Signage

A friend of mine is hosting a Garage & Bake Sale this weekend.  ALL proceeds are going toward the refugee crisis.  ( Isn't that wonderful?)  So when I found out she was doing that, I immediately offered to make signs, because that's my favorite thing ever, pretty much.

I've said before here that if you give me some paper and a Sharpie marker I'm a happy girl-- for hours.  So last night after the kids were in bed I sat down with my pens and some poster board and went to work.  Here are (some of) the results:



I seriously had so much fun.

My sweet Ella is going to bake some treats for the bake sale, too, which just makes me so happy.  When I initially asked her if she'd like to bake anything, she said, "YES, mommy. Especially for that cause. I've been *wanting* to do something to help, so I would love to."  (Is she not the cutest?)

Confessions of a Second-Rate Charlotte Mason Educator

When people ask me what type of homeschooling we do, I generally ask them if they're familiar with Charlotte  Mason.  Usually no one knows who that is or has only a hazy recollection of hearing her name before.  So I end up briefly describing what a living book is, and just say that we do a lot of reading.  :)  Charlotte Mason simplified. 

While I identify with a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education, and I feel a kindredness with her approach, I feel like I am a looooong way from educating the Charlotte-Mason way.  So here are some of my "confessions", if you will:

I love Dictation and it truly works, but I think we did it all of four times last year.  For reals.

We didn't do any Shakespeare last year.  At all.

We aren't learning Latin or any other foreign language.  And- gasp!- I don't have any plans to do so.

We barely did Composer Study last year.  Occasionally I played some classical music while the kids were drawing, but truly that was probably only a handful of times. 

We do Nature Study, but we've never looked up or written down a Latin name for anything.  We just look.  And draw or paint.  And appreciate what we see.

I always feel like I'm cheating somehow when we do narrations.  I'm sure it's *supposed* to be more structured than it is, or more official, somehow.  And certainly it's supposed to happen more regularly than it does.

* * *

I read a few homeschooling blogs, and I sort of marvel at how organized and how "together" these moms are, how they have such great CM systems; how intentional they are about implementing Charlotte Mason's methods, and how they put out such coherent, regular, thoughtful homeschooling posts.  And I conclude that they are doing this Charlotte Mason thing The Right Way, whereas apparently I am only dabbling, because what I do doesn't resemble what they do, or at least it doesn't seem quite as polished. 

But you know what?  I'm actually okay with that.  That is them, and that is not me.  I don't fret about it like I used to.  The longer I homeschool, the less anxious I am about those things.

Some things we do well some years. 

For two years straight we did do Shakespeare.  Six plays.  And we enjoyed it.  We plan to cover some more plays this year.  Regardless, when all is said and done, I have introduced my children to Shakespeare, and I think that's a good thing.

Some things will always be a struggle.  I don't think we'll ever learn a foreign language, and I'm okay with that.  Would I love it if my kids knew a second language?  Um, YES.  But it's not really in my wheelhouse or in our budget and I trust that if God wants them to learn one someday, He will make it happen. 

I'm okay with the way we do Nature Study.  Of course I have lofty visions of beautifully drawn flowers and plants and trees and insects and animals, with corresponding Latin names calligraphied perfectly beside my drawings, but it's just not going to happen.  And that's okay.  Overall, I know that my children notice things around them when they are outside.  They have gained an appreciation and a curiosity of nature.  They notice what blooms and when, and they want to draw a picture.  They  take the time to watch bugs and spiders and examine their behavior.  They delight in what they see; and in what God has made and in how He has created.  That's a great thing.

I may not do narrations right, but my kids remember well and love to tell us about what they've read.  So they are taking in the information, processing it, and retelling it.  That's enough.

