This Week at Our House # 32 First Week of School

We are now one week down with 15 weeks to go until our next vacation!! That is if we manage to get all of our work done. I have arranged the 2019/2020 school year so that we have 16 straight weeks with no days off, 6 weeks of holiday vacation time, then 16 straight weeks with no days off. If we can do it, we will end after the 3rd week in April. If it gets too hard, I will give us a week off in October and a week off in March, then we will have school the first week in December and the last week in April. I am hoping to do it straight, though.

The first week of school, in my opinion, went very well. I designed the curriculum for Adam, Rachel, Anya, and Joseph in a way that they would be doing a lot of independent reading and learning, and that they would be required to read a certain amount each day. I also made it so Monday is the hardest day with each day following getting progressively easier. I thought that by doing so, they would not tire out too much by Friday. The large amounts of assigned reading are mainly to get Adam to read faster and become an independent learner.

I have Adam, Rachel, Anya, and Joseph  with 6, 45 minute blocks where they rotate through subjects

I asked Adam to take pictures for my blog and they are all awful

and one half hour block where they all work together. If they do not finish their reading, then they have to finish it at the end of the school day, as if it were homework in a regular school. That is so we get through all of their books this school year. 45 minutes should be enough time, generally, though, because they usually have between 10 and 15 pages to read, and never more than 20.

My plan for Adam seems to be working. On Monday, Adam read his normal very slow pace and had to finish his reading at the end of the school day. On Tuesday, Adam read almost everything in the 45 minute time slot. By Thursday, Adam was finishing his reading in less than 45 minutes and moving on to his other subjects, so he could have more free time.

Rachel did better the other days of the week. I had to get after her. She struggles with the fact that she is older has to take on more responsibility in the home, with school, and how she behaves. By Thursday, Rachel was doing better.

Joseph is the fastest reader of the 4 kids, so he finished his stuff the fastest. Anya seems to enjoy the learning the most. She is genuinely interested in a lot of different things.

My plan of making the school week progressively easier worked for this week. The kids were pleasantly surprised and kind of wondering what to do when they had less work each day.

Joshua and Arwen have a full day Monday through Thursday. Their days do not get easier, but their

assignments are easier and they usually finish off their day about an hour earlier than the older kids. Arwen and Josh both have a lot more reading this year too. They have to read scriptures, a chapter in their reader, and lists of words to me. Then they have to read a few pages in their individual chapter books, and a chapter in the New Testament Scripture Stories on their own. Arwen is doing very well with reading. I have them read word lists and time them. When they can read all the words in under 20 seconds, they move to the next list. Arwen is really good at this. Josh is not so good, so Arwen will move up ahead of Josh quickly. I think the word lists are exactly what Josh needs to help him read more quickly and fluently. This year is the first year that I have started Spanish, History, and Science with them.

Josh is in 4th grade math and doing very well with it. He is actually working from 2 books, so he is learning different things, but he is enjoying it a lot more than when he had to memorize his math facts.

I bought the Good and the Beautiful Language arts curriculum for everyone except Adam and Rachel. I have been pleased with it so far. For Susan, it has given me good ideas that make learning fun. I love that it incorporates some religion, and I especially love that I can trust that there is no propaganda trying to teach my children homosexuality. It is getting harder to find curriculum without a little of that popping in here and there. That is the reason I chose the Good and the Beautiful.

Susan is now learning her alphabet. She does a little with numbers, a little with drawing, and a lot

with the alphabet. Then I read to her and she reads to Sam. I am trying to make it fun for her. I let her use the computer for starfall, and she likes that a lot. She is also doing drawing hub for kids videos. I have found that if a kid can draw a little, then it makes it easier for them to write letters and numbers. Susan likes the time I spend teaching her. She seems to look forward to it each day.

When Ruth, Kate, and Johnny started school, kindergarten was simply learning the alphabet and the sounds and numbers to 20. They did not even attempt teaching the kids to read until the first grade. I liked that better. I wish I had done that for Josh. I think he would be doing better now if I had. I am going back to the old method for Susan. Kindergarten will be learning the alphabet and first grade will be all about reading. So I bought Susan the preschool curriculum this year and I will buy her the kindergarten curriculum next year. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny all ended up at the top if their classes with this method.

