Saturday!

Even though they have school at home, the kids get Saturdays off. Youngest son is very much into Saturday morning cartoons and wants me to wake him up early on Saturday so he won't miss anything. Even though I have to work at my job, I'm usually glad to not have to be answering math, science and english questions while I work. Today though, youngest son is doing yesterday's math during the commercials, a compromise we finally agreed up after he was still working on his math late last night. As you can tell, he didn't follow the schedule and get his work done on time yesterday. He did lose all screen time yesterday because there is no screen time if the work isn't done, but I may have to think of worse consequences, because, let's face it, he's doing math on Saturday morning during the commercials. Sigh.

Bugs.

Last night, my youngest son was playing outside on the swingset at grandma's house when he got stung a couple of times on the finger. Later on, talking about it, he said "Those bugs have a bad attitude." I'm not sure where he got that one!

Fun?

It seems like the basics are all we are getting done lately, math, spelling and reading. We haven't been having any fun with our homeschool since the Medieval Feast. We haven't been doing much of anything from the Konos units. Maybe we need to work hard on the basics every other day? I'm just not sure how to work it all in. Anyone have any advice?

Today is my oldest son's 14th birthday. Where has the time gone? Happy birthday!

Busy.

I'm back to work today and the kids are back to school. We got a lot done yesterday. Besides spending the whole morning with the tech support guy from work, we took a bunch of things to Goodwill and the consignment store, returned books to the library, washed and waxed my Dad's car to thank him for letting us borrow it for a couple of weeks, picked up garbage where some animal had ripped open our garbage bags, cleaned the house a little (we never get completely done around here) and I worked a while on adding sweatshirts to my Cafepress store. I also worked on one of the adoption grant applications that we are applying for. Some of them are very long and detailed. I always feel good the day after a day when I get a lot done like that. A ton of things crossed off my list, a feeling of accomplishment. Now back to trying to balance work and homeschool. Sigh.

I would like to take this opportunity to show off my Cafepress Store. I'm quite proud of it. (Any money we get from sales in the store goes for our adoption agency fees.) Here is one of the sweatshirts I've recently added.
I'll add any design that anyone requests, just let me know.

The Lesson of the Day.

We don't always do school on Monday. It's my day off from work and sometimes it is the only day I get for a while. I worked yesterday, I'm off today (mostly) and I have to work tomorrow. Until next Sunday, that's it. So a lot of times on Monday we don't do school because we have so much other stuff to do. (As I've mentioned before, I calculated the schedule with and without Mondays and either way, we finish in June, so I'm not too concerned about it.)

Today I had to talk to the tech support guy at work off and on for several hours because something was wrong with my computer and he had to fix it. I had to stay in my office/bedroom to answer the phone and follow the instructions he gave me, so I assigned the kids a couple of chores to do while I was stuck in here.

They had to gather the library books (23!) and clean the living room. They are almost done now. They're taking a little longer because my daughter decided that the boys did not do a good job vacuuming and gave them both a vacuuming lesson. It was fun to listen to. According to the latest report, oldest son got an A- and youngest son got an A. Unfortunately, they'll both "forget" next time the vacuuming needs to be done and need to be shown again. Boys.

Rainy weather.

It's been raining, raining, raining here. Our county got 6 inches of rain this weekend according to 1 report. Everything here is wet. Isn't that crazy? It makes me want to stay inside and cook warm comfort food. We're having chili today.

Overheard in the Kitchen.

I heard my youngest son, this morning, saying "I can bend metal. I can bend metal." and then I heard oldest son say "Get out of the aluminum foil."

LoL.

A poem.

A child in my home, who wishes to remain nameless, wrote this poem yesterday while doing math problems. I thought it was cute.

I wrote another nine.
I forgot to draw the line.
I was trying to write an I.
I wrote a D instead.
I think I'm going crazy.
You better check my head.

Routine.

