Summer - Weeks 4 & 5?

I've lost track of what week it is, lol. I wonder if that's a good or bad sign?

We've been chugging along. Last week Cameron was the one who got 100% on his spelling and Cassia only got 33%. The words are getting harder though. Cameron is now PAYING ATTENTION to the words and thinking about them. WooHoo! I'm having Cassia write each word three times each day now. She's complaining a lot about it but I really believe that you need a physical-mental connection for writing it correctly before it will sink in. We'll see if she does better this week.

We've also added a new read aloud to our daily curriculum. Last Wednesday was Cassia's 6th birthday and one of her gifts was the complete Chronicles of Narnia (abridged) on CD. We've been listening to it in the car and the kids are absolutely enthralled! I am so thrilled about that. They play Narnia when they come home and Cassia took a box and turned it into a magic wardrobe for her dolls. She cut out trees and a lamppost from paper and drew in the snow. So cute! And the BEST part about our Narnia obsession is that Cameron happened across our paperback of the collection and decided that he wanted to read it! He got up early and read the first chapter of The Magician's Nephew before I was even out of bed. He even made himself a bookmark. I think this is the day that I have been waiting for his entire life. :D

I always wondered how people could simultaneously read more than one book without confusing them but I guess I just never tried it! We are having no trouble at all enjoying both Harry Potter and Narnia. We have just five chapters left in The Chamber of Secrets and no plans to stop reading the series until we're finished! (Cameron and I went and saw The Half-Blood Prince last weekend and he wants to know what's going to happen next. I told him that he's just going to have to read the books to find out!)

Our other newest summer time indulgence is the swimming pool! I know, not really a novel activity for July but we just never really got into the whole public pool thing. BUT we've found a gorgeous little pool about a half hour away that is fed from a natural warm spring and tucked away between the oaks. We've been meeting some of our park friends there and let me tell you, it is heaven. The days just melt away in the sun and laughter. There are actually three pools so there is something for everyone. The only hard part is getting them out of there!

And now I need to start cracking the whip on the spelling work that is NOT going on behind me so that we can read our Harry Potter for the day!

Summer - Week 3

D'oh! Has it been over a week again? Bad me. We were out of town Monday though, so that day shouldn't count.

We've kept up with the spelling, math, and Harry Potter every day. The spelling definitions are PURE torture. It took Cameron two hours to write three definitions, two days in a row! Ugh. Of course, if he hadn't been using fancy crazy writing then it wouldn't have taken so long. Whatever. It's his choice to take forever if he wants to. Seriously, six definitions in two days isn't too much to expect. (Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Is it working?) But I think it's paying off.

Not really much else to report! Cassia started her new ballet class Tuesday morning. It's much more disciplined but she still loves it. It's the Pre-Threshold class, for 6-yr olds with prior experience. New 6-yr olds would go into the class she just left. Next year will be Threshold and the next she would start the numbered levels that promote by skill rather than age. She's really grown up....

2006


2007


2009

Summer - Week 2

Well, week two is just about at a close and I have to say that, aside from my cold, it's gone really well. We continued on with spelling, math, and reading aloud just about every day. Tuesday was an exception because the kids got it in their heads to write their own Harry Potter books. Cameron's was called Harry Potter's Book of Werewolves and Other Things. He filled it with pictures and descriptions of favorite things from the wizarding world. Cassia wrote one called Butterflies and Fairies which she filled first with the fairies from the Tinkerbell Movie and then from butterflies taken from a field guide. They literally spent all day working on them. Wednesday, after I made them do schoolwork first, they wrote second books! Cameron's was Cameron Potter's Book of Spells by Nicholas Flamel and Cassia's was Hermione's Book Book. Cameron's, obvioiusly, listed spells and their magic words. Cassia's was true genious though - she brought out practically all of our Dr. Suess and Little Golden Books, dumped them on the table, and copied the title and a picture from her favorites. And I think this was a 20 page book she made!

It was so funny though. Copying those spelling word definitions from the dictionary was pure and complete torture. You seriously would've thought that it was cruel and unusual punishment from the way Cameron went on about it, but when the writing was something he wanted to do? He wrote all day long for two days. Now, I know all my unschooling friends will remind me that there is no need to force them to do writing and spelling when, as they've just proven, they will do it willingly when they are interested but having to spell out every, single word for an almost 8 year old was too much for me. He really was seeming to have no sense of how to spell things at ALL and I can already see the improvement in just these two weeks. He's been keeping a chore chart for a Cub Scout badge and the entries were almost illegible three weeks ago, but this weeks was neat and orderly. Of course the spelling was atrocious because he couldn't read the words from the previous week's chart and didn't put a thought into how the word should actually be spelled, but we're working on it. While he was writing his Spell Book, he did actually make some decent efforts at spelling the words correctly before asking me for help.

Cassia finished her math book this week and started on Primary Math 1B. She was so excited to start the new book today that she did five exercises. The kids also took a spelling pre-test today and Cameron got them all right! Cassia missed two. One because she transposed the letters (sotp instead of stop) and one because she glanced at Cameron's paper as I marked it as all right and then changed one of her answers!! The funny thing is that it was right the first time and she changed it to be wrong. LOL. She was very upset to hear that. The child takes any lack of perfection very hard though. It was seriously tragic for her to get less than 100%. I think she might really be Hermione Granger!

And speaking of Hermione, we finished The Sorcerer's Stone today. As soon as I closed the book, Cameron grabbed it out of my hand and ran to replace it on the shelf and bring out The Chamber of Secrets. But then he didn't want to read it. ?? Cassia was actually the one who begged to start it and then to read "just one more chapter." I think my general rule is that I will not say no to someone who wants to read. It's not even a majority rules thing, like Cassia was insisting, it's just that it would be wrong as a homeschool parent to stifle a desire to read or be read to. If anyone doesn't want to listen, then the house is plenty big enough for them to find somewhere else to be. Of course Cameron didn't want to miss any of the story so he stayed and listened.

We're leaving for the long weekend tomorrow evening and I'm still up in the air as to what we're going to do during the day. Part of me wants to go to Park Day since it's been about three weeks since we've been there. But the saner part of me keeps reminding me that I have a miserable cold that got much worse after we went to roller skating on Monday and that we really should spend the day packing the car and such (seeing as how I'm blogging instead of doing that now). We also need to take those spelling tests, do some math, and read some more Harry Potter because I am really liking the consistency of working daily. So we'll see if sanity or desire wins out.

Have a Happy 4th of July!!

For Megan ;)

Ahhh, summer is here! The lazy days of summer. The lazy days of summer when we are accomplishing more schoolwork than we have in the last couple months!! We're on a break from most of our activities, with the exception of ballet for Cassia, violin for Cameron, and gymnastics for Greyson, and it is amazing what we can get done when we're not running all over town!

We started the summer out with camps. Cassia had a week of horse camp. She LOVED it and she she did really good too. Especially for someone who had never ridden a horse before. :) During that week, Cameron and I did a lot of math and a lot of science in her absence. It was amazing to me how the household dynamic changed. The next week Cameron had golf camp. He also LOVED it and did great. The household dynamic changed that week even more markedly. Cassia was so displaced. She just didn't know what to do with herself without him to play with! But we survived and I was even more determined to really "crack down" on the bookwork this summer.

And I have so far succeeded. Last week, every single day we did spelling work, math, and then read aloud. Every. Single. Day. It doesn't sound like much when I write it out here, but it really has been multiple hours of bookwork.

I realized that Cameron's spelling is atrocious. He has no clue how to spell anything, so I whipped out the old Spelling Power book and started over from the very first list: bus, bat, sit, see, tub, us. I'm giving both Cameron and Cassia the same words but varying what they are doing with them.

