Can you stomach this?

Well we are finally back in the swing of things!

Technically we started school last Tuesday but ...it didn't go so well.

The public school had 2 snow days (actually just freezing cold days) and so of course we had neighborhood kids knocking on the door asking to play.

And I just can't see canceling our school due to cold since we don't actually have to leave the house.

So I have this wonderful picture in my head.  The kids and I work really hard for 2 hours and complete and entire days worth of work by 10 am and then they still have time to enjoy the "snow day" with their friends     while I enjoy a Gilmore girls marathon

         with a pot of coffee

                          on the couch

                                    by myself.

You see I have this problem with "realistic expectations".  All my lesson plans looked important to me.  I couldn't decide what to cut out of our day. I mean learning about the Greek dark ages just cannot wait till next week!

It was horrible-I felt stressed, the kids felt stressed.

            I declare the next "snow day", whatever the reason, we will completely cancel school! 

Luckily this week was completely "snow day" free and over the weekend I committed myself to being more patient, more flexible, and to realize that although multiplication and spelling matter being able to correctly label a map of ancient Greece by the end of 3rd grade probably doesn't.

Anatomy

Right before Christmas amazon.com was having these great flash sales  and I was able to grab one of these:

for only $9!  So of course this had to be our next science exploration!

I have to admit I had been putting off doing a full study of the human body because both Kaitlyn and I are extremely squeamish but alas I have given in and I am now glad that I have.

Our first science lesson was just assembling the body.  All the bones, muscles, and organs came in little baggies and had to be placed correctly inside the "skin"(the clear shell).

So we  assembled our body.

The kids had so much fun-it was like putting together pieces of a puzzle and the insides were so squishy!

My only complaint is that the pieces do not fit together as well as they should.  The bones and muscles had little pegs that were supposed to fit into holes in the casing and they did not always line up correctly.  Also the front "skin" and the back "skin" didn't match up to well either.  Despite this drawback I still think it is a great educational tool.

After our body was completely assembled we had a very heated debate as to what this guys name should be.  I am happy to introduce:

Quack the Duck

And on occasion he may be called, "Mr.Bones" as well.  Apparently we are still debating.

On our 2nd day studying "Quack the Duck" we decided to focus on the stomach.

So we got out our tweezers and removed the rib-cage so we could find the stomach.
The model came with this really great booklet that had information on each part displayed in the model.  So after we removed the stomach we read the booklet
  I though it was written in a really easy to understand format.  The pictures were engaging and the kids really understood how the stomach worked by the end of the reading.  At the bottom of the page it had a simple experiment to perform.  You can find the experiment in the free zone at smartlabtoys.com by clicking here.

Here is what we did:

1. We placed a piece of bread into our stomach(a plastic bag)
2. We added stomach acid(water) and left half the stomach full of air.
3. We acted as the contracting muscles of the stomach by closing up the bag and taking turns squeezing the "stomach".

Of course if you used soda instead of water it would help "digest" the bread faster but then you wouldn't be able to see what was happening as well as you can with water.

The kids loved helping our stomach to digest!  At one point Samantha went crazy squeezing the stomach and the seal broke open and some of the water splashed all over her!  This lead to a great discussion about throwing up and not eating right before doing physical exercise!

At the end of the day the content of our stomach looked like this:

Pretty gross huh?

While reading and discussing the lab booklet the kids and I thought of our own experiment to help us understand why our stomach growls!  Here is how to do it:

  Stomach Growl Experiment

Who ever knew the stomach could be so fun?!?!?!

15,242,400 minutes

I never imagined that in the early morning hours of my 29th birthday I would be sitting on the couch eating ice cream with my 8yr old at 3:45 in the morning.

 Or that before that we would spend 15 min sitting in the bathroom breathing in steam from the shower while searching pinterest for fun Christmas crafts.

Or that I would spend the rest of the night sleeping on the living room floor next to the couch because she wanted me to be near her in case she had another coughing fit.

But I did.

While we were eating our chocolate chip ice cream.  Kaitlyn asked,

"Mom I don't know how you don't take a nap everyday"

"What do you mean?"

"It seems like every night you are up with someone."

That was true just the night before I had slept in bed with Samantha because she was having coughing fits.  And all the other nights before that? Well lets just say in the past year it has been rare for Samantha to sleep through the night.

"Well that's just what moms do.  Plus that's what coffee is for."

