Finding a Routine

We started school officially on August 25th. The kids excitedly got dressed in new clothes, made their beds, and hurried outside for pictures. In fact, they finished their breakfasts and sat at the table for school about 20 minutes earlier than required, because they were so anxious to begin!

Through some experimentation, we have come up with a good routine. Each day, after the kids finish their breakfasts, they come to the school table and open their folders. Hannah and Ben put stickers on their charts for accomplishing three things - making their beds, cleaning their rooms, and getting to the table on time (by 9:00 am). Then, all three kids work on the few worksheets I put in their folders the night before. This allows them to get started whenever they are ready and provides a few minutes for me to get out my materials for the day. Once they finish, they return the work to their folders and put their folders back on the shelf. Becca loves being included in this and actually cries if I do not give her school work to do!

After this, we start our real school day. We begin by reading and discussing a Bible lesson from a wonderful book, entitled Mighty Acts of God by Starr Meade. We pray together, and then we review the calendar and the rules for our school:

1. "Children obey your parents." (Colossians 3:20)
2. "Be kind and compassionate to one another." (Ephesians 4:32)
3. "Do everything without complaining or arguing." (Philippians 2:14)
4. "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." (James 1:19)

From this point on, each day varies. We usually do math, and we alternate science and social studies. We have time outside, art lessons, stories, projects, and we always have a morning snack.

After lunch, Hannah writes in her journal while I put Becca and Ben down for a nap and eat my own lunch. Then, Hannah and I spend the afternoon working one-on-one. Nearly every day, she completes a "Raceway Step" in Sing, Spell, Read, and Write and takes a test on any spelling words she did not already know from the previous day's lesson. Amazingly, she has only needed six spelling words so far this year: cheap, chocolate, which and witch, and whale and wail. She sometimes has free-choice time to work on crafts, do puzzles, or read, and then we end each day with me reading aloud to her from a chapter book. She has completely fallen in love with the book I chose to begin the year - The Wheel on the School by Meindert Dejong. Every day, she begs me to keep reading, and we often do not end our school day until 3:30 or 4:00!

Our routine has worked very well, and the kids like knowing what to expect each day. Our clock chimes each hour, which helps them keep track of the time and measure the day. They all enjoy school days quite a bit, and I try to alternate desk work with more active learning so they do not get bored or worn out.

Additionally, I love school days as well. I enjoy directing their education and seeing them discover new things. I love that my kids can solve for an unknown, explore in-depth science, and read books at their reading level instead of their grade level. And, I especially appreciate that I can study God's Word with them each and every day and watch them mature into independent thinkers and kids with character! Though I am exhausted at the end of the week, I am thankful for the chance I have to educate my own children. The blessings far outweigh any difficulties...

Speaking of Graduations...

As I wrote about Hannah's graduation, I realized that I never mentioned Ben's preschool graduation, which happened last month. I cannot believe that all three of my kids are now old enough for some sort of school - preschool, kindergarten, and first grade! Of course, they have all been learning and "doing school" with me for a long time. Their ages just make it more official.

The preschool graduation was held at a local church. I have always loved that this preschool teaches faith as much as it teaches academics. The kids memorize sight words and learn letter sounds, but they also memorize Bible verses each month as well.

Before the ceremony, all of the kids prayed together on stage with their teacher.

Each child had a turn to display something he or she had learned that year. Some kids said Bible verses, and other kids said the sight words. Because Ben reads so well, he read a Thomas book aloud for everyone, accurately pronouncing words like "miserable."

I am very proud of how he has matured as a reader this year, reading Magic Tree House books as voraciously as Hannah once did.

In spite of his academic skills, however, he remains all boy - full of mischief and wiggles. About halfway through the program, he discovered that he could pull his graduation cap down over his face, and he amused himself with that new skill for quite a while.

As part of the program, each of the kids received a different award, along with their graduation certificates.

Ben, of course, became obsessed with removing the CD from the book he won, and spent the remaining half of the program concentrating on that task.

This year, the graduation had an extra touch of sadness, since the teacher will not continue teaching next year. Hannah and Ben each attended the school for two years, so we have grown to love her and the school very much. As I mentioned before, Ben was all boy and definitely kept his teacher on her toes, but she had a soft place in her heart for him. At the end of the program, Ben read a poem for his teacher, as a way of saying goodbye and thanking her for her love for the students.

