Life (around our home and garden)

Hello, dear friends. I hope you are all well.  (Today it seems I have time to put up a blog post!)

We finished school over a month ago.  I say "finished" which really means I was all done, so I ended with the little girls and supplied the older three with a list of what I wanted them to complete for the year (mostly math lessons).  Last time I checked, one of them had finished their list and the other two are nearly there....  and I'm okay with that. 

I have yet to do our end-of-the-year evaluations or testing, so I need to do those sometime soon.... but for NOW I am enjoying rest and summer and gardening.  And the older kids are enjoying sleeping in.  Our teens (Ella and Isaac) really love to stay up late, talking to us and snacking and then head to bed and reading for another hour or two, and then sleeping in until afternoon.  It's summer so I am happy for them but am wondering how they'll transition back to real life in the fall.

Ella finished Driver's Ed in June, so she's happily driving us all around town with her permit, when she's not babysitting, which she loves to do.

Here is what else has been going on around the home front.  We planted our garden late May.  Here's a photo right after planting:

(I'll try to get an updated picture because it does NOT look like this now at all.)
 
Each of the kids chose a crop this year again:
Ella | carrots + romaine 
Isaac | cucumbers + lettuces
Isaias | beans
Adelia | sugar snap peas 
Audra | flowers

They are responsible for caring for their little sections of the garden and as they harvest (and as I use or enjoy their harvest), I will pay them.

In addition to what the kids have going, I added tomatoes.  They have been my favorite to plant for the past couple of years, so this year I went all out and purchased several varieties to see what grows well and what I like best. In addition to my standard choice of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, I also potted two of each of the following varieties:

Cherokee Purple (Heirloom)
Brandywine
La Roma
San Marzano
Early Girl

Happy tomatoes in the garden.

(For whatever reason, in my (very limited) experience, tomatoes seem to do better in pots than directly planted in the ground, so my garden is full of pots of tomatoes.  I had placed some pots in other areas around our patio and back garden, but the ones in our garden space were doing so much better that I've since moved all of the pots into our garden space.  It's a wee bit crowded in there but I'm hoping they'll all thrive now.)

My first bouquet of peonies this spring.  I love them so much!

I decided this year that I wanted to use our back garden (which in previous years has been planted with corn or pumpkins or squash) as a cutting garden, so I did a bit of research and decided to go with zinnias and dahlias this trial year.  Here's a picture of our back garden space all ready for planting (props to Mark, for throwing up walls to hold the dirt):

I purchased my zinnia seeds from Johnny's Seeds in early April, ordering:
Benary's Giant Lime
Giant Dahlia Flowered Mix
Queen Red Lime
Oklahoma Pink

I started them indoors under a grow light and when they got tall enough, gradually introduced them to the outdoors. Then I moved them for a couple of weeks to these pots until planting into the ground:

And just this week, snapped this picture:

(Those are my dahlias in the foreground.  I have two (Melody Dora and Claudette) that are SO happy and one (Cafe au Lait) that keeps wanting to die on me, which is of course the one I was MOST excited to see bloom!  Gr.) 

My zinnias that are about a foot and a half tall now.  Two have flowers already and many are nearly-there.  However, according to my best resource on this subject, (this website: Floret Flowers, and her beautiful book Cut Flower Garden) it's time for me to pinch those flowers and I'm procrastinating because it's so hard to think of removing those precious flowers!  I am assured that pinching encourages the plants to begin branching low and will ultimately produce longer stems and perhaps more blooms. It's on my list for this week.

The other really exciting news around our little backyard garden and farm is that in the nearly-ten years that we've been keeping chickens, we have always wanted to allow one of our hens to be a mama.  We can't have a rooster in the city so we never have fertilized eggs, but occasionally we will have a hen (usually one of our Buffs) go broody on us and we've wished we could get ahold of some fertilized eggs for her.  Well, this year the opportunity presented itself-- a co-worker of Mark's mentioned that she had eggs and we had a broody Buff-- our sweet old Elizabeth-- and so we jumped at the opportunity.  She had been broody for five days already and then we set twelve eggs beneath her.  We marked them with an "x".  (Note: I cringed at the number Mark brought home because I was a bit terrified that all twelve might hatch and we do NOT need twelve more chickens in our yard (!!!)

It was a bit tricky because Elizabeth was sitting in the favored nesting box, so the other hens kept trying to wrangle their way in to lay, but she patiently shared space with them and kept sitting.  She was such a good mama.  She would get up and come out once a day for about five minutes to stretch, drink a lot of water, and eat a bit, and then she'd be back in to settle on her eggs.  A few eggs were broken in the process, so we would remove those and any (unmarked) eggs our other hens were laying. 

A chick has about a 21-day life cycle, so when it had been about 19 days of her sitting on the eggs, we began watching more closely.  It was at this point that she stopped coming out for food or water at all, and we also closed off the back of the nesting box so that the other hens would stop pestering her.  Then we kept running out and checking on her, offering her water and telling her what a good job she was doing, and listening for little peeps. 

