The Rhythm of Our Days

What a pleasant day this has been! All the hard work I had to do on other tasks this week really tapered off, I was able to get up early, start the day well, and peacefully go through the morning, spending a good amount of time with each child. Love it when that happens!

Firstborn: Can I say how much we are loving Ambelside??? And today we found Mater Amabilis, from a link on the Lilting House, and so there’s more Charlotte Mason goodies to explore. Firstborn is really enjoying This Country of Ours, and Our Island Story and it reminded me that I need to buy the 4th CD book of The Story of the World for him pronto. He loves to listen to those as he goes to bed and he knows a ton of history as a result. We are focusing more on “read and narrate” and it’s working well for him to do a chapter, narrate, then go do something else, like rollerblade, then come back to another chapter. On the Living Math site we found some games from the BBC that he spent a good hour with, tiding us over until we get the rest of the math curriculum. I read him Rudyard Kipling’s biography and we read one poem, Gunga Din, and he did some copy work from that. He loves all the Kipling stories he’s been introduced to and he likes poetry so this was a fun task! We also looked at a few sites and videos on Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, referenced in his history reading. He’s recently discovered the online game, Rune Scape and has been playing that quite a bit after school time.

Sunshine: started her on Ambleside year 3 today. Her narration of the history reading: “someone died, someone became king, they fought with France, and someone died.” Yeah, history isn’t really her thing! We are reading her christmas book, The Princess Academy, she and I alternating paragraphs. She had a nice list of vocabulary words from the first chapter, “anxious, anticipation, stomach, hearth, bleating, etc.” It’s nice to see her comprehend what she reads better too. A vast improvement from just a day ago when I was stumped at how to get her off Dr. Suess! She’s done a bit with playdough and her brother, did a lesson in ETC, some cursive practice, and later will have some math.

W: He’s the big news today!!! He can READ!!!! I call “reading” the ability to look at a three letter word and not painfully sound out each syllable. He can look at the word and quickly say it and is ready now for some site word practice and more advanced blends. He is the first of our children to get to this step at this age too; our first two were a bit “late” to read. He is so excited!!! We started The Boxcar Children today and he wanted me to read 5 chapters…very rapt attention for one who struggles to sit still, even when I read to him. He played some BBC math games as well and later today I want to sit and do some map work with him.

RK: Having a slower day so far! He loves, loves, loves to be read to and he got a new book in the mail today: Mrs. Wishy Washy. It also has a cow, pig, and duck in it which made it a “keeper” in his eyes! If it stops raining I may get him out to splash in some puddles.

Tonight we attend the Vigil of the Theophany. A new service for us and one we are happily anticipating.

Firstborn: learned to make chili and fajitas. Did the “cooking”, bachelor style for he and Dad while I was in Alabama. A few more dishes and quite a bit more training in how to clean up after cooking and he’ll be ready to take over a meal a day! Ambleside history is going well; hope to add in science here in a day or two. He’s reading Henry  Huggins. We need to purchase his math and get going on that but we should accomplish that by month’s end.

Sunshine: started cursive. A bit late…I’d forgotten and she finally asked! The bonus is that she’s excited and is cooking right along. Has worked on bead crafts she got for christmas and did some horse grooming at a friend’s yesterday. She’s hit a little plateau with reading; wanting to just do Dr. Suess stuff because it’s easy. Not up for a challenge. She wrote a “preschool workbook” yesterday with skills on 6 pages. I took her mispelled words and made a list from them. Need to get her going on math too. We’ve gone over all the countries on the continents lately; she’s very interested in China.
W: we finished Mr. Popper’s Penguins yesterday. I am trying to work with him on picture narrations; he is pretty resistant right now. Not sure if it’s that he has a hard time summarizing to something compact like a picture or if he just doesn’t want to draw. He still begs for workbook work so he’s doing a bunch of that.  He’s fascinated with maps so tomorrow I hope to help him draw one of our yard and label it.

RK, formerly known as Phat Baby: discovered liquids this week. As in: decongestant (child proof top? mere nuisance!) makes pretty purple puddles, peppermint extract makes the house smell good, shampoo and conditioner are slippery. We’ve had one major mess a day…oh! I’m forgetting the beef stock all over the kitchen floor (must get a lock for the fridge), and he’s gone easy on us this week.

Firstborn: reading about Persia, working with stencils, re-adjusted his tree house, reading Harry Potter again.

Sunshine: knows how to make quesadillas completely by herself now, working with stencils, wrote a beautiful poem, is feeling angsty.

