Everyone is sick!

Well, we all have some sort of bug and everyone is miserable!

Where oh where is my little boy?

It hit me the other day when I looked at Alec...really looked at him. He's really growing up fast! I can't believe he is 7! My favorite number. So many things, this age brings. He is really growing and developing in all areas of his life. He is not the shy little boy anymore! No sir, he will now answer when an adult talks to him! Big steps! He's been really taking off in reading! He sat and read me several "reader" books today and was so proud of himself. It's just clicking for him! He's one of the top guys in his hockey team and I'm impressed when I watch him and his "skills" on skates! We went ice skating and gulp it's finally happened...my kid can skate faster than me! I think, the only reason he learned to skate was to whip me in a race! Oh and to eat,sleep and drink hockey! If he could play hockey all day life would be good for him! He has also turned into a cunning little comedian and sneak! After, I announced to the kids we were going to head down to the schoolroom in a few minutes so let's clean up our lunch mess he came over to me. He promptly told me he thought he would like to go clean his room..not just a little, but really clean his room.He was going to get it cleaner than he had ever done before...hmmmm do I smell a rat? Nice try Alec! I smiled and said that's great...right after we finish school! Mister funnypants has been trying to pull one over on me every day now....I have no idea where he gets it! :) I am really proud of him!

Makin' Mom Happy!

Nothing makes me happier than when my little ones are loving each other up! I hope my children grow up to be best friends with each other. Here my "middles" are lovin' each other up at one of our favorite restaurants in town "The Pasta Shop."

Nick learned to ice skate

Nickolaus began ice skating lessons and is doing rather well. He can ice skate around and is the best in his group..I'm not just saying that...the other two can't even stand on their skates and Nick can skate and skate and skate! I'm so proud of him! He really likes to make ice angels...taking after a certain big sister I suppose!

Our Nature walk

We were having a hard day doing school work one day last week, so we decided to move it outdoors. Well, the kids thought it would be fun to dress up as "fall." So, we went frolicking down the street to the local university's large "playground." Everybody in their car's kept looking at us smiling...I'll admit I was a tad bit embarrassed, but hey at least they're cute! They had fun rolling down the hill...again more stares....but my kids were having fun!

the last ones...

And even more...

And some more...

Our Schoolroom

Here are pic's of our schoolroom in all it's glory!

Sorry for the lack of posts...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I had my three remaining wisdom teeth removed and ended up with a dry socket and talk about pain!! Wayne was a wonderful help throughout! He did some of the laundry,dishes twice, cooked meals (we won't talk about the scratches on the bottom of my fav cooking pan!) and helped with the kids! My mouth is still in heaps of pain, but I go tom. to get the medicated gauze strips replaced and that should help. I will post a pic of my giant teeth later!

Alec's Math

We have been focusing alot on Alec's math this week. Here is a page from his Main Lesson Book showing the Four Process Gnomes, Plus, Minus, Times, and Divide. He is really enjoying working with the gems for addition and subtraction.

Elysa and Mom

Dad took the older two boys golfing and I got to spend some time with just Elysa. I did some schoolwork with her and then we left to pick up our items from our buying club and that little girl talked the whole way!! She read some words on signs! We were passing Teal lake and I asked her why she thought they called it Teal lake and she kinda said in a are you joking way..."Because it's not blue." Boy, did she make me feel stupid! She has such an unusual way of seeing what goes on around her and what she takes in. The somewhat scary part is that I totally get where she's coming from! I remember myself at that age and it is like a mirror of me!! Some things she says that are somewhat abstract and loopy about what is going on....I totally get it because I had similar things I thought and it makes sense to me now! How she interprets things that happen amazes and amuses me! She has a very vivid imagination and is quite creative! Although, for the record, I never had an imaginary sister.....who smokes! I really enjoyed spending time with her. She helped me make delicious French Onion soup and do the dishes! We bought some raw honey comb at our food co-op and greatly enjoyed that! Elysa is more open to try new things and eats much healthier than her brothers. We start the day with warm oatmeal with apples and cinnamon and the boys have peanut butter on toast. For lunch she'll eat whatever I make...not the boys they have to have their special requests! She is much easier to cook for and loves to cook! I think I may pull down my French cookbook and give her a few lessons.....pretty soon I'll have my own chef!

Someone found a strawberry!

The advantage of being a baby is all of the wonderful goodies you find on the floor! The kids had a picnic on the back deck for lunch...since we were already their doing school it just made sense! Well, William must have "found" a strawberry off of one of the kid's plates and enjoyed it immensely. As you can see, from the smile on his face and the bit on his lip! And yes, babies in our house go nakey on 70some degree days!

Archeology!

While making the "Ice Age" I threw some British soldier plastic guys, a monkey and a dinosaur into a pan with water and froze them. Today, we had a little Archeology expedition and the kids got their equipment and uncovered some ancient fossils and weapons........okay that's what was in the paragraph about what Archaeologists uncovered....ours were a bit different! Again, score for mom...the kids LOVED it! Alec keeps putting more water on them after he uncovers them and then freezes it again to do it over! I am getting a bit nervous about the flood and what we're going to do there!

Ice Age!

