This summer was hard on our family. Between the longest miscarriage ever, surprise ovarian surgery, solo parenting stints, and recovering from the house fire last spring - it felt like life just kept coming back for more blood. Getting ready to start our school year, and the first homeschooling year with two kids in for-realsies grades, I felt overwhelmed, burned out, and done. And I hadn't even started yet.

It was clear that something needed to change. I responded to that need in proper nerd fashion: looking into all the options - be they weird, fringe, or otherwise out of my norm. Catholic unschooling came across my rader, and for the first time I actually considered it's merits.

To be clear, we are not actually going all in on unschooling. We are still using the structure and curriculum choices through Mother of Divine Grace. However, it made since to re-assess how we went about implementing MODG using some of the things that can be learned from unschooling families.

Some ideas I came across I was not ok with accepting, but there were others that resonated with me.

Skill subjects vs. content subjects

While I knew the distinction of skill subjects and content subjects from my own experience as a homeschooled kid, I realized I wasn't acting the distinction that well in my practice of homeschooling my own children.

Some subjects work well most of the time with consistent daily practice that follows a logical sequence - these are the skill subjects. Math is an obvious one, but others like grammar, spelling, music theory, art, languages have at least parts of their study that are skill based.

Other subjects are about acquiring content knowledge. At least the early grades of science, history, some literature, art, geography are all content subjects. These are subjects that are perhaps best done with what I call guided exploration. Our studies for science, history, some geography, and lots of arts and literature, are being approached with less structured school time. Instead we grow and explore together a wide variety of topics in those subjects based one what the kids, or I, are interested in learning. That means lots of documentaries, field trips, experiments, library trips, and learning alongside my children.

When We School

In order to implement that unschooling exploratory style, an essential ingredient is needed - time. There has to be time for ideas to grow and percolate. Time for field trips. Time for talking and being with each other so that I, as their teacher and parent, can understand where their interest might be leading and how I can best facilitate their growth.

Which means we have shifted almost all of our book time to be after lunch, leaving the mornings open. This is the most likely time we have for getting out of the house, and finding the energy that exploratory learning involves. Since my oldest is just 2nd grade, this isn't too terribly difficult to do. Even when you consider additional reading practice, his work Monday through Thursday takes about two hours, max.

Shifting to afternoon lessons is important for another aspect of family functioning:

What to do with the active toddler

When we schooled mostly in the morning, the toddler was her worst self. She wasn't getting to play with her siblings as much, she was only happy drawing or doing other activities for about 20 minutes, and school was taking longer for the big kids due to the incessant interruptions.

So now we are mostly doing book work during her nap time.
The mornings with exploratory learning are much easier to include her in our learning. She gets lots of active time and loving on by everyone. That time of learning alongside each other, and investment into our family culture first, makes a huge different in everyone's attitude.

Book work goes much faster when I'm not cajoling anyone to "just get it done". Everyone from the quality time loving kids to my very touchy kids have had their love tanks filled.

But what about the book list?

This unschooling/homeschooling mashup is doable right now in large part because we were starting from a curriculum that emphasizes the parent/child connection and flexibility between kids. When you are starting from a place of guiding the child through the good, true, and beautiful, it is simple to take advantage of the multiple roads available for that journey.

We still use the reading list as our starting point, but end up reading far beyond it.
I still find the choices for math curriculum, handwriting, and other skill subjects to work for us.
But I needed to break up my mental idea that I was married to those choices.

So far I have had kids that have widely different places of struggle and ease when it comes to their learning. Embracing that sometimes what you need is fine tuning, instead of a wholesale do over, has been very freeing this year.

Are you changing things up this year? What have you done to make your days better when circumstances change?

Where I've Been Lately

This has been one of my longest writing breaks in a good while. I think it's time to level with y'all and let you know where I've been lately.

Talking Off-line

In the Diocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul, the young adults have been leading discussions about the church crisis, developing concrete steps for moving forward, and submitting a letter to the Bishop. I attended the first large discussion with over a hundred other young adults. While I felt like it was a productive conversation at my table, the equal representation of men and women in the room was not reflected in who stood up to address the larger group.

I emailed the organizers about it. Which turned into an invitation to their next planning meeting.
Which turned into getting involved in next steps.
Which turned into being listed as an organizer by the time the letter was released.
All within just a few days.

That meant that more people have been coming up to me wanting to talk about the crisis and what is being done about it in the diocese. I love having those conversations in person! Human connection is so very important for having these hard discussions, and I believe very strongly that we need to feed our community connections now more than ever.
Not every conversation is positive, but I think it is harder for most people to see the subject of their frustration as an object when they are a flesh and bone person standing in front of them.

Writing Online

All of those in person conversations have been enlightening. Plenty of young parents have told me that changes are unnecessary, that the "past should be in the past", or just straight up that the crisis does not concern them.

I wrote a piece for YA Respond, the collection of people who are behind the young adult response in the diocese, addressing that reaction.

