Summer Project – Part 2

The kids excitedly watched the two chicks who hatched. None of the others hatched and per the directions, we disposed of the rest of the eggs. We cleaned the incubator and returned it.

We could have returned the chicks, too, but it was also acceptable to send them to a farm where they could be cared for and sometimes visited. The children had made arrangements with a family they are friends with who already have chickens. So, we were able to keep the chicks and watch them grow for several more weeks.

The children developed quite an attachment to the chicks – “Flower” and “Shocked Face.” They never tired of playing with them although they sometimes grumbled about changing the water and bedding. We fed them cornmeal and oatmeal per the instructions we were given with the project.

It was soon time to send them to their new home. The night before we were to take them to our friend’s farm, Child #1 cried about the possibility that Shocked Face would forget her or that we wouldn’t be able to tell our chicks from the other chickens on the farm.

As it turned out, we were not able to drop them off the next day. And that night, Shocked Face grew ill and died. We don’t know why. The children were in tears and the ‘funeral’ was very sad. I wrote a poem as the children were afraid we would forget him.

The worst part was that Flower showed signs that she would not make it through the next day. She huddled in one spot and would not eat or drink. We took turns holding her, petting her, assuring her of our love, and dipping her beak into water. At midnight, I checked on her and found her drinking water on her own. She improved from that point on. We gradually switched her over to “chick food” and dropped her off at her new home over a week ago. We haven’t gone back to see her, but reports from our friends say she is doing well.

The children have learned a lot. This was more than just learning about eggs and chickens. (They have asked me to never have them raise chickens from eggs again.) They learned that not all life makes it beyond the ‘incubation’ stage and the ones who ‘hatch’ don’t always make it to ‘adulthood.’

They have learned what it is like to love and then lose the one they love. It is a harsh life lesson, but one I was glad to be there to share with them.

In Remembrance

His wing emerged. Slowly, we watched him hatch.

Flower came first. There were two in his batch.

Bright eyes. Big mouth. Black with small yellow spots.

He became our “Shocked Face.” We liked him lots.

Sometimes bullied. With sis he loved to play.

Peep. Peck. Perch. Jump. He brightened up our day.

Keep always in your mind – our chick, our joy.

Smart. Nice. Sweet. Tweet. Never forget our boy.

Two weeks he lived. Good care of him we took.

Of a farm home, he had just a quick look.

Hatched on Monday. Dispatched late Thursday night.

His eyes: the light went out; no longer bright.

Buried with love. We will remember well:

Ever a chick – strutting on Heaven’s dell.

Summer Project – Part 1

This summer I thought it would be nice for the kids to hatch some chicks from eggs. It is a 4-H project available to anyone through an extension office in the big city about an hour away. I sent in the paperwork and checks required right away and received an email a couple weeks later stating that we were picked to participate.

We picked up the incubator, a dozen eggs, and our notebook full of instructions in mid-June. The instructions said to mark our eggs in pencil with an X on one side and an O (circle) on the opposite so we would know when we “turned” them. We were supposed to turn them either twice or three times a day, depending on if you followed the notebook’s instructions or the instructions given us orally when we picked up the materials.

Instead of staid X/O, we drew pictures. One egg had a rose on it, another a horse. There was a dress, a face with a shocked look on it, another face with a happy smile, and a third face looking sad. We referred to the eggs by their picture description as we turned them. I joked to the kids that I thought “shocked face” would be the first one hatched.

We set up the incubator in a closet away from the A/C registers and the crawling baby’s inquisitive hands. The older two girls took turns turning eggs, putting more water in the bottom of the incubator, and learning about the development of chick embryos.

The children were excited and amazed to find one chick almost out of its shell one morning. They were able to watch another make its way out. In the end, however, only those two hatched out of twelve. Dismal odds, I know, but we found out later that most “first timers” don’t do very well and even the veterans only achieve about 50% hatch. (At least two of our eggs were not fertilized and I didn’t check them all, so it is possible that more were like that.)

We named the yellow chick after its “flower” picture and the black one “shocked face.” Shocked Face was the second one out, so although I was correct that he would hatch, I was wrong that he would be the first.

