Rainy Monday Misadventures

So I am going to begin this post with a momentary blurb from left field. 

I have to say that a lot of people are under some impression that home-school families sleep in very late, and do a small amount of actual work. I actually had one person suggest to me a long while back, that they would "love to home-school because she could sleep in and her son could play video games all day". 

While I suppose the idea of home-school would appeal to those sorts, and I am sure there are those people out there that don't really do much, I don't think that is really the norm. I know that I want and need to be held accountable. The only person who will suffer if I am not is my kid. The idea was to make the learning experience more tailored and streamlined for her, not to pretend that dragging her to Wal-Mart while I shop is a serious lesson for economics and no further instruction is necessary. 

Don't get me wrong, you can most certainly take excursions to sort of drive the point home - real world application if you will - but it is in addition to, not a substitute. It is certainly not an every day kind of thing. She would learn nothing. 

As you can tell, I am a little fired up. For some reason that comment I mentioned before has got to be one of the ones that has really stuck with me the most. Unfortunately it floats back in my head often. I get a little bit fired up when I think of it. I am not sure if the amount of work I put into a day of school (including nightly prepping) as well as at least 4 hours instruction is the norm or not. I go between 4 - 6 hours daily, usually closest to 5 hours. (I'm pretty sure 4 is the mandated number of hours required by the state.)That may not sound like a lot to some people, but considering I have all my regular responsibilities as well it can be daunting. It isn't always daunting, but more often than not I am spent after I "make" dinner. (Notice the quotes around make. It doesn't always work out, what can I say?)

Anyway my point is that in order to have a good school day, something usually has to give. You simply cannot have "it all". The laundry tends to back up beyond what is socially acceptable. My kitchen is perpetually messy, as is the house. I cannot always make dinner, and I find it hard time to keep on the task of cleaning bathrooms, bedrooms, sweeping, ect. That's not even touching on the fact that I have weeds and grass growing up like corn stalks. I have to make a lot of choices. I have to decide when it is important, and when it is not. The idea being that we live here, and life is messy. Every mess you see is a memory my kids will have. Good. Bad. From playing, from the fact that I just never got around to cleaning it up. Whatever have you. What I will say of my choices is that sleeping all day and allowing my kids to play video games as substitution for school has never been, nor will it ever be an option. 

So enjoy my photos, see our haphazard housekeeping system, and read my rants. Just know while I document my children's journey through home-school you are bound to see piles of crap, possible dust bunnies blowing like tumbleweed down the hall, bits of dinner from 2 days ago that never made it to the sink, dirty underwear hiding in the corner because of of my sillies threw it off there in a fit of momentary nude bliss, before I came after her yet again about the need, yes the NEED for clothes,ect. You have been warned. 

Having said all that. Here is a picture of the Motley Crew that my children like to play with. Ken is kind of a big deal in this house. He gets to wear all of barbies things. He is their absolute favorite. I don't know what that is about. I suppose their dad needs to stop wearing pink shirts with cuff-links and all the fanciful fixin's. (Love you, honey! ;)

On a side note to Matel, why are all Ken dolls made with Justin Beiber hair? Stop that. It is making this worse. I'm just waiting for the day they turn their Ken doll into this: 

Anyway now that left field has been sufficiently beaten to death, back to the point of this blog: home-school stuff. Without further adieu:

Teaching +2 and -2 using the even and odd system. This is done by illustrating that when you start with an even number and add 2 to it it will be the next consecutive even number. The same goes for odd. An odd number plus 2 will be the next odd number.

As she discovered this using her hundred chart, I wrote the facts on the board. Then we showed subtracting. It is the same except instead of being the next even or odd number it would be the previous.

Ironically I posted this upside down. I just don't care enough to fix it, and you get the point. She practices all her math facts with a game either rainbow math or addition crossout.

Ah, well the screw up fairy visits my house often, this one is also upside down. You get the point. This is one that Keira (my 4 year old did) before people start getting all kinds of funny, she did not add them all up. I added a lot for her and told her what to color, and then she just decided to color what she wanted anyway.

So we went back over using the hundred chart and the even / odd number system again to create these fact cards. This was after listing the same problems on the board.

Kelsey is doing her literature project. She is making a newspaper article about it for comprehension. 

Here's the finished product.

Science - she is learning about physics, specifically this week about simply machines.

I guess I didn't take any photos of her history work.

So pretty much immediately after she stopped school, she had about 1 hour to herself, and then we were off to gymnastics which is every monday. One day I will take pictures, but I can never get a good one.

It was pouring rain, and poor Kelsey came home with a hand injury while doing handstands. Always proud to know the graceful gene will be passed on! Her fingers were pretty swollen, and I think she is as of today starting to bruise around her knuckles. I also have an enormous bruise that has yet to truly show up, but is wayyyyy painful to the touch when I accidentally slipped into the car. It was a fun drive home let me tell you!

Some Junie B. before bed, and that's the end of yesterday.

While going through to post this, I found these videos I had forgotten about on my phone. They are a bit old. I think it is possibly from November?

Keira imitating me when I was still trying to use the cd to accompany the phonics. I am not sure she knew I was taping. I think she thought I wasn't really paying attention, but she certainly won't let me know that!

Some fun in the snow.

The end!