Beyond that, I've been on the quiet side online because of....

The Fallout

I knew there would be push back, but I never anticipated how much I would be torn down by other WOMEN. I've gotten hateful emails, messages, comments. One women told me, to my face, that I should "Go home and love your babies instead of talking like this."

It's been a lesson in internalized misogyny, I tell you what.

I appreciate that it's easier for women to be angry at another woman, and to take out their frustrations on someone like me who is sticking her neck out. But just because something is easy does not make it ok. I'm not actually an endless pit that can take all the evil of the world. I'm a human being who isn't always being seen as one right now.

Let's be very clear here - if you have issues with how things are being handled right now, you are invited to get your butt in gear and do something too. I will not allow anyone to continue on harming their own souls by venting their hatred.

Protecting my own mental health has been important because, imagine that, I still have other things going on in my life.

Homeschooling

Like homeschooling. This has been a rocky year.
This year I am schooling 1st grade and preschool. 1st grade seems to be a turning point on when it's ok to be different from your peers. Suddenly I'm getting a lot of push back about learning to read (still on that struggle bus) and doing pretty much anything I ask during the day.
It's very hard when the number of young homeschooling families seems to be plummeting, and all his little friends are in the parish school together or at various other schools.

The preschooler would prefer to do school everyday. She does not believe in this concept of "the weekend". If she could start kindergarten right now, that would be swell by her.

Preschooler has been allowed to start phonics because I just can't keep her from starting any longer. Open to suggestions for a struggling to blend, not even beginning, reader. I've tried most of what I've found online and it's not doing the trick here on week 5.

Bleaching E V E R Y T H I N G

The drama could not stop with the big kids! I brought the baby into the doctor with, what I thought, was a bad yeast diaper rash. It was that, but also Staph. STAPH. Eeeeeeeek!!!

This has been a lesson in how little can actually be done against bacteria, but I am fighting this battle with so. much. bleach.

ALLLLLLL THE BLEACHHHHHH!!

Modern medicine is a marvel, y'all.
Somehow this baby is still pretty cheerful, despite the infection with the awful creatures.

Auditioning

It's been a few weeks of hard, and frankly I needed a win. I did an audition that I *think* went really well!
I'm the kind of Type A actor who keeps an audition log. That way I can record exactly how many times I've thrown myself against this brick wall. (I jest...sort of...) This was my 15th audition. In my "mood coming out" column for this audition I put "nailed it". We'll see what ends up in the "outcome" column.

Amelia Hill House reno

We are attempting to tackle two big areas before the winter sets in: the nursery and the library.

Upon removing the wallpaper in the nursery, and letting it sit, it became apparent that the vintage wallpaper was just not in good enough condition to preserve. The plaster behind it was flaking off the wall, and I called it as a DIY project. For a room intended for a baby the various issues were getting beyond my pay grade.

It's been a few weeks of occasionally having workers here scraping the wall and re-plastering. I don't love parenting and homeschooling with strange men coming in and out all day (who don't speak to me. It's weird.) I keep reminding myself how nice it will be to finally have all the rooms upstairs in usable condition!

We finally won the battle of the rusty nails (...by bringing in a handy man who tackled it in 10 minutes...) so we are now picking colors for the library! We found a local carpenter to build shelves that will be stained to match the dark walnut inlays we have in the floor. I'm going for a 1920's study feel to it, that won't feel too dark in the dead of winter. Ideas welcome!

It does get s t r o n g light in the late afternoon, so I'm thinking red would be a little intense. I like the idea of a dark green, but we have used a lot of green in the house so far.

Linking this little life update with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

The Homeschool Plan 2018-2019

A new school year is coming quickly! This year we have a 1st grader, preschooler, and baby in tow. Here's the plan!

John - 1st Grade

John is entering his second year with Mother of Divine Grace. We discovered last year that he is a little math nerd and he is beyond excited to have a "much bigger math book AND a test book!"
(I don't think he gets it from me, folks.)
We are branching out on some of the classes this year, and John will be doing a science and nature observation course with a local nature center. This will be our first time using outside resources for an academic subject, so it's exciting for everyone!

Therese - Preschool (year 2)

Therese is starting the new MODG preschool program this year. It's a new program, and a deviation from my usual system of add-in-a-few-workbooks-and-do-letters-and-numbers. But Therese felt that her school wasn't "real school" like her brother, and she felt a little left out. Now she gets an (age/developmentally appropriate) version of the program her big brother is using.

Felicity - Babyhood (year 2)

Not really part of the schoolers yet, but gets to spend her mornings in the kitchen with us anyway.
Her job is to get mobile this year and generally keep being awesome.
I think she'll do fine. ;)

Extra-curricular Activities

Ballet

This is John's third year of Ballet school, and Therese's first. We are switching studios this year so that they can have overlapping classes (can I get a scheduling hallelujah?!). Their new school is much closer to our house, and allows me to have a break from the downtown rush hour drive. We loved MDT though, and will probably go back if the kids want to continue to performance division level.

