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My friend in Alaska's kids sent our kids some letters and I had to realize how lacking my kids' "handwriting neatness skills" are . I hope it is not too late to improve their handwriting, but I am really going to work on it for the rest of the school year. Unfortunately, I accepted papers with barely legible handwriting from my kids, and was just glad that they did something. Not Anymore!!!!!!! From now on I hereby declare that if their papers are not neat, then they will not be acceptable and will have to be done over.!!!!!!!! How's that. Now I feel better............ |
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I thought this was neat about how to make a straw hat .
LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS Charlotte's Straw Hat When Pa harvested his crop of oats in late summer, he "cut the heads from several bundles of the oats, and brought the clean, bright, yellow straws to Ma." Ma then made hats for everyone in the family by braiding the oat straws together, and sewing the braid around and around. When she finished the hat, she shaped and dried it in the hot summer sun. Even though Laura was only five years old, she carefully watched Ma and learned how to make a little hat for her rag doll, Charlotte. To make a small straw hat for one of your dolls, you will need:
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Well, we spent the day running around town, but the kids brought their schoolwork and books to do in the car. We went library hopping for the last two days. There is a library in almost every town around here. The good part is that you can return books to any library, no matter where you checked them out. I think we have enough books now. It's a good thing there are no limits on the cards...... We love books. It's so nice and lovely to come home from town with a bunch of library books and the house is quiet because each kid is curled up in some cozy corner with their new books. The silence usually lasts for several hours before they make the trip down to the kitchen to sneak a bowl of mini wheats before supper.
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Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long. I guess several months have gone by . I really didn't mean to be gone so long. Actually I've been here, but just not writing stuff. We have started notebooking with the kids. Actually, we have been notebooking all along, but now we are doing it different. Each of the kids has a big 3 ring binder and has divided it into areas of interest. This doesn't have to mean "english" and "science" etc. They have sections like "horses', and "electricity", and "gardening" and "skateboard art" . You get the idea. We still have other standard sections, but it is now more fun. Sort of like scrapbooking. We kind of made it into a unit on organi- zation. We learned about To Do lists, and a list of things they each need to do in the morning. I am trying to get more organized myself. Order. We all crave order, especially the kids. Have you ever noticed how as soon as you get their toys all organized, they immediately want to play with them? When before, they just ignored the pile of stuff. Actually , I probably shouldn't mention this , but have you ever noticed that as soon as you get the cat litter box all nice and clean, the cats want to use it? even cats like order!
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The recipe for carrot pudding was a failure. The recipe forgot to mention any flour. So I added 3 cups and turned it into carrot cake. Oh well. I need to hang all the blankets outside today to freshen them up. I love the smell of laundry thats hung outside. The baby has a cold. Bye |
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Well, Today is Friday and we will plan to do lots of arts and crafts and fun stuff today. Already this morning , the kids made bug glasses out of styrofoam egg cartons. The little ones look like camelions running around. When Tatyana (3) saw herself in the mirror, she laughed so hard! The kids also need to finish up their reports. Anthony (13) is writing one on the history of Canada from the Vikings to 1580. Vincent's (8) is on Edgar Degas. Monica (11) is writing party plans instead. She has to come up with four very detailed themed party plans (including costs, food, decorations, etc) for an Egg party, a Porcupine party, a Mint party, and a Chocolate party. She LOves that kind of stuff. It's an incredibly beautiful day outside. The sky is perfectly blue and the leaves are so pretty. A good day for a picnic. Yesterday I made a big pile of cardboard, string, TAPE, tp tubes, egg cartons, etc, and told the kids to make some inventions. They made some very interesting creations. Tatyana (3) also made a huge interesting mess. The mess is still there. But I don't care. Actually somehow the whole house is a mess. Hahahahahahahahaha. I didn't get any sleep last night because of a toothache.Hahahahahahahahah. I don't know why I'm in a good mood.Hahahahahaha.I know the money will come so I can go to the dentist. Hahahahahh... Life is still good........ I found a really neat recipe for a steamed carrot bread that you make in canning jars, then boil them in a kettle for a few hours. The jars of steamed bread can them be stored on the shelf. Dessert in a Jar! maybe I will post the recipe later. I can't wait to try it. I also need to make more laundry soap today. That's a fun recipe too. Gotta go...