Monday:

• both take turns reading the introductory paragraph about the words.
• both write list words.
• Cassia looks up words in the Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary, laughs at the silly drawings, and tries to read the silly example sentences.
• Cameron looks up words in the Webster's Children's Dictionary, reads all the definitions and usage examples, and copies the most relevant definition to his paper.

Tuesday:

• both write list words again
• Cassia does fill-in-the-blank exercises from workbook.
• Cameron finishes looking up and writing definitions.

Wednesday:

• both take a pretest and write any missed word three times

Thursday:

• both write list words again

Friday:

• both take test

Cassia is doing great with this whole thing. She got 100% on both her pretest and her Friday test and it really seems to be helping her reading take off too. Cameron is already struggling. *sigh* He complains the whole time about the definitions and has trouble reading words in the dictionary that I really think he should be able to. He wrote all of his "B"s backward on the pretest (a totally forgivable error, but still) and then spelled "sit" with an "e" on the Friday test. Argh. I'm really, really hoping though that this just shows that he really needs to be doing this. I remembering doing this in third grade, so I know I'm not expecting too much of him.

Anyway, after that we do math. Cassia is just finishing up the last couple review sections in Primary Math 1A. She's been flying through this book. Cameron's made some big strides too, though he rarely does more than one exercise a day. He claims to love long division so that is very good news, lol. I guess no one has told him that it's supposed to be hard and he's supposed to hate it. ;) He's about halfway through 3A. Now, if you look back in my blog you'll probably see that those are the exact same books they started the year with, but like I said before, we've been so busy with "stuff" that we really haven't had very much time to do anything else! Cameron's also been playing a lot of Timez Attack, and of course there's good old-fashioned life learning too. I feel so guilty sometimes that we don't have more to show for our year, but they really did learn so much and did so much.

The last thing we've been doing each afternoon is some summer reading. I really want them to find pleasure in books, so I wanted to read something fun. I gave them the choice of Robin Hood; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Charlotte's Web; or Harry Potter. Guess which one they picked. So we are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone again. They are being great listeners though. This is really the most successful read aloud we've ever had. We are reading two chapters a day and I'm optimistic that by the end of the summer we will make it through at least two, if not three, of the series.

And so that's what we've been up to. Today we started the day with roller skating and then came home, ate lunch, and got right to work. Cameron has been complaining bitterly about having to write the definitions again but, oh well. Cassia actually finished looking up all of her words before even got halfway through his first definition so she moved on to some Explode the Code work. She's already completed book 1 and just started book 2 today. She just loves it. Cameron hated that series. It's funny how different they are. This week I'm hoping to add some science and/or history into the mix too. We'll see. Honestly, I'll be happy to just keep this up for another five days straight. ;)

We'll see if I can keep up on the blog too. I've missed you. :)

It was a great day!

Yesterday was a GREAT day!

...until dinner. OMG, what is it about dinnertime that drives them absolutely BONKERS and then sends me over the edge. By the time DH got home I was seriously spewing smoke out of my ears and shooting lightning bolts from my eyes. Gah. Tell me other kids do this? Tell me that it's normal for children to lose their sense of hearing and respond to nothing but their sibling's maniacal giggle. Tell me that they will outgrow this and I will survive!! OK, enough venting. I feel better now.

So since last time... Thursday was ballet where we signed up for the Annual Student Showcase. Did I tell you about that? They're doing a full ballet called The Enchanted Garden and each class gets to be a different flower. The exciting part is that it's a real production with a dress rehearsal and publicly sold tickets and everything. Should be really fun. Friday was Favorite Park Day. Man, did we miss that! Between sickness and the weather it had been over a month since we'd been able to play.

Saturday brought the first Little League practice of the season. I think it's going to be a great season. The coach really impressed me for some reason. I haven't even talked to him face to face yet, lol, but his level of organization and contact is a thousand times better than our coach last year. The scary thing is that we also signed Cassia up for tee ball this year. I know Cameron's games will all be at one of the three fields at this one park and I'm hoping that Cassia's games will all be at the elementary school across the street so that if we do have game overlap during the week (when I can't count on DH to be home to drive one of them) it won't be too tragic of a situation. Of course it's also possible that I'm going to end up dropping poor Cameron off by himself and then driving Cassia all over town for her games, but I'm hoping for the best. And he won't care either way. And there is a parent on the team that we know from last year with a little girl that Cassia is good friends with, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind keeping an eye on him if need be.

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. At one point, Cassia got out her phonics book and started working on it. Cameron said, "Cassia, what are you doing?? It's the weekend! You don't have to do school today!" I wonder if that difference in attitude is simply because I had put more pressure on him to do school every week day or just a difference in personalities?

Monday we went to gymnastics and as I was digging through the school bag to find something for Cameron to work on while we were there, I realized that I never got out his new math book! All that build up to finish the old book and then we forgot to get the new one out, lol. Yes, unschoolers at heart, all of us. So we did science instead. He started a workbook page where he was supposed to rearrange phrases to make a logical sentence and then find the word that it was describing. The first sentence was "Only plants / can use this energy / from the sun / to make food." That was actually a great lesson because we got to discuss sentence mechanics too - two subjects in one! The workbook didn't have enough space for him to actually write the sentence out (since it is a 4th grade book and his writing is still 1st grade size) so he wrote it on the only paper I had in the bag - story paper! Of course this prompted him to draw a picture to accompany the sentence and then, since it was science, he labeled all the pictures. So that made it art and spelling too. And he never did make it past the first sentence but I think he got quite a lot out of it!

Tuesday we went to another Odyssey of the Mind practice and the kids rehearsed again. They're doing a fabulous job and I can't wait to see what the final creation is going to look like. The kids seem to really like it too. I wonder if this will spark a love of acting/theater? Our 4-H project for the day was canceled due to the sickness of the leaders. That's the problem with being the first ones sick. Once we're better and want to do stuff, everyone else is sick! I can't remember what we did instead. Did we watch a movie? Play a game? I really can't remember. Hmm.

Wednesday was our day off from activities. We watched the Tinkerbell movie. We built with K'Nex. We finally started Cameron's new math book. The first lesson was numbers to ten thousand and he did great until we got to the "write the number in words" section. Does any kid like those? LOL. Those last four problems took a crazy amount of time. Cassia did three or four lessons in her math book in that time. After they finished their math, we read two of the last four chapters in Story of the World, Volume 1. Even though we haven't really done a lot of extra stuff in the last half of the book, we're still pretty much on schedule with our 5-year plan for the four volumes. So I'm happy with that. The next two chapters are on the fall of Rome and then after that I think we'll spend a week or two going through some of the myriads of Roman stuff that DH's aunt (a retired 4th/5th GATE teacher) gave me before moving on to Volume 2.

Today we spent the morning spring cleaning and then did an in depth phonics and grammar study - we watched The Electric Company on DVD. ;) Did you know that Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman (OMG, he was so funky cool, rofl) were on that?? After lunch we went to ballet. During that Cameron did two exercises in his math book - obviously there was no writing of words involved, lol. Greyson had me read a couple books to him and then he followed one of the ballerinas around the studio watching her vacuum. He's such a nut. Cameron wanted to do history too but just then we heard the pitter-patter of little ballerina feet coming down the stairs. I planned to do it once we got home but they got distracted with K'Nex and I got distracted blogging and now I don't think we have enough time before baseball practice. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. :)

Busy busy!

So as not to disappoint my loyal fan base of 2, I'll blog instead of doing something productive like laundry or grocery shopping or cleaning or bread-making or any number of a zillion other things.

