Baby Number Four

I should have posted this last week, but I wasn't feeling up to writing a blog post, so I distracted myself by reading a mystery story instead.

As some of you know, we are expecting our fourth baby. The due date is August 11. Yes, I know, that means that I am already over halfway through my pregnancy and I haven't blogged about it at all. That's bad.

Anyway. I had a doctor's appointment Monday of last week (the 18th) and we found out that we are having a girl!

It will be interesting to see how much differences there will be between raising a boy and raising a girl. But I think we will have fun.

Edmund is excited. Of course he has known all along that this baby was a girl and would never hear otherwise from anyone. He has even named her, Miss Cook. "Because she will be a good cooker like Mama when she gets big."

Once while listening to Alexander Rybak's "Dolphin," where one line runs, "...and in my dreams he's promised me that someday I'll find my girl..." Edmund said, "Mama, do you know when I'll find my girl? When she comes out of your tummy!"

"April Showers Bring May Flowers"

We have been getting a lot of rain. More rain than sunshine, particularly this past weekend.

On Saturday we and the fam went to Jaired's office for a spring clean up. It started to rain about halfway through the morning, but we still managed to get all the outdoor work done. I think we worked faster because of the rain than we would have normally. The indoor work all got done, too, though there wasn't as much of it. Mostly just a thorough cleaning of the whole building. We were able to hang Jaired's diplomas and other documents that we had finally just recently gotten framed. And Kimberly cleaned the chimney. I think she got about 30 lbs. of ASH out of it. Really? How was there ash in the chimney?

Saturday night the rain got really crazy. We even got hail, which, though it is sometimes in the forecast isn't really that common in this area. No tornadoes though, thankfully.

When we moved into this house there were four or five places in the basement that leaked. We thought we had taken care of all of them, but there is still one left in a side room. It turns out that the leak is in a different place than I thought, but I believe I have it pin-pointed now. We have to go down there a few times a day to vacuum and mop up the water that comes in. But things got even more wild when the back yard and patio flooded up to the house and water started pouring into the schoolroom. After frantically trying to scoop it up faster than it came in I happened to glance over at what we have always thought was some odd hole in the patio floor that was kept covered with an old pot. Willing to try anything I pulled out the pot and watched with relief as the water began to pour down the hole. We don't know where this drain goes, but it seems to work well. Hopefully we aren't flooding something else.

We had a very simple Easter. Homemade sticky buns for breakfast, then off to church where Edmund joined a couple of the other boys in singing "He Reigns" by The Newsboys for the congregation. Back at home we got a fire going in the fireplace and Jaired and I relaxed with our books while Edmund and Nathaniel watched a Curious George movie. In the evening we had an Easter egg hunt. This was Nathaniel's first hunt and the first one Edmund has had in a long time (since we lived in Virginia). Because of the rain we had all the eggs inside. I am really bad about taking pictures of these kinds of things because I am so focused on them and making sure they know what is going on and that they are having fun. They did have fun and they didn't have any trouble figuring out what to do. (Sometimes I wonder if I worry too much?) They opened their eggs by the fireplace and seemed to be as excited about the new cars and bouncy balls as they were about the candy.

Spring is Here

Spring has pretty decidedly arrived now. We are having the usual mixture of sun and rain, cold, warm, and hot. I like it. It isn't likely that we will get many, if any, more frosty mornings, but even if we do they will certainly warm up to be quite lovely by lunch time. There is some heat, for example, on Saturday we went over to the family's for dinner and they got the pool out for the boys to play in. But the heat isn't too bad either, and the evenings cool off.

The boys and I are spending more time outside now. All three of them love to be outside, so it works out well. I am able to get some yard work done while they play and even when they are cranky they will play happily, then when nap time comes they are ready to lay down and take a good long nap. Sometimes when Jeremiah is having a fit at lunch and refusing to eat I will sit him out on the stoop and he will eat up all his food with almost no complaint.

Right at the end of February we bought a John Deere garden tractor. That, along with an extra wagon the family had from one of their old garden tractors, has been a great addition to our spring yard work. We have been spending the last several Saturdays outside working on a lot of the neglected aspects of our property. We still have work in the basement that needs to be done, but I am glad that we are spending these weekends outside. There will be plenty of time to work in the basement when the weather gets hot. In the past we spent a lot of days not doing anything because of not being able to work on the basement for various reasons, but at the same time feeling like, if we were going to be working we should do the "important" projects, instead of stuff like yard work. But now we are really enjoying the spring and getting work done.

