Laraba's Homeschool Blog

Feb. 6, 2010 - Just Give Me a Marker ...

Some say boys are different than girls due to innate genetics. Others say, no, it's just that boys and girls are taught by society to behave differently.

I'm going to come down firmly on the side of the "boys and girls are different due to genetics." My girls have all loved markers and writing from an early age. Our boys? Well, our boys are still not any great shakes with markers, pens, or pencils. On the other hand, our boys have the whole "crazy, spin around in circles, jump up and down, make weird noises" regimen down pat. I love them all, value them all, and realize that God has created each child, and each gender, for His own special purposes.

Now, of course, there are young boys who love to draw and young girls who excel in being rambunctious. I think it is fair to say that as a general rule, little girls like drawing and coloring more than little boys. Certainly, that has been true for our family. Isaac at age 7 still isn't close to staying in the lines during coloring, and he's pretty unenthused about the whole process. His handwriting is abysmal, though he's making great progress in reading and math. One of his challenges is that he isn't quite sure whether he is right or left handed, and keeps switching.

As for our girls, well...

Angela is very enthusiastic about markers right now. She loves Color Wonder and so do I, since the potential for marks on walls and floor is diminished. Occasionally, she gets hold of normal washable markers and proudly makes interesting marks on paper.

And then there is Miriam, who turned 4 about a month ago. A few days ago, she insisted on writing her name. She contribued the m's and the i's, and I helped her out with r and a.

This kind of gives me a headache. Our eldest child, Naomi, also wanted to write when she was very young. I jumped on it as I wanted her to get in the right habits in forming her letters. Now I have 3 older children I'm homeschooling and a 4th (Joseph) who will be legal school age next year. I have less time, and feel a bit stressed here. What do I DO with Miriam? Miriam almost certainly could learn to read now (in fact, she has sounded out a few words) and potentially can write. Do I start formal lessons with her? Do I try to teach her and Joseph together? That is appealing in some ways, but he is actually behind her in terms of letter recognition and reading, and I don't want him feeling badly. He has other areas of giftedness, of course -- he just isn't gung ho about letters and reading at this point, and I'm not concerned about it.

Well, I need to pray for wisdom, as usual. And I welcome thoughts from my blog readers. What would you do?

Feb. 4, 2010 - Puzzle Frenzy

A few days ago, our boys got excited about putting together this ocean puzzle. Neither has ever been able to do a puzzle this difficult -- not that it IS particularly difficult, but like their mother they don't have special puzzle giftedness. They had a charming time figuring out piece placement, and all eagerly named a sperm whale and an octupus.

Jan. 30, 2010 - Review of Piano Wizard

I've been wanting to post a comprehensive review of Piano Wizard but have felt stymied by time. I've decided to post SOME kind of a review, and I ask your forgiveness for deficiencies.

But first, some background. I am not a musician. I have a fine singing voice but very little training, and cannot play any musical instruments well. I took piano lessons for a few short months when I was 9 years old, but got bored and didn’t practice, so gave it up.

Why did I give up? Well, I think it was because my teacher (who was a fine young woman) went the usual route. We started with scales, and then did some more scales, and some MORE scales. I was into instant gratification back then, and I wanted to play SONGS.

I’m more patient now, but I still like to play songs. I dabbled in both autoharp and guitar after my piano failure and while I wasn’t that good at either, I could at least throw a few chords together to play songs. But with piano, it seemed like it would be eternity before I could play anything, much less anything interesting.

All this has something to do with Piano Wizard (PW), because PW advocates an intuitive, organic approach to playing the piano. There are 2 modes to the game, Easy and Premier. I’m going to focus on Easy in this review.

The keyboard has 29 white keys and the corresponding 20 black keys. The directions instructed us to put specific colored stickers on all the white and black keys. In the program, colored dots move on the screen and the player pushes the appropriately colored keys in time with the music.

There are 10 lessons (Academy Music) in Easy Mode, each with 10 songs. Here is a screen shot of Academy Music 1 through 5.

In Easy mode, a player starts at Academy Music 1 with a song entitled “Your Dreams”. The player can start by just playing the right hand section of the song. The computer plays MOST of the notes, with the player only pushing the notes that correspond to the colored dots that stream vertically up the screen. After mastering the right hand, the player moves onto the left hand. After mastering each hand, she can move on to trying both hands.

As the player moves through the songs in Academy Music 1, the songs get harder. The player must push more notes and master pushing them quickly and in order.

By Academy Music 3, the songs are quite difficult. I’m currently rather “stuck” on a Beethoven symphony “Fur Elise”. Of course, I’m not playing even close to ALL the notes. But it is hard for me to rapidly play the notes that I’m required to play.

