Homeschool Library Organization: Part 1

Within the innocuous shed that borders our patio, a storm awaits.  This shed houses my beloved book collection and our craft supplies, and it is sadly out of order.  This is what I’m up against.  Yes, I know it’s gotten awful.  I cry when I see books treated like this as well.

West side, facing the patio

East side, Facing the garden

East side, facing the patio

It needs painted.  It needs more light.  Most of all, it needs organized in a way that I remember and use.  *gulp*  All of this needs done without neglecting school.  Or chores.  Or sick children, or healthy meals.  Therefore, it must be done in tiny increments of time.

It’s not all awful.  Some shelves look neat and organized.  (Mostly the shelves the children can’t reach)

But by and large, this place needs work!  A few plans:

Rather than alphabetizing, books will now be divided up by Reading level and Ambleside Online years.   I’m sure there will also be a million miscellaneous shelves, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.  :)

The dresser needs moved out and a reading nook created in it’s place so my older children have a quiet place to read without the little ones trying to steal their books and turn pages for them.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!

Some of these books need to go.  Since I began reading  Charlotte Mason’s works my taste in suitable books has altered drastically, and I’m finding that some of these are no longer the type of book I want to fill my shelves with.  SO some of these dear friends will be moving on to make way for better books.  *sniff*  I’ll probably cry a lot with that part, and every now and then I’ll even post about this painful decision making progress.

Wish me luck: I’m going to need it!

Searching for Joel Salatin

Dry heat is sucking the moisture from the land.  Wind is pushing the dust relentlessly onward.  Our veggies are struggling to survive each searing afternoon. Goats and chickens alike are panting in the shade and drinking gallons of water daily.   Our children voluntarily remain indoors and seem pleased to have schoolwork to occupy their time.  My Man is often on the verge of heatstroke as he expands our poultry facilities and prepares our fall garden.  StrongHaven endures.

In the midst of our struggle for survival, there is time for relaxation.  A book written by Joel Salatin has been on my “must-read” list for quite some time, but getting to the library proved challenging.  When we finally did stop by the library  I forgot to look.  :(  Thankfully, library books need returned.

Our next trip by the library occurred on a searing afternoon, and the library was not our destination.  With three children and a husband waiting in the hot car, I knew this library trip had to be rapid.

Rushing through the library doors, I set down a large stack of children’s books and smile at the Library Lady.  ”Is there any chance you have Joel Salatin’s book here?”

She frowns, adjusts her glasses and scoots closer to the computer screen.  She quickly realizes she doesn’t know how to search for a book and calls her co-worker over.  Together they type S-A-L-A-T-I-N into the computer.  The clock is ticking.  I squirm.

“Well, I’m not really sure….” she says.  ”Let’s try a title search.”  She looks up at me, obviously waiting for the title.

I am in a hurry.  I am not thinking.  I blurt out the title.  ”Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.”

Time freezes.  Formerly helpful faces are suddenly distrustful and suspicious.  One Library Lady backs up slightly, distancing herself from the politically-incorrect entity that has appeared within the sacred confines of the air-conditioned walls.

The second Library Lady steels herself, pursing her lips with disapproval as she prepares to deal with the situation.  ”I don’t think we’d have a book like that,” she says.

I smile, trying to reassure them that they are safe in my presence.  ”It’s a book about farming,” I say helpfully.

Standing as far away as possible, she hits a few more keys.  ”We don’t have it.”

I thank her and turn to leave.  She folds her arms, and the younger lady goes to stand by the telephone.  Both of them watch me.  I sigh.  Drat.  Now I have to find the book somewhere else.

In the hot car, My Man laughs.  He wishes he had seen their faces.  I smile as well, but I feel a little sad.  I remember the distrust and fear and I wonder how neighbors reacted when SWAT teams showed up at the homes of heirloom pig farmers or raw-milk dairy farmers.  Did they realize who the real bad guys were?

ReGrouping

In the few months I’ve had this blog up, I’ve “met”some very interesting and inspiring people. Often, I have been so inspired that I end up being overwhelmed.