Homeschool Days

Minnesota is a great place to homeschool, and, now that we don't have a newborn, we get to take advantage of homeschool specific days! Our area parks, nature centers, and rec centers have programs like Winter Family Fun Days (snowshoeing and sledding at a farm), maple syruping, honey harvest, sports clinics, etc. We are planning on getting a lot of our science on outside!

Things I Haven't Heard of Yet

Because we start a solid month before anyone else in our area, it's hard to know what all of our options will be until closer to Fall. So it's very possible that the kids/family will participate in something I haven't heard of yet.
Expect the unexpected!

Organization

I mentioned in a previous post that we're doing some things differently this year. A big one is starting to homeschool at our kitchen table in our new house! I'm still a fan of each kid getting their own books all in one box. 

These Target bins are so hardy and cute!

I have a mini-book shelf of books that I use for multiple kids, and a cabinet of things only mom may bring out. Mostly art and science kits.

The kitchen has much more space than any of our previous homes, so I can finally upgrade the kids to having their books and supplies stores on freed up furniture, and I get to commander the utility cart for my own use!

Planners, basket of post its, notecards, washi tape, and labels, and jars for highlighters, pens, and dry erase markers up top.
Master homeschool notebook, music notebooks, audition notebook, dry erase boards, receipts organizer, and music folio on the bottom.

I still have our busy boxes from last year, since those were a great success in having easy distractions for the younger set, but I have been ruthless with paring down on the art supplies. Some things are worth having a decent stash on hand (like construction paper), but others just cause more trouble than they're worth (looking at you paints!)

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Related Posts!

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Who else is getting pumped for school?! Perhaps it's the nerd in me, but the start of a new school year is better than New Years Eve in terms of fresh beginnings. Are you trying anything different this year?

7 Things I'm Changing In Our Homeschool

Next weekend is the big Catholic homeschool conference in Minnesota (and if you're around you should come and tell me and we'll hang!). Last year I was just feeling it out, but this year I feel like I'm a woman on a mission! So while I prep my dream lists for the used curriculum fair, I thought I'd write down seven things we're changing in our homeschool next year due to lessons learned this past year.

1

Staying home more

It seems to obvious, you need to be HOME to homeschool, but when I only had preschoolers/toddlers it made more sense to leave everyday. Once I had a kid who needed to sit down and *do* school I realized that we need to be more intentional about what times we will be home.

I have kids on the extroverted side (and so am I) so we won't be staying home all day every day, but we need a few hours blocked off Monday-Thursday if I want to get school done without tears.

2

Utilizing the car time

This was our first year owning a car, and I'm slowly making my peace with driving being a necessity now, but it's such a time suck! I'm thinking about using that time for good by switching some of our schooling, like music and some history, to be "car subjects". 

(Crazy? Who's done this and want's to send me ideas?!)

3

Then there were two

Therese is turning 4 this summer which moves her into "real school" in our house. She'll have her own books and syllabus to do. It's still very gentle and low key, but it is another layer of complexity to add a kid to the main homeschool day.

4

Homeschool in the kitchen!

Even though we do have the space for a school room, I liked the idea of using that room as a library and using the eat in kitchen space as our school room instead. This past year I found I was having to leave the school space all the time. To get a bottle for the baby, pour a cup of coffee, set the crockpot, etc. If we're already in the kitchen, it's that much easier to keep everyone on track while still getting done what needs to get done.

5

Activity boxes rock

This past year I got some scrapbook boxes off Amazon and made activity boxes for Therese. They were intended as an easy way for her to entertain herself while I was working with her brother. But they were a huge hit with both of them! The sewing box and play dough box were extremely popular.

I'm bringing them back this year, but with a little bit of a twist as the kids are older. As part of my school prep (maybe once a month instead of weekly) I'm planning to change up the boxes to include materials that we are currently learning about. So there might be a nature exploration box, a sensory box, a science experiment box, a go-outside-and-use-me box (for messy stuff/nature exploration). Lots of ideas!

It's the meal prep of kid activities.

6

Outsource

Minnesota is a wonderful playland of resources for homeschooling, and I intend to take advantage of it! The park district near us hosts homeschool nature and science classes, there are free forest school meet ups, Y homeschool sports classes, etc. I'm not a huge fan of co-ops personally, but I do like the idea of using classes when it works for the kid and the family needs.

Those schedules won't be released until later in the summer, so we won't be deciding on those particular classes until then.

7

Monday is Too Late

I'm going to have to prep for the week on the weekend. I wanted to hold off doing work on Sunday, day of rest and all, but waiting until Monday to do things like print off the weekly checklist and gather materials just made for a stressful start to the week. Sunday evenings are what has worked best so I'm going to admit that's what I should do.

What lessons did you learn from the school year? Any changes you are planning to make?

