So Unworthy!

In spite of all my best intentions, I have been unable to get my act together enough to blog over the last week (or two... at least). My boys are keeping me crazy busy with football and school, and I've been using my free time to try to finish up my February Lady Sweater (which should be done today!)

However, I was just swept off my feet by news that I had been nominated for a Homeschool Blog Award under the category Best Cyber Buddy! I am totally humbled that somebody even thought of me (thank you for making my day)... so now I'll do what any good nominee would do and beg for your votes! :P

So if you have a chance, get your vote in! And if you're a homeschooler, check out the different categories for links to some amazing, encouraging and crazy bloggers!

We Survived!

We hopped a train to Santa Barbara for the day and had a blast. Beautiful weather, lunch on the pier, a tour of the oceanography museum (with plenty of hands on exploration)...



and then to the beach for some real life exploration.

Wyatt had the most amazing find of the day...



Vertebrae! The scientist said they were either from a dolphin or a seal, but the really cool part is that they were still connected by cartilage! Of course the coolness of this is relative... "ooooh!" or "ewwwww"... your choice. But Wyatt thought it was all kinds of awesome as he is passionate about science and wildlife.

Daniel found a treasure as well. A treasure perfect for him... but of a very different nature. It was some sort of military belt which he was quick to imagine had survived WWII only to end up on the sandy shores of Santa Barbara.

So just when I'm thinking how great it was that they each found just the right treasure, Josiah emerged with his find...



An airplane liquor bottle.

Fortunately it was empty... as was the syringe they found a few minutes later.

Ahhh... you gotta love a city beach.

I would show you a close-up of the vertebrae, but to pretty things up I'll show you the Uptown Boot Sock from Favorite Socks that I started the other day with Handmaiden Casbah in Peridot.



And now I get to sleep without worrying about train tracks tonight! Yay!

Science the Homeschool Way

With a little inspiration from The Big Bang Theory last night, we took on a bit of a science project today.

2 parts corn starch to 1 part water...



Plus 1 speaker...



And turn up the bass.

Ta-Da! Dancing Goo!

(It's a liquid concotion that changes between a solid and liquid as it's handled... and will entertain the kids for hours.)

Back to School

Well, with great reluctance on the part of both students and teacher, we have begun to tread back into the book cluttered waters of fall. I generally like to tread lightly by slowly adding to our schedule over the first few weeks so we don't get overwhelmed and collapse into tears (me) or freak out and throw fits (okay... me again) or simply meltdown because of the absence of games, TV and X-box in our days. I also tend to start this process in early August, but, well, I had socks to knit and stuff... and it was inconceivable to get other children to do work when my oldest wasn't back to school yet... so we waited a bit longer this year. At any rate, I must say we are off to a good start. Such a good start, that I am able to sit here and blog for a few minutes in the middle of the day.






I thought I'd share a bit of what we're doing for those who might be interested. If you're not, go ahead and skip to the socks. ;)


I'm especially grateful to have discovered Teaching Textbooks for math this year. I'm using it with my 9th and 6th graders (and can't wait until my 4th grader is ready for it). It is a text with CD-Rom support that teaches the lesson, checks their comprehension, then grades their work! If they get stuck on a problem and can't correct it, it will lead them step-by-step through the solution. (I am doing less math with them than I am with my 10th grader!)

Aside from that, my 9th grader is taking Spanish, English, Science and American Government with other teachers, then doing a Formal Logic curriculum with me. I LOVE Logic! My 6th grader was even able to sign up with a few classes through our homeschool group (Astronomy, Writing & Latin II) so that leaves me as his History teacher; the younger three and I are doing a literature study of American History this year to supplement 6th grader's Child's Story of America.

Now my 4th grader, Daniel, is just not the normal 4th grader. Actually, I don't think I've ever used the word "normal" in any description of Daniel except to say that he's NOT. But I'm learning... he moaned and groaned through the math drills I would give him last year, instantly forgetting every set of multiplication facts he learned... so to get started this year, I've been relying on Math Worksheet Factory for some amusing worksheets. Apparently if the problems are put in circles (see photo) he will actually beg for more sheets! Add in a bit of spelling, copywork, reading and Explode the Code and he's doing fine.

