The year long story

A friend of mine on facebook started a story today, and had her friends add on to it throughout the course of the day. It was fun, and it got pretty long. Of course this got my wheels turning. My boys HATE writing! But, they are very imaginative, and come up with some pretty entertaining things. So, I have this idea of a notebook called the year long story.

Basically, I will start each day off with 2 sentences in the notebook (or the night before lol), and each boy will also add 2 sentences to add to the story. Each boy will have their own notebook, so 2 separate stories will be going on. The story will continue until December, with 4 sentences being added daily (2 by me, 2 by one of each boy). I'm hoping it will stir their creative juices, motivating them to get interested in writing, work on penmanship/grammar, and be something that's just between me and that boy (like an inside joke).

What are your thoughts on this? Good idea, bad idea? Or have any improvements I can make to it?

Workboxes

Yes, I'm about 2 years late into the game lol. In my defense though, this is our first year homeschooling, so I just found out about them... HA!

I've read Sue Patrick's book, and looked at so many different blogs and workbox pictures it isn't funny, and I'm convinced I NEED to use this system. It's just the thing I need to help my kids work independently and stop them from day dreaming or getting bored. We currently use a folder system like the one Jolanthe uses at homeschool creations, and it works... but not the way it should. The kids constantly complain and whine, about how much work is left, they day dream, they need me to sit there and hover to make sure it gets done, and it takes them forever to finish. I think it's just because my kids need constant breaks, and it's just not fun.

With the original system, Sue suggests using 12 boxes so that you can put your main subjects in them and break them up, then fill in the rest of the boxes with games/puzzles, review work or file folder games. I think this will work better for my kids, because even though it's essentially more work, the games provide motivation for them to work through their schoolwork.

So does anyone have any good websites with workbox activities, labels, and such for me to get more ideas of what else to put in their boxes? Oh, and I haven't exactly bought the boxes yet lol. Were waiting for payday, since I'm not sure exactly of the costs of everything for the 3 children. So stay tuned!

The Earth and the space center museum

Lately we've been really caught up in Orion's learning disability testing (the school district is really cutting it close). They have until January 30 to hold the final meeting, and we just finished testing last week. I still don't have a date for the final meeting, and I'm getting antsy.

Besides that, we've been diligently studying the Earth. Our unit on the earth was only supposed to last a week, but the boys have enjoyed it so much. We kept going more in depth, and adding different projects to our unit too. Now our earth unit has turned into a presentation, that the boys are excited about presenting to Daddy, and then again to my Grandma and Aunt. Bonus points for this project getting in some public speaking practice :)

Last week I took them on a field trip to the Columbia Space Center, and they had such a blast! They really enjoyed learning different space related things. I was hoping they would have more on the earth, but that's okay, they had fun anyway and it was educational.

Posing with a real astronaut suit. You can actually climb into the back and take pictures in the suit, it was really neat.

Flight simulator, taking turns landing our shuttle back on earth. Orion was the only one who didn't crash us, even with me taking a turn lol.

Catching parachuting shuttles and men. This was to show them the different types of parachutes used to slow down the shuttles as they come to earth.

Dropping marbles in and watching them spin around the giant funnel thing. It's supposed to simulate how the planets orbit around in space, and there were different sized marbles to try it with. We stood at this station for half an hour lol.

The boys launching pressurized 2 liter bottles. I'm glad the museum was kind of empty, or there would have been a line for this!

Lego robots that you program with a computer. The boys loved this!

Orion programming his robot for the next mission. I am now looking into finding a robot building club for the boys, since they enjoyed this so much :)


I'll be back in a few days with how the presentations went, and of course pictures!

Happy New Year!

And a Merry late Christmas. How was everyone's Christmas and New Year's? Our Christmas was really nice, and filled with lots of family... and of course gifts. I was really sick the week of Christmas, with a flu and vomiting. I thought I was better, and felt well enough to visit with family. I was wrong lol, boy was I wrong! I was a trooper though, and stuck it out for my kids (who were having too much fun with their cousins).

The week before new years I was still getting over my flu, and was so stuffy. I went to blow my nose, and had a terrible pain in my left ear. It brought me to my knees, and had me in tears. I had to call my husband home early from work to take me to the hospital. Turns out, I blew out my ear (literally)! I have a perforated ear drum in my left ear, and still can't hear a thing. They gave me some antibiotics, and pain killers, and instructions to schedule a follow up appointment with my Dr. My doctor said that my hearing should resume as my eardrum heals, but I might need surgery to repair that :(

I didn't let that put a damper on how we brought in the new year though! We went to watch the Pasadena rose parade. It's kind of a big thing around here, so we were excited to have great seats and be able to go. My husband's company had reserved parking, and bleacher seating for us, complete with our own bathroom (no waiting an hour in line for us). They even had free food (my kids favorite part), so of course my kids helped themselves to a breakfast of champions (hot dogs, popcorn, hot chocolate, and nachos).

This is before the parade started. You can see people still lining up :)

Boo Boo enjoying the parade, and all bundled up!

My Babe acting silly.

Bunny loves her photo ops, and she really loved the horses in the parade.

