Recipe for Delight

1 empty plastic juice or soda bottle
1 wooden chopstick
birdseed
wire

Poke the chopstick through the bottom of the bottle and out the other side. This is a perch. Cut small holes above each end of the stick in the bottle. Fill the bottle with birdseed. Attach feeder to a tree branch with the wire. Hang it near a window so you can see it well. Watch closely.

This was Liana's science project in her study of birds. (Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.) Within an hour of hanging the feeder we had a flock of white-breasted nuthatches zipping around our huge lilac tree. (Yes, tree. It's almost as tall as the house!) Then we saw a bird I never in all my years have seen before--a tufted titmouse! The next day dozens of tiny black-capped chickadees arrived. The girls and I sat right under the tree on the deck for a good half-hour one sunny morning and still the birds came. They seem to have no fear of us. How enchanting they are! We are so much enjoying these beautiful, cheery creatures. And this is school? Liana is logging each bird in the chamois-covered explorer's journal we made.

Field Trip

On a beautiful October day we headed off to camp once again. Twice a year this camp holds an Outdoor Education Day for homeschoolers. The kids go off with counselors to learn something new about God's creation and moms get some down time to chat. This season the children learned about atoms and were able to observe some experiments on chemical change.

We came together for lunch and then the rest of the afternoon it was free time on our own. We took a long hayride through the property and then explored the woods. We once again tried the rowboats. Arielle and I just get frustrated when we go in circles. It is not our thing. We couldn't wait to get back to shore. My friend Connie went back out with her daughter, and Liana wanted to go with them. Connie said Liana was pretty good at rowing.

A suspension bridge crosses the shallow creek and it is a favorite of the girls. They criss-crossed it several times. We are studying the Oregon Trail right now and a covered wagon sits right out in the middle of the field, so the girls were able to explore that too.

We have all been working hard the past month and this was the perfect day to just enjoy the lovely weather and get together with friends. We leave tired, but refreshed.

Fine-Tuning

After about six weeks, it's time to evaluate and make some adjustments. What is working well? What isn't? I admit I've been a little lax with the schedule, especially our starting time. When I don't seem to be hurrying to get ready for school, the girls don't either. The church chimes across the street announce it is 9:00 and the girls are dilly-dallying in their rooms. Also, I need some quick lunch ideas so I don't spend so much time preparing food for our noon break. If lunch goes too long, we all lose interest in getting back to school. What does everyone else do for lunch? My girls hate sandwiches, so that makes it hard.

We are doing more creative writing this year. It's part of Arielle's Abeka language arts, to her dismay. For Liana, this is what she craves, so I have an additional poetry book for her. It is called Writing Poetry with Children. The difference in my two girls is summed up in this conversation.

Liana: "Why can't we work on writing poems today?" Arielle: "I better not have to do any poetry!" Liana learned about couplets and wrote a poem about India (her latest passion). I told her I would post it. Arielle is actually doing some interesting journal entries and I am impressed with her thoughtfulness.

Spelling has been a problem for Liana. How can she learn 20 words in a week? She just can't do repetitive work such as writing them out over and over. It would be absolute torture for her. I want to channel her energy in a more productive work. Using the words in different exercises didn't seem to work so well either. So we make flash cards. I write each word, broken up by syllables on 3X5 cards. She uses a marker to go over the letters and then cuts each card into pieces like a puzzle. (Kinesthetic learner.) For example, "attention" has 3 syllables, so three parts to the card. Each day she puts the puzzles together and reviews the words. We also write them out each day and talk about what's tricky about certain ones or which ones "follow the rules" and are spelled just like they sound. I make up silly sayings like: skaters have to pract-ICE on the ICE. We still do Stair Day for an oral quiz. Overall, she is actually doing quite well.

