Ciaran 2nd grade reading list

Title	Author	ISBN
Hockney At The Tate		9780714860169
The Illusion Of Epoch	H. B. Acton	9780710010032
Power And Responsibility	bendis bagley
Let's Go Yankees!	Yogi Berra	9781932888812
Trouble River	betsy byars
The Field Guide (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1)	Holly Black; Tony DiTerlizzi	9780689859366
Magnets: Set A (Compass Point Phonics Readers)	Wiley Blevins	9780756505110
The Planets In Our Solar System	Frank M. Branley
Clifford The Big Red Dog: Clifford And The Grouchy Neighbors	Norman Bridwell	9780590442619
So Far From The Sea	Eve Bunting	9780395720950
Jake Drake, Class Clown	Andrew Clements	9780689839214
Jake Drake, Know-It-All	Andrew Clements	9780689839184
Step Inside . . . Cinderella: A Magic 3-Dimensional Fairy-Tale World (Step Inside)	Inc. Sterling Publishing Co.	9781402736551
The Magic School Bus At The Waterworks (Magic School Bus)	Joanna Cole	9780590403603
There's An Alien In My Classroom! (My Alien Classmate)	Bruce Coville	9780340736340
The Empty Pot (An Owlet Book)	Demi	9780805049008
Kenny & The Dragon	Tony DiTerlizzi	9781416939771
Asia (True Books)	Gary Drevitch	9780531168653
Go, Dog. Go! (Beginner Books)	P.D. Eastman	9780394800202
Little Bear's Visit	else minarik
Dark Destiny (Bionicle Legends)	Greg Farshtey	9780439787956
Star Wars Clone Wars: The Shipyards Of Doom (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)	Henry Gilroy	9781595822079
Peter's Destiny: The Battle For Narnia	Craig Graham	9780060852351
Can I Have A Stegosaurus Mom	Lois G. Grambling; H. B. Lewis	9780816733866
Fine As We Are	Algy Craig Hall	9781905417728
Harry & Hannah: The American Adventure (Herrington, Chris. Adventures Of Harry & Hannah.)	Chris Herrington	9780972234306
Harry And His Bucket Full Of Dinosaurs Uh-Oh! (Step Into Reading)	R. Schuyler Hooke	9780375839771
Shiver Me, Shipwreck! #8 (Pirate School)	Brian James	9780448448886
Greek Myths (Dk Readers)	Caryn Jenner	9780756640156
Jump, Frog, Jump!	Robert Kalan	9780688139544
Welcome To South Korea (Welcome To My Country)	Karen Kwek; Johanna Masse; Melvin Neo; Dorothy L. Gibbs	9780836825534
Korea (True Books-Geography: Countries)	Elaine Landau	9780516267661
Prince Caspian	C.S. Lewis	9780001831438
The Frog And Toad Treasury	Arnold Lobel	9780060267889
Cobras (The World Of Reptiles)	Sophie Lockwood	9781592965441
Stage Fright On A Summer Night	mamy pope osborner
Tonight On The Titanic	mamy pope osborner
Double Play At Short	matt christopher
Toothpaste Millionaire, From Weekly Reader Childrens Book Club	Jean. Merrill
You Wouldn't Want To Work On The Great Wall Of China!: Defenses You'd Rather Not Build (You Wouldn't Want To)	Jacqueline Morley	9780531124246
The Story Of Ferdinand	munro leaf
Magnets (First Science)	Julie Murray	9781596798274
The Ghost Of Krzy (Bloodhounds, Inc.)	Bill Myers	9781556618901
The Greatest Story Never Told: The Babe And Jackie	Ray Negron	9780061471612
If You Give A Pig A Pancake	Laura Numeroff	9780439046213
If You Give A Moose A Muffin	Laura Joff Numeroff
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie	Laura Joffe Numeroff	9780439804110
Magic Tree House #38: Monday With A Mad Genius (A Stepping Stone Book(Tm))	Mary Pope Osborne	9780375837296
Eragon	Christopher Paolini	9781933499284
Amelia Bedelia	Peggy Parish	9780064430364
Amelia Bedelia And The Surprise Shower (I Can Read Book 2)	Peggy Parish	9780060246433
Jigsaw Jones #27: Case Of The Frog-Jumping Contest: Case Of The Frog-Jumping Contest (Jigsaw Jones)	James Preller	9780439678056
Maze Of Bones	Rick Riordan	9780545060394
The Skeleton In The Smithsonian (A Stepping Stone Book(Tm))	Ron Roy	9780307265173
Trouble At The Treasury (Capital Mysteries)	Ron Roy	9780375839696
Dig, Wait, Listen: A Desert Toad's Tale	April Pulley Sayre	9780688166144
I Am Not Going To Get Up Today! (Beginner Books(R))	Dr. Seuss	9780394892177
Gemstones (True Books: Earth Science)	Ann O. Squire	9780516223391
Magnetism (Science Around Us (Child's World (Firm)).)	Darlene R. Stille	9781592962228
There's A Frog In My Sleeping Bag	susan clymer
Ribbeting Tales: Original Stories About Frogs	Various; Nancy Springer	9780399233128
St. Patrick's Day Alphabet	Beverly Barras Vidrine	9781565547193
Freddy The Detective	walter brooks
The Trail Of The Jedi (Star Wars: Jedi Quest, Book 2)	Jude Watson	9780439339186
The Velveteen Rabbit	Margery Williams	9780385077255
Star Wars Missions : Togorian Trap #8 (First Scholastic Printing)	Dave Wolverton	9780590129923

