Day Whatever +1 - Oh the humanity...it's just an advent calendar.

 Taking the advice of seasoned homeschool parents,  we are winding down activities these couple of weeks prior to Christmas.  But that doesn't keep the tempers from flaring!

The hopeful homeschool parent in me wanted to make advent calendars with the kids.    I thought it could be a great learning lesson in math with the measuring and multiplication involved.    We found some shoebox tops and cut dividers out of cardboard to make the little candy cubbies.

Right off the bat,  no one was interested in this project but me.

"Why can't we just buy advent calendars at the store like everyone else?"  Lauren whined.

"Well,  if I didn't just have to sink another $350 into our "cheap" Hawaiian vacation,  we might have the money for advent calendars!"  I angrily retorted.   

So as I practically did all the work making the cubbies for the calendars,   the kids watched on curious as to whether mom was going to make this project work or not.     I usually prefer the kids do the hands on learning,  but today I'm going to have to settle for whatever I can get.

I was fairly happy with the final results but when it came time to fill the cubbies with candy,  we had a problem.  We were a few candies short.    Zach was quick to fill all his calendar cubbies leaving Lauren with the empty spots.

"Its ok, Mom."  she sweetly offered. 

"No it is not ok,  I'll go and buy you some more candy today."

She definitely shouldn't have to suffer,  especially when Zach decided to gobble down even more candy from Lauren's calendar after I said that.

"Zach!  Stop eating Lauren's candy." 

"But you said you were going to buy her more."  

  Fine,  whatever... I vengefully decided that Lauren was going to get better candies now.

When I got back from the store,  I tried to discreetly fill Lauren's calendar with mini Twix and Butterfinger bars.  

But you can NOT hide candy from Zach.

He immediately took notice and was intensely pissed off.

"Why does she get the good candy?"   he demanded.

"Well,  you took all the other candy so I bought these for Lauren.  Hey, there is one extra would you like it?"  I suggested, hoping for peace.

"Of course!" he said ripping open the Butterfinger and gobbling it all in one bite.

My peace offering lasted exactly 5 seconds.    

"This just isn't fair!  Zach screamed, stomping his feet in protest.   "Why does she get the good candy?  I want that kind of candy.  Lauren doesn't even like Twix or Butterfingers."

"I wanted to give you both a fair sampling of candy but you took all the thin mints.  So this is what I bought."   I said.  "If Lauren doesn't like the candy, you can trade with her.  But let's let her decide.

   I knew this was going to cause a big problem...what was I thinking.

For the next hour...Zach just couldn't let it go.   He cried, stomped around, hid under his blanket and made attempts to rip open Lauren's calendar.

What was I thinking?

Day Whatever ... Homeschooling at Christmas Time.

Honestly,  I am really struggling with staying focused on anything after Thanksgiving and our South Dakota trip.  I can barely squeak out my work.  Today I was in the bathtub soaking at 3:45 PM and in my PJ's by 4:45PM.   Damn you daylight savings time.  

I am trying really hard to get motivated with homeschool. Our 50 states curriculum is feeling stale and unspirited right now .

For example, Monday we spent most of our morning making Christmas ornaments out of craft sticks and odd nature supplies.   It was so much fun and when we finished a few hours later, no one was the wiser that we had started school.

 "Wow, its after lunch,  we better get started on our school work now."  Zach says to Lauren.

"Hmm, yes, you should get started on your school work now kids."  I say, with a cheshire cat grin.

The most seasoned homeschool parents on my facebook group page advise to wind down your typical homeschool day around the holidays. They suggest that you fill your days with gift making, crafts, music, traditions, cookie baking and service activities.   

"Read Christmas stories and watch Christmas movies"  they advise.   

Well,  that all sounds amazing to me!   

But, how do you do service activities with COVID?   Maybe just DING, DONG ... DITCH style?

Anyhow,  I think we could all use a change of pace... so for the next couple of weeks we will try focusing on arts, crafts, music and service projects.   I tend to falter in these areas as I have no experience.

You see,  I was never allowed to indulge in these "frivolous types of classes".  My parents were stern with my academic choices. No Home Economics, No Music and No Art!  It was all advanced honors classes for me... that is until I had a major rebellion in college and got a "Home Economics" degree. (Trumpets for me!)

So,  my words of wisdom...be careful what you cultivate,  it can cause a rebellion.   

Instead - "Here we go a wassailing!"  

What does wassailing mean anyways?  

 Google dictionary says .

drink plentiful amounts of alcohol and enjoy oneself with others in a noisy, lively way.

What?    This was a song we definitely sang in 4th grade music class... hmm,   we could all use some wassailing right now..

Day 16 - Back to work... Oklahoma!

 How do you get kids interested in homeschooling after such an epic road trip?   You don't...

Today was a jumble of activity, courtesy of ADD Mom's post vacation brain... we started the day watching Oklahoma!  the musical,  as it was the only thing I could think about (in a pinch) of this lovely state.   I've never seen this musical before and it is absolutely riveting. I even got Zach and Lauren to watch it for awhile.

"Okay, mom, when are we starting school?"  Lauren naively asked after watching most of the musical.

"Ah, yes, school... let's do that thing.   How about you spend a hour on Prodigy Math while I get my Sh*t together?"   Ok I didn't say it quite like that but you get the gist.

Since Thursday is typically our science experiment disaster day,  I asked Google for a bit of help.   I was able to find a great YouTube video on creating your own Oil Well Experiment.   I was fascinated.   I've always wondered how wells work.

 

 So in this cool experiment,  you layer small gravel, clay and sand in a glass.  Your "well" is a glass straw and your "oil" is funneled into a tube that adds it to the gravel.   Done correctly your well will spout oil!

So we had to improvise a bit.   We didn't have any clay so my industrious mind says,  let's use cookie dough - its kind of like clay.  (No, not really - actually NOT at all.) 

