Wordless Wednesday: Minnie the Math Cat

It was hard to get a good picture, but this is what happens anytime Minnie is around at math time.  She just loves to be in his books, but especially his math book.

Camping Without Me

One of Elliott's best friends goes camping a lot during the summer.  Sometimes they use a tent, and sometimes they use an RV.  They are going this weekend, and Elliott is going with them.  When I first asked Elliott if he wanted to go, he was super excited.  Then last night he decided camping was going to be scary and he didn't want to be away from me for that long.  We talked about it this morning, though, and he decided to go ahead and give it a try.  They aren't going to be too far from home, and him and this specific friend are together A LOT (He's spent the night at our house at least a dozen times this summer, and Elliott's spent the night over there 3 or 4 times as well).   So it will be the perfect chance to spread his wings a little and be away  from me for two whole nights.

When I dropped him off at their house around noon, he and his friend were both so excited they could barely hold still while his parents finished loading everything up.  I bet he will have a blast!  My husband is off early today and on his way home right now, so he's excited as well.  Our last kid free weekend was the one before Elliott was born. ;)  We don't have much planned, but Carl is still looking forward to some time with no kids. 

I have a feeling I will have a harder time with Elliott being away than Elliott will.  He'll probably miss me a little at bedtime, but be perfectly happy the rest of the time.  At least that's what I am hoping.  He's already decided that if he has fun with his friend's family this weekend, he is going to convince his dad to take him soon!

Gardening

We are getting a late start on our garden this year, but hopefully we will still have plenty of time to grow everything and enjoy eating garden fresh veggies and a few fruits.  This year is the first year that we have planted a garden since 2009.  We normally travel a lot during the summer, making a garden hard to care for properly.   Now that we are homeschooling Elliott, we are planning our travel times during the off season.

At our current house, we really don't have a great location for a garden anyway.  We have several trees in our yard, and between them, our house, the neighbor's garage, and our shed, there's just too much shade for a garden very large to grow very well.

Wordless Wednesday

 Summer Reading

Elliott got his box of surprise books from Scholastic yesterday, and couldn't wait to check it out.  He's already read three of them!

A Start To Homeschooling

Yesterday morning we were supposed to start doing some homeschool work just to figure out some rough ideas for the amount of time we would need on various subjects. We also wanted to get an idea of how much work he would be doing on his own, and how much he would need (or want) help with.  It turns out he had so much fun doing the first few things, that he decided to make yesterday his first official day of school.  I think part of it might also be that he is currently grounded so it was a great way to spend time he had to spend at home anyway.  Haha.

We did have a little bit of fussing, and a minor meltdown, but overall, we both enjoyed it.  It turns out that he is most likely going to want to do a lot of the stuff more together than I anticipated, but that's perfectly fine with me.  We've switched curriculum on a few things, and they seem to be a little more advanced than what he is used to, so we had to discuss things a little more in depth.  It appears that he didn't learn some of the things in second grade that this curriculum assumes he already learned.

We've been working on homeschool again today, and he absolutely hates one of the things that I bought.  It's not a huge deal, though, because it's one that I bought as a supplement.  We just started with it because we are waiting on a new copy of what I need, after our first one got damaged.  He's still not overly fond of Go Math (which he insisted we get, even though it wasn't my first choice for math) but I think we are going to stick with it a while longer before we give it up.  I spent enough money on it that I certainly want to give it a fair shake, but if it needs to be replaced, we can make that work, too.

Spanish is still his favorite subject, and he's done it both days this week, even though I told him that we only needed do it once or twice a week each week.  I have a feeling it will end up being an everyday thing, or at least as often as time allows.

How Much Can One Kid Eat?

Elliott's only been out of school for a little more than a week, but man has he been eating!  I think he must be getting ready to go through a growth spurt, and then hopefully his eating will slow down a little bit.  Otherwise we are going to have to rethink the grocery budget or something. :)

Even when he was in school I packed his lunch almost every single day, so his lunches were already in our grocery budget.  It's the snacks and the huge portions it seems to take to fill him up lately that are killing the budget.  He's still thin, so I'm not worried about him eating so much, and figure he really does need it, but it gives me a stomach ache just watching him eat so much.

