The 2013-2014 Academic Year Begins

The 2013-2014 school year has begun, and so far I have some very excited little students.  We began our school day at 10AM for the first day because we can.  It will get earlier as the year progresses, but we're transitioning from summer schedules and I believe in gentle transitions.

Checking out some of their new workbooks for the year

Officially, Reezle is in 4th grade and Little G is in 2nd grade.  They are 9 and 7.  Little G is in 3rd grade language arts and math, and has a goal of being moved into 4th grade by his birthday in December.  Reezle was fairly content to stay at grade level last year, but this year she has a goal of moving into 5th grade math and language arts by mid-year.  Both of them are hoping to be invited to our e-school's version of the gifted program again.  Little G was a bit young for the amount of writing they wanted from him last year, as a 6 year-old, but he is ready this year and his writing has improved dramatically over the summer.

For our extra-curricular enrichment, I've decided to skip Scouts for now.  I'm currently researching our local 4-H, since both of my children are very interested in animals and farming.  It seems to have great potential so far.  Reezle wants to get involved in dance at our local arts center, and Little G is considering it.  He watched some boys tap and ballet videos and he thought it was "awesome".  The next couple of months should be very busy for us, since there really is a lot to do here in the fall.  We're excited to be back in a routine.  And somehow, watching that bus go by and not having to be part of that rat race never stops putting a smile on our faces.

Learning On The Go

Today, we took PE class to the beach.  Little G is waist hooping like it's his job, and my sweet Reezle is just behind him practicing her halos.  I'm really impressed with their skills, and glad they enjoy hooping so much.  It's wonderful exercise, and I've noticed a difference in G's motor skills since he's begun hooping almost daily.

We grabbed a local map (Little G has been absolutely obsessed with the K12 map Reezle received with her 3rd grade curriculum because it's much more detailed than the K-2 maps), and took History and Geography on the road.  The kiddos read road signs and told me where they thought I should be going.  I won't be letting them navigate just yet, but it was fun anyway.  It gets them familiar with what signs are for and what the various different ones mean.  Social studies?  Anyway...

We did math at the mall, where we made a quick stop to get a "special treat" (candy from a local chocolatier) and check out the Halloween decorations.  The kiddos used division to figure out how many pieces of candy we would each be able to have if we all got equal portions.  They also used addition to estimate the cost of the Halloween decorations mommy, um, kind of splurged on.  What can I say?  We all love Halloween.  A lot.

We even worked in some OT. Little man was doing some great work with balancing. Too bad he wasn't quite as coordinated with running; he took a flying dive into a pile of gravel and got a stone embedded in his palm. He's got a nice hole to show for it, but he didn't shed a tear. Tough guy! I'm not ashamed to admit I probably would have cried! Ha!

Miss Reezle, as we were leaving one of our stops, said, "I sure wish I could use the camera and take some pictures."  I had two options; I could hand over my cell phone and let her take some low-quality snaps that would be heavily blurred once I started driving, or I could ::gulp:: hand over my Rebel and let her click to her heart's content.  Her interest seemed very genuine, and she's mentioned taking photos a lot lately, so I let her use my baby, er, camera. Ha!  She handled it with great care and took some really great pictures!  The one of her sparkly shoes wasn't exactly the most brilliant of all, but it was fun and cute, and something about it made me smile.  Maybe it was just the ability to see from her perspective, if just one little thing and only for a moment.

Based on her interest and some of the really good shots she captured today, I think it might be time to give her my SX20 to tote around when she goes out. Maybe I'll even try to find a fun little padded case so she can carry it safely around. Her birthday is coming right up!

As for me, I'm exhausted.  Sleepy time!

Heading Into Week Two

We spent the weekend working ahead on some of our school subjects and getting familiarized with Reezle's Spanish course. I had been waiting on her teacher to explain how to log in to the course, but I hadn't heard back. As it turns out, simply logging in using Reezle's user info did the trick. She completed the first 3 units, and the course looks great! Little G is even following along.

