homeschooling

Layla and I have embarked on an adventure together.

I get to homeschool this sweet, bright little one of mine.

She went to our neighborhood school for the first semester wearing a faceshield. Unfortunately, our school district changed their policy after Christmas and face shields were no longer an option.  This triggered some major anxiety in L. With bribes and encouragement and after experimenting with all sorts of masks, she did give it a try and made it to school for a day and a half. Ultimately, she decided, and I agreed, to give homeschooling a go.

We are just starting week two and a half of this adventure. I see it as a beautiful gift to have this time to teach Layla in our home. And it will not be easy. However, we are both up for the challenge. It just feels like the right thing to do right now. Not forever. But for right now.

Last week, we took a mid day hike together on Silly mountain while Brinna played at a friends house.

We took some of her school work with us to Kneaders and got lunch and worked on some assignments. And that's when I knew I loved homeschool.

Then we went home and I tried to sit down to help her with her next assignment, but I was tired and short-tempered and she was tired and unfocused.

That's when I knew that this wasn't going to be easy.

I know we can do it. It will take work, organization, and sacrifice, I also know that we will need to extend ourselves grace, flexibility, and perspective. And if we do all that the benefits will outweigh the challenges. I feel that.

We are still fine tuning some things, but we have a good rhythm. This is our little work area. (I almost went to straighten the papers and push in the chairs before I took the pictures, but this is the reality of it including the Brinna scribbles all over the whiteboard).


Hanging on the corkboard is a daily schedule for M/W/F and T/Th. It is a good structure, but we never follow it exactly. We have two envelopes hanging up with her schedule cards in them. I wrote out all of her tasks in sections on notecards and laminated those cards. Each morning I put them in order according to our schedule for the day and what we have going on. She pulls one out. We do the work listed. She places the cards in the second envelope when she is done.

The cards are labeled Warm-ups, Word Work, Reading, Outside, Math, Read Aloud, Writing, Games, Homework, Science, History, and Cooking. Each card has a basic structure, though the activities will change. For example, math is always mental math, computation, lesson, and problem set. And Warm Ups are always phonograms, math fact practice, a work book page from her literacy program, math review problems, and rocket math. 

She always does Warm ups, Word Work, Reading, and Math. Most days she does Writing and Read Aloud, but I don't worry if we miss those occasionally (because she likes to write and she likes to listen to books at night before bed anyways).  Her homework, which she does after dinner with dad,  is always to do her math corrections and occasionally another short assignment. We rotate either history, science, or cooking each day. I try to make sure we play math or literacy games at the end of the day at least a couple of times a week. Sometimes we play together, some activities are individual, and some are on the computer.

Each card has a money value associated with it. At the end of the day, we count up all the money she earned from the completed cards. That school money can then be used during the week for treats, field trips, lunch dates, screen time, etc.

I have set it up so that she has a mix of independent activities and lessons with me balanced throughout the day. When I am exercising or busy with things around the house or out with errands etc. then she does her independent tasks. 

We keep all of her books, assignments, and curriculum in these tubs. Thank goodness I've saved a lot of resources from my teaching days, but I did order Saxon Math to stay on track with what her neighborhood school does. 

Curriculum resources: Saxon Math, spalding phonograms, rebecca sitton, making words, Journeys, Sylvan vocab, Rocket Math, Lucy Calkin's reading and writing workshop, the Good and the Beautiful handwriting and science, lakeshore building fluency cards, etc. 

I think we have a good balance of flexibility and structure while trying to make sure we are covering all the things and helping Layla do her best learning.

We must be doing something right because she loves homeschooling so much that she created her own school for Brinn and her cousins.

It was too cute watching her combine all of the elements of school that she loves (most notably a treasure box haha) to create a fun "school" herself. 

I hope this homeschooling adventure will be one that we look back on fondly.

Little things

"The little things are all the big things are! Added up, day by day. When it's gone, you'll wish you realized that those small moments--those regular moments--were in fact...the entire thing. They were all of it. They were where the Light was all along."

-Emily Mitchell 

These moments are the entire thing. I am glad for them.

Layla loves on her chickens the majority of her free time. She introduces all of her friends to them. They live in a box in the garage right now, but two of them are just about big enough to go outside. Eric (with Layla's encouragement) has been hard at work building their chicken coop. For now, she just brings them outside occasionally on beautiful days. They roam a little, but mostly they get held a lot.

