Trish’s Blog

Teaching my children at home has so many advantages that I sometimes feel guilty that life is so good. And fun! The kids have naturally begun to do work on their own (like Math, Writing, Grammar and Reading). There are a few subjects that they can do without me and it leaves me free to wash dishes, tend to the baby, or blog about what they are doing. At the moment, they are fighting about using toilet paper in a Halloween costume. (I never said they were perfect.)

Week 3 Highlights

A highlight for week three was opening a care package from Josh’s friend in Brisbane Australia. Johnny and Rachael Worthington went nuts filling the box with Aussie (pronounced Ozzy) paraphernalia (flag, pens, stickers, boomerang, slippers, a size 2 Aerial Cricket Set, stuffed kangaroo and koala, and a bright orange jersey of Johnny’s favorite football (soccer) team as a present for Josh’s birthday). Oh, yeah, they sent us Vegemite, too, and left out the instructions on how to eat it. I made toast and slathered it on. Josh took pictures while we ate it to get our reaction. A fellow FriendFeeder even used the pictures as a drawing exercise. I doubt the children will ever misbehave again as we’ve threatened to feed them this stuff if they get out of line. (If you think this sounds like a good idea and would like to try it, the UK version is called Marmite and they sell it in the International aisle at HEB.) The Worthingtons also sent “tim tams” and we instantly aborted the air strike we called after tasting Vegemite and they were thus cursed and exalted all in the same box. We didn’t take a picture of us eating tim tams because the camera would not have been fast enough in capturing us wolfing them down anyway. They are cookies unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before and I have an eye toward visiting Australia for the sole purpose of eating every kind of tim tam available. (I mean, like one of each kind since I’m told there are different flavors. I have no intention of eating every actual tim tam in the country which is what it sounded like when I reread that last sentence.) There’s that new goal and the fact that Rachael’s parents own a strawberry farm combining to make Australia my new dream vacation.

See how much learning went on just by getting a box of goodies from another country? I love homeschooling—ever aspect of life becomes a teaching moment. The kids are supposed to look up Cricket rules and then teach the family how to play it. We will definitely post pictures on FriendFeed for Johnny when that day comes.

Another highlight – I introduced Spelling Power. Sequential Spelling is good and has a neat approach, but I wanted to make sure that I was also keeping up with words that the kids should know in their grade levels. After giving them the Survey Test, it led me to the level of Placement Tests they should take. The levels are given as letters of the alphabet from A through K. Sarah tested into level I (ninth grade), Zack tested into level D (fourth grade), and Seth tested into level C (fourth grade). Sarah and Seth are both above their actual grade by two levels and when they took their Placement Tests they were advised to stay in these levels. Zack tested one level below his actual grade level, but when he took the Placement Test, he was advised to move up a level. I’m not surprised by these findings as both Sarah and Seth were in the Gifted program at their schools before we pulled them out. Zack was in the Gifted program in our previous school district, but did not test high enough (missed by one or two points as I recall) when we requested the test after we moved here. I attribute it to his inability to process data quickly in his head because he is focusing on other things and thinking deeply about them. He has a hard time deciding, too, so if you ask him what he wants for dinner he will take so long to answer that he forgets the question. During the summer, Zack told me that his favorite subject was spelling, so I’m not all that worried about him.

Week 4 Highlights

It was Josh’s birthday on Monday, so even though we didn’t mean to, we took the day off school to clean the house. Sarah mopped the floors on her hands and knees while Zack and Seth cleaned the kids’ bathroom. Their rooms were also cleaned and I took care of the kitchen. Everyone helped vacuum. We ended up having our neighbors, the Kendricks, over for the birthday dinner, and it was nice to have the house already cleaned and ready to receive them. It was a really fun day and it was nice to declare Daddy’s birthday a national holiday.

The next day we made clay tablets and practiced “writing” Cuneiform letters as part of our history class. I let the kids make whatever sculptures they wanted after that, and we had a great time. It was Seth’s idea to carve little Tiki figures, so I helped out. By the time I was done with his, the other two were making/requesting one, too. They have requested to play with clay many times since this lesson and we still have a lot of clay leftover. Ten pounds of clay is only $7 at Michael’s and I used the weekly 40% off coupon.

Because week four fell between two of the Jewish holidays, we spent some time learning about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We know a Jewish family (met on FriendFeed and then had lunch with them when they were in town) and we were able to read the things they posted on their blog— like what kind of menu they were planning and how the food came out. It was nice to learn about something so foreign to us and to be able to see the examples of friends, the Moskovitzes, living a faith that is not our own. (Here’s one of my favorite posts of their daughter which was “LOL-catted” or captioned by a favorite FriendFeeder and homeschooling dad.)

Week 5 Highlights

Sarah played her first band performance at a football game on Tuesday, October 6. It was exciting for her and for Josh. She came home filled with stories about what she got to play, where she was able to stand as a percussionist (in front of the whole band able to hear everything blasted directly at her), what she ate during her twenty-minute concession break (nachos), and how fun it is to ride the bus to the local high school and back. There was an annoying boy who kept asking her out which totally grossed her out, but I’m sure it boosted her self-esteem, too. I was secretly glad that she was grossed out.

