Trying to Keep My Head In the Game

I'm pretty much accepting right now that most of my energy is taken up with getting ready for Christmas.  At the same time, I can't help having a little yipping voice in my head reminding me that *very* soon after the holidays we'll go back to doing lessons, and it's easier to plan ahead than on the fly (for me, anyway-- how about you?)  I also have a 'quarterly report' due on December 31st, which I haven't written yet-- I set my quarterlies at even intervals around our (year-round) school year, this is the only one that falls during one of our breaks-- every year I forget this one, or nearly do so, and write it up at the last minute.

Here are the notes that I've made for myself, regarding this upcoming (and in our school year, last) trimester:

1. continue with Nebel science (we go in and out of this science curriculum, but it's still the best one I know of), discussing the concept of 'Center of Gravity'
2. remember to do all the 'extra' lessons each week, sometimes we fall out of the habit of doing these toward the end of a session: Latin, geography, philosophy, art, music
3. continue having the boys write book reports (this is relatively new for us)
4. ask the boys to re-do (or at least re-visit and add to) thier timeline of exploration of the New World, including Brendan the Navigator and explaining where 'Vinland' is
5. take a day off from Story of the World to update their old timeline, which has been neglected for a long time
6. start a program of memorization, working on (one at a time): US states (being able to fill in a blank US map), US capitals, US presidents
7. look up a good touch-typing software or online program/game for kids

That should be enough to go on with, once I get started in January it will be time to start thinking ahead to our next school year-- what to continue, what to change or add.  Primo will be entering 7th grade, somehow that sounds intimidating to me.

Bunny Lovey 1

Lessons learned from my first attempt at sewing a lovey:

1. using my blue Mark-B-Gone pen on the 'wrong side' of the ivory swirl fur fabric was a bad idea.  Little did I know that the blue marks would show right through.  And I have a sinking feeling that they will not B-Gone when I wash the finished lovey.  I'm not sure what I could have used instead-- disappearing ink would have disappeared from one naptime to the next, before I finished the project.  And chalk would have wiped off.
2. the ears needed to be super-sized compared to the pattern in Moebes' book-- I traced around her pattern on separate paper to make ears that were probably more than 50% bigger, giving me the 'voluptuous flop' that I crave in a bunny
3. the part that I thought would be the hardest, sewing the curved seams on the head, was actually not bad at all. 
4. sewing the straight seams on the triangles to form the square blanket was where I made my biggest error, probably because I thought I was on the 'easy part' and got careless.  To my horror, as I was topstitching the blanket after sewing on the lining I found that along one of the blanket seams, for several inches, the seam had come apart because I had actually sewn into the fur at the edge and not the fabric backing at all, which leads me to:
5. when the directions said to sew a 'generous 3/8" seam', I needed to be more generous for sure-- I was too worried about the whole thing coming out too small when I should have been thinking more about making all the seams *strong* to withstand baby boy manhandling.  I fixed it in a kind of 'Frankenstein's monster' fashion by sewing by hand with ivory colored thread.  My hand sewing technique not being up to snuff, this is not an invisible seam of hidden stitches but a big hard ridge of sloppy stitches forcing the seam back together.
6. I stuffed the head firmly using little pinches of fluff as suggested by Moebes, I think I would have liked it better a little understuffed and floppy, to match the general floppiness of the ears and the blanket.
7. in the future, I'll have to find a way to mark out the circle around the base of his head for sewing last of all-- mine was a funny little lopsided spiral rather than a perfect circle, and it shows when using a solid colored lining as I did here.

Overall, I am over the moon about how easy this was to sew, and how cute it turned out even with all my errors-- this one will be under the tree for Snorzy's first Christmas, and hopefully Lovey's bunny charms will lure S away from his horrible, tacky store bought 'Taggies' bear that I got him just for 'second best' and that he ended up falling in love with and needing in order to sleep, every day and night.  I plan to make more of these bunnies, which I will continue to customize away from the original pattern (the head and neck are a little too skinny and weird for my liking).  I managed to make this, despite my inexperience, in 2 1/2 naptimes-- one for cutting and sewing the ears, another for sewing the head (very quick), and one more to do everything else but the embroidery (which I whipped through while watching t.v. the evening after finished the rest).  I don't know what I'll do with more bunnies but I do know that I won't be able to resist making at least one more of these, I think I have enough fabric left over from this one if I cut carefully!