On the 23rd of June we heard peeping and saw one little head.  A bit later we saw two.... then three... and out of the seven eggs Elizabeth was still sitting on, six ended up hatching.  They were adorable, poking their little heads out from her feathers!  Audra (8) pretty much camped outside her nesting box for days.  Elizabeth stayed put in the nesting box for a couple of days until all had hatched (she kept sitting on #7 for a full day but then eventually got up and left it, and sure enough, when we checked, the baby chick had died at some point within the egg).

This was her a few days ago: 

It has been so fun for us to watch her with her chicks.  I keep telling Mark that I doubt any family has had as much joy as we have watching this whole process.  It has been such a delight.  She is such a good mama, those first few days, breaking up their food and setting it before them, clucking to them and nudging them to eat and drink and now teaching them to forage.  It's my favorite thing to watch how she'll call them her side and they will duck underneath her feathers for safety or at nighttime.  And also I love this stage (above) of them climbing all over her.  

One more thing before I end this ever-long blog post: Mark and I were able to get away recently (to the ocean, of course; my happy place) to celebrate our 20th anniversary!  I am so thankful for this man.  He remains my best friend and I love doing life with him.  It is a good thing, marriage, and I am so thankful to God for blessing us with the gift of one another and the grace to live out each day of these past twenty years. 

~

Love to you and yours!  I'd love to hear from you if you're able to say hi in the comments.  :)

December happenings and some recommendations!

Hello sweet friends,

A few days ago Audra was wandering about, wondering what she could do, because "no one wants to play with me."  She really is such a blessed little girl because so often she does have someone who will play with her, but when she doesn't, it's a bit rough for her.

Sometimes all she needs is an idea, though, of the possibilities, so I suggested that she read Christmas books to some of her dollies, and she countered with, "Or I could do school with them!"  And then she was off, cheerily setting up her classroom and prepping her lessons.  I was so delighted when I next walked through the living room that I snapped a few pictures:

This little scene reminded me of how I used to do the very same thing when I was a little girl, except that I had imaginary students (all with names and varying personalities, of course!) and I would just teach away in my little bedroom.  Who would have thought that years later, I would actually be teaching, and no longer with invisible students in my little room, but my own children, in our little home?

What a gift.  I am so grateful.

I have also been so tired.  Several weeks ago, -- well, probably beginning right around this post, I was struggling.  And then even when the PMS subsided, I just kept right on struggling, feeling overwhelmed and emotional and just... melancholy; like my usual joyful self was missing.  I tried to define it in an email to some friends: For several weeks now, I have been feeling particularly weary and overwhelmed and sort of like my soul is parched.  I have been asking Jesus to infuse life and breath into my spirit and delight into our school days.  And the words God has put in my mind as I've prayed and talked it over with my husband are to CREATE and RELATE.  I really feel like God is exhorting me to slow down and spend more time creating with the kids and on my own, and to take the time to relate and connect with them, specifically during our school days.

I think that in my efforts to organize and plan a smoothly-running school year for all five kids, from high school down to second grade, there are days where it can feel like all we're doing is checking off the lists of things to do, and the creative side of me feels starved.

Mark and I are still praying and asking God to reveal to us what it is that we could change or tweak in our schedule to make it less overwhelming, but for the past several weeks I have eased up on some of our schooling and have focused on creating and relating, and that has helped tremendously.

And then I've just been counting down the days to December, because we take the whole month of December off from school.  I always have grand plans that we will bake things for all the neighbors and decorate cookies and do a whole month of advent, etc, etc, etc.  But honestly?  With family birthdays this month in addition to the Christmas festivities and events and traditions and all the gifts to purchase and wrap, what we mostly do is rest.

On Monday morning I went to the video store and I rented four movies for the kids to watch, as a way to kick off our Christmas break.  This is huge to our kids because we don't have TV, and they get very little screen time.  So it's a win for them and for me, because it buys me down time and I feel utterly guilt-free about that.  ;)
Last night I did purchase this Advent Study from Stone Soup for Five which you can either purchase from Amazon in book form or as a PDF you can download and print (I did the latter), so today, six days into the month, we began that.  I just reviewed the first six lessons at the breakfast table and we'll do what we can do in the next few weeks.  What I love about it is that there is a coloring page per day, and my kids love coloring, so today we sat in the living room and while I read Christmas books and our current read-aloud, they got out the Prismacolor pencils and colored.

Oh, and I must recommend to you my favorite Christmas CD of the season.  I am actually not a real fan of Christmas music.  After so many years it sort of all sounds the same to me and I just don't love it.  (UNLIKE Mark, who has 1200 Christmas songs on his iPod and announced the other day that he listened to 20 different versions of the same song.  In one day.  All in a row.  *shudder*  I cannot even.)  But this CD?  I LOVE.  I've been listening to Christy Nockels' music since back in her Watermark days, and for the past couple of months I've been tuning in to her podcast, because I noticed that she was interviewing people like Ellie Holcomb, whom I love with all my heart.  And Christy herself is such an encourager, and a wise woman who loves Jesus deeply, and so I newly love her.  That's where I found out about her new Christmas album, and I ordered it.  And I love it.  You can and should purchase it HERE.  I think you'll love it.

Evaluating our School Year | Science

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year. I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make. I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  (I realize many of you have started school already and are beyond this point, as am I, but it's taken me longer than I thought to finish this series, and I'm determined to finish!)

