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It seems my children have been crazy all month - acting like they have eaten way too much sugar or even taken up drinking coffee! So, our homeschool's been a bit of a mess all month. I had planned on doing school right up until Christmas Eve, take Christmas week off, and then jump back in right after New Years, so we could finish all our "lessons." Well, the best laid plans and all that.... I did throw in the towel early last week and put our books on the shelves. I wanted to spend my time baking, reading, and indulging in our Christmas traditions, rather than force-feeding them our the 3Rs. Since I quit pushing and relaxed, everyone is much happier and their energy is used in a positive way enjoying the season! It really helped to reread TOS newsletter on relaxed homeschooling and seeing that I don't have to be like the public school for them to learn, and relaxing is okay! I wonder if all homeschool moms kind of bottom out midway through the year - just in time to take that much needed Christmas break? I discovered at Thanksgiving, to just take that week off too as there was so much to be done in preparation for the day - cooking, cleaning, many paper turkeys and projects requiring lots of scissors and glue, and trying to remember what Thanksgiving is all about! It's time to make some more Christmas cookies and enjoy my kids! Merry Christmas from the Far North! |
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It's been a while since my last entry, but it's been two months of dental work and trying to keep up with school! To make a long story short.... I had a cracked molar extracted, then bone protruded through my gum, so I had surgery by an inexperienced dentist, followed by a huge hole in my gum with bone showing! I PRAYED WITH MY CROWN BIBLE GROUP AND HE HEALED THAT HOLE OVERNIGHT! There were little bone scrapings in my mouth the night before I went to bed which were perplexing. The next morning, the gum had grown over the hole and NO BONE WAS SHOWING! I could put my tongue in the hole and feel bone the night before! GOD IS SO GOOD I just had to share this miraculous healing He has done for me! As I mentioned, during this time, it was hard to do school. I had stitches in my mouth and pain when I talked, so we skipped subjects requiring lots of talking (like math with Saxon counting...) Had lots of dental appointments and distractions. We persevered! I did take off the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to prepare for our houseful of Alaska "orphans" who had nowhere to go for their feast. Then I traveled to Anchorage for some post-Thanksgiving Christmas shopping with some ladies from church. It too was awesome, but my poor husband felt ill-equipped to teach school in my absence, so the girls enjoyed a respite in my absence. Of course, we are a week and one-half behind, but refreshed and ready to go!  It's blowing sideways and RAINING! Can you believe this? It is Dec. 1st in sub-Arctic Alaska and it looks like we need to build an ark! I hauled the Christmas tree in the driving rain. GLOBAL WARMING? Next we'll have polar bears swimming in to shore to eat at the Subway in town! Blessings in Him! Paula  |
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What am I thinking? I suppose God is reminding me that although it is officially summer, I should be planning for the fall and evaluating how our homeschool year went! One thing I am wondering about is the efficiency of the Saxon math program we used last year. I am very happy with the results; although the daily repetitive counting, number of the day, money, patterns, etc. can be quite exhausting for both my daughter and me. I will have two children potentially using Saxon math next year and I wonder if Singapore math is more efficient and allows the children a bit more independence in learning new skills. I will not complain too much about Saxon, my daughter is performing quite well and overall likes the program. However, I hear lots of moans and complaints about the counting every day. Maybe in 3rd grade, they figure the counting is more in place?!? Comments are welcome - I've spent some time trying to research this issue, but can't seem to find something quite on target for me. Oh, an Alaska update, we are going fishing tomorrow for "trout" which are really Dolly varden. AND there was a polar bear in town a couple weeks ago. He apparently went inland when the pack ice was here and missed it going back out to sea! He apparently dove in and started swimming. I hope he made it. We were going camping in that same spot last weekend, but got rained out. Good thing!