Beauty, Truth, and Goodness - A 5 Minute Morning Basket

When I did my last Day in a Life post, some of you noticed that our morning basket time only lasted for 5 minutes. That is our average time.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a morning basket, it's essentially a set of things at the beginning of the day that starts your day with beauty, goodness, and truth. Exactly what that entails will vary drastically between families, and within the same family at different times. I encourage you to tailor your morning basket to what works in your family.

Our morning basket time consists of:
Bible
Music
Poetry
Art

Bible: we read a page or two from our children's Bible. We use this one that is on the MODG syllabus.

Music: listen or sing along to a hymn. Catholic Chant has a great list by grade level with tracks and lyrics. We also listen to the local classical station in the car.

Poetry: This will likely expand as more kids age into our homeschool, but the schooling kids are working on memorizing poems. Even if you don't use MODG, I highly recommend Laura Burquist's The Harp and the Laurel Wreath as a great resource for finding poems. Kindergarten is all Robert Lewis Stevenson, so that's who we visit every morning!

Art: This is very basic right now. We either do a little activity with our art cards (I have these, but I also picked up a pack of postcards from various art museums at a homeschool conference for a dollar) or a simple art project. This normally starts the preschooler on her work for the morning while I start the Kindergartner on things like math and handwriting.

This is meant to be short and sweet, but it will vary on time when we're doing something different (like starting a new poem or doing a more involved craft during art). Here's how we keep morning basket a simple part of our day, instead of a dreaded add on:

Don't be a perfectionist

Kids don't automatically show appreciation for these things. Learning how to memorize a poem is work. Bible stories have weird names in them. Gregorian chant can be tricky.

If I don't stress out about doing something perfect the first time, it's much better for all of us.

However, don't take this to mean never press kids to try again! I have my kindergartner repeat phrases that he missed the first time in poetry, and I remind him it's much easier to correct a mistake right away than to fix something learned incorrectly. 

But do I make them re-sing a song where they jumbled the Latin pronunciation? Nope. Because exact pronunciation is not the goal of music time.

Goal is exposure and steady embodiment

The point of doing a morning basket is to start the slow and steady trickle of goodness and beauty that will become ingrained in the kids, and will become part of their database of things they recognize. When they hear Tantum Ergo at church, it's not something completely over their heads. They know the tune, and they can sing along a little. Starting that basis of understanding is huge!

Have everything in one place

Maybe it's not a literal basket, but do keep everything you need for your morning basket time in one place. You are far more likely to do it if you're not running around the house trying to find a book, or if the art cards are perpetually going missing.

All Together Everybody!

I believe strongly in whole family learning, and the morning basket is a great place for everyone to work on something together. Everyone, from a toddler to a high schooler, can find something in a work of art or piece of beautiful music that is meaningful and interesting. It is almost certainly not the same something, but I find most children enjoy participating in a group and having something that clearly begins the school day.

Short and Sweet

Really try to keep what you consider to be morning basket time between 5-10 minutes. Longer than that and it's not reasonable for the little ones, shorter and it basically never happened for big kids.
This might mean that some subjects get shifted to other times. When we get to the grammar stage (about 3rd grade) poetry might be introduced in morning basket, but we will need more time to work on the poems than in the 5-10 minute time allotted.

Be Flexible

You might find that you need to mix up the subjects in your morning basket. There are weeks, like when we have just started a new poem, when I will shift art to be in the afternoon. I know that the poetry will take up more time right then, but it needs to be in the beginning of the day to make sure it gets done.

There are no hard and fast rules about how you have to do, or what to include in, a morning basket!

Follow with Focus or Letting Off Steam

Depending on the kid, and the day, I will follow morning basket with either a focus (moving onto math) or letting off steam (10 minute outside recess!) It's very apparent in the 5-10 minutes of morning basket time if each kid is ready to start their day or not. Some times one, or all, of us need another chance to start again. In that case, we take a 10 minute break (I set a timer) and everyone can disperse until the timer goes off. Then we come back and I hand out assignments.

Do you do morning basket in your house? What does that look like? Those the idea of a morning basket intrigue you?

Meet the Latest Model!

7 Quick Takes with This Ain't the Lyceum

It's been a busy few weeks around here!

1

This little lady was born!

Meet Felicity Anne

2

I'm hoping to get her birth story written up this weekend, but here's some short stats for the meantime:

Born on October 5

9lb 10oz and 21in

14 hour labor

1st water birth 

2nd home birth

EDIT: Finished her birth story! 

3

She's been a hit with her big siblings.

4

Matt has done a great job stepping in as homeschool teacher.

The kids think it's really cool because "Dad's never taught anyone before!"

Not true, he taught college students when he was in grad school, but John and Therese are likely his youngest pupils.

I am grateful we decided to enroll in Mother of Divine Grace this year. Getting to quickly print out a checklist of what needs to be done has made it fantastically easier to hand over the homeschool reins.

5

I have been making great use out of my postpartum kit!

The surprise rock star of the postpartum recovery time did not even make the original list.

One Christmas my mom gave all her daughters (and son-in-law) YETI ramblers with personalized decals. They are fabulous for hanging out by the lake, but I did get a ton of use out of mine until now.

