The Vintage Book Baby Shower

I attended a true Southern baby shower last weekend hosted by some of my friends from Alabama.  The theme was "vintage books."  And it was adorable!  The hostesses had stacks of vintage books and toys on display, and they served soda in glass bottles, ice cream, and vintage snacks.  Plus, most of the guests showed up in their party dresses to fit the occasion.  I wore a sleeveless black lace dress and brought my best accessory--Princess G in a long sundress with a big bow in her hair. 

In hind sight, I should have taken pictures to share with you all.  But, since the shower wasn't for me, I felt like it was a slight invasion of privacy to take pictures of another person's party for my blog.  I can't take credit for any of the creativity at this party, so instead of showing and bragging, I will share in words. 

The vintage book baby shower was inspired by the expectant parent's love of books.  In order to help them build a book collection for their baby, the hostesses asked the attendees to forgo buying a card and to instead bring a book with a letter to the family written inside.  Since cards these days cost about $5 each, buying a book instead of card wasn't really that big of a deal.  The biggest challenge with this request was to make sure we all didn't duplicate books.  So, in my case, I found a book that included trains, cats, dogs, and a story of friendship--everything that a little boy could want in a book!  It wasn't a classic must-have for a baby book collection, but it was the kind of book that I know will be appreciated by a little boy.

Instead of playing countless dumb party games, the hostesses asked the party goers to create a book for the new baby.  They passed out different sheets of paper that described events in a baby's life and asked the party goers to fill in blanks (mad lib style) on our sheet and then to illustrate our page. The end results were pretty hilarious.  There were stories that included everything from baby's first bath to baby's first trip to the zoo.  Even the baby's daddy and uncle wrote and illustrated a story about baby's first Alabama football game!

It's not very often that I attend a party where I think it was fabulous enough to write about. But this party was super creative and actually practical.  Not only did the parents not have 25 cards to trash or stick in a box in a closet somewhere, but they now have the beginnings of a wonderful library for their little boy.

I'm not sure everyone will take kindly to the idea of giving books in lieu of cards.  In fact, I'm sure the idea won't appeal to the old folks who must follow social decorum by purchasing cards.  And I doubt my techie friends, who shudder at the idea of holding an actual book, would adapt well to this concept either.  But if you want to stop buying me cards, I'll take a good book any day!

At Last: A Movie for Moms

Saturday night, after a long afternoon of football, I curled up in bed and ordered in a movie.  This was a big deal for me.  With all that I have going on in my life right now, I rarely have the time, or the desire to waste the time, that it takes to watch a movie.  A decade ago, my "hobby" was to check out new releases at the theater with my then boyfriend-now husband.  (We could probably win any movie trivia from the early 2000's!)  But when Boy Wonder came along in 2008, our world completely changed. Instead of having hours to devote to major Hollywood productions, we started watching seasons of old TV shows, because frankly, giving up an hour here or there is significantly easier to justify than the hours it takes to be a movie connoisseur.  Anyway, Saturday's movie night was kind of a one-off for me.

Because I had seen a preview during a football game that fascinated me, I ordered in Mom's Night Out.  This movie was absolutely hilarious, clean, a little over-the-top, and frighteningly relatable!  From the scribbling on the wall, to the screaming daughter in the car at church who messed up mom's mascara, to the best friend who looks amazingly similar to my friend at church, to the "my homeschooler is smarter than your honor student" bumper sticker, I feel like Allyson and I are soul mates.  (Okay, in all fairness, I don't have this bumper sticker, but I probably should.  Except that Mr. Wonderful thinks that bumper stickers are trashy, so I can't.  But, still...)

Any mother of young children who is trying to have it "all together" can totally relate to this movie.  Some might think that the scenes in the movie seem a little far-fetched, but you don't need a screenwriter to come up with any of these plots.  Our children frequently live them out for us!  Just last week, my friend's 2 year old climbed to the top of the McDonald's playground and refused to come down for an hour and a half  just to spite her.  (And although I know I shouldn't laugh about it, the fact that this adorable little boy would do such a thing to his beautiful mother, who just had baby #2, cracks me up!) 

