This boy is my animal wrangler.  He’s an extreme dog lover, but he takes an interest in the chickens as well.  OK, he takes a massive interest in all animals.

You’d be shocked to find out how little interaction I have with the chickens.  And the chickens would be shocked (do they care? not enough brain) to know that I’m the one in charge of how much and what they eat, but I digress.  It’s not about me.

It’s not about me because the chickens are afraid of me.  I’m not evil to them, I’m just somewhat of a stranger to them.  I’m not out there everyday putting food out for them or filling the drinkers, ergo – stranger.

This boy is trusted by the chickens.  He can walk right up to most of them and pick them up.  Good thing, because today he had to pick up our second-in-command rooster.

• #1 Rooster is named Birdy Wooster.
• #2 Rooster is named Jeeves.

Well, Jeeves found a bit of stout string and wrapped it tightly around his toes.

Let’s stop a moment and visualize Jeeves actually trying, on purpose, to tangle his toes up with string.

Jacob caught Jeeves and laid him on the patio table, held him down with his left forearm, while cutting away at the string with his box cutter.  Caleb came in to ask advice on Jake’s request, so I took Jake a pair of scissors, staying well out of Jeeves’ line of sight.

Remember, Jeeves thinks I’m an evil stranger, so I didn’t want to rile him up.

Jacob got all the string removed and asked for some hydrogen peroxide.  I had him move off the porch to pour the peroxide over the foot.  Jeeves thought he ought to squawk, flap, and run off as soon as Jake applied the peroxide, so there was an easy answer to the question “Do ya think we oughtta try to put some antibiotic ointment on that?”

Jeeves now walks with a bit of a limp.  We’ll let you know if he dies or if his leg falls off, but for now, odds are, he’ll be fine.  I’m certain he’s already forgotten about being handled today.  Small brains, chickens.

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Anyway, we got a few good laughs along the way too.

Wait, that’s not the point.

The point is, the dude on the silly video on fb DARED me to turn off the idiot box and read Shakespeare.  Yea, not only to read the bard’s works, but to read them aloud to my children.  (That’s what I heard, but there may have been a boat-load of guilty driving my interpretation thereof.)

Hold on, lemme think, wasn’t I gonna do that anyway?  Isn’t that why I bought my copy of Tales from Shakespeare nearly 20 years ago?  Wasn’t that part of the plan of yore.  I used to do this.  Seriously.  

But now?  We read a chapter of Farmer Boy (nuthin’ wrong with Little House on the Prairie, just happens to be what we are doing right now) and then we pop in a DVD.  Again, nuthin’ wrong with watching an occasional DVD, especially if it’s a well made, classic tale.

Right.

Explosions, hostage negotiations, Marvel comic heroes, futuristic robot take-overs.  That’s what usually plays around here.

*Extreme homeschool guilt happening in my head right now.*

So, to counteract the painful, nauseating guilt I got out my copy of Tales from Shakespeare and read the first chapter to Caleb and Rachel.

Painful.

I could cry.

Seriously.

It hurt my head to read the hard stuff.  And I had to explain so much, so many phrases.  (Glad I still could, bein’ as my mind is mush.)  Troopers that they are, the kids patiently listened and tried to keep track of who was the brother, who was the king, and what the good guy’s name was.  Then, when it was ended, they voluntarily went to clean their rooms.

Seriously.

Totally.

Shut up.

(That last was aimed at the inside of my vacuous vacuum I call my brain.)

So, because I know you’d like to share in my guilt and misery, here’s the video that snapped me back to my senses.

Shakespeare – HA

By the way, you can get Tales from Shakespeare for free for your Kindle (or Kindle for PC) here and lots of regular Shakespeare for the Kindle (most of it free) here.  Regular Shakespeare, <snort>, I mean sonnets and plays and so forth.

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Sometimes she’d lift the tea-pot lid,
To peep at what was in it,
Or tilt the kettle, if you did
But turn your back a minute.
In vain you told her not to touch,
Her trick of meddling grew so much.

Her grandmamma went out one day,
And by mistake she laid
Her spectacles and snuff-box gay
Too near the little maid;
“Ah! well,” thought she, “I’ll try them on,
As soon as grandmamma is gone. ”

Forthwith she placed upon her nose
The glasses large and wide;
And looking round, as I suppose,
The snuff-box too she spied:
“Oh! what a pretty box is that;
I’ll open it,” said little Matt.

“I know that grandmamma would say,
‘Don’t meddle with it, dear;’
But then, she’s far enough away,
And no one else is near:
Besides, what can there be amiss
In opening such a box as this? ”

So thumb and finger went to work 
To move the stubborn lid,
And presently a mighty jerk
The mighty mischief did;
For all at once, ah! woeful case,
The snuff came puffing in her face.

Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, beside
A dismal sight presented;
In vain, as bitterly she cried,
Her folly she repented.
In vain she ran about for ease;
She could do nothing now but sneeze.

