May projects

We still have not really met Spring this year.  Yet we have gotten a start on several projects despite the wind, snow, hail, rain, and frost.  Please, when June arrives tomorrow...may we get a glimpse of spring before it bursts in summer???

Last week we took a field trip to see the Dogs for the Deaf in Central Point Oregon.  It was great!!!  And just a side note...if your family is looking to adopt a dog and you don't mind letting someone else who knows the dog, pair you up?  Apply for one of their "dropouts"  all their dogs are rescue dogs and have great health care and training, worth looking into!!

After our tour, we bought t shirts at the gift shop.  The kids got to color their own and it was really really easy and NOT messy!!  They love them.

 After Dogs for the Deaf, we detoured to Grants Pass to check out cargo containers.  We are needing storage space up at our new place. So our plan is to bring in a cargo container and build a car port off of it.  Here, Kevin is building the forms for the cement pad.  The truck comes tomorrow morning!!  yipee!!  I can hardly wait for storage (besides the old house!).

We have been making LOTS of pizza lately.  It is scrumptious.  Kevin and I like opposite ingredients and the kids are sold on plain cheese.  And so...a little patience and creativity in the building process in necessary!

I have started a frayed edge denim quilt.  I have never made a quilt before.  I asked Erika to help me.  She has been talking me through it over the phone.  My idea came about due to a stack of old jeans that weren't good enough for goodwill.  Joanne's in town happened to have flannel on sale over the holiday weekend...perfect timing.  And so, in the picture above you can see my 240 cut pieces for my 40 block quilt.

Here, I have the denim and flannel paired (for front and back of the quilt).  This is a fabulous quilt project for me to start on.  I am NOT a perfectionist and after pairing the denim and flannel it became obvious that my attention to detail is lacking in the cutting department.  I did have a ton of fun using the rotary cutter though!  Thankfully, with the frayed edges in the final product, hopefully it will all come out "in the wash"  so to speak ☺.  Yesterday I went to Erika's to learn how to sew the blocks together and then sew them into strips.  I sewed 5 blocks and one strip yesterday.  Today, I have gotten 3 more strips done...so I am halfway through the current step.  Today was more interesting because I am using Kevin's grandmother's machine and learning all sorts of things as I read the book.  He replaced the power cord for me yesterday and it seems to be humming along beautifully.  Most of our "disputes" have been based on user error.  and Erika hasn't been here to save my bacon!! ♥

I am also in the middle of two very entertaining books. If You Can't Lose it, Decorate It  and Half Broke Horses  Both are making me laugh which I find to be hard to do with a book.  I am always looking for more books to make me laugh.  There is enough drama in regular life and in the lives of those around me, that a little laughter in my off time is greatly welcomed!

Time Off

We finished our 180 days last Friday.  And so...we are taking 2 weeks off. 

I am hoping to spend time doing a few things that I don't spend time on during school days.  A little relaxing, a little sorting, cleaning, accomplishing.

First off...a lazy morning.  Family pile up on the bed with the animals, ahhh....

I let the kids play on Handipoints.com  and hubby and I brought up some misc. boxes from the old house.  These particular boxes mostly have random paper stuff, photos, and computer stuff like discs and programs, flash drives, etc.  My first two goals this week for my time off is to find homes for the misc. stuff (or to burn it) and to catch up on photo albums.  I think I am two years behind in sorting and filing photos.  I have a stack from a year ago that needs to be put into albums.  I also need to order a years worth of photos from snapfish.  Then I still need to back up all my photos onto a flashdrive (which also was in the misc. box) before something bad happens!

Next up: sort and begin labeling stuff at the old house to get ready for a garage sale this summer.  I need to assess just how much "big" stuff there is.  There are definitely a few pieces of furniture...desks, dresser, and window coverings that are still in good shape.  Then boxes of clothes, and random kitchen supplies and kid paraphernalia. 

We recently ordered a cargo container to meet our storage needs up here at the new house.  Kevin is currently making measurements and making plans to poor the slab for underneath the container.  The container will come with roof vents, roll up door, lighting, and electrical outlets. (my chest freezer will finally be able to move up as well!)  The container is supposed to come mid June...which will mean that the possible clean out of the old pump house just might happen this summer as well...ugh.  It will be great to have storage space that the rodents can't get into.  I will probably be investing in rubbermaids soon! Wish one of my sisters-in-law could come help!!!  I always do better with a partner!

Storytime

We just finished reading Sarah Plain and Tall and I adored it.  I have seen the movie, but the book really was so very very sweet.  So I went to the library website to see if we could get the next books, but they only have the audio.  This may be a boxset that we need in our forever collection.  A friend of ours has the movie collection, but I'd like to read the series first.

We also got Adventures in Odyssey from the library to listen to during our car trips.  We had borrowed the novacom series from a friend and loved it so much.  One of our radio stations is suppsed to broadcast the series, but it doesn't seem to always broadcast on schedule and we can't always get the station, so this works better because in the car we are a captive audience.  My hubby isn't a fan of audio books, but he does enjoy these.  I think the differences are the voices and a bit of music.  Plus they are less than 30 minutes each, which makes it easy to break up into chunks. I love the christian base and the life lessons at the end of each one.  There are videos available, but I would rather work on my kiddos attention span to the spoken word and let them paint pictures in their heads.

Our next read aloud is Henry Huggins .  I haven't ever read this.  There seem to be several available and it is by Beverly Cleary.  I do remember reading and rereading a few books by her, and so I am anticipating another enjoyable read.

Before Sarah Plain and Tall we read, Follow My Leader which was about a teenage boy who becomes blind from a firecracker accident.  He then gets a seeing eye dog.  It is a great story about overcoming difficulty and finding strength.  After reading that one I found several picture books about guide dogs at the library and we are enjoying those.  Next I am planning a trip to Dogs for the Deaf.  All of this has been good timing with baseball season and a new puppy in the family.

