It was one of those days

Monday was just one of those days.  You know what I mean?  I'm sure you do.

I had a crying 9 year old.  He was literally weeping over his spelling list....

differing
differences
conferring
inferring
transferring
etc.

Then, he was crying over his typing.  He kept using his "F" finger to hit the "C" key.  I kept trying to correct him and show him to use the "D" finger, to no avail.  He just got more and more frustrated with me.

My 7 year old was a bit defiant over something that I can't even remember now :), that's good, right?

AND, my 5 year got upset when she didn't eat her lunch and then she didn't receive an afternoon snack.  She said she understood at the time, that when we make a choice to not eat our meal, that we don't get snacks.  She said she understood that she would have to wait until the next meal.  Well, when the actual event occurred at 3pm, and pumpkin bread was the afternoon snack option....oh my, she got so mad she ran to her room while yelling at me, threw her princess castle and broke it.  She was hysterical.  It was not pretty!

What to do, what to do.  Well, I prayed and I kept my cool, but, I'll tell you what, when Daddy got home, he knew I was exhausted.  They had worn me down.  I sat at the kitchen table and made a cup of tea and just "vented" about my day and my shock at how things had gone down hill so quickly and I really didn't see why.  I wondered why my kids felt that they could get away with showing me so little respect.  Hadn't our lesson on Sunday at church JUST been about showing proper respect to everyone (1 Peter 2:17.)  Don't I from the time they are 2 years old have them memorize Proverbs 12:18, that "reckless words pierce like a sword, but kind words bring healing."

They know it's not ok to yell and scream at people, they know it hurts them.  They know you can't take those words back.  Like Harry said to Sally, "They're out there."

They all of course sincerely apologized and said I was the "best mommy ever," but, it got me wondering, have I done them a disservice in that they seem to think it's ok to treat people that way and an apology will make it all better?  I talked to them about other adult leaders in their lives...would they talk to other teachers or coaches that way, we talked about who would be their teachers if they were attending at HOPAC...would they treat them that way?  They all agreed, no!  But, I'm your MOM...why treat me this way?  Your teacher at school will only have you for a year, you'll have me the rest of your life!

Ahhh!  I think they understood, I really hope and pray they did get it. My heart wants to believe it.  If actions speak louder than words, then they did.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were stellar days.  They have been fun to be around, we've enjoyed school, they've played well with each other and several times they have caught themselves getting angry and paused and done a deep breath or two.  Krypto has even talked himself down a time or two.  I hear him muttering, "I'm not going to get angry, I'm not going to get angry..."

I've told him, it's not that it's not alright to get angry.  Let me get that clear.  I'm not advocating penting it all up inside and being unhealthy.  I'm just saying son, that we can be angry, but sin not (Ephesians 4:26.)  We can be angry, we can talk about it, we can come up with a solution.  What we can't do is yell, say hurtful things like "I hate you," hit people, purposefully do things to agitate or upset someone, etc.

Are my kids perfect?  I hope you can see that is a no!  Am I perfect?  OH, NO!  What I did see today though was a wonderful conclusion to a disagreement between two brothers.  Krypto likes to set up imaginary games that are sure to allow him to win.  Gwangi can't stand to lose, really, who does?  It happened again this afternoon.  Krypto had come up with a game where whatever Gwangi did, Krypto had a way to counter him and pretty much make himself invincible.  Well, Gwangi got mad and hit him.  Ugh!  So, we have the discussion again, that they are both in error.  Krypto knowingly set up a game that his brother couldn't win, knowing that he can't stand that.  Gwangi got mad and hit, that's unacceptable.  I understand wanting to win, I understand getting mad when you feel like you've been thwarted.  They both admitted they were wrong and apologized and as they walked out of the house, they were coming up with a solution together.

As an aside, I told Gwangi....if it happens again, you take a deep breath and you look right at Krypto and tell him, "You know I don't like when you set up games that are impossible to win.  I don't want to play that way," and then walk away.  Krypto wants so badly to play that he'll get the point, he'll change the game.  He knows that relationships are worth far more than winning.  I pray he holds that truth close to his heart his whole life.

So, even though we had a rough start to our week, I think we learned some valuable lessons.  I'll be honest though, being a mom is hard work, it is tiring, and at times I just want to be the little kid that gets to mess up and throw a temper tantrum when I don't get my own way...I mean really, why do we always have to hold it together and set the example?  You know I'm kidding, right?!  I love those kids and I hope and pray that these childhood lessons will set a pattern for their adulthood that will serve them well as they serve our Lord.

More and More Books to Read

On the ride home from the library today, my kids apologized to me.

I wasn't sure why, so I asked them, "Why are you apologizing?"

They felt that they had let me down by not reading more books off of their lists this week.

I asked them what they had read.  Krypto had read a Tom Swift book, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Kings Quest (An Adventures in Odyssey book), The Phantom Toll Booth, The BFG, the 2nd book in the Jungle Doctor series, several Astrix comics, and parts of some other books.  Gwangi had read 3 Magic Treehouse books and several comics.

I asked them, "What was the point of the lists...do you know?"  They thought it was to read them exactly, so I enlightened them a bit...

The reason we made the lists was so that you would realize all of the other wonderful books that are out there, and not just get stuck in one genre.  We made the lists so that you would be confident that you could read outside of your comfort zone.  Are you doing that?  Yes?  Then the lists worked and I'm happy!  I think they felt relieved as well.

That's great because as I look in Krypto's book basket, at the foot of his bed, he has checked out Mary Poppins, Detectives in Togas, the 2nd book in the Indian in the Cupboard series, and the Black Stallion.  I don't think that any of those are on his list and they are ALL a part of series that he could get interested in.

Gwangi checked out a couple more Magic Treehouse books and another Asterix comic.  I might have to expand him a bit this week, though I am thrilled that he now, with confidence, will read more than just 1 chapter a day of a book.  I think the Imagination Station series might be next up...he'll really enjoy those.

Reading List Updates

It's been a week, so I figured I would give you an update on the boys' reading lists.  They've been super on top of it.  I think they'll be finished much quicker than we expected as well.

Krypto has the following list...he's read 4 of the books and is about half way through "Tom Sawyer."  During this time he's read plenty for school and other free reading books that are not on the list!

4th Grade Reading List

Henty - With Lee in Virginia

Henty - True to the Old Flag

Henty - Through Russian Snows

Yesterday’s Classics (YC) - Otto of the Silver Hand

YC – Poems Every Child Should Know

YC - Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now

YC - Great Inventors and Their Inventions

YC - The Secret of Everyday Things

YC - Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago

YC - Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago

9/12  The Cricket in Times Square – George Selden  

9/14  Indian in the Cupboard – Lynne Reid Banks 

9/16  Jungle Doctor – next in the series 

That Printer of Udell’s

The Lamplighter

Ballantyne – The Coral Island

9/11  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz   

The Call of the Wild

The Tower Treasure

Tom Swift series – your choice

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

In Process  -  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

This is Gwangi's list...as you can see, the boy took off once he got it in his head that he could succeed.  The books that he has finished are all Level 3 Readers (Grades 1-3), except for the Children's Illustrated Classics book, that was quite a bit longer.  He is in the process of reading "Mystery at the Biltmore" by Carole Marsh and has also read a Magic Treehouse book this week.  I'd say he's about a third of the way through the Biltmore book at this point.  Bravo boys!

2^nd Grade Reading List

Encyclopedia Brown

In Process - Carole Marsh, book of choice

Imagination Station Books

Danny Dunn

A to Z Mysteries, book of choice

Hank the Cowdog

Nate the Great

The Littles

9/14  Make Way for Ducklings

9/15  Keep the Lights Burning Abbie

9/15  The True Story of Balto

9/14  Owl at Home

9/14  Daniel’s Duck

9/15  Greg’s Microscope

9/16  Surprises

9/13  Children’s Illustrated Classics – your choice

School Updates

It's been a busy few weeks of school.  We've been learning about Thomas Jefferson, watching an EFT (Electronic Field Trip) about the Election of 1800 with Colonial Williamsburg characters, reading about the Supreme Court and John Marshall, covering the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, learning about James Madison and the War of 1812, William Wilberforce, William Blake, muscles and nerves, and on and on.  We LOVE school!  Enjoy our pictures, as much as we enjoyed taking them!

We received this calendar from one of our old homeschool buddies back in Colorado Springs.  When we turned the page for September, the kids instantly said the picture looked like Paradise Falls in "UP!"  So, Sissi decided to color and paste on a "Rainbow House", just like Ellie did in the movie.  We're going to be going into a 3 week mini unit about South America next week....we can now learn about America, only SOUTH! :)

Thank you Clendinen girls for leaving us the Barbie clock and cards.  Gwangi is such a good big brother, he's teaching Sissi how to tell time while I work on writing with Krypto.

Krypto has discovered a love for poetry.  He really enjoyed learning about William Blake and his poetry, and the poems we read that were written in his style or in his honor.  Here he is working on counting stanzas and recognizing rhyming patterns/schemes.

On the back wall you can see one of our silhouette projects and also some of the abstract art we were doing with "Drawing with Children" by Mona Brookes.

Gwangi is working his way through his math text.  He really enjoys math!

Krypto, laying on my bed (no sheets, so it must have been Wednesday morning...the day we change the sheets on the beds.)  He is working on an "organizer" for a paragraph about the War of 1812.

We're a few weeks into rugby.  Here, the boys are working on some drills while their teams aren't playing.

Krypto is on the Yellow Team.  You can see him running in the distance, orange shirt.

Another action shot of his team playing.

Each team has 6 members, this is the Yellow Team.

Some drawings from our new book "Drawing with Children."  We learned about the five elements and then started putting them together to make a recognizable picture.  These are some birds in trees.  Top is Sissi, middle is Krypto, bottom is Gwangi.

This week, the lesson was about graphic art, we studied an embroidery project with a lion on it. Then the kids had to plan a scene around the lion, figure out what else would be in the picture, the size of the lion, etc.  Then, they had to color it.  I was amazed at the total quiet in the room for about 30 minutes while this project was occurring.

This is Gwangi's finished project...a lion with his friends, the monkey, giraffe, and a bird.

Krypto's project - Leo the lion and the Starry Night.

Sissi's project - Leo, my friend, the lion.

The book we've been using the past two weeks.

Working on a World Map puzzle when he had finished up his school work.  I was working with Krypto on some writing, and while he was doing his final draft, I was able to steal away for a moment to take this picture.

My girl, after an impromptu dance recital.

Reading List for our 2nd Grader

You might have read the previous blog post about the reading list for our 4th grader, well, this is the list for our 2nd grader.  And, the reasons we came up with it were a bit different.  We primarily want to build Gwangi's confidence.  We want him to know that he can successfully read more than comic books and some Magic Treehouse books, on his own.  

This time last year, at the beginning of 1st grade, he seemed to have forgotten all of the "Cat and the Hat" reading that he could do at the end of Kindergarten.  Throw into the mix an international move and about 4 months of no school...and we had some major re-learning that had to be done.  Throughout the year we just kept plugging away at his "Explode the Code" phonics books and "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading" and by the end of the school year, he could read a chapter a day of a Magic Treehouse book to me.  I was thrilled!  Over the summer, he started reading to his sister, reading street signs, noticing things on my email and Facebook as he would walk by the computer, etc.  I knew he was able to read more; but, try as I might to get him to check out other books at the library, when given a choice, he wanted to read Garfield, Astrix, Duck Tales, and Tintin comics and if I made him, he would read a chapter book out loud to me.  I asked him one day, "Why won't you read chapter books on your own?"...he said "Because I can't read as well as Krypto can...I can just read comics."  No way, I didn't know he thought that way about himself....so, we've been buoying his confidence.  I've been having him read some short chapter books to Sissi at quiet time and telling him when I leave the room that he has to read 2 chapters of his Magic Treehouse book before he can play Legos during the rest of quiet time.  I'm hoping that he'll get to the point that he'll voluntarily pick up a book and read it, for enjoyment, not because I'm mandating it!  If he can find a series, or author, that he can enjoy, I pray it will lead to more reading, by choice.

2^nd Grade Reading List

Encyclopedia Brown, book of choice

Carole Marsh, book of choice

Imagination Station Books

Danny Dunn, book of choice

A to Z Mysteries, book of choice

Hank the Cowdog

Nate the Great, book of choice

The Littles, book of choice

Make Way for Ducklings

Keep the Lights Burning Abbie

The True Story of Balto

Owl at Home

Daniel’s Duck

Greg’s Microscope

Surprises

Children’s Illustrated Classics series, book of choice

How have you handled the transition from reading for an assignment, to reading for pleasure?  Have your children enjoyed the above book series, or others?  Share what you can with me.