Things seem to be getting in somewhat of a routine around here lately. The basics are going reasonably well; much better than last year. I think the kids are making progress in what they are learning. I can see that my youngest is reading better every day and feeling more confident. We're not doing as much in the Konos book as we were when we were doing the Kings and Queens unit and I guess I need to work on that a bit, if we are going to get this big old unit done this year.

We started a Spanish class on Tuesday. We missed what we thought was the first class meeting the day we took my daughter to get her cast on, but it turns out that it was the second meeting, so we showed up thinking we'd be a little bit behind at the second class and it was the third class and we were way, way behind. I'm not sure if we can study enough to catch up or not! We'll definitely take a look at the vocabulary list today. This is a really good opportunity, too good, I think, for us to drop out. It's a free Spanish class taught by a high school Spanish teacher. Hmmm. We'd better study.

Yesterday and Today.

Yesterday I couldn't get into blogger to post for some reason so today I just have all kinds of things to write about. I kept thinking of things yesterday and couldn't put any of them into writing and now the moment is kind of gone, but I'll still give it a try.

Bread - About 6 months or so ago, we decided to switch our family to whole grain bread because it is healthier. The younger 2 kids just couldn't stand it for a while, then they started eating it, but when I accidently picked up white bread about 2 months ago, they were so excited and ate it happily. Then this week I picked up a loaf of white bread to make sandwiches for a picnic, there were 1 or 2 slices left in the bag when I was done and yesterday my daughter referred to it as that 'yucky white bread'. Now she prefers the wheat bread. Weird how that works, isn't it? I remember when I made my husband switch to skim milk. Every few weeks I'd buy a lesser percent, 2% then 1%, then skim. One day he looked sadly at his cereal bowl and said "There's less milk in my milk every week." Funny how we adjust and even prefer the healthier choice after a while. We've also switched to whole wheat tortillas and spaghetti.

Bank of Dad - My husband has started a 'virtual' account for the kids allowances and birthday money to go into. Then when they are out with me, if they see something they want to spend their money on, I'll buy it and the money comes out of their virtual account. This has lead to some funny looks we've gotten in stores from people who hear the kids ask "How much money do I have in my virtual account?" We also have been teaching them to write checks although we haven't been making them write one for every withdrawal, I think we might start. It'll be good practice.

Questions - The night before last, I was pretty much asleep in my bed when my youngest son appeared beside my bed and said "What would you do if you were stranded on a deserted island with a cup, a bowl and a roll of Glad Press and Seal wrap?" Huh? Appparently he's been watching Zoom on PBS again. They did an experiment having to do with getting drinking water using plastic wrap and collecting condensation or something like that. I'm not sure what the bowl is for. I think he came up with the Glad Press and Seal wrap part on his own. Apparently, he thinks that will work better. Still, when I was sleeping peacefully and then awakened suddenly, this seemed like kind of a weird question. Maybe it's just me?

We did it.

We did proceed with school as usual. The way I've got things set up right now, there is not a lot of prep work for me so I can kind of wing it. The kids have their math, spelling, reading, PE and chores detailed on the daily schedule and the only thing I really have to do any preparation for is the Konos activities that we do in the afternoon. We've barely started the unit on inquisitiveness and I've just picked a few activities for each day that were easy. We've been learning about how to find out information, which is basically a review for the older two and the youngest is learning about the Dewey Decimal System and how to alphabetize and look things up in the dictionary. It's really been a piece of cake so far. Later on in the unit, there probably will be more prep work but right now, it's kind of nice.

Monday.

Sometimes we do school on Mondays and sometimes we don't. I figured out a schedule both ways and either way we end up at a reasonable time, late May to mid June. I count the attendance days as we go and when we get to 180, we'll be done. For today, I still haven't decided. We may just work on cleaning the house today. Maybe after my second cup of coffee I'll be able to decide. To school or not to school, that is the question.

Cute book and CD.

We discovered this at the library the other day. It's cute. I think it's probably meant for littler kids than mine, but we've gotten a kick out of it. I especially love the song by Allison Kraus. If we do get to adopt a baby, that'll be her song.

The News.

