Good-bye Lazy Days!

Our vacation is nearly over. We will be starting school again on Monday. I have the first three of our thirteen weeks all ready to go. Don't I sound prepared?

The big kids are mostly just picking up where we left off at the end of November. I have six weeks' worth of math games organized and ready to go. Some of them they have played before, some will be bran-new!

The little kids are going to be getting a lot more "mommy and me" time than they have been getting. I will be pushing the big kids toward 30 minutes + of independence every morning, (even if that means saying, "Go pick something off the little kid shelf." every other minute of that time) so that the little kids will be getting full-length actual "lessons". Daniel is picking up sounds at a fast pace. I have no idea how much he knows, but he is excited about the idea of learning to read all by himself, and the only way that is going to happen is if I give him one-on-one time. The little kids are more used to sharing and aren't as pushy as the big kids were at this age, so they don't get as much of me as they need, sometimes.

Some of us are excited about starting school (Daniel). Some of us are cautiously optimistic, (Kaytie) since we will be learning about Japan and reading Felicity and not doing math worksheets. Some of us have yet to let it cross our radars, and some of us (me) are dreading it a bit. After an entire month of being lazy in the mornings and still having the house almost clean most of the time, it's not very exciting to be thinking about having to stress and squeeze and work hard to keep ourselves afloat again.

So my mantra has begun: 13 weeks until vacation!

New Year's Eve

Our kids have a late bedtime. They have always, since Kaytie was big enough to actually go to bed (anyone who knew her from birth knows exactly what I mean by that) gone to bed at 10pm. We have many reasons for this, which I won't go into now, but it comes in handy often, especially during the holidays when we are busy celebrating. And most especially on New Year's Eve.

I don't know if they will make it all the way to midnight (it won't surprise me if they do, though), but we do have some fun things planned to keep us entertained as we wait for the New Year.

We have snacks enough left from Christmas, and some new games that we got for Christmas that we haven't played yet. That will get us through most of the evening!

I'm thinking that some "time" games might be fun. For example, "How long can you jump on one foot?" or "How long can you sit perfectly still?" And dancing to music is always enjoyed by all.

I looked for a color page for them, but couldn't find any that I liked, so I will just be giving them a sheet of paper and they will be drawing their own clocks, balloons, and confetti on them. They will probably like that better, anyway.

We will be re-purposing some of our left over plastic Easter eggs for noise makers. I am planning on just throwing a few beans in each and taping them shut. We already have kazoos, maracas, and other noise-makers in the instrument bin, if needed, so this should be plenty.

These glasses will probably be decorated. The kids love making things to wear.

And finally, for a special treat, I will be going to the library tomorrow to find them a movie to watch. Mix with blankets and popcorn on the living room floor, and it sounds like a wonderful way to conclude a late evening!

It makes me wonder...

Nate says, "Si, si! Marcy." Then explains with a proud grin, "I'm working on my Franch."

It's bedtime, and the kids are supposed to be putting on pjs. Abbie is in the kitchen, giggling uncontrollably because on her way to the laundry pile, her dirty undies escaped and are now under the table. Nate, in the bedroom, flips the light off, then on again, springing through the doorway and screaming, "Pop goes the weasel!" He vanishes back into the bedroom. Kaytie, who is spinning in circles for no apparent reason, murmurs to herself, "What was that about?" Daniel, shirtless, stands in the hall, his shoulders drooping, his head down, desolation dripping from his voice as he says, softly, "Nate turns da light off. Nate turns da light on." He then sighs deeply and heads to the bedroom, still drooping with despair.

And I wonder aloud to myself, "What are the odds that these people will actually grow up to be sane, rational adults?"

Tonight, Abbie got "stuck" on the top bunk so the other kids grabbed a blanket, formed up beneath the ladder and eagerly urged her to jump into their "net". "It will be fun!" They said, as Daddy rescued her.

And I wonder quietly to myself, "What are the odds that these people will actually grow up?"

