Joshua had several different speaking parts in this year’s school program. I was so excited and nervous for him. You would’ve thought I was the one with lines.

Well, if you’re new here you might not realize that I’m sort of a reluctant teacher. It’s not that I don’t possess the joy of teaching. Sometimes it is fun. The thing is that I cannot enjoy having so many things to do. There’s a fourth grader to teach, a third grader to teach, and a toddler running around. I finally threw in the hat and sent Daniel to pre-school, but it’s only three days per week, so sometimes he’s home too.

Then there’s the blog, the meals, I should at least talk to my husband occasionally (sarcasm. It’s just sarcasm), and the laundry, and heaven forbid, social outings or extracurricular activities.

It is not my cup of tea. I was not built to run around like a chicken with my head cut off and try to do so many things at one time. In the words of my adorable 2-year-old nephew in the swimming pool last year, “Don’t like it. Don’t like it. Don’t like it.”

I feel like I have so many things to do that I can’t do any of them well, because that’s exactly how it is.

So yes, this is the HAPPIEST season of all. Why? Because the school year is ending!!! I calculated very carefully. We will reach exactly 180 days on May the 24th.

We are all so ready for summer.

So we have a few pictures of the end-of-year-Classical Conversations program for ya and a little synopsis of what we covered at our humble little school. It was an intense year.

For Joshua, this year was all about learning the parts of speech and how to write essays. Each 4th-6th grade student diagrammed a sentence for the program.

Nonna and Alan. I was thankful we got to have a grandparent with us for the program. Living so far away from everyone, this is a rarity for us.

Caleb did a great job too. His class all recited their science facts together. They recited the parts of the atmosphere, types of leaves and leaf parts, and types of volcanoes.

These two were happy to be audience members. JD loves Daniel with the sort of undying devotion that only a sweet little sibling can give.

Not the best photo of Dan, but look at how HAPPY JD is! He’s ready for Mom to be done teaching and become his personal servant again.

What We Learned About This Year:

161 events and people in a chronological timeline (We love our time line song. Check it out here.)

44 U.S. Presidents– This is Caleb’s favorite memory work. He says them at lightning speed.
24 history sentences to add depth to our timeline
144 locations and geographic features in Africa, Europe, and the Old World

Caleb’s freehand watercolor world painting

24 biology and earth science facts including the classifications of living things and each continent’s highest mountain) Joshua totally rocked the highest mountains on each continent. I still can’t tell you them, but Joshua can.

5 Latin noun cases and noun endings and their singular and plural declensions
English Grammar Facts (including 53 prepositions, 23 helping verbs, and 12 linking verbs)
Multiplication tables up to 15×15, common squares and cubes, as well as basic geometry formulas and unit conversions

Oh! And we read the most interesting history text-book I’ve ever read. I’m pleased as punch to tell you that we finished the entire book. Alan even enjoyed getting in on this one. He would read it to them before bed at night. Home school is flexible like that!:

You may remember how I ran off all the corresponding activity sheets to go with Story of the World last summer. I thought we’d do so many of them. We did like 5, but that’s okay. We were perfectly happy to listen, learn, and memorize.

Joshua even wrote essays on the Trojan War and Greek mythology.

So now we’ve started on volume II. Caleb enjoys listening to the stories in the car, and Joshua enjoys reading them during silent reading time.

Joshua is 80% of the way through Teaching Textbooks Math 4, which was a much better fit for him than the A Beka curriculum, mostly because it took ME out of the equation. Ha!

Caleb is still doing well with his A Beka math. He’s our math stud. Joshua’s our master speller.

It was a hard year. I brought on board a reading tutor, a part-time nanny (just on Fridays), several doctors (for me), and a cleaning lady just to make it sort of work. But it’s almost done! CC is done! AWANA will be done as of next Wednesday (Thank goodness!), and school will totally be finished May 24th. I’m counting the hours.

Meanwhile, I have not had a fever today, so whoo-hoo!!! Now I’m off to feed the children and head to Joshua’s baseball game!

The post A Happy Season for Me: Wrapping Up Homeschool Year 2 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This is a sideways panoramic photo of The “Candelabra Tree” at Henry Cowell State Redwoods Park. (No, this is not in my neighborhood. We did visit it this week, though!)

A couple of months ago, a new neighbor moved in. They have a boy Caleb’s age, and a girl in kindergarten. We’ll call this little boy New Friend and his sister New Friendette. Creative, I know.

