Family Fun Day

Where can you go to pet a baby alpaca, glue a mosaic on a community planter, paint a car, and do awesome crafts all in one afternoon?  If you guessed the annual Family Fun Day at the Living Arts and Science Center, then you'd be right.  It was our first time attending this event and we had a blast!  First on the list of things to do was pet the baby alpaca, Samuel.  He was much softer than we were expecting.

Next stop: car painting.

I thought Madeline would have been much more excited about making a mosaic on the planter. They were both pretty quick to move on to the next activity.

After doing some of the outside activities, we headed inside the center.  There were multiple rooms and each one had a different theme.  The first one was all about animals.  Travis was mesmerized by the fish tank and Madeline thought the macaw's screaming was much too loud.  It really was. There were a lot of interesting animal materials and facts to explore in this room.

Here she is trying on bug goggles.  I can't help but laugh at this picture!  I tried to take another where her eyes looked even more bugged out, but it didn't turn out too well.

The kids sculpted animals to add to the clay community.  Maddie made pinky bunny and Travis made a snake with extremely large bumps on it.

Before heading back outside to paint the car some more, they made their own kites.  This was easy and fun, and we'll definitely be making more.  Travis got really excited when his buddy, Paxton, walked into the room.   (I swear Madeline's eye doesn't look as bad in person as it does in this picture.  She banged it on the edge of a table over a week ago.)

Now to test them out.  The only way to really get the kites flying was to run with them since the wind was too sporadic.

All in all, it was a really great time, the kids had a blast, and we're already looking forward to next years Family Fun Day.

Trav's first dental visit

Both kids went to the dentist today for a cleaning.  I must admit, I was a little nervous about how Travis would do since this was his first visit.  There was a period of time, which lasted on and off for about a year (he's only 2-1/2), where we could hardly even brush his teeth.  I kid you not when I say I would hold him down long enough to rub the toothbrush quickly over his teeth.  He's done much better the past few months brushing himself and then letting me brush though.  

Madeline had her teeth cleaned first, and did a wonderful job.  That was to be expected since she's never had a problem at the dentist.  It probably helps that her first dental check-up was at my work, where I was assisting the dentist, and gave her chocolate cake afterwards.  A bit counter-productive perhaps, but at least it wasn't a crazy first dental experience like ones I've heard about from former patients.  Anyway, Travis watched her and saw how calm she was in the chair.  Then it was his turn.  He layed down, opened his mouth, and was perfect.  He didn't seem nervous at all.  I was beyond proud of my little big boy!

Mr. Cool

Madeline did have a small cavity.  While that was getting filled, Travis and I went back to the waiting room.  There, I was completely guilty of listening in on another person's discussion about how her daughter has a full ride scholarship to Morehead State University.  Then I heard her say she homeschooled her daughter from K-12.  The daughter has almost completed her freshman year and has had zero issues transitioning, despite never attending a public institution.  Even though this is a one case scenario, I couldn't help but smile and feel rejuvenated.  I would have loved to have talked to this lady, but the dentist called me over to discuss Maddie's x-rays instead.

The kids picked out bouncy balls as their prize for being so awesome, and Madeline is already wondering when we can go back.  I may have a future dentist or two on my hands.

Pre-recital pics and misc rambling

Yesterday was picture day for the upcoming recital in Madeline's dance class.  All the sparkly little dancers were so adorable and I'm really looking forward to the recital.  I purchased the tickets yesterday, but since they went on sale over a week ago, the only seats left were way in the back on the left side.  I really hope we'll be able to see her and that she's at least positioned on the left hand side of the stage.

Here's a picture of Madeline and one of her best friends, all sparkled up:

Too cute!  I love how kids define their best friends.  Madeline and this girl are inseparable in class, but really haven't hung out any other time, yet they are still the bestest of friends! Haha!

I just absolutely love her smile in the picture below.  Of course, I'm completely unbiased when it comes to my kid's cuteness.

It's hard to believe her dance class is almost over for the year. She started in August and it feels like it's gone by so fast.  Actually, it seems everything is going by too fast.

As of right now, we don't have her signed up for anything during the summer.  A friend told me about a homeschooling t-ball league, but I'm not sure if it's past registration or not.  I'm thinking about signing her and Travis up for swim lessons though, and Jake and I should probably make a decision pretty soon.  Last summer, we had pool passes and went at least once a week.  Even though there are quite a few pools around here, we always had to go to the one across town so they could walk around in the kiddie pool.  The other pools have the zero-entry and went too deep for my little people's preference.  Both kids liked walking in the kiddie pool, but didn't want to get too wet or play on the slides.  They wouldn't even splash in the pool fountain. It doesn't make much sense, does it?  Once the water hit thigh level, they freaked out because they didn't want to get wet and Maddie didn't like to get her swim suit wet.  I mean, we were in a pool and they didn't want to get wet?!?!?  Who are these people?  Thankfully, the bath is the exception.  I wonder if they'd do well with swim lessons this season, or if they'd just be freaking out the entire time while the instructors beg me to remove them from class and never return.  I'm afraid if we wait too long with Madeline, there would be no super-beginner classes for kids afraid of the the water offered for her age next year.  Something to consider, I suppose.

