39 Week Update and My Quest for Great Literature

Today is 39 weeks!  I have to be honest, besides morning sickness all.the.time., this is probably the worst part of pregnancy.  Marcus can attest to the fact that even though this is baby number four and I should be somewhat tuned into the signs of labor by now, I lay in bed at night and speculate on how much longer I think it will be.  I think it's more of a pleading at this point for God to hear how miserable I am and start labor, haha! 

 

I am past the point of getting dressed in the mornings and I might make it to the shower during Mason's naptime, but even that is pushing it.  I've still had lots of pressure and BH contractions, but they always seem to go away just as I'm starting to convince myself that I'm actually in labor.  I actually halfway packed my hospital bag this week, but since I should only have to be in the hospital for 24 hours, it seems kinda silly to pack a bunch of stuff besides a Boppy and nursing tanks.  I have a couple of cute outfits for Paisley, but I plan on going home in yoga pants and a tank top, lol. 

 

Otherwise, we're just playing the waiting game now.  This last trimester I've had restless legs whenever I lay down to rest, which has been really frustrating for both Marcus and I at bedtime because I'm constantly adjusting and trying to get comfortable and it's very disruptive for both of us.  Anyway, I figured out that if I take a hot bath before bed, it helps my legs to relax and I go to sleep much easier.  So during my baths, I've been catching up on a lot of reading and it's been wonderful!  I've read five books in the bath in the month that we've been here!

 

I know that all this uninterrupted reading time is going to come to an end pretty soon with Paisley's birth and school starting back, but I am using this time to work on my "Classics List" that I came up with several years ago.  I have always been a reader, but when we were exploring the Classical education model for our kids, I felt like there were way too many influential, award-winning books that I had either never read or skimmed over in school just to do well on a test.  So I compiled a list of books and have been slowly working my way through the list as I can find the time between my college classes and the kids' school/activities.  I also have to fight the urge to be on social media during any free moment that I get, and bath time seems to be a good solution because I surely am not taking my phone or computer to the bath with me!  Of course, I might be just as upset if I dropped a book in the bathtub...

 

 

It's a pretty extensive list and still have a long way to go, but I am steadily making progress.  The great part about this list is that there are books that I never would have chosen on my own, but now that I've read them, I see why they are considered classics.  I feel sorry for our generation of kids that will not be exposed to some of these books because these stories are powerful.  I just finished Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl right after reading Night by Elie Weisel, both of which are about the Jewish plight during WWII.  Very gut-wrenching stuff.   I've read books about migrant farm workers in California during the Depression (The Grapes of Wrath), Apartheid (Cry, the Beloved Country), and slavery (Uncle Tom's Cabin), as well as mental illness (Flowers for Algernon), racism (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), socialism (Animal Farm), Communism (1984), and I'm currently reading about the disgusting conditions in the meat-packing industry and the issue of wage-slavery that immigrants to this country faced in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. 

 

I am so glad that I created this list back in 2012 because, unlike with social media where something new comes along every 5 minutes, books like these force us to examine our own hearts and they tend to leave a lasting impression.  Although many of the books are merely fiction, we still find ourselves immersed in how we would react if we were the characters in the book.  I truly believe that great literature helps us determine where our belief systems lie in the real world.  In the abstract, it is easy to say how we would act in all situations, but when an author is able to challenge those positions, it either reinforces our convictions or it makes us realize that our beliefs were faulty to begin with.   

 

This is why I feel bad for a generation that is not being raised to read and think through some of these tough books.  Without grounding and reinforcement of a belief system, there is a much higher probability of just going with the flow and being blown about by whatever the popular school of thought du jour is.  I want my kids (and me!) to be able to articulate why we believe what we believe and why we always come back to the Bible as our moral absolute.  We may not always understand why God tells us certain things, but we can trust that His plan is sovereign and that He is in control.  There are so many theological lessons that we can learn from reading great books and bringing them back to the Bible, but this post is getting terribly long and I don't want to ramble, so I will save those thoughts for another day!  In the meantime, I'm going to go read!

