Happy Halloween!

Whew. October is a busy month for us! I just realized that I have not been posting much about our actual homeschooling, so I thought I would catch up a bit.

We celebrated Reezle's birthday recently, and she is now 8 years old! I can't quite wrap my head around that yet, but I'm trying. My husband and I also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary earlier this month. And we are also preparing to celebrate Halloween, a favorite holiday in our family. Pumpkins are out, candy is bought, and costumes are ready! Reezle is going to be a beautiful witch, and Little G is going to be an awesome superhero. Even I have some PJs with skulls!

I've also been trying to make the most of these last few nice days before winter takes a firm hold of our area. Its seemingly relentless grip can last well into spring, with temperatures well below zero, epic snowfalls, and ice storms. Last winter, our final snow of the season occurred on April 18th.

But there has also been lots of learning happening here at home. My little Kindergartner is progressing quickly in his first grade Math, Phonics, and Language Arts. He is on par to finish with first graders in Phonics, and he is just a handful of days away from being caught up with the first graders in Math and LA. Considering he started 5 weeks behind the children an academic year ahead of him and will likely surpass them before the holidays, I am thoroughly impressed. He loves school, and the first thing out of his mouth each morning is, "Can I do school today?" Yes, even on weekends.

Reezle is similarly enthusiastic. Though we have had a couple of difficult days, mostly in the beginning, I never have to ask them to do their school work because they always wake up ready to get started and eager to learn.

Having completed the first 9 weeks of the school year, I am more confident than ever that this was absolutely the right choice for our family. We are happy, we are together, the children are learning (and retaining) so much. Because my husband and I are always aware of exactly what the content of the curriculum is, we can randomly ask questions and discuss topics in greater depth. Right now, R is studying Roman history and G is learning bits and pieces as well. Both my husband and I feel pleased with their levels of comprehension and retention of the material, some of which we had forgotten ourselves since our gradeschool years.

Our PE classes are lots of fun; we've been learning hoopdance! The kids are really picking up on it quickly, and it provides such great proprioceptive input for G. Public school gym class was 30 minutes once weekly. We do our PE classes almost daily, and almost always for longer than 30 minutes. None of us want to put down the hoop! I'm trying to figure out how to share video of the kids hooping without compromising their privacy.

I have much more to share, once I have the chance to organize and post it. That won't be happening today. Today, we are preparing for our little Halloween celebration tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

Water

A recent quote from my 5 year-old son: "Water only runs, it doesn't walk!"

Indeed, little man.

No Subject Left Behind

No Child Left Behind. It sounds great when you just hear the words, doesn't it? But what does it really mean and how does it translate into real education? Simply put, it may mean a whole lot of subjects left behind instead.

Math and language arts (reading/writing) are the core areas where schools are evaluated based on student performance. This is great if you consider how much these areas mean to effective learning and functioning in this world. However, it's not so great once you realize that schools are losing sight of equally important areas such as history, science, and the arts. While some would argue that these areas are not on level with math and language arts, I completely disagree.

First of all, there is a saying that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. I was appalled not long ago at how many people my age and younger don't even know who Adolph Hitler was, or much of anything about World War II and the mass genocide of the Jewish people in concentration camps. Far fewer are aware of our own country's post-Pearl Harbor internment camps which the Japanese-American citizens of our country were forced into, many after agreeing to renounce their American citizenship because they were bullied into doing so. If we do not know our history, and world history, we are doomed to repeat it. That is a frightening thought. But beyond simply repeating past atrocities and costly mistakes, there is also the insight that comes from comparing similar past events to current situations and making more informed decisions based on what happened previously; this insight is lost when we do not know our history!

It is not just political leaders and big decision-makers who need to know history, but the people voting for their leaders, laws, and government. People rely much too heavily already on others to make decisions for them, and a frightening number of people are just plain apathetic about politics. As a country, we do not appreciate the power we have to vote and make a change; and considering how far we have come to have such right and privileges, this is truly a shame. If our forefathers could have seen the ambivalent mess we have become, they would likely have either thrown their hands in the air and said, "Why bother!?" or done everything they could to instill within each new generation the importance of knowing history and being a part of their own instead of passively sitting by and consenting to whatever others chose for them. I choose the latter for my own children; in some ways I believe history is even more important than mastery of math or language arts. Our country was founded on the hope of having a choice and the freedom to govern ourselves. We have become a country that largely lets others govern us. It may not be kinds and queens anymore, but it's more corrupt than ever.

