2018-2019 Homeschool Week 24: Heart Art and a Birthday

Saturday Notes
I drove Makayla to work in the snow and dropped off library returns in the drive thru on the way home before 8:00am. Some roads were clear while others were very snowy and messy, and it was very foggy because the temperature was rising.

One project I worked on today was administering assessments to kids to place them for next year's The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts curriculum. I tested Joseph, Emma, Daniel, Oliver, Caleb, and Mason. I already was pretty sure where the older 3 would be, just the next level up from what they are doing this year, and I was right. I plan to put Oliver into TGTB next year for 5th grade. I really have not decided on Caleb and Mason. They are already using All About Reading, but could possibly switch over. We shall see. I'm looking through the PDF copies of levels they would be in and deciding.

Sunday Notes
I forgot to take any notes today,  but overall it was a typical Sabbath day with family, church, and more family time.

Monday Notes
We had a solid day of school with kids working through their materials cheerfully. In history we had two lessons, my favorite part of the day. For the first lesson we learned about the history of flight, including the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and the Hindenburg airship. Our second lesson gave us a quick description of the Great Depression (1930s) and World War II before landing us in the Cold War. We learned about communism, the Warsaw Pact/Eastern Bloc, NATO, the countries involved in each, the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, and Gail Halvorson (the Candy Bomber).

Tuesday Notes
Today felt like everyone needed me for something, all in the same hour. Makayla and I discussed her literary analysis essay. Joseph, Emma, and I did some experiments related to Newton's First Law of Motion. Daniel and I revisited fractions with all four operations. Oliver and I worked together on long division. Caleb needed guidance doing his reading. Mason and I worked on a drawing from Draw Write Now book 2, which he will then do copywork for during the rest of the week. Samuel wanted to read to me as well. We made it through everyone's work and even baked pumpkin and banana muffins for lunch.

Today's history lesson was part two of our study of the Cold War. Today we talked about China's path in communism, North and South Korea's disputes, propaganda, radio broadcasts, Radio Liberty, Raidio Free Europe, and the attempted rebellions of Hungary and Czechslovakia from the Warsaw Pact.

The kids are enjoying our history lessons, and so am I. We move ahead in time to the Space race tomorrow. I am pretty sure we'll have to do some movie watching in the next week to go along. We will watch Hidden Figures, the first lunar landing footage, and probably Apollo 13.

In the afternoon I pulled out paints and some of my kids helped me make some painted hearts to hang up on our art line. I got this free lesson from Patty Palmer at Deep Space Sparkle here. If you check out her post she has a short video demonstration and a free printable. I spread the pictures out through this post. They were done by kids ranging from age 3 up to 14.

In the evening we pulled out different paint colors and did painted hearts round two. These used blue/green/yellow, with white and silver accents.

Wednesday Notes
A very gray and rainy day greeted us. I printed out the free 90+ page Companion Guide to go with The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart (affiliate link to Amazon) because that is my next non-fiction read. I am excited to really dig in and study this book for a few months. I did decide to attend The Brave Learner Conference in July as my continuing homeschool teacher education for the year. The best part is my sister, who is also a homeschooling mom, is attending with me!

Today is a special day at our house. Rebekah turns 1 year old! She lives up to her middle name - Joy. She is delightful and a precious gift we are grateful to have in our family. I am feeling a bit nostalgic as she is our last baby. That means we have the dubious pleasure of 'lasts' happening. Last 1 year old. I am not quite sure what to do with myself knowing that after nearly two decades we will no longer have a baby in the house. It is exciting, too. I have absolute peace that this is the family God wanted us to have. These children. There were so many years of having babies that we did not feel that peace of 'we're done', and having it now makes moving forward easier.

Homeschooling still happened as usual. Makayla finished a Latin translation with me early in the day. There were math and grammar lessons, writing assignments, brainstorming, spelling, and history. It was a good day's work.

Thursday Notes

Today's school work was a bit scattered. Everyone but Makayla did school work in the morning, before I took Jason to his shoulder surgery check up. Everything is healing fine. 3 more weeks in the sling, starting stretching in PT next week. Recovery will still take months. Hoping to be able to go back to work in May. When we got home from the appointment Makayla got going on her school work, but then had to put some of it off when our internet went down for the early afternoon. It eventually came back on and she finished up. She also decided to start watching the Psychology Crash Course video series.

In the late afternoon I did our last two lessons in The Good and the Beautiful History 1 with the kids. We learned about Ronald Regan, read some of his words, and listened to part of a speech he gave in our audio story. Then we learned about the splintering of the Eastern Bloc communist countries and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. We saw photos and read a story set during that time as well from our illustrated reader. The only assignment left for the kids in history is to write about some things they learned in the last few weeks of history. They will do that next week. Then we are on to some science units for the rest of the school year!

Friday Notes

I had a couple excited teens who woke up and got right to work on school. Joseph and Emma wanted to get work done early because at 11:00am they were going to see The Lego Movie 2 with my husband. They bought their own tickets last week and had been counting down. I dropped them all off at the theater and got home in time for Makayla to head to work. That left me home with the younger 7 kids. We put together this 300 piece dinosaur puzzle. A couple kids had Pokémon card game battles. Daniel helped make lunch.

