Organizing the Stuff: Reclaiming Lost Space

As I was gifted with a ton of quilting stuff, I realized that my plastic shoe box was not going to be sufficient to store everything, not anymore. I set out to get organized.

I had a plan. A plan that would have been really simple in the US. In the US, I would have marched myself to Target or Wal-Mart, bought a few of those handy 3-drawer storage units (the plastic, desk-high kind), and easily sorted everything into those nice, clear drawers and called it done.

If I had a bit larger budget, or wanted a bit nicer look, I'd have gone to Target and checked out what options there were in the furniture section, and probably come up with something really cool, for not much money, that would keep me organized and classy looking. In either case, an hour at the store (at most), and an hour setting up at home (at most), and $100 or less (way less, most likely) and I'd have been done.

Of course, I'm not in the US, so it wasn't that simple, or that cheap.

I thought I'd found a good deal -- a few weeks ago at our big box store (Carrefour), I did see some inexpensive 3-drawer units, just like I remember from back home. Only R$30 (~$17 US)! Perfect! Except....

Yes, of course there's an "except...".  In this case, it's the fact that these wonderful drawer units weren't desk-high like the ones back home; these were half that height. Eighteen inches tall. Fifteen inches wide and fifteen inches deep. Desktop sized, not sit beside the desk size. Not so cheap after all, nor so functional.

I kind of flipped out. I'd gone with The Chemist to do our usual Saturday morning date time (aka, grocery shopping), with every intention of coming home with drawers and organizing my stuff! No poorly stocked, over-priced Brazilian grocery store was going to rob me of that, thankyouverymuch!! I kind of ranted at The Chemist, begging to ditch the groceries (who needs food when there's rearranging to be done?!) and go to the hardware/home improvement store instead, where surely, surely! we'd find something that would work.

As The Chemist does not share my obsessive need to make things neat and pretty (well, he does, but not in this case...), and as he's a bit more practical than I am (at least when it comes to realizing that children have to be fed....), he didn't take me to Leroy Merlin just then. He did make a very convincing promise that it would be done that day, though. Which calmed me just enough to finish the grocery shopping, stop nagging him, and enjoy our date. I mean, really, an hour in a crowded grocery store? Picking through fruit that has gnats (aka, fruit flies) swarming around so that I can find the eight tomatoes that are worth taking home? What could be better, right???  (yes, this is what constitutes a date in my life, thanks for asking....)

Finally, later that afternoon, children fed, groceries put away, fruit scrubbed, naps taken -- we were ready to head to the even more crowded hardware store. Away we went, determined to come home with something that worked. I refused to accept failure. Not an option.

Luckily, I had The Chemist with me, and even if he doesn't share my obsessive need to organize the quilting things, he does love me and did realize this was crucial to me. And, luckily, he's well practiced in thinking outside the box, which is what finally solved my problem. If it weren't for him, I'd still be standing in the aisles at Leroy Merlin, blinking in a trance-like state, awash in bad choices and trying to make one of them, any of them, work for what I wanted and needed. Seriously.

The Chemist rescued me, though. He found a shelf for The Artist's bedroom. See, The Artist sleeps on the top bunk, in with The Adventurer (who, for obvious reasons, has the bottom bunk). The fan, set on the floor and tilted towards the ceiling, does not reach The Artist. At all. And so he swelters in the summer heat in his room.

The Chemist solved that problem by finding a shelf -- a nice, rounded, corner shelf, tall enough that we could set the fan on the top shelf, aim it right at The Artist, and he never has to be hot again. This shelf replaced a stack of decorative cubes, taken from my room but originally paired with the computer desk, that I'd moved in for bookshelf space for The Artist and The Adventurer.

So now I had three free white cubes available to me.  Which is what started The Chemist in thinking in the right direction, towards a bookshelf for our room. To replace the three brown cubes which were originally paired with the white cubes which all went with the computer desk.

Leroy Merlin had tons of bookshelves. Tons. Not so many drawer units, which is what I thought I needed. But tons of bookshelves. So after finding the one for The Artist, and after I'd wandered back and forth for thirty minutes, measuring and mumbling, trying to force something to work in the space I had available (next to the computer desk), The Chemist suggested his plan to free up all the cubes. Could I use the cubes, the brown ones from our room, the white ones from the boys' room, and make something that would work?

