Creepy Critters

Aahhh!  Spring.

Definitely my favorite time of year!  I love the blooming flowers, the budding leaves, the green grass, and most of all, the rising temperatures. (Although it’s been unseasonably warm here since January.)

My monkeys are enjoying the spring weather too.  Ty, for one, has been taking advantage of the weather and doing a lot of fishing in the creek behind our house.  He’s baited up several drop hooks, and the Tool Man helped him set out a trotline.  Armed with a bucket of goldfish for bait, Ty’s hoping to catch the granddaddy of all catfish.  (I’d just be happy with a mess of white perch.)

Although he has caught only a handful of catfish, one weighing in around 20 pounds, Ty has hooked quite a menagerie of other aquatic creatures.  Not the least of which was this slimy critter – a fresh-water eel!

 
YUCK! 

This was the first time the kids and I had seen an eel in person, and let me tell you, we were totally grossed out.  It was the creepiest thing I had seen in quite a while for sure.

As Ty was posing for these pictures, that eel tied itself into a knot.  How strange is that!

This eel is isn’t the only odd thing Ty has caught this spring.  He’s also hooked 2 more eels, two turtles, one white perch, and two gar measuring around 4 feet long!  And Ty wonders why I’m not a fan of swimming in the creek.

Happy spring,
Lindsey

School Daze

Hello everyone!  Even though January I thought I would share some pictures I took of the monkeys on our first day of school waaaay back in September.

You know, we’ve been homeschooling for eight years, and this is the first year I’ve ever thought to take a first-day-of-school picture!  I’m kind of disappointed in myself for missing out on the opportunity all these years.  Oh well, no time like the present to start, right?

I was so excited about how good these pictures came out.  Given, it’s hard for the monkeys to take bad pictures, but I thought these photos were extra cute!

This year we officially welcomed a new student to our school table.  Tacy has been working on Pre-K 3 curriculum and is doing fantastic.  Some of her favorite things to do are cutting and working in her sticker books.  She would breeze through an entire workbook in one day if I would let her.  Honestly, I don’t know why I hold her back.  I guess I’m just trying to avoid having to buy new workbooks every other week.  But like the Tool Man always says, what’s money to a hog?  I think I’ll let her do as much as she wants from now on.

OK.  Time to be real.  This school year has been one of the toughest ever THE TOUGHEST EVER! Babies have a way of complicating things, especially babies who don’t sleep.  Besides beginning this school year about a month later than we normally do, we have been moving at a snail’s pace.  Honestly, we’re about 9 weeks behind where I would like to be.  Yikes!  That sounds bad.  But, in the grand scheme of things, are 9 weeks really that big of a deal?  No!!!!!!  So, I’ve determined not to stress about it. 

Part of the challenge of school this year is that I’ve had a hard time working in fun activities.  Unfortunately, when you’re running low on time and energy, it’s usually the fun stuff that gets cut first.  Nevertheless, here are a few pictures from the one poetry tea time we’ve had this year.  I made some old-fashioned tea cakes for our snack, and the kids substituted actual tea with chocolate milk and Coke.  Lucy set our table and lit some candles for us. Then we all sat around the table and enjoyed our cookies and poetry selections.

Ty read us a poem he had written in his literature class.

Tacy even “read” a few poems out of one of my old nursery rhyme books.

And these two lazy girls spent the entire tea time snoozing on the couch. 

Now that the Christmas holidays are behind us, we are back at the books again.  It looks like Tib is finally going to string together some sleep-filled nights, so I’m hoping my energy and gusto will return for the second half of our school year.  I do so want to give the monkeys the best school experience!

Lindsey

Welcome, Little Tib

When it comes to introducing a whole new person on my blog, I find it a little overwhelming.  So much so that I’ve avoided doing it for the past 4 months.  But today I decided I would bite the bullet and share some of my favorite pictures of our newest addition with y’all.

This July we were blessed to welcome yet another beautiful baby girl into our family.  Wow! I never would have guessed that I’d ever be the mom of 3 wonderful little girls, not to mention one terrific boy!

Tabitha Grace arrived safe and sound, five days ahead of her due date, at a healthy 7 pounds 6 ounces.

