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Feast Day of Michaelmas

September 30, 2009 By Laura 2 Comments

On Tuesday, we celebrated Michaelmas, and studied this Feast Day for school. (Homeschooling, that is.)

For anyone who may not know, Sept. 29 has been the feast day established by the Roman Church, to celebrate St. Michael the Archangel, since the the 15th century. Although, Archangels Gabriel and Raphael were added to be acknowledged on this day as well, in the 20th century.

We reviewed much of what we had already known about Archangel Michael: that he is the most powerful of angels, that he was present and had great part in some of the greatest Biblical battles, and is in fact appointed “Defender of the Catholic Faith“. It is St. Michael, who is even the angel that escorts all souls to eternity!

We continued to learn the significance of Gabriel and Raphael as well, whose roles in history cannot be dismissed.

It was especially interesting to study once again, the Ranking Order and Marching Order of Angels, which is as follows:

The First Triad

Closest to the Throne

Seraphim – Continually sing God’s praises

Cherubim – Worship God

Thrones – Oversee Justice in Heaven

The Second Triad

Guard Heaven and Earth

Dominions – Assign duties to other angels

Virtues – Work Miracles

Powers – Protect us from evil

The Third Triad

Earth Duty

Principalities – Protect nations and cities

Archangels – Deliver messages from God

Angels – Guard us personally

Feasting on fat geese has long since been a tradition of the English, Scots and Celts, as have been carrot bouquets given as gifts! Eating goose did not appeal to us, and I personally don’t like carrots either, although I do eat them to be a good example. But it would have been hard for me to eat carrots, and associate it with a celebration of any kind. Thankfully, yet another traditional food has been a breakfast bread called St. Michael’s bannock, which Daddy/Michael made and we had with dinner, instead, and it was delicious!

It is very quick and easy to make, so if you would like the recipe, you can grab it HERE.

{A} also made angel cookies, using just an ordinary sugar cookie recipe.

My mother loved angels. That was her thing. So whenever I hear of, see, read about, or think of angels for any reason, I think of my mother.

Ever since we began home schooling, we have entertained the idea of naming our ‘school’. I know many homeschoolers do. While we have never encountered a real need to do so ourselves, we have heard that it can be helpful in getting a discount in purchasing home school supplies and material sometimes, as one benefit. Besides the fact that we haven’t found a reason to, and granted, we could very well be unaware of many more benefits of doing so, I also personally felt a real weight of sorts, about such a decision. Whether we needed one or not, following through and naming our school felt really important. It seemed like something we should think about long and hard, because it would have permanence, and reflect us in some way.

For at least a year, we have considered naming our school in reference to St. Michael, the Archangel. He has always been {A}’s favorite angel, and has been the focus of many projects and conversations of hers. We all, too, have been drawn to him, being able to identify with him in so many ways. For example, in defending our faith, which we must do now and then, and defending why we live as we do, which we actually don’t feel the need to do much at all, except to say our life style too mostly revolves around our faith. (Although there are COUNTLESS other reasons/perks/blessings!!)

Obviously, also, one of the leaders of our family/household’s name is Michael, and one of our boys has his namesake as well. So we are partial to the name, and all that name represents: “Who is like God.” Of course, we are all made in His likeness, but that happens to be what the name Michael actually means.

And so….because the name still seemed fitting after all of this time, for whatever reasons we may not even know of yet, and aside from the fact that we may never use it in any way, except to finally do it, we thought it would be a good day to agree as a family, and name our school:

I know, like anything angel related, as simple as cut out cookies, this name will also remind me of my mother. Not only because she loved angels, but because of the sheer JOYFUL reaction she gave me, when I told her we decided to home school the kids. She startled me, actually. She literally cheered out loud, and had tears in her eyes. So I think one way or another, she would have been happy with our school’s name as well.

If you home school, have YOU named your school? If so, would you share the name you chose with us, and the significance behind choosing your name? Also, if you know of any real benefits in naming your school that we should know of, it would be wonderful if you shared that with us as well.

We hope you all had a wonderful Michaelmas!

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At Long Last, Our First Day of Homeschooling – School Year 2009-2010

September 19, 2009 By Laura 8 Comments

If you’ve been following along with us, you’ll know that this first day of our homeschooling year is one we waited for. (And waited, and waited..). If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me put it in a nutshell for you: We ordered all of our curriculum, and the bulk of it never arrived. We waited for weeks. Many calls between shipper and post offices were made. Then a big box finally arrived. a completely EMPTY box. More calls were made. New orders were placed. And we finally received all of the curriculum we needed, weeks after we wanted to begin our homeschooling year. Doesn’t that sound like it was fun? Anyway.

