Monday, Monday

Monday, Monday
So good to me.
Monday, Monday
It was all I hoped it would be. ~ Mama's & Papa's


Making Volcano's






Micah helping Isaac with science experiments




Xavier showing Isaac static electricity


Painting w/water


Building Puzzles


Making Bouncy Balls & Flubber




Sabrina Performing Magic Tricks


Analyzing water collected from a local stream.


Not to mention watching TV, playing with Phillipe & Buddy, cooking, cleaning, drawing, singing, surfing the web, video games all before 3:00. Now what are we gonna do the rest of the day?

Holy Rattlesnake!

Holy Rattlesnake! I didn't appreciate Joel finding this in our yard as he mowed Saturday morning.





I tried to convince him to kill the thing, as I DO NOT like snakes. However, he said we cannot hurt nature and took it over to the woods so he could be free. Joel tried to convince me that they are a vital part of the ecosystem - they eat rodents & since I hate rodents... I tried to convince him that I hate snakes more than mice. It didn't work. Lucky snake...




Windbags, Tadpoles, Cookies & More

Today started out rough. Kids fighting, yelling, throwing tantrums, and me loosing my cool and yelling at kids. Ugh - I hate it when days go like this. The only conciliation I have is that after we all talked out a few problems we were able to get along the rest of the day and start having some fun.

First up windbags. No matter how often I pull these out, the kids never get tired of seeing how many breaths it takes to blow one up completely. So we blew up the entire stash and decided to make shapes and things out of them.

Dragonfly


Hat


Pyramid


Sammy the Elephant


After an hour or so we decided to go for a walk. Isaac and I have been reading about tadpoles and Micah knows a place near the house. We headed to the secret place that Micah was taking us to, although only Micah saw the tadpoles we did find a frog in hiding and see some water striders. On the way Isaac had to impress me with adding 2+2, 2+3, and asking his brothers how much 5x5 is. Then we had to count mailboxes along the way





On the way back we stopped by the playground.









After lunch...
Isaac played with the windbags some more, watched more Thomas on YouTube -can you tell this is a daily occurrence and played with his trains.
Sabrina was suppose to go down for a nap, but decided it was more fun to stay away and climb in and out of her crib. Then she decided it was naked time.
Xavier watched another episode of Pysch (his fave show) and ditched us to go to the pool with friends.
Micah made Peanut Butter Cookies, practicde using the wood burning kit, and ditched us for the movies.



In the end it turned out to be a pretty good day. Think I will curl up with a book and eat cookies after we tuck the little ones into bed.

Sewing Day


Micah has been asking me to teach him to sew for a few years. I figured today would be a great day to pull out the machines. I have a pile of "mom/honi can you fix this growing" and Micah is itching to make a cover for Buddy's cage.

After rummaging through the craft box Micah settled on some leftover denim material. After he cut and pinned the fabric I showed him how to thread the machine. Then I was quickly dismissed. Seems he has this - don't need momma at all. Wow! Considering how easy this was I should have "taught" him to sew years ago when he first asked.



Here is the completed project. Not to shabby for a first timer.

Atoms & Turkeys

Tuesday morning atoms were the rage at our house. Joel gave each of the boys a question concerning atoms. Micah spent the morning researching, building both out of Magnetix and having a huge discussion with Joel. I paid attention for the most part. I was right there with them as the talked about atoms and water molecules, but they lost me when they started discussing DNA, RNA, and genetic coding.


Xavier did some research on his IPod. Then decided he was going to write a song about atoms. He is almost done with it (so he says). He gave me a small taste of it, but I am still waiting to hear the final result.


While Sabrina napped Micah, Isaac and I headed back up to the library. Micah wanted to get some books on drawing. Isaac wanted to get whatever he could grab and I already had a handful to turn in and a list to pick up. I have been reading a lot of nutrition/GMO Foods/back to the land type books lately. So I picked up a few more of those along with a handful of Chemistry books for myself. Currently I am working on the "if I read it & talk about it - they may get interested and read it too" idea. It's not working out that great, but then the main topic of discussion over the last week has been about turkey sex or lack of it and having the job of being the "turkey sperm wrangler" (you need to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to get it). The boys are not to thrilled with the idea of reading about sex as it is, much less turkey sex. Oh well, maybe Chemistry will be different. Besides I never took it in High School so I might as well learn about it now. Maybe then when Micah decides to have these "chemistry" discussions with his dad I won't be out in left field.

The rest of our Tuesday consisted of video games, swimming at the pool, more talk about turkeys (specifically how we won't be eating one for Thanksgiving if I cannot find one which does NOT have the name Butterball on it, as I won't be eating a Broad White Breasted Turkey) and having a jail in our living room. Only the warden responsible for shutting off the living room decided to hide under the table.





Wednesday was not nearly as exciting and plain out sucked for me. I was not in a good mood. I woke up late & missed a meeting I was suppose to be at :-( Maintenance didn't show up to paint - must of mixed up the date on my calendar. Signed the older 2 up for Edge classes. Guess who agreed to be a taxicab every day for a month :-o Not sure what I was thinking there, but they both wanted drawing, skateboard design, and theater arts. Isaac went to gymnastics & I was suppose to meet someone afterwards only for them to not be there. Okay so I was 4 minutes late.... but seriously??

The boys spent the day reading, playing video games, talking about technology, and the Amish (thanks to another book I just finished reading). We also learned how Xavier will live in Maine on a farm and make his children wax the toilet for punishment if he doesn't make it into the Air Force and how women everywhere should be safe if he is around because he now knows how to deliver a baby in a cab (and pick a lock and kick down a door - thanks to a book he is reading).

For dinner we ditched all forms of good nutrition and had breakfast burritos, talked about Thanksgiving some more (yep we talked more turkey) then ended the day watching a show and goofing off. What turned out to be a crappy day had a wonderful ending. Well, except for the evil face we kept being given - don't be fooled, no matter how cute she looks right now - that is NOT the cute face...


"Not School" Learning

As all the kids in our neighborhood walked to school or hitched a ride on the big yellow bus today I sat on the porch thinking about how thankful I am to be at home with my children. I am thankful that I do not have to wake them up early during the dog days of summer to rush them out the door so they can sit in a classroom with 20-30 other kids learning from a prescribed curriculum. I am thankful I do not have to worry about whether they are bored to death, being challenged enough, or being held back because their interest is not something which does not correspond to their age. I am thankful we can go as fast or as slow as we want when it comes to different subjects. Most of all I am thankful that I/we do not have to look at the middle of August as the end of summer and the beginning of fall (which officially starts September 23rd).

So while hundreds of thousands of children across America watch their summer come to an end today. We enjoyed every moment of of our summer day and even did some "NOT SCHOOL" learning along the way. To many it may look like we spent the day playing (we did), but learning happens all the time.

So here's a look at our "Not School" Learning day...

Our morning consisted of watching "Secrets of the Dead: China's Terracotta Warriors". A trip to the library where a miracle happened and we only came home with 1 bag full of books & played puppets:







Our afternoon/evening was spent reading, drawing, napping (Sabrina & I), playing video games, watching Thomas videos, building tracks, swimming at the pool, and more reading. While it was a fun-filled day for us, plenty of learning was taking place. Objectives covered today: social skills, research techniques, history, the judicial system, science, religious beliefs, creativity/art, physical education, money skills, strategy, nutrition, our body/GMO foods, air streams, and more. It was a pretty awesome "No School" Learning day :-)