Anything is School…And School Can Be Anything

For writing today, Lincoln wrote an informative piece about his new pet. He took most of the pictures himself, and was really excited to use real pictures on his project.

And, as promised, here is the Harry Potter Book Report in it’s entirety.


And I never got around to posting about the Science Class I taught the other week on Mollusks and Crustaceans. I read them a book about each, then we did a crossword puzzle, and a paper where we cut out pictures and sorted them under the correct categories. Then for our fun activity, I taped everyone’s four fingers together so they had claws like crabs, and had them eat their snacks that way. 


Also, we set a goal with Lincoln a little while ago, that if he read 1,500 pages we would buy him a book of his choosing. He was super excited about it. It took him about 10 days to meet this goal. Faster than I anticipated, I'll be honest. But he did it, and I was very proud of him. He and I went on a special trip to the book store, just the two of us, and I showed him where the chapter books were, and we spent about an hour and a half paging through books, and trying to decide on one that was just right.

 Finally he chose Geronimo Stilton The Journey Through Time. The Geronimo Stilton series is his new favorite series. Once he finished all the Magic Tree Houses, he asked the librarian to help him find another good series to read (while I was helping Ivan look something up in the computer, it made me laugh that Linc didn't want to wait for me, and went and found a librarian instead.) and she recommended this one. It's great. And there are about a million books in the series, so it should keep us going for awhile. Each book is about a hundred pages long (except The Journey Through Time, it's a special addition and is about 320 pages long), and it takes Lincoln about 45 minutes to read one. He's been going through about one a day for the last couple of weeks. They are cute and humorous, they have funny pictures, and use cool fonts for key words in paragraphs. I like them, Lincoln likes them, and Ivan even likes them when he can convince Lincoln to read one out loud to him.

For reading out loud, Lincoln is in the process of reading the first Harry Potter book to either Aaron or I. One of us listens to him read for 20-30 minutes each night. He is half-way through the book. I think the fact that we did it as a family read aloud first is really helping him. He doesn't have to spend a long time trying to figure out how to pronounce names and things, he can just read. We are trying to focus on vocab, and really encourage him to stop and ask what a word means if he doesn't know. This is going well I think.

We've made a small shift in Ivan's reading too. We've discovered that he prefers to read at night, as opposed to during the day. I think it's because at night both Aaron and I are home, so after we put Ollie and Del to bed, one of us can take Linc and the other can take Ivan, and we can listen to them read in a quiet place with no distractions. Whereas if we read in the daytime, it's me and all four kids, chaos everywhere, and lots of noise, and interruptions while Ivan is trying to read. The distractions frustrate him, until he flat out refuses to read anymore. It's a night and day difference (haha!) when we read at night. He's much more agreeable, reads more material at a faster pace, and enjoys it when he's done. We've made more progress in the last couple of weeks of night reading, than we have in the past couple of months of day time reading. So I think we'll stick to night time reading for Ivan.

Smörgåsbord

 

Ollie is still not walking. But he’s very creative in his methods of getting around. He LOVES this trike. He scoots around on it happily whenever we are all outside. He’s also doing what we have termed “knee walking”. It’s basically walking, only on his knees instead of his feet. It’s kind of hilarious actually.

 

His first officially word is “ball”. If I say, “Go get your ball.” He goes and gets it, brings it back and says “ball”. He also tries really hard to make a monkey sound, “eeeeehhh eeehhhh” when we hand his monkey to him.

 

He loves to be outside. He throws a huge fit if I make him stay in when the other kids are out. And then he’ll sit at the sliding glass door and watch them.

 

 

This last week was Spring Break in our area. We still did school most of the week, because we are headed to Goblin Valley at the end of the month, which will be our official homeschooling “Spring Break”, but we did take Thursday off to go up to Hooper to visit my mom. On the way there I got a flat tire. Luckily, I had just gotten off the freeway in Provo to get gas. And thankfully, I have the world’s most wonderful husband. He was quick to borrow a car from someone at work to come and rescue us.

 

He got the spare put on, and we drove over to Les Schwab, and spent the morning in their waiting room eating popcorn, while they patched up our tire. Then we were on our merry way to Hooper. It was lunch time when we got there, so Mom and I took the kids to Chick-fil-a so that they could play on the play-place while we chatted. It was a really nice afternoon. I love spending time with my mom. I wish we lived closer to I could see her more often.

