Today marks Noah’s first birthday up in Heaven; Samuel’s was August 24th.
Dear babies, I miss you everyday.
It still feels like it all happened yesterday.
The pain is still that raw.
I pray for healing from this endless pain that is all-engulfing and suffocating.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3: 5-6
Though we homeschool, we often find ourselves out of the house for field trips and co-ops, and other homeschool activities. Sometimes we take some school work with us on vacation, to the doctor’s office, or to anyplace where I know there will be a long wait.
There are three necessary pieces for this busy out-of-the-house-a-lot lifestyle:
1. a great bag (especially one with pockets),
2. a thermal lunch bag, and
3. a great BIG bag for when there’s just LOTS of stuff to carry.
The Great Bag
I fell in love with Thirty-One products my first year in Classical Conversations. My tutor friends all had the organizing totes and I loved the side pockets. Now the bag is even better because it is a Zip-top Organizing Utility Tote so you can close it. My bags do not close because they are the discontinued style, but I still love them and use them every day. The Zip-Top Organizing Utility Tote is very versatile. I used it to store our school items when I was on bed rest so they were within easy reach and my husband could easily transport it to whichever couch or bed I happened to be. I took our towels to the pool in it all summer this year. I own two without the zipper that I bought on sale, meaning to give one away as a present, but it was just too useful to have two, and I kept both!
What draws me to this bag over and over are the side pockets – sippy cups and water bottles fit in it, my phone is easily accessible in a pocket, pencils and erasers nestled into a Mason jar fit in a pocket. The inside fits an Itso bin (or the Fold n File from Thirty-One) and a plethora of books.
There’s a similar bag that is a bit taller, called the All-Day Organizing Tote. It is the same width, but is both longer and taller. The great news is that for September only, you can get the All-Day Organizing Tote for $15 with every $35 spent!
Thirty-One has many thermal bag options, but it has a great Picnic Thermal tote that is a MUST have for a big family. My friend has four kids and she can fit her whole family’s lunch in it when they go out. It comes in lots of styles and keeps food warm OR cold. It’s great for soccer practices, field trips, and co-op lunches. I am hoping to get one soon:)
Here is a view of the roomy interior.
The Great Big Bag
If you have kids in sports or teach a co-op class, then a Great BIG Bag is also necessary. To give you an idea of it’s size, the Deluxe Utility Tote holds three paper shopping bags, Picnic Thermals or Fold N’ Files! You can even put smaller items in the three back pockets, and its sturdy webbed handles help you take your gear, supplies, or groceries inside. It also has the grommets for the Pocket-a-Tote. My friend and Thirty-One consultant, Erin, uses her deluxe utility bag to keep her three boys’ soccer gear organized. I am going to use mine to carry all my art supplies to our co-op class (instead of the cumbersome cardboard box I was using).
The Good News
I am hosting an online Thirty-One party for my readers. Place an order over $50 this week (thru September 23rd) through my event link and receive a Hang-It-Up Key Fob Grab bag as a thank you. You can use those for yourself or gift them to others. Do not put the key fob in your cart. Erin will automatically add them to your order and will try to choose a fabric that coordinates with the products in your order.
Remember that you can order an All-Day Organizing Tote for just $15 (normally $45) with a $35 order. By the way, $35 + the $15 All-Day Organizing Tote gets you to $50! That gets you a free key fob. Yay!
I have also made a Thirty-One Organization Pinterest Board to give you even more ideas of ways to organize with Thirty-One products. My favorite is using the Deluxe Utility Tote as a napping place for a baby! Go check it out and make sure to place your orders before midnight EST on September 23rd, 2014!
The thing about our homeschool is that it is ever-changing. We’ve just finished our first three weeks of school and I already need to tweak things. Even before we add our extra-curricular activities, our schedule is too full. My goal this year is to keep everything simple. I yearn for rest and leisurely learning. I have much to learn about simple.
What’s Working:
Morning Time:
Everyone’s favorite part of the day is Morning Time. For those of you not familiar with Morning Time, it is when I read aloud all the subjects that we combine (Bible, History, Science, Art Appreciation, and Composer Study). It’s also when we study our Memory Work.
They love our Ambleside Online Year 2 readings. Their favorites are The Burgess Animal Book and Our Island Story. Morning Time is a little long, however, so we try to break it up with some calisthenics.
Lightning Literature:
J-jo loves this curriculum and it has been a great hit. If you missed it, you can read my review of it here.