Plans

I am trying to finish my planning for next term's work for the big kids. I still have a ton to do and am running out of time. The first few weeks of vacation, we just all goofed off. Then I had to figure out where to start with planning. Some of the subjects, (the ones I have a curriculum for) I just have to piece out the work into daily chunks and make sure we will be to a certain spot at the end of the term. Others are a little more stressful. History and Math, to be specific.

I was asked how I decided when and what to teach in math, now that we have stepped away from worksheets, so I thought I would just do a quick post about it.

I spent a good deal of money buying a curriculum last summer for us to do this year. Even though it is no longer working for us, I will still be finding uses for it. Not only am I planning on pulling selections from the sheets every now and again to keep somebody busy or to give a little more practice or to plain give them experience in working those kinds of problems. (I don't have a reason they need this experience other than just a "feeling". I'll go with it for now.) Anyway, as I say, not only will I be doing that, but I also used them for my "scope and sequence". I went through and wrote out every concept that was taught in our curriculum this year. I then grouped "sub-topics" under appropriate Topics, for example, "word problems" and "carrying" are just shoved in with addition.

With this selection of Topics in hand, I sorted them into four main groups.

The first group is what we need to work on daily in some form: Addition; Subtraction; and Discussion of Rudimentary Multiplication. (this means we are talking about sorting into groups and if you have, for example, three boys and three girls sitting a table, you have 1. six kids 2. three plus three 3. two groups of three. 4. and if two kids are wearing pink, two kids are wearing blue and two kids are wearing red, then you have three groups of two. We have lots of these types of conversations. I will now be planning on having at least one daily.)

The second group is concepts that the kids have down pat. They can do them forward and backward and in their sleep no matter what form they see them in. These we will only do occasionally to keep them sharp. Mostly, these concepts have been moved to daily living skills.

The third group is concepts that the kids have been introduced to, understand, but don't quite have perfected yet. These, we will do several times a week, but not necessarily daily.

The fourth group is concepts that they haven't yet heard of. Roman Numerals are in this group. I plan on working them in one or two at a time, and slamming them heavily then shifting them to the third group's rotation when we start on a new concept.

Once this was done, I made four tables in my word processing program and gave each topic a column in it's appropriate table. I then went through all of my lists of games and projects that I have collected off the Internet or out of books and put them under the concept that they taught or practiced.

Now, all I have left to do is to plug this list into my daily plans so that we have enough math games to do every day. This is the part that just might not get done before school starts again in January. So far, I have six weeks' worth done, and I'm not going to panic if I don't have any more than that.

In God We Still Trust

Merry Christmas!

Santa's watching...

Santa looked the other way!

Snowmen

When one goes blog-surfing, one never really know what one will find.

I was here, and found this, which seemed way to cute to pass up!

However, I am not a seamstress. And I don't have stashes of fabric lurking in my house. However, I do have an incredibly talented husband. I printed off the snowmen papers, bought the candy bars, wrapped the paper around the candy bar and handed it to Steve, along with yarn, tissue paper and scissors. This is what he turned it into!

We gave them to the brothers and sister-in-laws. I'm wishing now we had made an extra...

And yes he did make them in the car on the way over!!! He is just that awesome. :)

Musicians

Kaytie and Nate had their piano recital yesterday. Kaytie has done this three times before, but this was Nate's very first recital. They both played beautifully.

Cookies and punch are an ample reward for a job well done!

She is Three

She is three. She is pixie-dust and starshine. She is pink, sparkling, and glittery. She is jumping up and down on her toes, clapping her hands, enormous blue eyes shining. She is twirling ballerina and regal princess. She is 100% big girl and 100% baby of the family. She is pouty lip and sorrowful face. She is drama and delight. She swoops from dizzying heights to dismal lows in the blink of an eye and then swoops back again. She is giggly girl. She is golden curls, pink cheeks and blue eyes. She is calculating charm and sweet innocence. She is our miracle baby, our roly-poly bug, our own silly Pookie. She is non-stop chatter, entertaining story-teller, hilarious conversationalist. She is shy. She is Daddy's Girl. She is sweet mommy to a dozen dolls and a stuffed Canadian sheep (aka: Sheepie). She is singing partially made-up songs to herself. She is Miss Bossy-Pants. She is the very best Abbie in the whole wide world. She is three.

