The Everglades

What is a trip to South Florida without a visit to one of the greatest National Parks ever? Pretty boring, that's for sure! The Everglades is a one of a kind National Park experience. You really could spend days down there exploring- I think it would make a fun camping and biking trip once the kids are old enough to not look like such tasty morsels to the gators who call the glades home! We stuck to the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo trails which are always sure to please the tourists.

While we were out seeking the big thrills- the gators of course, we also happened upon some smaller creatures. Jack almost stepped on this snake on the side of the road as I yelled at him to stay on the path.



While I was reprimanding him, I was shushed by the photographer taking the picture of the Green Heron in the next photo.


We saw 6-7 of the gators sunning really close to the path. They weren't "big" according to the Park Rangers but they were big enough for us.

We missed any up close panther sightings (thank you!) but still saw enough to earn our Junior Ranger badges!

South Florida Trip

In November, we took a road trip down to Hollywood to visit Great Grandma Mil-Mil (as the kids call my grandmother). The children were delighted to see where she lived. Jackson had been there when he was a baby but Jane had never been. Grandma's condo is full of photos, artwork and mementos commemorative of a lifetime of travel and other experiences. My grandfather was a talented artist, utilizing all sorts of mediums from oil paints, copper and wood and it was interesting to see the young eyes take it all in!

While there, Jack begged Grandma to teach him to play chess, which she gladly did. The kids also were fascinated by her library-sale-salvaged encyclopedia set and had us looking up everything from Pocohantas to the Tower of London to Ibis. The Towel of London look-up was inspired by a teapot, of which Grandma Mil-Mil has 104, according to Jane's last count.

Also of great interest were the 6 iguanas we encountered outside the condominium. These are likely former pets released into the wild and we were excited to see so many in one place. Of course, we looked them up under "I" and found out they eat fruit and swim and are from South America. Everything is a lesson when you homeschool!

This is what it is all about!

Jane is reading to Jillian. These wonderful moments when the children are together, just enjoying being siblings, are what home- schooling is all about. You just can't get that in a classroom!

Sanity Saver Tip #1

The internet has coloring sheets for every topic under the sun- I was recently surprised to find a Crayola picture of Shakespeare. Who knew? My children burn through printer ink like crazy. I collect the print-outs and place them in a 3 ring binder (one for each child). Voila! Who needs to buy coloring books when you can make your own? And where would you even find the Disney Princess-Election 2008- Mount Rushmore-Star Wars-Vikings-Scooby Doo-Planets-Holly Hobby-Backyardigans coloring book anyway?

Handicrafts

Handicrafts are a core aspect of our curriculum. I enjoy things like sewing and knitting and while I want the children to also learn them for fun, more importantly I just want them to have that knowledge. If you can sew a button and a straight line, there are countless household projects you can do, from making curtains and table clothes, to hand-crafting costumes and gifts. I used to say that you could also save yourself all kinds of money but have you seen all the fabulous fabrics there are out there? Forget it! Here Jackson and Jane are working on those plastic weave boards and yarn. Remember those? I promise not to teach them how to make Kleenex boxes that we would then give to you for Christmas.

Homeschool PE

The local Park District has a lot to offer for families schooling at home. We are currently enrolled in their free home school physical education program that meets weekly. We laughed when they started out the season with Dodgeball, because "all kids know that game." Really? How many pick-up games of Dodgeball do you think get started in our house? I mean purposeful games of Dodgeball, not a sibling beaning another over the head with a wiffle ball. *That* happens all the time but I don't consider it a game.

The parents favorite line of the day while watching the game was "if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball."

Tea Time!

We had our very first Tea Time this past Tuesday and it was a raving success! I had actually underestimated the amount of learning experiences that can arise out of preparing a "fancy lunch," as Jane deemed it. We got lessons in setting the table and the differences in types of flat wear, we polished silver, put on a tablecloth, and rolled napkins into napkin rings. We made traditional cucumber sandwiches and fairy cakes and real tea. The children were delighted to choose "one lump, or two" and I will have to remember to purchase sugar cubes for next time. Also on the purchase list will be candles for the candelabra! All we could find were two Halloween candles- funny! We used our good silver and china and dressed up. Well, Jane, Bean and I did. Jack opted for a tie on top of his t- shirt which he promptly removed after I took a photo! We used our finest manners while we listened to Bach's Greatest Hits and read poetry from Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses." It was a delightful morning.

First Day of School!

Everyone has a scrapbook full of those classic childhood "First Day of School" photos, unfortunately commemorating bad hair and clothing trends. Yet another reason we are glad to be homeschoolers- pajamas never go out of style!

This years curriculum choices

Of course, one of the greatest things about homeschooling is that at any time we can change our minds about what path we are heading down. But I like to have a plan and so far this is it.....!

We sit down every morning for "Blanket Time." First we light some candles (for no other reason other than that the kids really like candles and it is an easy way to get them into the room!), then we read some poetry and if the baby is awake, we learn a finger play song and then take turns "performing" for her. Then we read the books that they have picked out from the library basket (some of which are ones I have sneaked in there off of our master book list). The kids can color or work on handicrafts while I read to them. Once we have finished, we blow out candles and then take a break or if they are in the mood to keep going, we start working on our phonics and reading activities. We finished "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" last year and both kids are reading. Jane is more driven to pick out books and sit and read to herself or to me or the baby. Jack is not as eager so he and I have now moved on to "Phonics Pathways" for review and are skipping through that as he has deemed much of it as "too easy." Both kids use the "Expode the Code" workbooks for phonics activities and we work on sight word lists. We do phonics and reading almost every day.

