Life on a Thursday

This is not a typical-day in our homeschool. It's an atypical day. Actually, two atypical days.

Thomas is sick. He was sick yesterday, too. He's got a cold and also has a fever. This morning he woke me way too early complaining of a stomach ache.

I knew he was really sick when he climbed into my bed yesterday, turned on the TV and watched cartoons. Although he watches toons sometimes with his dad, typically this kid doesn't watch much TV at all, let alone daytime toons.

So what do I do with my free-found time, aside from nursing and babying my son? Nothing much. I didn't catch up with my laundry. I didn't clean the house. I didn't cook an extraordinary dinner.

I sat down with my copy of The Well-Trained Mind, and my favorite, Home Learning Year by Year. I wasted two days playing, dreaming, wishing, scheduling. I looked at curricula online that I normally wouldn't look at. Last night Rainbow Science, I was sure, would be the perfect fit for our family. I could always take out the parts that I didn't agree with. Luckily I came to my senses this morning. Why isn't there a wonderful secular science program similar to Rainbow out there? Or is there and I'm missing it. I want it all in one box so I don't have to think, just teach.

I've made two pots of chicken noodle soup, and have to run to the store tonight for more. What is it about chicken noodle soup that is so good when you're not feeling well?

I've made a million trips into the bedroom to check on Thomas. He's been sleeping since 2 this afternoon.

So I will play more with forms, dreams, and ideas for our year to come.

I've come to the conclusion there isn't enough time. Time goes so fast, he grows too fast, there aren't enough hours in the day. I want to do so much and it isn't possible. Sigh.

I hope Thomas is well tomorrow. He has a campout planned and I'd hate for him to miss it.

I will note that I almost went to the video store to rent some DVDs for him. I didn't -- can't spoil him too much. I did try to get him to watch The Founding Fathers that we have out on loan from Family Pass. Shees, did he get mad when I popped that baby in.

The best part of my day today was when Thomas came out to the kitchen for some lunch. He was feeling a little better and actually asked to do spelling! Whoa, this kid is sick! lol

Country Fair #2

The Second Country Fair is up here. I had an afternoon of great reading!

Thomas

This is Thomas. Welcome to his sense of humor. I believe he was acting like a zombie that day.

No wonder I have so many gray hairs!

What a joy he is. =)

And the winner is...

District Pinewood Derby Day Results

Thomas Won First Place!!!

My son won the first race, lost the second by eight inches. Won the third race.

Watching the races unfold, I knew he'd get second. My husband and I whispered to each other: second. And that's okay.

And then something amazing happened. He raced the car that beat him again. Best two out of three takes it. That car won the first by race by a hair. My son won the second by a hair. Thomas won the third by an inch.

Time to race same racer again for first place. We were all on the edge of our seats because we had no hopes of first place. Best two out of three again. Somehow, some way, my son won! It was a sweet victory that we were not expecting!

Moral of the story: My husband believes that my son had not worked the graphite in well enough and it was just kicking in toward the end. Either that or the car that beat him originally was running out of lube. Or both.

I cannot help but feel really, really bad for the second place finisher. He had smoked all racers until the final two races against Thomas. The saddest part was my son went to shake his hand and tell him good race and the boy turned and walked in the other direction. I would imagine some tears were shed by him. A really good lesson for Thomas on sportsmanship. But then again, what a win for Thomas.

He won district two years in a row. This is the last time he'll be able to attend district races, so it was a nice way to finish up.

I am so very proud of him! He worked darned hard on that car. =) His car is the green and gold flat car. (My least favorite design but a speedy design nonetheless.)

The Scene of the Crime

11:10 am. Thomas and I were snuggled in my bed, under the covers, and we each had what we affectionately call a fuzzy -- a Biederback blanket. Thomas was in his pajamas, I was dressed but also in my bathrobe because it was darned cold this morning.

Thomas was doing his daily reading, early. He's reading A Week in the Woods. Mom was trying to doze.

