The talk.

Yesterday, I had "the talk" with the boys. No. Not that one. ;) The one I find myself giving them about this time each year telling them what grade they're in now. You see, as homeschoolers, we don't often talk about grade levels and very much teach to the kid's abilities rather than sticking with a more traditional "this is what you should do in third grade" mentality. I actually read this blog post awhile back that addressed this issue perfectly. (And, yes, we're all over the place in terms of grade levels and subjects here and the boys give me that stricken look of "what's the right answer?" when people ask them, lol.)

So. Even though we won't start our school year "officially" until September 6, the public schools here are back in session and yesterday was orientation for our one-day-a-week enrichment program, Options. (This will be our fourth year participating and the boys are stoked for classes to start September 12.) So it seemed like the right time for "the talk" so the boys would know what to tell people when they asked. To add to the confusion, though, the answers are different for people who ask while they're at Options and for people who ask when we're just out at a store and folks are wondering why they're not in school. :)

For those of you who are wondering, here's the deal...

Noah is 10, will be 11 in November. If we'd put him in public school, he'd be in fifth grade this year. At home, we do work from a couple years below that to a few years beyond that, depending on the subject. At Options, he was a grade "ahead" for awhile but we've now switched him back to being officially in fifth grade since classes are combined for 4-6 and for 7-12. So. Noah's fairly easy. If people ask, he's in fifth grade.

Asher is 9, with one of those summer birthdays. So, for public school, he could either be in third or fourth grade this year, depending on whether we'd sent him just after he turned 5 or waited a year. We'd have waited a year to keep him two grades behind Noah. So he'd be an older third grader this year and is actually about that all around at home. At Options, though, right now, he's in the fourth grade classes. His friends are in the fourth grade classes and there are more class choices for fourth grade. Next year, we'll probably declare him officially a fourth grader again, so that he can stay in that 4th-6th grade bubble a bit longer and so that he'll be back on track with that public school grade thing.

Micah is 6, just turned six. So, for public school, he could either just be starting kindergarten or be going into first grade this year. We'd have started him last year despite his late summer birthday (can't keep this kid down!), so we'll say he's officially a first grader this year even though at home he does half his subjects right alongside his older brothers and is already almost beyond the third grade math curriculum. But. At Options, he's in second grade. Because last year he wound up in the first grade reading and math classes because kindergarten wasn't challenging enough, and he can't take those classes again...and he'd be bored to tears if he did. ;) So, at Options, he's a very short second grader...who fortunately won't need to take a "reading" class this year at Options (as it would likely also not be the right level for him) and will have classes like cooking and art instead. ;) (Honestly, at home, the boy's beyond even second grade levels in just about everything except, maybe, scissor use, lol.)  

And that, friends, is what grades my boys are in. ;) In explaining this all to the boys, I also told them that it's perfectly acceptable to just answer with "I'm 9" since often people are generally just looking for how old a kid is anyhow when they ask what grade they're in. ;) Besides, it's just too complicated to explain every time. :)

Quote #35.

Last one for August: 

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. –Erasmus

Says the family that, in the past week, hit two book store sales, placed a couple online orders and journeyed to the library twice…

Yup. Love our books here and seem to always be able to justify buying more. And while it makes me a little sad sometimes that we don’t do the whole “back to school” shopping dealio since we homeschool, I very much make up for it in buying books for the year. ;) 

Just for kicks...here are some of the books on my "to buy" list for this week:

• Mathematicians are People, Too (My two math-minded boys will likely find this interesting and my non-math-minded boy will hopefully realize that math has stories, too.)
• The Fallacy Detective (After a year of Encyclopedia Brown at bedtime, hoping to move the boys up to this because they seem more than ready.)
• Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction (Because I've decided to embrace the boy-ness going on here and this is "safer" than The Practical Pyromaniac, which is the book Noah's lobbying for, lol. Incidentally, I've also found books lately about the history of weaponry and am definitely planning to incorporate that into our history studies as apparently that sticks in their heads better than "boring" facts, LOL.)