If you've been having a lot of those mommy "moments" lately, you definitely need to take an hour and a half to watch this movie.  Or, if you've been extremely judgmental toward mothers whose children were having an all-out brawl at Hobby Lobby on Friday (yes, those were mine!), then watch the movie.  Give moms a break. And remember, you too were once a bratty two year old! 

The Truth About Leveled Readers

 

Boy Wonder is starting to read books.  I'm not sure how to explain it, but somehow he went from sounding out words in his phonics textbooks to reading sentences in real story books in a matter of weeks.  Hallelujah!  I just don't know if I could take another half hour of reading about AL and Tim from the Phonics readers.  The adventures of Little Bear and his conversations with Mother Bear are so much more enjoyable for everyone!

The Little Bear Level 1, I Can Read book is actually part of our reading curriculum.  Memoria Press uses a Charlotte Masonish approach to reading by using living books in place of reading textbooks for the curriculum.  Unlike Charlotte Mason, however, Memoria Press includes workbooks with questions and vocabulary review to aid in reading comprehension.  As a first time homeschooling mom, this is one workbook that I appreciate.  (A good CM homeschool mom wouldn't mess with workbooks but would ask the questions orally.)

Little Bear has turned out to be a wonderful experience both for my reader and for me.  My son actually understands what he's reading and is able to laugh throughout the stories.  Plus, he has managed the "new" non-phonetic words pretty well because he can put them in the context of what he is reading.  So reading is actually becoming a fun activity.  So much so, that I decided to invest in some more Level 1 readers that I hope we can appreciate reading together. 

When I went to Amazon, however, I noticed that other parents had written some very negative reviews next to some I Can Read books.  These reviews seemed to be a little nonsensical since they were about books like Curious George and The Berestein Bears.  These are wonderful early reader books!  Unfortunately, parents seem to think that Level 1 readers are going to be books where all the words follow easy phonetic rules.  These parents are wrong.


Leveled readers are wonderful tools for parents or teachers who are actively trying to help a child master reading.  These books are not so useful for teaching basic phonics sounds to preschoolers.  Just consider the titles of Little Bear or Curious George.  In the titles of these books alone, you have rules about silent vowels, long vowels, "ou" sounds, soft g sounds, etc. You can bet that these books include a lot of these rules, in addition to a set of sight words that are often identified for the reader on the front or back page of the book.

Parents need to understand that just because their 2 year old can identify the word c-a-t, doesn't mean that they are ready to read about Amelia Bedelia. Don't blame the leveled readers!  Level 1 is for beginning readers, not early preschoolers.  Even the I Can Read people say that Level 1 "books have short sentences, familiar words, and simple concepts for children eager to read on their own."  If you want simpler books, try out the Introduction to Reading Books from the I Can Read folks.  These are more appropriate for the preschool crowd.

Teaching somebody to read the English language is not the simplest task in the world.  It can be done through a systematic and patient approach.  And when it all starts to click and fall into place, your reader can enjoy simple Level 1 books.  If you try too early, everyone gets discouraged.  But if you're patient, these can be loads of fun!  Leveled readers are great teaching tools if they are used appropriately.

Take a Moment

Happy Friday! I hope you get to take a moment to enjoy the beauty around you today.  I hope you have a chance to Be Still before your Maker. 

Today, I'm thanking God for my sweet Baby G who has grown into a beautify Princess G.  She's certainly a Southern belle, but she's got a streak of her mommy in her as well!  There's nothing like a go-getter who wears lace and tulle and cowgirl boots. 

The Pitfalls of the Already Written Curriculum Lesson Plans

Since this is my first rodeo when it comes to homeschooling, I have experienced some unexpected occurrences when dealing with pre-done lesson plans.  It's really nice to have a guide to use all year to indicate to me where my child should be.  But realistically, on week 2 of our kindergarten school year, we're at week 13 for math, week 4+ for phonics, and we're not even using the plans for science, English, and history.  So I'm basically just using the lesson plans to boost my confidence and to guide me through the madness of phonics. 

Pre-designed lesson plans seem like the perfect solution for a parent who wants to teach a child at home.  That said, once you dive into the lessons, you start to see that these lessons were designed for the classroom setting. Thus, there are review activities, review worksheets, and review games scattered throughout the school year.  And there are weeks and weeks devoted to review at the beginning of the school year. These just aren't practical in the one-on-one setting. 