~ 

Science 

Um, it would be laughable to have a whole post devoted to this topic, because-- science?  

It's just not my thing.  At all. 

We sort of dabble in science.  I have purchased some Actual Science Books in the past and they were dry and long and boring and I hated them and felt like we were going through the motions but not actually learning anything.  So I stopped reading from them. 

WHAT WE DID:

I'm actually embarrassed to tell you this, because, yes, this is ALL WE DID, but here goes:

We read Holling C Holling's Pagoo, which is the story of a hermit crab.  It's listed in one of Ambleside's earlier years (Year 3, maybe?), but we'd never read it before and we already owned it, so  we read it once a week and the kids drew while I read.

We also tried some (three) science experiments I found by perusing Pinterest, and I made up some observation sheets for the kids to fill out regarding the experiments.


Other than that?  We have discussions about things around the table, we read books and occasionally may watch a video or video clip about something.  And that's all, folks.  Period. 

CHANGES FOR NEXT (this) YEAR:
The kids all want to do more experiments.  So we will try to do that when I have time someday to find some more.  ;)  We are doing another read-aloud on the weather, and the kids will do written narrations on that.

Green pastures in the middle of the muck

God has a beautiful way of reminding me of His words of truth exactly when I need them.

~

It was last week, sometime, early on a Monday morning when I had gone into my room to sneak in a few minutes with the Lord.  Most of the kids were up, but Audra (7) still slept. I was glad she was sleeping because she's been really tired (read: emotional), and I don't think she's getting enough sleep.

I sort of have this idea that we should be quiet and considerate when others are sleeping.  I just think that's a nice thing to do.  So it's one of the rules that the kids stay away from the bedrooms/hallways of sleeping siblings.  So as I sat quietly journaling, attempting to align my heart to His for the full school day ahead, suddenly one of the kids busted into my room to ask me a question.  Loudly.  Since I had heard this particular child being REALLY noisy in the other room, I reminded this child of the sleeping sister.  Then another one of the kids came into the hallway (so very near Audra's door) and started talking to us.  I tried to shoo them all out of the hallway area and before you know it, a third child was there and suddenly there is bickering between two children and my stress that has been rising just bursts right open.  So I spill sin out in irritation and frustration and harshness, and command everyone away, NOW.

And then I turn again to my time with Jesus. Whereupon I have to confess and repent and then get on up and go make things right with all the people I hurt in the hallway and then plead for quiet and return.

I've been reading through the Psalms, and I picked up where I'd left off.  Psalm 23.

The LORD is my shepherd, 
I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, 
he leads me beside quiet waters, 
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Honestly, I could barely read it because this does not resemble my life, as much as I want it to.  I wrote these above verses down in my journal and wrote these notes beside them:

*I WANT green pastures, LORD.
*and ESPECIALLY quiet waters. (emphasis on quiet)
*Seriously, HOW do I find *those* in the midst of THIS?!?!

I never even got to finish that journal entry because I got interrupted again.  But I kept those few verses at the forefront of my mind as I went about my day and I puzzled over the incongruency of that serene picture verses my actual life.

As I pondered those words, I realized something that seemed profound to me that day.  (Now, I'm sure it's not actually profound and that God has whispered this to me several times before, but it was what I needed to be reminded afresh that day.)

There are a lot of us here, crammed into our house, full of our sinful selves, and there is a lot to accomplish each day in terms of school and chores and just relating to each other well.  It can get SO crazy.  (Meaning mostly that I can get so anxious/stressed/uptight.)  And God reminded me through these verses that those words are indeed for me, too, the crazy homeschooling mom.  Even the green-pastures-quiet-waters parts.  Because I can be calm and my spirit can be quieted and that makes all the difference.  I am able to rest in Him and to trust in Him and *not freak out* over things-- internally or outwardly (harshness, angst, irritation).

And I can do that because He lives within me.  So I asked Him to quiet my spirit, to be Lord over my mind and to lead me throughout the rest of our day.  (I need that reminder every single day, apparently, because my go-to in the craziness just doesn't happen to be a calm and gentle spirit.)

***

Then again, today, we had a really rough morning.  I was trying to get something done with the kids and one of them was working equally hard to sabotage my plans.  Or so it seemed.

Fast-forward to many (failed) attempts by me and many (successful) attempts by my child and I was all done.  I literally walked out the front door and took a walk around the block to cool my temper.  And then I came in, sat down, and sobbed. My internal recorder during these moments is this, on repeat: "I can't do this.  I cannot do this." Which isn't healthy, helpful, or true, I realize, but there it is.

So, hours later I sit down to process this all in my journal and I told Jesus that I needed a TRUE thing to repeat to myself, and would He give it?

And I turn to where I'm reading in the Psalms and read the next set of verses and here it is:

That's now taped into my journal so that I can be reminded of truth.  Right smack in the middle of my chaos and my helplessness and weariness, He gives strength, He blesses with peace.  He did, too.  The start of our day was rocky but we finished well today, and He strengthened and brought peace into the crazy.  I am so grateful for Him.  And I am thankful that He is busy refining me even though it's hard and there's a lot of refining to do.

