THE DIFFERENCE IN OUR CHILDREN

I was thinking about how different our children are. They are born of the same parents, like to do many of the same things, and yet they are so different. Let me explain. I will use the example of school work. It occurred to me while Carl was finishing up his school work at about 4:30 exactly how different James and Carl really are.

James-With James everything is a struggle. He doesn't understand why he has to do his work, and why he has to read, or why he has to do chores. I constantly get the "Do I have to", or the "Why do I have to", "I don't want to". It is a constant fight to get him to finish his work. He will walk away any chance that he gets and go play. I have been reading some things on how to deal with this. Just Monday as it was taking him all day to do his word problems for math, which he doesn't understand why he can't do multiplication when Carl is, I was wondering if we were ever going to make it through the day. Today we did his word problems on the window. I read them to him and he wrote them out on the window. It went much better. He even does this with his chores. If it is something that really interests him, like science, he will whiz through it. With his literature he think that I need to step him through everything. I do go over what he is to do with him and help him with any questions that he has, but goodness,when every problem or question he has a question about I can't get anything done. And if it is required reading, it will be the end of the world. But if it is something of his choosing then he will sit and read it without any problems. He also likes to hum. Today I asked him to stop. I explained to him that he didn't like it when others made noise because it distracted him and now here he was making noise and distracting Haylea during her math lesson. I hope he got it. I don't know how he gets anything done with his humming. But when all goes well and he gets his work done I am grateful.

Carl- Carl is not a struggle. Today Carl didn't get all of his work done on his list. So at 4:30 his was finishing it up. He said to me mom I didn't do it yesterday so I have to do it today. In my mind I am thinking, where did this child come from. Don't get me wrong. When he doesn't want to do his work he lays his head down and moans a little. He is hard headed at these times and thinks that he will win. Sometimes if I change the subject he is doing or give him a break he will come back and do it alright. I called him on it yesterday and brought it to his attention. He didn't do it today. He will sit until his work is done most of the time. It is in between lessons that he runs off. So I will have to call him back to start something new. I am grateful that I have one child who will stick to the task until it is done. Carl also likes to get more work done so that on Friday there is not so much work to do. He is one that I don't have to worry about getting his work done.

Haylea- Haylea is great. She loves to play. She usually plays until I get a chance to work with her on her schoolwork. When I do call her to the table she says she doesn't want to do her work, or that she wants to wait for Isaiah. Once I pull her away from playing she does all that I ask her to do, and enjoys it. Sometimes when I ask her phonics questions she wouldn't answer them right. Then when I added Isaiah to the lessons and he answered them right, she started trying a little harder. I am glad that her schooling does not take long, but she learns the things that she needs. I don't understand why it takes all day for kindergarten when we can do it all in about 2 hours. This includes science or history.

Isaiah- Isaiah is a trooper. He goes to preschool for three hours. And them comes home and does some lessons with Haylea. He picks up so much it amazes me. He enjoys answering the questions before Haylea. Sometimes I have to tell him that it is Hayleas turn to answer the question. He does everything except for math. Maybe I should start teaching him the math.

Adalyn- I have to say that she is a great baby. She has a lot of patience with me. She plays with Haylea. She will sit at the table and try to draw. She likes to climb in the chair behind the boys and see what they are doing. I have truly been blessed to have her. I remember Isaiah when I started homeschooling. All he wanted was my attention. I have to say that the first day of school for Adalyn was rough, but it has been smooth sailing so far. I hope that I haven't cursed myself.

As you can see that all the children are different. I love watching them learn something new. They grasp it differently than the other child. I am grateful to Heavenly Father for entrusting these sweet spirits to our family. I am also grateful for the realization that they are all individuals and they are each different. I have known this all along but I really appreciated it today.

IT"S RAINING IT"S HAILING!

Today we were doing school and it got dark in the room. I looked out the window and from the northwest the clouds were dark, dark. I love storms. I was excited. Within about 10 minutes the rain started coming down. I started making lunch and about this time it started to hail. Carl is learning about the weather in science, and he learned how hail is formed. So this is a great learning opportunity. I ask him some science questions and he did great answering them. Then he decided that he wanted to go out and catch one. Within five minutes the four oldest children are out in the yard running around trying to catch some hail. We had some good size hail. I let them run around for a few minutes while I finished lunch and told them to run to the laundry room and strip their clothes and get dry ones on so they could eat lunch. It stopped hailing by now and was just raining. So from about 1:00 on it has rained nonstop.
After lunch it started hailing again. This time it there was a lot more and they were bigger. I told the boys that they were not going out, I didn't want them wet anymore. They really enjoyed playing in the rain. Isaiah asked if the kids at his school were okay. I assured him that they were. I told the boys that if they were in school they wouldn't have been able to run out and play in the rain. I am hoping that this is something that they will remember and that they will be able to do it again. This is something that they really enjoyed doing. And Haylea enjoyed eating the hail. What a fun day we had.