New Friend and Friendette have a glorious treasure of elementary school childhood right in their backyard. A thicket. Actually, it’s a large thicket that runs down our street a piece, so we call it “the woods.” Joshua, Caleb, and their new friends have spent hours over the last few weeks playing in the woods. Their joy has just been overflowing.

My joy level was pretty high the other day, too. I stepped out on my balcony, and I could have sworn that I saw someone move in the woods. I stood very still for a long time, just thinking and praying. I love looking that way, because beyond the woods, the elevation slopes down, so there’s a small glimpse of ocean.

As I stood there, perfectly still, a “lots of points” buck rose up out of the bushes in the woods. Then his whole herd rose up around him, and I just stood there in awe. I HAD seen something move!!  It was the deer, ducking out of sight, at my sudden entrance onto their scene. They just stood there, munching on leaves, or whatever they eat, probably poison oak or something.

I can’t tell you how that uplifted my spirits that day!

And then Wednesday came. On Wednesday, Joshua and Caleb stayed in those woods, building, imagining, and socializing for two hours, which I hope they will look back on fondly some day.

On Thursday morning, Joshua woke up with a red rash on his face and itchy arms. Thankfully, he was not having breathing difficulty at all, so we didn’t have to rush off to the Emergency Room. We weren’t sure if he had poison oak or a mild reaction to nut exposure Wednesday night. We fed him lots of Benadryl, and we kept a close eye on him.

Friday morning he woke up broken out on both sides of his face. 🙁 I started researching poison oak a whole lot more.

Did you know it takes 3 weeks to get over poison oak exposure?

Did you know that it may not show up until up to 72 hours after your exposure?

Did you know that you don’t need to seek medical help unless the poison oak is in your eyes, private areas, or covers more than 1/3 of your body?

I found a bottle of Prednisone with about 3 teaspoons in it, left over from his great cashew reaction of 2014. I gave him a dose of that on Friday.  That took care of the left side of his face pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, by Saturday, Joshua had poison oak on the corner of his eye, all over his right cheek, forehead, and chin, and little red dots popping up all over his body. Off to the ER he went. He now has a good, two weeks’ supply of Prednisone. He still looks pretty rough.

I feel sooooo badly for him. He’s handled it really well, though.

Did you know that unless the oil from the actual plant is still on your skin, a person with poison oak is not contagious? I did my research on this.  However, the sight of Joshua would probably scare most folks, so he will be staying home with Nonna tomorrow.

By the way, we have had some great field trips/adventures this week to the Redwood Forrest and the Monterey Aquarium. That aquarium has found a new fan in me! Alan and DaddyO got to go kayaking too!!  I can’t wait to get all the photos uploaded to share on my next post!

The post When Playing in the Woods Turns Ugly appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Ah……nothing like kicking back and resting with a three-year-old…

So the first four weeks of home school are done. I’ve been trying to approach this as a puzzle. What can I do to fix the things that I see that need fixing in their education and in their character? Those are the two things I’m keeping them home to work on.

I feel as though Joshua has made amazing progress. Seriously. Amazing. First, he started out way ahead of where I thought he was, so that made the academic part fairly easy.Today I had to introduce the kind of multiplication problems like this: 38 x 3. I thought, “Oh, this will be big.”

I accidentally included three such problems in his seat work before I even introduced them. He blew me away by getting 2 of the three CORRECT. I was puzzled but impressed. There was no scribbling on the paper, either. He did it all in his head. I’m sort of amazed by how much he has accomplished since school started. There is no way I could have ever solved 48 x 3, without someone teaching me how first.

Actually, what Joshua needed to work on was more in the attitude department and the paying attention department–behavioral stuff. He has grown by leaps and bounds in attitude. I finally took my mom’s advice and found more ways to praise him–about behavior–at the very beginning of the school day. That way, he started off on the right foot right away.

Attention isn’t  a problem at home anymore. I know that he has to do all the writing on the board when learning something new. I try to take as much listening as possible out of the equation.

This morning, I was putting JD to bed, when Joshua came by the door, and said, “Mom, I totally get why you had me copy Proverbs 1:8. Obey your mom.” He chuckled, and then he ran downstairs for recess.

This boy’s grades are flying high, and he reads so many books, day and night, I can’t keep up with it.

************

Caleb

My main objective is to bring Caleb up to grade level with his reading this year. So far, this is not going as quickly as I’d hoped.  He started off like a rocket, and then his progress slowed way down. I think I’m going to have to switch gears. I was really pushing Phonics, but Caleb folds up like a envelope when I whip out the Phonics tests.

