A Productive Day

7am--Eyes pop open after repeated slaps at my snooze button. Get the King up and make hot tea. Check email quickly, then start waking the munchkins.

7:45--Boys are busy doing morning routines. Finally start eating breakfast at 8:20. I instruct them to do only 1 of their chore cards and then head downstairs to start school.

9:20--Boys start Tote work and I'm doing laundry down there with them. Mozart playing in the background. Checking and helping with math. Working on AVKO spelling, copywork and phonics. After Tote work, Tigger gets in his narration while Pooh does another chore card or two. Then they switch places.

11:10--We are taking a 20 minute break. I check email again, cook up bacon for our dinner soup, make a veggie dip and cut up broccoli for lunch. (we don't eat lunch quite yet)

11:30--Do our Together work which consists of bible study/reading, daily text, recitation, reading of Pinnochio, reading Woods Walk (doing the autumn in the east part) and poetry.

12:30--lunch time. I finish putting together a potato soup. Start loaf of bread in my bread machine but it starts making a huge clunking sound so I take it out and finish kneading, then set it to rise. Head outside to plant pansies and cut back my poor French Lavender bush (maybe too much rain this year?? It's dying back in parts. It looks awful now that I've cut it back so much but will hopefully look better soon.)

2:30--Back inside. Boys had played 30 minutes of video games and when I came in, they were sneaking a show. I made them turn it off. Pooh had a meltdown. Got Penalty chores. Had another meltdown. By 3:30 we talked and got it all sorted out. I punched down the bread and set to rise again. Blended the potato soup with my immersion blender, seasoned it well (added the bacon) then turned it off.

4:15--Off to Art for Pooh. He's got to finish his pastel of Napoleon on a horse. Listen to WT on the way there. (40 minute drive) Drop Pooh off. Tigger and I go to our nature walk place and got rained out by an afternoon thunderstorm. We did see two rainbows though! Head to Sears to check on their cameras. Messed around with a couple and got the 'feel' for them.

6:00--Pick up Pooh and talk with Art teacher a bit. Head to Target to see their camera prices--same as Sears. Boys got distracted when they saw the Star Trek Enterprise ships. Got out of the store quick. Listened to Anderson Fairy Tale on the way home (The Sweethearts and The Ugly Duckling.)

7:00--Got home. Bread rose beautifully. Told the King that this is my most beautiful loaf of bread ever and I can't take a picture of it. Heated up soup. Did some dishes pre-dinner.

8:15--Bread is done. Eat dinner. Boys pick up basement. I do some research. Then we have family study. Boys practice two tunes I've taught them on our keyboard. (I can't believe they remembered them! It's been two weeks since they last practiced!!!)

9:45--Basement pick up. I check email and blogs. Hub is in bed now I think. I need to finish kitchen and get to bed.

I wish every day would go this well.

Boo Hoo

(Edited to add: I just heard a crash in the kitchen. Guess who is helping with the dishes? The King just broke a ceramic spoon. Tigger feels so much better about himself now. LOL)

I'm in mourning. My wonderful digital camera through which you may have enjoyed many a blog post (I know I enjoyed blogging them.) hit a rock and ended up in a stream yesterday. Can I just say, "Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh"? I bought it on Amazon in the spring for $110. I looked last night and another seller (not Amazon itself) is selling them for $277!!! The same camera! Another "Waaaaahhhh".

How did it happen? Well, it was ultimately my fault. I made the choice to allow my little Tigger to take a picture with it. Most of the time when he asks to take a picture I tell him 'No'. This time I thought 'I'm right here. He's wearing the wrist strap. What could go wrong?' Frankly, I don't know how he did it. One minute he had it in his hand, the next it was sailing right by me into the stream. I should have known better.


