First Full Week In Review

Last week was our 1st full week and it went well.

Pre-K is enjoying his "big kid desk" and is doing well with his schedule. I did start him with Rosetta Stone Spanish on Friday and he actually did pretty good. He will have to work on mouse control, but I am sure that will come quickly.

2nd grade is having to step up on his reading skills. This year's curriculum requires more reading on his part. The thing is, he has really shown a great proficiency for learning phonics, but his confidence is very shaky.

6th grade has started once again with enthusiasm. She is looking forward to weekly blogging and loves, loves, loves her Home Economics class. So far she has boiled eggs and made french toast completely by herself. I just sat in the classroom planning how many steps it would take me to get to the fire extinguisher. LOL! No... she has had a little more cooking practice this summer, so I am sure she will do well. Next week, she will be making muffins from scratch. BTW... the french toast was good.

We are now planning to extend our annual family vacation from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. The kids are crazy excited. Crunch time in the classroom! LOL!

Mommy's Got Talent!?!

If the world were upside down...I would be able to read and write the date just fine. I was at my desk today and Pre-k came up to show me a page. I try to be sure to date all of their work so I can keep track of progress. I just realized that I can write all of my numbers upside down and most of my letters without too much concentration. Is that some sort of skill? Should I call America's Got Talent? Should I keep this one to myself? Too late!

Meet Princess Puppy

6th grade now has her own blog. This will be her Wednesday Writing class.

You can read her blog at Princess Puppy.

Library Day!

Wednesday is our library day and it is nice and quiet here today. Many of the homeschool mom's have posted in the past about putting books on hold. I had never done that before, but decided to try it out and it is great. The children's required reading comes from Edhelper.com and it was nice to pick out what they wanted and have it waiting for us. Now they are just getting their leisurely reading goods. LOL!

I Am Back

I made it back home and I feel great! I had a wonderful time of being alone, finishing thoughts, prayer and rest. I am so very thankful to my parents who gave me this opportunity to get away.

The kids had a great time with Poppy and Nana as evidenced by them having cookies and ice cream for breakfast Sunday morning. My father has a better understanding of our school day and that is always good for those who don't quite get the whole homeschooling thing.

I wanted to share Pre-k's schedule. I laminated it for him and good thing as he refers to it frequently throughout the day.

I scanned the cover of his books and then added the miniature pictures to a windows document, so when the bell rings he knows which book to grab next. I keep a plastic tub with all of the puzzles, manipulative's and play d*h in it and I found a great set of Harc*urt pre-readers, tracing cards, and textured alphabet cards on e-bay.

The First Day of School

Ok first... I know I had said we would start on the 24th of August, but I had to change it yet again. Introducing, the return of the google eyes.

Now, there is a big pink spotted elephant in the room... or not in the room. Jeffrey is no longer with me. He has made bad choices that have led to him having a lack of freedom. Nuff said!

We had a great day and pre-kindergarten rocked the school room today! I will have to post his work later. The other grades did well and are adjusting to the changes.

Guess what? I am running away from home for 3-4 days. My kids are staying with their grandparents and I am going to a very luxurious hotel all by myself. First time alone in several, several years. I am going to read all the blogs I want and read a book without reading the same sentence over and over again. Hip Hip Hooray!

Too True Tuesday

One of my blog buddies, Essie, has a blog idea called Too True Tuesday where you admit something embarrassing that you don’t mind people knowing.



My mother is not a blogger, but is a regular lurker of my blog and those on my list. She loved last weeks, "TTT" and gave me one that I can share about her. But first I want to tell you about my wonderful mother.



My mother is the oldest of 9 children and was responsible for most of the cooking and cleaning in the home as both of my grandparents worked outside of the home. Because she learned to cook for such a large family, she still tends to cooks very large amounts of food. Sometimes I walk into her kitchen and see a huge vat of spaghetti on the stove and she is the only one home. The irony to that is that my mother is what we call, "the one bite wonder". She can never eat more than a couple of bites at anytime, regardless of how hungry she is at the start of a meal. She often eats a bit here and there throughout the day. She is however a bedtime snacker and cannot sleep without having a little something at night. We know....we know....