Science is important as well, for reasons too numerable to list. Science helps us understand how our world works and how we interact within it, in addition to providing us with an understanding of the most fundamental facts about ourselves and our bodies, from nutrition to exercise to our overall health picture. But it goes much deeper. Without science, history, and all of the subjects we used to learn in school, we become sheep. Plain and simple.

The cursive writing debate is one that seems to be drawing attention from just about everyone. Because the focus of education is the "core" math and language arts courses, cursive is being dropped from many curricula around the country because it is not something the schools are evaluated by. This is not in the interest of our children at all, but rather the interest of the ratings of the schools and their respective districts. Good penmanship may not be as critical as it was 20 years ago since technology has become paramount in producing finished academic works, but there are benefits (as this ABC article points out) which are being overlooked for the sake of schools looking better on paper. I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't care less what schools look like on paper; I have always wanted my children to have a full and excellent education which will prepare them for the future - whatever that means.

People seem to be completely unaware of the fact that our current way of life is neither natural nor sustainable. We have achieved great things in this world, things which are incredible to even consider. Most people, however, stick a plug into an outlet or place a call from their cell phone and take it completely for granted. I'm not saying we should all return to the times before electricity, computers and cell phones. I rather enjoy these luxuries and I believe most people do. What I am saying is that we should all be prepared to live off the grid like our forefathers did, should the need ever arise. This is not some doomsday prediction, but rather something we should give some consideration to; what kind of mess would our society be if we had to live as they did 100 years ago? 200 years ago? It's fascinating but also sad how far we have come from that. Also, we should value the wealth of knowledge we have to learn from, realize that many of our ideas are not new but tried and tested, and act accordingly. In 200 years, your school's academic performance rating won't mean a thing to this world; your child's knowledge and potential to change the world, however, will mean a great deal.

Learning is important, and not just the subjects someone deems more important than others and evaluates schools by. Knowledge is power.

Autism Awareness

The Sensory Post

A few people have asked me how we address Little G's sensory processing needs. The short answer is, "With a sensory diet." Most people respond with, "Cool! Um, what's a sensory diet?"

A lot of Little G's sensory diet is so intertwined with our daily activities that I actually have to put effort into thinking about each thing to make a comprehensive, well-defined list. As his 6th birthday approaches, we have been doing sensory diet activities with G for 2/3 of his life, so it is literally second nature at this point. And he has come so far. Once the little boy who would dissolve into a sobbing, inconsolable heap if I happened to put a shirt with (or without, it depended on the day) sleeves on him, he can now handle just about any type of clothing. I used to have to shop at secondhand clothing stores because he needed the broken-in feel of washed and worn clothing. Not that I'm complaining, I love a good bargain! But selection was an issue sometimes, so I basically had to shop constantly to make sure he had all the soft clothes he needed each season.

Why a Sensory Diet?

Just as children need a good nutritional diet, they also need a rich sensory diet. In preschool and sometimes Kindergarten classrooms, you will often find sensory tubs with dried beans, rice, or sand, painting stations, musical instruments, and lots of other objects and toys designed to provide young children with various sensory experiences. Some children, like my son, need much more than others; he is a sensory seeker. In some areas, he is also a sensory avoider, such as with auditory (noise), visual (excessive movement, bright lights), and oral (food, dentist) input.

What is sensory processing disorder?

