So apparently I’m not only currently a homeschooler slacker, but blog slacker.    I would love to say we’ve been soooo busy doing interesting, wonderful projects and activities that there is just not a second to blog, but then that wouldn’t be very honest of me, lol.

We’re muddling through (that is, if you can count jam sessions on Rock Band as music) and getting stuff done.   It is that time of year when we’re trapped in the house but can’t manage the ooomph to play all those board games that are perfect for this kind of weather because mom would rather be curled up in her chair reading while the kids bounce around downstairs in their moon shoes. 

Ok, it isn’t really that bad.  Alex has started on Singapore 3B and Aubrey is finishing geometry this week.  She’s started an online writing class and is actually completing the assignments (I knew having someone ELSE telling her to write x number of pages by x date would have more pull than me saying the same thing).  And, while I would be perfectly competent to teach her freshman composition (since that is actually what I went to school to do), it is nice being the “parent” rather than the “teacher” and helping her with someone else’s assignments.  

We’ve found an indoor pool that has a once a week swimming session for homeschoolers that is giving the kids a much needed physical outlet.   If the snow is finally melted today I’m hoping to go to the park and try out our new tennis rackets that we got for Christmas.

I’ve started a new Evan-Moor workbook with Jordan and Alex –a daily Grammar review.  Though some of it is stuff we’ve never done and I’m actually introducing the material, I’ve found it to be a nice, short, grammar practice that doesn’t elicit too many groans.

I’ve been keeping up my goal of trying harder to make it to “recess” and Jordan and Alex are making some friends.  While they’ve always mingled well, our attendance has always been so sporadic that they weren’t forming closer friendships with anyone.   Alex has made a buddy and Jordan is starting to get closer with the girls her age. 

 We’re being fairly strewingly unschoolish about history and science.  We listen to Story of the World (vol. 2) and are reading some books on the Middle ages (castles and knights are big right now) and we’re loosely following the Noeo Biology as a guide.  

 With any luck we’ll keep this little bit of momentum going through my busy work season.   Ha.

Thought I would check in since it has been a while.   Hmmm, besides Christmas and all that it entails, it has been a busy month.

We lost yet another puppy before Christmas, and then the remaining four did well, went back to the shelter this week and two have already been adopted.  Taking care of 4 very mobile puppies was a LOT of work.  A lot of unglamorous work.  But, seeing them start exploring their world and become social was worth it.   I almost caved and adopted one because Jordan was so attached to it and she was so cute and sweet.   

Jordan’s horseback riding teacher quit with very little notice so we’ve lost that activity, which I’m both sad (it was her favorite thing) and happy (one less thing to do for a while) about.  

Found a homeschool swim at a local indoor pool that is both fairly close (have I mentioned that pretty much nothing is close to me?) and fairly cheap.  Both are good qualities right now.   I read almost an entire novel yesterday afternoon and only had to look up and do a head count in between chapters.  So different than taking 2 toddlers to the pool!   I just love big kids.

 Remember all those posts about organized structured learning?   Yal, well, throw those out the window.  Here we go swinging back the other direction for a while.   We did nothing structure for the last three weeks and we are starting up this week with some bare bones structure.   Not sure if it is me or the kids that need it, but for the moment it is working.

I’m throwing in the towel with modern conventional medicine.  Alex had another bout of significant vomiting and keeping nothing down for a week and after almost a year of specialists at the local children’s hospital and all their invasive tests and lots of out of pocket expenditures, their solution?   Does he want to take part in a drug trial that one of their drs. is doing?   No, we don’t exactly know what is wrong but let’s try this unapproved drug on him for a while.   No thanks.  

The kids have been enjoying (and enjoying and enjoying…) all of their Christmas presents.   It is hard to pick a favorite, but Alex has been spending a lot of time with his marble skyrail coaster.  He has been learning so much–it is really open ended and let’s you design tracks that are too steep and the marble goes flying off.  He really had to study the faults of his first attempts and learn how to slow down at curves, bank corners and angle the loop-d-loops (I have NO idea how to spell that!), but at the moment he has a coaster that takes up the entire school room and has 4 loop-d-loops and the marbles make a complete run without either flying off or losing momentum and stopping completely.   I got Aubrey a box of bronze, aluminum, copper and brass rings and she has spent hours  making chain maille (which seems incredibly tedious to me, but she’s still enjoying it).   Jordan got a manicure station and we’ve polished, embellished, dried in the nail dryer…. So not my thing, but she loves it. 

We’ve also discovered the pop-up books by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart.   Each of the kids got one and then I got Aubrey a book on making pop ups and some craft tools/paper to make her own.  She’s started her own book and I can’t wait till it is far enough along to show off pictures of her pages.   She did spend some time bemoaning how awful hers were compared to the pages in the Sabuda books.  Perfectionist much?

And I’m enjoying my panini press that I got with a gift card (grown ups need fun toys too!).  On one hand, it is an expensive and bulky thing that pretty much makes fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, but but but… they are so pretty and yummy!!!   Panera is probably feeling the hit as I drive by day after day without succombing to its calls. 

There has also been a fair amount of media exposure during the past month.  Alex got two new Popular Mechanics for Kids videos which he has almost wore out and there seems to be a Mythbusters marathon going on around here.  Also, the computer game Age of Empires has absorbed many hours of Aubrey and Alex’s time and Jordan has mastered the ins and outs of her new toy–the Disney Mix-Max.   She now has all her music (Hannah Montana, High School Musical–she’s all about pop culture!) loaded onto this thing and is saving money to buy some of the little movies that it plays.     Aubrey has saved up about enough money to buy her own computer–the $$ she got for Christmas bumped her savings up just enough.   A plus in that I won’t have to share, but a minus in that I feel it is something that could really suck her time and I don’t want to have to moniter it.  

 I think that about sums up the past month.  I’m going to try to be better about posting regularly again.