 

After lunch we went back to her house, and she put some highlights in my hair and cut it. I was in dire need of a haircut. Mine was getting out of control. I keep thinking I’m going to grow my hair out, but every time I try, I hate it. I think I’m just a short hair person. I like it short. I like the way it looks, I like how easy it is to take care of, I like that it’s never in my eyes. And I like my stick-straight-up-in-every direction morning hair. My mom did an excellent job doing the cut to fit my new DYT adjective which are, choppy, chunky, textured. I’m really happy with it overall. Thanks Ma!

 

On Saturday we went to the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. I got to follow Miss Del around. The older boys pretty much did their own thing, which is why no pictures of them hunting. But we did get everyone together at the end for a group photo. It’s kind of nice to have the egg hunt out of the way a week early so we can just focus on the important stuff.

For Family Home Evening tonight we got chickens! Well, some of them at least. Meet Charlotte and Crab Apple, Lincoln and Adelia’s Buff Orpingtons. Lincoln decided to name his Charlotte after the spider in Charlotte’s Web. Adelia chose a whole bundle of names, but most of them were nonsensical like Gabldin or some such, Crab Apple was the first one that was even in English, so that’s the one that stuck. The store didn’t have any Black Sex-Links or Americaunas, but will be getting a new shipment in on Wednesday, so we’ll be picking up the rest of them then. So stay tuned for the rest of the awesome names that are sure to be coming to a chick near you. ;)

Last Week All Squished Into One Long Post

This Miss Adelia cracks me right up. She is definitely a wild-child, free-spirit. In the top picture she was drawing pictures, and narrating a story about what the characters in her picture were saying to each other. It was a pretty intense scene and she was scribbling furiously to keep up with her narration. She insists on dressing herself most days…multiple times. Saturday’s outfit consisted of boots and shorts and a long sleeve shirt. She wanted her hairy “curly-crazy all over the place”. She likes to ride balanced on the bottom of the shopping cart and use her chip to smear dip all over her face before she licks it off.

 

The boys and I finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the other day. Lincoln wrote a book report on it, which I will post in it’s entirety later, but this was my favorite picture. Please note Harry’s scar, the arrow showing the dagger going into the mouth of the basilisk, and the arrow indicating that the basilisk fang is going into Harry’s arm. He even drew Harry wearing wizard robes. I thought all those were pretty excellent details, considering he’s never seen any pictures or any of the Harry Potter movies. And has only listened to it read out loud once through. Yay for reading comprehension.

 

Speaking of excellent pictures, here is one of Ivan’s recent masterpieces. I just love it!

And now for some Dressing Your Truth funness. Exhibit A: The biggest earrings I have every owned to date. They are perfect. Exhibit B: I finally got a pair of sunglasses. Who knew driving could be so much easier with sunglasses? And Lincoln was in a photo bombing mood, so I let him stay.  Exhibit C: Trying a new style, tunic top with a long pendant necklace and green skinnies. I like it. I bet it would look good with my cowboy boots too. Exhibit D: My new favorite color combination peacock blue and orange.

I saw this funny picture the other day, and it reminded me of me and my friend Wynter. She and I just click. We are enough alike that we “get” each other, and have the same goals, and like to do many things in similar ways; but we’re different enough to make it interesting, and to bring in different talents and ideas to the the friendship. And it all adds up to equal a very beautiful thing. It also helps that she has kids that are my kids’ ages, and that she homeschools. I think everyone needs to have a friendship like she and I have.

I taught preschool last week. It as my last time teaching for the year. I’ve loved our preschool co-op, but I am glad to be done with my part of it. The weather is getting warmer, and my thoughts are shifting to different things, and different ideas…and school just hasn’t been on the top of the list lately. But, anyways, it was my last week to teach. Tuesday I taught about letters X and Y.

 

For X, we did X Marks the Spot, and I had the kids come to preschool dressed as pirates. They were adorable, of course.

 

We read our two favorite pirate books, How I Became a Pirate by David Shannon, and Shiver Me Letters by June Sobel. Then we colored a treasure map, and went on a treasure hunt for X’s all around the house. Each X had a clue to tell us where the treasure was buried. At the end of our quest everyone got three chocolate gold doubloons.

