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Thursday, February 27, 2014

One homeschool day...

It's about time for me to post one of these "day in the life of" posts again, so I was excited when Tristan from Our Busy Homeschool hosted a "one homeschool day" linky.  I immediately did it the next day which was not a normal day for us.  It was a day with appointments, and running around.  Not a typical day for us, but certainly a type of day that happens when life happens.

We started out our day around 6:30 am with Aric being the first one up like usual, and right on time.  I usually let them watch a show until about 7:00 am when I'm more ready to wake up.  I lie on the couch during this time, or if I'm feeling more chipper than usual I get up and get started.  Mornings are hard for me to get going.

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I usually turn on Wild Kratts.  On this day I was more chipper, so I checked my email on the ipad, took some pictures for this post, and got started on some dishes that I left from the night before. 

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 At 7:30 all the boys are ready for breakfast.  They moved to the table after their shows were over.  I ask Aaron to pose for a picture with his completed reading chart that he finished the night before at bedtime.

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 I didn't have a lot of time for a big breakfast this morning since we were scheduled to head out the door.  Cereal it is for the kids!

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 I start with a vitamin drink.  I don't drink coffee, so this is my energy boost for the day sometimes.  I decided I would really need it today since I stayed up way to late the night before!

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 Love that they are hugging and not fighting!  We have had plenty of spilled bowls of cereal over arguing brothers.

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 I change the numbers on the calender because I remember.  It doesn't always happen.  This is the day that we are sharing.  Time for me to eat breakfast.  No picture of what I ate, so I don't remember.

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8:17am free time.  The boys are playing computer, April is practicing the piano, and I'm off to the shower.
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 Yes, this is our very cramped, very unorganized computer/piano/school stuff room.  Someday I will fix it.

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After my shower I put on some music.  I like to put on some music in the morning before we get started, or in today's case before we leave.  Today I put on some fun music for playtime.  Aaron picked out this trumpet classical CD at the library.  It's pretty fun and upbeat.

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Aaron plays with Alex while the music is on, and I'm getting things ready to go to Daddy's physical therapy appointment.

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But, before we head out we have a quick chick holding session.  We realized we have been holding these chicks a lot less than our last ones.

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Talking while looking at the chicks.

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9:50am we leave for physical therapy appointment.  We drop Daddy off, and head to the church bookstore just over the bridge.  We all love going to any type of bookstore.  We didn't take enough time there so we stopped at Home Depot too.  Then we finally got the text that he was done.  We thought about stopping at Costco on the way home, but didn't.  We'll save that for another day, it wasn't urgent.

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 11:43am we arrive home.  Alex is sleeping, and it's time for lunch!  Again this isn't a normal day for us.  This is a bigger than usual lunch since Dad is still home with us.  We were having leftover tri-tip, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese.  It was super yummy.  I guess I should add that we do usually always have some sort of leftovers for lunch.  They just aren't always yummy steak with sides.

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 12:45pm lunch is over.  Time to see what school we can get done.  It's math time.  April is doing Khan academy, and Aaron and Aric are working in their horizon math books.

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1:10pm I sit down to read aloud High Time for Heroes with the boys.  I really can't remember what April did at this time.  I think she may have been working on her to do list for school work.

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3:00pm the boys have been difficult today.  We had a play date scheduled at McDonald's play land with some friends at 3:30, but at this point I had had enough. I decided that their behavior was not acceptable for it, and told them we were not going.  They were pretty upset.  It turned out to be a great afternoon though.  We watched a Dirty jobs episode about a bridge maintainer, and a nasa crawler-transporter cleaner.  Which lead to a lot of questions about the nasa vehicle transporter, which led to some more youtube videos about the crawler.  Which led to more videos of past rocket launches.  It was a very nice unplanned afternoon of learning about all the neat things that go into launch things into space.




I decided it was time for some cookies, so I pulled out some dough I had already made earlier in the week, and popped some in!

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Some more watching in our very messy living room.

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5:15pm time to head to wrestling mat club for the 2 boys.  April stays home with Alex until Dad comes home.  This was the last picture I shot before my camera battery died, so no more pictures.

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6:50 time for dinner.  Thankfully Dad started tacos for us while we were at wrestling!

7:15pm clean up dinner.  Get ready for bed/wind down time.

7:30pm story time.  On this night I put on a Dr. Seuss audio book in their room for them to listen to while laying down.

8:00pm lights out, and time for bed for all the boys.  April stays up a while longer.  I send her to bed at 9:30 usually.