Love to you, sweet friends.  May He strengthen you, too, with His word.

Beginnings

Hello, sweet friends~

We're doing this thing.  School is back in session and- you know what?  I love it so much.





Am I tired?  Um, yes.

Did I forget how often it is that every single child seems to need me right now, and all at once?  Yes.

Did I forget how difficult it is to juggle the dishes, the laundry, the meals, AND school?  Uh, yeah.

Have we been behind my schedule every single day thus far?  YES.

And yet, we are here together, getting up early, cracking open the Bible at the table, singing, praying, talking, puzzling together over challenging math problems, cozying up under blankets to read good books, growing in patience and love for one another, learning to serve each other, and sharing it all with daddy when he gets home.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  These are sweet, sweet years and I understand that even in the craziness of them.  I am so blessed.  I love my kids and the time I get with them.. 

Another highlight:  Last night Ella made dinner for the whole family.  She was amazing.  She had to thaw and then cook the meat and roast sweet potatoes earlier in the day and then layer it all in the slow cooker for dinner, hours before we ate.  She's on for Wednesday dinners for the rest of the year and I don't quite know what to do with myself as she takes command in my kitchen.  She kept saying, "I've got this, mommy.  You're hovering."  :)  And I was.  The kitchen is sort of my domain.  She's done all sorts of baking and assisting and has been in charge of breakfasts and lunches, but has never been solely responsible for the evening meal.  She made a delicious meal for us and we were all so blessed.

~

Evaluating our School Year: Nature Study

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year. I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make. I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  (I realize many of you have started school already and are beyond this point, as am I, but it's taken me longer than I thought to finish this series, and I'm determined to finish!)

~

If you're just joining us for this series, so far these are the topics I've covered:
Poetry
Bible Time
Prayer
Memory Work [with links to all other memory work posts]
Hymns
Picture Study
Composer Study
Shakespeare

~

  

Nature Study

The birdfeeder right outside our kitchen window that gets lots of visitors

WHAT WE DO:
We have done a lot of Nature Study over the years, [<<clicking on that link will take you to other posts I've written on the topic] but this past year was not one of those years.  *grimace*

This is why: It always feels like such a monumental task to me.  It takes a big chunk of time-- to get all five kids out the door for a walk, plus the journals and pencils and paints, and then the question of where to actually go, and then to time it "right" with either the weather or our schedule or both...?  It just feels so BIG and wearisome.

When it appeared on the schedule this past year, I often thought, "Ugh.  That will take hours, and then we won't be able to get to A, B and C that still await on the schedule...."  As if it's taking away time from doing "real school".  So I frequently skipped it. 

Or occasionally I did this:  "Everyone, head outside with your nature journals.  Find something in the yard to draw!"  But it was a half-hearted effort, and by the end of the year I had dropped it from the schedule entirely.

An injured bird we took care of in the house for a day.

Here's the thing: the kids noticed.  They missed it.  They actually LOVE the walks, observing and discovering new things.  It's one of their favorite things.  Perhaps in part due to the fact that we have spent other years focusing on Nature Study, they love God's creation, and they truly take great delight in it.  Ella has spent a good deal of her late-summer hours, collecting seeds, labeling them and setting them aside for next year's planting.  She is my gardener extraordinaire, and knows a good deal about all the things growing and moving in our yard and garden.  Isaac is often outside, watching the ants, the spiders or some other creature.  He learns a fact about any thing, and he remembers it.  He's like a little encyclopedia.  Isaias is interested in everything; how it grows; how it changes.  He is naturally curious about it all.  Adelia wants no part in any of it. ;)  She may get out the door, but then she'll groan and moan about not wanting to do this.  Audra is just as fascinated with bugs and spiders as the boys are, and has containers everywhere of things she has collected.  And she wants to draw everything in sight.  I forget that Nature Study is a worthy pursuit; that it is something in our schedule that causes us to pause and marvel at all that God has created.

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR:
I have this idea that we are going to devote one day a week to just this.  And block out several hours to make this happen.  This will be hard for me.  Generally I have bread rising or dinner in the works or Things To Do That Seem More Important.  BUT.  It is important.  And my kids love it.  And it is good for ALL OF US to get out of the house and explore God's creation.  So that's the plan.  We'll see if this happens, or how often it happens.

Ella, holding a bird that had a broken wing or foot (I forget which)

Evaluating our School Year: Shakespeare

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Shakespeare
I was won over to the idea of studying Shakespeare with my kids, years ago- after reading Linda Fay's post called What's So Great About Shakespeare?  I was mainly fascinated with how many words and phrases Shakespeare added to the English language.

However, I personally felt inadequate to teach Shakespeare, seeing as how I've only ever read three plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear-- eons ago, back in high school.  I got through them only because I had Cliff notes and I had no appreciation for the plays at all.

(Also, doesn't it always sounds so hoity-toity to mention to anyone that you're studying Shakespeare in your homeschool?)  So I had an aversion to that, too.  But I decided to give it a try, and I am now so glad I did.  We all really like Shakespeare.

NOTE: Everything we do is what I gleaned from Linda's blog years ago, so truly none of the following ideas are original to me.  

