Author Archives: Abbie

Homeschooling Young ‘uns (4 and 5 years old)

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Sorry it’s taken so long to get back on this.  It was a great, busy, and sickie Resurrection weekend.

Soooo, I’ve given you all the juicy details on how we school our little ones under four.

For the over four crowd we have two main goals:
1.  Teach them to read.
2.  Increase their critical thinking skills so that they can read easier and learn easier.

Here’s what we do.

We teach phonics.  Specifically, I’ve been successful (all of two times and now with the third) with Abeka phonics.  It’s structured (which I need) and it’s Christian (well, as Christian as it can be when it’s teaching a says “a” as in apple).  Oh, and it typically only takes 15 to 20 minutes a day to do.

I’ve found that it’s easier to wait and start phonics when my kids have learned to recognize all their letters.  Although, Abeka’s phonics does teach letter recognition.  I also look for readiness signs in things they do:  recognizing letters on signs, pretending to read a book, sitting with a book and actually turning the pages (not ripping them out), coloring in the lines, drawing bodies when drawing people (not just heads with arms and legs coming out of them).  And, I can usually see those things happening around 4.  So, we start up Abeka’s K4 phonics.

And I’m mean, since I always have someone who is coming up about to use it, I don’t let the kids write in the readers or other activities.  Which means, I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it.  So, there’s a money saving tip for ya!

If a child’s just not ready, we’ve experimented with other things.  I have flashcards that they use to recognize letters.  These can be done with an older sibling or with me cuddling up on the couch.  We work through letter craft sheets.  And we continue to work on our skills of listening and sitting and “doing school.”

Mark and I both feel that once our children learn to read, they are ready to learn just about anything.  Being that we have reading in our blood (my mom’s an English teacher, Mark’s mom’s been a librarian), reading is just that important to us.

We also see how important it is to develop the kids critical thinking skills.  It really is useful in problem solving and pretty much every activity known to man.   I love Developing the Early Learner to help us with that.  It’s a set of four workbooks that work on developing different fine and gross motor skills on a preschool level.  We’ve used it successfully with two kids.  Liam has gone through it, but may go through it again after a break or maybe not at all.  His brain is definitely wired differently than his older brother and sister so we’ll just wait and see.

Once our kids turn four or five we add in Saxon Math K.  It’s really written on a kindergarten level and the children seem to enjoy that time.  For math readiness, I look for a  lot of the reading skills as well as some number reasoning skills.  I also look to see if they can count past ten and recognizing numbers.  If they can do those things, then we’re good to go.  Liam started Math at four and has picked up on it quickly.  Ace started at four and Zoe started at five, so they are in the same math even though they are in two separate grades.  It’s awesome not having to teach a ton different maths although that may change in the future depending on how quickly or slowly they pick up on things.

All told, a four or five year old in our home spends about 30 to 45 minutes of their day “doing school.”  The rest is spent in constructive play and doing chores, etc. 

I read at breakfast and lunch and expect all the children to sit at the table while I’m reading.  It’s good practice for worship and when we need to sit still and listen.  I’m praying, they pick up on a thing or two while they sit!

Will this look different when Bryant comes on up and is four and five?  Probably!  Although, maybe not…it’s just a wait and see and the beauty of homeschooling is that I can change and adapt to the specific needs of my kids!

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Two More Days

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I’ve got two giveaways going on now.  Due to some sickness flying around here (me:  vertigo and stomach yuk and Mark stomach yuk) I delayed closing the giveaways.  So click here if you want to win a PJ Tots Manhattan Toy and follow the directions

AND

click here if you want to win a onesie and burp cloth set.

Go.  Now.  I’ll wait until you return to finish my homeschooling young’uns post.

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15 Years Ago..

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Giveaways going on now!  Don’t forget to sign up to enter here and here. 

Fifteen years ago today, I had a first date with a very handsome man (okay, boy, he was sixteen).  When our date was over, I knew I was going to marry him.  

Fifteen years later and I’m still dating that very handsome man!  I’m so blessed to call him my husband and father of my children.  I love him more each day.

