Games in the afternoon

The kids and I had a mellow school day today. Carver had to stay home from school sick, and I've been dealing with sick Hope in the middle of the night for the past week. So we did the necessary things, but then spent naptime playing fun games.

Laura and Colored Glue

I got a new homeschooling book this week called Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready. It has an activity for every week of your child's life, up until their 5th birthday. The idea is that these activities will be right at their developmental level, and get them ready for kindergarten (we'll do the activities, and skip the kindergarten part :) Here's Laura's activity for the week: colored flour and water in a ziplock that she can play with. I'm supposed to show her how to make different kinds of lines and just enjoy the texture. For tomorrow, we put it in the fridge, and she can feel how cold it is. As you can see, she had to fight Ellie off!

Homeschooling--it's not just for kids!

I have been learning so much from homeschooling this year. Crazy, right? Who learns from teaching their kids 1st grade stuff? Well, so far, I've learned to tell several different tree types apart, the songs of several different birds, and that 3-year-olds can write their own name. But, the coolest thing that we've been working on, by far, is the Bible stuff we've been doing. I'm using a little workbook put together by the pastor at David's parent's church, Compass Bible Church. It's just a short introduction to each book of the Bible, with one or two memorable events from each book. The kids learn about the book, then draw a picture of what they learned (for example, a picture of Abraham for Genesis, with the idea the big-picture perspective in Genesis is that God formed a covenant with Abraham), and then we tack a little reminder picture up to the bulletin board in chronological order. I'm going to be supplementing this with a little more about some of the OT stories this semester, and the NT stories next semester. Several days ago, we put up a map of the united kingdom when we learned about Joshua conquering Canaan, and then marked off the divided kingdom when we learned about Rehoboam and Jeroboam splitting the kingdom. Very cool. Today, we put up a timeline for Biblical history that we'll keep adding to the entire year. The Bible events are in blue, and the historical events (including things like the kid's birthdays) are in red. (Note: not that Bible events aren't historical--they totally are. But I wanted to distinguish them somehow.) And, just for my non-young-earth friends, the timeline is 6,000 years, with creation being right at the beginning. Ha--take that! I'll make crazy fundamentalists out of the kids yet!

All that to say: I'm very excited about school this year.

Poker Face

When homeschooling moms on the web talk about the older children helping teach the younger children, I'll bet this is not what they had in mind:


While she won't be winning any World Poker Tours this year, she's getting a lot better at recognizing her numbers!

Nature Journaling

Living in Bible Times

Today, we made "Bible robes" for the kids. If my sister and sister-in-law recognize the fabric, it's because I used remnants from your quilts! While I'm hoping that these robes gets lots of use, today Carver and Ellie were Moses and Zipporah, and Laura was along for the ride. Pretty fun!

Homeschooling Explanation

I've had a few friends ask me recently what curriculum we've decided to use for Carver. I thought the answer might be interesting to several people (including grandparents), so I'm going to go ahead and put my answer up for the whole internet to read, with the caveat that I have been homeschooling for 3/4 of 1 year, and am by no means an expert at this. I'm sure Carver will look back on his homeschooling experience, like many firstborns do in many areas, and feel like he was the guinea pig. That's ok--he'll be more flexible that way, right?

That being said, we have decided to go with no set curriculum. I know there are many out there, and there are several that I know are good, including the one that my mother chose, Calvert. But I have never been in love with the idea of doing that. It seems much more interesting to use various textbooks and ideas and methods from several different places, and combine them into a system that both the kids and I will love. (I know, I know, I've been doing this for 3/4 of a year, and am aware that I'm overly optimistic :) There are, however, two theories of homeschooling that I'm trying to combine, so I will tell you a little about them.

The first is the Charlotte Mason philosophy of schooling children. To my shame, I have not read any of her actual writings (it's on my to-do list for this summer), but have several excellent books summarizing what she said in more modern language (she was writing at the turn of the 20th century). If you're interested, the ones I have read and like are A Charlotte Mason Education, More Charlotte Mason Education, and A Charlotte Mason Companion. The basic idea behind her philosophy is that education needs to be hands-on and enjoyable, otherwise children will learn to hate learning. So, for science, if you're studying plants, go and plant a seed and watch what happens. As you do this, your children will naturally ask questions, which you can then go look up in a refrence book or textbook. Go for a hike and look at the different kinds of leaves on trees. Have you kids take rubbings to remember what they look like. Don't ask them to memorize the shapes and names of the different leaves, but as they draw, look, and ask questions, they will give that leaf a permanent place in their memory. And the memory will stick, because it was interesting for him. The same goes for books. Have your elementary student read an interesting biography of George Washington (at his level, of course), and as he reads, he'll ask questions about the War for Independece, the Declaration, the Constitution, and what it meant to be a revolutionary soldier. He'll remember the answers because he's fascinated by the story. Charlotte Mason refers to these types of books as living books--fun for the child to read, and memorable because they weren't boring. I can attest that this is totally working for me. I've been reading many books on American History the past few years, and they're fascinating. They're well-written by authors who are interested in the subject matter, and now I'm interested in the subject matter. It sure made our trip to Boson fun!