And now for TTT:



Before she retired, my mother worked at G*neral M*tors, 1st shift. For her bedtime snack, she usually had vegetables and dip or a few chips or something. During a holiday when there was chocolate in the house, she enjoyed the miniature candy bars. Mom's routine was to take her bath at night, have a snack, go to bed and get up at 5 am in the morning to clock in my 6 am. She says she got to work one day and worked until first break. When she went into the bathroom and got ready to "be a lady", there stuck to her buttocks was a miniature candy bar wrapper. While no one saw it, she did add checking her behind for stray wrappers to her morning routine.

Fruit Smoothies

I have shared before, (As Seen On TV) I come from TV shoppin' people! About 1 1/2 years ago I received a Magic Bullet and I still use it quite a bit, especially now with the baby and making baby food.

One of the things we make regularly is smoothies. Right now the kids are on a peanut butter, banana kick where I just use bananas, a spoonful of peanut butter, crushed ice and a little bit of milk. But my new taste treat is peaches, (flash frozen), carrots and apple juice. The frozen peaches are so so so good and carrot juice is one of my favorite vegetables for juicing. anyway....just thought I would share that.

Orientation tomorrow! We are all excited. Nothing like a new box of crayons! LOL!

Curriculum Sold & Photography Elective

I was able to sell the curriculum that I used last year for 5th and 10th grade and the very nice surprise was that it sold for more than I paid for it! Can't beat that with a big stick.

I also found a really nice book called, The Kids' Guide to Digital Photography: How to Shoot, Save, Play With & Print Your Digital Photos on E-Bay for under $2 and it is in excellent, almost new condition. I think 6th grade will really enjoy using this book and the surprise "back-to-school" gift that I purchased. Every year I try to get a small gift for each student since I save money on the whole back to school clothes and supplies thing.

Too True Tuesday

One of my blog buddies, Essie, has a blog idea called Too True Tuesday where you admit something embarrassing that you don’t mind people knowing. I chickened out last week, but seem to have an "I don't care" attitude today, so here goes...

I have never been into fashion and prefer soft, comfortable clothes. Years ago I had done laundry in the evening, but forgot to put my clothes in the dryer. On the next morning I realized what I had done and ran down to put the clothes in the dryer while I showered and got ready for work. (Yes, back in the day I worked!) I went down to grab my clothes and they were still damp, but I had to run. I got to work, parked and rushed into the office, flapping my clothes trying to get that last bit of benefit from air drying. I went into the office, worked until lunch and left to grab something 'cause I did not have time to pack lunch that morning.

As I walked to my car, I saw in the distance something crumpled on the ground. Getting closer I saw that it was red, black and white and then stopped dead in my tracks as I recognized my very favorite, red, black and white zebra striped panties laying in the middle of the parking lot. They must have hitched a ride on or in my damp clothes and decided to lay 10 feet from my car to wait for my return. I matter-of-factly scooped them up and stuffed them in my brief case. Every time I folded or wore them I laughed and called them my "run-away panties."

Epilogue

I have since had to throw those panties away as the elastic had given its all. I thought I would shed a tear when I put them in the trash, but instead I had one good final laugh.

Shoo Fly!

We have had fruit flies for the past 3 days and I have been going crazy trying to find where they were coming from. I had to bring in one of our hanging tomato plants because the raccoons were helping themselves, but it was only in for 1 night and I checked it and it did not have any bugs. I checked the fruit basket and everything was cool in there. So the search continued.

Remember when I was looking for a rice cooker... well I found a great one and it sits on the counter as we use it 3 - 5 times per week. It has the steamer basket on it (that is great, btw). Well, guess what we found in that steamer basket with the lid on it... a very ripe banana! And.....5 million, billion, trillion fruit flies! I love my kids!

Change of Start Date

We are changing our start date. Originally, the first day of school was planned for September 1st, but after putting the dates on the S O S teacher site, it did not give us enough days for the school year. Orientation will be August 17th with the first day of school being August 24th.

Tomato Tamato Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

They were delicious!