Now it is early afternoon. Rebekah is napping, the movie goers are not home yet, and I'm going to spend a solid hour reading The Brave Learner and writing in the Companion Guide (that is FREE here). That's as far as I've planned for the day.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in hearing about how our curriculum picks are going this year? I've also considered an update post on how each child's learning is going. Or if you have any questions you want to ask me? Feel free to leave a comment or email me and I'll try to answer them in a post in the near future!

Happy Friday everyone!

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 23: Surgery, Subzero, and Snow

I left off last Friday with a cold house and furnace that wasn't working. We were able to get a repair man in and he put a temporary part in to get us through the weekend so he could order us a new part. Yay for heat in winter!

Mason had his bracing appointment. He got three casts done: left foot/leg, right foot/leg, and a big cast from under his armpits to below his hips. Those will be used to make AFOs (ankle foot orthotics) and a TLSO (thoracic lumbar sacral orthosis, a back brace for scoliosis). We also had measurements done for adjusting Mason's HKAFOs (hip knee ankle foot orthotics), and some more custom parts need made. That means we will have to go back after all these custom braces are made/adjusted for fittings.

Saturday we had light snow on and off all day. The kids did their weekly video game time (30 minutes each, or 40 minutes together if they play with a partner) while Makayla went to work and I ran to the store for zucchini, lettuce, and some rolls. We cleaned the living room thoroughly, including moving furniture to sweep underneath. We changed out toys from the attic as well, so now in a couple bins of the cubicle we have wooden blocks, a few of Rebekah's favorite toys like her doll baby, and toy cars.

In the evening we had our next Come, Follow Me lesson. We reviewed our last lesson and picked up where we left off, with this question: If you met the Savior tomorrow when you were out, who is the first person you would want to go get, to bring to meet Him too? My heart squeezed so much as I listened to the thoughtful answers from my children and husband. These conversations are so precious.

We finished studying John chapter 1. We talked about the men the Savior was gathering early in his ministry, who they would become. We talked about how they were prepared to receive him. A child thoughtfully asked if Jesus ever got married, so we talked about what we know, what we don't know, and that one day we will know in full. Another child asked if the Holy Spirit will ever get a body, because bodies are essential to eternal progress. Heavenly Father has a body. Jesus has a body. We asked what everyone thought, and the consensus was he needs a body too, eventually. So we talked about when that could happen, knowing that right now the Holy Spirit has tasks to fulfill in the plan of salvation. Perhaps after the resurrection/judgement day? Again, one of those, we will learn the answer eventually type of questions.

Sunday we finally got to go to church because there wasn't a snowstorm this weekend, just light snow. Makayla did stay home because she's got this lingering cough that she felt would be a big distraction during services, but everyone else was there. It was so uplifting, even though it is a lot of work corralling so many kids.

This will be a super short week of just two days of school because on Wednesday my husband has his second surgery for the month. This is a shoulder surgery. His knee is healing from the surgery earlier this month. It is a slow process for that one, but going well. We do not know yet what exactly the surgeon will do in his shoulder. They can see some muscle tears on imaging, but won't know how extensive and if his rotator cuff needs repaired until they are in there. Because of the 2 day school week we are being purposeful in what subjects to do on those 2 days.

Monday morning I sat down with each child to decide with them what they were doing for school. My requirements were some language arts for everyone and history for everyone under Makayla. We have 9 lessons left in this year's history curriculum. The conversation with older kids was more of a "what do you feel like you want to do today, other than The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts?". Joseph and Emma decided to finish module 9 of Physical Science. Makayla chose to do the entire week's economics assignments and all her Art History assignments. Daniel chose to do extra literature reading. The other kids don't have TGTB language arts, so they did reading, literature, and then one self-chosen subject. Some chose handwriting. Mason chose math.

At snack time we did history. We did two lessons today. We talked about foreign missionary work in from 1800-1900, read about David Livingstone and several other missionaries, and then talked about missionary work today. Our second lesson focused on two people. First we learned about Charles Darwin, his beliefs and theories, and what to do when science and God's revealed truth don't line up. (The short version - remember that God knows everything but scientists are still learning and one day there will be perfect accord between the two. For now, science is imperfect and man's interpretation of information is too.) Next we learned about steam engines and how they revolutionized factories and the transportation industry for both goods and people, and the man who made the first steam locomotive.

Other things of note: The furnace was officially fixed today with a new part. Also, we did a Come, Follow Me lesson and focused on the Godhead and learning about each of them individually as well as collectively. I am using the printables from RedHeaded Hostess so this was a fun activity. We had a poster with four pockets on it labeled:

• God the Father
• Jesus Christ
• Holy Ghost
• The Godhead

I passed out a stack of tickets with different information. Each person read aloud a ticket and put it in the pocket they thought it went with, or asked for suggestions if they weren't sure. Here are a couple examples:

• He is the author of the Plan of Salvation. (God the Father) 
• He is the ultimate ruler. (God the Father)
• He was the Firstborn. (Jesus Christ)
• He atoned for the sins of all mankind. (Jesus Christ)
• He witnesses of the Father and the Son. (Holy Ghost)
• He reveals and teaches truth. (Holy Ghost)
• They are one in purpose and doctrine. (The Godhead)
• They preside over this world and all of Heavenly Father's creations. (The Godhead) 

Tuesday we focused on writing. Younger children did oral narration with me acting as scribe to capture their words on paper. Middle and older children wrote or typed a page about a history topic of their choice from our recent studies. Daniel chose Paul Revere, Emma chose the benefits and drawbacks of British Colonialism in India, and Joseph chose a survey of four types of government.

