Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Nine weeks down

This week marks our ninth week of the school year, and things are going pretty well. I thought I'd give a little school update on each of the children.

Matthew is doing very well and just soaks up any info I give him. He's loving his history lessons (that's my boy!) and has enjoyed all of the read-alouds we've done so far. He likes poetry about as much as I do, so it's been fun making fun of some of our poems together. Spelling is usually no problem for him, although he did have his first bad spelling test today. I pointed out to him that he didn't look over his words before taking the test and he agreed that he should probably do that in the future. Some of the language arts info is a little over his head, but we work through it together. Writing assignments are always fun with him since he has such an active imagination. He's enjoying reading chapter books and has found they are not as scary as he originally thought. And he is enjoying his math, although we did hit the first challenging lesson this week. I explained to him that I don't care about him getting the answers right so much as understanding the material. He felt better after my little pep talk. Poor guy, bad spelling test and a bad math test in the same day. Good thing I made cookies :) Overall though, he's doing a splendid job.

Ben has gone from a school hater to a school lover. I really enjoy Core 4/5 and think it's my favorite one so far. I've heard from other parents that they hate the choppiness of the program, but I enjoy reading different stories every day. Ben loves it as well. His handwriting is progressing well. I've decided to take an unschooling approach to handwriting with the boys. I know it may not be as neat as other children their age, especially Matthew, but they enjoy improving on it on their own. So I'm not worried. Ben has picked it up rather quickly. He's also doing extremely well with his reading. We are on lesson 45 of the 100 lessons reading book and he is doing a phonics series called Get Ready for the Code, a primer to the Explode the Code books that Matthew is working through. The combination of the two has been an excellent choice for Ben, as he is reading better and faster than Matthew. We are on track to finish the 100 lesson book by Christmas, which is Ben's goal. He actually WANTS to do a whole lesson every day! He is also in the Primer math book of Math-U-See and finally hit something that has been challenging for him. He's doing well, considering his age, and I just love hearing, "Can I do more math, Mom?" at the end of each school hour.

Schooling them separately has not been easy on me schedule-wise, but it's been the best choice. I'm really learn Ben and his learning style and I love spending individual time with the boys. I think they love it as well! We do occasionally double up on the lessons, especially on Tuesdays when I have Bible study. I do Ben's regular school time and have Matthew work on his phonics and math at the same time.

As for Miss Anna, she is picking up things right and left. She knows all of her colors and most of her shapes, which is pretty surprising since I haven't really worked on them with her at all. She's just picked it up from the family. She even knows a few letters and their sounds. I haven't made up her skill chart for the year yet b/c I'm still trying to figure out what she needs to learn that she hasn't yet! She loves reading books and soaks up any time I can be with her and just read to her.

So we're really enjoying our school year. I look forward to working with the kids each day...far more than I do the housework. I just love the quote: "If the house is a mess at the end of the day, you had a good day homeschooling. If your house is spotless, you had a bad day homeschooling." Let's say we usually have a good day homeschooling!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

A Shattering Incident

I can't believe I haven't posted this story yet! About two weeks ago, Matthew and Ben were running in the living room and Matthew ran into the middle window of our bay window. He leaned over the radiator to stop himself on the window and it shattered. Rob and I were getting supper on the table when we heard the loud crash, followed by shreiking and screaming. We ran in to see broken glass, a fractured window, and a rather upset six-year-old. Rob went to survey the damaged window while I did a head-to-toe on the son. Amazingly, he was fine! I expected to see blood, followed by a trip to the ER, but he was completely unscathed. Freaking out, but otherwise fine. We did notice on the following day that he had bruised his elbow and leg from the impact. We're both so thankful for God's goodness in allowing Matthew to be unharmed from the incident.

Most of the glass flew outside, thankfully, so there wasn't much to clean up inside. Rob handled the clean-up and then taped a board to the empty spot. This would have to happen on the coldest night of fall so far! But, I'll take a cold room over an injured son anyday. Funny though, the board kept the room warmer than the window ever did!

Our landlord came over to check it out and just yesterday was able to fit a new window to the spot. The whole deal only cost us $40. We were expecting the damage to be alot higher. And Matthew has hopefully learned his lesson about running in the house.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Sweetest Day

Well, today is Sweetest Day and while we don't EVER celebrate it we did by coincidence go out on a date today. And again, it was a coupon date! Since my birthday is at the end of the month I've been getting birthday things from various places. I had a birthday card from Hat Creek Candle for a 1/2 off item and a free votive and a free lunch from Berres Brothers. (Both of which have been featured on the Food Network recently). We picked out a butter pecan candle and then went for lunch. I had never eat lunch at BB, but it was quite good!

We hadn't really planned much for the date, so we just had fun inventing places to go. We tried to go to the Octogan House for a tour, but found out that it actually costs something to get in. Rob whipped out his debit card...and they don't take cards. Since we only had enough cash on us for one of us to get in, we just looked around the gift shop and then left. We hit two garage sales looking for Halloween costumes and found nothing, but did remember that we have costumes in all of the kids' sizes. We also ran over to the thrift store to looking for dining room chairs. Ours have broken one by one and we're down to just one that matches the table (and it's on the way out) and four folding chairs, one of which is also ready to go. We did find a lovely table and chairs, but they were out of our price range.

