No concrete ideas yet.

I haven't got any concrete ideas for reorganizing my blog yet.  I am still mulling it over.  I'm also mulling over our fall schedule and when we are going to start school.  The county schools here start next week and I hate to get behind them.  It feels bad to us when they get out and we are still doing school.  This year, we beat them by a couple of weeks.  We enjoyed that (even me) for some reason.  :-)  This week, we're keeping busy with VBS, choir, doctors and dentist appointments, etc.   Tonight, I finally did write my "Letter Of Intent To Homeschool" for this year, which is one of the few requirements that Kentucky has, thank goodness.  I am so glad that we don't have to conform to someone else's ideas about how to go about teaching and we can tailor what we do to how the kids learn best.  I'm kind of kicking around the idea of putting the kids in a co-op this year, to get us out of the house a little and do some socializing.  I always think about it, but this year, I think I might actually do it.  :-)

Sleepy.

So last night I finally did get done with work.  It was about 8:30 pm  Then, daughter and I got in the pool and had a lovely swim.  After we came in, oldest son, the night shift worker, got up for the day and we ended up staying up until 1:00 am to visit with him.  Then we got up at 8:30 to get ready for church.  After church, there was only one thing we could do .... NAP.  Daughter and I slept for about 3 hours while youngest son, left to his own devices, studied the atlas and when I got up he wanted to talk about planetary axis's with me.  I think that's supposed to be axes, but that seems kind of silly, so axis's it is for the purposes of this blog.  Then, he studied for a while on plate tectonics and continental drift, and then started watching It's America Charlie Brown.  I tell, you, you can't turn off the learning around here.  After the girl and I got up from our respective naps, we put down a few floor tiles, picked blackberries and got in the pool.

Summer schooling.

Okay, we are not doing a formal summer school study.  We never do.  We just go ahead and take the summer off from school.  However, kids don't stop learning.  You can't make them.  This week, my youngest has been reading the almanac and the atlas, listening to audio books, working on his tree house (mostly in his head, very little actual outside work in the hot, hot sun!).  My daughter has been crocheting and doing a little math to see how many rows she needs to do each day to get it done by July 2.  Apparently 5 rows a day.  I know it's not much math, but it is a little.  Plus, she and I have been working on tiling our floor, which has got to be good for spacial reasoning or something.  We've been swimming, which should count as PE.  My daughter wants to do the Presidential Active Lifestyle award thing again this year.  My oldest son is getting an education in REAL LIFE at his first job and he seems to be doing fine with it, although I miss him.  I started to put lactose free milk in the mashed potatoes and then I thought, he never gets to eat with us anymore anyway, so why bother.  Yes, it is odd to miss a kid's special dietary needs, but there you are.  I do.  I went ahead and made them with the Lactaid milk, just in case he wants some later.  It is the weekend coming up so we may get to see him a little bit.  

School Today.

I got up and got my work done pretty quickly today.  The kids, as usual, did not follow my example and started their work right about the time I was finishing mine.  The girl was having quite a few problems with today's algebra lesson.   I try to stay out of all discussions which involve math, so she was asking her younger brother for help on every problem.  He's kind of a math wiz and although he doesn't really like math, he's good at it.   She probably got a good grade, but Dad will need to go over this a few times with her so that she gets it.  The kids started imagining the future when they are in college and he has to help her with math and she has to help him with writing, which will probably be the case.  Really, I don't think everyone should have to do higher math for every career path and I really don't think everyone needs to learn to do a research paper.  I mean, yes, it's good brain exercise, but what good does it do you later on in a career?

Addendum:   What I was trying so inelegantly to say the other night was this.  The training for career paths could be more specific.  There are careers for which writing a research paper would be an excellent exercise and good practice for life and some where higher math is definitely a must.   Sorry, sometimes I just write things and don't realize until later that I have not expressed my point well.  My oldest son wants to be a graphic artist.  He wants to avoid math.  Therefore, he's looking at getting a career diploma instead of a degree.  Should he?  I don't know.  He feels like general studies in college would just be high school all over again and he only wants to study art.  Should he have to study things that won't affect his career path? 

Zipping along.

