Homeschool Mothers Journal

I never know what to put in the In My Life This week category or the In my Homeschool Week. Since they mesh together so much sometimes it is hard to find the line that separates them

In my life this week…
We purchased Vinyl Siding and windows for the house.  I will post before and after pics in a few  weeks after they have completed the work. My dilemma now is so figure out how to remove the concrete steps the last owner put snug against the wood siding at the back door. We may just have to get a jack hammer and break them up, which would be a shame since they are  very nice steps.

I went to the theater by myself which was like a mini vacation and saw Magic Mike.An ex of mine from my  very early adulthood ( pre children ) was a male stripper up in Canada so I felt compelled to watch it. The movie brought me back to my younger days. it's funny though the only other people in the theater was myself a woman in her 40's and another woman in her 90's ( maybe mother daughter) it was at a 10;00 show on a Wed. though! I hate seeing movies on the weekends when it is busy.

Owl  my youngest bird turned 3!

In our homeschool this week…
Art- We worked on Picasso working with water colors, oil pastels, pencil, crayons and paint. I will be getting a detailed blog post up about it next week.

While doing school work outside we were visited be a butterfly that we ran around and chased, to pictures of and studied. She was very friendly she let the kids get within inches of her and landed on my arm a few times to check me out. So we ended up doing a whole nature study on the butterfly we identified it as an Eastern Comma.


Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
The kids and I  cooled off and went to the theater to see

We found a HUGE new and used bookstore that just opened near us that offers books at a great price and it nicer than Barnes and  Nobles. This will defiantly be a store I could go bankrupt in. I am going to contact them to see if they would host a homeschool reading club during this school year. They would be  wise to do this I don't know of a homeschooler that doesn't just LOVE books an would quite possibly buy out the store each week!

My rant of the week…
The kids and I were at the mall and we walked into the family restroom room area and there was a 15-17 yr old boy standing there peeing in the toilet with the door wide open. I was mad! The men's restroom is just 6 feet down the hall, and seriously SHUT THE DOOR. As he walked out I stopped him and explained that his behavior was rude and inappropriate and that he should be using the men's restroom not the family restroom. I get so sick of seeing people who are not families taking advantage of the one restroom I can safely watch all my kids. The last 6 times I have been at the mall I have encountered this happening even by mall employees.I decide to file a complaint this week and went straight to  mall management. I am sure it won't do any good, they cannot control the behavior of others, but it did make me feel better.
We are reading…
I am still working through the 50 Shades of Grey books, I am now on book 3. I find each book even less interesting than the one before, wondering if I will make it through book 3 at all.

Falcon is reading Bridge to Teribitha (school literature unit I chose for him)

Owl and Duck have been pretending to ready Scooby Doo books to eachother.

Robin is still reading magic tree house book she at Hour of the Olympics now. She has also been reading many picture books from the library and some Charlie and Lola books, she loves those.

I am now on Book 3 of the 50 Shades of Grey series I find that each book I am less interested in reading.




A  quote to share…

Human Hamster Wheel Run.

In my homeschool week...

I usually homeschool 6 weeks on 1 week off year round but just going a little lighter in summer. This year I have been doing a lot less schooling than I usually do I feel somewhat  guilty about it but I just keep telling myself that my kids are ahead of where they should be, so going a bit lighter this year is okay. Especially since the 6 month trip to Argentina in November got cancelled so now I feel like we don't have to cram in a ton of info over the summer. I knew that if we went to Argentina we wouldn't get as much schooling done as I would here because we would be out exploring. So we are a bit more relaxed this summer.

What we are reading this week...

Robin is still reading through the Magic Tree house Series and is up to book #9 Dolphins at Daybreak. 

Falcon just started reading The The Bridge to Teribithia

I am still reading Fifty Shades Darker.

We did a science experiments to see if ants prefer butter or margarine. I saw this post on facebook and wanted to try it myself and see if it was true.

Margarine on left organic butter on right.

Well it's not totally true our ants  seemed to eat the margarine but defiantly preferred the butter. Look how all the ants are lined up next to each other to eat the butter. They are not doing this on the margarine. Wonder if they would prefer un processed cane sugar or refined white sugar, we may try that next week.

 Our ants ate the butter and the margarine but they seemed to prefer the butter. They were attracted to the margarine at first but they moved to the butter. I like the message of the blog post saying that ants wont eat foods that are not real but it is just not true. How many times have you seen ants swarm a McDonald's french fry? I don't even know if its even a real potato after they put all those chemicals and preservatives in it.

Fun Places we went this week..

