snow day

Since I have 2 kids in public school, I'm a slave to the schedule.  Which means, when they close for weather my homeschooled kids don't do any schoolwork.

Last Friday and again today we had school cancelled for the weather.  This throws off my normal groove, even when we're on a winter break from lessons.  I have to completely restructure my day to get things done, and triple the time it takes to do things because of added interruptions for questions and to break up fights.  Ah so goes the life of a mom with a bunch of kids.

I did, however, get to pause long enough for Missa to use my crappy iPhone to take a quick picture of me sporting my latest baby bump.  Enjoy it folks, because I do not like being in front of the camera.  I know it is slightly fuzzy, Preston was trying to climb her so that he could snuggle his "babwit sista" as he'd say (that's toddler for favorite sister if you don't speak this fun language).

Yup, there is totally a baby in there.  Now we wait for the kicking to start, darn that anterior placenta that I'm rocking this time around.  I'm still 5lbs below the weight I started at, but that shouldn't last too much longer now that I'm starting to look like there's a baby in there instead of looking like I ate one too many pieces of pie.

Winter break!

Woohoo!  It is the week of Thanksgiving, which gives me the opportunity to relax a while.  Every year we take off this week until the first Monday in January.  Without the added focus of daily schoolwork, this gives me the opportunity to focus on preparing for the holidays and doing fun little crafts and activities with the kids.  We all welcome this nice long break, and it just gives us all a chance to step back and really enjoy one another as a family without the pressures and expectations of academics thrown into the mix.

During this time, the kids will watch too much television, make lots of messes with art supplies, cook a ton with me, play together, read, get on computers, pretty much anything we come up with.  We also will spend time focusing on life skills like fine-tuning chores that we do, and getting my end of year deep cleaning done (hopefully!).

As for me, well my plan for this time is to create a 6 month plan for January through June.  Since we have a baby coming in May, I need to make sure I have a plan in place to cover potential third trimester bedrest and complications plus time for me to recover from birth and surgery.  I don't want this period to go like it did with my last pregnancy, as we were totally unprepared for the challenges of having me on bedrest for 3 months and the complications that come with pregnancy-induced hypertension.

I'll keep you updated with my plans that are in process.  I have a rough idea what is going to be put into place, but we'll see what it turns into as I write it out for us.

What's happening here

We've had a few things happening here lately.  I'll try not to spend too much time rambling on though, as I have a lot to do today.

First, last week we finally found a new to us vehicle.  We traded in my minivan for a Ford Excursion, it is older and has high high miles (2000 with 163,000 miles on it) but it runs beautifully and is a great fit for our family.  There is enough room for even the new baby coming in the spring.

Isn't it a pretty piece of machinery?  I love driving it, and have gotten a few funny looks from people when they see this short little girl get out of this huge truck (the mirrors are at eye level to me).

Saturday night we took it for our first drive out of town, going to church.  Remember what I said about the extra space this gives us?  Well here's what I mean (I'm later going to move Preston's seat to the 3rd row where the empty spot is so that we can put the baby in the middle row where he is now)

Like I said, a LOT more space, and I got cargo room too so we can go grocery shopping on weekends as a family again.  I can't wait until next payday in 2 weeks so that we can do this (nobody wanted to go over the weekend with me for the short trip so I did it alone).  It also is allowing us to be able to go on a vacation, we're talking about going to the beach next summer at some point (likely when public school starts up again for next school year).

The other fun thing is a pregnancy update.  I had my first ultrasound and labwork done this morning at *yawn* 7am.  This is thankfully only 1 baby, this is a concern we had based on my symptoms and history (I miscarried triplets before having our oldest, and our second had a vanished twin).

As you can see, we have a perfectly formed baby there as far as we can tell.  The little booger is already incredibly active, the tech had trouble taking measurements because he (we'll call it a he until we get a gender, then we'll start using our chosen name, yes we have names already picked and no we aren't sharing until we know who this baby is) was waving, kicking, and bouncing so much all over in there.  We also changed my due date.  Based on my cycle I was due May 25th, and now according to the scan I'm due May 19th. Lydia's birthday is May 10th, and she is not amused by the change in due date.  His heart rate clocked in at 170bpm, which is excellent.  Now I have seen who it is exactly that's made me so sick I can barely function some days.  Zofran is my friend right now.....

That about covers it I think, for now at least.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures I had to go with today's update.

lots happening lately here

It has been a crazy month here in my family.  Lots of fun stuff, I tell ya!

I know not everyone has facebook so I'm going to put all the stuff we've been up to here.

First, we've not found our new van yet.  Every time we think we had, it gets sold before we can make the trip to check it out. *sigh*  Oh well, no big deal as we do have an 8 passenger van at this point and it will work for now with our family.  Eventually we will find the right van for our family, and we already know what we qualify for in a vehicle loan (and what we can afford in a payment) so we have a budget already set.  That makes it a LOT easier for when we do find our new van.

Second, we've had a lot of issues with Lydia.  She's had stomach problems her entire life, but this year has been especially difficult for her.  We've put her on medication for reflux, which has changed twice so far with not a lot of improvement.  We have her on a daily dose of colace to try and manage the bowel issues.  She is just miserable and lives in pain and vomiting regularly (at least 2-3 times a day).  We got a referral to the GI clinic at Nationwide Children's Hospital and she saw the doctor last week, then yesterday went in for an upper GI.  It came back 100% normal, so the doctor ordered blood tests that she went and did today after school.  I should know by the end of the week what the results of the labs are, and she goes back to GI clinic in 3 months (at this point in time, could be sooner depending).  We are also working with a dietician because earlier blood tests showed elevated cholesterol and triglycerides.  Lots has gone on there just with her. *whew*

Third, Lydia and Kimmy started public school in August by their choice and are doing VERY well.  I encourage each child to take ownership of their educations because it isn't something I can do for them, and the two of them felt that it was the best option for this year.  We discussed it several days before enrollment, and they are doing pretty well.  At least, they are doing well when they are there.  Lydia has already missed 5 days for her GI appointments, and Kimmy has missed 2 days for being sick.  I am trying not to worry about it, but if Lydia misses too much work I'll likely discuss moving her to a virtual academy for the remainder of the year while we get all the GI stuff taken care of.

Now, let's finish off with an adorable picture of my little man.  Preston is such a happy proud boy!

(yes his shirt means we're expecting #6.  Please say a prayer for us as this pregnancy is NOT being kind to me so far, I'm so sick Zofran isn't always doing much to help and it is affecting my parenting right now, the home learning kids are on a school break until I can get it under control again)

Upcoming hopeful changes

We've had one minor source of discomfort here as a larger family, which I'm sure many can relate to (no matter how many children you have!).  We do not enjoy going out as a family because my minivan is just a tad cramped for our family of 7 after we add any supplies we may need.

I know this is something almost everyone can relate to at some point, as I've seen many vans and larger SUVs with family stickers on them sporting only 1 or 2 children, or a few even with no children but several "fur babies" that are transported.  There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with having a vehicle larger in seating than what you may fit, and this is a lesson I've learned only after having a 5th child and a dog.

If you are not aware, I am blessed that we own an 8 passenger van.  We purchased the vehicle shortly after learning of my pregnancy with our 4th child, trading in my awesome crew cab pickup truck with suicide doors (I could easily fit our then 5 member family in there).  We've had this van for 6 1/2 years now, and it has served us very well.  It fits us for a quick trip to the store or for an outing to visit family or friends locally, or even a trip to the park or a nearby field trip (such as to the local science and history museum).  However, we are unable to pack it adequately for a day trip with the stroller for my toddler, a cooler for meals and snacks, extra clothes for EVERY person (2 outfits for the toddler!), diapers and wipes, and anything else we may need.  My kids in the third row fight nonstop as I have 3 back there (we removed a 2nd row seat to provide access to the 3rd row) and that causes a great deal of noise and distraction to the driver no matter WHERE we go.

We've made the transition to being a 2 vehicle family for any outing more than 10 minutes away from home whenever possible, just to not hear the fighting.  But this gives us a different set of complaints.  All the kids want to ride with daddy, and none with mommy, so they take turns 2 girls at a time (we only have 1 car seat for Preston at this point and it stays in the van because I refuse to wrestle it on a regular basis).  This is a great solution for the most part, but it results in Scott and I frequently on our cell phones the entire trip to make sure that I know where I'm going, and I feel it reduces the family time a little bit.  I miss being all in one vehicle for outings, but can't STAND the fighting from the back 3 kids hitting each other and ganging up 2 kids on 1 back there and screaming about a sister singing along with the radio, well you get the idea.  I would wear ear plugs if it wasn't a bad idea because of needing to hear emergency vehicle sirens.

