Kindergarten

Some how, it seems very huge to me, that Felicity is officially "at the table" for school with us now.  Monday marked her first official day of school!  It feels kind of funny to call it her first day of Kindergarten as we don't pay too much attention to grade labels around here, but, for the sake of journaling, that's what it is.  Felicity is now in Kindergarten.  I don't quite know how that can be!

This seemed like a bigger milestone than when Logan started his first official day.  Maybe because with Logan, I technically did homeschool preschool with him, so a bit of a routine was already in place.  But since then, my feelings towards that have changed and I like the idea of just letting kids be in those early years.  Letting them PLAY.  Besides, she has the benefit of jumping in to "do school" with her big brother whenever she feels like it.  Lately that's been more and more, which is what prompted this official start.  We plan to take October off for the birth and babymoon of this sweet one in the belly, and it made no sense to start schooling her in September, school her for a month, and then take at least a month off.  September?  That's just a date the school system uses.  Oh, its so ingrained!  :)

We started down ANOTHER new homeschooling path this week.  A path I've always wanted to try, since before I started schooling Logan, but one that I lacked confidence in.  Basically, we are doing Mama made unit studies.  Some direction, some unschooling, some paperwork, some "free" work, but all "organized" by me.  Funny how I feared my lack of ability in this area yet I pick a time where I'm throwing in the new aspect of now schooling multiple kids, while pregnant, to really finally go for it.  Well, all I can say is we've tried many roads (as you know if you follow this blog), and I'm just trying to embrace where we naturally go.  Logan is currently interested in the solar system, and of course, whatever big brother is into, the others follow.  So everyone is quite excited to be learning about the planets.  Imagine that.  We'll see how this Mama "organized" plan goes.

 It occurred to me that not only is Felicity old enough for Kindergarten, technically, Kian is old enough for preschool!  Again, how does this happen?!  But, like I said before, I really just feel like play is very important for these little ones.  They soak up so much without any effort anyways!  But he asked to "do school" so I made him up this little sensory tub so he could sit at the table with us and feel included, but still get that play in.  I didn't know how long he'd last with this and was shocked when he sat there absorbed for nearly two hours!  And he's learning right along with the big kids just by listening to what they're doing.  He knows all the planets' names and I wouldn't be surprised if he'll be able to recite them in order once this unit is done.

 I have to say, it was very sweet having them all at the table together, focused, and ENJOYING their work.

 As you can see, I have one proud Kindergartner.

And since she loves that label, we'll go with that.  :)

I'm really looking forward to schooling her.  I've felt distant from her lately.  She's a very independent one, and even when she's in need, she often won't admit it.  She's not one to seek out snuggles, for example.  Logan needs me to help him with school, and Kian needs me because he's still little, but Lissy hasn't seemed to need me for much lately, and I feel there's been a distance placed between us that I've been fighting to get back.  I think school will allow us time to fill that gap, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Pumpkin Planting Time

We just got around to planting our pumpkin seeds.  We really should have done it earlier but again.....life.....oh my.  

I had some cow pots sitting around and had saved one cardboard egg carton so we planted our seeds in those.  Since these are for the kids garden, I just let them fill their pots with as many seeds as they wanted.  I figure it'll be very gratifying for them to see lots of sprouts in their little pots.  Logan has LOVED white pumpkins since I can remember.  I mean he was a TINY guy when he saw them for the first time, and he has picked a white pumpkin over traditional orange ones each year at the pumpkin patch.  He was thrilled to find a packet of white pumpkin seeds at the store for our first home grown pumpkin patch.  We also planted traditional jack o lanterns (which I hope to use for cooking), assorted gourds, sunflowers, and holly hock.  It may be too late for the sunflowers but Felicity fell in love with the seed pack at the store because it had a princess on it.  So we're growing late sunflowers.  :)  And Zac loves holly hock and always wants to grow them but for some reason we've never had luck so we're trying again for him.  We're very excited about the gourds!  We grew wonderful ones last year and the kids were so excited and then I accidentally broke the vine at its base while weeding so we never got to enjoy them.  I can't wait for all these kid centered garden fascinations to sprout and grow!

And I have a quick request.  I'm sitting at home these days, too nervous to venture out too far as I await what is to come, so I thought I'd get started on some crafting goals I've put off.  My main one is Felicity's Waldorf doll for her 4th birthday in September.  I have a book, Making Waldorf Dolls by Maricristin Sealey, and have been reading it.  Now I need to buy my wool and other needed materials.  I will purchase all online, I assume, as I don't think anything I need is sold locally.  If you make Waldorf dolls, I'd appreciate any links to where you buy your materials online, and any tips.

Thanks!

Polenta Play

Texture play is always a hit around here.  It makes a big mess, but I don't mind messes (which you know if you've ever visited our house) and the vacuum can suck it all up super fast so the time spent in play is well worth the quick clean up.

Kian prefers to scoop and dump, making the biggest mess of the 3.

Felicity usually makes little worlds in her broiling pan.  She sets up animals on little hills.

And my car/truck obsessed boy usually makes his broiling pan into a mini construction site.