4/8/2010 11:54:58 AM

Maria's 4th Grade Reading List

Title	Author	ISBN
George Washington		9780866119139
	\
Fossils Tell Of Long Ago (Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science 2)	Aliki	9780690048292
Giant Shark: Megalodon, Prehistoric Super Predator	Caroline Arnold; Laurie Caple	9780395914199
Mr Popper's Penguins	Richard Atwater	9780881031201
The Dragon Princess (Tales Of The Frog Princess)	E.D. Baker	9781599901947
Peter And The Starcatchers	Dave Barry; Ridley Pearson	9780786854455
Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks & The Sea	Peter Benchley	9780385901352
The Fairy Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1)	Michael Buckley	9780810959255
Lunch Money	Andrew Clements	9780689866852
Room One: A Mystery Or Two	Andrew Clements	9780689866869
The School Story	Andrew Clements	9780439814072
A Week In The Woods	Andrew Clements	9780439531085
Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles)	Suzanne Collins	9780439678131
Rocks And Fossils (Usborne Nature Trail)	Barbara Cork	9780860207658
Trapped In Pharaoh's Tomb (Daring Adventure)	Peter Reese Doyle	9781561791439
The Kids Campfire Book: Official Book Of Campfire Fun (Family Fun)	Jane Drake	9781550744545
Fawn And The Mysterious Trickster (A Stepping Stone Book(Tm))	Laura Driscoll	9780736425070
Mandy (Julie Andrews Collection)	Julie Andrews Edwards	9780061207075
Metamorphic Rock (Geology Rocks!)	Rebecca Faulkner	9781410927491
Minerals (Geology Rocks!)	Rebecca Faulkner	9781410927507
Soil (Geology Rocks!)	Rebecca Faulkner	9781410927538
Dragon Rider	Cornelia Funke	9780439456951
Mrs. Bunny's Day Off	TEDDY GAUTIER	9780700970025
My Side Of The Mountain	Jean George	9780525450306
Bigfoot (X Science: An Imagination Library Series)	Jacqueline Laks Gorman	9780836831979
The Wind In The Willows	Kenneth Grahame	9780590434041
Cleopatra Vii: Daughter Of The Nile, Egypt, 57 B.C. (The Royal Diaries)	Kristiana Gregory	9780590819756
Eleanor: Crown Jewel Of Aquitaine	Kristiana Gregory	9780439164849
The Royal Diaries: Catherine: The Great Journey, Russia, 1743	Kristiana Gregory	9780439253857
Marley	John Grogan	9780061755767
Princess Academy	Shannon Hale	9781599900735
Smithsonian Handbooks: Gemstones (Smithsonian Handbooks (Sagebrush))	Cally Hall	9780613530880
Tales Of The Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May Or May Not Exist (Darby Creek Publishing)	Kelly Milner Halls	9781581960495
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales	Virginia Hamilton	9780679843368
Caving (Radical Sports)	Chris Howes	9781588106261
The Princess And The Unicorn	Carol Hughes	9780375855627
Warriors #1: Into The Wild (Warriors)	Erin Hunter	9780060525507
Second Chance (Left Behind: The Kids #2)	Jerry B. Jenkins; Tim LaHaye	9780842321945
The Vanishings (Left Behind: The Kids #1)	Jerry B. Jenkins; Tim LaHaye	9780842321938
A Tale Of Time City	jones
The Pinhoe Egg: A Chrestomanci Book	Diana Wynne Jones	9780061131240
The Other	k.a. applegate
The Sickness	k.a. applegate
The Suspicion	k.a. applegate
The Mystery Of The Glowing Eye (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, No 51)	Carolyn Keene	9780448095516
Trails Of Treachery (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #25)	Carolyn Keene	9781416935247
The Witch Tree Symbol (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, No 33)	Carolyn Keene	9780448095332
Tales From Jabba's Palace	kevin anderson
The Jungle Book	R. Kipling	9781855873131
From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: 35th Anniversary Edition	E. L. Konigsburg	9780689853227
Big Snakes: Hunters Of The Night (Animals After Dark)	Elaine Landau	9780766027695
The Capture (Guardians Of Ga'hoole, Book 1)	Kathryn Lasky	9780439405577
The Coming Of Hoole (Guardians Of Ga'hoole, Book 10)	Kathryn Lasky	9780439795692
The Golden Tree (Guardians Of Ga'hoole, Book 12)	Kathryn Lasky	9780439888066
The Royal Diaries: Jahanara: Princess Of Princesses, India, 1627	Kathryn Lasky	9780439223508
George Washington	Marian Leighton	9781603401029
Fairest	Gail Carson Levine	9780060734084
Sharks (Informania)	Christopher Maynard	9780744577082
Nzingha: Warrior Queen Of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 (The Royal Diaries)	Patricia McKissack	9780439112109
Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess, Russia, 1914 (The Royal Diaries)	Carolyn Meyer	9780439129084
Life On An Everest Expedition	Patricia D. Netzley	9781560067924
Charlie Bone And The Beast (Children Of The Red King, Book 6)	Jenny Nimmo	9780439846653
Charlie Bone And The Castle Of Mirrors (Children Of The Red King Book 4)	Jenny Nimmo	9780439545280
Charlie Bone And The Hidden King (Children Of The Red King Book 5)	Jenny Nimmo	9780439545303
Charlie Bone And The Invisible Boy (The Children Of The Red King, Book 3)	Jenny Nimmo	9780439545266
Charlie Bone And The Time Twister (The Children Of The Red King, Book 2)	Jenny Nimmo	9780439496872
Black Pearl	o'dell
Island Of The Blue Dolphins (Illustrated)	Scott O'Dell	9780395536803
The Black Pearl	Scott O'Dell
Exploring Earth's Treasures (Eyes On Adventure Series)	Don Olson	9781561564859
Spies: The Undercover World Of Secrets, Gadgets And Lies	David Owen	9781552977958
Brisingr	paolini
Eldest	paolini
Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1)	Christopher Paolini	9780375826689
Spy (Dk Eyewitness Books)	Richard Platt	9780756650346
Spy (Dk Eyewitness Books)	Richard Platt	9780756650353
Some Merry Adventures Of Robin Hood	Howard Pyle
The Loch Ness Monster (An Easy-Read Fact Book)	Ellen Rabinowich; Sally Law	9780531022740
American Women	RAPPAPORT	9780465940066
Harry Houdini: Master Magician (Book Report Biographies)	Dana Meachen Rau	9780531115992
The Bfg	roald dahl
Eye Of The Hurricane (The Ladd Family Adventure Series #9)	Lee Roddy	9781561792207
Peril At Pirate's Point (The Ladd Family Adventure Series #7)	Lee Roddy	9781561791361
Stranded On Terror Island	Lee Roddy	9781561794829
The Earth (Inside And Out)	Angela Royston	9781575721798
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them	Newt Scamander	9780439295017
National Geographic Readers Sharks! (Readers)	ANNE SCHREIBER	9781426302886
Good The Bad & The Goofy (Time Warp Trio)	Jon Scieszka	9780670843800
See You Later, Gladiator (Time Warp Trio)	Jon Scieszka	9780670893409
Viking It And Liking It (Time Warp Trio)	Jon Scieszka	9780670899180
The River Gods	Michael Scott	9780946887217
Internet Safety	Josepha. Sherman	9780531121658
Fairy Dust	Jane Denitz Smith	9780060292799
We The People Lb	Peter Spier	9780385237895
Fossils (True Books: Earth Science)	Ann O. Squire	9780516225043
Gemstones (True Books: Earth Science)	Ann O. Squire	9780516223391
Little Pioneer Girl Paper Doll (Dover Little Activity Books)	Barbara Steadman	9780486295190
Revenge Of The Sith :star Wars Episode 3	Matthew Stover
Who Was Harry Houdini? (Who Was...?)	Tui Sutherland	9780448426860
Dragonfly And The Web Of Dreams (The Fairy Chronicles)	J. H. Sweet	9781402208737
Marigold And The Feather Of Hope, The Journey Begins (The Fairy Chronicles)	J. H. Sweet	9781402208720
Periwinkle And The Cave Of Courage (The Fairy Chronicles)	J. H. Sweet	9781402210266
Spiderwort And The Princess Of Haiku (The Fairy Chronicles)	J. H. Sweet	9781402210259
Bully-Be-Gone	Brian Tacang
Experiments With Rocks And Minerals (True Books)	Salvatore Tocci	9780516225074
Rocks, Gems, And Minerals (Watts Library: Earth Science)	Trudi Strain Trueit	9780531121955
Philosophical Foundations Of Probability Theory (International Library Of Philosophy)	Roy Weatherford	9780710090027
A Horse Of Her Own	Annie Wedekind	9780312369279
Gaal The Conqueror: The Archives Of Anthropos	John White	9780877845911
The Sword Bearer (The Archives Of Anthropos)	John White	9780877845904
Before Green Gables	Budge Wilson	9780399154683
The Ancient Greek Olympics	Richard Woff	9780195215816
Dragon Of The Lost Sea	Laurence Yep	9780844668161

Letting Them Lead

Some days I try to let the kids lead their school journey and the day ends up looking and feeling a lot like travelling on this long and winding road.  When the kids pick it rarely goes smoothly down a straight and fast course.  We take the scenic route and sometimes it can take all day and feel like we have gone nowhere.

