Fiona's Lightbulb Moment

Over the course of two days, Fiona has figured out the basics of reading and writing.  She wrote CAT on her Magna-doodle and said, "C, A, T. Cat! See?"  Then she...

...and within a few hours, she read Book #1 of Fun Tales.  I'm so proud of her!

Cuneiform Cookies

Can you think of a better way to learn about the first writings?  (It says Cookies YUM!)

Science and Real Life

 This is how my thought process worked yesterday:

Chopping celery and onion for tonight's soup reminds me that I need to make some slides for tomorrow's biology lesson on plant cells.  I get out old slides that have blood and pond scum from last year, wash them, and prepare new onion skin and celery cross-section slides.  Then I finish chopping the celery and onion and toss them in the crock pot.

During the lesson I have a sleeping baby in my arms, but I still manage to get the nucleus in focus and teach what needs to be taught.  The best part was having all the knowledge of how to make the slides, work the microscope, etc. packed away in my brain...that science degree really comes in handy sometimes!

As easy as science is for me, there are other subjects that overwhelm me...like writing!

Bountiful Blessings

Fiona has a letter of the week.  This week, she is learning B.  She already knows B, but I'm using this as an opportunity to randomly show words that start with B and have a B sound in the middle.

Like SilverBow Farm.  We also happen to be learning about the first peoples and how nomads settled down in the Fertile Crescent to be farmers in history.

Today we were Blessed to share in the Bounty of SilverBow farm's corn crop.  I called it a field trip because we were to Be farmers for a day!

We went to this farm last year with the church's preschool play program to visit pumpkin patch (that was a lot of Ps!).  The lady who runs the farm was impressed with Ian last year and let him drive the quad!  He was pleased to help out again this year!  We picked corn:

 Lots and lots of corn!  And then we took it back to....

...the garage where we...

 ...shucked...

 ...blanched...

 ...cut the corn off the cob...

 ...and packed the corn into bags...

 ...meanwhile chowder was being made with ingredients fresh-picked from the garden and salmon pulled from the freezer labeled "Blue Moon King."  Her husband caught the salmon on the blue moon last month!  Have you ever heard of a tastier sounding soup?

 The kids were very helpful when we were picking and shucking, but boiling water, sharp knives, and kids don't mix too well.  They got busy...

...eating the raw corn!  Oh, what a heavenly sweet corn!  The corn wasn't our only blessing.  While we were cleaning up, we were told of another picking opportunity...

...Blueberries!  The Bushes have grown wild, so the kids and I Bushwhacked our way through (with Lula in the front-pack), trying to avoid Blackberries.  My smarty-pants kids said things like, "We were farmers, now we are going backwards and foraging wild berries!"

When we were finally tired (okay, when Daniel and Lula were tired) we packed up and came home.  Our grand total was twenty pounds of corn ready for the freezer and five gallon bags of blueberries.  All organic and for the price of our labor.  What an awesome experience!

Rocky Creek

The first week of Evie's grammar level science has her reading about habitat and camouflage, creating a habitat diorama or poster, and doing an "experiment" with camouflaged paper rectangles.  I guess if it were raining outside I might follow the curriculum.

Using a map key (social studies!)

But the weather is great, the rains are coming, and I really wanted to meet our friends and hike.  Okay, walk.  What we homeschooling mamas consider hiking, my husband considers walking.  I'm so glad I thought of making our walk a science field trip therefore justifying our attendance.

My students

The mission was: Notice the forest habitat.  What lives there? What living things to do you see? Can you find a living thing using camouflage?  Learn and memorize the four elements of habitat and describe the habitat of a living thing.  Oh yeah!

Lizard City

I was one of those annoying homeschool moms that didn't just let the kids run and play with their friends.  I asked them questions (but I had to holler so they could hear me over their enthusiastic chatter.  Did I mention we were a group of seven boys and three girls?  We would have had nine boys, but two of mine stayed home.)  Lizard city was a great place to talk about why cold-blooded reptiles liked to hang out on the rocks on sunny days.

My Preschooler

Although I missed Ian, I really enjoyed focusing on Fiona.  Ian knows everything already; he was born with all the knowledge of the world in his head.  Fiona and I explored the little things that the boys would run right by:

Spider in its Habitat

Grandad always used to say that Mark was such an adventurous climber that his goal was always the next mountain peak over from the one he was already standing on.  He would follow that with "Little kids? They are perfectly content to explore the waterfall on the side of the path."

We finally made it to the creek after balancing precariously across a log (kids) and bush-wacking (pregnant moms, girls under the age of five, and moms carrying babies in front packs).

"Where's the water?" ~Our Fearless Trail Guide

Now we know why the creek is called Rocky Creek.  The creek is all rocks! No water!  According to a fish biologist I know, this dryness will impact coho production in three years.  Since there was no water, we decided to hike up to the "shortcut" to the parking lot along the creek bed.  This is where we found our camouflaged creatures:

Lichen on a fallen log

We did find little pools of water here and there and Evie found a crayfish!  We also saw little fish which might be salmon fry...or trout fry.  They have a dark pattern that helps them hide in the dark creek water.  When they go out to sea, they get the silvery color.