I'm so glad I waited a year to start my youngest in Kindergarten! We worked a bit on reading, 'riting & 'rithmetic last year but only as his interest held out. This year he's ready! He also loves the number worksheets and I've been using Startwrite software for some basic penmanship skills such as his name and numbers. He does his work cheerfully and is finally conquering the blending skills in his Phonics Pathways book. We've also been working on his memory work for his first year of Awana, where his older brother will be one of the helpers.



Back to knitting:

I haven't gotten much knitting done lately and when I do knit, I've been surprisingly content to focus on my DIC Baby wrap. Monogamous knitting only comes in rare spurts for me.

I did manage to finish up these socks though...





Southwestern Socks by Wendy Johnson
Fiesta Boomerang "Cool Breeze" on size 2 magic loop
Quick and squishy.


When one of my very stressed friends saw these she described them as peaceful colors so I'll be giving them to her. I love that my friends are starting to get interested in my socks!

Okay... break over... it is clear that they are ready for more work. Or straightjackets. Must go.

About Hawaii...

You know how sometimes you say something, and then afterwards you start thinking that it didn't come out quite right and even possibly made you sound like a kinda mean spirited person? Yeah?

Well see, after my post yesterday, I went to bed thinking that I probably sounded like some callous mother who gets her kicks out of making fun of her children and this is just not so. I am a very loving mother...who greatly enjoys her children... and gets a kick out of making fun of them. BIG difference!

One of the greatest things I've learned from my children is how special and unique each individual person is. I've also observed that everybody has their strengths... and their weaknesses (and darn it, both can be funny). There are no such thing as better strengths or worse weaknesses... as God seems to have balanced out each individual to be just who He wants them to be.

So about Hawaii... being a homeschooler, a lot of the information my kids learn is absorbed rather than taught and is rarely tested when they are young. For example, we have always had a good wooden puzzle of the United States. (Actually we have gone through several because once you lose Georgia or Maine, you're kinda at a disadvantage.) Through simple puzzle play, one of my sons could identify every state on a blank map by the age of 4.5. He could do the puzzle with or without the frame, and recognize any state by shape alone. Another played with the puzzle but still really prefers his state quarter map. He also has a great grasp on US geography. Since the other of my 3 oldest (I'm trying to be very discreet here) had also spent much time with the puzzle, I figured we were good to go. See, if you have enough kids, they can slip through the cracks at home too. Yes, in his defense, Hawaii and Alaska are always just sitting off to the side of these puzzles... but still, but the age of 12... I would just hope... you know.

However, this boy makes up for any lapses in - well - the thought process, by being a human GPS, demonstrating remarkable athleticism, never forgetting a face or a name, and knowing the most minute details about every professional football and baseball player in recent history. (This became useful knowledge in helping him finally get a grip on his US geography.)

So for better or worse, my children all make me laugh. Hey, after 45 months of pregnancy, I deserve a good laugh. I laugh at myself too. People do and say funny things... and if we take ourselves to seriously... or rush kids off to tutoring or therapy just because they think Hawaii is a foreign country or that our female dogs can have puppies if they're gay... well, that would just suck all the fun out of life.

One of Those Days

It was... to the fullest extent of your imagination... one of "those" days. It is truly amazing the amount of distress, frustration, disruption, and general chaos one cranky 4 yo can impose on a household of otherwise relatively cooperative people. With great effort and no shortage of ideas, JoJo managed to whine, argue, complain, and toss himself into the middle of any and every attempt at normalcy. Now, I'm pretty good at recognizing pleas for attention or illness and adapting accordingly (a skill that has not come easily for me) but for whatever reason, JoJo was clearly determined to be miserable today... and make everyone around him feel likewise.

Fortunately, the other three boys managed to get done what they could do on their own with minimal instruction, although an Algebra lesson between too highly stressed individuals with a young'un in the midst was out of the question. Good thing we have a head start on the book.

All that aside... there were a couple of highlights. I love these new copywork books from Queen Homeschool Supplies that we just started. One is a book of sports-themed lessons for copywork and dictation; the other is part of a series of workbooks that teach spelling through copywork. Since copywork is my favorite way to teach writing, I consider them a great find!

