The Beginnings of Our Home Schooling Adventures

I intended to write a full post of how our home schooling evolving and progressing, but I am currently only about halfway through writing up a post and it is already two pages long. Instead of one post I have decided to divide it up into a two or three, so:

School with Edmund Part 1:

Edmund and I started doing “formal” schooling in October of last year. I say formal, because we always try to incorporate learning into everything we do; making a point of using the names of shapes and colors, referring to an item’s position by right or left, counting things, and singing the alphabet. But please understand, our lessons are not at all what you would probably find in a typical school. I started by mainly just making up each day’s lesson as I went along, without really any curriculum, any particular consistency in daily school, or even necessarily a flow from one day’s lesson to the next.

You may be thinking at this point that it can’t really be called school. What I was going for was getting into the school mode, both for Edmund, and myself, as well as trying to find what kind of learning system would work for us. Sure, I could have figured out all the curriculum details before we started, but then who knows when we would have started, and how much actual curriculum do you need for your preschool/kindergarten student anyway? Our curriculum is definitely still a work in progress, but I would like to share with you what I started with and how our schooling is going right now.

I did several Google searches for preschool resources and found a lot of free stuff online. Our first few months of school I did a lot with just printed worksheets and coloring pages that focused on whatever we were learning in a given day.

The first weeks was mainly “review” work with Edmund to figure out what he already knew. As I said before, we sang, counted, named colors, etc in daily play, so Edmund already had a good foundation in those areas. To begin, we did a lot of repetition of numbers and the alphabet, straightening out the ones that he had mixed up or was missing altogether.

Once he was fairly good with saying both his letters and numbers I made some flash cards, to work on recognition. I just used Microsoft Word and made a template then printed out two of each number or letter (for the letters I had both upper and lower case on the same card). We worked with the flash cards every day, as well as using them to play games of Memory.

By this time our lessons consisted of:

Ø Reading the Bible, I started with a regular Bible, abridging as necessary for his understanding, now we have a children’s Bible that we read. I ask him questions about the previous day’s reading, we read the current day’s reading, then talk about it.

Ø Singing a song, we have Edmund memorize songs (we started with Christmas ones). Once he has a song memorized we move on to a new one, but periodically we have him sing past songs to keep them fresh in his mind. He also likes to sing when he is playing, so all these songs go into him repertoire for that as well. (In fact you can tell when he really is starting to “get” a song, because he will start singing it throughout the day.)

Ø Numbers, first counting then moving on to recognition

Ø Letters, first singing the alphabet properly, then moving on to recognition

To be continued....

Wrestling with Rybak

Jaired's sisters introduced me to Alexander Rybak sometime last year, but it wasn't until Jaired got a hold of Chava's CD Fairytales in December, that we really started listening to his music. Now when I say we listen to his music I mean just that one CD, but....

This song has become one of our family favorites. Edmund can sing the chorus and parts of the rest of the song, and even Nathaniel tries to sing along.

Jaired and the boys wrestle most evenings and Fairytales is the go-to wrestling music for them. If Jeremiah is in the kitchen with me while I am cleaning up and he hears Rybak start up he knows that the office is the place to be, and off he goes.

Jeremiah -- One Year

This year has gone by so fast. In some ways I still want to be snuggling my little, tiny baby Jeremiah, but here he is, one year old already!

Jeremiah may look like his older brothers, but he definitely has his own personality. He is so much more serious than the two older boys. He doesn't laugh much, so when he does it is so delightful and you can really tell how much fun he is having. The great thing about it is that his brothers are some of the people who make him laugh most often.

He also knows how to hold his own with his brothers. Laughing and letting them tumble him around to their hearts content, but letting them know in no uncertain terms when he has had enough. He sure can yell to let you know how mad he is! It is hard not to laugh when he gets that mischievous glint in his eye as he edges towards his brothers' toys, then gleefully knocks over whatever it was that they just built.

While the other two boys started walking before they turned one, but didn't say their first words until sometime after; Jeremiah has shown no interest in walking alone, but has already said a few words. His favorite word is "ball," but he also can say "bye" and "quack."

Jeremiah learned how to clap in time for his birthday.

He is very excited about his new walking toy, and plays with it a lot.

His brothers like playing with it, too. :)

The birthday shirt Aunt Kimberly made.

A Chocolate cupcake. Hmm, is this stuff any good?

Oh, yes, definitely!

Hey, look at the icing on my tray.

I wonder how much more mess I can make?

Wow, look at the icing on my hand. That's cool!

Man, that cupcake sure was good. And I know I am so cute with all this icing on my face.

(This picture was taken the day after his birthday party. At the party, he wasn't so happy about how messy he got and started crying as soon as he was done eating because he was so tired and just wanted to get cleaned up!)

Jeremiah is such a fun little baby. We all love him so much, and he loves us all right back.

The Never-ending Menace of a Mother

Or anyone for that matter: laundry. It has to be done, and you need a cleaning agent to do it.

