a first for me

For the first time in my life I reached the 40-book maximum at the library. I never thought I'd see the day when I had so many books checked out from the library, let alone ones I'd enjoy reading.

First you might be wondering how we keep track of so many library books. Yes it would be a hefty fee if we were to lose them. And it has happened before. But for the most part this is no longer a problem. Most of our library books are kept in these bins in our living room, with the spines facing up so we can glance to find the book we are looking for, or flip through them to browse. A few of the books are kept in the kids' room in a bin to be used as nap and bedtime stories.

With 40 books checked out, you may be interested to hear what we're reading these days. For the most part we've been reading a lot of non-fiction (mostly about nature), fairy tales, and Bible stories. The following is a list of books we currently have checked out from the library (or that we've had recently) that we really enjoy.

Non-Fiction:

• How a Seed Grows We really like the Let's Read and Find Out series!
• Waiting for Wings
• Sparrows
• Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move
• A Seed is Sleepy This book (and the next two) have really beautiful illustrations!
• A Butterfly is Patient
• An Egg is Quiet
• The Story of the Statue of Liberty

Fairy Tales:

• Rapunzel
• Sleeping Beauty Camille adores this one and cried when we had to return it.
• Unwitting Wisdom: An Anthology of Aesop's Fables
• The Little Red Hen
• Twelve Dancing Princesses
• Goldilocks We even used the recipe in the back. Delicous!
• Rumplestiltskin

Bible Stoires/Lessons:

• Read-Aloud Bible Stories, Vol. 4 We're looking forward to reading the first three volumes as well.
• The Gospel Story Bible
• The Jesus Storybook Bible
• The Lord's Prayer
• A Child's Book of Character Building
• Big Thoughts for Little People I had the older version of this growing up.

Other Books the Kids Love Right Now:

• Over in the Meadow
• Silly Sally
• The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear Levi expecially loves this book right now.
• A Pocket for Corduroy
• Olivia
• Tallulah's Tutu
• A-Hunting We Will Go

My own leisure reading has mostly been about the Charlotte Mason philosophy of homeschooling. Two of the hallmarks of this method are learning through living books (one of the reasons we have so many books from the library right now!) and nature study. The following are books I've been borrowing from a friend or from the library, or have added to our own home library recently.

• When Children Love to Learn
• Real Learning
• Handbook of Nature Study
• Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You

I'm excited about the idea of studying nature together as a family, and hope that one day we will all keep individual nature journals. I think that there is quite a bit of value in exploring and learning about God's creation, and look forward to keeping this as a main focus as we teach our kids at home.

Now I have to go through all these 40 library books and decide which ones can go back to the library so that we can pick up a few others that I have on hold!

"school" these days

This past week Camille was constantly asking if we could "do school." And while I still hold true to my belief that young children learn best through play, I wanted to offer her some more school-y options.

She's very much into practicing writing right now, and especially loves when she gets to use dry erase markers. She can write upper and lowercase letters pretty well, thought there are a few she still has some trouble with. I also heard great things about the Explode the Code series and bought the beginning workbooks for her to work through.

I also bought a book called Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons, as it came highly recommended from several people I know. I think we will start it sometime in the next couple of months. But for now, Camille gets some phonics experience through a program called Reading Eggs. She loves playing the phonics games, collecting golden eggs, and hatching a new creature at the end of each lesson. We are currently have it under a free trial, but I think will stick with it as long as she is still enjoying it.

We've also been using pom-poms for lots of things lately. Levi likes to use a spoon to scoop them out of a bowl into a muffin tin. Or he pushes them through a hole I made in a lidded leftover bowl. Camille took over the other day after Levi was done and sorted each color into a different muffin spot.

Then while she was napping I quick made and printed a graph for her to fill in. I showed her how to do the first two, and then she zipped right through and completed the rest of the graph. after that we talked about what we know about the pom-poms from looking at her paper. She thought it was really fun and was excited to show Aaron when he got home that night.

And what does Levi do while Camille and I are doing school? Mostly he just wanders around the house looking at books or playing with toys. Sometime he sits on my lap and watches or "helps." But when he's really quiet I know he's probably up to no good. Or, in this case, secretly snacking.

Yes, we are enjoying this new season of school at home. It's fun for me that Camille is enjoying doing school work. And it's also nice that as soon as she is ready to be done we can move on to something else. No pressure, just a little directed learning here and there.

preschool {at our house}

Last week signaled the beginning of the new school year for many kids. And the same was true for my children.

