Summer Vacation 2016

Something big happened today.

For the first time since I started homeschooling (8 years ago!) I declared this week that we are going to take Summer Vacation.

In the past, I've avoided it. I hate the thought of them forgetting the last 6 months' work for the sake of 3 months off school. Instead, we've taken one or two week long vacations throughout the year, when we just felt like we needed it. It's always worked well and we've always been happy with that arrangement.

But things change. Kids get older and busier, life situations take new turns, and needs change. And right now, we NEED a break. A really, really long one. One that involves sleepovers on the trampoline, staying up late, sleeping in, and not keeping any kind of schedule. And for those of you who know me and how much I really, honestly adore schedules, you'll realize that's a pretty serious thing to say.

Once upon a time, I started this blog and named it "The Little Things" because I wanted to focus on all the wonderful, mundane things that made our lives special in my eyes. I keep losing those things. Life is a game of Tetris, trying to fit in school, farm work, house work, extra curricular activities, and whatever else needs to be done into the finite number of hours each day offers. And I'm tired. They're tired. We aren't enjoying these days like we should be.

Having "big kids" is a whole different ball game than the Two Little Girls I used to write about each day. Those Two Little Girls are now Two Little Ladies, and they have lives of their own that I'm struggling to keep up with while I'm still trying to live mine, and somehow keep them all intertwined the way I feel like they need to be.

I've spent time over the past year prioritizing and re-prioritizing, and something clicked for me this spring. Math, English, History, Science... those things are officially off the top ten list. Cora is reading now, above grade level and has (mostly) mastered her math facts. In homeschooling, that is a HUGE hump to get over. It's time for a break. We've earned it.

I have goals for this summer, though. It's not all going to be days of freedom, traipsing around the property in the sunshine. (Thought plenty of that is certainly on the to-do list.) We will focus on real life. The girls will be cooking, cleaning, practicing animal husbandry and gardening. We will spend time each day reading our Bibles and doing what we call "Character Study" - which I am convinced is even more important that finding common denominators in fractions. We will put everything we have into their 4-H projects, from art and knitting and sewing to raising poultry, training dogs, and riding horses. They will spend this summer learning how to learn, learning to follow through with difficult tasks, learning to put others before themselves, and learning how to be responsible for themselves and their actions. Those things are things schools forget about sometimes, but they are what makes life good and worthwhile.

It's also going to be a summer spent forming habits. I have a list of habits I want them to form, and a list I want to form myself. I want them to read every day, no matter what it is. I want them to help someone else each day, so that some day it becomes natural to them. I want them to start looking for what needs to be done and do it without being asked. I want the house to stay clean and the food to be cooked from scratch and the dishes to be washed. Above all else, I am raising Two Little Ladies to become excellent wives and mothers. They need skills that aren't going to be found in any curriculum, and they need attitudes that allow them to accomplish tasks with joy.

As for me, I want to teach myself to approach every task in my life with love, joy, and gratitude. I want to model those things for my girls. I want to take time each day for myself and my own hobbies, something I have been ignoring since we moved here. I want to show myself and my children the value in helping and giving to others. And I want blogging and taking daily photos to become habit again. I want to document these sweet, precious moments in their lives - in our lives. They may not be toddlers anymore, saying adorable things and just starting to experience the world. But each day of their lives should be treasured because honestly, they are flying by much faster than I am comfortable with.

So here we go - welcome to Summer Vacation 2016!

I Heart Homeschooling.

Homeschooling is amazing. It brings you these incredible days where you are sure you are a failure one minute, and the next minute you gaze in wonder at the intelligence of your children.

Our school day started out with math (which was surprisingly not painful, considering The Oldest is learning to find common denominators.) Then came English. The Oldest wrote me four synopses about things such as The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and the parable of the Good Samaritan. Littlest One was doing the same thing she always does: phonics charts, reading from a beginning reader, and then copy work. In two years, she still does not remember that N-E-W spells "new". Nor did she remember the words "would", "oh", or "unto". It was a painful lesson. The kind that convinces you, as a homeshooling mother, that your child will still not be reading when she is entering high school. (Because homeschooling mothers are known for putting undo pressure on themselves, and then buckling under said pressure. It's what we do. We're really good at it.)

But then, life happens. Discussions happen. Over lunch, Galileo's experiment at the leaning tower of Pisa came up. I remember hearing about that in the 8th grade. My teacher telling us that, if we were allowed to climb up onto the roof and drop a bowling ball and a marble, that they would land at the same time. I never did believe him.

Well, we didn't have a bowling ball, but we had a huge bouncy ball and a marble. So we dropped them from the deck, two stories above the ground below, and Littlest One kept watch. Indeed, they did both land at the same time.

From there, I thought I'd be all awesome and explain gravity and terminal velocity. Except that at about that moment, Littlest One (who is SIX!) piped up. "Eventually, everything will go as fast as it can go, and it won't go any faster."

And there's terminal velocity, in six year old terms.

"The balls landed at the same time because they're the same shape. So they push the air away the same."

Right.

So what would happen if I dropped a feather and a hammer?

"They wouldn't be the same, 'cuz they're shaped different. The feather makes more friction."

Seriously? I had to look it up. She was right.

"What would happen if I dropped a feather and a hammer and I was standing on the moon?" (The school book told me to ask that. Never would've occurred to me otherwise.)

"They'd fall the same. 'Cuz there isn't any air on the moon, so there's no friction."

