Sometimes I am paralyzed by the thought of doing something.  I fret about all the work it might take to get there or the mess it might make that I already don’t feel like cleaning up.  It’s funny how such thoughts are such an energy drain.  Granted, getting myself and six kids ready and out the door more often than not causes breaches in my patience.  A batch of new play dough or a sewing project with a child inevitably creates piles of clutter and a crumbly mess on the floor.

But doing is always worth it no matter how hard it is to overcome the inertia of not.

Doing, acting creates more energy than all the fretting sucks up.

Just one hour can hold a whole day’s worth of connection, beauty, fun, wonder, and creative rejuvenation.

It’s one of those lessons I have to learn over and over and over.

(photos by both Brenna and I)

I wasn’t planning on starting school until Barry went back to work next week, but yesterday at breakfast he announced, “Tomorrow is the first day of school!”  How could I argue?

Really, I had intended on doing school over the summer and then taking a break when Eva came, but I COULD NOT make myself do it.  It was too hot, I was too tired, I was too pregnant, Hunter was too 2… But valuable lessons were learned.  The 2 year old learned to dress himself and use the potty (most of the time).  The kids figured out how to not be bored when Mom wasn’t giving them things to do– you know, things like that.  I’ve decided that our summer of doing nothing was a summer well spent.

And now I feel ready to do school.  One advantage of not doing it all summer, but having been prepared to, is that I’m all ready!  There was no scramble when the first day of school was moved up a week.

We’re using Sonlight for the 2nd or 3rd year now.  It is literature and history based– which is right up our alley.  My kids read and read and read– especially anything about dragons and magical lands.  I like having some structure and rhyme and reason to the things I read with them and ask them to read for school.  I get a box of books and an instructors guide that shows me how to get through all those books in 36 weeks.  Then I read to the kids, they read on their own, and we talk about it all.  It is expensive and I probably could figure out things to read on my own, but for this season in my life Sonlight has been a godsend.

This year Brenna chose to study Core G.  She’s also doing Apologia General Science.  At her Monday school she’s doing Spanish, Art, Science, International Towne, and Language Arts.  She’s got quite a full load– and has been really excited about it.  She’s doing everything on her own with little interference by me.  All I do is read over the journal entries she writes about everything she reads.  Oh– and I’m the piano teacher.

Jonah and Logan are doing Core C.  They’re doing Apologia for science as well.  We’re finishing up birds from last year, then we’ll see if they want to do Astronomy or Swimming Creatures.  As far as math goes we’re using Math-U-See for everyone.

One goal I have is to be consistent in teaching my kids to play the piano.  That has always been so hard for me, but I play the piano so well it is really a shame that my kids don’t.  And since we really can’t afford to pay someone else to teach them all piano lessons I NEED to do it.  So I will.  I did today!  That’s a start, right?

Ian is working on reading his Bob Books, dressing up as a super hero with Hunter, and talking to Eva.  Hunter is learning to poop in the potty and not to climb on top of other people all the time.

Today went really well, but I did have a husband fluttering around in the background, policing toddlers, making lunch, washing canning jars.

We crowned our first day of school with our annual token attempt at self-sufficiency.

We canned peaches.

We did 12 quarts (It probably would be more accurate if I said Barry did 12 quarts with a little help from the rest of us).  Certainly not a year supply, but we know how to do it and the kids love the real work (and eating the peaches we can’t fit into jars).

First day of school– blissful.

After I got out of the shower this morning I heard Jonah exclaiming “I caught it! I caught it!”  He did tell me a few times yesterday that there was a big, cool spider by his window, but I didn’t think much about it.  He caught it this morning and he and Logan did all they could to learn who exactly their bedroom visitor was.  This is what I found on the table when I sat down for breakfast:

They used their field guide searching skills and discovered they had a Daring Jumping Spider.  Jonah made him a habitat in a jar.  Logan drew a picture.  All the boys went out in the rain in search of small insects to feed him.

I love it when stuff like this happens with absolutely no input (or interference) from me.  I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet and I could count it as a good school day.

Today was a day I’m thankful I don’t send my kids to school everyday.  (The oldest 3 just go on Mondays.)  The school year is winding down, so there were class parties that needed treats prepared for, teacher gifts to remember, and the regular making of lunches, nagging to get shoes on, and feeding and clothing the littlest boys in order to get in the car and to school on time.  I am not a person that thrives on busy-ness and, quite frankly, getting 5 kids ready to get in the car is not my favorite thing to do.  Believe it or not, these little people all have minds of their own, and as much as I’d like them to immediately follow my every command when we’re trying to get out the door and somewhere ON TIME, they don’t.  By the time I had got them to school I was tired out for the day– but I had one appointment after another ahead of me.