Zack and Seth started their Art Classes with Nancy Peterson and drew pictures of bugs in jars—both real bugs and bugs they made up. I like how she gets them to draw details and they were able to explain why they gave certain characteristics to their bugs. I see the natural tendency to narrate about what they learned when they come home and want to tell me everything about what they did. We timed the bike ride, and Nancy’s house is only eight minutes away. It’s nice that Zack is able to attend with Seth (who took the class alone last year) and they are able to ride bikes there together. We are grateful to Josh’s parents for helping fund this fun class for both boys. Thank you Grandma Niki and Grandpa Randy!

After the boys got home, we went to the old part of town for Humble’s first Farmer’s Market. I have been looking forward to this and didn’t plan a meal for dinner in the hopes of finding some yummy vegetables to buy. I was disappointed since I was picturing glorious Northern California markets with several farmers showing up with their different crops. They close the street and hire musicians… it’s like a party. Here, there was only one farm with a really long line of people and all I could see were cucumbers. The rest of the vendors were selling specialty items like lavender oil, goat milk soaps, beeswax candles and other products made from honey, and orchids. What saved the trip was finding a pumpkin patch being put on by the church hosting the Farmer’s Market in their parking lot. We took some pictures and picked out one pumpkin for each family member. The only bad part is deciding when to carve them. We want to wait until it’s closer to Halloween, but how long will these babies keep? I’m also looking forward to toasting the seeds.

One last highlight of the week was more like a lowlight. We discovered that Sarah was missing a required meningitis shot and would not be able to attend band at the public school if we didn’t get it taken care of. We spent two and a half hours at the clinic to avoid paying a doctor visit fee and $140 for the shot. We ended up getting the shot at the clinic for $4. After having paid and while we were with the nurse getting the shot, she determined that Sarah could get her second dose of a different kind of shot (I’ve already forgotten which) with the next one due in January. We decided to go for it and walked out having paid $4 to get both shots. Zack was ready to claw his eyeballs out after the first hour even though he was reading a book, Zoe slept for the majority of the time, and Seth and Sarah also read books (without complaining). Sarah also took a turn holding Zoe who is already at 30 pounds—felt like 50 at a dead weight. There was also the exposing of my children to an abusive mother to three small children. I didn’t actually see her hit her children, only threaten to do so by raising her hand to them as a stream of threats came out of her mouth, but Sarah told me after that she did hit them. If I had known, I wonder if I would have had the guts to speak out at her. Sometimes being hearing impaired is a blessing, but all of my children have really good hearing. I was bummed that I put them through that, but they were all glad to have me as their mother when we were back in the car and heading back home.

Week Six

Week six starts today and we’re only reading scriptures and writing in our journals for today since it’s Columbus Day. We’ll talk about the holiday and maybe later I’ll get a call out to my favorite Canadians and see how/if they are celebrating Thanksgiving today.

I already know a highlight this week will be a visit from Nana Koko. She is coming from Guam and staying for three weeks. While she is here, we plan on hitting various museums and places of interest as she will be paying for City Passes. We didn’t have a whole lot of fun during her last visit which was during Hurricane Ike, so we are going to make up for it. She might also fly out my oldest brother to come along with us. Hopefully, we will not get a replay of any kind of hurricane or other natural disaster while she is here this time. We are looking forward to spending Halloween with her.

Other News

I got asked to be on a volleyball team playing at QLS and have been playing for a few weeks now. It makes Tuesday nights interesting as Sarah has Young Women, Zack has Webelos, and Josh has gone back to working at the office and barely making it home in time for all of this to begin at around the same time. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try the child care they have there at the gym. Zoe walked right in and started playing. There was so much to see and lots of kids, that she didn’t turn around to say goodbye. So I played for an hour thinking that she was having the time of her life. When I went to pick her up, however, the kids were all gone and she was being held by one of the caregivers sitting on the floor. Zoe held a stuffed animal and was leaning her head on the girl. She looked so sad, and when she saw me, she immediately started to cry. I felt so bad. I could hear her disbelief that I had abandoned her and how she had not expected to ever see me again. I haven’t taken her back there since, but even if I tried, I don’t think she would let me. Sometimes getting to play my favorite sport makes me take desperate measures.

Having older kids to help watch the baby is a wonderful thing, and I believe we are moving off into new territory. Josh and I were able to go to the temple on Saturday and had such a wonderful experience. I feel like this is a step in the right direction to visit the temple regularly. It has been years since we have gone together, and it is such a blessing to leave all the cares of the world at the door as we go in. They were right there waiting for us when we walked back out, but it seemed like the bags had been emptied of very heavy rocks. Going to the temple makes life easier and I think just getting there is the hardest part of all.

As it turned out, yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting at church. I had forgotten a tithing check that I had left at home and I wanted to print a coloring sheet for my Nursery lesson, so I drove back home (we only live a minute away) and got back as soon as I could. Josh had already born his testimony about our temple visit, so I missed it, but lots of people were commenting to me about it throughout the day. I was bummed that I missed it, but then Zack got up and bore his testimony to the whole congregation. It was the first time he had ever done that in a sacrament meeting–even his older sister has not had the nerve to do it yet. It was short and sweet and was mostly about how he was glad that he could pray to Heavenly Father anytime whenever he wanted to. I was so touched and had a really awesome family day yesterday.

I apologize for this long overdue update. I know that it’s better to give my reports a week at a time because then my post wouldn’t be so long (Sorry, Betty). I will do better in the future. Don’t leave without leaving me a comment about how long you think pumpkins last. I could probably google it, but I don’t want to get distracted. I’ve got some work to get done now. Have a good week everybody and Happy Columbus Day!

Posted on October 12th, 2009 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool