Learning Notes (Nov. 24-30)

Another week of school.  Here's a great playlist to work to...

First off, it's now the lead up to Advent in our house.  Although the first Sunday of Advent is Dec. 1st, I brought in the totes of Christmas decor from the garage anyway because we have a very busy first week of December and I thought it would be prudent to get the tree up now, instead of on St. Nicholas' Day (Dec. 6th).  So we put up the tree and spent some time decorating it.

Videos and such we watched -

Veritasium and Three Perplexing Physics Problems.
Will Newton's Cradle go forever in a vacuum?

We made play dough - pink, orange, blue and green, and we scented it with almond, lemon, vanilla and coconut extracts.  Here's a recipe we like.  The children used it to sculpt and also to play elaborate games of The Great British Baking Challenge.  The play dough was on heavy rotation many times over the week.

Conversations about...how the cat's footprints go in almost a straight line, how the dog walks with a left/right stride, instead of opposing front/back paws, why people smoke cigarettes (asked after we saw a smoker as we left the store),  can you make an even number by cutting an odd number in half...

We made thaumatropes!  There are lots and lots of videos of these on Youtube if you want some ideas of what to draw on your own thaumatropes.  Here's one that also talks about phenakistoscopes, zoetropes and praxinoscopes as well, and here's one that adds flipbooks and a few other things to the list.  And while we crafted we started listening to this:

Of course, we read aloud...

We did a lot of stuff with snowflakes this week!

This entire website is a great snowflake resource - run by a professor from CalTech.
Symmetry in snowflakes - and some fancy designs for cutting them.
More templates!
Vihart's videos on Khan Academy on snowflakes, starflakes, sphereflakes and swirlflakes!
The Anatomy of a snowflake.
Capturing snowflakes in photography.

This book

Link

Making 3D snowflakes out of the pages of an old book.  We used regular paper but you know, the book pages would also have been cute.

We also made these adorable little yarn birds for no reason at all except that we wanted to.

Activities of different sorts...

Places we went...

We visited a different church we had never attended a service at before.
The 7yo had a piano lesson.
The 7yo and I went to a ladies' stitching group for a few hours and she got to sit and sew with the 'big ladies'.  One of the women, a very talented seamstress, had the 7yo use our sewing machine and run up fabric bags to sell at a craft fair.
We all trekked around town with our shovels in a blizzard to clear steps and driveways, and we stopped for 1/2 price hot chocolates on the way home.
We went out as a family for breakfast.


We had some significant car trouble this week, and with the rush of the season the mechanic couldn't see us for over a week.  Unfortunately, this meant the 9yo's piano lesson had to be cancelled, and all three children missed their swimming lesson.

The Impractical Practical Handicraft and Frankly, Why Bother?

I mentioned in my first Learning Notes post of 2019 that the 7yo was learning to knit with two needles, and the 5yo was knitting on a circular loom.  And while this seemed pretty, I dunno, normal and standard for me, it occurred to me afterwards that this was probably not, in fact, normal and standard.

Here are the sorts of handicrafts I teach my children, as part of our school day but also just as part of life:  sewing by hand and with the machine, finger knitting, spool knitting, and eventually two-needle standard knitting, cross stitch, practical pattern design, wreath making, flower arranging, decoupage, bird house making, and so forth.  Additionally we work with watercolours, pastels, coloured pencils, and other such art mediums, and we work in the kitchen together canning, drying, fermenting, baking and so forth.

In this day and age, all of that sounds like I'm preparing middle class Victorian children for a life of social rounds and playing the pianoforte.

So that's the 'What'.  And this is the 'Why'.

To start with, I teach these skills, to some degree, to my boy and girl children.  This isn't a gender thing.  I don't teach the girls to sew and cook and the boy to fix the lawnmower.  Although if I knew how to fix the blessed lawnmower rest assured I would teach them all that as well.  No, I am an equal-opportunity task master for the most part, although I won't go into detail with a lesson that the child has no interest in.  The 9yo wouldn't enjoy a flower arranging class, for example, but I will still give him a basic lesson so 'clump everything in a fistful into a vase without enough water' isn't the default.  Here's a few tips to make the flowers last longer and look nicer.  Here's why I'm using this vase and not this vase over here.  Additionally, age does play a role to some degree.  The 9yo is strong enough to knead bread, and the 5yo is not, so he would get to knead bread.  The 7yo is focused on artistic, detailed tasks.  The 5yo has the energy and enthusiasm.  The 9yo is more advanced intellectually.  The 7yo can be patient.  And so forth.

These handicrafts are not useless, I think.  I've derived a great deal of enjoyment over practicing them myself, and I think my home looks nicer because of it, but beyond that they've also proven really useful over the years.  I could make a quilted table runner for a bridal shower when I didn't have enough money for a nice gift because I knew how to quilt.  I could take advantage of the bounty of free apples in the neighbourhood because I knew how to can them.  I could save a child's pants for a little longer with a quick patch or button.  I sewed my own wedding dress and then knitted scarves for each of the people who helped with my wedding planning.  These have been useful skills for me, not outdated nonsense.

