Feeding the Baby

I was going to call this post "breastfeeding," but I didn't want to scare people (like my dad, who may want to avoid reading this post anyway).
Every baby is a new experience, and I've learned the following things from baby Phil these last three weeks:

1. I cannot nurse the baby and knit at the same time. I have tried my hardest, but it's just not possible. Maybe there's room for an invention here...some kind of hands-free knitting device that you can rest on the baby's head?
2. Asking, "Phil, do you have a poopy diaper?" will probably continue to make me giggle until the poor kid is potty-trained. I'm not sure if this is a pro or a con of naming your child after his grandpa. 
3. Babies can pee on you and you don't even know it. Either they're in your lap and you suddenly feel pleasantly warm, or you're changing them and then your face and the walls and the floor are being sprinkled on. Comprehending that it's pee takes a few seconds, even after the 20th time. During those few seconds, the experience is actually kind of nice. Who doesn't like a warm lap?
4. Car seats are a pain. A large, unwieldy, spit-up covered, impossible to latch into the stupid base part, life-saving pain.
5. I can nurse the baby and use the bathroom at the same time. Strangely, this has been necessary more than once already.
6. Babies are not good at keeping their feet in the proper leg holes of their pajamas. Both legs get stuck in the same one, and then they squirm and make it impossible to figure out how to get the snaps together in the right order. All baby clothes should have zippers, not snaps. Or babies should be born with enough fur to just remain naked all the time. Hello, evolution? Where are you when I need you? 
7. I can also check Facebook while nursing the baby, while simultaneously watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix (4 seasons in just 3 weeks). 
8. Esme and Grace will be great mommies someday, as long as they eventually figure out the difference between patting the baby gently and smacking him.
9. When it's the middle of the night and you're somewhat sleep-deprived, having a newborn baby stare at you can be very unsettling. You start thinking that he's going to start talking or read your mind or steal your soul (depending on your level of sleep deprivation).
10. Baby diapers are way better than toddler diapers. To avoid changing toddler diapers, wait for the toddler to poop, then announce to your husband that you have to go change the baby's diaper for the 50th time today, thereby guilting him into changing the nasty toddler diaper. I've almost got Grace trained to poop during John's lunch hour. Genius.

Can You Teach a One-Year-Old?

I think it's possible to teach a one-year-old. I'm sure that there are one-year-olds who are potty-trained, or who can speak in sentences, or who know their colors, or who at least know not to eat their colors and then use the remaining stumps to destroy the walls and furniture. MY one-year-old, however, seems to be unteachable. By me, anyway. At present. I'm struggling with everything - discipline, nap time, keeping her occupied during school time, potty training, table manners (not the complicated ones, just stuff like not throwing food everywhere) - I feel like Helen Keller's mom before she figured out sign language. (Remember that? She would just roam around the dinner table like a pet eating scraps from people's plates).
I know Grace is a good baby, and I am pretty sure, most of the time, that I'm at least an adequate caregiver, but I feel total despair about this. I've tried looking at homeschool blogs and websites about preschoolers, but they aren't helpful. Every "independent" learning activity I've come up with either fails to capture her interest or ends up in her mouth. She doesn't like sitting on my lap unless she can bang on the computer or draw on my stuff (which she can somehow distinguish from her stuff). She doesn't like to play with her own toys unless she's trapped in her room during naptime. She's discovered that ripping up her books bothers me, so she's started ripping the pages in all of her books. The only thing that keeps her quiet is the TV, and I hate using the TV.
Am I alone? Please tell me that this is a phase. Maybe it's the new baby? It started before the new baby, but maybe it's gotten worse? Has anyone figured out how to do this? Does anyone want a job as an unpaid nanny?

More Election Resources

I'm not sure why I was thinking that teaching about the election process would somehow be easier than following our regular lesson plans. But, I did, and I'm going to do it, darn it. And all of the information I've found is so cool that I'll feel guilty if I don't do something with it. Here are some links to election/government sites for kids:

National Mock Student Election: http://www.nationalmockelection.org/curriculum/elementary-school/introduction/. This site not only has a mock election, it's got a curriculum page with full lesson plans divided into three sections: Our Government, American Principles, and The Electoral Process. I think we're going to use this for our lesson outline.

Ben's Guide to US Government: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/k-2/. This is the link for the K-2 curriculum, but they have material for kids through high school. It's got all kinds of great information and additional online resources for teaching government to kids.

You Tube Schoolhouse Rocks video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OyU4O80i4. We actually have the Schoolhouse Rocks DVD set, which I hate to admit we've never watched, so I'm excited to show the kids this video on The Preamble.

The Constitution for Kids: http://www.usconstitution.net/constkids4.html. This is another site that's divided into grade levels. It explains the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in a kid-friendly way.

I've got to go kill a spider and rescue a crying baby, but these should be enough to get you started on your own election unit study. Leave a comment if you find anything else that might be helpful!

