Category Archives: Management

About doing and coordinating

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Lots Going on Here.

Busy here lately.

  • Spent some time today talking with a couple Suzuki teachers, trying to nail down price and protocol for starting, and I’m totally understanding now why my friend was hedging when I asked her how much she was spending for her two kids’ lessons.
    • I’m even uncomfortable to write it in this post, since we’re still kinda considering it.  (E-mail me if you really want to know and I’ll say).
    • If we go this route we’ll be dropping broad hints that “more music lessons” is a great birthday/Christmas/un-birthday present: share in the investment and reduce clutter all in one efficient gift.
      • Okay, so it would just be not adding to the clutter, not reducing any.  😉
  • Elisha held his paintbrush in a perfect upright hold today.  I was so surprised I looked for the camera, wanting a picture, but couldn’t find it.  He changed his hold later, but was able to go back when I encouraged him to change.
  • I have turned the kids’ rooms and sleeping arrangements all around
    • Melody traded rooms with Elisha.  I moved his crib into the blue room and set up a toddler bed (from under the house) for Melody.
    • Natasha got a “new” toddler bed, too, and everyone got to pick out sheets today.  I washed them during nap and the girls are sleeping on them now.
    • I got both the big beds out of the blue room, and I’m in the process of rearranging the other pieces of furniture.
      • Tonight I organized my craft shelf for the first time since, hmmm, Melody, at least.
  • I am back to four baskets of laundry to fold, and still have to put the yellow room back in order, but I’m liking the new arrangements so far.  (I still hope to move the big book case in the blue room, too.)

While trying to decide about Suzuki I keep saying,  How could I eve be considering this?  There is *nothing* I do every day except eat and sleep!

But just before I started this post I realized there’s one more thing.  If it’s not every day it is pretty close: I write.

And I guess I sing and talk, too.

It’s randoms like these, along with an indefinable something, that haven’t let me trash the lessons-idea just yet.

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The Garden is In

Well, I guess I have to admit I’m impulsive.

This is the second big project in a week I’ve dived (doven? divved?) into.

But, hey, it was done in an afternoon, and all that’s really left is watering and keeping the kids out f it.

It’s about 4 x 15 feet (click on the pictures to see what’s planted where) and I think it’s my first “real” garden, if I may define that as variety with planning.

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The poppies and irises all came from seeds I picked at my parents’ old house years ago.  They’re established and have come back year after year.  Which, considering the way I abused them all today, I’m glad.

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I’ve tried to keep all the perennials in front or to the left of the window, since Jay’s long-term plan is to build an arctic entryway out to the edge of the window, and planning now will save me transplanting later.

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There is that little tree there that will have to be moved eventually, but it was so bitty and cute when we found it I enjoyed having it by the porch.  We’ll just wait for now and watch how fast it grows.

Natasha liked the idea of having all the “cooking plants” (the herbs) right at the front near the door.  The basil was sort of a fun find– there was a whole snarl of them bunched in a little 2″ pot, and I was able to separate them with little difficulty.  No telling how many of them will grow to the projected 18″, but they all are perky at present, which is more than I expected.

I had some wire fencing from Grandma’s garden, so I bordered the plot with that, hoping the plants will survive long enough to produce (I tried to put everything enticing to little fingers out of reach).

So there you are.  I turned the whole plot this morning (being careful of the established flowers) took the kids to pick out a handful of plants and seeds, then planted them all before Jay got home.

Of course, dinner wasn’t ready, and the mound of dirty laundry still sits and calls for sorting, but I feel a high measure of accomplishment.

I can’t remember ever thinking before how pretty clean, blank earth (i.e. sans weeds) looks.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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On the Upswing

Well, we’re all getting better, and I’ve recognized (this time) the biggest danger of this stage is going back to “normal” life too quickly.

We’ve all spent about a week staying home and functioning at a minimal level.

We’re all ready to *doing* things. And we can’t yet. It’s tough.

But at least we’re all able to breathe now and feel like we can do more 😉

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All the Kids are Sick Today

Melody’s fever seemed to break last night, but she’s still coughing and emotional/clingy today, along with other symptoms.

Elisha has a low fever and isn’t keeping anything down.  We keep feeding and watering him “against orders” because Jay figures if the boy’s going to be throwing-up anyway we might as well make it less painful.

This is a new symptom that we hope doesn’t mean he’s got a different virus. We really don’t want a whole other round rotating through the kids.

Natasha registered a mouth temp of 104 when we took it this morning, but the Ibuprofen seemed to manage it and she’s almost normal again.

It’s interesting how she and Melody seem to feel fevers differently. Melody feels cold and shivery, wanting snuggled, while Natasha was irritable and hot, kicking off the blankets and complaining.

She, too, wanted Mother near, but not particularly to snuggle.

Elisha fell asleep again partway through the morning and while he was resting the girls and I got to play some memory (from some of these printed cards I pasted on purple cardstock) and started teaching them how to remember by cumulatively reviewing after each pair was turned over.

It was challenging at first, because the first 10 or so cards were all different. But that turned out to be a good thing once we started turning over duplicates, because everyone remembered where the matches were.

We didn’t keep score and we helped each other with what we were close to. So it was a neat time.

It was devolved by necessity after Elisha woke up. He’s getting better about not messing up games on-purpose, but now he’ll try to play and confuse things that way (the larger cards cover so much ground it’s easy to mess them up once they’re about half paired-off).

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A couple advantages of living near a “real” school.

So we really started school today, complete with a visit to the school library and playing on the playground.

I don’t know how we got away with this last one except it was so warm today we none of us wanted to stay inside, and then my impulsive self said, Why just go around the loop when we could go down the street to the school and play on the playground?

Which, of course, the children heartily seconded.

Elisha learned that he still could move in all his gear if he really wanted to (he had been abnormally passive last night’s and today’s walks sitting in the sled without reaction or attempts to escape).

Once I encouraged him a bit he was all over that equipment and I had the normal mom-dilemma of needing to decide who to “spot.”

~ ~ ~

After not-nearly-enough playing (I was getting antsy with nap-time growing closer and with Melody being sick– though she wasn’t coughing any more), I insisted we go in to visit the library, thinking that, if the administration was willing to share even if we weren’t enrolled, this close library would be an awesome alternate to the drive across town.

I hadn’t brought any ID, so I don’t know what I was thinking, really, but I probably had this vague hope the librarian I used to work for would still be there and I wouldn’t need ID.

Well, I found out today she retired two years ago (oops, I’m behind), but her replacement was a woman I met three years ago and she still knew how to spell my name (!). So I’m in.

It’s a delightful little place with a reasonable variety of books including lots of early readers which is good for where we’re at, but also full of derivative drivel for that level (any suggestions for good ways to say *NO* to the drivel?) .

We brought home some books from there today.