It has a lid that does not involve messing with straws, and insulated enough to keep things at the temperature I want = perfect for postpartum.

6

It's getting chilly at night here so we've been having some snuggly evenings here in Minnesota!

The other day we had a fire in the fireplace and made some s'mores. The next morning John informed me that we got to have s'mores because "it was the feast day... of the STAR WARS!....So kids can have s'mores for the star wars." 

Bigger Sci-Fi nerds than I, who would be the patron of Star Wars if you could pick? 

I feel like it should be a Capuchin saint. They already have the Jedi robe thing going on.

7

I am looking forward to finding our new groove with three littles in the house, but I am also looking forward to getting to enjoy our first true Fall!

My mom will be visiting in time for Halloween and this will be our kids first year trick or treating. I don't want to miss it, but that also means I should figure out a warm enough baby wearing costume.

It's going to be a dark hole of Pinteresting and it'll be awesome!

I might do a Tolkien inspired costume just to get to use one of these amazing Middle Earth themed baby wraps.

The 2017-2018 Homeschool Plan

John (Kindergarten)

John is starting for real school this year! He will be using Mother of Divine Grace. We did enroll this year and I've been very impressed with how quickly our consultant responds to questions. It's very comforting to have someone experienced in our curriculum on call!

This year is a lot of reading good books, practicing phonics, math, exploring, and learning to see the beautiful with formal studies of art and music.

Therese (Preschool Year 1)

We do two years of preschool, so Therese is on year 1 of our normal preschool process. This year we use 26 Letters to Heaven as a loose guide to our year. Therese is more into arts and crafts than John, and I think she will very much enjoy the more crafty side of the curriculum. 

In theory she is spending this year gaining familiarity with letters, exploring her world, and getting introduced to numbers and simple math. The reality is that she is a second child who has been listening in on big brother's lessons for a few years now. Most of this will just be reinforcing what she has already heard introduced. I'm a big believer in going slow in these early years so I am not planning to fast track her at all.

She's very excited to officially join in our school time this year!

Extras

Preschool Busy Boxes

These are boxes for Therese to choose from when I need to do one on one work with John. They are designed to work on fine motor skills and hand strength and to be self-directed. I posted about these busy boxes in my 7 Quick Takes last Friday and a number of people requested to know what was in the boxes, so here it is!

Box 1: Playdough and plastic cutting tools

Box 2: Lacing cards, pony beads, and shoelaces

Box 3: Clothes pins, pom pom balls, and a silverware organizer. This one will get rotated around with different sorting containers we find around the house.

Box 4: Wikki Stix, various size craft sticks, pipe cleaners. This one is to go to town creating. I'm planning to stick some basic coloring pages in here for Therese to "color" the picture using the objects in the box. It will also get additional supplies throughout the year. 

Ballet

John will be joining the boys program at the Minnesota Dance Theater this September! He is very excited to be big enough for the "big boys ballet".

He's grown so much in just a year!

Therese is still too young for pre-ballet (life is hard with a late summer birthday) but she will likely start a more formal exercise activity this year too.

Homeschool group

Our parish has a fabulous homeschool group that we are joining this year. They offer various activities, field trips, and enrichment throughout the year. Specifically what is offered depends on volunteer power and interest so we'll see what is on the docket this year at the kick off picnic!

Little Lambs

We are continuing to use the Little Lambs Family Formation curriculum. This is the only year both kids overlap in Little Lambs, and I thought it would be nice to have a part of school be something they can do together.

Typical (planned) schedule

We only have a Kindergartner and Preschooler this year. Formal "school time" only takes 45 minutes to an hour. Tops. That leaves a lot of the day for exploring and adventures. But if I do not plan them they will not happen (fact).

Note: I say all this about to give birth around a month or two into this adventure so we'll see how this gets adapted!

Monday: Library Day! 
Every Sunday I request all the books will will need for the following week then I pick up whatever has managed to make it to the hold shelf on Monday. Our local library branch has great kid play areas and cool extras like hatching butterflies and ladybugs on the librarian's desk.

Tuesday: Flex Day

Both Tuesday and Thursday are flex days.
These are days when we can choose between options like going to the Nature Center or YMCA, do experiments on topics the kids are interested in, and have longer free play at home. Family DIY projects and extra liturgical year prep are options on these days too. The ideal is to stay a little closer to home and not have something we need to rush out the door for every day. These are all activities that can be done without specific time frames and at our own pace.

Wednesday: Children's Holy Hour and Ballet
Our parish has a beautiful children's holy hour every Wednesday morning. There are lots of prayers, songs, quiet prayer time, saint stories, bible stories, etc. You haven't lived until you've heard 15 kids lisping a decade of the rosary! Everyone gets some time with Jesus and if they keep it (mostly) together they get to join the daily mass crowd for donuts.

John has his Ballet class on Wednesday evenings so I am going to have to experiment and see what works best with Therese for that hour. And then figure out Therese + newborn for the hour.