Election Unit Study

I'm looking for ways to do school for the next couple of weeks without having to be as rigorous with our schedule as we have been, and I have had a stroke of genius: we're going to study the election. How perfect is that? We can talk not only about this election, but the electoral process, political parties, city/state/federal government, past presidents, and current political issues. I even happen to have a father who has been on the Carroll city council and can tell us about elections from the "inside."
The only downside to this brilliant plan is that I'm not all that knowledgeable about the current or historical political scene, and I haven't been following the current election AT ALL. I mean, not one little tiny bit. I did see Obama 2016, and I occasionally see a political ad while watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Hulu, but that's the full extent of it. So once again, homeschooling is giving me the opportunity to learn something that I've always wanted to learn and felt sort of guilty for not knowing. Sometimes, I think it actually helps to be as uninformed as the kids are, because it helps me to teach at their level and be a little bit more patient with them.
I've found some great online resources (through Pinterest, my new favorite thing to do), and I think we're going to do a couple of lapbooks:

Source: homeschoolshare.com via Allison on Pinterest

Source: homeschoolshare.com via Allison on Pinterest

If I had a bunch of kids or a classroom, I'd love to hold a mock election, but I don't know how to do that with just the three of them. Maybe our homeschool group can get together and do something like that. Wouldn't that be cool? They could come up with their own platform, a catchy slogan, a persuasive speech or essay, even an advertising campaign. I suppose all of that is possible without a mock election, too.
Let me know if you have any creative ideas...this is something that I think really needs to hit home with the kids; they need to learn that being involved in the political process is exciting and fun and NOT optional.

Baby Phil's Breastfeeding Tracker

Baby Phil is here, and I have to say, he's already proven to be superior at breastfeeding and weight-gaining. Of course, he's also very sweet, adorable, good-smelling, and snuggly. I, on the other hand, am forgetful, cranky, slow-moving, and not nearly as good-smelling, so I'm extra-proud of the one productive thing I've done in the 5 days since Phil's arrival: I made a breastfeeding log.
So far, it's working wonderfully, and I feel reassured every time I use it that I'm being a responsible mother. It's no scrapbook or journal or organized set of newspaper clippings, but at least I'm creating some kind of record of Phil's early days - and it provides a way for me to spot trends in his eating and pooping that might help identify little problems before they become big ones.

Here's a link to my form: Allison's Breastfeeding Log

I also found a bunch of other logs online. I like mine best, but you might want to track differently than I do. I like that with mine, it's easy to see which breast was first for each feeding; that way, I can alternate.

More pen-and-paper logs:

• Google image search for logs
• Best Breastfeeding Log
• Essential Breastfeeding Log
• Kelly Mom Breastfeeding Log
• Doula World Log

If you have a smart phone or iPod or similar device, you can also do some fancy tracking with those too, although I don't know if it's as satisfying as having a nice stack of worn, scribbled-on pages. Here are some breastfeeding apps I found online (I can't vouch for their usefulness, but they look cool):

• Yahoo's Top 5 Apps
• iPod App for Breastfeeding
• Medela Breastfeeding App
• Android Breastfeeding App
• Cool Mom Tech Breastfeeding Apps

No matter how many babies I have (and five may very well be the final count), each one seems like a totally new, miraculous adventure. I hope this post helps bring a little bit of peace and structure into your new - or newly expanded - family.

The New and Organized Me

Staying Organized

I’ll be honest – I have never been good at keeping track of appointments. We’ve missed practices, dentist appointments, late starts at the public school, and all kinds of other events because I’ve never been able to find a calendar system that I can keep up with. I buy planners and use them for a week or two; I put things into Gmail or Outlook and fail to log in to them for weeks; I write notes that get lost or thrown away or stuffed in the bottom of my bottomless purse.

Enter Cozi, a free online calendar/to-do list/journal/shopping list program that has totally changed my life and reputation. I am now “on-top-of-it” Mom who never misses anything and is actually able to tell people what we’ll be doing and when.

If I had a smart phone, which I don’t, I could look at it and update it from there, but I just keep it all updated from my home computer. I can print weekly and monthly calendars to hang up at home and at John’s office, and I can have text message reminders sent to my “dumb” phone for important things that I’m likely to forget.

When you create your account, you can share your password with the whole family, and everyone can go in and add their own events. You can flag each event for one or more family member and do all kinds of other things that I haven’t used yet.

Check it out! www.cozicentral.com 

Homeschool Share & Lapbooking

Lapbooking is one of the best discoveries I’ve made since I started homeschooling. I would describe it as “educational scrapbooking,” and it’s something that all ages – preschool through high school – can use to enhance their study of a particular topic. They make great presentations for older kids and great “quiet time” activities for younger ones.

Each lapbook has a theme, and it opens up to a bunch of mini books and pictures and activities related to that theme. You can either make the whole thing yourself; or with kids who are old enough to cut or color, you can work together; or, with middle- and high-schoolers, you can have them work completely independently.

There are a ton of websites that sell or offer free lapbook kits, but if you’re creative and have the time (ha!), you can make your own. Homeschoolshare.com has some great free ones; right now, I’m doing one for Esme about apples. We did lapbooks with the boys last year for our book studies of Island of the Blue Dolphins and A Cricket in Times Square; both of those were free lapbooking kits from Homeschool Share.