Our history lessons today focused on Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War, and the Irish Potato Famine. One thing that we did was talk about what a big difference Florence and her brigade of nurses made to the mortality rate of the hospital they worked at during the war. When Florence arrived 42% of men who arrived at the hospital would die. That is 42 men out of every 100. If our 10 children were the sample, at least 4 of them would die. Two years later the changes Florence Nightingale and her nurses instituted dropped the mortality rate of that hospital to 2%. 2 out of every 100 men died.

Tuesday afternoon Makayla and I took off to do her big Christmas gift. We drove a little over 2 hours north to a theater that was hosting The Lightning Thief musical for one night of its tour. It was a fantastic performance!

Wednesday was shoulder surgery day for my husband. Grandma (my mom) took care of the kids. We got home from the hospital just after 7:00pm. I then was up frequently all night long to take care of Jason, take care of Rebekah, do middle of the night medical care for Mason, etc. Mom life!

Thursday was a slow day mostly at home. I had a quick trip to the store to pick up a few things we needed. Part of my afternoon was spent scanning portfolio items for Makayla and sending them, along with transcripts, to another college. It is the first college to actually ask for a portfolio; the others we've heard from have simply looked at ACT scores and transcripts. Once the process is over I'll share more details about where she applied and what it was like as a homeschooler.

Friday we woke to a level 2 snow emergency and beautiful fluffy snow. We got between 5 and 6 inches of snow and everything looks beautiful and soft.

The temperatures warmed up above zero so the kids got to play in the snow. We  made it all the way to 20F, a change of 60 degrees from the -40F of the two previous days. By next Monday we'll have gained another 30+ degrees and reach the 50s, for a change of 90 degrees. Ohio winter is crazy!

Today we got to take my husband's bandage off from surgery. His shoulder was done laparoscopically, so he has three small incisions and all of them look good so far. His nerve block wore off and the pain is definitely there. They sent him home with this crazy ice bandage/tubing/cooler thing that fastens around his shoulder and is hooked to a cooler with ice water that pumps through the tubing of the bandage and back to the cooler to get cold again. It is a big help in the gap between when his pain catches up to him and the time he can take his next dose of painkillers.

Dinner was ham and green beans in the crock pot, with scalloped potatoes in the oven. After dinner I sat at the table with several sons to do an art project. It's February, so we did a collaborative heart with sharpies. Basically, you draw a small heart in the middle of the paper. Then you pass the paper to the next person, who adds a layer to the heart. That repeats all the way around the table until you run out of room on the paper. I stumbled across the idea originally on The Artful Parent and they have some cute pictures and a video if you want to see what I mean.

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 22: Brr!

Saturday we woke to find the expected snowstorm had shifted and slowed. We kept indoors and drove each other crazy tried to get along in close quarters. I spent some time exploring high school course possibilities with Joseph. One course he has requested is History of Science, which sounds fascinating. I am researching book ideas. I also reached out to the scientists author of our high school science curriculum for suggestions. We got rain all afternoon and into the evening. Then temperatures plummeted and rain turned to ice and snow.

Sunday we woke to our county under a level 2 snow emergency, about 4 inches of snow and ice, and church being cancelled for the second week in a row. I can't remember the last time that has happened! The first question Oliver asked was, "Do we get to do church at home like last week? I liked that." Yes, yes we do.

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup seemed like a cozy lunch so that is what we made, followed by baking cookies. In the afternoon we held home church with singing, blessing and passing the sacrament, and the beginnings of our Come, Follow Me lessons for this week around John chapter 1.

Our Come, Follow Me lessons are simple. Today we read John 1: 1-39 and some of what we talked about:

• Who wrote The Gospel of John? John was one of the twelve Apostles who actually saw, walked, talked, and followed Jesus Christ personally. He was an eyewitness of the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the Transfiguration, in Gethsemane, and at the Crucifixion, as well as seeing and speaking with Christ after his resurrection. He was a fisherman with his brother James and father Zebedee when he first met the Messiah. He was also the author of the Epistles of John and the book of Revelations. 
• What do we learn of Jesus Christ from verses 1-3? He is a member of the Godhead. He was with God in the Premortal existence. He preaches the gospel of his Father. He is the Creator, under the direction of his Father. 
• What is the Joseph Smith Translation and what does the JST of the Bible teach us when we compare the verses? 
• What was John the Baptist's role? What was he doing in this chapter? Who was he teaching and testifying to? 
• What did two of the men John the Baptist testified to do when he pointed out Jesus at Messiah? They started following Jesus down the road and talked with him, asking him to teach them. What happened after that? *** This is where we left off for today, with this question: One of these men goes to get someone and bring them to hear Jesus speak. If you were out walking and met Jesus, who would you want to tell first? Who would you go and get to come meet the Savior?

Right after family prayer at bedtime we took kids out onto the porch for a minute to see the rising full moon. We let them know if it was still a clear sky later we would wake them up to see the total lunar eclipse if they were interested. It ended up being a perfectly clear night so at 11:45pm we woke up the 7 oldest kids (Makayla down through Mason, Samuel, #8, didn't wake up, and we didn't wake Tobias or Rebekah). Everyone put on shoes and coats and we went outside every few minutes to observe the moon. The temperatures were below zero so people came in frequently to warm up. The moon was a beautiful dusky red color and we even did some stargazing, identifying constellations. About an hour later everyone headed back to bed, having seen the total lunar eclipse from a bit before totality to a bit after totality. This morning most of them also saw the full moon one last time as it was setting, nice and bright and not red at all anymore.

