Using Checklists for School Assignments

In the past, I used an itemized checklist (a separate list for each day) for our eldest's schoolwork. However, with his increasing workload, my attempts to continue with that model this year produced a huge and lengthy document that wasn't too practical.

Thus, this year I am going to try the chart method. The concept is the same, but the tightened format allows me to use only one sheet per week. 

I know that I will spend the first few weeks (months?) making tiny changes to this sheet as we find out how best to make it work. But here's how it looks as we prepare to start our school year:

Here are a few quick notes:

* For English and math, I will write the lesson number in the day's box so that the 8yo will know specifically which lesson to do each day. Other items will just be checked off as completed.

* I've decided to try Erika's Character First curriculum plan. We'll do it weekly on Wednesdays. I'll let you know how it goes!

* For Bible and handwriting, I've decided to use timed assignments ("work for 10 minutes") rather than discrete assignments ("read one chapter" or "do one page") in an attempt to work toward quality rather than work done sloppily to get through faster. (Not that I know any children who would do that.)

* Some things are still undecided, like history. Details to come.

* The "Working for God" section is an idea that I got from a sweet Catholic mama who was a speaker at a homeschool seminar I attended several years ago. It's just a simple way to get children thinking outside of themselves and practicing positive character. Again, I'll let you know how that goes.

* The 8yo already reads a minimum of 30-60 minutes per day automatically, so I'm not sure if I should include that on his checklist or not. Another thing to decide.

* I also just learned that our English curriculum (Christian Light) includes a modest amount of penmanship. I'm not sure if we need additional penmanship curriculum or not - another "to be decided" item.

I know that this year is going to have a steep learning curve, and it will be a challenge. All the same, I'm looking forward to it!

Feel free to leave questions!

Tidbits and Snippets for April 29th

When He Takes the Baby Back - A must-read piece on motherhood, fertility, and baby-loss. Applicable to all mamas, not just those who have lost little ones. (Made to Mother, Guest Post by Cheryl at Treasures from a Shoebox)

A Home Filled With Laughter Is a Fun Home - Good reminders. (Always Learning)

When You Feel Like a Cockroach of a Mother - This is one that I've printed off to read often. A million times YES. (In the Nursery of the Nation)

Also check out her post The Imperfect, Interrupted, and Beautiful Life. I need (badly!) to internalize this post. 

Choosing Thankfulness - Oh, my goodness. So much good information. Printing this off to read often! (Large Families on Purpose)

Postpartum Anxiety - How I Am Coping - Excellent information on the physical and spiritual aspects of postpartum anxiety and depression. (Raising Arrows)

The Homebirth of Sophia Diane - Caroline of The Modest Mom shares the story of her little one's entrance. I love her raw honesty about the difficulty of this birth. (The Modest Mom)

Tidbits and Snippets for April 21st

Witness, Winsomeness and Winter - Excellent thoughts regarding the future of the church in the United States and the Western world. Sobering, but vitally important. (Think Theology)

"I spent the weekend with my friend Andy McCullough, who leads a church in a large Middle Eastern city. Amidst all the exciting stories of church growth, baptisms and Muslims coming to faith through dreams, be brought a sombre perspective as well: where I come from, he said, we’ve gone through the whole cycle – winter (0-150), spring (150-300), summer (300-600), autumn (600-1400), winter (1400-2000), and we’re now (God willing) coming back into spring – whereas you guys are in autumn, and may need to start getting ready for winter. Are you ready for that? Or are you living as if an Indian summer will continue forever?"

What My Children Have Taught Me (This Year) - I love lists like these - I'm constantly accumulating lists like this of my own. (Growing In His Grace)

Cultural vs. Biblical Standards - As always, Headmistress hits the nail on the head. (The Common Room)

Mom - At Home - "I have had seasons of outside adventure in the past.  Someday new seasons will arrive. For now, though, I will keep home." (A Fly on My Homeschool Wall)

Study Links Birth Control to Brain Cancer - Was I the only woman who was told none of the health risks when going in to get a birth control prescription? Nope, didn't think so. (Titus 25)

Super-Quick Update

Hello, dear readers! I hope that each of you has had a wonderful month and a blessed Easter!

I'm not blogging much right now, for many reasons!