Thursday: Flex Day

Another flex day so same options as Tuesday. One of these days often becomes "catch up on cleaning" day. Little kids really enjoy that day if I give them jobs they can accomplish. They are currently most helpful at: unloading the dryer into the laundry hamper, sweeping with hand brooms and dust pans from the dollar store, and cleaning up anything that can be put into a box or bin.

Friday: Adventure Day!

We only have formal school work Monday through Thursday, so Friday is completely free for getting a head start on adventures! It's a good day to make use of our historical society membership, check out museums, explore new places, or make fancy lunch.

Here we go!

Life is Moving Fast!

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

It's been a while since we had a life update on the blog. Here's what's been going on!

1

We're at 33 weeks tomorrow! 

This pregnancy has gone very quickly. I suppose that's what happens when there is a move halfway across the country and massive summer travels.

2

This week I have been finishing up gathering the materials for our birth kit and making up my own postpartum and labor support kits.

I like kits. They're helpful.

I'll have posts about what I put in those kits soon!

3

One thing I'm doing differently with birth is setting up a "reward meal" for after the baby is born. I have zero ideas about what the food should be, but I know I would like to try a good local stout. Moving to a new place that does really good beer while unable to partake has been sad.
The reward meal is even on the birth supply list from my midwife so I'm deciding this is legit.

4

We start school next week!
With the baby expected in September, I figured it would be better to get the school ball rolling so we don't get too far behind in the new baby flurry.



John is starting Kindergarten (real school!) this year with Mother of Divine Grace, and Therese will be starting her first Preschool year using 26 Letters to Heaven.
More on this year's homeschool plan next week!

5

If this works it may be one of my more brilliant ideas - preschooler busy kits!

I found these large clear boxes they sell to store scrapbook paper on Amazon and made each one a different theme. We only do school four days a week so there are four boxes. Each one has a different theme. When I am working one on one with John, Therese can choose one of the boxes each day. They're big enough that I'm hoping the box itself will help contain some of the messy (looking at you pony beads and play dough.)

My other brilliant idea, supply boxes for school time only (because I have LEARNED). The kids picked their colors for the year: John is orange and Therese is pink (no surprise there). The individual blue separators come out of the kits so I put their color sticker on the bottom of each piece too.

6

John did a wetland nature camp most of this last week of summer break. The nature center is less than a mile away from us, which is SO NICE!

About an hour in to John being gone at camp Therese gets forlorn and starts asking when we can pick up John about every 20 minutes.
Then he runs out and they reunite like this and my momma heart melts!

Also, this kid got glasses this week! It's cool because he thinks it makes him look more like Daddy. Whatever works buddy.

7

In Ballet world update, I think we have picked a ballet school for John and studio for me! This will be his first year old enough to be in the boys program and he's very excited.

I'm using our local Y more to get cardio in on the elliptical and use their barre space. I'm still doing a lot of Pilates and stretching at home, but I'm at the point in pregnancy where I have to be careful how I move so I don't set off the evil chain of cramping. I've found using the elliptical as a warm up is very helpful in that respect!

Our local Y has a fabulous kid space and it's amazingly easier to hold counts in my head without the 2 year old in my face going "WHAT YOU DOING MOMMY?!"

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

It is homeschool planning time for us! This year I will have a Kindergartner and a preschooler, with a newborn making an appearance early on in the year. I will be using 26 Letters to Heaven with my preschooler this year, but with some added adaptions to help it better fit into our year and my daughter's specific needs (more on that later!)

For my Kindergartner we have decided to enroll in Mother of Divine Grace (MODG). There are a lot of pluses to the curriculum in the early years that I thought I would write down - partially for myself to read when the "February Dull-drums" hit and I need a reminder!

Rigor not busywork

Somehow education discussions have come to view being busy as equivalent to rigorous in a curriculum. I think what one truly means when one says "I am looking for a rigorous curriculum" is, "I am looking for a curriculum that asks enough of the student that they must keep striving ever further, even in areas they may not personally enjoy." I believe busy work always comes back to bite you. It does not foster sustainable learning in the child, and is a recipe for burnout for the teaching parent.

Just like any other healthy plan, having reasonable and achievable goals is the sweet spot.

Beauty

MODG is beautiful. I would be remiss if these early years did not involve learning to see and appreciate beauty. Because this window for true awe and appreciation just does not open again in the same way.
All the art, and music, and poetry are not just beautiful extras but important in their own right. Learning how to notice detail in art, pick up tone and audible difference,  memorization and performance - these are all skills that might be fudgable for a while, but their lack does become painfully obvious further along in life.

I love that MODG teaches kids these skills early, while simultaneously familiarizing them with a cultural heritage that could seem far away and unreachable.

Flexibility

There is a lot of wiggle room in MODG in terms of which books you end up using for each kid. It's flexible and allows for adaption from kid to kid and family to family. I love that I can tailor the curriculum but I don't feel like I have to right off the bat. There is nothing that I greatly dislike or feel the need to avoid in the curriculum as it stands.

