Cells

We are in the middle of learning about cells in science and this is a cute video comparing eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells that we might watch tomorrow.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIR7uBhVPCIAa6X7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTByN2RnbHFoBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDBGdwb3MDMw--?p=prokaryotic+cell+for+kids&vid=5be3e51fb6a782a32ed98b5c1f1f4b96&l=1%3A46&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608011238974030912%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWRO-DPyB9Bk&tit=Learn+Biology%3A+Cells%E2%80%94Prokaryotic+Cells+vs.+Eukaryotic+Cells&c=2&sigr=11bb5pdad&sigt=11ts7d8o4&sigi=11rs8takf&age=1297447716&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av&b=31&fr=sfp&tt=b

Catching Up!

I cannot believe I have not written anything in over a week! That shows how busy we were last week. As much as my girls loved the volleyball and basketball clinics the last three weeks, I am glad it is over.  I felt like we really missed a lot of school time and I am anxious to get back to it this week.

I told Megan that it would be real hard to convince me to let her play volleyball or basketball with this homeschool team next year because their practices are always from 10:30-12:30 in the morning! This is the time for 5th and 6th grade.  I told Megan that even if they were at 1 pm, that would work much better! I felt rushed in the morning and we had to be out the door by 10.  We didn't get home until about 1, and by the time we had lunch and everything settled down, it was almost 2 before we got started on school again!  Too much school time gone!

But it is a new week and we are going to be halfway back on schedule.  Monday will be a full day of school, but then Tuesday, both girls have orthodontic appointments in the middle of the morning to get impressions done for their palette expanders and braces next week. Megan is getting only a palette expander and Courtney is also getting one plus five brackets across her front teeth.  The orthodontist only does impressions Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings from 9-11 (or something crazy like that)! It will totally break up our Tuesday morning again, but there was nothing else I could do!  We are supposed to go to a homeschool Easter party Tuesday at 11 am, but I think we are going to come back home and get back to school.

We have homeschool learning center on Wednesday from 11-2 and then PE on Thursday from 1-3.  I like to miss one full day a week (or two half days). We will have a full day of school on Friday!

As I look ahead the following week, we will also miss more than usual because I am attending a homeschool conference in Lincoln on Friday, the 10th.

Anyway, hopefully we can stay ahead of the crazy schedule and keep plugging forward with school work!

Attic Shopping!

What do you do when the sun comes out and you only have jeans and long sleeve shirts in your dresser?? You go attic shopping, of course!

Courtney is doing exactly that today. I have pulled the size 7,8, and 10 Rubbermaid containers full of clothes and at this moment, she is busy trying them all on! It is sure fun seeing her wear Megan's old clothes.

But of course, Christian and Megan cannot go attic shopping. Poor Megan can find nothing to wear lately. Even her shirt she wore to church this morning was too short! I think she grew again lately! I will need to take her consignment store shopping this week.

As for Christian, he has a few shirts and shorts from last year he can wear, but he also needs to go shopping.

I guess this might take up all our extra time this week!

Playing with Food?

I have found out a truth in the last couple of years when it comes to trying new foods.

If the kids can play with it or make a game out of it, they will probably eat it.

Many times, I have looked over and have seen Megan putting her food together as a "sandwich," such as the other morning when we had bacon and cantaloupe.

Today, I served tuna salad, peas, and romaine salad with grapeseed oil  We don't eat bread, so we just eat tuna salad on our plates and we have to use vegan mayonnaise because of the egg sensitivities. It's not the best, but it works.

I thought for sure I would hear a ton of complaining from the younger two, because they don't really like tuna. But today, I didn't hear any because before I knew it, Megan was taking her peas and putting them ON her tuna salad. But they weren't just peas anymore, they had become "monster eyes!"  Oh how much more fun it was now!!

Then the kids each piled all their peas onto their tuna salad and it was a competition to see how many "eyes" they could pile on their tuna! I just laughed! I guess whatever it takes to eat!

Before we ended, we also had peas in our "tacos", aka pieces of romaine lettuce, but that wasn't near as fun as "monster eyes!"

And honestly, Megan is usually the one that starts playing with her food and the others follow! Whatever works!!

What happened to this week??

This week has flown by! I feel like it was just Monday! I guess it helps when you stay busy, I mean too busy for me at times!

We had a full day of school on Monday, but then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all cut short.  The girls took a volleyball clinic on Tuesday morning and a basketball clinic on Thursday morning.  This meant we got one hour of school done in the morning before we had to leave!  The clinic went from 10:30-12:30, so we didn't get home until about 1.  We then had to get lunch and we often did not get back to school until 2 pm! There is not much I can get done in the afternoon, so we tried our best to get English, Math, and Spelling done on those two days! (This is one of the main reasons why Megan did not play basketball with the homeschool team over the winter- practice is in the middle of the day and we would get nothing done!)

We were really busy again Wednesday.  The girls have classes at the homeschool learning center from 11-2. Again, we get about 1 1/2 hours worth of schoolwork done in the morning before we have to leave.  By the time classes get over and stop by the library, we don't get home until about 3! We usually have to eat a little bit for lunch and again and then we try to get at least math done!

This Wednesday though, Christian's behavior was soooooo bad while we were at the learning center and at the library that I needed a break from everybody when I got home! We didn't get any school done in the afternoon!!

We are home ALL DAY today and I am glad! We are able to catch up on some school work and stuff around the house!

We will have the same crazy schedule next week with basketball clinic on Tuesday and Thursday and learning center again on Wednesday.

The girls keep asking me if we are going to have a spring break, I said we are barely going to school this week, we don't need a spring break!! (Honestly, it would probably be much easier and less stressful if I just took the whole week off of school!!!)

Random thoughts this weekend!

1.  When there is absolutely nothing planned on a Saturday, I can actually catch up on housework!! I got the laundry almost completely caught up, fridge cleaned out (shelves washed and everything), and the kitchen cleaned! I felt very accomplished yesterday.

2. While on the subject on laundry, I realized something yesterday. I will be glad when winter is over due to the ONE fact that I will not have all those socks to wash anymore! I did almost a whole load yesterday of just socks!

3.  I also had Christian's sheets to wash yesterday. For some odd reason, he peed in his bed twice last week and I didn't get to the sheets on Friday. But one thing I did learn, he really doesn't mind sleeping on the floor two nights in a row.  (I didn't have an extra waterproof mattress to put back on his bed, so he got a bed on the floor!).

4.  While I was at Wal.Mart yesterday, I bought an extra waterproof mattress pad!

5. Speaking of Wal.Mart, it was so much more pleasant to go there at 7 pm on a Saturday evening than at 3 pm on a Saturday afternoon!

6.  While we were there, I felt like we were on vacation.  Matt actually came with us yesterday to get something for himself, so we were there as a family. :)  The only time we got to Wal.Mart as a family is when we are on vacation and we need groceries! I wonder how many different Wal.Marts we have been in across this country!!!

7.  I was pleasantly surprised when I went to check out and Matt picked a line with an assistant manager as a cashier! Now my rule is to get some young or old who won't really want to see all your ads and price matches.  The one person who will definitely check is an assistant manager! But she didn't check at all! She checked us out pretty fast, compared to some other checkers I have had lately!!

Today we are onto finishing laundry and planning school for the week! We have volleyball clinic again this week, so we will have three half days again.

Fire Alarm!

Today we were coming home from volleyball clinic and as we passed the local middle school, it looked like they were having a fire drill.

This of course, prompted a very interesting conversation in the car.  Right away, Courtney said she would grab her blanket and run out.

Then Christian asked, "Mommy, are you strong?"

I replied, "Yes, I am strong."

Christian said, "Good, then you can grab my box of cars in case of a fire. Those are very important to me."

I said, "Ok, Christian, I will do that!"

Courtney replied with, "But Christian, don't you want your blanket? You should grab your blankets and your pillows along with your cars."

Christian said, "Ok, I will put my blankets and pillows in my car box. That is a great idea."

