Back-to-school goodie bags

I have to admit that while I can't stand the provincial public school system, I love the idea of school. In fact, I think I wrote recently that one of the reasons we pulled Laura out to homeschool is that Tom and I each loved school so much (I used to cry on the last day of school because I was so sad to find it over) that we wanted our kids to feel the very same way about school, education, and learning. Not all the same, but all good things in their own ways.

I love school supplies, and to me the excitement of a new beginning in September has always been better than anticlimax of the post-holiday new beginning in January. Call me crazy. And part of that crazy excitement bubbles over into new books, art supplies, CDs, and movies I can share with the kids. By the way, even though the CDs and movies are put in individual bags, it's understood that they're all for-sharing-with-the-whole-family items. I'm nuts but I'm not that nuts.

For Davy, five-and-a-half and in 1st grade:
all first graders around here get a Timex learner's watch (this one has a dinosaur design) and a good quality set of colored pencils (Laurentian "Studio", new this year and so far so good);
small Lego "Racers" kit, with small car (since Lego counts as both a science kit and a math manipulative around here);
Lentil by Robert McCloskey (for music appreciation);
George Shrinks by William Joyce (to make new reading lessons fun);
Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather and Eric Sloane's Weather Book, for my weather nut who was wearing out the library's copies, and because anything by Sloane is wonderful
American Tall Tales audio CD by Jim Weiss, to go along with our continuing American history/SOTW3 studies
stickers/tracing paper/notebook/cardmaking bits and bobs

Daniel, edging closer to seven-and-a-half, 2nd grade:
"Building Big" DVD series by David Macaulay, definitely a big ticket item and one that's been on my Amazon wish list for years, both for Tom and for the kids. Based on our first viewing tonight, I'd say it's a big success, too. Ten thumbs up. Even if I can't expense it for Tom's construction work...
Burt Dow, Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey
Emma's Strange Pet by Canadian author Jean Little, an I Can Read book for my lizard lover and new reader
Lego "Racers" kit, with small car (see above)
Abraham Lincoln and the Heart of America audio CD by Jim Weiss (see above)
stickers/tracing paper/notebook/cardmaking bits and bobs

Laura, nine years old, 4th grade:
School Smarts planner from American Girl, discovered by Laura in a summertime AG catalogue, and upon reflection decided upon as a way of moving her to more independent work, with (first) reading and then writing assignments. I'm hoping yesterday's excitement about the planner and extra responsibility continues;
Kaya's Story Collection by Janet Shaw (which Laura is enjoying immensely)
"Living Adventures from American History" CD from Eye in the Ear, another companion resource for our two-year SOTW3 studies, and something I'm eager to hear myself after reading the write-up in the Chinaberry catalogue several years ago;
The Burgess Seashore Book for Children by Thornton Burgess, to take along when we visit my parents in the West Indies in the new year;
Thomas Jefferson's America audio CD by Jim Weiss (see above)
"Handwriting by George: Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company & Conversation", a cursive writing workbook to take advantage of Laura's American Girl/colonial America fixation (I'm sure you're noticing an AG trend here in my Canadian girl); that's George as in Gen. Washington;
The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson, which I'm hoping Laura will let me read aloud to the three of them;
a few bookmarks I made with a line for the day's date and "I need to read ____ pages by _______" to keep track of her new independent reading assignments; we'll see how this works and I'll keep you posted;
stickers/tracing paper/notebook/cardmaking bits and bobs

Since Saturday

Finally made it to Staples on Saturday for our fun school supplies, mostly for Davy, who is overjoyed about starting first grade: oversize (5"x8") index cards with primary ruling for beginning writers; Laurentien's new best quality "Studio" colored pencils (not as pricey as Prismacolor Juniors which are more than Davy needs right now, but better than the usual store brand -- even he noticed a difference, and Laura our colored pencil expert said they compare favorably to the Prismacolors); Crayola IQ Sketching markers; oversize index tabs long enough to peek out beyond the plastic page protectors; yet another package of aforementioned page protectors; new binders for Davy (orange, because purple and green have already been claimed); stickers for everyone (Hot Wheels x 2, and farm animals x 1); a new Mead "Upper Class" student planner for me (where I can write each day what they actually did for the day rather than what I planned for them to do); the Staples "house version" of the Desk Buddy (Desk Jockey? Desk Buddy?) with 10 slots (three of each -- how did they know I had three kids? Plus the one extra in the middle for my own stuff) that will make it easy for us to keep pencils, rulers, erasers, etc. on the table and corralled while the kids do their seatwork; and an impulse buy from the Teacher's Aisle, a $10 Multiplication Songs CD.