It forces me to have limits

MODG is very simple in the early grades. It's all about building a solid foundation. A newborn is expected to make an appearance in the early part of our school year, and the reality is I need to know what is important and focus on THAT.
Because I am type A and would totally try to do all the things if the curriculum did not reel me in a bit.

Solidly Catholic

I do not need to pay money for materials that undermine the Catholic base I am trying to instill in my kids. That being said, the curriculum does not feel the need to make anything and everything about specifically Catholic things. MODG utilizes books that are not from Catholic specific publishers but produce solid materials with nothing anti-Catholic in that specific book. I like the attitude that secular or Protestant materials do not automatically need to be excluded. We are still meant to live in this world after all.

Enrollment and Accreditation

While enrollment is certainly not strictly necessary when I only have a Kindergartner and a Preschooler, it is comforting to be able to enroll in the school and have a consultant on call in the event that an issue does arise. If we feel like we need to change a book, if something is just not working, or specific learning issues come up, I can email, call, or text my consultant and know that she is familiar with our materials.

Accreditation is something I don't worry about until the middle/high school grades, but it does not hurt to have it - especially when talking to people who are unfamiliar with homeschooling.

It's Familiar

The big reason MODG initially stuck out to me is it uses the materials I largely know and would have chosen anyway. Many of you know I was homeschooled up until high school so I've made the transition from homeschooled kid to homeschooling mom. Living through the experimentation of the 90s Catholic homeschool world left me with big opinions about what does and does not work for me.
Starting out with what I know helps my confidence that we will arrive at important destinations without (too many) tears.


We are adding in a few things to the curriculum, such as: Little Lambs Family Formation, Ballet, science and history plans, etc. A post on our specific curriculum adaptations will be in the works soon!

What do you love about your curriculum? How do you envision next year in your house? 

Hoes Down Festival!

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

Tomorrow is the Hoes Down Harvest Festival! It's our CSA harvest festival and held at the farm where all our box goodies are grown.

This is Therese's first year attending and probably the first year John will remember. It's our homeschool field trip for October so I hope everyone is prepared for me to be in "fun fact mode". :) Here's what we're looking forward to most!

1

Tipi activities

These are storytimes, puppet shows, and other fun kid things in tipis set up in one of the fields. The kids love lounging on all the soft quilts and animal (probably fake though) skins. It's a nice break from the hustle and bustle on the rest of the farm.

2

Music and Dancing

Because hustle and bustle there is! There are three different music stages and a called Contra Dance in the evening. 

I have never done, or even seen, Contra dance before so that might be a fun adventure!

3

Children's Area Crafts

One of the best parts of Hoes Down is all of the fun crafts and activities in the children's area. Petting zoo of farm animals, ice cream churning, corn husk doll making, and Sheep to Shawl (where the kids get to help shear the sheet, card the wool, spin the wool, dye it, and weave or knit it. It's awesome!).

4

Hay Fort and Obstacle Course

Even as a toddler, John loved the hay fort. There is also an obstacle course of farm equipment.

My little wannabe marines are going to love it!

5

Creek Playground

There is a slow moving, wide creek that runs through the farm, and it's open for wading and frolicking during the festival. 

Once it gets dark, it gets lined with lanterns for the nighttime story walk.

Along the banks is a nice, shady lawn for playing sports or napping under the trees.

6

Food!

So much yummy! It's like an all day farmer's market.

7

Wellness Tent

All day massages and free acupuncture - yes please! 

I'm not sure I believe the acupuncture really does anything for me, but I know it secures people letting me rest and be still for 20 minutes.

Screentime I LIKE

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes.

I have a few rules for screentime (which at my kids ages just means shows/movies) for the kids.

1. Screentime only happens once chores and school are done.
2. It can't be annoying to mom

That last one is really really important.

I try to be sitting in the room with them whenever they're watching a show or movie. Partly to explain anything they don't understand or is intense (like when the crocodile grabbed a gazelle drinking at the river), but also so I understand their play and questions later. John is a store-it-up-and-ask-you-two-days-later kind of kid.

I favor things, like PBS shows and documentaries, because they have the bonus of letting the kids see real things that they will not likely see in person for quite a while.

Here are my top 7, yet in no particular order, shows/movies that I like and are kid approved.

1

Wishbone

I loved this show as a kid! It's so 90-tastic.

I like it because it is live action, uses good actors, and presents stories of great literature in an age appropriate way while still remaining true to the story,

Wikipedia got all helpful and has a list of Wishbone episodes and which great book is featured.

I find most of these episodes on Youtube. Yea free!

2

Nova

Our original gateway drug to John's love of documentaries. I used to put a Nova on when I was rocking John to sleep because he took over an hour to be solid asleep enough to transfer to the bed (I've since way improved my putting kids to sleep game).

