Our Magnum Opus

Such Language!

Heard from the playroom in a cowboy shootout.

"Your a low down,  yellow bellied, one eyed son of a slimy prairie dog."

Leaf It To Me

Dad used the tractor to make big leaf piles for the little 'saints' in hopes of burning off all that candy energy.

 

 

For All the Saints

St. Elizabeth of Hungary... and St. Elizabeth of Hungary (Maria insisted on being 'the same girl as Regina'.

 

I think this is St. Helen holding Lydia

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Punkin Heads

smiley face, kitten, old man with pipe, Larry Boy, and Christian symbols... and a bunch of cute kids!

Hangin' Out Together

My Hero Rides Again

Two days of back to back minor crises and spinning my wheels.  You know the kind of day.  Yesterday at 5:00 pm, I realized we had to make a grocery run.  I loaded up the baby and two helpers.  It should have taken 15 minutes to get to the store, but we couldn't get into town.  All the railroad crossings were closed except one.  And it was rush hour so that crossing was backed up for miles.  The baby was crying, she had been in the carseat a lot already.  One of my helpers was rapidly fading as cold symptoms overcame her.  We had been in the van 45 minutes and gotten nowhere.

As I was finagling the big van into a place I could turn around and head home, Kevin called.  He was at the Costco exit and did he need to stop there for anything?

Not only did he load up on groceries but he cooked dinner as well.  Cooked dinner!!  My husband is my hero.

Those Tall Dutchmen..

Did you know that the cheap shoe stores do not carry size 14 men's shoes?  My 14 year old is in a size 14 shoe.  I can see what most of the birthday and Christmas gifts in his future will be...shoes and clothes for tall men.

Teaching Reading

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is teaching reading.  I have used the same reading program with all my children so far and they are usually reading for fluency by the end of second grade.  I don't think this indicates anything about my teaching skills or the reading program, just that it works for us and that particular time frame is when it all 'clicks' for my kids.

So far, they have all stalled at the same points too.  We work on the letter sounds and we're cruising along, they know the sounds... then we get to blending the sounds to make words.  There is probably a proper educational term  for it, but I call it the blending stall.  They can't make the leap from 'a' and 't' to 'am' or 'at'.

So we take a break from the reader and practice.  We use letter tiles, 'at' words practice worksheets from Enchanted Learning, and writing short lists of word families.  In writing the lists we use colored pencils to define the first letter sound of the word and the rhyming endings. Like this.

• at
• cat
• mat
  
• rat
• sat
• hat
• bat

After a break from the reader, anywhere from a week to a month,  they get it and we move on.  The next stall is with the introduction of the next short vowel sound but that is usually a quicker break.

Another common hump is 'b' and 'd' confusion.  This self corrects by 3rd grade but I try to help it along with the little 'bed' image as a reminder.

 

My readers have had some frustrating days but mostly  they enjoy reading lessons and it is a joyful day when they complete the series of readers and move on to chapter books.  (Of course there is some overlap with that.)  Book discussions happen frequently, loudly and spontaneously around here so each child is glad when they get to be 'in the loop'.

Quick Updates

• Boys had a great Youth Group pilgrimage to New York
• We have a new kitten.  (I think his name is Mr. Tumnus, but it has changed a few times so I can't be sure what it is at the moment. :)
• Lydia has her first tooth
• I have drawn a line in the dust and clutter sand, and I am purging, cleaning and reorganizing like a mad woman.  However we are the stage where things look worse before they get better.  It looks like 20 people live here, not 10.  But re-reading the Flylady website has been a huge motivation.
• I am making plans to host a monthly group of girls to work our way through the Little Women Hospitality Program.
• the leaves are almost all down (which is not important except that we love our fleeting fall colors and they were especially nice this year.)

 

 

Why, Why, Why?

Why can't I think of what to say till later?

I was at the post office and there was a young engaged couple there to get their passport, I guess for their honeymoon.  The PO employee was teasing them about having a dozen kids.  The employee at my window and another customer started in too.  The engaged girl was adamant that she wasn't having many children, she didn't want to get old and tired before her time, etc., etc.  They were all in laughing agreement.

I didn't want to say anything because I had had no sleep, was dressed about as frumpily as could be... I was the poster child for what she didn't want to become.  I couldn't very well reassure her that she wouldn't age from having many children.  It would have been too much to explain how worth it the children are inspite of feeling utterly exhausted some days.  She wouldn't have believed me if I tried to tell her how happy my life is. So I was silent.

Later I wished I had said anything encouraging.  Maybe 'congratulations and I'm sure you will be wonderful parents to however many children God blesses you with.'

Next time, and I'm sure there will be a next time, I will try to focus on saying something encouraging instead of feeling defensive and inadequate.