And now the story:

Our first date was my senior prom.  Yep.  We say do it big and pretty or go home!  He asked me about month before the prom.  By then, I had already picked out my dress and was either going with the man (yeah, I don’t want to talk about that) that I was dating or go with a group of friends.  I was leaning more towards the friends anyway.  However, Mark sort of asked me in his homeroom class (which happened to be my mom’s class) in a rather non-chalent way.  I responded nice and calmly.  And then ran to tell anyone and everyone I could.  I was thrilled!  I wanted to date him seven months prior and he pretty much refused (in his nice way) since I was what he considered to be “hippie.”  Hehehe, little did he know…

And, it being 1996, and me being “not normal” I went for a nice low key dress.  Long and flowy but not over the top, weighng a ton with sequins.  No, not for me.  In fact, my dress was a bridesmaids dress!  When I picked it out, the lady at the Bridal/Formal dress shop was quite confused about why I wanted it and how to order it since they had never done a single dress order before.  The next year, non-sequined prom dresses started popping up everywhere!  I’m such a trendsetter.

To make prom even more fun, we basically went with a group of friends.  It was a blast.  We traveled an hour away to eat supper (a tradition when we were in high school) and we got stuck in the restaurant because tornado warnings were popping up everywhere.  That just meant we could all hang out and talk and laugh and make fun of each other.  

I remember Mark calling his dad (on his “bag phone”) to get permission to bring me home a little later so we didn’t caught up in the storm.

And the funny thing was, the theme for the prom was Wizard of Oz.

Either way, he swept me away with my dozen roses and his charming smile and gentlemanly ways!  It was definitely one of the best nights of my life!

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Homeschooling Young’uns (Birth to around 4)

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Giveaways going on now!  Don’t forget to sign up to enter here and here. 

I’ve had several moms approach me recently to ask about homeschooling little ones.  So, here’s my “How We Do It?  Homeschooling Little Ones” blog post.

The short of it:  For any child under the age of four, we play.  That’s it.  That’s their curriculum.

That doesn’t mean I sit down with them all the time or that we just play with all sorts of gadgety toys.  No.  We play house activities, blocks, trios (which are sort of like legos but not really), dolls.  Some things they play by themselves and lots of things they play with their brothers and sisters.  And, some things are with mom.  We use play-doh, moon sand, and dirt.  On really fun days we break out the “oobleck” and have at it.  Typically up until they can actually communicate with more than two or three word sentences, my children stick close to mom and dad.  So, they get to “play” our chores, like cooking, washing dishes, laundry, etc. 

Oh and most importantly, we read.  And read.  And read some more.  Did I mention that we read???

 This would be our fiction side.  And not all the books are there.  We have books all over the house.  Bedrooms.  Check.  Bathrooms.  Check.  Living Room.  Check.  Kitchen.  Check.  Even in the van.

And this is our non-fiction side.  Oh, we keep board books on the bottoms of both sets of shelves for the little ones.

I read while they wander.  I read while they are sitting in my lap.  And now, with the big kids, we read at breakfast and at lunch.  From the time our kids breathe on their own, we are teaching them how to enjoy books!  Mainly because we enjoy them too.

And yes, by the time they are four they know their colors, shapes, and are starting to recognize numbers and letters.  I’ve actually noticed they do all that earlier with the more kids I’m teaching.

So, what happens after four?  Stay tuned…
In the meantime, I’d love to introduce you to my most favorite place to purchase fun stuff:
Timberdoodle!!!

Our latest favorites from them include:
Cuisenaire Rods (we haven’t gotten too much into using them but it’s coming soon)
Wedgits (a Ceili Rain and Zoe favorite)
miniLuk (the kids haven’t gotten too much into this, but I think it’s pretty neat)

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Shower Curtain Re-Vamp

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Giveaways going on now!  Don’t forget to sign up to enter here and here. 

The girls’ bathroom shower curtain was made of this flimsy sheer type material.  But, it matched perfectly and I bought it four years ago and figured, if needed, I’d swap it out later when it was totally destroyed.

