January's Book Group Gathering

This month, for book group, we had an older kids book-- Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians Lightening Thief, and a younger kids book--Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

The Charlotte's Web group performed a puppet play for the other group.

The Percy Jackson group had fun "applying for a job that was posted by Zeus, to be considered as the next "God or Goddess." From a box of odd items, they had to pick one, and use it to inspire them in creating their new character and powers. From a dog bone, Connor and Noah created Caininine--he had a hypnotic dog bone and infinite power over all dogs.

With a cassette tape, Cailin created Alicarid. Her power was to change or create anything brown. This would create boredom, so people wouldn't have a whole lot to do, or at least feel like doing anything.

Ryan's, tool of choice was a tube of chap stick. His Greek Olympian applicant, named Charles McChao had power to make every ones lips nice and perfect or make them bleed to death from their lips in within 5 seconds (Ewee, yuck) He would be an excellent candidate for the job because..."I'm level headed, very intelligent, magical, have no favorites, get along well with others people, take my work seriously and I make good decisions. I can also turn you into a guinea pig permanently and then give yo to my sister!

I didn't get to read the Percy Jackson book, I was busy reading Charlotte's Web to Delaney, but apparently there was talk of "blue food"....so we had some blue food too.

Often, while reading of Wilbur diet, we got detailed description of what was in his "slops". I had the kids make their own "slops". To a cup of ramean noodles they could add odd bits of food--peas, corn, crumbled cake (just to make it authentic to the book), pepperoni, and eggs.

We often find ourselves rushing to finish reading the book in time for discussion, but we have lots of fun with our group and can't wait for our next gathering.

Another Great Wolf Adventure

This is what my crew looks like after two intense days of playing in the warm pools of Great Wolf Lodge.....and this is how our tradition began...



While in Afghanistan, Barry heard many other dad/soldier's talk about times they had taken their families to a place called Great Wolf Lodge. "When I get back, this is where we'll go for our welcome home celebration." And we did!


Last year we went again, this time it was during the winter--a great break from the winter doldrums.


We had such a great time that we decided to make it a tradition. Every year, in January or February we'll try to take our kids here for a weekday getaway. (They have a discount rate for home schoolers during the week.)

We have lots of fun playing on the slides, pools, hot tubs and fountains. The older kids convinced Barry to go down the 'Howl'in Tornado' slide....but not me, I'm not fond of vertical drops.

We all went down the Canyon River Falls and many other rides.

Lunch time!!! Mmmmmmm, pizza!

Crashed out after our first day of playing.....you don't realize how much energy is exerted and how thirsty you get while playing in water.

Story time.....

and a good night hug from Wiley the Wolf.

With wand in hand, the kids are off to solve the magical quest of Imagi-quest.

The Daily Grind

Just for family history's sake, I'm going to document our daily schedule. Of course, it's not strictly adhered too, sometimes we're not finished with everything until 8pm, and sometimes we just ditch the schedule entirely, but for the most part this is what our day is like...
5:00am Ryan's up getting ready for seminary and reading his scriptures....and surfing the net, I'm sure :) He gets up entirely on his own. when school is cancelled due to bad weather,he groans in misery, because then seminary is cancelled too, and he loves (!!)attending seminary. Barry loves to tease him about going to "cemetery"...he get quite upset (he's now starting to learn to take it as a joke) but, he doesn't like anyone or thing messing with his seminary time. I love that about him!
6:00am Ryan heads off to seminary. Connor's up and he too, on his own accord reads the scriptures. (how cool is that).
7:00 Ryan comes home and starts practicing the piano, Connor-violin and piano and Cailin the flute. I get up around this time, shower and dress, prepare breakfast and then start getting the younger kids ready for the day.
8:00 It's time to eat...if it's Thursday, then we have already eaten and pile into the van and drive to Christiansburg for a day of study and fun with friends at Classical Conversations.
8:30 Devotional time -- Sometimes it's family scripture time, most times we just sing a song, read a story from the Friend or New Era, have prayer, go over our daily schedule of events and then the older kids are off to their studies.
9:00-11:30--I spend this time with Delaney. She has her math, reading, phonics, writing, journaling and story time with me. Inter mingled in here is changing diapers, feeding, imposing dreaded physical therapy exercises and napping Brianne. I'm also checking with the older kids, to see if they need help staying on their personal schedule or help with a problem. I expect them get their history, math, IEW (Institute for the Excellence in Writing) , spelling, penmanship, presentation prep for CC and mastery sheets for EEL (Essentials of the English Language) done during the morning. Ryan has his own set of school work--Latin, research, (currently he's learning about the different systems of the body), rhetoric, geography, math, IEW writing based off different novels. Every two weeks he's reading a writing about a new novel. (Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Number the Stars, Amos Fortune, Door in the Wall, The Secret Garden, )

I have buckets of different toys for the kids to play with, blocks, Playdoh, K'nex, marble run, sequencing beads, flannels and a few other fun 'center buckets' for the kids to do while I'm busy with Brianne.
11:30--this is when I try to bring all the kids together and go over all our memory work for the week.
Connor, Cailin, and Delaney (it's fun to hear Liam pick up on the work too) all memorize the Latin conjugation of Amo in different tense (perfect, future, pluperfect etc.), geography-- countries, cities and features (this year it's Europe and Asia), history sentences, (for example "Tell me about how the United Nations was form." "In 1945 after the League of Nations, failed to prevent WWII, British Prime Minister Churchill, American President Roosevelt, USSR President Stalin, began the United Nations).
Brianne having fun-- really she is-- with her geography memory work.