But nevertheless, the kids go along with it.  We layer our rocks, sand and clay into a glass and then pour yellow dyed water into the rock bed.    A tiny trickle comes up our glass straw well before the whole cup is saturated with "oil" from the rock bed below.   Epic FAIL.

"It's okay."  I calmly say.  "All experiments are failures at first.   Let's see what we need to change to get this right."

I can see in Zach's face that I better get this right the second time or he is going to disengage completely.

So we redo our experiment using a much larger layer of sand and cookie dough crust.   But the result is another disappointment.

"Ugh,   maybe the cookie dough wasn't such a great idea."   I suggest.  "Why do you think they use clay?'

"I don't know, Mom.  This experiment is stupid."  Zach says - totally correct.

An hour later I try the experiment again with Lauren.   We watch the short YouTube video together and THEN,  I have an aha moment.

"Zach!   We were supposed to put the sand on top and not the clay!   That's why our experiment didn't work."  I revealed.

So Lauren and I concocted a new "oil well" out of rocks, cookie dough and sand.  We poured our "oil" into the rocks and watched our well spout like a fountain.   Success!

 As I cleaned up our science experiment mess,  I breathed a deep sigh of success and relief.  

 "Good lesson, Mom"  I thought to myself.   "Now your day is done.   Wait, a minute,  its only 9:30 and we've watched a musical and played with science.   Is that really a school day?"

No,  it obviously isn't since I have two sets of innocent eyes staring at me and asking what are learning about next.   Ahh...ok,  time to call Grandma and read books to her while I get my sh*t together once again.

Somehow we hashed out a school day.   The kids wrote stories about their trip while I typed out 4 blog posts.   We read stories about Oklahoma and tomorrow we will make Chicken Fried Steak - the state meal of Oklahoma.   What is Colorado's state meal??????  Probably Rocky Mountain Oysters...

 What do think the Colorado State Meal should be?    Some say Steak -  Others say Rainbow Trout?   Please comment below..

 

Day 14 & 15 - Yes, Still More South Dakota

 Aaah,  howling winds... now that's the South Dakota weather I remember.   We woke up on Tuesday morning to a bitterly cold Northeasterly wind.   The winds in this state are enough to drive you mad,  no wonder there were so much lawlessness and so many ghost towns in this state.

Considering the weather,  it was a good day to be car bound.  Packing up the kids and dog we headed straight east on I-90 to visit Wall Drug Store.    Last time Marc and I were here this store was full of tourists and activity,  today we were the only ones in this colossal trinket trap.   It was actually fun to be at Wall Drug during the holidays.  They had the store decorated for Christmas with trees and lights everywhere.

Of course no trip to Wall Drug is complete without having some of their homemade doughnuts and a 5 cent cup of coffee.  The doughnuts were so good, we all had to order seconds.

 As we sat and ate our doughnuts,  I read the story of Dorothy and Ted Hustead,  the founders of Wall Drug Store.  Their story is one of the American Dream.

It was the beginning of the Great Depression.  A young newlywed couple, Dorothy, a teacher, and Ted, a pharmacist,  decided to take their small endowment from their father and open a drug store in the floundering small town of Wall, SD.  Wall was a poor town of about 200 people, mostly poor farmers out in the middle of the high plains.  They hoped their drug store would attract tourists making the trip out to see the Badlands and Mt Rushmore.   However, no one ever stopped in this sleepy farm town.   

Four and half long years of little to no business had past.  The Hustead's were ready to pack up their dream of owning a drug store and head back to Sioux Falls.   That is until one hot summer day,  Dorothy had a revelation,  what do tourists want after a long hot drive?   Free ice water!    Thus they made signs,  and lots of them.    The tourists instantly started flocking into Wall for free ice water.    Of course, then they would also buy trinkets and ice cream.  The next year they hired 8 women to help them run the store and the rest is history.  Now Wall Drug is a famous tourist stop boasting crowds of up to 20,000 customers a day.

After our doughnut feast,  we wandered the maze of t-shirts, trinkets and artwork that fill this drug store turned amusement park/mall/giant cafeteria. 

No trip to Wall Drug would be complete without a few souveniors.   Zach found a pocket knife with his name (well close - "Zack") engraved on it for only $4!   Lauren fell in love with the soft throw blankets which were way over the $5 budget I allotted.   But somehow she suckered me into buying one for her.

We continued our adventure into the Badlands National Park.   Normally we aren't much a National Park visiting family.    We despise the crowds, the fees and the overall hype of making a park out of nature.   But given the bitterly cold winds keeping us in our car and our free federal land pass courtesy of Every Kid Outdoors - www.everykidoutdoors.gov ,  we obilged.

Halfway to the park entrance we stopped for a small herd of Buffalo to cross the road.  The kids were so excited to see the Bison close up!    We were also lucky enough to see a small herd of  Big Horn Sheep on a random stop in the Badlands Park.   It was so windy that even getting out of the car to take a picture was torturous.  

Instead of doing the normal 40 mile Badlands Loop that takes you even further into Eastern South Dakota,  we took the dirt road loop that traverses the lesser known side of the Badlands.   We watched the Eagles and Hawks circled their prey in Prairie Dog Town and the tumbleweeds dance across the road in front of our car.  The rest of the drive was mildly scenic at best.  The heavy winds made everything into a shade of dust.

We returned to Rapid City with plenty of time to waste before heading to the Watiki Waterpark, which didn't open until 4 PM.   

Debating between a couple of the towns free museums,  we ended up at the Geology Museum at the South Dakota School of Mines.    Of course we had the entire museum to ourselves.    While the kids enjoyed the Palentology exhibits, I couldn't take my eyes off the petrified and fossilized wood.   That stuff is absolutely amazing.   

