Checklists, Puppetry, and Going Outside

Though our schedule normally looks sort of like this:

Welcome to School, Boys!

o Bible

o Math

o Handwriting

o Spelling/Phonics

o Reading & Language Arts

o Current Memory Work & Maps

o Memory Work Review

Monday:  History, Timeline

Tuesday:  Math, Latin

Wednesday:  Timeline, English Grammar

Thursday:  Geography, Latin & Bible

Friday:  Timeline, Science

o History or Science Projects

o Computer

This week it looked sort of like this:

Welcome to School, Boys!

o Bible

o Math

o Handwriting

o Spelling/Phonics

o Reading & Language Arts

o Current Memory Work & Maps

o Memory Work Review

o Go outside

o Computer

So, we did not do any of our normal history or science projects this week, nor did we do much in the Fine Arts realm.  But during computer time, we visited:

A Timeline for Civil Rights Movement in America 1945-1975.  Click on the timeline spot for Brown v Board of Education (1954) for video clips.

The Animated History of Carnegie Hall (lots of history tie-ins!):

The New York Philharmonic Kid's Site.  The boys spent a good deal of time playing:

• The Instrument Frenzy Game (classifying instruments according to sections)
• MusiQuest
• Composers Gallery
• The Newsstand (which includes several great history tie-ins!) 

They even invented a musical instrument in the NY Philharmonic Instrument Lab.  There's no reason they could not have done this in real life - except for the fact that their mom did not think to save and lay out a bunch of junk for them to use.  (Reminds me of those of us who use the Wii to jog in place or throw a ball rather than jog outside or throw a real ball.)

This brought to mind the Bash the Trash Concert we went to during our visit to Louisiana, where we learned a bit about the science of sound and took away all sorts of ideas for reusing trash to make instruments.  Matter of fact, it made me smile thinking about our homemade straw oboes and Annie Brunson's videos on making homemade instruments.

A Little Puppetry

Aunt Sherry sent the boys a book called 10-Minute Puppets by Noel MacNeal (the puppeteer for Bear in "Bear in the Big Blue House").  If you know how I am with shortcut methods of doing just about anything (e.g., recipes with less than 5 ingredients or science experiments that take less than 5 minutes), it won't surprise you that I really love this book!  We spent a good part of last weekend making and playing with puppets.

Sock Puppets, hand-sewn by a non-seamstress.

David cuts out the talking head puppet.

David's talking head says, "Thank you, Aunt Sherry!"

David's talking head

Stephen makes an origami frog

Stephen's origami frog.

David's origami frog.

And check this out: you can download several of the puppet templates from the 10-Minute Puppets book on Noel MacNeal's website on Puppetry.  You can make a puppet designed by Bear in the Big Blue House!  Isn't that something?!

Though we did not use them this time around, The Toymaker has great paper puppets, too.  When we did our Norway Unit Study last year, we downloaded the Three Billy Goats Gruff Paper Puppets to use while we read the story, and we used the Pilgrim & Indian Finger Puppets when we studied the Pilgrims.

The boys really liked the origami!  We hope to also try this Origami Butterfly and a little Storigami one of these days. (Rachel Katz's website has lots of ideas, instructions, and links to other origami sites.)

Math

For math, I decided to actually set up and use some of the file folder games listed in my previous math post. These take a while to cut out, but because I can't just sit and watch TV without doing something else, I cut out a good portion of it while we were watching WordWorld.

Even Steven Odd Todd
Some Odd Pumpkins
Three Times Tables (Volcanoes)
Five Times Tables (Hot Air Balloons)
Nine Times Tables (Saturns)

One day we played Even Steven Odd Todd.

And on another day we played Some Odd Pumpkins.

David learned more about telling time from the
Whoooo Knows What Time It Is? Game

Stephen enjoyed the Times Tables Games  as a
break from the normal flashcard routine.

It ended up snowing bingo dots all over our family room when I told the boys we would play Money Bingo but then got distracted with something else. We never did get around to playing Bingo.

Go Outside

Five of seven days of sunshine with no rain, meant GO OUTSIDE.  We have found the first of the trails we will build through Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood.  We even named some of the places along the way.

Our trail, looking back towards the house.

Rest Stop

A vine swing.

I spy... a snake!

Amazing wood carvings done by... carpenter ants??

"Moss Rock"

"Rock Bluff"

"Mini-Niagra Falls," without water.

"Triple-Step Falls"

The Old Man at Flat Rock.

Discovering a whirlpool at Flat Rock

~Though it's not quite time yet, I still find myself looking for toad shoestrings.~

Looking across Flat Rock, from the front of our
property towards the guest house.

ooooooWWWEEEEE!  Does that guest house need work!  We left it in a shambles last year when we decided to build on to our home instead.

Is that scary or what?!?