I saw this issue coming long before this time, as I started searching for a larger van during my pregnancy with Preston.  This is a big deal to me, as I once told Scott that I would never be one of those moms who drives a minivan.  I pouted for quite a long time when Scott chose to trade my truck in for my minivan instead of getting me the Suburban that I had picked out.  He wouldn't even LOOK at my pick, he just went straight to what is now my van and we test drove it and bought it.  Now, I love having a van instead of the SUV that I wanted originally.

The only way to get a bigger van than what we already have is to buy one of those vans that a lot of people refer to as "church vans."  These vans seat 12-15 passengers and are HUGE.  Of course, we could just buy a retired short bus, but that would probably require us both to have a CDL to drive it.  We do joke often about buying a bus and then have a laugh at the mental image of the horrified reactions from our neighbors who are already trying to run us out of the neighborhood with bogus calls to the city for violations that don't exist.  The neighbors have cooled it once I flipped on the rudest one and raked them both over the fire, and now they approach us with things instead of just calling the city.  Finally.

I have very specific wants for a new van of course.  I want it to be a 15 passenger van, but instead of bench seats I want captain's chairs and lap/shoulder belts in ALL positions for maximum safety in a crash (lap belts I feel are about useless outside of installing a harness car seat).  I don't care about little things like having LATCH, although it would be nice, or the color of the van (which I'd REALLY prefer to not have a white van if possible).  In the past 2 years, I've not found exactly what I'm looking for because of a couple little specifics.  All the pre-owned vans in my area have bench seats and a LOT of lap-only belts, or they are a 12 passenger van that isn't on a 15 body (meaning no cargo space behind the back row of seating).

Until last weekend, that is........

I found a dealership 90 miles away with THREE vans that fit my specifics (minus the fact that they are white, oh well can't win them all!).  These vans have captain's seats in all positions, which modifies it from a 15 passenger to a 14 passenger van.  They have lap/shoulder belts in all seating positions, and are in great condition and at a very affordable price.  I've already made the call to our insurance company to find out what the difference in policy pricing would be, and it is more than affordable with the slight changes I made to our policy in the same call.  All that is left to do is a step that I cannot do, which is to contact the bank to find out about financing the vehicle.  That is a step that Scott needs to do, as all credit that we take out is always in his name as the head of our family.  I need to get together the things that Scott needs to have for the bank, which he will be doing first thing Saturday morning on his way home from work (I want to secure approval before we make the trip to Akron, for obvious reasons).  I am currently in the process of reviewing our budget to make final cuts that will more easily allow us to make the payments on this van, but I don't have too much to do there.

Having a car payment will be an adjustment for us after living payment free for several years now, but I know that we have the budget to make it work and I'm comfortable with taking out a loan until we can pay it WAY down (or completely paid off) in the spring with our tax refund.

Now I already hear the question from you. "Why don't you just wait for the refund to buy the van instead?" Well, I've been looking a little under 2 years for the perfect van for our family, and now that we found it I do not want to pass it up and risk not finding another in the spring.  I would rather take a tight budget for about 6 months to make 100% sure that we don't have to settle for a less ideal vehicle for more money.  The van I found is just over $11,000 for exactly what I want, while comparable vans in my area are $15,000 and up without fitting the specific must-have things that this van does.  The van we are going after at that lovely price is worth close to $18,000 according to KBB, so if I can get it that low I'm going to jump.  It is truly a deal that we are meant to have, as I've prayed for an amazing deal to be granted to us at the perfect timing for our family.

I can't wait to find out what Scott gets worked out at the bank this weekend, and if we are going to go for it definitely.  He knows how much this purchase means to me personally, and has promised to do whatever he can to make it happen.  Here's hoping!

Lapbook vs. notebook

I've been strangely silent, I know.  Life has been a bit crazy here for us.  I was met 2 weeks ago with two of my daughters wanting to attend public school this year, just 4 days before school started, so I had to get them enrolled and then go get school supplies and lunch stuff and open house, bus stop assignment, all that great stuff.  They have been in school a week and a half now, and are doing excellent.  These two thrive in that type of environment, so it was a good decision that they made.  Lydia and Kimmy are quite enjoying their days at school, and have no issues with homework afterward.

Melissa and Jordan, obviously, are still learning at home.  This means that I had to completely rethink my plan for the school year in the subjects we've combined (science and history, geography, social studies).  I no longer can aim my lesson materials at my middle two children and add in for the oldest and youngest of the 4, as my middle 2 are attending school.  So we are changing up the year.  It will go pretty well I think, as I've decided to split the two girls up and let them learn more on their own terms.

Now, on to the real purpose of this post......

One of the things I chose to do with the girls is that they will each have a literature study each month.  I already have September's literature units picked out for the two.  Jordan will do American Tall Tales, using the Evan-Moor literature pockets set of tall tales.  Melissa will do a literature study on the book "Island of the Blue Dolphins" this month.  It is Melissa's study that I need a little help with.

I have already purchased the Kindle version of the book and loaded it on both Kindles that we own.  I also obtained the unit study from Hands of A Child last year when they offered it as a freebie.  I have both the lapbooking set and the notebooking set.  Currently, I am sitting here trying to decide which set I should assign to Melissa to do for this study.  She has done both lapbooks and notebooking but has no preference of one over the other, so she has no opinion on which to assign to her.

For those of you who read my blog but do not know what lapbooking or notebooking is (yes I know who you are!), a lapbook is pretty much taking a couple file folders and refolding them and gluing them together to make a book of sorts.  Inside you glue little paper minibook flap things, wheels, pockets for cards, stuff like that with information you write on/in them.  It is pretty cool, we've really enjoyed making them in the past as the kids were younger.  If you dig through my blog I'm sure you will find pictures of what we've done for lapbooks in the past.

Notebooking is a bit different.  Instead of having a little flap book or something like that to write the info on, you have a journal paper type page and you write down the stuff and there may be an area to draw out illustrations or glue pictures you find and cut out.  You can punch the pages and put into a 3 ring binder, or store in a folder, or just about anything (including spiral binding to store like a book).

I'm weighing the ups and downs of both choices still.  With both options, there are a LOT of templates to choose from and different ways to layout the material.  With notebooking, you can do some pages laid out like a newspaper with different "articles" written about the characters or the locations, events, things like that.  You can do a similar page with a lapbook, then just fold it up and put in a pocket glued into the file folder to store it (label the pocket though so you know what is in it!).  Both allow you do have many different aspects to your project.  The biggest difference I can think of is the space for each thing.  A lapbook, you are limited to the size of the mini-book for how much you can write so it is important to choose the templates carefully for each piece you want to add.  With a notebook, you can write as much or as little as you want on the page.  That makes for a pro to notebooking and con for lapbooking.  But, to flip it a notebook feels so plain and kind of dull and lacking creativity in design, while a lapbook you can add clip art, arrange the mini-books however you want, print them on multiple colors of paper if desired (instead of all on white), pretty much the sky is the limit.

Another big thing I need to factor with Missa is the fact that she is both dyslexic AND left-handed, so her handwriting can be difficult to read at times.  Notebooking would allow her more room for her writing and more practice of writing as she writes longer passages, but a lapbook may be better because it will limit the amount of writing so she can focus more on neat penmanship and proper spelling.

I also need to take into consideration that this particular literature unit is listed for grades 4-8 and she's in 5th grade.  She is at the lower end of the range based on her particular abilities, as she is about a year behind in reading and writing skills.  The unit is written as a 10 day project, but is assigned for the entire month so she can work at her speed on it.  If it takes longer than a month to finish, that is fine as I will just assign the next unit when she finishes this one.  If it takes less time, then she can come up with a creative project (art related most likely) related to her literature unit to fill in the rest of the month until her next unit.

So now I turn to those who read my blog.  Should I assign the lapbook or the notebook to Missa for this month?  With the holiday on Monday, I don't have to print off anything until Monday night so she can start it on Tuesday.

Bible 2013-14 school year

This is a subject I don't talk about too much, and there is a good reason for that.  I am an ordained pastor, and my husband is Agnostic.  He and I do not agree on the whole religion thing, and I typically don't push it.  However, this year I am going to be doing bible lessons and daily prayer.  Here's what I'm *thinking* I will do for this.

