One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is the flexibility it allows our family.  Some days are scheduled and busy and then other days are relaxed and we take our time with school.  Like today, for example.  I didn’t sleep that well last night so we got going a little later than usual. 

Guitar got rescheduled from 4:30 this afternoon to noon so we were able to run by the local hamburger joint for a few burgers and head out to guitar.  A good friend of ours teaches our oldest son so while they were having fun learning new songs I got to hold a 4 week old and play with their 1 year old. 

We had a blast.  The kids all brought toys and we sat on their tree swing and screamed at the top of our lungs and listened to our voices echo.  The baby slept right through all the screaming and we had so much fun being amazed at one of God’s really cool inventions….the echo.

Some days are just that way.
And I love them. 
Some days we dress.
Some days we don’t.
Some days we play basketball in our PJ’s at the neighbor’s house.
Yep, the neighbors.

I know one day my kids will have to adhere to life’s schedules and demands but I hope that the relaxed nature of homeschooling transfers into their lives and their family’s lives after they are married with kids of their own. 

Life can be very demanding and it’s nice to stop every once and a while to enjoy the sunshine, our PJ’s and a little baby smell!

Have a great weekend!

Last week in the cool but brisk 50 degree weather we ventured into Greenville for a field trip to the theater to watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  It was a great play put on by a group that caters to school children.  It lasted about an hour and was fun to watch.  Afterwards we visited a local park and had such a blast running around trying to keep warm.  Here’s a couple pictures from our day!

The kids had a blast on this thing…..

They would take turns pushing each other and trying to stay on without holding on.  Because the "merry go round" was set at an angle it was quite a task.

I love the action I captured in these two shots (the one above and below.)

This thing was another hit.  Since everything was angled in some strange way it made for so much more fun.  Everything felt wobbly!

Three boys trying to hang on this time!

Baby girl tried her hand at hanging on.

Next was this cool skateboard type thingie…




I wanted to try it but I was chicken!
I think I succeeded in wearing them out though!

Today was almost 70 here and gorgeous!  Spring is just around the corner. 
Hope you had a great weekend.
IN HIM,

Yea, most people would say food or one of those frozen "boo boo" things if you have kids.  Maybe even a grown-up icepack for strained muscles.  There may be some deer if you have hunters in your family.  If you have a garden maybe some freshly frozen veggies.

I guess I should be happy the lizard wasn’t real huh??

Several of you have asked where I got the plastic Jamestown figurine thingies we were using the other day.  They came from Hobby Lobby.  I found them at Christmas.  There was a tube (yep, tube) of Settlers (complete with John Smith), Indians, and one of a train.  There were several others there too but those are the ones I selected.
So get on over to Hobby Lobby and see if they have them!
Check out this interesting and strange photo I downloaded from my camera after the kids had it.
What in the world is it???

I’m thinking they are doing science experiments without me!!!

Well the truth about Fred is out!
He’s a hefty…..drum roll please…..

16.7 pounds!

And the winner is Cathy over at At Home On Basket Flat
Cathy, email me with your address and I’ll get your Wendy’s card right out!  Hey, and enjoy a frosty on me!!

Nancy, how many chickens you think that will get me??

In other news….
I’m actually posting another homeschool post!
I know, you’re floored!!
Today I had enough energy to do something other than just plain ole school work.  So history got acted out with some Christmas toys!!

We’re studying Jamestown and the first 13 colonies.  We sang them to the tune of "Happy Birthday to You".  And it worked pretty well.  We remembered about 5 of them so we’ll practice again tomorrow.

Here are a few snapshots from today…

In our history book Jamestown was originally triangular in shape so we made ours the same way.

Complete with women cooking…

and men working…

Here’s our corral.  Pioneer Woman would be proud!

Between the settlement and the woods where the Indians lived there were wild animals.  It was a very dangerous time!!  (alligators, bears and wild horses)

Here’s the general layout of the land!

Those sticks in the middle?  They’re woods!!!  The woods separated where the Indians and the Settlers lived.

Here is the Indian camp…

And here is our ship.  It’s docked out at sea.

Then we fast forwarded about 200 years or so and added the transcontinental railroad.  Notice the similarity of the locomotives from that day (ha!)

It was a great morning.
What did you guys do today??

Wow!
A post actually about homeschooling!!!
What do you know?  It is, after all, a homeschooling blog isn’t it???

Before I post the winner of Fred’s weight (aka: find a set of scales) I wanted to share a great tool with you.  One of our kids does some tutoring work at Sylvan and he’s come home asking for Versa Tiles! 
"What are Versa  Tiles, son?"
"Oh mom, they are so cool!  I LOVE them!"

Love?
Did I hear the LOVE word?
From my son?  About school?
Where is my inhaler?
Anybody have some water?

This one son does not use the words school and love in the same sentence!  EVER!!

So, I call my good friends at Sylvan and what do you know?  There’s a website.  There’s such a bugger called  Versa Tiles!
And they are cool!  Check it out here!
You can also see how they work HERE!

So here’s a quick version of how they work.

Your child has a a set of tiles and a workbook
They match the number of the question with the letter of the answer.   For example:   If the the answer to question 1 is "day" then you put the tile number one on letter E (day).

See how each answer has a letter and each question has a number?

If the answer to number 2 is letter B then the tile goes there:

This continues until all the tiles are placed on a letter.

After all the tiles have been placed the child closes the case, flips it over and opens it.  Then a pattern is revealed.


If all the colors are together and the pattern matches the one at the end of the page then the child knows he got them all right!  See the patterned blocks at the bottom left hand corner of the workbook page??  See how my pattern matches it?

If the pattern doesn’t match then the child knows he got something wrong and reworks the page.  It’sawesome, self correcting and wonderful for independent work.  They have Versa Tiles for each grade and sets for Math, Science, Kindergarten and Language Arts.  Go check out their website!

Gotta run to Spanish…..

Mainly because none of you guessed anything!  Stinkers!!
Last week we joined a group of fellow homeschoolers for little rock climbing!
We had a blast and got through several climbs before the rain settled in for good.  All the boys climbed at least twice.  Baby girl would have no part of all those ropes and such.
Number three son ventured up first…


Then number two son went up…

And came back down….

It was neat watching them make it all the way to the top to then traverse down.  It it hadn’t been such an unflattering angle I might have tried it.  Plus I was in day two of looking like this.  It just wasn’t my best day!