At the end of the day we usually have a down time after dinner chores and before family worship when I can catch my breath and rally everyone to brush their teeth and if I'm doing really good, floss everyone under 10. But I have had such a hard time remembering to make everyone brush their teeth in the morning after breakfast. It feels like we eat, we clean, and then everyone dissolves away! The boys are outside, the girls are reading, or I don't know! They are gone! And I'm glad because I gotta start laundry or do early prepping for dinner or check email or some other chore. But I wanted to start cultivating the habit of brushing after breakfast. I kept thinking if there was some way to contain all of them until I had made sure to calm down enough to think, then I would remember to make them do it! After considering this problem for weeks I ran an idea passed Tender to see what she thought. She agreed with me and so we tackled it. I put laminated (not really, paper taped over with packaging tape, I don't have a laminator) tables on the wall, one for each of the five older kids. There are three empty boxes for each day of the week. One for AM brushing, one for PM brushing, and one for flossing. So when they believe they are done with their after breakfast chore I tell them to "go to their mark on the wall" and wait. So for instance, The Boy has to clear the table, wipe it, and push the chairs in. When he thinks he is done he goes to his mark. When I walk passed and see him there I know I need to double check his chore. I usually have to send him back to push in chairs or wipe better. When he believes he is done with that, he goes back to his mark again. I'm still moving, checking other people. cleaning breakfast off of babies and so on. So when I happen to see him waiting again, I triple check him. If he is actually done I send him to brush his teeth. When he gets back, he uses a dry erase marker to mark his AM brushing on whatever day it is. Once I make my way over to make sure he has marked it off he is free! And the other four are doing the same at the same time. Typically I assign Tender or Hurricane to help Hulk brush his teeth. We have been trying to implement this habit for the last 4-5 weeks about 3 times a day(not always for brushing but just keeping them together so I can double check them before we leave or after some other chores). It has been exceedingly helpful for my sanity and staying on top of the kids' chores and teeth brushing! Bug turns one in a couple of weeks!! I am terribly sad to see him exiting his first year. He still isn't walking and is pretty little for his age. I think he will put on weight soon the way Hulk did. Hulk is doing well with potty training. We are doing a lot of playing outside and doing learning out there as much as possible! The Boy ate a popsicle and did his math out there just today. We are slowly getting ready for a big trip for Thanksgiving where we are hoping to see all family and some friends too. It's a big undertaking what with finding someone to take care of our three pets, storing up car snacks and drinks as I find them on sale for super cheap, and trying to give the kids an immune system boost (because they always get sick when we travel!). At the moment thing are pretty calm and normal though. God has dealt bountifully with us.
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Well, I haven't posted about what we are doing this school year so I thought I would finally get around to that. First, I have a 7th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, and Kindergartner. Technically, Wild Man would not be in Kindergarten yet if we did public school but that is a part of the freedom of homeschooling. Plus, I figure we will call next year Kindergarten too unless he surprises me and is ready for more 1st grader type of work. Basically the label doesn't matter. As seen in this video! Or more appropriately at the end of the video! My girls laughed so hard. Everyday after I get Hulk and Bug down for their afternoon nap we do our group learning. This entails Bible lessons, scripture memory, History, Geography, Poetry, Literature, Music study, and Art study. Not in that order or everyday. We are working through Micah in Bible right now and memorizing Ephesians 4:29. We read good living books for History everyday. We have mainly been reading African American history books because every other week we attend an AA history class. But we also may read biographies about our composer, artist, or poet that we are studying. We just finished Sounder and are now working on The Boy Who Drew Sheep. It's about Giotto, our current artist. As we learn things that happened in the past we add it to our Book of Centuries to keep track of events. We will probably start back on Beautiful Feet Books come next semester. Geography is map drills where I set a timer for 2 minutes and we see how many states the kids can point to as I say the name. I need to get a good world map for the wall so we can start on countries. Wild Man even does this, by the way. We read poems from our current poet everyday. We are studying Rudyard Kipling right now and are working through his Just So stories, each story ends in a poem. We are studying Joseph Haydn as our composer and listening to his work a few times a week. The kids do not care for it. But it's important for them to be exposed to different types of music and not believe that what they listen to is "normal". That is such a privileged attitude. Once a week I pick one piece of work from our artist, Giotto, and have the kids look at it closely and then put it away and see what they can remember. Our nature study is