Most lapbooks use one or more file folders as the base, and you tape, glue, staple, or fasten your materials inside the folders. There are all kinds of neat paper-folding and paper-cutting techniques that you use, which appeals to some kids (Simon) and annoys others (Isaac), but it helps develop hand-eye coordination and forces them to work carefully, which I think are great skills to develop. Take a look: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php. 

What We’ve Been Doing

All of my kids love animals. Animal books, animal documentaries, animal stories, actual living animals, dinosaurs…they are just fascinated by anything animal-related. Simon has amazed me more than once by identifying some obscure animal that I’ve never heard of, and Isaac has decided that he wants to write a nature guide about birds. Simon asked me the other day if he could play on the computer, and I reluctantly said yes – only to find out that, instead of playing computer games, he was searching Google images for pictures of gorillas and other creatures that he thinks are cool. Animals are the one topic that they get truly excited to learn about, and we’re always in search of ways to incorporate animals into our studies.

This week, we discovered that Aunt Ann bought us a subscription to National Geographic Kids magazine, which is all about animals. Yay! They also have a huge website (www.nationalgeographic.com/kids/) with videos, pictures, and facts about all kinds of animals, places, crafts, recipes, science experiments, contests, and games. 

There’s even a “Little Kids” version of the magazine for ages 3-6!

Next time we’re looking for a supplement to our curriculum, we’ll have to remember to consider a magazine subscription as an alternative to another book or textbook.

10 Great Homeschool Pages to Like on Facebook

1. Library and Educational Services
2. Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling
3. The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
4. Preschoolers and Peace
5. Practical Homeschooling
6. Lesson Planet
7. I Love Homeschool
8. Homeschool Share
9. Homeschool Freebie of the Day
10. Homeschool Creations

Mold, Decay, and Lessons of all Types

MOLD AND DECAY

Part of our study of Egypt involves the study of mummies and how mummies were embalmed. The coolest thing we learned is that they took the brains out through the nose with a big metal hook. We didn’t do any brain removal, but we have been looking at how some household items decay over time.

Our first experiment was to bury some stuff in the backyard. Pictured below are the results of a week and a half of underground decay:

(L to R: wood, peeled apple, apple, potato, peeled potato, Star Wars guy)

The most impressive decay was the peeled apple, which was just a blob of goo. Everything else seemed disappointingly intact.

 

THE MUSICIAN AND THE ARTIST

We got the trumpet! We got the trumpet! Isaac is already great at making random noises on his trumpet, although lessons don’t start until next Tuesday. Depending on how much he practices, he should be able to join the rest of the 6th grade band by the beginning of 2013.

I was a little bit leery about buying an instrument on ebay, but it met all of the criteria the band director gave us (brand, functionality) and was from a top-rated seller, and so far, I think it was a good buy. We paid a total of $225 for the instrument and the case, and shipping was free.

 

Meanwhile, Simon is loving his art classes. Pictured above is his first project: a monster made out of pieces of construction paper. His second project, a landscape made with the same technique, is still drying at the studio.

WHAT WE’VE BEEN DOING

This week, it seems like Math and English have taken up most of our time (and tears). Isaac is adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and he just learned the “rule of four.” He does not like the “rule of four.” Here it is:

Step 1: take 5X3 to get the denominator for the first fraction (15).

Step 2: take 5X2 to get the numerator for the first fraction (10).

Step 3: take 3X5 to get the denominator for the second fraction (15).

Step 4: take 3X3 to get the numerator for the second fraction (9).

Simon is working on skip counting, which he thinks is strange and confusing.

In English, Simon read a cute story called “Hard Short Hay,” about a smart mama cow, a lazy son, and (as Simon calls him), a “sassy” goat.

Isaac has been doing a lot of sentence and paragraph writing, and I think he might be starting to figure out that random capitalization and non-existent punctuation make everyone miserable. First me; then, by the third re-write, him too.

Esme now knows the /o/ sound (ahhh), and she’s been reading words like “cat” and “ram.” She has trouble with the letter “i”, but she loves the sound “th.”

Foreign Language Classes

We’re still debating on whether to take sign language classes this year. I think it sounds cool, but they’re on Thursday nights, which is probably the worst night of the week for us to add another activity. The Iowa School for the Deaf offers free classes using the Iowa Communication Network (virtual) classrooms; all you have to pay for is the textbook. I’ve been having visions of the kids translating for famous speakers on the side of a stage in front of a huge audience…wouldn’t that be an interesting job?

http://www.iowaschoolforthedeaf.org/

Our second choice is Rosetta Stone Spanish, which is highly recommended by seemingly everyone, although I’ve heard it can be a little bit difficult for younger kids. It’s also expensive, so we’re still thinking about it. There are a ton of free and inexpensive beginner resources online, so once we get through our “Who is God” book (which currently occupies our Foreign Language time slot), we might start with the free stuff and work our way up to Rosetta Stone next year.

http://www.rosettastone.com