Journal Archives - Page 3 of 4

A Nature Journaling Memory

August 9, 2012Tracy4 Comments

I love our summer nature studies. Oldest has especially bonded with his nature journal this summer. He’s always got it with him, including when we went on vacation. He sat on the balcony of our hotel room and sketched. When we visited with friends, he and my friend’s son sat outside on a rock pile with their nature journals and shared colored pencils.

I consulted two different sources this year: The Handbook of Nature Study and Nature Journaling, both from my library. The Handbook is rather intimidating, I’ll admit—very comprehensive and very hard to use with young children. I always feel like a momma bird when I use the Handbook; I have to read and digest the information and then feed it to my children in small, already-been-chewed bites. But I do understand when others write that you can’t do nature study without it. It is very comprehensive. On the other hand, Nature Journaling is inspiring and inviting. It not only provides ideas for how to have a nature journal but intentionally removes the fear factor. This book is why my son loves his journal.

I haven’t forced a curriculum or made journaling an assignment. When he shows me an entry, I’ll ask him questions that relate to what we’ve been studying. Is it a vertebrate or an invertebrate? What classification is it? But his journal is not purely scientific; it’s a place for him to record his summer memories—the blue-taled skink that regularly visited our front porch, the squirrel they tried to lure with acorns, the varied leaves found in the yard.

His journal is made with my Proclick binder: a piece of cardboard for the backing, some notebooking pages with places to sketch and lines to write on, and a laminated cover.

But it’s not really how I made his journal that makes him love it; it’s about how I’m letting him make his own memories and then experience them a second time on paper.

In the spirit of Olympics, part 2

August 7, 2012Tracy2 Comments

After kick-starting our Olympic study with delicious cookies and some flag fun, the kids were ready to participate. I planned a few simple “Olympic” events for the kids to participate in: cycling and running, as well as the balance beam and the discus throw. Our left-over blue painter’s tape came in very handy for the events, as well.

Olympic Races — At the starting line for the first event

Middlest is fiercely competitive yet hopelessly the “little” sister; thus, I made sure that the emphasis was not as much on winning as it was on having fun. Of course, someone has to win; but I kept everything moving and didn’t dwell too much on the victories. And for those events where winning was all the fun (like running through the painter’s tape at the finish line), we took turns winning.

Olympic activities for kids — the discus throw

Olympic events for kids — Measuring the distance in the discus throw event

Olympics for kids — The “balance beam” was Middlest’s favorite.

Then, we concluded with our own Awards Ceremony, complete with the “Olympic Fanfare” playing on my iPod followed by a performance of “O Say, Can You See,” and a picnic.

By then, Littlest had all the fun he could take. (He’s not a fan of the great outdoors right now.) We headed back to the house where I fed the little man and the “big kids” prepped themselves for the swimming events. Later, Oldest mentioned to me that he really wanted to play “Opening Ceremonies” and run with the torch, suggesting that we use our left-over July 4th sparklers. I couldn’t resist.

In the spirit of Olympics, part 1

August 6, 2012Tracy3 Comments

2012 Olympic activities

We have had so much fun with the Olympics this summer. At the end of our geography study, the Olympics have been the perfect way to reinforce a year’s worth of learning. And of course, everyone has such brilliant ideas to offer.

Three resources that I used for our Olympic fun were Opening Ceremony party ideas from London2012.com, Olympic fun pack from WhatsintheBible.com, and Olympic coloring pages from ActivityVillage.com.

For the Opening Ceremony, I had the kids so excited: a runner with a torch and flags from all the countries. I had a coloring page for them to work on when the ceremony got a little slow, and I had pages of flags for them to find and mark as they saw them on the program. Of course, I failed to remember that the Parade of Nations and the torch all took place after the ceremony, and that the ceremony takes FOR-EV-ER to conclude. So, the poor kids had to go to bed before the good stuff, and we had to tivo the rest for another night of fun. But they liked their coloring page anyway.

We continued our fun a couple of days later with some sugar cookies and frosting. The kids got out their passports from our geography study and picked flags to decorate on the cookies. I confess, I did help quite a bit with this project. Mostly, I frosted the flag outlines and let them do the filling in. Any fancy details I also took over. But the kids still loved the project, and it really helped to review our flags.

(I went for simple on this project, so I bought packaged sugar cookie dough and packaged icing. You could definitely save money by making your own, but I wanted the bulk of my time to be spent on icing the flags not baking, at least for this project.)

Then, we finally got to the Parade of Nations. Surprisingly, Oldest didn’t care for marking the flags at all. He took a seat and just watched, helping every now and then, while Middlest absolutely loved the project! She rolled and jumped and scrambled from one page to the next marking off flags with her (can you guess?) pink crayon. I had close to 50 flags printed off, and she found every one of them.

It was definitely a fun kick-start to the events, but just a beginning to all of our Olympic fun.

Christmas in July

July 31, 2012Tracy

I recently had an opportunity to get a glimpse of my daughter’s personality. My friend invited us and another family to her house for a spontaneous “Christmas in July” party. We read a Christmas story and iced Christmas cookies. Each child iced two cookies and quickly devoured their artistic endeavors.

Then, as the other children rushed from the table to play, Middlest asked for a few more cookies to ice.

Then she asked for a few more…

…and a few more.

In the end, she iced nearly a dozen cookies all by herself.