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You know how hard it is to find a dinner that is healthy, easy to make, inexpensive and the kids like, right?! Well, I found one through Weight Watchers that everyone likes!!!! I just had to jot it down so other moms could enjoy - Chicken Broccoli Burritos! Take 2 or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cube them, and cook them in some olive oil with a pressed garlic clove until no longer pink. At the same time, microwave / steam broccoli florets (no yucky stems) for 4 min. Warm 4-5 whole wheat tortillas in the microwave for 30 seconds. Put a spoonful of chicken and broccoli in each tortilla. Top with a small slice of cheddar / colby / jack cheese. Wrap them burrito style & bake in a 350 deg. oven for 20 minutes. Serve topped with salsa! Ta-da! Well, after pulling off another yummy, guilt-free dinner, I am off to put the chicks to bed. May He richly bless you in all you do! Paula in the Arctic |
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Well, we had two days of 30 deg+ weather and now it is back to winter! The wind is blowing sideways off the tundra causing a bit of a ground blizzard about town! We got conned into wearing our spring coats and rain boots for the mud caused by the melting snow, then this morning it is back to down coats, mittens and snow boots. Of course, that didn't stop by 5-year-old from wearing her slip on rain shoes, pink tights and purple skirt outside today! Well, this is the end of the homeschool week for us. Friday is a day "off" for us. We ONLY clean house, get caught up on laundry, run errands, and finish any spotty homework assignments we haven't gotten done. It seems we should also be doing piano lessons during our 3-day weekend, but I can't seem to remember! During our weekend, we are busy getting ready for Sunday and church, so everything slips my mind! We have a sledding party this evening out in the blowing wind on the suicidal cemetery hill outside of town with our Brownies troop. I was thinking we'd be sledding on a muddy hill, but thankfully our ground "blizzard" has redistributed the remaining snow and we should have true snowy fun tonight! Well, I am dreaming up new ways to make school fun as we round the bend toward being done this year. We did social studies at Subway today over chocolate milk and raisins, just for a change of scenery. It certainly kept them more engaged in the French-Indian Wars than sitting in our schoolroom watching and hearing the wind. I've tried to do a lot more games these days too as we are just getting tired! Oh, another thing we've been doing that has been truly fun is.... TEA! If the girls can keep their bedroom picked up and their school area clean, we will have tea each afternoon. I am enjoying this almost as much as the girls. They love the pretty porcelain cups and the shortbread cookies OF COURSE! Well, I'm off to make dinner, hot cocoa for 30 and get three girls packaged up so they won't freeze and blow away during sledding. Oh, and don't forget the camera, and to get batteries for the camera, and my mittens and scarf, and the dog, and the sleds, and to leave instructions for my DH's dinner..... Blessings to you all from the frozen North! Paula :-) |
Okay - I've reached an all new "low" in my mothering career. Since when did showers become optional? Hair has become something I need to hide and get out of the way? Granted, we do live in bush Alaska where some villages don't have running water and real toilets, but Nome is a place that has them! There is no excuse for getting ready for "my" day when everyone else's is winding down! Hmmm... It could be that my little angels are in their desks at 8 am ready for action, so I have to be too! Unfortunately, that is very early and doesn't allow time for me to get enough sleep, do devotions, eat breakfast, brush my teeth and wake up before we start. Maybe I'm slowly losing my mind since I don't care how my hair looks or if make-up is on my face. I'm more concerned with pronouns, number sentences and how the planet revolves. My husband asked me yesterday if I thought the children looked like street urchins. LOL I told him that's how homeschool kids look. They don't wear the latest fashions. They wear what they like and what's handy that day. Their hair isn't tidy and perfect. There's no time for that - we have kings and queens to learn about. "At least they're clean," I tell him.  Well, if any of you have been to Nome, you will find that most people here don't wash often, don't have tidy, neat hair, and seem rumpled all the time. I guess we fit right in! FYI: It's been snowing all day and blowing like mad. Watched a couple small bush planes try to land on their tiny, snowy runway. They finally gave up and landed perpendicular across the runway and stopped in the snowbank or, in the case of one of the planes, when it hit the fence! Ah, you've got to love the Arctic! Paula :-) |
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It's been a long time since my last entry... We spent most of our winter in darkness with as little as four hours of daylight here! We are blessed now to have 14 hours of daylight and gaining more everyday. The girls and I have to remember it is still cold outside, despite the sunshine! It is -6 deg. today and lightly snowing. Iditarod is over here in Nome and we got to experience some once-in-a-lifetime things! We watched the winner of the Iditarod, Lance Mackey, come in and share in his victory! The girls got to pet the Iditarod sled dogs a couple times last week too. They went and got signatures from all the Iditarod finishers - including the winner - and met them up close and personal! One of the most fun things was painting/glazing special pottery during the Iditarod pottery class. Even little Sarah glazed a beautiful cup. We definitely plan on expanding our homeschool plans to include pottery! We managed to chase down the local reindeer herd too! Several hundred reindeer and babies prancing about. Our dog, Sandy, was not impressed with the