"School" Photos

The first day of school--everyone looks so big!

Ben--kindergarten, Rachel 7th grade




Julia 3rd grade , and Emma-- wishing she was in Kindergarten

First Day of School

There is nothing like the first day of school--even if you don't leave the house! I had to laugh...all four kids were up, dressed, washed, brushed, beds made, etc. before 8:30 in the morning. They woke me up, all excited to start school. I showered and dressed, but Rachel already had the coffee brewed. We traipsed outside to take "school photos" which include a group shot by the baby pine Grandma and Poppy gave us when we moved in--we promised to take photos of the kids next to it every year to see how they (and the tree) have grown. Then it was back inside to start our school day.

Rachel works on her own, and Julia does pretty well by herself, but of course Ben needs constant attention. Not to be outdone, Emma insisted that she was also in Kindergarten, and that she needed lessons to do. So I gave her various tasks that were similar to what Ben was doing--though of course Ben had to point out that only he is old enough for Kindergarten and he is doing real work while her work is just fake. Howling ensued...pause while I attended to that! When Ben was done with his work, which included phonics, letters, numbers, artwork, and writing, he was upset because I hadn't assigned more work! I had to explain the concept of burnout and not wanting to do too much on one day, and that since he's 5, he doesn't require hours of school a day. All he could see was that Rachel and Julia get to do a lot more work than he does......

The I turned to helping Julia. She had finished her rather arduous math assignment, which was only review but still had a lot of problems (and I only assigned 2/3 of them!). I helped her where needed on Language Arts, Health, History and reading. We discussed some of the things she had to read and I checked assignments. Rachel had to redo some math because she didn't show her work. And her History assignment took a long time. Plus she wrote answers out from a workbook that I'd said she could write in (there are certain really useful texts that I don't want written in so that I can reuse them with other kids--other workbooks are cheap/tailored to that specific child, and are consumable--she confused the two) that made her take a long time on another assignment. So she worked the longest for sure.

My biggest problem, bar none, was trying to juggle everyone's need for attention--sometimes I was doing work with Ben while someone else had a question, and of course there was Emma, interrupting everyone all the time--and the general noise level. It can be really frustrating when trying to concentrate on math, but mom is talking to someone else about phonics. And of course those frustrations were voiced. Loudly at times. Then there's the distraction of someone else's lesson being more interesting than yours--Ben was making an art project with coloring, glue sticks and scissors that Julia really wanted to watch rather than do math problems. And Rachel couldn't help but listen while we read "Snow White" for Julia's Language Arts lesson (she has a very neat book called "Under the Fairy Tale Tree" for one aspect of Language Arts...)

I'm hoping that once the novelty of school wears off, everyone will be back to the status quo. Emma will play or look at books, Julia will want to do her own thing so I can concentrate on Ben, and then when he's done he and Emma can have their TV time so I can focus on Julia's needs, and Rachel will decide that she'd rather have her privacy in her room--and then I can help her after Julia. With any luck, we won't be doing school ALL day and can have some fun in the afternoons! But I can tell you that homeschooling was much simpler with only one, or even only two. Luckily by the time Emma is really old enough for school, everyone will have matured that much more.....and that there won't be any more kids!

Jen

Matt's Visit

Not to be confused with our Matt---this is a different one! My Matt's childhood best friend is also named Matt...he now lives in Seattle, and we haven't seen him for 4 years or so. He was coming east to visit, and we got to have him with us for Labor Day weekend. It was great, especially because the kids hear about him, but either hadn't met him or didn't remember much about him. And great for us adults to catch up, reminisce, and just have fun together. We went to the beach twice (two different ones, for variety), into Greenport, ate great food and desserts--including coconut cream pie, which I have to say was really good--and drank a lot of coffee while talking and staying up late. Conveniently for me, Matt works for Starbucks, and gets free coffee every week (I think that should be my extra money job! Getting paid and a free pound of Starbucks every week?!) and so gave us two delicious bags of coffee....it's really a shame he can't visit more often!

Anyway, I took this photo surreptitiously, and it sums up the ease and fun of having an old friend come to visit. All the kids had a really great time getting to know him. (And I think that he may be cured of any romantic notions of having kids of his own, sorry about that, Matt!)

Jen

Emma's Paintings

As the 4th child, Emma doesn't get the opportunity to paint much--there's too much going on, and cleaning up is multiplied by 3 or 4--when Rachel was little we had an easel in the kitchen and she painted just about every day. That doesn't stop Emma from coming up with gorgeous artwork, though! She had a ball painting these the other day, so I think I will be guilted into letting her do it more often. And I have to say she doesn't mess up the paints the way many 3 year olds do....

Jen

Julia's Butterfly

Julia found this gorgeous monarch butterfly in our garden the other day. Pretty good photography for seven years old, I think!

Jen

Daily Quote

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

--John W. Gardner

Last day of summer :(

Well, to day was our last day of summer (basically.) :( Tomorrow, I become a 7th grader, Julia becomes a 3rd grader, and Ben becomes a Kindergardener! *Sigh.* Where did the summer go?

Well, today, as sort of a celebration, we went to Splish Splash, the water park 10 minutes away from our house. It was also the last day that Splish Splash was open until Memorial day, 2008. We went on a few rides, which included Splash Landing (your basic twisty water slide), Mammoth River (a larger water slide where you go on rafts that can hold up to 5 people), Lazy River (a giant "river" of a pool where you sit in either double or single inner tubes and float down lazily). I went on Hollywood stunt rider, which is where you sit in a large raft and go down a pitch black water slide! You cannot even see a hand in front of your face!

Our summer was very fun. Tomorrow, we will take "school pictures" in front of what we call our "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree," because it is a very small ("baby") pine tree that we planted in our front yard last year.

Happy Fall!



-Rachel

Ben's Knight (With Blood!)

Ben's Artwork

Ben has really come a long way with his art. A few months ago, if he picked up a pen or marker, he would just scribble all over the paper and call it done. (This is in marked contrast to the girls, who before they were 4 were making rudimentary pictures that almost looked like what they said it was, and by 5 were drawing pretty complicated pictures--for 5 year olds, anyway...) However, he began by concentrating more on coloring within the lines of pictures--none of my kids has ever been much of a fan of coloring books, they have always preferred to draw. I always preferred to color, but then again, I never had any faith in my ability to draw, even as a child. Then he progressed to drawing faces with details, then to adding arms and legs. Now he's on a kick of drawing knights with swords, usually stabbing a fire-breathing dragon, and there's always a pool of blood involved. The knight always has a big, happy smile. Guess he enjoys stabbing or something. At first he was drawing the knights without eyes (though they had noses and the aforementioned happy smile) and when I asked him why he didn't have eyes he said patiently, "Mom--he has eyes! You just can't see them because he has his helmet down!"

Why didn't I think of that?

The thing he does that surpasses the girls' skills is that he can cut perfect valentines. Julia can do that now, and maybe she's been doing it for a year now--but I KNOW she didn't so it at 5! Not only does he cut valentines, but he cuts them 3 to a paper, in graduated sizes along the line...so the bottom one is big, the middle one is smaller, and the top one is tiny. It makes a neat looking paper when he's finished, too.

And he is writing like crazy now. He writes the words he knows by heart: Ben, Mama, Emma, Julia, Mimi, Batman, etc. and he writes some words phonetically, like when he did a stencil drawing from his Batman book and titled it "Batman Villan"...but he also likes to copy words he sees on things--his favorite being "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Kind of has a ring to it.

I will take a photo of one of his knights and post it later this evening.....

Jen

Daily Quote

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

--Coco Chanel