Today was our homeschool co-op’s annual Valentine party.  The kids are divided by age group and then make Valentine’s for those friends.  They put said Valentine’s in decorated boxes (or bags) and one presumes said boxes to be decorated with a traditional Valentine theme of love.  Not so.

This is Brother’s box:

(see this link if you don’t already know that Heroica is battle game … with monsters and barbarians and such.)

In years past, he had a box with Spiderman swinging to the rescue (of some poor soul about to fall in love, no doubt.)

It’s not that he refuses to have a box with hearts and the like. No, what makes it humorous is that he is utterly oblivious to the fact that hearts are even an option.

I used to worry about such incongruities but having four children changes your perspective.  Namely, you have learned to nurture their creativity; helping it blossom into something beautiful are too tired to care.  And as it turned out his box sitting next to the volcano and monkey and micro-fridge seemed right at home.

Sister is not oblivious. Her box will have hearts. It will be pink. It will exude love and be utterly appropriate.

Her Valentine’s however will have animals …always, with the animals.  She’s done flamingoes, cut out animals with cute saying and little animal trivia and this year.  She’s “wild about you, Valentine.”

Inspired by an article in Family Fun magazine.

Brother stuck with being a funny boy.

The Littles seem oblivious to the reason behind all this heart hoopla but they’re cute enough that no one cares.

Though when I look in my rear-view mirror and see this

I know they’ve got this love thing down without having to be told a thing.

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I am thankful for my ancestors.  The ones who were not afraid to leave comfort behind in search of a better life.  I am thankful they found that life and passed it on to me.

I am thankful for abundance.  The life I live is not one of “getting by.” My Lord has been gracious enough to supply all my needs and more.  Truly “my cup runneth over.”

I am thankful for the authority of the believer.  That is to say,  I am thankful that the Creator of the universe promises to back me up anytime Satan chooses to attack me or my family.  Because He calls me His child, I can face the enemy with fear or hesitation.  I am often remiss in exercising my authority but it exists nonetheless.

I am thankful for America.  Despite its flaws, it is still, in my humble opinion, the greatest nation on the earth today and I am blessed to live here.

To play along, I’m passing it on to Jennifer at Just Wedeminute and per instructions including 7 things about myself.

1. All of my children were born without the use of an epidural and I would love to say there were lofty philosophical reasons for doing so but sadly, no.  I was (and still am) afraid of the idea of a needle … in. my. spine.

2. #1 eventually led me to have 3 children at home, in the water, with the help of my husband and midwife.  Some people say that’s crazy.  Others say it’s courageous.  Whichever one is true, I know that I am stronger for the experience and I wouldn’t change it BUT if I ever have another child I’m thinking about trying the drugs because I’m not as young as I used to be and birth is HARD.

3. I prefer my chocolate dark and very cold.

4. My first real job was scooping ice cream at Braum’s. So was my second job and my third.  Though somewhere in there I got promoted to the grocery side which was great because it meant that I no longer left the store each evening covered in ice cream spatters.  Also, I got a snazzy apron upgrade…. which I still own.  I look back on those days and know that without them I would never have been able to impress my children my mad scooping skillz nor would I know that it’s “sherbET” not “sherBERT”. 

5. Prior to college I had never heard of the Animaniacs but thanks to the girl next door (who was anything but, BTW) by the end of my first year I not only knew who they were but I could sing Yakko’s Nations of the World song.  Interestingly, I still can; except of course that a lot of the nations have changed so it’s not nearly as impressive as it used to be.

6.  I can also sing the ABC song backwards because you never know when you might be called on to entertain the president … or a two year old.

7. My favorite poem is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost because it’s beautiful and it’s true.  This is closely followed by This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams because it’s beautiful and it’s true.  Both are the story of my life except in the case of the plums, no one would have written a note.  Instead there would only be sticky fingerprints left behind to tell the tale.

Please go vote, if you are so inclined but be warned, the HS Blog Awards are best enjoyed with a nice, hot cup o’ tea and lots of free time.  Good stuff.

Take Dora to the park and she will make a bee-line for either the swings or the slide.  Walk her past our neighbors swingset and your answer of, “No, not now.” will fall on deaf ears and crying eyes.

Compelling evidence for getting a swingset/fort of our own, so when a neighbor let on that she was selling hers, Will and I jumped at the chance to get one for under a gazillion dollars.

After that, all we had to do was move it….

The extraneous pieces came first.

It’s so hard to resist climbing on them.

Then the main structure.

Yep, that’s my dad.

Why yes, it is rather precariously balanced on that trailer.