Today has been one of those days.  We had nothing on the calendar until 6pm and I decided they could have what I thought would be an "easy" school day.  Little did I know that it would actually turn into a long and at times stressful day for some of the kids.
I assigned each child two subjects (math and spelling).  They could then each pick 4 more subjects for a total of 6 for the day, Sirah only needed to pick 3 more.

Maria actually picked some of her challenging subjects though they were mostly reading subjects and she did take the long straight road uphill and managed to finish all of her work in about 2 hours.  She has been outside playing with her friend for a few hours now.  She did her work diligently and well and is happy with the choices she made.  A few hard hours was worth all the free time she now has.

Ciaran and Sirah however started the day with a long game of Monopoly with me.  I said yes, even knowing it would likely be long, figuring the rest of the day would surely go quickly.  We played Monopoly for 3 hours straight this morning and finished up just before 11am.  They began school knowing what they needed to get done for the day.  It is 3pm now and neither of them is finished or likely to be finished any time soon.

They have played on the trampoline, swing set, in the yard and even caught a butterfly and made a habitat for it.  The neighbor came knocking at about 1pm to play.  I said they could not play until they finished their school.  I thought that would motivate them and Sirah came in to do school and has stayed somewhat focused but Ciaran is currently in his room listening to an audio book and building Legos.

I am trying very hard to let them just lead this day and learn their lessons about how fast they could have been done versus how long it has taken them to do it.  Of course they also are realizing they can sometimes benefit from breaks in between their subjects and I am okay with that as well as long as they do not expect to have them all the time whenever they want.

In the end I think an occasional day like this is good for the kids but very stressful for me.  I need to learn to manage my own expectations of these days better.  They are young after all and I am giving them the freedom to do it their way.  So I need to not expect them to do it my way or the way I think is best.  I really need to go into the day ready to still be doing school at 5pm even though it makes no sense to me at all.  Or I need to set up better parameters.  You have until x to finish these subjects or y will happen.

Seeing as I did not set any expectation other than "these subject need to be done before dinner"  it looks like I will be going in and out of school all day until dinner time.  We do not do school like this regularly and for that I am thankful.  Back to the long and winding road as Sirah is almost done with math and ready for me to help her with her next subject.  Wonder when I will next see Ciaran to finish his last subjects?

Privacy and Pictures

I have always tried to be somewhat sensitive to the privacy of my children. Perhaps it is because I have been blogging for most of their lives and perhaps it is because I feel that is what I would want from my own parents were the situation different, either way I have truly attempted to respect their privacy over the years of my blogging.

One thing I have done is never post their pictures. I know this disappoints my family and it may make my blog less interesting to read because you don't have all those cute kid pictures to draw your attention. Still it is a concession I have made to my children to not have 6 years of their early childhood documented on the world wide web for anyone and everyone to see.

I will admit it I enjoy seeing photos of my other family members kids online. I think it makes their blogs more interesting and several times I have been tempted but I have held that line firmly over these 6 years and I now know that my children truly do appreciate it. My oldest is now 10, she was just 3 when we started, she is very thankful that the last 6 years of her life are not on display in photographic record and to her the privacy is extremely important and for that reason alone I am glad I made the choices I did along the way. I am not being critical of other families who choose to share pictures of their kids, I would say most people I know who blog do, and I respect that, but for our family this has been the right choice.

As the kids have aged I have tried to include them more in discussions about what I can and can not share here in this space. This actually helps explain a long hiatus of this blog as I was unsure what I could talk about while still being respectful of my kids since I started this as a homeschool blog and each of them went through a "don't post that on the blog" phase.

Recently they have asked me why I have stopped blogging and have at times asked me specifically if I would post something of theirs or something that happened in our lives on the blog, so I do. I feel like I am constantly doing this weird dance with them as they get older about what I can and should not say. I know I could just write whatever I want, I am after all their mother but I feel I need to respect their privacy, so I do.

I have made concessions and added pictures to my blog to help keep it more visually interesting but the photos you see in general are not of my children or our family members. At first I thought it was weird but now I have come to accept it as part of how I blog. In a world where everything can become somewhat "permanent" online I like that my kids privacy has been a priority for us. As we raise the kids and they begin doing things like blogs of their own, facebook and the like I will have a positive example to point to and help guide them as they begin thinking about what they will and will not share about themselves in the online world.

Thinking about WordPress

I have been thinking after 6 years it might be time to change servers. I am thinking about moving over to Word Press. I would likely need to change my domain which I am not sure how I feel about after all this time. In a way this feels like home and in another way it feels like it is time to move forward and onward.

Anyone have experience switching? Are you glad you did? I don't want to lose people or all the work I have built up. At the same time I would like the freedom and extra customization that word press provides.

Mom sleep...or not

I don't have little babies anymore and I don't have any of the kids sleeping in my bed anymore so I really can not complain after the occasional "mom sleep night", like I got last night. Sure I spent majority of about 9 years living in a mom sleep stupor - functioning regularly on just about 4 hours of sleep when lucky. After I came out of that just about 2 years ago I realized how amazing sleep really is and how much better it is in my own very comfortable bed.

Through the years I have slept in some interesting positions and places all to make sure my kids were able to sleep and be comfortable. Many a night crammed into a small childs bed along with them and a zillion stuffed animals, night on the floor, couch, laying in bed holding the hand of the child laying on the floor next to me and of course with multiple children sleeping in my bed at a time leaving me just the smallest slice of bed possible so I am still "technically" in the bed. Of course I wake up sore all over the place I have gotten older and they have gotten bigger.

I know I could just send them back to bed after a nightmare, I know I could just roll over and bark "go back to bed" but my heart just does not let me do that. They look so small and so scared or sad and so I get up and begin the process of trying to comfort them back to bed and balance not being overly milked for more attention and time from them. As they have gotten older and this becomes less frequent it is both harder and easier to do at the same time. Harder because I am out of practice and my body tells me it really wants sleep and they can do this on their own. Easier because I know we are out of these days and when they come to me they must really need it and they will not come to me for this much longer so I need to help them out now while I still can.

Last night was one of those nights with Sirah. She has been struggling on and off with bad dreams recently. It seems all of my kids hit a stage right between 6 and 7 years old when the night was very scary and hard. They could fall asleep but stay asleep or get back to sleep after bad dreams became very difficult, we are there with her now. Last night she just wanted to be able to touch me so eventually we moved upstairs and laid on the side by side couches so we could both have space but she could still feel my touch.

I woke up this morning thankful I slept on the couch with her, reminding her I am here to help her with the scary things in life and to comfort her. Sure I will need an extra cup of coffee today and my back is not really happy with my choices but my little girl woke up happy and thankful and secure. That is worth another night of mom sleep or lack thereof in my mind.

