Schoolbooks Have Arrived!

The Timberdoodle catalog said it best:  "Homeschool curriculum has become the new toilet paper."  Meaning it's the latest thing for which there is a shortage because more people than usual are buying it.  

Fortunately, we must have picked unpopular options, because we didn't run into any back orders.  

Canada will be the third country we learn about, but I've already started setting aside things for later in the year.  

Everything has arrived now, and since we have nowhere else to be, we've started up a little early.  We haven't managed a "full day" in one sitting yet, but we're getting close.  It's nice to kind of ease into things instead of being overwhelmed with having to do everything on Day 1.  

Grumman is fascinated with the bird science books.  I know he can't read, but he was all over it when I opened these up, and, well...

The first time we used our Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day science notebooks, he tried to eat them.  

Blessing alert!  I was able to trade masks that I sewed for both these used books from other homeschooling mamas in the area.  

Depending on how quickly we fly through Flying Creatures (zoology 1), we may start up Swimming Creatures (zoology 2).  We'll see how it goes.  I'm not going to stress about it.  

This was our biggest order.  We had most of our stuff from My Father's World, since I used it with Brianna, Eli, and Jack several years ago, but there were a few things we needed to replace, and a new writing course for Hannah.   

We're working more on drawing this year.  I just ordered some Prismacolor pencils, which are really nice to work with.  

At the end of the year, we'll learn about Antarctica, so I'll put this one away until then.  

Speaking of books, we're still greatly enjoying curbside pickup at the library, which has expanded hours, and streamlined the process, which is awesome.  This week, they just started doing inter-library loans again, so I have requested some books from outside our area's collection.  

I've been keeping lots of books on hold, so we're picking up about twice a week.  MFW has an extensive reading list in the back of the book, as optional suggested reading.  Since we have a "quiet time" every afternoon, my girls go through a lot of books.  Books from that list, books I see in curriculum catalogs that look interesting, books I'm reminded of by discussion in homeschool Facebook groups.  Books, books, books!  Just this week, we were learning about maps and globes, and Katie asked a question about Magellan.  We'll be getting a couple of books about him soon.  The same thing blossomed out of a discussion of Father Junipero Serra and the missions.  

The last time we picked up books, we got a text asking if we wanted Summer Reading Program prize books.  Um, yes, please!  The librarians taped up pictures of the options for each age group inside the library windows so people can look and choose which they want.  Katie has been obsessed with Nintendogs lately, so I got her a puppy book, and Hannah got Because of Winn-Dixie.  

I feel slightly guilty that I haven't been reading as much as I should lately.  I've spent a lot of time zoned out in front of the iPad.  But I've been enjoying Jennifer Chiaverini's books.  I read a couple of the "modern day setting" ones #beforecovid so when I finished Hidden Figures (which I checked out back in February!) I reached for another of her books.  Only this one was set during the Civil War.  Wow.  It was good.  And, so were the next two books in that story line.  I first stumbled across her books volunteering at Book Den, and brought one home because of the quilt angle.  Even though I'm not really a quilter, I like to sew, so I speak the language.  And most quilty books have, er, "mature" heroines.  So they're more relatable for me.  

I'd love to hear what you're reading!  

Outside, Drawing, and Reading

It doesn't really feel like we had a "summer" in one sense, and it's still hot (over 100* for the next 10 days here), but alas, summer is drawing to a close.  More and more people are making back to school (or not) decisions and posting about plans.  

I'm super grateful that Zach sends me a picture when he and Eli get together to hang out.  It does my heart a world of good to see my boys together.  I still miss them, but I know they have each other to meet some of that "family" need.  

We have these cool storage clipboards that we carry colored pencils and sketch paper in.  

I had the girls take them outside to draw what they could see.  Hoping to build observation skills and get them to take more of an interest in nature this year.  

We've been talking more about trees and leaves and such when we do get out lately.  

I'm not much of an artist, so I'm hoping we can all grow in the area of drawing this year.  

And when we do go out, guess where we're going?  

Our libraries have streamlined the curbside pickup process, and they're starting to move books from branch to branch, which is awesome.  

I printed copies of the first few pages of the very extensive reading list our curriculum provides, and I've been requesting a few at a time, along with other things.  We can have 60 books on hold at a time, and every time we pick up a few, I add some more to our hold list.  

The girls usually read during Quiet Time in the afternoons, but they will soon have a portion of schoolwork assigned then, as well.  

We did something different the other day.  We ventured to a local park for the first time in ages, and the girls brought their clipboards.  We walked along a trail, past a creek, where I pointed out cat tails, dragonflies, dry grasses and lush park lawns, bird sounds, and more.  Then we sat and drew for a bit, before walking back to the van.  

This was a good experience, and one that we will hopefully repeat on a regular basis (until it gets too chilly), once we establish a weekly school routine.  

 One of our library books was about drawing birds, and Hannah created this cardinal from the directions it provided.  I'm impressed!  

If your curbside pickup is two bags of books instead of dinner, you might be a homeschooler!  

Making Stuff

Summer has been less out & about than usual for us, but we are doing more than just staring at screens.  I have to remind myself of this when I can hear video games from 2 different rooms of the house.  

