New School Year

After being inspired by Stephanie Nielson's annual Back-to-School feast and theme, I decided to employ a theme for our own school year. I picked Let Love Lead You. I made a theme card for each member of the family, and included a personal note on the back. I think they turned out really cute, and I am happy to have an easy catch phrase for what I urge the kids about so often.

Learning Centers

Despite my lack of recent posts, you can rest assured that my life is plenty full and busy, with lots of stuff going on that might even be blog-worthy, if only I consistently had time to tell you about it! On the days when I'm really, really on top of the most important things, I'm lucky if I have even an hour or two to do the remaining business, blogging, emailing, and all of the other behind-the-scenes things that come up in the life of someone that manages children, Christmas shopping, educational issues, business issues, and keeping some relationships going.

After struggling for months to tutor 4 or 5 kids at the kitchen table simultaneously during school time, I decided to try using some learning centers to help the kids have plenty of educational and enriching things to do during school time, and allow me to only work directly with one or two kids at a time. For close to a week now I have been working on cleaning out some nooks and crannies of our family room so that I could somehow set up these centers/stations to keep the little hands and minds occupied.

For a few days I only had one station set up, and each night after the kids were in bed I placed something on that little table. It was fun to see kids gravitating toward that spot, sitting down and giving their attention to whatever was there. They loved it, and it reminded me of a past wish I had to make my home like one big all-you-can-learn-buffet, where everywhere a child turns is something that will feed their body, mind, or spirit. These little centers seem to do that in a way that nothing else has for us.

Yesterday was day one for going full force with the centers. Although our family room isn't huge, I was able to set up 9 different centers for the kids to use. Why so many? Because I knew they would need plenty of things to do while I worked with the kids that go s-l-o-w at their school work. That's why!

In the past I have tried this idea and set up stations that were a little heavy with stuff to do, and it seemed like the kids got a little bored with those after a short while. This time I decided to use some small tables and spaces, and just put out a very slim choice of what to do at that space. The other idea is to not have the same thing there every day.

Probably like a lot of other people, we have collected an awful lot of really neat learning resources that we rarely ever use. I've got tons of games, art books, craft stuff, cards, flash cards, cool learning resources, Leap Pads, Flashmaster, Highlights books with puzzles in them, and lots more. I'm so glad that I have a place to put these things, but the trick is that I am a person that tends to forget what resources we have if they aren't in front of me. So now I am just bringing out a few items from the collection each day, one per center area, and letting the kids enjoy them. After school time that stuff gets put away, and as I got through the day I keep my eyes open for what else is around, and pull some new stuff out to use the next day. Now the kids are grabbing stuff and saying, "Hey! We should use this for centers tomorrow!"

We have one round kid-size table. At a yard sale a couple months ago I bought two coffee tables for $10. One is rectangular, one is a small square. I bought these because I liked the shape of the design, and the price was right. But I didn't really have a need for them or know where they would go. Now they are working out really well for learning center stations. Plus I can mention the tables by their shape (circle, square, or rectangle) to tell where something is or where to suggest someone go next. I also use a small part of one coffee table, a corner of a couch, plus a regular size table down in this room. So far, so good.

When I showed the kids the stations, they were quite excited about it. In the morning I set everything up and then gave them a tour, explained how it would work, what the rules were, etc. One of the main things I stressed was that it was important to be very quiet so that the person working with me at the table could concentrate. As it turned out, we had near silence for several hours as we did school yesterday. Wow! It was really nice.

I also had each child pick out a silent reading book before we got going, so that if they got finished at their center before it was time to switch, they could sit and read on their own. I figured it made more sense to have them get their books before we got going, rather than have them all going back and forth to the book shelf at different times.

I set up the centers to be clutter-free. Here is some of what I had today:

On small round table I had a box with our connectagons in it. Later my daughter decided to add Dominoes to the table.

Another table had a phonics thing we have that's called Instalearn, which is mainly used by my early readers. For older kids at this station there were Mad Libs, and for my five year old there were some little learning cards that he likes to play with and can do on his own.


We had a cozy station on the corner of one couch for listening to audio books. Station included pillows, blanket, CD player with headphones, and two CDs with read-along books, plus our Bible verses CD to choose from.

Computer station with headphones was set up for the younger kids to go to starfall.com to play phonics and reading games, etc.

Art station today had two learn-to-draw books (one geared toward youngers, one geared toward olders) and an assortment of crayons, colored pencils, markers, and paper.

One station had a puzzle.

One area (on the floor--I just put out a plastic tablecloth to create the space) for playing with wooden blocks (they have not played with those for a long time and they loved it):

I didn't really micromanage the timing of switching. Since there was plenty to choose from, and the atmosphere was very calm, the kids seemed to enjoy choosing a spot to go, and they played with it for plenty of time and then cleaned up before going on to the next. Some spots were a little more popular than others, so in those cases sometimes I asked the child if they would like to try another station in two minutes or whatever, to give them a gentle nudge to move on so that someone else could enjoy the station they were on.