This month is zipping along very quickly.  It's already the 6th.  I finally ventured out today and got some groceries.  I haven't posted much this week because I've just been working and coughing and not much else.  Youngest son took 2 days off due to the cold.  Oldest son didn't get it very bad.  My daughter still hasn't gotten it yet.  She's probably waiting for next week so she can share the experience with Dad.  :-P   I hope the rest of the family can avoid it.  It's not the worst ever, but it's not fun either.   I did up my hours at work now that I am working at home and I had hoped that it wouldn't be all that bad, but it's been kind of awful.  I feel like I am always, always at work.  Today they are begging for someone to work, but I need to keep my days off as my days off or I will be always at work.  That's one of the hazards of working at home.  Funny, the kids are home-schooled and they never, ever are tempted to do school on a Sunday afternoon.  :-P

Update.

After 2 days of use, my daughter likes this writing book very much.  It's nice for her not to ask me what to do for writing and nice for me not to have to try and figure something out every day.  It says on the web site that it is Christian based.  I haven't looked at enough to know how much so, so if you are looking to use it in a secular homeschool, I don't know how well it would work.  We like it though and I am relieved. 

What is it?

We went to the grocery today and when we first walked in, we saw an unusual looking fruit. We're always looking to try new things, so we put it in the cart. The handwritten card in front of it said "Pumelo". A lady near us said that they were sweet and that this, mixed with a tangerine was what made a tangelo. When we got to the checkout, we realized that it didn't have a sticker on it. The checker asked us what it was. We told him what the sign had said. He couldn't find it on his list. I looked at the list and we asked 2 other people. Finally, the last person we asked said "It's a grapefruit" so I said, "okay, in the interest of the poor people standing behind me in line, let's call it a grapefruit." We looked at it more closely after we got home and realized that it is one of the fruits pictured in our book about Israel that we studied last week. (In the book it's spelled Pomelo.) So we accidently blundered into buying a fruit that is grown in one of the countries we're studying and yesterday, we did a class we'd signed up months ago and it was the very craft we were supposed to do for our middle east study. Are these weird coincidences or is a higher power helping out in our homeschool this semester? Cool.

My daughter loves this fruit. It kind of tastes like a grapefruit but is sweeter.

Tuesday.

We're back to normal life today. No field trip. No meetings. No 4H or library events. We do have to do work and school and somehow get to the grocery, but we can do all that in our own good time. It feels nice. I would kind of like to skip the whole work thing and go back to bed, but I can't. I will probably do the bare minimum though. I'm still tired from the flurry of activity around here the last couple of weeks.

The quilt in the picture is from the trompe l'oeil display we saw yesterday and is carved of wood. Here is the artist's website.

Field Trip!

We actually did 2 field trips in one today. We visited the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft for a printmaking class. It's funny because last week in the curriculum we're using, the instructions called for us to make a print out of an eraser and then print it and rotate it on the pages, which is pretty much exactly what we did today. The museum had much better quality eraser things to use, better tools to carve with and cool colors of ink, so it was neat that we got to do it there. Nevermind that I was just too lazy to do it at home. We won't focus on that part. They also had an amazing trompe l'oeil display today. It was facinating to me.

The second place we went was Schimpff's Confectionary in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It was very cool too. The tour was fun and interesting. We got to see them actually making candy and then we got to sample a little bit. Mmm.

It's funny because the whole trip kept reminding me of one of my favorite shows, Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, because he once visited a candy company that was very similiar to the one we visited (not dirty, just messy in a wonderful chocolatey kind of way) and the storm drain outside of the museum looked like a place he would have to go into.

A very good field trip.

The busy week goes on.

We've had a 4H field trip this week, the long trip to the doctor for my mom, Awana, game night, tween night (both at the library), skate night and multiple trips to Walmart and Kroger. Consequently, we've eaten out more than usual because we've been on the road so much. The house is a mess, I'm behind on my work. I tell you, weeks like this are not good for anybody.

I'll spend the next 2 days typing medical documents like a crazy woman, barely seeing the light of day and then hopefully, Easter Sunday, I can participate in some of the family events. Maybe.

