The Manor Family
Monday, September 26, 2016
Williamsburg Summary & Review
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Polar arctic
The last 5 weeks have been a bit tough. Ezra's 18 months old now and I"m trying to figure out how to homeschool with a little guy who wants me to hold him most of the time and who likes to climb up on tables and play in the toilets. He has also started screaming at the top of his lungs to communicate. He knows what he wants and gets so frustrated that he can't tell me. He does have some words and a few signs, but the problem with the signs is that I have to be looking at him to see what he wants. Most of the time, I"m looking somewhere else, so in order to get my attention he screams. He's also adjusting his nap routine from two down to one. There have been a few days when he only slept 30 minutes the whole day. On this day, he did not nap at all. The kids were piled on the couch watching a show and Ezra went right to sleep leaning on Abby!
So, I'm thankful for a break this week and for a chance to look through my pictures and remember that we did learn and we did have fun! If I don't make an effort to remember the good times, it is too easy to only focus on the difficult ones and fall into a trap thinking I can't do this.
We checked out a few fun books about the Arctic from the library.
Elijah helped Abby to make an igloo out of marshmallows. It turned out so nicely! The glue helped it harden, so I guess it will be around awhile. We set up a little play scene with Artic animals, the igloo and an iceberg from a game we have.
I froze different size containers of ice. I put them on trays to serve as icebergs. It made another great playscape for the artic animals.
We watched "The March of the Penguins" for a family movie night. We took turns being the Mommy and Daddy penguin passing the egg to each other. We used a small ball for the egg.
We made a few artic and winter crafts. I can take or leave the crafts, but I absolutley love painting with Abby. I gathered the supplies for a few nice art lessons to do with her so I could just grab them when we had some time for just the two of us. There is something about art that makes my heart sing!
We used water colors and masking tape to create winter birch trees. Elijah and I used to take watercolor lessons together before we had children. I got out our good watercolor paints and brushes for this lesson.
Abby does lots of drawings on her own. I thought this one was particularly good. She got a unicorn for christmas and wanted to draw that.
Sometimes I feel like Enoch gets lost in the middle of everything. He asks quiet a bit if he can "do school with me." If I can get Abby to play with Ezra in another room for a bit, then I can have some time to sit down at the table with him for focused time together. I've started doing a few of the lessons at the very beginning of the Right Start Math program I am using with Abby.
We recently got an ipad which I am really enjoying. It's a great tool for school. There are so many educational apps to add. It's nice to let one child play w/ it while I work with another.
Enoch doesn't have much time for hugging, but Elijah happened to be at the right place at the right time to snap this picture. I will cherish it!
Abby also got in on the action of teaching Enoch. She made little connect the dot letters for Enoch on the white board for him to practice writing his letters. He loved it!
Abby has really wanted to play a lot lately. I'm so thankful she has two brothers to play with, they have such a great time being creative together.
We took a few field trips. The Adventure Science Center currently has a nice exhibit about animals. There are lots of ways to pretend there, it was perfect for the little ones.
Doctor Abby and Doctor Ella are ready for surgery
They even had someone demonstrating really neat science experiments.
Abby and I joined a school day at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center about Aaron Copeland's music.
Our family went to Centennial park to feed the ducks and geese on a warm Saturday morning, Ezra was super excited about seeing real animals.
We're a part of a group that meets twice a month. It was my month to plan the activities for our group. We had a Valentine party at the Downtown library. The other moms were able to take their little ones to the story time while a few helpers and We did some really fun Valentine themed educational activities. Of course they also exchanged valentines at the end.
Okay, this was a good reminder, we did have lots of fun the past five weeks. I am looking forward to a break this week, and then we move on to the African Savannah!