Reflections on half a million blog hits

It has been a long time since I looked at the statistics from my site. I was amazed to discover that this blog has had over half a million hits. Which just seems bizarre to me to be honest. My blog has been around a long time but those numbers still average out to a lot more hits than I would have guessed for a little blog about homeschooling and life here in Minnesota.

I reflect now and then on why I started, stopped and resumed blogging and what it has meant to me through the course of different years. In the long run my overall purpose is the same as it was when I started a sort of online journal or record of our journey as a family. I keep thinking I need to print this out and bind it in a nice set of books for my kids. This past week I used a blog to book service to save my entire blog in a chronological .pdf file. The blog was too big to fit in one file and when printed out it will reach just about 2000 pages printed, entirely too big to be bound in one volume. It is simply amazing to me that I have written that many words over the past few years.

Along the journey of blogging I have met some interesting people and had some interesting opportunities and I am glad I have done this. I am also thankful that I took a break. The break helped give me time to manage my busy life and reflect both on what I wanted to continue using this blog for and what I did not. I am thankful for all the people I have met and gotten to know through the years through this blog. I also love that my family can easily read this and feel like they are getting glimpses into our everyday lives and feel a little closer to us since we are all separated by so many miles and too much time in between visits. I am glad my kids and maybe generations after them can see glimpses into my heart and the priorities of our family at these stages of our lives.

Through the years I have gone back and forth about the honesty of my blogging and in general my choice to highlight all the best moments and at the same time share some of our more real ones as well. Looking back I am sure that was a good choice for us, now those memories books will read like a greatest hits album with many of our strong and beautiful times together. I am sure my kids will naturally remember all the ways that I screwed up as a mom so I am glad they will have some of the positives to look back on as well. I would like to think those are the memories they would choose to remember but you never know :)

Through these posts I have never wanted to appear like a "supermom" or someone who has reached some unattainable perfect reality. We live normal lives just like everyone else. I lose my patience and temper like all home school moms I know. I have moments where all we can manage to do is our math, spelling and reading textbooks. But I have not made things up for this blog (other than giving each of us screen names) either to make me or homeschooling look somehow better. All the good really did happen and we really do have our amazing moments together on this homeschool journey that keep us all going each day.

So many years ago I chose the phrase "10 hands. 10 feet. But just one beat of our common heart" to represent our family here on this blog. I still think it fits today even as we run and move in so many different directions at once our family still has the beat of a common heart and purpose of living together in this world and bringing glory to our creator. It has been an amazing journey so far, one I am thankful to walk every day. Thanks for taking part in our walk in some way: if you just come to visit occasionally for a book list, arrive as a result of a google search, read to keep up with our family, share your wisdom and thoughts or just are the random passerby. Who knows how long I will continue this little blog in this little space of the internet, maybe some day I will reach a million hits and then I can reflect again about what I am doing and why.

Blessings
Tenniel

Yamslam

Played yamslam with the kids this morning. I will admit I was skeptical at first but after just a few rounds I think it is a wonderful improvement on yahtzee which was already a great "edutainment" game to play with the kids. It is not the same as Yahtzee but it does have a similar feel and some similar objectives. It is much easier to teach younger kids and to keep the attention and competitiveness of older kids.

In this game you roll a set of 5 dice three times and try to get the best combination, just like in yahtzee. However when you get your final role you choose a point value chip from the side of the board. This makes playing with younger kids easy and fun. They can keep track of their own score and have a very easy visual cue as to what they need. Since you compete for the tiles it also adds in more competition than regular yahtzee for some of the older players, once they figure out the importance of strategy and how to work the game to their advantage.

It is fairly quick to play which is also a bonus for parents, looking to get just a quick game in. You can play one on one or with a group of people. I played today with a 6 and 9 year old and both had equal amounts of fun but for different reasons. I especially like it for the younger set who can be hard to find a good easy to do game on their own. Games for 5 and 6 years olds where they feel they inherently get it and are actually competitive with older siblings and adults are hard to find. The only time age becomes an issue is during point counting where you can easily assist younger kids and show them how to add up point values to equal 100 at a time to make it easier.

Might make a nice addition for Easter if you are looking for a last minute game for the family.

Thank You Lord

Field Trips

Our family loves field trips and we have gone on many through the years. September and October tend to be big field trip months for us as so few people are at all the best locations. Not many schools take field trips in the first few weeks of fall as they are settling into a school routine so it is a perfect time to schedule and attend field trips as a homeschool family.

Recently we went to a beekeeping and candlemaking trip that the kids really enjoyed. We learned all about beekeeping and the different kinds of bees. We learned about how important bees are and how many of our crops will not do as well without them decreasing food production here in the United States. We also learned about the various kinds of honey made (varied by the pollen of different plants) and all about how the hive works and where beeswax comes from. The kids then got to make a hand dipped beeswax candle and see the beeboxes. They all enjoyed this one though it was quite a drive from where we live.

This week we went to the Raptor Center here in Minnesota and learned about owls and various raptors. They got to see several kinds of owls, hawks, and bald eagles. They dissected owl pellets and learned some interesting facts about owls and raptors as well as received the "take care of your environment" message from someone other than me, which is always a good thing. Sirah LOVES owls and it was the first time I have seen her reaching out of her seat with her hand up in the air. We had a talk about that on the way home as at times she was excessive and I explained why that was not good. However, the enthusiasm that represented was encouraging to me. It was her request that led us to the field trip in the first place.

Teaching in Secret

This week Maria pulled a textbook off the shelf in our home library and asked me why she has never had Literature as a subject? She said "I need to have that so why don't you teach me that, other 5 graders have it as a subject, why not me?" It is true I have never taught "literature" as a separate subject. I thought this was ironic coming from a girl who reads non-stop and I continually run out of good reading material for. I responded by asking the following questions.

What is a protagonist?
What is an antagonist?
What is a character foil?
Can you tell me about exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement of a book?
What is theme? Character? Setting?

It was then she realized I have been teaching her this subject just secretly for a long time. She knows how to answer those questions for both books and films. She has to answer these questions regularly this semester especially in her book club that I organize, in her film criticism coop class that I teach and just in regular conversation about books she is reading.


I told her I do teach you this subject I just call it Star Wars or Narnia and you never realized the formal name for what seemed easy to you was actually a subject called literature. I recently taught two classes at our homeschool cooperative - one about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the other a film class looking at the films of the Star Wars saga. We used the Freytags pyramid in both these classes often while I never called it that or introduced it as that.



I reminded her that when we go to the library I hand her a selection of books I want her to read before she gets to read one of her choice. We read aloud a book together and talk about what the meaning of certain passages are or we compare one author to another in our regular discussion. All of these things are teaching you literature.

So why did I never introduce it as a separate subject? Why no text? Why no big deal about it? I suppose because it was easier and more fun this way. There was never anything scary about learning or teaching it this way. It was natural and easy and truthfully fun. When we get around to her reading Shakespeare later it will be easy to understand who the protagonist is because she already understands Anakin Skywalker and why he played that role in the Star Wars saga. Charting a book or film using the above triangle will seem easy because she has done it for so long and learned the triangle and terms after she already understood what would go on there just because she understands how a story is written and plays out.

