Aug 23 - Aug 28: Break Week and Life Lessons

Random photo on my phone for
dog appreciation day - no real dogs here
thanks to allergies, but lots of 
stuffed animals.

Monday kicked off with our first day of seminary for the school year. At 6:10am I was surrounded by teens who make the time to show up each morning before school to study the scriptures together. It is so neat to be a part of this! After they headed to school at 7am the rest of my kids started drifting downstairs, ready for our school break. The plan for the week is to rest and do family time. One sad note, my grandmother passed away today. We love her and miss her, but know that she is no longer in pain and are grateful for that. We spent time sharing stories of her life with the kids all week.

In the late afternoon we took most of the kids to the movie theater to watch the new Paw Patrol movie. It was very fun to watch Rebekah experience the movie theater for the first time that she can remember. She was so enthusiastic!

Tuesday morning started with seminary, then breakfast. We opened a new game, The Bears and the Bees, from Grandpa Beck Games. I love that it is easy enough for younger kids to play on some level due to the domino-type matching, but there are enough fun extras based on card type to challenge the whole family. Even better, there are two sets of rules, the family version and the expert version, so you can choose just how challenging the game will be. Between the nine kids the morning was filled with toys, coloring, painting, reading books, chores, writing, art projects, and Lego building. I managed some game playing, reading, bill paying, lesson planning, and dishes. 

Wednesday was hot with a quick thunderstorm mixed in. A couple of my boys wanted to play The Bears and the Bees with me before breakfast, so that is what we did. It is a fun game and the lead changed several times before someone finally won a single round. We filled the day with the usual hubbub of life. A fun note - Joseph cooked scones for dinner, yum! In the evening the older four youth had activities at church.

A slug Emma noticed this week outside.

Thursday morning came dark and early for seminary, but we had a great discussion about the first 20 verses of Doctrine and Covenants section 93. The first request again today from several kids was to play a round of The Bears and the Bees, and Emma joined in so the younger kids took great delight in teaching her how to play. Another round happened in the afternoon with other kids. 

Friday was a hard day for everyone, as we attended the funeral of my grandmother. It was the first viewing and funeral for many of my children. We spent the week talking about what to expect, but there is only so much you can do to prepare. There were tears and smiles and sadness and lots of hugs. The rest of the day we just hunkered down at home to get back to some normal family time and let everyone decompress. 

Saturday we headed to the science center in the big city to explore new and old exhibits. New to us were two exhibits: Animation Academy and Cuba. So many things to see and do! We also spent time in old favorites: Ocean, Nature, Progress (a trip back in time to the 1860s and 1960s), Gadgets, and the Dinosaur museum. It is so fun to see how my children's attention changes as they grow. I still get to see the entire spectrum, from the 3 and 5 year old who dive deep into play with anything hands on, to the older kids who do as much reading and discussing of the exhibits as they do trying the hands on activities. Different kids lingered in different areas. Older kids showed things to younger ones to make sure they didn't miss out on favorites. Younger kids dragged their older buddies along to play in the sand table in Ocean or hoist themselves using pulleys in the Gadget area. As mother to a wide range of ages I get to enjoy all the ages more because of the perspective mothering adults down to a preschooler brings. Sometimes it is chaotic, often it is exhausting, but always it is deeply satisfying. 

Aug 16 - Aug 20: Homeschool Life

A couple of the boys are
working on learning coding.

Another week has come and gone. I wanted to quickly remind readers of a few things:

1. Our weeks are very often repetitive. It's just a fact of this slow growing time we've chosen as we stepped off the education conveyor belt more than 15 years ago. It's the freedom of living a life less driven by other peoples' agendas and schedules. It also can get boring to read about. Check back in when you need a quiet read. Take a break when you don't. 
2. The real reason I keep this blog is to keep a family journal of this precious time we have together. When I look back at the earlier posts in this and an older, private blog, I see the growth, love, learning, and joy of family life. Sometimes I need that as a mom of ten children. I need a way to step back and see the bigger picture, to see the progress that we've made inch by inch over the days and weeks and years, that add up to miles and marathons. 