Anyone care to join us in ripping out the rest of the interior?  (In case you need convincing that this is a great way to spend your free time, it's going to be a race against the wasps....)

blah, blah, blah.  (a.k.a., my wordy ramblings spurred on by a comment about how much of a "supermom" I am...)

If you were to meet me in real life, you would likely be really disappointed at my utter mediocrity.   I'm just a plain old mom with a lot of imperfections, and it is so undeserving that anyone would think very highly of me.  I mean, I'm impatient and even act all wigged out every now and then.  (HA!  If you only knew...)  I am all that is broken, strange, messed up, nutty, distorted and fallen.  Anything good in me is simply a gift of grace from God.  I take comfort in the fact that His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).  THAT fills me with joy.

I have a goal of being really real on our blog - not hiding behind some facade of perfection and superwomanness.  I even try to take photos of our messes and mess-ups just to show that we are a real, bonafide, average family.  That's not to say that I revel in my weaknesses, but it is to say that when the goodness manifests itself in some way, it just points back to a loving God!

It is disappointing to me to think that someone would get discouraged reading our blog just because it SEEMS like we do so much!  The truth of the matter is, I really am just an incredibly imperfect person that constantly needs to be formed and reshaped into what God wants me to be.  Every day I have to just trust in THE God that rises far above my failures.  I rest in His promise that all things work together for good  for those who love him and are called according to HIS purposes (Romans 8:28). And... if all means all, then it includes even my biggest failures!!!

This blogging thing can be a bit of a struggle to balance because I want to be an encouragement to anyone who comes across it, but it is also a journal of our lives for our family yearbook (when I publish the blog as a book at the end of the school year) and a way to connect with my husband.  SO... that's why I post all this stuff - NOT to make a person feel inferior, or to say, "LOOK AT ME!! LOOK AT ME!!! I'M SO COOL!!!" but just to chronicle our everyday lives.  To be honest, I was never able to remember what I did from one day to the next until I started intentionally capturing the moments on camera.

My deepest hope is that others can glean ideas and benefit from my feeble attempts at writing what's on my heart.  

So... once again I say:  I am not a superwoman.  I'm just a woman covered by the grace, love and mercy of a Super God!

A few things about my survival techniques and how and why we do what we do:

• I'm trying to break free from strict workbook-and-scheduled-schoolday mentality (especially since my breakdown earlier this semester) so that we can enjoy livin' and learnin' together more.  I have even stopped using my daily planner to plan because the stack approach that I always fall back into works just fine (even if it's really messy!). That's why I now use a checklist (like the ones at the top of this blog post).  The checklist is in a picture frame right beside the stacks of papers, along with a dry-erase marker to check off the boxes as the schoolboys finish their work.
• This means we ditched our original school schedule and much of the curriculum we were using last semester. Instead, we now alternate between history and science projects in the afternoons if we have time.  Just recently, we have decided to turn on the TV only when it's dark outside.  That leaves a lot of extra time in our day to do stuff like our World War II study and our Elementary Chemistry Curriculum.  And we throw in the Fine Arts studies whenever we feel like it.  
• The fact that we ditched our original school schedule means that we have some things that are currently unfinished, like listening to the rest of Little Women, and the Saxon Math 5/4 and Phonics Road to Reading books, and listening to A Short History of the United States and Mara Pratt's American History Stories and finishing the Titanic Lapbook.  We just didn't do everything I had planned.  We may finish some of those things after our CC school year comes to a close, but in the midst of the January blues, I had to find things that were a better fit for us, that I could do without it being as much of a burden.  And when I get special requests from the boys about audiobooks they'd like to listen to, or math books they'd like to read, or historical events they'd like to study, I forego the original plan to enjoy a grand detour along our road to learning.
• When my husband is gone, I have to occupy myself with projects.  In other words, I cut out a bunch of file folder games when I miss my husband. The more stuff that's on here, the more you know I miss my husband.  Y'See?
• I'm a bit of an insomniac.  So, when people say, "Do you sleep?" I say, "Sometimes."
• We limit ourselves right now to one extra-curricular activity per child at any given time (which does not include church activities and all of our visits with friends).  This may change one day when our children are old enough for something like 4-H.  And I still haven't gathered the courage for us to join Cub Scouts (which I would love to do but know my limitations with a three-year-old).  In fact, I've been kicking myself because I accidentally missed the deadline for soccer this spring (to Stephen's chagrin), but maybe this opens the door for us to take swim lessons again (to Stephen's - and David's - immense joy)!
• In the end, we really do not do a whole lot.  I just take photos of what we do and write about it.  And because I ramble a whole lot, it sometimes seems like we do a whole lot. And that's my secret!  Now you try it!  ;)

An early springtime surprise
I found on the kitchen table.
This is really what life is all about:
To know Him and to make Him known.