Preschool / Kindergarten Gift List

"Pick up your toys!" I yell. Again.

But when I look at how many toys there are, I realize that the task of cleaning up toys is overwhelming even to me. How much more so for a preschooler?

My Little Ponies. Tea sets with all the plates, cups, and tea pots. Stuffed animals. Legos. MegaBloks. Dolls. Doll Clothes. Little People. Barbies. Tool sets. Cars big. And cars little. Come on, how many toys do three little girls need?

Take away all their toys, and they will have fun just dancing in a circle, jumping, running, and playing with rocks and boxes. Do they really need all that they get for Christmas or birthdays?

So knowing that grandparents and aunts and uncles flood the kids with plenty of toys, we have tried to find a way to make gifts special without toys. So this gift list focuses on a preschooler's educational needs and helps to prevent an overload of toys.

Arts & Crafts:
Art keeps the kids busy and helps supplement our schooling. However, they already have paper, scissors, glue, and markers available to them. We are a home school family after all. These things have become the staple of our lives.

Therefore, focus on something special, like colored pencils or Crayola Mix 'Em markers instead of crayons. Or you could get a child's delight and a parent's worst nightmare: washable finger paints--hours of very messy fun!

Watch Me Draw and other art books give simple step by step instructions on how to draw animals, dinosaurs, and bugs. Add a quality sketch pad to allow them to collect their drawings together. Here's a list of different art books for ages 4 and up:

• Watch Me Draw: Things Girls Love
• Watch Me Draw: The Zoo
• Watch Me Draw: Favorite Pets
• Watch Me Draw: Dinosaurs
• Chicken Socks Super Scissors Book

Browse an art store. There are many felt sewing crafts produced by Lauri Toys that have large plastic needles and pre-punched holes so that a preschooler can easily sew with some help. Check out some wooden models that you can build and paint together.


Reading & Math:
Try something new. Software like Reader Rabbit is a fun way to promote an early understanding of phonics and math. Reader Rabbit teaches the following skills in their interactive storybook games:

• Phonics
• Vocabulary
• Spelling
• Comprehension
• Numbers
• Problem Solving
  

For some great stories and fun characters, check out some of these picture books:

Skippyjon Jones by Judy Shachner
Follow the stories of Skippyjon Jones, a young Siamese cat, who travels to far away places with his vivid imagination. Down in Ol' Mexico, he battles a bumble bee and saves the frijoles for the Chihuahuas. His mother scolds him lovingly when that bumble bee turns out to be his birthday piñata and he has spilled jelly beans all over the floor.

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
Some animals congregate in the great Bear's den while he slumbers through the winter. They pop corn. They brew tea. They dance by the firelight. And Bear misses the whole thing, snoring on through the winter storm. A pepper fleck wakes the Bear with a loud kerchoo, and the party stops with a fright. Everybody knows that you don't wake a bear!

Also check out other Bear stories like Bear Wants More.

Super Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold
Imagine taking your pet fly to school. He learns to read with you. He paints with you. And he goes to the lunchroom with you. And there he gets in trouble with the lunch lady Roz.

Check out other Fly Guy books like Hi! Fly Guy, which won the Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Book Award.

Swim, Little Wombat, Swim! by Charles Fuge
Little Wombat laughs at Platypus and his funny waddle, but when he accidentally falls into the water and Platypus rescues him, he feels sorry for making fun. Instead the two become friends, and Platypus teaches Wombat how to swim.


Science and Math:
Try getting a magnifying glass as a stocking stuffer. It's fun for kids to carry about and explore the world around them. In the winter, they can inspect snowflakes, and in the summer, they can study insects and flowers.

Promote the fun of science with a science kit. You will find many different kinds available at teacher, hobby, and toy stores. Our favorite one for young kids is the magnet set. It's easy to use and has many fun, reusable projects. Our kids enjoy getting out the magnets and doing the same projects again.

Reasons to Ignore Parenting Advice

Everywhere you go, people spout their opinions.  In-laws and parents alike, neighbors, coworkers, people at church:  they all have their opinions and freely tell you what you should and should not be doing.

Listening to wisdom is a good thing, but sometimes these people aren't offering wise advice.  Sometimes they are just bragging about how much better they are, building themselves up at your expense.  Sometimes they've never had children.  Sometimes you watch them say some pretty nasty things to their own kids.  Sometimes their advice just won't work for your family's needs.

And when you are a home schooling family, everybody feels the need to put in their two cents about your child's education.  This often leads to carrying burdens that we would do much better without.  Here are a few reasons to ignore unwanted and often foolish advice.

1.  There is more than one way to solve a problem or to do something.  You need to find the resources and the methods that work for you.

2.  Every child is different.  What works for one does not always work with another.  I have three children, and I have to deal with each child differently.  How much more so when you go from one family to another!

3.  God put your children in your hands.  It is your responsibility before the Lord to raise your children with wisdom and kindness and love and nurturing admonition.  That job does not belong to anyone else.

4.  Other people are not omnipotent.  They do not have all the answers.

5.  You can often get conflicting advice.  One person tells you to make your child cry it out, but another says that is cruel.  If you listen to everyone, you'll just tie yourself into knots.

6.  And if you allow yourself to be sidetracked from your purpose by every wave of advice, then you will just be spinning in circles.  You will lose your purpose.

I have had people tell me that my kids can't learn from me because I'll be too soft.  Or I'll give them all the answers, and then they will only learn to depend on me.  Or only a teacher can appropriately discipline a child.  Or they won't get socialized.  If I focus on these things (and there have been times that I have), I'll find myself trying to prove them wrong or be overly hard with the discipline or extra tough on their schoolwork.

And then home schooling has lost its joy for all of us.

Here I am saying to ignore the advice of others when I am writing a parenting / home schooling blog to give advice.  But hey, even I can get on my high horse and spout nonsense every now and then.  Even I can become all high and mighty and not really meet your needs as a parent.

So when someone does give you advice, look at it carefully.  Ask yourself:  Is this wisdom?  Would this work for us?  Is there a smidgeon of truth in this criticism?  If so, what do I need to do about it?  If not, be sure to move on and ignore it.

Finally, do your own research.  Decide for yourself what is the best parenting approach, and then test all advice against your personal plan.  Study up on wise parenting written by people you trust.  I always enjoyed books by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish or by Jane Nelson Ed.D.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk is a practical guide to communicating with children.  They tell you how to express yourself clearly, how to listen effectively, how to motivate, and how to discipline.  But they don't just tell you what to do.  They tell you why.

Liberated Parents, Liberated Children:  Your Guide to a Happier Family is Adele Faber's and Elaine Mazlish's personal story as they learned to apply their parenting method to their children.  Between the two of them, they had 6 children, and they relate honestly their own triumphs and failures.  It made me feel less guilty for my own failures, and more humble about my triumphs.

Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson Ed.D. in some ways builds on some of the concepts I learned in Faber's and Mazlish's books.  In other ways, she has her own perspective on discipline.  I gotta say, discipline became a lot more effective when I applied her wisdom to my methods.

Toddler Gift List

I admit that I am not looking forward to the toy dump we will get this coming Christmas. The last thing we need in our house is more toys. We have so many toys that I doubt that they can enjoy what they already have.



Knowing that grandparents and aunts and uncles flood the girls with plenty of toys, we have tried to find a way to make Christmas special without toys. When they were little, we focused on learning toys and art supplies. So here is a great list of educational things to get for young children.




Reading:

For her second birthday, little K got a LeapFrog Little Touch LeapPad for ages 6 to 36 months. Prior to getting this present, she had no patience to sit for a book. Suddenly, it seemed like a whole new world had opened up for her. She would love to sit on my lap and flip the pages. I didn't have to read or say anything. I would just watch as her love for reading blossomed.





