Fashioning Forky

One benefit to homeschooling is that they kids can wake up when they want.  Fortunately for us, we have early risers, so it's never been a problem of sleeping in too late.  One morning, I came downstairs to see all three menfolk reading at 6:15 a.m.  It was such a cool thing.  They were all lying there perfectly content reading.  It made me smile.
                                                                       Caroline was at her gymnastics class early this week.  Her class was way in the back of the gym doing the bars.  From what I could tell, it looked like she was supposed to flip herself up and over the bar.  She did it a few times, but then made a trip to the chalk bin.  She spent a solid minute moving her hands around in the chalk, and when they emerged from the bin, they were completely and totally white.  From where we sat (maybe 100 feet away), it looked like she was wearing very white gloves.  The chalk may have prevented blisters on her hands, but the ensuing dust cloud probably wasn't too good for her lungs.

The kids had their first week of CC.  They had a good start.  Josiah has the same tutor that he had last year and he loves her, so he was thrilled.  Henry, who typically has a tough time on 'first days' in general, did really well.  He liked his tutor and he walked out of class with a smile.  That speaks volumes with him.  He did say that he didn't like the after-class as much, but then proceeded to tell me all the fun games he played with his friend.  My question to him was, "Were they strict?"  Yes.  Caroline, meanwhile, really liked the after-class.  It's just a two hour window of play time for them, while Josiah is in his afternoon Essentials (grammar/writing) class.  This year he has a new tutor for Essentials, but it ended up being the very first tutor he ever had in CC and he loves her.  So, it's been a great start to CC for the kids.  After CC we went to a park with a few other families.  The kids had fun, but it was ridiculously hot.  The weather the past three or four weeks has just been so hot that it's nearly impossible to do anything outside.  I keep looking at September with hopes of somewhat cooler temperatures.

The kids had a good Saturday.  We made a quick trip to the library where Henry got his very own library card.  He was so happy to finally get one.  After the library we went to the movies  to watch Toy Story 4.  You know it was good if Henry and I stayed awake for the whole movie.  The only unfortunate thing about the movie was we got two large buckets of popcorn.  Those two buckets came with free refills.  So imagine five people eating four large buckets of movie theater popcorn and then going home to a house with three bathrooms.

The movie theater also had an arcade inside.  The kids asked to play all the games, but we (I) wasn't going to spend money on them.  Todd kept telling me that you could get 100 games for $20.00.  Smile and nod.  Smile and nod.  The kids pretended to play each and every game and finally got to one of the very last ones, picked up the guns and the game started up.  They played it long enough that they actually got bored with it.  Still the game kept playing.  Caroline tried her (pretend) luck at guitar hero.  They had a good time and it would not surprise me at all if Todd purchased the incredible $20 deal at some point in the near future. 

Today Josiah was over at the neighbor's house and he made himself a Forky from the movie.  Months ago, ever since the previews for Toy Story 4 came out, Josiah has loved the new character Forky.  He's been asking me to buy him a spork and pipe cleaners to fashion him out.  Sporks are not the easiest thing to find, nor did I look that hard.  He settled on a plastic spoon from the neighbors and they had all the other materials.  He ran home to keep it safe from their ensuing Nerf war.

With school in session, our weeks are slightly less exciting.  Google did make it nostalgic, though.  Every week when I upload my photos they create pictures for me to save.  Recently they've been creating a lot of "then and now" pictures.  This one of Henry showed up today.  Oh my goodness do we miss those cheeks.

School Is Back in Session

Monday morning.  Day 1 of school for the year.  By subject number two, child number two said he wasn't going to do it.  Really?  That's not how it works in school.  For whatever reason he just didn't want to get on board with the start of school.  He did end up finishing his work that day, albeit begrudgingly.  We had a loooong chat about the importance of school and how he should enjoy learning.  If he doesn't enjoy learning here, then he can go to a regular school, because it is important to develop a love of learning.  He opted to stay home and he was fine the rest of the week.  The public school kids went back Wednesday, so now that the school buses are a regular there is less resentment that we started a full two days before they did.  In their first day of school pictures, I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.  It's always interesting to see how that changes.  Josiah picked an artist (that's been consistent for a while now).  Henry picked police officer, and Caroline picked gymnastics teacher.  I also took the pictures after we finished all our work - more smiles that way.

We are repeating a science book that we did three years ago, so we redid a science experiment.  It is the one that covers Galileo's discovery that the speed at which an object falls is the same regardless of the weight of the object.  So, Caroline held up a ping pong ball and a golf ball at the same height and we watched them fall and land together.  The first time we did it, my phone didn't have slow motion video.  Now it does which made the experiment much cooler to experience.

Right before impact.

