Weekly Wrap Up - Homeschool Week 9

We have started learning about Brazil!  

Jack shows off his Brazilian currency, the Real.  

Brianna working on the rain forest animal search from Little Passports.

Eli checking out the Brazilian amethyst with a magnifying glass.  He's got one of his rock books out for reference.  He's my geologist in the making.  He got the family rock gene that my dad and grandmother have.   

Painting flags of Brazil.

Next week will be so different when Hannah and Mr Jingle Pants go to school!

Sassy Girl started school on Thursday.  Aside from Transportation not having her in the system yet, we had a good first day.  She's very excited about school, and had HOMEWORK last night.

Part of her homework was to make a puppet, so we went into the sewing room and created this princess with wings.  The wings are tulle over wire, and they're kind of hard to see in this picture.  The tiara is self adhesive glitter paper, with just the bottom edge of the sticker backing removed.  The dress is leftover sequin fabric from the Vietnamese fabric store that I used to make the big boys knight costumes years ago.  

Poking new flags into our foam flag holders is always a highlight of getting to a new country.

Jack working on a word search from the back of a cracker box.  Funny, he doesn't like word searches in spelling, but he did the Angry Birds one all on his own.  

Funny, what started out as a handful of trail mix somehow became an impromptu lesson from Brianna about bar graphs!  

Can't wait to see what the next two weeks in Brazil will be like.  We've also got a little catching up to do, with an experiment that we missed the previous week, due to not having CELERY on hand, lol.  

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Practicing Hospitality

When I was a teen, my mom volunteered for the county crisis hotline. One day she got a call from a teen girl that needed a place to stay. I immediately thought my dad and step mom should take her in. They initially said no, but I managed to convince them. Patricia lived with us/them for a few months.  (I was bouncing back and forth between my parents' households.)

Asia, Zachary, and Amelay, 1994

When Paul and I were first married, a group of teens from Hawaii came to visit our church.  We offered to host Asia and Amalae.

1995 (baby is Annaliese)

After Annaliese was born, we had a short term, summer exchange student, Miki, from Japan.

Then there were several years where we welcomed baby after baby after baby into our own family, and sharing our home wasn't really on our radar.  Although, a couple of times, we were able to help friends out by taking kids for a week during a move or similar circumstances.  During these years, I remember thinking there was nothing I could do to serve God because I was parenting 24/7.

Brianna and Lamek, December 2008

We moved, the kids got bigger, and the opportunity arose to host two boys, Yafes and Lamek, from Uganda with a traveling children's choir.  They were taught to call all their host families Auntie and Uncle.  One of my most precious memories of their visit was after settling them on the pull out couch, sitting at the computer, listening to them chattering quietly to each other in Luganda.

Zachary and Yafes

When we decided to adopt, we became licensed foster parents.  The more I read, the more I admired families who were able to make a difference in the lives of dozens of kids who came through their homes.  My perspective changed.  I began to see fostering as a calling, a ministry, rather than a means to an end (adoption).

While we were in the process to adopt Hannah from China, California changed fostering regulations.  Now you can only have a maximum of 6 children in a foster home.  That leaves us out, at least for now.

There is, however, an exciting ministry called Safe Families that we've gotten involved with.  It's a way for Christian families to come alongside parents in crisis and help take care of their children temporarily.  It's a little bit like voluntary, unpaid, temporary foster care.  Here's an article that tells more about it.  Safe Families has need for all sorts of volunteers:  host families, prayer partners, financial backers, and family coaches.  If there is a Safe Families ministry near you, I'd encourage you to see how you can get involved.

Mr. Jingle Pants & Sassy Girl

On a personal level, in much the same way that our particular parenting path has perfectly prepared us to be Hannah's family, could it be that God was using those years of 24/7 parenting to give us the experience to turn around and share that with kids in need?

All I know, is that I want to be available to whatever God has for us.  Whatever that looks like.  I can't help but think that we have this nice big house and nice big van for a reason.

In progress shot of wall hanging I made for the sewing room in our old house.

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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if it IS broken, pay attention!

How did I not do this years ago?

I like our new curriculum. [understatement]

I like learning TOGETHER.  Oh, I'd heard about unit studies.  But they sounded like too much work.  A couple of summers we did fun things like A Trip Around the World or My Body all together, when I wasn't pressured to make sure the kids were all learning X amount of stuff, in every subject, per quarter.  I didn't have the time to put together my own unit studies, and I'm sure I would have felt like what I was doing was never "enough."  With MFW, there are weekly plans to follow, so I know we're getting it all done.  We're also doing a lot more FUN stuff.  Between the projects in Global Art and the tasty tidbits in Eat Your Way Around the World, we are getting more hands on with our learning than we have in years.

