I am so grateful for how school is going this year. Unschooling is Awesome!!!! When I say, "Hey guys, let's go get started on our school work for today" one or both of them always whines and complains. But this year, instead of trying to get them to do formal lessons, they are just learning from the different life experiences that they have every day. Of course the daily "experiences" are not always random and spontaneous. Sometimes I will plan something educational for us to do together and they have no idea that this is actually a planned school project! We are very laid back this year. It is less stress for everyone. Last week several of our school subjects were very conveniently included in a pretty fun activity that we did. We wrote and mailed  letters to a person of their choice. They both wrote very simple letters to Mamaw. That one activity addressed letter recognition and letter sounds and phonics. It addressed spelling and punctuation. They practiced their handwriting. They learned the format of a letter.  Then Mamaw wrote them back. And when we got the letters from Mamaw we had another lesson disguised as just something fun for them to do. While reading Mamaw's letter they learned more about letter recognition and letter sounds. Phonics and spelling was included. They are learning how to sound out words to find out what they say. Tomorrow we are going to write another letter. I wonder who they will write this one to.

One day Isaac and I were sitting at the kitchen table and he started writing math symbols on a napkin with a crayon! I seized that opportunity! I grabbed a piece of their drawing paper (there seems to always be a stack of it laying there) and I started writing math problems. Then Tommy wandered into the kitchen and he got involved. We practiced counting with a bag of glass stones. We used them as the manipulatives as we added and subtracted. We did a set of 10 addition and 5 subtraction problems before they got tired of it and wanted to quit.

Life science and biology are just ongoing things at my house. They are always exploring and bringing in different critters. We usually put the critters in a jar and observe it for a while. We look it up and find out as much about it as we can. The first thing we try to find out is if it is harmful to us in any way (does it sting, bite or pinch). Then we find out what it eats and we feed it so we can watch it eat. We find out everything we can about how it lives and the habits it has and why. Then, if it is one of the lucky ones that survives being "investigated" by my boys, we let it go. I'm sure it runs (or limps) away and tells all the other critters that will listen, "Stay away from THAT house!!"

So that is how school is going at our house this year. They are learning a lot about a lot of different things. It is fun and they are excited about school without even knowing that it is school! Now that is how homeschooling should be!!!

Bye for now!

In Christ,

Shirley

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer."(Psalms 19:14)

It is so quiet here right now. All the kids are still asleep. I'm having my coffee in silence. Yep, this is going to be a good day...I can feel it!

Yesterday we started writing letters (they both picked Mamaw to write to). They each have a piece of lined paper with a picture of them holding the snake. We are only writing a simple letter. Something like, "Dear Mamaw, This is our snake. We found it at the river. It is still a baby. I like to hold it.". We need to keep it simple and short so they don't get bored or frustrated. Neither of them can read fluently and Isaac still struggles with some letter sounds. I figured that since they both seem to learn best by doing, then we would learn to write by writing to someone they love, about something they are interested in. Then when they get letters and cards in return we can practice reading.

I am really trying to keep this year as stress free as possible...for all of us. It has been an effort for me not to plan lessons and to just go with the flow. I'm getting use to this unschooling thing. I think it  is great but I kind of feel a bit guilty because we aren't doing things like other people do them. But then, when have we ever not been the odd balls?  I don't really care if we don't fit the same mold that everyone else does. I just want the boys to learn at their own pace and enjoy it. Isn't that what homeschooling is about? I have always been worried about the approval of others so this whole homeschooling thing has caused me a lot of stress because almost no one supports the decision and most of the family and some of our friends are always pushing public school and telling me how great it is for the kids and how much more quiet and free time I would have if I would just give in and send them off to school every morning instead  of insisting on acting like a fanatical nut job and keeping them home where I am "sheltering them from the real world". I wonder how comfortable they would feel if the tables were turned and I attacked their decision to put their kids in public school. What if I said things like, "They probably wouldn't have done that if they were not in public school having someone else's moral values pushed at them." or "They have learned such bad habits from all those "friends" they have made during the all important social interaction they are getting in school."

