Learning By The Way

Margary loves the phone. She gets very excited when it rings, and yells loudly until someone answers it. She likes to pretend to talk on the phone, but won’t say a thing if we put her on a live call. Lately she seems to like best watching intently the person talking on the phone, as if trying to figure the whole thing out. Here she is holding the phone just like a big people, mostly.

Another way she likes to mimic us is by rolling dice when we play games. Here she is holding a heroscape die. She gets so pleased with herself when it is her turn to roll.

The three ‘big kids’ lined up on the couch reading after our trip to the library.

Did you know that if you have those handy beepy things attached to your remote, that allow you to whistle and locate them, that they will announce their presence frequently during Wagnerian opera? It’s true. We haven’t finished Part 1 of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung yet. Not sure if we’re going to.

The children have been gung-ho in researching their reports. I think 2 of them will finish much earlier than I anticipated. Then they can start a new report!

Moriah and Samuel begged for a spelling bee last night before bedtime. I complied. Moriah won, but it was a good, close match.

Though some might wonder after my not posting for over a month, I am still alive and kicking. We have started this year off with vigor. Toby is a full math book ahead of his older brother and sister, and I am mostly settled on taking a break from Singapore Math after Moriah and Samuel finish their current book (4B). I think all three of them could use some concentrated time spent drilling times tables and division. Also, I think they are ready to be introduced to algebra, and I will be ordering Borenson’s Hands On Equations. This program looks very cool, teaching algebra with manipulatives.

We are also starting up a new unit study based on a game our family loves to play together, Heroscape. The children each have picked a character in the game to do a report on over the next month, as follows:
Moriah- Mimring (report on dragons, their history and the danish myth)
Samuel- Jotun (report on giants and Norse mythology)
Toby- Major X17 (report on robots, maybe with a focus on use in war)
Elsie- Valkyrie (report on the myth)
Peter- Kelda (study of the Kyrie)
We kick of the study today by watching the first part of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung

Lastly, let me offer a link that is a news story on the literacy gap between boys on girls. At the end of the article, the researcher comments “Here’s a fascinating fact,” she said. “There is no literacy gap in home-schooled boys and girls.”

Yes, I know I don’t usually post here, but I’ve resolved ordinarily not to post more than once a day on the other blog, and I’ve been on a roll lately in posting about a particular topic that will likely go on for a bit. And this topic actually seemed to appeal just as much to my wife’s many faithful readers as it did to the fewer number who frequent my blog.

This week, as is our practice, we did our year end measurements of the children on the back of the pantry door. Margary of course grew the most, moving from just shy of two months old to just shy of fourteen months. Moriah, though, didn’t get beat by much in the growth category. She has shot up this year, growing several inches. Another year like this and she’ll be looking Aunt Raquel in the eye.

In a surprising move, Toby has overtaken Samuel as the tallest boy in the house. He’s only 3/8 of an inch taller, but a full few inches taller than Samuel (who is 13 months older) was this time last year. Samuel is still quite a bit taller than Moriah (16 months his senior) was last year, lest you think he’s going to be short. Moriah seems to be hitting that typical girl early growth spurt as she approaches her 12^th birthday, so it may be a few years before the boys actually pass her up.

Elsie shot up a bit this year as well, and next year she’ll start having a comparison to Moriah at the same age (Elsie is 7 now and the first year we measured Moriah was 8). I’ve always thought of Elsie as being short, but it appears that’s more subjective than real, because she is growing quickly—she just has taller siblings because they’re older. So with our third new year in this house we’re eagerly watching to see which girl is going to be the tallest of our three.

Peter is still fairly big for his age, and it’ll be another year before we can compare him to Toby at the same age. At this point my guess is that Samuel will be about the same height as his papa and Toby and Peter will be looking down at me in my old age, and both older girls will be looking down upon their mother. Growth is a funny thing, though, so we’re waiting to see what kind of frame God gives each of our six blessings in their adult lives, which are coming all too quickly.

I’m looking forward to it.

Raquel’s yarn collection had started getting a bit out of hand. At first, it seemed content to stay in its own crocheted bag in her room. But then – it started grabbing and tangling with yarn in adjoining bags. From there, it is just a small step to skeining its way laboriously down the stairs, searching for more prey…

This fiberly monster preys on the weakest and smallest it can find, and soon attempts to wind an unsuspecting victim into its foul clutches.

However, this child, though tender in years, is not as easy a catch as the monster hoped. “Die, Cowardly Yarn Fiend! Your tangled fibers are no match for me!” The Yarn Monster is vanquished forever, unless this blog post turns out to be a phenomenal moneymaker, and the Monster must be resurrected for an even more badly written sequel.

The End

Peter is doing great with his phonics, though he hasn’t had that reading “aha!” moment yet. He can sound out most of the words in the Cat in the Hat, but prefers to snuggle up and let Daddy do the reading work.

OK, so maybe you haven’t felt the yen to make your own shoelaces, but just in case you have, here’s the article I wrote on said subject:
Knit your own I-Cord shoelaces
Don’t waste another moment decrying the sad state of shoelaces these days, grab some dpn’s and DO something about it. I had a lot of fun with this project, and it is appropriate for new knitters.

could have wrought this destruction?

Why, that would be my son, Peter. Somehow while stirring Nesquik into his milk, he knocked this circular hole into the side of his glass with his spoon. It is good to have talented children.

Margary lounges, surrounded by her court of entertainers who are thrilled that she is up from her nap, albeit not fully awake yet. “Carry on, my subjects, I will alert you if I am displeased.” (How did those socks escape the No Mercy matching event!?)

If you read my first post about online shopping, then you’ve already signed up for some websites that give you cash back for just using them as a shopping portal. Now, here is how my frugal self continues to save time and money.

Even when you are already getting cash back from a shopping portal, you can still use coupon codes. My favorite place to find up to date, accurate codes is Dealtaker. Invariably, if you search Google for a coupon, you will come up with a hundred websites that claim to have codes, but don’t. I’ve found it to be a waste of time, so I just check Dealtaker. If they don’t have it, I’m not going to waste 10 minutes searching for one that probably doesn’t exist. If you have time to kill, by all means give it try, occasionally you’ll find one.

If you are looking for a specific item, try PriceGrabber for the cheapest online price. They are pretty reliable. It might also be worth your while (especially for big ticket items) to post in the Slickdeals.net forums asking for the cheapest place to buy it. Someone there might know of a place that isn’t originally the cheapest, but has a great coupon for free shipping or percentage off that you can use to bring the cost down lower than usual.

And if you want to use multiple shopping portal websites, the easiest way to discover which one offers the greatest percentage cash back for the store you are shopping at is to search for the store at Evreward. There are also coupon codes available here, though I have found their lists to be not as complete as Dealtaker.

Example:
So, say I want to make an order from Overstock.com.
I go to Evreward, and find that Mr. Rebates shopping portal (which I use) gives 5% cash back.
I go to Mr. Rebates, click through to Overstock, and do my shopping.
I check Dealtaker for coupons, and find a 10% off code that works for me.
Now I have very easily saved 15% for just seconds of my time. (Of course, I get 3% cash back with the credit card I use, but that is just gravy along with the fact that Overstock is already deeply discounted from retail…).

Happy shopping all, and may the joy of Jesus the Savior and King never be lost amidst the hustle and bustle of the season.