September Busy-ness and Some Baby News Thrown In

I'm sure that as soon as I get into writing this post, John will decide his nap is over, but I'll start anyway.  :)  We have been into our homeschooling schedule for about three or four weeks now.  I'm pleased to say that it is actually rather enjoyable, the kids have declared they "love math!", and the house is in no more disarray than it usually is.

Today, instead of jumping into our usual homeschooling day, I planned a housecleaning day.  I've been intrigued by this idea of once-a-month cleaning.  I have the suspicion that I probably only get around to changing the sheets, scrubbing the tub, or mopping the living and dining rooms about this frequently (or less), so it wouldn't be a radical change.  But by doing it all at once and scheduling it in, I wouldn't have to feel guilty about not checking these things off the weekly to-do list for weeks on end.

Of course, instead of actually getting into the actual cleaning, I instead opted to clean up from the massive explosion of clothes upstairs as necessitated by (a) the weather and (b) my new shape—wow, wait!  I've been so busy homeschooling, etc., that I haven't announced why I have a new shape.

Yes, we are expecting Number Four!

(Did I really just say four?)  I am due March 14 (anyone want to hope for a St. Patrick's Day baby?).

OK, so with that out of the way, back to the clothes.  I sorted through many random laundry basket, have resolved to get myself a dresser (rather than the baskets-under-the-bed-and-in-the-closet "system" I've had for a while), laundered two loads of towels and have a lights load ready and waiting for me to get off the computer, fed us all lunch, straightened the kitchen counter, and got the dishwasher running.  I'm even dressed, showered, and somewhat groomed!

(I'm mainly typing this out to convince myself that I have more to show for my morning than two loads of towels!)

So, I now hear the boy waking up—that's my cue to get the next load of laundry in and then get him.  I hope to get back here soon with a photo of our new living room wall art!  :)


 

Walk Accomplished!

We made it out again today for a little walk before starting a sort of trial school day.  (We're officially beginning on Monday, but I need a few dress rehearsals to remind what I still need to do!)  Since we had luck with the flower garden in a neighbor's front yard last week, we ambled over there again today.  We also visited yesterday, but as it was raining, there was no wildlife to spot.

A cursory glance did not reveal any butterflies, but suddenly I noticed something bigger!  A small, bright yellow bird perched on a flower and nibbling at it!  I hushed the kids and tried to point it out quickly.  A few moments later it was gone.  Maggie (6 years) had seen it, Susannah (4 tomorrow) had not.  I promised I'd go home a look up a photo online.

I discovered many photos that looked like this little fellow:

From www.birdjam.com on the American Goldfinch page.

Then I wondered what the American Goldfinch sounded like and at the above website (www.birdjam.com), I found a place to listen to birdsong!  Lovely.

Now, maybe I was imagining it or just so unfamiliar with different birds' songs that I can't tell the difference, but a song that was quite similar to the American Goldfinch's kept wafting in the open window as we were sitting in our school room doing our math....

I'm really enjoying Charlotte Mason's focus on nature and especially becoming familiar with the plants and animals in your particular area.  How useful!  I feel so much more connected to my surrroundings just knowing a tiny bit about them.  That's a Maple, this is Queen Anne's Lace, we just saw a Red Admiral and an American Goldfinch!  The internet makes it so easy to identify the wildlife you see on a brief walk.  And of course Anna Botsford Comstock had something to say about it too.  And then there's plenty of fodder for the Nature Journal, which is just the first step into Science.

Oh, and for fun, I was going to add this video, too.  For some reason, this bird comes to this family's window every day and knocks!

One More Week, Kind Of

The school year is approaching!  Amazingly, I'm looking forward to reclaiming routines.  While in some ways this feels like The First Real Year of School (we actually have a math curriculum this year), in other ways, I've been here before.  I've done Fall.  I have some resources and ideas stashed away (somewhere) and some activities that would be fun to repeat.  (Leaf window art, anyone?)

Lovely books are coming to our house almost daily.  I finally ordered a new calendar for this year.  Fr. Andrew and I have used these for several years and love them.  I didn't order one last year because I was going to try going digital, but it totally destroyed my calendaring abilities!  I entered things in there and then because I am apparently rather visual, it was like they were just gone!  I'd completely forget they existed.  I even tried printing paper calendars from iCal to hang on the wall, but then I was entering info in two places again.  So, paper it is!

I looked at the Ambleside curriculum I'm planning to follow, and to use their week-by-week schedule and be able to take off the weeks where I know school just won't happen (and to avoid having to go too long into next Summer), we actually need to start next week!

