How's it going?

GREAT!  It really is.  It's A LOT of work but it has been lots of fun too.  Here are just a few of the things we've done over the past couple of weeks.  (Disclaimer - I do not have time to edit any of these photos so please excuse their poor quality!)

Got some cool new shelves at Ikea to hold all the school stuff and turned the dining room into the school room.  We're also in the process of turning one of our walls into a chalkboard, but since that's been in the works for about 4 weeks now who knows when it will actually get finished!

Got two GIANT boxes full of books!  It was so much fun to open these.  The kids were so excited to see all their new school stuff.  I had to physically restrain them from reading all the new books and playing with all the math manipulatives during the first week!  We've done lots of spelling words so far.   These pictures were from the first week when we were learning about compound words.  They're matching up the different words to see if they can figure out their spelling words and to see how many different combinations make sense.  This really appealed to Ryley since he is very analytical in his thinking and is always looking for patterns in words and numbers.

The big kids helped Cash put together the alphabet train puzzle multiple times.

 

Cash is seriously loving having his playmates home all day.   He's also loving cutting with his new safety scissors.  He'll say to me, "Mom, is it time for me to cut now with my new safety scissors?"  This is probably his favorite time of the day. 

Playing with water is a close second though.  We're mostly working on fine motor skills with him so I set him up at the table with a couple of small bowls, a teapot, and a medicine dropper.  He had so much fun and of course the other kids were begging to get in on the action too.  This kept Cash busy for quite a good chunk of time that allowed the bigger kids time to finish their work.  Then they were all playing in the water.  They used up every single clean bowl and towel in the kitchen!!!  Fine with me though - they were playing so nicely!

The big kids (mostly Maddie) have been doing lots of this:

They each have reading books assigned and have a set number of chapters or pages to read a day.  Maddie has quite a bit more to read each day than Ryley but she can usually be found at any time of the day with her nose in a book (wonder where she gets that from?  Mom?  Granny?) so I don't think it bothers her too much. Her school day usually ends up being a little longer though especially since we're doing piano lessons as part of her school day too. 

Geography is also part of our daily schedule and you can see one of our textbooks in the picture above.  So far the kids have learned all the continents and oceans and all the countries of the Middle East!  They can find them all on the map too.  The above picture is Ryley finding Antarctica for the first time. 

Here he's looking for Australia.  Thanks to Grandma for the cool globe.  It's getting lots of use!

  

Maddie (the goofball) has found the Indian Ocean!

  Cash has been working on learning letters and numbers and this is a matching game I made for him using some letter tiles.  He doesn't like it much unless I'm sitting right by him but he can do it by himself.  The little stinker thinks I have to be by his side to do EVERYTHING!

Much to Ryley's dismay there is lots of writing.  Here he's doing some copywork - I write down a passage from his reading assignment and he tries to copy everything as precisely as he can. 

We've been working really hard on this kid's handwriting and pencil holding.  I am constantly telling him "Hold the pencil correctly, Ryley."  Most of the time he does, but as you can see, that's not the case in the pictures above.  Reminiscent of Uncle Taylor?  I guess it could be worse.

We also took our first field trip!  We went to the Mayborn Museum complex at Baylor University in Waco because they have a really cool Children's Museum.  Kind of a drive but we didn't want to pay for entrance to the State Fair just to go to the Children's Museum in Dallas ($60+)so we found this other one and I'm so glad we did.  It was awesome!  We practically had the whole place to ourselves and it was pretty cheap - only $24 for the whole family to get in.  I'll post more pictures of our field trip later but here's one for ya!  The kids posing in front of a humpback whale skull.  Can you say HUGE?!

  We also had our first pajama day.  I told the kids they could earn a pajama day on Fridays (not every one but often) if they had good attitudes about school and didn't fight too much.  They've been really great!  I expected a lot more complaining. 

This is a picture of Maddie reading her very story written in homeschool.  When she isn't reading a book she's usually writing a story or drawing.  This story was pretty funny!  I'll have to post it sometime.

Maddie and Ryley are basically polar opposites of each other.  Maddie loves writing and doing crafts and reading.  She doesn't like math very much though.  Ryley, on the other hand, LOVES math and doesn't like writing at all.  He does like to read but you won't find him carrying a book around and reading it for the 24th time.  He BEGS to do math everyday and flies through his workbook pages each day.  I usually have to find him more math to do!  Here he is  sorting the flashcards and using the number tiles to answer them.  He's quite the little mathematician.  He'll also randomly exclaim to me throughout the day, "Mom, three plus three equals six!"  Completely from nowhere.  I think math just runs through his head like a little computer all day and he just has to get some of that information out every once in a while.  Too funny!

We've also done a few science experiments - something they have been begging me for since day 1.  The first two weeks of school we read "Red Sails to Capri" together.  It's not a book that I would normally choose to read aloud to children my kids ages since it's kind of wordy and a little hard for them to understand but it was good.  They were absolutely captivated by the last chapter.  Anyway, back to the experiments.  In the book it talks about how the father was trying to cook some soft boiled eggs (gross!) and how he had the water boiling and dropped two very cold eggs in and the eggs immediately cracked open.  The kids were dying to know if this would really happen.  So we tried it.

Maddie filled up the pot.

All the kids made sure to watch the water and see if it was boiling. 

Mommy put in the egg and it did crack!