The texture of choice is always just something we have on hand.  On this day it was polenta and baby rice cereal.  I'd just cleaned out my pantry.  The polenta was outdated, and the rice cereal....well, Kian's WAY too old for it and we honestly never really used it.  We've been known to use salt, flour, powdered sugar, shaving cream, hair mousse, and water for our texture play times.  I've been wanting to set up a tub of beans for them to play in, but Kian still has straight to the mouth tendencies (if you know what I mean) so I think that will have to wait a bit longer.

On this particular day, the kids were extra busy so I buried treasures in each of their pans for added interest.  The older two were told how many buried objects they were to find and that kept them busy for a while.  Once the objects were found, then they went on to their imaginary play with their texture pans.  Kian just got excited when he randomly found new treasures while playing and pouring.

Multitasking and Finding a Rhythm

In September, when we started homeschooling, we had such a nice rhythm and schedule.  Kian took two naps a day, his first at 10am.  From the time the kids woke in the morning until Kian's first nap, we would eat breakfast, do chores, and play.  Once Kian went down, I schooled Logan (K) and Felicity (pre-K) together in the playroom.  Kian would normally sleep for two hours giving us plenty of time to accomplish all the school stuff I wanted to each day....singing songs, paperwork, crafts, reading, etc.  We could move at such a relaxed pace.  However, as the school year went on, Kian napped less in the mornings.  Our morning school time got shorter and shorter.  I started doing the crafts, songs, and more informal things in the morning with Lissy and Logan, and then schooling Logan on the more formal stuff in the afternoon when Kian and Lissy napped.  I didn't love this plan as that afternoon nap time was usually my time to get things done or just rest, but I had to fit in school so that's what we did.  Later in the Fall, my thyroid crashed and so did I.  School became hit or miss.  Thank goodness Kindergarten is a freebie year.  I hated not having a schedule but I was in survival mode.  During this time I discovered and embraced "Unschooling" by using teachable moments and child led learning to accomplish school.  We stopped singing our daily songs, and less boring paperwork was done, but often just going into the yard produced lessons that I just ran with.  The holidays came and with them, a break from school.  By the time the holidays were over, my thyroid was better and I was finally on meds that were helping.  However, by this time, Kian had now stopped napping completely in the mornings.  Every time I'd try to implement a schedule, someone would get sick.  For the whole month of January, there was always someone sick.  Again, I relied on the more informal Unschooling when the moments presented themselves.  And here we are in February.  This month I am learning to let go of my rest time in the afternoons and utilize that time for school.  Some days I need a break so I've learned to set Logan up with an independent project next to me as I sew.  This seems to work well.  I'm also learning to include Kian in things such as clay play, while at the same time making sure to incorporate Logan's school curriculum into the clay play.  I think we will still be learning balance this month but hopefully by March we will have figured out some sort of rhythm that we can start sticking to.  In the mean time, I'm working on scheduling our days to be the most productive as possible while meeting everyone's needs.  If there's one thing I've learned about homeschooling so far, its that you have to be willing to go with the flow when needed, and you must be willing to change.  That's the beauty of homeschool though.  Life changes and when homeschooling, you can just change the schooling to match your new phase of life.  Bring it on. I think I'm ready.  :)

Here's Logan making letters in a tray of salt at the end of my material yardage I was working with.

And while I sewed on that yardage, he worked next to me putting his letter cards in alphabetical order.

We're learning.

Lots of heart crafting

The kids and I made some Valentines the other day.  I can't post them here yet as they will be going to family who follow this blog.  :)  But that got the kids going on hearts and they've been crafting hearts like crazy. 

Felicity and I made last minute (because I forgot) handmade Valentines for her Cubbies Valentine party.  I cut hearts from card stock while she watercolored.  Once the watercolors were dry, I cut those into smaller hearts.  All hearts were hole punched.  With curling ribbon I tied a card stock heart and a watercolor heart together and curled the ribbon.  I added a Valentine message and she "signed" her Valentines by making thumbprint hearts on each one.  I also punched a butterfly shape into each watercolored heart since Felicity LOVES butterflies.  I was bummed that I'd forgotten her party and that these were simply thrown together at the last minute but when I was later going through her goody bag and throwing out junky Barbie (hate her) and super hero printed papers, I felt a lot better about our handmade creations.  Call me old school, but I'd take handmade anything, any day, over the same store bought stuff everyone else has.

I'm a saver of fabric.  I save the smallest scraps, and even stuff that I KNOW is totally trash, I have a hard time throwing out.  I did a lot of cutting the other night (for a project I'm really excited to complete and share) and I had LOTS of scraps in my throw out pile.  I suddenly had a wonderful idea and pulled them out of the trash pile.  I made a pile on the kitchen table, cut large hearts for the kids, dribbled glue all over the hearts and they set to work putting fabric scraps all over their hearts.  When they needed more layers, they haphazardly dribbled more glue all over and continued piling on fabric.  Once they were dry (which took a LONG time), I cut the excess fabric off that hung over the edges, revealing a heart shape.

