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Love and Legos
Dec. 29, 2005
Introduction
Well, if I'm going to write about us, I may as well tell you who we are.
We're a homeschooling family in the Mississippi Delta. We've
moved around a bit over the years, but for now we feel like God has led
us back home to Greenville.
For school, we're working our way
through Sonlight's Core 1 wuth PreK on the side, usually our bedtime
stories come from PreK. We use Miquon Math, Singapore Early Bird
Math, Explode the Code, Wordly Wise, Handwriting Without Tears, and I
just ordered some Developmental Math to supplement with. And then
we also use Rosetta Stone for Spanish and Stefan is learning to type
with Typing Tutor Deluxe. A lot of the time, though, the boys are
learning by working on projects, like designing game levels with some
computer program, or playing with computer animation or modeling with
programs like Maya. I like to see them working with K'nex and
legos and tinkertoys and lincoln logs and all sorts of wooden blocks to
build elaborate worlds for their "guys". Occasionally I'll sneak
a Math U See tape into the VCR and watch it draw them in, or a tape
from the Animated Stories from the New Testament series, or a
Schlessinger video from the library. I don't think a kid needs to
be sitting at a table with a stack of textbooks in order to get a good
education. I'd rather surround them with interesting things to
learn and do, and watch them grow in skills and knowledge that
way. Right now I'm looking for a good deal on a Snap Circuits Jr.
set or a technical drawing book that I saw in the Timberdoodle
catalog. I love Timberdoodle. And Rainbow Resources.
For income we're running an eBay store under the name Stebenjoe Books
and Stuff, and we did very well in November and part of December.
We're at the point now where we need to decide which direction to go
with the store: toys, books, miscellaneous stuff from yard sales,
inventory from wholesale suppliers... We've praying for God's
direction and guidance, and so far He has been there opening doors for
us along the way.
I'm Michelle, the learning
coordinator and chore overseer. Eric is the Dad and resident
chef. We have four awesome little boys: Stefan is 9,
Benjamin just turned 5 in December, Joel turned 3 right before that,
and Lucas is the baby, almost 6 months old now. Four blue-eyed
bouncing baby boys. They're all great kids.
Stefan is
our designer guy. He loves designing things with legos, K'nex,
computer programs, pencil and paper, just about anything you can design
with. He also likes to play Toontown and Everquest 2, and hang
out with his buddies. He's a good guy.
Benjy is our
mathemetician. This week he has been figuring out the factors of
all the numbers from 1-11. He used to follow me around asking
"What is 1+2? What's 1+3? What's 1+4?..." And he went
on and on, and asked different patterns like "Mom, what's 2 ones plus
1? What's 2 twos plus 1? What's 2 threes plus 1?..." on up
to 2 twenties plus 1, or more! I think he has a good deal math
figured out, and has been making a math map in his brain since about
the time he turned 4.
Joel is a little artist. He
started drawing way before he was 2, and is pretty good. At that
age he was focused on birthday candles. He would draw dozens of
birthday candles a day. Then he moved on to fire hydrants.
Maybe one of the candles got out of control or something. He wore
out his magna doodle thingy many months ago and I really should have
replaced it. I think he could be a great artist if we keep him
supplied with the right tools. His great passion right now,
though, is cooking. He is in the kitchen, usually sitting on the
countertop, for every meal preparation, start to finish. Lots of
father-son bonding happens in our kitchen these days. With his
artistic skills and love of cooking, he might be the winner of one of
those Pastry Chef Challenges on Food Network someday.
Lucas
isn't even 6 months old yet, so he mostly drools and tries to capture
everyone's attention. He has two teeth and is very close to
crawling, I think. He likes to lie on his tummy in the middle of
the living room and scoot here and there, finding things to put in his
mouth. Lukie loves people. He craves attention, and can
draw a crowd of people with his charming coos and sweet smiles.
He loves Alan Jackson music the way Stefan loved Garth Brooks at that
age, and he thinks he can talk.
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