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.

 

Day 2 Homeschool - Nailed It

 

Continuing with our Hawaii theme curriculum today... 

In an early morning haste,  I quickly printed out the first Hawaiian recipe I could find with Google.  (Mistake #1)

I wasn't prepared with any activities for today so my easy go-to is always a cooking project.  Plus making donuts is an activity that any kid would whole heartedly embrace!   

I have a love/hate relationship with kids in my kitchen.  Love the fun but hate pretty much everything else, especially the gigantic mess that ensues.  Nevertheless, we bake a lot together, so much so that I can typically trust them to follow the recipe without too much supervision. (Mistake #2). 

As a math challenge,  I printed the recipe out in a quanitity that could easily be halved.  Our recipe today was for Malasadas, a popular donut in Hawaii.   The receipe boasted that it was easy,  fail-proof and that it made 2 -dozen small donuts.  

 I asked Zach to cut the recipe in half and away we both went. Him to the kitchen and me to my computer to check in on my Ebay and Poshmark stores sales. (Mistake #3)

Of course not more than a few minutes had past, when I hear Zach screaming for me.

"MOM -  I'm stuck."   He yelled from the kitchen.

"What do you mean your stuck?   Do you need help with the recipe?  Bring it up here and I'll help you with the math."  I yelled back, feeling rather perturbed at the early work disruption.

"I'm stuck in the dough!  The dough is way too sticky and I can't get my hands out."

"Oh, that's easy!  Just use more flour!" I  yelled back feeling a bit smug.

"There is NO more flour.  I used it all.  What do I do?"  he whined.

"Ok,  Legitimate problem." I thought to myself.  "But shoot,  there goes my 10 minutes to get my orders packaged for the mailman."

I ran downstairs to Zach's blob of sticky dough.   Oh my,  this was WAY messier than day we used a whole box of cornstarch to make Obleck.

"What happened to all the flour?" I demanded.  "The flour container was nearly full." 

"I got so excited cracking all the eggs that I forgot to cut the recipe in half!   I'm so sorry, Mom."   He cried,  on the verge of tears.

The original recipe called for 8 eggs and 8 cups of flour.  We now had a enough donut dough to feed the entire island of Molokai!  And we were officially out of flour.

"Ok Bev,"  I said to myself, taking in a deep cleansing (I'm not going to ring his neck) breath. Time to improvise... we had a small bit of bread flour that we could use.  At least that would allow us to handle the dough enough to get it back into the bowl.  Scraping the dough off Zach's hands was another ordeal.    

Zach is a very, very sensitive child. He couldn't stand the feeling of socks or anything form fitting for the first 7 years of his life.   YOU try scraping dough off the hands of a sensitive kid... (Mistake #4)

We were able to salvage the dough enough to deep fry it.   Of course, not without almost burning his eyeball with hot grease shooting out of the fryer.  

Malasada donuts -  you can stay in Hawaii from now on. 

After cleaning up the fried donut disaster,  I was utterly exhausted.   It was going to be a short school day for us.

The kids spent the rest of the day reading books to Grandma via our Facebook Portal and playing their favorite computer math game, Prodigy.   We did find some time to build and test sail our LEGO outrigger canoes.  Can't say they looked like the one in Moana (pictured) but I think we NAILED IT!

(Good night all.  Tomorrow,  I'll be more prepared... ay,  probably not, its feeling like a bath and bed kind of night.)

Day One Homeschool - The 50th State Volcanic Disaster!

 

Here we are at the 50th State - Hawaii!    I wish!   We were suppossed to be going to Hawaii next week but stupid COVID regs are holding us up.  So when you can't go there,  create it in your own backyard.

To launch our official start of homeschool,  I am creating a 'fly-by-the-seat-my-pants' curriculum around our 50 wonderful United States.

Today we read books about Hawaii,  we colored and drew pictures of the fabulous island state and checked out the Google maps satellite images of the 8 main islands.   We talked about the food, the fun and the history of Hawaii's revolution.

  For science hands-on fun,  we went out into our sandy backyard and created our very own islands complete with erupting volcanos. Hawaii is so interesting that we may spend a whole week here learning about the plants, food and weather that makes island living so inticing!

Uber excited to kick of homeschool with every kid's favorite science experiement, I eagerly led my kiddos outside to build their own fantastic sand volcano islands.   Instead, we cussed and cursed as our beautiful sand volcanos cracked and fell over when we tried to add the plastic cup to the center.   

