May and June -- wow!

We have had some very busy days! We have been stretched in every direction, not unlike a wad of bubble gum! We thank the Lord for the many blessings packed into the last few weeks...

Our dear amigos, the Dappens, increased their tribe by one more daughter, through the marriage of Jimmy to the new Sarah Dappen. We were able to attend the wedding in northern Indiana, and Zak was honored to be a groomsman. Even the rehearsal, which ended in prayer, was a blessing....


Since we were in northern Indiana anyway, after the wedding, we invited Linn Dappen and her daughters to jump on the bus and take a quick trip to the Creation Museum, near southern Indiana, for a Sunday visit!


We all found the museum amazing, and the dinosaur sculptures were VERY realistic...


We took zillions of pictures at the Creation Museum, but I'll just include this cute one of Joshie, who really enjoyed feeting the goats at the petting zoo...


After our arrival back at home, we were in full swing preparations for the Wisconsin homeschool conference, but managed to squeeze in a day for the fossil hunt put on by In The Beginning, Inc./the Russ and Laurie Hanson family. In anticipation, Sammy and I made up a list of things to bring...


This was such a fun time, we are so glad Daddy forced us to go! We left the big kids home to work on conference preparations, so it was just Mommy and the "lower six". Beautiful drive, beautiful weather...


Here is Mrs. Hanson helping the kids interpret some of their finds. They brought all their metal working equipment, hats, sunglasses, and first aid tools. This part of Wisconsin is nearly indestructible, so they just went for it. The area is at the end of a pasture (with all the aromatic accessories commonly associated with pastures) where there is a cliff stacked with marine fossils: cephlapods, trilobites, sponges, you name it. You couldn't sneeze without hitting a fossil!

Marine fossils in Wisconsin? Hmmmm...how would you explain that?


Fording the creek to get to the fossils was a major source of fun.


You can take them with you...but we had to leave some of them behind, for fear that the tires on the station wagon would pop. The rounded big thing in the center is a sponge, I was told.

As alluded to in a previous post, we had a blessed and busy time at the Wisconsin homeschool conference, but before we knew it, it was over and Dave was off to California...


This laminated ad for Java One, a major computer conference, served as a reminder by the coffee pot for months that Daddy had to get ready for his talk. We got the news back in February that one of his proposals had been accepted. Of course, by the time June rolled around, his proverbial plate was pretty full. Actually, it was more like a buffet where you keep getting a new, clean plate.

At JavaOne, he led a session on "Grails Integration Strategies". It was well attended and received some nice feedback. Unfortunately, though we were all excited about the talk, it meant he was not home on June 2, which was....



...so we celebrated without him. Our consolation was watching one of Daddy's favorite computer colleagues interview him! Dave! The interview was broadcast or podcast, or otherwise cast in silicon, on the internet. At the end was Dave's characteristic sweep of the forehead and relieved sigh -- classic!



Here, Sarah is sitting on her decorated "throne", where she was presented with many and sundry gifts from her beloved family, including but not limited to, a new sewing machine.

The weather was actually cool and the sky overcast, so we prepared a lunch and set off for Devil's Lake State Park. Unfortunately, due to a slight misinterpretation of the map, we never actually saw Devil's Lake. We did, somehow, tackle the only loop trail Mommy has ever been on which seemed to be uphill the entire way! But, it was a beautiful hike and Sarah tried to be a good sport, and we all enjoyed pineapple upside-down cake upon our return.


The family weldor, Solomon, snapped a couple of "before" shots of the braket he is making for the bus table/beds. Currently, he has a big stack of steel to weld, as soon as we get our machine back from the shop. Next stop: Missouri!! We'll update later!!!

Hair cut boys

Tonight we "mowed the lawns" of all the men-folk. As Sammy observed Gideon getting his hair cut he remarked, "Giddy, your hair looks really nice. It changed from being blonde to skin-colored."

A discovery - teaching reading with the Bible!

We had such a blessed time at the Wisconsin CHEA homeschool conference last weekend! Meeting and talking with so many parents, who are really seeking the Lord's direction for their families, was exhilarating and encouraging. We had some long-longed-for fellowship with some of our good friends, too! Several Klein family members volunteered to do sessions, so we had to do some strategic planning, but the Lord helped us to keep track of everyone. I know we'll post pictures later...

