Kenya- Kind of

Some people wonder what in the world a homeschool
schedule might look like. I recently found this template on http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/ to visualize ours. Of course, this is the ideal schedule. For summer, we had a lot more play dates and field trips come up that adjust this quite a bit, but most of the time this is what we're going for, especially when Colin begins preschool soon. You might notice the school day ends officially around 2:30. That's on our longer days. We might be finished a lot sooner  depending on the day. Personal Play/Reading means each kid gets time with me alone. This is one of their favorite things, and it's great for bonding. Then I've still got  at least 2 1/2 hours still to fill before Dax gets home! This family isn't the best at just hanging out and relaxing. We need to learn to be!  I'm still working on consistency in those afternoon hours because it can get quite chaotic and honestly sometimes I'm out of ideas and definitely out of energy. I also go out to teach lessons Monday and Tuesday evenings, so I have to reserve a little for those kids, too. 

In any case, this shows what we're covering. They've found a YouTube Yoga channel for kids they like and this will be great for getting their mind and body ready for the day. Math and piano definitely work best early in the morning when their focus is best.We often save unit studies for after lunch when they've had a mental break and most of the written work is behind them. And of course we do a lot of work on the go simply to fit in that ever important socialization and Christian education, which can too easily end up on the back burner if I let it. For Math and Reading I have a variety of books we rotate through to cover all the skills. I'm having the most trouble keeping up with activities for Colin because the girls work as a pair so well and have moved on from Letter and Number Activities. For unit studies I still use the Five in a Row curriculum. We are running out of books on that list, so I'm beginning to put together my own units and now know what qualities to look for when choosing books. We'll also start working from a science curriculum I found and begin some Charlotte Mason books. I had no idea how many options were out there when I began this journey. It's so overwhelming, but fun at the same time. Thank goodness for my mom, a wonderfully revered public school teacher, who always offers advice and resources.

 We studied Kenya this week. Can you tell? No? We read Chir Chir is Singing, a really sweet book about a Kenyan girl who wishes to help all her family members with their traditional chores, but ends up finding that watching the baby and singing are the most helpful. After gluing our flag onto the world map and locating Nairobi, we watched a video on Kenya from the library. We also learned about the Great Rift Valley, something I knew little about before. So the lunch above is my strange version of the Rift Valley. There's a cranberry- applesauce volcano in the middle. The sandwiches are the land that has torn apart. The rest I told them was animals and trees : )

We also used a wet paper towel to show the "tearing" land and its wrinkles.

 We watched a couple of videos about the landscape, but they also insisted on a professor's hour long power point project on the tectonic plates under Africa. They actually listened for quite awhile and later Colin said some things that were directly from the video. You never know what they'll absorb.

We did the ever popular baking soda-vinegar volcano. I told them to smile so they automatically did this.

It worked...a little bit. But they were completely thrilled, so that's what counts. And yes, they do get dressed in the morning. This is in the afternoon when Chloe decided to get ready for bed.

Here are our Kenyan masks-  I'm still laughing. : ) They added geometric shapes based on the example images and used colors from the Kenyan flag. Colin only wanted black. The final result is interesting to say the least!  They also wrote down various customs they noticed were different from ours.

I started leaving these out for the kids in the morning. They got brand new writing notebooks and when they wake up, they find a writing prompt waiting. This saves me from the door slamming and crazy messes before I wake up! They love it so far. Colin is allowed to scribble whatever he likes. The first morning he was proud of a line he drew with a ruler. The next day he drew his first dog.

Colin's L for Lizard. He loves hanging these letters in his room.

After reading several more story books based on Kenya, we threw these comprehension beach balls. When you catch it, you read the question asking about the setting, main characters, plot, etc.

Usually kids like to curl up on the couch or bed to read. Here's Chloe's favorite reading spot.

We had fun with a letter recognition Bingo game with suckers for prizes.

Hannah completed her first official composition. This is her final draft of Volcanoes and Ninjas. At first I thought it said Volcano Sand Ninjas.

The girls' art cracks me up. They are only interested in drawing people all lined up. Chloe's usually have a variety of dress and hairstyles. The other day she drew a scene of women getting ready for a wedding who were all unhappy with their crazy hairdos.