On the kitchen table were remnants of our morning schooling. Spelling stuff, vocabulary stuff, math worksheets. And syrup. Lots of it. And McDonald's stuff. I left the sack out on the table. I left my pop on the table. Thomas had spilled the syrup all over him, the table and the floor. After making him take a shower, scrubbing the floor and table, there' s still syrup everywhere.

Normally at 11:45 I would have done the mad dash through the kitchen straightening everything in preparation for the husband's arrival. He comes home for lunch every single day.

Today he caught us in the act. Guilty of fast-fooding it this morning. (We were out of milk, after all!) Guilty of hurrying through school so I could take a nap. Wouldn't most moms do something productive while their child was reading? No, not me -- I snooze.

Sometimes I get a little annoyed when my husband surprises us by taking the afternoon off. I was just falling asleep. Thomas was enjoying his book. Sigh. However, today my husband brought home a gift. A brand new soft air gun and a gallon of soft-air BBs. It's a guy thing. Forget doing science and history this afternoon, the boys will be playing. DH backed the car out of the garage and they're shooting in there. It's too darned cold, windy and wet outside.

Maybe I should make this a science lesson. While they're playing, I could google. Yeah, that's it. Be flexible, switch to unschooling mode!

The best thing was my husband didn't get too upset about the McDonald's run. He normally gets so frustrated with my love of Egg McMuffins (and Wendy's hamburgers and Hardee's Sunday $1 roast beef sandwiches and Taco Bell's bean burritos). He cut me some slack today. Whew. I suppose my afternoon now will consist of a grocery store run and actually cooking a decent meal tonight.

We were caught in the act of having a snuggly school morning. Not a bad crime to be guilty of.

Excellent Science Teacher Guide Site

I don't know where I found this (whose blog was it!) or when, but I've been printing a lot of the Teacher's Guides from this site. It is a wonderful resource for Earth Science.

I thought I'd share because while we are doing a few of the units now (minerals, gems, etc.) I'm definitely printing the rest out for next year's mini-science units I'm planning.

Click on the unit you're interested in, then click the bottom right "Teacher Corner" for the great guides.

I even used bits and pieces of this for Cub Scouts. A lotta bang for the buck here!

Edited: Thanks for letting me know about the extra http:// It has been fixed!

Woo-Hoo!!! Country Fair!!!

Thank you to Doc, Ron and Andrea for the new Country Fair! Becky posted the first Country Fair awhile back here.

Now this is a blog carnival I can get excited about.

The Rules for the secular Country Fair are:

Posts should be homeschool related.
No posts/links to/from HomeschoolBlogger. No posts supportive of HSB or TOS.
The hosting blog owner reserves the right to accept or decline submitted posts.
This is NOT an anti-Christian Carnival. Christians (or Muslims, or Homosexuals - everyone) are more than welcome to participate.
No spanking posts. None. Nada.

Now it's time to start thinking of interesting topics!

Petty Me, but thank goodness for homeschooling

Much to my son's dismay, today I have stolen bits and pieces of time on the good computer. I've been reading blogs and enjoying my selfish desire to keep caught up.

For some reason on this latest "stolen internet moment" I decided to hit our local school district's website. I do this from time to time for many reasons: 1) To see what they're doing and compare it to what we're doing 2) To reaffirm my choice in homeschooling 3) To see if any photos of kids I (we) know are on the site. I did see some great pictures of some of my son's former and a couple of current friends.

While looking at the website today, I just had a sick visceral feeling. I cannot fathom sending my son back to public school. Looking at the photos made me smile to see kids I'd forgotten, but made me ill to see the desks in weird configurations -- not conducive to learning. Really, who can do work when you don't even have a personal space zone of at least two feet?? What if you hate the kid sitting next to you? What if that kid doesn't bathe? What if that kid is a bully? What if that kid sneezes in your direction? I know that PS teachers change the classrooms around a lot for interest, but sitting on top of each other just doesn't work for all kids. What if the kid next to you had ADHD or is a chatterbox or taps his pencil constantly? Ugh.