My youngest son decided to watch the news this morning. I was working and he kept running in to tell me updates. "A guy was in a car accident." and "It's not going to rain today!". It was very cute. Then, this afternoon, he decided to watch the news again. After a few minutes, he said "That girl is telling the same stories she told this morning, and showing the EXACT same pictures! Why doesn't she tell something new?" LoL.

The Carnival of Homeschooling.

There is a lot to the carnival this time. It has taken me a couple of days to read through it, in little snatches of time here and there, but it's worth the effort. Here it is.

My Iced Tea Habit.

I'm trying to lose weight and part of that includes trying to give up my iced tea habit. I have been drinking 4-5 glasses of sweet, wonderful iced tea each day. As of yesterday, I cut that down to 1 with the intent of going down to 0. It has been very hard on me. I'm starting to drink water instead which, of course, is very healthy and very tasteless. Still, I need to do it. Sigh.

The Choice. (ta da!)

By popular vote the kids chose Inquisitiveness for our next KONOS unit study. There are 43 weeks of studies under this unit. It is a whopper. If we do the whole thing, we won't need another unit for the rest of the year. It has a complete earth science curriculum in it, instructions on how to write a research paper, geography, mapping, way too much to name (especially since I carried the book to the orthopedist's office to work on while waiting and left it in the car!) It's really something. I've been enjoying just reading through the activities. I'm going to try something a little different this time. I'm making notebooking pages for the kids to use to notebook the unit, with the vocabulary words and things like that to use as a guide, to make sure we've studied everything we want to out of this huge unit. I'm excited to get started on it. We may go ahead and do a quick look at the military unit which is under Obedience, right after the Kings and Queens/medieval unit we just did, because the boys are interested in that.

For those dear readers who don't know, KONOS is a complete curriculum for K-8 grade and it will cover all the basics when supplemented with language arts and math, for those of you who are wondering how I'm going to teach everything the kids need to know. I'm aware of scope and sequence and the KONOS book has the same scope, but maybe a difference sequence or order than what the public schools are teaching. Just to be on the safe side, I plan to buy The Checklist and check things off that we have studied. We'll get there and we're having a good time on the trip too. I really like this curriculum.

My older son is doing the Alpha Omega Lifepak curriculum for 9th grade, but he also participates in the hands-on, fun stuff we do for KONOS and he will be writing a research paper this year. ;-)

Just a quick update.

HEALTH NEWS:
My daughter broke her left arm, again. It's only been a few months since the last time. Technically, that time, it was her hand and this time, it is her forearm, both bones. The kids were playing a game involving jumping over a string and she jumped, tripped and fell. Consequently, I did not get to work as much as I wanted to last night, because we were in the ER. Tomorrow she gets a cast on and I guess we'll just go from there. We need to do school tomorrow, so I guess she'll be doing it one-handed.

SCHOOL NEWS:
I'm going to let the kids pick our next Konos unit and depending on what it is, we may start it tomorrow. If I need to gather a lot of books and materials, we'll wait a couple of days. We could use extra work on the 3Rs anyway.

WEIRD NEWS:
One of our lizards (green anoles) shed it's skin today and it was pretty creepy looking. We've recently acquired the lizards and the two of them and the live crickets that the eat have taken up residence in oldest son's bedroom.

Other than that, things are going along here in the usual crazy way.

Back to work.

It's been a very slow week at my job. The hospitals have not been sending as much work as usual, so I've had more free time this week, which is good from the standpoint of free time, but bad for the old paycheck. Today, they've sent tons, so guess where I will be all weekend long ... working. Oh joy.

Morning Glories.

I wasn't kidding when I said that now that my camera cord was found, I was going to show you all the pictures I took this summer! Okay, maybe not every single one, but here's one of my morning glories. I really have enjoyed them this year.

Sunflowers.

Okay, now that my camera cord is found, you all will have to look at every picture I've taken this summer ... so here are some pictures of our sunflowers that got taller than the roof this year.

Linc's Bad Day, episode III.

