Monday, August 31, 2009

Molasses-on-Snow Candy and Quantum Workshop

Didn't get a chance to update on Friday after everything else that went down that day. The kids had a good time at the Quantum workshop they did. I really wish I could have stayed and paid attention to it to get more details of what they did but I was busy chasing Nico at the park next door. From what I gathered when they came out, they set different kinds of salts on fire to see where they showed up on the light spectrum and how that corresponded to their place on the periodic table of elements. I'm hoping to get them to write a bit more details on their own blogs since after that, they were too into the idea of playing and then I was too involved in getting my keys back out of my locked vehicle to find out anything more.

Today we had my nieces over after therapy so things were a bit bonkers. It was lots of fun and I had saved one of our Prairie lessons from last week to do with them today. We read the chapter in Little House in the Big Woods about Christmas and then made our own Molasses-on-Snow candy like they did. Well, sort of.
First off, it's not snowing here right now. And the odds of it ever snowing here are slightly above that of me giving birth to a baby girl. As in, it isn't happening. So we had to figure out how to make our own snow. Ice meet Mr. Cuisinart! It sort of worked. LOL I would say that if you wish to try this in the future tho, run the ice through first and then stick it in the pans in the freezer while you make the candy. Trying to oversee the kids making snow while I was boiling the candy and trying not to burn it while 5 kids were arguing over who got to put the ice in and who got to push the button was not something I would care to repeat. Much better to oversee each one separately.
Once we had the candy and pans ready tho, it was easy to get them to settle down to make it. I don't think I had it at quite the right temperature and it was hard to work with, especially with 2 kids to a pan but they all seemed to have a good time and much laughter was heard from my living room.
It tasted okay too. Not my first choice in things to reach for but not bad either. And I think it was really good for the kids to hear about how the children in the story considered this such a treat and how for fun in the snow, they made pictures by falling off a stump and trying not to disturb the print they made of themselves as they got. How for Christmas, they were happy to get one piece of peppermint candy and a pair of new mittens in their stockings and it was a huge gift for Santa to leave a real dolly. So much different from the sense of entitlement so prevalent today.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Slowly but surely

That's the way things are shaping up around here for our school year. I don't think we've actually gotten everyone to do everything I want to see done in a year but it's getting there. I admit to blaming myself completely because I still don't have a schedule down, it's only loosely in my head, and with my back and neck being out it's been hard for me to get and stay motivated to be on everyone's case to get everything done. It's not that we aren't getting things done, we most certainly are. It's just there is always so much more that I want to do. And maybe that's something I need to look at as well. I know I tend to schedule things too tightly and underestimate how long things can take for different kids. I need to work on this when I do the schedules as well as know that if not everything gets done, that's okay too.

Christopher gets everything done every day. He's awesome like that. Very sturdy and reliable when it comes to his schoolwork.

Matthew's too laid-back to take his school (or much of anything) seriously. I have seen great improvements already in his ability to work independently on certain subjects, especially if I can find fun ways of engaging him like having him draw a comic for his essay question rather than having to actually write an essay. Yes, I know his writing needs work and I need to find ways to address that and have him work on that but his true love is art and music and it's a great way to engage him and really get the material into his head to stay because after he spends 2hrs on a comic, he'll remember it so much better than if he spends the bare minimum time writing the barest essay he thinks he can get away with. LOL

Jonathan has definitely hit the 8yr phase of not wanting to do anything that he's supposed to. *sigh* I've dealt with it 2xs now and it doesn't get any easier. I need to make sure that much of his time is spent working near me so I can stay on top of him. He can do the work but he definitely has a harder time remembering things and getting his head back into his schoolwork after the summer off. I usually have them do some work over the summer but this year that didn't happen and I'm really seeing the effect of having that time completely off most in Jonathan.