I looked at the walls which were plastered with so much junk that it made my head spin. Don't they realize less is more? That is a big issue to me, the amount of clutter on classroom walls.
It makes my mind dizzy because it is so cluttered. When we were touring the school the spring before DS started kindergarten, we walked into one kindergarten classroom and I promptly stated to my husband: Thomas would not survive with this teacher. There wasn't any wall space between all the posters and room decorations. She had stacks of crap (I normally would have used the word stuff, but trust me, crap is the preferred word here) everywhere. Her desk had not one single bare spot. Every single surface in that classroom was covered. She even had stuff taped to the floors!!!

As a side note, guess who my son's kindergarten teacher was? Yup, the crap-filled-room teacher. And halfway through the year we were in the principal's office demanding a new teacher, which we got. That is a blog entry for another day.

As I continued looking at the photos posted on the school's website I just kept thinking: Why do people send their kids there? WHY? It is so foreign, fake and unreal. A small majority of the kids were actually smiling in the photos. Why? I couldn't do it again ... ever.

When I finished looking at the 4th grade class sites, I took a peak at the 5th grades'. None of those teachers put up photos or do anything to share what goes on in their classroom -- except two published their schedules.

Class one:

8:00-8:15 Morning greeting/Question of the day
8:15-9:15 Math
9:15-10:05 Art/Music/PE
10:15-11:10 Reading
11:15-11:45 Science/Spelling
11:55-12:35 Lunch/Recess
12:45-1:00 Planner Check and Read Aloud
1:00-2:00 Language/Social Studies
2:10-2:55 Choir/Orchestra/Band/Study Hall
2:55-3:01 Announcements and dismissal

Class two:

8:00-8:15 Welcome/Morning Announcements
8:15-8:20 Question for the day
8:20-9:15 Math
9:15-9:30 snack break
9:30-10:05 Science
10:05-10:55 Phy.Ed/Music
11:00-11:45 Social Studies
11:45-11:55 Planner check
11:55 -12:45 Lunch
12:45-2:10 Language Arts (spelling, reading, grammar, writing)
2:10-2:55 Respect Mondays, Band, Choir, Study Hall
2:55-3:01 Announcements and Dismissal

I think I've blogged about schedules before, but just taking a look at these classroom schedules and comparing it to what we accomplish on an OFF day at home is laughable. It eases my mind that we are not doing enough.

I'm not typically a big public school basher. My son had two really good teachers, one good teacher, and one that had no business around kids, but it was an okay education. Public school doesn't even compare to the education he's getting at home.

And the best thing is, he can sit wherever he wants. Added to that best list, he can wear pajamas if he wants to, he can and does have his Tamaguchi's at the table every day, he can snack when he's hungry, he can break when he needs it, he can go to the bathroom without asking or announcing it to the world, he can play with the cat as he's doing his work. He can choose books he wants to read and they don't have to be from a list (even though I do have a required reading list, he gets input and freedom), he can do art projects the way he wants, he can sing, hum, make hideous noises while working (he does and it drives me crazy). He has a say in how our classroom is decorated. He chose the theme and did the decorating. He can choose the class pets. He can choose their names. He can finish his work early and not have to waste time waiting for others. Or, he can take his sweet time (driving his mom nuts) and finish when he finishes -- learning in a more relaxed style.

He can stay up later, start school later, and accomplish more in a few hours than his peers do at school -- even while taking his sweet time.

He can choose whatever type of pencil, pen, maker, etc., he wants to write with. He can choose folders, notebooks of his liking rathern than from an assigned list. He doesn't need a separate pair of tennis shoes for gym class. We can buy the forbidden "Pentech, Sanford or foil-wrapped penciles" and use them. He can use the pencil sharpener whenever he needs to. He can use fluorescent glue if he wants. He can use glitter glue. He no longer needs to worry about his snacks being stolen (unless his mom gets into the Hostess muffins) as they were in public school. He does not have to put his name on everything he owns.

I need to stop. I've had a big chuckle this afternoon. Thank goodness for homeschooling.

(p.s. please forgive any and all spelling errors, I can't get my spellchecker to pop up and I'm too lazy to proofread this.)

It's been how long???

I can't believe I haven't blogged since April 19! Wow.

School's been going *very* well lately, knock on wood.