We wandered around the museum - oohing and awwing at the interesting gemstones, fossils and rocks.  Of course the homeschool teacher in me wanted to read every plaque to the kids and explain every fossil.  However, before I could even get through the first sentence of educational material,  they were off enjoying a different display!

So  you are probably wondering when we are going to visit the South Dakota claim to fame -   Mt Rushmore!   Well,  we saved the best for last.

Of course the kids will say that the best part of the trip was Watiki Water Park.   This waterpark was pretty cool and boasts five different waterslides, a lazy river and huge kid's water playground all inside a giant atrium.   We spent the next three hours repeatedly climbing the 3 flights of stairs and riding the awesome slides.

 Yes, we finally made it to see Mt. Rushmore!   Since Keystone is an hour south of Rapid City,  we decided it would be our last stop on the way home.   Again we had the whole park practically to ourselves!

After we made the bitterly cold walk down the state flag walkway,   we enjoyed unencumbered views of the majestic president sculptures.  We also had the entire Mt Rushmore Vistor Center to ourselves.   When the hisoric Mt Rushmore movie started,  we had a private viewing.   It was like we rented out the park entirely for ourselves - what a rush (more).  Baahh!

Too bad it was so bitterly cold,  we would have loved to do the Presidental Walk up to the viewing platform.  The kids were enamored with the idea of a hidden Hall of Records.  We wanted a private tour of that!

On our way home we passed the Crazy Horse Monument.    It didn't look any different than it did 10 years ago.  Is it just a huge fundraising boondoggle?   I'm not sure but they aren't getting our funds this time.

The last stop before our 5 hour trip home was at the delicious breakfast joint called Our Place in Custer, SD.  Custer is a cute, little tourist town in the heart of the Black Hills.     We enjoyed the most delicious breakfast of our trip and it cost less than $20.   The owner of the restaurant was our waitress and she was such a trip!   People like her make me want to pack up and move to small town South Dakota,  she is the life blood of America.

Today I leave South Dakota with a full heart.   We had such fun memories amid this crazy COVID lockdown.    As Dorothy Hustead said eloquently "There is no place on earth that is godforesaken",  especially not in South Dakota.  Thank you Govenor Kristi Noem for keeping South Dakota "open".

Day 13 - More Deadwood Trip

 After our harrowing hiking adventure,  we were all hungry.  We piled in the car and headed along Spearfish canyon to the infamous town of Deadwood.

Deadwood has been on my bucket list for years.   I love old west towns!   Prior to our trip I read up on my Deadwood history and discovered that the famous Charlie Utter of Colorado was the reason that Wild Bill Hickok ended up in Deadwood.   He talked his friend into joining their wagon train from Colorado to Deadwood.    It is fun to think that we probably traveled the same route in our car as they did long ago on their horses and wagons.

On the way to South Dakota,  I tried my best to entertain the kids with stories of the wild west.   Gunfights, marshall law and the like... I hoped my enthusiasm could carry a wave of interest.   No dice.

Deadwood is normally a bustling tourist destination filled with casinos, trinket shops and the like.  Today it was a literal ghost town!   You could walk down the middle of Main St and not see a sole around.  It was kind of neat and spooky at the same time.

I had so many plans for us in Deadwood...I wanted to go the museum and check out Saloon No.10.  I also couldn't miss the cementary where Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are buried.   I could have dragged my family all over that town for hours.

Unfortunately our hungry stomachs ran the show,  instead of checking out all the tourist destitations, we were on a strict mission to eat.

As we wandered from empty storefront to empty storefront,  I began to wonder if we would be able to even find anyplace open for lunch.    We stopped to take a photograph with this friendly miner dude when a couple of ladies walked by.   They were the only people we had seen all day.    Zach told them we were looking for lunch and they recommended a "deli" on the other side of town.

So instead of touring all the quaint (but closed) stops I had planned,  we were off on a eating mission.   The restaurant was a few blocks hike but well worth it.

This restaurant called Jacob's Brewhouse was like eating in the finest art gallery.   I guess Jacob is a famous artist in town and he is now dabbling as a restauranteur.   The food was so amazing that we all completely over did it!

Zach and I polished off 3 large tacos each and Lauren and Marc shared a gigantic plate of brisket nachos.   We were all so stuffed that sightseeing sort of went to the wayside.

We did checkout an awesome cafe/ glass blowing studio.   Zach was enthralled with watching the glassblowing artist at work.   While, Lauren was enthralled with the art, insisting on picking up every fragile $100 piece of glass.  I followed her around like an overcautious mother follows a toddler at the playground.  "Careful...gentle...don't touch!"

As the rest of the family made a beeline for the car,  I woefully wandered the alleyways of Deadwood reading every little historic plaque that I could find.  Where everyone else saw a closed up town, I revealed in the spirit and energy that never leaves a place like this.

I wanted to sit and imagine the gun fights, whorehouse poker games and fine ladies promenading up and down the boardwalks.  I guess a trip back to Deadwood is in order for me.   Next time when the town is actually open and alive with gunslinger theater reenactments!

Harrowing adventures in South Dakota - Day 12 and 13

 

Howdy from South Dakota...home to wicked weather, amazing tourist traps, outlaws, old west stories and so much more!

Taking advantage of amazing travel deals is one of the best perks to homeschooling.    You are free to travel when others are not!  We practically had every tourist destintation all to ourselves and $40/night hotel rooms.

Rapid City, SD is an easy half-day drive from Boulder making it a great 3-day destination.   We took advantage of COVID travel deals and scored a sweet, 1 bedroom suite at the Country Inn.   This hotel was awesome for the kids with a giant two story waterslide at the hotel pool.  It was hard to get them out of the hotel to do all the other fun things around the Black Hills!   