I am a pretty rigid homeschool mom. I like to follow the books. This worked fine with Arielle, but it does not work with Liana. I am being constantly stretched and challenged, but I am learning how to teach her. After a lot of headache, I bounced this idea off my friend, a relaxed homeschool mom. I told her I was abandoning the Abeka reading program for Liana. (It still scares me to do this.) My friend congratulated me and said simply, "Read good books with her!" My goal is to inspire this child of mine to love reading. How can I do that when she struggles with her reader and hates every minute? My breakthrough came when I checked out from the library an adapted version of The Secret Garden. It was a Level 3 book and Liana could read it. In fact, she asked to read more than I required of her! This was a big event for us. I will search high and low for GOOD stories and forget the curriculum. For now. Not that there is anything wrong with the Abeka reading program. Arielle loves the stories in her readers and each day tells me, "That was a good one. You should read it, Mom."

First Week

We finished our first week sucessfully! Amazingly, it seemed I had more time in the day since starting school than I did all summer. Our days were relaxed and fun. The girls didn't even bicker or complain much. Peace reigned! I thank God for that. (Hey, someone must have been praying for us! Thank you!) We're off to a good start.

I will list why I think our week went well to remind myself when the going gets tough so I can see where we strayed from the path.

1. Schedule! I ran a tight ship. We began each day promptly at 9:00. The girls have a list of things to do before school and worked diligently to complete them. Liana is not a clock-watcher, so she had to be reminded a few times that it was time to move on. I expect her to eventually do this on her own. Last year at lunch we sometimes got sidetracked--I would do laundry or some dinner prep and the girls took full advantage by fooling around for an hour. Then no one felt like returning to school. No more! We ate lunch and moved on to finish our school work.

2. Positive attitudes! We began with prayer and devotion time. We are using a book called A Virtuous Girl: A Bible Study for Elementary Aged Girls by Michelle Zoppa. Right now we are discussing good character. I am encouraging the girls rather than criticizing and it certainly works a lot better. Liana just plain cannot work with losing privileges or anything negative held over her head. She still has trouble fidgeting and focusing on her reading, but she is trying so much harder when I stay positive and praise her effort.

3. Teaching Textbooks! This has freed up so much of my time! Arielle enjoys doing her math on the computer and I am still able to check her work. She is already on lesson 15 because she started it on her own over the summer. I do need to make sure to provide some oversight and keep up with what she is doing. A written textbook is provided and I need to read it.

4. Beautiful weather! What a great week it was--sunny and cool in the mornings when we took our break. Each day we walk outside and admire the Rose of Sharon and mums blooming, check the dying status of our vegetable garden and look for treasures in the grass. So far Arielle found cardinal and blue jay feathers and Liana found an owl feather.

5. Assigned days for history and science. Last year it was just too much to try to cram history and science into one day. And of course, science got left behind just because it harder to teach. This year we will do two days of science and three days of history. One of the history days we are working on a state book I ordered from Abeka for each of the girls. They can cut out pictures to paste in it and look up interesting facts. They wanted to work on this all week. Isn't it great when kids say, "Can't we do more?"

6. Keep the fond memories of last year. We haven't changed everything. The girls begged to continue Thursday as "Stair Day" where we take an oral spelling test on the stairs. They start at the bottom and move up a step if they spell a word correctly. For each correct word, they also get an M&M. Such a small thing that brings them joy. On Friday we take a regular spelling test on paper, but I think it is good they use a different part of their brain by spelling their words orally.

Next week we have our yearly trip to the beach--just for one night this year but the girls can't wait. After that, I know we will face some difficult weeks, but maybe we will have more successes than battles.

Snowball in Summer

We began school today. How did summer go by so quickly? I am so anxious to get off to a good start and not fall back into patterns of relating to each other that are detrimental to learning. The girls and I had earlier held a school planning meeting at our local Panera's over breakfast. We made up a list of ideas to make our school more interesting so we could learn more.

My dear friend in Colorado sent me a beautiful verse. One day while the girls were playing with some Modge Podge, cutting out pictures of flowers from a Burpee catalong and gluing them to wood, I decided to make my own little plaque. It will be on my desk to remind me HOW to teach as well as WHY I am teaching. The verse is Deuteronomy 32:2,3.

"Let my teaching fall like rain

And my words descend like dew,

Like showers on new grass,

Like abundant rain on tender plants.

I will proclaim the name of the Lord.

Oh, praise the greatness of our God!"

I admit that sometimes my teaching falls like a sudden summer thunderstorm rather than gentle rain to nourish tender plants.