The boy is like his father, poor thing. When The King and I were engaged, his friends warned me what a klutz he was. I thought they were exaggerating. Hah! They weren't. Two sets of glasses, plates and a couple of souvenirs from France later and I knew they were right. And that's just what I remember! (I love you, Honey! ;D)

Tigger was very upset himself. He even said later when we saw some pretty berries on a bush, "Too bad we can't take a picture of them." He was also horribly offended when I told him I just couldn't let him use my cameras anymore. I explained that this is something he inherited from Dad (Genes are wonderful things aren't they? Heavy sarcasm!) and that until he had better control over himself and his movements, he wouldn't be able to touch them again. (From experience, I'm thinking he won't be ready till he's like, ya know, 35.) I told him that I wasn't really upset with him, I was upset about his camera. He did feel really bad!


I had some wonderful nature things to share too! We had left Pooh at Art and went to a local Bog Garden to look for mushrooms. It's been wet here in the Southeast lately and I thought it would be a good time to see them. We found lots! I was even taking pictures of different bushes with some gorgeous berries on them. I wanted to label them if I could. We found TWO snakeskins in the stream! Tigger was so excited. We fished them out and he was taking a picture of me holding the second one (on a stick) when the fateful event occurred. (Another "Waaaaahhhh". Every time I think about it I want to cry!)

The camera lens wouldn't retract. All the windows were fogged up. The King opened it all up last night and is letting it dry. We'll see what happens. I'm not even sure if I managed to salvage the little card thingy with the pictures on it. I took it out right away hoping it would dry and be ok.

Here is the one I'm looking at if I have to buy a new one. Here is my old one. Opinions are welcomed. I'm a novice photographer, but I've found that I love it. I love snapping photos and hoping for that one that really captures joy and/or beauty. I love the zoom features so I can catch the details of the flowers and plants that I photo. What I really want? That one on the commercials with Ashton Kutcher (spelling?). I know, I'm a sucker for advertising, but MAN! that camera is awesome!

Tigger and I moved on in our walk after the event. We had fun when we found some Touch-Me-Nots beside the path. Some of the seed pods were ready. We touched, they popped and I screamed. Every time. LOL We found some pieces of bread that another lady had left and fed them to the ducks. We saw a chipmunk. By the time we got home, he (at least) was over it. I, on the other hand, am wearing black today.

Waaaaahhhhhh!

(Photos in this post are from ones already loaded into my computer.)

Carrot Cake Math

I had some carrots that were past prime so I decided to make carrot cake today. I printed out the Carrot Cake III recipe from Allrecipes.com. (It's ok. I didn't fine it cakey enough though. Plus it cooked waaaay faster than what was indicated.)

First I had the boys help with the grating of the carrots. They are a little timid with the grater as it can 'get' you if you're not careful. However, they managed pretty well. We ended up with 6 cups of shredded carrots. The recipe only called for 3 cups. Sooooo, we worked on doubling the recipe.
Pooh really hasn't paid all that much attention when I've done baking with him before as to 1/2 cups, teaspoons, etc. Frankly, he was only barely paying attention today. What made him work for it was the doubling. He didn't know how to think out the problems so I did a lot of scaffolding. I had him read the recipe and we kept going over how "We need 4 eggs for one cake, but we're doing 2 cakes, so how many do we need?" Same thing with teaspoons of cinnamon. "It says 2 tsps. That's for one cake, but we're doing 2 cakes." Lots of long pauses to see if he'll figure it out. When he needed help I'd say, "This cake has 2 tsps. The second cake needs 2 tsps. How many tsps is that?" Pooh needed all of this to be slow and deliberate. There were a couple of times when frustration started to get the best of him, but we quickly worked it out and managed to keep him in his 'zone'.

The other thing we tried was working on what 1/2 is. How many 1/2 cups do we need to make 1 cup? We took the 1/2 cup and filled it twice to show how it is equal to 1 cup. We went over it several times. With the shredded carrots, with the flour, with the oil, with the salt (using the teaspoon).
Did he really get it? Probably not. We'll have to be doing a lot more baking for that to happen. Sometimes he got sidetracked by Tigger yelling out wrong answers. LOL Then sometimes Tigger would actually remember how to do it and he'd get it right. I have a few pictures that I'll add into this post. However, I was too busy trying to get two rowdy boys to focus and not make a huge mess to take many photos.

