And That's How It's Done

It took 5 weeks to happen but it did, the kids hit a wall.  Bad attitudes started to creep up and I was getting a little resistance from them.  It's normal and happens from time to time.  Since I am becoming more relaxed with our homeschool adventure I didn't let it bother me this time, (you should know it took me 2 years to learn not to stress over this), instead of stressing we took a "timeout" from the usual day. We put away our workbooks and structured routines and mixed it up a little.  We did math on the computer using online programs we visit on days like these.  We are still reviewing the math facts we are working on just not with our curriculum workbooks.  Both of them spent more time doing the online programs than their actual workbook lessons would have taken! Pretty clever timeout right?

Instead of using her phonics curriculum Tatum played a game using the sight words she is working on, still learning it just didn't seem like it since we made it into a game.  Eli had the most fun with his "timeout" day.  I saw on Pintrest the idea of making silly sentences so I spent WAY TOO much time getting this ready for him, but it was worth it because he had fun.  He made silly sentences out of words that were provided. His favorite sentence was, My angry fish yells at the neighbors.  After he laid out his sentence I had him write the sentence down so he was working on his penmanship too.  I didn't hear one complaint all day, even about the writing!

We had two science experiments this week and they were both fun, even for me.  Our first experiment was with yeast, balloons and root beer bottles.  It took us two attempts to get this experiment right which I was happy about because we talked about how scientist don't always get the experiment right the first time so they have to go back and make changes and try again.

To make our experiment work we mixed a packet of yeast with sugar then added warm water (the term warm and not too hot being key).  We then added the mixture to the root beer bottles and put balloons that have been stretched a little over the bottles (again, stretched being the key word).  Then you wait and see what happens.

We took a picture of our bottles before and then after, the picture below is our before.  I also had them draw a picture of what the experiment looked like before,  I WAS going to have them draw a picture of the experiment after to put in their notebooks.  When I saw the before drawings I threw them away.  As I think of the drawings I am laughing with tears in my eyes.  If you are curious to know how a little nugget sees and draws a root beer bottle with a balloon on top then have them draw it, guaranteed to get a good laugh!  Then again you might not see why I found it comical, because I admit I have a very immature sense of humor.  It's obviously not very hard to entertain me!

This was our after the experiment photo.  We left the balloons on the bottles overnight and they did inflate to twice this size I just didn't take a picture.  The cool factor of the experiment had worn off by that point.

The next experiment of the week was making buttah.  Yes, that is how I say butter.  Thanks to the Saturday Night Live sketch, Coffee Talk, I can no longer say butter it's always buttah!  This experiment was actually pretty cool.  We have been learning about the early pioneers to America and this week we learned about New Amsterdam and how the Dutch who settled in New Amsterdam (later renamed New York) brought over horses and cows.  This was a big deal to the pioneers because now they would have milk and the ability to make butter.  We talked about how in the early pioneer days they couldn't run down the street to Hy-Vee and pick up some milk or butter they had to make what they needed.  To make this more real to them we made our own buttah.

The kids put some whipping cream and salt in a Mason jar and took turns shaking the jar until the butter was formed.  It didn't take long about 15 minutes and they had some butter.  Grandma Billie gave us some insight into making butter.  She shared with them how it really wasn't that long ago when people still made their own butter.  She told them how when she was a little girl she helped her grandma make butter.  I'm pretty sure that story will be my kid's version of, "when I was a kid I had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways!" I am joking Grandma Billie they enjoyed your insight and making buttah with you.

Here is the final product.  It turned out well and tasted good.  We tried it with our beer bread.  I think I failed on the extra mile a little here.  If I was serious about going the extra mile we would have made bread with our packets of yeast too not just blown up balloons with them.  I have to draw the line somewhere though so, if I want some bread I'll just order some or drive to Hy-Vee, sorry kids.

We ended our week by flying a kite.  Eli got a great kite for Christmas and has been anxious to fly it since.  On Friday we finally had a windy day so daddy helped them get it in the air.

Another week in the books and another week of memories made.  Life is good!

Here's To New Beginnings

This week was a week of new beginnings for everyone. For starters, Eli and Tatum are attending a homeschool academy two days a week (6 hours total). Yes, there is a "school" for kids that are homeschooled. I wanted to send the kids last year to one but it just wasn't a good fit for our schedule, the academy was in Raytown and started at 8:30 in the morning. Getting the kids up and ready to go and in Raytown by 8:30 would have been a challenge. I learned of an academy here in Raymore and decided to give it a try, it's less than 5 minutes from home and no early morning start time!

