Impaled in the trenches of motherhood surrounded by books

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      Catchy title, huh?!? Monday night I was walking downstairs around 1030PM to get my homeschool binder when I stepped off the stairs right on top of this.

OUCH!!!! To say that it hurt would be an understatement! You guessed it, I impaled my foot on those tiny wire bristles.  I managed to hobble back upstairs bleeding with a throbbing foot while the Lt. tended to my wound with peroxide.  I will spare you the gruesome photos of my foot, but let’s just say I am now walking around with a limp and I still have little circle indentations where the brush didn’t pierce the skin.  I couldn’t even take McKenzie to her gymnastics class on Tuesday because of my injury but we did make it to the Scholastic book fair, more on that later.  No one fessed up to leaving the brush there but the girls were very apologetic in the morning for my ordeal.

Can I just say that cutting your 12 month old molars at 20 months really stinks. This normally happy, go lucky little girl is miserable at times.  Poor girl…

This past weekend the girls and I headed up North to attend a Mystery tea with our Auntie. We all had a blast and there were some pretty snazzy hats in attendance. No showstoppers like Princess Beatrice’s, but fancy nonetheless.  Here is our Auntie in her Pretty Woman hat.

Isn’t she lovely??? I didn’t get any pictures of the tables as I was trying to control McKenzie from taking the pretty little cupcakes cookies and devouring them.

Mikayla ended up bringing 5 dresses in the suitcase, she couldn’t decide which dress to wear until the day of, McKenzie fell out of the bed in the middle of the night on Friday and I somehow fell out of the bed too trying to catch her.  Thank goodness neither of us was injured in the process.  All in all we had a grand time and I won a prize.  I ended up winning the centerpiece at our table which was a teapot with flowers in it.  We also each took home a tea cup to match the teapot.  The girls and I have visions of sipping hot chocolate in the fall (we don’t drink tea) while having our read alouds or weekly school meetings.

     

 

Montana loves her cousin-dog, Sebastian!  She now has decided that he needs to come to our house to stay for a little bit. She even has a life size replica of him at our house, but she wants the real deal.  I remember when we first moved here and she was scared of him, but that only last 3 days and now they are the best of buds.  See McKenzie back there, she is not scared of him that much anymore either.  She likes to hold his leash and shake her finger at him an say, “No, no!”  She also learned how to say “stop” while we were there.  Her words are coming, slowly but surely.               I can’t wait to get our dog! We have narrowed our choices down even more so now I am checking prices and trying to find a breeder.  I know that our dog will be just as love as our favorite cousin-dog!

Who could make a trip up North without visiting one of our favorite stores, IKEA!  We all love that store, well maybe not the Lt. as much as the girls and I do.  We have found some pretty good finds there, some that even lasted for years and a cross country move.  I haven’t quite found what I am looking for and I may not find it at this store, but I am patient and I when I see it I will know.

We  did end up making it to the book fair as I mentioned earlier. We came home with a lot of books and I spent way less than I did last year which is always a good thing, YAY!  I had a budget and came way under to it so that is always good.  Montana will be learning how to read in the very near future so I was pleasantly surprised to see how many early reader books they had this year. She is pretty excited and I am excited that she is excited! Now,  I need to make room for these books plus the ones that will be arriving with our curriculum for next year. Speaking of curriculum I am in the final tweak and peak process of narrowing down our choices for next year.  I have my budget set out and I am close to having my full amount saved for so I can pay cash for everything.  I have bought a few things already because of sales and whatnot, but I am keeping a close eye on my tally. I think if I can make it through the Convention without too many impulse buys I will be right on target. I hope to share with you our Plan of Study for the 2011 ~ 2012 school year on Friday, because your dying to know, right?I’m also in the process of setting up a database of all our books and tagging them for easy reference. Not a small feat but I am hoping to have it done by August when we start school again, we’ll see…

That’s been my week so far, how is yours shaping up?

TOS Review ~ Mad Dog Math

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I have a child that struggles at times with her math facts.  I am always looking for new ways to drill those facts for quick recall. We work on it with daily practice and about 6 weeks ago we were introduced to Mad Dog Math .  What is Mad Dog Math?
It is a program designed for K-5 students, but can be used in higher grades if needed.

Mad Dog Math is a one-of-a-kind program that drills addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in small chunks. This allows your  students to reach attainable goals and build confidence. All in only ten minutes a day, your child will improve math skills.

 The Essentials of Mad Dog Math *taken from website*

Enables children to master their +, -, x, and ÷ facts in a fun challenging, exciting, and motivating way

Math supplement for any math curriculum

For grades K through 5th; remedial middle school and high school

Standard, daily 10 minute time commitment from start to finish

Huge body of math facts broken down into bite-sized pieces any child can master

Applied system that works in every classroom and in every home

Students, teachers, and parents LOVE it

Mad Dog’s  products include "Mad Dog Math - At Home", a download (a Windows PC app) priced from $19.99 - $39.99; a download of the "Homeschool Mastery Binder" for $69.99 (or as a CD-Rom for the same price); the "Middle / High School Binder" for $89.99; flash cards are available for $14.99.