Ben loved his teacher very much and will miss her a lot next year. She always loved him and worked well with him, in spite of his occasional ornery attitude and his more-than-occasional wiggles.


My two big kids, preschool graduate and kindergarten graduate...

I am so proud of them, and I look forward to seeing them grow into bright, confident, and godly adults someday. But, they can stay small for a while longer, if that is ok...

B-E-C-C-A

Becca's new favorite skill to practice is spelling. Once she learned all of her consonant and short vowel sounds and figured out how to put them together to sound out words, she quickly discovered that she could turn the skill around and spell words as well.

Last week, I spent an afternoon cleaning out my room, even under my bed, and found a plastic bag full of magnetic letters. I must have hidden them there when we were trying to sell the house and I was attempting to make our kitchen look a little less like an extension of a very disorganized preschool. Anyway, I knew Becca would love the letters, so I brought them downstairs and set them up on the refrigerator. As I suspected, Becca squealed with excitement and began naming and organizing the letters.

Today, as I washed dishes, I noticed her playing with the magnets, and she happily announced, "I wrote your word - M-O-M!" I began asking her if she could write other short-vowel words, occasionally peeking at her to see her progress.
When she finished, I had to take a picture of her work. I can't believe my barely three year old accomplished this without any help from me:
What am I going to do with her next year for preschool, when she can do all of this already?

Holiday Fun

I love Christmas! I revel in the festivities and the lights and the anticipation as much as the kids do, and I delight in the simple and abundant joy that fills the season. We have had plenty of fun in the past couple of weeks.

First, Nana came to visit for a couple of days. "Nana Claus," as we began calling her, filled the tree with presents while Hannah was at school and Ben and Becca were napping. The kids loved having an early Christmas celebration and excitedly unwrapped the special gifts Nana brought for them. Additionally, Nana Claus filled the kids (and us!) with candy and other treats. But, most importantly, she filled our house with love and fun while she visited, and we felt sad to see her leave.

Then, on Monday, Ben had his preschool Christmas field trip to the carousel downtown. Siblings could attend, which greatly pleased Hannah, since her vacation began after school on Friday. We have not ridden the carousel since ballet ended last spring, and I have missed it! Becca's initial wariness of the ride this time surprised me and made me realize that I need to take them more often.

I love seeing their happy faces as they enjoy the ride.

Finally, tonight, we took our first drive of the season to see a lovely lights display at our county fairgrounds.

The display has thousands of lights, and for a few dollars, we drove through the fairgrounds to admire them.

Because we have watched A Charlie Brown Christmas so many times this year, the kids loved the Peanuts display.

But, their favorite part is always the light tunnel, which flashes and changes colors as the cars drive through.

I don't know which I enjoy more - seeing the lights or hearing my kids' excited squeals as we drive past. Fortunately, my parents love the display, too, which gives us a good excuse to go again in a few days when my parents come to visit.

And, really, I think that is why I love Christmas so much. It is a season filled with beauty and joy and abounding with good excuses for merriment and celebration and generosity and fun. In what better way could we celebrate the birthday of the Giver of "every good and perfect gift" than to allow our hearts and our lives to overflow with thankfulness and uncontainable joy? Merry Christmas! It truly is "the most wonderful time of the year."

Preschool Graduation and Field Trip

Hannah and Ben had their last day of preschool on Monday. Instead of regular classes, they had a field trip to Malabar Farm. The kids loved all of the animals - cows, ponies, goats, sheep, rabbits, turkeys, and chickens. In the main barn, kids could pet the animals.

Just outside, they could feed chickens and turkeys. Hannah's favorite animal was a male turkey, who was gobbling and showing off his feathers. A while ago, she wrote a journal about wild turkeys based on a book she had read about them, and she loved that their heads turn red, white, and blue when they are excited. Seeing this turkey made her day:

After this, we walked down to the pond. A frog sat in the cool water:

And we saw raccoon tracks in the soft mud:

We finished the morning by spending some time in the visitors center, which had fun activities for the kids, and a walk through the aviary, where this crow hopped around and entertained the kids:

Later that evening, both classes met at a church for the end-of-the-year program and graduation. Ben was excessively excited. He danced all over the stage, yelled out random embarrassing comments, and made up his own rhythm to the songs they sang. He was wild and rather entertaining. I had to hide my head behind the pew so I could laugh without encouraging his off-the-wall behavior!