Monday started steady and everyone scheduled their week of school work and got after it. There were new math lessons for me to teach, which is always interesting with kids at so many different points in the math spectrum. I have to remind myself who knows what so that my expectations are accurate for each child. Today there were lessons in rounding, estimating, addition, multi-digit subtraction with borrowing, long division with and without estimating, finding the hypotenuse of a triangle when given the length of two sides, or finding a side length when given the length of the hypotenuse and length of the second side, algebraic expressions with substitution, and finally finding the area and perimeter of composite shapes.

About an hour before lunch we revealed to the kids the plan to brave the still very snowy/icy streets and single digit temperatures for a trip to a small local science center/museum/skydome(planetarium). They were excited as it has been more than a year since we visited, before the skydome was even open. Around 1:45pm we all put on coats and loaded into the van.

It turned out to be a perfect day to visit because very few people were there. We got great seats at the skydome and were thrilled when they announced a show about the moon, earth, sun, eclipses, constellations in our current night sky, and Native American legends for all the above. It was the perfect follow up to our late night lunar eclipse viewing! We also explored the science areas on the first floor and the local history museum on the second floor.

On our way out we entered the art gallery for a unique opportunity. The exhibit that is supposed to be up is from NASA but due to the partial government shutdown it has not arrived yet. The museum has set up all sorts of interesting art and craft materials and invited people to make and display their own space related art while we wait for the NASA exhibit. We took the kids in and turned them loose with wax string, tape, paper, modeling clay, markers, string, Styrofoam balls, pipe cleaners, and more. They made planets, a rocket ship, and more. Then they hung or placed their creations on the actual gallery walls and displays, and explored the other creations by patrons. It was so much fun!

Tuesday started out with something that made me super excited. I got a ticket for the Brave Learner Conference! Even better, I'm going with my sister, who also homeschools her kids! It turns out if we just drive down to the conference in the morning and drive home after, instead of staying the night in a hotel, this is the most cost effective conference to attend this year. Originally I had thought I would stay the night and drive home the next day, because I was going alone and not sure I would be up for a several hour drive after a full day conference. But with my sister along driving home will be easy, we can keep each other awake and even share driving duties if we need to.

Tuesday was also our first day back to piano lessons in a month. The kids were excited. I'll be honest, I don't keep track of who is practicing and who is not. That is their responsibility, not mine. They have to want it. I do try to encourage them whenever I hear them practicing, thank them for filling our home with music, etc. And when I get a few free minutes I try to sit down and play around on the piano myself, which always ends with little kids joining me and taking my spot at the piano.

At 3:00pm Emma came to me with the infamous words, "I'm bored." I'll give her some credit, she started looking through craft and art bins for something to do. In the end she wasn't finding anything she wanted to do. I offered up my kitchen and she decided to bake bread to go with our beef stew that is in the crock pot for dinner. Yay!

Wednesday was a no school day for us. We packed everyone up in rain and slushy roads to head to our friends' home for winter poetry teatime. A few people shared poems, we drank hot cocoa, ate treats, and visited. It was wonderful! A day off in the middle of the week is unusual but so relaxing.

One exciting thing that happened today is Makayla got a ticket for a Teen Author Conference happening this March in Utah. She'll be spending a week out west with family and will attend the conference while she is there. It has great classes and speakers, including one of our family's favorite authors, Brandon Mull.

Thursday started early with school work being done before Mason and I headed to physical therapy. I really don't like the rushed feeling of needing to get things done before physical therapy, but there simply isn't a better appointment time available right now. We got home in time to make lunch and then Joseph and Emma had orthodontist appointments. Life is busy.

Thursday evening we realized something was wrong with our furnace. It wasn't turning on - and the forecast for the next week is temperatures down in the teens and below zero with wind chill. Every few hours we can get the furnace to turn on and do a heat cycle, but something is obviously wrong. We're hoping to get a repair man in soon.

Friday is here and we cancelled school last night. We already have a full day with a 5 hour appointment with bracing for Mason and I. We are keeping the house warm with a combination of the occasional furnace cycle working and electric heaters we borrowed. It's going to be a curl up and read or watch movies day. Muffins just came out of the oven and we're going to just enjoy the day and wait for a repairman. Hopefully it is a simple fix and everything is worked out before next Wednesday when my husband has shoulder surgery.

Happy Friday all! 

Homeschool Week 21: Snow and Winter Arrive

Saturday Notes:
We started the weekend off with snow. The forecast was 3-6 inches, which felt jarring after 60 degree weather just three days prior. It started snowing at our house at 8:00am and looked like someone was coating things in powdered sugar - so beautiful! Makayla had work and Emma had a birthday party to go to. The roads were very bad due to snow and so she ended up coming home early with me after about an hour at the party. I also hit the library drive thru to pick up two books and three board games that were in. Does your library offer board games? Ours does, as well as musical instruments and a lot of other things. The games we'll try out this snowy weekend are:

• Gobblet
• Forbidden Desert 
• Codenames

In the afternoon it was still snowing so the kids and I played outside in it. Daddy kept his recovering knee inside along with Rebekah, who only spent a few minutes in the snow and didn't like it at all. Hot cocoa and marshmallows warmed everyone up afterwards. By evening it was still snowing and church was cancelled for the next day. We discovered that Codenames is really fun!

