Lapbooks!

Something I've started adding into our homeschooling routine, and will definitely do more of next year, is lapbooking.  It's a fun break from more monotonous activities, and it's something my 6th grader and kindergartner can do together (of course, I expect significantly more detail and depth from the 6th grader!)

The first lapbook we did was a volcano/Pompeii unit (Pompeii focus for my oldest, because it was her interest in the historical event that prompted me to do the unit).  Since this was our first time, I kept it very basic; we read some books, watched some videos, put a simple lapbook together, and then made our own volcanoes!  I also had my 6th grader read City on Fire: A Novel of Pompeii and write a book report.

"Erupting" our volcanoes!

Oldest painting her volcano.

The printouts I found through Pinterest searches, and the volcano kits I purchased through Amazon. 

We just started on a butterfly life cycle lapbook.  We ordered a live butterfly kit so we can watch them go through their life cycle.  We started a nature journal where we're keeping observations, and we're reading books and starting to put our lapbooks together.  I found this resource particularly helpful! 

I was a little intimidated by the idea of lapbooking at first, but thanks to so many wonderful (and free!) resources around the internet, it wound up being a lot easier than I had anticipated.

Do you lapbook?  Share your favorite resources or units!

Homesteading and homeschooling

Homesteading and homeschooling both used major focuses of my blog, and I have questions about both pop up now and again, so I thought I'd go ahead and address them (I don't think I really have in the past!)

Homesteading-  Well, I am still very interested in this.  I would absolutely love to have a family farm and live off the land as much as possible.  However, it is a lot of work.  Even just enough livestock and produce for our family is a good amount of hard work, and it's more than I can handle on my own.  My husband, however, is enjoys the fruits of the labor (ie, food!) but is not at all interested in labor aspect.  I don't say that as a dig on him, he just does not want to do it, and he's honest about it.  He was sick of living outside of town ("town" being a small town with a population of about 5K), and while I could have pushed him into moving farther out into the country and getting livestock and such, I didn't feel it was fair to either of us when he had clearly stated he didn't want to.  And, as I'm not able to do the "heavy lifting" work and the children can only contribute in a very limited way, it was not feasible to take on a family farm effectively on my own.  Furthermore, it was just not a financial reality.  The only homes available with a few acres of land in our price range were either very small or run down, and we don't have the know-how or inclination to remodel and such on our own. So, it's a dream that will go on the back-burner, and I'm okay with that.  I do hope one day that it's something we can do, but we will see.  I have enough space here for some veggies, and I'd like to look in to the legality of having a few laying hens (I could get a "tractor" coop to move around the yard for them). 

Homeschooling- I am not currently homeschooling any of the children, which feels strange after three years of homeschooling my oldest!  She really wanted to go to public school, and as dh and I are both adamant that junior high is out of the question, fourth and fifth grade were her last chances.  While I wish it were more academically rigorous (ie, classical!) it is a very nice school.  Small, rural, with none of the liberal PC junk infecting many larger schools.  It's the school that our 6 year old with special needs has been attending since preK (it houses the developmental pre-school for our area), so we're very familiar with it.  She's doing well and enjoys going, so she will go again next year for fifth grade, and we will be homeschooling again for junior high.  After that, we will re-evaluate based on her needs (for example, if she's certain she wants to attend a 4 year college, it's imperative that she be able to take full advantage of all available scholarships.  In that case, we would probably send her to high school, at least for 11th and 12th grade).  I don't enjoy doing pre-school, so I've always sent the kids out for it, and our 3 (almost 4!) year old attends a Christian pre-school.  She's enjoyed this year and has a lot of fun, but I think I will homeschool her next year.  Frankly, it's a lot of money for what's effectively a playgroup (which is not a criticism of the school, it's lovely!  But pre-school in general is really more about learning to get along with other kids and preparing  for how public school is structured than anything) and because of the time difference between her school and the other girls' (they start at 8, she starts at 9) it's a lot of back and forth driving that's inconvenient.  For now, I plan I homeschooling her from next year on, but I do admit I feel a fair amount of conflict about it.  As I said, we really like the local elementary school, and I go back and forth on whether or not they're "missing out" if they don't go.  If I'm honest, the turning point for me with my oldest was when we went to dd2's Christmas program.  She just looked very wistful and sad and said a few times that she really wished she could be up there with the other kids.  It probably sounds silly, since in the scope of things it's such a small thing to "miss out" on, but I guess in the moment it was kind of one of those "knife in the heart" things where I really questioned if I was doing the right thing but not allowing her to go when she earnestly wanted to. 