We had a special surprise for our break today. Last winter I wrapped up a snowball and stored it in the freezer. Maybe the girls knew about it, but they had long forgotten it. They were delighted to play with the snowball today in the yard!

We had a great first day. I got the best compliment of all from Liana. She said, "School was fun!"

4-H Fashion Revue

I had a conversation with a mom whose three daughters are in public school. She wishes to homeschool but her husband does not agree that it is the best for their family. She describes herself as a "traditional" mom and is troubled by the attitudes her daughters are exposed to and imitate.

We also discussed extra-curricular activities. She said there is pressure to participate in everything that comes along. You don't want your children to miss any opportunity to broaden their horizons. She has decided to cut back and be discerning in choosing what activities to do. I came to the same point with my girls. It was getting too stressful and we were running ourselves ragged trying to keep up driving them here and there every evening. Also, financially we could not keep up with it all. But we did find one great organization! 4-H!

On my other blog I described how we found our niche in 4-H two years ago. My girls enjoy sewing and this is the second outfit Arielle has made. Every Saturday morning she spends three hours with a volunteer who teaches her to sew. This year she had Mrs. Martha, a dear elderly woman with a gentle and kind spirit who patiently taught her. I am so grateful to Martha for caring for my daughter!

The season ended with a fashion show. What fun it was to watch all the girls cross the stage in the clothing they created. Once again, Arielle won a ribbon and is eligible for the regional revue. But the winning is not what is important. Arielle learned perseverance and patience, to stick with the sometimes tedious steps of garment construction. She enjoyed the fellowship of other girls sewing alongside her. She learned from the example of Mrs. Martha.

The 4-H adventure doesn't end here. In July we will work on organizing the fabric sale that helps to fund the sewing projects so parents only pay $12 for a whole year of 4-H. (What a bargain when compared to other activities.) Then in August the girls will have their projects on display at the 4-H County Fair. For anyone also at a crossroads in deciding on outside activities, we highly recommend 4-H.

Moms' Day Out

Every year for two full days I attend our local homeschool conference. It's a struggle to arrange care for the girls and coordinate everyone's schedule but once again it all worked out so I could go. My friend and I drove through the countryside early in the morning full of excitement. What would God reveal to us? How could we make our homeschools better? How can we better connect with our children and build our relationships with them--so much more important than any academic learning that takes place.

We didn't have a plan of approach to the conference because both of us had been so rattled by the earlier week's events. (And it is certainly better to come prepared.) For me, I had spent many hours on the dreaded PORTFOLIO, an end-of-the-year state requirement. But that's a topic for another day. So spur of the moment, we chose the lectures we would attend. We made good choices!

We heard Ginger Plowman, Tammy Duby and Susan Kemmerer. Each of these godly women imparted a wealth of wisdom on a variety of topics. Here are some of the gems we took home:

• Good advice on training our children in righteousness--getting to the heart of their behavior with thoughtful questions to help them understand their motives and make better decisions.
• Good advice on practical matters for moms--how to keep our homes in order and have time to cook healthy meals.
• Relief from guilt--that our homes are not orderly and spotless, that some people are just disorganized when it comes to keeping house. Unless you're just plain lazy, it's not a sin, just differences in personalities. Disorganized people are project-driven rather than time-driven.
• Relief from guilt--that we might we leaving gaps in our children's education. We can't teach everything. No one can, not even public or private schools. We need to get serious before God and seek his will for our particular children. Then we choose the gaps we will leave. Our goal is to grow life-long learners. If we leave a gap that our child later on desires to learn, she will be equipped to pursue that interest on her own.
• LAPBOOKS! Wow! What a great idea! I kept hearing this word but could not get a picture in my mind of what they were. Now I know. Tammy Duby had a mini-workshop and all of us moms created one in an hour. What fun we had! My girls will love this. To top it off, someone was giving away an old set of encyclopedias and I hauled them out to the car. They will provide many pictures to cut out and add to our lapbooks.

My friend and I came home refreshed, inspired, and encouraged. I am grateful to God that he has allowed me the privilege of teaching my children at home. Yes, it is exhausting work at times. But it is the work God has called me to do and he will give me everything I need to do it. I'm ready to begin the new school year tomorrow!