September
06 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in homeschool
Freehand drawing by J
We finally got back into homeschooling today, after a week off last week due to my work schedule. We will most likely stick with a 3 weeks on, 1 week off schedule, and do school year-round. I typically have one stretch each month when I am home for 10-12 days, and we can get a lot done during that time, to make up for the days when my work schedule prevents us from doing much.
Little brother likes to draw, too.
Today has flown by. I got off to a grand start by oversleeping this morning. I set the alarm for 0730, then turned it off, thinking I would lie down and “just rest my eyes” for a few minutes, while nursing my son back to sleep. Ha- he and I both fell asleep again, and slept for two more hours. Then I had to scramble to clean the kitchen and living room (still trashed from the two days I worked over the weekend) before the developmental therapist arrived at 1100.
J had a great time with K, the therapist, as usual. J has learned several new words this week, and lately has actually been imitating sounds and words fairly often. He also learned to skip last week. He is blossoming like nobody’s business (not counting pulling the cat’s tail, hitting people, and all the other typical two-year-old business that he is *also* learning, of course 
). I’m glad he is progressing so well, but also a little sad, because we have all grown very attached to K, and I’m pretty sure that when his next quarterly evaluation comes around, they will move him on up to speech therapy, meaning no more K.
After K left, we ate lunch while I read aloud to the kids, and then we did some handwriting practice, followed by about an hour of math. I had intended to do more than just handwriting and math, but she was on a roll, so we just rolled with it. She counted to 100 for the first time using her flashcards, and then instead of moving on to science, she wanted to count 0-100 again and again. This is the first math we’ve done in a couple weeks, so it worked out.
I’m really happy with our Sonlight curriculum so far. The giant blue binder seemed overwhelming at first (and it still is if I don’t at least glance ahead the night before), but I decided to put 4 weeks at a time into a smaller sized binder. That seems to make all the difference.
I’m so glad to be home for the next 10 days. Work has been terrible lately: security getting called on daddies with anger problems who try to rip down the hospital curtains, and social trainwrecks getting sent home with vulnerable newborns by our not-concerned-by-anything social services department. I can’t really go into more detail than that. I hate it when I do everything I can to make a difference, and it’s still not enough. I’m feeling very burned out by it all, and it’s good to have a breather.
01 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in homeschool, work
Well, we finished our second week of homeschooling last week. J loves it, especially the science experiments, most of which involve easy-to-find items like plastic bottles, mason jars, or food coloring.
We haven’t done any math yet this fall, but I’m not worried about getting behind, because she did 20+ lessons over the summer, when she spotted the new workbooks and couldn’t wait to dive in.
This week, we are not doing any formal lessons. I worked Monday night, had the last two nights off, and then I will work the next two nights and will be on call Saturday night (and will probably get called in, as August has been a record-breaking month for number of deliveries on my unit). So, I’m conserving my energy today. BUT, I will get 12 days off after this weekend. I love being part-time with a flexible schedule, because I don’t even have to take an official vacation in order to get a long stretch of 10-12 days off in a row once a month.
I hope things have normalized at work. My last couple of shifts nearly broke my heart.
First day!
15 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in homeschool
Little Guy knows C, F, S, and T (he says the sounds, not the letters. Thank you Leapfrog!)
New words this week: Baby, hot. I keep thinking we must be getting close to that language explosion- surely it’s coming soon! 
Also- today was J’s first official homeschooling day! Not really official official until age 7 in our state, but it feels official to me, since she would have started kindergarten today in town if we weren’t homeschooling. We did pretty much the same type of things we do every day, except for 20 minutes or so at the kitchen table, doing the read-alouds and science assignments from the kindergarten schedule. After we did our school work, we went to the creek with the neighbors and played in the water for two hours, wading and catching minnows.
Last night I found a basic homeschool attendance tracker, and downloaded it. Tracking 180 days of attendance is the one and only requirement in our state. I’m tracking everything we do, though, just for my own peace of mind.
Not a bad first day!
It’s official
29 Apr 2011 1 Comment
in homeschool
I guess we’re officially homeschooling this fall. Kindergarten roundup was two nights ago, and guess who wasn’t there?
17 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
in family, gardening, homeschool, work
*Transplanted 8 strawberry plants today from SIL’s garden into my flower bed; she was originally going to till over them, since she didn’t like their placement, but changed her mind after I had already transplanted the plants. She still has over a dozen, so she isn’t looking to steal them back.
*I feel less like an undercover agent at work these days than I have in a long time. Within the past few weeks, I have met one nurse who breastfed each of her children for 3 to 5 years, another who had 2 of her children at home with midwives. Nevertheless, I’m still keeping the fact that my son was born underwater and that both my kids were born in a freestanding birth center on the down low in my new department. I don’t want to be stereotyped as a hippie freak before I get established in the department. After that point, I’m thinking I can let my freak flag fly, much moreso than in my other department (where I rarely work anymore). These mother/baby department nurses, for the most part, definitely run more on the crunchy spectrum than the nurses downstairs, that’s for sure. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I feel so much more at home in this new place than in the other place, despite having worked there for over 2 years. I think I just fit in better with the other nurses. Of course, it makes sense that similar types of people would be drawn to certain departments. I feel like everything is sort of coming together for me at last, work-wise.