My husband had a safe trip to Africa for work. He's glad to be home. He was missed very much.
He was gone two weeks and worked in the desert. He said the "locals" were extremely warm, friendly and wonderful. The trip he dreaded wasn't so bad, except that it took forever to get there.

I killed my computer. Long story short, while he was in Africa our Norton's expired and when I renewed it I somehow got the 2003 version instead of the current version and we got hit and hit hard with viruses. My husband has been plugging away on the computer but hasn't got it fixed. We decided to back up everything I need (all my Word files and links) and reformat. I'll be busy this weekend.

In the mean time, trying to get time on the good computer that DH built has been futile. Both DH and DS are runescape addicts. The time I like to spend surfing is when DH is online. Argh. So until my old faithful is faithful once again, I'll be scarce.

I am starting to prepare for next year. I'm trying to get a bunch of one- to two-week science units prepared. Next to impossible when you don't have a computer!

For my Georgia Peach friend, we've been studying geology and really enjoying it. That "a rock is a rock is a rock" mentality has left my brain and I've actually enjoyed our studies as much as my son! This was the topic I really dreaded because I thought it would be so boring. I was wrong, I admit it.

Nothing else new in my corner of the world. I think that's a good thing. =-)

Will blog again if I ever get the good computer all to myself.

The Math Worksheet Site

I thought I would share this. The Math Worksheet Site is one of my favorite free worksheet generators. I've been making some worksheets today and just happened to come across the free open house. My printer is almost smoking now! lol

The Math Worksheet Site

Look to the right and click preview. The User Name is open and the password is house. The subscription area will be open to everyone through Sunday, April 23. If you wish to subscribe, it is $25 a year or you can subscribe for one month for $2.50. Not too bad of a deal.

This is one of my favorite sites because the worksheets are nice and clean, big, and have lots of room to work -- a necessity for my son.

It's Carnival Time

The 16th Carnival of Homeschooling is up! Beverly Hernandez is hosting. You will find it here.

Although I've always read the carnival in the past, this is the first time I've participated in it. What fun it is! I do challenge all the bloggers out there who have been too chicken like me, too reluctant or just haven't contributed to the carnvial to give it a shot and submit something for the next week.

Household mediocrity revisited

In February, I wrote about mediocrity. This is one paragraph from that entry:

"Back to my contemplating: Why is it that if we have a really good school week, everything else is mediocre or dismal. School was great which means my house is not. Why can't I have both? My kitchen looks like a tornado went through it. I've got bills stacked to pay, checks to order, checkbook to balance, library books to return, a telephone line to get fixed, a broken car window motor to fix, a house to clean, menus to plan, groceries to buy, prescriptions to fill, sheets to change, laundry to wash, floors to vacuum and scrub, etc. Why can't I "do" both and do them well?"

After I wrote this, I felt liberated. Just getting that frustration out and into the open enabled me to clear my mind and come up with a solution. Thinking about the mediocrity in our day-to-day life did me good and inspired me, which in turn carried over to our family. Harmony and teamwork. That was the answer. I needed to distinguish between my work as a wife, mother, homemaker and the work that belonged to the entire family unit. I needed to reflect on what I was teaching my son. I needed to teach him that a good work ethic applies to more than just school work.

I called a family meeting. We’re not big on official family meetings, but this needed to be done. My husband was less than enthusiastic to come to the table, sit down and start discussing. My son wanted to play. We did it anyway. I explained the problem about the mediocrity, the house and household responsibilities being chaotic if we had a good school week. I admitted that I could not do it all. That was obvious. I asked for ideas on what we could do. My son was great with coming up with ideas. My husband knew what was coming and again was less than enthusiastic but he did participate. I clearly defined my expectations. All I wanted from my husband was a couple of hours each weekend to help clean the house. I was surprised but he didn’t put up a fight.

