Summer Reading

I've been known to say I hope there are libraries in the heaven (maybe the new earth, at least?), and while that may be a little shallow, it's a very honest sentiment. So many books, so little time, as the saying goes. I usually have several going at one time so that I have one for whatever mood I'm in. I always have one in my purse along with my Kindle, too.

By the way, it may sound like I sit around eating bon-bons (don't say it, please!) and read all day long, but the truth is I really don't get to read that much, for all the same reasons every other wife/mother/home-educator/ chief cook and bottle washer/part-time transcriptionist doesn't get to read much. In the summer, I do have a tad bit more time, and most of that time is eaten up with reading homeschooling material that will help us on our journey. I "read" a lot of my books by MP3 player, but it has to be really engaging and not require a lot of cogitating. I love to go to bed with a book, or sit up reading in the living room, but goodness, I'm asleep in 30 seconds flat most nights.

This week Glen was in Washington, D.C., and one night, around midnight, I finally crawled into bed with my book. The girls were sleeping all around me (two on the floor, one on the bed), as is our custom when Glen is gone, but I turned on the light and settled in anyway. I actually made it to the end of a chapter, but I must have fallen asleep rolling over to turn off the lamp for I awoke to my alarm at 6:00, the lamp blazing and the book tucked in by my pillow.

That being said, and since I love to see what's books are hanging out on the nightstands or coffee tables or in the baskets of others, I thought I'd share my current stack. (I'd share my up-next list, but it is entirely too long and would take me the rest of the year to get a fourth of the way through, if that.)

• Desiring God--John Piper


• The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind--Bernard Nathanson


• Organized Simplicity--Tsh Oxenreider


• A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning--Karen Andreola


• Home Education--Charlotte Mason, Kindle


• Ginger Pye--Eleanor Estes, with the children


• The Count of Monte Cristo--Alexander Dumas (Kindle)


• The Autobiography of Mark Twain--Mark Twain (MP3)


• The Passage--Justin Cronin

Bedtime Prayers

There is something special about praying with my children at the end of a long day. Even when the day has brought stress or talking back or petty squabbles or Mommy's impatience, praying together breaks through the frustration and brings lots of hugs and kisses besides.

Oh, and giggles supressed by this Mama. Olivia's five-year-old prayers are simply funny, even when they're not meant to be. Carli is becoming very expressive and grown-up sounding, but every once in a while, something slips in there that reminds me that she really is just a little girl still.

Like tonight...along with praying for Daddy's safe travel home tomorrow and that we'd have a good time at church tomorrow, praising Jesus, and that we'd have a safe night of sleep, she also prayed that there wouldn't be any spider bites or spiders crawling over her. Between the two of them, Carli and Olivia pray this prayer a lot, and we've not really had that major of a problem with spiders. Ah well. Olivia also prayed that there would be no tornado sirens tonight, and that "our hearts would be ok, and that my friend Lizzie would be ok, and that everybody would be ok, even Katie Davis."

ST and GI

Madeline has been learning to sign colors in speech therapy for a while now, but Mommy and Carli and Olivia are making a concerted effort to teach her to label colors herself. In this video she is signing red per request and working on throwing at the same time. I still have to stabilize her to get her to use two hands easily. Otherwise, she props belly on the floor or on her legs to keep her balance, but by that point it can barely be called sitting.

We visited Dr. Schaefer today, Madeline's gastroenterologist. Dr. Shaefer was very pleased with Madeline's weight gain and progress. She is up to 23 lbs! For now we're leaving the g-tube in, though we don't use it unless she is sick (really not that often at all these days!). It certainly comes in handy when she does get sick and the Nissen (procedure in which the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus to prevent reflux from getting into her lungs) doesn't allow her to relieve any pressure at all on her stomach.

Oh, by the way, while we were there, not only did Olivia ask the doctor for a piece of paper and a pencil, she also asked her, "Am I beautiful?" Ah, such wonderful moments! For the record, I don't do well with having all three kids in a doctor's office. I'm fine until the doctor actually walks in and tries to carry on a conversation with me. I can't concentrate on the doctor and the kids who, even when they are being very well behaved, seem so...um, talkative in such close quarters.

Besides soaking up the sunshine...

...we are continually learning, albeit at a more leisurely pace! This past week we:

:: found mosquito larvae in our backyard sand table left open unintentionally

:: visited the library just for fun (as opposed to a change of scenery for school work). Carli was thrilled to use the big kid's computers, since she was only 37 days away from turning 8. There is a kaleidoscope art program on the those particular computers, and she has fun creating new designs.

:: discovered Dance Mat Typing, hosted by a funny goat with an accent and sunglasses. Did I mention it's free? Carli practiced the home row this week.

:: watched "Alaskan Wild." The kids are fascinated by all things Alaska, probably because they have beloved cousins there. Anything with Alaskan wildlife and they're glued. Carli never fails to say, "Mom, remember when we saw the whale tail when we were on the boat in Alaska?" This particular documentary had footage of seals, salmon, whales (oh dear, I don't remember which ones), Kodiak bears, wolves, foxes, and more.

:: started learning the books of the Bible with this really incredible set my mom has had for years. Story goes that in children's meeting in our church in Ashville, New York, the entire row of 2-year-olds, including my dear brother Jordan, learned the books of the Bible, both reciting them and putting them on the board in the correct order. Evidently those few minutes Mom took every week, supposedly just for the older kids, did abundantly more than she could have imagined for the young kids too. I know I would have only been four or five, but I never had to learn them again!

:: Played ABSeas (Olivia) and Unjumbled (Carli) and Life

:: Played at Cool Creek Park and visited the Nature Center there. Definitely want to go back to walk the trails!

