School days

Here are a few random pictures of the first grade, pre-K, and nursery school classes at the esteemed Himstedt Preparatory School, taken last week.

Sometimes Amelia likes to do math with her favorite blanket. I guess it helps the brain work more efficiently. Perhaps I should choose a favorite blanket and carry it with me wherever I go.

We passed the 100th day of school a little while back, and are on the downward slope toward summer. Amelia just finished her math book for the year, the second book from a wonderful company called Math-U-See. She can now add and subtract all single digits, and has memorized her addition math facts. We're still working on getting the subtraction ones down cold, but she's at least at a point with them where she can figure them all out by adding up. We'll spend the rest of this school year practicing addition and subtraction and playing math games. Math is NOT my forte, and never has been. I've always known where it all went awry for me (first grade), and just the other day in the basement I found my PERMANENT RECORD from first grade with a teacher's evaluation of my progress to prove it. "Does not grasp basics in mathematics. Has no understanding of the number line." I fell through so many cracks early on that I finally got to where I could hide my struggle, squeak by mostly with C's, and attempt to make math go away altogether once I was through school. Then I started home schooling, so here it is again! I've been very pleased with my progress in first grade math, and have (truthfully, honestly, and sadly) learned a great deal. I'm even looking forward to second grade math. :) Oh yeah, and I'm really proud of Amelia too. She struggles with paying attention to her math work and finishing it in a timely manner, mostly because she seems to be wired like me. WAY more to the reading/writing/language side of the spectrum, stuff she does with no problem.

Shannon is officially pre-K age though with an October birthay he's been five for four months already. He and I do reading lessons each day, er, most days for about 20 minutes with the book Amelia and I used, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We're now on Lesson 76 and he's doing great. I figured if we could knock reading out of the way before he is officially a kindergartener, then next school year will be a piece of cake for him (and me!). I can also do more with the two of them together if he's already reading.

Shannon doesn't like for me to point at the book to help him keep up with where he is, he'd rather do it himself.

Today's pointer of choice is a tank.

For the second time now I'm getting a front row seat to the process of a child learning to read. (Third time, if you count when I learned to read...which I don't remember, so I guess it doesn't count.) It's amazing! The brain is truly an incredible creation.

This particular day Amelia decided it would be fun to do math in Elizabeth's seat.



She's a bit oversized for it these days.



Though it started out as her seat just six short years ago.

I love this one from her first birthday. All of the siblings who've been through this seat liked to hook their toes under the rim of the tray. Not a chance of that happening now!

These are just for fun.



She made some great faces.



Here's the prodigy. Here you can see her working on her second novel in a historical fiction series about the Civil War.



Her writing is a little messy and scribble scrabbly, so maybe that's not what she's working on. It's hard to be sure.

Please excuse the ridiculous hair, she kept taking her hair bows out and throwing them into forsaken areas of the Himstedt home, so I grabbed the closest thing I could find. She wore her hair like a fountain for the rest of the morning.

I think I'll try out every color...







And with a final touch of blue...voila!

Elizabeth likes to draw and color while we do school. She also likes to pull out every game and puzzle we own and take out all the little pieces. Pulling out all the coloring books is fun too, as well as getting out the play dough, which she can open herself. It usually looks like a toy and game warzone when I'm finished with school, because she knows I'm not paying close attention to what all she's doing. Fourth children everywhere know that their mamas are always busy doing something, and as long as they're not crying they can do a lot of what they want, JUST SO MOMMY CAN FINISH A TASK! (I used to think I'd never be a mom who would let my little ones play in the Tupperware cabinet because it's so much to clean up. Then I realized it could buy me at least ten more minutes to finish making dinner most nights.)

Before bed the other night Amelia gathered the other kids for "Amelia's storytime." All that hard work teaching her to read has paid off. Look at this.

They all climbed up in the chair with her of their own accord. I love seeing them snuggled up together, and with her taking on the big sister role. One of my prayers for them is that they will grow up close to each other and have terrific relationships as adults.