So, this week, we need to get the school room cleaned up, for one.  We've been starting to get back into a semblance of a morning routine, and I'd like to continue adding things to that this week, maybe even Math.  (A wise, veteran homeschooling Mom friend of mine once told me not to start everything all at once, but rather to stagger.  Genius!)

I'm a bit worried about how I am possibly going to stick to a school schedule and still get all the household things done.  I'm not good at doing little bits of everything all day long... I do better with big chunks of time.  If I plan to school in the mornings and then assign a household chore to the afternoons, it looks something like this:

Monday:

• AM: School
• PM: Housecleaning and Quick Laundry

Tuesday:

• AM: School
• PM: Desk (bills and budget, planning, menu, bulletin... this is way too much for one afternoon)

Wednesday:

• AM: School (somewhat shortened?)
• PM: Groceries (This is not an ideal time. Don't all the sales start on Thursday?)

Thursday:

• AM: School
• PM: Baking and other cooking projects (stock, etc.... I wish I could confine this to one day, and one consistent day.  Maybe my kitchen would be less likely to explode that way.)

Friday:

• AM: Homeschool Co-op
• PM: Laundry and Quick Clean

I'm still not sure about this.  The Friday tasks seem like a lot for a day I've spent out of the house.  But I suppose they can be tweaked.  I was going to start doing these this week, but I've already had to be out of the house today (to visit with a moving friend, so it was completely worth it—plus, I just can't stay inside on these perfectly temperate weather days when I know disgusting, cold, Chicago Winter is coming).  I do still have a little time for at least some straightening and maybe some bathroom scrubbing.

I haven't had a housekeeping plan for so long on purpose, and I hope I'm not going down the same route again by trying to make one.  But I do feel like certain things are being missed.  I think I also need some detailed checklists for the tasks that I'm planning to do so that I don't have to stand around scratching my head and reinventing the wheel each week.  But that can wait until I've had a few weeks to practice.

This may be another post where all you veteran homeschooling Moms are guffawing into your elbows, so bare with me.  And come back and comfort me in a few months when I am doing None of the Above.

Walks and Butterflies

I always envy people who go out and take walks.  I'd love to make it a part of our routine.  I tend to spend a lot of time at home: I'm just not coordinated enough nor can I transition fast enough to do a lot of quick outings.  I tend to go out and stay out all day.  But a walk—even just around the block—to get some air and look at our neighborhood, should be doable.  Even in the Winter we can handle something short!  And I have nice memories of going on evening walks with my Dad (often reciting poetry such as The Cremation of Sam McGee, for some reason).

But in general, getting out of the house, even for a 15 minute stroll, usually eludes me.  As do many of my daily responsibilities at times.  Sigh.

But today—success!  I was showered, all were dressed, we said our family morning prayers, read from the Bible, and made it out for a walk!  Now, in theory, this will all happen before we do school in the morning and it will happen at more like 9:00 AM instead of 10:15 AM, but seriously (all you seasoned homeschooling Mommies are guffawing into your elbows, I know), this was progress!

And in reward for our little around-the-block jaunt, we saw one of these in a sweet wild-flower-esque front yard not far from us:

I didn't think to bring the camera.

The above is an illustration out of this book from a trip to the Chicago Nature Museum, which (among plenty of other things) features a "butterfly room" where you can stand around as they whiz around your head and possibly land on you!

I don't think John had any idea what was happening.  As you can see, Maggie (on my right) is not too happy about a giant bug landing on her Mommy.

 
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the Red Admiral is what we saw.  I looked around for some pictures online and found quite a few.  I then stumbled upon this neat resource:

BAMONA: Butterflys and Moths of North America with specifics on the Vanessa atalanta species of butterfly.

Of course, then I started daydreaming about planting some kind of butterfly garden next year to attract them to our house.  Anyone have any experience with this?  Maybe I'll read up on it this Winter.  We actually planted and had success with tomatoes and some basil this year (with lots of help from our downstairs neighbors, who planted flowers and lots of other veggies, and did lots of clearing and watering).

I'd say if we manage to do this three times a week (even twice a week!) I'd be happy.  But I'd love to shoot for daily!

A School Room of Their Own

Does the "to have a school room or not to have a schoolroom" debate just seem endless to you?  I've been on both sides for awhile.  I thought the idea of a dedicated school room sounded lovely.  A little table.  Surrounded by bookshelves.

But then, downstairs, we literally did not have a room to spare.  We did school at the dining room table.  I enjoyed being in the heart of our home (we spend so much time at the dining room table), in the company of our icon corner, being startled to discover that my kids really wanted to learn things from me and actually listened to what I had to say a good part of the time.  As long as I didn't go on too long....

The Entrance of the Theotokos Feast Day Box from Orthodox Christian Craft Supply.  How we love these—must order a few more for the Fall.