Of course, the monkeys were thrilled to meet their new little sister.

No discussion about Tib would be complete without a nod to her thick, dark hair.  I just love it!  Unfortunately, the older she gets, the more hair she rubs off.

Now this.  This is the sweet spot!  See all those wrinkles under that little chin?  That’s Mama’s favorite kissing spot.  It’s so warm and soft and sweet.

Tib could not ask for two better sisters.  Lucy and Tacy love her so much.  Tib is just like a real, live baby doll to them, and they really are a big help taking care of her.  The only problem is that there is only one of Tib and two of them, so there is some arguing and fussing over who gets to hold her sometimes.

I always enjoy making a hanger for our hospital door.  This time the Tool Man help me by cutting out a wooden angel for Tib.  I added a string of battery powered lights for an extra special touch.

No one is prouder of Miss Tib than her daddy.  I think I have a picture of the Tool Man with all of our babies in this pose.  I really should print them out and have them framed all together.

I have hundreds more photos and stories of little Tib to share, but to avoid becoming totally overwhelmed I’ll stop here.  I just recently went through older posts here on the blog and was inspired to start utilizing my camera more and blogging more.  Hopefully I will be able to do so.  Life is quite crazy with four monkeys running around, and blogging takes a backseat to household chores and school.  But I am going to try, try, try to post more often.

Lindsey

Measuring Up

Every three months or so, the Tool Man leads the monkeys to our closet to record their heights.  It’s always a competition to see which monkey grew the most. 

Even though I lovingly refer to Lucy as the runt of the litter (she’s a tiny, skinny mini) she really has shot up over the last year.  When I see pictures of her from last year I am amazed at how much she has changed. 

You might think from this picture that the monkeys were about to go for a swim, but not so.  Tacy just prefers to wear bathing suits instead of real clothes.

Tacy was proud to show us that she had grown nearly 3 inches.  Wow!  She’s getting so big.  Definitely not a baby anymore :(

And then there’s this big, ol’ boy.  Ty is always comparing his height to the Tool Man.  He still has about 5-6 inches to grow before catching his dad, but that doesn’t stop him from checking nearly every day!  While he may have to grow a little more vertically before reaching his dad’s height, Ty has caught the Tool Man in shoe size.  Ty is now wearing a size 8 1/2 in men’s shoes, and he is also shopping for clothes in the men’s department.  Boy, that makes me feel old! 

Like Tacy, Ty had also shot up three inches since his last measurement.  His appetite certainly reflects his growth.  He eats from the time he wakes until the time he goes to bed - a proverbial bottomless pit.  Just recently Ty has discovered Little Debbie Nutty Bars and Oatmeal Cream Pies.  He can easily plow through a box of each (plus a couple gallons of milk) in a week.  That makes for a wicked grocery bill.

As it turns out, Tacy, Lucy, and Ty measured almost exactly three, four, and five feet respectively.  A little stair-step of monkeys!  Pretty soon baby Tib will be joining the measuring fun. “Who is Tib?” you ask.  Oh, she’s just another monkey I had during my blogging break.  Lol.  I will introduce y’all to her soon, I promise.

Lindsey

Life on the Farm

*Note:  I originally wrote this post waaaay back in April of this year.  However, when I tried to publish it online, I received an error message and have been unable to post anything in the last 4 months.  Thankfully, I finally fixed my technical issues today, so I am officially back in the blogging business!  So even though this post is terribly out of date, I decided to go ahead and share it with y’all anyway.*

Hey, y’all.  Remember me?  I know it’s been months since I lasted posted anything on this blog, and I feel just awful about that.  I could spend a lot of time apologizing and giving excuses and filling you in on the last 4 months, but I won’t.  Let’s just talk about the present, shall we?

Thanks to the arrival of my favorite season, spring, our family has been spending a lot of time out of doors lately.  We have all been enjoying the warmer temperatures and longer days.  I just don’t know how people who live “up north” deal with all the cold.  I need heat!

So what have we been busying ourselves doing?  Well, like all good country folk, we’ve been hard at work gardening and farming.  And by “we” I mean mostly the Tool Man and occasionally the monkeys and rarely me.