I had to look that up, too. How on earth did she learn that? Her sister read something about it in a National Geographic magazine and told her about it. I Googled the video of the Apollo 15 astronaut demonstrating it. They were fascinated.

Why am I doing the teaching here? Clearly, the ten year old is more capable. Granted, I can claim having taught them about friction. We had an awesome time with that one!

Later tonight, she explained the process of amputating a horse's leg due to infection from a dog bite, and then creating a prosthetic leg and teaching it how to walk again.

Um, seriously? Yeah, it was in a book her sister read to her, one Grammy gave her for Christmas. So they were playing "amputated horse leg" in the living room. Because that's what homeschoolers do for fun.

This morning at breakfast, we used the computer to take a virtual tour of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (We just finished reading aloud the Newbery award winner From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler so it fit in nicely.) Using the mouse to move through the museum, The Oldest pipes up, "Look! There's a model of Brunellesci's dome!" Ehhh... huh? She looks at me like I might be stupid. "Brunellesci. The Renaissance. Remember?" Uh... yeah, no. But apparently I read something about that to her once. Glad to know it stuck.

Homeschool is incredible. Stressful, and difficult, but incredible. They spend so much time delving into subjects that interest them, and then sharing those subjects with one another, playing them and discussing them and pondering them. The teaching that I do hardly touches the amount of learning that they do, through each of those mediums.

So about that trouble with reading? I'm pretty sure it'll come. Some day there will be a book that details the discoveries of some great inventor or scientist, and she's going to be desperate to know what it says, and she's going to read it. The hardest part of homeschooling is letting go of the standards and goals you've got in your mind. Because you can set as many standards as your heart desires, but your kids aren't going to meet them the way you planned for them to. They'll get there in their time, taking their route, and achieving so much more along the way than you ever could have even imagined.

Volunteer Work: Farm style

Sometimes, being homeschoolers offers us some amazing opportunities.

 

This weekend, we took a volunteer job at a local living history museum, demonstrating some of the heritage arts that we do at home. We dressed in costume and sat on the porch of a 100 year old bunk house, where we showed knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and finger knitting.

It was an incredible opportunity for Two Little Girls. For as much time as they spend doing these things as a regular part of life, it was fantastic for them to hear the “oohs” and the “ahhs” of ‘city folk’ as they watched such young girls doing them. For me to be knitting wasn’t anything special. But for folks – kids and adults alike – to see my six and ten year old daughters proficiently creating beautiful, useful works of art was inspirational to some.

 

The girls sat with other kids as they came by and taught them the basics of their skills – Littlest One taught many a young girl to knit a chain by weaving yarn on her fingers, and sent each one away with a small ball of yarn to practice with. The satisfaction she got from sharing her skill equaled the satisfaction of the children learning it.

We taught a group of girl scouts how to knit and crochet, patiently demonstrating and holding their hands as they fumbled through the stitches. A couple were so eager to learn that they sat with us for nearly half an hour, carefully making stitch after stitch across rows. It’s neat to think they may go home with a desire to learn a lifelong skill that was nearly lost to antiquity for a few generations.

When they tired of sitting and doing their needlework, Two Little Girls took turns churning butter from fresh local cream and cleaning apples to be pressed into cider for the many visitors. No matter what they were doing, watching them brought smiles to many faces. To see some of the elderly women that passed through smile so big at my sweet girls having so much fun doing what most would consider work warmed my heart. 

And upon the end of our day, when The Oldest took my hand and swung my arm as she skipped along in her pinafore and bonnet, and she said, “This was such a special day!” That made it all worth the effort we put into it. I love when my girls are able to take pride in this (somewhat crazy) life we live. Not every kid gets to do the things they do here, and while it doesn’t always seem special to them, times like this help them realize they get to experience a lot of things most kids never get to.

The museum will close up soon for the winter, but we hope to continue volunteering our time there next year, sharing the skills we use every day with kids who don’t get to see them often. 

Ooey, Gooey Homeschooling Awesomeness

 My children, as in all areas of life, are as different as night and day when it comes to school. They each have their strong points and weak areas, the subjects they love and the ones they suffer through... and neither of them match up with anything. The Oldest picked up reading after about two months of instruction. Littlest One is on year two of painstakingly sounding out Every. Single. Word. But where The Oldest still can't always recall that 8x8=64, Littlest One seems to have a knack for memorizing math facts - and even loves to do it. Flash cards thrill her... The Oldest would rather scrub baseboards.

And so, just when I finally felt like had "This Whole Homeschooling Thing" down, Littlest One came along to dash all my dreams of mastery.

But, as I've worked to find ways to get information to stick in the brains of young children, one concept always rings true: if it involves laughter, fun, creativity, or enormous messes, they will undoubtedly remember what they have been taught. The only problem here is that this means that I have to come up with great ideas each week to keep them actively learning. Not always an easy thing to do. We've done "Memory" type games for sight words, online games for learning math facts and phonics, apps on my phone for sight words and for multiplication drills, and I've spent countless nights searching Pinterest for more fun ideas.

Somewhere between a Pinterest preschool activity and my own brain, this amazing little activity came about, and it's one that's cool enough that it deserves sharing.

I wrote the Eight Sight Words of the Week on little bits of craft foam, using a Sharpie. Then I scattered the bits on the bottom of a glass baking dish:


And then - because I was hoping to win the Cool Mom Award for the day, I managed to bring together fun, creativity, laughter, and an enormous mess, all into one activity: I squirted shaving cream all over the words, filling the baking dish til it nearly overflowed.