We had a busy day yesterday! We started out with a really great Odyssey of the Mind meeting. It was raining (oh and we saw several of the most beautiful rainbows on the way there. I wish I could upload the pictures in my head to share with you!) so instead of working on the set and props like we had planned to, we went ahead and did a rehearsal. I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but the challenge is to portray a candy factory that makes five different candies that each feature a healthy ingredient. The factory needs to have a candy maker giving out and describing samples and a comical customer who buys them, as well as machines and such.

The kids auditioned for the parts they wanted and Cassia was chosen as the head candy maker! Well, actually the three kids who wanted the part Ro-Sham-Boed for it and she won, lol. But she did a FABULOUS job. She stood behind the register and had to completely ad lib the candies and how they are made with a healthy ingredient. Everyone was pretty impressed. Cameron and another boy, E6, are her assistants who run the machines. The kids decided that the comical customer would be the oldest girl, C9, and that she would enter the candy factory with her kids, N5 and I6, who also happen to be the shortest and shiest kids so it worked out really well. C9 was a fabulous mother too. She is a natural ham, lol, but was also wonderful at prompting Cassia for the things she was supposed to say. The final member of the team, T6, who was originally only going to participate if he didn't have to perform, was the sound effects guy. He sits in a large box full of noise makers and makes the sounds of the machines. He also did an EXCELLENT job. All in all, I was extremely impressed with the kids. I had been getting a little concerned about how and if it was all going to come together and whether anybody was going to get anything out of it at all, but now all those fears have been put to rest. They're going to do great.

The coach video-taped the rehearsal and the kids loved seeing themselves on tv, lol. After we watched the recording and reviewed some of the things that might be better done (like not talking over people, lol) we all went out to McDonald's for lunch. Yes, you read right. We went to McDonald's. I still feel over-salted, lol. But the kids had fun. There was a huge indoor plaything and we've all been cooped up way too long, so that was worth it.

After that we rushed off to go pick up some farm fresh eggs from a friend and then rushed home to meet another friend who was bringing by some aromatherapy stuff. I love that I'm getting so much stuff lately from friends. I have a friend for eggs; one for aromatherapy sprays, bath salts, and the best all-natural hand sanitizer ever made; one for Arbonne which I am very quickly getting addicted to; and then I have our farm for veggies which feels like I'm getting them from a friend. :)

And then we rushed off again to mail some packages and get a PO Box for our homeschool group - both of which turned out to be a bigger ordeal than I anticipated! Apparently, PO Boxes are a hot commodity in this town and it looks like I'm going to have to go to a commercial post office to find one. So that kind of sucks since it is on the other side of town and not next to anything that I regularly go to... except the drive through Starbucks, lol. So that whole thing took a lot longer than I was expecting so we had to skip the grocery store and come straight home to shove some noodles and marinara sauce into our mouths and rush us out again to a Homeschool 101 meeting.

The Homeschool 101 meetings are something new that our chair has been organizing where new homeschoolers and those considering homeschooling can come together with veterans to ask and answer questions. This was the first one I've been able to make it to and it was fun to get out and talk shop. The dynamic was interesting though. There was one woman considering homeschooling and then 5 families who, like me, are still pretty new at this but also kind of feel like experts at the whole thing! LOL, so what we had was this one terrified and confused single mother being bombarded by 7 expert opinions by people who are really still newbies themselves. I wonder if we helped her at all. One person, in particular, I'm afraid was a bit intimidating and the chair had to keep redirecting the conversation away from what's wrong with schools and back to what's unique to homeschooling. But it was fun to get out and I hope I'm able to go again next time - though hopefully I'll be able to leave the kids at home.

Today we are making up for being so busy yesterday by being exceptionally lazy. C&C didn't get dressed until 1:15 and have been watching tv all morning. I really need to run some errands though so I better get moving. One of the things my friend dropped off yesterday was a spray that promised to focus the cluttered mommy mind so that one can prioritize and actually get things done. It worked yesterday but today I used it just before hopping on the computer and so it had the effect of focusing my computer time. In other words, instead of doing all the things I should've been doing, I just spent the last two hours uploading photos and blogging. I guess that's better than just wasting time on Facebook like I normally do, lol. I think I should ask her to make a spray that will instill the nesting instinct. Nothing like that pre-baby need to organize and clean up your life. Anyway, off I go. Nice chatting with you. :)

Now back to our regularly scheduled lives

Wow. That was quite an illness we had there. We suffered through everything, very slowly, one at a time, for weeks. Blech. I guess it really is better to only have one puking child at a time though, right?

This week has been spent getting us back to normal. Cameron has been v e r y s l o w l y making his way through the last two reviews in his math book and finally finished today. He's been reading here and there and he seems to really be getting better all the time. We've been reading books on dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. We've been watching documentaries on butterflies and submarines and Bill Nye the Science Guy on earthquakes. We've been listening to Vivaldi. We've been playing cribbage and 'Smath and Options (Scrabble with prism shaped tiles that you can flip).

Cassia has flown through her math book and her phonics book. She's on exercise 18, I think, in math after only a couple weeks. And you know we aren't doing book work more that a couple times a week. She just sits down and works for over an hour every time she does it. She's also about a third of the way through Explode the Code 1. It's amazing how well she is learning to read from that. Totally different experience than with Cameron. She's also been reading library books and doing Starfall. And the art... oh man, that girl is creative. She made the most amazing abstract drawing today. She says that it's a Spanish Chess board but it looks like, well, here let me upload it... (Egads. The effort of that and the distractions that followed have delayed my getting back to this for about 24 hours!) OK, nevermind, let me just say that it reminds me of a Picasso. Beautiful work.

Greyson has been Greyson, lol. He's been busy fixing everything with the plastic tool sets he got for Christmas and cooking with a combination of my and Cassia's dishes. He's amazing with sounds - animal imitations and voices and the like. He's also really becoming able to play *with* the other kids and understand their games. It's nice to see. Of course he's also able to express his displeasure with things too and he and Cassia, especially, have been clashing heads a lot. That's not so nice to see. But it's all part of growing up, I suppose.

After missing 4-H and rollerskating and gymnastics and the PARK for about three weeks now, it was really nice to be able to get back to some of those things. For 4-H Puppetry, we made these this week



Unfortunately, it was raining for our Valentine's Party at Favorite Park Day so it's been postponed to next week. Waahhhh! We REALLY wanted to go to the park. We were even going to ditch the 4-H Origami project to go but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. Some people suggested having the party at someone's house instead, but I think the point, for quite a few of us, is to get OUT of the house. Usually when we have these parties half the crafts and activities go undone because the kids are just too busy playing in the sand box and climbing trees. But it was okay because we had Origami to go to instead... until the project leader told us that her kids were sick and they had to cancel! So we went from having too many things to do on Friday to too few. We ended up going to the grocery store and doing laundry instead. Joy of joys.

We did get to go to the farm too though and it's been way to long since we'd been there. LOL, I was watching a show on the Travel Channel the other night and my mouth literally started watering when the host tasted some local cooked greens on his travels in Greece. I knew right then that it had been way too long since we had any good fresh veggies in the house! But now we are stocked and our menu for Valentine's dinner include Pink Beet Pilaf and sauteed dinosaur kale. Mmmmm. And on that note, I better get planning.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

It's Spring, Time to Sing Vivaldi!

OK, it's not spring but it might as well be with the weather we've had the last few days! It was 68 and gorgeous today. Too bad the kids are still sick. They were well enough to play in the back yard though and they really appreciated that one.

Since they were feeling better though, I figured I should bust out the books. Cameron finished off the last regular exercise in his math book and is two-thirds of the way through the second-to-last review.

I haven't been able to find Cassia's math book ANYwhere!! It just disappeared. I have a feeling that it got left out somewhere and someone "put it away" in a rush and it's now residing in a random toy bin somewhere. I glanced at most of the bookshelves and didn't see it there, but we have a lot of books so I could have easily just missed it.

