Combating the Gloomy Days…

 During the summer, I arranged all of our home school books and supplies in our den. I even added a table to serve as a workspace area for Doodlebug. I was proud of the little space and was looking forward to many cozy hours spent there working together on lessons. As the winter progressed and we have had so many gloomy and rainy days, we had to move to the living room in front of the big windows for more light to help wake us up some.  We would spend our mornings on the sofa in the living room reading and completing a few workbook pages. Finally, we have moved to the dining room table for more space and windows.  

This morning Doodles has been fighting with the rain lulling her to sleep so, I pulled out my craft lamp and sat it in a chair above her. I think this helped a bit. The lamp has the same type of bulb that the seasonal disorder lamps have.  Days like today are tough on an outdoorsy kid that loves sunshine. She even did a few pushups and jumping jacks to help wake her up. 

Working more independently is a goal that we are aiming for with her now. She loves me sitting beside her while she works. I have to tell you, I love spending every moment there beside her. I have decided, it is time to clearly go over the directions and walk away and only pop back in when she has a question. I have found too, that setting a timer for her to see how long an assignment is taking her, helps her stay on task. She loves to play beat the clock. I am fine with beat the clock, as long as her work is correct and neat. It gives her a chance to compete against the clock and she is a competitive kid. She also seems to work well under pressure some too. I noticed that in the challenge rounds on her math software, she would always seemed to pay attention closer when she was being timed. I wished I had that quality. I never did well on timed assignments.

I must say though, the sunshine that we have had the last few of days was wonderful. As much as I am not looking forward to the real start of spring with all the mowing and yard work, I am looking forward to more sunshiny days. It is good to see the spunk in Doodles on those days. We are looking forward to longer days of spring and summer so that we can play basketball after dinner without using the flood lights. Last night we played till we just really couldn't see to play anymore.

The Chinese lunar calendar said we would have a mild winter and an early spring and for us, I think it was right. I think spring is about to get underway.

Hope you all are having a blessed week!

Breakfast and a Play

This morning we started off our day with waffles for breakfast. Papaw bought Doodles and I a nifty waffle iron for Christmas. He searched everywhere for a specific one that we had mentioned wanting. On Christmas Eve, he popped into the store to pick up a few things for me and lo-and behold, there one sat. Needless to say, waffles are very popular in the mornings here now.

After breakfast, Doodles had a spelling test and did very well. She missed two words out of 24. One of the words missed, was a bonus word. She was very excited because this was her first week learning twice as many words. 

Doodlebug is very dramatic and loves performing. She loves to dance and put on plays for the family.  I decided this morning to read a play with her from this book. We read “The Fisherman and His Wife.”  It was quiet fun. We started with writing all the words from the vocabulary list on the chalkboard and going over them. Then we pulled out our markers and highlighted our parts. Since it was only she and I, we each had a few parts. It was fun to hear her change her voice to suit the characters she was reading for. Reading the play with her, was a wonderful opportunity for her to practice her use of punctuation and really express herself. Text book reading can get dull from time to time. Reading plays always seem to get her excited about reading. We may just have us a little actress here. It may be time to check into into children’s theater soon.

Basketball season will be wrapping up here in a couple of weeks. I guess it is a good thing, since Doodles’ ice skating class starts on Thursday. She has been skating a few times since Christmas. Santa brought her a pair of ice skates and she loves them. I love the fact that she doesn’t have to get adjusted to a different pair of skates each time we go. I can tell her skating is improving since having her own skates.  We did invest in a pair of knee pads for her. This past Friday, she fell and really bruised one of her knees. She has no fear when participating in a sport and she will do things that most of us would not. If she falls, she just jumps up and keeps going. I will feel much better this week that she will be wearing knee pads.

Doodlebug loves her Teaching Textbook Math 3. She ask to do extra lessons most days. She loves sipping on a bit of hot cocoa in her pj's while working on her math lessons. I am in search of the Teaching Textbook Math 4. I would love to buy a used copy of this software. If you know anyone that has it and would like to sell it, please have them to drop me an email. I am very big on buying used curriculum when I can.

We are having a good time with her school work and we've been sticking to the books the past couple of weeks. I have realized that we have to change things up a little here and there and try and do something new each day. We rotate subjects but that still isn’t as exciting as adding art and more hands on activities.

She is working on new paintings for her room. The ballerina paintings have to go. She wants to change things up a bit. A sign she is growing up much too fast for me. I will be storing her ballerina paintings away for her.

Tomorrow, after finishing up our lessons for the day, we will be looking at yeast under a microscope and making homemade pretzels using yeast. I will try and post a few photos later in the week.

Organizing and Planning

The past couple of weeks I have been focused on gathering, organizing and planning.  I have been trying to get my sewing/craft room organized, which I am still working on but it is coming along nicely. I am waiting for Papaw to finish up my one needed shelves to go behind my sewing machines to put jars of notions and spools of ribbon and trim on. I can’t wait for that to go up.  I can’t wait till I have it all perfectly organized.

