My One-Year Blog Anniversary

It's true! A year ago yesterday I started this blog. I was getting tired of the meaninglessness of Facebook. I needed a place to process what I was thinking about, and record things I wanted to remember. This blog has proved to be that place. It has also become something I did not expect: a place to connect with people who share my interests.

A Favourite Nature Study Memory

Here are some favourite posts from the past year:

Favourite Funny Story (from a year ago today): Adventures in Nature

Best Book Reviewed: Time of Wonder

Some Rich Educational Experiences: 
{Big Red Barn Reading Lessons} Lesson 4
Palindromes: Our Best Math Lesson Ever!
Our Very First Poetry Teatime

Top Five Most-Read Posts:
What it is, Is Classical
Education is Bigger Than You Think
The Outdoor Life for the Children
Printable Outdoor Time Log
The Awesome Mystery of Growth in Reading

I will leave you with a picture of my 3-year-old JJ's preparation for Poetry Tea Time one day last winter. Apparently I was taking too long putting his baby brother down for his nap, and so JJ took matters into his own hands.

If you've never commented before, please say hello today. I find it fascinating that there are people out there who are reading what I write, and I'd love to meet you!

Saturday Links and Quotes

Link: Should we switch to the KJV?
I am planning to use Ambleside Online for my homeschooling. They recommend that families use the King James Version of the Bible as their everyday version for purely literary reasons. "It is preferable for a child to become accustomed to the language and flow of the KJV, as a familiarity with King James English will make other literature more accessible." You can find an article about that here: Why the KJV?

I found the article quite convincing on a number of points:
 - Familiarity with the language of the KJV will give children a connection to the language of classical literature.
- Changes in the English language have not been for the better. We are losing richness of vocabulary in this increasingly image-based information age. The KJV was translated in a time when language was important.
- The KJV had a huge influence on both the ideas and language of Western literature.
- We who are not afraid to challenge our children with great books should not find the KJV unapproachable.

And yet, I'm not ready to jump in and make the KJV our family Bible version. I think it's important to note that the New Testament was written in Koine (common) Greek, not the more polished and literary Classical Greek. Our considerations (in order of importance) in choosing a Bible translation are that it is:
- faithful to the original text.
- in the language of the people.
Whether it is literary or helps school children make connections to literature may be a consideration, but it is not the primary one for us. We have chosen to use the English Standard Version in our family. (I do think it's important to choose a translation and stick with it through the years so children gain a familiarity with the language of the Bible.)

However, this article did make me consider reading through the KJV with my children at least once during the course of their school years.

What do you think of the argument made in the article?

Quote: Bonhoeffer
I've been reading Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (though it's an old edition, not the "greatly enlarged edition" linked to). I thought about this quote for days:

"Something which puzzles me and seems to puzzle many others as well is, how quickly we forget about a night's bombing. Even a few minutes after the all clear, everything we were thinking about while the raid was on seems to vanish into thin air. With Luther a flash of lightning was enough to alter the whole course of his life for years to come. What has happened to this kind of memory to-day? Does it not explain why we sit so lightly to the ties of love and marriage, of friendship and loyalty? Nothing holds us, nothing is firm. Everything is here to-day and gone to-morrow. Goodness, beauty and truth, however, and all great accomplishments need time, permanence and memory, or else they deteriorate. The man who has no urge to do his duty to the past and to shape the future is a man without memory, and there seems to me no way of getting hold of such a person and bringing him to his senses. Every word, even if it impresses him for a moment, goes through one ear and out of the other. What is to be done about him? It is a tremendous pastoral problem this." (p. 69)

It strikes me that the problem Bonhoeffer describes is not a new one. It's also described many times in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. God's people would be rescued one day, and they would be complaining the next.

How do we cultivate this kind of memory in ourselves and our children?

Saturday Quotes (from the Boys)

The boys went to visit some friends this week while I sang for royalty. Uncle Sid and Aunt Linda gave them a wonderful time outside chasing squirrels and collecting butternuts to plant at home. Later this week, SA told me all about the butternuts, so I grabbed a pen and started writing. I missed the first part, but this is most of his narration.

...they grow, and as soon as they're ready to drop, then the branch drops it. Then you look at the ground, then you could see butternut seeds. Then you take off the case and the black, then you put it in your pocket if you're not at your house. Then you just shovel the grass off or plant it in your garden. Then you put the seed in the hole, then you get only the dirt on it. Then soon it grows into a butternut tree.

SA also had an adventure with a huge bumblebee yesterday. It landed on him in the house, and we had to collect it with his hat and let it go outside. JJ was extremely interested in the process, and helped me every step of the way. (Those are his hands in the picture.)




MM has been saying "thank you" all the time lately. If I don't respond with "You're welcome" immediately, he repeats it. The funniest thing is when he's about to nurse. He always makes sure he says thank you before he begins.