Ok, maybe not the beginning of a new school year. More like a continuation of everything we've been doing for a long time now. Here are the traditional (and not-so-traditional) courses we covered this week:

Gardening: My mom entrusted Camille with pruning sheers while they worked in our backyard garden. Camille rose to the challenge and used them very carefully to cut down the stems of dead flowers. Though her hand strength wasn't quite enough to do it on her own, with a little help from my mom she did a great job! Levi go in on the yard work action as well, though isn't quite old enough to handle pruning sheers. Instead, he helped my dad pick up sticks from the yard.

Cooking: This week Camille was able to help me in the kitchen quite a few times. For lunch one day she spread ham salad on crackers and cut up a piece of cheese to eat with it. She also likes to help me measure ingredients when I'm  making dinner.

Hair-Cutting  101: We gave Levi a haircut. It was a family affair. While Aaron was doing some trimming, Camille gently combed Levi's hair in the back. She's practically dripping with concentration, that sweet thing!

Reading: Camille loves working with manipulatives! We used our set of alphabet blocks to make letters (and words) by laying them on the floor in lines and curves. We spelled h-a-t, and then took away the first h and replaced it with other letters so that we could make new words. So much fun for a three-year old!

P.E.: My kids get plenty of exercise. Camille could ride around on her tricycle all day. She simply adores that thing. I don't know what we're going to do when she's too big for it! She's also getting quite skilled at hoola-hooping these days, though her attention span for practicing that isn't very long yet.

Math: One afternoon we spent over an hour playing with a bucket (ok, three buckets) of landscaping rock. She likes to pour them from one bucket to another. Then she laid some in a row and we counted them. Then we did some basic addition using the rocks. After that, she used all the rocks from the buckets to make shapes. She made rectangles and triangles. And added a doorknob to each :)

Time with friends: Three days a week Camille gets to play with her friend Isabel. The girls have fun playing sleepover, beach, and other creative "games." On Thursday afternoons the kids get look forward to playing with the kids from a couple families who are in our farm CSA. On Friday we went to open gym where Camille took gymnastics. She and Levi played there with their friend Freddy, as well as some of the other kids there. Yesterday was the start of a new year of Sunday School. Camille was a bit nervous at first, but when she got to the classroom and found some of her buddies from class last year she set right to work learning about Jesus with her friends!

And, last, but certainly not least...

Nap Time: No explanation needed!

As you can see, we keep very "busy" doing school things all week long! We're having a great time doing preschool at home!

flour tray letters

Last week Camille had fun writing letters in a cookie sheet filled with flour.

It was a messy activity.

But messy is Camille's specialty.

She enjoyed writing names and drawing designs.

She chooses to use mostly upper-case letters except for the letter i.

Josiah and Levi munched on Cheerios and watched in admiration and wished they could dig into the floury mess with her.

I told them they have to wait until they're old enough to know not to eat it.

See? Messy.

But Camille wasn't the only one who got to enjoy this activity. Auntie Megan played with her and was even on the receiving end of a luxurious flour massage.

Camille learns best when she's actively engaged in what she's learning. She likes hands-on activities that she can do without help and she loves to get messy. 

So this activity was perfect for her.

The Letter of the Week ~ L

This week we are learning about the letter L.

Memory Verse: Let your light shine. Matthew 5:16

Song: This Little Light of Mine

Words: lion, Levi, light, love

Books: Mrs. Lather's Laundry, The Little Engine that Could, The Little Lost Angel

Field Trip: library

This morning after breakfast Camille did a lacing activity at the table while I washed dishes. Then she drew a picture of a lion with some help from Auntie Megan. Megan told her what to draw (circle for a head, a mane all around the head, eyes, nose, mouth, whiskers, four legs, and a tail).

Then while the boys were napping Megan helped Camille cut l words and pictures out of magazines and I helped her tape them onto our poster paper and wrote the words under them.

After lunch this afternoon Camille helped do laundry and just before naptime Megan read our l books to her.

We're only one day into this and I can already tell that Camille is enjoying herself and looking forward to the special little projects we have planned. Here's what we have planned for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: We will work on our "L" picture and will decorate it with leaves.
Wednesday: Camille will have some computer time where we will learn about lighthouses and llamas.
Thursday: Camille has school, so we might not do anything letter-related. But who knows!
Friday: Field trip to the library. Hopefully by then I will have decide what next week's letter will be and can find some books for us to read.

I'll let you know later how our first Letter of the Week week is going, and will for sure be back on Sunday so you can hear what we're going to be doing next week!

taking care of business

I've been tweaking my blog these past few days and adding a few features.