So, that’s obviously neat. The lessons start easy, and get harder with time, so players can build up their skills methodically.

But wait, there’s more!

For each song, there are 4 different levels. Level 1 is the easiest; here, the notes stream upwards from the bottom of the screen and match the keyboard relatively easily. And by the way, the notes aren’t notes like on a piano score. The player has the option of picking a bunch of different backgrounds, and also what shape the notes will be. So with some backgrounds, little rocks move upwards. For others, you can choose an alien or a trombone. But in each case, the notes are color coded so they match the keys.

In Level 2, the notes stop streaming upwards and start streaming horizontally. This is more complicated but matches a piano score better. Again, the notes are shapes, and color coded.

For Level 3, the notes show up as colored notes as you would see in a piano score, complete with quarter notes, 8^th notes, and half notes.

For Level 4, the notes are all black. So here, it is does look a lot like a piano score, just a moving one.

We’ve found Level 4 to be quite difficult without the color coding. The player has the option of having the notes with their alphabetic designations superimposed, so instead of the notes just being on the proper cleft, they also have note NAMES on them. In this way, players can learn the note names for the various clefts.

Another option is for the player to have each note show the designated finger position on it. So for example, the player lines up her hands properly and each note will indicate whether the thumb is supposed to hit that note, the pinky, etc. That’s been helpful sometimes in figuring out proper hand position. Sometimes I’ve wondered how I was supposed to hit a certain note as it went flying past quickly, and the finger designation was helpful.

And of course, one option is to have no designation on the notes. That’s the hardest!

In all this, there is no music theory. The player also isn’t focusing on learning the names of the notes since mostly she depends on color. But she is learning timing and the ability to move fingers at the right speed and in the right order.

One big help is that while each song has a specific tempo when it starts, the player can easily decrease the tempo at will by pushing down the left arrow key on the computer keyboard. I’ve found that some songs are just too fast for me to do, so I’ll slow it way down, learn the fingering, and then speed it up over time until I’m playing at the right tempo.

One problem is that the program only notices the right notes. It is possible to score well by just pushing down a bunch of notes all at once. I have to watch our 7 year old son as he’ll get frustrated and just start pushing notes down en masse.

So, the question is, does this program teach a person to play the piano?

The answer is, I don’t know J.

No really, I just don’t know. We got this a couple of months ago and the 3 older children and I have worked on it moderately diligently. We’ve all made progress. Our eldest daughter Naomi (age 10) has passed me up and is on Academy Music 4 now. There is no doubt that we’ve all learned about rhythm and moving our fingers quickly and appropriately.

At Christmas, we found sheet music for the song “Silent Night” online; it was a very simple version, but Naomi was able to figure out the music and play the song after some practice.

Two of our babysitters have extensive piano training and both like the program, though one commented that it doesn’t require the player to put his hands in the right position.

PW is fun, lots of fun. The songs are enjoyable. Some are folk songs, some are symphonies, some are hymns. There are no words shown but in any case, none of the selections are objectionable. The children are getting exposure to classical music this way, and greeted some selections on a classical music CD of ours with familiar delight.

So, we’re very pleased with it. It can definitely be argued that a piano teacher would teach far better. But this program is far cheaper than a piano teacher and we can practice at convenient times for our family. Of course, piano lessons can be a wonderful thing for a family; it just wouldn’t be wise for us right now.

I’ve not really investigated Premier mode. It is possible to import songs into the program; the program then translates the notes into colored images, and the player can play his/her song of choice. Kevin and the children have enjoyed playing some songs from a weird computer game called “Cave Story”. Since the songs are hard, often 2 kids, or Kevin and one kid, will play the keyboard together.

How much does it cost? It’s not cheap. Easy Mode alone is about $130, if I remember correctly. That includes the keyboard. Easy Plus Premier with keyboard is close to $200. Of course, that’s inexpensive compared to regular piano lessons.

Sonlight Curriculum encourages families to purchase a Piano Wizard package which also includes a series of lessons on DVD. They say this will allow a student to learn to play the piano more completely. I feel like I don’t have the time and don’t want to allocate additional money as it is MORE expensive. But that could be an amazing option.

So we’re happy with PW, but still in learning stages. I’ll try to update on our progress in a couple of months.

Jan. 30, 2010 - The Week in Pictures

I've mentioned before that our 5 year old son loves cooking. Here, he and Daddy spend a moment bonding over a shrimp dish. This recipe is a Daddy specialty and is composed of shrimp, butter, and corn mixed together. The resulting concoction is served over pasta.

We have indeed established that the chickens aren't concerned about cold, but they don't like snow. We had several inches of snow on the ground for more than a week and the chickens stayed in their coop almost exclusively. Then we had a warm spell and the snow melted. Since then, temperatures have plunged again and this morning (at the time of this picture) temperatures were in the teens. But the chickens don't care. So long as they have some open dirt to peck, they'll be out strutting around.

