Oh yeah.... I forgot I had a homeschool blog!

 1st Grade!

 5th Grade!

 8th Grade!

Chillaxin after a hard day with cucumbers on their eyes... "spa day" is what they called it. Evan did his spelling words like this!

 beading....

 building...

 "teacher's institute" at the forest preserve...

 Civil War Days

 Civil War Days at pumpkin farm

 Evan's Special Birthday trip to New York City with Grandma

Zombie Apocalypse

"Good morning, Evan! Happy Leap Day!"

"What?"

"You know, Leap Day. It's the extra day we get every 4 years because it takes 365 and 1/4 days to go around the Sun so our calendar makers decided to save that 1/4 day and put it all together on an EXTRA day, every 4 years. So we have 366 days this year!"

blank stare

"Don't you remember the field trip to the planetarium? The discussions we've had? HELLO?!?"

"Well, what would happen if we didn't use the extra 1/4 day?"

"We'd have snow in June and a really hot Christmas because the seasons would keep inching away from where we want them."

even blanker stare

"...And zombies would take over the Earth." (I am not above using sarcasm in educating my children)

pause

"Why would zombies take over the Earth? How would that happen?"

Holy cow. I think he needs some coffee this morning.

You homeschool? I don't know HOW you DO it!!

The real question should be: HOW do you traditional school families do it? I have been shuttling the kids all morning and we are still not done and I am EXHAUSTED. We had Evan's karate graduation and then Justin's soccer game and now we're changing clothes to take the younger two to a birthday party and Patrick is out of town and the dog has diarrhea and, and, and... Whew!

On Tuesdays, we have our homeschool co-op followed by karate and gymnastics. That day requires a ton of planning and prep work to make sure that everyone has what they need when they need it and that we all arrive everywhere on time and with our gear. Add that to 3 other weekly activities and I am usually pretty darn tired come Friday. And that is with the ability to sleep when we are tired and do school on a relaxed pace! If we were having to fit all of our activities into 5 hours every night INCLUDING homework and "quality" time? I do believe that I would be having a nervous break down right about now.

My hat's off to you families with two working parents/single parents/kids in public school; I honestly don't know how YOU do it!

Busy Busy Busy

Shockingly enough, Penny takes up a lot of our time. I KNOW! Can you believe such a tiny puppy could do that??? That said, she cuddles on our laps while we read through Narnia, sleeps in the sunshine during math, and gnaws on her bone during the rest of our school work. She's a damn fine dog. Now if we could just get her to consistently poop and pee outside...
Believe it or not, that box caused a ton of strife. "I want to read in it!" "It's my turn!" Waah waah waah. Still, it's pretty nice to see such a clean family room...

Go Kenmore! Thanks for the free vacuum. So far, my floors are cleaner. Especially when I remember to use the vacuum. That helps a lot.... (Corinne reading Harold and the Purple Crayon).
"Take a picture of us, Mama! You can call it 'A boy and his dog'!"

The elusive 12 year old on the cusp of turning 13. He still loves Life of Fred (Pre Algebra right now) but has been asking for books that are more challenging. Be still, my heart.
Snow day! We haven't had many of them, this year. And, when we do get snow? It melts in about a day. What the hell? This is Corinne's serious face for a serious dress creation on her doll mannequin. She wanted a full size mannequin but Nana found this one and I am SO GLAD because a life sized one would be HUGE.
Still loving FreeRice.com for math facts and vocabulary. We've also discovered some cool free typing games online for Evan and Corinne. I hope it helps their spelling and keyboard skills...

And that's it, folks. I haven't been too camera happy lately. Must be the dreary weather. I NEED SUNSHINE.

The Chronic

Evan and I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia these past few months. It's pretty impressive for him considering how many freaking RUN ON SENTENCES C.S. Lewis likes to use in every single paragraph. It can be a lot to digest for a 9 year old. That said, I have been reduced to singing this song Every. Single. Day. for the past 2 months...

Ahem.

This is not my main blog.

Just thought I'd clarify.

Especially since I can't figure out how to rearrange the order of appearance on my profile page and this one comes up first and I realized that THIS must be why I don't get very many comments anymore! People come to my homeschool blog because it's first on the list and see that it's rarely updated and then they click away before they realize that all of the REAL GOODS are on my REAL BLOG. You know, the one where I talk about puppy obsession and harassing my pre-teen on Facebook.

I am freaking hyper this morning and I haven't had any coffee AT ALL. Maybe my body is weird (duh) and reacts opposite to caffeine?!? THIS COULD EXPLAIN EVERYTHING.