Tartar Sauce or Cream of Tartar Sauce You Decide

June 20, 2016

Clarissa called to me from the kitchen today and asked

"Mom, does Tartar Sauce for fish really go in the cookies I want to bake? I can't find any in the fridge." 

After thinking for a minute I asked her if she meant Cream of Tartar and she looked and said

"Yes, is there a difference?"

So she learned the difference today and made cookies while I was out of the house. It makes me giggle to think of her making tartar sauce cookies. I am grateful for cellphones so she could learn before and not after baking them today.

End of the School Year and Time to Repack the House Again

May 27, 2016

Well we have officially wrapped up our first year of homeschool. I can't teach or plan while trying to pack for the second time in a year. At least this is for the move into our permanent house. We are all looking forward to being settled enough we can finally unpack everything.

Writing Skills Improvement

April 27, 2016

I am having one of those awesome days. After having the kids do a writing assignment, I can see specific things they have added to it that they learned about this year with me. Such amazing progress and so encouraging.  This was Clarissa's most recent writing assignment and she even volunteered to type it up for fun.  We must be doing something right.

I have Discovered a Thing Called Nature Study

April 2016

One of the first things I have discovered as I have started to ready and study about Charlotte Mason and her Philosophy on Education was her thoughts on an activity called nature study.  Something I had honestly up until this point never heard of before.  And I am certain that I don't quite understand it fully yet.

Understanding it completely or not I figured that spending more time out of doors appreciating and observing God's creations and the world around us seems like no bad thing.  And so we have begun.  Knowing so little about how to truly begin and looking at all our supplies I felt a little overwhelmed by the idea of taking art supplies for four children and all those said children on an outing of any kind I decided that we had better start simply with our own backyard such as it is.

So with the meager supplies we already had on hand I ushered the children outside with vague directions to find something in nature that was cool or disgusting or interesting and draw it in their sketch notebooks.

Our Nature Study Supplies:

Strathmore Sketch - spiral bound pad 8.5x11 we already had this for art lessons

Pencil - sharpened or mechanical it depended on the child and their preference

Erasable Colored Pencils

Felt Tip Washable Markers

While they wandered around the yard I tried to explore it myself with fresh eyes and a camera.  Since I was busy fielding questions like "How long do we have to be out here?" and "Why are we doing this?" or "Hold this mommy I need to get my jacket." I knew there wouldn't be any time for me to actually spend drawing to keeping a nature journal myself.  But I have a lofty dream in my head of someday.  Someday I would like to learn to keep one myself.  I would like to go for weekly nature outings to draw, paint and observe the wonderful world I live in.  So today I do that through a lens and maybe I can start my journal by sketching my pictures into a journal when I can set aside free time for myself, instead of trying to contend for it while helping the children enjoy and have their own successful outing.

The reading I have been doing in Charlotte Mason about nature study has inspired me to order a couple of books to add to my reading list for the near future:

Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by: Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth

Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist's Year by: Edwin Way Teale

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by: Richard Louv

Last Child in the Woods is my book group's next read so I am looking forward to reading it and having a wonderful discussion about it with a great group of ladies who are also trying to learn, grow and teach their own children.

Potential to Learn and Potential to Teach

April 15, 2016

Picked up a book called "Mommy, Teach Me!" to read yesterday evening on a whim and I am so glad that I did. This quote has really stuck with me and so I wanted to share it with all of you.

"Throughout centuries and over a wide range of cultures, parents have been their children's primary teachers in the early years and sometimes longer. This leads me to believe that since every child has the potential to learn every parent has the potential to teach...I believe that any parent with a desire to teach can learn to do it and do it well."

I think this sums up my feelings about homeschooling perfectly. Because even without a degree in education, I am researching and reading everything I can get my hands on about child development and learning and I feel like with the Lord's guidance I am learning how to teach my children and teach them well. Even when you don't know how to do something you can always learn if you want to.

All Sentences Must Have 7 Words! What ???

March 5, 2016

We had an eye-opening conversation during school yesterday. After working on a grammar worksheet that focused on complete sentences and sentence fragments independently Clarissa was confused about why so many of her answers were wrong.

Clarissa - "But mom, none of these have seven words in them so they can't be a complete sentence."

Me - "What do you mean seven words long?"

Clarissa - "Well all my old public school teachers said that that a complete sentence had to be at least seven words long, or it wasn't a sentence."

Now I understand why both my girls have struggled so long with grammar and writing. And it makes me even more grateful we are homeschooling now.

Homeschool + Toddler = Total Distraction

February 11, 2016

Here I sit helping Clarissa work on her math lesson, and in comes the cutest and biggest distraction there is in our family right now, Kyrilene AKA: The Toddler.  We love her dearly and wouldn't trade her for the world but she is certainly giving me a challenge at figuring out how to keep her busy and happy and still have the time and focus and energy to give to the older three children with their lessons.

Right now I admit that TV time happens so math and science can happen and if nap time doesn't happen then reading and writing or something else equally important has a much harder time getting done.  I mean who can resist that cute little face?

Suggestions?  Ideas?  Advise?  I will take them all, anything that will help us with our family routine and schedule so we can get to everything that needs to be done each day.  On the plus side today we did get three days worth of science done this morning while "The Toddler" watched Tinkerbell.