This morning, I rallied our forces and we spent a happy hour putting pictures into photo albums. I take many pictures on my digital camera, but only get prints about once a year. Last week, I went through all the pictures for the year and chose a couple of hundred to put in albums (believe me, I was VERY selective.) I then uploaded them to Shutterfly, bought them, got the prints this week, and the 4 older children and I put them in albums this morning. Joseph was really more hindrance than help as he kept putting pictures in upside down. But he was excited, and I didn't mind correcting a few misplaced pictures.

Jan. 27, 2010 - Goals? What Goals? or... I hope I'm not TOO Randomly Eclectic

A look at our primary homeschool resource bookshelf reveals a host of different curricula. We have Five in a Row, Building Thinking Skills, Story of the world, Easy Grammar, Atelier Arts, Apologia Science books, Galloping the Globe, Cantering the Country, and Considering God’s Creation.

Some of these curricula I’ve used in the past, some I’m using now, some are waiting until the children are older.

Obviously, we’re eclectic. We don’t have a particular curriculum like Switched On Schoolhouse or Abeka or Bob Jones. Instead, I use different curricula for geography, history, handwriting, math, and so on.

In some ways, one single curriculum is very appealing. Abeka and SOS and Sonlight lay out what a student is to do, and the teacher can follow it with the confidence of knowing that progress is being made in various subjects. An eclectic teacher like myself has to pray for wisdom to make sure that the most important subjects are being covered adequately.

I’ve always shied away from a single curriculum, though, and oddly enough it is because of its structure. I’m an organized person and a diligent teacher. But I’m nervous about being committed to a particular schedule and trying to get through a grade’s worth of work in a year.

That’s because, all too frequently, life happens. We had years with pregnancies and babies and while that time seems past, sometimes we get bitten by swine flue for a couple of weeks. I get very stressed if we “fall behind”. So, I don’t really make plans for how much we’ll get done in a year. I pray carefully for wisdom about which curricula to use, and have a daily schedule. The older 3 children spend morning school time doing the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic plus a variety of other subjects. After lunch, I do Five in a Row with our 7 yo son, and alternate between Story of the World and Discovering God’s Creation with the older girls. Later in the afternoon, the older girls do either Atelier Art or Cantering the Country for geography.

I also have the children take turns with Heavenly Harmony (a singing software game) and Piano Wizard, which introduces students to playing the piano.

Oh, and we regularly watch educational videos, especially science.

And I’m always on the lookout for good books for the older girls to read.

Whew!

I’m very diligent about doing school and only occasionally take a day off. Last year, I started school in August so that we’d have a month of days “in the bank” in case something came up (like swine flue.)

Sometimes, however, I struggle with wondering we’re getting “enough” accomplished. I don’t have specific goals, so how do I know if we’re achieving what we should?

Most people I know have yearly goals! It seems so odd that I don’t. But I’ve prayed and feel like this is a good route for us for now. I don’t want to be upset about not achieving goals, and especially in the 3 R’s I have trouble guessing how far we’ll get.

And that’s another issue. I know some mothers are amazingly organized and lay out lesson plans in the summer for every day of the school year. I am in awe of that.

But for us, that won’t work very well. I have a hard time telling how long, for example, it’ll take Naomi to get through a lesson of Math U See. She finds math easy and usually I don’t have her do more than 2 or 3 of the worksheets for a lesson, and each lesson has about 6 worksheets. Sometimes, though, she hits a roadblock and needs more practice sheets. But the point is this. I don’t want to lay out a plan for Naomi in math that would involve her getting bored, so for me it really is a daily decision. OK… has she got this lesson down? We’ll move on. Or… no she, she needs more practice.

I know as our children get older, I’ll need to have more formal goals. For now, this eclectic, somewhat disorganized, learning lifestyle is fine so long as I don’t get stressed about determining whether we are getting enough done. We have to have our kids assessed annually here in Ohio (either that, or take a standardized test) and so far the children are doing wonderfully.

So that’s my organizational plan, such as it is. It’s weird, but it works. For us. The delightful thing about homeschooling is that every family is different, every mother is different, and we can be peaceful when our way of doing things is different from another mom that we admire. The key is to seek God’s wisdom in how we run our homeschool.

Jan. 24, 2010 - Exercise

True confessions, I've never been much of an athlete. In high school, I staggered grimly through 2 seasons of cross country before realizing that I just didn't have much speed or endurance. My asthma problems no doubt played a part, but also I just don't seem to have the athletic spark.

