Homeschool Log Wednesday March 10, 2010

Austin and Amanda
We read the last two chapters of The Shack today. I was going to stop with one chapter but they were both begging me to finish the book so they could find out how it ended so we did.

We also read Hosea 10; 2 Chronicles 25:26-28, 26; and Amos 1-3.

They both did their chores and helped with the younger children.

This evening they went to the childrens/youth program at church.




Austin
Austin finished reading the chapter from Apostle to China: The Story of J. Hudson Taylor that he started yesterday. His eyes were still bothering him a little so I didn't ask him to read any more

During his time with me this afternoon he chose to play Go Fish.  We call it "Mom Time." At one point we had a tie, so after that I had him calculate how many matches I had based on how many he finished with, using our tie numbers as a starting point.

He also added another design to his art blog.

His friend Tristan was here for a little while this afternoon and they spent most of that time outside. It was 63 degrees this afternoon and everyone had the urge to head outdoors.




He enjoyed playing Sid Meiers Pirates on the computer, as well as a few other computer games.

Austin finished listening to Peeps in Many Lands: Ancient Egypt by James Baikie and began listening to You are there!The Rise of Alexander the Great. I am so grateful for quality educational material that he can listen too. If he can hear it instead of trying to read it he retains the information so much better, and is able to enjoy learning as well.






Amanda
Amanda read another chapter of The Cross and the Switchblade

She also updated her blog.

Her choice of activity for "Mom Time" was to play UNO.

This afternoon her friend Holly was here and they also spent most of their time outside. They played baseball (as well as they could with only a few people, Tristan and Austin played with them), and collected walnuts and tried to break them open on the concrete. I don't think that worked too well for them though.



 While working on a flower made of perler beads for the display she is designing for the playroom, she also listened to two chapters of Peeps in Many Lands: Ancient Egypt. She doesn't enjoy these audio sessions as much as Austin does but she does remember what she's hearing and I try to make sure she has something to do that she does enjoy while she listens.

Busy Kids

The kids stayed busy today, doing a lot of fun things.

Austin brought out the hand puppets and played with L. and Gianni for awhile.


Amanda brought out the balloons and they had a blast with them too. It looks like a party.

L. enjoyed watching Austin play games on his gameboy.


Amanda did a cool project with the kids using the letters of their names. First she made large versions of the letters in each child's name and had them color them.







Then she cut them out. I think here she's trying to tell me "Enough pictures already!"


Then she had each child glue the letters of their name onto sheets of construction paper.



She then used the completed papers to create a wall display in our playroom.


Austin made the macaroni and cheese for lunch.





Austin and Gianni made up a game involving words written on index cards. I never did quite figure out the rules of the game but they stayed busy creating and playing this game for about two hours.



And right about now, this is looking to me like a really good idea. Actually Doug was very kind to me this evening and watched the kids for about an hour so I could go take a nap. Bliss!

Oversleeping, Fun and the Printer Incident

Often I've tried to write blog posts on specific categories or subjects but somehow my life just will not stay in neat little boxes. So I'm going to try something different. I'm just going to blog each day about the things that are important to me that day. My family, the kids in my care, what I'm learning, what we're doing. Each part of life intertwines with all the others and too try to separate them feels very artificial too me.

My morning started out a little less than stellar. Because I slept most of the night on the couch to be near an overnight daycare child who was not feeling well, I overslept this morning. When I woke up at 7:15 and looked at phone I realized a parent had tried to call me 13 times and had texted me several times. That's when I remembered she was scheduled to bring her child at 6:45. I immediately called her and found out she had tried to drop off her child and when she couldn't get an answer from me she took the child to her mother's. Her mother brought the little boy over a later. This is the first time in the ten years I've been providing child care that this has happened and I felt awful about it. Thankfully they were very understanding.

Amanda decided this morning to help the little kids make kites. So she went outside and found some sticks, got out paper, crayons, tape and string and set to work.






Austin has been a little quiet the last few days. Yesterday he was complaining of a headache and I gave him some Tylenol right away. If he doesn't take something immediately when he begins to get a headache it can turn into a migraine. He says he feels fine today but he looks tired. This has been his main free time activity today. Along with Mahjong on the computer.




He did do his chores and he also went with Doug to take the trash to the landfill after Doug came home from work this afternoon. And this evening he seems a little more like his usual self, even horseplaying with the younger kids



While working in the kitchen - cooking, loading dishwasher, putting away clean dishes, all that fun stuff - I've been listening to this audio book.