To be continued….

Summer School Summary

With most public and private schools starting school (the local public school starts this week, most schools in the surrounding cities started a couple of weeks ago), we are just wrapping up our summer school. I’m hoping to get in another five days of work – or a week and a half of “real time” for us. (We have doctor’s appointments that will take up one day this week and we are taking a day for a field trip, so we will only get in three days of “school” this week.) Then, I’ll have anywhere from a few days to a week or so to complete “baby preparations.”

We will then be taking a school break for eight weeks or so – until the first part of November, hopefully. The plan is that we’ll start back up slowly, ramping up to “full school” by January. It will be difficult to cover a full year of school in a half a year’s time, but our summer schooling has given us a real head start.

For the eldest, we will be 41% (finishing Chapter 2 of 5) complete in Growing With Grammar 3, 28% complete (Week 10 of 36) in Writing With Ease 2, and 20% complete in A Beka 3 Arithmetic (Lesson 35 out of 170).

For Child #2, we will be on roughly Lesson 75 or 76 out of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (100EL). When we restart school, we’ll skip the rest of 100EL and go right into Spell to Write and Read (SWR) which we started during the previous school year. She’s zipping right along in A Beka 1 Arithmetic as she is currently on Lesson 45 of 170 – representing 26% completion of the book.

We have not started our science or history studies yet, but have a plan to complete those by the end of June or so, depending on when we get restarted this fall. By the end of the traditional school year in Spring 2010, we should only have history, science, and perhaps some math still to go to complete our delayed school year.

The children think it is funny when adults stop them to ask why they aren’t “in school” because they have been “doing school” all summer. It will be more interesting to see what they say when they are asked in a month or two why they aren’t “in school.” I am sure they will continue to be looked at askance as the oldest definitely looks “school age.”

I need a rest from my vacation!

When we got back from our camping trip, I was exhausted. We really got off easy. The only sunburns were my husband and I on our noses. The hundreds of mosquito bites seem to have healed. (I’ve never seen a mosquito with a half-dollar size wingspan before. WOW!)  No one came home any worse for the unsanitary lack-of-proper-toilet conditions.

• All the laundry is caught up.
• One of the tents still needs to be unpacked and repacked as it is in three parts instead of the original one bag.
• I need to clean out one of the coolers still and get it back to its owner.
• The formerly clean van needs to be re-cleaned and vacuumed to rid it of trip debris.
• I need to put away the bags we used for clothing as they are sitting empty on my floor right now.

I need a vacation since coming home on our trip!

Anyway, we’ve since restarted summer school, gotten to the pool (which is thankfully still open), pulled just about everything out of the garden because the plants were either done producing or the produce was being eaten by insects/worms/etc., and had a very productive local homeschool group planning meeting for the first half of the upcoming school year.

Back to the grind! Other upcoming posts may include something on how my planning is going for this school year, how this school year will be different from my others so far, and wrapping up summer school with how our new curriculum choices have fared with my kids.

Summer school update

In what should only take an hour a day, we have been working through Writing With Ease Level 2 (both older kids), Growing with Grammar 3 (Child #1), Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Child #2), A Beka Arithmetic 1 (Child #2), and reviewing math facts using games/flashcards/etc (Child #1).

Unfortunately, it has not been going well lately. The whining and complaining start even before we sit down to “do school.” Anything that has to do with a pencil causes complaints with Child #1, so WWE & GWG are both resented. Even the small amount of writing that each calls for is lamented loudly before, during, and after the lesson. We are on Week 5 of WWE and Child #1 just finished Chapter 1 (of 5) in GWG 3.

Swimming at the pool usually follows the completion of our lessons for the day, but only if they have them done at a decent time. Getting up late or fooling around rather than completing chores causes the schedule to be moved back – and back – and back. It doesn’t look like there will be any pool-time today because they both have refused to take their schoolwork seriously today (breaking a pencil lead out on purpose and sulking on the other child’s part). ‘Tis sad because they really have had a great time at the pool this summer and made marvelous strides in their swimming abilities.