That's the little bits of the white of the egg that came out of the crack in the boiling water, and here's the egg with the crack in it and the white coming out of it.

Next we tried to see how long it would take to soft boil an egg since this was how one of the characters ate his eggs every morning for 30 years.  After letting the eggs sit out on the counter to warm up a little bit, I asked the kids how long they thought we should boil it for.  They said one minute, so that's how long we boiled it but it wasn't long enough.  Then we tried three minutes and the white was a little more solid but still not solid enough.  Last we boiled one for nine minutes.  We took it out of the water and let it rest for a couple of minutes.

I started to take off the shell and it was still a little slippery  - KERSPLAT!!!

Right onto my freshly cleaned floor.  Oh well, at least we could see the inside really well!  The white was still a little bit runny but it was the closest we got to soft boiled until we ran out of eggs. 

Maddie thought it was hilarious that I dropped the egg on the floor.  It's not usually mommy making these kinds of messes!

We're still in the middle of one of our other experiments - mummifying apple slices.  We get to check them on Wednesday night and see which slice was mummified the best so I'll post that later (hopefully!)  We also did an experiment with gelatin while we were studying how the enzymes in our stomachs break down the food we eat.  We made a batch of jello and poured it into two different bowls.  In one bowl we placed sliced kiwi fruit.  The other bowl we left plain.  We put it in the fridge for the morning so that it would be ready to test/eat after lunch.  Kiwis have a natural enzyme in them that will keep the jello from setting.  Pretty interesting!  Looked gross (like chunky/soupy jello) but still tasted good. 

So, all in all, I think it's going really well.  It's definitely been keeping me on my toes though.  Between school and piano lessons I don't feel like there's much time for anything else!  Here's a rundown of my typical day:

6:30 - 7:00 a.m.  - Ryley and Cash wake up.  Josh is usually already awake by this time but if not he gets up too to get ready for work.  I am still zonked out.  Ryley usually gets breakfast for himself and Cash (what a sweet brother!) and eats with Josh.  Maddie usually gets up a little bit later.

7:30  - 8:00 a.m. - Josh tries to wake me up so he can leave for work.  I don't like this one bit but I know I have to get up eventually.  We say family prayer and he leaves for work.

8:00 - 8:30 a.m. - I send the kids upstairs to tidy up their rooms, get dressed, and brush their teeth.  I eat and get ready for the day.

8:30 - 9:00 a.m. - Sometime in here we actually start school.  We start with calendar time (trying to teach Cash the names of the days of the week, their order, today/tomorrow/yesterday, and the months) and we do scripture study together.  We're studying the Old Testament right now and are starting Moses this week.

9:00 - 11:30 a.m. - Chaos ensues.  Maddie and Ryley usually finish Reading, Handwriting, Math, Science reading, History reading, Music (Maddie only) and Spelling.  Cash usually finishes some workbook pages with me and anything else I can find to keep him busy.  The kids usually have a snack in here somewhere too.  We try to do our science experiments  and art projects during this time so that Cash can be part of them too.

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Lunch while I read aloud to them or we watch a church video about whatever we're studying at the moment.  Right now we're reading "Ginger Pye" and loving it! Then Cash goes down for a nap {hallelujah!}

12:30 -2:30 p.m. - The kids and I do Language Arts (grammar), Geography, and sometimes Spelling together.  We discuss what they read in History and Science and complete our worksheets together.  This is the time we work on anything else that they didn't finish in the morning or that they need extra help with.   Maddie's piano lessons also happen during this time.

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. - Mommy time.  Ryley and Maddie usually take turns playing on the computer.  I madly answer emails, check forums, and do anything else I have to do before Cash wakes up and piano lessons start. 

3:30 - 4:30/5:00 p.m. - Cash wakes up and piano lessons start.  Maddie watches Cash upstairs and Ryley goes down to watch TV in my room or play quietly in my room. 

5:00 - 6:00 p.m. - Make dinner/clean up/get ready for Daddy to come home. 

6:00 - 7:00 p.m. - Dinner/clean up dinner.

7:00 -8:00 p.m. - Hang out with Daddy/Baths/Showers/Teeth Brushing/Scripture Reading/Family Prayers.  We usually do our reading aloud during this time if we didn't do it at lunch. 

8:00 - 11:30 p.m.  - Time without the kids usually spent watching TV with Josh and/or on the internet and then bedtime.

Then it starts all over again.  :)

One other thing that happened since I posted last is the Book of Mormon Pageant.  Josh was in it this year and played the part of Ammon.  Look at my burly man in a skirt!

He grew out the beard just for this part.  He did an awesome job and the kids had lots of fun seeing Daddy in the pageant.  Uncle Jordan was a guide (not for our group unfortunately) so we got to see him in a skirt too.  Cash did not like seeing Daddy and Jordan in a skirt.  He wouldn't even look at Jordan at first and kept saying things like, "He's like a girl, Mom.  He's wearing a skirt like Maddie.  He's wearing a 'neck-a-lace' like a girl."  It's a good thing Josh didn't have much jewelry on!  Grandma and John and Diane's family was in our session too so it was fun to go through together.

Yes, that's a real sword that my son is holding - yikes!  It was fun and a really great experience.

Well, that's about it.  I'm burning up my only time without kiddos and "So You Think You Can Dance" is calling my name.