Sunday, January 5, 2014
January 5, 2014
Although there is a wind chill warning tonight, I have to say that I like the seasons. Christmas decorations are down. I've been planning for the next 4 months of school. It feels good to have some change. It would be boring to always have perfect weather, right?
Saturday, January 4, 2014
And Christmas is over.
The girls finally opened our Christmas presents today. I'm not a meanie. But, we are gone for the entire Christmas week and arrive at home loaded with new toys and gadgets to put away from grandparents and aunts and uncles. I don't think anyone goes overboard with presents. It is just that by the time you celebrate with two families and have five kids we are tired, happy, and have plenty of new stuff to play with. If we open our presents before we go it seems early and rushed. If we open right when we get home, it loses a little sparkle because we are a little Christmased out. So I thought we would give ourselves a little space this year before we did our family presents. I think it worked out great. The girls were excited to open, and seem to appreciate it a little more than normal. We were planning on opening tomorrow, the day the church celebrates Epiphany. Then I realized that we leave this coming Saturday for vacation. When I began to think of everything that needed to happen before then my heart rate started to rise. So we opened today.
The girls each get a frankincense (spiritual), myrrh (body), and gold (fun, extravagant) gift. I love watching them open their gifts. We got enthusiastic reactions all the way around.
Their gifts...
Madeline: Hudson Taylor biography, gloves and hat, Nerf bow and arrow
Lydia: Christian allegory book, comforter, bike
Anna: What's in the Bible #4 DVD, sparkly boots, play mailbox
Cora: What's in the Bible #3 DVD, pink purse, chef dress up clothes
Friday, January 3, 2014
January 3, 2014
We took advantage of our break week and headed to the Children's Museum. Unfortunately, everyone else in Lincoln had the same idea. When you are accustomed to visiting during the middle of the week when school is in session and you have the place to yourself, it is a bummer when the museum is swarming with kids. But, we still had fun!
Julia was not digging all the people there. However, her cuteness today made up for her timidity. Her darling polka dot cardi is from Grandma. The adorable polka dot boots are from Nana. And guess what? They squeak! The little tummy and tush sticking out are from God. There is nothing cuter than a toddler in leggings; unless they are paired with a polka dot cardi and boots.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
January 2, 2014
One of my new year's resolutions is to write something on my blog every single day.
I often get paralyzed by perfection. In future years I know that I will regret not keeping a more accurate history of what our family life consists of. I know that these are some of the best years of our life, even amid the busyness and chaos. I feel like we are filled to the brim, so pictures and documentation falls by the wayside. It is my makeup that if I do something, I go all out and simply don't do things because I can't give it amy absolute all. Because of this, I don't make baby books, blog, or do much of anything for a record of our life. I don't feel guilt about this because I have come to accept that I can't do everything. It is more of regret that I feel. So, I am going to write something here every day. It may only be one sentence. It may only be one picture. But, I'm hoping that it will give my girls and me a story to look back at.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Circle Time 2013-2014
The first part of our school day is Circle Time. The bell is rung, and we all head to the basement, where we gather together to nourish our souls. Here are the elements and order of Circle Time:
Prayer
We start off with corporate prayer. I have printed off a handful of beautiful prayers from the 1962 Common Book of Prayer. Every day a different girl gets to pick what prayer we will recite together. Then, everyone chooses a request from our ongoing prayer list (ministries we support, pregnant friends, sick friends, family members, and specific requests we receive) to pray for. We go around the circle praying for those items, and I finish with whatever items were not chosen by the girls.
Psalm
We read one psalm each day, rotating through Psalm 1, 23, 51, 95, 100, and 127. I wanted to include a variety of Psalms, with different themes yet a small enough number that the words of these psalms become entrenched in their hearts through the repetition.
Literature
We read either a fable, Shakespeare story, or fairy tale each day. One day we read a fable, the next we start a Shakespeare story, and so on. The Shakespeare and fairy tale stories are both too long to read in one sitting of circle time, so they are often continued the next day.
Michael Clay Thompson's English Series
This year I hope to read through Grammar Island, Sentence Island, and Music of the Hemispheres. We do not do a lot of discussion or any activity with these books, but simply treat it like a storybook read aloud.
Poem
Everyday we recite a new poem together. Some days we may read it through just once, other day we say it over and over. Once we know it by heart, we move on to a new poem. Each day we also say a review poem together, systematically working through one review poem per day. The review poems are poems that we learned in previous years, but want to keep alive in our brains. I try to include fun poems, serious poems, short poems, and longer poems in the mix for everyone to be able to enjoy. Our new poems for this year are:
Little Things by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
Grungy Grace by Jack Prelutsky
Sick by Shel Silverstein
In Flanders Field by John McCrae
St. Patrick's Prayer
Always Finish, author unknown
Mr. Nobody by anonymous
Snowball by Shel Silverstein
The Builders by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Timeline Cards
Each day I read aloud two Classical Conversation Classical Acts and Facts Cards, working our way through the entire timeline of world history. Some days we have a lot of discussion about these, including what certain words mean, what history sentence they remember coinciding with that card, what the picture on the front of the card is showing, where in the world this would be taking place, why this happened, what happened previously in history that would contribute to this, and so on. Other days, I simply read them and we move on.
New Classical Conversations Memorization
We talk about and work on the new CC work we learned in the previous week's class. The girls share what they did in their class to learn the material. Then, we read the facts together, sing, use hand motions, trace geography places on maps, and whatever else is necessary for me to drill the information. They have a copy of the Foundations Guide Cycle sheets in their binders. On Thursdays, we play a review game together for the new work and they receive candy for successfully reciting the information.