 



 



New Home: The School Room

Out of all the rooms in our new house, I have to say that I am most excited about the school room.  I am a total, unapologetic nerd and I have way too many books to have bookshelves scattered all over the house.  I am really excited about this upcoming school year as it will be our first full, official year of homeschooling the kids.  With Taylor in 1st Grade and Hunter in Kindergarten, plus a toddler and a newborn, it will be interesting to see how this year plays out. 

Last year, before the morning sickness kicked in and life got crazy with moving, I really enjoyed the structure that our school days provided.  It seemed like the days went much smoother when we all had a routine and knew what to expect.  These lazy summer days have been wreaking havoc on our schedule and I will be glad to get back to some structure!

So, I am very excited about having a dedicated place for us to do the majority of our schoolwork because one of my biggest frustrations last year was having to get our school stuff cleaned off the kitchen table for lunch and get it back out afterwards if the need arose.  It will be nice to be able to close the door and leave a project where it is without having to clean everything up in between school times.

This is more the office side of the room, where I've got most of my books, including cookbooks, old textbooks, scrapbooks, devotionals & Bibles, fiction, and a whole shelf of adult classics that I've picked up here and there.  It will be nice having the computer and printer in the same room where we do school.  Besides pencils, that was probably the tool we used the most last year! On top of the bookshelf is Marcus's diploma-mine will be joining his soon!

Around the corner, I have the world map, United States map, and a dry erase writing practice page on the wall next to our curriculum shelves.  The shelves are two 3x3 cube organizers from Lowe's stacked on top of one another.

Across the room is our dry erase board and the calendar and clock.  I also got Taylor a small magnetic board that she can use with the magnetic letter tiles when we're working on making words.  The cubbies below the white board are the 2x3 cube organizers from Lowe's attached at the ends.  They hold our other supplies, like math manipulatives, letter tiles, hole punch, label maker, etc.

As of right now, I'm keeping all of my craft supplies in the closet.  But there is plenty of room in there to add more storage if we need it.  Behind the door is a copy of the Declaration of Independence from Hobby Lobby.  We also have a copy of the Bill of Rights that is still packed in a box somewhere!

A straight-on view of the white board and cubbies.  We have 38 days until school starts! I want to add a section on the side of the board that details our daily/weekly schedule so that the kids know what is coming and to keep me on task with what I expect to accomplish that day or week.

A better view of our curriculum/kids books cubbies.  I have these organized by subject with the board books and younger kids books on the bottom so that Mason can get them out while we're "doing school."  Math, Science, History, Reading, Bible, Fine Arts, and supplies that we use on a frequent basis round out the other shelves.  I even had room in the top right cubby for Marcus's and my current textbooks. 

 

The only other thing that I need to pick up for this room is a small table to go in the middle.  I have debated between desks and a table and I think that since most of our work will be done together (only math and English will be done at different grade levels), it would be beneficial if I could sit down with them at the same table and we can work all together.  If they need to be separated because they're getting distracted too easily, I can always send one of them to the kitchen table, which is still within eyesight for me, to work by themselves.  Read-alouds will still be done on the couch so everyone can get comfy and enjoy the story.  So excited to get this school year underway-we'll see if this room looks the same halfway through the year, haha!

Catching Up Part 2, the Road Trip

After the July 4th weekend, we finished packing up our stuff from Alabama and got on the road to head cross-country to our new home in Boise.  We planned on taking three full days to get there, which would equate to 9 hours of driving each day.  That's a pretty monumental undertaking with three kids age six and under!  But we've driven long distances before to and from Mimi and Poppie's house when we lived in South Carolina, so this wouldn't be much different, only it would be three days in a row instead of just one.  The first day we made it from Alabama through Memphis to Arkansas, Oklahoma, and halfway through Kansas.

First morning on the road

Our first casualty

Torrential downpours in Wichita, Kansas!

