The World's Meanest Mom

I am most likely the world’s meanest mom. I make my kids eat their veggies, I rarely get them a treat, we don’t have any video games in the house or cable and the last thing to make me the world’s meanest mom, I had the audacity to have my kids start doing school throughout the summer, gasp!!

Isn’t that terrible? Well, actually no. The more I study about successful homeschooling families I found a few things in common.

1   #1. They homeschool through the summer. Sure they take some brakes for a vacation or if they go to a museum or zoo, but they are always learning.

2   #2. They focus on math, reading the classics and writing.

3   #3. They don’t waste their time with all the “fluff”. They study what their kids are interested in and watch their kids excel because they actually like the topic.

So, a few weeks ago I told my kids were just going to do math twice a week for the rest of summer and oh man, my house turned into meltdown city! Kids were crying and complaining, and I sat there thinking what have I done?

The next time we went to do school it was a lot better, thank heavens. The kids quickly got their schoolwork done so that they could go and play. I hope that it will continue to get better and I am excited to see their progress.

Book Review: Between Shades of Gray

First, and most importantly, do not get this book confused with 50 Shades of Gray! I know someone who accidentally did, they were not happy.

OK, now to the book. Between Shades of Gray is a historical fiction, which is slowly becoming my favorite genre to read. It is the story of a family from Lithuania and their trials as Stalin is taking over their country. The story is told from the perspective of the daughter, Lina.

The family is taken in the night and forced onto a truck where they are taken to a train depot. Eventually the train takes them to a work camp, and later they are taken to Siberia and forced to work there for several years.

This book is actually a teen novel, so it is an easy read, but there are some upsetting scenes in the book. I was hesitant to have any of my kids read it, but sometimes history isn't pretty, so I allowed my 12 year old to read it, and he loved the book too. He was shocked at how cruel other people can be, and we talked about the beauty of Lina's mother and how she was so kind no matter what, and that she is someone we can try to emulate. 

The author of the book really did her research and everything that happened in the book really happened to someone, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. I absolutely loved the book and ended up finishing it in one night, because I am a reading addict. 

To me, it was a beautiful story of hope, and how no matter how awful of a situation we are in, we can always choose to be happy.

Here are some spoilers, so you know what some of the questionable parts of the book are, in case you want your children to read it:

* A baby dies, and it is rotting in the train car with them, and they have to eventually throw it down a hole to get rid of the body
* The mother of the baby is shot
* Some of the girls are groped by Russian soldiers when they were allowed to shower
* One of the ladies sleeps with Russian soldiers to save her son's life
* A lot of people die

Last Day of School

We have just finished our sixth year of homeschooling!! Who knew I could finish something I started :). Seriously though, the last six years have been awesome and also exhausting.

We started a fun tradition this last year where we have a Battle of the Brains at the end of the semester. This is a great review for the kids and it gives me a chance to see where they are without having to take tests.

We have five events; this year the events were: Science, Greek History, Church History, Math, and Fitness.

My six year old was my helper once again; she kept score and got to pick the next event. 

I didn't grab as many pictures this time, sorry about that. You will have to use your imagination and trust me that we all had a good time.

The first event chosen was Greek History. I had written a series of questions and the one who answered the most questions correct won. I found out my boys really paid attention in Greek and my daughter, not so much. Ethan and Porter tied for first during this round.

Next was Church History. It was the same format of our Greek history. Porter won this round.

The next event was Math. I use Math-U-See and they have printable pages on their website. I printed off math questions from the last four years of math. They have 10 minutes to answer as many questions as they could, the one with the most correct answers won. Porter won this round with Ethan right on his heels. He only beat him by a few.

Our next event was fitness. The kids had to run a half a mile and the first one back wins. Again, Porter won this round with Ethan right behind him. 

