14 hours ago
April was quite a slow reading month for me, and because of that this post is rather late. I don't feel like I have a great variety to share this month, but I did enjoy most of the books I read, so that's something!
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Penderwicks On Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall- This is the second book in the Penderwick series (you can read my thought on the first one here). The mother of the Penderwick family died when her girls were young, and in this book Aunt Claire comes and basically forces their father to start dating again. The girls have a hard time with this, especially the oldest sister, Rosalind, and this is the story of how they come to terms with a new phase for their family. I loved the first book in this series and I loved this one just as much - all the characters are delightful, and the situations they find themselves in are charming. I especially like the development of Rosalind's character in this one as she struggles through her feelings about losing her mother, and the way she had to fill the motherly role in their family since then. I will say that Rosalind and the boy she likes decide in this book that they will date when they are 13, which is still a shockingly young age to me, but I still loved it.
Wundersmith by Jessica Townsend - I read the first book in this series (Nevermoor) last month, and overall thought it was quirky and fun, but this book took a darker turn for me. In this book Morrigan Crow starts classes at the Wunderous Society school, and as she gets to know her classmates, more is revealed about how the villain, Ezra Squall, is working in Nevermoor. I mentioned when I reviewed the first book that I was a little unsure about it because I like to be careful about the twisting of archetypes in children's fiction (ie. presenting traditionally evil creature as good, or vice versa) - well, that was much more of a feature of this book. There was a lot of ambiguity about who is good and who is evil in this book, some of the characters and situations are darker, and even some characters who I assume are supposed to be the good guys are really dark and creepy (like the headmistress of the school). There is also more references to sorcery and witchcraft in this book, which I like to avoid since the Bible is very clear that those things are detestable to God. So while the first book came off as more imaginative and quirky, this one was just...darker (how many times am I going to say darker in this review?). I won't be reading the next book.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - Have you ever heard of HeLa cells? HeLa is am "immortal" human cell line that has been important in research for decades now. Well, it turns out the HeLa cells were taken from a woman named Henrietta Lacks, and this book digs into her story. It turns out neither Henrietta nor her family was ever formally informed on how her cells were being used until years later, and consent for research was never obtained. When her children did find out about their mother's cells, it ended up being very traumatizing for them, especially because a lot of the ways her cells have been used in animal/human experiments are very creepy. This book made me think about a lot of things that I never would have otherwise - such as the fact that your tissues and samples can be used in research without you ever knowing it. It brings up a lot of ethical conundrums about whether it is right for medical researchers to claim a right to use your tissues without informing you as the patient/donor. The whole thing was really fascinating, and also rather disturbing and sad. Once I started listening, I couldn't stop - the audiobook was really well done.
Back Over There by Richard Rubin - Rubin wrote one of my favorite book about WW1 so far (The Last Of The Doughboys), and in researching that book he traveled all over France to see the battlefields and memorials of World War One. In the process he met some really fascinating people in the French countryside, and find out more about how much World War One affects their lives even now. This book is a travel log of sorts of Rubin's trips to France. I found it particularly interesting to read about the attitude of the French people toward the American military - they are still so grateful for the role America played in ending that war. Really interesting, but I would recommend reading Last Of The Doughboys first.
I'll be back in a couple weeks with my May books, though I have a feeling it's going to be another slow reading month. What have you all been reading lately?
That's how many days we have left in the school year.
We finished a lot of our core subjects - math, language arts, reading - a week ago, and so these last couple weeks have been dedicated to state history lessons, art, humble science experiments, and numerous read-alouds. Weirdly, all those more fun school subjects end up taking a lot of energy and effort, and even though I've had several blog post ideas in my head for weeks now, I can't seem to muster up the margin or energy to type them up. So a chatty post it is.
Forgive the typos in advance please. I'm tired.
But four more days. Four more days and we'll all be as free as a bird.
Fun With The Grandmas!
Speaking of interesting school activities, the last two Fridays have been dedicated to special school activities with the kids' grandmas.
Derek's mom has done an incredible amount of research into his family tree. She is so thorough, and she has traced some branches of his family back to the 11th century. I asked her if she could come up and tell the kids a little more about their ancestors, and also about how she researches geneology. She told us stories of some of the kids' great-great-greats, which include many really fascinating people, and she even printed a little mini-tree for each of my kids showing their all great-great grandparents. The kids were so interested in all of it!
Before she left she demonstrated how she researches a family tree by using my side of the family, and we got a couple names filled in. We looked through census records from 80 years ago, and I watched as the family of one of my grandparents grew from 7 members to 9, and then back to 8 ten years later after one of the names disappeared from the record after a death. I knew about my grandparent's family before, of course, but seeing it there in black and white, connected by a few clicks to my own name on the tree - it made me feel more connected to my heritage. Those were tough times, and I come from people with grit, and seeing it on paper makes me even more grateful for the blessings in my life now.
