All posts by Nichole

Homeschool

You’d think I’d have learned this by now

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Some days we get to bedtime and I realize that the kids didn’t finish all of their schoolwork. Then I spend a few days (or weeks) feeling overwhelmed and stressed about it before I realize that the problem is obvious — and it really should be, considering how often this cycle repeats itself — and the solution is simple:

No electronics before school.

Duh, right?

I finally reached that conclusion again yesterday, after a week and a half of pulling my hair out over our lack of progress. I slip into the problem innocently enough. Pete wakes up pretty early, so sure why not he can have his Kindle FreeTime while I get ready & dressed. Except then Poppy wakes up and lolls about with her iPod for good long while because it’s not fair, and Pete has a bad attitude because his time ran out, and then nobody wants to do school. And really, why would they want to practice cursive when their little brains are coming fresh off of that Angry Birds overstimulation?

So today I’m kicking myself for falling into that pattern yet again, and yet again I’m going to try to change things up next week. And I’m hoping this time I’ll learn the lesson for keeps.

Math

Yesterday Poppy called me over while she was working on her Teaching Textbooks lesson and asking for help with a problem.

“It wants me to add fractions,” she said, “and I’ve never done that!”

Turns out she’d somehow skipped two lessons and started straight in on the quiz. Something tells me she’ll be getting an introduction to fractions when she goes back to do Lesson 104 next week.

Extracurricular

It’s a big day for Poppy: She’s going to be testing for her white-yellow belt at tae kwon do! She’s been working really hard toward this, and she’s excited and nervous.

Reading

We finished “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder yesterday, and the whole time we were reading it I was struck by how much more abundant Almanzo’s childhood was than his future wife’s. And also by how much pie the Wilders consumed.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

menu plan Monday, partner campaign

In which I try to take the “planning” out of the menu-plan equation

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Disclaimer: eMeals.com has provided Nichole with a free subscription in exchange for a review. Because of the nature of the product and the fact that Nichole writes/thinks about food a lot, you can expect to read at least a little bit about eMeals every week for the next month or so. Nichole’s opinions remain her own, and she remains very opinionated about food.

My meal-planning routine usually consists of taking a spin through my Menu Plan Monday archives — because I can never seem to remember what we eat from week to week — and then looking through my I’d Eat That board on Pinterest for a few new ideas.

For the next couple of weeks, though, I’m not going to do either or those things.

Instead, I’m going to be downloading a weekly menu plan from eMeals, which will include a grocery list of everything I need for that week’s meals. I usually spend at least 30 minutes of my Friday evening pulling together my menu plan and compiling the grocery list; I’m looking forward to finding out what else I could be doing with that half-hour. (Handicrafts? Learning a new skill? Watching more television? The possibilities are endless, but the probability is sadly the latter!)

I’m not expecting to follow the eMeals plan to the letter every week, because (1) we can be kind of picky and (2) our schedule lately means I haven’t had time to actually prepare a meal every night. This week, for example, we have “Nutcracker” rehearsal, an American Heritage Girls meeting and all sorts of soccer practices, so we’re only going to be having two of the eMeals meals. It’s not that they’re especially complicated or lengthy; I just tend to lean on recipes — and I use that word lightly here — with which I’m already familiar.

Monday: Grilled cheese sandwiches

I used to always serve tomato soup with our grilled cheeses. And then we all admitted that none of us really likes tomato soup, so we don’t bother with that anymore.

Tuesday: Spaghetti

I think might even have some meatballs in the freezer!

Wednesday: Beef Chalupas

This will be the first eMeals recipe we’re trying. It’s supposed to be served with “crispy zucchini and corn.” Side dishes are never my strong suit; I’m hoping having it all planned out for me will help with that!

Thursday: Philly Cheesesteak Stromboli

And this is the second of the eMeals! It uses refrigerated pizza dough and roast beef from the deli, among other things. It’s served with Cajun french fries, which are really what sold me on trying this meal.

Friday: Out

Poppy will be doing her very first tae kwon do testing on Friday, and I’m preemptively planning to go out for a celebratory dinner. Go P!
Kids are weird

The Adventure of Pirates, Part Four

One afternoon last September, Pete was playing with our “Story Cubes” by himself in the living room floor. This is the final part of the story.

The Adventure of Pirates, Part Four
by Pete

Welcome to the new adventures of Pirates and Pete! Still looking for the key to unlock the gears of the door and escape the apple!

And [the turtle and the sad alien] followed the footprints of the alien, and they stopped at a clock and they saw the alien in it so they had to go inside the clock! (This is an extremely long story.) And then he met an arrow that showed him the way to the door. The alien had to go this way, but they had to go this way. And then they met a little fish guy that said, “Go right here, please.”

Then apparently they said, “Alien! Come back out of there!”

And then he said, “I’m the one who set up that temple, and I’m the one who used the magic wand for putting the apple in the gears of the key lock!”

And then a hand came out. It was the guard’s hand! And he said, “That is his home.” So he was the guard of his home, for whenever people wanted to see him.

“Go back to the pyramid,” said the alien. “We’re having a party for aliens.”

And then one of them fell asleep. And then a lamb that was upside-down usually put people in a different land, so he put them in the lock of the intergalactic alliance! And then there came thunder coming down from the sky. And then when he said something weird, the keyhole opened and he rushed back to the pyramid and began looking for the princess. Was she in the water fountain? No! Was she at the top of the castle? Was she in her room reading a book, or inside the book? And then he found her on the skyscraper of the tower!

I don’t understand anything anymore! Am I in my room reading a book, or am I inside the book? In conclusion: Pete has a weird and wild imagination.