Anyway, I finally gave up and skipped her ahead to the Primary Math 1A book. I doubt she'll miss the last third of Earlybird 2B and if we do find it, she'll probably have a blast going back and doing it for fun. She was thrilled to start the new book. Of course the first chapter is ultra easy - counting to ten. But it does have something new in that it's asking her to match the numbers with the words. Cameron was never able to do that but I have a feeling that she's going to pick it up pretty easily. She's got a great memory for stuff like that, where as he - like me - needs the rules and reasons behind it before it will stick.

Another difference between the two of them stood out very sharply today. There was an exercise that asked her to color a certain number of objects. She happily and carefully colored each one a different color and proudly showed off each set to me. I remember when Cameron did that exercise - he HATED it!! He hated to color so much. When he did do it, he would just kind of scribble the picture out. I remember I finally just told him to put an X on them instead of coloring because it was such torture for him. So his 1A book is a big scribbley mess and hers is a beautiful work of art, lol. Nothing against not wanting to color though!! I totally get that that's not his thing and I'm okay with it, but it was nice to see all the beautiful colors today. It flashed me back to my own brightly and carefully colored worksheets of decades past. And in her enthusiasm, she completed six exercises and begged me for more but I told her to save a few for tomorrow.

After that I asked them if they wanted to read a history story or learn about a composer. Cassia had found the Classical Magic books the other day and was looking through them. I am embarrassed to say that I had completely forgotten about them!! LOL. Anyway, I thought I'd let them choose what else to do and Cameron said "Histoser." Cassia also chimed in with "Compistory." So I followed their lead, like any good homeschool mom would, and we did both. ;) For history we read about Augustus Caesar and the kids were thrilled to learn that both their birth months were named for leaders of Rome. We followed that up with the first few pages of Classical Magic and learned some of the characteristics of the Baroque period and then read a short biography of Vivaldi. I thought we would finish off by listening to a few clips of Vivaldi's Springtime. We have a couple of fun versions of the first movement so we listened to those and then I went to Classical Archives to play a more sophisticated version. To my surprise though, they wanted to listen to ALL the seasons! Mostly we just listened to clips of each, not the full movement, but we did sample all three movements of all four seasons. And then they went through and listened to all of the baroque period kid's songs! (From the Beethoven's Wig and Classical Magic serieses - yes, I've sorted them all into iTunes playlists - yes, I'm a geek.)

So that was a lot of fun. I'm hoping we can listen to some more Vivaldi in the next couple days and then read another biography or two on him. There is a second biography on him in Volume 2 of Classical Magic (why I'm not sure) and I have several online sites bookmarked. Hopefully the interest will continue because this really is something I've been wanting to learn about with them. Cameron also got some art and science work in today by using his How To Draw Dinosaurs book. :) He did a really great job. He's got a skill for drawing. Cassia has the eye for color, but he has the eye for line. He can carry a better tune too. I wonder if that's related?

If this is less than coherent or cohesive it's because I'm starving and am having trouble concentrating but wanted to get this finished before I move on to getting dinner finished. Homemade pizza tonight! I wonder if Vivaldi inspired me?

The Sickies Have Landed!

Ahhhh! We've been invaded by Sickies and let me tell you, it's no fun despite the fact that I felt no guilt in watching Kung Fu Panda at 7:00 am this morning. Greyson has been holding on to this cough and mild fever for a few days now and Linus has had a stuffy nose for a week but it all seemed to come to a crux for everyone last night. Cameron and Greyson both woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and needing a nebulizer treatment. Cassia woke up feverish in the night and decided to sleep on the couch. At sunrise her fever shot up to 102 and she instantly regurgitated the liquid Tylenol I tried to give her for it. Not a happy camper. She was able to keep down a melt-away tablet though and then some toast and tea. Everyone seems to be feeling better now, but I keep waiting for the meds to wear off and everyone to be miserable again.

The worst part is that we had a little girl over yesterday morning and I fear that she's going to be miserable now because of us. :( I'm watching her two days a week so her mother doesn't have to put her (just 2-1/2) in daycare. I think she would've been better off in daycare yesterday! I had left the mother a message the day before saying that Grey seemed to be getting worse, but she didn't get it in time. So now I'm feeling bad that I didn't try harder to get a hold of her or even turn them away at the door. Neither of us are ones to hide from germs, but still....

Anyway, enough of giving myself a guilt trip. Wednesday we spent the morning at the dentist. I have a broken tooth that is going to need to be pulled. *sigh* Luckily, there is a wisdom tooth right next to it that never surfaced so it should move right in to take it's place. Cassia had a couple of cavities starting in the back. Maybe now she'll believe us when we say tooth brushing is not a race, lol. The boys were fine. Of course. (I hate my teeth and one of my great fears is that the kids got my teeth. I guess I should be happy that it looks like it is just a girl gene.) Greyson was soooooo curious while we were there. He peeked into every office and asked the dental assistant about all the equipment in the prep room. That boy likes machines!

Then we came home and did two sections of science. We studied energy by watching a ball bounce and a paper windmill spin. We thought of all the different ways that a windmill can be made to spin and what the source of energy is for that. That particular unit is one reason that I am glad that we do follow a curriculum, however loosely. I never would've thought to do that and the kids really enjoyed stretching their brains to come up with solutions. The second section was about how the energy of the sun is the original source of energy for living things. (The sun gives it energy to plants which are eaten by herbivores which are eaten by carnivores.) I think we have touched on that concept before but it's still fun to go over it officially.

Next Cameron did some math. He's excited to finish this book and has been doing two to three exercises every time we do math so that he can move through it quicker. Too bad we are only doing it once or twice a week, lol. Also too bad that I didn't order our new books earlier to inspire this work surge. While he was doing that, Cassia and Greyson were playing on Starfall. Greyson was so into it. I wouldn't be surprised if he taught himself to read very early on.

I think that was all we did before the heebie jeebies and hacking started creeping in. Thursday we didn't do anything except watch T2 in the morning. Cassia and Grey did a little on Starfall and Cameron built a lot with K'Nex, but mostly we just watched movies. I'm wondering if I should mark that as an official "sick" day. I do like to keep track of days when the kids are truly too sick to do school in our attendance records but don't Starfall and K'Nex count? On a healthy day I would say, "Absolutely!", but when they're sick it's just a relaxation activity. I know, I know. All my unschool friends are shaking their heads and wanting to smack me about now, but I can't help but ponder such things and classify it all. If we had read a book or two I would consider it all school, but we didn't. I really wanted to too but no one was in the mood. We have James and the Giant Peach here that we were doing really good at reading for a while but then it got misplaced in the back of the minivan and we got out of the groove of reading it. I'd really like to get back to that and if I can manage that today I will count it as a school day.

In other plans, I would like to bake some bread today and maybe make a lamb stew for dinner. I have some library books of my own that I would like to get to. One that I'm particularly interested in is on whole grains and the other is a pressure cooker cookbook. It's a cold drizzly day today so we aren't missing much by sticking around the house. Yesterday we did miss Parent Watch day at Cassia's ballet class - the one day a year that they let the parents in - but there was no way she was up to it. Hopefully everyone will be better by next week. We have a big week planned including Star Week at gymnastics! Star Week only comes once every 8 weeks and is the only way they can advance. I know they'll be crushed if they can't do it.

OK, enough rambling from here. I just wanted to make sure that I got more than one post in this week. :)

Happy Inauguration Day!!!

WooHoooo!!!!!! First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS and WELCOME President Obama. I know many of you are not as thrilled as I am but I am very hopeful for a time in our country's history when everyone can work together for a change and not just bicker about right and left.

