Weekly Wrap-Up: January 19-25

Other than Monday, it was another cold week in Nashville!  We are already more than ready for spring around here—although I must say, this winter has been much sunnier than usual, which has done wonders for my mood.  Also (knock on wood), we have been very healthy this winter, compared to most.  The sun and the good health have combined to make our outlook unusually positive for January!

On Sunday morning, Gigi and Papa came to church with us.  We ate dinner with them afterwards, and then they went to Gigi’s doctor’s appointment before coming to our house to spend the night.  They left on Monday morning; it was a short but good visit!

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. day, and we had a shorter than normal school day.  Some of Luke’s spare time (and ALL of Greg’s day off) was spent on our new basketball goal!  With Luke in a league now, we figured it would be good for him to be able to practice at home.  Of course, there is the hazard of our gigantic hill—the goal might actually serve more as conditioning practice than shooting practice, as the kids chase the ball down the hill repeatedly. We don’t know yet how it will go, since it was dark when Greg finished the hoop (poor guy), and every other day this week has been below freezing. 

One more anecdote:  in school Monday, we studied Marin Luther, which caused no small amount of confusion with Martin Luther King Jr.  It took some effort to explain to the kids that Martin Luther was not MLK’s dad.  Thank goodness our curriculum comes with a timeline!

Also on Monday, we started learning the Lord’s Prayer.  After much inner turmoil, I finally decided on the most recent NIV edition, straight from the Bible (no “for thine is the kingdom…”).  One thing I did that really helped them learn was to print copies of the prayer on cardstock for each of them, and then cut them into strips.  The kids raced against each other and the timer all week, and learned the prayer within the first two days.  I think I’m going to start doing some version of this for everything we memorize.

These are scenes from SQUILT, our music appreciation lesson.  This week we listened to the Prince of Denmark’s march.

We also had gymnastics this week, and I decided to actually try to get some pictures, even though the observation area is far above the gym.  They didn’t turn out great, but they give some idea of what the kids do.

Here’s a happy moment that I just had to capture.  I love how well Luke and Anna get along.  They really are each other’s best friends, although they would never admit it.

On Thursday, the kids had their first piano lesson!  I searched long and hard for a piano teacher.  For some reason, I had in my mind that it should be a woman, but most of the possibilities I found were men.  This guy came highly recommended by a friend from church whose daughter took from him.  He ended up being reasonable priced, and best of all, lives less than a mile from our house.  We can easily walk to his house!  Not that we did in this week’s freezing weather, though.  The lesson went great, and the kids have been practicing every day since.

I’m just posting my pictures in chronological order, so the content is jumping around a bit.  Luke finished up book 3 of Redwall this week, and is still loving the series.  He doesn’t love to read out loud, but he really needs the daily practice.  The kid flies through books because he reads so fast in his mind.  When he reads out loud, he tries to do the same thing, which leads him to slur his words, plow through periods without stopping, and generally speak incomprehensibly.  He would get so frustrated with me when I would stop him and make him speak more clearly that I finally filmed him and let him listen to himself.  I distinctly remember my teacher recording us reading out loud in second grade and what a wake-up call that was.  It was a shock to Luke, too.  He realized that he could not understand himself at all, and I explained that it was just because he was such a fast reader mentally that he needed to slow down when he read out loud.  That made a lot more sense to him.

We are about to move on to the human body in science, but first, we had a quick review week.  We went over vertebrates and invertebrates, and reviewed the different phylums we had studied so far.  Beforehand, I had gathered as many different kinds of stuffed animals as I could, and I was a little shocked to realize that they were all vertebrates.  There were many different kinds of vertebrates represented, but they all went in the same box.  The kids and I were very amused by our vertebrate pile.

On Thursday afternoon, we went to the library.  It was below 20 degrees, which in our world, is ridiculously cold.  For fun, we screamed at the top of our lungs for half the trip to the library—it was our silly way of warming up, and the kids thought it was the best thing ever.  Then, we had a funny “argument” where we debated whether or not to listen to the Frozen soundtrack, but we spelled all of our words (don’t ask me why).  Again, we were all amused by our antics, and when Luke hopped out of the car, he laughed and said, “We literally screamed and argued the whole way here!”  I cracked up because it was completely true, but in a fun way.  He added, “I feel like a shrew!”  A shrew is a particularly argumentative creature in the Redwall series; it’s statements like those that make me love him so much.

