Covered Wagons

Inspired by reading the Little House series we decided to make model covered wagons from popsicle sticks, cardboard and brown paper bags. 

This is one of those projects that makes me feel like a "real" homeschooling mom. 

It's really crazy to think of how much effort goes into doing a relatively simple project like this!

First, I searched for Little House projects - I found this one for a covered wagon on Pinterest. Then, I needed to make sure we had the materials - so one day when I was out I went to Michael's and got the popsicle sticks. Turns out that you need 2 different kids of popsicle sticks so I had to go back on another day. Then, we needed a day when the morning routine went smoothly enough, we did not have anything else to do in the afternoon - and everyone was in a good enough mood to do the project. So, something that could seem like a relatively easy project, takes on a feeling of being somewhat miraculous. 

Gavriel taught a class at our house last night and I found myself, like a little kid, showing off the wagons. They really are cute. The girls are also making all sorts of stuff, from Sculpey, to put inside the wagons. (Look out for the next post about the Sculpey obsession in our home.) 

Master Plan Take 3 - dance between structure and emergent energy

To quickly catch you up if you haven't read Master Plan and Master Plan Take Two...

The basis of Master Plan was we are going to have a highly structured morning with a full on check list and get all of our school work done sitting together at the dining room table in one hour.  What went wrong with that is that my kids all fought for my attention and distracted each other and boy did that hour get long.

So, Take Two - my plan was to work with each kid individually while the other kids had "research time" (time to explore any topic they wanted) on the computers. I worked with each kid between 30 and 45 minutes and then adding on transition time, so that meant that everyone was getting at least 1.5 hours of computer time.  Also, what was meant to be research time quickly became half research time and half game time... and down from there.

The good thing about Take Two was that by working individually with each of my kids they really learned what they needed to do and gained the ability to do it independently. Yeah for little triumphs! The other thing we learned is that the more screen time my kids get the more miserable they are to parent.  They now have 1 hour of screen time a day - usually at night after dinner is cleaned up so that gives me and Gavriel and hour to get stuff done, or talk to each other or just decompress before the bedtime routine starts. Adin usually uses his time to play a game called Stronghold and the girls have been watching some shows (My Little Pony, Horseland, and now Avatar).  We do find that screen time is such a slippery slope and are constantly having to reign in how much and what they are watching.

What was also challenging about Take Two is that we were stuck in the house all morning and I felt that we were not getting anything done besides Math and some basic Language Arts. So, I decided to loosen the structure and let the kids know that they could do their assignments at any point during the day but they had to get them done in order to have screen time at night. Screen time is still the biggest motivating factor for my children. I definitely have mixed feelings about that - the details of which will maybe and maybe not be discussed at another time.

That created a little honeymoon in our home where I felt like we could flow a little better and follow emergent energy and now I feel that we are ready to make a shift again.

This seems really true to me about homeschooling - at least the way it's working for us - we are constantly having to reevaluate what's working and what's not and making tweaks here and there. For me it feels like a dance between making structures and then feeling restricted in some way by those structures so we loosen up and then at some point things start to unravel a bit too much and I start longing for a bit more structure. I do keep fantasizing that one day we will find this magical sweet spot or that the movement back and forth between structure and emergent energy will somehow flow sweetly. However, right now it's still a bit clunky.

Here are some things that I feel need to shift right now:

We need a regular wake up time! Our natural tendency seems to be to keep waking up later and going to sleep later. This does not work for us for two main reasons. 1. Gavriel has to go to work and he needs time in the morning to do Hebrew with the kids. 2. When the kids go to sleep too late Gavriel and I not get enough time with each other.

We need a better line up of fun projects.  I really love the idea of un-schooling where kids will take interested in some subject or activity and I can somehow easily facilitate that in the moment. What seems to be true for our family right now is that we do a little better with some structure. I feel like I need to expose them to things that they might take interest in or they might not.

It's also true that sometimes I will overlook something that they are interested in because it somehow does not match the picture in my head. For example, Aderet is obessed with listening to Harry Potter books on CD (which is it's own funny story because she had originally insisted that even if I took it out from the library she would definitely not listen to it.) Today, I had a plan that we would sit on the couch together and snuggle while we read Little House in the Big Woods and thought of some projects we could do. But Avigayil and Aderet really just wanted to listen to Harry Potter. So on one hand I was enjoying that they were really into something and on the other hand I was having to fight back the voices of judgement in my head that they were just sitting there.



The kids need to get out of the house more.  Once a week the kids all go to Boulder Explore. Adin seems to really enjoy it - especially the social aspect of it. Aderet claims to not want to go at all - and I guess for my sake I want to believe that she likes parts of it. Avigayil is somewhere in the middle. Adin has also been going to a computer class though science discovery, he started in a club that is meant to inspire writing called Druidawn Creations, and he also goes to Judo twice a week and is a Mother's helper for Mitten on the Thrusdays that he does not go to Druidawn. We've been to the Blue Skies park day a couple of times recently which was good as well. The girls don't get out as much but I'm trying to change that. I just signed them up for a homeschool rock climbing class at the East Boulder Rec Center and they are on the wait list for gymnastics. I'd also like to sign them up for one of the Science Discovery classes or some other class.