Needless to say, there was a LOT of excitement about beginning our new official school year! Getting this new morning routine going was a bit if a challenge for Michael and I, but the kids were ready long before we were! All we kept hearing from them was, “Are you guys ready for school YET?” lol. (Isn’t that supposed to be OUR line?)

We started the day, like we start all school days, which is with family devotion together. We most always have special intentions and the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary together. We’ve also been through many devotion books already over the years-some better than others. But they all have generally included the day’s Scripture reading, and discussion. We can really get going and chat the time away, with discussion! Recently, I ordered a new Kid’s Devotion quarterly magazine that has not yet started coming. But when it does, if it’s really good, I’ll be sure to blog about it. In addition to our family devotion together, {A} has her own teen daily devotional book that she loves, and of course, uses daily.

But until our new devotion book arrives, we can come up with plenty to do ourselves! For this first day of school, we first talked a little about the year ahead, our plans, and each of us said our own special intention for our school year, to pray for together. Michael/Daddy works for himself, so he was able to join us this first day.

A friend of ours, (Mr. Bill’s daughter, if you are familiar with the stories of him here on our blog), sent us a very thoughtful package for our family. There were some gifts for the kids, a gift card to a really nice restaurant nearby for Michael and I (that I have been waiting to try some day!), and a Mass card for our family. Part of the Mass card had this beautiful, Prayer for the Family. We prayed it together, and Michael led it by reading it for us.

Michael and I had read it before, when we first received it, of course, and we loved it! It just speaks to us. So much so, that we are putting it in a lovely frame, and hanging it on our wall by some pretty ribbon.

In Devotion closing, we then prayed a decade of the rosary together.

The little ones got started in writing their names on labels, and putting them on their books.

Then we all got to the school work!

{A} has always tended to kind of do her schooling all over the place. I guess it depends on where she feels like being, and what noise levels are here or there. But she started off this year in her room (well, one of her rooms. The other is having some work done, before we take this one and re-do it! lol). When she needs helps, or needs us to correct her work, she lets us know through the school day. Aside from that, we review and grade all of her work on our own time.

Generally speaking, here’s how {A}’s daily classes will go this year:

1) Math 2) Language Arts 3) Writing (program: Writing Strands) 4) Science 5) History & Geography 6) Latin 7) Politics & Government

*Another free day of the week: Art – Drawing & Painting Class

*Fridays-Teaching the little ones a class with me. : )

The the little ones now do most of our (book) schooling in the sun room. We have a ‘school room’ where we used to school all of the time, and where we still store all of our schooling books and supplies. We used to only school in the sun room in warm seasons. But now that we have a wood stove out here, and it’s a 4 season room…….. . It’s just that the light is SO plentiful and beautiful. It’s simply a lovely place to be.

Generally speaking, here’s how the kid’s school days go, after family devotion:

{J, O & S}

1) Phonics and Reading 2) Math 3) Writing (program: Writing Strands) 4) Spelling and Vocabulary

Tues: Catechism, *Wed: Science, *Thur: Social Studies, *Fri: Introductory Sign Language

*These days classes are like bonus classes. They may get moved around, or bumped off on the occasional week because of a field trip or a big agenda day for their teachers. ; )

Art, music and PE are just things things they naturally cover in their life every day, without a real need for specified time for it, at their age right now.

One tradition we have upheld every year so far, for the first day of school, is that I take the kids school pictures. (In the school room.) This is one day, I care what they wear. On other school days, if we’ll be staying home, they can wear what they want. (And they have been known to get creative with that license!) On the rare day, they may even have school in their pajamas! (It’s a home schooling perk!)

Here’s this year’s ‘chosen’ school photos. I got several good shots of each of them, so Michael made the final choice for each of them. These school photos are just for us: for them and us to have as milestone photos of each grade’s school year, and for comparison of year to year growth shots. The teeth situation sure is different from last year!

{A}

{J}

{O}

{S}

Oh, well this photo below reminds me of one more tradition we seem to have . . . . . .

Smelling our new books! Is there anything that smells better, than a brand new book? (Well, maybe home made bread! lol)

Let me tell you how happy we are to be back in the swing of our schooling: We got our books on Thursday. We had our first day of school on Friday, September 18th, and we happily did double lessons in every subject. Today was our second day of school, and it’s SATURDAY!

Wishing you all a lots of learning and fun, this homeschooling year!

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Update.