Our cat Linc leads a wildly exciting life. He has gotten his entire head stuck in a ziplock bag and got stuck in a tree before and I have blogged about him. This time, he got a hematoma in his ear, which means that his ear blew up like a balloon and he had to go to the vet for surgery. Now he has a permanently droopy ear. He's still very handsome, I think.

Middle Ages Helmets.

These pictures were actually taken at the Kentucky State Fair. The Frasier Historical Arms Museum brought these replicas for people to try on. We had a lot of fun with it.

Coat of Arms/ Crowns.

Medieval Feast - The table.

Pictures from the Medieval Feast.

Organizing.

Now that our feast is over, we've mostly concluded our Kings/Queens/Medieval Unit and we will take a few days to get reorganized before proceeding. I'm thinking of moving our school work area into my daughter's bedroom for a couple of reasons. First, my DH is home in the morning and would like to watch TV after work, but the TV is only a few feet from the kitchen table and there's no door between the living room and kitchen (small house!). Second, if we want to eat at the kitchen table, we have to clear off all the homeschool stuff. We got a new bunk/loft bed for my daughter's room (cheap, through a homeschool loop!) and we will be setting that up in there and then we will see if there's enough room for a small table we can use to do our work on.

I'm also not sure what unit we will do next. The medieval study was kind of a review and I just let my daughter choose what she wanted to learn about, from the book. I don't know if I'll continue with the obedience unit or if we'll do a chronological study or if we'll let one of my sons choose a unit next. We're still doing math and language arts and PE in the mornings and organizing in the afternoons. I didn't want to stop school altoghter to get organized. We've got some good momentum going on our basic studies in the morning and I don't want to loose it!

The Feast Went Well.

I think everyone enjoyed most of it. I think I must've done something wrong on the bubble and squeak, because it wasn't good, but everything else turned out okay. Our family usually doesn't do anything much for labor day, so this gave us a reason to get together and celebrate something, I guess in a way we were celebrating homeschooling. The kids decorated and set the table while I finished the cooking and DH went to the store for the rotisserie chicken, so it was really a team effort. I'll post some pictures when I can.

Medieval Feast and Other Things.

We're in the midst of preparations for our medieval feast, which is tomorrow. The menu is going to be rotisserie chicken (from the store), bubble and squeak, toad in a hole, lentils and pie (which is supposed to be mincemeat, but an emergency substitution for pecan was made) along with baked apples. All of this will be served on trenchers and we will be drinking apple cider from goblets. Costumes are optional, but the kids will be dressing up. We've made tapestries to decorate the room and we will have a jester (youngest son) performing between courses. It should be interesting to try and eat these dishes without forks as we understand that forks were not used in the middle ages, only spoons, knives and hands.

Regarding my posting times, below, I see they are being set back 3 hours and I may try to figure out how to fix it one day when I'm not printing out recipes and trying to get ready for a feast. (I am the queen you know!)

Update on the X-Box 360 that my son won, he has a few games now. A kind friend has loaned us a few. I tried to talk him into selling it and buying toys, but no luck. He wants to keep it.

Schedule note - Of course I made a few changes to the schedule. I can't leave it alone, now can I? Since the kids never seemed to be sure what to do when I listed "exercise" I put a list of exercises down at the bottom for them to refer to. I'm adding more writing in for my daughter and more reading for youngest son. For oldest son, I'm going to start assigning books for him to read. I've been letting him choose his own books and he's been reading Star Wars as we study medieval times. I tried not to mess with the actual times because my oldest son does not like it when I change the times or the schedules.

My Posting Times.

One of my dear readers pointed out that my posting times make it look like I am always up and about at 5:00 - 6:00 in the morning. I looked back at the posts and it does look like I never sleep! I assure you, I do. Except for occasional episodes of reflux that keep me up at night sometimes, I sleep from about midnight to about 8:00 a.m. Just to experiment, I'm posting this one. It is 1:33 p.m Eastern Standard Time according to my computer clock. I wonder what time blogger will say I posted it?