Other than that, though, they both did very well. Ben recited his sight words:

Hannah read the book Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, to the audience with good pronunciation and lots of expression. And, she proudly received her diploma.

I cannot believe she will be going into Kindergarten next year...

Getting Their Hands Dirty

The kids had a field trip to a greenhouse planned through their preschool today. Despite the rain, we bundled up in sweatshirts and raincoats and made the long drive to the nursery.

When everyone first arrived, the kids were in constant motion and anxious to get started. Joyce, the wonderful woman who led the group, heard a bird whistling nearby and gestured to the class to calm down a bit. Then, she explained to the children that if they could be still and quiet they could go see a bird nesting in the rocks a short distance away. As the kids nodded, she led them across the parking lot to a place where a killdeer had a tiny nest among the rocks.

The small eggs, nestled in the rocks next to the white water pipe, are light gray with black speckles and blend in so well that most of the kids could not even see them! When the male and female both began squawking at us, we quickly moved the kids over to the greenhouse to begin the tour.

After admiring many beautiful plants and flowers, the kids had the opportunity to plant their own flowers. They each picked a lovely, decorative pastel flower pot and lined up at the planting table to wait for instructions.

Next, they filled their pots with soil.

After making a hole in the soil, they placed a pretty, red begonia into the pot, filled the remaining space with more soil, and patted it down.

The whole class had a great time and learned a bit about plants, too. I think we'll be making a return trip in a couple weeks once we put in our garden, so we can purchase some vegetables as well. I hope the kids will be just as excited to help me with our new garden. Maybe they'll even like weeding...

A Knack for Numbers

On Thursday, I worked with Hannah on learning to tell time. She and Ben already know how to read the time on a digital clock, but neither could read a traditional clock. In her math lessons, Hannah has mastered counting by fives and writing tally marks, so understanding the minutes on a clock came fairly easily to her. Ben, however, began begging me to do some math with him.

When we began this math book, Hannah knew her numbers and shapes, so we did a few practice pages and then skipped ahead to learning about place value. This proved to be quite difficult for her, though. The curriculum we use explains it very clearly, with hands-on activities, and she eventually understood, though not without a few tears along the way.

Anyway, because she skipped so many lessons, I could use those to work a bit with Ben. Just like Hannah, Ben knew all of the introductory lessons. Unlike her, though, he already knows numbers up to 99. I did not teach these to him. He somehow just picked them up from our daily conversations.

We got to the place value chapter and I hesitated. Did I really want to attempt such a frustrating lesson with Ben yet? "Please, mom!" he begged, so I pulled out the "Decimal Street" poster and the ten, units, and hundreds blocks from the kit. I showed him how the numbers worked and how to identify place value. And, it clicked for him... just like that! In about five to ten minutes, he figured out place value and now can read any number up to 999. Crazy, huh?

I am realizing that Ben just seems to have a knack for numbers. Like his dad, he also enjoys taking things apart and figuring out how things work. We are fortunate that he does not have access to any real tools quite yet. One of his favorite presents was a rocket we launched (and promptly lost) in a park near our house.

The kids are so different and uniquely gifted. While Hannah seems very interested in science, she enjoys life science and nature more than Ben. On the other hand, Ben seems more interested in mechanical and engineering science. I cannot wait to see how their interests blossom as they grow older!

Does Ben have "The Knack"?

Springtime Science

Last summer, we raised and released butterflies. This year, with Ben's birthday coming up, I began browsing through an Insect Lore catalog that came in the mail and stumbled across the perfect present. It arrived yesterday.

I quickly removed it from the box and told Ben that it was an early birthday present. "What is it?" Ben asked. Becca excitedly yelled, "Yuck! It's a poop!"

"No," I laughed. "It's a praying mantis egg case." I explained that in a few weeks, one or two hundred tiny praying mantises would emerge from the egg and we would release them in our yard. We already find quite a few in our bushes each spring, so I know this is a good habitat for them, and maybe they will keep pests out of the vegetable garden I am planning.

After the kids oohhhed and ahhhed for a while, they lost interest in the odd-looking brown object, and it currently sits on our mantle waiting for signs of life...

