Whew!

WHAT a busy week!

I'm going to have to figure out how to pare down or get LOTS more energy. Times include travel time

M 8:30-10:30 Band for 3 kids (& me trying to keep the youngest 2 busy)
M 12:00 - 2:00 Co-op (& me keeping the youngest busy)
M 2:00 - 4:00 Gym (& me keeping the youngest busy - are we noticing a pattern here?)

T 12:30 - 4:30 Dd#1 Shakespeare Class

W 8:30-10:30 Band for 3 kids (& me trying to keep the youngest 2 busy)

Th 7:30-10:00 Mass & pray at abortion clinic (this one gets set aside way too often sometimes twice a month)

F I have 2 monthly committments on Fridays that take a half a day.

I also have to fit in breakfast & lunch, cleaning, SCHOOL, and outside meetings for 2 pro-life groups. The kid whose about to turn 2 is my biggest challenge right now (did I ever say I'm not all that crazy about 2-3 year olds? NOT my favorite age.)

I keep telling myself, "no one has a fatal disease, no one is presently in mortal danger, etc." God's gifts are WONDERFUL! (but they can require a bit of energy to keep up on them.)

Natue Journal

MODG recommends Keeping a Nature Journal. I know it's very un-homeschooling of me, but I've never managed to get my kids interested in doing this. I've given it a feeble try several times with no results. This is our "do things different" year as far as curriculum and we're focusing on art. I also wanted to get the kids excited about nature journaling. Not that I'm excited. It's actually allergy season for our family so I want to stay indoors as much as possible. But is such a home school stand-by that I wanted to give it a real chance to work.

So, I got the book from the library (there are several by this author) and bought some blank cheap books for the kids and flipped past all the gooey stuff (we love nature because...) and gave them the first assignment. Then the second. In an hour they'd done 2 pages of their 20 page books and they looked GREAT!

I was seriously impressed how well it worked. I just needed the drive (and the focus of a good book) to make it happen.

I'm definately going to do this often for the 3 weeks we have the book from the library.

I may even renew the book if we continue to need it. I was really only interested in the inspiration and it looks like the kids caught that!

My backyard looked like when we first started homeschooling and the kids did school outside all the time. It felt just lovely for an hour.

Confirmation Notebook

I took ALOT of ideas from this person - THANK YOU! The notebook will be the paper record that we followed through with the confirmation plans.

Sacrament

• Baptism Pics of Dd#1's Baptism
• Essay including sources of Baptism (CCC & New Advent) and abreviated explanations
• Meaning of Baptism & symbolism from other sources (Scott Hahn's Salvation History)
• All 3 of the above for the sacrament of Confirmation

Saint

• write and illustrate biography of Maria Goretti, her Confirmation Saint (We've got the movie and we'll work through the study guide)
• Saint books she's read will need a book report of some kind and I may have her write her own prayer to each saint she studies
• copywork through the year of quotes & include favorite Saint prayers and novenas

Prayer

• Creed - Each phrase will have some life application and explanation with it
• Ten Commandments - I think I'll have her do creative writing and do a short story of someone who has broken that particular commandment and let her decide how to end each story (repentance & grace or pride & consequences)
• Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit - each item will have a common fruit (banana) or a wrapped present in a particular shape to write the fruit, it's definition, explanation and application and the day we talk about it we may make a recipe (banana bread).
• Spiritual & Corporal Works of Mercy - the faith folder from Catholic Lapbooks is available, but I'll most likely give her a coloring page (she still LOVES to color) and let her write about that work on the back.
• A mini book - a Confirmation Prayer Book - of common Mass and Catholic prayers - she'll most likely do it in calligraphy.

Apologetics

• She'll do book reports of some fashion (her choice of a list I have) of all the books she is reading
• Salvation History/History of the Church - I may have her review these (we've done alot of them) and do a timeline and outline of them

Vocation - she'll need to work through the topics in the books we've chosen (Life's Work)

Service Project - just an explanation of what she's done

Confirmand - this will be done after the Confirmation - photos and narrations, a scrapbook of the day

Lest, anyone accuse me of being so organized or smart or be impressed by this list -- please remember I STOLE most of these plans and I've been working on them for 2 years -- quite a bit of time to make a decision or two.

