A Glimpse At My Day

What is with some days that you just feel unaccomplished. No worries, though... I am calm about it. I am trying to be the calm person that is so hard for my character. I am doing well lately, I think (pat my ownself on the back). It really is that I am not trying to "handle" every situation. I am trying to listen to what God would have me do. I am learning. Today was definitely a test of that. I am not going to say that I handled it all well, but better than usual. I just do not know what was going on with Savannah today... and yesterday, but more so today. No focus... none. She manged to turn an hour and a half of schoolwork into an all day thing. She spent the morning playing and doing some things I thought were worthy of doing... somewhat... so I let her go through most of the morning. Around 11:30 I had her do some Bible study that should have lasted 15 minutes at most. At noon as I was working on lunch she was still not done because she kept wanting to eat the apples, strawberries, etc. that I was preparing for lunch. I kept telling to just focus and we could have lunch as soon as she was done. She would not, so at 12:09 I started feeding the others and told her she could not come to lunch until she completed the study page. Miraculously, she was at the table within a couple of minutes. Completely focused and got it done in mere minutes after wasting over 30 minutes loofing about and driving me crazy. !!! That is just one example of the day....

After lunch I decided to do school outside. I know there are a lot of distractions outside, but my thinking is that my two little ones would be easier to occupy. That turned out to be partly true, but I sensed Caden was wanting a playmate. Sahara was clinging to me and sleepy, so she was not the entertainment for him that I thought she would be. He was fine, but used to having the older girls to run around with him. Savannah started with her math, but was so unfocused. She kept watching me and Sierra and listening to everything we were doing. Frustrating because I HAVE to speak to Sierra to teach her. It's not like we can be quiet completely. An hour later Savannah is still doing her math. !!! It should take no more than 30 minutes to do. She moved quicker through Spelling and her activity, then took F~O~R~E~V~E~R on her handwriting which correlates with Spelling. I finally had to change the assignment! Then, her daddy got home and I tend to lose her even more when he is home. I told them both that she would be having schooling the rest of the evening. And for the most part we did, except life happens and we have to have dinner. We had a special project for her to work on that, of course, the printer ran out of ink in the middle of. My teacher husband took her to his school to print there... had to go black and white. !!! Let's just say that Mexico is too colorful of a country to be printing out in black and white! You have to go with what you have got, though. They ran to the store to attempt to find a Mexican snack of some sort to provide for her co-op project. They did... it was not quite what I had in mind, though. Time was not on my side here, so it is what it is and it will have to do. So, the evening carries on and finally the kids get in bed by 10:PM... PM!!!! 10!!! TEN!!!! OH my GOSH!!! That is going to make tomorrow a bit harder... We have Co-op... I forgot nursery snacks... I need to pull off something more for Mexican snacks and things... We will need to be prepared for lunch at the park afterwards... looks like pizza pick-up.... and we are having a meeting while at the park... uh... who can watch four kids with a park that has a pond and participate in a "meeting"???????!! I want to say I am looking forward to tomorrow, but today was .... frustrating. And this is just a glimpse. I am leaving out some substantial drama... a foot injury for Sierra... some potty training failures for Caden... some messes in abundance for Sahara.... an incredibly WINDY outdoor school time with papers being chased across the deck... Caden doing his "art" and losing his stickers through the deckboards (after putting some of the stickers all over the deck chairs)... oh, and the earring thing (more drama... don't allow ear piercings!!! Such a pain!)... All in all it was a BEAUTIFUL, GOOD DAY... really....just now I am reflecting and looking back at all the things that feel through the cracks today... Whew!

On the upside.... Sierra is learning so much and amazingly I am the one teaching her!!! That is exciting. I must admit we are not doing a lot of crafty things, but we are driving the learning home in other ways. She wants to paint everyday and I want to let her, but I just can not bring myself to deal with paint times four. Thank God for Summer and waterhoses. They can paint when I can spray them down with a waterhose! I want to be more fun... really, I do... I try to use construction paper and markers... other ways to have some fun. I am really starting to figure out how to get all her schooling done. I know Kinder is not a lot, but we have a lot of distraction and Savannah is usually interrupting or I am having to redirect her back to her schooling. And yes, I have tried doing it all seperate and having Savannah also do Sierra's K work with her. We still pause Savannah's independent work, so she can participate in a lot of Sierra's K lessons. Everyday is a learning process for me, too.