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The leaves and the sun, sadly up later and down earlier, not to mention the geese and ducks gathering together in droves, are all saying "autumn", but the air temperature, still near 90, is saying "summer". Rather a nice if unusual combination for the prairies, all in all. No rain either, good for harvesting and for leaving sneakers on the deck, but the trees are starting to get pretty thirsty again.

Tom decided to celebrate Labor Day and the good weather by inviting some family and friends to say goodbye to our incubator-hatched wild ducks -- once and for all identified as blue-winged teals. After chores on Monday morning, he and I boxed them up, and then we all drove over to our pond, where we released what I still think of as my eight babies. I suppose I expected them to waddle out of the tipped over cardboard toward the water, but as soon as the lid was lifted, all of them took flight and circled around the dugout, practicing their takeoffs and landings. The kids gasped and giggled and said their goodbyes. For the past few mornings, the kids and I have taken part of a loaf of bread to feed our former babies, and while we can't tell which ones of all the ducks swimming around are "ours", they all seem to be more than happy with the treat. We wish them goodbye and goodspeed, literally and figuratively, in evading the arriving hunters and heading south.

We ended the day rather differently, by the side of the road 10 miles north of home, the kids and I standing by in the dark with pails of water, a shovel, and a fire extinguisher while Tom welded one of the bearings that had piled up (this is apparently a technical term) in the swather, the part on the tractor that cuts the grain stalks and lays it in a tidy, erm, swath. All the fire precautions, including moving the tractor out to the side of the road from the field, were to prevent a stray spark from the welder causing a fire in the ripe grain, which is after all just dry grass. Think tinder. Tom finally got everything fixed by 9:30, and if the kids hadn't needed showers before we left the house, they certainly needed them on arriving home. So much for my grand plans of an early bedtime before our first day of school.

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All the more reason, along with our early harvest, to start yesterday's back to school efforts gently, and with lots of coffee. The day began with the "goodie bags" I started a couple of years ago, when I realized that I didn't really want to squirrel away the really fun books, art supplies, and CDs I had found over the summer: the American Girl Kaya story collection and the AG school planner for Laura, a few Jim Weiss CDs, some DVDs, a Timex learner's watch with the dinosaur strap for Davy, a couple of Robert McCloskey books for Daniel, a couple of small Lego kits for the boys. The kids each did one lesson of Singapore math and some penmanship, we looked after the animals, then headed to town after lunch for the first music lessons with new teachers, piano for Laura and Daniel and voice for Laura. Both of the teachers seem personable and pleasant, and I needed to make some changes to keep Laura interested and inspired in lessons.

Today we did some more math, penmanship, and managed to read aloud some of the goodie bag books (George Shrinks, Lentil) before Tom spirited the kids away to work on the new-to-us grainaries at the corrals. This morning Daniel asked for a spelling test, so we may start spelling tomorrow, then grammar and history in next week, and science the week after that.

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I'm predicting a pretty slow day tomorrow too. Tom didn't get in with the kids until almost eight, and after a quick dinner and necessary baths, they're all unwinding by watching the "Bridges" volume from the goodie bag DVD, "Building Big" with David Macaulay (did you know that there's an activity/experiment with the kids from "Zoom" at the end of "Bridges"? I didn't). Or I could just consider that the science lesson for the day and go ahead and check it off my list, knowing full well the kids will attempt the activity on their own tomorrow...

Still here but busy with harvest and back to school,

or, more appropriately, back to the kitchen table and extracurricular activities like piano lessons (with an exciting new teacher), etc.

Today the field trip is to the corrals, to watch Dad and his hired man move the secondhand grain bins -- needed for the new harvest -- from their old home to their new one. Requires bin lifters, giant trolleys, and various other fun stuff.

Last year at this time I wrote this; I'll see if I can update it a bit with some more resources, and if/when I do, I'll let you know. Also good for this time of year are this and this, for last year's International Literacy Day (if I had the time, which I don't, I'd look up the date of this year's celebration); and ditto on the updates. Reruns are all I can manage right now, especially while the sun is still shining and the mercury is, unusually enough, near ninety.

Getting back into the swing of things

The school bus rumbled by Wednesday at quarter of eight, for the first time since late June. Meanwhile, I enjoyed my cup of coffee and the thought that my three were still in bed.

On Monday the kids and I did some visiting, stopping off with a casserole and some potted plants -- a purple aster and two sunny rudbeckias -- for a recently widowed elderly neighbor. Then we headed off down the highway a way to some other friends, an older couple with no grandchildren of their own who like to borrow our three every once in a while. On our way out, we were surprised with several huge boxes of books that had belonged to their (now adult) children, including a complete set of (be still my beating heart), the 1950 edition of Olive Beaupre Miller's My Book House. I'm so glad they feel comfortable sending their family treasures home with us.