But then we moved upstairs and gloriously found ourselves in the possession of more rooms!  A dedicated floor for bedrooms!  Even if there are only really two rooms up there.  And you have to walk through the first to get to the second.  And there's no bathroom up there.  But still!  Lying in our giant king-sized bed (which had formerly been squeezed into a typical Chicago apartment bedroom—I kid you not, we could not even close the door) in our giant master bedroom, looking up at the sloping ceilings because, yes, really, it is the attic of the building: well, it is like this blissful cocoon in which to slumber and forget about the stresses of the day lingering a flight of stairs below.

The little not-really-insulated-heated-or-air-conditioned back room that had been (downstairs) my husband's office was freed to be something else, and since my kitchen is awkwardly filled with doors and doesn't exactly have room for a table, we settled on the back being a breakfast nook.

Breakfast by candlelight on a dark snowy day

And it really did a lovely job of being that.

Our view of snow-covered garage roofs, which I quite like.

But in my quest to provide some order to my house and not always have piles everywhere, I gradually begin to remove the kid things from the living and dining rooms.  Out went the tiny toys in the corners of the windowsills, the bag of blocks, the kids' books that were always just being pulled off the shelf into a pile by the baby.  (Don't worry, there were still some kid books down there.  I love to see my kids poring over books!)

I thought that doing that, combined with confining them to the back of the house when I couldn't be mentally present to chaperon them in the adult living areas would do the trick.

But their homeschooling stuff and craft supplies were still out there.  Any time they wanted to make a drawing of a sun with girl eyes and legs or cut a piece of paper into infinite tiny bits, there it was on my dining room table (and floor) to be picked up mostly by me when I'd surfaced from whatever consuming household chore or project I had happened to have been engrossed in at the time.

An answer came to me slowly.   After a visit to a friend's house that contains a small school room in the back of her house, the thought, Move the school stuff.  Make the breakfast room into a school room, began to float in the back of my mind.  Rather, it nagged.

The breakfast room was really difficult to keep clean of food debris after all.  The table had awkward gate legs that were hard to sweep around and it is a tight space for that big table and all that seating.

I began looking on craigslist for a tall table and stools to replace the chopping block cart/island in the kitchen.  Then we could eat small meals in there if we wanted to.  (For a picture of what I found, go back one post to this one.  Scroll down awhile to see the table.  Just yesterday, I picked up two more stools so now Mommy can sit down and eat too!  Very important!)

Then I did it!  I moved the table to the other side and folded up one side of it to make some room.

(Goodness, I am finally getting to the point of this post!!)

This is just after I cleaned the floor.  But nothing has been put back on the corner shelf yet.  The table is full of little projects the kids have come up with: Feast Day Boxes, sorting beads into cups—I love what they do of their own leading!

Then we moved a corner shelf—which we call the "homeschool shelf" and which had not been hitherto residing in a corner in the upstairs apartment— into the only available corner in this room.

Nothing organized yet....

I sort of let the kids run amok in there for several days.  I have to go through and toss or store what doesn't apply to this year.  I also had to actually order this year's books but that is finally done (mostly!) so I didn't want to waste time "organizing" when I was really procrastinating from getting our actual books.

She turned and made this face just as I clicked the button, I swear.

Yesterday, I shooed the big kids outside while I attacked the floor of this room.  I wish I had a before picture!  Just imagine the above table contents (but individual items about 90% bigger, as not to be choking hazards for Baby John) all over the floor.  But one of the organizational ideas I had was this:

Blocks in one, random baby-friendly toys in the second, little board books in a third (unpictured).

I'll get back to you on whether this system has any merits!

I know this post has gone on forever already, but here are a few other corners I wanted to show.  I was browsing Like Mother, Like Daughter (when am I not?) for some motivation to get back into our routines and schooling very soon, so clicked on the "education" category and found one on Nature Tables.

So I repurposed the top of this tiny bookshelf to serve as such for the time being.  We'll need more space later on, and maybe I'll get a bookshelf to put between the tiny one and the homeschool one.  But this will do for now.

Let's see rocks (top left and continuing clockwise) from Grandma and Grandpa's house, wooden cross from craft shop, jar of shells from a lake at a camp I went to as a girl and from beaches in France (!), acorns and buckeye from a nature walk at the start of school last year.  Small collection, but we had no place to display them until now!  We'll add to it this year.

Of course, nothing prompts interest like a new arrangement!

So that, mostly, is that!

Here's a fuller view of that side:

The little chaos-maker himself on the floor....

School should be extra interesting with John around this year.

Thank you, Auntie Leila, for the motivation to make many of these changes and for this post on educating children at home in particular!

{phfr} What a break!

