Passed by the public school and she shouts-------

that's MY school!!!  WHAT?  You mean the school you use to attend! I follow it up with the do you miss it question.  She quickly replies---"ARE YOU CRAZY?". 

Whew!  She had me scared for a moment. Then little F tells her, "I am sure glad we get to be in school together. I would miss you SOOO much if we were in that big building.  How could I ever find you when I need you?" 

So this week we did some math testing on G and she did well.  As I have repeatedly said--g is a learner--not a memorizer. Yet, she is retaining more and more facts quickly but as math goes on she begins to revert to her old self and seems blocked. Suddenly what she knew at the start of a lesson is forgotten and frustrating. Math is only 20 min. lesson time but she drags it on and on.

F is making so much progress in her reading skills this past two weeks. She is a little copy cat of her sister and I found her laying in her bed at bedtime with her old reader and challenging herself. 

Yesterday I pulled out their sandbox and filled it up.  It provided hours of imagination play.  Next week however we will need to clean the sand as they pulled up every dandelion in the yard and made there own garden that was later destroyed by the volcano.

I managed to do more typical lessons this past week but ended up with more delays as my own mother had to go to the hospital.  I have also been working in both homes to get things in order. I will be happy when K is off of bed rest and she can come down to help teach and do her own dishes.  Next week I will go to the city to purchase next years curriculum and K has another ultrasound as they keep a close eye on the placenta hemorrhage and the heartbeat.  Even with that I plan to keep the girls routine more routine next week.  HA ha...as I typed that I recall the physical therapy appt and the orthopedic surgeon appt on Monday. The book display is on Tuesday and the ultrasound is on Thursday. Guess I will get it in when it works and do some traditional lessons on Wednesday and Friday.---OK--- I will do traditional lessons the week after next.  (oh the beauty of home school--learning is as flexible as life itself)  Yet they do indeed learn and do it well.

Now it is time to sit back and watch the May flowers grow, after all we had 19 days of rain in April and almost 8" worth. The river is touching my drive and one neighbor is already stuck behind the line as he did not get his truck out before his drive was impassable.

Today G is seven years old

We have all heard how time flies. It of course does not seem like she could be seven yet.  G is a beautiful soul. She is quick to smile and laugh. She is a silly girl as all seven year old girls should be. She is caring and compassionate and a faithful child. She is very smart and an eager, excellent learner. She is always eager to please and feels deep personal sorrow if she thinks that she has not.  My heart is the only part of me that can express the joy she has brought to my life as no words are adequate.  This picture is from Feb. 2011 and I really like it as it is so expressive of her joy as it bursts out of her.

No more seeds for you!!!

Due to our unexpected break prior to Easter we hit the books today. It was just me again to teach the girls. I really enjoy it when I do not have K's voice doing a different lesson in the background but I also missed her presence as it was of course twice the effort on my end. The girls each get a great one on one attention when we both teach.  I do not know anyone who gets to team teach in their home like we do, which means that the teacher in each home has to work that much harder and plan so much more than I do. 

I must say that it worked out well since G is a pretty independent learning in all subjects but math.  I spent a brief period going over the directions with her and gave her several pages to complete. She did so with total independence and without an error.  I had not really prepared for the day either so tomorrow will be better.

We have had a strange thing happen with our planting experiments. The girls planted sunflower seeds in a pot during their 4H Clover bud meeting.  G's came up just exactly as expected. It was a text book picture. F's began to come up but one seemed to stop. The other seen began to grow as a loop with both ends buried in the dirt until suddenly the one popped up but is tall and weak.  Then there are the beans they planted in the Ziploc bags to observe. G's is once again a text book project with the roots turning downward then the stem going up and finally today it has leaves reaching to the top of the bag and a strong root system.  HOWEVER that is not the story for F's bean. Initially the root began to emerge but then as the sprout was coming the entire thing got mixed up and it is wrapped around itself not sure where to go. It is as large as G's but is in one big ball with roots twisting all around and the green leaves looped downward.  We have joked that F is a little demon sometimes and I held back all the jokes so as to not discourage her and we found a long moment to laugh at both of her plants.  We also told her that she was only going to be permitted to pull weeds from the garden this year as we need that food for our bellies not for the grubs and critters that live underground. 

