So..

A lot of the pictures below are from my cell..via facebook so they are BIG or slightly distorted..I apologize!

 

I am working on getting myself blogging at least once a week now.. I need a new point and shoot camera.. the DSLR is great..but too big for when we hike and such.

 

We are going back to Disney in the fall.. can not wait!!

 

The kids are taking their end of the year test in 2 weeks!! Thats exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Ziah has caught up reading wise but is still “behind” in math.. taejan..well he’s still Taejan and “behind” in everything.. it is what it is..lol

Little Catch Up post:

I have been very bad at taking pictures and blogging..I’m horrible..here’s a quick look at some of the things we’ve done over the last 11 months:

We dissected cow eyes:

Cantered the Country:

Studied Physics:

started our new Baseball season:

Gone Geocaching:

played basketball:

went to Disney again

spent a crazy amount of time with friends:

Hiked:

Had a great Christmas:

we’ve enjoyed Xander a lot:

and lots more!! Oh and in August I stopped bartending so I’ve been a much happier ( and poorer) mom!

Hello again!

I’m BACK.. at least for today. So how is everyone? We are most excellent here. We just finished up our school year and are on a short break. We will start up “Summer school” in a week or so. During this down time I have been getting ready for next year .. one thing we had done for half of this past year was a varied version of Workboxes, and we had a chart for each kiddo that they would move various topics along each day as we completed them. At the end of the week each space each subject moved was worth a point. The points were for spending at school store ( items I have purchased on clearance or at the dollar spot/store). The poster we used to keep track was LARGE.. I wanted something smaller so here’s what I did!

I bought 3 of these:( note they are the SMALL tri-fold’s)
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Then I spent and afternoon cutting up construction paper and decorating them:( this one is Taejans)
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this is what the “finished” product looks like:
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I kept it low color and low key.. I figure the kids can add more stuff if they desire and it also leaves it expandable as we add other topics.

I used the workbox tags, shrunk the printing scale and laminated. I also purchased small velcro dots as the “normal” size ones are too big!
On this side are our 5 day a week subjects:
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then the center has the tasks we do 5 days a school week
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and then the subjects we only do 2 days a week.
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The kids advance each item ahead for every day they complete a subject or a task. The smaller size and ease to store these has me excited for using them in the fall!

Welcome!

I know I don’t blog much anymore..does anyone?heck does anyone read?

So we’ve been busy..basketball and life and oh yeah…On Feb 9th Noah and his fiance had their son! Alexander Deric 7pounds 4 oz and 20.5 inches long..he’s perfect!

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Christmas “Village”

Every year my kiddo’s do a Gingerbread house..and they drive me nutso. There is never enough frosting with the kits to both secure the houses and decorate them. This year I decided to try something different.

items needed.. pre-packaged Gingerbread house ( or village as we had this year), and a pack of marshmallows like these:

You the microwave them in a bowl for 45ish seconds and you can dip or spread the warm melted marshmallow on your gingerbread and stick it together like a pro!

Since the marshmallow is instantly sticky the houses are set and ready to go right away. We then used the frosting to decorate:

I melted more marshmallow and spread it like snow around the “scene” and stuck the ice cream cone tree’s we made earlier in the week in the snow :

And there we have our new Village!

File Folder Workboxes

We have implemented a form of workboxes again. We used to use drawers but now in a space saving effort we have gone to file folders. We have been away from workboxes for awhile but it was apparent we needed to go back to some form of organization..so we have!

First off I ordered a organization center pocket chart from Amazon.com .

Next I got some good hooks that would stick on our window wall ( schoolroom is a 3 season room that is mostly windows!).. next we hung it. I bought a pack of colored file folders per kiddo so they each have their own color. Labeled each pocket and this is what we have now:

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Each child has his/her own row:
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The folders then either have whole books to use, lists of lessons to do in their textbooks or worksheets/activities to reinforce what we are working on.
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Once the kiddo is done with that folder they take the bale and flip it around so I can visually see they completed it. Each afternoon I remove the work they did, mark off done assignments and/or reload the folder.

So far this is working very well!

Instrgram

I am totally addicted to instagram now.. so if you are reading and you are on it..find me:

justacrazymom

Leave a link?

I know I have some readers out there.. I’m looking for some new blogs to read..to help me get back into blogging..so please…leave me a link?

I’m back!!

Well hello there.. not sure if anyone is reading.. why would you it’s not like I post often. I am going to try hard to update this site more..I promise!

So I’m going to skip a huge catch up post.. no point..it’s been too long since I posted much! I will start with September. We did nOT start school like the rest of the world..instead we took a 3 week vacation:

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No long trip report this year..I wrote one.. it’s on the message boards I go to WDWmagic

The rest are not in any particular order..but all occurred in the last 2.5 week..lol.

Taejan is back using reading eggs and progressing nicely!

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it’s sometimes frustrating for him as you can see:
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We have been using our stash of educational games a lot.. almost daily.. it’s a nice break from book work but continues the learning:
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We went apple picking with some friends who are new homeschoolers:
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We took a field trip to Yankee Candle ( complete with a tire blow out on the side of the road and 2.5 hours of waiting there for it to be fixed..good times!)
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after my kids wrote their letters to Santa I saw this tacked up..too funny!
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We went on a field trip with a few families to a local farm.. we got to pick pumpkins, go on a hay ride and play:
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So far our year has been stellar.. the kids are easier,more independent and Taejan has really calmed down..
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Taejan has been helping me cook..often..here he is making meatloaf:
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He has some pencil grip issues so we got these awesome helpers and they have made a world of difference:
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He has taken 4 tests/quizzes thus far..scoring 100% on each!
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We are going thru a quick US History review and when we learned about the voyages across the sea we made Ship Biscuits like the people on the ships would have eaten:
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Here’s Ziah practicing her times tables:
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and all 3 working on some science:
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Taejan using our old Math U See blocks and a quickly made “number street” to learn about place value..it finally clicked with him!
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Declan using my iphone to do some work..I love the apps..they are making my year so much more productive!
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In an effort to help Ziah’s reading we went back to basics.. she’s doing Learning Language Arts Through Literature Red book… she’s flying through it.. and here she is doing some ABC order:
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Declan has taken his big brother role much more serious and does a review of our History with Taejan:
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We got this new game The Reading Game and it’s awesome in helping with sight words..Ziah is reading one of the books:
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Declan doing some reading comp:
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Math for 2:
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and for one:
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Our behavior chart..life saver.. has totally helped our days ( and nights).. so glad we took this step!
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more science:
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Another learning app:
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and math..lol
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a nice craft:
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Physics:
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So we are all caught up now!

Anyone around?

We are very busy wrapping up summer, getting ready for our actual vacation and then , of course, getting school stuff ready. Anyone actually reading this? I want to get back blogging but not if I am blogging for the wind!