Spring Break 2011

Well last week consisted of a lot of this! Sand, sun, surf, pool!
Easy living on Hilton Head Island at our Marriott timeshare, Surf Watch. We fell in love with it years ago and are sure to get there at least once per year. I tried really hard to bring educational books with me that pertained to the beach but I found that I was enjoying some downtime and didn't get in all I wanted. We did do a nature walk and wrote down trees, flowers, and bushes that were marked. We had a lovely family of ducks in the resort pond that entertained us as well. An Earth Day trash pick-up proved to be a great morning of finding ocean wonders, although this excellent find happened completely by accident when the tide was waaaaaay out. We have another fall beach trip planned that I will be more prepared for so I hope some of the books I got will be of use then. All in all it was a great week and I brought home some tan and happy kids! Now back to work-ugh!

Life rolls on.....

It seems that finding time to blog is nearly impossible! I have started TOG (Tapestry of Grace) and will blog on my results later. As for today......Wildman turns 5!!! We did his birthday on Sunday and Soccer Star designed him an Angry Birds cake! I have to say that it really did look amazing. While he spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa's the girls took to decorating and organizing games for him. He was very surprised to be the celebrity when he got home that night. He is such a unique and crazy little guy. I have discovered that he is an auditory learner which makes the alphabet a bit of a challenge for him but we are about 3 letters away. He has most of the sounds though, which is great. I am waiting for all of the signs to start active teaching but he is still just a little boy who would rather throw balls and play with dirt. Sigh. Like I said....life rolls on!

Science abounds!

We are studying Earth science and have recently talked about earthquakes and volcanoes. No by no means did I need the Pacific Plate to cooperate for demonstration!
The girls made a homemade salt dough volcano.
We shaped it around a water bottle on a cookie sheet, then let it dry and painted it.



When it came time for it to explode we made sure that all the kids were home to enjoy. Red food coloring added a great touch and the salt dough, which had dried for 3 days, really held up against the liquid. On a second attempt we had a worm-like thing erupt which created more laughing than science!

Next we will be ordering some ladybug eggs to hatch in our habitat for a spring activity. Right now we continue with rocks and fossils as our study.

The time has come America!

As I sit and read Little House in the Big Woods to my girls I can't help but wonder if we will be returning to the time where simplicity and hard work are the standard? We Americans are disgustingly spoiled. Some of our biggest choices are whether to get a latte or a manicure! How did we get so shallow and lazy?
As the girls and I study history I keep thinking of the latin phrase they memorized. Historia Magistra Vitae. History is the teacher of life. Why have we not yielded to what history has taught us? Hasn't every strong and unbeatable empire in history fallen at some point? Do we REALLY think that our very young country is immune to invasion, civil war, and total upheaval? It is not ladies and gentlemen. It isn't. The direction we are headed is scary to say the least. Our history of excess and greed has set us up to fall in a VERY big way. The question is, "Are you prepared?" I am not but I am planning.
What does planning for imminent disaster require? Well simply we need to stop depending on meeting our needs from outside sources. We need to start, even in the smallest way, to begin to reclaim independence. I just read an article that stated simply that 3% self-sustainable is a far cry from 0%. We all know what needs to be done and here is the short list:
1. Garden and can. That simple. If grocery trucks stop running for 1 week the effect will be devastating. With gas prices soaring and no rest in sight it is a real probability that groceries could go up by as much as 300%. What will you do? I have a plan for deck boxes and more garden space that I will add to each year.
2. If possible have chickens. They aren't allowed in my neighborhood but if the shit hits the fan I will be getting some regardless.
3. Have an alternative source of energy. Not a generator but solar power. If a major grid goes down, which it has already done, we could be without electric for weeks. I would love to get 2 or 3 panels on the roof to compensate.
4. Water source. Do you have a backup source if you live off town water? I don't actually have a back up source but I do have 30K gallons of water in my back yard that could be cleaned and used to drinking.
5. Stock up. Slowly I will be stocking the essentials that last awhile. Batteries, canned goods, sanitizer, bleach, meds....you get the picture. There are many people who are collecting silver coin and gold because they may be the go-to barter item in the event that banks go down.

Does this sound nuts? Maybe. Is Glenn Beck nuts? He may be but he has also been very right many times. Will I need to supplement my family's food? Maybe. Will walking to the grocery store be an essential? Maybe. Tough times are ahead my friends and we are kidding ourselves if we think that this country is going to fix itself. Just think and make a few changes. That's all I ask. Some day soon lattes will not be the luxury, but toilet paper and milk will be. Review history and you will see.

Hats off to the New Year!