The basic theme is that I'm ready for a little more structure again. Thank G-d tomorrow is Friday so we can rest into Shabbat and start the whole project up again next week.

Why we homeschool

If I had to sum up why we are homeschooling it's here:

Sunday Cooking with Shanna - by Adin

Yesterday Shanna came over to teach me some knife skills. We learned about different dices and cuts. We practiced cutting by making a yummy salsa call called Pico de Gallo with tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapeno, corn, olive oil, salt and pepper. We made a tomato concasse, small diced the jalepeno and sweet red pepper. 

Then we made a glazed salmon recipe from an America's Test Kitchen recipe.  You can watch the episode to learn how to make it here.

It was great working with Shanna. The salmon was absolutely delicious. The jalapenos completely scared the wits out of me because I had a bad experience with a hot chili pepper. I had been tasting peppers at Mitten's house to see if they were hot. Of  course the second pepper I tried was a chili pepper. I put the tip of it in my mouth and then immediately spat it out onto the ground. Then it got all over my face and then in my eye. It sucked a lot. I had to take a shower in milk. This time it was better. Chili peppers are hotter than jalapeno peppers. 

Making G.F. Cinnamon Rolls with Avigayil

Avigayil and I made G.F. Cinnamon Rolls today from the recipe on the package of the Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust Mix. 

YUM!!!!

Daily Notes - Sunday 10/21/12

Today felt like the first relaxing day in a LONG time. We went away for Shabbat but had to clean it really well on Friday as other people were staying in our house while we were way. The amazing part about that is that we got to come home to a CLEAN house!

Gavriel had to be up and out of the house early this morning to help out with the culling of the older chicken flock from the Jewish Community Farm.  Gavriel learned Shechita last year and I think this is his 4th time being involved in a slaughter. The rest of us rolled out of bed closer to 9.  I got the kids dressed and fed and brought them over to the shul where the shechita was happening.

On a side note; last year Gavriel had brought home about 8 shechted chickens that still needed to be plucked, soaked, salted and rinsed.  The kids and I along with Jules, our live in nanny, plucked the chickens and then Gavriel and I did the soaking and salting.  After that experience it was very clear to me why people prefer to buy their meat from a package in a store rather than be "closer to their meat". Since then Avigayil only wants to eat "store chicken" - and to be honest I really understand.

I thought that I was only going to be dropping Adin and Aderet off at the shul but Avigayil decided to stay as well as their good friend Laini was there.  While Adin and Aderet went over to check out the processing Avigayil kept her distance. I got to go home and take care of some things in the house and they hung out there for a while and jumped in piles of leaves. Our friend Bruce Shaffer took some pictures so I hope to be able to post them here soon.

Eventually they came home, had lunch and played with Laini for the rest of the afternoon and Adin and his friend Tovi took off on their bikes to the Valmont Bike Park.

I had a chance to go to the  Book Worm to sell some books we were ready to let go of and get some new ones. As I'm starting to write more often I bought myself two grammer books: Woe is I  and Eats, Shoots & Leaves.  That way I will know for sure if I was meant to use a colon, semi-colon or comma in the previous sentence after the words "grammer books".

We ended the night we home-made gluten free pizza and Madagascar 3. Well, Gavriel was teaching a class to post Bat-Mizvat girls, the kids watched the movie and I re-organized the bookshelf in the play room. I think I pretty much got the Madagascar plot down from numbers 1 and 2.

It's now almost 10 pm and I'm sitting in Avigayil's room with her hoping that she falls asleep soon. More on Avgigayil and her sleep later...

Our Master Plan (Take Two)

The Chagim just finished less than a week ago and we are all slowly recovering. Laundry is getting done, routines and schedules are being created again and tomorrow we are hopefully going to see if we can tweak our "Master Plan" a bit to work a bit better for us.

It really wasn't working for me to be working with all 3 kids at the same time. I like the idea of all us all being able to sit down for an hour and get it all done but it became clear really quickly that right now all of my kids need my individual attention and are not that skilled at working independently. 

The new plan is to stick with our morning routine - but instead of the kids doing 1 hour of minecraft time after that they will have 1.5 hours of research time. 

I'm hoping that I will be able to spend about 45 minutes with each kid while the other two have their research time. This is basically watching approved educational videos. 

Oh, another thing I'm aware of is that I really can't sleep until 8:30 or 9am and expect the morning to go well. So my new goal is 8 am and I'm hoping that will be more than enough sleep. 

I'm also really hoping that the kids will start going to sleep earlier and waking up earlier. 

40% off and Sales Tax

Yesterday we went to Old Navy to go clothes shopping for the kids. It was 40% off if we used our Banana Republic card. So we had a discussion about percentages and a brief tutorial on how to calculate them.

In order to figure out how much we were spending we also practiced rounding up.

Later in the day Zayde brought Adin to Bicycle village to check out the bike that Adin has been saving for. He called me from the store to find out how much was in his bank account and did some mental math to calculate how much more he would need to save in order to get the bike.