But of course I would never say things like that. Would you?

Gosh, I'm not sure where all of that came from. I think I will hush up now.

In Christ,

Shirley

Bess Beetle

Rat snake?

The mating of the mantis 

thought this was a neat picture of the female mantis

"writing" spider

The new mantis appears to be a female. And I believe the other one may have a bit of a crush on the new one. They appear to be mating. We have looked up the mantis before and we knew they were cannibalistic. We thought they would fight to the death. Boy were we wrong! There is no fighting going on in there! I got a few pictures of what is going on. I still haven't gotten any pictures of the beetle yet. I intend to do that some time tonight.

Tommy and the boys aren't back yet. I'm still waiting on them...and the snake.

We have two new creepy crawlies. Our friend found a spider and a beetle in her house. Normally, she would have squished them on sight. But, she knew that we are doing nature studies and are really interested in the creepiest critters we can find... so she captured them and brought them to us. We haven't identified the spider species yet but I have found out what the beetle is. Most people would call it a Bess Beetle or a Bess Bug. I will post pictures of it as soon as I get some taken. My camera battery is charging right now. Anyway, the beetle is a Horned Passalus. (read more about it here) It eats fungi and decaying wood. I was switching the jar that we had it in and I put in a piece of a very old tree branch in so that the bug would have something to crawl on and it wouldn't just be sliding around the bottom of the jar. The thing immediately started chewing on the wood! During the transfer from one jar to the other, I discovered tiny little parasites on the beetle. They are mites of some kind. Apparently they plague these particular beetles in every stage of their life cycle. These beetles are very strong. They can push/pull quite a bit of weight around. They aren't as strong as the Rhinoceros Beetle though. Those little things can carry 850 times their body weight! If we are talking about proportional strength they are the strongest creatures on earth! You can read about them here. 

The kids caught a new mantis. This one is much bigger. Apparently it had just had lunch because it's belly is huge. It looks as if it is stretched to the limit. The other mantis finally ate. It ate a grass hopper. Oddly enough, it didn't eat the whole thing.

Tommy and the boys are fishing. He just sent me a text with a picture of a little snake wrapped around his arm. I told him to bring it home (he will be taking it back to set it free). Nature studies are so much fun!

In Christ,

Shirley

I have looked...and looked for a group in my area that serves special needs homeschoolers. I have not found what I am looking for. I don't want a co-op. I really just want a gathering of Christian homeschoolers who have special needs similar to my boys'. Of course every child in the group need not have special needs. But there should be a special needs kid in the family. There are already groups for "normal" kids who home school.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to start a group. I have to pray about it a bit more first. If it isn't what God wants it won't be successful. I'd like for you all to pray that I will receive and follow the Lord's guidance.

In Christ,

Shirley

Well, it is morning and the flies are still alive! I am very surprised. Maybe the spiders are on strike because of the change in environment. If they don’t eat today we will release the little critters.

The mantis seems to be on strike as well. In the aquarium with it, there have been several menu options. We have had two cicadas, several crickets, a spider, several small slugs and a grasshopper. We haven’t seen it eat anything. It did bite and kill the spider though. I read that they only have to eat every 2-3 days, so maybe it just isn’t hungry yet.

I think we may explore some rocks today. Or, I may save that for the weekend when Tommy is home to enjoy that with us. I’m sure there will be some smashing involved so that we can see what each rock looks like on the inside. I found this neat site that tells how to identify different kinds of rocks. I think it will be useful. Here is the link for anyone who is interested. http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blrockident_tables.htm

Yes, I think the rocks will wait until tomorrow evening. Today we will continue with the leaves. I want to make a leaf notebook. I think the kids would enjoy that. They like to save their work so they can show it off when people come over. I think a leaf collection notebook would be something they could be proud of and share with people for a few years. I need to find the best way to preserve the leaves so that they will last…even in the hands of the boys.