I am glad we have the basics covered!!

I do not like the time change!!

I do not like this time change! I have been awake at 5:30 for the last four days and sometimes I get back to sleep, sometimes I don't.

Today I woke up at 6:30 and thought that was great! I waited until my alarm went off at 7:15 and then I was going to get the kids up at 7:30. I love to lay in bed in the mornings and enjoy the silence of my house. :)

Matt came upstairs this morning to tell me good bye and my clock said 7:21. Matt said, "Does your clock say it is 7:21?" I looked at it and said, "Yep it's about time to get up." He said, "It's not 7:21, it's only 6:21." What?? I looked at his clock on his side of the bed and it said 6:21. Now I am confused! I still didn't believe him, I said, "Prove it to me," so he went and got his laptop out of the bathroom and it also said 6:21! UGH!! I was not happy that I was wide awake and ready to get up at 6:21!

My alarm clock has a button you can push for daylight savings time and it will adjust it for you. I did this Sunday and had my time set correctly, somehow last night, it sprang ahead one hour again! I reset it again this morning, but now I just lost an hour of sleep!! Hopefully this will not happen again tomorrow morning!

Half Days of school for awhile!

Let's just say we're on spring break part time this week. :) I think it's spring break for other school around Omaha, so we will "kind of" take part too!

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an advertisement in a local homeschooling newsletter about a FREE volleyball and basketball clinic with the local homeschool team. The girls loved playing basketball with the Upward Program at Westside Church in January and February, so I thought this would be a great chance to keep it going, so I signed them up.

The only downfall is that it is from 10:30-12:30 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for the next three weeks! The volleyball clinic is the first three days and then the basketball clinic is the last three days.  The girls started volleyball today loved it! Neither of them had ever played volleyball before, so I thought this would be a great place to learn!

In addition to being busy on Tuesday and Thursdays, we also have homeschool learning center every Wednesday from 11-2.  I tried to get the girls all at the same time, but we ended up switching to a more challenging math class for Courtney, so now we will be there for three hours. I will definitely need to find some errands to run or something because there is no way Christian will be able to sit there for three hours with me!

Because these commitments in the middle of the day, we are unable to have full days of school. We certainly get work done though, my theory is that if we get math, English, and spelling done everyday, we are doing well.  I like to get our other subjects in too and if we can, we will!

In addition to the sport clinic and homeschool learning center, we are also committed to a PE coop that meets on Thursday afternoons! This week we decided to meet on Friday, since nobody could come on Thursday, which I think is fine. We are going to go hiking and it is supposed to be beautiful out, so I think it will be fun.  And why not continue our half days of school?  For the next two weeks though, PE will meet back on Thursdays and we may just need to back out temporarily.  The girls will have their sport clinic from 10:30-12:30 and then PE is supposed to start at 1! When do we eat and have school??

I plan on having school into the summer anyway, so I am not in a big rush, but I do want to keep moving forward in regards to the kids' lessons! I think these clinics are worth it and we will adjust our school schedule.

Classification of Animals

We started our new curriculum about a week ago and so far, everything is going well. I added a couple of extra subjects for Courtney, so we will definitely be taking longer with this curriculum than we have before.

Even though I split Courtney and Megan up in regards to history, read alouds, and geography, we are still doing science together.  A couple of weeks ago, I finished up Science 1, even though I went through and made everything a little bit harder for the girls!

As I was preparing to pick our next science, I looked at science 2 and just thought it was another year of general science. It looked like a lot of repeat from the previous years and it didn't look like anything we would enjoy studying, again.  So I decided to skip science 2 and go on to science 3! I already had these lesson plans, so I just had to buy a few books and we were set!

I think the girls will enjoy this MUCH more because it is mostly biology.  We studied plants and animals in our kindergarten curriculum last year, so we haven't studied it in awhile.  This curriculum also pushes it ahead a little bit more, so it will be challenging.

We are starting off week one with talking about living vs. non living things and the classification of animals.  We are working through Real Science for Kids Biology 1 book. (Even though this is a curriculum by itself, Sonlight uses it as part of their science curriculum.)