I also think that above and beyond their usefulness they serve as an excellent teacher of patience to children, of the joy that comes from working at something and getting better at it, in a much faster and more tangible way than you get with more academic subjects.  You don't really get better in the same way with math, say, or grammar.  You learn more, and that's nice, but if you can knit, then in a relatively short amount of time you can make something impressive that will leave people saying "really?  You MADE that!?"  And that's a good kind of positive reinforcement for a child.

It's also strengthing fine motor skills at an age when handwriting is forming.  All of those little hand and arm muscles, getting stronger and more flexible right when they need to be.  And it develops hand eye co-ordination.  And spacial reasoning.  And problem-solving skills in general, really.  Handicrafts develop a child's sense of proportion and beauty and art.  They help tie in history lessons in a real and useful way and make the lesson 'alive'.  They capture the imagination and at the same time they reign it in a bit.  You want to make a hat?  This is the real world.  In the real world this is how you make a hat.  This is how long it takes.  This is how much it costs.  You can daydream about making a hat all you like, but if you really, truly want to make it, you have to learn how it's made and what that takes.  I tell you, reality is not a subject taught nearly enough in this day and age.

For us, then, I suppose it is both a practical and a creative outlet.  These things they are learning to do are fun for them, for the most part.  Sometimes, as in lessons on how to clean, they are less than enthusiastic.  But even then - learning how to do something that has to be done that you don't want to do is a very good skill to learn.

Finally, I love to teach the children and it's my joy to be able to do what I love.  But I don't fold up into a neat square and get stored away when I don't have my 'teacher' hat on.  I have a life of my own, and interests, and skills, and I want to share those things with my kids.  I enjoy these things, and when you really love something, it makes you the best teacher of it.

Invitational Presence and The Reluctant Scholar

The Graphics Fairy

I really wanted to talk about one of the techniques I use when homeschooling, one of the most valuable tools in my toolbox, actually.

So, I've noticed that there are some common issues with educating children regardless of how you choose to do so, and one of the main ones is probably how to convince a reluctant child to do the thing you wish them to do.

Now, it's not particularly surprising to anyone who knows me that I am stubborn and recalcitrant at the best of times myself, but also that I am very much a 'path of least resistance' sort of gal.  Frankly, if there is going to be a fight involved, I'm not likely to travel far down that path unless I feel very, very strongly about the issue.  My husband and I joke that our parenting philosophy can be summed up as 'is this the hill you want to die on?'  And sometimes, friends, Romans, countrymen...it is indeed.  But far more frequently the answer is a resounding 'no'.

All that being said, if one of my children is reluctant to do some sort of schooling I am pretty likely to say 'meh', and let it go.  And frankly, 'meh' is its own successful schooling strategy in a lot of cases!  But there are some times when the hill really must be taken, and into the breach we must go.  I struggled to think of a good example of this sort of situation in order to illustrate my technique, but here's what I've come up with.

Suppose you have a child who is a reluctant reader.  Now, I mean exactly what I say here, not a delayed reader with an educational difficulty or a reader who is below 'grade-level' but is enthusiastically reading all sorts of things, or even a reader who is slow and plodding but consistent.  I mean a child who can read well, and does not wish to do so.  This might take the form of a child who chooses books that offer no challenge at all simply to 'get through' the work, or a child who opts to do almost any activity besides reading, or a child who shrugs and looks bored at any request for them to choose a book to read, even when presented with many interesting materials on topics they are currently very enthusiastic about.  

The methods I've seen in regards to handling reluctant readers fall into two categories - convincing and force.  Under convincing you have such options as 'Come on, just one page and you can go play', 'If you don't get this done you'll fall behind', 'just pick a book please, so we can get on with our day', etc.  Under force you have 'Well, you have to read for 30 minutes, so pick something or I will pick it for you', 'no tv until you're done your reading' and 'You have to, so no arguing!'.

Now, there may very well be success to be had with any or all of these options, or many more beside, but as I said, I don't want to argue.  I'm not a fan of having to wheedle my children, frankly.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  And yet - my children should read.  They should pick up books and read them for knowledge and enjoyment and of their own free will.  They should, at their own pace, progress in reading levels and in skill until they grasp adult language and are able to converse in society at a good level.  I wish these things for and of each of them, and I am not alone in this.

So what to do?  Well I came up with an idea recently about this, and I suppose it is based somewhat on the idea of 'being a good example'.  We all tell each other these sorts of things all the time, frankly, to 'be a good example', or praise someone for 'being a good example' and so forth.  When you're homeschooling your children (or even if you're not) you are one of those 'good' (one hopes) examples.  What do your children see YOU doing?

The more I thought about this good example philosphy though, the more I realized it didn't fully encompass what I was trying to explain, so I've come up with the term 'invitational presence'.  To teach a child something you wish them to know is a process that has many paths, but to illustrate a life has just two - you can live in the world and hope your simply existing sheds some light on the truth, or you can invite others into life with you.

