Home Ec

I can't believe I'm already slacking on schoolwork. It's only been three weeks since we started and we're scheduled for vacation next week. You'd think I'd be able to keep the momentum 'til the end of the week. But you'd be wrong. I got caught up with cleaning yesterday. I was doing all those jobs that never get done... like dusting the bookshelves and organizing the video cabinet. So, while I cleaned all day, the house doesn't really look much cleaner! I did enlist some reluctant helpers so we're calling that home economics. It'll do 'em good!

We did manage to get spelling done. I'm determined to finish this stupid book so we can actually start this year's book. Only twenty-three lessons remain! I will not get caught up in the four days per week trap this year. We will do spelling every day ... even if Adam still misspells berns (burns) and wile (while) in his daily newspaper. I'm sure the spelling gene will kick in eventually and when it does, he'll have hundreds of Sequential Spelling lessons as back-up!

Band Geeks

We went to the band meeting last night, the one I was a week early for last time. And, just as I predicted, we were late. But it was a planned lateness. Jeff had Evan and Ryan at Ryan's football practice. I had Matthew and Adam at Adam's soccer practice. We stopped at the band meeting after practice. Adam was wishy washy about joining band, at all. He wants to take piano lessons instead. But we're waiting until after his Sunday School teacher's daughter's wedding so he can take lessons with her. In the meantime, he's going to give trumpet a try. Ryan will be playing drums. He's got a head start since he's been working with Jeff. The band director says that he likes to teach mallets to the percussionists too. So Rye gets to learn to read music, whether he wants to or not! LOL

Shall We Dance?

Adam had his first soccer game last night. He's playing in the middle school league and there are some familiar faces on his team, one kid from a previous team, one kid from church, and one kid that used to go to our co-op (and may be back this year). There are amazing differences in these kids. I blame puberty. The little sixth graders stood at least a foot shorter than the older kids. There was one kid with a five o'clock shadow! And apparently, with height and whiskers come some amazing soccer skills. This is not rec league soccer! I'm not sure how Adam will do but I envision the 6th graders playing on the "JV" team that plays on Saturdays. That's fine with me! So, for his schedule... games on Monday; practice on Tuesday & Friday; JV games on Saturday. Tonight, Adam and Ryan both have to be at practice at 5:30 at two different fields in two different towns. Jeff doesn't normally get home until 5:30 but he's supposed to get here early today. I just can't wait to throw Evan's soccer season into this mess! LOL

Oh yeah, were' still doing school, too....

We were reading about dinosaurs in Mystery of History yesterday. We looked up the Loch Ness Monster on-line and were discussing the possibility that Nessie may be a plesiosaur. Both the older boys were really into that, especially Ryan. He used to be a huge dino freak. So we were gathered around the computer having some real discussions... and in comes Matthew.... with poop on his foot. He'd made it to the potty but spilled the poop as he was dumping the the potty chair bowl into the big toilet. You never see that in a classroom! ;)

Evan has finished his first A Beka reader and is halfway through the second one. He's going to be in 2nd grade by Christmas at this rate! But still a 1st grader for Math and a Kindergartner for writing. LOL

Adam wrote a two page newspaper yesterday, complete with puzzles! I remember making search-a-word puzzles when I was little so I loved the puzzle! He seriously needs an editor to check his spelling!

• In the News (spelling and punctuation is his):
  - only Nine days till the beach.
  - Evan's Birthday is only eaght days away
  - a football cup on the ps2 this Sat.
  - Sumer is ending soon enjoy it wile you can.
  - a new game called smarty pants try it out

Football

Well, Ryan had his first real football practice tonight. He's been doing drills and such but had to wait a week to practice with pads. It's a safety thing that I don't understand. He was so very excited to actually play. But he took a hard hit early on and decided football was not for him. I was really heartbroken for him. He loves it so much and then, whammo!, he hates it. He was physically hurting and crying but I was more worried about his feelings. It would be so-o-o much easier if he didn't play but I just knew if he kept at it, he would love it. So, Jeff and I talked him into giving it another try. He finished out the practice but he didn't enjoy it as much as he thought he was going to. He said he's going to keep at it though.