When the meeting was over, I started work on the chore chart my son requested. After working on it a bit, I decided it wouldn’t work. Charts are great for some things, but I knew we needed something more tangible. So I got out my colored index cards and Sharpie markers. I made a list of things that needed to be done each day to keep the house in the shape that we desired and deserved. Then I wrote one chore on each index card in my best kindergarten-style handwriting. I highlighted the top of the cards in pink to denote daily chores. Then I did the same thing for our weekly cleaning tasks. The weekly cards were highlighted in green. It needed to be simplistic for everyone to participate fully. It needed to be easy because all the family members have a tendency to go off on tangents. All the cards went into an index box.

Every morning when we get up, the first thing we do is lay the daily cards on our counter. Every morning we start our school day with home ec. Home ec consists of the daily chore cards. We cannot start school until all the tasks have been completed and the cards have been put back in the box. There is something very gratifying about starting the morning with a counter full of cards and watching the pile dwindle down to nothing. We needed to see our work being accomplished in more ways than one. Obviously, you can see a clean bathroom. How much more empowering it was, though, to move that bathroom card back into the box. My son and I complete our morning task cards in 15 to 20 minutes.

On the weekends, at my husband's desired time, we do the weekly cleaning. Once again, I lay out all the weekly cleaning task cards on the counter. Everyone just grabs a card and goes to work. We aren't going off on tangents now because we know what task we are completing. House cleaning takes about an hour and a half now with all three of us pitching in. I always wanted to get up Saturday morning and clean the house first thing. My husband hated that. For years it was a problem or he was in my way. When we discussed it, I realized I could be more flexible. By doing so, I got what I wanted, and he got what he wanted, too.

It's that simple. Kindergarten stuff, basically, but it works. The results have been fantastic. For over a month now chaos has been eliminated and we have had both: good school and good home. Household mediocrity eliminated.

Last week I added two cards to the box. They were: balance checkbook and pay bills. That takes just a few minutes, but those two tasks done on a daily basis have taken a massive amount of stress away from me. I hate paying bills, but somehow I was the one that got that responsibility in this marriage. I used to pay bills and balance the checkbook once a month. As of the last week, when one came in the house, it was paid the next morning. Although I’ve only been at this for one week, I will continue. The results are too good not to. This took a major amount of dread and stress away from my life.

I have a few more ideas that I will add to the box in time. For now, I’m just happy to know that I can run my house well while homeschooling.

Our Daily Tasks

Thomas shower

Mom shower -- yes, we included showers, more cards to put away ;-)

feed and water pets

general house pick up

empty dishwasher

load dishwasher

gather dirty clothes

sort laundry

start load if needed

make beds

empty trash

empty recycling

plan supper

swiffer dust (my son's choice, he loves to dust)

wipe down bathroom

wipe down kitchen

swiffer or vacuum floors

checkbook

bills

Our Nightly Tasks

pick up house

rinse snack dishes

Our Weekly Tasks

mass pick up

kitchen

vacuum basement

put laundry away

laundry

basement bathroom

vacuum floors upstairs

cobweb removal (Minnesota has too many spiders)

mop floors

windex

empty garbages

cat box

dust upstairs

upstairs bathroom

bedrooms

vacuum furniture (1 dog, 2 cats)

vacuum drapes (1 cat lives in the window and gets hair on the drapes)

vacuum stairs

wash bedding

clean out cars

ready trash and recycling for pick up

Happy Easter

Writing Links

This is a very rough draft of a project I just started working on. I haven't even linked for all my topics yet. Aim is for my son or 4th-6th grade. I will be revising this list often.

SENTENCE WRITING

http://www.tustin.k12.ca.us/cyberseminar/paragraph.htm

http://www.stackthedeck.com/tips-getting.html

PARAGRAPH WRITING

Topic Sentences:

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/partopic.html

http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/paragrap/index.htm

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/paragrph.html

http://www.gigglepotz.com/para.htm

http://www.english-zone.com/writing/para-strctr.html

http://www.swc.utexas.edu/highschool/hsopenpara.shtml

BASIC WRITING SKILLS

Outlining

http://www.albany.edu/eas/170/outline.htm

http://www.pb5th.com/outline1.htm

http://killeenroos.com/adm/essayo.htm#Criteria

http://www.adellshay.com/domain%20site/BUS%2032outlineformat.htm

http://www.cmsnet.org/stdlife/Summer%20ESS%20Website/outlinefacts.html

Prewriting:

http://www.studygs.net/roughdrafts.htm

Rough Draft

http://www.swc.utexas.edu/highschool/hswritedraft.shtml

http://www.cc.utexas.edu/student/utlc/lrnres/handouts/1234.html

http://www.arc.sbc.edu/roughdraft.html

Revising: Improving

http://personal.ashland.edu/~cdawkins/Student%20Tools/Revise%20a%20Rough%20Draft.htm