The zoo

We haven't been there much since  main stream schools have been out because I don't like crowds but Duck has been asking me to go everyday for weeks. There was NOWAY I was going to go in 100 degree weather so went this week when it was only 83 degrees. I had a lot of fun with the kids and I decided that I am ditching my double stroller from now on. Duck (4) and Owl ( almost 3) weigh 70 lbs together plus the stroller weighs 30 lbs so a combined weight of 100 lbs that I am pushing around is not fun trying to get through crowds. So from now on they are walking and if they get tired we can  go  home (the joy of having a zoo membership).

The Science Museum

 Robin trying out the human hamster wheel

The chair Falcon made. He was so proud of his work, it took him 90 minutes to construct.

Duck's brain just works differently than my others kids, he is going to force me to re invent the wheel trying to teach him this year. The project was to make a food person out of healthy foods from all 5 foods groups (you can see Robin's finished project in orange to the left). Duck didn't want to make a food person he wanted to take all the caps off the glue sticks and sort them putting the caps back on the tray and the glue sticks to the right! Still learning I know!

 Me in 95 MPH winds bearing down on me. It's a hurricane force wind simulator.

My not so favorite moment of the week...

Duck started throwing up in the van so I handed him a cup to throw up in it and after it was nice and full he decided to throw it! So much for trying to contain the mess. Finger crossed that our nest has not come down with a belly bug and that it was just a fluke incident. I won't gross you out with a picture of that mess!

In my life this week...

I have decided to start my photography business back up.  7 years ago I had just started it but then lost my studio due to our main business expanding into that space and being pregnant at the time so I just stopped. After I took my friend's pictures a few weeks back I realized how much I missed it. So I am hoping to get some more pictures done soon so I can get a portfolio put together and website. When driving home from the zoo this week I came across some neat graffiti that is relatively new and as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to photograph it with people in front of it.

Here are a few shots I took while driving down the road. They are not great but you get the idea I am hoping to get some great shots of it next week. I have a very specific idea on what people I want in the picture and what I want them to wear.

I was looking for a quote to add to this weekls blog entry and came across this great one

 Which then lead me to this blog post  written by a complete stranger but whose words seemed to reach me in a very important way.

Melting In My Chair!

It's a scorcher out there. Most of the US is in record high heat this week, including us. Being in the 100's is not normal up here in the north and I am not happy about it. We do not have central air and the heat actually makes me physically sick due to varies medical conditions. So we have not accomplished that much school work this week because I just have not been feeling well.

We saw  BRAVE last weekend before Papabird left for Argentina ( he was nice and cool there this week since it is winter there while we were sweltering up here in the far north). I really enjoyed the movie and my homeschool brain was working  overtime watching it while thinking of all the educational opportunities it could bring. The plan this week was to do a BRAVE theme week. Studying Scotland, Bears, and vikings. We didn't get that far due to my lack of motivation to teach in this heat but we did get started. Here is a link to some craft ideas I found. We didn't get to that many of them and will continue more next week.

We did some archery

On the fourth of a July we went to a minor league baseball game and baked in the stands in 100 degree weather. Thankfully there was a quick rain that cooled it off a bit. After the game we stayed to see the fireworks that our city shoots of just 2 blocks from the stadium. This was the first time that Duck was able to see them, he usually falls asleep. He said "this is so cool I'm going to dream about this" so cute.

Duck enjoying a hot dog at the game sitting the the cement instead of his seat, go figure!

At the start of the game we heard Amazing Grace playing on the bagpipes, a wonderful tie in to our Scottish discussions this week!

Fourth of July wands we made wand brought with us to the baseball game

We cooled off my making fun nature cubes to play with in our sand water table.

A thunderstorm blew threw our city and took out tons of trees power lines and wrecked houses. We were lucky enough not to have been hit my mother in law was not so lucky she had 3 HUGE trees come down in her yard and on her porch but thankful not her house.

It was in the high 90's after the rain but the kids insisted on wearing their new rain jackets. They love running through puddles and splashing. Owl brought a cup with him and filled it with water from a puddle and drank it (YUCK!) before I could tell him no!

Falcon was shaking the tree to make in rain on Robin, Duck and Owl if you look closely you will see the water falling down.

Falcon Finished  reading:

I asked him to write a book report on it with the help of this awesome website it's a fun site that helps kids put together a book report like layers on a sandwich.

I am reading:

I read through the first book last week. It was good, just not as good as the Hunger Games or the Twilight series. It is defiantly very adult in context though. So far this book is better than book 1.

Cooking....

Noway, not in this heat! We have been eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies and more ice cream than I usually let the kids have.