From there, I started getting baby board books for her from the library. She was hooked. Sandra Boynton board books are colorful and cute as well as entertaining for child and adult alike. TJ and I exchange smiles at our favorite lines, and where we once quoted our favorite movies while cooking, you can now hear us saying, "But not the armadillo."



Like many children's books, Moo, Baa, La La La discusses the sounds animals make. Well, except that the three singing pigs don't say oink. They say, "La, La, La." I could easily read this book over and over again without getting bored or annoyed.



In But Not the Hippopotamus, the animals are all doing things together, except the hippo which just hides to watch everyone else have fun. Then finally the animals stop what they are doing and get the hippo to join in. Now all the animals are together. Well, except for the armadillo.



Dinos to Go is about 7 dinosaurs with different personality traits. One dinosaur named Hey-Ho Howdy sings loud, real loud, and I can't help but think of near and dear friends of ours that fit this description. Some of the pages get long for young ones. I would often read the first few lines for each dino, and then as the girls grew older, I'd read more of the descriptions.




Art:

M and R already have their own art supplies. Their own scissors. Their own glue. K has watched and wished. Christmas is a good time to get her some supplies of her own, but also art is a good way of keeping little hands busy. Toddlers are often left out of the school planning. We are often so focused on teaching the oldest their spelling words and teaching the middle one how to read that the youngest gets forgotten.



Putting the toddler at the table with a piece of paper and a pair of safety scissors is a way to keep them occupied while you teach. I like this particular pair of scissors. They are not sharp enough to hurt a child, but they still work well on paper. It took us a long time to find a pair of scissors that didn't leave both us and the child frustrated.



A bottle of Elmer's glue gives the child an opportunity to glue their cut pieces of colorful constructrion paper onto another paper. Scissors, glue, paper? Sound like a cheesy gift? Not to a toddler. Add some washable markers or better yet some Mix-Ems, and you will have hours of entertainment that keeps your toddler's hands busy and you free to work.



Keep these stored as part of your school supplies to control the mess and to help teach responsibility. Although these are gifts, it is okay to keep them in a cabinet to be used when you can oversee the projects.




Fine Motor Skills & Mathematics:

These toys are meant to build fine motor skills and are great tools for teaching mathematics as well.



Building with MegaBloks promotes hand coordination, spatial awareness, geometry, and imagination. Believe it or not, I have even used it for pre-reading skills by creating stories around the things we built. As my children grew, I used MegaBloks to teach other mathematical skills, such as sorting & classification, patterns, addition, and subtraction.



Stringing beads and lacing & tracing shapes are more great tools for keeping young kids busy. Keep some wooden puzzles, a toddler tote, a bag full of interesting rocks, another bag full of plastic lids, and some playdough, and you will have a wide array of interesting things for toddlers to explore at the kitchen table.

Book Review: My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World

My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World

by Gilles Bachelet

I am an elephant girl. My husband loves wolves, and I like elephants. Our unity candle sits on the mantel, surrounded by wolf and elephant figurines. So when I say I liked this book, I gotta admit I am a little biased.

Reading this book to the girls was fun. With each page, M compared the "cat's" behavior to real cats. R just sucked her thumb and listened. And K scrunched her nose and said, "That's not a cat. That's an elephant." Unfortunately, I do not have the ability to write baby speak very well, so I cannot add the cuteness that she had when she made that statement.

I said, "Yes, that's not a cat, but the owner sure thinks he is." K just looked more deeply at the pages. This was a new concept for her, calling something by something other than what it is. She was quiet for a few moments. I wonder what her little brain was thinking.

I love the pictures of the elephant doing cat like things, grooming, sleeping, and chasing a ball of yarn. Somehow the artist did a magnificent job drawing the elephant grooming in the same posture you would see a cat. Or the more amazing part was the Siamese cat-elephant, the Persian cat-elephant, or the calico cat-elephant. Sometimes it seemed as though my eyes were playing tricks on me.

In the end, the owner tries to find his cat's breed in a cat book. He decides his cat must not be listed in the book.

Excellent story. Very fun to read. I highly recommend that you check this book out from your library or buy it here.

Finding Creativity

That's me in this picture.  Being silly.  Finding creativity. Finding myself.

I was browsing amazon.com for books on writing, which led me to books on writing about motherhood, which led me to a book called The Creative Family. The picture intrigued me. It made me feel homey. It made me yearn for home and family and children. And creativity.

So I used the Amazon's Look Inside feature to read a few pages. Chapter one was a very simple concept. "Teach your children to be creative by being creative yourself." Hmm, I already know that. But oh, it felt so good to hear it. I'm not sure what it was that made her words so much more powerful, but I felt a yearning waken in me.

Oh, I am creative. I love to draw and write and scrapbook. But somewhere along the line it stopped being an exploratory pursuit and turned into something else to do. It stopped being play and started being a job. Something more to get done. Something more to accomplish. Another short story. Another article. Another home school assignment.

I wanted to be a kid again and just enjoy art for the sake of art. Not to improve myself or make some money or be a better mother or make my house more beautiful. But instead, just to have fun.

With this thought in mind, I decided to be more playful during bedtime routine last night. Little R brought me some "soup." She had a bowl, a toy cat, and spatula. "I'm mixing," she said proudly to me.

"Are you making cat soup?" I said, making a yucky face.

"Eat some, Mommy!"

"Oh no, yucky, yucky, yucky!" I shake my head and make faces. She laughs.

She insists. I must try the cat soup.

I pretend to take a tiny, tiny sip. And then proceed to make the most horrible faces. She laughs again. But now the laughter is deeper, as though it came from the belly.

For the next five minutes, I proceed to exaggerate the most extradorinary expressions of disgust. And let me tell you, it felt so good to be kid for just five minutes. It was freeing. When it was done, I tucked the girls into bed, which they jumped into bed more readily than usual. They hugged me more tightly. And there was a deeply satisfied spark of happiness and contentment in their eyes that hadn't been there in a long time.

I imagine my eyes looked about the same.

Something profoundly spiritual had occurred in that playful moment. As though I had found myself once again. As though the years of stress and the heavy burdens of adulthood had fallen away.

Book Review: Tiny and Bigman

Tiny and Bigman

by Phillis Gershator

Miss Tiny is not really so tiny. She is so big and strong that it keeps her from getting married. Nobody wants to marry her because she makes them feel weak and useless. Well, that is until she meets Mr. Bigman, a tiny, weak little man who moves to the island.

I never liked women's lib stories for children. The promotion of the powerful woman at the expense of the weak man seems a bit like a childish competition to me. When M says to R, "I'm faster than you," I always say, "It's not a competition. It does not matter how fast you did something, what matters is that you did it in the first place." If you need to make someone else feel weak in order to feel strong, then there's a problem.

However, this story really isn't about the promotion of the strong and powerful woman at the expense of man. It is really just a sweet love story about a woman who loves to help others and how she finds her perfect match.

I love the cadence of this story. I can't help but fall into a little bit of an accent myself as I read outloud to the kids. And I'm not one for accents, yet this book just begs for it.

The pictures are colorful, illustrating a world and a culture that my kids have never experienced. Books are the road to experience new things, and this book brings that to life.

At the end, I always repeat the words from the story, "...kiss, kiss, kiss her on her soft brown cheek," and give them all hugs and kisses. Then they beg me to read it all again.

Book Review: The Princess and the Pizza

The Princess and the Pizza

by Mary Jane and Herm Auch

I want to retell the whole story from the beginning. I want to tell you every word about the witty princess and her side comments.

