Not a lot going on today. We are in the final prep of NaNoWriMo which starts on Monday. Freeboy has almost completed his story board/comic guide for his novel. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to have a 50,000 word novel by the end of November. This will be a challenge but Freeboy can do it! He seems very excited to begin writing on Monday.

Summary of School Work:
Bible: Memorize the OT Books
History: Build a clay model of the Ark and Flood
Vocab: (will have to check)
Creative Writing: Story Board chapts 7&8
English: Holes Book Report
Science: Energy
Math: Roman Numerals
Other: FT to the Farmstead

Really, Seriously?! Yes, Forever...

One of the many home project going on is the remodel of my bathroom. Without going into TOO much detail, which would be boring and not interesting, the builder of our home did not prepare the walls correctly and then applied wallpaper to them without trying to do it right. This left the walls needing to be completely covered in mud and consequently needing every inch to be sanded. Just to give you an idea of the endeavor the room is big enough to house a family in a 3rd world country and the ceilings have a gorgeous 13 foot vault. As I was on the ladder sanding and shop vac-ing the dust, my son tried to yell something at me. At first all I heard over the noise was, "blah blah bla blabitty blah blee." So I turned off the shop vac and asked what he was saying. It was really confusing at first because he was asking about numbers and something about a cup. The It dawned on me that it was Monday. Monday was the day the museum was drawing the deeds to the "Forever Cup" we saw last week. When my son was getting a drink (in a cup, hahaha) the museum called and was leaving a message that he was drawn to be a recipient of a Forever Cup! I was shocked but shouldn't have been because I had been praying that he win a cup. I am very thankful that he was privileged enough to be entrusted with a valuable piece of art. Here is a link for the Forever project: http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions/twomey/index.cfm

Simply Add Boiling Water

We had an amazing trip to the museum last week. Our busy schedule and defeat of Mathmonster took us away from the computer (not a bad thing). Our adventure started in Egypt where Little Bit discovered the first of her many favorite things..the MUMMY. There was a picture of what the museum believes the mummy looked like in real life. They used scans to compile an image. More information can be found at this link: http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/mummy_facts.cfm

The continued tour took us through the ancient art collection ( http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Ancient.cfm ). Amazing statues, painting, suits of armor, stained glass, and painting surrounded us. Freeboy was still on a mission to find something he liked and identified with.

As we left the ancient art we entered the painting galleries. Among the great finds were a Renoir, The Clock Tower in the Piazza, and a painting of a cat with fish. Here is an interesting tidbit of information about the Clock Tower painting, the artist took out an image of a man but didn't take out his shadow!

As a kid I visited the museum. However, in the 5 years we were gone from the area the museum expanded and added a huge new wing. We decided to venture through the new, contemporary area and on to the photography exhibit. In the contemporary area we viewed an amazing display of 1000+ cups. The cups were a replica of an ancient cup in the museum. As we were walking through the display a museum worker informed us that we could fill out a deep for a cup and put our name in a drawing to receive ownership of one. Knowing we had little chance to get one I stifled my thoughts and dutifully filled out deeds for the kids and myself. Upon completion of our deeds we descended the stairs to the photography exhibit where Freeboy found the item he identified with! There, in the small corner of the great hall was a photograph depicting a fire. The fire was a night blaze and the "old time" firemen were drenching the tall building with water. The tiny, important detail that I missed but was not lost on my son were the ironic words printed on the middle of the building..."Simply Add Boiling Water". Never one to miss a play on words or irony in any form, Freeboy found his treasure of the day!

Is Math Monster in Our Schoolroom?

The ongoing saga of Math Monster vs. Myson continues today as Myson resists the repetition and processes of long division. Determined to create a new way of doing math (left to right instead of right to left) Myson is frustrated with corrections and multiplication to check answers. Cooler heads are prevailing as I sit next to him and have him battle Math Monster....defeating him one correct answer at a time. Myson is talking through each step of the process as his sword (pencil) is swung. With each and every multiplication answer that matches the starting question a fatal blow is dealt to Math Monster!! Math Monster will be defeated and Myson will be victorious. **And the crowd goes wild! One more answer is correct!**