The last couple of years we have taken a break from gardening.  The Tool Man was just too busy to keep it up.  But with a new job and schedule this year, he was eager to dig in once again and exercise his green thumbs.  In an effort not to overwork ourselves, we decided to keep our garden small and simple.  We planted six short rows of our favorite vegetables – one row of potatoes, one row of tomatoes, one row of squash, one row of peppers (for pepper jelly and salsa!), one row of zucchini, and one row of snap beans.

When it’s time to hoe or weed, the monkeys magically disappear, but when it’s planting time they are super excited to work in the garden.  They love digging their fingers (and toes) into the soft dirt. 

Even little Tacy Mae was eager to get some dirt between her tiny toes.

You might can tell from our wardrobes that these pictures were taken a couple of months ago.  It’s just taken me that long to write this post.  Our garden actually looks nothing like these pictures any more.  It’s now lush and green with huge squash plants and head-high snap bean vines.  We’ve also harvested our potatoes and have planted a couple of watermelons and cantaloupes.

We’ve had several new animal additions to our farm this year.  I’ve been begging the Tool Man for a goat for years now, and he finally gave in.  Back in January we bought this little pygmy goat when he was just 2 weeks old.  My super creative monkeys decided to name him “Goatie.”  How original is that?!  We just love Goatie.  I guess you could say he is a free-range goat.  He can push through his gate, so he comes and goes as he pleases.  Honestly, it’s a bit like having another dog running around the yard.

Of course we have several new feathered faces strutting around our yard this spring.  In addition to a dozen more chicks, our coop now houses 1 turkey, 2 rouen ducks, and 3 geese.  Whew!  That’s a lot of birds, but we sure do love having them around. 

The only negative to having all the birds is that the ducks and geese were wreaking havoc on our garden.  They mowed down an entire row of peppers and zucchinis, so we were forced to build a fence around our garden to keep out our feathered friends.

Thanks for hanging in there during my absence.  Hopefully I will get back into a regular blogging schedule soon.  I do miss sharing memories with y’all.

Lindsey

History Snapshots

Since the monkeys and I started school nine weeks ago, I have done a poor job documenting our year in pictures.  And by “poor” I mean I think I’ve pulled out my camera only 3 days this year.  So when it comes to choosing pictures to share on the blog, it’s slim pickin’s.  However, I did manage to find a handful of shots that I took of some recent history lessons.

Our first 20 or so history lessons this year have not been fun reads.  You see, volume II of the Mystery of History begins with the ascension of Jesus and the 300 years of horrific Christian persecution that follows.   Throw a catastrophic volcanic eruption into the mix and you have a very somber few weeks of history lessons.

The monkeys have had some difficult questions about why God would allow such horrible persecution to happen to His children.  I certainly don’t have a definitive answer for them, but I do try to stress to them that God was, is, and always will be in control of world leaders and events, and that He can even utilize evil for His glory.  We also have discussed that our purpose on this earth is not that we live a life of ease and comfort but that we offer up ourselves to be used for His glory and trust our lives to Him.  And throughout our studies of the persecution of the early church we were encouraged to see that all the tortures and murders didn’t stifle the Gospel one bit.  Quite the contrary!  The Christian community grew from just a handful believers to nearly half of the population of the Roman empire!  Now if that doesn’t bring God glory, I don’t know what does.

Every now and then I try to include some hands-on activities to supplement our history lectures.  I really think it helps the monkeys retain the information we’ve covered when we have some sort of physical activity to tie our lessons to.  For instance, the monkeys may not remember when I ask them who invented the first written language, but when I ask them what we were learning about when they wrote with sticks in clay tablets, the monkeys quickly tell me all about the Sumerians and cuneiform.

So during our lesson on the Dead Sea Scrolls, I let the monkeys make salt crystals much like the ones that litter the landscape around the Dead Sea.

Basically all we had to do was mix up some Epsom salt and water, pour it over black paper, and set it in the sun to dry.  After a couple of days, the monkeys were thrilled to find jagged, glittering crystals covering the paper.

It just so happened (thank you, Jesus) that this Dead Sea history lesson coincided with our science lessons on density and buoyancy.  It was the perfect opportunity for us to experiment with various objects sinking and floating in fresh vs. salt water.

