Silver Moon Learning

Jun. 9, 2009

Getting our hands dirty.

In an effort to clean up the backyard, I'm paying kids for weeding. Very clear boundaries that even the 3yo can follow. Don't touch anything in Momma's flower bed, even if it is a weed. The rest of the yard is fair game If it's not a piece of grass, pull it. Put all the weeds you pulled into one pile. When you're done weeding for the day, show mom your pile. You'll get paid based on the size of your weed pile. After getting your pile evaluated by a parent, you have to take it to the huge weed pile before getting paid. If you pull three weeds, and your sibling pulls twenty-five weeds, don't act surprised/horrified/upset or otherwise throw yourself into a pity party when you aren't paid as handsomely as that sibling. Wash your hands when you come in, please. Three kids are having a weed pulling good time. I'm going to be less a few dollars by the end of the day, but my yard will be cleaner. In more dirt news, Joy and I found nearly three dozen mushrooms growing in our yard. Ew. We pulled every one we could find, then buried them in the weed pile so Faith wouldn't be tempted to sample them. She'll taste anything at least once. We found slugs in our yard this year too. I like them better than the mushrooms. Slugs and mushrooms are things I just didn't expect to see living in the desert. Allegedly the water table is very high in our neighborhood, but it's still a desert, yano?

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Apr. 1, 2009

What a day!

Jan. 29, 2009

Today was a nearly perfect homeschool day.

Did you fall out of your chair with that title? I said the homeschool part was perfect, not the rest of it! There was very little arguing, eye rolling and sass. The bigs answered questions like "What's the purpose of government?" and "Why did we rebel against the king?"  They thought about their answers and made good ones. It was warm enough for even desert rats to play outside for a little while Small people that smell like the backyard is one of my favorite things. I got a small scrap of sewing in this morning. The house is relatively clean. The dishes are done. Put away too. We had a pleasant outing to the post office. Spelling Wisdom came in the mail! After looking through it together Joy and I are both pretty excited to dig into it. I think we'll really like it. The baby took two real naps today, and both of them were on the bed (read: not my lap). The mediums ate up their school pages and did amazing in their reading lessons. Honor is over his 13, 14, 15 wall. I taught him to say threeteen, fourteen, and fiveteen about a week ago, suddenly it's clicked and he's not fumbling them now. Otherwise the boy can count to fifty and beyond, lol.  Joy made three minor mistakes on her oral spelling quiz of twenty-one words. Though she was bummed when I told her we'd save Spelling Wisdom for Monday. Justice had a major lightbulb in his fractions work. I piddled around the web looking for president resources for next week and found a few good ones. Barely had any interruptions. Oh yeah! Both bigs said we should do the presidents next since our Declaration of Independence stuff has wrapped up (took us two weeks to use up that rabbit trail..). Did you see that word "both?" They agreed with no prompting. Ok. Now for the not so picturistic stuff. I didn't get nearly as much sewing done as I wanted to. The bathroom didn't get scrubbed. The diapers didn't get washed. The entryway looks like a tornado hit it. I didn't exercise or drink enough water. The good stuff FAR outweighs all the bad stuff. I'm really shocked! Thursdays are well known for being long, tiring, downright icky days at our house. We start out grumpy because we were out late the night before, but get up at the same times anyway. The day drags on forever. The mediums need naps but fight them. The big two are argumentative. The baby doesn't nap well because she's behind on sleep (yeah, figure that one out). Hub doesn't get home until kidlet bedtime. When hub does get home HE'S worn out and just wants food and bed. He gets up extra early on Fridays too, so I go to bed knowing I won't see him again until lunchtime the next day. That's the typical Thursday. This Thursday though? Seems extraordinary.

