They really must be twins...

Often when I am out with the kids, T and J are assumed by most to be twins.  They are the same height, have the same hair and eye color, and generally look quite a bit alike.  The two of them have developed all sorts of responses to this question/comment (many people don't ask, but simply assume).

Just today, the mom teaching their coop class was introducing them to another mom who was visiting, and said, "And this is T and this is J; good luck keeping them straight!"  And their poor swimming instructor...they have matching swimsuits and both have hot pink goggles.  One can often hear her trying out both names for one girl just to see which gets their attention.

I don't try to encourage this 'twin-like' behavior.  But I don't discourage it either.  I hope they are the best of friends and love each other's company dearly all the years of their lives, but they are two individuals who are really not much alike, underneath, at all. So I do my best to allow them to be however 'twinish' (or not) they desire on any given day.

However, on Monday this idea of occasionally being twins became a bit over the top.  Not to mention dangerous and expensive.

See, there was this post about 13 months ago: Our first trip to the ER.  For the sake of demonstrating just how absurd this is: T and J are almost exactly 13 months apart.

Well, we repeated that incident once again on Monday.  Only this time with J.  Yup, she has four staples in the center back of her head.

She was sitting on a small, low wooden stool using a side table to do her handwriting (she is known for finding odd locations and configurations in which to do most tasks) when she lost her balance and fell back.  It would have been a small bump on the carpet except that a chair had been pushed back and she came back on a corner of the chair leg.  I was in the kitchen (around a corner) making bread when she hollered. 

I will never get over the amount of blood that comes with head injuries.  Dripping all over the floor, down all of her hair, etc. She even had managed to cover a bit of her face with some.  Oh, the amount of ideas one's head suddenly has at a moment like this is rather staggering.  Anyhow, it was a mess, but once I washed her up a bit I saw that it was just like T's and knew we were in for the same treatment.  I also knew I could wait twenty minutes for Ryan to come home and watch the rest of the little ones.

On to the ER J and I went.  The nurse even remembered our family from when we all had come in for T to have her staples taken out.  I suppose there aren't too many groups of six people (only one of those persons being an adult) piling into an ER room with school books and pencils to have staples removed... 

Fortunately for J, the Dr decided to use a topical numbing gel.  T had no anesthetic with hers, but she is a much tougher cookie.  Four staples and a special teddy bear later we were on our way home.

I still can't decide on one thing: Is it simply sad or a blessing from above that we finished paying off our last ER bill (for T's broken finger) this month, just in time to begin another payment plan....

Oh, and did I ever tell you?  T named her bear, which the ER gave her last year, "Staples".  Seriously.

J's bear's name? "Fancy Jane"....don't ask; I don't know...but its things like that which go to show that they really aren't twins.

Homeschool Update-History & some great reads

We are in a season of life that consists primarily of putting one foot in front of the other.  Ryan is working long, stressful hours.  The weather is still cold.  Cabin fever has come and not gone.We have had more than our share of colds, stomach flues, and 'fluky' bugs.  But this time of year is also, 'buckle down and make some serious head-way with school' in our family. 

As I seem to have a tendency to modify curriculum, I have settled on the best way to adapt Heart of Dakota's Bigger Hearts for His Glory for our family. We primarily use the history, language arts, and science reading along with the hymn study and some of the geography and vocabulary.  I have abandoned the Bible study and poetry study.  Instead, we decide as a family what type of Bible study we want to do when we finish one.  This time the kids really wanted to do a simple study on Mark.  I wasn't about to turn that down!  Our last study was using the book, Leading Little Ones to God.  To read more on how much I liked that book, go here.

Our history curriculum has taken us through a biographical study of the American Revolution time period.  Z is an avid reader and particularly likes history.  Seriously, he reads his Bible, a fun book (such as Little House on the Prairie or the Fairchild Family series), and a history book at his rest time.  I finally started a list for him so that he knows what to pull off the shelf (nearly every three days) when he finishes his latest historical biography or nonfiction. 

I acknowledge this is a great problem to have (yes, I know this is not necessarily common and no, I do not expect this to continue through all of my children so please don't feel bad if your kid isn't devouring every history book out there; you are welcome to consider us the weird ones), but it keeps me on my toes looking for age appropriate and 'non-dry' (living) history books.  My primary resource is the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  And when that resource runs dry, I wait until a library day, go to the history section with him, grab a two foot high stack of books covering the time period we are studying and sort through them.  I hand him my 'yes's' and let him pick what he would read from those.

When beginning to plan out this year, last summer, I added some history books to enhance our studies. See, I know that whenever I pull out a good living history book to read for Z and T's history time two things usually happen.  One, I quickly gain a larger audience.  And second, they all complain when I stop.  So, while HOD included some great old living history books I wanted to add a bit of meat for our style.  For this task I browse the catalogs of other homeschool publishers and weed through some reviews of the books on Amazon. 

