The Witte

One of our first trips out on the town when we moved here to San Antonio was to the Witte museum. We joined up with some homeschooling friends for a great time. One of the most fun stops was the Body Adventure exhibit. There were a lot of really cool demonstrations to explore what our bodies can do and how they work. There were lots of friendly and really knowledgeable staff to guide the kids through and teach them about the body as well. During one presentation on the different systems of the body the little girls got a little bored and had more fun trying things the hands on way. The big kids were totally soaking it up though!

 Parker and Andrew got to try out their climbing skills on this wall. Andrew made it all the way to the top!

 This sky bike was to demonstrate balance.

 Another exhibit the kids really enjoyed was this room showing gowns from the Fiesta parade here that honors the battle of the Alamo. Thoughtfully set up in the middle of the room was a whole cabinet full of dress up clothes for the kids to wear as they walked through to view the elaborate gowns and headdresses.

 And while GROSSly underrepresented in pictures, the favorite of the day with the kids was the GROSSOLOGY exhibit, examining all of the gross things our bodies do. Like sneeze and burp and fart. Here I'd spent the morning giving the kids the usual lecture on manners before heading out the door and the first thing we did was play in this exhibit; it all went right out the window! They sure had fun though. They got to do things like shoot boogers into a giant nose that would sneeze them all back out when it was full. The little girls spent most of their time crawling through a giant GI tract. They'd climb up the stairs to go through the mouth, slide down into the stomach, crawl through the intestines and come out and land on a little poop shaped pillow. While it was all really silly and funny, the kids actually learned a lot. I think my favorite part was this giant sized operation table. Cool, no?  Anyway, Sorry for the lack of pictures here as this exhibit was the most crowded and I had my hands full, but the memories were certainly made. Andrew especially still likes to tell anyone who will listen all about GROSSOLOGY!!

We also got to see other exhibits exploring plants and wildlife native to Texas and specifically to our area. We even saw a bit about dinosaurs and mummies too! We had a great time and the Witte is definitely a place I would visit again.

More From Our Homeschool

One of the fun things about homeschool is that the little ones are always watching and learning with the big kids.  They remember certain things that they've done and get excited about the time when they themselves can do it.  Being allowed to handle scissors is one of these highly anticipated milestones.  This year Paige gets to be an official student.  She is currently learning to read with my all time favorite Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, working through the Saxon Math K program and completing the projects in I Can Cut: Big Skills for Little Hands.  She's watched the boys go through the "cutting book" jealously and loves being a big girl now!  Remembering that Andrew's own pizza cutting activity made the blog, she had to have her own picture to post for bragging rights.  You earned it girl!

Please pardon the hair.  My girls are going through a phase where they love to pretend that they are the girls from Despicable Me.  Paige calls herself Edith, Claire is "Ag-us" and Emma is "Margo! Margo! MARGO!" I don't think they actually know which girl is which on the show, and neither do I, but their play is adorable.

We get a lot of questions about our decision to homeschool.  I hesitate to post about it too much on the blog because it's one of those topics that tend to make people really uncomfortable.  But I want to share more, because it's a big part of our life, and I hope that sharing will help people understand it a little better.  I'm certainly not trying to convince anyone to make the same decision, so please don't take it that way.  I just hope that maybe it will help people to see the value and validity in such a decision for others and to dispel some of the weird ideas that people tend to assume are just part of the package. To give some reassurance that we've thought long and hard about this before jumping in, and to give y'all some hope that our children will be well adjusted adults. ;)

Today I was thinking again about the benefits of homeschool, and this post here from the Matt Walsh blog helped me to further explore some of my feelings.  It's not a post about homeschooling at all.  It's a blog response to a boy struggling with being bullied in school.  I absolutely loved the response.  He tells this boy,

Do you know why so many kids at your school don’t like you? Because you make them uncomfortable. You aren’t going with the program. You aren’t behaving like they think you should. You aren’t the sort of person they think you should be. You have passions, you are intelligent, you think more than you speak, you are thoughtful. Those traits will serve you well in the real world, but in the claustrophobic confines of public school — where mindless collectivism and groupthink reign supreme — they’ll cause you trouble. The only way you can really get the herd to “accept you” is to fall in line and join their stampede. I hope you don’t do that, Alex. You sound like a fascinating and awesome person, I’d hate to see you compromise even one ounce of your individuality for the sake of a bunch of insecure cows.

