Musings at the End of Our Homeschool Year: A Journal Entry from May 24, 2015

The children and I had a lovely day full of ordinary things yesterday - like so many days before - passed in a happy, busy, good-natured way of being together. I enjoy my children more than can be expressed. They are authentic people who are kind, smart, possess a sense of humor, and are generally charming. I am sure I must be partial in my assessment, but in all honesty, they are excellent human beings and friends.

This is really why I homeschool. We enjoy each others company and we all work towards the mutual building up of each other's strengths, the pursuit of dreams and desired skills, the chipping away at our faults, and the shared dream of a better, kinder, more peaceful world.

I can think of no way I would rather spend my time, vitality, and resources - than in providing for the mutual acceptance, improvement, and inspiration of my family and my community. 

In this way, it matters not whether we, as a family, change the world - or, perhaps I should say, come to see and touch the change we have wrought upon it. We have changed ourselves, and in doing so, have made ripples on that great cosmic pond.

It is more than enough.

Homeschool Portfolios

 

It is time to get the portfolios cleaned out and ready for a new school year. Portfolios are our record keeping method of choice. Keeping samples of projects and papers is perfect for charting progress as well as providing well documented keepsakes. I suggest ordering address labels from a site like Shutterfly. I ordered those shown above when they were running a special and I got one sheet free. Simply choose a template, put in a photograph of your child, add your school name and the year and/or grade. This gives you a set of stickers to label items for your portfolio. If your child does a shoebox diorama, label it with your portfolio sticker. Not only will you have them labeled for display at homeschool fairs, library exhibits, or wherever your homeschool group showcases their work, you will also always have it labeled for your homeschool records. It is amazing how much children change in one school year. I enjoy having the photo on the sticker to go with the project. The children can also use their stickers to decorate notebooks or items they take to homeschool co-op. Of course, these stickers are great for children who attend traditional school as well. What better way to label their belongings and keep track of the artwork that comes home? You can always make these at home with your printer, but when they are on sale, Shutterfly is a good deal and I like the quality.

Enjoy! 

Rain Clouds and Sunbursts

This week has been a bit of a storm. We have weathered health concerns, financial woes, the car turned off on me... in the middle of traffic, all in the same week.
I felt like I was going to cry this afternoon, like everything was coming down on me at once.
Thankfully, I was able to pull myself together, rally, and get on with the program.
I thought this was something that I do on the inside and that no one notices, so I was so touched when we got home from a birthday party tonight and my daughter hugged me and said, "Thank you for taking the time to take us, Mom. I know you were tired and had a hard week. It means a lot to me that you always press on and stay strong and take us to be with friends."
Wow. My fourteen year old daughter is such a sweetheart.
Later, I was tucking everyone in for the night and it hit me how precious that time is - just the few moments before bed when everyone takes the time to hug, to cuddle, to have a few minutes to connect.
I started reading, Charlotte's Web to my nine year old son tonight. I sat in his room and read him a few chapters. He smiled and I smiled and we enjoyed Fern taking care of Wilbur and enjoyed the simple pleasure of a book and a moment to be together and the power of a great story.
After leaving his room, I went to my daughter's. She had a few things to chat about - growing up and the changing friendships with some of her friends as they get to be teenagers. I sat on her bed and braided her long, beautiful hair into two braids - one on each side. I thought about how mother's have been doing this forever into the past - the moments before bed that we take to connect. I thought about the difficult week and that here, on Friday night, my family is safe and together. We had food to eat, we had each other. Maybe the troubles of the week aren't so insurmountable. I thought about the beauty of the lake tonight. The birthday party was out by Lake Murray. The sun was beginning to dip down and the colors of sunset were spreading across the sky as we were packing up. The sun rays were distinct and lovely. I came home to see that another party attendee had photographed the sky and posted it. I thought about our shared experience - that without any words - someone else had seen the sky with the same appreciation of that moment.
I thought about all of this and I felt content. I hope my children remember that the sun comes out again - even if it rains a long time.

Whit is Published in Kids In Print!

Whit was published in the yearly Kids In Print publication put out by our local library. His story about Talgres the Squirrel and how he saved his animal friends made page four!  Needless to say we are very proud of our budding author. Here he is at the book signing and reception with the graphic novelist/cartoonist, Chris Schweizer. He is also pictured here with some friends from our homeschooling group. Pictured from left to right is Blake (published for his photography work), Whit (my favorite author of wildlife fiction), Haylee (a budding poet), and Shelby (published for her artwork).  I would say he has a great circle of friends! Congratulations Whitman, on a fantastic literary beginning!

