Inservice Days!

I love them!
Absolutely love them.
Today, I was pleasantly suprised when I looked at our school calendar and discovered we had one! Of course it was scheduled because we are spending an entire afternoon at the dentist office. We have a wonderful dentist. His staff is so lovely to us. They are willing to schedule all 7 of us in one afternoon. There are other medical offices we visit that won't consider more than 2 people in a family to be scheduled for one office visit. Which I understand, should the very busy mom forget, it would leave a hole in their day. Not only do they let us come, but they try to work it out so that 2 hygenists are working on us at the same time. We get out of there in 1/2 the time. It is wonderful! And the silly part of it all, my kids are excited about going to the dentist. They actually like going to the dentist. That was never me as a kid. Their favorite part, I think, is getting the new toothbrush. LOL !
So between MOPS, the dentist, hockey and ice skating lessons there isn't much time for a normal school day or a half day of school.
So I am excited for a "inservice" day.
A catch up day for my kids. Even if it means they only get one or two assignments done. We have to cross town, so they are expected to work in the car. They are also expected to read or work while they wait their turn. So after all is done and said they will not be as far behind as they were today!

Striker the Python Saves Mouse World

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is experiencing my kids' creativity.

This week in English Hockey Player is learning about Tall Tales.

This is his tall tale:

Striker the Python Saves Mouse World
By
Hockey Player

Striker the Python is on his midnight hunt for rats. The two mile long python eats 10 million rats a night and is feeling just a little bit hungry tonight. When he happens to taste the air and smells mutant rats.
Striker says, “Mmmm, Mutant Rats, yummy.”
Striker is drawn to the mutant rats because they are bigger and more satisfying.
He follows the scent to mouse world where he discovers the mutant rats are torturing mice. The mutant rats are hanging some of the mice by their tails and plucking their whiskers off. Meanwhile, other mice are being used as balls in games of keep away.
Remembering the mice saved him from poachers, Striker begins to slowly coil himself around the campsite. With one quick squeeze he captures the campsite. He carefully refrains from eating the mice and he begins to attack and eat the mutant rats.
The mice tell Striker the Python, “Thank you for saving Mouse World.”
Striker says, “You’re welcome.”
Mouse World is safe.

One of my favorite things...

As strange as it may sound, one of my things is to grade English papers.

English papers allow the student a lot of room for creativity and expressing themselves. Today's paper is actually Fun Mom's test.
assignment: Think of a name for a female lion. (answer must be written in first-person, possessive case)
Her answer: "I would name my lioness Heather."
So my question, does she think of me as a lioness?
Does she, finally, believe me when I say, "...or I will eat you!"
Is she scared of me and what might happen if she is caught doing what she should not?
Something to think on.... As for her test grade, I won't share. But that may be a future post should she read this one and have some other remarks to make! ;)

Delightful Suprises!

This year we are trying something new in our house.

We were blessed greatly when 4 years ago we received a call from a woman I barely knew.
She didn't live far from us. Our daughters were in the same homeschool book club. She had been praying and my name came to mind. She wanted to teach another girl alongside her daughter for a subject or two. The goal was to provide socialization, accountability and class setting experience. With babies all around and feeling like I was drowning a bit and some prayer, I agreed. She has become a blessed friend to have. I believe God's hand was in bringing us together. We encountered many things this last year and God used this special family to help point us in many right directions. Our daughters are good friends. A year or so into this arrangement, the younger brothers were given an opportunity to have play time. Just about the time God started speaking to my heart that the arrangement might need to change soon, she approached me and told me God was leading their family in a different direction. So last year, Fun Mom and I discovered Middle School English together.

Last semester, God started showing me other opportunities to share this blessing with a couple of other moms. One who has babies just like I had and another who was looking for a similar scenario for her oldest. Works out perfect one boy and one girl. So twice a week now, we have English class at home. One hour of 3rd grade English and an hour of play time. One hour of 4th grade English and an hour of play time. The only downside Fun Mom is getting older and we couldn't do the same for her. She did have fun playing with little ones. She even asked if she could borrow the camera to take pictures of Flutter Nutter playing Barbies. She thought that was very funny!