But oh for Pete's sake, that wouldn't be fair! Besides, I don't think I could do it justice. I know our kids loved the book, but not as much as we did. They didn't get it when the princess had to pass the pea in the mattress test and said, "This is so once-upon-a-time!" They didn't get it when the princess said "Oh for Pete's --- aaah," and this named the first pizza.

They didn't get it when the princess ran away, refusing to marry the prince, and started her own pizza parlor.

But they liked it all the same. And we still laugh together about the princess and her accidental pizza pie. And we still remark, "Oh for Pete's sake," and our children look at us like we are crazy.

5 secrets for busy mothers

A bit of wisdom that I have learned in the past and need to learn once again:

1. Get up while the house is still quiet. Get your breakfast. Get your shower. Have a moment to drink your coffee and plan your day. You are worth the extra effort to take care of yourself before you start to serve others.

If you let them wake you, you will be 10 steps behind the rest of the day. And you will be too tired and grumpy to tackle the day's challenges.

2. Keep a journal. Write your thoughts and contemplate yourself. Take the time to recognize your emotional state. Emotions are often warning messages, helping you know when to rest and when something is not healthy. Take the time to ask yourself who you really are. Knowing yourself and finding yourself are integral for good parenting. Then take time to pray and read a Bible verse.

3. Find time to exercise. When the children are grown and you face yourself again, you will wish that you had taken care of yourself. Just as it is not your wish for your children to be unhealthy, it is not God's wish for you either. He cherishes you just as you cherish your children. Parental duties and jobs should never get in the way of this.

4. Eat lunch. And have a snack. At the end of the day, I find that I snap more. Why? I don't feel hungry, but once I've eaten dinner my mood improves. We are finite people. Only God is infinite, and we are dependent on water, food, and God to nourish our lives. So don't be a martyr and eat something.

5. Talk quiet walks frequently. Not for the purpose of exercise. Not for some goal. Just for the chance to meander and to be quiet. To have solitude. Parents are goal-oriented. Everything we do has a purpose, whether it is to cook dinner, buy groceries, pay the bills, or get some exercise. We are always striving.

However, children are experience-oriented. They do stuff for the simple joy of being. Growing up has made us lose that eternal quality of just being.

Herding Cats

Chaos. That's all I can say to describe most mornings in our house. No wonder we're always late everywhere we go. I'm not one of those mothers who have everything under control. I'm just not naturally organized. What little organization I have, I've worked hard to obtain. And if I'm not careful, it all slips away.

Shoes are not always where they are supposed to be. And now that it is getting colder, we have to hunt down coats. Why are the only shoes in the closet sandles? Little K runs around in her pull-up, still wearing her pajama top and she has one sandal on the wrong foot. No pants. No socks. And one wrong-seasoned shoe. Little R is still asleep. And M, also still in her pajamas, is starting an art project.

And we should have left 15 minutes ago.

Food is on the table. But nobody is eating.

And once everyone is ready, I realize that I didn't even brush my teeth yet!

Herding Cats. Yes, that's exactly what our life is like.

Taking a Midday Break: a parenting necessity

My husband TJ has been the stay-at-home dad throughout the early years of all three of our children. When the second little girl was born, our oldest stopped napping. At 1 year and 9 months, she was alert and happy and did not seem to need the extra sleep anymore.

Poor TJ. He would run all day, taking care of a newborn and a toddler. He'd miss lunch, and by the end of the day, he was tired, grumpy, and unbearable.

Parents are on duty 24/7, and those that are home all day never get a break. There are no coffee breaks. There is no lunch break. There is no time to shut your eyes and take a deep breath. Because the moment you do, there are children clambering for something. "More milk, Daddy!" "I want to wear these clothes now." "I gotta go potty!"

Once you add home schooling to your parenting duties, forget having any down time. Your down time is spent with lesson plans and cleaning up art supplies.

TJ and I had a big fight one night when M was 2 years old and R was just 6 months. He hadn't eaten all day, and we went grocery shopping directly after I got off of work. Was it 8 or 9 o'clock when we got home? I can't remember, and he was hungry and had a migraine. I ruined his pizza, and he flew off the handle.

"All right, that's it," I said. "They must all go down for naps at the same time from now on. M does not have to sleep. Just let her play quietly in her room for an hour and a half."

To this day, we still have that policy. Sure, M is 6 and doesn't need the extra sleep, and R is 4 and rarely sleeps during the day. K is 2 and still needs to sleep most days. But we still need the break every day. We still need a moment to collect our selves, plan the rest of the day, and eat lunch.

The kids benefit too. The tendency in our day and age is to over schedule our days and to plan too many special events for our children. As home schooling parents, we sometimes feel the need to make up for whatever they might be missing from school or to prove to in-laws that the children really are excelling at everything. But specialists have discovered that children need downtime and unorganized play to develop. Quiet time is as good for them as it is for us.

How do you entertain younger children while home schooling?

Busy schedules and young children don't always mix well in a home schooling family.  What do you do to keep your children involved or occupied?

Do you give them an age appropriate activity that does not require your help? 

Or do you get them involved in your lessons?

Please share with everyone and include your children's ages.

humility

Humility is simply this: knowing yourself. When you see yourself as you truly are, then you can say that you are humble, and to see yourself as you truly are is to see yourself as God sees you. This means that you do not allow anyone, not your parents, not your in-laws, not your neighbors, affect how you see yourself. Instead, you cling desperately to God's vision that he has given you.

I have taught classes and have discipled people on the topic of humility. Yet, I am not humble. God has given me a beautiful vision of myself, and yet I have been swayed by the opinions of others. I have let my mother-in-law's negative words cripple me. I have let strangers influence the way I dress and how I carry myself. I have let people at church damage my relationship with God because I was more concerned about their rejection than God's opinion.

And now I know longer know who I am. I don't know if I have any value. I don't know if I am any good at anything. I don't know my strengths or weaknesses. I don't know why anyone would like me. When the day is done and I have fulfilled all my duties, is there anything left of me worth caring about?

Thus I have secluded myself to be alone with God. I have taken long walks alone in the park with Jesus at my side, and I poured my heart out to him. It is only in him that I can find myself again. And find healing from the frustrations and depression that has nagged me.

This is a home schooling blog, but no home school teacher can teach from an empty spirit. We all need to be renewed each day, or our lessons will be empty and flat. If we are not alive at the very core of our being, then parenting and home schooling will be another chore, and our children will suffer.

Take a walk. Get away. Find a moment of solitude. Find yourself again.

Celebrating Successes to Beat Depression

As a home schooling parent, I sometimes get lost in the worry that I am not doing enough. I am sure the whole world over, parents struggle with this issue, but when parents decide to take responsibility for their child's education with home schooling, it's as though that worry gets amplified ten times over.

Lately, I have felt a bit like a hypocrite. I write about parenting and home schooling, and although I do follow my own advice, I don't feel like I really do have it all together. Especially not right now. I'm a working mom, and I'm about to lose my job. So in the midst of home schooling, I have to keep working at my current job and find another one.

Only, there are no jobs in my field in the city where I live. All the jobs are located in the bigger city to the south of us. With the housing market the way it is, we are trapped in our house unless we decide to abandon it, ruining our credit in the meantime. Otherwise, I will have a long commute, and rather than being away from home 9 hours a day, I could be gone 10 or 11 hours a day.

I have cried myself to sleep several nights in the past two weeks. And with the feelings of discouragement and fear, I have been very negative with my words. I have railed at God, and I have said some very foul things about myself.

I decided today that I need to say something good about myself. I hate to hear my children speak negative words, and when I hear it come from their mouths (which thankfully is rare), I immediately make a move to build them up. Why is it that I don't give myself that same grace?