Here's how this technique might work in our example of the reluctant reader.  You can read in front of your child, visibly preferring your book over other options for entertainment, perhaps even carrying a book with you, and you can ensure that book is one that is eminently shareable.  Maybe funny stories you could chortle at and then say 'oh, listen to this!' and read briefly aloud from.  Or facts that might be compelling.  Or even (shock!  horror!) a children's book!  You can invite your child, with excitement, to help you choose YOUR next book. You can make the trip to the library or evening reading together a treat, however that might look for you (I'm a fan of silence and gummi worms myself but to each their own).  When you read in front of your reluctant child, they see you, doing that thing they do not want to do, albeit a good thing and one they are at least exposed to.  When you invite them in, ask them (in actions, mostly) to join you in this excitement, to help you, to journey with you instead of on a parallel track on their own, you encourage relationship.  

So now what you have is not just a personal habit of reading, but a family culture of reading.  You are the Smith family, and you read. You read together.  You help each other choose books and you share snippets that other might enjoy and you have infectious happiness at the thought of making each other laugh or think big thoughts.  You encourage the finding of interesting things in print, and you comment, aloud, at the smells in bookstores and how great the endpapers look, because you are the Smiths.  And the Smiths are readers.

This technique, like all proper education, takes time, and it takes patience.  And what if you are not a reader yourself, you might ask?  What if reading isn't YOUR thing?  Ah, but homeschooling is at its core, an acknowledgement that learning happens everywhere and is not confined to a place called school.  It happens throughout our days and throughout all of our days, until the end.  A teacher who is done learning, is dead.  Consider your child's reluctance to read an invitation to you, and your response to that reluctance an invitation in return.  This is not a negative!  This is good! So many times we cannot see the problematic educational trees for the forest, and yet here you have recognized one of those trees, and you have a game plan to focus on.  This is not failure, my friend, but the very definition of success.

Absolutely Hilarious Things from Amazon To (Please Not) Buy Your Children For Christmas

I am currently spending all my free time trying to buy some blasted Christmas presents on the interweb.  So I have seen a L.O.T. of stupid kids' toys.  And if I have to suffer through the intellectual downfall of humanity, I'm taking you with me.

Caveats!  You know the drill.

1)  It's all from Amazon and I don't want to continue to write the word 'Amazon' so I'm telling you now.

2) These are funny because...well, you either get it or you don't.  Don't tell me how you bought this thing and actually it is a wonderful gift.  Please.

It's always nice to start out the list with a little mild autopsy.  I like how there's no attempt to make any of this look even sort of accurate, too.  "Just dangle those kidneys there, Barney.  Who cares!"

Ah yes, the undead.  Classic gift.  With a parasol and a fishtail ballgown at that.  Wait, and top hat!

I actually have no idea what the heck this is.  Sort of Jem and the Holograms meets a unicorn?

I just really liked how someone painted happy little faces on this toy.  Can you imagine the mental state of the person whose job this is?

It's....EVIL ELSA.

From the description: 

"Become the owner of your very own screaming goat with this desktop companion. Press the tree stump button to hear the high-pitched bleats that caused the screaming goat sensation to go viral. Kit also includes a 32-page illustrated book of fun facts and trivia about these famed farm animals."

I swear.  I just.  I mean.

Although surely it's a one time gross game right OH MY GAHHHHHHHH

DOES a unicorn poop out genies and squirrels?  This is what you end up asking yourself at 2am.

That teapot be like "Just put me out of my misery"

Not terrifying at all!  Perfect for all ages!

What...HAHAHAHA...What is happening with this TOWEL?

Learning Notes (Nov. 18-24)

School!

My husband was on vacation this week, so let's see how school went.

To start with, let's look at what we watched, listened to, and read.

Can you swim in a pool of jello?  We followed this up, of course, with making four kinds of jello to do a taste test.  And we read this definition:

"To make Jell-O, you need to heat the gelatin in water. Heating breaks the bonds holding the collagen together. Next, the heated water-gelatin solution must be cooled, allowing the collagen strands to rebond in a network, but now with water trapped inside. The collagen network gives Jell-O its semisolid properties, while the trapped water keeps it jiggly." - From LiveScience

We had a blind taste test after supper and it was hilarious.

Making a (mostly) accurate reproduction 15th century princess dress Part 1 and Part 2.

Tetraflexagons!   Weird shapes that are not spheres but still roll!  Restoring a rusty axe!

Mudlarking!

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives - Peasants.

We made God's Eyes!  And looked up the definition of 'tension' in the dictionary.  I had the children make their God's eyes in blue/white/grey sort of colours so that we could use them as window snowflakes for winter decoration, which hasn't happened yet because I haven't done any indoor decorating.

Conversations... on what courts have looked like over the years, deciduous and coniferous trees (and the inevitable discussion on the difference between coniferous/carnivorous), what is a skeleton key, is the cat as old as Grandma in human/cat years?

Reading lots of books...

We read about the rise of Islam, Sindbad, and Chinese Middle-Ages.

Games on our walks (primarily with the 7yo and 5yo as the 9yo is a bit past most of these)

Playing the alphabet circle game (each person says a letter of the alphabet, in a circle, and if you trip up or make a mistake you're 'out')

Playing the rhyming word game (each person gets a turn to say a word and the others have to come up with a rhyme)

Playing 'Would You Rather?' - "Would you rather be see-through or have apple seeds fall out of your mouth every time you talk?"  "Would you rather turn into a cow for 5 minutes at six p.m. every day, or have to do a math problem every morning first thing when you woke up?"

