Gearing Up

The summer went by much too quickly. It isn't over yet, but the next couple of weeks are busy and I know they will rush by in a flash.

Arielle shares my love of school supplies and we've enjoyed shopping for them. We've picked up a few items. Our favorite pens and pencils, some folders. We don't need much. All around us are moms with lists from various schools, trying to find each item required. I feel so free from all those trappings.

We also renovated our school room! We reorganized and moved furniture and sorted through books. Fred even painted. How nice to have a clean, fresh look for our first day.

Even more importantly, we need to prepare spiritually. Years ago while studying the book of Nehemiah I saw so many parallels to Nehemiah building the wall and us educating our children at home. (I believe the complete study I created is contained in this blog in previous posts.) I was reminded of it again when Nehemiah 4 popped up in my e-mail since I subscribe to daily Bible readings. In this short chapter were several important messages.

The taunters ask, what are these feeble moms doing? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish? Despite what others say, we build the wall, "for the people had a mind to work." Yes, it's hard work. Let's get to it.

Comments and attitudes around us can cause confusion and we forget our purpose. These verses remind us to pray and set a guard day and night. By ourselves we can't make the wall strong and lasting. But we "remember the Lord, who is great and awesome." Sometimes we labor with one hand and hold our weapon in the other, ready to defend the cause God has called us to finish. I am thinking I need to enlist the help of my husband to wield the sword in prayer while I do the teaching. It is a spiritual battle for the hearts of our children. We also need to remember that "the work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another." We need to ask for help when we need it, and listen for the sound of the trumpet and rally to support other moms when they are discouraged.

"So we labored at the work from the break of dawn until the stars came out." Nehemiah finished the wall. Will we?

Summer Vacation!

School just kind of faded out this year. We completed our 180 days, but I had hoped to finish up some other projects. The girls were working hard to prepare for the 4-H County Fashion Revue so their sewing took priority. I didn't even tell them when the last day of school was so they could be excited about it. I just decided to end. They still haven't been to Dairy Queen to celebrate!

While the girls sewed, I worked on the portfolios. Between the two projects, we had such a mess spread out all over the house. I love the portfolios in the sense that we have a record of the girls' school work to keep. It is interesting to go back over all we did this year and to realize we did quite a lot! Liana kept asking me, "Is it fun at all to do this? Even a little bit?" While I was working I said no. They are tedious and frustrating to put together and I resent the fact that they are required by the state. But now that they are complete, we have nice scrapbooks to preserve their work, after the district is done with it, of course.

Yesterday we had our evaluation. Our former evaluator lives far from our house, so I was looking for another. I found this new woman on a website and called her out of the blue. She lives about two miles away, so I was hoping it would work out well. I love her! She seemed genuinely interested in the girls' work and is a delightful woman. I am so glad to find another homeschooling family so near to our home too. Unfortunately, she has five boys, so no new friends for the girls will come about from this relationship.

This is Day 4 of summer vacation. Our first three days were filled with errands, doctor appointments, and visiting friends. Today is our first day home and I can't wait to begin. The girls finished their 4-H projects but they are already working on something new. Liana is cutting out a big purse that will work well as a carry-on bag when she travels to her brother's wedding. Arielle is making a cute top for summer. I have not had time to finish the bridesmaid dresses or even begin to make my mother-of-the-groom dress. So today we will sew! And maybe take a trip to Dairy Queen.

Art Museum

I wrote on another blog about our fabulous trip to the art museum. We tend to neglect art in our class time, not because we don't enjoy it, but because other subjects just tend to take precedence. Liana had to write a short research paper, so she chose an artist to study and has just finished her report on Mary Cassatt. She was very excited to see some Cassatt paintings at the art museum. Wandering around looking at art might be enjoyable, but it is much more than that if we recognize paintings and know a little about the artist.

We are finishing out our days. Every May it seems like there are a multitude of interruptions that steal time away from school. Still, we are making every effort to finish up what we hoped to accomplish this year. For both girls, we have stopped proceding forward with new math concepts and we are just reviewing what they learned all year. Arielle finished all her Language Arts except for a research paper she is doing on Laura Ingalls Wilder. Liana is reviewing for a comprehensive grammar test and then she will be finished with language too.

We are just about finished with Joy Hakim's Recontruction and Reform and instead of starting another book, we will continue with our studies of Central America at a leisurely pace. I realized we cannot finish our anatomy book this year, so after our chapter on nutrition, we will put it away until fall.