I have a lot of wonderful books thanks to using Sonlight for a few years.  I have been exposed to books that I would have never picked up typically for our children, and in a very good way.  I have a growing collection of books of missionary stories, Christian heroes in history, and devotions type books.  My plan this year is to pull from that collection of books and have fun with it.

One book I have is called "Window on the World."  I got this book to go with core B+C a couple years ago (when I expanded our core B to B+C) but we never really got into it.  I'm going to make some notes this upcoming week and read through it so that I know what I'm going to be doing with it really, since I don't know much about it.  What I do know, at this point, is that this book talks about how people in other countries live and and believe, with some details for how we can pray for these people.  It is probably more of a geography book than anything, but will still be fun to add as we learn about and pray for other cultures.  I plan to put up a world map so that we can mark each country as we pray for it.  I will be lining this book up to go with the other bible materials I'm going to be using.

The main part of my bible studies for right now is a book called "Hero Tales."  This book focuses on Christian heroes in history and came with our core A (the core has since been redesigned and this book was removed from the program, sadly).  This is one of a 3 or 4 book series, but I'm just going to do this one book for now.  There are 15 Christian heroes in this book, including Gladys Aylward, Martin Luther, and Harriet Tubman to name just a few.  There are two stories for each hero, and a couple pages of basic information to go with it.  I will focus on a hero each week, reading one of the 3 sections to the kids out loud.  There is also a list of character traits in the back, which I will use with the studies for discussion points as they come up.

The first 15 weeks of bible study will look like this (as an example)

Gladys Aylward 3 sections- 3 days
China reading from Window- 1 day
Missionary story- 1 day

I have a couple books with missionary stories as well that I'll incorporate on a 5 day week (the weeks with 4 days or fewer I'll skip the missionary story for the week).   This particular part will be aimed at Missa, with Jordan permitted to not listen because some of the stories being a bit intense.  A couple stories involve a bear attack, being shot, and other violent acts that she may not be able to process quite yet.  I also have some fun picture books with stories that I can read to her when the missionary story of the week may be too rough.  Those books are light and fun but still teach the wonderful way God loves us.

Once we finish the Hero Tales book I have here, I'll decide if I want to purchase another one in the series or if we'll move on to focus mainly on character traits or something like that.  I have 15 weeks of this study plan, with a week to prepare beforehand, and that should get me covered with bible until right around Christmas, when I'll pick up and do a study on the birth of Jesus.  After that I will likely spend some time doing a study on the life of Jesus, or I may do something completely different.  I find that it really is best to not plan too far in advance with things like this.  If I set a whole series of "ok study this and then this and that and the other" to cover a year or longer, I tend to get discouraged and burn out.  However, a 15 week study plan goal like this one should be fairly easy to keep up with and finish.  I'm looking forward to seeing how we do with it.

My log book in detail

In yesterday's post, I talked about my log book where I keep track of everything that the kids do.  I only showed one broad picture that shows the 2 page weekly planner there, and I thought I may get a little more detailed on it so you can really see how this works for our family.  Please remember, this is my first year of trying it this way instead of making a ton of plans ahead of time and then falling short daily on everything.

First, I'm not going to show an outside shot because there is no cute cover page, yet.  I've not figured out how to create one and lacked the time to do so.  If time allows, I'll create something simple to use as a cover page.  My binder is a standard white 1" binder with clear outer pockets for covers and spine labeling.  You can get one for under $1.50 at your local big box store, any brand will do really.  This binder I've used EVERY year as a lesson planner even when we had a prepackaged curriculum with all the planning done for me (I'd spend hours transferring all my planned curricula pages into a planner in this binder so I didn't have 5 or more binders and teacher guides laying all over the place).  This is the 6th year that my binder has been my lessons slave in this manner.

Now when you open it up, you first see my approval letters in the inside pocket.  I have an excuse letter for each of the 4 girls to homeschool this school year, and when Preston is 6 I'll have his letter there each year as well.  The first page is this:

This is my year calendar, where I mark school breaks and scheduled days off (or unplanned ones).  I use this as my "academic calendar" like the public schools have.  At this point I've not marked any days off scheduled, but I can tell you that as soon as I get another highlighter (someone ran off with mine again) I have a 6 week "winter break" from Thanksgiving until New Year to mark in there (I always take the craziest time of year off for my own sanity, Christmas gifts and cooking and cleaning just means no intentional learning will happen though my planner section will still happen).  When Scott gets his scheduled time off for next year, I will also mark that on this calendar (we always take his vacation time as time off from intentional learning as well).

The next section is my monthly calendars.

This happens to be my August calendar.  As you can see, I have a couple written notes on the lined top half.  This area is where I put details for certain days.  The day listed here happens to be the first day of public school.  I have listed there that school starts that day, with my plans for making the day special here at home with cinnamon rolls for breakfast (and chocolate milk with silly straws), a trip to the zoo to spend the day without a huge crowd, and the girls' favorite supper (pizzas, likely homemade with a topping bar so they can each make their own pizzas).  On the calendar I have little check marks for days we've done any kind of logged learning, sort of my way to keep attendance.  I'm required to provide a set number of hours of instruction each school year, and this just makes it a little easier because I can automatically say "oh 4 hours on this day" when there is a check mark.  Most of our days have MUCH more than just 4 hours of learning in them, but it gives me a good base number to go with.  Behind each calendar, I will have a writing sample from each girl (yes each month they will be expected to write something monthly so I can show how they progress through the year, my plan is to have them copy a short poem or bible verse each month for this)

The last section, which is my BIG one here, is my weekly planner pages.

As you can tell, it is just a basic 2 page weekly layout.  The days of the week are down the left side, with subjects listed across the top.  Shown is this week's page, including the help from Preston yesterday in filling it in when I was tinkering with our Wii to try and get it working after it took a tumble off the tv stand.  This is where I log all intentional learning we do, and the life learning as I catch it happening.

 This is the left page, as you can see 3 of the girls did some math worksheets yesterday.  I haven't put in the math practice I did with Jordan yet, but she did some practicing with the tape measure and we worked a little with a plastic learning clock.  We also didn't do any kind of history or social studies, but that is ok because I didn't have any plans for that at this point.  I think we'll read some American Girl books to cover that here as soon as I can get to the library again for a few.

This page is where I keep track of art, music, physical activity, books that I catch them reading, and chores we work on together.  We had a pretty slow day on this side of the paper, as they spent most of their time reading and not so much being active or helping with the household tasks.  I expect this page to vary in content based on moods, weather, and stuff like that.

I have a LOT of the pages for that section of my binder, and I'll likely end up printing off more as the year progresses I bet.  I only have somewhere in the range of 40 weeks of pages here.

I've considered adding some lined paper and unlined paper behind the weekly pages so that I can journal and doodle about things, or for the kids to make a note or picture about something, but I'm not sure I want to do that yet.

The very last thing in my binder is a copy of my notification forms for this school year, including my outline and supplies list that I provided to the district (for informational purposes only, per state law) and the results of the girls' standardized testing that I did over the summer (this year we chose testing instead of a portfolio review).  You may ask why I have these things in my binder, along with my excuse letters for this year, and the answer is simple.  I've had a few visits from CPS in my first couple years of home educating, mainly because a family member felt we were doing wrong and was trying to bully us into using the public school system by using government offices to intimidate us.  I just like to be a little OVER prepared in case something like that happens again.  This is why I keep a log of everything we do as we do it and I keep attendance, and have these forms readily available at a moment's notice.  I can meet CPS at the door and tell them to hold on, grab my binder, then step on the porch (not letting them have access to my home) and show them all the great things we've done so far in the school year and that I am indeed legal in my paperwork before I send them off on their way.  I could join a group like HSLDA but I see no need.  I'm fairly well educated in the laws and what they can and cannot do thanks to growing up in a very political family (my grandfather was a politician and attorney, I got this covered).

Our schooling area 2013-14

Time for another post for the iHomeschool Network's "NOT back to school" blog hop!  If you missed it, last week I posted about our curriculum.  This time, we are talking all things about where we do our lessons and how we organize things for School Room Week.

I don't actually have a "school room" or even a specific area we learn at.  I do lessons where and when we feel inspired.  Usually, we do seat work at the dining table.

In case you cannot tell, that table will easily seat 10.  I like having a little extra space to spread out if we need it, so when we do written work or most of our projects and crafts, this table is where we do it if we aren't out in the yard working (in which case I'll set up a sheet of 4x12 plywood to work if we need a workspace).

The rest of our work is done on a bed, a sofa, the floor, or even up in a tree (yes, I've had kids up a tree last week, reading or drawing).  The world is our workspace typically.