Caroline is becoming a perfectionist with her math.  She had a math test this week and she missed one question.  One.  The clock said 4:45 and she wrote 5:45.  She went into her room and cried for half an hour.  She did so well!  Clocks are hard and 45 minutes after an hour is the hardest! Besides that, she has said that she really likes first grade.
Meanwhile, Henry has transitioned to military time.  We ordered both Henry and Caroline new clocks for their rooms.  Henry's came with the option of setting it in military time, which he thought was really cool.  Now in his schoolwork, when he has to tell the time on clocks, he writes it in military time.

Mid-week, the kids were invited over to a friend's house.  This is Bobby, Josiah's most favorite friend, and they just moved literally down the street from our neighborhood.  All three kids stayed for three hours (without me).  When I went to pick them up, they got to play for another hour while Bobby's mom and I chatted.  When we finally got in the car, Henry asked that next time we talk longer so they can play longer.  All three of them basically want to move in with Bobby.  They have continuously asked to go back to play.  Every day.  All week long.  I asked Caroline what she did (as there was no one near her age) and Bobby's mom gave her a lot of Mickey Mouse goldfish and she got to watch Garfield.  Snacks and Netflix.  She was a happy girl. 

We had a repeat of Caroline's favorite things this weekend.  The boys headed off to another Skeeter's game while the girls stayed home.  Caroline really wanted me to take her to Sweet Tomatoes, but that would be an several hour happening which I wasn't too keen on doing.  So her second choice of food was pizza and breadsticks.  We brought some home and watched a movie on Netflix while we ate.  She was a happy camper.  After the movie, she wanted to play dolls.  My first task was to brush and braid Rapunzel's hair.  So, Caroline played dolls, while I spent twenty plus minutes brushing out tangles and braiding hair.  I'm a big advocate of keeping all doll hair braided at all times.
While we were having our girl's night, the boys were enjoying Star Wars night with the Skeeter's.  They got a Darth Swatson bobble head (we only do the baseball games for the give-aways).  Todd said that when they put the opposing team players up on the screen, they were dressed as Sith.  The Skeeter's were dressed as Rebels.  They had a good time, but it wasn't a very exciting game. 

I had a meeting/teacher training at church Friday night, so Todd took the kids out to Smashburger.  It ended up being a big night for both boys.  Josiah lost his very last tooth at the restaurant.  (The dentist threatened to pull it if he didn't get it out.  Incentive.)  Henry learned that when you turn off the car, the radio doesn't stop playing songs.  Todd said the radio was playing, Paint It Black when they arrived at the restaurant.  When they got in the car to go home, another song was playing and Henry asked about Paint It Black.  Todd explained how the radio keeps playing and never stops.  It was a light bulb moment for Henry.  Oh, so that's why the radio is always playing a different song when we get in the car.  Yep.

Well, Henry was told the three rules of Big Church and he got to test them out today.  1-Sit up. 2-Bring your Bible.  3-Draw.  Henry brought his Bible.  Check.  I think there should have been an explanation on what sorts of things to draw.  While he did draw, he drew Spiderman.  Check?  And he didn't sit up so well because he was hunched over his notebook.  Drawing Spiderman.  So, we'll keep working on the paying attention part.  Ironically, I had already planned on next week's character trait: Attentiveness.  My reasoning was because we start CC this week and I want to make sure the kids give each of their tutors proper attention.  Now, it'll have a broader meaning than just school, so that's even better.

Pirating? Not Gonna Do It.

I spent hours and hours and hours getting the school room back in order this week.  The first day all I did was clean up the kids stuff.  Three bookshelves full.  I went through every single paper they had and by the end of the day I had a full trash bag and a very full recycling box.  Another day I went through all their old stuff from last year and got it all boxed up.  Curriculum was next - picking what to do this year and who does what.  Finally I created our school calendar, with breaks included, all set for the whole year.  I've always been bad at adding in official breaks, so this year it's all in there.  It's going to be a lot of work with three kids in elementary grades.  One thing I've added for us is a Character Trait to work on each week.  We'll discuss it Monday morning, what it means, and brainstorm examples of it.  We'll keep it up on our white board all week to remind them of what to work on.  The first week is going to be Responsibility.  They all need to take responsibility for their work, to complete it all, and to do it to the best of their ability.  They all have a checklist of what needs to get done each day and they are responsible for it.  Currently the room is ready for tomorrow morning when school officially starts.  The kids have come in to admire the cleanliness and organization of the room.  Good.  Let's keep it that way.  I've said that before.  The kids have been amazing all week while I was working in the school room.  I was usually in there 3.5-4.5 hours a day and they played so well together.  I didn't have to break up any fights or anything.  It was a huge blessing.

2 out of 3 good kids.