Then I handed Littlest One a list of her sight words and a pencil, and set her to work. Her job: find the little foam bits with the words on them, read them out loud, then find them on the list and mark them off with the pencil.


 
It sounds way easier than it really is. I also didn't let her keep the words out when she had found them - I made her put them back in. This meant she was constantly re-finding and re-reading the words.

The other blessed benefit to this activity: it can take at least an hour. Seriously - go get some laundry done, make some dinner.... take a nap, whatever. Your kid will be entertained. I promise.

Somehow, I assumed The Oldest would find this utterly immature and not be interested at all.
 
Clearly, I was wrong. She was desperate to get her hands in that shaving cream. So I wrote out a bunch of her most difficult multiplication and division facts and let her have a go at it.
 
The verdict? Coolest sight word game of the year, so far. The only problem is, now I have to come up with more fun ideas... feel free to hit me up with any you might have!

Meeting the March Family

I realize that not every mother has a deep love of literature. But for those of us that do, there is no greater joy than sharing our beloved books with our children. The characters that were our dear friends now become the friends and even playmates of our children; the lands and the times we knew so well come to life again as our children experience them. It's a lovely gift to share.

Our literature studies are my very favorite in our day. It doesn't ever feel like school. Long after the work books are put away, after dinner and dishes and chores, when Two Little Girls are snug and clean in fresh jammies, we settle down into the living room for our literature studies... which simply means relaxing while Mom reads out loud. It's a bed time story in their eyes, not school, and so they love it all the more.

As our study of history courses through the developments of America, we have come up to the Civil War. And so, after much anticipation, we began Little Women last night. To read, "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," out loud to my daughters gave me a thrill that only other Lovers of Books could understand.

And as the characters are 'sketched' for the reader, as Jo is described as the tomboy with thick, beautiful hair always pulled back, who has a pension for writing stories, I saw the glimmer in The Oldest's eye as she related herself to this most-beloved character. Littlest One was coloring in the living room as I read, but stopped and looked up at the description of Amy, the baby of the family, with her blue eyes and blonde hair.

As the girls in the book confess their 'bundles', complaining of the housework they don't enjoy and of how hard it is to be good, both of my own girls by this time were fairly riveted. How beautiful for them to realize that they can related to young girls growing up during the Civil War, a hundred and fifty years ago. The struggles of young girls haven't changed much, in some ways. And when the characters in the book vow to stop complaining and try harder to do a better job, I could see the consideration wrinkle it's way across The Oldest's forehead as she thought about how she could apply that to her own life.

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With forty three chapters of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy to come, I look forward to the cooler fall nights as we snuggle down and share their stories together. And I daydream of all the wonderful books to come. When we are done visiting with the March family, we'll meet Anne Shirley, and Sara Crewe. If I am blessed enough that they will still let me read aloud to them when they are in their teens, I will happily introduce them to Heathcliff and Catherine, Jane Eyre, and Mr. Darcy. So many beautiful, wonderful books are out there for us to enjoy together. My only concern is that there may not be enough time for all of them!

Potatoes: The Treasure Hunt

Some days, it's hard to tell the difference between what is work and what is play.

Take digging potatoes, for instance. Surely smiles like this don't come from hard work...

And laughter of this variety can't come from chores... can it?

Ah, but maybe it can.

There are some wonderful opportunities out there for convincing children that work really can feel like play, if only it's approached with the right attitude. Or if it's turned into a wrestling match for the biggest potato pulled out of the ground.
 
We've never grown potatoes before. This whole Digging Potatoes experience was a splendid one, for all three of us.  It's a veritable treasure hunt, and one that requires Two Little Girls (and their Momma) to be elbow-deep in soil. And any job that involves a good bit of getting dirty is bound to be welcomed.

I'd love to offer you all a few great tips and hints for growing and harvesting potatoes, but I've got nothin'. We're brand new at this, and from all I have read, we did everything all wrong. The skins are thin because you're supposed to withhold water for a couple of weeks (someone should have told that to those rain storms that keep rolling through in the afternoons.) You're supposed to wait until the plants die back after frost to harvest, except that more than half of our potatoes already weighed over a pound and a half each, and I can't see letting them get any bigger. It'll only take one potato to feed all four of us at that rate.

So while they won't store in the cellar long, and they aren't anywhere close to being the perfectly shaped potatoes you find at the store, I'm sure we'll happily be eating baked potatoes and home-fries for a few weeks to come, anyway.

And next year, I'll read about harvesting potatoes before I decide to dig them all out of the ground. ;-)

The Urgency of Fall

I don't whine very often. Or, well, I try not to. I love having a blog filled with cheerfulness and stories of happy and satisfying things. Because really, my life is filled with happiness and satisfying things. And I know I don't have a right to complain. But once in awhile...

Honestly, I don't think it's complaining. It's just stress! There is SO much to do, and so much I want to be doing, and I don't know which way to turn, I don't know which way is forward or which way is backward.

I think feeling the fall in the air is making me feel like I'm under pressure to get everything done. The land around me is sending out it's warning, "You only have a month left to prepare yourself before the ground is frozen solid and it's too cold to go outside!" I hate how gleeful it is in this threat - all those bright, beautiful leaves of flaming red and golden amber, happily announcing that winter is, in fact, just around the corner.

Don't get me wrong, I love fall. I love that the sweltering heat of summer is finally gone, that the air is crisp and we can play outside without risking heat exhaustion. I think my problem is that I love fall so much that I just want to sit outside and enjoy it, instead of all this work I'm doing inside.

