18 weeks of Kindergarten

We've been chugging along with daily activities! I have weekly charts of what we do, but I wanted to see at a glance what things we have done so far so I compiled it as lists. Maybe more interesting to me than to blog readers…

Here's what has been explored in the last 18 weeks, some things more in-depth than others:

Hymns:

Children of the Heavenly Father

You are Worthy

Praise the Savior Now and Ever

Let All Things Now Living

Come, Ye Thankful People Come

For the Beauty of the Earth

Joy to the World

May the Mind of Christ My Savior

Folk/Children's Songs:

Roll On, Columbia Roll On

3 Little Muffins

Did you Feed My Cow

Rico's Pizza Restaurant

5 Fat Turkeys

Allison's Camel

All Night, All Day

Bible:

Vos Story Bible: 

  Paul's Conversion (Chapter 64) through the end

  The Beginning through finding a wife for Rebekah

Leading Little Ones to God: Chapters 1-23

Misc. other story Bibles and review of Sunday School material

Math:

Ellerby Math Games (with cards, dice, etc.) 1-18

Miquon Math: 1st third or so (pages are not numbered traditionally) of the Orange Book

lots of everyday math: doubling recipes, telling time, calendars

History:

Christopher Columbus (Ann McGovern)

If You Sailed on the Mayflower (Ann McGovern)

If You Grew Up with George Washington (Ruth Belov Gross)

A Book about Benjamin Franklin (Ruth Belov Gross)

The Yakima (Edward Ricciutti)

If you Lived with the Sioux Indians (Ann McGovern)

Pioneering on the Plains (Edith McCall)

Handwriting:

Delightful Handwriting capital letters and almost through the lower case

Piano:

Music Tree: through page 32

Reading:

Every day Toby chooses a book or chapter to read. Sometimes we forget to write down what they were. We have recorded 82 books though that he has read himself, and when he gets to 100 there is talk of ice cream. The most recent book he read was "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs", and Malachi enjoyed listening to that after he convinced Toby to "read it LOUD" (out loud).

Literature:

The Horse and his Boy (C.S. Lewis)

The Window in the Roof (W.G. Vandehulst)

The Magician's Nephew (C.S. Lewis)

The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis)

The best part is seeing Tobias (and also Malachi!) connections about things. After explaining the tax portion of a receipt for eating out, Tobias said "Oh! You mean like the tax collectors in the Bible who took everyone's money?" Kind of.

M: 3 Years

Happy 3rd birthday to Malachi!

Born with a little bit of turkey in his personality that shines through daily. I don't know anyone else who would concoct a medley of "George of the Jungle" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" for the occasion of grocery shopping.

Favorite things to do: singing, dancing, preschool, picking herbs

Favorite Foods: popcorn, spaghetti, and "all the foods"

Favorite Music: Army of Mushrooms, Raffi (especially Bananaphone), Pop Goes the Weasel, Rico's Pizza Restaurant

Favorite Books: The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Favorite Humor: Replacing a word of a song or conversation with "NOTHING." For example: There once was a man and his name was NOTHING!

Life Strategy So Far: "fake it 'til you make it" (though occasionally he will admit that he can't actually read)

Skills: Fwimping pancakes, putting toppings on pizza, finding his favorite songs on the computer, being gentle with animals, finding herbs for cooking

Tobias's favorite thing about Malachi: His jokes.

Sound Investment

The newest member of our family was delivered last night! It sounds nice, has a much nicer feel than our previous one, and has walnut in the hammers (thought a certain woodworker in my family might appreciate that). Oh, and an anti-finger-slamming mechanism on the cover for all the little fingers that come for lessons!

It was a slightly overwhelming decision so I'm happy we got something nice enough that we won't feel like we have to upgrade again in a few years.

K: 7 weeks in

We're partway through our 7th week of official Kindergarten for Tobias.

Currently we're singing "Let All Things Now Living" and Rico's Pizza Restaurant, as well as old favorites.

Last Easter we started reading to Tobias out of the Vos Story Bible near the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. We continued through the stories that came after that, and recently finished the book with stories of Paul's missionary journeys and John's visions in the book of Revelation. I have to say, Paul's visits to cities, stints in jail, and trials may have been a bit on the harder to understand side for Tobias. I did my best to explain the differences between governors and emperors, what it meant to be a Roman citizen, and more. He enjoyed looking at maps of Paul's trips and that he went to Rome (somewhere we have been).

After some waffling and testing various free things and samples, I "splurged" to purchase handwriting materials from Simply Charlotte Mason. For $9 and the cost of printing I now don't have to think about what comes next for handwriting, which is worth it. I never really liked those extra curves on the D'Nealian handwriting as a kid, so I went for the "plain" letters (how's that for a mature way to make a decision).