• I'm preparing for the start of our school year (in two weeks!).
• I'm working on improving sibling relations. 
• The terrible threes are upon us, and they are super-challenging. This too is a work in process. I can feel the Lord growing me as a parent on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis. I am so thankful for this, difficult as it is. 

I have read several blogger/authors who said something like, "My child only had one tantrum because I corrected him properly and it never happened again."

Sisters, I will never attain that level of awesomeness. Just tellin' you the awful truth.

But I am diving into the daily challenges and trials and giving it all of my effort. That is the best I can do, even though I will never attain the above-mentioned parenting nirvana.

"I, throw a tantrum? Why, never!" 

Real life (diapers, meals, chores, illnesses, etc.) is mixed in with all of this. Thus, as always, we're quite busy around here!

Lately I have been deluging you all with blog posts, but I am actually just working through lots of posts that have been sitting in draft form. I would like to get them published so that I'll have a clean slate for new posts soon.

Obi-Wan with his faithful sidekick. 

Time for blogging is rare at the moment. The urge to write (once acquired) does not go away just because one has no time for it, however! Thus, I'll still be around. I'm eager to share some of the ideas we'll be trying this year, and I love to interact with you all.

Here are a few mini-projects we have going at the moment:

Composting - Yes, after a spectacular composting-fail last year, I am trying again! I met with a sweet friend who is a composting master, and she gave me the scoop. Here are a few things I learned:

• Banana peels - Just say no.  
• Water - Compost piles in Arizona must be watered. That's probably why I ended up with a dried up hulk of spider-infested yuck last time!  
• Leaves - That whole nitrogen/carbon balance thing. I needed to add dead leaves. Got it. 
• Burying scraps - Food scraps should be buried in the compost to avoid flies, etc. 
• Turning - Turning, mixing, aerating, etc. Who knew?
  

In a few months... we'll see! I love the idea of composting, so I'm hoping that it will go well.

Restarting the VLC Diet - I've done this at least fifteen times in the past month. In other words, I'm off and on the bandwagon at least once to twice a week. I need to work on consistency here, but carbs are soooo tempting - especially with summer fruit in season.

Spring Cleaning - It's that time of year, but I am oh-so-busy with getting ready for school! My goal is working 15 minutes a day on any given project. Right now it's happening about three times a week - meaning that I'll be at this for several years! Improvement needed.

Working on MESSES - Sometimes you look around and think, "Man, something's gotta change around here." That has happened to me lately - and here are some of the changes I'm trying to implement to improve things:

• Shoes off at the door - It's a hard sell, but I'm determined to make it work - because children simply do not notice the five pounds of mud that they are tracking in with their outside shoes. 
• Table manners - So that the floor doesn't look like a hog wallow after each and every meal.
• "Eat over your plate."
• "Forks, not fingers." 
• "If you're eating or drinking, you must be sitting down at the kitchen table." (i.e. not trailing crumbs all over the house)
• Washing hands after meals - So that toddlers don't leave a greasy handprint trail behind them everywhere they go. 

It's all about how self-disciplined I want to be in enforcing the rules in order to see change happen. Parenting is an exercise in self-growth!

The adults in the family may or may be not enjoying
his new birthday present as much as (more than?) he is. 

Babies and bath time call, my friends! Have a wonderful week!

Have You Heard? (Walmart Delivers!)

Have you heard about Walmart's new shopping and/or delivery service?

We love it!

Walmart is now providing two services:

1. They will shop for you! You order your groceries online, name a pick-up time, and then drive to the side of the store for pick-up. This service is FREE.
2. They will also deliver (from some locations). There is a fee for this service, though it is supposed to be free for the first three months when you sign up. 

We have used the order-and-pickup service three times now, and it has been superb. The website is very user-friendly, and I felt completely at home with it within five minutes (unlike some websites that take years to understand!).

Here are some of the other perks:

• Ordering from the comfort of your home (i.e. without having to spend an hour shopping with a gaggle of children in tow)
• Seeing price breakdowns (they provide the per ounce/unit prices) and being able to compare prices between brands and sizes
• Free upgrades. If they don't have the generic you ordered, they'll give you a name brand. If they don't have the size you ordered, they'll give you a bigger size. All for free. 