Years ago, Joanna was saying all the letter sounds in the alphabet and when she got to d, she said, "I'm not allowed to say that one," much to the chagrin of Uncle Eddie. The d says "duh", and Joanna (a very compliant child) was allowed to say the sound, but not the expression, though it really comes to mind for the topic of this blog entry. Don't tell Uncle Eddie!

Teaching reading with the Bible, of course, is about as old as the Bible. But in the past year, we have pursued this more fully, and it has been a wonderful experience. Here is a little of our story thus far...

Yesterday, Sammy and I (Mommy) were on the lawn swing doing his Bible reading. Sammy is our 11th child, and for his reading, we have taken the final plunge in teaching reading from the Bible. I think he saw a couple of Bob Books (phonics readers) when we first started, but we disposed of them early on. Not phonics, just phonics readers.

Anyway, reading is much more than just learning letter sounds. Children are learning language from their earliest days, bit by bit. We have noticed more and more, as we have had more children, signs that they are understanding us earlier than we previously realized. For example, Joshie (number o-one-three, as we like to say) from before 8 months old UNDERSTOOD "no"! This may not be news to some alert parents, but for us, it was amazing. But more about that later, Lord willing.

Through the years, as the Lord has shown us the importance of intentionally teaching our children the Bible (especially, but not limited to, morning and evening devotions), we have noticed our younger children absorbing (memorizing) Bible verses. Hmmm. During our morning devotions, when we focus on memorizing together, the younger children, who do not always appear to participate, still learn and memorize. In fact, they can "lead" the family in calling out verses with Daddy (which the rest of us echo back, until we know it by heart). Many homeschoolers are familiar with this ability in young children, and use it for all kinds of information such as math facts, Latin conjugations, states and capitols, etc. But doesn't it seem like God had a higher purpose for this ability?

So, prior to reading lessons, our children are taking in a many Bible verses...just from hearing it read and recited.

In addition, when we start "school," we begin with Bible reading. We read and re-read familiar Bible stories (Jonah, Noah, creation, the birth of Jesus, the resurrection, etc.). It doesn't take long before these are largely memorized. No flash cards or flannelgraph, just reading (and discussing as needed). Even from age 3, Gideon was able to fill in the blanks while we were reading through the whole book of Jonah! We simply had no concept that this was possible or even desirable with our oldest children. We thought you were supposed to use children's "Bibles"!!

So, with Sammy, we simply started introducing letter sounds to simpler words or syllables. We kind of followed the pattern of most phonics programs: single consonants and short vowels. For sight words, we just picked out some words that followed no typical rule. By working on familiar stories, Sammy was familiar with what words would pop up, and learned to associate the letters (and their sound) with the words. It's really no different from using Spanish songs to help remember pronunciation (or conjugations).

With phonics readers, our children would ALWAYS look at the pictures and then make a total guess as to the sentence, with no regard for the words, letters, or even number of words on the page. I always had to cover the picture, or they would start guessing.

With the Bible, there are occasional guesses (for example, a word that also starts with the same letter). We chalk that up to laziness at the beginning. A reminder to "sound it out" gets him on track.

Starting with passages that Sammy already knows is helpful, because he can put together what the letters are actually are with the word. For example, Sammy asked "Is the P in Psalm silent? Because it's supposed to say 'salm'."

Sammy has a notebook in which we occasionally write down word families (should, could, would or might, sight, light). We used that daily in the beginning, and he sometimes would say, "I need to write that on my -ight list" or whatever.

I am greatly abbreviating all the adventures we've had with that, but now we have moved on to something he has not memorized: the gospel of Matthew. Starts with genealogies! They are great, because he can use all the phonics he's got, and how can you go wrong? I notice that when a new peculiarity emerges (Spanish is such a wonderful language!), I just mention that in this instance, the letter(s) say ____. And we go on. WHEN HE IS ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH A PASSAGE, this just gets programmed into his brain. Well, you know, it's just like learning the irregularities with spoken English -- it doesn't require a curriculum.

For writing, he is mostly doing copywork (for letters to people), but he is branching into shopping or packing lists, like the list he made for Sarah's 16th birthday. Making lists is such a fun thing. He loves to sound things out and write things, but still needs a good deal of help.