And so Hunter and Ian and I were go, go, go until the big kids got home.  Then it was driving to karate, picking up from karate, Dad working late, wrestling matches in the family room gone awry (with at least 3 kids screaming like they were dying at one time), trying to figure out something for dinner, and feeling unsettled by the whirlwind of papers and toys and pillows and blankets strewn about the house.

I thought– there are people that do this every day– that have every minute scheduled, rushing from school to lesson to appointment to hectic meal where there is no real time together because those brief moments are spent hurriedly trying to get things done so you can all move on to the next thing.  And then I was overcome with gratitude for this path that I’m on where, for more days than not, we can go at our own pace, be intimately familiar with each other,  and the kids can draw and draw and draw and read and read and read.  I thought of these pictures of Hunter

who can spend all the time he wants intensely making his 2 year old “space men” and “lightnings”, who every minute has big brothers who draw with him and for him

and with their big brother magic (and some paper and tape) turn him into a “lightning space man”.

I’m thankful for all the unscheduled time to just be, to be real, to be really together.

I’m thankful for time to breathe.

Last week I taught a silkscreen workshop for the kids in our homeschool group.  I got all of our supplies from EZ Screen Print and each kid got to make a screen 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″.  We spent the first 20 minutes making their drawings with black Sharpie on 20 lb. copy paper then used the sun to expose their screens.

In art school silk screen was a long process requiring a lot of special equipment– but with the EZ Silk Screen it was a breeze.  Colorado boasts more than 300 sunny days a year, and it did not fail us.  I was so excited that we didn’t even need to use transparency for their images.  The Sharpie on paper exposed perfectly.

We developed and washed everything with plain old water.

And just used tape to hold the screens in place rather than stretching screens on frames.

The actual printing was pretty  messy, but the results were worth it.  I love sharing these kind of projects with kids– helping them do things that seem so complex and showing them that they are artists!  They were all so proud of their finished products.

I ended up doing it over 2 days.  The first group had 8 kids, with my older 3 added to that.  11 kids was a bit overwhelming, I have to admit.  The next day I had 4 extra kids and it was perfect.  It made me wish I taught an art class more than once a year.

So, the other day I discovered that Hunter knows his colors.  He was driving his lovely rainbow of cars around and saying the color name of each one.  I wasn’t sure if it was for real, so I asked, “Hunter, can you drive the green one?”  and he got the green one!  Then I asked, “What color is this car?” and he answered “ornge” (one syllable).

Since then he has been really interested in color– the color of the cup he’s drinking out of, the color of shirt he wears.  I thought I’d build on that interest and make him a little school activity.

Inspired by all of the color sorting activities available at this shop on etsy, I ordered some mini acorns and bowls from Casey’s wood products.  I used water color to paint them and the beeswax paste we have for our table to seal them.  I wish I had ordered larger acorns, but still I really love how they turned out.

It’s fun to watch how Hunter, who is almost 21 months, uses this material.  He grabs a handful of acorns and puts 2 or so in a bowl, looks at them, and then takes out any acorns that don’t match.  Sometimes he’ll pick up a bowl to look at it closer to see if it matches the acorn in his hand.  He spends 5 to 10 minutes working, then walks away.

I certainly don’t think activities like this are a necessity for teaching young children– all of my kids have learned the colors, shapes, alphabet, and letter sounds in a very natural way through everyday life.  But, as my family grows and older children need my attention and toddlers need something to do other than climb on tables and empty drawers in the kitchen, Montessori inspired activities that are engaging and matched to the child’s current interest are proving invaluable for a happy day, happy children, and a happy, sane mama.

Here is our newest Montessori activity– the geometric insets.  I’ve read about them and their use in all of the books I keep checking out from the library about Montessori education, and in the books I own as well.  It was after watching this video, though, that I really saw all the potential they held for our creative family.  I’ve been struggling with helping the kids see the value in good handwriting, but using this material properly gives practice in holding and using a pencil carefully.  And it’s fun!  Just what we need.

I made them from red mat board I had left over from making my set of sandpaper (well, felt, really) letters which I’ll have to show you sometime.

I used some wooden trays I found at Joann’s (they fit perfectly in our cubbies) with some book board cut to fit at a slant to display and transport them.  The knobs are from Joann’s too.  I also made a drawing tray for Ian so his paper and inset are held in place when he traces.  It’s just 2 layers of book board, the top one with a 6″ x 6″ square cut out of the center.

