Electrical Gardens

25 February 2012

This morning we had breakfast then went (with the keys this time!) to get my husbands paycheck and we ran a few other errands on the way home. Ra listened to and read along with the read-along books we checked out from the library. I went over some of the facts of George Washington's life while we were in the car as well. I read them a few poems about George Washington that I had found online as well. I also started introducing the kids the the colors in German. Rot, orange, gelb, grun, blau, lila, schwarz, weiss, braun, silbern, and golden. (Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown, silver, and gold.) Time in the car has been greatly under-utilized by me and I hope to remedy that with exciting discussions and topics and books to listen to and memorization drills.

We had lunch and cleaned house a bit when we arrived home and after lunch the hubby pulled out an electricity science project kit we had bought for our kids a while ago but had not opened yet. I thoroughly enjoyed myself as I sat back and listened to the hubby explain what a "circuit" was to the kids and how electricity works. I put in my two cents now and again when I felt I had an insight I could share or another way of explaining something that the kids might be able to understand easier. We all had a good time with it.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon planning my garden and doing research on how much to grow and where to grow certain plants in relation to other plants. I decided which plants I want to start with this year, instead of jumping headlong into a large variety garden my first year doing one on my own. While graphing out my garden on graph paper I explained to Ra what a Ratio was. I told her that for every two squares on my graph paper that showed one foot in actual garden. I told her we do this most often to scale down things into workable sizes. I couldn't very well draw out the garden on a piece of paper as big as the garden because then I may as well just do it in the garden itself. I still have a lot of planning to do, but this is a good start.

After a very good dinner the kids played around and Ra helped tend Em while the hubby and I set up my computer with Call of Duty 4 so that I could play it with him for a bit. It was fun to just chill and take a bit of time to relax from the studies I have been involving myself in during my spare time. Unfortunately the play time ran over and we didn't have time to read our kids a story before bedtime. But I was able to get in some valuable leisure time which I have been needing, but having been allowing myself. 

The kids and I also finished the Log Cabin out of twigs we started yesterday. I will post pictures of it soon. I absolutely love how it turned out.

Log Twig Cabin

24 February 2012

This morning we played around the house and cleaned up a bit until about 10:30 a.m. when I piled the kids in the car to drive the half hour to pick up my husband's paycheck from The Yard. When I got to The Yard the paychecks hadn't arrived yet so I drove down the street to a local park and let the kids play for about 45 minutes then drove back to The Yard. When I pulled up I found that it had been locked up and everyone was gone. This usually isn't a problem because I have a key to the office door, but I had left it at home. So, I took the kids to lunch since they were hungry, we weren't close to home and it was lunch time.

After lunch we went home and did our President's Day/George Washington's Birthday crafts. The first ones we did were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln finger puppets. They were so easy to make and they are so cute. It cost me one $1.04 to make four of them since I had construction paper, glue and scissors already and we needed a quarter for each George Washington and a penny for each Abe Lincoln.

The next craft was far more involved. I had cut out the shapes for the 4 walls, roof and floor of Lincoln's cabin and I had the kids go outside and collect me some sticks. We have an enormous willow tree in our back yard so the lawn was covered in easy pickings. I showed them how to do a rough measuring of the length the sticks needed to be and how to break them where they wanted. They glued the "logs" onto the construction paper and we let it dry all day. We will actually assemble the building (Gebäude in German) tomorrow.

After we were done gluing on sticks the kids wanted to go for another walk/bike ride. I called Grandma Jane because she said she might stop by our house and I wanted to make sure we weren't going to miss her if we left. She said she was still at the school (she teaches 4th grade at the public school my kids would be going to) setting up her classroom and getting ready to go back On-Track (the elementary schools here do a "track" system with A, B, C, and D tracks, all taking breaks at different times to be able to accommodate the large number of students). The school isn't much farther than where we were planning on going for our walk so I told her we would walk up there instead and help her finish setting up her room.

The walk/bike ride was quite stressful as we walked on a major road. My kids aren't yet familiar with all of the rules and whatnot of riding a bike near such traffic. They did good though. At the school we helped Grandma Jane put text books out on her kids desks and sharpen pencils and organize and decorate a board. While we were there my husband arrived back from work and drove the car over to the school to meet us. He conned his mother into watching the kids for us and we went on a much needed date. Grandma Jane put the kids to bed for us and she read some of the abbreviated children's version of Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson to the kids.

Boo-Hoo's and Ahh-Haa's

23 February 2012

I slept in this morning. I have totally ignored my "schedule" for the week. I realized yesterday that I am not inspiring my kids. I also realized that I don't know how to inspire them. A very daunting thought when I am trying to live up to the mantra "Inspire not Require". Last night I sat bolt upright in bed after dozing for a little while and began sobbing I was so overwhelmed by my task and I felt prompted to pray. I prayed earnestly that God might help guide me in my search for knowledge and help me understand and apply what I have already learned.

This morning when I woke up I realized that the kids had not yet come down to bother me about typing the the passwords for the computers (being computer day and all) which made me very curious. I went upstairs and found the kids enthusiastically playing with some ball hoop and target sets we received from Grandma B(She is an adopter grandma! She has no kids of her own and is good friends with Grandma Jane). I hadn't pulled them out until last night for the first time after the kids were in bed. I left them out and apparently the kids loved them so much they forgot it was computer day for a little while.