I think the biggest surprise has been Nicholas. He's understanding that there is no playtime until schoolwork gets done but more than that, he's finding that working with mom can actually be fun! I've tried for so long to get him to play with me (his work) and he wanted nothing to do with it but now, he will voluntarily grab out workbooks and tell me I need to work with him. He loves his mazes and the new cutting workbook I found for him as well. He's also really getting into being read to and trying to read to me which is so cute. He's also finally getting into art projects so I've been able to set him up with paints or markers or the preschool art projects that I have, and he will happily do them and frequently want to go far longer than I would expect. I usually have to find ways to expand upon the pre-built projects as he wants to do more with it so I find other stickers he can use or things he can glue to keep it going. Such a huge difference from even 6mos ago when he wanted nothing to do with any art project I could think of.

I'm hoping to have our schedule worked out and down on paper this weekend but looking at how our weekend is getting booked already, I know I need to be realistic in my expectations for myself as well and figure it's more likely going to happen over the 3-day weekend when we have nothing planned. So long as we keep moving forward, seeing little bits of progress every day, that's just going to have to do.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Homemade Butter Day!

Today things went a bit awry so we opted for the original plan of trying our hands at making our own butter using the directions from the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook.

Want an easy way to keep 4 boys entertained and out of trouble for 20-30min? Have them shake the jars until they have large lumps of butter in them.

Everyone got in on the action for the shaking and it gave me a few minutes of much needed peace. LOL
After the shaking Matthew and Jonathan continued with the rest of the steps to get the last of the milk and then came the fun of putting it into some of mom's candy molds. It was a really fun time and I'm glad we did it. It turned out well tho I think we should have used a bit more salt but we now have many butter penguins hanging out in our fridge which is all good according to the boys. LOL

In other good news for the day, Nico had a great time painting today! This is the child who would scream and run any time I suggested it before which always made schooltime hard because there was very little he would do that didn't involve my direct attention or a video game of some sort. I definitely see this as major progress. He was even very happy to sit down and read with me today and took his own hand at reading to me! I'm so glad that I'm able to spend time doing fun stuff with him now and he's gotten to the point where we can reason a bit with him. Yeah!!!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Starting Week 2


Still working out the kinks but it's getting better. I've decided to forego having Jonathan do any of the history with Matthew. It seems to be just a bit too high of a level for him (go figure, it's written for middle school) and while it sometimes grips him, more often it doesn't and it just leads to frustration. Add in that once we get all of our supplies in, I have no idea where he would find the time to do it! LOL I figure he is getting US History circa late 1800s in with our literature and we discuss history in other places like when we went and saw the Samurai exhibit so it will sneak in. He's in 3rd grade so I want to keep it fun. He has such a hard time with his reading and spelling, no sense making something else hard for him.

Today we started on our Little House on the Prairie curriculum. Nico didn't make it easy but we got through Day 1 with reading the first chapter and discussing it, reading up on bears, talked about the toys they played with (it said we could make a corncob doll but I didn't think the boys would be super interested and I wasn't interested in making a pig's bladder balloon....ewwwwww!). I did pick up the stuff to make homemade butter and molasses-on-snow candy for later this week. Hopefully that makes up for not getting the pig's bladder. LOL

We also read up on interrupting, what it means to interrupt, how it makes others feel when you do it to them, and what you can do to avoid it. It's definitely something we have a problem with here so it was nice that this curriculum includes talking about those things when they come up.

Another thing I really liked was that there are only 4 lessons a week. I was so worried how it would work out with field trips and such since things are broken up by week and planned out accordingly but since there are only 4 lessons a week, it makes it really easy. I've told the boys that if we don't have a field trip for the week, then we'll use that extra day to do science experiments and delve into whatever they want to learn about. Poor guys. LOL

I have to say that I'm pretty happy with how this morning went and will keep it going. I took Jonathan to therapy at 10a and dropped Christopher off at the library to do the research for his biology class. Nico and I did the grocery shopping and errands while they were occupied. Matthew was able to stay home and work on his math, history, and other things that didn't require my help. The only downside is that it leaves me very little time to work with Nico on Mondays but hopefully with a little more tweaking, that won't be a problem. We did find some time to work on two of his workbooks a little bit and we did FIAR and he mostly listened when I was reading to the big boys this afternoon. I'm going to be happy with that from him. LOL