WHAT WE DO:

I give each of the kids a 3x3 grid.  You can easily have the kids draw out their own grids, but I have a document that I just print out each time.  (You'll see those in the following photos.)

I draw up my own grid on a dry erase board:

Or, on Mark's day off, he does:
 

WHATEVER.  Totally one-upping me with his fancy drawings.  Look at that king!  (No, it was actually really fun for me to come home to this ^ the first time he did Shakespeare with the kids on his day off, because he obviously ROCKED it, and I was so proud.)

Isaias'

As each character is introduced, we all take time to draw that character, assigning one character per box.  We've done this for years and it really helps us all keep track of the characters.  If needed, we can add notes or drawings in the appropriate box as a particular character's story progresses.

Gracious! This makes me happy.  This is Adelia's, from a couple of years ago.

I read aloud, pausing with each new character for maybe 3-5 minutes to give us all time to sketch.  [Some of my children want their drawings *just so*, so I often will encourage those children to perfect their drawings a bit more later so that the rest of us can move along.]

Audra's

 I used to read from Nesbit's Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare, but I've since switched to Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. 

Isaac's

We may do 3-5 characters each reading, and we rarely finish an entire play in one sitting. The following week, I have the kids pull out their papers and narrate back to me what has happened.  The grid format helps with this, because I can call on a child, pick a character, and say, "Tell me what you remember about _________."  And then choose another character for the next child.

Ella's

I pull out my dry erase board again and we continue reading, filling in more characters as we come to them.  We continue on in this way for 2-3 weeks, usually, until we're through a play.

Example: Here is week two of King Lear, so my drawings have been added to Mark's drawings from the previous week:

And that is how we learn Shakespeare.  It's simple and effective.  We have learned several plays this way over the years: Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Macbeth, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Merchant of Venice, A Winter's Tale, King Lear, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (for this one I had purchased a picture book of the play and my kids all loved that.)  I may be missing a couple of plays we've done but those are the ones I remember.  After doing Taming of the Shrew we did rent the video (the one with Elizabeth Taylor in it) and watched it.

If you're unfamiliar with William Shakespeare, I'd also like to mention this picture book as a good resource: Shakespeare: His Work and His World by Michael Rosen. This is a great book for understanding the world Shakespeare came from and highlights excerpts from his plays throughout.   

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR:

For this next year, we're going straight to the play itself.  I'm going to choose a play, hand each (reading) child a copy, assign parts and we're going to act it out somewhat, using Shakespeare's own words.  I'm excited to try this.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Evaluating our School Year: Composer Study

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Composer Study 

This will be short and sweet, because it really isn't that complicated.  The whole idea is that we will just listen and enjoy beautiful classical music.  So we do that.  :) 

Ambleside has a Composer Schedule with links to various works, so that is where I go to find composers.

WHAT WE DO: 

We listened to the music of two composers this year:

Sergei Rachmaninoff (6 works)
Johannes Brahms (6 works)

I have it on the schedule once a week, and I will often play it while we're doing chores (cleaning up the kitchen, sweeping the floor, folding laundry, etc.) or while the kids are drawing.  I will just say the name of the composer, trying my best to pronounce it ;) and we'll simply listen.

That's ALL!

Evaluating our School Year: Picture Study

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Picture (Art) Study

WHAT WE DO:

We do Picture Study once a week.

This past year we studied three artists, and 5-6 paintings from each. We studied paintings by Georges Seurat, Claude Monet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

At the beginning of the year, I downloaded PDF files from the Ambleside Yahoo Group and had prints printed locally.  

I want my kids have a familiarity with the paintings and artists we've studied, so I make sure they have a print of each painting.  I get one 8 1/2x11 print of each of the paintings we'll study, and then four paintings printed per page for the kids to put in their binders; smaller versions of the paintings we've studied.  Here is an example of what they keep in the Picture Study section of their binders:

As to what the study part of this all looks like at our house, I've edited a post I wrote seven years ago to describe what we do.  We're still doing Picture Study the very same way, all these years later. 

Once each week, this is what we do:

Introduction:  If it is the first week and thus a new artist, I introduce the artist, giving the name; often in writing, and any biographical information I think is pertinent. Then I read a short bio or even just a few facts about the artist.  For all subsequent works by this same artist, I'll skip the biographical information but note the artists name each time, and recall the previous painting studied.

Description:  Then I pull out a print and hand it to a child, hiding it from the rest of the children, asking the selected child to describe what he or she sees. The rest of us listen and try to imagine the painting in our minds.  My children all love this part. They actually bicker over whose turn it is to describe a painting.

Questions: When the child has finished describing the painting, the rest of us get the opportunity to ask that child questions about the things our minds are still wondering about.  (I think this is one of the reasons why my kids love their role of narrator; they get to play teacher and "call" on their siblings' raised hands to take their questions. ;)) 

Reveal: When the questions wane, the child reveals the painting he or she has just described (and the rest of us have imagined) and we all exclaim over it and talk about it. 

That is our procedure with each new painting.

