I took this picture on the really bad day. I ended up making beds for them on the floor in my room so I could try to get a few things done.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Sickies
We've been battling sickness for the past three weeks now. It started with Lydia not feeling well and having a slight fever for a few days. Then Clae got a fairly high fever (102 degrees). It only lasted one day but it was a very long day and he was a sick little boy. He did nothing. at all. all day. That NEVER happens. He ate nothing and drank just enough to keep him hydrated. He only moved to go to the bathroom and then I had to carry him to the bathroom and hold him up while he went to the bathroom. I made them a dr appointment, but by the next day his fever was totally gone. I ended up taking them anyway, but the doctor found nothing wrong with them and said it was just viral. Just as they were getting over the virus they started having runny noses and coughing. This is still going on and has been for the past week and a half. I'm deciding if I want to take them to the dr AGAIN. I've been doing the saline rinse on both of them and it seems to be helping, so I'm going to give it a few more days.
I took this picture on the really bad day. I ended up making beds for them on the floor in my room so I could try to get a few things done.
I took this picture on the really bad day. I ended up making beds for them on the floor in my room so I could try to get a few things done.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Interesting Article
My friend Kiley sent me the link to this article about raising boys that read. I was shocked by what some schools are doing to get boys to read. Give me a break! I thought he had some really good points and he addresses homeschooling in the last paragraph.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405511702112290.html?KEYWORDS=THOMAS+SPENCE
How to Raise Boys That Read (As Much as Girls Do): Not with Gross-out Books and Video Game Bribes
By THOMAS SPENCE
When I was a young boy, America's elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can't read.
According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, for example, substantially more boys than girls score below the proficiency level on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. This disparity goes back to 1992, and in some states the percentage of boys proficient in reading is now more than ten points below that of girls. The male-female reading gap is found in every socio-economic and ethnic category, including the children of white, college-educated parents.
The good news is that influential people have noticed this problem. The bad news is that many of them have perfectly awful ideas for solving it.
Everyone agrees that if boys don't read well, it's because they don't read enough. But why don't they read? A considerable number of teachers and librarians believe that boys are simply bored by the "stuffy" literature they encounter in school. According to a revealing Associated Press story in July these experts insist that we must "meet them where they are"—that is, pander to boys' untutored tastes.
For elementary- and middle-school boys, that means "books that exploit [their] love of bodily functions and gross-out humor." AP reported that one school librarian treats her pupils to "grossology" parties. "Just get 'em reading," she counsels cheerily. "Worry about what they're reading later."
Not with 'gross-out' books and video-game bribes.
There certainly is no shortage of publishers ready to meet boys where they are. Scholastic has profitably catered to the gross-out market for years with its "Goosebumps" and "Captain Underpants" series. Its latest bestsellers are the "Butt Books," a series that began with "The Day My Butt Went Psycho."
The more venerable houses are just as willing to aim low. Penguin, which once used the slogan, "the library of every educated person," has its own "Gross Out" line for boys, including such new classics as "Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger."
Workman Publishing made its name telling women "What to Expect When You're Expecting." How many of them expected they'd be buying "Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" a few years later from the same publisher? Even a self-published author like Raymond Bean—nom de plume of the fourth-grade teacher who wrote "SweetFarts"—can make it big in this genre. His flatulence-themed opus hit no. 3 in children's humor on Amazon. The sequel debuts this fall.
Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised "so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education."
"Plato before him," writes C. S. Lewis, "had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful."
This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are.
One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn't go very far.
The other problem is that pandering doesn't address the real reason boys won't read. My own experience with six sons is that even the squirmiest boy does not require lurid or vulgar material to sustain his interest in a book.
So why won't boys read? The AP story drops a clue when it describes the efforts of one frustrated couple with their 13-year-old unlettered son: "They've tried bribing him with new video games." Good grief.
The appearance of the boy-girl literacy gap happens to coincide with the proliferation of video games and other electronic forms of entertainment over the last decade or two. Boys spend far more time "plugged in" than girls do. Could the reading gap have more to do with competition for boys' attention than with their supposed inability to focus on anything other than outhouse humor?