Jacob is up and this would be a good time for him and me to have some time to ourselves. He misses being the baby now that Samantha is here and he is acting out in several different ways… none of which are very pleasant. So, I think I will go and spend some time with my little sweetie.

Bye for now!

In Christ,

Shirley

This was our third day of school and aside from a few extremely frustrating moments, it was great! I didn’t plan it this way, but we are fitting everything in with our nature studies. We are practicing our reading, spelling, handwriting and science when we do our nature notebook page for the day. As we learn about whatever piece of nature we have chosen for the day, we use math too (count the legs, measure the torso, how many eggs does it lay, how long will it live…stuff like that)! Things are going pretty well. The kids are having fun and learning at the same time. The world truly is our classroom!

Today we collected and identified leaves from some of the trees near our house. Hidden in the leaves that Isaac collected were 2 little spiders! Guess what we did with them! We put each of them in an empty transparent medicine bottle with a child proof lid. Then we captured flies and put one in each bottle to see what would happen. One spider had folded a leaf and created a kind of funnel (it appears to be a one of many different species of funnel-web spiders). It is tucked safely in the little tunnel and I’m sure it will come out tonight. It is nocturnal. The other spider is small and reddish-brown with dark banded legs. I have no Idea what it is and I haven’t been able to find a picture of it on the internet yet. I’ll update you tomorrow on the status of the flies!

I've been researching this whole unschooling thing and in the process I've learned that I have missed out on a lot of fun and educational times with my boys. They always want to help me cook and things like that. Sometimes I let them, but not often. What ever it is I'm doing, I always want to get it done and get on to something that is less like work.  And of course when I let the kids help it always takes more time than it would if I were doing it alone. But I realize now that if they cook with me and do laundry with me and do the dishes with me (and so on) they can learn all kinds of important things like reading and math and following instructions. At the same time they would be learning important life skills. They would also be enjoying spending time with me and I with them. It would also give them a great self-esteem boost because they would be making a contribution to the running of the house; it would make them feel like big boys!

So, after thinking on this for a bit, I decided to get the boys in the kitchen. Last night I let Isaac help make supper. Tonight will be little Tommy's turn. I wanted to have them help one at a time because they always like the one on one time when we do activities with them individually. It is also much easier to direct one child than it is to direct them both at the same time.

We had so much fun together! And Isaac, who always worries that he isn't doing things correctly, kept saying, I'm good at this huh Mom?! We even made a special cherry cobbler and asked Dad if he could taste our secret ingredient. After a few guesses he said, it sure tastes like whoever made this really loves me. And Then Isaac laughed and said I do! That's why I made it for you and I put love in it! That is the secret ingredient! It was just a pretty neat night for everyone.

I'm looking forward to cooking with little Tommy tonight. I'm not even sure what we'll be making yet. But I know it will be fun!

In Christ,

Shirley

Isaac found this toad when he went fishing with his dad. We looked it up and found out that it is a male Fowler's Toad. The boys are fascinated with him. They have been gathering creepy crawlies of all kinds to feed him and he's a bit fatter now than he was. I read that a fat toad is a healthy toad. Wish that was so for women!
We are having our last week of school this week. We our ending with volcanoes. We will be making a model volcano that will erupt. Then school will be over, at least the formal daily part will be over. We will continue to review the core stuff all summer. We will be doing some nature studies in the coming months. When we start the coming school year I have decided to go with the Charlotte Mason approach. I think it will work better for us. This year I put together my own curriculum. That was a lot harder and more time consuming than I had bargained for. Lisa (the home schooling master) makes it look so easy. It definitely is far from easy! I am sure I will do much better with my lessons already planned for me. Especially since I can follow the plans as closely as I wish (or as loosely). I can tweak it to fit my boys. I feel pretty good about this decision. When school starts again, I will not only have a 2 year old to contend with but a newborn as well. I know that there is NO WAY I can do things the way I attempted to do them this year. I would like to figure out a few things for Jacob to do with us because he really wants to be involved. Hopefully I can keep him happily occupied until nap time.  I have a pretty neat book (somewhere) called Toddler Time. It has all kinds of great ideas to keep your toddler occupied when you can't give him your full attention but can kind of keep an eye on him and help him from time to time. I'm going to try to find that book and get some ideas to distract and entertain my toddler. For the most part Samantha (the new baby girl we are expecting) will sleep (I sure hope so anyway).