For example, our weeks studying Georges Seurat looked like this:

Week 1: Introduce artist, short bio, select a child to describe the painting: Rock-Breakers
Week 2: Brief review: Who remembers our new artist?  What was last week's painting?
New painting: Man Cleaning His Boat
Week 3: Brief review. New painting: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
Week 4: Brief review. New painting: Bathers at Asnieres 
(Mark was the teacher this week, and he let the kids choose a portion of the painting to paint.  I generally wait till the end of our study to do this.)
Week 5: Brief review. New painting: The Circus
Week 6: Brief review. New painting: The Eiffel Tower
Week 7 | Final week: Brief review. Compare and contrast all the paintings.  How are they similar?  How are they different?  Can you tell that the same artist painted all of these? Then, we paint. I choose one of the paintings we've studied for us all to attempt to paint.  (We each painted Seurat's The Eiffel Tower.)

*Each time we study a new painting, I choose a different child (or myself!) to describe it.

* * *

For further consideration and lists of artists, check out the artist rotation at Ambleside Online.  I don't actually follow the same order they suggest.  I choose artists that I love or that I think my kids would find interesting and we go from there.  :)  I really enjoyed my college Art History classes and I genuinely love introducing my kids to the painters I admire. 

Another post on Picture Study that may be of interest to you:

Picture Study Q & A

Evaluating our School Year: Hymns

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

 

Well, to make up for the last post on Memory Work that went on and on and on..... (bless you, those of you who made it to the end!).... this post will be short and sweet.  

Hymns

Here is a list of the hymns we learned this past year:

 

A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Great is Thy Faithfulness
How Great Thou Art
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Blessed Assurance

I Surrender All 

There is a Fountain

WHAT WE DID:

I printed these out-- one at a time-- and one verse at a time, we learned these hymns.  We sang a verse every morning.  For a whole week we might only sing one verse, and then the following week (or whenever I thought we knew it well), I would add another verse, and so on.  

Eventually I plan to get some slender binders and add all the hymns we've learned into them so that we can have our own "family hymn book". 

Here's an older post I wrote that lists other resources, too: Hymn Study

Evaluating our School Year: Memory Work [with links to all other memory work posts]

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

If you're just joining us for this series, so far I've covered:
Evaluating our School Year: Poetry 
Evaluating our School Year: Bible Time
Evaluating our School Year: Prayer

~

Memory Work
Memory work is anything we memorize throughout the school year, so I guess poetry and hymns  could fall beneath this heading, too, but I have those listed separately on our schedule.  We've done all sorts of things within this category in previous years, including photos of famous landmarks, a catechism, creeds, and lots and lots of Scripture.

For several years we used this format:

I wrote our verses out on index cards and sometimes doodled pictures to go with them, and then we'd pull one or two out each day and work on memorizing them.

Now that we're memorizing longer passages this isn't quite as practical, but I still do index cards for the single verses we memorize.

For our longer passages, I type it out and then print out a page for each child.  Those get tucked into page protectors (to keep spills and dirty fingers off the paper, since we do Morning Time at breakfast) and put them all into the Morning Time binder.  When we get to Memory Work on the schedule, I then pass a sheet out to each child.

We do Memory Work daily, and each morning we do a REVIEW verse (or two), as well as a NEW verse (or two).  I'll start by reading the verses, and then a few days in I'll ask who thinks they can tackle it.

When I think we have the verse down-- after maybe a week or two, we'll move on.
For a longer passage, we will do all the previous learned verses as review and then tag on a new verse each day.  I also will sometimes write up the longer passages on our dry erase board so they're visible at other times of the day for our readers.

***

This is what we memorized this year:

From the Bible:
Psalm 19*
Psalm 33:5*
Psalm 105:1-45
Proverbs 15:28
Proverbs 18:21
Luke 2:1-20
Luke 6:45

Other memory work:
Books of the Old Testament*
Family Ways (1-21)--I used Clay and Sally Clarkson's book Our 24 Family Ways and edited them for our family, changing up the wording sometimes, adding some, and omitting some altogether.
 

(*The starred ones refer to passages|memory work we reviewed from a previous year.)

Heading into Christmastime, we memorized Luke2:1-20.  I split up the verses like this and the kids each had a copy and they would draw or doodle a picture for each verse.  They LOVED this, so we'll try to do this again.

Memorizing is really tricky for Adelia (8), in particular.  She needs a lot of help from us in "feeding" her the words; the lines.  This can be a bit exasperating for the rest of us, because 1)she is always the first to volunteer for anything and 2)she really wants to have her own turn to recite the twelve verses she's "memorized", but she really doesn't know it well at all and it can be a bit pain-staking and require much patience from us.  (It came up in my end-of-the-year evaluations with one of the older kids, which is why I'm mentioning it.)

