First Day of School Pics!

 Harriet (3)

 Cowen (9)

 Eli (5)

 Emeline (7)

Miriam (11)

Oskar (18 months)

The first day of school was awesome.  It felt so good to be following a schedule again--even though there were glitches here and there.  I'm still working on training the children in their new chores and helping kids stay on task.  We didn't get to history, but that isn't very surprising.  I figured we wouldn't do the extras until we got into the groove of things.

Today was nice too.  Miriam went to the DaVinci Academy for her day of classes.  I decided to give it a try with the new program but I'm definitely lukewarm.  One foot in, the other foot out.  I wanted a little homeschool $ and this was the last year for Miriam to take classes, so I put her in and kept the other kids out.  We'll see if the money is worth the requirements.

Miriam loved her classes.  The other kids and I lost focus around 10:30 because the weather was so nice.  We headed to the hills for a nice ambling walk on the canal road.  We might have to stick to paved trails though because carrying Oskar when he got tired was not fun.  A stroller might help me get to the end of this pregnancy.  Still, lovely day.

My favorite things that have happened over the past two days: Cowen and Emeline figuring out how to alphabetize and Cowen sitting by Harriet on the couch helping her go over her touch-and-trace alphabet cards.  Harriet wants so much to "do school" and Cowen was so sweet with her.  Loved it.

Funniest thing?  Emeline was trying to find a word in the dictionary for her language arts assignment and kept singing the alphabet song through the letter "o" over and over.  None of us were paying attention until she muttered, "I have got to learn the alphabet."  Then we realized she couldn't remember the rest of the alphabet and we erupted in a massive fit of giggles.  Emeline looked sheepish but appreciated her siblings singing the song repeatedly for her until she found the word in the dictionary.

Good times.

I'll leave you with another pic of Oskar--guaranteed to make you smile.

Everything Feels More Manageable Now

I've decided that for a person who usually muddles along without a "spine" for each subject I'm pretty happy to not muddle this year.  

I was really starting to feel desperate about where to start with the Renaissance (yes, I have a masters degree in history.  Would you care to know about masculinity during WWII, because I could really help you out there).  My sister, Kami, who likes history as much as I do but actually knows about the Renaissance sent me a bunch of links to help me out.  I went to each and every one and started to break down my units into logical sections and assign books to the units.  I was starting to feel better about things.

Then, I skimmed through the library books I already checked out and realized that I had unwittingly found a "spine."  A perfectly AWESOME spine.  It is called The Age of Discovery by Brian and Brenda Williams.  The book is laid out in sections by date and all the important things going on around the world during those years are broken up by geographic region.  There are timelines on the bottom of the pages to further clarify things. For example, on pages 52-53 the date box says, "1770-1789" and the sections are titled: "First fleet to Australia," "Settlement of Australia,""The Maoris of New Zealand," and "Tom Paine--Revolutionary."  

Awesome!!  At a glance I can see what the important topics are, whether or not I feel they are important enough to find an additional book about them, and how they fit together.  I can then skim over the timelines at the bottom of the pages that are in text boxes organized by continent.  It is seriously genius.  Now I don't have to worry that I'm going to leave out something critical from our studies.  It also gives me a way to fill in information without needing a whole book on the subject.  

I'm feeling much more confident!!  It is too bad Eli threw up today because now I'm pumped for school to start on Monday.  If all the kids are sick, we'll postpone.  :)  

As a small sidenote--I apologize to any and all of you who know me in person or who run into me on facebook periodically, or in any other way have to endure me during pregnancy.  This pregnancy has been harder on me emotionally than any other I can remember (the stress of the move? increasing sensitivity to hormonal changes? knowing it is my last one and just running out of grin-and-bear-it? having six other kids?) and I basically don't like anyone right now.  Grumpy is an understatement.  Please don't be offended!  I'll get over it the minute baby is born (or a week later when the hormones have settled a little).  Thank you for bearing with me!

Homeschool Wall Ready

 More organizing!!  Today I finished up last minute changes to our school and work schedules.  I decided Eli was old enough to do the downstairs vacuuming on Saturdays, so I took it off Miriam's chart and put it on his.  I also switched Tuesday and Thursday around since Miriam ended up attending classes on Tuesday when originally I thought she would be attending on Thursday.

The top row is our daily schedules, Monday-Friday.  Below that is our chore chart and scripture reading charts.

 Timothy would love to have cooler walls someday, but in the meantime--I find this set-up very convenient.

 A closer up view of Monday's schedule.  Yellow is play time, green is school, red is chores.

 Tuesday.

 The chore chart.

We set the goal that our children would read the Book of Mormon during the year they are 11 to prepare them for the temple.  Miriam is 11 so we are all helping her reach this goal by reading the Book of Mormon ourselves.  I have the tree chart.  I have a ways to go before our challenge ends on Miriam's 12th birthday.

