Author Archives

by

First Sunburn of the Season

sunburn-trio-d.jpg

We spent the morning at the Ewigs, and the kids had a ball, playing in the sand, riding in the canoe and generally enjoying being outside– without sunscreen.

I’m surprised Elisha shows as much color as he does, since he was the only id who brought a hat (his sister’s sunbonnet) and wore it much of the time.

sunburn-trio-c.jpg

This trip was also the first time he didn’t race to my side every five minutes, coming on the heels of his second sunday in a row of going to his own “class” for sunday school.

This has been a long time coming.

In other news, Natasha is loving her bike with training wheels.  Last year she tried really hard but it was still too big for her.  I think she’s ready for a real ride now.  Haven’t gotten my bike down yet though, so we haven’t tried yet.

sunburn-trio-b.jpg

Jay bought two air purifiers in the last, hmmm, 3 or 4 months.  He was preparing for alergy season which is in full bloom.

I got my first taste of his sorry condition this spring, with my eyes becoming irritated and the skin around them itchy and swollen.  Not. cool.

The up-side, though, is that when I went to the eye doctor to verify allergies he gave me a sample of an eye-drop antihistamine.  It’s been sooo nice.  Not only does it directly target the problem area (eyes), there are none of the tiredness side-effects that come with systemic (oral) meds.

Jay’s used them too, and while they don’t eliminate his issues (as they mostly do for me) they have been a help.

I have to use a cortisone cream, too, on the skin around my eye.  It fights the itchy feeling.  I actually couldn’t use it at first because that tender skin was so raw.  I used ointment on it for a few days until the skin healed and now between the drops and the cream I feel entirely human again.

sunburn-trio-a.jpg

My latest big project is making costumes for each of the kids for a “Renaissance fair” coming up.  It’s taking place on Melody’s birthday, so she is thrilled about the big “birthday party” she’ll get to go to.

I’m hoping (especially if it goes annual– this is its first time) to mae this a dressing-up alternative to Halloween.  I’ve been growing more uncomfortable with that over the last several years, and have been praying for an alternative since October.

When I saw the article in the paper and the coordinator’s comment encouraging costumes, “It’s like Halloween in the middle of summer,” I felt I’d found my answer.  We’ll see how it goes, but I’ve trying to be very enthusiastic and creative here to mae this a more special/fun time.

Natasha picked out a princess-dress with bell sleeves, and an indigo fabric, Melody chose a fairy costume and bright pink.  Elisha, of course, is oblivious, but I found a simple costume I described to the girls as a jester and they are pleased with the idea.

The article was asking for more era-correct entertainment on a volunteer basis, so I put a call in to the number to offer storytelling.  I have several adult-length tales that I believe would be quite appropriate for the era.

The only drawback I can think of to the whole costume-thing is the all-or-nothing weather of summer.

Natasha’s dress is dark and long-sleeved, Melody’s light and sleeveless.  Odds are somebody’s going to be uncomfortable.  I just hope they have enough fun being out and about in their dress-ups that they don’t melt into complaining.

There is good hope for that.  They’re already pretty excited.  Piles of frilly, colorful stuff will do that for a girl, I suppose.  😉

by

Note to Self:

You don’t have to “win” the argument to be right: it’s like Natasha wigging out because Melody says the sky is green: just say it’s blue and move on.

End of the year note: The tables definately turn. Natasha knows how to push Melody’s buttons in just the same way.  I use the same line no matter who’s wigging.

by

Leaning toward…

Suzuki.

Not really sure why other than I like knowing exactly what to do, and it comes highly recommended by several people whose experience I trust. Almost more than my misgivings.

It could be very expensive; we’re still figuring that part out. But the instruments at least (might) be taken care of.

This all began, seriously, back on the 6th, when the Suzuki-learning family in our church did a song as a family. It was lovely. Their 6-year-old began alone on the cello, was joined by his 4-year-old sister on the viola then joined in turn by their mom and dad on violin and mandolin.

Natasha was sitting in my lap absolutely absorbed. When it was done she snuggled her “sad” face into me and when I asked her what was wrong she said quietly in her sad voice, “I want to play violin.”

So I went to the other mom in church who did Suzuki with her kids, and asked how it was for someone utterly new to the system (the mom of the Suzuki family grew up with it, so I imagined it would be different for them than me).

This lady said that she hung on to most of her kids’ instruments and offered to loan them to me.

Actually having instruments available for use has opened this up to a real possibility, so I’ve been nosing about for more details.

As soon as she heard Natasha say it at home, Melody (Jay called her the echo machine) said almost at once that she, too, wants to learn violin.

