Cheers to the start of a new SCHOOL season!

(Gabe, Quinn, and Tennyson at a park in the town of Westport

ready for their scavenger hunts!  Oct 2011)

A New School Year has begun here at our house!

We started school a bit early this year, in mid-August, hoping that it will give us more flexibility around the holidays.  I always like to be just a little bit ahead, in case things like...you know....AMAZING OCTOBER WEATHER hit!!  I have a homeschool friend who takes "nice days" instead of "snow days" in her homeschool.  When the snowstorms hit, she is hunkered down with her kids doing school while public and private institutions have the day off...but when the weather turns beautiful and their family is itching for some outdoor time--they have the freedom to ditch school lessons for the day and enjoy the sunshine!  I love this philosophy.  I also love to take school outside with us, enjoying God's creation while we learn about life.  That's what we did a few days this week...

The typical October chilly air was nowhere to be found!  Instead, we had a week of temperatures no lower than the mid 70's.  We took advantage of this, fitting in a field trip to the Madison Henry Vilas Zoo, and getting to a local park.  We got to enjoy the Sandhill Cranes who were also visiting the park.  Seems that every fall we see cranes at the park, just in time to wave goodbye to them as they venture to their winter destinations.

sandhill cranes at the park

At the park on this particular day we did a scavenger hunt.  We learned about tallies, and how useful they are for counting quickly by 5's.  I thnk the point really hit home for Gabe, who is very competitive, having an entire sheet full of little hash marks for the number of cars he counted while at the park.  He thought for sure he saw "the most" cars of anyone.  The face he gave me when I announced that we were going to COUNT up those random hash marks was PRICELESS!  He was thinking, "oh man--we have to COUNT these?!?  I thought I was just the winner!!"  I think his total of hash marks for cars ranged above 200!  I helped him circle little groups of 5...it took us quite awhile...and then I explained the system of tallies and how much easier it is to count up large quantities if we are organizing them into tallies as we go, counting by 5's and 10's. 

gabe finds an acorn

As I write this, the boys are at a birthday party...a pirate party!  I took their picture as they were ready to leave...and now I am off to pick them up!  Quiet time for momma is over. 



Shabbat

The Eve of my very first Shabbat.

I know that I promised an update on our homeschool year.  But I just have to take a minute to tell you that it is 11:00pm, and I have finished all of my chores with an hour to spare before the official start of my very first self-regulated Shabbat! 

Shabbat is the Jewish word for Sabbath, a day of rest and cessation from work.  It was the fourth commandment out of the ten that God gave to the Israelites.  Somehow in our fast-paced, modern world, we have distanced ourselves from honoring the Sabbath.  We feel as if we do not need one, or we do not have the luxury of taking one because of all that there is to do.  Modern teachers tell us that we live beneath a new covenant, no longer bound by the Mosaic covenant.  I know that this is true in many respects, but I also believe that the ten commandments were not just handed out to bind us.  They are GOOD for us!  We do not think twice about keeping our lips from lying, or honoring our parents.  But that Sabbath command is...just...well...idealistic!  So we go about our lives, in a tizzy.  Forgetting that God himself rested on the seventh day after creating the world, and that maybe...just maybe...there is something to it.

For the past couple of years I have attempted to make Sunday my "rest day."  However, I have never held myself to it!!  Sure, I would try to keep Sundays as simple as possible.  You know, easier meals and kicking back in sweatpants after church.  Here and there, if I was really behind on laundry I would sneak in a load.  Or if I was behind on paperwork or school prep, I would take time to work on those tasks, thinking that they really weren't "work" but were quiet activities.  So I guess you could say I was practicing a half-Shabbat!  However, a half Shabbat--one without set guidelines or any preplanning...is a Shabbat that is easily broken!  On those Sundays when I was desperate for rest and actually honored my no-work rules--I often woke up on Monday morning to mountains of mess.  Like a bad Shabbat hangover.  Or found myself standing in the kitchen on my blessed appointed rest day, wondering what take-out to find for supper since I was NOT going to cook!  These are not restful practices.  I was enjoying the small break, but definitely not honoring the Sabbath.  Honoring the Sabbath--now that takes forethought!

I listened to a recent podcast, although don't ask me which one because I honestly do not remember...about taking a Shabbat with INTENTION.  The Israelites had to plan ahead for their day of rest, in order to fully honor it.  Manna had to be collected on the sixth day, because otherwise there would be no manna to eat on the seventh.  So today I figured out what my Shabbat would look like, and what I needed to do to preserve that day as purely restful and honoring to God.