My wall is in place, my schedule is in place, our boxes are ready.  Now if I only knew how to approach studying the Renaissance!!  Ack!!!

More Getting Ready

After paying a bunch of fines at the Weber County Library, I officially decided I was only using the Davis System.  I can't afford to use the Weber.  That decided, I ordered a bazillion books a few days ago.  Timothy is going to pick them up for me on Monday.  Then I can kick getting ready into high gear!

Although I am painfully slow in the "achieve something" department these days, I do feel quite good about a few to-dos being checked off my list.  The hardest job I finished was going through all the hand-me-down clothes and making every child try on all their clothes.  During the process I kept a scribbler handy to write down each child's needs going into the fall season.  At the end I felt all teary because of the tender mercies of the Lord.  We need almost nothing for the kids compared to what I thought we would need.  There were clothes in the hand-me-down boxes that I don't even remember obtaining but they fit the kids who need them.  It was miraculous.

We told the kids they were getting a new house and new sister for Christmas, but I had some creative present ideas come to me and today at DI I found one of the things I needed for only $6.00.  We're giving the kids dress-up clothes and I got most of them free, including a Matrix looking black coat for Cowen, but I needed something cool for Eli.  In the women's section I found a black leather coat that is perfect.  I expected it to be at least $25 and did an internal happy dance when I saw the sticker!  DI, thank you!!  No, my children have no idea what Matrix is.  Neither do I, but I think my kids will instantly think "spy" when they see the coats, so we're building on that concept.

The day after sorting clothes, I spent six hours (without chocolate!!!!!!!!!) organizing my bedroom/office.  It was brutal and I hated every minute of it but it had to be done and it looks so much better now!  I'm ready to stock my bookshelf with this year's library books and homeschool helps.

Yesterday we went through the kids' homeschool boxes (they no longer have cubbies so we improvised).  We made new cover sheets for their binders with the correct grade (I have a sixth grader this year--how did that happen????) and subjects being studied.  Then I built interest in chemistry and the Renaissance/early modern subjects by having the kids pick pictures about those topics to put on their cover sheets.  We go through this process every year and the kids love it.  We even made Harriet a a binder this year so she wouldn't feel left out.  After looking at the cool images that come up when you search for "chemistry" the children have been deciding what things they are going to learn to make during the coming year.  They feel pretty confident they can make a light-saber or two.  Hmm.

Although there is much left to be done, I feel like progress has been made.  Now my pears just need to be ready to bottle on Monday so I can thoroughly enjoy my two day break with my hubby that I'm taking.  We wanted to fit in a day or two away before the new baby arrived so when my SIL offered to watch the kids we jumped on it.  Two days without kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't wait.

Until then . . . I keep feeling my pears (I have three boxes) and praying that they ripen enough for me to bottle before the get-away.

How are your preparations coming along?

Getting Ready for the New Year

Getting ready for the new school year has been especially difficult this year for several reasons.  One) I hate the library system in Weber County and can't decide whether or not to order my books from Davis and plan on driving once a month to Clearfield, or toughen up and really transition to using a Weber County location.  This dilemma has resulted in my not requesting any books to prepare for the first few units of the new year and so I am much farther behind than normal at this stage.  

Two) I'm still trying to organize the new house.  While this is mostly done, it still feels like I can't cope with anything because I have stacks of books on my desk and boxes around my room, and my husband's piles of antiquated technology that he doesn't use but won't get rid of rounding out the disaster that is my bedroom/office.  I really can't handle clutter--it makes me feel like I am drowning.  

Three) I don't know how to tackle the Renaissance.  I know I want to do a lot with art (but I know nothing about art) and famous people like Leonardo (obviously) but I don't know much about anyone besides Leonardo.  I haven't found any good book lists to put together Miriam's, Cowen's, and Emeline's school reading lists, and I don't know about many good historical fiction books from my own personal collection or personal reading.  Because I'm not sure how to tackle the time period and because I don't have one hundred library books on the subject to browse through, I find it hard to progress to putting together an actual plan of study.

Four) I'm pregnant.  This is really the crux of the problem.  We found out we're having a girl (yay) and I'm thrilled about her and finishing our family and all that good stuff, but I really struggle when I'm pregnant.  I mostly just want to stay in bed and pretend I don't have children.  Accomplishing anything is a huge ordeal.  Thus, I'm waaaaaayyyyy behind.  

Now, you sweet people will tell me that the baby is the lesson and it is fine if we don't do much school.  I agree with you.  However, it is also true that children are happier with a schedule and limited free time.  Another truth is that I feel crummy unless I'm accomplishing something.  Type A and all that.  So for everyone's emotional health, I really do need to force myself to continue moving forward with all my homeschooling, children, and church responsibilities.  

Some of the worst parts of my to-do list have been checked off.  Two days ago I went through every stitch of clothing in the house (excepting the adult sizes) including all the hand-me-down boxes and created a master list of what we need for children this fall.  I hate doing that job, but God is merciful and my list of what we need is much, much shorter than I anticipated.  