And then my favorite part comes here:

 We put a ridiculous premium on “friends” in our society, as if we can measure a man by the number of acquaintances he has accumulated. What you’ll realize when you’re an aging, grizzled, world weary 27 year old like me, is that family is far more important than friends. We are only capable of having a limited number of close, meaningful, intimate human relationships. People who waste their quota on their peers at the expense of their family will regret it one day.

Thinking about this post, I realized is that at least for me, public school didn't teach me to form lasting, meaningful relationships.  I have about two friends from school years that I try to keep in regular contact with.  The rest are just facebook acquaintances.  Yes, I do realize the value in having known and learned from others in younger years, but I do hope for my kids that quality will make up for quantity.  I feel lucky to have been a part of the good friendships I had way back when.  Because most of the time I felt so awkward.  I was always hyper sensitive to what people must be thinking of me, and it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized they were all too busy thinking the same thing to care!  I was painfully shy, but I didn't realize until it was pointed out to me years later that much of my shyness came off as aloofness.  Many of my "friends" were actually friends of my friends.  I didn't develop a real closeness to most of them.  I realize that this is not the case for many people and that lots of adults have life-long meaningful friendships from public school.  But for me it was a social rat race and I hated it.  Simply putting children in large groups doesn't teach them to behave well, or form healthy relationships.  Good parenting does that.  I know there are many children lucky enough to have both the good parenting and good friends at school.  For us, I feel that teaching our children how to love and respect each other, while keeping them in an environment where they feel loved and safe is the best way to help them really learn how to interact with others in the "real world."  And for the record, public school is not at all like the "real world" in our minds.

I don't mean to say that we don't want our kids to have friends outside of our family.  That is absolutely not the case.  But especially in these younger years, I want friendships formed carefully, in environments where they can be guided and choose friends that actually have the same interests and values and not just because they happen to be stuck with them in the same room all day.  To teach them what it really means to be a friend and how to cultivate that.  We don't stay holed up in the house all day.  We involve our children in sports, in church activities and I take them ev-er-y-where I go.  They interact with real people of varying ages and backgrounds on a regular basis.  But I want their first and greatest influence to be at home.

To the question of, "Aren't you worried your kids will be weird?" or the statement of, "I knew this one homeschool family and they were so weird!" my answer is emphatically, that I hope they will be!  I want them to always stay as unique and special as they are now.  I don't want them to learn how to behave like everyone else.  What is becoming socially acceptable anymore is changing, and changing fast.  I want my kids to think and learn and feel for themselves and not to please others.

Again, I know that fabulous parents everywhere are accomplishing the same goals we have while participating in the public school system, and I applaud you.  Sincerely and from the heart.  I hope that our differences can be appreciated, and that it can be acknowledged that different means can accomplish the same ends.

Two Things

Two things have given me huge smiles to start off this week.  My girls using their brothers' old ties for tails:

 And our latest crafty creation.  Let's be honest, we don't get crafty real often around here, but when we do it's a lot of fun.

I originally wanted to go for this, but decided that hot wax and six children under the age of eight with the world's clumsiest mother wasn't the best combo.  So we settled for a leaf rubbing garland.  We found lots of leaves waiting in the parking lot for us after church on Sunday, brought them home and and set to work.  Parker and Drew helped with the rubbings, I cut them out and Paige strung the finished leaves on the thread.  It was such an enjoyable Sunday activity and it really is so pretty.  The red and brown ones are my favorite.