Like so many things in my life, this will probably take a lot of mom-power to keep it going, so the chance of it falling to the wayside is pretty decent. I often feel that I'm taking a risk by telling about my latest and greatest idea since I feel like so many of them come and go at high speed. Still, I think this idea has merit as a tool to keep the wheels turning here at our school, and maybe it will give a few of you some ideas too.

Homeschool: Where The Style Is

One of the perks to homeschooling is that it doesn't matter what anybody wears. Mom can go around in her PJs all day and still teach algebra and read great books. The kids can wear the same clothes they wore for the past three days and nobody complains. Not that either of these things would happen at my house, of course, but in theory, it could.

Behold my youngest on a recent school day:
The ordinary shirt and shorts were complimented by zany Spiderman socks, a beaded necklace, and a homemade Indian headdress.

Later the look morphed into this:

Yes, that's a homemade loin cloth, folks. It's easy to make! All you need is a pair of underwear that mom doesn't mind if you cut and tape. Add some fabric pieces, adorned with markered Indian pictographs. Just use some duct tape along the waist band to hold the fabric in place. Next, slice the underwear up the sides so that people can get a convenient peek at your nether regions. Voila! Your loin cloth is complete.

Ice Cream With An Author

My daughter won a grand prize at the summer reading program: Ice Cream with an Author. We got to meet Kentucky author Patsi Trollinger, who wrote the book Perfect Timing, which is about Isaac Murphy, a highly successful African-America jockey in the 1800s.

Each of the ten winners got to bring a friend, and they made it really special for the kids, with decorated tables, balloons, and even some cute gift baskets with inspirational items to encourage creative writing.

Here's me and my daughter at our spot at the event:

Patsi shared with us the long process that she went through to get her book published. It took her 11 years, over 8000 pages of research that she read, 31 rejections, and probably over a thousand pages of rewrites. Wow!

She was a really fun and interesting person to get to talk to. And she was wonderful with the kids, asking them for their book recommendations, and answering lots of questions.

Patsi also brought gifts for the kids. Each child received a small handmade origami box that contained little items that were meant to give them inspiration to write stories. Our box had things like a small round band aid, a little circular mirror, a kernel of dried corn, a fake pearl, a couple of beads, a sticker with an outdoor scene on it, and some other neat little doo dads. I loved the idea of having surprising little boxes of inspiration for my kids when they can't think of what to write!


At the end of the event each child had an opportunity to chat with Patsi, and they each received an autographed copy of her book.


It was a really fun event and I felt so blessed that we got to go do a cool mother-daughter thing together.

Poker Chips-- Good Things Happen

The food pantry work went much better this past week, mainly thanks to me bringing The Long Arm of The Law. (also known as my husband) We got a whole bunch of boxes filled, plus my daughter and I were able to do some badly-needed reorganizing that seemed to make the food pantry director very happy. I also set the kids up with the potential to earn a chip for good work, good attitude, and observance of the safety rules. (they earned 'em, too!)

What are the chips, you say?

I have a set of poker chips. I started out with the super cheap ones that are white, red, and blue. (found them at Walmart by the playing cards and games) Now that I have five kids at home full time I got the heavier, more expensive set that has five different colored chips. Each of my at-home kids has a color for their school stuff. (more about that later) The kids have opportunities to earn a chip for things like getting their chores done properly and on time, getting their school work done without fussing, and so on. Pretty much any time I need to dangle a carrot or want to give a reward, I use the chips.

Later on the chips can be used a currency with me for things they want. I have not worked out the full plan yet, since the school year hasn't officially begun. But, my plan is for them to use their chips to purchase being able to watch a movie, time to play video games, picking something out of my Treasure Box, and so on. I am also having a group chip available for each school day. If all five kids earn chips for their chores and their schoolwork on a day, then a group chip will be earned which can be turned in for a Family Fun Night which might include a special movie and dessert, pizza, or something like that.

I'm hoping that the positive peer pressure will work to my advantage.

Back At It--The Love Hate Relationship with Schedules

Around these here parts, school starts on August 7. Since my high school son will be heading out the door bright and early that day, I plan (hope?) to start homeschool with the remaining five little learners that day as well.

Seeing as how it's coming right up, I got out my pocket PC to look at all of the ideas I've been writing to myself over the past many months, to help me be more organized, and I also picked up my copy of Managers of Their Homes in case it had any good ideas for me.

I read MOTH way back probably more than 10 years ago, and we thrived with our MOTH schedule for years. Then we fell off the wagon (bedrest and a baby avalanche will do that to ya) and every time that I've tried to get back on, the schedules have felt like a turtleneck with a too-tight neck.

And we can't have that.

