Laundry Line Up

In the Crosby household, the minute your little hands could reach the knobs on the washing machine and dryer you were taught to do your own laundry. In my humble mama opinion, this has been glorious, to say the rock-bottom least. We have, however, hit a few glitches over the years.

1. Children who leave their laundry in the washer, in the dryer, piled on the washer and dryer, piled on the floor in the laundry room, etc. for DAYS.

2. Children who can only remember to empty the lint screen if they were paid $127 each time. (And no, $125 is not enough!)

3. Hanger stealing children.  BYOH!

4. Children born in Colombia who had a birth mama who was 4’11”. (She may not be able to reach the knobs until she is 21!) Thus, the laundry stool was welcomed into our home. (So …. the cow…. does this mean there is life milking cows after the laundry is done???)

This week I have had the pleasure of watching all three of my children who are still living here do their own laundry. Son #2 dragged all his bedding downstairs to the laundry room a few days ago including his comforter.  It did my heart good.  Hubby and I were on the couch (watching Downton Abbey, but that is entirely another story!) when the dryer buzzer announced that son #2’s sheets were dry. A gangly 15 year old came flying down the stairs, ran to the laundry room, grabbed said dry sheets and dashed back up to his room. (Not emptying the lint screen. GAH!) A quizzical look came upon my husband’s handsome face. Being the bearer of all knowledge about my kids’ weird ways, I informed Daddy-o about the joys of climbing into a bed with warm sheets…. even in Phoenix, Arizona it is a pleasure.

Yesterday, the little Colombian princess was sorting her laundry on the couch in the family room, then moved it all to the laundry room and washed, dried and put away all her clothes. (Insert happy mama sigh.) Later that day, she was dusting the family room and happened upon a little pair of black panties with a hot pink waistband in the large blue decorative bowl that sits on the coffee table in front of the laundry-sorting-couch.  She was horrified that she left them where all the world could see… and she couldn’t stop giggling. Made me giggle too.

Today, I brought down my basket of dirty clothes but got distracted being a mom before I could get them sorted.  Son #1 whisked through the kitchen in the middle of my distractedness and loaded up the washing machine before me and my loads that were downstairs FIRST! However, I don’t care AT ALL!  He is 17 and washing his own stinky clothes without being asked or prodded.  It is a mommy victory moment and I will happily wait in line behind my kids for the washer ANY day!

“Why I Love Nature” by Linda Ann Crosby

With the sun shining and the temperatures in the comfort zone, we have been spending far more time outside in March than in December, January and February combined.  Nature Journals have been forced upon my children and one out of three is loving it.  That’s pretty good odds… and I love it, so we’re even Steven.  I’m trying to teach them about botany, art, relaxing and creating in God’s creation.  You’d think a kid who doesn’t have to sit indoors and do math would jump at the chance to draw in the sunshine.  But no. If my boys ever lie on those long black leather couches and explain how I ruined them, I’m sure the Nature Journals will be mentioned.  But that does not deter me.  :o)

Last week we ventured out the front door to draw a Texas Ebony tree in our yard.  This is a REAL Nature Journal… not a fake Nature Journal… so there are rules to be followed.  AND this has to count for a botany grade for a high school student.  Not like a “draw-a-dumb-tree-and-color-it-green” journal.  NOOOOooooooo.  The requirements include, but are not limited to: draw the shape of the tree, the bark, the leaves, the leaf arrangement, the thorns (we’re in Arizona… all the trees have thorns), the flowers, the seeds, the pods.  And when you have all that drawn with exact measurements beside each, the leaves need to have their shape, venation and margin analyzed and recorded.  SEE?!  Not your average lame Nature Journal.

So, after the Texas Ebony had been admired from afar, with a magnifying glass and everything in between, we gathered around the kitchen table and I asked to see the renderings.   Three of four were identifiable.  The fourth tree, however, was ……  …….  interesting.  I questioned said artist, “If I gave your picture to Dad and sent him to the front yard, could he locate the Texas Ebony?” (We only have three trees in the front yard.)  “Probably not.”  “Go try again, son.”

