End Week Five

We did pretty good this week staying on task and getting through my plan. I had 28 things on the list for this week and we did 18. The other 10 are now on next weeks list.

It's fun to ask Tamarin questions about stories we have read through the week. "Well first she did that, and then they did the other thing." No I'm not simplifying, those were her words. She's like me, well you read the story too so why do I need to be so specific... It wasn't till college when a professor told me, "Imagine you left your paper behind and someone with the next class found it. You want them to have all the information for it to make sense." Why no one told me that before college I will never understand. I've always written papers knowing the people reading it had the same info to go off of as I did. So it was fun to tell her to pretend I'd never read the story and I was hearing it for the first time.

I traced their bodies on a long piece of paper taped to the floor and they got to draw themselves. Tamarin's had her digestive system, her heart, her lungs, even her skeleton. It was cute! Far from accurate, but cute! Lemur's had a heart and a dress. Howler's was... well.... colorful.....

I found some neat things in the dollar section of Target so we painted a turkey this week. I found a book of fall crafts for a dollar. I also found a place in town that still has pine trees! Hopefully no one will look at me too weird in a few weeks when I go collect the pine cones :)

Tamarin and I talked more about evergreen and deciduous trees, this is an on going conversation we've had for months. It went along with our seeds we collected this week. As well as discussing the difference between a nut and a seed. All nuts are seeds, but did you know a peanut is actually not a nut....... hmmm..... I learned something!

We went to the library and the girls each got their first library card and borrowed their first book. Howler got one on dinosaurs, Lemur got a hardy boys book, despite me trying to convince her into another one, and Tamarin found a Christmas book. They happened to have story time the day we went so we came back for it. They girls enjoyed it, but honestly it was too many people in a small space for me. It did reinforce to me that I need to do circle time because that's basically what they did, some poetry with motion stuff.

We went to the Oklahoma Territorial Museum. It was neat, but not really age appropriate for my crew. I think Tamarin could have gotten more out of it if I had taken her by herself. We got there when they opened. The one girl working the museum wasn't really that interested in telling us anything about it. I don't even think she turned on all the lights it was so dim I could hardly read the plaques. It is a lot of artifacts under glass. They have a settler camp site set up in the center of the room behind glass and you can walk all around it. There is a replica of a small home upstairs. They three wagons to look at. Then there is a section about the state government that we went through so fast I didn't get to read any of it :p You can walk through the old library building, but it was just large rooms and the beauty of the architecture was lost on kids this young :)

We had a lot of fun doing gnome math, but after visiting my friend on Friday I realized I need to do more things on paper. She has a binder she keeps their work in just in case someone ever questions their ability. If they had to go to public school she wants them to know where they are based on their work. We do most of our work with objects or on the dry erase board. Even their artwork I tend to only keep the exceptional things. I have a file cabinet that is full of junk. Note to self, empty cabinet and start saving some things........



I ordered this from amazon since I cannot find a simple dial or liquid thermometer to go outside our school room window. I'm excited about it. There was a cute frog one that looks like a decorative frog stuck to your window from the outside, but has a thermometer on the belly to see from inside. It took a lot of will power to order the one I thought would be best for school :p **UPDATE** WORTHLESS DO NOT BUY! It worked for one week and then wigged out after a strong rain.


On a personal note I have finally started nesting! Yeah!!!! No, I still haven't emptied the crib yet.......... However the toy room did get cleaned and all I found in the bottom of the closet was a piece of pizza from the stone age........ I also organized all of our school and picture books. Lets see how long they stay sorted.......

Six Under Seven For Eight Hours....

That's right, two six year olds, two fours, one three, one eighteen months, and two mamas. We had our first meeting with the other homeschool family today and it was perfect! I cannot believe we were there for eight hours! There weren't even any serious meltdowns! There was a broken window....... but everyone got along wonderfully! (My kids are NOT the ones that broke the window by the way and it was a total accident. It was so cute to watch the look of shock cross his face. I told my friend, "There's your physics lesson for the day!")

Yes, they spent most of the day playing, but that's why you have get togethers, socialization, right? She did show me a neat way to teach sight words and even got Lemur ("That's not my name!" - What she says every time I try to teach her how to write it.) to write her name! Amazing! I'll detail that a little further down the page.

We read this book

And then attempted to make mason jar butter...... twenty minutes of shakin' and we resorted to blender butter. Yes, we cheated, but it was the end of the day and the kids weren't interested in shaking anymore. We talked a little bit about how cows were a good source of food back then, you got milk, cream, butter, cheese, and buttermilk from them. That part was more of a passing mention than a lesson, but we did school stuff at the very end of the day and I think EVERYONE was tired.

I didn't realize till about 15 minutes before we left just how tired I was. My two youngest were asleep before we were 10 minutes down the road and my oldest fell asleep about 20 minutes into the trip home. They played hard today!

I'm not sure I have ever left a playdate/get together and felt as normal as I do right now. I hope it wasn't my imagination, we seemed to be on the same page. She has a more conventional school style than I do which I hope will rub off a bit on me. I could use some of that. I hope I could be of some help to her, though I have no idea in what area that might be yet!

Sight word teaching method:
Draw word on chalk board
Get kid to trace/erase the word with their finger
Dip their finger into water and they "write" over the erased letters
Then they write the word with chalk over the water letters.

Never would have thought of that!! I'm going to see if she'll do it again tomorrow, wish me luck!