The best way I have come up with to explain sensory processing disorder to others is that my son has the volume turned way up on his senses; he lives in a world where the radio is too loud and he cannot turn it down, so he has to find ways to cope with the volume. He doesn't, and probably never really will, experience the world in the way most people do. In a typically-functioning sensory system, the brain sort of has gateways or gatekeepers; it moves relevant, necessary information to the conscious mind so we can focus on what we need to, while filtering out unnecessary environmental stimuli that would otherwise be extremely distracting. For example, while shopping at the grocery store, you may be aware that there is noise. You ignore most of it with little effort and go about shopping like everyone else does. A particularly loud or unrelenting scream from a child may catch your attention, or a loud announcement about a manager's special, but for the most part your focus is not broken and concentration is not difficult.

In the same store, my son is aware of every individual noise. His sensory gatekeeper isn't distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary sensory input, and nothing is held back. He hears every beep of every cash register, the buzzing lights, the voices competing with one another, all of the crying babies and children within ear shot, the squeaking wheel on the cart, the item a customer just dropped as they were reaching for something, the automatic doors opening and closing, a bird that flew in chirping way up in the framework of the ceiling, the oven timer going off in the bakery, the music on the speakers, the televisions and video games in the electronics department, the clicking of a device being used to scan items by a store worker, and so on.

If it seems virtually impossible that someone would be aware of all of these things at once, consider yourself fortunate. If it sounds awful and exhausting, I assure you it is. It is not uncommon for my son, almost 6 years old, to fall asleep in the car after a trip to a store because his brain has just done the equivalent of a marathon processing all of that.

So what do we do to help him cope? Lots of things. The goal is to provide the sensory input he craves, or give him tools to cope with sensory input he feels overwhelmed by, in ways that are the both socially acceptable and functional for him.

Shopping and Other Potential Overload Situations

We have a deal in stores; if Little G stays with me and remains calm while we are walking, he can spin in place while I am browsing in a section. This helps him deal with the overwhelming sensory overload. It works extremely well to keep him calm and able to handle focusing when he needs to. I also encourage him to grab things for me from lower shelves and put them into the cart. Having something to do in the store helps a lot, as it gives him something purposeful to do and something to focus on.

At the mall, I typically use a stroller for him. He is very short for his age, so he still fits easily and comfortably into our stroller. It allows him to deal with the environment by simply closing his eyes, focusing on the patterns in the floor or ceiling decorations, or to get lost in his mp3 player - things he cannot safely do while walking. If it is a shorter trip and we do without the stroller, I might give him a snack like fruit leather to chew on or let him carry a familiar comfort object like his toy cat.

Dining Out: The Mega-Overload

Little G has some rather severe sensory aversions when it comes to anything mouth-related. Except brushing his teeth, which he loves to do. In fact, when I want him to try a new food, I will often have him brush his teeth (without toothpaste, as to not alter flavor) before doing so. But it is not always possible to do this, and dining out can present some serious sensory overload potentials.

As with many other things, Little G likes the idea of dining out. In practice, it can be quite unpleasant. A few months ago, a friend of mine invited me out to a rather busy and loud restaurant with my children. I decided to try it, mostly for the sake of my friend but also to find out how Little G would handle it. Little G tuned out completely, focusing his entire existence on eating his salad, but he was absorbing all of the sensory input. He fell asleep in the car almost immediately, so I knew right away that he had been severely overloaded with sensory input. And sure enough, it was three days before he calmed down, slept at a normal time, and stopped throwing himself against couch cushions and spinning in circles.

This is a situation where we simply make our choice of location carefully. There are plenty of restaurants where the atmosphere is calm, without blaring music and screaming children. Restaurants with "sports bars" are absolutely out. The ones where the customers are typically not children and families work better. We sometimes get a sideways look coming in the door, but that is always followed with comments on what "polite and well-behaved" children we have. What a difference their sensory environment can make!

School, Speech Therapy, and Learning

When Little G was in formal speech therapy, I would always give him lots of proprioceptive input within 30 minutes of going into his session. He was in gymnastics for a while, and that worked well for balancing him out and giving all of his joints and muscles the input they needed to he didn't feel so "bouncy" when he needed to be calm and focus. When he was not in gymnastics prior to speech therapy, I invented a game called Push Mama. We would put our hands together and he would push me backward around the building. This, too, gave him the input he needed to feel "balanced" as I like to call it.