Lauren had a brillant idea to put the cup into the sand mold before adding the sand.  This worked well for her which just angered her brother to no end! Convinced to do things his own way, Zach brushed aside the sand molding buckets and created his own realistic volcanic cone.  

 He was quite proud of his ingenuity and insisted on creating his own lava eruption concoction.  As any great teacher would,   I gently suggested that it works best to add the baking soda first to the cup and then pour in the vinegar last.   

"No, mom"  he screamed.  "I want to do this my own way.   I am adding the vinegar first and then I'll pour in the baking soda."

"Ok" I responded.  "I'm not sure it will work out very well that way but give it a try."

To his great disappointment, the mixture bubbled but didn't erupt into an overflowing lava field.   He cried, he screamed, he kicked the sanda and ran inside- utterly defeated.

Lauren and I both had great success with out volcanos eruptions!  This justseemed to just add fuel to Zach's disappointment.

"Let me try again!"  he exclamed after he regained his composure.

"Ok,"  I responded again.  " Can I help you this time?" 

"No, absolutely not.  This is my creative experiement and I want it different." 

Again,  he concocted a mixture of way too much vinegar and way too little baking soda.  The result was a slightly bubbling cup similar to last time.

"Arrrgh!"  he screamed,  throwing down the empty cup of baking soda..   

I couldn't contain my laughter this time.  I had to turn around so he wouldn't see me breaking out in giggles.

 Truthfully, I felt so badly for Zach.  But meanwhile, I couldn't get the Charlie Brown kicking the football image out of my mind.   He didn't need Lucy to foil his plans, he was his own Lucy.

Ah,   the joys of a child who just wants to learn his own lessons - the hard way.

Stay turned... in my industrious yet unfocused mind,   I envision us taking learning 'trips' to every state of the union.  We will learn the capitals, the industry, the food and environment that makes each state unique.  We can expand our knowledge in science and math via cooking up different experiments and food dishes.

The Homeschooling Adventures of Two Stubborn Kids and their Absentminded Mother

Yesterday was a very bittersweet day -  not only was it the most disappointing inconclusive election day in history,  but it was also the day I submitted the official "Letters of Intent to Homeschool" for my 2 elementary kids.  

Today I have a huge pit in my stomach...it is really sinking into my core now...how am going to pull off this "mom/home schooling" thing.  Virtual school was one thing - easy to brush off the ineptness on the teachers or school.   Now it will be all my fault if my kids are complete idiots!  What was I thinking... the kids loved their school,   I loved the parents and community.   What the heck are we doing???

We are doing what every parent needs to seriously consider - homeschooling their children.    Schools today have lost their foothold.  Their hands are tied when it comes to disciplining children.  Their hands are tied with relation to COVID safety protocols.  "Stay away from your friends,  no touching, no seeing your teachers face and absolutely no hugs.   It just doesn't compute for us. We are in a true epidemic - one of anxious and depressed kids.

Homeschool - easy peasy right? -  Not in this household.   Two independent, strong willed, learning different (or disabled) kids and a Mom that has a hard time keeping her focus on one thing at a time. 
"Yeah,  homeschool,  sign me up!" said no parent ever in their right mind.    But here we are... maybe our school will just focus on PE, cooking and science projects all day, hmmm.

Truth is, my husband, Marc and I, had been considering homeschool for our kids since our oldest, Zach, was in kindergarten, yes, way before the COVID lockdown happened.  Our oldest is a enigma,  very challenging to teach.   Teachers have labled him every learning disability in the book and still the most seasoned teachers scratch their head and ask me for advice as to how to get him engaged.

Sounds like a recipe for success, right?   Well maybe or maybe we will just teach each other and have lots of fun along the way. 

So here we go... meet the players

Mom (Bev) - hopefully not the most distractable, disorganized homeschool parent out there.

Turn ons:  Other people's obedient children

Turn offs:   My children, sitting still, focusing on one thing at time

Favorite Food:   Steak, hamburgers or just cow meat in general... Cowboys too!

Meet Zachary Taylor (9) - the most interesting boy in the world, evil by day - cute by night.

Turn ons:  Bendy and Unspeakable

Turn offs:  Authority, getting taught to do anything, his sister, reading, writing, math

Favorite Food:   Sushi

Lauren Avery (8) -  bug lover extraordinaire, cute by day - evil by night.

Turn ons:  OMG and LOL's,  all creatures big and small, and blankets.

Turn offs:  Her brother,  school assignments, wearing only one outfit a day.

Favorite Food:   Green Olives and Pickles