Here's the letter inside a card that I found on the kitchen table this morning from my 8 year old:
Dear Mom,
I know I'm ungrateful sometimes and I have been thinking. I love my school and it is better than booles [sic] and homework. I would like friends, but when I think-- I have many friends. I hope you injoy [sic] me as one easy child.
Love, Ava
Now that's the best card I think I've ever received. And yes, I did cry.
When I was homeschooling the older two, I had two toddlers underfoot-- but my memories of those days seem easier than what I am doing now which is homeschooling one with only one toddler underfoot. I think the fact that back in the old days, my toddlers had each other to play with has something to do with that.
Suffice it to say, Destructo Baby is into everything. Somedays it feels like I'm cleaning messes a lot more than teaching math or reading! Or at least it did until.... (drum roll please) I bought THIS.
That's right-- I bought a dog pen for baby Julianna. Only mine is actually much larger than the one in the photo I linked you to, because I bought the 2 extra extension panels and set it up in my dining room. (I had to move the formal dining table over the side to accomplish this.) It won't win me any Home Beautiful awards, but it does seem to be helping grandly with my home education efforts!
Dog pens for kids-- this is really working for me. :)
Thanks to Shannon at Rocks at My Dryer for hosting!
I continue to be the sporadic blogger.
Everyone knows that the key to setting a routine is to start strong and never deviate from the plan for two or three weeks. So far, so good, thus my apparent lack of blogging. My older three went back to public school last Thursday and Ava and I hit the books. Hard.
For the most part, I've always been what some call a "classical" homeschooler. Never one to buy one of those "packaged curriculums", I've always prided myself in the fact that I researched the full array of curriculums offered for each subject. And of course, I wanted my children to learn from "real, living books" rather than from the hum-drum workbook/textbook approach.
But Ava wasn't taking to it last year like the others had and I decided that a change was in order. I broke down and did what I said I would never do: I ordered nearly everything in the Rod and Staff 2nd grade package. With the exception of Saxon Math and Explode the Code phonics workbooks, my 8 year old is being schooled with "a package" this year and it's going great.
But it takes longer. Or at least it seems like it does. Maybe it's just 2nd grade. I know I used to homeschool my two older kids with two babies underfoot, but I don't remember it being this hard. Every day at 8am, as soon as the older three tumble down the stairs and head to school, Ava and I startpiano practice. She hasn't quite gotten to the point where she can practice independently, and so I sit by her side on the bench, tapping out rhythms and singing along as she plays. We've also been managing to get a math lesson in every morning before baby is ready to hit the ground running. After math, I open baby's bedroom door and say, "Good morning, Julianna!" She always replies, "Hi, Hi, Hi!" Julianna seems to know only two speeds: "on" and "off." A baby of superlatives, she says all words in groups of threes. "Where's your ears, Julianna?" "Ears, ears, ears!" she replies. "Where's your nose?" "Nose, nose, nose!" She doesn't slow down all morning. So, in between explaining to Ava the difference between a declarative sentence and an interrogative sentence, I'm looking for new ways to distract baby. "Here Julianna, colors!" "Look Julianna, Legos!" "Peeeeeeeeeep eye, Julianna!" By noon, I'm exhausted.
It would be easier to send Ava on to school with the others; but I'm convinced that Ava is thriving spiritually here at home and so I press on.
No one ever said that the easier thing would be the better thing-- now, did they?
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. ~Galatians 2:20