My cleaning ended each day because we had to go to swim lessons.  Since the boys passed their last session, I thought we'd do another session since they were amped up to be green swordfish.  This was a short session - only 4 days long.  The boys absolutely loved their green swordfish coach.  Caroline was originally happy to stay an orange clownfish, until she discovered two girls were in her class.  She didn't want girls in her class.  No explanation.  I think she really would have preferred a class to herself.  On the fourth day, the kids all got their evaluation cards and they all passed.  They were each genuinely surprised.  It was really cool to hear their excited voices.  "I passed!"  The boys' coach left them with these parting words, "Keep playing Minecraft."  Henry, especially, has taken that as a direct order.  We went to our neighborhood pool on Friday and Henry was showing me how he could swim freestyle to the wall, then do a somersault, flip around, and start swimming backstroke.  It was so cool.  I tried to somersault in the pool and got water all up my nose.  Every. Single. Time.  Todd and I have said the kids have definitely passed our swimming abilities.

We are trying to finish up all the summer reading programs.  We went to Half Priced Books and turned in their July reading logs to get their $5 book bucks.  Josiah went immediately to the CD section looking for The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band Album.  God was looking down on me with favor at that moment.  While they had many Beatles albums, they did not have that particular one.  We are still all Beatles all the time around here.  He ended up with a coloring book and another Dav Pilkey book (the wonderful man who wrote Captain Underpants and other books of similar nature and humor).  Caroline walked into the store and picked up the first thing she saw - a white board map with the U.S. on one side and the world on the other.  She was really happy with her purchase.  She asked if she could use it for CC geography.  Henry got a Minecraft and a Pilkey book.

Henry and Caroline asked for trash cans in their rooms, so we finally got them some.  They were just cheap white trash cans, so we said they could decorate them with Sharpies if they wanted.  Caroline has enjoyed decorating hers.  She's been into the "birthday party" theme with her drawings.


Despite all the work we have done this summer moving furniture and painting rooms, the kids have all asked to sleep in Josiah's room every night this week.  The first night they all wanted to sleep on top bunk together.  They actually slept all night long in their little 2'x3' areas.  I really expected them to wake up super cranky the next morning, but they didn't.  It was a little weird.  However the afternoon after the scrunched sleeping, Caroline took a two hour nap.  She would have slept longer, but we had to go to swim.  After that we made them all sleep on their own mattress, so the three of them brought Henry's mattress to Josiah's floor.  Now they have both bunks and the floor on which to rotate.

While Henry and I braved the tax-free weekend and went school supply shopping, Todd stayed home with Caroline and Josiah.  They were watching Ninja Warriors on TV, when during one of the commercials they talked about one of the upcoming evening news stories.  It was about Porch Pirates.  People who follow the UPS/USPS/FedEx trucks and steal just-delivered packages off of people's porches.  It's a very common thing in this area (hopefully not our neighborhood, but just this area in general).  Caroline asked Todd what porch pirates were and when he explained it, she asked him why they did that.  Todd went into a moral lesson about stealing and how that's wrong.  She listened and asked questions like, "How do they know what's in it?  What are they going to do with it? What if they don't want it?"  Then she followed up with, "Can we do it?"  Steal people's packages?  No!  "What if you let us do it?"  I won't let you steal!  "But what if you let us?"  No.  God help us with that one.

Todd made an early morning run to Home Depot (sorry Grandpa) to get a piece to fix a leaky faucet this weekend.  He came home with Whataburger breakfast for the kids.  After handing out the food, Todd asked, "Who loves you?"  All three spoke at the same time.  Josiah, "Daddy!"  Caroline, "God!"  Henry, "Mommy!"  That's right son.  ;)  It's hard to earn points around here.

Henry had a special lunch after church last week.  It was for the rising 3rd Graders, because they are all going to "big church" now.  Before they had children's church for 1st & 2nd Graders.  (Caroline gets to start that next week.)  The Pastor told the kids to do three things in big church: 1-Sit up.  2-Bring your Bible. & 3-Draw (related to the sermon/Scripture passage).  That way they can stay focused and alert and not get bored or distracted.  Next week is Promotion Sunday, so we'll put these three tips to the test.

Tomorrow school begins.  It is hard to believe the kids are already in 1st, 3rd, & 5th grade.  We pray it goes well!

