One Whole Year and Sleeping Under the Stars

Wow, a full year of blogging. Well, the later half of the year was spent less blogging, but this is still a record for me. I hope everyone has enjoyed it. I have enjoyed writing and I expect to be a little more active over the coming months than I have this summer with school in full swing again.

Last night we had a camp out with some of our co-op families. It was fun. Kids running and screaming (well mostly Howler). A fire, telescope, tents, and smores. I resorted to Scooby Doo: Camp Scare for the camp fire stories :p I didn't want to scare the young ones too much.

I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures last night, but my oldest two camped out with daddy. ALL NIGHT! This was their first camp out! I am so proud! They even wanted to stay outside and play when they got up!

Amazingly the only bites this morning were on me. I found this great bug spray and now we can go outside for more than two minutes!

I've already ordered another bottle of it. It smells pretty good so the kids don't mind using it.

Another thing I used this weekend - fly bags.

If you have outdoor animals you know flies are a problem. These have been my favorite solution for years. This year all the bugs are five times as bad so I picked up five times the bags. I have them scattered all over the property and they work incredibly well.

You fill the bag half full of water and the fly bait inside is activated. It stinks, but as long as you don't have to pass by it all the time it's not too bad. Last year the one I hung in the barn was full from the bottom to the top, black with dead flies. Yeah, it's as gross as it sounds, but it beats them multiplying and blanketing your porch and house.

We had a great time last night, definitely worth the exhaustion and cranky children today. I can't wait to do it again in October!

End Week 3

It's been fun. Really, it has, but it's not you. It's me. I just.. can't do this anymore. I need my freedom to do what I want to, whenever I want to. I just can't do that with you and I'm afraid it's time for me to move on. I wish you the best and I'm sure you will provide plenty of other people with happiness. Oh, but I'm keeping the literature books..... and the history books..... basically all the resources, but you can keep the schedule and most of the activities.... Thanks and really, I'm so very sorry.

I think it's a success that I stayed scheduled for three weeks and ended only a day and a half behind. This week I realized the schedule was making me miserable. We zoomed from Big Bang to Mammals in THREE WEEKS! I guarantee Tamarin didn't retain anything. Hell, I don't think I retained much of anything.

The activities are neat, but most of them are for older kids. Like this paper volcano I put together. The kids thought it was cool, but there was little in the plan for explaining volcanoes. It simply went with the couple of pages on the formation of the earth in the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History.

I mean, where's the science experiment to go with it? Even if you skip baking soda and vinegar you could use melting wax and talk about how it hardens as it cools. I didn't do any of that because the volcano was just a small snippet in the schedule and I wanted to stay on schedule.

Howler thought the volcano looked like a butt with the crack down the middle of it (It kinda does...) And, of course, I've already lost the other half of it. It basically was a bust. A waste of printer ink and time. No real educational value because there was nothing hands on to help them relate the facts I gave them with something they could experience.

I did like the timeline of a week template.

I don't regret starting the year with it. There are great resources in there if you have the time to go fishing for them. I LOVE the poetry book (though I haven't been using the poems she suggested).

I think it's time to set Bringing Up Learners into the resource category and come up with my own plan again. I just felt like it was text fact heavy. Even if my kids were older... it would still be text fact heavy and my kids don't learn that way.

Next week it's back to square one. This time, my way instead of someone else's.

These Shoes

I forgot her shoes. Well, not exactly accurate, the dog stole one of her shoes out of the car while I was cleaning it out at six o'clock in the morning. I couldn't find the mate. Sure enough, when we got home he was happily chewing away.

Of all things to forget when going to a doctor's office. Fifteen minutes to get there and we dash into Target. Which has been reset... again. Fortunately, the shoe department is easy to find, but the children's shoes seem to be hodge-podged across three aisles. I'm trying to find something cheap, fast. We don't need another pair of shoes. Before I can find the clearanced shoes, she spots those. At this point I know there's no hope of getting out of this store in the five minutes I have unless we just grab that pair (which were stuck somewhere they didn't belong and happened to be her exact size).

There they are. In a place of honor, on her rocking chair while she slept. No closet for these majestic things.

I grimaced at the sight of them. I cringed at the register. But her face has been lit up since yesterday prancing about in her new shoes. *sigh* I suppose that makes it worth it... right?

Cheap, flimsy plastic. Gaudy cartoon figure on the front. *shudder* I resent the fact they exist in my house. Then there's the fact they have a raised heel. Don't. Please. Don't get me started on that.

I hate these shoes.

Why couldn't there have been a nice pair of clear slippers.....

End Week 2

"I can't believe I am 8 days in into the school year and I am NOT behind." - What this post was going to say when I started typing it two days ago..... I am now two days behind!

I hope I can get caught up over the weekend... We watched the dinosaur episode of Magic School Bus and played with our new dinosaur figures, but nothing formal yesterday or today. Tamarin asked me some questions and we searched for the answers online. Mostly an unschooling couple of days. 