The morning we had our watermelon teatime, we were unfortunately swarmed by black flies. I slathered on the natural insect repellant, but apparently SA still got bitten...
SA: "Mama, the bees hold their breath." (He meant bugs.)
Me: "Oh, did you get bitten?"
SA: "Only a couple of times. Some of them like the smell, and some of them don't."

Saturday Conflict

Today I had a scheduling conflict. That may be an every-day problem for everyone else, but I've just spent months only leaving home about twice a week, for errands and church. I lead a quiet life, at least, as quiet as a life with three young boys can be. Today I had to choose between going to my choir practice in preparation for singing for Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall later this month, or to rehearsal for my singing part in The Master's Wife this summer.

Prince Charles' and his wife Camilla's visit to P.E.I. will be quite exciting to our family. Camilla will be visiting my young brother-in-law's school as well. Apparently the grade six class sent letters inviting her, and they got a favourable response. They are planning to present Romeo and Juliet, and will be inviting the Duchess of Cornwall herself to play Juliet! My own brush with royalty will be at Cornwall United Church, where my choir, the Good News Singers, has been invited to join the church choir there.

"The Master's Wife" is a play based on a 1939 book of the same name by Sir Andrew MacPhail. It is a fascinating portrait of MacPhail's family (The "Master" is his father, a teacher and presbyterian elder, the "Master's wife" is his mother) and community as he grew up in rural Prince Edward Island in the late 1800's. The play will be performed every Wednesday evening in July, plus one performance in June and one in August. We'll also have several performances in the Fall. (No, I didn't know this when I signed up, but I'm going with it...) My part will be helping to sing some background music.

Today I will go to the choir practice, and see if I have time left to make it to part of the play rehearsal. And now I need to make sure I have enough ready-to-eat food in the house for my boys while I'm out!

Saturday Odds and Ends

Here's a piece of round-about (but perfectly reasonable) math from SA this week:
"Mama, 60+60=120!"
"Yes, you're right," I said.
"It's because 50+50=100, and then the 20 divided in two makes an extra 10 for each 50."
Oh, absolutely. I would never have thought of explaining it that way...

Poetry Teatime (I'm the one with the celery...)

SA has also been having a lot of fun with reading this week. This wasn't my intention, but somehow I managed to pick library books for him that really tickled his funny bone. Consider Henry and Mudge, for instance. (Just keep in mind that Mudge is a big dog, and Henry is a little boy.)
"Mudge loved Henry's room.
He loved the dirty socks. (snicker)
He loved the stuffed bear.
He loved the fish tank. (giggle)
But mostly he loved Henry's bed.
Because in Henry's bed was Henry. (gales of laughter...can hardly go on!)
Mudge loved to climb in with Henry.
Then he loved to smell him. (that was just too funny! Ha Ha Ha! Let me check, is Mama laughing too? Yep...laughing right along with you, buddy.)

I finally remembered a "JJ saying" from weeks ago. We were playing outdoors, and he had a stick in his hand. He was babbling on about the stick, and I was only half listening, when I heard:
"and then I threw the stick on the ground, but it didn't turn into a snake!"
"Oh really?" said I.
"Yes. Only Moses' stick turned into a snake."

Saturday Funnies

My children have a habit of waking up early every morning. We don't let them get up until Stephen's alarm rings at 6:45, though. The problem with that is, until the alarm rings, I hear "What time is it now, Mama?"
"6:35, SA. Still 10 more minutes."
"What time is it now, Mama?"
"6:40."
"Mama, when it's 6:45 on your watch, it will be 6:42 on Papa's phone."
(Hmmm...somebody has noticed that my watch is a little ahead! It's my strategy for getting anywhere on time.)
"...and it will be 6:45 on the clock on the stove."
(Yep, it enhances the effect when all the clocks in the house are a few minutes ahead. But he noticed that the time on the cell phone is different, and by how many minutes.)

The charger for our laptop computer was not working very well for us this week, and we noticed it was getting hot as well. "Does that mean it's toasted?" asked SA.

We have been trying to get our time outdoors up again with 1000hoursoutside.com, and so we made a couple trips to the playground at the local elementary school this week. As we were walking back on Friday, SA was talking about how it was too bad he'd missed his "screen time" that day.
"That's OK," I said. "I will let you have 15 minutes of screen time while I get supper ready."
JJ was very excited. "I have an idea! We could go on the X-Box and play a two-player game!"
SA clearly had other intentions for his screen time, but he wasn't giving them away.
"That's a thought," he replied noncommittally (and diplomatically!). And said nothing more.

Saturday Commonplaces 11

Math Notebook:
Fibonacci Sequences are amazing! I can't remember learning about this in my youth. ("Score one for public school," says Stephen. That's okay...his children will learn about this.)


Nature Notebook:
Last week's two storms brought the accumulated snowfall for the winter to over four meters in Charlottetown. Here's a neat little chart showing how much we got. (Please note that this chart does not include April's snowfall.)