What has it been, two months since I last posted?  A few weeks after Fr. Andrew's ordination, we made a last-minute decision to attend our Parish Life Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.  Well, my decision was last-minute.  Fr. Andrew had been planning to attend already.  But the thought of my husband having several days off in a row for a long car trip with a giant hotel room to himself?  Bah!  We're coming too!  We lucked out with a fridge and microwave in the room and mostly ate out of those!  We had a nice time meeting new people and seeing some old, dear friends.  On our final evening (well, we were only there for two evenings and the first was the day we arrived, I think... whirlwind trip, it certainly was), we joined a seminary friend's family in hunting down St. George church in Cleveland, our hosts, and exploring a giant urban park across the street, complete with interesting bistros and good corner coffee shops.

{pretty}

On the day we departed Cleveland, we headed over to Fr. Andrew's sister's house to visit with her and her husband.  We brought them quite a variety of lunch food from our stash for our hotel room.  And in return, Aunt Leanna gave us this beautiful bowl from their recent trip to Turkey.  I just stuck it next to this icon of the resurrection (which in and of itself is fairly interesting, since it's not an icon seen very often in the East) and I love how the icon echos the shape and color of the bowl in the aura (is that the right word?  energies?) around Christ.  Not planned at all.

About a week later, we had a fun-filled visit from Fr. Andrew's other sister's family.  We had a total of ten people staying our house that week—and a total of six kids!  We had a great time having them here and we did a lot of exploring the city.

{happy}

 

One day found us in a park that was set up for some kind of outdoor theater.  The kids all ran around at random, and John was just so happy that he could now join in like the big ones.  His walking in earnest began somewhat simultaneously with Fr. Andrew's ordination, and he's happiest when all the adults in the room quit telling him how cute he is and trying to cuddle him already.  He just wants to move!

A couple of weeks later and we were off on another quick adventure.  My parents had gotten us tickets to an outdoor Shakespeare theater west of Madison, Wisconsin.  We picked up Daddy from work a bit early and raced up to meet Grandma and Grandpa at a Culver's (Mmmmmm....) near American Players Theater.  We had dinner and then left the kids with the grandparents who would take them to a nearby hotel to play in the pool.  We booked it to the theater for our walk "up the hill" to the stage.  If we'd have had more time, we could have picnicked in the park near the theater.  It's a beautiful location.

We slathered ourselves with bug repellent and grabbed the ponchos packed by my parents (hadn't thought of that...) and it was certainly a good thing we did the latter!  We got the full APT experience by getting thoroughly soaked as "the show must go on!"  The rain did let up for the touching final scene of The Taming of the Shrew and as we applauded the riveting performance, the cast applauded us for sitting through the weather!

{funny}

Here are our girls modeling their similar dresses in the hotel room the next morning.  They look a little too sweet, don't they?

And here's an out-of-order shot of John in our picnic basket.  Silly boy.

Finally, a week later and the National Antiochian Archdiocese Convention made its way to Chicago.  We left the kids with friends for "clergy day" so that Fr. Andrew and I could go to our respective meetings without boring the poor kids to death.  They had fun playing with their favorite two-year-old girl (whose blog hasn't been updated in a little while).  Mommy and Daddy had a fun day in downtown Chicago, sipping Starbucks and renewing friendships with fellow clergy families.

That Saturday, we joined my parents again, this time at the Convention hotel rather than Madison for some downtown shopping (can you guess how often I do that?) followed by Vespers.  The following morning, All Saints worshiped with many bishops and three metropolitans at the Convention.  It was a beautiful liturgy with many, many worshipers in attendance!

So, I think that about brings us up to the present.  No wonder I've felt somewhat off in my housekeeping and blogging and general normalcy.  There hasn't been any normalcy since the ordination!

{real}

A final monkey wrench in our life has been that a few members of our family have needed to be off of white flour and sugar.  So these cookies were made with whole grains, stevia, and "date sugar" (which is just ground up dates).  Yes, the chocolate chips had a wee bit of sugar, but I only put on three per cookie.  Not bad for a non-refined-sugar cookie, though!

And now, it's the beginning of August, we haven't been to the beach even once, and I need to make some decisions already about our homeschooling books.  Really, I just need to sit down and order them already.  I'm half excited and half terrified to beginning homeschooling again.  We sort of winged it last year (and considering my kindergartner taught herself to read, I think we did OK), but I'd like to be a little more organized for the big First Grade.  I'm sure I'll look back on this or on our future kids' first grade years and barely blink, but for now, I think it's a lot about establishing good habits—mainly for me!  Wish me luck!

****Update: Boy am I rusty.  Here's the missing button!****

Somebody is making it difficult for me to write blog entries.

