10-24-2014, Today is a beautiful fall day.

It's that time of year Halloween.  My kids LOVE the holiday, I didn't know that it could be celebrated and anxiously awaited for an entire month until this year with the kids, but apparently it can.  Two years ago, I saw a cute yard decoration, tomato cages upside down, wrapped with Christmas lights covered in a sheet!  So cute, so I made them, knowing the kids would be tickled with them.  In fact I decorated then, and again this year for fall.  I sprinkle fake leaves around on the dining room table on my gold table cloth.  I hung a wreath on my very red door that my cousin graciously made for me.  I even decorate the porch with pumpkins, gourds, and winter squash, and apparently this year with corn that Britt collected in a corn maze.

10-19-2014, Pumpkin Patch!

The kids are anxiously awaiting the night where they get to dress up in their costumes and go out trick or treating.  They will learn some important civics skills, that continually need to be reinforced, like saying "Thank you!" and navigating crowds without running rudely over people, and how to look people in the eye and speak with them.  They'll learn some safety skills, no running in the dark, no walking in roads, no going in houses, no eating candy till Momma and Daddy goes through it with you.  The will learn some health lessons, eating way too much candy will make you crazy and sick.  But most of all they will have alot of fun pretending and eating candy.

10-23-2014, Queen Elsa and Commander Britt

10-23-2014, Batgirl

I'll leave the fall decorations up till Thanksgiving, or until the pumpkins need to be chunked in the woods.  Then I'll pull out the Christmas decorations.  We'll go to a Christmas tree farm, and pick out a tree, since I've still not convinced Gary to let me go and buy a fake tree.  (I even told him we could have two, but he didn't want to buy that either.  That man would make Scrooge proud.)    We'll take whatever scrap limbs we can and I'll decorate the table, and maybe other places.  I'll pull out the garlands and wrap the banister and outside the front door.  I'll hang a wreath that Gary picked out (that is hideous, I'm so going to get my cousin to make a new one for me SOON!) and I'll hang some stockings.  We'll even have some elves show up again this year.

10-14-2012, Me and Ruth carving her very first pumpkin.

10-14-2012, The finished product a cat in a boot.

Over the cold and miserable month of December in Yankee land, the twinkling lights buoy my spirits.  It's a cold and gloomy time of month, and the soft lights just feel SO happy.  I love the smell of evergreens in the house, when everything outside appears dead.  I love the habit of baking and eating and sharing with friends and family (I should do more of that year round).  I love the diversion from our usual routine, as we try extra hard to make things special and memorable for each other.  I even enjoy picking out and giving special gifts, despite the fact that we are seriously reigning that in this year to work on gratitude and appreciation with the kids.

11-21-2011, One of my favorite Christmas pictures ever, at my parents in Alabama.

Despite being adamant that we weren't doing Santa Claus, we had a BALL doing Christmas Elves last year.  My creative self, just loved coming up with fun games they could play and the kids loved the adventure of looking for them each morning.  Thinking outside the box and having fun together was great, and it had the added bonus that their behavior improved.

This might have been my favorite elf prank from last year.

Now, incase those descriptions weren't plan enough, we aren't devil worshipers.  I am a big believer in judging people by their actual motives and their own affirmed belief system.  We choose to observe Halloween, because it's a fun excuse to dress up (and if I could have convinced Gary to let me buy the Merida dress I saw online, I'd be dressing up too).  I mean they do it year round, it's just the one time of year that Momma will let them go out in public like that.  It's also a fabulous way to get chocolate.  It is vaguely interesting to me that long ago the Celt worshiped Sanheim with the practice of sacrifices and other evil practices.  Mostly in a detached anthropology-historical sort of way, but also in a that is so sad that they thought those were real Gods, and that would make anyone happy.  I love the way a carved pumpkin looks artistic and all lit up.  One of these days, maybe even this year, I'm going to make a really cool one from scratch.  I don't really believe in some guy named Jack who struck a deal with the devil who then roamed around after death as a lost soul because he was too rotten for heaven and hell didn't want him.  So he took an ember from hell and put it in his stolen half eaten turnip for light.  By that extension, I'm not claiming any religious significance for Halloween either.  I know some folks, pray for the dead, or remember the dead at this time of year.  We don't, in our paradigm, the Lord's people, all of the saints departed are in heaven, and everyone else isn't.  They don't need my prayers, they are on cloud nine so to speak.  We do Halloween because it's good, clean fun for the kids.

12-25-2013, The kids were overjoyed to have Daddy all to themselves to play with Christmas morning.

Likewise when it comes to Christmas, we aren't worshiping Satan or a dead tree.  I know of course that Jesus wasn't born in the dead of winter, most likely he was born in the fall, perhaps even according to some friends during Succorat.  And I know the Catholics most likely picked that time to celebrate the birth of Christ because it coincided with various pagan rites at the winter solstice.  However, for whatever reason, that is the day that we chose to remember that Christ came to this earth and assumed a human body.  For that reason, I enjoy reading to the kids the account in Luke. I enjoy using a set of Advent ornaments I found to relate some of the stories of the Bible, even though we don't celebrate Advent as Primitive Baptist.