Dr. Robert Weis, a psychology professor at Denison University, confirmed this suspicion in a randomized controlled trial of the effect of video games on academic ability. Boys with video games at home, he found, spend more time playing them than reading, and their academic performance suffers substantially. Hard to believe, isn't it, but Science has spoken.
The secret to raising boys who read, I submit, is pretty simple—keep electronic media, especially video games and recreational Internet, under control (that is to say, almost completely absent). Then fill your shelves with good books.
People who think that a book—even R.L. Stine's grossest masterpiece—can compete with the powerful stimulation of an electronic screen are kidding themselves. But on the level playing field of a quiet den or bedroom, a good book like "Treasure Island" will hold a boy's attention quite as well as "Zombie Butts from Uranus." Who knows—a boy deprived of electronic stimulation might even become desperate enough to read Jane Austen.
Most importantly, a boy raised on great literature is more likely to grow up to think, to speak, and to write like a civilized man. Whom would you prefer to have shaped the boyhood imagination of your daughter's husband—Raymond Bean or Robert Louis Stevenson?
I offer a final piece of evidence that is perhaps unanswerable: There is no literacy gap between home-schooled boys and girls. How many of these families, do you suppose, have thrown grossology parties?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405511702112290.html?KEYWORDS=THOMAS+SPENCE
How to Raise Boys That Read (As Much as Girls Do): Not with Gross-out Books and Video Game Bribes
By THOMAS SPENCE
When I was a young boy, America's elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can't read.
According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, for example, substantially more boys than girls score below the proficiency level on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. This disparity goes back to 1992, and in some states the percentage of boys proficient in reading is now more than ten points below that of girls. The male-female reading gap is found in every socio-economic and ethnic category, including the children of white, college-educated parents.
The good news is that influential people have noticed this problem. The bad news is that many of them have perfectly awful ideas for solving it.
Everyone agrees that if boys don't read well, it's because they don't read enough. But why don't they read? A considerable number of teachers and librarians believe that boys are simply bored by the "stuffy" literature they encounter in school. According to a revealing Associated Press story in July these experts insist that we must "meet them where they are"—that is, pander to boys' untutored tastes.
For elementary- and middle-school boys, that means "books that exploit [their] love of bodily functions and gross-out humor." AP reported that one school librarian treats her pupils to "grossology" parties. "Just get 'em reading," she counsels cheerily. "Worry about what they're reading later."
Not with 'gross-out' books and video-game bribes.
There certainly is no shortage of publishers ready to meet boys where they are. Scholastic has profitably catered to the gross-out market for years with its "Goosebumps" and "Captain Underpants" series. Its latest bestsellers are the "Butt Books," a series that began with "The Day My Butt Went Psycho."
The more venerable houses are just as willing to aim low. Penguin, which once used the slogan, "the library of every educated person," has its own "Gross Out" line for boys, including such new classics as "Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger."
Workman Publishing made its name telling women "What to Expect When You're Expecting." How many of them expected they'd be buying "Oh, Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" a few years later from the same publisher? Even a self-published author like Raymond Bean—nom de plume of the fourth-grade teacher who wrote "SweetFarts"—can make it big in this genre. His flatulence-themed opus hit no. 3 in children's humor on Amazon. The sequel debuts this fall.
Education was once understood as training for freedom. Not merely the transmission of information, education entailed the formation of manners and taste. Aristotle thought we should be raised "so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; this is the right education."
"Plato before him," writes C. S. Lewis, "had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting, and hateful."
This kind of training goes against the grain, and who has time for that? How much easier to meet children where they are.
One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn't go very far.
The other problem is that pandering doesn't address the real reason boys won't read. My own experience with six sons is that even the squirmiest boy does not require lurid or vulgar material to sustain his interest in a book.