 

Then I introduced Letter Y, and we did X and Y jumping jacks, making each letter with our bodies. Then we made one of my favorite crafts, yellow yarn yaks.

 

Thursday’s preschool was a little tougher. My theme was vehicles. It was only tough because I’d never taught a preschool on that topic before. But it ended up being a lot of fun. For starters I brought down our wood train set, a car mat with cars, our four pirate ships, our space shuttle and toy airplanes. And I put each type of thing in it’s own special little space in the family room. When the kids got there, I let them just have fun exploring different vehicles for about a half and hour. It was cool to see the different creative ways that they played.

Then we read books. So many good books about vehicles.

 

Then we did pattern blocks, which is one of my favorite preschool activities. I was so happy to find free vehicle patterns.

It was one of the kids’ birthdays, so we spent some time drawing birthday pictures for him and putting them into a book. Then we had snack, which was cupcakes and cheese stick airplanes.

 

This week I caught Ivan and Adelia playing nicely together. For like a half an hour! They sat on the “two-couch” (which is what the kids call the love seat because it has two cushions, as opposed to the “three-couch” which has three cushions), looking at pictures in books and making up their own stories to go with them. I love that Ollie sat on the floor and copied what they were doing. :) These are the moments that make motherhood worth it.

 

And these:

 

 

If you get more than one person in a selfie is it called a groupie?

Fence!

Hot Date

I went out for a bite tonight with this handsome fellow. (I wore my new cowboy boots, yee-haw!) We went to Goodwood BBQ. We've been there several times, and I love it. But I always order the chicken sandwich, because I know it's good. So this night, I decided to branch out. I ordered a steak instead. And it was FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC!! So glad I tried it.

Originally we had planned to spend the evening test-driving cars. But neither of us were really in the mood to do that. And since our fence is on track to be up by Easter, and since Springville just passed a new city ordinance that makes it legal for every residential homeowner to own laying hens...we headed to CAL Ranch instead, to scope out some chicks. We'll be getting some for Easter. Shhh, the kids don't know yet.



Aren't they cute! I'm so excited. I've got chickens on the brain. We can have up to six. And I think we're going to get 2 Buff Orphingtons, 2 Black Sex Links, and 2 Americaunas. All three breeds are supposed to be really friendly and mild mannered. All of them are pretty. And Americaunas lay greenish blue eggs. Sweet! And this will solve our pet problem. Our kids have been begging for a pet. And I can't think of a more productive pet than a chicken. They provide us with eggs, I don't have to house train them, they won't jump on my furniture. Perfect.

If Anyone Needs a Professional Drawer Emptier, I can Recommend a Cute One

Nursemaid’s Elbow

Yesterday the kids were jumping on the trampoline, playing a game where they would swing each other around. Suddenly Adelia came into the house shrieking and holding her arm. She didn’t want to move it, and she didn’t want anyone to touch it. She was kind of hysterical, actually. Poor kid. I got her calmed down with her elbow resting on an ice pack and watching Wild Kratts. By the time Aaron got home, we could talk her into moving it, so we knew it wasn’t broken. But she kept choosing not to move it, and just let her whole right arm hang limp at her side.

Same story this morning, she wouldn’t use her arm. And she got really anxious if anyone came close to it, or if it accidentally bent (like when we were putting her shirt on). We decided it would be a good idea to take her in to see the doctor, because she’s had this happen to her elbow a couple of different times, where she’d favor it for a few days, and then suddenly be fine.

Doc said it was Nursemaid’s Elbow, but that he was also concerned with her wrist, because Del kept saying it hurt when he touched there, and it shouldn’t if it was just Nursemaid’s Elbow. He thought their might be a fracture, and he didn’t want to pull her arm around to fix the Nursemaid’s Elbow, if there was also a fracture. So he sent us to the hospital for xrays.

I took the boys home to Aaron first, because after waiting for an hour with 4 kids in a waiting room, I wasn’t very excited to spend more time with them all in another waiting room. I’m grateful Aaron has a flexible job so that he can work from home when these kind of situations come up. I also wish my mom would find an excuse to move closer to me. ;) I would have just taken the boys to her.