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Jan. 26, 2009

Kid/school stuff

New week once again. Last week disappeared in the blink of an eye it seems. Not sure how that happens. Here's a brief kid update! Baby Faith is the cutest baby ever. She is. She's been "singing" into the bright pink, plastic microphone today. She belts out a "Da uh da!" then waits for a reaction before letting another one out. Then she found the toy keyboard (bright pink and plastic again), punched it's buttons until she got it to play demo songs, held it by her side and started getting her groove on. Nothing cuter than a diapered butt boppn' to London Bridge. Grace is Grace. Soooo sweet. She's starting to sleep better this week, not coming into our room in the wee morning hours so much. She's started going to a preschool group on Wednesday nights, without a parent tagging along. It'd been months since we even suggested it to her and we had no idea if she was capable of doing it. She's doing it.  I haven't been called because she's distraught once. She's noticed the teachers elsewhere and gave them a shy wave, from the safety of mom or dad's legs, lol. The emotional growth spurt that happened out of the blue caused a bit of a backslide in other areas, but she's since caught back up. I *think* I'll get the hang of this raising an introvert gig. In a nutshell? It's parenting who she is, not who I think she ought to be. Honor. What can I say about him this week? He's the class clown.The sarcastic humor he can interject into conversations is incredible. He's only 5! Where does he come up with this stuff? I can totally see him being a stand up comedian as an adult. LOL He strikes when you least suspect it. Like standing outside the van while Joy is taking longer than normal to get her booty out of the van so we can go into the store. Just when we think she's about to pop out, Honor lets out this exagerated :::::::::YAWN:::::::::. He's five! When the surprised laughs at his efforts die down he cracks up laughing at himself.  Joy has become my right hand in the kitchen. We redid the bigs cleaning jobs and it's working fabulously so far. I try to rotate them through the jobs, even if it's one they despise or aren't good at, to make sure they know HOW to at the very least. They both suggested not moving from their current job for a long time. So Joy has the LDD load, lessons, dishwasher (empty it), and dining (knock-out toy hot spots and wipe down the dining table) daily, for a month or so. Then we'll reevaluate. In school she's racing ahead in First Language Lessons, it'll be done by the end of third grade without a problem. She's working on memorizing The Goops right now. I'm using a free spelling from Super Teacher Worksheets this week, so far she likes the activities. When Spelling Wisdom gets here I'll switch her over. Justice has the LLL daily now. Lessons, Laundry (haul all folded by mom laundry to the appropriate room), and Living room (knock out the hot spots, clean up after the baby's toys, and just generally tidy the room). He's doing really well keeping it shipshape too. In school, I've really got to get an English course ordered for him. Daily Grams are keeping his grammar fresh, but they're way too easy for him. Today we did a writing lesson swiped from a curriculum sample, it's enough to stretch out all week long. The focus today was taking notes, how to condense information from a paragraph or speaker down quickly. Tomorrow we make an outline with it, by the end of the week we'll make our own paragraph with the info from today's notes. I say "we" because I'm doing it with him, so he can see a sample. I plan on going over the nuts and bolts of writing reports for a month or so before actually expecting him to write one. He spent the grammar stage learning the nuts and bolts of language, now to apply it. The big two aren't pulling the WHOLE load in those rooms, I'm always behind them sweeping, decluttering, wiping down, etc.. When *I* only have to do half the job it's so much easier for me to keep up with everything! Like the mouse that got a cookie I'm certain to be distracted by other momma tasks before getting back to the second half. It's been a breath of fresh air. I think those two need some extra chocolate after dinner. Dinner! Dinner was not raved about as well as our lunch was. I cooked up some gluten free, Trader Joes brand rice pasta plain, then poured some beef burger and veggies (prepared like stir fry fixin's) over it, and added some La Choy brand soy sauce. *I* thought it was scrummy. All three girls went to town on it too. The boys thought the peas were completely unecessary.

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Jan. 19, 2009

Monday already?

May the Force be with you! My kids are running around with light sabers again this morning. They've affectionately dubbed the baby "Stinky" for a Clone Wars reenactment. She smiles and toddles after them, just happy to be included in the big kid game. I woke up this morning to my husband and Faith (the baby) having a "My mama" argument. One would put a hand on me and loudly declare "My mama!!" Then the other would try removing that hand with another loud "My mama!" in return. Lather, rinse, repeat. Coffee please! Homeschool stuff. Last week went well, in spite of the internet going down for a little while. Thankfully I'd already printed and filed the internet printables I wanted (mostly from TLSbooks). I'd planned to step it up a notch this week, I've reconsidered. We'll keep it light this week too. Justice needs some math drill review, I think a week of math games and such will have him back up to speed. Joy has mostly picked back up. She did get stuck in grammar, like up against a brick wall stuck. I gave her a list of lessons in First Langauge Lessons to go back and read. She had them memorized by the end of the day. That kid! I ordered Spelling Wisdom level 1 for her last night, from www.simplycharlottemason.com. Honor is moving right along with his reading. He did tell me he's tired of learning new numbers and just wants to add now. *snort* Grace is amazing me with how well she's going through Phonics Pathway's blending exercises. She's only 3! Faith is adding a new word to her vocabulary every time I turn around. Somehow our geography study last week morphed into American history. That continues this week, with the focus being the Declaration of Independence. Quite the rabbit trail there! Most of the materials I've pulled are from www.americanheritage.org and some Knowledge Box stuff I found in the depths of my documents folder. ('Cause what else do you do when pinned under a nursling and the internet is off?)  We'll have to watch the first National Treasure movie later today. Oh! I'd totally spaced adding the American history we did last week to their Book of the Centuries. Putting that first on the list for today.

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Jan. 12, 2009

I need a "take a number" dispenser.