Sunday Notes:
We had a quiet day inside while it snowed more outside. We had church at home today, with singing, blessing and passing the sacrament, and a lesson focused around Matthew 2 and Luke 2. Mason's birthday party was postponed a week due to snow.

Monday Notes:
Beautiful snow outside means a slow, steady morning inside. A few of the kids seem to be fighting off a bit of a cold. We plodded through learning one subject at a time. We also filled out our Homeschool Book Club surveys. I make a survey when it is time to choose a new batch of book and each person in the families that attend get to vote on which books we should read. We have 14 books in the running this time. Everyone puts the books in order from 1 to 14 and the computer takes all the answers and tells us the winners from top to bottom. We know we will read at least the first 6 books. After that we will consider if there are any new books we want in the running or if we want to just continue down our original 14. Here are the books up for consideration:

• All of a Kind Family
• Owls in the Family
• The Chocolate Touch
• Little Lord Fauntleroy
• Caddie Woodlawn
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Little Men
• The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys #1)
• Viking Quest: Raiders from Sea
• Beauty
• Ernest Shackleton
• The Girl Who Drew Butterflies
• Summer of the Monkeys
• Lost on a Mountain in Maine

In the afternoon we learned about Valley Forge and also about the Articles of Confederation. We listened to audio dramatizations and discussed the practical and not so practical aspects of the Articles of Confederation. After this Makayla and I made puppy chow. We didn't have chex cereal so we used cheerios and it worked wonderfully.

Tuesday Notes:
A slow school morning with kids working at their own pace started our day. I spent some focused time with the high school senior on college things. Then I checked the survey to get official results for our book club titles. The #1 pick was Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls, so that is what we are starting this week. I haven't read it in years and am looking forward to a warm summer read during this winter weather!

Wednesday Notes:
Seminary (early morning scripture study for high school kids from church) was cancelled today due to ice coating everything. Makayla let me know at 5:15am and said she planned to sleep in and not to wake her. Everyone else got up and moving between 6:00am and 7:30am, their natural wake up times. We had breakfast and then school began. Joesph, Emma, and I studied velocity in their science text. Samuel and I read Elevator Magic and talked about subtraction, then he did reading and handwriting. Daniel and I discussed a poem and did some language arts together. Joseph and Emma each researched interesting facts about tropical rainforests. Caleb and Oliver did spelling followed by math and reading. Mason started with reading, then math and handwriting. The bigs did language arts independently. Kinetic sand made an appearance all over the table with Tobias, Samuel, and Mason.

During snack time we had our history lesson. Today we learned about 4 types of government and played out scenarios of how those types of government can handle the needs and wants of their citizens. We learned about the pros and cons for different forms of government. We learned about specific rules that govern our country via the constitution and the rights and freedoms that are protected. This was the last lesson in Unit 3 of The Good and the Beautiful History 1. We move on to the 4th and final unit next. Topics unit 4 covers include:

• Queen Victoria and the British Empire
• The Foreign Missionary Movement
• Charles Darwin
• George Stephenson and the Steam Engine
• Florence Nightingale
• The Irish Famine
• The History of Flight
• The Cold War
• The Space Race
• Ronald Regan
• The Fall of Communism

After snack I worked with the older kids on math lessons and listened to a couple kids read aloud to me. Then it was on to lunch prep and reading aloud for the first time from our book club title, Summer of the Monkeys.

In the afternoon I answered a phone call from a college in my role as guidance counselor and emailed off Makayla's transcripts to two colleges. Life feels so weird because more often these college-related to do's are happening right in the middle of feeding the baby and changing diapers. I can still call Rebekah a baby for a couple weeks, right? She isn't 1 year old quite yet.

A view down the track

This evening was my pack's Pinewood Derby. Caleb and Oliver both participated. It was a fun, simple evening with lots of families and friends cheering on the Cub Scouts, trouble shooting when one car stopped rolling down the track, and great sportsmanship by all the scouts.

Thursday Notes:
It feels a bit repetitive to say it was a nice, quiet morning of school, but that is our winter homeschooling reality. Everyone worked, read, and listened to me read Summer of the Monkeys. We also made sure things like our solar lantern were charged because we have more snow and ice in the forecast. Makayla worked during the afternoon while at home we tackled a few random chores, including vacuuming out the couch cushions, tightening screws on the triple bunk beds, and hanging a new shower curtain.

I've spent some time today thinking about what 'continuing education' conference I want to do for my homeschool teacher role. Every other year or so I attend a conference. The last several times that has been the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati. This convention has over 300 classes in a 2 1/2 day period and a vendor hall to browse and shop with more than 140 booths. I enjoy my time there and over the years have been able to attend many interesting classes. I could attend this convention in late April and it is open to all attendees, there is no cap to how many tickets they sell.