And Caden... wow he is so cute. He makes the cutest animal sounds I think I have ever heard. He can really neigh like a horse! We are all impressed. He showed Cody today and it was quite impressive. Cody got a huge grin on his face over that one. And Sahara... our little "Goo-Goo" wants to be a student already. That girl is on a daily mission to get the markers! Sometimes she just writes and scribbles on and appropriate page... other times you turn around and her body is covered in marker... that seems to happen on Wednesday nights lately... just before we leave for church... and amazingly, Caden gets involved and it is like a marker bomb went off on their whole bodies. Seriously, last week they used the blue marker and after we quickly tried wiping it away they looked like they had bruises all over their bodies. Yikes! Not a lot we want to go for at church. Yesterday, their color of choice was green.... At least, that one did not look like bruises. ;)

Okay, now I have unwound enough to get some rest... off to bed! [This is the part where the baby will wake up wanting me... Hahaha....!!!!.. usually... maybe not tonight...please God let her sleep.] Goodnight all!

And About That Goat Milk....

...We did not try goat milk nor did we visit a goat farm. We did go to the grocery store and search for some goat products. We came up with only goat milk in the milk cooler section. I read the container to the kids. It told the history of that particular goat milk company and some nutritional facts about goat's milk. I was dissappointed that we could find more products to show the kids. I did just print out a couple of things from their kid page that I know my kids will enjoy. In the future we may actually try the milk, although it is about four times the cost of cow's milk. It was $3.12 a quart. It does seem that it is healthier than cow's milk, though. Amazing really. I joke that with our size family we need our own milk cow. We live on one acre in the middle of town, so having a cow would be unrealistic. Just last week we were joking around about getting a goat, though. Not sure we ever would, but it would be possible and apparently they produce about a gallon of milk a day. That is twice what we use. Be sure and read the nutritional facts about goat's milk page and you willl understand why this would be something that would cross my mind to do. Goats are not treated with hormones, either. In our home I have had a recent concern about possible milk related allergies causing eczema in my two little ones. Alll very interesting. Seriously, I like that this curriculum (MFW Kindergarten) is making me think about this in a more open-minded way.

So, did you try thed goat milk? If so, what did you think?

A Glimpse of our Last Two School Weeks

The week before this past one was Spring Break for my husband's school, but the whole family was sick so we stayed home. For Savannah we did 3rd grade Math some and did some light reading. For Sierra we did light reading, a bit of phonics like games and discussing words, and just mostly played when we were feeling up to it. Our biggest venture out was a trip to the Sno Cone stand once. There was a bigger plan, but life happens and we are still recouping from a virus after two weeks.

This past week I had planned to jump back into MFW Adventures, but that did not happen and I just am not going to worry about it. It may take us two years to do this little one year program, but I am more concerned with enjoying it than just getting it done. "Just getting it done" was my focus for a while and I have learned that there is no benefit from that. We are all quite excited to start the state studies and bird study, though. I'll shoot for starting that this coming week. We will be more prepared that way anyway. For Savannah (3rd) we did our Spelling (Rod & Staff) with double lessons. We did a "Review week" lesson and a normal week lesson at the same time. I was confident in Savannah's ability to handle two weeks of study at a time, so I did not feel this was too much for her. She aced her end of week test with a 100. The normal week lesson was with words like cutting and other -ing words and adding suffixes (-ing, -ed, -en). We did four days of math lessons and speed drills (and I still don't get why she is suddenly liking these, but I will go with it... Hehehehe!). We do "math extras", which includes using "wrap ups" and other math toys or flashcards, as well as, writing mulitiplication facts. I hear that using math songs for skip counting works well, but I have failed at implementing it so far. Maybe we will do it sometime. I also, want to start using math games online, etc. more as we just purchased two more computers as part of our school expenditures. We have saved money by borrowing some of our curriculum that has made this possible. God supplies all our needs!! Since Savannah did double lessons in Spelling I only had her do one day of handwriting practice. A normal spelling lesson consists of 16 spelling words (3 review) and the review week consists of five weeks of words (13 words each) totalling 65 words. She had only previously missed one of the 65 words so her testing consisted of the 16 words from the normal list and the one previously missed word. She made a 100. And by the way I "grade like so... all correct = 100... any missed = -1 (etc.). I don't give number grades. I have no concern for grade numbers and I would only move on to the next thing if she really knows the information. I like a Content Mastery approach and a focus on actually learning. I don't want my kids simply memorizing information for a test. Anyway, back to the handwriting... She did one day of writing her spelling words (the 16) in cursive. We usually do one day of a Bible verse, two days of the spelling words, one day of family names , and one day of other random words/sentences/verse. As long as she is writing I do not care what as long as it fills a page and is dated and signed. I had a handwriting curriculum this year for both my girls, but found it to be monotonious..... write " j j j j ..." ... we skipped all that and grabbed the old style writing paper and did what comes naturally. Much more enjoyable! Savannah read library books and some of our books. That was reading!