 Everyone says, “Each kid is different.” That couldn’t be more true. However, Joshua improved his reading by reading all day long in the 2nd grade, so I think in THIS particular case, my next course of action should be to try to do what actually worked for Joshua.

ALSO, the Classical Conversations stuff–Caleb is way behind where Joshua is on that. Joshua has it all down pat. Caleb has a little of it, but he especially does not have any of the songs. He also refuses to sing. This is the exact OPPOSITE of Joshua who sings the answer to everything I ask him. I tell him to recite his 3 times tables, and Joshua sings them. I haven’t even taught him a song for them, and yet he still sings them. I’ve always thought that would work for everyone. Caleb is proving otherwise.

So tonight, I retreated to the beach to pray and think, and that’s when a light bulb went off in my mind. Caleb had such an INCREDIBLE first week, and he was so very very happy and dedicated because he felt successful. He was getting lots of praise. He’s still getting that, especially in math, but not so much in the language arts and CC memorization stuff. If he thinks he’s behind in something, he shrinks away, and doesn’t want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Caleb is afraid of failure.

Now I know what the problem is, so I have a few ideas for addressing it.

1. Go to the library this weekend and check out even MORE books that are on his level.

We were throwing books into the book drop last week, and it was taking so long to turn in our 40 books, a line formed….sort of embarrassing….A lady said, “That’s a lot of books.” I smiled and replied, “It’s a lot of children.”

library days

I think his 2nd grade reading book is just a touch above his level.

2. Way more celebrating of Caleb’s victories

3. Explain how fun it is to master something that used to be hard. That kind of victory tastes so much sweeter than when something just comes easily, and you don’t have to work for it at all.

Behavior wise: Caleb is still doing really great. He just always seems so happy.

***********

Daniel

Oh, you know Daniel. Right now Daniel is in his room, playing with toys when he should be sleeping. As long as he stays in his room and doesn’t bother anyone, I let him be.

I do feel like I don’t get to spend as much time with Dan now that I’m always working with the big boys. However, you can bet you can still always find Daniel by my side in the kitchen. That boy does love to cook. He also knows how to work the Keurig and likes to make my coffee for me. He cleans up, he plays Legos, and sometime in the last month or so, he graduated out of night time pull-ups, saving us at least $20 a month. Daniel is a joy. One day, his wife will thank me, and I will have to say, “It wasn’t really me. This is just who he is.”

When it comes to 3-year-old pre school, I’m like this, “Dan, look, this is a three. See? Put your finger on it, and say ‘three.'”

“Good!  Now go get me three airplanes.”

Dan returns 2 minutes later with three airplanes.

“That’s so great, Dan!!!  All done. Now you can go play airplanes!!!”

That really is about all I do. He is good at tracing his name and numbers and letters as well. I just don’t have the energy to come up with an abundance of pre-school “activities”!

*******

John David

disclaimer: Those two random patches of sod on dirt were like that when we moved in. Grass has to be watered constantly to grow here. We have it in the front only.

Tiniest Man now walks everywhere. He even ran a little today, which made us all laugh. His favorite words to say are “aaaaa, aaaaa, aaaa,” which I think is mama, “Hey”, and “Night night.” He loves to say “night night.”

He shakes his head “no”, any time we say “no”, which is also adorable. He’s a good little block builder too. His favorite toys of all are his dinosaurs and his polar bear. He carries those around and roars, pretty much all day long.

He is still highly opinionated and aggressive. I’m convinced that the more children you have, the more aggressive they get because…well…..survival. Don’t even think about taking a toy from JD. It will never work. He will go full scream on you, and he has the grip of a kid whose fought some battles.

And Big Man has gotten a lot done too. I feel SO APPRECIATIVE of this guy these days. Alan built this fence, which is now complete. Our trampoline should arrive on Tuesday, and then he will build that too. Thank you so much, Alan.

*********

Me

I think God sees me the way that I see John David, “Oh little one, why don’t you go to sleep??  You know you are tired.”

The post Home schooling Progress appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

“Bring on the summer,” they say.

This group of boys is so adorable, and this is just a few. There’s really a whole slew of them, ranging in age from 3 (Dan included) to 10. They gather at our local park after school, and yes, there are girls in the group as well.

A few of the kids have recently begun migrating into the backyard of a friend of ours, that happens to have this hammock and a really cool treehouse.

This is where it gets just too cute: Their latest game is that some of them have assigned themselves ‘tribes.’ Joshua spent about 30 minutes after school, the other day, creating “ID cards” for each kid in his tribe. He got so upset yesterday when I pushed the black stroller to school to pick them up, rather than the yellow stroller.

