Pinewood Castle

Cheap Fun

Progress Report - Dino

This is Dino, our 6yo cutie-pie boy. Lover of dinosaurs and trains. Resistant and easily discouraged, but full of joy when achieving success or actually liking something new he tries. Full of questions and constantly asking how things work. Every day looking older and taller and more like a little young man. Even though he still has most of his baby teeth!

Being the third child, he has wanted to be somewhat involved in his sister's school time for the last four years. He has learned so much just from osmosis. This year he finally has his own official curriculum. His 1st grade MODG books look like this all laid out on my desk:

His daily work starts with math, followed by phonics, handwriting and religion, and poetry memorization. His blank books are starting to fill with illustrations of memorized poems and narrations of Aesop Fables. Mommy it's a Renoir is in there too - just not a daily subject.

So far this seems enough for him. Almost. On days when he seems up to more I add these and activities from ArtPac 1:

The main challenge I am still wading through is whether to have him complete his work right away when he is fresh or let him play with Wild Strawberry and keep her occupied while the girls begin. His work would take less than an hour without distractions, but takes two or three hours with everything else going on. If only I didn't need a nap after lunch I would sit down with him one-on-one and get it done without distractions. 

Another question I ponder is the difficulty level of 1st grade. Kids this age seem so bright and capable of so much more than a typical 1st grade curriculum offers. And yet, kids this age often  excel in some subjects but not others. For Dino, his handwriting seems right on track after completing two years of Handwriting Without Tears. His is right on track with reading, not having been an early reader like the girls.

It's the math that stumps me. He can tell me that 80 + 20 = 100. He figured out that if there are 8 rows and 8 columns on the chess board that there must be 64 squares all together. He loves helping my 4th grader with her math. In other words, he is way beyond the 3 + 2 problems in his math book but he doesn't want to skip ahead and doesn't seem to mind filling out the pages anyway. I don't think he is a math whiz or anything, I just think that most first graders are can do way more than first grade math books expect.

I think the lady at the local homeschool store would remind me why math books are written (for the masses, in public or private school) and how they are designed to fill up 180 days, to catch up the kids who are behind, to review, etc. This makes me tempted to skip math books with him until around 3rd grade, but know that there will be more concepts coming up in his math book that I might forget to cover if we didn't use one. So I will probably keep him on grade level with math, supplement with Games for Math and let him help Dancer when she needs it!

The other little struggle is that my Dino can focus better if he sits across from me at the Teacher's Help Desk but Wild Strawberry think he is invading her territory and throws a royal tantrum. Sometimes she is willing to share the chair  -

We aim to eat lunch by noon and I send the kids outside before or after lunch. Nap Time/Quiet Time is at 1:00 until I wake up and then he has some time to play before music practice. Here are a few things Dino enjoys in his spare time -

Looking through his favorite book -

Watching Dinosaur Train at 2:30 -

Learning to ride without training wheels!

Bear hunting  in the backyard (he finally likes exploring the backyard by himself)

Learning to read notes on piano:

He is tolerating his second year of violin better that the first and is having his first taste of participating in a theatrical production of Daniel and the Lions Den with his sisters and dozens of other home-schooled kids.

He also loves rocks, insects, constructing with K'Nex and Legos, domino run, marble run and playing with his sisters. He loves Wild Strawberry so much that he was in tears the other day as he accused Sunshine of stealing her away from him. Good thing we have another one coming!

Does that bring be to the guilt factor segment (otherwise known as Are We Meeting His Needs?) of this series of posts? I have to admit that I am a little bit worried that we will have another girl in April. Even the neighbors are concerned that he will be the lone boy sandwiched between two sets of girls. Not much I can do about it, though, is there? God will have to know best on this one. If we do have another girl he will have a lot of sisters to protect and torture.

What I do think about when I can't sleep at night are all of the activities I think he would enjoy if we had the time, money and energy to get him there.

• Cub Scouts
• Karate or Tae Kwon Do
• 4H
• an internationally acclaimed boy's choir in the area
• after-school Lego robotics classes through community ed
• more after school sports like soccer, basket ball or hockey

But then I think, he's only in first grade. Can these activities wait? Or will he be hopelessly behind in some sports unless he starts early? Personally, I would like to see each of the children narrow their interests to one musical activity and one physical sport.

I know parents hold wide opinions about outside activities. Some strongly believe in keeping their children home without the hustle and bustle of chauffeuring children around and exposing them to outside attitudes and language. Others believe the effort is worth it when they see their children blossom and develop their passions and talents.

For me, well, I have three other children to tow along, dinner to cook, enough $$$ being shelled out for our current music lessons and a bedtime to keep. Some of these activities go awfully late for little ones!

So, what do you do? Do you let each child pick one activity at a time? Do you require piano for a certain number of years? Do you try to get as many kids in the same activity as possible? Or do you encourage each child to have their own sport or instrument suited to their talents and interests? I would love to hear your replies!

*** I found out just today a little reason why it takes Dino so long to do such easy math lessons. He explained, "I like math the best and just want it to last longer!"

Progress Report - Wild Strawberry

Oh, this child.

One of these children is not like the others:

She is the first child of ours to:

• have blue eyes
• be a picky eater
• be picky about what clothes she wears
• throw full-fledged tantrums
• climb out of the crib
• like to help around the house
• be more willing to repeat Latin words than English words

And she is accomplishing some feats earlier than the others did such as:

• jumping down the stairs with two feet, step-by-step
• jumping down two or three stairs at a time
• climbing up to the top bunk and getting herself down
• dress herself
• undress herself (sometimes in public)

This one is equal parts delight and agony. Like the nursery rhyme about the little girl who had a little curl, "When she was good she was very, very good. When she was bad she was horrid!"