Since we homeschool, it's obviously not a problem to let Little G flap and spin and jump during his lessons, because it does not interfere with his learning. And sometimes I do let him. However, he needs coping skills that will translate well into the world outside, and he sure can't do that in a Cub Scouts meeting or a community art class.

Just as we did to prepare for speech therapy, we have activities which help give Little G's joints and muscles lots of good input before he has to be more calm and focused. There is little preparation needed for the first class of the day, which is almost always Math or G's choice, but his need for sensory input increases throughout the day. At break time, we can go outside and run, kick a ball, ride bikes, play on the swing set, or play hop scotch.

Daily Sensory Input

Little G's need for sensory input is mostly of the proprioceptive variety; he loves spinning, rocking, swinging, jumping, running, bumping into things and people, hugs, eskimo kisses, clapping games, hula hooping, and dancing to music. I make sure these things are very much a part of his daily sensory diet.

While we usually discourage running in the house, the weather here is limiting for outdoor play during the winter - especially when my son hates being cold. With the house cleaned up and the floor cleared of toys, I do allow Little G to run in the house - usually as part of some game or with direction, not just wildly and randomly. We do the Electric Slide, The Hokey Pokey, The Chicken Dance, and other children's activity songs; YouTube is a great resource for these! Their History curriculum includes songs, so I add clapping, dancing, or other movement to those (they have mini flags to wave around to It's A Grand Old Flag, for example).

The two sensory issues I am still trying to work out are tricky. One is emotion/behavior self-regulation and the other is his severe oral defensiveness. These probably deserve dedicated posts of their own, since there are more factors involved than just sensory. Little G's speech disorder and his diagnosis of autism definitely play their own roles in these sensory struggles. I will post about these sometime in the near future.

Math is Everywhere

How much does my son love math? Today I was plotting the kids' height and weight on the CDC growth charts when the little guy walked up behind me and squealed with delight, "I want to do that!" Apparently, he thought it was some sort of math worksheet.

What I Believe (and don't) About Homeschooling

I don't believe that public schools are terrible places, or that the children in them are doomed to lives of misery and bullying. And I don't believe that all or even most homeschooling families are religious freaks, social outcasts, or unsocialized weirdos. Are there some? Well, sure. But it is unfair to judge all homeschooling families based on stereotypes about a few sensationalized situations we hear about in the news or through the grapevine. There are religious freaks, social outcasts, and unsocialized weirdos in schools, too!

I do not believe that public school offers children the socialization they "need". The socialization which children receive at school is largely comprised of things we'd prefer they were not exposed to. And by 'we', I mean most parents, not just homeschoolers. Until the 1840s, compulsory education did not exist in the United States; education was something done in the home and society functioned just fine. In fact, people were quite displeased with the idea of compulsory education! But I don't believe that children should be shielded completely from the outside world; that's just nuts. However, some bits of knowledge can wait.

I do not believe that homeschooling is always the better option. In fact, I think public school is sometimes the better option. Each family needs to assess their individual needs and values and make decisions that are best for their situation.

I do believe that learning about diversity and other cultures is important. I do not believe that public schools, at least where we reside, teach children anything about diversity and other cultures. College will probably be the first place they truly experience this. The most important thing now is to teach tolerance and acceptance of differences. And that will quite likely not be learned in any public school. In fact, I've witnessed quite the opposite.

I do not believe that bullying is some rite of passage that all children must go through, or that children need to go to public school to "learn how to deal with it". Bullying is not a harmless childhood experience, nor is it something that is a critical or healthy part of their development; bullying leads to poor self-esteem, academic failure, drop outs, a lifetime of trust issues, and even suicide. Though a lot of schools talk a good talk about bullying prevention and zero tolerance of such behavior, I've found that lip service is far too frequently as far as it goes. More often than not, schools fail to protect children who are targeted and fail to discipline children who are the perpetrators of bullying. It seems that children are viewed as almost inhuman by schools, with comments such as, "Oh, it's just kid stuff." If adults were subjected to the same treatment by their peers, it would be called stalking, harassment, or abuse, and criminal charges and restraining orders would be ways of dealing with the perpetrators. But when this happens to children, who are far less capable of dealing with these things emotionally and are still developing their sense of who they are in this world, the consequences can be utterly devastating for the victim and schools often dismiss it as child's play.