I'm to the point where I don't care if I see another ripe tomato as long as I live. Or at least until next July. Pints and quarts of salsa, soup, dried tomatoes, diced tomatoes, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce... it's all in there, stored up to keep us nourished this winter. And I still have one more box to go. A month ago all I wanted was to be eating raw, sliced tomatoes with a bit of salt and pepper. Well, I'm over that.

School is (somehow) back in full swing. We manage about four hours a day on a good day... which means more like two hours a day on average days. Somehow, getting tomatoes in jars before they rot seems a lot more pressing than learning why Franklin Pierce was a fairly worthless president. Aw, who am I kidding? Even riding the horses or chasing the goats seems more important than Pierce.

The garden is nearing it's end, and I'm encouraging it by failing to water it - ever - and hoping it'll just hurry up and die off. It's done its job, we have veggies in the freezer. Now, I would like a break from weeds and aphids and squash and hungry grasshoppers. I think I'll dig the carrots today. Because nothing is more fun than digging carrots out of compacted clay soil. Really, you should try it.

The house hasn't been properly cleaned since, um... we moved in back in February. Spring came so quickly that by the time we were unpacked, we were suddenly drowning in The To-Do List that comes with trying to learn how to care for a 40 acre ranch. Animals and outdoor work and outdoor play take precedence over house cleaning. I wash laundry, and dishes, and occasionally (if it rains) I manage to dust or vacuum. But this darn beautiful fall air is making feel like I need to be deep cleaning... which is, of course, impossible when one's entire kitchen is brimful of vegetables and fruits that the fruit flies are dangerously close to consuming in their entirety.

It's nothing that doesn't happen every single year about this time. An urgent need to get everything done coupled with an urgent need to sit in my wooden chair on the deck and bask in the beauty of fall.

I think the best remedy for it is to go pour a glass of wine and sit and watch the leaves change colors.

After I finish canning these tomatoes.

Two Little Girls and One Dead Turkey

From the beginning of The Turkey Project, I was worried about how Two Little Girls were going to respond. I prepared myself for dramatic tears and declarations of vegetarianism. I assumed it would be ugly. After all, they are both old enough to remember five months ago, when those little baby turkeys were adorable, fluffy, inquisitive little creatures that they could hold in their hands and nuzzle softly.

I was worried for nothing. When the time came to butcher our birds, the girls were excited as all get out. Not that we weren't all a bit sad, too, but they were just so interested in the whole process that it far outweighed the sadness, and the prospect of good turkey meat for many dinners to come helped, too.

I vetoed having them in the barn during the actual killing. When they tried to spy through a crack in the door, I shooed them away. It wasn't that they were thrilled with the idea of murdering a turkey, it was simply that the whole idea of how it would happen was fascinating to them.

As soon as the bird was dispatched, and we carried it into the shop to process it, the girls were in there with us. As The Daddy pulled the guts out, the comments and questions came pouring out. They saw firsthand the trachea, the gullet (which we cut open to show them the food still inside), the heart and liver. Not only did they see them all, but they touched them. Hands clad in rubber gloves, they loved touching the different parts. They noted that the gullet was surprisingly hard, that the lungs were particularly bloody and fragile, and that everything was still very warm. They held the feet and examined them (before giving them to the dogs), got to see what hollow bones look like, and were able to see up close how a ball and socket joint works.



There was also much talk about exactly how we were going to cook him, and how good he would taste.

Are they scarred for life? Absolutely not. They're not even refusing to eat meat. In fact, I think they are far better off on many levels for having been a part of this experience.

Most of us, throughout middle and high school, dissected a number of different animals. I remember crawdads, frogs, and even a cat. I also remember being thoroughly disgusted with the entire project, but there was one reason for that: we were made to think it was a disgusting activity. The kids in the upper grades talked about how awful it was. The teachers even told us that it was coming with a hint of dismay. It was assumed we would all be grossed out, and so we were (or at least, the girls were.) It was simply expected.


You see, I think it's all about the approach. We never hinted to the girls that this would be a 'gross' or 'disgusting' endeavor. It simply 'was'. We never required or forced them to have any part of it. If they didn't want to eat turkey this fall, I wouldn't make them. But, being already quite homeschool-minded, they viewed the whole process as educational. They asked a million questions, and we did our best to answer them. When we didn't know, we tried to figure out the answer together. They were indubitably thrilled when we finally got around to cutting open the gizzard, so that they could see the rocks which the turkey had swallowed in order to digest his food.

The much anticipated Opening of the Gizzard - 

note the rocks inside.

As they got bored, we certainly didn't make them stay. The Oldest stuck around for part of the plucking of the second turkey, decided she didn't particularly care for plucking, and just hung out for a bit before going out to ride her bike. Littlest One happily plucked for as long as we let her. By the third bird, both were more interested in feeding feet to the dogs, chasing their laying hens around, and just playing the way little farm girls do, and that was fine.

The other reason that I really feel like this was a healthy experience is that I know for certain that my daughters will forever appreciate every piece of meat that is set in front of them at the dinner table. For five months, they fed and watered the turkeys each day. They lifted Turkey Boy into the coop at night when he could no longer get in alone, and eventually built him a bridge to make his life easier and more comfortable. They treated all three with great respect, if not necessarily love, until the ends of their lives. Having walked this journey, they now have no doubt exactly what is involved in putting food on the table in front of them, and they will forever have a deeper appreciation for it.