On Friday, Anna did one of the silly things that make me love her so much.  I told her that since we weren’t going anywhere that day, it didn’t matter what she wore, weather-wise.  Of course, she then came proudly strutting into the room in a swimsuit and sunglasses.  That girl thinks she is soooo funny!  I sent her to change, but we all had a good laugh.

These pictures capture what I call a “homeschool mentality.”  I really think that any parent, no matter how they educate their children, can benefit from a homeschool mentality.  By that phrase, I simply mean that you view every event as a chance to teach your kids.  When Greg and I first decided to homeschool, Luke still had several months of kindergarten left.  He finished out the year in public school, but we started unconsciously developing a homeschool mentality.  For example, when he built a rocket ship out of LEGO’s, we used it as a jumping off point to talk about space exploration.  That led naturally to Youtube videos of shuttle launches, to a trip to the planetarium, and even to the acquisition of a telescope—all from one LEGO set!  I still try to keep that mentality, which is what led me to use Luke’s carelessness one day as a problem-solving opportunity.  He threw his laundry toward the basket in the laundry room, but it went behind the dryer.  I started to try to get it out myself, but then I thought, “Wait.  Teachers try hard to replicate problems in class that teach critical thinking skills.  This one comes naturally, and also teaches about consequences and taking responsibility for one’s actions.”  I then gave Luke a special challenge of figuring out how to get the clothes out.  Anna, of course, was all too willing to help.  Eventually, we did just have to move the dryer, but it was gratifying to see them work and brainstorm to solve the problem.

Another gratifying moment came on Friday when the kids again worked the Asia puzzle.  I’ve misplaced the iPod that has our geography songs on it, so I was casting about for ways to review them on Asia.  The puzzle was an easy solution, but it doesn’t necessarily make them focus on the names of the countries—just the pieces.  I was literally sitting in the other room trying to think of a way to give them a good review when they started describing countries in relation to each other, in order to get the other one to guess which country they were thinking.  Here was a sample line from Luke:  “This country has a lot of little orange dots…wait, no…this country is a group of islands….”  He even corrected Anna, saying, “No, Anna—you can’t use colors!”  We’ve talked about how colors on a map are irrelevant in that they tell you nothing real about the country.  So Luke made sure they stuck to size, shape, and borders.  Thus, I was let off the hook from coming up with a suitable review game!

Oh, and Anna is wearing a paper headband of her own making.  She even figured out how to fasten it to her hair with clips!

Speaking of review, I took this week to really sit down and evaluate the kids’ schoolyear and my goals for them.  I feel like we are doing well in reading, math, and general exposure to ideas, but sometimes I’m surprised to see how little they retain of other things (like the phylum review in science).  I decided to make a list of the concrete facts I wanted them to know.  I honestly don’t care if they remember the characteristics of Echinoderms or the location of every country in the world (though that would be nice).  But I do want them to know a few key history dates from this year, as well as the definitions of the nine parts of speech we have learned.  To that end, I made some review cards for History and Grammar that I think will really help us.  We can use these History cards, for example, to match, to play Memory, to play some version of “Which Came First,” and so forth.  I’ve got to say, I was ridiculously proud of myself for making these:).

On Saturday, Luke had another basketball game.  They still got clobbered, but did much better than the first game.  At half time, in fact, they were only down by one!  And even though they lost, I just love watching my husband coach our son—and all the other boys!  He coached for this league when we were in college (and when his assistant coach was a pre-teen at Y.E.S.!), and it is just so cool to see him doing the same thing now.

After the game, our friends came over to play and to eat dinner with us.  I loved getting caught up with my bff, and the kids loved their play time.

It was another good week, worth remembering.  Of course, they all are…

Weekly Wrap-Up: January 12-18

Well, we’ve had another fun week.  Sometimes pictures make a week look like more fun than it is, but really, looking back on this week, there weren’t any real “low” spots.  Getting stuff ready for the party on Saturday got a bit stressful on Friday, but other than that, it was a really nice week.

On Sunday after church, a group of kids and parents from church went skating.  Now, that had it’s moments of stress:  trying to wrangle up everyone and get them to the rink together, and keeping up with “my” four kids (mostly non-skaters) in a packed rink with strobe lights and loud music playing, and having Luke melt down because he had a hard time getting the hang of skating…yeah, those were stressful parts.  But the afternoon was also a lot of fun.  Anna, for one, could have stayed there all day!  And it was definitely good exercise for everyone!:)

This week in History, we studied the Renaissance, which included reading a book about Michelangelo.  The kids decided all on their own that they wanted to make their own version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  I couldn’t think of a way to replicate ceiling conditions, but I did take a large sheet of white paper and spread it out over the table for them.  They lost no time dividing it into panels and painting different scenes from the Bible in each panel.  I loved it!  Over the week, their interest waned, but they were unwilling to give up their project.  So that bottom picture shows how my kitchen looked most of the week.  We would fold the paper back to eat meals.  It was kind of crazy, especially with the growing amount of snowflake party supplies!

