Life Lessons and Chore Chart- Week of June 24-28, 2013

This week, Trey decided to spend some time at his grandparent's home.  They are building a cabin on the lake and have quite a bit of work to do, so Trey offered to go help out with whatever they needed.  Turns out a 13 year old boy is pretty handy to have around!  :) 

I've started the girls on a mini-unit on Independence Day.  I'm trying to get the point across that we celebrate Independence Day, and it's more than just the 4th of July... it's not just about hot dogs and fireworks! 

I set them up with various materials to work on during the day, and then I go over it all with them at night.  Fireworks will be part of the ending celebration, but they will also know why we are celebrating in the first place. 

I've found a few different resources that I'm using online, but I'm also using some of the homeschool materials to work from.  Nothing too stringent...this is fun learning time.  I'm stressing the importance of history...of voting...of exercising our right to free speech...of standing up for what you believe in.

First I went onto YouTube and found the Liberty's Kids show (#13) that deals with the first fourth of July. 

I also printed out some coloring pages for Lindsay to work on (she loves to color!).  You can find some here.

We're also planning on doing the Mentos in the Diet Coke experiment tomorrow.  I know I said Independence Day isn't about the fireworks, but it is part of our tradition of celebration, and I thought this would be a fun way to get them excited about the real fireworks we will be also watching this weekend.  (See?  I don't spoil all the fun!)

 

 

 

Anyway....That's about it for the life lessons this week.  Unless you count the new chore lists that I made for them.  I'll post mine below, but I want you to try my best to back track the history of this chart.  I saw a cleaning list on Pinterest.  I followed that link to this blog:  Tips and Pix.   When I read through there, I found that she had adapted that list from idea she found on THIS blog:  Kalanicut, who had adapted it from THIS blog:  Little Green Notebook, who originally got the idea from her friend who is a mom of boys, who thankfully doesn't have a blog (that I know of anyway...lol...I was tired of copying links.)

 

So this list has been around the block a few times.  I adapted it so that all my kiddos would have chores to do this summer.  I tried to work it so that each of the kiddos have ample free time, but not so much that they do nothing but sit around eating and playing video games all day.  As you'll see, Mom does her fair share of chores as well....most nights I do waaayyyy more than what's on the list.  I basically just put myself on there so that they would see that I am also holding myself accountable and "pulling my own weight" so to speak.  Here's my list: 

 

 

 

Yes, I color-code EVERYTHING.  I have a problem, I realize this.  Hope everybody has a great weekend! 

 

 

 

 

 

Meteor Shower Watch Party

Last night was supposed to be the best night to view Lyrrid's Meteor Shower.  So the kids and I loaded up a blanket, Trey's telescope, and some lawn chairs and sat in our driveway in hopes of seeing some truly spectacular sight.  We saw 2.  lol...

Forgive my photo quality - as I've said before, I'm NOT a photographer by any stretch of the imagination, and my iPhone doesn't really cooperate when I try to tell it otherwise.

We may not have seen the spectacular show that we were expecting, but we did have a good time trying!
Lindsay was super excited at the prospect of staying up a little past her bedtime and being outside at that time of night is a little magical to any child.



Trey searched and searched for more meteors, but they just didn't come.  Maybe we'll go out again tonight...He worked so hard to get it set up just right.  It would almost be unfair to not get to see anything!

The shower is supposed be going on through Friday night, so if you have any youngsters (or oldsters) who are interested, go look in the northeastern part of the sky and see if you can find one or two.  :)

Learning about Money

Please forgive the horrid condition my bed is in - I swear I made it that morning, but something happened after 3 kiddos and 1 tired mommy got home from school/work and needed some cuddle time.  :)

Friday's Life Lesson mainly involved Lulu...I know they've already introduced the concept of money in school, and she knows how to count bills and change.  However, I can't help but see a need for improvement when it comes to understanding the concept of budgeting and saving.  For some reason, my children hate to save their money.  I have tried everything I know to do.  They just don't get it.  I know I sound like my mother - "Money doesn't grow on trees!"

In an effort to begin learning how to budget, I began with the little one.  Last week, I started introducing her to a time/money kit that I bought when we were homeschooling.  It has the standard play money/coins, but it also has a dry erase marker and board, as well as a clock with movable hands.

We're going to start with the basics.  Just getting used to counting our money.  Then I'm going to start taking some of the money away to "pay" for things like dinner, groceries, etc.  When she sees that money is disappearing, I'm going to introduce a checkbook style system so that she can learn to keep track of where her money is going.  Not sure if this will help matters or not, but I thought it was worth a shot.  I plan to do this over the next several months - nothing too grueling.  I'm being sneaky about it - we're learning by playing.  :)  My hope is to involve the older kids as well - but I have to be sneaky about that as well.  As much as they like to think they are all grown up and beyond the "baby toys"....I see the way they eyeball that play money!!  We're one game of "Store" away from a full fledged learning experience!!  :)

Hope everyone has a great week!