College brought 4 terms of physical education (required), 2 of which were bowling and one was rifle safety (yep, you can start chuckling about THAT.) My one very strenuous class was an intermediate swimming class. I was a strong swimmer at the time and got a real workout 2ce a week. For a time, I even went up to swim regularly for exercise. I also walked all over campus in very cold weather. In graduate school, I went through times of regularly exercising at the student recreation center.

Then came marriage, and 6 babies in 8 years. I was nauseous much of the time, very pregnant much of the time, and sleep deprived much of the time. I had preterm labor problems with all but the first baby. All these issues stood in strong opposition to my excercising regularly, so I didn't. Realistically, I had to be cautious about what I attempted.

My 4th child brought a diagnosis of gestational diabetes, which did not resolve itself after his birth. Diabetes required significant dietary changes. I made those. I knew exercise would help, but again couldn't find the motivation.

Last year, Kevin urged me to start exercising regularly. At this point, all our kids were sleeping through the night and I didn't have the excuse of extreme nausea or possible preterm labor. But I still wasn't motivated, and said so. So Kevin said that if I worked out 25 days of each month, I'd get an extra $50 in my homeschool budget.

That DID it. I love playing around with an extra $50 a month! I've done fairly well since then, though took off most of November with swine flue because I had to.

Ok, what DO I do. I realized that part of my problem with exercise is that it is boring. I'd much rather do almost anything else than work out on our elliptical machine. Kevin came to the resuce about the boredom by purchasing both Wii Fit Plus and EA Active for the Wii. Wii Fit Plus is a light workout, but it is much better than nothing. And running in place for 13 minutes (the island lap) works up a sweat, plus is much more fun than just jogging on place would be. The image on the screen has my character running through tunnels and over bridges and next to the ocean. Wii Fit Boxing, Hula Hoop, and a couple others are also quite vigorous.

EA Active is more of the real deal. That's the program the girls are using in the photo on top. It is less fun, and more strenuous. I don't like it as much as Wii Fit Plus, but it is tolerable because there are many activities and I have set up custom workouts that provide variety.

No doubt the most difficult issue is WHEN to exercise. I think that is the problem for many a busy mother. There are so many things screaming to be done that exercising must be a priority or it doesn't happen. I've found that 6 a.m. works for me most days. I'm a morning person, and at that time I usually don't have a child distracting me. Our youngest sometimes wakes up at 6:30 a.m. and cries, in which case I bring her downstairs and she sits on the couch and watches me quietly.

This month, I've missed only 2 days (counting today). Most days I've managed 6 a.m., but some days I've exercised in the evening. There is no doubt I feel better. I have more energy and can run upstairs without puffing. Now of course, that's partly because my lungs are doing well (no asthma) and I'm not expecting a baby.

Sometimes it is still a struggle to make the time to exercise. But getting in the habit has really helped, and I'm aware this is wise in terms of my long term health. As a diabetic, I'm in danger of complications as I grow older. Exercise should help ward those off. So we'll see how I do long term.

Oh, I should add that I have 2 church friends who are keeping me accountable about exercise, and whom I hope to keep accountable. That helps too.

Jan. 24, 2010 - Bravo, Joseph!

The process whereby a child learns to read is a fascinating one! Our 2 older girls are fluent, advanced readers. Isaac is making rapid progress in phonics. Joseph, age 5, hasn't been extremely interested in the process and I've not worked much on it with him.

There are different schools of thought about teaching letter recognition, sound recognition, and reading. I like Ruth Beechick's approach as outlined in her little 3 R's books. She advocates the child learning a few letters, letter sounds, and then phonics for those letters instead of requiring a child to know all 26 letters before starting sounds and phonics. In fact, I think she even says not to bother with the names of the letters, but instead focus on the sounds. The alphabet LETTERS don't really help a child learn phonics because knowing the name "B" isn't a direct corollary with the sound "b" at the beginning of "bat".

Well, all theories aside, I've taught the alphabet names to our kids and it hasn't hurt them much. It is an easy thing to spend some time on and I'm busy. So with both Joseph and Miriam I've been teaching alphabet letter names, and have started working on the sounds.

Today, Joseph pleased and astonished me by asking me to ask HIM what the alphabet letters were in our alphabet train puzzle. He knew 22 out of 26, and I was very pleased! Then he took the puzzle apart and put it back together, another major accomplishment for him.

Interestingly, I gave Miriam (our 4 year old daughter) the same test and she knew 25 out of 26 letters. She's always been ahead of Joseph regarding the alphabet. Like our older girls, she has a passion for looking at books and picked up the letter more easily than our boys.

So, I have this sense that Joseph and Miriam are both moving towards sound instruction and early phonics instruction. And best of all, I think they'll be able to learn together. I love pairing kids up for school if at all possible.