I say all that because I began this post with the idea to tell you about an inspiring book I'm reading about educating the Charlotte Mason way.  (I try to read at least one homeschool-related book each summer for the purpose of fresh inspiration.)  And as I began writing about it, I recalled the book I'd read last summer-- The Living Page.  I realize that as inspired as I was after reading that book, as many notes I took and plans I had, our homeschool really didn't change a whole lot as a result.  (I think it changed me in that I paid more attention to what I was reading and have been more faithful to write things down in my journal and label them "commonplace".  And I created a Word Book for the girls and we used that throughout the year.)

But with all my lofty plans of wonderful historical timelines and a firsts notebook and all the other notebooks we were going to start, and maintain?  None of that materialized.  I think some of that is due to my lack of planning.  Or more accurately, my lack of follow-through.   I can be visionary and get easily excited about things and begin well, but I don't always finish.

Or maybe it just wasn't our year to excel in notebooks and timelines.  :) 

Part of the reason, too, is that there is just not time to do it all.  There are five children in this house (!!!!)  Things can be quite crazy around here.  (Just ask my friends who were here recently when my daughter was having a tantrum on her bed.  Screaming and kicking the wall.)  These things happen in our regular life.  There are days we skip whole subjects entirely because we just cannot even.

And yet, the school year happened and we learned.  We grew in knowledge alongside each other and we lived the firsts together and we marveled over connections made through our different readings and we are doing just fine.

This year we will grow and learn alongside each other, too.  And I will delight in my kids' learning.  I will pray and ask God to lead us in our learning endeavors.  And He will.  I will be thankful for the relationship I have with each of my kids, and for the privilege of getting to teach them. 

ps: I may yet tell you about that book, but before doing so I felt I should tell you how imperfectly we'll live out any inspiration I may derive from said book.  :)

Road Trip ideas!

I know everyone has school on the brain right now, and actually, so do I!  But we're not actually starting until October so I'm not doing schoolish posts quite yet.

We just returned from a 10-day family road trip and it was great.  We drove from Washington to California, along the coast, into the Redwoods, and as far as Monterey Bay- and then back home through Yosemite.  We camped, stayed in vacation houses, and spent a couple of nights in hotels.  We logged over 2500 miles on our van, and the kids were amazing.  I thought I'd post some of my road trip ideas here so that I can remember and in case it's helpful for anyone else.  :)

First tip: Make your kids pack their own stuff.  :)  This is our system for any trip, and it works- even for the little kids.  Our olders can either help with the younger kids or the younger kids can pack what they see in the pictures and you can check their work.  Either way, it saves a TON of time.

(Right after I copied these, my kids pointed out that I'd forgotten to put pajamas on here!  Whoops!  I told them they could add it to the "Other items" list on the top left-hand corner.  :))

One of my favorite things is equipping our kids for all those hours in the van, and since we don't rely on technology because I'm old-fashioned that way, here is what we do instead:

Gift bag of goodies: Each of the kids gets a gift bag of goodies.  I choose a different color bag for each child and write their name on it.  AND: I keep this a secret until the morning of, so when they get to the van they it on their seats and spend the first several minutes rifling through them.  They love this.
 

The kids climbing into our van right before we hit the road.  Isaias has spotted his bag on his seat.

In the bag: Gum, lollipops, snacks (goldfish crackers, gummy bears, swedish fish, fruit snacks, granola bars, cookies, plus coupons for drinks from the ice chest*), packages of tissue, a couple of mechanical pencils, a pen, word search/suduko/coloring/maze books I picked up at the dollar store, a blank composition book or notebook for writing or coloring, and their Road Trip Journal (more on that later). Also, there are no rules for the treats in their bags: they are theirs to eat whenever they want.  :)

*This is the first time I've done the coupon thing, and it worked great.  Each of the kids had coupons in their bags- just slips of paper that said, "Good for one soda" or "Good for one juice box", and when they wanted a drink they got to hand in their coupon and get a drink. 

Road Trip Journal: I made a journal for each of the kids to take along.  I bought some inexpensive folders with the brads in them and three-hole punched the pages and tucked them in the folders.