English grammar, science grammar--this year is ecology, astronomy, and physical science--for example: What is the 1st law of thermodynamics? Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Lastly, each week they memorize eight events on a chronological timeline. We have fun interjecting our church history into the lineup. For example one week our memory cards were 1.The Constitutional Convention

2. America's founding Fathers

3.Washington our first President

4. Louisiana Purchase from France

5. The Louis and Clark Expedition

6. The Second Great Awaking (Yay, for Joesph Smith!!)

7.The War of 1812

8. and The Missouri Compromise (now our song dies--we then fall to the ground)

For the week that talked about the pioneers and westward expansion we sung the card to the tune of 'Come, Come ye Saints and added a bit about Brigham Young declaring 'This is the place."

Music plays a big part in our day to help us with all this memorization.
Once I figured out that using a song, hymn or making up our own tune helps us memorize them, we started to really remember them. Last semester, we only got the first week to memory, after that, it just didn't happen.

12pm/Noon--Lunch time and break time for the kids.

In the afternoon, it's nap time for Brianne, the younger kids go outside to play or watch a movie while I work with Connor and Cailin on English grammar, parsing and diagramming sentences, trying to figure out the puzzle of this wonderful written language of ours. After that, if there is time, we do a project based on something we have studied for history, science or in a book we've read.

I'll go and check Ryan on what he's doing, here is when I have more time to help him with his writing assignments, and quiz him on his memory work for Latin and geography.

3:00-4:00--Now, I fall down and do nothing--I wish :) --now it's time to clean the house, get kids onto their chores and get ready for dinner. If it's Monday, we have therapy for Brianne at 4,-- leave for Ryan's therapy at RU, at 4:30 to get there by 5pm. We get home by 6:30 and have dinner and FHE.

Tuesday's are now devoted to play practice at the high school. Cailin and Delaney are performing in 'Aristocats'.

Wednesday's full of piano lessons (luckily Ss. VanSice comes here for their lessons), Brianne's speech therapy (just twice a month) and young men's/scouts night for the boys and every other week Cailin has an Achievement girl's activity.

Thursday as we are coming home from CC classes we stop at the library and pick up books for the coming week, we only mean to stay for a few minutes, but we love books and end up staying there longer than intended. The night is my night, right now I'm attending Weight Watchers--I'm struggling to get this baby weight off and I need a night to myself!!

Friday--Depending on which week we're on, we have history group, book group or getting together with other homeschooling families for fun at the park. In the afternoon Connor and Cailin have violin and flute lessons. Once home, we make our traditional pizza dinner watch a family movie or just zone out with video games.

Saturday is catch up on the laundry day, deeper cleaning of the house and van, youth activities, garden and yard work. Sometimes I get grocery shopping done too, sometimes its just fits into a small hole in the weekly schedule.

Whew, I'm exhausted just writing about it....but somehow, it all works together. We fit scripture reading, as a family, into the daily schedule whenever Barry has the time. At the present time he's not only busy with a rotating work schedule and church calling, but, he's a online college student too. Every five weeks he starts a new class, in two years he's finally have his bachelor's degree.

Bath time is Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday's. Then off to bed at 8 pm for Brianne and Liam, 8:30 for Delaney and the rest are in bed by 9-9:30 pm (in bed, not necessarily asleep.) ;) Cailin reads her scriptures at night, she's quite faithful too, she's not about to lose at the family competition for individual scripture reading. Our competition is: Every one must read at least 10 verses every day (Delaney get to read from the children's picture scriptures or help us read too her) if you forget you're out. The last one standing wins a blizzard from Dairy Queen. (I think we gave ourselves three freebies of forgetting, after that, you're out).

This is when I crash, I read in bed or work on the computer to get ready for the next day....and so it goes on.

I have learned that to detailed of a schedule thwarts us....gloomy cold weather thwarts me and homeschooling isn't perfect(we miss some things), neither is public schooling for that matter (they miss somethings too), but we're doing what's best for our family and all in all, I love being with my kids, learning with them and about them. I wouldn't change my busy life at all.

Delaney's and Liam's Masterpiece

I've been struggling with home schooling my children lately. I feel so overwhelmed with so much to do....and worry about. (Yes, I know worry is fruitless and senseless, but worry I do. Worry over keeping the house chores done so we can actually work. Worry about the older kids' school assignments and how to help them through their current struggle/needs--trying to give everyone the individual attention that they require. Help with this math problem, help with structuring that paragraph. Brianne's physical therapy needs....and then the endless question...."What's for lunch?" (breakfast, dinner, snack, could be inserted here). I'm so tired of that question! When I'm on top of things and I make a menu and I'm not bothered by that question.....this week hasn't been a menu planning week, thus, I hate that question!
I asked Barry to give me a blessing. He did. I feel so much better---and I have a clearer vision or plan for what the Lord wants me to do right now.