Teaching my child to read is one of the greater pleasures of homeschooling. I'm excited.

Jan. 21, 2010 - Taking the Day Off From School

True confessions, the above picture has nothing in particular to do with the topic of today's blog. But the kids are cute, I'm beautiful (hopefully) in our matching outfits, so I couldn't resist. Naomi took the picture so isn't IN the picture.

Ok, so I woke up early and made the momentous decision to take the day off from school.

Why is that momentous? Well, I do it occasionally due to illness or doctor's visits, but I rarely just take a day off to get organized and caught up on stuff around the house.

I am definitely a creature of habit, with a compulsive streak a mile long. I don't like skipping school for a day because it makes me nervous. What if one day becomes a bad habit? What if we get behind? Usually I just soldier on even if there are things crying out to be done that I can't find time to do.

Another peculiar thing is that I usually can't do half days of school well. I either need to get up and be mentally ready to do it all, or I don't feel like doing any school. Today I had a halfhearted idea of doing our afternoon subjects, but gave that up as a bad job mid-morning.

What have we done today? Well, I wrote many emails, some long overdue. The kids played video games, some for fun and some educational. I showed the older girls how to stitch up a torn pocket on a dress, and they each put in a couple of stitches.

The children got excited about dancing to classical music.

Here are three of them prancing around the living room to a classical waltz. I've never been that excited about listening to classical music, so confess to some bewilderment at their enthusiasm. But it is cute. Actually, this CD set has many songs that they've heard before from video games and Veggietales movies.

This afternoon I may have a visit from a friend, and hope to make cabbage rolls -- a dish that requires a lot of work.

In some ways, it might be better to plan ahead my "teacher in service days". But on the other hand, I never quite know when the items on my mental to do list will reach the explosion point, so for now I'm flexible about days I take off.

As a matter of fact, I could just say today is a late Martin Luther King Day. We had school on MLK Day. Ok, I feel better now.

Jan. 18, 2010 - Fun and Science With Helium Balloons

I've always been crazy about helium balloons. I'm not sure why, but its true. I just LOVE those teardrops floating around the room.

Isaac received a helium cannister with balloons for his birthday. What fun!

It occurred to me sometime last week that I need to talk more about scientific principles as part of "regular life" because I so rarely find the time to do formal science experiments.

Coincentally, I've been reading The Pumpkin Runner for Five in a Row with Isaac. Hot air balloons are a prominent feature of that book. I tried to make a hot air balloon with a paper bag and a blow dryer, and failed. I might try again with a garbage bag one of these days. But I was able to use the helium balloons to talk about why a balloon filled with hot air or helium will float. We talked about how heavy things sink, and cold air is heavier than both hot air and helium.

I then conceived a thought problem for Naomi, our eldest. The question was, if you fill a helium balloon on the moon, what does it do?

Her first answer was that it would float away because the moon doesn't have gravity. I explained the moon DOES have gravity, just less than the earth. But it has no atmosphere.

She then said that a helium balloon on the moon would sink. There is no air, so the helium is heavier than the vacuum of space.

And that has to be the right answer. I'd love to test it by going to the moon, but that's not happening :-)

Jan. 16, 2010 - Making Yogurt

My relationship with yogurt has been a rocky one.

As a child, I hated it. It tasted strange to me and I wouldn't touch it. I also developed a milk intolerance in my early teens, which steered me away from yogurt.

In my early 30's, I discovered that I really liked soy yogurt. MMM, tasty. I don't want to tell you how expensive it was though. Well ,maybe I do. One 6 oz container was around 80 cents. That adds up fast so I restricted how much I ate.

At age 35, I discovered I was diabetic. First, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and my insulin response did not improve after Joseph was born. Soy yogurt became a problem as it has a lot of sugar in it.

Then, miraculously, I was fine with milk again -- or at least milk in the form of yogurt and cheese. Our local grocery offers a low carb yogurt and I have eaten a lot of it for several years.

Last week, it occurred to me that we have this wonderful, raw milk and that I could MAKE yogurt. So I looked up some recipes online and gave it a try.

First, I put a quart of milk into a big pot and heated it up to 110 degrees F.

Then, I took 1 cup of warm milk and mixed it with a quarter cup of plain yogurt that we'd purchased from the store. After thorough mixing, I poured the milk and yogurt back into the pot, and stirred briskly.

Then, I ladled the warm yogurt/milk mixture into these plastic containers. I put the containers into a small cooler that had 1 inch of hot water in the bottom. After loading up all the containers, I closed the lid and put the cooler in a quiet warm place in our pantry. Then I waited. The small amount of yogurt in the mixture began growing, multiplying, and changing the raw milk into yogurt. The warm water at the bottom of the cooler kept the containers warm enough to allow rapid growth of the yogurt bacteria.