Malachi participates in singing, demands his own "maff sheet", and usually wanders away to the Duplos while we read.

We've also completed two weeks of ECHO, our homeschool co-op, which all the kids have enjoyed. 

I feel like we have a good routine going, although I have small moments of "I'm doing this wrong" panic, usually during moments such as kids crumpling up papers in frustration, or parked in front of YouTube "educational" shows in excess of what I usually allow.

Next I'm contemplating if and how to add other subjects; perhaps some more formal piano lessons and practice or Spanish.

Fall 2014 Rotating Meal Schedule

It's the first of October and I'm moving on from "how will I use up all these tomatoes?". We do have plenty of eggs again (thank you, Weasel, Kevin, Pecky, Frances, and Mudge) so I included egg salad sandwiches and an egg breakfast casserole to this menu.

I don't plan out breakfasts but Overnight Baked Oatmeal has been a hit with mix-ins such as blueberries and nuts, apples and cinnamon, and a rhubarb sauce. The kids like helping prepare it the day before; I keep it in the fridge until bedtime, then just let it sit in the oven overnight, programmed to come on around 7:00.

Week A

Soup and grilled cheese or bread

Hamburger Helper (from scratch)

egg salad sandwiches

enchiladas

pizza

breakfast (German Apple Pancake is good when we have lots of apples)

crock pot rabbit

Week B

Sweet and sour

Egg/sausage casserole

BBQ sandwiches (chicken or rabbit)

Macaroni and cheese

pizza

spaghetti

chicken and rice

dessert ideas: apple crisp with whipped cream, pumpkin bars, zucchini bread, pumpkin pies

And we called it…Kindergarten

We're still doing stuff, learning, reading, singing and asking and answering questions at our house.

Most mornings we sing a hymn or two, and a traditional children's song or folk song. Pop Goes the Weasel is a perpetual favorite and you may hear little voices around the house singing "half a pound of two penny rice, half a pound of treacle, mix it up and make it nice…POP goes the weasel!"
Then we read a Bible story and have a short prayer for our day.
We also read and explore through the day, and have bedtime reading.

Starting next week we plan to take a turn towards slightly more formal lessons for Tobias. We will be adding some Math activities (Miquon Math and board/card games) and historical books and biographies. More subjects will be added when we get in a good routine.

Stay tuned, it's sure to be an adventure.

Harvest Menu 2014

The last 6 weeks I didn't have a meal plan, due to being deluged with post-baby meals and also blessed to be traveling with family. We returned home from our latest trip to ripe tomatoes in the gardens and greenhouse, thus beginning the season of the BLT.

We currently don't have chickens laying eggs (perhaps soon?) but we do have rabbits to eat. I've not cooked rabbits before so I'm not sure exactly what kind of recipes I will use for them. The meal plan uses 1 rabbit every two weeks, so we'll see if that is a good rate compared to how many we have available to eat.
If you don't have rabbit you could substitute a chicken meal for the rabbit meals in the menu.

Week A

tacos or fajitas

BLTs or egg salad sandwiches

spaghetti

salad & bread

Pizza

Breakfast

Oven or crock pot rabbit

Week B

Yakima Valley Pie

Stir fry or sweet and sour and rice (meat: leftover rabbit?)

zucchini quiche (Simply in Season page 139)

tavern & veggies with dip

Pizza

Misc. garden-produce-inspired meal

burgers or brats

T: 5 years!

Five years ago we were very excited to meet Tobias! It would have been hard then to imagine him as a helping, hiking, reading, building, joking 5 year old. It's fun to be able to hear all his ideas and questions about the world and I'm excited to see how much he learns and grows this year.

Some of his current favorite things:

• Book: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (to listen to), Marvin K. Mooney will you Please Go Now (to read himself)
• Food: pizza (for me to cook), sausages (to cook himself)
• Thing to do outside: play on playground with ECHO preschool friends
• Thing to do with Dad: Snap Circuits or go for a walk
• Thing to do with Malachi: build trains or Duplos
• Thing to do with Avery: pat his head
• Thing to do with Mom: help clean the kitchen floor
• Thing to do in the car: look out the window at trains and mountains
• Movie: The Iron Giant

Things he thinks he will do while he is 5:

• learn to cook at ECHO
• finish the Narnia books with Dad
• hold Avery

Avery's Birth (Finally!)

A run-down of Avery's birth for those who have asked about it, plus a short review of the Contraction Timer App.

