Pinewood Derby 2009

Tristan's car is white and Colin's is orange. Tristan's weight was on the bottom but it was a tiny bit too low so they made him change it at check in. He was a little upset that his car no longer looked like his vision for it.


Hayley's car (when it was in progress) is a black cat. She couldn't run it though since there was no parents and siblings race this year.


Waiting, waiting, waiting. The Tigers race first and there was a computer error so the Tiger race had to be run all over again before the older cub scouts race could start.


Silly face time


Are we having fun yet? YES!

I have no race shots! My camera was up to it's old tricks again and refused to work. I will get some pictures later from a friend. It was a long day, lots of boys racing. Tristan came in 4th overall! Colin was 7th! So both made it to the final ten and Tristan to the top 4!! Tristan was so happy until it turned out that he came in 4th and only the top 3 get trophies. They always have 4 in the finals since there are 4 tracks but only 3 can place and move on to the regionals. It's very hard to be 4th as we found out today. Colin at 7th was not so upset. When you are so close to winning it's harder. The races with the final 4 were all very, very close with fractions of a second separating the boys. Tristan cried, but not 'till he was in the car. He has wanted a trophy for years (no idea why he just likes the thought of it I guess!) and he kept saying "my dream will never come true".

What is a Mom to do, I found a place to order derby trophy's online and was able to order a "4th place" one and have his name engraved on. That is about all this Mom could do with such a sad boy. I hope he will like it and be happy and surprised when it arrives. I know it won't be quite the same as getting a trophy at the derby but 4th place is very good and should be rewarded!

New Year

Record keeping and very initial planning for 2009-2010 I think a theme and plan is emerging. I'm a little further along in my thinking since my other post on this topic.

Social Studies
World Geography and Cultures my own plan
British History- still aquiring resources, London a short history- teaching company DVD's, books

Science
Chemistry,
Earth and Space science

math
MUS Algebra- Trevor
continue Cle math-younger three

LA
Galore Park for basics
British Literature

fine arts
Shakespeare study

Old Year

A little planning and record keeping for my own purposes. This post and the next will change as I add/remember more. I find it interesting how people define their homeschool years or the seasons of their life. For me spring seems to signal the new year. We are wrapping up homeschooling and some of the topics start to seem old and drawn out so it's fun to think of the topics to come.

This year we learned more about the following topics:
Ancient and World History.
Teaching Company High School Level World History tapes, Usborne and Kingfisher World history books, Evan-Moor Ancient Times history pockets. Many read alouds from our own shelves and the library's, Drive thru History DVD's.

US history and Government
Getting Ahead US History
DK US history encyclopedia
Heart of Dakota-Bigger Hearts
variety of read alouds from home and library
Presidents lapbook
keeping up with election and current events
Dear America videos
American Tall Tales and legends-videos
quite a few historical fiction videos

Science
Biology, health, zoology
Rainbow Science biology
animals co-op class, planning for, implimenting, attending (depending on the child)
Getting Ahead life science elementary
Getting Ahead life science and human body ages 10-14
A beka health reader
many animals, habitats, and ecosystems books a couple lapbooks
assorted experiments from Stratton house science kits
American Girl books for health-dd
Working on badges related to health- scouts
using our microscope
Standard Deviants High School Biology
a few units from CLE science related to animals

Math
Teaching company basic math will finish in about 4 weeks
math U See pre algebra (will continue through summer)
Getting Ahead mathematics DVD's
Standard Deviants Math DVD's
Math readers, many assorted
CLE math (younger three children)

Language Arts
English 9 (Trevor designed from things we own, grammar, usage, literature, research...)
IEW writing
Standard deviants English-DVD
getting ahead reading and writing DVD
Evan-Moor LA middle grades Hayley
Explode the code #'s4-8, Beyond the code, CLE LA Colin
multi sensory phonics, CLE phonics, reading and LA- Tristan
Brian Cleary and Scholastic language arts readers

Music Appreciation
Listening to many types of music and discussing
videos about famous musicians and composers
learning guitar- younger three
music class- Hayley and Tristan

Art appreciation
Discovering great artists
looking up artists online
a couple DVD's about art and artists through the year

Other
365 days of celebration and praise
some co-op classes
skiing
planetarium visit
scouts
hikes and outdoor exploration
raised bullfrog tadpoles to frogs for the first time
puppy training
chess
swim lessons
camp-Colin
computers ins and outs and learned more about their workings

Tristan's head

Hayley has been working on computer art a lot lately. Today she did this one titled Tristan's Head.

wordle

I saw this on Dorothy's blog, fun!

a good day to ski

Snow Monday=Ski Tuesday!

March skiing is really not so bad! It was in the 40's and sunny today.

I didn't find the chair lift at this mountain as scary as the one on Friday, which is a good thing since this one is the mountain we'll be using most of the time. I'm not ready for black trails but I can almost keep up with the boys already.

Snow...again

I don't seem to see the gerbils very often. Hamsters and gerbils live in the kids rooms and the kids care for them completely. Last weekend a couple of the cages were in need of changing so the kids brought them downstairs. I got to visit with the gerbils.


and Flower the cat did too!


In the calm before yet another snowstorm we took Freeze for a walk to the lake.


Still too much snow to swing!

Monday morning the snow arrived, a ferret watches the snow.

Poppy the dog has come in from the snow and has some flakes on her!

Boys play in the snow.

It was a heavy, wet snow as is typical of this time of year when the weather is a little warmer.

day at the planetarium

We decided to visit the planetarium this past weekend. It was a grand re-opening, the planetarium having now doubled in size from what it was last time we visited. Unfortunately my camera was acting even worse than ever so I got no pictures of the kids pretending to be weather forecasters on tv, the science experiment show about light spectrum's and many of the other fun things we did. I managed to get a few posed pictures here and there but spontaneity was not something my camera could cope with this day.

