded
Using a large dropper
Modeling beeswax
Walking the line
Stacking Blocks extension
Color Box 2
Baking
“Aserrin, Aserran,” “Good King Arthur,” 2nd version of “Head and Shoulders”
Poetry memorization 4
Tongs

Using a small dropper
3-part language cards
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
Fabric Box 1 extensions
Art Folders 2-2
Classify quadrilaterals
Carding wool
Linking cubes matched to numbers
Sponge transfer
Setting a table
Color Box 2 memory
Change nature table
“La luna es rednonda,” “Old King Coal,” “Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow.”
Storytelling with props

Pour water
Spindle box
Hand spinning of wool
Color wheel extension

3-part language cards
Baking

Overcast stitch on board
Mix colors with dropper
Poetry memorization-5
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
Watercolor painting with red and story
Silence game
Hole punch

Straining
Sand Paper numbers
3-part language cards
Art Folders 2-3
“La viejita,” “There Was an Old Woman,” “I Travelled Over Land and Sea”
Storytelling with props
Tokens matched to numbers
Baric Tablets-2 boxes
Bookbinding
Running stitch
Coloring with block crayons
Wash chairs
Quanty Graphing
Knobbed cylinders further extensions
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
Using a funnel
Sculpey clay animal
Tactile boards-blindfolded
3-part language cards
Hammering
“La Mariposa Linda,” “The Queen of Hearts,” “Show Me Your Handwork”
Scale
Make Numbers out of pipecleaners and beads, Syrendell
Folding paper
Sandpaper letters
Change nature table
Art Folders 3-1
Stamping
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
Poetry memorization-6
Sounds cylinders gradation
Fabric box blindfolded
3-part language cards
Wash table

Magnifying images to match
Watercolor painting with yellow and blue and story
Screws and screwdriver
“La arana pequenita,” “Come Out to Play,” “In and Out the Bonnie Bluebells”
Baking
Comparant graphing
Flower arranging
Geography sandpaper cards
Cutting
Braiding
Storytelling with props
Art Folders 3-2
Smelling cylinders
Mozart Mouse 2 Music time
3-part language cards
Pressure cylinders
Weaving
Comparant graphing with symbols
Baric Tablets blindfolded

Color box 3 gradation
“Cinco Pollitos,” “Cross Patch,” “Looby Loo”
Polishing coins or metal
Baking
Command cards
Mozart Mouse 3 Music time
Watercolor painting with yellow and red and story
Art Folders 3-3
Poetry memorization-7

1-10 in tray, teach odd and even
Knobbed cylinder-memory
Change nature table
Sandpaper letters match beginning sound to words
Baric Tablets extension with 3rd box
Beeswax modeling
Mozart Mouse 3 Music time

Tweezers work
Command Cards 2
Mystery bag
Storytelling with props
Finger knitting
Moveable alphabet
Fraction skittles
“Este chiquito,” “Dance to Your Daddy,” “A Tisket, a Tasket” with dance
Watercolor painting with red and blue and story
Match words to pictures
Hundreds chart-count
Baking
Fingerpainting
Poetry memorization 8
Hundreds chart find numbers
Change nature table
Mozart Mouse 3 Music time
Hundreds chart skip count by 2

Links of Free Resources

The charter school I work for begins Monday. Some of the students do not have there orders in yet, so I am required to give them options that they can do while waiting for the orders. As part of that I compiled some of my favorite links by subject. I only put in the ones that are free. I thought I would share that here, also, in case others are in the same boat or are just looking for something else.

Free Resources from the Web

Language Arts
http://www.englishgrammar101.com/
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page Books in the public domain
http://www.mainlesson.com More books in the public domain
http://www.loc.gov/index.html Library of Congress
http://librivox.org/ Free audio books
http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/sitelicense.php?sc=R2OFNK Picture ebooks
http://www.geocities.com/gene_moutoux/diagrams.htm Diagramming sentences

Math
http://www.livingmath.net/
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm Free complete math program
http://themathworksheetsite.com/ this site is predominately math, but also has worksheets for other subject areas
http://www.mathfactcafe.com/
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/
http://www.mathwithlarry.com/lessons/lesson001.htm Video lessons

Science
http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/
http://www.oplin.org/tree/
http://www.sln.org/
http://www.sciencebob.com/index.php

Social Studies/History
http://www3.canisius.edu/~emeryg/time.html A variety of timelines
http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/
http://cagle.msnbc.com/teacher/ Studies for political cartoons

Art
http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/
http://harmonyartmom.blogspot.com/
http://www.rolandcollection.com/films/ Films on art

Music
http://www.classicsforkids.com/shows/past.asp
http://www.gmajormusictheory.org/Freebies/freebies.html Free Piano Music by levels
http://intelli-tunes.com/free-teacher-resources.php
http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/main.html