Waiting, waiting. The other boys took 41 weeks, so I thought this baby might be likely to follow their pattern. 41 weeks came and went and we were approaching a "deadline" of 42 weeks, after which Kristin would not be legally licensed to attend the birth at home.
We tried stripping membranes, taking evening primrose oil, other herbs, plenty of walking, acupressure points, and hooking up to a breast pump to cause contractions. Got some contractions but it didn't turn into actual labor. So with two days left, I went to bed with plans to try taking castor oil in the morning. Let's just say castor oil produces muscle contractions of all sorts and can be unpleasant.

Imagine how thankful and excited I was on many levels to wake at 11:30 with "real contractions" (meeting baby and no castor oil, yay!). Unfortunately for Nate he had not gone to bed yet; no sleep for you! He was great at getting the necessary things done and being awake when I needed him though.

I texted Kristin at 1:05 saying contractions were 9 minutes apart. I tried to rest between them but I was too excited so I took care of things like making sure a babysitter was available for the boys if they woke up, cleaning up some things, finding various birth supplies, etc.

1:24 I texted her to say "Every 4-5 minutes now at about 50 seconds long". Things seemed to be going more quickly than my other labors.

Kristin arrived around 2:15, at which point Nate had turned up the hot water heater and started filling the birth tub. I was doing OK with the contractions, which were now around 3 minutes apart, by leaning on the counter and trying to relax, and putting cold washcloths on my tummy. But I was mostly wishing that the tub would fill…fast. Kristin checked things like blood pressure, baby's heartbeat and position, and my temperature every once in awhile. The doppler for the baby works underwater so she could keep doing that after I was in the tub too.

Once I got in the tub my contractions slowed to every ~4 minutes (or 2 minutes if I happened to get out to use the bathroom…I tried to be quick but sometimes got caught out of the water during a contraction, ouch!). See the contraction that came after 7 minutes and 43 seconds? I remember that one...I think that is where I made Nate put his hands on my back during contractions and not lay down between anymore.

Kristin's assistant was on her way and I could tell it was definitely time to push this baby out. As his head came out Kristin said that he was still covered in the amniotic sac which had not broken. I couldn't see because of how I was leaning in the tub. Later she told me he looked like a bank robber with nylon pulled over his face, and that she was trying not to sound too excited so I didn't feel bad about not being able to see it. His shoulders and whole body came out and then the amniotic sac broke as I was leaning back to see him and hold him. It is super rare to be born "in the caul" (supposedly 1 in 80,000? but I'm guessing no one has good statistics on it). If you're superstitious it means all sorts of crazy things; Kristin said it's more likely that in a healthy mom with a not-huge baby and gentle birth practices it just happens sometimes. Our neighbor, where the boys went while Nate and I slept the next morning, said that one of her daughters was born this way too.

The placenta came quickly, and likely related to that, I lost enough blood to be considered a hemorrhage. Thankfully it stopped on it's own, I was not even aware of a problem until Kristin told me later how much I lost. Midwives do carry injectable medication (Pitocin) to manage bleeding if it hadn't stopped on it's own. Anyway, steak and spinach are on the menu to build iron back up!

The assistant had arrived somewhere in that time and helped me get settled while Kristin took a look at Avery and examined the placenta as well. She looked at her charts and checklists (something like this one I think) and said Avery looked in every way to be 40 weeks gestation, not nearly 42. I'm glad he came when he was ready.

Avery weighed in at 7 lbs. and 5 oz and 20.75 inches long. Tobias and Malachi slept through the whole thing and came in to meet their brother briefly in the morning. Then Nate walked them over to a neighbor so we could sleep for awhile.

We are enjoying getting to know this new little boy in our family!

          Psalm 100:3

Know that the Lord, he is God! 

 It is he who made us, and we are his; 

 we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Short review:
The Contraction Timer app on my phone was easy to use and to see the minutes. There is one button to start and stop, but if you want you can go back and edit the times of a contraction like if you forgot to press "stop". The only thing that would have made it easier to use was it if would connect to my Pebble watch and I could start it and stop it right from that! I would recommend this app because while you are in labor you want something easy for yourself or a helper to use.

I downloaded an app for helping my fuzzled brain keep track of nursing (minutes, sides) for the first few days that I ended up deleting in frustration at 2 a.m. because it required pressing too many buttons rather than a simple "start" and "stop". The one I found to replace it works more simply but kept crashing so I do not have any recommendations in that area.

FREE Vitamin D: getting more without taking more

Vitamin D is not a pricey supplement, but taking larger doses over a period of time can add up, and some people just don't see very good results even when taking high doses, or are hesitant to take larger doses.
I take 5,000-10,000 IUs a day and my blood levels recently tested around 40, which is considered sufficient (although maybe not optimal according to some research…there is a wide variety of what is considered enough). Many local friends report experiencing the same thing.

These are the ideas I've run across lately could help people get optimal blood levels of Vitamin D without having to add more supplements.