Kyler and Kacin lost a little bit of their wisdom on the same day. They both had all of their wisdom teeth removed at the same time. Sad that I only got pictures of Kacin because he went first. And by the time Kyler came out I was trying to take care of both of them and got it a little crazy. Like literally crazy--I got some good videos of the funny things they said! Alas, only videos so no documentation here. But Kyler was entertained by his lip and Kacin wouldn't stop talking. Haha. They both lived off of ice cream for days. And now we are glad that is behind us.

Arizona couldn't be more perfect than it is right now. We spend as much time as we can at the park or at on walks and bike rides. Brinn is a whiz on her scooter now. Which is kind of dangerous because if she decides she is going to go somewhere she zooms fast and it is hard to keep up with her.

 



Two Elsa's had a play date. Brinn loves her friends fiercely. 

Kyler got asked to MORP!


The writing in ketchup was awesome.

I love our neighborhood so much. We have so many good people, especially good kids around us. Perry feels included with a group of boys his age and my heart bursts with happiness about that. They play at the park, ride bikes, and shoot basketballs. One evening they worked hard on another cool project. They built a maze from the landscaping rocks in a common area. 

Their entrance signs were my favorite.

 

They worked hard to clear all those big rocks to make paths all over the area. Perry came home beaming with pride about their project. What great little boys. That's how childhood should be spent.



Kyler. Kyler. Kyler. Thank you for leaving this picture for me.


We decided to take our gingerbread house and destroy it in a big way. We saved some fireworks just for this purpose.

Perry wanted to try his nerf gun on it first though.


When that didn't cause much damage, someone jokingly suggested he use his wand to whack it. So he did. And that definitely destroyed the house. 


We still tried to put the house back together to light fireworks underneath it, but the house was already in pieces so we didn't see the reaction we anticipated. 

So then we attached pieces to the fireworks. The gingerbread men and the Christmas trees pieces did look pretty with the sparks of light exploding around them.




We had the Schlinks over for dinner and family game night.

Definitely one of our most impressive Jenga rounds.

On MLK day, we took advantage of the day off to finish celebrating Eric's birthday. We went to Benihana's for lunch. The kids had no idea what to expect so it was fun to see their reactions to the show.

And they sung to E. 

No oe knew for sure what would happen to the wrestling season, but with a hundred rules in place the boys are allowed to officially wrestle for the school year. They both started on JV. With all the restrictions, we just watch the matches at home. They are only two matches in and they have each had a pin. 

They came home from wrestling practice and collapsed. There were sweat puddles on the floor when they stood up. I think its safe to say that they have never been stronger. Or more tired. They practice for hours each day. It is intense. And so incredible. And I think they are seeing the positive results from all their hard work.

 

These little things are all the big things.

golden moment

Some moments are so golden that you must treat them like treasures.

In the midst of pain and darkness, the golden moments give us hope, relief, and strength.

I had this perfect golden moment at the summit of santan with my girls (and Eric).

The light was literally golden and it was a reflection of my heart’s song right then.

My girls had pushed themselves to the top and we all swelled with pride at their strength and perseverance. 

In that moment I saw these girls through my golden lens as my friends, who I look forward to many, many more hikes and adventures with. I am thrilled they enjoy hiking like I do.

I will forever cherish that moment where the light from the sunset and the playfulness of the wind enveloped us all together at the top of the mountain in a moment of sheer peace and joy.

be still

 I continue to crave calm and peace these days. More specifically, I find myself just wanting to just sit and be still. And breathe.

"In a society that endorses activity, I think we would all do well to put more trust in stillness."

As I was thinking about that, I pulled out one of my favorite books, Mitten Strings for God. I've found this is a book that I just need to return to every now and then. When I reread it, I feel more centered. 

It reminds me of the simple joys of childhood and motherhood; well, and life, too. Sometimes we think we need so much to make our lives happy and fulfilled--more stuff, more activities, more grand experiences. But I do feel like the greatest things can be found in the simplest wonders.

The weather in the mornings has finally dropped below 100 degrees here so we have been opening up the back door in the mornings and Brinn will play outside in our big backyard. Bikes, bugs, rocks, mud--it is the childhood I want for her. 

"It is not enough then to teach our children about nature; we must allow our children to grow up in nature."

While the high heels were tons of fun, we traded them in for the more practical red rain boots.


A little dancing in the flooded backyard.

Rocks. "My children open my eyes to places and pleasures I might otherwise have missed altogether."

I have been trying to stop more often during the day and just take a deep breath in and out. Do you ever stop just to breathe?

I also opened up the Calm app and listened to the daily calm while laying down. I feel much better when I can take these moments to be still. 

Isn't it funny though that last year there was no way that I could calm down enough to be still like this? I needed movement then. It serves me well to notice and listen to myself and then trust that I know what I need. 

Right now I need stillness.