She dash’d the spectacles away,
To wipe her tingling eyes,
And as in twenty bits they lay,
Her grandmamma she spies.
“Heyday! and what’s the matter now?”
Says grandmamma, with lifted brow.

Matilda, smarting with the pain,
And tingling still, and sore,
Made many a promise to refrain
From meddling evermore.
And ’tis a fact, as I have heard,
She ever since has kept her word.

Ann Taylor

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Time, lots of time has passed since I was a blogger.  Time passed and I have changed, but those of you who know me well, know that time doesn’t even have to pass for me to change.  Sometimes I do it in the blink of an eye.  Don’t you feel sorry for my man.  Women are hard enough to “understand” but it’s really not fair when I change my opinions and ideals like a cuttle fish changes her dress.  What can I say?  It’s who I am.  Several things do remain the same.

• I love God.
• I love my husband.
• I love my kids.
• I love homeschooling.
• I love watching movies.
• I love these bullet thingies.

These are the steadiest parts of my life.

So what’s different about today?  I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking I just need a place to put my thoughts down and show off pictures of my kids and visit with you folks every once in a while.  I sure don’t have time to do this everyday, but I think it won’t hurt to try a “when I have a minute” approach.  Again.  So, here I go.

Okay, so today was hard.  Not the “heart-rending” kind of hard.  The “boy-howdy do my feet and back hurt from all the work” kind of hard.

This morning the kids helped me check (wait a minute, I have to do math, yes, it does hurt a little, I’m gonna get out the calculator)(11 cartons x 18 eggs per carton) ok, about 200 eggs for freshness using the “does it float or sink” method.  Then we took them and gave them to some of our friends and the staff at our local veterinary clinic.  I never told y’all at the time, but when Trixie died the nice folks at our vet. clinic sent me a very heart-felt card and everyone on staff signed it and wrote a little note.  People, those folks had only seen Trixie twice.  They’re just good people.  Anyway, we took 7 cartons of eggs to them and took 4 cartons to town for friends.

The bank was next on my list and I had completely forgotten that it was the first banking day of the month.  Lo-o-o-o-o-ong line.  And the A/C in the car quit.

After that forever chore I went to drop off some kids and a couple of pizzas and pick up the husband to go out for lunch.  What a nice time we had, just the two of us.

Then off to Sam’s Club.  Just me and my 2 littlest kids.  The littles are now 8 and 11, so it’s not like I went to Sam’s with a couple of toddlers, but you can’t tell my feet and back that.  My feet and back think they did ALL THE WORK ALL DAY LONG.  Granted we did have a big haul at Sam’s, but …well, not sure why.  I guess it’s the floor at Sam’s.  Sucks the strength and energy right out of a person, can I get an AMEN on that?

So part of the huge haul was two rotisserie chickens.  (I knew spell check was gonna flag me on rotisserie.)  Anyway, brought those tasty birds home and plunked them into the crockpot to keep warm until the rest of the family gets home in a couple of hours.  Then we’ll heat a couple of cans of ranch beans and dig in.

Until then I’m gonna sit on a cushion and put my feet up.  I might read a book.  I might try reading a book with my eyes closed.

Thanks for listening.  Maybe next time I’ll put some photos of the kids on.  For now I think I’ll try to get one from my phone.  Never done that before.  Cross your fingers.  (I don’t even know what “cross your fingers” means, I just said it to rile Perry.)

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Overwhelming?  Just a tad.

I had to sleep on it.

I came up with a S.T.E.L.L.A.R. plan.

Shop right here on my book shelves, choose several books to find unit studies for.

Lemme ‘splain it to ya, Lucy.  I’m talking about lessons for my littles who are 13, 11, and 8.  I need a combo of unit study/lapbook/notebook type stuff.

These are the books I chose off my very own shelves, and each is followed by resource links I think might be useful.

Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates

• eThemes – Plenty of info, not much for smaller kids.
• Loyal Books Blog – A review of Mountain Born, but no links or lessons.  Interesting blog.
• A New Coat for Anna -A book about wool, from sheep to clothing.
• Pele’s New Suit – Another book about wool, from sheep to clothing.  Alas, this one is a bit too young for my crew.

The Sign of the Beaver – by Elizabeth George Speare

• Homeschool Share has an entire unit study on this book just waiting to be printed off.  It has a fairly loose feel to it.  It’s arranged by chapter instead of day-by-day.  Might just use it all.
• Squidoo has several beaver coloring pages.

By the Great Horn Spoon! – by Sid Fleischman

• This book has it’s own web site. Pretty thorough.  Quizzes, History, Miner info.  Neat stuff.
• My Learning Center has a goldmine (ahem) of info and lessons.  How ’bout some writing advice from Sid Fleischman himself?  It’s here.

The Cricket in Times Square

• Homeschool Share is on the ball again.  And again, it’s all laid out by chapter.  Lots of useful, fun stuff here.  Vocabulary Bingo! I can’t wait!  Seriously folks, click the bingo link.  You can do this, make it yourself or use this grid, and make a list from whatever you are reading to  your kids.  It’s that easy.
• This one is deep, lots of language arts pages here.  I was just wanting a page like this one to re-enforce my recent teaching of contractions.
• Lesson Pathways has a few neat resources linked here.