Our final event was science; this is my favorite game. I have made trivia questions from every science book we have ever used and compiled them into one game. We use an old Sorry board. If you answer the question with no help you get to roll two dice; if you have a hint only one die; if you answer incorrectly you must roll one die and move backwards. Ethan won this game.

Porter ended up winning the Battle of the Brains. He is our two time champion!! The winner receives a beautiful bouquet of creepy fake flowers, every 11 year old boy's dream.

I was so proud of my kids and how hard they all tried; even my little seven year old kept up with all the big kids. I felt a little bad for Bella because she really excels in art and we didn't have an art category this time. I will make sure next time to have art be included.

So what will we do while all the other kids are in school? Play, of course!! We have plans to go to the zoo, park days, and most importantly sleeping in!

Book Review: Ender's Game

A lot of people kept recommending Ender's Game for my son to read, so my husband surprised him and bought him the book. I should have read it first to make sure it was a clean book, but because I am the world's worst parent, I didn't. Also, I believe it is physically impossible to read as fast as my son can, so he read it before me.

BIG MISTAKE!!!

I personally didn't care for the storyline of this book, but that is not my beef with this book. This book was FULL of bad language. It had more swearing in it than any other book I have ever read. Not only did it have swearing it was crude. I asked my son about the swearing, and he said he just tried to skip over those parts, and luckily he is too innocent to catch the crude comments.

I think the thing I am most disappointed about with the book is that it was written by a Christian author. I just assumed that it would be clean; I won't make that mistake again.

Now in the book's defense, my son loved the story. It has a lot of battles and some exciting stuff for boys. There was no mushy love scene, nothing girly, just tough young boys saving the world. My son found that part very exciting, and has since come to me and told me how he would like to be a hero.

I think it would have been an exciting book for young boys, but because of the language I would not recommend it.

Is Home School the Only Way???

Last week my husband posted a picture on Facebook and it sparked quite the controversy! I really, really don't like controversy so I didn't join in the debate, but it has been really bothering me so I would like to express how I feel about the picture he posted. Here is the infamous photo he shared.

I'm not really going to get into the argument he was in, but I would like to share some of my opinions about this. 

First and most importantly, home schooling works for my family, but it may not be the right fit for your family. I think it is so fabulous that there are so many options with schooling, because no one is the same and no family is the same. You may pick home schooling, public school, charter school, part time home school, part time public school, online school, or whatever works for your family. We have NEVER judged anyone for their families choice of school, and we have NEVER criticized parents for their choice either. To each their own.

This was NEVER intended to offend anyone. If I post an article about natural medicine, someone who doesn't like natural medicine might be offended, if I post a religious picture, somebody who is of a different faith might be offended. This was not meant to offend, only you can allow yourself to be offended, no one can make you offended.

By saying we disagree with some of the ways public schools operate is NOT the same as saying we think parents are hurting their children or that they are bad parents or people. And if you disagree with me about home schooling, I don't think I am a bad parent; it's ok to disagree and to have a difference of opinion. It would be boring if we were all the same! 

Another argument against this picture was that it is making a blanket statement against all schools. Again, we are not against public school, it is great that it works so well for so many people. 

Public school did not work for me, I march to the beat of my own drum, I am different and I love it! I am not a conformist and when others try (good luck) to make me conform we are both frustrated. I never fostered a passion for learning in school, I knew how to pass a class (barely) and that is about it. 

So if you disagree with this photo, great! I love that you are passionate about your school, we need more people passionate about their school and help them to move in the right direction. 

This photo was merely posted to make others think, that is all; there was no evil motive or any attempt to say that others are wrong and that we are right. 

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" Aristotle

Homeschooling on a Budget

Do you want to know an ugly word? Budget, blah. My husband does finances for a living, so unfortunately I must stick to one; that deserves another blah.