There are few cultures like ours, where children are so far removed from their food that some don't even realize that "chicken" actually comes from a dead chicken, and that "turkey" is actually just that - a turkey. On so many levels, I really think that is sad.

So no, I don't think my girls are scarred. I think they are far better off for this experience. I doubt they will ever be quite as fascinated as they were this year, and I'm not sure I could ever require them to help with the processing of meat (unless it is an animal they hunt and shoot themselves.) But I think over the course of several years of this, they will have the skills necessary to accomplish it if needed, and they will always appreciate, maybe a bit more than other people, the food that is set before them.
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Miscellaneous thoughts on the subject:

*When you bring the birds home, DO NOT NAME THEM! Not even "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas" or "Thigh" and "Breast". Call them turkeys. Names bring forth perceived personalities, and personalities make them friends.

*Begin referring to them as "food" immediately. Discuss what will happen, preferably before they take up residence in your brooder. Address concerns, sadness and uncertainties frankly and honestly, but compassionately.

*Provide pets. When The Oldest was upset at the thought of her sweet white poult eventually being eaten, we agreed to adopt a new batch of laying hens. This gave her something new to love and invest her emotions in. Adding a couple of little banty hens to the flock was not an expensive or difficult thing to do, and it, eh, smoothed ruffled feathers quite well.

*Do let your kids help care for the poultry. They should know, firsthand, how much work goes into raising birds, whether it be for eating or for laying. This is where the appreciation factor comes in.

*Don't force them to take part in anything that makes them uncomfortable. If you intend to raise meat birds year after year, there is a good chance they will eventually be comfortable with the whole deal and will learn the process. Some kids can handle this all right away, others can't. Don't push them.

*If you can, start them young. Littlest One has seen animals butchered since she was two years old. It doesn't even register as anything disgusting to her, it's simply how her meat is prepared. And she does like her steaks. Blood, bones, raw meat, even a severed head - none of that stuff fazes her because she's grown up with it.

*Use it as a learning experience. There is no greater way to learn than hands-on; even public schools will admit that. If they want to touch, let them. If they want to help, encourage it (even if it makes the process take hours longer than it would otherwise.) If they would rather just watch, allow it, and always answer questions as well as you can.

*Go into it without prior expectations. Don't assume that they will feel any certain way. Kids, as a general rule, want to live up to their parents' expectations. If you have no expectations, they will be free to react as they will. When they do, be compassionate, and be honest.

*Do discuss the importance of respecting the turkey's life, and that his life was taken to sustain theirs.

Obviously, I'm no expert. These are just things I learned over the past months, raising and butchering our own meat alongside my children. I'm sure there will be folks who disagree with me, and I would be thrilled to hear any other suggestions folks with more experience have to offer. 

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This post is linked up at The Prairie Homestead's Weekly Barn Hop. If you have any homestead-related posts to share, be sure to link up as well!

The Start of the School Year Panic

Oh my goodness, I've taught them NOTHING for WEEKS!

I'm pretty sure every homeschooling mother feels this way occasionally, when life just gets too busy for "school". At least, I like to think they do, because otherwise I'd feel painfully alone, and very much like a failure.

We do sit down school most of the time. Okay, some of the time. Eh, well, once in awhile I go through a spurt and have them sitting down working on workbooks. Sometimes.

Unschooling scares me. I need more order and control than that. I can't be an unschooler! How will my children ever learn math, or grammar, or the history of the world, if I let life be their teacher?

And then I talk to other homeschooling mothers who are ordering a year's worth of curriculum in every subject for their children right now, and realized I have ordered nothing. We're still finishing up last year's math books. We finished The Oldest's English book, and I have no plans for what will come next.

And there isn't time! We are racing through our day, putting up veggies and cooking and handling chores and horse-shopping and stuff. Surely horse shopping is far more important than the 7's mulitplication tables. Isn't it?

I'm in a state of minor panic. How are these children going to be successful wives and mothers if I'm not sitting down for six hours a day teaching them things they need to know? How will my kindergartener succeed in life if we don't have time for construction paper crafts and finger painting? What about all these other homeschool families that are gearing up for a new school year with fresh new school books to crack open for the first time, and wonderfully organized schedules to follow? We can't compare to that. I'd love to start school at 8 o'clock every morning, but there are animals to feed and play with, and stalls to clean and veggies to pick, and some days we don't even have breakfast until 9.

Breathe. I am going to stop freaking out, rejoice in the brilliance of my children, though it may not be "standardized brilliance" and I'm going to be grateful for the lessons our lives teach us. Because while this life doesn't offer up a whole lot of long division, it offers so much learning in so many other areas, the kind of learning that only a life up here can give them. And right now, that's going to be good enough. I'm going to let them enjoy the new life we are living up here for awhile. They are little, and they are excited and happy. There will be time for other things later.

And I'll keep telling myself that every day, until I actually embrace it. 

South Dakota National Parks: Junior Rangers

If you ever make it to any of our nation's National Parks, and are a homeschooling family, make sure you check out the Junior Ranger Program. It's an absolute must.

Admittedly, it takes a whole lot of extra time, but the level of learning just cannot be found in any other way. They are there. They can see, smell, touch their surroundings, and the Junior Ranger program encourages them to look at all the tiny details they would otherwise glance right over.

If you visit a park ranger, they will give your kids a workbook, based on their age. The program usually includes kids ages five to twelve, and there are different requirements for finishing based on how old they are. The workbook is filled with activities that require them to walk through visitor centers and read the displays, search for details, and answer questions. They cover all kinds of history and science and social studies, and some of them really make kids think. Many of the programs require a hike or walk through the area, where they will complete a 'scavenger hunt' while looking for little bits of nature around them.