School room

The past few weeks I have been exciting myself by merely thinking of how awesome a school room in the house would be!  I'm aware that must sound pretty lame to most of you reading this, but it really does get me excited!  Right now, I have all of our books/storage/crafts/workboxes set up in the office, yet there is not enough space for us to actually work in there.  This is where our kitchen table comes in handy.  I suppose it's been working just fine to bring whatever materials we need to the kitchen, after I've wiped the crumbs from the table, and then carting it back to the office when we are finished.  Travis is usually in the kitchen with us, but there are times when he is in the living room by himself playing, or even times when I've had to turn on a cartoon to occupy him long enough to get some things done with Maddie.  I am not okay with the latter becoming a habit and realize I need to make a change before he starts requesting cartoons on a daily basis during 'school time'.

I was thinking about kicking the husband and his computer desk out of the office, but since that room is pretty small anyway, it still wouldn't leave a whole lot of space to be used as the main school room, and there would be no place for the husband and computer desk to go instead.  The 2 upstairs rooms are both decent size, but were being occupied by each kid.  Jake and I hadn't really considered having the kids share a room since they are of different gender.... yet they've been having sleepovers every night for the past 3-4 months.  So, that got me thinking..... why not have them just share a room and use the extra space for school?  I don't really think them being in the same room will be a problem for another couple years anyway, and that would at least give us a designated work area for that amount of time. This is when I really started to get excited.

Well, I am happy to announce that as of today, Travis has officially been evicted from his former room and moved on into the kid's shared room.  All I had to do was rearrange the closet area and move both of their dressers around a bit.  I do need to figure out a better way to organize toys and what not, but would almost rather wait until we get Travis a twin-sized bed instead of his little toddler bed since things will have to be arranged differently then anyway.  His train table and some toys will stay in the other room so he will be able to play in the same area as us while Madeline works on her school stuff.

Now that his old space is nearly empty, I can't think of all of the plans I originally had. Go figure.  I feel way too intimidated by this right now... mostly because it is not in our budget to just buy a bunch of bookshelves or other things to really get the room set up the way I want it.  I can somewhat visualize how I want it to look (ahem... mostly like a page out of an Ikea catalog), but have no idea how to get it to look that way using what we have.  Tomorrow I will move the rest of the stuff upstairs and probably just stack it up in a corner until I can at least come up with a temporary arrangement.  I am hoping to find an awesome table or workspace this weekend so we can start using the room next week.

Either way, this mama is happy to have a space devoted to our home school and am confident that it will come together one way or another, sooner rather than later.

Memories

I often think back to what my earliest memory in life may be, and I cannot place it.  There are certain things that I do remember as early as the age of 4, maybe even earlier.  This leads me to wonder what types of things my kids will remember.  Will our silly games or rituals eventually fade away in their minds, or will they one day look back and smile thinking about those fond memories? 

Last week, my great Aunt Marilyn passed away, and the kids and I were fortunate enough to make it back to Chicago for her funeral.  Dozens, or possibly even hundreds of questions were asked by Madeline on the drive up about why Aunt Marilyn was sick, why the medicine could not work, and why she died.  Throughout the few days we've been staying at my parent's house, Madeline would be sitting still, looking down into her lap, and acting very somber.  I asked what was wrong.  She said she was sad and thinking about Aunt Marilyn.  I am honestly a bit surprised to see how much my Aunt's passing has affected my 5 year old.  Maybe this is a usual reaction for this age; I am just new to it.  It was very sad, as her mother, to see her so saddened and so in tune with her feelings in this time of grief.  Will she remember this years from now?

Even though other important people in our lives have passed away,  this seems to be the first time she was able to comprehend what had happened.  The world lost a beautiful, selfless, loving, kind, and gracious lady.  I hope that whatever memories Madeline will have of her, will be of those aspiring qualities in a person.  Of course I would like Travis to know those important virtues as well; he's just too young to understand what's going on right now.

Since we live far from our family, this event proved to be another bonus to us for homeschooling.  If the kids were of age and enrolled in school, it would have been far more difficult to travel here and stay for a week to attend her funeral without fear of truancy.  Instead, we can pack our school bags and get some work done wherever we end up.  This week, however, we've just taken a few days off.