My butterfly, who usually flits from one activity to the next, sat for half an hour (the only child) and contentedly iced cookie after cookie. I knew she liked to bake, but I truly had the opportunity to see just how strong the desire is for her. Middlest LOVES to be in the kitchen.

We finished our party with some caroling, sharing the bounty of Christmas cookies and singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy July!” It was a fun break from our normal pace and a memorable day, not only the fellowship with other mommies and their kids, but the sweet moment God gave to get to know my little girl.

Mud Memories

July 26, 2012Tracy1 Comment

I remember the time my sister and I decided to make chocolate milk.

Our ingredients were dirt and water.

Unlike other older sisters who wisely have their younger sibling sample the fare for them, I indulged right alongside.

We both ended up with a mouthful of mud—and vivid memories.

So when Middlest came into the house with her pail of dirt and asked for some water so that she could make a cake, you bet I cringed. But then, I also couldn’t resist. After all, every child needs a mud memory, right?

I was surprised when Oldest, my neat-freak OCD child, decided to join in the fun.

And though I tried to just set them loose on their mud escapades, I soon realized that my daughter needed a little instruction in the art of mud-caking. I had to empty her pail of rocks, bark, and leaves and help her add dirt to the right consistency. She couldn’t make up her mind at first what to make. First, it was cake; then it was tea; back to chocolate cake; and finally a batch of cookies.

Oldest wanted to make a cake and keep it in his pail until it had “baked” in the sun. Then he emptied his creation into his wheelbarrow for minimal mess. But I was proud when I saw his hands caked with dirt.

Then, Oldest suggested some music. Last summer we had a Handel’s Water Music party; this summer, it’s Bach and mud cakes! And after all that hard work making decadence you can’t eat, there’s got to be some refreshment.

(By the way, the popsicles were made from instant pudding! Make the pudding according to box directions, pour into molds, and freeze! So simple and so delicious!)

Homeschooling with Baby

May 2, 2012Tracy1 Comment

My favorite blogs are the ones who get honest about what doesn’t go right in a school day. The beautiful pictures and brilliant ideas are inspiring, but it’s always nice to know what’s going on behind stage and in the wings—what the camera did NOT capture. Since we’ve added an adorable new person to our routine, I thought it might be advisable to show you just what our homeschool looks like right now and how we’re managing.

First, I’m struggling to get a morning routine going right now, so school starts whenever I get to it and often no earlier than 10 a.m. Littlest is sleeping for good stretches through the night but not reliably all the way through the night, which means his morning feeding times cannot be set in a schedule. That also means my breakfast, shower, and morning chores routine is not set either. All that translates into a very unpredictable morning schedule.

When we do begin, Littlest is either starting a feeding or will be starting one soon, and as I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to take care of that on the couch rather than in the school room. Consequently, school is more often than not at the kitchen table or in the living room. While the baby impatiently waits his turn, I gather the work pages, readers, flashcards, crayons and anything else we’ll be using and bring it all to the table. I read directions and hand out assignments, then take my place on the couch.

I have brought back the timer, which is on my ipod and convenient for me. Setting the timer for 10-15 minutes per activity keeps me from having to nag and keeps them accountable even when I am not right over their shoulder. When they have a question or need a new set of directions read to them, the kids run their papers over to the couch, and we look at them together. Right now, we’re only tackling phonics and math on most days, even though I really want to get back to our geography. Our un-routine mornings keep thwarting those efforts.

animal flip book — Our latest attempt at geography (notice Mr. Not-so-happy in the background)

Some days, Littlest will eat his fill and then quietly take a nap during the rest of our school time. Other days, he’s up for the extent, either watching us all from his vibrating chair or fussing his burps out over my shoulder. We usually finish up by about lunch time; and though I could tackle geography after lunch, I’m usually very ready to have a few moments relatively (very relatively) to myself.

my not-so-happy face — My Not-so-happy Face

Beyond that, I’m merely trying to keep up with laundry and to remember to defrost what I need for dinner. Then, there’s blogging: my mental exercise to be sure that I can still form a complete sentence. And that’s the “new normal” right now. I’ve also taken advantage of every free trial offer computer school that I can find: Reading Eggs, Time4Learning, and now Reflex math (which I totally love, by the way).

It’s not perfect or ideal; it’s not even what I’d necessarily prefer. But it’s learning, and I’m so grateful to have us all learning to learn together.

Finding our New Normal

April 6, 2012Tracy

Believe it or not, we’re were back to school after two and a half weeks off. My kids are slave-drivers. I’d been asked about doing school nearly every day since I’d been home from the hospital. So, after “Nana” left to go back home and we were once more on our own, school started back up for us.

Of course, I haven’t tackled anything too strenuous, and I’m still thanking the Lord for that free trial of the Reading Eggs website. What a lifesaver that has been! But adding structure back to our morning has made the world of difference with the kids. Too much unstructured playtime, and they begin to mutiny. I’m always amazed by how much better everyone gets along after a couple of hours of school time.

So, here’s what we’ve been up to:

Reading Eggs for reading and phonics
Some fun MacQueen (as in the race car) math workbooks and reading books
Cuisenaire rods (the kids were so excited to finally be pulling these out; I loved how fast they caught on)
Time4Learning math lessons
Lots of cozy reading on the couch

And, our newest little man has had his early introduction to our school routine as well. He seems to fit right it.

It’s been good. Far from perfect, but good. I’m totally loving the fact that we get to make these adjustments. So many blessings—to squeeze, to kiss, to treasure.