A Girl and her Math

She finished. Second grade math. All done. It's one of the great things about homeschooling. You can go at the child's pace. If they think math is a game and they memorize multiplication facts in a snap, then you can average 3 or 4 lessons a day! Last winter Mia finished first grade math early and we went ahead and started second grade. We took a break over the summer and picked up four weeks ago where we had left off. The third grade workbooks are ready to go. At our house, when you finish a workbook, you get something out of the prize box. And, if you get an A on a test, you also get something out of the prize box. So, you can imagine the excitement of doing both in one swoop! Good job, Mia!

Mixin' It Up

I try to stay as far away from sticky messy projects as possible when it comes to my homeschooling. I've never been the amazing mom that pulls out tempura paints or makes homemade play dough. Unit studies kill me. Crafts and baking to go with a study of some ancient time. Not. I'll read 100 books out loud on the subject, but please don't make me start pulling things out of the kitchen cupboards to produce the goo that they used 2,500 years ago in the embalming process in Egypt. The down side of it is ... that stuff is FUN! The kids love it.

I have a homeschooling friend that decided that she and her kids were going to have FUN this year. Just plain, good fun. And she's doing it! I want to be one of her people studying Korea and making kimchi. I'm not quite ready to roll up my unit study sleeves and dive in ... but I am trying to squeeze in some fun at our house too. Just not quite as much fun as her.

So here is our first attempt at it. Brownies on sticks with sprinkles. The first two times we tried, it didn't work. The brownies wouldn't stay in the right shape. But it worked today. Yay!!

And speaking of fun. I stayed up until midnight last night with my 16 year old son and his friend playing Xbox. It was a ... gasp! ... shooting game. I was really bad at it. It's quite a leap in technology from my Pac Man days. There isn't any redeeming educational aspect to be had ... but it was FUN.

Some of us need to try a little harder to make it happen. Press on! Like my other friend's dining room wall says: Don't forget to have a little FUN today!

Butterflies, Virus, & the Band Forgot to Play

Alissa has been growing butterflies this week. Well, actually, Alissa has been watching God grow butterflies. She has had a butterfly net/cage for a long time and we finally sent the slip in to get the caterpillars. She watched them through all the stages and is now enjoying five little friends; feeding them sugar water and orange juice.

Collin finished 11 years of homeschooling late last night. He took his final chemistry test. No band played, no fireworks burst forth, no hot fudge sundae was served. But he did sleep in until 8:45 this morning. I have a small truck load of documentation and paperwork to do before we can say that I finished 11 years of homeschooling him. I'm sure the band will play for me.

Three Times a Day

This is the scene at our house. Three times a day. Mia eating her meal with books. Not usually just one book ... but a small stack of books. We have to make a point of telling her when to NOT bring her books to the table. The child reads nearly all day long. And you should try to break her from her focus. Good luck. A train could go through the house while she's reading and I don't think she would notice.



Oh. It's a hot dog. Overcooked in the microwave. Daddy is at work tonight ... so dinner is, well ... lame. But never fear. Michelle taught me years ago to NOT buy the hot dogs whose first ingredient is "mechanically separated chicken parts." Only the ones whose first ingredient is "beef." Now you can sleep tonight.



Other random family news:

Ania is back to being dropped off at preschool with smiles and happiness. Last week she was a little sad to leave me. But she always comes home happy. Kaisha thinks she is talking more. I'm not sure.

Collin saved me two and a half hours of driving/waiting again today! Now I'm wondering why we didn't get his license a few months ago?

I bought a set of suitcases yesterday. Maui, China, here we come! China visa applications sent in this week.

Wellington really doesn't mind the snow in March.

Kaisha works out at the gym after her evening classes and has always has stories from work and school.

My fifth daughter, Abigail, just got a great supporting role in a play!

Alissa is finishing her first week swimming with the juniors and wow! We're so excited about all the great coaching she's gotten this week.

Movin' On Up

We had good news today. Not just one piece of exciting, good news ... but three!

One of them is that Alissa gets to move up to the Junior group on the swim team on Monday! She's been promoted! It means a long list of great things for her swimming. We were really hoping they would move her up by this coming fall ... so this is unexpectedly, excitingly early!

(I love this picture of her with her goats last summer.)

1. She will get a lot more coaching. Bless her heart, her novice coach (whom we adore) simply has too many kids (as young as 7 yrs old) to give much individualized instruction. There are two coaches for the Juniors.

