Tag Archives: Homeschooling

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Back To School

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Two days of school are behind us.  I think we are getting close to figuring out our rhythm for the year, and I am rather pleased with how well it has been so far.  Oona has taken to it like a dream (as long as I get her lessons done first thing.  She gets antsy if she waits too long).

Last year we did a lot of work on letters and sounds, shapes and colors, so this year we are expanding on that with sight words and counting and basic geometry.

Neve is starting off reading the first Harry Potter book.  I’m excited to see how much more she’ll enjoy the books than the movies.

Emily doesn’t really care what I put in front of her to read; she’d just be happier if she could sleep till noon first.

Maddie’s working on some advanced math and chemistry that terrifies me.  Good thing I have teacher’s guides.  And a husband who is a whiz at both.

And to complete our cozy little schoolroom, we even have a class bully.

Hey kid.  Gimme all your snacks or I’ll come sit on your book.

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Happy September!!!!

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I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that it is the first of September.   Not only does this begin my favorite part of the entire year, but this fall promises to be more exciting than most.

Right now there is excavating happening out in our stream, in preparation for a culvert to be placed.  This way we can actually get over the stream with things like hay and feed.

This is the last big push before the fencing goes up.

While Paul digs out the stream I am busy preparing lesson plans and getting everything ready for school to start on Tuesday.  This year we have a new addition to our class: Maddie.  She’ll be joining us as a student and working hard to get ready for college next year.    She’ll be bunking with Neve in the former playroom, and I am looking forward to having an extra set of helping hands around!

 

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Quiet Morning Knitting

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With school starting in a week there is an awful lot on my plate that needs attention.  Lesson plans have to be finished, the garden has to be readied for fall, chicken coops will soon need their seasonal clean – out, as will the freezer and pantry.  It’s time to finish up the summer sewing, harvest every last bit of basil to make pesto ravioli for the freezer, enjoy the pool one last time before the weather turns.

There’s also a culvert to be dug so we can easily cross the stream to bring hay and feed and water to the animals that soon will reside there.

There’s excitement all around as everyone senses the soon to come change in season.  Apple picking will come before we know it and the house will be full of the heady scents of cinnamon and ginger and cloves.

 

But for now I am enjoying those rare late – summer mornings when I am the only one awake.  I can enjoy my coffee and work on a sock while enjoying the view out of my new craft – room’s window.  That’s where the morning glories have started to bloom.  This year there are purple, white and fuschia flowers.  Every year they really take off right around this time, telling me it’s almost my birthday.  It’s almost our favorite time of the year.

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Somebody’s 5!!!!

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We’re back from Orlando!

The bigger new, however, is that Oona has turned 5.  5!!!

SO much about my life has changed in 5 years – it is so different and so much better in so many ways.  And yet it seems that Oona has gotten to be this age in the blink of an eye.

She had a spectacular 5th birthday.  And how can you not, when you are celebrating at Disney?

But first we HAD to go to Hogwarts.

The world of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando is pretty impressive.  It’s really a must – see destination for all Potter fans.  Although I will say that my friend Jessie and her family went to the Harry Potter attraction in London this summer and saw all of the actual sets used in the movies.  That certainly beat out our experience, but we still enjoyed our fill of Butterbeer, Pumpkin Juice and roasted chicken.  This was the all around favorite of the bigger girls for the whole trip.

Disney was not quite as easy to navigate and the weather was not quite as nice.

I will say this about Disney, though: some things they do very, very right.  We had Oona wear her Cinderella dress to the Magic Kingdom on her birthday.  To that, we got a button from a shop just inside the park that had her name and announced her birthday.  EVERY “cast member” (employee) all day long greeted her with “Happy Birthday Princess!”.  It made her millenium.

There was also plenty of meet and greets throughout the day.

Followed by the famous fireworks spectacular at the castle that night.

There is no way we will ever beat that as a birthday experience.

As for me, I found myself having the most fun at the Animal Kingdom.

Since it was meant to look like parts of both Asia and Africa there was much more plant – life (and shade!).  There were animals everywhere of course, and we were all very excited to see their petting zoo, which promised “Exotic animals of many species”.

Well.

What they had were sheep, goats, pigs and a llama.

That was a total bust.  That was the opposite of exotic.

Fortunately, the safari ride we took more than made up for it.

We didn’t have to touch any of the animals to thoroughly enjoy them.

Now we are back to reality.  Back to planning for the school year which will start in just about a week and a half. Back to digging a culvert so we can make a bridge over the stream.  Back to getting fencing set in.