Eventually he began playing interesting games like "Underwater Radar", where you construct ships out of blocks but how they would look as underwater shipwrecks on radar, and "Spinosaurus Attack". Not dinosaur, specifically a Spinosaurus (he only eats fish, but BIG fish.) 

Nova lets the kids see real stuff done by real scientists. I love the sense of wonder they get from it. Visuals seem to be really important to thinking about things like planets, nebula, oceans, volcanoes, and extinct animals.

3

Liberty's Kids

John has an odd love for the American Revolution. My best guess is because it involves snappy uniforms and lots of guys named John.

This is an animated series that tells the story of the American Revolution from the viewpoint of 3 kids: young Loyalist girl, Patriot boy, and the youngest is a French orphaned boy. They all happen to be working for Benjamin Franklin on his newspaper.

4

CCC Saint Movies

*Contains affiliate link*

No one makes saint movies as good as CCC. I grew up on CCC movies, both at home and occasionally in CCD classes.

My kid's favorites are: St. Nicholas, St. Francis Xavier, and The Day the Sun Danced (Fatima). 

They typically inspire John to want to say the rosary for all the "poor souls in Purgatory". I'm cool with that being a consequence of watching a movie. ;)

5

Magic School Bus

I still contend that my knowledge of things like photosynthesis and the water cycle was largely learned from watching the Magic School Bus.

These do a great job of introducing science concepts in a fun way, and the internet is just full of experiments and other jumping off points you can use to build on the episode you just watched.

There's a free science curriculum from Our Cozy Den to make it super duper easy!

6

Ballets

John has his first ballet lesson of the year tomorrow morning (yea!).

I think the best way to get through that hard training of getting the basics down is to have a good idea where all these steps will lead. 

Youtube has everything from the full performance of Swan Lake by the Kirov Ballet, variations of from full ballets, to videos made by ballet students.

We're probably a long way off from being able to make it through a full length ballet in a theater, but we can handle 30 minutes at a time.

7

The British/Vintage "Family Features"

Sometimes after dinner or on rainy days we'll have family movie time. I've found we tend to go for British or vintage movies. Favorites have been The Water Horse, Cheaper by the Dozen (the 1950 version), and Robin Hood.

California Academy of Sciences - with Kids!

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

Yesterday I took the kids on a solo expedition to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. (Much thanks to the Discover and Go program for getting us in for free! Y'all are probably my favorite library program ever.)

It was the first of our planned monthly field trips for homeschool this year. I wasn't thinking about it as exploring our backyard until the ticket people kept commenting on how we were the first local people to visit the museum that day. So now I'm including this as tourists in our own backyard!

1

Going into Cal Academy is a little overwhelming as a small person since the first thing to greet you is a (mid-size) T-Rex. My kids were somehow more fascinated in the butterfly video playing over the member services desk. Perhaps visiting the T-Rex on the UC Berkeley campus so often has taken some of the awe out of dinosaurs? 

2

Perhaps Therese's favorite exhibit was the first one we came to: Philippine Coral Reef lagoon. Getting to see rays, large fish, and a shark swimming so close blew her newly 2-year old mind.

One of the walkways has windows in the floor so you can see the fish swimming right under your feet. 

Therese would have been perfectly happy if this was the whole museum.

3

But it wasn't!

Something I really like about the Cal Academy is their exhibits are shown at different levels. You get to see them from above and below. There is something magical about seeing cool things from the top of the water and then seeing all of the things you could not discern from above.

Lots of exhibits on jellyfish and bioluminesce. 

The more I tried to explain what a jellyfish was, the more like an alien this creature seemed to be. That is one WEIRD animal, y'all.

4

Other exhibit favorite was the Swamp. Those were some huge snapping turtles, and I think John finally grasps what an Alligator Gar looks like (we have them in Lake Whitney were my family reunion is held.)

The biggests hit of that exhibit was the Albino Alligator. It makes it very easy for the little ones to see, and led to a cool talk about albinism with John.

He made this face the whole time. I could just see the wheels turning.

The rainforest was fun but HOT. There were so many butterflies, but I was terrible at getting a picture of them.

5

In honor of Therese's birthday this week, we finally got our sushi lunch! The Cal Academy has a pretty sweet cafeteria. The kids loved that an aquarium ran the length of the wall and we got to eat with the fish. 

I managed to not comment on the irony of eating sushi with the fish....

6

The kids got to get a little toy from the museum store. They had two versions of the albino alligator: one that squeaked, and one that did not but was $2 more. I got the more expensive, but silent, one. 

Best $2 I ever spent.

7

It takes about an hour, one way, on public transit to get between our house and the Cal Academy. Someone could not quite make it home for nap...

Oh how I've missed Ergo naps!

I highly recommend babywearing for most San Francisco adventures. The Cal Academy itself is extraordinarily stroller and kid friendly, but public transit is very not.

Special shout out for the Academy's baby changing stations in all bathrooms and built in toddler stool for washing hands. It is so very appreciated.

The docents were so helpful and gifted for guiding parents with young kids. Thanks for making a giant solo adventure with littles ones that much easier.