After the first week I got mixed reviews. Any guesses on which one was, "yes, it was awesome!" and which one was, "I don't like it!"? Well my social butterfly, loved it. It was really important for me to get her in some type of program. For the past several years our schedules have revolved around Eli's sports and that has left Tatum at a little disadvantage in the friend department. She can get along with the boys and does well "hanging" with them , I just wanted her to make some of her own friends. Eli, my shy one, is not a big fan of venturing outside his comfort zone and meeting new kids. His reaction was typical for him. The only saving grace for him going is one of his homeschool friends is in his class. I am thankful for that! Eli will come around and I can tell he doesn't hate it, he would just rather stay home.

My goal in sending them to the academy besides meeting other homeschooled kids in our area and giving me a little breathing room, is to fill in the holes in our school year. At the academy they will learn a foreign language, have art, music and P.E. classes and do a little science. We have a fun science curriculum this year so we didn't need the science but they both enjoy science so it's just some additional learning time. Tatum made a funny comment today about school. She asked if we were done with school after her phonics. I said we still have science. She said, "science doesn't count as school because it's fun", I guess that is a compliment she is learning but doesn't realize that it is actually school.

Here they are posing for their first day picture. I told them to show me how they felt about going to the academy.  Yep, their expressions were perfect.

I caught little Evan...oops I mean Evan "shaving" one morning and couldn't resists snapping a picture.  He told me this week in the most serious tone, "I don't want to be called little Evan anymore, I'm not little, I'm big!"  He is named after his Papa so we started calling him little Evan it just seemed to fit. Oh well,  it's going to take me a little while to stop calling him that or Little E.  My baby is growing up! I think to drive the point home to me that he is no longer little he thought it would be a good idea to shave.

Evan had his first black eye this week.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but it was a good one.  Evan is ALL boy 100% of the time and has more energy than he knows what to do with or how to handle.  He has been watching Eli play football for 3 years now and Evan thinks he is a pro at tackling and he will run up on you and try and take you out whether you are looking or not.  Well, he decided to run up on Brian and try and tackle him.  Brian wasn't ready and Evan bounced off my 6'4" 300lb husband and literally flew into the handle on a dresser.  Poor kid his, "mommy I am a big boy" strength was no match for his beast of a father.

Evan had his first soccer game this week and Daddy is his coach.  What can I say about Pee-Wee soccer?  If you want to spend an hour of your life being happy and enjoying the innocence of pee-wee soccer players then you need to come to a game.  I enjoyed watching my husband try and herd cats and I enjoyed seeing the smiles on the little cat's faces as they had fun!  Brian did a great job and the kids did too.  I believe this was the first time any of them have played soccer and they did a good job.  I asked Evan what his favorite part of the game was he said, "the snacks".

Our last new adventure of the week was Eli's football game.  While, it wasn't his first game ever it was his first game of the new season.  The team has been practicing hard and I know Eli was ready to get out there and play some football.  The team didn't win their first game they lost 2-0 which was a little bit of a shocker to them because they were undefeated last year and won the All-Star tournament.  Eli's team has some excellent dedicated coaches and I have no doubt they will have an awesome season again.  As I am working on his post Eli is at practice and he was a little weary about going to practice after they lost.  It was a good healthy weary he said, "we could have played better and we made some mistakes.  I know to make us better the coaches will be tough on us tonight."  Wow!  I love this kid!

What I don't love is this picture of him.  I don't hate it, it's just his I mean business face!  It's his beware of the Skurd because I am coming after you face!  I prefer my boy to be smiling because it makes his eyes shine but that's just his mama being his mama.

BOREophyll

Two weeks down and only 30 or so left to go! YIKES...30 more? Actually it wasn't that bad. We had another good week. Eli and Tatum worked hard and had great attitudes and that's all I really ask of them. Evan had his first day of Pre-K on Tuesday. He has been waiting and talking about going to school for some time. Even though he does school stuff with us he was looking forward to doing something that was just for him. This year should be a year of changes for Evan and I am hoping the changes are for the best. Everyone who knows Evan knows my number one challenge with him is trying to contain his aggressiveness. He is intense and strong willed from the moment he wakes up until he falls into bed at night. He is not one to back down to anything. His passion and drive will serve him well as an adult however, having that quality as a four year old is not a positive character trait. He is getting ready to start soccer, and in the winter he is going to try wresting. I am hoping sports will give him a positive outlet for his aggression and help him focus it where it is okay to be aggressive. Like all of us he is a daily work in progress...stay tuned!