It is 11pm, one hour until my rest day--Sunday.  I just finished putting away the mountains of laundry, which required me to tiptoe into the boys' room while they were asleep.  Okay, I felt a little bit like the laundry fairy!  They will wake up to a fresh closet of folded, clean clothes.  My husband will not have to ask me in the morning which drying rack contains clean underwear!  I did a load of cloth diapers at 9pm, when normally I would have just thrown up my hands and gone to bed and saved it for Sunday--justifying laundry on Sunday as a necessary evil of cloth diapering.  Excuse queen.  There are now clean, folded diapers in the nursery.  I spent the bulk of the day cutting up some veggies that my in-laws blessed us with!  Since tomorrow is hands-off as far as meal prep, I knew that I had to make use of those fresh items TODAY, or risk them spoiling by Monday.  I looked at the pile of fresh, organically grown butternut squash, tomatoes, and an entire box of apples...and made butternut squash and apple soup, homemade salsa, and apple crisp.  Now tomorrow, instead of tripping over laundry baskets and making a frozen pizza, I will be enjoying my family over a cozy autumn meal that is already prepared.  Now, was this hard?  YES!!  It took every ounce of my energy and lots of help from my husband since I also have three little ones running around my feet all day.  But I resolved to enjoy the pleasure of hard work for one day, so that tomorrow I can truly, truly REST.

I have found that I desperately need my Shabbat.  It is silly and crazy-ridiculous of me to ever think that I am superhuman and do not need rest--that somehow the rule of resting one day out of seven does not apply to my busy life in this modern time.  Honestly, I believe we need to take a Sabbath rest more than ever before.  To shut off our brains for one day.  To listen for God.

This whole Shabbat thing is a work in progress for me.  But I can tell you with honesty, that I am really, really looking forward to tomorrow!  I can do six days of hard work knowing that one day of rest is coming.  And next week hopefully I will be ready for Shabbat much earlier than 11:59pm.  Baby steps.

Making time for cuddles.

Updates to our blog COMING SOON!

Well, it's a new school year around here!  That means high aspirations!  I am revamping our blog--check back soon to find out what's in store.... lots of fun ideas up my sleeve!  Now to find time to implement them :)  Happy September!

Why homeschool?

So...why homeschool?

I get that question a lot.  In fact, some people don't even ask it...but I know it's right there festering in the back of their minds and they WANT to ask me.  But they don't know how to word it, or how to ask it without seeming rude.  I was once one of those people:)

Several years ago I met a homeschool family. 

I knew very little about homeschooling, and wasn't even all that interested in it.  I just enjoyed their company, and one day was invited to their home to see what their typical school day was like.  My perception of homeschooling was forever changed.

I watched two boys eagerly showing me what they were learning, experiments they were conducting...I listened as they couldn't wait to recite to me all the countries of the African continent.  The boys were very social, great friends with each other--able to play with my son (age 3 at the time?) and also hold adult conversations well.  I was...well...impressed!

It is amazing the journey that began that day.

I have since met many homeschool families.  Some that have children who are now grown, some just starting.  And these are not families that I met at homeschool conferences.  These are families in Madison, WI that I have met at random through various social functions I've attended.  Some at the place I volunteer weekly. Some at church.  They are EVERYWHERE!

It is a huge movement!

I am very much pro-public school, pro-private school....pro any school really!  I attended a great public school growing up:)  And I have treasured family members who are teachers.  So do not be afraid of me because I chose homeschooling.  We each do what we feel is best for our child(ren).  I chose homeschooling for many reasons unique to my family.  Mostly, I want my kids to fall in love with learning.  To desire to seek knowledge the way they seek cookies.  Some kids do that easily in public school settings, they just "get it."  I wanted to be able to tailor my kids' learning environments specifically to their needs and interests.  So that they never fall through the cracks, never want to give up on learning.  For the pure joy of it!  And at the same time I wanted to develop their character, to teach them through the lens of a Christ-centered worldview.  For me, Jesus is not a word spoken on Sundays or a fairy tale of sorts.  He is the light that directs my paths daily, I speak his name and it is like honey on my lips.  I will follow Him forever.  And sending my kids to private Christian school was not finacially viable.  And I am glad for that, b/c it led us to homeschooling!  It is a huge responsibility, yes, and very time consuming.  It is time consuming to blog about it!  But I enjoy sharing with long distance family and allowing people a window into a homeschool family if they are curious what it is all about. 

I enjoy having Gabe and Quinn around and passing on my love of learning.  It is truly a blessing to have the ability to CHOOSE our children's educations, isn't it?  What a great country, what a great STATE we live in!  To be free to educate our kids in the ways that are best for them as individuals!

So, whether your kids are public schoolers, private schoolers, homeschooled or charter schooled--welcome to my blog about our journey.