Out little Wild Strawberry thinks she is big like her siblings. She will not be left out. She even thinks she can read Bob books like her big brother! (every page sounds like "Da, da, bee, bee.")

She is behind in only two areas - weight and speech. Our 28 mo girl weighs in at 24 lbs. and uses only around 25 words, the most recent acquisition being, "No, mine!"

I can't really do much about her weight - she is offered all kinds of healthy food and chooses to eat or not. It's feast or famine with her. When served any milk but sweetened Almond Breeze she throws her cup across the kitchen. I do put extra butter on her toast.

The speech, though, should be coming along with so much language in the house. Or maybe she is overloaded by it all? Perhaps she became too dependent on baby sign language?

Worried mother that I am, I called for help. A team from the school district came over for a little play-date evaluation. Because her overall score included understanding and development, she does not qualify for services at this time. But they will check back at 2 1/2. In the meantime we are supposed to learn some visual cues to go with starting consonants when we speak to her. I'll have to study up during my "sofa time"!

During school time, however, we do try to keep her happily occupied. What seems to work best is to have Dino (6yo) play with her as much as possible in the morning. His work is easily accomplished in under an hour so I have learned to let him do it later in the day.

Our front closet used to hold board games. Now it is home to this:

Five storage tubs of toddler toys to rotate on school days. Here's a sampling of their contents:

Around the school room she has her own stack of paper and crayons as well as a BIG floor pad:

I picked up these Kumon books for half-price at Target remembering how much Dino enjoyed them at age 2:

I used to try to keep up with the activities in Slow and Steady Get Me Ready but have fallen way behind. As much as possible I try to include messier activities like painting and play-dough. We have big tubs, one with rice, the other with beans, for her to play in (and the older kids make a bigger mess with this than she does!). With supervision she loves Montessori type works such as  using a dropper to transfer colored water from one glass to another. But here's only so much messy stuff I can let her do while schooling the others. 

Enter in: The Guilt Factor.

Do you get this too? I look through our local ECFE and Parks & Rec course offerings as think, "If only the kids were in school I could take her to Tumble Tots or Library Story Time or Musikgarten or Princess Party class . . . " After this line of thinking I have a pity party, "If only I had a relative or friend in my life who could pick her up and take her to these while the rest of us homeschool . . . "

It's a dangerous trajectory. Moms of many sometimes have to accept that some of these activities are for the privileged first or second child and are increasingly difficult with a bigger brood.

So I read something like Homegrown Kids and feel reassured that the best place for a young child is in the home. She is getting plenty of stimulation, socialization, regularity and love. And boy do we love her! She is wild and sweet and the life of the family. It is difficult for the children to remember what life was like before she came and we can't imagine our family without her!

"Spring" Photo Practice

Just before leaving for the studio -

 

Fun Week

Dino's "Praise Parade"
 

The girls' dance camp

Baby Princess wanting to get in on the action!

Midsummer Fairy Ball

According to Mrs. Sharp's Traditions,

If you want to introduce this delightful summertime custom into your family's repertoire of pastimes, begin by telling your children that legend says that on Midsummer Night, the fairy realm holds it's annual revels (fairy ball).

Any human child who prepares a feast for the fairies on Midsummer Night will be well rewarded. . .  The fairies leave presents only for the child who is kind enough to provide a party for them . . .  little hand can set up tables with doll dishes in the garden for a fairy feast.

Doll House Tour

All this reading about doll's houses (Big Susan, Racketty-Packetty House) has piqued my girls' interest in the set up that we have.  Just a few months ago I was ready to get rid of the doll house because it seemed as if they never played with it!

Dancer requested that I photograph the rooms she has set up and would like to give you a personal tour.

"This is the playroom and the children are all playing hide and seek. The girl in the green is Ann and she is seeking. Sarah and Hannah are hiding. Can you find them?




This is the children's bedroom. Hannah sleeps in the crib and the twins, Ann and Sarah sleep in the purple beds.



This is the family room. Mommy and Daddy are talking about how the kids do naughty things. They are trying to figure out what to do. The toddler, Hannah, is just doing silly things and the twins are doing things like turning on the oven to hot so the bread gets burnt.




This is the bathroom. The children like to play rubber duckies in the bath. There is no hook so the towels are leaning against the wall. The bottle in the corner of the bath is shampoo and the mirror on the basin really works.In the cup there is toothpaste and two toothbrushes.




This is the Mom and Dad's room. The children are not supposed to go here at all because in the cabinet is full of poisonous chemicals. The statue I made myself out of chenille sticks and yarn. Like the bathroom mirror, the mirror here works too. There is nothing in the drawers because nothing is small enough to fit! The picture is of their old house.




Now to the kitchen! The tiny foods in the kitchen are choking hazards for our real baby. Hannah likes to climb in the oven! In the corner under the stairs is the girls' hidey-home and Hannah also likes to hide under the table. In the big bowl is pizza and Hannah likes to get into things in the cabinets but the watermelon is too high for her. The rug is in the left corner where you can't see all of it.


Well, goodbye! This doll house is really fun to play with but be sure to show this to your children. If they have a doll house, make sure that they take good care of it!"