Despite the fact that it is not unusual to get a bit of snow in April, this does feel like a lot. I think because we got so much in December, and it is still not gone, it really is feeling like a long winter. We were glad to get outside for hours three days in a row once the stormy weather was gone. We made a snowman, had snowball fights, played fox and geese, shoveled snow, and walked over to the school playground to play.

Homeschooling Notebook:
It surprised me this week what a difference there can be in ease of memorization between different passages. After spending more than six weeks on the Beatitudes and the boys still could not say them, we moved on to a parable (Build Your House on the Rock). After just one week of repetition, both SA and JJ surprised me by reciting it from beginning to end. Why is this?

I love the way SA attacks problems. We started making a multiplication chart this week with the times tables from 1-10. He filled in the 1 times table first, because it was easy. Then he started working away at the 2's. He noticed the 5's next, and filled them out. Then he started working on the 10's column. He noticed the 50 and the 100 at the bottom of the 5 and 10 columns, and realized he could count by 10's across as well. So he filled that row in. He was thrilled that they were the same across and down. Then he knuckled down and started figuring out some of the harder numbers. We actually got about half-way through filling in the chart that day. (He didn't want to stop.) It makes so much sense to attack it this way! Me, I would have started at one corner and worked methodically through the whole chart until it was done. He does the easy stuff first, and there is very little left to actually do the hard work on.

I know JJ said something awfully cute this week, and for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Oh well, I'm sure he'll come out with something else next week.

Have a good week, everyone!

Saturday Commonplaces 10

I don't have a lot to share today. I decided to have a musical teatime one day this week instead of our usual poetry teatime. We watched Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." I think I'll try to do a musical teatime once a week from now on. The only problem? I don't know how we're going to top this! Enjoy.

Saturday Commonplaces 9

Homeschooling

I wish you could have seen my little ones one morning this week. JJ (3) and MM (1) sat down on the couch together with some of SA's books. JJ carefully arranged a pillow behind their backs and a blanket over their toes, and they "read" aloud for about ten minutes. JJ had Bears on Wheels, and MM had Put Me in the Zoo. JJ especially is very keen to read now that SA has taken off with reading. I had to make him his own reading ladder (a paper where we record the books SA reads on his own). He mostly "reads" from memory, but if he doesn't remember, he runs his finger along under the lines and has me read, and he repeats after me. I don't really think he's ready yet for phonics lessons, though. I don't think he'd even realize the connection between phonics and reading. It's not about the words for him. It's about the stories.

SA (5) is still reading very easy-to-read books, but he is making progress all the time. Last week I had a few moments of self-doubt. I noticed SA was starting to be a bit resistant to my having him read a book a day. Maybe I just needed to go back to the reading lessons. I decided that I would not suggest any book for him to read this week, and see what happened. What happened was that most days he came to me on his own with about three new books that he wanted to read (I'm so thankful for the library!). We filled up the new reading ladder we started just last Friday. I'm going to have to get a poster board to make a gigantic ladder, because these dinky construction paper ones are filling up too fast. For phonics this week we talked casually about words with a silent E. I have been second-guessing myself when it comes to phonics...should I buy a phonics program? Am I doing enough? I think I will wait to see where he is at the beginning of Grade 1 next September, and pick up there.

I have also been second-guessing myself when it comes to math, which is his real love. There are so many options out there, and I guess it's natural to wonder sometimes if there's something you're missing. We are doing Miquon Math and Peggy Kaye's Games for Math. The games are wonderful. I pick one out every Monday and we do the same game again any time my children ask for it that week. Miquon is great, too, but it seems a bit slow for him. I think for next term I will try something new. As soon as he gets a concept and has reinforced it for a week or two with rods and games, I will move on to a new concept. He can continue to do worksheets on the old concepts as he pleases. I have started to do this already. I allow him to choose his worksheet from anything we've learned already. (We do worksheets two or three times a week.) This week he chose to do worksheets on addition and subtraction, though our "concept work" was in multiplication. He does the worksheets on his own, and uses or does not use the rods as he pleases. There was a "trick question" on one of the sheets this week, and I fully expected him to come to me for help. But when he showed me the paper, it was complete, and correct. (The question was 2-3= -1) I didn't know he knew how to do that, so I asked him about it. He said the answer was one less than zero. This is why I sometimes don't think I'm giving him enough challenging work.

I have been looking at MEP as well (a free program), which is totally different than Miquon. It seems more puzzle-oriented, but slower when it comes to concepts like addition, subtraction, and multiplication. It also has more variety every day. So I think SA might be bored with some parts of it, and greatly enjoy other parts. It is also more worksheet oriented, which I do not necessarily like, and which he may not be quite ready for. I'm thinking I may experiment with supplementing a few pages from MEP next term and see if he likes it. I'd probably have to start in the middle of year one in order to challenge him.

