Huhtala Homeschoolers

My husband and I agreed that at the start of every "term" he would take the kids away from the house, for a weekend, so that I could have some time to myself. During this time, I write out our homeschooling schedule for the next term, organize some parts of the house and just enjoy some "alone" time. Something that you NEVER get with 4 homeschooling children unless you run away. Or die.....

Somehow, for this "break" my husband managed to squeeze himself into the "alone" time and pass the kids off to various relatives. As you may have guessed, I have gotten hardly ANYTHING done and my house is in worse shape than when the kids are here. There is something about having my husband around that makes me want to be generally lazy and spend lots of money. Also, of course one of my children is back home because he came down with a yucky bug and had to be taken to the ER last night, (which could have been completely handled by my husband if he had been WITH the kids). Long story short: Next time, he goes too! :)

Am I selfish to ask for this time for myself? I hate inconveniencing people but I really feel like 1 weekend every 3 months isn't too much to ask. Is it?

This weekend hasn't been totally unproductive. I have scheduled out the next semester and written the term exam. I have also started to write out some ideas and gather curriculum to begin incorporating my preschoolers more into the mix. I plan to start spending at least 45 minutes per day doing activities with just them. I also plan on guiding their activities better throughout the day. They will be given things to color, cut and paste, blocks to build, play-do to mold, and coats and boots to play outside to their hearts content (instead of nightgowns and slippers...I mean no wonder they never stay outside longer than 10 minutes). Hopefully this will distract them from their former activities: Dumping out humidifiers, playing in the bathroom and trying to help "clean" the toilet, rubbing Desitin all over the bed and carpet, and of course screaming, crying and pulling each others hair. Since I've started homeschooling, my older kids have taken my attention away from my younger children. There must be balance!

Another benefit of this weekend has been all of my studying and reading of different Charlotte Mason curriculum's and websites. It has given me a renewed sense of purpose and excitement about why I am doing what I am doing. Charlotte Mason said:


"... We want our children to feel that each fresh lesson gives them an "open sesame" to a fairy palace full of treasures worth the seeking; that they are the inheritors of all the heaped-up gains of past ages, not slaves doomed to a treadmill of weary monotony. We do not want their experience to be that of some "grown-ups" who can tell us of a happy early childhood, when the world seemed all alive with interest, and Nature was teaching them many things, until there came an ever-to-be- remembered dark time when they had to begin to "do lessons"; lessons which unfortunately failed to excite any interest and only became a big, palpable barrier, shutting off the old gracious freedom of the days when they learnt without learning. "

I want my children to find joy in learning. I want them to love the outdoors and feel of Gods goodness and beauty in a world that is slowly burying all of these things. They must have this if they are to give their own children a legacy to follow.

"Children first should be learning about the world as it is- no matter how brilliant and academically gifted children are, they should all have plenty of opportunities to climb trees, play in mud puddles, go for long walks, run in meadows, wade in streams, sort rocks, shells, and acorns, collect bugs, watch butterflies emerge from a cocoon, run, skip, ride, swim, and more.

A child who has splashed in a puddle has a richer understanding of a pond. A child who has climbed a tree has a broader grasp of what was involved when explorers first climbed Everest. A child who has collected stones or shells has a deeper grasp of what is involved in scientific classification later." Charlotte Mason

I am now designating every Friday as our families "Wild Days". We are going to do most of our schooling Monday through Thursday, and each Friday we are going to take a field trip together and make great memories. We'll pack a picnic and just spend at least 3 hours away from home. Generally, it will be outdoors, at a new park, lake or trail. Sometimes, it will need to be indoors and we will visit a museum or maybe even just some friends or family member. The idea is, I want my children to find some privileges and excitement in homeschooling. Some grand thing that they will remember fondly when they are older and say, "Wasn't homeschooling the greatest?"

The Huhtala Clan, while always incredibly grateful for all they are given, has never done very well in the thank you card department. We had soooo many good intentions of sending out cards after birthdays and Christmas. We'd even go so far as to "write down what was received" next to the persons name on a list. As if by this act alone we were committed to sending a thank you card....right. Sadly, it rarely happened because I refused to be one of those Moms that did it FOR my kids, which meant of course, it was NEVER going to get done.