Secondly, yeah, I know... two months. I'm not even going to apologize or promise to do better. We'll see if do or not. ;)

Cameron and Cassia started a new venture today. They joined an Odyssey of the Mind team. It is the only homeschool team in our region and it's our group's first time doing it! Exciting stuff! Our coach though, had coached another team before and is VERY enthusiastic about the whole thing. She really seems to know what she's doing and I'm really looking forward to it. I had to laugh though when we walked into her house today. She is the first person I've met who really lives up to that homeschool stereotype. Their garage had been converted into a schoolroom with posters and charts all over; science projects half completed here and there; boxes of manipulatives and toys neatly stacked ALL over the place; Christian posters and paintings all over the house; lots of little chairs and desks; a carpet with the United States on it; and even a plaque with the School Rules printed on it (which her son made sure to read to us so we knew them!). It was very quaint and picturesque and I'm actually surprised that it's taken me so long to meet someone who schools that way!

If you don't know what it is, Odyssey of the Mind is a problem solving competition where multiple teams work on solving the same problem and then present their unique solution through a skit or other presentation. The winning teams can then go on from the regional competition to state, national, and international competitions! (The K - 2nd grade teams don't actually compete but still get to present at the regional competition.) Through this they learn problem solving, teamwork, budget management, public speaking, etc, etc, etc. Uniqueness is rewarded and the adults must stay strictly hands off.

We had our first team practice today and I know the kids learned oodles of stuff. They learned how to brainstorm ideas and then voted for their favorite ones. They learned to not criticize ideas that were different and to not be too disappointed if their idea wasn't chosen. Then they had a little acting lesson and acted out a strange little song using a mystery emotion which the other kids had to guess. Cameron took to it instantly and everyone guessed his emotion, proud, right off the bat. Cassia, surprisingly, was a little shy and the coach, MomH, had to perform the song with her. The crowd got it in two or three guesses, but it was a tough one: love! The best part was that there is one boy on the team, T6, who says he'll only be a part of this if he doesn't have to perform. We agreed that he can be the "behind-the-scenes" guy. While the other kids were acting out the song, he was in charge of picking who would go next. Well, when everyone was done he was having so much fun that he announced "The only one who hasn't gone yet is me!" and did his own version of the silly song. He had a moment or two where I thought he might freeze up and change his mind, but he didn't and he had a lot of fun doing it too. Yay! Maybe he will change his mind and want to be a part of the performance too.

After practice we headed to a friend's house to pick up some farm fresh eggs. It was our first time there and OH, what a lovely place they have. The chickens were, dare I say, adorable and there was something very soothing about their clucking. I really never anticipated that one! Their feathers were absolutely gorgeous too. We fed them some corn, collected a few freshly lain eggs, chased down the family ducks, and then finally settled in to taking over the backyard, lol. They had a zip line (which Cameron was too heavy for and pretty much hit the ground as soon as he jumped off the ladder, lol) that was a huge hit and a neat plank swing in a neat old tree. The weather was gorgeous - sunny and mild - and the time to leave came all too soon. No one wanted to go.

We finally arrived home to relax with K'Nex, Old School Sesame Street DVDs, and computer time (depending on who you were). It was such a nice day that I was inspired to blog while our BBQ'ed chicken legs and home fries cook. Maybe I'll even keep up the habit. It is the dawn of a new era, you know. :)

Trying...

Tuesday, the only thing we had on the agenda was a committee meeting for the 4-H Holiday Party. I have a few gripes about the meeting but I don't think I'll get into them here. I will let you in on a brag though - they were trying to figure how to solve the ultimate dilemma of too many desserts and no food at the potluck and Cameron came up with the solution. He suggested that everyone bring both a dessert and something healthy. Sure, there will still be a ton of sweets, but then it will at least be balanced with an equal number of other foods, regardless of how many people come. In previous years they've assigned people entree, salad, or desert based on their last name but then it ends up unbalanced when there are no-shows or rebels. So, even though the role of the kids at the meeting was less than I like to see, their suggestions were taken seriously (the meeting leaders just had to be reminded to actually ASK the children for their input).

After the meeting we had to go pick up our meat buying club meat. We've switched from a medium to a large order and got lots of roasts this time. I think I'm going to have to put a touch of effort into menu planning though so that I actually take things out to thaw. (Hmm, what is for dinner tonight? Nothing is thawed!) There should've been plenty of time to do other stuff too, but I somehow never got around to anything. I felt a bit achy, which progressed to my skin feeling like it was on fire during dinner, which progressed to chills and a 101 fever not long after that. A good night's sleep did wonders though and *knock on wood* I haven't had a fever since about 5:30 this morning.

Today we had nothing on the schedule at all for the first time in ages so that took all the pressure off the day. Cameron built a Tie Fighter out of Legos and I made Cassia turn off Sesame Street (her newest addiction) and read her a few fairy tales, including this version of Hansel and Gretel. I actually managed to get a few loads of laundry done AND once Grey went down for his nap around 3:30 we did schoolwork. Cameron read The Three Billy Goats Gruff from a book of tall tales we have for reading. He complained A TON about the writing being too small and it being too hard and everything else but once he finally did it, he realized that the language in the book was actually much easier for him to read than the DK Readers he's been struggling so much with! He even tried to give the troll a scary voice while he was reading. Next Cassia did a phonics lesson on "ck." She was pretty rusty at first, but ended up reading very well. Math was fun because the lesson was on estimating one liter and then checking yourself. The kids waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy underestimated by saying a 5 gallon bucket would hold two liters, lol, but I think they really gained some conceptual knowledge from the process. We finished up with history and I read them the story of China's first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, and his terracotta army. They were not the slightest bit enthused by it though Cameron did a good job of at least pretending to be interested. Cassia complained that history was boring since we never do the maps and coloring pages anymore. I agreed that if they'd stop complaining and procrastinating so much about the whole process that I'd make sure I found the time for the fun stuff too.

So, all in all, it's been a pretty productive day. I think I just got a big burst of motivation when I realized that I wasn't going to spend the whole day in the throes of fevered chills. Thank goodness! Now let's just hope that it was a minor 24-hr bug thing and that I'll be right as rain tomorrow. My dad is coming over this weekend and I have a lot of cleaning to do before then.

Poor baby!!

Today was that time in a mother's life that she dreads. At least I do. And I probably dread it in a different way than they typical American mom does. Today, my baby boy had his two month check-up - that means vaccinations. I am so torn over vaccinations. Cameron and Cassia both got them on schedule and I barely thought a thing of it... except, of course, that heart-wrenching feeling of letting someone hurt your baby ON PURPOSE. By the time Greyson came along I was pondering their safety and then he went and had a nasty reaction to his first series. He went from rarely crying and a pretty defined sleep/wake schedule (his schedule, not mine) to a pattern of completely zonked out one minute and then screaming the next that lasted about a week. It was a huge temperament change. Seems like he also had some mild physical symptoms too like swelling and a mild fever. It was nothing serious or lasting, but it was real and it was caused by the immunizations. I spread the rest of his shots out, coming back two or three times to finish all the recommended shots with each well-check.

So anyway, today it was Linus' turn. I've been debating waiting until 6 months to even start them at all, but then I see the terrified and concerned look on the pediatrician's face and I go ahead and do it. I did say right off the bat that I wanted him on a more spread out schedule though, so he got the DTP today and then will go back in two weeks for the hep and something else. They tried to sell me on a new oral rotovirus vaccine, but I declined. To be fair, she really didn't try to sell me on it at ALL and nodded understandingly when I said that I didn't feel comfortable giving my baby a new vaccine (especially a live virus - eek), but the fact that 90% of parents probably go ahead and get everything "just to be safe" kind of freaks me out. I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist or anything, but drug (and pesticide) companies have way too much control over our lives.