It's easy to make science and history fun and interesting for the kids. Making math and phonics fun on a daily basis is a little harder. It's kind of hard to get excited about math problems and phonic blends. Brian and I like to watch movies and we are able to remember pointless movie lines and quote them on a dime. We are constantly using them, and the kids have started to pick them up and can use them appropriately. One of their favorite lines to use is from the movie Billy Madison. I will say, time to work on our blends they will moan and say "Chlorophyll? More like BOREophyll!" While we are not studying chlorophyll yet (that's next month) they realize that studying chlorophyll is just as boring as studying math and phonics. I am sure our silly joke is not being translated well, but if you see them ask them about chlorophyll. If my kids learn nothing else from me at least they will have a sense of humor and the ability to reference movies lines. I'm sure that will take them far in life! Tatum has a way to make reviewing her phonic blends more fun. She likes to make a trail and walk around picking them up as she says the blend. I think it's great she is finding different ways to make boring things more tolerable.

This week in science we learned about air and talked about the atmosphere. They had a fun and competitive experiment too! They tried different techniques to move their piece of paper across the room my moving the air. They found that blowing on the piece of paper gave them greater control. No earth shattering learning going on, just simple experimenting and cause and effect learning. Don't get discouraged though, we still have the chlorophyll lesson next month.

My history loving kids found history interesting this week. We learned about Leif Ericsson the Viking explorer who is credited with being the first white man to find North America. We spent a little extra time on Leif and the Vikings because he was from Norway. The Norwegian heritage is strongly alive and celebrated in the entire Skurdal family. The kid's Great Great Grandfather homesteaded to America from Norway and come to find out the Skurdal's are related to Leif Ericsson. Pretty cool!

After we spent several days learning about the Vikings we learned about Christopher Columbus and his quest to explore the land to the west. To make learning more hands on, which is how my kids learn the best, we made the Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria out of aluminum foil and "sailed" them across the "Atlantic Ocean". The ships didn't have engines back in the day so what did they rely on to move across the ocean? Air of course thus tying it back to our science lesson. There it is again, that extra mile sneaking into the lessons. I thought you would be interested in knowing that the Pinta carried Polly Pockets across the ocean, the Nina carried Batman and Robin and the Santa Maria was loaded up with Trashies.

It's That Time Again

It's hard to believe that it is already back to school time! Secretly I am happy. It's not that our summer wasn't fun and full of adventures, this mama just functions better when a routine is set in place. The kids had mixed reviews about school starting. Tatum was eager to get things going and was actually ready to start earlier. Eli, however, not so much. Evan being the "baby" just goes with the flow. He will be going to preschool this year so he is in for some major changes! I'm going to TRY and blog about the school year, try being the key word. I want to document it for them plus it will help me on the days when I am asking myself, "Am I crazy for doing this?" and I will have plenty of those days. I am finally getting comfortable with the whole homeschool adventure. I've figured out what works for us and what doesn't work for us. So, this year everything is different the only curriculum I didn't change was phonics. We jumped right into the new year and the first week went good and I even got some unsolicited positive feedback from Eli...YES! This is how our first week went.

One of Tatum's favorite things to do is journal time. Since she hasn't mastered being able to free journal she enjoys the Draw Write Now books. She will draw the picture in the book and then copy the sentences about the picture. I tried once this week to skip the book and just practice her penmanship with copywork that idea didn't go so well!

I switched math curriculum this year. The verdict is still out on whether it's a hit or not. To say that Eli hated his math from last year was an understatement. He is good at math and learns new concepts quickly the curriculum from last year was not a fit for him. This year we are trying a more hands on approach to math with Math U See. In the picture Eli is working with the blocks to create and solve multiplication problems.

Tatum is working on "building out" place values. She struggled with this concept a little last year. After seeing the numbers built out she understands it better and can tell me what a number represents in hundreds, tens and units. It was an aha moment for her and seeing that happen is one of the reasons I love homeschooling.

In history this year we are studying early American history. I am probably most excited about this. The kids really enjoy history so we are going the extra mile this year. For an American themed red, white and blue snack we had yogurt with strawberries and blueberries. Yep, that's it, that's the extra mile. Pretty good right? Not really, but I do have some fun things planned.

The highlight of the week was science. We talked about why some things can float and other things sink. We even did a few experiments to prove and test our theories. They thought the egg floating or sinking experiment was cool. Eli had the aha moment in science when we were talking about experiments. It was a simple aha moment but he learned something new. I asked if a scientist wanted to prove that music makes plants grow faster how would he prove that theory? He explained that you would get a plant, measure it before you played music and after you were done with the experiment to see if it grew. I challenged him and asked how do you know if it grew different than any other plant? He thought about and he looked at me and smiled and said, "you would need two plants, you would play music to one and not the other then measure to see if there was a difference." He figured it out and I got to witness his aha moment!

After our egg experiment we took our "science lab" outside and I let them play around trying to guess if some of their toys would float or sink.

Tatum decided she was done with her experiments and wanted to have herself a little spa time. This child of mine is a beautiful and unique treasure to our family. She always makes me laugh!!