Cracking the Code...

Today, we experienced a break through. With homeschooling, of course. That part of our lives seems to be dominant at times - which is probably a good thing because it is a total distraction of what's coming our way in 10 short weeks!!! (Yikes! But in a good way...) Anyways. I figured something out today.

As cute and sweet and smart as she is, I believe Charis has kind of been cramping our homeschooling style, if you know what I mean. I had to run some important errands this morning but also knew that today was a school day. So I had to come up with a way to fit everything (naps included) into our busy day. We started off at the doctor's office (again, for the 2nd time this week...I needed more lab work done because it seems as though this pesky UTI will not go away...), then onto Time Warner Cable to figure out 2 bills we just got in the mail, next the bank, then Big Lots, then the gas station, and finally we made a stop at Applebee's to order lunch and take it home with us. (Applebee's in EC is doing a fundraiser to help our Marketing Director raise money for a surgery her daughter needs in New York. Isn't that great? Our community is really rallying around Brittany, and I'm so thankful!) We ate lunch once we got home, then I let the kids play outside at their picnic table in shaving cream. Of course we had to jump in the tub for a quick rinse following that messy activity because Charis had shaving cream EVERYWHERE. I took Charis up to bed for her nap, and then Cayman and I spent the next blissful 1.5 hours in the school room! It was great! He was so, so cooperative today, and he even did things that he normally hates doing...like coloring! I was able to focus solely on him, he had a full belly post-lunch, and he had gotten some of his "jiggles" out while playing outside. I really think this is going to work out better for us this year. Next year when Charis is older, she can participate in everything we're doing and have a normal "school day" with us. But for now, I think she'll participate with us every now and then. Because she does love doing a lot of the stuff! Here is what we worked on today...

First, I made Cayman a chart with numbers 1-4 on the bottom of the page each with their own colored star sticker. The rest of the chart was filled in randomly with numbers 1-9. Cayman had to go through the chart, and figure out if the number was 1-4 and which color sticker it should get in its box. If the number was 5-9, it didn't get a sticker. He did super well, and we made it through the entire page! He didn't give up once! (Big accomplishment...)

Next, we got out the big math dry erase notebook. It's filled with printed workbook pages that I slipped in the clear sheet protectors. Now we can work on the workbook pages over and over because when written on with a dry erase marker, it wipes off easily with a paper towel (like, better than a dry erase board even!) He traced lines and finished shape patterns. We're working on drawing triangles right now. It's a little difficult to draw three straight lines (his ends up looking more like a semicircle right now) but we're making progress! Next he did a few pages in his student workbook - we finished up the letter A activities and started on one letter B workbook page. Finally, he did his favorite activity of the day. The final workbook page was focusing on two three objectives - tracing, triangles, and the color blue. I changed up the instructions a little bit because I knew if I just told him to color the triangles, he wasn't going to be too thrilled. So I told him that we were going to make a triangle monster! But first, he had to trace and color the triangles blue, then we'd cut them out, and finally we'd glue the triangles into a monster on a piece of paper! He was super excited, especially when I showed him the googly eyes we could use on our monster. :) He (we) worked so hard coloring all the triangles - he even did fairly well staying in the lines. And then he (we) cut out all the triangles. (There really were a lot of triangles on the page, so I told him we'd work together to get them all done. He did most of the work though, honestly. I was thrilled when he hardly even asked me for help and not once did he complain even in the least bit! He was just jabbering away about how scared Daddy was going to be when he saw the triangle monster!) We figured out how we were going to piece all the triangles together to make a monster, and then we started gluing away! Half way through, he asked if I could do the gluing because his "hand was wheely hurting." (Haha!)

I'm pretty sure he was in the middle of telling
me something about his monster. :)

The blue triangle monster (in a boat)

We finished, he cleaned up his mess, washed his hands, and then went to lay down in his bed for his resting period (which has also changed this week.) I've pretty much given up on him actually sleeping during nap time. So instead of getting frustrated and fighting and threatening, I've decided that I'm going to set a timer for one hour. He must lay down in his bed for the full hour. When the timer goes off, I'll go check on him in his room. If he's awake, he can get up and play quietly in his room. If I hear him playing before the timer goes off, I have to add time to the timer. So far, (unless he is really tricking me) it has worked out well. Much less stress for this mama! :)

In other news - we've been counting down the days (literally - on our school calendar) until Grammy and Big Al get here! They're coming tomorrow, and we're all so excited. Big Al is coming to help us with little projects around the house. I hope I have enough to keep him busy the whole time! Grammy will stay with us a little longer to help me finish setting up the house and to help me get completely ready for Baby C! We can hardly wait to see them and to finally have some family members come see the new house. :)

In other, other news -- tomorrow is another big day as well! My best friend, Jennifer, is having her baby tomorrow!! They ended up having to schedule a c-section for tomorrow morning at 10:30, and I can hardly wait to see Miss Addison! Jenn better be lucky that my parents are coming or else I'd be coming to shack up with her for a while to get a baby fix in before our little baby arrives soon! Hooray for babies :)