Dusting off the old blog...WHAT!

 After some recovery emails and password resetting I found my way to this old blog! 

Not sure what I will do with it. 

There is a new school year... There will be three homeschooled Wiedz... There will be two public-schooled Wiedz... There is a college-aged Wiedz...

It has been almost 5 years since my last post...so much has changed.

I am different. I have learned so much about myself, my goals, my identity, my parenting, my relationships. 

The world is different. Progressiveness, politics, culture, social media. 

My hobbies are the same. My worldview is the same.

Maybe not much has changed, after all.

Nice to know Blogger hasn't changed much either...maybe there will be blogging as part of my 2021 and beyond.

No More Classical School of Wiedz

Right before Christmas break Mr. Wiedz brought up a sensitive topic...what if we sent the boys to public school.

It was time. And I could feel it. If I'm honest I could feel it all last year too. But once Mr. Wiedz brought it up and brought it into the open it was time to deal with it.

So we talked. And we asked the kids. And I took some hard looks at where I think my identity comes from.

I had wrapped a lot of my identity in being a "homeschool mom". But that's not all I am. And that is not where God was leading us right now.

The boys were ready. They were making friends in our neighborhood and playing on teams in our community and making friends. They were ready for this step out into the world. #2 has thrived in public school these last couple of months...so ready was he to go out and be with people.

The little kids needed their turn. #5 and #6 had never had their turn with just mama. Oh, I took them out on dates. And snuggled them to bed. But during the day, I just got them busy so they could be out of the way. Now they have hours of mommy time. We do preschool stuff (watch for more adorableness about that) and play games and read books and sing songs. All the things that I was shoving to the side because of the pressing grammar and reading and projects of the big kids.

Lastly, I was sinking. I was losing myself to it all. And Mr. Wiedz saw that. He offered me a branch and helped me see a way out. I admit I have had a fair share of tears over making the decision and also with living with it. Interestingly I was reading Christ in the Chaos (affiliate link) about the time we were deciding all of this. Her whole point is we are not the "homeschool mom", or the "sports mom", or the "all-natural mom"...we are HIS. We belong to Christ and our identity is in the gift He gave us on the cross. That's the life line. 

So, the week before Christmas break I filled out paperwork, met with teachers, bought backpacks and enrolled the boys in school.

And the beginning of January, they went.

They love it. There have been some tears, some struggles, a lot of working hard, a lot of giving and compromising to fit in "the system" but it is working. We are all happy.

And we have made it to spring break! I have been looking forward to that all along!

FIAR :: Make Way for Ducklings

Back in Week One the boys and I started our 2013-14 school adventure with a sweet book, 

Make Way for Ducklings. I had never read this book before. It is a sweet story and was fun to read all week.

We talked about Boston Mass. and found it on our map. I printed out little ducks; we colored them, labeled them with the names from the book, then put them in alphabetical order. We also colored Mr. and Mrs. Mallard. #4 had free play with all of our ducks, acting out the story, putting them in order, etc.  I made an -uck word can and we practiced that word family. We also talked about our address and worked on memorizing it (we moved and so everyone needed to work on this new one). We mapped out the mallards path and also mapped our route to church.

 

We used cashews (we didn't have any peanuts) and worked on counting and grouping.

And we found all the ways to make eight by adding (printable here from Rulin' The Roost). 

As a special treat we followed this recipe from The Country Cook and made Boston Cream Cake as our treat/after school snack on Friday.

My Make Way for Ducklings pinterest board.

It was a great way to start the year!

2013-14 School Plans

I started this post months ago...for prosperity's sake I'm going to finish it up and hit publish.

The goal is to write up weekly "look what we did" posts. It's a work in progress.

It's that time of year again! I was talking to my cousin this morning which brought me down reality that this fall is going to be quite a marathon in logistics. But I thought I'd join in the online sharing this year's curriculum plans.

I just read Jessica's post and like how she introduced her kid's ages before telling about their school choices so I'll take a page from her book and introduce my little students...