1. Live further south. This Harvard Study says that people living further north than the 37th parallel make little to no Vitamin D from the sun, except in the summer. It has to do with the angle of the sun, not necessarily how many minutes you spend outside. So if you live north of San Francisco, you are likely to need a good supplement in the fall/winter/spring. If you are looking for an excuse to take a winter vacation to somewhere warm and sunny, this might be it! Take me along too. Time outside can also help during the summery parts of the year.
2. Take Vitamin D with your largest meal: The fat in the meal helps the Vitamin D be absorbed. Participants in a study saw 50% more benefit from their supplements when they took them with their largest meal. I currently take all my vitamins with breakfast, so if I remembered to take them with supper I'd probably be better off.
3. Get enough magnesium: Magnesium has a lot of roles in the body. A lot of people do not get enough from their diet, and some medications, including types of antibiotics and birth control pills, tax the body's magnesium reserves. Being short on magnesium has effects such as muscle cramps, blood sugar problems, and sleep disruptions. Being low in magnesium and Vitamin D is also associated with preterm labor. Magnesium is needed for Vitamin D and other vitamins and minerals to be used in the body; they all work together. Some people report side effects like headaches when taking large doses of Vitamin D, and this is likely because absorbing that much Vitamin D into the body uses up a lot of the available magnesium, leaving the person feeling yucky. Leafy greens, whole grains, and nuts and seeds are good food sources, and it can be taken in supplement form as well. 

I get teased by a certain person about my "old person" pile of vitamins in the morning, so I might try following tip #2 and taking Vitamin D with a larger meal and keep the dose the same or slightly smaller.

Don't know if I'll be remeasuring levels to get any official results, but it might be interesting to try anyway!

Winco & Costco Price Comparisons

I don't have a detailed price list of good grocery prices like some frugal people do or my mom's good-price memory, but I did want to do a few comparisons so I can best make use of my new Costco membership.

All prices reflect the time period of February-March, 2014 in Richland, WA. Seasonal produce of course varies more than other staples. For each item compared, I checked the prices in both places within a week of each other.

Here are my results:

Costco Wins:

• Earthbound Farms organic spring mix, 1 lb.: $3.99 ($4.78 at Winco)
• Strawberries: $1.69 per lb. sold in 4 lb. package ($1.98/lb. at Winco)
• Whole Milk, gallon: $2.53 per gallon, sold in 2 gallon packs ($2.76 at Winco, although it was cheaper another time I checked there but forgot to check again at Costco)
• Pizza cheese blend: $2.92/lb, sold in 5 lb. bag. Winco no longer sells a pizza blend.
• String cheese: $0.19 each (Winco $0.25 each)
• Aidell's Chicken & Apple sausages: $0.93 per sausage sold in packs of 15 ($1.20 per sausage at Winco)
• samples! Frequent and free at Costco, pretty rare at Winco.

Winco Wins:

• White unbleached flour: $0.02 per ounce in 5 lb. bags = $1.67 ($0.032 per ounce at Costco, must buy 25 lb. bags) 
• bread: $1.57 for a loaf of Honey Wheat Berry. Costco didn't carry anything quite the same, but all the loaves I looked at were more than that.
• Most other items. Without crunching the numbers, most of our staples (vegetables, fruit, fruit juice, nuts, crackers etc.) appeared to usually be a better deal at Winco. I will continue to write down prices on things we buy frequently, just to make sure!
• ability to buy smaller quantities of everything (especially things in the bulk bins you can buy any quantity you want)

Hope that is helpful to other shoppers! I'm curious if other locations of Costco have significantly different prices, and how they compare to other local stores.

Review: Hazelwood Jewelry by Rebecca

Hazelwood jewelry definitely helped Malachi's eczema last year when his skin was miserable. He is  better enough now that he does not need to wear the hazelwood all the time. Either he has grown out of  the eczema somewhat, or the other things we are doing (probiotics) are enough to keep it under control.

Dawn and Rebecca live in the Tri-Cities, WA area and make hazelwood jewelry. Hazelwood jewelry is useful in relieving conditions such as eczema, reflux, heartburn, and other things associated with too much acid in the body.

I am recommending them because the prices are very reasonable, the jewelry is customized in color and size, and I got great customer service (a free repair when Malachi snagged his anklet on a metal part of his carseat and managed to break it). Buying locally was nice because I didn't have to pay shipping, but they do ship to far-away customers. For infants, they make a unique anklet with an adjustable velcro strap to keep it on snugly.

If you would like to check out examples of what they sell or contact them, look here:

• on Facebook
• at their blog
• at their Etsy shop

Sugar Break Results

Yep, I failed at totally avoiding sugar. But not too badly, and I still achieved my goals for the week.