I budgeted well at the beginning of the school year and I was able to get all of my supplies for the whole school year without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, I didn't foresee that my little monkeys would gobble everything up so quickly. We finished a year's worth of world history and science in one semester. Although I wanted to just go and buy a bunch of more curriculum, I couldn't justify spending more money. OK, I could justify it, but apparently not well enough to convince my husband. :)

I decided/had to get creative and it has so far been pretty fun. For science, we had studied chemistry this last semester, so I thought we would just continue with chemistry but do it on our own. Kind of tricky, because I'm not a chemist, or that smart, but it has been fun to learn and figure it out together. I have a song, where we are trying to memorize about the 41 most common elements on the periodic table. I also found a lot of fun experiments on Pinterest and free lesson plans about Chemistry. This last week we set stuff on fire; needless to say, we all had a good time.

Next, I had to do something for our world history. I seriously can't believe how fast we finished our history. We were having so much fun with it that they would beg me to read more. We studied ancient world history and I felt like we could have gone more in depth with some of what we studied. Thankfully my lovely husband, who is a nerd, had a Greek history book lying around. It is full of big words, which I have to explain a lot, or look up a lot, but it is really giving us a better understanding of their society, government, religion and so on. Also, my oldest son took after his father's nerdiness and is a huge Greek mythology buff; he helps explain A LOT of things for us/me.

After we finish studying more in depth about Greece we will move on to the Roman Empire. My nerdy husband also has a great history book for that too; he is so handy! So far my kids haven't wanted to make any projects about Greece, but if we do decide to make something I will just look up ideas on Pinterest. Seriously, how did we live before Pinterest?

Maybe with all the money we save on curriculum I can talk my husband in to taking us to Greece to REALLY get a good understanding of their culture??:)

Battle of the Brains

Do you want to know what is boring? Tests. Do you want to know what is fun? Of course you do! Me, I'm fun. Just kidding, the real answer is playing games. 

We are about to start our Christmas break so I wanted to review everything we have learned so far, but there is no way I'm going to have my kids sit and take tests all day. What's a gal to do? I'll tell you what you do, you hold a Battle of the Brains competition!!

My kids have been looking forward to this for weeks. Silly kids, if they only knew my tricks. 

The battle consists of five different events; my five year old, who can't quite play yet, is the score keeper, chooser of the next event, and punisher if so needed. The five events we had were: art, spelling, math, fitness, and science. Some of these were just for fun, others were a review.

The first event she chose was art. The kids had to cover their eyes and try to draw a Christmas picture. The one who drew it most accurately won the event.

Our second event was the science game. I have taken a lot of the review questions from every science book we own and made a trivia game. We use an old Sorry board game. If you answer the question with no help, you get to roll two dice; if you are given a clue, you can only roll one die, and if you get the answer wrong you roll one die and have to move backwards. Doubles gives you an extra roll, but if you roll doubles three times you head back to start. 

The next event was fitness. We had a running clock and did death by burpees. Do you know what a burpee is? If you've never done one you're a lucky person, they are awful. Death by burpees is seeing how many you can do within the one minute time limit adding an additional burpee each minute. 

So on minute one, you do one burpee; minute two you do two burpees, and so on until you can't do anymore. Our victor got to 14. My awesome cell phone quality takes blurry pictures of movement, but it is probably for the best because all the big boys took their shirts off.

The fourth event was spelling, which really was just practice for the spelling bee, but once again because it was a game everyone more excited to "play". If they spelled one word wrong they were out.

The final event was math. They each had a puzzle of different multiplication facts; they had to start down the hallway and run to their spot, and if you knock someone over you had to sit in a penalty box for five seconds. The first one to complete the puzzle won the event.

The boys never put their shirts back on, sorry about that. 

Porter my 10 year old won four out of the five events!! The kids said that the winner should get a trophy; unfortunately, I didn't have one so I had to improvise.

What 10 year old boy wouldn't just LOVE a bouquet of fake flowers? The kids all that it was funny. 

We decided we will have a Battle of the Brains at the end of every semester, it was a lot of fun!!