This year there is another possibility, one that is unique. Julie Bogart, of Brave Writer fame, is hosting an all day conference in July centered around her soon-to-be-released new book, The Brave Learner. I have followed Julie for years, met her in person, listened to her podcast, watched her FB and IG Live videos, used many of her homeschool materials, and attended a one day seminar she had several years ago for a homeschool group in Cincinnati (I drove the 3 hours down and loved it). For this year's conference all of Julie's presentations are new. That is very exciting to me, as I am familiar with many of the speakers and presentations at the Midwest Homeschool Convention from attended several times. This conference is limited to 300 tickets, which go on sale next week. The drawback to this conference is the price, which is a good deal more than the price of the Midwest Convention. Will it be worth the cost? Knowing Julie's philosophies, almost certainly!

I'm still undecided and praying on it.

Friday Notes:
It was a glorious morning with highly motivated children who worked through school cheerfully. These days are wonderful! We were all busily engaged in school work, along with doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, and keeping track of the little ones. Rebekah is discovering the joy of books and loves sitting on someone's lap to flip pages in a board book. Tobias has been especially interested in building with Legos lately. We met Queen Victoria and learned about her life, reign, and some of the British colonial areas of the 1800s in history. We read more of Summer of the Monkeys and the kids are already hooked. I love good read alouds!

Tonight another snow storm will arrive. Current estimates by the national weather service say to expect 5"-8" of snow and ice. Our plan is to stay snuggled up at home. We will rotate the board games we have downstairs for ones from the attic, and maybe find a movie to watch as a family.

That is a peek at our week. Happy Friday!

Homeschool Week 20: New Beginnings and a Birthday

New beginnings are my happy place, even when I know they are going to be crazy, cranky, and chaotic. Welcome to our first week back to homeschool after Christmas break! Here are my notes for the beginning of our second semester.

Monday Notes:
School was an exercise in patience on my part. There are always children who would rather not get back to school work and decide to be cranky about at least a few of their assignments. I have two usual culprits and today was no different. Both balked at continuing writing assignments they had done research for previously, and both survived the experience.

Until everyone finds their groove our morning school time is chaotic for me. At one point I was helping kids do all of the following - at the same time:

• Translating a story from Latin to English with Makayla. She translates orally and sometimes needs help or corrections. 
• Reading spelling words to Oliver and Caleb from two different levels of All About Spelling. (By Tuesday this was delegated to Daddy, which made these kids happy.)
• Listening to Mason read aloud from All About Reading level 2.
• Overseeing Samuel and Daniel's math, checking problems for Daniel and encouraging Samuel to keep rolling the dice and adding up the dots.

While my husband is home, he had two college classes begin today, so he's busy getting oriented with those. He takes classes from BYU-I online. This semester he has macroeconomics and a communications class.

At 10am the majority of the kids gathered with snack at the table for history. We learned what happened to 12 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as a result of their signing the Declaration. Tomorrow we will talk about some of the principles in the Declaration. 

By lunch time everyone was done with their school work, including the high schooler. It's another reason we love homeschooling - we can dive in and work to be done by lunch some days, or we can take the opposite course and slowly meander through our school work all morning, afternoon, and into the evening. 

Our afternoon was quiet play, reading, games, and more school for Daddy. Dinner was new for us. I made chicken nuggets and dipped the chicken in egg before breading. Today's breading was almond flour and seasonings, no real recipe, just playing around with the ingredients on hand. I baked them in the oven for 30 minutes and paired them with fruit, potatoes baked in the Instant Pot, and roasted cinnamon carrots. Yum!

Tuesday Notes:
We plowed through the morning school work in our big crazy group at the table. History was a hands-on exploration of a few principles from the Declaration of Independence. Mason and I headed to physical therapy today (different day/time than usual) and came home to grandma and grandpa visiting, and they had brought vegetable soup for lunch. It was yummy!

The afternoon was our typical medical care and quiet game time. The rest of the day went on as usual. Dinner was fried polish sausage and rice, or leftovers, depending on preference.

Wednesday Notes:
The stars finally aligned and our friends were able to come visit! Before they arrived at 10am my kids dove through their work, leaving our family history time to do later in the afternoon. I made no-bake cookies to go with salad and pizza for lunch. We had such a good time visiting with our friends and planned a poetry tea time at their house to happen in 2 weeks, with a Valentine's party planned for about 3 weeks after that.

In the afternoon after medical care/game time we gathered at the table to learn about General George Washington during the American Revolution. We had an audio story to listen to first. To keep hands busy we pulled out slime, thinking putty, and coloring books. Then I read from The Big Book of History Stories about a few women and children's contributions during the war.

As soon as history was finished some kids disappeared upstairs, Emma watched the last 30 minutes of Justice League, Oliver and Caleb painted their Pinewood Derby cars, and Mason, Samuel, and Tobias enjoyed painting on paper.

In the evening Makayla and Emma were able to go to the Columbus Ohio Temple. Joseph and Daniel had youth group and were in the kitchen cooking and learning about nutrition.

Thursday Notes:
I gave up on sleep at 5:30am and headed downstairs for my daily exercise. My body just was done sleeping and I hate laying around when there is so much I could be doing. After exercise and a shower Daddy and the minions were up and our day was right into school work. Everyone had scheduled a lighter day today, knowing Daddy had a checkup with the surgeon and Mommy is his chauffer for now. They worked steadily until 10am, then watched Night at the Museum while we were gone. A few last school things were finished after we returned. After lunch the girl cousins arrived to hang out while their brothers were at an appointment, which is always fun.