Some reasons why we are really enjoying teaching reading from the Bible:

1. It's a natural, because the child is familiar with it from their earliest days, uses it daily, has portions memorized, enjoys having his own copy, equates it with being BIG, and will need it all his life long.
2. Furthermore, because its natural and in use in the home, reading comprehension seems to be faster, because they know its SUPPOSED to mean something! In reading Matthew, Sammy asks questions that reveal he is not merely decoding words. It just seems to be the perfect book for reading -- no doubt!
3. There are no pictures to confuse.
4. It helps them to participate more in family Bible reading and church meetings.
5. It requires no accessories to purchase and so is very PORTABLE! Today, we will work at the laundromat!
6. It doesn't drop children off at a certain "grade level".
7. It has real meaning -- this is not typical of phonics readers.
8. It is so interesting! A true story, starting with the beginning of the whole world!
9. It's the most important book ever written. We really love "bringing the little children to Jesus" in this way.

Well, there are some observations from where we are so far. We are very thankful for what the Lord is teaching us through all our children.

Verse a day -- any comments????

We are re-doing a display board that we have at our literature table at homeschool conferences. It is regarding family devotions. We want to encourage Christian families in this important discipline. Much of the text on the display board is found in the little booklet on our website, called "How To Teach Your Children A Verse A Day".

Here is the main text of the display board, which really draws attention at our table!

The Secret that Everyone Already Knows

Do you want to know a secret?

The children that have been raised with an hour of Bible study every morning
are going to know more of the Bible
than the graduates of Bible institutes and religious seminaries.

Why? Because everything that little children learn, they learn better than an adult.
For example, small children can learn to play violin
better than those who learn it as an adult.
Those who learn to speak a foreign language as children
will speak it better than an adult.
Those who learn to play soccer as children
will play it better than those who learn it later in life.

That is the secret,
but the truth of the matter
is that it is no secret.
Everyone already knows it,
but the majority don't apply it to teaching the Bible to their children.

Wow, huh?

We have heard some really nice comments in the past from parents who have been blessed by the LORD in their efforts to have a daily devotion time with their children. We would like to have some written comments from folks, if possible, for our new board. If you happen to see this note, and would like to be an encouragement to other parents, please send us an email with your comments to daveanddebklein@yahoo.com -- or comment here if you prefer. If we get the comments in time, we'll put them on our display board. I know its a busy time for many, so if you don't see this until later, we'd still love to hear from you.

We are busy getting ready for the first of the two conferences we will be attending. We are stretched and frazzled at times, but the Lord keeps helping us keep our eyes on him, because he is the one we are doing this for!

Time flies!

Wow, May is almost over! We are really busy , so we are trying to make the most of our time, as you can see! (We were disappointed with the overall quality of the time-lapse...you may have to play it a few times to get the gist of some of them!)

Here you can see Bekah filling the basket with balls of matched socks!

The little boys got the laundry all sorted in a flash!

Nobody can recall Solomon washing dishes THIS fast!

Susanna dried the dishes faster than you can say Susanna dried the dishes.

Letter writing time certainly went quick!

Who folded all the laundry?

We are always stocking up on toilet paper!

Brown rice isn't usually considered fast food. Here is Abi's famous brown rice cooked Mexican style! (Though we normally use a lid, we learned you can cook it just as fast without.) Yum!

Thanks to Abi, who had too much time on her hands, for setting up the photos!

If thy veggie offend thee

Something that perks everyone up after the hour long drive to church is Dad's tradition of giving everyone a sugarless breath mint as they disembark the bus. As we all got settled in our seats in the minutes before the meeting started, Gideon (4), sucking on his mint, informed Daddy that one of his brothers had somehow worked the system so that he possessed three breath mints.

Intending to settle the matter during the break, Daddy hastily stated that the thrice-minted brother was simply being greedy, and instructed Giddy to get in his seat.

Momentarily obedient, Giddy couldn't restrain the urge to share Daddy's assessment with the object of his envy. He quickly delivered the news to his brother and returned to his seat.

"Daddy says you're a green bean."

Choring

Choring is the word our farmer friends here in Amish country use to describe the doing of their varied daily agricultural tasks. Our city-slicker children initially thought this was a funny way of putting it, but our limited exposure has revealed other related terms such as: lunching, concreting, and combining (with the emphasis on the first syllable -- the thing a combine does). Ben refers to this handy manipulation of words as verbing.