4-19-2014, Learning about colors and dye, and having fun creating and mixing colors.

 And while we are at it, just to knock out all the big controversial holidays in one blog post.  We celebrate Easter, because on Sunday Christ rose from the grave.  At Old Carroll we even have Communion on Easter Sunday, a fitting practice, since Christ was our literal Passover, and Communion was what he established as one of two Church ordinances from the very Passover table.  While we remember His resurrection and thus his triumph over sin every single Sunday, this yearly remembrance is even more sombering when we dwell on what all he went through. Sure afterward we have an egg hunt.  Because it gives us an excuse to color (again the creative thing) and then eat hard boiled eggs, yummy.  And it gives the kids the fun of a game, no different than any scavenger hunt the rest of the year.

4-20-2014, Hours after church, an egg hunt with friends.

The truth is that it doesn't matter to me why others celebrate or observe certain days.  It certainly doesn't matter to me what people LONG dead once thought.  All that matters to me is that we do nothing immoral or dishonoring to God.  I believe there are evil spiritual thing out there, or the Lord wouldn't have told us not to mess with them, but I'm hardly engaging in such practices by going trick or treating.  We are told not to worship idols, but I hardly think having a piece of furniture, a decoration like a Christmas tree means I must worship it.  Sure I get down under it to straighten the skirt, lay out gifts, and fetch them out, but I also get on my knees to reach the cleaners under the sink and fetch toys out from under the bed.  And while the word Easter is a pagan word also it doesn't change what my Lord did that day.

4-20-2014, Easter morning about to leave for Church.

Now, it doesn't bother me in the least if you don't wish to celebrate these days.  If the history bothers you that much, or if you feel that convinced, no one is forcing you too.  That's the beauty of America we still have that freedom.  It's also the beauty of our Christian liberty that on these non essentials we can follow our conscience.  I will never try to force my view on you, that you participate in something against your conscience, but I would ask that you try to understand that I'm not convicted that there is anything wrong with the customary fun around these holidays.

The month pages were really too small.  I used them almost solely for logging the days and hours we put in during a day.  I didn't have to keep a log yet, since Britt was only 4 at the beginning of the school year, but I wanted the practice to see how difficult it was and what would work best for us, before we got to that point.


Each month had a blank sheet next to it for notes, I didn't really use them except at the end of each unit study to record the vocabulary words we learned.  However, at the end of each of the weeks I got a blank note page.  Some weeks I made lots of notes, some weeks not so much.  I recorded notes about how I needed to improve in my teaching.  I recorded notes about what the kids really got, and what they didn't.  I recorded ideas that I should better incorporate into our lessons.  I learned alot about how the kids learn, how I typically learn (and thus teach), and better ways of making learning more hands on for the kids.













I am not sure what I will use next year.  I've thought about using the Erin Condren Teacher Planner.  I've seen several Youtube videos and blogs about adapting it to use for homeschool, but I would still have the problem of only have 5 days of the week.  They are big, beautiful and have lots of options.  But they are also much more expensive ($60), since I only paid $16 for this one when they were on sale back in April.  I suppose I would do better to make my own, but who has time for that.

I mark birthdays and anniversaries so that I don't forget.  I note everything that has a set time on the monthly spread.  For me it's the most useful part of the calender.  I normally use the side margins to make notes, that I might want to flip back to, some that I pulled out of last year's calender to note for this year were the phone number to the JC Penny portrait studio, the directions to our polling place, and some notes about when would be good times in the year to plan trips home.

However, the bulk of the pages in a planner, I've never really known what to do with.  I don't have things that have to be done in a particular order or time, and I've never liked the vertical, hourly blocks.  I typically use them for journaling either what went on during the day, or whatever I am thinking about.  Gary jokes that the journaling keeps me sane.  I can make sense of things, and write things that shouldn't be posted for the rest of the world to see.  It is nice stress relief.  I also being able to look back and see funny things the kids said or did, and it's nice to be able to see that I did accomplish something, looking through my check list.


In the past, I've always just used a generic planner, usually from Staples or Home Depot.  However, last year even the off brand, most basic models were $35 a piece.  This year I heard about Erin Condren Life Planners, and went to check them out.  At first, I thought I'm not about to spend $50 on a planner.  They are gorgeous and all, and personalized, but still.  Then I saw where I could get a $10 off coupon on one.  That really didn't make it much different in price, but still I hemmed and hawed about getting one, because some things are really different.



I found more than just ideas though, when I was looking around online and thinking about if I wanted to get one or not, so I took the plunge.  I found out that tons of people actually do more than just plan and note, but that they decorate, almost like scrapbooking.  I thought it was a neat idea, and picked up some sticker books for $1 at AC Moore.  I spiced up my monthly spreads.


