ThadenPierce School

Site for knitting ideas with kids.

I’m adding several, worth checking out the Gamequarium and Gutenberg Press.

We received A Child’s Garden of Verse from a birthday party book exchange. (Everyone brought a wrapped book instead of a gift and each child went home with a book – like the Webkinz exchange party we went to last month!) We just started reading it and I’m doing one or two poems and talking about it with all the kids, then they illustrate the poem.

I’m also trying to remember to read through the texts we’ve downloaded, all are free because of old copyrights expiring or because of sponsorships providing them online as a service:

Tales of Shakespeare by the Lambs
50 Famous Stories Retold
The Oxford Book of Children’s Verses
Parables of Nature

I’m not seeing those last two listed with Gutenberg but I’ll see which source I got them from…

Christopher just completed Saxon Math 2, which means he’s done with his second grade math. I kept thinking he was in his second grade year but he’s not, he would be first grade. And Moira is halfway through Saxon 1, so she’s about where he was in his kindergarden year (and she’s K this year, too.) I’m happy to know that even with all my slackerness and inconsistency, they are ahead of where they would be in their math & language text based on grade level.

Christopher & Moira are both around lesson 30 in their language text, Christopher’s in third grade and Mo’s in first grade, but grammar lessons are just 3x a week for C and 2x a week for Mo. In between days we’re doing well with spelling, reading, book reports, handwriting, and Mo’s extra speech work. Today we did seven pages in her reading workbook but I have her do them orally so it counts as speech work. Like today there were pictures with just one letter and she had to tell me the others – a camel with just the vowels and she fills in the consonants. We also worked on short vowel sounds, helping her practice saying them and finding words with that sound.

I’m reinstating the policy that math & language work must be done by 11am, before lunch. Since we’re spending most mornings in the yard (it’s 68 degrees) the other kids play out there while I do lessons one-on-one with the older two. Then we do lunch on the new backyard patio. I’m also keeping the Pandora radio on the Mozart or Beethoven stations, which has been very soothing… and we are spending most of the morning in the sunroom, which is good for Mommy.

Tonight is the homeschoolers’ science fair at our local library, more on that later… we didn’t enter but we plan to attend and perhaps enter next year.

(Christopher’s book report got deleted by some siblings SO we’re recreating it.)

A boy kid and his grandmother turned all of the witches in england into mice. Then they turned the rest of the worlds’ witches into mice. It can seem scary at first but later it becomes exciting!

(Mom is now typing up for him, since he’s talking faster than he can write.)

They used formula 86 delayed action mouse maker to turn them into mice. (“Should we tell them the recipe? I forgot the names of some.”) You need to boil a telescope until it’s nice and soft, and you have to boil ants or crocodile tongues, and a claw of a crab clomper and a grandol’s egg and that’s all I remember now.

One of them lives in a burrow, one of them lives in the ocean, the crab clomper lives on the high cliffs and a grandol is a type of bird that lives in a nest in a tree that’s very high. And they build their nests at the very top. That’s all I remember of the recipe. I don’t want to give away the whole book. I was giving away some of the book and I don’t want to give away all the fun. And I want to give the kids a message:

Every single witch HATES children, and does away with them. Like they turn them into porpoises, rats, stone statues, chickens, um… makes them go into oil paintings. And they use snakes to do away with children. And if you are lucky enough, you can get away but you can lose a thumb.

We now meet on Tuesdays with our history co-op. Uncle Patrick loaned us some armor and chainmail and Emy modeled for us!

Thanks to Carrie for letting us know about this free fire safety program at the Frisco Fire Station. Very cool! A fieldtrip counts as 4 or more kids so we’re already our own fieldtrip but we’ll probably try to coordinate something with friends.

This month has been sidetracked so far with emergency doctor and dental visits, in addition to the previously scheduled appointments. We’ve not been consistent about doing lessons and it’s showing – when I say we’re starting circle time I’m met with reluctant kids and excuses and, “But I’m doing this…” and whines. Sigh…

SO, we’re getting back on track and doing lessons as soon as Kit walks out the door to work. Both of the kids are getting more in depth lessons than they are use to, and they’re not reacting well to the need for a longer focus and more written work. We have more energy in the morning, of course, so we have to tackle the language and math first thing.

We’ve thankfully been blessed with some great weather so we’re spending a lot of time outdoors. We’re using that for exercise and nature study and Mom’s much needed vitamin D and mood boost. The patio now has a table and chairs so the kids can do lessons out there as well. I’m finding it’s best to do circle time & lessons in whichever room has the most sunshine – sometimes the kids’ bedrooms, sometimes my room if the sunroom is too cold, etc. Ideally the sunroom, of course. If I open the blinds first thing in the morning then even if it’s cold outside, the sunroom warms up quickly.

The kids are very much attracted to (a) anywhere I am (b) sunshine. So I try to follow the sun. I laugh that even in a house with so much play space, you can inevitably find all five of our children within the same ten square feet. Sometimes the same four square feet! If I come to the sunroom for lessons with the older kids, the little ones follow to stay close to us – making it much easier to keep an eye on them.

We’ve unplugged the tv (which was on while Bennett was having to stay off his foot – still limping but doing better.) And we hid the kids’ laptop and not turned on their iMac. We decided we needed some unplugged time to decompress from the screen time during the various emergency trips.

Oh, and we are LOVING Pandora Radio still. We have a Beethoven station on now and as we do more composer studies (starting next year, not this year) I like that I can type in any name or piece of music and let them listen to similar works. I think having it playing while they work has been a great exposure for them and really helps set a nice tone for the room.

Bennett and Emiline are now really great playmates so when the older two are doing their lessons, I don’t even have to worry about entertaining the younger two. Joseph either naps or crawls around chewing on things or I nurse him (like now) and the middle two play. I love it! When they aren’t playing I can ask Christopher to read them a story or have Mo play with them while I do one-on-one work with the other older child.

I am really amazed at how the kids are able to entertain themselves and each other. The other day they were outside playing, Joseph was napping, and I was sewing the aprons up while watching them. They kept running in to check in with me but I was able to actually sneak to do a project (birthday surprise) while they all played and I could keep an eye on Joseph as well. As crazy as the last six months (six years??) have been, I am seeing changes as the kids get older and I can do more and more projects that have gone to the back burner. I’m grateful!

Bennett and Emy are cuddling on the trampoline right now, Bennett ran to get a blanket to cover up the two of them. Mo and Christopher are doing their math work. Joseph is nursing.

I’ll get the hang of this. Someday.

Did you know BYU Independent Study offers some personal enrichment classes for free?

Christopher wanted to make some mini stuffed animals to match his Webkinz animals. We had some felt scraps and he drew patterns, though I ended up needing to sketch the pattern. His versions had some bits that were too narrow and I knew would be tricky to cut out and stitch. I did a wider and looser outline on some scrap paper.

Then he cut out the pattern and pinned it to some felt folder over double, then cut it out. He found matching thread and I showed him how to stitch and he did it!

How cute is that?? He kept saying how exciting it was that he can make his own stuffed animals – he used cotton balls inside of them for padding.

So, a simple and fun handicraft idea.