reindeer and largely ignored them! Despite the cold, we went down on the frozen Bering Sea to walk and explore the "Nome National Forest." This is a huge local joke as there are no trees in this area of the Arctic - just willow bushes. People take their once-alive Christmas trees and stick them in the pack ice to create the "forest." During Iditarod, they make it into a little gold course - complete with large wooden figures of Alaska moose, bears, Mickey Mouse, a giant duck, and hockey player. Bizarre! The rest of the world is excitedly watching the daffodils and flowers bloom. We are watching the snow and ice, and longing for the tundra to green up, the berries to ripen, and the musk ox to come closer to town. Last year, we picked their soft underfur called quivit off the willows and collected it. We plan on using a drop spindle we bought to spin it into yarn to knit. The girls and I are excited to see the end of the homeschool year coming up. The days have been long indoors and we've been playing lots of games to liven the spirit. It's birthday season in our house - full of ice cream, cake, little giggling girls and presents. Easter is coming too and we can't wait! |
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Why is it that I continue to help my daughter's preschool with endless "fundraisers" that require lots of work on my part and that I didn't know about beforehand? Of course, this is one tiny reason why we avoid the entire organized school system entirely! So far this year, there has been a huge community halloween party where the parents were supposed to work, a giant bazaar where the parents were supposed to work, and now a Christmas carnival for the firemen where we're supposed to work. What? If this is a fundraiser for the preschool, why are the firemen involved? Oh well.... My three girls and I made our four cakes to take for the cake walk, which we probably won't go to as we're not sure how wholesome the event is anyway! We ate a container of frosting each and are now having tears over parting with the cakes! All this so my preschooler will be actively engaged while I homeschool four hours per week! Anyhow, enough of that! At least we did "home ec" today and we mostly got our rooms cleaned up. DH is flying home today from a village trip where he was stranded the other day due to blizzard after blizzard here. The house is still standing, I've washed my hair and the girls are dressed! We did manage to get stuck in a snowdrift twice this week as I can't seem to see where the roads are and where the ditch begins as there is so much snow! Not to mention it is dark most of the time - sunrise is after 11 am and sunset about 4 pm. Gorgeous sunrise today though... rose and peach colored skies filled with pastel clouds. This is how I imagine it will be when the Lord returns! I am so glad we are up here in Nome, Alaska where there is no Walmart, mall or overcommercialization of Christmas! I am done with my shopping - which I did online as I could compare the best prices - and avoid the two grocery stores in town that sell some gift type stuff for ridiculous amounts of money. With DH gone, I did manage to get the Christmas tree up last night. It is up, the kids are decorating it with pipe cleaners, but lots of little white lights are burnt out on the prelit tree. Have you ever tried to find a burned out bulb on a prelit tree ? Kind of like looking for the proverbial needle.... I am so grateful for the homeschooling resources available to us homeschoolers - including this blog and the TOS website and resources. Can you imagine homeschooling in this modern era without them? School overall is going well for us. We seem to have a constant state of paper all over the floor as every occasion requires a massive amount of cutting, coloring and ripping! Oh, we did have to break the news that St. Nick is an historical, legendary figure to the girls this year as we felt we were lying to them in propagating the Santa idea. We really want to focus on Christ in our lives and Santa detracts from that. So, feeling really mean, I plunged right in, expecting tears, shattered hearts, and the destroying of their little lives. They really didn't care and had assumed as much! These smart homeschool girls! We did have our picture taken with Santa just for fun, but we know who is inside that suit! Until next time, from the frosty, dark north! |
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Wow - I never thought I'd do it. I am on my toes homeschooling my children, but I've gone and done it. I'm homeschooling another family's child. Of course, she is 11 and very independent and well-behaved! It's going very well. It seems we spend too much time doing things besides school, so we are buckling down this afternoon to get it done!
The things we did today were very valuable of course! We actually took turkeys and all the trimmings to some families in need in Nome. They were so appreciative. I guess doing the Lord's work is much more rewarding than bookwork! I hope her mom agrees.
It was dark until 10:30 am today, so it seems we are doing school in the dark of night! At least it won't be completely dark all winter here. We will see the sun for a couple hours anyway!
My kids are watching The Santa Clause and I'm trying to balance my checkbook, while the 11-year-old works quietly. Here I sit typing away! Oh, I recently discovered a great product from This Old Schoolhouse! It is a product called Laundry Basket Cleaning for Kids and also has a reusable, wipe-off cleaning flip chart. It will teach kids to clean a room one at a time. Hallelujah and Amen! |
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What was I thinking?! My 3 girls have been at VBS in the mornings this week & 2 of them at a camp the rest of the day. So I volunteered to watch my friend's two toddlers along with my own 3 year old. Wow! I had forgotten how having 3 preschoolers feels - they are SO BUSY! I am totally exhausted; but blissfully reminded that my girls are older and more independent & I am so BLESSED!