Have any book recommendations you'd like to share? I'd love to hear 'em!

NCAR and a funny.

On Tuesday, our homeschool group (well about 50 kids worth, which is actually only a small portion of our entire group) met up in Boulder at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). After splitting up into more manageable sized groups, we watched a short video, got a tour of the facility (the boys particularly liked seeing the supercomputer room), had a lesson on lightning/lightning safety and then were free to roam the exhibits on our own. While much of the information was stuff the boys already knew about, we still enjoyed the gorgeous facility (designed by I.M. Pei!), the time with friends and the hands-on lesson:

Asher and Micah, though, did not appreciate the lightning tube exhibit...which Noah used to demonstrate just how he could shock each of them if they put their feet up off the floor so they weren't grounded. Brothers, lol. ;)

(Also. If, btw, you're local and haven't been to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, I highly recommend going! Even if you're not interested in all the science stuff (which is actually very cool), the building and the view are spectacular!)

After that, we headed to Longmont to meet up with Nathan for lunch and then hit the store closing sale of the Borders there near Nathan's office. We managed to spend more than we should have (but snagged some great books!) but my favorite part was this:

Obviously, some employee had a great sense of humor (and is a Harry Potter fan), as this endcap was filled with empty hangers...hilarious! 

Career day/week.

So. Last week we had a visitor. Nathan's cousin Theresa came and hung out with us for the week and it was awesome. On Wednesday, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to show off the Rockies. We walked around Bear Lake (one of the boys' favorite walks/hikes):

And went to the Alluvial Fan area (another favorite, though we didn't do any rock climbing/scrambling this time, lol) and enjoyed the water a wee bit:

And then we did lunch in town...then caved and played some miniature golf and went down the giant slide:

(Yes, Noah stayed at the bottom and took this picture.) All in all, it was a grand day (and we're so thankful that the weather cooperated, as the forecast had called for afternoon thunderstorms). 

Beyond our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, we enjoyed chatting with Theresa and doing some shopping and playing games and just hanging out. And then, on Friday, we went to the circus. Did I mention that Theresa was in town because she works with the circus? :) Yup, she's the head wardrobe person for the Gold Tour (with Ringling Brothers). So. We got to hear all about what that entails (which is really kind of fascinating) and how her day to day life unfolds usually and what it's like to be in a different city each week. Uh-huh...the homeschooler in me was totally thinking "career day!" and is so glad the boys get to experience things like this. 

Oh. And the circus was fantastic. The boys, as usual, loved it! (Click here and scroll to the middle of the post for pictures from the last time Theresa was here.) During the pre-show, Asher was the only one of the boys willing to participate in some of the fun activities, like the low-wire:

And the giant limbo line:

Yes, Asher's really, really good at limbo contests. ;)

And then we sat in our seats and watched the show:

And it was cool. :)

So. That was our week with Theresa in a nutshell. She's in Eugene this week and hopefully enjoying some Newman's Fish and Chips for Nathan and me (as we used to live in Eugene and greatly miss the food there, lol). 

Joining the bandwagon...

So. I did it. I joined the Swagbucks bandwagon. :) I'll be honest; I was skeptical. I'm pleasantly happy at the moment, though, with the whole dealio. If you don't know...here's a very basic run-down on how it works...

Swagbucks is "an online portal dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called 'Swag Bucks,, which can be redeemed for exclusive Swagbucks.com merchandise." Basically, you perform various things online (many of which you already do regularly) and earn "Swagbucks"...once you have a certain number of Swagbucks, you can buy different prizes. It's all very similar to going to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid and earning those little carnival tickets that the different games spit out and then going and cashing those in for a prize at the counter. But. In this case, you don't have to whack any moles on the head and you end up with way cooler prizes, like Amazon giftcards. :) (You can also buy specific items or chances to win specific items but I'm mostly just interested in the Amazon giftcards, lol. In just a couple weeks of trying this out, I've already earned more than $10 in Amazon giftcards!)

