Latin

"Reading Latin is like eating healthy food. It's tough to digest, but you feel good after you're done."

~The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin~

School

We're starting school tomorrow, not only here at Swede Farm, but those in Hempstead as well. :D Mom and dad figured that the day dad had to start getting up to drive the bus would be the perfect day for us to start school as well.

So, last week we bought the school supplies and today I sorted them out between kids, extras, and 'teacher' supplies. :D The kids from Chris down to Judah had fun buying the supplies and the toddlers were way too happy when I told them that they could use their crayons tomorrow during 'school' time. :D

But, for some reason I always seems to forget the amount of work that goes into getting school stuff ready. For the past few years I have been teaching the toddlers and first graders. It's been really easy. We work on numbers, alphabet, a hymn, a fun song (or silly song, all depending on how old you are), I'll read a history book from the time frame that the older children are reading from, and believe it or not we do a wee bit of geography, as there is a song on the continents that they LOVE!

Well, this year I only have Noah and Judah, both of which are already pretty good with their numbers, know all the silly songs I can remember (it amazes me how easily I can forgot those stupid songs!!), and are always chomping at the bit to learn more.

So, I have to mix things up a little bit. Instead of doing the normal point to letters while we sing the alphabet song, chant 1-2-3, and the days of the week. I have decided to do an alphabet, color, shape, and number match. They both love those types of games and I can multi-task while they are working on the 'game'. The only thing is I need to get this all ready and it always seems like I can't find what I need to do it or the time to do it.

Right now it's cutting and pasting things to poster board, making sure I have all the letters, colors, and shapes I'll need, while enjoying the work. I don't need to be burnt out before we even start!

Oh, and my favorite thing to do.....History work. Print, organize, highlight, and pass out history papers for the next week. Get the history books for this week on the reading shelve, and decided what I want to do ''school'' wise this week.

I enjoy school so much! Not only doing it myself but teaching the younger children, it is such a pleasure to teach them and see them do things later on knowing that I was able to help them learn to do that.

Yes there are trying times. Like the time Timothy got tired of doing his math and decided to do an entire page incorrectly. I kid you not, he sat there and just wrote down whatever number he felt like writing down, didn't get a single problem correct. When I asked him about it he replied with "I was bored with it". Or the time Liberty spent singing the alphabet instead of the numbers we were working on. But when those times past and I get past the frustration and have a few minutes to think about it, it is all fun and something I can keep the memories from for a long time. :D

I am very thankful that God has given me these siblings to teach! :-)

Something New

One of my jobs in helping the family is that I teach the youngers. I teach them until the are ten years old or until the start sassing back, which ever comes first. lol Right now I have Liberty (6), Noah (4), and Judah (2) in my "class".

And when I say that I mean each morning for about 30 minutes we sit down and work on a hymn, a catechism question, colors, shapes, 1-10, ABC's, some sort of game, and a fun song (do you ears hang low?, the wheels on the bus, etc.) And they love it, now Libby might not be to happy to do her 1-10 or ABC's but after about five minutes she comes around. :D

Where we do "school" depends on the weather, if it's as nice as it has been lately, we do it on the deck where we might add counting sticks and chickens to the programme. lol

Well, this morning around 9 o'clock we had a truck load of sand dumped right in between the house and the dairy to help cut down on the mud. (I LOVE the sand piles, oh so cool, better then a beach any day!! lol). Thirty minutes later when I called them to go do some school on the deck I had a revolt for the first time ever from this "class". I was just a bit shocked, since this is the group that has woken me up at least three days out of the week wanting to do school. It was only when they started yelling about a dirt hill did I realize why.

Thanks to a very thoughtful and fun mom we got that problem fixed. For the first time ever I taught school from a top a dirt hill. Drawing letters in the sand and counting to see who could make the most dirt balls or throw the most in the puddle three feet away. I must admit, I loved it. (Once I got over the fact that I would have sand in my hair and down my shirt!)

Yet another first for me. :D Teaching from a top a 'dirt' hill. lol

(In this picture about 1/4 of the sand has already been moved to the puddle, it's just so much fun to sit there and throw it, that it's hard to tell the kids not to. Not to mention they have been using their little shovels as well. :D )