Foreign Language
http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=eh

Handwork
http://www.visionforum.com/hottopics/multimedia/enn/archive.aspx Videos

Typing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

Complete Curriculums or Eclectic
Complete Curriculum with links to Many books and activities available online free http://www.amblesideonline.org/
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ site for free unit studies, lapbooks etc.
A list of books found online and in the public domain found in all subject areas http://oldfashionededucation.com/
http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/ This site offers one new freebie each day that is about anything homeschool related
http://www.easyfunschool.com/
http://www.kidzone.ws/
http://ldshomeschoolinginca.org/gbp.html This describes the Great Brain Project that can be adapted to any subject
http://universitiesandcolleges.org/free-online-college-courses/
http://donnayoung.org/index.htm
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/free_printables.htm
http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/


Religion
http://www.christiananswers.net/kids/clr-indx.html Coloring pages
http://www.gardenofpraise.com/bibllnks.htm
http://www.padfield.com/photoindex.html Upper grade Bible Study

Running Record

During my early childhood education I was introduced to the idea of a running record. I have really liked this way of recording a child's actions, and have used it periodically since my oldest was born. All you do is follow the child around for five to ten minutes or so and write down everything they do.

Here is one I just did of Seth at 2.5 yrs:

Seth was getting into something, his sister said, “No, no Sethie.” He looks up at her innocently and says, “I Fred.” Then he came in and told me, “I Mom.” I said, “No, I’m Mom.” His response was, “You Seth, I Mom.” So I began to pout and said, “Mommm!” He says, “Yes, sweetie,” in the cutest high-pitched voice. I told him I wanted my nana, “I get it, sweetie. You tired?” He ran off to get his blanket, but soon got distracted by a book. All of the characters in this book have noses. This is very exciting. He points to several noses and says, “a nosey, a nosey, a nosey.” He shouts, “Nose!” in delight. He sees Thomas the Train in a picture and says, “Thomas! Thomas where are you?” He begins commenting on other pictures, “He’s going swimming. Ooo, what shall he do? He hab a train, Thomas. Thomas! Thomas? James, where are you? Come here Thomas. Shoo, shoo, choo.” He looks up at me, “You want a milk? You want to go to sleep?”


The nice thing about these records is they can show how many words the children are using, what their interests are, and how often they move around. It is like a little snapshot in words.

Artist Studies

This term our artist is Casper David Friedrich. He is not someone I had ever heard of before, but I tend to pull my artist from previous years Ambleside recommendations, so that I can glean from the archives, and because we often start school before the current terms works are selected. Over the summer the older two learned cursive, so I used the idea from Queen Homeschool and interweaved artist study with cursive. I had the six paintings printed at Walmart as 8x10’s. I then typed in a cursive font a sentence about the painting or the artist for them to copy each day. I put all of this in a pronged folder. On the first Friday of a painting study the children are asked to do a blind placement sketch of the painting. This is when the children draw as much about the painting as they can remember without looking at it. On the second Thursday and Friday the children are asked to attempt to recreate the painting as best they can with whatever art medium they choose. They may look at it this time.

This was the painting from the first two weeks:

Here is Aubrey's recreation:

Brennen is doing our typical method of study which is to once or twice a week study the painting and then hide it and tell me all he can remember. To this we occasionally add some other form of narration such as sketching, acting out the painting or discussing it. For him it is a short ten minute a week study. He spends two weeks per painting, six paintings by one artist. The older children have done this since the beginning and we love the collection of beautiful paintings that are now familiar friends, which we have gained.



This is the painting we began studying last week and are continuing this week. Brennen's blind narration was, "There's a guy on a rock and there is fog, and mountains. There's two mountains in the fog. It's light and there's a little tiny bit of yellow in the fog."

For the younger children we use the “Childsized Masterpiece” program. This is a Montessori type approach to art study and builds from matching paintings, to recognizing paintings by artist to learning to recognize the different schools of art throughout history. These are kept in folders and worked on as the child desires or as I reintroduce them, so there is no schedule. Even Seth is able to work at the second level with these, which is to match different paintings by the same artist, and differentiate them from paintings by other artists. We work with six pairs at a time as any more does overwhelm him.

Baby Sweater

I have almost finished a sweater for the baby, whom the doctor thinks is a girl=). I still need to pick out and add the buttons. I also made a matching one for Aubrey's doll-it also needs buttons. She will get it for Christmas.

