Quarantine

Strangely enough I think my family and I are all enjoying being at home together during quarantine. I tend to be a homebody anyway and am really LOVING the break from school drop offs and pick ups and all the extra activities the kids are in every week. The kids are having fun being at home too! I asked them yesterday where they want to go as soon as we're able to get out again and none of them could even think of anything.. until the older three decided they kind of miss going to school. I think a break is good for all of us.. I just wish it wasn't under such tragic circumstances. 







Thankfully we've had several beautiful days the last few weeks so the kids have been able to spend hours playing outdoors! 

The kids have been riding bikes... 

 drawing with chalk...

blowing bubbles...

.. they played in the sprinkler one afternoon.... 

Our neighbors were getting rid of this pink blow up hammock chair and the kids

have been having SO much fun with it! 

The dogs have been loving all the outdoor time and extra attention too! 

Saturday we went down to our lot where we'll be building. The kids have fun playing around this big fallen tree. Looks like it's been down for quite a while. We also tied ribbons around the living trees we want to keep when they start clearing the lot.

The two oldest kids have been great at keeping up with their school work at home! S isn't thrilled with the Spanish work she has to do or the daily class meetings on Zoom but she is staying caught up! L had her first (and probably only) remote occupational therapy meeting yesterday. It was kind of fun for her but definitely not nearly as good or beneficial as a true therapy session so I don't think we'll be doing it again. I found several little preschool workbooks for her at Dollar Tree and she's been working on those the past couple days. She's doing really good and loves having school work to do! 



Today is chilly and overcast and I'm having an awful time trying to stay awake haha! I think I need Starbucks! 



I'm linking up with Hello Monday today. 



                                                               ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                                                                    

*No idea why I have annoying ads popping up in my posts. If anyone knows how to get rid of them please let me know! I don't mind them on my page but prefer not to have them in the actual post. 

Day 1 On A Schedule

Just like everyone else this is our first week being stuck at home for who-knows-how-long. We were super lazy Monday and Tuesday. I slept in WAY too late and there was total chaos around here. I decided I had to put a schedule of sorts in place if I wanted to keep my sanity. So today is day one of being on a schedule. 

I wrote out a schedule last night and the 3 older kids woke up before me and were super excited to start on the scheduled day while L and I slept in again. Ha! I did wake up earlier today than I did Monday and Tuesday so that's a start anyway. 

This morning after breakfast the three older kids had Bible time. J and C have some Bible workbooks they've been working through off and on so they did that. And my mom helped S start learning a Bible verse. 

After unloading and loading the dishwasher we took the dogs on a walk down the street then came home for "school" time which turned into drawing lessons from YouTube while I updated Instagram and my blog. 

C and S both drew a pizza guy from this Art For Kids Hub YouTube lesson. I think they both did great! Art For Kids Hub has tons of other fun art lessons!

J wanted to work on something a little more realistic looking. I think her drawing looks great but she was getting frustrated with it and wants to work on it again later. 

 Even my mom draws pretty good! 

 S drew another pizza guy from her own imagination. :) 

And L is starting to draw better and better! She said this was her and our puppy. :) And she wrote her name. She got all the letters of her name right.. just wrote them in the wrong order. I was impressed but we'll have to work on the correct order. :) 



All my kids LOVE art so much so I think daily art lessons will be a great idea while we're stuck at home! Since I'm already planning to homeschool all the kids this fall this is giving us a great head start and I actually love having everyone at home all day! 



After lunch we need to go pick up school work for the two older girls, then we'll come home for quiet time, outdoor time, chores and maybe a little more "school" time.. maybe a virtual fieldtrip or something. I guess real school work will start for the girls tomorrow and I think we'll be picking up school work for C on Friday. 





I'm linking up to Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop today.

Going back to public school!

via Google

A year ago I was so excited about starting our homeschool journey but I found out along the way that it left me feeling constantly behind and overwhelmed.

JG slipped further and further behind. I am NOT a person who understands math and I understand English (conjunctions, etc) even less. Trying to teach stuff I could hardly grasp proved to be really difficult. 


JG did okay. She is actually a very motivated learner but I know I held her back by not being as organized as I could be and not be able to teach the way she needed. I know I let her have way too much down time, not enough structure, she wasn't challenged nearly enough and I feel like she missed out on making friends and learning from a teacher who could have helped her understand and grasp things that I couldn't. 



We didn't buy a curriculum when we started homeschooling last year and that may have been my first mistake. We wanted to save money so I pieced some stuff together here and there but felt like we still had a lot of gaps. 