This service applies to groceries only (as far as I know), so it covers food, laundry products, toiletries, baby care, etc. - but perhaps not lawn care or automotive. 

I am not a fan of grocery shopping, so this service is heavenly for me. My husband enjoys shopping more than I, but even he prefers a quick 10-minute trip for groceries instead of the 90-minute ordeal in a crowded store. 

If you sign up, please use my referral link so that we can both get a discount! 

Enjoy! 

These People Crack Me Up

Random conversations around our house:
(These are recorded purely for the purpose of humor, so please, no indignant rejoinders.)

Meanwhile, (overheard) back at the ranch...

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"Stop dying, or I won't kill you!"

- The 8yo, displeased with the 3yo's premature fall-down-and-die performance during a battle scene

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A month or two back, I told the 3yo that I was going to throw him into a pit seething with rabid crocodiles (i.e. put him to bed). One time was enough to create an implacable routine. Now I do not dare put the 3yo to bed without going through the whole crocodile routine, complete with the grande finale of the 3yo being eaten alive (i.e. tickled). Should I forget it, the whole household hears about it.

"Cwocodile! Cwocodile! Me want cwocodile!"


***************

Myself, after a particularly difficult day a few weeks ago:

Husband: I'm going to the kitchen. Can I get you anything?
Me: Yes. A vacation.
Husband: Sorry, but it's your doom to stay here and be a slave to your family forever.
Me: Well, pioneer women used to die young. Maybe I can hope for that.

To say that I was in a pessimistic mood may be a bit of an understatement. 


***************

The 8yo sighs wearily and says, "You know, I work harder around here than anyone. I hope you'll never know how hard I have to work."

Remind me to quote this to him in another twenty-or-so years. I suspect that we'll have a good chuckle over that one.

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"When I grow up, I'm not going to get married and have children. If you have children, you have to do a lot of dishes. I'm just going to live comfortably in a hole in the ground."

- The 8yo, who may or may not have been reading a lot of Tolkien recently


"Me dwagon."

- The 3yo, whom the 8yo has taught about Tolkien, in explanation of why he is going around spitting (i.e. breathing fire) on everything


***************

My husband and I, while I worked through my angst about history curriculum:

Me: I just can't figure out whether to use textbooks or unit studies!
Husband: Well, why don't you just keep doing unit studies for another year while you think about it?
Me: No, please, not more unit studies!
Husband: Um, I think you might have your answer.


***************

A few weeks back, a sweet and well-meaning friend laid a concerned hand on my arm and said, "You know, you're looking really, really awful. Are you feeling okay?"

I had been feeling fine. But now, suddenly, I felt overwhelmed. Overworked. Exhausted. Depressed. Likely to die of a mysterious illness in the immediate future.

I moped around the house for an hour or so, before finally going to my husband and asking, "Do I really look that bad?"

He rolled his eyes and said, "You look just fine."

Immediately I cheered up and went about my day.


***************

The 8yo: Mommy, if we'd lived during the Civil War, which side would we have been on?
Me: Well, which side would you prefer?
The 8yo: Well, which side won? That's the side I want to fight on.

The moral compass is obviously finely tuned in this child.


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And finally:

"She's a Christian, but she wears glasses."

- An acquaintance's child, regarding a new playmate at school

Gotta watch out for that kind, for sure.

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Have a great day, everyone! 

Tidbits and Snippets for April 16th

How Much Sugar Is Recommended Per Day? - Good stuff, and the comment section is great too. (Mark's Daily Apple)

Seven Reasons We Hate Free Range Parenting - This just makes me sad. I hope and pray that we can sometime see a major push-back against our current CPS-happy culture. (Bloomberg View, hat tip to Challies.com)

Character Training for Children: A Core Aspect of Discipleship - One of my favorite bloggers talks about character training for homeschool families. Haven't read this yet, but have it up to peruse - it looks awesome. (Large Families on Purpose)

Delighting in Death - "The giddy, grinning delight which the Gloria Steinems of this world display concerning abortion is driven by more than just the desire to stop rape victims having unwanted children. It is powered by the grotesque thrill which holding power over life and death brings with it." Fascinating insights here. (First Things)

Ten Blessings That Come With a Large Family - We don't have a large family (yet?), but these were fascinating to read. (In the Nursery of the Nation)