1. I hugged and kissed my children before bed last night and again this morning before I left for work.
2. I hugged and kissed my husband ten times this morning just to be sure he knows I love him.
3. I packed a tasty, gluten free salad for lunch today, taking good care of my health and tantalizing my taste buds. (roasted pumpkin seeds, ham, mozzarella, spinach, tomato, and avocado with olive oil & garlic vinegar dressing) It is important to eat healthy, but it is even more important to enjoy every bite.
4. I take time aside to exercise with my husband several times a week. It's good for me, but it is also good for him. In this way, I help to take care of him while I take care of myself.
5. The days that I don't exercise with my husband, I often get the family out for a walk in the park, so that we all move together. This is having family time, sharing the joys of nature with my children, and teaching my children to exercise.
6. I am not a helicopter mom. I don't hover too close, and I don't give constant instructions. I don't do everything for them. This means that they aren't dressed like perfect angels with spotless clothes and their hair done with cute little ribbons. I sometimes feel like a failure for this, but I believe it is better for them to dress themselves than that their clothes match and that they have the right kind of shoes for their outfits.
7. I actually get down and play with my kids.
8. I try to listen to my kids. I try to stop and hear what they are trying to tell me. Sometimes I have to stop daydreaming first, but I do get down on my knees to be eye level with them and hear what they say.
9. I spend time doing what my husband is interested in. I quite happily follow him into whatever adventure he has for us. I play his games, watch his movies, and enjoy every minute of it. I talk about the geeky things he likes, and he is always so proud to tell his friends about how geeky his wife is.
10. I have written a 450 page novel. That is by no means a small task. OK, there are many people who write novels and think its good when it is just crap. I have learned quite a bit about writing in the past year, and I know when I started what I wrote was crap. My characters were flat, the detail was empty, and my plot had holes. I kept coming back to it and changing it, making it grow into something better. I didn't give up.
11. I always keep moving forward. I never give up. No matter how discouraged I get, I am not a quitter.

If you also feel down and discouraged, please make a list like this. Keep going until you finally believe the good words you are writing.

5 Hands-On Geography Activities

There is more to geography than memorizing states and capitals and studying maps. If you make geography an experience to remember rather than facts and information to recite, you and your child will have a lot more fun along the way.

Explore the world with a compass.
Take a walk around your neighborhood or hike through the park while carrying a compass. Take a compass to the mall or the grocery store. Let your kids carry a compass while they ride in the car. This helps orient a child to their world, making them pay attention to where they are and teaching them how to navigate.

Draw your own maps.
Maps tell you where things are and how to get there. However, maps don’t need to be fancy. As you explore the world with your compass, draw maps of what you see. Draw a map of your house, your neighborhood, your grocery store, or your park.

After drawing a few small maps of your local areas, expand your domain. Look at a real atlas to see how they designate rivers, deserts, and mountains, and then use that as a guide as you build your own world atlas.

You can even have a little fun by drawing maps from stories. Based on the age group of your children, you can build a map for Clifford’s neighborhood, for the barnyard where Charlotte weaves her web, or for the four kids who traveled through Narnia.

Tell stories about your maps.
What happened as you walked around your neighborhood? Tell a story about it as you draw your map. Telling stories builds memory, communication skills, and confidence, so swap some tales as you color.

Add a little imagination and sail the Nile River on a raft. Climb to the top of Mount Everest and have a picnic with a mountain goat. Walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China. What do you see along the way? Who do you talk to?

Write your stories down and compile your maps and stories into a book that you can read again and again. This can be a project that grows over the years.

Experience different cultures.
Russia is the big country in the northeast corner of our world atlas, but what is it like to actually experience Russia? What do the people like? What kind of clothes do they wear? What kind of music do they listen to? Do they dance? Do they sing? What do they eat? How do they work? How do they live?

Answer these questions by eating their foods, wearing their clothes, and listening to their music. Learn some words of their language, and read books about children in that country. Maybe you could even find a pen pal your child can write letters to. Suddenly, you will find Russia is no longer a big orange smear on the map. It has come to life.

Travel.
As a child, I lived in Texas, and most of our extended family was in Wisconsin and Michigan. This means that every year, we had a long road to travel to visit our family. I remember every landmark along the way. I remember the little lazy town where our car broke down, and I remember the excitement over crossing each state border.

As an adult, my husband and I moved out west for a short while. The seven day road trip is memorable, and we still laugh at the South Dakota road signs. I loved driving through the mountains of Minnesota and snapping pictures of the pica that scampered across the road. We drove through Yellowstone and experienced wild bison, and I watched a beautiful green-blue Oregon river turn muddy brown from pollution.

Ask me to fill in those states on the map, and I can now easily list them all. But even more, I remember the terrain and what made each state different than the others.

The wonderful thing about home schooling is that you don’t have to wait for summer to take a vacation. Bring your schoolbooks, pack your paper and pencils, and hit the road.

China

Chinese Culture

China (A to Z) by Justine Fontes and Ron Fontes

This book is an encyclopedia of China, describing everything from animals to buildings to cities to dress. The book even includes some Chinese words. Easy to read, beautiful pictures, and wonderful information.

Children of China by Jacqueline Buksh

This chapter book describes life for four children in China. Written from each child's perspective, this story talks about daily routines, family life, things the children learn in school, and things they see around them. Nice descriptions and beautiful dialog.

Chinese Stories

The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann

A little girl named Lin has a pet dragon. Together the two cause trouble until one day Lin's father says that the dragon must be put in a cage. The next day, her dragon is missing and searches China to find her dragon. Along the way, we learn some Chinese symbols, which are cleverly incorporated into the art work. Every page introduces two or three new words in a way that is very easy to remember.

Warning: For those of you who are concerned about magic, there is a shaman/witch included in this story. If your religious beliefs are against this, you can avoid this book or you can use it as a means to discuss the topic with your children.

Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong

This Chinese folktale is about Mr. and Mrs. Haktak, a little old couple who struggle to survive until they find a magic copper pot that duplicates everything they have, including them. Beautiful artwork and a cute story.

Favorite Children's Stories from China & Tibet by Lotta Carswell Hume and Koon-Chiu Lo

A book full of folktales from China, depicting life and customs in a witty and charming manner.

Chinese Food

Visit an authentic Chinese restaurant with someone from China. Let them order for the table and then eat family style.

You can also experience Chinese food at home. We often eat Asian Beef and Broccoli at home. This recipe has been altered to accommodate gluten-free cooking for those who have that problem as I do.

Ingredients

Head of Broccoli, chopped

Thin Beef Steaks, cut into strips

white pepper, to taste

salt, to taste

1 tbsp corn starch

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp gluten-free soy sauce (or you can skip this if necessary)

1/4 cup beef broth

1 tbsp olive oil

ginger, freshly grated, to taste

garlic, minced, to taste

Rice, cooked

Steps

1. Boil the chopped broccoli for two minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. In a large frying pan, spray with cooking spray and cook the meat at medium high-heat.

3. As you stir the meat, add white pepper and salt to taste.

4. Turn the temperature down, and put the lid on.

5. As the meat browns, stir together the corn starch, sesame oil, and soy-sauce.

6. Pour the sauce and broth into the beef and stir briefly.

7. In a small frying pan, saute the ginger and garlic in the olive oil.

8. When the garlic and ginger is browned (about 1-2 minutes), add it to the meat along with the broccoli.

9. Serve on rice.

The World of Plants: 5 Easy, Hands-On Activities to Learn About Science

Plants are an important source of life in our world. They clean our air, they provide us with food, and they cool us in their shade. Around the world, people have found joy and peace in tending gardens and planting flowers. Learning about what makes plants grow and thrive is a constant process that many people take a lifetime to perfect.

