family day

Z performed today with her Japanese dance troupe at Family Day, the opening ceremonies for the Cherry Blossom Festival.  She danced beautifully!  She worked very hard to learn all the dances, and we're very proud of her.  She has several more upcoming performances, and she seems to be enjoying herself.  Here are some pictures!

update

Sorry, still working on photos.  Hopefully soon.  This week I've been focusing on packing, and by that I mean spending a small amount of time packing during S' nap when I'm motivated enough. But Jomo has done some work too and we've gotten the school room basically done.  Now we have another bedroom completely filled with bins of stuff and piles of yard sale items.  So our tiny house just got smaller.  But it feels good to have an early start on packing.  Jomo reminded me about one of our moves (pre-children) in which we worked completely through the night, basically throwing stuff in boxes, bags or just loose in the truck, vacuuming at 6:00 am (sorry downstairs neighbors) to get out by our 8:00 am deadline.  Those were the days.  

The kids this week have decided that they want to save up some money for particular toys that they're pining away for.  This works out ok for me since I could use some extra help, but it's got me thinking a lot about chores and allowances and how we want to deal with those things as a family.  We've tried some different things in the past, and I think I have some new ideas about how to do it in the future, but right now it doesn't make sense to completely start something new.  But I hope that L especially will stick with it and see the fruits of his labor.

Another thing that's really sinking in is that toddlers are hard!  No wonder I despaired when L was that age.  I think I have (a little) more perspective this time around, and I'm trying to give myself a break when I'm out of energy at 4 in the afternoon and the house is a mess and dinner isn't made and everyone's getting hungry and crabby. I'm actually simultaneously really enjoying S and all the wonderful new things she does.  She gives Jomo and me kisses and hugs. She says "bye-bye" and "dada" with such exuberance.  She does some of Z's dances, sometimes quite well.  She tries to do everything the older kids do.  She's just adorable.  But boy, can she make a mess!  

I guess that's the update.  Oh, I also found these two great resources at the library that I'm really excited about.  One of them is an out-of-print book (at least I think so since I can only find it used upwards of $100 online!  for an essentially $10 book) that is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.  So that's neat.  Ok, that's really it now!

  

michigan

Well, we had a lovely week visiting family and friends in Michigan.  The trip out was difficult as the baby only slept for two hours on the overnight train.  By the time of our arrival, I was in tears (from being so tired), but then we slept wonderfully all week (a byproduct of sharing a hotel room with small children).  I was grateful to be able to see our good friends who are leaving the country (today!) for a long time.  And we hope to go back in May on our way out to Seattle. Pictures coming soon:)

And now we're getting ready to move across the country.  We started doing some packing, and so our house is all out of sorts.  It's kind of nice to have a physical task to focus on, rather than just wondering what's to come in the future and feeling anxious about such big changes.  Only seven weeks left!

 

queen's or PLL

I'm down to making my final selections for next year.  We've just ordered our math materials for both kids, Developmental Math, which is self-teaching for children who can read, and I'm excited about that.  Z took a placement test and afterwards said, "Thank you Mom that we don't have to keep doing that math we've been doing!"  And we have a few more Ambleside Online books to order.  

I've figured most everything out EXCEPT language arts.  I'm slowly becoming convinced of Charlotte Mason's method of waiting until a child is a little older to study grammar, and of developing composition skills through narrations from good literature along with daily copywork (which is also good for spelling.)  But I don't quite trust myself as a teacher to get all these parts done well.  Also, since we're not sure how long we're going to homeschool (we're taking it one year at a time), I don't want the kids to be far off from where kids in public school would be.  All of this leads me to want to follow some sort of curriculum that plans it out for me.  At first I favored LLATL, and it actually looks quite good, but recently I realized that it would just add too much to an already full schedule.  So I've been looking at Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young, and also Primary Language Lessons, by Emma Serl.  I know that I want to use Queen's at L's level (Language Lessons for Little Ones Volume 2), but for Z, I think I'm leaning more toward PLL.  Here are some differences: Queen's is consumable and costs $20.  It looks like a lot of fun, but I'm not crazy about the space given for copywork (for now I'm wanting to use HWT lined paper to keep letter sizes even).  So it's pricey to have to buy every year.  PLL is non-consumable, and the newer colorized version (it's a Catholic version, but I think we can work around that if need be) is similarly priced and lasts two years.  It's an old text, from 1911 or something like that, so it has an old-timey feel, but I feel more confident that the poems and copywork will be good quality literature. And it looks a bit more challenging, but not as fun.  It's hard not being able to peruse them.  I think it'll be fine either way, and that if I decide to try the other one the following year, it will be ok and not break the bank.  

What I'm most excited about with this style of Language program is curling up on the couch with L and his own special book (he likes when things are special just for him!) and reading poetry and looking at art and discussing them together.  And with Z, I know that she loves this kind of thing and she'll get lot's of practice composing (whether orally or written) her thoughts. I know I write about this stuff a lot, but I just love it!  It's fun to make plans and think about all the special times we'll have together.

On a different note, here are some pics from Z's recent Japanese dance practice.  She's learning a new dance with the "middle" aged girls (they are around 7-9).  S loves to watch the dancing, and she's even learning some of the moves at home.  It's pretty cute!

I don't really have a classy way to sign off.  "That's all!" or maybe "Cheers!"  I'll have to give it some thought.  Bye for now, I guess.