If You Give a Mom a Feather Duster

If you give a mom a feather duster she'll start with the ceiling fan.
If she starts with the ceiling fan the dust will get in the carpet.
If the dusts gets in the carpet she'll have to get the vacuum.
If she gets the vacuum chances are the bag will be full.
If the bag is full she'll go to the laundry room to get a new one.
If she goes to the laundry room to get a new one she'll see the clock and realize it's time for lunch.
After she makes lunch, she'll remember she was going to the laundry room for something.
If she walks into the laundry room she'll do a load of laundry.
If she does a load of laundry she'll see the top of the washer needs to be cleaned.
If she cleans the top of the washer she'll notice her cleaning spray is almost empty.
If her cleaning spray is almost empty she'll decide to clean off the dryer too so she can throw another bottle away.
If she throws another bottle away she'll need to take out the trash.
When she goes to take our the trash, she'll see the full vacuum bag.
So she'll get a new one and go back to the room she left the vacuum in.
If she goes back to the room she left the vacuum in she'll see the feather duster and wonder why she hasn't finished dusting.......

Why no task ever gets completed. Am I the only one whose days go like this?? And if the girls ask me a question while I'm walking from one room to another there's no way I'm remembering why I was walking into the other room.......

This of course is brought to you by a week of reading this line of books, just in case you've never heard of them.

Our favorite is If You Take a Mouse to School. When I was looking for activities for cause and effect, one site recommended reading these books. I was looking more for a scientific cause and effect, but it does get the concept of cause and effect across.

The Feline Day of Reckoning

Hi! Another off topic kind of day. Remember my Home Economics post? I discussed with the girls, if we put things where they belong, then we can find them. That was two weeks ago and it seemed to have stuck. I was pleased with them. They were putting their school stuff up when we finished, the toys were not as all over the house as they usually were. The toy room has still been in disarray, but that's normal, right? I forget what night it was last week.... Friday or Thursday night. I was frustrated because one of the cats had yet again left a present in the toy room. I'd had it. We would be keeping the toy room shut at all times. I cleaned up the mess and told them the cat probably wouldn't do it if there wasn't always so much on the floor in here. I told them I wanted everything off the floor.


Note to self...... specifics...... specifics are important........ I went about cleaning or making dinner, whatever it was I was doing and returned to the toy room to find.........

It was indeed off the toy room floor.... (this pic is from this morning so they had begun to pull it out again) all the shelves and storage boxes were empty. It's like they cleared the room and shoved it ALL in there. *sigh*

I just left it there.... They'd pull it all out again right? We could revisit the topic then. Despite the fact I kept the door shut all weekend I still smell cat when I walk in that room which makes me wonder if they didn't bury another present when they threw all the toys in there. Today, we are pulling out ALL of that stuff. It is time to reevaluate. There will be a charity bag and trash bag. If the toy in question does not have an incredibly obvious home, it goes in a bag. I'm hoping it's my imagination and there's nothing under there. I shampooed the carpet in that room this morning in hopes the smell would go away, but even if it does this is going to be the task for the day. There's no time like the present right?

The cats have officially been evicted for an indefinite amount of time. I guess because the toy room door was shut whoever it was decided to leave a present in the doorway right across from the toy room. I don't mind a mess once and a while, becoming a two time a week thing is just not going to fly. I tried over the last few months to figure out which cat it was, but each time I thought I had the culprit outside I'd find another. It's like they were tag teaming my sanity. I'm done playing games. Love my cats, but they are going to have to suck it up and enjoy the outdoor life for a while.

Educational Game Sites

Here are some of the online educational game sites. This is something I haven't utilized this year, but I need to. They have to know how to navigate a computer and it's a good way for me to have a few minutes to breath and get organized for the next project of the day. The girls' have an old desktop, it's just an old retired computer that can serve this purpose. All it has on it are links to these sites, a few educational programs from lakeshore and a fisherprice education keyboard game. I wish they still made games for the keyboard, the girls spend the most time with it and the games are now $40+ on amazon and ebay :(

 
Everyone always talks about it. Tamarin likes it, but it doesn't keep her attention for very long and she rarely finishes one entire book. She tends to wander around the site.



Very busy website. I had it bookmarked since last year, but hadn't spent much time on it. The girls spend more of their time on PBSkids. I might try to reintroduce this site soon.



My favorite! Mostly for the fact it's entertaining, educational, simple for them to navigate, and has TONS of games.



A few I just learned about that are free:


This looks promising. I'm going to explore it this week. I'll let you know if it's any good.




Looks like there is a free and a paying version of this. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet.



Ones you have to pay for that I have no experience with, but have heard good things:





Owned by jumpstart (which I think everyone has heard of they have a TON of books/cds/video games you name it, they make it) I didn't care for their material in the past, but the website looks interesting. I may try it in the winter when there is less outside time. It's $9 for a month, you get access to mathblaster and jumpstart. Review to come if I try it!

The Plan Week Five

I am sticking to the book this week aka the oak meadow curriculum. Well..... mostly...... I'm hoping it will keep me on track. I wrote down exactly what pages for each day, but it wouldn't do you much good to share the page numbers and it may get me in trouble for sharing copyrighted material if I share anything more than page numbers :) I am adding some other things on top of the literature and art projects I'm using from oak meadow.

We are going to talk about cause and effect. Not thought much on this other than just asking the girls "What happens if...." and letting them fill in the blank. Then we explore the cause and effect.

We are going to look at 3D shapes, something I've never really talked about beyond the pyramid. Probably while we build something like this with our blocks. I just need to make some cylinders. What better way to slip in some education during play :)



We're going to play a game to reinforce location words (above, below, behind, under, beside) mostly for Chloe cause she's getting tripped up on it a little.

I'm hoping to find a large old fashioned liquid thermometer for outside the school room window. We can start charting outside temperature since the season is changing. We'll watch the temp drop over the next month.