We then talked about the fact that he would also have to pay sales tax. So we calculated that - and he negotiated with Zayde to get him to pay for the sales tax.

This afternoon Adin was able to take his money from Chanukah and birthday savings and working as mother's helper for Mitten and buy his dream bike! I'm so happy for him.

Our Master Plan

Today was the first "official" week of our second year of homeschooling. Kind of. The truth is I really subscribe to the "always learning" model and our schooling is an eclectic combination of traditional school at home and unschooling.

Here's a bit of our schedule as it looks right now and some points about what feels like it's working and what needs some tweaking.

8:00 am - Wake Up!

Everyone starts to wake up. Well, Gavriel wakes up sometime closer to 7 and Adin sets his alarm at 7:45. By the time I wake up which is usually closer to 8:30 Gavriel and Adin are already davening Shacharit together.   I have to say that getting to sleep in and have my kids sleep in is probably the best part of homeschooling. I actually go through my days without the chronic fatigue that I used to live with and I love not waking kids up from a deep sleep to shove them out the door. LOVE IT.

The kids each have their own morning routine check list that they do.

Modeh Ani
Wash Negel Vasser
Wash Face
Brush Teeth
Brush Hair
Clean room (including making the bed)
Put way laundry (*I'll share about our laundry system some other time)
Eat Breakfast
Clean up Breakfast
Daven
Hebrew (or for Adin Bar Mitzvah Prep)

Right now the girls are using the Berman House Hebrew Through Prayer  curriculum. As I was finding the link I also saw that they have some interactive CD's so I'll hopefully get some of those as well. 

Adin is working on getting the prayer service down and his Bar Mitzvah. I wanted to get him some of the Yesodot Haloshon workbooks that they used at DAT but I was amazed to find they have an incredibly archaic ordering service where I have to send them a check! By mail! So, I did what I usually do when faced with something that takes more steps than I want it to: freeze up and take no action at all (yes, I'm working on this). I may still order them but I also may just see if Berman House has something that is suitable for him as they are much easier to order from. 

Amazingly they mostly do this all very well as they are extremely motivated for the next part of the day.

9:30 am - Minecraft!
(ideally but today it was @ 10am because Gavriel helps with the Hebrew and he was out tutoring and did not get back unitl 9:30)

At this point they get 1 hour of their favorite computer game Minecraft (I'm sure you'll hear more on that later as well).

I try to use this time to get some of my own work done and/or prep for the rest of our homeschool day.

10:30 is snack time and story time. 

This morning they had some junkie pudding but it motivated them to get off the computer, made them really happy and I convinced myself it at least had some protein in it. (I originally bought the pudding on a whim at Costco as a bribe for the kids to take with them to the new Boulder Explore program that they just starting going to once a week on Tuesdays... but it seems to have sneaked it's way into other days of the week as these things always do. (*this is one of those areas where I do a little pendulum swing trying to find the right emotional health of being flexible with food and the physical health of getting as much nutrition in them as possible).

Right now we are reading Story of the World - which is a history curriculum. Right now we mostly just read the story and Aderet enjoys doing the coloring pages. We also have some two Usbone world history encyclopedias that I bust out and open to the cooresponding pages and check out the maps. There are also suggestions of complimentary books we can get out of the library so I plan on strewing those around so if anyone is interested in learning more they can.

11:00  One Hour of School 

This is the part of our day that feels the most like traditional school and also is the most challenging as I'm working with 3 different kids on different materials at the same time. Today I think it went as well as it could have for the first day.

All of the kids are using Mammoth Math  for Math curriculum. Right now Adin is doing some finishing up/review of 5th grade and I've started both of the girls on 2cd grade as they are really on the same level.

For Language Arts the girls are working through the Explode the Code workbooks.

So, I got busy and have not finished this post but I'll hopefully get to it later...

Curious and Curious

I feel a bit nervous trying to write the first entry for our new blog to document our second year of homeschooling. I say homeschooling because that is what has inspired and given space to this venture but really I'm hoping to create more seamlessness between our learning and our life. 

I used to be an avid writer of papers, letters and journals and I have not written much besides grocery lists in years. So, part of this blogging experiment is for me to find my writers voice (and hopefully other parts of myself) again. 

The first name that I thought of for this blog was "finding our way" (but that was taken). I turned 40 this year and questions of personal identity are bubbling over. Who am I? What do I really believe? What's important to as I move into the second half of my life? What are the core values that I want to pass onto my children and how do I go about doing that? How do I support my children in finding their own voices and cultivating their strengths? So this blog is partially to share with family and friends bits and pieces of our life but also as a mirror for myself. I'm curious to see what creative connected whole might emerge from the puzzle of pieces we lay out here. 

Curiosity is the goal here. Many years ago a mentor of mine told me to, "stay curious as long as possible." I've always thought of that in terms of how to show up when dealing with a particular complicated or challenging situation. But the truth is, this whole being alive thing is really a complicated, challenging situation. 

I also like that curious has two meanings. One curious being: eager to learn more, and the other curious  being: rousing interest because of novelty or strangeness. While at other points in my life I've worked very hard to make everything line up and make sense at this point in my life I'm prepared to be both curious and curious.