I also did all the laundry and made the kids do another deep cleaning of the downstairs.  (One huge drawback to a larger home is that the kids can spread out and wreak more havoc in more places without my noticing.)  I think I even made dinner . . . nope, camping leftovers, but it was tasty.

Yesterday I did make dinner, thank you very much.  I also created a new chore chart and school schedule.  That was important.  Last year I implemented an idea I got from Latter-day Homeschooling and assigned everyone the same chores for a year.  It worked beautifully for us.  It has been a year and a house change and a new chore chart was desperately needed.  Here's what our chart looks like:

2014-2015 School Year Chore Chart

Miriam:

Keep bedroom clean every day

Morning chore: make breakfast Monday-Wednesday and also Friday

Evening chore: Help Eli clean and tidy the downstairs, mop steps by side door

Dish night: Friday

Supper Prep night: Monday

Saturday: vacuum downstairs, mop downstairs, downstairs bathroom, kitchen cupboards up, lawn

Cowen:

Keep bedroom clean every day

Morning chore: tidy bathrooms

Evening chore: dog poo, feed dogs

Dish night: Tuesday

Supper Prep night: Wednesday

Saturday: upstairs bathroom, kitchen cupboards down, lawn

Emeline:

Keep bedroom clean every day

Morning chore: tidy and vacuum upstairs

Evening chore: tidy upstairs

Dish night: Wednesday

Supper Prep: Tuesday

Saturday: dust and vacuum upstairs, water plant, mop dining room

Eli:

Keep bedroom clean every day

Morning chore: feed dogs, tidy downstairs

Evening chore: tidy downstairs

Supper Prep: Thursday

Saturday: dust and tidy downstairs, scrub kitchen sink

If you'll notice, Miriam was assigned cooking breakfast for the year.  That will hopefully solve a pressing school problem: my not taking time to help Cowen and Emeline with their piano practice as much as I should.  With this new schedule, I can help with piano practicing while breakfast is being made, then Miriam can practice while the rest of us do the breakfast dishes and our most important subject (piano) will be done by 10:00 am and I will feel like we accomplished great things and feel more motivated to keep going.  Awesome.

Harriet does do chores, but it is mostly helping pick up books and toys and keeping her room clean.  I might hang up a chore chart with pockets for her to help her remember to brush her teeth and make her bed--things like that.  She'd like that.

Our school schedule isn't very different from last year except for one major change--all three of my oldest kids will be working on language arts.  We've done a little spelling and handwriting in the past, but I don't start actual grammar/writing kinds of things until 3rd grade.  I didn't start Cowen in LA last year because I knew it would be easier to wait and teach him and Emeline at the same time.  So, the schedule needed a LA slot.  I'll tell you more about my LA plans in a different, less lengthy, post, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Here's Tuesday of our schedule.  If my hubby was here he could show me how to make an excel document look nice but I'm just going to cut and paste and hope for the best.

If any of you have any brilliant Renaissance ideas--lay them on me.  I hope your preparations are going much more smoothly than mine!!

	Mom	Miriam	Cowen	Emeline	Eli
7:00 AM
7:30 AM	bath/dress/hair	bath/dress/hair	bath/dress/hair	bath/dress/hair	bath/dress/hair
8:00 AM	:piano	make breakfast	:piano	:computer work	chores
8:30 AM	:piano	make breakfast	:computer work	:piano	chores
9:00 AM	breakfast	breakfast	breakfast	breakfast	breakfast
9:30 AM	chores	:piano	chores	chores	chores
10:00 AM	:Cowen read	:piano	:read	:school reading	play
10:30 AM	:Eli read	:computer work	:Walk with Wilson	:Walk with Wilson	:read
11:00 AM	:Eli piano	:Spanish/French	play	play	:piano/computer
11:30 AM	:grammar/LA	:LA	:LA	:LA	play
12:00 PM	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science
12:30 PM	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science	:history/science
1:00 PM	lunch	lunch	lunch	lunch	lunch
1:30 PM	devotional	devotional	devotional	devotional	devotional
2:00 PM	:scriptures	:scriptures	:scriptures	:scriptures	:scriptures
2:30 PM	:math	:math	:math	play	play
3:00 PM	:math	play	play	:math	:math
3:30 PM		play	play	play	play
4:00 PM		play	play	play	play
4:30 PM		play	Scouts	play	play
5:00 PM		Activity Days	Scouts	play	play
5:30 PM	dinner prep	Activity Days	play	dinner prep	play
6:00 PM	dinner prep	chores	chore	dinner prep	chores
6:30 PM	supper	supper	supper	supper	supper
7:00 PM		bed prep	Dishes	bed prep	bed prep
7:30 PM	bed prep	:school reading	bed	bed	bed
8:00 PM		read in bed	bed	bed	bed
8:30 PM		bed	bed	bed	bed