 I spent some time talking to my sister (which if you haven't noticed by now is what I do when I'm stressed out because she helps bring me back down to reality) and I got to thinking about the interest the kids had this morning. I decided that the computers need to take a further back seat than they have been. I cut down from everyday to two days, now I'm considering ONLY using their computer time for typing exercises and educational studies. I will probably find a way to make free computer time a reward of some sort, but I am still thinking it all out.

I want to make our basement family room into more of an educational playland. Right now it has a bookshelf, a small chest of craft activities, a children's desk and the computer desk. If we took the computer desk out of there and just put one computer in my room and put the other one away for now or in my small craft room, there would be more space for the kids to set up and play. We could get more open-ended toys and manipulatives to have down there and hopefully encourage them to do more than complain about wanting to be playing computer games.

I also know that when the weather warms up the computers aren't as bad of a problem because it is easier for the kids to be able to play outside. I decided though, that cold weather is no excuse to be cooped up inside all day. I love being outside and Charlotte Mason is a big proponent of spending time out of doors as much as possible. So we bundled up while Em was taking her nap and I raked up leaves and twigs while the kids rode bikes, and dug in the dirt and tried to help me with the raking as well.

When Em woke up I put her in her stroller and Ra, El, and Ca rode their bikes and we walked to the park where there was another little boy El's age playing with his dad and their two schnauzers. I let the kids play until Em started getting red cheeked from cold then we went home, had dinner and the kids had a bit more time on the computers before storytime.

We finished reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and read a chapter in Genesis of the KJV Bible. Tomorrow I will ask Ra if she wants to listen to a book about George Washington next or the book she picked from the library (as I offered to read it to her because she wanted it so bad but it is not an easy read for her yet).

I looked up some fun activities to do with the kids in honor of President's Day and George Washington's birthday ( I know we are late) and I am sure they will have fun tomorrow helping me in the yard again and doing these crafts. I will take pictures of them when they are completed and post them tomorrow!

Happy Birthday George Washington!

22 February 2012

Everyone needs to stop getting hurt/sick. Just stop! Ok? So we all got sick with a cold/flu a few weeks ago and Ca ended up having a really bad ear infection (which we didn't know about until he fell of the bunkbed and I thought he was seriously injured when he wouldn't stop crying and it turned out to be just an earache). Ra has been coughing pretty badly for about two weeks now. Yesterday at Grandma Jane's house El got into her sewing things and cut the tip of his finger with her rotary fabric blade. Then later at home when I went to grab a tool out of my husband's tool bag I stuck my hand in and cut open the tip on my finger on the only sharp thing in the bag. This morning I decided to take Ra in to the doctor's to see about her cough and it turns out she has a sinus infection. When we got home we were cleaning the house and El slipped down the stairs and hit his head/cheek on the cement basement floor and I was worried he had a concussion  (which he didn't, thankfully), but he had a very bad headache and a large bruise on his cheek. Ca keeps hitting his feet on things by accident and getting hurt in various other ways by tumbling around the house. Then when I was saying good-bye to my mother at the door, Em fell into a bucket of water. She was fished out instantly and no harm was done but oh my heavens! I have had enough! I'm done. No more. I am going to strap them all to their beds for their own safety! At this rate they wont live to see another year! AHHHH!! Seriously though. Enough is enough.

This morning over breakfast I asked Ra what she wanted to learn today. She reminded me that today was George Washington's birthday and so she wants to learn about him. I asked her what she knew about George Washington. Her response was that he was the first president. A good start to be sure, but in all honesty that is about all I really know about him either. That is a very sad fact. I tell you, all morning (while we were at her doctor's appointment) I felt like the blind leading the blind. It is a terrifying feeling.

After her doctor's appointment we stopped by the house to gather our library books and then went to the library in search of books on George Washington. We found several good ones. Some longer, some picture books and a few read-alongs. I even checked out one for myself. The kids picked out several other books then made our way home to clean house for Grandma Debbie.

My mom (Grandma Debbie) volunteered to do Singing Time with my kids every Wednesday. Today she reviewed another primary song Nephi's Courage from the LDS Children's Songbook. After reviewing the story behind the song, (same as was done with The Wise Man and The Foolish Man) we discussed the many different kinds of boats there are and their purposes. Grandma Debbie asked them how hard it would be to build a boat that you would feel safe on for long distances if you had never done it before. They all agreed it would be nearly impossible. Grandma Debbie explained that Nephi was given instructions by God not only on how to build a boat but also on how to make the tools to build the boat! We talked about different scenarios in the kids lives where they would need courage to do the things God asks us to do and reaffirmed that God would never ask us to do something that was impossible, He will provide a way. Brings on kind of a whole knew clarity to the old adage "Where there's a will there's a way." More to the tune of "Where there is God's will he will provide a way." At the end of the lesson the kids made boats out of tinfoil and floated them in a bucket of water. (Yes the same one Em fell into.)

Ra listened to one of the read-along books about George Washington then I think she was pretty well "learned-out" for the day. My anxiety at all of the kids little traumas throughout the week keep me from being productive with anything but dinner and dishes. I talked on the phone with my sister for a while and she got my mind off things well enough that I could calm down again.

We read a few passages about George Washington from a couple books then read a chapter of Genesis in the KJV Bible and two chapters of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We only had three chapters until the end and we were trying to finish it tonight but by the time we finished the second chapter it was already well past bedtime. Tomorrow then!