In My Dreams - A perfect teacher's planner

It's become a quest. Organizing 4 kids in school/activities/chores plus keeping all my work straight in a mind that's getting more muddled with the years -- I keep thinking, "If only I could find the perfect planner."

I've researched others. There's some VERY good ones. But nothing perfect (it couldn't be because life isn't perfect, could it?)

In my dreams, my perfect planner would incorporate :

room to fit each kid in each subject in my planner
the kids chore list
room for lots of outside activities
more room in the language arts portion (because there's so many seperate subjects we do within that category - spelling, poetry, memorization, writing, handwriting, typing, reading AND grammar)
SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS (because kids sometimes have left-over work to do then!)
*saint and holy days as well as national holidays
a section for each of the kids' spelling words / vocabulary words / items they're supposed to be working on that I forget from day to day and kid to kid what they're working on
*the Sunday readings
*child-centered reflections on the Sunday readings
*gradebook
*gradescale
*periodic table

*These are all included in the nearly perfect planner from Creative Communications.

I've considered making my own, but I don't really like 3 ring binder and everytime I try to concieve of it - my mind gets more muddled...hmmm.....

Spring is...

...getting to do school under a tree at the first sign of warm weather!

Homeschooling Highschool

So far...from everything I've read...all I've discovered is that "this is do-able" and preferable and adventageous, etc. I've been spending hours researching curriculae, books, distance schools, links..... and I haven't gotten any farther than ....'yes, we're going to homeschool for highschool.' I'm guessing all the research will all gel into a cohesive whole at some point...but right now nothing's gelling and I'm still researching. I know we've got another year, but I'm basing 8th grade on decisions for highschool - I just don't have anything decided, yet.

Once I figure anything out, I'll let you know...I'm flying blind, here.

Science Fair

We spent the ENTIRE WEEK completing our science fair projectslast week! I even told my friends not to call until it's over because it's taking up so much of our time. Here's a pictoral of our week:

"CAKES RISING : Baking Powder or Baking Soda"

"BALLOON ROCKET"

"FAVORITE GERBIL FOOD"

"VOLCANO ERUPTS, AGAIN!"

Quote of the Day

This quote is from me ... to me

This whole homeschooling thing is really interfering with my blog!

Quick 2009 update:

• We got a Wii for Christmas -- Dave's hooked and I spend alot of time sayingto the kids, "No, you're not done with ____, so you can't play the Wii."
• This was a miracle Christmas -- we made it through Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve without anyone being sick!!! We were AMAZED! That's the first time since we've had kids that has happened.

(Pic below -- 13 month old baby petting the dog in front of our $12-after-Christmas-tree from last year)

• Baby still isn't sleeping through the night. He eats dinner before bed, but he HATES sitting in his high chair and doesn't have the patience to sit there long. We'll have a couple of good nights and then a couple of weeks of him wanting to nurse in the middle of the night. He's getting skinnier because he's walking and climbing and moving more -- which I knew to expect. I just can't bare the thought of denying him food if he's hungry.
• I'm much busier with kids and homeschooling now that we have a toddler. I'm still sort of shocked how busy I am with just everyday stuff! I really love it, but it feels like I hardly have 2 seconds to grab and think my own thoughts. That's not exactly true, but that's how it feels. Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep at 3:30am and got up -- I realized I could actually use my brain for my own purposes rather than answering the 1,002 questions during the day the kids and phone and e-mail and Dave throw at me.
• I've been fairly anxious about teaching highschool. It's not even that I'm afraid or anything, but -- when we're not getting as much school done as I think we should, now, let alone making things a little more challenging to get ready for highschool...it all seems a little overwhelming -- like I'll never get it all done. I know I'm not supposed to get it all done, I'm just supposed to give my best and let God worry about the outcome...