I like that my kids know what the other kids are learning because we're all doing the same thing. I like that my high schoolers come home from school and say, "So, how's Canada going? What did you guys do today?"

These things never happened with our old curriculum. Yes, I believe it's a GOOD curriculum. Yes, it's Bible based, and I love that. Yes, there are character lessons built in. Zachary and Annaliese and Samuel all used it first through 8th grades and turned out fine. I feel like, with one exception, it prepared them well for "real" high school. (That exception being creative writing skills.)  But we didn't have the cohesiveness that we have now.

Homeschool, as with most parenting decisions, is fraught with opportunities to second-guess yourself. In the early years, I played around with a couple of other major brand name curriculum options.  But trying to teach multiple subjects to multiple students on multiple levels... well, I don't multiply that well.  So I reverted to default, the curriculum I'd used when I was in private school as a teen.

And you know what?  It worked for us.  Once my kids could read, it was self taught workbooks that they could do with minimal supervision.  During the years where I was pregnant and chasing a toddler and a preschooler (and there were several of those years, lol) using an easy-for-mom curriculum was the only way we got school done.

But I missed the signs that it was no longer working for us.  We ended up hating school.  All of us, students and teacher alike.  I regret that.  I regret not realizing that I could have changed things up sooner.  We would have avoided so much burnout.

This morning, I was reading about a first year homeschooler whose curriculum choice was Not Working.  It was a painful reminder of how boxed in I was by my curriculum decisions.

If I had one piece of advice to show for my 14+ years of homeschooling, I would tell newbies:

Research your options, but don't make yourself crazy.  Once you've made your choice, give it a really good try before deciding you don't like it.  If you've made an effort, and you've tweaked a little, and it still, it's Just Not Working, don't be afraid to scrap it and move on.  Often, with a purchased curriculum, you can recoup some of your costs by selling the teachers manuals or other non consumable components.  Don't be so tied to your initial choice that you lose sight of the love of learning.




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Garage Sale 1

We've been in this house 11 months.  In April, we woke up one Saturday to find the neighborhood crawling with garage salers.  Come to find out, there's a huge neighborhood sale date every spring.  Cool.  File that away.

When we started talking about raising money for the adoption, I told Paul I'd have a garage sale in the spring, and ask friends to donate stuff to sell, in addition to our own stuff.

Two friends have already donated stuff.  Paul was, erm, less than thrilled? to be storing it for months in his garage.

Last night, Sam got back to the school from his "away" (I call them way way away) game after midnight.  We rolled home around 12:30 and stumbled to bed, only to get up to get him to football practice this morning.

Well, when we stepped out this morning, we discovered that the neighborhood garage sale thing?  Actually happens TWICE a year.  Yup.  Today.  So I dashed Sam to football and came back and dragged all the stored stuff out into the driveway.

This was the ultimate disorganized garage sale.  No pricing.  No neatly set up tables.  No clothing on hangars, organized by type.  We spread park blankets and a sleeping bag out on the "lawn" and dumped boxes/bags of clothing on them.  We had open boxes lining the sides of the driveway.

Shoppers were told, "Everything is FREE.  We are accepting donations towards our adoption, but if you find something you like, you're welcome to take it."

Brave, or lazy, I wasn't going to haggle.  I figured ANYTHING we made today was a bonus, since it was unexpected income.

Some people just nodded.  Some people said, "That's cool."  Some people asked about our adoption.  One woman handed me $3 for a children's book and said, "My grandkids are adopted."  Another woman told me that her nephew was adopted from China.  One guy handed me a couple dollar bills and all the change in his pocket.

Afterwards, we consolidated what was left and hauled it back into the garage.  While I was packing up, I found 2 things that Sassy Girl will be able to wear, yet another blessing!  4 or 5 trash bags worth of clothing/stuffed animals/dress up wear was gone.  And we had 5 empty boxes left over.   A TV, a freezer, a lawn mower, an unfinished dollhouse kit from my childhood, all gone.  This will make Paul happy.

When all was said and done, we earned $64 paper dollars and a fist full of change.  Not an amazing amount, but not bad for 5 hours of work.  Hopefully next time, with more prep time and more stuff to sell, we'll do better. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Weekly Wrap Up - Homeschool Week 8

I love to see my kids helping each other.  

Eli was teaching Hannah how to spell our last name.  

Brianna was explaining a math concept to Jack.

Warms my heart. 

It's funny.  This summer, I kept thinking, "This year is going to be so easy!  Only 3 students at home!"

Wednesday, as I was passing out paintbrushes to 6 kids, I laughed and thought,

"Shows how much I know!"  

Hannah is "off track" from school for 3 weeks.

This is her second week home, and she's stopped asking if she's going to school today every morning.