Additionally, as I shopped, I discovered another wonderful project that I remembered fondly from my days as a zoo educator. The catalog sold owl pellet dissection kits, which were somewhat pricey, but it also listed individual owl pellets. Because of my experience with these in the past, I knew I could just buy the pellets and use tweezers and magnifying glasses we already had at home. I ordered two pellets.

My parents recently lent us an old book called Character Sketches, which uses Scripture and animals to teach character qualities. Though it is designed for older children and some of the ideas are a little outdated, it provides a helpful resource for encouraging character in my kids. The first animal in the book happened to be the Great Horned Owl.

When the pellets arrived, I began by reading a bit of the information on owls from the book, and we talked a little about putting others needs ahead of our own convenience, which the owl's nesting habits demonstrate. Then, I told the kids how owls swallow their prey mostly whole but cannot digest the bones and fur. An owl's body creates a lump of bones and fur as it digests the mouse or other animal, and then it spits out the pellet onto the ground. I showed them the small (dried and disinfected) pellets I had purchased. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that removing the tiny bones from the dried pellets was very delicate and tedious work. They watched for a while, and then I finished the job while they played, coming over at various points to look at the different bones I found.

We found a lot of bones in the two pellets, likely from one tiny and two larger rodents.


We found quite a few ribs and vertebrae:


Some leg bones:


And a couple of nice skulls with the teeth:


I had one full skull, but I accidentally stepped on it when I was taking pictures on the porch and Ben kept slamming the door...

Finally, the kids were very excited yesterday because the flowers they planted at the cabin are beginning to sprout. They can't wait until they are big enough to plant outside.


So I guess yesterday was spring science day! We covered insects and their life cycles, owls and their eating habits, and plants and seeds. The kids thought yesterday was just a lot of fun!

A Sweet Adventure

A local farm hosted its annual Maple Syrup Festival this weekend. We missed last year's festival due to snow, so we made a point of attending this year. We knew the kids would love it, and we also needed to buy some more maple syrup, as the gallon we bought two years ago was beginning to run low.

We began the morning by eating pancakes with syrup, and then we headed out to the farm. A tractor drove cart-loads of people from the parking lot to the waiting area down the road. From there, several teams of draft horses pulled people in wagons back into the woods to the place where they made the maple syrup.

All along the road and on all of the paths, metal buckets hung from trees to collect the sap. Many of the buckets were full, with a thin layer of ice across the top because of the freezing nighttime temperatures.

Once we got out of the wagon, we walked through a small trail with a few stations showing the early methods of processing sugar maple sap. At the first station, people wearing period costumes and traditional Native American dress explained how Indians in the region first harvested maple sugar. They collected sap in wooden buckets and poured it into troughs carved into large logs. Then, they heated rocks in a fire and placed those rocks into the sap-filled logs. The hot rocks boiled the water and condensed the syrup, eventually leaving nothing but maple sugar. The Native Americans formed the sugar into cakes and used it on everything until their supply diminished. Unfortunately, this method left a lot of sand in the sugar, which shortened the people's lifespan by wearing down their teeth rapidly.

At the next station, women demonstrated how European settlers later used large kettles to boil down the sap and make syrup.

They needed to stir the sap frequently to prevent it from burning. Many gallons of sap are needed to make a single gallon of maple syrup.

Finally, we entered the "Sugar Shack" where they currently process their maple syrup. Steam filled the room as it evaporated constantly from a large heated vat of sap. In this more modern facility, sap comes directly through tubing that taps into the maple trees, so that people do not have to collect it from buckets every morning.

A man explained the current process of making maple syrup and gave everyone tiny samples of fresh syrup. It tasted wonderful!

After a quick picnic lunch and a stop in another small museum, we purchased some freshly made maple syrup, a piece of maple sugar candy for each of us, and a wonderful smelling maple sugar candle for our house. Once the kids settled into the warm car and the sugar rush began to wear off, they became quite drowsy and literally begged for their beds when we got home! We had a wonderful day, and the kids learned a lot. Hannah and I have already read Little House in the Big Woods together, but I think I will finish off this adventure by reading them all the two chapters from the book that describe how they made maple sugar. Overall, I would say that we had a very sweet adventure!