The rest of the time we spent loving on these two

I had some people ask what we are using this year so I'll post that today since I've got nothing wonderful to share for this week. I am using Bringing Up Learners (I guess it's not known as Mosaic anymore) as a basic guide to the school year. It covers history and literature with a little bit of geography, science and art.


3 R's:

We are using Singapore Math and Explode the Code.

Tamarin lost ground on math over the summer so I've set Saxon aside for now and letting her review with her sister. I'm not too worried about it since she was ahead of her age group on math at the end of last year. It'll click again.

Lemur has made a good leap in her writing over the summer. She recognizes and writes most of her letters. I may be able to jump her over the next two Get Ready for the Code and go straight to Explode the Code. We'll see over the next couple of weeks.

I've started using this site to make writing sheets. I also bought some of these rubbery things to help with pencil grip. Tamarin's handwriting is about par with mine.... if you know me then you know that's not a good thing :p I hope we can continue to improve it so she doesn't have to concentrate to be legible as an adult.


I'm hoping to get Lemur started on Bob Books after new year. Tamarin is still reading picture books. My goal for this year is for her to happily (the key word) read small chapter books by the end of the year. She is capable, but without the payoff of reading an entire book in a sitting she doesn't enjoy it.

Science:

I'm cherry picking Mr. Q's life science which you can download for free. It is geared for middle or later elementary. That's why I'm cherry picking. Life science is what Tamarin is incredibly interested in. She's ready for some of it, but not all. There are a bunch of science experiments in the parent copy, some of which I'd never seen before so I highly recommend it for that alone.

RIP Bill S Preston Esquire

 You were a great dog.

Loving and tolerant.

You will be missed.

Don't Be Fooled

There's all kinds of suggestions when it comes to the most important factor in a successful marriage. Hell, there's how many books written on the subject? How many of us got advice from any woman within ear shot in the months and days leading up to our weddings. Or even during those dating days when blue haired grandmas in the check out line would give you "how to catch a man" advice.

A newly divorced friend of a friend was asking for dating advice. I told her "Be honest. If you want to date someone, then ask. No games." Her response was that she wanted to be pursued. *face palm* Did that work for you the first time?

Anyway, you want to know what the most important thing is when picking a partner? Temperature.

Confused? What is the most fought about thing in our household? Money? Nope. Sex? Nope. Quality time? Nope. Temperature. According to my husband I was born in the bowels of hell. (No, that doesn't mean what you think.) I think the boyhood fantasy of being Superman has gone to his head and he's trying to replicate the Fortress of Solitude.

The most important thing about picking a spouse/partner/roomate is WHO RUNS THE THERMOSTAT! I like it close to 80, he likes it close to 60. Our poor kids are stuck in the middle. They get overheated easily, but every morning they wake up moaning about how cold they are. My husband looks happy as can be.... brat.

Okay, I know there are more important things, but what do you think is the most important little thing when picking a roomie?

School 2013-2014: Week 1 Midweek Check In

Halfway through the first week and I'm behind, of course, but I don't expect that to ever change. I'm using Mosaic as a basic guide this year (or at least until it doesn't work for me). Mosaic is simply a day by day guide that some very nice woman put together for herself and decided to share it FOR FREE with everyone else. The focus is on history. This is what I needed. A jumping point that I can add or omit whatever.

The first two (and a half) weeks go from big bang to the end of the dinosaurs. So here's the list of books I have been and will be using:

These are the three called for in the Mosaic framework

Here's what I've added to it...

Kindergarten level:

First grade level:

If we have the time next week I hope to take the girls back to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History.

Meet Me at the Library

It's wonderful living outside city limits. You don't have to worry about your dogs barking late at night or deciding to neglect your lawn for one more week..... I don't have to pay for nasty city water. However, there are drawbacks. The main one on my mind these days is the local library.

We lived less than a mile from our last public library. We walked there frequently. Now the closest county library is over 10 miles away, but worse than that is how tiny it is. They don't participate in any library loan groups either so what you see is what you get.

I had been reluctant to buy membership to the big metro library system. I don't know why.... just the resentment of having to pay for something because the local town was too cheap to join the metro system. A few weeks ago I was searching the county library database for a slew of books to use in the upcoming school year. Coming up empty handed, I decided to check the fancy metro system. They had every single book I was looking for. Then I find an even larger treasure trove! Their event calender!

I wish I had joined earlier. Turns out they have a ton of events for small children during the summer and we only got to partake in the final couple of weeks. Still, we got to see a magic show, exotic animals (which weren't all that exotic to my kids, but we're an odd family) and best of all some music groups:


Chasing James


Cimarron Opera


Cimarron Opera was our favorite of all the shows we got to see. Even the 7 month old was transfixed by the actors. They were great at handling a young audience and performed wonderfully. They will be doing another show at the libraries in October. I cannot wait!

Unfortunately, the library takes the month of August off of these children's activities as all the kids transition back to school :( bummer.