The Charlotte Mason philosophy includes much, much, more, but you'll have to read the book for that!

The other philosophy that I'm tapping for our homeschooling is that of Classical Christian Education. There are also many books on this subject (with very long titles), including several by Susan Wise Bauer and Harvey Bluedorn and family. For some fun websites, go check out triviumpursuit.com and veritaspress.com. I believe Doug Wilson has written on this as well, but I have not read his writings. The basic idea here is that children have three distinct periods of learning as they go through their years of education. I won't discuss all of them, but the first period, called the grammar stage, is what's applicable to my children right now. At Carver and Ellie's ages, they are capable of memorizing insane amounts of stuff, and this ability will decrease as they get older. I can take advantage of that and give them mountains and mountains of knowledge that they can then tap into at a later period in their life. Seriously, how many of you can say, "Oh yeah, I remember the books of the Bible--I learned it back in 2nd grade?" So, this year, we've been memorizing Bible verses and chapters, and also a children's catechism. Next year, David and I mapped out some ideas, which include beginning multiplication tables, books of the Bible, states in the Union, more Bible chapters, and more. Just as with Charlotte Mason, there is a bunch more I could say, but time constrains me.

So, we're trying to mesh these ideas. This does involve buying some textbooks, but they're generally ones that people have recommended to me as being excellent. We've used Alpha-Phonics for reading this year, Miquon Math (which I love!!!), and a geography book called Legends and Leagues. Those are just a bit of the different things we've used, and I'm sure I could talk much, much longer about the different things that we've done, good and bad, but I would like to quit with one final note.

This post does not touch at all on the reasons we decided to homeschool this year, but homeschooling is not necessarily a permanent decision for us, especially for Carver. It will depend on what kind of public and private schools are available to us as Carver gets bigger. I strongly believe that he is going to need to learn accountability to authority outside Mom and Dad, and that will probably involve outside schooling, at least at the High School level. It may be public school (David got a great HS education in San Clemente), private school, or simply enrolling him in community college classes or letting him go wherever Dad is a professor and sitting in on classes there. We'll see. But, all that to say, the plan is flexible!

Busy Day

We've had a busy morning this morning so far! Piano movers showed up at 9 AM to take the piano to the repairman's shop for the week. The kids are loving playing in the big empty space in the middle of the living room. Carver thinks the carpet is extra soft there :). Sad commentary on the state of the rest of our carpet!


Over the past few days, we have been carving out a space in our upstairs bonus room to serve as our official homeschool spot. At the suggestion of David's mom, we moved out outdoor kid's picnic table up there for a few weeks to see if it's going to work out. Might as well see if the kids like it before buying a kid's table and chairs! Yesterday I spent some time covering bulletin boards in awesome fabric and having David put them up for me. Today Carver and I moved the picnic table in, cleaned it up, and heaved it up the stairs. We'll see how it works!



The picture makes it look a little barren, but it's actually a very cozy corner (let's blame the camera lens). I love the fabric, and when I get tired of it, it will be a very quick fix for a totally different feel.

Our third project for this morning was signing up for one of our local CSA Farmshares. For all you who are not organic nerds, this stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and means we bought a share of a local farm's produce for the summer. The guy said our first "share" will be available the first week of May, and we will continue getting produce all summer long, though September. I'm very excited, especially to try some of the wierder things that I'm sure we'll end up with. David's a little dubious, and worried that I'll be feeing them beet, kale, and parsnip soup all summer. I did promise him that I'll make as normal of dishes as possible with the produce we get, and that I'll be happy to eat what everybody else doesn't want to. I'll let you know how it goes!

The Children of Greene Knowe

I've decided to try to write up a little review of the books that I've finished reading. I think it will be helpful for me to try to remember the content of what I've read (yeah, go ahead and laugh), and I can attempt to improve my writing skills. Ha ha. So, at the risk of offending the person who loaned me the book and my children's favorite non-grandparent babysitter, I'm going to start with The Children of Greene Knowe, by LM Boston.

