Some days are like that...

Somehow it's been five months since I updated this blog.  Since then we've had three black eyes, the Seahawks WON the Superbowl, Grace-girl has grown 3 inches and Baby Rain probably more than that.   We survived the holidays, we survived Snowpocalypse.  We even snowboarded a few times.  It's been a busy season in life.  Spring always brings me back to fresh beginnings.
But I'm feeling a little hung up.  Like this little one.

I'm not interested in blogging about my perfect kids and my perfect life and my perfect husband because there is no such thing.  We all know it.  The reality is that some days piano practice looks like this:

I'm very excited about homeschooling next year, but I'm not sure how we can afford it.  I love teaching my kids everything, but then some days I don't.  Some days I feel as eloquent as Madeline L'Engle or Anne Lamott.  And other days I can't form a proper sentence.  It's just how life rolls.  

What I can do, with no shame, is laugh.  Laugh at myself.  Laugh with my kids at their stupid (that's right, I said stupid) knock-knock jokes.  Like this one:  

"Knock Knock"

"Who's There?"

"Interrupting cow."

"Interrupting cow wh..."

"OINK!!!"

It makes no sense.  But it makes me laugh every time.  And that's good.

This makes me laugh, too.  My warrior-princess-ninja...  She's just too awesome.

So here's my reminder to myself- and to any other wretched soul who's trying to glean wisdom from this blog:  Quit taking yourself so seriously.  Life is hard sometimes.  It really is.  But it's the moments when we laugh, sometimes even at each other, that we will cherish forever.  No one wants to hear about the poop accident your 3 year old had at the play area in the grocery store.  They really don't.  Focus on the laughs.  

Summer Learning- the real scoop

Summer learning always begins with lots of great books.

We didn't advance three grades over the summer as I had hoped.  In fact, I think we may have lost some academic ground.  Now that we're in full swing in the new school year I find myself reminiscing about our past summer.  I had big plans, but instead this summer came to be termed "The Summer of Her Boyhood."  Someday I'll write more about that- the idea that there's a special, fleeting time in a girl's life where she is free to just be herself, to be wild and untamed and romp and play to her heart's content.  Grace Girl turned 7 and Baby Rain turned 3 this summer. It was a fantastic, wild romp of a good time.

So, here are a few things the girls learned from our big wild summer:

• Grace Girl and Baby Rain invested in long-term projects and enjoyed the outcome of hard work.

Playing in the Sunflower House

•  Sure, she can't spell worth a darn, but check out those waterfall-fairy charming skills!

Hiking at Horsetail Falls in the Columbia Gorge

•  Maybe Grace Girl's measuring skills are rusty, but she understands "scale" in a whole new way!

Making friends with the Sea Lions at the Oregon Zoo

• Baby Rain explored the language of math through music and rhythm.

Exploring music, costume and art

 We missed some reading lessons, but Grace Girl's learning to communicate in new ways.

Found a snake at a wilderness lake on her first backpacking trip

 We backed out of gymnastics and didn't do sport camps this summer, but we stayed in shape the old-fashioned way- hiking, running, climbing...what a view!

Wilderness wildflower meadow romping near 3 Fingered Jack

 Grace Girl learned about physics, gravity and force!

Oregon Coast wave jumping

Baby Rain deepened relationships with the people that matter most.

Beach walking with Daddy

•  They may be a little wild and untamed- ok, maybe more than a little- and I'm so glad.  May they never forget the wildness of their own souls.

Wild summer days- camping on the Little Santiam River 

My prayer for our new year is that each adventure would bring learning, and each cause to learn would be a glorious, swashbuckling, fabulous adventure.  Yes.  I said swashbuckling.  Because it's a great word.  Go ahead.  Say it out loud.  I dare you.

May the road always rise to meet you...

Summer learning begins... with Spelling!

There will be lots of tree-climbing, too!

Now that our Grace-girl has officially completed first grade and we've taken a few weeks off, I'm busy planning for our summer work (don't tell her it's work) and even thinking ahead to fall.  Our main shortfall this year was that we didn't focus much on spelling, though we did make major strides in reading and grammar, which will ultimately help with spelling.  This summer instead of working on "writing" we are going to have some spelling fun!  She'll also get some printing practice in there without realizing it, just to keep us going before cursive starts in the fall.