But somehow I need a plan. I have observed the kids and their behaviors all summer long, and usually about once every day or so I say to myself, "And if I had a schedule, this would not be happening right now."

I think I'm going to call it my Day Map. A map to get me from A (waking up!) to B (going to sleep!) on a route that includes all the things that need to happen in a day to keep all the wheels spinning.

Hopefully I can find a route that doesn't feel like a noose.

Wish me luck!

Families Serving Together

After my recent post about our bad day at the food pantry, I discovered a great blog that features ideas for service opportunities for families. It's called The Family Quilt and it's really neat. Please go take a gander. Lots of good ideas there!

In late breaking news, I found out about another opportunity that might be a good one for my kids. Our local schools have a program to help children that might not have enough food on the weekends. (which is enough to make me cry right there) They have backpacks for each child in the program, and on Thursdays they fill them with foods that would be easy for the children to eat without cooking.

Sadly, there are many children in our school district that need this service. It breaks my heart.

While I can't change all of those situations, I might just be able to bring five kids in to their old school to help fill those backpacks once a week. The good thing about this job would be that the work starts when we get there, and when the bags are full, we'd be done and could go home.

Plus, if we're already at school, it's a good opportunity to pick up a couple of their friends to bring back home to play for awhile. I know that would be a big hit.

I don't want to get overloaded with stuff, so for right now I'm just going to focus on getting our work at the food pantry into a good rhythm and see how I do once August comes and I have to do it without the oversight of the director. If that seems to work well, we'll see if we can add something else.

Helping Our Community...Whether it costs me my sanity or not

Back when I had mostly really young children, I looked forward to the day when we could do some community service or church service activities to bless others with the people-power that a family of eight can provide. Now that my baby is a strapping five year old, I think we've arrived.

The kids have helped take down chairs at church for well over a year by now, and I've been keeping my eyes open for other opportunities.

A few months ago when my ten year old son was playing baseball we noticed that the ball park was really littered up (mainly because garbage can bags were not getting changed often enough, so there was just a whole bunch of garbage all over the ground by the cans). I decided to be proactive. The next time we went to the ball park we can armed with grocery sacks and rubber gloves. I explained to the kids that I thought it would be cool if we could help out our community by picking up garbage for a little while as we watched their brother's game. My little boys were totally pumped up, like picking up garbage was the highlight of their life! (Simple pleasures are the best, they say!)

When we got to the ball field, the garbage cans had fresh bags and all the garbage around them had been picked up. Oh no! The kids were so disappointed. (seriously!) Until I pointed out that there was plenty of litter all along the fence lines, etc. So they were back in business, with my 8 year old saying to his brothers, "C'mon! Let's go help our community!!"

They were so cute.

Now that baseball season is done (thank you, Jesus) we've got a lot of time on our hands. And since we live pretty far away from all the homeschool classes, we don't have a single thing on our regular weekly schedules. And the local Emergency Food Pantry got on my radar.

I asked some questions, and found out that they had an urgent need for someone to work at the food pantry on Wednesdays for one hour.

So guess who volunteered?

Yep.

The first week I went alone so that I could get a feel for the "lay of the land" and to figure out how I could get the kids involved there. After that week I started taking the kids with me.

At the food pantry, we do several things. First of all, here are the shelves that hold food:

There is actually a bigger area with more food, but for whatever reason, the way they do it is to stock these smaller shelves with all of the items that go into the back Emergency Food boxes.

There is a list that tells us how many cans of this and boxes of that should do into each box. The kids have really loved making a bucket brigade to pass along the box items from the shelves into the boxes.

Here's one of the boxes we put together: (my daughter, doing her Vanna imitation)

After the boxes are ready, they sit and wait for people to come and get 'em. Some weeks we've had just one person come in. Some days (like yesterday) we were swamped and were super busy the whole time. (In addition to stocking the shelves and making up the boxes, when people come in I have them do some paperwork and find out what their needs are. Often we help people get the food to their cars as well.)

My kids love this rolling cart that is often used so that people can roll their food out to their cars, rather than carry it. In addition to the box of stuff we put together, there are also government commodities that some people get. It can be a pretty big amount of stuff, and would be too heavy for most people to carry to their cars.

Unfortunately, the combination of rolling carts and little boys can be a stressful one. I am constantly having to get my boys to stop pushing the cart around the small food pantry area. There are also rolling dollies that provide a constant temptation to my little hooligans.

In the weeks that we have been going to the food pantry I have tried to improve my preparation level each time. Bring water. Bring a snack. (the first week the kids started telling me how starved they were as soon as they started seeing all the food boxes we were putting together for others....nice and embarrassing!) Bring an activity for down times. (If it's a slow day for people coming in, then there isn't much to do, which can be pretty boring.)

Yesterday I brought a fresh loaf of applesauce bread, coloring books, crayons, and a Mad Libs book. Foolishly I forgot the water. And a cattle prod.