Well, the boys are calling...again. Gotta go. I'll try too post some pictures of "Toady" later today.

In Christ,

Shirley

So many times lately I have watched my kids do something funny or seen something on the news or come across a scripture that spoke to me and I thought to myself, "I'm gonna write about that on my blog. Obviously, I have not done that yet. Things are always so hectic around here. It seems that I never have a quiet second. Of course, I'm sure you all can relate. My time has been especially restricted since Tommy has been home. I love him being here. I will miss him beyond belief when he goes back to work. It's so helpful having him here when it's time for school. School goes faster and is much more fun when Dad is helping out! Today the boys are going out to pick pecans up off the ground under the pecan trees. We will use them for some baking we plan to do. We have four pumpkins. But before we bake with the pumpkins we are going to have a pumpkin race in the back yard. The boys will take see who can roll their pumpkin across the yard and cross the finish line first. If that isn't challenging enough for them, they can roll them with their noses! I think we will all have a blast. Especially the one taking the pictures...me! After we have the pumpkin races we are going to have a messy and fun time preparing them for baking. Then we will roast the seeds. As we clean and cook with our pumpkins and pecans we will talk about the many uses of each and how God provides for our every need. We will talk about how we should be thankful for even the simplest of things that He gives to us and how we often overlook His provision and His blessings. We will also talk about the indians and the pilgrims a whether they used pumpkins and pecans. We also have walnut trees out there. I'm not sure if we will be taking advantage of the abundance of walnuts or not (at least the kids anyway) because hulling them is always so messy. Maybe Tommy and I will take care of the walnuts and the kids can just help us crack them and cook with them. That way we can keep the walnut mess to a minimum. Maybe we can use our baked goods as gifts for our family and friends. I'm sure the boys would be very proud to give something they made themselves. I think we might mix up some batter and freeze it so that we can bake it for Christmas. I'm not sure what will freeze well and what won't. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

My side of the family is getting together at our house this year. I think we are going to use our fall art from school to decorate the house for Thanksgiving. I think the boys will be psyched about displaying their creations for everyone to appreciate. Knowing that their work will be on display might also inspire them to do their very best. I always tell them that it isn't important whether their work turn out perfectly and beautiful. What is important is that they do their best. They get frustrated when things don't turn out perfect the first time and they want to give up. When I ask them to keep at it they won't try anymore, They only do little enough to get by. Maybe knowing Mamaw and Papaw will see it will make them want to keep trying.

Jacob has started doing the funniest thing. He has always hated having his diaper changed. He cries the whole time and squirms and fights. Now when he hears the word diaper or when he sees one in our hand or if he even suspects that we may be going to change his diaper he runs to the coffee table and crawls underneath to hide. He won't come out until he feels that the threat has passed. Yesterday he ran away with the wipes and when Tommy told him to bring them back he stayed as far away from him as possible. He stretched his little arms out as far as he could in Daddy's direction. When Tommy asked him to bring them closer he threw them in the floor and they slid to a stop at Daddy's feet and Jacob smiled and ran to the coffee table, crawled underneath and refused to come out. It was the funniest thing ever! I think it may be getting close to time to potty train...don't you?

Well, I'm sure I had more to say but I should go and rescue my poor husband from the boys. He's at the bottom of the cutest pile of arms and legs I've ever seen.