Walking the road of life is easier with good friends...

Dawson, Dahlia, Addie and Whit

Spies, Detectives, and Agents of Every Kind

Mysteries and secret missions abound at my house these days. My children are in the midst of mystery-mania. It always amazes me that despite the difference in my children's ages, they still seem to follow each other's interests. My seventh grader is enjoying reading Sherlock Holmes. This was a favorite of mine at about that age. My eight year old son is also into the Baker St. action, he loves the Jim Weiss recording of "Sherlock Holmes for Children" stories. Nancy Drew has also enjoyed a resurgence. The computer mystery games are a huge favorite. The children love to sit and do these together. The puzzles and clues are quite challenging - lots of educational value here. They have also checked out Nancy Drew mysteries for Addie to read to Whit. Even the Nancy Drew movie is a big hit with both of them. My older loves the fashion in the movie and has styled her own bag of tricks after Nancy's. My son loves the action!
The playmobile spy sets have also been big this year. Whit (my son) received these for his birthday and has really enjoyed the remote control car with spy camera. I must admit, it is cool.
Something that gets a lot of play time is Whit's spy gear. He has put together an outfit for dress up play and has gathered lots of gadgets to put in his spy bag (and old school type bag of mine). Invisible ink, black jacket and shades, a little theme music from the ipod (007 and Mission Impossible theme songs), and regular viewings of the Pink Panther cartoons seem to round out this spectrum of spy-dom. I love the smorgasbord - from Scotland Yard to cartoon antics, sleuthing and spying is super.

Cupcake Cuties

We made these cuties for Thanksgiving. I found some free cupcake printables online, so making the cupcake sticks was easy. I just printed them on card stock and cut them out with crimped scissors. Then we taped them on to sticks. We made the cake itself from the Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix. I prefer the Namaste mixes, but the Betty Crocker mix is cheaper and kids love it. Betty Crocker also has gluten free icing options, so this makes cupcakes so much easier than back in the day, when I made everything from scratch to meet our allergen free baking needs. I still make most things the old fashioned way, but I am very grateful to Betty for allowing me to push the easy button at times. We used food coloring to make the cream cheese icing orange. The acorns on top were made from turning a Hershey's kiss upside down and using a dab of icing to secure a tiny gluten/nut free sugar cookie on top. Then, just dab a bit of icing on the top of the cookie to make a stem. The sugar cookies were made from a Namaste cookie mix. We just made them very tiny. We made a dozen cupcakes, but we made many more chocolate cookie acorns to have in a bowl to eat. They were a big hit with the cousins at our Thanksgiving gathering - both allergy eaters and non-allergy eaters consumed them with gusto.

Dollhouse Decor

Christmas is here - even in the dollhouse world. Check out the adorable world of my daughter's mouse-sized house and the way she has it all ready for the holidays.

The Bremen Town Musicians

I was treated to a puppet show this morning. The Bremen Town Musicians was playing at the theatre down the hall. They haven't played with the puppet theatre in ages, so it was fun to see it open once again. As the children get older, I find sitting and watching performances of home theatre, whether it is a live performance of a Twilight Zone episode or an impromptu puppet show, especially endearing. It was an excellent show, I gave it 5 stars. *****

Antique Bowls and Baby Birds

There is an antique store near our home. It is a junky looking place surrounded by a fence and situated on the corner of a busy intersection. We pass it almost daily. There is a large fountain out by the road that sports a classical statue of a scantily clad Roman girl. My children think it is quite funny. There is an assortment of old bathtubs, yard gnomes playing cards, rusty chairs, and many more eccentricities. We generally have to sit at the light for a few minutes and the view is really better than an "I Spy" book.

The other day a new addition had arrived... and by new, I mean, well, quite old....

An antique carriage was sitting there, just inside the gate. Exclamations of approval and fascination came from the back seat. My son, with his little face pressed against the glass begged, "Can we go?"

The antique store had really just been part of the scenery - something to ponder while sitting in traffic, but now, with this question, it had the potential to be a destination. Since we were on the way somewhere and pushed for time, a visit wasn't possible, but... the idea had taken hold.

The next few days were marked by the persistence of my son and his drive to see the carriage first hand. He was also intrigued by the two large brick buildings on site. If the outside held such wonders, what would the inside hold?

We finally made a family trip to the antique store. The children both enjoyed the array of oddities in the yard. A closer inspection than the car had afforded yielded a vast wonderland of strange and wonderful objects. It was a living history lesson. The buildings were full of treasures from yesteryear, a typewriter that fascinated my daughter, a statue of a stag, very old toys like the circus train from the early 1900's, (we had seen one very similar at a toy exhibit at a museum in Virginia), and much, much more. As we picked our way through the precariously piled history, we reached the back of the warehouse.