:: Discovered a beautiful (HUGE) moth outside of our window of our hotel. Gene Stratton Porter would have been proud of Carli's enthusiasm. Alas, when I reviewed Carli's pictures of it, she didn't get any of it with its wings flat, so we haven't been able to classify it.

:: Watched a groundhog waddle across our yard and climb the fence to head on down to the creek.

:: Lots of bike-riding this summer, playing with neighborhood friends, and splashing about in a kiddie pool

::Taken bike rides and walks. Carli came up with a game during one of our walks, called "Guess My Number." She had no idea that I would be able to come up with her number so quickly by using greater than, less than; place value; even and odd numbers; and rounding. She did pretty well herself when the tables were turned.

:: Swimming at a hotel pool. Carli and Livy are newly-minted self-taught swimmers, getting braver by the swim.

Some of the books we enjoyed are:
::Night Running by Elisa Carbone (This was a hold over from our Underground Railroad study)
::Red Wagon by Renata Liwska
::Abe Lincoln Crosses the Creek: A Tall Thin Tale Introducing His Forgotten Frontier Friend
by Deborah Hopkinson
::Pinkalicious and Purplicious by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann (Two of Olivia's favorites)
::The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola (a new favorite author of ours)
::Roxaboxen by Barbara Cooney
::My Pony by Susan Jeffers
::The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola
::The Birdhouse by Cynthia Rylant (another favorite author)
::Skylark, sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia McLaughlin
::Started Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes. The chapters are kind of long, but the girls are begging me to continue at the end of each chapter! I'd never read this book, but I have seen it on so many reading lists, and we have found it absolutely delightful!

Nailed to the Cross

Some of you may be memorizing Colossians along with Ann Voskamp this year. I can't begin to put into words how this has changed me. Even in the first chapter and a half, there are so many verses that I've just read over and haven't really taken up as my own, but once they are tucked into my heart, they begin to pervade my thoughts and encourage me throughout long days or in situations out of my control.

This past week we memorized Colossians 2:13 and 14.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

God's sacrifice is incomprehensible to me, and there is nothing I can do to earn it. All I can offer Him is a grateful heart and the broken pieces of of my life that only He can make into the beautiful mosaic of His grace.

Of course, these verses immediately bring to mind the haunting hymn entiteld "It is Well with My Soul."

My sin--Oh the bliss of this glorious thought!--

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to His cross

And I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord,

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well.

Breakdown of Year 2 (and pics for the bored)

For those of you who are weary in well-doing because of listening to me ramble on about homeschooling, buck up! I'll be back to regularly-scheduled programming soon, or when I feel like it! Ha! But to pacify you for a while, here are a few pics of the view from where I sat while I typed the majority of this post!

Madeline taking notes on her sisters' progress

Olivia's favorite new trick is swimming under water,
or at least the best she can with the floaties I make her wear! :)

Not too bad for nary a swim lesson and only a few pool visits per year!

With the help of some lovely people on the Yahoo! discussion board, I have chosen Year 2 to start with Ambleside Online. Carli's Math, Reading, Spelling, etc, will still be Grade 3 level, but if we started in Year 3, we would be missing part of a couple key books in the history cycle.

Ambleside takes a lot of books a little bit at a time, almost to the point that I can imagine my girls saying, "Just one more chapter, Mom! Puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeze?" I think the short, varied lessons will be fun and keep our interest very well.

This year we will have daily instruction in Bible, math, penmanship/copywork, phonics as needed, and possibly Spanish, and weekly instruction in nature study, art and art appreciation, music appreciation and composer study.

History for Year 2 covers A.D. 1000 to the Middle Ages, and we will be utilizing these classic books:
::An Island Story by H.E. Marshall
::This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall
::A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer (Go HERE for an explanation on the use of this book)

For History Tales and/or Biography:
::Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula
::The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge
::Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley

For Geography we will read Holling C. Holling's books, Tree in the Trail and Seabird, practicing our map skills along with it.

During Natural History/Science, I am looking forward to delving into Anna Botsford Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study. Carli really enjoys working on her nature journal, though we didn't take as many nature walks as I would have liked. There is an Outdoor Hour Challenge in which we may be able to participate. We will also enjoy Holling C. Holling's Pagoo, and The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess.

We won't have heavy phonics instruction this year, but for Reading practice, I found delightful readers on Google Books, called Reading-Literature by Treadwell and Free. I plan to print them out and make them special. I absolutely love them, and will probably use them for Livy too, once she is reading.

We will study the Poetry of Walter de la Mare, Eugene Field, James Whitcombe Riley, and Christina Rosetti. Our Artist Studies will include Jean Honore Fragonard and Norman Rockwell, as well as one other, yet to be determined. Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok and Hindermith will round out our Composer Studies.

And Literature! My favorite! We have already read a few of the Little House on the Prairie books listed for year two, but between this and the Free-Reading List, we will have plenty to read through the three terms.

Literature
::Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
::Pilgrim's Progress Book 1 (Christian's Journey) by John Bunyan (original language)
::Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty, selections.
::Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
::The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
::Robin Hood by Howard Pyle (original language)

Additional Books for Free Reading
Heidi by Joanna Spyri
A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales
Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning
Abraham Lincoln by Ingri D'Aulaire
Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
Chanticleer and the Fox - Barbara Cooney's is one version
Along Came A Dog by Meindert De Jong
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli

For more information on about Ambleside Online or to figure out what in the world I'm thinking, go HERE.

Guest Post

I am truly honored that my Aunt Pam asked me to write a guest post for her lovely blog, A Sheltering Tree. If you feel so inclinded you can read here about Sheltering Families with Special Needs.