The Sun, History and Geography

Amazingly, I woke up this morning to birds singing. I haven't heard that in several days with all this rain! If you a weather follower (like me), you'll know that we've had something like 110 inches of rain in the last several days...OK, really it is around 4 inches but seems like feet!. Torrential downpour is an understatement. It does make me wonder where all that water comes from! I am very thankful that we are on the top of the mountain, because the plateaus and those on the side are really getting hit hard with flooding. The Lehigh River was four feet above flood level (forecast to be nearly six feet above by this afternoon) and Jim Thorpe (the town, not the guy :) ) declared a city emergency. Roads are destroyed and homes are full of water. It is just a mess. Up on the other end of the county, the Tobyhanna is flooding in Blakeslee too. We are safely here in the middle, but going anywhere is quite an adventure. I wanted to go to the Salvation Army this afternoon for their half-off day, but I don't know of a way there that isn't closed. It is just weird weather.

Yesterday we were all stick indoors again. Now I might occasionally let the kids go play in the rain, but it was actually storming with lightning and wind and black skies, so inside we all were. Cabin fever in the summer... who would have thougt?

I spent the majority of the day planning out our school schedule for next year and researching history and geography curriculum and materials. I just haven't settled into a history curriculum I'm in love with yet and that works for us. We started with The Mystery of History last fall and though I thought there was some great stuff in it, I didn't LOVE it. It was a bit too puffy. I know that doesn't mean much, but it is hard to explain so the word puffy meets the need for a word. I actually like the premise of the book and the author has done an amazing job gathering information into one place, but the activities were pretty involved in my opinion but also pretty necessary to get the information into the kids. It bordered closely to twadle for us. I loved the timeline idea, but the method describe (using a big sewing board) just wasn't working for us.

I love this part of homeschooling! We can change whenever we need to do so until we find what works best for us. The freedom to tailor to the needs is a big reason we are doing this. If something isn't working, we find something that will! Yes, it is work, but necessary. I will interject here, that if the local school was better or there was a local Christian school (and that if there was, we could afford it), our kids would most likely be there. We are not a militant homeschooling family :) We've done private school, public school, charter school and homeschool... each has advantages and disadvantages. There are things I really don't like about homeschooling and I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but for our family, for this place in life, this is the best thing for now. Nothing is perfect this side of heaven. Just thought I should clarify that point...

back to my rainy Tuesday and the hunt for history....

Mid-year, we moved Jot and Emma to The Story of the World which is a nice curriculum if used with the Activity Book. It is similiar to the k12 curriculum they had in the charter school but still came close to busy work and wasn't covering American History for many years which I wanted them to have. I love chronological history, but the Story of the World was repeating much that they had already been through and since Jot will soon study PA history, I felt some American history was needed and would be a bit more enjoyable.

Also mid-year, we moved Hannah into using the A History of US series. This is an awesome series. I love the way Joy Hakim writes and the material covered is balanced and thourough in the series. Hannah began using this when she was enrolled in the charter school, so I was familiar with it. Personally, since I love history, I knew these books would get used. I got the teacher's guides that Amazon sells too and these are working to some extent for us. The material is interesting, but Hannah seems to not like it too much. Now that doesn't necessarily mean we need to change anything, but having her enjoy history is more important to me that forcing information into her. I want to develop a love of learning and an enjoyment of history in her. I've seen her excitement with historical fiction and non-fiction as well, so I'm leaning more towards going with a literary based curriculum... in other words: real books. There are tons of book lists broken down by time periods, but I was looking for a bit more guidedance until I have more confidence of my ability to put together enough real books to fill out a year. And there is always the PA homeschool law of "the portfolio" and having something more than just a book list in there seems safe. Not that I think real and substantial learning isn't occurring without "paper evidence", because I know it is... but I really don't want the district on our case about anything and having a few worksheets in a portfolio is easy enough to do and satisfy the state as well. I also need some structure in the planning for my own sanity... so off I went to search history curriculums with a literature base.

Cathy Duffy's Top Picks book and website have been so helpful to me for various things and I highly recommend her stuff. In her book, I found TruthQuest History and we are considering giving this a try. I like that it provides an overview of the historical time period (chronological) and lots of information about the books that are listed (it includes some films as well). It is very flexible for our schedule and also has some writing activity ideas and quesitons for our use (and the portfolio). I think we'll start Hannah on Ancient Egypt/Ancient Greece mvoing her through a six year track and begin Emma and Jot with American History for Young Students at a slower pace so Jot can begin the second level stuff in sixth grade. Emma will repeat the lower level stuff with Faith or possible join Jot for the second level stuff...time will tell. Hannah will revisit American History in her later High School years so we will be reading our "A History of US" books still. I may use them for her composition copying work as well. I'll be reading them for my own enjoyment regardless!