"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see."

May God bless your children's journeys!

Kindergarten Week 3: Sun unit

Kindergarten Week 3:  The sun!

(Gabe and Quinn empty the contents of their bags after collecting items on a nature walk)

Letter of the week:  Ss

We have officially started phonics again.  We left off with phonograms and digraphs in the spring.  This year we are starting slowly with a little review time, reviewing handwriting especially.  This week we are reviewing the letter "S."  I am not sure how the rest of the year will progress...I am taking my cues from Gabe.  We started this week by using a fabulous website called starfall.com, where we played games relating to reading skills.  Gabe LOVES this website!  It is fabulous, and FREE! 

When we ended our preschool year, Gabe was reading simple words, beginner BOB books, and knew a handful of sight words.  This year I hope to have him reading on his own completely by the end of the year--BUT, it is more important to me that he enjoys the process than how quickly he arrives at that destination.

Let's paint!

(the boys really enjoyed this activity)

Some of our sun-themed activities:

-painting with patterns in orange and yellow

-keeping a chart of how long it takes grapes to turn into raisins when left in the sun

-learning about shadows

-book of the week:  Bear Shadow by Frank Asch

 

Kindergarten: Week 2

Kindergarten Week 2:  Creation unit continues

Our study of God's creation continued this week.  This is a chart we made.  (Quinn drew all the wonderful, colorful straight lines!  He likes to feel big and participate in school, too.)

Our songs this week included:

BINGO, Old MacDonald, and the B-I-B-L-E

I found some fun felt pieces online at Etsy.com, the kids loved to take turns putting the pieces up.  (Did I say take turns, oh--a better way of describing felt time is that they squabble over whose turn it is...) Gabe is a little bit "over" the whole preschool song thing, but we do songs mostly for Quinn who is still learning letters.

Gabe is going through a "get that camera away from me" stage.

This week we completed our creation timeline and Gabe finished the illustrations for his creation book. 

When he was listening to the bible's account of day two's creation, he got all confused.  And so did I.  Have you ever REALLY read the description for day two?

It's all about creating the sky....separating water above and below the sky....but the actual creation of the seas does not occur until day 3.  Ummm....CONFUSING!

So, as we read the story from the bible for day 2, Gabe illustrated it complete with a sea.....

and what is a sea without jumping fish?  And sunken treasure???

He was surprised the next day, day 3, when we read that the sea was formally created.  And then again surprised on day 5 when sea creatures were created. 

So, now he tells people:  "And this is day 2 of creation, but nevermind the fish I drew--there were no fish yet on day 2--I was losing my mind!"

The front of the creation book:

Our completed creation timeline:

Why teach creationism?

There are many theories out there on "how" the earth was created.  Molecules piggybacking on crystals, aliens planted life here, you name it!  I am very big into apologetics lately.  I spend lots of time listening to podcasts on scientific evidence relating to creationism.  I do not teach my son creationism as a way of shielding him from the world.  I teach him creationism because it FASCINATES me, it is more than wishful thinking--it has scientific support.  (A great movie on this subject is "No Intelligence Allowed" starring Ben Stein.)  I will most definitely be teaching my children other theories as well, such as evolution and the big bang theory.  I believe it is critical for them to see all the evidence and know what the world is selling.  But all of that is shelved until future years and maturity.  We are starting with the solid, and I believe truthful, foundation of creation as seen through the eyes of a magnificent God!

But my absolute favorite part of homeschooling thus far, has been the blessing of allowing Gabe the luxury of unstructured time.  Time to pursue those playful pursuits of childhood!  This week he was a LEGO maniac.  He spent HOURS building glorious creations! 

Once he felt a project was complete, he would summon Quinn and say, "Want to play with my LEGO house?"  So the two of them would pick out little Lego dudes and spend the next hour in pretend-Lego-world together, jumping from towers...hiding treasures...falling through trap doors....

There were moments this week when I had small amounts of time just peeking at them, watching them play together and laugh together!

And that is so precious.

(Gabe concentrates as he adds the final touches to his latest LEGO creation.)

This week Gabe also started fall swimming lessons.  This is his second swimming class, and he loves it!  It will be interesting to see what he learns this session....sometimes I wonder about the value of swimming lessons at such a young age?  I mean, really--do they learn survival skills??  Mostly it seems they learn to be comfortable with the water.  And I supposed that is important.  Gabe begged me to sign him up for swimming again; he really enjoys having time in the warm water, having a teacher other than mommy, and being able to splash around with other kids.  I also see the value in that, so we forked out the $30:)

Mommy time!