Book Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I have finished another book for the awesome club. This one is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

It is the story of Mr. Utterson becoming suspicious of his friend Dr. Jekyll who has been doing some strange things. He also learns of Mr. Hyde and tries to find out who he is and why his good friend Dr. Jekyll would be friends with such a loathsome person.

I read this book because one of my sons was reading it, and I tried to read what they are reading so we can talk about the book. He is 10 and told me it was really hard to get into the book, but once he did he liked it, but it is not one of his favorites.

My opinion of the book, well, to be honest I found it quite boring. Maybe because I already know the basic story of this book, or maybe because it was a little dark, I don't know, but it definitely wasn't one of my favorites. 

My one positive thing to say about this book, is the vocabulary he uses. He used a lot of big words. I honestly hadn't heard some of the words before, which isn't too surprising, but I really enjoyed his large vocabulary. 

Also it is free on Amazon, so that is also a nice bonus too. 

If you have read it, I would love to know your opinion of the book.

Homeschool Christmas Concert

To be honest this post is a little, ok mostly for me. My oldest son and daughter have been taking a musical theater class this semester and they had their performance this week. I recorded their performances and I want them somewhere where I will know where they are saved, because heaven forbid I organize my photos and movies. But because I rarely do, I want them on here so I will know where to find them. 

Having said all that, my kids had a great time in this class. I love their teacher!! She is my friend who just started homeschooling this year and we couldn't be happier that she is! She is incredibly talented, but what I loved about her class is that she let my kids be themselves. She arranged the show to be a variety show, and let the kids pick what they wanted to do; she even let Ethan make up his own song. 

My favorite part of the show, which I unfortunately didn't capture on film, was these three little girls singing a really cute song and they said the word, "cow". When they said that, my Ethan saunters through the stage as a moping cow. It was hilarious!

Here are the videos from the performance. I filmed them with my cell phone so forgive the crappy quality and my husband and me giggling in the background. This first one is all the kids singing 12 Days of Christmas.

This next one is Ethan's song, Old McAlien performed by Ethan and Bella.



This next one was a lip synch of I Want to Run to You.



There were a couple of other numbers they were in that my husband recorded; when I get those from him, I will add them.

Book Review: A Little Princess

I decided I wanted to attempt being awesome and I am trying to join The Awesome Club. I wasn't quite sure which book to start with but we read an excerpt of A Little Princess in grammar and it piqued my interest enough that I figured I would start there.

The full book title is actually, A Little Princess; being the whole story of Sara Crewe now told for the first time by Frances Hodgson Burnett. That is seriously the longest book title ever, but it doesn't matter because it has now become one of my most favorite books EVER! It is a very easy read and only has 266 pages. 

I don't know what rock I was living under to not even know the storyline of this book, and I didn't know there was a movie about it too. So if you are like me and have no idea what this book is about I will give you a quick run down.

This book is about Sara Crewe, a little girl growing up in India with her father. Her father is wealthy and Sara lives a very comfortable lifestyle. He decides it is best to send her to London to attend a boarding school. The head Mistress, Miss Minchin doesn't care much for her much, but likes to show off her rich student to others.

Sara is a wonderfully odd child, I really liked that about her. She uses her imagination quite well and is a fantastic story teller. The girls at the school either love her or are jealous of her. Sara even starts to pretend she is a princess, and she acts the part too. Which doesn't help with the girls that don't like her.

SPOILER - Stop here if you don't want to know more of the story.

Sara's father ends up dying back in India and has left her no money. Miss Minchin is now responsible for her. She makes Sara one of the servants and allows her to sleep up in the cold attic. Sara loses all of her beautiful clothing and her comfortable surroundings. She truly has to discover what kind of a person she is. It was easy to be nice when she had everything, but now she has to choose to be nice even when others are so cruel to her.

I won't give away anymore of the storyline, because it is written so well that I just can't do it justice. This book has really become one of my most favorite books ever, I even cried at the end.

