Homeschooling with a Newborn

Picture above is Thatcher-1 day old

No one ever said that being a home school mom would be easy. Being a home school mom with a newborn is a challenge, but I am so glad that all my children are here with me on a daily basis. One of the main reasons I started homeschooling was to bring my children back together and help our family's bond grow stronger (see other post). These last 3 months have been difficult at times, but they have been priceless.

I spend most of the summer preparing and organizing anything and everything. I printed off all the math worksheets and test they needed for the whole year. I planned every history and science lesson and taught the kids how to read my lesson plans in case I couldn't help them for some reason. I made a bulletin board and hung it in the hall way. On the board is a "loose" school schedule for each day of the week, a calendar, a "good behaviour" chart, and a chore list for each child. Over the summer I taught Jordan to iron, Jake to clean out the chicken coop and Emily learned how to help more in the house too. I began doing once a month cooking so that I could stock up on meal starters and quick fixes. I thought of everything!

Since Thatcher has been born I have still had to make copies, some experiments and activities have been put off or cancelled, my school schedule has been thrown out the window. I think the wrinkled clothes multiply when I am not looking. Untill last week the Calendar still read August and we've ate all the stuff from the freezer and I don't have time or energy to make more!

Am I a bad homeschooling mother now?.....No I don't think so. I am a normal homeschooling mom with a newborn. When I first became a mother I had no idea how fast babies could grow. We parents have but one chance with our children and we need to make it count! When I think about my childhood I don't remember if the mama kept the house clean all the time or not. What I remember is when she took time to make me feel special. I remember my mama taking time to do the things that really do matter. That is what I want my children to remember.

Picture below is Thatcher- 10 weeks old. He has changed so much already!

Cinnamon Rolls

YES...I ate one!!! This is that they look like before you put any icing on them.

Dough:

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk (whole milk works best)

2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

more butter for greasing bowl

1 large egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Combine water and milk in a medium saucepan and warm over low heat until just hot to the touch (no hotter than 110 degrees) Remove from heat and pour into large mixing bowl. Sprinkle Yeast over milk mixture. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar over top and set aside without stirring. Allow to sit until foamy-about 5 minutes. Then whisk butter, egg yolk and vanilla into the yeast mixture.

In a separate bowl whisk flour, sugar, salt an nutmeg. Then add the dry ingredients to the yeast mixture. Stir together until a sticky dough forms. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until soft and elastic....about 7 minutes. Shape into a ball and place into a buttered bowl. Turn the dough to coat with butter. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm draft free room for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Turn dough out of bowl and knead 3 times to release air. Reform dough into a ball and return to buttered bowl. Recover with plastic wrap that has also been coated with butter. Allow to rise 2 hours more (or over night in refrigerator).

Filling:

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/4 cup finely chopped pecans (or more if you like)

3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, very soft

Preheat oven 350

Butter a 9 x 13 pan, set aside. Whisk the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl, set aside. Turn dough onto floured work surface and press it down. Work dough into rectangle shape about 10 x 18 inches with the long side facing you. Spread soft butter evenly over dough. Evenly sprinkle sugar and cinnamon mixture over buttered dough. Repeat with pecans. Roll the dough up starting with the long side that faces you. Slice rolled dough into 1 inch pieces and place in buttered dish. Allow to dough to rest 30 minutes. Bake until golden brown, 20-30 minutes.

Icing:

1 cup white chocolate morsels

4 oz cream cheese, very soft

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/8 tsp cinnamon

2 tablespoons of milk

Melt white chocolate morsels in microwave safe bowl until just melted, being careful not to burn them. With a hand mixer blend melted chocolate with other icing ingredients until smooth. You may need more milk, add 1 T at a time until desired consistency is achieved. Use to ice cinnamon rolls once they are cool.