Can you guess which one it might be?  These first two photos are deceiving because the Little One looks happy.

That's more like it!  Actually, he's quite the happy baby.  Loves to smile at everyone.  But he doesn't like to nap for more than thirty minutes at a time.  And interestingly, the length of time he's been doing things this way corresponds to the length of time since my last blog entry.  Huh.

At least he falls asleep quickly.  And he does take four or five naps a day now.  But I got kinda spoiled by him taking usually two one and a half hour naps and one thirty minute nap.  Thirty minutes is not much of a break or much of a chance to get things done. 

Somehow, I feel like I've been really productive since we started homeschooling again after the holidays, though.  We moved to a slightly larger apartment the week before Christmas (it was just upstairs, so don't pity us too much, but it was still rather disruptive), and since we moved, laundry and housecleaning have fallen into place a lot better.  It helps that the kids now have a large playroom upstairs and that most of their toys stay up there (per parental request).  For some reason, I seem to have found a system of laundry that works well for me.  I've also found a system (method? technique? set of expectations?) of homeschooling that I am comfortable with.  I'll write about those things sometime if The Boy ever decides to start napping.

But right now, I think he's just soiled his diaper.  Such a cute little interruption, though.  Well, not the soiling part.  But he's a cute Little Boy.

Love at First Post

Or something like that. 

I added a blog to the list on my sidebar: Fire In Mine Ears.

The post that hooked me?

Liberal Arts: Who Needs 'Em?

Alphabet Resource

Pondered in My Heart is developing a great resource—Alphabet Coloring Pages!

Check it out!

A Homeschooler's Daybook: September 13, 2010

Saint of the Week: Saint Innocent

Letter of the week: Ii (with reviews of Aa and Ee)

Number of the week: 3

Color this week: Yellow

From the Learning Basket: Have You Seen Trees? by Joanne Oppenheim

Circle Time rhyme:

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Continue here...

Main Lessons: Elevation of the Cross; Beginning our Book of Days

Paint: Wet-on-wet with yellow and red

Music: 1812 Overture (containing troparion for the Cross)

WWWN

Nearly done with two weeks' worth of homeschooling.  Here is a sample of What's Working and What's Not.

What's working:

• Morning Prayers:  I detest having to do things like dress or attend to the house when I am still waking up.  I know that admitting this is probably being a very bad "FlyBaby."  I know that the most efficient way to do things is to jump out of bed, throw on my clothes, take a load of laundry down to the machines, and milk the cows all before my coffee.   

That is not me.

In setting up my schedule for this Fall, something persuaded me to schedule our Morning Prayer time followed by some read-aloud time to fall right after breakfast, while still in my pajamas.  

The ideal morning runs thus: I stagger out of bed and fix breakfast and drink as much coffee as possible (if I am awake early enough, I unload the dishwasher first—that really makes the day go smoothly).  When I am awake enough to clear the dishes off the table, that is done quickly and the table is wiped off.  Then we do a quick set of prayers (many are sung, and to my delight, my eldest has been singing along and knows the words!) complete with lighting candles and changing the day's commemoration picture sheet.  Then we settle on the couch (me with more coffee) and read the life of the saint we are studying that week and then the girls get to pick some titles.  Please do not be misled: This does not happen every day, nor does it always happen closer to breakfast than it does to lunch, but I did say "the ideal morning."

I love it!  And by the time we finish all of that, I am awake enough to carry on with my day.

What's not:

• Letters and Numbers:  While I like the idea of our curriculum's suggestion to let Maggie "experience" various letters and numbers, I really think she is past being interested in that approach.  She knows I never sit there and paint a giant A on a page.  She wants to use letters the way I do.  She wants to make lists and write notes.  She reads a lot of words—I think by sight and context, rather than sounding-out, but then, she does some of that too.  I've found a website with an amazing number of printables, most especially letter formation tracing pages, that I think I will try with her.  According to my curriculum's Alphabet Writing Chart, some of the arrows are going the wrong direction, but that is easily corrected.

Miscellaneous Notes:

One thing I think I have decided over the last two weeks (and I know that is not much experience) is that I don't want to do a bunch of unnecessary crafts, art projects, and invented "school projects."  If we are going to have a Kitchen Day, it is going to be something that we need to make anyway.  If we put a lot of time, money, and skill into a craft or art project, I want it to be something that is in some way worth having or using.  We collected leaves and made window decorations out of them, and I love them because they are very seasonal and remind us of our experience in "the forest" as my girls call the nature preserve we walked through.

I won't hold painting quite to that standard, though.  There are some great suggestions in our curriculum for learning some painting techniques that I can't wait to try once we get some real paints, paper, and brushes.  This would fall under learning a skill.  I'd like to have them able to create some art (if they are so inclined) to put in future learning notebooks of various subjects.