The exception to this is reading aloud to them.  I have hip problems, so I require a nice comfy seat while I read.  The typical setup for that is me lounging on one of our loveseats to read (be it textbook, novel, Kindle, whatever) and the kids sprawled out on the floor, perhaps with pillows and/or blankets.  I also will read with us all snuggled up on my bed or on one bed in the kids' bedroom (one of the two bunks we have in there is a twin over full, we'll pile onto the full)

As for organization, well I've done EVERYTHING already.  We've done strict schedules and schooling times (using Managers of Their Homes, wonderful book by the way!), routines with just an order to things, and checklists for lessons and chores to get things done.  I've scheduled out detailed lesson plans in the past to follow.  I found that for our family, none of those things work for me.  So, I'd like to introduce you to my new best friend, my homeschool binder.

This is my weekly page.  I use a basic two page weekly planner layout from the Donna Young web site.  I printed off about 45 or so double-sided that I keep track of what we do each day as we go through the day.  When we do an intentional lesson I write it down in the right subject.  Any math pages the girls do I log with that kid's first initial (remember, ALL my children have a different first initial, we did this intentionally just for this purpose).  If a girl reads from a book and I catch her, I write it down under "Reading" but I only log the FIRST book I catch her reading that day.  Any time I catch someone doing something academic in nature, like watching anything educational or playing a math game or doing a dance game on the Wii even, I list it where it belongs.  I even have a column for chores and tasks we need to do.

In this binder, I also have, as my first page, a full year calendar covering July 2013 to June 2014.  Behind that, I have individual monthly calendars where I can keep track of appointments, days Scott has off work, holidays, and planned field trips.  My plan with the monthly calendars is that behind each month one I will keep a writing sample for each kid.  Yes I will be putting one thing each month in this binder for EACH girl (and the boy as he starts to learn drawing shapes and such).  My calendar pages (the year one AND month ones) are also from the Donna Young site, I like free things.  I also have a printed copy of my notification form and outline plus last spring's test scores in one pocket, and my excuse letters from the district for this school year in another pocket.  I do not keep "grades" so there is no grade sheet for me to record grades.  You are lucky if I remember to put a check mark in the monthly calendar on days we actually TRY to do something intentional.

There you have it.  Relaxed at its best.  We are obviously transitioning to a radical unschooling lifestyle, but I will never get rid of the log book I've created if this setup works for us like I think it will.

New family pet

In April our sweet dog, Tinkerbell, died following a 2 week illness that she just couldn't recover from.  Today, we went to the county animal shelter and looked at a few dogs.  We walked 4, and brought 1 home.

We named him Terrance.  The shelter took this picture of us all with him, and I love that we have a new member of our family.  Missa will be doing 4H with him this year once I contact a friend's mother to get a few details I need (she runs a dogs club).

I will never purchase a dog from a breeder or pet store, there are just too many in the local shelter that need adopted or rescued (our shelter is a kill shelter).  Every pet we adopt from the shelter is just one more life spared and touched by God's grace for all His creations.  I love that we have the ability to save a pet from being killed like this, every pet we've ever gotten from the shelter in my lifetime (this one is the second one for my family, plus I've had 5 cats and 3 other dogs from the shelter in my youth) has been a wonderful pet.

I can't wait until Terrance adjusts completely to our family and shows off his full personality.  He's a pug/beagle mix, which I have heard is referred to as a "Puggle."

21013-14 Curriculum in detail

It is time for the iHomeschool Network "NOT back to school blog hop" and after seeing others do it for a few years I've decided to join in this year as well.  So, I'm going to start with a quick welcome to the blog hoppers and a brief introduction to my family so that you can see what we work with.

This is me, Cat, and my husband, Scott.  This was taken 2 years ago, but we look pretty much the same.  We've been together for 11 years now, and married 9 1/2 years.  Don't let the picture fool you, he's a head taller than me.

This is the reason I pray to God every day for strength.  My 5 ADHD kidlets.  In order from left to right is Jordan (almost 6), Kimberly (7 1/2), Lydia (9 1/2), Melissa (10 1/2), and Scott Jr. (almost 18 months).  The little dude goes by his middle name, Preston, just to make my life a little easier.  This fall we are teaching grades 5, 4, 2, and 1 while managing a VERY active toddler.

Our philosophy

We don't homeshool for religious reasons or anything like that.  They did well in public school last year for the first half of the year before we withdrew them again in January.  There are learning disabilities and medical concerns present, but not to the degree that they are non-functional.  The reason we homeschool is because my husband works 12+ hour shifts at an optical manufacturing facility in northern Columbus (this is about an hour from our home) and we don't have the luxury of having dad home in the evenings like most families do.  He leaves for work before 6am daily, and is home after 7pm.  When the girls in school, there were many times they wouldn't see their dad at all until Friday night when they were allowed to stay up past 8pm.

We have a fairly eclectic style.  I do use unit studies on occasion with the kids, but I'm a big fan of keeping it simple.  This is our 6th year of homeschool, with the exception of that one semester last school year.  I've had a few years of trial and figuring out how to work schooling into our very busy days that are traditionally packed with learning through life experiences.  I am an unschooler in belief, but in practice we are just short of true unschooling.

The plan for this year

We do most subjects as a family, which makes my life simpler.  I gear lessons mainly at the younger kids and then encourage the older ones to dig deeper within each topic.  Obviously some things must be taught individually, such as math, but for the most part we learn together.  Here is my plan for the school year.

History- We will be studying the middle ages using Story of the World (SOTW) volume 2 as a family.  My oldest girls will be encouraged (and expected) to dig deeper into topics as we learn together.  I am taking a VERY hands-on approach that has a lot of crafts and activities, some of which are from the activity guide for SOTW.  This subject is how I'm also meeting *most* of our requirements for art and music as we will include studying art and music from this time period on top of doing crafts and projects constantly to reinforce and make learning more fun.

Geography- one day each week we are going to be doing map assignments tied to our history lessons, but also we are going to be working on being to identify and locate countries, continents, oceans, seas, landmarks, and other such things on the world and US maps (which I still have to buy these maps for the wall, I could print off free ones online but I'd prefer the markable map sold by Sonlight).

Literature- we are going to do a unit study each month on a book or type of literature (tall tales, poetry, short stories).  We will study authors within the monthly study.  This may or may not include lapbooks and other projects as we go.

Science- we will be studying animal science this year, using Apologia elementary zoology 3 as our starting point.  I have a child who wishes to be a veterinarian when she grows up, and that was what influenced my decision this year.  If we finish our science book before the end of the year, I plan to purchase the Winter Promise Equine Science curriculum (if we don't finish early, then we'll do equine science next school year).  We will be notebooking through the curriculum, as well as doing all the experiments as we study land animals.

Math- this is one that we do individually for the most part.  Our curriculum of choice is Math-U-See.  This year Melissa is finishing Gamma and then will do Delta, Lydia is doing Gamma, and Kimberly is finishing up Alpha and then going into Beta.  Melissa will also be doing the Key To Measurement series to work in her US measurement skills, as she struggles with this a lot still and needs these skills for her future as a chef.  Jordan will NOT be doing Math-U-See right off.  She did k12 last school year while her sisters were in public school, so this year she will be finishing up her k12 math book and then I'll likely place her in Beta (or possibly just teach her what she needs still as she'll place about midway through Beta and go straight into Gamma).  I will also supplement a little with Math Mammoth to make sure they score well on their spring testing.  Just a bit of a reassurance that I am covering all my bases really, our main curriculum by itself is more than adequate even for my dyslexic child.

Language arts- I found online for free some complete curriculum for grades 1-6 to cover grammar and spelling, so the girls will be doing the Treasures workbooks (I downloaded them to the computer and each week print off what I need).  In penmanship I will teach Melissa cursive while I teach printing to Lydia (who has motor delays and needs the remediation) and Jordan.  Kimberly will be given bible verses, poetry, etc. to use as copywork to practice her handwriting as she writes beautifully already.  Jordan will also continue through k12 PhonicsWorks to learn to read, and her sisters will be expected to pick one book each month and do a project (craft or written) to present to the family.  There are no rules for the monthly reading, it is all about them enjoying the book and showing why they enjoyed it.

Electives- Melissa wants to learn to sew, so I plan to teach that.  I'm also teaching the girls 1:1 how to knit and/or crochet so that they can make a few things.  They will also be my kitchen helpers for all meal preparation.  I have assigned one day to each girl for cooking and their involvement will depend on the child.  For example, Melissa will be cooking meals while Jordan will be helping mix, measure, and learn to chop.  I'm also considering karate classes for the girls, and Scott is going to teach them to shoot a bow and arrow hopefully in spring.