Somewhere I read about a family that planned every single week to have 4 days at home, not going anywhere. They managed to cram everything into the remaining 3 days so that those 4 days they could relax. That kind of sounds nice, although I don't think I could do all I need to do in 3 days. Maybe one day of relaxation a week ... hmmm. Seems like I may have heard of that concept someplace before.

Funny Word Card.

My youngest has moved beyond these cards now, but we went over them today for a review. This one always makes us laugh. It's does, as in "does this card make my butt look big?".

Studying the Middle East and North Africa.

We're still studying the Middle East and North Africa. The unit study we're doing from Christian Cottage is a good one and it offers several activities to do. However I just wasn't in the mood to do those activities. Mainly, the book had us cooking some middle eastern dishes and then sampling them. I could read the recipe and just tell that my picky kids wouldn't eat it. Normally, I'd search for alternative recipes and make those, but I just wasn't in the mood to cook. So, we just did our own thing, something that seems to happen more frequently the longer I homeschool. We did a notebook section on the Bedouin who live in that area. We'll be starting a study of Greece today and we might have to go to a Greek restaurant. That would be fun and I wouldn't have to cook.

Busy Week.

We've got a busy week ahead of us, with something we have to do outside the house pretty much every day. When this happens, something has to go on the back burner; sometimes school, sometimes work, sometimes housework, possibly all three. This week, housework is already back there because we celebrated 5 birthdays over the weekend (3 parties). I've really got to work this week so that will be a priority. Looks like we're looking at work, then school, then housework. I hope we don't have surprise guests next weekend ...although, come to think of it, I do have a teen who is looking for things to do to earn money so I might put him to work.

What if?

What if they were able to make a live dinosaur be born, by using the DNA that they got from a mosquito that was frozen in amber, that had sucked the blood of the dinosaur. And, then they put the dinosaur in a zoo and were able to train it? And what if they trained it to tell time and to roar at 6 o'clock every day? Then the people at the zoo would know when it was 6 o'clock.

These are the questions that we ponder in our household.

Before breakfast.

Encyclopedias.

I bought an inexpensive older set of encylopedias last year on ebay, to help with homeschooling. They've been a great help, quicker to look things up in, sometimes, than the internet. Lately, though, they've been the material of choice for building. Right now, they are a race track for Hot Wheels cars. I tried 4 times to share a picture, but blogger won't let me. Annoying.

Sometimes

blog posts just come to me in the middle of the night. :-)

Last night, my daughter was brushing her teeth and said something to my youngest son, which to me was completely intelligible. He understood it though. I remarked on his understanding and he said "Yeah, we can understand each other in toothpaste, pudding and mouthful" (He said this like these were 3 different languages.) and my daughter who had since spit and rinsed said "Yeah, we're almost like twins."

Friday.

I decided to do one of those acrostic thingys for Friday.

F - Foster Care - Our application got approved at the first level yesterday and now will go to our caseworker's supervisor's supervisor. I don't know if that's as far as it has to go or not. It's been a 5 month process and the stack of paperwork on us is as thick as a phonebook from a relatively large city.

R - Reading. We're not really reading anything that interesting right now, Hank The Cowdog and The Phantom in the Mirror. It is one of the funniest Hank episodes, in my opinion. I've got 2 books for our unit study on hold at the library but they were "in processing" yesterday and I couldn't pick them up.

I - I am doing okay, but having a particularly difficult time focusing on work this week, don't know why. My mind is just jumping from one thing to the other.

D - Dog. The little dog is going to stay. She's been behaving herself lately. She's a character, that's for sure. I asked my daughter what to blog about and she said "Freckles" (the dog) because I guess, that was the first thing she saw. Freckles is her constant companion and whines at the window whenever my daughter leaves the house. The whole time. This is according to my teen and my husband who frequently stay at home when we're gone.

A - Advertisement. I might as well throw in a shameless advertisement for my store, Grandparent Gifts, on Cafepress, since there is an A in Friday.

Y - Youngest Son - He's had a very, very, very, very, very talkative week this week, which may, come to think of it, be part of the reason I've had trouble concentrating on work. It's cute though. He's been talking to me the whole time I've been trying to type this blog post. He just went into the living room, still talking ...

