Unfortunately for any of my children who would have liked to do something exciting today like visit a lake or have a picnic, Hubby and I both worked today.
Michaela expressed boredom several times and I felt her pain. Though I offered many exciting activities to her such as reading, drawing, painting, resting (oh my stars the expression that elicited), she did not hear anything that sounded like something she wanted to do.
The fact that everyone in the neighborhood except us seemed to be gone only made things worse.
Finally an idea struck her. Could she work with mosaics?
Why, yes, she could.
Since I have jars and jars of tesserae already cut up and ready to be used, and plenty of mortar and grout, she was instantly set up to do a project with little help from me. I did put a mask on and mixed the mortar myself because I did not want her breathing that fine powder, but after that she began to decorate a stepping stone all by herself. I told her to call me if she needed me and left her alone to enjoy the creative process. (Okay, I did peek out the office window to see if I could get a glimpse now and then.)
Oreo hung around meowing and drinking out of the watering can that her head will fit into.
Here’s a picture of her halfway-done point! I’ll be sure to show you the finished product. Tomorrow she can grout. Maybe she’ll enjoy this enough to work on all of my plain stepping stones and get them to looking fancy!
It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on my mosaics and this really got me into the mood to finish a birdbath that I want to make.
As well, the whole act of Michaela coming to me and saying, “Cant I do this?” made me focus again on providing plenty of home-based activities for her in areas where she loves to express herself or in things she’s passionate about.
My online friend Heather just had a great article published about helping children grow their passions at home. I read the article this afternoon and it tied in seamlessly with where my thoughts were for Michaela and exactly what, and how much, to get us involved in outside of our home this year.
Oh, you know me and visual appeal. I love the thought of having something visually stimulating when it comes to assigning lessons and inspiring children to want to create and write and do.
Narration, or the act of telling back in some form what she is reading, will be a bit of a change for Michaela. I have always incorporated some of Charlotte Mason’s ideas into our schooling, but following the CM style and Ambleside very closely this year, Michaela will be doing a lot of narrating.
If I say, “You are going to tell me every day what you’ve read,” oh my does that produce some sort of expression!
In this pretty, old creamer are narration assignments. I’ll continue to add to them as I get ideas through the year.
Here are the ideas written down so far:
If you could send a postcard to tell me what happened, what would it say? Create it! Illustrate, including the stamp!
Reporter! Make me a news story to tell what happened. In fact, do a newspaper page including ads, sales, whatever!
Draw a picture of one of the scenes you read about today. You can add words if you like.
Imagine! If the characters could magically fly to modern times, what would they think? Would things have been different for them?
Use these words to write a creative story about a character you are reading about. (To do this I pull words from the reading and let her choose randomly as she writes.)
You are the main character and want someone to visit you. Make a travel brochure telling them why they must see where you are.
Pretend you are the main character and write a journal entry about what happened.
This idea came to me when I found a piece of bright red fabric at The Scrap Exchange. It already had two pockets sewn onto it, but nothing else going on. Except my idea to turn it into a pretty “in/out box” for our writing assignments!
I hot-glued one end over a hanger and then began to embellish it with pretty fabric and tags. I reinforced the back and gave it more length by hot-gluing a bright white and red piece of fabric to the back.
The out box is where I put outgoing narration assignments for Michaela. I choose an assignment that I think is especially good for what was just read. For example, Michaela talks about Isaac Newton’s mother as if she knows her so I think for her to write a journal entry as Hannah would be good.
There’s a pretty strip of fabric that hangs from the top. It’s our “ready” signal. We can switch it back and forth from “in” to “out,” something fun to signal we’re done!
The “in” box of course is where she puts her assignment incoming to me. She can fold her paper in half longways and slip it right in!
I am already working diligently week by week on our end-of-year notebook (I ended up going with spiral again!) and all of her narration projects will be put into this as we go.
I feel like at some point we won’t be using this bright Narration Station day in and day out for every little thing, but as we make the transition into Ambleside and get Michaela used to narrating, it’s something to make it more fun.
I’m not sure at this point how Charlotte Mason would have felt about it, but given her respect for a mother’s need to lead and nurture and her awareness that children were individuals, after all, I think she would have known that I’m just a visually driven, artsy person who had to do this.
I keep meaning to post this, and it can wait no longer because there’s a T-shirt involved!!! (I know how homeschoolers love T shirts. And a good comic strip.)