Right now is one of those times. We are in our third week of school. We are tending to a massive garden, expanding our chicken pen, building a new chicken house and I am trying to organize and refine our book collection.

Rosie needs some new dresses sewed up. I’m working on gifts for about a million friends who had babies this year. I still haven’t made the puppet theater we are giving Zorro for his upcoming birthday.

There are 2 online projects I’m working on. Projects I believe in and that I feel will be far more beneficial to homeschoolers than snippets from my life.

Naturally, blogging is last on this list. I’m having so much fun teaching and living that I have little time to write quality material. Oh, I have lots of ideas for posts that I am writing down all over the place, but the time consuming act of proof-reading and editing will need to wait until life slows down a little.

So I will be taking a break. Other than The Poultry Diaries and Friday Favorites every couple weeks, I wont be posting much. I need to streamline some things, declutter and get a grip on reality before it engulfs me. Oh, I’ll still read all your blogs and probably annoy you with my many comments. I’ll still write constantly in one of my many notebooks. Your time is valuable. If I post something here I want it to be worth your while. So until then, think of me as a silent but attentive listener.

The Poultry Diaries: Week 2

Our ducklings and chicks are 2 weeks old, and thankfully there have been no more deaths.  The chicks are feathering out nicely, but the ducklings are still covered with down.    The extreme heat leaves them panting and tired in the afternoon. All night long they dart quickly about their business.  I have learned to make sure their food and water is full before I go to bed each evening.

I have not yet figured out the chicken breeds, but I *think* I have discovered the identity of most of the ducklings:  time will tell how right I am.  My best guesses are that we have 2 Magpies, 3 Blue Swedish, 4 Rouen, 2 Pekins, 3 Fawn and White Runners, 5 Buffs and 1  Cayuga.  A delightful variety, to be sure!

The Duckling and Chick Diaries for this week involved painting: I am trying to get the children to try more “art” mediums.  Unfortunately, Boo-Boo is now mobile, and she loves paper.  The elaborately painted booklets did not last long once they hit the floor.  So no Diary Pictures for Week 2.  *sigh*

She’s Mobile!

The ducklings are growing much quicker than the chicks: they were the same size when we received them, but the ducklings are more then double the size of the chicks now.

We gave 8 chicks away to some friends (Spreading the love, since our first chickens were given to us.) Rosie didn’t seem to  mind at all.   Zorro was a little upset that he could not give them one of his ducks.

All in all, the second week has been quite successful.   The ducklings are growing so rapidly that we will need to prepare a second pen to hold the chicks, and separate them all off next week.  I’ll be sure to post pictures of the new pen next week.

Friday Favorites: Heritage History

People don’t happen to history: history happens to people.  That, dear friends, is the core message behind the website featured on this edition of Friday Favorites.

The  folks over at Heritage History have compiled a history curriculum that uses a vast number of engaging historical biographies and delightful tales to teach children all about the events of the past without suffocating their minds with boredom.  They base their curriculum off of a large selection of biographies,  well-written historical fiction and anecdotal collections of historical events that have entered the public domain.

But I don’t use their curriculum.

What I like to use is the website itself.  You see, every book  used in their history curriculum is available on their website.   And this website is very well organized.  You can browse by genre. You can search by author or title. You can search by historical character, by war or by civilization.   The table of Contents for the book you are perusing is always available at the left hand side of the screen, making navigation within individual books a breeze.

I first discovered Heritage History in January of 2012, and I fell in love right away.  I was midway through kindergarten with Zorro and I wanted him to be the smartest kid alive.  (Okay, I still have this wish, but I’ll be quite content if he can just learn to love learning.)  I had found the perfect curriculum to teach him history!  It would work for all 12 years! I fell in love.

Eventually, my frugal side kicked into gear.  After all, my oldest child was still in Kindergarten.  I had set a goal of zero curriculum purchases for his first year of school, and I was still researching educational philosophies as I struggled to decide which path I wanted to take.  Besides all this, Zorro and Rosie are so very different.  How will I know what works for each of them before I’ve tried it?  All I knew was that I wanted to have a literature based homeschool.