But he survived with nothing more that a big soundless cry at the time (and when I took the band-aid off) and an extra long nap afterward.

Around noontime I tried to get school started. Cameron read a couple of pages from a DK Reader on Star Wars spacecrafts, but it was frustrating for us both. He guessed practically every word. I mean, he would get "Galactic Republic Starcraft" right but then miss "ride." It was ridiculous. I'm tempted to go back and make him do all the phonics lessons again, but I know that would just make him hate reading (and probably me). I guess I just need to stay away from the Level 3 stuff, but the lower level readers are soooooooooooo booooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg for him. At least he was interested in this book - even though he was doing more repeating than reading. *sigh*

So that put a bit of a damper on my school spirit and I let everything else slide until gymnastics. Greyson fell asleep in the car on the way there so we sat in the car and did a few science workbook pages during Cassia's class. We had skipped the workbook pages for the previous chapter, respiration, so that's what we did. He loved it, in fact he's the one who chose that subject to do, and we both actually learned a few things. (Quick quiz - how does a tadpole breathe? Mouth? Skin? Gills? Air holes?). He has a bit of a headcold and felt too sick to do gymnastics today so after that we just went home. I fully intended to do math, grammar, and hopefully history once we got there but it never happened.

We have a relatively light week ahead of us for a change. Oh, I forgot to blog about last Friday. We skipped Favorite Park Day to go to an Origami project for 4-H. The kids were so sad/mad about it when I told them on Thursday but, thankfully, they had a great time doing origami. The craft itself was fun AND they had lots of friends their age to play with too. The made a couple of things, then played, then made some more things, then played some more so it was a nice balance. And they didn't mention the park once. They made cups, boats, and cootie catchers. The cooties catchers have been the big hit - especially once I showed them how to write the "stuff" on them and play the game.

OK, someone is telling me it's time to make dinner and someone else is telling me it's time to hold him again. :)

It's a record!

It's a record, both for blogging and for schoolwork this week. ;) Sadly, that record is three days of blogging and two of schoolwork but it's something! And "schoolwork" today was pretty lame, but I used the word and made him do something that he didn't necessarily want to, so that counts. ;) LOL.

The kids spent the morning making sticker art and for one of the first times ever, both of their pictures made perfect sense. Cameron's was a race track with race cars zooming around. The stands were filled with penguins watching the race. Cassia's was a camping scene. Two ballerinas with sparkly crowns were camping with the squirrels and raccoons. There was even coffee on the camp stove. I know, the penguins and ballerinas sound a little off, but they worked with the pictures and it wasn't just a giant jumble of stickers. They were actually telling a story. I don't know - I liked them. ;)

We spent the rest of the morning doing some chores and then we went to ballet. While Cassia was in class I whipped out my HSC bag of books and announced that it was time for school. Cameron didn't actually complain at all. That is, he didn't complain until I told him that I had forgotten to grab a book for him to read so he'd have to read one from the lobby there. I picked up an "About the body" book that I knew he liked to look at and told him to read that. I figured it was a great tie in to the science that we've been (sort of) doing. He said it wasn't "fair" and that it wasn't good to read too much science. I forget what his exact logic was - and I use the term loosely - but the girl behind the counter started laughing. Anyway, I finally convinced him to read it because it would count as both science and reading.

And that's as much as we did. Told you it was lame. Oh wait, I did read the next section in his math book to him but it was on the liter and you needed to actually use a liter of water to do the work. Couldn't really do that in the ballet studio and we ran out of time anyway.

After ballet, we met some old friends at a park and spent the rest of the day climbing trees, wading in ponds, and throwing sand. Cassia fell out of a tree. The branch that she was climbing on broke beneath her, but she's okay aside from a nasty scratch up her back and a sore bum. Greyson fell in the pond, lol. He thought it was fun. We scared off some little girl's dad at the playground. The kids were rough-housing a bit and playing "sandstorm" - *sigh* - and the dad promptly swooped his daughter up and left after only about five minutes. The girl had been having fun but that's just not the way kids are "supposed to" play, I guess. It actually sparked a great conversation between MomJ and I as we pondered how many parents our kids scare off and what fun they're missing. ;)

One of the super fun things that the kids had been doing that I'm sure most kids, at least around here, miss out on was a leaf slide. There was this huge ravine/dry river bed that was covered in dry leaves. They had been climbing up and down a little path and we kept warning the little ones to stay back from the edge because the leaf litter was slippery and we didn't want them losing their footing and getting hurt. I'm sure you can see those little seven year old brain wheels turning! Leaf slide!! Sure we had just said to be careful of that, but sliding down on their behinds was perfectly wonderful fun. Nothing I would have suggested, but something amazing that only a young child would discover. And I can guarantee you that most parents I know would never have allowed it. Well, except for the crazy bunch of ruffians we hang out with, lol.

Now see? How can we get any bookwork done with all that other fun going on??? We were all educated by the forest nymphs today.

Theatrical Day

Edited to add pictures!

We had a great day today!! We started out with a school showing of James and the Giant Peach. Like I said yesterday, we have never read the book nor seen the movie so although we were going into it with zero expectations, I was a little worried about such an unknown holding their attention. I don't know about your kids, but mine like things more and more the more they are exposed to them. A particular Time Warp Trio episode is better the five hundredth time to them than the first - unlike for me. But this showing of James and the Giant Peach captured their attention and their imagination like few things have. Cameron said, and I quote, "That show was so good that I forgot about Zelda and everything! All I could think about was the story and wondering what was going to happen next!" Wow. It made him forget about Zelda?? That's big. I think a trip to the library for a certain Roan Dahl book is in order!

Cassia was sitting in rapt attention the whole time too. Wide eyes. Hair chewing. Edge of seat sitting. Great stuff. :) Even Greyson was an angel. And you know I rarely use the words "angel" and "Greyson" in the same sentence... unless the term "angel" is followed by the words "of death" or "of destruction." ;) He LOVES the theater though. He got a little restless towards the end of the hour long show but he jumped into his chair after every song to clap appreciatively. I wonder if he will have a future theater career or will just remain a fan.

After the show we came home for lunch and then went to the 4-H center for puppetry. We made Pilgrims and Indians out of poster board with yarn for legs and felt for clothes. We also made the cutest turkeys ever. I got brown work gloves and we glued googley eyes on the thumb with felt beaks and waddles. Next we covered the glove fingers with feathers and voila, cutest turkey ever. While the kids worked, I read The Thanksgiving Story to them. No one was really listening, lol, but they were polite enough. When it came time for them to do their version of it, one girl said "I'm from England and now I'm on a ship." Another boy said, "Here turkey!!! Yum, yum!" LOL. It was cute. One thing I noticed today is that even though we spend 85% of the time making the puppets, the performances are what they really look forward to. Next time, I think I'll prepare a script so that we can try out a more formal show. That may take all the fun out of it though. We'll see.

Next we went to Trader Joe's and the kids were... get ready... GOOD! I couldn't believe it, but I was thrilled. ;) They have been happily making more puppets since we got home - at least an hour now. Cassia is making characters from Humpty Dumpty and Cameron made Link (from the Legend of Zelda) and a giant centipede (from James and the Giant Peach).

Cassia's "Indian Dancing Girl" and "Humpty Dumpty"

Cameron's "Pilgrim," "Turkey," "Link," and "Giant Centipede"

What? Blog??

OMG, I am such a bad blogger! Can you ever forgive me?? Life has been crazy busy. I have been spending a ton of time online, but it's been playing games on Facebook rather than doing anything useful. (Wait, is blogging useful?)