Also, Wy-Guy is in a literature based science class that meets once a month for experiments following assigned reading done at home. We've really been enjoying our first book, Archimedes and the Door of Science. It's led to so many questions that they were begging to read The Librarian Who Measured the Earth as well. My boys were excited to read something... this alone was (almost) enough to redeem the whole day.

But the highlight would have to be the arrival of Signing is Fun, a recommendation of Donna's. Once this arrived I had lost their attention for the rest of the day. We are planning on taking a mission trip in January to a school for the deaf in Mexico and the boys wanted to learn some sign language. Since I had pretty much given up at this point (it was probably about noon), I handed over the book and told them each to learn how to say their name in sign language. They fought over the book (of course) but then learned their name and more. I learned how to say computer. :)

This gave me some time to take a look at the book that came in the mail for me, Knitting Classic Style by Veronik Avery, which I absolutely love... and will have much more to say about tomorrow. I then plunged in on my $11 Shrug. (Heat paralysis forced me to refrain from any unnecessary housework... and since we all have clean underwear I took the afternoon off.)

I'm still not sure if I'm going to be able to pull off the look... or if the shrug is going to fit... or if I like the yarn... but I keep going. Fortunately it's a quick knit.

How long have you kept going on something you knew would probably end up in the loser bin?

A New Day, A New Year

Today was my oldest boy's first day of High School. Since he has been homeschooled his whole life with the exception of a brief stint in middle school, I felt that a picture was in order. Don't you just love that look of pure teen tolerance...

Donna was quick to ask what he thought of the day... He said it was boring. (Imagine that.) He has a block schedule so he has 3 classes each semester that meet for 1.5 hours each day followed by a couple hours of football practice. (I would go crazy myself.) He thinks it will be better when they're doing something in class instead of just listening to the teacher talk. I'm not sure what exactly he's expecting but I think he grossly underestimates the stamina of an enthusiastic teacher given a captured captive audience.


JoJo however, had quite a different perspective on his first day of Kindergarten...


The first day of the new school year is always a bit of a roller coaster for us. I've learned to have very low expectations because there's nothing worse than starting off a new year feeling like you'll never make it past the first day. I try to avoid the visions of cheerful children neatly working in workbooks and enthusiastic listeners sitting attentively at my feet while I read... so I'm not so freaked out by the reality of 5, now 4, boys sitting in a 300 sf room together while trying to keep their hands to themselves and their mouths shut.


I always try to start our morning with Bible time because I so want to have God's word in our hearts as we proceed through the day. It really sounds beautiful. But somehow an insane woman yelling at bewildered, babbling boys really shatters the impact of the message. (I admit this with great shame... but hoping desperately that I'm not alone here.) I will say that I have put great effort over the years into learning to expect their imperfect behavior and handle any interruptions and/or distractions with gentleness, firmness, grace... and a bag of lollipops for good behavior. (For those of you who have not figured this out yet, the character building we parents talk about so much is taking place in us much more so than in our children. Maybe they'll get it when they have their own kids.)


We kept things relaxed for the most part today but I got to have a great history discussion with my 8th grader and I was overjoyed with the enthusiasm and questions of sons 3 & 4 during our reading time. I'm going to add a list on the sidebar of books and curriculum we're using just for anyone who's interested or wants to share their experiences with same. (Don't worry, I have no intention of turning this into a daily homeschooling blog... nor do I plan to start a separate one... geesh... I do have a life after all... I think.)


And... I finished a sock.

Oooh... Mail!

Actually, the package on the bottom brought the standardized tests for the boys. I'm not in the habit of testing regularly since I don't "teach to the test" but since test taking is truly a skill in itself, I do it occasionally for the exposure.




The best part... test proctors have time to knit. Yesterday I finished knitting the pieces of Tulip, so I took a day off today to finish a sock. Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Openwork Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. Love it!




I also got a bit of time to read this afternoon. The Brothers Karamazov is an amazing read. It really engages the mind... which I love... but it makes for poor bedtime reading. So enter Agatha Raisin, my favorite brash Cotswold detective for a little mindless pleasure.

(Did you know that you can knit a pair of short summer socks out of only one hank of Lorna's Laces? Just saying.)










Anyway, from"The Brothers":

"... as soon as man rejects miracles, he will at once reject God as well, for man seeks not so much God as miracles."


Genius insight... Sad, but true.