What was my downfall? Well, turkey bacon, ketchup at a restaurant, and the sauce on Friday's pizza was from a can and contained sugar (we did have homemade sauce on Saturday on the spaghetti). I knew these items contained a little sugar but didn't have the time/willpower to dig up replacements. Lest you think I have no will-power, I did turn down several tasty treats over the course of the week such as chocolate chip cookies at the bank.

We ate all-fruit jelly instead of sugared jelly on our bread and yogurt, drank apple cider (or warm milk with vanilla stevia drops once) instead of hot chocolate, and made cinnamon raisin bread in the bread machine to eat with cream cheese or butter instead of store-bought bagels. I baked a batch of banana bread without sugar that was edible but not worth repeating.

Today when my break was officially over I did eat 3 cookies at church (not a binge, because that's my normal amount of cookies), and had ketchup, salad dressing, and apple crisp as parts of my Sunday dinner.

Mini goals and ideas for the future:

• keep breakfast without sugar 5-6 days a week
• try making homemade ketchup with less or "better" sugar (or lacto-fermented ketchup)
• find a homemade french dressing recipe that has less sugar than store-bought
• find a better banana bread or banana muffin recipe than the one I tried this week
• can or freeze some of my own spaghetti/pizza sauce with produce from the garden this summer

Let me know if you have any recipe ideas for the things I mentioned!

Sugar Break

We don't drink a lot of pop or other typical sugary junk foods, but there is plenty of added sugar in things like cereal, jelly, ketchup, lunch meat, spaghetti sauce, salad dressing and bread. I believe all foods can be healthy in moderation, but the more I learn about processed sugars (white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) I am beginning to think of it more as a chemical than a food. Or somewhere in between.
Sometimes referred to as "empty calories", sugar is more of a negative calorie because it uses up real nutrients (particularly B vitamins, magnesium, chromium, calcium, and zinc) to digest it, but it leaves no nutrients in return. According to one story I read, marooned sailors discovered you can live longer eating nothing than eating sugar.

Regardless of whether sugar is a food and what "moderation" might be with it, I'm sure we consumed a bit much over our holiday travels due to eating out and Christmas treats. So I'm going without it for a week as an experiment.

Goals:

• Read food labels better to become aware of the hidden sugar
• Break the habit of buying the cheaper product with more sugar rather than something healthier
• Stay in the habit of making things like dressing and bread from scratch and try a few new recipes too
• Give our bodies a chance to recharge
• I think we were designed to enjoy our food and also to enjoy sweet tastes. I hope by taking a break from sugar we will have more enjoyment in the occasional sweet treat.

Rules:

• Noon on Sunday until after-church cookies the next Sunday
• I won't be replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners
• Honey and molasses do provide some nutrients and health benefits, but for this week I will not be using them except perhaps a tablespoon or two to make bread. Less processed sugars such as rapadura still have nutrients left so I don't consider them "as bad", but again I will not be cooking or baking with them this week.
• Nate is on his own, and I'm not going to worry about what the kids eat if they are away from me or offered foods outside our home
• Kids gummy vitamins and a few ounces of water kefir for the kids (to prevent eczema in Malachi and to prevent jealousy in Tobias) will continue

We're already well into our week of doing this, so come back soon to see how we succeeded in our goals!

Oliebollen (yes, that means "oil balls")

We tripled this recipe (don't worry, it was pretty small to begin with) and fried up some traditional Dutch New Year's treats. It was fun to see the shapes they turned into as they dropped in the oil; some looked like monsters, others like little mutant turkeys. Happy New Year!

Time4Learning review

I was interested to try out Time4Learning to see how it compared to other online educational programs we had tried such as ABCmouse, Reading Eggs, and Math Seeds (by the same company as Reading Eggs). While I am not inclined to use a computer program as a main school curriculum, I wanted to be familiar with this program in case we needed something to use in the future during travel, illness, busy seasons or for Toby to work on a particular subject without my help while I care for other needs or work. I honestly didn't expect that it would be completely compatible with my educational beliefs and goals, but was hoping to find some useful parts to it.

Our test subject, Tobias, is 4 years old and knows how to read well. I signed him up for the Kindergarten level but when our account was activated it seemed to be in the preschool activities, so I requested a switch to 1st grade, and then we had access to the Kindergarten and 1st grade activities. I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong or if their system was at fault in setting the "wrong" grade levels both times. Almost all my observations are based on the content of the Kindergarten/1st material.

