School Today

So, today was our first day back to school after Spring Break. I had planned to ease our way back into our normal routine and it's a good thing I did. Today was anything but normal. First of all, the weather was crazy--stormy and rainy--and the weather radio was going off every few minutes. Grace had spent the night at a friend's house (normally a no-no on weeknights but I caved) and didn't get home until after 10. So, we got a very late start but we did start. We did our reading time--read the Bible, Book of Virtues, Young Person's Guide to Knowing God, and started a biography of Walt Disney. Then the kids did chores. We are trying something new. Joe is in charge of all living areas, Hannah is in charge of the kitchen and dining area, and Grace is in charge of bathrooms, foyer, and laundry. So far, so good. The laundry was piled up so Grace got to practice using the washer and dryer and folding a lot today. After chores we started school--this was interesting because I have all these new ideas and philosophies that I'm eager to test out but yet unsure how I want our school time to look still. This is most definitely a work in progress and I am assuming that every day will be different and I will bore you with seemingly endless blog posts because not only do I write for your enjoyment (ha!) but this is my journal as well. Hannah had an easy first half of the day because much of what she needed to do was on the computer and we had everything unplugged to protect it against all the lightning. She wrote an article for the Bunk Room, read for half an hour (she is reading Homesick by Jean Fritz), and did Wordly Wise. Later she did Math and attempted her virtual school Spanish. I finally convinced her to just quit that class today. I'm not crazy about the style of teaching and she wasn't retaining much. She had an assignment and a big test and she had hit a wall and just didn't think she could do either and I couldn't help her. I think part of her problem is that I helped her too much during the first semester. Because of that I've been completely hands off for this second segment and consequently cannot help her. Anyway, I have a great Spanish workbook and that will suffice for now. Grace did Math, Wordly Wise, read for half an hour, and wrote an article for The Bunk Room. Joe did Math, helped me make a cake, finished up a project for his Caldecott Winners pocket book, and read for a while. I had hoped to do a couple of the experiments in his science kit that he got for his birthday but he wasn't into it so I didn't push it (one of my new ideas). It was a good start for the first day back after almost two weeks off. I'm hoping with each new day I'll have a better idea for how I want to do things and what that looks like day to day. I keep reminding myself that these last couple of months of school are one big experiment. Surely by next fall I'll know what I'm doing, at least until I change things again. :0)

It Was a Nice Idea...

....but I've quit before I even started. I totally nixed my plan to do the Maker's Diet. I have way too much else going on in my head right now to also add in a pretty extreme diet. I guess having a week and a half off from school and chores and theatre and normal life made me forget how full that normal life is at this time. Throw in the changes I'm trying to make with school and I chickened out. We started back today and that's when I realized that it just wasn't going to happen. Actually, to put it more positively--I recognized my limitations. So, my new plan is to exercise, cut way back on carbs, and start employing some of the things I learned last time I was on the Maker's Diet, and eat less in general. So, the weight loss may not be as extreme or as quick but hopefully I can make some strides in that area. Mostly I need some discipline and confidence. I can do this. Fo Rizzle!

Just a Ramble

Joe is still cruising through the A to Z Mysteries. He's trying to read all of The Ninth Nugget in one day after finding out that his buddy, Jake read two in one day! After a near crisis when he finished The Missing Mummy and didn't yet have the next book...I have now ordered all the way up to Z from the library to have on hand. He has also decided that he'd like to own the whole set of books so he can someday pass them on to his own children. So, I will help him obtain the books by checking out thrift stores and used bookstores and asking around if anyone has any books they no longer want.
We had a fun couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa. Lots of girl and boy time this trip. The girls all got pedicures and spent most of yesterday shopping and even went out to lunch. We have a family wedding this summer and we found beautiful dresses for the girls and shoes to match. I'll get pics on here eventually. Joe and Grandpa hung the tire swing, went to Lowes, worked around the house, went to McD's and made a trip to Target for a Lego car.
Grandpa made his famous pizza for us last night. He makes the best ever Thai Chicken Pizza! Then we sang Happy Birthday to Grandma and celebrated with lemon bars while watching Disney's "Oceans," as well as some of our favorite family "funniest home videos."