Later has come.  The top stitching started to tear, the hook holes were tearing and ripping the fabric.  I knew it needed to be replaced.  But guess what?!  No one makes shower curtains to match purple bathrooms in a butterfly theme.  I was frustrated with my search.  Then, I decided to get creative.

Here’s the shower curtain all spread out.  See the rip in the bottom right corner.  I had started cutting when I realized I needed to document be it success or not.

Here’s the finished product:

And here’s what I did.  I cut off right below the rip in the curtain.  I measured off the cut height and then cut off the same amount from the bottom.  I’m a big fan of symmetry.  Then, I cut a strip of fabric twice that height.  I wanted it to be extra sturdy for the hooks and thought that reinforcing by folding the fabric over would help. 

I turned the fabric right sides together and stitched the ends to keep it with a finished look (note:  when doing this make sure the fabric is the exact same length of the curtain.  I was pretty close but it was off a bit and I did have to adjust some.).  Flip the fabric right side out and press.

Take the raw edge of the fabric and pin it to the raw edge of the wrong side of the curtain.  Stitch. 

Flip the fabric to the right side of the curtain and press and stitch again.  Then add button holes (another note, make sure you measure the distance between shower hooks on a standard curtain  before haphazardly putting holes in your newly revamped curtain!) the same width as was on the curtain.

All done!  It really was super easy and went very quick. Okay, so it would have gone quicker had I not totally messed up the button holes, but lesson learned.  So, now the girls have a “new” shower curtain, and I can marvel at the fact that I found fabric with the exact same colors as the shower curtain.  Really.  It’s amazing how well it matches!  I was thrilled with my find!

Here’s another look at the curtain:

And, if you can tell, those hooks on the walls are the most adorable towel hooks I found at Hobby Lobby (disclaimer:  I paid for those and can get excited about them all I want).  I waited until the wall art went on sale half price and picked up four for the girls’ bathroom after I had gotten one for a hand towel hook.  I love them.  I think towel hooks are much easier for the kids to hang their towels up on.  And, since the bathroom doubles as a guest bath, there’s plenty of room for guests to hang their towels on it.

I cant’ believe I just raved on and on about towel hooks.  Oh well.

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Review: Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski

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Giveaways going on now!  Don’t forget to sign up to enter here and here. 

I’ve listened to Mike Yankoski’s story several times on radio broadcasts.  The first time I heard him several years ago, I was intrigued by what he actually did for several months and was very interested in his book.

Under the Overpass is narrative about being homeless, written from a first hand perspective.  Mike and a friend, Sam, ventured out in to the world from May 2003 to November 2003 as homeless men.  They lived it, walked it and traveled it, with nothing but their guitars and their backpacks.  They sang for food, begged for food, and even did a bit of dumpster diving.  They met everyone from Bible believing homeless men to crack addicts.  They lived it.  For real.

Their goal was to see life from the perspective of someone who is homeless.  To see where they could fit in, what was being done, could people without homes really be helped.

This book is real, and alive and really relays the issues that people without homes deal with.  Or what they had dealt with.  The choices they made to get them where they are and the choices they are making to get them to a better place are all laid out in this book.

I highly recommend this as a great example of what life is really like on the streets.  While they admit, they were well supervised and at any given moment could have walked back into their “old lives,”  they also know that their view on people was forever changed.

After reading this book, I can see people in a new light.  Each person was created in God’s image.  There are no accidents in the creation of humans.  As I read I remember what I always say to Mark, “Each person has a story.  And I love finding out about it.”

I definitely will view the plight of the homeless in a different light and pray that I can teach my kids to do the same.  Whether it’s by choice or circumstance, God has a plan for all of us.

Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski can be purchased at Amazon.com and other book stores! 

(Disclaimer:  Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski was provided by Waterbrook/Multnomah for Blogging for Books)

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Attack!

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 So, Saturday of our Kabining trip was waaaay hot for the middle of April.  To remedy that, we hit the local Wal-Mart and picked up enough water guns for a whole trip of campers.  Fire Away!  The afternoon was full of cool water fights.