On our farm, our daily agricultural tasks only involve certain quackless fowl. Choring is divided up between between Rebekah and Joanna, with Susanna and Noah waiting in the wings, pardon the pun (if that passes for one). They braved the brunt of winter, the relentless wind, the really cold ice and the arctic blast to deliver food and momentarily liquid water (that was a dilemna) to our remaining six head of muscovy ducks.

Though it was another very cold Wisconsin winter, each fowl fared fine, and we lost none due to hypothermia. Rebekah and Joanna were troopers in keeping the ducks in high protein crumble and gave us daily updates on the ducks' antics.

"They don't want to leave their house."

"They don't move much."

"They like to eat snow."

Now that spring is here and the snow has finally melted, changing out their straw is much easier. It is a pretty quick process in which many hands make light, but stinky, work.



Joanna and Rebekah shovel out the straw, and it is quickly transferred to the waiting vehicle of the little brothers.


The boys push their vehicle up a hill into which our compost bin is built, so they can dump-truck the old straw into the bin from above. This was their decision, as the girls don't really care where the old straw goes, and the boys just want a good reason to climb the hill.


The relatively fresh straw is tossed into the duck house.


The ducks appear to patiently wait for us to finish with whatever it is we are doing. Can you see the looks of thankfulness on their bills? Me neither.

We recently thinned our our herd to one male (drake) and the remaining females. We are waiting to see if they start laying eggs, now that the days are getting longer...

Higher ground

We are enjoying the unexpected this spring. After snow on Saturday, we looked forward to a sunny day on Monday to hit the trail!

With few exceptions, most abrupt changes in altitude in Wisconsin are due to big piles of rocks. One exception is Roche a Cri, located near Friendship. It is a big hunk of laminated sandstone which forgot to erode along with the surrounding landscape.

Monday was Benjamin's 17th birthday, so we celebrated by scaling the hunk of sandstone. We packed a simple backpacker's lunch...cheese, trail mix, apples and root beer.


This was a much anticipated trip. We really enjoy "backpacking". Sammy and Gideon were the only ones with actual backpacks, and we consumed our lunch on the hour drive to the park. Gideon was carrying diaper changing supplies for Joshie. Sammy was carrying a compass and a history book by Winston Churchill (for Zak).


The ice has not gone off of all the lakes, but this creek was flowing. We read that the rusty color of the water is due to the dye in the roots of the trees that border the rivers in this part of the state.


The main park entrance hasn't opened, but the winter access remains open for winter sports. We met a few other hikers who assured us that the trail up top was fine.


Rock layers of soft sandstone. There are petroglyphs at the bottom.


I'm thankful we noticed Gideon wasn't wearing socks before we left the house.


Liked canned mushrooms on pizza, newcomers have to get used to certain quirky things about the midwest. Like hiking up stairs!


Everyone zipped happily upward, but Mommy had to take it slow, for the baby.


The view from the top deck: beautiful, breezy and relaxing.


Sarah took turns with the camcorder.


It was in the low 40's, which was very pleasant for hiking. The trees here don't noticeably start leafing out until the end of May. But there are other obvious signs of spring here: MOSQUITOES!!!!


Joshy made it up the rock without even working up a sweat!


We rested up top for quite a while. Then, it was back down the "trail".


Happy birthday Ben! We love you!

Heading downstairs was just as fun.


Looking up at big brother.


What was that thing that goes before a fall....?


Giddy up!

First things first

We recently were discussing parental things, just Daddy and Mommy, and Dave recalled a couple of important principles that have shaped our family to some degree over the last several years.

1. What is taught to the children first thing each day shows what is most important.
2. What Dad spends his time on teaching the children shows what is most important.

This had led us to starting our days in the Bible as a family.

To believe and say these things is not a credential that we as a family have it altogether. We don't. But really, the Lord has blessed us so much in helping us to keep and guard some simple priorities.

We are gearing up for some pretty busy months ahead, and experience has taught us the importance of keeping first things first...sometimes the hard way!

In addition to some work-related deadlines for Dave, which have us all very excited, we are looking forward to attending the Christian Home Educators Fellowship of Missouri conference in June. We have applied to have a table in their exhibit hall, and hope to meet lots of new (to us) families.