There are no bullies walking our hallways.

I do believe that all parents are teachers, from the moment their babies come into this world. I also believe that compulsory education and the sheeple mentality it drills into all of us has most parents convinced that they are completely unfit to be teachers. "I couldn't do it," is the most common thing people say to me when I tell them I am homeschooling my children. My response is always, "You absolutely could." It saddens me that parents, who are their children's first and most important teachers, do not see themselves as such. Homeschooling is not a new invention or some wild idea, but a natural continuation of a process already well underway since a child was born. Parents don't have to become teachers to homeschool their children, they already are teachers.

I Got This

If you've been reading for a few weeks, you may remember back in September when I mentioned our issues with my son's IEP and those involved (or, um, not) with it here and here. Since nothing really IEP-worthy had come up in our homeschooling needs thus far, I was content to put it on the back burner for the time being. To be honest, aside from securing paid speech therapy, we had little need for an IEP - at least at the preschool level. My son is diagnosed with autism and an expressive-receptive speech disorder, but he is also academically gifted and compensates extremely well for any deficits related to his diagnoses. I have worked with him on speech every day for years. I have thoroughly researched and implemented an ever-changing sensory diet to meet his sensory needs. He has improved steadily, sometimes in leaps.

Our school district did pick up the tab for our speech services once Little G turned 3. That was a nice relief after paying it out of pocket for almost a year after tracking it down myself. But really, I can't think of much else they've done for us. Perhaps it is the now clouded view I have of them after the rather epic failures on their part when my daughter, as a Kindergarten student, was being bullied verbally, emotionally, and physically by other students who were repeat offenders. And when it happened again in 1st grade, if to a lesser degree. Or maybe my opinion is somewhat skewed after being unceremoniously dumped by our district's special education people into the lap of the virtual charter school with no direction whatsoever. Take your pick; I'm not impressed.

I called the special education department for our charter the same week we were dumped. I've yet to talk to a human being, but I've now left three messages on various voice mail services that claimed someone would get back to me soon if I did. No one has. My son's teacher contact wants a copy of his IEP, but for what? So we can needlessly entwine ourselves in miles of red tape and frustration so another group of people can fail to meet my son's needs? No. I'm over it.

IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan, and the purpose of it is to help children (usually with disabilities) succeed in the pursuit of their education. To date, I have seen nothing that an IEP could do for my son that I could not or have not accomplished myself for him. Since I am the one helping him reach his educational goals, and I would say I'm doing good job since he has never been in a public bricks and mortar school and he is doing first grade Math, Language Arts, and Phonics easily at age 5, even just attempting to involve the IEP people at this point is only causing needless frustration. It is clear that doing their jobs is an inconvenience, even for such a low-needs family as ours. So fine. My son certainly isn't missing out on anything by having these people or that piece of paper absent from his life. Believe that I would be The Parent No One Wants to Deal With if the opposite were true, because I wouldn't just quietly accept the fact that 90% of the people I have encountered thus far in special education don't want to do their damn jobs.

I learned early on in life that we're basically on our own; things like IEPs are there to hold people accountable when they don't do their jobs. Unfortunately, it's almost always easier and overall more beneficial to just educate myself and do it myself rather than deal with all of the ridiculous stress and responsibility avoidance of people who seem to work harder to avoid their work than they would need to if they just did what their job titles require of them.

New Materials

These are Little G's first grade materials. My 5 year-old first grader is pretty stoked.

There is also new Math materials, not pictured here since it was a lot more of the same items we had for Kindergarten and I've already put them away. We do have Math+ Green now, and apparently the color change is pretty exciting stuff. There will be plenty of pictures soon.

The weather remains unseasonably warm and beautiful for October. My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday, and the warmth and sunshine reminded me of the weather when we got married in 2001. I've got all of the windows open and we're taking advantage of these beautiful days before the dreaded snow starts to fly. Outdoor hooping for the win!