**a blink, as I slowly find my way to the surface and out of the trance-like state in which I was then wandering the store**

"Could I.....? Would the cubes....? (blink, blink).....ummm, Yeah. Yeah! That could work! Oh, what a good idea!!"

And so that's what we did. I am so glad The Chemist figured out how to solve this problem. We won't discuss that it took 2 hours in two stores, and R$260 or so for the two new shelves (about $150 US), thus making it more complicated and more expensive than in the US. I might mention, later, the fact that "you build it" shelves here are much higher quality (shock!!) than in the US.....almost making them worth the price.

the cubes in my room; before

New, organized area. Quilt stuff in the bottom boxes,
school workbooks in the top left; Adventurer's math stuff top right box.
On top - my calendar and the wipe-off boards/markers.
Oh, and The Adventurer's cape. Of course. 

new bookshelf in my room. After. 

New Shelf in the Boys' room (ignore the messy beds)
Fan at head height, organized books, and more space for the bean bag. Perfect!

Doesn't it look great?? Don't you just love organizing spaces??? So much more useful now, all of those areas.

What organizing have you been up to lately?? 

What Has Sonlight Curriculum Done for Me?

Luke, over at his Sonlight Blog, recently asked "What has Sonlight done for you, the teacher, during your homeschool journey?"  

Wow. What a question.

We've been using Sonlight Curriculum for, oh, 9+ years now. We first picked up a Sonlight catalog way back in March of 2001, at the suggestion of my Aunt Nancy, when The Writer was just 3.5 years old and trying to correct me on phonics rules. We've used Sonlight ever since, never looking back, never wanting to try anything else.

The benefits to the boys have been huge, but that's not what this post is about.  No, Luke wanted to know what Sonlight's done for me. The mom. The teacher. Well, settle in, this is likely to get a little bit long, because the benefits for me, the teacher, are many.

The biggest benefit to me is the support. Sonlight provides an on-line Forum, a whole community of other moms (and some dads) who are, or recently have been, or maybe are getting ready to, homeschooling with Sonlight. I can go there with any question imaginable, and someone will know the answer.

Not just questions about homeschooling stuff, either. Questions or discussion on homemaking. Health. International living. Parenting. Current events. Entertainment. Subject specific questions. Grade-level/Core program specific questions. Prayer requests. And anything and everything in between. Seriously.

For me, living as an American in Brazil, where homeschool support is, understandably, zero, this has been priceless. I can jump on-line at any time of day (assuming my internet is working) and write a question, like my math scheduling question from my last post. Within a few hours, sometimes a few minutes!, I can check back and someone will have answered. Or lots of someones.

In the past week, I've used the forums to ask about scheduling Miquon math and how to schedule a research paper for The Writer. I've answered someone else's question about what I'd do differently if I were starting over.  I wrote a thank you note for advice on what TV shows are good enough to buy on DVD, and safe enough for the whole family to watch. I've read up on how other ex-pats are coping with living outside their home countries, and learned what's going on in the world and how people are reacting to what's going on.

This is the kind of conversation I just don't get here, living where I do. The kind of conversation, the kind of community, that I only get through my blog (thanks to you guys), through email with a few friends back home (hi Robin and JM), and through the Sonlight Forums.

But, aside from this community, what else has Sonlight done for me? I mean, one day I'll be back in the US and have real life homeschool friends again, and community won't be as vital a need for me then. Just like it wasn't as vital a need for me before we came here. Surely there are other benefits, right??

Of course there are! The next big thing I've received from Sonlight is the Instructor's Guide (the IG). Every book we'll use in a year, perfectly scheduled. Two schedules to choose from, even, so that I have flexibility within that structure. Notes, vocabulary words, mapping assignments, timeline assignments. Comprehension questions and discussion questions for many, if not all, of the books. Things so beautifully laid out that I don't have to rearrange unless I just want to (and sometimes I do).

This is worth it's weight in gold (and being a hefty, and heavy, book, that's saying a lot!). So far, with every Core we've used thus, I have been able to pick up the Core, open the IG, and teach. I merely have to check off what we've done, and not turn the page until we've finished everything laid out for that week. Or I can pick and choose if I like. Either way, the bulk of the work is done for me. Love love LOVE that.

