It's been a lazy day

We weren't able to make it to the play date in the park. :( It's okay, though, we need to conserve gas, and right now I can't justify driving all the way to Opp, especially with things being so tight. Maybe next time. :)

We printed out a wall calendar to hang over our chore charts since Beau was so interested in that form of a calendar. He likes being able to see how far away certain dates are, like Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, everyone is getting excited about it. Beau is saying he wants to be something from the movie Cars, Xander wants to be Batman, and Bella is of course leaning towards being a princess (again, hehehe). Hopefully we can make our costumes at home this year in leiu of buying them from the store (which would be so expensive!).

Also, we're starting to think about Bella's birthday party, which will have a princess theme. I'm thinking of buying her a Sleeping Beauty costume and letting her wear it that day, and possibly putting together a few extra things for her dress-up drawer as her gift. We'll probably have the party here at our house again. That seems to work out the best.

We got to play Go Fish with the math flash cards this morning! It was really fun. Beau caught on quickly, and we played three hands of it. Math without even thinking about it!

Then we played the Wow Wow Wubbzy memory game with the cards you match. Xander had to practice sitting patiently and waiting for his turn - he really is getting better at that.

The Green Eggs and Ham interactive storybook has really captured their attention this morning. Beau loves computer games, so one of the main tools he uses is the computer and the educational games Mom and Dad gave us a few years back. They're games Mom used to use in her own classroom when she taught kindergarten.

I came across the House Guidelines the Duggar famiy uses, and I basically love them. I want to make a poster with them written on it to hang in our "classroom." They are:

1. Always use soft words, even if you don't feel well.

2. Always display kind actions, even if you have been mistreated.

3. Show joyful attitudes, even when no one else is looking.

4. Have sincere motives with no thought of self-gain.

5. Think pure thoughts.

6. Always give a good report of others. Never talebear unless physical harm will come to someone. Use Matthew 18.


7. Never raise a hand to hit.


8. Never raise a foot to kick.


9. Never raise an object to throw.

10. Never raise a voice to yell.


11. Never raise an eye to scowl.


12. Use one toy/activity at a time.


13. Never let the sun go down on your wrath. (Don't go to bed angry or guilty.)


14. Amendment J.O.Y. - make serving your family a priority - put Jesus first, others second, and yourself last.

I think all of those are good advice for anyone, really. I also like the way they're called "guidelines" and not "rules." It's the same way we "play games" instead of "do lessons." :)

Interesting day...

We started the morning with changing the calendar, which led to a discussion about the new month and how long it's going to last. I explained that there are twelve months in a year, and drew their names on the board. Beau was really interested in how many of them start with the same letters (January, June, July; May, March). Then we drew a wall calendar-type of calendar and talked about how it shows the same information as our regular calendar.

Beau played Buzzy at the Airport and Xander watched him play while I fixed snack. Bella likes to watch me fix snack, so she was right there with me.

After snack, Beau wanted to finish a mini-game in Buzzy at the Airport, so I set up the math flash cards while he played.


This was our first time playing with the math flash cards, and it went over well. Beau easily recognized the smaller groups and called out their numbers, but he had to stop and count when it went past six. He enjoyed it, though, and it shouldn't be a problem getting him to want to play again. I'll try to devise a "Go Fish" type of game with the cards soon.


Then we played with onset-rime blending with the Larry Boy puppet. Larry Boy is having trouble speaking, and when he tries to say a word like "fish," it comes out like "fffffff-ish." The onset sound is "f," and the rime is "ish." The object was to get the kids saying the words like Larry Boy would without being told how. Beau caught on quickly, and Xander tried, as well. Bella called out the names of the pictures as we went along. Everybody loves the Larry Boy puppet. :)

And then something unexpected. (The unexpected often happens when you have small children.) Bella was climbing up on a stool and tipped it over on her big toe. It was a wooden stool, and it hit her toe pretty hard. (She wasn't supposed to be playing with it, of course.) I dosed her with some Tylenol and put her to bed when propping her foot up and letting her rest on the couch didn't seem to help.

She's fine now, though. :) She woke up from her nap and announced, "I all better now!"

A friend of mine told me about a play date with a homeschooling group in Opp. It's tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at Opp Park. I've never been to that park - I don't even know where in Opp it's located - but I want to go. I'd love to be part of a homeschool group! Tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to happen, though; Steven has a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and I've still got to get the check and deposit it and all of that. But who knows? I'd like to try to go to this thing.

Morning

I used to play music all the time, no matter where I was or what I was doing. Now I'm beginning to understand the sweet music of the early morning, with nothing but the hum of the fan in our bedroom to break the silence around me.



The coffee in my cup begins to lift the fog in my mind, and I begin to come awake. I think I'll do my personal Yoga practice this morning in the quiet. I'll probably end up helping to teach our small class again today at school. I think the instructor is training me, in her way. Does she see in me a potential to teach?



Today, our plans are: of course to change the calendar and track the weather, and I'm thinking of pulling out that math activity with the beads I've been saving. I've been nervous about the chaos that will surely ensue whenever Bella and Xander get their hands on those beads, but I think that if I can take my Mom hat off for a moment and relax, I'll be able to enjoy the mess and not worry if the living room gets strewn with those beads, as long as they're learning and having fun.



Besides, with the advent of our new chore charts, cleaning has never been easier!

I have a blog for everything else, so why not?

Besides, I enjoy setting up new accounts, hehehe.

I plan to use this sort of as a journal for what we're doing, and also as a way grandparents can stay up-to-date. Also, I'll probably use this space to vent and/or brag a bit whenever someone conquers a milestone or when we do something especially interesting.

I don't want to have to type out every single thing we do every day all at once, so I'll start by talking about the one thing we never fail to do, even on days we aren't technically "doing school." Our calendar.

We have a pretty elaborate homemade calendar. It consists of a corkboard and some hand drawn words and numbers. Example: we have a sign that says "today is" and then underneath is the day of the week it is, the month, the number date, and the year. Over to the side is another sign that says "yesterday was," and another that says "tomorrow will be." Oddly enough, I gleaned those last two ideas from high school spanish class; it was an effective way to remember what the names of the days of the week were. Same concept with us!

The kids have really cottoned on to the days of the week thing, usually telling me what day it is before even being prompted. Even Bella will join in when they yell it out! We sing, "Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday Friday, Saturday," to the tune of "Oh my Darlin Clementine," to help them remember. It's worked wonders!

The calendar is bright and colorful, each with cut-out letters in one color on a different colored background, and of course different colors for every piece. It probably will never be "finished"; we're adding new things to it all the time. The kids love it and they never fail to remind me to "do the calendar" every day.