For example, Boy Wonder flew through kindergarten math last year during preschool.  Without missing a beat, he was able to pick up 1st grade math and handle 2 lessons a day when we started kindergarten last week.  According to his curriculum, we should be reviewing kindergarten math for 7 weeks.  But at the rate he's going, we'll be almost done with the book by the 7 week mark.  If I actually followed the curriculum manual, he would be bored to tears or we just wouldn't mess with much math for 7 weeks.  What a waste that would be!

The constant review that is built into the curriculum is absolutely necessary in the classroom setting--especially since kindergarten is not a mandatory requirement for first grade in some states, including Texas.  It just makes sense that a class with 20 children is going to need to review lessons before the entire class is ready to move on to new and harder concepts.  This situation, however, does not necessarily apply in the homeschool setting.

I've always heard stories about homeschoolers who were "ahead" in school.  I used to think that it was because parents who homeschool are more inclined to push their kids.  But the truth of the matter is that if you start a school year without wasting 2-3 months reviewing the previous school year, it's pretty easy to get ahead.  Or, if you do school year-round where you cut your workload in half but don't take 3 months off every summer, you still don't need the intensive review. 

There are definitely some perks to letting someone else plan out your school year by having pre-written lesson plans.  Yet there are also some pitfalls to not proactively planning your own year.  Now I'm beginning to understand why experienced homeschool parents create and plan out their own curriculum.   Those parents are able to give their child a custom education that can't be found in a classroom-focused curriculum manual.

Week 1 Down. 13 Years to Go.

 

We're one week into "real" kindergarten.  So far so good.  I say "real" kindergarten, because when we started our homeschooling trial run in January I used kindergarten curriculum.  Over the course of the last 9 months, Boy Wonder has flown through kindergarten and is now working through 1st and 2nd grade curriculum.  That said, for all other intents and purposes, he is in kindergarten.  He may be ahead, but we're planning on having him graduate at the age of 18.  We just hope that when he graduates, he will have been exposed to far more educational subjects than is required by the State of Texas.  If, at that point, he has also acquired some college credits, then yay for him.  That's not our purpose for homeschooling.

I'm having a hard time communicating to people that we homeschool because this is something that we want to do and feel called by God to do.  Plus, we're finding that it works for us.  I'm not a militant parent.  I don't believe that there is one way to raise a child that is going to work for every child and every family.  And I've met enough school-age parents to know that homeschooling is not a good option for the general population.  But I do believe that if we want to homeschool our child, then it's nobody else's business. 

It's ironic to me that the State of Texas has allowed us to create our own private school where we can educate our children as we see fit but that other parents think that we need some sort of supervision or help.  I can't tell you how many times other (probably well-meaning) lay people try to convince me that I should join a co-op, a university model school, a private school homeschool program, or a 1/2 day something-or-other.   It's driving me nuts! 

For the record, my professional educator friends and my relatives have been nothing but supportive of our decision to teach our children at home.  I can't tell you how much it means to me that my children's grandparents, my educator friends, and my church group friends have supported our decision to home educate.  Without the encouragement from these people, I probably would have been in tears this week.  And it's only week 1! 

Choosing to educate our child at home was one of the most difficult decisions that we've had to make as parents.  I'm well aware that this decision is not without controversy.  I'm well aware that I will be stigmatized and that my children will get to wear the "homeschooler" badge during their school years. I'm well aware that there will be tears and topics that we will struggle through.  I'm well aware that I don't have a PhD in every school subject.  I'm well aware that I will be teaching subjects that I never even studied in school.  But I know this: God has called us to homeschool, and we're going to obey.

So, for all of you homeschool parents out there, remember to honor God with your calling.  And to all of you who know homeschool families or families who are thinking about it, please be encouraging and don't harass them with your concerns.  Trust me, they share your concerns.  But when God calls them to do something, your opinion really doesn't matter.

We're Going on a Bug, Bird, Squirrel, Turtle, Hunt...

What does a really cool mommy do for the 2nd day of school?  She takes the kiddos on a field trip! 

So the timing may not have been ideal, but the field trip fit perfectly with my introduction to Zoology: Flying Creatures of the 5th Day.  The Fort Worth Botanic Gardens hosted a family discovery class for homeschool children yesterday.  The topic yesterday was to explore the creatures that live in the garden, which meant that we got to go on an animal safari.  This turned out to be super cool since most of the visible animals were winged creatures that we will be studying this school year!  And since next month's class is about monarchs, monarch migration, and monarch tagging, it should coordinate well with our studies as well. 