Still struck by what a weird time we're living through.  I think creating things is a good coping skill for me.  

A chip can, some yarn, and a roll of faux leather.  Add a little laundry starch and some glue, and it became another decoration for our little patriotic corner.

My intention is to put some small rocks in the bottom, poke a couple holes in the lid, and use it for a flag holder.  I liked this craft because it would be really easy to do in so many different ways.  Change the color of yarn, change the ribbon to something else, and it's a different project.  Imagine using jute instead of yarn, and putting a flower on it.  Suddenly, it's a vase.  Or using golden yellow yarn, putting an apple on the front, and it's a pencil cup.  You could use variegated pink yarn, a pink ribbon on the front, and fill it with treats for a friend fighting breast cancer.  I used my Cricut to cut the ribbon, but you could easily freehand it or print something to use as a template.

Speaking of Crikey (my nickname for my Cricut machine), it's got a new area.  Since the sewing room has been in mask production mode, it's been hard to drag it out and set it up and then put it away again each time I want to use it.  I'm hoping that with it's own, permanently set up space, I'll use it more.  The overflowing basket is paper scraps, mostly 12x12" ones that don't fit in the smaller sized basket.  I haven't figured out a good way of storing these yet.  The file bin is mats, sheet vinyl, and other miscellaneous supplies.  The basket on the right is mostly paper, cardstock, blank cards/envelopes, and faux leather.  The "under bed" bin is rolls of permanent, removable, and iron on vinyls.  And that little space to the right of the under bed bin is where Grumman hides when he realizes I'm getting ready for bed and he doesn't want to be tossed out of my room for the night.  

Lousy lighting, but a little piece of "mixed media art" I made.  The background is paint, the vase is vinyl, the stems are pen, and the 3-dimensional flowers are cardstock.  This is one of those it-was-cuter-in-my-head ideas.

I think I shared the "in progress" binder cover, but here's the finished version.  The binder holds my homeschool planning and record keeping stuff. 

Our city had a sidewalk art contest a while back.  Trying to make people feel connected to each other, even though everybody's supposed to be staying home. 

There were some incredible entries. 

This one was ours. 

Someone saw my mask posts and asked if I could sew a cover for their Clorox wipe container that they keep on the kitchen counter. 

Turns out, I can.  They asked for bee fabric, but I didn't have any.  So I ordered some, then I used Crikey to make a bee to iron onto yellow fabric.  

Then the bee fabric arrived, so I made another one.  These fit standard, Costco sized, Clorox or Lysol wipes. 

And yeah.  Masks, masks, masks.  These are kid sized. 

And these are grown up sized.  I hit the dubious milestone of sewing my 600th mask last week.  Who would have known I'd have mad pandemic skillz?  I sent 25 masks in to the Tieks mask drive for a discount code.  I've seen their shoes on Pinterest, and wanted to try them, but they're pretty pricey, so this seemed like a win win for me.  (Of course, I'm not sure when I'll ever go anywhere that I need to wear cute shoes to ever again, sigh.)  

These were amazing roast pork tacos that I made recently.  I make a lot of "taco-ish" dishes.  Brianna is kind of over it.  After only 2 months back.  

So I decided to try Hello Fresh meal boxes.  This is the panini, but I added chicken to it, because we're carnivores.  We've been bored with eating the same dinners every week, and Hello Fresh seemed like a good way to get some variety without a whole lot of effort on my part.  They don't have quite the right size box for our family, so I always add a little something on the side to stretch it out a bit.  There was zucchini that went with this dinner, but I don't eat zuc, so I skipped that part.  These were pretty popular, so I'll be making them again, outside the boxes.  

I used to post about "tot trays" when Katie was small.  They were a single activity or directed play setup that she could do while I was homeschooling the other children.  Well, I recently decided we needed a serving tray to get things in and out of the back yard for dining al fresco.  And I was going to Crikey a floral design on it, but that hasn't happened yet.  So it was in my sewing/craft room.  Seemed like the perfect thing for bringing down all the supplies for an outdoor project.  

We made hand sanitizer!  Or, as Katie says, "hanitizer."  We used:  rubbing alcohol, which can be hard to find these days, we got lucky; along with aloe vera, brew glitter, little bottles, and essential oils!

They sparkle, which I thought was fun.  We may pass these out to friends when we start doing group activities again.  

I totally missed out on taking pictures of the beginning stages of this Pinned It and DID It project.  You take can lids (we used Pringles, because Josiah likes them, so that's what we had), squirt a layer of glue into them, then add glitter to make continents and oceans.  Let the glue dry.  Ours took about 3 days.  

Then they pop right out of the lid.  Use a hole punch to, well, punch a hole.  The hardest part of this project for the girls was tying a square knot.  

And, of course, it doesn't help that Grumman has been batting these globes around, and wants to know what we're doing with them.  

But eventually, we got them finished.

They're currently hanging in the school room window.  

I think I mentioned these paint markers in a prior post.  The black paper I ordered has arrived, and I'm pretty happy about how the paint stands out on it.  We'll probably use this combo to draw birds at some point, since we'll be learning about them this year.  

Getting very excited about the start of school soon.  Hoping we can find a nice balance between work and fun, and still have lots of stuff we've made to show here.