Tuesday we ran some errands, and at just about every stop there was someone who would ask the kids, "So. Are you ready for school tomorrow?" to which the kids gave an enthusiastic "No, sir!" (or ma'am). "Well, why not?" would come the follow-up. "Because we're homeschooled!" and they'd collapse in giggles.

Wednesday we hunkered down on the kitchen floor, sorting through our "official" Rubbermaid homeschool organizing system. The Pottery Barn and even Ikea basket types would shudder, but the containers are sturdy and washable and that's what counts. The kids each have a plastic shoe box for their school supplies -- pencils (regular and colored), erasers, small sharpeners, reinforcements, rulers, and so on -- and then, because we're so high tech around here, they each have a Rubbermaid dish tub for their books and other curricula (Tom has one too for his papers because when I started the system a few years ago, Davy had to have a tub too, even though he was three, because big brother and big sister had them. Well, Tom thought it was a rather handy system and hijacked Davy's tub, so I ended up getting him one of his own). The only thing I don't like is that until we build our kitchen addition with the built-in storage unit, there are no cabinet doors for the tubs to hide behind, so they live on the kitchen floor, lined up underneath the china cabinet. The finished, used up, filled out books went in one pile, the nonconsumables were passed along to the next child down the line, and things we aren't using for the moment (Minimus) went into another pile to be reshelved. Then I washed the floor to clean up after all the pencil shavings. The kitchen fall cleaning is almost done, with just the cabinet fronts and windows to wash; since we're going to be spending much more time in here, I want it to be clean and tidy.

Yesterday evening we gathered down the road for the annual Horticultural Society corn roast and pot luck, the group's traditional ending to the summer. We're not society members, but neighbors are welcomed with open arms, especially if they bring food and garden produce for the raffle, and the kids look forward to the visiting and the corn every year. And the raffle, where last night they won two big boxes of tomatoes and some beautiful rosy apples.

Tom plans to start swathing the wheat and then the barley on Saturday afternoon; the weather is supposed to hold, sunny and still unusually warm except for the odd day, through early next week. We start school, and music lessons with new teachers, on Tuesday, and I'm hoping that harvest and next week's organic certification inspection visit don't completely torpedo the first week. What I would really like is a slow, easy, and gentle return, perfect for Davy who is starting first grade and all three who've been busy making the most of the summer. I'll write another post about our back to school plans, though we've been sneaking into the French and enjoying ourselves very much.

Autumn is a-cumin' in

Saturday evening we headed for town to help celebrate our little town on the prairie's 100th birthday. Not a great age compared to many, even in eastern Canada, but quite an achievement and a thrill for the kids especially to be a part of the occasion. There was a big dance followed by fireworks, then more dancing, and oodles of food throughout. And a chance to remember the pioneers who started it all with their hard work, and those who carry on. To whom we all say a well-deserved thank you.

Speaking of thank yous, Tom arrived home on Friday with a case of very, very ripe peaches. I've come to be very wary of this sort of gift when I'm least prepared and usually up to my armpits in some other garden preserving activity, and I've told Tom in previous years on various occasions that yes, dear, I will buy and can cases of peaches and pears -- Davy calls them "hot sugared fruit" -- but on my own schedule, dear, since that I had planned to deal this weekend with the last of the green beans, rhubarb, and a few other housekeeping projects. The peaches were well on the way to beyond ripe, so I had to do something fast. And quick and easy, to, which meant one cobbler, one pie, and peeling, chunking, and sugaring the rest for pie filling.

The leaves on the Virginia creeper have turned bright red already, harvest is in full gear in the fields around us, geese are honking and ducks gather on the dugouts and sloughs and the hunters from the U.S. are starting to circle too, our neighbor's famous end-of-summer "corn supper" is next week, and though it's still unusually warm for this time of year (we watched the fireworks at 10:30 pm in light shirts), the light definitely looks like autumn. I'll miss the carefree summer weather and schedule, my garden especially -- I'm enjoying great big blowzy bouquets right now, zinnias, cosmos, hollyhocks, cornflowers -- but there's something exciting about the change in seasons, especially this next season. Autumn usually means a withering and a decline, but as someone who always loved school (Tom and I decided to homeschool Laura in part because we wanted her to love school and learning as much as we had), this time of year to me signifies not only an ending but also a beginning, marked by kraft-paper covered books, new knee socks and art supplies, the excitement of new friends and activities. Now that the days are dramatically shorter -- it's getting dark before nine now -- even the kids are starting to show a bit of curiosity and interest in our new schedule, not as freeform and out-of-doors as it's been. Where and when will the 4H meetings be held? What will the new piano and voice teachers be like? What new books will be using? It's all part of the new adventure!