During the school year we run a fairly classical school, but in the summer I prefer a more organic, Charlotte Mason approach.  We do a lot of gardening, bike riding, hiking and natural observances of the world around us.  We do still accomplish some formal education in the midst of that as I absolutely hate the idea of having to re-teach something we've already learned!  If you add it all up it looks like a lot of school time, but most of this is organic learning time for our whole family.  I imagine we will actually sit down for "school" less than 2 hours a week.

• Bible Study- The girls and I read a Bible story every morning, discuss, and pray together.  We also work on a new memory work passage every month or so (45 minutes/week).  When Matt is home he joins us or leads us.  Prayer and worship time are also regular moments in our day.
• Grammar- One lesson per week from our First Language Lessons book, plus review of the first grade memory work (20 minutes/week) so we don't forget!
• Spelling- One or two lessons per week which will mostly be a review of first grade (20 minutes/week).  See below.  I might just find a cheap summer supplement book to work through to have an end point in sight.  I think this will be a good school activity to take camping.
• Reading- Our wonderful library's summer reading program will serve as an inspiration and motivation for summer reading (90 minutes/week).   We will also be attending a few of the summer reading program activities (there are many) and regular weekly (or bi-montly) Storytime for Baby Rain.  Our library reading fuels our decisions for other subjects of study and can sometimes lead us to a unit study tangent.
• Math- we'll be starting Singapore Math in the fall, so we are mostly reviewing and solidifying skills over the summer with a focus on problem solving, critical thinking, measurement and integrating science.  We'll do some flash card work but we also like to include lots of fun games as part of our math time (90 minutes/week).  Some of our favorite math-oriented games are Monopoly, Rummikub and Catan games (Catan Kids, Settlers of Catan and Starship Catan).
• Science- One weekly nature study using our Anna Comstock (Handbook of Nature Study) and library books (45 minutes). Includes writing practice, drawing and observation in her nature journal.
• Classical Conversations- It's important to not completely forget everything we learned last year, so we will review cycle 1 memory work during the summer (about 60 minutes/week of mostly auditory practice in the car) but we'll wait to start cycle 2 until we get to September.
• Art/Music- These occur naturally at our house as we lead worship at church and work with several instruments.  June is a motivated student of drawing and will no doubt fill her time easily with art projects and fun craft projects as the motivation and occasion arrives.  

In my quest for more spelling practice, I looked for some free online resources and I've listed some interesting-looking ones below.  Do you have others you like to use and want to share?

Zaner-Bloser- nice printable worksheets to practice writing words.

TLS- lots of different worksheets on many topics, among which are spelling.  Fun!

Grade Spelling- this is a fun interactive site for spelling practice.  Not a pressure-cooker, just fun activities and age appropriate spelling word lists.


Enjoy your summer!  Enjoy learning!  And don't forget to do both at the same time!

Mommy Don't Go! How to Say Goodbye...

It's always hard to say goodbye to Mommy.  When I began going to the gym in the evenings last fall we ran into some separation anxiety with our little Baby Rain.  I recently began to work outside the home (just a few nights a week) which meant my absence was felt not just during bedtime, but also during dinner and the hour beyond.

While Grace-girl, almost 7, is now old enough to understand reason (she still misses her Mama, sometimes, and has always been a fairly sensitive child), Baby Rain is not quite 3 and still has strong feelings about the subject!  So this mama did what any good mama would do.  I requested a bunch of books from the local library.  Your library has them too!  Search under "separation anxiety" or ask your children's librarian for suggestions.  Most books in this category are geared towards the first day of school, but I've found that these are equally helpful for little ones as they don't really know the difference between "school" and "playing at someone's house."  Books about loss are also good for this category (Think: Knuffle Bunny and Have You Seen Duck?, a current favorite at our house).

Some Favorite Books at Our House:

The first two are not specifically related to "school" but rather are simply how little ones cope with missing Mommy.  For the record, there are GREAT books about kiddos missing Daddy or other caregivers.  These just really hit home for my kids and me since I'm their primary caregiver.  

• Owl Babies has been in my arsenal for awhile.  This book was a favorite with both girls at the toddler stage.  It really helps them grasp the idea that Mommy always comes back.  We do have to learn to wait and be patient and maybe even worry a little, but every kid who's read this book can repeat Bill's special line, "I want my Mommy!"  Some of the illustrations are dark (owls are nocturnal, afterall), but never scary.  My favorite picture is the one at the end when the baby owls dance around on their branch.  Pure elation!  Mama has returned!