So we begin a new year and with that comes many resolutions. Mine is to NOT make one and then feel bad about letting it slide. This year I have a few goals.
The first is to institute a chore chart system for ALL of the kids in order to track who does what and who gets paid what. I spoke with DH about the fact that it seems the kids are always in need of money for this or that. If they had set chores with allowance then we can lay the expenses back on them. By doing this we control how much money they get and they learn the valuable lesson of budgeting! I think in the long run we will actually save money.
The list of chores I believe they are capable of doing is a simple one:
1. Put away clothes.
2. Wipe down bathroom sink.
3. Dust a selected area.
4. Unload the dishwasher.
5. Swiff the kitchen floor.
6. Wet swiff the bathroom floor.
7. Collect garbage from all bathrooms.
8. Vacuum a specified area.
I don't think these are unreasonable or particularly hard to do so we shall see who gets what done. Obviously there will be limits to what the smaller kids can do but they give every job they get their best efforts!
On a personal level I need to do a few simple things.
1. Drink more water.
2. Walk a certain number of times per week for a specified number of minute(will increase over time)
3. Eat fruit/veg daily(more)
4. Cut down on caffeine and bad carbs
5. Cut back gluten

BABY STEPS is my motto for this year. I have learned that jumping in too fast only lasts for maybe a month. I hate exercise and that will never change!

Happy Holidays!

With the holidays upon us I have time, okay maybe not have time, but I am taking the time to reflect on the year and the changes I have made to our lives. Please note that these are my personal feelings and as I do not judge the people who use public education(my own 2 older boys currently go to public school), I ask that you just read and not judge.
Homeschooling...where to begin. I feel this pull at my heart. I feel like I am compelled to take the education of my kids into my own hands. I feel unsettled that so many people accept the status quo that is American education today. I hate that parents just settle for something that is lacking because they can't understand the alternatives. Why have we come to accept education that is sub standard? Are we really okay with the testing and low standards? How did we get to this point that we are many, many levels below where we were years ago? How is it that in Civil War times the literacy rate, including slaves, was higher than it is now?
It pulls at my heart. This is NOT to say that there aren't many wonderful and dedicated teachers, because there are. I hope that I was once one of them. It is simply a case of their hands being tied by what is acceptable to teach and what is allowed. The standards are accepted, set, and taught.
Another really huge issue for me has been the total degradation of morality. What is now considered the norm revolts me. I'm not sure if it is the blatant lack of clothing that young girls wear, the nasty music they all listen to, or just the disregard for authority and decency that is the worst. When did it get this bad?
So they will be unsocialized you say? What part of school offers them the kind of socializing I really want them to have? I hear more horror stories than I hear success stories in all honesty. Should peer pressure be okay? Should I want my kids to mix in with children I would otherwise NOT want them to be friends with because it will make them "better people?" I'm sorry but that is not a risk I want to take. I have seen the village and I prefer it to NOT raise my kids thank you.
Lastly, school days are too long. Where did evening family dinners go? The ridiculous rat race to over achieve and be a part of 100 different activities for the sake of beefing up your college application has dissolved the very essence of family. How sad that we have to carve out time to speak to our kids. Is it any wonder that we lead the world in teen suicides? Our kids can't be kids. They are over scheduled, technologically terrorized, unplugged creatures that we don't recognize. Does it make sense to have your child spend more waking hours with strangers than yourself? Who shapes your child into the adult you want them to be when you see them for just a few hours per day?
At any rate, those are my reasons. I am not attempting to put my kids in a bubble and isolate them. I have just found that there are better ways for my kids to learn and learn to be lifelong learners. I like to be the central figure in their lives and shape them, especially my girls, into the best people they can become. Here's to the journey!!

Memory Work

Sounds old fashioned, right? Well it is! As old as learning your ABC's or your name. Memory work is a must for young kids because they literally absorb facts! Why not get them out of the way now so that down the road they are already on the shelves of their figurative grocery store?
I am employing two great resources for this. The first is the book Living Memory by Andrew Campbell. This provides tons of great memory categories including Latin Proverbs, poems, phrases, and math facts. I also use history facts and dates to keep them reviewing all year. The system is an easy index card box file! You can read about that here.
Soon we will be needing a second box for days 1-31 as we are filling the weekday slots with items we already know well. Is it working? It certainly is! There are times I move things back into more frequent positions but for the most part they are retaining and even my preschooler has blurted out random names like "Beowulf" and "Saxons"! I suggest it for all facts that kids need to study in various subjects. A simple 5 minute review everyday and long, arduous study sessions will be a thing of the past!
What are the merits of doing this though? Well simply put, children need the facts in their minds before they can begin to manipulate them. They need a frame of reference to put history facts into in their mental time lines. Andrew Campbell sums it up this way:
1. Memory is a basic human faculty.
2. Exercising one's memory brings better mental health.
3. Memory implies order.
4. A good memory is a key to writing.
5. To speak well, one must remember well.
6. A good memory is essential to mastering classical subjects like Latin and math.
7. Your memory is your personal laptop.
If your child is trained say by age 7 to know all the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts wouldn't life be so much easier? Then they can move ahead in learning to understand how math works by without being bogged down by trying to recall the facts. Wouldn't a basis in Latin words help an SAT taker decode unfamiliar vocabulary? Certainly! Even if your child isn't able to recall things off the tip of their tongue, it will be in their mental stores, on a shelf, to be easily accessed at a later time.