It's Wild Here

updates

K: nursing less (plugged duct/infection to show for that), talking more, daddy-love all the time, can spend long periods at the kitchen sink playing, never forgets his vitamin.

R: scared of the dark and shadows, enjoying the Baha'i children's class - he does so well in situations like this - so compliant and joiner-y, but in a cooperative, contributing way, very different from at home, where we still experience daily surprises. Learning letters, is remarkably quick to understand simple arithmetic, has had a cold for weeeeeks.  Will not blow his nose ever. Planning to be Jedi for Halloween.

JJ: writing a 4-page story for school, starting a tumbling class at X YMCA with his friend E, spending a lot of other time with same seemingly-best friend, although he assures me his "group" at school consists of about 14 friends :-) 

J: still struggling with sleep, working with AR weekly on amazing sculptures, worked last weekend at her studio for the studio tour, maintaining As and Bs.

J and JJ's team finished in 2nd place in rec league soccer this fall - it was SO close! They tied and went into penalty kicks. Great to see the brothers on the same team again - it's been years since they happened to be in the same age groupings for soccer.

E: traveling more than we'd all like, seems to be weathering the financial situation at work, enjoying participating at the Baha'i Center, listening to Marshall Rosenberg, watching the bizarre foods and fighting shows, cleared out our shed (yay!).  

A: injured back, trying out a new meal routine - repetitive but much easier to maintain, enjoying the NVC group and Threshold Choir, absolutely cannot keep up with laundry, setting goals to hang curtains and art by J's birthday, planning to offer some community service in the form of computer help for seniors, considering whether to homeschool with R next year - kindergarten age.

Spinning/knitting: still working on red sweater, spinning about every other day for 20-30 min. Finished these bullseye mittens a couple weeks ago - yes, the color combo is just as horrid in person.

misc updates

There is a new local hs group starting in this town and the next one over - much saner driving than the last group we joined. So far, we've been to a board game day.  The kids were younger than Jeremiah, although I know of at least one family that didn't make it that day with a girl his age who I think he could enjoy.

Dentist - Jeremiah and Ryan and I needing work done, wah. Not a lot but still anxiety-producing for me.

Did I post about bowling? I've got some bowling pictures and a video coming up but the camera is nowhere to be found again. We bowled with WILC. Ryan and Jeremiah had a good time.

Soccer all the time. Jeremiah is on two teams, and has soccer every day this week. He's pretty overwhelmed but is improving and seems to want to continue, even though he can be unhappy about it in the moment.  His team (and he) played very well in the soccer tournament this weekend. We thought they had made the finals but then one team had a big upset and it ended up coming down to goal differentials, and they missed out by one goal. Bummer, but it did result in only a 75% loss of our weekend rather than a complete weekend slurp, since they didn't have to go back for the 4th match.

Jamie is very unhappy with his OWL class. He had to wear a pregnancy suit and care for a fake baby during the time of the class.  It seems the camraderie and mutual respect is breaking down in that group, at least for Jamie.

Today, our kitchen is being painted. We're going to try to stay out of the house a lot and will probably go for a field trip to the newish mall that opened last year.  I think it has some outdoor water play place and Jeremiah is hoping for an arcade.  I'd like to get back to listening to books on tape in the car, to give our fluffy not-so-academic outing a bit of redeeming value.

Right now, Jeremiah and I are working our way through the City of Ember series - I just finished The People of Sparks and JJ is midway through Ember.  I've been basically meeting my reading goals this year, but not posting much since starting to use GoodReads - I'd like to link to my book list but I think you might need to log in for that. It's a very helpful site for keeping track of to-read books, sharing your reading with others and getting suggestions.v

some picture catch up and birthday sweetness

Someone's four years old now! We had a very low-key celebration in the midst of pre-moving business and box towers. Ryan created his own birthday hat and enjoyed the singing and cake as much as ever, as always.

tomato sauce mess (and a boy signing "more")

 

Attitude (and a little eyebrow modification)

and smarts.

JJ has been drawing maps and memorizing Canada

Ryan has been doing a lot of drawing.

 

and imaginary play

 

Ryan's story

The cat goed over and down. Then over and down. Over and down in the darkest cave. She goed and find she's daddy, and he was a big giant daddy! A giant daddy!!! He was coming to get you! Dun dun dun dun! Then, the baby comed, then the brothers comed, and mommy and daddy. And then the ghost find its way home, and it was story time.Then he was going up in the dark and finding a lost girl. Then he wanted his big mommy and his big brothers and his big daddy and his BIG BIG BIIIIG!! BABY!!! There was a really big baby.  And that's the end.

Jeremiah and Ryan work with electricity

research on home education

Here's the link

Here are some excerpts:

TORONTO, ON—Home schooling appears to improve the academic performance of children from families with low levels of education, according to a report on home schooling released today by independent research organization The Fraser Institute.