The joys of learning can be given to your children when you teach them about plants using a hands-on process rather than from a textbook. When life and learning go hand-in-hand, children will continue to learn long into adulthood. These five activities can be done as part of your lifestyle or as a short unit study with your children.

Plant a vegetable garden together.
In the springtime, my children are right beside me, playing in the dirt and finding worms while I plant my flowers and prepare my vegetable garden. As they have grown older, I give them more to do to help. This has become our springtime routine so that from very young ages they have understood where plants come from and what seeds are for.

The book Square Foot Gardening is a great resource on gardening and vegetables. It contains information for beginners and experts alike, including charts on what plants to do each part of the year. I love this book and have followed this simple gardening method for years.

Sprout seeds found in the kitchen.
Collect several glass or clear plastic containers and fill them full of water and cotton balls. In the containers, plant popcorn kernels, beans, whole grain barley, fennel seed, or whatever whole foods you have in your pantry. You could even pick a few apple seeds out of an apple.

In several days, these seeds will sprout. You can see both the new seedling and its roots. If you would like to take this experiment further, you can transplant the seedlings into a larger glass full of rocks and water. The rocks will give the plants support as they grow.

Explore the parts of a seed and the parts of a flower.
Soak some beans in some water and set them on the counter for a day. The next day, peel off the outer layer of the bean, and pull the bean apart. Inside, you will see seedling curled up inside the bean. It has not yet received the right conditions to grow, but it is still there, lying dormant.

You can also take apart flowers. If you open them up carefully, you can inspect the pistil and the stamens. The best part is the seed pod, which may or may not be pollinated. My morning glories were excellent for this project. The seed pod was just the right size to inspect. When the seeds were pollinated, they were black. Otherwise, they were white. You can follow this up with an age-appropriate library book on the parts of plants and the lifecycle of seeds.

Make paint out of flowers.
Paint construction paper by crushing grass and different colored flowers against the paper with a rock. Cut out interesting shapes from the colored paper, like butterflies or stars. Then hang the shapes as a mobile. After doing this project, discuss and read about chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants, and how plants use chlorophyll to photosynthesize, which is the process of turning sunlight into energy.

This idea as well as many others comes from Janice VanCleave’s Play and Find Out about Nature, a book of easy science experiments for young children. Although the experiments are simple and easy for young children to understand, older children can enjoy them too.

Take a nature hike.
Bring field guides for trees and flowers to your local arboretum. Look up the trees and flowers you find to learn how to identify plants by type. You can start a nature journal by collecting samples, drawing pictures, and writing descriptions about what you see.

To Add to the Lessons on Money Matters

Yesterday we went to the zoo on a small budget, and we got a lot of requests from the children. "I want cotton candy." "I want popcorn." "I want to ride on the train." "I want my face painted." I walked away remembering a lesson learned that I wished I had applied to our zoo trip. So here I am sharing my helpful hint with you, still wishing I had remembered my own advice.

So when going to special events (i.e. the zoo, the circus, an amusement park), give the children their own spending money. They have to balance the money between all of their wants. Then it is up to them to decide which is their most desirable purchase: cotton candy or getting their face painted? You no longer have to face all of their demands because they hold their opportunities in their own hands, and you no longer have to dealing with the whining when you say no.

I have done this before at the toy store. They each had $5 to spend, and we went through the store picking out things they liked. If they found something else other than what they originally picked, I would say, "You do not have enough money for both. Which one do you want more?" This was very successful for several reasons:

1. The choice is in their hands. They have to balance their money for themselves and decide what they really, really want.
2. With limited choices set before them, it is no longer up to us to be the bad guy. We no longer have to be the ones to say "no" yet again for another demand. They have to say "no" to themselves.
3. This teaches them the value of money. Money doesn't buy everything.
4. It also teaches them the wisdom of careful money use. Money should be used for the more important things rather than for everything.
5. When they whine about not getting what they want, you can put the ball back into their court. If they spend their money on popcorn and then discover an ice cream stand around the corner, you can say, "I am sure next time you will save your money until you know what you really want."

Book Review: The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White

"Ko-hoh," the swans say, but Louis remains silent. Louis is a trumpeter swan with no voice. He befriends a boy named Sam and learns to write on the slate he carries around his neck, but he still cannot communicate with his swan friends who cannot read. When he falls in love with Serena, he cannot trumpet to her his love, so Louis's father steals a trumpet so that Louis could woo the love of his life.

However, by the time Louis receives his trumpet, Serena has flown north with other swans, and Louis is left with a stolen trumpet and the need to restore his father's honor by earning the money to pay for the trumpet. Louis learns to play the trumpet and uses his skill to try to earn enough money to pay back the music store.

The story is surely a bit unbelievable. How does a bird fly carrying a slate and chalk, a trumpet, a money bag, and a badge of honor? How does a bird beak make the right ombiture to blow into a trumpet? Yet, there are details that are in fact very true to animal behavior, like how a mother bird chooses a location and builds her nest and how baby cygnets are raised.

Louis is a very lovable character. He has honor as he makes amends for wrongs done. He has love as he demonstrates true friendship. He has courage in his adventures. In true E. B. White fashion, a wonderful story is weaved. We look forward to reading another chapter every night, and when the chapter is done, the kids beg for just one more chapter. Most nights, we agree since we didn't want to end either!

I highly recommend this book for grade schoolers. Enjoy!

Money Matters: Teaching the Value of Money

Parents often say, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” This saying is much more than an excuse not to buy the latest toys. Money’s value comes from labor. Adults have to earn it to live. We get our paychecks from the goods and services that we offer our employers, and in the same way, we give money for the goods and services that we receive from others.

Therefore, a child must learn that money is received when they have earned it. I recommended this idea to someone who was having trouble getting their teenager to do their chores, and his response was, “I don’t want to bribe her.” But if our employers did not bribe us, we would not work for them. We would find a better employer.

In earning money, children learn to balance wants with income. They can decide for themselves if the toy they want is really worth the effort of saving up to buy or if they want something else instead. No longer is it up to us to provide everything, and they learn how to make choices for themselves.

For us, I have a morning and evening routine. In the morning, they get themselves dressed and ready for the day, make their beds, and put away their pajamas. In the evening, they put on their pajamas, put away their dirty clothes, and clean up their toys. For each morning and for each evening routine they complete, they get a quarter, which could be fifty cents a day. Each week, their routines are posted on their doors.

Here are some ideas on teaching children the value of money:

1. Set up a lemonade or ice cream stand. Have them buy what they need out of their own allowance or have them pay you back from their earnings.
2. Set up an art gallery for them to sell their best artwork or arts and crafts, or have an art show and charge a small admission fee.
3. Help them offer their services to neighbors and friends for a small fee. Older children can start babysitting or lawn mowing businesses. Younger children can pick up sticks or plant flowers.
4. Plant a garden together and sell or trade your produce to your neighbors.
5. Write an illustrated children’s book together. Have it bound at a local shop, and sell it to family and friends.
6. Have a bake sale. The children can help plan, bake, and collect the money.
7. Have a garage sale, and let them select some of their old toys to sell.
8. Have a car wash.

To follow up with these activities, the book Sluggers Carwash by Stuart J. Murphy is a great story about money for young gradeschoolers.

Money Matters: Teaching Wise Money Habits

There are only three things a person can do with money: save it, give it away, and use it. As adults, we have to balance those things to have healthy finances. We must save to prepare for hard times and for big purchases we may want, and we must use money to eat and live. Giving helps keep our lives in perspective, reminding us of the troubles that others face.

Children need to know this too. They can learn by example as they watch us balance our budgets, plan our resources and spending, and give to charities. As you deal with your finances, keep your children involved. Talk to them about what you do, explaining why and answering their questions. Then help your children of all ages to separate money for savings and for charity before they spend their money.