I'm better at stressing than I am trusting.

• I've been keeping the house cleaner, lately -- that's been quite an accomplishment and it's been no easy task!
• We're supposed to have Dd#1's 13 birthday football party today (we had to reschedule it from last week due to illness), but with the snow and the below zero windchill, I'm not sure if we'll have to reschedule again.
• Our computer is filled up (almost no memory left) so the 42 pictures I've taken over the last month and transferred to the computer and deleted from the camera...didn't get saved by my computer and were lost -- there was a horrible picture of Dave I was going to post on my blog, too -- now I'll have to find a different way to humiliate him.
• We've gotten a slow start back to school from Christmas. I was sick the week we should have been back, so we just did a few things here and there. I feel like we're not home enough to get intensive school done, but I also don't think I'm very efficient when we're home

1. please get the baby out of the toilet
2. I haven't gone to the grocery, so you can't have (fill in the blank)
3. When I said, "put away your coats" it means I shouldn't have to make you stop your reading to put away your boots and gloves, too
4. what do you mean you "lost" your math book -- you haven't taken it out of the house!
5. don't let the baby eat the dog food
6. don't sit in front of the space heater when you have a short sleved shirt on. put a sweatshirt on and if you're still cold, THEN you can sit in front of the space heater.
7. I know you have a sweatshirt in your drawer, I'll come look as soon as I finish reserving the library books for next week.
8. please don't tackle your brother while your sister is trying to read history to you
9. no, you can't make cookies right now, we just started school
10. you'll need to clean up all your school books off the floor because the baby scooched the chair up to your desk and climbed on it and tossed everything out of it
11. shhhhh you can't practice your trumpet while the baby is alseep
12. no I haven't graded your language arts, I'm nursing the baby and I can't manage the book and the baby
13. I don't know what we're having for lunch but it isn't raemen noodles

...none of that gets us any closer to getting school done!

However, at the end of the day when we're discussing a great book we all shared and laughing over the antics of the baby and congratulating one of the kids for their effort in overcoming long division and singing a song we made up and filling Daddy in on our shared day...it's been a wonderful day, afterall.

Saint a Day

Saints : A Year in Faith and Art by Rosa Giorgi is such a nice little book. There's a 2-page spread for each saint for each day of the year. The left page is a brief (a few sentences) description about the saint and the right page is work of art of that saint. It doesn't like to stay open by itself, so we're using a heavy key chain with a saint metal on it to hold the pages open.

I looked into buying a tabletop book stand, but they're more expensive than I can justify right now (hint to my honey). This one is definately on my wish list and this one and I even like this one. Instead, Ds#4 used his Kindergarten Wooden Blocks and using the wedge pieces we "built" one --but each time we change the page, we need to rearrage the blocks.

We have candles on either side of the book for what season or feast day color the liturgy would be. The book sits open all day so the kids can reflect (hopefully pray) to the saint that day.

It's so easy and incorporates a spirit of renewed prayer into each day.

Too Much Too Soon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmheYO0Z72o&eurl=http://www.ninnynoodlenoo.com/blog/?p=144

An interesting movie about education for preschoolers - a controversy raging in Great Britain.

Code of Chivalry

This was Dd#1's assignment, but Dd#2 helped. They had the idea & brewed the coffee to stain the paper and they chose the layout and words. I just showed them how to put out the edges once they set them on fire. It turned out way cooler than the picture shows.

I. To be gentle to the weak
II. To be courageous to the strong
III. To be terrible to the wicked
IV. To defend the weak
V. Women shall be held sacred
VI. To defend each other
VII. To be merciful to all men
VIII. To be gentle to all men
IX. To be true in friendship
X. To be faithful in love

That was one busy, crazy week

This past week was a whirlwind of computer work and house cleaning trying to get everything done to start school next week.

I'm glad it's over and boy did the kids earn alot of allowance (not always because they CHOSE to do all that stuff).