The 9yo and I pacticed adding and multiplying fractions by quadrupling a waffle recipe - made even more exciting by the fact that I couldn't find the 1/3 cup measure so we needed to make an equivalent with the 1/4 measure.

Tangrams, Legos, clay...

We went places, too!  Swimming lessons, piano lessons, doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, and the usual things we do every week.  We visited the library in the next town over and also the one where we live and took out a stack of books.  We went out at night to an annual Holy Walk where the Christmas Story is acted out in living tableaux while you are guided through a park by lantern light.

Learning Notes (Nov. 11-17)

Things we did this week!

We watched lots of videos - here ya go:

Strandbeests!  And even more Strandbeests!

La Machine!  Vi Hart's Anti-Pi Rant!  And her proof that some infinities are bigger than other infinities. - (We argued a bit about this afterwards.  I stand firm!  The philosophical must prevail!)

Making puzzle boxes from paint sticks!  Felix Baumgartner's insane skydive!  (Mom!  He's, like, In. Space.)  

Rain fire!  Other fire!

More puzzlers - the Radbox!  How to make a puzzle box!  (The 9yo is on a kick, if you can't tell)

Episode 1 of the BBC documentary Colour: The Spectrum of Science!

We listened to two Odyssey audio stories in the car to and from our way to swimming lessons and piano lessons.  We played Prodigy math games online!

Lots of discussions - on how dogs do not have retractable claws like cats, on how vaccines are necessary, whether coniferous needles count as leaves, why the spouse of a monarch is not always referred to by a reigning title and what the order of succession is for the British crown, and how the Southern hemisphere and Northern hemisphere of the Earth do not see the same constellations.

There was a lot of reading aloud - 

We packed boxes for Operation Christmas Child, did outdoor Christmas decorating, attended 3 Remembrance Day services on the 11th, went to the church and decorated the sanctuary and fellowship hall for Christmas, shovelled snow for a neighbour and ourselves, got our flu shots, grocery shopped, and bought some Christmas gifts.  We went to swimming lessons and piano lessons and started practicing new Christmas songs!

The 9yo read a lot of this: 

He also learned how to bake bread this week!

The 7yo spent her week practicing her sewing and acquired her own sewing kit by the end.  She made dresses for her sister's toy elephant.  She set up a secret club and wrote invitations to us to join.  She and her sister played board games all week interspersed with elaborate games of store and mailman.

The 5yo spent her week cutting up magazines for their pictures, playing with her sister, and learning the ins and outs of scrabble junior:

We did do some nature walking this week but not really enough.  The 9yo and 7yo and I went on a night walk and did some star-gazing and found the big dipper and casseopeia again.

I continued with our bedtime read aloud:

And there you have it!  Another week past in our busiest season of the year!  Are you enjoying our very unscheduled, unplanned time?

The Half-Way Call, Or Why I'm Having An Issue With Francis Chan.

I'm going to complain about Francis Chan for a minute.  Or, rather, I don't know enough about the man to complain about HIM, personally, but I want to complain about his recent choice re: becoming a missionary.

If you haven't heard this news from the evangelical world, here it is in a nutshell.  Francis Chan is a well-known pastor and author in the United States.  He has a very large online presence and streams his sermons, which you can listen to, if that's your jam.  I haven't read his books (I think I may have started CrazyLove at one point, possibly) and I have only listened to portions of his sermons, so I can't speak to his ministry with any authority.  Several of my friends and colleagues whose opinions I trust on these matters seem to be responding to him in a positive way, which I find encouraging.  Several others have been conspicuously silent, which I find telling.

Recently Chan announced that he was going to leave his mega-church lifestyle and become...a missionary in Asia.  He cited a recent trip to Myanmar as a catalyst for this change, which is not surprising to me since if we had to actually SEE and EXPERIENCE what our less fortunate brethren go through daily I imagine many more of us would be moved to help in tangible ways.

Now there is always backlash with these announcements, about why the person doesn't minister to the poor or unfortunate right where they are.  I think this shows a distinct lack of understanding about the nature of God's call on our hearts, but that's another post, and I won't be delving into it here.  Whether he does or doesn't leave his status position and go to to needy here, or abroad, is mostly irrelevant to me.

It's also easy to feel a bit bitter and jaded about the publicity surrounding this decision - the sheer number of interviews and articles and sermons ABOUT his decision (which, sigh.  Have we run out of things to talk about in the Bible and are moving on now?) not to mention his 'I'm leaving' sermon, which I think I would have taken much more seriously if he had made about...God.  But he didn't, and that's his choice.  That's also not my main concern with this whole shenanigan.

I think my first feelings of unease were when I couldn't find out, in my searching, where he was going.  'Asia' is a little vague, and also very colonialist, like all Asian countries are pretty much the same.  It read like a teenager saying they were going to 'visit an orphanage in Africa'.  Africa isn't a country, dear.

But surely, I thought, if he's mentioning Myanmar, he's maybe going to Myanmar?  Or possibly Burma or even Thailand or Vietnam?  Somewhere decidedly under-serviced in multiple ways, where there is a large percentage of the population living on very little.  Not that missionaries are not needed across the globe, of course, but the article read like 'I saw poverty and need and I wanted to address it'.  Hardly seems likely to me that you need to start a ministry to Japanese businessmen or Beijing nouveau riche with that call, ya know?