Did I ever tell you about the time my sister needed to move a big screen TV from her third story apartment.  This was pre-flatscreens.  Imagine one of those huge box kind.  My dad couldn’t figure out how to get it down the stairs (nevermind that the movers had somehow gotten it UP the stairs) so he tied a rope around it and chunked it over the balcony.  Ok, ok – he gently lowered it to the ground but it was over the balcony.  He’s a get ‘er done kind of guy.

Moment of truth – will it tip …. or, snap

This shot doesn’t have anything to do with the swing. It’s just cute.

Sorry, back to the moment of truth.

It looks like ….

Success!  Backwards.  This is my dad saying, “Okay now we have to turn it around.”

Another cute shot.

I won’t bore you with all the less exciting setup details except to say that the structure was (amazingly) playable before sunset.  And boy, did they play.

Dora loves the swings the best but she went down that humongous slide several times with no fear.  Funny thing was that the next morning, because of course she started in first thing, she wouldn’t go down it at all.

Me: “Let me see you go down the slide!”

Dora: (pause ~ look over the precipice ~ then, oh so sweetly) “No thank you.  Green slide too big.”

Sister soon convinced her otherwise and now she zooms down at a breakneck speed.

Love this for them!  Love it!  Thanks Grandpa for the help!

On our last trip to the library, someone (not me) picked up A Dollar for Penny by Julie Glass.  It’s called a “math reader” and it’s particular brand of math concerns money.  Anyway, I spied it in our library bin and added it along with a handful of various coins to Brother’s math workbox.

When math time came he and I had the most enjoyable time.  He read the story but I held the book which meant that at appropriate moments I could close the pages and ask questions like: “What do you think she’ll charge this time?” or “What coins do you think that person will use to pay?”  or “What other ways could they pay?”  For each question he created an answer using the coins. 

We played around with this relatively short story for nearly half an hour and by the end of it I discovered two things.  First, Brother is a better reader than he (or I) had realized. (He was quite concerned in the beginning about the book being a “step 2” reader but in reality he had no problems at all.)  Second, although he’d done several worksheets about coin values this year, he had actually retained very little.  This simple 30 minute lesson consisting mostly of reading and giggles conveyed far more than any piece of paper has.

This whole experience has be re-evaluating (again) each part of our curriculum.  Every book must now answer true ~ “Is this the best way to teach this topic to my kids?”  Is this topic even worth teaching right now?, ever?  Not surprisingly a number of my original choices for the year have been set aside. … but, for now anyway, math readers are in.

Seeing one of the other waiting children working on her schoolwork I confessed to the mother that we were playing hooky for the day.  It really did feel like a confession because I really did feel guilty about it especially because I know how difficult it is for us to get seatwork done of an afternoon and that, consequently; there would be no redeeming of the day… schoolwise, anyway.

Back at home, we took advantage of Dad’s presence and started a game of Quirkle,  (You know that one that requires matching, addition, critical thinking and spatial reasoning skills.)  I had to skip out about halfway through to go pick up groceries so Dad and the Littles played outside while the big kids continued their marathon of “What’s in the Bible” watching.

Later, after lunch and after Will headed off to work, there were still a lot of groceries to put away.  I had Brother help me. 

“You do all the cans in the pantry.  Try to keep like with like so things will be easier to find later.” 

In the process of clearing space in a cabinet I came across a package of sunflower seeds and some old fruit bits.

“Sister, see if you can figure out something to do with these.  Maybe the birds would like them.”

Brother had finished by this time so I handed him the back off an empty cereal box. 

“Look, this one has puzzles.  Do you want it?” 

“Sure!”  He grabbed a pen and sat down at the table to work the challenges.

Sister finishes up her bird feeder made from a plastic cup.  She’s mixed the seeds with peanut butter to make a paste for smearing all over it.  It doesn’t work as well as she’d hoped so she starts in on another plan.

I notice that two packages of toilet paper have yet to be put away.  I set Brother to the task.

“Take care of these, please.  We need a third in each restroom.”

There is a little confusion at first about what that means so we have a quick review of fractions.  Explanation complete, I go to put the Littles down for a nap.  When I come out Sister has finished her task and is practicing piano.  Brother has finished his task and is exploring PBS Kids. 

“Do you guys want to finish our Quirkle game?” 

It’s close to the very end but Brother pulls out the win in a last grand move. I’m kicking myself that he spotted a quirkle I missed.

Dad will be home soon so Sister starts supper while I take care of the waking Littles.

Later, Sister and I head to Hobby Lobby.  We need candle making supplies for a project she is doing with some friends.  We also get one of those US maps that hold a 50 State Quarter Collection.  After several weeks of looking, Sister finally has a complete collection and she wants to display them.  Of course, she fills the map as soon as we get home.