I completed the above puzzle in about two days' time which included staying up half the night last night because I just couldn't quit. This was the. best. puzzle. ever. My Spring Break was complete and I now feel ready to tackle the remainder of our school year and get back into normal life. Whatever that is. :0)
In other news...I am going back on The Maker's Diet starting probably Monday. I need to do some shopping and meal planning before I jump in. It's a great diet but the first two weeks are pretty hard because it's a cleansing period and your choices of foods to eat are pretty slim. It's a 40 day diet and I may not go the whole 40 days but I'm determined to use at least 3 or 4 weeks of this diet to get me back to making better choices and also hopefully jumpstart some weight loss. Once I start losing weight it's easier to keep it going. Last time I went on this diet I dropped weight like crazy at the beginning and in total over the course of 4 or 5 months I lost 25 pounds and felt great. I want that again. I'm upping my time at the gym and sort of enjoying it. I've got lots of books on my nightstand to read. Right now I'm reading Pretty in Plaid by Jennifer Lancaster. She's really funny, it's not fiction, more biography. She's the author of Such a Pretty Fat that I read last year. My next read is going to be The Heavens Before by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow. It is a christian fiction book set at the time of the Great Flood. I've actually read the first chapter or so and am already into it. It's the first in a series and I already have the second one--He Who Lifts The Skies. I know there's a third one as well but can't remember the name. Also on my nightstand is Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani, this is the third in the series that starts with Big Stone Gap. They are simple, slice of life books and I've really enjoyed the first two. And, lastly, The Widow's Season. This was recommended on a blog I read and is sort of a ghost story. With the kids we are starting a few books this week--A Childhood of Famous American's biography of Walt Disney, The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, and The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I'm not sure that I'll have all of them going at once but I may read one in the morning and one in the evening. I'm looking forward to getting back into school, I'll be blogging a lot of our school journey this spring as I process what is working and what isn't.
Okay, time to go figure out dinner....Peace out my friends. :o)

My Sister...

Homeschooling Changes...

Okay, these are the kinds of posts that are very hard for me to write because it means taking the jumbled thoughts out of my head and trying to make them into words and sentences and paragraphs that you, the reader can understand. So, bear with me if this gets a little confusing. In past years of homeschooling I have done a lot of lapbooks, small unit studies, science experiments, and more history. After feeling like I was too task oriented about accomplishing these hands on things and rushing through them to check them off a list I decided to just quit doing them this year. I felt like my kids weren't getting that much out of them because in my haste to finish I was taking the fun out of the project and not allowing for much depth. So, consequently, this year has been day after day of Math, English, Wordly Wise, and a few other workbook style language arts practice. No wonder it's been our worst year ever. The kids have definitely learned and progressed but the spark is gone. I had already decided to scrap the English book in favor of this--Nonfiction by Evan Moor for the girls. I am also doing an Easter lapbook from In the Hands of a Child. So, I've added a little fun back into school and that's a start.
I would also like to start following the kids' interests more and "living a life of learning" as opposed to "doing school." I read the book, Homeschooing: A Family's Journey by Gregory and Martine Millman and it really inspired me. They take more of an unschooling approach but yet do a lot. I am not much of an unschooler, I have always felt too undisciplined to just wake up every day without a plan but I found some ideas in this book that I could use in my own homeschool. For one thing, I want to have less specific curriculum that just becomes rote learning. When I think of the workbooks I do with Joseph, outside of his Math and Wordly Wise I think the others are really a waste of time. I bought one Comprehensive 2nd grade book back around Christmas and thought that if we finished that I would feel like he had done 2nd grade. He does the pages in the book but they are so disjointed and shallow that I don't think it's even worth the time we spend on it. It would be much more valuable to take a walk and point out nouns, act out verbs, and use adjectives to describe what we are seeing for example. Joe hates writing in the workbook but will happily write a sentence out of a book he is reading so we could do that more as handwriting. I still have a few science kits with plenty of supplies and experiments to keep us having fun with science for a long time. I have a bookshelf full of science and history picture books, biographies, art books, etc. We could spend a day reading about volcanoes, Pompeii, and even build a volcano, or paint a volcano, and watch an instant play video on Netflix about volcanoes. That would be interesting and informative and I know the kids would remember it. So, I am going to "practice" learning through living in these last couple of months of school and see if it's something I want to continue long term next year. I am planning to get out of the house more and either go on field trips or nature walks, or take the book that we're reading aloud for history and go sit by the lake for read aloud time. So, in a nutshell--I am going to do less bookwork (of course, math is still a daily subject) but hopefully more learning. In the next couple of days I am going to make a list of the things I want to do, and want the kids to work on and learn for the rest of the school year and then set about making that happen. More than anything I want to find joy in homeschooling again. So, we'll see. Of course, I'll document much of what we do here on my blog. Stay tuned...