#1 is 12 and will be in public school again this year as a 7th grader.

#2 is 9, turning 10 this October, and would be in 4th grade in public school but will be doing 5th grade work at home.

#3 is 7, not 8 until February, and would be in 2nd grade in public school and in our homeschool.

#4 is 5, turning 6 in October. He is in Kindergarten, both in home and public school.

#5 is 3. We'll be doing some preschool stuff.

#6 is 1, almost 18 months - my favorite age!

I will be "teaching" three while keeping the little two happy and engaged and loved.

So let's start with the little ones...{affiliate links are coming your way}

I'll be doing some preschool with #5. I got God's Little Explorers. I've downloaded and printed out (I purchased the program so I could have everything at once and since it was inexpensive and went to a great cause) and bound myself a great little book of the plans and ideas for all year. It shouldn't be too much but just enough of a sweet time with my boy...something I think I was missing last year.

Morning Meeting :: years ago we called this circle time like everyone else but when #1 was still at homeschool she thought she was too old for "circle time" so we changed the name and it stuck. We do calendar, counting, corporate alphabet reciting, and Latin. We will also use our Kid Life (our churches version of Awanas) materials to work on memory verses, journaling and devotionals.  We started with some SQUILT lessons last year and I would like to continue them once a week this year. I love this simple way of bringing music education into our school.

History :: We are finishing up The Story of the World Vol 3 then we'll be going right into Volume 4 . I have loved SOTW and the activity book . I am especially excited that #2 will have a complete cycle of history when we finish this year. I have gone through the books we will be using and have cut chapters so that we stay focused and finish the year with the end of the book. I've also given us the month of November to do History Pockets :: The American Civil War . We did the American Revolution pockets last year and when I've brought it up this year the boys remember that project fondly and are looking forward to the Civil War ones.

Science :: I am determined to do science this year. At the beginning that will be "easy" since our nanny is doing it for me... she is here on Tuesdays and covers school that day with the kids. I tried to separate topics so that the kids weren't having two different people trying to understand what needed covered or having different expectations. So H gets science. We are using the book I didn't stick with last year, Adventures With Atoms and Molecules . I think everyone is enjoying the experiments and I've enjoyed looking through their work and seeing that they are doing a good job with it.

Independent Work :: The idea is we do the above parts of school before lunch, then break for lunch and a little bit of running around. After that while I lay #5 and #6 down for their afternoon nap the boys can come down to the school room and work through their independent work. For #2 that is SOAP journaling, handwriting , logic and math drill (if there is one that day). #3 also has handwriting and a possible math drill. He is also writing a journal entry in a spiral notebook. #4 does a page of handwriting too. For handwriting I'm trying Getty-Dubay this year. I've always used Handwriting Without Tears and I thought it was fine but I'd seen a few blogs around who were using GD and their handwriting was so nice so I thought I'd give it a try. Already I can see some of the letter shaping from GD carry over into other handwriting and I like what I see.

RRSK :: #4 is doing Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten from 1plus1plus1equals1. I am doing the alphabetical order that God's Little Explorers follows so that #5 and #4 are working on the same letter. It is nice to have the memory verses each week and so far I'm happy we went with this program. #4 is also still working through Rod and Staff's ABC series. We picked up books G and I when were getting math books this summer. He has a love/hate relationship to these...I think they are nice books and they give him a good base of doing tidy work and concentrating and some basic skills practice. I like them...I'll use them again for #5 and #6.

FIAR :: Volume 2 :: I bought the manual and the literature set last year but it just didn't fit in. So far we have rowed two or three books and I think the way I have them laid out through the year will be nice. It will definitely work better to do two or so books a month with weeks off when we don't have anything extra.