Bunny Ears

I guess I mean this to be mostly a homeschooling blog, if only because that is the main thing that I am doing with my life right now—homeschooling my older two boys.  However, as I explained in my last post we are on a one-month hiatus from formal ‘lessons’, so even though I probably should be planning lessons for next month or searching for new materials to use when we get back to it, instead I’m ‘obsessively obsessing’ about my latest craft crush, the Lovey Blanket project from Deborah Moebes’ Stitch Savvy.  I first encountered this project while searching ‘Lovey Blanket’ on Pinterest (because lovies in general are my favorite thing for babies).  I was thrilled that her book was available from the interlibrary loan system, and when it arrived at my local library I happily dove right in.

Well.  It’s a beautiful project but the written instructions, the step-by-step photos and the pattern all leave much to be desired.  I love the final result so much, though, that I’m determined to make do and push through, and figure it out on my own with the hints I can manage to glean from her instructions.  So far I cut out the fabric and made the ears.  As it turns out, when I cut the fabric according to the pattern and sewed the ears using a 3/8” seam as the instructions told me to, I got ugly little skinny ears with no voluptuous ‘flop’ to them.  I’m going to try again, and now I wonder if I should cut all the pieces for the head bigger so that he doesn’t come out with a skinny, ugly little head. 

Here are the ears, my first attempt:

Schedules

We’re on day three of our month-long ‘December Break’.  After more than three months straight of 'lessons’ nearly every weekday morning, there is a holiday atmosphere around taking our mornings off.  I still insist that we all get dressed, make beds, and brush our teeth first thing.  And we always make ‘December Goals’ before this break, outlining some plans so that the month doesn’t fly by with nothing to show for it (in the past, the boys’ goals have mostly had a lot to do with hot chocolate and sledding, this year I asked them to include at least one thing they want to learn more about, and one thing they want to learn how to do or in which they want to improve their skills).  It’s not suddenly anarchy around here.  But we watch an episode of Doctor Who in the middle of the morning.  The boys open one of the twenty-four ‘literary advent calendar’ books.  Hours of drawing, playing and reading ensue.
Schedules and timing are one of the things about our homeschool that I’m always looking to refine and perfect.  Our yearly schedule is: the school year starts May 1st for the two boys (although Radish started lessons the January after he turned 4, so his ‘school year’ as far as moving up to the next level of writing and math is off from our school year as a family), we go three months and then take a month off—theoretically, although things get complicated around summer camp starting in July which is supposed to be an ‘on’ month for us, and sometimes I give them their standardized tests in the first week of April, although it is one of our three vacation months (April, August, December).  Our daily schedule is more fluid, although paper-and-pencil lessons mostly fall between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Lots of things that ‘count’ fall outside of these hours (reading, music lessons, physical education), but I try to hold our mornings free from outside activities because I found in our first years of homeschooling that if I’m not strict about this, we don’t have time to do much of anything academically.  This has meant, over the past few years, that we’ve missed out on a lot of things that are going on in the homeschool community, and which begin either in the morning or too early in the afternoon for us to manage to get there.
Being way off from the public school in our yearly schedule doesn’t bother me a bit, and the kids don’t mind except when someone asks them what grade they’re in and they have to think about it for a second.  The daily schedule is different-- every once in a while something very cool is happening in the morning or early afternoon in our homeschool community, and I have to stop and think about whether to make an exception to my rule about ‘morning is for us at home, doing lessons’.  Sometimes I bend a little, for a one-time thing like a field trip or for an academic co-op that meets often.  Right now we’re doing ‘Friday lessons’ with some good friends, as a kind of a mini co-op (just our two families).  It seems worthwhile to make an exception for this, because I want my guys to have the experience of doing academic and project work with other really bright kids. 