This past year we have been very fortunate to have a great group of her friends who really love reading meeting once a month for a book club. We have been part of book clubs before and none of my kids really enjoyed them because they felt they were more play dates then book discussion. This one is different. These kids can easily talk 45 mins to an hour each time about the book, author, literary terms and all the above mentioned topics and it is not like pulling teeth. Why? They all love to read and they get to pick the books. They all pick big thick and often fairly well written books that are filled with lots of great discussion topics. We tend to spend a lot of time in the fantasy and science fiction genres because they are most interesting to this particular group of kids. It has been a joy.

So yes I often teach in secret and later on my kids realize I was teaching. I prefer to do it this way whenever possible, though it is not often possible I know. Going back to my college studies I always had an affinity for Socrates and his approach of teaching the student by leading them naturally down a road until they realize they already knew something themselves. It seems to hold more weight with a student when they discover something for themselves. So I teach in secret and later will admit I was teaching all along.

When my kids were really little and learning their letters I would play the letter of the week game. Each week we would literally "play" with a letter. I had a cardboard box where we kept new household items each week all starting from just one letter. We would read books all week with topics and names that all started with the same letter. It was fun and it was easy. All through our week we would keep track of all the words around us we could think of that started with the letter of the week. This did a lot of things. It helped teach my kids their letters and sounds but it also built their vocabulary quite a bit and made our reading branch out into a wider variety of areas. I might not have picked up a book on armadillos had it not been a week, and I am not sure we ever would have tried quince if it had not been for Q week. Mostly though it started a habit of teaching my kids without them realizing I was teaching them through having fun together.

I need to get back to doing that more with my younger kids especially. Board games are a great way to teach in secret as are nature walks which we do a lot of. I suppose teaching in secret sounds bad or deceitful which is not my intent. Others will call it using teachable moments. Sometimes though if my kids discover I am trying to do a "Teachable moment" they will shut down where if I can keep it more natural and indiscoverable they seem more receptive. What subjects to you find you often teach in secret on?

"Mom, how do you spell...."

How many times a day do you hear those words? I hear them often. Each time I remind myself I am thankful my children want to spell correctly so they ask. I am thankful that I can answer their questions and help them. Sometimes though I grow weary and want to secretly mumble under my breath or pull my hair out after being asked how to spell every word in a sentence, knowing there are many more sentences to come.

Today I introduced my son to the Rainbow Dictionary and my day became a bit quieter. This is an old school kids dictionary published in the 1940's so it is not up to date. Really though how up to date does the dictionary of my 9 year old need to be? All of my kids have enjoyed this dictionary because it has pictures, not many words but all the ones they seem to need, it is easy to use and understand.

After being asked about 10 words in about as many minutes I showed him the dictionary and taught him how he could use it himself. He actually enjoyed doing it, I think he liked the freedom of being able to find out his answer and not needing to admit he was unsure of how to spell words he was writing in his letter. I still got the occasional follow up question but only about 3 more times through the course of the letter. Then I only had to give him the first 2 or 3 letters of the word and he looked it up and copied it himself.

Ahhhh the joy of a dictionary. Maria at about this age decided she wanted to read that dictionary for fun so she did. That always made me think of the scene in Say Anything where Lloyd flips through her dictionary amazed at how many words she read. I am doubtful Ciaran will make the same choice but I am happy he is excited to use it and was able to learn the skill quickly and now my day is slightly quieter in that one area.

I will still hear "Mom, how....." probably another 20 times today at least but that is what I am here for. I will take joy in the small victory in this one area today.

Thoughts from my deck

It has been a long time since I could blog comfortably from my deck with the sun shining and a comforting breeze blowing my hair, today I can. Perhaps for some blogging outdoors barefoot in high 50's would seem very cold but after a long Minnesota winter it feels positively refreshing.

Clear blue skies, birds chirping, sun gently sharing the last of the days rays with me, seems a calm way to spend the few moments of quiet I can steal for this day. Back to school Monday after a sugar filled and late night birthday while the rest of the neighborhood kids are all running around outside off for their spring break seemed like a recipe for disaster this morning but we muddled through.

The thought of throwing in the towel did cross my mind before we even began the day. The house was a mess from last night, kids public school friends called to see if we could go swimming in the middle of the day and no one wanted to focus on anything remotely educational. It would be easy just take a day off and make it up later, why not?

They why not is because as warm as it is to me right now sunny 75 degree May days are not that far away. Days when my kids really do not want to be indoors working and when it would be nice to follow our tradition of finishing school in the first or second week of May. The freedom of May forces me to look at the reality of where we are in our educational plan for the year and keeps me motivated to work through our neighbors spring break. Besides we essentially took a spring break in Colorado a few weeks ago. Sure we did some school on the road and a touch of it at our families home but not much so onward march forward this morning much to everyone's disappointment.

The day actually turned out to be better than I expected. The kids realized school was going to happen one way or another and decided quickly and painlessly would be preferably to long and dragged out. That is always a positive development when it occurs and one wonders why they do not always realize that. The promise of a history documentary as a reward actually helped smooth things over as well. Yes I did not say the "torture" of a historical dvd. My kids actually really enjoy watching what I call "edutainment" entertainment with some educational value, maybe it is because we so rarely watch TV they are happy to settle for whatever we throw their way :) We watched the beginning of a made for TV miniseries on Marco Polo as we just finished up studying the Khan's and Marco Polo.

The beginning of the DVD was fairly good for a TV history documentary and the kids were very engaged and commenting on what they learned in history and what was being presented. We had to stop watching when it got to the romance portion of the film mostly because it explains things that would be inappropriate for young audiences such as multiple women being brought to the king and crimes committed by the kings armies. Thankfully I realized it was coming and stopped the film before it got to those points. I will continue watching and see if I can resume the film anywhere along the way for them to get any more out of it.

While we were sitting there watching and discussing the film and the girls were knitting and I was folding laundry I thought about what a different sort of education the kids are getting and how thankful I am for the opportunities we have right now in homeschooling them. Even in the little comments like Sirah (age 6) saying "that must be coal" when marco saw the rock that brought fire, or Ciaran (age 9) talking about the caravans on The Silk Road, or Maria (age 10) trying to explain why flashbacks are used in a film or book to make the story more interesting. We kept pausing the film to make comments or have discussions and it just seemed to happen naturally. I love those teachable moments and being able to take advantage of them as they arise and create an environment in which they can easily happen.

Serona and I were recently discussing our long term goals for our kids education. In the long term there are 3 main goals:

1. Research
They need to be able to research and learn anything they want or need to. They need to have the tools and abilities to know how to find the answer to any question they may come up against in life. They need to have excellent critical thinking skills to be able to tell good and bad research apart from each other and understand how to spot biases in positions and be able to synthesize the materials they collect in a logical way.

2. Argument
They need to have the ability to create good arguments and positions. They need to have the abilities and tools to translate their research into well thought out positions and be able to put that all together in an organized fashion. Essentially they need to understand how to take the research, make sense of it as it fits into the world at large and the particular circumstances and then bring it all together.

3. Presentation Skills
They need to be able to present their research and arguments in a variety of written and oral communication styles. They need to understand when and how to present information to different people and how best to express and relate their knowledge. They need to be able to translate and utilize all that knowledge somehow.