 

We stopped for the night in Salina, Kansas where we promptly found a hotel with an indoor pool.  As soon as we got our stuff inside, we had the kids put on their bathing suits and we went and played in the water for an hour and a half--just long enough to really tire them out.  We ordered a pizza in the room and went straight to bed!  The next morning at 4 am, I hear Marcus rustling in the bed and lo and behold he's ready to get up and go, lol!  But instead of getting us all up, he let us sleep and went and got gas and reorganized the truck and picked up doughnuts and milk for breakfast.  By the time he got back, we were slowly getting up and we were able to get back on the road by 7 that morning. 

 

The second day of travel, we drove from the middle of Kansas to Colorado and up to Cheyenne, Wyoming where we turned west and drove as far as Evanston, Wyoming.  We decided to stop there because we had gone through a lot of rain that day and were all tired, plus that gave us only a few hour drive to Grandma's house the next day.

 

The farther west we got, the more windmills we saw

Intently watching the movie

My chauffeur looks so serious! He's a man on a mission!

Kansas really is all flat...

Entering Colorado! This was a new state for me to check off my list.

A buffalo statue on a mountain marks the spot where we entered Wyoming.

At the time, I thought 58 was cold, but when we got up at 6:30 am in Evanston, it was 49 degrees!

About to hit a wall of rain.

Finally starting to get into some mountains!

The clouds were so low, we couldn't see the tops of the mountain

I thought this was the coolest thing!  We bought the chips in Alabama and didn't open them until we were in Colorado, so the change in pressure made the bag inflate!  Definitely had an impromptu science lesson with the kids, lol!

 

After spending the night in Evanston, we got up on the third day and hit the road for the comparatively short drive to Grandma's house in Burley.  We were only three miles from Utah, so we just had to cut through the northeast corner of Utah through Ogden and head north for Idaho. 

 

Finally some REAL mountains!

The clouds were playing peek-a-boo in the crevices of the mountains.

Leaving Utah and heading towards Idaho.

Our new home state!!

 

We made it to Grandma's house just in time for some fishing before lunch.  Overall, we had a fantastic trip and really could not have asked for better, besides all the rain that we went through in Kansas and Wyoming.  I got to see parts of the country that I had never seen before.  The kids did great watching movies and napping in the car and Marcus and I were able to swap out driving and riding.  We packed lots of snacks and lunch foods, so we didn't have to stop for food, only for gas and potty breaks, which were surprisingly few considering I was 34 weeks pregnant!  It was a really great trip, although I'm not sure I want to be stuck in the car for that long again any time soon! :)

 

Our full journey from SC to ID!





2015-2016 Curriculum

As I said in my last post, we are going with the Classical Conversations at home method this upcoming school year.  Which means that the foundation of our school will be, ironically, the Foundations guide from CC and the audio CDs of the memory work.  

One of the biggest decisions we had to make this year was whether to formally classify Hunter as Kindergarten or whether to hold him back until next year.  His 5th birthday is ON September 1st, which is the cutoff, so we could have gone either way with him.  I leaned towards holding him back a year at first because, like most little boys, he has the hardest time sitting still and tends to fidget all. the. time.  But since we are not going to enroll them in a CC community until the 2016-17 school year and he'll be 6, I think we will be able to train him to sit still long enough for the lessons.  My other reason for going ahead with Kindergarten for him is because this child has an amazing memory.  This has really become evident with AWANA this year.  He has no problem memorizing his Scriptures and even some of his sister's!  Any song that comes on the radio he can sing the words to and we have an audio book of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas that he can recite all the words to from memory.  So since the CC memory work will be our main focus, I think that it will be perfect for him.

Our Bible study starting out will be Who Is God? And How Can I Know Him? by Apologia.  I've read several very good reviews of it and this year I want to do a family study instead of one that is segregated by grade-level.

For math, we will be sticking with Saxon.  It has worked well for us this year and so far the kids have enjoyed it.  I will be using Level 1 for Taylor and repeating the Kindergarten book for Hunter.  He sat at the table with us when we did the activities for Taylor and seemed to really enjoy them.  I want to reinforce the ideas that he picked up on this year before we move on to new material for him.