Book Review-- Happeist Baby on the Block

Happiest Baby on the Block - Author: Harvey Karp, M.D. *National Best Seller*


website- http://www.thehappiestbaby.com/

Rating- 2 out of 5 stars


I want to be a great, educated and prepared mother as I'm sure you do as well. So when I ran across "The Happiest Baby" video on you tube I was so interest I ordered the book for $10 plus shipping from Amazon. The author is mentioned as being "pediatrician to the stars". A clip from The View (a morning talk show) mentions that he was in some capacity the pediatrician to Madonna's children. That should tell you something...ha ha...


The book doesn't tell you anything you really need to know that isn't shown in the You Tube video. He does have some interesting ideas about colic and why babies have it. He does a good job of eliminating old wives tales as being the cause of colic. He also encourages baby wearing and even goes as far as suggesting precautions when co-sleeping. However, the book has many evolutionary ideas which as a Christian I do not support. Here are some of those exerts.....


"My guess is that millions of years ago, A Stone Age baby accidentally was born with a perfect was foe getting his mother to come to him----screaming......"whenever they needed their cave mom's attention. they wailed!"


"It's clear that the cave babies who survived and passed their genes on to us were those who could 'raise a ruckus."


"Over millions of years, Mother Nature picked four indispensable survival tools to fit into our babies' apple-sized brains."


"During the past century, archaeologist have pieced together a clearer picture of how humans evolved over the past five millions years. They have studies such issues as why we switched from knuckle-walking to running upright...."


He also suggest that babies should remain in the womb an extra trimester. Here is part of his reasoning......


"In the very distant past, our ancestors likely had tiny-headed babies who didn't need to be evicted early from the womb. However a few million years ago, our babies began going down a new branch of the evolutionary tree" He goes on to explain that as humans evolved and our brains grew bigger we began being born earlier so that we would not "get stuck" in the delivery process.


Enough of that stuff....

While I am very much against his evolutionary theories the method of the five "S's" does work. These include swaddling, side positioning, shushing, swinging, and sucking all recommended to be done simultaneously. I think if you have a fussy baby and you want to give the method a try do a search on You Tube or watch this--- "Happiest Baby on the Block" video.

A Fall Poem

In autumn when the trees are brown

The little leaves come tumbling down

They do not make the slightest sound

But lie so quietly on the ground

Until the wind comes puffing by

And blows them off towards the sky.

2009-2010 Homeschool Schedule #2

Its kind of weird for me to think of having a child in the 6th grade. I remember more about being in that grade myself than I do any other elementary grades. This year Jake is in 6th grade and Jordan (girl) is in 5th. Since they share most of the subjects I have to be really on top of things with the scheduling just to be sure they don't need the same book at the same same time!

They both do Rod and Staff English 6, Sequential Spelling, Type It, Rosetta Stone Spanish, Apologia Science (Zoology 2), A Beka Health 6 and the Mystery of History Vol 1. The "Bible with mom" is the 5 year study I downloads from http://www.embryhills.com/

Jake and Jordan have individual handwriting workbooks (A beka Penmanship). They also do A Beka Math and Type It by Joan Duffy. They do a lot of free reading as well as assigned reading. For creative writing I found some neat story starters on line that I pick from each Friday.

Below is a list of subjects that they do on each day of the week. They don't do them in any particular order. I just be sure that I work it so that one doesn't need something at the same time the other does...hope that makes sense! HA HA!

Monday-

30 minutes of Bible reading

45 minutes of Math

Penmanship-

History

English

Typing

Spanish

30 minutes of free reading

Spelling

Tuesday-

Everything is the same except Bible is with me and instead of history we do science. Also we do health in place of typing.

Wednesday-

Bible Class lesson for church take the place of Bible reading. The rest is just like Monday.

Thursday-

Just like Monday's except we do science and Health instead of typing and history.

Friday-

Bible with mom, 45 minutes of Math, Spanish, History, update reading logs, creating writing, art, and a trip to the library.

We start school around 8:30 or 9:00. On a good day we are done before 11:30 but most days we have lunch and start again about 1:00 and finish by 2:00. Fridays are a lot of fun. They love the creative writing. Sometimes we go out for lunch before we hit the public library.