For dinner we visited the Firehouse Brewing Company.   This is a cool brewery restaurant situated in the old firehouse downtown Main Street.    The best part of this visit was the nostalgia. Marc and I ate at the Firehouse Brewery back in 2010 when we rode our bikes across the country.   This restaurant was one of our memorable highlights and fun to share with the kids.   Although this time we did not enjoy the $100 bill for dinner!

The next day we were off to explore the northern section of the Black Hills. 

On our jaunt up to Deadwood,  I scouted a "locals" only hike.   Since all the tourist caves close for the winter,  I was hoping we could find a free cave of our own to explore.    According to the travel blog that I consulted for this cave hike,  this was not a well-known or well-marked hike.   Perfect!  That's our preferred style of hiking.   However,  I didn't realize that we had to cross an ice cold thigh-deep river to get to the trail.  

We were about to turn around and find a different hike, when Marc shouted that he had found a way across.    We had to balance our way across a series of unsecured logs.  One slip and we were going down in the thigh deep ice cold water.

Marc had crossed first and then I precariously balanced on the main log as a midway helper for the kids to cross.  Crossing a log can be easy when you use momentum to keep you balanced.   Standing in the middle of a slippery log helping unbalanced kids cross is another story.

A few cusswords later,  we were all safely across accept for Tabor.  Tabor is our energetic German Shorthair Pointer.  He tried walking across on the logs and ice but fell through a couple times.  Luckily for him he only got his feet wet.  He was a good example to the kids as to why we couldn't just walk on the ice!

Once safely across the creek,  we had the next challenge of finding the right trail.   I read that there may be a bit of bushwacking to find it.   Fortunately it is late fall so there was no bushes to wack,  but instead we encountered more ice!   The trail is actually a small trickle waterfall that has frozen.  Now we have to dodge slick icy rocks on our ascent up the mountain side.   We tread carefully up the steep rocky trail trying not to slip on the icy rocks. 

Midway up the trail,  Marc stops.  

"Can you hear the water beneath us?"  he asks.

Sure enough I could hear it.  We were standing on a bed of loose small rocks covering the top of a underground creek.   It was eerie feeling, like the rocks could collapse at any moment and we would fall through.

Scaling this short, steep trail was a bit frightening,  even for this Rocky Mountain hiking family.   Our kids have scaled Red Rocks without batting an eye but this loose rock and ice trail could slip up even the most seasoned climber.   Fortunately,  somehow we all made it to the top without injury.

It was so worth the climb!   At the top of our icy creek climb was this beautiful icy waterfall and system of small caves.    We explored for awhile shining our phone flashlights in the caves to see the sparkling crystals that formed on the rocks. 

 Truthfully I had a hard time enjoying the caves as I was worried about our hike down.  It was a treacherous hike up to these caves.   The pitch had to be close to a 45 degree angle for part of it plus icy rocks and slippery gravel to send you sliding down into the canyon wall or worse.  Really,  what was I thinking bringing our kids up on this hike?   Its one thing to do it on your own but to have two scared kids in tow... oh, well. Here we are.

I thought for sure we were all going to have to slide down the hill on our butts.    Up is typically ok given that you can control your speed while grabbing rocks and small tree branches.   But going down is scary as hell by yourself - with two kids, one of who is crying about going down, no thank you.

When Lauren finally stopped crying and gained her composure,  she hiked down like a champ.  Of course she held onto Marc's hand for the first part but then she was blowing past Zach and I as we cautiously crabwalked down the icy, slippery rocks. 

Once we were safely at the bottom of the trail,  I could breathe a small sigh of relief.  Now to get everyone across that icy creek again...

I guess it wouldn't be a Leveque vacation without some sort of harrowing adventure!  This is exactly how I feel about homeschooling right now.   I'm exhilarated at the places we can go, scared to death about how it will turn out and living for that awesome sense of accomplishment at the end of the adventure.

Todays lesson is one of conquering fear, exploring the unknown and using teamwork to get the job done. 

The Culmination of our Southwestern Studies!

No words to describe how proud I am for the kids' creativity and hard work on these adobe style gingerbread houses.

They picked out their designs from a picture search online, they cut and measured their template pieces,  they figured out the total area of all the pieces. Then with a lot of help from yours truly,  we made two huge batches of gingerbread dough and a huge batch of royal icing.    The kitchen (ok the entire first floor of our house) was a complete mess but well worth the outcome.

The most difficult part of this project is "gluing" the pieces together with the royal icing.   I feel badly as I was swearing up a storm trying to keep the walls from falling down.   We finally propped them up with glasses and I guarded the table with my life for the hour or so that the icing needed to dry

Lauren and her best friend, Carolina, made some amazing extras for their house.   I love the seguaro cactus!   They also made a car, a person and a bbq grill!  

  

We were supposed to coat the gingerbread with a reddish shade of frosting but when we went to the food coloring box,  the red was gone!   Instead we used some hibicus powder which was supposed to be burgundy but it came out purple - oh well!  It was the perfect shade for two little girlie girls.

It is interesting how Zach was very interested in the structural details of his house.    The girls were so interested in decorating and accessories!  

Zach gave his little gingerbread man a sombrero!    He also made a gingerbread pot and filled it with a small doughnut hole covered in green frosting for a decorative catcus plant.  The ceiling logs are cut pieces of black licorice.

This was a fun but exhausting project!  I like that the materials are edible. I think I only spent about $8 total on the supplies.  Eco-friendly and budget friendly project that incorporates STEM learning and social studies.

(Now this momma needs a glass of wine and a hot bath!)

Day 11 - UFO? Weather Ballon? Big Black ______?

 No,  its just our hot air balloon experiment gone awry!

In the spirit of our New Mexico studies,  I thought it would be interesting to learn about how hot air balloons work.   

Albuquerque, New Mexico is the home of the annual hot air balloon festival.   Every year, well not this year,  but every normal year... thousands gather in Albuquerque to watch hundreds of unique hot air balloons launch.