Monday we had our priests over for dinner (serious cleaning for that).

To make it fair for the kids, the fellows played tetherball on their knees.

Then Fr. Tom showed us his efforts to rise to spirtual heights by climbing the tree with the kids. We had chinese stir-fry -- everyone had a great time! We love those guys! They feed us spiritually whether they have other stuff going on or not, so who am I to say I'm too busy to have them over for a meal?

I feverishly worked on websites and message boards for our homeschool support group and co-op. That meant the kids had to be on baby duty ALOT! The baby climbed the stairs on Tuesday (he wasn't supposed to) and played with his fooler in the toilet on Friday (that wasn't exactly approved, either).

The kids wanted to spend the night with friends Friday night, so they had to get their Friday and Saturday chores done by Thursday -- then I worked them hard Friday before they left.

We got more done than we should have been able to accomplish, but apparently God wanted us to get things ready for school next week.

Highland Dove School Year '08-09

Wednesdays is our non-textbook day. Co-op is Wednesdays, we'll try to schedule field trips for Wednesdays, thank you notes or letter writing that day.

Mon, Thurs & Fri is our regular school days. History plus all regular subjects.

TT : Tuesdays will be Terrific Tuesdays (God willing). Art, science instead of history & alternate grammar, religion. Also 1 on 1 time with Dd#1 who will be working indpendently on most subjects.

Dd#1 - 7th grade ~4.5 hrs
Logic ~ 20 minutes / day Traditional Logic
Math ~ 40 minutes / day Zeta Math-U-See
Latin ~ 1 hr / day Helene
Spelling ~ 10 min / day Natural Speller
Grammar ~ 20 min / day
Seton 7
TT : Mary Daly's Diagramming Worktext
TT : Grammar of Poetry
History ~ 2 hrs / day All Ye Lands / Reading Your Way Through History / Christ the King Lord of History - Imitation in Writing: Medieval Legends / Shakespeare / Weekly Reports Due
TT : Science ~ 2 hrs / day Neoe Chemistry II / Physics
TT : Art ~ 1hr Teaching Art Through History / ArtPac 7
TT : Religion ~ 30 min Image of God 8B

Dd#2 - 5th grade ~4 hrs
Logic ~ 20 minutes / day Mind Benders
Math ~ 40 minutes / day Epsilon Math-U-See
Latin ~ 30 min / day Latina Christiana II
Spelling ~ 10 min / day Natural Speller
Grammar ~ 20 min / day
LOG C & D
TT : Mary Daly's Diagramming Worktext
TT : Grammar of Poetry
History ~ 2 hrs / day Story of the World / Reading Your Way Through History / Imitation in Writing: Medieval Legends / Shakespeare / Weekly Reports Due
TT : Science ~ 2 hrs / day Neoe Chemistry II / Physics
TT : Art ~ 1hr Teaching Art Through History / ArtPac 4
TT : Religion ~ 30 min Faith & Life 3

Ds#3 -3rd grade ~ 2.5 hrs
Math ~ 30 minutes / day Gamma Math-U-See
Latin ~ 10 min / day Prima Latina
Spelling ~ 10 min / day Natural Speller
Grammar ~ 20 min / day
LOG A
TT : Simply Grammar
Handwriting ~ 10 min / day CHC
History ~ 1 hr / day Story of the World / Reading Your Way Through History
TT : Science ~ 1 hrs / day Chemistry / Physics
TT : Art ~ 1hr Teaching Art Through History / ArtPac 2
Reading ~ 20 min / day Catholic National Reader 2
TT : Religion ~ 30 min Faith & Life 3

Ds#4 -1st grade ~ 1.5 hrs
Math ~ 20 minutes / day Alpha Math-U-See
Latin ~ 10 min / day Prima Latina
Spelling ~ 10 min / day Natural Speller
Grammar ~ 20 min / day
Simply Grammar
TT : LOG A
Handwriting ~ 10 min / day CHC
TT : Art ~ 1hr Teaching Art Through History / ArtPac 2
TT : Reading ~ 20 min / day Catholic National Reader 3
TT : Religion ~ 30 min Faith & Life 1

How Ready Are You To Start Next Year's School??