I sat on the bleachers, watching practice and eavesdropping on some other moms. They were going on and on about how they can't wait for school to start. One of them was saying how she wants her day off to be her day off, rather than a day for entertaining her children. So, she works all day and doesn't even want to see the kids on her day off? I understand the need for a break; I really do. But I just think it's sad when parents don't want to spend any time with their children. Needless to say, I didn't have anything to contribute to that conversation, at least nothing they wanted to hear!

Tuesday

Well, I'd like to tell you all the details of the homeschool band where Ryan will be perfecting and showcasing his drumming skills. But instead, I get to tell you how I packed up two kids, sent the extras to football practice with Jeff, and drove to a meeting that is scheduled for next Tuesday. That's right. I was full week early for the meeting. I guarantee I'll be late when I try it again next week.


The rest of the day was wonderful. It was a scheduled day off so I don't have to feel guilty about not getting any bookwork done. We had a park day with our local homeschool group. It started out nice and sunny. The kids were having fun. The wind started picking up and the temperature dropped. Then the rain came. The kids didn't seem to notice. It was coming down pretty steadily and they just kept playing. And we moms, under the cover of our picnic shelter, just kept on visiting and counting heads. Would you call that lazy parenting? or the coolest moms ever?

Monday

Another full day for us! Yay us!

Today we read about Jubal and Tubal Cain in Mystery of History. It points out how they are only mentioned in a couple verses in Genesis but they have an important lesson to teach us. If we don't read our Bibles carefully, we'll miss out on their important lesson (as well as others). I'll admit I'd never heard of them so I guess I didn't read Genesis very carefully. Jubal and Tubal Cain's important lesson is one that helps disprove evolution. They were early men, only a couple generations from Adam and Eve, and yet they were very intelligent. If the theory of evolution were true, early man wouldn't have been evolved enough to do the things these men did.

History was followed by math. The boys are starting to slow down on the review pages. There are some things they need to review so rushing through it won't be much benefit. I know it's wrong but I was so excited when Evan had trouble understanding place value. It gave me an excuse to use the counting frogs and their little logs. We did groups of ten frogs with some singles and he caught on a little too quickly. I didn't get to play with the frogs for long. LOL He was very excited about his eights today. He made a nearly perfect eight and then he didn't want to do anything besides writing eights. I want him to be excited about numbers but it was very frustrating when I was just trying to get through one math page! And yes, he's doing math in his Spider-Man pajamas. :)

For reading, the older boys read the first chapter of Created for Work. This is an awesome book for instilling a Christian work ethic. It's well written, easy to read, and very encouraging. I recommend it for boys in upper elementary grades. Adam and Ryan also did lessons in spelling and language.

Evan is zipping through his first A Beka reader. I'm having trouble keeping up with the book work that goes with the stories. Do we really need to do phonics if he already reads? He just naturally knows the words so I see no reason to stress all those rules and special sounds. I just think maybe he'll hit a roadblock later and we won't know what's happening in our phonics book b/c we didn't do any of it. Would it be too difficult to start the book in the middle if he needs help with new rules later?

The dryer is beeping and I need to go catch up the laundry. Housework is suffering since we started school. I need to work on fitting some cleaning into our routine.... for all of us! ;)

Save Me

I believe I've mentioned Ryan's football fascination in previous posts. He spends a lot of time talking, and watching, and reading about, and playing football. In the past, it's always been backyard football. But now, and this is the part that I need to be saved from, he has actually joined a football team. I'm not worried about him getting hurt. I'm worried about TIME. They practice in the evenings on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. They have games every Saturday.. except the Saturday that Marshall plays WVU. The league is run by football fans, after all! So far, it's doable (actual word?). But soccer starts in September and Adam and Evan are still going to play soccer... which, of course, practices in the evenings (albeit not as many evenings) and plays on Saturday in a whole 'nother town.

Day Two

WooHoo! Two days in a row ~ We're on a roll. LOL I even had to do a quick grocery run today and we still did school!

We started with Bible Reading and Mystery of History. Today we learned about the Garden of Eden and then I gave the boys some play-doh so they could invent and name their own animals. All of them were really into that. I thought Adam and Ryan might think it too babyish but they both put a lot of effort into their work. Ryan's is the purple blob. It looks like he didn't try very hard but he actually had a whole story to go with that blob. It's a Destroyer and it's camouflaged to look like a pile of rocks. When prey walks over the rocks, the Destroyer closes up on it and Yummy, there's dinner! Matthew thought the play-doh was dinner... or lunch. It only took one taste though and he was crying and trying to get that play-doh film out of his mouth!