Standards

One of the things I find both interesting and challenging about homeschooling is figuring out when the boys' work is "good enough".  In the beginning, with Primo, I tended to expect too much from him in his lessons.  It was lucky for him that I started using the Story of the World history curriculum, which includes review questions and sample narrations for each story.  Before that, throughout most of his first grade year, I read ancient history books with him and then expected him to be able to answer very detailed questions and to write long, complex narrations.  I don't think it was much fun for him.  Once I saw how simple the SOW questions and narrations were, I dialed it way back.

These days, though, I often worry that I'm not asking enough of Primo and Radish academically.  For example, I have been allowing Radish to read and teach the history stories *instead* of writing narrations.  And I have Primo doing work from a number of different sources, but not doing too much in-depth reading, research, or writing.  I'm not sure if this next thing is a good example, but on Wednesday (our last day of lessons before taking an extended break), I asked the boys to collaborate on a timeline of early exploration of the New World.  Granted, this was the last lesson of the morning, on the last morning of lessons before the break.  But what they handed me was written using just a couple of sources, and included only a few of the people I thought they'd write about.  I accepted it at the time-- they were so touchingly proud of themselves, they thought they had done excellent work.  When I looked over one of the books they had used, later that day, I was surprised at how much they had left out.

And that's where the challenge comes in-- were they doing appropriate work?  Should I have encouraged them to dig deeper, or was the work 'good enough'?  I know there are external 'norms' of what kids in general are supposed to be capable of at each age or grade level (educational 'standards'), but I tend to believe that ignoring these standards is one of the joys of homeschooling-- I (theoretically at least) know my own kids and what they're capable of.  I guess my hesitation comes in because I don't know if I should expect them to work at the limit of their capacity, or to do just what feels pretty comfortable and easy to them.  Hitting just the right amount of difficulty in their work is, well, difficult.

Their Own Thirst for Knowledge

When I started reading about homeschooling years ago ( when Primo was a toddler) I gravitated right away toward eclectic, middle of the road methods, and definitely *not* unschooling.  Over the years that hasn't changed-- though some of our friends and many of our friendly acquaintances would describe themselves as unschoolers, the idea of 'child-led learning' just doesn't work for me.
But.
Even though I'm happy with so many things about the way we do 'education' in our home, I wish the boys would get more excited about learning.  They tend to be cheerful and compliant when it comes time for lessons, and they are sometimes enthusiastic about particular parts of our routine (science experiments, history and science lessons that one of them reads and then teaches to the other, taking turns reading Latin stories aloud).
But.
We are avid readers in our family, and we spend a lot of time at our local library.  I make good use of the 'interlibrary loan' service offered by our region's libraries, and yesterday was not unusual-- there were 10 books waiting for us at the check-out counter.  Said each of the boys in turn, "Are there any fun books waiting for us?"-- meaning novels, recently published middle-grade novels about fantasy or funny situations.  8 of the 10 books were about Christopher Columbus and other explorers, and I had taken great care to choose interesting, high-quality, and in some cases beautiful books.  I felt a little crushed when the boys asked about 'fun' books.  After nearly 6 years of homeschooling, don't picture and activity books about explorers count as fun?  What can I do to awaken in them their own thirst for knowledge?
There are glimmers of light at the end of this tunnel.  Several months ago the boys chose a book called Stronger Than Steel about scientists looking to replicate the properties of  spider silk.  On this recent trip to the library I brought home two science-themed books, one of them called One Minute Mysteries: 65 More Short Mysteries You Solve With Science and I found Primo reading it over his dessert later that night.  It wouldn't have to be science, I'd be happy with either of them taking an interest in anything that has to do with the real world-- really, almost anything at all (I'm sure there are exceptions, I just can't think of them at the moment).                                     