*I will be off orientation in a few weeks, which I know will be nerve-racking at first, as it always is. It is nice to look at my schedule for the summer months and see a maximum of 24 hours per week, and several weeks with no work scheduled at all. Woo-hoo, freedom!
*I am thinking about starting some more focused homeschooling with my daughter this summer, as my work schedule tends to be so much lighter in the summer months. We are also looking forward to camping, possibly just me and the kids with my parents if my husband is unable to take any time off work. His work seems to be picking up, which is certainly a good thing, given how grim it was in January through March.
*Also- yay spring!
04 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
in family, homeschool
*I love Easter Sunday. My husband and I met on Easter Sunday, 8 years ago, but I loved it was one of my favorite holidays before that. I also love the fact that I have the freedom to be at home with my family for 95% of all the holidays, as a “casual”, (ie non-benefitted) employee. More and more, I am really happy with my choices regarding work and family. Finances are often tight, but it’s worth it.
* My parents purchased their first RV last week. It is an older Class C, but is really nice on the inside, with a tiny little bathroom and kitchenette at the back. They are so excited; they do quite a bit of travelling each year, with two close relatives living on the other side of the country. All my daughter wants to do when we visit their house now is to have picnics in the RV.
*My orientation in my new role at work is settling down somewhat, with me slated to work slightly less than full-time hours for the next few weeks, mostly orientation hours in the new department. I have a lot of studying that I need to do for a certification exam and skills checkoff that I need to do later this month. Having this hanging over my head during any moment of downtime kinda makes me feel like I am still in school. Boy, am I glad school is over with.
*I am happy with my decision to not apply for a part-time position at work recently. It would have committed me to working 12-24 hours per week in my less preferred department, and knowing myself, I would have ended up working close to full-time hours most weeks. The more I think things through, the more I am okay with being PRN only, for the indefinite future… we do have health insurance through my husband’s work again, so that eases some of the financial pressure. It has a huge deductible before it will pay anything- it won’t even pay for a well-child checkup. But when I think about it, we typically only go to the doctor 3-5 times per year, total for all of us, when you don’t count all the well-baby visits during the first year. And really, why do I need to take my kids to a doctor when they’re healthy anyway?
I think maybe a high deductible is a good thing, at least in healthy families like ours, as it forces the health care consumer to closely evaluate whether each and every visit truly is needed. I will probably just take my son to the county health department if we choose to do any of the toddler vaccinations this year. Both kids are fully vaccinated thus far, but if in the near future I find myself no longer exposed to childhood illnesses galore in my workplace, I may be more selective about whether or not to do some of them, like the varicella vax especially. Other vaxes I am firm about continuing, due to scary cases that I have seen through my work. We’ll see.
*My Sonlight catalog arrived in the mail yesterday, and I stayed up late poring over it. I look forward to ordering our first materials within the next few months. Sometimes I feel really drawn to unschooling, but when I look at Sonlight, I am always impressed with how they seem to do things the way that I would like to do them. I like how Charlotte Mason-ey their approach seems to be, and I like their focus on world cultures and history and real literature. And I really like the idea of someone else doing the organizing for me! Especially now as I am just starting out in this homeschooling business.
Homeschooling
12 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in homeschool
Jubilee is four. At this point we are pretty much unschooling, although I don’t think we will be unschooling forever. I am too unschoolish to be a good unschooling parent, I think. Meaning that I am very averse to schedules and routines and am just generally lazy, ha. I don’t know, we will see how it goes, but I think for our routine-averse family, trying to stick to a loose routine would be an improvement. We do a lot of reading out loud some days, and other days just at bedtime. Some days we read Bible stories for two hours straight at her request, one after another, but then we might not read anymore for another week or two. Some days we do painting or cutting paper at the kitchen table for hours, other days no crafts at all.
I’m kind of torn on unschooling. I tell myself all the reasons why it won’t work for us, and then I realize that actually, we are unschooling already, and clearly it is working for us. We don’t really do anything formal; I just provide a lot of educational books and sort of follow her lead. I do prompt her to go find me a book to read to her at least once a day, though.
Jubilee is very into science, so yesterday we were reading out of what she calls “The Red Body Book”. She is so into the human body that she has 3 or 4 different body books, . I knew my daughter was a lot like me a few months ago, when I found a Reader’s Digest illustrated book called “The Brain and Nervous System”, and heard myself exclaim, “Jubilee would LOVE this!” My daughter, a science nerd much like me. Two nights ago, she wanted to go through her preschool math book with me, so we talked about patterns, more and less, adding and subtracting. When she’s had enough, she runs away and plays.
I have my doubts about unschooling in the long term, though. I have bought several used books for her that are from the Sonlight program’s reading list, and found them all to be great choices that she returns to over and over again. And as she gets older, I am not sure if following her lead 100% would be the best thing. I think that there are a lot of subjects that are important for her to know about that she won’t necessarily be drawn to of her own accord.