Bye for now!

In Christ,

Shirley

Today was our first day of schooling with Daddy home. We didn't start til late because I was helping Tommy with his resume and some online job applications. I decided to separate the boys and do school with them each individually. I wanted to see if we had any success that way. I started with Isaac and just after we began my husband asked if there was anything he could do to help. So he did helped little Tommy with his work while I helped Isaac. We got the whole day's work done in about a third of the time it normally takes. I was so tickled. So were the kids. I think I'm gonna like Tommy being home for a while. Don't get me wrong...I'll be thankful when he gets to work again at what ever job God has for him but it was great having him here and involved with school.

I think the kids are going to do much better at some things if I work with them individually. I'm learning a little more everyday. I hope they are too.

Bye for now.

In Christ,

Shirley

Yesterday was the best day yet. I took the advice of mommashepherd and wrote a story about the boys. In the story our address was repeated several times and by the end they could remember it. They also learned a brief lesson about obedience and paying attention. It was so great! (not the story, but the experience) The name of the story was "Isaac and Tommy Take a Walk". They were so interested that they sat there and listened intently (I had no idea they were capable of that). The only time they interrupted was to tell me what they would do if they were really in the situation that they were in in the story. At one point I looked up from the story at them and they were so caught up in the story. You could see it in their faces. It was so great!!! What a great idea this was! Thank you mommashepherd! I think I'm going to try to write a new story every day....or maybe a few times a week. I really am not a writer, but before I started, I prayed and asked God to help me to write a story that they would understand, learn from and enjoy. And He did! I'm counting on Him to do that again!

I was considering not having school on Fridays and using that day for field trips and fun stuff and catching up on my house work. But we didn't get as much done as I had planned this week so I'm not sure if we should skip today or not. One of the things we didn't get to do this week was our outside activities. I planned an outside activity for every day but we only got to do that twice, so there are a few things we could do outside today. And I think maybe we should review our social skills from the week too. Maybe that and our Bible lesson is all we'll do today. I do have lesson plans for today but I guess it would be better to complete the lessons for the days that have already passed.

How do you guys do it? Any suggestions?

In Christ,

Shirley

Today was our first day of school. It was challenging at times and fun at times. It began as a very challenging day. Little Tommy asked me, "Mom, could you please stop talking so much?" And that was only a few minutes into the morning. It seems that they need to be able to touch the things that we are learning about. Looking at a paper or book doesn't cut it and listening to me talk is just boring. I'm really going to have to get more interesting and come up with lots of object lessons. I hope I can get that done before tomorrow!  Learning our address is going well. We walked up and down the street looking at mail boxes and house numbers. We noticed that each house had it's own unique number that was the same as the number on the mail box. And after every two or three boxes that we looked at I asked them, "Now, what was our house number? or, "what was the number on our mail box?" When we go to the end of the street we looked at the street signs and discovered that each street has it's own name (just like they do!). then we discussed how the number on the mail box and the street name go together to make each individual address so that the mail carrier knows just where each piece of mail goes. We went to a neighbor's house and looked at a piece of her mail. We compared her address to the address on the mail from our house. When we got home we mailed cards to the grandparents. They really enjoyed that part of the day. This was at the end of our school day. They were ready for a rest. So was I. I had more planned for today but I knew they were to tired and would only fuss and whine if I asked them to do more. So we had a snack and I started my house work. Jacob is taking a nap. I still need to do the dishes and then it will be time to make supper. Boy am I tired! Well, I need to look up a few things. I hope to find some ideas for making things more interesting for the boys. I'll try to check in and let you know how it's going.

Today was interesting. I wonder what I'll learn tomorrow!