Just as an example: last night we ate at Taco Bell for supper, where he consumed a quesadilla, taco, and cheese roll up, along with a large drink.  As we were shopping RIGHT after we ate, he started complaining that he was hungry again.  So on the way home he ate an ice cream drumstick.  Then after we put away groceries he ate some Annie's cheese crackers, a banana, grapes, 2 slices of toast, some cottage cheese, and was still looking for more food when I finally sent him to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.  He also drank a big glass of milk during that time.

I've been buying so many fresh fruits and veggies lately that someone I know asked if we were running a day care or something to need all that stuff with only one child.  Haha.  It's amazing how much one child can eat when he's active and hungry, though!

Scholastic Books

One of the first things that I did after filing paperwork with the school about homeschooling Elliott next year was sign up for scholastic reading club.  I've been buying books for Elliott through Scholastic reading club since right before he was born, since I have a sister that is a teacher.  They have some great, quality books cheaper than anywhere else, and it's easy to see what is appropriate for each age.  He's always enjoyed books, but he especially enjoyed getting the flyers at school over the last two years and going through and picking some books out by himself.  My sister that lives up here is now a preschool teacher and uses Scholastic reading club, so we could order books for him whenever we wanted anyway, but I have to admit that we were both excited about starting our own account.

It was pretty easy to sign up as a homeschooler at Scholastic.  I just had to talk to someone on the phone for a few minutes to verify that I was indeed going to be homeschooling Elliott, and she got it all taken care of.  With a homeschool account, you earn bonus points the same way that you do as a public or private school teacher.  Obviously I won't be earning them as fast since I will only be ordering for Elliott mainly, but it still adds up pretty fast.  Especially considering that for several years now I've ordered more from Scholastic than the rest of my sister's class put together.  We really like books at our house. :)  I was able to join in late March, even though we were finishing up the year in public school.  The lady I talked to was super nice and said they let people go ahead and start early in case they need anything for the schooling they will do during the summer.

Surgery and Time Together

My husband had surgery on Tuesday.  It went well.  He's off work this week recovering.  So far it's gone really well.  We were both a little bit concerned that we might drive each other crazy. :)  I mean, obviously we love each other and like spending time together, but this is definitely more time than we usually spend together, unless we are on vacation, or he's really busy with some project at home.  Since he can't do much right now, he's mainly been hanging out in front of the TV.  Which is fine by me. :)

Next week Elliott and I start doing a little bit of homeschool stuff.  We aren't doing much in June, just kind of getting a feel for how things will work.  We aren't counting it as far as record keeping or anything either.  It will mainly be a few fun things, and me checking for gaps so I know if we have to hit anything harder before we move on to cover the stuff in his third grade books.   While I was in the waiting room on Tuesday, I worked on some loose lesson plans, and tried to figure out just what all I will be checking him on.  I don't think there are going to be any major gaps anywhere, but I do want to get a feel for the time it takes him to do some stuff, too.  I've been looking at ways to work on a few things that he's not quite as comfortable with, too.  It's amazing how many books and worksheets are out there to cover just about anything you want.  Right now I'm mainly sticking with things that someone else has already created, although I have a feeling that as I get more comfortable with it, I will probably end up doing a lot more of my own.

Happy Memorial Day

We've had a busy weekend full of family fun this weekend.  We went to Bismarck to go to the zoo on Friday (it's much larger than the Minot one, with more room for the animals).  Saturday we spent the night in a hotel with a pool with two waterslides so we could go swimming.  I think Elliott ended up going down the slides about 200 times. lol  We were at the pool for about 5.5 hours Saturday and then Elliott and Carl went back for another hour Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church.  Yesterday after church, a couple from our church invited everyone to their house for lunch.  Elliott finally played with the other kids from our church and had a blast.  Right now Carl is outside grilling.

We have had a great weekend, but we are also taking the time to remember why Memorial Day is a holiday.  As a military family, it hits close to home.  We don't personally have any close friends that have been killed in action, but it's easy to see that it could happen.  And people that are willing to give their lives for us deserve all the respect and admiration that they get, and even more.  Memorial Day is such an important holiday to teach children about.  We've talked about it several times with Elliott this weekend, and I think he really gets it now.