We are going to talk more in depth about Native Americans. We talked about the concept last year of there being a lot of groups here and then the people from Europe moved in taking over the land and then we "Americans" said bugger off to the British, becoming the United States. That's about as in depth as I got, though this is the abbreviated version of a handful of conversations. I have a couple of books related to the subject that she was not so interested in last year. That's why I left it at that. Let's hope she's more receptive this year. If I have any winners on that front I'll let you know what they are.

I'm kind of doing a two family co-op kind of thing with a girl that I graduated high school with! Ack! Talk about scary, that means I have to get organized! This week is her week so we will be meeting with her crew one day. Next week we have an outing to a history museum. Then the following week is my turn. I'm taking the fun outdoorsy stuff. The subject matter is prairie life/western expansion kind of thing. I intend to be incredibly up front with my kids on how natives were moved to this land, promised to be theirs and then the government broke those promises and sold the land to other people. That's part of the reason I want to get back to talking about Native Americans this week. I feel like that's the best place to start when talking about American history. We'll just hop around the timeline a little since this was the subject my friend was working on anyway. Then in November I'll back track to European landings on the east coast, Thanksgiving and all that. Anyway, when my day gets closer I'll post about my planned activities and stuff. I've got a lot of ideas and I'm excited about it! Once I find out how in depth she is getting I can adjust my plan accordingly. I just hope I can get organized so it's not a mad scramble for resources the day before!

Came across this site on pinterest and hope to explore it this week with the girls.

A few of my homeschool friends were discussing online resources last week. I had gotten away from the computer as something for them to use. Then after seeing those posts I encouraged them to play some educational games. I got almost an hour (with them taking turns, but still being interested in watching what the other was doing) to organize and discuss the co-op stuff online with my friend! Agh! Why did I get away from this?! They were all occupied and let me get stuff done.... I'll post all the different sites we use and the ones I learned about last week in another post later today.

Prejudice Vs Instinct

As much as I would love to be psychic or have some great mental powers *waves hand* "This is not the speeding car you are looking for, officer." I do not possess such ability. However, everyone always talks about motherly instincts. When you just know something in your gut. I had a full four paragraphs written up on how I felt guilt for judging this family from soccer the moment I saw them. I wrote it the first week of practice and wasn't quite happy with the flow so left it to edit later. I couldn't explain it other than I must have been creeped out their general appearance, even though that normally doesn't mean squat to me. Agh! Was I turning into a shallow soccer mom?? I was in serious personal turmoil over this. After a few weeks of being around them, I realized I shouldn't feel guilty. I think this is one of those moments when it was my instincts telling me something wasn't right.

I usually am the type to try to include everyone. At the playgroup I made a point to get Tamarin introduced to a little girl having trouble getting involved with the group. It's important to make an effort when there are kids on the fringe of a group. Don't just stand there, get involved, try to help. This other family though..... they creeped me out the moment I saw them. The more I hear and see from their children the less I want my children anywhere near them. The siblings are verbally abusive to the sister on her team. The little girl says awful things about herself. This last practice even the coach stepped in and told her she was great and shouldn't say things like that about herself. Tamarin told me after the game this weekend that she was saying lots of rude things including calling herself names. It's sad.

I guess the point of this post is just to say, trust your instincts. Even if you're not sure why you feel a certain way about something or someone. Stay in tune with those feelings and don't brush them off or feel like you are making something out of nothing.

Update a few days later: Tamarin just told me exactly what I suspected. Over the last couple of weeks she has been trying to tell me dirty jokes. Bashfully and rather unsuccessfully, but the intent is clear. I had been asking her if she came up with them or if she had heard them somewhere. She had been very insistent on not answering me so I was thinking perhaps we had finally reached a "gross things fascinate me" phase. Today she once again told another joke and I asked her if someone on her team had told her that one. She said yes and told me exactly what I figured, it is the little girl I was talking about in this post. Ergh. So frustrating. I told Tamarin that if she starts to say things like that again she needs to get up and move. If she follows then she needs to come sit by me. Not that I think it will do any good, but I'm going to talk to the coach at practice about keeping an ear open and stopping that. I have no problem with kids having toilet humor, but this is not the age for it. Plus one of the things she told me as "joke" makes me think DHS may need to be called. Rest assured if I get another hint that someone in that family is putting that girl in harms way I will be calling DHS in a heart beat.

Week Four Over.... far from complete

I started this post as the mid week check in, but I can only mark two things off the list. Hormones have made me a mess this week and Capuchin is keeping me exhausted, so as of Wednesday night we hadn't accomplished much. I'm getting miserable enough to start counting days till she will hopefully be here! (63.... btw..... hopefully....)

On the up side I did circle time on Monday!! I'm proud and the girls seemed to enjoy it. I did a few poetry with movement things and we passed the owl around to talk about what we enjoyed learning about last week and if there was anything they wanted to learn about this week. I was right in thinking Tamarin would say bugs! Lemur said she wanted to learn more about being nice ;) that one will be an ongoing lesson.

Ellie asked about Rainbows
 
So we did an experiment and talked about how rainbow is light and light contains all those colors. Then water breaks it up so we can see those colors. We also discussed how the stars and the sun are balls of fire.



While I was looking around for the rainbow stuff I found this really cool experiment (well, it's more of a novelty). We talked about why the pencils didn't make the bag leak. Then I let them pull them out and watch it spill out. Also talked about how the pencils looked broken in the bag. They had a great time. They poked at least a dozen pencils in it and wanted to do it again. They were excited to draw it in their journal too. Very fun.