In their journals:
Map of the United States.  I printed the B&W copy, because we colored them in as we saw the license plates from each state.  This was a fun activity that lasted throughout the whole trip, and kept us all looking out the window!

Journal pages (Days 1-10): I've made the first page larger for you to see and the other pages small, but if you click on them you'll be able to see them larger.

Vacation wrap-up:

Also included in the journal were these battleship pages and some blank graph paper (for their own lists or mazes or whatever games they wanted to play).

I printed off journals for Mark and myself, too, and we all spent time filling them in each day, either on the road or when we settled for the night.

Snacks: I also packed lots of general snacks up front between Mark and I (bags of chips, carrot sticks, crackers, string cheese, nuts, dried fruit, etc) and occasionally I'd pass those around. 

Games: We play lots of games while we're on the road.  Here are some of our favorites:
ABC game
License plate game (see above map)
License plate game #2: Call out the letters of a license plate and everyone races to try to think of a word with the letters in that same order.  (Example: HDG might be hedge or handbag).
Color game: Call out a color and everyone calls out what they see outside the window that is that color.
I Spy (in the van)

We also brought some trivia books and some Brain Quest flip books to quiz the kids.

Music: We made a road trip playlist and listened to it a whole lot.  :)  Mark and I sang loudly and tried to get the kids on board with all of our favorite music.  :)  

Maps: We had maps for each state and showed the kids each day where we were starting from, and where our destination was that day.  They loved this, especially our six-year old.  She kept asking us to pull the map out so that she could see our progress along the way!  

Quiet: There were a few times we called out, "Ten (or twenty!) minutes of quiet!"  And everyone had to be quiet.  We only did this two or three times but it helped for our sanity.  :)

I posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook throughout our trip but I'll try to post a few here, too, within the next couple of days.

Garden notes and drying tomatoes

I knew when we planted our garden this spring that I didn't want to do a lot of canning.  It's just a lot of work, and I was tired and wanted rest. 

Ahem.  I did NO canning.  Oh, wait.  That's not true.  I think I did up two batches of freezer jam: one strawberry and one peach.  But still.  That's not a lot.  I imagine I'll regret that come fall and winter.  But when it's 80-something degrees in the kitchen, I just cannot get motivated to can.  No way.

I froze a lot of berries- strawberries and raspberries from our yard.  We made several batches of fruit leather.  We ate beans fresh and roasted them up for a few dinners.  We made a lot of tomato-and-cucumber-and-garlic-and-basil-and-feta salads.  YUM.  

 

I still have tomatoes and basil coming out my ears.  So this morning I was up early in the garden and picked a huge bowl of Sun Gold tomatoes (my favorite), and decided to try drying them.  I just sliced them in half (quartering the larger ones), and then in a food processor, blended about 10 leaves of basil and a couple of garlic cloves and olive oil, and drizzled it all over the top of them.  Sprinkled salt and pepper over the top and we'll see how it goes.  But I cannot WAIT to try them.  They look and smell delicious.  :) 

I'm contemplating doing this with my rhubarb.  Has anyone ever tried this?  And I'm definitely making some more rhubarb syrup just as soon as I can get ahold of some cheesecloth. 

On Duct Tape and Really Awful Mornings

The digital clock in the van read 10:00 and even though there were six of us in there, it was silent.  When I looked for my kids' eyes in the rear view mirror I could see their hurt even through my own tears.