Alternating Latin Curricula:
Bear is using Song School Latin 2 and Prima Latina. We started both last year and got halfway through. They reinforce each other so we do them both. One is a bit dry (but Bear likes it) and the other is a bit more creative. They balance each other out and both have strengths I couldn’t give up. She does one on Tuesdays and the other on Thursdays. I’ll be alternating Latin for Children with Latina Christiana once we are done with SSL2 and PL. The other fun thing we do with Latin is play Race to the Colosseum from Pam at Everyday Snapshots. More on that in another post, but in the meantime, check out her blog post about it.
What’s Not Working:
Math for Bear:
Math has been our nemesis ever since we started homeschooling. It’s a source of frustration for me because, while she’s very advanced and good at math, she does not enjoy it. She is very much a literature and history gal. We use Saxon and there’s nothing wrong with Saxon 5/4 as a curriculum – I actually love it and wish it would work for us. It is just the right difficulty level – that sweet spot between too hard and too easy – but Bear can’t abide it because of the repetitiveness, and has procrastinated getting her lesson done every.single.day these past two weeks. It’s stressful and throws the whole day off. I am waiting for Rightstart E to arrive in the mail, and I am praying that the playful aspect of this curriculum and the fact that it is so Mommy intensive (and thus she will have my company, which is really what she wants to begin with) will make math more tolerable for all of us.
Juggling two kids at once:
This is the first year that J-jo has mandatory school. His work needs Mommy at his side (think All About Spelling, Lightning Literature, listening to him read, math games) and Bear still wants Mommy at her side, not to mention she needs me for All About Spelling, Writing and Rhetoric, and various other scripted subjects.) I am not sure exactly how to change things around so that my time is better balanced between the two. Still tweaking and figuring it out and trying to make it work. Any tips would be appreciated.
You can plan all you want on paper, but until you live it, you can’t be sure of your plan’s success.
There’s nothing better for me than snuggling on the couch with my children and reading. I dread the day when that will end. So until then, we do a lot of reading on the couch. Thankfully, my children love it and ask for read-alouds frequently. Hewitt Homeschooling’s Lightning Literature is a curriculum that covers literature, grammar and mechanics, and composition. This is done via reading a great picture book with your child each week. The child narrates the story, answers literary questions, and also learns grammar and mechanics using sentences from (or about) the story. The child also writes a composition each week about a theme that pairs well with the book of the week.
We received both the Lightning Literature and Composition: Grade 1 Student Workbook ($49.95) and the Lightning Literature and Composition: Grade 1 Teacher’s Guide ($29.95) to review. The Student Workbook is consumable so can only be used once. It includes reading journal pages, dictionary pages, and alphabet and sentence puzzle pages. The Teacher Guide provides questions and discussion tips for each book and helps you guide your child through a writing composition each week. Both are physical products and are geared for 1st grade, although an advanced Kindergarten child or a second grader with no previous grammar exposure would enjoy this as well.
There are 36 weeks planned out, with one book per week. Most of these books are popular and you might even own a copy. A handful were completely new to us. All but two were easily found at our library, and we actually owned about 1/3 of the titles. The books are meant to be done in order, but we found it still worked to skip around a bit. (We had to out of necessity when I thought we owned The Snowy Day, but it turned out we didn’t. We then had to wait on our hold at the library and moved on to Caps For Sale while we waited.)
Books Needed For Lightning Literature 1st Grade:
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones by Ruth Hellerv
Umbrella by Taro Yashimav
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Tabackv
The Napping House by Audrey & Don Wood
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster
Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say
Doctor De Soto by William Steig
Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Mother Goose Rhymes by Mother Goose
Mabela the Clever by Margaret Read MacDonald
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel
Bill and Pete to the Rescue by Tomie dePaola
Best Friends for Frances by Russell Hoban
Always Room for One More by Sorche Nic Leodhas
Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág
Curious George Flies a Kite by Margret Reyv
Babar the King by Jean de Brunhoff
This Is London by M. Sasek
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head by Bill Peet
The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein
The only other thing you might want is Aesop’s Fables. One fable is read each week. There are free versions online, though. We happened to own a copy.
The Teacher’s Guide
There is a “How to Use This Teacher’s Guide” section at the beginning of the Teacher Guide. The advice is useful and comforting: “…use comprehension questions as a tool to improve reading comprehension rather than a test of it. Children are still learning to attend fully to books…” and general encouragement to feel free to tailor any parts to your child’s level. There were also pertinent information about each of the different sections (Literature, Grammar and Mechanics, and Composition).