Grammar :: #2 and #3 work on grammar everyday. #3 is finishing First Language Lessons Level 1 and will move right into Level 2 . I love how this program has built in copy work and memorization work and covers all the parts of speech so throughly. #2 did through level 3 of FLL and last year we used Rod and Staff's English program. He hated the text book style of R&S so I went on a search of something new. I found Grow with Grammar from Jessica's blog. After looking at the sample lessons and checking with what #2 thought I went with it. So far so good. Just the right balance between text book and work book.

Math :: This is our second year using Rod and Staff for math. #2 does fine with the textbook style of math. We don't do every problem...but when/if he needs more work we keep working through the problems until he is doing well with the concept. #3 got his own R&S math this year. For the younger grades it is all in workbook format which is good for him...maybe a little too much repetition, my boys really get math and the whole page of problems really gets to them. I'm working on hands-on math stuff with #4, I've got a whole lot of ideas on my Pinterest board.

Extras :: I took a lot of time with our schedule this year. I tried really hard to work through it all in my mind. We moved last spring to a larger home, something our family needed desperately. Unfortunately, I am not the best housekeeper. I knew I would need to really think through our days so the house didn't take over. Once I got our basic school day down on paper I realized if I moved everything down some and utilized the afternoon nap time I would have an easier time at school (no crayon eater, #6, or destroyer of all that is good and evil, #5) and I could use the morning hours before school to get chores done around the house. But, what to do with the kids while I'm getting my stuff done? Other than their morning chores? Then I read an article about talent building. And I downloaded the free ebook (I think I had to subscribe to get it). I'm still reading through the ebook...but, the idea that I could encourage a talent in my kids that they could develop and use later in life? I started to think on that a bit more and tried to process how that could be incorporated into our morning.

#2 has always had an interest in computers and games and all of that. Last year I had tried to find a way to work with that interest. With this new talent idea I went back to the internet to find a way to develop #2's interest in computers in a way that, if he continued, could lead him into something more in the future. I found Homeschool Programming. We have started with the Web Page design. It is right on target as far as abilities go. He gets a little "lost" or hits a bump and tries to back off of it for awhile but we talk about problem solving and keeping at it.

#3 is all about work. Real work. Work that he preferably can do alone and actually matters. And he loves animals. I really think he is going to own a large working farm sometime. So,with that in mind, I gave him the responsibility of the animals. Feeding and watering the chickens each morning and the cats too.

The idea is they work on these two areas in the morning between getting ready for the day and the start of school. I also have a selection of activities in the school room that are open for everyone but #6 to work with. Playdough, ABC Find It!, Sensory tubs, alphabet projects, cutting practice, painting, blocks, puzzles, etc. So far, so good. Except a little incident with rice being outside the rice bin and possibly a raised voice or two the mornings are running pretty smoothly.

Ugh. If you made it through that post you deserve a cookie.

Um, yeah...

So.

I'm not sure if this managing a bigger home, homeschooling, working for our company, wife-ing and mothering and crafting is going to mesh so well with the blogging-thing.

I want it to.

I really want it to.

But...

Who knows, I'll try. Because I really do have some fun stuff to show off. We are doing good in school. Some of the stuff we are working on is share-able (meaning you the reader might actually be interested in it). I'm knitting some fun things. Some actual finished projects! The kids are growing (I tried getting them to stop but they like it too much) and we are generally just having an awesome time...I'd like to share that with you.

I'll write up some ideas and see if I can squeeze some time to type and embed photos and the like into my day.

Summer {waning}

Ahhhhh. I bet anyone that has checked back in here in the past 4 months (!) has gotten real tired of looking at that yarn along picture. Here's a cute baby playing at the water's edge to look at instead. 

We spent a couple of nights last week camping with my extended family. So fun! Such good memory building. 19 cousins to play in the water all day with. Shared dinners and running around during a wind storm trying to save camp. Good times.

But it is good to be back. Good to get the last of summer wrapped up. Our list of "before the rain starts" just seems to get longer even when we are able to get a project done from it. My school preparations are going good. I'm still needing to get some of my books (I'm so jealous of moms who know what they're going to use and have it ready in the spring - I'm still trying to survive the current year in the spring...I never know what I'm going to do or use for the next year yet!). I now know what I want to use and where to get it and I'm starting to get a look for how our days are going to go. This prep stuff is my favorite, wish I had days of uninterrupted time to get it done.