I have also been working on trying to come up with a good solution for a homeschool work area for Doodlebug for this school year, instead of just being spread out where ever. Last year much of our class work was done kicking back on the loveseat in the upstairs den area. Our upstairs den area connects with our kitchen and it seems to be the hub of the house.  It seems to be where we gravitate to the most. The space is a good size space but not huge and trying to come up with a workable solution was a bit of a challenge. I had run across an old fashioned desk ages ago in a little antique shop in a town that my mom and I meet at sometimes for lunch. I went back a couple of weeks ago in hopes that the desk would still be there. It was but with a big sold sticker on it. Needless to say, I didn’t give up. We went through several of the antique shops and I found this old drop side table that works out wonderfully for a work area. Doodles can pop up one side of it easily when she needs to sit down and get to work and pop it back down when she is finished for the day. I also like the idea that she has a creative space to gravitate to when we are just in there in the evenings. She already seems to love to pop up the table and pull out her drawing pad or grab a book.  I also think the table will be great for the holidays. Being able to use it as an extra table in our dining room, when our table in there will be wonderful. 

Over the past several months, before we finished our last school term, I had been reading, researching and collecting the school books and materials we were planning on using this school year. I am so glad that I planned a bit ahead. It helped take some of the pressure off when getting geared up this school year. We have had several weeks of just summer fun and down time and the pre planning sure helped there.

We are all signed up for enrichment classes. I think Doodles is going to have a great time on fun Monday’s with our homeschool network group. I never knew how wonderful being a part of such an active group could be. Signups for the enrichment classes were pain free. The group of parents that organize and arrange the classes, field trips and activities for our network are awesome. I am in awe of their commitment to make sure our group is one of the most well organized groups in the area. I feel so blessed that our family is a part of this group.  We were even given a piano for Doodlebug from one of the families in the group. Doodles will be starting piano lessons on the 24th. She is so excited about learning to play. She loves her piano.

We officially start back with school lessons on the 22^nd. We have been doing so many things throughout the summer that is still focused on learning but most of the time, didn’t involve a book. We have read quiet a bit this summer but have enjoyed outings to historical locations in the area. We have also focused on the goodness that summer brings, gardening, taking care of our chickens, catching lightening bugs, fishing and staying up late, just because. 

She loved the pigs at a homestead farm we visited. Now she wants pigs too.

Doodles learned to make fried green tomatoes this summer.

So, we will have to work on getting back on a bit more of a schedule this next week and we are looking forward to all the wonderful things that fall brings.

Hope you all have had a wonderful and blessed summer!

An Update On Life and a Few Homeschool Moments.

(I started writing this posting almost 2 weeks ago.)

As I write this, it is quiet in the house and I love this time of the morning. It is the time that I check emails and the website and catch up with friends on Facebook. These days this is my only free time.

Since at the beginning of December, I started homeschooling Doodles. It is a long story as to what led up to us taking Doodles out of public school and I won’t go into the details; although, I will say that we are more than certain this will be a very positive experience for her. Public school was no longer reflecting our values and morals. Also too, the school system did not seem to have its primary focus on academics. As it seemed to us, the school’s main goals were to teach the children how to excel on the TCAP test without really learning the basics. Many hours of a child’s day at school were being spent in prepping for this test rather than really learning how to read and answer a question but how to interpret the answers from an image provided. This was only one of our concerns. Our other concerns were the moral values were being overlooked and it seemed to us that more passive behaviors were being taught, which to us seemed to take away a child’s sense of determination to excel. We may be wrong in our view of the way the public school system is educating the kids these days; however, there were just many things that we felt we would prefer to teach Doodles instead of passing that responsibility on to another that maybe didn’t share our views, morals and values.

With that being said, Doodles does miss her friends from school but is doing tremendously well with homeschool. We are enrolling her in a few enrichment classes and gymnastics. Hopefully she will find other homeschool kids to develop friendships with. We just joined the homeschool network for our community and are starting to reach out to get involved in field trips and opportunities with other homeschool families. It is a lot of work and the day is filled with assignments, learning games and lesson planning. I am having a wonderful time though. It just seems spending this time now with her learning and seeing all the “light bulb” moments, I am the one who is being blessed.

We are having fun exploring together and she is getting to learn through hands on experiences too. Here are a few photos of some of our home school moments.


I know the photos looks a lot like just playing with straws although, it was a learning opportunity for her. We found a book called Inventing Toys that inspired this project. She Google searched towers. She was so excited to learn how to do that and she has found many places where the some of the towers are located that she wants to visit on vacation. It was a great opening into getting her to explore and learn more about the states and it was a great spring board for us.




Also started a unit study on things that grow. We decided to grow wheat grass. I had never grown wheat grass but all I can say is, WOW!!! It grows quickly and not a lot of seed is needed. There are wonderful health benefits from using wheat grass in smoothies or juicing so, it was a great decision to grow it for this project. She noted it's growth daily and watered it. As soon as it put off the second sprout of grass, we harvested it for smoothies.

Doodlebug loved getting to cut or mow the grass as she called it and make the smoothies. I figured the best way to get her into really trying the smoothies and maybe liking them were to let her be the one who picked the fruits and veggies to add. It worked. She loves veggie/fruit smoothies now.



The wheat grass gave the fruit smoothie a bit of a melon flavor. It was quiet tasty.



Doodlebug thinks one of the best things about homeschool is getting to do her work in her pj's. She also likes being able to help make the choices of the things she would like to learn more about. We have a basic curriculum book that we work from each day. We also use unit study books for more involved studies and they are so much fun. This is where her chance to explore really comes in. I am learning but there are so many wonderful resources on line. I have also learned that most homeschool families are some of the most generous and kind people and share books, equipment, resources, knowledge and are just so helpful. It has been a wonderful adventure for both Doodles and I.

I will try and share more photos soon and some of our activities. I am in hopes that very soon Doodlebug will work a bit more independent and give me a bit of time to blog again. Until then, blessings to you all!