Before I go into Sierra's I want to tell you our schedule. Sick people just don't care..... we rested... we played when we felt like it and sometime in the late afternoon we would start some schooling. I usually started with Sierra this week and let Savannah start her independent work in Spelling or Math. We did school outside, on the couch, in the school area.... whatever felt good at the moment... sick people take a lot to motivate... especially, when it is Momma. Most of our school took place after Daddy arrived home and after dinner. It worked quite well and I would highly recommend it for those that are struggling with juggling all that life offers. I actually plan to use this "schedule" more often. I think it may be the key to getting some of our chaos in order. I can spend my days focusing on guiding my kids to help with chores and our attitudes first and foremost. We can prepare for dinner ahead of time and get more laundry done, etc. The stress of that getting lost in the shuffle greatly governs our day. With that front and center I think the schooling will just fall right into place in a more relaxed way.... even if it is in the evenings. The reality is that we can still do all our school in the same amount of time we used to do on just evening homework. I am seeing that it does not matter what time of the day we do our school. It should just be part of our life whenever it works good to do it.

And on to Sierra's... we started our "Goat Gg Week" in MFW Kindergarten. I actually want to get a bit "caught up" on where we are in lessons, so I look at the coming weeks and see that there are three weeks related to farming (Goats, Cows, Horses). I thought I would combine the Goat week with the Cows, but we were feeling too puney. Monday I finished up some unfinished work from our Insect week and did a little more preparing for the farming weeks. I have really had Sierra do more reading than the lessons call for, so I was happy to see that in the Goat week this week they finally add the first sight word (the). Sierra already knew it, so that was easy and confirmed we are on the right direction with her. She is the first on that I have had to teach to read, so it is really nerve racking sometimes.... but exciting!!! She is doing great! We did an animal matching file folder game and did some animal matching with a wooden hide-n-seek type puzzle that I have. I made some extra animals to go with it. We also used it to sing Old McDonald. I had each of the girls pick five animals and we hide them in the puzzle. As we sang we opened the little doors to see what animal was there and did each one and it's sound. For future reference 10 animals is way to long of a song when you are coughing your head off. ;) We mostly read books this week and worked through the MFW Reading Plan (I leave out some things that Sierra knows well) and did the worksheets. She did great and I am so gald that the worksheets are finally adding sentences for the child to read. The one thing I think this program is really missing..... and I say this lightly because I know it is meant to be a slow and easy approach to teaching reading and I am thankful for that.... I think it is missing little phonics readers. I have found with Sierra that the key to teaching her to read has been to put little phonics readers in her hands. Once she sees she can sound out some of these words phonetically she gets quite excited. I think it is great to write little nonsense story sentences using the words that you are focus on and let the child read those. And example off the top of my head is:

The cat is fat.

The cat is in a hat.

The cat is on a mat.

The cat sat.

The cat sat on the mat.

The cat is red.

The hat is red.

The mat is red.

I don't think we did any crafts... ooops! They did not miss it. Anyway, that was our week! Gotta run to church, again! Later!