Now -- what about choosing books? How do I know they're good books?? Well, I know because I trust Sonlight. I know if they've chosen to include it, it's worth reading. Which means I can, if I want, just hand the boys their books and tell them what to read, when. I don't have to pre-read and make sure everything is safe for them. I love that. Now, I still do pre-read, because, well, they're good books! But if I ever don't, that will be okay. What a relief that is!

The biggest thing, though.....confidence. I've never second-guessed my curriculum choices. I've never worried, "Am I doing enough?? Are they learning enough??" I've never wondered if I can do this job, because  Sonlight has fully equipped me, with the IG, to do it and do it well.

I've never wondered if I'm good enough, because I've heard, through the constant encouragement on the Forums, that I am (good enough).

I've seen, if only on-line, kids grow up and graduate after using Sonlight materials for school. I've read of kids, Sonlight Grads, going on to really top notch colleges and universities.  I've talked to friends who've used Sonlight, whose kids are older and graduated, and seen that it really does work, and all kinds of people can do this and do it well.

So I don't have to doubt, I don't have to worry or wonder.  I know that Sonlight curriculum can, and does, and will work, because I've seen it in action. I know that I can teach it to my children, because so many other moms and dads just like me are doing it, have done it, and done it well.

So, what has Sonlight done for me? Sonlight has given me community. Sonlight has equipped me to teach my children. Sonlight has encouraged me that I can teach my children. In other words, Sonlight has made me the confident, successfuly homeschooling mom that I am today, and given me joy in what could be a chore if I didn't have the right tools and support.

That's what Sonlight has done for me, the mom, the teacher. I hope you like that answer, Luke. It's just the plain, honest truth. 

Miquon Math: How Do You Schedule This Stuff???

I mentioned in my January Goals post that I need to organize and schedule things for the new school year*.

I'm at a stand-still, and hoping some of you can help me out. My homeschooling readers, put your thinking caps on -- I have a dilemma.

I'm pretty much done organizing the stuff for the big boys. Sonlight materials are easy that way -- open the Instructor's Guide (IG), decide if I want to use the 4-day schedule or the 5-day schedule, put the Language Arts schedule in the right place, pull out the student activity sheets, and, in my wacky world, copy over the IG instructions into the Lesson Plan book I bought. This way I can see the daily assignments for all three boys, right on one two-page spread.

The stuff for The Adventurer has me frozen in fear, though.

I'm using all new things for him. Things I never used for the older boys, because they learn in very traditional ways, and The Adventurer, surprisingly (not), does not.

Non-traditional learning, I have to admit, scares the beejeebies out of me. So much so that, even though I'm going tomorrow to get some storage drawers, I'm terrified to open the packages that constitute The Adventurer's school materials. Because I'm afraid I won't know what to do with them.

Let's start with Math, for instance. With the older boys, I used Singapore Math, a nice, normal workbook based program that's heavy on mental math but still workbook based. It's easy to pick up a workbook, count how many pages there are, divide that by how many days of school there are, and poof, you instantly have a schedule. Every morning, then, you just get up, sit with the child and the workbook, teach the lesson, let him do the problems, done. Easy. Normal.

Naturally, when The Adventurer started Kindergarten I pulled out all the old favorites, all the materials that worked so well for the older boys. And found, almost instantly, that these materials were not going to work for him. He looked at workbook pages which had come almost intuitively to the older boys and decided to do totally different things with them. Or he balked, more than the older two, at having to follow directions.

 When asked to draw a line, matching pairs of objects, he'd take the first object on a journey all around the page before his line ended at the correct matching object. When asked to count sets of objects, he'd want to add up all the objects, not just those in each set. So, one set of two; next, a set of three (that's five things); third, a set of four (now we have nine things), and so on. Or he'd also want to count the little picture at the top of the page. Or, or, or. He always had other plans for the worksheet, never content to follow the given directions. 

Now, sure, my big boys did this too. To an extent. Instead of circling an object, they'd X it out. Instead of drawing straight lines, they'd do zig-zags and curves. But never anything like this, coming up with whole, entire new sets of directions.