Now however, thanks to Homeschooling, things have changed! We have sent out more thank you cards in the past 2 months than we have mailed in a decade! Here's how I accomplished this.


1. Get a cute box or basket and designate it just for letter writing.

2. Fill it with a variety of blank thank you cards (I look for ones at the dollar store or on clearance), envelopes, stamps and a list of addresses of "the regulars" when it comes to needing to write family or friends.

3. If someone sends you a birthday card or gift, cut out their return address and add it to the list.

4. Designate one writing assignment during the week for notes of gratitude. This is flexible. Today for instance, instead of having them do grammar, I had them write out thank you cards because they had just received some birthday gifts in the mail.

I have found because I have made the process so manageable and organized, my kids are actually the ones to mention that they need to write out a thank you card! They grab the thank you box and off they go! My only requirement is that they write a rough draft first and I have to proofread it, as they often end up crossing things out and making a mess when they try to just write one immediately onto the card.

Hurray for developing the habit of writing letters and showing gratitude!

Out of the more than a dozen eggs we put in our incubator we recently had ONE of our eggs hatch! Don't be too sad for us. We had almost given up the whole lot of eggs as a failure and thrown them away! I'm sure glad we didn't or we might have lost our little squishy (that's what we're calling her/him/it).

A few nights ago J called me into his office to tell me he swore he had heard a chirping coming from one of the eggs. I was skeptical, (I had no idea they could do that!) but he brought the incubator out to the kitchen. Sure enough, I soon heard it myself...a little cheeping coming from one of the eggs! I couldn't pinpoint which one but it was sure exciting! The next day our little squishy chirped all day in his egg, and towards late afternoon, I started hearing one of the eggs moving on the metal of the incubator. I stared intently for awhile and finally pinpointed a little green egg in the center that was doing little movements. I called the kids in and decided to rotate the incubator so I could get a view of the whole egg, and lo and behold, there was a little piece of shell on the backside that had been worked away! We all watched, mesmerized. Then I rotated the incubator even further, and there was an even bigger hole! This one had a little beak that could be seen going in and out. So cool!















Well, our little squish never took a break (and he chirped like crazy the whole time!) He tirelessly worked at that shell and membrane and then rocked and rolled until he finally threw himself from that egg! Then he proceeded to stumble all around the incubator walking all over the other eggs as if to say "Wimps!"
















I feel so bad for the little guy because he is all alone! He loves attention and will stand up on his little teddy bear we've given him and chirp super loud and frantically until I come and poke my head over the box. Then he rushes to my side of the box and does this excited little "pleasure chirp" like he's talking to me. He completely holds still while we stroke him and talk to him.
















We are going on vacation and I tried so hard to convince Jay that we could bring him for an 8 hour drive to So. California in his little incubator and just plug it into a car adapter or something, but he won't let me :( I'm so sad that he's going to be calling for someone to come and won't have any attention except for the neighbor girl changing his water once a day. I hope he doesn't forget me.....

Grandma Debbie got a sweet deal on a really nice incubator at a yard sale. I swear one day the woman is going to find a solid gold nugget at a yard sale, say: "I'll give you a quarter!" and make us all rich!

She let us borrow the incubator and brought a few eggs from her chickens in the hopes that some of them might be fertilized. Jay did all the science with this incubator of getting it to the perfect humidity and we put our eggs in and waited about a week. We then did the candling.



The kids really enjoyed getting to turn out all the lights and watch the eggs glow. Unfortunately, after studying pictures online, it was very obvious that there was no signs of a little life in any of our eggs.

Deb's rooster is a tiny little guy so Jay told her that maybe he wasn't able to get his "business" done with all those big hens :)

Katrina asked me why none of the eggs had babies inside.

Katrina: Can't ALL chicken eggs turn into babies?

Mom: Not all eggs, there needs to be a rooster to fertilize....(sudden silence as she realizes where this may head)

Katrina: What does the rooster do?

Mom: Erm, Ummm, he mates with the hens.

Katrina: OHHHH! They get married!

Mom: EXACTLY!

*Whew* Not ready for that one yet....