Although there was so much work to do, (and their favorite kind--putting together the boxes) two of my younger boys were really boogers. They fought over the coloring books. They complained because the bread wasn't cool enough to eat. They did not want to work. At one point I turned around to find the 5, 7, and 8 year olds missing. (They had taken off to find the bathroom without telling me. I never let them go off on their own like that! Talk about stress...)

In short, it was very. frustrating. In fact, I had a momentary thought that I am just not going to do this. But of course, that was before I remembered that there is absolutely no reasonable excuse why my children cannot be helpful and well behaved for one hour a week of work at the food pantry. Heck--they do work at home, and they know how to behave at home. I have no idea what came over them yesterday to be so wretched.

So between now and next Wednesday I need to up my game. Will there be an incentive reward of some type for children that do their job at the food pantry cheerfully? Will they get some sort of punishment if they do not? I am flirting with the idea of letting them miss a meal or two and then see if they have a little more compassion for hungry people that need help. I probably won't do that, but when I was walking out of there yesterday it was sounding quite tempting to me.

I assured the children that I am NOT giving up on this. We have the ability to be a blessing to others, and an opportunity to learn to serve. Somehow, we're going to figure this thing out. What I'm telling myself is that if I stick with it, it will get easier, and the lessons and habits learned will be well worth the struggles.

That's true, right?

Right?!

The End of the Schoolyear, and the Start of Another

Tuesday was the last day of school here. I spent my morning at my son's kindergarten graduation, and then my afternoon at my first grade son's awards assembly. Lots of smiles and fun that day, although I was also a little emotional. I just love and appreciate the teachers my children have had. They have really been wonderful, and I can't help but get a little misty-eyed to say goodbye to them, knowing that we won't be back at school in the fall.



Here I am with my kindy son, and the next photo is my first grader is showing off one of the certificates he received.

The next day, guess what arrived? Our Sonlight order!

My kids were so excited and wanted to get right down to school. :) Well, I managed to put them off, but only until today.

My grand plan had been to take the rest of this week plus some of next week to cement our chore system. Having some kids at home and some kids at school has made it hard for me to get everybody consistently doing chores every day, and it is one thing that is important to me to get under control.

My three youngest boys are 5, 6, and 8, and haven't really had chore areas like the older kids have had. I've tried the buddy system for chores (pairing up an older and a younger child for an area) but it always ends up causing more trouble than it's worth. ("He isn't helping!" "I'm doing all the work and he's just sitting there!!") So I knew the younger boys needed areas of their own. And I finally figured out what those would be.

One son (my Power Ranger) will vacuum the stairs and landing every day.

The other two kiddos are my "Floor Men" which means that they will be cleaning the upstairs floors on hands and knees daily.

All the younger boys are excited about their new jobs and did them happily. In fact, they were so excited about both job options that they had a hard time choosing which one they wanted. The good news is that I might just have managed to work myself out of needing to mop, which would be absolutely wonderful, wouldn't it?!

Another thing we did today was to get out a large jar of coins that we have been adding to for years. We first started it as our "Disney fund" because the kids said they wanted to go to Disney World. Today I got the kids gathered around the table and we sorted, stacked, and counted all the money, and then put it into coin wrappers.

Before we got started we wrote down our estimation of how much money there would be in the jar. Guesses ranged from something around $8 on up to $60. We were all pretty excited to see that we ended up with $82 wrapped, plus a lot more that we had run out of wrappers for!

Now we plan to take a trip over to the bank to open a special savings account for our Disney trip. $82 down and thousands to go......

My daughter has been using Horizons math this year, and although she is able to do it, she does not enjoy it. When we found out about Teaching Textbooks this year, we were very interested. This math curriculum comes with computer CDs that feature a human voice speaking and teaching the lesson, with graphics and words to teach the student. All of the lesson problems can be entered right into the computer program (which is great because the consumable text is quite large), and the student gets immediate feedback about whether or not their answer was correct. The student can also choose to get an explanation of the problem if they did not understand it, and can get hints if they need help.

At the end of each lesson there is a cute little celebratory animation, such as penguins doing the limbo, or animal characters dancing in a conga line. Very cute and entertaining.

The best part of all was that my daughter LOVES the program. She was so excited about it, squealing "I just LOOOOVE this! It's so fun! I want to do math like this all the time!" She did 7 lessons in a row. :)

It was really easy to install, and best of all, it works on our older laptop, which is a major plus since she won't have to get onto one of the computers that is in use more often.

Somewhere along the way a few of my younger boys wanted to get into their new workbooks. Who cares if it's the second day of summer break? I let 'em.

Here is my now-kindergartener, and new second-grader, enjoying their books.

Who knew handwriting workbooks could be so much fun?

We also made a treat...

Went to the library to get a bunch of books....

And somewhere in there I managed to get dinner into the crock pot. Potato Corn Chowder..yummy and kid-pleasin'! (easy and cheap, too)

And now it's time to eat!

