The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

As I was getting Bip dressed this morning, I looked out the window and saw geese! Our backyard opens into a small grassy field and a baseball field. The geese were actually in the baseball field, but it was still cool to see. After breakfast I got the camera and took some pictures.

I like this guy standing on the pitcher’s mound.

Knowing absolutely nothing about geese and being the good homeschooling mom that I am, I promptly looked these guys up in my field guide. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds tells me that this geese are Canada Geese, having a brownish body with black head, long black neck and conspicuous white cheek patch. They live near lakes, bays, rivers and marshes. You may remember that we live about 2 blocks away from the Potomac River, so this isn’t actually the first time we’ve seen geese here. We see them on a regular basis, usually around the grassy areas along the river. We have enjoyed watching them fly in the V-shaped formations and hearing them honking. My children have tried to get close to them, walking v-e-r-y slowly towards the flock, which in turn stands very still. The geese regard my children rather suspiciously, then moving as one, side steps away, then stops again. My children move in closer, still going slowly, the geese continue side-stepping away, then – honk, honk , honk! they take refuge in the river. It’s a pretty amusing scene to watch.This is the first time I’ve seen them in the housing area, but according the field guide, it may not be the last. Apparently, Canada geese are “especially noticeable in later summer and early fall, when they form molting flocks on golf courses and large lawns…” Well, that explains the baseball field. But is it late summer already?

After I loaded the geese pictures on to my computer, I thought they would make a good start to my nature journal. I want to get a head start on mine so the children can see one in person before starting their own. As luck would have it the book A Pocketful of Pinecones arrived from Amazon.com today. It is a fictional account of a mother in the 1930s as she goes through the first year of homeschooling her two children. She is following the works of Charlotte Mason, and the book focuses on the children’s nature studies and journal. I’m already several pages into it and enjoying it very much.

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I hesitated to write about this, but you know, it’s my blog and I’ll brag if I want to!

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that my children read above grade level, but I wasn’t sure exactly at what level. Curiosity got the best of me and I found a free online reading assessment. I had Pumpkin Girl go first. Holy Hallowed Halls of Academia, Batman! The girl reads at a 3rd grade level! Remember, she is only 5 1/2. So I wondered about Boo. Same thing, he also reads at a 3rd grade level. Not as shocking, but impressive nontheless (is that one word or three?)

So what’s an overachieving mom to do?

I will continue to keep them at “grade level” for language arts. They may be strong readers, but they need to keep grammar, dictation, and spelling at K and 2. But how do I encourage their reading skills to improve, not stagnate? The problem is that 3rd/4th grade level readers will be way beyond them in terms of content. What to do, what to do? I posed the question over at the Sonlight Forums and I have already received some good advice. I got some good resources, book and author suggestions and this one key piece of advice: stick to children’s books written pre-1960. Anything newer could have subject matter that is too much for my young brood. It also occurred to me to look into the readers sold in my Catholic homeschool catalog. There were some good possibilities there, too. In a day or two, I will gather the resources and suggestions and post them here to my blog.

You know, this really shouldn’t surprise me much, given how much Philip and I both love books. I remember very clearly telling my 2nd grade teacher that I had just finished reading Little House On the Prairie. She said, “You mean your mom read it to you?” and I said, “No, I read it myself.” After that, on library day, I was allowed to go into the “big library” which was for 3rd graders and up. My first time there was amazing. I was bit timid at first, seeing all the stacks, but I got over it and never looked back.

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It’s over! School, that is. More specifically, First Grade for Boo and Pre-K/K for Pumpkin Girl. We tied up the loose ends, finished up the subjects we’d fallen behind in and officially ended our school year. We actually school year round, so we will be starting 2nd Grade and Kindergarten on August 28th.

This last school year went quite differently from what I had planned. Last summer we moved twice and added a baby to our family. Our year-round schedule allowed us to work around the interruptions without getting stressed out about falling behind, but things happen and we got further off course than I’d “allowed” for. My plan had been to keep up school throughout the summer, finish in July, take a short break and start up again at the beginning of August. However, some unanticipated summer events got in the way. It wasn’t so much the events themselves as it was when they occured. I attempted to have school around the various activities, taking a week off for VBS, back in school for a week, two weeks off for swimming lessons, back in school for two weeks, off for a week for family visits, back for one last week to finish up. It was too disjointed that way and hard to get back into things for just a few days. This coming year, without any moving or new babies, we should find ourselves in a better position to incorporate our summer activities. I’m not too worried about it, though. We’ll see what happens and roll with the punches. It’ll all work out in the end, just like it did this year.

For those interested, we will be starting our new school year with Sonlight Core 1, which is world history. We’ll spread it out over 2 years, so that when the jump in difficulty occurs in Core 3, Pumpkin Girl won’t be completely overwhelmed. I’ve added in The Mystery of History along with Sonlight materials to help give us a little more “meat” as we take Core 1 slowly. Both children will listen in to the Bible, history and read alouds in Core 1, as well as Science 1.

Boo will continue with Horizons Math. He’s currently doing two lessons a day of level 1 and it suits him perfectly. He’s doing Sonlight Language Arts 2. I’m not sure what grade level he can actually read at, but LA 2 is a good fit for his spelling, grammar and handwriting ability.

Pumpkin Girl will do Horizons Math Level K. She’d gotten all the way to lesson 42 when it became too hard for her. We took a break and she worked on a thinking skills book. She’s been asking to do math “like Boo does”, so we’ll be back to Horizons at the start of our new school year. She’ll do Sonlight Language Arts K. She is my Wonder Reader so is actually doing the readers from LA 1 already. She’ll be done with those soon and move on to the readers from LA2. But again, for grammar, spelling and handwriting, she needs LA K.

The extra fun stuff will include nature notebooks and artist/picture studies a la Charlotte Mason. They will both continue with knitting and weaving potholders (can you say “grandmas’ Christmas presents”?) and their illustrated story notebooks. I found a home ec course for children their age which looks like fun. Art and music appreciation will round things out.

Yes, I know. Looks like a lot of girl stuff. My goal is to teach both children to manage a home, craft a little and appreciate the arts. Knitting is excellent for hand-eye coordination, plus teaches patience. When they are older, they will both learn to care for a home on the outside, like mowing the lawn and tending a garden. Their home ec skills will include car care and woodworking. We have classes for those things on base, they just need to be old enough to take them.

Lastly, it looks like both children will be into scouting this year. Boo will be playing soccer in the fall and Pumpkin Girl is taking ballet.

As for Bip, he’s just along for the ride.

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