And the nature loving just keeps on rolling here at L.A.K.E. Academy, a homeschool where gifted children thrive…. whether they want to or not.  heh heh heh.

August Schmaugust!

I’m not real thrilled that it is August. This is the month that school is supposed to start at LAKE Academy… our homeschool.  I am at the lake currently (Lake Tahoe) and I am slightly getting inspired to start thinking about getting ready to begin maybe planning some of our curriculum, being that we are studying a few national parks this year that are also in California with huge redwood trees like the ones I am staring at out the window.  I am the most unready of all 11 of my previous Augusts.  And I am almost okay with that.  Almost.

Guilt tried to consume me last night in the 27 seconds between my head hitting the pillow and when I was actually asleep.  But it was only 27 seconds of guilt and I had the presence of mind to ask God to rid my brain of said guilt.  He did… with sleep.  Today, in the wake of realizing that it is August THIRD, I did break out the coil-bound notebook that does have 2 1/3 pages of notes.  Those two-and-one-third pages are ALL I have planned so far for 10 months of study with my three pupils…. and it’s in outline form, so I do have a bit of work to do.  Only 137 1/3 blank pages awaiting my attention. One thing I have learned in my 11 years of homeschool planning, is that IF I plan all ten months before we start, we will NOT finish what I have purposefully painstakingly planned.  If I plan a few months or units at a time, I am FAR more inspired to be creative in small chunks throughout the year, knowing that we WILL finish what is planned.

Our upcoming school-year will consist of the study of seven national parks on the western side of the United States.  We plan to do between four and six weeks of study at home and then CAMP for a week at each of the parks.  THAT is my kind of homeschooling.  We are schooling with another family who is also close to normal, so it will all be just fine. Yes, it will be two wild-n-crazy homeschool moms camping with eight children ranging in age from 7 to 17.  Awesome!  She is a science geek and I am a history nerd, so most subjects will be covered with some art thrown in for good measure.  Geology.  Astronomy.  History.  Conservation.  Botany.  Dendrochronology.  Eco systems. Nature Journaling.  Art.  Oh yeah.  This is the type of homeschooling that I have only dreamed of for 11 years.  Please stay tuned to see if it’s all I think it’s cracked up to be.

Four Peas in a Pod

Last night was the last of ten homeschool mentoring classes that I have had the joy of attending.  You may be wondering why I would take a homeschool class….. in my eleventh year of homeschooling.  Well, believe it or not, I still don’t have it all figured out.  Our church has a homeschool support group that offered this class and since I don’t know too many homeschool moms outside of my safe little bubble, I decided to join the class.  It was WELL worth my time! Many quality friendships were made.

Every homeschool mom NEEDS a support group and/or co-op buddies in order to make it through this educational journey and not pull out all the hair on the sides of your head.  When I first started teaching my kids at home, I remember being in awe of moms who had been at the task for ten years or more.  Then I turned into one…. almost overnight.  How in the world did that happen?

Last night in our last mentoring class, we went around the circle and spoke of those ideas/books/charts/theories that inspired us the most during our time together.  For years, and I mean YEARS, like 24 years, I have known of learning styles and the benefits of figuring out how each kid ticks… so as to teach him so he understands.  However, I haven’t looked at learning styles since sweet Nora has graced our homeschooling haven.  There is a chart in our mentoring manual explaining each of the four styles and how to best help them.  I looked at it again last night and realized that I have one kid of each style.  Perfect!  I always like to get one of everything!  Like at Panda Express… how can you choose just two entrées?