• Piglet and Mama was/is another fave for both my girls.  In this case, Mama appears to be lost, but in the end she was looking for piglet the whole time.  In this sweet story, Piglet meets several other animals around the farm who offer her an activity to share with their own little ones, but each time it simply says, "But Piglet wanted her Mama."  For some reason I always inextricably insert a "No thank you" before piglet asserts her desire for Mommy.  No need to be rude, after all!  The playful illustrations add a lightness to the story rather than a scary element for the sensitive crowd.  The simplicity is winsome and not tiring at all.

• Llama Llama Misses Mama is a sweet story I found in my recent search for books about this topic.  I do love that sweet, passionate little llama.  Who doesn't?  The illustrations in this book are so exquisite that you can almost taste the tears running down little Llama's face when, finally, "it was all too much for little Llama" and he breaks down crying at the snack table at his new preschool.  All is well in the end, of course, when his new friends gather round him and the teacher reminds him that his mama will come back at the end of the day.  The scene of their reunion is a mess of tossed crayons and joyful exuberance.  Love it.  And in the end Llama Llama decides he loves Mama AND school.  

These last two I like because they give you an action point- they remind you that you can DO something about missing Mommy.  These are better for kids who are a bit older (stories are longer), perhaps more school-age, but still apply to little ones as well.

• The Kissing Hand is a classic book about little raccoon who is heading off to his first day of school.  Of course, Raccoon school is at night!  Again, the illustrations are beautiful and the story poignant.  Mama gives little Raccoon a special kiss that will remind him of her throughout his night at school.  This is a sweet story that also allows reciprocation for little Raccoon to give Mama a special kiss of her own so she won't miss him too much, either.  And off he scampers to school.

• The Kiss Box is about a mother who has to go away for awhile and how she soothes the concerns of her little bear.  Finally the little bear decides to make a box to store the kisses in that she will send when she is away.  This is a strategy that has worked in my family, too.  Only I like to cut out tiny paper hearts and fill the kiss boxes with both real kisses and the paper reminders.

Now that you know how to help your little one cope with separation- how do you deal with it?  Come visit me at my other blog for help with that one!

Gems, Jammies and Gingerbread: Science at home

For Christmas my Grace-Girl received a Gem dig kit.  You know the one. She was SO excited that I had to hide it until the appropriate time to do the project (aka NOT at my sister's house).  As soon as we got home she was aching to try out her little hammer and chisel.  Safety goggles on, pajamas still in place, we ventured into the world of gems and rocks.  We read about the types of rock, identified the gems (to the best of our amateur ability) and discussed methodology of extraction.

She surprised even me with her fastidiousness.  This project took a long time and she worked carefully; uncovering each small gem or rock from its dusty home.  When it was all done I sent her outside to dispose of the mess.  Then, in a whirlwind of genius, I sent the gingerbread house out with her.  Somehow I knew the only thing that would justify not eating the thing would be smashing it to bits.  And I was right.

That careful scientist went a little wild when she was able to become fully destructive.  This is a great way to get energy out of your homebound kids (see the snow?  see the snow on the trampoline?).  Unfortunately, and I wouldn't recommend this, she smashed it right on the back patio next to the back door.  I think I'll be finding red hots and fondant next spring when all the snow melts.  In the meantime the birds are having a sugar-induced heyday (yes, yes, we cleaned it up as best as we could, people.  The birds were not actually harmed).

There you go.  Fun with science.  And gingerbread.  And pajamas.  It's homeschooling in a nutshell.

On the Road

Grace-girl- she always wanted those eye thingies.  And no, she didn't actually sleep.

Our adventurous little family recently embarked on a 3000 mile road trip from Oregon to New Mexico and back again.  I could start a new blog for this topic, but I'll restrain myself. As you can imagine, we spent a lot of time in the car.  Here are a few things I learned, in a nutshell!

1.  Make a plan, but don't be afraid to change it.  I spent hours planning, organizing, and preparing for this trip.  Games, toys, educational activities, homeschool curriculum, daily snacks, music, and even some videos all took up space in our front seat area.  I planned for everything.  Every good place to stop and run around, every meal, every little detail.  Then I set it down and let it go.  Whew.  It's nice to be prepared (just in case) but not something I have to be controlling about.  It's always good to expect the unexpected; like a delicious burger joint in Central California (Eddie's Famous Cafe- Eddie even gave us free cinnamon rolls), or a truly interesting rest stop in New Mexico.  You just never know what you might find!

The first of 3 KOA cabins, all exactly the same!  Talk about easy...