The best book so far is actually a rather short, more picture book style piece that is included in Beautiful Feet's history curriculum.  A More Perfect Union  by Maestro is an excellent read for younger elementary students learning about American history.  If you want to teach the story of the Constitution and begin a dialogue regarding the basic structure of our government, this is just the book.   The illustrations are very pleasant, the text simple, but the teaching of our founding fathers' endurance is never insignificant.

Other good supplements for American history are Jean Fritz's books.  The kids giggled all throughout Why don't you get a horse, Sam Adams? and they were intrigued by the story of Where was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May?  Understand, these are good for additions to a American history curriculum, particularly in a biographical approach, such as we are doing this year.

Two series which I keep an eye out for at library booksales (they seem to be commonly sold for a quarter or two around here) are the "If you lived..." and "If you grew up..." books by Scholastic.  These are great little paperbacks which transport the reader back to being a child in a particular time period.  There are illustrations on nearly all of the pages accompanying text that flows in a question and answer format.  Such as, "What did boys and girls where during the time of....?".  I find these books great for when we are beginning to study a new time period or person (there are books such as, If you grew up with Abraham Lincoln).

So, how in the world do I afford all of these books?  First, I talked a lot about that here.  Second, I have a new wonderful resource.  Thriftbooks.  You can find a ton of books for 3.99 with no additional shipping.  And if you find multiple books coming from the same warehouse then you save .50 on each of those additional books!  And...search for coupon codes.  I ordered once in Jan and once in February and both times found that they had active coupons going.  One was for a free book and one was for 10% off the whole order. This can make Charlotte Mason schooling seriously affordable!  And of course, the library.  I only buy books that I intend to use for all five children or I hope they would read many times for enjoyment.

That is our history update, folks.  Literature, art and music to come.  Just don't hold your breath.  I only wrote this post over three days!

How our children do work

I have taken an intentional break from blogging.  The holidays were filled with some serious game playing, a Kutless Christmas concert where Ryan and I volunteered, baking, a trip to see the Nutcracker, and simple days.  It was awesome!  Ryan took about a week and a half off and we all really just enjoyed life together.

And then we rang in the new year with everyone at the Dr.'s office and many on a much needed antibiotic.

But here I am, back to writing, and healthy (except for a serious calf muscle strain-long story...let's just say patience is not one of my strong suits)!

I am going to wrap up the series on kids and work today. To find part 1 go here.  For part 2: here.

Our family has a designated chore time five days a week.  It happens M,T,Th,F,Sat.  Wednesdays are a busy day for us outside of the house and chores just don't make sense that day.  Currently, I have the kids doing their weekday chores after lunch.  This allows us to have a solid morning to get school done.  On Saturdays, chores are first thing. Sundays are a day of rest.

We do pay our children a bit for chores.  This consists of a couple of quarters a week.  We don't want to make this a large money making ordeal.  However, we want to give a small opportunity for them to begin learning some money managing skills.  In addition, it is a way to introduce the concept of working to earn a paycheck. 

We do not pay all of the children equally.  Our oldest two earn a quarter more than J does and their assigned jobs reflect that difference.  M and S do not have chores nor do they receive any income.

Our children usually begin doing chores when they are between 3 and 4.  This begins with simply putting away their own clean laundry, making their bed and maybe helping dust or wipe down counters or feed a pet.

Typically by the time they are 4 they are ready to take on some more independent light cleaning.  It is better to begin this process early rather than late.  Just don't overwhelm them; you want this to be a positive, helpful experience.

As a practical matter, how do we handle kids and chemicals?  We don't.  I use all natural cleaners.  You can make some of your own.  You can look to buy some 7th Generation at the store (not really my favorite, but convenient). 

We purchase through Melaleuca (I use all of their cleaners and laundry/dish detergent) and through Frontier (I buy Citra-Solv and all of our personal products from them).  Team up with like minded friends and family if you wish to do an account on Melaleuca as it requires a monthly commitment that I find is typically beyond what one family needs.  Or contact Frontier to see if they have a buying group in your area. 

Honestly, long-term, you will save piles of money with these two companies if you become committed to natural products. I don't sell for either of them.  It is just my honest opinion.

My last bit of advice is to be consistent, but flexible.  Keep chores going despite any whining or complaining.  Better yet, inform your children that income is only given out when their jobs have been done well and cheerfully. 

But if a child is not feeling well or it has been a particular stressful day I may declare that there are no chores, but that everyone needs to work together to get a particular two or three things done.  Sometimes this is simply emptying the dishwasher or picking up the living spaces.  This helps everyone enjoy a bit of grace, but work together to keep our home functioning.

No matter what, make chores and working together a priority.  It will instill work ethic, personal responsibility, and a sense of belonging to each young one.