So why won't boys read? The AP story drops a clue when it describes the efforts of one frustrated couple with their 13-year-old unlettered son: "They've tried bribing him with new video games." Good grief.
The appearance of the boy-girl literacy gap happens to coincide with the proliferation of video games and other electronic forms of entertainment over the last decade or two. Boys spend far more time "plugged in" than girls do. Could the reading gap have more to do with competition for boys' attention than with their supposed inability to focus on anything other than outhouse humor?
Dr. Robert Weis, a psychology professor at Denison University, confirmed this suspicion in a randomized controlled trial of the effect of video games on academic ability. Boys with video games at home, he found, spend more time playing them than reading, and their academic performance suffers substantially. Hard to believe, isn't it, but Science has spoken.
The secret to raising boys who read, I submit, is pretty simple—keep electronic media, especially video games and recreational Internet, under control (that is to say, almost completely absent). Then fill your shelves with good books.
People who think that a book—even R.L. Stine's grossest masterpiece—can compete with the powerful stimulation of an electronic screen are kidding themselves. But on the level playing field of a quiet den or bedroom, a good book like "Treasure Island" will hold a boy's attention quite as well as "Zombie Butts from Uranus." Who knows—a boy deprived of electronic stimulation might even become desperate enough to read Jane Austen.
Most importantly, a boy raised on great literature is more likely to grow up to think, to speak, and to write like a civilized man. Whom would you prefer to have shaped the boyhood imagination of your daughter's husband—Raymond Bean or Robert Louis Stevenson?
I offer a final piece of evidence that is perhaps unanswerable: There is no literacy gap between home-schooled boys and girls. How many of these families, do you suppose, have thrown grossology parties?
Friday, October 22, 2010
Fall Festival
Every October we have our "Forest Craft/Scenic Drive" fall festival. This is one of my favorite events of the year. I love the crafts, the food, the weather all of it. Last year temperatures were in the 30s, Clae and I went to the parade and FROZE. I bundled up the kids in their winter gear and we walked around and looked at the crafts but we were pretty much miserable the whole time. But THIS year was a different story. Temperatures were in the 80s and we took full advantage of the nice weather. These are some pictures of us at the parade. Kohen and Abraham came with us, they all loved the parade and got lots of candy. The semis were Clae's favorite, the candy was Lydia's favorite!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Pumpkin Patch Trip #2
Our second pumpkin patch trip was to Kathy's Pumpkin Patch near Donnellson. We had SO much fun at this one. There were tons of activities for the kids to do. Their favorite thing was the "corn box" it was like a huge sand box but with corn instead of sand. It was nice for the moms, too, because the kids were kind of trapped in there so we didn't have to worry about losing them. It was super busy in the morning but by the afternoon it cleared out and we were able to enjoy everything a little bit more. We took a picnic lunch and ate there, it was a beautiful day, and we just had a great time.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Weekend at the Butler's
Kirby's sister and her family live in Illinois where her husband is a farmer. Kirby had the opportunity last year to help our brother-in-law with the harvest and really enjoyed it. We spent last weekend at their house so Kirby could spend the day combining with Jeffrey again. And of course Clae got to ride in the combine for a while, too, and LOVED it.
Evan and Clae eating breakfast
Lydia snuggled up reading a book with Uncle Jeffrey
Evan and Clae eating breakfast
Lydia snuggled up reading a book with Uncle Jeffrey
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Trip to the Pumpkin Patch
These are a few of the pictures from the trip we took to the pumpkin patch LAST week. (We also went to a different pumpkin patch THIS week, so I will be posting those pictures soon.) My sister-in-law and I have been wanting to take our kids to visit the pumpkin patch forever, but the past two years we haven't been able to make it work. Either we had bad weather, something came up, our babies were too little, it was always something. So, I am very excited that we have already gotten TWO pumpkin patch trips in this fall, we are making up for lost time AND taking full advantage of the beautiful weather before we have to settle in for the winter.
Kohen, Lydia, Clae, and Abraham
Kohen, Lydia, Clae, and Abraham
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