After play-doh, all three boys worked on Math. That went pretty smoothly even though they all needed a little direction to get started. Evan did much better at writing numbers today! Or, at least he thought he did. He's still not very good at it but today he was very confident instead of whiny.

Evan started his phonics book today. He uses A Beka and they teach the kids how to mark the vowel sounds so they can differentiate between long and short vowel sounds. It seems like overkill to me but it works so we'll do it for a while. Anyway, Evan was drawing little smileys over the short vowel sounds when he came to the word "God." He stopped and said, "Mommy, it's nice to have God in school books." I couldn't agree more!!! As he drew the smiley over the O, he said, "Smile.. because I love God." I love homeschooling. :)

All the other subjects went smoothly too. I made each boy a weekly schedule with the subjects listed for each day. They're doing pretty well checking the list and doing what they need to do. I may regret scheduling a vacation in the middle of September if school keeps going this well!

Day One

We started our first day with a pancake breakfast. Adam helped me fix the pancakes and then I read the first chapter of John as the boys ate. They're reading that for Sunday school and we're going to save our Bible study to do as a family when Daddy is home in the evenings. I wanted the boys to take a little break while I found some breakfast (not crazy about pancakes) but Adam was so excited to get started, he worked four pages in his math book... well, parts of four pages. They were all review from last year so I told him to just skip around and touch on everything. Ryan did the same thing with his Math book later in the day and I helped Evan do several pages in his Math book, too. We skipped the beginning b/c it was counting objects and jumped right to the addition. Evan's brain is much faster than his hand and he was getting frustrated with his lack of writing skills. With Mommy doing the writing, he zipped through a ton of pages. But, right now, he's practicing his numbers in a notebook. I didn't even tell him to do that!

After Math, we did Lesson 1 in Mystery of History. I think we're really going to enjoy this book! Today's lesson was on Creation which isn't exactly new material for my guys but we'll get to some new stuff next week. The boys then dispersed to do their independent reading while Evan read to me from his A Beka reader. I didn't have the library books I wanted the boys to read so I told them they could read a book of their choosing for 30 minutes. Ryan chose Geronimo Stilton and read for over an hour until he finished the whole book! I even reminded him when he'd passed the 30 minute mark but he just kept reading! And, he remembered to wear his glasses without being reminded!

At this point, we only had Spelling and Language left to do and I was thinking that I hadn't planned enough. They were working independently and getting finished so fast!! What was *I* going to do all day??? Good thing I've got a new first grader! Evan and I worked through page after page of his Language book. It was all short vowel sounds and really too easy for him. But I think it's good to build his confidence and we did a LOT so he'll get up to his ability level soon and then we'll slow down.

While Matthew took his nap, Adam and Ryan and I did a lesson from Sequential Spelling. We never did finish the Level I book last year, so we're still working on that. Then we started Winston Grammar. I LOVE it. The boys love it. It was fun and great for fidgety boys or any kinesthetic or visual learner.

And then we were done. Evan didn't get to do his handwriting today. I was supposed to make the letter pieces for Handwriting Without Tears and I haven't done it yet. They sell the wooden letter pieces but I didn't want to spend an extra $30 on those. There's a pattern in the book and I'm going to make the pieces out of foamboard or felt or something.

Matthew is king of the potty! He has been diaperless all day except for his nap. He hasn't peed in the floor yet and he woke up dry from his nap! Way too easy! I will say that the only thing I'm doing different from the other three is PRAYING. I never prayed about potty training before but God really does care about every aspect of our lives. Ask for help! If He can create the whole world, He can certainly potty train a 2 year old! :)

Wisdom

The Bible warns not to boast of tomorrow. I'll be careful not to boast but we are going to start school tomorrow (Thursday). The schedule is made; the books are ready; the children are resting their brains in preparation. I promised them a pancake breakfast to kick off our school day. We're hoping to finish out this week and work for the next two weeks until our vacation. I know we'll take next Tuesday off for a play date with our homeschool group. But I'm hoping nothing else comes up to throw us off our schedule for the next couple weeks. It's hard to resist a friendly invitation. Of course, some distractions shouldn't be resisted. I just need the wisdom to differentiate between them! LOL

James 4:13-15

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this, or that.