Usually, in order to complete the program and receive a badge, you are also required to attend a ranger talk, walk, or other program. We learned years ago how educational these can be - rangers are full of information specific to their park, and they love to share it - especially with kids. On our trip, we spent an hour being led through a cave, we listened to a talk about fossils (complete with real fossils to look at and touch) and we attended a walk around Mt. Rushmore where we were taught about the history and geology of the project.

When the book is all finished, and you've attended your ranger program, your kids take their books back to the visitor center where they are presented with a certificate and a Junior Ranger badge. They are also required to take an oath that they will do their best to preserve America's lands and share their newfound information with family and friends.


My girls earned three badges on this trip. First, we visited Jewel Cave National Monument:

Since the ranger leading the walk knew they were working on their Junior Ranger badges, she gave them the honor of occasionally leading our tour group to different locations. They loved this.


And of course, The Daddy and I are were just as fascinated (if not a little more) than the girls were with all the cave formations we saw. Really neat stuff down there - definitely worth the time if you are in the area, and aren't claustrophobic.

After that, we drove through Badlands National Park. It has it's own kind of beauty, though it's not far off from what we have here in Western Colorado. The colors were more impressive though. I did buy some yarn as my trip souvenir in the colors of the Badlands. :-) 


Next, we visited Mt. Rushmore National Memorial. It's awe-inspiring, the way the mountain was carved. You don't really have any idea just how huge it is until you are there and actually seeing it.

And after all those, we took a quick scenic drive through Custer State Park. While not a National Park, Custer does have a Junior Naturalist program available for kids too. I was a little bummed we couldn't spend more time there, as I think this area might have been my favorite out of everything we saw. Wildlife abound...


And who can resist pushy donkeys that actually stick their heads in your car begging for treats?
 
We sure can't.
 
We drove all the way through, looking at the Needles, and driving along narrow, twisting roads and low, one-lane tunnels. I would have loved to have just stopped and spent a day or two hiking and looking and taking it all in. The plethora of different geological formations all through South Dakota is so impressive.

We're blessed here in the west to have so many different National Parks within driving distance, but I know they are scattered all over our country. So if you're looking for a really neat, hands on way to teach your kids some stuff about the world they live in, definitely go check them out. Each one has something different to offer!

Crafty Kiddos

 Charlotte Mason was a big proponent of teaching kids 'handiworks'. I can see why. If they're working on something, it keeps them sitting. In one place. Without screaming and yelling. And I'm all about that.

It also gives them something useful to do when they otherwise would just be sitting around, like on car rides back and forth to The Big City, daily quiet time, story times, or during a movie.

The Oldest has wanted to learn to embroider for a very long time now. I finally got around to teaching her what little I know about it, a simple satin stitch and a chain stitch. She is embroidering the front of a pillow for her favorite stuffed cat, Luna. 

Sometimes I'm amazed at how much patience she can have. Every stitch was carefully placed. She kept the work as neat as a nine year old possibly could, and really stuck with it.
 

Littlest One - being as she is the Littlest One, and therefore must always find a way to do things like her big sister - was taught to finger knit. It's a simple process, though I wasn't sure if she'd be ready for it yet. Boy, did I underestimate her ability! Once she figured it out, she really took off with it.
 
One headband finished for herself, one finished for a friend, and now she's making one for the friend's mom... she has plans of handing out headbands to every woman and girl she knows for Christmas this year.



I love giving them something like this to do. We don't do "paper crafting" very often, because we honestly don't have that kind of time. There aren't construction paper art projects cluttering my fridge and walls, we don't do a lot of gluing cereal and cotton balls to paper for the purpose of calling it school. But these kinds of crafts are useful ones. They can take these skills and turn them into something beautiful and useful, and something to give to someone else. Those are the kinds of crafts I like seeing them learn.

We had a little talk about setting goals as the girls were working. I told them how, when I knit or clean house or anything else, I set little goals for myself. I tell myself "I'm going to finish four inches of this sleeve" or "I'm going to clean for fifteen minutes in the bathroom" before I get tired and take a break. Each of them set a goal - The Oldest to finish all the petals of her flower, Littlest One to finish one headband. When they reached their goal, they got to feel that little sense of satisfaction at having completed something without giving up first. I hope that's a habit they will continue throughout their lives. The tiniest goals set and met will eventually provide big results!

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While I'm posting pictures, here's a photo of Littlest One's hair wrap. I did them a week or so ago while the girls sat and watched a movie on a lazy Saturday morning. I let them each pick out the colors they'd have, and two charms to hang on the end. Littlest One has a hummingbird and the letter C, and The Oldest has a horse charm and the letter C.

I remember doing these a lot when I was a kid - it was fun to recreate it with them. We didn't knot the whole thing down the way we did when I was young though, these are just wrapped and knotted every so often, so they will come out when they get tired of them. 

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

It seems like every time I turn around, there is another opportunity to relive a bit out of the Little House books. I would tell you it's for the children's sake, you know, for homeschool, except that I usually enjoy it as much as they do.

We had our hay cut, back about the 4th of July. A neighbor did it. Unfortunately, between the time the hay was cut, and the time it was to be baled, a different neighbor's irrigation water flooded our pasture, so the haying neighbor couldn't bale part of it for a couple of days.... except then he was going out of town for two weeks the next day, at the start of monsoon season. Rain + hay = bad. We could've called around to find someone else to bale the rest, but for the 20 or so bales we would have gotten, we hated to bother anyone.

