School is for Girls

Homeschooling is interesting for many reasons.  When it isn't making me crazy, one thing I find most interesting is how differently my kids learn.  Specifically how C & A learn because Natalie is not really "in school" - although I did have to start making a loose plan for her because she likes having a couple of worksheets to do while she sits with the big kids.  Actually, it's more that she feels very left out if she does not have school work to do too.

Spelling is a subject that I have not really made up my mind about.  I tried making a list for Caleb to study each week and it was just comical.  Mostly what I do with him is study phonetic rules and talk about words he spells wrong in his writing.  If he has a word that he uses frequently and spells it wrong, I will have him copy that word, but we don't have a list or a weekly test.  In the book Ramona's World by Beverly Cleary, Ramona's teacher notes that "Ramona's spelling will improve when she wants it to improve." and ultimately I feel this way about Caleb.  Sometimes this is an exasperating thing and I feel personally responsible; sometimes I am very at peace about it.

Annalise is very different.  She doesn't seem to need a weekly drill because she usually remembers how to spell a word after she has been corrected a time or two.  She sees patterns in the ways vowels and syllables are used.

Today - just for fun - Annalise was writing words in a notebook - she wrote them all 5-6 times (enough to finish the line, so some fit more) and she spelled them all right.  I told her that was what kids in school often do - copy spelling words.  She said, "That sounds like fun!" and Caleb just groaned!  I often think - school is for girls!

About spelling - or really about the English language - I once heard someone comparing English and Chinese and saying that you can't teach English like Chinese because English is phonetic and Chinese uses pictures, which as far as I know you have to memorize.  But English is not as phonetic as, say, Spanish.  I think the kids are perfectly justified in thinking "bacon" is spelled "bakin" because that is how we say it.  So clearly, you have to memorize the 9,999 exceptions to the rule and the funny thing is that we do it - at least for most words.  I like studying phonics with the kids because there are phonetic consistencies in English, but there are consistently exceptions too and they have to learn them.  Still - their motivations for learning are not the same, so the speed at which they'll learn them will not be the same either.

For spelling lessons we use a combination of the Abeka Handbook for Reading and the Explode the Code workbook series.  Abeka has an exhaustive list of "special sounds" that can be used to classify all but a few "sight words" - Abeka has significantly fewer sight words than most curricula. Abeka's method does not completely match up with Explode the Code, but there are a lot of ways they compliment each other.  Explode the Code is cheaper and very funny.  Each lesson will have sections of pictures and sentences that may or may not be nonsense and the student must read them carefully because the nonsense answer might be the right one!  There are 8 books and an optional half book between each one for review.  Caleb did book 3 and 3 1/2 and improved those skills a lot by completing the half book.  I don't think he will need to do book 4 1/2.

Meal Planning when all You Want is Pizza

My title is not exactly true - I do want more than pizza, but lately I have had this craving for supreme pizza - from a pizzeria, not from a box and not from scratch - although making it myself is not all that difficult or expensive.  My motivation to cook has just plummeted.  I tried searching online for "third trimester meal ideas", but all I got was recipes for meals that are nutritionally appropriate for the baby at this stage - all about omega 3s and vitamin A, B,C,D,E,F,G, etc., healthy carbs, and oceans of water.  I was looking for a list of meals that essentially cook themselves and require almost no dish washing. 

This is something about this particular pregnancy that has been good for me.  Not that making homemade bread and cooking from scratch is bad - but it gets stressful day after day and the internet makes it so tempting to try all these new and different foods and cooking styles.  It has been restful to take shortcuts - even when they cost more - and eat more of the same.  When I am tired, I don't care much what's for dinner!

"Kitchen Helper" - sometimes this is an oxymoron.

But it's the thinking, planning, shopping, storing, prepping, cooking, and finally cleaning that wear me down.  It's still work to do those things for even simple meals (especially when the internet is not being helpful!)  So do you have any suggestions for meals that fit my requirements? 

Velcro Curlers

Although I like my new hair cut, one side of my hair flips out and always has when it is short.  You'd think it would be easy enough to blow dry into shape, but I'm not that talented I guess!  So I picked up some velcro curlers to help with the problem spot.  Naturally Rob thinks I look extremely attractive when I am wearing these things (ha!) but the girls think they are super duper awesome!

Doesn't matter to her that her hair curls perfectly naturally.

They are fun to play with too...

Tiered Cake

Steam Train

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We are finally fever free in our house.  Caleb won the prize for highest measured fever at 105 degrees.  Annalise came close at 104.6.  All the kids felt playful today, but no one complained when we put them to bed an hour early tonight!  It has been a wearying weekend at our house.

A Cake for a Cut

This is the cake I bartered with for my haircut.  My friend's daughter is very into the movie Frozen.  It was not a hard cake to make - except that I had been running a 100 degree fever that day!  I made 7 minute icing (on an outrageously humid day) because it is so white and it turned out pretty good.  The ice shards were made with the microwave hard candy recipe that I use to make cinnamon disks.  I didn't flavor the candy because the flavoring I had planned to use had a tint and it wouldn't have looked right.  As it was I think it complements Elsa's dress just right.  They added the figurine after I delivered the cake.

I am feeling better, not all better, but not as bad, and the girls have gotten the bug.  They had to miss the Awana awards night tonight.  They were really looking forward to it, so that is a bummer.