There are other things they need to understand and we know a solid education will give them. There are skills they simply need to have during their education, things they have to memorize just because (like multiplication tables) and test taking skills are important as well. In the end though if we can help our children become life long learners with the above skill set I will feel we did a pretty good job overall of educating our children.

Someone told me start with the end in mind and work backwards, those are skills I hope my adult children have in the long run. Those are some of my thoughts from my deck on this sunny day in Minnesota.

Ciaran is 9

Today we celebrate Ciaran and all his energy and enthusiasm for life. He is one of the most affable kids I know. He has never met a person, old or young that he can not talk with. His big broad smile helps charm us all and look the other way when the mischievous side takes over. He is inventive and creative and innovative, always building something or thinking about that next thing he can do. This is an encouraging combination with his mathematical mind, he just naturally picks up math concepts very quickly.

He loves baseball and can't wait for his season to begin soon. Biking, roller blading, skateboarding, anything with wheels or quick moving are favorites of his. Fencing, swimming, rock climbing are some others. Video games are a favorite past time, current favorites are Mario Brothers for Wii and MLB All Stars for Wii. Musically he is learning to play piano at his own pace and keeps eying the guitar to want to try out soon.

I keep telling him to "stay little" because soon he will seem so tall to me and eventually he will tower over me I would guess. The last year of single digits and the start of that transition to a teenager and eventually a young man. Still he is still very much a little boy and will leap in my lap for a snuggle, wrap his arms around me tightly for a hug or stand near me so I can still tousle his hair. I will miss those things and need to spend a lot of this time treasuring them.

Still watching him grow up, develop friendships, mature, and have fun is such a special opportunity. I am so thankful I am home with him and get to spend as much time with him as I do. Even when his energy and his enthusiasm for irritating his sisters gets under my nerves I still love that I am with him all the time. In many ways little seems to change from year to year as you walk the journey with them you see very little change from year to year.

The biggest positive change I can see this year in him is he learned to love reading. The boy who would never read anything unless absolute forced and then only by counting pages and minutes can now be found in his bed in the mornings reading a book or telling me just one more minute while I finish my chapter. Not sure what caused this transition but eventually he found some books he liked and discovered there are other interesting worlds there in those pages. We could barely pull him from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and Eragon. Books I never could have imagined him looking at much less reading last year. I still remember taking away all electronics in first grade until he would buckle down to read and thinking we were never going to get out of bob books and primary phonics books. Amazing to think less than two years later he read a 700+ page book! Encouragement for any of you with slower to come around readers.

My heart has such a soft spot for Ciaran and his energy and enthusiasm and the loudness with which he attacks life. I am tired sometimes just being around him and I am always amazed at how he can just keep going and going and never seem to tire. His volume level is loud, louder and loudest. Yet he brings a joy and smile to my face every day. He warms my heart every time he smiles or runs into me with a head butting hug, even though they are starting to hurt from his strength.

Today we take him and his friends to the Mall of America to enjoy the rides and then home for cake, ice cream and hours of playing Wii, a perfect party for him and what he asked for. Much has changed in the past 9 years still I have had glimpses of the boy in front of me since he was about 2 years old when his nature and these traits started to really show through. Amazing.

I love you Ciaran, thanks for being such an amazing little boy and awesome son!
Love
Mommy

The Kids Asked Me to Blog

You know something is off when the kids ask you why you have stopped blogging and would you please start doing it again? I am still trying to understand why my almost 9 yo son decided this was important but I will give it a more faithful go again. I am thinking I need to get back to just shorter regular bursts. It is not that I do not have anything to write about it is often I think it will take too much time and then I never start, you know the Type A part of my personality that many of you can relate to. If anyone even still reads this blog since I have left it fairly defunct over the past year or two.

In honor of spring here in Minnesota I can try for a new beginning again. The snow has melted and my kids can resume being outdoors for more than a half hour at a time. My sanity and peace of mind return around this time of year as well :) All around I think we feel more inspired, like coming back to life after a long rest. In many ways I really feel like winter here is like a hibernation for everyone. We still get out occasionally but something just is off and all of a sudden the switch gets flipped and everyone has energy again and everyone is outside and together again. Neighbors walking dogs or just visiting in the yard together, kids on bikes, baseballs and basketballs flying around the neighborhood, the smell of bonfires in the air. Life going on around me all the time.

Ciaran turns 9 this week. I started this blog when he was 2 years old, how crazy is that? So much has changed in these past 7 years and in other ways things feel the same. I am amazed we still live in Minnesota, a place I never would have picked off the map and knew only was "the hat" on the map when we moved here. We are still homeschooling which I did not know what to expect at all when we started. We are a family that still shares basically the same values though we have grown and matured during these years. Those of you who wondered many years ago if my kids would ever stop nursing or get out of my bed I can honestly say they do eventually and all have, I told you then it would happen before college :) We still read a ton and I still keep lists though I have not published them in a long time. I keep yearly lists now rather than monthly ones. Maybe I can make that a goal to update by the end of the school year as I still get comments requesting I resume that. Last year I thanked our library and told them how much money that had saved us (over $10,000 had we purchased all the books we read there) according to our book recording software.

Of course the kids are older and many of the lessons and field trips are different but some we keep repeating for our youngest or so the older ones can get different things out of them this time around. I sometimes can not believe I have a 5th, 3rd and 1st grader. I am soon coming to the next great transition where I will have 3 independent readers - it will be interesting to see what that brings into our homeschooling journey. I am going to miss Little Bear, Frog and Toad and Dr Suess, dear old friends in our house. I will even miss Telly the teaching time clock that has gotten under my skin many a days as I listen to the clock say way to loudly what the time on the hands is. Still my kids all loved this toy and learned so much from it.

We now run to baseball and swim team practice, meets and games. We fence, ice skate, ski, bike and many other new things we are trying out together as a family. We still love to travel and sometimes will just up and go for a week loving the freedom homeschooling provides us. Somehow I feel busier now than I ever was when I started blogging with kids aged 4, 2 and newborn thinking those days would never end.

Just today reading Farmer Boy out loud looking at my two girls working on the scarfs they are knitting and my son building something elaborate with lincoln logs I thought the more things change the more they stay the same. I still read aloud and they still play or work in the room with me. I still love this time and wish we had more and more of it. I still seem to have lots of library fees no matter my best intentions to keep track of nearly 100 books at a time.

If you are still around and here reading this blog feel free to ask me a question, maybe if I have accountability I will be more consistent. I once offered a Q and A time here of homeschooling questions or questions about our family life. So here we go again. Feel free to leave a question in the comments or send me an email. Please ask something you think might make an interesting blog post and encourage me to write :)

Kiss and Hug your kids and keep on reading to them always!

Blessings,
Tenniel

Just a Normal Mom Who Knits

Today on the way to baseball practice Ciaran (almost 9yo) and I had an interesting discussion about what kind of mom I am. When it comes to baseball it is more a mom thing than a dad thing in our home. I grew up playing softball until I went to college and still played intramural for awhile. I grew up living and watching baseball with my dad for many years. When it comes to understanding technique, terms and playing the game I just know a bit more than Serona. When baseball season hits it is mom that can often be found outside tossing the ball with Ciaran. It is mom that volunteers to help out with the team and actually understands how to keep a book. I enjoy baseball, he enjoys playing it, he enjoys that we play together, it works except sometimes at baseball itself, where I am not dad and that can seem weird.

