Thinking about

:: Order and peace are really linked for me. I think this is at least a little true for all of us, but there's something especially strong in this slightly-OCD, craves-organization soul of mine that has a hard time obtaining peace when my world feels like chaos. I'm getting better at shrugging off the physical mess (good thing, since we've obviously taken up home remodeling as a permanent hobby), but I still stink at shrugging off the emotional mess. Sometimes I'm thankful for that, because the inability to just think about something else means that I find myself thinking about Jesus and His redemption a whole, whole lot. Sometimes it's not at all a good thing, because I know that even when I want to weep, I still need to be able to rejoice with others-- and that can often be the hardest thing of all.

:: Paint colors are swirling in my brain. Have I mentioned that we're repainting the kids' bedrooms while everything upstairs is torn apart? It seemed to make sense to do so, especially a few weeks ago when we first decided to go for it. And it will most definitely make sense in a few weeks when it's all finished and the dingy, 6-year-old paint job has been replaced with fresh, clean color. Right now, as we try to juggle a million different demands on our time, I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense to Daniel or I. That said, we both like painting so if we can just get through the prep work (why is that always the most time-consuming and unfun part???) and get to the painting, I think our present doubts will be completely forgotten.

:: The words, "Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations," have had a home on our dining room blackboard for the last several weeks. I usually change what's on there more often than this, but I just can't seem to erase these words. After all, that order and peace connection thing I mentioned earlier? Yeah. Verses like this help me to be reminded of His order, His reign, His complete and total Godness. There is incomparable peace in that.

:: Last week when I filled out IHIPs (Individualized Home Instruction Plan) for Gabriel and Bronwyn (I get one more year before I have to fill out paperwork for Jack), I went ahead and made all the final curriculum purchases for this coming school year. I also decided to reorganize every cupboard, cabinet, and bookshelf in the dining room, family room, and sitting room while I was at it. Now the materials are arriving in the mail and I have a neat place to put them all. This is the first year I've been this on the ball about the whole thing, and it's nice. That said, what I really wanted to say was that as I've been pulling book after book out of padded envelopes and boxes, I find myself freshly annoyed that we don't even get to claim these purchases as a tax deduction.

:: My vegetable garden has been yielding enough lettuce for fresh salad every night for the past week, more parsley than I know what to do with, plenty of basil, and our first zucchini and summer squash. The peas are looking awfully close to being ready and I've spotted the beginnings of eggplant, bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers. Carrots, sunflowers, mini pumpkins, cucumbers, and bush beans are all very promising. I am loving this.

:: For the first time, during the past month or so, Aubrey has seemed a bit lethargic and occasionally puffy, and her extremities are taking to looking a bit blue more often than usual. It's not severe-- she's still spunky and silly and talkative-- but we notice her hanging back from activities, laying down while others playing, sitting more than she's running, etc. We're praying lots for our girl, trusting that the One who has kept her will continue to do so, and she's on our local docs radar, for sure. We're also feeling the need for wisdom as we try to decide whether or not to seek out second opinions for her. We absolutely love the group of cardiologists she sees and we really do trust them, but it seems like it's just smart to have another set of eyes/opinions take a look at her. That said, taking a look at her isn't as simple as a one-time visit to another doctor in Boston or Philly, etc. The uniqueness of her condition would probably necessitate a series of visits and tests before another cardiologist would even want to give an opinion.

:: Enough rambling for now. I've got laundry to hang on the line, an entry way to seriously vacuum, a flower garden that needs to be weeded and watered, and grocery shopping to do.

 

Saturday

On this Saturday, I am...

 

...watching a long row of linens wave in the breeze as the kids scamper about the yard. What an absolutely lovely day this is.

 

...appreciating how hard this guy works for me, for the kids, for others. For the life of me, I can't figure out how I wound up blessed enough to be married to him. He is daily a revelation of God's grace toward me.

 

...bossing these guys around (!) and feeling totally amazed by how much they accomplish every single day they're here!

 

...puttering in my vegetable garden. I do this almost everyday. It's really quite amusing that it consumes me so much, considering its modest size and all. What can I say? Despite growing up in the country, this sensation of working the land feels like a novel one and I can't quite get over how fun it is!

 

Topsy Turvy

There are many things that contribute to a topsy turvy feeling these days (the house project is actually quite low on the list), but I choose not to yield to the feeling. I know the truth, and that is that I serve a loving and pursuing God.