More reflections to come, I'm sure.

Off Track—Any Suggestions?

Partially due to the slight, bandaide-requiring injuries my children have sustained today (and not in the least due to the inordinate amount of time I have spent blogging this particular morning), we are off track for the day.  The kids are grumpy (due to aforementioned injuries) and asking for a movie.  I am not planning to give in to that request right now (we do a movie at the end of the day most days), but I'm not sure I should try to do my main lesson right now either since it requires a little attention from the kids.

How do you get back on track when a homeschooling day gets off-kilter?  Do you plunge ahead with the lesson (I have found this to snap us all out of our funk some days).  Do you try to get to everything in as you'd planned?  What works for you?  What absolutely is the worst idea ever?

Orthodox Homeschooling Resources

I've begun compiling a list of my favorite Orthodox homeschooling resources over to the right in response to my Mom looking for many of these resources for a friend who doesn't use the internet.  Nearly all of the links listed take you to sites that have printable (and often free) resources.

Saints by Letter: Week Ee

St. Elizabeth Fyodorovna, Grand Duchess of Moscow

Feast Day:  July 5

  

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, our Lord Jesus Christ says that whenever we help poor and sick people, and those in prison, we are really helping Jesus Himself: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25.40). 

Saint Elizabeth devoted her entire life to serving God and helping other people.  She was born into a German royal family, and became the Grand Duchess of Moscow in Russia when she married the Grand Duke Sergius.  She joined the Holy Orthodox Church after her marriage because she sensed the truth of the Orthodox faith.  It gave her great peace and joy to worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Tragically, her husband the Grand Duke was murdered by an assassin in the year 1905.  Grand Duchess Elizabeth was quite sad, but God gave her the strength of and love of Jesus during this difficult time.  It was our Lord Jesus who taught, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5.44).  Showing this love, she visited her husband’s killer in prison. 

“Who are you?” he asked upon meeting her.

“I am his widow,” she replied, “why did you kill him?”

“I did not want to kill you,” he said.  “I saw him several times before when I had the bomb with me, but you were with him and I could not bring myself to touch him.”

“You did not understand that by killing him you were killing me,” she said.  Elizabeth gave him a copy of the Gospel, and urged him to beg God for forgiveness of his horrible sin.  Elizabeth later would say, “My attempt was unsuccessful, but, who knows, perhaps at the last minute he will understand his sin and repent.”

After her husband’s death, Grand Duchess Elizabeth became a nun.  She sold her jewelry and expensive possessions, and devoted her life completely to prayer and serving the poor.  With the money she made from selling all of her things, she started a mission in Moscow called the Martha and Mary Home.  She and a group of nuns fed the poor and helped orphans for many years.  They also opened a hospital and did many other good works of charity. 

In 1917, a radical Communist government seized control of Russia.  The Soviets, as they were called, were extremely cruel and violent, and hated the Royal Family and the Orthodox Church.  Elizabeth, along with other nuns and members of the Royal Family were exiled, moved to a forest, and shoved into an abandoned mineshaft.  But even as St. Elizabeth and her companions sat in the mineshaft, hurt and dying, they could be heard singing hymns from the Church: “We who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing to the life-giving Trinity the thrice holy hymn, let us now lay aside all earthly care.”  They died on July 5, 1918. 

After her death. St. Elizabeth’s body was found and moved to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, a church which St. Elizabeth and her husband helped to build. 

St. Elizabeth teaches us how to follow the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in helping the poor and forgiving everyone who hurts us or does wrong to us.  May her prayers be with us always. 

Troparion - Tone 4

Emulating the Lord's self-abasement on the earth, 
You gave up royal mansions to serve the poor and disdained, 
Overflowing with compassion for the suffering. 
And taking up a martyr's cross, 
In your meekness
You perfected the Savior’s image within yourself, 
Therefore, with Barbara, entreat Him to save us all, O wise Elizabeth.

By Dn. Andrew and Sh. Patricia Kishler

Copyright © Sibling Revelries 2010

Saints by Letter: Week Aa

For our first week (this week), we have used this sweet little book for St. Andrew (as recommended by the LOG reading list).  Week Ee is next!

Our Curriculum: The Saints

I am amazed how blessed I am to live in a time where there are actually multiple early childhood homeschooling curricula that are Orthodox.  I had personally hoped to be able to begin Letters of Grace and use it exclusively this year, but since it is not yet finished and I am one of those compulsive planners (don't be misled: I rarely do half the things, if indeed any, that I plan) I went with another curriculum that I'd been looking at.

