Day 2: Our Crazy Life!

HIYA!

Our Tuesday usually start on time, our daily schedule is getting up about 6:30. We get our rooms cleaned up, beds made and everyone dressed. While I make breakfast and Dad is getting ready for work, the kids are getting their chores done. Each one has a chart of a few things they are to do or get started before breakfast. Once breakfast is over we are ready to clean up the kitchen, kiss Dad goodbye and start school.

Wild Man has been running around the house singing "1 2 3 Buckle my shoe...", he doesn't quite have it right yet but he sure is working on it. He learned it from a worksheet working on memorizing his numbers, he likes to hang EVERYTHING he does on the fridge! I'm going to have to get tough and teach him the replacement theory before the fridge falls through the new floor from the weight of all the papers!!

We have a few separate grades going on here, Bubba just turned 12 he is in the 6th grade, his main interests right now are books on soldiers and weaponry used in past wars. He has been practicing his aim lately in hopes of getting his deer on the last youth hunt weekend coming up. Sis is 10 1/2 and she is also in the 6th grade, she spends the majority of her time reading. You might just find her anywhere, on the dryer, on the stairs, sitting in the kitchen floor and other places reading wherever she got side tracked. She loves to spend time sewing and learning to cook also. Her favorite thing to make so far is cookies and brownies. Kaykay has a had a recent birthday too and she is 8 and in the 3rd grade, she likes to read too which fuels her imagination. Your more likely to find her dressed up somewhere in the barn or play house creating some drama or another. Nanae is in fwirst grade as she would say and is 6 1/2, her favorite place is Daddy's lap, but when he's not available she is found reading or playing in her "kitchen" and dressing her baby dolls. Wildman, well, he's just that my little wild man. I keep him interested in lots of hands on activities like counting bears, tan gram sets, and building materials. He loves to look at books and be read too as long as he has time! :-) I am planning on starting him in the Abeka K4 books in January, he is 4 1/2. Miss Priss is only 2 and will be 3 end of January, she keeps herself busy with coloring pages and sorting games. She loves to "read" also and is always asking to watch the Letter Factory "One mo time?". ;-)

The older kids usually start with Math, this takes about an hour. Since I have one Saxon 65 book (I really need to order another one!!) Bubba starts his lesson first, while Sis starts her writing assignment. KayKay is working on the addition flashcards up to table 12. She about has them all memorized and will be starting the multiplication ones soon. Today we just practiced saying them as fast as she could, we took some time and played a game, the person who says the answer first when I flash them gets the card and the person with the most cards wins. They love doing this, the older kids like "letting" the younger kids win some cards but the younger kids really try hard. They know one day they will say them just as fast and they already are giving them some competition! Nanae is working on her addition cards too, she is doing very well. I have added some subtraction in now and she is picking them up faster each day.

The second hour of school is filled up with hand writing. Sis starts her math lesson and switches with Bubba. These two have a calendar on the wall with a story suggestion or topic sentence to finish for each day of the week. Today they finished a story that started out "Oliver Eagle looked down from his nest..." . They can get very creative! Kaykay has a book of handwriting she does a few pages in each day, she is getting the hang of cursive but isn't too excited about it yet. She does love however the pages she has been writing for her journal. She has just started it, writing about her name and what she looks like. Today she is decorating her journal with markers, she loves to draw. Looks like she just might be a princess in her picture this time! Nanae has just started a new writing table from Rod and Staff, she is really really liking it. It reviews some of the basics of making straight lines before taking her into the copying letters and she is having a blast. Today she traced the lines on a house in the first box, then each box after is missing more and more lines until the final box she draws the house without any help. She was very proud of her house and she did a great job. Wild Man and I went over his numbers poster today, he can count very well and does a great job when he is paying attention!! :-) We read a book together and then spent some time tracing the numbers one and two. We then explored the frog station together where he fashioned what he said was a frog from the play dough. He spent a little time trying to find some frogs outside before I finally convinced him they were all down at the pond sleeping!

We also had some eye appointments today so after lunch and clean up we headed to town. Our reading was done on the run today. They each had their readers with them and spent the time in the waiting room with their reading lessons. We are going through the McGuffey Readers, Bubba is in the Second Reader, Sis who is a much faster reader and excellent speller has just finished the 3rd Reader and is now reading Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Kaykay is almost finished with the First Reader and Nanae is a few lessons into the Primer and just is almost through with her Dick and Jane collection. These are their required reading materials I have assigned, they spend about 3 hours a day reading these books then about an hour reading a book of their choice. They have quite a collection of Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Box Car Children, Mandie, Laura Ingalls, many of the classics and not to mention the couple hundred other books I have scattered around. Lately they have been seen reading through Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi, Hardy Boys, Pony Pals and some easy readers I have from Rod and Staff.

Once the eye appointments were over we sweet talked Dad into taking us to Wendy's to use some of our free Frosty coupons. I batted my eyes and got a chicken sandwich out of the deal and a few burgers to make it a little healthier of a supper. I try anyway!

A quick stop on the way home to drop off a baby gift and some food to a new young mother and then we were on our way home. Boy has the temperature dropped here!! The rain has turned to ice and we were happy to arrive home to our comfy house and throw some wood in the stove. Dad and the older kids ran (drove actually!) down to Grandma and Grandpa's to dip some milk out of the milk tank in the barn. No one could wait till morning to have a bowl of cereal so they all dove into Honey Nut Cheerios, something don't get very often! :-)

Soon the kids were off to bed while Dad and shared a little time on the computer. I could stay up all night especially to catch up on the news on Momformation at BabyCenter (one of these days I'm going to have to learn how to create a link!!) , but Hubby isn't the night owl I am!

Hope your not too bored!! "TTFN" as Tigger would say!! :-)

Photo: All the kiddos in the van on the way to town, guess it was nap time too! Hopefully I'll have more photos tomorrow when I put in the new camera battery!!