Since I pay my young children in quarters, I have them separate them into groups of ten. Out of each group of ten, they set one aside for savings and one for giving, and with the rest they can trade four quarters for a dollar.

Here are some ideas on keeping your children involved in your finances:

1. Plan a dinner menu and build your grocery list from it. Have your child help you do this.
2. Take you child grocery shopping and have them help you compare prices.
3. Plan your monthly expenditures, including savings, giving, grocery budget, and bills. As you sketch it all out, show your child what you are doing.
4. Plant a garden or visit a farmer’s market with your child. Talk about the value of fresh, quality produce and cost effective use of our money.
5. Plan a major purchase for the family (like new furniture or a new car) with your child and set money aside for it each week.
6. Help a child plan for something they want. Create a goal chart together, and designate a bank where they can save their money.
7. Answer requests for something new with the statement, “There are lots of wonderful things in the store, but if we brought it all home, it would just clutter up our lives.”

Electricity & Magnetism

In honor of our week and a half without electricity, I am writing about this really great book that describes electricity, how it works, how to create it, and how it travels through our neighborhoods and homes. Being without power, gave us the opportunity to review our lessons on electricity and magnetism when four-year-old R was quite confused and angry when the lights and TV did not work.

A few months ago, I read Switch On, Switch Off by Melvin Berger as part of our study on electricity and magnetism, and I learned a few things about electricity myself. I knew how that breaking a circuit ended the flow of electricity, but what I did not know was how the electricity was created in the first place. This science story book shows how magnets are used to move the electrons inside the circuit, and this is how electricity is created. A power plant uses large magnets to generate power, and we can do this on a small scale with a small wire and a hand-held magnet.

For Christmas last year, we got a magnet kit, which we have used all year. The kit comes with different shaped magnets and other tools with a long list of experiments. Janice VanCleave writes a full illustrated book just on magnet experiments that can be used with children from age 4 and up. We also read What makes a Magnet? by Franklyn M. Branley, an illustrated story book that explains why magnets work.

There are also electricity expermient kits and a Janice Van Cleave book on electricity, but what I think fascinated me the most was the electromagnetic experiments. One experiment in particular interested me. You will need a battery, a strip of tin foil, a circuit wire, and a strong, horseshoe magnet. Then follow these steps:

CAUTION: For safety reasons, all electrical experiments should be performed with a battery rather than an electrical outlet. A battery will provide only a small amount of electricity. Also, all experiments should be performed with an adult.

1. Connect the wire and the tin foil together.

2. Close the circuit by adding the battery.

3. Put the horseshoe magnet over the tin foil strip.

Results: The tin foil will bend in response to the magnet reacting to the electricity passing through the tin foil.

Helpful Hint for Baby's First Foods

I was going through my old cupboards and found cans of vegetables (peas, green beans, carrots), and I realized that I would never use them because I prefer fresh stuff. So I boxed them up to ship to someone I know who has a new baby, with a note on what I thought of as one of my more brilliant ideas.

With my first child, I bought those expensive little jars of nasty tasting peas and green beans, and other than the few basics, M doesn't really like her veggies. However, with my younger two, I bought salt-free canned veggies, mushed them with a fork, and fed them that way. They seemed to love it, and they very quickly grew to enjoy their vegetables.

I didn't just stop with canned vegetables. Overripe avocadoes and frozen spinach warmed in the microwave are also great first vegetables. Broccoli that has been steamed to the point that you can mush it with your fingers works as well. However, corn can be an allergen, so I recommend avoiding that one.

I used to buy fruits when they are fresh, particularly peaches and pears. In the summer, peaches are in season, which means they are always on sale, they are very tasty, and they are ripe enough to mush with a fork. Pears can sit on your counter until they are soft enough. Both of these fruits are great substitution for jarred baby food.

So here are a few reasons why this works:

1) Money. Saving money is a very good reason to use adult canned veggies. One no-name brand of salt-free green beans is 55 cents, close to the same amount of a jar of baby food. However, the quantity you get in a can of veggies greatly exceeds what you get in a jar of baby food. The can lasts for several meals.

2) Taste. No one is going to eat their vegetables if they don't taste good. Overcooked peas are awful compared to the fresh stuff. I always tasted the baby food before I served it because I could not in good conscience feed them something that I was not willing to eat. How can babies eat this stuff? is what I thought.

3) Texture. Texture aversion runs in my husband's side of the family. Baby food has no texture, but canned veggies smashed with a fork is small enough for a baby to eat and mush with their tongue but not textureless. That helps prepare them for textures when they are older, which means they are more likely to try new things.

4) Preparation. This prepares them for table food. They more quickly adjust to the flavors and textures of adult food.

Learning by Example

I witnessed an argument between my two older children, playing in the oldest's bedroom. "Mommy, she won't share her blocks with me," M complained.

"She doesn't have to share," I explained. "Only toys for everybody are for sharing. Those blocks are hers, and she gets to choose whether she will share or not. Just as you have your own toys and can decide whether you want to share them. If you want her to share, you need to offer her an agreement."

Four-year-old R has her thumb in her mouth, scowling at me. "R, you do not have to share your blocks," I tell her, "but she is sharing her room with you."

M pipes up, "Either share your blocks or get out of my room. Your choice."

Did I just hear that right? Did she just say what I think she said?

She just took my discipline phrase and turned it into an assertive statement. She then used it to solve her own problem with her sister. I had modeled assertive behavior rather than passivity or aggressiveness, and she had learned by my example.

Discipline Model: Giving Choices and Clear Consequences

There are only three ways to deal with a child's misbehavior. The passive approach allows the behavior to continue without even a verbal correction. I confess that in the past, this was my downfall. I had no clue how to balance mercy with discipline, and I felt guilty to make my children cry.

The aggressive approach seeks to make the child pay through deprivation, spankings, a battle of wills, or a timeout. In the end, punishment is about who wins the Biggest Temper Tantrum Contest. If the parent wins, the battle is delayed for another day; if the child wins, then the whole household is in trouble.

But discipline isn't a battle of wills or a way of making the child pay just because the parent isn't happy. No, discipline is a valuable lesson that parent has carefully planned for the child to learn. Discipline is only successful when the child learns a lesson that they can carry with them into adulthood. This is the assertive approach.

There are many tools in the assertive discipline approach. One method of discipline is to give a limited set of options. This allows the child some control over their lives and yet clearly sets the boundaries as well as the consequences.

"Either pick up your toys or I will confiscate them. Your choice." This example offers the child two options and outlines clear consequences. Sure, one option is not very nice to them, but they can very easily choose to pick up their toys. If they choose to test your resolve, follow through without lectures or anger or temper tantrums. Without a word.

When their toys are gone, they will think twice of testing you again. When they beg, whine, or scream, you can say, "I am sure that next time you will pick up your toys." Then walk away or you will be tempted to lecture, and honestly leaving them alone with their own thoughts is more than enough.

Here are some other examples:

• Either sit still or we will sit in the car while everyone else finishes their food. (It might be frustrating to sit in the car yourself, but worth the lesson the child learns. Your next visit to a restaurant will most likely be more pleasant.)
• Either eat what I've fixed for you or get yourself a sandwich. I am not making anything else. (A sandwich for dinner doesn't really hurt them, and forcing a picky eater to eat what they don't like usually just makes them pickier. Put some control in their hands, and they will enjoy eating much more.)
• Either put your shoes on or I will march you to the car without your shoes. You can put them on in the car.
• Use your words or go scream in your room. You can come out when you can talk to me in a reasonable tone of voice. (This is not a timeout. This is an emotional break. We all need them some times.)
• Stop hitting your sister or go play by yourself.