DOVE FOR DINNER

On Friday James took the boys out hunting dove with his friend Rodney. The older men do the shooting and the younger boys are the bird dogs and go and get the birds that they can find. They had so much fun doing this. They came home with twelve dove breasts. I heard all about how they pull their heads off and whatever else goes with cleaning a dove. James finished cleaning the dove and put them in salt water. Last night me put them in a marinade. Can you guess what we had for dinner tonight? Yes dove. James made a vegetable stir fry, rice, and then he cooked the dove. It was actually pretty good. Everyone liked it. Isaiah didn't eat much rice or vegetables, all he wanted was the dove. I have to say it was good. I preferred the littler more tender pieces.
Needless to say, that the dove was a big hit in our house. I think that it will be something that we will do again. Hunting season for dove is only this month, so hopefully the boys can go hunting at least one more time before the end of the season.

SCIENCE FIELD TRIP

Today was our first outing with the Parsons homeschool group. The boys and I went to the extention office in Erie. There they did some science projects. Each child under twelve was teamed up with a child over twelve. They worked together. The used a water bottle and put yeast, sugar and water in it. Then they put a balloon on the bottle. They were trying to see if the balloon would blow up. While they waited some of the older boys used things besides sugar to see if they would work. Then the younger kids made their own version of a Chia Pet. James and Carl enjoyed this. When they were done they went back to see how their balloons were doing. The balloons were starting to inflate. Then all the children were able to make ice cream. They put the ingredients in a small bag and the ice in a big bag and then they shook it. A long while later they had ice cream. They were able to bring everything home. They continued to watch their balloons get bigger. James and Carl really enjoyed today. We all hope that there is another activity like this.

OUR TWO MILE WALK

We did it! I had a great idea of taking the children on a walk after dinner. We had some time to spare. James was at school. I made everyone get their shoes on and Adalyn in the stroller, and off we went. When we got to the road Carl said that we should walk on the other side of the highway. I thought this was a good idea considering that we live on a busy road that cars like to drive fast on. But on the other side of the highway is a country dirt road. I didn't think we would walk that far. Carl said we should walk until we could not see the mailbox anymore. Well that was not very far. And then Haylea said we should walk to the top of the hill. When we got to the top of the hill I said we should walk to the next mailbox. Guess what, when we got to the mailbox, James said we should walk to the railroad tracks. I kept reminding the children that we also had to walk back as far as we have walked. As we were about 1/4 mile from the tracks maybe less the kids found a little dog that belonged to a neighbor. We told the man that we are walking to the tracks and the little dog followed us. The tracks are one mile from the house. We turned around and walked to the house that the dog belonged too. We visited with our neighbor for a few minutes and made a new friend. I realized that it was sprinkling and told the kids we had to go home. Isaiah decided that he was tired and did not want to walk anymore. I bribed him and said that if he walked home he would get some ice cream.
We enjoyed our two mile walk tonight. The children were asking if we could do it again. They really want to go visit the neighbor again and fish in their pond and see their barn. I told them that we would be able to walk another day. They were excited when I told them how far they walked. It felt really great. I will have to work up to doing more. Eventually I would like to get our little cart out and put Isaiah and Adalyn in and ride our bikes. That would be fun too.

SCHOOL IS GOING BETTER

I have to say that school is getting easier. It does not seem to take all day long if we are on the ball and get things done. I work mostly with the boys in the morning, and do math with Haylea. Then when Isaiah gets home from preschool I work on phonics, literature, and history or science with Haylea and Isaiah. Most days he will join in. Sometimes he picks the lesson up faster than Haylea. She is still struggling with her beginning sounds. Isaiah seems to get them. Maybe she will pick it up with a little competition.
James and Carl are doing mainly assessments in math until we can get them to something that they have not mastered. I think that will be unit four for James. And Carl will get there soon. This will be fun to do more than assessments. I believe that they should not have to sit through a lesson that they can pass. So if they get less than 80% on the assessment we will go back and do the lesson. They also picking up the other subjects too. I think that they are really enjoying science. I will post James' food web at another time.

One thing that I started this week was a folder for the boys. It has their math, spelling, literature, and G.U.M. in it. It also has a list of all the work they have to complete for the week. When they finish something they put a sticker over that lesson. For two days it has worked great. I will see how it works.

I am enjoying the K12 program and all that it has to offer. I think that the children are learning a great deal and enjoy what they are learning. Don't get me wrong. I still have to pull them back to their school work. And remind them to do their lessons, I do this a lot with some more than others. We are finally getting a schedule that works for us. And that is all that I needed to figure out. I hope that we are able to improve on the way we do things to make them run smoother than they are now.