We use a mainly holistic eclectic approach to our homeschooling and base alot of our curriculum on Waldorf principles. In Waldorf, in the early grades, they don't focus on History and Science as facts and wait until they are older to present these subjects to the children. When they will fully understand the concepts. In Waldorf, History is presented through a Social Studies aspect using folk and fairy tales from all different cultures and celebrations from those cultures. Science is presented through stories and observation. I, on the other hand, greatly enjoy History and Science and Alec really enjoys these subjects so I present them in a way I think they will understand...or at least somewhat! I would like to delve into Ancient Civilizations and really learn about those using Sonlight Core 1 & 2 books. I thought it best we give a brief overview of Creation from a Biblical aspect and we went over the Adam and Eve story and how God created the world. It brought up alot of conversation about our St. Michael story earlier in the week! I showed several different pictures of Adam and Eve and even gave them a puzzle of the two to work on while I read to them. I pointed out the differences in each Adam and Eve and then brought out a Smithsonian magazine and another book that had "cavemen" in and pointed out how everyone has a different interpretation of the two and how they looked. I noted that we weren't there so we don't know how they looked. This made great sense to them. We talked about the Garden of Eden and sin....it was a great moral lesson if nothing else! Elysa pointed out that bad guys, namely the college kid who mooned my family as we were going out to eat!!,went to live with Lucifer because you have to keep your body covered! Hence the fig leaves! We talked about how they wandered and gathered and then read some about the Ice Age....brainstorm for mom...I ran upstairs and emptied out the ice maker in the freezer into a pan, threw in some army guys...not exactly cave men, but they worked, and some dinosaurs and walla...Ice Age in our school room! We read some more and got into the Archeology part and stopped. The kids had a blast playing with it until it melted everywhere!

More Math

Alec and I had another math lesson. I made up a story about Plus and Minus and some games they played and we worked on some addition and subtraction problems. We worked on single digit's up to twelve. He had done all of this last year and this was just a fun review for him. He was working on 6 plus 6 and he had 6 gems on either side of Plus and he looked at me with big eyes and said, "I get it! 6 plus 6 really does equal 12!" It had been a very abstract concept for him, until that point!

Charlotte's Web

As you know, we've been enjoying the book 'Charlotte's Web.' We came to the part where Charlotte is wrapping a fly up in her silky web and we thought it would be fun to wrap Alec-our fly-up in a silk! Learning at it's finest!

Crowning Ceremony

In Waldorf schools it is a tradition to have a Rose Ceremony for children entering 1st grade. I thought it would be fun to create our own little ceremony for the kids. I made flower wreath crowns for the three eldest to wear. Alec, being the eldest, got the largest orange flowers...orange as we know is his favorite color..so we went with orange flowers over roses. Elysa and Nick got smaller orange flowers on their wreaths. Nick was mad and wouldn't let me take a picture...he wanted the bigger flowers! I read a poem I had chosen for each one and we stood by our special tree in the back yard with their backpacks for their picture. I take pictures the first week of school of each child so I will always have them to treasure! Alec's poem is called The Knight and goes; The knight rides forth,on charger strong,To fight the foe and right the wrong; 'Gainst dragons, giants, men, he'll fight. For lady's favor and for right. Elysa's is When Mary Goes Walking...only we changed Mary to Elysa. When Elysa goes walking, The Autumn wis blow. The poplars they curtsey, The larches they bend low.The oaks and the beeches,Their gold they fling down,To make her a carpet, To make her a crown. You'll have to stay posted to hear Nick's! The apple in Elysa's hand is for her teacher because as she so well put it, "You should take an apple to your teacher everyday Nick. Teachers like apples. That's why I am taking this one to my teacher. I am taking her one everyday!"

Transition Verse

I thought it might be beneficial for some of you mommas reading this blog to post this transition verse that I find immensely helpful when we-and when I say we I mean the little ones!!-aren't being so quiet and attentive! I chose it because Owls seem to be our special bird!
A wise old owl lived in an Oak.
The more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can't we be like that wise old bird?

Someone's paying attention!

Just when I wonder, is anyone listening to anything I say, I come across something like this. Nick had taken all of the cheese sticks out of the fridge and was using them to count with. Who needs fancy manipulative's when you've got cheese?

Mondays are hard

Another Monday, and uggh! was today a hard one. It seems we lose our rhythm to the day over the weekend and it is hard gaining it back Monday! It was hard for the three eldest to focus this morning on their lessons...perhaps too much TV this weekend dad?? I plowed through and we made it through! We had our story on the letter B and reviewed A and then made some lovely pictures in our sketch books and practiced drawing A's and B's. Saturday was Michaelmas and we were sooo busy that we weren't able to celebrate so we did today! I read the kids a story about the Archangel Michael and how he slayed the dragon and as I read I added the ingredients to a bowl for making a Harvest Loaf of bread. I added golden raisins for stars plucked from the firmament and an egg yolk for the sun, sugar and salt were ice that covered the earth and so on. When it was all mixed each child kneaded their own ball of dough and while we waited for it to rise we headed to the ice rink with dad and Grandma and had some fun skating. Back at home, we shaped our risen dough into dragons to represent the dragon St. Michael slayed. Then we baked them for a snack. While they were baking, we read a few more chapters from Charlotte's Web and then ate our bread and off to swim lessons. Somewhere in the mix, Alec read his practice blends and digraphs and did a fabulous job! It seems to really be clicking for him with reading this year!

Our Math Gnomes...

Here are our math gnomes...well at least half of them. Plus and Minus are the only ones done. I am awaiting a shipment from Mercurius school supplies for more felt to make Multiply and Divide.