We decided to try launching our own today.   First we used a small kitchen trash bag as our balloon.  We filled it with hot air from a hair dryer and watched it sort of rise slightly and then bumble to the ground.  That was anticlimactic to say the least!

"There has got to be a bigger bag we can use to make this more exciting."  I said to the kids,  as they barely lifted their eyes from their computer screens.    I could tell they were totally unimpressed.

I had remembered seeing a black plastic bag in the Steve Spangler Science Kit that I picked up from the Thrift Store.   I immediately searched our coat closet to see if I could find this kit.    

Low and Behold!   Not only did I find a large plastic bag -- I found the motherlode of all!  A 50 foot black plastic tube.   It was designed with our exact purpose in mind - creating a hot air balloon!

It was so long that we had to cut it in half.   We couldn't possibly work with a tube that long in our tiny yard.   We taped one end shut and then used a rubber band to seal the open end around the shaft of the hair dryer.   

Lauren turned on the hair dryer and now I am pretty sure that I had the kids full attention.

Of course that launch was so epic that just had to try it again!   However this time we were going to use a higher powered hair dryer.    Not really thinking through the consequences of this decision,  we refilled our balloon with air and let it go!   Ooops....

That's not a big black bird up in the sky... that's our hot air balloon.   Holy shit!  

"Go follow that balloon!"  I yelled at the kids.  "Wait,  get on your bikes,  it is going to be in the next neighborhood by now."

We ended up piling into the car and chasing down our balloon.   We lost sight of it as we turned onto the main street out of our culd-e-sac.   We slowly circled the outskirts of our neighborhood, praying our hot air balloon didn't cause any damage when it landed.   

" I see it, Mom!"  Zach shouted from the backseat.

"Are you sure? "  I questioned slowing down to get a better look.   

Sure enough,  there was our long black plastic bag wrapped around the branches at the tip top of a large elm tree.

"Maybe we can shake the tree and get it down?"  Lauren suggested.

"Nope,   we aren't shaking that old sturdy tree in the slightest.  Plus,  it is wrapped around those branches tightly."   I said.  "I don't think it is ever coming down."

Thankful our experiment didn't require a call to the FAA to report a big black UFO tube floating into never-neverland.

Day 10 - Carpet Cleaner Repair Anyone???

 Today was an early morning catch up day.  Lauren spent the morning listening to audiobooks with our dog Tabor and working on her Prodigy math skills.

 Zach finished "writing" (he uses voice to text) his latest book The Dark Crystal.   This book is amazing!   I'll post the finished copy at the end of this blog thread.

Meanwhile I disassembled our Hoover Carpet Cleaner.   Earlier in the week I spent countless hours cleaning our upstairs carpet only to discover that the brushes weren't spinning.  The result was dirty streaked lines all over our white carpets.   Ugh!   Nothing like spending all day cleaning carpets and then realizing you made them look worse.

So, the optimistic homeschool teacher in me,  says "Hey kids,  what a great project!   Let's take apart the vaccum and see if we can fix it."

"Nah,  that's boring mom."   

Ok, fair enough,  I expected that from Lauren.   But how about Zach?

"Zach,   isn't this cool!  Look at the inside of the carpet cleaner!"  I wishfully pleaded,  thinking that there had to be some silver lining to my carpet cleaner fiasco.

"Maybe later... I'm working on my book." he called from the bedroom.

"Fine,  I'll fix this myself"  I thought as I struggled through the YouTube video instructions, pausing the video every minute.   Eventually I discovered the rusty ball bearing and was able to oil it and reassemble the machine without even breaking a nail!    Nice!

Even nicer was the fact that the kids were so engaged and occupied in their own learning today.  Two wins for me.

It was 75 degrees and beautiful outside today.   The perfect day to spend outside in the mountains.    We packed up the car and a few audio books on New Mexico and headed up to visit our friends in Nederland.    Audiobooks in the car are perfect,especially driving up the canyon- captive audience and no phone reception!

If you'd like to read the creative works of Zach Leveque -  please use the link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WV94ejq-yXb-0wGWqPZWY5xaia4D2z3S4fZHIRmyBg8/edit?usp=sharing

Day 9 - Easy peasy day

 Yesterday I went a bit overboard with life.   Some days everything crushes you and instead of going with it,  you put on your boxing gloves and give it your best fight.  Why?  Nobody wins and we all just feel defeated?  I guess momma is getting schooled too!

So as always, I remind myself " Row, row, row the boat... but gently (Bev) gently and down stream."   At least that's what he says in my head...yeah,  well yesterday I was rowing up a waterfall.

My new teacher mantra " Be a gentle river not a waterfall."

Thus with my painful lesson freshly learned, I had zero direction planned for today.  Instead,  I just pulled out our new Payday game and started reading the directions until Zach showed some interest.   Payday is an older game - circa 2000 or older maybe.  I had never played it but I wanted a monopoly -esque game to learn adding and subtracting up to place value of 10,000.  This is the game for that!

Zach and I had fun playing together.  (I always like the kids to have a win at a new game so they want to play again, but that didn't happen this time around.)  Regardless the game is fun and fast paced to keep everyone interested.

Of course Lauren didn't want to play until she saw Zach and I having so much fun!   So when Zach and I finished up our round,  Lauren and I played round two.   That girl is lucky!   She won all the lotteries and beat me fair and square by $25K!

We spent the rest of our day with a fairly casual routine.  Somehow when we do things casually,  our school day rounds out to about 5-6 hours which is perfect! 

Just to give you an idea of a typical easy day:  Prodigy online math work 60-90 minutes,  Phonics for Lauren and Storybook writing for Zach - 60 minutes,  Aloud reading to Grandma - 40-60 minutes,  Nature or History Videos, Cooking, Art, and Science experiments usually round out the rest of the time.  

