A couple of weeks ago, when Jordan decided it was time for her to make some money, I politely shut her down on her request to google “How a girl can make money.” Just didn’t think that was a wise approach. We did get on the library website and search for some books. We ended up with a stack of them. So far the favorite has been the American Girl series “Smart Girls Guide to Money: How to Make It, Save It and Spend It“
Last weekend she made dog biscuits completely on her own (well, except for the cleanup), made price tags and bagged them in decorative bags that she purchased—this included lessons in marketing, profit vs. expenses and potential customers. With some prodding, she decided to give some of her proceeds to the shelter we foster for–and she decided on a 1/3 of the cost. She calculated her estimated profit and her estimated donation to the shelter. Then she went to sell them—the hard part for mom. A diehard introvert, it is hard to let her “bug” people. That said, we came to an agreement and she is about 1/2way through her inventory.
I am curious how other people handle small business ventures from their kids. At the moment at least, people seem to be buying the dog biscuits just to be nice, so I don’t see this turning into an ongoing money maker. But, since Jordan tends to fixate on things and this is certainly successful at the moment, I can see her wanting to keep at it. If the adults around her would decline if they aren’t interested, it would die a natural death, but it seems like many adults go ahead and buy, and then are resentful that they are being peddled to. We’ll see how it goes, but she is certainly learning a lot and applying a lot of her math skills to something that is important to her.
No, I’m not talking about advanced mathematics. I am talking about the inverse relationship between the size of the messes my family makes to the amount of time I’ve just spent cleaning.
On Friday and Saturday I decided the house was beyond what I considered acceptable and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. The kitchen was spotless when I was finished, everything was tidy and you could walk through rooms without tripping over things. Maybe it is the empty space that is so inspiring. Maybe they are just out to drive me insane.
This is today.
I’ve been asking for almost four years for dear hubby to take down the ugly paneling in the living room and replace it with regular sheetrock. Yup, today he decided to move all the furniture out and start the demolition.
Jordan has been reading on ways for kids to make money and she decided today that she was going with the business plan of selling homemade dog biscuits. Which, of course, required her to make dog biscuits. Completely by herself. Well, except for the cleanup.
Needless to say, my kitchen is no longer spotless. I am surrounded once again by chaos. Who knows what mes Aubrey and Alex will add to this.
Somehow I managed to get all of my kids interested in NANOWRIMO this year. Did all the planets align just right? Jordan and Alex have made very modest goals (1000 words), but that would be about 1000 words more than they generally willingly write. The kids site has a forum for homeschoolers and what looks like some cool stuff, if only it would consistently load for me.
http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/
I also signed up. Have I written a word yet? Nope.
So, today they signed up and started their stories.
Reading is more fun with a friend
My little Halloween ninja. And, he decided to read Night of the Ninjas today. He somehow skipped the Magic Treehouse craze as a 2nd grader, but is picking them up now.
Well, the teen years could be interesting….
And what’s Halloween without some gross food?
Now, that’s a melon brain!
The astronomy class did the ole make a contraption that will protect an egg from a big fall. Alex designed a tube within a tube with the egg protected “bungee style” with rubber bands. Unfortunately, it landed wrong and his eggstraunaut did not survive. Still a lot of fun.
Aubrey got set loose with the glue gun again. Sigh.
I don’t know what this creature is called, but he has a friend with wings.
Our basement opened a new thrill ride…
We also found a weird egg (of the possibly bug variety) that is now in our critter keeper. I just keep telling myself it is better than a snake.
Today we did a couple of challenges from the http://kidswhothink.blogspot.com/ for the last day of our science co-op.
A bit of reading, bit of writing and a bit of multiplication and division.
Aubrey gave a presentation in her college class and feels she did pretty well.
Not a bad week.
Nothing pithy or enlightening to write about, but having one of those moments realizing I’m not doing much structured work and so I’m wanting to believe we’ve been doing something productive.
Jordan is learning sign language in one of her co-op classes, and even participating in a group deaf chat night to practice her budding skills. She seems to enjoy it. She’s also taking a creative writing co-op class and has written a few poems in addition to keeping a (kind of) daily journal.