We didn't quite get to the Maple Cookies, but we did manage to make our Canadian Flag Cake.  White cake, Cool Whip, and strawberries, yum!  

Not as many pictures this week, sorry.  It's been a little busier around here with Sassy Girl and Mr Jingle Pants.  I taught Sassy Girl how to borrow and subtract, and she got a 90% on this week's spelling test!  

Linking up with some other adoptive families for a Blog Hop.  Check them out if you're interested in adoption!

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Happy Birthday, Katie

On the other side of the world, it's tomorrow.  Way, way far away, there's a little bitty girl having her second birthday.

My heart wishes she were here.  I hope her foster family is doing something special for her.  I hope they're feeding her cake and longevity noodles and loving all over her.

Happy birthday baby girl.  God willing, this will be the last one you spend as an orphan.


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Our Special Guests

Yesterday, I took the extra kids we have here to Hannah's school to register them.  

Of COURSE they don't have room for both of them at the same school!  :eyeroll:  

Mr Jingle Pants is going to be in Hannah's class, which means he will start school 10/8 when she goes back.  Sassy Girl is being "off loaded" but we don't know where yet.  Interestingly enough, the registrar said that the schools they offload TO are all traditional schedule instead of track system.  This means her schedule will probably mesh fairly closely with the teens' school.

Because she's being off loaded, she'll be eligible for bus service from our neighborhood school.  However, she'd have to be there at 7 a.m.

Ouch.

Methinks I'll be driving her to school and having the bus bring her home.

How is everybody doing, you ask?

Well, for the most part, everybody's okay.  It was a grand adventure the first day (Saturday).  It's become a bit less of an adventure for the kids since then.  But we're settling into a routine.  Honestly, I think having a bunch of kids here has been a help to them, in a positive peer pressure sort of way.  They can SEE what's expected of them in the other kids' behavior.  

While they're not in school, they've been doing school with us.  Mr Jingle Pants does roughly what Hannah's doing, and Sassy Girl does most of what Jack is doing.  We do things as a group, as well.

And me?  Well, I've learned things about myself.  

I'd love to have you pray for us.

Pray that I will have just a little bit more sleep, patience, and compassion.  

Maybe even a dash of organization or an extra pair of hands.  ;)

Pray that all the kids will give each other a large amount of grace.

And pray that the situation that has them here will be resolved quickly.  Despite daily phone calls, they miss their mama, of course.

p.s.  It has taken me two hours to get this little blog post written.  During that time, I've washed hair, helped hiders hide and counters count, and said, "Brush your teeth" about 32 times.  They're outside playing hide and seek in pajamas now, and I think my neighbors would be grateful if I'd bring them in and put them to bed.  It's a little noisy.  

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Weekly Wrap Up - Homeschool Week 7

We're learning about Canada!  

Yes, it's a picture of my children holding steak knives.

There was actually less blood shed during this project than the Orange Globes of Week One, when Eli sliced his hand open.  

Our Inuit soap carvings.

We also listened to the Canadian national anthem on YouTube.

And researched aurora borealis, including writing our own myths to explain it's origins.  Brianna's story was really good!  

A new country means a new flag for our flag holders!

And a new packet from Little Passports.  The kids got an explorer's compass/whistle.  Jack made Paul jump about a foot by going out to the garage to "show" him the whistle feature.  

Have I mentioned how much I'm loving this curriculum?  This is such a fun year for us, with subject matter that I enjoy.  It's so easy to add enrichments to.  I have some fun additions coming up for Brazil next month.

You can't really see the "snow" effect, but we used glue sprinkled with salt to add texture to our igloo pictures.  

Hannah has gone "off track" at school, so she's home for a 3 week break.  This means we're not walking her to school each morning, so our Nature Walk has suffered.  Last week, I counted learning about the tree in our front yard as our "nature walk" and this week we skipped it entirely.  Bad mom.

You may also notice the Perler Beads in this picture.

My kids LOVE Perler Beads, and they're a favorite around here during the cooler months.  In fact, they're telling me all the colors that we're out of and what they want to make next.

We have our children of the world stretching over our school room windows.

And we FINALLY got around to breaking last week's pinata.  

Jack takes a whack at it.

Then Hannah gives it a try.  This is her first pinata ever.  

Eli's got a pinata jump shot.

And Brianna manages to swing with a smile.

They enjoyed their loot.

What was even more touching to me is that they shared their loot.

Both with me, and with the teens who were at school when we did it. 

Love that.  

We have one more week in Canada before we head off to Brazil!  

I'm just as excited as the kids to continue our learning adventure.

Spare a prayer?  We have a couple of young guests here temporarily.

They miss their mama, of course, but overall things are going well.  

Please pray for continued grace for my kids toward them, 

and that their situation will be resolved quickly.  

Thank you!

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