2. Try to maintain your normal routine, at least to a certain extent, for the happiness of the whole crew.  We happen to use a curriculum that is heavy on memorization and auditory learning.  So you can now imagine us rocking out to such hits as, "The Timeline Song," "The US Presidents" and don't forget that amazing ditty, "The Preposition Song." Every morning we started our morning with breakfast at the campsite (we stayed at KOA campgrounds the whole way down for consistency and ease of travel- the cabins are the way to go when stopping for a quick overnight- we stayed with family and varied places on the way home), then mom or dad packed the car while the other ran the kids around at the playground (almost all KOAs have playgrounds).  After hopping in the car we did our Bible reading and prayer time then jumped into memory work.  By the time we finished all that the first hour was well behind us.  Grace-Girl also filled out a daily journal page each morning.  We spent time each evening to sit down and have dinner together, do our normal bed-time routine (as much as possible) and re-pack for the next day (snacks, car reorganization, etc.).  It was worth it.

The girls at Arches National Park

3. Enjoy the Road!  We were definitely on a schedule that didn't allow long stops, as we wanted lots of time with family at our destination, but we made a few exceptions: one morning at Arches National Park and one morning at The New Mexico Natural History Museum in Albuquerque.  We powered through the first two days (though we did make short stops to run around) and slowed down on the last two days.  Daddy and I also found time in the evenings to have fun- we played games, watched movies (all KOAs have free wi-fi) and took some time for "us" all while the girls were sleeping peacefully in the cabin.  

Many happy travels to you and yours this holiday season!  Don't forget to visit Pinterest for every idea of a car game you could possibly imagine. 

Fun With Worms- And Other Invertebrates!

In our Classical Conversations Curriculum, week 5, we memorized the major groups of invertebrates.

I saw this fun project, somewhere on Pinterest and had to try it.

Grace-girl- proud of her tapeworm.  Hmm... never thought I'd say that sentence.

Ew.  A little too realistic for me.

The girls had SO much fun and it was one of those rare moments when the project appealed to both ages (kind of hard usually with the 4 year age spread).

Worms were the easiest. 

Baby Rain is SO proud of her sea star (she got to use a cookie-cutter)!

This project also appealed to mommy because it takes ZERO prep work.  I literally pulled the plates out of the cupboard and drew pictures on them as the girls were getting the playdoh stuff out.

Just a little glimpse into a fun day of home education.  By the way, notice how you can't see the sink full of dishes or the piles of laundry in the corner.  Priorities, people. 

First Grade Common Core

One of the challenges of homeschooling is figuring out exactly what your kids "need" to know.  Here in Oregon we only have to face standardized testing a few times (3rd, 5th 8th and 10th grades) and otherwise it's really up to us how we choose to home educate.  There are several philosophies about this, some folks choose to make it up as they go along, or trust that the curriculum they are using is enough.  Some prefer to ignore the "requirements" and allow their children to learn at their own pace.  The rest of us just have to KNOW!  :)  Whatever your philosophy, here's a great resource that's worth a peek.  

This First Grade Common Core workbook is the largest collection of resources for teaching the Common Core State Standards. This workbook includes reams of worksheets, activities, and posters that cover Language Arts and Math.   They have the Common Core Standards Workbooks for Kindergarten through Grade 5 (though the Grades 3-5 aren't available just yet).

I took a peek at a sample (you can download it, here) and the worksheets seem easy to follow and read.  The directions are straightforward.  Even more exciting are the colorful activities and posters that could be used for homeschool-style folder games or even lapbooks.  Lots of fun ideas, here.  

It's always up to us as parent educators to decide what and how our kids should learn.  But sometimes it's nice to get a look at what our kids really need to know.  If my kids need to go back to public or private school, I want them to be ready to meet the standard.  

I was offered a free copy of the First Grade Common Core Workbook in exchange for this blog post.  Thanks to http://www.hipmamasplace.com/2012/05/summer-reading-programs-for-kids-2012.html for the cute pics of the babies reading, too.  :)

Summer School and Flowers, too!

Summer School on the deck

Don't freak out.  We don't force school all summer long. Grace-girl really wanted to learn about plants and flowers and how they work.  I knew she was ready for an in-depth study that was more than pretty pictures and fun books from the library.  We've planted seeds, watched them grow, learned basic plant stuff and now we were ready to tackle flowers and pollination.  SO I put together a lapbook, of course!

