Good Morning!

Today, I'm taking advantage of the fact that we homeschool. The girls are outside playing, and I am in bed doing computer work. There is a good reason I am in my bed. The floor guy is coming in the morning so there is basically no furniture downstairs. We do still have the couch but we don't have any side tables so there is no spot for my coffee cup. So I'm in my bed, drinking my coffee, working my Colossians studying, and typing for my blog. Such a multi-tasker. :)

We have a ton of schoolwork to do to be ready for our co-op tomorrow, but I have decided that today all schoolwork is going to happen after lunch.  I am chill and relaxed and ready to slowly cross things off my mental list. Days like this usually flow pretty good.

So I'm still going strong on my food habits. I haven't had sugar or gluten for a couple of weeks. It really hasn't been hard at all, and I'm extra grateful for that.

My in-laws came and visited us for the first time this past weekend and we had a really good time. It was low-key and the girls really enjoyed having them in their home and showing off their music "skills."

I'm off to take a shower and get ready for this day of relaxed productivity. Happy Monday!

Sunday Night

I wish I was a bedtime expert. Everyone has earned their prizes and that ship has now seemed to sail. So now I'm reverting back to the stern, I'm-going-to-scare-you-from-even-thinking-about-getting-out-of-bed routine. It's not my favorite and it's not the girls' favorite.

Trying to figure out school plans is for the birds. What stress. Which things matter the most? Which things are ok to let go but I just don't know it yet because I'm not to that point in life yet? Does one education beat out another education? Are they all good enough? Are they obviously not good enough? Is my patience and long-suffering going to completely leave me by the end? I think maybe yes on that last one. I feel like it's time for me to get settled on what my long-term plan is but I haven't been able to do that yet.

Our house is totally and officially unpacked. Now I need to move Jason's studio items and then get ready for our Classical Conversations parent meeting and then organize all the cabinets. If I think about it all at once, my chest gets a little tight so I'm trying very hard to just think about it in baby steps. Very, very small baby steps.

Third day in...

...and I'm still feeling like I can do this. We seem to be getting into some sort of routine and other than the math meltdown from Elaina this morning, all is going very smoothly. I haven't again resorted to using my phone as a distracting device for Nora. Instead, I have really tried to get her interested in working on some "school" projects. I am going to take Caitlin's advice and get her some school-only playdoh, stickers, etc... and I think that will majorly help.

Tomorrow night is my first Parent Information Meeting for our Classical Conversations campus. I'm not even nervous like I thought I would be. I'm just excited and eager to get our classes going. Right now we have ten students and there are two more that I'm hoping will be added before the year starts.

Jason comes home this weekend and he will get to stay home for a couple of weeks. Elaina joined the church last Sunday so we will have her baptism while he is home. We also will go on a date. As I've mentioned before, that's my very, very, very favorite thing to do.

Eily goes to the ENT doctor tomorrow to see about getting her tonsils and adenoids removed. I'm not at all excited about scheduling that surgery. Not on her behalf or mine. It sounds plain miserable. And from what I hear, it takes ten full days to recover. Let's just throw that in the mix with everything else, why don't we?

I hope you are having a lovely week. I'd love to hear what you have been doing.

First Day of School 2014-2015

This was a busy day but a really fun day.  Nora proved to be quite a handful- as I knew she would be- but I distracted her (handed her my phone. I know, bad parenting) for a little while and we flew through the schoolwork. The first day's work is always fairly easy. I'm looking forward to tomorrow but I'll have to come up with something else for Nora to do. I cannot use that method of distraction every day. I also cannot spend all my morning entertaining her. I'll figure out something...

I wasn't pinterest-y and didn't print out adorable signs for my children to hold. Instead, they held up fingers to represent their grades. Nora was supposed to hold up a zero but she got mad about that and eventually decided to copy Claire and hold up two fingers. Whatever. I was tuckered out by that time. It wasn't a battle I chose to fight.

She came up with pose all on her own.

I know it's a lot of photos that are very similar, but it's my blog and I liked them all. :)

Hello

Just a quick check-in to say hello and also document the last day of everyone seeming little. Tomorrow, we start our 2014-2015 school year. Elaina will be starting third grade, Claire will be starting second grade, Eily will be starting first grade, and Nora will be a big distraction. :)

We hurried up and ate supper and then the girls picked out what to wear tomorrow. Normally, I wouldn't care what they wore since we are just at home, but I plan on taking some first-day-of-school pictures and it just wouldn't do to have them standing and smiling in nothing but their panties. I'm joking.

Or maybe I'm not.