P.S. Uh, the Icehouse is mine. Product of a long day baking with two young boys. ;D

Anniversay 2009

Our anniversary was last week. 14 years we've been married. Pretty cool. Fabulous, even! I decided that this year I wanted to introduce the boys to 'how to celebrate your parent's anniversary'. They never really had a clue before last year. Pooh has taken a while to even notice or question what it meant. Lately, however, he's been reading the calendar and commenting on the anniversaries I write on there. This year they got a lesson in gift giving, money, shopping and fancy dinners.

First off, I explained what we were going to do. They each got their money and money pouches ready for the shopping excursion. Tigger knew from the start that he wanted to get me a ring. I took them to Walmart. LOL We looked at the jewelry, talked about prices, tried on rings and discussed how they would have to have some money for Dad's gift too. Tigger and I agreed on a ring (one of his choices was a seriously huge monstrosity that I would never have worn. Ok, well maybe a couple of times if he'd picked it by himself and given it to me.) Then it was Pooh's turn. I did have to direct him to looking at things *I* would like, not him. Finally, he chose a necklace with 'MOM' on it.

We had quite a time finding Dad's gift. Men are really hard to shop for. We ended up at Lowe's where they found an organizer for nails and whatnot. Dad also received some new work gloves and a ring with 'DAD' on it. That was Pooh's suggestion.

Here are some photos of our evening:

We went shopping one day for the gifts and the next for the dinner supplies. We bought flowers. I made pork chops, black beans, rice, tomato & avocado salad, tostones and maduros. It was nummy. We also purchased wine and new wine glasses.

The boys were happy to use the wine glasses with GRAPE juice in them.

The King bought the lovely yellow lilies.

And here are the gifts from the boys. There were so proud of themselves. :D I bought cards so they could give those. They each did their own card writing though. Very sweet!

14 years later...

A Reading Lesson

I haven't worked much on reading with Tigger. I've read several things on not pushing reading (like some schools tend to do) due to brain/visual maturity, especially for boys. Charlotte Mason also did not recommend formal lessons before a child was six. Although I still find her reading instructions a bit vague, I am trying to do gentle instruction and have taken some suggestions from others who've used her method a lot longer than I have. Here is one of the clearest explanations I've found.

We have been doing some pre-reading exercises though. He loves to rhyme words now. It took a little for him to understand the concept. He kept trying to give me words that started with the same letter. LOL Now, for the most part, he will rhyme correctly. Tigger is not a memorizer so still will forget the names of letters or forget what sound they make. I think his little brain is too busy. When he is trying to remember something, he sits and says the same thing over and over again trying to keep it in his head. Don't distract him during this time!

Lately he has been really upset when we have family study time or during meeting preparation about the fact that he can't read yet. He said yesterday that "When I learn to read, then I can read the whole bible and can learn about God all by myself."

It's time to teach the boy some formal lessons. So today we started with a very simple 5-10 minute lesson. I used the white board and presented 'at'. Then I simply stated "This is the word 'at'. Now watch what I'm going to do." I then wrote the word 'cat'. Well, once he saw how it worked, he LOVED it! We did 'at' words and then we did 'in' words. He's very ready for his next reading lesson tomorrow.

It will be a review of 'at' and 'in' and then I'll start on 'en' and 'un'.

How exciting! He gave me a hug and said "Thank you Mommy for teaching me how to read!". So Sweet! When Dad came home he had me write words on the board again so he could read them for Dad. I then wrote on the board (just for fun) 'The cat sat on a mat.' (Yes, I know, a very twaddly sentence.) He loved that too. I just told him the three words he didn't know. Then we changed it to 'The cat sat on a hat.' LOL

I guess the phonics tiles will be doing double duty for a while. I have those famous LeapFrog videos to review with him too. He'll be soooo excited!

Working On A Smoother Day

I've been experimenting with our system of doing school to try to make it a little more organized and streamlined. It's still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share what we're doing so far.

I had considered doing a form of the workbox system with Sterilite drawers I had purchased. But I let them sit there in the school room and kept thinking and thinking, finally discussing my whole dilemma with the King. I want to have a sorta, kinda workbox system. However, I am sooo not going to be filling workboxes each day. My goal was to come up with a system that I take care of once per week and then spend the rest of the days doing the work and having fun with other things.