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Homeschooling is Hard
I think I'm going through a little homeschool "burnout" which I think is pretty normal this time of year. We're about 100 days into school, so we're more than half way to our required 180 days. I had laid out a plan of 4 school days per week so we could have one day off. I struggle with perfectionism and it seem that I can't help but "sneak in" an extra day of school on our planned day off so I can be ahead of my planned out schedule. I was such a weirdo in college that actually finished my papers early because I wanted to avoid the stress of last minute deadlines. I'm realizing I need to scale back, lower my expectation and take my planned break. This is a great chance to recall why we are doing this. My main focus is developing a strong positive relationship with my children, loving them well, teaching them how to rely on the Lord for everything. All the "school stuff" is actually secondary on my list of priorities.
It's also a little difficult to balance my two roles of teacher and mother. I'm finding it difficult to just play with my children for the sake of playing. I always have this pressure I put on myself to make everything educational. I do want our lives to be learning in everything we are doing, but I want it to be JOYFUL!
As I've processed through these feelings for a few days, the Lord has brought to my mind how He has cared and provided for me through this rough patch where I've honestly just wanted to run away from my house, far away! I'm tired! This feels hard! He's gently reminding me not to be afraid of things that are hard. He will give me what I need. I've wanted to just escape, but He will restore my soul when I come. Two specific ways He's provided have been through a sweet neighbor who loves to invite Abby and Enoch over to play frequently. This has given them great social interaction and a much needed break for me. Also a 12 year old homeschool girl has expressed interest in getting some practice caring for young children. She and her mother have asked if they can come and play with all three children while I take a break.
One more week of learning about Polar animals and then a week break...which I plan to take!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Homeschool Woods
If you look at a blog like mine and see a small window into what we’re doing and you’re discouraged because you think you couldn’t do it like this, the great news is... you don’t have to! You don’t have to be like any other family that you see. You are free to create your own rhythm of what works for you and your children.
If you hear God whispering to your heart about home education, I would encourage you to continue asking Him about what that would look like for your family. I would also highly recommend the book, “Education the WholeHearted Child,” by Clay and Sally Clarkson. It’s the best book I’ve read on the subject, very comprehensive.
Okay, now back to the woods! Since I don’t remember much, it’s all kind of a blur so I’m just putting in pictures and a description of the pictures.
Homeschool Woods
Some of the library books we enjoyed.
More book about woods we read.
We love the magnetic wall Elijah painted for us. Enoch identified animals and Abby read the word and turned the card over.
Abby created her own scene for her woodland animals to live in. Lots of pretend play went on here at her desk, I love it!
Filling out her animal notebook page
“Making Words” file folder game...I love Pinterest.
This was fun! We turned leaves into animals. We turned some into ornaments to give away for Christmas.
Abby made her own “tree book” out of paper lunch bags. Too cute, again love pinterest! She wrote and drew about the different parts of a tree.
Elijah took Abby and Enoch on their first “Father Child Campout.” He’s hoping to make this an annual event. They had such a great time! They roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner, drank hot chocolate, and had pancakes and bacon for breakfast. They were super cold at night, but they have wonderful memories of their time together. Elijah said was really impressed with all the leaves and trees that Abby could identify. Ezra and I stayed nice and warm at home together.
Enoch and Abby made up their own “Donut Shop” game. In this picture, Enoch was the store keeper. Abby had a dessert plate with a vowel on it, she used coins to buy a donut, then laid the donut over the vowel and read the word. A perfect math and reading game! The abacus is from the “Right Start” math program we are using. She used this to help her count the correct amount of money.
For a reading incentive this time we put up a tree with fall leaves. For each book she read she took a leaf off. There was supposed to be a reward at the end when all the leaves had fallen, but we didn’t finish it before it was time for Christmas decorations to go up. Oh, well!
This was my favorite part of the 5 weeks. We spent a lot of time outside in nature knowing that winter was coming soon and we wouldn’t be able to get out as much. Abby’s been identifiying and pressing leaves in her journal. She writes the date she found it, where she found it, the name of the leaf and sometimes something interesting that she read about the tree in her field guide.
We were collecting some leaves in the parking lot of Publix one day (we needed some for our animal/leaf craft last minute, Publix was handy)! A man in a service van stopped us and asked if we were working on a school project. I said yes we were. He said, “I want to know what school she goes to because my daughter doesn’t learn anything like that in school, nothing practical, their just teaching her to take a test.” I told him we were teaching her at home. We proceeded to have an interesting conversation. He asked a few questions about it and had thought that you had to have a college degree to homeschool.