But no, it turns out that Chan is going to Hong Kong, which is known for many problems (ever see those cage apartments?  Man.) and certainly needs help, although it isn't Myanmar.  In fact, Chan has lived in Hong Kong before, and he's visited it, with his family, as an adult.  This is not, really, a stepping out into the unknown, is it?  It bothers me on some level that someone could go to Myanmar and then say 'God is calling me to ministry in Hong Kong'.  I can't explain why.  I think it makes me think of equivalencies - 'I have spent a week feeding prostitutes in Indianapolis, and now I really feel like God is asking me to go to the Bahamas'.  'I have served in an orphanage in the Ukraine, and the Lord has laid the city of London on my heart.'  I can't quite put my finger on this.

But, you know, here:

"Two months ago, Chan was in Myanmar traveling "from hut to hut with a translator, sharing the Gospel with people who had never heard about Jesus.” The more he did it, the more he realized he wanted to do this for "the remainder of my life."

“When I considered the need and opportunity, I knew I wanted to be based in Asia,” he said. “I also have an opportunity there to work with the ultra poor (living off less than 50 cents a day)—to bring relief, share the gospel, and plant churches among them. When I compare that opportunity to things I currently do in the States, the Kingdom profit seems much greater overseas at this point of my life.”

Chan said he plans to still minister in the United States but will be "based in Asia for this next season of life."

“Our current plan is to move to Hong Kong in February,” he revealed. “A lot can change between now and then, but we are heading this direction unless the Lord redirects us. I have no idea how long I will stay in Hong Kong. I had no idea I was going to live in San Francisco for nine years. We will just try to discern the Spirit’s leading daily.”"

I have just so, so many issues with this.  I don't know if I can articulate this properly.  To start with, I think we need to address the sentence "Chan said he plans to still minister in the United States but will be "based in Asia..."  So, if you are living in Hong Kong, with lots of money to fly back and forth to the States when the need/desire strikes, this isn't really 'leaving to be a missionary'.  "Our current plan is to move to Hong Kong in February" - ah!  Well, seeing as it is November I'm assuming you aren't going with any kind of sending organization that needs to fulfill standards.  I think it's likely he's just funding this whole thing out of his own substantial funds.  It's an issue with finances because franky, if you have the money to do what you please without anyone having the ability to check you, pride, selfishness, even heresy, can happen oh so quickly.  Which is not to say that this will happen with Chan, but just that there is a reason why we submit to authorities and regulations and remember our 'dusty' selves.  There's a reason for this.  Cut out the leanings towards pride.

His daughters and their families are moving with him - and both of his sons in law have worked with him as pastors in the same church movement, so he has a ready made (and, I assume here, free) workers for this new ministry endeavour.

But ultimately, what is the biggest sticking point for me is that Francis Chan has not shown, in his actions, that he 'has a heart' for the poor of Hong Kong.  He has not said "I am leaving everything.  I am removing myself from this place because God told me to go."  God has certainly not said 'keep a vacation home in Miami' or 'just go in February and I might move you again in March'.  A call that involves "We will just try to discern the Spirit's leading daily" is worrying.  God doesn't call like that, he is not a God of chaos and confusion.

Here is his announcement, if you'd like to watch it.  Tell me what you think.

Learning Notes for the Week of Nov. 3-11

In case you haven't noticed, the weekly detailed school notes are taking a break because, as a ministry family, this is one of our busiest times of year and I don't need another thing on my to do list.

However, let's talk about stuff we're doing right now!

The 9yo is reading all the books, but right now is working through this one, with lots of commentary.

He really loves the Horrible Histories books these days.  He's also playing Prodigy Math and watching a lot of Youtube videos about puzzle boxes.  Have you seen these?  Here's a link to one.  The 9yo is really on a puzzle box kick, which is good because his last obsession was origami and I could not stealth throw away much more of that without a break.  He and I have been talking a lot about the planets and even stayed up late to take out the telescope on the porch and look at the moon and stars, then we pulled out a book on the constellations and realized the 'W' shape, which we knew had to be something, was Cassiopeia!  Yay!

The 7yo has been sewing and crafting up a storm, as usual, and also reading lots of comic books, playing chess with her brother and snakes and ladders with her sister, and Prodigy Math online.  She's been helping with our dog-sitting guest and has gotten a lot more comfortable with dogs as a result of this.  She's got a notebook and has been writing stories in it and asking me constantly how to spell new words.

The 5yo has also gotten very interested in the dog and how the dog behaves and how to care for it and so forth.  She's learning a lot about animal care.  Her other big interest these days is helping to cook in the kitchen, which, if you've been around here much you will know is not MY favourite stage, but we're managing.  She is constantly looking through books on her own, and retelling herself stories she knows or 'reading' to me.  She can't actually read, but she enjoys the pretending.  She likes to count things for me, and we've been pulling out the button jar to play with a lot.

