Sick days

Fever of 103, bad cough, achy body and dizzy. Does that sound like the flu to you?
My poor baby, not feeling well. You can see it in his eyes.
He asks, "Mom, why do I have to have fever?" Now that sounds like a teaching moment don't you think?
Been busy with sickness. I just hope the others don't get it. I hope I don't get it.

Picture Quiz Wednesday

This plant is native to Texas and looks prickly. It's usually in pastures and long country roads. Please make your guesses and come back here for an update on Friday.

Update:Well, it does look like a thistle. I have been looking and looking to find out the exact name of this but haven't been able to find it. Texas thistle sounds good except that all pictures I have seen are different. The flower is on a long stalk and this isn't. I imagine it is a thistle. I was hoping to get a positive ID. For now, I'll go with Texas Thistle. *wink* Thanks for playing along. I've got another one coming next week. Check back on Wed.

Excitement!

Today his training wheels came off. He was so excited. He did it right away. No falling, just plain excitement. It's dark now and he is still out there on his bike.
Look at that big "I'm proud" smile. He loves for us to call him a big boy. He is growing so fast. I have to say that I am excited for him too.
Here is a little clip of his new skill.

Sunday fun

We went to eat at a friends house on Sunday after our meeting and had fun. The boys I know had a ton of fun. They didn't want to leave. Everyone was having too much fun.
The one of the boys had to go....real bad. Everyone was laughing at his face. It was a fun Sunday.
While at our friends house who also homeschools she gave us these. These are an addition to our grubs. Now we have grubs and butterflies. Don't people usually get a cat or a dog. Not this homeschool family.
It was a fun Sunday.

Saturday in our warm weather

Can you see the oranges still on the tree? Yep, we went orange and lemon picking again. This time we took some friends while their mom was at a meeting. It is always so nice and relaxing to go out there. I don't know what it is about that place but I do enjoy it and relax when I am out there. So are you wondering what my oldest was doing out there with a golf club? No he doesn't golf. He was just seeing how far he could hit those rotten, fallen off of the tree oranges. Oh my what a mess. They had fun though.
You know, every time we go out there this dog comes running out and goes to this same spot every time. I've heard that there is some fish in there. This dog sticks his face in the water to try to get a fish. It is really funny. This time we took some pictures of him.
You can see his face is all wet where he sticks it into the water.
I wonder how long these oranges and lemons will last. Next time we go though, we will have to take a ladder. Most of the bottom is already picked. No golf clubs next time either.

Picture Quiz 5

I forgot to do this yesterday so finally now I am putting it up. Whatcha think? I'll post the answer like always here on Friday. Check back.

UPDATE:

Yes, it's a paper wasps nest. Isn't it amazing how they attach it to a branch and it actually looks like it is part of that branch. Thanks for playing along. Look again next Wednesday for the next picture quiz. Maybe next week I will make it a bit harder.

Nature on the roads

Today hubby called me from work and he wanted to go to Corpus Christi so off we went to pick him up at work and look what we saw on the side of the road. As a car would drive by they would quickly go into their homes. There was one on the road and I got out to get it out of the way. Yep, I got out of my van and ran to the middle of the road to get that turtle out of the way. First though I had to show the boys. There were lots of "oohhhhs and aaaahhhhhs" from them.

There was lots of shrimping going on down here. We saw about 10 boats in the area.
On the way home we drove to hubby's work to pick up his truck and look at this Texas dog. hehehe Not really, this was an armadillo. There were two roaming around. It was dark and had to use the flash but we got a picture of this guy. That was our cool nature part of the trip.
Now on to the best part. Well, besides going to eat at Olive Garden, YUM!! we had to stop at Barnes & Noble. What would a homeschooling mom be if we didn't stop there? So what did I find? We got a few books for history. Then I saw this book which I really liked. It has all the rules of grammar and punctuation and some tests and answers to those tests. I need that book for myself. I am so bad with my punctuation. My oldest is much better than I am. That was our day out of town.

Update: I always forget to add the titles of the books and was going to put them in but forgot again. So here it goes....The books I got are from a series called History Maker Bios. They have different authors but they all say Barnes & Noble on them. I did look on amazon but they only showed one copy and it was a hard cover and way to expensive so I didn't add that next to The Blue Book link. These are small softcover books and they have lots of different titles. If you go to Barnes & Noble and look on their kids history section I am sure you will see them there. Ferdinand Magellan's author is Elaine Landau, Sir Walter Raleigh by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson, Lewis and Clark by Candice Ransom, Christopher Columbus by Susan Bivin Aller. They are all $5.95US and $7.95Canada. Don't forget to get your teachers discount. I like these books because they are short, have lots of pictures, have a timeline, have some further reading options and websites to go for more info.

Sunday

Home from our meeting but before we had dinner and what a dinner we had! YUM!!! Had a turkey in the oven and it was good. Don't we look nice?