On to this week's notes!

Monday morning's homeschool was the usual chaos of teaching new math lessons and overseeing many other lessons. We started our continent tour this week officially and begin in the Middle East. What a time to do that, with the events going on in the world right now in Afghanistan and other places. Our goal with this study of middle eastern countries and cultures is to learn to see God's children and learn to love them a little better. I will try to remember to share a separate post each month about the books we've grabbed for each area.

We started our next family read aloud today. It is The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye. 

In the afternoon Mason and I made a trip to pick up a brace he'll wear at night for his scoliosis. It was a rainy 3 hour trip, but we had fun listening to an audio book and talking together. Daddy and the rest of the kids at home had their own quiet afternoon.

Tuesday's slow wander through lessons took all morning. Tobias was one of the first kids up and wanting to do school work, so we sat down and did his language arts and math first. He is five years old, and finally interested in 'doing school'. It is a bit interesting because Tobias has a speech delay. That makes phonics a challenge, but we are working on learning letter sounds, handwriting, etc. He is using The Good and the Beautiful PreK Language Arts first, and will move into K Primer soon. We also have their handwriting books, but the PreK includes some handwriting already. In math, however, he flies. He naturally grasps a lot of the concepts in the curriculum we've started with, so we will take it at his pace and move through faster on easy concepts, and slower on more challenging ones. He is using The Good and the Beautiful Math K and will move into Math 1 later this year. The other kids woke up and did their school work. 

Language Arts and World Geography in progress.

Wednesday was a harder day, with a very distractible and distracting kid who simply didn't stay on task all.morning.long. We finally made it all the way through school work and I was worn out! In the evening the older four had youth activities at church that ranged from hiking to karaoke and bb guns to 3D drafting and printing. 

Thursday was our last day with Makayla. She got a lot of final tasks accomplished while the rest of us did school. Joseph and Emma's Culinary Arts project this week was today. They teamed up to cook a 'Thanksgiving dinner', which meant our house smelled like a roasting turkey all afternoon. Yum! The kids spent a lot of the afternoon playing together in various groupings. Dinosaurs and vehicles are the current toys downstairs, so those featured in a lot of play. The boys have also been Pokemon battling regularly. They play the card game, not online, and have so much fun. 

Friday morning I waved while Makayla drove off to college, and even with it being year three, I cried a bit. She'll hopefully be able to visit for the holidays this winter, but until then everyone will get by with video chats regularly. A little bit before were were going to begin school for the morning Grandma showed up to visit for a bit. We talked and chatted about lots of things, including hard things as a family member nears the transition from mortality to heaven. After soaking in time with my mom, the kids pulled out their school work for the last day of week three. We will actually have our first break week next week, so everyone was excited about that. We generally take a week off every 6 weeks during the school year, but it worked out well to take one a bit earlier this time around. Our next break week will be in early October. Next up is a visit from my sister and a couple of her kids, a perfect way to kick off break!

Aug. 2 - Aug 15: First Two Weeks Back to Homeschool

 First Week of the Homeschool Year

Rebekah gathered a lot of 
supplies when she was ready to 
'read'.

Monday, August 2nd, was pleasantly smooth for a first day back to homeschool. I woke up at 5:40am (no alarm, I'm just an early riser) and spent some time quietly eating, reading my scriptures, and putting away the clean dishes from my cooking/baking session on Sunday. At 7am I woke any kids still sleeping. The first hour of their morning is for waking up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and doing a chore. At 8am everyone begins school, though some kids like to dive right in after breakfast. 

Between 8am and noon lunch time we got all our school work done other than our lunch time read aloud. Basically, I go from child to child helping as needed until 10am, when we do group work. I can't begin to remember the order of lessons, but I'll share the things we accomplished just for fun. 