On Tuesday after Luke’s basketball practice, we went out to Carrabba’s to use a gift card for dinner.  While we were waiting, Anna showed off some of her “homeschool humor” with a pun (sort of) using “Pizarro” and “Pizza”).  Luke thought it was HILarious!

During Luke’s practice, Anna and I had gone shopping at the Parent-Teacher Store and Brilliant Sky, and I could not pass up these “Logic Links.”  Each card has 2-4 puzzles where you use the clues to put the little chips in correct order.  My kids were immediately obsessed with them, and I thought they would make a fun addition to school.

Here is just one of those “average” moments during church on Wednesday night.  This was during dinner time, and the kids had already eaten and were waiting for class. 

On Thursday, Greg took the kids to the Y.E.S. gym for some P.E.  Luke had his first basketball game on Saturday, so we wanted him to have some extra practice.  And of course, Anna loves any excuse to roller skate!  In the picture, she’s wearing some “hand-me-downs” she got from a friend at gymnastics on Wednesday.  They were a HUGE hit with her (and me—lots of cute Gymboree outfits!), and she’s been wearing them exclusively ever since, even though most of them are more summer-y.

Case in point:  when she got home on Thursday, she changed into this outfit.  In the picture on the left, I told her I wanted a picture of her in her new outfit, and she busted this pose out of nowhere!  She cracks me up!  In the picture on the right, I was trying to get both of them to pose, to no avail.

I saw a link on Facebook this week for fun hairstyles for little girls, and on Friday, I decided to try this “heart braid” on Anna.  For a first try, I thought it turned out really well—and Anna was crazy about it!  I had to do it again for her the next day.

I realize that my pictures are a little light on school this week, and we really did have a full school week—it’s just that, other than painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—most of our week looked like this!  Especially the top picture—if I’m not reading to the kids on the couch, chances are, they are on the floor doing schoolwork.  We also use a kids’ typing program (bottom left) and do a weekly music lesson (bottom right).  For our music lesson, we listen to a new piece from the Baroque Era each week, first with our eyes closed.  Then we discuss the tempo, dynamics, instrumentation, etc, and then we listen to it again and “draw what we hear.”  I use this curriculum, and we’ve really been enjoying it so far.

On Friday afternoon, my friend, Melissa came over to hang out, and then that evening, our friends, Sam and Rachel, came over to do some laundry.  They ate dinner with us, and while they were here, the kids introduced them to Spot It, a really fun, new game that Anna got from Uncle Ken and Aunt Victoria for her birthday.  We LOVE it, and make all our friends play it.  Predictably, it was a hit with Sam and Rachel, and everyone enjoyed playing it for a long while…until I recruited them to help with the snowflake party!:)

On Saturday, Luke had his first basketball game.  It went as well as could be expected.  His team, which is VERY young and inexperienced, got clobbered, but nothing too disastrous happened.  Luke did well at “keeping his head in the game,” hustling, staying with his man on defense, and he even got in a great pass on offense.  I couldn’t ask for more, and I was quite proud of him.  Best of all, he enjoyed it, and is excited for the next game.  I love that he is playing in the Y.E.S. league and that his dad is the coach.  I think this type of stuff is so good for building community, and it stretches Luke without putting him too far outside his “comfort zone.”  (By the way, Luke is number 10.  In the bottom left picture, you can see him with his hands up, open for a pass.  And in the bottom right, he is at the free throw line.)

After the game, we came home to have our snowflake party.  It was our kickoff event for a new program we are starting at church called, “Daughters of the King.”  I’m actually planning on writing a more detailed post about it for my Kingdom Civics blog because it was really simple and cute, and I think it works very well for the DotK concept.  I did a short devo on how we are like snowflakes because we are each unique and created by God.  We talked about how we all have special gifts and things like that.  And we did some snow-themed activities, like decorate snowflakes, paint snowman with “snow cream,” and made “live” snowmen with toilet paper.  We also had some fun, snow-themed food:

It was a really fun party, and a nice end to the week.  Afterward, we had to go pants shopping for Luke since he was down to just athletic pants, and after that, we ate dinner at our friends’ house.  It was a busy but fun day.  I am happy to report, though, that this week is a little calmer and quieter.  I’m enjoying the chance to get “caught up” after the busyness of last week!