Speaking of Nico, I just got in our first Preschool Projects pack and I have to say I'm very happy with what I see! Is it September 1st yet?! I don't want to wait to get started on some of these things. 20 projects, all prepped and ready to go, in individual baggies, with instructions, a calendar with suggested use, and a teacher's guide talking about what exactly they are learning from each project and how to maximize it's use. Wow! I'm trying very hard to calm down and NOT go ordering the rest of the year right now as I do want to make sure that Nico enjoys it as much as I hope he will. He is starting to get much more into his workbooks and art projects tho so I have reason to hope.

So even with therapy for Jonathan this morning, we got most of the days work done before I took them to KSW. They should be able to finish the rest when they get home or just after dinner without too much hassle. Hopefully once we get things going a bit more smoothly, schooltime will generally go from 9a-3p. But I'm still going to definitely consider this day a total success!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

I know they learned something today

I'm just not entirely sure what. LOL Matthew, Jonathan, and Nicholas all had swim this morning so that was something. I worked with Jonathan on his math facts a bit with one of his computer games, Math Blockout. It's a bit harder than I was expecting but even after 15min he was starting to get the hang of it and understand the rules and I think it will be good as it not only makes him use the functions but think it through in order to use the functions most effectively with a given set of numbers. After that I had to disappear to work on laundry so Matthew helped him with the Riddle Spiders while he did his math. I read with him a bit before we headed out to KSW and then he and Matthew did History when we got home while I worked on dinner. Something about Chimpanzees? I'll be sure to ask him tomorrow to see how his recall is. LOL

Christopher worked on his History of Art class today and seemed to actually enjoy it. I'm still trying to figure out our schedule so I can get in time to meet with him and go over everything he's done this week. I'd ideally like to have at least 30min a day to do that but we'll see, especially as soccer, bowling, and yaw have yet to figure into our schedule and those are all going to be on Tuesdays.

No working with Nico today as we were running around so much. :( Again, this is where that schedule is really needed. I have got to find time to work on that this weekend to fit everything in. Right now I know we could be more efficient with our time which will be needed to fit in the science experiments that Matthew and Jonathan want to do, the Little House on the Prairie lessons I want to do with them, and all the fun creative stuff I want Nico to have the opportunity to do. But really, for the first week back with no schedule in place and no gradual lead-in to the start of school like I normally try to do, I think we've done pretty well this week. Stuff is getting done. We have been reading together almost every day from Robinson Crusoe. Jonathan has read to me twice this week already and is definitely increasing his fluency from last school year. Matthew is balking only a little bit but it learning to work with Jonathan and get his work done. Nicholas is accepting that the TV is no longer going to be on all day and is starting to work with me a bit. Christopher is jumping right back into the swing of things for the most part.

All in all, not a bad start to the year.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A few things are coming together

Still fairly slow day today. It's still a challenge to get everyone moving in the right direction, especially without our schedule and I was very slow moving today. Jonathan did get his math practice in and he worked much better with Matthew on history today and Nico even allowed Jonathan to read to him so those were all good things. Matthew learned to work better with Jonathan on the history and was thrilled when I told him he would only get history tests once a week and could draw a comic for the essay question. I figure we'll have plenty of opportunities to practice essay writing but this would help to make history more interesting and would help to cement it in his head. The two of them have spent a good portion of the day constructing houses out of copier paper. Measuring, cutting, taping, making furniture. It's been good seeing them find a way to do something creative together.

Other good news for the day was that Nico worked with me again! He sat with me for our Five in a Row reading and we looking for items in the book. He again had fun dressing our "Jesse Bear". He listened to Jonathan read him a Wow-Wow Wubzy story and then listened a little to Matthew reading him Z is for Zamboni. I pulled out the Bright Minds Beginning Mathmatical Reasoning and Kumon Easy Mazes. He did a couple of pictures in the Bright Minds book but he decided he LOVED the maze book. He did 77 out of 80 mazes and didn't finish because he "wanted to leave some to save for ever". LOL He loved it so much that I ordered a few more different Kumon maze books from Amazon which should get here on Friday.

