Dear Prairie Chick

***UPDATE*** More of your questions answered here. (new questions at top).

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"Who is Prairie Gramma? Is it your family living close?"
Praire Gramma is our wonderful friend and neighbour lady. She is not a relative per se except by faith, which runs deeper than blood so that counts for something. We love her. She is the quintessential prairie neighbour who spoils my kids and brings me joy by dropping by while she is out for a walk or a bike ride (not now, mind you... now she comes in a warmed up vehicle have no fear). My parents (foster parents) do live quite near when they are in the country (namely, during summer), they live about 20 minutes from us.

I was looking for a kids web site that might have something like a word a day. Maybe even sent to your inbox everyday. Or questions to start a good conversation, a fact for the day, a simple craft for the day, a poem, a story, a website to go to. I know that is asking to much, but how cool that would be to everyday have some great learning ideas come to our inbox. Great homeschool tool. I don't think there is such a thing....you should start one. Hee heee.
Well... personally I am into a very natural and integrated approach to learning. That means that we start off with a topic to learn about, and as we are reading about that topic (in school books and supplemental readers and read alouds) we glean vocabulary words and geography lists and discussion topics, art and creative writing ideas right from our readings.

That said, different strokes for different folks. Superkids has daily vocabulary words for kids (they say) fourth grade and up. Personally I would give those "fourth grade" words to a second or third grader.

Usborne has a FANTASTIC one stop shop for educational links, we use this site extensively as we use their internet linked books in science. National Geographic also has a GREAT kids site.

As for poetry, we just read it. At least one poem per day per grade. I hate the twaddle that passes for kids poetry these days. Seriously. I mean poetry needs to be fun and engaging, but there is such a spectrum, it can move you to tears, it can puzzle you, intrigue you, romance you as well as delight you. I don't think I could be happy with any pre-fabbed inbox arrival of poetry... it's a vast and beautiful world I want us to explore by hearing the rustle of real pages and smelling the scent of real glue binding.... ahhhh....

As for crafts, check out Kids Craft Weekly. They have GREAT crafts, sent straight to your inbox once a week.

Sometimes I think I need to limit my time here. Ever feel like that?
Yep. I'm constantly tweaking and re-evaluating my computer time. The internet, blogosphere and online media are an incredible asset, and I want to make sure I utilize it responsibly, and not allow it to become a liability (in the sense that it holds me back or hinders other areas of my life).
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You ask, I'll answer. Here are a few questions that came up in the last post (sorry it took me so long to answer, I've been tobogganing... and hosting 13 adults and 17 kids for hot chocolate and chili and cake courtesy of Chris... and playing Guesstures... and hot tubbing... and sundayschooling... and church fellowship mealing.... and cleaning up from the party of 30 yesterday... and Walt Disneying... and making cinnamon buns for the past 48 hours). Feel free to fire away with any curiosity that plagues you about the life of one not so elusive Prairie Chick. I am an open book.

Savannah asked; "did the octopus hurt?"
Nah. I just hope we didn't hurt him... psychologically if you kwim. He was a harmless little gaffer we found floating around in our swimming hole and in hindsight I'm sure our youthful play passing him around and sticking him to various parts of our bodies for Kodak moments probably traumatized the poor jigger half to death.

Chelsea asked "WHY DO YOU LIVE IN SK???"
Cause there's no place I'd rather live. Seriously. Because my husband can work a job with incredible hours, 5 minutes from home, because I can stay home and raise 5 kids and own a farm and all of our possession 100% debt free on a family gross income of less than $50,000. The people I love most in all the world are here and because these wild prairies and seasons and prairie skies and landscapes have totally romanced me and won my heart.

Grammy asked; "Why? I mean, were you the child of a missionary, parent in the service, rich, or just ran off to be wild.
Just my normal (well.. not that it was normal, but you know what I mean) childhood alone was full of lots of hair raising experiences, being an adventurous tom-boy growing up in the wilds with pretty much books, pets and the wild outdoors for a toy box. I lived in a very small logging community so as kids we could pretty much go exploring all over the back 4000 (rather than back 40) on horseback, foot, four wheeler are old Chevy Astre once we hit our teens. There was lots of excitement in my own backyard.

At the age of 15 I went to Mexico for a year with a pastor couple who were building a mission down there. I studied by correspondence.

After school my foster parents encouraged me to spend some time in short term missions and I decided to go somewhere where I could keep building the Spanish I had started learning that year in Mexico. I joined a mission organization called "Operation Mobilisation", specifically to be part of their ship ministry on board the MV Logos II.

I spent 2 and a half years on board, eventually working as a "line up" coordinator, where I would travel ahead of the ship to a future port of call with 1 or 2 other coordinators and we would live in that port city for 2-4 months, getting paperwork in order, advertising, planning outreach and conference schedules, visiting local churches and schools to promote the ships visit and plan outreaches for ship teams to do when they reached port. So it was in these years that I did all of my traveling around South America, the Caribbean and places like Gibraltar, Spain and France.

After my time on the ship was up I was put on a recruiting team that travelled around Europe visiting churches and sharing about ship life to send out the challenge for more kids to become part of ships ministry in the future. This is when I saw more countries in the interior and North of Europe.

I met Prairie Guy on the ship, and he being Italian, there-in lies my affiliation with THAT spectacular country. We were engaged there in 95, married there in 96, honeymooned on his father's native island of Sardegna as well as doing some intense travelling around the mainland. We spent the first three years of our married life in Canada, but then transferred to Italy when a ministry opportunity opened up for us right during a very needy time in Prairie Guy's family with the sudden and very difficult death of his teenage sister.

For 3 and a half years we worked as caretakers of a bible camp and retreat centre just 20 minutes outside of Florence in the rolling hills of the Chianti wine region. Many friends came to visit and stay with us during those years and that's when we did fun stuff like Venice and Rome and Florence, over and over, and over again. But believe me, one never tires of it!

Grammy also asked; Is it hard to be in a secluded place after all that?
NO! Oh no, no, no. I love it. Considering I lived with 200 hundred people on board the Logos, and about the same number of people constantly running around and making noise day in and day out at the Villa, ooooohhhhhhhhh no. It's bliss. But I really like knowing I've got Prairie Gramma a quarter mile up the road, and three other fabulous (and I mean FABULOUS dahlings) girlfriends just seconds up the road to the east, south and west. It's perkfect. And I meant to spell it like that.

Grammy also asked; Why don't you write a book?"
Cause I'd rather read one. And even then, I'm too busy reading to my kids to get much time to read something of my OWN choosing. Not that I don't choose what to read to them because I do... and not that I don't ENJOY what I read to them, because I do... but you get the point. I love writing. I've always excelled at creative writing and enjoyed it immensely and I even did one of those "Institute for Children's Literature" courses, and they wanted me to continue on to an advanced course, but by then I had kids, and well... I just didn't have time for it. I guess that's why I blog. It's writing, small scale. And has pretty instant and wonderful rewards. (that being all of you.... *grin*). And I've never had a blog entry get rejected yet... heh heh.