In Christ,

Shirley

I believe that technology is a wonderful thing. It makes life so much more convenient...WHEN IT WORKS!!! I think that maybe there are tiny alien robots (like on the movie Transformers) that have hidden themselves in the electronic doohickies and are bent on destroying the world! And I think maybe they are succeeding...one nerve at a time! Even while I was typing this, THE FIRST TIME AROUND - suddenly my computer screen turned blue and began it's auto updates....right in the middle of my entry, I mean, I was typing for crying out loud! But that's not all. Let me just tell you what's been going on around here for the last few weeks. First, I ran out of printer ink. So, get some more, right? That's simple enough, especially with Staples just a few minutes away. They have that guarantee, right? You know the one, they promise that they have any kind of ink you require in stock or you get $10 off your ink purchase and free home delivery. So, I went to Staples, armed with my printer model number. Guess what? They Didn't have it. Not only did they not have it, they had never heard of my printer model and could not order ink for it. So much for my $10 discount and free home delivery. So, I went home, once more defeated by the "decepticons". So my wonderful husband got on the internet and found the two places on earth that sell the ink for my printer. He ordered it from Circuit City. I needed it NOW, so he ordered next day shipping. Three days later, it still was not here. I tracked the package online and it said that it was shipped standard and the estimated delivery date was the following day. So, I called to find out why I had to pay $26 for next day shipping that would take the better part of a week. They said it was a computer (decepticons in desguise) problem and they would refund the shipping. So, I get my ink they next day and all is well, right? Nope. The printer stopped working. During all of this electronic misfunction I have been planning and putting together our first unit for school (we start on the 8th). I saved lots of documents on the hard drive so that I could print them out when the printer issue was resolved. I bookmarked lots of stuff on the internet that I intended to go back and print out. Then the router/modem went out. Then the computer went nuts when we installed new security software and tried to uninstall the old one. So even when the Charter people fixed the router/modem, we still couldn't get on the internet because Norton didn't unistall properly and it was still trying to "protect the computer" (decepticons, I tell you, decepticons). So I called tech support who said we had to do a factory restore. Know what that means? It means that anything that was not on the computer when we bought it....is not on it now. All my saved files. All my internet bookmarks. All my downloads. ALL MY LESSON PLANS!!!!! So, school starts in 5 days and I am starting over. Where's an Autobot when you need one? Just like in the movie, there will be a happy ending. We have a new printer. Everything is working like it should and I am planning lessons once more. I will be gathering info for the rest of the week but I will be ready by Monday. I know someone who can take care of those pesky decepticons as well as any other super-villian who comes my way!

I hope you've all seen the movie, Transformers, otherwise, this makes no sense to you. Oh, well, whether you know what a decepticon is or not, I'm sure you can relate.

Gotta go for now. LOTS to do.

Until next time...look out for decepticons!

In Christ,

Shirley

I have finally decided for sure what our first unit study will be. I have chosen the subject they are most interested in - themselves! Our first unit will be titled, "All About Me". I still have a lot of planning to do and a lot of things to get together, but I have a pretty good start and what I think are some neat ideas. I hope to share the unit with you when we've finished it. I'm finding some neat (and free) resources on the Internet. I have almost the first two weeks of the unit figured out. I'm not sure yet how long the unit will last. I only wanted our units to last for one week to start with, but it seems that it's tough to include it all in just one week without overwhelming them. So, I figured it best to stretch it out a bit. We start on September 8Th. It's getting closer and closer faster and faster!

I'm still not sure what my youngest will be doing during school. He's almost 15 months old and likes to be included in everything. I have this neat book called, Toddler Time. It is a book of suggested activities for toddlers. All the activities are designed to keep your toddler busy (safely) while you are occupied (near by) with other things. Lots of the activities are educational and all of them look like fun. Most of them take just a small amount of advance planning by Mom... mostly just gathering supplies together and things like that. I'm hoping that Jacob will be happily occupied (for a few minutes at a time anyway) by these activities while I am occupied with the other boys.

Anyway, I still have lots to do to get ready for school, so, I'll be off now!

In Christ,

Shirley