As you can see, we definitely embrace hands-on learning and being actively involved in life and learning.  I rarely have a clean home because we almost always have at least one project happening, and learning is a never-ending process.  My bookshelves are being filled now with books that relate to our science and history topics, internet bookmarks are being revised to give quick access for things that we pre-approve for free web browsing, and all kinds of great things.  This weekend I go to hopefully fill the craft bins with supplies to last us at least the first few months of the school year, and I pray that I can get even half of my plans accomplished this year.

The 1 year old, well he will learn how to play quietly while we work (heck who am I kidding? he'll be a distraction and in the middle of everything we do).  I haven't worked with a toddler since Melissa was in kindergarten, so I am going to be learning as we go with this juggle.

Back to homeschool!

Man, it has been a rough summer here.  Not having our routine in place has definitely made this an interesting time for me, especially with having to do the juggling that came with Scott not working his normal shifts at work (he has worked less this summer, which has made for a lot of tension at home as we worried about being able to work things out financially).  His hours have started to pick up a little bit thankfully the last couple weeks, so I decided it was time to start settling back into our regular routines.

Today we started the routine, but on a light load.  We had our typical morning wake-up, chores, and breakfast then settled in to do math.  We finished the morning stuff at 11am, so now they are having some free time with music and drawing until lunch.  Typically, my routine has us finished with math and the rest of our seatwork by 10am so that they have a snack and break until we pick up our unit at 10:30 but I'm ok with this change of pace since it is just the first day.  We'll get into the groove as the kids remember our routine and things become more natural to us.  Until then, well this first week I'm only doing math and our tall tales unit that I thought would be a fun start to the year.

Jordan started 1st grade off with working on telling time to the half hour.

Kimmy started 2nd grade by reviewing in her Math-U-See Alpha book, I'm buying her Beta to do next month after she finishes the review.

Preston even got in on the action.  He got his first Ticonderoga pencils and got to draw with one during math (don't be fooled, that pencil is now chewed along the wood and it is also missing an eraser *sigh* toddlers are so fun)

Missa, as my 5th grader, is pretty independent so I can just make a few copies for her and turn her loose for the most part.  She lets me know when I need to come give her a little review talk on the concept, today we worked on multiplying multiple digit numbers time a single digit number with Math-U-See Gamma.

Lydia is also really good at independence as a 4th grader.  She is working at memorizing her multiplication facts, and working slowly through Math-U-See Gamma.

Overall, it has been a good day so far but it is only noon.  We'll have to wait and see what this afternoon brings, especially as right now there is a huge meltdown from Jordan because she didn't put away her markers and Preston decided to get into them.  She's going to learn quickly about keeping her supplies up when she's not using them.

I have a feeling this is going to be a great school year once we get back into the swing of things. I have a very full courseload for the kids so it is imperative that we get into routine as fast as possible.

thinking outside the box with math

If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I have a child with special learning needs.  Missa struggles with all her basic math facts, she can't get them memorized totally.  She has some of them all in her long term memory, but it is a work in progress.  I've slowed down her lessons in math for a few years now because of this fact, and have watched her get frustrated and want to give up over it many times.  So I'm considering a new approach with her on this.

I'm thinking that this summer I'm going to take the remaining levels of Math-U-See that she has prior to algebra and teach her the concepts and practice her facts daily.  I am going to start back at Beta with multi-digit addition and subtraction, despite her already doing that level, just as a refresher for her and move forward from there.  She's really good at understanding concepts and how to do problems, the only thing that holds her back usually is the fact that she can't seem to get those facts memorized.  I'm going to teach her to do the work on paper AND on a calculator both, using the manipulative blocks and any other materials (including flash cards for fact practice!) to reinforce the concepts.  Then around September or October, depending on when we get finished with this step, I'm going to start pre-algebra with her.

I can already hear you asking why I would do such a thing.  Well, there are many reasons for this.  First off, Missa likes puzzles and is quite good at problems that involve solving for the unknown and other abstract concepts.  She is really quick to pick up and solve problems like what you would find in algebra.  Second, there is this awesome little device called a calculator that most people use (including professionals!) for basic math, even I use one quite frequently.  They really do make it pointless to memorize the math facts if one's brain just isn't hardwired for that kind of stuff to happen easily.  Third, I plan to continue working with her daily on basic math facts even as we move forward, in hopes that she will memorize all those facts eventually.

I've watched Missa grow a lot this last 5 years of learning, and she really is capable of higher math than we do because of her inability to memorize her facts.  This is the best part of homeschooling her.  I can take the time to work with her where she struggles but still not hold her back in the process.  I've noticed that when we spend an extended period of time just working on basic math facts, she starts to get discouraged and shut down on me, calling herself stupid and insisting she'll never get it and then she starts throwing things and getting angry about it.  However, if I work with her where she's struggling and add in new concepts at the same time, she seems to do much better and master both at a faster rate.  I don't know why, but it is how she does things so I'm going to go with it.

The other kids will continue to move forward as they have been doing, as they are progressing nicely and don't need the additional help.

homeschooling on a shoestring- the used curriculum sale

Yes, you read that correctly.  I said USED CURRICULUM SALE.  As a mom of 5, I don't always have the additional resources to purchase curriculum that we may want and/or need so I have to be resourceful.  Granted, I know of many ways to obtain free materials online and I use this for the bulk of our education.  However, sometimes you just can't beat a good old-fashioned book for teaching something efficiently.  That is where a used curriculum sale comes in handy.

My local homeschool group had their sale this evening, and since it happened to also be payday I was able to go pick up a few things.  I had in mind some very specific things I need for our lessons, in hopes that I'd be able to get some of it for less than the new price.  I had $60 to spend, which is about the cost of a single textbook new on my list of wants for this fall.  I was very careful and found a lot of great things, but in the end I managed to get most of what I really needed and a couple goodies for future use.

I got a book that lines up with our Middle Ages study in lessons for my oldest daughter to read bits of this year as appropriate.  I figure that she and I can read a bit of the book at a time together and discuss it, and even if we decide to put it on the shelf for a couple more years it will get used.  It was only $3 so I don't feel too put out from it.  I have a feeling Missa will enjoy it, as she is really into all things related to history.

I went with the intention of hopefully finding a specific science book (Real Science 4 Kids level 1 Biology) but instead left with Apologia science (the 6th day of Creation one, animal science).  I got it and another book that I can use to include my youngest girls in the lessons for $20 total.  I'm happy with that, although it isn't what I planned to use for science.

There were a couple other little odds and ends I picked up as well, but I think my biggest score was all 3 volumes of the KONOS curriculum.  These 3 books retail new for $110 each from the company, and I got the 3 books together used in pretty good shape (there are some penciled in notes and check marks and stuff like that, nothing a few minutes with an eraser can't fix) for a grand total of $20.  Yes, I managed to get over $300 of curriculum for $20.  I have a general plan already for this fall, using Story Of The World for history, but I am looking forward to using the KONOS books to keep going with lessons when we are starting to lose steam and hit burnout from going too long on our regularly scheduled lessons.  It will provide a wonderful change of pace for us in that area.  The only downside to this is that I'm not really all that familiar with the curriculum outside of knowing that it is unit studies centered around character traits, so I will need to spend some time really going through it and figuring it out so I am ready for it when we need to take that break.

I will still obviously need to get a copy of one specific book I need for a spine with our history program, but I am saving up for it and will purchase the book through Amazon this fall.  Unless, of course, anyone who reads my blog wishes to donate a copy of the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History.......... No takers?  Darn.  Oh well, I'll get the book before we start in the fall and I'm not really too worried about it.

If you haven't taken advantage of a used curriculum sale, I highly suggest it.  I spent less than $50 tonight and got a lot of great things that I can't wait to use with the kids this fall, to the point where I'm seriously considering cancelling "summer vacation" because of their bad attitudes already and jumping in as soon as VBS week is finished here.

2013-2014 school year plans

Since it is summer, the kids are playing and relaxing while I figure out what we're doing this fall.  I thought I'd share what I've figured out so far, since I have a lot in my mind and I need to straighten it all out.

History this year we are going to use "Story Of The World Volume 2" to cover world history from Rome to the Renaissance (or somewhere around there).  I was gifted all the materials for this level (book, activity guide, EVERYTHING except the extra books like a world history encyclopedia) so this costs me almost nothing to do (just printer paper to make copies of activity pages for the girls to all do).  I can do this with all 4 girls together at the same time, making my life easier.