We came home to relieve the sitters and decided to go to the park. There is a park here in town we refer to as the secret park. It's by the river but to get to the park, you drive down a dead end street. The entrance is kind of hidden by some bushes. There's hardly ever anyone there, so it's loads of fun. The boys had a grand time throwing rocks into the river and tromping around on the river bank. We had to make both of them toss their shoes and socks into a box in the trunk b/c of mud. Anna threw a few rocks into the river, but mostly stayed near Daddy.

We ended our evening tonight by watching some home movies, starting with Matthew, age 17mos. and ending with some taken last fall. It was alot of fun, although there were a few surprises. One was the video taken in the hospital when Ben was born and the other was a video of Matthew with Ana Abanes, our friend who died of breast cancer and for whom Anna is named. The kids really enjoyed watching themselves and they were so cute!

And now, for some Wii with the hubs!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

A Story about Abbie

In language arts, Matthew has been learning how to organize his thoughts to write stories. Today's story was about using describing details, so yesterday we filled out a grid with details about Abbie, his grandparents dog. He had to think of things specific to Abbie, not just "she barks, has fur, eats food." Here's what he came up with:

Abbie is Grandma and Grandpa Litwiller's dog. She is not very fast. At least, she is not as fast as Charlie, Uncle Dan and Aunt Kim's dog. She is a little older than Charlie. She lives with my grandparents and doesn't play as much. She has a funny way of eating. She leaves a mess on the ground because she takes her food out of her dish. It's nasty. She is a friendly dog. She is curious about everyone. She sometimes hides if she has had enough. She's mad when Grandma and Grandpa put her in her cage. She's really nice, I like to play wiht her, and I love her.

From Matthew

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Conversations with the Kids

Talking to your kids is always a fun experience, especially when they come up with such interesting ideas. Here are three conversations I've had this week.

While giving Anna a bath....

Me: How are you doing?
Anna: I'm fine. I have a backpack. But it's not up here. It's downstairs taking a nap.

Ben at lunch....

Me: Here's your milk.
Ben: I wish none of the stores sold alcohol. Or milk. Because I REALLY hate milk. There should only be one store that sells milk and it should be a store in Africa.

Matthew at the end of schooltime....

Me: Well, looks like we're doing adding by two's next week. So, what's 200 plus 200?
Matthew: Hmm...well, 2 plus 2 is four, so 200 plus 200 must be 400.
Me: Wow! That's pretty good! You're a smart guy.
Matthew: Thank you, but I'm smart because that's the way God made me.
Me: (tearing up a little) Yes, God did make you smart.
Matthew: He made me pretty strong, too!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Trip to the Firehouse

Today the kids and I joined a homeschool group based in Johnson Creek for a trip to the JC firehouse. I guess the librarian there is very homeschool-friendly and plans all kinds of activites and trips for homeschoolers in the area. We were thrilled to find out about this group...especially the visit to the firehouse!

Last week, our library had a visit from the firemen during story time and we did get to see the trucks...right as they sped off on a call. But this week, the kids were invited to explore every single inch of the firehouse. We started off all in a room (about 25 or so kids with parents) and watched a little video on fire safety. Then the fire chief proceeded to drone on for a lenghty period of time, speaking mainly to the adults and older children about specific things that could have been covered in a nice handout. To their credit, the vast majority of the children politely sat there and listened. Two toddlers got fussy (mine was one of them) but overall the kids did well. THEN we got to go EXPLORING!!

The fire chief told the kids they couldn't possibly hurt anything, so feel free to look over the whole place, open any door you want on the trucks, climb into anything, and have fun! We went outside first and the kids got into a truck and looked all around it. Then we went back into the garage and looked over another truck and a rescue vehicle. We got to see all of the gear hung up and waiting for the firemen as well. I reminded the boys about a Curious George story where he mixes up the firemen's gear and what happened. They had a ball opening every door they could and seeing all of the different things that firemen use.

They also had the child safety house set up and the boys went inside to get a little lecture on what to do in case of a fire in the home. Each session ends with "smoke" entering the little trailer and the kids crawling to safety. My boys were a little chicken, so they exited right before the smoke.

I think the most valuable thing we learned, though, is that there is a great homeschool group nearby. I have so wanted to find SOMEWHERE for us to plug in, and the only thing in town right now is a playgroup that meets on Wednesdays. Not a good day for us, because Anna needs her nap that day if she's going to make it through church that night. But this group is run by a librarian who loves homeschoolers and plans many activities just for them. I'm so excited to find such a fun group! There are two families from our church that attend, so the kids knew a few people when they arrived.

I have posted a couple more pictures on Facebook of our trip, along with our visit to see the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile when it came to town last Friday. And I will GLADLY send your children a weinie whistle if you so desire :)