The Teacher Manual begins each week with an “At A Glance” page. This page shows you the lessons for the week, which fable to read, and any materials you may want to add (totally optional). This is the page that lists other books that go along with the book of the week. We discovered a great new-to-us book from the second week’s list. Adele and Simon, a sweet go-along for Madeline.
Each week follows a rhythm:
Monday: Read the book and answer comprehension questions. Do Monday’s page in the Student Workbook. Start composition.
Tuesday: Read the book and discuss literary components. Do Tuesday’s page in the Student Workbook. Continue composition.
Wednesday: Read the book and discuss story with a different set of guiding questions. Do Wednesday’s page in the Student Workbook. Continue composition.
Thursday: Read the Aesop Fable. Do Thursday’s page. Write a good copy of the composition.
Friday: Free Day in which to do extension activities to go with the book (if you want). Examples of possibilities are included (like making a color wheel the week of Harold and the Purple Crayon) and this would be the day to read the go-along books (though this is not how we did it). This would be a good day to play with a themed sensory box or to bring out a literature box.
How We Used It:
I am using Lightning Literature Grade 1 with J-jo , my 4 (very nearly 5) year old. We were able to complete four weeks of the program and have now skipped a week to read Umbrella since it is due back at the library soon. We follow the Teacher’s Guide and read the story each day, but I also read it to J-jo Day 4 and Day 5. We have not added anything extra other than reading go-along books or more books by the same author.
I thought the grammar and mechanics would be too hard for J-jo, but he has handled it fine. Sometimes I need to tell him how many capital letters are missing and then he can easily find them all.
The independent writing sections I did with him. J-jo is still 4 (though he turns 5 on Saturday) and he is a typical boy who does not prefer to write. He loves to compose stories and such but desires a scribe and that is exactly what we did with this curriculum. The composition writing is meant to happen over the week, but he always just wanted to do it all on one day. He also had me scribe the Reading Journal sections, but I made him do the copywork. The copywork involves choosing your favorite sentence from the book. I encouraged him to choose the shortest one. 
We were required to consume the workbook and write in it and for the most part we did. The only thing I had him do on separate paper was the copywork because a) the paper is the atrocious shiny kind that is horrible to write on in pencil and b) the binding prevents the child (well mine anyway ) to truly reach all sections of the pages. It was frustrating to him and to me.
He enjoyed the narrations (retelling the story) but he soon learned to be more succinct for they didn’t leave us much room to squeeze it all in!
There is a dictionary at the end in which you can write words from the stories you have read. We didn’t use it. It is an optional part.
What We Thought:
We really enjoyed Lightning Literature and Composition. J-jo would always ask for us to start with Lightning Lit and his enthusiasm for it hasn’t diminished.
What I liked:
1. The Teacher Guide set-up; it was easy to follow.
2. That no extra materials were needed besides books.
3. The quality of the books selected. It’s a great list.
4. The list of go-along books.
5. The grammar and mechanics lessons are taught using sentences from or about the stories.
6. The teacher guide provides questions that allow students to learn elements of literature. These questions enable them to point out elements in other books we read. Other questions allow for greater thinking about the book. I like that I don’t have to come up with questions.
7. Children are taught diagramming in the second half of the book. The grammar starts off easy, but progresses at a good clip.
What I really didn’t like:
1. The paper is the shiny kind that is horrible to write on in pencil. I hope they think about using the same kind of paper as the Teacher Guide for the Student Workbook in their next grade levels and in subsequent printings of the first grade one.
2. The binding prevents the child (well mine anyway ) to truly reach all sections of the pages. Coil binding is my preference for workbooks and I wish publishing companies in general would be cognizant of this, as I know I am not the only one with a coil binding preference.
3. The price. Without even considering the books needed (if you don’t use the library), the Teacher’s Guide and Student Workbook add up to almost $80. While I do think this program is worth that amount, for it’s thoroughness and the fact that it covers literature, grammar and mechanics, and composition, I know that many families can not afford that.
What J-jo did not like:
I am not including his general aversion to writing, but he did want me to mention he does not like the themed alphabet pages in which he has to come up with a different word for each letter of the alphabet for the theme. (It was colors for Harold and the Purple Crayon, and weather for The Snowy Day.) “It’s too hard!” he says.
Hewitt Homeschooling has many literature curriculum courses for middle school and high school, and are working on completing their literature curriculum for 2nd through 6th grade. So the 1st grade curriculum is brand new and each year they plan to add a new grade.