And they never asked me the sorts of questions that The Adventurer asks me.

 "What is 2 and 2 and 2?" (six).
 "What is 2 and 2 and 1 and 1?" (six)
"What is 2 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1?"  (six)
 "What is 3 and 2 and 1?"  (six)
"What is 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1?" (how many 1s did you say?? oh, six...)
And so on.

He does this with all sorts of numbers, everything that can be broken down into factors. See, he's figuring out that "six" can mean lots and lots of things, but that no matter what it looks like, it's still "six." (or seven, or nine, or ten, or whatever number he's chosen for this game). 

So, with great trepidation, I'm beginning whole new math courses for him. Materials I've never used before, materials with huge learning curves. And I'm panicking.

So -- finally, the question. Miquon users -- how do you schedule it???? Manipulatives users, how do you schedule it??? 

We're going to use Miquon as our primary curriculum. We're also going to use Sonlight's brand new MathTacular Manipulatives Activity Kit to go along with it. And extra pattern blocks and pattern block cards. (these are tangrams, to those of you more familiar with that term). And probably I'll throw in games like Uno and dominos, and connect four, and any other math themed thing I can think of.

But how on earth do I schedule it all???

 Is it okay (please say yes, please say yes) to write on the schedule "Math Activity" and let him choose something from, say, a designated Math Drawer??? He'll be six at the start of our year, and I'm calling this his First Grade year, if that makes a difference to your answer.

I'm thinking I'll put the Miquon books on his workbook shelf/drawer, put the SL Manipulatives Activity Guide in the workbook drawer, and put all the manipulatives in the Math Drawer. Then, each day, I'll have him choose what manipulative he wants to work with that day. Then I will grab the appropriate workbook or guide book and we'll do some free play, a little guided experimentation, and then more free play.

Those of you who've used Miquon &/or any math program that uses a lot of manipulatives, does that sound reasonable??? I plan to use the mathy board games on Fridays, and maybe as a second session of "School Games" when I need to occupy him.

Someone with more experience, please weigh in here. I feel like a complete and utter "newbie" when it comes to schooling this youngest boy of mine. I'm reading up on learning styles so I can feel educated, but man is it all overwhelming.  And I've only told you about the math! We'll tackle the Language Arts (say, teaching him to read????) in a future post sometime. Assuming you guys are helpful this go-round.

How NOT to Cook PAVLOVA, and our Thanksgiving Dinner Report

Well, over all, Thanksgiving Dinner was a huge success. I mean, I nailed it people. The Mendon Foodie would be so proud. (are you reading, Mendon??) This entire meal was as "from scratch" as it gets, and it rocked. Seriously rocked.

confession: I did not milk my own cow, slaughter my own bird, or cream my own milk. But other than that, totally from scratch. So awesome. 

The duck was scrumptious. I used this recipe for Roast Stuffed Duck (with orange) from Big Oven dot com.  The recipe has some format issues (words are cut off on the right hand side) but it was easy enough to fill in the gaps, and the duck turned out amazing. I, of course, forgot to take a picture, and there's not one over there, but trust me, it was gorgeous.

I made the stuffing and the sauce, both in the recipe linked, and stuffed the bird to cook. Never done that before, and I was a bit nervous. Since I had no cooking twine or anything to "truss the bird" I just tucked the neck flap under the bird, and then the bottom end I pulled all together and stuck the poultry thermometer into the folds of skin/meat to hold it closed. It worked beautifully.

I have to admit -- I was, and am, insanely proud of myself for pulling off Stuffed Duck. It just sounds so.....I don't know, so out of my league. It wasn't. The side dishes were all delicious, too. Just look at this beautifully overloaded plate? Doesn't that make you wish you were here for dinner last night???

starting at top with beans, going clockwise:
Black beans and rice; steamed asparagus; Taos Pumpkin; Mashed Potatoes;
Stuffing w/orange sauce; Duck w/Orange Sauce; Biscuit; in the center, the sweet potatoes & carrots

The real adventure, however, was the dessert. We tried to make pavlova. It's supposed to look like this:

photo courtesy google images

Ours looked like this:

Pavlova Brownie

Turns out, whipping egg whites into stiff peaks, with a fork, is next to impossible. So is whipping heavy cream.  I seriously need a hand beater or electric mixer or something. As rarely as I'd use it, probably a hand beater is sufficient. (no, that's not a hint for anyone). All I have to say is boy is my arm tired today.