***UPDATE - I wrote this blog post yesterday, and had it scheduled to post today.  Well, yesterday I gave the boys their lists....Gwangi picked "Robinson Crusoe" from the Children's Illustrated Classics series as his first book to read.  I left them during quiet time with the instructions that he had to read 2 chapters before he could play Legos.  At the end of the hour, he comes to my room, book still in hand and talking all about what was happening and what he liked about it and how exciting it was to build a fort.  He had read 5 chapters!  Oh, and then he put his Math U See lesson into use too, he told me that since there were 15 chapters in the book, he was going to read it in 3 days :)... (he had just done Beta, Lesson 9 yesterday, which is skip counting by 5's.)  Woohoo, a good day all around!

Reading List for our 4th Grader

"Reading Lists? Why would you do a reading list for such a voracious reader as Krypto?"  Well, read on....

Indy and I decided to come up with "Reading Lists" for our boys.  We take them to the library each week, and they read plenty of good fiction and non-fiction in our school day; but, for free reading, we were noticing some "fixations"....  Krypto, our 9 year old 4th grader, seemed to only be reading Roald Dahl (over and over again, they were memorized) and anything Sci-Fi/Fantasy he could get his hands on.  I am NOT saying Sci-Fi/Fantasy isn't good, there are lots of good choices in that genre; but, to be fixated on it, to the exclusion of so many other good choices that are available....well, we thought, we would try to broaden his horizons a bit.  The hope is, if he finds a good book by another author, or in another genre/time period, that he might continue to pursue that author or time period and find a few other gems that he can enjoy.

So, here is the list we compiled last night.  We gave it to him this morning and he is actually really excited about it.  It's got a little bit of everything on it - historical fiction, classics, anthologies, modern Children's Lit, Christian fiction, Newberry Award winners, etc.  He'll be reading some other great classics with our study of the 1800's this year for History and Literature with Tapestry of Grace.  I'll share those as I do my "School Updates" throughout the year.  For example, in the next few weeks he'll be reading "Once on this Island", "The Swiss Family Robinson", and "Imprisoned in the Golden City."

4th Grade Reading List

Henty - With Lee in Virginia

Henty - True to the Old Flag

Henty - Through Russian Snows

Yesterday’s Classics (YC) - Otto of the Silver Hand

YC – Poems Every Child Should Know

YC - Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now

YC - Great Inventors and Their Inventions

YC - The Secret of Everyday Things

YC - Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago

YC - Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago

The Cricket in Times Square – George Selden

Indian in the Cupboard – Lynne Reid Banks

Jungle Doctor – next in the series

That Printer of Udell’s

The Lamplighter

Ballantyne – The Coral Island

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Call of the Wild

The Tower Treasure

Tom Swift series – your choice

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Any other ideas that you may have, please share...I can add them to a future list.  I'm all ears.  Again, this is by no means an all-inclusive list.  The point is to get him to the different areas on his Kindle, introduce him to a few new authors, and show him that there are so many wonderful genres and books for him to read.  I hope this has given you some ideas as well.  Tomorrow, I'll post the list we made for our 2nd grader.

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie is one of our absolutely favorite "go to" dinner choices.  Everyone in our family loves it and we have it at least once a month.  Can't get much better than all of your food groups in one basic dish!

Here you go...and ENJOY!  Because we DO!

Ingredients -

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup chopped onions
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups of chicken broth (I save this in ice cube trays each time I put a chicken in my pressure cooker.  That way, I have homemade chicken broth, whenever I need it)
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped potatoes
1/2 cup peas
2 cups of chicken (already cooked)
1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 t of salt
1/2 cup of butter

First, start some water boiling, to cook your vegetables.  Then, you can make the sauce.  Saute the butter, onions, garlic, flour and salt/pepper until the onions are soft, then add in the chicken broth and stir until it thickens a bit.  You can then set it aside.  By this time, the water is boiling, put in the carrots, potatoes, peas and any other veggies you want to add to your pot pie.  I usually already have the chicken cooked and in the freezer; otherwise, you'll have to cook that as well.  Once the vegetables are soft, I drain them, put them in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish, add the chicken and the cheese, and pour the gravy over that.

Now, the crust.  Mix the 1 1/2 cups of flour and salt and then cut in the butter.  Add just a bit of cold water and make it into a dough.  You'll want to roll it out until it's the size of your baking dish and covers your meat and veggies.  I usually poke a few holes in the top for it to vent and then pop it in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.