The boys have all been hard at work.  Since I am insisting on them being used properly–  carefully traced and then colored in by drawing lines from left to right– Brenna is pretty resistant.  Oh well.

I used this book that was given to me by my mother in-law for instructions, along with a protractor, a ruler, a compass, and a sharp exacto knife.  I made a hexagon instead of a pentagon because hexagons just fit in geometric patterns better.

The results are lovely, and my three year old is intent on holding his pencil properly, and he’s happily occupied for long stretches of time.

(by Jonah and Logan)

(by Ian)

Oh, school.  We’ve been at it for several weeks now.  6 maybe?  I think we’re on our 6th week.  It has been so long since I’ve written about school, how and what we do.  I don’t think I wrote about it at all last school year once the Summer Mom-school fizzled out.  Why, might you ask?  Well, I guess my confidence has been a bit shaky.  In my heart of hearts I know that this homeschooling thing is what I am supposed to do with the children God has blessed me with.  It is certainly not for the faint of heart, though, and since Hunter was born and Brenna has entered double digits I have been trying to get my bearings.

Last year I decided I needed some help finding books and creating some structure and after lots of searching and praying we decided to give Sonlight a try.  After starting Core 3 with Brenna and Jonah I decided the reading was too easy for them, sent it back, and got Core 3/4.  Because the kids go to public school one day a week and we often go on homeschool group field trips on Thursdays we are still working through it.  I love the literature and history part of it.  Not so sure about the language arts program, and though the science books are lovely, my kids are tired of electricity and the worksheets are a little beyond Jonah’s interest and ability level.  I make Brenna do them.  Probably because I feel like I need to get my money’s worth.  With Jonah and Logan I’ve actually started using a borrowed Apologia zoology book and so far we’re loving it.  It is written in a way that it makes Charlotte Mason style learning so easy– with prompts to narrate, or tell back what they’ve read, experiments, and notebooking assignments in each lesson.

Brenna just reads and reads and reads encyclopedias.  Here she is writing a compare and contrast essay on snails and slugs.  Did you know many types of slugs actually have tiny shells inside their bodies?  Did you know that slugs actually have a gender, but snails are hermaphrodite?  Well, now you do because my little biology encyclopedia typed it up.

For math we are using Math-U-See, partly because we get it free through our homeschool/public school, and because I like blocks.  Math time is tolerable as long as I have realistic expectations that we will spend at least an hour doing math rather than the 30 minutes I had originally set aside for it.

For scripture study we’re using these workbooks and my little drawers love them.

My littles are a bit tricky.  My house usually looks just like Jessica’s because they will get out every game and empty every box, or every puzzle, or both.

I wish I had time and energy to put together Montessori activities for them every day.  Ian loves the sandpaper (well, felt) letters I made for him, and any sorting activity.  He sorted those pom poms for at least half an hour of quiet concentration a day for an entire week.  I would love to get him a wooden movable alphabet and the Pink series work.  The Michael Olaf catalogs are full of great ideas for toddlers too.  I know that my little guys would really concentrate if I put together and presented things for just them.  I also know they get a lot out of the drawing and reading aloud and counting and all that goes on here too just how it is.

So that’s what we’re doing now.  And it is ridiculously late, so you’ll just have to be okay with this ending.

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Joining in with soulemama today.

I have been buying Bare Books by the dozen.  My kids love to fill them up, especially Logan.  He has a series about a character named Mr. Bob who has all sorts of adventures with aliens that I have yet to take pictures of.  This book, however, was given away, so Barry snapped some pictures quick (and made a photo copy) before it was gone forever.  His very favorite neighbor friend had a birthday (his BFF as he calls her).  Such a special occasion called for some book making.

“Yum cake.  Bob opens his present…Look suuper (the 2 u’s make it extra super, no?) fun!”  Can you see how clever his illustrations are?  The candles smoke, the people lick their lips and their eyes look toward the cake.  I can’t stand how much I love his drawings.  I need to share more of them here, but I worry about the fairness of it.  You know, giving my kids equal time.

The first present can turn into all sorts of things.  Here they march to another present.  They’re marching!  And he knows to make their eyes all squinting and half-moony because they’re all so happy.  I tell ya, my 6 year old is an artist.

I think all the intense study of Calvin and Hobbes and Tin Tin that my kids do has lent to all the action and sequence they get into their story making.  They really fill up a lot of their non-school time drawing comics and making books.  (Ssshhhhhhh! Don’t tell them we call this kind of thing Language Arts.)

(Can you see where he gets the idea for the squinty half-moon eyes?)