Summer vacation is in full swing here. The kids are getting even lazier than they were before and my house is getting messier and messier. I was at the grocery store and the shelf-stocker was getting rid of these awesome boxes. I asked him if I could have them and the lids, my kids would love playing in them! He looked at Lula and Daniel and then back to me and said with a frown, "You gonna put your kids in the box? And put the lid on?" Oh yes! They would love it! Oh, haha, not THESE kids, my
older kids!
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| The Idiot Box, complete with Shane (see his eye?) |
I have set up a points system where the three older kids can earn up to 16 points for their jobs and
attitudes every day. If they earn a minimum of 12 points per day for 85% of the days I count, then they can have a camp out with a bonfire in the pasture with their friends. My goal with the points is to develop good habits-like putting their shoes away when we get home and hanging up their towels- and also train them to change certain responses they have to certain sibling stimuli. The unexpected result of this has been getting to sit down with each kid individually in the evening and talk about their day, how they spent it, and how they felt about it! So far each kid is barely making minimum... one of these days they will realize that they actually have to put their laundry away and do some academics to earn all their points!
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| Daniel's dam-na slug (or banana slug)... |
Meanwhile, when I'm not trying to soothe my teething baby, I'm thinking about SCHOOL. And our options for next year. The state went into the second special session, so we still don't know if we are able to be part of the parent partnership program. They did inform us that services and lessons will no longer be covered. This means that our PE classes are not covered, just when we were really starting to love going to the YMCA! I told my coordinator that I was leaving the program; I wasn't going to do all that lesson plan writing and reporting for just a few workbooks. She responded (with a little winky emoticon) that I had $1500 worth of "workbooks" (aka materials) ordered for next year and was I sure I wanted to quit? *sigh* No. I'll wait... especially since I have closer to $2000 worth of materials ordered and that is just our first semester! (It's mostly books-good reading books-not workbooks-and science kits-and animation software...)
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| ...and his "carrot" slug (makes sense to call it a carrot slug, right?) |
But in the meantime I'm asking myself, "Would I order all that stuff if I was homeschooling on my own? Or am I just buying it cause I can? Would Ian be better off at the middle school next year? Will he be ready for AP classes when he gets to high school? Should I only report on four classes per kid and drop science for a year and focus more on language arts (which is an important questions because we are supposed to spend equal time on each class, even when one class is a heavier work load than the others)? And should I start re-writing my classes and purchase orders because I've changed my mind about how we are going to do things next year?" Time to start working on possible scenarios, complete with curriculum choices and budgets. My favorite part of homeschooling!
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| Poor Man's Popsicle |
And then there is poor Mark. He is losing his battle against nature. He tells me he can hear his dad laughing at him and saying, "I TOLD YOU SO!" We've lost two layers, two guinea, and had a close loss of another layer, just in the last eight days. Mark has been really good about getting the turkeys closed up at night, but the one night he forgot to also close the chickens...the raccoon struck! Mark is so ready to just camp outside with his shotgun.
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| Why yes, that is a new fence around the raised bed! |
Deer have always been a problem out here. Grandad loved to watch them "proink" around the pasture, but he didn't have precious fruit trees to worry about. Or tender young tomato starts. Well, he did once upon a time, but he gave up and let nature take its course. The day we transplanted our tomato and pepper starts to the raised bed, the deer ate the tops off each plant. Then Mark installed an invisible fence made out of fishing line. We heard somewhere that deer don't like fishing line because the run into it and can't see it so it spooks them and they leave. He flagged the middle strand so people and dogs could see where it was. The bottom strand was high enough for Jack to run under, but not for Mina. She learned pretty quick where she could get in and out of the orchard...but so did the deer! They just followed the line until they came to an opening and they gobbled up our pear pollinator! So Mark closed all the gaps. Then we saw them walk right up to the line and jump right over! And they got through the invisible fence and ate every single veggie start (and came up to the porch to eat our others)! So, back to fencing we go.
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| Invisible fence around the orchard |
Why a deer would want to walk all the way to our house, jump over fences, risk being chased by dogs, and nibble our trees and plants when there is a huge forest full of tasty wild green things is beyond us.
Summer is wearing me out. I'm ready for school to start again.
