Monop-a-thon

Overheard at my house, "We'll play Monopoly all day long!" And they've made a pretty good attempt at it! Ryan has a friend over and it's a regular Math-Fast. With all the counting and adding and spending and multiplying for utililties, these kids have been thinking all day! The wheeling and dealing happening around my dining room table would make Donald Trump's head spin!

Here We Go Again...

It's time. Matthew is going to learn to use the potty. Is that considered home schooling?

I have not been very successful with potty training in the past. Yes, all my older boys use the potty but it was a rough road to get there! Actually, Adam was quite easy but the other two about killed me (and them).

What's your secret for quick and easy potty-ing?

Girls!

We spent the day playing in a friend's pool. My, how little girls are different from boys! I know I told the boys, "You need to apologize to Holli" about a gazillion times. That girl sure does get her feelings hurt easily. You can't splash her. You can't arrest her. You can't let the air out of her Little Mermaid float. You definitely can't whack her with a light saber. What's a guy to do?

But, on the other hand, I'm not looking forward to the day when they try not to make the girls cry. LOL

Park Day

Our homeschool co-op had a play date this morning at a local park. The park is within walking distance of our house and we go there often. But it so much more fun when the sprayground is filled with your friends! Someone had brought a super soaker and my boys were begging to go home and get their guns too. I was definitely NOT going to walk three blocks home and back so I stepped out of my comfort zone and let Adam and Ryan go home and get their guns BY THEMSELVES!! They were back in under ten minutes, loaded down with super soakers to share. I guess they were beaming b/c they got what they wanted but maybe it was a little bit of pride that they got to go by themselves.

The library is across the street from the water park. They were hosting Legos at the Library in the afternoon so I traded my two older boys for a sleeping baby and sweet little angel boy (his mom sure can tell some tales on him though!;)). The babies took naps. Evan played with his friend. The big boys learned Lego engineering at the library. And I made bread, spaghetti sauce, and salsa. Such a productive day, and it's barely half over!

Books

I've been buying books... lots of books. I have a minor shopping fetish. I love the search for the best books at the best prices. I'm getting really excited about boxes in the mail, boxes filled with shiny new books. I hope the boys will be excited too. We're starting 6th, 4th, and 1st grade in August.

Classy Kids

I overheard Ryan humming classical music yesterday. Although he may have heard the song on a Bugs Bunny cartoon, I attribute his new found love of the Arts to his recent fascination with our Beethoven's Wig CDs. They feature well-known classical music selections along with crazy lyrics that tell a bit about the song and its composer. All the boys love the cds and were actually arguing over what songs we should play in the van this evening.

Another example: Adam was playing with his Nintendo DS and wanted to show me something. On the NintenDogs game, there is a section where you can play music for the dogs (on a record player!). He was excited that one of the choices was Hayden's Surprise Symphony. He recognized it from listening to those cds! And Jeff was suitably impressed that Adam knew the composer and title of the piece. :)

And, lest you think the cds only encourage an appreciation of the Arts, Evan is using them to learn double digit addition. While driving home today (we listen to the cds in the van), he told me that 11 + 11 = 22. He was very excited and so was I. I asked him how he figured that out. It's b/c the Beethoven's Wig CD plays 11 selections with lyrics and then repeats those same 11 selections without lyrics. There are 22 tracks on the cd; 11 tracks with lyrics + 11 tracks without lyrics = 22 tracks. And they know all the songs by their track number... for every cd we own. They request songs by number. It's really quite amazing but not the subject of this post. LOL

Mystery of History

I've been eBaying. :) I sniped our first new book for next year. I didn't get a great deal on it but I saved some money and got the thrill of the snipe. After reading about Mystery of History, I decided that was the perfect book to teach us world history. It interweaves ancient history with Bible history to give a more complete history of our world.