I'm hoping for more hands-on this year. Pull out the activity book for history more often, make some great arts or crafts, read good books and enjoy them with each other. And I'm hoping to record it on the blog again this year.

So here's to the last weeks of summer. To getting those "before it rains" projects marked off the list and to keeping the fun in school prep.

History is Alive :: Sumo Wrestling and Wind Poems

Since my planning for more history projects we've actually been able to accomplish the more hands-on learning that the boys LOVE into our days. In our lesson time we learned about the Warlords of Japan. Once Japan had a Tokugawa Shogunate, the leader wanted to find a way for the samurai to fight and compete without killing each other and continuing to start wars. So he introduced Sumo.

The activity book gave great descriptions of the symbols and traditions of sumo wrestling and we turn our living room into a dojo to have our own tournament.

   

We also wrote wind poems, though the boys just couldn't come up with actual poems to write...note to work on poetry later. We wrote wishes on our streamers and hung them out in the wind.

History is Alive :: Eye of Newt Soup

After my post last week I implemented my new plan and I think it's going to work. The boys were all so happy when we had not one but TWO projects to go with our lessons last week. Now that I'm actually doing history "projects", I guess calling them hands-on learning would be better, I feel the need to catch up and actually blog about the projects we did do towards the beginning of the year.

Eye of Newt Soup

I LOVED this idea when I came upon it in the activity book. The ingredients went along with a reading from MacBeth. The boys talked about it for weeks.

This whole MacBeth reading and Eye of Newt Soup came from our lesson on Shakespeare and his contribution to history in his poetry and plays. It was a fun lesson with a few extras from the library, there are so many retellings of Shakespeare's plays written for children. I was really excited to find so many that brought the poetry down to the boys' level.

We also made up baggies of all the ingredients and took them to #1 and her friends when we picked them up from school. I read the girls the same selection from the activty book and the boys shared how each part fit in the story. It was a lot of fun!

History is Alive :: Elizabethan Buildings

Catching up here with a history lesson we did at the beginning of the year...look how beautiful and sunny it is outside! Though it must have been October since that's when #2 covered nearly every surface with drawings of super heros and Halloween costume ideas.

Anyway...

We covered Queen Elizabeth in our history lessons and talked about how much her people loved her. One way they showed their love of their queen was to design buildings in the shape of an E. The boys each drew their own E building. They didn't turn out the way I had envisioned but the boys got into it for a little bit and enjoyed their own hand at building design.

History is Alive :: Well, I want it to be...maybe in 2013

#4 demonstrating that possibly my first history project wasn't as well thought out as it should have been.

If you think blogging has taken a hit this year, ask #3 what he thinks of history. Every time I bring everyone together telling them we are going to have a history lesson #3 asks if it is a project history lesson.

Oh, I've disappointed him in this area over and over this year so far.

The other years I had a much better handle on activities to go with our history lessons. I'd say I was hitting about once a week with a recipe or small project and even some big projects that gave us a tangible aspect to the book reading, map coloring and narrations we do.

I've been trying to figure out what the difference was/is... What made me pull out the glue or the clay or the strange ingredients?

Fried plantains from our African feast dinner.

The baby? I thought of that...but #5 was this age when we started homeschooling in the first place and with two naps a day and a pretty easy going attitude right now, I don't think she's to blame.

The two-year-old? That's a good guess...and probably closer to the answer. He's so busy. He's so distructive. He's so demanding of all the attention and difficult to distract. But he also takes a nap everyday and timing history for nap time is easy, so I don't think that's it exactly.

Planning...ding, ding, ding!

History planning and knitting...always a good pair.

The past years I've gone through the book prior to school starting and make an overview plan including projects I want to do and supplies I will need to get.