I knew that her late night coughing and and fever spike meant I was going to have to cancel my birthday plans for the next day.  No family trip to the symphony and we weren't going to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  But I was ok with that.

I felt happy.

I sat next to Kaitlyn with a smile on my face.  You see I'd given up counting how many of hours of sleep I was missing each night years ago when she was a baby.

I'd sit in the rocking chair with her and calculate just how much sleep I was going to get that night.  I'd add up how many hours I was behind that week and try to figure out how much sleep I'd missed since she had been born.

Mostly it was just an exercise to keep me awake during all those midnight feedings.  But in the end I realized I was missing incredible moments because I spent it counting minutes.

29 years, 15,242,400 minutes

So many memories in those minutes.  So many experiences. So many moments of delight. So many moments of regrets.

I don't know how many many minutes I have left on this earth.  But I know this:

I don't want to count them.

I want to spend them.

I want to relish every minute no matter what I am doing.  Whether eating ice cream at 3 in the morning, or going to the movies.  Whether I'm bleaching the bathroom so no one else gets sick, or eating dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Whether I'm cooking dinner (again), or lounging on the beach.  I want those minutes to count.  

I want my life to be about much more than 29, 39, 59, or 89 years of me.

I want every single minute of those years to be about loving my God.  Serving my God.  Honoring my God.

 At 29 years I'm not in the record books.  I haven't made my first million.  I' m not a CEO of a major corporation.  Heck I haven't even graduated college.

At 29 years of age I've realized that soon the world will forget me and how I spent my minutes.

But God will not forget me.  

He will remember those minutes.

My great great great grandchildren may not know my name.  But I hope that how I choose to spend my minutes today will impact how they choose to spend theirs.

 Whether you have 1 more minute on this earth or 50,000,000 more.  Make it count.  Make it worth it.  

Bless someone today with your presence.  That's the best present I could ever receive!

 Then come back here and tell me Happy Birthday in the comments below!

 

 

 

CO-OP Fridays

Today is Friday so it seemed appropriate to write a co-op Friday post.

Who cares if the last co-op day was 3 weeks ago.

It is still Friday and you still haven't seen the pictures!

For the last day of co-op Matthew had to create a diorama of his favorite habitat for his Wild Animal Habitat class.  He choose the Arctic. 

His box wasn't fancy but he made it by himself and he was proud.

The giant silver thing in the middle was an iceberg, he also had a beluga whale, an arctic seal pup, and a man in a canoe.

A few days later we attended the co-op fall showcase.

Kaityn's Jr. Drama class performed "Hansel and Gretel in the Creepy Woods",

Kaitlyn played an elf named "Jumpy".  Kaitlyn is not a fan of talking in front of people, or a fan of talking to people for that matter so this was a big deal for her.  She did great though!  

Taking a bow.

Even without a smile on her face I think she makes the cutest elf!

After the performance we all enjoyed eating cookies and punch while looking at some of the art projects the co-op art classes had made.

  

The project on the left is a group effort to recreate the chandelier on the right completely out of water bottles, hangers, and twists ties.  This project was raffled off among the students and unfortunately Kaitlyn did not win.  She was really hoping it would be the perfect piece to add to her bedroom.

Her final piece from recycled art was a castle.  It was made primarily out of recycled toilet paper tubes, cereal boxes, and paper mache.  I thought it was super cute and fit perfectly with her mermaid themed room.

Over all it was a fantastic semester at co-op.  The kids learned a lot and made some great friends and I enjoyed getting to chat with the other moms.  I am happy for the long break in between semesters that allows us to get caught up on stuff at home but I know my kids will be counting down the days till next semester starts!

9 Trashbags!

9 Trash-bags!

9 trash-bags full of stuff!

That is what I did this morning.  I filled bags full of stuff.

Trash. Clothes.  Toys. Shoes.  You name it it was probably somewhere in a bag.

That isn't how my morning started though.  My morning started with a little on-line shopping.  I checked amazon.com for its early black Friday deals to see if there was anything of interest.  Then I went to mylitter.com for her daily update of holiday deals.  Was there anything on my Christmas list?  (or not on my Christmas list?)

Yes! 

 Kohls started their black Friday sale on-line today!  With an extra 15% off, and free shipping, and $15 Kohls cash for every $50 spent!  Whoo hoo!

So I spent the next hour filling my cart full of exciting Christmas presents.

Actually it was over an hour.  It was more like an hour and a half.

1.5 hours to buy 7 presents that I will probably spend another hour wrapping.  Then those 7 presents will be opened most likely in less than 10 min.  