What did you do today?

Free Homeschooling Ebook

I've never been able to slog my way through any books by Charlotte Mason, but every time I hear some snippet of information about her educational philosophy, I see that my ideas dovetail nicely with hers. I was excited today to get a link to this free ebook, Education Is An Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life. You can follow the link and get one for yourself. Also, lower on that page is a spot to sign up for their Charlotte Mason Education Newsletter. It has been forwarded to me several times, and I usually find the ideas in it really helpful, so I'm looking forward to getting that.

Another Tip for the Reluctant Mathematician

Amazingly, in 15 years of parenthood, it's just been this year that we've used an abacus to help with math. In the past I guess my kids just learned fine with the Base 10 blocks that we have, or other handy around-the-house manipulatives (cheerios, pretzel sticks, mini marshmallows, etc.).

With my reluctant mathematician, though, these things weren't working too well. So I pulled out our handy dandy Melissa and Doug abacus. (you can find these online, or at parent-teacher type stores. They are very well made, and not expensive.)

This abacus comes in super handy for just about any kind of math we do. It helps my son see for himself how addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division work, and also how they are interrelated. One big plus (that I would have done well to appreciate in my earlier years) is that there are not removable parts. Major helpful when your house is already strewn with parts and pieces of all manner of educational (and otherwise) items.

Investing In Our Children

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that the children have enough time to come up with their own interesting things to do. Not everyone has the slow pace of life that my family enjoys, but for us, having large periods of time that are not scheduled is a really great thing. I get to enjoy seeing my children put on shows (which usually feature costumes, singing, dance routines, and their own plays that they wrote, directed, and act in), see them play "town" (where they make their own money, jobs, rules, etc.), make up games, create things, and a lot more.

Today we were at Walmart to get some groceries, and my 3rd and 5th grader reminded me that they needed more fabric. And duct tape. And a few other things. They love to make their own costumes and clothes. We have an old sewing machine that was given to us by a friend years ago, and sometimes they can use it, but oftentimes they just hand sew. They have made some pretty cool stuff, too. My daughter (11 years old) makes clothes for her American Girl Kaya doll, and my 9 year old son has made some excellent loin cloths for himself and his brothers to dress up as Indians in. :) Today he needed more white fleece material, plus some leopard print fleece, in order to make more Indian clothes. My daughter found some silky pink fabric that she fell in love with, and believed she needed two yards of that. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were looking at patterns, and then purchasing one, plus all the fabric and notions so that she can sew more clothes for Kaya. (Although I'm not much of a seamstress, my mom used to sew for our family all the time when I was a kid, so I do actually know how to read the back of the patterns and figure out what we need to buy. Thanks Mom!)

I was working with a budget for this week's groceries, as usual. I saw these fabric purchases adding up. But I saw how inspired they were getting, and I knew that I didn't want to say, "sorry....we are only going to spend $X on this right now." I did put a few limits on things (what they REALLY got excited about was a new sewing machine!), but overall we were able to get what they wanted.

Now that the groceries have been brought in and put away, they are already at work creating. My 9 year old just came in to show me his leopard print outfit (loin cloth and arm bands--it looks very good!).

Know what? We got everything we needed, plus I was able to invest in my children's creativity and enthusiasm. We never know what that might develop into in their lives, plus it makes for some sweet memories. And, know what? I only went $4 over my budget. :) No prob!

Great Homeschool Videos

I'm having fun adding widgets to my new sidebar. The new way that the layout works in blogger makes it very easy to make up all the lists you like. Today I added a list for homeschool/educational links we enjoy here. One of our favorites is Great Homeschool Videos. They have a really nice collection of fun, interesting, and educational youtube videos that we have really enjoyed. They are always adding stuff, and I have often been able to incorporate their videos into something that we are learning, or expanding it into a bigger learning opportunity. Check it out here.

The Eclipse is Starting!

Who's going to be watching it tonite?

Since I've got better things to do with my time, I won't be sitting by my back door watching the eclipse happen over the next three hours. Instead, I'm going to set my timer and then will round up the older kids to take a peek every 15 minutes or so, until we go to bed.

Astronomy is on my list of things we're going to study this year. We have such beautiful, clear skies out here, and we can see so many stars, it would really be nice to know more about what we're seeing on a regular basis. I figured it would be most fun to work through our Classical Astronomy book once the weather is warmer and we can enjoy hanging around outside at night.

Lunar Eclipse Wed. Night!

I subscribe to an astronomy newsletter (you can sign up for it here) and today for this news that I wanted to share with you. We'll be watching (I hope we don't have a cloudy night!!). Will you??:

Total Lunar Eclipse - February 21
It's eclipse time again! If you were reading the Update last summer, you'll remember the eclipse report from August, and all the wonderful pictures sent in by Update readers. On the night of Wednesday, February 20, there will be another total eclipse of the Moon favoring North and South America and also western Europe and Africa.