I knew we needed to do something different this year. I really didn't want to send JG back to public but after weighing various options we decided public or K12 (public online) would be best for 5th grade. We have JG on the waitlist for K12 but there's no guarantee when she'll be accepted so we went ahead and enrolled her in public and feel great about our decision! 

Image via Google

She'll be in 5th grade at the same elementary school S will be going to. Since it's out of district she had to be approved by the district office. We were anxiously awaiting her letter (we saw on that app that it was coming Saturday) and she was SOOO excited to see that she was approved!! :) If she went to the intermediate she's zoned for I'd be driving to three different schools every day so I'm really glad she'll be at the same location as S! 

via Google 

And JG is SOOO excited to be going back to school! She got a new backpack and school supplies at the Back 2 School Bash Saturday morning then got her letter of approval Saturday afternoon. She was so excited she immediately went and started packing up her backpack lol! I imagine she'll have an outfit picked out for the first day soon too. :) 

As much as I love the idea of homeschool I think she really needs teachers who can patiently teach her rather than a stressed out mom. We're not sure what we'll do after 5th but we're hoping she'll be approved for K12 by 6th grade so she'll be home again then. And I'm not opposed to trying traditional homeschool again sometime down the road. 



J and I both feel like JG and I need this year as a break from homeschooling. JG fell behind a last year but just finished her end of the year homeschool test yesterday and scored pretty well.. so she isn't as far behind as we feared. She was always top of her class in public school and we feel like she'll catch up again quickly! 



I feel like the poor girl is such a guinea pig being the oldest. Counting homeschool this will be her FIFTH school since kindergarten. A few of those were due to moves but still. I feel really bad about that but she has a great attitude and has made great friends at every public school she's gone to! C, on the other hand, will be at the same school for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. And I really hope to keep S in her current school long term and plan for L to go to the same school long term too. 



It's such a great feeling to have 4th grade wrapped up, the big test finished and have JG registered and enrolled in public for 5th!! Now I just need to close out our homeschool in the next day or two. Praying all our kids have a great year!! 

First Day Of School

Yesterday was the first day of school for these two!! Alex started 2nd grade. He's still in public school. And Mar started 4th grade in her first year of homeschool!

 We've had a great first and second day of homeschool and hope it continues! She and Alex have gotten up at the same time, gotten dressed, shoes on, eaten breakfast and combed their hair. When Alex leaves for school (my husband takes him) Mar sits down to start her school work and is done around 12 or 12:30. I know it's only day 2 but we're going to try hard to stick to this schedule M-F.

Alex had a pretty good day of 2nd grade. He's a little disappointed that none of his 3 bestfriends from last year are in his class this year. I don't think he gets to go to recess with any of their classes either. I'm hoping he makes good friends again this year and hopefully settles in quickly!

Weekend Fun!

I'm linking up to Hello Monday and Mommy Monday Blog Hop today! 

I would love for you to follow my blog (link in sidebar). Comment here, 

let me know you're a new follower and I will follow back! 

We had a great last weekend of the summer! Lots of shopping and swimming! 

Friday afternoon I got a few more samples in the mail! A pure sugar scrub mask and a pure clay mask from L'Oreal. And a Garnier coconut hair mask from PinchMe. I love freebies and can't wait to try these!

Friday evening the kids and I went up to the neighborhood icecream social at our community pool!

 Mar put earphones on Indie for the first time Friday night. Indie did great with them and had fun
watching Cat In The Hat before bed. She looks way too grown up here!

Mar and I had a girls day out on Saturday. Our first stop was Ikea! She hasn't been to Ikea since she was a baby so this was all new to her! She loved looking at all the little model rooms and all the fun décor! 

I ended up only getting a small plant, a pot and a candle but I loved this light. I think it would be really cute and fun in our school room!

I love these dining chairs too! 

 We had lunch in the café at Ikea. It was surprisingly good! I had a salad and Mar had chicken strips. 

 We went to few stores after Ikea. I loved this huge mug at Charming Charlie's...

 And this water bottle :)

 I got a couple pair of earrings and these fun gold rings at Charming Charlie's. {I think a certain 2 year old took off with my earrings. I couldn't find them this morning.}

We found a lot of fun clearance items at Marshall's. I love the blue water bottle I bought for $6! We got a huge watermelon pool float for $6 and several toys for like $0.30-$.50! 

 I painted the girls toenails bright pink to match mine. It's fun to match!

The kids had so much fun on the watermelon float yesterday evening!! 

We stopped by the new playground on the way home from the pool! 