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Yessssss life is good. Our car payment is only 2 months behind now! And the electric stays on!!!! Now we can focus more on learning........ I will peel two bushels of apples for applesauce while the kids do their schoolwork and do two things at once. I still have to get all the beets canned. Then we have to go to the skateboard park today, so George and Anthony can get in two hours of excercise with their friends. Hopefully at some point we can do a quick house clean up. We also have to finish doing all the experiments in the simple machines kit. Friday the kids made wampum out of beads and string. The little ones really enjoyed that. This week we have to make some wire sculptures. We looked at the neatest house on Saturday..It was at the end of a dirt road with a 100 acres. The setting was like out of a dream.The kids loved it, and could run to their hearts content. Monica could raise collies. We could call it Greenfield farm because it overlooked a huge green hayfield and beautiful hardwood trees in all their autumn glory. We could have a huge garden . It needed work, but had two houses 25 feet apart which we could connect somehow. It had lots of little sheds for animals and apple trees and grapevines. It was a really good deal,,, If only we had some money and unruined credit...........it's good to dream...... |
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Today the kids were fighting over who had to watch the puppet show and who got to do the puppet show. Then Tatyana stood on the stage and did a solo concert and drowned out any possible attempts at a puppet show. Then Anthony did a show that was really funny about a chicken who worked for a cow who was taking over the town. The chicken had a father who was a pig that liked to eat eggs. Talking about the kids helps avoid the harsh reality of all the bills and knowing that we can't possibly pay them....I am running out of powdered milk to add to the milk to extend it.........Fortunately I bought a good size bag of rice a while ago to make a rice box for the youngest one to play with.... We needed it for meals instead! Today we will spend a little gas money to go try to sell some things so we don't lose the car.... I hope it is worth it. I won't even go into the painful problems with my teeth right now. I can live with it. I was able to find a few pair of jeans that fit Anthony at Salvation Army for a dollar each. His other pair was torn down the front and beyond repair. We also found some shoes for Monica for 50 cents. Now she doesn't have to be embarassed wearing old sneakers on Sunday. I know that God will come through for us. He always has. I have faith to believe that a better job will come through soon. We have been through so many times like this that we are used to it....The children have learned so much from these hard times and doing without. It has really helped them to appreciate the value of what we do have. The oldest son has changed so much in the last few months....He has become mature and serious about life. He is so much closer to God . We all are.......... |
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Today we start a new week of school. IT seems like the last two weeks we didn't get much done. The 1st week we spent cleaning and painting the dining room because we had company coming for the weekend. Now hopefully we can get back to work. This week we are studying Canada, The French and Indian wars, simple machines, and all the other normal subjects. The kids are making big notebooks. They each have a "world" notebook, a "Native American" notebook, a "States" notebook and a small "Simple Machines" notebook. They make a new lapbook/notebook for each science unit we cover. Then they each have a notebook for all the history/grammar/spelling stuff. They have been adding to the big notebooks for a few years, and will continue to add things as we study each country, etc. in the next few years.We really love using Learning adventures. This history based curriculum is really neat. We finally put our timeline up on the wall! It is fun for the kids to make all the little icons to put on it. It really helps in discussions to point to the timelime and see in time where we are. Gotta go......