I'm dropping some of the things I previously tried hard to complete (ie. history with all the kids--the older ones now have reading assignments and the younger one, well, we just don't do it.)

What I did feel inspired to do was read, read, and read some more. I always have plenty of books around from the library, yet rarely there was time to actually read them. Now, I have the time, well, at least more time now that this is my #1 school goal of the day.

Delaney picked out this book, "Chester's Masterpiece". It was a wonderful book. The book was about a cat, Chester, who wrote a book and the author, Melanie Witt asked Chester questions that helped him identify what the different parts of a story are--theme, characters and setting.

After reading it Delaney and Liam created their own story. I helped them think about the setting, characters and theme for their book. They enjoyed it, and ask me to reread the books often. We'll definitely be writing many more. I don't think we'll do a project with each book, but I'm sure we'll accomplish some to share.

The Night the Lights Went Out

I still think it's fun when the electricity goes out at night for a few hours.
While Barry was deployed I was super sensitive to be prepared and ready for such an occasion, but it never came.

Every year, as winter approached I prepare for the possibility of a black out, but it never came.

This year, it came!

It was Friday night and I was getting the mixer out to make pizza crust dough for our traditional 'Friday night pizza dinner' and click--out went the lights. At first I thought it was just a blown circuit breaker, but then I heard Ryan, who was on the computer in the other room, groan loudly, "hey what happened?"
Well that confirmed that it wasn't a blown breaker.
Luckily, Barry was home and since it was pizza night, we decided to still get pizza--it was to cold to cook on the grill--so off he went to the local pizza parlor.
While he was out, he saw what had caused the black out. Someone fell a tree on a main power line--oops! He also found out that we'd be out of power till ~2 am.
We hunkered down for a cozy night.
The kids found all the candles placed throughout the house and pulled out the flashlights.
We spent the evening reading books, eating pizza and playing a game called Wits and Wagers that Ryan got for Christmas.
With hot water from Beulah to warmed Brianne's bottle, we used the extra to make hot cocoa.
Yep, I still like it when the lights go out for the night, but I like it when they're back on in the morning too!

Let the Grecian Games Begin

I may be taking a break from history, but I'm not dropping our history group.



It's kick off time again. This time we're studying ancient Greece. We mothers created an Olympics type activity for the kids to learn a few things about ancient Greece. They were all separated into city-states, --Athens, Sparta, Megara, Corinth, and Argos.

In these groups they traveled to different stations and learned about....

architecture

stone carving

Gods and Goddess

and a fun physical game...gotta have some blood pumping activity if it's gonna be an Olympic game.

The Sparta team



The Argos team

The Athenians
Working on the Greek Gods and Goddess match up game.

Undoubtedly the cutest little Grecian there

Jumping on one foot between each newspaper roll, on the way back each child had to bend down, while not losing balance and pick up the log, then jump to the next one, pick up the log and proceed back to the beginning with as many logs they could get. If both feet hit the floor, or step on the log you're done with your turn....they had fun! Liam tried , it was cute to watch him try.

Getting ready for closing ceremonies....they all paraded in for the ending of the games, and the crowning event, recieveing their medals. (Sadly, I didn't get a good photo of the kids getting their medals)

Afterwards, it was time for lunch....yummy greek and mediterainan inspired food. Pita bread with falafla and hummus, cucumber sauce, lentil soup, baklava....and so much more!

The Dishwasher Died

It's been about a month now since the dishwasher died!

I'm tired of dirty dishes cluttering the counter top--the fact that they never seem to be 'done', but it has it's advantages too.
I'm enjoying the one on one time with each of the kids on their "night" to do the dishes.

The Ways and Means committee has determined that this appliance will not be fixed for a few more months. I look forward to that day, but, I'll be sad when I don't have the boys or girls undivided attention (on their assigned day) to myself. I may just have the dishwasher 'break down' again -from time to time-that is.

14,000+ pages

Well the kids did it again.
Our yearly Christmas reading challenge began the last few days of November.
Last year they read over 9,000 pages during the month so I challenged them to read 10,000 this year. No, they upped the number to 12,000. Now they wanted to know what the "prize" would be if they achieved their goal. I told them a large family brownie sundae.
With that important bit of information clearly defined they were off....
Ryan found another book series with several books that had 700 or more pages in each one that he liked to read. Of course, they had to do with dragons, his latest obsession.
Connor's favorite was 'The Mysterious Benedict Society' series, along with some of Rick Riordan books.
Cailin read many books, among others she re-read the Warrior series once again. She loves those books.
Delaney and Liam enjoyed read aloud with us. Delaney's favorite is still Junie B. Jones.

Barry says next year the goal should be 25,000 pages.....yeah I'm not so sure about that one, but they keep surprising me--they may just make it happen!