2. She will get to swim with kids more her age!

3. She won't be the tallest person in her practice group anymore. :o)

4. Her workouts will be almost twice as hard. They swim faster and more constantly. More laps.

5. Someone will teach her flip turns and her times will improve a lot.

6. She will get to learn from the other kids. Most of them have been swimming for years ... not three months like Alissa.

7. She will get to know a bunch of new friends.

Alissa, we are proud of you! Good job, honey!

Violence in Children's Books

Mia doing her spelling work a couple weeks ago.

Here is what I remember of the conversation I had with Mia at bedtime tonight.

Mia: Mom, why is there so much violence in children's books these days? (Using her I'm-on-a-soapbox/six-year-old news anchor voice.)

Me: Violence in children's books? What are you talking about?

Mia: You know. Violence in children's books. Why do they make so many books for little children that have so many violent parts in them?

Me: Like what?

Mia: Like scary parts with battles and fighting and bad guys.

Me: What are you reading today?

Mia: King Arthur [and the Nights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green]

Me: Oh. Actually, that's not a book meant for six year olds. That's an older kid book. Most younger children are reading books like Mr. Putter and Tabby and those don't have violence in them.

Mia: Oooooooh.

Me: Are you afraid to go to sleep tonight? Did you read something scary in this book?

Mia: (with a sheepish smile) No.

Pink Ribbon

We just found out that she won a ribbon at Saturday's meet!! Sixth place in the 100 yard freestyle, girls 11 - 12, with the official time of 1:25.71. There were numerous heats of this race ... I don't remember exactly how many, but there were probably at least 50 swimmers that she was timed against. And she didn't do the wall turn since she only learned them a couple days before the meet. So all in all, we could say she was fast!

We also just learned that she was selected by her coach as Swimmer of the Meet. Her team had 68 kids at the meet. BBST selects one kid from each level as Swimmer of the Meet ... four kids in all. She was selected for her group.

There were 8 teams at the meet; a few hundred kids. The teams came from as far away as Seattle to Bellingham. Her next meet is coming in a just a couple weeks.

Finished with a Smile

Last year I brought a new book home from the thrift shop. It was a book that I had looked through at Barnes & Noble just the week before but couldn't quite bring myself to buy it. Twenty-five cents at the thrift store. Kaisha saw the title and said, "You bought this book because of us, right?" (meaning her, Collin, Alissa) The title is: Educating Your Gifted Child.

Don't worry. I haven't gone off the deep end thinking she is a cuter version of Einstien or anything. I just know that she's WAYYY smarter than the rest of us. She went from not reading, to reading at a 5th grade level in about 3 months. These days she reads a 100-200 page book every DAY. She can read out loud, with all the emotion of an actress, better than any of us.

One day she came to me and said, "Mom. Vuh-let (sounded out phonetically). Does it actually say valet (said properly), and is it French?" She spells big words like disgusting, mayonaisse, dictionary, revolution etc out loud, without needing to write them down.

About a month ago she decided that math was her new favorite subject. So we started spending a lot of time in math. I was curious if it would click for her like language subjects did. She proceeded to finish her entire year's math lessons in a month. She finished it yesterday. She gets it. She thinks more mathematically than any of the other kids did. So, here she is, in the picture, holding up her last page of first grade math.

If you have more than one child, you've been amazed at how different your own kids can be. I love how the Lord crafts each child so uniquely. I look forward to seeing each of them grow up and find a niche of their own and to see how the Lord uses them in ministry.

Scary Mono

You should see our teenagers laugh at some of Mia's stories. I'm not sure which is more funny. But for your entertainment pleasure here is the latest piece of work from our six year old. Complete with original spelling, punctuation and pictures. Keep the word "random" in mind as you read ... don't look for a deeper hidden meaning. And, may we all find our superhero koala friend.

Scary Mono 1 Story

Once upon a time there in the forest there was a very, very, very, very, loud thud. Mono a monster was looking for food. Mono was a monoster that's a word for very, very, scary monster. When anything goes out in front of him he eat's it. But very pretty and very hero people he doesn't eat. Heres a picture of Mono.

Do you know what Mono eats? heres the answer MEAT. Mono eats meat because Meat & Mono go together. Here you are going to see his wife. Her name is Melissa.

William is there child. So heres William. He loves Maria Mono. Here she is ... S-O-N is the only Son word Mono William can spell.

The End

Scary Mono 2

You remember Mono? Well today we are going to remember him! SO back in the forest there was a rather loud thud, that was Mono. This morning Mono was walking out in the forest. Doing his morni'n stroll, lookin for food. So the forest was fixed up so heres a picture of him ...

it's rather Christmasy in the picture! But really it's really not December. So along came Sammy his superhero Koala friend.