By the end of this week, I was very tired. It is a lot of work maintaining the house, continuing the repairs, caring for a baby, teaching and directing school, and cooking and cleaning, all while having a baby that still gets up to eat several times each night. I will get used to it, and I hoping that eventually we will finish all of the house repairs and extra work will slow down. We will see. We bought a construction project and it has been very good to have such a cheap house. I know that when it comes to buying a house again, we will buy another construction project.

Sam handled back to school very well. He sat and drew pictures and played with playdough and built

with blocks. He did not go off and get into everyone's things. In fact, I think this week Sam was the best behaved that he has been in a year. I think the scheduled day helped him a lot, even though, he has nothing scheduled other than scripture reading and story time.

Gideon had a much harder time, not having the same amount of attention paid to him. I began putting him down for naps in his own bed, in the little kids bedroom. He has a porta crib for a bed, so we can move it around. I don't want him waking the little kids up in the middle of the night, but he needs a quiet place to sleep in the day. The nap seems to help because he usually wakes up happy. I have also been letting him play out on the deck or in the

grass while I hang the laundry. He really likes that a lot. He plays with the plants and we have one cat that always goes and sits next to him. She either curls up around him and goes to sleep or she plays with him. She even lets him grab her face. I never put her next to him, but she always goes and sits by him. Gideon really loves to be outside. If he cries and cannot be consoled, I can set him down on the deck outside and he stops crying and looks around and calms down. The time that I spend outside hanging the laundry seems to give Gideon a reprieve and he can go back in and handle school time again.

Nothing changed for Ruth, Kate, and Johnny because they never took vacation time. I even have a hard time getting them to take Saturdays off and just hang out with the family. They work hard on their various projects, and studies.

John has a store on zazzle to sell products with images that he has generated from his math research. That sounds weird, but they happen to make very pleasing art. I think we need to go further with this and start manufacturing our own products and selling them ourselves. Zazzle is just too expensive and you lose a lot from silly things such as not using your own website. I need to contact a few people I know who have had products they developed and then had someplace manufacture them. I think we can do more with this than what we have done.

Kate and I are also talking about opening up some sort of from home catering business or bakery or pizza shop, where we would deliver. There is a lot of red tape to jump through with such an endeavor, so right now it is an idea and not something we are really working on other than making our own recipes. I think that I need my kids to be older before I jump into something like this, though, we could do it as a part time side thing as part of homeschool.

First Day of School 2019

For the first time in our homeschool history, I remembered to take pictures for the first day of school!!

This year we have Adam in 9th grade, Rachel in 8th grade, Anya and Joseph in 6th grade, Josh in 3rd grade, Arwen in 2nd, and Suzy in kindertgarten.

I thought that school went rather smoothly. I skip all the introductory stuff that public schools do and go immediately to the meat of the matter. We had a full day of school with everything we will do every Monday for the whole school year. We even had a dentist appointment thrown in there.

I asked each child for a quick opinion on what they thought of their first day of school this year.

Adam: School's heck and if I went to public school it would be more heck.
Rachel: I don't like school. (Later she asked if for school tomorrow she could make cheesecake instead.)
Anya: The reading was good. I guess eating the breakfast was the best part.
Joseph: Not as bad as I thought it would be.
Joshua: Noooo! But, my favorite part of the day was the ice cream. (He got a free ice cream coupon from the dentist.)
Arwen: No, I did not like it. I did not like school.
Susan: It's so nice.

Here's my take on each child and how they did:
Adam: Very obediently did all of his work and did not complain at all. He will need to learn to read faster as most of his work this year will be him learning independently from books.

Rachel: Stalled a lot and tried to get out of her work. She went very slowly and worked later than everyone else. She will need to pick up speed and start taking school and education more seriously. She spent one and a half hours writing her 20 spelling words through once making curly-cues on all of her letters.

Anya: Worked reasonably quickly and well. She fell asleep during her science reading. I think she liked her lessons more than she is apt to admit. I think she will do very well this year.

Joseph; Sped through his work and while he is the youngest of the 4 older school kids, he finished everything a couple of hours before everyone else.

