Playing School

After resisting doing her actual academics this morning, E (age 7) just came running in to ask enthusiastically, “Mom, can we play school in the living room?”

C (age 12) responded rather sarcastically, “Instead playing school how about you actually do your REAL school?”

I admit it, I laughed. 🙂

NASA Rocks!!

NASA-2I’ve got the gallery up, Kit’s setting up the video today of the entire trip (with slideshow, video clips, etc.) On our blog are more details about our day at NASA and pictures stories galore. The kids keep coming up to me and saying, “That was so awesome, Mom. I can’t believe we did that.”

In one day we managed to cram in so much science that wasn’t just theoretical but hands on and I know this has truly been life altering for our kids. Our three year old is walking around saying she’s an astronaut and the seven year old says, “Then you better bounce more because you’ll have less gravity!” Truly – this was a once in a lifetime experience they will never, ever forget. (Me, neither. Lots of happy tears this day.)

Space!

The kids decided to fundraise for their hoped for wish list trips and we ended up on the front page of the paper! It’s been wonderful to see the response and the kids entirely sold out of truffles they sold for Valentine’s Day (even the ugly ones that didn’t pass quality control.)

We’ve also been contacted by people with great suggestions and tips and offers to help make the wish list come true. (Here is the wish list.) The kids hoped to see NASA someday and we were contacted by someone who works there! We’re waiting for approval and clearance and coordinating and such but this may mean we get to go see the space center soon (before I go back on call for my next little doula baby arrival.)

In the meantime the kids are reading all our books about space and watching videos about planets and it’s been a fantastic unit study.

While there we’ll spend a little bit of time on the coast, hopefully ride a ferry, eat some shrimp, and check out the Children’s Museum of Houston if we have time. Oh, and on our way coming or go we plan to hit a chocolate factory, another item on our wish list. 🙂

This is the kids’ favorite book about space thus far, and it’s great for a wide variety of ages from our 3 year old up through our 12 year old. I really like it – Earth and Space

2014!

So much has happened since we last posted – a wild and wonderful trip to Harry Potter world thanks to an anonymous benefactor, visits to the Perot science museum thanks to an incredibly generous donation, a surprise trip to the Apple store for a field trip and iPad for Ben, plus the Dallas Museum of Art, ice skating at Klyde Warren Park, and the Dallas zoo. Busy, and incredible. (Some pictures here.)

We learned Ben has become legally blind (we got the news the first week of November) and it’s been a lot to process – therapy, new services, cane training, eye specialists, and the emotional dealing with the news. It’s been hard on all the kids to work through this news.

I’ve taken a lighter schedule in 2014 from my work so we can focus on some of these changes and to allow us to make some more special trips from Ben’s wish list of things he wants to do and things he wants to see before he loses more eyesight.

But I’m also trying to make sure we fit in at least some basics, like math and writing and reading lessons. And to help make myself more accountable I plan to post more here. We’ll see how this goes…

School Pictures 2013

For fun I did them side-by-side with last years. And the children were NOT very cooperative tonight and we were losing sunlight and hitting dinner so it was not our best – but at least we got them done!

Pre-school O:

K with J:

2nd for E:

3rd for B:

4/5th for M:

6th for C:

Then we had a pizza picnic afterwards:

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Garden from KDB

We received a garden kit from Keep Denton Beautiful which is also who sponsors the tree giveaway and hosted our homeschool field trip!

The plants came from Dennis’ Farm Store which is already our favorite spot for getting seedlings for our fruits, veggies & herbs.

Today we planted! We decided on cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, and some sugar snap peas in another container.

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Our oldest had a late night and long day and was rather worn out by the time we planted.

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