I am glad that fall is here.  It's always been my favorite season.  I love the chill in the air, the smells, the food, the clothes, and the excitement for the Holidays.  It's also been nice to get back into a good routine around the house and with our homeschool, which I am enjoying SO SO much this year.  It gets harder and busier every year, but like so much else that has to do with mothering and family life, the rewards and fun are there building up as well.

I'm not going to lie, we have plenty of homeschool days where the kids are whiny and I lose my temper, dinner is late, the house is a wreck and I don't feel like I've given enough attention to anyone and that I'm spinning my wheels without getting much accomplished.  But last week we had the picture perfect homeschool day.  The weather was beautiful, and I decided to get the kids out of the house.  After breakfast and a quick cleanup, we got dressed and packed up some schoolbooks and headed to a park that we like.  The baby and I spread out a blanket where we could keep an eye on everyone.  The girls could run and play and be as noisy as they wanted without having to worry that they were interrupting someone's lesson, and the boys could take frequent breaks to get out those little boy wiggles.  We did what school we had brought without any complaints, enjoyed some much needed sunshine, and the kids were playing so well with each other.  The boys were offering to push their sisters on the swings, nobody was fighting, and everyone was just so happy.  We stayed well past lunch, came home just the right amount of hungry and worn out and after a meal and putting babies down for naps had a quiet afternoon where we finished up all that we needed to peacefully.  It was the sort of day that made me so glad to have them all home together, learning and teaching all alongside one another.

I love that Parker wants to be the "Junior Math Teacher" for Paige, and that when Paige sits down for a reading lesson, Claire and Emma have to sit down beside her and imitate everything she does and laugh over the pictures that go with her silly stories.  I love that all of them love to help me take care of the baby.  I love that Andrew is learning to say, "Sure Mom! What can I do for you?" when I tell him I need some help around the house.  I love that they learn how to behave by learning how to love and treat one another and serve and contribute to the family.  Honestly, I don't worry anymore that we're going to miss something here or there either educationally or socially because of our choice to homeschool.  There are trade-offs in almost every parenting decision we make.  For now, I know that we are doing our best to raise good little men and women that are smart, confident, loving, and faithful.

You'll have to pardon me there for that little aside.  I didn't really intend for that to all come out in this particular post, but hey, it's been on my mind.  So many things that I mean to blog about in neatly organized posts never get recorded because I don't have the time to get to them all, or when I finally do, I don't have the "perfect" picture to go with them, or I've forgotten what it was I even wanted to say.  So there's a bit about our world for now.  Hope you're enjoying a good start to the season as well!

Braggin'

One thing I've learned being a mom that has been constantly reinforced along our homeschool adventure is that WE don't TEACH them ANYTHING.  THEY LEARN IT.  We present opportunities for learning, we may give them facts, but all the credit belongs to these precious little spirits who soak up knowledge like a sponge.  I am constantly amazed by the abilities of my children and it is absolutely humbling to be their mother.  They are capable of SO MUCH.  And they have such a strong desire to learn.

Parker has been learning about sentences lately and working on his writing skills.  The example above is from an assignment given where he was to pick out only the complete sentences from a list and copy them to see the story they made when put together.  He has also been working on spelling words.  And here's where the real bragging comes in.  I got him a first grade spelling book.  The lists started with two and three letter words; at, and, is, big, did, etc. and there were at most 5 words on each weekly list to start.  Well, when I gave him the spelling words on the first day of the week and he could already spell them two weeks in a row, I knew the program was WAY too easy for him.  So we bumped up to a second grade book.  Looking at the first list, I was worried it would be too hard now.  There were twelve words to the first list, and not all were spelled exactly as they sounded.  Words like days, sick, cake, word.  He did amazing.  It was a bit of a challenge, but by the end of the week he had them all mastered easily.  I am so stinking proud.  And I had to brag.  :)

A Peek at Our Home

To satisfy the requests of those who have asked to see more of our house.....but please remember that:
1) We've never done much decorating anyway, ($$) and
2) We're only renting this house.....so we may not break that habit this year. ;)

To the left of this picture there are sliding glass doors that go out to the backyard.  There's a nice porch and a fully fenced yard for the crazies to play in.  Drew was more than happy to model the kitchen for you all.  Especially since he gets to showcase some of his hard work for school too.  He's been using this book to learn how to cut.  Both of my boys have used this and have gone from not being able to cut at all, to cutting stars, hearts, any shape they want.  The book has 38 activities that get harder as you go.  As you can tell....I'm a big fan and heartily recommend it.  Just know you can find it cheaper at your local Staples than online, (at least I did).

