What a day.
Our first week of school went superbly smooth, this week I am not too sure about. This morning started out normally, nothing to brag about and nothing to complain about. Which is how most of our mornings run. We aren't early morning people, we don't get up at 5 a.m., so that we can have chores and breakfast done in order to start school at 7 a.m.. If I tried to implement that, I can guarantee you our day would be like the movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I need to start my day with coffee, after reading from one of my plans on the YouVersion Bible app. That is not an affiliate link, I just really like this app, you can also find it on Google Play and I am sure IPhone. This helps keep my day in perspective.
On with today. Everything was going really smooth, especially with my middle son (pictured above), his attitude this year has amazed me. He has hardly complained, at all. The last two years, almost every thing has been a fight, more often than not, especially math. This year all my hardwork, patience, and probably a lot of prayer has paid off big time. I get off track easily. No. I do not have ADD. Today, I was so proud of myself. Yes. I am tooting my own horn. Last year, telling time in five minute increments was a concept he was not grasping, no matter what we did. So, today we were reviewing time for math. I pull out the white board, draw my detailed clock, which I thought was perfect, not so much. As we were finishing up, I had a brilliant idea, especially since he is a kinesthetic learner. We turned our 12 ft. trampoline into a giant clock! I was the minute hand, my 6-yr-old was the hour hand, and my 9-yr-old was the time keeper. Below is the best photo I could get. I also tried from our deck outside, but I am vertically challenged. Due to an incident that occured right before we could play, using the ladder was out of the question. We had to make an E.R. trip.
Our first week of school went superbly smooth, this week I am not too sure about. This morning started out normally, nothing to brag about and nothing to complain about. Which is how most of our mornings run. We aren't early morning people, we don't get up at 5 a.m., so that we can have chores and breakfast done in order to start school at 7 a.m.. If I tried to implement that, I can guarantee you our day would be like the movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I need to start my day with coffee, after reading from one of my plans on the YouVersion Bible app. That is not an affiliate link, I just really like this app, you can also find it on Google Play and I am sure IPhone. This helps keep my day in perspective.
On with today. Everything was going really smooth, especially with my middle son (pictured above), his attitude this year has amazed me. He has hardly complained, at all. The last two years, almost every thing has been a fight, more often than not, especially math. This year all my hardwork, patience, and probably a lot of prayer has paid off big time. I get off track easily. No. I do not have ADD. Today, I was so proud of myself. Yes. I am tooting my own horn. Last year, telling time in five minute increments was a concept he was not grasping, no matter what we did. So, today we were reviewing time for math. I pull out the white board, draw my detailed clock, which I thought was perfect, not so much. As we were finishing up, I had a brilliant idea, especially since he is a kinesthetic learner. We turned our 12 ft. trampoline into a giant clock! I was the minute hand, my 6-yr-old was the hour hand, and my 9-yr-old was the time keeper. Below is the best photo I could get. I also tried from our deck outside, but I am vertically challenged. Due to an incident that occured right before we could play, using the ladder was out of the question. We had to make an E.R. trip.
I got the super cute, Superman printables from Merriment Design, they are free. I am sad you can't see how cute they are, head on over to her page to grab them. They are supposed to be for a birthday banner, I used the numbers for the clock face. Just as we were heading outside to play the Time Keeper game we totally made up, my 6-yr-old son trips on the deck and dives head first into our grill. Blood is gushing through his fingers as he holds his eye. Thankfully, it was not his eye, he ended up with a nice gash above his eyebrow. It looked like it may need stitches, so we tried taking him to our family doctor. They wouldn't see him because it was a head injury, so off to the E.R. they sent us. Of course my 6-yr-old is our drama king. As he is crying, almost inconsolably, he wants to know if I can see his brain. I reassured him that no it was not that bad, if it was we would be in an ambulance, not a mini-van. At the E.R., my little ninja warrior, was beyond brave, and ended up only needing one stitch.
After our side tracked adventure into the realm of medicine, we were able to come back, have some homemade banana cake with cream cheese frosting, and then play on our giant clock. Below is a picture of my 9-yr-old son and 14-yr-old daughter being the hands on the clock. I am obviously the time keeper, so I can get a better photo. This was a bigger hit, then I expected, we ended up playing multiple rounds. His idea, not me forcing him to play, he was loving it! Proud momma moment, this time it was an epic success, not another failed attempt. This is what I love about homeschooling, the ability to be freely flexible to find and implement what works.
Now that I know this works, I am going to have to utilize our trampoline for geometry. This totally worked for my son, it took him about 5 minutes to master telling time in 5 minute increments. Plus, we did school on a trampoline!
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