Our Khouria keeps a copy of the Children's Garden of the Theotokos curriculum in her personal library.  I've been borrowing her copy for the past year.  While we were doing Five in a Row for our lessons last year (preschool for my daughters and an opportunity to "get my feet wet" homeschooling) I probably couldn't have managed it without the scheduling ideas, songs, and Circle Time resources I used from this curriculum.  So, with what at the time looked like the loss of LOG (but thankfully, is not!), I went ahead and ordered the updated version of the Theotokos Garden curriculum.

I highly recommend this resource.  It's still slightly confusing to me in some aspects (or might be if I hadn't been using it off and on in some capacity over this past year), but it is worth figuring out and putting together.  Part of what makes it overwhelming at times is that since many of the Main Lessons are about Feast Days of the Church, one wants to plot them out on the calendar near the actual feast.  So Ms. Lewis cannot offer a complete schedule.  You have to customize it, which actually turns out to be fun—for me, at least!  I'll probably post more thoughts about this curriculum at some point, but this is really an introductory post to something else.  (I promise I'll get to the point eventually!)

The Theotokos Garden curriculum suggests that one aspect of the daily schedule be acting out or telling the life of the Saint of the Day to your kids.  Unfortunately, this is one area that requires the parent to get quite creative.  Ms. Lewis provides several examples for September saints' days, but to continue, I would have to get good at retelling on my own.  I could probably do it, but I kind of like stories that are written out for me.

Lightbulb!  I have the Letters of Grace reading list!  (And now—thank you, Mary—so does everyone else!)  Another component of the Theotokos Garden is a daily focus on a particular letter of the alphabet or number.  My epiphany: what if, I use some of the resources from Letters of Grace with the Theotokos Garden curriculum?  Instead of a daily changing saint's life, we'll use the same saint three times a week (we're planning school for three days a week).  As I learned from Five in a Row, kids love repitition of stories, especially over a short period like a week.

We will begin to add the titles from the Letters of Grace saints' reading list to our home library, in the hope that LOG will be finished some day.  And even if it isn't, we could still use saints' lives books in our home that correspond to the letters of the alphabet.

OK.  Here's the point of this post: while there are many beautiful retellings on the LOG list, some letters' saints are not to be found and some are as yet nonexistent.  Enter my husband.  In preparing for school, he asked what he can do to help.  He is at work during the day and, except for the rare day, will not be around during our school days.  One of the things I ended up asking him to do for me is to fill in some of the saints' lives gaps by writing up his own retellings that I can read to our kids (ages 3 and 5 years).

The Point: I will be offering these here for your use!  I'm very excited to be able to contribute something that may be of use to those who are already using the ideas and resources set forth by the creators of LOG.

We are beginning with the vowels and then moving on to the consonants so that we'll have introduced all of the vowels before Nativity so that we can use the Nativity Vowel Poems as part of our Main Lessons during Nativity Fast (can you believe I'm writing about that already?).  So, it won't be quite in the LOG order.

If you're interested in using what we come up with, please search for or click on the Saints by Letter label.  Enjoy!

Kindergarten Begins Tomorrow!

Well, friends, the big day is here.  Maggie will officially be beginning Kindergarten tomorrow morning.  Of course, Susannah and John will be participating a lot too (well, Susannah more than John for the time being).  I've even changed my blog background to reflect the colorful, artistic, and whimsical education I'm hoping to give them this year.

I have a lot I want to share with you here as we get into our schooling.  We have a children's icon corner, a Seasonal Wall, relocated (and reorganized!) shelving, fun manipulatives, and I hope what will prove to be a doable (or at least reworkable!) loose schedule.  We are going to get good at it this week and then have a school day with Daddy on Labor Day Monday.  That's mainly because Mommy scheduled a Main Lesson that day that she doesn't want to reschedule, but I think it will also motivate us (me) to really try to stick to our plans for the week so we have something to showup  for it by next week.  (Now, I KNOW we won't be perfect or anything in one week, but I'd like to persevere enough to get some of our plans in.)

In preparation for "for real" homeschooling, I've been eating up those "veteran homeschooler" articles that seem to abound this time of year.  Here are a few favorites:

• Se7ev Things I Would Do if I Had to Start Homeschooling Over...
• Waldorf Learning: Learning to Let Go
• Encountering Mercy Through Burnout and Mary's follow-up Reactions and Decisions

Hmmm... do you see a pattern?  I am apparently concerned about not overdoing and expecting too much.  While I know I need a plan and concrete activities planned for a given day, I want to be able to flow with my kids as I see them exploring and learning through play, especially with guided by the themes and manipulatives we will have available in our schoolroom (which is just the perimeter of the dining room doing double duty).

