Christmas Week 2018

Tuesday Notes:

Christmas day was laid back and sweet. We made our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The kids opened their 3 gifts. Everyone was excited and spent the morning enjoying everything. A few kids chose 'experiences' this year, which is new for us. Makayla and Mommy will be going to see The Lightning Thief: The Musical at the theater the one night it is in Ohio. Joseph and Emma chose movie theater gift cards so they can see movies they are looking forward to in 2019. Daniel chose tickets for him and a parent (undecided which parent right now) to go to Cedar Point, an amusement park, which he has never done before. Some of us spent the morning watching a couple Christmas shows on Netflix while we relaxed. In the evening one set of grandparents and my sister's family came over for dinner (make your own subs), a cousin gift exchange, and games and gifts from grandma and grandpa. We ended the evening in a new way, and it was the highlight for me. My nephew brought his guitar and shared some Christmas songs with us, pulling Joseph in to play the piano for a duet, and then Makayla played some piano for us as well. So fun!

My sweet children. From left to right:

Emma 13, Rebekah 10 mos, Joseph 14,

Tobias 3, Mason 6, Samuel 5, Caleb 8, 

Daniel 11, Oliver 9, Makayla 17.

Wednesday Notes:

Re-entry to regular life after a holiday is always rough with kids. It was a cranky morning for a few but we let it work itself out. Daddy accompanied Joseph and Oliver to see the new Bumblebee movie in theaters. The boys paid for their own tickets and enjoyed the movie. We played Emma's new Marvel trivia card game shortly before bed and called it a night. I spent half an hour finishing up my 'high school counselor' duties on the Common App website, submitting Makayla's transcripts.

Thursday Notes:
I was up at 5am with Rebekah. Once she went back to sleep I stayed up to get some work done. My first task was going through each child's portfolio of school work for first semester. I sorted through papers and pulled samples to keep for the portfolio submission at the end of the year. I threw away the rest. For example, while the kids each had more than 50 math papers I only need a fraction of that for the portfolio. I made it through all but Makayla's portfolio. This is one way I gauge how our year is going and where we are at in our lessons.

Some subjects are obvious, they have lessons laid out in a book. Our history curriculum is set up this way. There are 60 lessons to cover during the school year. We can choose to do history frequently and finish the 60 lessons in a semester (leaving second semester to really focus on science), spread the 60 lessons out evenly over the entire year, or choose a completion date and do lessons at whatever frequency to meet that. We are on lesson 39.

Other subjects are a bit more free-flow and I evaluate how much work a child has done and how much more they need to complete to finish the course. Literature is a good example of this. I have a reading list that kids choose books from. They read most days of the week for a set amount of time. This means a quick reader will finish more books than an average or slower speed reader. I am okay with that. I simply want my children immersed in good books. They narrate to me as they read or after they finish. The older kids also have literature integrated within their language arts curriculum.

At 9am this morning Mason and I headed to the Physical Therapy office. He has been out of PT since his surgery in September. Now it is time to get back to work. Today we had an assessment with his therapist, set some goals, and lined up things that I need to do - like get an appointment with Mason's brace specialist to adjust his HKAFO braces if possible. He has grown and so we need to lengthen the current braces. If that isn't doable they will custom create new braces, which then takes getting a prescription for braces from the orthopedic surgeon or physical medicine doctor. While we wait for braces to be ready his PT focus will be core work, balance, and stretching.

Rebekah is enjoying reaching the table

to get food people leave unattended. 

The rest of our Thursday was spent cleaning, playing games, reading books aloud, cooking, and being a family.

Friday Notes: 
It is Friday morning and the kids are busy doing whatever it is they do on break. There is drawing, reading, playing Pokémon, enjoying gifts, and just spending time together. I plan to work on school preparations for second semester. We're also starting some short read alouds today. Have you seen the Tuttle Twins books by Connor Boyack? These are a fun introduction to economics and government. From their website: "Each book in this series focuses on a different aspect of the principles of a free society: free markets, competition, individual rights, the non-aggression principle, personal responsibility, protectionism, and a variety of other issues—all boiled down to core concepts that children ages 5-10 can easily grasp." 

Sounds fun, right? The titles are:

1. The Tuttle Twins and the Law
2. The Tuttle Twins and the Miraculous Pencil
3. The Tuttle Twins and the Creature from Jekyll Island
4. The Tuttle Twins and the Food Truck Fiasco
5. The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom
6. The Tuttle Twins and the Golden Rule
7. The Tuttle Twins and the Search for Atlas
8. The Tuttle Twins and their Spectacular Show Business
9. The Tuttle Twins and the Fate of the Future

We have books 1-8. We're just going to read and discuss as we go. My kids are always up for read alouds. 

