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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day

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I'm printing out fake, unsolvable mazes from familyfun.com to trick the kids with tomorrow. I haven't thought of what else we might do.

Last year we made a fake spilled cup with a plastic cup, some tacky glue mixed with red paint and a straw and we had a lot of fun with that.

I'm trying to think

Nickels

For the last few weeks we've had a no-whining reward system for the kids. They get a dollar a week. If they whine or say "do I have to do this?" they lose a nickel. Dan noticed today (we have a chart) that he has had a pretty much whine free week and is going to get a whole dollar if he can make it through tomorrow! He said "Better pay me early on Saturday before I start whining about cleaning".

That kid is such a character.

I'm Glad I'm Me.

A couple of weeks ago, we were watching an educational DVD about digging up a frozen mammoth. The narrator was saying, that the workers would have a breakfast of reindeer meat, a lunch of reindeer meat and a dinner of reindeer meat. My daughter said "I'm glad I'm not one of those workers!" My youngest son said "I'm glad I'm not one of those reindeer!"

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

No Carrots Please.

A while back I made chicken soup and the carrots cooked really soft, until they were just tiny little bits. Dan wanted chicken and noodles, but no carrots. I told him the carrots were very hard to get out and he said "Use tweezers".

Discovery Worksheet

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This is a plan I wrote but have never actually given the kids to do. I may try this later this week when we go to the library. This would be for my 2 older kids who are both kind of reluctant writers. My youngest one, in first grade, would freak out that he had to do all that writing. I wouldn't give it to him. I would ask him for an oral report. He is very uptight about writing. I don't think his fine motor skills are what they should be. Anyway, here it is.

Discovery Worksheet
Today's Date ___________
I want to find out about ________________________

Sources of information.
_________________________________________________
What I discovered.
_________________________________________________
Here's a picture.

The most interesting thing to me was _________________________________________________
Next time, I want to learn about _______________

An Orange

A while back, my 8-year-old and I were having a conversation about what she wanted to eat for breakfast. My 6-year-old walked in, in the middle of the conversation just in time to hear her say "an orange". I guess he thought she said "I'm orange" because he said "no you're not, you're flesh color."

I accidently outed the Easter Bunny

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I guess I didn't realize how smart my daughter is. She's 8. I took back the headphones the Easter Bunny brought my oldest son because he didn't like them and she was with me. She figured it out. I told her that I bought the toys (they each get 1 small toy) and she said "Did you buy the candy too?" I said "what do you think?" and she said, "you did! I know you did! You are the Easter Bunny!". Then she said "Are you Santa Claus too?" Again, I said "What do you think?". I just couldn't tell a lie. I don't know if it was the right thing to do but I feel kind of bad about it. I guess 8 is probably about the best age to find out though. I don't think Christmas is going to be nearly as much fun this year. :-(

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Back to Square One/ Forgetfulness.

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Okay, I brought out my new "easy" post spring break accomplishment list and we all just sat and looked at it. No one could work up any enthusiasm. At all. I know I am PMSing a bit and we all got some bad news last night and we just felt like we couldn't do it today. We just couldn't. Since we worked 2 days of spring break, I just decided that we should take the day off. Well, mostly anyway. I still have to work at my paid job, but no homeschooling today. I feel like we need a radically different approach to homeschooling/scheduling or at least something to pull out on the days when you feel overwhelmed. Any ideas?

Last night Daniel said something that was both cute and profound. I said "that is going in my blog, first thing in the morning". I sat down this morning to blog and couldn't remember. I talked to all 3 kids and they can't remember either. Sigh. How can 4 people forget something? From yesterday?

I'll share a Daniel funny quote from a while back instead. One night I asked him to put something on the nightstand and he said "mommy, don't you have a morning stand?"

Homeschooling Advice.

1. Try it. You might enjoy it. It might change your life. It might not be your thing, but you won't know if you don't ever try.

2. Find out what your state (or country) requires, the bare minimum. Do this and then with the rest of it, have fun with it. It doesn't have to be all serious and it doesn't have to look like the inside of a classroom. You're at home. Relax. Play. Read. Learn together. Enjoy your kids. They grow up way too fast.

3. Don't let a written curriculum boss you around. If it works, great. If it's not working for you, throw it out. If only parts of it work, use those and throw the rest out. It's not the boss of you. When shopping for curriculum, read reviews. Try to go somewhere where you can actually hold the book in your hands and look through it. Print out a sample day or week and try and implement it or borrow it before buying. It's kind of hit and miss buying books without being able to see them.

4. Find a homeschool support group. Or two. If you can't find one in real life, find one online. Get support where ever you can.

5. Make a mess now and then. Go outside and put some mentos in coke. Make alka-seltzer rockets. Make some great art. Make a timeline and a map. Grow some borax crystals. Use levers to lift things. Make a trebuchet out of whatever you can find around the house.

6. Go on as many field trips as you can.

The point of this blog.

"there is a theme, if you read, you'll get a growing conviction that homeschooling is a lifestyle that is worthwhile, that it is extremely good for kids and families, that it promotes bonding, is a personalized education that is superior to what you can get anywhere else for your kids, is fun and can be done even if you have a 400 track mind, no math skills (thankfully my husband does though), through working, job changes, bad hair days, home remodeling, deaths, illness, surgery, broken bones and various other things and it actually makes dealing with these things easier, not harder, than it was when we were in the public schools, because homeschooling is so incredibly flexible. That's the point I've been trying to make for the last 5 years or so."