We considered having them all work together for history, but the gap is so great between Jot and Hannah and it hadn't worked well for Science last year, so we're leaning toward two different tracks for history. It does make me wonder if everyone second guesses curriculum as much as I do?? All this was just over history... geography was another mess. I'm leaning at this point towards the Trail Guide series from Geography Matters , World for Hannah (to go along with her history) and U.S. for Jot and Emma. Thankfully, I think we're settled on the other subjects. For now anyway ;)

Another time perhaps, I'll blog about the stress we endured to initially decide on other subjects :) Nothing has created more sweat in prayer thus far in my life than how to educate our children. I often wish the Bible were more clear on which of the options was right and which was wrong.... would it be easier that way? All this decision making is hard work. Being grown up is much more trouble than I ever thought it would be than when I was 12.

Rained Out and Rambling

Our day at Ricket's Glen had to be cancelled. Bummer. A big cold front is moving in and bringing storms from today through the weekend. Everyone was a bit disappointed (me especially... I was looking forward to seeing this park) but we'll reschedule for another time. Instead, Tim took the kids (the oldest four) to see Cars. They were beside themselves and barely ate any lunch. I stayed home with Quin. Though I would have liked to gone, no one was available on such short notice to watch the baby and taking an infant to a theater is just something I won't do. We'll head to the library afterwards as the kids have been itching to go for two weeks since we missed our last trip there.

I'm sorting pictures still for my BPS class... totally loving it too. Our assignment this week is to find two of our categorized photos and make a connection that you wouldn't have been able to make if everything was chronological. This is mine. Hannah and Jot both had the same injury at nearly the same age and honestly I do believe that both bandaides came out of the same box. The experience I had when Hannah had stitches directly led to Tim banishing me from the exam room when Jot had his. Stitches on the kids was worse than Jot's surgery for me. Eventually this will become a layout. For now, it's just one of many connections I made in categorizing my first 100 pictures for class. This is just an amazing class and I'm so impressed with Stacy's commitment to her students. She replies to emails quickly, is incredibly encouraging and open with her own struggles and ideas AND she has broken down into manageable sizes what took her years to put together on her own. This was definitely money well spent.

I tried to get some cool lightening pictures last night but we have too many trees to get a good view of the sky. Not complaining about the trees because I do love them, but I am eager to try to get some lightning shots too. If the expected storms are still around tonight, I think I'll try going out to the shed and seeing if I can get a better angle there.

My First Post

Well, I've jumped into the world of blogging evidently. Not that I have loads of time to keep up with this but we'll see how it goes. My thinking is thus... I have family all over the place with none being near here, maybe this will be a way to keep in touch. I hope to keep everyone supplied with pictures of the kids and peeks into our life here in the mountains.

Currently life is moving along here in the mountains. Quinton is pushing himself around on his back and no longer stays where you put him. Faith can't decide if she wants to nap still or not and often we find her rocking on the couch (she's rocked since birth) and eventually she is out cold for 45 minutes or so. Emma is adjusting to being the true middle of the five kids and alternates between being Jot's best friend or Faith's best friend. Hannah is discovering more freedom with her new bike and is now allowed to ride to our friend Jeanne's house. Tim is still working in Philadelphia about one day and then gets his remaining hours in at home the rest of the time. What a blessing it is for him to be able to work from home. Computers can be good! Me? I'm enjoying my time off from teaching school and trying to get a few projects completed around the house... though truly just keeping up with laundry is sometimes a full time job lately. I'm taking Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking and just loving it. We're in our second week and I already feel like I've learned so much. I'm enjoying scrapbooking again!

This Friday we are supposed to be going to Rickets Glen State Park. We hope to meet up with the Guaglers and the McAndrews, both pastors and families from North of here. I roomed with Maryann and Julie at the East Coast Pastor's Wives Conference for the second time this spring, so it will be nice for us all to get together again. We've planned to grill lunch and just hang out. The forecast if for rain so I'm hoping that we don't have to reschedule.

Here's a couple of pictures, this first one is the kids at Boulder Field and a recent one of Quin just for fun.