Books

I read another good book this week. It was a bit too good, actually, since I could not help reading it in one day (if you have three or more children, you'll realize why having this kind of book in the house is not a very good idea). However, I did better than my husband, who came home from work in the wee hours of the morning one night, picked up the book, and didn't put it down until it was done. (Don't worry, neither of us make this a habit...) The book was The Spark by Kristine Barnett. She's the mother of an autistic genius, and she tells the story of how she followed her mothering instincts in order to help her child.

I noticed that parents of autistic children do not tend to rate this book very highly, as this woman's son is quite unusual (He is a genius, first of all, and he began to function more normally when she gave him the resources to follow his interests.). I was inspired as a mom of ordinary children, though. Every child, no matter what their gifts or their shortcomings, is a born person and should be treated as such. She saw how all the therapy her son was taking was about what he couldn't do, and determined to allow him to do something he could do (and well!). She also saw how the hours and hours of work they were doing were taking away his childhood. So she made a focused effort to take the time to play, make friends, and do the things childhood memories are made of, even though these things are quite challenging to find ways to do with an autistic child.

I did find myself wondering about the details of this book...is it all true? Everything is so highly coloured. My take on it is that the author is a very intense woman, and so you see everything through her dramatic viewpoint. Since my own natural tendency leans more towards downplaying things that happen, this sometimes felt strange to me. But even with that, I highly recommend this book.

Cuteness
MM has taken to clutching cars or other hard toys while I nurse him. As soon as I realized this, I got out some stuffed animals (they had been put away because they were not played with). But it was too late. He seems to like holding the angular, hard shapes better than the soft, squishy ones. Yesterday I called him to nurse, and as usual he bustled around first, finding things to hold. There were no toys around at that moment, so I found myself cuddling with a duster (stoffer), a pen, and a scrap of craft foam. I love this toddler so much!

And that's all for this week! Have a good week, everyone.

Saturday Commonplaces 8

/ˈkämənˌplās/ noun 1. a usual or ordinary thing.

It has been a few weeks since I've done this little newsletter. I was just browsing through my "old" posts (all from this winter) and realizing how valuable they are for capturing and remembering a bit of everyday life. Many of the things I wrote were already on their way out of my memory! This is one of the reasons I started to blog in the first place...

Some Quirky Language from JJ: 

"Afta" (After)
definition: before.
"What time is it, JJ?" I ask as I'm rudely awoken at some dark hour of the morning.
He switches on the cell phone to check. "It's six afta two afta zero." (meaning 6:20)
Or he weighs himself. "Mama, I'm three afta eight afta six." (38.6 lb)

"Eida" (Either)
definition: too
"I want to come with you eida, Mama."
or "Can I have a cookie eida, please?

JJ painted a watercolour picture yesterday.  He started in the corner of the page, and painted part of a circle. It was mostly blue, with some patches of green and brown. I asked him what it was, he said "the sound from the speakers." I had no idea what that meant, but Stephen filled me in today. When he's playing music on the stereo upstairs, there are pictures of earth from space showing on the screen. JJ had painted the earth. That paper is going in our keepsake box, along with its title.

A Good Book I Read Recently:

I first heard about Surprised by Oxford from some quotes I read on a blog. I lost no time in finding it at my library. For me, its beauty was that it was yet another illustration of how God reaches down and meets us where we are. What believer does not have a similar story of the providential leading of God as they came to faith?
I couldn't quite figure out whether this book was well-written or not. On the positive side, I finished it in two days because I just couldn't put it down. On the negative side, the language of many of the conversations is stilted and unreal. One possibility is that these "conversations" are in fact distillations of the wisdom found in several conversations over time. And the truth is, this concentrated form of conversation often results in some of the most quotable passages of the book. Overall, I highly recommend it.

And that's all for today. Have a good week!

Saturday Commonplaces 7

Random notes from my week...

Saying
Yesterday, SA:
"So is it the twenty-fourth? Or the twenty-threeth?"

Singing
MM (17 months) has been going around singing "Happy, happy, happy." I'm not sure if it's from "Trust and Obey" (To be happy in Jesus) or "There is a Happy Land." He also sings "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Up above the world so high" from "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." The fun thing about the latter is that the tune is recognizable. I've waited a long time for a musical baby...

Watching
Stephen and I have been watching Poirot on Netflix. There's something sweet and gentle about it. It doesn't try to hook you in or manipulate you to watch just one more episode. It is clean, and that's something very rare. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

Listening
The boys have been enjoying Songs for Saplings as they learn their catechism. I wasn't sure about the songs at first... the rhythms seemed complex, the lines long. There is a lot of repetition, and that's good for memorization. It is clear to me now that even for my children (who can't really carry a tune yet), memorization with music sticks better than memorization without music.

Reading
I've been reading Charlotte Mason's volume 1 along with a reading group at Ambleside Online. I'm still hoping to write about what I'm learning soon. I may have to drop some perfectionism first and just type my notes as they are.