As I alluded to earlier, the monkeys have also studied the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the devastation of Pompeii.  We were intrigued to learn how modern-day archaeologists were able to cast molds of humans and animals whose lifeless forms had been trapped for centuries, under piles of ash of rock.

To help her understand a little more about the excavation process, I had Lucy experiment with making molds using Play-Doh. 

Any excuse to use Play-Doh is a winner with Lucy. Tacy observed big sister’s studies from nearby, while nibbling on a slice pizza.

That’s really the only school pictures I have taken this year.  I guess I’ve just really been more focused on sticking to our schedule than on snapping pictures, which is good for our studies, but bad for the blog, I know.

It’s not always school, school, school around here.  In between teaching and housework, I’ve been busy adding autumn touches to our home, both inside and out.  I’ve spent a lot of my free time lately scouring Pinterest, filling my mind with fall décor inspiration.  I hope to post a few pictures of my autumn decorating soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Lindsey

Back to the Books

Hello y’all.  After a hot, busy summer, it’s time to begin another school year at Arrow Academy.  (In case you are new to my blog, Arrow Academy is the name of our homeschool here on the creek.)

Like most kids, my monkeys weren’t thrilled about getting back to the books.  Honestly I wasn’t jumping up and down to start school either.  I’ve really been enjoying my summer vacation, completing lots of sewing projects over the last few weeks.  But due to the fact that we have a couple of out-of-town trips planned in the next month or so, we really needed to get a jump on our schoolwork.

This school year, I am totally changing the way we do things.  Some of you may remember that last spring I became very interested in Miss Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy.  I spent most of my summer reading everything I could regarding her teaching methods and techniques.  Then I was lucky enough to find an awesome website with detailed lesson and curriculum guides (at no cost!) based on the Charlotte Mason (CM) method.  This website, Ambleside Online (AO), has been such a blessing, with wonderful advice for people like me who are new to the CM method.  Through AO, I was directed to yet another incredible site with access to over 400 classic children’s titles.  Finding this collection of free, Charlotte Mason-worthy literature has probably saved me hundreds of dollars on books this year.

So, armed with new knowledge, a detailed curriculum guide, and an online library of free books, I set to work this summer planning a much different, yet exciting school year.

My first challenge was to create a daily and weekly schedule for us.  I think a well-planned schedule is a vital part of the CM classroom, since her method hinges on concise, meaningful lessons and the development of good habits.  It probably took me three weeks of wiggling and finagling time slots and books and lessons, but I finally came up with a schedule I think will work for us.

Here’s the simplified version of our weekly schedule.  I tried to color coordinate subjects that correlate.

	M	T	W	T	F
9:00	Bible	Bible	Bible	Bible	Bible
9:20	Copywork	Copywork	Copywork	Copywork	Copywork
9:30	Math	Math	Math	Math	Math
10:00	History	Science	History	Science	History
10:30	Break	Break	Break	Break	Break
10:50	Literature	Literature	Literature	Literature	Literature
11:10	Shakes-peare	Artist/ Composer Study	Geography	The Story of the Romans	Timeline
11:30	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
1:00	Poetry	Poetry	Poetry	Poetry	Poetry
1:05	Spelling/ Vocabulary	Spelling/ Vocabulary	Spelling/ Vocabulary	Spelling/ Vocabulary	Spelling/ Vocabulary
1:20	Grammar/ Phonics	Latin	Grammar/ Phonics	Latin	Dictation
1:40	Nature Study	Handi- crafts	Science Extras	Art	50Famous Stories Retold
Other	Free Reading

Since our school year will be divided in the three terms of 12 weeks, I also decided to plan the first twelve weeks of lessons for Ty and Lucy.  AO had the bulk of this work already done, but, like I mentioned earlier, I still needed to merge a first grader’s work with a sixth grader’s work.  There’s just no way I can teach two separate lessons for each subject in school, so it was essential for me to combine as many of Ty’s and Lucy’s lessons as possible.  Of course the monkeys work separately in subjects like spelling, grammar, and math, but for things like history, science, Bible, and nature study we do joint lessons.  Then the monkeys do age-appropriate work to supplement the lessons.