Final Copy

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING

• describing a person
• describing an event
• describing a thing

NARRATIVE WRITING

EXPOSITORY WRITING

PERSUASIVE WRITING

BOOK REVIEW OR REPORT

http://www.caledonia.k12.mi.us/kettle/otherpages/k-5pages/bookreportform.htm (book report outline)

http://hewitthomeschooling.com/pdfs/spnbkrpt.pdf (excellent outline and sample book report)

CREATIVE WRITING

POEMS

RESEARCH REPORT

FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY

http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/EssayWritingBody.html

http://www.geocities.com/fifth_grade_tpes/Handyguide.html

http://www.geocities.com/fifth_grade_tpes/five.html

http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/English/essay/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/handouts/paragraph.html (monster diagram)

http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/acen/writerslab/handouts/organization.htm (wizard theme)

MISC.

http://www.geocities.com/fifth_grade_tpes/five.html

http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/owl&writingcenter/OWL/HowtoBegin.html

HANDOUTS: (MAPPING, GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS)

http://www.cusd.com/calonline/englishlab/module03/03image/0303mapping.gif (mapping)

Tax Time, Homeschooling Expenses and Planning

This week I finally got my taxes done. In my state, we get to claim the cost of the majority of homeschooling expenses. It can’t be religious stuff though. So the only thing I couldn’t claim was my Rod and Staff English program.

I spent over a $1000 on homeschooling last year, which was up a few hundred from the year before. This year I bought tons of books because I hate relying on the library. I guess in reality I can’t compare 2005’s expenses with 2004 because ’04 was the first year we homeschooled and only covered Sept – Dec.

I noticed a pattern starting. It seems in the spring, when spring fever was high and I felt like climbing the walls last year my spending went way up. I started ordering this spring as well. So I’ll be prepared next spring to not spend so much money.

I will continue to use Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year and Doc’s secular resources as my guide. Kixque shared an email from Doc with some additional links. I hope that Doc comes back to blogland because I miss her terribly.

Doc wrote an entry about goal planning versus scheduling that I printed and have read many times. What a great resource that is. Doc also wrote a big list of what should be studied. I can’t find a link to it on her site or else I’d place it here. I printed that out as well. Finally, she had a link to a high school 9^th-12^th grade planning sheet. I adapted that and made my 5^th-8^th grade plan. Well, I’m still working on it, but I have the outline and am happily filling it in. What a valuable resource that is. I had never thought to do that before and it has helped me tremendously.

Thank you, Doc, my son’s education has been touched by you. You’ve helped me tremendously.

As for upcoming expenses, I have decided to set a $1000 budget for the next year. I will continue to buy used, haunt Ebay and half.com. This summer I will again go to garage sales and make a bee line toward the books. I’m learning a lot about smart choices and spur of the moment mistakes. An ink cartridge for my laser printer is $90 and will print thousands of pages. Last cartridge lasted about two years. I can buy a ream of paper for $2.99 at Kmart or splurge and buy pretty pastel paper at Office Max for $5.99 a ream. The internet has tons of free teacher’s guides and lesson plans on almost every subject imaginable. Unless I buy a lot of reading material again, or go hog wild at Carolina Botanical’s website, I can’t foresee spending $1000 next year. For that, my husband will be thankful.

If I were really good, I'd take this year's tax refund and put it in a separate account for our homeschooling expenses. I'm not that good, though, and would rather play with that money now.

Fun on the net

I needed to clean my basement today, desperately. So while my I was doing tasks that my son could not help with, he needed something to divert his attention besides the Sims, Puzzle Pirates, or Runescape.