Because y’all, my birthday is coming up.  And you know getting my animals home is the one and only thing left for me to be completely content.

🙂

 

 

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Sweeties Day

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For Valentine’s Day I gave my sweeties fun glitter projects for school.  It’s been quite a messy morning, but it’s been worth the peace and quiet and overall happiness that has been the result.

We all look forward to Valentine’s Day because of dinner.  Every year since Paul and I have been married we have had Chinese for dinner on Valentine’s Day.  The first two or three years it was a fluke (we were living in NY, restaurants were impossible but there was great Chinese take – out), and then once we realized there was a pattern going it became tradition.

So tonight we are all excited for Chinese, and we are adding a new element.  I got a fondue pot after reading all of Susan’s blogs from Zurich this week and tonight we’ll have chocolate fondue for dessert (I cannot wait to try cheese fondue, though. Maybe tomorrow?) with strawberries, marshmallows, pound cake cubes and pretzels.

How about you? Do you have any fun Valentine traditions?

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Yesterday

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Yesterday was the kind of January day I need more often.  The kind where you get a surprise snow shower and have plenty of knitting and reading, and a full tank of propane to keep the fireplace lit all day.

The snow barely stuck and was over too quickly, but it was lovely while it lasted.  Oona kept begging to go play in it – but it was too wet and muddy out.

I did manage to block a sweater I finished back in November after we finished up school for the day, and installed our new National Geographic Complete Collection onto my computer (the girls will be using this for social studies).

Paul will be having back surgery soon (nothing to worry about – we are looking forward to some relief for his pain) and I am hoping for winter to finally show up in force afterwards since he will have a several week recovery at home (and we won’t have to go anywhere).   For now the kids are indignant that the sun is out and temperatures are hanging in the 50’s. So am I.

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Holding It All Together

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This spring has been particularly busy for us.  I’ve been volunteering at Juniper Moon Farm, Paul has been working on the Lambcam as well as his regular job (which has him in Arizona during the week), we’re trying to wrap up and review school work for the year, and we’re desperately hoping to move.

The chickens have decided to be very unhelpful by refusing to stay inside their fencing.  They’ve taken to flying right out and grazing wherever they please.  To make matters worse, I can’t find where they are laying their eggs, because they’re certainly not laying them in the coop anymore.

Since the bigger animals are at Susie’s I am in the process today of cutting apart the larger sections of fencing and re-working a smaller (and hopefully more secure) pen that will force them to stay closer to the coop.  It’s frustrating work but I hope it will be a good fix, at least temporarily.  I can’t have them free – ranging right now; there’s no protection from predators, and I don’t want a repeat of last year’s losses to foxes.

Last night we stayed at the farm to help Susie and Caroline, in hopes that one of the sheep would lamb overnight.

We weren’t disappointed.  Though the sheep I was waiting on did not deliver, another one did, this morning.  Neve was the first out, and I got outside in time to see her helping Susie carry the newborn lambs into the barn.

My little Shepherd-in-training.  I could not have been more proud.

This is Neve holding Wren, my favorite little bottle – baby.  I just adore that little lamb!

We’re chugging through our schoolwork now and I am not allowing myself to stress out too much over it.  We got behind because I was following my own philosophy that I would not fly through lessons – that I would make sure they knew it inside and out before moving on.  Fortunately I have the luxury to work one on on to catch up over the next month or two.

As far as moving to our very own farm we are still playing a waiting game.  I am trying to stay positive, but I will say it’s starting to wear on me rather badly, and I am having trouble being optimistic that we will be able to pull it off.  I don’t want to contemplate the possibility that it won’t work out – it’s just too awful to think of.  This property is just not workable for animals and if I’m going to make a go at farming, we have to move.

We’re waiting on a lot of factors beyond our control right now, so I don’t know how much longer it will be before we know.  Keep your fingers crossed.

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A Busy Spring

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Is spring always this busy?  I think it’s usually fairly busy, but this year has been the one to take the cake.

One reason is the new chicks and ducklings we brought home.  They are growing fast and beginning to feather out already!

Another reason is I’ve been happily helping out over at Juniper Moon.

But the big reason I am all tired and stressed out?

School.

In one way, I am really in love with home-schooling and how much flexibility we have.  I love that we had none of the illnesses that swept through the rest of the community this year.  That meant we were far more productive with other things.

I love that my older girls have learned how to knit and are learning cooking and baking.  I love that all of them have been participating in the many aspects of farming and animal husbandry.

I love that I have better control over what they eat, what they learn about, and who they learn it from.

What I don’t love?