First of all, we had to redo our egg whites *three times* due to human error. The first time, 30 minutes in, I finally reached the point where I add in the salt, vinegar and vanilla. Only, I added the iodine we've been using to treat the dog's surgical incision. Dumped that batch, after only briefly considering whether or not iodine would actually hurt us if we ate it......

The second time around I added the vanilla. And we kept beating, and beating, and beating. And nothing was happening, so I decided to try what The Chemist had suggested -- the blender. Not a good idea. One quick little pulse and my egg whites were now a nice, smooth liquid. Oops.

A break, and an internet search, and I found that I could try adding an extra egg white, which sometimes fixes the problem. So, we tried that, and kept beating, and thirty minutes later we were closer than we'd been yet, but still quite far from done. By this time, however, we had to put it in the oven or it wouldn't be done in time to take it out and put the duck in. So, we poured it in, The Artist declared it to be a Pavlova Brownie, and we comforted ourselves with the thought that surely it would at least taste good.

We had to adjust the cooking time, as well, because it's meant to cook at 250*F but my oven doesn't go that low; it only goes to 320*F. I called Kim, woke her up, and asked her what to do about that. She suggested 40 minutes rather than an hour, and watch it. She also said I could whip up a quick cake and put the fruit on that if the pavlova didn't turn out. She has a lot to learn about me (though I do have a chocolate cake mix in my pantry...). Well, I didn't watch it closely enough and 30 or 35 minutes in it was the color of a graham cracker. Oops.

what a meringue shell looks like when you bake it too hot and don't whip it enough to be an actual meringue

You can't tell, but that meringue flavored base? It's hard as a rock. My fork could not pierce it when I tried. The liquidy whipped cream and time in the fridge really softened it up, thank goodness. 

what it looks like topped with not whipped all the way whipping cream, when the mom with the sore arm quits trying and decides to just pour it over the pavlova brownie base and hope for the best

In the end it was yummy, and The Chemist, who hadn't seen pictures of what a pavlova is supposed to be, said he would not have known it was a mess up if we hadn't told him. The meringue layer had the texture of a softened peanut brittle, maybe more like the texture of peppermint bark. The whipped cream was very much a liquid, but yummy, and the fruit topping was the saving grace.

Still, there's only a tiny bit leftover, The Chemist had two servings of it, and The Artist already had some this morning. So, a hit, even though it was so far from what it was meant to be.

Also a memory we'll never forget, that's for sure. Taking turns beating the egg whites, for two hours....whipping egg while reading aloud to the boys....The Writer and his "I just don't want to have to do something different for history this week!!"....I don't recommend our method, but on the other hand I might just have to under-beat some egg whites again so we can have Pavlova Brownie at every Thanksgiving. The memories associated with this will always be family favorites, I'm sure.

I hope your cooking was less adventurous, and that your day was wonderful yesterday, and I hope that wherever today finds you, you are able to look back on yesterday and smile. 

A Poem -- "Come Sew and Go" -- by The Artist, age 9

The Artist, age 9 years and 10 months, wrote a poem and asked me to share it with you. Since he's been exceptionally delightful lately, I couldn't resist.  And since the Grandparents read the blog, I'm kind of obligated to post these types of things every now and then anyway.

Please enjoy his poem.

Come Sew & Go
by The Artist, age 9

Every day I go to sew.
When I'm done I go.
My free time
Is my play time.

When I'm nice there's rice.
When I'm mean it's Halloween.
When I'm sad today
It's a bad day.

Happy Teacher's Day

I have to say, every day there's some new thing that makes me love Brazil. Today, it's Teacher's Day.

A good friend of mine clued me in to this fact; the school her children attend is celebrating in a big way. Gifts for the teachers, cards, parties, all that sort of thing. Plus the teachers are showing off the students' work for the parents, I guess proving they (the teachers) are worthy of this day of thanks and praise.

Sounds cool to me.