6 and half hours later. I removed the yogurt from the cooler and put it in the refrigerator. And 2 hours later, it was ready to eat.

Sometimes I just added some Splenda, sometimes some Splenda and frozen blueberries. To my amazement, my first yogurt making effort was resounding success! It was VERY tasty, and my blood sugar didn't rise much.

For the next batch, I tried taking the containers out of the cooler at different times: 6 hrs, 7, hrs, 8 hrs, and 9 hrs. I liked them all fine, but the 9 hour batch was slightly firmer than the rest. So I'm going to try 9 to 10 hours for the batch that is currently sitting in our pantry changing into yogurt.

I am SO excited. This yogurt is tasty, healthy, and should save us a lot compared to buying the low carb yogurt at the store.

Jan. 14, 2010 - Laraba? What Kind of Name is THAT?

It occurred to me that some of my loyal blog readers would like an explanation of my oddball name.

Many people have said, "I have never heard that name before." That is no surprise, as it is extremely rare in this country. It is, or was, common in Nigeria, West Africa.

My parents are adventurous people. They were married at age 20, and in their mid-20's decided to leave the comfort and predictability of Michigan and join the Peace Corps (this was before I was born.) They were sent to Nigeria to teach Nigerian adults to pass a teaching exam so the Nigerians could legally teach schoolchildren.

My father wrote some memoirs about their 2 years in Nigeria and they are fascinating. I truthfully have trouble relating to the spontanaity of their lives. If they wanted to go from one city to the next, they would find a lorry (truck) and ask to ride along for a fee. There was no concern about driver's licenses, nor were they perturbed if the truck only went partway and dropped them off in the middle of nowhere -- they would just find another truck. Sometimes they found food on those journeys, sometimes they went hungry. Once the truck they hired crashed, and my dad was banged up. They got weird tropical diseases, they killed, plucked, and ate chickens, they rode bicycles across log bridges and hoped they wouldn't fall into the raging torrents below. Savage dogs would chase them on their bicycles, and they got handy at throwing stones at said dogs. Their living quarters were spartan, with no electricity (I believe they had a gas refrigerator and stove.)

My 2 younger brothers also love traveling and adventuring. I totally missed that gene! I like predictability and I like control. I like to know where my next meal is, and I want to know that my water is not contaminated. But I appreciate the stories of Africa from before I was born, and I like my name.

The original Laraba was a dear Nigerian friend of my parents. In the Hausa language, Laraba means, "A girl born on Wednesday." So if you had a bunch of kids and #8 came along and was a girl born on Wednesday, you might name her Laraba.

My parents returned to the States at Christmas 1968, and I made my entrance into the world in October of the following year (on a Tuesday -- I should have been named Talatu). And they named me Laraba after their friend.

So that's where I got my oddball name.

Jan. 11, 2010 - Glorious Winter

Here is a picture of our older girls and Joseph out in our back 3 acres a couple of days ago. Large flakes were falling, the air was a brisk 20+ degrees, and they were having a ball.

And here was the temperature yesterday morning! 7 degrees outside!

And here was the scene outside yesterday morning. With the temperature in the single digits, the air could hold very little moisture. Overnight, excess moisture crystallized onto tree branches, fences, and roofs in the form of delicate frost. It was exquisite.

And since it has been TOO LONG, here is a picture of our sweet chickens. They are doing well as they pump out 16 to 17 eggs a day. They aren't excited about snow, so usually stay in their coop when there is snow in the chicken yard. Today, the area near the coop door has some nearly bare patches and the chickens have ventured out a bit.

Jan. 10, 2010 - Building Toys

I was never that excited about Legos, Lincoln Logs, or small Tinker Toys when I was growing up. My Dad had a set of giant tinkertoys that I loved, but the small stuff -- I'd rather read a book.

Interestingly, one of my glaring weaknesses is an inability to build things. I soared at the top of most of my classes in high school, only to be humbled by Mechanical Drawing my senior year. I managed an A through sheer, brute effort, but it was difficult. As a final project, I had to make a mousetrap car; it used the mousetrap mechanism to power the vehicle. I spent weeks working on it before succeeding in making a car that moved. A fellow student, who struggled in most of his classes, stunned me by throwing his car together in a couple of hours, and it was far faster and went farther than my car.

I also have trouble visualizing objects in 3 dimensions. As a freshman, I got the low grade in the class in the first exam in Mechanical Design ME103. I was horrified, dropped the class, and learned to compensate for my weakness before taking it again 2 terms later.