I always like to add the words "your choice" to the end of this because it is a reminder to the child that it really is in their hands. When you follow through with firm actions, they will know that it was their choice that brought this.

Applying this type of discipline has brought a lot of changes in our household. There were some frustrating moments as my children tested my resolve, but each time, they became a little more humble, a little kinder, and a little easier to deal with. Most importantly, they learned a few lessons on appropriate behavior.

the world of insects

"Hello there, stomach-foot!"

I hated science as a kid when it was about a boring test book and a list of terms that I needed to memorize for a test. "In 1736, so-and-so discovered such-and-such and called it a thingamajig..." Science wasn't about exploring; it was about passing the test.

And now I love science. Hands-on learning makes a difference. Who wants to read about insects when you can chase them, catch them, keep them as pets, and name them? And when you watch a snail squirm in your hand, learning the fascination facts about it seems so much more pertinent to life. Did you know that snails and slugs are called a gastropods, which means "stomach foot?" At rest, slugs look like nothing more than a ball of snot, but when they move, they suddenly form distinct heads with antennae that can change size, stomachs, and tails.

Grossed out yet? Or are you fascinated?

Pet Bugs

This summer, bugs have been our science focus, and thus we have attempted to set up some bug houses, butterfly houses, and capture some bugs to be pets. We checked out some good books and found a few tools like a butterfly net, a butterfly house, and a plastic terrarium. Then we went exploring in our own back yard.

We found a caterpillar and identified it as a Black Swallowtail, and we put it in our terrarium with some fresh leaves and wooden branches. Within two days, it formed a chrysalis. I started taking pictures every few days, and we kept track of what happened every day.

That is, until I found a wooly bear caterpillar and added it to the bug house. We were very disappointed when the new caterpillar ate the chrysalis before the butterfly emerged. I guess the leaves were not fresh enough, and the little caterpillar got hungry. However, that is the cool thing about hands-on science. Even when an experiment goes awry, you still learn something.

M carries slugs and snails, and R and K search under bricks for pill bugs. R finds worms, and in her gentle four-year old voice, she tells me how cute her baby worm is. They are exploring, and they are learning. And when I wonder if I do enough with their schooling, M tells her grandmother interesting bug facts that most children don't know, listing all the different names of pill bugs, how many legs they have, and what they do to survive.

Pet Bugs and More Pet Bugs by Sally Kneidel
These two books contain information on finding, keeping, and caring for specific kinds of bugs as well as information on the bugs behavior in the wild. Each bug is given several pages of detailed information. Therefore, these two books would make great field guides as well as being a pet guide.

The Insect Book by Connie Zakowski
Designed specifically for younger children, this book focuses on caring for a pet bug. Therefore, one page is given to each bug, giving precise and easy information for finding and feeding the bugs.

Insect Resources
Bugs are Insects by Anne Rockwell
This is a picture story book, and although it is designed for young children, it contains so much information about insects that I was so impressed and learned so much. Beautiful art, well worded and interesting prose, and it kept my 5 year old entranced. A year later, she still remembers the differences between bugs and beetles.

Wormology by Michael Elsohn Ross

Sometimes, our girls call worms "snakes," and I got this book with the intention of helping them learn the difference. This book does more than tell you how to keep worms as pets; it also describes experiments that you can do with them.

Janice VanCleave's Play and Find Out About Bugs by Janice VanCleave
This is an entire book of hands-on bug experiments designed for young children, ages 4 to 7. As with anything Janice VanCleave produces, the experiments are very exciting and original. I have found that you can't find the science experiments she suggests in any other book.

Janice VanCleave's Insects and Spiders by Janice VanCleave
This is a more advanced book of hands-on experiments for older children. Many of these experiments could be used in science fairs.

Eyewitness: Butterfly and Moth video on DVD
We had a lot of fun with different kinds of bugs, but butterflies and moths took the starring role. My girls requested to watch this video daily, completely fascinated by the amount of information they received. Eyewitness does a great job combining history, art, science, and mythology in this video.

From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman
This book is the story of the life stages of a butterfly. Written as a simple narrative for young children, this book introduces science learning in a very easy to understand manner, using a story to teach science.

Insect Literature & Art
Studying insects spilled over into other areas of our learning, including literature and art. We have done more butterfly, ladybug, and other bug projects than I can even remember, including puppets, cutouts, drawings, mosaics, and paintings. And we have read Eric Carle's story books, bringing to life the worlds of bugs while still teaching something interesting.

Insects: Step by Step Instructions for 26 Creepy Crawlies by Diana Fisher
I discovered this book by accident while browsing a book store, and I am so glad I did. Designed for ages 6 and up, this book details careful instructions on drawing insects. I love the resulting pictures that my oldest daughter produced.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
This popular story book depicts caterpillars as they truly are: very hungry. My girls laugh at all the things the caterpillar eats as he prepares to make his chrysalis.

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle
I never thought of ladybugs as grumpy, but this one sure is. He challenges everybody in order to prove that he is the strongest, but in the end, he decides that he would rather just eat his aphids in peace.

The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle
The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle
The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
What list of literature books about bugs would be complete without Charlotte's Web? I loved this book as a kid, and children today are still entranced by the barnyard story.

Fatigue

My husband has banned me from volunteering at church. Why? Because my life is full and there is nothing more I can add to it before I crumble into pieces. I am a full time working mom to 3 young kids and I home school. Enough said. On top of that, I am writing a novel, I try to help out around the house, I have a vegetable garden to provide fresh produce and to save money, and I take time out to spend with my husband. Yes, one more thing and I will tumble over.

I have recently learned that I have some kind of intolerance or allergy to something called gluten, which causes me a whole host of medical issues. Fatigue and depression are two of the biggest issues that have prevented my life from moving forward. No matter how much sleep I would get, it never seemed to be enough, and I would drag myself out of bed and stumble about the house. Saturday mornings were the worst because I did not have to force myself to go to work. The mental fog often chained me to the couch, and no matter how hard I tried I never seemed to catch my bearings.

Truthfully, I felt like a failure. I couldn't be supermom. I couldn't keep the house clean, do the homeschooling, go to work, and be ultra organized like my friends seemed to be. And we were always running late to church because I found it so hard to climb out of bed. That is, if we even made it at all. As the weeks passed, I fell further and further behind with everything. My husband began to think that the family had lost their importance to me because I had nothing left to give at the end of the day.

But in particular, homeschooling has been hit or miss lately because I just haven't had the energy or the patience. Sure, it's summer, but we are unschoolers, really. Unschoolers live learning, and life does not end just because the days grow longer and hotter. However, an unschooling parent has more work to do in research to prepare for lessons because they don't depend upon someone else's lesson plan. I have done so little preparation, and once September begins, I have no way excuses anymore.

I have been struggling with a steady weight gain since Christmas. Prior to that I was on WeightWatchers and had hit a year long plateau after losing 30 pounds after my 3rd child was born. I have just regained about 17 pounds of those 30, and nothing I did seemed to stop the steady gain. Sometimes plateaus are caused when you become lax with your familiar routine, so I started doing research, looking for a new diet plan, something to spice up my routine.

I discovered a book called UltraMetabolism that mentioned that some people have an intolerance to certain foods that react as toxins within the body, causing inflammation and weight gain. Hmm, it sounded very familiar. For years, I had been saying to my husband, "I feel toxic, like something is just wrong with me." So I tried his three week diet that cut out foods that could be triggers, like dairy and gluten.

I never knew how awful I felt until I knew what it was like to feel great. Suddenly I had boundless energy, and my husband, who had at first thought this was just another diet plan, turned his head to actually hear me giggling again or to see me running around with the kids at the end of a long day at work. And not just my husband, but other friends as well began to notice the change in me. Symptoms that I had never even noticed because they had become a part of my life went away. To me, it seemed like a miracle.