Christopher had a headache yesterday and was still a bit slow this morning. He got most of his work done tho not all of his history for the week. The week is light enough that he can finish up later and we'll be on track. I still need to finish up this week's reading of A Separate Peace so we can do that discussion. I'm guessing I'll likely end up reading a good chunk of his history and art texts too so I can have intelligent discussions about those as well. Who knew I'd be reading high school texts again so many years after graduation?! LOL

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Asian Art Museum Field Trip

Our first field trip of the year! There is a gorgeous exhibit called Lords of the Samurai at the Asian Art Museum and when Matthew found out, it was deemed necessary that we go. Twist my arm kid. LOL What made this display even more incredible was that everything was from one family's collection. They had been samurai and daimyos for over 600 years and there were pieces dating back from the 1300s. We went with Ian and Linda and Linda had the great idea (having researched things before hand unlike me, so glad one of us is organized LOL) of having the boys do a scavenger hunt for the family crest. While Jonathan didn't fully participate in that having him write all the information down would have been a nightmare, he did go around finding it and then showing them to me. It definitely made it a bit more enjoyable for them making it into a game. The symbol was everywhere but sometimes worked in so subtly that you really had to look for it.
I really wish we were able to take any pictures at all as they had some of the most incredible things. The armor, while spectacular, was what you would expect but my favorite piece of the entire collection was probably the wakizashi with the intricate carving on the blade. It was gorgeous. Well, everything was. I am always impressed with the intricacy and detail of even the ancient pieces from the Orient. I think the boys had the most fun in the dress up room. There was a samurai helmet they could wear as well as an assortment of kimonos and mens robes. Of course, Chris is too cool for all that and stuck his nose in a manga instead. *sigh* Teenagers.
In all, it was a great time. I brought the stroller and packed Nico's DS and Leapster in his backpack so he played through the entire exhibit. We ate lunch before heading to the dress up room and then afterward we wondered through the second floor of the museum. He started getting impatient as we'd been there for 4hrs but still, that is nothing short of a miracle for him. We took them to the park across the street for a bit before heading home but that was brought to an abrupt halt when he fell and bashed his face.


But it was a great time and a great exhibit. Apparently this is the only stop it's making in the US and will be over on Sept 20 so if you have a chance, I really recommend going. I bought the family membership so we can go back with Mark and hopefully see more of the rest of the museum. Looks like we will be trying to do several more field trips with Ian and Linda this year. Have I mentioned how glad I am to be with OG where it feels so much easier to take the time off to do these things. Don't forget to check out the boys' blogs and get their impressions of the exhibit as well.

Monday, August 17, 2009

First day of the 2009-2010 School Year

and I am determined to keep up on this blog. Last year it was fairly important to me because of Christopher being on his own path but this year it's even more so as we said good-bye to CAVA and are now doing what we feel like through Ocean Grove. It's so liberating (although I have to remind my kids that it does not mean just laze about all day, that's only good for one subject max LOL). I'd like to start off this school year's blog with a brief overview of what each of the boys will be studying (at least as of right now).

Christopher
10th grade
He'll also be doing Young Actors Workshop again this year.

Part of the determination to move to Ocean Grove was the ability to combine some classes between Matthew and Jonathan as well as have them pay for some classes that would otherwise be outside of our budget.

Matthew and Jonathan
  • The Prairie Primer: Literature based unit study program utilizing The Little House on the Prairie books to study literature, history, art, and science.
  • The World in Ancient Times history series
  • Clay Classes
  • PE: consisting of swim, KSW, and bowling
  • Critical Thinking
Matthew
Jonathan
And then since Nico hates to be left out:

Nicholas
Now if I can just get our schedule together in order to make it all work...

Wish us luck and a wonderful school year!