Lost

I can NOT find all the books I need. I know I have Abeka Mathematics 4 curriculum and teacher key but I can NOT find it anywhere. I can live without the lesson plans but I need that answer key or I'll be doing lots of 4th grade math this year.

On the plus side, while I was scouring the attic for the books, I found our potty. Matthew had been using an old one from Grandma's house. It was functional but if the bowl wasn't in there just right, we'd have pee all over the floor. The one we found has a bowl that fits!

Matthew is doing great with the potty training. He doesn't always recognize the feeling of having to go but he always runs for the potty when it starts running down his leg. LOL And he has made it the potty pre-puddle several times! It's almost been too easy. ;)

Nothing school-like got done today. We spent another day at Foxfire, a local camping resort. This time we tried the pedal (paddle?) boats. The rule was that there be a responsible person on each boat. They picked 12 years old as the age of responsibility (HA!) and then they allowed an 11 yo, 10yo, 9yo, and 8yo to take a boat. Of course, there were responsible adults (that'd be me) on the lake with them, just in another boat. The responsible adults were lagging behind a bit considering their hatred of paddle ([edal?) boats and the four extra children on the four-person boat (that's a total of six - they're not real big on rules at Foxfire). There was a lot of mayhem but no one drowned and all the boys had a blast. We may try it again when they all hit 12!! ;)

Gettin' Ready

The boys didn't get any school done today but *I* got a lot done. An unexpected errand took up a lot of the day but I'm glad to have gotten that out of the way today. I hate to have stuff like that pop up when we're trying to do school work. But since this is just our "get ready" day, it was okay.

I unpacked our books and organized our school area. I bought a three drawered cart so the boys would have somewhere to keep their school supplies and workbooks. They each have a drawer labeled with their names. Evan was enthusiastic about having his own space. I also cleared off a toy shelf and moved it into the dining room to store our books. Last year, we tried keeping them in the office but that didn't work. The office is too small for all of us to work in there so we'd drag the books out to the dining room and they'd stay stacked on the table all week. It's not very attractive to have a stray bookshelf in the dining room but it's functional!

Evan and I played "Buying Candy" this evening. It's a game that Kris invented but I added the name to encourage Evan to play. He'll do anything for candy. LOL To play, you need pennies, dimes, a dollar, and a die. Roll the die. You get pennies based on what you roll. When you get 10 pennies, you trade them for a dime. When you get 10 dimes, you trade them for the dollar and that makes you the winner. And the rule I added is that you can use the dollar to buy a piece of candy. Evan was begging to play tonight. He's so good at it, there's really nothing left for him to learn. I suggested we used nickels and quarters instead but he didn't want to do that. He hates change! But I convinced him to give it a try. He's just amazing. By his second roll, he was counting change in his head. He'd just look at his four nickels and say, "I have 20c. I need one more nickel to get a quarter." He kicked my butt!

The Big Day

Monday is the first day of our new school year... or not... definitely not. I've been planning to start this Monday, really, I have. Unfortunately all the planning was in my head. LOL I'm not ready. The books are still in the shipping boxes or packed in the attic. I'm really not sure what we're going to be doing. Not to make excuses, but I've been quite busy this past week. So Monday will be my planning day and maybe we'll squeeze in a subject or two. We're taking off Tuesday and Wednesday, which I really feel guilty about, but fun things are in the works for summer's end we're going to take advantage. Our new Big Day will have to be Thursday. It will definitely be Thursday... um, if nothing comes up.

Another day at Bible School. It was 104 degrees!! But it didn't feel that hot. We spent a lot of time in the pool and playing water games. Our theme is "Fear Factor" so the kids are trying lots of gross games. We've learned about The Fiery Furnace, David and Goliath, Queen Esther, and Abraham and Isaac. The kids are having a blast and we had five kids get saved yesterday (just from my group; there may be more in the older groups)!!!!

Update

It's August. It's HOT! We've been in day camp all week. It's Vacation Bible School run by my church so I'll be chasing kids all week... and when I say chasing kids, I mean the teenagers who are supposed to be helping but spend all day throwing water at each other. Ughh!

There's not much organized school happening. Evan brought me a coloring book yesterday and told me he'd written his name on every page... and he did!! I didn't even know he could write his name. I certainly didn't teach him. He raised such a fuss last year that I dropped handwriting altogether. I guess he's ready now b/c he wrote his name over and over and over!

I wonder how many sentences I can start with the word, "I."