I wonder if my spatial visualization problems stem from not playing with building toys, or whether I just didn't like toys like that because I'm not very good spatially. I'm not very good at puzzles, either. My friend Denise is a dentist who is awesome at puzzles AND has a remarkable ability for visualizing the way a tooth looks with only limited visual information. It has helped her tremendously.

At any rate, I'm pleased that our children do like building toys. The older 3, and Naomi especially, enjoy looking at a picture of a design, of example, and figuring out how to make it. She's also good at origami, which always came hard for me.

So, I love the concept of building toys. It is educational. It is interesting. It keeps the kids occupied.

But building toys, with lots of little pieces, can also wreak havoc on my praiseworthy efforts to keep the house in some kind of decent order. The younger children in particular have a burning desire to carry bits and pieces into every room in the house, and there abandon them. I am working hard, very very hard, to train the kids to keep all of a particular building toy in one room. I also try to keep the K'nex separated from the Lincoln Logs separated from the Tinker Toys; another way of saying that is that I don't pull those out all at once.

The latest craze around here is K'nex. We got a few inexpensive K'nex for the children's Christmas stockings -- each child had enough to make one small object. I was cleaning and organizing in the basement when I found a much larger set of K'nex that I had purchased at a garage sale several years ago. My garage sale shopping coups are few and far between, but this one was a winner. The kids have been making all kinds of neat objects in our living room the last couple of days.

And I have a new secret weapon in my fight against tiny objects spreading to the four winds... little tubs with tops.

Is this not beautiful? A child can put ALL the K'nex in the K'nex tub, attach the top, and stack it neatly in a corner. Little tubs are my latest tool in the fight for order and against clutter. I'll let you know how it goes.

Jan. 7, 2010 - Organizational Frenzy

By the end of each year, I feel like some giant has lifted off our roof one night while we slept and quietly dumped a boatload of new toys into our house. Then its MY job to organize everything and clean it all up!

We have 3 birthdays within a week of Christmas. Our relatives have been sweet about adhering to our rules of one present per child per event (so one present for a birthday, one present for Christmas), but we still get a lot of stuff. I appreciate the new gifts, especially since many are educational.

However, I've discovered that too many toys result in fractious children. There was one evening when they were all quarreling vigorously as they all decided that someone else's toy was more interesting than their own. Well, I never pretended they were perfect people. We're working on character growth and maturity, and I'm growing as a mother in the process (especially the area of patience!)

So, I'm trying to clean up boxes and organize toys and hide some for a later date. It is a slow process as I'm also doing normal school right now. But I'll get there.

Here are a couple of scary pictures:

This is a sunroom that we don't use much in the winter. Kevin did put in new insulation this year and it is much warmer than it used to be. We've done our science experiments here. You can see the mounds of boxes from toys, packages from relatives, etc. I have it on my mental list to clean this room up, but so far I've not made the time.

And this is the counter in our kitchen. It could be worse. It could be a lot better. I'm convinced that the countertop is made of some weird magnetic material which doesn't just attract iron, but also miscellaneous papers, medicine bottles, and toys. Why is it that children just love parking their toys on that surface? And what am I going to do with the MAIL? I really get exasperated when the counter is covered like this, and I do work on cleaning it off frequently, but sometimes it feels like a losing battle. I did add a large basket to another small table where I put the mail that needs attention sometime but I'm not dealing with immediately. I try to throw all the junk away immediately, but that doesn't always happen either.

I'd love any tips you have on keeping kitchens neat and tidy. I find it the hardest room in the house to keep uncluttered.

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Jan. 7, 2010 - Science Experiments

I recently bought a very simple science kit for the children from Timberdoodle, which is my favorite homeschooling company. They have many items that match our educational method and philosophy, and I always enjoy poring through their new catalog when it arrives.

The kids were very excited. The experiments are VERY simple and none of the chemicals are dangerous. Nevertheless, the children excitedly outfitted themselves with goggles and gloves for the sheer joy of the experience.

We've done a couple of different experiments. In one experiment, children dropped a colored tablet in a test tube of very hot water and dropped another tablet into a tube of very cold water.

The red test tube fizzed and mixed very rapidly because the water was hot and there was plenty of thermal energy for rapid mixing. The yellow tube was filled with cold water, and the yellow tablet dissolved slowly.

Our sweet children just LOVE science experiments. This is encouragement to me to do more experiments with them. I like the science kits with all the required chemicals involved because then I don't have to run around collecting items. Do you have any science kits you like?

Jan. 7, 2010 - Winter

The New Year brought low temperatures and snow. At the moment, the snow is falling briskly and forecasters are saying we'll get up to 4 inches today and tonight. The children are ecstatic and joyfully danced amidst the snowflakes this morning.