This friend from church also has a 1/8-size cello (from when her boy started) so I mentioned this to Natasha and by the end of bed-time ritual tonight she said she’ll do cello and Melody can do violin.

We’ll see if this sticks. Or even if it goes anywhere.

Naturally I’m as intrigued by this as every new idea and it’s probably a good thing that nothing “real” or useful for beginners like us seems to be available before the fall.

by

Back into Chapter Books

“So we’ve got the witch and the wardrobe, but we still haven’t seen the lion.”

— Natasha’s observation when we put the book away at the end of chapter 5 tonight.

We started this book back before Grandma died, when Melody was barely two and Natasha was 3 1/2.

They listened well, especially considering their ages, but it seems with all the turmoil I myself didn’t have the attention-span to stick with one book to the end.

I was exceedingly proud of them, for their attentiveness and their willingness to sit and listen, even as I questioned their maturity of comprehension.

Mentioning it to Grandma one of the mornings I was with her in the hospital she said, “Well, it’s probably because of the way you read it. You know, since you’re…”

“A storyteller?”

“Yes.”

It was the first reference she’d made to that skill set since she came to my performance of The Rumor of Pavel and Paali the summer before. I felt highly acknowledged and complemented.

A few months later we started to play the movie (I’d gotten it for Jay’s birthday that spring and we still hadn’t finished it).  For the first few minutes we let them watch it with us then thought better of it.

Natasha required no explanation of the movie, and went on talking about events that happen after the point we stopped the movie. It was obvious she remembered what we had read (and felt remembering part of a novel was no big deal) and made the connection herself between the book and movie.

Whether that was from the title, content or some combination of the two we were never sure.

by

General Update

Let’s see, I don’t have dates for these, but they weren’t happening before, so we’ll get them on-record.

Elisha is jumping now.

It started with jerky one-steps off a low stair and has progressed to a full-grown hurling of himself from any permissible hight to the next-lowest point.

Permissible is defined as anything Mom or dad has not prohibited— whether or not it’s been noticed yet.

I twisted my ankle last month (most readers know this already).  I am mostly recovered and  would be functioning normally (I believe) except I just got slammed with this nasty viral sinus infection.

I still couldn’t move quickly– because of the ankle– and now I’m in a state of thickness and near-confusion as my senses struggle to function normally through inches of displaced fluid.

Had a nice visit with a new friend a couple days ago (I hope she doesn’t get what I got– two littles of her own).  She enjoys writing and talking about ideas, so we had a grand time.  Definately pushed the kids to the edge of their napless abilities.

I know this because Melody put herself to nap as they were leaving, and Elisha had difficulty going down, which was abnormal.

Have I already said that Natasha reads?  She can read both silently and aloud, and her inflection is wonderful.  The first time she reads something aloud it usually sounds as I read it to her, but once she owns a story and grows in confidence the inflection becomes uniquely hers.

It is really fun.

She’s even able to read the Bible aloud, but she doesn’t like much to do it.  Which is  a little disappointing because our current Sunday school set-up has lots of opportunities for children to read aloud, and we brought her out of the 4/5-y-o class to participate and she’s not been very interested.

by

Can you tell what we’ve been talking about today?

Background: I’d just brought the kids in from playing outside (before they wanted to), and even hot chocolate didn’t quite counter the blow.

“Coco!” is definitely an established word for Elisha now, though.

Natasha to Melody [bossy, not frightened]:

No! You can’t go outside without a grown-up. There are people who will come into the yard. If there’s not a grown-up there, they might think you’re theirs and take you away with them.

That’s why there always has to be a grown-up around when you’re playing outside so anybody walking by will know you belong to someone.

Not quite the way I explained it, but it works on an (apparently) un-frightening kid-level.

I always like to know how their thought-processes are working, and hearing her explain it in kid-language to her sister both allowed that and saved me a conversation with Melody that might have been frightening before it was understood.

by

Controlled Vocabulary

I am working on a short fairy tale to submit for publication (sort of a breather from the novel, you might say).

Naturally the language is how I would tell it.

So I’ve begun to go through it with my “Children’s Writer’s Word Book” checking the words I guess to be more challenging than the others.

I was thinking I was doing alright, most of those words were acceptable at a 3rd- or 4th-grade level, until I got to enchanted.

As in, “enchanted castle.”

Enchant is designated a 6th-grade word.

I called Natasha over and asked her if she knew what the word meant.

“Um, magic?” Good enough for me.

I told her, “This book says you have to be 12 to know that word.”

She looked at the ceiling and laughed quietly.

“You can be four too,” she said.