Today, I knew it was going to be hot so we started out our day with an early nature walk. Right behind our street is a long country road that has quaint little houses, pastures with big oak trees, cows, horses, weeping willows and LOTS of quartz for Payton and Bella to collect. I brought one stroller so Tyson and Bella could take turns riding. I wanted them to run and play as much as they could. It's probably about a mile walk but it took us over an hour. We had to stop and examine every flower, watch as a huge flock of birds went right over our heads, hide amongst the weeping willows, collect anything that caught our eye as interesting and stick it in the bottom of the stroller, and try to get the horses to come over to the fence. It was a beautiful morning and I think we just enjoyed the leisure of it all.




After seeing the horses, I had to listen to Katrina talk for the next 20 minutes about how she wished they had come over to the fence to see her. Didn't they like her? Could we go back after Daddy got home and try again? Do horses like having flowers in their hair? Could she put one in the horses hair? Could she bring snacks for the horses? Not without permission? If the farmer says we can? I'll bring carrots, apples and sugar cubes. Why can't we just feed the horses a yummy snack without asking? Maybe the farmer will come over, put a halter on the horse and lead it over to us. Did you know that at night, I talk to my animals like they are real. It's hard sometimes to pick which ones get to sleep with me.....If I win a race and win lots of money, I would buy the house for sale next to Grandmas with the horse land and buy horses for everyone in the family. If I had lots of money, could I do that?

I think, just maybe, she's trying to tell me she really likes horses.

Here's a picture of the next day...she had brought a mysterious purse with her. Turns out, inside she had brought just a few baby carrots just in case she saw the "farmer" and ended up using them to lure the horses over. Then she "accidentally" dropped one into the pen. At one point, I looked over and she had materialized one of those plastic My Little Pony brushes from "the purse" and was trying to comb the horses hair with it! Obviously, she had thought long and hard about this.




Once home, my kids gladly got out their nature journals and began to write about their walk. Katrina has written a page already and says she wants to write LOTS. "Pages and pages!" Then, she mailed one to Grandma Debbie. Payton is trying to press some flowers and may get to writing a sentence or two. The amazing thing is, they have been quiet for over 20 minutes and I haven't been out there. Usually I have to be right there directing them and keeping them on task, but for now, life has made an impression on their imagination, and I choose to fade into the background.

One of the great things about homeschooling is that our schedule is never strict. I may write out that we are going to read so much in History, do a science project, and study geography, but if something that is equally educational and much more fun comes along....we choose fun!

Today for instance, after reading "The Princess and the Goblin" together, rather than have the kids do oral narrations I had them go to the table and draw a picture of a scene they remembered. As they drew they began to discuss how they could make a puppet show out of their drawings. Payton began to draw some furniture that was described in a room and Katrina began to make the characters. They are now cutting them out and taping toothpicks to the back of them for their puppet show. We are scheduled to do some grammar, and we'll get to it, but right now we're enjoying our freedom to break away from monotony and get creative. How awesome is that?

As I type this, my older kids have been playing Legos together for 2 hours. It's not even the building of Legos. It's some kind of "pretend" game where they are constantly talking back and forth. They did the same thing yesterday...immediately after homeschooling, they ran to the living room to play Legos together, and played quite well for some time until I had them clean up. Some of the things I wanted out of homeschooling was peace, harmony, and generally just concern for each others feelings. Already, I am noticing that my kids are getting along better. They are playing together without screaming and tattling, and for longer than 10 minutes :) They used to do that all the time but I was noticing that as they got older, they were starting to separate.

They also are going out of their way to make little ones feel better when they cry. Today, Payton offered to help Bella with her preschool book when she was crying while I made lunch, and later, when Tyson was throwing a fit about going to bed KT said, "Kiki read you a book?" In her best baby voice. I've missed this kind of compassion and empathy...it's just been lacking lately. Summer and the lazy days of not wanting to do anything had robbed us of some of it, and I think that now that we are in a routine, working together, there is definitely more stability which brings PEACE.

During school of course we have the typical sibling rival battles. Payton laughs at Katrina getting an answer wrong. She titters at a drawing of the "Mona Lisa" that he attempted. (It was pretty hilarious!) But through all their comments I am right there, able to say, "Hey, don't forget that we are a team! Instead of laughing, you should be encouraging your Brother/Sister to do their best."

"Now.....give me 5 extra math problems!" :)

I LOVE playing the teacher!