Happy Friday all!

For God So Loved the World

I love Christmas because it leads to Easter and the promise of Resurrection! May your family be blessed by the gift of God's son and his gift of the Atonement. Please take four minutes and watch this video and share it with your loved ones.

2018-2019 Homeschool Notes Week 19 and Beginning of Break

Rebekah climbing on Mason, 

who was reading Latter-Day Prophets

to her. 

Monday Notes:
It felt like a Monday. Ugh. Several people were not in the mood for school work, including me! We persevered and did school anyway. I think my favorite lesson was history today, we learned about Thomas Jefferson, read from his letters, from things his contemporaries wrote about him, and about the Declaration of Independence.

Tuesday Notes:
We had smooth sailing in the school department as is usual for Tuesday around here. Various math, language arts, reading, latin, science, and other lessons happened spread over the morning. Makayla spent the morning printing the first draft of the novel she just finished writing last night. Our printer survived the more than 500 pages of printing. I have to say, I love our printer. We bought it last December and it has printed nearly 4000 pages this year without needing the ink refilled. It is an Epson ET-2750.

Wednesday Notes:
Daniel has really struggled with math this week. For those who know Daniel, they know that is unusual. Learning pretty much always comes easily to him. The growing pains have been fierce. This perfectionist child would rather give up completely than struggle through understanding something. We're working it out but it has been a difficult thing. I finally looked at him and said that today was "the best day ever" because we were going to choose to have it be the best day ever. We didn't have to be grumpy with each other. We could choose our attitude. He thought I was crazy, but in the end he was willing to go along with his crazy mom. One reason? Before the week began I realized this boy-child and I need more positive interactions. I grabbed him and told him that I thought we needed something fun to do together regularly and offered a few ideas. He thought playing a game together most days was a great idea. We've played something every day since. Some days it is just me and him, other days a group of siblings gathers to play with us. It's a simple thing, but it has made a difference.

Thursday Notes:
We surprised the kids with the start of Christmas break. Why? Because we homeschool and so we can! It was a totally laid back day.

My favorite moment was when I found all seven of my sons playing a board game together! The game is Journey Through Time: Eye Found It. The board is 6 feet long! You can find it on Amazon here (aff).

 My least favorite moment was at 10:30pm when Joseph, who escaped last week's vomit fest, threw up. It was a less than fun night with a few more episodes before he was finished.

Friday Notes:
Today just reminded me how grateful I am for my mom! Mason and I needed to be at Children's Hospital an hour away to meet with 10 of his specialists all morning. She took over sick care for Joseph, kept the rest of the kids fed and happy, and I didn't have to think about a thing going on at home. I could just focus on Mason and all his medical appointments.

The appointments went fine, just a lot of talking, asking questions, answering questions, and so on. He had a bladder and kidney ultrasound (everything is stable), leg x-rays from hips to toes to check on the metal plate and screws in his right knee and the degree of valgus (angle) for both lower legs (11 and 18), and then we had to trek back to x-ray after the doctor visits for updated x-rays of his spine because I'm pretty sure his scoliosis is worse (the doctor will call after Christmas but what I can read on the radiologist's notes makes me think I'm right). Specialists he saw included urology, neurosurgery, physical medicine, orthopedic surgeon, physical therapy, occupational therapy, developmental pediatrics, and more. We also had enough time between doctors to read aloud nearly half of one of Mason's favorite chapter books: Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary.

Saturday Notes:
Grocery shopping happened. The Christmas toy cleanout happened (kids go through their drawer/bin of personal things to clear out clutter, pass things to younger siblings if they have finished with an item, or add things to the donate bag. Some of my kids are paper keepers and so they had a lot of papers to go through and decide what to keep and what to let go of.

Sunday Notes:
A quiet family day with a Christmas service at church.

Monday Notes:
Christmas Eve is here. Makayla and my husband both had to work today. I'm hanging out with the rest of the kids. I'm taking a social media break until the new year starting this afternoon so I wanted to get this post published, as well as one more, which will be up soon!

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 18 - A Half Week and Vomit Everywhere

Saturday and Sunday Notes:
This was Christmas party weekend. We had two Christmas parties to attend as a family which means the kids ate more cookies and candy in two days than should be legal, and loved every minute of it! Joseph got home from a winter campout in time to attend both parties, and on Sunday evening had a Court of Honor where he got 7 merit badges from his summer scout camp work.