I have been very busy today as I manage two households right now.  I hope to help keep things flowing well in both homes. M  is working evening shift this week but I still have to be there in the morning or F would not be able to learn in the afternoon as well.

We have had massive storms around here for the past four days. Several tornadoes in the area as well with lots of damage. It even shut down the St. Louis Airport.  My eye is on the river as it rises and think it may be an impassable road to the house soon.

So much to say but no umpf to get it done so I will say good night.

Praying for the baby to hang on!

I am a real person with real day to day struggles just like you.  Sometimes we have more joyous times and other times the struggle goes on and on feeling as an endless pit.

As I face this holiday season I reflect upon what the Lord did for me.  Besides being the Son of God, He was a man of free will just as you and I. He obeyed His Father's commands and I am sure both God and Jesus were heartbroken for a moment in time. 

My sins are washed away and I try to be faithful to God and put my trust only in Him.

I am doing so this week.  K is expecting another child in early December but has had a difficult time maintaining viable babies. He last angel was delivered directly into the hand of the Lord last October.

With that said, we have taken the entire week off from school and called it Spring Break but the reality was that we have been at the hospital and doctors offices again. K will maintain bed rest for at least the next seven weeks. She has developed a small separation of the placenta although we have seen our new souls hear beating we are concerned. I put it into God's hands but find that I slip back to worry still.  I found a great peace last night and hope to keep that position in my spirit.

Easter will be different as we do this around a mommy who stays in bed.  Gee, when she was on bed rest for the last 11wks with G --I pulled her bed into the living room.

In the meantime I will figure out how to manage both homes for a little while. He only gives me what He knows I can do.  Now I must convince myself of the same.

Wordless Wednesday

Field trip to St. Louis Science Center.

Back row are parents M (dad) K (mom)

Front row F and G

I, of course take a snapshot of the moment.

Seeking to slow it down

So last night I was going to slow it down. I did slow the pace but still pack the day and did not get the important tasks completed.

We had planned to take an Easter break beginning Thursday but took today off of school instead. We will do classes again on Wednesday and Thursday.  So why did we take the day off?  I needed G to look at the options I had for her birthday gift.  K(mom) really wanted me to get her a swing set.  Grandpa Roger did not agree with this as he felt that it was then a gift for the entire family and not something special for G.  When I spoke w/ G about a possible swing set she did not seem excited at all but gently told me that she will be happy with anything I give her. In her sweet little girl voice she encouraged me to get her whatever I wanted that I thought she would like.  OH yes, sweet but passive aggressive in a way. I know they could sure use some play items for their new backyard which is vastly empty. No trees to hang in or climb, no stream to play around. Much different from their daily activities at my house when I was providing childcare as well and both parents worked.
Off track am I?  SO Roger and I were out and he saw a teeter-totter that was a shape of an airplane. Sure it too was toy for the entire family but it was uniquely G's first.  Not sure what she thought of it I took her to the farm store today and she went gaga over it before she even knew we were willing to make the purchase.  Now for her surprise gift she will receive the entire collection of the Magic Tree House book collection.

Then we went to the afternoon movie of RIO together, G and F along with K and myself.  It was a calm afternoon.  Now we await storms tonight, tornado already a bit north this evening and storm chasers are around. I am home and headed to the front porch.  I live in the holler so I do not get to see much of the storm as it comes in,  only feel its breeze and enjoy the smell. 

Here is a recent picture of the girls settling in to begin class one morning.  Well we still call 10AM the morning but we do not typically begin class until then.

The entire past six weeks in a nutshell

The title may say more than I can recall in one post. It seems that March was very busy for us and it has not slowed down until tomorrow.  At least that is my plan, after tonight I am going to find the slower part of me and take slower more deliberate strides.

Now that is a laugh!