3 days a week we will be using "Handwriting without Tears" to work on our penmanship. This is new as they have been just writing on their own with no real instruction up until now. They really want to jump ahead to cursive so I told them if we like this then once we have completed it, we will jump ahead to their cursive program.

3 days a week we will also be studying early American history using the primary Early American History book from Beautiful Feet. It uses a variety of award winning picture books and then has questions and answers. It has more religious content than I wanted but I love the books it uses.

Once we finish with that, we will move on to "Story of the World" which we will probably work on for the next few years. It is also literature based, which most of our work is.

3 days a week, we will work on Math. This is our second year using Saxon. It is very hands on and uses lots of manipulatives which both kids seem to enjoy.

The meat of our curriculum will be reading, reading and more reading. As we have been attracted to the Charlotte Mason style of learning for some time, we will be officially using a curriculum based on her works, Ambleside Online. We will be finishing up what books we haven't read for year 0 and then spend this year and (maybe next) covering year 1.

In addition to that we will continue using our also literature based, Five in a Row, volume 2. Even though it is meant to do all week, we rather like doing it out of the house all in one day when we can, save for any messy art project activities the book suggests.

Through Ambleside, we will also be covering their recommended artists and composers for the year. This year we will study the works of Botticelli, Friedrich and Van Gogh. We will be studying the music of Bach, Liszt, and Mahler and Bruckner. Ideally, we will be hosting tea parties every other week where we will not only discuss our art and music pieces but will be able to use our table manners and good habits. We are really looking forward to this!

We will also be continuing with nature study and science activities out of our science box. We work on handicrafts and art activities weekly, if not daily. Lastly, we are learning French here and there. Right now we are just using some Usborne sticker books and a dictionary and will add something more formal later.

Whew! That sounds like a lot but really we can complete all we want to in a couple hours if we sat and did it straight through. Our goal is to get our work done in the morning so that our afternoons are free for home school PE, piano lessons, dance, museums, park and just plain playing.

Why the Davenport School?

As a child, we loved to laugh at my grandmother's funny names for things. Like the way she called a our basement a "cellar" and the refrigerator an "icebox", or how she would refer to our couch as a "chesterfield" or "davenport." When we tried to come up with a clever name for our home school, the Davenport school seemed a fitting choice for a place where you can get your education while still in your pajamas!

Jillian's birth story

She is here! Born at 11:41pm last night- 7.14 and 20 inches. It was crazy and intense and totally awesome. I had contractions consistently all day but they weren't painful . I even took the kids to the pool for a couple hours before dinner and just took my chart where I was writing down that they were 7 minutes apart- my neighbors thought I was crazy!

Went home and we ate dinner and I was putting the kids to bed around 8pm when I had a couple of painful, more intense contractions so I decided to take a shower. While in the shower, they started coming faster and stronger and I started to panic a little because they were 3-4 minutes apart and my midwife had told me to come to the birth center when they were 5. I was trying to get my stuff together and hoping my husband would hear me banging around upstairs but he had fallen asleep downstairs.

At 8:40pm I went downstairs and called my parents (hour away) and my friend, Kathy, to come and the crawled into my living room and threw the phone at Jon and told him I needed him to wake up and call my doula, Heather, and the birth center. Kathy and Heather got there and I had found this great spot on the floor between my couch and ottaman where I was SO comfortable laboring on my hands and knees. I stayed there for a couple more hours until I felt suddenly like we needed to go because the pressure was getting really intense- doula thought it was my bag of waters pushing. I didn't want to go- I really thought I might be perfectly ok to give birth in my front yard at that point!

My doula and I piled in the way back of my Explorer because I still needed to be in the bum up position for relief- I started transition in the car and was trying not to push but I was and told the doula not to tell my husband because he would freak out if I had the baby in the car. In retrospect, we probably should have left a little earlier- the ride there was harrowing! I had 6 contractions on the way there and with my last, I think my water broke.

We arrived at the birth center at 11:29pm. Everyone ran out to the car to get us and at that point, I never thought the gravel driveway looked more confortable but they said no, no, no, can't have the baby out here! I got inside, stripped down and got back into the bed still butt up and on my knees and started pushing and pushing. The labor assistant asked if they were going to just let me stay in that position and they did- good because I couldn't move! Out she came 13 minutes later! As she was crowning, I said "this is awesome!" I couldn't believe how instantly great I felt once she was out and having had two medical inductions with epidurals and narcotics before- I can't even begin to describe how different and amazing this was. I really did nothing- my body did everything on its own- the pushing especially was totally involuntary.

Anyway, she nursed for an hour or so ( she is a voracious nurser- ouch!) and then I showered and they weighed and checked her out. I loved the birth center- I wish all women had access to this type of care- in the height of things my blood pressure (I have chronic hypertension) was the lowest it has ever been. It was perfect and relaxing and calm. "Jilly Bean" is perfect and beautiful. We left for home around 2am and the kids woke up and came down to see her- they are head over heels in love. I feel fabulous and a little bit like I might have superpowers. :)

Jillian Lila Gail

Our new baby is here! Birth story to follow....