At any rate, dd2 repeated kindergarten this year, and after starting on Strattera for her ADHD, she really made significant academic progress.  She won't be held back again (the school system only allows a child to be held back twice K-12) but even with the progress she's made, she's still significantly behind her peers.  So I believe she will spend much of her time in the resource room with the special education teacher next year, and I'm okay with that.  I personally don't feel it's fair or reasonable to make her sit in the classroom while they learn things that are beyond her current abilities.  It just makes her frustrated and bored.  Much of the focus in 1st grade is on learning to read, and as she's nearly blind, I would much rather have her in the resource room getting one on one attention and instruction with Braille readiness than listening to other kids learning to read when she's not even able to distinguish most letters of the alphabet (even when significantly enlarged and contrasting colors are used, there are only a couple letters she can identify).  At this point I'm pretty confident that she will continue at this school until she's ready for junior high, and then she will board down at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  I would like to get her in sooner, but I just feel like before that she's not going to be emotionally ready to be separated from us all week, and I want her self-help skills strong enough that she doesn't need to rely heavily on the people there for help with her personal hygiene.

I think that about sums it up for now!  I hope that helps clear up any questions.

Well, I said a couple posts ago that I had decided to go ahead and homeschool dd2 (who's visually impaired and developmentally disabled) next year.  Then I had the IEP meeting with the school and totally changed my mind (I'm allowed to do that, right?)  They have so many great resources available for her, I think it will be good for her.  We live in a rural area where there are a lot of homeschoolers, so they were supportive and made it clear I could send her as much or as little as I want and still get services.  But the problem is, when you have a child that will need services from so many different people (OT, PT, speech, special ed, instructor for the blind, etc), who are only available certain times, it gets really difficult to set up a say, half and half schedule that gets her everything she needs.  So I felt like it would be easiest to start out sending her full time, and then go from there.  I can always reduce it if she's not tolerating it well.  But, she really loves school and I think that after an adjustment period, she'll do well.  Plus, the Kindergarten is right across from her current developmental Pre-K, so the Kindergarten teacher said she can go over and see her old teacher if she needs to. 

At any rate, the representative for the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired was there. She said that based on their evaluation Riley will need to be a braille reader.  So her IEP for next year includes Braille readiness.  I also asked to have them set up a mobility evaluation to determine if she would benefit from a cane (I think she would).  My long term goal is to have her at the ISBVI full-time, but right now it's an hour and a half away from where we live.  It's not imperative right now, but I'd really like her there by 2nd or 3rd grade.  As great as the people at our local school are, it's not the same as being down at the ISBVI and having all their amazing resources available.

It's a bit of a relief too, because honestly I was already stressing out about juggling everything and having a newborn.  Riley needs so much help and adaptation in her learning that I was worried about being able to handle it all.  It'll be hard for me to send her off, but I think it will be good for her.

Homeschool Science Fair

Bailey had her first science fair on Thursday! Her project was "The Life of a Star," she did great and we were so proud of her! It was our homeschool co-op's very first science fair, too. I was so impressed with all the kids, they all did such a great job.

Yikes, I guess it's been a few weeks since I updated!

I'm doing well, coming into my 7th week of pregnancy. So far, so good! I have an OB appointment on the 31st and I'm hoping she'll do an ultrasound. I haven't had any signs of ectopic pregnancy this time around,but I'd like to know for sure the baby is where s/he should be! I feel pretty good, I've gained a little over a pound already because I'm ravenous all the time, some fatigue, a little nausea, but no sickness (never had any sickness with any of my pregnancies, knock on wood!)

Yesterday our 4 year old started her second year of developmental pre-school, she's very happy to be back. My big 2nd grader also started school with me. She's probably a little less enthused, but I don't take it personally :) She had fun today, though, we did a back yard archaeological dig that she got a kick out of!