Tamarin enjoyed talking about the moon and doing the activities. I'm hoping we will start charting the moon tonight and stick to it. "The sun doesn't move?" "Nope. The earth and moon move." "Wow." Mind blown moment :)

We also talked about starvation, poverty and charity this week. Tamarin was asking me what certain phrases meant and she thought "starve to death" was like "knock them dead" so we talked about expressions and what they really mean. Then on to the serious topics about people starving to death and how it happens all over the world. I started to talk about charity and she chimed, "We go to charity!"
"Kind of, we drop off stuff at charities don't we?"
"Yeah! We sell them our stuff."
"No, we don't. We give them to the charity for free so that they can sell them and use that money to help people."
Another 'A ha' moment. In the past we had talked about giving toys to charity for kids that don't have toys, but I had never expanded the concept beyond that.

We talked more about plants and the importance of roots. We had to transplant our cd case sprout. One bean was a dud and I didn't remove it soon enough :( The mold killed the second bean sprout and was starting to go for the third. He's now in a spice jar on the kitchen window, hope he makes it.

We made hand print turkeys and the girls enjoyed the watercolor vs crayon. Tamarin didn't think much of it till I showed her how to make a "secret message" (white crayon on white paper) then it became the coolest thing ever!

This week felt like a failure. We went off topic a lot, but that's the great thing about homeschooling: she still learned things even if they we didn't do the things I planned. It was a mad scramble Thursday and Friday to try and get things done from the list. I am going to sit down this weekend and try to plan out the next 2-3 weeks in detail so I can get back on track. Maybe there are pros to having a daily plan.


Writing:

Continue working on story book

Tamarin - practice writing q and p, b and d,  Lemur- Practice writing C and 3

Math:

Think up at least two gnome math equations

Wormy Apple game. I forget where I found this, but you print a handful of apples on a page and draw holes in each from 1 to whatever. Then you cut pipe cleaners into little green "worms". They have to match the worms to the amount of holes.

Either card math or domino math game for Tamarin (Can't find my dominos or a deck of cards...... seriously??)

HOWLER COUNTED TO TEN THIS WEEK! AHH!! Counting along side her sisters :) It was great!


Science:

Moon - one of the science experiment books (pg6)

Moon craft, one, two

Nature scavenger hunt (with some changes) and then look at it under the microscope.

Bugs!

Music:

Tamarin - Piano. Mandatory this week.

Arts and Crafts:

Sewing

crayon vs watercolor

Season related:

mini jack o lanterns

Just for fun:

painted hand puppets - help the girls improv a play. We've done something similar before, but these hand paintings are adorable and give me a lot of ideas!

Every Week:

Circle Time.

Tamarin - Write day, month, time, sentence, sprout progress, Lemur- encourage her to draw an animal in her book and sprout progress, Howler- draw whatever she wants.

Chart the moon every night.

Read picture books every day as usual till they are bored.

Read chapter book 2 times a week with Tamarin.

Encourage Tamarin to read BOB books.

We did some reading this week, but not enough that I feel I should mark any of these off. I normally spend 5-8 hours a week reading to them. This week..... mmmm... maybe an hour? Hour and a half? Well, more if you count reading the bug book with them. I feel like I need to play catch up on the other things so we'll probably just let these staples slide this week.

Tamarin- Sight word games or crafts twice a week, Lemur - similar game/craft with letters (Lemur didn't want to participate this week, which is okay since I'm just hoping she picks up on some of it)

Write the letter of the week sheet (c)

Write the number of the week sheet (3)

1st Grade Common Core

Ugh. I went over the Kindergarten core again and highlighted the things Tamarin needs to work on and marking off the things I think she does well. I decided we probably could wrap up K in 2012 and start 1st in 2013. I revisited my link to the 1st grade curriculum which apparently has been moved/removed. So back to Ok.gov where I ended up here.

Unfortunately you have to sort through the 7 categories to find the pages for the grade in question. Ugh..... So for you and the likely chance I will be needing to reprint I thought I'd post the links and pages for 1st grade.

English pdf: pages 11, 13, 15, 16, 19, 23, 26, 27, 32 and 33

Language Arts pdf: pages 7-13.

Math pdf: pages 13-16.

Science pdf:  pages 3-5.

Arts pdf: pages 2-4.

Social Studies pdf: pages 24 & 25. My computer couldn't handle viewing it online probably because it is huge. I had to download it.

World Languages pdf: pages 7-8. At first I thought it was through page 20! I'm thinking, that's a lot of language work for K-3. Then after sitting down to read it I realized it's actually 2 pages for K-3, *sigh of relief*


I also found they have a homeschool section to their site. I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but I will be.

Jackpot

Tamarin comes in from the barn this morning excited as could be, " I got a jackpot!" She has the eggs wrapped in her shirt like every morning. I tell her, " Great! Go put them in the cartons." I continue to put dinner in the crock pot. I hear her counting over my shoulder.

" Mama, what comes after 13?"
" 14."
" 14, 16."
" 15."
" 15,16. I got 16 eggs!"
Thinking she must be counting the ones that were already in the carton as well I simply reply, "That's great!"
" And they're tiny! They were in a bucket in the barn!"
She now has my full attention, " Really?"
She wasn't kidding, this is what I found when I looked over her shoulder, plus a few full size eggs.

 

Now many of you are probably thinking 'Jackpot!' just like Tamarin was. I was thinking, "Crap." Yes, a haul of eggs is reason to celebrate, but let's back up for a minute and discuss the animal chicken.