The Way of a Child

My husband and I were talking about someday renting a cabin in the woods for a week in the summer and spend that time working on our various writing projects. My children overheard and asked if they could come. I said yes they would come, and they could go have adventures in the woods when Daddy and I were writing. My four-year-old started crying, "I don't want you to leave me in the woods." I assured him he could come in the cabin any time. He said, "No, the woods are scary." After a thoughtful silence he asked, "Are there hyenas in the woods?" My helpful daughter said, "No, there aren't any hyenas, but we will probably get chased by bears." Tears again broke forth, until I told him that it would probably be at least two summers before we could do it and he would be six. The tears immediately stopped and he looked at me, "Oh, okay, I will be able to beat the bears up when I am six." And he happily ran away to go play. Such is the way of the four-year-old.


The younger species in our home, the two-year-old has become increasingly friendly, not just with strange men sitting on park benches. Oh, no, why stop there? He has decided to spread his friendliness to cars. Yes, cars. He waves to them as we drive or walk. When Daddy gets home he greets Daddy and proceeds to aks him about his car, did he drive it? Is it good? When we get out of our Suburban he refuses to come in the house until he has walked around to the front grill, stroked it lovingly and said something to the effect of, "hiun fren vana un oon." Of course, all I can think of is, "ew, bugs!"
The other day we went on a two hour walk to feed ducks and meander. We stopped to look at bouncy little ball thingy's under oak trees(my husband says they are worm eggs, which I was glad to not think at the time). The kids were running their hands over them to see them bounce and just watching them. The older kids that is. My little one saw nothing interesting in bouncing little balls, but he did see a friendly car and so wandered over to it and smiled and began to carry on a rather one-sided conversation. His little hands were behind his back as he prattled away. He seemed content with his conversation and told the car goodbye with a most affectionate air. And with that we will leave the glimpse of the way of the two-year-old a delightful world where talking to cars is as normal as dragging your favorite blanket around, so as to always be prepared for a nap.

Organizing this School Year

We are the second day of the second week into the new school year. Kamron is in Year 6, Aubrey in Year 4, and Brennen is in Year 1. We are mostly following the Ambleside Online Curriculum, with some additions, subtractions and substitutions. This is a heavier year for both of the older two than ever before as I am attempting to work in all of the goals we have for them. We have begun Plutarch, Form Drawing, the actual Shakespeare plays, Kamron is studying business and economics and Aubrey is taking a cooking and home economics course.

About three weeks ago someone on the Ambleside Yahoo group brought up workboxes. I had never heard of these, but I began researching them and then deciding that the basic idea might be very good as an organizational method. The system which I began implementing does not look anything like the original as I only use one box per child rather than twelve. The part I latched onto and love is to have all of the child’s work in one place along with all of the supplies they will need for school that day. That way they can wake up and see how much work they have to do, they can see a few fun things sprinkled throughout and as they get done they get to see the items remaining in the box begin to dwindle. This has been working great. At first the amount of work made both children balk, but Kamron has begun really buckling down and working hard. Aubrey still usually dawdles and was still working at 3:45 yesterday.

Logan has also decided he is too old for preschool and is big enough for real studying every day. So we have dubbed him in four-year-old school and at first I had set up a box for him with some of his projects, but as I lean towards many Montessori ideas for the young children I wanted him to be able to pick many of his activities. So this week I set up a cupboard of activities that will periodically/weekly change depending on his mastery and interest. He has enjoyed this so far. Brennen also likes to use this cupboard. I will do a separate post on what is in it later.

I am pleased with the progress we are making and the amount of serious study the children are getting done. We are also missing so much less, the form of narration I would like is also in there, so even that is getting done consistently.

We have also opted to do school for six weeks on, one off throughout the year with an additional week off here and there. At the end of each term we are also going to attempt the oral examinations Charlotte Mason recommends, as I want the children to retain the information and ideas while also learning to express themselves well. This schedule will allow me the prep time I need, the children the time for free explorations and play. It also builds in a buffer in case we get behind.

Bible Lessons Learned by One Brother at Least

Brennen, 5yrso, was doing some punch work. He left his tack on the floor and his older brother stepped on it. His older brother, 10yrso, screamed in pain and glowered. Brennen said he was sorry, but after a minute his naughty older brother picked up a tack and poked his arm. Brennen screamed and said through tears, "Do good to those who hurt you!' pause, "That is what the Bible says. I know it is hard but you should not hurt others even if they hurt you."



As for the youngest brother, who is two. He is full of terms of endearment lately. When he says thank you, he says, "Thanks, hon." When he wants me to come with him he says, "Come on, sweetie." What a precious little one is Sethie.

It Is Bedtime and...