As we've seen in previous eclipse coverage, a lunar eclipse occurs when the Full Moon lines up with the Earth and the Sun in such a way that the Moon passes behind the Earth and into its shadow.

The first stage of an eclipse is the penumbral stage, when the Moon passes through the Earth's "penumbra" or partial shadow. This stage is not very noticable since only a subtle darkening of the Moon occurs.

The next stage is the partial stage, when the Moon begins to enter the "umbra" or full shadow of the Earth. At this point, the curved shadow of the Earth can be seen to "take a bite" out of the Moon's face.

Totality begins when the Moon fully enters the Earth's umbra. During totality, the Moon can look very dark. At other times, a ruddy glow can be seen on the Moon's surface, as red sunlight filtered through the Earth's atmosphere shines onto the Moon, giving it a reddish-orange color.

This total eclipse is very well placed for observers in North America. The penumbral stage will begin at 7:34 PM eastern standard time (EST), and everyone east of the Mississippi will be able to see the entire eclipse. The partial stage will begin at 8:42 PM EST, and the Moon will be slowly gobbled up by the Earth's shadow until totality begins at 10:00 PM EST. This time around, totality will only last until 10:51 PM EST since the Moon is only grazing through the edge of the Earth's shadow. After totality, partial eclipse will past until 12:09 AM EST as the Moon leaves the Earth's umbra.

Observers in western North America will see this eclipse at earlier local times. The Moon will rise in the penumbral stage as seen from west Texas through Alberta. People on the west coast in northern California and Oregon will see the Moon rising in partial eclipse.

The eclipse will be visible over Europe and Africa and western Asia, but this will be more for night owls and early birds! Totality begins at 3:00 AM on Thursday morning in the United Kingdom, and even later at points east. The Moon will be setting at various stages of eclipse as seen from as far east as Afganistan! So if you or a missionary friend is in that part of the world, be sure to wake up and check out this eclipse before sunrise on Thursday morning, February 21!

Be sure to catch this one folks, this is the last total lunar eclipse visible over North America until 2010! As before, if you have a nice view of this eclipse, please send along a detailed report. We're looking for colorful descriptions folks, so please, tell us a story! Also, please share any nice pix of this eclipse and we'll include them in the next Update. I'm expecting solid clouds over Cleveland, so this is the most our family might see!

A Perfect Unschooling Day

Yesterday was just the kind of day that I love. My 9 year old son woke up full of ideas about a story he wanted to write. I set him up on Word and he got to work, writing his story of Paulie's Adventures. Paulie is a penguin who finds buried treasure! My 11 year old daughter got into the act, helping him with some of the typing and spelling, and then she started making illustrations on Paint. She did a good job, too!

Every now and then they would come out to ask me how to spell something, or how to make their pictures turn up where they needed them to in the story, etc.

By the end of the day they had two finished books (the other was a cookbook by my daughter) and they were just beaming with happiness. My daughter told me that she knew she had really learned a lot about how to use the computer and the programs. That was especially encouraging to hear because up til this point she has really had a hard time understanding that she is learning even if there isn't a number grade or a star sticker to prove it. I have tried to explain to her many times that you don't need to be graded to prove you know stuff, but it sunk in on it's own when she could experience it in that way.

Later in the day my daughter got out a drawing program that we had been given, and started working on drawing with charcoal. She really loved it and did quite well.

Overall, the perfect unschooling day. If I had said, "Today for Language Arts you have to write a story" it might not have come at a time when they were inspired. By allowing them to run with the winds of inspiration they got so much more out of the experience, and are still writing books today. I love that.

Inspiring Posts and Resources

This post about homeschooling and creating the family culture you want was wonderful. I am looking forward to checking out this blog some more.

I think today is the first time i've ever heard about Ambleside Online. Looks like a promising curriculum choice for those wanting a Charlotte Mason-type education, but not wanting to spend a bundle. (I shall now admit that I have never once made my way through a single book by Charlotte Mason. I could never get into it. Though apparently I do have an actual appreciate for the style of education she recommended.)

My homeschooled third grader is both cursed and blessed to have a mind sort of like his mother's. The poor kid has so many ideas, and he gets pretty obsessed with them. In just the last two weeks he has been obsessed about

building his own hoovercraft ("..and I could hook up the vacuum cleaner and this fan to this board.....")

buying costumes

earning money (one business idea of his included collecting cast-off computer discs, and then trying to sell them....ugh)

spending money (on candy, on costumes, on an electric guitar, on a bass guitar, and today...on a pond. Why a pond? Because of his newest obsession...)

Getting an otter for a pet! I told him that you can't just walk into a pet store and get yourself a baby otter, and that without a pond or river here, we wouldn't be a very good family for it. "So...how much would it cost for us to build a pond???" "If I saved up the money for it, could we build a pond? and then get an otter??"