The book starts with a sad young boy named Toseland sitting on a train, off to visit his great-grandmother for the Christmas holiday. Upon arrival at his grandmother's castle, she promptly rechristens him "Tolly," and they become good friends. Soon it becoms apparent that the castle is magical, inhabited by the spirits of his ancestors; in particular, a set of 3 siblings about his age. As the story unfolds, Tolly is led into their magical world and won over by their personalities. The book climaxes on Christmas Eve, when Tolly triumphs over an evil curse laid on the castle centuries ago, aided by his 3 friends.

The book was beautiful. The language was so much fun to read, and would be so easy to read aloud. Carver is probably a bit young, but in just a few years, I think he would be able to follow the story line and not be scared by the evil curse at the end. The descriptions were amazing, and the story-telling superb. And, I am always amazed at the imaginations of those who can concoct such stories. I love reading them, but I will never have the creative genius to be able to do it.

Here is the reason I will not read aloud to Carver in a few years (sorry!): there are two looming issues of gender and gender roles that bother me.

First, Tolly has no male role-model to look up to. He is living with his grandmother, who is a distinctly feminine, though adventerous, character. His own father is far away and married to a woman that Tolly does not like (his own mother is dead). There is a male gardener in the story, but he bears no shaping influence on Tolly, though Tolly is allowed to tag along with him on several errands. The children that he loves are his own age, and although the boys are boy-ish, they are not father figures. Their own father, who is mentioned a few times, is a Captain, and away frequently. In my fiction choices at this young age, I would like to present Carver with stories of bravery and adventure that include a Dad (or some such figure) who is brave and Christ-like.

Second, Tolly could very easily be switched to "Tally," all the pronouns switched to "she" and the story would read the same. There is nothing that makes him distinctly a boy. In my short experiences with children, this is unrealistic. The spirits of the young girl and her brothers that Tolly is forever chasing are always playing together--there is never any separation, and all the activities that they do are completely androgenous. The boys carry swords, but it is only because they are perfect gentlemen, not because they ever play-fight with them. All the children sit quietly and feed the woodland animals, naming them and petting them. In fact, when the encounter with the evil Green Noah spirit occurs, it is the little girl that gives Tolly the courage to stand up to him, while her brothers tell her to "shhh!" While I am not going to discourage my girls from showing courage, I want them to understand that God has arranged our world in such a way that men (and boys, in this case) are there to protect them, not the other way around.

There is one other aspect of the book that makes it not an ideal read for small children: the complete absence of true faith. The children are mentioned believing that saints are real (a statue of St. Christopher lives in the garden), and they attend mass a few times, but that is the extent of the religious instruction. Christmas is viewed as a magical time, not a time to think about God's plan for redeeming His people through His Son. I do not think that all books must have some obviously Christian aspects. There are many books that I read to the kids, like Corduroy, or Winnie-the-Pooh, that are completely absent of any religion whatsoever. What worries me about this book is the presence of common religious items, like saints and mass, that have magical powers. And, in this particular case, this is a very Catholic (as in Roman Catholic) depiction. Saints, mass, nothing deeper than that. No understanding of the gospel.

And, there is another issue that I am not even going to touch: the issue of magic in children's literature. I don't know what I think, and I don't know where this book fits on the continuum from Narnia to Harry Potter. But, there is a lot of magic here. So there you have it.

Now, just in case you are worried that these will be my criteria for literature for my children until they reach college, let me reassure you. I would not read this to Carver right now. What I would do is give it to him as a 10- or 12- year old with perhaps a worksheet of questions, or a note in my own mind to discuss these issues with him as he reads the book. He would still get exposed to the beautiful language and fascinating story, but at an age where he would be better able to evaluate some of these important issues in light of what he knows about the Gospel and what the Bible says about the way the world is.

School Choice

Some have asked us what we're going to do for school for Carver. While there are many good options, we have finally decided on this...

You know you're a homeschooling mom when...

...instead of screaming as the centipede goes racing across the kitchen floor, you grab a gladware container and trap it for further inspection and drawing lessons.

First Day of School...

...was actually yesterday. It started great, but we had to take a mid-morning field trip to Southern Indiana Orthopedics to get Carver's arm in a real cast. Ellie got to take her trip to her friend, Naomi's, house. Here are the kids, sitting at the kitchen table doing school while Laura naps. Carver's working on reading, and Ellie's working on play dough. You can see his cool new blue cast in the pictures.