I still have some planning and supply-gathering to do for tomorrow, though, so I need to put these kids to bed to prepare.  Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers!

Free Lesson Planning Pages

Paidea Classics offers a treasure trove of free downloadable planning pages for Orthodox Homeschoolers.  They are all done in a simple and beautiful layout with accompanying quotes from the Bible or the Church Fathers.  Various different styles are available as you scroll down the page.  Lovely!

Celebrating Holy Transfiguration

We will be attempting our first evening liturgy tonight since John's birth.  I'll let you know how it goes!

For the hours leading up to our departure time (early enough to pick up Daddy and drive to our sister parish about an hour away—or more during rush hour), we are working through Matushka Emily's list of things to do to celebrate this feast with children.  I printed it off and put it in my Cycles of Grace (seasonal home management) Notebook #5.  I've got most of it checked off—what practical and doable ideas!

For an icon of Transfiguration to display on my rotating art wall, I wish I had something that matches my collection of icons generously given (once-upon-a-time) by Mary.  However, instead of just wishing, I created my own in a similar style using this icon from www.oca.org:

Then for an icon for the kids to color (or paint, as we like to do), I downloaded a line drawing of the icon for the Transfiguration (scroll down the page to select the appropriate icon) from the OCA's Department of Christian Education website:

I grabbed a couple of matching white wire baskets (one for each girl) that used to house bath toys and gave them a good wash.  Then I threaded some blue and white ribbon through the holes around the middle of the basket and made a little off-centered bow.   I resisted the urge to add any more decoration since they looked so simple and beautiful the way they were.  We'll stop at a grocery store for grapes to fill those baskets on the way to church this afternoon.  Maybe I'll even get a photo of them at some point.

I also hunted around on the Antiochian Archdiocese website and found our collection of hymns (mostly byzantine style).   I located the Major Feasts page and scrolled down to the Transfiguration Series to download a PDF of music including the troparion for the Feast of Transfiguration.  We sang this at lunch time with our meal prayers.  We've also been playing our copy of Kh. Gigi Shadid's Celebrate the Feasts CD, paying special attention to the song about the Transfiguration.  (I love her CDs!)

Wow!  I feel like I'm back!  I in no way planned to be this proactive about finding ways to celebrate the Transfiguration with my girls today.  Matushka Emily just made it so darn easy and I just jumped in!  It's been fun, and we'll finish it up tomorrow with a special evening meal and lots of blessed grapes!

A Blessed Feast to you all!

Apostles' Fast and Summer Learning

While I am nearly through actively planning homeschool lessons for the summer, we will continue to do a few learning-type activities into Summer.  We'll be working through the Bob Books series along with the exercises designed to go along with them at Letters of Grace (at a lazy summer pace).

I'd like to increase our time outdoors (even if it's just sitting in our backyard) by getting into doing a Nature Notebook.  Keeping one of these journals by sketching wildlife (or taking photos?) can be a gentle introduction to the scientific world.  As a bonus, the drawing combines the subject with Art, and the notebook can include Poetry if you are creative.  I may start doing this on my own before I foist it on the girls.  If I do a few entries, they'll probably ask to make one of their own anyway.  Then, it's their idea, not mine!

Eventually, I'd like to purchase a copy of The Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Botsford Comstock to facilitate our learning in this area.

Since we are nearly into the Apostles' Fast, I'd like to do some kind of activity related to the apostles with my kids (although, since I am about to give birth, I don't have any big plans).

Some of the resources I am considering include:

• The Holy Apostles at evlogia.typepad.com ~ a reading list: namely, we ordered this lovely book: The Twelve Apostles, by Marianna Mayer.

• Go and Make Disciples at craftycontemplative.wordpress.com ~ a Jesse-Tree-style list of twelve readings and accompanying symbols to color or craft.

• And for adults, my husband has alerted me to the book Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church, by Pope Benedict XVI ~ transcripted talks on several themes related to all of the apostles; on each apostle specifically; and on a few who were not numbered among the twelve, but worked alongside them.

Finally, for our summer education, we'll continue to use the Let Us Attend program at Antiochian.org to prepare for each Sunday's Gospel reading.  I like to do this on the Thursday or Friday before that particular gospel is read so the girls have something to listen for during the actual reading at church, and something to look for in the icon, if the coloring page corresponds to the one we will venerate at church.

With Bob Books, Nature Notebooks, a Let Us Attend activity each week, twelve apostles to read about from Ms. Mayer's book, and twelve readings and symbols from Go and Make Disciples, I think we will have plenty to keep us busy this Summer.  I'd like to lay out some of these resources in some kind of orderly fashion to give it some kind of structure (sound vague enough?), and if I do, I'll post it here.