Later in the afternoon I made a quick library trip to pick up some new poetry books for the poetry tea time later this month. Each child needs to find a poem to share and so I thought new poetry books would be fun. I grabbed our library's newsletter and noticed a class for later in the afternoon about bookbinding for teens, which I mentioned to my teens once I got home. Emma decided it sounded like fun and so back to the library I went. While Emma took the class I sat and read a book in the quiet of the library. It was a nice break for me.

That evening's game with Daniel was just a quick round of Go Fish. We're trying to be consistent at playing a game every day still. We need that simple positive interaction! Makayla decided to apply to another college that has been reaching out to her. She did the application and sent it off.

Friday Notes:
Today Mason is 7 years old and thrilled that it is his birthday.

While he will have a party this weekend, he opened gifts this morning. He has been asking for  a magic kit for several months. His favorite present today was

this Deluxe Magic Kit by Melissa and Doug. (aff) He is working on learning to perform the different tricks and did a small magic show right before lunch for his siblings.

His other two gifts were this Kinetic Sand Dino Dig (aff) and

the Lego Juniors Cars 3 Florida 500 Final Race (aff). I've linked to Amazon and prices change regularly. I got each item for 60% or more off the current prices, thank goodness!
 
In general Friday has been a typical homeschool day other than birthday fun. Everyone finished up their school work for the week. The kids tried to hold or stand on ice cubes for as long as they could, to set the scene for our history reading. We read about the Battle of Trenton and compared some of the tactics George Washington used to battles in the Book of Mormon.

Over lunch we read some fun reverse poetry in the book Mirror, Mirror by Marilyn Singer. I had never heard of reverse poems before! Basically, they are poems that can be read, and then if you read a second time with the lines in reverse order (from bottom to top) they make another poem all together. The illustrations in the book really help kids grasp the difference in the story being told when the poem is reversed.

The rest of our Friday will be family time, a gospel study about Mary and Joseph, dinner, and more family time. For now, I'm off to play Clue with Daniel and any other kids who are interested. 

Homeschool Life: Heading into Second Semester

One of the things I love most about our homeschooling lifestyle is being able to know intimately where my children are in their learning and adjust course according to their needs and goals. The Christmas break is always my mid-year evaluation time. I look at each child's progress in their subjects. Are we on target to meet their goals? Have their goals changed? Where are they in their courses: on time, behind, or ahead? Do we have any life situations or opportunities this semester to work around or add in? Then we plan out our second semester accordingly. Let me share a few current examples so you can see what I mean.

Example 1: Language Arts
When I look at the oldest 4, who are each using a level of The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts this year, I can see exactly how far they are and how many weeks of work they have left for the year. Makayla has 15 weeks left, putting her at finishing at the end of April. Joseph, Emma, and Daniel have 13 weeks left, finishing in mid-April.

Example 2: Latin
Makayla's goal is to finish her current book by the end of the school year. That means she needs to do at least 4 pages per week to finish in the next 18 weeks. She also has the flexibility to do more than that and finish Latin early.

Example 3: History
For all the kids from Joseph down to Samuel we use The Good and the Beautiful History 1. We have 22 lessons left. We can spread those out over the next 18 weeks if we wish. Instead, we're going to focus heavily on history for January and early February and finish it up. The elementary age kids will actually take a break from science during January to make room for more history work.

Example 4: Goals
Joseph and Daniel wanted to work on their handwriting at the beginning of the school year, so they added in a handwriting course each. After a semester of work they both are satisfied with their improvement and are not doing a handwriting course for second semester. Goal met!

Caleb, on the other hand, has not met a personal goal he set for reading fluency - yet. He has committed to doing more reading practice during second semester to help him reach his goal.

Example 5: Life Situations
Semester two brings a few new life situations we're going to be working through. Mason is back in physical therapy weekly, and the available time slot with his therapist is mid-morning on Thursdays. This will impact school lessons on those days a bit. However, our second life situation affects life more while also negating some of the impact of Mason's physical therapy time slot. My husband had knee surgery January 2nd and will have shoulder surgery January 30th. He is off work and home for the next four months. That means even if I'm at an appointment with Mason the homeschooling can go on with Daddy in charge. Of course, it also means we may have a physical therapy schedule at some point for Daddy after his shoulder surgery later this month. We will tackle that if it comes.


I have tried to sit with each child over break to chat about school and their personal goals. We've talked about ways I can support them, or resources they need. One child wanted reminders to practice piano so they asked me to put it on their weekly school assignment sheet. Another asked for a scripture study reminder on their assignment sheet. One wanted to learn more about Alexander Hamilton so we found a biography at the library. One is wanting to learn to cook more things, so they've asked to be invited more often to help when I'm preparing meals.

We get back to school tomorrow. We're crafting new routines for the season we are in and taking it one winter day at a time. If all else fails, I know a good read aloud and some hot cocoa can save just about any day!

Second Week of Christmas Break

Friday Notes:
After I hit publish last Friday on my post Mason's orthopedic surgeon's nurse practitioner called. I was expecting it, but not looking forward to it. Because of Mason's Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and the resulting nerve damage there are many other medical issues that he is likely to deal with in his life. One of those things is Scoliosis. Mason has had a curve for a while, and while it has been stable for some time, it has recently gotten worse. He is at approximately a 30 degree curve right now, which has crossed over the treatment threshold. Treatment at the moment is a custom made hard brace that he will wear when sleeping. Scoliosis can't be reversed or fixed by bracing. It can be slowed, sometimes even held at the current curve indefinitely. If it worsens again then he would move to wearing a brace 23 hours a day. If it worsens a lot the only possible help is spinal surgery. We really don't want that.