Schoolwork has been practically nonexistent. On good weeks, we've gotten work done on Monday. And that's it. And that's a good week, lol! We've been doing a ton of extracurricular stuff though. 4-H projects, Halloween costume designing, pumpkin patch field trips, "play dates" (What is an educational sounding term for that? Visiting other schools? Research into alternative schooling methods? Studies in group dynamics?), sports, theater, a planetarium show, etc! Not to mention laundry! OMG, I can't believe how much stinkin' laundry I have now. I am NEVER caught up.

So this Monday we did school at gymnastics. Cameron read a Star Wars easy reader... a VERY easy reader. I think it was good for him to easily read a book though. It built his confidence up a bit. Next he did a couple of (also easy) exercises on capacity for math. We finished up with copywork/science and I had him copy several sentences about the heart from his textbook. That was not easy. They were long sentences and he complained the whole time about doing it. When he went in to his class, Cassia jumped on the school boat and did several pages in her math book on subtraction. The gym is practically deserted during Cassia's class so Cameron has the place to himself but once his class starts the gym gets filled to capacity. So Cassia had more than a couple interested onlookers to her scholastic journey and she was more than happy to oblige them, showing off her arithmetic skills.

Today we went to 4-H and a couple of new projects were announced that we were very interested in. Cameron signed up for a chess project where they will get to build their own chess sets. Cassia signed up for sewing. I really don't think either of them will be the slightest bit interested in the other project so I may, for the first time ever, do a drop off thing. It's weird that they're growing up!!

Tomorrow we are going to a play - James and the Giant Peach! We've never read the book nor seen the movie so the performance won't have any expectations to live up to. ;) Actually what I'm hoping is that it will inspire a desire to read the book. After that is the 4H project that I am leading, Puppetry. We are going to make turkeys out of brown work gloves and poster board pilgrims and Native Americans. I plan on reading The First Thanksgiving to them while they craft and then let them perform their own interpretation of it afterward. Should be quite amusing, lol.

So there's a little catch up for you. I was feeling kind of guilty for not getting more bookwork done the last couple of weeks (ok, months, lol) but this has made me realize just how much we are doing.

Free Day!

Ahhh, two whole days with absolutely NOTHING on the schedule. :) Well, nothing except four kids, a messy house, and a homeschool, that is.

We started school around 11:30 again. Cameron begrudgingly read the first two chapters of Snowshoe Thompson. First, he didn't feel like reading right now. I said, You never feel like reading. Then he said it wasn't right to read a winter book in the fall. I said, Too bad. Then he read the first sentence which said something about it being a few weeks before Christmas and he stopped dead and gave me That Look. He sat there for a ridiculous amount of time pouting and being all indignant because he just couldn't read a book about Christmas when it wasn't even winter. Give me a freaking break. Then I reminded him that he had just finished Frog and Toad all year which was about ALL the seasons and the last chapter was even set on Christmas Eve. He finally conceded and read the first chapter, but badly. I practically had to tell him every other word. And then I had the audacity to make him read a second chapter! How dare I? Well, it was worth it because he read that chapter very well.

Next I gave him a few minutes off to ride his scooter and then we came back to grammar. Today's lesson was on listening and storytelling skills. I read a fable called The Quarrel to them and then they told it back to me in their own words. Both Cameron and Cassia did a fabulous job of telling the story back to me in a concise and logical matter. I know that doesn't sound very impressive but a year ago they couldn't do it. They'd list a million irrelevant details and then skip the main points. But practice makes perfect!

Math was next and Cameron did an exercise on calculating intervals of time. For example, how long is a show that begins at 11:40 and ends at 12:05?

After that we did science and read some pages on the circulatory system. We've been badly neglecting science again. I skipped just about all of the activities for the respiratory system because we didn't have the materials... rubber tubing, 2-liter plastic bottles, a dead fish! If I were smart, I would look ahead and see what we'll need for the circulatory system but I probably won't.

Cassia didn't officially do anything except listen in on grammar and science but at this very moment, while they are eating ice cream, Cameron is writing math problems for her and she is loving them. It's the Trickle Down Theory of Education, I suppose. ;)

Right now it is only 2:30 and we are done with schoolwork and video game time so the only thing left for us to do is some "spring" cleaning. ;) I haven't informed the kids of that yet, but I'm sure they'll love it. LOL.

Thankful

Let me just start off by saying how thankful I am to have my family. Yesterday, our friend, Marie, and her three children were involved in a serious car accident. Their SUV flipped on the freeway. Thankfully, they all walked away from it but are battered, bruised, and understandably shaken. The littlest one, who is one month younger than Greyson, has reduced her vocabulary to just a few words now: car, roll, and carseat. Actually, when I went to drop off a pizza at their house last night I think I introduced one more word to her vocabulary. She wandered up to me holding a baby doll and I said, "Is that your baby?" She held the doll out to me and said "roll." I said, "Yeah, I heard. That must've been scary," and she nodded her head and repeated, "scary." As I left them and said goodbye to her, she repeated again, "scary." Breaks my heart. I'm so thankful they're all right and I am so incredibly thankful for my family... even when Greyson is trying his hardest to flip the glass coffee table and all its contents - be right back. I swear that boy is trying to seriously injure himself and I am terrified that he will succeed one of these days. Anyway, I'm glad that someone was looking over the P family. Please think a good thought for them the next time you hug your kids.

Back to the mundane. Friday we went to see a performance of The Tales of Beatrix Potter put on by the city ballet. They performed at the VFW building which is just on the other side of town, but we still managed to get there at the last possible second. We were, literally, the very last people in the building. It was a school performance and we went with a handful of other homeschoolers under a friend's homeschool's name. They had saved us seats in the very front row (!) but since we were so late, someone else took them. And then my friend kicked them out, lol. I felt awful kicking them out at the last second like that, but they were "saved" seats! The ballet was great though and everyone enjoyed it. I am really impressed with how well Greyson handles himself in the theater. Last Friday we went to see a Native American Dance group called The Four Winds, led by Eddie Madril, and he was incredibly behaved there too. He was quiet and interested and actually better behaved than the other two!! I think he may have a future in the theater.

After the ballet we went to the park. I cannot believe how big our little park group has gotten! There have been a couple of new people joining recently, both new to our HS group and old friends who are newly able to make the park day, and I am just really impressed with how well everyone adapts to that. Cassia and the newest girl, K4.5, really seem to be bonding. Friday they spent the whole time building a sand hospital. Cameron and some of the boys built a sand Death Mountain. It was pretty cool except for the fact that it kept erupting huge explosions of sand. *sigh* How many times do you have to say "Don't throw sand!" for it to sink in?? I'm guessing it won't be until he's about 30.

The weekend held the end-of-year party for soccer. C&C both really got along well with everyone on the team. Oh, a bit of news I forgot! Cameron lost tooth #2 on Sunday morning but as he was showing it off to everyone, they told him how many teeth they had lost. He came back to our table looking all defeated and said, "How come everyone else has more adult teeth than I do when I'm older?" Poor guy. It's hard being the late bloomer. Aside from that though, the pizza party was great fun.

Monday we did bookwork first thing in the late morning, lol. We got started around 11:30, which isn't too bad. Cameron finished reading The Case of the Double Cross. He's said a couple times that he thought it was a pretty good book. There were a couple more in the series at the library so I'm glad he liked it. Next we did Grammar and reviewed helping verbs. No one seemed to get the concept at all, but I'm not too terribly concerned. They are familiar with the term, which is more than I can say for a lot of kids, I'm sure! Next was math and Cameron did a couple pages on identifying the time on a clock as "x past y" or "x before z" and Cassia did some subtraction. We finished up with history by reading the rest of I Once Was a Monkey: Tales the Buddha Told.