Both of the older children are still taking piano lessons, and all three are still in swimming, with the 9yo starting to spend more and more time in the big pool doing laps.  I think the two oldest, at least, will be graduating to the next class in three weeks time when our lessons end for the winter break.  All three of the children have been using these 'paint by sticker' activity books, building early winter snowmen and snow forts outside, and the two oldest participated in laying wreaths for Remembrance Day at three cenotaph services.

We've been working through morning time with some success, adding more books to our Old Testament list, continuing to read through Matthew together and talk about what we read, continuing to read Story of the World Vol. 2, and our Christian biographies, and to work on memorizing various things like Psalm 23, The national anthem, and so forth.

We've done a science lesson, on the root systems of plants, and have read several books aloud.  The 9yo and I have started a new chapter book for bedtime reading.

Amazon

So far we've loved the books in this series, so this prequel is bound to be a success.

When I actually type it all out I can see they are doing quite a bit!

How To Have Christmas When There is Very Little Money

Image from The Graphics Fairy

I have been there, in years past, when money was very, very tight and there was no way to make things stretch to the big, wonderful Christmas I had planned.  My goals were reasonable - a few gifts per child, a nice festive meal, decorations, sending out Christmas cards...but they were well beyond my budget.  Of course I realize that Christmas is ultimately a Christian celebration, but you still want to make it a 'feast', for the eyes and the palate, in addition to experiencing and celebrating the birth of Christ.

Here is a great article with some ideas on just that.  And I'm going to add a few of my own (and repeat a few already mentioned) ideas to this!

First off, decorate, decorate, decorate.  Buy a bag of popcorn kernels and pop them on the stove and string them on strings, or hang up pine cones, put a few pine boughs in water and hang whatever decorations you have on them.  Make paper chains and paper snowflakes and pompoms!  Whatever you can manage, do it.  If the house looks festive, it will feel like Christmas.

Play Christmas music!  Sing carols at the sink doing the dishes!  Get as much Christmas music into the season as possible to build the mood.

Make Christmas outings and events an important part of the month.  Take an evening to walk or drive around and look at the lights and decorations.  Watch old Christmas movies on the sofa.  Have a 'decorating' day.  Buy an Advent calendar at the dollar store if you can, and open up a cheap chocolate every day of Advent.  If your local church has something special like a Christmas Eve candlelight service, consider going.

Consider your gifts carefully.  The most important people to get gifts are the children in your immediate family - your cousin's kids you see once a year don't HAVE to have a gift.  If you're in a position where you must buy for people outside your immediate family, either let everyone know that you are working in a budget this year or else just send something small and let the chips fall where they may.  Don't be embarrassed to say you have a budget, everyone should have a budget!  Simply say something like "With the children getting older (or whatever reason you would like to use) I think that this year we should keep the budget at X per child.  Would you like to send me some gift ideas for Sally and Jimmy or do you want me to surprise them!?"

Cut the Christmas cards to the bare minimum.  You don't need to send a card to everyone at church, just wish them a Merry Christmas.  You don't have to send Christmas cards to relatives you see all the time.  You don't have to send cards to people who have never sent you cards!  You can just choose to not send the cards!  In fact, if you take an evening to make a 15 minute 'Merry Christmas' phone call to your nearest and dearest, they would likely appreciate that much more anyway.

When you do buy, remember to wrap absolutely everything you possibly can.  Buy a roll of lifesavers and wrap it.  Buy a pair of socks - wrap it.  Wrap everything in the stockings and everything under the tree.  Wrap things in fun ways - newspaper funnies and sheets of old music and pillowcases with lots of ribbon.  Wrap something in string and elicit all the laughs.  Wrap something in box after box so the children have to unwrap layer after layer to get to the chocolate bar inside!  Wrap gifts and then tie strings to them and let the kids 'find' their presents.  Or use a treasure hunt with clues.  The gifts may be small in price and in number, but the wrapping will be utterly unique and memorable.

Think outside the box to find presents.  Wrap stuff you already own for younger children.  Seriously, take a bunch of trains from the train-obsessed 18 month old's stash, clean them up, and wrap them again.  Wrap hand-me-downs from other families that you had put aside, wrap toiletries you would need to buy anyway for a child or even beloved foods and beverages.  If your child loves a certain kind of cereal, for example, buy them a box 'all their own'.  Look through second hand stores for gently loved books, toys and clothing, of course, but also advertise on buy and sell sites.  Often people are getting rid of things before Christmas.  Try saying something like "Does anyone have Lego they are thinking of purging before the holidays?  Looking to spend no more than $5 but open to any and all pieces!"  Sometimes people have things they just don't even realize someone else would want, so they never bother advertising.

The Christmas meal can be made more special with a well-dressed table.  Fancy Christmas napkins from the Dollar store, or a pretty Goodwill tablecloth.  Candles go a long way to making a table beautiful, and dimmed lights.  Invite guests!  Every meal looks more festive if someone else is there.  Simmer a cinnamon stick and a few cloves in a pot on the stove to make the house smell 'Christmassy' while you cook.  No matter what you serve as a meal, offer a special drink and a dessert.  It can be anything - some shortbread cookies with a little piece of maraschino cherry on top, or red and green jello in a glass with a spiral of whipped cream, but dessert makes a regular meal festive and a sparkly drink (ginger ale mixed with cranberry juice is always a good bet) is unusual for supper, so it adds to the feeling of 'special'.