I’ll check the rest of the manuscript, but if that’s the most challenging thing we’ve got in there, this thing’s ready to look for a publisher.

by

Kindergarten Curriculum Compiled

Well, after Saturday’s hunting trip through the bookstore, I have everything I could possibly need for our home curriculum‘s areas of focus.

Very specific things like the three grade-level artists and scientists will need to be supplemented by the library, but everything else is well-covered by what I’ve collected at Forget-Me-Not Books. ($.25-$1 per book)

  • Art
    • Drawing with Children
  • Health/Manners
    • Health, Safety, and Manners (From the A Beka Health series)
  • Language Arts
    • *Gobs* of read-alouds covering all subjects
    • The Reading Teacher’s Books of lists (original edition)
    • Untangling Some Knots in K-8 Writing Instruction
    • Stories, songs and Poetry to teach Reading and Writing
    • Games for Writing*
    • A Celebration of Literature and Response (K-8)
      • it maybe more for me than her, it still looks really interesting
  • Mathematics

    • Saxon Math K
      • A big, fat book that is a year’s worth of lesson plans, with activity sheets to copy in the back.
      • It seems to have a good ratio/emphasis on hands-on learning
    • Linking Mathematics and Language
      • Now doesn’t that sound like the perfect book for me?
    • Maths on Display (activities for ages 5-8)
  • Music
  • Physical Education
    • Not using a book
  • Science
    • Building structures with young children
    • *Gobs* of non-fiction read-alouds (covers the life-science basics)
    • Sense-able Science (integrating math and science in activities exploring the senses)
    • 2nd volume of a teacher’s edition Kindergarten science text. Covers basics of Physical Science in an outline/activity format.
  • Social Studies/History
    • Read-alouds about other times
    • Folktales– to talk about social responsibility, interaction and consequences.
  • Religion
    • Family bible* version: ESV. It’s what we memorize from (or are beginning now, as a shift from our hodge-podge till recently).
      • It’s what Jay reads, and what they’ve started using in this latest Sunday School class at church
      • We read bible stories/storybooks too, it’s just we wanted to settle on one version to read “straight” from so the memorization that happens without trying (I’m convinced this is where the majority of my memorization comes from) can begin to take root.
      • (Though I still prefer the Holman for my personal bible-reading/study, I like the ESV well enough I don’t feel like I’m competing.)
    • Navigators Topical Memory System* for now
    • Hero Tales*– trues stories from the lives of Christian heroes (Found Volume 1 at Guliver’s, and if we like the format we’ll probably continue with the later volumes.)

(*) marks things we didn’t buy at Forget-Me-Not. Not a whole lot.

Naturally some of the read-alouds (what I’m calling picture books that are “consumable” in a single sitting) came from sources other than F-M-N, but some did, so I didn’t note (*) those separately.

I feel compelled to speak the acknowledgment that I don’t expect to use all these book in their entirety in Natasha’s first year. But they all are books that begin to be applicable at this age, so I’m including them in my list.

The completeness of this list, from as random a source as a used-book store, is what I find so delightful and exciting about it all:

I am no longer “scrambling” or wondering what we will do when we knuckle down. And having more than I need, rather than less, is a very reassuring way to start.

by

Natasha’s Kindergarten

I’ve gone through the FNSBSD “Curriculum Guide for Parents” and compared objectives for K and 1st grade, making a new set of objectives based on where NJ is currently at (she *so* has K Language Arts smoked. And half of 1st-grade’s, I’d say.)

Under this new organizing the only things she is doing exclusively at the the guide’s kindergarten level are Art and Science.

Each grade has a theme for art and a trio of artists loosely based on that theme.

e.g. Kindergarteners focus on self-portraits, and they “study” Van Gogh, I suppose because he had a famous one. Not too closely I hope. His is far from a G-rated story.

Three scientists are listed for each year, also.

Anyway, for this year at least, we’ll try to match these that her cousin will (in theory) also be learning since they’re the same year in school.

by

Jay is *Awesome*

He corralled three kids for nearly 2-hours worth of shopping and trying-on of things tonight.

He is looking forward to tomorrow when the tables turn and I run herd while he looks through he discounted Men’s section.

Praising God for His provision and timing!

The new clothes were as cheap as thrift-stores’ and much more efficient, as trying on one shirt or pair of pants gave you the yes or no to everything on the rack. (Wouldn’t you buy 5 new pair of pants at $1.79 apiece?)

Our old clothes have needed retiring for a while.

I wore a dress to Christmas Eve service that I bought for a solo competition in high school. When I bought it I had to hold it up not to step on the hem. Now it falls to the upper calf.

I didn’t grow that much. It’s just been washed a *lot*. (Not that I found a dress to replace it, either, it’s just the best example I have of how old some of my clothes are).