A Stable Environment

Hi there, readers!

Sorry it has been so long since you read a new post of mine.

See, we just move into our new house, and I had to go through and organize all my homeschooling stuff so we would be ready for this new school year. The timeline didn't exactly follow as planned, so we got off to a slightly later start than I was hoping for.
But I decided not to let it stress me out too much. After all, part of the freedom of home schooling is setting your own schedule and being super flexible. The class room doesn't have to be a certain way and the calendar doesn't have to follow anyone else's. What really matters is that the kids learn and grow and you are there to develop relationships with them during it all.

So with that in mind, I adjusted my plan and spent the first few weeks of September getting all my stuff out of boxes and moving furniture around. (All by myself, I need to add. I am proud that when I got the floor plan figured out, I didn't wait for my husband to be home, I just Amazoned my way around all the heavy lifting. Rarrr! I am woman!!) By the way, the whole month of September my husband was put on a special project at work that gave him daytime hours. He is still on a week-to-week daytime schedule until further notice, so the luxury of having him around in the mornings is no longer available at the moment, but on the upside, he is home for dinner and even more awesome: he loves to cook dinner. Boy, I am one blessed wife. :)

When we moved in, we emptied all the trucks into the garage, and moved things from there into the rest of the house. My priority was to make sure we got the rest of the house completely done by our open house. So my garage was left to be dealt with when I could get around to it. I did get some stuff figures out at the time of the open house, however. Like, I gathered all the dress up stuff and costumes from all other boxes that I found, and put them in a huge chest that had a hinge on the lid so they could have a dress up bin. It did get played with during the open house.

This was the state of my garage at the beginning of September.

 My vision for my garage was to have the outer edges have the furniture that held the school supplies, the desks and tables, and the toy things, and then leave the middle space open to have indoor large motor playing during the rainy and cold months. Up until the 12th of October, it was dry and mostly sunny outside, with most of the time from moving through then being quite warm. So all of our outdoor toys and even the large play kitchen set was out on our back patio. Along with the play table and bucket of play food and dishes. The kids have a wonderful time during the warm days playing out there.

So, hard to work I went putting the garage together to my floorplan. It took a week or so longer than I was thinking it would, so we didn't start school the week that our homeschool co-op started, as I was hoping, but it is okay, as I said.

My school-agers on the morning of the 1st co-op day

My preschooler on his first day of co-op ever.

 I got the garage basically where I wanted it to be by the time we started school.

Eventually, I want to move those huge bins out, but for now, it is functional.

This cabinet holds the puzzles and magazines for cutting up, and extra paper I don't want toddlers getting into. The green shelf holds paper that is okay for all ages to color on, etc.

Story corner

My desk, and our extra fridge, with magnet letters on it.

resource bookshelf

We added our rules and a horse poster to the fridge.

Kids computer for educational games (to be plugged in and used in the near future).

 It will eventually get too cold in the garage for school times, so I will bring the essentials into the dinning room for those times. But for now, it is fine enough to have school at the table in the garage.

My unit for the month of September was going to be on horses. Well, it still is, and it has now gone through to October. But that is okay, because we, as a family, discussed the plan for the next few months and worked it all out so that we aren't pushing the other units back too much. I realized, while planning the year out at the end of August, that there are some months that consistently don't turn out perfectly according to plan. And those months are: Nov-Dec, and March-April. Obviously November and December have huge holiday breaks and conflicts in them. Also, March has spring break, April has our anniversary, when we always leave town and our kids get over-nighters with their buddies/cousins, and there's Easter in there, as well. So with these breaks, comes a lot of lost focus and motivation, and we never seem to get the stuff done in time. Therefore, this year I planned for that. Typically I do one unit study per month. This year, we stretched out the units through those tough months, and we are able to make some flexibility for ourselves. That's why I didn't panic when September leaked into October. We are all good. Plus, that allowed the pony rides at the pumpkin patch trip to coincide with the horse unit. Sweet!