I love what the blog above mentions about Christmas Day - keep the nice holiday feeling going through the day so that it doesn't feel like when the gifts are done, everything is done.  It's a good time to go sledding, or arrange a visit with a neighbour, or go to church in your very best clothes, or serve at the soup kitchen, or walk around handing out dry socks and new toothbrushes to the homeless, or go see a matinee.  Whatever you do, make sure there is something 'next' on Christmas Day after the presents are done.

So there you go!  I know that for many people, Christmas is an entirely secular time of year, so I hope I've included lots of ideas for the non-church people who celebrate.

It's November which means IT'S ALMOST ADVENT!!!

Lalalalalala CHRISTMAS!!!

Don't hate me.

I know, I know, it's NOVEMBER and everything but I just love the START of Advent so much I drag it all out as much as I possibly can!

Okay, so have you seen the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendars!?  They are fantastic and so much FUN.  Every morning the children and I would log onto the Jacquie Lawson site and see what new Advent calendar thingy has popped up to explore.  For $5 you buy unlimited access to the Advent calendar and I'm not ashamed to say we still occasionally look at last year's and re-play the games over again.  It's Well Worth It, is what I'm saying.

Also I'm happily putting things into and out of my Amazon cart which is my very most favourite part of Christmas shopping.  Mostly because I cannot STAND going into stores around Christmas because there are so many people and some of them might bump into me or run their carts into my legs or have screaming children and...I'm just not a people person.  It's almost sad to eventually finish the Amazon order and sadly press 'order', because then it's all done for another year.

I've found myself a fun little project to work on when the children have gone to bed:

Image from Amazon

I've been patiently making my way through these paper cut ornaments for two Advents now, with no sign of stopping yet!

We're doing our shoeboxes again this year!  And we're hosting a packing party at the church, too!

Look at these wreaths!  It's almost time to make our annual front door wreath!

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I have a grapevine wreath that I made from vines I pulled off a downed tree in our backyard and every year I decorate it again with a new bunch of things.  Except right now, when I have actually hung up a bunch of multi-coloured corn on the door.  But soon it will be time for no more corn!!

Usually I buy a new Christmas tree ornament each year to add to the collection but THIS year I need a tree topper because our old one has finally bit the dust.  I THINK I want a star, and not an angel.  Mostly because I really prefer stars and also the angels tend to get a little over the top but also because angels tilt on treetops, I don't know if you've noticed this.  But the problem is what star to pick, because scrolling through stars has me realizing I don't actually love a lot of the stars EITHER.  There's this one, which I do like:

Image from Amazon

I don't know if I like it enough though.  It is very pointy.  But it's a far sight better than some of the tree toppers out there.  Or I could get one of these things:

Image from Amazon

I know it sort of skips the Christian imagery of the angel/star, but honestly that's fine with me because seriously, the top of my tree does not need to have a star on it in order for me to remember the, ahem, 'reason for the season', as they say.  But the problem is I don't really love any of those EITHER, but I still need something on the top of the tree!  What a nice, cozy sort of non-problem to mull over for a few weeks.

And speaking of mulling, one of my favourite things to do around the holidays is make everything smell nice.  And to that end I really want to buy this:

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I mean, I WON'T buy it, because it is $20 plus shipping, but I want to.  Vanilla, bourbon and white tea scent sounds lovely.

Am I alone?  Is anyone else getting all revved up??

Reading Notes - October

Here's what I read this month!

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The Language of Bees - This is the 9th book in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King and the weakest in the series up to this point.  I have been a big fan of King's re-imagining of the classic dectective but frankly, this one was disappointing on many levels.  Firstly, Russell and Holmes already solved the 'crazed weirdo religious nut' type mystery in A Monstrous Regiment of Women, which was excellently done, tbh.  Secondly, for a good portion of the book the married detectives didn't even work together, and their interactions and joint skills are one of the highlights of the stories.  The reader was left to follow Russell's story instead of Holmes', and she definitely got the short end of the stick.  Also, Holmes has given every impression of treating her mind as equal to his in all 8 previous books, and here he shuffles her off to the side in favour of his relationship with an estranged, and actually pretty unpleasant, son from a long ago romance.  I didn't like it one bit.  And honestly on top of all of this the novel talks quite a bit about this 'mysterious hive' situation and then that ends up being a mystery completely unrelated to the main problems in the book.  I have come to expect a higher level from King but there are several more titles before the series finished so hopefully this is just a bump in the road.

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Secrets From The Vinyl Cafe is one of author Stuart McLean's funny collection of stories.  I adore the Vinyl Cafe and I think, with this, have probably either read or heard almost all of them.  I even went to see McLean once!  I can't remember what year, but he was performing at Dominion Chalmers United Church in Ottawa (not because his stories were at all religious, mind you, just that that church is nice and lends itself well to good acoustics and a big-but-manageable audience).  I remember I got two tickets and took my grandmother, who was living in Ottawa at the time.  Sometime after that I met Stuart McLean in a bookstore, actually.  He was a terribly tall man with a fantastic speaking voice.  Now, of course, both Stuart and my grandmother have passed away, but these stories are still so amazing and wonderful and everyone should read them.