This was the question of a poll I participated in and here's my answer :


July 14th -- I'm as ready as I'll get, but that's not saying much! My books and planners are here and I've decided on some of our major projects for the year.


We're doing school part time through the summer to catch up from last year's pregnancy. It's been quite shocking -- we're almost caught up!! Somehow (reflecting on how much we didn't get done last year) I miscalculated how quickly we would get caught up. I wanted to be at 1492 in the fall, but didn't really expect us to get there until January or February. Lo and behold -- it looks like we'll be there by September. It's great! :) Except that I spend all my curriculum $$ on the middle ages and now school will start and I'll need more books! :(


Since I didn't really expect us to get here...I'm fairly clueless how I'll progress from here in history -- we're doing RC History and they don't have specific lesson plans for that time period, yet. I can fudge it, but we never cover things as completely when I fly by the seat of my pants.


So...I was ready, but now I'm not and actually I wasn't all that ready to begin with??? :~[

Decorate your desk...or...Over the river and through the woods

The craft for today involved one bunch of $1 flowers from Dollar General and empty sour cream containers (we needed containers with plastic lids that we could cut slits in). The general idea is here and here. While Ds#4 got paint all over the kitchen floor and I nursed the baby [and accidentally myself] to sleep, Dd#2, as usual, went a little overboard with the creativity. She can never just follow a recipe or particularly any directions. There's occasions where that's not so good (like the refried bean quesadilla she insisted on making for lunch today with swiss cheese which I advised her against). There's other times when it's absolutely darling!

There's an apple tree with apples on the ground, a stone path through an arbor and a stream for her garden.

The Quangle Wangle Hat and St. Kevin

This summer, we are working our way through the various books we haven't read on this list.

We are also starting our Catholic Mosaics, but we're reading the books and doing the discussions as the saints appear chronologically in history. This week a common theme emerged -- animals building houses on people (or bears or whatever a quangle wangle is). The boys got a kick out of the similarities (and we LOVED the quangle wangle and will read the rest in the series!).

Prayer Intention Poster

I've been trying to think of a way to keep the people we promise to pray for in the forefront of our minds. This is what I came up with. I think it's missing something, visually, but the kids each decided what prayer intentions we needed to put down and we have extra sheets for new intentions. Rather than taping them to the poster, we used a poster putty. The idea is our prayers rising to Christ while the love in his heart stream down to answer us.

Norse gods

A lack of dress code enables a little extra fun -- Norse Gods tatoos. When Dave saw the kids he asked me if I paid for Nordic tatoos. Are you kidding? Do you think I can just find these anywhere???? I was THRILLED to find them at Dover!!The kids completely dug them while we're reading Nordic Gods and Heroes by Padraic Colum The kids are definately enjoying this part of history more than I am -- I can't quite get into these characters, but my kids sure are!

An unnamed girl in the picture allowed me to take the upper half of her face and post it on my blog, but asked that her name and number not be included.

Doctors of the Church

To go along with the project in the Good News Teacher's Planner, I made a poster of the Doctors of the Church so while we're doing history this summer we can cover the Doctors as they appear in history. We'll also follow along with celebrating their Feast Days as they hit in the liturgical year.

A friend commented that it seems a little soon to make a poster for next year -- I have to work when inpiration hits and since I just read the planner, now is the time! I also bought green candles to put out for feast days of a Doctor of thr church. I saw an idea of putting a picture in a CD case ( so it will stand up) -- maybe I'll do that with the candles...we can call them "Dr. days?" We'll see...

Homeschoolers Need Not Apply

hmmm...what do you think about this?....