First Picture

She came home when she was 5 weeks and 1 day old. (1 week and 2 days before her due date)

She is about a year old here.

Christmas last year

And now she is three!

Four Little Penguins in a Row

For just a couple of weeks, my kids ages are 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Christmas Holidays

We are taking the month of December off of regular school. My original idea was to do a lot of Christmas crafts, lessons, and activities during this time. However, instead, we have been doing a lot of this:

and this:

We did spend a day doing stuff like this:

And we have been keeping up with our Advent calendars, singing Christmas carols, practicing for piano recital, making paper chains and snowflakes and candy canes and reading Christmas books.

But mostly we are sleeping late, watching PBS, running around outside on warm days, and just generally taking a vacation.

I'm working on plans for our second term, which starts January 4th. I'm a little excited because I have been working on phonics games, spelling games, math, math, and more math, a unit study on Colonial America, and even a science board game! So I have lots of stuff to be posting on in the new year.

I am once again ditching the pre-K curriculm I made for Kaytie and Nate because, despite all the tweaking, I just can't make it work for Daniel's learning style. We will be descending into a world of words and math games where all learning has a purpose and he gets plenty of one-on-one mommy time.

Quotable Quotes

Nate says, as he picks up a KFC circular and settles down on the couch, "Ah! Nothing like reading your mail and eating a candy cane."

Kaytie replies, "Now THAT'S something you don't hear every day!"

Christmas Fun

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Oooooh! BOTH!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He puts all of his into the stockings.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Whatever we have. And we have whatever was on sale when we needed to buy them. This year, we have white on our tree and blue on our house (with penguins in the windows, surprise surprise!)

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. I never think of it. I get all the kisses I want without it!

5. When do you put your decorations up? Either Thanksgiving Day or the day after. Usually Thanksgiving Day, though. In the evening, after supper. This tradition started back before we had kids when I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving for Christmas to start, and Steve couldn't wait to decorate. He usually wore me down by Thanksgiving Day!

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Fudge.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? The year my older brothers came home from college with cool gifts for everyone. I was six. I got The Christian Mother Goose, which I still have, and now read to my kids.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I didn't believe in Santa as a kid.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes. Steve's mom comes over and we have ham sandwiches and cookies and birthday cake, then open the presents from her/to her.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We started our first Christmas with just enough ornaments, lights and stuff to decorate the front of the tree. :) Everyone in the family gets a new ornament every year, so we have a motley collection of sentimental stuff. Nate noticed this year that, "Mom! All the penguin ones belong to you!!!" Yep, sure do! lol

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I wouldn't care much either way, but the kids are SO EXCITED about it, that I am always hoping they get some.

12. Can you ice skate? I love ice-skating but I haven't been in forever!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Three years ago, I got a baby girl for Christmas! But just about everything my husband has ever given me has been a close second to that one!

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Teaching the kids the awe and wonder of the Miracle that God Himself came to our grimy little world to be The Perfect Gift.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Chocolate and divinity. If divinity could somehow be chocolate, it would be PERFECT!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Our Advent Calendar.

17. What tops your tree? An angel.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Both! lol I love picking out presents for people!

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? O Holy Night and Oh Come All Ye Faithful and Oh Come oh Come Emmanuel and What Child is This and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Carol of the Bells and... ok, I'll stop. :)

20. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Yummy!

21 Favorite Christmas Show? The Toy that Saved Christmas, with the Peanuts special being a close second.

22. Saddest Christmas Song? Are there sad ones?

Feel free to copy this post and fill it out on your blog. HT: Shannon