This book is great for boys and girls 8+. My son thought it was just average but my daughter and I absolutely loved it!! Because it is a classic you can get it free on Amazon.

The Politeness Pig

I would like to introduce you to newest member of my family, Politeness.

That's right, he's a pig! Because that is what my children are when they eat, pigs. I have tried to encourage some manners at the table, but nothing was working. My kids were licking pans, farting at the table, eating with their fingers and all sorts of loveliness. 

Politeness the Pig has stepped in to teach my feral children some manners. If Politeness catches you having bad manners he comes and sits in front of you while you are eating. Whoever ends up with him at the end of dinner gets an extra kitchen chore. I try to make it an awful one, because that is how I roll.

One of my little piglet darlings was given the pig at a meal, so he figured he didn't need to bother with ANY manners because he already had the pig. So as a fun surprise I started to add a chore for each offense; he quickly stopped his bad manners.

Some ways to earn this little pig include the following:

Licking pans (seriously, who licks pans?)

Licking your plate

Eating with your fingers

Trying to eat a large piece of food without cutting it up

Talking with your mouth full

Farting

Burping

Being a loud mouth schmuck

And any general rudeness

So far it seems to be working, I like Politeness because he is the bad guy, not mom and dad. The kids like to pretend Politeness is watching them, which is funny, but then I found this picture on my phone...

Which is creepy.

The Awesome Club

I am incredibly creative at making up super cool names for things like, "The Awesome Club". That name just oozes awesomeness. :)

I wanted the monkeys to read more classic literature, but I wasn't quite sure how to do it. I do read to them, but there are only so many hours in the day and I need them to be reading this stuff on their own.

So, I wrote a bunch of classics down on a piece of paper, stuck it on the wall, and told them if they read 7-10 of these books they may join, "The Awesome Club". And surprisingly, it worked!

Once the child has completed a book they put their initial by the book. Some of these books we just had lying around the house, but did you know you can get a lot of the classics FREE on Kindle? I am all about free stuff.

Some of the books we have:

Gulliver's Travels

The Prince and the Pauper

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Around the World in 80 Days

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

A Tale of Two Cities

King Arthur

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Chronicles of Narnia

The Little Prince

Moby Dick (or Moby Richard as my seven year old calls it)

The Secret Garden

If you'll notice there are a lot of Es next to the books. My oldest son Ethan is a HUGE reader!! It is really great to try to have the other kids keep up with him. It would be great if I could keep up with him.

Originally I was doing this just for my kids, but I have decided that I would like to join "The Awesome Club" too, so I am going to start reading these as well. 

So start today and maybe I will let you join our club too!!

Real Science 4 Kids

This year with school we tried something new. I let my kids pick out their own science curriculum. I was hoping it would hold their interest if they picked it, and so far it has. 

They chose to study chemistry this year. What a daunting subject, right? Each year I teach, I am reminded of how little I know. I think it would be so awesome if I just knew this stuff so we could have a great discussion and then do some experiments; someday hopefully I will be like that. But because I am nowhere near that level, I still need to buy a science book. I looked around and ending up buying this one. 

I really like the book, it is in simple terms that even I can understand. They have pictures that really help explain the concept they are teaching and the experiments are fun and we have really liked it. The only bad thing is that the book won't last us all year and it was kind of pricey; we will be finished up with the book before Thanksgiving.

To make the book and my dollar last longer I've decided to start finding as many extra experiments that I can for us to do. It helps the kids to really understand what we have learned and it is super fun too!

I have found some on Pinterest that I am very excited to try, I will post about them after we've tried them.

Book Review- Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold

Have you heard of Knights of Freedom? It is seriously one of the greatest homeschooling co-ops for boys 8-12 years old! I have had the privilege of mentoring a Knights of Freedom group for the last year and a half, I will have to do a separate post about that, it is awesome. 