10 2 Go

The small bump is supposed to be the baby kicking!

In honor of Mother's Day, I want to list 10 reasons it's good that I still have about 10 weeks until this baby is born...because I'm pretty sure 29 weeks is the equivalent of March in a school year.  You're making good progress, there really isn't that much time to go, but summer is far enough away to seem like it is never going to get here.  I felt guilty for feeling like that, so I decided to find 10 reasons that it's good - and I found them, but I still am glad that pregnancy is not a chronic condition!

1.  She's much better off inside than out.

2.  We really aren't ready - and I mean don't have all the "things" we need.  We have acquired a carseat and some other equipment though.

3.  I don't expect to be pregnant again and it really is amazing and unlike anything else to feel the baby move.

4.  It's nice to wear one piece dresses, something I probably won't do for a while after the baby is here!

5.  If I wake up at night, it's on my own terms and doesn't involve changing diapers.

6.   Natalie needs another 10 weeks to prepare.  Actually she probably needs more than that, but at least she has that.  She seems much more aware that the baby is real than the others did before they were displaced as "baby".  Her birthday is next month - she'll be 4!

7.  My mom isn't here yet!  And won't be for another 9 weeks.  It's my goal (ha!) not to have the baby before she and my dad get here. 

8.  My size, shape, and energy level are requiring me to slow down.  This is a good thing.

9.  When I'm pregnant, I read a lot; when I have a newborn, I don't!

10. I only have 10 weeks left and not 11, 12, or 13!

Giving The Giver a 2nd Read

Lois Lowery published The Giver in 1993.  Around that time, it was either included in a book fair or being considered as an addition to the elementary library at my school.  The elementary librarian asked me as a high school student to read it and give my opinion about it. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember feeling disturbed and unsure about it being in the elementary school.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a blurb on our library's website that listed the sequels to The Giver and was interested.  A year or two ago, I read Number the Stars (also by Lowery) and felt that she deserved a 2nd chance.  Both books are fiction, but Number the Stars is set in a real time and place (Denmark during the Holocaust) and The Giver is set in a fictional place, apparently at a time in the future.   The society in The Giver is a very controlled one - to the point that pain has been almost entirely removed from people's lives.  The consequence is that love and joy have been removed as well.

The first time I read The Giver, I wasn't familiar with the genre of distopian literature and didn't have the maturity to see that she was making a point.  After re-reading it, that would be my only concern about having this book available to younger readers.  I think it's a thought provoking book and would be beneficial for young readers who have someone to help them understand the main theme.  I think my kids will like it, but while I have read aloud to them books on the same reading level, I don't think they are ready for this one yet.

Over the last few years, Lowery published 3 more books - Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son - to complete a series of books that intertwine with The Giver.  They are not chronological and they are not all distopian.  The Giver is by far the most serious of the four.  The Giver has the sense that the place is no particular place, but a real earthly place.  Jonas - the main character - has a gift of "seeing beyond", but it is presented as an ability to see beyond the enforced "sameness" of the community in which he lives.  He still has the gift of "seeing beyond" in the other books (although he is not in Gathering Blue), but the gift has become something more fantastical and the places seem less earthly.  The three later books definitely have a feel of fantasy literature that The Giver does not have.

These books were a quick read - even for me - Lowery's writing still just seems to draw you in and she knows exactly when to end them.  Her resolutions are brisk and don't mess with answering unnecessary questions.

Another book I half read/half listened to (the audio disk had a scratch) was Around the World in 80 Days.  I loved it.  And what a super book to read while doing a geographical study of the world.  But do you know, they never ride in a hot air balloon!

28 Weeks

• 28 weeks is significant because the baby has a 90% of surviving if born today.  We definitely don't want her to be born today or anytime soon.
• Baby is the size of an eggplant - and I believe it!  
• I'm measuring small (as usual - off by about 2 weeks), but the baby measured exactly at the 50th percentile for size.
• I passed the 3 hour glucose tolerance test with flying colors.  In fact, the numbers were so far below the cutoff levels that I don't understand how I didn't pass the 1 hour screen.
• July 16 is 74 days away - a little over 10 weeks.
• 74 days ago was February 18.  Rob's parents were in the Keys, the kids were taking turns spending the night down there around that time.  Natalie used some gift money to buy a Barbie, Annalise got her training wheels off, and Caleb was very proactive about making money...
  

  

  My budding entrepreneurs!

• No foul symptoms to report.  I'm still sleeping well and keeping up with the kids and know to be thankful for every day I feel good.

French Breakfast

One of the things I like best about geography studies is how naturally they can be tied to food.

This week, Annalise's country to study is France.  I have had hard time researching lessons about France.  Nearly every search result is about French, not France.  Even YouTube was surprisingly barren.  The library had two books about France - one thick adult book with no pictures and one juvenile book about the French Revolution.  Well, we learned what a guillotine is!

I did find a nice coloring page of the Eiffel Tower online.

Today, for breakfast we had croissants, French fruit preserves, and hot chocolate.  (I had cafe au lait.)  My pretty blue and white tea cups and dishes were made in England, but we figured that was close enough!  We spent some time looking at the French cheese selections at the Publix deli, but I decided the kids wouldn't appreciate it enough to justify the cost!  It was enough to know that France is known for cheeses!

Bon appétit!