I spent Thursday evening at a wonderful homeschool kick-off event hosted by F.I.S.H, the support group that I am a member of.  I attended a few great seminars, and scored an armful of inexpensive books at the used book sale!  I got to socialize with a few wonderful homeschool mommies:)

By the way, did you know that Dr. James Dobson (formerly of Focus on the Family) is a HUGE homeschool fan and supporter?

Check out his new family talk program!

http://www.myfamilytalk.com/Broadcast/Default.aspx?YEAR=2010&MONTH=9

Follow the link to hear some great podcasts regarding the modern homeschool movement.

Dr. Dobson now has a radio show that he hosts along with his son Ryan Dobson, and Ryan's son Lincoln will be homeschooled!

Next week.....looking forward to starting phonics once again!

It will be a full week.  Hoping to have time to blog about it?

Kindergarten: Week 1

It's our first week of kindergarten!

Raise your hand if you are excited!

Kindergarten Week 1:  Creation Unit

(Where do I start??)

Let me start with today:  Happy Teddy Bear Day everyone!

All bears and stuffed animals were invited to class today.  (see photo above)

We read about the creation/invention of the teddy bear from Vermont Teddy Bear Company's website...it was way over our heads.  Oh well!

After class we had a lovely teddy bear picnic outside on the picnic table, with sandwiches cut into CIRCLES for day 4 of creation:  sun, moon, and stars.  We talked about spheres.  After the wasps showed up...we ran inside!!  EEEEK!

Gabe enjoyed drawing bears all day today, in fact--he called Grandma Rollmann to ask her what she wanted her bear to look like (templates compliments of Clubhouse Jr Magazine, a subscription that we adore that was a gift from Grandpa and Grandma Rollmann)

(the bear Gabe created for mommy)

OUR TYPICAL KINDERGARTEN DAY:

(we use My Father's World curriculum for the basics, I add in additional phonics, books, songs, etc)

1.  CIRCLE TIME

(Gabe will tell you:  it's really SQUARE time, because we gather together on a SQUARE blanket!)

During circle time we open the day with prayer, then we sing a song.  This week we are learning how to sing the alphabet a little bit differently than we are used to!  TRY IT!

A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-L-M-N, O-P-Q, R-S-T, U-V-W, X-Y-Z

Now I know my ABC'S, and I know that God loves me!

(notice the elimination of that mysterious elimenopee letter!)

2.  100 CHART

Each day we put one popsicle stick into a clear jar, and we write the number of sticks we have on our "100 chart."  We are working our way toward the 100th day of kindergarten.  As we advance, the popsicle sticks will be used to teach counting by ones and tens.

3. WEATHER

We go outside to check the weather, and record it on our calendar.  We also have a felt-board weather display in the dining room, which Gabe enjoys changing each morning!

(dining room=weather central)

4.  BOOK BIN TIME!

Gabe sits quietly (ya, right!) with a bin of fresh library books...new each week....while mommy works one on one with Quinn.  This week Quinn is learning about colors.  We play color matching games during our 15 minutes together, and read books about colors.  Gabe mostly looks on and sometimes needs to sit on his hands to keep himself from joining in!

Our favorite book this week:  Mr. Pine's Purple House by Leonard Kessler

5.  PHONICS AND SCIENCE

We are reading through the history of creation in the book of Genesis.  Each day we read one day of creation, and add a number to our timeline.  Then we color a corresponding page for the "creation book" we are working on.  This week, for day 3 of creation:  earth and plants, we planted seeds.

(our creation timeline)

Phonics will be starting more heavily in week 3 of kindergarten.

6.  SONG TIME

We end the day watching a utube video of the hymn "My Father's World" by Fernando Ortega.  We are attempting to memorize the first two verses!  Sometimes the boys sing along, mostly we watch the video of amazing places that God has created!

7.  VIOLIN and MUSIC HISTORY

Currently Gabe is practicing the first 8 notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

After our introductory creation unit, we will be learning about the life of the composer:  Mozart.

Each day the boys get out their school bins, with contents that change weekly.  We store the bins in our dining room, where most of our schooling takes place.

In the evenings I read aloud to Gabe from a chapter book titled Autumn with the Moodys, by Sarah Maxwell.  The book is number 2 in a series of 5 books that chronicle the adventures of the Moodys, a fictional homeschool family.

(I met Sarah Maxwell at a homeschool conference in May, and she graciously signed the first book in the series for me!  We read that book--book 1:  Summer with the Moody's, in the early part of the summer...and Gabe begged for more!  So I bought the entire series online!  The books were not available at the library....booohoooo....) 

THAT WAS A LOT OF INFORMATION!  PHEW!

Thanks for taking a peek into our journey.

Check back soon!