We had several books from the library about plants and flowers and especially about bees and pollination.  But the best resource I used was Anna Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study.  This one book has been my go-to resource for so many science questions (you can see it on my patio table in the picture above).  We could have spent days reading about flowers and pollination and different types of asexual reproduction, but we moved on to completing the lapbook.

Lapbook with closed elements

I didn't find a free lapbook I loved for this topic, so I took things from many places.

Lapbook with open elements

This place has tons of great mini-book and foldy fun stuff for lapbooks.  Great for making up your own stuff, which is what I wound up doing for some of this lapbook.

Sunflower Growth Mini-book.  1 inch per day.  Wow.

Simple wheel book describing a plant life-cycle

Grace-girl loves sequencing, so I just had to turn this mini-book into a sequencing activity.

The Itsy-Bitsy Seedling accordion fold

 And I wanted to find a way to use some pressed flowers from our own garden.

A math/measuring mini-book

 It is really amazing how much a five year old can memorize and retain.  She loved this project and actually learned and remembered the inner-workings of a flower and the purpose for each part.

The back of the lapbook.  She assembled this by herself.

 My favorite little element from this lapbook was a special poem that Grace-girl wrote a couple months ago.  (She narrated, I wrote).  I kept it and did this little petal-fold piece to surprise her.  She loved it.

"The Seed"

When the walls grow and sprout

The little people come about

And when the walls get all tattered and torn

and fall off

Then the people find another home.

A Homeschool Day in the Life...

I've been reading quite a few "Day in the Life" blogs by fellow homeschooling moms (and a few dads).  While I'm tempted to share a "perfect" day in my life as a homeschooling mom, I suddenly realize there is no such thing.  My best intentions are often dashed by the wayside of the freight train called Real Life.  And no two days really look the same.  So here goes- a random day in my homeschool life with two girls, 5 and 18 months, though a fairly typical Thursday.

Thursday-

4:30 am- Baby-Rain wakes up and snuggles up in bed with me and Daddy
5:30 am- Daddy gets up with baby - I roll over with a pillow over my head
6:30 am- I get up so my husband can get ready for work.
7:00 am- Dad leaves for work.  I pour my second cup of coffee.  Read books with baby, try to get caught up on chores.
7:30-8:00 am- Grace-Girl rolls out of bed.  Not literally, as it is a six foot drop to the floor.  Blurry-eyed, wanting to snuggle on the couch.  All.  Day.  Long.
8:15 am- We girls manage to sit down for breakfast.  No one in this family does well without food.
8:30 am- Bible Reading and Calendar- we rotate a few different kids' devotional books.  We also work on our memory verse, which is posted by our calendar, here in the kitchen.  We review the season, month, year, days of the week, day of the month... etc.  Then we talk about our daily schedule.  I do all this while my older daughter eats because she is incredibly SLOW and I get tired of waiting for her to finish.
9:15 am- Chores- This includes getting dressed, tidying up room, brushing hair and teeth, etc.  But we also include things like, "be a cheerful helper."  Many tears are shed at our house over hair brushing.  Note to self: it grows back.  Cut it off.
10:00 am- Toddler Storytime at our local library is the one activity we do that centers around my younger daughter.  As a homeschool family we easily haul 25 books a week from the library (the kids are still pretty young- I'm sure this number will rise). I go online to order most of what I want to bring home, then we pick out a few at the library.
11:00 am- As I'm checking out the pile of books we're hauling home and re-connecting with a friend I haven't seen in awhile, Baby Rain is methodically pulling books off the reserve shelf and removing the name labels from each book.
11:20 am- Thankful for the rice cakes I keep in the van for moments like this 7 minute ride from the library to the house.  It seems more like an hour with all that screeching.
11:45 am- Lunch. Usually left-overs.  Baby fell asleep in the car, so she's down for her nap.
12:10 pm- Read a bunch of new library books with Grace-girl.  This is one of my favorite things about Thursdays!
1:00 pm- Quiet Time.  We monitor TV time carefully at our house (we don't actually have a television, just our computer)- but today Grace-girl gets about an hour of Backyardigans while I catch up on napping and an episode of Downton Abbey on my Kindle Fire.  That's right.  I'm being completely honest, here.
2:00 pm- Impromptu reading lesson with Grace-girl.  Reviewing digraphs and blends (sh, th, ch, wh)
2:15 pm- Baby-rain wakes up- snack-time.
2:30 pm- Piano lesson with me.  Finding middle "c," learning about octaves and playing a tune by ear (Mary Had a Little Lamb).
2:40 pm- music lessons evolve into dancing around the living room with some latin dance cd (thanks, Dora)
3:00 pm- Get Outside.  We pull weeds and jump on the trampoline until daddy gets home, and to heck with the mess in the house.  The girls like to get as dirty as possible, so I let them.
4:30 pm- Daddy gets home- girls head to the bathtub- we all prepare for our evening.
5:30 pm- Dinner
7:00 pm- Baby Rain in bed
8:00 pm- Grace-girl in bed
*whew*  Each day is a little different, but somehow we find a rhythm through it all.  And it's usually not the one I thought it would be when I planned our schedule in August.  Enjoy the things that make your family special!  And guard your quiet time.  :)