Hmmmmm....glue tastes interesting.

On a night Zac was working late, I was bathing the baby after dinner and Logan and Felicity wanted to paint.  I told them they'd have to wait until I was finished bathing Kian.  A few minutes later, Logan came running in so proud of himself.  He had set up the dinning room table full of paints and supplies!  All I had to do was cut two huge hearts and they set to work painting.  They also added more fabric to their painted hearts, along with linguine noodles.

This is the kind of mess I don't mind at all.

Mixed medium hearts

Lissy's painted heart

And lastly, we simply used their old artwork to cut hearts from.  I folded the paper and drew a half heart for Logan and was THRILLED when he cut it perfectly!  Normally, his cutting is haphazard as he lacks patience to do slow steady cuts.  I was so excited to see this growth.  Felicity still has a hard time cutting on the line so when we do cutting work that needs to be specific, she sits on my lap and we cut together, my hand on top of hers on the scissors.

We have hearts on windows, hearts on bedroom walls, and secret Valentine hearts hidden away for Monday.  I'm not usually one to really get into Valentine's day, but I have to admit, the kids' excitement is starting to rub off on me pretty good.  :)

The Curiosity of Clay

We recently introduced Kian to clay.  I think he felt pretty big being up at the table with Logan and Felicity experimenting with this new medium.

I wanted to use the clay as a handwriting tool for Logan.  I showed him how to make four balls, turn them into four snakes, and then use the snakes to form a W.  Here he is working on the balls and snakes.

He got this far and froze.  This is a problem he's been having lately.  I made a W myself, step by step, to show him how to do it.  Then we made one together.  Next I asked him to do one on his own but again, he froze.  I have been very frustrated with this freezing thing lately and don't know what to do.  If I try to help, we both get frustrated.  This day, I just decided to walk away when both our frustration was rising.  I was hoping some space and independence would help him.

In the mean time, I heard Felicity excitedly yelling "U, U, U!"  I turned around to see that she had in fact made a whole collection of U's (our letter from a few weeks ago).  I know the picture below isn't that great, but I just had to include it because her proud face is just too cute.

And sure enough, some time alone to calm down and try MANY times helped Logan successfully make a W!

He even went on to voluntarily make some review letters so I'm hoping that meant he wasn't too frustrated after all.

And of course, boys will be boys, and some stabbing of clay was done.

Lissy later came back to the clay and wanted to practice cutting it.  This worked great for her since paper is still hard for her to control while manipulating the scissors.  Look at her face of concentration!  Love it.



A sick girl, a frustrated mama, paints, and a kitchen garden

Last week, Felicity was sick.  Poor girl lost her voice and in a whisper, prayed to God about the frog that ate her (she got a little confused with the "frog in your throat" expression).  I set Felicity up on the couch and was trying to think of something for the boys to keep busy with so she could have some space.  Logan suggested paints, which I thought was a great idea.  But as soon as Felicity heard that the boys were painting, she whispered that she was "all betta (better) now" and joined them at the table.

Yes, Logan is wearing two hats....backwards.  Whatev.

I love Felicity's left hand held in a fist of concentration.

Handwriting has been an area of frustration lately and I've been trying to encourage it through different medias so I had Logan paint some W's, our letter of the week.

I gave Kian water, a paintbrush, and construction paper, and showed him how to dip the brush into the water and "paint."  He was excited to see the wet marks on his paper and for a while he so very carefully dipped and painted.  I was so proud.

But he is, however, a one year old boy and the delicate concentration soon turned to experimentation.  First he tasted his paint brush......

....then he dumped his water out and sloshed his hands around in the puddle.....

....and finally he drank the remaining drops.  I was so proud.  :)

He tired of painting once his water was gone so he wondered off to the play room to have some alone time with his toys.

Due to a busy week that kept Zac away too late on too many nights, and a sickness that is still moving through our house, I was pretty drained and frustrated this day.  I decided it would be good to get outside once the painting was over, since Felicity was feeling "betta." 

I took some frustration out on my kitchen garden which is now bare of anything productive.  It was once grass, which we tore out to make room for the garden and each spring we battle away at the grass weeds that try to constantly take the area back over.  Kian and Logan helped by picking up my uprooted grass clods and making a pile in the center of the garden for me.  Kian just kills me with his chub.  We poke and rub his fluffy soft belly all the time so when he gets free from a shirt, he too will rub his belly.  :)

Logan was thrilled to find worms as I dug up the grass weeds.  We made a nice clearing in the corner and I'd holler each time I unearthed a worm and he'd come and transport the little guy to our "worm pile" in the corner.  He later found a slug so I used the opportunity to discuss the differences between slugs and worms and how one is useful in a garden, and one is not.  He was very interested in that and I think I may expand on it and turn it into more science lessons.

Here's a view of our kitchen garden after I worked off some frustration.  Before this morning, most of the fenced area was all grass weeds.  So I was happy with that morning's progress.  It's just a small kitchen garden, but it works.  And though on that day it wasn't producing anything for our kitchen, it sure did relieve my frustration.