I love how Hannah puts the script in bubbles and then lets us know they're there. She recently drew a picture of a group of kids getting reprimanded by a teacher for making fun of a kid with crutches. Where they get this stuff, I have no idea.

I don't know about you, but this gives me pause before walking down the hall.

Finally, here are the ever entertaining Kid Quotes. They were on a roll this week.

H- Colin said "I hate you"  but then I saw he was just talking to his hand.
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Colin checked out a ton of books about pirates. I asked them all what Daddy's pirate name should be.
Captain Smelly Foot was the immediate suggestion. : )
Mine?
Captain Seriously and Captain Bossy Yeller-  :/ 
Chloe also suggested Whirlpool, which I didn't get until I saw I was standing by the microwave.

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On a walk, the girls discussed looking for the sweet brown face of a lost dog on a poster. Colin said, "Well, I'm going to look for the whole body."
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M- Colin, it looks like you need to go to the potty.
C- Nope. It's just a fun dance.
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Colin asked for a little brother, but he wants it to be a mouse named Bad Guy. Hmm. No thanks.
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Chloe- In my experience, ants like to eat everything.  (The poor girl has stepped in way too many red ant hills).
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D- Colin, you weigh 37 lbs.
C- Of blood?
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An elderly lady will be moving and leaving our parish soon. She leaned over and whispered that she would miss seeing our children grow up. Colin looked at her and said, "You're getting old."
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H- Uh oh, Chloe's in there cleaning the bathroom and spraying cinnamon all over the place with the door closed. Come smell this crack!!     (yes, my mind went there)
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Here and There- I'm terrible at post titles

 Our recording sessions wrapped up this week with great success. My favorite part was having one of my friends, Heather, come to town. We got to play together and most importantly eat together : )
The kids love how she calls them each a nickname.  Chloe is her "sack of potatoes" and always gets a lift and some tickling. Colin is a "sack of sweet potatoes" and Hannah is a "sack of onions." It sounds like Hannah got a raw deal here, but Heather says it's because Hannah has "layers." That's the truth!

 For this week of school, the kids focused on finishing up some badges. Hannah completed Magic, Chloe did Cooking, and Colin finished Dinosaurs. I'm often tempted to direct them toward particular badges, but then I remember this is a chance for them to choose whatever they learn about and I want to keep their enthusiasm and independence going for that. We also caught up on a few things that were left off from weeks past. We tried making potato chips for Idaho. We were going to compare the taste and see if different potatoes yielded better chips.

 

But....as you can see, they all tasted about the same. Burned. I will say I wasn't present for the end result and leave it at that- haha. Although, Hannah said she liked them that way and ate several.

We also went back to insects for a little bit. I've spent a couple of mornings catching pesky grasshoppers in the garden and tossing them over the fence, which may or may not do any good. I'm sure they just hop on back over through the holes in the fence, but part of me hopes they'll take advantage of the greenway behind the house and head for the park instead. I had tried insecticide because they're really eating up all my lovely plants, but they pretty much just hopped around in the white dust like they were playing in the snow.  Anyway, as I caught them in a glass vase, we were able to examine them pretty closely. We also listened to all sorts of instruments play Flight of the Bumblebee. Hannah was most interested in young kids performing it on piano.

 Colin has been into dressing snazzy lately. He loves ties. And he gets plenty of compliments on his ties when he goes out.  He wore this on our field trip this week.

We went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Fort Worth. What a great place! The tour was free and we had good timing since they had some rare demonstrations out as well, like an antique spider press. No cell phones were allowed so I pulled these images from Google, but they are pretty much what we saw. Millions, billions of dollars being printed, sorted and packaged. 

An elevated, enclosed walkway gave us a bird's eye view of the entire process throughout the building. The kids were in love with the handheld speakers giving the tour. They loved finding the numbers on the wall and pressing them into their phones. We lagged behind our group a bit because the tour's explanations used some pretty big words and I wanted to make sure the kids really knew what they were seeing since so many big machines and processes were in action. I was most impressed that the workers down below took the time to look up, smile, and wave at each group to stop at their windows. The kids loved that.