Adelia and I played Go Fish in the waiting room. When our turn came the Lab Tech came to get us, and explained to Adelia that she was going to take some pictures of “here and here” (she said pointing to her wrist and elbow). Adelia said, “I know because my wrist and my elbow are hurting me.” The tech was so impressed, and as Adelia kept talking (pretty much non-stop), the tech kept commenting on her vocabulary. Then when she put Adelia up on the xray machine, and Adelia held so still and didn’t throw a fit. The Tech told me that Del was the most amazing 3-year-old she’d ever worked with. And then a second tech said, “but seriously though, other kids this age don’t act like this.” So that was fun. It’s always nice to hear compliments about your kids.

After the xrays, we waited again in the waiting room for our results. We started Go Fish again. And someone came to tell us that the results had been sent to the doctor and we’d get a phone call from him within the hour, but that we were free to leave the hospital if we wanted. Adelia interrupted her and said, “No! We can’t leave, we’re not done with our game yet!” Which made us both laugh. And we stayed long enough to quickly finish Go Fish.

Doc called and said there was no fracture. So we went back to his office and he popper her elbow back into place. She cried a little, but as soon as the doctor was done, she immediately started using her arm again just like normal. The doctor taught me how to put her elbow back in in case it ever happens again. It’s easy. Here's a youtube video that shows you how.

 

So it was an eventful day. It took the whole day to figure things out, but I'm glad Del is feeling better and that she didn't have a fracture.

Wax Museum

Today Lincoln and Ivan participated in a wax museum put on by our Homeschool Showcase group. For those that don't know what a wax museum is, basically each kid gets to pick a person they want to learn more about, they learn about that person, make a poster of that person, and then recite a paragraph or so of information about the person as if they were that person.

Since we've been doing the History of Flight for the last several months, my boys picked Orville and Wilbur Wright. Even though Wilbur is the older brother, Ivan didn't want to wear a fake mustache, so he wanted to be Wilbur, and let Lincoln be Orville. :) 

Leading up to the wax museum, we read several books (at Lincoln's reading level) about the Wright brothers. Lincoln decided he wanted to talk about how the plane worked (no surprise there), and Ivan wanted to talk about when they were kids. So this is what we came up with:

Ivan: Wilbur Wright

“My name is Wilbur Wright. When my brother Orville, and I were little we played with toy helicopters. These helicopters were a type of glider, when you spin them, their propellers help them glide to the ground. These toys were the beginning of our interest in flight.”

Lincoln: Orville Wright

“My name is Orville Wright. My brother Wilbur and I were inventors and mechanics who wanted to make a practical flying machine. We decided to experiment with a biplane and focus on a way to control the aircraft before adding an engine. We tested our gliders in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina because it was a windy place. Our glider had long, narrow wings, a movable rudder, and wing-warping controls that allowed the pilot to control the roll, pitch, and yaw of the plane. Once we could control the plane we built a small, light-weight engine. On December 17th 1903, I flew our plane for 12 seconds and landed in the sand 120 feet from where I started. This was the first controlled, powered flight in history.”  

They memorized the majority of their parts while riding circles around me on their bicycles in the drive way. They would circle around and around repeating lines, and when they could say a line all the way through without help, they got to ride to the stop sign and back to celebrate. I was kind of amazed, actually, at how fast they memorized while moving around. 

Aaron helped the kids make the poster on Friday evening. They helped pick the pictures they wanted, and they cut out the colored pieces for the background and glued everything on. Aaron also helped Lincoln build a model of the Wright brother's plane out of K'nex. It even had a movable rudder, and wing-warping controls. I was very impressed. Lincoln used the plane in his presentation to demonstrate roll, pitch, and yaw. 

I was so proud of both of them. They worked hard to learn their parts, and they did an awesome job at the wax museum. 

All the kids there did really well. I was so impressed with everyone. Fun characters and creative costumes. Love it! Homeschool is the best!

Ah, Spring

Volleyball

I played in Springville City's women's volleyball league this year with these awesome ladies in my stake. We took third place in the tournament, not too shabby. It was great to be playing ball again. And I was really glad for the opportunity to get to know these ladies better. Great season Mojo Mamas! Until next year.