And, FINALLY got our 17 month old into her own room! It's kind of bare right now, I still need to paint it, clean the carpets, and get her a dresser, but she's got a bed and toys so she's happy. And so am I!

Last school year we took an impromptu "field trip" to a local park that also has a small, but very nice, zoo (this is where I snapped this shot of the eagle).

When we would stop to look at the animals, I would read the sign with all the information on that animal out loud, and then ask my daughter questions- what do you think this animal eats, what is its habitat like, etc.

Continue reading at The Homeschool Classroom...

My 3 year old (who will be 4 next month!!) had her last day of developmental pre-school today. I've been talking to her about it for the last couple of days, but I don't really think she understands that school is out for the summer. I expect a mighty temper-tantrum on Monday! She's going to be heartbroken, she absolutely loves school. She loves her bus driver, too, today she was talking about how she was "gonna see my J(bus drivers first initial)" and "I want to sit her lap and drive!" She loves the bus, too bad it's literally about a minute drive to school from our house! She'll be going through another year of developmental pre-school next year. I'm not sure where we'll go from there, but I anticipate that I'll be sending her to Kindergarten there as well. School has been extremely beneficial for her with her disabilities, I don't want to deprive her of that even though it's not terribly convenient for me.

Dd1 did her last 2 math pages today, so she only has 3 lessons left in her spelling book and then we will be done done DONE! I'm going to have her do some addition and subtraction flash cards a few times a week to try and get those basic facts down, and of course we'll continue our weekly library trips. I think we'll just "decompress" next week and then pick up our normal summer activities (lots of hiking and park visits and such!) I had a couple ladies from our co-op who wanted to get together for playdates this summer, too, so I need to set those up at some point.

I've been getting statements from my insurance and I'm trying not to panic (which isn't working, I've already got a huge fever blister on my lip from stress). All told it looks like my share is going to be around 2K (my insurance pays 90%!). Yikes. I've only received one actually bill for around $435 dollars and they told me I had 6 months to pay it or it would go to collections! Geeze! That's 70 bucks a month. I hope the rest of them will go easier on me. If we can make it to tax season I'll be able to pay it all off (though there goes basically our entire return...) It's just a tough time, we're on a very tight budget as we're working to get our debts paid off, there isn't much extra. If we can swing it it will be worth it though in 2.5 years when we have an extra 6 or 700 dollars a month and the only debt we'll have are student loans and the mortgage.

We're having Mass said for the baby we lost on the 14th. Father said we can name the baby if we'd like or he'll just refer to it as "baby Huber." I have a hard time thinking of naming the baby. I didn't know what the sex was and I have zero intuition on that. Dh and I have talked about a gender neutral name but nothing has stuck out yet. It's hard to not want to go and get pregnant right away, too. I know intellectually it won't replace the baby we lost, but emotionally I just don't feel right. I should be pregnant and I'm not and it's weird. But, it's not a good time financially (see above!) and I need time to heal emotionally.

A look back

Well, we only 4 more weeks of school left! Our math and spelling books will run a bit past that (which is fine, because those will take me to the 180 days I need to fulfill our state's homeschooling requirement). I have to say that although this first year of homeschooling hasn't been perfect, it's gone much more smoothly than I anticipated. I'm glad we decided to do it and I'm looking forward to next year! Since this was our first year (and dd1 is only in first grade) I wanted to keep it pretty simple. Next year we'll ramp it up some and we're starting Latin (I plan to move more and more to a classical educational approach).

I've really enjoyed our co-op, too. Although it's a bit stressful with the little ones, especially dd2 who has cerebral palsy, it's definitely been worth it. (Stupidly I went and signed up to be publicist for our co-op AND even offered to consider teaching early American history next year. Eep!)

I had a proud homeschooling moment yesterday, too. During dd1's art class at our co-op she did a water color painting of a trap-door spider! We've been talking about insects and bugs for science this week and last week, so I was so excited to see that she chose to do that all on her own! Sometimes it seems like she's not paying much attention, but apparently it sinks in! When she was in Kindergarten at Catholic school, her teacher had remarked along those lines to me, that Bailey would seem not to be listening but always knew just what was going on when she would ask her. Anyway, here's her painting!

Fall is in the air...