Art

We have been using Artistic Pursuits this year. Since we have never really used watercolor that much before it has been fun to use this book this year. We have done lots of watercolor paintings. This was a watercolor wash. You basically wet the paper then add color and move it around. It's been fun getting all the boys in on this.
You can see the color going up with the wet paper.
They figured that if you put dots of color it would move around because of the wet paper. So they started doing lots of dots.
We had fun. All of us had fun seeing the colors blend on their own.

What in the World is that?

The boys got done with their paper mache worlds. It was pretty fun making all the mess. I always get them to do their projects and I help them set up and get started but I never end up making anything. Then I sit here looking at their finished projects and I wonder why I didn't do it too. I'll have to do some fun things too.

My first tea pot

Yesterday hubby made chinese food. Yum, it was good. He loves to cook and I let him. hehehe Patty came over to eat and she brought me this gift set. How cool is that? I loved it, now I will have and official tea pot for our Tuesday Tea Time.

Now just in case you are wondering if I liked the tea and cookies that came with it, I will have to explain. Those Key Lime White Choc. cookies were awesome. The reg. choc chip ones were good too. The tea was good. The boys even drank the hot tea. They actually started to like hot tea even the oldest drank some hot tea. The oldest doesn't like to try new things. He did this time and he loved it. The youngest asked for seconds. Now what did I think of the tea....well, it tasted good. I tried it. One sip. I would have kept up drinking except for the fact that(a little something about me coming up) I am allergic to some smells. Wouldn't you know it, it started my headache going. Why ME????

I can't sit around people with perfume because I get headaches and I guess it's more flowery smells that get to me. I've had to walk out of large groups and take a walk outside to clear the smell from my brain. I guess it would be me to have these crazy things. It is totally frustrating when I can't sit an enjoy someones company or a nice hot cup of tea because of the smell and these headaches.

So that's my nice surprise and a little something about me. Next Tea Time Tuesday I'll be using my new tea pot.

Picture Quiz 4

I'll try this a bit longer and see if anyone is interested in participating. I took this picture on the side of the road. I think this is my favorite wildflower picture. I have a few other good ones to share.

So who wants to guess what this is?

Update: Prairie Coneflower also known as Mexican Hat. This is one of the most common wildflowers in Texas. A little extra tidbit of information is that native tribes used this plant medicinally in many ways. One of it's uses was as a tea to cure abdominal pain and relieve headaches.

Tea Time Tuesday

What did we read today? We read several books. Two bible stories and 4 books. Did we have any tea or sweets? Nope not this time. We went to my room and everyone got in my bed. They love this since they hardly ever get into my bed so it was a treat for them. They would rather do this than sit around the table and eat. By the way I have a king bed. It would have to be to fit all these kids. I think my favorite book this time was The True Story of the Three Pigs. Did anyone else do this today?

Geography Fun

I was asked what we used for geography and I wanted to share. We use Trail Guide to World Geography. We have had it for a while actually and have wanted to start but we have been doing our basics and then adding things here and there. So this week we finally added geography. We started doing a paper mache world and then we did this project. That is actually a balloon that we blew up and drew shapes to represent land. Then we cut out the shapes and tried to get the balloon into a rectangular shape and we saw how the shapes were not only smaller but distorted. We also read an article in the Awake magazine called Cartography--A Key to Knowing the World. That article explained how maps are not exact representations of how the land is on the maps. Pretty interesting!! We will wrap up next week with studying the world in general then start getting into different places around the world.

What is school anyway?

Me in Canada, that is not Texas snow

This post came about because of a question someone made on a yahoo group and my thoughts on the matter. Since this is my blog these are my opinions. You can like them or not just like I do when I read other blogs. So here goes....

Since I've been a homeschooling mom for about 7yrs now, I've thought a lot on this subject. What is the subject you might ask? Well, I've heard newer ones to homeschooling want to know what grade their children should be for a particular subject. What should they be learning for that year? Since my child is in 5th grade what should he be learning for language or math or whatever other subject? These are some of the questions I hear and it gets me thinking.

I think, "what is a grade anyway?" Yes, we have to have goals to meet so that we can educate our children but where did grades come from? There is a thin line here. We all use grades. Like we say my child is in 3rd grade or 7th grade but this is all to make those happy that ask. Grades have to be made by the public school system in general because they have to have a plan and they have so many kids to keep on the same levels.

Homeschooling our children gives us the opportunity to go beyond what the public schools say we should and can teach. Where is it written that we can't teach chemistry in 3rd grade? Why can't we teach about biology to our younger ones? Why do we limit ourselves in what we can teach and during what age levels they should be taught? It is nice to have those records that the public schools have about what to teach at what level but we are open to teach at any time and any age so why box ourselves in to what limits have been set by the public school system? Where is it written that if we don't teach our child about earth science in high school that we are not doing it right?

So our short answer to those that ask what grades our kids are in we say, 1st, 5th and 8th and move on. For those that want to really know we say, we homeschool and we learn at our child's pace. There are not many that want to know the long version so this is my way of saying to those that want to know.