Why should kids work?

I promised a few weeks ago, when I shared our fantastic chore system, more writing on kids and work. 

Hopefully, you subscribe to the 'better late than never' philosophy...if not, well, um...I'm moving on.

So, the question today is, 'why should kids do chores?' or 'why should children work?'.

Really, I could simply say to refer to the book of Proverbs.  There are more than a few nuggets on how God created our bodies to work.  But that wouldn't be necessarily super helpful so I suppose I shall expound a bit more.

It has surprised me, over the last few years, to discover how many parents do not think their kids should have to do jobs around their home.  Possibly, these parents felt over-worked as kids, themselves and fear they will do the same to their children.  Maybe they don't want to put in the effort to teach their kids how to do some tasks. And there are even more adults who simply believe 'kids are kids' and shouldn't have to do more than their schoolwork.

We don't believe in any of that. Period.

God made all of us to work.  And parents were given children for many reasons and one of the purposes of childhood is to learn how to be a productive adult and the parents are the teachers in this endeavor.  And last time I checked, productiveness requires a fair amount of effort, or work.

So, I hope my children learn to be comfortable with working their bodies physically in many ways, including with tasks that can feel meaningless and redundant, although necessary, around the house (really...who likes to vacuum up a floor only to see it dirty a few hours later). 

In addition, our daughters need to learn to be good keepers of their future homes and chores are a first step in that direction.

We also believe that required work helps produce a certain amount of character and attitude improvement. 

Ryan works in middle management.  I could write for hours (except that I have work to do) about the stories he comes home with which demonstrate an adult's lack of determination to simply suck it up and go get the job done.  How sad would it be to carelessly develop a worker like that under our own roof? 

I am not saying that by having my children do chores they will turn into future five star employees.  I am simply saying that chores are a beginning step in developing the 'work' part of their character.  And we find that to be Biblical.

"Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." Proverbs 10:4

"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." Proverbs 14:23

"One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." Proverbs 18:9

"Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry." Proverbs 19:15

Everything is good in moderation and with consideration.  Requiring children to work is no exception.  Next time I intend to tackle how we have our children working.

Heart of Dakota Science

As some of you may remember I used Apologia Science last year.  While I was very impressed with their curriculum and intend to return to it in a few years, it was not for us this year.  I wanted a more visual science curriculum with a bit more variation. 

Also, I wanted T and J to be able to join in and understand what was being taught.  Apologia spoke to a much older audience, used hard vocabulary, studied one topic all year, and the experiments were much too complicated for my style.

So, after deciding to use Heart of Dakota for Z's history this year I gave their science a look.  I researched the books they included for science and read through the teacher manual.  I liked what I saw.

Now, after about a quarter, I am very pleased with that decision.

The first unit (the first four or five weeks) in Bigger Hearts for His Glory focused on the seashore.  We primarily used One Small Square: Seashore.  The kids loved this book and I thought it was simple while also being fun.  I did add Pagoo to our reading, which turned out to be an awesome educational supplement to this unit and an enjoyable story that went very well with our study.

But what I was very impressed with was how great the experiments and demonstrations were.  I could pull the necessary items together within a couple of minutes and there was virtually no prep work.  However, the lessons taught were still very essential concepts that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of demonstrating in a hands-on format.  The simplicity has allowed the kids to remember what we did and what it taught and it has kept my four and five year old's attention.

For example we used sugar and water to demonstrate how the water (in the form of rain and waves) can change the seashore over time.  In addition, we used glitter and lotion to demonstrate germs on our hands and how it takes warm soapy water to remove the bulk of the germs.

In both of these cases I have seen my children imitate the experiment to some degree and I have heard them repeat the essential lesson to one another after many days have passed.  This is successful learning in my book!
We also do a notebook page once or twice a week about something we read.  I appreciate that Heart of Dakota includes an applicable verse with nearly every notebooking assignment.  And the assignments themselves allow for creativity and are simple enough for J to do her own version.

The book we are using currently, in the eighth week, is Science in Colonial America.  This book is much less of a 'living book' and the kids are not all that enthralled with it.  However, the hands-on part continues to impress.  And while I don't like this book quite so much, it is not long, and I know that we move on to much better materials soon. 

All in all, Heart of Dakota's science curriculum has been a great fit for our family this year.  We will continue on with studying the ecosystem of the woods, Thomas Edison, and science as it relates to Colonial and Early America.  And I am looking forward to it.

All in a Week's Time...

Some of our most memorable moments from the last week:

Double fisted talking!

Apparently either Mom is on the phone a lot or this youngest child has a lot of conversations that need to be had!  You can bet it is the second!

Just no one tell her those are business calculators (which had a very important role in the dating life of her parents and a much less significant role in the passing of our corporate finance class)!