This is one of those things that's challenging about having younger kids and older kids in the mix.  I want my older kids to be challenged, but the younger girls sort of need things on their level, too.  However, we're doing it all together and even when the girls are allowed to "opt out" of something, they don't want to, because they want to be big and do what their older siblings are doing.  Which works fine most of the time but sometimes it doesn't.  Oh well.  This is one of those times where the Lord in His perfect wisdom is growing us all in patience and in bearing with one another.  ;)

***

Apparently I've written a lot about our memory work.  Apparently it's my favorite thing or something, because this next list took me quite awhile to put together.  So.  Here is a list of my other memory work posts, if you're interested:


from 2006:
A Favorite: ABC Bible Verses
Our Memory Verses

from 2007, with a list of easy-to learn verses: 
Scripture Memorization,

from 2010:
Memory Work Box
Memorizing our Theme Passage (with links to some of our favorite Scripture-memory CDs)
Ten Verses Cards (when I chose ten different verses for each child to memorize)
Verses for a Two-Year-Old

from 2011:
Honoring Daddy (when we put into practice one of the verses we'd been memorizing)
2010-11 Year in Review: Memory Work

from 2013:
First day of School (with pictures of some of our catechism cards)

from 2014:
Our Simple Schedule, Part 3: (Bible, memory work, poetry)

from 2016:
Mid-year Morning Time Review

Also, here is a link to some FREE printable ABC Scripture Memory Cards that another mom created, if you don't want to put together your own.  ;)

Evaluating our School Year: Prayer

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Prayer

WHAT WE DID:
Directly following our Bible time, we had a prayer time together.  This was a really sweet time for us each morning, and until this year, I hadn't attempted it.  Sure, we have always prayed before each mealtime, but we hadn't set aside a prayer time like this.  Right now all of our kids are old enough that we are able to do this, and it was such a welcome addition to our mornings.

Most days I would simply ask, "What can we pray for today?" and often the kids would remember the various needs of family members and friends, needs in our own home or in the world.  We prayed a LOT for the refugees this year (thank you, my sweet Audra, who wanted to pray for them every.single.morning).  And we prayed a lot for the presidential candidates.  We also prayed for our Compassion kids.

Since our prayer time followed our Bible time, we would also often pray about what we'd read or learned.  Sometimes by that time we'd already had a rough morning with bickering or a stressed mommy, and one of my kids would pipe up, "We could pray for peace for the rest of our school day."  And so we did.

I wrote all of these prayer requests down on our morning time sheet for that day.

Then each of us would select one or two things to cover in prayer, and we prayed for 5-10 minutes.

At some point during the year I encouraged the kids to begin their prayers with a "Thank You, God, that You are ___________ " type-praise.  I want them to learn to come before God with adoration and praise for Who He is, not just to Him for something.  So this was a good, hopefully habit-forming practice that we kept up.  I actually have made a note on my planning list for this next year to cover some of the attributes of God in our morning time, but I haven't fleshed that out yet.  (Does anyone know any good resources for that?)

We will continue to do prayer the same way next year! 

Evaluating our School Year: Bible time

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Bible

WHAT WE DID:
Every day, the first thing we do during our morning time is to read from the Bible or a Bible story book.  I've written before about my two favorite Bible story books.  This year we read Hurlbut's- just a page or two each morning, not even always finishing the section.

Here are some of the things we do for Bible time narrations:
1. Stop after reading a paragraph or two and call on one of the kids (surprise!) to narrate it for me.
2. Ask questions at the end of the reading time:  "Adelia, tell me about ____________".  Isaac, can you describe ____________?"
3. Utilize our dry erase board for sketching out the story itself.  (I'll break up the story into parts and have each child take one part and draw it on the board.  Then we'll show daddy at lunchtime and
each child can re-narrate his/her part to him.)
4. Utilize our dry erase board for writing up the "characters" from the story and listing what we learned about them. Generally I have the pen, and I'll say, "Okay, what did we learn about __*insert name here*___   from this passage?" and the kids will call things out and I'll write them all down.

Towards the end of the year we also read the "Proverb of the Day".  [So, the first day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 1, the second day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 2, etc.]  One of my oldest would read the chapter aloud, and then I would generally ask all the kids if any parts/verses stood out to them and we'd talk about it.

All of our Bible time ends in some sort of conversation or discussion, and it is nearly always my favorite time of the day.  I love hearing my kids' observations on the Scripture we read.

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR:
My older two have requested that we skip the Bible story books and read straight from the Bible. This is what we'll do for next year.  (I have kept the Bible story books in our rotation for the sake of the little girls, because so much of what we do is geared toward the older kids that I have to work to try to keep some things *younger* for them.) 

Settling into rest, and an update on Isaac

Hello, sweet friends!

How are you all today?

We are well.  I actually came down with some weird virus Friday night, so I spent all of Saturday in bed, with a fever and achy body and migraine-like headaches.  It was fairly awful, but with sickness also comes the kindnesses of my family: sweet get well cards from two of my girls, a kind son who comes up quietly, several times a day, and asks if he can pray for me, and then lays his hand on me and prays fervently.  Another son who comes and asks if he can rub my neck for me.  And my man, who took the day off to spend with the kids so that I could actually rest.

Sunday came and I felt slightly better, but we stayed home from church and ended up spending time in the yard and garden.  It was so restful.  Sunday night came, and it dawned on me that I didn't have any lesson planning to do. No weekly clipboard sheets to print out, no math lessons to assign, no new morning time material to find.

We are done for the year.  (!)

Monday came, and again I marvelled at all that is now not on our plate. It's actually quite staggering, how much space is suddenly in our schedule. We had a lazy morning, did our chores, and headed to the library.  We got stacks and stacks of books and came home, sat on the couch, and read a whole lot of them.  It was so satisfying, not to feel like we had other things to get to, something else school-ish to do.  