Weekly Wrap-Up, Jan. 5-11

Well, this week was definitely different!  Good, though.  After three weeks of Christmas break, we were more than ready to start back to school (the kids didn’t realize they were ready, but oh—they were.  Trust me:)).  However, our school plans were a bit derailed by the “polar vortex,” which came rolling through on Sunday.  The high that day was 50…and the low was 7!  That evening, it even snowed a bit, and a very thin layer was waiting for us on Monday.

Even with the meager amount of snow, the kids were able to sled on our giant hill, and did so for most of the day, despite the arctic temps.  Seriously, it was in the single digits!  Public school was closed an extra two days (Sidenote:  I heard many complaints about the school closings on Facebook, most of which cited the much colder temps up north.  To such complaints, I say this:  We are not Alaskans; we are Tennesseans.  We are not equipped in any way for single digit temperatures.  You see those coats on my kids?  Greg went to TEN STORES on Sunday to find them.  Ten. Stores.  Wrap your mind around that.  Our Targets, for example, simply do not sell heavy coats.  And that is just one of the many signs that we are not prepared as a city for this type of weather.  Okay, back to our original programming…)

Our friends, the Bills, drove all the way from Tullahoma to spend the day with us, which was another reason we cancelled school.  And in between all the sledding, we warmed up with hot chocolate, beef and veggie stew, warm banana bread, and a toasty fire in the fireplace.  It was a good day.

The next day, however, it was back to the grindstone:

Despite the fact that there was still snow on the ground, I received hardly a complaint from my kids.  Quite the contrary:  they have been so happy to be back on a schedule, even if they haven’t articulated that happiness in words.  Their positive attitude has been wonderful—even despite the fact that I took the opportunity to announce stricter “clean before screen” rules.  I think Luke actually flourishes under rules; he is a lot like his mom in that!

Since it was the new year, and since our Geography had us starting Asia this week, I took the opportunity to have Globe Trot Scott visit us one more time to tell us about the Chinese New Year.  We read some books on the subject, and made “lucky gold coins” to put in red envelopes, like the Chinese do.  Unlike the Chinese, we wrote notes to each family member on our paper coins.

Also on Tuesday, Luke’s Snap Circuit kit came in.  I had heard great things about these, so I got them for my nephew, Jack, for Christmas.  When I saw how much both the boys loved them, I caved and ordered Luke a set, too.  The kits are so much fun, and Luke really is learning some basic principles of circuitry!

For Anna’s reader this week, we started the book, In Grandma’s Attic, which is pretty cute.  Luke, meanwhile, is working his way through Mossflower, the second book in the Redwall series.

In Science this week, we studied reptiles.  We did an experiment where we used napkins to compare reptiles’ skin to humans’ and amphibians’.  We learned that reptiles keep in water way better than amphibians and humans.  Amphibians are the worst of all at it, which is why they have to live near water.

On Wednesday, Anna started her “big girl” gymnastics class:  now that she is six years old, she graduates from the pre-rec class to the rec class.  She wasn’t looking forward to it because the pre-rec looks like a lot more fun.  By the time she got to class, though, she was ready to go…and she was sooo proud of herself the whole time.  She told me afterward that she loved feeling like a big girl!

On Thursday, we had school on the road.  Since we had all but skipped our Africa songs in Geography, I found a colorful, labeled map of Africa, and printed two copies on cardstock.  Then I laminated them, put them on clipboards, and got the kids dry-erase markers.  During our time in the car, I put all our Africa songs on a loop and had the kids mark the countries that they heard in the songs.  I figured it was a great listening activity, and it had to at least sort of familiarize them with the continent!

Our first stop was the Y.E.S. gym for P.E.  Luke worked on basketball with Greg (he has his first game next week), while Anna worked on roller skating.  We got her skates for her birthday, and one of the biggest reasons was for her to have something to do during P.E., since she has no interest in basketball.  The skates were such a hit, and she has been determined to learn to be a good skater.

I didn’t get any pictures of Luke, but he and Greg worked on dribbling, passing, and shooting.  He really is getting better, and his coordination is improving greatly!