Our first day of English was amazing. We got through 3 lessons in both sessions. A small amount of homework. Everyone seemed very suprised at how much we were able to accomplish. Won't always be the case. But what an encouraging start!

The boys seemed to have fun, even though they both didn't really say much about. But both girls were thrilled. "It went so fast!" "This is fun!" "Thanks Mom, I really liked English." So I am encouraged. Flutter Nutter took a bat to the face during class, so I had to run up and love on him. He has a beautiful shiner. Maybe, pictures later? Meanwhile, the girls took the innitiative to proceed with the lesson. I checked their work and it was perfecto!

My only rule for them about the homework, is if it isn't done then play time will be reduced until we get our work done. I am soooo hoping that will be all the motivation needed.
But for now, I will rest in a day that went very well!

First day of School !

Today we started school.
We have an eighth, fourth, and third grader and a kindergartner and a get into everything, climb on your lap and take the pencils and laugh turkey.
We started the morning with lessons and when Big O Daddy O, finally resurfaced from the covers he went to go get our annual Krispy Kreme treats for the first day of school.
Suprisingly, things went really well. I was sick through late morning and lunch, stress of the last month caught up with me, but the kids kept plugging along.
Most everything got finished.
We celebrated by going swimming at the Y this afternoon.
1 Day done, 176 more to go!

~~ I got a lot of "why start on Wednesday? questions." Well I discovered not too far into my homeschooling venture, staying true to lesson plans that HAD to be Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri... all the time just didn't work for us. No flexibilty in it. This year, praying and pondering, I realized first days don't go well on Mondays for us. We have all the hullabub coming out of the weekend. So we had our crazy Monday/Tuesday. We started Wednesday. We are getting our feet wet, starting slow with 3 days and then a weekend. Instead of sticking to a M-T-W-H-F schedule (some things we do...like music lessons/spelling, etc.) I plugged everything into HomeSchool Tracker and we'll plug along. And LIFE is well, pretty much that way. Things just don't always happen on schedule or the day you specify. Just gotta roll with it. The beautiful thing is, IF we stay on track, some of our stuff will be done in April and the rest in early May. So, I have some wiggle room for sickness this year. That will be nice, it is a first for us. So we are just going to do what Homeschool Tracker tells us to do each day. Can't argue with a computer !

The School Area ! !!

I have been talking with God about how I need help in my basement. I have been feeling overwhelmed. The last couple of weeks I have been hard at work. A lot has happened over the last year. The summer got away from me and well this summer brought in more of a mess. School starts Wednesday. I have been plodding along and it was beginning to look like things were not going to get completely finished. Especially, since I am guilted by family into taking the kids to watch things get blown up on Saturday. That will be another post.
I mentioned way back in March we were putting in cabinets and counters. I never did post pictures because things just scattered all over the place.
Dear sweet friend, Robyn asked if I would like her to come over tonight. She did !! She came over. She wouldn't let me quit when I got overwhelmed. She forced me to let go of things that were good ideas, but the reality is I won't ever get too them. Honesty, it is a wonderful thing even if it isn't what we want to hear. She wouldn't let me quit even when the cabinets spilled their contents all over and it looked worse than when we started.
There are still things to do in our school area....
However, I am soo excited. After 4 hours of work this is what our school area looks like...



What isn't shown are the two work tables we completely cleared off. I have a SMALL stack to take upstairs to put in the car. CDS for listening to and work pages for Daddy's Buddy during church. Another pile of things to take and make copies! I finally have it all in one spot, so hopefully I can make one trip and be done!
Thank you Lord for good friends who are willing to help. For good friends who prefer to clean up someone else's mess and hold them accountable. Oh by the way, the post it notes are to help us remember the new 'homes' for our stuff!