We went to the library.

Today our local library reopened after being locked out for about a month and a half. Going to there was at the top of the list of things to do today. :D
We walked down and spent an hour or more browsing the shelves and overloading our arms with books. Then DH came and picked up the books, James and Cassidy up while the rest of us walked home. James pulled almost all the picture book off the shelves which turned out to be a useful (but very messy) way of showing me some new books.
I feel a tad sorry for anyone looking for children's biology books, I borrowed more than my fair share. :D It's such a blessing being able to preview many of the books I'm considering buying by just going to the library.
Seeing us all walk around with hundreds of books made me wonder how on earth we managed when we weren't able to go to the library. I know I didn't buy as many books as we check out, I'd be beyond broke!
Someone on the WTM boards recently asked how many books we assigned our children to read each year. I said that I didn't assign books because they naturally wanted to read and learn but I estimated that the elder ones read about 300. Well I was wrong, maybe 600, 700, 800? Today when were at the check out there was a mother and her two young children. The four or five year old girl was complaining that she had really wanted another video and that they had way too many books, between 10 and 15. The mom turned around to say sorry that her daughter was being so loud. I thought she was going to faint when she saw us! Her eyes bugged out and she made strange gasping noises, Megan thought it was hilarious. I'm often shocked by how little people read.

Happy Birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CASSIDY!!!!

You are such a joy to be with, so eager to learn and always ready to help. I feel like you’ve been four for ages, but now you are and I’m going to miss you being three. I think I’ll have to stop thinking of you as the baby, now we’ve got Joshua and I’m pregnant. Always remember, you are loved greatly by your family, friends, God and Jesus.

We’ll be having a simple, low key birthday. We had waffles for breakfast, Cassidy’s request. Then we’ll open some presents, we had to stay simple because we’re on a budget so she’s getting:
Homemade diary from my mom who I think is amazing because she can make books (I’ve tried and failed)
A gift card for Amazon because I gave up trying to choose a book for her
A paperweight with Cassidy written on it (homemade)
A packet of beads, she suddenly gotten into beading
Pink wool so that she can make a scarf
A book bag that says I am a bookworm (homemade)
Goodness knows how many birthday cards; Megan and Laura have been going crazy
Some gardening gloves

She’ll probably spend the rest of the day reading, knitting, beading and poking around in the garden. We’re still doing school but Cassidy who just does “preschool” will be left to her own devises as usual. DH is coming home from work early so that we can make pizza and have a picnic somewhere if the weather is nice or else we’ll just have fun at home.

Happy Birthday my little girl.

Natural, parent and child led

Today I met with a new to homeschooling mom. She's just pulled her two boys (5th and 3rd grade) out of public school and wants some help planning her homeschool. I offered to help so today we sat down and talked. We talked about what I do, what she wants to do, what different curricula are like, the different schooling philosophies and I have to say, I'm amazed at what I learnt about myself. Particularly this bit of our talk:
M: "So, what's your homeschool like, I mean, what's you teaching method."
Me: "We're classical homeschoolers, inspired by the Well - Trained Mind."
M: "Classical? Does that mean school at home?"
Me: "No, or rather, yes and no. We do bookwork but I don't try to duplicate school. I believe in a more natural, parent and child driven approach."
Whoa! Where did that come from? "I believe in a more natural, parent and child driven approach." We aren't school at home people, we have a schoolroom and do bookwork but I've never wanted to educate in the same manner as the school, I've wanted to avoid it! But the more I think the more I realize that we are a parent and child driven homeschool, despite my previous thoughts.
1. Custom curricula
I always consider which child I'm choosing a curriculum for before buying. While Douglas is doing great with Saxon Math Megan couldn't stand it. But Megan excels with Miquon Math and Douglas "looses" all his math knowledge when a Miquon book is placed in front of him.
Chelsea is happy to write about anything but David can only do writing in moderation. I'm working on making a plan of our curriculum for K-12th if I can but I know that it won't be what each child uses.

2. Asking DC
Before I make a firm decision about a child's curriculum I tend to check to make sure that it looks good with them. I am the mother, I have the last word, if they say "I don't want to do any math this year." too bad, they're doing math. If I say "Chelsea, would you like me to order Classical Writing Aesop for you?" and Chelsea says "Mom! I'm halfway through Homer A, I need Homer B, not Aesop!" I'll consider buying Homer B instead of Aesop. I'll take their input seriously, this is after all their schooling, but I won't let their every whim dominate my decision.

3. This is boring, I don't like this
If a child says "Spelling is boring." or "I don't like spelling." I will ask why. Sometimes they're just trying to get out of doing a subject but usually there really is something wrong. My kids are pretty honest they know that lying is wrong and bad and that I don't except lazily done work.
When DC is having a problem we try a different approach, games or some time off have often helped put the cheeriness back in school.

4. Letting them discover
I have decided to take a discovery approach to science. This means creating our own science library so that my kids have access to books and other resources when they feel in a science mood. I am also making a discovery based science curriculum because I need some structure.
I feel that a discovery approach makes sense for science because that is how science has come about, through discoveries.
I am also going for a more natural approach to spelling, no more "learn" to spell this list of words curriculum. Instead I am thinking of taking words from our reading and writing and having those be our spelling words. That way, DC will be using the words we are spelling and I will choose words that DC has trouble spelling instead of words that are in the curriculum but they already can spell.

I'm tiered and starting to make less and less sense so I think I'll go to bed. :D

Catch up time!

I'm getting behind in my posting! Thoughts about things I must blog are charging through my brain but my time to log onto Blogger is very limited. I've decided to try to blog every other day. So, look for my next update on Thursday!

I'm back!!

I'm back from France, back from a non blogging period and I'm (hopefully) back to a semi-normal life.