Joshua: He reads very slowly, but he reads. I did not keep up with him and reading over the summer, but he has not lost any skills. In fact, I would say that he has picked up ahead of where he left off, and is reading better. He enjoyed his math. I think he will like his math text.

Arwen: Was easy to be entreated. She reads well and quickly. It is possible that the second grade reading curriculum will be too easy for her.

Suzy: Was as sweet as can be. She did everything I asked and enjoyed doing it. She likes doing colorful workbook pages and was interested in what she did.

This Week at Our House #31 A Rare Visit

We just finished our last week of summer vacation. We will start school tomorrow and we will go 16 weeks straight with no breaks. It will be intense, but I wanted to consolidate our learning and school time, so that we can have more vacation time.

We had a good week. We did not get any more done on the roof, and I wanted to be finished with that by now, but we did get the entire lawn mowed which included attempts to fix the old mower, and buying a new one and putting it together. The work on the roof as well as some painting, more ceiling fixes, and the final repair to the fence will continue in the evenings after our school day.

We are definitely heading into an intense week with school starting, the repairs continuing, and dentist appointments. I think we can do it, though. I have our schedules written. All of our books and supplies out and ready to be used, and the syllabi completed. I feel more ready this year than I have in any of the past years.

John's brother, Jeremy, his wife, Rosanne, and their 4 kids came to visit. I was really nervous about them coming because of the tension

and difficulties with John's family. Rosanne said that as soon as they start talking about us, she leaves, so that she is neither a part of it, nor does she know exactly what they say. I want to believe her. She seemed earnest. I was my usual frank self, and I really enjoyed talking to Rosanne again. Jeremy and Rosanne were our best friends when we lived in Utah. It's been nearly 4 years since we've seen them

Rachel had really missed  their daughter, Ada. Ada and Rachel and Anya seemed to get along well. You could tell that they are not little girls anymore. They approached each other with caution, but by the end of the visit seemed to be friends again.

Joseph is the same age as their son, Sam. Joseph and Sam got along very well. They are both very smart 10 year old boys.

Josh used to be buddies with their daughter, Evelyn, but age changed things. Josh played more with Joseph and Sam and with their youngest son, Seth. Evelyn said Josh isn't the Joshy she remembers. Evelyn seemed to hang out with Arwen more.

Seth and Susan, who are the same

ages, played together by the last day. It is funny how kids seem to pair up with kids their own ages while young, but with their own genders when they are older.

Kate has always loved Evelyn the best of all her cousins and I think Evelyn's frank appraisal of things and general negative attitude pleased Kate.

Cousin Sam had injured his foot before he got here, so we took all of the girl's to the beach, except Arwen who didn't want to go because her swimsuit was dirty. The boys stayed home to play video games and board games together.

Evelyn said that this was the best swimming ever, until a wave washed water up her nose. Ada swam like a pro. Rachel and Anya really enjoyed swimming at the beach with cousins. Gideon sat with Rosanne, while I swam. Ruth and Kate mostly swam, and took care of kids and chatted with Rosanne some. The waves were the best they have been all summer. They were tall, but soft. We all liked sharing our favorite part of North Carolina with our favorite cousins.

John enjoyed seeing his brother, a lot. There were board games going to the whole time. They never got a soccer game going, but I think all the boys and men were happy with the visit.

Johnny and Adam were my master lawn mowers this week. I wanted to get the lawn finished before Jer and Rosanne came and we did. John and I also took a turn or two mowing. Adam and I did some mowing in the heat of the day. While I mowed, Sam followed me with his hands covering his ears. The ducks seemed sad to have lost their tall grass, funny enough.

Speaking of birds. Now that we have a rooster, we have given our broody hens eggs to sit on. I am not sure if they will be fertile yet. The rooster is old enough to be mating, but he is not crowing yet. Joseph and Arwen and Susan have been keeping an eye on our two broody hens. They seem to take turns sitting on the eggs and going off to get food and water. The two broody hens were always pals when they were babies. They seem to be good friends still.

Gideon can now stand up to things and stay standing by holding on. He gets scared when he wants to get down, though, because he is afraid to fall. He will cry and then we will help him down. Gideon was my favorite thing to show off to our company. He's such a handsome little man.

