Lots of stuff...

First of all... My goal for the new year was to make it a habit to keep the house tidy. I think I've succeeded! If I skip a day sweeping, the floor REALLY bugs me. We pick up stuff out of the floor daily and vacuum SOMEWHERE in the house daily. AND laundry is kept up with.... I might miss a day, but it's not so bad because I don't have 235 days worth waiting for me to do anyway! :)

Now, on that same note...

The scope and sequence for North Carolina first graders says that for history/social studies they are to be learning about family. Well, in our history we are learning about Pilgrims, Puritans, and the Revolutionary War. So, how in the world am I supposed to do that. OK... yes I'm slow ;) this is just now becoming obvious to me.

We ARE a family... they are learning about family because they are part of the family. They are with us 99% of the time. They are involved/see arguments and solutions (conflict resolution anyone?) they are involved in decisions to a certain degree. They get choices and see standards set and carried out. They know where we stand as a family and what our beliefs are and will defend them! They play together well, and I would say that they are close friends. We are working on loyalty right now as well as being kind to each other in the privacy of our home, but they are still young so that will come.

They know how a household works... They've watched me pay bills, and they've heard us talking about when we have money to go out to eat and when we don't because other things come first. They've already learned to a degree that credit cards are bad and that we are to be good stewards of our money. They are learning how to take care of our house... Jayden can do just about everything I can do just about as good as I can do it! She is slowly learning to cook. Grace and Julianna can do a great portion of all we do around the house, as their height and strength allow... although I don't trust them with knives and the stove yet... my problem, not theirs! And they've learned through seeing and helping how to care for a baby, although they don't know all the happenings while they are asleep.

So, though a schooled child will not learn these things so easily, it is just a part of life with a homeschooling (large) family. I'm not knocking parents who send their children to school! I'd be the same way! Doing chores and paying bills while they are away... not having nearly as much of a say in decisions because there wouldn't likely be as many decisions.... and they definitely wouldn't know the baby stuff :) and my mom was the same way, which is why I'm JUST NOW figuring out how to keep house and I've been married for almost 8 years.

And, now, last on the list....

We went to the museum Monday. We had a great time, and came home exhausted! Here are some pictures....

Someday I'll get pictures up!

But today is not that day :) This week has been too insane.

First and foremost, Evie has been sick. She's 10 months old. We thought it was just a cold, but then she stopped sleeping, and then she stopped nursing, and no one else amazingly was sick?! Except Matthew and myself had a bit of something, nothing major, just something. So I made an appointment to find out why she wasn't eating. While waiting for the appointment time I started trying to figure out why she would be the most sick, the other three girls wouldn't even have the sniffles, and we would be a little icky. I settled on some sort of bacteria. It would make sense that Evie would share it with me (nasty little baby kisses :) ) and I would share it with him, but the other girls would be fine (they run from nasty baby kisses). So... long story short, we went to the doctor, it is a sinus infection, and she's on antibiotics. We should know if they are working tomorrow afternoon. But she's still not nursing which is causing me all sorts of grief.

But somehow through all that we've still done school. Everyone is enjoying the preschool curriculum and activities. Julianna is practicing diligently on writing her name. Grace is caught up in math and fine motor skills, we just have to catch up on handwriting to get all of those to the same spot. And Jayden is having a good time doing her things too because they are special just for her. She got to do a math "game" where she used cheerios and the spinner from Chutes and Ladders to learn how to add and carry, she got to design her own ribbon of merit like the Puritan children got in school, and she is really enjoying reading!

Olympics

While we wait on confirmation on our official status of homeschoolers we are going to be doing random other things. We will be doing a minor unit study on the winter Olympics that I know will be including geography and probably statistics as well as P.E.

We will also be doing a bit on Valentine's Day (although not much, probably more art than anything) Presidents Day, and Mardi Gras ... hopefully I can find a King Cake around here.

We will continue doing handwriting and Bible with Jayden, and handwriting and math with Grace.

I had posted on the Heart of Dakota message boards on how to figure out how to spread them out, and the creator of HOD curriculum answered and suggested that since I'm currently doing nothing other than the basics with Grace that maybe I should do the preschool curriculum (Little Hands to Heaven) with both Grace and Julianna, along with K level right side (reading, writing, fine motor skills, math) of Little Hearts for His Glory for just Grace. Then when we finish that we would Little Hearts for His Glory with both of them with K level right side for Julianna and 1st grade for Grace... keep them together instead of separating them.... So I'm giving that a go, and so far it seems to be working well. Grace is enjoying it because there's more to school than just the workbooks now and Julianna is enjoying it because she's getting to do school again.

I'll admit... the main reason for there being an issue at all is because I got lazy and Evie got active :)

On another note, I think it has finally become habit to keep the house neat and clean. I have to make myself DO things like laundry and dishes, and I have to actually make sure the girls do their part instead of dictating chores, but I'm not behind at all and the house looks nice if I do say so myself. Well, right now while I've been making this post Evie has ripped apart napkins and strewn toys all around the floor, but for the most part I'm not embarrassed for people to stop by unannounced any more :)

Getting Started...

I finally sent in our paperwork to register our school yesterday. Now I wait to see if I did everything correctly. :) Hopefully we'll officially begin school in March, as in keeping records and things. I would love it if they'd let me count the school we've done since the beginning of the year, but I'm guessing they won't.

But, because of that we are taking it slow and easy until March :) Just doing what we want to when we want to do it basically. We are focusing on Awana verses and handwriting mainly, but also reading and math.

I'm also trying to figure out a rough schedule for the next couple of years (yes YEARS) to see how I want to spread people out or combine or what I want to do with them. I really don't want to be doing the same "grade" back to back. I really want to be able to skip a year between doing the guides for each of them. But it seems the most logical way to do it would be to combine Grace and Julianna. Do the preschool program (Little Hands to Heaven) and for Grace add in Kindergarten level math, reading, and handwriting starting now until we finish it. Then do the next program (Little Hearts For His Glory) after that with both of them but doing first grade basics with Grace and K basics with Julianna. But I'm not super sure that she'll have the fine motor skills to be able to do handwriting and to write the answers in math. She struggles greatly with holding a crayon/pencil not in a fist.

I know it doesn't matter really in the long run... it'll all work out. This is just the time of year where I start planning for the next year, and I already know what curriculum we will be using, so I have to plan SOMETHING!