When it comes to school, we are always changing things.  Sometimes big changes, sometimes small changes.  This week I have a couple of small changes planned, and I am thinking about some big changes for the future.

The small changes: 

 After showing Honey’s spelling program to my sister, I realized that we could be doing more reading with it.  It comes with cards that have the spelling words printed on one side.  I usually don’t use the cards, because after she has learned the rules, she seems to get how to spell the words pretty easily.  Starting this week I am going to start having her READ the words to me instead of spelling them to me.  She has learned all of the rules concerning these rules and should be able to read them without trouble.  We will see.

The other small change concerns the laundry.  The kids have just about taken over the folding and putting away of the laundry.  They are having fun with it, but I know that the fun will not last forever.  So today I bought them a puzzle, and tomorrow when they finish the laundry I will give them each a piece or two.  I’m not going to show them the box or tell them what the puzzle is about (or that it is a heart shaped puzzle) just give them the pieces.  It should take them less than a month to earn all of the pieces of the puzzle.  Hopefully this will help to keep it fun.  (And $7.00 for a month of getting the laundry done is a lot cheaper than paying a maid!)

The big change:

The big change that we are thinking about concerns Honey.  We are considering letting her drop piano.  The reason we started Dearie in piano was to teach Dearie that she is capable of doing hard things.  That it is OK to not be able to do something the first time you try.  These are lessons that Dearie needed to learn (and she has learned them and she is doing great in piano now) and they are lessons that Kiddo will need to learn.  Honey on the other hand gets to practice this lesson everyday in every subject.  Giving her one more ‘hard’ subject just doesn’t seem fair.  So we are thinking of letting her drop piano and letting Kiddo start.  Honey needs to learn a different lesson.  She needs to learn that some things are easy.  Some school things are fun.  She needs to see that she really is good at some things.  So after we drop piano for her (maybe the end of the year?) I hope to find someone to work with her on art.  I would like to find someone who loves art and could share their enthusiasm with Honey.  While I know that Honey is good at art, it is not something that I am good at so I really can’t help her much and I am not that enthusiastic about it.   (If you know of anyone who fits this bill and would be willing to come to the house, let me know.)

The nice thing about homeschooling is that you are never stuck with the current plan.  You can make big changes or little ones whenever you like!  I’m glad that we homeschool.

Does anyone remember Billy Bear?  He came from California.  He was supposed to visit Germany.  Remember?  He disappeared.  I had finally given up hope, he would never turn up. 

Guess who turned up tonight?  Yep, Billy!  He was just hanging out in a box in the top of my closet all these months.  How did he get in a box in the top of my closet?  Well I won’t name names, but I think that it was a male who helped him get there.  You can draw your own conclusions.

Maybe Billy can continue his world travels now, but I think that he has had his fill of closets.

I read a lot of blogs.  Sometimes the people seem almost like friends.  On this blog http://www.cockrumfamily.blogspot.com/  Andrea is talking about getting a Nanny.  Someone to help with the cleaning, schooling, cooking…    It is only for 15 hours a week, but wow, I can’t help imagine how much of a difference it would make here.  Someone else to teach Science when Dearie is being defiant with me.  Someone to start dinner while I help with math.  Someone to check the chores that I always forget because I am doing school with Kiddo.  Someone to do the vacuuming that is always getting put off.  I bet that I could find enough work to keep someone busy for 15 hours a week. 

But alas, Dh would never go for it.  But… a girl can dream, right?

We had a great week at camp.  The speaker was great, the kids had fun, and mostly we just relaxed in a great place.  The bad news is that we brought home the flu.  Everyone is sick.  The kids and Dh have all had fevers, body aches, coughing,and some have sore throats and headaches.  I don’t feel great and am coughing but at least I am well enough to take care of everyone else.  So far only Kiddo’s asthma is acting up, and the breathing treatment made her throat hurt.  At least she is doing pretty well at the moment.

A funny from camp.  The last night Dearie was very nauseous.  She never got sick, but I sat up with her for quite a while.  She said that it wasn’t so bad if she was thinking about something else, so we started talking about other things.  She asked my if I liked blue because of the way it sounded.  Huh!?!  How can you like a color because of the sound of its name?  She then said that she liked Yellow, Orange, and Purple because she liked the sound of their names.  That is the definition of an auditory kid!