Spring Break in Pictures...

Our guests left this morning, we were sad to see them go, it was truly a great week. We had a great time each and every day and managed to balance lots of fun, good food, and a little chillaxin'. I love having people come visit this time of year. The weather is almost perfect and there is so much to do! I am reminded again of what a great place we found to live. We didn't even get to do all that we wanted to do and even better--almost everything we did was completely cheap or free. You can't beat that with a stick. Here are some random pictures from the week that don't really fit into a category all their own. Last night Joe and Melody traced and colored for a very long time (see pic above). Eventually Samantha joined the fun and made a beautiful picture of Bubble Princesses.
Before the coloring fun started, Hannah was doing "college" with Joe. He was all into learning division and doing some spelling and then he made his own reading assignment. I'll need to find his paper and take a picture of it. He assigned himself a reading time of 20 minutes and he set a timer and started reading. After his time was up he copied one sentence from his book. I wish he could get that excited about homeschooling. Speaking of homeschooling...I have a post coming up all about that. I am making some pretty big changes in how homeschooling will look around here. There are many reasons for this change but Joe is the main one. I have to learn how to make learning valuable to him and less stressful for me. :0) Stay tuned...
We managed to all fit around our table for every meal. This night we were having pasta--one with red sauce and meat on the side and the other with alfredo and spinach (my kids' favorite).
Above, Joe is demonstrating some moves from The Bendable Bunch, yoga book for kids. I know the man who wrote it and a friend is the illustrator. Below, Gracie is reading a familiar favorite to Samantha. If you've never read these Diary of a...Fly, Spider, and Worm Doreen Cronin then you should definitely get them from your library. They are cute, funny, and informational.

The day we went to the beach we also went out for a seafood lunch at Norwood's. Joe and Ollie wrote back and forth on this Magna Doodle for a while. Ollie asked him what his favorite vegetable was and Joe said corn. Then Ollie asked how he liked his corn cooked and Joe's answer was below. I had made corn the night before and he loved it. FYI--it was boiled in the microwave and then drained and butter was added and a dash of salt.


The pictures above and below is from a park day.

Above, the kids intro the girls to Bug Bingo. And, below...Lisa shows off her box of hair color. We attempted to dye her hair red and were mildly successful. You can definitely see the red if she's standing in the sun. :0)

Strawberry Picking, Zip Lining, and Farm Visiting

We had a really full day today. We started our day with a walk downtown--just Lisa and my girls and I. Then we ran a couple of errands, had some lunch, and headed to the strawberry fields. We picked lots of sweet strawberries, they were big and red and beautiful!







After we picked then we zip lined. Everybody got in on the fun, even Lisa and I. I've included a picture of Lisa but I'm not brave enough to include my picture--it's hilarious but a little scary. :0)



After zip lining we decided to stop at a friend's little farm to see some animals. The wind was blowing, the sun was shining, and the animals were friendly. It was just right.








After we got home the men were ready for some fun so they took the kids to the springs while Lisa and I stayed home, rested, laughed at pictures, went downtown for coffee, dyed her hair, and made some dinner. Everyone came home hungry and tired....it was a good day!

Fainting Goats

The Beach!

It's a beautiful day here in sunny FL and we spent the afternoon at the beach. We've got some fun family visiting us all the way from the frigid north and together we are soaking up the FL sunshine. I think the pics say it all. :0)