I'll have to admit that one of my character flaws as a mother is that I hate getting the kids ready to go outside. The older 3 can dress themselves -- no problem. Joseph can mostly dress himself so long as he can find his winter clothes (that is not a foregone conclusion.) The younger 2 need lots of help. This morning I was working hard to stay patient as I hunted for missing boots and mittens. By the time the younger children were out, Isaac had already come back in! One problem for us was finding Joseph's boots. I hadn't realized that they'd been used as "chicken boots" and therefore were relegated to the garage. Chicken boots are worn in the chicken coop, which is not the world's cleanest place. For obvious reasons, we don't want chicken boots tracking stuff into the house. My efforts were worthwhile as the children had a fantastic time in the snow.

This is an ice pattern on one of our upstairs windows. Isn't it lovely? I talked to the kids a bit about heterogeneous nucleation, which is nucleation of a solid onto a preexisting solid. I doubt they understood what I was talking about, but at least they heard the term "heterogeneous nucleation" for the first time.

Jan. 3, 2010 - New Year's Resolution: More Patience With My Little Guy

I don’t usually “do” New Year’s resolutions. Maybe its laziness, but I hope that it’s that God brings things to mind throughout the year and I know I shouldn’t put off trying to make changes.

But as it happens, I do have a New Year’s resolution of sorts, and that’s to be more patient with my children in general, and Joseph in particular.

Joseph is our 4^th child and is 5 years old. He is a charming little fellow, full of deep thoughts. He enjoys cooking, gardening, and anything involving tools.

He is also slow sometimes when I want him to be fast. I am not referring to his intellectual abilities. As far as I know, he is normal in that area. I haven’t started formally doing school with him and he isn’t reading yet. Next year, he will be official school age as a young 6 year old, and I’ll do kindergarten with him.

He is slow in the sense that he has trouble doing multiple things at once, he is not very efficient, and when he is thinking or talking, his “doing” grinds to a screeching halt. So, for example, one of his major chores is setting the table. If I tell him 10 minutes before dinner to set the table, he will almost certainly not be done setting the table when dinner is ready. He is willing enough, but distractible. If he starts talking, he stops in the middle of the floor to talk. If he is thinking hard about what he is saying, the words come out slowly and with pauses between them. He also forgets all that needs to go on the table, so has to ask me more than once, and make several trips. He doesn’t count perfectly, so will often bring only 5 children’s plates to the table and will have to go back for another one.

The upshot is impatience on my part towards him. In a family of 6 children, many things need to be done. We have a schedule, and I want to stick to it. I have a hard time being patient when he is forgetful, or stops doing a task because he wants to talk about something unrelated.

Of course, Joseph does need to be disciplined. We are working towards him being able to complete setting the table without direction or encouragement from me. He has made great progress with his laundry chores, and usually requires little direction from me to do those tasks.

On the other hand, I need to be patient with him. I tend towards drill sergeant mode too often in our home, and probably Joseph suffers the most because of his introspective personality. So I am praying and focusing on being more patient. The truth is, Joseph likes to talk to us, and that is a great thing. He is also the kind of kid who likes to slow down and smell the roses, and I need a child like that in my life as I’m far to prone to miss the beauty of God’s world in a mad rush to get things done.

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Jan. 1, 2010 - New Year's Eve and New Year's Day pictures

The Great Red Spot

You Planet Jupiter aficionados know that the Great Red Spot is an enormous storm swirling like a hurricane on the surface of the Planet Jupiter. In our home, though, the Great Red Spot is a round patch on Angela's forehead. She added it to her stunning good looks by falling out of her crib yesterday. That was indeed a first for her, though not in our home. I think every child has fallen out of his or her crib at least once. Thankfully, she avoided serious injury. We hope that the experience will discourage her from trying to climb out of the crib again.

Isaac's 7th birthday was yesterday. He enjoyed his cake and presents, and then I took the kids out to see the Christmas lights in our area.

As we were driving around, I suddenly heard Miriam's little voice pipe up, "Mommy, you need to bring in the cat food." Oh, right, I had forgotten. We haven't seen the skunk in a couple of weeks so I've been a bit careless about bringing it in.

After we got back, I headed for the front door and cat food but...

it was TOO LATE. Hello, Skunk. The problem continues. We may call our county animal control office for suggestions about how to get rid of our unwelcome guest.

This morning, we had french fries as part of breakfast. Let me explain. Last night, Kevin's mother brought over dinner from Wendy's for Isaac's birthday. I had to chuckle at the children's ecstasy over such a meal. We get fast food from a hamburger place maybe once every 2 or 3 months, so it is VERY special for the kids. There were leftover french fries and I am trying not to waste food, so we had the leftovers for breakfast.

We celebrated the New Year with Kevin's mother and grandmother. I liked this picture of Angela cuddling with her great-grandmother.

Happy New Year to you all.