Bunny Ball

We played "Bunny Ball" as a family tonight. It was lots of fun, a great PE activity (yes, at 7pm on a Saturday, we can log PE hours!), and also a wonderful sensory diet activity for Little G.


Yes, the Easter Bunny sure scored big points when he put these in the kids' baskets last year. And yes, I intentionally hide my children's faces on my blog. And I always will.

A Sensory Diet Super Win

This picture captures something absolutely amazing.

It seems simple, right? A cat-lovin' boy and his pet cat sharing a friendly hello. But this? It would not have happened even a week ago. Little G has some sensory avoidance issues, but overall he is a sensory seeker. This means that he is always jumping, spinning, speaking loudly, putting things in his mouth, squealing, humming, intentionally bumping into walls and furniture, and handling things - and pets - roughly. Because of this, I incorporate a lot of proprioceptive input into Little G's sensory diet.

For those not in the know about sensory processing disorder, a sensory diet is simply a list of things a person can do to give them the sensory nourishment they need to function at their best. Just as children need proper nutrition from food to be healthy and grow, they also need a proper sensory diet to be healthy. Some children have greater sensory needs than others, as my son does. Because of this, I use all kinds of sensory diet suggestions and invent a few of our own to meet these additional sensory needs. Some of the activities in his sensory diet are designed to give him extra input to help calm him, while other activities are meant to desensitize his system so he can handle typical sensory information (sounds, foods, etc.) in a way similar to how most people do.

For Little G, I make up a lot of games that involve jumping, clapping, or running. We have a cool game called "push mama" where we put our hands together and he pushes me backward around the house, the yard, or wherever we happen to be, which gives his muscles and joints lots of "input" and helps him to relax, or seek input less. His sensory diet is long and ever-changing, and I would love to blog more in depth about it, but for now I want to discuss the incredible success with our cat.

Little G loves cats. He has endless books about cats, cat toys, cat coloring books, and often plays dress-up as a cat. The fact that our cat, usually tolerant of anything, runs from him has always been a source of pain and frustration for Little G. I have explained to him, talked about what cats like us humans to behave like, shown him how to pet the cat gently and without being scary to Sticky. But nothing really worked. So, with the hope that my little guy would one day be able to enjoy his pet cat as much as the rest of us do, I started putting together a sensory diet plan specifically for getting him to relax enough to be gentle with our cat. I implemented my plan for approximately three weeks, frequently discussing the topic of building trust with the cat by behaving in certain ways and by giving him a book on cats to read. I remained hopeful, but not extremely optimistic. Had any hope of Sticky ever trusting Little G been too damaged to repair?

Imagine my complete and utter shock the other night when I saw the scene I captured in the photo above with my cell phone. It's blurry from my quick movements, grainy from the poor lighting, but still one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed; my son, my sweet cat-loving little boy, finally got to pet his beloved pet cat. She didn't shrug and shimmy away, she didn't run, she didn't swat; she simply nuzzled up to his hand and enjoyed the attention.

These are the moments that bring me the greatest joy in life.

Europe

Tonight, my 5 year-old son randomly comes up and holds up his magnetic drawing board and says, "Hey mom, look! These are some places in Europe."

Uh...wow. I realized by some of the misspellings, one of which he caught and corrected before showing me, that he had done this from memory. I guess he is really paying attention to the History lessons!

Something else my Little G did today that melted my heart was quoting his current favorite book (This Plus That, Life's Little Equations), "Did you know that every star in the sky plus the sun plus the moon times my heart equals love you to the infinite power?" Yes, little dude. I did know that. Because I feel exactly the same way about you.

Art, Math...and Chicken Dancing

Today is brought to you by the letter M. M is for Math, and my son is now officially in 1st grade Math. You'd have thought Santa had just stopped by if you had been here this morning. We logged into the online school (OLS) and voila! there it was: Math+ Green. He jumped, he danced, he was all yeaaaauhh! Kudos to anyone who catches that reference.