I realized late Friday night that I messed up big time and it's way too late to register Alex for baseball! He loved playing this spring and has been looking forward to playing again this fall all summer. I feel terrible. After several phone calls and emails he is on the waiting list for the league he played for last spring. I'm praying he gets in! I had to tell him what was going on yesterday and he actually took the news better than I expected. I've been looking for other things he could do this fall and discovered a local Trail Life group.. similar to Boy Scouts but Christian based. He's really excited to join! And he plans to get back to baseball in the spring if he doesn't get in at some point this season. 

Today is the first day of school! Second grade for Alex at public (this is the first year he has gone to school alone... kind of bittersweet) and first day of fourth for Mar.. and our first day homeschooling! So far, so good! 

Homeschool Needs & Wants

This will be our first year homeschooling! We're really excited to set up, 

decorate and organize a homeschool room!

I thought about using our dining room but decided the playroom would be better. 

I actually want to make it a homeschool/craft/playroom.

This is one part of the playroom. The little girls had to be in my picture!

The room is bigger than it looks and this wall will be perfect for a desk. I don't expect

Mar to sit here every day but it would be nice for her to have this option..

 especially since she loves arts and crafts too! And I can use it for sewing 

(if I ever learn haha!) or crafts. I'm thinking about hanging my curbside find/crib 

spring on this wall but haven't decided where it's going for sure.

This is the type of desk I have in mind. (Photo from Pinterest.) I really love all 

the organizational things hung on the wall here. Ideally I'd like something like this over

our desk but the crib spring might work out well too.. 

I love this utility cart! I actually had a similar one from Ikea several years ago before I 

sold it due to severe lack of space or maybe too much clutter in our then tiny little house. 

I see these carts everywhere and always wish I had held on to the one I had. It'll be great 

for school supplies, crafts or maybe my own stuff  that will be off limit to the kids.

A storage cart like this one will be nice for papers and things! I love the rolling carts 

for several reasons but most of all the fact that they're easy to move around. If someone wants 

to do school work or a project in the dining room it's super easy to wheel all her stuff over

in a cart and then put it back in the playroom when she's done.

 

An electric pencil sharpener probably makes more sense but this old style is

cute and reminds me of my childhood. One of these will probably be good for 

my kids ha! Everything is just too easy these days. They can use their muscles to 

sharpen a few pencils. (Yeah, we'll probably end up with an electric one anyway.) 

This metal tiered thing will make an adorable holder for school supplies! See 
this one on Pinterest.  I'm pretty sure I need one for my kitchen as well. These
things are adorable! I've been eyeing them forever but keep forgetting to get one ha! 

This wooden bottle caddy is so cute for pencils and things too! 

(Bottom photo via Pinterest from one of my long time favorite bloggers at Sunny Side Up. 

Her house and organizational skills are amazing!!) I've seen several, similar wooden

and even metal caddies that would be great for school stuff! 

We'll also want a globe although I did find a huge world map at the Dollar Tree! 

It's way bigger I expected and I'm going to hang it up soon.

I also got a marker board calendar at the Target dollar bin this morning. The 

dollar bins at Target are full of the cutest school décor right now! 

This will be our first year homeschooling but our situation is kind of confusing ha! It 

looks like our kids are going a few different directions this year.

Short version: Nine year old and 4 year old will be at home. Soon-to-be-eight-year-old 

is going to stay in public school and soon-to-be-three-year-old will most likely be 

going to a different public school for early childhood classes starting in late October or Nov.

Long version: Up until now our oldest two have been in public and Alex will stay 

in public for second grade this year. Sol will be going to public for kindergarten next year. 

She's been begging to go to preschool but that isn't anything we did for our 

older kids and I want to keep her at home another year anyway. However, it looks like 

Indie (our tiny little  not so little any more 2 yr old!) will qualify for early childhood 

a few days a week at one of the elementary schools. (To make it even more confusing

 she'll be going to a different elementary school than Alex is going to.) I hate the idea of 

sending her off so young but it should only be for 3 mornings a week

 and I know it will be good for her situation. So, Sol (who wants to go to pre-k) will 

be here at home while her baby sister (most likely) goes off to "school". 

I want to incorporate a lot of fun, preschool things for Sol this year so 

she'll be prepared for kindergarten next year and won't feel left out when 

Indie is going off to school a few days a week. I've been showing Sol 

some fun ideas online and all the Target school décor so she's getting 

excited about the idea of staying home another year... especially since this is

 something that her and Mar will be doing together. :) 

I know these are all fun things for homeschool! I should probably figure 

out the things we're actually going to need this year. I have a good start

but need to add a few more things in for Mar to complete a full 4th grade curriculum. 

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday! If you have any homeschool tips and ideas 

let me know! :)