Now, to begin learning about horses.
After reading aloud a picture book about how to care for a horse, I had the kids act out a "puppet show" where a customer is buying a horse and the owner has to answer all their questions about the proper care and feeding of a horse.

Barbie is the customer, played by my girl, and my son is Ken, the owner.

They did an excellent job retaining all the facts and info and retelling it.

They had so much fun with this that they re-told the show several times over. That will help them remember it for a while.

My preschooler noticed that his horse matched the one on our poster showing the names of horse body-parts. He loves to re-enact all the things he learns about horses with his toy stallions.

Another favorite game we played involving horses was the freeze gait game. The kids learned that horses move at 4 different speeds, or gaits, and they are, in speed order from slowest to fastest: Walking, trotting, cantering and galloping.
I put on music and would call out one of those four gaits, and they would go around the large area in the garage mimicking the speed and motion of the gait until the music stopped and I yelled "freeze!" Then I would start the music up again, calling out another gait, in random order. No one got out if they moved after "freeze", we just had fun, learned the names of the gaits, and got out all our energy.
My little niece, who is four, and lives nearby, joined us on several occasions. She had wanted to come over and do preschool with me ever since she found out we were moving close to her house. I have her work on some preschool workbooks while the big kids do their math, spelling, reading, etc. She loves it. And I think it's fun to have another student with us. Plus, she and my preschooler play together and keep each other company when they get bored during the subjects over their heads.

My daughter is in 3rd grade this year, which means introducing her to multiplication. We used horse-related word problems to help her get how it is different than adding.
For instance : Kelly the farrier has four horses to put shoes on. Since each horse has four hooves, how many shoes does Kelly need to fit?  4x4=16.

Another thing we really focused on was all the new vocabulary words in the horse world.  There are a lot of words that we don't use in our everyday conversations that are related to horses.

We also learned about where different horse breeds originated around the world.

And we played a game involving the horse anatomy.

Then we discussed homophones-- two or more words that sound the same when you say them, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. The words on our list of horse-related homophones were:
Bridle--Bridal
Reins--rains
Gait--gate
Bale--bail


The next big thing that gave us a lot more education about horses was our big fieldtrip to a horse ranch.

Big because anytime you take a Friday and don't have to do lots of schoolwork is big in my house. We drove the 45 minutes to the farm and ranch country of Mulino, OR. Then we were asked to fill out medical release papers and each child was fitted with a helmet for safety.
After that, the horse owner explained to the kids all about how they train the horses and tell them what they want.

My girl and her auntie, who also rode with them, listening to the instructions.

My little guy and the other Auntie, also listening to the instructions.

 

While they were learning, I noticed the different combs and brushes used for horse grooming that we had learned about.

Aren't they cute?

My little man and Me.

I was interested to learn that their approach is very different than that of dog-training and that is mainly due to the vastly differing nature of the horse versus the dog. Dogs are hunters. They are predatory animals. Whereas, horses are prey. I never really thought about horses being prey because horses are cared for and ridden by humans that hunt, and they assist in the hunt. But, when I did think about it, it made a lot of sense. Dogs are aggressive towards threats. Horses are spooked by threats. Of course horses are prey. And so, to train them, you need to make sure they are comfortable. So my kids were explained how to treat the horse while riding it to show that they are in command, yet make sure the horse trusts them and are willing to follow. After all, horses outweigh my kids by about 900 lbs.
The kids listened well, and then my oldest was allowed to hold the lead rope and lead the mare we were going to ride, a beautiful black Tennessee Walking horse, to the riding corral.

 He felt very proud to be in charge of such a magnificent creature, who wasn't really sure she wanted to be lead by him, and a few times the owner had to make her move with his gentle encouragement.
Finally, a lesson in mounting and riding in the saddle. He was up there like nothing; this is not too unusual for my oldest, he can climb anything in no time. He looked so tall up on that horse. This time my kids weren't given reins, the owner lead the horse all around. The mare didn't want to be in the circular corral, perhaps it is boring to go around in circles. So the owner lead them all around the outside of the ring and all over the terrain. Then he dismounted like a champ, and it was my tiny girl's turn.
(The 3 year old was not allowed to ride the big horses, and as of now, they didn't have ponies for littler ones to ride, so that part comes in our next fieldtrip)
She did mount the horse by herself, though she put the wrong foot into the stirrup at first.