So....we found a show that you can watch online about some people that are taking care of a baby otter. Just in case someone at your house wants to have a pet otter, check this out!

On today's agenda...

My four year old is back to preschool now, so homeschool here is now officially in full swing. Today the kids are dissecting owl pellets. It's very interesting, and something they enjoyed so much a few years ago that they asked to be able to do it again. So, we now have pieces of regurgitated fur, bones, and rodent skulls on the kitchen table. (On paper--not the table surface!) (Click here if you want to learn more about owl pellets)

Also, rice and lentils are on the stove top in order to make two different vegetarian meals today.

AND!! I even made veggie juice today! Organic carrots, celery, and beets! Ah! So healthy. :) And the chickens are appreciating the scraps.

Wild hair

It's funny how quickly the old hobbies and fascinations creep back up on me.

Just a week back to homeschooling, and I'm already trying to eat a whole foods, vegetarian diet. And I'm reading all of these back-to-the-earth resources and getting inspired in everything from happily turning off the water while brushing my teeth, to buying local produce, to collecting eggs from the back yard.

Now I'm seriously thinking about getting the materials to make our own square foot garden boxes, getting back to composting, and giving every kid their own 4'x4' garden square next year. I tried to get the ball rolling on this last fall and it didn't work out. Maybe this year I will manage to make it happen. What do you think my chances are?

I found an extremely inspirational photo here that offers a little show-and-tell of a hydroponic garden growing inside a high rise apartment in Los Angeles. It looks so beautiful, artistic....living art! My husband and I were trying to figure out where we could build some shelves to incorporate a hydroponic garden into our own life. Of course, with eight of us to feed, indoor hydroponics is probably destined to be more of a novelty than making an actual dent in our food consumption. (unless I made it an herb garden or something that could be small-but-very-useful) We should probably consider a greenhouse instead. Still...I want that room filled with books and food plants! Don't you??

I'm about to go pull out my Encyclopedia of Country Living to remind myself how to build a proper composting box, and of course for the info I need on chicken coops. I don't want my chickens freezing to death in the winter, if we do end up keeping them. (also, mental note has been made to resubscribe to Mother Earth News, which I love.....I guess I stopped subbing when everything they talked about was frustratingly beyond me.....)*

I was telling a friend earlier today that pretty much everything I do gets done because I get on some wild hair about it. Passion is the main fuel in my life. Which explains why I'm regularly hyper about greatly varying things. (My kids laugh when I tell them I have a great new idea. It's probably both fun, funny, amusing, and weird all rolled into one for them. The up side for them is that if they don't like my latest kick, they just ride it out because they know soon it's likely to fizzle out...) I know that life would probably be more even-keeled if I could just do each thing I'm interested in or need to do in 15 minute increments throughout each day. But I'm just not wired that way. And it seems like life would be too boring and predictable, although some elevate that to the status of Disciplined, which may be true. I don't know. I'm (predictably) all up and down with the whole scheduling thing too.

I don't fold one load of laundry at a time as it comes out of the dryer. Instead I let 10 loads of clean laundry pile up, and plan a night when all the kids are in bed early to watch a good movie while folding, folding, folding. I like that! (I'll be doing that tonite. I have about 4 netflix selections sitting here waiting for my attention, plus I just discovered today that netflix now offers instant viewing on their site, so you don't even have to wait to watch the movie you're in the mood for, which is great for fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girls like me!)

I don't work on writing my book one hour a day like another disciplined future author might. I go hog wild on it for hours or days, and then take notes on my percolating thoughts for a few more days, and then let it all sit and wait for weeks or months until the next time when I can afford to go crazy with a big burst of time to spend on it. I like to get swept away with my ideas and excitement for a project! (but I'd also like to get the darn book finished sometime this year!!!)

The stuff on the perimeter of my businesses gets done the same way. One hour spent posting a month's worth of business blog posts or putting together future newsletters. A couple of hours spent adding new products every month or so. An hour or two spent researching something I need to do and working on it. And then the whole thing rides for awhile until the next time around.

Raw foods diet? I can do it! And I love it. But I can only manage to do it to the exclusion of almost every other project I've got going. Which only works for short bursts of time. (and I'll still keeping having my bursts...I'm always glad when they come around. I just know it'll probably be short-lived.)

Fortunately, I can manage to homeschool and do all the basic household chores plus mothering items on a regular basis. :) And I have no trouble filling orders super duper quick, which I enjoy and it manages to keep my customers happy. But for bigger projects, it's mostly all or nothing with me.

So, will a garden plan work out? Can the passion for it be sustained through an entire growing season? What's the worst that can happen if it fails? Can I manage to make it an ordinary enough part of life that it becomes habit that requires none of my passion? (those items are the ones that we stick with the longest and most successfully!)

What part does passion play in your life?