In our absence, Will and Brother have been playing a puzzle game on the computer.

Bedtime arrives.  The kids grab their nighttime books and turn on their reading lamps.

“Good night.”

“Good night. I love you.  See you in the morning.”

You know…. maybe we did do school today after all.

Dora has a little activity shelf near our school area to keep her busy while the big kids do seatwork.  I change out the toys every week or so to keep it interesting.  Apparently, on this week, what I chose wasn’t interesting enough because passing by I spied this.

Do you see it?

Maybe a close up will help.

She placed the grasshopper and frog with their matching colors.  Funny thing was that while I had pulled out the puzzle for her to play with; the little figures came from who knows where.

That got me to thinking about other color matching we could do with that puzzle.  A quick house search yielded magnetic refrigerator clips and Candy Land cards. 

I cannot even explain all the games they derived from these simple tools. But they had fun.  Lots and lots of fun.

And I had quiet.

Sew So easy and Brother has already gotten use out of them while working math sheets but mostly they’ve been used as pretend pizza.

It took me an afternoon of cutting and sewing off and on to complete the set but I’m sure it could be done in less time sans interruption.  The double layers of felt make them very sturdy so that even the littlest can have a turn.

Don’t know what workboxes are?  Check out this link.

In baseball, a change up is a off speed pitch meant to surprise the batter and throw off his timing.  However, the pitcher doesn’t plan at the beginning of the game when he’s going to throw a change up.  Instead, he waits until he needs it to shake things up a bit.  In my workbox world the concept is similar.  When I see interest waning in a particular subject, I know it’s time to throw a change up.  I keep a list of ideas handy and whole host of supplies in standby mode for just such an occasion.

Here are some examples from the past few weeks:

Sister’s writing box usually looks like this:

but one week I could tell she needed a little boost so I replaced it with this:

The skills required to draw a detailed picture are the same ones that develop good handwriting but I didn’t tell her that.  Instead I assigned some pages to complete in lieu of her regular work and told her to have fun.  She did and she produced a great picture in the process.

Brother’s History box usually looks like this:

But he’s six and world history at six isn’t a particular priority to me.  We’d been having some trouble keeping up with our read-aloud (I usually read it at breakfast or lunch while the children eat.) so on this particular week we replaced History with Charlotte’s Web.

I can hear you now, “but won’t that put you behind schedule?”  I don’t think so.  The whole point of the skeleton plan is to allow for flex.  I know that at a chapter a week we could finish the designated portion of “A Child’s History of the World” in 36 weeks.  I also know, having skimmed the material, that there are several chapters I will probably just summarize rather than read.  As I said, he’s six.  Armed with this information I know I can probably skip a week of History and it won’t affect is ability to get into Harvard.  But let’s suppose for the sake of argument that this did put me behind schedule.  Very few school children completely finish their textbooks by the end of each year, why should I feel the pressure to make my kids finish theirs?  We’ll get as far as we get and if we need to we can always pick up there next year.

Sometimes the idea for a change up comes from a book already in the schedule.  Brother’s history includes a number of Usborne books which often have little activities in the sidebar.  If, as I read ahead the night before, I see that I have the materials available and I’m interested then I’ll add them to the box for the next day.  If I don’t or I’m not then I won’t.

Sometimes an idea starts as a change up but works so well that it sticks.  Sister doesn’t like to write very much so I relieve this stress for her where I can.  She says her spelling words out loud and only has to write the ones she misses.  In one workbook I allow her to highlight the answers within the text rather than writing them out.  Both of these adaptations started as change ups.

Sometimes change ups come from an outside source.  Aunt R gave Brother several small science experiment kits which I knew he would enjoy but which I also knew would get lost and never used in the chaos that is our lives right now.  To keep that from happening, I tucked them into my supply closet and over time, as I saw them and remembered,  they went into  his science box.

Sometimes change ups are not even about the kids.  I recently came across the Postcrossing website and thought it sounded like fun.  Since I didn’t have any extra time to devote to setting up such a project we replaced Geography this week with postcard writing.

Or what about this one?  I don’t really enjoy the book “Leading Little Ones to God”  We have it.  It’s an easy fall back and it has generated some great conversations; still I’m always on the lookout for ways to change up Brother’s Bible box.  This week his Sunday school lesson was lying on the table as I prepared for the school  week so I popped that in for discussion.

The possibilities for change are endless.  The biggest challenge is letting go of the notion that you are not “following the schedule.”  If they are learning and enjoying learning then I say you are right on track.

So there you have it.  More than you ever wanted to know about how we workbox. Certainly it’s more than I ever intended to write.