I'm also going to dust off All About Spelling for Lydia to do, she is having a lot of trouble with her spelling so I think we need to run through levels 1 and 2 with her (and Missa too but we'll see how that goes, I'll order more levels as needed for them).  Hopefully it does enough that I'm not spending three times as long as I should to read her written work.  I'm surprised that the school allowed her to have such horrible spelling without any intervention at all the first half of the school year, it is truly scary sad.

We also will read lots of great literature from the list for Sonlight cores B and C that go well with the history that we're doing this year.  I also plan to tie in art and music by teaching about different styles of art (and for some of it, recreating copies of that art ourselves) and learning about instruments that were popular during that time (maybe try to make a few of our own if we feel a desire to do so).

I'm also going to do some US geography as we continue our 50 states study.  We school 6 days a week during the busy time at Scott's work (back to school season is KILLER for us, he pulls 70 hour weeks easily from the beginning of August usually until around Thanksgiving or so) and most of the chapters in our history curriculum will only take 3 days a week to do.  I'll use the other days each week to do a state with the kids, learning some stuff about each one and finding them on a map.  This was the big thing I found out when we started our 50 states study, it only takes 2-3 days to cover most states the way I'm aiming to do them.

We are also going to learn sign language more deliberately.  I did some searching on YouTube last night and found a channel called "Sign Language 101" that is nothing but videos to teach it, so I'm going to start on it tonight and just sign/speak together all the time as I learn more sign and then this fall I'll start enforcing with the kids that they sign when they speak while they learn new signs.  The Signing Time dvd set will continue to be watched a couple times a week, but most of their learning will happen through immersion.  It is the most effective way to learn a language, and will serve us well.  I also plan on getting plugged into the local deaf community through a lovely lady I know who has a deaf son, to expand our opportunities to practice signing.

Math will continue as planned.  The oldest 2 girls are plugging along in Math-U-See and doing well, while I plan to have the younger girls do Math Mammoth.  I was gifted the books for the younger girls, so I don't have any out of pocket expense for them at this time.  I just have to keep up with buying student books for the older girls, which I already have the books they need for this year.

Science is one area I've not really done a lot with yet.  Right now we're going to breeze through our Real Science 4 Kids biology book, then I was thinking we'd do some animal studies.  I would ideally like to purchase Winter Promise's Equine Science curriculum, but I don't know that we'll have the funds for that so I'm gathering up free resources as I find them to cover animal science.

We also are looking into the local American Heritage Girls troop for all the girls, and seriously considering it for "social skills" and any other area that it could cross over into.  We'd do Girl Scouts, but quite frankly I'd weigh 500lbs if I had them selling cookies so they aren't doing that.  Plus, AHG includes a lot of the values that we feel are important but Girl Scouts doesn't do.  Yup, we chose the conservative Christian group that emphasizes traditional family values instead of the liberal group sponsored by Planned Parenthood that promotes a lot of things I won't be going into here (I have friends who love Girl Scouts, and am trying to respect their decision in this area without being insulting)

That is about all I've figured out at this point in time, I'm still working on the final plans and getting everything ready to go for us to start in August.  Of course, I still have to give the girls their standardized tests to finish the year for reporting, and we'll be ordering those tests this weekend.

the last week of the 2012-13 school year

I'm trying to keep plugging forward despite all the curves that I've had thrown at me this last few months, we set this upcoming Friday as our last day of the school year and I am NOT going to call it quits before then.  I'm really REALLY hoping that we can get this week to go semi-smoothly so that I can go into our summer plans.  I am planning that we'll take the rest of June off all lessons completely once we finish this break, then pick up again in July with a fun series of Evan-Moor theme pockets (I got the July monthly theme set for us to do some of) and gently work back into full lessons with the basics.  I also plan to fill our summer with hands-on crafty stuff and lots of time outdoors, playing and working in our small garden.

I may be a bit behind, but I discovered recently that there is a really nice park not too far from our home and that it is easily accessed by just hopping on the bike path so we don't need gas for the van even to get there.  Add in 79 cent ice cream cones at McDonald's (also within walking distance if we wanted to) and we will have a pretty good time with cool summer treats and lots of park time.

We also are hoping that we can get the funds to buy bikes for Scott, Missa, and myself along with replacing a tire on 2 bikes we already have for Liddy and Kimmy (oh and a seat for Preston on my bike).  If we can get that all going on, then we can hit the bike path regularly as a family and ride all over the county (maybe even to visit Grandma in Johnstown by the end of summer).

There will also be a point at some point where we will take a couple days off lessons likely, as we've made a painful decision that medically we have to take permanent measures to prevent more pregnancies.  My last pregnancy was touchy for us with my hypertension, and it progressing into full pre-eclampsia within 6 hours of Preston's birth, and I'm still suffering some of the effects of that complication.  We've been told that there's no guarantee that it would happen again in the future, however we feel that it is more important to our family that the 5 children we have are able to have two living parents who are fairly healthy so I have a consultation for a non-surgical procedure called Essure to see if I'm a candidate for the procedure.  If not, then we have to discuss other options to determine who will be having surgery and when we can afford for Scott to take the time off (with Essure I could have it done on a Friday and be up and going again before Monday, requiring Scott to only take 1 day off work).  It is a decision that we've had a lot of conflict over the past 15 months, but now that we've made a decision about it I really do feel ok with it and know that it is the right way to go.  We've been blessed with 5 incredible healthy children and while we'd love a few more, it is time to call it done for medical reasons.  We plan to open our home up to foster care and adoption in the future as our kids are older and we have the space to do so.

That about sums up what our June is going to look like I think.  I can't wait for this weekend when we will do our own little "graduation" to move each kid up to the next grade with a certificate and cake (I just have to find a dairy-free recipe that tastes good, I already have plans to make a butterfly cake thanks to some directions my mother shared on my Facebook wall this morning)

Once we get through this week, I'm going to make plans officially for the summer and then I'll share the July plans here.  Hopefully I can have it all figured out in the 1 week between finishing lessons and Scott's week off, because we'll be spending that entire week off doing things like going to Amish country, the Columbus Zoo, and other such things. :)

update on Lydia

We've had a rough couple weeks with Lydia being sick, and we think we have some answers now.  Last appointment, the pediatrician had me keep a fairly extensive log to see if we could see a pattern in her vomiting.  A pattern did emerge in this, showing that typically she would vomit with acidic and dairy-heavy foods.  As a result, we are trying medication for reflux and dietary changes that eliminate highly acidic foods and all dairy.

This is not a new diet for me, as I was on a similar one in high school for similar symptoms.  I was instructed to stop Zofran once we get her started on the Zantac pills, which is going to be difficult for her I think.  We also did blood work to test her thyroid, liver and kidney function, and look for markers that would indicate a gluten intolerance (celiac disease).  They also ordered some other tests in the lab that I don't remember right off the top of my head.  We will have results of all her labs in the next few days, and can adjust as needed from there.

At this point, we aren't going to pursue a referral to a specialist in GI up at Children's Hospital, but we are going to be following up with her pediatrician again next month to see how the dietary and medication changes are helping.  If she has a complete turn around with the full combination, at that appointment I'll bring up challenging her with dairy again to see if that is in fact a factor or if it is just coincidence.

She's a bit overwhelmed, obviously, at all the changes that we're making to her diet (dairy alone is a big change, but to add in acidic foods too and going cold turkey is hard for her to process mentally right now).  I did decide that while she's on this diet, I'm going to join her 100% so she doesn't feel left out of all the meals for the rest of the family.  Also, if this works well we will as a family be on this diet to support her fully.  I'm also teaching her how to make things as we go, so far she's learned how to make homemade spaghetti sauce and cut the acidity without changing the flavor.

giving up until fall I think

Well, this school year has been a wash for me.  Every time we start trying to getting into a good routine something completely messes up things and it takes several days to deal with that and then get back to life as normal, only to repeat.  I'm seriously thinking that I'm just going to finish up attendance with k12 for Jordan, and then call it done until September.  All I have to do with the oldest girls is their standardized test, which we're going to do instead of a portfolio review this year to see if it is any easier for me.  I'm getting the CAT from Seton testing services.  It is not a timed test, so it will fit perfectly with Missa's and Liddy's IEP section that gives them both extra time on testing without having to think and watch the clock.  It also should be easy to accommodate Missa's dyslexia per her IEP she had at the charter school, I'm planning to test each girl individually so it will be easy to adjust as needed.  I just have to get to order the tests so that I can administer them to the kids.  I'm *supposed* to order them this payday, which is tomorrow, but thanks to yet another car repair we will be putting that off most likely.  I need to crunch numbers still and see what we have to work with after the car repair and groceries/gas since we are going to be putting off a couple bills to cover the car.

ok is vacation week over yet?