“What!  Moooom,” he mumbled, with devastation written all over his face, “I had put the ID cards for our tribe in the yellow  stroller, so I could get them after school, and you brought the wrong stroller!”

He looked so crushed that I just felt terrible, but the thing was that Alan was home with the baby, so I had not needed the double stroller (yellow), so I had pushed the black (single), for Daniel to ride in.

Don’t worry, ya’ll, I will make absolutely sure those ID cards get to Joshua on Monday after school.

Joshua and Caleb are both members of the 11th Tribe. Joshua says, “We are the “Archaeologist Tribe, because we have found the most stuff at the park, especially glass. We find a lot of broken glass, but also like old bottles and bricks and sticks and stuff.”

Ah,  broken glass, just what we were all hoping our children were playing with…

Aren’t they just PRECIOUS! I just love this, I mean not the broken glass, but the way they are running and playing freely in the outdoors.  I feel like the best thing I do each week is getting these boys to the park after school, where they run free and make friends with the trees, the dirt, and even sometimes the snakes….

The whole group is notorious for how they are always running around with sticks, and yet I can assure you there have been very few true injuries. Sometimes there are whole wars back there, where they play their own version of “capture the flag”, and I love how the big and small children all seem to mingle just fine.

Are there fights? Only occasionally. Are there hurt feelings? Of course,  that happens, but that will happen their whole life, so they might as well learn to work that out now. One day, last week, I saw Caleb making a beeline, crying, towards the ‘mom area.’ I set out to meet him halfway, concerned as any mom would be. Neither of my boys are big whiners or “tattlers,” so I was  worried. Then I saw two of his friends chasing him down and talking to him, and suddenly, he turned around and headed back to their thicket of trees with them. Only by then, I had caught up, so I wanted to know what was going on.  One little boy said, “I let go of a little tree and accidentally hit Caleb in the face, but it was an accident!”

The much offended Caleb, still smarting in the face a bit, had already decided to forgive and move on, and my intervention was not needed.

Poison ivy and ticks have happened a few times too, though Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel have miraculously dodged those bullets for now, and while I’m not saying those things are good in and of themselves, I do think it’s an acceptable part of childhood.  I love that here in my neighborhood, growing up doesn’t have to look so very different than it did 20 years ago. That’s right. It isn’t just about video games and cartoons. The kids here are very much still exploring the great outdoors.

The moms are there at the park too. We just all hang together on the shaded concrete cylindrical benches.

You can see the benches in the background of this photo, taken at Joshua’s birthday party at the park, last fall.

We sit and talk while our kids run around like wild Indians, and it’s just an amazing and beautiful thing. I love it. It’s very good for our mental conditions. I’ve never felt lonely here–except during those cold spells where no one goes outside–and that’s because we “Park Moms” are just as important of a social network as our 11 tribes of children are to each other!

Oh, and apparently the ‘Archaeologists’ also have a slang name for their tribe: “the tall tribe”, because many of them are the tallest kids at the park.  That sounds about right.

There’s also a large group of boys that like to play football at the park. I guess Joshua’s group would call them the “football tribe.” I asked him what the other tribes are called, but he says he really only knows his group’s name.

So before you judge this little generation of city- school- boys too harshly, just remember that America still has plenty of stick-carrying, glass-collecting, tree-climbing, park tribes out there!

The post The 11th Park Tribe: The Archaeologists appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Tonight everyone in this house is seriously exhausted.

I am probably the only one that is still awake, and it’s only 10:40 pm!!!  It’s been a busy, busy week.

The biggest and most exciting news–and I have several bits of news!–was Joshua’s great success today!!

Joshua ran his very first 5K race, and when I say that the boy ran to win, you’d better believe it.  He took off like a shot, zipped through his first mile like it was nothing, and thoroughly impressed Alan, who happily ran the race with him.

Joshua completed the race in 30 minutes!!!  That’s faster than I could do!!  We are so proud.  He didn’t slow down a bit until he cut his leg up on a thorny bush, during the last stretch.  Our little hare came in 3rd place for kids 10 and under, earning his very first bronze medal!  WAY TO GO, JOSHUA!!!!!  We are so proud!

Joshua’s buddy, Xavier, also ran and placed 2nd!!  They were so cute together, with their medals.  Yes, Alan took photos!  Unfortunately, they are on his phone, so those are coming soon!

