Valentine's Day

Every year our homeschool group has a bowling Valentine's Day party. We haven't made it for a couple years because of the twins but I decided to brave it this year. It went pretty well, hectic, but well. Clair had a really good day. She was the only one to get a strike and her valentine box won a prize for creativity.

The twins found the opportunity to perform a dance for us. Everything is a stage for my children.

Violet decided this was a good place for a nap.

An Epidemic of Cabin Fever

Sickness has hit our house. Thank God it's not the flu, yet, but we are still feeling icky. My littlest one caught RSV (or respiratory syncytial virus. Yeah, I googled it). She is old enough that she is outside of the danger zone but it has still been hard on her. It caused her to also get a double ear infection, which has been very painful for her. She is normally my wild child but she has mostly been wanting to lie on the couch. If you know anything about RSV you know that it is extremely contagious. All seven of us currently have some form of it. None of us feel like doing anything and we don't want to go out and spread our germs so we have been stuck in the house for several days. We don't have a tiny house but it is starting to shrink on us. The craziness has started to set in. The fact that it is cold, windy, and very cloudy doesn't help. Today I decided that enough was enough. I gave them a project. Now my children would like you to know that I am the coolest. I'm sure it won't last but, hey! I can enjoy it while it does last.

Watch Me Fly

 I often say that God knew my Clair was going to be a middle child, even when we didn't, so he gave her a personality that would keep her from getting lost in the shuffle. She came out feisty. If this gives you any hint to her personality, I was scheduled to be induced with her but when I went into the hospital they told me I was already in labor and didn't need to be induced. She has always done things her own way and on her own schedule. By one year old she already had a vocabulary of a couple dozen words and was speaking whole sentences by eighteen months old. She has an incredible memory. She can hear a song once and remember almost the whole thing. She has a crazy imagination and can tell you the most dramatic story. She is also the sweetest girl I know. Everything is always answered with a "yes ma'am" or "thank you". She loves to give out compliments and cuddles.

 We started out the school year, having recently turned three, doing preschool work pages. She insists on doing school work with the big kids. She breezed right through those worksheets and wanted more. Then we moved onto some old kindergarten books that I had in the closet. She did those without a problem. This fall she will be turning four and will be officially starting kindergarten. I think my only real challenge will be remembering that she is still little and that she has a little person's attention span.

 My two biggest fears with Clair are that I may squash this amazing potential that God has placed in her or, on the flip side, that I may expect so much out of her that she feels pressured to be something she isn't. Don't you ever wish as a parent that you could see the future? Maybe it's better that we can't. I've come to the conclusion with this precious one that my job is to give her the strong roots that she needs, steer her in the right direction, and then just watch her fly.

A card she wrote, by herself, for her cousin's birthday. I just told her how to spell it.    

Our Unconventional School Day

It was a lovely 75 degree day here in St. Louis on the 14th day of November. How can anyone spend a day like today indoors? Especially when we are heading into winter.

We packed up all five kids and went to the park. Annie and Noah recently joined the Missouri Conservation Department's "Conservation Frontiers" program. They brought their binders to the park and went on a nature hike. We stopped to throw rocks into the lake and observe the wildlife. This is their element. My kids would live here if they could and I love that about them.

They even made little leaf boats with rock passengers and we watched the wind blow them "out to sea".

Daddy helped them do the ropes course. They did pretty well, but then again, it may be because he bribed them with animal crackers.

I think the girls had a pretty fun time too.

These are just a few of the things I love most about homeschooling, family togetherness and freedom to explore the world around us. No, we didn't finish our math worksheets and we didn't read the prescribed chapter in our history book. But that's what tomorrow is for.

Hope

My son is a perfectionist, to put it simply. If he can't do it perfectly he won't do it at all. I remember one day, while he was in kindergarten, he messed up writing the letter B so he tore up the paper and threw it away. We struggled trying to learn how to read. He wouldn't try. All summer he would put on the most pitiful face and tell everyone that he didn't know how to read. So imagine my surprise on the first day of 1st grade when we sat down to sound out some words and he did it perfectly with no hesitation. I guess I should have known he was holding out. That's his way and I supposed I am just going to have to learn how to teach that.

Life-Changing Times

The last few months have been very busy months. We have been trying to adjust to our new normal. My very difficult pregnancy was followed by a very difficult birth. I will spare you all the details, but on March 25, 2011 Violet Grace and Caroline Angel made their glorious debut. They are very good babies but the fact that there are two of them makes things complicated. The first time they were both crying and I was home alone... Let's just say that mom's should have more than two arms.

Right now most kids are going back to school. We would normally start about the third week of August but this year we will be starting after Labor Day. I have already started logging hours

though. Annie has already read three classic books. You homeschool moms know that you log everything that you can. We have done some art projects and the kids have been watching science shows on Netflix. I think with our crazy year it will be easier on us if we ease into our school year. It should be fun. I may need to change the name of this blog from The Happy Homeschooler to The Crazy Homeschooler.

Caroline-left, Violet-right

Dreamer

"Surely, I must be in the presence of greatness," I often tell myself while attempting to teach my third grader. "She has to be one of those type of people who don't fit the mold and yet change the world." Some days that gets me through. See, she has been blessed with her daddy's wonderfully imaginative mind. That typically means long, difficult school days filled with frustration. Writing is a chore. Staying on topic is work. Math is a bore and English is a waste of time. Much of the day is spent bringing her back from wherever she went in her head.

Now, don't get me wrong, she is brilliant. By the end of kindergarten she was reading ten-letter words all on her own. I pretty much taught her the letters and their sounds and she took it from there. She can spend half of a lesson totally uninterested and yet know all the answers. She loves anything that requires creativity, like music, art, and literature. She can finish a novel geared for children older than her in an afternoon.

This school year has really changed the way that I teach. Third grade has brought on more difficult work than we saw in second grade and a lot more book work. It took me a while but I think that I have learned the tricks that I need to know for helping my dreamer to learn. We often break up the book work. For example, she may do three lines of math problems, a cursive worksheet, three more lines of math, some English, and so on. When she gets real antsy she will take a break and jog around the yard or do jumping jacks. She is also very competitive. If left alone she could take all afternoon to do a few lines of math but if I time her it's a whole other story. We keep track of her best times and she is always trying to beat them. She loves history and science so I strategically time them for when I need to reign her back in. We have recently discovered lapbooking and it has worked miracles for us.

With all these tricks we still have bad days but it is so much better than it's been in the past. I have no doubts that if she were in public school they would want her on medication. She would be one of those tragic cases of a smart girl that was left behind. I am so grateful that homeschooling gives me the ability to see what she needs and to understand the way that she learns. I may say it tongue-in-cheek most days but I really do believe that she is a unique type of person and I fully expect her to go far.