For English/Reading, we will be using First Language Lessons for The Well-Trained Mind, Level 1.  This is another one of those that I've heard good recommendations for, so we are going to try it out.  I still have Explode the Code that we used this year and I will probably have Hunter go through it again before moving on to FLL the following year. 

I debated back and forth between Story of the World and Mystery of History for a while, but I think we are going to go with Mystery of History this year.  The deciding factor for me was that it is more Biblically-centered than SOTW.  My only concern is that I've read reviews that it may be geared more towards older elementary school students.  Of course, if we try it and end up not liking it, we can always change it!

As a supplement to CC science, I am going to get Science in the Beginning by Dr. Jay Wile.  I like that this science book is geared towards younger elementary students and that there are simple experiments with household items for each lesson.  The other great thing about this book and the subsequent ones is they explore science following the timeline of history.  It helps that we are starting with Cycle 1 in CC this year, so we will be learning our history and our science starting with Creation.

If that didn't seem like enough to keep us super busy throughout the year, I would like to throw in a few lessons on fine arts and classical music.  I would love to get both kids into music lessons, but they also want to do soccer and baseball and I know I've got to draw the line somewhere!  I keep having to remind myself that we will have a newborn when school starts as well and I'll probably be running on very little sleep for a while!

To organize all this and help keep me sane, I will be using The Well-Planned Day planner again.  I have loved how it has room for everything for the kids' school (and mine!), including my dinner menu for the week and shopping lists.  It suits my Type A personality very well.  In fact, I hinted to Marcus the other night that my current planner expires in June, so I'll be needing a new one soon! :-)

I know that I am overextending myself, but honestly, I'd rather schedule too much and not get it all done than to schedule too little and then be scrounging for things to add mid-year.  So we're shooting for the stars! :-)

Our first year homeschooling

Ever since I read The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, I have been intrigued by the idea of a classical education.  I felt like this was the kind of education I wish I had when I was growing up.  Then, a couple of years ago, when we were exploring the idea of homeschooling, Taylor and I got the opportunity to visit a Classical Conversations program and observe the way that it worked.  I was amazed at the things that these kids had memorized!  They remembered more about Latin than I did after three years of AP Latin in high school!  I knew this was something that I wanted to explore in more detail and seriously consider for our family.  We didn't jump into a CC community immediately because I was still working at the time and would not be able to homeschool exclusively until the following October. 

Fast forward to the present and we are finished with Kindergarten with Taylor, which was definitely an eye-opening experience.  I, like every newcomer I'm sure, was overwhelmed with curriculum choices, and I ended up going with a few different ones that were recommended by fellow homeschooling moms.  We had success with some and others didn't fit our family very well, but I now have a little bit more knowledge about what to look for next year. 

We took a VERY relaxed approach this year because I was still working until October and then in December we found out we were expecting Paisley and then the horrid morning sickness began and I was in and out of the hospital a couple of times.  In January, we decided that we wanted to move to Boise to be near family and from that point forward, it has been a whirlwind of looking for jobs and selling our house(s) and taking care of ALL of the myriad of details that come with moving across the country.  We definitely practice reading with Tay and try and incorporate math wherever we can, but we stopped sitting around the dining room table with our workbooks a while ago.

Next year, however, Taylor will be in first grade and Hunter will be starting kindergarten, so I plan on a more focused approach.  During the school year, I actually looked forward to the days where we did our chores and then sat around the table with our lessons because it gave our days more structure.  On days we don't "do school" it seems like there is more whining, more complaining, and more asking to watch a movie or a TV show every 5 minutes., which is a surefire way to a cranky mommy by the end of the day.

So as we look forward to the upcoming year, I have decided to focus on the classical education that is offered in Classical Conversations, but we will be doing it at home.  I always tend to be overly ambitious, but I decided that trying to get to class every week with a newborn might be too much, too soon.  So we will work on the CC memory work at home and then jump in the following year with a CC community.  I am in the process of nailing down the rest of the curriculum that we'll be using next year because somehow I have a hunch that if I wait until August to get everything figured out, a certain little girl might make things a bit difficult on me! ;-)