When May arrives, it is time to think about the dreaded portfolios required by our state and officially due on June 30th. But they need to be completed before our trip to the evaluator's house in early June. I have not begun to work on them!

The Tempest

Arielle's last literature assignment was to read Shakespeare's The Tempest. Her teacher advised her to get a side-by-side version with the original text next to the modern English. I don't know that Arielle tried reading the original at all. She is a voracious reader but likes ideas more than poetic words.

Her writing assignment was to choose a scene and set it in modern times and re-write the story. What a struggle this has been for her! Arielle is a good writer. Last year our evaluator told us that one of her papers would fulfill a high school requirement, and she was only 12 then. She is good at research papers or any task that requires logical thinking. She is one who likes worksheets and writing that is concrete and well-defined. This assignment has been a challenge. She doesn't like to create characters or stories.

Liana is on the other end of the spectrum. She hates worksheets and any assignment that confines her to a set parameter. She had one lesson that required her to write a story from three pictures. She did not like this at all. It was boring and pointless to her. But an open-ended writing lesson that gives her the liberty to create exhilarates her. Right now she is working on a novel about two friends during Civil War times. This was not an assignment, just something she wanted to do.

We all think differently and learn differently. I can't wait to see how God will use my two daughters' unique gifts as they grow to be women.

Another Great Book

The girls and I love audio books for the car. I used to think we don't really travel enough to hear a whole book, but that's not true. We spend more time on the road than we think. We just finished Newberry Medal winner Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. This version was read by Hope Davis and her rendering was delightful.

This is not a Christian book, but it is well-written with a multi-layered plot. It is funny, tender and heart-breaking all at the same time. Serious life issues arise in the story and they gave opportunity for some discussion. The vividly portrayed characters are unforgettable.

It is not for early elementary ages. Liana is eleven and I wouldn't recommend this for a child younger than she is.

Science for Arielle

Arielle says she hates science. Supposedly, no topic interests her. Two years ago she was with me at a homeschool fair and we met the author of a new science curriculum and Arielle decided maybe she would like to try chemistry. (She was thinking bubbling, messy, exciting projects.) She did not like this book.

In the elementary years, when kids are just exploring science topics, I think it is good to let them choose what interests them. One year Liana was very interested in birds and we studied Jeannie Fulbright's Flying Creatures. Liana had a lot of fun and we did science without complaint. Not so with Arielle.

Last year I decided it was time for more serious science and I bought Jay Wile's General Science . It looked intimidating, even to me. Then our evaluator recommended we do something else for the 7th grade year. (We will use General Science this fall for 8th grade. Somehow it doesn't look so scary now.) The evaluator sold us a short, one semester book called Earth's Waters. By the time Arielle got to oceanography, she admitted it was a "little bit interesting."

My goal was to start both girls with Jeannie Fulbright's new Anatomy and Physiology in January. We were a little late, but we did start and have finished the first chapter. Arielle is reading it on her own and then we do the projects all together. FINALLY! I think we hit on something. Arielle actually said she likes it! And this is a girl who claimed she wants nothing to do with anything medical.

So what makes this science different? The book is written in a conversational tone, but it doesn't talk down to the kids. The first chapter is a brief history of medicine and then a study of cells and the function of the organelles. The girls made a cell diagram and labeled the parts. Then they made a model of a cell with gelatin and candies. That was a big hit. They also mummified an apple to get an idea of how bodies were preserved by the Egyptians. We bought the notebooking journal too. It has fun ways to interact with the text, including lapbook ideas and crossword puzzles. Over the course of the year the girls will make a model of themselves and then add on the body systems with transparencies. They already started this by cutting out a picture of their heads and gluing them to a paper doll body.

We're off to a good start! Today we are de-calcifying some chicken bones.

Hospital Field Trip

For National Heart Month, we visited a hospital's cardiac unit as a field trip. The girls were not at all interested in going, but a friend had invited us. Years ago when I was a nurse I never wanted to work with cardiac patients, but I was fascinated by the new technology and quite impressed with how patients are diagnosed and treated.

The best part of the trip was a demo in progress in one of the surgical suites. A mannequin was lying on the table, draped as a patient would be in actual surgery. The heart catherization monitor, along with an exposed leg, was set up for the visitors to see and hold. The actual person who runs the heart-lung machine was there to demonstrate, and a model of a heart was visible, just as it would be in surgery. Kids could step up to the table and actually touch it. A surgical nurse stood by her table of instruments to explain how they were used. It was all quite amazing to me. As for the girls, well, they made it clear they have no interest in the medical field. They think all things medical are "gross."