Evie-wearing her best shirt in a stream! (just like her father-sigh)

By this time, the battery in my camera was flashing dead and all my pictures were blurry.  Sigh.  Shane found a camouflaged Northern Red-legged frog in the mud:

Rana aurora

After I made the boys stop harassing the poor frogs, I taught them the habitat chant that we learned at Camp Seymour a few years ago:

Food, Water, Shelter, Space, 

Habitat is my kind of place!

We hiked back to the trail head and foraged for blackberries (I'm so sick of eating blackberries) and my brilliant friend and mother of four boys (so far) came up with Habitat Tag.  She would shout out a habitat element and the boys would run and touch it before they got tagged.  Food was the blackberry bushes, water was a water bottle in the middle of the field, shelter was the trail map (see picture above), and space was...all around them?  I didn't see that part of the game.  I tell ya, we homeschool mamas all have our strengths and we work as an awesome team!

A Day With Daniel

I really shouldn't call Daniel my toddler anymore.  His puppy belly no longer exists and he has grown long and lanky.  He is all brown from a summer of free-ranging outdoors.

I wonder when he'll stop thinking butter is cheese.

He is ready to potty train.  As long as he is running around "nay-ked" he has no accident.  He'll tell us when he needs to go "sit-a-potty."  But those all-wise baby rearing books say do not attempt to potty train during a negative streak-when child is actively saying NO.  I say, "Do you have to go potty?"  Daniel says, "NO!" even when he means YES.  And since he does have to go potty, he gets crankier and crankier and naughtier and naughtier.  At this point, I just have to put a diaper on him.  He sneaks off to his favorite thinking spot and comes back a few minutes later full of smiles and sunshine.  Today we were able to trick him with the old sibling competition trick.  Fiona claimed to need to go and Daniel yelled, "No, I'M going!" and beat her down the hallway.

Getting ready for a birthday party!

Also this morning, Evie, Fiona, and Daniel were jumping on my bed in the piles of clean laundry needing folding.  I came in with a look of mock horror on my face and exclaimed, "Look at this mess! Who did it?"  Evie said, "Not me!"  Fiona said, "Not me!"  And Daniel said, "ME!"

Prince Charming!

After a tumble outdoors, he needed a bath to soothe his hurt feelings.  I started the water, added the soap bubbles, and got back to folding laundry.  A few seconds later, Daniel came streaking down the hall, dripping soap and water, and shrieking, "A bider! A bider, Mama! A bider in da baf!"  I had to follow him back to see that there was a dead spider waaaaay up in the corner.  He refused to get back in the water until the spider was gone.  The only way to get it was to step in the water, get my pant leg wet, and knock it down with a scrub brush.  I won't tell you what the scrub brush is for, but I will tell you when I found him "scrubbin' da baf" with the same brush, I made him get right out and drained the tub.

Secure in his Masculinity

Last night, Daniel was wearing one of those full-body outfits with the snap-togther legs.  I didn't snap it so it looked like he was wearing an over-sized T-shirt.  Daniel held the edges out like he was going to curtsey and said, "Look at my dress!"  He then spun around in a circle and said, "I'm Barbie!"  He may be spending too much time with his sisters!

He only looks sweet and innocent (icing licking)!

The Princess Party this evening was the cherry on top of a very fun day.  The girls were so cute in their princess costumes, but my little man stole the show with his handsome suspenders!  He morphed from Prince Charming to The Beast by the end of the party (no nap) and I had to lure him to the van with a small bottle of bubbles.  When he screamed, "That's MINE!" over the pink sparkly princess crown-to me!-I knew it was time to take him home.  He was in bed shortly after 8:00, bless his sweet little heart.

Ancient Egyptian Mystery & First Week Complete!

After a week reading Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, Ian is happy to announce we have our very own mystery to solve.  I usually read at night while I wait for Daniel to fall asleep next to me.  Last night, I was previewing Tales of Ancient Egypt for next week's literature assignments.  I clearly remember looking at the clock (10:00 PM, if I go to sleep now, I'll get eight hours of sleep), closing the book, stacking it with my other books, turning off my light (is Mark was ever going to get off his computer?), and snuggling under my blankets ...and the next thing I know Lula is crying in her crib and it is 1:00 AM.  I go to her room, pick her up, and turn around.

Tales of Ancient Egypt is sitting on the footstool of my rocking chair!  It is facing the chair, just like I had been sitting there and it set down before standing up.  I have no memory of moving it and I don't think I was sleep-walking...

And now our first week of school is over.  We've managed to catch up on everything that didn't get delivered on time.  Except science.  But science had habitats scheduled and if a Curious George-watching kid doesn't get what a habitat is, they have serious issues.  Some things I learned this week are:

• Daniel absolutely MUST have a nap after lunch
• I should NOT try to take advantage of a student finishing an assignment early to get a head start on the next subject.
• Reading out loud must wait until Daniel is napping (see 1 and 2)
• I really need to take that 10:00 break for my own sanity-but I need to avoid the computer at all costs.
• Putting a movie on at 11:00 will keep Daniel AND Fiona from interrupting. 
• Potty-training during the first week of school is a BAD IDEA 
• Afternoon activities during nap time is also a BAD IDEA
• When 50% of the children are having "issues," everyone needs to take a break

Now I'm off to enjoy some birthday present sewing time...