W: never walks…only runs. can spell some simple words. Colors beautifully, indicating his fine motor skills are improving. Going through the “six year old anger” phase.

Phat Baby: who really doesn’t get called this much anymore….loves sound effects while playing busy beads. Loves trains. Loves crashing glass ornaments into the wall.

Firstborn put up quite the drawing last night. He’s been working with ink lately and 3-D images. He hung this on the wall above his bed.

It’s two rows of drawings, 4 on top, 3 on bottom. In the middle on the bottom a sign reads, ” This is how America has changed.”

The top row starts with, “This is how the land once was were buildings now stand.”

The second drawing reads, “Then the red man came, cut down trees, built houses, and fought against each other.”

The next one says, “Then white man came, took over, and built farms.”

The last one has buildings.

It reads, “And finally the land that was once rolling hills and valleys is now cities and skyscrapers.”

The bottom row has his 3-D church:

no caps :-).

Firstborn: feeling somewhat better but still waiting for blood work results. No change in the lump in his leg. We’re working on  some multiplication drills so his division work will go easier. He’s reading The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, by Henry W. Longfellow. He’ll use it for some copy work later this week. We’re back into Daily Grams and Wordly Wise. Still reading along in Tree in the Trail; today he looked up “magpie” in the dictionary. He prefers the old one that was Papa’s as a child over our more recently published dictionaries. He found a snake on the pavement and messed with it until it struck in his direction; I’m choosing to hope it was a grass or garter snake…..

Sunshine: she spent most of the morning writing cheers. She’s decided, “to work on being a cheerleader for awhile until I turn 9″.  I wonder if 9 is considered some kind of threshold for cheerleaders? Like retirement or something? ;-). She’s working on words that end in “ght”, multiplication, regrouping in subtraction (struggles with this), and Daily Grams. Got REALLY frustrated over identifying adverbs today. I couldn’t figure that one out….

W : spent the morning in his fuzzy Elmo shirt that Grandma made last year. I think it makes him look more like Mia Farrow myself…anyway, he found a pole in the ditch and made a tall flag for the back of his bike. We worked on phonics, writing our city & state, and addition/subtraction. He “read” some books with Phat Baby.

Phat Baby: still into the naked thing with shoes. Wreaked havoc on several surfaces with a sharpie marker today. Found the cat poop. Loves “Pat the Bunny”. I love nap time.

A rainy day today. Long. Grey. Near constant. Fall color melting off the trees, turning to mud upon the ground.

I woke up resolute to remove as many boxes from my bedroom space as possible. Got the craft closet put togther by stealing the downstairs computer desk to do so. Which means the closet is organized, which freed up the bedroom space, but left the downstairs a new problem.

Deal with it tomorrow. Two loads of laundry done, the dishes, and a house tidy.
Had cookies and milk with W, reading poetry and a book called Polar Bear Math.

Firstborn has spent most of the day on rollerblades.

Sunshine skinned her knees falling off her bike and spent the rest of the day cleaning her room.

Lots of TV today. Some of it with educational merit and some of it not.

The day is melting.

A pot of lentil stew simmers on the stove and Dad will be home soon.

Fall break over, it was back to co-op today.

Firstborn: Latin, Marine Biology (sea turtles), Culture Through Time (Age of Discovery). Listening to Hank the Cowdog both ways; stopped at the library on the way home and he ran in and got two more. Need to get “The Mystery of the Ha-Ha Game” for Grandma, who will LOVE Pete the cat. He also went in and bought a jug of milk for me in the store; it’s a big deal to my brain to realize my kiddo is old enough to do this alone! At home he unloaded a blessing of a load of wood, rollerbladed (in the rain) around the block to clear his head, and watched Sponge Bob Square Pants. He made green beans with almonds to contribute to dinner and in the evening they worked on Psalm 33:22 for copy work and prayer chanting.

Sunshine: American Girls History (the secret city of Oakridge during the war), Art (collage) and drama (the christmas play). She worked cross word puzzles in the car, played Playmobil with W when they got home, took an extremely long and hot shower, and in the evening did the same copy work/prayer chanting.

W: hands-on math (number charts to 100), super bible heroes (Moses), and hands-on history (not sure). Listened to Hank and Where the Sidewalk Ends on the way home. Unloaded wood, rode his bike (in the rain), and played Playmobil with Sunshine. After dinner we read Mr. Popper’s Penguins under a blanket near the fire and when we were done he said, “I’m so comfortable now that I can’t walk. Will you carry me?” Knowing my days of being able to carry him up the stairs are numbered, I happily obliged and tucked the little stinker in.

