Flash Forward With Me

I had a thought the other day that almost made me laugh out loud. I was just wiping down the kitchen counter tops or some mundane thing and it occurred to me.....

What is going to happen when all the mommy bloggers

are little old grannies?

I mean, I'm sure blogging will be so passe by then, but just play along with me. What do you suppose our posting will turn to?

The Family Revised, March 2039

Hey! I found some great links this week and just wanted to share!!!

• Homemade Denture Cream over at Granny's Lil' Blog. A great recipe!

• I found this to be absolutely inspirational: How to Handle the "After" of the Grandkid Visit over at Where Are My Teeth. She always has such great things to say!

• Sherry at My Empty Nest shares How to Convert Your Laundry Room to a Medicine Cabinet. You know, now that I only use the washer and dryer once a month, I was wondering what to do with it. Hmmm...

• Everyone loves free downloads, right? This week Beth is offering a free "Medical Appointment Calendar" at I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up.

What do you suppose we will all talk about? Leave your take in the comments please!

Our First Week With FIAR

FIAR. Those mysterious letters....I've seen them lots of places online. They stand for Five in a Row, a curriculum my friend suggested last week to my saving grace.

Turns out another friend had Vol. 1 I could borrow. (FREE!) and the library had several of the first books I would need (FREE!). The internet, it turns out, is chock full of downloads other people have slaved over that I could print (FREE!).

I'm loving me some FREE FIAR is my point.

I spent the weekend searching blogs for info because everyone knows bloggers are the best source of information when it comes to this type of thing. So we started the week off making a passport. I got that idea from Satori Smiles. (the link is in her post) The link where you get those passports had tons of other great downloads too.

The book comes with these little "story disks" which look like a paper circle with a picture inside that represents the book of the week. You put them on your world map wherever your story takes place. This week: The Story About Ping set in China. There is also a map for the "Land of Make Believe" (at the above mentioned link) in case your story doesn't occur in the real world. We colored a map of China as well, and looked up the Yangtze River on Google Earth. Check off Geography.

Tuesday found us with friends over for the day. No problem, Five in a Row is nothing if not inclusive. In the story, a little boy falls in the river, but is tethered to his family's boat with a small barrel tied to his back. So, we decided to see what would float and sink. OK, it's in the book. I can't have ALL the good ideas!

See? It's the Yangtze (yellow) River! Or lemonade. Which incidentally, drew bees after a while. Just a word of caution there. And of course, there is a nifty form to print that you can chart your results on.

We also got out the paints and painted pictures of ducks. And bluebonnets and mockingbirds since it was Texas Independence Day. I like to mix it up.

"Ping" is a children's classic, having been published in 1933. There is a handy-dandy timeline you can print and add your family's pictures to. Then you can put a story disk for Ping on the year it was written. See? Ping was written right before Grandpa was born. Whoa! That puts it into perspective. We also added some American Girl dolls because that helps my girls know what time period we are talking about. At our house, anything that happened during WWII is "Molly's time" and anything during the depression is "Kit's time." We will add story disks for all our books from now on.

Today I told Little Bit it was time for math. She said, "OK.....I'll get my book" and headed to the shelf for her Math U See book. Now I'm not knocking Math U See because if you know me, you know I love it. But I had let that be the only thing she thought math was. My mistake. Now we did this....

Ping has lots of family members and the book repeats that portion several times. It includes "42 cousins." I downloaded a paper with tons of little duck pictures on it and had her color Ping's father blue, his mother pink, his aunts purple, etc. Slowly it dawned on her and she said, "AM I GONNA HAFTA COLOR ALL 42 COUSINS???" :) She loved it. She did great counting.

Then we went to the table and painted the Yangtze River on a big paper. When that dries, we will glue Ping and his family on the river...counting while we go. And making patterns. Sweetheart walked in the room and said, "She's painting?" and LB replied, "Yes. I'm doing math. FUN math!"

Thank you FIAR. I love you.

So here's the basic premise to sum it all up for you. You read the book (good children's lit) five days in a row. The book promises your kids will notice all kinds of things doing it this way. Today she asked me what the little numbers were at the bottom of the page. (page numbers) Very cool. Then one day you do a literature activity, one day social studies, one day math, one day art, and one day science. All the subject activity ideas come straight from the book. And I haven't even mentioned all the playing this book has inspired. She has a yellow stuffed duck that she carried around all day, calling him Ping of course. She and her friend played float and sink for a long time. She uses the term "Yangtze River" like it's been part of her vocabulary her whole life. And she knows all about China.

OH! I forgot to mention tonight we are having a Chinese dinner in honor of Ping.

I'm thinking about Beyond Five in a Row for Sweetheart this summer. And there's Before Five in a Row if you have younger ones. ANY curriculum that both teaches your kids AND helps you with your menu planning is a winner in my book.

I'm Hoping the Computer Makes It Until I Hit Publish

So.....I had a grand plan of helping make some extra money around here. It involved my sewing machine. I started teaching sewing classes on Saturdays which is bringing in a bit of extra money. I also agreed to sew some skirts for a friend's daughter. A bit more extra money. Nothing earth shattering, but every little bit counts, right?

Then my sewing machine broke.

That's not even to mention how I was saving money by sewing our own skirts.

And S was starting back up his lawn care business. That will bring in some extra money too. A lot more than me.

Then the brakes went out on his truck. And it's hard to haul lawn equipment in a car.

So our plans to get out of debt and have that little bit of extra money to help us breathe easier each month are kind of not going as expected.

Which just goes to prove that we are not in control. We DO need the Lord. We cannot gather enough manna to last for 3 days.

We must depend on Him. Which is exactly where we were before all of our stuff broke, by the way.

Please Pray....

...for Giovanna's husband and her family right now.

The Switcheroo

If you are a homeschooler, and you've been at it for any length of time, you've probably pulled this one too.

It's that "I'm ditching this curriculum and trying something else" switcheroo. You know the one? Sometimes the 180 turns into a 360. Sometimes, it's the best thing you could have ever done.

Little Bit's Kindergarten year wasn't exactly going as planned. Has anything ever gone as planned with that kid? She is not her sister. And I didn't even homeschool when Sweetheart was in Kindergarten so it's not like I've really got anything to compare it to. All I know was.....it wasn't working.

So I was telling my mom friends about it at book club and Carrie suggested Five in a Row. Yeah, what is that? I said. I've seen it online, I just didn't really know anything about it except it took me a long time to figure out what FIAR stood for.

A few posts to my homeschool group.....a few statuses on Facebook.....and I was holding in my hands a borrowed copy of Volume 1. I spent some time this week googling and researching furiously and found all kinds of things to download and print (why should I re-do work that others have already done so well?) and this morning we began. Sweetheart began her 50 States unit at the same time and they were both so happy.

My dad came down to my house with a stapler we needed to borrow and saw one little girl sitting at the table in a kimono (the first story is set in China--close enough) and the other in her finest Western wear (for Texas). They were so cute!

Say, wouldn't it be easier if they were both studying the same thing at the same time? Why yes, yes it would be. But that would be the old plan. And we aren't there anymore, are we?

And I am rejoicing today that on Wednesday my 4th grader will NOT be spending her time taking the state test. The one that is the be-all, end-all driving force in our state's educational decisions these days. And for the last 20 years or so. (I was in the first graduating class that had to pass the test to graduate.) (I did, by the way.)

The power to make the decisions. The freedom to decide what's best for my kiddos.

The ability to pull as many switcheroos as needed.......

this is what I'm thankful for today.