*I went to the Mother Earth website and signed up for their newsletters. I got a free ebook about composting, which is just what I needed. They have 3 or 4 freebies that you get when you sign up. If you're also getting back-to-the-earth, you might want to check it out. :)

Odds and Ends

Yesterday was a busy day. Had to run errands all over the place almost an hour from here. To the bulk food store, to the bread store, to the health food store, to visit daddy at work since we were nearby. We also stopped at a book store because the three children in tow wanted to ride the escalator. :) We had some art appreciation time by looking in the windows of a very cool store that sells art in various forms. Everything in the place is breakable and expensive, so we appreciated it all without going inside. :) Much less stressful that way.

At Wild Oats...oh. my. lands. Everything there is ridiculously expensive. $7.99 a pound for organic red sweet peppers. Right. Two peppers equaled a pound. I am sorry, but I am not willing to spend $4 per pepper! What nonsense. Hopefully now that I have started reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I will be inspired to have a garden next year and get my organic peppers for free in the back yard. I would like to do the Square Foot Gardening idea, and have a notion to give each child a square and just one or two items to grow in them.

We've been having a debate about our chickens. To keep or not to keep. That is the question. My daughter wants to start a pet sitting business and thinks the chickens will hamper her ability to get dogs to care for. (hard to accept dogs that like to eat chickens....) She said she wanted to get rid of the chickens, I found a potential home for them, and then she burst into tears. Methinks she's feeling a little conflicted about this whole thing. Eh? Personally, I love having the chickens although they are very messy and I think we should have a family project of getting them set up properly in a bigger chicken house and with their own fenced in area instead of having them running all over our yard making a mess. (it's amazing how much poo four chickens can produce!!!) I told her now that I've started the book, the chances of getting rid of our chickens dropped dramatically. I love getting those eggs every day, and seeing how bright and orange the yolks are. Superior eggs! From our own back yard!

I think my daughter is trying to protect her heart. Our long-lived hamster Napoleon died last week. She had taken a turn for the worst in her health, and because of her age (well over the average for a hamster) we figured she would not be with us long. We did everything we knew to do for her, gave her lots of extra TLC, and within a week sent her off to hamster heaven. It was really sad, actually. Napoleon (later renamed Napolea when they realized he was a she, but the new name never really stuck) was one of the sweetest hamsters we ever had, and the one that lived the longest. It always stinks to have a pet die, and my daughter knows that having raised her chickens since they were tiny little chicks means it will be terrible when they finally kick the bucket. I guess she's already learning that vulnerability lesson about loving your children ....

I'm loving Sonlight for all the same reasons I loved it before. Good stuff! Today the kids asked me to keep reading because the book was too good to put down. I love it when that happens.

Yesterday my son had two tag-along friends when I picked him up from marching band practice. One needed a ride home, one needed to hang out at our house until his dad could pick him up. Again, I'm loving being at this stage of life. I love my kid's friends and having them in our home. We have a new high school being build very, very near our home. I am already looking forward to the kids getting into that school. Not only will that mean they can walk to and from school, but that stray friends can come on over here any time. This is the kind of real life ministry opportunity I have been waiting for. I can hardly wait. :) And, I don't just mean that as far as trying to get people to come to church with us or whatever, although we did enjoy taking our son's friend to church last Sunday and I would happily load up with car with anyone that wants to go along. I'm just talking about the opportunity to get to know my kid's friends, and the opportunity to really love and like (!) these kids, and give them some TLC in the form of healthy ice cream, unhealthy :) brownies, a welcoming place to hang out, whatever. The more I get to know people, the more I'm becoming convinced that I may have a larger-than-average capacity to just love and care for people. (now that I've said that I can hardly wait to see what unlovable soul comes into my life! hahahahaha) So maybe that's some sort of special gift. Whereas some people that are Christians see others as people to care for in order to get them to see things their way, I just see people that I really care about. I don't think of people as a missionary assignment or a project. I don't do fake relationships very well, and have no desire to improve.

We're on a new kick, trying to cut out as much meat from our diets as possible. So, it's all vegetarian all the time for this two weeks. Last night I made homemade calzones, using my own whole wheat bread dough, and a filling made of Ricotta cheese, shredded zucchini, chopped tomatoes, onions, etc. Very good, and the recipe ended up making more than twice what our family could eat. So now I have a meal in the freezer plus leftovers in the fridge. Bonus!

Lunch today will be spinach cheese somethingorother. Looked yummy. Is in the oven right now.

Also in process:
4 kinds of beans either soaking or now into the crock pot. Hopefully all the beans will be cooked and ready to turn into lunch and dinner by tomorrow night.

Soaking buckwheat so that we can sprout it and make some raw Chili Lime Uncorn Chips, which are very, very yummy.

On the stove top, a large pot of simmering vegetable stock that I'm making from scratch. I even used leeks, which I believe I probably never used or purchased before today. Leeks are cool. :)