On the way to a baseball warm up session in the car today I tried to let him know as gently and directly as possible that I could go either way. If he wanted me to volunteer to help out or have a catch with him I would. If he preferred I could just sit on the sideline and knit acting more like a "normal mom". I wanted him to know that it was his choice and I understood that as he has gotten older it has gotten stranger to have a mom involved in those sorts of activities. I don't want to embarrass him or set him apart in any way that made him uncomfortable. I think he appreciated that I was willing to do either and to leave it up to him. In the car we agreed we would play it by ear.

When we arrived it was fairly chaotic and he said to me "I think I am just going to find another kid to warm up with". I set up my chair, got out my knitting and started to watch him from a distance. He practiced hitting at a few stations and then decided it was too chaotic to stay. On the way out he said to me "Next time we come you can have a catch with me and help out." It was just a micro example of the tender dance we are going to walk over the next few years of pulling away and drawing close again. Of him figuring out what is ok for my public role and what is not and of me showing him respect in this area. It was a good start.

I first became aware of this transition this past winter when we signed up for a fencing class together. He decided he wanted to try fencing and it sounded fun to me as well, something I always wanted to try so we both signed up together. At first he was very excited about it and thought it was cool that his mom wanted to take the class with him. The night of the first class came and as we were suiting up for our first practice I could sense his discomfort and just a strangeness coming from him. I leaned over and said to him. "It is ok if you would rather fence with the kids your age or the boys I am fine." He seemed to think it was very weird both to have his parent there and that it was his mom not his dad. It probably did not help him that the instructor said "I have never had a mom take this class, dads before but never a mom" I wondered at that moment if my son wanted to melt into the floor or if he was glad I was the first, mostly I think he did not like the attention either of us was receiving.

He handled that evening very well fencing both with other kids and with me a little bit. He was quiet on the way home and we talked a little about how it felt strange to him that I was the only mom, one of only 2 girls (the other was 9 years old) and one of only two adults (a dad also taking the class). He asked me if I felt weird or strange about it. I told him I was completely comfortable with it and did not mind those things. I asked him if he was uncomfortable with me being there and if he wanted me to stop doing the class I could and just take him. He was quiet for a minute, tentative but said "No you should stay in the class but I may fence more with the other kids if that is ok" It was fine with me and we kept going back together.

By the end of our 8 week class however he was fencing almost all the time with me and at the tournament we were cheering each other on. At the end of the class he said how glad he was that I took it with him and how fun it was that we did it together and that I was a mom willing to do this. Another mom on the sidelines watched me having so much fun with my son that she told me she was going to sign up the next semester. I could tell by the end he was not only glad but a little proud that I took it with him. He would tell his friends or point me out to other fencers as his mom. He asked me if I would keep learning with him.

I know I have just a little time left before I become very uncool and I am trying to enjoy this time but not push anything on him. I am trying to learn to respect his space while still being the mom I really am. That mom does sports with her kids and is not embarrassed to be the mom there when it is mostly dads. I am however trying to be sensitive to his situation and stay out of situations where it really needs to be dad and not mom.

It is not that Serona is not involved, he is very involved in many aspects and majority of the sports the kids do. I could not teach him how to throw a football, skateboard, ice skate, ski, the list goes on and on where dad takes care of all those details. Yet there are a few where I take on a traditional dad role. I have learned though as a mom with a traveling husband that sometimes I just need to step up and help out more where I can even if it is not my "traditional gender role". Up until this year that has really been fine and a non-issue for our family. Sometimes I get looks or comments from other adults and mostly the boys have made positive comments to Ciaran about how it is nice that I am involved but as they get older I know it changes.

So I am trying to learn how to adjust back into the role of a normal mom who knits on the sidelines and leaves it to the guys. I don't think that is a bad thing either. As boys get older I think male role models are very important and the relationship is different between a boy and a man and a boy and a woman. I am trying to let my son lead this transition and be sensitive to his needs and express to him that I am really okay with whatever he needs. At the same time I am trying to reassure him that I am here for him and always willing to have a catch in the yard or a practice round of fencing when he wants.

Also I am thankful for Serona who spent the weekend teaching the kids how to use various power tools in their pine derby car creations. I don't think I could have spent that many hours in the garage patiently overseeing a 6 and 8 year old using a dremel, drill and power sander to turn blocks of wood into masterpiece racers. My kids would truly be at a loss if mom had to figure that one out!

Well it is still winter in Minnesota. Something about snow arriving in October and staying white until April is depressing. It starts to get to me right about now. If I walk outside it still looks like a winter wonderland. The snow is so high I need snow pants to walk across my yard and we are running out of room for places to shovel the snow too. Our mailman recently stopped delivering mail because our mailbox was not cleared out enough. I am ready for it to be done. At least it is warm, only 7 degrees tonight but it will reach nearly 20 tomorrow :)

This is an important time to have friends and to remind each other that yes homeschooling is worth it. Yes you like your life and do love your children and someday we will all be outside again and it will be better. Everyone is cooped up and growing weary of winter. The kids are picking at each other sometimes just for the sheer fun of it. Today while driving around town I seriously thought for a moment about just heading my car south and not stopping until I hit the beach and shoreline, which would take about a solid 24 hours of driving but you start to think that is worth it at some point :) I am still here wrapped in a warm afghan wearing a heavy wool Irish knit sweater unable to sleep.

Still for all my momentary complaints I truly love my life. I love my husband and my children and they love me. Today we brought Serona an orchid for his office and I thought about how blessed I am to have a wonderful husband. The kids and I went to the Mill City museum for just a few hours and I thought about how blessed we are to be able to just pop into a museum for the afternoon any time we want with our memberships and not living too far away. Ciaran had a group of boys over today and as they were having loudest burping contests and trekking wet snow through my house I thought about how blessed we are to have great boys for him to be friends with. Today while listening to Maria complain about doing her logic problems I thought how glad I was to be homeschooling her and have the freedom to add in a subject that she may not get at a traditional school. Tonight while tucking Sirah in listening to all the ways she comes up with to extend her bedtime when I am ready to be done I thought about how glad I am that I am home each night and able to tuck her in and read her a bedtime story. While working on my lesson plan late tonight for the class I teach tomorrow I thought about how much I love our coop and how glad I am that my kids are there and that I have the opportunity to work with some other students as well.

My mind runs from complaints to blessings in the same moments and that is truly what life is made up of challenging moments and the peaks that come along with them. It is easy for me to focus on the challenges in the long Minnesota winter when I am very ready to be done but it is so refreshing to think about all the many positives I have going on in my life right now. I need to keep that perspective right now. I have always been a fairly cynical person. I am not convinced I will ever be optimistic but I am learning to look for the positives that come alongside the challenges.

