Avoiding the 5 O'Clock Crazy

My house is crazy at night.  After 3 in the afternoons the kids lose their minds.  I have often wondered about the cause.  I have relative calm during the day and my husband doesn't see that part.  He only sees the crazy.  In an effort to make things a bit more calm and peaceful I have tried to take a good hard look at how we are spending our evenings.  What I discovered surprised me.  During the day we have structure and routine, at night, there is none.  OK, so now I feel sure I know what the problem is.  I am expecting far too much from my children and husband.  I need to either lower my expectations or form a better routine for the kids so they can have the tools they need to meet them.

The Plan: Avoid this.

This is the plan for the 2 –8 pm hours.
When the weather cooperates, I am going to make outside time from 3-4.  That way they can run around to their hearts' content.  When Daddy comes home, it varies greatly in the summer, but during the winter it is around 4, and the kids are all eager to see him, so they will come inside for a bit, but I am betting that they go back out.  I need for them to be occupied while Gary and I talk about his day.  He needs that down time with me.  So if they don’t go back outside, I think I may let them play Webkinz or Animal Jam on my computer for a little bit, I hardly ever let them and that always keeps them busy.  That way I can have the time with my dh, without the distraction of my computer LOL.  When I sit, the laptop is the first thing I want to pick up.

The Plan: Really avoid this

 Then we have the cooking supper hour.  I know what people say, “Let the kids help you.”  I say, “Come get them and let them help YOU.”  I am a realist.  While I can get some lofty ideas in my head, I know that will not work long term for me, not everyday anyway.  I need to not have the kids underfoot during the  ‘crabby hour’ (I will not say if it is me or them) while making the biggest meal of the day.  So, I need something to keep them occupied from 4 or so to 5:30 pm while I am cooking.  I am thinking realistically here so I know that asking Gary to entertain them might work for a little bit but would not be a long term solution. He is not always home and if he is, he very well may be working on something else for work.

The Plan: Avoid this.

Here are some of my ideas to keep the kids occupied:

• Put Quin and Beks in the bathtub and Micah in the shower. Jaela can wash Beks hair during this time. 
• Have them go play in their room for a little bit.
• Have them go back outside.
• Allow them to take part in supper prep. As they are getting older, this has become more and more of a good solid option. It was not so when they were 2, 4, 5, and 9. :)
• Let them hook up the game cube or Nintendo Wii
• Break out the play dough or art supplies. They have really started to like scrapbooking, so that is an option as well. 

So that is what I have come up with so far.  I can’t just pick one thing and repeat it everyday.  I need this to be very flexible.  So, I am glad for this list.  Now here is my plan for after supper:

• Clean up after supper - Everyone participates in this, even my 5 year old.
• Baths for everyone - if they did not get one before dinner.
• Final chores for the evening 
• Storytime (I know I should read to them! But this may look like them listening to an audio book)
• Bed time - that comes at 8:30 or 9 here.  

I think this will work!  I really want my home to be more peaceful and less chaotic.  I feel so much stress at night, I don’t want to cook, clean, or care for anyone!  Our lack of structure at night surely plays a part in this.  Hopefully, as I am now more aware of the problem, we can make our nights pleasant!

So.. Anna and I Met in Real Life - or - The Story of How a Whale Met a Dolphin, Part 1

Anna's hubby asked what she wanted for her big 3-0 and she said, "Jessica."  I think that was an awesome request.  I mean, I am pretty great.  The plus side was that I also got to go to this "Texas" place she keeps raving about.  I was super excited when the plane ticket was purchased and she started talking pedicures and hotel reservations.

Then it dawned on me.  I was meeting Anna - super skinny, adorable, young, and too smart for her own good, Anna.  I decided that I was just as smart but was definitely lacking in the skinny adorable department.  So, I loaded the kids into the van and went to do some shopping.

New makeup was in order since my 4 year
old helped herself to all of mine

Then I went clothes shopping.  I decided this
dress said, "Texas".

I appreciated how this one made me
feel taller.

My son said this one was too "much"
so I took his 6 year old advice and left it
at the store.

This one brought the "youngin" out in me,
so it was purchased.

Who puts big silvery stripes on their hips?
Not me!!!

I have never felt like an ice cream cone before,
well, until this moment.  I kept the shirt and
put the pants back on the rack.

And this was just the preshopping trip for the real trip! But, I had the clothes and makeup I needed to look awesome!

I am going to post more about this meet up in future posts! It will feature the results of my first pedicure *and* Anna's birthday spanking! Stay tuned for updates!