Link To Some Great Printables Pre-K thru K

I just want to share this wonderful link to free printables.....
There are file folder games and a multitude of other great stuff. I hope you all can use some of this stuff. There are more available to buy, but I would say there are probably well over 100 listed for free. No catch..not sign-up... nothing in it for me, either... just happy to share it! ;)

I'm Dreaming Of.....

SNO CONES!!

...but believ it or not, these are cupcakes. I was looking for a sno cone graphic and came to this site. And no, I do not normally post about things like this, but I am captivated by the ice.... no, I mean icing... or is it ice.... I am sooooo confused, yet my mouth is watering looking at these! LOL!

Anyway, I was thinking since we have a house full of sickly ones with fever that I might load them all up tomorrow for a trip to the snow cone stand in the next town. They could use some time out of this house even if it is just for a ride in the car. Can't wait to surprise them!!

What's your favorite flavor?

Ours is Ice Cream with Cream.... YUM!!!

Booty Stew

Why doesn't this girl understand?....

If you've got booty stew,
don't touch the booty stew!!!!

Look at her digging in that tiny little booty!!! Ewww!
(Disclaimer: I don't think she actually had a booty stew in this pic, but she likes to dig anyway. And for the record it is one soft little booty, so I can see why she would want to touch it. I love those sweet booty cheeks myself!!)

Special note: I figured you would appreciate a laugh, Tara.

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Making Curriculum Work For YOU: Insects, Etc.

I mentioned previously that I would like to start sharing how I am adapting our curriculum to make it work for us. As homeschoolers I think it is easy to think we have to do everything in our curricula and do it all just the way they say to do. First of all, I think it is important to realize we can make changes.... as many as we want. It's okay to completely leave some things out, too. As well, you should feel free to completely add something that you want to study. The example I will use is My Father's World Kindergarten's Insect Week. The main focus for the week is insects with a strong emphasis on the ant. Our ants did not come in during that week and that was okay, because we had plenty to keep us busy and to study on. Besides that... in hindsight I can see how having the ants DURING the week would have been distracting to getting some other things done. The ants did arrive the Monday AFTER studying them and that just made the learning carry on longer and more naturally. I think it is good for lessons to "overlap". We can still move on to the next lesson study while we finish up or continue some of the previous week activities. I think it just drives the information into their brains better. I will admit this is a change for me... I did think I had to complete one week to start the next week, which was really frustrating for me. Sometimes we would only have one day of study left for a lesson and if we worked on that final day on Monday, then that would throw off our next week. I just can not keep operating that way.

Back to changing things, adding things, and leaving some things out.... It is so fun to do ladybugs, but I have to say that painting a ladybug stone was not high on my list of fun things to do. At first glimpse I thought it was a cute idea, and then insect week came. First of all, where we live you can not just walk outside and get stones. You have to settle for pebbles and little hands work better with bigger things (stones). I did not want to make a trip to a store to search out stones adn then have to purchase stones, nor did I like the idea of marking on a beautiful stone once we acquired one. I prefer them au naturale! ;) I did however want some simple craft to do and what better to work with than simple craft supplies like construction paper. I quickly grabbed some bladck and red paper and went to work with Sierra. It may look complex, but it is simple a black circle, a red circle cut in half, a half circle in black for the head, some small black circles for spots, and some squiggle scraps for legs and antennaes. After we glued ours together we added some google eyes. While Sierra was doing the gluing I decided it would make a cute little booklet with some easy phonics words. No big thing... just cut six (or whatever) squares of paper to make the pages and staple them together and tape the booklet to the back of the ladybug. As you can see in the pic I wrote in some simple sentences and guided her through filling them in. On the remaining pages we make a sentence story:
Page 1 = I
Page 2 = am
Page 3 = a
Page 4 = bug
Super simple and that was the point because Sierra could write this "story" all by herself. She was so excited to show Daddy when he came home from work. We also made a paper plate ladybug craft.... Simple.... paint the whole plate red, paint a head area black, paint a black stripe down the center, use a dot brush or dot marker to dot black spots all over the ladybug, add google eyes (etc), and add pipe cleaners for the legs and antannaes. Seems like you are just crafting, but in fact both these activitiies reinforce that insects have six legs and two antannaes each. I also, printed out a dot-t0-dot page for both my girls to do that was a ladybug. In addition to that we made insects out of wooden shapes. The girls glued the shapes on paper and then, colored the wood. We put together insect puzzles and talked about insects everywhere we went... even if it was a some odd object in Wal-Mart that had a bug drawn on it. It was okay that we left out some of the stuff in the lesson plans because we did other things and the learning still happened.