On Friday, we talked about the five kingdoms of living things and tomorrow, we are going to keep dividing them. I think we are going to use this website for an introduction and then maybe read our lesson in our book. This seems to explain it better than the book, plus they use the example of classifying your Halloween candy, so I am sure it will appeal to Courtney!!

http://www.kidsbiology.com/biology_basics/classification/classification1.php

As we look at phylums, we may need to know what make a mollusc a mollusk!
http://animals.about.com/od/molluscs/p/molluscs.htm

We also may need to know what a nematode is!

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/nematodes

An old favorite.

Tonight, we are having an old favorite meal for supper! I used to make porcupine meatballs ALL THE TIME until I had to stop eating milk and wheat. My problem was that the canned tomato soup I used contained wheat and milk and therefore, I couldn't use it anymore.

I hadn't really thought about porcupine meatballs for over 2 years, which is SAD! Today on the way to church, I was trying to think of food that we have not had in awhile and for some reason, porcupine meatballs popped into my head! My next thought was, I have a substitute recipe for canned tomato soup, why can't I just use that?? Everything else should be the same!

And that is exactly what I did! I made the meatballs like usual, except replacing the eggs of course, and used my tomato soup replacement recipe for the tomato sauce on top and I have porcupine meatballs again!

I wonder what took me so long! I wonder what other old, but very good, recipes I have that I can easily replace ingredients like I did tonight??

Now that basketball is over, I have more time to cook again. :)

Somebody who doesn't understand allergies...

Matt and I went out to eat at Bordeaux last night, which is a local pizza chain.  Of course, I couldn't eat any pizza or pasta, so I opted for a taco salad. I asked the owner and he said the taco salad does not come in a taco bowl, but rather in a regular bowl like a salad. I thought that was great, I ordered it and asked for everything except cheese.

I got my taco salad and it looked scrumptious, except it was covered with crumpled up Dorito chips!!! I have never heard of anybody putting Doritos on a taco salad before! I looked at it and was kind of in shock. I looked at Matt and said, "I can't eat this, these are Dortios!" He started to pick the chips off my salad and eat them himself.

I had no choice but to take it back and see if I could get a different salad. Most places are pretty good about this (this happens ALL THE TIME!). I took it back to the counter and said, "I am really sorry, I can't have milk and these chips are covered in cheese." The owner looked at me and said, "It's not real cheese, it's that imitation cheese." What?? Did I just hear that correctly? I replied with ,"It doesn't matter what kind of cheese it is, I can't eat it. I'm really sorry, I don't know what else to do." He said, "I don't have an option but to redo it, do I?"  He was not nice about it!

I sat back down and felt awful, I had never had anybody be rude to me before about food! Another guy soon brought back a new salad and it was very good!

I guess next time I won't assume that corn chips will be used on a taco salad!!!

Not ready yet!

I had hoped to have everything ready to start all new curriculum tomorrow. I am not quite there!

I got a half an hour of planning time all weekend and that is just not enough to get everything organized and put where I want! I not only had to get all the new curriculum ready, but I had to pack away the old stuff! Now I know why teachers start new material in the fall when they have all summer to get ready!

I did get old lesson plans put away and new lesson plans put in my binder.  I have somewhat of an idea what we are doing tomorrow, but not 100%. I can at least get started. I have no idea what we are going to do for science yet, it's 10 pm and I don't want to take time yet tonight to figure it out. It can wait! I always like to study a little bit on science and get an extra activity together, but that is not happening tonight. We may move ahead in some other subjects tomorrow instead of science.

This may take a couple of weeks or so to get into a groove again. I added an extra core for Courtney, so that means I have to teach a couple extra subjects to Courtney. I also want to spend more time with Christian. I don't know where this extra time is going to come from, but we will make it work! My motto is "slow and steady." I have heard other moms say that Core F is pretty tough, I think Megan will do fine! Core A might be a challenge for Courtney, but I think it will work out great!

I almost feel like it's the beginning of a new school year!