So last week on Monday, Drew cut out this chef's hat, (which he enthusiastically called his "sheperd's hat" no matter how many times I corrected him).  The next day he cut out the pizza plate, the next the slices, and last was the toppings.  Then we glued them all together.  He had a lot of fun with it.

Wanna bite?

This is the downstairs living room.  As you can see, gobs of space.  And once again Drew was happy to step in the picture for you.  And hey, I'm kinda proud of my track building skills.  Through the tunnel, under the bridge and under the couch!  Wowza!  I should get extra Mom points for that.  ;)  So the kids bedrooms and a bathroom are down the hall from this.  Still a girls' room and a boys' room, although they're much bigger than the rooms at our last home so they don't feel cramped at all.  Upstairs there's an empty living room, (where the guitar pics were taken) a spare room, a bathroom and then master bedroom and bathroom.  Also laundry that goes out to the garage.  Maybe more pics in another post??  The other rooms are pretty bare for now.  

Proof....the upstairs living room, (with my back to the fireplace seen in the guitar pics).  Empty and likely to stay that way for a while.  Although, (YAY!!) the ugly (and nasty cat destroyed) curtains in the window were replaced today with blinds.  It made my day.  ;)

And more importantly....Emma's new trick!!  She can do it for quite a while on her own now.  Silly girl....I don't know why it took her so long.  I guess she's always on the go and too busy to stop and sit a while.

In other Emma news.....she has like four teeth on the top that have cut through in the last day or two.  But of course, she's still been our happy smiley girl.  I'm glad it didn't seem to bother her too badly.

Don't you just love baby toes?!  Love and kisses from Kansas!!

We've Got Mail

P Doodle's schoolbooks have started to arrive in the mail, a few at a time. He is absolutely loving it! Of course, who doesn't love getting a package in the mail, right? We set aside a special shelf that's just for his schoolbooks, so he knows where they are and can get them as he wishes. He's getting to be such a big boy.

I have to say, I'm especially impressed with his Pathway Readers. They're great for any beginning reader, homeschooled or not. If you've been having trouble finding a "See Jane run" sort of book for your kid to read independently, look no further. I actually think that Parker is reading at a level above the first one, but it's still great. It's building his confidence that he can read other things beyond 100 Easy Lessons. He has yet to be comfortable reading in any public situation, and even reading for his grandparents has been a bit intimidating to him.

The Pathway Readers were developed for Amish parochial schools; therefore the content is sure to be nothing offensive or crazy - heck some of the stories even have a moral! Has anyone else noticed how many children's books are just crap these days? Like even if there's nothing that makes you raise your eyebrows, there's just nothing to them? So far, each chapter has a parent story to read, (other than that the print is quite a bit smaller, P Doodle could actually probably read these himself) then a story for the child to read independently. Each chapter can stand alone, but they build on each other for an overall cohesive story. We also got the accompanying workbooks that have about two pages per chapter of exercises to encourage comprehension and understanding. They're nothing flashy, but they are sturdy and a great value for what you get. The readers alone would be great for practice, or with the workbooks between school years even to keep reading skills sharp.

If you've even bothered to read the post this far, you can roll your eyes at me for this part...but I have to brag about P Doodle's reading. Check out what he read to me yesterday from one of the last of the 100 Easy Lessons:

A beagle is a dog. It has big ears. And it likes to hunt, hunt, hunt. The beagle in this story liked to hunt more than other beagles. This beagle was Biff. Every day Biff went out hunting.