The cloud cover has been on and off all day, so perhaps that is contributing to their (and my) gloomy moods. I hope for a more upbeat blog post another time.

Summer Reading Club

The tiny local library has started their summer reading club up. Activities are planned once per week at the library and all books the kids read (or have read to them) are recorded on sheets and turned in. At the end of the club, the kids get a chance to redeem their “book bucks” for prizes and also have a chance to win a bike donated by a local business.

The older kids really enjoyed the first week’s activity. We arrived early enough to pick up our stash of books (eventually maxing out our checkout number). Child #1 who now “loves to read” has already read between two and three (170-210 pg) books per day since then. It is hard to find “suitable” reading material on her reading level in our small town library. We are going to be joining the “big city” library system (1 1/2 hrs drive away) sometime this late summer/early fall to gain access to more books we would like to use for our Story of the World history curriculum and hopefully more books on Child #1′s reading level.

Until then, we are having a great time with the summer reading club, swimming several times a week at the local pool, and hitting local (or regional) kid-friendly events while trying to stay cool!

A new bike

Child #2 recently decided it was time to finally bite the bullet and ride without training wheels. We’ve tried to get her to learn since last fall, but she did not have the confidence in herself to do it. Once she decided she could, she mostly figured it out herself in two days. She wobbled some on the first day and was starting herself on hills and riding comfortably around the block on the second.

It was time to pass her too-small-for-her-anyway training wheel bike onto Child #3, put the training bike (no training wheels) back down in the basement, and get her a bigger bike (20″). We were pretty close to the “big city” today, so we stopped in and picked out her new bike.

The handle bars are wider, the bike is bigger, and she wobbles a bit while riding it. However, I think that she will be back to comfortable in one medium length bike ride. I also think she will be able to keep up with Child #1 who has a much bigger bike. Child #1 has a habit of calling everyone else “slow poke” when riding.

As a really great side effect, Child #3 on the bigger bike is also much faster than when on the smaller bike. Child #3 is also relatively fearless (hopping curbs, riding quickly through broken concrete sidewalk areas) and has a much better sense of balance than either older sibling at the same age.

When I hook up the bike trailer, I can bring Child #4 along and everyone else rides. Depending on the route, I am usually able to ride right along with the older two without stopping too much to help Child #3 through “bad spots.”

The biggest question has become,  “Where will we put / what will we do with all these bikes?”

Summer Session: Day 3

We took a two week break after the official “end” of our school year. We started back up on Monday for a light summer session of schoolwork.

I start out with Child #1 & Child #2 working together on Writing With Ease Level 2. It is primarily for Child #1 who just finished second grade of our homeschool. I determined that she needs to have steady practice in copywork, narration, and dictation. Knowing myself, I won’t give her daily practice in such things unless I have a curriculum that has it all laid out for me. So, I purchased the workbook for WWE2 to do this school year.

Child #2 just finished Kindergarten but she loves to write and does a pretty good job writing in cursive. (I started teaching cursive to them both last summer with sidewalk chalk and continued this last school year with Cursive First.) She needs help in cutting her “narrations” down from a retelling into just a couple-sentence summary. The copywork is a bonus and I don’t expect her to keep up with the dictation as she can’t read or spell well at all yet.

The WWE2 workbook is laid out so that Day 1 is narration. Day 2 is copywork. Day 3 is dictation. Day 4 is narration and then dictation. Days 1 and 2 went pretty well. Day 3 was horrid. I didn’t think Child #2 would be able to do dictation, but she did pretty well – with lots of prompting of how to spell the next word (which she pretty much remembered). Child #1 remembered much of the sentence but showed a lot of frustration when I gently tried to help her with her misspellings (flattery was spelled fatery, off was miswritten oof, guard was gard, etc.) or when she left a word out (your). She quit with three words to go and refused to continue. Eventually, she did write the last three words. But she had to take a break first. I am not looking forward to Day 4 or future Day 3s. I could take her back down to WWE Level 1, but I really don’t think it is necessary. She just needs more practice and more patience! (And I need to continue to have patience.)