I knew going into the week that we would only have three days of school. The other two days were going to be full of doctor and specialist appointments - 13 to be exact. In the end 11 of those appointments were cancelled due to vomit.

Monday Notes:
Kids woke on their own schedules, ate breakfast, and got busy with school work. I sat at the table to help whoever needed me. It was new math lesson day so I taught things like adding doubles, skip counting by 5, using tally marks, and division with remainders. Reading lessons happened with four kids. Makayla and I translated a couple of Latin paragraphs. Emma worked on physical science. It was just a normal Monday morning.

Tuesday Notes:
I think my favorite thing today was reading: kids reading aloud to me, kids reading on their own and telling me about their books, me reading aloud to kids, and people listening to audio books. Winter weather always makes me want to curl up and read and I'm thankful that many of my kids have the same inclination. I'm also thankful for audio books so those who would rather keep their hands busy can still 'read' great books at the same time.

Wednesday Notes:
My morning started with my 3 year old Tobias coming down stairs and throwing up before 7:00am. Never a good way to start the day, but everyone else seemed fine so we just plugged along with our last day of school for the week. That afternoon Emma headed to the orthodontist to get the first half of her braces (upper teeth). When we got home things started going downhill. Kids started throwing up, feeling sick, and laying around with bowls just in case. The average number of times vomit happened per child today was 5, though Tobias escaped with just once and Oliver had the record high of 7. Mason busted almost every blood vessel in his face during his several turns throwing up, so he looks like he has a lot of pink/red freckles now over his entire face. I called and cancelled Mason's 11 doctor appointment that were on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday Notes:
Almost everyone still felt yucky but nobody threw up. That is really the only thing that matters. There was very little done besides manage symptoms and keep people as comfortable as possible. Joseph had an orthodontist appointment and ended up with power chains and bands, so he's joining Emma in the miserable, sore mouth club. Emma turned 13 today, thankfully we celebrated earlier this month because she didn't feel up to any celebrating today.

Friday Notes:
Most were feeling 'not worse' and some even 'a bit better' today. I called for a totally lazy tv day when we discovered new seasons and episodes of various shows, as well as some old favorites. The shows people were most excited about today:

• Doctor Who current season (watching on Amazon) - 2 episodes
• Lego Ninjago season 9 (watching on Amazon Prime) - 2 episodes
• Miraculous (newest season, released today on Netflix) - 13 episodes 

Yes, you can see the one people were most excited about, can't you? We spread those 25 minute Miraculous episodes out over the day. There was much laughing, shrieking, sighing, celebrating, and guessing as we went through the episodes. It was fantastic and I suspect much drawing, story writing, and discussing will result.

Other than a lazy tv day, I fed people when they felt up to eating, did diaper changes, and held a generally fussy Rebekah all.day.long.  

It is Friday evening. I'm beat. Little ones have napped on an off today since they don't feel well. That means they aren't ready for bed even though it is bedtime. I'm hoping they get sleepy soon because I'm ready for bed! Daddy is home and we're tag teaming the rest of the night.

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 17 Notes and Reading

Saturday Notes:
We started the day with Caleb's baptismal service. There were a few hiccups and we actually weren't sure even 15 minutes before the start if we would be cancelling his baptism and rescheduling for another day, but it all worked out and was wonderful! We got a quick family picture and I shared it in my last post but here it is again.

After that we were able to pick up our van from the shop with only a minor car repair bill ($202). Makayla was my partner in crime for grocery shopping this week, in the rain for all 3 stops (Kroger to use a gift card, Aldi for the bulk of our grocery shopping, and Wal  Mart for a few specific items). In the evening we had a fun family home evening and decorated our Christmas tree. With Rebekah being 9 months old and walking we really couldn't use any ornaments  with hooks for her to choke on. Instead we used flower picks and glittery gold tulle. I think my entire family and home will be glittery for the next three months, but the tree was simple and beautiful. The kids love having the tree up!

Sunday Notes:
Today felt like spring in December. The weather was sunny and 60F. Church was great; it was Fast Sunday and testimony meeting. The afternoon at home afterwards was quiet and relaxing with windows open everywhere. In the evening family came by to celebrate Emma's upcoming birthday. She's a huge Marvel fan and her gifts often reflected that.