This morning, I met a friend in the hallway while we were picking up the kids from Sunday School.  She was upset as her daughter had broken her shoe and they were planning on going out to eat today (for the first time in months).  Her daughter is a year younger than Honey, but her feet are a good size bigger.  Dearie came to the rescue and was a good sport as she loaned her shoes to her friend.  It was raining as we left, so Dh pulled up the van and Dearie made it to the van with only damp tights.   They went out to eat as planned; we came home as planned.  It worked out well for everyone.

The girls started AWANA tonight.  They had to go to a new church as the old one is no longer doing AWANA.  ( They are doing something new.)   The girls were all a little nervous, but it went well.  They did see some kids from the old AWANA church.  But get this, the only kids from the old church were the old director’s kids.  WOW.  I don’t know what went on there at the old AWANA church, but I don’t think that it was a good thing.  I thought that maybe some of the kids who did not attend the old AWANA church (the ones like us who went to other churches, but went there for AWANA) would be there, but I didn’t see any.  Oh well, it looks like this church has a good program, and I think we will be pleased with it.  The kids were pointing out all the differences, but they were just differences, not better or worse just different.

I was sitting in the front room doing math with Dearie,  Honey was there too, when we heard it.  The Scream.  It was loud.  It was long.  We all stopped and looked at each other.  I didn’t have my shoes on, so I said, “You go, I’ll get my shoes on and come.”  They were gone.  I had my sandals on in 10 sec. and was right on their heals.  We got to the backyard to find Kiddo making her way in.  She was fine, but she had fallen off of the cargo net.  She does have a big nasty bruise on her side, but no broken bones.  Sigh.  I’m glad that we have all of the stuff in the backyard, but it can make a person’s heart stop now and then.

Dh was getting ready to go to the store earlier today.  He mentioned that he was going to get his hair cut.  I jumped at the chance and asked him to take Kiddo with him.  She has been asking for weeks to get her hair cut.  All they did was to cut it shorter, but it looks cute.  Hopefully it will be easier to take care of.

We have finished our first week of school and it went well.  I had expected a rather rough start, especially for Honey, and there were some tears and a lot of “Do I HAVE to do this?” But it was not as bad as I expected, and that makes it a good week.  

Dora doesn’t start school until next week and as much as I tried not to have her here, I caved a couple of times and tried to do school with her here.  It just doesn’t work.  My girls are too distracted by her presence.  Its not that she does anything wrong, its just her being here.  Maybe I should just give her schoolwork too.  It doesn’t matter now anyway as she starts school on Mon.

On Thurs. I had to take a break from school and go mail the required forms in to the school district to notify them of our homeschooling.   This happens to me every year, I have to stop schooling so that I can tell the state that I am schooling.  Something ironic there. 

We have started using workboxes this year, and for the kids it is going well.  They get a box, do what is in it, put it back and get another one.  They each have 12 boxes and ‘Recess’ and Lunch are marked on the boxes.  When they get to those, they stop and have free time until we all start again.  This keeps us somewhat together. 

The problem that I am having with workboxes is that it is taking me way to long to fill them each night.  I am going to try something new this week to see if I can make it go a little (or even a lot) faster.  I am also trying to record what the kids do every day.  This should be a quick and simple process of marking each thing done in the program that I am using, but somehow it is anything but simple.  Maybe next week will be better.

Dearie has been rather upset today.  She is upset that her sisters got cool things for their birthdays, but there was nothing that she wanted for her birthday.  After much discussion I realized that it wasn’t so much that she didn’t want anything as that there aren’t any cool things that she could have.  (Did that make sense?  She wants something but doesn’t know what.)  So I sat her down and we looked at amazon at all of the cool things that they have for older kids.  Wow, what a difference that made.  Now she is happy.  She would like a pottery wheel and a DNA kit for her birthday.  A loom might be nice too.  So right now?  She is upstairs singing DNA, DNA, DNAaaaa to her dad.  (She said, “Its the DNA song, you know like on Elmo’s World.”)  Do I even know this kid?