Reezle spent a good amount of time enjoying some books and her favorite Poptropica computer game, while Little G worked on Math almost non-stop from the moment he woke up each day until he went to bed. It is rare to see the little guy without his math workbook. He encountered a bit of frustration when doing math problems which required him to borrow more than once, especially when zeros were involved. He is an extreme perfectionist and has absolutely no patience for his own mistakes. It took me a bit of time to convince him that it is a perfectly acceptable part of learning to make mistakes, and that these can even help us to learn better. He wasn't having it at first, but he eventually calmed down and accepted it. He did a retake on his assessment, and scored 100% the second time. He was fine after that, of course.

We also did some writing, vocabulary, analogies, and spelling, but typing out all of our spelling words for each unit - especially at the rate at which my kids are currently burning through them - is tedious and probably not enjoyable to read anyhow. Suffice it to say they are tackling some pretty challenging words and doing an exceptional job. I'm very proud of both of them.

Much like last year, we are continuing our hoopdance practice and doing mostly that and running for our physical education. We did a lot of it over the past week. I incorporate nutrition and information about how physical activity benefits the body into our PE curriculum. It seems there is a huge overlap between our health and PE material, so I kind of wing it with how much individual time we're giving to each. We probably do a lot more physical activity than I log for PE, all of it educational, but I was actually told to stop logging it last year due to the amount of hours. Heh. Better a bit more than needed than not enough, in my opinion.

On the agenda for tomorrow is Study Island, in addition to our typical studies. They changed the format and wow, what a positive change. Little G has his first Aimsweb assessment of the year later this week, and we're also planning a family field trip in the very near future. I love getting back into a routine again!

Bones

My Little G sure does love bones. He studies his human body book like it's his job, is fascinated with my skeletal anatomy app on my iPad, owns a whole bunch of books on the skeletal system and wears lots of "skully" clothes. He also enjoys drawing bones.

He tells me he is going to be an Anatomist or a doctor when he grows up, and randomly shares all kinds of facts about bones with me. "Did you know that babies are born with more bones than adults have? Do you know why? Did you know that bones are the frame of your body, and they also have something inside them called marrow?" Heh. I love his dedication to his interests.

Backyard Birding

With our summer vacation already in-progress, I admittedly found myself feeling a bit out of sorts with not having hours each day dedicated to learning with my children. I have them each doing 2 hours of some kind of language activity, be it reading or writing, daily to keep their minds sharp and their creativity skills strong. I get little resistance.

Reezle has been using her new free time to observe, take notes on, and read more about the local birds.

We're trying new seed varieties in the feeders to see which birds show up for each mix, and so far the only thing we've found is that the American Goldfinches love the mix with the sunflower in it (actually, they all do - you've never seen a feeder get emptied so fast) and have been noticeably absent since we switched.

Also, the Mourning Doves really like whatever the other birds are dropping on the ground from the current seed mix; they've been out there pecking at the ground almost constantly for the past few days, sometimes as many as four of them at once! The closest I'd previously seen one, other than in books and online, was on the power lines out front of our home. They're very cool.


Our most common visitors, at least for now, are House Finches (there is a male on the left of the feeder) and House Sparrows (right).

A couple of my personal favorite visitors to the feeder have to be the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and Northern Cardinal. They are gorgeous, their calls are beautiful, and they have such personality!

And I only recently (since Reezle's interest in birding was sparked) learned that female cardinals look quite a bit different in color than their male counterparts. Check this out:


That's Redfeather (top photo) and Ruby (bottom photo), two of our most common visitors. Yes, we name them. And no, we're not 100% certain we're not calling forty different cardinals by the same name. Oh well. But we do know Star for certain - he was the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak on the pole for the feeder a few photos up. He was named Star because all of the white spots on his otherwise stark black feathers make him look like the stars in the night sky. He's the only one we've seen like him, and he has a major attitude. We love him anyway.

My bird post wouldn't be complete if I didn't share this story. About 12 years ago while rollerblading on a park trail, I saw a black bird, which I thought at first was a baby crow, take flight. When it spread its wings, I saw the most beautiful red and yellow on its wings. I never saw one again until my daughter started birding and they began showing up regularly at the feeders. They are fairly common in our area, and are called Red-Winged Blackbirds. Cool, right?

Yes, I'll be blogging more about birds over the summer. I didn't include Yellow Warblers, Blue Jays, or even a Robin in this post! It seems my daughter's interest is now a shared one.

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.

