Tag Archive | pbskids.org

Long Weekend-ish

The brilliant part about homeschooling is the ability to take on or not take on a long weekend. In this case we decided to forego the Labour Day weekend and start our school year officially on the 3rd. But first… Sunday…

After the excitement of the Abundant Harvest and our exploration of the grounds in front of the Walker museum there was a lot to accomplish here at home. I am still attempting my homeschool organization with limited space for stuff to actually stay out. Our corner with Grandpa’s desk is completed, laptop and netbook and all. I am quite happy with the corner that we have set up. Now the boys can have their time there and do a little bit of fun time on the computer. After all, now that we are in the US we can actually properly use PBSkids.org.

Corner!

 

We did take some time out to run errands. Target for school supplies (gotta replace those pens with the spirograph) and dental supplies (where does that toothpaste go?) and then to Home Depot to attempt to replace a broken wheel on Ken’s desk chair. Apparently Staples chairs are not a simple match and instead we got our non soil stuff for the herb garden AND some new duct tape for under 4.00… now to have TIME to work on it! 

That left the rest of the day for naps (Echo) and playing (the rest) and for yours truly to take the yarn in the house and take it from skeins to balls. I definitely do not want to have knots to deal with when I do eventually get good enough for more complicated projects. And there IS something lovely about a stack of tidy ball of yarn put away. 

Boys up a tree… can you see both?

I am so glad that the kids are starting to realize that doing school together full force is not only necessary but could be fun too. They are getting excited about working on their observation journals. I think our herb garden will help as well… and then there is the Wonder Box on its way and Emanuel’s surprise. I am getting excited about all of this as well. I have started my own journal, well sort of. At Target I picked up a cheap scribbler to record what I think we will get done each day, to plan a day or two ahead (after the first week’s trial go) and to have visible progression for myself. That way I can alter lists, carry on things that we don’t get to… make notes. There is something absolutely wonderful about writing stuff down to me. 

Waiting for their mail

Sunday night was prep night. So Ken and I assembled the banner the kids had previously coloured and cut out… you can find it HERE. And of course printed out our back to school booklet (sadly I cannot find an active link for the file I use). 

Our banner

So our first day of the “new” school year and our first school year down in Minnesota… how mean are we to skip the long weekend? The best way to start… colouring our interpretation of the signs I have seen all over the internet for the first day pictures. I made up one for each of the 3 little kids (I especially like Echo’s) and then one for the twins to share… handed the kids crayons and said GO NUTS! I love personalizing things! 

Colouring the signs!

Finished sheets!

With them all dressed and hair brushed it was time to go into the front yard and take some photos. Echo was determined to include the baby doll, stroller AND her paper! 

Our girls

1st Grade

3rd!

After that, back inside for breakfast and then time with Daddy finishing the Mars book while I snuck in my bath. They discussed how massive the sun must be and the colours things are… lots of gluing and chatter and best of all – time with their Daddy! 

Gavin’s Mars Rover!

We had each of the kids draw a picture with something they would like to learn about this year… we have to add in cats, platypuses and of course Emanuel’s favourite… DINOSAURS! I think we can work on ALL of those over the year! And then, of course, there was the books for the 3 boys… I love this booklet, it includes a goal for the year, things about them… the family… I hope we can do these EACH year!

Finished!

With lunch approaching and a beautiful day outside we put Echo down for her nap and took the rest outside to start our indoor herb garden! We all helped! I am REALLY hoping this thing grows!!!! We have to water it every second day so I had Ken print out a September calendar page and have marked it with a W for the days to water. 

Herb garden

Add in some extra pictures, a room to clean (and 5 min to lose each boy from their computer time for the day for not doing it nicely) and of course that much wished for computer time… I think we did rather well! And we ENDED our day with popcorn and watching the Labour Day Marathon on Animal Planet – Call of the Wildman.

Popcorn and tv

Yours truly has been busy winding yarn onto balls, working on her… crochet… thing… and hunting for further how to steps… Ok I think I may need a person to show me, (hint hint Shandai) but I have joined Ravelry (as Ayjah) and started doing some YouTube vid hunting (did you know that the UK has different names for stitches!!!)… progress and increased difficulty will be accomplished… eventually! 

