An Unconventional Schedule

Sometimes during the school year, you just have to start all over.  You have to throw what doesn't work out and even start from the beginning with a grade level of math...or language arts.

I'll be honest with you.  Even though I have been homeschooling our children for 19 years, I am not very good at it.  But our kids are smart!  And they can think outside the box...even when the directions say to color the deer and he decides to draw it with a gunshot wound.  (Yes, shocking, but seriously!  Deer can be food, right?) 

Sometimes that new curriculum is just the key to opening up that world of creativity just a little bit more than it was before, or making it a bit easier to write neatly. 

I can't help but take photos of the kids doing their work.  No, not every day is peaches and cream.  In fact most days have some sort of struggle.  

Today I had to tell myself that it is totally okay to say some of our children are in the grades they are in despite being a year or two behind in math or language.  Grade levels mean nothing!  What matters is that my children are learning and understanding what they learn.  Some progress faster than others and that is what makes them individuals not carbon copies of other children their ages. 

Wait!  I just dated myself with the carbon copies comment. How many kids today even know what that means!!?? 

Reorganizing the Homeschool Library

I finally decided to get my curriculum and literature organized throughout the house.  Since it wasn't likely we would have a wall shelf in the basement anytime soon, I had to have some more organization to my books.  

So I emptied the dried food, herbs, and teas from the dining room unit and put all the historical books as well as a few novels on the upper two shelves.  These are the living books used for history, science, and geography.  The lower shelf has my homestead collection on it.  

Then I cleared the hutch and put more novels in the cabinet, with older books in the alcove.   

I emptied the metal file cabinet in the basement and brought all the curriculum upstairs to go through and organize.  The left shelf contains mostly children's non-fiction books sorted by subject.  The right shelf is curriculum sorted by subject.  The top has literature by author.  Most are book series. The brown bins have science and math related manipulatives and tools.  

The remaining novels, fiction, and field guides are on a small shelf in the same room.   

The girls have a full shelf of various book series from Animal Ark to Pony Pals, Mandie and more.  

Caleb has another bookshelf in his room with all the picture books.  It has yet to be organized since I need to pull out all the baby books and poorly written books (twaddle) that have been given to the kids in the past.  Caleb has outgrown many of them, so I will have to determine what gets kept and what gets donated.  

It does feel good to get the books organized and in a place to use them when I need them.  I was surprised that I only had about four or five book duplicates.  With as many books as we have, I would think my overloaded brain would have done it more often. 

Meanwhile, if you are looking for used curriculum, take a look at the Homeschool Curriculum Page on my blog.  

Pickles, but NOT Cucumbers

 

When Abby planned her garden, she planted cucumbers.  Oddly enough, she does not eat cucumbers.  But she loves pickles. 

So this morning, when she discovered a cucumber on her vine, she was pretty excited.  She picked some of her dill, and used the cucumbers from both my garden and hers, and started a batch of fermented garlic dill pickles.  

Fermentation is such an awesome way to preserve small harvests.  

In case you are interested, here is a short video on our quail set up. 

https://youtube.com/shorts/j3ZPPWaWmes?feature=share

Good and Beautiful

 

This morning something beautiful happened.  It was something I had hoped for.  

After so many months of fighting and bad attitudes about school lessons, more specifically math, Abigail was at the table at 9 in the morning, uninvited, to work on her lesson. 

It feels so good when you find that fit for a child.  There is so much satisfaction in seeing a child willingly come to learn when for so long she has fought. 

I had come to realize that Abigail is like me: a visual learner.  She needs color, art, pictures, and so much more in order to be drawn into the realm of learning a new subject.  When I took a peek into a friend's school curriculum, I was drawn into it as well.  I really was good...and beautiful, just as the name says. The Good and The beautiful.  Not only does she want to do her math, but she also wants to do her handwriting.  Why? Because it is pleasing to the eye. Some kids need that.  It is so hard to remember that not every child is the same and they aren't all from the same cookie cutter so-to-speak.  

The child like Abigail would fall behind in the classroom.  She is really smart!  But the approach she needs is not typical.  

I am so thankful for a little more peace in the day. 

Mid-June Homestead Update

I had a very long update for you, but once again, my phone couldn't handle uploading 6+ photos to my blog, so rather than stopping the upload, the Blogger app dumped my whole blog. All ten million words from yesterday and today. 

So enjoy a few pictures.

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This is Bob. He is the sweetest and reminds me so much of Charlie. 

The garden has been expanded and mowed. I just have a bit more weed eating to do. 

Garlic has been harvested. Soft neck has been braided, but hardneck is curing.

Abby is learning to drive the tractor.  

As usual, Sundays are our work day since Al works five days a week and the sabbath we rest.  It is so hard to pay attention to how long I am outside, so I ended up sunburned again.  But I have found that tallow is the best for it.  No peeling at all!  

While we were pulling up electric netting near the woods, I must have stepped in a tick nest.  I had seed ticks crawling all over me.  Now I am not a huge fan of deet, but you can believe I was running for the 40% deet and spraying it on my clothes to slow those little things down.  Al said I must have picked off at least twenty ticks from my clothes.  Later in the house I found five or so more hidden in the folds of my knot skirt and YES, one had fixed itself on my back.  I hate those things!  

Because we had to remove the brush pile and rescue my compost from the chickens, I have chickens and turkeys all over creation.  It is highly frustrating, but not much I can do.  We are hoping they all go in tonight.  

Well, you just got a very condensed version of my "lost blog".  I am trying not to overwhelm you with blog updates, so I end up with so much to say I lose it all.  

Have a blessed week!

Homeschool Experiment: Vitamin C Content (And A Project)

Alexandra FINALLY was able to complete her science experiment for her anatomy class.  

There were several steps to it, but once the project was set up, she was able to determine the higher concentrations for vitamin C in various freshly squeezed juices. 

She had strawberry juice, apple juice, grape juice, tomato juice, carrot juice, and orange juice.  After the solution was added to the juice, the color would change.  The lighter the color, the more vitamin C.  It was quite interesting to see. 

The most vitamin C went to orange juice, followed by grape, apple, tomato, strawberry, and carrot.

A few weeks ago, Hannah was able to make a clay model of Mercury. The dough was a little too soft, but she still accomplished her task.