Math: Rebekah and Tobias worked on counting and Tobias did some adding and subtracting in real life with toys. Samuel learned about Euclid, a mathematician, and some of the ideas he wrote about, then did a game where you roll three dice to create 3 digit numbers and do subtraction problems with them. Mason did a couple review problems of finding perimeter, reviewed how repeated addition, multiplication, arrays, and division relate, and created a chart of problems showing those relations. (Ex: 7+7+7+7=28, drawing an array of 28 dots in 4 rows of 7 dots each, writing 4X7=28, and then writing 28 divided by 7 = 4). He also did a multiplication review game with me called around the world. Caleb did a review of finding a fraction of a number, such as 1/4 of 24 or 3/6 of 18. Oliver worked with adding and subtraction negative numbers. Daniel defined some geometry terms, measured angles, and answered questions based on a diagram. Emma and Joseph's Algebra 2 lesson was a quick review of exponents and fractional exponents. 

Phonics/Handwriting: Tobias practiced writing lowercase 'e', did a flip chart of phonic sounds for the first five letters of the alphabet, and made uppercase and lowercase letters out of playdoh. Rebekah played with playdoh. 

World Geography: The 3 oldest read lesson 1 in Notgrass World Geography, answered 10 review questions, chose a project for the week, and started the project. The younger 6 and I explored two books together: Miss Rumphius and Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth. They also each chose one book from our library shelf to explore a geography topic. 

Ranch School Science: Today I introduced the kids to the Ranch School website by hooking my laptop up to the TV. We browsed the many workshop topics and they chose to begin the Working Dogs workshop. We learned about different kinds of working dogs (service, therapy, police/military, herding, livestock guardian, search and rescue, sled, hunting, water rescue, rat exterminating, truffle sniffing, and entertainment). There were a lot of discussions about what they already knew, what they wanted to know, etc. We answered the quiz questions about our reading. Tomorrow we will pick up with the next part of the workshop, a 30 minute video about working dogs.

ASL: Joseph wants to learn American Sign Language this year. We are still searching for just the right online class. We are looking for something that covers deaf culture and community as well as teaching sign language. There are several possibilities that we are exploring currently. In the mean time, he and I are working through our collection of Signing Time dvds to begin building a large sign vocabulary. (We have more than 26 dvds that we used many years ago with some of our little kids.) 

Lunch Time Read Aloud: We started the book Pie by Sarah Weeks today. It is a fun read and everyone is enjoying it.

Tuesday was day two of the school year. It was the first day for most of the kids language arts curricula from The Good and the Beautiful, so the introduction to a new level for each child. It went well, but a bit longer than things will usually take. Once they get used to how their new level is set up, things go faster. 

The kids were all very in to the Ranch School video on working dogs, which took us to meet and learn about specific dogs and their jobs, letting us watch them in action. We all learned things from this video!

After reading Pie today the kids realized this book will be a mystery. We discussed how mystery authors leave clues in their writing, and kids started guessing what might be significant to the story so far. We also discussed red herrings in literature - misleading, or false, clues. The kids had opinions about which of the clues they suspect to be red herrings. We will see how things develop as we read. The best part - I haven't read this particular book, so I'm guessing right along with them. They loved it so much that they requested we read another chapter over dinner. I happily obliged.

Math and world geography went smoothly today. Nothing really unexpected for week one. As usual, the kids spend 20 minutes reading each day outside of their school work. I thought I would share a quick list of what everyone is currently reading, because it changes often!

