These posts are usually just of the things that I think are valuable enough to take pictures of. One of these days, I'm going to do a walk-through of a "Day in the life of the Peaden Homeschool" but mostly I just hope these pictures capture a few of the things that we are doing so that my kids can look back and realize that I was working hard every minute to give them the best education and honestly, the best childhood that I could possibly give them. Of course sometimes I worry that we are doing the wrong thing by homeschooling, but then I see how well they are growing, how much they are accomplishing, how much time they have to just be children and the space they have to grow into themselves (plus the time that I get to spend with them) and I am just so grateful for this beautiful life we have right now.
One of Lydia's math lessons was about a boy who has been measuring how tall he is (working with data and making a graph). After she charted his growth data, we pulled out her well-check cards which include how tall SHE has been at each age and she was able to chart that data as well - which was cool and really fun.
Bookwork at the kitchen table. (You can see Lydia's big stack of math, science, and language arts. The boys are working on a morning-starter book together. (Caleb loves doing work with the big kids, although the only thing I have for him to do is that morning starter. Then he plays while the other kids keep working.) We rarely do our homeschool at the kitchen table. Often Austin is at the kids table or the piano bench. Lydia is usually at the tech center by the computer. But sometimes we sit here together and work.
Austin finished book 1 of his Level K Math! He's seriously rocking it in the math department. This is what I wrote for his MyTech report this week: "Austin has been working hard at his math skills. We discovered this week that he is able to count to 100+ by 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s, and 50s. He was listening in on his older sisters math lesson and afterwards told his Dad "I know all my 11 times tables" and upon further quizzing it was apparent that he did. Austin likes patterns especially patterns in numbers and it's neat to see him learning so much. This week he finished his Math book! He loves math and is excelling with his schooling this year."
Poetry Treat Time
A favorite tradition. For Valentine's week we had a special Poetry Treat Time where we read this book: Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light by Apryl Stott. To go along with the book, we made chocolate chip cookies and made little lanterns by lighting little electric candles in mason jars.
In fact, the whole day we took as a "Hygge Day". We didn't do our coursebooks, but we read books, snuggled, baked in the kitchen, did a lengthy morning-time with scriptures and Come Follow Me. Sometimes this February time is a little tricky to get through in homeschool. They often call it the "winter slump" but I've found that if we sprinkle in a few days like this here and there we can really lean in to the together-ness of homeschool and it helps the monotony of the winter slump. It just fills all of our cups so we can keep going successfully.
Ask God.
This year for Come Follow Me we are studying the Doctrine and Covenants. It's been so wonderful to teach and learn about the Prophet Joesph Smith, the love our Heavenly Father has for us, and the blessing of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Lydia's primary teachers brought her a little treat with a scripture and the challenge to write "I can Ask God" on a paper and hang it where she can see it. We used it for our family CFM an dwe all wrote a paper. I love walking around and seeing each of my kids little notes to themselves about how God loves them so much that they can come to HIM with anything that they need and that He will he there for them. I've felt that truth in my own life.
Valentines Day party!
We've grown a little neighborhood co-op of homeschooling kids and I love it SO much. Covid has been weird and hard and we haven't been able to be as social as normal. But case counts are finally trending down, plus we are past the Christmas holidays (we were being SO careful because we knew that we would be seeing Cal and Sue), so we are starting to be able to do more with other kids again. The party was perfect. We did two little craft stations, plus some books and a snack - then did a little valentine exchange. Short, simple, but SO fun and good for these kids!
And speaking of our little pocket of homeschoolers in our neighborhood. We've just started doing something that I am SO excited about! Truly, I've prayed to find a homeschool community, and even though most of the homeschoolers in our neighborhood right now are homeschooling because of Covid, it's really a dream come true. I wish that they would homeschool forever, but even if they probably won't - I am SO happy to take advantage of it this year.
Of the homeschooling families on our street this year, three of us have 8 year old girls and 6 year old boys. Andrea Wardell reached out and said that she wanted to have a little PE class for the 6 year old boys every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00. Then Brooke Young and I decided that if Andrea was doing that, we could take the girls at the same time for a little rotation. On Tuesday they go to Brooke's house to participate in Reader's Theater (where they each are assigned a part in a short story/play and they read/act it out), and on Thursday they come to my house where I teach the girls watercolors.
It's honestly an amazing rotation and I'm SO excited about it!
The last thing that I wanted to write about for homeschool this month is the Children and Youth Goals program. The church put out a new program last year that helps kids make goals in four areas: social, physical, spiritual, and intellectual. Lydia has made goals in each area and has been working hard on them. One of her goals from this past year is to make a cookbook. She's has done a great job and has grown in confidence in the kitchen! She's making a push to cookbook out so she can move on to her next goal, so we've been taking pictures of some of her recipes of her book.
Pictured here: Grandma Knowles Chocolate Cookies (photographed on top of Grandma's Lace Dress) #familyhistory, Crispy Sans (Lydia's own special recipe of rice crispies that are baked in the oven for just a few minutes to crisp them up), and peanut butter oatmeal, plus several of the recipes that she has written out herself before typing into the computer.
(Peanut Butter Oatmeal - recipe made while at Lilly's house)
Crispy Sans
Snowflake Stew (Camille and Lydia wrote this recipe out when they decided they wanted to make snowflake stew. I let them make it, just helping adjust things here and there and it turned into a pretty good stew. They thought it was incredible.)
And last, last, a picture from a bike ride that we went on. Lydia stopped in the middle of the track and said, "this is SO beautiful. I wish I could paint this." So we took a picture and I'm going to sit down with her and try to paint it together. It just made my heart so joyful that she was seeing the beauty in the world around her and feeling that creative urge to capture it in watercolors.