I have been working on trimming plants, pruning dead branches, and in general cleaning up the place. I am at war with the wisteria, which is trying to take over the garden. Jaired has been mowing the field, tearing down fences, and building things.

I love this time of year.

School with Edmund Part 2:

After about two months we moved on from letter recognition to phonics. Jaired’s family used Sing, Spell, Read, and Write for their children, and Jaired still remembered the phonics song that is used in that curriculum. We taught Edmund how to sing it, and, using images from the Internet, I made a visual for him to look at as he sang it. At that point I was able to use the same letter flash cards I had already made to drill him in his phonics. For each card he would tell me the name of the letter and the sound it made. I also started him writing the alphabet, usually a letter a day, first in uppercase and now he is doing lowercase.

Around the same time that we started phonics, I started him on other memorization besides just songs. We are working on both Scripture verses and various poems.

Throughout all of this I keep up with regular reading to him, from picture books as well as picking up chapter books and educational/informational books on topics that interest him (like castles).

As Edmund becomes more familiar with everything he learns he starts, of his own accord, to use it in his every day play:

Ø He writes his name on his own, practices writing random letters and numbers, or he draws a picture, then asks me how to write what the picture is.

Ø Once he learned the concept of counting past twenty he taught himself to count higher, just asking for help with the tens.

Ø He likes to sing to himself or recite nursery rhymes as he plays, so all the songs and poems he learns go into his repertoire.

We started using Saxon Math K in January. Both Jaired and I grew up on Saxon Math. Back then their lowest grade was 4^th, but now they have down to kindergarten. For the most part the books are non-consumables, so Jaired’s parents were able to save all of Saxon books once their children were done using them, with grandchildren in mind. For Saxon Math K we are able to borrow their teacher’s guide and only had to buy the booklet and manipulatives package that goes with the program. (And the manipulatives are used all the way to 3^rd grade, so they are well worth the 60 something dollars they cost, not to mention we can use them with the other children as well.)

Edmund and I both really enjoy the Saxon Math. Though it is a kindergarten book they start out with very easy concepts, much of which Edmund already knew. The book is designed to be used three times a week, with reviewing past lessons on the off days. I didn’t notice this until after we were a few weeks into the book, but, because Edmund was easily understanding each lesson, we have continued going through the book at a lesson a day.

The math book is designed to take up a full school year, but since we are doing a lesson a day we will be done with it in less time. I haven’t checked how many lessons there are, but I don’t plan to take off any official summer break, so we will just go until we are done and then probably move on to the next grade, keeping pace with what Edmund is able to understand.

Back to reading and writing, Edmund now knows all the initial sounds each letter makes and recognizes both upper and lowercase letters, though I have not yet taught him when to use which case.

Last month we started reading three letter words. I just use a notebook and devote each page to one type of words. So far we have done words ending with –an and –ot. I don’t know yet when I will teach him letter combination sounds, but once I do I can always go back to each page and write down the longer words that have those same endings.

I love the challenge and flexibility of home schooling. I can go as fast or as slow with a concept as Edmund is able to understand and not worry that he is going to “fall behind” or “get ahead.” If he is not in a very teachable mood we can skip our sit down school and just play. I don’t have to get stressed out trying to make him learn, and he learns that school is fun.

I learn and understand more about what I am teaching as I have to look at the topic/concept from different angles trying to find the way Edmund will understand it. And it is not just the way I explain things to him, but the way a lesson is presented to him.

For example: as I gave him new words to read he began to be overwhelmed by all that was going on. He would look at the list of words, which probably appeared long to him, and his mind would shut done, so much so that he would not even be able to tell me the sounds of the letters. You may think I am making excuses for him being stubborn and not wanting to read, but I think that it really was just too much at once for him to handle. My approach now is: each day I tell him if we are going to just do a review of the previous day’s words or if we will be learning new words. Then, I make sure that he feels confident with reading each word, and at least understands the basic meaning of the word before going on to another one. Finally, even if I want him to read three or four new words I write them down one at a time, that way he can concentrate on each new word one at a time, instead of seeing all of them at once and wondering how in the world he is going to be able to read them. This approach has worked really well. We are both much more relaxed about reading, and he is excited and confident about reading. He even gets the notebook out at other times during the day to read the words to himself.

I look forward to sharing more of our home schooling journey with you. I would love to hear your comments.

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.