September 14, 2009 By Laura 2 Comments

See latest update at bottom of this post.

9/14: Guess what we got today via USPS?

And EMPTY BOX!!

I am not even kidding! A box, from the place we ordered, with NOTHING in it.

The mailman thinks the box must have opened in Springfield, MA—and they didn’t know what was in the box, and so they just sent the box so we would know there was a problem. Well, WE ALREADY KNEW THAT!! (I’m not yelling.)( Ok…I am.)

This is like…a nightmare. Have I ever been negative on this blog? No. I’m feeling really upset about this though. And negative. Worse than BEFORE the mailman came. I’m like…..are we on candid camera or something? Do you know what this means? Our books are probably a wreck now, IF they found them. And would we even get ALL of them? UNREAL…this situation.

It gets better. Michael calls the post office number the mailman gave him, and the guy he has to speak to won’t be in until tomorrow. I called the place we ordered from…..just to vent about their cheap shipping, and the kind of postal service they get for their $2.00 savings, and the manager for that had to leave early today.

Perhaps the Lord is testing my patience. Letting me practice keeping my aggravation level somewhat in check. I’m not there yet.

I have never wanted to be into the swing of our schooling days, so badly. I am envious of all of you there already. I feel like a party we were so excited to go to, has been cancelled–and we were all dressed up and ready to go, with our party hats on and everything.

How LONG will it take before THIS mess is straightened out? WE WANT TO GET SCHOOLING!!

MANY YESTERDAYS AGO!!!

(Thanks for listening. Off to do a senior photo shoot at the beach. Maybe that’ll cheer me up?)

XO – Laura

9/15 Update – GREAT NEWS! Michael made a call to our curriculum providers, told them all that happened, and they are sending out an expedited order of our books that will be here by the end of the week! He also advised them how better shipping methods would serve them better and their customers, and pointed out how much it is really costing them for these cheapest shipping mishaps. ; )

We are feeling that ‘First Day of School’ excitement building again! Thanks for all of your prayers and support, despite my lack of grace in dealing with the big monkey-wrench in my all-important home schooling plans and schedules!

{A}’s Chipmunks: A New Generation

August 14, 2009 By Laura 6 Comments

{A} usually posts on her own about her chipmunks. But I’m doing it for her this time, and I think you’ll understand why by the end.

For any of our new blog visitors, you may not be aware that {A} has been hand-taming chipmunks since she was about 9 years old. She’s blogged about it several times and I’ve taken lots of photos along the way. If you (or your kids!) are interested in all of those older chipmunk posts, we’ve conveniently created a page of those archived posts, all together, in one place. You’ll find the link to the archives in the right hand side-bar. Just click on it and a whole page of lots more photos and posts (written by {A}) pops up. The posts are from most recent at the top, to the oldest posts as you scroll down.

You may wonder why this post, and the {A}’s chipmunk archives, are in the homeschooling section. Well, I’ll tell you. One of the reasons we wanted to home school our kids, is because we wanted them to have enough time on their hands, to discover their passions. To want to develop interests enough, that they seek to learn, on their own. To relish in the joys of childhood, and immerse themselves in them. To wonder, discover and experience.

It’s a beautiful thing, as a parent, to be able to witness that with our children, as much as we do. No more have we seen these things unfold in the most fascinating way, than with {A} and her chipmunks. Her patience, belief and determination have been impressive, to say the least. She has LEARNED SO MUCH, from spending time with her chipmunks, and from researching a lot, to find out what she wants to know about them. Her love for her chipmunks is so real.

One of the chipmunks she’s been closest to was a girl chipmunk she had named Chipmouse. (To make a long story short about the name, I was the first to spot that chipmunk out the window on the banks, when she was a baby, and I thought it was a mouse.)

Chipmouse is the chipmunk that {A} was photographed with in the last couple of posts. Well, this past spring {A} noticed that Chipmouse kept running and disappearing into the drive-way, so she investigated, and that’s when she discovered this new chipmunk hole:

We put the bricks around it so that no one would drive over it.

Soon, {A} noticed Chipmouse had nipples. Turns out, Chipmouse had babies down in that new hole. So {A} was watching for a good month before one day, she started yelling and running into the house all excited because the babies came out. There were 3 of them.