Any who, as a part of Knights we read about a christian hero. My favorite series that we have read a lot of is, Christian Heroes: Then & Now. All of the books are biographies of real people in history. They are well written and very inspiring.

The last book we read was Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold. This book is my very favorite so far from this series. My 10 year old said that it was his favorite too.

You may know who Eric Liddell is, I didn't. He is the inspiration behind the movie Chariots of Fire. He was a Scottish man born in China where his parents were missionaries. When he was old enough his parents sent him and his brother to a boarding school in England. 

He found he had a talent for running and eventually made the olympic team. He received his schedule for the olympic team and found out that the event he was favored to win was on a Sunday; he refused to compete. I won't completely ruin what happens next, it nearly brought me to tears.

The book then continues into his adult life and how he becomes a missionary like his parents. He always had a love for the Chinese people and went back to China. I won't tell you anymore so I don't ruin the story, but this guy was so inspiring!

I would highly recommend this book to both boys and girls 8+. They are very quick reads about 200-300 pages. 

Captain Grammarica

We have had a long running joke around our house about Captain Grammarica. When someone says something with incorrect grammar Captain Grammarica is there to correct you or strike you down, whichever is most convenient  Anyone can be the Captain, and it is all done in fun.

My son had a great idea to write the story of the Captain. He had written a few short stories about him, but nothing too much. Well, I had to leave for a couple of days and when I came home my son was beyond excited to present his first "Captain Grammarica" book.

He looks a tad too much like a masked wrestler, but he gets the job done. I also asked my son why he didn't spell it, "Grammerica" instead. He insisted that this way was better because it has the full word of grammar in it. 

His "book" is only two pages and FULL of grammatical errors, but man this kid can tell a fun story. He even typed it all out and made his amazing masked wrestler, oh I mean Captain Grammarica, on the cover.

I won't include the whole story, but I wanted to include some of my favorite parts. I am going to put it exactly how he wrote it, so if the grammar is off or spelled wrong don't judge, he's just a kid. 

So without further ado here is some of his book.

Prologue (yes he wrote a prologue)

It was a warm sunny day in Citysville. Unfortunately Captain America accidentally ate his grammar book. When he got married to his wife Eliza. The grammar got mixed in their sons DNA. Thus there was born a new super hero, Captain Grammarica!

He goes on to tell about Captain Grammarica and when he hears someone speaking incorrect grammar he throws them in jail. The grammar he most often corrects in this story is, "me and Billy want to go..."

He then added a quick grammar tip for kids. He writes that, "If you do not want to go to jail for treason of grammar, then read this." He then goes on to tell kids the tip that if you take out the other person in the sentence would it still make sense? "me want to go" doesn't make sense. He then tells his reader that obviously it is wrong and they need to make it say, "Billy and I want to go".

He plans on writing more books with more grammar tips for kids. I seriously love the creativity of kids and I can't wait for the next book in his series!

First Day of School Fairy

Today was our official first day of school. I am so very happy to report that it was a great first day back. 

Here are the monkeys showing how studious they are and that they are ready for the new school year. 

They are re-creating The Thinker, as if you couldn't tell. I hope you appreciate that the baby tried to pull it off too.

Last year I was trying to make the first day more fun, so I wrapped up all their school supplies and said they were left by the first day of school fairy. They thought it was great so I decided to do it again. 

After I got everyone awake, which was really hard for some of them, I got them all fed, bathed and their chores done by 8:30 this morning. I know that will probably never happen again, but I was impressed that it was possible. They were all excited to open their presents so it was a great motivator for them to hurry with their chores.

Now the fairy was feeling a little lazy this year. Last year she was fancy and wrapped up every single item and marked the kids' initial on them. Aren't they cute?

This year everything got thrown into a bunch of boxes, and I found out the hard way that I was down to my last roll of wrapping paper. Luckily, kids are not too picky about everything being wrapped the same.