Other Lessons: Want vs. Need

There is much that I want to teach my children. This goes well beyond what they would learn in public school, which is often some of what we would want and a whole lot of what we wouldn't. Among the things I want to teach is living simply.

One does not have to look far to conclude that spending money and having material possessions must be what brings happiness, or that bigger is better. Living Beyond Your Means has become the American way of life, and if you're actually living within your means, you're either rolling in cash or you've accepted that you don't have half of what your friends do.

Our culture is one of entitlement and materialistic arrogance; if lots of other people have something, shouldn't you? Mr. and Mrs. Jones next door have their lawn professionally manicured and chemically treated, so why aren't you entitled to the same? And you can't take your kid to play group wearing something from a discount store clearance rack, no matter how cute or practical it is, if at least two other moms from the group will have their kids dressed in boutique! People are actually more ashamed of lacking material possessions and being judged for it than they are about their financial security.

As a result, our economy is collapsing under the weight of greed and want. This way of life is not healthy for people, and it is not healthy for our country. We can blame the government, the banks, the economy, but it really all boils down to choices we make. It's like pushing over the milk pail and complaining that it has to be cleaned up; people want to do as they wish and have no consequences. Actually, it's going beyond just wanting, because people are starting to believe they deserve that.

So many people talk about how life is so much worse now than when they grew up because most families have to have two working parents to make ends meet. I'm going to say something unpopular about that. I'm going to tell you that many more families could get by on a single income. Thing is, they would have to live in a more reasonably-priced home, give up some of the designer labels, vacation less frequently, and make smarter financial decisions. But it would enable them to spend more time as a family, the thing they claim to wish so desperately for.

Unfortunately, people have themselves convinced that what they are doing what is best for their children, because their children have stuff. Maybe they have a great big home to live in, or lots of expensive gadgets. Perhaps they take pricey vacations or are involved in a sport that is highly cost-prohibitive to the typical family. Whatever it is, it matters more than living a more modest but closer-knit family life. And it's not necessarily a conscious choice; it has simply, and sadly, become the norm.

Not so long ago, I wanted the bigger house, the brand names, the big vacations. But in my disgust over how money can bring out the most disturbing of behavior in people and how money seems to basically be the root of all evil if you really consider what motivates the most horrible things in our world, I started thinking. Simultaneously, a certain mommy blogger was spiraling rapidly into debt and overspending oblivion, and all of it made me sit back and do some real soul searching about my own life and priorities. As far as I can tell, want, and never being content with what one has, is the best way to guarantee debt and misery. It's also a great way to guarantee that you'll look back one day with tremendous regret about missing out on what mattered most. I'm pretty sure no one is going to deeply regret not having owned a few more items from an expensive store.

I started asking myself what made me happiest when I was a child, and what I truly cherish from my early years. None of my answers involved costly things; all of the wonderful things I hold dear are about quality time with my family or running around outside with my cousins and riding my bike as far as my legs would let me. While I did, admittedly, love some of my material possessions, those could not compare to the things which no money could buy.

Our little home is small, but we can easily afford it. We have no need for a larger house. Knowing some of what other families are going through because of wanting too much, I feel resolved to think more about need and less about want. This is not to say I won't still want things, or that we won't still buy things we don't need. If you've got the money, it's fun to spend a little once in a while on something you'd really enjoy having. But I will be much more thoughtful about choices I make.

I want my children to grow up feeling appreciative of what they have, aware of what they need versus what they want. I want them to be willing to work and earn because they know that they are not entitled to what they want simply because they exist. And I want them to know that there are people truly in need, and have a heart to help those who are.

Learning About Gardening

My children love to learn, but learning goes way beyond the classroom. One thing we enjoyed learning about this year was how seeds transform into a garden that we can enjoy for the whole summer!

We have enjoyed tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, our combined weight in zucchini (seriously, I don't think I have seen as much zucchini in my life to date as came from our garden this year), onions, hot peppers, orange bell peppers, green bell peppers, and probably a few things I am forgetting. It was wonderful!

The marigolds planted around the garden are pretty, but their purpose is to discourage greedy garden visitors who like to take more than a fair share. I can't decide whether it helped or not.

Next year, we plan to have the children much more involved in the process of cultivating our yummy organic foods. This year, they mostly enjoyed the end result on the dinner table. It's a lot of fun eating food grown in our very own garden!