I didn't do that planning this year. I will admit that the planning process is fun and I've liked that part. Then school starts and we start to get behind in my "plans" and I'm trying to re-figure what we're going to do. So this year I thought I'd skip the planning part and would just "go with the flow". Apparently I don't "go with the flow" very well.

But I think I can come up with a compromise. I'm thinking I should just do a broad, overview plan for just a couple of months. That way I'm not behind before I start. But I've got to get a plan in place and figure out some fun activities or history won't be alive in the school of Wiedz...I'll be having a 6 year old who refuses any history lessons!

**This year we are using The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 3: Early Modern Times and the accompanying activity book. I have really enjoyed the Story of the World series and even though I'd love to move to a more unit study approach to history I want #2 and #3 to have a complete round of narrations and pictures and maps and experiences from this method. Next year we will complete the four-year round and after that I'll move to a unit study approach for #2's second round through the four-year cycle.

This year we are going to spend the month of February going a little more in depth to the revolutionary war. We get to it in the SOTW3 but I want to take a little while to really enjoy it. I've got big plans to make this a fun as I can...I'll try to keep you posted!

Rowing :: Night of the Moonjellies

I've been trying to catch up...and I'm nearly there! I blogged about our row of Mike Mulligan here and our row of Storm in the Night here last week. They were fun rows, though not as fun as...

For our last row this year we did Night of the Moonjellies and it was perfect! It was a great way to kick off our summer break and a nice easy row without a lot of extras, the boys didn't miss them and I didn't feel too guilty about not providing them.

This is such a sweet book!

I think every activity we did centered around food for this row. We had a hamburger and milkshake dinner and #3 opened his own diner for lunch one day with hot dogs, homemade onion rings and orange soda. We invited some family that was in town for the day over to share our special lunch and had a great time, just like the boy in the story.

I wanted to go to the aquarium to see jelly fish with this row but it just never happened.

Links ::


bhoomplay.wordpress.com - jellyfish in a bottle tutorial (we didn't get to this either, sigh, so many good ideas out there)
delightful learning - inspiration
homeschool share - lapbook and printables

History is Alive :: Aztec Hot Chocolate

In our history travels we made it to the early America Kingdoms. We covered the Mayans of Central America, the Aztecs and their city of Tenochtitlan, and the Incas. There were a lot of activities I wanted to cover in this chapter, but I just couldn't do it all! #2 and I did some Mayan mathematics, using Mayan numbers. He's my math guy so he thought this was pretty cool. 

But as a group we made Aztec hot chocolate. The Aztecs often put spices in their cocoa mixture so that's what the recipe from the activity book called for. I served ours with a scoop of whipped topping to help boost the sweetness. It didn't really work, the mugs looked quite similar to the bottom picture when we were done, just with melted whipped topping...no one really enjoyed their Aztec hot chocolate. It was interesting though and fun to try something new.

Rowing :: Storm in the Night

We rowed Storm in the Night in April. To be honest, it wasn't my favorite book. I didn't love the way it flowed and it just could have been a better story. The boys were a bit wishy washy about it. They liked parts and *got* it but didn't *love* it. I did what Michelle did and read Thunder Cake to go along with it, I saw it at the library and I remembered her mentioning it and how well it went with our row. I'm with her, wish we had rowed Tundercake instead.

We made a rain gauge and tracked our rain for a couple of weeks. It rains A LOT here in Oregon so we were not disappointed though I'm glad we kept going for a couple of weeks, just when you want it to rain it doesn't for a few days.

There was a lot of these rain clouds in a jar on pinterest and of course I pinned one then tried it for our row. I just used straight food coloring but I think that I should have made colored water. I think the food coloring was too heavy to work through the cloud but they got a kick out of it and it did "work" in the end.

And what row about clouds (or snow really) would be complete without playing with shaving cream on the table. I even got them to write sight words and their names in the cream! Yay for learning!

Links ::

Delightful Learning :: inspiration, really where else would I look first!

Homeschool Share :: lapbook and further inspiration