The verdict.

We've decided to use mom's schedule with a few modifications. My youngest wants me to put a space on the page at lunch, so he'll know when he's done with his morning section. The oldest wants time for guitar on Fridays. We decided to put 4 freebies (things we don't have to do) per week. Most of the time we save our freebies until Friday and have a shorter day, but sometimes we use them on a day we just don't feel good for whatever reason.

So here's my 9-year-olds version of our new lists.
1. Breakfast.
2. Brush teeth.
3. Chores. (These vary from day to day.)
4. Exercise 1 hour.
5. Spelling words (writing, alphabetizing, sentences)
6. Math review.

Lunch.

7. Unit study we all do together.
8. Geometry.
9. Daily grammar.
10. Art/game.
11. Reading.

I found some good spelling lists here.
I found some good daily math review here. \
I found these daily review grammar lessons here.
And here is the best place for art lessons.

I've been doing some planning.

I am so glad that Monday is finally here. I had my nose to the grindstone all weekend, working and I'm so glad to have my one day off. Whew. We don't have anything planned for today unless I've forgotten something, so we can stay home and clean this house. Joy. Since the kids have been out of school, I have just let my routines go and you can tell. The house looks a lot worse this week.

Yesterday, when I was waiting for my work to be downloaded or transmitted, I spent a lot of time looking at high school options for my oldest. I really would like him to have a diploma from an accredited school.* I narrowed it down to 2. Penn Foster and North American Regional School (NARS). I decided, after a great deal of personal anguish (because making decisions is difficult!), to go with Penn Foster because all the books are included. I discussed this with him and he said he wanted NARS because then I would be planning his work and it wouldn't be boring. That is really a great compliment coming from my 14-year-old but I think all that work of planning everything kind of scares me. Not to mention that it will cost somewhat more, because we'll have to buy the books, etc. I'm going to check and see if Penn Foster has a money back guarantee/ trial period or something.

(* Why do I want an accredited diploma? I don't know. I can just picture our family and friends saying 'well, they just printed his diploma out on the computer. Anyone could do that. Lookie there, I've got my Ph.D." I know that I would make sure that the child was educated thoroughly before I printed it out. In fact, he'd probably be better prepared because I would feel so insecure, that I'd make him do twice the work and he probably wouldn't graduate until he was 20! Overall, I just think letting someone else decide when he's done is probably better.)

For the younger 2, I'm going to put something together with the things I already have and things I've downloaded from the internet (love the homeschool estore).

I already have the complete KONOs collection, History Scribe, Christian Cottage (for the western hemisphere) and Mammoth Math. I already have grammar and handwriting books. There's a free download of Study Dog available now which I've downloaded for my youngest. Here's the link if anyone is interested.

Now my only problem is getting this all organized. That is not my strong point so wish me luck!

Bowels, Click and Dancing.

The other day we were out at our church, preparing lemonade, cookies and coffee for a little reception we were having. Someone has rearranged the entire kitchen and made labels for the cabinets, to tell what is inside. Unfortunately, they made a mistake that is common to medical transcriptionists and spelled "bowls" as "bowels". My kids also thought this was hilarious and one of them opened the cabinet and said "I don't see any bowels in here!" and the other child said "Thank God!"

After my post of yesterday about how things are going so fast and the kids are growing up so incredibly quickly, we got the movie "Click" from Netflix yesterday. I sat down to screen it for bad words (too many). I expected it to be hilarious. Who hasn't wished for a remote control for our lives? The guy gets a remote that will control everything and it's great for a while but then it starts fast forwarding all the time without him even trying to fast forward and he ends up missing his kids growing up and his Dad and his dog passed away without him knowing. Let's just say it was not a good movie for the mood I was in yesterday. So anyway, there's my unofficial movie review.

We're still doing without TV so we've been watching a few movies. I did go to my parents house to record the Dancing with the Stars finale and haven't got to watch it yet. Sadly, the MSN headlines this morning on my yahoo home page spoiled the ending for me and I know who won. I'm not sad that Apollo won, I just wanted to watch it all unfold. Oh well.

I'd better get busy. My work list will not wait and I really want to get these 7 last days of school done!