Space shuttle. We saw a show about this, strange to think that the shuttles will be retired in a year.


Way back in time for space travel.


Colin is in charge of the universe oh no!!!

That ball could be changed to represent any planet or a variety of earth views. There was a cool music and science room too and we watched a movie called Ice Worlds in the planetarium. We learned about constellations here and also at the north and south pole. The show itself was on the planetariums round dome ceiling and it was wonderful! We love learning about the cold poles so getting to see this show was excellent.

Outside the planetarium is this rocket which had just been placed there a few days ago!

Ski Day Friday

We joined a ski field trip through an out of State homeschool group on Friday. They were nice enough to open it up to any homeschooler. We live only 30 minutes from were they were skiing, skiing in March is more bearable weather wise than January, the prices were great so we joined in.

We're ready!

Tristan and Colin had an intermediate lesson while DH and I had a beginner lesson. Still couldn't convince Hayley or Trevor to ski. Hayley was massively helpful running messages to the little boys when I couldn't due to being in my class. So it was kinda good that she didn't want to ski! She was taking some pictures but for some reason most of them came out super blurry or fogged up. My camera does have issues which only I am used to so that was likely the problem.

Later in the day the boys talked me into going up the chairlift with them. Bobby didn't master stopping yet so they couldn't persuade him.

I really don't like being on this chair lift Tristan.

You'll be fine Mummy.

I don't like heights!

It's a long way down there.

I made it to the top without falling out and breaking a limb. Yes I was more scared of the chair lift than skiing.

Ready Mom...


Get Set..... (COLIN where is your helmet!?)



Come on, Let's Go!

Gulp, ok down I go and I didn't even fall on the long run down. I didn't attempt to take pictures going down!

It was a green to blue trail which I think was a pretty good accomplishment considering I haven't skied since I was a teen.

Glasses at last

We finally found an eyeglasses store which works with our vision plan. Tristan chose the frames he likes and the prescription lenses should be ready mid-week. What a relief to have this checked off our to do list. He got Flex glasses which hopefully will be harder to break than his original (and same frame replacement) pairs.


Here Hayley teaches Tristan some methods of communication including the Braille Alphabet. She was working on the Communicator badge for Girl Scouts.

Hayley also made a very nice poster advertisement for a made up brand of cat food. Then we held some debates between she and her brothers on different topics. The kids did well!

Hayley had a field trip at Girl Scouts, they toured a city hall and even saw a jail! The girls were able to stand in the jail cell which Hayley thought was kinda cool.

Skis for boys

We got our tax refund and although most of it had to go right towards bills we used a little for fun. For the little (now bigger) boys fun! We found that renting skis was literally half the price of skiing so we would do a lot better buying the boys their own skis. We found some great end of season deals In fact ski equipment for two boys is almost less expensive than one little pair of eyeglasses through some irritating vision plan providers. Go figure.....

First though we had to find our way back into our own State after wandering out if it (accidentally) while searching for eyeglasses that work with that pesky vision plan.

Ahh there is New Hampshire, I knew I left it somewhere around here.

A few days ago Colin got measured. He was very upset that he had to try on "girl color" ski boots since they were out of some sizes in "boy color". The salesman assured him that the pair he buys will be boy colored but it didn't make trying on pink and white boots any easier so Colin closed his eyes through it all!

That's better!

The place we bought from sells both ski and golf equipment, it is a warehouse. Tristan liked the big golf ball and wanted a picture with it.

Today we picked up the completed ski packages The boys were happy as can be and can't wait to ski again! Colin even got his favorite color, orange!

It gets harder

In our continuing saga of Finding an eyeglasses retailer who
1. accepts our VISION PLAN
2. can do high power prescriptions
3. charges reasonable rates
4. is not 1,000 miles away
We stopped at two more eyeglasses stores today on the way to somewhere else.

One was not open, that was easy.

Two was open and helpful (too helpful and hovering?) and got us all set up with a pair of glasses (after much thought and more thought by Tristan) and then said our part of the bill, less VISION PLAN payment of $149 would be $200. Yes this would actually cost more than going out of network to our original eye doctor. $350 for one child's pair of glasses and not a particularly special pair at that. When we asked if they had frames that were perhaps less expensive we were told they were all the same price. Okay.

While optimistically trying glasses Tristan found these cool magnetic sunglasses. They magnetize right to their matching glasses. Adult sizes only though!


He finally settled on these glasses until we got the over sized quote.

Later in the day I looked online and called the horrid VISION PLAN and found that we can't even look further now because the overpriced store put in a claim already and we are only allowed one pair of glasses a year. It just gets more and more complicated. The horrid but somewhat helpful vision plan said she can cancel the claim on Monday and then we can try again. She suggested a Walmart in the southern part of the state as they actually still accept this awkward vision plan and have good prices. I guess it's worth the drive to get the NotFreeButLessExpensive glasses through the vision plan, which I might add we don't plan to renew next year!

Thank goodness for the online retailers but I am still determined to actually use the VISION PLAN which we are paying $20 a month for!

I hate it when that happens

When the snow plow builds up the snow so much along the sides of the road that it completely blocks the path out of the house.


That is inevitably the day that the mailman will beep instead of drop off because he has a parcel and then if the path is not cleared one of us (me) will have to climb through the snow piles to get to the road.

I cleared the path and found the mailbox again too. It was quite buried.


It is a pretty site on our road these days but a cold one. More snow coming Sunday.