It's hard to believe our "notes" come from a hand engraved original plate. That job requires a 10 year apprenticeship! Talk about specialized work. I had never heard of intaglio printing, so I learned a lot myself. I also learned this location makes over half of the country's paper currency. 

I told Dax it's so strange to look at so much money and then you get on the outside and we all scramble to get our own share, which we believe is never enough, right? I'm sure the employees feel that even more!

I was happy to find they had badges in the gift shop to add to our vests. I say "our" because of course I live vicariously when it comes to earning badges. I always wanted to do that when I was a kid. 

 

For a final little project, the girls designed their own money.  

The kids chose new badge topics. Jewelry making, pirates, and costumes.

We ran to the library today to pick up everything we needed for this week. This book was in the costume section for "80's and 90's"  haha! I didn't expect these descriptions...

Needless to say, I'm sure that's not what Hannah had in mind, so we left it there. 

I love so much that our kids get to spend their time in beautiful, peaceful places, one being our library. 

Today we walked out with our 4 armloads of books, got to the car, no keys. I knew I had left them in my chair but wasn't willing to drag all those books back in, so I stacked them neatly halfway under the van. If you know our kids, they had a nervous breakdown over this, convinced someone would come steal all those books about pirates and jewelry. And of course when I found my keys inside, Hannah was concerned that I was grabbing not my own keys, but someone else's that could have been left in my seat.

 

 Yay for date night! We went to a Rangers game and enjoyed sitting in the breezy high seats, eating treats, and relaxing without a care in the world for several whole hours!

 

 We texted in our "date night" photo but didn't make it onto the jumbo tron, so we made it happen ourselves.

Dax taught a class this morning in Dallas on how to be a church reader. There's a certain technique and style and it sounds like several people benefited from it since they asked for more classes. Now he's enjoying a break. 

 Here are some photos that describe what I love about having kids. Sure they're messy and a crazy amount of work, but a household is really pretty interesting when kids live there. You might catch someone practicing piano with Tinker Toys.

 You might come home to these shenanigans.

 Someone's obsessed with Samurai Power Rangers.

You might find that someone has tried to make the fish "cozy."

 

 Your toothpaste might be randomly standing on its own in the bathroom.

 You might find random glued paper notes on your nightstand that make you smile.

 You will run across happy artwork like this!

 "How and why is this here?" is a common call through the house.

 Your backyard is filled with play shoes for all occasions: gardening, rain showers, snowstorms, and rodeos.

Next week we'll learn about Kenya. Very fun!

KID QUOTES:

H- Uh oh. We're about to be passed by a truck with smoke coming out of its horns.

 Ch- Oh, I love this little leaf. I'll name her Leafy.
C- When you're dead, you won't see that leaf anymore.

 Ch- (seeing a sign for Sprint)  Oh yes, I love Sprite.
H- That's Sprint, not Sprite. You never believe me. I told you that already.
Ch-  I never believe anybody because they never believe me.


Catching Colin grabbing Chloe's arm and pretending to bite her making her scream.
He looks guilty and shrugs- "I did that for no reason."

Ch- Getting complementary star shaped glasses from the library. "I look fashion!!"

Colin and more

 Colin's new shirt came in the mail. I mentioned that we've been following a blog for a number of years now about a family who's son was born with hydrocephalus. At about 4 yrs. old now, after numerous surgeries and seizures to manage, he's doing quite well. His family has to cover mounds of hospital bills, so they're selling these embroidered shirts. Their son's name is Leo, so they call him Leo the Lion. The lion shirt says "turn scars into stars."  If you're interested, here is their blog:  leoclement.blogspot.com
They make shirts for adults and children.

 I asked Colin to help me clean this deck chair I want to paint white. He spent forever putting on a Christmas apron and gardening gloves, then only spent about 30 seconds cleaning. Dear Future Colin's Wife- I'm going to do my best, but I can't make any promises : )

 I have so many big plans for the backyard, but have to take it step by step, especially in this heat and with our schedule. But purchasing is at least one step. I'm excited to have a little pond- hopefully in the next few months.