It was so interesting to see how it works and see names so closely connected my own in the original records, and I am thinking I want to dive into more family tree research myself this summer. I will also be busy recruiting my mom-in-law to come back up soon and tell the kids more stories! It's fascinating to see the amount of detail she has been able to find on the family.
The very next Friday, my mom planned a "field day" for all her grandchildren (all of which are homeschooled). I have a lot of memories of field day when I was a kid (particularly memories of being proud that I beat the boys in the sprints - there is only a small window when that could have happened! I don't run.) I loved the idea of a field day so my kids could have some fun memories of races with their grandma and cousins! Final analysis - huge success. My mom planned a ton of different types of races, the kids loved it, and no one compared or felt bad about any of their placings/ribbons. We had a delicious lunch, explored outside and fed the horses, and visited more while the kids played. It was a great time with the family and a good chance to practice good sportsmanship!
(The dress-up relay race!)
Awana And Rain And Mother's Day
In other news, we also had our last night of Awana a week ago. The kids got all their awards, my mom was able to come to the ceremony, and it's a consensus that we can't wait for it to start up again next year! Derek and I will have to be more strategic about planning date nights over the summer - we became rather spoiled this winter with a free 1.5 hours each week for a dinner date.
We celebrated Mother's Day this last week by seeing Derek's mom for breakfast, and my mom for lunch - before heading home, lounging on the couch, and watching Survivor reruns. (After the kids melted my heart with adorable cards, and gifts which they bought with their own money. Some of which were candy. Some of which we ate while watching Survivor) .
We did have plans for an outing to the zoo on Mother's Day, but the weather ended up being rainy and cold. And what do you know, it snowed again on Monday and Tuesday, making this a near record-long snow season for our state. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it snowed AGAIN before the end of May, so we may smash that record! Doubtful though, since I know for a fact that it has snowed here in June before, but we'll see. I just read an article about the Southwestern states possibly declaring a water shortage emergency for the first time, so let's just say I'm grateful for any snow we get here. No fires this summer please.
Fun Things, Anxiety-Producing Things
The rest of this week will likely be filled with fun and stress mixed together - on Friday I am going on a girl's night with my college friends/book group girls, which will be the first time our group has eaten at a restaurant together in over a year. As I am looking forward to that, I am also anxious for our poor old dog who has a surgery scheduled for Friday.
A couple years ago we discovered a tumor on Harvey's neck, which we briefly grieved about because our vet assured us it was most certainly malignant. I was making mental plans for budgeting in cancer drugs for our faithful hound, but when the results came back the tumor ended up being a benign tumor which usually occurs in cats, completely baffling our vet.
Well, Harvey has another tumor on his leg, which our vet again says is most likely malignant. I am holding out hope that it will end up being another one of the cat-tumors, but on Friday he is getting it removed. It almost physically hurts me to take him to the vet, because big and tough as Harvey looks, he acts like a scared Chihuahua whenever we have to take him in for a checkup. His anxiety gives me anxiety, and then there is more anxiety about the fact that the tumor is right on the join of his back leg and I'm running worst-case scenarios in my mind of the surgery crippling him. Our vet assures us that the risk of that is low, but...I'm just nervous. You dog people understand.
Cookie Dough And Summer Fun
Finally, as the school year has been winding down, I've been thinking ahead a bit to what kinds of things I want to plan for my kids this summer. Last summer I made a mostly at-home summer bucket list, which was a success, and I would like to plan out some fun activities for the kids again. But, I have to admit, I am tired. Homeschooling will always be worth it for me, and it's incredibly rewarding, but it is also verging on exhausting when we reach May. Like I mentioned last week, we keep a traditional school schedule because I need a break in the summer to rest mentally.
So I will wait to make any fun summer plans until we've had time to reset, but I must mention that I did find this cookie dough recipe book while I was at the library today, which was surprisingly motivating. A few years ago I took the kids to the mall in the summer, and there used to be a cookie dough shop there. I've never been one of those people who likes to eat cookie dough raw, but my kids very much enjoyed the experience of eating uncooked cookies. I am pretty sure that the cookie dough shop went under, but I am thinking this book and our own cookie dough cafe might be an easy place to start for summer fun.
After I rest for a couple weeks.
Four more days...
One of the best things about homeschooling is the ability to make your own school schedule. You get to decide how you spend your time each day, how you want to schedule your week, and even how you want to break up your school year.