Is my Kindle a book?

I haven't been posting because I've been too busy with my 2 Kindles.  Yup.  One old fashioned 3rd Gen. that I like to use for reading and the other is my new toy, the Kindle Fire.  My real dilemma goes beyond whether it is morally reprehensible for a true lover of books to own a Kindle (of course it is) or how much to let my kids play with my new Fire (I don't even let my husband play with it). 

Here's my actual problem: 

The nearly 18 month old baby calls my Kindle a book.  She actually calls the Fire "bubbles" because of that silly bubble app she gets to play with sometimes (it's really dumb but super fun, the best kind of app).  But when we have snuggle time (i.e. breastfeeding a toddler) I immediately reach for my "book" (Kindle 3).  The trouble started when she looked at me, questioningly, and said, "bubbles?"   I said, "no honey, that's mommy's...um...book.  No bubbles.  The bubbles are on my other Kindle." 

I understand that there are about 15 things inherently wrong with this whole conversation, knowing, as you do (in my narcissistic reality), that I'm a Charlotte-Mason-inspired,-Classical-Education-fan-with-a-slight-bend-toward-unschooling kind of momma.  If you have no idea what any of that meant, just know that I obsess too much about what matters to me and how I will ever teach it to my kids.

So here is my actual, actual problem:

1) Why am I reading when I should be making eye contact with my child or singing or teaching her the a-b-c's or something useful?  Frankly- because it's about the only chance I have to read these days.

2) Why do I need 2 Kindles?  The answer is actually another question:  Why do I feel a need to explain the difference between the two to my toddler?  The real answer of course is that I don't like major reading on a backlit screen and the old Kindle just doesn't do what the Fire does.

3)  Is it really a book?  I'll leave the answer to this one to the experts.  The debate rages on.

In the meantime, you can follow my reading trends on Goodreads.  There's an android app for that. 

Homeschool kid confesses: I don't like books.

My five year old daughter told me the last week that she doesn't like books.  Seriously?  We read at least an hour every day, what with school reading, bedtime reading and in between reading.  Probably more than an hour a day.  I never thought I'd be seeking advice on how to instill a love of reading in MY kid.  I feel like a dentist who just found a cavity in my own child. I sell children's books for crying out loud.

My first instinct:
PANIC

WHAT?  Of COURSE you love books!  Of COURSE you're just saying that because you don't want to hear me read the books I've picked out, right?  Right?

But she told me she doesn't like reading on her own, either.  *sigh*
more panic.
more mayhem.
more self-inflicted pain and suffering.

Then I decided to get to the bottom of the problem.

"Mom, we just have too many books.  And they're boring.  I like books about how to do things, and science books and stuff."

Ah ha.  Panic over.  She's ready for harder books. And it's time to downsize.
We spend a great deal of time in the non-fiction section of our children's library, but I do still pick up picture books now and then for the four year old we watch a few days a week, for our baby, and for the five year old, too.

I was able to explain that reading is a gateway to independent learning.  That when she is able to read on her own she will be free to learn about things that are interesting to her and she can learn them in her own way.  I explained that most of the books we have we are saving until her baby sister is ready for them.  Said five-year-old is truly beyond most of them.

In the meantime, we took a little break.  I didn't push it.  I skipped the library one week *gasp* and played charades one night instead of bedtime stories.  So what.  Go ahead- put me in homeschool jail.

We finished reading "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" today.  We charged through a couple chapters because she wanted to finish it.  She's excited about our library trip, tomorrow.  She's been reading on her own, more.  Maybe she just needed a break and maybe I'm a good mom for stopping to listen. 

Just curious:
How do you handle disturbing revelations like this?  Do you panic, like me, or are you more gracious?