Another thing that I have found difficult is finding the recommend books and even if I do find them sometimes I think it does not matter what books you use. The Grouchy Ladybug was recommended for the Insect week. I could not find it at our library and do not have it here, so we just used other books. A friend told me that she was dissappointed that this book was recommended because it expresses such bad attitudes that she would rather not use as an example to her children. I ended up being glad we did not use this book and we found plenty of other great books at the public library and in our home library.

These are just a FEW of the ways we are making the curriculum fit us. We also do not use all the "reading plan" for teaching Sierra to read because she is a bit ahead of it already. Instead, I am pulling from other sources and just trying to figure out on my own how to teach her read, since she is interested and I do not want to hold her back from that. I have been making the file folder games and printing out free printable phonics readers that are available online, as well as, purchasing some phonics readers for our little library that is quickly growing. And that is the last thing.... I am gathering lots of books to have on hand, so we do not need to go to the library as often or purchase books at full cost. I buy books on the thrift! Our two local Goodwill Stores are a great source and often run sales for 10 for a dollar. There is another resale shop in my town that is super cheap (probably 25 cents... I never ask the price of stuff there it is soooo cheap and goes to a good cause). Garage sales are great sources for books, also. It has surprised me how many of the recommended books we have acquires this way. At the library a few weeks back I was looking for the book "Make Way for Ducklings" and they did not have it on their shelves; however, as I was leaving I thumbed through their book sale books and that book was there... for sale!.... for like 50 cents! I get so very excited about that kind of thing! I think God sends us EVERYTHING WE NEED!!!

Baby Sling To Try

I have not tried this, but this sling looks wonderful and it requires no sewing or assembly (except on your body). Love the directions this lady provides on her blog!

Adventures of a Crunchy Wannabe: 5 minute, $5, no-sew baby wrap

File Folder Games

I have been making file folder games for the kids. This one is available for free through www.FileFolderFun.com and all you have to do is register for free. You will get occassional emails from them, but nothing annoying. Just this week they sent me a link for a spiritual game and some St. Patrick's day cards to give out to friends.

This particular game was one I made for Sierra (K) for phonics word practice. I quickly realized that I had underestimated it. I showed the "game" to Caden (3 yr 5 mo) and he quickly became interested. I thought I would just have him put centers on the flowers and not worry about the words, but he pointed to the words on the flowers and asked, "What does that say?" So, I read the words phonetically to him (bu-uh-g, bug ...while pointing out the letters) and he would place the appropriate pic in the center of the flower. I must say that I was quite impressed with my little guy. It is also made me realize that teaching him will be easier than my two older ones because I will have some experience behind me and I will be able to teach gradually from the beginning with him. Anyway, back to the game.... Sierra did the game as intended. She would read the words on the flowers and match the pictures. She did great. Savannah (3rd) wanted to do the game, also. It was obviously too easy for her, so I told her to match the pics with the words as fast as she could and I would time her. She did it in 20 seconds! They all did a great job and it was fun.

One thing to note is that some of these take a long time to make. If you are going to make file folder games you should know there is a time investment. Also, if you want them to last through several kids you might want to laminate the pieces and store them in a zipper lock bag or envelope. I laminate mine with contact paper. This week I managed to get about five games made.

Also, you could add a "dry erase" page in with any of these games simply by inserting a blank lined page into a clear page protector. For the one above the child could write each of the words with a dry erase marker for an added level to the game. Another idea might be to make a "tracer page" by printing the words on a sheet of paper and inserting that in a page protector for the child to trace and that would help with practicing proper letter formation.

Also, check this site... www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com for more file folder games.