I was so proud of my kids and their bravery and good listening.

 I had to make sure the little guy wasn't running around behind the horses, or near the feet, but he still enjoyed his time on the ranch, and talked non-stop on the way home about his turn next to ride the smaller ponies.
I made the kids a little disappointed when we got home because I told them I wanted a written report about the fieldtrip and they thought they were going to coast by on a home-work free day. Oh, sorry, I'm not that kind of teacher.. :)
The reports turned out very nice, albeit simple. I told them the header: We went to ____(Name of the Ranch) today.
The filler: I learned ________. My favorite part was _______.
And the wrap up: The horse I rode was ______ (mare/stallion, breed, name of horse, etc.).
That's it. I found out that their penmanship could use some work, but their spelling doesn't suck.

The day after that, we ventured to the Pumpkin patch (see field-trip post to follow) and the preschooler got his chance to ride!

My little girl decided to wear her horsey tights in honor of our last day of the Horse unit. Isn't she cute?

The little man had to join the picture. He's such a ham.

They may technically be unicorns, but it still fits, What a creative idea. :) 

(Oh look, she's got my knobby knees. :)

And that is the wrap-up of our horse-themed unit.  Thanks for grazing through this with me.

Home

Looks like we made it! For the "longest" time, we weren't sure when we were actually going to be able to get signed and move in, and then It Happened.

We were originally told it would he at the end of June, and then there was a hangup in the paperwork at the government loans department, and we were told at least a couple of weeks, but we weren't for sure when. So we had been ready to be packed up and move, but then we couldn't, so we sort of got unpacked.

I have another phobia I didn't really mention in the phobia blog (See Freaking Out). You are probably wondering what a person with all these phobias is doing writing a blog, and teaching kids, but I think that I am managing well and other people just aren't as open about their issues. That makes me healthy, right... :) Well, this one is about moving, and having all my stuff in boxes. It gives me anxiety. But when you are opening boxes that have every kind of random thing thrown into it by some "helper" who doesn't know what goes where, and you find a dirty diaper amongst the odds and ends, you kind of lose your sanity a tiny bit. However, this was one of my least anxious moving times ever. I actually enjoyed parts of it.  Even though it felt unprepared a bit, due to the unknown parts. I mean, we were getting our own house! It's hard to be too stressed when you keep that in mind. 

We took those next couple weeks to be a family, go camping, and have a Summer vacation as a family. And I got a part time job working as a care provider for a family in their house. And then, all of the sudden, we had to come into the title office and sign! But it was during the day when I had the other children as well as my own, so we took the van-full and went to the title office.

Here we are signing our life away :)  (notice the small children in the background.) The kids were very well behaved. I think that the office has a lot of kids there all the time, because they were prepared with a lot of complimentary treats for the kids as well as a huge box of toys to entertain them. That helped a lot.
After that, it was work as usual. Then a few days later, we were told we'd would have the keys the next day, also a day I was supposed to have the kids, so they came with us to the new house as well.

Here we are receiving the keys from our lovely realtor/family-friend.

The happy moment when the house became OURS!

Trying to figure out which key goes into which lock.

Opening the door for the first time as HOMEOWNERS.

Here we go into the house (With all the kids)

Here they come into the house like a herd of elephants er, bunch of children...
Once they all went into the house, Jon and I decided to have a moment by ourselves.

What a great feeling to finally get what you have been wait for over ten years to receive.

After we got our keys, we went back to the house we were living and try to pack up again, but with no plans to actually get people to help us move. Or time off, really. But we had the weekend and good family, and we got started Friday afternoon. It could have been pretty stressful, but we are just so blessed. We got our bed into the house, but not the kids'. Everything else was dumped into the garage. By about 1:00am, Jon carried me over the threshold and we sleep there overnight, without the kids. That was one of the top 5 most romantic moments of my life, along with getting proposed to and actually getting married.