Both Jordan and Alex are in a science class that I’m (kind of) teaching. It has focused on physical science and we’ve made roller coasters with foam insulation and marbles, rockets with balloons, straws and fishing line, made cartesian diver “submarines”, centrifual force lifters, magnet mazes…. They are also in an astronomy co-op class that Alex is loving and Jordan is so-so about.
They are both reading independently from chapter books each week, finishing about one a week, though Jordan just started the Marley book geared towards kids and it may take her longer. Before that she read the new Beyond Spiderwick book.
We’re really enjoying our audio books. I guess that means we’re spending a lot of time in the car. (I have a page listing our audio books so far this year).
We’re doing some math drill work trying to get quicker with mulitiplication and for Alex, division. To that end, we’re rereading “Times Tables the Fun Way”and though this is exactly the type of thing that would have driven me nuts in school because it is just an extra step, the visualization seems to really help both of them. And they’re playing some of the games on www.kidsnumbers.com. Alex is working a bit with long division–but although I supposed it is something I would prefer he know how to do, really, how useful is it?
And, we’re doing soccer, gymnastics, lots of wii fit, walking…
And we have a foster dog that is staying with us until we find her a home.
Oh yeah, I have a teenager too. She seems to be keeping up and doing well in all her online highschool classes and also her class at the community college. It seems so weird to be so uninvolved in what she’s doing, but I really think it was the right decision for her to branch out.
We’ve had field trips to pumpkin patches, indoor water parks…
We’ve dealt with getting braces, breaking limbs, breaking rules…
In between all that I’m working extra hours, fighting work deadlines..
So, ok, lots going on. Lots of productive things. So my husband deserved the glare he got when when he raised his eyebrows at me because Alex gave him a confused look when he asked about a “paragraph” because he didn’t know what that was.
I somehow managed to volunteer to team-teach a co-op class on Hands-On science. We’ve been doing fun, educational, hands on projects with 22 kids ranging in age from about 5-12. As I’ve been gathering stuff together, I started pondering the difference between understanding a concept and being able to name the term for it. We’ve certainly experimented with concepts, and certainly have thrown out terms, but there is no quiz at the end for the kids to spit the terms back to us next to the appropriate multiple choice question. And I wondered, should we be doing more to drill the names of these terms into these childrens’ brains? Will it be a successful class if the kids don’t walk away with Newton’s laws memorized? Maybe it is the fact that there are 22 kids that made me slip into such a schoolish mindset, but I’d never really pondered the difference between understanding what is happening and being able to label it. We experimented with centrifugal force and inertia point last week. Certainly, as the kids spun around on my dizzy disk and held handweights out and then brough them to their chest they were learning that they sped up if their arms were tucked in and slowed down when they put their arms out. And I mentioned some names, and some reasons for this that they probably won’t dutifully regurgitate for me next week. Does that take away from their learning? I’m guessing most unschoolers would say an emphatic “no”, and perhaps many school teachers would say yes (or at least it would effect their grade and/or standardized test outcomes). As for me, I’m just pondering. At this point, I would like to believe that the experiences are laying a groundwork so that in a more formal learning environment some day, they will have a reference point to really understand the terms they learn at that time.
We decided to take a fall trip. September really is the ideal month for homeschooler travel. We got into all the museums for free, and had the place to ourselves. Everyone is back in school and yet it is too early in the year for schools to be doing field trips. The trip had its challenges, but we had a lot of fun and certainly a lot of learning between the natural history museum, the science and industry museum, the aquarium, and legoland discovery center.
Ah, look at the sibling love in this one….
Its always like that around here……hahahahahahahahaha
Not sure if I’ve blogged about it, but I’ve openly mocked our local public school for their ban on playing tag or any “chase” games. I mean, its tag. Not exactly life threatening.
Last week at homeschool recess the kids were playing when Alex was ushered over to me by his friends. He was white as a sheet, shaky and told me he fell and heard something crack. Yes, he was playing tag. And, yes, he broke something (his collarbone).
If only he had been kept safe in public school!!!
And, yes, I’ll still let him play tag–but maybe not for a few weeks.