We can check this one off the 'did your child ever do that' list

Our experimental four year-old decided to discover 'what would happen' if she put popped popcorn up her nose....

fortunately she wasn't very fond of the feeling...and we were able to help her blow it out!

The popular fellow!

T and J recently visited an assisted living facility with their homeschool co-op group and their teacher referred to the residence as an 'old folks home'. 

One night, this week, after a dinner in which we had all been talking about the outing,
Z (who has never been to such a place) asked T, "what was the place called where you gave those cards out to all those girls?"

Without waiting for a response he asked again, "wasn't it called the old fellow's home?"

Oh dear...I don't know if we ever got that one straightened out.  I wish I could see the mental picture he has of this place...

The Naked Warrior

M has taken to a new habit.

One evening I was changing him for bed.  As I took off the day's clothes and began to remove his diaper (fortunately only wet), before I even knew what was happening, he immediately slithered quickly away, giggled, and took off running at top speed around the house completely naked! 

As he ran he raised his right arm straight up high and began yelling HIIIII-YAWWWW.... down the hallway, through the kitchen, through the school room, and back to where I was sitting, hysterically dumbfounded....

Now, it seems, that if I am at all mellow about the changing process this whole scene will repeat itself at least once a day.  And seeing as this whole scene is highly entertaining I must admit that I don't necessarily try to avoid it (you know you wish you had this much entertainment every evening).

No pics of this one people.

The quickest chore system for the cleanest house!

Do I have you sold by the title? 

Can you tell I really like how we are doing chores lately? 

I had heard of various systems using chore cards, chore charts, lists, etc.  And we had tried a few different kinds, but they always had their drawbacks.  Usually there wasn't enough flexibility built in or not enough variation for the kids. 

For example, Z would have dog poop pick up on every Tuesday and Thursday.  But then what happens when it is pouring buckets on Tuesday morning and then Wed is bright and sunny.  Is he now supposed to do two days chores on Wed, but nothing on Tuesday?  And no, I do not put him in a rain suit and send him outside...that was not one of the options.

Or let's say vacuum the family room was on Friday, but we decide to go somewhere on Friday.  Now the family room ends up super dirty all weekend (not a good plan, if you ask me).

What was I to do, you ask?

Here is my awesome solution (or at least, I think so):
1. Buy different colored magnet clips (one for each of the children you would ask to do chores). For us this is three.  I might be a rather driven mom and all, but no, my one and two year-olds do not have assigned jobs. 

2. Take a stack of 4x6 cards and cut them in half (because I am cheap and didn't need the size of the whole card).  Make a list of all the jobs you have ever had the children do. Be specific: it works better in our house if I break up the rooms for vacuuming.  So I have about five vacuum cards-dining room, school room, upstairs, etc.  And there are cards for the specific bathrooms: upstairs and downstairs. 

Don't forget to help your sanity out by including what I call 'half jobs'.  These are to maintain the cleanliness, but not take as long as a full cleaning.  For example: my older two kids can clean the bathrooms (everything except the showers-those are still my duty).  However, the counters get messy in between once a week cleanings.  So, I have a card labeled for wiping off both bathroom counters.  All three of them can do this job and it keeps things decently clean and allows for J to begin learning how to clean the bathroom.

3. Write these jobs on the cards.  If it was a job that they all do on the same day sometimes (like put away their clean laundry) then write that job out on three cards.

4.  Assign each color clip to a child. 

5.  The next morning, before chore time, glance around the house and decide what needs to be cleaned.  Is the bathroom beyond presentable?  Are your floors collecting dog hair like crazy (like mine)?  Or is the dust able to be measured?  Pick out those cards.  Decide who should do which job.  Put those cards on the appropriate clip.  Around here there are days when everyone has one large job and there are other days when they may have up to three smaller jobs.  On our homeschool coop/errand day and on Sunday nobody has chores....here in lies the beauty of flexibility.

Note: I am a bit strategic here about a few things.  You learn as you go along.  Each household will vary as to the best strategy, but here are some of mine:
1) I only have one caddy for bathroom cleaning so I will not ask for both bathrooms to be cleaned on one day.
2) Vacuuming upstairs does not go as smoothly when I also have someone trying to clean the upstairs bathroom.
3) I only ask one child to do a chore that I know I will need to assist them with to avoid mass frustration.
4) Think ahead: do you have company coming in the next couple of days?  Are you going to be gone tomorrow? Etc...

6.  When the child has completed their job they bring me their cards and I can check their work at this time if I didn't earlier.  Now the cards go back in my master pile.

During chore time if I am not needed for assistance I may move the laundry along, put away Ryan and my clean clothes, wash the dishes, deep clean the kitchen, make bread, or prep for school that day. 

Although my kids do help with a lot of the cleaning around here (and I am very grateful) there is still plenty for this mom to do!

For more details on how our kids pitch in around here...stay tuned.