I have a zillion things to tell! I guess the beginning is the best place to start. :D

In my last post I said I was leaving for France. I loved it there! The family we were staying with is lovely. They have three kids 10 yo girl, 7 yo boy and 1yo boy. Chelsea and their daughter had a great time together speaking bad French and bad English. We loved Paris and enjoyed seeing the sites. I would have liked to speak more French but sometimes my French wasn't up to it or the people I was talking to would speak in English. Still, we all improved our French dramatically. Even Cassidy can say a number of words like "chat" (cat) and "bonbon" (candy). The plan was to spend time in France and then head off to Normandy and see stuff on the way. But plans don't always work quite right. Before we headed off there was a flurry of phone calls and e-mails from the Canadian government.


I learnt that my dear friends Michelle and Rob had been killed driving home from a church meeting. Someone was speeding down the wrong side of the road a crashed into them. It was their will that I adopt their five children (12, 10, 7, 6 and 2). Oh, the tears! Michelle and Rob have always been so kind to me. They inspired me to homeschool and have always been there to offer a helping hand on our journey. Now they're gone. May the Lord watch over them in Heaven.


It's next to impossible to get flights for a family of five even when it's an emergency. So I left dh and the kids in France and went home by a very odd routing (Paris to London, London to New York, New York to Toronto, Toronto to Vancouver and Vancouver to Victoria).



I began with the legal procedures but was greatly in need of dh so for the most part I cried and tried to be the best parent to Mariah, David, Laura, Douglas and James that I could.



Due to the chaos we'd just had there wasn't time for dh and the kids to go to Normandy so they spent some more time in Paris before returning home.



Then we really got into the adoption process as well as arranging a funeral and figure out where Rob and Michelle's stuff was going. It was exhaustive and stressful and to make matters worse my best friend wasn't there to offer her advice.



I would have thought that once that was over life would calm down a bit. But, now that I was able to think more clearly I realized what a cramped space we were living in. We live in a duplex and it is very comfortable for a family of five but double that and you're squished.

Our house is on the market and we have one person that has come round three times but no offers have been put in. I'm hoping we can get a house in farming outskirts of the city. I'd love to move to the country but we'd be leaving too much behind here.



We'll have our first week of school together on Monday and I'm trying to get prepared. I have a lot of new curricula to use and I have to try to find the books we need because our library has been locked out. It is so expensive with food and books that we've got to watch our money a lot more than previously.

There is still lots to write but like I said I'm still getting acquainted with some of the curricula we're using and need to track down books.

And please welcome Mariah age 12, David age 10, Laura age 7, Douglas 6 and James 2 to our very blessed family.

French school

We leave for France on Thursday! Boy, am I excited. :D
I'm working on my French and am fairly sure I'll be able to communicate our basic needs. Dh knows a family there and they have lots planned for us. We'll start in Paris and spend a week or so there. Then we'll head off to Normandy with some site seeing along the way.
This is a holiday, but we aren't totally dropping school.
We'll do math, grammar, spelling, handwriting, phonics and writing on the plane. I'm not assigning Chelsea writing, I just know she will. :D We'll read of course, and play educational games. I'm taking electricity, French-Canadian and Emily Carr themed books so we can still do a loose art appreciation, history and science studies. French will be on an all time high but we won't do Latin. No piano or yoga. We'll pray and read the Bible, but no real study. No country themed cooking, but we have an iPod loaded with classical music so maybe we'll do informal music appreciation.
I'm still trying to decide what books to take, I'd like to bring the library!
I'm excited! I know we'll be "behind" in our school work, but homeschooling is about FLEXABILITY. I'm going to put that word to use.

Knitting

Knitting is a hobby of mine, something I really love to do. Where I live it doesn't get super cold in the winter but I still loves those evenings by the fires, needles in hand.
Recently I've been on an extreme knitting frenzy:
Cassidy was desperately in need of a new toque so I made her a warm, fluffy, pink one that she wears everywhere, some slippers, mittens and a vest.
Megan has gotten three sweaters (she's the time of kids that wears t-shirts ALL year round so when we hand a cold snap there was a bit of a problem with clothes for Megan) which she loves and actually wears (!), slippers and am working on a scarf with Megan which I should have finished for her birthday (beginning of Jan.). I'm also teaching her how to knit and she's working on a doll scarf which is nice and easy.
Chelsea got a poncho, Santa hat (this was lots of fun to make), slippers and a pencil case. She knits or draws during read alouds and recently made a calculator holder (don't ask me why she did) and has started on a bag.
DH (am I aloud to call him that even though we don't get married for a week?) has a few new ties, slippers and a sweater.
I have gone a tad crazy on making dish towels and have also made myself a BIG maternity sweater :D and slippers.

I'm getting requests left right and center for more knitted things. Good thing I have a major addiction to it.

Have you heard?

Have you heard about the NEW Well-Trained Mind Forums!?!?
They are the BEST! No more spam on the accelerated forums is something I've been longing for. I was slightly sad to leave the old boards, I've been reading them for ages but I am very happy with the new ones.
God truly told me the write time to get e-mail. :D

Forums

Skating

We went skating today after finishing school and had lots of fun. Chelsea has sort of self taught herself with a bit of instruction (read that a few times if you need to :D) some simple figure skating moves and I'm a fairly decent skater. Cassidy and Megan were big bundles of clothes that spent most of the time on their bums!!
It was great, there were lots of homeschoolers there (well, it is a homeschooler skate) and us moms had a great time chatting, skating and helping kids stand up. I really love these sort of things, where kids can play and moms can chat. Normally we do it over lovely organic cofee and homemade cookies at bi-weekly Everything Homeschool meetings, but skating was an awesome change. It really is a wonderful community.