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Full Dark House.  This is a new mystery series for me!  I find that when I'm in the library, scrolling through shelves, I am drawn to certain books because of how they look - and this is one of those sorts of picks.  Look at that cover; isn't it compelling?  Fowler writes in a darkly gothic comedic sort of style.  He doesn't shy away from gore or tough language, but when he uses them it's for a purpose and I didn't mind it.  The characters were compelling and fascinating - well planned and well sketched out. There was an undercurrent of deep melancholy to the story as well, which I don't usually find myself drawn to because I prefer my casual reading to be casual, but actually I liked it here and it made the story more human.  I wouldn't say it was funny, necessarily, but that being said I did actually laugh out loud several times.  If I could criticize anything it would be that the story does switch back and forth between two timelines about 50 or 60 years apart, and the characters get a bit jumbled up because of this.  There's a woman in the earlier timeline, and her granddaughter, with the same last name, in the same police dept., in the later timeline.  The forensic guy exists in both timelines, but young in one and over 80 in another.  I found it a little confusing but it only took an extra few seconds at the beginning of a chapter to figure out when they were again, and the occasional re-read of a paragraph.  I did read a review that said the audio book uses the same actors for both early and later voices of a character and that it was confusing - I imagine this book reads best on paper.

Lots of red herrings!  Lots of twists and turns!  Lots of characters to keep track of and personalities to figure out and lots and LOTS of history, all of which I love.  It sucked me right in and kept me interested all the way through.

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Speaking From Among The Bones.  Another mystery series I've really enjoyed are these, the Flavia de Luce books.  Flavia is a great sleuth but, again, this was not Bradley's best work.  It felt rather rushed, actually.  Flavia whizzes through the case without so much as a stumble, and the whole book ends on a bit of a cliff hanger which, to be honest, was kind of a let down.  I'd really like it if the author could try and develop the secondary characters as the series progresses because, well, it's getting a little formulaic at this point.  Hopefully the next one is better.

Dogs

I don't even know what to call this post.  I suppose something along the lines of Dog-Sitting:  Try Not To Actually Sit On The Dog?

So our friend, A, has dogs.  And one of the dogs has come to stay with us for a while.  It's a very nice dog, I will admit.  However I have exactly zero experience (or very, very close to zero experience) with dogs.  Once, when I was very young, my family had a dog.  I do not remember this at all.  Also when I was young my neighbour had a dog that she let me walk.  I do remember this, but not many details, just the idea of walking this dog.  And also when David and I were married a dog once spent one night at our house.  So there you have it - essentially all of my dog knowledge right there.

Here's what I knew about dogs.  Dogs shed, and also you should not put your face next to their face or stare them in the eyes or touch their food while they are eating.  Also they growl and bark and they smell very doggy especially when wet and also apparently cats sometimes hate them.

So.  With that in mind we are dog-sitting.  I have to admit it is NOTHING like what I thought it would be.  To begin with, the dog is pretty large and yet seems to have some fairly significant issues with spatial awareness in that it believes it is a lap dog.  I was not expecting this.  The dog likes to lie down on feet, to lie down on the sofa beside you, to lie down on the sofa beside you and also on your feet and also partly on your lap and then ooze its way towards engulfing your body and eventually disposing of you like an owl pellet.  This is what I imagine will happen, at least.

The dog does not shed but will lie very still while you backcomb all of its ear and face hair so that it looks like a mushroom.  I mean, it will give you a very disappointed look while you are doing this, but it will let you.

The dog will consume a substantial 'dental treat' shaped bone thing that you bought thinking 'oh, this dental treat bone thing will last several days' in, like, 15 minutes.

While it does this it will sound like it is crunching the bones of your ancestors.

Which is ridiculous because while you are walking the dog it will jump because a leaf stirred behind it, because there were waves that were touching the shore several feet away from it, because someone drove past in a car, and memorably, when it startled a very small grey mouse in the underbrush.  At the mouse startle incident you will roll your eyes and think how very far we have come from man's protector growling into the darkness beyond your prehistoric campfire.

The dog will simultaneously love everyone and also not love anyone at all and want them all to stay away except yes it does want to be touched on the head except also no it does not and why are you NOT rubbing my stomach?  If this makes sense to you, then you must have a dog.

The cat will actually be more than happy to put the dog in its place.  The dog's place being somewhere beneath the status of hairballs.  The cat will do this simply by maintaining a truly impressive level of eye contact until the dog gives up because heck, the cat is actually terrifying and there's no way the dog will win that battle.

The dog will not bark or growl at anyone but will groan arthritically when it lies down, much like you yourself groan arthritically when you lie down.  You will feel sympathy for the dog.  It will also twitch when it dreams, and jump into the air when the furnace turns on, and take to wiping its nose on your pants.  Actually the dog will start to remind you very much of your own children at 2 year olds.  You will formulate an elaborate theory of how dog sitting is, in fact, like taking care of an 80lb 2 year old.  Big, not that bright but very curious, non-verbal, requiring constant attention or else it will knock something off a shelf.

So there you have it.  I will keep you posted.