Ladies Night

We've all been in various stages of a summer cold around here, so we haven't done much besides swim and gymnastics.  It has been evaluation time for gymnastics where they check the skills of all the kids to see if they need to move up to the next level.  Caroline already had an eval done last week, but she was a bit floppy on some of the moves, not really giving it her all.  This time around, she had a 1:1 instructor and she did very well.  She didn't move up to the next level yet, as she has a few more skills to master, but she gave a much better effort.  She got "beautiful" and 4's on her bridges, donkey kicks, and some of her beam work.  She still needs to pull herself over on the bars (flip over it with the help of a block) and she cannot hold her chin on the bar for 3 seconds.  Upper body strength is her current nemesis.  Personally, I was completely fine with her staying put since we had just moved her class time to this new coach that she likes.  She is much better at her cartwheels and still smiles big when she does a good one.  It's amazing to see how many skills she has learned on the eval sheet.

Besides gymnastics, Caroline has been a cup tower engineer extraordinaire.  She made Rapunzel's tower, castles, pyramids, circles, many more shapes, as well as a divider in our stairwell so we have an up and down side.  Usually they'll last half a day or so before she destroys them to build another creation, but we had this big circle one for several days.

Henry and I took some time out for Battleship.  He played a perfect game - all hits, no misses.  His first guess on my board was a hit and it didn't take him long to discover my ships were in the shape on an 'H.'  He guessed accordingly and never got a miss.  The next game I got a 'hit' on his board early on and it appeared that he had his ships in the shape of a letter.  I thought it was an 'E,' but it should have dawned on me that Henry doesn't call me Erin.  His ships were in the shape on an 'M.'  Mom.

The boys did really well at swim this week.  They have been "Orange Clownfish" all summer long and I was getting a little frustrated that they weren't passing the class.  Then the very last class of this session, the boys were swimming the entire length of the pool, both freestyle and backstroke.  They looked amazing.  They got the somersault down pat.  That last day, the coach even pulled the boys out of the pool to teach them the butterfly and breaststroke, or 'breathstroke' as Josiah calls it.  When their coach brought their report cards over, he told me they could just skip the next two levels and join swim league if they wanted.  Swim league is not swim team, it's not competitive, but they do swim a lot more lengths of the pool and learn all four strokes.  Josiah was an immediate no.  He likes the lessons and he doesn't want to change.  Henry was interested in swim league, so we'll do that for him next summer.  It actually goes year round, but he's already going to play baseball in the fall so we can't have too many activities.
Caroline stayed an Orange Clownfish.  She still needs some endurance work, but even she has gotten so much better at swimming since the beginning of the summer.  She was happy to stay in that class.  She says it's the best one.

One of their favorite pre-swim things to do is swing and have flip-flop throwing contests.  They have to flick their flip flops off while they're swinging and see who gets it furthest.  Henry wins by a landslide every time.  When they're not throwing their shoes, they're spinning themselves into dizziness. 

Henry's dresser arrived this week.  It's an Ikea dresser, so we knew we'd have to assemble it.  You wouldn't think it would take that long, but it took us three days.  Three days!  We only had about an hour to work from dinner being finished to the kids getting ready for bed.  The directions showed a picture of two adults necessary for assembly.  What wasn't pictured was three kids all asking to help, Henry saying it was his dresser and they couldn't help, one kid leaving mad, another sticking around continuously asking to help, and Henry helping.  The first night we did the shell of the dresser.  The following night we did three drawers and the last night was the last three.  Henry now has all his clothes in his room, and he's a happy camper.

Josiah was sad to have Henry leave his room in the beginning, but now he really likes having his own room.  He loves having two beds.  He starts out each night going to bed on bottom bunk, but try as he might, he can't fall asleep on it so at some point he climbs up to top bunk to sleep.  He loves his art nook and uses it daily.  He loves that he can keep his fan on without Henry complaining to turn it off.  It's been good for both of them. 

Caroline got a special package from Grandad and Nana and now has pretty pink sheets for her new big bed.  It makes her room look much girlier which is to her liking.  I forgot to take a picture when the bed was made nicely, so here's Caroline thoroughly enjoying them in her sleep.

This weekend, Todd took the boys to a Skeeter's game.  Caroline wasn't interested in going, but she was interested in having a fun time with just me.  So as the boys left for the ball park, Caroline and I went to our neighborhood pool.  We typically go weekday mornings, so Saturday evening had a bit of a louder, rowdier crowd.  She only wanted to stay an hour which was fine by me.  We went home and played games and read books.  Meanwhile Todd and the boys were chowing down on hot dogs and funnel fries.  When they came home and rang the doorbell, Caroline let out an, "Ah, man."  She didn't want them home so soon.  She's looking forward to the next ladies night.  She's already started planning it.  First we'll go out to eat and then we'll go to a playground...


This next week is a week of getting the school room back in order and planning out our year.  I'm not looking forward to it at the moment as it's a little daunting given the state of the room.  Bit by bit, we'll get there.  We already started our math a few weeks ago so they didn't get too rusty on their skills.  Now to add the rest of the subjects!