If you plan on putting your child back in public school after homeschooling a year or two then, yes, you would want to follow public schools as far as their schedules but for as long as we have been doing it there is no way I am willing to send my children back to that.

Now this in no way saying we don't get the next level of math or different levels of language books we get but what I mean is that we go by our child's pace and ability. Some kids are ahead of other kids their age on a subject or behind others their age but they are on the right level for them. If your child has a disability or gift as I prefer to call it, you work on their level. We all work and think differently so why get frustrated because they are behind where we are told they should be. No fair! No fair for the child and for us moms that have a ton to worry about as it is.

Relax and enjoy the fun that can be had by going out of the box.

Fun Weekend

We decided to go out of town just to get away and we went to eat at our favorite home cooking place. YUM, Cracker Barrel has the "awesomest" food. It was a late lunch and hubby ate breakfast. They have breakfast any time of the day. I'm not much of a breakfast person so I get the meatloaf. Ooohh so good! This picture was the little one doing a crossword puzzle on their kids menu.
Of course, this jokester wanted this picture. Can you tell what he is doing with that (root) Beer bottle?
That is me getting a picture taken with my son's normal pose.
Hubby and my oldest.
No trip is complete till my kids have some sugar in them. hehehe The first donut comes right off the belt and it so nice and hot and it's free. We always get our free one. The bad thing is they are so good that they are addicting. I was strong and had my one. Oh, but it was tempting. Glad we went out. I needed some time away.

Our World

This past week we started our project for geography. Yep, a paper mache world. We got it all nice and dry now and will have one more week to work on it and finish it up.

We did do it indoors although a friend told us to go and do it outside. Not too bad and not too much mess indoors. We have round outdoor picnic table that we put in our screen porch but we bring indoors for projects just like these. We had fun.
The little one had the most fun and didn't want much help. *sigh* I should have made my own. I did eventually get to get my hands in the stuff. I remember I used to love doing all these fun school projects.
Of course after we were done with that the kids decided that they would see how big they can get a balloon to go with water. I had gotten a package of balloons for the project and had a ton left so they had to do this. I told them they had to clean up the floors if that thing popped before getting it outdoors. I was actually hoping it would pop so they could clean my floors. hehehe They walked outside very carefully.

Oh and for those of you that live further north of us....we still have been having shorts weather down here. It still gets into the lower 80's F. No snow for us. *wwaaahhhhh*

Great Book

My sister-in-law's sister works at the local high school and told me they had some books for teachers to buy and if I wanted to get some. She mentioned a book with bird songs and I knew it had to be one of these. I got it at half the original price too. I was jumping for joy when I finally got it. It is neat. The boys love it. Now I have to save up for the others. I'd love to get the other one of 250 bird songs from North America Birds and the one from Around the World will be the last one I get.

Tea Time Tuesday

Last week a friend invited me to tea and snack with a good book. Of course, my boys don't like hot tea so I had my nice hot tea and grabbed a few books and cuddled in bed with the boys to read. They enjoyed the snuggling part and listening to me read. Then I shared my picture with everyone and made an invitation to others.


This week we sat at the table and we all had something to drink and they had smores. Oh they loved that part. My little one was loving me read the David books but the older ones were not too thrilled. The front book is my oldest sons and has his sense of humor. For me it was like, ooooookkkk. Maybe I'll try something different next week. Let's see what I come up with.

Picture Quiz 3

As we were waiting for hubby to come home yesterday to do that diet coke and mentos thing, he finally drove up and the kids were so glad so they could have their fun. Hubby was in his truck and motioned for me to go over before he got out. I knew he had something with him. I wondered, "What did he buy now!" hehehe He brought this from work.

Take a guess at what this is. I'll post what this is by Friday. I was amazed at this. By the way, we have it in our house. I could not let this go.

Answer: Yep grubs!! Now just have to wait till we figure out what they are. They are either rhinoceros beetles or hercules beetles. They are huge and we have them in a glass aquarium and some dirt. Hubby brought them in a styrofoam cup and when he got home they had made holes in them. They are 3 inches long and as thick as my thumb. Ugly looking things!

Our fun experiment

A friend got us a kit for the diet coke and mentos thing. Myth Busters had a segment on it and my boys have been wanting to do this for a while. So this was it. We finally did it. The only thing is the boys want more diet cokes and mentos. hehehe They all had fun. Here's a little clip of our fun.

Fun Monday Lunch

We went to lunch at Incredible Pizza. Nope didn't take any pictures of all that pizza but this one was cute. He was saying how he was like his uncle. He will be the one to do a crazy thing like get a motorcycle.

My little one wants a ride every time we visit his uncle and his uncle pulls out his motorcycle.

After lunch was Lego creation time. The little one likes to make things that look like Star Wars. Doesn't that look good?
Of course the middle one does the same thing. He said it was an elephant robot.
He made me take a picture of the middle where he put a Lego man in there to control the robot.
Since all video games are in a box and put away for a while they have no choice but to get creative. Sometimes you just have to get rid of some things when they get in the way of fun and learning.