Rain, Rain Went Away; Let's Do the Laundry Another Day

My biggest challenge in homeschooling (other than keeping the kids from fighting and being interested in the lessons) is to keep up with the housework and do school at the same time. A couple weeks ago our washer blinked the dreaded "F1" code. Full of wet clothes it screamed to me every minute to come figure out what was wrong. Using my trusted assistant, Google, I discovered that the "F1" code ailing the washer meant that a fatal motherboard malfunction was occurring. No worries, since this is something going wrong with a lot of washers of the same production date it would be covered by the manufacturer despite being out of the warranty period. WOOHOO!!! The one problem...they couldn't come to fix it for 2 weeks. As I continued to climb the ever growing Mt. Dirtylaundycan'tgetdone to get in and out of the bathroom I realized that doing laundry was one of my favorite chores!! However, cleaning the kitchen isn't a favorite. BUT as long as I wasn't doing laundry the kitchen was clean. WOW, what a discovery. I had not realized how much easier it had become to keep the entire 1st floor of our house clean as long as there was not laundry to clutter up various rooms of the house. The second story is a beast all of it's own. Dirty laundry is spilling from every corner available (except the school room). The good news? Today is the day the repair man came. It was such a blessing to see his truck and he even bent over to pick up a package on my doorstep to hand to me. What a gentleman!! After he fixed the washer free of charge he looked at the dryer and fridge (also experiencing minor illnesses) to tell me what was ailing them and how to fix them myself. This will save us about $300 and my little universe of clean laundry will be in order again. Tomorrow will include may hours or washing, drying, and folding. Not to mention many gallons of water, bottle of detergent, and a box of fabric softener sheets. I can already smell the intoxicating scent of clean laundry. Now, how do I do mounds of laundry and school at the same time? Easy peasy lemon squeezy! When I am teaching the washer and dryer will be working. When the kids are doing paper work I will be folding and hanging. I think that is why laundry is my favorite chore: I can do it with the kids close, the timing is about the same as a lesson, and it is easy to do while doing school...and it smells soooooo good!! I still don't know how to manage the rest of the cleaning while doing school but I am sure I will figure it out in the next 12 years and if I don't the kids will move out and I will be able to focus only on the cleaning.

Lesson learned: I can't do it all, the kids need to start doing "Proper care and maintenance of the home" (chores) again.

Summary of School Work:
Bible: Book on Noah's Flood
History: Vocabulary words and important people review
Vocab: Word Stories
Creative Writing: Setting-create 5 settings for your book
English: Using senses to describe
Science: None-ran out of time
Math: "big" division

Tears or Rain?

Tears of joy are now falling from the eyes of Darling Son. It seems like the possibility of Toys-R-Us was too distracting. Now that there is no possibility of a distracting trip he was able to relax and do his math! Happy...happy...joy...joy!! What took 30 minutes of whining and crying earlier was completed in less than 5 minutes and tears of joy replaced frustration.

Lesson learned: Never try to use shopping as an incentive to complete school work. Totally my bad and not his.

Summary of School Work:
Bible: Gen 8&9
History: Compare and Contrast 2 flood stories with the Noah flood
Vocab: British English word origins
Creative Writing: Conflict
English: Adverbs and How to Research for a report
Science: School Class-Matter
Math: I don't wanna talk about it any more

Rainy Monday

You would think the rain set the mood for our school day. All was well and quiet as we started our day with waffles. Smiles were exchanged...kids bellies were full and happy...school started off well...then Darling Son decided he wanted to wait to do Math. "OK", I said, "BUT you have one hour to do it after we get home from your class. Any incomplete math will be homework to get done after all other work is done".

Why is math so scary for him? Is he just being lazy? Lack of confidence? He has the ability but no desire to figure out 4270 divided 45. Dividing 427 by 45 is not easy enough. It is easier to stand at the chalkboard and whine about how hard it is. Would it have gone better with the sun shining? Maybe. We have 4 minutes left on the clock and 2 problems to complete...my bet is that there will be 2 math problems left for homework.

Still left in our normal day: English, Bible, and History. Looks like another long day of teaching since it is already 2:00. So, I am stepping away from MY "chalkboard" and I am no longer going to whine.

1 hour on the timer for English-Topic: CONFLICT-shouldn't be too hard...and...GO!