It's funny, because I have a 5 year-old who comes out of his room each morning and either asks if his Math book has arrived yet, or wants to know if he can do Math first. Convincing him it is time to stop writing numbers and mathematical problems for the night when it is bedtime is no easy feat. You won't hear me complaining; it's not a video game controller and a bag of Cheetos I'm trying to get him to part with. If he really wants to sleep with the Sudoku puzzle book under his pillow so no one "messes with [his] puzzles", I'm cool with that.

I love this kid, and his cool, number-focused brain.

As promised, I have more Reezle art to share with you. Though I know her ability is impressive, she continues to amaze me with the things she comes up with. Here is a sampling of her work from the past week:




I love these. Her art brings me joy. It always has. I believe there is something of who a person is in everything they create, like a little fingerprint on the world. Maybe that sounds silly, but, I don't know. When she was about 4 years old, I bought her a really big 3-ring binder and a bunch of clear sheets to tuck her art safely into. We keep adding to it, and it has grown so much over time. I love that she has this little personal portfolio, but honestly, I can't bear to part with most of her art. They are personal expressions of who she is, of what she is thinking, of what touches her heart.

The weather this week is amazing. It is everything I love about autumn, from the warm and sunny days to the cool nights that beg for chili to be made and breads to be baked. They make me think of family, of my babies. My daughter will celebrate her 8th birthday this month. Our beautiful weather is also perfect for PE class. In addition to playing outside and doing some good old-fashioned being-a-kid stuff, we have been learning The Chicken Dance, The Electric Slide, and the Hokey Pokey. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the Chicken Dance is quite a workout! A fun one, though. Our living room was full of sweet little laughter this morning as we wiggled and flapped our wings and danced in circles. And in case I have forgotten to mention how much I love being with my children and homeschooling - I know, I know. But I do. So much. And I count my blessings daily.

The Cats of Mirikitani

Tonight, thanks to a recommendation by a friend, I watched a documentary film (I love documentaries) called The Cats of Mirikitani. It was beautiful. I shared it with my daughter, who wasn't about to let me watch it without her anyhow.

The story chronicles a Japanese-American man, Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, who spent time in an internment camp here in the United States during WWII. He becomes homeless on the streets of NYC, and in the wake of September 11th, a woman who was following his story as a homeless artist takes him into her home. My comments and thoughts on it don't really do it justice; it's such an incredible story about people and history. Really, I can't put words to it.

Netflix has The Cats of Mirikitani available via their Instant watching option, so if you have a membership you can watch it right now from your computer. You won't regret it.

Art and Organization

I had these great plans for a homeschool space in the kitchen. First, I decided on a shelving unit I thought would go well with my decor. Once it was all together, I hated it. It was taller than advertised (I ordered online) and looked every bit the small price I paid for it. For someone already having to make peace with non-kitchen items in the kitchen, this was not going to do. Yes, yes, I have issues. No worries, though; it will make the perfect organizer for our outdoor toys in the garage.

My second option was to buy some paint and transform my daughter's old 9-cubby bookshelf into our homeschooling kitchen storage area. My husband picked up the paint and sandpaper, and I set out to get it done before school started.

I'm ashamed to admit I never even got to the sanding part, though I still have good intentions. However, I did find that the shelf in our living room had just the right amount of space for all of our books and the printer, and the extra cabinet in the kitchen holds all of the manipulatives, shapes, DVDs, CDs, Art supplies and Music items perfectly. Little G approves.

In other news, it seems my little artist girl took us very seriously when we said she would be a famous artist selling her works someday; note the little price tags in the bottom right corners of both of the creations below!


For the record, I got a great discount because I'm mommy. I paid 3 warm and fuzzies for the pair of them! They are now proudly displayed on the fridge for all to enjoy.

There is much more art to show, but our weekend became full of other things and I am currently helping R reorganize her drawers and bedroom and sorting through clothes to determine what will still fit the kids for the cooler weather. We seem to be jumping right into cooler weather here! We're also going to work on R's giant art binder, which we've been adding to since she was a toddler. Projects, projects. Home is always full of them.

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Happy Birthday to my dad, who celebrates his birthday this weekend.