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We haven't got much "school" done lately, but quite a bit of learning about real life. My husband came home for a few days.We sort of take a break from school when he comes home. He's an over- the -road truck driver. He was gone this time for 16 days. My kids are all learning what not to do for a living. This is really helping them realize that they need to start thinking about what each one is gifted in and persue it . I was outside vacuuming the cab of the semi and I was turning to go out on the step to vacuum the floor ander the seat and the next thing I knew, I was falling through the air( which seemed to last forever, and I was thinking all kinds of things), and landed on my neck, head and upper back. I laid there for about 10 minutes, wondering if I should move. An you clean out the cab of a semi. The kids had testing last Friday. Most of them thought they did pretty good, except dd#1 who had to go to the bathroom so bad she only did a few of the math problems.(Oh great) She said she thought that since it was a timed test, they only graded you on the ones you had time to do.. ..I guess.. I'll try not to think about it DS #1 is now into skateboarding. AT lleast it's good excercise, and good for coordination. I guess I'll go lay down, my neck is hurting...........
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yway , I survived. Don't wear flip flops when|
Here I am today wishing I had started school earlier in the day, so we could have accomplished more. However, since we had a big dishwashing battle this morning, which turned into a " cleaning the whole downstairs thing", we got a late start. Oh yeah, I forgot that I NEEDED to take a walk (or, if I was a kid I would say I needed to run away), and while I was walking and pondering ( de-stressing or something ), I had a great idea. What if we all worked together and made a really neat "nature trail" through the woods to the swamp, where we could go and observe frogs and geese and stuff.?Isn't that a great idea? Wouldn't it be good for the kids to promote health and fun togetherness? So I went back in the house and told everyone I had a great idea. They immediately stopped their frantic cleaning (before mom get's back) and listened intently. I said "Let's make a nature trail" ...silence. "You know, a neat trail through the woods that is all cleared with little signs naming unusual trees and stuff." more silence . #2son kid says, "what for?" So I make a little snack for them all first with squares of cheese and saltine crackers and apple slices. They liked the snack. #2son says "how did you cut the cheese into such nice little squares?" someone else says, " they fit so nice on the crackers" . Anyway, we all went outside , across the huge expanse of yard (which we will soon have to mow for hours on end.), and to the woods. We started to make the trail, clearing sticks and stuff. It went along pretty good for the first 5 minutes. Then #1son says "when I go outside I get all itchy on my arms, and what's this bug bite, and why do we have to do this?" #1daughter says "it's too hot in here, and there's probably mosquitos" Then we reach wetter ground.#2daughters's new white sneakers are getting black mud inside them. So we get a good idea of laying down as many sticks as we can find to make walkways . Everyone works hard breaking sticks. As we walk it gets softer and wetter. More Sticks! Logs! We need logs to walk on. #1daughter entertains #3daughter by pretending a bent over tree is a horse. Of course #3daughter falls off and starts crying. #2daughter keeps wanting to walk in the real soft part and I keep telling her to go back until we get enough sticks across it. #3son finds some neat ferns starting to grow. He attaches one to the end of a beaver-chewed stick. Then he notices some really neat moss. #1son finds an old junkpile . He gets distracted and starts digging around for stuff. H e gets some old tires and we put them in the mud to walk on. Then he proceeds to hang various things from a tree, such as an old vacuum cleaner, an old heater, and misc.He thinks it would be really neat to hang a whole bunch of junk in a tree, except he doesn't have enough string. (thank goodness). The baby has a dirty diaper of course The three girls ask if they can go in the house now. So I take them back, change the baby, and go back out . I find the boys still on the trail(Amazing). While I was gone they explored back to the swamp, and found out there's nothing to see except more wet, swampy woods. #2 son says he wants to go use the computer. So I tell him and #3 son that they can go in now. So it's just me and #1son. He says we really need a tractor to move logs in the right places to walk on. I say "yeah, you're right , it's too hard" So we come to the conclusion that we all got a little excercise anyway. Then we see a tiny little brown tree frog. It was worth it all after all. Anyway, we DID finally get some academic school done, but we also learned a few things in the woods.
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