Posted in Lessons I Have Learned

I always hate to say we are "starting" school on a certain day.  I feel like the learning never ends around here and we just shift gears to less structured learning over the Summer.  However, every year there comes a point where I decide it's time to get back to a little more structure and our curriculum.   And every year, no matter what I have planned mayhem ensues!  LOL  Here is this years saga...

I know it's weird that I would decide to have the 1st day on a Tuesday.  But, I knew on Monday we were starting my Bible Study and Junior Achievement for this year.  This meant we would be out of the house from 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m. and I KNEW that was setting myself up for insanity.  So I thought I would outsmart the system and start Tuesday,  HA!  Monday night I sat down the troops and gave the lecture.  The alarm will go off at 0730.  You will rise, dress, have breakfast and do chores.  "School" will begin at 0900.  blah, blah, blah.  The troops stare at me with glassy eyes, poke each other,  wiggled and giggled.  I prodded on explaining bedtime, toothbrushing and everything else I could possibly imagine that could throw off our day. Fast Forward to 6:30 a.m.  Tuesday.  We are all peacefully sleeping.  It is one hour until the alarm is going to ring,.,,,all is well with "The Plan"  HA!  BOOOOOOM  an explosion startles me from my sleep and my bed.  I jump up tired and confused.  MY heart pounding....Okay, it must have been a car backfiring.  I lay back down and wait for my pulse to slow....Then I notice the ceiling fan is slowing, and slowing and slowing...I get up and hit the light switch.  NOTHING!  About this time my 13 year old wanders in.  "Mom what exploded?  Why is the power off?"  We hear sirens... NOOOOOOOO...... My day is planned and I did not schedule in an explosion!  LOL  We run outside to find all the neighbors dressed in their best sleepwear steering the local high schoolers (who are walking to school) away from the BIG Electrical Box for our street which has EXPLODED!  Smoke is rising, live wires are dangling.  The fire department arrives.  PRAISE GOD no one what hurt and no real damage was done.  The firemen inform us that we will be without power for "awhile".  (They start suggesting we move any perishables into coolers...Sigh...)  Now it is still REALLY HOT here (It got up to 104 yesterday.) So not having power means we are not going to be home!

Our first lesson on what we take for granted was ...POWER!  We completely take electricity, lights, air conditioning, refrigeration, etc. for granted.  We don't think of them.  We just use them and they are always there.  We also take for granted the Firemen who come to our aid and the power guys who restore power.  Not to mention the great neighbors we have and how take care of us!

So, since we obviously are not going to have power for awhile I load the kids into the car and we head over to the Sept. 11th Memorial that we also attended last year.  I had been thinking that we would go over for a few minutes sometime during the day since it is Sept.  11th.  I think it is important for our family to acknowledge the tragedies each year and pray for our Country.  I was also thinking maybe we would take a break from our very organized day and go fly kites for awhile, but with no electricity the garage door opener would not open and the kites were trapped!  LOL  The memorial was wonderful and we added a few more things we take for granted to our list...


Around 11:30 a.m. one of the neighbors called to say the power was back on.  So we headed home.

Time for some school FINALLY!  LOL  My 3 year old has been begging to dissect the BIG frog we bought a few months ago and so today was the day!  The dissection went great!  It was fun for all 3 kids ages 3 to 13! 

Ready to dissect!

Little Scientist!

This is another set I have that shows the metamorphosis stages of a frog.  I figured why we were learning about frogs we might as well throw this lesson in too!  LOL

My 3 year old sorting frogs with the tweezers from the dissection kit.  This kept him happy for quite some time!

Mad Scientist!  LOL

Gutted!  :^)

A word from my oldest!  "Cool Mom, most kids don't get to put the frog back together after they dissect it!"  LOL  He is always the comic relief of our family!

So what did we learn we take for granted from the frog dissection?  The pamphlet that came with the kit really stressed how by learning about the frog we learn about our bodies.  We learned that stomach acid can eat through a wooden table but we have it inside us every day!  We learned what our heart, lungs, kidneys and etc do.  We learned what bile is and why our body needs it. We were reminded that we are fearfully and wonderfully made!  Yet we take out miraculous bodies for granted every day! 

At night when we said our prayers we talked about all the things we had learned during the day.  We listed the things we were made aware of that we really do take for granted!  Then we thanked God for all those things and the fact that we have such wonderful lives we are able to take so many things for granted! .  Yeah, it wasn't the day I had planned, but it was much better!  God is good! 

Maybe we will start math tomorrow... Maybe?