Anywhooo…  last night was the first time I read the little captions under each of the styles.  It made me laugh out loud.  For your personal enjoyment and mine, here they are:

1. The Structured Learner (Inside the box) – My eldest daughter
2. The Moving Learner (Outside the box) – My eldest son (In my mind, this one could also be PLAYS with the box!)
3. The Analytical Learner (Stares at the box) – My younger son
4. The Community Learner (Talks to the box) – My younger daughter

For those homeschool readers who are curious about the course, here is the link… the manual is FABULOUS!  http://www.thebalancedhomeschooler.com/

Onto more important homeschooling news, Nora’s math books arrived yesterday and she FINALLY feels like she is doing school now.  :o)  I originally tried to start her in grade two math, but I discovered too many holes in her learning…. and we are re-starting with kindergarten.  I predict she’ll be done by Christmas.  She did a week’s worth of lessons in less than an hour.  Makes this mother’s heart glad.

4 out of 4… I’m Golden

As it happened, I have completed the task every homeschool mother wonders if she will be capable, able and successful at finishing: teaching your children to read.  My first daughter was subjected to a charter school for kindergarten and grade one (that’s how we say it in Canada… not first grade) and I did not have the joy of teaching her to decipher the alphabet code.  But I figured, HEY!  How hard could it be???  Well, son number one, who followed daughter number one, had a brain that was wired quite the opposite of my first child reader.  She read with ease at five years old.  When my son turned five he was quite proficient at spitting, throwing rocks, yelling and doing everything at the same rate as Speedy Gonzales.  Reading was not on his list of interests….. until he was almost NINE!  Made me wonder if the kid would ever read.  Sheesh!  What good is a teaching certificate if you can’t even teach a kid to sound out three letter words?  Or simply remember the letter F?  Eventually some synapses connected in his overactive brain and he could read.  It happened while we were on a three month sick-leave trip touring national parks on the west side of the United States.  It had nothing to do with me.

Son number two actually read before son number one.  Assuming that this would provoke determination in son number one was completely incorrect on my part.  Son number one read after he had successfully toured Zion, Yosemite, Walnut Canyon, Fort Bowie and 14 other parks, caves and forts.  Had I known the national park tour was a prerequisite to his reading ability, we would have taken the trip three years earlier.  See?  Nothing to do with me.

Last week, I had the joy and privilege of teaching the Colombian princess to read.  She has been diligently learning her English phonograms and we have completed the first 26 of 72.  She asked me in frustration, “When am I ever going to be able to read WORDS?!?”  It was then that I realized she probably could with her vast knowledge of phonograms.  I put three phonogram cards together… c…….a……..t.  She sounded them out three or four times before her eyes popped open and she pronounced in her amazing reading ability, “CAT!”  Then we went through run, ran, hat, dot, hop, up, pop, cup, mop, tip, sip, and, hit, and even jump!  She was so excited she could not stop giggling!  I called for her sister and brothers to come and listen to her READ!  Her dimples were showing the rest of the day! It truly is a joy to see her succeeding by leaps and bounds and she hasn’t even been speaking English for 6 months yet.  It is also a true joy to be able to teach her. 

Back in the day when I taught kindergarten to several classes of German speaking kids, they did learn to read and I was proud of them for learning English and reading…. but nothing compares to it being your own kid who has broken the scribble code and can make sense of the English written language.

Four out of four.  I’m golden!

H.O.W.3

Today I read on a Konos loop that History of the World 3 will be available this month as an online download.  It makes me sad.  I hoped and prayed for several years that it would be available for this coming school year RIGHT when we needed it.  And it is.  My high schooler has done HOW1 (Ancient History – Founding of Rome) and HOW2 (Medieval World) ….. then when early Spring rolled around and we were making class decisions for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year, I realized that my Arizonan children do not need HOW3, or more specifically, they do need certain history requirements that don’t include four successive years of world history.  The gap in their education that I have feared for nine long homeschooling years has finally surfaced….. Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution.  Oh well. 