You know, those thingies at the store when it's super crowded? DMV has one too.  Can you tell today was our first day back at the books? *snort* Four children with pages loaded on clipboards vs one mom. Round 1: DING! I loaded all four clipboards earlier in the morning. Each kid has their own, often decorated. And there's stuff like cursive alphabets taped to the bottom too. Yes, even the three year old has her own. She was VERY indignant about not having her own last fall. Then we found a 3yo preschool book at Staples, much to her delight. I'm getting derailed here before I even get going. We started out by reading chapter two of Little House on the Prairie. All five kids gathered round listening intently, baby crawling up to nurse when bored. Apologies for the quaintness, I was just as shocked as you are! Once the story was finished I grabbed the clipboards, pencils and box of crayons. Time to divide and conquer! Geography with the oldest two first. We talked about their "Our City" page and what I expected of them, got them thinking in the right direction, and passed off their clipboards and pencils. Once they were settled I got Honor writing his name, spelled a word for Joy outloud before Honor finished his name. Next was a couple number 11 pages for Honor, with more spelling advice between them. The big kids finished up their My City pages somewhere around Honor getting to his number 12 pages. Then I got Honor content coloring twelve birds, explained the map skills page to Justice, got Grace coloring a teddy bear, football and boot the color brown, explained the map skills page to Joy, helped Justice with an answer to his, explained Honor's next page, helped Grace find an orange crayon for her next page. Lather, rinse, repeat. The constant bouncing from clipboard to clipboard didn't end until both the younger two had depleted their pages. Then I had Joy self sufficient with her math page, and could sit beside Justice to help him through a rough patch on his. The baby bounced on the chair behind me, nursed, stole crayons, danced to the Blue's Clues radio and invited herself right into the noise. I shooed Honor and Grace to the toy garage to play with cars while I worked more with Justice and Joy. Justice sailed right into his Daily Gram, and finished it just as fast. Then he grabbed a book, Bionicles something or other and hauls off to his bed. Little House on the Prairie as the read aloud balances out the total fluff/twaddle of Bionicles, right? I gave Joy a nudge and went to the kitchen. In there I scooped some pinto beans that had been cooking in the crock pot all morning into a sauce pan, added some taco-like seasonings and turned it onto low. Changed a diaper, took a potty break, washed up, smooshed the beans and stirred them up. Hub showed up right about then. The younger three kept him occupied long enough for me to pile some chips high with beans, salsa, cheese and whatever random toppings I found in the fridge. Ta-da! Lunch. Hub headed back to work when his lunch hour was up. I sat down here to nurse the baby to sleep, which worked like a charm. Unfortunately Honor and Grace had a screaming fight just as I was laying her down in bed. Scrap that nap. Honor and Grace separated, put in different pieces of furniture where their toes can't reach each other, and the TV babysitter was turned on for the first time of the day. I chose the newest Charlotte'a Web movie for them. Back to those clipboards!  Papers double checked, dated, and stacked on top of the computer monitor. That pile of papers is almost two inches high I might add! I bet the bottom of it has early December dates. Pulled Joy away from the Game Boy for a lesson in First Language Lessons. We worked with the Mr. Nobody poem, she loves it! Justice was snickering at it from across the room. That was his favorite poem when he was in FLL. Now Joy is finishing up some copywork from Mr. Nobody, Grace is asleep, Honor is pretending to be asleep (if he does that long enough he usually does fall asleep), and Faith keeps climbing up to nurse for two minutes before hopping down to play. I'm a drivethrough milk bar apparently. Day one back to school was a success, even without the take a number dispenser.

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Jan. 9, 2009

Our Friday.

Today has been busy! Somehow I haven't accomplished much. I'm trying to get us back into our regular habits. As in, not hectic-always-something-extra-going-on-because-it's-December, kind of habits.We'll kick school back up on Monday. My older two are starting to slide back into it. They chose to do their book reading this morning as to free up the afternoon quiet time for other activities. I wasted a grand chunk of my morning on this computer, but I did manage to scratch out some lesson plans in the process. My "mediums" (I'm not allowed to call them littles anymore...) have played a few math games on a kiddie computer, and we had a rousing game of London Bridge is Falling Down in the kitchen while lunch warmed. Even Joy got in on it! The tween boy only left the screen of his Game Boy long enough to object to the inappropriateness of our singing "My fair lady!" when we'd captured his brother. *snort* Lunch was leftover stir fry and misto alla griglia. Mmmm. It's official quiet time as a type. Aaaah. I do enjoy that habit coming back. Faith is napping. She's sleeping extra lately, growth spurt time again. Grace is snuggled up in the new blanket she got for Christmas and watching Nanny McPhee, I expect her to be asleep in about ten minutes. Then I can turn the tv off and it might really be quiet in here. Snicker. Honor is slowly finishing up his lunch, then he'll move to the comfy chair with a pile of picture books and a few toy cars. Justice is back to the Game Boy, and Joy is working in her multiplication book (all of her own accord I might add!). This afternoon my goals are getting some laundry knocked out of the way, finishing up a couple sewing projects, and finishing the lesson plans for next week. The latter requires me to sit at my computer desk and ignore the computer, lol. Dinner will be some scrumptious gluten, casein and corn free french toast. Your choice of homemade berry syrup, honey, applesauce or cranberry apple butter to put on top. And turkey bacon!  Then we have a Girl Scout cookie training meeting for Joy, Hub and I. Since we'll be on that end of town we'll make a Costco and Trader Joes run to save some gas before heading home. And now Justice is trying to pry me out of my chair. It's his day for the computer and he's anxious to check out something on the Lego site.

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