I've read so many great posts from other homeschool moms on why they choose to do a year-round homeschool schedule. Usually a year-round schedule is broken up into terms, such as taking six week on/one week off (or whatever break schedule works for your family). There are a lot of great reasons I've heard for managing your homeschool year this way, but our family has chosen to stick with a tradtional school schedule for our homeschool. By traditional schedule, I mean that we do school from (approximately) September through May, and then take the summer months off. I've written a little about this before, but today I wanted to give you a few of my reasons in favor of keeping a traditional school schedule.
1. The weather is nice in the summer.
Where I live, the winter drags on for quite a while, and the most beautiful months we have are...you guessed it...June through August. During those summer months, we want to be outside, enjoying the mountains and our nice weather after a long season of being cooped up indoors. I think this would be a different consideration if we lived in a state where the summer months were unbearably hot - it makes sense to take advantage of whatever time of year the weather is best.
2. I don't want the traditional schools to have a perceived advantage to my kids.
For me as a homeschooling mom, it's important to me not only that my kids know our reasons for homeschooling, but it's also important to convince them that it's better for us (because I really think it is). Because of that, I don't want my kids to look at what their public/private school peers are doing and feel like they are missing out on anything. In our situation, if our family did school in the summer, my kids may end looking longingly at all the kids who have the summers off, wishing they could also be outside enjoying the weather while it's nice (see the first point).
Now, the validity of this point is going to depend on where you live, what your family habits are like, and how you communicate your choices to your kids. I know families who do school all year so they can take off for outdoor adventures in warmer states anytime they'd like, and because they explained those advantages to their kids I don't think they mind at all doing some schoolwork in the summer! There are worthy trade-offs to year-round schooling as well, and I think the important part is communicating the advantages to your family's choice to your kids. For our family, because we don't do multiple trips each year, doing schoolwork during the one time of the year when the weather is comfortable would be burdensome. Its more advantageous for us to leave the summers open to enjoy the nice weather while we have it.
3. Looking forward to the break of summer is motivating for me.
Sometimes when I'm feeling a little worn-down with homeschooling, just knowing that summer is coming and that I'll have all kinds of time to rest is a motivation for me. If there was no summer break to look forward to, I think it would make difficult weeks even harder for me because there would be no real end in sight. Reaching the end of the year gives me a clear point to work toward and keeps us on track.
Some moms can find just as much motivation in doing school for a couple months and then having a couple weeks off, but I find that just having one or two weeks off school doesn't do a lot for my refreshment. This is one of the reasons we don't take a spring break at this time - I'd rather just power through and be done with the school year sooner.
Having the extended time off in the summer allows for deeper refreshment for me as a homeschool mom. I have a big chunk of time to rest from the pressure and work of the school year. Sometimes getting away from the routine allows you to come back to it later with a better attitude. This is the same reason why we take vacations - getting away from regular life allows you to be ready to come back to it with a fresh perspective.
Again, some moms can get both of these advantages with a year-round break schedule, so this is really about knowing yourself and what would be most refreshing to you. For myself, a longer break in the summer is more refreshing than shorter, more frequent breaks year-round.
4. Having the summer off allows more time to pursue interests and be bored.
I love giving my kids (and myself) a long enough stretch of open days for them to deeply pursue their own interests without the distraction of schoolwork. Sometimes it's beneficial to dig deeper into an area of study, and while you can certainly do that during the school year, the internal pressure of finishing a curriculum always keeps me from enjoying those rabbit trails. In the summer, we don't have to worry about regular schoolwork and can rabbit-trail to our heart's content without worrying.
I also think it's good for kids (and adults) to have enough time to be bored. Boredom can foster new levels of creativity or allow your brain time to refresh and make connections. When my kids are bored, I've been surprised to find them inventing new games or building forts outside, things they may or may not have enough free time to do during the school year.
5. Summers off give me space to reflect on the bigger picture and make a plan for the next year.
Having time away from our normal schedule in the summer also lets me take a step back from the "trenches" and evaluate the situation more objectively. I do most of my reflecting and planning for the next homeschool year in the summer months. Because the summer is so long it lets me clear my mind and do my planning at a leisurely pace, which is something I personally need to keep my ultimate goals for homeschooling in perspective. Without this time to reset my perspective, I know I would be much more likely to experience homeschool burn out. Usually by the end of the summer, I feel organized and motivated to tackle the new school year.
I know homeschool moms who do year-round school, and others who take a break for the summer as I do. I know moms who start school sooner so they can finish earlier in the spring, and I know moms who start early and end later so they have time for days off in between. One of the greatest thing about homeschooling is being able to think about the needs of your own family and plan your school year for the best advantage to your own lifestyle.
If you homeschool, what does your schedule look like? It's interesting to see how different people choose to organize their years!
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