JAMES FELL OUT OF A TREE

I was having one of those days today. I took the children to a friends house to see if they wanted to go to the park. While we were there some of the kids climbed the tree and were playing. As I was talking to my friend Little James fell out of the tree. This is the child that screams when something happens and you can't get him to calm down to talk to him. When we got over to him, he was moving around and looked to not have broke anything. He did have a bloody nose. After a few minutes he asked us where we were and what happened. He also laid on the porch and this concerned me also. I thought I would take him and have him checked out.
The doctor ordered a CT Scan because when a child goes unconscious they want to make sure that everything is alright. One and a half hours later we are released. Everything came back fine. I am grateful for this. We just have to keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours. He was excited that the doctor wrote a note to excuse him from school. So I am thinking that we will have a make-up day and get caught up on what we didn't get finished. That might raise his spirits a little. So James gets to sleep on the couch so we can wake him a couple times during the night to check on him.
Something funny that happened was when we were checking in he coughed and the lady checking us in gave him a mask to wear and told us he had to be checked for that. Everyone in the back asked why he had the mask on and thought it was silly that she gave him the mask. I guess it is just precautionary. The doctor finally threw it away while she was evaluating him

SCOUT AWARDS

So I am a few days late posting this. On Wednesday was pack night for scouts. The boys earned a few awards. Since we work on them together they each earned the fishing, ultimate and map and compass belt loops and James earned the sportsman pin working towards his Webelos badge. Carl is working towards his Bear badge. We are plucking right along. It seems as though they can get a few things done in a day. I try to tell people this and they are not motivated to work with their children. Big James took the boys golfing so they should be earning their golf belt loop soon I think. They enjoyes working on this project.

ROUTINES

Part of starting the Lawrence Virtual School you have to set up a schedule of what you would like your day to be like. Now I know that it isn't perfect. I tell my kids things don't have to be perfect. As I was working on this and also the routines of the day I have been practicing for a little while now. Today I want to talk about some of my routines.

Routine #1- pick up at night. I know that this sounds easy. But for us it wasn't. We ended up cleaning up in the morning. I decided that since I wanted to do school in a picked up house we should do it at night. This has been working good. I try and make sure that it is done before I go to bed. Last night was pack night for scouts and the house didn't get picked up. I did most of it. I ran out of energy and was tired so I went to bed and left it for today. I wish I had finished it. Every other day has been great. It is nice to wake up and have a picked up house.

Routine #2- run the dishwasher after dinner and empty it before I go to bed. This has worked great for me. With the dishwasher being empty in the morning the children can put their breakfast dishes in right after eating. It saves the dishes from being piled up on the counter. I just have to remind them about putting them in the dishwasher.

Routine #3- empty the dryer and fold later. I know this probably makes most people cringe, but this is what works for me. I keep a laundry basket by the dryer. As I do laundry throughout the day and empty the dryer into the basket and fold the clothes all at one time. I deal with the wrinkled clothes at a later time. This keeps lets me keep my sanity and I don't hate doing laundry.

Routine #4- laundry baskets. I bought each child a laundry basket and wrote their name on it. They leave it in their room and when they bring their baskets up and empty them in the big one I fold the clothes and put them in their baskets for them to take down and put away. This has been better than the clothes sitting on the table. And I can fold clothes at different times of the day and stack the baskets out of the way. And the children only need to take the clothes down one time.

Routine #5 - Wake up earlier than the children. I don't like waking up early. I have made a point to wake up at least 15 minutes before I get the children up and shower and get dressed. If I wake up early enough I sit and read my scriptures until 7:00 when I get everyone else up.

Routine #6- read scriptures as a family in the morning. It is hard for us to read our scriptures at night. One day I had the thought that we needed to read scriptures in the morning. I wake the children up at 7:00 and by 7:15 I am reading scriptures with everyone here. It has been great. We have a better spirit in our home through the day. I am a nicer, happier person also. And not very often do we not read scriptures during the week. Now the weekend is a different story. I need at least one day to sleep in.

SCHOOL'S IN SESSION

I am a little slow in posting about Isaiah. He started school last Tuesday. He attends a preschool in Altamont. I loaded him into the Suburban and took him to school. When I picked him up I asked him what he did, and he said that he went outside and played, he drawed, and sang song. He did say drawed. A week later and he is loving school. He has been singing songs that he has learned and he tells the kids what he did when he gets home.

James, Carl, and Haylea started school officially yesterday. We did a few days last week, but we dug into it yesterday. We did math and spelling and finished a science assessment that they started last week. The morning started off crazy. Well not how I was expecting it to start, but is that not a great reason for homeschooling. My visiting teachers came because this is the only day they are available in the next month. The Holgates brought us some pig feed and picked up their pig. So we started a little later. And then I had a conference to listen to at 10:00. Needless to say we did get it all done. I had to keep calling the boys in from outside. The weather was so nice outside.

Haylea was excited to do her work. She did her math and phonics. When she was done she wanted to do more. It was great.

Today we were able to get started on time. Things went smooth today. We added Language Arts and Literature to our day. I have to say that there is a lot of work in Language. I think that once we get the hang of things it will not take so long. We got everything except for Literature a little after 2:00. Tomorrow I will do things different. We did Literature after dinner. James and Carl enjoyed it. There was not much complaining much today either.

Tomorrow we will try and add history to our day. With some rearranging the way some things were taught, I am hoping that it will not take all day. But I am sure that it will. We just have to figure out how things are done. At least all three are enjoying what they are doing.