My own insecurities and doubts. Those days that I don’t accomplish what I’d like.  That we’ve fallen behind my planned- out schedule in some subjects.  This was partly the plan; I didn’t want to plow through the lessons if they hadn’t fully learned them first. But it does make for very slow going at times.  And as we approach summer, it makes me panic.  I want a summer vacation!

And I constantly worry about how well I am doing with them.  I worry about how much they will or will not retain.  I want them to be smarter and more advanced than the public school kids, not less so.

On the flip side, I am at least sticking to a curriculum I really believe in.  I admire parents that are able to successfully manage an Unschooling Program, but honestly I think something like that with no set structure or goalposts would make me a basket case.  I like knowing that even if we’ve had a really lazy day we’ve accomplished something.

Even if that something is just a visit with Jerry for llama kisses, or a quick snorgle with a newborn lamb.

My kids can certainly tell you all about the circle of life!

Speaking of!

I have night duty at Juniper Moon tonight.  Susie has not slept a decent night all week and she has to pick up and drop off some fiber to designers out of town.  Her lovely new farm manager Caroline and I will hold down the fort (and maybe meet some new babies??) tonight.

If you’d like to tune in, you can check out the lambcams.  Camera one is in the barn with the babies who have already come.  You can find it here.

You can also check out the second cam here, which looks into the pasture.  Cam three looks into stall 2 in the barn.  Last night I watched a laboring nanny goat on cam 3 and then saw the new babies being brought into the barn at 2:30 am.  Check us out tonight, you may catch something fun!

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Friday Knitting

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We’ve gotten much of the work we needed to get done this week for school completed already (just some math and reading to do later) so I am taking some time to spend on knitting.  I’ve got a case of that “Finishup-itis” that seems to be going around the Knitting Blogosphere of late and I am trying to get Oona’s Drive Thru cardigan done.  I’ve got the body and one sleeve finished.  The second sleeve has been cast – on and then there’s just the yoke and finishing, so I am feeling like I am in the home stretch.

I also cast on some super yummy Juniper Moon Farm Worsted Weight in a colorway I cannot remember (Aegean Sea?  Storm Cloud?  Dunno) using Brooklyn Tweed’s Guernsey Wrap pattern.  It is going to to be AMAZING.  The pattern is gorgeous and the color of this wool is just perfect.

The knitting has been a balm for my mind and soul as we deal with a lot of things around here, both good and bad.  There’s much going on, and there will be a few changes in the coming weeks.  You’ll have to stay tuned to see how that unfolds.

I also should admit I’ve become rather obsessed with the King Arthur Flour website.  I want to try every recipe and order all of the neat gadgets and ingredients that look oh – so – fun to bake with.  I haven’t given in to the impulse much, but I did do something that made sense.  I bought a 25 lb.bag of flour and a bucket for it.  This winds up being way cheaper than buying the 5 lb. bags at the grocery store like I’ve been doing, since I go through so much of it.  I  am also thinking about ordering up some of their gluten – free fare, since so many of my friends are living gluten – free these days.

That’s a big – ass bag o’ flour!

I wonder how long it will last in this house???

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Owl Pellets!

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Hey there, remember me??? The one who used to be great at posting all the time and now…..well, not so much.

Call it “Exhausted Brain Syndrome”.  It’s hard to be witty and funny and think of things to say when the kids have been giving you a hard time all day and all you want to do is drink a bottle of wine before bed but you can’t because you’re the responsible adult here so you have to act like it and OMG.

Okay.  Now that that’s out of my system let’s move on, shall we?

We’ve been chugging right along with our school work, though I will admit it’s not been easy.  Neve seems to be unable to really focus most of the time.  I’m not sure if it is just the age, or the fact that it’s me she’s working with, or if she really has an inability to maintain any attention long enough to  do her work.  In any case she requires a lot of patience and time in getting her lessons done.  Unless it is something she is truly interested in.

Like say, dissecting owl pellets.

Owl pellets, believe it or not, are easy to come by and dirt cheap to purchase for classroom use.  Basically, after an owl eats its meal, the indigestible  bones and fur and bits get vomited back up in the form of “pellets”.  We can then pull these pellets apart and see what the owl has eaten.

We found many rodent skulls and bones in our pellets.  I was hoping maybe we’d find small bird bits as well, but o such luck.

Neve was shrieking with each new discovery, almost as though it were Christmas morning.

Emily was completely disgusted and wanted no part of it; she dissected hers as quickly as possible and then showered and disinfected herself.

Neve asked if she could keep the skulls.

She also wants me to order a bunch more pellets.

If only she’s be this interested in all of her school work!