Did I stop shopping there? 

No.  

JcPenny also started their black Friday sales today.  With free shipping and an extra 20% off.  

All I bought at JcPenny was a much needed winter coat for myself.  It was a great deal and it was something I really needed because my winter coat bit the dust last year.  

But at the end of all that shopping I had this sudden urge to start cleaning and purging.

Now usually when I purge I head straight to the kids bedrooms-that is where all the clutter comes from right?

Well not today.  I headed to my closet and started pulling clothing off the hangers.  I started emptying drawers.  How many outfits does a person really need anyway?

Seriously how many do you need?  7? 14? 21?  

I pondered this as I pulled clothes from the closet.  7 I thought.  I only really need 7 winter outfits.  I don't work outside the home so I don't really have a need for multiple types of outfits.  But then I kept thinking of different scenarios where I would "need" different types of clothes-church, dates, everyday, painting/cleaning, camp, gym(well I might go back someday!)  And then all of a sudden it seemed impossible to narrow down my closet to 7 outfits.

I wish I could say I bit the bullet and purged all but 7 outfits.  I did not.  But I did clear out 2 trash-bags full of my own clothes. and 4 pairs of shoes!  

4 pairs of shoes!

Seriously it is hard for me to get rid of shoes so I am super proud of myself!  However I should mention that 2 of those pairs I have owned since high school!  Just to put that into perspective for you my 10 year reunion is this Saturday!  Yikes!  That means those shoes have lasted over 10 years-which also means that I must never wear them!

After my closet I cleaned out Jon's and then some other random stuff sitting in our attic.  After that I filled another bag entirely from items in my kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  That last few bags were made up of toys that I had bagged up 2 months ago but never actually got rid of them.  Two bags were full of trash that I found along the way.

9 bags in all.  9 bags of stuff we have no need for.  9 bags that at some point had cost us hundreds of dollars to fill.

Hundreds of dollars.

Now some of that was necessary.  We need clothes. We need shoes.  But did I really need all of those clothes?  No.

Did we need 3 trash-bags full of toys? No.

Hundreds of dollars.  Hundreds of dollars of trash.

Now of course it isn't really trash.  It is being donated and someone else will use it.

But was it really worth all that money?  Was it worth my husband's time and effort to earn?  Was it worth my time and effort to buy?  Was it worth my time an effort to store and clean?

I spent 1.5 hours today buying future "trash".  Then I spent another hour cleaning up our old "trash".

Is that what my life boils down to buying future trash, and cleaning up old trash?

Sometimes I think it is.

But I think I was meant for something so much more.

What if instead of spending money on "trash" I fed the homeless?

What if I clothed a widow?

What if I made it possible for a child to have clean water?

What if I made a memory playing at the park with my kids?

What if I worried less about my kids Christmas list and more about my kids hearts?

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

I want to trust in the Lord.  I want to be a bird.  I don't want to live among the trash anymore. 

And I am going to start by bringing less in my home this Christmas.   

I was meant to live for something more.

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

-C.S. Lewis

CO-OP Fridays!

Co-op Fridays!

I am now creating a weekly segment and I shall call it Co-op Fridays and Co-op Fridays it shall be called!

Last week at Co-op the student council organized a superhero day! 2 of my 3 kids participated:

Kaitlyn actually had a super cute cape and sunglasses on but being a true 8 year old kept it in her purse and waited to see how many people actually dressed up before wearing it.  But that's Kaitlyn!

Jr. Explorers

The Jr. Explorers (Samantha's class) had a camping theme.

Tent playing fun!

Painting a fire with a giant marshmallow on a stick.

Making a smore with mini marshmallows and ghram cracker cereal-wait a minute I think she stole one of the giant ones!  That stinker!

Yesterday's theme was outerspace.  We pretended to blast off in a rocket and then we searched for moon rocks in the dark using our glowsticks!

Afterwards we ate cookies that we decorated to look like a full moon.

We also went on a star hunt around the building! I made the mistake of telling the kids to say "twinkle twinkle" everytime they see a star. I did not realize how loud 12 3yr olds yelling "twinkle twinkle" could be.  I'm sure we disturbed several classes!

Kaitlyn's Classes

Kaitlyn's drama class is hard at work on their play.  They perform in two weeks and I can't wait to see her perform!

For the past 2 weeks Kaitlyn has been working to create a castle in recycled art. I am excited to see what the finished product will look like!