Mark asked how things went, our first Monday of no-school, and I made some remark about how the kids are probably a little unfamiliar with this more relaxed mama of theirs-- (she's more silly and more playful and fun).  And I told him that it truly feels good to settle into only being mama, and to check out of my teacher role for a season.  

Today the younger kids were getting restless.  I suggested board games, but that wasn't a hit.  The rain is coming down hard outside, watering our garden for us.  I made three batches of playdough and pulled out all the cookie cutters, rolling pins, and knives.  They've been at it now for more than an hour.  At first they were all pretending they work in a bakery and they were fashioning all sorts of little cookies, pies and tarts, and calling me in every few minutes to show me their creations.  Then they played "Chopped" (which they've seen all of two times), calling out a meal --I've overheard spaghetti, kabobs and hamburgers so far-- setting the timer, and then all working individually to make it.  Then one of the kids- the preassigned judge, judges their entries.  ;)

* * *

Isaac update:  Last week I was becoming increasingly anxious about Isaac's health.  He has been the same-- still making 4-5 trips to the bathroom every day, with an almost constant urge to go.  He still has mucous and blood intermittently. His throat still feels "snotty".  He spends nearly 30 minutes in the bathroom each time, so we're talking HOURS out of his day are spent in the bathroom.  This has been going on for more than four months.  He's tired of it, and has been increasingly discouraged (hence my increasing anxiety).

I pressed in to the Lord again, asking what we should do for him.  I keep asking God to lead us, to direct us to answers regarding his health.  We don't know what is going on with him, but God-- Creator of his body-- does.  I keep asking that God would reveal it to us and impart His perfect wisdom to us.  And I keep asking God to heal him, and continue to entrust him to God.

We feel like we've given it ample time to work it's way out of his system, whatever the elusive It is.  I spent Friday afternoon on the phone again with Children's Hospital, talking to the nurse a few different times, talking to scheduling, trying to get another appointment with the gastroenterologist.  They want us to drive to Seattle to get updated labs.  (And--- they can't get us in for an appointment until the end of August.)  I also researched a naturopath here in town that could do food allergy testing for him.  

On Saturday evening Isaac told me that he'd only gone to the bathroom ONCE.  ONE TIME.  And it was "normal".  (So... not diarrhea.)  You guys!  My jaw dropped open.  This is startling, considering these past several months.  I was floored, and just thankful even for this one day of rest for his body, for this one day of reprieve.  

On Sunday, he did not go AT ALL.  Not once.  He told me and I shook my head, in total wonder at what God has done.  I don't know if He has healed him or if He is just giving his body rest (both of which we've prayed for), but either way, I am SO thankful.

Monday, he went again, ONCE.  He said it was normal, just like it was "before all this started."

I don't have an update yet for today, but I am so incredibly grateful for even these three days of rest for his body; for God's goodness and for His temporary (if not permanent) healing.  

Thank you for your faithful prayers, dear friends. 

Book list for a 13-year old girl

I told Ella to grab some of her favorite books over the years 

and take some photos for my blog with her camera.  

She did a great job!  

Ella, now 14, loves to read and is great at writing down everything (or nearly everything) she's read, as well as writing either a narration or a book report for them.  Last year she recorded 85 books, and rated each of them from 1-5 stars, five being her very favorite books. 

We went through her list together and I have listed for you all her 5-star books for you, here:

Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery

The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (she read the young-adult version)

 The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

Bruchko by Bruce E. Olsen

A Way Through the Sea by Robert Elmer

  Anne of Green Gables (entire series)- by L.M. Montgomery

The Thieves of Tyburn Square by Dave & Neta Jackson
Imprisoned in the Golden City by Dave & Neta Jackson
Listen for the Whippoorwill by Dave & Neta Jackson
A Titanic Journey Across the Sea by Laurie Lawlor
West Against The Wind by Liza Ketchum Murrow
The Mitchells Five for Victory by Hilda Van Stockum
Canadian Summer by Hilda Van Stockum
Friendly Gables by Hilda Van Stockum
Beyond the River by Robert Elmer (also Into the Flames, Far from the Storm, Chasing the Wind, A Light in the Castle, Follow the Star, Touch the Sky, all by Robert Elmer)
Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming
Enemy in the Fort by Sarah Masters Buckey
Cupcake Cousins by Kate Hannigan
Summer Showers by Kate Hannigan
Elise the Actress by Norma Jean Lutz
Young Music Makers by Ireene Wicker
Ten Little Dutchmen by Grace VerHoeven
Jotham's Journey by Arnold Ytreeide 
Bartholemew's Passage by Arnold Ytreeide
Tabitha's Travels by Arnold Ytreeide
A Garland for Girls by Lousia Mae Alcott

Some of these are re-reads, and some of them she would admit were a little "young" for her, but she doesn't mind that so much.  

I am also formulating a post on choosing good books for your teen daughter, and I will try to finish that soon!  Also, some book lists for boys are in the works.  (Although my boys are good readers, they don't always write down the books they've read.  So this year I smartened up and bribed them.  For every 20 books they've read and written down the titles of, they get a DQ treat.   So far that's working, so I have book lists for my boys coming your way.  ;)