And it turns out even with my journaling, and in some places I'm now making to do list or errand list, I often have some space left over in my days.  So here and there, I've added some thick washi tape, or sticker sheets cut to size.  I'm really really enjoying my happy looking planner.  I've really been wanting to get back to scrapbooking, but I feel like I need to go back to where I stopped and go forward from there.  It will require printing years of photos that are on the hard drive.  In the meantime, this is a easy, creative, and not really time consuming alternative.

End of Summer

October

(If you want to look around the website, she does tons of other things too.  I'm think about doing a little Christmas shopping from her.  Anyway, you can use this link, and get $10 off, and I'll get $10 off my next order.)

We've had several field trips so far this year.  We have been twice to lobby the state legislature for HB1013, which would improve our current homeschooling law.  (It should pass on Monday, then the governor has promised to sign it.)  We went to Homeschool Day at State Museum.  I forgot the camera in the car, but hey, I was on my own with three kids, so who knows if I would have actually managed any pictures anyway.  We checked out the archaeology and paleontology exhibits and saw a movie on lunar colonies and the current race for a private company to reach the moon in the planetarium.  Britt has spent several days digging in the woods for lost treasures of people who use to live here as an archaeologist.  He was rewarded with some tires, old lumber, and oil jugs.  We've done Pioneer Day at the Zoo.  Where the kids rode ponies, wrote with quill pens, made butter, and Ruth managed some embroidery.  We've had several play dates, and trips to the library.  Coming up Friday we have a field trip to a dental office, and next Monday to a pumpkin patch and working farm.


Here at home, Britt has completed his first kindergarten level reading book (to be fair we started with it at a very slow pace last year off and on).  At the rate at which he is moving now, he will have completed the second book by his birthday at the latest, and I will need to pull out the 1st grade reading curriculum. (Let me say we are LOVING Sing, Spell, Read, Write.  And as someone who has no phonics skills, I'm even learning alot.  I have always read by sight, and when you are reading in your head that's no big deal, but with me reading aloud so much more lately, it has accentuated the fact that my extensive vocabulary isn't really pronounced as well as it could be.)  Ruth is about to start her copy of the same book.  She went through all the free preschool trace and practice pages that I've gotten my hands on so far, and she was insistent that she wanted a real school book like Britt's and she wanted to be in Kindergarten too.  So we are letting her, if it takes her two years that's no problem either, since she just turned four.  The kids are also playing Reading Eggs.  If you've never heard of it you should check it out.  I will say that I tried a free 6 week trial version, and then didn't order until I got an email that let me get it at 30% off for the first kid and 50% for every kid after that, which saved me a ton of money.  Britt in the last week has learned to read about 6 words on his own, and is picking out other "-at" words.  Ruth can read four words and is sometimes sounding out words echoing Britt.  Reading is the thing I have been most concerned about, because it is the foundation for everything else, but so far they are doing well, and loving it.

 The only other core subject we are addressing right now is science.  Again, because it really drives Britt.  Ruth informed me a few days ago that she was tired of animals, and wanted to learn something else.  When I asked her what she wanted to learn about she said she didn't know.  I told her to think about it, and she could pick the next lesson.   Right now we are studying biomes, habitats, and animals.  We've talked about mountains, deciduous forest, and freshwater so far.  I imagine we will spend most of the year on this, as there is so much we can cover.  Both kids have insisted that we do tundras and polar regions around Christmas so that will be next.  For science I really have just been in the habit of building my own unit studies.  I get really great books from the library.  I look for lots of great colored pictures, and detail.  I don't dumb down the books for the kids, because I find that they can pick up much more than I would have ever guessed.  (And I figured that out when Britt aced the 4th grade astronomy test at the astronomy booth at the CHAP convention.)  Right now I'm using The Kingfisher Animal Encyclopedia by David Burnie and (there is an newer edition, but we are using this one for) Earth Matters: an Encyclopedia of Ecology by David deRothschild for our core books, and then reading Life Cycle Books by Sean Callery (here's one on Mountains) and the Animals of the Biomes series (here's one on Freshwater).
Other than that I try to be sure to do our Bible reading after lunch each day, and the kids either color or sit and play with playdo while I read, then we talk about what we've read.  We are a bit behind, which means I'm reading a little longer than usual, and the kids have trouble listening without noise very long, but I think it's good practice, and it is often my favorite part of the day.  I read to them straight out of the KJV, so there are always words and phrases we talk about, and I give them a rehash in my words of anything I particularly want to emphasis, and then let them tell it back to me.  They've again surprised me with how much they can and want to learn.

I find too that there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to do with them.  I never would have dreamed that I would enjoy this so much.  As much as I love having kids, the constant noise drives me crazy, and I am a bit obsessive about organizing and planning, which is all but impossible with kids.  (Maybe I'll share a post about that soon.)  I could really enjoy several hours a day without everyone in the house making messes, and being really LOUD, but even more I am finding I love watching them discover.  And more than teaching them, they are teaching me lessons in patience.  I often find that areas that I am scolding them on are some of the same areas that I need to work on, which is a lesson in humility all it's own.