A few days later, we started having a problem with the outdoor cat from the neighbor across the street, stalking the chipmunks. : ( We were doing all we could to protect the chipmunks, and keep an eye out for the cat. But we aren’t up at sunrise and there are time we’re not home! So Michael talked to our neighbor guy across the street, who talked to his girlfriend who’s cat it was. He reported that she said we had permission to ‘shoo the cat away’ or squirt her with water or whatever, but there was nothing she could do, because ‘it was an outdoor cat’. We didn’t like that answer. We give these people all of our pine wood for their campfires, and we were just asking them to keep their cat off of our property. If we wanted a cat in our yard….we’d have a cat of our own. It was unfair. So Michael and {A} were spending a lot of time trying to guard the chipmunks. But that cat had a hiding spot, and we knew where it was, there in the plentiful brush. It was always ready to pounce, the second a chipmunk popped out.

It wasn’t long before the first incident came to be. Michael was standing in our living room, looking out the window, when he saw the cat running from our drive-way across the street with something in it’s mouth. Of course…the rest of us had no idea what was happening, when Michael made some inaudible noise and went FLYING out of the house and RUNNING as fast as he could across the street, right into the neighbor’s yard across the street, and out behind their house. The kids and I knew whatever just happened, it wasn’t good. It seemed like forever before we saw him coming back, but I had NEVER seen a look on his face like the one he had. He was rippin’ mad. The cat had gotten one of the babies….which it dropped when it saw Michael coming, and the baby chipmunk ran terrified into the nearby woods. We all knew it wouldn’t dare ever come out again, even if it knew it’s way. It was just a baby.

From then on, Michael and {A} were losing sleep trying to protect the rest from that cat……but soon, Chipmouse…..{A}’s longtime friend, and mother of the babies, was missing. And then another baby, gone too. Shortly thereafter, Michael got into a chit-chat with the lady over across the street and her young daughter (in her 20’s), as they were heading out for a walk, and the daughter admitted she had found a dead chipmunk at their doorstep on the deck. Michael was SO upset, and {A} was crushed.

She developed a very close bond with the only chipmunk she had left. She had named her CB, which stood for ‘Chipmouse’s Baby‘. lol CB created some new holes just a few yards from the side of our driveway, on the edge of our (kind/considerate) next door neighbor’s gardens and waterfall.

They spent lots of time together. {A} could be out there with CB for hours, just playing with her, feeding her, and making sure she was ok. Just trying to protect the life of her only chipmunk left. But again…..we couldn’t be there 24/7. That cat was ALWAYS watching, waiting, for any opportunity.

That’s what led to building the chipmunk house. It not only kept the squirrels from eating the seed {A} put out for her chipmunk, but it was a safe place for CB to load her cheeks with feed—which takes a couple minutes you know!! The poor thing was in a nervous panic, because of the cat around. So…..the chipmunk house was planned out, shopped for, and built pretty quickly. It worked great! We loved to watch her go in, run up her little ramp to the second floor, and fill her cheeks. You could really see that she felt comfortable and safe in there.

Here is CB, posing in front of her new home. lol.

Then she would cautiously come back out, and run to her hole to store her seeds. Then come back and get some more.

{A} Spent a good part of her birthday, with CB. We could have all done anything she wanted, because it was her special day. But after mass and a couple of pet stores she wanted to go to, spending time with CB was what she wanted to do.

She much of the same for several days, until one day just before mid-July. CB wasn’t coming when {A} called her, and we haven’t seen her since. Or any other chipmunks, for that matter.

(This is {A} on her birthday with CB)

We know the inevitable happened. The cat got the last of her chipmunks. We have all been really upset about it, but {A}’s heart has been broken. She’s had a few days where she just wanted to be alone in her room, and we knew why. Loss like that
is hard for a kid her age. Hard for anyone, to lose someone they care about so much. When we got up in the morning, we could look out the window and see {A}’s chipmunks sitting on the stump or the waterfall next door, just watching the house….waiting for her to come out and see them. That neighbor, by the way, has 3 indoor cats. They understand and agree that it is not right to let the cats go after the wildlife at our bird feeders, and they have watched {A} grow up training the chipmunks between our yards, too.

Is it FAIR, to have to tolerate having a cat on a killing-spree, in your yard all of the time, because someone else decides they want their ‘domestic’ cat, to be ‘an outdoor cat’? They kill just for for the sake of doing so. They go after wild birds, chipmunks, etc., and just bat these creatures around, until they die. And then they just leave it! Or bring it to their master’s doorstep. Hunt and fun over. Senseless. We believe, if anyone is going to have a ‘domestic’ cat, they should get fixed, and keep it in their own house. Or at least in their own yard! We should not have to accept a hunting cat on our property on any given day, because some cat owner wants to let their cat outdoors. It’s not fair. It’s not responsible. And it’s not considerate of anyone else, who never wanted a cat! When ONE home has an outdoor cat, the WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD has an outdoor cat, whether they like it or not! It’s not fair.