Sarah, Plain and Tall – by Patricia MacLachlan

• Homeschool Share – my new best friend.  :D
• Vocabulary, questions, activities.
• Easy Fun School has a mini-unit study.  Just right for this tiny book.

Some of these books don’t have much available to use with them online so I’ll be:

• making my own vocabulary lists and playing Vocabulary Bingo.
• creating my own “Unscramble the Words” pages.
• copying some of the artwork right out of the book to use as coloring pages for Rachel.
• using the illustrations in the books as inspiration for art lessons.
• flying by the seat of my pants, as it were.

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Psst ~ There’s a link for free clip art at the end of this post, so read the whole thing, ok?  Ok.

I play several instruments, guitar, piano, ukulele and so on.  I come from a family of artists on one side and musicians on the other.  Long history of creativity.  My dad taught me to play Malaguena on the guitar when I was about 13 or so.  When Boone bought his guitar I taught him to play Malaguena.  

A few days ago we pilled all the kids into the Suburban and went to our favorite guitar store in town and bought Jacob his birthday present.  He’s been wanting a guitar since forever.  Now he has one.

While I was helping him choose his new precious and paying for the purchase, my hubs was talking to the owner of the store.  She asked him which of us were musicians and if we take lessons or if we’re self taught.  She wanted to explain to him about all the many wonderful guitar instructors that they have there at the store.   Those of you who know me, know that I don’t abide other folks teaching my kids (usually) and I really don’t abide following other folks’ schedules for lessons.  Anyway, John is more polite than I am, and he just begged off politely.  We were done with our transaction anyway, and we left.

He told me about the conversation once we were in the car.  I laughed and said he should have told her how we start the kids out teaching them to play Malaguena on the guitar.  See?  He’s way more polite than me.

The beauty part is that Boone is now teaching Jacob to play Malaguena on his shiny new guitar.  Jake’s starting to get it.

What?  You say you don’t know Malaguena?  Oh my, you are in for a treat!

Click here to go to YouTube to watch and listen to Jose Feliciano play our beloved Malaguena!

It’s a difficult song, he does a fair job of it.  ;)

Yes, we are self taught guitar players.  Maybe we don’t play as well as we would if we took lessons and observed a regimented practice schedule (makes me break out in a rash just thinking about it).  And maybe we play better than if we jumped through all those hoops.  The thing is, we’re happy learning on our own, and we enjoy playing our guitars.

For those of you who use clip art, I found this wonderful site today.  It’s called Gospel Gifs, and there are tons of graphics you may use for free.  That’s where I got the nifty guitar image I used in this post.

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Aesop’s Fables are (some of them) longer than Mother Goose Rhymes (ahem, some of them).  When you are using longer passages for copywork, assign only PART of the passage each day.

Here are the Fables.  Just copy and paste them into the form of your choosing on the WorksheetWorks site.  Then print out some of the coloring pages.

• TheColor has simple, yet not plain, Aesop’s coloring pages.
• KidsPages has some playful versions.

Or you can use this site. It’s called ThatResourceSite.  They are Catholic, I am not, for this purpose I don’t think it’s an issue.  Aesop is covered very thoroughly here, copywork pages of the fables, coloring pages, they even have a book study resource page that I can’t wait to scour.  Very nice set up here.

The reason I LOVE this idea of making my own themed copywork books is that I totally chafe at being told what to teach my very own kids, and when and where and how.  This-a-way I can call all the shots!  Control-Freak? Eh, I prefer Militant Homeschool Mom.  This is one of the reasons the whole idea of homeschooling caught my eye so easily.

Hmm, not have to line up my entire life to revolve around the GOVERNMENT SCHOOL SCHEDULE?  I’m in!

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Here are some beautiful, Mother Goose coloring pages to print for your littles.

Karen’s Whimsey – lovely stuff here.

Super Coloring – gigantic site, I linked straight to the lovely, sweet part.

Mother Goose for Kids has several simple Mother Goose pages.

Coloring Book Pages has a nice selection of Mother Goose pictures to color.

Some of the above links have Mother Goose coloring pages that include the text.  Let your child make a whole Mother Goose book and you print off some of the accompanying copywork.  I’m really diggin’ this whole Mother Goose coloring book/copywork book idea.

Now I’m off to find some Aesop’s Fables links.

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Here are all the nursery rhymes.

Here is the cross stitch pattern maker for the text.

Here is the cross stitch pattern maker for the images.

In my head I have a very cozy image of my daughters-in-law (of the future, mind you) sitting at the table with my precious grandchildren saying, “Here, Honey, use this cross stitch sampler Granny made for you and do your copywork.”

Cute, huh?  OK, maybe I won’t get around to doing the cross stitch, but it’s a nice thought.

What are Little Boys Made Of?

What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails,

And puppy dog tails,

That’s what little boys are made of.

What are Little Girls Made Of?

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice,
And everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.

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by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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