After the children put on a Calapp Comedy show, it is time for bed. But Logan has one more joke. “Well, I was sitting next to this frog and… someone ate it.” And I laugh. He runs to hug me. We say prayers and I tuck him in. Then I tuck in Brennen and Sethie, who want hugs first, and that car, and this blanket just so. Then Aubrey wants to talk. “Why did her skit about the girl whose favorite animal was a seashell fall flat, when almost everything Kamron said was funny and made everyone laugh. He’s always so funny, and he’s handsome and everyone likes to watch him and be around him, including me, and I don’t have any talents at all.” She says her prayers and prays for talents. I remind her of her artwork and she brightens jumps up and says what should I draw? With Logan’s joke still in my head I say “a frog.” In no time she has a beautiful frog drawn on her page. She smiles, and then frowns, “but that talent isn’t on a stage and nobody is watching me and clapping. I want people to watch me and clap.” We talk more and I hug her and tuck her in. Kamron is in the bath, so I go to my room. Pretty soon he knocks. He doesn’t have much to say just a little more about Twilight Camp-he did CPR again today, and lots of archery, and well, good night. He’s not too old for a hug and then he goes off to bed. It is 10:30 and I stop to think and it occurs to me, I am that lady. I am Mom. This means little to some people but when I say Mom, I mean like my mom. The lady who sat for hours listening to my questions and concerns, stories and joys-feeling them, sharing them and making me feel all was right with the world. When I think of my mom, it seems almost sacrilegious to say that I am Mom, and, yet, I can look through the eyes of my children and I can see it. To them I am that lady. I am Mom.

Nature and Habit

Truth be told, I am a rather lazy person, or at least I have a very strong natural inclination to be so. Many days I just want to sit and surf the internet, or sleep-or lay there if I can’t sleep. I often can not fall asleep at night, and falling back to sleep is a nightmare, if I am ever woken, and lets face it- how many young mothers are not woken up at night? So, I want to use this as my excuse, while knowing that being lazy exasperates my insomnia. Yet, even while I desire to be lazy, I love productivity. I love to make lists and get things done. I just have an inner struggle daily making myself get started or keep going. Charlotte Mason said that habit is ten times as strong as nature. And there is the key. I must build within myself contrary habits to my laziness.

I have been home with my children for a month. There were things I immediately began to address-new habits I desired to establish, because I felt I must. And there is another of Miss Mason’s gems of wisdom.

“The sense of must should be present with children; our mistake is to act in such a way that they, only, seem to be law-compelled while their elders do as they please. The parent or teacher who is pestered for 'leave' to do this or that, contrary to the discipline of the house or school, has only himself to thank; he has posed as a person in authority, not under authority, and therefore free to allow the breach of rules whose only raison d'être is that they minister to the well-being of the children. Two conditions are necessary to secure all proper docility and obedience and, given these two, there is seldom a conflict of wills between teacher and pupils. The conditions are,––the teacher, or other head may not be arbitrary but must act so evidently as one under authority that the children, quick to discern, see that he too must do the things he ought; and therefore that regulations are not made for his convenience. (I am assuming that everyone entrusted with the bringing up of children recognizes the supreme Authority to Whom we are subject; without this recognition I do not see how it is possible to establish the nice relation which should exist between teacher and taught.)” Volume 6, page 73.

And I do feel I am under authority. I must not let my children be quarrelsome, I must regularly instruct them in the scriptures, and I must provide wholesome foods to nourish their growing bodies. These are the three things which I have been endeavoring to work towards this month. Only in the second has habit won out over my nature already, probably, because that is where I feel the must most keenly. The other two are improving, but I still feel as if I have to concentrate and force myself to redirect the quarrelsome pair, and even more so, to plan and prepare large and varied, wholesome food. If I can be more diligent in these two things over the next month, I am confident habit will win out. And, to paraphrase Charlotte Mason, when habit has won over nature I will have secured easier days, at least in these things.

Montessori Language Cards

When I was student teaching the resource room was throwing out a bunch of curriculum and supplies. I saved a box of English Language Learner(ELL) cards. It has photographs on both sides and the word in english on one side. When I brought them home I didn't know what I would do with them, but I figured I would do something. Then I started thinking about the Montessori Language Cards. These would be perfect! My 5-year-old is studying insects and flowers, so I took out the insect and plant pictures, printed up labels, and then introduced him to the cards. He read the word and matched it to the picture. This was perfect for his level, but to make it harder later I will let him have all of the words and give him one picture at a time to match to the words. I may then print up spanish labels and then have the children label the objects in spanish, though it would not have the control of the english word that can be checked on the back, and would then be a paired activity rather than an independent one. Unless, I taped the spanish word to the back, too. Oh, and what if I give him loose letters to spell the words with and then he could turn over the card to check if he spelled them correctly. Hmm, I'm seeing possibilities here.

Pregnant?

So I'm making baby clothes and am queesy-I must be pregnant, right? As a matter of fact, yes. I am about eight weeks along. Of course, I don't know if it a boy or girl, but I already have boys clothes and I have no girls clothes, plus girls clothes are just funner to make than boys, hence the girl stuff.

Melissa's Ramblings: Attitudes Toward Homeschooling

Melissa's Ramblings: Attitudes Toward Homeschooling