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65217

Subway sandwich contest: Homeschoolers not wantedSpelling-challenged promotion offers gift 'bastket' to winners
Posted: May 24, 20087:00 pm Eastern
By Jay Baggett© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Subway, the sandwich restaurant, wants to hear your child's story – unless he or she is homeschooled.
The national chain's "Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest" offers prizes and a chance to be published on the Subway website and in Scholastic's "Parent & Child" magazine but specifically excludes homeschoolers:
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied (sic) States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted.
Subway's website promotion not only misspells "United" States, but offers the grand prize winner a "Scholastic Gift Bastket (sic) for your home."
The 2007 winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was Evan O'Dorney, a 13-year old homeschool student from Danville, Calif.
Contestants are urged to write, in 500 words or less, a story that has a beginning, middle, and end using one of four provided story starters:
The Mysterious MeatballWhen the invitation to the Meatball came in the mail...
Turkey Doesn't Live Here AnymoreThere was a loud knock on the door, but when Salami Sam opened it ...
The Race to Red Onion RanchEveryone gathered in the center of town for the start of the race except ...
Nothing BetterThe smell of fresh baked bread coming from the store was so good that ...
The contest, launched in January, has a deadline of June 30, 2008. A grand prize winner and 6 runners-up will be selected on July 15 and announced approximately a week later.
The company's website promotion encourages submitters to describe in their essays "random acts of fitness," such as eating right, exercising, playing sports and living a healthy lifestyle.
Subway has marketed itself for several years as a healthy alternative to fast food, featuring spokesman Jared Fogle who went from 425 pounds to 190 pounds on a daily diet of the chain's lower-calorie sandwiches.
The exclusion of homeschoolers, presumably because the grand prize includes $5,000 worth of athletic equipment for the winning child's school, has caught the attention of bloggers who educate their children.
Valerie Bonham Moon, writing for HomeEdMag, referred to the exclusion as "Subway's P.R. gaffe."
"By now, the Subway sandwich shop marketing division must know how bad of a decision it was on the part of whichever wonk who decided to expressly exclude homeschoolers from their latest contest. E-mail lists may not be utterly aflame over the exclusion, but there is more than one p---ed-off homeschool mom spreading the word. I've been reading their e-mails."
Moon notes Subway, with a bit of forethought, could have easily included homeschoolers:
"One of the more obvious work-arounds that the developers of the Subway contest could have included for homeschooling parents who entered on their children’s behalf, was for the equipment to be donated to a local park, or to a school of the winner's choice. Problem solved – good will all around. Too bad that it didn't play out that way.
"I look forward to seeing how the Subway wonks handle their self-inflicted wound."

The blogger at Capturing Today, a homeschooling mother, isn't waiting for the self-inflicted wound, suggesting homeschool families "act now!"
"Excuse me, but there are MILLIONS of homeschool students in this nation and this is just discrimination. A homeschool student could easily donate the athletic equipment to their homeschool athletic association, local park, athletic center, neighborhood center or the like. I realize they are doing this to have a mass-marketing effect, but they could have just as great a media response from a charitable homeschool student donating the prize.
"I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for us to make our voices heard that we as homeschool families are tired of being cast in a negative light.
Jim and Cathy Peschke, blogging at Croydoncraft, expressed their displeasure by entering an essay on behalf of their 3-year-old homeschooled daughter who, while visiting a Subway restaurant, breaks into tears upon learning she's not eligible to enter the contest.
"I cried and cried, and asked Daddy if we could leave. He said 'Certainly. Not only will we never visit a mean old Subway store again, we'll organize a B-O-Y-C-O-T-T of Subway stores by all your homeschooling friends!'
'I sure hope Subway changes their silly policy so Mommy and Daddy can take me back for more sandwiches.'"
--------------------------
For more info on the contest go to: http://www.subwayfreshbuzz.com/kids/Click on the box at the bottom of the page for the Sandwich Story Contest.

Contact scholastic at: P&CConnects@scholastic.com orCConnects@scholastic.com.

Contact Subway :http://www.subway.com/Applications/CustService/frmCustomerService.aspx