Phew,  marathon momma needs to relax and spend more days like this.   Obviously it helps when I have very little housework or regular work planned.    I really don't know how any parents can manage homeschooling elementary kids while working part or full time.   Kids really need a patient,  focused adult for at least a few hours a day or everyone goes a bit PSYCHO.

Day 8 - What was I thinking?

 I'm experiencing a huge case of buyers remorse.  Homeschooling?  What did I get myself into?   

Feelings of utter overwhelment hit me hard this morning.  It is a similar feeling to postpartum depression. Suddenly you realize that your life is never, ever going to be the same.  You are no longer the person you used to be.  You no longer have those precious 5 hours of alone time while your kids are school.  You are not going to get them back anytime soon!  You are going to be joined at the hip with two life-sucking monsters forever- ARGHHH!   My neck is in an angry tight ball of stress just thinking about it.

These overwhelming emotions hit me hard this morning.  And of course caused me to unnecessarily lash out at my kids.  They were both in grumpy Monday morning moods as well.

"Fine,  you don't want to learn anything today! That's just great! "  I screamed.   "Then we are going to clean this house top to bottom."

" Ok, ok..."  Zach pleads. "I'll read the book."

"Nope"  I replied, already dragging the steam cleaner outside to clean our area rugs.  "You can either clean your room or figure out your work on your own." (When I'm mad - I clean and I clean hard. My body hurts tonight as a result.)

"I'll help you clean, Mom."  Lauren offered.  She's always takes the sweet angle when I am pissed off.

So todays learning plan look a turn from Arizona fun facts to making beds, folding laundry and vacumming.    

Zach fought every minute of it... finally resigning to listening to a book and working on writing his own creative book.

Eventually I was too tired to be upset anymore and we sat down to watch a few nature videos.   Brave Wilderness on You Tube has some awesome scorpion sting videos that enthrawled the kids and me!  Good luck getting either of them to want to camp in the desert now!

Day 7 - How do you teach the unteachable?

 Happy Friday the 13th...in the spirit of this superstition,  we kept things really simple today.   After yesterday's kitchen fiasco,  I decided most of our learning would be online today.

Most mornings I have absolutely no clue as to what we are going to learn about. I really think it is best for best for all of us that way.  I still have no idea how to teach these kids.   I'm trying not to be too hard on myself as I had the most seasoned teachers throw up their arms and ask me for advice all the time.   How do you teach the unteachable?   Well you sure as hell don't start with a lesson plan. Sure I have the 50 states as a loose topic guide,  but which direction we go is up to the kids.

Lauren and I had a lot of fun searching the internet this morning for pictures of destinations in Arizona.  She played around with Google maps and exploring different areas in Arizona.   Then she decided she was going to make a list of all the places she wanted to visit.     Of course that list wasn't things like the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell or Lake Havasu... no, she wrote down a list of every hotel that had a cool swimming pool.   

Meanwhile,  Zach,  the ornately, obstinate reader, powered through an 84 page audiobook about life in old west Arizona.     Halfway through listening to his book,   I told him he could stop.  But he powered on saying that it was the best book he has ever "read"!    

That was my win for the day.  Zach is an extremely hesitant reader, learner...do anythinger.   He struggles with both reading and writing to the point of "Just Mercy!"    We spent the last 4 years of his public school education working with the school staff to find ways just to engage Zach slightly in the environment. 

Zach spent years in the a Reading Buddy program which pairs inspiring college teaching students with struggling readers.  He has had special education in reading and phonics since 1st grade.   Progress has been very slow for this sweet kid.   Some days I just wonder if we should give up the fight and let him lead this dog and pony show. 

This here, THIS is my real struggle.  All I see on this homeschool facebook group posts is that "my kid is so bright and I need to find the best curriculum for them".  No one is saying -  "my kid is such an a-hole,  how do I teach this monster?"  Now that would be a thread I would follow.  How do you teach the unteachable?

Don't get me wrong I love this child insanely, he is my nemisis and my redeemer wrapped up into one uniquely challenging but amazingly spirited and sensitive dude.   He is everything I love about my husband and everything I hate about myself wrapped together in a 9 year old body.

How do you educate the kid that best, most seasoned teachers have given up on?    My mothers intuition says to just trust that he will come around but it is so hard when you have a kid with an advanced brain that can't do kindergarten reading or writing.   

Day 6 - The biggest ooblecking mess

      Oobleck was not even part of the plan today but somehow it seeped in AND into every crevice of my kitchen.   If you don't know of oobleck,  keep it that way!     

Just kidding, this is fascinating stuff.  Just mix a box of cornstarch with a bit of water and you have the most interesting substance on earth.   

Obviously much more interesting than the science experiment that I had planned for today.

Today we started our studies on the 48th State,  Arizona. In grand style,  I thought it would be fun to learn more about the landforms and landscape of the Grand Canyon with a hands-on experiment.

This experiment, courtesy of Mystery Science, involves making cornmeal patties and sculpting them into landforms and plateaus.  Then you slowly make it rain by dripping water on them.  Viola - the water erodes the cornmeal resembling wet mushy grits and maybe if you use your imagination you can see the mesas and parts of a canyon forming.  

Somehow,  in Zach's amazing brain, he connected mixing cornmeal and water with mixing cornstarch and water.   

As I am doing my best to awe them into participating in my erosion experiment,  they have both already moved on to their own oobleck experience. 

As if the cornmeal mush mess wasn't enough.  Now there are bits of dried oobleck all over the house and coating every free surface of the kitchen counter, table and every spare bowl in the kitchen.

Not that my erosion experiment was any cleaner.  Whoever comes up with these "science" experiments obviously is not the one that cleans up after them!

Sometimes I wonder if their education is best left to self- discovery  Most of my planning efforts and well intentioned ideas  are left in the dust.

At least I have dinner half in the bag -  grits anyone?