Thrift Store Homeschooling ;)

Let me just tell you, if you do not hang out at Garage Sales and Goodwill stores you are missing out!! Puzzles bigger than the kids... $1.99 ! Fun with puzzles... and gymnastics... PRICELESS!
I bought this puzzle a while back and had no idea how fabulous it was. I did not even realize it was five foot long. I just knew that it was a puzzle (check) and it was insects, which we would eventually study (check). It was a floor puzzle (check)... any kind of puzzle at our house is a winner. Seriously, my kids would work puzzles all day long, if I would let them. I try to incorporate all our puzzles in with the lessons we are working on. It is the one thing I do not have to beg them to do! LOL! When I am out and about and spot a puzzle bargain I snatch it up and stick it in our stash. I have gotten a lot of them for quarters even!

Look at all the detail in this puzzle. We all loved it! It was a fabulous find and a wonderful surprise when we took it out to study Insects. And for whatever reason it sparked a bit of gymnastics in Sierra. She even rolled head first down the length of the puzzle.

Look at the size of this thing....

And Savannah had to get in a pic, too. Savannah said her favorite thing about this puzzle was trying to match the mommas and the babies. So cool to hear what they are thinking.

Spring Break Fever!

I thought I would share a little run-down of our Spring Break with you! Cody arrived home from work on Friday and we were so ready for Spring Break. We were excited at the prospect and had a plan to go camping at some point, but no definite plans for our NINE DAYS. Yipppeeee! As a last minute thing, Cody and Savannah were asked to take part in some preparations for our church VBS program on Monday through Wednesday. We had checked the weather forecast and it showed rain, so it all sounded like a it would be a great plan to do our usual weekend thing (Saturday hang out at home, Sunday church & maybe visit friends), then spend the first part of the week preparing for a simple camping trip to be taken at the end of the week. This would allow Cody and Savannah to do their VBS things.

Here's how it has played out so far...... Friday we just hung out around here and even had some movie time while I started doing laundry catch-up. Saturday was pretty much the same with some organization projects thrown in and a grocery trip to Wal-Mart. Sunday we got up and went to church, then came home. Cody had the itch to do some visiting with friends, so he called his sister... no go. I called a friend... no go. We decided that hanging out at home would be fine aand it is a good thing we did.... sometime that afternoon we realized Sierra was quite warm and this is where it all began....

Sunday = Sierra fever
Monday = Sierra fever, Cody & Savannah at church some
Tuesday = Sierra fever, Cody & Savannah at church some
Wednesday = Sierra fever, Cody & Savannah at church some
Thursday = Sierra's fever SEEMED better & since cabin fever was hitting us all hard we decided to venture out two blocks to the theater for a movie. For the record I did think this was a bad idea, but I caved under pressure. Came back home. Noticed Sierra was really hot. Checked her temp = 103.2 . Touch a couple other foreheads and thought they seemed warm, too. Caden's temp = 102.6; Sahara's temp = 102.6 ; check Savannah "just in case" = 100.4 !!! Yep! We have Spring Fever at our house.... only I don't think this is what that phrase usually implies! ;)
Note: I am leaving out all the details of the nighttime duties involved with Sierra's fever this week. ;)
Friday - Sunday = So, guess what our plans are now? Na-da, nothing, zilche.... just taking care of my feverish bunch. I was so excited that Cody would get to go to a co-op session for Friday... not now! Okay, so God is teaching me something here. I know He is. I'm listening God... You have my attention.

Really.... my family has battled illness since we began homeschooling. I thought this would not be a problem once we switched to homeschooling, but I was so wrong. Actually, I came to the realization about a month back that God is "growing me".... I think God is letting us experience this to show me a valuable lesson (and, of course, not to just torture me). I can just kind of hear him asking me, "Okay, Shannon when all is well and perfect can you do this? What if there are hard times? Do YOU have a plan? Or do you want to follow MY plan? Oh yeah, YOU have a new schedule and plan for what YOU think YOU WANT to do? Okay, what if the two babies are sick and screaming while you try to follow YOUR plan? What if one of the older ones is sick and throwing up... Can you do it? Is YOUR plan working for you?...etc." I really think God is trying to teach me and in a major cram session, I might add. I am listening and I am learning so much, but unfortunately I do not learn as quickly as some might. ;) I learn to follow HIS plan and within a few days I am back to MY plan... never mind the fact that MINE does not work out. I guess, it is just familiar territory and His plan is new territory for me. I do not intentionally ditch HIS plan. I even like HIS plans better. I am learning... ever so slowly... and He is speaking to me... I've got to do more than listen, though. I have to be obedient and trust in HIS plan.