There is our mattress on the floor.

Oh how awesome to see my own stuff in my own place! I wasn't really excited about the house until I saw my stuff. Since we were going to move, then we weren't, then we were, but not today... I got a little disillusioned about the whole thing, and I became a little numb, emotionally. So it was hard to feel much at first.

Our "dining"room. Note the legless table on the floor.

Kitchen stuff piled into the kitchen.

Our master bathroom stuff.

Some of our wedding presents and stuff had been in storage since shortly after getting married, and the rest of it for the last 2 years, due to the latest living situation. So opening boxes of our stuff was similar to Christmas. Especially the ability to put it wherever I thought best in my house. After a few days, a LOT more stuff got unpacked and moved out of the garage and put away.

My daughter got some of her baby photos on her dresser shelves.

Wasn't she the cutest? (Here she is with her 2 cousins of the same age, she's the tiny one in the middle.)

My beautiful table and lovely settings. I hadn't seen the dishes for about 6 years.

I love this set.

Then I had a birthday. My birthday present was a house! What a great birthday! My family gave me an Ikea gift card for a gift. We got an Ikea in our town about 4 years ago, but I had never made it out there, so this was my excuse to finally see what it was all about. I got a lot of little items I didn't have, but the big item I got was a rug. I LOVE my new rug!

We moved the diningroom table and stuff to put the rug down.

Here it is up close. The camera wouldn't get the colors, it's a greenish color, dark chocolate and off-white.

And the diningroom table with the rug. I think it looks great!

Then we got the rest of our stuff, like the bathroom set, from B,B&B. On sale. With a 20% off coupon.

Kids' bathroom before

Kids' bathroom after.

Close up of the colors.

The soap and toothbrush holders match.

Here is the new couch and our T.V. and consoles all set up.

 And we got the kids' bedrooms set up.

Boy's room before. (One day our toddler put himself to bed, he was so tired.)

Boys' room before

Boys' room before.

After, I moved the dressers over.

I put the table and chairs under the bed for then, but they got moved.

Our girl had to sleep on a tiny bed in the corner of the basement of the other house, so we are finally putting together her real bed after 2 years!

Here it is after she made it :)

Tada!

We also had to have her dresses on a coat-rack because she didn't have a closet at the other place, so here is her new closet!

Our laundry "room" is a closet in the hall, and the washer and dryer stuck out too far, so we had to remove the closet doors.    I bought this curtain at B,B&B as well.

Here it is up close. Love the embroidered flowers on it. I guess that is part of my style.

Here is our Bed all set up. Note the boxspring on the wall. We had to move it, because with it ontop of the bedframe, the bed was taller than our headboard. We would have needed a ladder to get in, like the princess and the pea.

As it is, we need the drawer in front as a stepstool, it's pretty high up. There are drawers on the sides under the bed, so we don't need dressers.

 We are still moving stuff into the house. It's not all there yet, but we are doing well, and we have had several dinners with close friends and family over, as well as quite a few sleepovers with friends and cousins. We moved in officially at the end of July, and our open house party will be at the beginning of Sept. so I hope to have my list of projects done by then. We are also working on getting ready to get licensed for homecare and signing the kids up for our home-school co-op in the fall. Lots of projects on our plate right now, but for some reason it doesn't feel much like work. It is for us to enjoy. 

I saw a list about the benefit of not actually having a classroom. I was attempting to work out how and where I would set one up in my little house, and now I am reconfiguring that. 

I do want to have a homeschool central, where all of my charts and posters, shelves of book and cabinets of supplies are located, but not having an actual room is what will most likely end up happening. The "central" will probably be in my garage. We just have to finish cleaning and organizing it first. 

So, that's it. We're here. And we aren't moving for a LONG LONG time. Like after the kids move out...