Which meant that we had a whole lot of hay laying on the ground, all dried out and needing to be put up.

So we called upon our knowledge of Ma and Pa and Laura and Mary, and off we went out to the pasture. Remember when Laura helps Pa bring in the hay in The Long Winter?

 "[The hay] came tumbling loosely over the high edge and Laura trampled it down. Up and down and back and forth she trampled the loose hay with all the might of her legs, while the forkfuls kept coming over and falling... The sunshine was hotter and the smell of the hay rose up sweet and strong. Under her feet it bounced and over the edges of the hayrack it kept coming."

Ma wasn't all too pleased that her daughter was out doing man's work - "She did not like to see women working in the fields. Only foreigners did that. Ma and her girls were Americans, above doing men's work."

But Laura was glad to have been able to help Pa, even being the "Half-Pint" that she was. While I'm not sure my girls have the stamina to keep at it for days, they sure did enjoy it for a few hours! (Here's hoping we have no need to twist this hay into logs for the fire this winter...)

Our experience, of course, was a high-tech version of that. We had a pick-up truck, and instead of Daddy driving the horses, I drove the truck along.

Daddy pitched the hay into the back of the pickup...


And then Two Little Girls jumped and stomped and danced and packed it all down tight.

With their help in doing this, we were able to get most of the hay in only four pickup loads.

And of course, they were rewarded with a hay ride over the bumpy pasture back to the barn.

Huck and Izzy supervised (read: napped in the tall hay)

And Bandit tried to figure out how he was going to reach just a little bit further to get to that big ol' pile of hay by his stall.

We managed to get finished just as the rain (rain!) started to fall. It was the first rain we'd had in months, and it came down like it meant it.


This whole farming thing is a lot of work, the hot and sweaty kind of work that leaves you exhausted... but on days like this, when the work is accomplished all together as a family... well, that's why we're here, doing what we're doing.

“It is a good idea sometimes to think of the importance and dignity of our every-day duties. It keeps them from being so tiresome; besides, others are apt take us at our own valuation." 
 --Laura Ingalls Wilder
 

The Best Kind of Confident

I realize I'm her mother, and so it is my job to feel this way, but seriously - I love my kid. Sometimes her attitude and her personality just amaze me. Most days, I wish I could learn to be a little more like her. I'm pretty sure she teaches me more than I'll ever teach her, though she might not ever know it.

Watching her at the 4-H horse show and gymkhana this weekend, I was so thrilled with the way she took it all in, never gave in to pressure, was incredibly sportsmanlike, and just had an overall wonderful attitude.

I attribute her awesomeness, at least in part, to the fact that she's homeschooled.  She has no concept of competition. There is no need, in our home, to compete for first place. There has never been a need for her to consider what others might think of her, and so she has this confidence in herself that most kids never experience. My husband was homeschooled, and is exactly the same, and he totally gets her. Me, on the other hand... I find it all quite baffling. Endearing, to be sure, but utterly confusing. A life without comparing yourself to others? Without worrying about whether you're the best? I don't think I'd ever imagined such a thing until I started seeing the person she's turning out to be... and I love it.

My Oldest Girl, on her amazingly sweet and ever-so-patient old horse, had not the slightest chance of winning any events this weekend. But that didn't matter, she wasn't there to win. She was there just to do it, to get some experience and see what it was like and learn some things. When the other kids showed up dressed to the nines in rhinestone chaps, it never occurred to her that her attire was only average. When the other kids had fancy horses, it never crossed her mind that her 22 year old draft/pony cross wasn't up to par. When the other kids raced through the poles and barrels as fast as they could, she never felt like she had to do that. She happily walked her horse through each pattern, doing exactly what she felt comfortable doing. She might have been laughed at for being the slowest, or people might have felt sorry for her, but if they did, she never noticed.

When she was handed her first sixth place ribbon, she was tickled. She'd won something! In her mind, she walked away a winner. She was given a ribbon, and that meant she had been recognized for doing what she was doing. Blue or pink, it didn't matter. There were girls there crying, stomping, yelling at their parents, angry with their horses, because they hadn't gotten the first place ribbon. My kiddo couldn't understand that. She just patted Bandit's neck, told him he is the best horse in the whole world, and cheerfully tied that pink ribbon to her saddle.

The next day, she went on to win four fifth place ribbons, and even a fourth place ribbon. (This was because other girls were disqualified because their horses went too fast for the novice division.) By the end of the two days, she had a whole stack of ribbons. The color didn't matter. Now she has something to hang on her wall next to a picture of her and Bandit together, showing that they went out and did their best together - a cautious little girl and her ever-so-slow pony - working together, enjoying just being out around all those other people in that big arena.

She says next year she'd like to maybe try to win a third place ribbon. There it is again, that homeschool mentality. When you're schooled at home, and competition doesn't exist, the only person you have to compete with is yourself. Her goal for the next year is simply to improve her skills and do a little better next time. In her mind, that will mean she's won.

The highlight of the event came at the banquet, when it was announced that she had gotten first place in her division on the written horse test. A blue ribbon! She won a blue ribbon!  She studied hard for that test, but also spent a lot of time reading her horse books just because she found them so interesting. And she was rewarded for it with a beautiful blue ribbon. I think we were all a little shocked... little Chloe, coming in almost last in nearly every event, walking away with the best score on the test. I told her what she lacks in speed, she makes up for in knowledge.