While listening the caught my attention. "If you don't consider your life as part of your business plan you may find yourself outwardly successful but inwardly miserable." Since I've been thinking today about how all of life is intertwined this seemed like an affirmation to me. What I do in each area of my life effects all the other areas of my life.

Another subject covered today was a vision board, or goal collage. This isn't exactly a new idea, I've read of it often before. But I found myself thinking today how much fun it would be to do one and to have Austin and Amanda each do one as well. I found some interesting reading about dream or goal collages here , here and here.

I've also been reading this book, a few pages at a time. This one may take me awhile.


I made one of my favorite meals for dinner this evening - Chicken Chow Mien over rice.



We all like it except for Amanda who says it would be good if it had anything in it she liked. She doesn't like celery or onions and really isn't a big fan of chicken. Unless it's chicken nuggets. Can you say picky eater?

The one year old pulled the printer off the shelf on top of Michael's head today. Michael and printer are both fine. Michael now has another dramatic story to tell. The printer has been moved into another room. The one year is just mad that he can't do it again.

Although it was much too warm for any snow to stay around we actually had a few flurries today. I really wish all the rain we had yesterday would have been snow. I'm ready for the white stuff. Hot chocolate and a good book while watching it snow outside. The stuff dreams are made of.

Dream. That's what I'm going to go do shortly. Maybe I can catch up on the sleep I missed last night so I don't oversleep again in the morning.

Rain! Rain!

It was a rainy day. Again!

But we had fun anyway. This morning I got out the games and we spent quite a lot of time playing. We started off with Memory. I think Memory is THE favorite game around here.



Michael wanted to play too but he got really frustrated when he had to wait his turn and did a face plant into the cards. Eventually though he seemed to get the idea and did pretty well.




We also played Alphabet Bingo and UNO . . .






. . . played with puppets . . .




. . .did sticker and coloring activities . . .


. . . and played with cars.


And after a good lunch . . .



and afternoon quiet time, the sun came out and we got to play outside.

Homemade Finger Paint

Today the kids painted with homemade finger paint. I made the paint yesterday and put it in the refrigerator until we were ready to use it.

Homemade Finger Paint

2 c. flour
2 c. cold water
2. T. salt
1 1/2 cups hot water

In saucepan mix flour, salt and cold water together with wire whisk until smooth. Add hot water and bring to a boil. Let boil, stirring constantly until thickened. If needed stir again with wire whisk until smooth. Add food coloring or tempera paint to make it the desired color.

I made a double batch of this recipe and divided it into six containers. Then I used food coloring to make the colors I wanted.



Because the batteries in the camera went dead I didn't get any pictures of the kids painting but after the batteries were recharged I was able to take some pictures of the finished paintings. Most of the kids painting were preschoolers and just enjoyed experimenting with the colors and feeling the texture of the paint. They always like painting on paper plates and we used them today.






Our Day

T.(8) is going with her family later this week to Chincoteague Island and she's so excited she talked about it all morning long. She's so excited that she said she thinks if she jumped out of the barn onto the trampoline the way her friend did and broke both of her ankles (as her friend did) she would heal immediately. Since we had no barns or trampolines handy for jumping she had to content herself with jumping off the toddler slide.

This morning was really warm and humid so we put water in the water table for the kids to play in. One of Michael's favorite things to do with the water is stick his head in, then run over to the dirt and watch the water drip off his head into the dirt.



Amanda (10) and her friend C. (11) decided that Micki the pet rat should have a birthday party today. So they invited Giant and Razor the hermit crabs, and their owner, Austin as guests. In Amanda's room they hung shirts as banners, along with some balloons off the curtain rods. They used fruit loops, graham crackers, cantalope, grapes and raisins as refreshments (with a little cat food on the side as a special treat for Micki). Unfortunately the camara batteries died and I wasn't able to get any pictures so I'll leave the scene to your imagination. It was a party I'm sure Micki will never forget.

The older boys Austin (12) and L. (7) decided that pushing each other in riding toys as hard and fast as they could, with no seeming regard for life or limb, would be a good form of entertainment. That idea was quickly put to rest. Fortunately the younger boys seemed to value safety a little more and pushed each other around at a more reasonble rate of speed.


It was extra early when the last of the daycare kids left so we're just having a quiet evening.