• 11th grader is reading Wings of Fire book 2: The Hidden Kingdom. His younger brothers finally convinced him to try one of their favorite series and hearing the conversations between them all makes my mama heart happy.
• 10th grader is reading Dracula. She pulled this one out of a stack of graphic novels we picked up from Usborne books last month. 
• 8th grader is reading Rascal. We read this in book club several years ago, but he doesn't remember much of it. 
• 7th grader is reading Five Kingdoms book 3.
• 5th grader is reading The Impossible Quest. 
• 4th grader is reading The Woodshed Mystery, which is the sixth Boxcar children book. 
• 3rd grader just started the 9th book in The Kingdom of Wrenly book series: The Bard and the Beast. This is a perfect early chapter book series for kids who are intimidated by lots of text on a page. It is highly illustrated.
• Kindergartener is learning his letters, but loves 'reading' our Garfield comics treasury. 
• Preschooler is all about animal stories lately, bringing us Peter Rabbit and others.
• Me! Mama is reading The Ears Have It by Rebecca Connolly, Where the Stars Meet the Sea by Heidi Kimball, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I'm also listening to Dragonwatch book 3: The Master of the Phantom Isle. 
• The boys are also listening to the Upside Down Magic collection at bedtime, alternating with The Mysterious Benedict Society. 

The day had lots of other things in it, as usual. These posts are usually just some highlights. Today, for example, Rebekah, Daniel, and I set up a block city, Oliver helped me by putting frozen rolls out to thaw and rise, several kids built with Lego, one kid was coding on Scratch, we did the usual medical care with Mason, scripture study, and random conversations. 

Wednesday, day three of the school year, started slow and steady, with kids trickling down and moving through the first hour of their morning tasks before school. One fun thing I want to remember for today: I put Oliver, my 7th grader, in charge of a project for the elementary age kids for world geography. The challenge was to help them become familiar with the shape, name, and position of each continent on a map. He pulled out an atlas and construction paper, assigned each kid a continent to draw and cut out, and then they taped up their work on the wall to create a world map. School went pretty well. The four youth had a fireside in the evening. Right as he was going to bed, Caleb told me he 'forgot' to do his language arts today. I reminded him that he uses a checklist and so he didn't forget, he chose not to do the work. The consequence was simple, he would have double lessons tomorrow to complete. He laughed a little and said, "You mean like in Harry Potter when they have double Potions class, it's extra long?" Yep. 

Thursday morning had a bit of chaos as I several kids wanted help at the same time, but we reminded one another that this is normal for the first week back, and that they can always work on something independently while they wait for me to be available. Caleb's 'double Potions' language arts lessons today brought a few tears, as he realized just how much work he had piled up for himself, but he quietly did the work and smiled when he was finished. He also said he never wanted to do double lessons again. He'll be much more likely to follow his daily checklist now, I suspect. 

Today was a pretty typical day with some grumpy attitudes appearing in some kids, as they realized that we really are back to school and will have to do lessons every week. It happens pretty much every year, and I know not to take it personally. There are days I would be just as happy to not teach 20 lessons that day. But the other thing I have learned is that being consistent in the small things each week really adds up over the school year to great results. 

A quick culinary arts note: Wednesday Joseph planned and cooked dinner: chicken tacos, rice, and watermelon. Thursday Emma made dirt dessert. I'm not sure what each one plans to make next, though I heard rumblings of baking fresh bread from Joseph.

Friday we finished out the week with a solid day of school and a family work project - taping off two rooms to paint. 

Saturday morning everyone painted together. My living room and piano room (which are really one big open room to each other) are now monorail silver. 

Week 2 of the homeschool year:

I took zero notes. We simply moved ahead one day at a time doing each day's tasks and then spending afternoons playing, swimming, and doing small projects. 

School went well. Everyone felt a bit more comfortable with their new materials. Ranch School Science this week was focused on survival skills, which was fun to explore. We also voted on the next several science units we will be doing. There are so many options in Ranch School, but the kids narrowed things down to their top three units. 

On Friday we finished our first read aloud of the school year: Pie by Sarah Weeks (Amazon affiliate link). We all enjoyed the book, were all wrong on the solution to the mystery, and had some fantastic conversations along the way. 

Saturday was spent doing a lot of errands. Groceries, library, farmer's market, boot store, and more. 

Sunday we had a great day at church, then spent the evening at a family birthday party.