After what seemed like a never ending summer of oppressive heat and humidity, it's finally autumn! And with autumn comes one of my favorite activities- the nature walk! Of course, we spend plenty of time outside the rest of the year, but autumn is the best time for this- great weather, lots of beautiful colors, and no (well almost no) bugs! Not only is it one of our favorite weekend family activities, it also blends perfectly with homeschooling.

Read the rest of my article here at The Homeschool Classroom!

But you live right next to a school!

After our first child was born, I came across homeschoolers of all stripes in real life as well as on the internet (including my sister-in-law), and it piqued my interest. I had attended public school, and while it wasn't traumatizing, I also wasn't eager to share the experience with my own children. While I have a great respect for teachers, the education offered by our local school system was not one I was impressed by, and so as my daughter approached school age, I assumed we would homeschool...

Read the rest here at The Homeschool Classroom!

School days, school days...

We started school on Monday. I almost put it off because the two littlest ones kept me up most of the night so we got a very late start to the day, but we decided to persevere, and it was worth it! The day went very smoothly and Bailey was terribly excited. Her cursive writing book had arrived in the mail earlier that day, which she noted was "very lucky!"

Today was a little rockier, Riley has been in "a mood" (for the last month...) and was being quite the distraction. She didn't want to sit at the table with us and color, but she also didn't want to play in her room. I read short board books to her after discussing subject topics with Bailey and instructing her on what to do.

One problem we've had is that I realized her Kindergarten teacher never taught her to hold a pencil properly. She initially was attempting to write using her middle finger instead of her pointer finger (which is not nearly as dexterous and can cause quite a cramp). So, we're working on that, and I'm a little embarrassed I never noticed it before! She had a lot of fun today and was sad when "school" was over!

I also made some delicious zucchini relish and it seems I successfully canned it! It came out very pretty and yummy, and gave me back some of the confidence I lost with my pickles. I've been mixing it with tuna and piling it onto sandwiches with tomatoes fresh out of the garden...mmmm! So delicious! I also realized I made a big mistake with my pickles- I attempted to pickle plain ol' cucumbers, which is apparently a Bad Idea. Next year, I'll make sure to plant pickling cucumbers, which are bred specifically for, well, pickling. My peaches are nowhere near ripe, but when they're ready, I'm looking forward to doing up some peach jam! I'm also contemplating taking the kids to a pick your own apple orchard and making a vat of apple butter, one of my favorite fall treats. If we can keep from devouring all this delicious food, I plan on giving some of these home-canned goods as gifts this Christmas!

Things here have been very busy! My husband has had the week off for vacation. It's also World Breastfeeding Week, and so Monday and Tuesday I worked the LLL booth at our local WIC office's celebration. The 3rd our oldest daughter turned 7! I can't believe she's grown so fast, it seems like just days ago she was a tiny baby!

Sadly, my husband learned on Tuesday that 2 friends he worked with, Will and Josh, were killed in a car accident. He was particularly friendly with Will, who always sent him home with Jolly Ranchers to give to our little ones. Please pray for them.

Bailey is so excited for school, I think we'll go ahead and start the 11th instead of the 29th. It's so nice to see her so eager to get started.

Summer days, drifting away...

Someone remarked to me recently that you know you're an adult when your summers and weekends are just as busy as the rest of the year, and it's true! I can't believe August is here already, the summer is just flying by. The only disappointing thing is that it's been so humid we haven't gotten out to the park much. The older two can handle it for a bit but the baby just has no tolerance for 90 degree heat with suffocating humidity. I'm looking forward to fall when it will cool down and we can get to some serious hiking and nature walks!

My garden is chugging along, though I've been perfectly awful about weeding it. It looks terrible but it produces! My neighbor is a much more experienced gardener than I, so hers is lovely, which is a bit embarrassing, but oh well! Today I picked off some cherry tomatoes that had ripened and found a very odd one. I think it looks like a fetus, ha! Around 5-6 weeks gestation, I'd say.




I've got zucchini coming out my ears, as usual! Good thing I planted 2 packages of seeds, one bunch died after produces a dozen or so squash and 2 others are struggling (the weeds, maybe? They also ended up too close to each other, I should probably remove the smaller one). So we've had "fried" (baked) zucchini and I toss it into whatever I can- it was marvelous in a pork and veggie roast, and I also added to my favorite lentil and dumpling soup.


