I took the kids up to Hooper yesterday to hang out with my mom and my brother Kyle and his wife Kels and their adorable baby Abi. I even got to see my brother Tanner a little bit too, before he had to go to work. And my brother Jackson's little girl Emree was there as well. I love Hooper. And I love hanging out with my family. If Jackson and Bri and Aaron could have been there, it would have been the perfect party. I'm so excited to go up to Bear Lake at the end of August and hang out all together for a few days.
My wonderful mother gave me a hair cut while I was there. She's the only person I've ever found who will cut it as short as I want it. I love short hair. I may never have long hair again, and I'll be totally ok with that. I can't be bothered with it in my eyeballs all the time, I've got better things to do. Including trying to figure out how to keep my sanity. :)
Do your kids fight in the car? Mine do...well, at least my older boys do. Like cats and dogs. I don't understand it, most of the time they play just fine together, but the very instant they climb into the car, they start poking each other, and making faces at each other, and breathing each other's air...until I want to rip their lips off. But I can't do anything about it because I'm driving and they're way in the back. Then, I had a genius idea! Car school.
Monday afternoon I took the kids to Walmart to hit up the school supply sale. (I've always said if I had a million dollars I would spend it on office/school supplies, so this time of year is like a little slice of heaven for me.) I bought each of the boys a clipboard, a folder with pockets, a zippy pencil holder bag, a box of colored pencils, a pencil sharpener, a notepad of elementary sized lined paper, and a small rubbermade container that would fit between the arm of their car seats and the car window. Wa-la, the beginnings of our very own car school. :)
Monday night after the kids were in bed, I knew we'd be making the hour and half trip up to Hooper (and then back again) the next day, and I thought it would be the perfect time for our car school's maiden voyage. First I printed out a check list for each of the boys, and stuck it on their clipboard with a few rows of little stickers for them to use to "check off" the things they accomplished. (I thought the stickers would be more fun that just putting an X in a box.)
Next, I went through each of their lists and made sure they had everything they needed to complete them in either their rubbermade box or their folder. In Lincoln's box I put
-a set of spiral bound flash cards with the Articles of Faith written on them
-a set of single digit subtraction flash cards on a ring
-a zippy pencil holder with colored pencils inside
-a regular pencil
-a pencil sharpener
-scissors
-three books I'd like him to read
In his folder is
-Story #64 printed from our Funnix program with the reading comprehension questions on the back
-several color by numbers pictures that I printed off the internet
-some colored construction paper
-a math worksheet with subtraction problems on it
-several different easy mazes
-his writing notepad
Ivan's box is slightly different because he is younger and can't read independently yet. In his box I put
-several BOB books
-a set of single digit addition flash cards on a ring
-scissors
-a pencil
-a pouch full of colored pencils
-a pencil sharpener
-some slash cards with lists of simple rhyming words
In his folder he had
-a few pages of cutting sheets
-several color by numbers pages
-his lined notepad
-some colored construction paper for drawing.
Then I put everything in the car so it was all ready to go Tuesday morning. I was a little bit nervous about how it would go, especially since I had to rely on Lincoln to read Ivan's list to him. But everything worked like a charm! I couldn't have been more pleased with it. We road the whole way to Hooper and the whole way back with no fighting, and only occasional talking to ask a question or tell me about something cool they were working on (I'm not opposed to happy talking in the car, it's just the fighting/whining that I can't deal with). Lincoln's favorite things were the mazes and color by numbers. And Ivan's were the cutting sheets and the BOB books.
Neither of them finished their lists, but I'm totally fine with it, because that means next time we get in the car they have something to do. And when they run out of things to do, I'll make another list.
Anyways, I'm pretty excited about our car school. I'm looking to adding in some audio books and our Story of the World CDs, and maybe even some language learning CDs, but we'll see. I want to have the ability to mix things up so they don't get bored with doing the same things over and over. But right now, they are happy with what they have. Our first attempt at car school was successful! And if it continues to be so, maybe the 4 hour drive to Bear Lake and back won't kill me off, like I've been anticipating. :)
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