Today I was drinking a cup of coffee in this mug when I realized how unreasonable that really is for I never fill my coffee cup all the way. In fact today when "full" it was just above the pessimist line of half empty and I got to thinking that it is all about perspective from where you start and where you finish. Then I wondered why sunshine and green grass affect my perspective so differently than cold air and feet of white snow? Bloom where you are planted even if that means you freeze or lie dormant for a few months :) This New Yorker is learning to thrive in Minnesota. This mom is learning how to move from survive to thrive in the winter all while understanding more and more the title of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book "The Long Winter".

Soon I will have mud being trekked through the house, never ending rain and then the heat and bugs of summer. With that comes the beautiful flowers, hours of free time, bike riding, swimming outdoors and long nature walks in the park. So for those of you struggling with homeschooling at this time of year remember soon we will be scrambling to finish all those books. In the meantime I think I am going to read to my kids more, make them hot cocoa and tea, get in some more sledding and spend time in those books while they don't want to be outdoors so we can go outside when the thaw finally arrives.

I will leave you with this thought

Suprising Moments

Sometimes my kids surprise me in the little things they say or do. For example watching the Vikings game as a family last night with some friends and towards the end of the game someone said all the Vikings suddenly found religion and are praying for their game. Sirah (age 6) responded "God does not intervene in sports games" we all kind of looked at each other. Then Serona asked me did she just use the word "intervene" and she has a point. It was one of those random moments I wanted to record for memories. A few minutes later Maria (age 10) said "I am so vexed right now" when a call was made that everyone in our room was complaining about. It was almost surreal to me to hear them talking like that while watching a football game. Here's to good vocabularies and hoping they stick around for years to come. They get that from their dad. My running joke with Serona is "Here is a quarter, can you define that word for me?"

Of course sometimes they surprise me in other ways I would like to forget, like the rounds Ciaran and Maria went today over who owned something. After nonstop choruses of "Mine, no mine" with no other words in between and expecting them to come to blows I decided to step in only to discover they were in heated argument over a 10 inch piece of black yarn. A piece of trash really but they were not relenting. It is moments like that which remind me I do not remember being a child that well to even begin to comprehend why the ownership of a 10 inch piece of black yarn mattered so much. Truly there is nothing special about this yarn and I have entire skeins I could give them in the closet. I was simply at a loss of what to say to them.

Life is made up of these random moments both the wonderful and the mind boggling as well as the exceedingly frustrating and sometimes difficult ones. Someday I will look back and miss these days even the arguing over nothing, okay I will not miss that but I will miss the ordinariness of having my kids around and I am trying to enjoy it now.

Some Beach...Somewhere...

Well it is January in Minnesota and truthfully I should not be complaining as it is in the 30's, a heat wave for us. Of course this means raining sheets of ice on a weekend I have to be in the car travelling places but at least it is not -20 right? We might even see some of our snow melt which is rare, typically any snow we get in November is still there in March along with everything that fell in between as the temperature rarely gets above freezing here. But back to my title what on earth does the beach have to do with freezing weather in Minnesota?

Something happens to me each year and it sneaks up and hits me over the head until I realize what it is and learn to duck, winter homeschooling in Minnesota. By the time mid-January rolls around it has been cold for awhile, the holidays are over and we are trying to focus on school after the holidays and before the beautiful weather wants to bring us outside. We are all together a lot and there are realities that come with that. It feels like we will never be warm and outside again - April or late March look pretty far away right now even though they truly are not.

The kids are at each other and nit-picking to try each other crazy on purpose some days. They don't want to be outside much and who can blame them? Our local pool and gym see us more when I remember - they need to be out exercising even more right now, those are the good days when I remember that. The days we take a field trip or school at the library or even a local coffee shop just for some variety.

Then there are the other days in winter when I crave to be on the beach anywhere. With sun on my face, warmth between my toes and the sound of waves calming my spirit. However what Minnesotans call a beach are completely frozen over. Our lakes are beautiful don't get me wrong and I enjoy them but they will never be the beach. It is funny that I crave the beach so much, maybe it is because I grew up on Long Island and when things were crazy I would go and walk along the beach even in winter and there was always something so calming about it.

Back to reality. I am getting ready to drive our oldest to a swim meet through an ice storm over the course of the next two days. Lovely. But she loves swimming and I can't ask her to find a better lifelong sport to be passionate about and develop her talent in. So while I dream of the ocean I will get my ice scraper out, pack my cooler for the day and head to the warmth of the swimming pool deck.

On teh Road Again

Somehow I thought I was busy when they were young and I never had time to write or do things. I had no idea how much busier it would become as they got older and what a challenge it would be to be "home" in homeschooling. Somedays it feels like we run a taxi service but I don't regret that. I actually am learning to really enjoy the time we are all together in the car and to take to heart Deuteronomy 6:5-9.

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The time in the car together is a good time to teach and to listen and hear my kids. When we are one on one it is great stolen time that we rarely get and even when we are in a group it is good to talk about subjects or to listen to a good book on tape or yes sometimes do some car schooling.

I go through phases where I think we need to be home more but then I realize most of what we are out running around for is actually part of their educational experiences: piano lessons, art class, gym class, swimming, libraries, museums, sports, field trips and I am thankful to be able to provide those opportunities to the kids and to have the time in between with them to talk about what we are doing or whatever else is on our hearts and minds. Somedays when I am packing everyone into the car for what feels like an endless day of running around I need to remind myself of this and be okay with the fact that our homeschool does not look like traditional school and that is just fine.

Random Moments

As I type this Maria is working on the computer next to me writing a fiction story, Sirah is teaching Kirsten (yes the American girl doll) how to do multiplication and Ciaran is downstairs playing piano. It is a good moment, one of the better ones in a frustrating transition week back into school. I need to remember these moments.

The first day back to school post a month vacation felt like a wash. Expectations were too high, minds and attitudes lacked discipline and it was Serona's birthday. Tempers were short, moods were low and we all survived the day. Slowly we are resuming our routines and finding a winter pace that works for us all.

Today we had grand intentions and woke to a snowy cold day, which for many homeschoolers is a great day to stay home and school. We however needed to drive Serona to work so Maria can make her swim practice before her meet. Traffic was snarled, roads were bad and long story short we arrived home at 11:00am with kids who had not yet eaten anything. Brunch was served with a read aloud from me and we settled into school at 11:45. Some days are like that.

Still I can't help but smile as I watch my 6 year old teaching her doll how to do multiplication (skip counting) and how she asked for Kirsten to have her own school work to do. I wrote an additional 10 math problems which Sirah "taught" Kirsten to do by doing them herself cheerfully. I took a picture to make the moment last longer.

Ciaran went downstairs to play piano and take a break between math and his geography slideshow work. I am excited he is enjoying learning an instrument and he has a wonderful teenage home schooler for a teacher who is just a perfect fit for him. He was also happy for the break from long division :)

Maria has an interesting assignment this month. She has to write NaNoWriMo style for a month. Her assignment is 300 words a day for a month on a story of her choice. She has been working on it for 3 days now and so far it is going well. She even decided to work on it by herself in free time one evening after swimming. We are trying to encourage her writing because she has some natural talent for it but has very little confidence in her abilities. Hopefully this writing every day will help her get through it one way or the other. So far the hardest part for her is my constant reminders that I do not want her editing or using the backspace key.

Some random moments from our day here.