All 5 in a row

Slow Move to the End of the Week

There have been a few goings on that I have NOT posted about… let’s see… I had Ken pick up something off Freecycle – some sheets… flannel and not that while they won’t work for the original plan (pink for Trinity to make into curtains), the flannel ones will work for Emanuel’s mattress bed (at least until we buy him a single). So that is something! The others… well I am debating some ideas of making them into something!

I do have pictures of two of my leopard print duct tape creations! I am loving the look of it and plan on making a purse using these two colours and black… though I am debating the pattern and look I want.. Do I want to use MORE leopard and black accent… so maybe all the long strips be the cookie dough, the horizontals be the leopard and the accent black? PLEASE weigh in people!!

Spotty

I finished up the boys’ Trumpet of the Swans books they made. I used a cropodile and these neat plastic rings that I found at the local kids’ supply store! I think they worked out nice! This is the same thing we plan on doing with Stuart Little when we finish the book.

And then there is the laminating! Well I got done the Buggy Board Math Mats… all I need are some dry erase markers, the crayons are nice but I want markers as well. 

Laminated and ready to go

And then there is the days of the week and weather/season pieces I got from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I have subscribed to her newsletter and it is absolutely AWESOME for ideas. I seriously wish I could turn my blog into something like that, but I also enjoy it being a lot more than homeschooling… this is us in a nutshell to share with the friends and family who are NOT able to enjoy and experience first hand on a regular basis. 

We started our day early today… BLECK! We are so not a morning family. But we needed to go to the bank and thought we could go at opening. Turns out we had to wait until 11am for an appointment time but Ken had to run out to the post office to sign a form and send it right back for a contract anyway. So it was lucky he did that and stopped in at the bank to make the appointment without us. It really is a pain to get the kids into the vehicle and then it turn out to be for nothing! Since Trinity was up until midnight playing (so not happy about that) she actually slept in and had to be woken up. Echo woke up before 5 am and Ken was not cognizant enough to realize he should NOT take her out of the crib until it was too late. So they finished the morning on the couch snuggling. The boys found the one bit of Legos I had not put IN the bucket and stowed back away and used that as an argument starter while I was waking up and bathing… seriously Legos are a blessing and a curse in this house! 

Pre Bank Post Lego

I have to say I am in love with BMO, they were able to give us an appointment that we got into when we walked in the door… the lady was nice, speedy and able to deal with the kids easily! Joint account is now done… Just need to set up auto withdrawals and deposits and all that… though personally, I prefer cash! I actually have an aunt who works for BMO (different town) so bad on me to NOT be dealing with them already!

We decided to fill our morning up before the appointment by watching Electric Company. The kids (Echo included) really do enjoy the segments and the music and the storyline. I am not sure how much is sticking yet but today we were reviewing some of our favourite episodes… Netflix only has the first 12 of the new series… and pbskids.org does NOT allow Canadian viewing of full episodes (figures), the same issue as Cyberchase… Ken is still working on finding us episodes we CAN watch… I am almost down to having to purchase the dvds… not cheap!

We finally assembled our months of the year lapbooks. I used a couple resources for this… but the main one is a lapbook set up from homeschoolshare.com. As well as months of the year printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I also looked up months of the year on EnchantedLearning. We added in our pictures from yesterday based on the books we read and it turned out quite nice! Hopefully the boys can come back to these books and work on their months… we are getting there but it is not as easy to experience months as it is the days of the week! 

Finished!

All open

I heard back this morning that my dad’s second procedure was a success… both arteries are unclogged and he gets to go home tomorrow! Certainly a weight off my shoulders. I hope to get a chance to chat with him very soon! It is hard to be so far away but at the same time, thank goodness for technology to keep in touch! 

We ended our day early with a lovely early dinner for the kids and then Emanuel and I made up a crazy patterned flower! I was surprised at how the two patterns looked so… cute together. He was so proud! Zander and I have had a nice long talk and discussed his obsession with things we really can’t do right now the way he wants to (going to the beach, digging for treasure chests… playing hours of Minecraft). We are going to find things he DOES like to do and we CAN do together. The plan is to make a duct tape creation tomorrow just the two of us.

Emanuel and his flower

That is something we so quickly forget about – the one on one time… with all the kids and Echo’s needs the time gets lost in the muddle. It is something to work for. It looks like I may go on a trip to visit Karyn’s parents’ farm on Sunday… and Saturday is kick it to the curb – where you can put stuff out on the curb and people can come and take what they can use. Should be an interesting weekend!

Binky Baby