We did a great project during March that we called LION OR LAMB.  Each day we marked on the graph that we put on the wall and had some early spring weather observation. It was such a huge success that we are now graphing rain and dry days and calling it our APRIL SHOWERS graph.  Now I must be honest. We have been out of the traditional classroom so much this month that the poor graph is looking pitiful. I must say that the girls really enjoyed it.

Tomorrow I have already told them that we are going to be back in the classroom where all of our visual aides are kept and have a terrific lesson day.  I recall as a child thinking that we did not finish all of our book when the end of the year came.  I was puzzled by that but find that will be the case in our school as well.  So I glanced into the books for the next grade level and we will be fine.

So what have we been doing?  Our week was cut short one day for the past ten weeks while we participated in our Master's Lyceum.  It is an enrichment program offered by the co-op group we participate with.  I taught two classes and helped in one.  Then entire day consisted of four classes for each child.  It was time consuming to prepare for the classes as well so much suffered around my own home. 

We took a great field trip that was all about math.  On our way home G asked when we were going to go to the "math place".  When we told her we just spent three hours at our math field trip she replied..."that wasn't math, that was fun"  TaDa...success!!!!!

We got a classroom bunny but it suddenly became ill and passed.  I have replace it but it does not yet have the same friendly disposition as the other one.

G has a pen pal who is also home schooled and she was excited to get another letter from her.  She has sent one back as well.  It is good practice for her to keep this up, and they may even find a friendship in it sometime.

G has many girl scout events this past month as well.

F has really taken off in her reading skills.  She is not fast but she is accurate and enjoying it.  We are beginning some special sounds in phonics.  I do expect her to be officially a first grader next year.  I had planned on spending two years on it but she is ready to go on, even at the age of 4.

I know I am a grandmother here but the girls are very bright and I hope to provide them oil for their lamps for many years to come.  It has become late here so I cannot even try to catch up, just move on from here.

MawMaw Jean--I hope you find this site easy to work with.

Settling here for my blog!

I am so disappointed at the other blog site and I hate to loose what I have done so far but I cannot keep up with a blog when my site is unreliable, not to mention the ads by google that are showing up in the middle of my posts.--not on a side bar but in the post.

SO I will keep it up on this site and not flip around.

Spring breeze

The clover has purple tops and the yard at the girls house is always breezey in that wide open space that even with the flat land it is a high point near a heated lake that keeps the wind gusty.  This year he plan will be to put grass in the yard of their new home.

My accounting of a Spring day

Today is a great day overall. G received a letter from her pen pal so she was very excited. She is eager to write back.  The sun is wonderful and so very warm on my skin. It seems to be warming  me to by bone and finally I am melted.  Lots of April showers are in our forecast.
Chickens are laying well but  I need a new wheel barrel and get the coup cleaned out. I cannot imagine our wheel barrel broke  I refuse to cut grass until after Easter. It is a tried and true tradition for me, however, this year Easter will be at the girls home instead so I may break down and cut the yard.
Classes went well today and I see that soon we will begin soon get to a new level of math with G.  We will complete our 176 days of required attendance on May 19th but have slated our last day for May 31st. We will however not get through all of math with G or have F at the level we would like her in reading.  With that said we will continue each class all summer in their weaker areas.  Yes, F is young but all the rest of her work will be at the First Grade level so why not keep developing her reading skills to the level we desire also.  Then again she will not be lower level if we stop but she likes to "play school" during sister's lesson time.

Today G did very well in her math and it looks like it is beginning to click, as long as we stop before she gets too tired of it.  I find that sometimes I extend that class time to get in more information but have also learned that she  does not learn the information when the class is too long. It seems to take a lot of concentration for G to get her math completed and to extend the lesson time defeats her progress.

I am off, heading back out to the sun.

April Showers

In our class time we have spent time observing the weather for March and graphed the Lion and the Lamb days. As April begins we now will graph days of rain and days without.  The girls seem to enjoy this observation and we begin our garden for the season.

It is hard to imagine that the school year is coming to an end in a 6weeks but we will continue with math all summer. G is doing so well that she is able to advance rather independently in phonics and reading. I have seen the second grade curriculum and find that we will begin half way through the book next year.

All later....just now moving here on a permanent basis