Box Tops & Labels

I am back to collecting box tops and labels for one of my little Rotties that attend PS. I am not good at remembering, but we are blessed with a family friend that gave us an envelope full of them this last week. We were able to fill 1 and 1/2 pages. Thanks Ms. Kim!

Counting Down

It's that time of year again where we are counting down, packing up and getting ready to go here...


Respite care has been set up for my 2 little Rotties, but I am not at peace with it. I am just telling myself that they will be okay.

Still not sure how much school we will take with us. I kinda really want a full vacation without teaching, but the task master in me says to keep pushing the train.

14 days

Miners Not Minors*

I am tired! I stayed up too late and woke too early this morning watching the miners being extracted from the mine.

~Sigh~


*One of my favorite lines from the movie "Gal *xy Qu* st"

A Glimpse of Our Handbook

When I first started homeschooling 6 yrs ago, my 1 and only student was the kind of kid that needed a very structured atmosphere. We actually ended up doing "school at home" for him. At the beginning, I created a handbook that listed expectations and school rules. We also kept using school uniforms as I had just spent hundreds of dollars on school uniforms for my then 6th grader and was not going to let them go to waste. I found that it offered a nice way to distinguish between school time and home time.

Over the years we have changed and in the last 2 years I have been able to relax quite a bit, but I still offer the handbook so that everyone has a written copy of school rules and expectations.

Front Cover

Impromptu Field Trip

Today was supposed to be our “Friday Y Day” and we were all dressed to go shoot some hoops when there was a knock at the door. It was a young man telling me he was from the tree cutting company to cut my neighbors tree and they wanted me to move my car to keep it safe from falling limbs. This somewhat perplexed me as my driveway is right next to my house and the same limbs that could fall on my car would only have 2 feet to fall on my house, but I moved the car. I must admit, I was concerned about leaving the house and decided to stick around a bit to see what safeguards this company would take to protect my house.

IT WAS SO FASCINATING!!

We actually moved our chairs out in the front yard (under the protection of our very large pine tree) and watched them take the tree down. They were very skilled and in fact, my kids actually applauded a couple of times as there was some impressive bouts of team work to be seen. We learned that the tree was a Silver Maple and it had very heavy limbs that someone had years ago put chains around to keep the limbs from falling. Well those chains had grown through the tree making the limbs very week. We ended up watching for the whole thing; actually made sandwiches and ate outside when the guys took their lunch break.

I was very impressed with this tree company. The owner was on site and actually did the tree climbing and cutting. The guys did not use fowl language at all and it was not that they had to censor themselves… They just didn’t. In fact, they shouted such great words of encouragement and praise to each other that it was a teachable moment for the kids. They owner came over to talk to us to tell us about the tree and how he got started in the business. The guys offered us free wood and cut it up into perfect size pieces for us.

I took over 60 pictures and about 5 videos. I will share just a few here.

We will miss that old tree, the shade it provided and the shelter if offered to birds and squirrels. I do however feel safer knowing that the next ice storm will not invite that big ole maple into my living room.

The Human Metronome

This morning 7th grade has guitar lesson and I had the metronome on to help her with a new piece. The 2 year old is walking around, clicking his tongue with perfect tempo! LOL!

Ending With Fun!

For review sake:

Kindergarten is able to count ordinal numbers up to the thirty-first consistently and seems to understand it. He can spell and write the days of the week and write his numbers up to 100. He has completely learned the Pre-Primer list of Dolch words so I have moved him to the Primer list. We are moving slower in Science and Social Studies as the lessons are very short and I am trying to figure out how to bump it up some.

Third Grade has completed several of his test with scores in the high 90's. He is struggling with mental math that includes carrying so we are doing some math drill sheets to help him with the basic addition part so that it takes some of the work out for him. James is a child that does well with memorization, but struggles with transferring information to other situations. He picked up some books about cheetahs from the library and really enjoys reading anything about animals. His school behavior has really improved in that he stays very focused and on task.

Seventh Grade is ahead in all of her subjects. She has several essays that she is working on at the same time for 3 different classes. I may have to delete some of them as it seems to be too much ( and I think so as the person who has to read and grade them.) Her music and guitar class is going well... I broke her E string this week and when we went to go have it replaced, the guy tuned and then played a real fancy song on her guitar. She and I both cracked up and said we did not know that guitar could sing like that. LOL! I read a blog by Christie and she was describing a research project called a "delight directed" project. I totally stole (err I mean borrowed) the idea and Jordan is doing her project on the history and making of French Toast. I can't wait to taste/grade her project. ~Smile~

We went out for a ride in the country yesterday and stopped at one of the local small farms to get pumpkins and gourds. We are looking forward to making some pumpkin muffins, pancakes and toasting the seeds. Not sure what we will do with the gourds.

Today we went to the YMCA and it was pretty quiet there. Had the pool to ourselves.

This weekend is the changing of summer to winter clothes bonanza. Woo Hoo!! Fun times...