Some time last year, my MIL and I were talking about the prices of laundry detergent, and the strong perfumes and dyes in the detergents. We both have to pay close attention to perfumes and dyes in detergents. My FIL has very sensitive skin, so there are only a handful of detergents that can be used for him. I use cloth diapers, and perfumes and dyes can clog up the fabric, irritating the baby's skin as well as making the diapers less absorbent.

In an effort to save money and use less chemicals on our clothes (and consequently, our skin), I began looking into home-made detergent options. I found this website. Not only are there several detergent recipes to choose from, but there is a pretty exhaustive FAQ's section that was complied in response to the questions generated by the detergent recipes.

I went with Recipe #1:

1 quart boiling water

2 cups or 1 bar grated bar soap (A regular cheese grater works great. No pun intended!)

2 cups Borax

2 cups Washing soda

Add the grated soap to the boiling water and stir over low heat until dissolved.

In a large bucket (with lid) combine water/soap mixture with the Borax and Washing Soda, stirring until dissolved.

Add 2 gallons of water and mix well.

Keep covered, stir before each use (it will gel). Use about a 1/4 cup per load.

I chose to use Ivory soap rather then Fels Naptha (which is what a lot of people use) for the grated bar soap because that is what I had on hand the first time. I am glad I did, for one thing Ivory does have a slight scent, which is nice, but not heavy, and for the other thing it is very gentle on the skin, more so than Fels Naptha, I believe.

I am currently on my second bucket of this detergent and we have been very happy with it. Our laundry comes out clean and fresh smelling. Once in awhile I do still use a little bleach, particularly with the whites. I also use white vinegar in the rinse cycle for the diapers to help break up any soap residue.

I have been asked by a few different people about the price difference. I knew before starting this venture that the home-made detergent would be cheaper, but I never ran any numbers until now. It seemed a good thing to include in this post. :)

Here are the three main detergents I previously used:

Dreft 100 oz. (64 loads) $15.97

Tide 150 oz. (96 loads) $17.50

All Free and Clear 150 oz. (96 loads) $10.97

(Prices and images from Walmart.com)

For the home-made detergent:

One box each of Borax and Washing Soda totaled $7.50. I will get four or five batches of detergent out of each box. Let's say four batches, that's $1.87.

The Ivory soap is about $0.38/bar ($3.76 for a pack of ten).

That puts one batch of detergent at approximately 144 loads and costs around $2.25 (+a little time and water). That looks like a savings to me!

Of course, laundry still can be a menace even when you have cheap detergent.

I have finally found a system that seems to work for me. Instead of doing laundry when it gets piled up, I stick to a weekly rotation: colors on Monday, darks on Wednesday, and whites on Friday. Diapers get washed whenever we run low. This means that I have a load or two that I do each of those days, but it ensures that each pile gets done once a week, so we don't run out of anything. It also makes laundry folding a more manageable job.

Once the laundry is folded I have the boys put away most of it, their own laundry, as well as all the linens. They love it, so it isn't really even viewed as a "chore."

Nathaniel -- Two and a half (almost)

Nathaniel's vocabulary is finally starting to grow at a noticeable rate. He surprised me yesterday by say, "More cookie." In many ways he speaks more clearly than Edmund. Have I ever told you that Edmund has a lisp? His tongue gets in the way whenever he tries to say the s and th sounds. But even besides not having that lisp Nathaniel speaks more clearly. He does not have as much difficulty with sounds made in the throat, such as g and c/k. Just another difference between the two boys. His new word of the week so far is "read." And believe me, he uses it a lot.

Nathaniel is quite the bookworm. He can sits for an hour sometimes reading books. He loves to carry stack after stack of books to one of his favorite reading spots, then sit down and read each one page by page. Regular children's picture books are great, but some of the most common books he picks are the big story collections or children's encyclopedias. The more pages the better. When we go to the family's house he heads straight for the horse encyclopedias. The strangest and funniest book he likes to read is the Bible. Yes, our regular Bibles that don't have any pictures whatsoever. And he will sit there turning page after page, looking at each one.

Nathaniel didn't take well to the idea of potty training. Too much other stuff to do maybe, or else he didn't want to have to think about when he needed to go potty, but rather just let it happen when it happened. Whatever the case, it took longer than with Edmund to get him to actually tell us when he had to go. If we happened to ask him right when he needed to go we could catch it, but if we asked a few minutes to soon he would say no, then the next thing we would know he would be going in his pants. We used candy (Skittles in this case) as a reward for when he used the toilet and after a couple of weeks he picked up on the idea and got pretty good at telling us when he needed to pee.

Pooping on the other hand took much longer. He absolutely refused to go in the toilet for a few weeks, even to the point of sitting there for several minutes every hour and just holding it. Somedays he would find a quiet place or catch a quick moment when our attention was elsewhere to poop in his pants. With Edmund we gave him one candy for peeing and a second one if he pooped, too. With Nathaniel that second one hardly made a difference. We had to make it an extra four candies before it was enough incentive for him to start going on the toilet.

Thankfully all of that is behind us now. It has been many a week since he has had an accident. He almost never goes even when he is sleeping now.