Now everyone knows chickens lay eggs. What you may not know is they DO NOT need a rooster to lay an egg. The female will lay eggs on her cycle, however frequent that may be. It is no different than some other animals in the world such as humans (Our eggs just don't have shells, but I'll let you put those pieces together on your own). So a chicken will lay usually 3-8 eggs a week, depending on the breed. The eggs in the store come from birds in places like, this (or worse, but I thought I'd post one that wouldn't upset people as much) -

They have no access to roosters..... errr... should I say roosters have no access to them. Anyway, this is why you will always get a nice yolk from your store bought eggs. Here is where my feeling of  'crap' comes in. We have roosters and they have access to all of our hens. Chickens' instincts are to lay on around a dozen eggs at a time. It increases their chances of having an offspring make it to adulthood. A mama chicken can't protect chicks if they start hatching and the last one hatches a week or more later, she can't get off the nest until the last one hatches. So a chicken finds a nice hiding spot and begins to lay her eggs there. After they have a nice collection of eggs, about a week or week and a half later that is when they lay on them beginning incubation. She will only get off this nest once a day to get a little food, a drink of water and take a MASSIVE poop. Then right back to the nest.

So if you haven't figured it out by now, there is a worry when you find a collection of a dozen or more eggs that are obviously from the same chicken (or mostly from the same chicken, they are great at adopting other hen's eggs) in a very good hiding spot. You may crack it open to find this,

 

or any of the number of phases in between. I attempted to candle the eggs. Candling is where you attempt to shine a light through the egg and see what is inside. I cannot find my little flash light that I used when we were incubating, so I did the best I could with a large one. Pretty sure there was nothing in there I held my breath and cracked it open.......



Breathing a big sigh of relief I went about making my morning omelet.

 

While I am not interested in finding developing chicks in my eggs, did you know in some parts of the world it is a delicacy? I'm all for trying new things, but you can keep that one o.O

Thanksgiving Dinner

September.... a little early to be talking turkey. Except this guy just offered himself up. I know I've posted a few pics of him. I love taking photos of this guy. He's that right combination of ugly, pretty and fascinating. We originally planned on eating all four turkeys we bought as poults. Then we decided we'd butcher one male and keep the two females and the other male to breed. The healthiest male and female got picked off by predators.... so much for survival of the fittest. This leaves us with one injured and very sick (respiratory infection we can't seem to kick) female and pretty male who got over being sick. I told Chris I like having turkeys and since they have both been sick maybe we should keep them as ornamental turkeys... just for fun to watch and listen. I have to admit, over the last couple weeks as he has been putting on weight again I have begun to rethink his position as dinner, but ornamental was still winning. Until a little while ago. I was wrapping up putting the dishes in the washer and told the girls they could go look for eggs in the barn. I'd be there in just a minute. Howler didn't even make it off the porch. I heard a loud thud and crying. From the best I can piece together from Howlerspeak the turkey either pecked at her or scratched her, getting her finger. She's fine, but she's a little traumatized from the experience. Well, my decision is made. I'm not sure if he will make it to Thanksgiving, but hopefully he will. I'd love to have the family over and have fresh turkey. But one more outburst I may snap his neck and make a surprise turkey dinner for Chris.

This is what life is like on a farm. All the animals here are food, either for us or a predator. They are not pets. We have an abundance of ducks right now as well who are about to be thinned. Going into winter predators are going to start getting more desperate. We have a few months before this happens, but I would rather be the one having the feast instead of cleaning up the carcass. This is part of the reason I wanted to homeschool. I want to share a couple of stories from some chicken enthusiast friends of mine.

One of them has a granddaughter a little older than Tamarin. When she was in kindergarten the teacher had all the kids in circle and asked them where eggs come from. Her granddaughter answered, "The chicken poops it out!" The teacher was appalled by that response and told her, "No, they come from the store." I'm sure she was trying to redirect the conversation into the lesson she was wanting to teach, but my friend's daughter was very insistent, "No, the chicken poops it out. I've seen it!" This landed her granddaugther, a kindergartner, in the principle's office. Seriously.

Another story from another friend of mine: Her brother and sister-in-law came to visit. She was talking about her chickens and the sister-in-law was shocked to hear she butchered her own chickens. The sister-in-law threatened to call the police on her for animal cruelty if she did that while they were there. My friend brushed it off, not caring for this extended family member anyway, but the irony was not lost on her when the sister-in-law ordered chicken when they went out to eat that same night.

There is a disconnect between our food and where it comes from. Many kids and adults both think our food simply gets to our plate by magic. Think Star Trek materializers. It's created at a molecular level by a computer and that's all there is to it. I want my kids to see the face that goes with their food. I want them to see the life that they have, help to nurture it and understand the sacrifice that goes with eating it. I want them to see how hard it is to keep plants alive during a hot summer and appreciate those who work to make food for the rest of us (the natural/farmers market way, not the gmo/cash crop way).

When my kids get to history lessons I don't want working outside, hunting, gathering, farming, fetching water, chopping wood to build a home, etc to be completely foreign concepts. When they read about Huck Finn wading down a creek or hiding in a cave or the wilderness from My Side of the Mountain. I want these to be things they can see in their head because they have experienced it. These are things that are important to me. As you can see the farming and homeschooling go hand in hand for me. They are part of the same goal.

So anyway, my advice to those of you out there, homeschoolers or not, is get your kids out into nature. Get them first hand experience with food! Get them to experience life outside in the abnormal way that used to be normal! Not just man built parks with slides and jungle gyms or on game fields. Help them figure out that they are part of and responsible for this beautiful place and the creatures in it.

Brain Fart

Err.. excuse me, my brain passes gas (as I would tell the girls). Ever had those moments where someone asks you the simplest question and yet you still can't answer it? Maybe this is a problem because I have more than one kid.... maybe it's because I'm pregnant..... maybe it's cause I'm crazy.....