 This week, I'm happy to be busy with a recording session. Lone Star Wind Orchestra and UNT have teamed up for GIA's first volume of Grade 1 pieces for band. As you can see on the table, we're recording quite a few within 5 days- something around 80. Sure, the music is simple (although I'm pretty some are quite above a Grade 1 and we've run across a few pretty fun horn parts) but even simple can be a challenge to make beautiful and as perfect as possible. In any case, the sessions are going quite well and moving very quickly thanks to all the skilled players I'm lucky to be with! We have a great section of rotating horns, and it's always fun to take on such a fun project with people you enjoy being around.

 It takes so many people to organize such a project. They've done a great job making everything run smoothly.

 This evening I finished early and Dax and I took Colin out to a baseball game. He wasn't sure he was interested, but pizza and cotton candy won him over. It was pretty hot, so he lasted about half the game. He also said he missed his sisters, who were living it up getting pedicures and manicures with Nana and a friend.  I could have sat there all night relaxing and taking in the sights. Maybe I'll go on my own someday.

I love both of these guys!!!

KID QUOTES-

Chloe- "Who even cares that much about food?"
Hannah- "Everyone."    

Colin- "You know why I can spit my toothpaste out so hard?  My skeleton." 
(He likes to talk about his teeth being bones and therefore part of his skeleton he can see and touch. Now if I can get him to learn that darn alphabet!)

A Post about the Post

                                            Dish towels are great bead organizers for math.

 This week we're reading Mailing May, a true story about a little girl in 1914 who was mailed across the state of Idaho to visit her grandmother because her parents couldn't afford a train ticket. Thankfully, the story has her traveling with a relative who worked on the mail train!

 I remember writing the president when I was little and receiving something back in the mail. I thought it was a good chance to teach them how to address a letter properly. We did it step by step.

 However, it was really tough for them to come up with a message for the president. They aren't exactly focused on societal issues at the moment, so I said they could just share something about themselves.

 Continuing our mail theme, we read a book about the Pony Express. Of course they had to try it out with their stick horse.

The part I love about teaching the kids myself is I can tailor things to them and include all 3 in the activities... so far! After reading a couple of books about the post office, we set up our own. I found a stack of old scrapbook smalls I never seem to use up. They looked a little like postcards and even covered all the seasons and occasions you might send a card for. On the back, I wrote zip codes that coordinated with mailboxes (shoeboxes and lids) around the house.

 I put all the mail in random boxes and each kid had an assigned route. They had to pick up their mail on their route, take it to the post office, give each a stamp, and sort them on the table according to zip code.

      A certain little boy got excited about the stamps. They were superheroes after all.

Once all the mail was sorted, they picked up their route numbers and delivered to the correct mailboxes. If it sounds complicated- it was, but just a little. After they ran their routes we talked about ways to make it more efficient. Such as lining up the zip codes in order for sorting. And gathering all your mail instead of returning to the post office after every delivery. They went on to play it for awhile on their own and really loved it. I was happy to hear them helping each other and working out little compromises to get the job done. Colin took it especially seriously. I gave him         1- digit zipcodes to help him be independent.

In other news, Chloe has claimed our old little camera for herself. Occasionally I'll see her snapping photos of our pet fish or the television. Today I decided to look through the camera. Other objects seemed to catch her interest such as corners of tables and doorknobs. But there were also a ton of selfies on there with different expressions.... and a few very unflattering photos of me just walking around with bad posture : )

Kids also like to do weird things to freak you out. When putting Colin to bed, he said he liked to leave the closet door open, but the other night Bad Colin came out. Of course, a mother's mind jumps to, "He's hallucinating!" or, "Get the exorcist!"  (because we all have one of those on hand). He did say it was a dream and that Bad Colin didn't really do much, so I guess we won't worry about it. The same night, Dax and I were chatting in the den and Chloe got up to use the restroom. We heard some unusual noises, possibly sobbing, so I dropped what I was doing and peeked in. She was giggling in a strange way, like she wasn't quite awake. She wouldn't respond to me except with giggles. She washed her hands then came out to me giggling. She gave me a few headbutts and went back to bed. Strange...