My kids will be taking Government and the History of Arizona for their junior year of high school.  We found a YMCA government class where the kids actually participate in AZ government.  Sweet!  And I plan to teach History of AZ.  Both are one semester (although we’ll have to dig deep to come up with a semester worth of AZ history…. the baby state)… and necessary…… buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I’ve heard that HOW3 is Jessica Hulcy’s best work.  Her magnum opus.  I’m tempted to get it just to use it as a literature course.  The books chosen for all of HOW are amazing, giving the student a well-rounded view of history with samplings from so many great works… the classics…. the books I never read in high school, let alone in college.  Books that my husband has never heard of…. but I digress.

For the school year 2011-2012 we will be doing HOW4 – American History…. and get this…. I’ll have TWO high schoolers!!!  Where, oh where, has the time gone????  Weren’t they 7, 4 and 2 just last week when we started homeschooling?  Back in the good old days when it seemed like reading was going to be the missing gap.  Oh, we’ve come a long way, baby.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

It is in view.  Tonight we have our homeschool Egyptian Night of Phood, Phun and Pharaohs.  Tomorrow there will be exhilarating photos of costumage, international eats and happy kids.  Y’all come back now, ya hear! Then we don’t start another unit until January.  It is blessed relief.  Not that I don’t enjoy the units, I really do.  BUT, come the end of November and looking to the next page on the calendar, it is always a relief to have a lighter teaching load.  We still do the basics (reading, math, spelling, grammar and writing) but not the in depth studies involving science, history, geography, etc.

I love being able to set our own pace for studying.  Arizona is one of the best states to be in if you are a homeschooling family.  There aren’t a lot of restrictions and that proves beneficial to those of us who seriously take teaching the kids.  There are many choices of support groups to join for the extras like field trips, socials, outreach opportunities, and the like.  This is our first year with Keys of Arizona, a group that meets in a church twice a week and offers classes that moms might not be able to teach.  There is everything from lab sciences, higher math, languages, writing, music to Scottish dancing.  You never know when that might come in handy!

Anyway, tomorrow morning a smile will be on this face as I awake to less responsibility and visions of festive activities in store for the next several weeks…. gingerbread men, dipped pretzels, hand-cut snowflakes, gifts-in-a-jar, family games and caroling.  Yippy Skippy!

The New Kids on the Block

Bags for Zaza, the fundraiser for our adoption, has four new kids up this week, Junie B. Jones, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Caddie Woodlawn and Danny Lynn!  The FIRST REVERSIBLE wonder of a tote bag created by my brilliant sister-in-law, Jennie!!!

A go-go wooden-bead surprise, by yours truly.

Dellynn, eat your heart out!  Thank you to all the faithful fans, bidders, watchers, linkers and word-of-mouthers.  We are so appreciative of everyone’s support for Zaza.  www.BagsforZaza.blogspot.com

We’re busy this week preparing for school starting.  Larisa starts on Aug. 22 and the boys start on Sept 2, the day after Labor Day, when school is supposed to start.  Remember?  Back in the good ol’ days?  This is my first year teaching homeschool high school, so I’ve been prepping for a while so as not to feel quite so utterly inadequate.  You’d think with a teaching degree I’d have some moxie, but no.  It made me feel even more incompetent reading a recent study that showed homeschooled kids with non-certified moms do BETTER than my kids.  Great!

As I’ve been previewing the topics and objectives for History of the World 1 (HOW1) from www.Konos.com I was elated and jubilant that my Art History class knowledge and text from college are actually going to be useful!  Dust off the expansive volume Art History by Janson.  I never thought I’d be looking in that creaky old book in this lifetime, especially to teach my kids!  If wonders never cease.  Janson has since improved the blue canvas cover of old (of mine!) to this spectacular man wearing an entire king-sized red bed sheet on his noggin.  Impressive.  Especially if you like turbans.  There, my friends, is a knot tying class in the making.

1433 Jan van Eyck – Man in a Red Turban
Oil on panel. The National Gallery, London, UK.

www.LindaCrosby.com