Then I did some research, trying to know more about gluten, what it is and how to avoid it. I learned about Celiac Disease and its symptoms, of which I seemed to have a plethora, and I learned about all the things one has to do to avoid gluten. Did you know that gluten is in makeup, toothpaste, medicine, vitamins, low-fat dairy (no wonder why I couldn't lose weight!), ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, and even Popsicles? Gluten comes from the Latin word, meaning "glue," and it is found in wheat, rye, and barley. When you mix water and flour, it is gluten that gives the dough its elasticity that helps it rise to make perfect bread, and because of gluten's doughy nature, it is used in everything processed to fill it out and give it texture.

According to the blood test, I do not have Celiac Disease, but the doctors informed me that the test is not always accurate. They wanted me to continue with further testing, but I would have to eat gluten for 3 weeks. Who wants to purposely poison themselves? I wanted to be about the business of getting well rather than wallowing in sickness. I already know gluten makes me sick, and I already know that I need to avoid it for the rest of my life. Do I really need to know whether it is an allergy, an intolerance, or something more sinister?

So here I am, slowly recovering, slowly learning what I can eat, and looking forward to a new school year with more energy, passion, patience, and joy than I had the year before.

Zoo Trip

We went to the zoo this week. It is funny how taking pictures seems so unimportant once you have 3 children, where it was all I did when I only had 1. The last time we went to the zoo, M was a year old, and I was pregnant with R. We snapped two rolls of film that day.

On Monday, we didn't even think about taking the camera until we were petting the goats, and I remembered all the pictures I took of M, hugging and kissing goats and lambs. Now, I won't have any of R or K for my scrapbook. Well, I am hoping that we'll go again in the fall when it is cooler. That way we can actually finish the zoo as we only did half of it before everyone was too tired and cranky and hot to continue.

My husband TJ wanted to see the wolves. He has a wild streak a mile wide, and being a scientist, he has studied much about wolves and their behaviors.

And I wanted to see the elephants. I am an elephant girl. I have collected elephant figurines for years, and I love the playfulness I see in elephants. It describes me very well. I was also fascinated with the manatees. They were so big! They used their fins to crawl along the bottom of their pool like they were arms.

R liked the monkeys. My schooling efforts with R are focused on storytelling and language skills. Both are necessary for preparation for reading, so I used the zoo as a means to encourage her to talk to me at the end of the day. I asked her what she remembered about her day at the zoo, and she told me how much she loved the little monkey. "She was so cute," she said, in her little exuberant voice.

I asked her to draw me a picture, but she felt too self-conscious. She said, "I don't think I could do it." I recounted all the wonderful pictures she has drawn over the last few weeks, and she smiled but still did not want to draw the monkey. "I want it to be perfect," she said.

I have heard that from her a lot lately. I wonder if she feels too much pressure is put on her performance. I took my cue to leave it alone, and instead of dwelling on a picture of a monkey, I tucked her and kissed her goodnight.

In the morning, she showed up in the kitchen with the cutest little monkey with a bow in its hair. I was pleased with this, and she was so proud of herself. And that pleased me even more.

M loved the zoo too. She was excited to see the tortoise. Ever since we told her that we used to call her Little Turtle when she was a baby (her car seat had a little green shield that reminded us of a turtle shell), she has settled on turtles as being her special animal. However, M has a real love for anything that is an animal. Our most interesting science projects are centered around animals and their behaviors, and she loves to read anything about any animal.

K is too young to fully appreciate a zoo trip, but she was happy to be out. Much of our day was spent keeping track of her and reining in that avid curiosity. I know that all toddlers get into things, and I have been through it with the older two girls. However, imagine taking that mischievous curiosity and magnifying it a hundred fold, and that's our K. She keeps us on our toes.

Despite the heat and all the walking and the struggle to handle 3 inquisitive children, it was a wonderful day. I'll be happy to do it again . . . in the fall.

Eternity of Childhood

I remember how time seemed to stop when I was a kid. Summer days would blend together into something that felt much like eternity. We would play in the dirt for hours, with nothing pressing on our minds but enjoying the hot summer air. I wonder if that is what heaven is like, the wonderment of childhood and the joy of doing nothing.

Here I am, a working mom who is also homeschooling and involved in so many activities that I don't know how I make it from day to day. And then for a moment, I sit and watch my kids play, and that feeling of eternity comes rushing back to me.

I used to work in the garden while they played in the dirt beside me. They would spend hours just moving dirt from one bucket to another. It is amazing to me how that would fascinate them. Now the neighborhood kids come to play in our yard because we have a plastic jungle gym that they love to play on. While the other kids our sitting around on the jungle gym, my kids are collecting bugs.

M comes running up to the three boys, visiting one evening. "I have three slugs," she says, excitedly.

"Why does she keep getting slugs?" one boy asks another.

And I am grinning from ear to ear because I know I have accomplished something wonderful: I have taught them to explore and not to be afraid of the dirt. I haven't overmanaged them, and thus I have the most inquisitive, most ingenuitive, most explorative girls I have ever met.

My 3 princesses wear nothing but dresses because that is what they like, but even then, they don't worry about getting dirty. They still climb, run, play, dig, capture bugs, and dance like ballerinas. R tells me that she is going to be a "superhero princess" when she grows up, and I tell her that she does not have to wait. She can be one now.

I am pleased.

Yes, I am pleased to be part of this eternal world that homeschooling has given us to share with our children. This is what life should be.

Computer Art

ArtRage 2.5 from Ambient Design is another great computer tool for home schooling. For $25, you get a paint, chalk, crayon, glitter, marker, and colored pencil program without the mess. Did I mention without the mess? And oh yeah, without the clutter too....well, until they figure out how to print their creations.

The paint feature really works like paint. If you put down a layer of blue paint and then swipe green paint across it, the green will pick up tinges of blue briefly. And the paint brush runs out of paint just like a real paint brush does. Then you can use the smear feature and spread your paint around. The effect looks like real paint. Can I say that enough? It looks real. The other art mediums also seem very life like, from the grainy texture of crayon to the glossy appearance of marker.

Our girls love this program. We get requests 20 times a day (all right, I am in Exaggeration Mode today) to make something on the computer, and I have been impressed by their results. Yes, it is a lot of abstract art, but the visual effects of this art seems pretty outstanding to me. I have posted some of my favorite pieces on my Webb Art blog. Take a look. Then go have some fun!

Computer Music

We plan to enroll M & R into piano or violin lessons this fall, but in the meantime, I have exposed them to music using some computer programs, particularly Apple Garageband (Mac only) and Finale Songwriter 2007 (Windows and Mac).

The user interface for Finale Songwriter 2007 contains empty music sheets. After selecting musical instruments, you can point and click to add notes and then play your music to hear what it sounds like. This exposes children to the musical staff, notes, and the sounds of instruments. M composed her first piano piece at the age of 5. All right, before you start thinking I'm bragging about my child protege, she really was just pointing and clicking randomly, but the random notes actually sounded pretty good. This was a learning experience for her and preparation for future music lessons.

Apple Garageband contains a mini keyboard. As you play the keyboard, the song is recorded. It is certainly a different perspective, but one that is easier for younger children. The mouse movements require less dexterity, and the keyboard method allows a child to hear the music as they play. This allows a child to familiarize themselves with a piano and with musical sounds at an early age.

What is also great about these programs is that they not only teach children about music, they familiarize the child with a computer (program navigation and mouse control). Furthermore, children learn something about creating and innovating. Art is not just about appreciation; it is about experiencing and creating something new. You don't have to be 40 to create something great.