At first, I felt guilty about disrupting our "regular" schedule to go on a field trip.  But then it occurred to me that the beauty of homeschooling is being able to do this.  I've read posts, articles and books by other homeschool parents who recommend never missing out on a real-world opportunity to learn.   They say that if your child can experience something for themselves rather than have to learn it from a book or video, you should go for the experience every time.  This actually makes sense.  Don't most of us remember more from our experiences than our textbooks? 

So anyway, at the moment I'm the cool mom who took the kids on an animal safari yesterday where they got to use binoculars to see animals, bugs, water creatures, and flowers.  It was probably the hottest day of the month for the activity.  I totally forgot to take pictures with my phone.  And I should have brought water for the boys to drink on the hike.  But at the moment, they think I'm cool. We'll see how long that lasts.

Back to School, Back to School, Hope They Think That Mom is Cool!

Kindergarten is officially here (and preschool too)!  Can't believe it's my first baby's first day of REAL school with mom and that my younger boy is ready for preschool.  So glad I get the privilege of sharing in these school experiences. 

The Hostess Who Didn't Think She Could

 
It's funny how God likes to use our weaknesses in spite of our fears and insecurities.  A year ago, I was terrified of having people in my home on a regular basis.  When we decided to start our house hunt last year, both Mr. Wonderful and I felt that we were supposed to buy a home that would accommodate church groups.  But I'm not sure either of us envisioned what that would mean for us. Mainly, because in the 7 years we had lived in our previous house, we could probably count on 2 hands how many times non-family members had visited our home. This sounds weird, but we've only had dinner at non-family member's houses 3 or 4 times in the last 10 years.  People in our part of Texas don't open up their homes very often!

So, naturally, I have this hospitality fear.  Part of my fear is because I have zero confidence in my ability to cook.  I know that I can cook, because my husband and children prefer my food to some restaurant food.  Yet, I don't cook fancy foods.  And I have a limited repertoire of foods that I cook well.  So, my solution has always been to NOT cook for other people and to get carry-out restaurant food when I bring meals to other families.

In spite of my fears and in spite of our reclusive lifestyle, God has brought about a significant change in our lives over the past 12 months.  It all started last fall when some families talked about wanting to start a small group.  Since we had just moved into our house, which we knew would be a good meeting space for a small group, we offered up our place.  Over the course of the year, our group has  grown and grown.  We've had some weeks where we've had 19-30 people in our home!

This past spring, people started requesting that we serve dinner every Sunday.  Somehow, coordinating and cooking dinner for the group each week has become my task!  (As if I don't have anything better to do after spending 2-3 hours cleaning my house every Sunday afternoon!) I tried to convince the folks to switch from dinner to snacks at the end of the summer, but it turns out that people like my food and want me to feed them.  I don't say this to brag.  I say this in complete amusement.  I've been cooking hot dogs, quesadillas, sloppy joe, chili, and other comfort favorites, yet the people continue to eat!  And our group continues to grow.

What's even more interesting about the fact that we've become weekly group hosts, is that we regularly have seminary students from Southwestern Baptist Seminary attend our community group.  This is weird, because we bought our house from a student at the seminary who was moving to accept a pastoral position at a church a few hours away.  It's like God built this house for ministry and to serve seminary students!  Having this thought in the back of my mind definitely motivates me as I plan my menu on Sundays. 

After hosting families in our home on a weekly basis for the past year, I can honestly say that my hospitality fears have dwindled. A year ago, I prayed for a house where we could be "useful" for God's work and God has opened up an entirely new door of ministry for us!  I'm now keeping my house clean on a weekly basis, cooking, coordinating meals for families, helping plan play dates and helping start a neighborhood craft night as an outreach tool.  Only God could take this undomestic princess and make that happen.

The Baby Has Arrived

That's right.  My husband gifted me with a new baby this week--a baby grand piano! 