I was so looking forward to Scott having this week off and getting to do all sorts of fun things as a family.  We were going to go to the zoo, get our portfolio review done, and do a LOT of yard work.  We had a full, busy, and fun week planned for time together as a family.

Instead, Lydia spent 8 days throwing up nonstop.  The other girls got to spend a day at grandma's while we took her to Children's Hospital, she went to the pediatrician on Friday, and now on day 8 she's at the point that if she doesn't improve by Monday morning I'll be calling her doctor and demanding that they put in an order to admit her for IV fluids and medication.  She's weakened to where she's having trouble walking, she is starting to hallucinate, and is just miserable and making everyone else miserable.  Her 9th birthday was Friday, and her present was suppositories for her nausea and Zofran pills to take once the other medicine starts to work with a "come back in a week once she's hydrated so we can run a million blood tests on her that will require 2 or 3 people helping to hold her down."  She didn't even get to have her birthday cake.  She picked out an ice cream cake, and nobody got it yesterday.  She did keep food down last night all night, so we made the decision to go ahead and do the ice cream cake for her.  That was a mistake, and it totally set off her vomiting again until she fell asleep while I was out shopping with a friend of mine (and the boy along for the ride, poor kid).

Hopefully she improves soon, or on Monday morning I'll be calling her doctor again.  No point in calling right now or tomorrow even, as her doctor isn't on call and the pediatrician at the local ER is a total douche and I flat out can't stand him.  He stinks as a doctor too in my not-so-professional opinion.  I am supposed to take the healthy 3 girls and the boy to church tonight, leave in about 45 minutes, but I really don't feel up to it.  I'm drained, both physically and mentally.

This vacation week has sucked.  Hopefully Monday brings back normal life and health to an extent where I'm not freaked over Lydia being so sick.  I'll come back another time and post more details about her illness, as it is something we've battled for all her life to a degree with the last several months of it being more serious (with the worst flare up being this past 8 days)

a plan for this week and next

This week is going to be fun for us.  I decided over the weekend that we needed to change how we do our lessons, so we start this week with a new weekly schedule.  Monday was our housework and errands day (good thing too, as I had an appointment yesterday afternoon and needed to go to the grocery store in the morning) and then we do lessons on Tuesday through Friday.  Saturday mornings will be electives or catch-up time, as Scott typically works on Saturday mornings (this week he isn't though, so he is taking the girls to Home Depot for the monthly workshop and then maybe to the park if weather is good, that will give me time to grade papers and get some things planned out, plus go grocery shopping for next week if I want to or even take a nap).

Since today is Tuesday, I thought I would go ahead and share what we are going to be studying this week in our lessons.  I'm really excited about this week, knowing that we're going to have some real structure to our days.

Our big study this week is on the state of Alabama.  I have a Scholastic book that I'm going to use for this, and my "Lapbook Any State" set from Hands of a Child ready to go.  Each morning I'm printing off 4 copies of the day's minibooks so they can do them, and we're going to glue them onto cardstock in binders.  We are going to do all 50 states this way.  I have all the basics of the state obviously planned, but one really fun thing we're going to do is spending Friday learning about Helen Keller.  She was born in Alabama, and I thought it would be a great little addition.  I have a couple books on her for the lesson (1 picture book to read to the younger kids plus two biographies for the older girls to read and fill out a report sheet on her) and I found a braille book at the library that I checked out so I can show them firsthand how the blind read.  We're also going to try being blind and deaf by using ear plugs and a blindfold then navigating our home and doing simple things like eating a snack.  I want this to really come alive for the girls so they can see her struggles and what she overcame in her lifetime.  Later we'll revisit Helen Keller and spend some real time learning all about her, but this week is just an introduction to her for the kids.

In math, the girls are working on lapbooks for math facts.  Missa and Liddy are working on multiplication facts, as they are both in Math-U-See Gamma, while Kimmy and Jordan are doing addition facts to go with Alpha and Beta.  Once they finish the lapbooks this week, I plan to have the girls do a timed math drill sheet for their facts each morning before they review and practice their facts with their lapbooks daily.  By the end of the next few weeks, hopefully the girls will have their facts memorized and can move on to the next one (division or subtraction).


And through all this, I'm going to be one-handed so the girls have to be my helper.  I tried last week to teach Missa how to do a proper push-up and managed to hurt my left shoulder.  Having it in a sling wouldn't be such an issue if I wasn't left-handed, but we're working with it and making things happen.  Missa gets to do more cooking while I supervise, and a lot of the chores are not getting done as I would prefer because I have to get the kids helping a lot more.  Hopefully it heals quickly, as the compromise in chores is driving me batty.

Then there is next week.  Next week Scott is on vacation so he'll be home all day.  We're going to take a break from formal lessons and focus instead on the more fun stuff.  We have our annual portfolio review this week, and we plan to go to the Columbus Zoo and get our annual membership (the membership costs almost as much as one visit with a family our size, and this year we're doing the one that admits 2 guests as well so I'll be able to use it a lot more since I'm not comfortable taking all 5 myself during the week, maybe my wonderful cousin will come a couple times with us).  We also have plans to get the gardens going here, all the flowers planted (hopefully!) and the garden dug for my veggies.  I told Scott that if he thinks we need to wait for next year to plant so that this year we can prep the garden that I'm ok with it, but I'd really rather get something planted (peppers and tomatoes at a minimum, we go through sooooo many of both those things!).  We are really looking forward to the opportunity to spend an entire week working together as a family.

Well, that about sums up my next two weeks, so I'll see you later.  I'll post on Friday with a summary of how this week went, complete with pictures hopefully, and then next week I'll try to post some pictures of our trip to the zoo and working in the gardens and stuff like that.  I'm just hoping that I don't spend all of next week in a sling to go with it, I hate being pretty much useless like I am right now.

homeschooling as a lifestyle

This is something I've been thinking about lately, as I've been looking up regulations in other states just in case I get my way and we can move to a more homeschool-friendly state in the future.  Ohio isn't too bad with the regulation, but I'd really rather have even more flexibility with the non-reporting states simply so that I don't spend 2-3 weeks stressing and preparing for portfolio review (which I'm in the midst of now, our review is in a little over 3 weeks).  Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between living life and educating your child, especially when you tend to fall more on the unschooling end of the spectrum like we do.  Everyday activities carry many educational opportunities, such as making a meal or preparing our front garden for this year's flowers.  It also means that we start early with learning, introducing our little ones to counting, colors, shapes, and books as soon as possible.

This is a perfect example of early introduction of educational things.  Preston will be 14 months old this week, and right after he woke up from his nap I decided to get out a beautiful picture book to share with him.  This book is "Noah's Ark" and is a 1978 Caldecott Medal winner, and it happens to have NO words beyond the first couple pages.  It fully illustrates the story of the Great Flood, and is one of those books that the kids love,  His sisters have spent MANY hours looking at the pictures and retelling the story to each other, imaginary companions, or favorite toys.  Today I got the joy of introducing Preston to this lovely book.  We only made it through about 3 pages of pictures before he lost interest and slapped me in the face to get the book away, but that 1 minute was perfect for him.  In time he will develop the same love of books and reading that the rest of our family has.  This book will be the one we use daily with him in story time for the rest of this month, and possibly all of next month as well, before we move to simple story books (think beginning readers and board books).

Reading to Preston is a critical step in his speech development, but it does so much more.  A book like this especially, with beautiful detailed illustrations, develops his attention span, increases vocabulary, introduces different animals to him, and can also be used with motor development as he begins to try turning pages and pointing at different animals in the illustrations while I tell the story.  We got this book when Missa was in kindergarten and I purchased Sonlight's core P3/4 in a desperate attempt to get her interested in books (no kid can resist great picture books).

With the oldest kids, as I sat with Preston reading, they were working in the front flower garden to start getting it ready for this year's planting.  Scott had to dig to find our sewage cleanout access last month, and the first thing the girls did was fill in the holes he dug to find it before they started removing debris and cutting down the ornamental grass for this year's growth.  There is a lot left to do still, but we'll get it done this weekend hopefully so that we can start planting soon.  I actually am hoping to expand the garden out front this year to the driveway loop in one area over the next few years, so there will be a lot of work ahead for us this year with digging and preparing the land, on top of placing decorative border bricks and a path to the loop from the front walk beside the garden area.  It is going to be lovely once I finish it, if we can get it really going.