My morning was interesting as well - it was full of poop! I walked my DH's boss's dog who pooped all up and down the Bering Sea coast. Then, I found my friend's husky dog with diarrhea squatting in the apartment lot by my house. I dragged her home - not sure if it was really Sassy or not - all those huskies look alike you know! Then I almost forgot to take my own dog to poop! She about exploded by the time I remembered! She fertilized some wildflowers by the elementary school lot!
When I picked up my daughters from their afternoon camp, I found one of them perched on top of a tall trophy case - hiding. There were other kids in high places - on top of the boxing bag stand, and some tall shelves. Nowhere was an adult in site - just loads of teenagers "teaching" them about exercise & health. hmmm.... They were also barefoot and covered in mud from head to toe. Well supervised? I think not. I may have to rethink having every afternoon just for me and my 3 year old.
I am getting spoiled with VBS and the afternoon camp. Soon it will be school time and I will be a full-time mom again. Hopefully, I will be well-rested, recharged and ready to tackle the books.
The Lord has blessed me greatly today with these insights. May He bless you also! |
Big breakthroughs on the home front though!!! My girls are independently loading & unloading the dishwasher, sorting laundry, taking out the trash, and helping look after their little sister. There is a light at the end of the preschool tunnel!
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We headed out in the rain for a drive on the tundra today. It is overgrown with green, and the roads are rutted & muddy. We were in pursuit of bears (to watch - not hunt) and moose. What a homeschooling treasure!
We only saw the tail-end of a moose running into the alder bushes. It was a young one - no rack yet. No bears at all - they were smarter than us hiding out of the rain. The berries aren't out yet - the bushes are just flowering, so not worth it for the bears. The fish aren't too far up the rivers yet for spawning either.
We did, however, find tons of wildflowers. Alaska has the most awesome wildflowers. Despite the short growing season, 23 hours of daylight in the summer does some miraculous things! Shooting stars, brown-eyed susans, columbine, wild iris, fireweed, arctic cotton and many more we didn't know the names of! But as good homeschoolers, we duly collected samples & photographed them to identify later.
During the past couple months, the enemy has been working to derail us from homeschooling. The Lord, with his gentle and persistent prompting, did not let us walk away from our children and put them in public school. We have rededicated our lives to homeschooling and living by grace in Him each day.
Life in bush Alaska can be very hard, especially in the dark of winter, but He will give us what we need to persevere. Grace and a new homeschool co-op for fellowship will renew our spirits and help others to achieve this goal. |
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Well, a summer day in Nome, Alaska finds me and my 3 girls on the beach of the Bering Sea. I'd never imagine last summer that we'd be here wishing for earmuffs & watching miners dredge gold on the seashore. After all, it was 107 deg. in Oregon this time last year!
My 3-year-old insisted on wearing a long skirt & tennies for our stroll and I'm overly optimistic in shorts. However, we had a blast collecting beach glass and stomping in the tidepools full of seafoam today. My eldest managed to fall in the seafoam and water while trying to walk backwards against the wind. Home for a change of clothes & then off to Summercize - the community exercise program for kids - where they are going berrypicking today!
Me, I'm hoping for a cup of coffee & some time with Godly women in a little coffee shop overlooking one of the 3 bush airports in town. I know my daughters won't find berries today at Summercize as it's been extremely rainy and cold. The berries are late this year and everyone is pining for them. The fish, however, are fabulous!
Alaska is such a contradiction of personalities! Nowhere else will you find highly educated people mingling with the salt of the earth miners, or cab drivers who retire from the military, and enjoy reading Astronomy journals and listening to classical music!
We are homeschooling here, despite the isolation. The homeschoolers here are pretty independent and keep to themselves. It may be because many of them have large families which are tiny communities. However, we will not give in to the temptation to enroll our children in the public school - even if we will spend many winter days indoors at -50 deg. We may just have to learn how to mush a dog team and get out there!
You will find this an extraordinary weblog as we are proud to be Alaskans and you will not find any typical suburban homeschooling experiences here. My girls and I have had playdates on a houseboat, homeschooled on a ski hill, chased musk ox around the top of a mountain to collect their quivit (or fine fur), and caught pink salmon on Barbie fishing poles.
We've lived in Juneau and Cordova, Alaska as well, but find Nome to be amazingly different like the other two cities. I could write all night, but will have to fill you in as we go.....
May He bless you richly today
Paula :-) |