When we moved into our house last summer, our curved staircase was just crying out to have a baby grand at the bottom of it.  Last week, I accidentally stumbled upon this restored/rebuilt 1930's piano and knew that I could provide it the perfect spot so that it could re-live it's glory days.  Thankfully, Mr. Wonderful thought so too.  For my birthday 10 years ago, he bought me an electric piano that would fit in our apartment when we got married.  And a decade later, he has given me a real (and beautiful) piano for my birthday!  He's kind of amazing.

As it turns out, the entire family has been having loads of fun playing and practicing on her.  I think I might have some musical prodigies in my house! 

 At last, a baby that doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night!

Red Boots

Woohoo! It's finally football season.  This means that we can break out all of our red and blue gear and get dressed up every Saturday for an outing at the hilltop.  And when I say get dressed up, we're not talking team gear t-shirts.  In accordance with southern tradition, we "dress up" in our school colors.  Per SMU tradition, for our first home football game of the year, we wear white and lots of people break out their cowboy boots.

This year, Baby G has her own pair of red cowgirl boots, a huge matching red bow for her hair, and a cute white sundress.  She's totally ready for football!  Of course, it's kind of sad to buy red boots and a white dress for one football game.  So, this past Sunday morning, I let her debut her football "look" for Sunday School.

She was really excited when I told her she could wear her boots to church.  For some reason, we struggled to get them to pop into place (all good cowboy boots pop when you put them on). When she attempted to stand up, she started crying about her foot.  She kept saying, "shoe, shoe, shoe." So, I figured we should take them off just in case something was wrong.

I was certainly not prepared for what came out of the boot.  Not only did her little foot and sock come out, but it came out covered in yucky banana! The banana had to have been in there for at least a few days.  Typically I might have sniffed something like this out.  Unfortunately, I've had a crazy summer cold that has wiped out my ability to talk, hear, and smell for the last week.  So, there was no warning for me with this yucky, goopy, brownish, banana mess.

Thankfully, banana cleans very easily.  Once we wiped out the boot and changed into a clean sock, she was good to go.  Not only did she wear her boots proudly, but she showed them off to everyone!

If you happen to be in the market for red girl boots, check these out at http://www.target.com. 

He Wrote His Name

For the last 9 months (can you believe it's already September?!), I've been focusing on my oldest child's education.  Mainly because he officially starts kindergarten next week.  It may seem that we're starting homeschooling "late" since all of the other kindergartners around here started classes last Monday, but in reality, we've been doing kindergarten since January.  So technically, Boy Wonder starts first grade in a week!  It kind of blows my mind.

That said, I've been really focused on educating Boy Wonder during these last 9 months.  This doesn't mean that I've totally ignored my middle child, but I certainly haven't been pushing Tornado Man to do any schoolwork.  I mean, he just turned 4!

I guess that's why I was so surprised when I picked Tornado Man up from his Sunday School class last week.  When his teacher (who also happens to be Grandma) sent him out the classroom door, she also handed me a stack of papers/craft projects that he had done during his 3 hours at church.  To my shock, his name was very clearly written in crayon on his pages.  Not only that, but it was written in a child's very neat handwriting!  That afternoon, Grandma called to confirm that Tornado Man had indeed written and spelled his name on his own! Talk about having my mind really blown!  I didn't even know that he knew what the letters in his name were.  Plus, his name has a traditional, rather than phonetic spelling--meaning that he didn't just guess his name.  And to make matters worse--or more shocking--I have not worked with Tornado Man on his name or his letters!

As it turns out, while I've been slaving away teaching phonics to my oldest child, Tornado Man has been learning Phonics as well.  But he has been learning by watching LeapFrog videos, like The Letter Factory (thanks for recommending this Angela).  And he's been practicing his letters by using the tracing game on his Leap Pad.  What I was just using as something to fill the time while his brother did schoolwork was actually teaching him something.  Apparently, educational videos and toys do work.

Of course, the caveat to my last statement should be that educational videos and toys work on the right child.  Tornado Man is an independent learner.  He likes to be hands-on and to "discover" new concepts on his own rather than being taught by someone else.  As a result, we've bought him lots of educational toys and videos.  And now we're learning that they are working.  He has already demonstrated to me that he knows his letters, their sounds, and how to write most of them.  It's kind of amazing that he has mastered concepts that take most kindergartners months to learn, and he's done it ON HIS OWN. 

I can already tell that homeschooling Tornado Man is going to be a whole new adventure!