I was trying to think of a photo that could go with this post. When I think gas, I think of Ray, our boston terrier. I have a video of him scratching his rear on the fence, but I can't get videos to load for some reason. So here he is looking annoyed, which is as close to cute as he gets.

Whadda you lookin' at?

I took Lemur to her dentist appointment today, not at the scheduled time though. They called me to say they were cancelling the days appointments due to a water main break, but if I could get her in within the next hour then they'd still do the consult. AH! Mad dash to get everyone dressed, hair brushed, in the car, on our way. Fortunately, my mother happened to be in the area so she was able to hang out in the car with my other two while I took Lemur in. The office was empty since most people can't just drop what they are doing and be there so we get in immediately. Lemur jumps up in the chair happy as could be.

Here's where my brain froze - "What does she snack on?" Huh...... ummm....... she eats, doesn't she......... uhhhhh..... "Bananas..................... Apples."  Lemur chimes in, " Macaroni and cheese! Fries!" Thank you honey, you're really helping me look like an involved parent................... "Does she eat fruit snacks?" I guess my expression showed I had no idea what she was talking about. I'm thinking, I just told you she eats fruit as snacks. "Like gummy fruit snacks." "Ohh! Not really, sometimes, but not regularly." The woman gives me a funny look.... wow.... how could such a simple question make me feel like such a goob.

I hate when my brain does this and it does it often. "How old are they?" I've actually told a woman the wrong ages and then stood there for a second realizing my mouth and brain didn't sync up before answering. Saying a common phrase then realizing it means the opposite than what you meant to answer.

Does everyone go through this and is it as often as I do? Sometimes I feel like my children have eaten my brain and I will never think straight ever again........

Oh and for the record Lemur snacks on bananas, apples, yogurt, bread with mustard, cheddar rabbits, and kashi bars..... thank you very much!

 

Meal Planning... part 2....

I made this last night:

Click on the image to go to the site. I used rotel instead of diced peppers and macaroni instead of noyolks because that's what I had on hand. I also threw it all into the crock pot, adding the cheeses just before serving. I'm still not a good crock pot cook, but Chris really liked it. I even liked it and I didn't think I would.

This successful creation found on pinterest has made me decide to try an all pinterest meal plan again. Last time I did this, it was a failure. There was only one recipe I would repeat, the rest were bland or just flat not good.

This morning I started with this:

They are pretty good. Tamarin likes them. I was trying to convince Lemur to try them and Tamarin chimed in, "I tried them. They're goooood." I didn't have any self rising flour so I added 1/2 tsp baking soda and baking powder. I was lazy and didn't look up the exact amounts I needed to add for 1 cup of homemade self rising flour. The little ones turned out good, the big ones didn't. Turns out it's 1 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt per cup of flour. Oops..... If you ever need bisquick or self rising flour just google homemade with it and it'll show you what proportions to mix to have the same thing as the premade stuff.

This was a win for me. A shot or two of Louisiana Sauce and it was good. Chris said it tasted okay, there's some heat, but not a lot of taste. I think he just didn't like the fact most of the taste is in the veggies :p

OMG - I don't care that it took an hour to make. This is a repeat. In fact this may become a weekly staple.

Chris didn't believe me when I told him these were whole wheat. These were very good.

 



This was okay. Not bad for a really fast dessert.

It took me ten days since my original post to get this far. This is why meal planning just doesn't work for me.

Here's the half a plan for the rest of the week:

We have leftovers from last night's meal. I picked up steak at the meat market plus the three entrees above and resulting leftovers. I think that should be plenty to get us to next Monday and maybe even beyond. I was hoping to get out to the grocery store today, but I'll probably resort to sending Chris when he gets off work.

The Cozi app has been tremendously useful. I don't remember how I came across this app to begin with. We have it on my computer, kindle, and Chris' phone. I like it. I can write up the list at home and Chris can look at it on his phone. No phone calls, repeating my whole list, him writing it down, then forgetting to bring in that list, another phone call asking me to repeat, him trying to do it from memory and the end result - not having what I need for dinner. Also as long as I open my list on the kindle before leaving the house (or any wifi spot) I can then go to the grocery store and use it instead of a hand written list. You used to be able to organize the list, but since they updated I've not been able to figure out how to rearrange items. Chris finds that annoying. I don't mind as much. There's also a calender, to do list, and recipes, but I've not explored the recipes, don't know if they are any good.

I'll update this post after I make the meals to share my opinion on them.

Week Four Plan

I hope to accomplish a lot the first few days this week. Lemur has a dentist appointment to deal with 11 cavities :( I never would have thought a 4 year old needed to floss, but apparently she has 11 cavities all in between her teeth. Something to think about for those of you with small ones like me. Brushing is not enough, flossing is now mandatory in this house. I expect after her appointment the rest of the week will be spent consoling. I've been warned that they will probably want to knock her out to deal with them.... I'm not sure how I feel about that...... I've been told this office's threshold is 8, anything more than 8 they want to sedate them. Three of the cavities are on her front teeth. I'm hoping I can convince them to let those slide, she'll be losing them in the next year or so anyway. That puts us at 8 and would not require sedation..... I'm nervous about it. Don't like it!

We also have a lunch date with one of my cycling friends this week. We've been talking about it for months so it'll be nice to finally get together.


Writing:

Continue working on story book 

Tamarin - practice writing q and p, b and d, Lemur - Practice writing C and 3

Math:

Think up at least two gnome math equations

Wormy Apple game. I forget where I found this, but you print a handful of apples on a page and draw holes in each from 1 to whatever. Then you cut pipe cleaners into little green "worms". They have to match the worms to the amount of holes.