My up & coming (pencil-phobic) third grader also started Growing With Grammar 3. It went fine the first two days. She even said she kind of liked it. Today, however, the writing got to her. There isn’t that much, but she was asked to rewrite run-on sentences into two complete sentences. There were about eight of them in the lesson and she balked at the first one. After two separate bouts of crying an hour apart, she took a nap. She’d gotten up at 5 a.m. and I decided she needed to lay down because the histrionics were more like Child #2 than Child #1. She completed the lesson at around 5:30 p.m.

I picked GWG because it is supposed to be easy for the child to do without much direction or teacher-time while also being comprehensive, spiral, quick, and not involve much writing. I have had to go back through the lessons with her each day so far. I will say that it doesn’t take long once she applies herself to the lesson. I find myself spending the time explaining things to her from the student manual and correcting her work as she goes along because she doesn’t seem to “get” the concepts when she puts them into practice. Her sentences frequently don’t end with punctuation and they definitely don’t all start with capital letters. This is why she needs a grammar program. We will continue and see how it goes in a few more weeks.

My little first grade not-wanna-be (she would prefer to stay in K) continues in the Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons book. We left off on Lesson 44 before Christmas due to extreme frustration on both our parts. We lent the book out to a friend in the spring and when it came back, my child actually got the book out on her own initiative and started to “read” the stories. We started back up at around Lesson 15 just doing the story section of each lesson. We finished Lesson 31 today and she does really well. I plan to continue until we get to another roadblock. Then, we’ll switch back to Spell to Write and Read (SWR) phonograms and spelling lists. To be honest, she hates SWR right now, so it is doing us good to take a break.

Both children do some math for about 15-20 minutes. The older child is working on making her addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts come more easily and quickly. We play games, do speed drills (timed/untimed), work with Math Wrap-Ups (timed & untimed), and other activities that is not tied to her official math curriculum. She is already 20 or so lessons into A Beka Arithmetic 3 and I think this time will help her when we start that back up.

The younger child is slowly working through the beginning of A Beka Arithmetic 1. We finished Lesson 19 today and do only about a 1/2 lesson per day (and sometimes less). She is struggling with the concept of reading numbers above 10. (It takes her a long time to “read” 34, 71, 14, etc.) She is also working on her addition and subtraction facts for the zero to five families. She does about five minutes of either flashcard work or oral math response per day as part of each lesson.

These activities have taken about an hour total to complete each day once you subtract the whining and delay tactics each child attempts. I hope the whining gets less as they realize that doesn’t help (i.e., they still have to do the work) and when they get back ‘into the groove’ of doing school each day.

The weather has been chillier than it had been with occasional rain. When it warms back up without the precipitation, they must have their schoolwork done to go to the pool. That will hopefully be a motivating factor as well.

Worn Out

It is a good thing summer is almost over. One of the girls came home from playing at a neighbor’s house in tears. One of her sandals had come apart. The kids have been playing pretty hard all summer and their foot-wear shows it.

I dug out some shoes and had all the kids try them on. They all have a pair that fits – for now. The oldest will need another pair fairly soon, but everyone is shod. While the weather is warm, they hate donning socks and shoes when they could be wearing sandals.

Life sure is tough when you are a kid, isn’t it?

Home from Camping Out

We are home from about a week away camping out on a relative’s farm a couple of states away. We took off with two coolers full of drinks and food, two tents (one ours, one borrowed), a mountain of bedding, and plenty of snacks and things for the kids to do on the long van ride. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the bag that included three-fifths (3/5) of the clothing changes for us parents. It was sitting on our bed when we returned. I begged a trip to “civilization” when my clean clothes ran out and we were able to do a load of laundry in a nearby town’s laundromat. The real pleasure of the trip, however, was the evening before we headed back, when we checked into a hotel so we could all shower, swim, and sleep soundly on soft beds. The luxury!

I am not yet sophisticated enough to schedule posts and I am never far enough ahead to write them anyway! In between loads of laundry and unpacking, I will attempt to update you on happenings and get something interesting up for you to read. Stay tuned!