• Swagbucks Widget - Some of you use Swagbucks, some have heard of it but never checked into it, and some have never heard of it. Swagbucks is a way of earning money just by using a new search engine. You can also do surveys, complete special offers, and get referrals to earn money. I've added the widget to my sidebar. You can use this widget to sign up for your own Swagbucks account and start earning money. There are lots of things you can spend your swagbucks on, but my absolute favorite is to redeem them for Amazon gift cards. So far this year Aaron and I have earned more than $50 in Amazon gift cards and are in the process of deciding what to use them for (Christmas presents, homeschool supplies, and fun splurges are all in the running). And what I like most about using Swagbucks to earn money is that I have not received a single junk email from them.

• Follow by Email - Tired of checking back at the blog every day only to find that I've been lazy at posting? Or forget to visit and realized you've missed a bunch of posts? Now you can sign up to get an email each time I put up a new post.Just enter your email address in the space on my sidebar that says "follow by email."

• Confessions of a Homeschooler - I've started following this blog and have really enjoyed the homeschool ideas she has to share. I'm particularly interested in the preschool curriculum she has created and the free printables that go along with it. I've found a bunch of worksheets for Camille to do, as well as number and letter games, and many other ideas for things to do with the kids. So I've added this blog to my list on the sidebar. If you have young kids you can definitely benefit from checking out this blog, even if you don't homeschool.
• Preschool/Homeschool Ideas - I'm also going to try to incorporate more preschool and homeschool ideas as I try to slowly add them into our routine. Like I said in this post, we aren't ready yet to start anything formal, but young minds are always learning and I'm constantly trying to be intentional about offering my kids opportunities to learn more. I've added a "homeschool" label to my blog posts that show things we are doing or ideas we have, so you can click on that to see all of those posts. One of the things I'm going to be starting soon is ABC Bible memory verses. I'm planning on posting each week's verse on the blog so that you can follow along with us if you wish.

Well, I think that's about it for now. If you have any questions about these things please feel free to ask! And if you're wondering more about Swagbucks or other preschool/homeschool things I've been reading up on I'd love to share.

bathtime phonics

teachable moments: baby steps into homeschooling

(Go figure. I began thinking about and typing this blog post while the kids were napping on December 13 and of course Levi woke up from his nap about four seconds into typing. And he apparently is completely uninterested in entertaining himself sitting on the couch next to me. Avid sitter that he is, he can't seem to manage sitting on the couch for more than a few seconds before he tips over and threatens to roll onto the floor. So alas, this post will have to wait for now.)

Ok, let's try this again...

Aaron and I have tossed around the idea of homeschooling Camille, or at least giving it a shot to see how it goes. And as I was looking online at preschool curriculum I've read quite a bit of advice to completely skip preschool curriculum. After all, the best way little kids learn is through play and by watching and practicing themselves.

So as of late I've been very intentional about taking advantage of teachable moments with Camille. And I've discovered that there are literally hundreds of teachable moments in any given day.

I should start by saying that one thing that makes these teachable moments easier is that Camille's verbal communication is pretty advanced for her age. Since she was very small we've always talked to her and encouraged her to talk and to learn new words. We have always explained what words mean and pointed out descriptive words when we were talking about something.

Anyway, so I've been looking out for teachable moments and am finding that it comes so naturally to me. Many of these moments happen in the car, where she has no option but to sit still. Camille likes to point out things she sees as we're driving around. Because of this we've had conversations about emergency vehicles, the difference between sunrise and sunset, why it rains in the summer and snows in the winter, left and right, and why we saw a Christmas tree on someone's car, among many others.

When Camille is coloring we talk about shapes and how many sides they have. We count the shapes, we color them. When she is painting we talk about mixing colors.

When we have blocks out we count how many we can stack. Sometimes I make patterns for her on the floor and ask her to continue the pattern.

We sort mini pom-poms by color or size. She makes designs with small round pegs in a pegboard, which is great for small motor skills.

We sing songs about everything: Jesus, colors, the days of the week, ABC's and tons of others.

We play the letter sound game. Together we come up with as many words as we can that begin with the sound of any given letter. For example I tell her we're going to think of words that start with the ssss sound. Usually it's just me coming up with words, but occasionally she'll think of her own. Often she comes up with a words that begins with a different sound. And that's ok!

And one thing we do as much is possible is read books. She is one lucky little girl to be living in a house with four adults who are always wiling to read to her. Some days she could sit for hours upon hours listening to us read to her. Other days she's less interested. Many of her books are ones that were mine when I was young, and it is so much fun watching her enjoy them like I did.

So I think that this is our "preschool" plan. We will continue to take advantage of teachable moments, and we will continue to let her do what kids do best - play! Eventually we may add in some workbook time where she can practice writing letters and numbers, but not until she is interested in that.

It's an exciting concept - to think that we get to decide what and how our kids learn things; to think that they can learn at their own paces. I'm excited to give this a try. And I'm looking forward to watching my kids faces light up when they learn something new!