All these things are so full of educational opportunities.  There is the physical activity in digging the new garden, research to select plants that complement each other and will grow well in our garden locations, patterns that may be created with border stones, even math in figuring out how much stone we need and the area of the garden for topsoil and how many of each plant and the spacing.

Like I said, homeschooling isn't just a method for my family.  It is truly a lifestyle, and the lines can often blur between education and living life.  That makes it very difficult at times to create an adequate portfolio for reporting to our district.  Thankfully, I have found a wonderful lady who does assessments for families like mine.  She understands the value in these rich opportunities at living and learning, and doesn't require just workbooks and things like that to show what we've done.  Sure, I have a couple lapbooks and the girls' math workbooks to show that we've done academics, but I also have many pictures and great experiences to share that tell so much more of the bigger picture of our learning lifestyle.

homemade convenience foods

With a bigger than typical family, I like convenience foods.  They are a super simple way to provide a meal or snack to my kids when we are running a little too fast in our lives, or if I'm sick and can't keep up as well.  Unfortunately, our budget doesn't allow for the purchase of these foods too often, and neither does our dietary limitations (I have a dairy allergy, Missa is red dye allergic, Liddy has Celiac, and Kimmy is soy sensitive and Celiac).  So I have the joy of doing a LOT of cooking from scratch to make good meals that the whole family can eat.

As you can imagine, with so many limits I decided to cook to the children's allergies for the main meals, then if the meal has dairy in it I'll make a dairy free alternative for me.  With having a soy sensitive child (she was soy allergic, now she's just intolerant but we are still avoiding it 100% whenever possible in hopes that she may outgrow the allergy since it is getting less severe) it makes things a lot more interesting to work around the Celiac, but it is totally possible to do so.

In case you aren't familiar with Celiac, it is a disorder that can be pretty nasty.  What it boils down to is that Liddy and Kimmy can't have any wheat, rye, or barley products at all, or any other products that have gluten in them.  Oats are still iffy, as technically they do have small amounts of gluten, but they don't seem to have any effect on the girls so we do oatmeal and granola once in a while.  When a Celiac eats something with gluten, the gluten damages the villi in the intestinal tract.  Those little villi do not repair themselves very easily, and are how your body absorbs nutrients from the food you eat.  Too much damage can be deadly if left unchecked for too long.  The only way to repair the villi is a STRICT diet that is completely void of all possible allergens to give the intestine a chance to heal over the course of several months (I told you they don't heal easily!).  I do a lot of label reading at the store, which means that I RARELY shop with all the children along unless I am after a couple very specific things.  Did you know that Twizzlers even have wheat in them?  We don't buy them often because the obvious red dye in them, but when we learned of the Celiac we had to completely quit buying them because the company uses wheat to bind the stuff together to make the Twizzlers.

Obviously, cooking is interesting in my home at times, and I do get tired of it sometimes.  I use rice flour to make my pizza crusts, which eliminates gluten (my recipe is yeast free, which my Celiac girls seem to react to as well) and by using 100% rice flour I can ensure that there is little to no soy present.  I need to get a grain mill so that I can grind my own rice flour, as it is fairly expensive.  We use the pizza crust dough to make homemade hot pockets regularly.  On busy days I can just grab some sandwich (or pizza!) pockets from the freezer and toss in the microwave to warm up while the kids put shoes on, then they have a tidy sandwich that they can eat in the van.  It costs around $10 for a box of 12 hot pockets, or I can spend about $6 for the ingredients to make 12 homemade ones and toss them in the freezer after baking (that cost includes fresh cut meat and cheese from the deli and parchment paper for my baking sheet since we can't use cooking sprays).  Do you see the savings?

Yogurt is another one we have to be careful of.  Most brands at the store have artificial dyes and/or soy in them so I generally avoid them.  I was reading labels for a long time until a friend posted on her blog about making yogurt in her crock pot.  I tried it once and was hooked, and have been doing it since.  I don't regularly make it though, so we don't always have some left over yogurt on hand to activate the new batch.  But with the small amount needed to do it, I don't read labels for the starter cup of yogurt.  I just buy Oikos greek yogurt, it is the only single serving cup I've found that comes in plain with no sugars or anything.  It is SUPER simple to make yogurt, as long as I keep an eye on the times the crock pot does 99% of it and it turns out perfectly.

Bread is another thing here.  Out of the 7 in my home, 5 of us can have regular wheat bread no issues.  So, I buy a couple loaves of bread each week for sandwiches and toast, and the 2 that can't have bread will use either a corn tortilla to do a wrap or they will do roll ups.  To make a roll up, you take your lunch meat and some cheese and then roll a strip of the cheese up in the meat.

We also happen to LOVE pasta.  Now, I used to make 100% of our pasta fresh but since the Celiac diagnoses I've struggled with finding a recipe that won't fall apart when I run it through my roller.  So we buy rice pasta at the store.  It is really expensive, so when I do that I make just enough of it for the Celiac girls and the rest of us have homemade regular pasta.

Juicing also helps.  We really enjoy fresh fruit juices, so I try to get out the juicer regularly and juice fruits and veggies that are in season.  I always sneak a little carrot into our juices, and sometimes celery or something else.  It is especially easy to sneak in the stronger flavored veggies when I do fruit juices that are stronger flavored, like with berries.  The remaining pulp either gets composted or, depending on what fruits it is, goes into a cake.

Then there are those awesome Souffer's lasagnas and such.  Those are my weakness, as I love being able to just pop it in the oven and forget about it until the oven beeps.  These are meals that my kids can make even, and I've often had one of the oldest kids put one in the oven when I'm fighting a migraine or in the midst of pregnancy sickness.  Lunchables and TV dinners also fall under this category, along with frozen pizzas.  So I just automatically double all lasagnas I make, or make an extra pizza to stuff in the freezer, or something like that.  When I go shopping, I'll take some time that day to chop up part of the fruits and veggies so that I have ready-made snacks that just require me to make the veggie or fruit dip (a really good fruit dip is a block of soft cream cheese, whip it in your mixer to fluffy, then add 1/2 cup of brown sugar and some vanilla to taste and whip the snot out of it until its really light and fluffy, goes great with ALL fruits and takes under 10 minutes to make).  For homemade tv dinners, my mother taught me this one.  Get some sectioned plates with lids, you can get them almost anywhere now (they even have Gladware ones!) and dish up leftovers after supper into proper portions in the plates and snap the lid on and pop in the freezer.  Poof, tv dinner made with no effort!

Ialso make my own seasonings whenever possible.  I make my own taco seasoning, which works well to double as chili seasoning.  Gravy I almost always make from scratch using corn starch.  Ketchup and mustard, well those I always buy.  One of the only things that I'm a real brand snob on is Miracle Whip; I will NEVER use any other brand and yes I really can tell the difference.  I'm nice and don't say anything when not eating my own cooking if they use a generic or real mayonnaise but trust me I'm cringing inside.

If you like Rice-A-Roni (which I totally do!) you can make your own real easily.  Take your rice and then break up a little spaghetti into small pieces and saute' until the pasta is browned (I use olive oil instead of butter), and then cook it in the broth of your choice.  I keep chicken bouillon on hand at all times for this, beef too.

Fried rice is easy to make homemade too, but it isn't really a soy-free food since you need SOY SAUCE for it.  There are millions of great recipes online for it that you can use so I won't share how I do it here.  But it makes a great use for leftover rice, veggies, and meat with minimal effort made.  I have one skillet that is just for making fried rice so that I can avoid cross contamination for Kimmy and her soy issues as much as possible (it is also the only pan that I never put in the dishwasher, yes I wash my pots and pans in the kitchen slave, life is too short for me to hand wash dishes).

I used to spend a LOT of money on the convenience foods at Whole Foods that would fit our dietary needs until our 5th child was coming.  That was when I decided it was time to clean up my act and just make it all myself.  There is a little more effort to assemble 2 or 3 lasagnas at once to freeze some for future use, or time to make 3 or 4 dozen homemade hot pockets when I make them fresh for lunch one day, but it really is worth the money saved for my family.  If I get a grain mill to grind my own rice flour, then we'll go 100% gluten-free across the board and I'll work harder at finding recipes that will actually work for pasta and some other things we've skipped.  It will definitely save us more money considering the outrageous price of rice flour compared to plain rice.