If there was an award for the ability to be the world's worst wrapper, I am pretty sure I would win it. Even my husband laughed when he saw how bad I wrapped them and said even he doesn't wrap "that bad". But once again, that is why kids are so great, they didn't even notice.

Here is the crew, checking out all their new supplies. This year the fairy even splurged and bought them all their own 97 cent pencil sharpener. Best idea ever! I can't tell you how many melt downs we had last year over people not sharing the darn pencil sharpener.

Hopefully this is a good omen that this is going to be an especially great school year and not the calm before the storm!

Homeschool Review: Singin' Smart

If you asked me to tell you about an amazing school lesson I had as a child, I could probably remember 2-3. But, if you asked me to sing you a song I learned as a child, well you'd probably want someone else to sing it because I'm terrible, but my point is that I could sing all sorts of songs from my childhood because they stick with you.

My sister-in-law teaches preschool and she teaches her little kids songs from Singin' Smart. She recommended it to me when we first started homeschooling. The book and CD are very inexpensive so we gave it a whirl. 

The songs are cheesy, but they stick with you. Some of the songs we've learned are the 50 states in alphabetical order with their capital, parts of the body, the countries of Central and South America, and even the presidents of The United States.

Here is a little clip of my monkeys singing. They were WAY excited to sing this, you can tell by their huge smiles on their face. :) 

Happy Not First Day of School/Kid Day

I love today, for today is, Happy Not First Day of School! A few years ago we also added a Kid Day, so we thought it would be fun (ok, easier for me) to combine the two. 

The rules for the day.

#1-No chores, unless you really, really want to.

#2-You don't have to eat your veggies or all your dinner.

And the most important of all the rules...

#3-Have fun!!

The first item of business for today was a big breakfast.

Second item, take dad to go pick up his car from getting fixed. Boring, I know. But it gave the monkeys some extra lazy time. 

Next, we went to the dollar store and everybody got to pick two items. 

I'm always amused/frightened from what my kids pick at the dollar store. Seriously, who doesn't need a pair of these??

Even the baby got something. 

I have already been attacked several times from this pirate. Maybe next time I'll give him something softer.

Then we got some pizza and went to the park.

We played pirates at the park for a couple of hours until the baby hit full melt down mode from being so tired. We let him take his nap and then we went out to the movies.

After the movie we went home, had dinner and then we went to the park and stayed way too late. 

Long story short, it was a great day!!

The Homeschool Room

I titled this post homeschool room, but I think a more appropriate title would be, Homeschool Area. When we started homeschooling we lived in a big home where we had a homeschool room. I really liked it. It kept the kids and their friends out of our supplies and it was kind of nice to mentally "go to school". 

We had the pleasure of a homeschool room for a couple of years but then we moved into a tiny home for a year and the whole tiny house was kind of a homeschool room. 

We have been in our current home for a couple of years and there weren't enough bedrooms to have a room, so we had a homeschooling corner. We took a corner in the family room down in the basement. We had a TV down in the family room that we never used, so I sold that and have turned our corner into a luxurious area.

Ooooh, awwww! I wish I would have taken a before picture so you could appreciate how much more space we now have. And having the fireplace right there makes school fun on those cold snowy days; except when I almost start the house on fire. I wish that was a joke...

This is the little kids' corner. My older kids are too cool to do the calendar and weather, so this is just for the little kids. I'm trying to find a fun rug, that doesn't cost a bazillion dollars, for them to sit on.

I love my cubbies. It keeps everything nice and organized and that makes me happy. I had my poor 11 year old help me move it; of course I didn't want to take the time to unload everything, so I nearly broke his back. Mom of the year!

Maps are fun. We got these at Costco years ago. They are a little beat up, but they do the job.

I also have a cupboard from IKEA that I keep in the laundry room for stuff we don't use everyday. It holds all of our games, binders, art supplies and all sorts of random stuff that I have collected over the years.