Oh, and Alan placed too!  Way to go, Daddy!!!

Here’s the scoop on what’s been going on:

This is Dan, playing planes on the aircraft carrier he got from Nana and Granddaddy, inside the tent he got from us.  Thank you, Granddaddy and Nana!  This is a serious hit!  It came like the day after you ordered it too–amazing!

Dan opted for these cupcakes, rather than a cake.  We didn’t do a party because our life has just been so hectic.  Dan still had a great time, as did his brothers.

This little fella is being weaned this weekend, or at least we are beginning the process.  Nonna is here, and she has been giving him bottles while I have been leaving the house as much as possible so that he knows that breastfeeding is not an option.

He’s made a lot of headway, as long as you put juice or breast milk in the bottle.  We still haven’t convinced him to drink formula.  He’s standing his ground on that, but I’m just happy to at least have progress.

What I didn’t expect is how much I miss breastfeeding and taking care of him.  Oh, JD, I miss you sooooo much!!!  I’m okay with not breastfeeding, and it’s been so weird to be out and about rather than at home with the baby, but I miss cuddling him all day long (and sometimes all night) way more than I realized I would!!!

GIANT thank you to Nonna, who has worked extremely hard to get this boy to drink, plus done the laundry, plus bathed the boys!!

This is like a vacation.  When JD was born, my mom was doing all of this for me, but I was too much of an invalid to enjoy it.

This weekend I was able to take advantage of it and go touring with our guests:  Alan’s grandparents!

It’s hard to tell in the photo, but this was Batman and another Lego figure, sitting on a sofa, watching t.v.  One of them has a remote control.

Dan got a doctor kit from Uncle Greg and Aunt Amy and a transformer dino/car from Allen and Emily.  He has played the fool out of all of it!  Thank you so much!

Dan loves to get all the remote control trains going on the track, but then JD waits for them to ride by and SNATCHES them. It’s a pretty fun game.

Oh, the cuteness!!!!!!!!!

A little of the tourism fun:

It was COLD! We found good, handicapped spaces in a parking garage near the museum.

Ha!!!!

It was extra neat doing the museum with Alan’s grandparents.  This is the Smithsonian American History Museum.

Granddaddy and Grandmother said things like, “Oh, I used to ride in one of those.”  and “Janet had a van just like that one.”  Grandmother told a story about the first time her father saw an automobile.  It really added to the experience!

We also went to the Holocaust museum with them the day before.

Then tonight they took Alan and me out to eat at Bonefish Grill.  What an exciting weekend!  This never happens, ya’ll.  I can’t tell you how strange I felt without little boys tugging on me:  no diaper bags, no babies to carry around.  I felt like I was doing something very wrong. I just had to keep reminding myself, “They are FINE.  Nonna and DaddyO are there with them.  JD will eat food and drink a little from a bottle.  This HAS to be done.  I can’t breastfeed this boy forever.”

In this photo, I was having a teary-eyed moment–I can’t tell you how strange it felt to have this much freedom–I am an emotional mess.  I was in the museum, and I spotted a spot where we took Joshua and Caleb’s picture just four years ago.  I remember them running all over the Transportation floor of the museum and how much they loved it, and this time they had not even wanted to come.   “Nah, that’s boring,” they said.  Tears!  Tears in my eyes!  They will never be those sweet, rowdy little babies again!!!

Joshua was almost 4, and Caleb was 2!!!  Oh, I miss them!!!  I know I still have them, but I miss that preschool version of them!!!  I’d forgotten that their hair used to be that blonde.

We saw this guy propose to this girl.  I couldn’t not watch!!!

LOVE these blue dishes!!!!

Alan, the professional DC tour guide, driving us around.  It’s always such a  relief when Alan is at the helm and not me!!  I always end up driving down some “Do Not Enter” street or ending up hopelessly lost.  DC streets, I will not miss you!!!!

Tomorrow is Sunday.  Ah, sigh of relief!!!  My day of rest, and I love it so.  It seems like more and more events are being scheduled for Sunday afternoons, as people are afraid to compete with other Saturdays.  I’m trying to stand strong and not get sucked in to another day of running around like a chicken with my head cut off!!  Sundays are my easy.  God commanded that we take a day to rest.  Literally–the sabbath is one of the 10 commandments.  Yes, I know, the Sabbath is really Saturday; let’s not get technical.  The Lord arose on Sunday, so Christians call Sunday the Lord’s Day.  I suppose either of those days is a perfectly good one to rest on!  Thank you, God, for Sundays!!

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