Classical Conversations Review
They view the online tutorials for the previous 6 weeks' information. On Monday, they watch math and english. On Tuesday, they watch history and science. On Wednesday, they watch latin and geography.
Hymn
We are learning "Love Divine all Loves Excelling" and "All Creatures of our God and King" this year. We sing a new hymn everyday, except the last day of the week when we sing a review hymn from last year.
Things I've learned about making Circle Time a joy more than a burden:
It is the first thing we do everyday. There is no question about whether it will happen or not.
It lasts anywhere from 40 minutes to over an hour. I try not to rush it, but savor it.
I make a binder for each child, with all the memory work in it for the year. Cora cannot read yet, but she has her own binder. This makes her feel included. For the older kids, I think it helps to read, view, and say the information.
Every sheet is in a page protector. These binders get a lot of love from busy hands, so I want to make it as sturdy as possible. I use a brightly colored sheet as a divider between the section. Then I can instruct my non readers to turn two pages after the specific color so we can all be on the same page.
I spent a fair amount of time formatting the sheets in the binder to look appealing. I don't want too many words on a page so it is not intimidating. Yet if possible, I want an entire poem or prayer to fit on one page for convenience's sake.
I do all the printing and assembling of the binder at the beginning of the year, before school begins. Then it is just pick up and go. If has to be easy for me to use and continue to use for it to happen. Towards the end of last year we reached a point where I needed to do additional printing for the binder. Because of that, circle time fell off the rest of the year.
I would normally include Bible reading in Circle Time. But, Daddy has been reading "The Golden Children's Bible" to us immediately after supper before everyone gets up. We have tried this at different times over the years, but for some reason it seems to be effective now. He reads a story, asks questions, and we discuss. I love it.
Prayer
We start off with corporate prayer. I have printed off a handful of beautiful prayers from the 1962 Common Book of Prayer. Every day a different girl gets to pick what prayer we will recite together. Then, everyone chooses a request from our ongoing prayer list (ministries we support, pregnant friends, sick friends, family members, and specific requests we receive) to pray for. We go around the circle praying for those items, and I finish with whatever items were not chosen by the girls.
We read one psalm each day, rotating through Psalm 1, 23, 51, 95, 100, and 127. I wanted to include a variety of Psalms, with different themes yet a small enough number that the words of these psalms become entrenched in their hearts through the repetition.
Literature
We read either a fable, Shakespeare story, or fairy tale each day. One day we read a fable, the next we start a Shakespeare story, and so on. The Shakespeare and fairy tale stories are both too long to read in one sitting of circle time, so they are often continued the next day.
Michael Clay Thompson's English Series
This year I hope to read through Grammar Island, Sentence Island, and Music of the Hemispheres. We do not do a lot of discussion or any activity with these books, but simply treat it like a storybook read aloud.
Poem
Everyday we recite a new poem together. Some days we may read it through just once, other day we say it over and over. Once we know it by heart, we move on to a new poem. Each day we also say a review poem together, systematically working through one review poem per day. The review poems are poems that we learned in previous years, but want to keep alive in our brains. I try to include fun poems, serious poems, short poems, and longer poems in the mix for everyone to be able to enjoy. Our new poems for this year are:
Little Things by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
Grungy Grace by Jack Prelutsky
Sick by Shel Silverstein
In Flanders Field by John McCrae
St. Patrick's Prayer
Always Finish, author unknown
Mr. Nobody by anonymous
Snowball by Shel Silverstein
The Builders by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Timeline Cards
Each day I read aloud two Classical Conversation Classical Acts and Facts Cards, working our way through the entire timeline of world history. Some days we have a lot of discussion about these, including what certain words mean, what history sentence they remember coinciding with that card, what the picture on the front of the card is showing, where in the world this would be taking place, why this happened, what happened previously in history that would contribute to this, and so on. Other days, I simply read them and we move on.
New Classical Conversations Memorization
We talk about and work on the new CC work we learned in the previous week's class. The girls share what they did in their class to learn the material. Then, we read the facts together, sing, use hand motions, trace geography places on maps, and whatever else is necessary for me to drill the information. They have a copy of the Foundations Guide Cycle sheets in their binders. On Thursdays, we play a review game together for the new work and they receive candy for successfully reciting the information.
Classical Conversations Review
They view the online tutorials for the previous 6 weeks' information. On Monday, they watch math and english. On Tuesday, they watch history and science. On Wednesday, they watch latin and geography.
Hymn
We are learning "Love Divine all Loves Excelling" and "All Creatures of our God and King" this year. We sing a new hymn everyday, except the last day of the week when we sing a review hymn from last year.
Things I've learned about making Circle Time a joy more than a burden:
It is the first thing we do everyday. There is no question about whether it will happen or not.
It lasts anywhere from 40 minutes to over an hour. I try not to rush it, but savor it.
Every sheet is in a page protector. These binders get a lot of love from busy hands, so I want to make it as sturdy as possible. I use a brightly colored sheet as a divider between the section. Then I can instruct my non readers to turn two pages after the specific color so we can all be on the same page.
I do all the printing and assembling of the binder at the beginning of the year, before school begins. Then it is just pick up and go. If has to be easy for me to use and continue to use for it to happen. Towards the end of last year we reached a point where I needed to do additional printing for the binder. Because of that, circle time fell off the rest of the year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)