In the meantime, I find ways to bring order around me. This includes getting back to a better routine of getting into prayer the minute my eyes open and before I fully enter into the day. I love those first moments with Jesus when my soul is reminded (first thing!) that this day is a gift and that I belong to Him.

Also, I organize. Yesterday I overhauled the kitchen. Every drawer and cabinet was emptied, the contents washed and rearranged (even including cabinet shelf placements!). Ah... A deep-cleaned kitchen = a happy homemaker!

 

I wanted to organize the laundry room/mudroom yesterday, but held off because I had spent the morning immersed in the kitchen and I did feel like I needed to prioritize being nice to my children (!) during the afternoon. I admit: the goal-/task-oriented part of me often needs to make just being the objective or that can get lost in the shuffle.

This morning, though, I promised myself the opportunity to dive in. I had a deadline: be done in time for a 10:30am hair appointment. I succeeded, despite the challenges of organizing this space (it's a small room that serves many functions and holds a significant amount of stuff that needs to be easily accessible at all times).

It would probably be nice to have cute labels, but for now, masking tape does the trick of telling everyone where to put "on-the-go electronics," "winter hats, scarves & gloves," "gardening supplies," "summer hats & sunglasses," and "baseball gloves & balls."

Besides starting my day with the Lord and organizing, looking at good things helps refresh my soul, too.

I love this picture that Gabriel contributed to our art string. I'd like to have him, with the help of an artist friend, do an enlarged, more polished version to hang above the mantel in my sitting room.

I continue to love my homemade chalkboard with its ever-changing Scripture, hymn, or poem.

I look at the garden almost everyday. You never know what might be blooming tomorrow that isn't blooming today! Right now, it's my astilbe, beebalm, hollyhock, and daisy. I try not to pick favorites, but I sure am loving the vibrant color of the astilbe (far left) this year.

And the projects continue

Daniel and I haven't even allowed the dust to settle on our last project (we still have trim to put up, some touch-up painting, etc.), which took place in November-December, and here we are beginning yet another major one.

Apparently, we both enjoy remodeling more than either of us ever realized!

Half of the roof is gone, and for now we've got a tarp protecting us from the elements. Scary? Yes.

As I write, the back half of our roof is being ripped off and we have begun the process of expanding our second floor. Click here for a picture of the new upstairs floor plan (the different flooring represents the different sections-- the front 2/3 is existing, the back 1/3 is what's being added). The plan is for the kids' rooms to stay as they are, for us to move upstairs, and to have a guest room/future kids' bedroom. I so miss the spontaneity that having a guest room affords and to say I'm excited to have one again would be a tremendous understatement!

That back portion that's only 1 story? Yeah... picture it a full story higher, with a window and all.

This project won't be done overnight, but it's gotten started a lot sooner than we had anticipated, and that's super fun. We're hiring this first phase out (demo of the old through building of the new shell with roof & windows) and from there Daniel will chip away at framing closets, insulating, laying flooring, etc. We anticipate that it will be a year before we using those rooms, but we're excited for the end and enjoying the process.

Like, really enjoying the process (so far, anyway)!

This is how they conveniently get the garbage to the dumpster. Lovely, isn't it?

My front porch is cluttered, there's a huge dumpster in my driveway, my brand new front entry is a dusty, dirty mess, and I don't care a bit. We're able to live in our house through this project-- whereas our other projects have at some point necessitated us vacating the premises at least for a portion of the project-- and I am very much appreciating that. We've sealed off the upstairs from the rest of the house (our newly updated floor plan allows this in a way that could never have happened in the past) and just don't go up there.

Some people have wicker furniture on their porches. I have tools and wood and roofing materials.

Also, despite my OCD and perfectionistic tendencies, the mess of a project doesn't bother me that much. I guess it's knowing that progress is being made. I'm not afraid to have things get worse as long as I know there's a goal of it being better in the long run.

We're having fun and we've only just begun!

 

Heart of Dakota review

I began "officially" homeschooling in 2008. That first year, Gabriel was in kindergarten and I pretty much just pieced our curriculum together (a little bit of this, a little bit of that). I didn't totally know what I was doing so while some of it was great, some of it was... well... not so great.

[For the record, I think the not-knowing-what-I-was-doing is somewhat par for the course, and if I could tell new homeschooling moms one thing, it would be that it's okay if you always feel a bit in over your head, especially in the first year(s)!]