Have a great week, everyone!

Saturday Commonplaces 6

A newsletter with random thoughts and happenings from my week.

Cuteness
I was putting MM down for his nap yesterday morning. Before I went upstairs, I told the boys to clean up because it was almost teatime. Well, I took so long up there that my boys decided to take matters into their own hands. I came down to this:

The teakettle on the table was the work of my five-year-old, and the bananas and pickles were carefully prepared by my three-year-old. He carefully got out our pretty china plate (we use it every day for teatime). He peeled a banana and cut it into fourths. He left the other piece off the plate because there were only going to be the three of us at tea. Then he got the pickle jar from the fridge and speared three fat pickles and put them beside the bananas. Yum! I was properly grateful, and only added some cheese and crackers to eat with the pickles.

Outdoor Life
I debated not admitting this here, but I have to be honest. We only spent three and a half hours outside this week. My excuse was the sheet of ice everywhere after Monday's rain. Tuesday I sent the boys out (kept the baby in with me) and spent the time in fear as they boldly scaled the hard-as-rock mountain of snow with their sled and went hurtling down towards the sheet of ice at the bottom. I greeted their return indoors fifteen minutes later with barely concealed relief. Wednesday I bundled up the baby and went out with them, but even so we only stayed out for half an hour. MM actually loved holding my hands and sliding. Thursday I finally decided to embrace the ice, since it was what we had, and put the boys' new skates on them. We hauled a kitchen chair out to the ice, and they had their first ever experience on skates. SA was very keen on it, and we did it again on Friday.

I've been thinking, though, a year ago I would have used the ice as an excuse to spend the week indoors. Though I didn't reach anywhere near my goal this week (ten hours), I did better than if I had no goal at all.

Habits
I was planning to work on the habit of attention this month, but some more urgent things have come up. Persistence is something I've had to teach a lot about this week. I prepared SA well for learning to skate. I told him he'd fall a lot at first, everyone does. He'd just have to get up again. He accepted this wholeheartedly, and is counting up his falls. ("How many falls until I'll be able to skate, Mama?" "I don't know...maybe twenty?") So far he has counted six falls. (He's still using a chair.) Another habit we need to start working on is self-control. JJ has a quick temper, and is in the habit of throwing things the instant he feels upset. He calms down fairly quickly afterwards, but somehow we have to work on that moment when he first loses his temper. I'm not sure how to help him get ahold of himself (any ideas?), but I'm sure we'll learn together.

Blogging
I've done some more reading lessons with SA that I hope to put up soon. I'm also working on reading Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series following a discussion schedule at Ambleside Online. I'm going to try to post my notes for that. So much to post, so little time... but of course real life comes first.

Saturday Commonplaces 5

A random collection of thoughts and happenings from my week.

Stephen's Testimony at the Gideon National Convention 2013
Stephen had the opportunity to give his testimony at the Gideon 2013 National Convention last July. We recently got the DVD's. I just discovered that it has been on YouTube as well since October. So here it is!


Christmas Baking
I made a number of new recipes leading up to this Christmas. These were my favourites.
Speculaas Spices
This is an essential spice mix for Dutch baking. This recipe is the best I've tried. It may have helped that this is the first year that I've managed to find every one of the ingredients. I couldn't find ground anise, but I crushed the whole seeds and used 1/2 tsp instead of 1/5 tsp, and that worked fine. I also used 1/4 tsp for each of the other ingredients that called for 1/5 tsp. 1/5 of a teaspoon is just too complicated for me to figure out! I used the spices in my kruidnoten (below) and in some fun shortbread owls.
Kruidnoten (Dutch "Gingerbread Nuts")
I made these for our homeschool co-op cookie exchange. I made a double recipe, and used 1 whole egg instead of 2 egg whites. I realized belatedly that the egg was for brushing on top, not for in the dough. They turned out excellent, though. I found the required coarse, dark brown sugar at Bulk Barn (I think it was called "Demarara style."). I skipped the orange zest, though it would probably have been delicious.
Raspberry Almond Thumbprints
The almond icing makes these special (I only used half of the icing recipe). I made it a little stiffer than drizzling consistency, put it in a bag, cut off the corner, and squeezed. The boys loved helping with these cookies: rolling little balls, making thumbprints, adding jam with a little teaspoon. I might make some with apricot jam next time as well.
Millionaire Shortbread
This is a rare case where my finished product looked as wonderful as the pictures on Pinterest. I had no corn syrup, so I substituted 1/2 tsp cream of tartar in the caramel. (Yes, really! Thank you David Lebovitz.) I substituted honey in the chocolate. I also used half the amount of butter in the chocolate...somehow 1 stick seemed like a lot for 8 ounces of chocolate. I went with my gut on that one, and it worked out well.