Then I dicovered Ambleside Online and Charlotte Mason’s writings.  I soaked it up like a sponge.  Charlotte Mason made so much sense!  Every thing she taught could be applied to all of my children, no matter their personalities.  That was the key: to work with their personalities and not against them.  Heritage History fit perfectly into this plan.

Though I am not currently using the curriculum they offer, I find myself constantly referring back to Heritage History’s website.  When the birthday of a famous person rolls around,  I take a few moments to stop by Heritage History, locate an appropriate biographical tale and read it to my little ones.  I have not needed to purchase or even download the texts for Zorro’s first grade history: the books are already available at Heritage History. Due to the fact that my children are not yet reading on their own, I find that I use the website more than I would use the actual books.  It is so easy to search and see all my different options before I decide which story to read.

My children particularly love the illustrations that accompany these books. I often print one out and allow the children to color while I read the story. I have noticed that they remember the story much better as they make associations between it and the pictures they are coloring.  The large selection of historical maps is yet another useful tool that I am just beginning to explore.

Zorro LOVED coloring this image on April 16th when we learned about Paul Revere and his Famous ride.

I have not yet purchased any curriculum from Heritage History.  For his first year of school we are using the plan of study laid out for Year 1 at Ambleside Online.   But the longer I have researched other history options, the more determined I become that Heritage History is one of the best history courses available, and it is most definitely the one I will have the most fun teaching.  And on the day that I do finally purchase curriculum for Zorro, I plan on my first purchase being Heritage History’s Young Readers Collection.  Until then, I’ll continue using their website for all my history needs.

Friday Favorites: Practical Pages

Today’s Friday Favorite website is Practical Pages, a helpful blog where a talented lady shares with the world the lapbooking and notebooking pages she designs for use in her literature-based homeschool.  The pages are offered free of charge, and the helpful hints and clear photos inspire you with fresh ideas.

My favorite features:

Paper Dolls

The Charlotte Mason overview

I hope to use several of these pages in our first year of Ambleside Online, which we will start shortly. I hope to post all about our curriculum and plan for the school year within a month’s time.  :)

The Poultry Diaries: Week 1

I had hoped the chicks and ducklings would arrive on Thursday, but they ended up arriving the morning of our zoo trip. So I stayed home while Rosie and Zorro took their father to the post office to pick up the noisy box.  My husband reported that you could hear their cheeping from the parking lot. The great variety of breeds that we received was just what I had hoped for.

All of them were safe and sound, so we tucked them into a few giant totes on the kitchen floor, gave them food and water and dashed out the door.  Not quite the arrival I had imagined.

Misadventures and Mortality

But with our arrival home late that evening, the misadventures began.  I decided to re-fill the chick’s water so that Rosie could enjoy watching them.  Kind of me, right?  I filled the water jug, carefully shooed the chicks out of the area and carefully set it down.  Within a few minutes I realized that I must have set the container on an incline: water was running over the edge into the bottom of the tote.  Swiftly I lifted up the jug…… and found a squashed chick underneath.  Apparently I had not been as careful as I thought.  Our first casualty has occurred.

The following morning we found one of the ducklings dead, but we’re still uncertain as to why.  Thankfully, no more unfortunate events have happened and our 25 chicks and 20 ducklings are very happy and active.

Moving Outside

After one night in the house and a close look at the weather forecast, we moved all of our new poultry outside to the chicken tractor.  I set up a cozy corner for them to sleep in: a tote, a few pieces of scrap metal and a heat lamp were all they required for the warm nights that were forecast.

Zorro and Rosie were thrilled at being allowed to hand their charges to me one by one as I placed them into their new home.

The chicks all huddled together and peered up at me with suspicious glances, but not the ducklings.  They saw green and went ballistic.  Twitching their little heads and performing impressive back-flips, they darted among the weeds and futilely stalked flies in between hurried trips to the food and water.  When night time came, the chicks were all snuggled under the heat lamp, but the ducklings sat just outside the circle of light and tried to grab the insects that flocked towards them.

