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! 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to Get Started!

So it's really no secret that I've always wanted to homeschool ALL of my children.  The hubs really didn't like the idea of pulling Addison out of her advanced Math and Engineering school.  And honestly, I was not totally confident in my abilities as a teacher to keep up with her.  She's very bright.  Very.  And Lindsay - well, he had mixed feelings about not allowing her to attend Kindergarten, which would undoubtedly be a lot of fun for our little socialite. 

But over the past 2 years of homeschooling Trey, I've gained the confidence I needed and I approached my husband again about homeschooling Addison and Lindsay.  I couldn't believe my ears when he said, "Do it!"  I was so excited!  Since I had already purchased Trey's curriculum for next year, I went and bought duplicates for Addison.  She's 13 months younger than Trey, and would be in 4th grade next year in public school.  But that school works at least 1 year (sometimes 2 years) ahead than other public schools.  So she's totally ready for 5th grade.  So I've decided to put them in the same grade, and teach them together!!  Lindsay will be moving to Kindergarten a year early.  A good friend of mine (a Kindergarten teacher) urged me a couple of years ago to just let her be little while she still can.  "Don't rush things," she said.  Well, that was 2 years ago, and she had just turned 3.  I was trying to push a Kindergarten curriculum on her way too early.  She wanted to play school with us, but she wasn't really interested in DOING school.  Ya know?  So I decided to let her go play.  For Pre-K, I did some stuff with her, but I mostly let her call the shots.  When she wanted to learn, I would teach her.  When she wanted to play, I would play with her. 

But that was last year, when I was only seriously homeschooling one child.  My schedule was more relaxed because Trey was able to work more independently for a lot of subjects.  But this year, I'm going to have 2 in 5th grade, and I really want Lindsay to have a little more structure in her day.  So I've designed a daily schedule that will allow us all to have group time, independent time, and one-on-one time with Mom.  :)  I am really excited.  Take a look and see what you think. 

https://acrobat.com/#d=-zHw9LLoqSAaeCPSkk3i*A

I've been working diligently on my lesson plans all Summer.  I think I've finally got most of it done.  I still have some of my special classes to think about - like Cooking, and other fun stuff, but for the most part, all that's left to do is organize everything into my final lesson planning pages, and shop for supplies.