Jr.FLL is still working on building and programming robots and she has done many fun experiments in Candy Science. 

Matthew's Classes

Unfortunately I have no pictures of Matthew's classes!

I know he has been building away in his lego class and having lots of fun in his P.E. class.

Every week Matthew comes home with tons of facts from his Wild Animal Habitat Class!  He absolutely loves it and he has learned so much.  We will miss this class when it is over.

And of course Matthew loves Candy Science!  I am told that every week Matthew is the 1st to ask his teacher if they can eat their experiment when they are done!

Only 2 weeks left in co-op this semester!  It has just flown by!  

Not everyone in Illinois lives in Chicago.

Ancient West Africa!

History

This week in history we learned that there is more to Africa than just Egypt!

I can see it now,  The kids meet someone from Africa here in the U.S.:

"Wow so you are from Africa?  What are the pyramids like? "

"I don't know because I'm from the Congo."

I mean pyramids and mummies are great but there is an entire continent here!

So to counter that idea we looked about Ancient Western Civilizations.  We learned that the Sahara desert actually used to be a grassland and about 5500 years ago the earth started heating up and it turned into a desert.( Perhaps the Giraffes were emitting to many gasses into the Earth's atmosphere and it caused global warming.  I'm not really sure.)  Even mom learned something new there.

Art

So in art this week we made our own paper beads and strung them on necklaces.

See I knew there was a reason I was saving all my old magazines!  Home-schoolers have to hoard!

Literature/History

  We read Anansi and the Magic Stick and Anansi the Spider.

  

We also listened to two Anansi stories read by Jim Weiss.  The stories were Anansi and Turtle and Anansi and the Make Believe Food.  The kids and I were laughing outloud at Anansi and the Make Believe Food!  It was hilarious!

After listening to Anansi and Turtle the kids decided to make their own puppets and retell the story.  Here are Matthew's puppets:

Kaitlyn took a slightly different approach.  She went in her room and created a puppet stage out of an old shoe box.  Then she created two different back drops and attached them to a paper towel roll so that she could spin it to change scenes.

It is not a very good picture because she very distinctly told me not to take pictures so I was trying to sneak.  I love seeing her creative ideas and it was definitely more fun than writing another summary to put in a notebook.

The next day we listened to another Anansi story read by Jim Weiss.  This was "Anansi and the Make-Believe Food."  Today's assignment was to pick a scene from the story and draw a picture of it.

Matthew's picture of Anansi collapsing from hunger outside his hut.

Kaitlyn being Kaitlyn couldn't just draw a scene from the story she had to create a collection.  Here are some of here pictures:

Anansi arriving in the town of potatoes and then the potatoes throwing themselves into the fire so that Anansi will eat them.

The rice asking Anansi how he wants to eat them. I think hey are cute!

The rice boiling themselves.  It is a really bizarre story.  

Tot School

Samantha's work has been a lot more haphazard lately.  Here are a few shots of her working:

 

This is from her Get Ready for the Code A workbook.  She really seems to like this book and I am thinking of ordering her book B and C for Christmas!  

Here she is working in her "magic" book.  You scribble in pencil next to a letter and a picture appears!  I bought this last year at the home school expo and turns out I should have bought one for all the kids-the other two were jealous!

Samantha created another dot page M for moon.  I believe I got the printable from 1plus1plus1equals1.com  It is a really great site.  She has a lot of great FREE printables.

Dr. Dolittle and the oranges

So today I thought it would be fun to surprise the kids with little Jack-o-lantern oranges.  So I drew a few cute faces and called in the kids for their snacks.

The kids saw them and said, "Ohh can we make some?"  So we got out the sharpies and they all started decorating all the cutie oranges in the bag.

Matthew came over to show me his, "Look mom I made Dr. Dolittle and his alligator!"

Last week we started reading The story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting aloud. It is the story of a doctor who learns to speak the languages of the animals and all his adventures.  We are simply reading the book together as a family-no projects, no summaries, not comprehension activities.  Just reading it for the literary experience. If you ever wonder if you kid is enjoying the books you read to him-just see if he decorates his oranges as the characters!

 He continued on to  make Chee Chee the monkey, Gub Gub the pig, Jip Jip the dog, Polynesia the parrot, the Pushme-pullyu, and then all the rats that had just vacated Dr. Dolittle's ship in today's chapter!  If you haven't read The Story of Dr. Dolittle you should!
 It is a very cute little book and very easy to read.  Your children will love it!