It was one of those hard mornings.  A lot of grumbling and bickering.  An impatient, irritable, hurried mama.  We were supposed to leave the house at 9:30, but between the bickering and the shower nozzle that broke and the duct tape we couldn't find because the last child who used it just a couple of days ago had forgotten to return it and it was now nowhere.  And the child who used said tape and has been dispatched to look for it is now sullen and crabby at me, of course, because ...why?  Apparently it's unfair that he should find the tape he last had.  But no tape is found, so I shower while holding the nozzle above my head which isn't super handy and every time the nozzle slips from my hands water sprays out of the shower and onto the floor and I am crabby.  And we're already late.  The duct tape search is called off but where are my brown sandals?  The strappy ones that aren't in my closet or beneath the bed or by the shoes near the door or in the living room closet or on the back porch.  So I decide on the black shoes but now I can't find my black t-shirt OR my black tank.  And while I'm on my hands and knees looking beneath the bed, again, for my brown sandals, my boy comes in to offer help and I am near tears and then I scrape my arm on the bed frame and snap at him and now my arm is wounded and my son is, too.  That's when I hear more bickering coming from the living room.  So I get up and position myself in the hallway so that I can see and holler at the child causing trouble.  And I tell her to go sit on the porch until we're ready to go.  While I'm in the hallway directing her I see my other little one, sitting on her bed with her hand pressed over her mouth.  Because minutes before she'd been whining for the umpteenth time and I'd told her to put her hand over her mouth.   She had done so and then run to her room in tears, and I had forgotten about her in my shoe/shirt/tank search.  I tell her she can remove her hand and on my way to try to soothe her, the child who is supposed to be on the front porch is making her way back in so I open my mouth again and harsh words tumble out.  And the son I've just wounded is there, standing, and I need to make things right with him, too.  And on our morning goes.

So by the time we're all settled in the van... oh, except that no one is really feeling settled at all because how settled can any child feel when their mommy is on the verge of a full-on sob session?  In my mind I'm blaming PMS and I'm blaming them, the bickering kids and the one who never puts things away where they belong and the one who won't obey and I am feeling sorry for myself, of course.  And the time glares at me, reminding me of our tardiness.  We're leaving the house a half-hour late, and our destination is still 30 minutes away.  It's just some girlfriends and their kids-- but still.  I try to text my friends to let them know how late we'll be and lo and behold, my phone will not text.  Lovely.  So I begin to drive.  All is quiet in the van.  So I fill the van with my words-- words of accusation.  Could you just say sorry, maybe, for losing the tape? And while you're at it, why don't you tell me why you're angry at ME?  How does that make any sense at all?  And you, the whiny one: can you imagine if we all opened our mouths and screeched like that every time something didn't go our way?  And on I went because--ughh- all the ugliness surfaced right there in the van.  And then the child who lost the tape tried to apologize and somehow ended up making it all so much worse because you know, he isn't sorry, really, he's just saying that because I told him he should say it and so I cut his apology off.  And those kids I glance at in the rear-view mirror?  Still silent and now shrinking.  I finally stopped talking, kept right on with the crying, and added prayer. 

Suddenly I knew we had no business going.  I knew we would not settle all of this on the drive there, and I knew it wasn't fair to ask them to go from this awful morning to smiling and playing with their friends.  I also knew it wasn't wise for me to go in my emotional state and sit with a group of  friends and likely sin MORE with my tongue about my kids.  So I announced that we weren't going and reversed direction.  I kept praying.  I kept crying.  (I was still feeling quite sorry for myself and I was also feeling sorry for my words; for the accusations that are so quick to fly out of my mouth and for the ways I had wounded every single one of them and how I knew I needed to mend things with each of them but where to even begin?  And also, I didn't feel especially like saying sorry and I was definitely still crabby at some of them.  So I kept quiet and kept praying. 

I knew we needed to be together.  But I didn't want to get home and have everyone scatter and hide.  I knew I needed to make a public confession, because I had sinned against them in front of each other.  So as we parked the van back in front of our house fifteen minutes later, I asked them to stay in their seats, and then I turned around and met their eyes.  And irregardless of how I felt-- I did the right thing.  I apologized.  I looked each of them in the eye and said that I was sorry and I detailed what I was sorry for.  I made sure things were right with each of them. 