Nathaniel is starting to pay attention to colors. Everything is "blue," though he can say red, black, and gray when he is prompted. He counts, "two, three, two, three," even lining up his toys and counting them at times. When asked how old he is he knows to say, "two." One of his favorite toys is a plastic Bob the the Tomato that was handed down to us by some friends. He doesn't sleep with his Gorilla any more, but does like to have him on the shelf at the head of the bed. He almost always greets Jeremiah with a hug and a kiss when Jeremiah wakes up from his naps. He calls Jeremiah either "Baby" or "Jack-Jack." He refers to himself as "me" and calls Edmund "you," though he does know all the other names of people in the family.

Dairy still bothers Nathaniel, so we are cutting back on how much we give him. We originally intended to take him off dairy completely, but that is proving harder than you may think. It is amazing how much of the food we eat has even a little dairy in it. So instead of going cold turkey we are slowing taking him off. So far I have switched from butter to oil when cooking for him and have dairy-free pancakes in the freezer for him to eat whenever we have pancakes for breakfast. I used our regular pancake recipe which we already use oil instead of butter when we make and replaced the milk with soymilk, cooking them in oil of course. The soymilk makes for a heavier pancake, so I may try adding a little more baking powder next time I make some. They aren't as flavorful either, but with jam on top he doesn't seem to notice. I am also looking into other alternatives for him.

All in all, Nathaniel is quickly progressing from baby/toddler to little boy. He is very energetic and curious (what child isn't). He is a handful for sure. :)

Thoughts on Life

I go through phases, as I am sure we all do. Some days or weeks I am really motivated, and others I just want to sit around and do nothing (including wishing I wasn't bothered by little children so much). Unfortunately, I have reached that "grown up" point in my life when I find that being grown up means more than getting to stay up late, eat whatever I want, and work or play as the whim hits me. It is such a let down, don't you think? I mean, really, this housework keeps needing to be done even if I feel more like playing or being lazy. And guess what? I have to do it, there's no mom to pick up after me. I am the mom.

My New Year's resolution actually started back in December, as I began to really mean it when I told myself I wanted to invest more time in my children and less time in my daily housework and other "stuff." I have made this resolution in the past, and have even written about it here on my blog. This time around seems to be working better. For one thing, I have truly been spending less time on the internet, particularly Facebook. For another thing I have come up with a housework schedule that really seems to be working. And, as I am discovering this week, right now when things have been going long enough for good intentions to fade the weather has warmed up enough to hint at Spring, which is always a time when I feel more motivated to keep the house clean.

I hope I can keep it up. Edmund and I also do school almost every day. The goal is to do school every day, but with the morning being the best time to do school as well as the time I am most motivated to clean the house it sometimes ends up that the housework takes so long that lunch comes before we have gotten around to doing school. When this happens it is often easier, and less stressful, to skip school. Edmund really enjoys school and is doing a great job, but the later we sit down to do school the shorter his attention span is and the less brain power he seems to have. The struggle often isn't worth it to me.

Then I have this blog, which I enjoy, but don't seem to find time to post on much. Hopefully, that is changing starting now as I, with Jaired's help, attempt to write regularly (probably Tuesday nights). I will share more about Edmund's schooling, housework, my boys, and the other aspects of our lives in future posts.

Good Night.

Edmund -- 4 Years Old

Edmund's birthday was last month, the week before Thanksgiving. He has really been able to understand about his birthday and age change this year. The whole week after his birthday he would use his age in conversations whenever he could. Like saying, "Mama, can I have my four years old boy's Legos to play with?" (He got some Legos for his birthday, and we have to keep them up high when he isn't playing with them, so that Nathaniel won't get them.)

His birthday meals this year were: Blueberry Pancakes for breakfast, Spaghetti with bread and salad for dinner, and Chocolate Cream Pie with whipped cream for dessert. The whipped cream was very important to him. Before he had even decided on a pie he knew he wanted whipped cream on it. :)

We had a lot of fun baking the pies together. He is getting really good at helping with stirring, adding ingredients, and getting out everything we need for the baking process. Jaired taught him how to crack an egg, but he doesn't like to do it because his fingers get egg white on them -- he is such a particular little boy.

Here is the final result. It was pronounced a great success.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

He blew out each candle individually!

Opening presents.

This book is The Wind in the Willows. We read it together the next week and he really enjoyed it. The pictures are beautiful.

Jaired and I got him a sleeping bag. He is so excited, because he has been asking for one since the summer. He sleeps in it almost every night.

In fact, that night we lit a fire in the fireplace and camped out in the living room.

The birthday shirt, made by Aunt Kimberly.

It is crazy that my first baby is four years old now. He is such a sweet, particular, funny little boy. He loves to help me around the house and to play with his little brothers.

We started school with him this year. He has really taken off with writing the alphabet, though he still doesn't remember the names of all the letters. He continues to love drawing and has recently been making "books." He will draw pictures on several papers, scribble "words" on them, then staple the pages together. It is always interesting to read these stories to him. He expects me to know the story, so I have to ask him questions to figure out the general plot and then make up something off of that.

Edmund likes to tell me about his wife, whom he hasn't meet yet. Her name is Aba-baba. He is always talking about her, how many children they are going to have, how she is going to to have a sewing machine just like me, or be like me in some other way. He is so serious about the whole thing.