Restoration Place

Mama's Time Out ~ Toad Hollow 'Eye of the Toad', Good Cheese, Great Book

This mother had her own time out early this evening. While the children screamed with glee in a downpour in the backyard, I cut some fabulous local Broom's Bloom Creswell Colby, grabbed The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds, and poured a glass of Toad Hollow: Eye of the Toad Dry Pinot Noir Rose, and had a few minutes to simply be.

At the wine store this afternoon, I grabbed the bottle of Toad Hollow because the label caught my eye. I like pinot noir. I like toads. I saw a big one today when we went strawberry picking at Brad's Produce. And that's where I bought the cheese.

 

Anyway, I like to try new wines. And this chance grab is a good one. It has a dry, tingly bite as it goes down, and that paired it with the buttery, tangy colby in just the right way. Not that I know anything about wine.

Curious about any winery that would call itself Toad Hollow, I checked into it. This particular wine I was enjoying was featured in May issue of Martha Stewart's Living Magazine. The winery itself won both gold and silver medals in the 2009 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Neat, huh?

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Those few quiet moments were cut short. There was a not-so-happy scream from the back yard. Everyone slid into the house in their wet, muddy clothes. Jacob had slipped and fallen on some landscaping stones and stumbled in with scraped, bloody knees. He was put into a hot bath. Everyone else needed to get cleaned up and into dry clothes. The phone rang and Karl told me he was bringing home pizza for dinner. It's a good Friday evening. ~smile~

Resource ~ A Child's Geography Volume II: Explore the Holy Land

This summer we're going to be slowly working our way through A Child's Geography, Volume II: Explore the Holy Land. Perhaps you're already familiar with the authors through their lovely and inspiring blogs: Ann Voskamp of Holy Experience and Tonia Peckover of Study in Brown.

We enjoyed A Child's Geography Volume I: Explore His Earth three years ago when my children were 8, 6, 4, and a tag-a-long 1, and they still remember so much about what we learned. My now 9-year-old still asks if we can "please do the atmosphere layers in a jar project again, Mom!" Hmmm...guess I really should get around to it, already.

The volume will take us on a tour of six countries: Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, at a pace of about one country every two weeks. We will adjust our pace, as needed, as we have lots of interests to pursue this summer. We might not even finish the entire volume this summer, and that's ok, too.

We'll keep you updated on our "travels" and share go-along resources as we go. We begin next week. First up: Turkey.

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I originally thought I might follow Serendipity's Tour of Continents and Cultures, which dovetails with both volumes of A Child's Geography, begins with Africa, and provides lots of helpful resources, links, and recommended books, but we spent a lot of time on Africa not so long ago, and the children are eager to learn more about the Middle East right away. I urge you to take a look at what the ladies at Serendipity have put together and generously share with the rest of us--especially if you want to begin a tour of the continents with Africa. I may just have to come back to Serendipity's plans in a year or so, and take the journey with my younger two children.

Ambleside Online Curriculum ~ Where We Are Now

Ambleside Years 3 and 6 weekly schedule, printed directly from the website. Maybe some day I'll create a neater weekly grid schedule.

Now that it's the end of May, we've brought our regular Ambleside studies to a close. I've been thinking about where we're at and where we're headed. You might remember that several months ago we switched from Sonlight Cores 2 & 5 to Ambleside Online Year 3 and Year 6

It wasn't because I suddenly decided my children were extra brilliant and needed to be bumped up an academic year mid-year. I'm like so many home educators: I'm a perceptive and devoted mama who knows her children, who prays about their education, and who listens to God (I'm also richly blessed to have a dear husband who is just as dedicated).

As a result, I knew I needed to make some big changes. But why did we invest in those Sonlight Cores, both in terms of time and finances, only to make a change before completing them? I have some thoughts about that, but I'll save those for a different post.

I was already familiar with the Ambleside Online curriculum as it's what we followed before our approximate 12 month (mostly delightful) detour with Sonlight. And I already own the books for Years 0 through 5. So to switch to Year 3 for Jacob and Katie was easy (I had actually already been substituting some Ambleside selections for the Sonlight ones), but I needed to acquire the Year 6 books for Maggie.

First, I got as many as I could through inter-library loan, pre-read (skimmed, mostly) them to get a feel for whether it the year was a good placement for Maggie. Once I reached the comfort level I needed in order to know that Year 6 would be a good fit for her (which included listening to her express a strong desire to spend some time with Ancient Greece and Rome), I purchased the books.

 

Maggie's basket of books.

All that brings me to where we are now. Looking over our Ambleside schedules for Year 3 and Year 6, we're at weeks 20 and 24 (out of a total of 36 weeks), respectively. We now want to take a summer break and focus on some other interests. So, for now, it seems right to pick back up right where we left off in a few months...perhaps in mid-to-late August.