Officially Homeschoolers!

I turned in all the paperwork to the superintendent of Elliott's school last week.  Some days Elliott is really excited about homeschooling and other days he says he wants to continue to go to public school.  My husband and I have been praying and talking about it for months now, though, and we really feel like it's what is best for our family.  We want Elliott to be happy with his schooling where ever he goes, but ultimately as his parents, the decision is ours.

I'm pretty nervous about doing it myself.  I guess it's because it's something new and exciting.  I know Elliott is going to miss out on some fun stuff, but there are so many more fun things that we can do that we couldn't do while he was in public school.  We have some really fun lessons and field trips planned.  I know that we could always still do fun stuff during the summer, like we already do, but there's something to be said for traveling during the school year when crowds are smaller and prices are cheaper. :)



I just finished ordering the last of our homeschool stuff, I think.  We will probably end up adding some more supplements if we need them to fill the time, but all the basics are covered now.  We've run a couple of trial days to figure out about how long we will be working on each subject.  It looks like in order to hit the mandatory hours each day, we will end up supplementing a fair amount.  We are planning on doing a lot of that as unit studies, though, and hitting a lot of different subjects in the course of the study.  We are starting with an outer space unit study, and it will obviously cover a lot of science and reading, but it will include math, art and social studies as well, to a smaller degree.

Elliott's last day of public school (for a while anyway, he might end up going back down the road) is next Thursday.  I can't wait to begin the next chapter!  I think we will do a little in June, but start actually keeping track and officially schooling in July.

Issues At School

So we have already decided that we are over 95% sure that we will be homeschooling Elliott next year, but we are going to try to finish out second grade in public school.  That decision is getting harder and harder to stick with, though.

Elliott has always had an issue with bruising pretty easily, but never without a reason.  Well, it appears my child ends up with a whole lot more bruises than other kids anyway.  And because he tries to be tough, he doesn't get the help he needs at school.  It's driving me crazy.  Last Monday, he came home with scratches and bruising by his eye.  His face was STILL red when he got home from school at about 4, even though he told me it happened at his recess at noon.  I asked him what happened, and he informed me that one of his "friends" had pushed him down, and then shoved his face back into the snow when he tried to get up.  That same kid then jumped on his stomach.  I asked Elliott if he told his teacher, and he said he hadn't, because he didn't want to get in trouble.  I told him he needed to say something about it the next day to his teacher, but he insisted that it was fine, and he didn't want to get in trouble.  Tuesday and Wednesday he didn't play with that kid.  Then on Thursday, that same kid pushed him down at recess AGAIN.  And once again, Elliott didn't tell the teacher what was going on, even though he had a bump on his head again.  Neither of these issues had notes in his planner either.  And Elliott told me his teacher didn't even notice his face, until someone else said something about it.

So Friday morning my husband called the principal and we set up a meeting with him and Elliott's teacher.  We told them that we weren't happy with the fact that our child keeps getting hurt and he's afraid to tell the teacher because he will get in trouble. Back in October or November, this same kid pushed Elliott down, and Elliott apparently interrupted the teacher to tell her.  They both got sent to the principal to discuss what was going on.  According to the principal Elliott didn't get in any trouble for that incident, at least not from him.  But they both ended up missing recess for the next three days.  That seems a little harsh if you ask me, that the kid who gets hurt gets punished that much just for interrupting to tell the teacher what happened in the hall.

We talked about more stuff while we were there, but this is already long enough, so I won't go into it right now.  I'm fairly happy with the solution we came to regarding Elliott getting hurt (the principal sat both boys down and explained that they aren't allowed to play together at recess again until he tells them they can).  The principal and teacher both sat down with Elliott and explained to him that he WON'T get in trouble for coming to them when he's hurt, unless he did something wrong, too.  His teacher also reminded him how important it is to be honest about what happens, and that if he hurts, he needs to tell someone so they can help him feel better.  The teacher also said she would try to do better about letting me know if he gets hurt at school.

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Elliott

It's hard to believe that Elliott will be seven this week.  So I thought I would share a picture that I took when he was a newborn.  Here he is with his Daddy, while we were still in the hospital.  The year is wrong on the picture.  It was actually 2006, and he was 1 day old.