As far as curriculum goes, I didn’t have to change as much of it as I expected.  For science, history, and math we are using the same publishers as last year.  The biggest curriculum changes for us have been in literature, spelling, and grammar.  I’ll bore you with the details of these on another day, but for now I will say that the new books are working quite well for us.

Now that we are two weeks into our first term, you may be wondering how it’s going.

Well, I am happy, nay thrilled, to report that things are going splendidly. It’s probably been our best first two weeks ever!  The weekly schedule has been worth every painstaking minute I spent making it.  What has surprised me most about the schedule is how much the monkeys like it.

I printed a schedule for each of them to keep in the front of their binders, and they love being able to flip to it to see how much they’ve accomplished and what’s coming up next.  It really helps the monkeys to have a visual image of what is expected of them every day.  Ty even said that being able to turn to the schedule makes the day go by faster for him.  Heaven help me though if I try to do a lesson out of order, because Lucy gets me back in line lickety-split.  She’s the schedule police.

I think the biggest adjustment we’ve had to make this year is getting used to our new literature selections.  CM was BIG on choosing quality, classic, “living books” for her students to read.  One could write an entire essay on what CM meant by “living books,” but suffice it to say that instead of choosing meaningless “twaddle” for her students to read, Charlotte opted for timeless classics that taught valuable lessons and brought school subjects to life.  In other words, she would have chosen Robinson Crusoe over Harry Potter any day.  (No offense, HP fans.)  For us, this means that the books we are reading may sometimes be a little over the monkeys’ heads, but the idea is that they will glean whatever they are ready for whenever they are ready for it.  Feeding their minds with carefully selected literature will force them to stretch and grow in their vocabulary, knowledge, and comprehension.  It’s not always the fun and easy path, but I do believe the results will be worth it.  The process kind of reminds me of exercise.  If I don’t push them to strain their mental muscles, then they will never grow stronger.

So here’s a list of books we are reading the first semester.  The books were selected based largely on what we are studying in history this year – the early Christian Church and the Middle Ages.  Don’t freak out when you see the list.  Although it looks like an awful lot of books for 12 weeks, let me assure you that we are taking this very slowly – like one chapter from each book a week.  And at that pace it will take the entire school year or longer to complete some of these books.

For Lucy:

Aesop’s Fables
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
James Herriot’s Treasury for Children
A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
The Story of the Romans by Helene Guerber

For Ty:

Age of Fable by Thomas Bullfinch
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall
Stories of Robin Hood Told to the Children by H. E. Marshall
Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
Beowulf, a New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
Minn of the Mississippi by Holling C. Holling
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall
Robert Frost Poems
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
The Story of the Romans by Helene Guerber

I know you must be terribly tired of reading by now, so I will wrap it up here.  Sorry I didn’t have more pictures to share.  I know that pictures of the monkeys are the best part of this blog.  I guess I have been so caught up in teaching that the idea of taking pictures hasn’t really crossed my mind.  But that’s how it should be I guess.

Lindsey

Three Little Monkeys

It’s only four months late, but I finally got around to taking “Easter” portraits of the monkeys.  Gimme a break!  It was raining on Easter Sunday.  Not that last Sunday’s weather was any more pleasant at an oppressive 103 degrees.  But I figured my time was running out, so I drug the monkeys outside after church and snapped a few pics.

Picture day with the monkeys was, as always, a chore.  Honestly, these pictures are not the best the monkeys have ever taken.  None of the three of them was in a picture taking mood – heat or no heat.  And no one was quite as dressed up as on actual Easter Sunday.  Shirt…untucked.  Tie…AWOL.  Hair…finger combed. 

And Tacy’s choice of jewelry?  Colorful to say the least.  Did I mentioned she decorated herself with a red ink pen just before picture time??

Of the 48 pictures we took, I only got one decent picture of the three monkeys together.  But one is all you really need, right?

As a reward, we let the monkeys do a “funny face” picture at the end of the shoot.  I think Ty’s face perfectly expressed the overall mood of the day.   Disgust. 

Now I have my sights set on a fall photo shoot.  I already have newly sewn dresses waiting in the closet for Tacy and Lucy to wear, and I’m hopeful that everyone’s attitude will be a bit more positive when things cool down, say 30 degrees or so.

Lindsey