Either card math or domino math game for Ellie

Science:

Moon - one of the science experiment books (pg6)

Moon craft, one, two

Nature scavenger hunt (with some changes) and then look at it under the microscope.

Bugs! We've been talking a lot about bugs lately, so I'm going to try to find some more sites on different types and we can do some of these crafts. (before 8am the girls have already caught a mosquito, a moth and a who knows what. I just left the front door light on last night and this morning our front door was covered in bugs. Since it is so cold they could put up little fight.)

pushing hibernation off a few weeks till I find my books or the new ones I just ordered get here.


Music:

Tamarin - Piano. Mandatory this week.

Arts and Crafts:

Sewing

crayon vs watercolor: the homeschool group had an art get together to teach this last week, but the time wasn't good for us.

Season related:

mini jack o lanterns

Just for fun:

painted hand puppets - help the girls improv a play. We've done something similar before, but these hand paintings are adorable and give me a lot of ideas!

Every Week:

Circle Time. I give myself no choice this week. It had to happen.

Tamarin - Write day, month, time, sentence, sprout progress, Lemur - encourage her to draw an animal in her book and sprout progress, Howler - draw whatever she wants.

Chart the moon every night.

Read picture books every day as usual till they are bored.

Read chapter book 2 times a week with Tamarin.

Encourage Tamarin to read BOB books.

Tamarin - Sight word games or crafts twice a week, Lemur - similar game/craft with letters

Write the letter of the week sheet (c)

Write the number of the week sheet (3)

As for my personal agenda for the week - tackle this:

 

The crib, aka the laundry bin, is right beside my side of the bed. It is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. It is a constant reminder that there is always SOMETHING to do in this house. Every week I make progress, but the thing is never empty. With a family of five it is nearly impossible to ever have ALL the laundry done. This week though, I want everything where it belongs so that I can pull out baby clothes and start sorting what Capuchin will need. Only 73 days, with my birthing history, more like 68. That sounds like plenty of time and not enough all at once. 

*@!#&@% (otherwise known as soccer)

Okay, I was annoyed to begin with, the longer it took me to get home, the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. So here's my rant, if you are a highly competitive parent, don't read it.

If your response to an email PLEADING for coaches is "I have no experience."  Then I'm pretty damn sure you have no right to give your child grief for the way they play.

STOP YELLING AT YOUR KID! I'm not talking about hollering "That way!" "Kick it!" "Go!" in an encouraging way. I'm talking about screaming at your 4,5,6 year old "KICK THE BALL!" "GET SERIOUS." "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

Don't look away from the field and shake your head when your kid kicks the ball out of bounds.

You think it's easy? Okay, then lets get all the parents out there to play each other, no not on the kids' little field. On the real one. Let's see how focused and eager you are at the end of an hour. I'm pretty sure half of you wouldn't make it.

These are things I witnessed from parents on my children's teams and others today. Adults expecting children under the age of 6 to play like teenagers performing for a college scout.

Parents avidly keeping score of a game that, guess what, isn't scored or refereed. WHO CARES who scores the most goals?? They are not here to "win" anything. They are here to learn to love the game. You think they are going to love the game when you are screaming at them the entire time with that disappointed look on your face?

THEY ARE CHILDREN!! They are here to get a basic idea of how the game works and get their feet wet on the concept of teamwork. Skill doesn't come till later. They are here to have a good time not fulfill your lifelong desire to have a sports star.

Here's a hint, in the grand scheme of life a 5 year old's soccer game means jack and shit. Guilting your child for a "poor" performance does nothing but demean your child and undermine their self esteem. At this age they are trying as hard as they can. Suck it up - be a SUPPORTIVE PARENT and get your priorities straight. You're here to support your child not a sport.

Week Three Complete

Here was the real winner of the week:

 

The last thing we did before daddy got home today. This is just before it descended into complete chaos, but the girls had a great time.

I think we spent less time overall on school work this week, but maybe not. It feels that way, maybe because it was less effort this week. The flow was good.

The plan for the rest of the evening is Halloween cartoons, maybe some hot chocolate, make some cupcakes and my make shift (easy and at the bottom of this post) Alice Spring's Chicken recipe with curly fries and green beans.

What worked:

Counting candy and cookies worked great for math. Tamarin had a good time and that was pretty much all we did on Thursday was math. It kept her happy for hours.

I enjoyed allowing myself to go off topic more this week. Since I didn't have a huge plan I was able to adapt to what the girls wanted to talk about. From eardrums to frigate birds. Never seen a frigate bird? You should, google male frigate bird for some neat pics. We discusses eardrums on the wing from my memory, but I thought I would include a link to a drawing better than mine :p

What didn't happen and needs to:

Moon science...... the package of oreos disappeared while I wasn't looking. By the time I realized this it was merely a package of chocolate wafers......

Still can't bring myself to do circle time... I don't know why I have so much trouble with this.....

What didn't work:

Sewing.... the only way this is going to work is getting the other two to nap and keeping Tamarin up.

The bingo sight word game I got for Tamarin is not broken down by age. There's a nice jumble of stages on each sheet. It'll be put aside till later next year or so.

I decided there was no point in pursuing a gymnastics class, when I have Capuchin in November we'd be out for most of the year anyway. Why spend the annual fee for only 2 or 3 months of classes. However I did get a good lead on a basketball league for Tamarin. She played in the spring and enjoyed it. We'll see if that pans out.

Everyday:

Circle Time! Do it! Whether you want to or not!

Tamarin- Write day, month, time, sentence, sprout progress, Lemur- encourage her to draw an animal in her book and sprout progress, Howler- draw whatever she wants :p Maybe draw some different lines or shapes and try to get her to mimic.

Chart the moon every night.