And that was just part of the first of three paragraphs. I know, I know, I'm gushing with parental pride. I just can't help it. He's four! And he is just dying to learn more. He loves being able to ride in the car and read signs along the road as we pass. I think it really bothered him to know that all those letters mean something, and he just didn't know what.

Besides being the smartest kid around, P Doodle is dying for spring to come! We have new toys at our park and he's eager to try them out. He knows it's going to be a long time before the snow melts, (or the temperature rises above freezing) and he hates it. He's also been talking to Daddy about playing baseball and going fishing. Another "to-do" on our list this summer is to take the boys to the racetrack. We may live in a tiny little hick town with not much to do; but hey, you can't watch stock-car racing just anywhere can you? Jealous?

In other P Doodle updates, he's also learned how to, (sort of) cartwheel. Apparently he learned it from one of his cute little friends in primary. Her mom was embarrassed to find out that she'd been cartwheeling in her dress at church, but I thought it was absolutely hilarious! Hey, if that's the worst your kid does in public, I think it's okay. ;)

P Doodle also is loving being the big brother. He is so sweet, especially to his sisters. He and the Princess seem to have a special bond and can usually be found making mischief together. He also loves to help Claire by giving her a bottle or snuggle her on the couch. As much as he loves his sisters though, he's hoping that Baby #5 is another brother. There's just something about brothers, isn't there? He and Babycakes have really started to have a lot of fun together now that Babycakes is coming out of his shell a bit and communicating more with us. The only problem with being the big brother is that he thinks that means he's the boss as well. Something we need to work on. But we all love our P Doodle boy!

Living Life

You will have to pardon my lack of posting lately. As I said to a good friend the other day, sometimes I have to choose between living life and blogging about it. The way my mind is these days, I probably won't remember a lot of it later, but by george I sure am having fun, and I will remember that!

Here's a taste of what we've been up to.

P Doodle is reading. Yeah, you read that right. My four year old can read. Thanks to the aforementioned BFF. She recommended the book to us, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And I pass that recommendation on to anyone else who bothers to read this blog and might be interested. It's a miracle working book, and it's so easy. Each lesson takes about 7 minutes, they're simple, completely scripted for you and they work! Let me give you an example of what P Doodle read to me in his last lesson: "See that little shack. Sand is in the shack. We will run in the sand." Sigh.....my little genius. Growing up. Oh, and in case I haven't bragged him up enough, he can also answer questions about what he's read. That's called reading comprehension yall! By the way, this has totally reaffirmed my desire to homeschool, and has boosted my confidence that yes I can!
Babycakes has moved into big-boy-hood by going on the potty. (Insert choir of angels singing here.) Can I just tell you that two in diapers is so much better than three?! And the little genius did it himself. I've tried a few times to get him to do it and received a flat refusal each time. Now, given my current circumstances, I was not willing to make a struggle of it. I do not have the personality it takes to be on top of "training him" to go every hour or so and forcing him to do it. I also didn't want a whole bunch of accidents and frustrations, so I let it go. I figured for now it was just as easy to change an extra bum than to be constantly cleaning my already disgusting carpets. He did show some interest a couple of weeks ago, so we made the special trip to Wal-mart to pick out a potty seat and some special undies, but the interest was fleeting. I let it go again. Then all of a sudden last Friday as I was washing breakfast dishes I heard him quietly say in the living room, "I need to go potty!" in a surprised tone. So of course I rushed in and said, "Yay! Let's go do it!" and he went; then put on his new undies and we've never turned back. He even kept them clean and dry all the way through Stake Conference only two days later, and again yesterday for a trip to Roosevelt, (a half hour drive from our home) to take Little Bear to the doctor. Note: although I was prepared with extra shorts and undies, I was unprepared for the surprise episode of carsickness and he went into the doctors' office bare-chested after barfing all over his shirt, (the smart little guy also caught a lot of it in his hat.....too much info?). What are ya gonna do? I think that a bare-chested kid is nothing compared to the shock of the troop of us all coming in the doors anyway. ;)
This sweet pic is of Babycakes with his Lightning Mcqueen car that we let him pick out as a special treat for easing my sanity just a bit.