Outdoor Time
With Christmas being this week, we have once again fallen short of our goals. No matter, we will begin again next week!
Sun. (snowstorm) 0 hours
Mon. .5 hour
Tue. 1.25 hours
Wed. .5 hour
Thu. 1.25 hours
Fri. 2 hours
Sat. TBD

Schedule
I am extremely proud of this accomplishment. I think I've mentioned before that I am not a "crafty" person. I made up a schedule of our day with notecards, pencil crayons, string, and clothespins. I got the idea from Bobby Jo over at Where the Blacktop Ends.

I even drew some little illustrations. Go me!

Saturday Commonplaces 4

A collection of random thoughts and happenings from my week.

Outdoor Time Log
We did better than the last two weeks, but still did not meet our target of 10 hours. We still have today, though the forecast is calling for 6-8 hours worth of ice rain. I'm hoping to clear a bit more snow before then, as the family vehicle is still snowed in since Wednesday's snowstorm.
Sun. Snowstorm, 0 Hours
Mon. .5 Hour
Tue. 1.5 Hours
Wed. Snowstorm, 1 Hour
Thu. 1.5 Hours
Fri. 2 Hours
So that's a total of 6.5 Hours this week. Hopefully I can bump it up to 7.5 today.

Adventures of a Baby in the Snow
MM is 17 months old now. It has been a real challenge for me to take him to play outside with the boys, and not just because the snow has been deep enough to bury him up to his neck the last few days. The child will not keep his mittens on. I put them on, he takes them off. I put them on. He takes them off. I leave them off, hoping he will notice his hands getting cold and want them back on. His hands get cold. He cries. I put the mittens back on. He takes them off. He cries more. This is not an issue a cord between the mittens will fix. True, the cord keeps him from losing them, but not from taking them off in the first place. So, being a mom of the 21st Century, I googled "keeping mittens on a toddler." And the solution is...(drum roll please): DUCT TAPE!!! I couldn't find any around, but I found a roll of Tuck Tape (the red kind). For our second time outside today, I put his mittens on, then taped around his wrists. It didn't quite keep him from taking his mittens off, but it sure kept him busy. It also took him a lot longer to get them off, so I could do more shoveling.

Anyway, with the "crying-because-my-hands-are-cold" off the table as an excuse to go back inside, he had to come up with something else once he was tired of being outside. And he did. About an hour after we went outside, he came and looked up at me.
"Pee-pee," he said loudly.
I looked at him. "Do you need a clean diaper?"
He deliberately nodded his head. Then, for good measure, he pointed to his diaper area and squatted.
I had a feeling I was being manipulated, but since it was getting dark as well, we went inside.


On Music
I watched a music documentary on Netflix last week called "Herbie Hancock: Possibilities." Now I'm not normally a jazz fan (Classical, folk, and blues are more my style), but I really enjoyed it. It's a documentary of Herbie Hancock's collaboration with a number of different artists, including Carlos Santana and Angelique Kidjo, Sting, and Paul Simon, and Christina Aguilera. My favourite was Annie Lennox singing Paula Cole's "Hush, Hush, Hush." If you are into music, you might enjoy this documentary. I love how really good musicians continue to grow and try new things as they age. People like Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, to name a few, just seem to get better and better.

Also on music, we have been continuing to watch Handel's Messiah on YouTube. Now that it's part of the routine, SA always makes sure we listen to our "Christmas music." Yesterday after we watched, I asked them if maybe they'd like to play the violin someday. SA had to think about it (Which one is the violin, anyway? No, Stephen and I have not been playing our violins enough in recent years.), but JJ was off like a shot to get one of Stephen's violins. I tuned it up and helped each of them hold it in turn. Of course it was much too big for them. SA produced the squawks and squeaks you'd expect from someone holding a violin for the first time. Surprisingly, though, JJ had amazing control of his bow hand, and not only had beautiful tone, but played each open string as he pleased. I still don't know for sure that he's not tone deaf (He doesn't sing on key), but if he's not, playing the violin may turn out to be something that comes easily for him. We'll see.

On Fancy
SA came out with something quite imaginative yesterday. I know many kids (especially girls?) have great imaginations, but SA isn't really given to flights of fancy.
"Mama, Mango (our cat) wanted to go outside, and I let him outside. I said to him, 'Mango, if you see a wolf outside, climb up into a high tree, higher than the wolf, so that the wolf can't get you.'"

On a Charlotte Mason Education
I have never intended to give my children a classical education. Classical homeschoolers have always intimidated me. The academic rigour, the trivium, the Latin and Greek...it all sounded like too much, and quite frankly, not my style. Give me Charlotte Mason, I thought...a gentle approach, yet one that is broad and rich and takes the child's personality and interests deliberately into account. However, I'm starting to realize that a Charlotte Mason education is a classical education. Last week I read this article by Andrew Kern on classical education and realized that all of the key attributes he claims for a classical Christian education are also true of a Charlotte Mason education. There are differences in the practicalities, but I think that the roots are the same.