By the time we finally agreed on the clothing, they were all so excited that they had a hard time settling down and going to sleep. But the sandman finally won and the house is now calm and quiet. I've been sitting on the bed catching up on my CC director-ing stuff and making sure that I'm prepped for tomorrow. I have to get up earlier than the girls and I haven't made a point to do that since school let out in May. Bye bye sleeping in. You'll always be my very favorite thing. Except dates with Jason. That's my very, VERY favorite thing.

But I will get up early and be just as excited as they are and will make them chocolate chip pancakes per tradition because what's better than adding a little sugar high to the already crazy first day excitement? At least I also throw some chia and flax seeds in the batter. Maybe that will balance out the sugar. (wishful thinking)

I'm looking forward to telling you all about how it went and posting first day photos and finally updating those widgets on the right side of the page of the girls making snow angels. 

Pee Wee

I'm allowed to brag on here, right? I thought so. 

Eily's school is really just come-and-go, if she feels like it, etc... except for 

her reading lessons. I use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and so it's just one

quick lesson every morning. Y'all, she is so good.  She loves it and

she flies through the lessons. For some reason, I think of her as being a five year old

and so the fact that she's doing so well is nice but not really shocking.

Just this morning, as she was giggling and laughing her way through the

story, not once stopping to actually sound out a word, I realized that she's only four.

Four.

She is constantly amazing me these days.

Also, she's a "real ballerina" now.

And not to leave out the other girls,

Elaina is still loving and absorbing science like a big sponge,

Nora is doing pretty good with her potty training and everyday her speech is improving, 

and Claire is excellent at Math. 

Home Education Part 5

This chapter was a little hard to write about because it is so long and there is so much good information, but information that was hard for me to put into my own words. I actually meant to post this a month ago but I was quite the procrastinator.

Home Education Part 5

-Lessons as Instruments of Education

"- All the same, whatever be the advantages of kindergarten or other schools for little children, the home schoolroom ought to be the best growing-ground for them." Charlotte talks about the parent, whether teaching herself or having her children taught by another, must have definite views about what she wants her children to learn. "She must ask herself seriously, Why must the children learn at all? What should the learn? And, How should they learn it?"
   This is an area that I really need to work on, personally. We have made wonderful strides in our learning this year compared to last year, but I still feel I need to define the answers to those questions. I feel it will not only better me as a teacher but also help rid our school days of wasted time and effort.  Charlotte then says (and basically reading my mind), "If she takes the trouble to find a definite and thoughtful answer of these quires, she will be in a position to direct her children's studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised ti find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy."
   Charlotte also talks about the growth and stimulation of the mind. She says, "People are apt to overlook the fact that mind must have its ailment- we learn that we may know, not that we may grow." To be honest, I'm still try to digest and understand this. I may write more on it at a later date if I feel I have a better grasp on the subject.

Don't forget to read Jamie's posts on Part 5. (It's much better than mine.) Here's her second post on Part 5.

Eily's School

I've slowly been working on putting Eily's "school" together. She is old enough to need to feel included but not really old enough to do actual schoolwork. We will continue with our reading lessons and she will be doing some handwriting at Wednesday School, but other than that, she will just have the items in her cubby to refer to as her schoolwork. Here's what I've gotten so far and probably all I will get, at least for this semester.

Here we have beginning sewing. All the girls like to play with these.

We have number puzzles.

We have spelling puzzles.

Thanks to Pinterest, we have Velcro Sticks. Look, I made a house!

We have a workbook because workbooks are fun.

More spelling puzzles.

Here we have one of her Busy Time boxes. We have Do-A-Dots, crafts, some more workbooks and twisty, bendy things that you can shape into what ever you want. (I forgot what they're called.)

These are neat. They are another Pinterest find. The white spoon has the upper case letter and the clear spoon has the lower case letter. She lays the clear spoon over the white spoon to make a match. (See "M")

Busy Box #2

A few workbooks, more crafty things and more Do-A-Dots.

And this. Yet another Pinterest craft.

I glued 5 sticks on the back of each picture and wrote the same number on all 5 sticks. Then I cut the picture apart to make a puzzle.

A completed puzzle.

Ambleside Online/ Homeschooling

I have been reading posts from the yahoo group for Level 0 of Charlotte Mason's style of education and my brain is exploding and I feel too eager to sleep. I have so much to learn and really have just scratched the surface. You can go to Ambleside Online to read more about it yourself. I would love to have mucho support from you all since at this point I don't know exactly what I am going to be doing and I will be pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Out of my safety box.  It's so easy to think of just using A Bekah or ACE or curriculum like that but there is something about Charlotte Mason's approach that pulls at my heart. I'm not judging those that do use other methods I just know that for me and my children, this is the way I want to go.

:) I am so anxious and ready to learn!