Betty Blonde is a comic strip published online by a very cool homeschooling family we know. I’m learning more and more about Betty Blonde as I read the comic strip and keep up with their blog.
I think Betty Blonde is mostly the creation of Kelly Chapman, the daughter, but she gets help from her brother and parents as well, especially her dad. He wrote a computer program especially for her comic strip. How cool is that?
This is about more than the T-shirt, however. It encourages me to read the comic strip, laugh a little, and then be reminded what you can do if you have an idea, give it life, and persevere!
I enjoy reading Betty Blonde (you can subscribe here) and keeping up with the Chapman blog. Just wanted to pass these links along so you can enjoy them too!
Once upon a time, years ago, I had the prettiest, sweetest, most capable babysitter ever. In fact, she was a mom’s helper to me on many a Saturday for quite a few years. I always tell her she was my girl before I had a girl. In a house full of boys, I wanted a daughter, and she was like a daughter to me. Over the years she really grew into a good friend. Children don’t stay little, you know.
She went shopping with me and helped me watch my oldest two boys. We stopped at a photo booth and had our pictures made. Joseph wanted to be with her instead of me. In fact, I think Joseph thought she was his mama.
I had my picture in the booth made with Daniel.
She helped me with Daniel.
And she spent many an hour basically raising Joseph. Joseph was a hand full. Let me repeat A HAND FULL. He ended up being the easiest most laid-back teenager the world has ever known, but when he was 2… Oh my. I used to say with a half a smile that I thought my sciatic nerve was pinched in two from peeling him off shelves and table tops and out from under places he shouldn’t be. I had to pull over on the side of the road and explain to him not to unbuckle his seatbelt and climb out of his carseat. Mind you, he was too little to even be doing such things. Do you think he listened to me?
My two oldest sons both walked at 8 months. Have you experienced this? Trying to watch a very curious and wide-open 8-month-old WHO CAN ALREADY WALK?
Many times when I felt like I couldn’t take one more step from exhaustion, my sweet little helper would scoop up Joseph and watch him.
My sweet little babysitter used to say she wanted a baby just like Joseph.
I am happy to report…
she got one. Isn’t he just the most-cutest, adorable, cuddly baby you ever saw? I think so. When he sees something new he says WHOA. That’s one of his new words. He can also say kitty-cat.
And guess what?
He even walked at 8 MONTHS.
I just wanted to share with you that I had the chance to visit with this lovely mom and her son on one of my days off this week. You know what was really sweet? As soon as this beautiful little fella saw Joseph, he put out his arms to say “hold me.” I think he’d met a kindred spirit.
Purple Chair + TOS + Hot Tea = Happy Homeschooling Mom
I wanted to give you a broader view of my chair this morning. Just look at the stacks of folders. What, you may ask, is all that! Well, I’m putting together a representative scrapbook (or scrapbooks) of all Daniel’s years in school. I do this for all the children. Sometimes I do a book a year, sometimes I put two years into one book. Would you believe none of Daniel’s is done yet? I’ll be working on sorting for awhile.
On a shopping note, I got a new handbag yesterday.
I’ve been looking for one, but did not plan to get one yesterday. I went to Rugged Wearhouse to get some clothes for Michaela and there was this bag on clearance for 5 dollars. It has both a handle and a shoulder strap. If only they were leather. But for 5 dollars.
Last but not least, like mother like daughter.
In a moment of boredom yesterday, Michaela made her own coupon holder. I am SO impressed. At the moment it is full of TOY coupons. She’s been so industrious. Should we go shopping?
I wanted to share my science activity bags because I am so excited about them. First of all, I wouldn’t even know science activity bags existed if it weren’t for my friend, Leslie. She is an amazing woman. If you visit her blog, you’ll see what I mean.
What you see above is a large laundry basket full of almost-ready-to-go science experiments. Each experiment came from a book from this website:
Leslie organized a swap and she had 25 moms who were interestd and signed up for the swap. Each lady took one experiment and made 25 bags of supplies for the same experiment. So I arrived at the swap with 25 identical bags and left with 25 different bags.
Do you know what this means?