During the review period, I saw a bit of improvement in multiplication/division fact recall.  However, this improvement was not enough to keep my daughter interested in using the program for the recommended ten minutes a day. I found the cost to be well within the budget for my family and I think this program  would be a great summer supplement. However, I do not feel this specific program is the right fit for our family.

Be sure to check out my fellow crewmates reviews here to see what they thought.

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I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse 2010-2011 Crew and as such received a download of Mad Dog Math, in exchange for a thorough and honest review.  Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews.  The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but are not influenced by the company or the free product provided .

Wordless Wednesday

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McKenzie with her cousin-dog Sebastian.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Mother’s Day flowers

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My Mother’s Day weekend, the girls each gave me a flower. Madison’s flower was destroyed by a little girls who shall remain nameless (at least she didn’t eat it).  Mikayla’s flower made the trip home.

TOS Review ~ GoTrybe

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With the alarming rates of childhood obesity I make sure that our family keeps pretty active and makes healthy eating choices. Did you know that nearly 1 in 3 children and teens in the U.S. is overweight or obese? WOW, we as a nation need to get our kids moving and eating better.  I recently received a 2-month subscription to the GoTrybe website which is an organization dedicated to trying to help combat childhood obesity by encouraging families to live a healthy lifestyle and get moving.

GoTrybe is an online fitness program that aims at getting the whole family up and moving by providing a web-based program that can be accessed anywhere internet is available.  We received the 9th-12th grade group, the NexTrybe.  GoTrybe has several features divided into 4 basic health sections:
1.  Fitness
2.  Nutrition
3.  Motivation
4.  Wellness

 

You can choose a pre-planned workout, or customize one for the day.  The program is broken down into different age groups and each group has slightly different program features so everyone can be involved:

• ZooDoos is for the elementary ages, K-5th grade
• Trybe180 is for middle school ages, 6th-8th grade
• NexTrybe is for high school ages, 9th-12th grade

This is a fun program that encourages movement. Something that is needed in our world today.  Economically priced you can sign up for $19.95 for a year subscription. But wait, right now you can get a free trial. Go here and sign up — use the code GETFIT . We found this program to be a great reminder of the need to Get Up and  Get Moving!!!

  Check out what my crewmates thought of GoTrybe by clicking here.

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I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse 2010-2011 Crew and as such received a a 2-month subscription to GoTrybe, in exchange for a thorough and honest review.  Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews.  The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but are not influenced by the company or the free product provided .

Timberdoodle Co Review ~ Daily Word Problems & Daily 6-Trait Writing

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This is my first review for Timberdoodle Co. and I am really excited about the opportunity to review for them.  I was chosen to review the Daily Word Problems book, Grade 4 and the Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 3.  Although I have purchased several Evan-Moor products in the past this is the first time I have used these workbooks. I was not disappointed with either one, they are fantastic!

 
Whether we like to admit it or not, we use math everyday in daily life scenarios.  Daily Word Problems Math, Grade 4 is a workbook designed to give daily practice in solving real life math problems. The workbook is broken down into 36 weekly sections  in which each week has a theme.  Monday-Thursday contain a one- or two-step word problem while Friday’s format is more extensive and you may need to do multiple steps or use a chart or graph to come about the answer. Topics covered include fun themes such as school supplies, swimming, astronomy, sharks, and weather.  All the while giving daily exposure to:

addition and subtraction facts

multiplication and division facts

multidigit addition and subtraction with and without regrouping

multiplication with and without regrouping

division with and without remainders

telling time

money

fractions

reading and interpreting graphs and charts

estimation

logic problems

 

The Daily 6-Trait Writing workbook packs 25 weeks of instruction covering Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Voice to provide your child enough practice and the skills necessary to become a competent writer, all in 10-15 minute daily lessons. This was such an awesome addition to our writing program this year. It was a bit of a stretch to use this with Mikayla as a 2nd grader, but I was able to feel confident that she  was getting the necessary instruction she needed with a bit to tweaking and her writing has improved, which makes this Mama happy! You can preview the first 24 pages here.

I loved both of these products and highly recommend them!  They are easy to implement into your day and they are fun too. I especially enjoyed the math word problems because Madison had to stretch her mind and really think out some of the problems. Another thing I liked was that it was just one word problem a day, so she didn’t feel bogged down in having to do several problems, just one.  It makes the perfect addition to any math curriculum to get your child's mind churning.

Economically priced the Daily Word Problems Math, Grade 4 sells for $12.25  and Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 3 sells for only $21.75 on the Timberdoodle website.   Daily Math Word Problems and Daily 6-Trait Writing are available for grades 1-6.  Check out Timberdoodle for all of your homeschooling needs, and request a Timberdoodle catalog by clicking, HERE.

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I received a copy of Daily Word Problems Math, Grade 4 and Daily 6-Trait Writing, Grade 3 from Timberdoodle Co., in exchange for a thorough and honest review.  Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews.  The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but are not influenced by the company or the free product provided .