Snow place like home

We enjoyed a typical Wisconsin winter storm yesterday, within the same seven day period during which we got our first sunburns of the year.

Beginning with rain, we moved into freezing rain, then sleet, then dense snow...as mentioned previously, cream cheese would best describe its density (at least, to the shovelers -- it stuck on the shovels).


Our mail carrier was very thankful when we installed this new box last spring, as she doesn't have to leave her car to deliver most packages. It was a very low skill project (all the digging), except for the welding part.


Such a beautiful morning.


Our house is hiding behind these heavily laden trees. They normally provide a pleasant, shady canopy for eating breakfast or lunch overlooking our garden, which is very sunny.


We got ice.


In Mexico, we don't buy much in the way of souvenirs, unless you count these these great clothespins! Perfect for little hands, and they have these cute alligators on them. Just haven't found anything in the States like these.


Below: We bought the washer on the left at a garage sale for $15 during a 4 week period in which our wonderful, computer driven, $$$, front loader was waiting for parts. (Our front loader is wonderful, but they don't make them like these anymore.)

This wringer washer works wonderfully and was in mint-condition. They obviously used rain water for washing. A neighbor up the road saw how much we enjoyed using it, and offered us a second one for free. Our neighbor works at the landfill, and often finds gems like this. It's nice having friends in high places.


So far, this is the only branch down that we've discovered. If the wind picks up before all this starts melting, we will probably lose a lot more, but its very still this morning.


Below: you'd normally be looking at the gate to our garden, which you see under these branches.

Cardboard-Landia

Today is Noah's 8th birthday! According to the "golden birthday" principle, it is his golden birthday, because his birthday is on the 8th of the month, and this year he turns 8. So, he requested golden food: honeycomb cereal for breakfast, macaroni and cheese, corn, and apple juice for lunch ...you get the idea.


Sarah makes everyone a birthday poster such as above. We got this idea from our friends, the Dappens.

We enjoyed staying inside for most of the day, as we had a big winter ice/snow storm most of the day. It's still snowing outside, and the branches are really drooping on the trees. The snow is the consistency of cream cheese! I think about 6 inches. Wow!


Anyway, after our special breakfast and morning Bible time, we let him open his gifts. This includes the typical box of homemade presents and family artifacts, which are wrapped and re-wrapped for everyone's birthday. Then a few Noah-specific gifts, including a tool set.

Ben helped pick out the set, and Solomon introduced the tools to Noah.



This is not a toy set. Following Dave's theory of saturation, coupled with my theory of divesting myself of items of frequent use, we often give the kids real useful items.

First, by increasing the quantity of useful items (saturation), we have more chances to find them. Top items currently are: nail clippers, tape measures (hence, Noah's gift), Chapstick, combs, can openers, tape and shoelaces. Theoretically, at some point we will have purchased enough nailclippers so that we will be finding them evenly distributed around our house, not unlike Creation magazines.

Second, divesting myself of items of frequent use works like an invisible "This purse carries no nail clippers" sign, while teaching personal responsibility.

ANYWAY, the boys surrounded the red, plastic, impact-resistant tool box with deep respect, and listened with minimal patience as Solomon showed them what was what.

After we cleaned up a bit, we began construction of Cardboard-Landia...a town of model houses built of materials from our burn barrel box. Since we are coming out of a flu, we had lots of saltine cracker boxes, as well as lemon lime soda boxes.

Solomon selected a specially preserved box to use for his house. He was the only one to employ trusses in his construction.



Joanna helped the little boys, built her house, and then made the Welcome sign (pictured at top).


Hannah put a lot of detail into her house, including a dormer (her house is pictured at top).



Zak joined in the fun, but his project was a scale model of our front porch, which may be our next house project.


Noah's plans grew as he began building. Fortunately, we had lots of building materials!


Sarah's house included construction paper siding, which never needs painting.


Bekah went for a model of our current house.


After clearing the table, we had Noah's golden lunch, followed by his lemon yellow cake.


Here is your online tour of Cardboard-Landia!



Left to right: Susanna, Bekah and Sarah (front porch with railing).


The house that Solomon built.


Bekah's summer home, and Noah's (with attached garage and architectural shingles).