After finishing Gone With the Wind, War and Peace, and the Bible, Elizabeth picked up some lighter reading for the evening.



The lack of Avery in school photos is because Avery doesn't do school of any kind yet. I realized the other day that he doesn't even know most of his letters. He can sing the ABC's (even the "angry ABC's"), but he doesn't know which one's what. I have a feeling he'll pick up a lot of it before the two years leading up to his official Kindergarten year are over.

It's funny how when folks ask about our life and they learn what we do and how many kids we have, they nearly always automatically ask, "So are you home schooling?" I guess we fit the part somehow. I kid with friends that as soon as I grow my hair out enough for a long ponytail I'm going to make myself a denim jumper for each day of the week, don my white Keds, and go plant that organic garden. We'll probably get some chickens and goats too.

I do get asked if I think I'll keep on with home schooling all the way through. I answer that I don't know yet, right now it's what's right for our family. I feel God led me into it (especially since there was a day I was pretty vehemently against it- before kids arrived), and has given me a heart for teaching our kids. It took me awhile to realize that keeping them home isn't unnatural- sending them away kind of is. Folks question how they'll learn about the real world. I would counter that school isn't anything like the real world, with classrooms full of same-aged folks, walking in lines hither and yon, being taught the same stuff at the same pace regardless of learning style, and working mostly independently without the collaboration of others. We're working to learn about the real world while out in it- at the grocery store, the bank, the post office, and, of course, Walmart. Most importantly we're striving to see it all through a God-shaped perspective.

It has given me a real appreciation for how hard school teachers work. I can't imagine teaching over 20 little folks to read or do math at one time, especially if parents aren't particularly helpful at home. Wow!

Home schooling does take a committment, as it's something that has to be done everyday whether you're in the mood or not, and it takes up a couple of hours each day. I wouldn't trade the time for what I see taking shape though. The Bible says for us to raise our children in the admonition of the Lord. I think it would be hard for me to do a good job with that if they were gone 7-8 hours everyday, giving James and i just five busy hours each evening (if they didn't do other activities) and weekends to hang out with them, talk with them, and influence them. I like that they are spending extended time in their early years with us. In my life I think being in public school created detachment issues between me and my parents. (Well, that and my dad worked a lot of hours.) I either didn't go to them with issues I was having, or rejected some council when it was offered because I knew they weren't in "my life" each day, and wouldn't "get it." I knew school and life were different (and issues were harder in some ways) than they were back in my parents' day, just like the world my kids are growing up in is different (and harder) from what I grew up in.

I also remember in high school thinking it was normal to throw around sexual innuendos and inappropriate banter because everyone did. It was better to come back with a remark of your own rather than look all embarrassed. It was hard to reconcile daily life and church life, where we as youth were reminded that we were supposed to be different.

That's how it was for me, and as much as a mom's heart wants to shield her kids from the world's crap, I don't think that's the right approach either. The crap's there, and always will be, it's up to us as parents to expose them to things as they are mature enough. Keeping them at home while they're young makes that a little easier.

I could outline a REALLY BIG list of things I love about home schooling besides the stuff mentioned above, but I'll spare you. (I could also make a list of some drawbacks!) At the end of it all, I'd love to just be able to say that we have a relationship, our kids and us, and more importantly that they have one with God. I'd say that's every Christian parents' hope.

Well, I've got more pictures and updates to post sometime soon, and hopefully I'll get to it before next year. In the past few weeks it's snowed again, we've been skating, had friends over, and more. Maybe you'll get lucky enough to hear some more of my rambling philosophical outpourings as well!

And...tomorrow...is...my...birthday...whether....I...want...it...to....come....or....not. I'd just as soon not. The day can come, of course, but it can leave off the part where I have to increase the number to 36. Ugh.

Well, I'm off to bed, and to prepare for a day of the kids asking when we're going to go to my party, and being confused that there wasn't one.

So long!