Chicken Math for Beginners

 When I got my first chickens I was not warned that I would need to be educated in chicken math. To keep any fellow newbie chicken owners from going through the same confusion I did I decided I would give you all a crash course in chicken math.


10=60 is our answer. Here is step by step how we arrived at the solution. It is going to be a bit Life of Fred word problemish.

I went to Tractor Supply to pick up 10 straight run leghorn chicks. While in tractor supply I noticed that they had Rhode Island red pullets. Since they were guaranteed to be female I purchased 5 of those. I had the kids with me and as soon as they noticed the ducks I knew we would be taking some home. We were required to purchase at least 2.

10=10+5+2

What is this math you speak of?

A local friend decided she had too many hens and was selling them at a great price. Since they were already laying I chose to purchase 3. 1 died in transit.

10=10+5+2+3-1

A few weeks later I decided we needed to add some variation to our less than colorful flock so I went to a local farm that sells a variety of chicks and purchased 10 more girls. I also decided that it was time for the ducks to go so we had them for dinner a few nights after purchasing the new girls.

10=10+5+2+3-1+10-2


                                   

Three weeks ago we lost 5 of our chicks to predators. We decided to replace 3 of them since three of the five lost were our favorites.

10=10+5+2+3-1+10-2-5+3

Now that our leghorns are older we know for sure that we have 4 roosters. We have decided to add more girls rather than getting rid of some of the roosters. We will pick up 10 chicks on Monday.

10=10+5+2+3-1+10-2-5+3+10

Now, at this point 10=35. But 35? That is not a nice number. If I am going to have chickens I will have to have them in multiples of ten...because...well, because that is chicken math. So I planned to add 5. But then I got to thinking; eggs can only be sold in dozens, so I can't have 40 chickens. Chickens should be kept the way their eggs are kept, in multiples of 12. Clearly, at some point 25 more will have to be added to the flock.

10=10+5+2+3-1+10-2-5+3+10+25

Now solve.

10=60


Congratulations on solving your first chicken math problem.

Free and Very Cheap United States History Kindle E-Books for Homeschooling

I am poking around on Amazon looking for primary source documents for my Nook so I thought I would post the free and super cheap deals I have found. This is by no means comprehensive but I am linking anything I find that might be helpful. THERE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS IN THIS POST:

Free:

The Mayflower Compact

William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation

Declaration of Independence

The United States Constitution

Bill of Rights



$.99

All 5 Volumes of The Life of George Washington by John Marshall

Democracy in America Volumes 1 and 2 by Alexis De Tocqueville

Anti-Federalist Papers

Apologia Ultimate Planner Flash Give Away!

 

We are giving away an Ultimate Planner by Apologia over on our Facebook page!! 
Go there, like our page, and leave a comment under the giveaway post - super simple!
The winner will be chosen at random. 

K12 - Monster or Miracle? My Review of Virtual Public Schooling

Some of you may remember that I have a child with ADHD. She doesn't have your run of the mill pansy ADHD, she has *the* ADHD where you as a parent are made to feel you have a nuclear reactor in your house that is constantly leaking radioactive material or is threatening to leak and you are having to go into hazardous situations every minute of the day and praying that nothing too terribly bad happens. I lie not. Thankfully, medication has plugged a few holes and keeps everything running sorta smoothly.

Except her schoolwork.  I had great curricula picked out for her.  She was using History's Masterminds, Math U See, Easy Grammar, IEW, and Real Science 4 Kids.  It is all amazing curricula. Except she wouldn't do it. Getting her to complete her schoolwork with any accuracy or at all was a battle I was not winning.  I needed help.

Enter K-12 in the form of our state's virtual public school, Tennessee Virtual Academy.

The enrollment process is fairly easy.  You have to send in all the same information as you would a normal brick and mortar public school.  I had to get her physical updated and things like that. No big deal for us.

After enrollment, she was assigned most all her classes, except for English and Math, and we did the initial class, Introduction to Online Learning, together.  Well, I mostly did it as not a lot of it pertained to her. But, that was also fairly painless.  During that first week, I got several emails.  I have to say I ignored some, forgot about some, and then did not really understand the rest.

K-12 tells you that your child needs to complete an initial assessment so they can put your child in the proper Math and English. They tell you that your teacher will tell you what your log in information is.  I waited for several days before I finally emailed her teacher and asked for it.  She was also assigned subjects to complete and I had to start putting in her attendance but we had not yet received her books.  I just had her continue to do the homeschooling materials that we already had on hand.  Her books arrived about a week after enrollment.  Not too awful long considering the process, but still a bit frustrating.

The curriculum is really challenging, too challenging for my struggling learner!