Sidenotes - Homeschooled Kids are Weird.

 Parenting and homeschooling are similar in that they are both living, breathing human experiments.  Sure, put your kids in public or private schools and you are hopefully guaranteed an educated young adult as the end result.  But choose to homeschool your kid?  Now you are at the mercy of criticism from all sides.  

Homeschooled kids are weird.  Homeschooled kids are socially inept.  They are too independent.  They are not independent enough?   They don't know how to accept criticism.   They can't function in society.

It takes a strong sense of self-confidence and common sense to make your way in the homeschooling world.  Every fear of screwing up your children now falls into your domain.   Before you could blame the childcare center or the school for your childs inadequacies.  Now its all on you!  Frightening maybe, or maybe it is just brillant.  

I'm trying my best not to go down that anxiety road. Take the path less traveled, perhaps kids could really get to know themselves better in a more relaxed learning environment.  Life has changed so much in the past 50 years but traditional school has not.

Experts say that jobs are changing so rapidly that our children need to be curious, creative and inventive to succeed in the modern world.  The most valuable skills will be  3D visualization,  out of the box thinking, and empathy leadership.   Is this what your school is teaching?

I live in a wealthy town, I see every child getting whisked away to mandarin class, classic ballet and violin after school.  They go to learning academy tutors and spend their weekends crammed full of soccer games and ski trips.  Their parents take second mortgages on their houses, so their kids can go to the finest private schools and colleges that money can buy.   

 Once out of college these kids get the best jobs and prosper, right?  Well, not for a majority of them.   I know many of these parents, they scratch their heads when their prodigy child gets their Ph.D in art history and then goes off to build treehouses or wait tables.  What happened?  Was the first 25 years of their life inauthentic?  Why do they fail to launch?

I recently took a career transformation course.  The instructor asked us a fundamental soul searching question, "Go back to when you were a kid,  what did you want to be?"   

Can you remember when you were a kid?   What did you want to be?  What did you like to do? Was it what your parents organized for you? For me,  I really just wanted to go play in the woods alone or with friends, ride horses and redesign my doll house furniture.  

Todays kids don't get a lot of free time to just wonder or be curious.  They are constantly shuttled from one adult led experience to another.  Sometimes riding the coat tails of others until the day they escape institutional learning and then try to figure out their dreams.  

So my hope for homeschooling is to explore learning in a way that is fun for all of us.  Homeschool doesn't have to look like school at all.   It can look anyway you envision it.    Make it fun.  Make it memorable.   Let your kids take their interests to the next level.   If your kid like to draw,  let them draw for hours a day.  If your kid loves Minecraft,  find activity books and math problems that support their learning and interests.   That to me is the beauty of all this crazyness called homeschool.

Day 5 - The big experiment

"Parenting and homeschooling are similar in that they are both living, breathing experiments with only  your best theories to guide you."... more on this thought in my sidenote blog.  

Today was a really long school day.  Especially now as I try to type with a freezing cold bag of ice dripping down on my shoulder/neck.   

Yesterday I went overboard with YouTube physical therapy videos.  I have been suffering froma very stiff and sore shoulder/neck for weeks.  I assumed it must be a lack of stretching.  So in true Bev fashion,   I couldn't just do some gentle stretching.  No, of course not, the more stretching the better, right?  Why do one stretching video when you can try three stretching videos?    

Wrong,  I could barely lift my head this morning.  It felt like I had to crack my shoulder back into place. I could feel my muscles protesting every move.   This must be what whiplash feels like.    

Moving at a glacially slow pace, I could barely think about homeschooling,  let alone making breakfast.

Luckily we had a bunch of fun stuff prepped in the freezer from yesterday.  

Today's plan involved Zach and a frozen blue block of ice that he called an iceberg.    While Lauren enviously slept in,  Zach hacked away at his big blue ice chuck with a hammer and nail.  I just sat and watched, enjoying his amusement.

Lauren and I set up our glaciers (frozen blue water, sand and rocks) on a bed of snow (flour). The plan was to observe how they slowly carve the landscape.   This seemed to be the perfect slow and easy experiment for me today given my state of being.

However, I think we did something very wrong with our glaciers...  the sand and dirt didn't freeze in the water and create layers of ice, dirt and sand like the website promised.  No, our glaciers looked a bit like a blue popsicles with a bad brown dirt toupees.  

Hopefully our next "experiment" Eskimo Ice Cream would be more successful. 

We talked about native americans called the Inuits.  We watched videos on making igloos and read a book about early Alaskan life.   

We learned that the Inuits would soley survive on whale and seal blubber in the winter.   And of course they would make ice cream out of whale blubber, throwing in a bit of snow and dried berries.  Well, that sounds completely disgusting - let's definitely try making that!   

Instead we whipped together snow, butter, whipped cream, sugar, raisins and a bit of rum for flavor (and to help teacher to with her neck pain.)   The final result was actually quite tasty.   The texture was amazingly creamy and reminiscent of Rum Raisin Haagen Daz.

With our experiments out of the way,  I was eager to lay down for awhile and let the kids do their independent reading with grandma and math online with Prodigy.   Of course,  that never happened!

After lunch, Zach got a wild hair up his butt to finish his 50 book reading goal...TODAY.  

Why?  So he could earn a trip to Gateway (a local arcade and fun center).   He had 11 books left to read and he decided he was going to plow through.  Of course he couldn't just do this quietly,  he had to beg, plead and practically force Lauren to do the same.   (Our agreement was when both kids got to 50 books that we would go.)

Well, to my surprise, they both made it to 50 books.  It took them all afternoon but it was worth it.   We had the whole arcade to ourselves and both kids hit the jackpot on several games.    Watch out, major candy hangovers coming tomorrow.

Day 4 Homeschool - Hunger Strike, Snow and the 49th State

 Its the perfect day to start our studies on Alaska, the 49th State, as it is cold outside and SNOWING!