Princess P......what is there to say about that little ball of fire? She rocks our world. She's still a midget, but rules the whole household. She is almost never punished and when she is, it isn't without a whole bunch of laughing at how cute she was even while being naughty. She jabbers all the time; most of it is baby talk, (although she does have about 15 clear words she uses consistently) but every once in a while I swear she up and surprises us all by saying something like "brothers" or "computer". Genius. I'm sensing a running theme in our family! She still sucks her two middle fingers, and doesn't let her "B" out of her sight. (Her blanket.)


Little Bear is growing and changing so fast! She loves her tummy time as you can see, and can even roll from her tummy to her back. Genius!! Her most recent visit to the doc brought in these stats: weight 10 lbs. 13 oz., length 21.25 inches. Give them a year, year and a half tops and these two girls will be wearing the same clothes. Little Bear has also started giving us social smiles and melts all our hearts. Her brothers especially love to hold her. Princess P likes to bring her toys and make sure that she is never touching the precious "B".

Are you all envious of me yet? You should be. I have the cutest kids ever.

Our "School"

A note that has absolutely nothing to do with this post: Our blog has recently had more traffic than usual, do to some of the blogging groups I've joined, so in the interest of safety, I am no longer using our children's names on this blog......sorry if this is confusing for anyone. Also, for those of you who know my children, could you please avoid using their real names in the comments? Thanks, we appreciate this. We're not ready to take the blog private, but we do want to be more careful.

We have been considering homeschool for our kids for quite some time, (for several reasons that will take a whole different post for another time) so I thought that rather than wait until P Doodle is actually school age and panic because I don't know what I'm doing; I'd better get my feet wet, and see if this is something I can actually accomplish. Besides the fact that we never did plan on sending him to preschool, and we need more structure to our day! We started out a few weeks ago, and the kids absolutely love it. Not only is it something fun for us to do, Babycakes has suddenly discovered that he loves to "read" and both boys have found that they can actually sit still to listen to a lesson or work on a project; something I think their nursery teacher at church has really appreciated, (she actually asked Brandon if we had put P Doodle on some sort of medication. Sidenote: Their nursery teacher does not have children, and we have afternoon church which means no naps, and snacks instead of a good lunch....my children are not crazy in real life, they just look that way on Sunday). Here is a sample of our first week of "school".

For our first week, we learned about cows. The boys learned the vocabulary word, "calf", we focused on the letter A, the shape of a square, the number 1, the color green, and P Doodle even memorized "Hey Diddle Diddle". Do you like the cows they made using pre-cut squares? Babycakes obviously had more help, but I kind of like the artistic license that P Doodle used to make his! They turned out so cute we sent them to Poppy as a "get-well" card. Each week we focus on a new letter, shape or color, number, etc. It has been so fun to see how excited the boys are about it, and Babycake's vocabulary and eagerness to speak has skyrocketed since we began.
The outline we follow can be found at www.letteroftheweek.com. Everything is all there for you, including a suggested reading list, instructions for making the poster, and links to pictures and coloring pages. There are also suggested gross motor and fine motor skills activities for each week. There are a couple of different course levels, we obviously chose the first, the "preparatory curriculum". The whole program is phonics-based and geared towards learning to read, but it incorporates, numbers, shapes and can be added to, to incorporate whatever you want to learn about! It's super easy to use.
One more link for anyone with "pre-readers" out there, (or even early readers actually.....there are a few different levels). Check out www.starfall.com. It's a site with free phonics based games. P Doodle calls it his "letter games" and he loves it, (we click on ABC's and use those games) When he's bored, instead of asking for a movie, he usually asks for "letter games" and I am more than happy to comply! Babycakes loves to watch as he plays, and he has learned to recognize about as many letters as P Doodle.