Saturday Commonplaces 3

On Advent

Stephen and I have no tradition in our backgrounds of celebrating Advent, and I really didn't have any plans to change that. But then I stumbled across this idea of listening to parts of Handel's Messiah and reading the Scriptures to match in the days leading up to Christmas, and I couldn't resist. We have been doing that at the beginning of our poetry teatimes this week. At first SA was not too impressed: "Why are we listening to music at teatime?" (He likes things to stay the same.) But he seems to be coming around. We like the clean sound of the Christopher Hogwood version, and we watch it on YouTube. I find it retains the children's interest a little better when they can see it. YouTube automatically bookmarks where we stop watching, so we can pick up where we left off every time.



On "The Outdoor Life for the Children:"

We've been logging our hours outside this week at 1000 Hours Outside. One of the most challenging things about a Charlotte Mason education for me has been "the outdoor life for the children." She recommends that children spend up to 4-6 hours outside daily when they're little. I actually agree. I have found that the more time my children spend outside, the healthier they are, and the less they get sick. However, agreement hasn't always translated into action. I tend to hibernate when it gets cold.

I don't want to be a Charlotte Mason "legalist" and insist on following her 4-6 hour guideline to the letter. I think Charlotte would agree that the most important thing for me is to have a "thinking love" for my own children. How important is it for my children's physical and mental health to spend time outside? How is the air quality in our home? (We obviously don't have open fireplaces in our homes anymore, but other things cause air quality issues.) How much time do I have to devote to this? (We don't have servants as they often did in Charlotte's day. The dishes and laundry still need to get done.) Up till how cold is it safe to have children playing outside? (Canada can be a bit colder than the UK.) Considering all these things, and more, I have concluded that we haven't been spending enough time outside since it has gotten "cold". (Never mind that we will be embracing these temperatures as mild when they arrive again in the spring!)

In light of all of this, and inspired by the 1000 Hours Outside blog, I have decided to set my own goals for our outside time. I need to be challenged on this, as it truly is difficult for me to get myself motivated to get all three children's winter gear on, and my own, and go out into temperatures that are less comfortable than the climate inside my home. My goal is to go outside with the children every day, even if it is only five minutes (barring dangerously cold or windy weather, of course!). We will aim for 10 hours outside per week for the older two children (I may go out with them for a while, then come back in. I find that if I go out with them for a little while, they're more likely to stay out longer on their own, or go out again later.). I don't know how this is going to go, but I just have to try.

Here is a scene from this week's nature walk in Brudenell.

On Poetry Teatime

Since we have started doing our poetry teatime, we've occasionally had guests. Our first guests were SA's and JJ's aunt and cousins, who are about their own age. When we were visiting Opa and Oma in NB, we had poetry teatime there with the aunts and cousins. At home again, we had Mrs. D, who brought the boys a special book and read it to them. Two weeks ago, we had C, who made us cookies (with sprinkles!) and offered to come again for a baking session with the boys. Last week we had "Aunt" L, who the boys love because she always talks to them as though what they have to say is the most important, most interesting thing she has ever heard. Even SA bloomed and became a bit of a chatterbox with this special treatment. We love having guests at our poetry teatimes!


On Habits

Our November habit was neatness, and we worked on picking up all the toys twice a day, once before teatime, and once before computer time. I made up a little checklist, not for rewards, but just to keep track and remind myself to do it. I tried to train the boys from the start to do it promptly and thoroughly. It has gone very well, and I do believe it is a habit for them now. I tend to clean something up in the same room while they are picking up the toys. If they are slow one day, I cheer them on or notice things they have missed. I still have a bit of a problem in that SA (5) tends to do more of his fair share because JJ (3) is slower. I'm not sure what to do about that...I have tried getting them each to pick up specific categories, or getting SA to pick up and JJ to vacuum under the table. Let me know if you have better ideas!

Saturday Commonplaces 2

On "Virtuous Womanhood:"
My dryer stopped tumbling last week. I haven't had this particular dryer very long, (I bought it used) so my heart sank at the thought of finding a new one again so soon. Before I sank into despondency, I looked it up on google. There I found a lovely repair video using the very dryer model I own. Following the directions, I unplugged the dryer, opened it up, and retrieved the broken belt. Then I ordered a new one, and waited. The new belt arrived on Friday, and it took me about 15 minutes to install. A real repair person would have taken five minutes, but hey, I did it! I probably paid about $20 in the mean time to dry my clothes at the laundromat, but even with that included in the cost, it was less than $50. I'm sure you'll agree that if the Proverbs 31 woman had a dryer, she would have done the same.