Beautiful mushroom she found, look at those sweet little hands holding it! We brought it inside, cut off the stem, put it upside down on a piece of paper, covered it with a bowl and waited a few days. Then we lifted it off the paper and saw the pattern that the spores had left.
Throwing rocks in the river on the trail in our neighborhood.
Using a bird call she earned at the Nature Center Trade Station. The Warner Parks Nature Center has a program where you can bring in an item from nature, tell about it and receive points. The more you know about the object, the more points you get. Then you can save your points and trade them in for prizes. She’s gotten several field guides, stamps, and now a bird call, how cool! It really works, they answered her back.
My favorite memory during this time. As the wind blew, we’d all run trying to catch the leaves in the air that fell. We also played a fun game we made up: tree tag. We’d play chase, then I’d call out a word (deciduous, coniferous, broadleaf, evergreen) and that would be base. So they’d have to find the correct kind of tree and get there in order to be safe.
LOVE the nature center. Here’s Abby and Enoch setting out birdseed for the birds and squirrels.
Here we are behind the bird blind quietly watching the birds to eat the food they’d set out (accept for the times Ezra was making a few screams!)
There have been a few times when Elijah has taken all three kids hiking on the weekend so I could have time to work on something or to take a break. Sweet, special memories with their Daddy.
Nature walk activity
Ezra loves to put anything in and out of containers.
Enoch’s still not napping, so at times he falls asleep on the couch. Ezra wasn’t even able to wake him up.
I made a busy box of acitivites to occupy Ezra. Have I mentioned I love pinterest! This is just a bunch of sponge rollers he takes the plastic part off, when he gets older he can thread it back on, a precursor to threading beads on a string.
Enoch doing one of his busy bags: making polygons
We had hibernation day when we learned about bears. We set up a tent inside and read books about bears in the tent. They pretended to hibernate during the winter, then woke up super duper hungry bears in the spring time.
They had an indoor smores snack.
Owl craft
When learning about bees, I hid a cup of nectar (juice) inside of the flower pot. They used straws to suck the nectar out of the flowers and transferred it to their hive upstairs. This proved to be a little messy, but that’s okay, it was fun!
Sucking “nectar” from flowers.
My favorite field trip was visiting Beaverdam Creek Farms, who deliver our CSA basket each week. It was so neat to see where the vegetables we eat come from. We especially enjoyed visiting the farm with two other families from our neighborhood. The children planted lettuce seeds in the greenhouse. Our kids play regularly with these children. Yes our children are social and have regular interaction with others! (that’s always a question asked of homeschoolers).
Picking and smelling herbs.
Trish shows how they weed the rows in the garden.
Hayride down to see the cows and more of their property.
Abby attended a Warner Park Nature Center class, “Budding Botanist.” We are so thankful for the many wonderful and FREE programs the Nature Center offers.
We visited the local fire department to learn about fire prevention. After we toured the station, met the firemen and got an explanation about their equipment, one of the moms led us in some fun games and crafts reinforcing what we learned. My favorite activity was when they crawled low under the smoke (a sheet that moms held), used a phone to call 911, used a “fire extinguisher” (silly string) to put out a fire, then ran to a mailbox to wait for an adult.
A group we are a part of visited a nursing home to encourage the residents. The children recited two poems and sang some songs, then passed out cards and visited with the residents.
My grandmother, “Moni” and Abby looking through old family photos.
We enjoy having friends over to “do school” with us, too. Micah, Owen and Abby played a math game together and read about the concept of a Googol. Micah LOVES numbers!
We had friends over for school one day. They did christmas crafts, math games, reading activities, recited poems and scriptures, decorated Christmas cookies, played and stayed for lunch. So fun!
Math games
Decorating Christmas cookies.
These homeschoolers get plenty of social interaction! They make up all kinds of elaborate stories to act out using costumes and all!
Neighbors here for math games.