This is fun!

Homeschooling with a 2-Year-Old

You know, I thought our homeschooling experience last year was interesting, with Isaac being mobile and all.

It had nothing on what this year is turning out to be! Last year, he was fairly content to play by himself with is cars or whatever I had out, as long as I was in the same room. Sometimes I'd find him, say, standing on the dining room table, if I hadn't been paying close enough attention, but for the most part, it wasn't so bad.

Fast forward to this year, and it's an entirely different ballgame! He is not happy to play with his toys when his big sisters are doing something that is clearly much more interesting. In fact, he seems to think he can do a better job of teaching than I can. He seems to be particularly fond of math.



He does an outstanding job with the story problems, too.



Truthfully, I believe the appeal lies in the white board and markers. I finally gave him his own little white board, and that keeps him busy for at least a little while. It's not easy to keep him contained when he can climb out of the Pack n' Play and pull the baby gates open. Good thing he's so cute.

Crash, but not Burn

Yesterday, I was in a car accident. Someone pulled out in front of me, I swerved, missed her vehicle... but rolled my car into the ditch. I know the van only tipped over onto its roof, but it felt like long enough for it to roll several times. Those slow-motion scenes you see on television do a pretty accurate job of representing how things seem to your brain, I think, during highly stressful situations.

While this was not an experience I would care to repeat, the hand of God was on me the entire time. I have never felt like a walking miracle before, but I do now! Let me tell you why.

First of all, my children weren't with me. Since we homeschool, this almost never happens. I am so, so grateful that they were not hurt, and don't have to suffer any of the psychological after effects of being in a car accident.

I can only guess that the other driver was picking up children from the school near our house. Since I didn't hit the other car, no children were involved in the accident at all. And, since I didn't hit the other driver, she wasn't injured, either.

I got to experience my first ride in an ambulance and first visit as a patient to the emergency room, but I could have walked away from the accident. I have "whiplash," a black eye, and some cuts and bruises, but that's it. As my friend Ginny said, there are many people who have experienced a lot less accident and received a lot more injury.



The other driver took full responsibility at the scene. This may not seem like a big deal, but in the world of insurance and liability, it really is.

Poor Ariel Mermaid didn't survive the crash, I'm afraid. I don't think most cars do, when they end up upside down.





She even had some guts hanging out, poor thing.



The girls are so sad that we lost our van - we really did like having her! We're on the hunt for a new car. Used or new? Honda? Toyota? Who knows?

Three Children's Books We Love

I have a passion for children's books. There, I've confessed. The primary reason we have so many, aside from homeschooling, is that I love them. It's a bonus if the kids like them, too.

I've been reading two books to Isaac lately that I wanted to share. The first one is called Hush, Little One.



Grammy and Papa gave Abbie her first copy when she was a toddler, and we went through two of them. The girls and I were even in a magazine add for Concordia Press after I sent them an email telling them how much we enjoyed the book. It presents the Gospel to children in such a sweet, gentle way, and you can sing the rhyme to the tune of "Hush, little baby, don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird." Remember that song? Of course, you can read it, too, if you don't like to sing. Sometimes the girls would ask me to sing it, and sometimes they wanted me to "talk it." Emma used to say, "Emma's prayers by Jesus are heard!" It just melted my heart.

I will tell you that I prefer the hardcover version, published in 2002. That's the one Abbie had. I found the board book for Isaac at Lifeway, and while I love being able to share the book with him in a format that he's less likely to change the story, the rhyme has been revised somewhat and I don't like it as well. I'm sure it's primarily because I expect the first version, but I do prefer the way the first version refers to Jesus rather than Christ as they do in the board book; it seems more personal to me. I think it was rewritten to fit better with the rhythm of the song, as I look it over, but I still prefer the original.

Another book that Isaac and I love is Where is the Green Sheep? It's a fun little book by Mem Fox. (I am partial to Mem Fox. Another of our favorite bedtime stories is Time For Bed.)



This little book shows lots of neat things. It has opposites, colors, shapes, and familiar activities. Isaac's favorite is the "slide sheep." He always says "Whee!" and traces the path of the slide with his finger. He likes "sheepies" right now, anyway, so I make sure we take this book when we go out and always have it ready at bedime.

Last, but not least, I must tell you about one of my all-time favorites.



I found this wonderful little book in Borders in Ann Arbor (the first Borders, ever, by the way) and bought it for my niece when she was little - she's now a sophomore in high school. I try to give it to everyone I know when they have children. I have read it more times than I can count, and I still love it! It's called Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw. It is so funny, and so fun to read, if you haven't read it yet, you should at least get it from the library.

There you have them - Book recommendations by Beth. I just thought of some more, but I'll save those for another day.

Hedwig Sock #1

This is the sock that Beth knit.



This is a foot, cozy and warm, wearing the sock that Beth knit.