I found a fun website. It has simple machines, virtual knee surgery and a weather unit. My son is playing online and having fun. There are teacher's plans at the site as well.

Just thought I'd share.

edheads

I made him do it

I made him do it, I made him...

CUT MY HAIR.

My ten year old son. He cut my hair.

Long story short, I've been growing my bangs out for a year. They're below my chin and just so out of sync with the back of my hair that was to the bottom of my shoulder blades. It's getting hot and I don't want so much hair when it's hot.

So why don't I go get a professional haircut like most normal people? Because I'm not normal. The urge to cut usually strikes me at night. And when it strikes, I want it NOW not tomorrow or later in the week.

My husband was passed out on the couch and I turned to poor Tommy and said, "It's time. Come into the bathroom with me."

Poor child was shaking like a leaf. "Mom, I'm nervous!" I said you can't mess it up, just cut straight across here and pointed to where I wanted him to start.

"Now I know what you feel like when you cut my hair" he almost cried.

I'm such a mean mom.

He did it. He did a fine job, too. It's perfectly straight. Should I pay him $20 that I would have paid a pro? Nah. I'll count it as school. Cosmetology 101.

I cut his hair half the time. He likes buzz cuts so I bought clippers a long time ago. Saves a lot of money. My husband has *never* had a professional hair cut since I've known him. He used to cut it but I could stand it no longer so got books from the library and a few videos and learned how to cut his. I've also picked up a few cosmetology textbooks from garage sales and book sales through the years. His is difficult because he's naturally curly. But I use the clippers on him now, too, because he likes it super short.

Ah, we're a weird family. I just cannot ever be normal. Making my 10-year-old son cut my hair is strange, but he lived. And I'm happy.

Gotta love instant gratification.

A different carnival this week

Because the Carnival of Homeschooling is being hosted by someone who blogs at homeschoolblogger, and because I boycott homeschoolblogger, I was thrilled to find that Becky at Farm School made up her own substitute carnival for the week! Take a peak!

Thank you, Becky!!!

Was it really a day off from school?

My husband took the majority of the day off from work today. He was at work and back home before I was even out of bed. We cancelled school for the day. So much possibility for my day -- I was going to go out shopping, during school hours, by myself -- something I haven't done in almost two years now.

I didn't. Instead I putzed around the house. I'm still in my bathrobe. And dare I say, I'm enjoying the heck out of my day!

I always find it so surprising that when we take a day off from school, we don't really take a day off. I mean we don't do our scheduled schoolwork, but learning is still going on.

Today my son decided to do an experiment with a pound of acorns he brought back from South Carolina. Some are soaking in water, some are planted in dirt, some he cracked with a hammer, others he left alone. He has continued to work on his forester project for scouts without my asking. Woo-hoo.

He researched, outlined and wrote a report on hermit crabs.

He snuggled up with me in bed and we read more about the American Revolution.

He's been studying geology a little this afternoon.

He's been in the garage with his dad using the band saw again. I have no clue what they were doing.

He made his first fried eggs today. He was disappointed that he cracked the yolk in one egg and overcooked the yolk in another. I told him that was okay because I'm 40 and I still can't fry an egg.

For phy ed, he went outside and played in the pouring rain. He splashed in puddles. He tried to get the dog to play with him but the dog just wanted back in the house.

My husband bought some concrete mix on his way home from work, and they mixed it up and did something with it. I have no clue what they made.

So today we've done science, history, cooking, reading, construction and phy ed.

Not bad for a no-school day. The day is only half over. I wonder what he'll come up with next!

I'm a snot

I'm a snot and I admit it.

I was at a meeting tonight. Before the meeting started, a friend introduced me to a friend of hers. We were visiting and the topic of homeschool came up. The new acquaintence had a baffled look on her face. Then she asked THE questions.

How do you do it? Doesn't it drive you crazy to homeschool? How can you be around your kids all day?

I smiled and said, "I love being with my son."

Then I stared at her.

She got the point.

I'm a snot and I love it. I just don't get why it drives people crazy to be with their kids. *That's* what drives me crazy.