Being the good Brazilian that I am (at heart), I'm having the boys celebrate with their Professora. I'm sure she'll be thrilled. A few "I love my teacher" cards, maybe some chocolate, supervising recess from the comfort of the hammock in the backyard.....sounds like a brilliant plan to me.

In keeping with the "show off the kids' work" theme, here are some pictures of the boys.

Math: The Writer works in the book; The Artist works on the computer

Both boys use Teaching Textbooks for math.

Reading: 

The Writer was finishing up The Hobbit, 

The Artist had just finished his book and was doing a puzzle as a reward for being done for the day

 

Just Being Cute:

The Adventurer never ignores the camera, so it's hard to catch him actually DOING school. 

Here he is, though, in his 1st Day of School outfit from a few months ago. 

As far as a little progress report -- 

The Writer (7th grade) has finished The Hobbit, just finished a biography of Mother Teresa (Teresa of Calcutta) and is now studying Arabs in the Golden Age. He's reading Harry Potter for his fun reading, and will start Shakespeare Stories for school on Monday. Math, Language Arts, Art and Science all continue on (the boys are learning about Human Anatomy in science).

The Artist (4th grade) is reading a biography of Paul Revere for History right now, as he learns about the American Revolution, and is on book 3 of Harry Potter which does count as school reading for him, though he's also reading The Great Brain and just finished the Percy Jackson series.  His other subjects continue as well.

The Adventurer (Kindergarten) is progressing nicely. He's learning to add, and will often ask me things such as "What is 2 and 2 and 1? What is 3 and 2? What is 1 and 1 and 1 and 2? What is 4 and 1?" and so on until he's asked all the variations of reaching a certain number, be it 5, as in this case, or 6 or 7 or 9 or whatever. He is coming up with these questions on his own, and as such is gaining a great understanding of math. Reading or even phonics are taking a back seat for now, but that's okay. He loves to be read to, from anything and everything, so I'm not terribly worried.

All in all, I'd say the Professora has earned a little day of thanks and praise for all her hard work. So sweet of Brazil to recognize such dedication, don't you think?

First Day of SPRING

No, that's not a typo.

Yes, I know for most of you reading this, it was the first day of Autumn/Fall yesterday; for us, in the Southern Hemisphere, it was First Day of Spring.

The changing of the seasons is a barely-noticed event where we live; we're inside the Tropic Zone (we're less than 100km north of, or above, the Tropic of Capricorn), so seasons are very much the same from one to the next. Around here, it's mostly Dry Season (which we're leaving behind) and Rainy Season (which we're heading into). 

Winter to spring is not marked by melting snow, shedding of jackets, the appearance of buds or blossoms, the greening up of the landscape or even more sunshine. No, for us, winter to spring is noted by vacuuming the dust off the fans and bringing them out of hiding, running the dryer at night so as not to heat up the house during the day, the presence of the umbrella salesmen on the side of the road (and of our umbrella always in easy reach), and the return of the few migratory birds who visit our feeders.

Still, it is now officially spring time. And, stealing an idea from  joining my good friend GfG over at Morning Star Academy, I decided to celebrate spring with some fun crafts for the boys. A great time was had by all.

Don't they look like they're having a blast?

We made rain pictures -- coffee filter umbrellas with craft stick handles; aluminum foil puddles (or darkness, if you're The Adventurer), and blue fingerprints for raindrops. So fun.

Didn't they turn out great?

We also made toilet paper tube parrots, to symbolize the return of migratory birds. Since we do feed the birds in our backyard, and some of them are migratory, I thought this was an appropriate one.  We don't get these kinds of parrots, not in our part of Brazil, but they sure were fun for the boys to color.

Lastly, The Writer had the great idea to do rainbow handprints. He suggested, and I consented, that they each dip their hand in the plate full of paint, and then leave a handprint on the brown paper we were using to protect the table. What a great idea!

So, they did, and I now have perfect little captures of just how small (or big) their hands were on the first day of spring, 2010. We'll pretend the rainbow colors were on purpose to remind us of the many rainbows we'll see during the sometimes dreary (but not usually) rainy season.

Cute, huh?

Best of all, we had a really fun day. Look at these smiles -- totally worth the mess, right?

Did you do anything to celebrate the changing of the seasons? What do the changes look like where you live?