Read picture books every day as usual till they are bored.

Reading:

Read chapter book 2 times a week with Tamarin.

Encourage Tamarin to read BOB books. (Decided to take a break from them this week, hopefully she will be excited to see them next week)

Tamarin- Sight word games or crafts twice a week, Lemur- similar game/craft with letters

Writing:

Help them story book and let them illustrate

Write a B Sheet (more of a vocabulary thing, but whatever)

Tamarin- practice writing f and t, j and g, Lemur- Practice writing B and 2

Math:

Write a 2 Sheet

Think up at least two gnome math equations (didn't have to mess with gnomes, it was all about candy this week)

Get Tamarin to count and write up to 20 as a refresher. I'm going to incorporate the candy we got from the parade. We will sort, count and write it out. Lemur - worm hole game. I forget where I found this, but you print a handful of apples on a page and draw holes in each from 1-10. Then you cut pipe cleaners into little green "worms". They have to match the worms to the amount of holes. (pushing worm game to next week, realized Tamarin will want to do it too. I need to find my apple template and make some higher numbers for her)

Season related:

Decorate October in the calender

Finish collecting things for Fall season table

Fall craft, Probably something from here or leaf people/animals

Science:

Moon - one of the science experiment books (pg6)

Moon craft, one, two

Learn about mountain lions and what to do if we see one.

Talk about hibernation, I have a few books on the subject if I can find them.  (This would have been useful had I been able to find it pushing to next week.)

Music:

Tamarin - Piano, Chloe and Anna - drum rhythm (I will start Tamarin's piano back up eventually)

Arts and Crafts:

Sewing

Marshmallow art

Just for fun:

Messy Twister  

Easy Alice Springs Chicken: adapted from a very complicated version in a make alike book.
However much chicken you want to cook, cut into slices.
Equal parts Honey and Honey Mustard, splash of garlic powder. Enough to cover the chicken well.
It is a little better if you soak the chicken in the fridge for the day, but not mandatory.
Dump chicken and syrupy concoction into pan and cook until done.
Cook up some bacon, shred some cheese, cover chicken liberally and voila, easy alice springs chicken.

I have omitted the mushrooms over the years because of the girls, but cook some sliced mushrooms up with the bacon... mmmmm..... bye.

Opinion Time! Re: Movies

I've seen other blogs talk about how excited they were to introduce their kids to certain movies. They finally got to show them ____ cause they turned the "right" age. *insert evil grin here* My kids have usually already seen it. This led me to wonder..... what movies am I excited to introduce my kids to that I can't yet.....

The only one I can think of at the moment is Jurassic Park :)

 

I loved this movie growing up. Most of it is interesting.... the other 45% is scarier than crap in the eyes of a kid. I saw it in theaters when it was released, that would mean I was 10ish. I'm thinking probably not good for them to watch until they are at least 8? maybe....

I know Chris wants to introduce Rambo

He's been watching it since he was 3..... I put my foot down on that one...... I may never lift it......... based on artistic principle......

On the other hand, I also have a few friends that let their kids watch things that make my eyes bug out. To each their own, just like some people are shocked to hear my kids have seen Shrek, Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, and most superhero movies. I will bring up one of my husband's friends as an example in an attempt to avoid insulting any of my own friends :) One of the people he went to high school with has a 3-4 year old obsessed with Zombieland.

I can think of two of my friends that have probably let their little boys watch it. For me, the girls will need to be tweens to teens before I'd be down with that.

I know there are a ton of families out there that don't think twice about what they are watching. Why is this something to even bother thinking about? For me, my family watched poltergeist when I was three..... as a family....... it took me years to get over it.......... seriously. The good side to that is anytime my mother brings up a movie she doesn't think the girls should watch, I just have to say poltergeist and the conversation is over.

Anyway.... What movies are you holding off on? What age will you introduce it? Why?



Mid Week Round Up

Haven't accomplished much this week. We did our writing and some reading yesterday, but I'm just not feeling well.

This morning we went outside to take pictures for the writing assignment. Tamarin gets to write captions for pictures of our animals instead of the summer story I originally planned. I had hoped to get a video of our blind great dane running around, but he was not having it today.

 

 



While we were outside, this happened -

 

So much for me getting to eat the girls' leftovers for breakfast.....

Yesterday, we had an impromptu lesson on hearing and eardrums. Why? I cleaned the girls ears which I always end with pouring alcohol in to dry them out. Tamarin this time was convinced that if I poured it in, surely it would fill her skull. So I drew her a picture showing there was no hole in our ear. We pulled out our little trampoline and discussed how sound hits our eardrum just like us bounding on the trampoline. We've discussed before how air is a substance and sound is moving air. I have a few really neat practical experiments that show this. If anyone is interested I can post those, just let me know cause right now I'm not in the mood to hunt them down if no one is interested!

This was our writing project for the day.

 

I've done some little books like this last year. With those I asked Tamarin to help me write a story. I typed it up, printed it out, and she drew the pictures to go with each page. This time I took pics of the animals around the place and she gets to write whatever she wants. There's 11 pages of single pictures needing captions, she's done three. We'll do a few more each day till it's done. With the daily sentence I write it out on our board and she copies. With this I am making her sound it out on her own.. well mostly. I did tell her about the silent e in cakes and that chicken starts with ch (cha cha cha).

Hooch LOVES his new family..... can't you tell?



Wrap up the more formal teaching today reading the B stories and the chapter book. Drew the 2 sheet earlier, but probably will not get around to anything else math related. I'm about to set out the stuff for marshmallow art. We'll see if I get around to writing the B sheet today or not. I'm doing those mostly for Lemur, but she's being four today....... grrrr.......