These were our favorite floats in the parade. Bunny is really into the Tangled movie (we've seen it too many times already lol), and thought the first float was Rapunzel's castle with Maximus the horse in front :) And the boys (husband included) are really into medieval stuff, and loved the jousting float that had knights on horses following it.
We've been keeping up with our school studies, I just haven't been keeping up with pictures and blogging. But, tis' a new year and I can always fix that! I'll be back in a few days with some more pictures of what we've been up to, and what I've been working on.

No more vacation time for us

We pretty much spent the last 3 weeks using up every last bit of vacation time we had for our school year. Were okay with that too. I needed a week to adjust to my new medication, which made me very drowsy, and gave me weird side effects. I'm pretty used to it now, and can still feel the side effects, but they don't bother me as bad as they did in the beginning.

I started feeling better towards Thanksgiving, so of course I was up for some black Friday shopping with my best friend. We went and had our traditional Thanksgiving with my in laws, and then we hurried back home. I thought I was smart by wearing a thermal, a sweater, and taking a blanket.... Boy was I wrong! Next year I'm wearing a double pair of socks, and taking a beanie, some gloves, and an extra blanket lol. I'm super excited with the deals I got though (I saved us a ton of money), because I went prepared. I stalked the black Friday ads the whole week before, and made a list. I shopped during the week, used coupons and compared deals. Target was a gold mine for us this year! We splurged a little this year, and got our oldest boy a desktop computer (can't wait to see his face!).

This last week we've been reviewing a bit what we did the last week we did school, so when we return to our studies next week it won't be a total shock lol. And we've been painting more wrapping paper. The kids have loved painting. I brought out all of our Christmas cookie cutters, sponge brushes, and regular brushes and let them go at it. I'm thinking of cutting up some cheap dollar store sponges into Christmas shapes for them to stamp as well, but we'll see.

Here they are painting up a storm. We used some packing paper that I've saved throughout the year that has come in our amazon packages. The key is to take a hot iron to them to get the wrinkles out. The other paper were using is a really inexpensive (around $3), but huge roll from Ikea.

Here's the first section of our wrapping paper roll laid out to dry. After it dries, I roll the dried end in on itself and paper clip it, so that the roll is in 2 separate parts (painted, and not yet painted). The kids have really loved adding in a lot of their hand prints, finger prints and painting in the cookie cutter shapes.

Our first wrapped gift of the season! This was a birthday gift for my niece. I was being extra cheap ( I meant thrift!), so I glued the open ends shut instead of using tape, and tied the package with a piece of yarn. He's kind of smudgy so you probably can't tell, but we cut out a gingerbread man out of the paper and used him as a card. The kids were super proud of their wrapping paper, and that makes me proud :)

We'll be back to our regular posting next week for sure, and I've got lots of fun links to share with you!

Adjusting and Recovery

I had a follow up appointment with my regular doctor last Tuesday, and it turns out that I had a stroke. Thinking back, it fits, and I was in denial. Migraines build up, and mine wasn't a build up.... but more of a sudden rush of pain. The right side of my face was drooping, and I was in denial. Let this be a lesson to not ignore your symptoms!

This week I spent sleeping, so no school for us :( I was put on a few daily meds (for preventative reasons), and I'm still adjusting so they make me really sleepy. And I haven't been eating (side effects), food just hasn't tasted the same :(

I'll be back to regular posting tomorrow! We've made some awesome pumpkin chocolate cookies, painted our own wrapping paper, and are getting ready to start making some great Christmas presents for family.

modifications and migraines

Sorry I've been m.i.a for the week, I had a lot on my plate. Tuesday I had Orion's SST meeting (that I've been crazy preparing for), then it was the sit and wait game. At the meeting we talked about making modifications for dyslexia, and it was pretty much what I've been doing with him. Wednesday afternoon we got the call that they indeed are going to evaluate him for learning disabilities, and I was supposed to go back on Friday to sign consent to evaluate forms... but yeah I started not feeling well. I'll write more about the meeting soon. Saturday morning Orion was throwing up, so we missed his football, and in the evening my husband took my Babe to his game. My sister in law picked me and the Littles up, so I can help her and my mother in law get ready for cheer competition on Sunday.

Sunday, I spent the day at cheer competition, and as we were heading home my head started hurting. I took a migraine pill, and didn't feel any relief :( About an hour later I took another, and tried to lay down to rest. I got up 10 minutes later, because my eye was throbbing.

This is me, when we got to the hospital. The whole right side of my face was swollen! Then we started hearing scary words like meningitis and stroke. Not good :( They gave me a cocktail of benedryl and compazine, which only made me sleepy and barely took the edge off of my migraine. I was so sleepy I said it was good enough (since it was now at least tolerable, and I wasn't blubbering like a baby), and we left. Monday wasn't spent any better, since I started feeling the pain in my head again. I left the hospital with a prescription for more compazine, and took that. It really doesn't help any :(  As of now, it's tolerable, but I can feel it building up. I have an appointment tomorrow with a new Dr (since our insurance switched), and hopefully I'll feel some relief soon.

And here's a nifty picture of my arm after my I.V. See the paper under my arm? That's the next printable I'm working on, Fry's first hundred words!