We'll take the fall to finish Years 3 and 6, then after Christmas move on to Ambleside Years 4 and 7.

 

Many of our Ambleside Year 3 books, just before I scooped them up to make room for our summer read-alouds and picture books. On the bottom of the stacks, a few non-Year 3 favorites.

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Maggie (11) is following Year 6, and Jacob (a new 9) and Katie (6-nearly 7) are following Year 3. Ben (4) listens in to Year 3 with Jacob and Katie. Jacob hasn't reached the reading proficiency necessary to read Year 3 on his own; and I can't manage to read two years aloud to two different children each day, so I grouped Katie with Jacob. Grouping her with her older brother works great right now. She's more than capable of grasping the readings, as she's been listening in since she was a toddler.

My goal is to increase Jacob's reading skill so he can follow an Ambleside year on his own, and to continue to read to Katie as long as she needs me to. I'm not sure if we'll be quite ready for Ambleside Year 4 when we complete Year 3, so I'm considering Year 3.5. Once that's completed, it's my hope that Jacob will be ready, perhaps by age 10.5, to read Year 4 on his own.

Friday Night Scare: Katie's Fractured Wrist

Katie (6) gave us a little scare Friday evening. She was hurrying down the bunk bed ladder, her feet slipped, and she flipped backwards down to the hardwood floor, landing on her head. While I was tending to her, she began to vomit, and so off to the emergency room we went.

A CT scan of her brain showed everything was normal (thanking God for that!) but an X-ray of her wrist (which she said was very painful) revealed a small buckle fracture of the radius.

Nearly two days later, we're all rejoicing that Katie is her spunky, cheerful self, with merely a splint to show for a very bad fall.

Her siblings have declared she's a queen (for at least a few days, or until they can no longer tolerate her incessant royal demands ~ smile) and she's soaking it up while she can.

The queen, with a very satisfied look on her face, reclining on a bed prepared by her attendants:

"See Mom, it doesn't hurt! Take a picture of my splint!"

Banana Pudding

During my May lull I'm going to be doing more of my favorite things. One of those things is to try out new recipes and to make lots of our traditional favorites. Banana Pudding is at the top of the favorite dessert list.

I grew up eating Banana Pudding made by my Kentucky grandma, Momma. I used to always use her recipe, which I hastily scratched out on a piece of scrap paper when she verbally shared it with me in her kitchen years ago. But now I use the Joy of Cooking version, which tastes just the same to me. When I double the recipe, there's more than enough for everyone in my family that evening and plenty left over for a snack the next day.

***recipe removed to comply with copyright***

The photos above show last night's Banana Pudding, which--just to remind you--is the above recipe doubled. I didn't have enough vanilla wafers (only had one box, not two), barely had enough cornstarch (the boys keep using the cornstarch for experiments), and didn't have a carton of whipping cream to make the usual homemade whipping cream (used the spray can version which I happened to have on hand). But what I did have turned out a yummy pudding. The children were begging to have it for breakfast this morning!

My May Lull

View from the side door...azaleas have been in full bloom for about two weeks, and are just now winding down. The rhododendrons are now beginning to bloom.

The first half of this month has been full: a home education portfolio review, a visit from Mom and Brad, planning for the coming academic year, and get togethers with friends. We've suspended our regular home education schedule to take in all that May has to offer.

Part of what this month offers is the opportunity to step back and reflect. I must pause every once in a while and "take stock." I also want to simply enjoy the lull. It's long overdue.

Homeschool Portfolio Review Time ~ Celebration!

The last two days have been a flurry of homeschool portfolio review preparation. I've been preparing all along by filing samples of the children's work into their portfolios, but it always seems I could have done more to get ready when the time finally comes.

I always begin the process with a little dread, and full of the questions so many home educating moms ask: Did we do enough? {yes, more than enough!} Do I have enough of the right kinds of samples to substantiate the learning (at least the sort of learning that can be shown)? {yes, of course!} As if I wasn't there, all along, participating in the whole process. ~big grin~

I'm not sure why I do that to myself, because I know as soon as I review and remember all that's taken place in our home learning, I'm always amazed. The children are thriving and growing in so many ways. I'm thrilled with who they are becoming, most importantly, in all those ways that can't be measured or accounted for by another person's objective standards.

I'm celebrating the great honor of living this life with my children and who we are all becoming on this journey of home education!

 

Funny...when I look at those three portfolios, I see how little they represent all we've done and been. They can't possibly capture all those moments from all those days, some bumpy and challenging, and some so full of joy and discovery. But there they are, anyways, and they do make us feel happy when we look through them.