Monday Notes:
This was the first Monday in over 2 months that did not have a single doctor appointment scheduled. It was glorious! The morning was filled with homeschooling. New math lessons abounded, spelling happened, writing, science, and more. Right after lunch we finished up the day with history. By this point the house smelled delicious from the chili in the crock pot and I baked a pan of cornbread to go along with the soup for our dinner. The rest of the day was family time and projects.

Tuesday Notes:
My morning started with Rebekah waking up at 5am. I convinced her to go back to sleep just in time for Tobias to wake up at 5:30am. At that point I gave up on sleeping. My favorite part of the morning was watching kids help one another with homeschool lessons. Several kids had new writing projects in The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts. Makayla worked on a nature poem a la Emily Dickenson, Joseph wrote about the things he learned about work from a book he read, Daniel wrote the introductory paragraph for an essay on Asia.

In history today we were talking about the Second Continental Congress. We went from room to room finding papers that told some of the events between  1774 and 1776. We found John Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence. We read a letter George Washington wrote to his wife upon being chosen as the commander of the army. We read some of the Declaration of Independence itself.

The afternoon held our weekly piano lessons.

Wednesday Notes:
School, working teen, more school after work, trigonometry that may drive us batty yet, spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and Cub Scouts.

Thursday Notes:
It was a laid back, hang out around the house, do the schooling, and a bit of food shopping kind of day. Nothing exciting, nothing terribly difficult. We tried a new cookie bar recipe that was simple and yummy:

• 1 box cake mix (we used chocolate)
• 2 eggs
• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• Mix it all and  bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes. I did need to add a bit of water to mine when mixing, it was just way too dry. I probably put in 1/2 cup of water. 

Friday Notes:

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again today! It was such a neat experience reading and looking for all the verses that talk about Christ. I wrote my own notes for every single chapter as I went, something I've never done before. I liked it so much I'm going to do the same thing for the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants, starting tomorrow with the New Testament. 

Everyone was enthusiastic for the weekend, which holds two Christmas parties, and got right to work on school. At one point I was helping three kids with math while parsing Latin sentences with Makayla and listening to another child reading from their All About Reading lesson. It's always fun!

The rest of our day includes cousins visiting, Joseph heading out for a winter campout with the Boy Scouts, baking cookie bars for tomorrow's Christmas party, and a family movie. 

All About Reading Update

I have four kids using All About Reading and it's a great example of one reason I love homeschooling. My kids have all learned to read fluently at different ages, from as young as age 3 (picked up chapter  books on their own, no teaching from me) to reaching fluency around age 9/10. So here are the updates on where my current learning to read kids are at.

I realized yesterday that my Fourth grader Oliver, age 9.5, is nearing the end of All About Reading level 3 with only 3 lessons to go. He can read easy chapter books slowly. He just finished the third My Fathers Dragon book and picked up Bunnicula as his next literature book. We looked at the things taught in All About Reading level 4, which we don't own yet, and decided that he would benefit from it. That means I need to order level 4. It's $120 and completely reusable for the younger kids. He will continue reading books for fun outside his AAR materials, but will do the AAR lessons to fill in the gaps for phonograms he has not mastered yet, like ui, ough, and gn. 

My Second grader Caleb, just turned age 8, is in All About Reading level 2. He is not reading fluently at all. He sounds out most words still, but is comprehending the stories as he does. He is on lesson 29 and will just keep moving along at his pace with lots of practice. I have no idea when his fluency will kick in yet. He doesn't have to hurry ahead, we can go at his pace.  

My First grader Mason, age 6/turning 7 next month, hit fluency a month or so ago. He is sounding out few words in his level, reading from books outside of school time, and things are clicking. He is now on the exact same lesson as Caleb, All About Reading level 2 lesson 29, and will pass him up next week. We will fly through the level at his pace. He doesn't have to slow down and wait for others to be ready to move ahead.

My Kindergartener Samuel, age 5, is in All About Reading level 1 lesson 18. He is a wiggly boy who loves the games/activities of All About Reading. He is picking up the phonics at his own pace and would rather play than sit for lessons. I'm able to keep lessons short, sprinkle them through the morning, and emphasize the active reading games he loves. 

These are my 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th children. Each is going at the pace right for them. All of them love books and stories. They read, have people read to them, listen to audio books, and just enjoy it. My goal is to come out the other side of the learning to read journey with kids who love reading and who are adults who still love reading years later. 

Caleb's Baptism Day!

Happy Baptism Day Caleb!