My kid hated it.  She hated being accountable to actually get her work done.  She hated that she is getting actual grades. She hated having to work the entire school day on school work.  All I have to say to that is, "Welcome to reality, kid."

My kid loved it.  She loved the class connect sessions she has where she can interact with the teacher and other students. She loved the art program that I was too lazy to actually do at home. She loved that she can email her teacher with questions and get an answer via email or an impromptu live class connect session.

I hated it. I hated it for all the reasons I knew that I would.  It is public schooling at home with all the intrusion public school can be and typically is. It took my time, energy, and a lot of the freedom I enjoyed as a homeschool parent.  I was on their schedule where my daughter is concerned.  If they need a conference, they get a conference.  I did have some room to ask them to reschedule if something truly doesn't work for me. But they get their conference.

I loved it.  I loved that it is so scheduled.  I loved that I can get help from her teachers if I need help. Sometimes explaining things to her can be maddening. Her teacher was extraordinarily helpful in giving me real and practical ways to help her learn what she is being taught.  I can not say enough good things about her teacher. She was amazing.  I love that all the guesswork about curriculum had been removed.

In the end, this did not work for us. My child simply has too many learning issues for K-12 to have been successful.  She needed more time that she simply did not have and could not be given. So, we took her out of K-12 and got a private tutor (yay for bartering!) instead.  That has been magical for us!

Summer Fun!

I think one of the biggest challenges for parents during the summer months, regardless of your schooling status, it trying to keep the kids occupied.  Some homeschoolers school year round and don't have this problem, but I would say that would not be true for the majority.

So, I thought I would share some of the things that we are doing and some tips to help you brave the summer months :)

1. Keep the summer a bit structured.  You don't have to go all out here.  After all, one of the biggest advantages to taking a summer break is that you don't have to watch any kind of clock.  But, you would do well to loosely schedule your days at home.   We do not sleep in all summer.  I know that works for some people, but I don't like sleeping (I know, I'm weird) so I just try to get the sleep I need to function well and then I get up.
Our summer routine looks a bit like this:

• Wake up at 6:30 (me) and 7:30 (kids) - these times are flexible and not set in stone
• Eat breakfast by 9 and clean up kitchen
• Go outside and check on garden, feed fish, and feed dogs
• Morning chores - the kids have certain rooms they are assigned to
• Play outside while it is cool enough to (their other choice is to come inside and clean more)
• Eat lunch by 12:30 or so and then clean kitchen
• Do chores again, because they have an amazing ability to mess things up
• Do a reading lesson and a math lesson (we will do this all summer to stay fresh)
• Go back outside and play in the sprinkler, play with toys in the house
• Prepare for dinner and do chores again
• Eat supper around 5:30 and clean up kitchen
• Watch TV 
• Bedtime at 9:00 to 9:30

2.  Buy a zoo membership if your zoo offers one or if your zoo is free then make use of it.
3. Check museums within an hour or two of you and see if they offer free days or free summer passes.
4. Picnic at local parks - ours has a grill and everything!
5. Check in with your local homeschool group to see what gatherings they are offering, if they don't have any, schedule one!
6. Arts and Crafts - I used to scrapbook, but then I had more than one kid. But, I have all this scrapbook stuff that the kids love to play with!
7. Do a unit study on or about things related to the summer time - here are some interesting links from Homeschool Share: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/connections__summer.php

Obstacles to fun:

Money:  Some things cost money, and I know that a lot of people, myself included, do not have a lot of this particular resource. But, I took a good hard look at my budget and I found money that we were spending on fast trips to McDonalds and the like. By not spending $25 a trip on fast food, I saved enough money to get the zoo membership ($100) and now we can go to the zoo whenever we like. In reality, nothing is really 100% free and some sacrifices have to be made in order to fully participate in life.

Time:  It is summer, if you take care of things promptly instead of putting them off for later in the summer, then you will have time to drive places.  Our zoo is a little over an hour away.  It is a little bit daunting to think of dragging the kids out and drive a total of 3 hours with them, but if I pack a cooler with luncheon mean, bread, and water bottles, then it seems a bit less overwhelming because I can just spend the day in the city.

Location: You are one that lives in the backside of nowhere, where they are piping in daylight - That can make things more difficult. But if you live that far out, my guess is that you are on some kind of farm and have plenty to do anyway.  :)  But, if you find yourself bored, then I would check out places around you to take a long nature walk with a rolling cooler and explore your countryside.  I would also plan a couple days a month that I was going into town and take advantage of the local city parks and other offerings.

Now it is your turn! How do you plan on keeping the little ones occupied this summer?