A strange sound met our ears, and for a moment, I feared we were about to meet a creature of the rodent variety, but upon venturing forth, we discovered the most cunning little family of baby birds. They were so tiny, perfect, and adorable - really, really adorable. They were hopping about and practicing flying. They couldn't get off the ground much, but were using the antique china serving bowls as little jumping off points. They would jump and flutter their wings out and come to rest nearby, only to try and hop back up for another go. The children, and I must say, my husband and myself, were enchanted.

They were so close to us, we could have touched them, though we refrained (barely!). And then, to up the cute factor even more, the Mother arrived in the window high up on the back wall. She was carrying a little wormy thing in her mouth. She made a big show of flapping about and scolding, so we backed off around the corner of an old hutch and she approached one of her offspring that was perched on an antique fire fighter's helmet. The little bird took the worm from her in a lightning fast bite and then she was off again.

Here we were enjoying a nature and history adventure... all because we kept our eyes open to the world around us... or at least my children did. I probably would have just kept driving by that place... forever.

Christmas Around the World (and at our house)

Here is my first attempt to post shutterfly pics to this blog. Here are some photos of the children as they worked on our "Christmas Around the World" unit in December.

Squirrel Rescue!

I am again reminded of how "learning experiences" will find us at any given time, we just have to be on the lookout. While our family enjoyed a walk along the river near our house this morning, we discovered a baby squirrel. The squirrel had fallen from the nest, was near death and was covered in ants and other bugs that were moving in for a meal. My children were horrified and immediately began pleading for the baby. "Isn't there something we can do?" My husband and I felt sure that death was close, but wanting to make sure the children had no hard feelings, agreed to take the squirrel. We cleaned off the insects and took him home in a sock (the only warm thing we could think of). Once at home, we treated the wounds with peroxide, made a warm box (plastic bags of hot water with soft cloth on top), and called Carolina Wildlife. A short trip later, the little squirrel, now called "Sam", was the latest patient at the wildlife clinic. At Carolina Wildlife, we discovered that Sam was actually Samantha. She is now given a 50/50 chance of survival. She was under the hot lamp when we left. She has other baby squirrel brothers and sisters to adopt her, and when the time is right, if all goes well...she will be released into the wild with her adopted family. My children were ecstatic. Their rescue was a success. They even pointed out that whether Samantha makes it or not, they will have done the right thing and have made her last days comfortable (and not left her to the ants). Though this wildlife escapade interrupted my plans for the day, I am proud. I am proud of my children and their empathy for all of God's creatures. What a great way to kick off another year of homeschooling.

Shaque D'Amour

I am one of those terrible parents that lets my children stand and peer over my shoulder as I watch youtube. Where else can you get those great music videos from the songs I grew up with?
In this way, the children came to see the music video for one of my old favorites, "The Love Shack". (You gotta love the B-52's!)
"You see a painted sign at the side of the road that says, 15 miles to the love..........shack!"
At one point in the video, you get a glimpse of the sign in front of said shack. The letters spell out "Shaque D'Amour". I don't know if this is really "the love shack" in french (I didn't pay that much attention in French class.), but whatever the origin, "Shaque D'Amour" became a buzz word at our house. When we finally moved to our artsy downtown apartment, it was instantly dubbed the "Shaque D'Amour". And a great little shack of love it is, too! The Rivendell homeschool has officially relocated. The children have never lived anywhere except in our "little house in the suburbs", so the shaque d'amour was a whole new world. We can now walk short distances to all sorts of delights. Parks with great playgrounds, groovy shops and coffee houses, the corner drugstore, and more are only a brief walk away. The street is lined with lovely old trees. Gluten free and organic groceries can be purchased from two different natural grocery stores mere blocks from the shaque. The fall has brought new things for all of us and we are meeting the new challenges with love. I can't think of any better name for our new home. The circumstances of the past year have been very trying, but I am hugely blessed with my loving husband and children. The shaque d'amour is living up to its name and life is good.

Snapshots

My daughter has an interest in photography as well as architecture. We all went downtown for her to photograph architecture in the city. My son wanted to get in on the action. Here he is taking a picture of his sister while she is taking a picture of him. All of us had a great time walking the streets and taking in the sunny day. She took a series of photos and made a scrapbook with the results. This project included learning about photography, writing skills, spelling, layout and design, and studying architecture. We all enjoyed the project!