The one unfortunate event of the week was our Sam came down with a runny nose on Tuesday. I am sure he picked it up in nursery. On Thursday, when company came, me, Rachel, Anya, Gideon, and Susan had picked it up. By Saturday night, Joseph, Joshua, Ruth, Kate, Johnny, and John had it too. We

were originally thinking we would go to Sacrament meeting, but with so many of us with a runny nose, we decided to stay home from church. I think that was the right choice because I spent much of the morning wiping noses. We hope Jeremy's family does not catch this cold. It's unfortunate timing. We are rarely sick. Still, we had a lovely time studying the gospel at home today. I read a Joseph Smith discourse on the priesthood, and we discussed that for about two hours. Later, the 4 oldest girls sang hymns around the piano. It was a good Sabbath.

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This Week at Our House #30 A Trip and a Birthday

We had more of a fun week than anything else. Nothing much got done, and I hope to not be kicking myself for that later. School will be starting in one more week, so I think it is good that we had a fun week, but there is still so much work to be done.

Monday morning I took Joseph, Kate, and Adam to the beach for Joseph's birthday. He always wants me to take him out into the deeper water and swim with him, so I did without any other kids to worry about.

When we got home, we repaired a large part of the ceiling in our living room, and then, Ruth, Rachel, Anya, Arwen, Susan, Sam, and Gideon got in the van with me and drove the five and a half hours to my parent's house. I instructed the boys to get the whole yard mowed while I was gone, but they had trouble with the lawn mower and got one row of 2 acres mowed. I may have to purchase a new mower, which concerns me, but will have to be done if we cannot get our mower working.

The trip to my parent's was nice. I hung out with my mom and sisters and visited with my dad. He was in the hospital last week and home healing this week. I made lunch for him each day that I was there. He really liked that, and I liked that I could do something special for him.

All 7 of my kid's slept in my sister's room with her and her daughter. We stayed up late watching movies each night. The little kids really liked the movies. Their cousin Sadie liked having her cousins in for a sleepover, but was ready to have us leave when we did on Thursday.

The last night we were there, the dog that was sleeping with my sister and her daughter puked on their bed. Ruth rose to the occasion. She cleaned up the entire mess by herself, while my sister just sat there and watched. Ruth gagged a few times. She said the smell was horrific-- a cross between dog breath and vomit. Ruth got it off the bed, off the wall, and off the floor under the bed. Ruth was a hero!!!! My sister got her phone flashlight out and said stunned a few times, "She got it all."

We got home before 8pm on Thursday. All was well and happy at home, but the grass is long and the weeds are long and there is still more roof work to be done. We will have a lot to do this coming week-- the last week before we start school.

Friday, I dropped Ruth, Kate, and Johnny off at the book store and ran a bunch of errands. Joseph came as my helper. He was awesome. He got things off the shelf and sped through the stores and the best thing he did was to come up with the perfect suggestion for Arwen's birthday present. We got Arwen playdough and she loved it.

Saturday, we took Arwen and anyone else who wanted to go to a playground. Arwen had a list of things she wanted for her birthday and time at a playground was on the list. The kid's had a lot of fun there running around, swinging, and playing tag. Then we got home and had the birthday party. Arwen's birthday may have been one of the most anticipated birthdays of all time. I think the day turned out happily enough for her.

Sunday at church, Kate and Johnny's favorite friends were there because their family was staying at the beach for a family vacation. Kate was so excited to see them and they had a little time chatting after church.

Here are some little notes about the kids:
Ruth is finally driving the van with confidence.
Kate conscientiously cleaned the house just in time for us to get home and it looked perfect.
Johnny has been praying to see his friend again and then they showed up at the ward we have been going to, even though, no one really knows where we attend church.
Adam enjoyed days with no mom calling chore time.
Rachel and Anya and Ruth all said

that the best part of Grandma's house was swimming in her neighborhood pool.
I can tell Joseph is growing up because I can talk to him like an adult now.
Josh drew an amazing picture of a shark and he is reading his scriptures like he has always known how to read. I still need to photograph that picture.
Arwen said she really likes playing dolls with her cousin Sadie.
Susan was quieter and calmer this week. I think she liked the trip to Grandma's.
Sam is very whiney. I have never been a fan of the age two. He did really well with the two long drives.
Gideon stood himself up for the first time and then cried because he did not know how to get back down.

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