Then we headed out to gymnastics. I decided to just save myself some grief and plan to spend the entire time in the car. That worked out well because we all had something to read or do, Linus slept the entire time, and Greyson fell asleep in a much quicker time than he would have if I had let him get all crazy and out of control first. I think he knew we were in the car so he could nap and it wasn't just a "you're in trouble" type of thing.

We actually have NOTHING on the calendar for the next two days. Phew! First time in a long time. Hopefully we'll be able to get lots done on lots of fronts. Now that I think about it, we need to get busy with Halloween costumes too so maybe we can spend some time on that. Anyone know where I can get a black Hogwarts cape without buying a stupid costume? If only this were 1983 and I could borrow my sister's black satin wrap skirt, lol.

A Weak Week

We sooooooooo got nothing done this week. Well, except for Monday. In addition to what I already blogged about, we finished off a book on Buddhism.

Tuesday was the 4-H business meeting. That was pretty much it for the day. During dinner there were some random math problems thrown around at the table. Cassia likes to start that, lol. It's so funny, she'll throw out questions like she's quizzing you even though she doesn't have a clue what the right answer is.

Wednesday we spent a good part of the day at T6's house. That was pretty much all about LEGOs. Well, Greyson and Cassia got some play time in with a cash register and Cameron got some logic work in while playing with a castle puzzle game. After that we rushed home for the last soccer game of the season. I was planning on signing him up for basketball next but I just realized that the registration was over a month ago... even though the practices haven't started yet and the games don't even start until November. That reminds me, I was going to try and call anyway... Hmmm, I just spoke to the athletic director and it turns out that there may be one team that has one player less than he thought it did. He's going to look into it and get back to me. Well that would be nice! And what great timing I had with calling. Anyway, if that doesn't work out, a friend of ours is trying to organize an indoor soccer class for homeschoolers.

Thursday I woke up with a bit of a sore throat so the thought of regular schoolwork wasn't very appealing to me. We did play Alpha Animals though and that totally counts as science. I made it into reading too because if Cameron couldn't think of the right type of animal then I would let him "cheat" and look at the reference list but only if he read it for himself. Then we went to ballet. I brought along The Case of the Double Cross and suggested that he read it while we were there, but he didn't want to. He claimed that a case of the hiccups (which were genuine) would make it too hard to read aloud. I figured that was pretty logical so I let him have that one. I fully intended on doing reading and math once we got home but they're watching Harry Potter 5 and I'm blogging, so that obviously didn't happen.

I really should be taking it easy anyway because I don't want this sore throat getting any worse. We have tickets to a ballet tomorrow, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, followed by Favorite Park Day and I don't want to miss either of those. But I don't want anyone getting sick either. Tough choice. We may end up just seeing the show and then staying home after that. We have the end of year soccer party on Sunday too and I know Cam doesn't want to miss that.

We have a much lighter week scheduled next week so maybe we can get some bookwork done then. Or maybe not. ;)

School on the run

Today we did school on the sidewalk outside of gymnastics, lol. The morning was "wasted" away doing other stuff but I was smart enough to grab a reader and the math workbooks and shove them into the diaper bag on our way out the door. Boy was Cameron surprised when I tossed the reader at him and told him it was time for school, lol. He tried to resist because he "didn't want to read that book" or "wanted to watch Cassia do gymnastics" or "didn't feel like it" but I countered with do it now or no video games all week. :P Surprisingly (not!), that worked. He actually seemed to like the book too. We got through the first half, 32 pages, of The Case of the Double Cross. A few pages into it though, we had to pick up all our stuff and head out to the car because Greyson insisted on throwing things (first balloons and then his SHOES) over the edge of the mezzanine onto the gym floor. *sigh* But once he was strapped in and detained I decided that it was too nice a day to force ALL of us to sit in a stuffy car so Cameron, Linus (in his car seat carrier), and I made camp on the sidewalk and read there. Unfortunately though, there was no time to get to math before Cassia got out of her class.

And then the explosion happened. OMG. So I hear this noise that anyone who's ever had a newborn is familiar with. I knew it was a big one because he'd been holding it in since early yesterday morning. I look over and then see this giant erruption of yellowish-orange lava bubbling out of the edge of Linus' onesie. Needless to say, we didn't stick around very long and just left Cam there for his class and then drove home to bathe the little (suddenly orange) guy. Now normally, I wouldn't bother you with the details of something like this, but this was so spectacular that it actually dripped down through the buckle of his carseat and onto the base. When I carried him into the house, it continued dripping down THROUGH the carseat onto the kitchen floor. WOW. I've never seen anything like it and I've seen a lot of poop. One time Greyson didn't poop for about 10 days and that was a giant mess when it finally happened but it still didn't drip through the carseat!! Unbelievable.

Anyway, Cameron just informed me that he would like to finish his schoolwork now. On the way home he asked if he could play video games when we got home and I said he could if he finished his math and history first. He started playing some game with Cassia once we got home so I figured he figured it wasn't worth the effort, but I guess he changed his mind. And he just asked me again, so I better get going. :)

Crafty days

As anticipated, we didn't get any bookwork done the last two days. We've been busy with 4-H projects instead. Yesterday we went to the American Kids Crafts project. It was inspired by the American Girl books and associated craft projects, but due to the number of boys in the project, the leader promised to make no mention of them, lol. First the kids made clay pinch pots which they'll paint next month. Everyone had a great time with that, even Greyson. Next the kids made dream catchers out of embroidery hoops and yarn. Very cute. Cameron and Cassia both hung their dream catchers above their beds and we sprayed them with Happy Dreams spray (an aromatherapy spray that a friend of mine makes) as an added touch. Apparently they work quite well.

Today it was my turn to lead a project on puppetry. We made puppets out of construction paper cut-outs, traced from storybooks, and glued them onto popsicle sticks. Since we are coding this as a drama project, instead of arts & crafts, I wanted to focus more on the art of giving a puppet show than on the act of making the puppets. We started off with a demonstration by C&C who performed "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" for the group with puppets that I made last night.
Next I provided some traced characters from several other rhymes and told the kids (aged 5 - 7) to get in groups, pick a poem, and then they could either use my tracings or draw their own characters. It was so hard to step back and just let the kids do it "wrong" (for example, coloring and decorating the tracing paper rather than using it as a template) but I did. Next I gave them a few minutes to practice and then they performed their masterpieces. The girls did "The Five Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" and the boys did "Hey, Diddle Diddle." I have to say, the girls were a bit more organized both in their puppet show production and actual puppet making. In fact, the boys didn't even stick to the right characters nor did they even realize that until they were performing the play! LOL, but it was cute and they all did a great job in the end.

So we can call all that History, Social Studies, and Fine/Performing Arts. I guess we could call it Literature too since we were reciting poetry and M7 can even call it Reading since she read the Three Little Kittens from the book while the girls performed their show. Since we're counting up "work," we also read part of I Once Was a Monkey: Stories Buddha Told as a bedtime story last night and plan to do so again tonight. We had time (and I was willing, lol) to do schoolwork after we got home from 4-H today but Cameron chose to watch Harry Potter instead. I know I keep swearing that we need to get into the habit of doing it every day but I really do consider 4-H school time... just not enough to give free video game time for it!

Tomorrow is ballet and then a field trip to another pumpkin patch, but all that is not until the afternoon so I am really going to try to get some work in during the morning. I just wish there was some way I could stop them from turning on the tv as soon as they wake up. It's so hard to get anyone motivated after that - including me. I guess I could unplug it? But I so enjoy our slow mornings. I really need a few minutes, myself, to wake up in front of the computer before I can get going for the day... or maybe I just tell myself that and I should unplug the computer too! Hmmm, food for thought.

And just for fun... Linus, week 3