And by the way, the Bible study I have been attending is really tying in with this perfectly! Amazing how God puts us where we need to be! Thank you God for being patient with me.

So Sorry

I seem to be full of broken promises on this blog. So sorry I keep saying I am going to post about a particular topic and then, not follow through. Honestly, I do try and I have quite a few entries in my drafts folder, but they may never make it out. Everytime I find myself wanting to blog I feel like I should not.... I think God is telling me to do it differently.... how? Iam not sure, yet.

Out of Wack Posting... Wacky World!

Crazy title... I know! I am sorting through my thoughts and trying to play catch up with some posting, so for a while my posts might be rather "out of wack" ... meaning, they might be out of order, but in the interest of actually posting I thought I need to start with the here and now. So here goes... and those other posts will just have to sit in the drafts folder a bit longer. LOL!

I mentioned in my previous post that I want to start journaling my days better and sharing what we are doing with MFW. My life is crazy random here, so this is what the last two days have been like... the short story that may not seem so short. :)

Monday morning we were supposed to be good homeschoolers, so we got up and everyone got dressed and went to breakfast. That's were the problems started. My children were so cutely having their milk in tiny little wine glasses UNTIL they tasted it. Bleeeeeeeechhhh! It was sour... arghhhh... and still in date. Milk is necessary here! So, I told the kids to get their shoes on and get ready to load up on this very cold and rainy morning with a three year old with fever. {giant fake sarcastic smiles :) } I bribed them with a trip to get donuts if they would make it quick. I can't say it was quick, but they did all get their rain gear on and it was quite cute... UNTIL I had to actually step out in the freezing cold rain to load them all up. Yeah! Off we went to the donut shop aroung the corner. Sorry... I should not whine when I live within minutes of everything I need and especially, a donut shop! I was going to take them all in to the grocery store until the vision of trekking them all in there popped in my head in this yucky weather. I hit the CVS Pharmacy, parked by the front door, ran in, grabbed a gallon of milk at the front, paid, and headed home. By the time we waddled our wet selves in the house and got ready once again to begin schooling it was close to 10:am....partly because I had to stop before leaving the house to feed (nurse) my starving baby that missed breakfast due to the spoiled milk. She was not gonna wait on a trip to the store. By the way, she is supposed to be weaning.... all my others nursed for 13 mo., 12 mo., & 12 mo.... she is 19 months and is old enough to have an opinion about it all. She screams like we are killing her when we refuse nursing. Yikes.... and the main reason I want to wean her is that she is refusing to eat solids many times just so she can nurse. ;) Sweet, but not a good thing in my opinion. And now that you have that little bit of info, back to the story.... So, we start schooling... well the baby gets tired... hmmm... I get her distracted and she runs about playing with her brother. She comes back "digging". Digging in her diaper.... This child seriously thinks she is supposed to do a touch test and I keep saying, "If you've got booty stew, don't touch the booty stew!" She does not get that. So, off we go to wash her hands, change her diaper, and wash our hands, again. Back to schooling..... and then, Caden needs a potty break and for some reason on this day I must be present. Yes, parenting is a joy! So, he goes potty, I wipe him, and he is off running in high gear, again. Back to schooling. My poor Sierra is sitting patiently waiting for me to read her book and looking quite bored, but I am back now. UNTIL Sahara walks past me "digging"... AGAIN!!! Off we go to wash her hands, change her diaper, wash both our hands, AGAIN! And finally, we are back to schooling. Meanwhile Savannah is trying to not be distracted, but being as the child is a poster child for ADD she has had much to keep her from staying on task. Her 3o minute math assignment ends up taking her 1 1/2 hours. Ohh.... and yes, Sierra is still awaiting that book reading time... I sit... I look at the kids and say, "Okay, Momma's gonna freak out a bit, but don't worry. Just let me have a moment." I take the "book" that I am supposed to be reading and beat it on the table about six times pretty hard and get some much needed frustration out. Of course, my kids are looking at me like I am nuts, but slighly comical nuts and we moved on. Finally, I read the book and whizzed through some K schooling while guiding Savannah through some independent work. Sounds fun doesn't it?... I will say this... we DID get most of our school done, but it took WAY TOO LONG and there was way too much time of poor little Sierra sitting and waiting on me. For K we are finishing up some of our W-Water week and starting on our I-Insect week at the same time. We buzzed through most of the W-Water lessons last week in one day (Thursday), but did not do all of the "Reading Plan" portion or any of the worksheets. I just felt the Science lessons were better combined into one day and the kids liked it that way. We had a two sick babies, so we had a wacky week last week. So, today we continued to talk about the ocean (for W-Water) a bit more and introduced the I-Insect lesson. We did the "Reading Plan" activities and the worksheets for both. We did a fabulous insect puzzle. For Savannah, 3rd, she did a devotional lesson, Spelling, handwriting, math worksheet, and two timed math quizzes (oddly, she is liking those). We did not get to any of MFW Adventures like I had planned to be our focus for the day. Savannah did do some reading while I gathered library books and as soon as my husband got home we darted out the door to the library. I confess I camped out there a while with my two older girls enjoying the distraction. Shame on me. My husband thought for sure I died, I think. He called to inquire about HIM cooking dinner. My reply, "Not unless you have learned to cook." ;) I told him not to worry and we have dinner soon. We made a quick grocery store run and at the kids request had corn dogs for dinner. Healthy? NO, but there were no complaints and it was really some great comfort food... and I needed some comfort. All-in-all it was a good day.... really, just a bit on the chaotic side!