I have 25 weeks of hands-on science for Michaela. Each bag has pretty much all you need, though there may some small thing to pick up to go along with some of the experiments. For example one of the bags is all ready to go except I need to buy a bag of mini marshmallows the week we do it. The experiments are geared for K-6th grade, so I think we’ll easily get a lot of use from them. (Michaela is entering 6th grade this year. )
One of my online Five In A Row friends, Susan, shared with us an amazing claymation video that her daughter, Rebecca, made. I know you will enjoy watching it as much as we did. We loved it! It was especially timely since we recently finished reading Hamlet. Enjoy!
There are some cool pictures and resources there. From page above, be sure and click “smallest page on the web” in left-hand column. I liked it, anyway.
Okay, so I’ve started something new in our homeschool this afternoon. It’s the Workbox System, and loosely started it I should say, as I don’t have the official book by Sue Patrick yet, but I do plan to get it ASAP (hubby just said he would put the money aside next week).
Anyway, there’s a huge discussion going on at the Five In A Row boards right now about the Workbox System, offering up alternatives to the clear shoe-boxes that are called for when using the Workbox System and tons of ideas for what to put in the boxes. I got totally sucked in, but I think we’re gonna love it.
Confused? You should be. I’m talking in circles. That’s mostly because all my Five In A Row buds already know what I’m talking about.
In a nutshell, you use a rolling cart that will hold 12 clear plastic shoeboxes. In these shoeboxes you place 12 items/assignments of school work to be completed during the day. The child works left to right, top to bottom, finishing their work more independently than ever. It’s apparently accomplished great things for children with ADD and other such diagnoses. That’s a broad overview. I have not touched on any of the fine points, which I’m looking forward to reading about further in Sue’s book.
Anyhoo, I’ve started out totally on my own eclectic foot with this program, choosing to use decorated cereal boxes for our boxes. I am not saying I won’t go with clear boxes. I am saying that I want to read the book first and that I want to figure out if I’ve got room for a stand that holds 12 clear boxes. (We can barely walk through the hallway as it is.) I am also starting with 9 boxes. I want to see how Princess of the Universe reacts to this.
Michaela’s school shelf is now totally clutter free.
The boxes are super cute and I know Miss Priss will love them. (I cannot believe she has not noticed them yet. Maybe she cuts her eyes away when she passes by the school shelf. ha ha)
Each box holds an assignment. We’ll start the day with math.
I am sure this system is going to help me pull in things that we don’t always remember to do.
Just look at that little Heart of the Home box. Sweet. This will contain domestic assignments. Like now…
Don’t worry. She won’t get free reign of the stove without supervision, but I do think she’ll enjoy this being HER assignment. I’m going to get everything together this evening so it’ll be easier tomorrow.
She also has a Five In A Row assignment, a handwriting assignment, a page from a test booklet and a couple of other things I *can’t remember* right now. (*That might give you a clue as to why this system will help us do everything every day. It’ll be in the boxes ready to go.)
I could easily have filled up more boxes, but tomorrow is our first day and I want to see how long this takes her to work through. Also I really want to read Sue’s book and get serious about the fine points. In three short months Big Joe will graduate, so I’ll have another shelf for more boxes. We could also perhaps switch to the clear boxes for the new school year.
For now I’m doing a test run with cereal boxes.
I first heard about this system from my friend, Leslie, and she’s got pictures on her blog.
In looking on line, there’s a post on another blog where someone has set up their own version of the workbox system. See it here at Ginger-Snap-Shots.
Another friend, Kristina, has pictures on her blog of her system.
Another friend, Jessica, is using envelopes for her system.
There are other pictures out there, but this gives you some ideas.
Lynn
PS — There is an update on our cereal boxes —>> here!
Approaching-50 mother of four. Thrifter. Content with lots of clothes bought for very little money. Loves retro. (That could be styles from the 40s and 50s. And sometimes stuff even older than that. And sometimes stuff from all time, all mixed up together!) Bluffs about decluttering but secretly loves STUFF. Goes through stages. Has standing and staring spells before rearranging the entire home. Just because. Tune in each day to see what new outfit comes home from G.W. Boutique next. (That's Goodwill, by the way.) Oh, and she owns a spoiled beagle named Annie. And this blog.
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To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
William Henry Channing
1810-1884
What You Do
Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
so I think for her to write a journal entry as Hannah would be good.
for you to leave a comment, but you can also e-mail me at lynn AT thehealthyhomeschool.com
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