I have been getting read aloud books based on the read aloud list at the Sonlight Curriculum website.  Sonlight has a good reputation for quality literature choices and so far, we have not been disappointed.  Our library does not carry all the books, but it is a place to start.

What about you, what has been a good read for you lately?

Best Day Ever!

We went to our neighbors annual picnic today.  I didn't go last year, but the kids and I did make it two years ago and had a wonderful day.   Today, as I was wrapping a shivering Ady up in a towel after jumping in the pond with the other little girls she says, "This is the BEST day ever!"  Oh my, my little one.  What a blessing that such a simple day with friends and nature could be your BEST day!

Change of Pace

Spring is finally visiting us.  I feel like going camping!  (not really, it is still frosty in the morning)  We are taking a change of pace day for school today.  A long walk/bike ride in the warm sunshine. Pause to stand in the spray of the wheel lines.  We are blessed to have water for irrigation.  It's also how farm kids take a bath!

Found a Robin's egg on the side of the road.  Then got to see inside when it got dropped.  Ady said, "It looks just like a cooking egg! It's all yellow!"  a cooking egg....hmmm....should I tell them we eat CHICKEN eggs?

Vicar walked with us and did a beautiful job on the leash.  He is such a smart boy!  He is 13 weeks old now and I'm pretty sure he has already doubled in size!  He went to his first baseball game last night.  He did pretty good, next time I will take a couple of chew toys.

Ady said today, "I might be a teacher when I grow up.  I'd have to learn a lot of stuff though.  I might be an ice skating teacher, or a roller skating teacher."  

stories

"Grandpa, do you have any rattlesnake stories?"

Of course grandpa has rattlesnake stories, complete with cutting apart and big rocks.

"Grandpa, do you have any cougar stories?"

Of course grandpa has cougar stories....TWO cougar stories.

"Grandpa, do you have any bear stories?"

Of course grandpa has bear stories, which include a wounded bear, growls and giant leaps across brush piles.  And a bear stealing a halibut carcass out of a pickup.

"Grandpa, to you have any moose stories?"

Of course grandpa has moose stories which include a mama moose and two calves in Alaska.

"Grandpa, do you have any deer stories?"

Of course, he does, but we'll save those for another day.

writing with ease?

Springtime, and getting close to the end of our counted school days.  We are required to have 180 for the year. If this month goes well, we should be done by the end of May!  Not that we will stop doing school time, but I can start counting for next year!!!

I have begun thinking about next year and what curriculum needs we might have to go on to second grade at the Wright house.  I was thinking that we needed to do a bit more writing, with some intentional lessons.  I am not actually a fan of teaching writing the way that I was taught to teach it at college.  I saw it in practice in the "regular" classroom.  The basic premise is "children will learn to write if they write and write and write." They just need real audiences and long periods of time to try it out. Along with LOTS of feedback and encouragement. Hence, the "writing workshop". It demanded MUCH too much conversation with the teacher in a one on one setting (the "writing conference") and it was very very much like pulling teeth.  Give the child a prompt, or blank page, encourage them to write something.

For children who are avid spellers and have good command of the English language, this may be fine in the end. Most children however do not know the grammar for writing well.  And quite honestly most of their stories were one to two sentences, or were actually a retelling or narration of a recently watched movie, video game, or beloved book.  Very few stories are original.  And, after pulling a few sentences from them during a precious chunk of time in the classroom, most of their writing was quite "wrong".  They spent much of the time procrastinating because they don't want to can't  do it, and then when they finally do try the assignment, it is mostly wrong, and their little hearts break when their paper bleeds get excited about revision. (which doesn't seem like a great use of time in the classroom...for anyone involved)

And so, I am definitely open to another way of doing things.

We have based our first year on the classical education model.  (keep in mind I didn't know anything about the classical education model a year ago...was I not presented with this in "teacher school" or did I conveniently not pay attention to that tidbit?) The Well Trained Mind is our best resource to date.  I have used a few of the author's pieces and love them.  They now have a writing curriculum available and I got pretty excited about this.  Within the classical education model, writing for the first 4 years, or during the grammar stage, is actually simple.

The basic structure of teaching writing in this method is as follows:

1. Trace over letters.
2. Print letters.
3. Copy words.
4. Copy sentences.
5. Copy whole passages.
6. Take dictation.
7. Write narrations.

"These steps stretch out over a period of roughly six years at the grammar level. Some children may be ready for step seven in grade four. Others may not be ready for written narrations until grade five or six. It is important for a child to master the previous step before moving on to the next step." (more in depth can be found here.)

A close friend has purchased the writing text and I wanted to see it. There are different formats available, including a workbook with selections to be copied provided.  However...The premise of the entire year is copy work (1-3 sentences) 2 times a week, and narration (retelling, and copying ) 2 times a week. (minimum) We are using the First Language Lessons text for grammar, which includes both of these skills.  Our history text also includes narration practice.  And so, I have decided not buy an actual curriculum at this time.  We have tons of paper for them to write on.  I may staple some and make "copybooks", which if you are familiar with old fashioned education you might remember copybooks were one of the key ingredients to children learning to write and memorize.

There are a few modern copybooks available and I did browse them and think about them.  I honestly like to be frugal in our purchases though. ( I realize that later on, our needs will cost more!)  If I need more for them to copy, I am sure that I can pull sentences from current reading and would very much like to include bible verses, starting with proverbs...which make excellent copy work.

And so, at the end of my week of thinking and pondering and sifting through my paradigms, yet again.  I have a general plan for writing for the coming year and  what it may look like.  Best of all...It is a proven method and costs almost nothing!