By the end of that first year, I was glad to celebrate our beginning attempts together, my boy's and mine-- we MADE it!-- but I looked ahead to the coming school year when I would have to actually report our work to the local school district, and I felt overwhelmed. Due to my pieced-together approach, I didn't have the sense that first year that I could really measure our accomplishments. There weren't any clear objectives and, consequently, in the end I wasn't really sure how we did.

This works for some people, but for me, it left me feeling a bit floundering and uncertain.

Not to mention, I was going to have two students and not just one that next year, and I wanted to make sure I had clear targets we were aiming for so that I didn't just have a constant sense of being lost.

I began looking at Sonlight and My Father's World because I knew they are complete curriculum options with laid-out lesson plans, but beyond the cost of those options not being practical for me, I wasn't sure how either would work to combine both Gabriel & Bronwyn's work as much as possible, which was something I was really looking to do.

My friend then introduced me to Heart of Dakota. I was sold almost immediately! I purchased Little Hearts for His Glory, which Gabriel worked through as a 1st grader and Bronwyn worked through as a kindergartener. It worked flawlessly, gave me the confidence as a young homeschooling mom that I needed, and the kids enjoyed it.

The next year, I used Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory which I liked even better!

Here are my pros and cons:

Cons

1. The website is terrible. Request a free catalog ASAP and don't go to the website again until you understand the curriculum and want to place an order.
2. The curriculum is set up in 34 5-day lessons, a system that can easily make you feel like you're falling behind (if you're prone to that).
3. We didn't love the devotionals from either year, so we quickly abandoned them and used our own Bible story books and devotionals.
4. I didn't love the textbooks they chose for science or the way they assigned the use/reading of the books.

Pros

1. It is so. easy. to. use. I would open the teacher manual in the morning as I sat down with the kids and start working through the assignments with no prior thought or planning on my part. Everything is laid out in the two pages you're open to and categorized very plainly. It also felt easy to elaborate on certain things while slashing others as I felt appropriate from day to day-- and if I felt comfortable doing that, anybody will!
2. Combining grade levels is really very simple, especially if they're back-to-back grades (like Gabriel & Bronwyn's). Being able to do the majority of our work together (and even involving Jack & Aubrey) was exactly what I was looking for.
3. The books they use for history and daily read aloud are wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
4. I loved that I could choose from handwriting programs, various grades of math, and phonics from what they offer-- or even just use something altogether different (which was exactly what I did for teaching reading). It's easy to swap things in and out and find what fits your child best, while still taking advantage of easy and ready-to-go lesson plans (alternative math assignments, etc. are in the appendix pages of the book).
5. Scripture memorization is included in the weekly lessons and that was so helpful at keeping it a priority with the kids. I love that.
6. The Rhymes in Motion from Little Hearts for His Glory seemed cheesy to me and so I wasn't using them until one day the kids asked why. We tried it and they loved it. They memorized the days of the week, continents, etc. so painlessly through these!

We didn't ever purchase the music portion of the curriculum because the kids get plenty of music through daily family devotions, weekly piano lessons, Friday Program, and church, so I can't comment on that.

So, with all that said, if anybody ever wants to look through the teacher manuals for either Little Hearts for His Glory or Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory, let me know! I own both and have no plan on getting rid of them any time soon because I can very easily see myself using them with some of the younger kids at some point.

 

School plans

The other day, my friend Michelle wrote about her 2011-2012 curriculum choices. I thought that was a great idea-- I know that as a homeschooling mom I always appreciate hearing about what other moms are using-- so I thought I would join in. (Lisa, you're next, right???)

For the past 2 years, I've used Heart of Dakota programs, and I have loved them. I hope to do a review on both of the programs we've used sometime soon, as I think they are a great fit for new homeschooling families or for families with fewer students in the younger elementary grades. This year I will have a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grader here at home, so finding programs that allowed for easy combining of grades or programs that run without heavy involvement on my part were key in my search and necessitated a transition away from Heart of Dakota.

 

History/Literature: Beautiful Feet Early American History* for all 3 kids

I chose this because it is a time period I love for younger learners, recommended for K-3rd grade (perfect for us!), very flexible in its schedule (which will come in handy since the majority of our Fridays are already committed to the CFA Friday Program), and includes a whole host of books that I've been looking for a reason to purchase anyway (I love the D'Aulaire books!).

