Letters From the Homefront

THE DOMINO GAME A few weeks ago, Hoss and Bug were playing dominoes at the dining room table. Well, they were trying. My dear children had NO idea about the rule of the 'running domino', and had some kind of board set up that looked akin to a 12-legged spider. I sat down to play with them, and explain the rules. When we finished, they were going to start another game when an instant burst of inspiration hit me. It had to have been from the Lord, because it's been loved for three weeks now. Enter: The Domino Game Invite a friend (or brother, or sister) to the table with the dominoes. Line them up in two equal rows, so every domino will get used before the end of the 'game'. Choose two dominoes (similar to a matching/memory game). If they match, keep them. If they do NOT match, flip them back over and the turn goes to the next player. IF they matched, as in, having two sides with the same amounts, put the matching sides together. The am...

Phew. It's been a long week and a half. The beginning of last week had us recovering from a long weekend of stomach bug - all over the place. Buddy Boy had come down with something the Wednesday before, and I was hoping (and praying) the other kids had avoided it. It was not to be so. So, after a tough weekend (not a lot of sleep, because just when one would stop making trips to the bathroom, another would start), we spent a couple days recovering. Then - it was a life school end of the week. Thankfully, by Friday we got back to some school time around the house. Days like that, though, tend to discourage me - as a mother, and a homeschool mama. Those tend to seem like two different, and yet the same, jobs sometimes.  I was trying for a better start to the week today, and got the feeling that comes all too often. You know the one - the, "I'm barely scratching the surface, and am so TOTALLY going to fail my children and I must be the worst mother ever" f...

*a little late in posting, but it's better late than never!* Week 6&7 Grammar seems to be showing up everywhere here lately - at least, in the pictures it is! LM (not pictured - at all) is finishing up the review of parts of speech. Many of them she - brace yourself - hasn't had the formal first presentations for. That doesn't mean she doesn't know what they are - she just hasn't gotten every presentation that some of the younger ones have. I want to get to the advanced grammar that she is really ready for, so we are having some fast review lessons so she can get the notes down in her binder and be ready to move on.  Hoss worked on reviewing verbs these last couple of weeks. He has a hard time keeping track of the name of the pos AND what each one does, and being able to tell me both. Example: He can sort the phrase "the little boy sings" in to article, adjective, noun, verb if I give the sentence, but then can't quickly tell me what...

Week 6 - Day One On Monday of this week, I left my children alone. After waking up and getting their breakfast, we started our morning cleaning routine, complete with work cards, and spent a little while at it. For some reason, Monday mornings are rough cleaning days, although goodness knows why - half the weekend is spent at church, it seems, but somehow - they always are.  Then, I left my children alone. I dove into the abyss that is school materials, determined to clean out, rearrange, and reorganize. There were still things that needed to go on the shelves, Buddy Boy needed new theme trays, and it had to get done. Immediately. We had choir that afternoon for LM, and still had to fit lunch in before that. I faintly heard LM say she was going to start with the multiplication checkerboard as I began to move my couch away from my hidden, built in shelving.  About halfway through, this is what I found the kids doing. Miss Priss did this puzzle of the states - thre...

Wait for it.... Wait for it.... IT'S FINALLY FALL!!!! Okay, so I might be a little premature to call it Fall in the South, but the last part of last week, it sure felt like it! :) Fall = BAKING LM made her first ever solo batch of Pumpkin Bread. This recipe is one that I can't say was handed down through the family with tons of secret, special ingredients. I will say, though, that it was a favorite growing up, and the tradition continues in my home now, with my children growing up loving it. It was also greatly associated with Fall, Thanksgiving, and Christmas time. The recipe is so simple and easy to follow - you'll have great smells filling your house in under an hour! You'll need: 3 cups sugar 1 cup oil 4 eggs, beaten 16 ounces pumpkin (canned or fresh!) 3 1/2 cups flour 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 1 tsp ginger (not ale - typo in cookbook!) 1 tsp nutmeg 1 tsp allspice 1/2 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 2/3 cup h...

Week 5 - Part II I posted some on what was going on in week 5 in my last post. It was too long, though, to go in to some extra fun, and this post will really be mostly extra fun that we have had going on. Enter Floam foam: A good friend of our family brought some goodies one day towards the middle of week 5, and one of them was a package of floam/foam beads. They LOVED playing with this, and it ended up being a fun mini-oceanography project, making a coral reef. Yes, that IS a large octopus and snake! We talked a little about camoflauge, and how it helps the fish/animals that live among the coral.  Can you find the fish??? Here's what's new in our world during week 6: They have come to take over our world..... and they have succeeded!  Birthday time for us is at a maximum in September, with 3 birthdays, 2 of which fell in week 6 of our school year. Hoss and Miss Priss have hit a Lego revolution with their free pla...