The harshness over the end of this post (so unlike me…you all know it…) is because we are so upset. We loved these chipmunks. Our daughter invested many hours of her life training these sweet little creatures, who loved her, as much as she loved them. She invested her heart in training them, and developed real relationships with them. It’s just sad that she ended up losing them all, because they become a play toy, for someone else’s pet.

If you haven’t read them, I think you would all enjoy the photos and posts in {A}’s Chipmunk Archives to the right there. There are no rants there, I promise. They are all written by {A}, and there are some great photos to go with them. We hope you enjoy them sometime!

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A Wild Animal Education for Trio – Elementary Homeschooling

July 28, 2009 By Laura 2 Comments

When I was out shopping for {A}’s birthday, and found those great cookbooks on the bargain shelves at Border’s Book Store, I also scored this HUGE wild animal education book. {O} was with me shopping that day, and she spotted it first. She said “Mama, LOOK at this BIG giraffe book! You love giraffes!” I do….I really do. And all of my kids know it. The book was on the bottom extended shelf, so I turned it to take a look inside, and couldn’t believe how heavy the thing was! It was a big book to manage, 17″ x 24″, but OHHH the gorgeous photos inside! Wild animals of ALL kinds. Beautiful photography, and lots and lots of information about these amazing creatures.

I’m indecisive in stores. I don’t like spending money, really. I wasn’t there for THAT, and it wasn’t the trio’s birthday yet. But man, would they ever love that book! I was pretty sure they would LOVE it. {O} loved it. But I hemmed and hawed for a really long time, anyway. I was getting it, then I wasn’t, then I was, and wasn’t again. It was cheap. Really, really discounted. But would the kids be able to manage a book so big? Would they be able to turn the pages without ruining them? Where would we keep it?

In the end, I got it. And I am SO glad I did!

It has been such a big hit!! I didn’t give it to them right away. I put it away for a couple of weeks, actually. And {O} kept the secret the whole time. But when I did decide to give it to them, I asked them all to sit on the rug, because I was kind of afraid if I let one of them take it, they might drop it on their toe! It would definitely break a toe, or 2. Plus, the only way to look at it was on the floor or table.

Their faces, looking at these photos of these animals, SO big on the pages in front of them, was proof that it was a good purchase.

They were all over it, looking at all of the pages and photos at first, and chatting up a storm.

They talked a lot about the inside of the crocodile’s mouth being yellow. And such a weird yellow too. Why was it yellow, they wondered?

They kept looking through it again and again, taking turns turning the pages. They just couldn’t get enough of seeing all of these animals, and wanted to look through again and again.

But then they started reading some – which I had hoped and figured they would. I mean….the book is a wealth of information on so many very interesting animals! They love reading, and they usually ate this stuff up, so that was my real push in buying it.

Did you know that until recently, it was believed that there were only 2 species of elephants? African elephants, and Asian elephants. But genetic testing has proven there is actually a 3rd species, the African Forest elephant.

Did you know, that if you shave a tiger down to it’s skin, their stripes would still be there?

They spent a really long time, sharing the book that first day.

There’s my giraffes. I haven’t got on the floor myself, YET, to read all about them, but I will! You can bet on it.

The kids have already taken in so many facts. Is a vast knowledge about wild animals really going to be super useful in their lives? Probably not, unless they go into some wild animal field of work. But this book is so valuable and educational in so many other ways. First of all, it continues fostering the fun in their learning. They are definitely exercising their reading skills, which is already very fluent. They read like little adults. But what’s more, when they come to a new word, they will always ask me what it means. They do that reading any book. Because they want to know, in the context of that sentence, before they read on. So their vocabulary is really growing too.

Once they looked at it 4 or 5 times together, and took turns reading parts of different pages together too, they decided they should each have a turn having it all to themselves.

At some point in every day since, every one of the kids has taken this book out and got back down on the rug with it for awhile. They love to read it, and share whatever it is they are fascinated with, with whoever is around that will listen.

For now, the book is leaning against the wall by my desk here. I have had the joy of seeing the little excited expression on their faces, a few of the times they have come to get it, and I happen to be sitting here at the time. It just re-enforces to me what a wise little investment it was.

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We are feeling that ‘First Day of School’ excitement building again! Thanks for all of your prayers and support, despite my lack of grace in dealing with the big monkey-wrench in my all-important home schooling plans and schedules!

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