Positives:

• basic navigation was fairly easy for 4 year old to figure out, although I would consider ABCMouse's "learning path" visually stronger.
• Tobias usually enjoyed using the website
• He did retain and talk facts he learned on this site
• Many of the math activities seemed clearly explained and used real-life examples like calendars, measuring with objects, etc.
• Although I have many criticisms of Time4Learning, I'm glad that computerized options that cover many core subjects are available for the times that people need or prefer them. Hopefully Time4Learning and other computerized curriculums continue to improve as they gain more users.

Educational Weaknesses:

I believe that character, habits, spiritual growth, physical activity, time outdoors, allowing for creativity, and building relationships are of primary importance for future success at this age, more than the 3 Rs (we do spend time on those and I'm proud of Toby's growth in those "academic" areas). As for academics, I believe that kids in this age group learn information and skills best from real life activities, interaction with people, games, and good stories and books. Computers can provide games and drills, stories, and pictures and videos that educate about the real world (especially things we aren't likely to see in our everyday life). While I don't expect a computer program to instill character or develop gross motor skills, I think that Time4Learning could have done a much better job in all those areas that computerized programs are able to provide.

• Science and language arts extension lessons promote superficial familiarity with various vocab/concepts but are low on depth. For example, the computer asks: "What is brown and holds plants: soil or chocolate". Seriously? That's either on the very bottom level of Bloom's taxonomy or not even on the chart. A few "joke" questions for fun are OK with me, but the amount of this type of question disturbed me. Other questions weren't quite as laughable, but usually had obvious answers and were low on Bloom's taxonomy. One style of education I am drawn to is based on Charlotte Mason's writings and how she ran her schools in England, and she encouraged narration (telling back or writing back a summary/response/discussion) for a way to solidify things in a student's mind and see what they know (instead of quizzing on a variety of specific facts). If you can't tell it to another person, you don't really know it well. Narration isn't very compatible with computer-based learning (nor is it required of 4-5 year olds in Charlotte Mason's advice), but better-designed questions could check for deeper understanding.
• Science almost exclusively used stylized cartoons (for example, a simple zigzag representing lightning) instead of detailed drawings or real photos or videos of animals, plants, and weather. In an activity about pollution, a muddy-looking fish jumps out of the pond and gets a shower to clean off. The vocabulary of pollution types are covered, and the child is told how sad and bad it is in a sing-song rhyme, but the nature of the animations seemed flippant and stereotyped. Real photos convey more information, as well as a bit of a real connection with or appreciation of nature (as much as you can get on a computer).
• No real literature. Another Charlotte Mason term is twaddle: books that are insignificant, "not worth talking about", books that make all the connections for the child instead of letting them think for themselves. I think a few simple-storied books for teaching reading have their place, but they are not literature. Nearly 100% of the "books" that Toby read or listened to on Time4Learning I would consider twaddle. The plots are unmemorable or nonexistent and all the illustrations are all the same type of cartoons. I'm sure it would be difficult, copyright-wise, to include wonderful children's books such as Owl Babies, Blueberries for Sal, Beatrix Potter, Goodnight Moon, etc. But perhaps the cost of doing so would be worth it. Or at least kids could be introduced to books that had a variety of illustration styles, or some of the classic nursery rhymes, fables, poetry and classics that are in the public domain. It appears that the higher grades to utilize real books such as "The Giver" and "The Black Stallion" but I can't tell if it is just excerpts or the whole book. It says that you do not need to purchase the books to use Time4Learning, so either they are providing the entire text or just using chapters/bits of the book as material for a language arts lesson. I think that anything that claims to cover core subjects should be including real, whole, quality literature.

Design, Navigational, and Misc. Negatives:

• low quality, overstimulating and repetitive music in the playground games and other portions of the website. This is modeled after entertainment (games, movies), not education, and promotes a short attention span.
• constant and repetitive commentary from the characters that wasn't related to the content of the activity: "oh boy, we can do this!" "this is going to be fun" "you found all the pictures that begin with P!" spewed out between every little question. I think it is too much positive reinforcement (it becomes meaningless) and teaches kids to just ignore much of what they hear. Another example is repetitive instructions:  ("click the check mark when you are done" after EVERY portion of the game)…encourages kids to zone out and ignore most of what is being said. Often even if you are done with an activity, you have to wait until the characters quit blabbing before you can click the arrow to move on. Especially with some of the math games, I think it would have been more fun and 3 times as much practice to design a boom-boom-boom type of game where you click the answer and you are either right or wrong and it moves immediately to the next question. Like a quick-paced card game. Cut the talk.
• Some quizzes were hard to navigate with small radio buttons. This made Toby dislike the quizzes, even though he enjoyed the quizzes in Reading Eggs. Not all quizzes have the same navigation: Some you clicked "next" when finished with a single question, some you had to click "2" "3" etc. on the top of the quiz to move from question to question and then click "turn in" when the entire quiz was done.
• Overall graphic design I would describe as cartoonish; more flat-looking and less polished than the cartoon illustrations in ABCMouse or Math Seeds. I would prefer something cleaner looking, with more white space, in order to focus on the content and not be overstimulating. Or maybe a little more variety, such as the variety naturally found when reading books with various illustrators. A little more beauty, please.
• The Playground section (reward games) allows the student into other game websites in addition to Time4Learning games. Often I found that these sites had flashing ads (never found anything too objectionable…yet) and opened in a new window on the computer screen, which made it harder to navigate back to the game menu. The navigation and the skill/interest level varied a lot with the off-site games and often I'd find Toby sitting dazed and confused in front of a high paced typing game that he didn't understand at all but didn't want to leave because it was a "game". I would have utilized an option to turn off these off-site games if there was one.
• There were a few things I had to discuss with Toby because my perspective or belief differed from that presented. It is always good to supervise a young child's independent work.
• If I set his account to require 15 minutes of activities before allowing games, I noticed that if I logged him in and we got distracted, the games would become active even after 15 minutes of being logged in and doing absolutely nothing. We did not run into problems with Toby trying to take advantage of that aspect, but that would be high on my list of things to "fix".

Wish List…if most of the "negatives" were fixed I would consider paying $20 a month for this product, but I might still wish for:

• Foreign language. Basic vocabulary and phrases are something that can be taught/reviewed using a computer and would make this product more worth paying for in my opinion. 
• More music education. One of the activities talked about practicing various skills including a musical instrument and showed a very short clip of a trumpet player. A computer would be a decent way to become familiar with the families of instruments and the instrument names as well as some other music content (common folk songs, lives of composers). I consider music a basic, not a bonus, but I realize that may not be the norm.
• Capability for the child to record oral answers or short narrations that the parent could later mark as satisfactory or not for completing/passing a lesson. It would take some practice for the child to know what to do, but it could be well worthwhile.
• Different types of reports and ways to view progress. Due to the layered nature of the units and all the sub-activities within each one, it was hard for me to see at a glance how much Toby had completed. There are some reports and planning tools, but also helpful would be graphs that showed things like what percentage of the math activities were complete. If I were paying for a certain number of months (perhaps a 9 month school year or a 3 month summer) I would want to encourage or require my child to pace themselves through the subjects, but without having to print out a detailed plan that specified daily activities.
• Another option that would have helped me pace and balance the activities would have been the ability to set up a folder's worth of activities I chose, and have only those available for Tobias to choose from.

Overall impression: I would give this 1 or 2 stars out of 5 and discourage anyone from using this for any significant part of your child's Kindergarten-level education. I find it disappointing that the market supports a product with what I view as sub-par content and implementation; even the local school district has approved this as a curriculum they will pay for through their HomeLink program.
I'm sure it's a big job to get so much content built and polished up. I wish Time4Learning the best of luck in shoring up the weaknesses of this program to better serve their customers and potential customers. If you choose to use this product, supervise carefully and be sure to supplement in the areas that you feel are too shallow. I would consider looking at this product again in a few years if I heard there was improvement in the areas that were not satisfactory to me.

Thank you, Time4Learning, for the chance to try it out and compare, even though it was not the right thing for our family.

M: 2 Years

Favorite Author: Dr. Seuss
Favorite Books: What Do People Do All Day (Richard Scarry), Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss), The Mitten (Jan Brett), The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle)
Favorite Movie: Chicken Run
Favorite foods: pickles, pears, bagels, spicy chocolate, any chocolate, broccoli
Favorite songs/music: "What Does the Fox Say?", "Nothing is Impossible with God", Raffi, anything he can dance to
Daily activities: giving Toby a goodnight hug and good morning hug, looking at books, helping in the kitchen
Favorite tricks and jokes:
Pretending his finger is hurt (very convincing!), then pointing to the porcupine in a book poked him.
Insisting with a twinkle in his eye that what Daddy wears to work is…"Nekkid".
As I pull a perfect pizza from the oven and say "ooh, it's good", he responds seriously with "No. Bad. Taste bad." and then starts to giggle and smile.
How do you say "no" to him?: Usually it's the curly blond hair and happy eyes that prompt people to ask how I can possibly say no to him. We do say no, but mostly it's hard because he's so sweet: I know that if he had a stash of chocolate and I said "chock-it pees…need chock-it", he would share it with me. It's hard not to reciprocate. Mostly he's very generous and looks out for the people around him: recently he was crying during supper, genuinely tired from playing all day and skipping his nap, but he took a moment between sobs to pass a knife over to Toby when Toby mentioned he needed a knife to spread butter on his cornbread. He gave me a hug and a "feel better pees" when I started gagging over some nasty-smelling basil.
And is he always this good?: Nope, usually I have to sit on him to get him in his carseat, and he has arrived at church without pants several times because I didn't think I could fight the pants battle and the carseat battle consecutively. Always, always getting into the fridge. When presented with something he doesn't want to eat, he pronounces "Yucky. Chickens eat it." Typically he is very polite about food though.