“Poorly educated parents who choose to teach their children at home produce better academic results for their children than public schools do. One study we reviewed found that students taught at home by mothers who never finished high school scored a full 55 percentage points higher than public school students from families with comparable education levels.”

Hepburn said a growing body of new research also calls into question the belief that home schooled children are not adequately socialized.

“The average Canadian home schooled student is regularly involved in eight social activities outside the home. Canadian home schooled children watch less television than other children, and they show significantly fewer problems than public school children when observed in free play,” she said.

The report concludes that home schooling is not only a viable educational choice for parents, but can also be provided at a much lower cost than public schooling. The report notes that in the U.S., home schooling families spend less than $4,000 per year on home schooling while public schooling in the U.S. costs about $9,600 per child.

news

Yesterday, two neighbor children, V and K, stopped by with their sitter. They'd been expressing a desire to get together with us for a while, so that R could play with them. I was happy to be available when they stopped by, so we went over for a visit. We had a good time inside and then went out to leave, but the 3yos decided to ride bikes really quickly before we went. Well, K and R traded bikes, giving R a two-wheeler, which has been a great desire of his for a while. Sitter offered to have him stay while I went home, and he did it! He stayed for about an hour and had a lovely time. It was so close that it was easy to check in, send Jamie down with a jacket for him, etc. I hope this means good things for my chances of being home with only the baby on Saturday when Evan goes to Jamie's tournament.

Also yesterday, Jamie made the official, more dedicated request to attend middle school. We have been giving it serious thought. Although home education seems to have served him well over the years, he is ready to try something new. I am sure he will be successful wherever he learns, and I know this will be a great adventure. He has the option of full enrollment or taking a single class, so we decided that taking one class would be the obvious way to make the transition less abrupt and overwhelming. He's deciding between two different classes and will probably start after we return from our family mini-vacation next week.

adding another new category... school!

All About Ryan

We cut out this book from Nick Jr Magazine and Ryan enjoyed stapling it together. We drew pictures and answered all the autobiographical questions. I won't put all the pictures in, but here are a couple, including the, eh, exciting part.

So far, so good.

OK, wait for it... This is the part that was - I pinky-swear - dictated word-for-word.

(the question originally said "things I want to know about school" but I just omitted the last two words)

Outings

A few interesting things we've done in September:

We attended WILC's Back to School Not picnic, and it was interesting to see all the new families. The group has changed a lot.

We also went to the Fair at New Boston on Labor Day weekend, which is traditional for our family. The weather was fantastic and the food and sights were fabulous as usual.

 



We bought some inexpensive wooden weapons, as always, and Ryan managed to break one before we even left the fair. The other was broken the next day. I guess that takes care of that.

And finally, Carillon Park. We attended with WILC and Jeremiah went to their program on plants and pharmaceuticals, while Jamie and the littles walked around. It's a very nice place to take the littles because there is little they can't touch, and no traffic. We roamed freely.

They must have a small train that runs sometimes, because there were some narrow train tracks behind the buildings where we waited for Jeremiah. Ryan was pretty serious about being a chugga-chugga. After 3.5 years of not following in his train-loving cousin's footsteps, I'm starting to see the Brio track get some use.

update

Our friends from Alabama visited yesterday. The boys miss them a lot! They always seem to pick right up where they left off.

In other pressing news, Ja bought new shoes.

Jeremiah had his first practice last night for his new team. He got a huge workout! I haven't had the chance to ask him if he enjoyed it, but he's certainly going to be learning a lot. The other parents who were there seemed really friendly and helpful. (Evan, I thought to ask about our question wrt tournaments and what is ok to do between games. Robert said nothing usually happens between, and that some coaches even like the boys to not hang out together, because they should really be resting and not running around. fwiw)

[from this point on, this post is for planning purposes - nothing interesting]

I'm thinking ahead about school starting - it's only a few weeks away. I think we'll try a new routine that will accomodate 1.Jamie's new adolescent sleep routine, 2. the availability of our primary childcare helper for Ryan, and 3. the timing of most toddler/preschooler gatherings around town. 

Mornings (7-11am) are for housework, playing with littles, storytimes, errands, playgroups.
Middays (11-2) are for book work with the big boys and housework. R visits S and K naps.
Afternoons (2-5) are for finishing up chores (mine and big boys'), preparing dinner, and sometimes Ryan might still be at S until 5:30??
Soccer practices will be in the evenings, at least T/H, and possibly others for rec league.

Friday playgroup from 9-12 - will people attend the Mon/Wed playgroups before noon?
What day will be story time?
Will there be a homeschool phys ed at Sportsplex?
What time is band for Jeremiah? When is art for Jamie?
When will Carlette come?
MWF morning, we have K and J here until 9 or 10am.