My loose plan at this point is to buy the Sonlight K core, and start that next fall when she is almost five, but aim to stretch it out over two years since we’re starting kinda young. I might just buy the instructor’s guide and some but not all of the books, since Sonlight is pretty steep. All packaged curriculums are steep, I suppose. For math I like the looks of The Critical Thinking Company. For science I think we’ll unschool and sort of play it by ear, since science is definitely her main interest at this point.
I think my take on it is that I tend to be too loosey-goosey, and I think that having some sort of routine/ schedule/ loose curriculum to base things off of will be a good thing, since we’ll probably end up straying from it like crazy and being unschool-ish no matter what we aim to do. I read an excellent book called Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days, in which each chapter is written by a different family. There were a few that really appealed to me. The one that appealed to me the most was a family which sort of unschooled, with the caveat that they would tell the kids things like, “Read a book from the science shelf/ history shelf/ biography shelf and summarize it for me.” I guess maybe that would be defined as “eclectic” more than “unschooling”, but whatever you call it, that style really appealed to me, since the kids are still following their interests but within a certain framework.
Local moms? Bueller? …Bueller?
08 Oct 2009 Leave a Comment
in homeschool, Motherhood
I took both kids to story hour at our tiny library last week. The librarians were shocked, delighted, and a little flustered to see us, because we were the first to show up, in FOUR WEEKS of story hour times being posted around town.
So Jubilee had a nice one-on-one story with the librarian, practically sitting on her lap, while Jake played on the floor.
Very hard to get moms together around here apparently… one of the hazard of living in a small town, I guess…
I may have to put Jubilee in part-time preschool next year, even though we’re planning to homeschool, as it may be the only way to get her around local kids, other than through our church, which is in the next town north of us. (the homeschool groups are all 20-30 minutes away).
Where do we fit in?
24 Sep 2009 Leave a Comment
in homeschool, Motherhood
Went to local homeschool group for second time yesterday. Didn’t much like it, although my daughter loved getting to play with some little girls for a change. The moms all hung out at a picnic table away from the play area, all but one other mom who was old-fashioned like me and seemed to agree that 2- and 3-year-olds actually do require adult supervision when playing on a sprawling playground . I’m not talking hovering- I do want my children to be adventurous and independent and to climb things like little monkeys. I’m merely talking about being within eyesight of one’s toddler when they are playing ten feet from a busy road (this particular playground is set up in a really strange spot, right by the road).
Maybe I’m just being surly and unfriendly, but I don’t see the point in going back to this particular homeschool group if I always end up as the unpaid babysitter for everyone else’s kids in addition to my own, while everyone else gets to have a two-hour coffee break with real live adults and gives me fish eyes when I introduce myself.
One of the moms at church homeschools, and she has invited me to the group she attends. I didn’t follow up on it at the time, as I thought it sounded too structured, and also involved signing a statement of faith, which for some reason rubs me the wrong way. Now I’m reconsidering. Maybe structured is a good thing. I guess I always sort of assume that I won’t seem “Christian enough”.
Plan of action- Keep taking Jubilee to AWANA every week. Start back to biweekly nature park preschool program again. Join the Christian homeschool group. And keep taking her to the park to play with other kids, but avoid going when that group is meeting, so I won’t get stuck watching three other preschoolers whose moms are nowhere to be seen!
Getting ready
23 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in family, homeschool, organization
Nesting is in full force. I have lists, sub-lists, and some of the items on my lists say things like, “Make list for XYZ.” Yesterday I started out with the goal of washing all baby clothing, and ended up spending over two hours sorting through my daughter’s baby clothes and toys, throwing as many items as possible in the Goodwill bag. I now have a car trunk crammed with items to give to Goodwill the next time I am in town. I am currently washing my third load of baby clothes. The junk storage room still looks junky, but slightly less than before, now that there is only one bag of outgrown kid clothes in there as opposed to four.
I rescued some of my husband’s stonewashed jeans from high school from the Goodwill bag, with the intent of cutting them up to make rag rugs. Or something similarly crafty.
Jubilee and I went to homeschool group for the first time this week. She had a blast. I barely had a chance to talk with the other moms after the initial introductions, since most of the other kids are 5 and up, and thus old enough that the moms could sit around a picnic table and chat for the duration. Mine is still young enough that I had to stay in the play area with her. I did get to know a few of the girls in the group over the three hours we were at the park, though. One little girl, age 6, took quite a liking to Jubilee and mothered her for the last half of our playtime. She made my job much easier- eventually she started following J. anytime she climbed on a high place, and then she would turn around and give me the A-OK signal, saying, “It’s OK, I’ve got her.” Very sweet. The older girls were happy to include J. in their play as well. I keep saying girls, because at least on this particular day, there were about a dozen little girls, and only two boys, both of whom were teens. This situation is fine by me, as J. is the only female grandchild on my husband’s side, and therefore normally has lots of boy playmates, but no girl playmates.