 This is how we filled up the water guns!
 World’s skinniest Sumo Wrestler!
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and Keep the Old…

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No, I’m not referring to our friends as old…it goes along with the last post…”Make new friends, but keep the old..”  Moving along…

Last weekend we met up with most of the Transue clan in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Turns out that’s the halfway point for both our families!  And, that’s also a place with plenty of KOA Kampgrounds.

This was our first stay with KOA and while we thoroughly enjoyed it, I believe our camp hosts were a little worried about having so many children.  We all survived and I think they were pleasantly surprised.  They invited us back at least.

We stayed in a Kabin and it was super nice and way easier than transporting a tent.  We did, however, have to bring all our camping supplies to eat and we had to do the community bathroom thing (which was pretty good trek with the kids each time and if we had to go during that night.  That was the not so fun part).

 They lined themselves up to sing a song.  We got a picture!

 What’s Kabining without s’mores???
 Yep, they were thrilled we stuck them together.
 Activity for our full day:  Chattanooga Zoo.  It’s small, but word has it there were a lot of monkeys loose that day!
 Liam loved watching the animals!

This little monkey was particularly photogenic that day.
 Monkeys watching monkeys…

 Mr. James.  Poor little man had a hurt arm but it just slowed him down.  Didn’t stop him though.

Ten points if you know who this little owl looks like.  It’s from a book…and a movie.
Monkeys like to climb.

 Okay, stop me if this is not the most adorable picture in the whole world!
Where to next???
 The highlight:  the indoor carousal!
Okay, that’s all for now.  The rest will have to come when blogger gets it’s act together and I can upload these pictures!

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Make New Friends

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We had the privilege and excitement of hosting this young, Young, family (hahaha), the weekend of our mission conference.  The Youngs are missionaries with Biblical Ministries Worldwide and will, by God’s grace and timing, be going to Scotland to work with church planting there.

We were thrilled to host this family and their fun children.  Their two little ones just fit right in and Nathan and Krystal (the mom and dad) didn’t seem too disturbed by our plethora of children.  Mark and I were thrilled to have them in the home and talked with them late in to the night on two occasions, not even realizing what time it was.

Yeah, I think Nathan was praying he’d be released soon from this chaos!  Ten points if you can guess who’s missing.

These are all the missionaries who attended and spoke at our church’s conference.  I’d love to get the videos for the Louks up, but I can’t figure out how to embed it in here, so I’ll just point you to their website and tell you, you must go see what they are going to be doing in Romania starting this summer!

See they fit right in…fixing toys and such.
And, Mark and I had the privilege of watching their children while they attended a ballet put on by a local company here.  They actually trusted us with their kids.  Little did they know…
I called it “twin practice” in hopes that one day God will bless us with twins (yes, you read that right…I would love to have twins although the odds are greatly stacked against us).
 Madeleine is a couple months older than Bryant.

 Pose for the camera kids.
 What are you???
Madeleine also cut a tooth while they were there.  She was pretty grumpy when we kept her and at one point she and Bryant were both competing in cries.  I smiled and saw all the other dear children covering their ears and announced that we could handle twins.  Mark laughed.  Anyway, we didn’t realize she had cut a tooth until she had kept Nathan and Krystal up all night.
Mr. Miles was a trip.  He enjoyed “playing” the Wii.  He was close to Josiah’s age and oh so much fun.
Please remember to pray for Scotland and the Youngs as they prepare to serve Christ!
You can learn more about what they are doing here:
Or go to their website:  Pray for Scotland.

And if that isn’t enough jabber, one of the reasons we were thrilled about having the missionaries in our home was because of the great influence they can have on our children.  It is our desire that our children seek to serve Christ and to bring Him glory through all they do, whether that is living in a hut in Africa or working inner city missions or a “regular” job in the states.  We also want them to be aware of the great needs that are both here in the US and abroad.  Hosting missionaries for a brief time gives them faces to the names that they hear so much about.

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