Very busy day

I had a very busy day and the next couple should be just as busy. The Faith Ink 7th Grade Retreat is coming up on Saturday and I am responsible for making sure all things come together. We had a Pastor cancel today --- we play a game called Stump the Pastor. Well, from 1 to 3 in the afternoon we are now pastor-less. This is not a good thing. Pray that we find a fill in. 

I got up - made dinner (yes first thing in the morning). I made a lentil soup. Turned out really good. Jt then made home-aide bread to go with. He always does a great job with the bread making. I will try to post the recipe for the soup tomorrow. It was very good. 

I did school with the two younger ones. JJ is now learning to read. He is doing well so far. Some days he seems into it and other days he just wants to get it over so he can go play. 

Then I headed into work for a few hours. Came back in time to put the soup on to reheat, run to the bank to get some $ for gas. Gas is down to $3.19 a gallon - that is the lowest we have seen in a very long time. I filled the tank. Needed the gas to get up to the hockey rink. 

Came home to eat dinner. We actually all came together for dinner and it was nice to have a home-aide, warm meal. After dinner, T ran to work and I ran the kids to hockey. The two oldest played. JJ and I did his math and phonics --- for awhile -- then he just wanted to play. I needed time to read Oliver Twist so I can discuss it intelligently with Jt. Jt is really enjoying the story --- impressive. We ended up at the rink all night. Didn't get home until 10:15 p.m. - kids had to shower and finally got them all in bed. T got home and they all had to get up to tell Dad about their day. Finally got them all back in bed. And I am exhausted. I am heading to bed also. Nite, nite. 

Fun morning

We went to a school time musical at a local college. It was called La Musgana and they played the traditional music of Spain. It was performed on original instruments such as bagpipes, wooden flutes, zanfona (hurdy-gurdy). They also played more contemporary instruments like the accordion, guitar, violin and clarinet. It was beautiful music but even more important the musicians were just so entertaining. They really were great with a kid audience and made it so enjoyable and fun. 

During one of the songs, two of the musicians came down from the stage and picked females from the audience to dance with. We sat in the very front row and guess who got picked to dance. Yep you guessed it - ME!!! My kids were just shocked. Their reaction was just priceless. As soon as I got back to my seat, my youngest looked at me and stated "he danced with you." Then he had to come cuddle on my lap as if to say 'this is my mom - hands off.' 

Then they asked for questions. Much to our surprise our youngest raised his hand but being only 5 it was hard to hear his question. So they invited him on stage and up he went. He wanted to share that he could play drums on his legs and proceeded to tap out a rhythm. My oldest was mortified because being 12 everything is embarrassing to him. He just hasn't realized that no one in the audience was laughing at our 5 year old - they all were thrilled and clapped for him. 12 year olds!!! It was just a fun morning. 

Go Brewers

The Brewers are still alive but need to win two more games to continue on. 

And our rival (the Cubs) - in the 7th inning are losing. They will be done if they lose this game.

GO BREWERS!!!!

Art class

This was a very neat class. The older kids (picture below) are being taught how do do a relief. In the picture above Jt is working on his project. They had their art work and turned it over so they could add strips of poster board on to the back. They used tabs to get the poster board to remain standing up. Then, this was adhered to a larger poster board. It really turned out wonderfully as the art work just appeared to pop. It created dimension to their 2-D pieces so they appeared 3-D. Now we are just challenged to find a way to frame it so it can be hung up on the wall at home. It is really a wonderful work of art. 

More pictures from Civil War school days

This first picture was actually my kids favorite station. This station -- the guys who set off the cannons - the big guns!!! JJ wanted to see them fire - but they only demonstrated how to fire - no firing on school days. They do set them off for the re-enactment over the weekend. 

This next picture shows the weapons and military uniforms by various divisions / units in the Civil War. One of the uniforms was from the navy. 

This is one typical type of punishment during the Civil War. Doesn't look like much fun. Don't laugh though or you will be in the box (see post below). 

Wade House - Civil War School Days

On Friday, September 26th, we went to the Wade House for their Civil War School Days. It was very well run. We rotated with our group through various stations. Only disappointment was we weren't able to see every station as they had so many. There just wasn't time. This is certainly something that we could come back to again next year as hopefully we would get scheduled to see the other stations. 

In these two pictures you can get an idea of punishment in the Civil War era. A soldier would be put in the pine box and left on the green in the sun. Our version of this now days is the sweatbox at the spa except I think our now days version is very expensive. A mom from our group got 'volunteered' to be the example. He said she laughed way too loud when her son got picked to demonstrate one of the punishments. So it was her turn. 

This station showed the kids about camp life and the food that they ate. 

This station showed the kids about the laundress. She is one of the camp followers but an essential part -- well at least from my perspective. Clean clothes are something I would find essential but not something that happened as frequently in the Civil War era as in our time.

My JJ really loved cleaning the clothes. I doubt this would be as much fun if we HAD to do it this way all the time. Wow what alot of work!!! So thankful for my washing machine. 

Virtual Co-op another update

The virtual co-op is going really well from many standpoints. We have had one issue. We are using WizIQ and apparently co-ops that used them last year had no issues. They have just exploded with growth and it seems that they are unable to keep up. Many co-ops have mentioned having sound issues and issues staying connected. 

We have also had sound issues and during one session the teacher got locked out of the session. She couldn't say anything, no one could hear her and she had no control to turn over speaking abilities to others. We like the whiteboard concept and we love having the area where the kids (and moms) can type to each other. That has been very helpful in having the kids get to know each other better. We also like the hands raising feature. With WizIQ the teacher can take away all permission to speak and the kids have to raise their hands to be called on. This does prevent everyone from talking over each other. It also prevents having one very smart child doing all the talking and answering everything. The teacher can make sure to call on others. We have a few kids that are shy and need a bit of encouragement to speak. While we don't want to put them on the spot by singling them out, we do try to encourage them and then if they raise their hands we try to be sure they get called on. That is a fabulous feature that we don't want to lose. 

So we have decided to use TeamSpeak for our sound and WizIQ for the visual (whiteboard, hand raising, and typing features). The moms have done a trial run but our first co-op is this coming Monday. I will post information on how it went. I am just relieved that I am not the guinea pig mom that has to do the first co-op with the new technology. We started looking at options the week before and then I was teaching. So glad it took some time to decided. 

And during my teaching time we only had one issue - my own son got kicked off. He (thankfully) is technology savvy that he was able to get back on. That was very good as I was the teacher and unable to help him at that moment. He did well fixing it on his own. 

That also has been a great aspect of the co-op -- both my son and I are learning all sorts of new technology and that has been most fun. Challenging at times but also very fun.