Nice lady adds a smile to my day

I took the kids to a Spanish class the other day at the library.  When the class was over, they wanted to play in the kids' area.  Travis was very occupied at the train table, of course, and Madeline was doing a puppet show with some other kids.  I started talking with one of the moms about random, everyday type of things.   She eventually asked how old Madeline is, if she'll be starting Kindergarten in the fall, and where she'll be going to school.

I sometimes panic at that question.  Not because I'm ashamed or embarrassed or anything... I'm actually quite proud, but because I never know how a person will react. Their opinions don't necessarily matter much to me, it's just that sometimes I feel like I need to defend myself or that I'm expected to explain my reasons.  I know I don't actually need to explain anything to anyone, especially to a perfect stranger.  When I say that we homeschool, some people look at me weird, then look at my kids with pity, others smile and say "that's great, but I could never do it", and then there are those who are basically home education cheerleaders.  I really like those people :)   When I don't feel like getting into a conversation about it, my 'go to' answer to where she will go to school is, "She's districted for xxxx school."  In Lexington, you are districted for a certain school, but you can apply to one of the many out of area schools, so most people understand that response and leave it alone.

Anyway, while talking to this nice lady, I thought briefly about giving her my 'go to' answer since I was suffering from mega allergies and just didn't feel like getting a crazy lady look.  I decided at that very moment that I will no longer care what people's reaction might be and told her the truth.  I was shocked when her eyes lit up, her body language moved towards me, and she said, "Good for you!  More power to you!!"  She told me it was my super power, which then made me laugh and forget about feeling crummy for a few minutes.  It also reminded me of a picture of a t-shirt a friend sent me awhile ago:

So... I would just like to say thank you, nice lady, for making me smile.  You probably have no idea what kind of impact your kind words had on me that day.

Mummies and Pyramids

I know Madeline enjoys history, but I'm starting to really enjoy it as well!  Recently we read through the chapter about Egyptian pyramids.  We've learned that they were built for the mummified pharaohs to protect the jewels and treasures that were buried with their sarcophaguses.  Sarcophagus is a really funny word to hear Travis pronounce, by the way! When the great pharaoh, Cheops, built his pyramid to eventually be buried in, he wanted it to be the biggest of all.  His is known as the Great Pyramid because it is the largest of the 35 other Egyptian pyramids.  It took Cheops 20 years to build, and was made with over 2 million stones, each weighing nearly as much as an elephant.  I can't believe it!  It seems with all the technology that we're surrounded with and dependent upon, that we would never be able to accomplish that without use of machinery in today's world.  He was even buried with a boat and other furniture in hopes that he would be able to use them in the afterworld.  Madeline built a pyramid made out of sugar cubes and came up with a good idea to build the Sphinx next to it to protect and watch over it.  Then she said, "Well that didn't take me 20 years to build!"

We also spent a good amount of time reading through a number of books on Egyptian pyramids that we've borrowed from the library.

Travis attempted a pyramid as well.  Here is a picture right after one of his sugar cube towers fell down:

Haha....Love that face!

In addition to the pyramids, we also mummified an apple slice.  The Story of the World (SOTW) Activity book suggested to mummify a whole chicken, but there was too much ick factor involved that would be sitting on my kitchen counter for weeks.  An apple slice, however, I could handle! 

 When priests prepared a mummy, they took out the organs, covered them with special spices, and stored separately from the body. The heart was taken out, prepared and wrapped in linen, and placed back into the body.  We pretended to be priests and cut out the core in our slice to represent the organs.  Madeline added the apple to a mix of baking soda, salt, and a few special spices, and sealed it up.  Ours was left undisturbed for 1 week instead of the 40 days required for a real mummy. 

At the big reveal, Madeline thought the apple smelled gross; I thought it smelled stronger than an old apple, but no different.... if that makes any sense.

Math Fun

We love games over here.... especially FREE ones!  A couple math games that are a big hit are Add It Up and Subtract It, both from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  There are actually a ton of free printables on that site, most are perfect for preschool and kindergarten ages.  We'll be using this site a lot more for Travis in the next few months.

Here a few pics to show how the Add It game works.  We just use regular flash cards from the $1 spot at Target instead of printing and laminating the ones included with the game.

To play, you place your counters, or beans in our case, in each rectangle next to the number.  This picture was actually taken a few months ago, way back when she was just 4 years old. 

Then you take your little scooper and push all of the beans into the bottom rectangle to find the sum.
 

And there you go.  4 + 4 = 8.  Seems simple enough, yet this game can occupy the kids for a solid 30 minutes.  That is super important criteria!  Travis gets into it too, but I think he just likes playing with the beans...... and then pushing them off the table onto the floor.   We also play Subtract It, which is basically the same, only subtracting... obviously.