In typical Monday form, Zach woke up late and grumpy.   

When I asked him to get dressed and ready for school,  he protested as usual.   The grumpiness and protesting got so severe that I kindly requested he remove himself from the downstairs.

"No, absolutely not!" he screamed.  "I am not doing school today. No, NO, NOOO!"

"That's fine."   I sighed.  " Just remove yourself from the living room so Lauren and I can do our work."

"No" he protested again.  "I'm NEVER leaving the living room.  And I'm not eating or drinking anything for the next week."

"Wow,  that's ambious."  I responded nonplused.  "People can't survive more than 3 days without water. Don't you think you should at least have some water?"

"Ok,  I'm not eating or drinking anything for two days!" he proclaimed proudly.

"That's doable. But can you not eat or drink anything upstairs please?"  I asked.  "Lauren and I are starting school."

Lauren and I spent the morning talking about Alaska and looking back on a very memorable vacation that we took to Alaska.

The most memorable part of our vacation was spending two nights in a dry cabin on the edge of Resurrection Bay.   We had a private beach as we had to take a water taxi to our primative location.   

We talked about enormous tides that would nearly trap us on parts of our beach.  Lauren remembered almost being stranded at sea with Dad in their kayak due to the tidal changes.

We did a fun Alaska Mad Lib that I made up last night.  If you haven't experienced Mad Libs with your kids,  you cannot go wrong with these silly stories!

Our Mad Lib (verbs courtesy of Zach):

Today we are farting to Alaska. Because it is cold up there we made sure to pack our shorts and t-shirts.  

I am so excited to pee on a glacier.  Alaska is surrounded by three oceans, therefore lots of people are employed in the selling shoes industry.

If you like to eat bananas,  you will love Alaska because it has lots of fishing and hunting.  Lauren likes Alaska because it has lots of deserts and clouds.  Watch out for the dangerous spiders that live in the arctic circle.

The capital, Juneau, is located on an island.  Bus is the only way to get to Juneau.  I love Alaska because it is small and there is so much football in the winter.  Native Inuit Alaskans like to poop inside an igloo. The sun doesn't shine very long in the winter causing many people to be sad and confused.

As you can see, our funny mad lib eventually engaged Zach into the school day.   Having his attention,  I suggested that we make Alaskan lego villages to destroy with a earthquake.  Of course,  in true Zach fashion, he made a Hawaiian village instead.

We tried to destroy our villages on the washing machine spin cycle,  as a earthquake simulator.  This was an epic failure.  We even upset the load so it rocked and walked across the laundry room.  Still no mass destruction.    Maybe we will have to take a hammer to the bottom of a table or something to get a good 7.0 earthquake?

Tomorrow we will be unmolding our frozen glaciers.    Courtesy of NCAR ( our neighbor is the education director),  we have a fun glacial experiment that we set up today.  We mixed rocks, sand and dirt with with blue water.   It sits in the freezer overnight and tomorrow we will watch it melt.

Day 3 - Some days just roll with it (pun intented)

Even the best intentions backfire.   I spent an hour last night working on some Hawaii activities and math worksheets for today.  But somehow this morning I was the only one excited about them...

Instead,  this morning's excitement was caused by an egg.   

Not just any egg,  but a double-yolked egg.  For some reason,  Lauren has cracked open 3 or 4 double yolked eggs just in this past month!   This has been a real point of contention for her brother, Zach.   He is so frustrated and envious of her egg luck.

In fact,  his envy was the entire reason we had the 8 egg recipe fiasco yesterday.   He just wanted to crack more eggs in hopes of finding a double yolked egg.    

Low and behold...

This is a picture of the first egg I cracked for this mornings breakfast.  Of course,  this situation sent Zach into an angry fury!   This egg came out of the same carton that Zach cracked 8 eggs out of yesterday.  What are the chances?

What are the chances?    So instead of my fun worksheets that I worked so hard on last night... we ended up talking about probabilities.  Did you know that there is a 1 in 1000 chance of gettting a double yolked egg?   What are the chances that we have gotten 4 double yolked eggs just in this past month?  What are the odds of other things?    We had fun talking about probabilities and odds with flipping a quarter and rolling a six sided die.

What is the superstition or meaning of a double yolked egg?  Well depending on ancient lore,  a double yolked egg can mean a number of things, either someone is pregnant with twins (no freaking way),  someone in your family is going to die (yikes!) OR you are going to experience good luck (fingers crossed for this one) !   I'm going with the luck thing...

And what about these superstitions?  Black cats, broken mirrors, walking under a ladder... where did all these superstitions originate?  Again,  ADD mom goes down the Google rabbit hole while the kids have now lost interest and take off on their own learning path.

You know what,   independent learning really worked  out for us today!   Lauren took the initiative to make a Hawaiian habitat complete with building her own cardboard hut.   Zach worked on building stands for his Bendy cutouts.   I actually got about 2 hours of uninterrupted work time.   This is a new first for us and I'm taking notes!

If anyone is interested,   I thought this math discussion worksheet I created was a fun way to think about math.  (You could do this for any destination - near or far.)

Hawaii is 3400 miles away from Denver

How long will the flight take if an airplane can fly 500 mph?

How long will sailing take if a boat can sail 20 mph?

How long will swimming take if you swim 2 mph for 10 hours each day?

How long will biking take if you could  bike across water 10 mph for 10 hours each day?

Even though my plans for today were a total flop,  there are always silver linings.  Right now I have time to reflect and write.  Why?  Well, its one of those rare days when Zach and Lauren are getting along.  The kiddos are knee deep in creative play in our backyard.   Nothing makes me happier than to see this.  Can't we all just get along - we so need a lot more of this in our country right now.💓   

Warms my heart and that is the true glory of homeschool.