Small Bites

It's not ideal, but better than nothing- many Mondays this fall, I've had a little taste of help at home, in the form of my lovely niece D coming over for a two hour window after school.  She watches all three boys while I get things done around here, the kinds of things I would otherwise let slide, and the kinds of things I must do but usually have to do in a harried, hurried, start-and-stop fashion.  With two straight hours of uninterrupted (well, sometimes a little interrupted, but not as much so as usual) time, I can get a lot done.  So far today I've planned tonight's meal (no mean feat on grocery day) and written a grocery list and meal plan for the week.  Now I still have an hour left, and nothing else I need to do.

Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that it's better to spend a little time on a task, than to let it go undone.  I tend to think that if I can't devote a long stretch of time to one activity, then it isn't worth doing it at all.  This is how I end up with a small rainbow sweater started and set aside for *months*, untouched even though I enjoy knitting and actually *can't* do more than a few minutes at a time without damaging my hands further.  And this is how I find myself going back over my day when Snorzy falls asleep at night and realizing that I didn't read to him once, all day.  I'm pretty sure that never happened with the older two, I always read to them in the little in-between moments in our daily routine.  I don't know where all those moments get to these days, though I have my suspicions (I'm looking at you, Pinterest!)

Those moments add up though, running into each other, combining and solidifying into the fabric that makes up my life thus far.  Those chunky board books read to my bright-eyed boy will become the foundation for a lifetime of literacy for him, and memories of chanting the stories to him will stay with me as he grows up and away.  And those bright eyes are always watching, his and his brothers' too- I want them to see a mama who is (almost) always intentional in how I spend my time.  I reserve the right to sometimes laze in front of the tv or page through pins in search of something pretty or fun to look at.  Most often though, I want to be able to close my eyes at the end of the day with the satisfied feeling of having done all the work that presented itself to me- in teaching my boys, being careful of my relationships, creating beautiful things, and nourishing my family.

Just As Long As There Are Two

Several days have gone by, and I've truly been too busy to write- busy with ushering, with the annual homeschool flea market and craft fair, with preparations for Sweet Hubby's birthday.  But I realized tonight, as the hour gets late and I waste my time on this and that, I'm in danger of this blog becoming one of those forlorn 'one post' abandoned blogs.  So just to prevent that outcome, here is a second post.  I promise I have more to say- lots of thoughts to come.
Future posts may contain musings on: routines in our home school, the place of music in our lives, my craft crush, philosophies of parenting, trying to be fully present for the boys and Sweet Hubby too.
I am so distractible these days, sometimes I'm surprised at myself and at how I lack the focus I had just a few years ago.  The hardest thing for me is to direct my energy toward the things that are most important to me.  Somehow I fritter away my hours and days, and only in the last moments before I sleep do I catch myself and swear that the next day I'll do better.  That is my number one motivation for writing, to keep myself "awake" so that I can live my life rather than drift along helplessly.

Out of the Gate

Primo started a blog last year.  One post, then forgot about it until a few weeks ago.  Now he's started it back up again, and posts almost every day.  He doesn't overthink it, just jumps in and rattles on about whatever is on his mind.
Here is his mama, trying to take a leaf from his book.  I've had a book on blogging out of the library for two months.  I've laid awake thinking of names for this blog, like I did when I was pregnant with Snorzy ( boy number three, but I didn't know that then and it was the thought of having to name a girl that kept me up nights).
I want to write about my adventures in homeschooling and raising my three sons.  About cooking and crafting and sometimes feeling ambivalent about my life's work.

For now, I have to take a moment to congratulate myself, just for having begun.

Primo today: duct tape creations, some for the Flea Market Craft Fair on Friday, some just for himself.

Radish today:  in the darkened back room, experimenting with a flashlight and some construction paper, learning about the color spectrum (while Primo at the same time was doing Snap Circuits experiments in the living room.  Good day for science learning in our homeschool!)

Snorzy today:  first word, "bath", while taking a rare morning bath.