Next, it was off to the zoo to do a Science project:  our mission was to find out if there were more species of reptiles or amphibians in their indoor exhibit.  I had made a worksheet just for that purpose, with spaces for them to tally each sub-category of vertebrate.  Then, I wrote some math problems on the back to do with their findings.  This project was a huge success!  The kids were totally into it, and both proclaimed afterward that it was very fun.  That was music to my ears.

It was also cool that we were practically the only ones in the whole zoo.  We felt like we owned the place!

Next, we drove across town and ate Chickfila for lunch, since Luke had a doctor’s appointment on that side of town.  At lunch, I read them their History for the day—a book about Michelangelo.  Anna has already decided that she loves the Renaissance because of all the nudity.  It was her kind of time period!:). 

Then, it was off to Luke’s appointment, where the kids completed their Language Arts in the waiting room.  It turned out to be a pretty successful homeschool day!

On Friday, we had another full day of school.  We continued to study Asia (hence, the puzzle), the Renaissance, adverbs, double-digit addition, accent marks on syllables, proper handwriting, and all the other stuff we do in school.  Then, we went to our friends, the Steeds, for a playdate.  We left Luke to spend the night and came back to our own overnight guest, a former-youth-grouper who was passing through on his way to Harding University.  And thus ended a wonderful week of back-to-normal-ness.  Christmas is so fun, but it’s also great to return to routines and schedules!

Anna’s 6th Birthday

One thing I do very instinctively is to make a big deal out of my kids’ birthdays.  Maybe that’s bad—maybe I spoil them too much on those days.  I honestly don’t know, but I do just feel this incredibly strong desire to celebrate them and lavish them with love on their birthdays.  I guess I want them to know that we are SOOO happy that they were born!

For their first few birthdays, we would have big parties, but in the last couple years, we’ve shifted our attention to smaller gatherings with eating out or some activity involved.  It definitely hasn’t saved us money, but it does save a lot of stress and planning.  Last year, we went to Atlanta for Anna’s birthday.  This year, we thought about getting together again with her friend, Charlotte, but decided instead to celebrate in Nashville.

We started off the day with a birthday breakfast:

I love the idea of “birthday meals” with Anna.  It’s easier to do for her than for Luke, because she likes little stuff, like stocking-stuffer-type things.  Thus, I can get lots of little presents and have her unwrap a few at each meal.

Here was her morning haul.  I got the books on sale for about $1 each!

Afterward, I cleaned her room for her (normally the bane of her existence).  While I did that, she made “an Elsa cape” (Elsa from Tangled).

For lunch, there were a few more presents:

The movie was one that she has been dying for, and I’ve been avoiding.  I thought it would be a good one to watch at her first sleepover, though.

Showing off how big and tall she is!

In the afternoon, we picked up three friends from church and then went to paint pottery (Anna’s request).

Anna had painted pottery earlier this year for a friend’s birthday and had been wanting to go back.  Luke, too, had been wanting to give it a try.  He picked a dog to paint and dutifully painted the entire thing brown.  It was apparently very important for him to be “true to life”!:).

I think Anna’s favorite part of the day was the free balloon she got at the pottery place.  Next year’s celebration will definitely involve more helium balloons!

After our pottery was painted, we went over to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  I suggested it to Anna because 1) it was right across the street from the pottery place, 2) we went last year, and she really liked it, 3) it’s fancy and pretty inside, and 4) I was thinking it might become a birthday tradition.

The girls were immediately absorbed by their cloth napkins.  They were so sure that this was the proper way to wear them:

Our crew:

Eventually, their sense of propriety wore off:

They really weren’t being as loud as they look in that picture, but after laughing at them, I did tell them to put their napkins in their laps!

While we waited for dinner, we went ahead and opened some presents.

Anna got gifts from both Gigi and Papa, and Gaga and Granddad.  Plus, she had a couple more from us, including new roller skates.

We used her cheesecake as her birthday cake.  Unfortunately, she didn’t like this one as much as last year’s.  I’m not sure The Cheesecake Factory will be a tradition, after all!

Next, it was time to head home for a little play time.

Everyone had to have a turn on the roller skates.  They were a hit!

Also a hit:  The Anna and Elsa dolls Anna got from Gaga and Granddad.

Don’t mess with this one!

Finally, we popped some popcorn and put in the Barbie movie.  The girls who stayed awake really enjoyed it, and afterwards, no one had any trouble going to sleep—including Greg and me!

It was a big day, but a fun one.  I hope my kids both know how crazy we are about them.  Happy birthday, Sweetie!