Then I offered to take them to the library.  They love the library, and I thought it might soften the blow of not getting to go play with friends.  I also thought it would be a good place where I could settle my own emotions.  The thought of sitting cross-legged in the children's section and pulling books from the shelves onto my lap with my kids scattered around me doing the same peaceful thing?  Yes.  We all needed the distraction of something else.  Something quieting.  And then after a bit of that, we could go home and then we would be ready to pile onto the couch, all of us, with a stack of books, and I could read aloud.  And that would be the coming together that we all so desperately needed.  So we did.  They each chose a book from the stack, grabbed a homemade chocolate chip cookie, and tucked themselves around me on the couch.  And we read stories. 

I'd like to say all is well, and it is, ultimately.  The ugly of my sinfulness stands in such stark contrast to the holiness of the One who paid it all.  Where I excel in harsh words, He is kind.  Where I am quick to accuse, He is merciful.  Where I am full of anger, He is compassionate and slow to anger.  Where I am impatient, He is long-suffering. Where I am full of self, He is full of love for others.  Where I care for control and everything to go my way, He is far more concerned about my heart and His glory.

I am reminded of how desperately I need a Savior and I am all over again grateful for His mercy. 

I am heartened by the truth that He is not done with me, and that He is gentle in His love and instruction.  He is patient with me and will continue to grow me in love for these He has entrusted to me.  He is present with all of us in the mess of our morning and He will tenderly mend hearts where mending is needed.  (Chocolate chip cookies and new library books went a long way in that mending process, but I trust He will provide more opportunities this day and this evening for me to choose love and be a gracious mama.) 

Blessings to you and yours,
~Stacy

Book Review: The Waiting

 

I just finished reading The Waiting (Cathy LaGrow, Cindy Coloma).  This is a beautifully rendered story that is a true one, and aren't those always the best types of stories?

In this book we meet Minka, a hard-working young Dutch girl belonging to a family who owns a dairy farm.  On a rare day off at the lake with friends from church, Minka is raped.  She becomes pregnant, and Minka makes the heart-breaking decision to give her baby up for adoption.  The rest of the book details the remarkable story of her life and the way God worked beauty and redemption through that difficult decision.

I loved this book, and highly recommend it.



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Picture Books We've Loved in July

The library has beckoned us several times over the course of the summer.  Here are three of our favorite picture books:

The King of Little Things | Bil Lepp, illustrated by David T. Wenzel

I wish I could remember who recommended this book, because I'd like to thank them!  The first page reads: Long ago, on the far side of a mountain, lived the King of Little Things.  While other kings busied themselves with the big things of this world, he happily ruled over all things small.  The story goes on to tell of all the little things the king has charge of and affection for: things like ants and buttons and petals and bees.

Can you imagine what might happen when another king wants to destroy all the other kings so that he can be king of the whole world?   Read this one to find out!  This is a captivating story for children, complete with beautiful illustrations, some rhymes, and all sorts of little things throughout the pages of this book to peer at.

* * *

My Name Is Sangoel | Karen Lynn Williams with Khadra Mohammed, illustrated by Catherine Stock

Sangoel has come with his mother and sister from the country of Sudan. 
His father was killed in the war, and he holds the name given him by his father with pride.  When he arrives in America, everyone pronounces his name wrong and it is suggested that he choose a American name.  This is especially frustrating when he goes to school, until Sangoel thinks of a clever way to teach his classmates his name.

I love stories like this that open my kids' eyes to the difficulties and challenges others might face.  This story has a delightful ending and it's been a pleasure to read aloud, over and over again.

* * *

The Circus Ship | Chris Van Dusen

What happens when a ship carrying circus animals crashes into a rock?  The animals swim to shore, surprising an entire village.  The villagers are all quite alarmed at the bother of all these circus animals until something happens to win their affections.

When the villagers discover that the circus boss is on his way to find his animals, they rally around their newfound friends and hide them.

With lively, rhyming cadence, Van Dusen tells and illustrates a delightful story.  This one makes a perfect read-aloud.  Guaranteed giggles.