On Homeschooling:
I finished reading Cindy Rollins' "31 Days to Morning Time" blog series this week. It was such an encouragement. Some of the topics covered (Plutarch and Shakespeare) were not applicable for my season in homeschooling, but I know I will go back to this series regularly throughout my homeschooling years. (Here's hoping she writes a book!) I especially enjoyed the last post in the series. It reminded me that though my life with little ones is sometimes crazy, I am doing something of value when day after day, week after week, I spend time every day reading Scripture to my children, praying with them, repeating the 23rd psalm with them (our current memory work), singing the same old psalms and hymns over and over, introducing new ones, reading poetry, drinking tea.

On Cuteness:
JJ was sitting on the couch "reading" Green Eggs and Ham. He did pretty well paraphrasing the content, with slightly more politeness: "No, I don't want green eggs and ham, please."

In Appreciation:
One of my favourite things to do is to sing, especially to sing with my choir, the Good News Singers. I am so thankful for Stephen, who makes it a priority to let me go and sing, and takes care of all the children while I do it. He's good like that...he thinks it's important for me to go to homeschool support meetings, too, and does his best to make sure I get to go. I think he's a keeper!

Saturday Commonplaces

Random notes from my week...

On Homeschooling:
I stumbled across Cindy Rollins' blog series "31 Days to Morning Time" this week. While I haven't finished reading it yet, it has been an affirmation of what we already do, and a vision of how we can continue to use our together times in the morning for more than just devotions, memory work, and enjoying poetry.

I am so thankful for the homeschooling community here on the Island. It is good to have not only the support, but also the skills of other homeschoolers. This week we learned some French together at our homeschool co-op. Jo taught the children several phrases using fun songs and games. They were all words and phrases I knew (Bonjour, Comment t'appelle-tu? Je m'appelle ..., Quelle age as tu? J'ai ... ans.), but I really felt she helped me move beyond overthinking methods of language learning, to just jumping in and doing it. I hope she does it again...every week. I took what she taught and reinforced it for a few minutes every day. I think it's a great start.

I also went and had a knitting lesson from another homeschool mom. I did learn to knit as a young child, but haven't done it since. I wanted another handicraft to enjoy and teach to my boys, and when Alice offered to teach it, I jumped at the chance. She refreshed me on my knitting and purling, and when I came home I found a scarf pattern and started one. Here it is so far:

Stephen teased me that I chose a lacey pattern so no one would notice all the holes. I truly didn't choose it for that reason, but it's working out fine so far. I've got to tell you, though, knitting is addictive. I'm going to have to limit myself so I can get my housework done!

On bringing up boys:
Sometimes I think about the pornography saturation of the society we're bringing up our boys in, and I am afraid. This week I was both further terrified and encouraged by an interview with Josh McDowell on Nancy Leigh DeMoss's "Revive Our Hearts" radio program. He makes the point that it is practically impossible to shelter our children from this issue in the technological age we live in. If we unplug our computers, there will be a smartphone somewhere. If we have neither, we can still not control our children's friends' devices. Chances are that some day they will stumble across pornography. But we do not have to live in fear. McDowell's advice:
1. Develop a strong, loving relationship with your children, one where they feel free to come to you with any issue.
2. Teach your children from the time they are babies a healthy, godly, positive view of their bodies and sexuality. The stakes are too high not to be open and frank even from a young age. They need to know that the real thing (sex between a husband and wife) is wonderfully designed by God and is worth waiting for.
3. Come up with a strategy with them to deal with the first time they stumble across pornography.
I felt this was very helpful and worth listening to.

On Food:
I grew up eating kale cooked and mashed with potatoes in "boerenkool stampot", a Dutch version of colcannon always enjoyed with smoked sausage on the side. Up till the time I married Stephen, I had never heard of eating kale raw. Stephen, on the other hand, grew up eating kale salad, and had never heard of eating it cooked. Every time I served him kale, he would tell me again about the delicious kale orange salad of his youth. He always enjoyed it cooked, but still it was strange to him. Now I've been on Pinterest for a couple of years, and kale salads pop up all the time. I've tried a few and loved them all, but they just didn't do it for Stephen. So now, after all these years, I have finally tried his "recipe." Here it is:

Kale
Oranges
Raisins
Chopped Dates
Mayonnaise.

I used curly kale (it's all my little No Frills carries, and I rarely go to another store these days...one doesn't tend to make many stops when one is hauling three little boys along), and it was a bit tough. I would love to know where I can find the lacinato variety, which is supposed to be more tender. I used three stalks (stems removed, leaves cut finely), and three oranges. I cut the oranges into eight wedges, then cut the peel off and cut the wedges in half. I put in a small handful of raisins, and skipped the dates because I didn't have them in the house. Then I moistened it all with mayonnaise.
It was delicious, but I felt it needed some crunch. If I dare to mess with Stephen's recipe, I may add celery, carrots, apples, even onions next time.

On Cuteness:
I was sweeping and mopping upstairs this week. JJ wanted to help, so he took over the mopping. And when I say "took over", I mean it. I tried to borrow the mop for a minute, and he said, "No, Mama! You're the sweepah-man, and I'm the moppah-man."