Bathing 

By their second day outside, I broke my first rule.  Every book I have read and every expert I have consulted said I must not let the ducklings swim until at least 2 weeks of age.  But our 100 degree weather had everyone panting.  So I brought out a shallow pan filled with water and let them get in.  Well, I now understand what it means to say “They took to it like a duck to water.”  They knew what to do right away, and the chicks scattered.  :)  I removed the pan after a little while because I was afraid that the chicks would drown, and I noticed that both chicks and ducklings seemed to enjoy sitting on the cool wet ground that was left behind.

Diaries

Zorro and Rosie enjoyed making their diaries.  I tried to keep it simple: they drew pictures and I transcribed the captions for them.  I love seeing the different things they illustrate.

This Entry is being shared over at the Homeschool Science Share and Tell link-up

Friday Favorites: Backyard Chickens

Since our newest round of poultry is due to arrive today, it seemed only fitting that this week’s Friday Favorite should be poultry related.

Do you have a question about poultry?  Of any kind?  If it hasn’t already been covered over at Backyard Chickens, then ask.  The ingeniously helpful folks (141,364 members!!) over there are always on the lookout for fresh issues to chat about.

New to chickens?  Check out the Learning Center

Unsure which breed of chickens you want to get next? Check out the Breed Profiles.

Looking for way to house your chickens that fits your situation?  There are hundreds of ideas in the Coop area.

Wanting to meet other poultry-obsessed folks?  join the forum.

Do you prefer Ducks or Geese to chickens?  Turns out several other folks feel the same way.  What about Emus or Pheasants?

Looking for Hatching eggs?  Grown birds?  Rare breeds?  Check out the Buy – Sell- Trade page.

If you’re considering poultry, join Backyard Chickens.  Those weird but sudden issues that come up?  Many experienced caretakers will gladly lend a hand to help you troubleshoot the issue.  Let me know what you think!

A Garden Tour 2012

Thanks to My Man, the greenhouse he built and the hard work he has done in our garden, our garden is overflowing this year.  Perhaps you would enjoy a tour?

This was our Garden Harvest the day after I finished putting up 4 1/2 gallons of pickled Veggies. We’re gathering this much twice a week.

A Panoramic view of our Garden. On the far left is the greenhouse and Library. The small building int he center of the picture is the chicken house.

My Herb Spiral

My Herb Spiral: another view

Small Citrus Tress on the patio

Pepper Plants outside the Greenhouse

The Tomato Wall

A Happy Chicken

Tigerella Tomatoes

Watermelon

The Vine Lane

Amaranth, the only crop that did well in last years drought.

The Corn is Ripe: and oh so delicious

Bell Peppers

Bell Peppers

The Bean Trellis

Peruvian Purple Peppers

Red Burgundy Okra: a surprisingly tender and delicious variety

Beautiful Gladiolas

The Poultry Diaries: Intro

A few years ago we acquired 15 fully grown chickens from a dear friend.  Excited by how quickly they began laying and the ease with which they settled in, we hatched almost 40 eggs from those chickens.  A determined dog discovered them, and only three pullets made it to maturity. Since we lost three of the original hens during our horrible heat, we still have 15 chickens.

 

The offending dog is now confined during the day, school is out for the summer, and we are going to try again. But this time we are not limiting our attempts to chickens. 25 chicks and 20 ducklings of unknown breeds are due to arrive this week  from Ideal Poultry.

We have grand plans for the new arrivals. Keeping the babies away from predators will be a challenge, so I plan to convert the bed of a pickup into a “security brooder” for them.  Rosie has done such a superb job tending her chickens for the past year that she will immediately take charge of the new chicks.  Zorro has expressed a desire to care for them as well, so he will be responsible for the ducklings.

Since school should never end completely, we will keep a poultry diary of what goes right, what goes wrong and how adorable our new critters are.  Hopefully the children will learn some new words to randomly insert into their vocabularies and have new material with which to create the ink sketches that litter our home.  Each week they will create  a small booklet about the changes that have occurred in their poultry charges, which will be assembled into a full-fledged lapbook by the time the hatchlings are fully feathered.  Stay tuned for weekly misadventures and struggles.