 

Science: Science in Colonial America, A Pioneer Sampler, and Keeping a Nature Journal for all 3 kids

These books are not standard science textbooks, which is exactly why I chose them! (To be fair, I strongly considered using one of the Apologia elementary grade science programs, but decided against it in favor of books that will better coincide with our history studies. I do hope to try out some of the Apologia programs in the next few years, though, because I've heard wonderful things about them.) I am excited to lay a foundation-- and hopefully inspire curiosity and interest-- through nature and home-centered explorations, hopefully making science in the early years more about discovery and less about reading.

 

Reading: Beautiful Feet Early American History Intermediate Literature Pack* for Gabriel & Bronwyn, A Home Start in Reading & an old set of A Beka readers for Jack

Gabriel & Bronwyn are both easily reading at a 5th-6th grade level so I knew we could supplement our core history/literature program with extra reading, and since Beautiful Feet has an intermediate book list covering the same time early American time period, it made sense to do so. I've already started accumulating books from the list used through amazon and ebay, and they look great.

 

Handwriting: Getty & Dubay Italic Handwriting Book D for Gabriel & Bronwyn, Getty & Dubay Italic Handwriting Series Book B for Jack

I started using this program on a whim when Gabriel was in 1st grade (it was kind of an eeny-meeny-miny-moe type of thing). I don't know if it's the program or just that my children inherited some of my OCD tendencies, but their handwriting is progressing well, so we're continuing with the series. It's painless and seems to work.

 

Grammar: English from the Roots Up* for Gabriel & Bronwyn

I think I'm more excited about this than anything else I'm purchasing! I have a feeling it will not only be useful for the kids, but for me, too! I love that it is great for students of all ages, is flexible in its scheduling, and will provide a great foundation.

 

Math: Teaching Textbooks 4 for Gabriel, Teaching Textbooks 3 for Bronwyn, The Complete Book of Math Grades 1-2 for Jack

Gabriel has used Singapore Math for the past two years and Bronwyn used it her first year. It's been a good fit for Gabriel, but it wasn't a great fit for Bronwyn (which was why she used The Complete Book of Math Grades 1-2 this past year), and while it worked well for Gabriel, I do feel that some of its less-than-standard American progressions/explanations have put him at a disadvantage when it comes to recognizing standard arithmetic equations, not to mention that it's required that I sit with him through almost every lesson because the textook doesn't do a great job of explaining the concepts. Teaching Textbooks has been highly recommended to me, especially by moms of several homeschooling children, so I'm excited to try it!

When it came to choosing a math program for Jackson, I felt like it was a no-brainer. The Complete Book of Math gave Bronwyn (my less than mathematically oriented child) such a solid foundation in such a straight-forward manner that I couldn't think of any reason to try something else with Jack!

 

* I anticipate using these programs for 2 years since they are designed to be flexible and I want to get as much out of them as possible. Depending on how things go, I may try to use the science books for 2 years, as well, so that we can best coordinate the things we study in science with our history lessons.

 

May

I kind of hung on for dear life throughout the month of April. It's just a busy month-- always, no way around it-- and it was even truer this year than in previous years. Funny thing is, I think I had really convinced myself (in the recesses of my mind, anyway) that something magical would happen as of May 1 and we would suddenly be able to breathe again.

Ha.

That said, despite May's promise of busyness, it is a new month, and that can't help but bring with it a sense of a new beginning.

Which I love.

In light of new beginnings, I am::

:: looking at curriculum for the fall and getting excited about the next school year. This actually does inspire me to finish strong, so it's all good.

:: freshly purging the house of all extras. There are lots of nice things we own that we don't use that much. It is much better to pass them on to someone whose life will be benefited by having them than to keep them stuffed in a closet or drawer where they're rarely seen or used.

:: dreaming about what plants I might add to the perennial garden this year and how I will re-edge the garden to continue its progression toward the desired size/shape that I had in mind 4 years ago when I first started it. I only have so much time and money each year, so we take baby steps-- and sometimes I think that makes it that much more fun and exciting.

:: making summer reading lists for the kids and collecting the materials. I love the fact that I have two very independent readers now, and I look forward to keeping them somewhat busy with books.

:: beginning new habits and re-establishing some that have fallen by the wayside. I love taking advantage of any and every opportunity to start again.

:: getting excited about some simple re-decorating plans for the church nursery that will hopefully give it a fresh facelift and make it even more of a blessing to the children and families.

Happy May to all of us!