I looked at different ways other moms have set up their systems. One thing that really caught my eye was Ginger's Setup for her Schedule Cards. I don't have the schedule cards set up AT ALL yet. First I wanted to try my plan and see how it all works.

Here is my bookshelf with a basic idea of my plan. There is a shelf for each boy. I have combined two different set-up systems. First you can see that each of the boys has a tote. This is for work they do every day such as: Math, Explode the Code, Copywork, Spelling, etc. Next you will notice that I have a couple of magazine holders on each shelf. I'm trying out using these for weekly work. I'll be getting some more magazine holders from Amazon and they each will have a set of 5 holders labeled Monday through Friday. In the holders is where I'll put their narration books for each day and any other activity that they need to complete. That includes their extras like music, art, handiwork, etc. I also have different games and manipulatives (and other things) that will be used more with this system.

I tried turning cereal boxes into holders but they are making the boxes differently now and the books just don't fit, although they are useful for smaller items. If something is too big for the holder, I'll just put a card or something in there with instructions on what to do. Then at some point, I'll have their schedule cards set up so they will have their 'Tote Work' their 'Weekly Work' and their 'Work with Mom" work interspersed with other things such as little exercises, snack time, etc.

It sounds sort of complicated explaining it, but it's very easy to implement so far. Their totes are almost always the same. Not usually much I have to change right now. Their weekly holders are easy to fill and they just put it on their desk, do the work and move on to working with me. I'm moving slowly on this because I want to be sure I like the setup. Too many times I've been really excited at an idea and been stumped along the way with unexpected obstacles that make the idea difficult to implement. I have to move slowly to allow myself to process what is working and what isn't.

Here is Pooh working with his Tote. Each assignment is divided with hanging folders. I found some hanging folders that are like bucket folders and I use that for his math. He's using Math U See and keeps his DVD in there for when it's time for the next lesson. No more hunting it down.

Tigger and his tote. He's got an old school desk someone gave me. In the storage area underneath he keeps his boxes of pencils, color pencils and scissors, etc. When he uses his tote he slides the lid under the chair out of the way.

The sit down work really doesn't last long. Weekly work usually is with me for narration and then we work on whatever extra for the day (nature study, art, etc.) The Work with Mom work is bible reading, recitation, poetry and any other spiritual study and reading we have assigned.

We are still a bit bumpy with our schedule but at least now I have a basic road laid down. The more we travel that road the more the bumps will get smoothed out I'm sure. When I ever finish the set up with holders and labels, I'll take pictures and post those too.

Chore Organization--Part 2 The COAR System

We have a split level house with a half basement. The stairs going from the kitchen to the basement have some nice large walls that were doing nothing so I turned them into a Scheduling Station.

This is the Notes side. Each of the boys has their own white board. This is NOT for them to write on. This is for Dad and I to leave them comments and write down any penalty chores they've earned. We always hope for them to have only the 'inspirational' notes, but there are days when extras must be thrown up there. I always make the positive comments in black because it's a bolder color that stands out. The penalty chores are written in their corresponding color (blue or green) because it's lighter and the idea is that it is less noticeable. I want them to focus on the positive as opposed to the negative. There's also a purple board that Dad and I can leave notes/memos to each other on.

A close-up of Pooh's board. Notice my "resilience sentence" that I leave for him. He's washing a few walls today.

This is my arena. I have my Flylady calendar on a peg board. I also pegged a little basket to it to hold my pen/pencil and some white board wipes. I can also use the peg board to hold invitations, lists, etc if I choose.

Underneath my peg board are these hangers again. These hold the Chore Cards. These aren't as easily flipped because I put them on a key holder (can't remember the name of those things). This way the boys can take their cards with them as they travel from one chore to the next. They attach them to their belt loops. They don't have pictures so Tigger comes and checks in with me to make sure of what to do next.