This turkey Two-Year-Old is super excited about "mine biffy cake" (my birthday cake) waiting in the fridge, I'm excited to see him grow and learn and enjoy life heading into his next year!

Upcoming Review of Time4Learning

• I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid curriculum review. 
• Time4Learning offers an online curriculum for prek-12th, information about homeschool portfolio reviews and tools like the How to Homeschool Guide. 
• Be sure to come back and read about my experience.

October Reading

As a former library worker, I sometimes feel I'm in a position to complain about our library system. For example, notice how each title is obscured by the bar code sticker. Drives me crazy. But we are able to find or reserve a lot of good books there, and they've even bought three books that I requested they add to their collection. Here are 4 books Toby and I have enjoyed together in the last month.

One Small Blue Bead

by Byrd Baylor

I don't remember which website or booklist recommended this book, but I reserved it from the library. It's written in rhyming verse and tells the story of a boy who lived long ago; although his people have never met another group of people and believe they are the only ones, he wonders if maybe somewhere else in the world there is another boy like him. Tobias enjoyed the story enough to request it several times, and it was interesting to ponder together how people lived in such a different way.

Blaze Finds the Trail

by C.W. Anderson

Came across this series as something recommended for younger kids who are learning to read. Toby and I enjoyed the story, and we shared the job of reading it: I would take one page and then he would take one. I think my dad would like this book, so maybe Toby can read another in the series with him!

Jenny: The Airplane that Taught America to Fly

by David Weitzman

Toby grabbed this one off the shelf at the library. I guess I'm a book snob because half the time when he picks something it is strange or junk and I try to return it as soon as possible, maybe even on the way out the door the same day. But this one was great. An old photo album prompts a grandmother to tell her grandkids all about the airplanes the great-grandmother flew and how and why they were built. We both learned that "pusher" airplanes had the propeller in the back to push the airplane, and "tractors" had the propellor in front to pull the airplane through the air. He built both kinds out of Duplos afterwards. There was a lot of historical information that was over Toby's head (WW1 and WW2), as well as some of the science (weight of aluminum vs. cast iron...he didn't know what an aluminum pop can was so my explanations fell flat). This would be a great book for us revisit again in a few years again.

Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit up the World

by Elizabeth Rusch

Some of the science in this book was over my head, but I did understand most of it. It explains Nikola Tesla's life: how he became interested in electricity, his rivalry with Thomas Edison, how he lit up the Chicago World's Fair with electric lights for the first time, and how many of his inventions we use today. Toby's favorite part was when Tesla sent 250,000 volts of electricity through his body without killing himself. Apparently if it is alternating fast enough, it travels through the edges of the body and doesn't zap your heart. Don't try it at home though. This is another book that would be beneficial to read again when we are both older and understand electricity and motors more.

What the Vander World Eats in a Week

Have you seen the photos from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats? It was interesting to look at the pictures and see the variety in amounts of food, what kinds of food, and how it is packaged and served. I declared myself too lazy to make a photo of one week's worth of food for our family. And then to prove myself wrong I did it. Kind of.

I probably didn't do the most accurate job, since we also eat items from the pantry and the freezer. I normally "stock up" on items like pasta or dried beans all at one time, so I didn't need those things this week. 

Pictured is one grocery trip to Winco (which I do weekly), plus 1 carton of eggs from the fridge and the  metal bowl of produce showing the types of things we eat from the garden lately: beans, kale, onions, tomatoes, and cabbage. We harvest more than that in a week but I didn't have room for it in the bowl. The eggs are almost always from our chickens but they are molting and not laying as much, so we bought a dozen store eggs last week.

Don't see the bread? There are wheat berries in the back left plastic bag that get ground and used in pizza crust and bread.

We also occasionally buy food at the NW Regional Food Hub or order foods from the Azure Standard food co-op through them.

I spent $42.50 at Winco today, which is pretty typical. Mint.com says that I spend $232 on groceries per month on average (based on the last 12 months). That number doesn't include chicken feed, garden supplies, aquaponics supplies and fish food, or food storage supplies like canning equipment. And it probably leaves out an occasional small purchase made with cash that doesn't get recorded by Mint.

We're blessed with access to a lot of fresh fruit and lots of sunshine to grow food in our region!

I'd love to see your picture of food for a week!