This is a foot, sad and forlorn, out in the cold and suffering scorn, for it has no sock that Beth knit.



This is the yarn, ready to go, wishing to cover the other toes, and match the sock that Beth knit.

Birthday, Beeps and Books

Today, my baby turned 2 years old. I don't know where the time has gone!

We actually started his birthday on Saturday, when Daddy put together his nifty John Deere tricycle from Grandma and Grandpa. He loves it! He doesn't really get how to pedal just yet, but he will walk it around, and put things in the bucket for dumping later. I learned that day that his favorite things to put in the buckets are flowers picked from our neighbor's mailbox flower bed, and that his sister seems to think it's fine to let him pick them...

We were supposed to go to the beach today. Isaac LOVES the beach. He's been asking to go to the beach with Grandpa for several days now, in fact. When we looked at the weather forecast for Wilmington last night, it showed a fairly nice morning, but thunderstorms for the rest of the day. We thought we'd still chance it, and even if we spent the afternoon at the aquarium, it would still be a good day.

However, when we got up this morning and checked again, it looked like thunderstorms had already started, with no sign of letting up all week. Todd and I decided we needed to revise the plan. Three hours is a long drive for the aquarium, when all a tiny boy wants is to go to the beach.

We started off with Hopper's House, a nifty jumping place in our neighborhood. All three kids had a blast, and Isaac was not interested in leaving when it came time for lunch! However, once we got to Moe's, he ate his lunch, part of mine, and some queso and chips. Then, it was off to A.C. Moore with a coupon for a new "Thomas." Isaac does love his "too-tooch."

After making our final Thomas selections, we headed home for a nap. I got in a little knitting time and Todd got to play with his new Mac software. :-) I was able to take Abbie to gymnastics and watch her, which was a big treat for me! Todd stayed home and played trains with the boy, and even took him outside for an hour or so, which was another big treat. Isaac loves to be "outside sunshine."

Abbie and I brought home the pizza and the cake. Isaac at a little bit of his pizza, but he was really holding out for "cake-cake." I don't know why he likes to say it twice, but it's pretty cute. I think he blew the candles out twice before Todd wised up and held him back so we could sing and take a video.

After cake, we gave him his presents, which were comprised of books and "beeps." Isaac has called vehicles of any type, really, "beeps" since he started talking a few months ago. He does call buses "b-bus," airplanes are "air p'dane," and boats are "booooot" with a lovely U.P. accent. In general though, they are collectively known as beeps. Anyhoo, he got enough beeps to keep him busy for a good long while, I think.

The one thing we didn't get out was his new scooter. If the weather holds tomorrow, we will get that out and play "outside sunshine."

The New School Year

Well, we were supposed to start school this week, but we all have colds, so I'm putting it off until Sept. 1. My birthday was today, and Isaac's is next Monday, so I think we will just wait until all the celebrations are over and then buckle down.

I'm excited about our curriculum for this year! We're using Living Books Curriculum Year 3, which covers Ancient Greece and Rome for world history, and Westward Expansion for U.S. history. The girls will also learn Bible, storytelling and science from our LBC materials. We will do picture studies of ancient Greek and Roman art, as well as art in early America. We will do composer studies of ancient Greek music, Palestrina, Vivaldi, and Bach. They also start Shakespeare this year.

Since Emma is in 4th grade this year, I have to teach North Carolina history. I would rather teach Michigan history, but I suppose there will be time for that after we meet the requirement for NC. It will be good for us to learn about North Carolina, since I've lived here for 11 years now and the kids are natives. :-) I have a North Carolina history textbook, as well as some other, more fun things to use. I'm also hoping to include a few field trips.

We will still use Math U See, and I think it will be a lot of fun. We're going to spend a lot of time on math this year, so that we can get caught up. The girls are both good at math - time for the mama to stop worrying about it so much!

We will use Simply Grammar for language arts, and I'm thrilled with that. It looks excellent. It includes everything I would want to teach them, but wouldn't know where to start. They should be able to do it independently, too, which is great. I need them to start being a little more independent so I can keep an eye on Isaac and still get some school done.

We're also still using All About Spelling. I love this program! The girls do really well with it. It's funny to see that they do so well when we're specifically working on spelling, but when they're writing on their own, they forget to apply what they've learned. It's also pretty funny that Emma looks at Abbie to spell words for her! Emma just doesn't want to think about it herself, I think. She's such a perfectionist.

We're going to start Latin studies this year, using Lively Latin's Big Book of Latin I. It looks like a lot of fun, and will go along nicely with our studies of ancient Rome.

My plans include a lot of language arts, and we may end up backing off some of them. I'll have to see. We could probably let go of other grammar and stick to Latin, for example, but I hate to do that. Anyhoo, these are the plans as they stand today. I hope the girls are as excited for school to start as I am!