But at the end of the day, it wasn't that blue ribbon that mattered. The whole stack of different colored ribbons was nice and she's mighty proud of them, but what she kept talking about was how she wanted to go ride some more and practice some of the things she'd learned while she was there. She's sure Bandit can do it, and she can too, with a little bit of practice.

I want that innocence. I want her attitude. I want her confidence. That little girl inspires me, I tell ya.

Bit By the Reading Bug

 

The reading bug has finally bitten my Oldest One.It happened a couple of years later for her than it did for me, and I was afraid it wasn't ever going to happen, but the time has come: no matter what she is doing, she has a book in front of her. She has mastered holding a book open with her feet while she brushes her hair, she reads while she eats, she reads when she should be sleeping, and I had to tell her the other day not to read while she was walking down the stairs.  She's devouring a book every other day now, and I'm thankful for the library's rows and rows of books to keep her entertained.

I was just like this as a kid, and so it warms my heart to watch her. New worlds are opening up, she's making new friends and meeting new people, the way she sees the world is evolving just a bit, and I love it. 

This morning, I told her this story:

"When I was your age, I read as much as you do. I'd stay up late at night and read with a flashlight when my parents thought I was sleeping. I would read while I ate lunch, I would hole up in my room and read all afternoon. I loved books, especially the Babysitter's Club. I could read one in a day sometimes, and be ready to start the next one. But we didn't ever go to the library when I was little, and my parents weren't going to buy me five or six new books every week, so there were a lot of times when I didn't have anything new to read. I'd read the same book four or five times through just because I had to be reading something. And then, once in awhile, I would go spend the night with Nanny, and she would take me to the book store and buy me a new book. Or, if I was really lucky, we'd go to the big warehouse store and she'd buy me a whole box set of four books. Man, those were special. New books to read weren't always so easy to come by when I was your age."

Oldest One, who always enjoys hearing stories of when I was a kid, looks at me and says, "Wow!..... were they made of papyrus?"

Old-fashioned Fun

In a world that rarely involves television, computer games, or other electronics, kids are sometimes forced to find their own fun, the kind of fun that involves being outside, running and laughing and getting plenty of fresh air. 

And sometimes, kids realize that kind of fun is probably better, anyway.

Where we were putting in a perennial flower bed, there was an old, dilapidated barrel laying on the ground nearly in pieces. The metal barrel rings, paired with a bamboo stake from the garden, provided plenty of fun as well as an impromptu history lesson. 

Even I got in on the action for a bit, and wow is that harder than I expected! Chloe did great running it up and down the driveway though, with some practice. Watching them do this makes me wonder why kids ever gave up this old game.

Middle Ages and Whittling

For our History studies this term, we've been focusing on the Middle Ages. As per the Simply Charlotte Mason website, we are using Famous Men of the Middle Ages for our primary text. I love all the Famous Men books, as they really give such a solid grasp of the way life really was. Many of the stories do tend to blur together, but the gist of it really comes across beautifully, and in such a fascinating way. As a supplement, we are using the Kaleidoscope Kids' Knights and Castles activity book. (Kaleidoscope has several absolutely wonderful activity books, depending on what your subject of study is. This is our third. I highly recommend them.) Anyway, so in addition to our reading, we've got a diorama of the Four Alls, a Code of Chivalry (though shalt treat thy sister with kindness and fairness) and several other projects. We also have a Medieval Literature book that gives basic stories like Beowulf, The Dapple Grey Palfrey, and others, when we get tired of just reading about Famous Men. Oh, and we read a child's version of Macbeth, because the opportunity to introduce my daughter to Shakespeare arose and I couldn't not jump on it.

So anyway, there's a basic rundown. In case you were dying to know how we're studying the Middle Ages.

The best part of all though is our Literature study. It doesn't always work out that our chosen Literature book falls in line with other homeschool studies, but in organizing all the books in our school room, I happened upon The Door In The Wall by Marguerite de Angeli. If you're not familiar with it, it is set in feudal England, and the primary character is a ten year old boy named Robin who is struck with an illness that renders him unable to use his legs. It was first published in 1949, making it one of the most recently written books we've read for our studies of classic children's lit. But it's a fantastic book, the vocabulary and dialogue are to die for, and my Oldest Girl is enjoying it immensely.

Which brings me to the whole purpose of this post. (Sorry it took so long.)

In one part of the book, Robin learns to whittle. He learns patience and diligence as he works to create different wooden pieces with the tools made available to him. This whole idea of a boy, not much older than she, being able to whittle real little toys intrigued my Oldest Girl quite a lot. While I may not be ready to hand her a pocket knife sharp enough to be carving solid chunks of pine, I was at least comfortable with this:

Using one of Daddy's pocket knives to carve a bar of Ivory soap.

My Oldest Girl, who can hardly stand to sit still for even five minutes, sat for an entire hour carving this little bird.



 And after a short break, she was back at it again, this time attempting a bear. It's a good thing I bought a 3-pack of the soap.

I wish I could say I'm awesome enough to have come up with this idea on my own, but I'm not that cool. I found the project in a book called Early American Toys and Games that my parents gave us for Christmas last year. It proved to be a wonderful success. Except that now she's asking for her own (sharper) pocket knife, and wondering what kinds of woods are easiest to carve...

Anyway, I thought it was a fun enough project to share with y'all, I know several of you have kiddos the same age who might really enjoy doing this (and who would really enjoy some of the books I mentioned, too!) Here's to homeschool, where we can give our kids the chance to experience history with each of their senses and really understand what we're teaching them!