At the same time Mason will be getting AFO braces to help stretch his tendons and hold his feet in a neutral position. He will wear these at night as well. We are noticing some tightening of tendons in his ankles and want to head off surgeries for contractures if we can. The risks with any braces Mason wears is skin breakdown. He has extremely sensitive skin that can and does break down easily. Yes, this may sound familiar if you read Mason's blog I kept for several years, because he has had these kinds of braces and surgeries before, and he will have them again (probably more than once). It is just part of his life.

Saturday Notes:
Grocery shopping in the morning while kids did their weekly video game time happened. Then kids spent some of their Christmas money. I also stopped at the library to pick up some books we had ordered. Makayla and Joseph had the Snow Ball (youth dance) that evening while the rest of us stayed home and played board games together.

Sunday Notes:
The last day of 3 hour church went well. (Our church is moving to a 2 hour schedule in the new year.) In the afternoon some grandparents visited and stayed for dinner. Then Daddy had to go to bed at 7pm to be up in the wee hours of the morning for his last day of work for four months.

Monday Notes:
I woke earlier than usual and had by 30 minutes of exercise done before 6:00am. Kids started trickling down from their bedrooms at 5:50am. A normal break week morning commenced with lego building, Pokémon card games, snacks, and playdoh. Rebekah, who woke up at 6am, fell asleep in my arms by 9am. I spent an hour and a half creating schedules for the last 5 units of The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts High School 1. I printed out writing samples from kids' first semester work and added those to their portfolios.

Tuesday Notes:
We took a family trip to COSI, a science center. It was our first time exploring the Power of Poison exhibit, as well as the Hot Wheels exhibit. The Power of Poison was fascinating! So many interesting stories, items, and things to explore. I think my favorite was the giant magic book. As you turned pages the images would appear. There were places to touch that made the pages come alive with stories, pictures of different medicinal and poisonous plants growing and blooming, and more.

We had our first new family gospel study lesson from the Come, Follow Me materials. Our plan is to keep this simple. We gathered around the table and read the parable of the sower. As we went, we made a poster about the different kinds of ground the Savior spoke of and what happened to the seeds in each one. Then we read on to find out what each of those represented, talked about examples, etc. We moved into a discussion of how Joseph is doing at learning Latin (he isn't studying Latin!). It led to our theme: "We are responsible for our own learning." Everyone understood that even though Makayla has been learning Latin for almost 2 years it hasn't helped Joseph learn Latin. She can not learn for him. We have to do our own studying and learning. So what do we want to learn? We want to learn to be more like Jesus Christ. For the next few days the kids are to think about how they would describe Jesus, what he is like, his character, what he does. We'll be talking about it and making plans about how we can learn more about Jesus and learn to be like him.

Wednesday Notes:
Jason had knee surgery on this day. We were gone for about 7 hours and my sister took care of the kids in my absence. The surgery went well and the doctor says it will be about a 3 month recovery process with a lot of lasting swelling to deal with while his microfractured femur (done by the doctor) grows scar cartilage (Jason's cartilage was damaged and some was cut out). Jason is up and walking some, but also doing a lot of elevation and ice on the knee. He's also on strong painkillers for now, to get through the initial swelling of the next few days.

Thursday Notes:
Home life was quiet. We took turns choosing shows to watch and that meant I got to start a new series on Netflix called Tidying Up. This is centered around Marie Kondo, author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I read her book several years ago and while we don't agree about some things, she is a great motivator for decluttering.

Emma baked a root beer cake mid-morning just because she could. Dinner was already going in the crock pot, Hawaiian pulled pork for sandwiches.

In the evening we had another family gospel study lesson. I'm all about simple. Our goal this time was to talk about Jesus Christ, his character, what he does, and what we can do to be like him. I took 30-ish pictures from the Gospel Art Kit we've had for years and laid them face down on the table, a few at each person's place. We went around sharing one of our pictures and what we learn about Jesus from that picture. I took notes on a piece of copy paper with Jesus written at the top. It was so fun to look at the art work, talk about the scriptural events, stories, and parable, and more than that, to hear my children sharing. Here are some examples of picture topics we had:

• Jesus stilling the storm
• The crucifixion
• The parable of the good Samaritan
• Christ as a child working with Joseph
• Jesus as a boy in the temple
• Healing a blind man

You can see the artwork in the Gospel Art Kit free online here. Most of our pictures were pulled from the New Testament section. The images are also free to download. Enjoy!

Friday Notes:

Today I've taken kids aside to update their personal literature lists (books they read independently) for their portfolios. We've talked about school goals for second semester. I'm so excited to get back to school next week! 

Jason is doing well. We took off his bandages today from surgery and things look good, but definitely swollen. 

Five of the boys got haircuts this morning. Now I'm getting ready to take most of the kids over to the church because it is our turn to clean. Member families take turns cleaning the church each week. It is divided into 3 areas and we'll clean one area. Jason and some of the kids will stay home, since Daddy isn't up for walking that much or cleaning. 

Time for me to hit publish and get going! Happy Friday!