Now on to Tuesday.... although my day was not bad yesterday I told my husband that I could not have another day like that one. That thinking lead to a bit of procrastination on my part. My goal.... how to avoid that type of day? I just was not sure, so I focused on other things and decided at some point that it sounded like a good day to try "evening school". I spent the morning making a couple of file folder games, cleaning some problem areas, and letting my kids ENJOY THEIR DAY. Seriously, in all the chaos they had spent way to much time sitting for their schooling yesterday. They played... and the sun shone, although it was still cool and windy. I even let the two little play outside for awhile in the warmest part of the day because Caden was fever free today. Hallelujah! So, this is how we schooled... after dinner we went straight to our calendar time activities. Cody played with the two littles and bbathed them. Savannah began her independent work (devotional, Spelling, handwriting memory verse, quick art) and I began Sierra's K. Sierra finished her writing practice worksheets for W and I, while I talked to her about ants and read some ant books to her. We did all her day 2 activities, but could not set up her ants because we are still awaiting delivery. I dismissed her to play with Daddy after she did her quick art. I froze some water in a pan and she got to write on it with markers (bingo dot markers worked well). We got hers done in one hour! I decided at that point to have Savannah (3rd) skip her math and we did MFW Adventures, but changed up. We did two days of Bible, decided to hold off on Science until tomorrow, and read the history while Savannah's was in the bath tub. Sierra fell asleep listening in my bed nearby. Savannah's schooling was two hours today, since we did not do the math. They also did one of my file folder games.

On that note, my little guy is sooo maturing all of a sudden. He has shown a new interest in books, counting, and colors. Today I was going to let him "play" with the file folder game I made. It is flowers with words in the center (pig, car, ...) and you place the round center on the flower with a matching picture. I was thinking he would randomly place the centers on the flowers and that was all I thought he needed to do, but he surprised me by asking, "What does that say?" I began with, "ppppp-iiiiiii-gggg, pig" and he would place the appropriate picture on. Quite cool to see this from so young. It made me realize that he will be ready to learn and I will know more about how to teach him than I do with my older two and it is going to be more natural, I hope. If you have stuck with this super long post, bless your heart! So, this is just a look at two days in my life and how I am trying to make schooling work for us and us not work so much for schooling. ;)