The chore cards are broken up into areas: kitchen duty, laundry duty, bathroom duty, 2 different bedroom duty cards, animal duty, basement duty, livingroom duty. Each area is broken down into daily chores and weekly chores. They do the weekly chores with me on an as needed/as we get to them basis. My goal is to train them in doing different things around the house and putting weekly chores on the cards tells me who to focus on for a particular job when I'm ready. The cards are grouped into two so they each get 4 areas each week. The next week they switch.

Here's a sample of what is on a card. (once again, 3x5 index cards covered with contact paper)

Bathroom Duty

Daily Chores—Do as needed all day.

• Clean toilet.
• Clean sink.
• Pick up towels & clothes.
• Sweep floor.

Weekly Chores—Do once per week or as instructed by Mom and Dad.

• Mop floor.
• Clean mirrors.
• Scrub bathtub.
• Dust ceilings/walls.

Throw rugs in hamper

I hope to one day figure out the file sharing thing and get some of my documents available to you. I just have to pick a file sharing site that I can trust.

One thing I haven't quite decided yet, is if I'm going to continue having them work on chores before school or what. I only require the daily ones before school but at this time, they goof around so much that it's taking too long. My first goal is to get us consistently started earlier in the day and then I'll be better able to tell what to do with timing of the chores.

It's interesting to see which chores that each excels at. Pooh always remembers his laundry duty and does really well at it. Tigger has kept the bathroom sink very neat this week! Once Tigger got over screaming about the bees, he's been fine with animal duty. It was quite hairy there for a while though! They are both lax lately with their bedroom duties. I feel a weekend cleanup coming on!

Hope these posts give you all some ideas. I know that I found other bloggers' posts invaluable in deciding what I was going to do.

Chore Organization-Part 1

I started thinking back in the spring that I wanted to set up the boys' chore system a bit differently this year. I spent A LOT of time looking at different chore set ups. My favorite one that I read described was for the MOTH chore system. It has little carrying clip on cases for the kids chores to be in and then they move the cards to the back of the case as they finish. That sounded good, but I wanted to be able to put my own clipart on the cards and I wanted to be able to make our own cards and change them out whenever the need. I decided to use this system--Chores On A Ring. COAR? LOL That's it! My system is the COAR system. Seriously, that just came to me this second. ;D

Anyway, you can see in the photo below that each of the boys has one of those stick-on-the-wall hangers to put their routines on. In their bedroom is where we hang their morning routine cards and their evening routine cards. Before they just had a chart on the wall. Now I can change out one or two cards or change the order anytime I want. (These cards are 3x5 index cards that I contact papered.)

Here they are in a lovely 'fan' fashion.

Morning Routine is as follows:
A Rooster Crowing is the Morning Clip Art
Wake Up 7am (in theory-some days it happens-some days it doesn't)
Make Bed
Put on deodorant
Clean Underwear
Get Dressed
Put pj's away (they either put them in the hamper or place on their pillow if still clean)
Brush teeth
Wash face. Use toner. (Pooh is getting pimples already.)
Brush hair.
Dirty clothes to hamper. (there's usually something that's been left on the floor)
5 Minute Room Rescue
Put away clean clothing. (they each have a hamper where I put their clean/folded clothes--they put away)
Eat Breakfast.
Take vitamins.
Work on chores for day.
Check schedule. (school schedule)

Evening Routine (wolf howling at the moon as an evening clipart):
Lights out by 10pm (once again, in theory...sigh)
5 Minute room rescue
Bath (as needed basis)
PJ's
Snack
Brush teeth 1 minute (using a timer). Then floss.
Wash face. Use toner.
Check schedule for tomorrow. (Pooh reads my calendar to see what's happening.)
Set out clothes.
Storytime.
Prayer.

We are still working on consistency. Pooh, especially, tends to just forget to look at the cards and then will 'accidentally' skip a step here and there. Usually the brushing of the hair in the morning. Tigger forgets to put his cards back on the hanger. It's good that he usually remembers where they are, however.

Things would go better if Mom were more consistent about checking behind them. *cough, cough*

Stay tuned for part 2 of the COAR system. ;D