about once a week of spending a large block of time outside exploring, writing and drawing entries into our nature journal about what we observed and researching things we don't know or understand. Literature is just me reading to them aloud from a good living book. Through out these group endeavors we have independent studies. Each child does Math on their own. The girls do Life of Fred, The Boy does Singapore or something more hands-on. Tender does Language Arts and Chinese a few times a week on her own. Hurricane may be doing a spelling bee so she will require extra spelling studies. The Boy does Reading with me everyday and formal Science once a week. Hmmm, I may be leaving something out. The Boy and Hurricane do copy work for writing and penmanship. Tender writes letters to friends or does a paper based off of some extra reading I've assigned to her. We pull spelling from the editing of her writing. Wild Man does Bible, scripture memory, literature, and nature study with us. He also will usually play some educational games online for about 20 minutes, not everyday. I do not believe in doing formal stuff for kindergarten. Everything a child learns in kindergarten they will learn on their own. What I strive for is providing plenty of free time for outdoor play and independent play and teaching obedience. For some children teaching obedience is a full time job! (ahem..Wild Man)And you can not teach a child formal studies if they won't obey you, so this is essential! Having said that, Wild Man likes doing a math worksheet every now and then because it makes him feel big. And he wants to learn to read so we have started that through informal play. He is no where near writing! I have never seen a child his age that is so bad at guiding a pencil! Ha! He'll get there, he definitely has plenty of opportunities to practice and I doubt he will be 12 and still unable to write his name. ; ) So there you have it! What we are up to this "school" year! A couple weeks ago was the seminary's Fall Festival and we have been counting down the days for months! It is great fun! But very tiring for parents. After the weekend I hit potty training with Hulk. He's doing well! Daddy took over mom duties while I attended a Charlotte Mason conference in Louisville the weekend after that. And then we visited a library that is a part of a huge church here the following week. It is the 8th biggest in the nation, actually. Pretty crazy! But the library was awesome! Robert has been doing school work and yard work. The kids and I have been learning all sorts of fun stuff! I have been reading a lot, as usual. But not much fiction. Since Robert has started seminary he jokes that every new book he is made to read is the best book he's ever read! Ha! So I have a list of books he has recommended to me and then some that I have read because of personal interest. So here are a few that I officially recommend! Gospel Treason by Brad Bigney If you are a christian and serious about killing idols in your life, this is it, y'all! So good, so convicting, so helpful! 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup Not the movie! The book, guys! To be fair, I haven't even seen the movie because I read about some differences between it and the book and couldn't stomach it. But the book was written by the man who lived it. It is so horrible and so wonderful. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth and Olive Gilbert This is the true story of a woman's life born in slavery and later freed. It is greatly grievous and eye opening about the ramifications of slavery even after freedom is legalized while also being God honoring. I have Tender reading a biography about her life. Prodigal God by Timothy Keller I had been meaning to read this one for a couple of years. I can't express how good it is. Suffice it to say that eventually I stopped underlining because I was basically underlining the whole book. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling The kids and I are reading this and it is fantastic! The imagination and use of words almost brought me to tears! The kids and I have read a lot lately but this one is just slightly the best! : ) Okay, we finally hit our "school" work hard this week. We went to the Huber orchard/farm and picked about 100 pounds of apples on Monday! The kids were better at picking them this year. And then that afternoon while the babies napped we did our group learning. Tuesday we went grocery shopping and then drove into Louisville for an African American history class that we will be attending every other tuesday for the nest 12 weeks. Came home, put the babies down for nap and did our group learning, along with some hefty much needed house cleaning. I got sick last weekend and the house fell apart so there has been major cleaning needed done since then. Yesterday we peeled, cored, and sliced 60 apples! 30 for 6 apples pies and 30 for dehydrated apple rings. We are hoping to do that 2 more times in the next couple weeks along with several batches of raw apple sauce. Today we are headed to the Y for me to work out, then grocery shopping, and then back home for our day of structured learning. Tonight I have my Seminary Wives Institute class. I'm trying to get into bed earlier lately because I'm so tired! Bug pushed up his first tooth this week and we are hoping to hit potty training with Hulk next week! EEK! I have lots of pictures to share and I'm sure I've missed sharing several things that have happened lately but I just don't have time to think of them and type them out! |
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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