Next up- zucchini relish! Which I will attempt to can...hopefully it won't go the way of my shoddy attempt at pickles!


I also picked up the remainder of Bailey's school supplies, as well as a plastic cart with drawers to store all of our schooling supplies in. Thankfully I found one that was just perfect for my smallish kitchen!





And my mother graciously offered to buy the last few books we needed, so those are on their way. If they arrive soon, we may just go ahead and start school early, perhaps the week of the 18th instead of the 25th. This coming week will be very busy and the 11th we've got a round of dentist appointments.

Our Curricula

I realized yesterday that it's the middle of July and I haven't really planned our school year. Oh my. Well, luckily I'm mostly using Catholic Heritage Curricula, which includes premade lesson plans. I thought that would be nice for the first year or two as I get used to homeschooling and build up my confidence. We're also going to do some work with Prima Latina and Story of the World (if I can ever snag the activity book cheap off ebay). I also bought a planner to schedule in breaks and vacations. At the moment, I have us starting the last week of August and ending in the middle of May, which sounds about right. I actually wanted to start the first week of September, but Bailey thought that was a terrible idea and wanted to start ASAP, so we compromised.

The 2008-2009 school year will be our first year homeschooling. I had always wanted to homeschool, from the time Bailey was just a wee lil' lass, but my husband was never very keen on the idea. When we began our conversion process he was very insistent on enrolling her in the nearest Catholic school for pre-school (20 minutes away!! In another county!!) But since I have a tendency to hog the pants in the family, I decided to acquiesce to request in support of him actually making a decision for once. She attended 2 years of pre-K and Kindergarten there, and while we liked the school, it just made no financial sense to continue. Tuition was $205 a month, and driving that far twice a day added another $200 or so just in gas. Plus uniform fees, lunches, and all the extra things that cropped up. I can't believe we actually managed to send her that long, when we only make around 28K a year! We live right next to an elementary school (quite literally, it's like a 2 minute walk), but neither of us are comfortable with public school for a variety of reasons (like the total disregard for parental rights). So YAY my husband agrees to give homeschooling a chance, thanks in large part to finding a great Catholic homeschool group.

Mostly I'm excited and confident, but it's peppered with moments of absolute terror! (I tend to be anxious and high-strung, have you noticed?) Will I give her too much work, or not enough? Too hard or too easy? Will she be a socially inept pariah or will she crack under the strain of so many extracurricular activities?

*breathe*

I'm sure we'll be fine. Right?

CHILD Co-op

In preparation for our foray into homeschooling for the 08-09 school year, I started attending the local Catholic homeschool group (CHILD- Catholic Homeschoolers in the Lafayette Diocese). I'm always nervous in new groups, especially Catholic groups. I'm a new convert, I'm young, I'm working-class, I have visible tatoos...

But they're a really great group of women, very friendly and welcoming. The monthly meeting is a support type event for the moms to discuss curriculum (curricula?) and various other aspects of homeschooling. They're starting a co-op for the upcoming school year, so Wednesday we met for that. I'm excited about it! Right now the plan is to meet every other week for 3 hours. So far we are for sure offering conversational Spanish (taught by two native speakers), art, drama, and music. And for middle school age some type of lit analysis taught by a mother who is pursuing her PhD in the subject. We'll also have a nursery and pre-K activities. Thankfully we were all in agreement that there should not be a potty trained requirement for the pre-K group (we'll just have the moms come change diapers if they're little one neeeds), so I can put dd2 there. Because of her delays I'm not sure how it will go but the mom who's in charge had made a point to say we shouldn't feel bound by the grades and should feel free to put our kids wherever we thought they'd do well. So dd1 will be 1st grade but can probably do some of the 2nd-4th grade classes since she's pretty bright, and dd2 can go between the nursery and pre-k depending on how she does and what exactly pre-k is doing. The nursery is going to be packed, we realized we have about 20 kids nursery age!

I'm sure by the time we start we'll have much more. Dh was relieved when I found the group, he's been unsure about homeschooling largely because he was concerned dd1 wouldn't get enough socialization.