Phat Baby: refuses the nursery so he’s my buddy in classes. Which means, the nature notebook students love and adore him and he eats dry erase markers during Culture. He wasn’t quite sure what to think when I donned my Puritan costume for class…and no nursing access to boot. He’s discovered ink pens and all the possibilities so under his clothing he is covered head to toe in marks of one kind or another. Some of them bear the obvious signature of a sibling….

waffles and coffee~morning vespers~puppet theater~ train villiages~ The Sante Fe trail~ home tidy~ BBQ in the crock pot~ search for uniform parts~ write neater version of thank you note~ make new puppets ~ load the car~ make the bed~ talk on the phone to awesome friend in NY~ meet at the bank to notarize papers~ take boys to sherriff’s office to…..try to sell popcorn~ drive to Maryville~ pick up lunch at Chick Fil A~ grocery shop~ buy local apples~ cub scouts and AHG~ drive around town to find boy on service project site~ drive home~ change kids in the car~ soccer practice and People magazine~ home at dusk~ BBQ in the crock pot~ make a fire to warm the house~ feed children and check email~ nurse baby and put him to bed~ cup of tea, TV, and read~ Bed.

If I concentrate, I can hear waves, tides roll in and roll out…..

We woke up this morning to rain. Cold rain that was blown by the wind into rivulets on the window panes and made us all snuggle down into the blankets for as long as possible. We all really want the time change to hurry up and get here; these dark mornings are leading to oversleeping a bit more every day.

After a pot of oatmeal and hot coffee the kids watched The Neverending Story while I did my ebay work for the week. Eventually the rain stopped; Firstborn headed out to rollerblade. He says he does his best thinking when he skates. It has a profound calming effect on him for sure!

Sunshine and W colored with Phat Baby on the kitchen floor, then went upstairs to clean their rooms and the bathroom. Phat Baby discovered the paint bag and dumped several bottles silently into the dirty clothes pile. Do you know how much I thank God for washable paint?

I started Mr. Popper’s Penguins with W and Firstborn hungrily read up the new issue of Discover Kids, which just came in the mail today! This one is on the planets and they’ve all had their heads into it. I’m not sure the attraction but they all wanted to read about Jupiter first.

The afternoon was spent raking leaves into piles (and jumping into them), baking Oatmeal cookies, working on Sunshine’s puppet play scenes, writing thank you notes, and in the evening they went across the street for a bonfire and gathering of some church kids.

It looks like Vermont around here; can’t believe that we really live in such a gorgeous place that has such an incredibly quintessential autumn season. Beautiful.

Firstborn: woke up grumpy; I let him get his Apple Bread Pudding and veg in front of the TV until he could be more civil. He watched a movie on the Hallmark channel; shame on me for not getting the title and paying more attention, but it had something to do with an Indiana Jones-ish explorer, a prince, and travel either to the future or to heaven. At lunch he told his dad, “this had love, adventure, and humor in it, two people’s search for their fathers. It was the perfect movie.” Hmmmm….I took he and W out at lunch to sell popcorn at Dad’s office, a realty office, the bank, and the sherriff’s office. Firstborn is a fearless salesman and W is fearless so long as brother is with him ;-), so they had a good time. We worked some more through Tree in the Trail, he went to tutoring, and they had soccer tonight.

Sunshine: played with Phat Baby, wrote a letter to Grandma, took a walk, played some games on the computer. After lunch we worked on the puppets for her show and work on the AHG badge:

It’s a dog and a nervous clown; the story also includes a sneezing elephant. She also went to tutoring and soccer.

W: spent most of the morning in a hyper frenzy and when he wasn’t racing around, he was building trains. He was very excited to get to sell popcorn with Big Brother in his uniform. We worked on the days of the week, nouns/places/common places, phonics, handwriting, and “The Duty of Children” by Robert Louis Stevenson. He also had tutoring and soccer.

Phat Baby: eventful day! Hide and seek with bubbie and sissie. Insisted on getting dressed for soccer “too”:

Then, he spilled the fryer, full of oil, (thank God it had cooled to nearly room temp first!) all over the kitchen, the newly painted wall (as of yesterday), and the chairs and table. Why do accidents like this always happen when I’m finally  on the way to go to the bathroom, alone, forcing one to have to clean a very, very, very big mess and “hold it” at the same time?!? Does a girl’s martyr complex no good I tell ya. Got it all cleaned up though (as I learned last time, corn meal helps a lot for spills like this but you need the whole bag) and managed to not cuss. Well, not too much.