After that it's my time to tidy up, read scriptures, blog, plan for the next day, and whatever else I need to get done.


That about wraps up one homeschool day for us!

I'm linking this up to:

 One Homeschool Day February

by
Desiree
 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

February photo challenge day 19: I'm done!

This challenge is no longer fun for me.  It's getting old, so I'm done.  But, here's one last picture from our day today.  We went to Bauman farms today to play, and I couldn't resist snapping a shot of this old tractor.

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 And now back to our regularly scheduled blog posting!  Hoping to share some fun things with you soon!

Desiree

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

February photo challenge day 18: looking down


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 We have baby chicks again!

 This is what I see when I look down into the chicks brooding box quite often.  All of them lying down together side-by-side in a row.  It's so cute.  I love having chicks again!

 

Monday, February 17, 2014

February photo challenge day 17: music


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Okay, time to play catch up!  I've been taking all the daily pictures, just not posting them.  This one isn't very creative as far as the picture goes, but this is true to the music that we listened to in the car today.

This CD is from the library, it's called The Water Ballet.  It's nothing spectacular, just a lady telling some stories and singing some songs.  All the kids loved listening to these stories and songs in the truck while we ran errands and stuff.  This is the same cd that April used to check out when she was younger from the library.

 

February photo challenge day 16: a memory


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Sunday roast with carrots, rolls, and potatoes.  Mmm...we talked about our memories as kids eating roast while eating this yummy dinner on Sunday night.  Looking at this picture that roast looks really small, and it was!  We almost needed 2 of that size for our family.  It was delish though!



 

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Weekly wrap-up: butterflies and chicks

Here's what we did this week.  It's not much.  We had leftover snow on Monday, and Tuesday a Dr.'s appointment for Hubby.  Then the rest of the week was Valentine's day stuff, getting Valentine's ready etc.

Art (and a little nature study):

We painted this monarch butterfly craft from learn create love.  Our butterflies are all out of their Chrysallises, so we sat and watched them while we painted.  It was a fun art project.  Loved the results too.

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Top left: Aaron's butterfly, Top right:  Aric's butterfly, bottom left: Alex's butterfly, bottom right: April's butterfly
Outside time and observations:

We have been getting quite a bit of rain this week, and sometimes we get these clouds that come through that drop a ton of rain.  This day it was pretty stormy.  April took these shots of the silhouetted tree against the dark cloud, and then the rainbow.  It's amazing to see what the weather brings sometimes!

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One day we made it to the park when it wasn't raining for a short time.  Another shot of trees against the clouds.
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One day the sun came out, and the boys wanted to play bubbles!  They found all kinds of bubbles we had from last summer.

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Lapbooks:

Aaron is working on a Mexico lapbook.  Aric is working on a months of the year lapbook.  And, April is working on an Ancient Greece lapbook.

For Aaron's lapbook project this week we read about Omar from our Children just like me book while eating homemade enchilada's for lunch.  Aaron learned how to make the enchilada's too!

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Aric is getting good at recognizing the months of the year.  He finished 2 elements for his lapbook.
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April's ancient Greece lapbook is there on the right side of the table.  She has been reading the Percy Jackson series.  Flying through the books.  She couldn't have picked a better time to read them because now we are embarking on this ancient Greece history unit.  She is recognizing a lot already.  Love it when things work so well like that!

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Other news:

We got chicks on Friday!

They are so cute and tiny.  I'm looking forward to fresh eggs again.  I have decided that having chickens is pretty cool, and worth all the poop.  The kids just love holding them. 

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 I'm linking this up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler's weekly wrap-up.

Desiree

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Q is for quick storm

Months ago I started blogging through the alphabet.  I left off at Q because I was stuck.  I'd like to finish at least once through the alphabet, so here it is the letter Q!

We had a huge quick downpour of rain immediately followed by this beautiful rainbow. April snapped these pictures out the back door.  I am thankful she was able to catch that!

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 Beautiful!

February photo challenge day 15: my handwriting

This is my handwriting, and that was my to-do list today.  Yeah, I only got 3 things checked off (actually 2.5 if you count that I only cleaned 1 bathroom).  And, I thought of several other things I needed to do, but decided not to bother adding them since I wasn't getting much done.  I'll blame it on the rain :-)

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 Oh, and one more little tid-bit.  I buy those little yellow legal pads in bulk from Costco.  They are my brain sometimes with all my lists, and other notes.