To help (because I know it can be confusing), here are some of the simpler ways to earn Swagbucks (the ways I've been doing it thus far):

• Searching the web. You already search the web for various things, right? You probably use Google or Bing or some other search engine. Well, if you use the Swagbucks search engine, randomly during your searches a little banner pops up at the top telling you "Congratulations! You've earned 11 Swagbucks!" The numbers vary, so it's always a fun little surprise. I've had anywhere from 7 to 28 so far, though I know some people occasionally earn up to 50 for a single search. I've heard that you might earn more on Fridays but have no real experience with that. So. No real extra work on your part...just use this engine instead and have the potential to earn points. Thus far, I seem to average winning about three times during the day for roughly 30 Swagbucks and haven't yet had a search where the results didn't get me to what I was looking for.
• Vote in the daily polls. From the Swagbucks site, you can take a daily poll each day and earn a Swagbuck. Admittedly, one Swagbuck isn't a heap, but that's 30ish a month if you just do that first thing in the morning. 
• Go through the No Obligation Special Offers (NOSO). Just like with the daily poll, I start the morning with clicking through this path. Just go to the page and click on the "Start Earning Now" button. Various offers will pop up asking you for your contact information if you're interested. If you are, go ahead and fill those out. If you're not, just scroll to the bottom of each offer and click "Skip" or "See Next Offer" until a little window pops up to give you a code to type in...voila, two more Swagbucks. 
• Like Swagbucks on Facebook. If you're on Facebook, find and like Swagbucks. Every now and again, they'll post a special Swagcode that you can then go enter on your account and earn extra Swagbucks just for paying attention.
• Follow the Swagbucks Blog. Same deal as Facebook. :) (They also have other deals they offer on the blog and such, though I've really not paid that much attention to anything other than the codes.)
• Watch Swagbucks TV. There's a section on the Swagbucks site called Swagbucks TV. It has a heap of little video clips. For every ten that you watch (roughly), you earn 3 more Swagbucks. (There's a Swag Bucks Meter in the top right corner that pops up when you're playing them and grows to 100% in 10% increments.) You can earn up to 75 Swagbucks per day this way. Note, if the clip is a particularly short one, it doesn't appear to count. Also, you can have the volume off/low and just play these while you're doing other stuff online (like formatting this blog post, lol). And, you don't necessarily have to watch the entire clip to earn the credit on the meter so watch the meter and you can click on a new video sooner.
• Complete Special Offers. Swagbucks has a number of special offers available that will earn you varying amounts of Swagbucks. For instance, if you buy $29 or more worth of merchandise from Old Navy online (through their Swagbucks link), you get 225 Swagbucks just for going through this link instead of shopping otherwise. They also have surveys you can try to complete (you have to qualify first) and other sorts of things. I've done a couple of the special offers simply because I was actually going to shop from a site anyhow and this was just like a little bonus.
• Shop & Earn. A number of online stores have listings through Swagbucks. For every dollar you spend at one of them, you earn 2 Swagbucks. Easy. (Yes, there are obviously some restrictions like you can't have paid for the purchase with giftcards and you don't earn Swagbucks for the shipping and tax and such, but basically it's pretty straightforward.) I've done this a couple times (again, just shopping I had intended on doing anyhow and remembered to check Swagbucks to see if they had a shopping link to go through). To be fair, though, I've not seen the Swagbucks credited to my account quite yet (most Swagbucks are credited instantly but the Shop & Earn ones can take longer since the store has to verify it or something). 

Now. Here are some other ways that I've heard are great for earning more Swagbucks but that I don't have any personal experience with as of yet:

• Install the Swagbucks toolbar. This is all explained on the site, I just haven't done that.
• Twitter. Sorry. I don't, so I have no clue, but I get the sense that you can earn more via Twitter somehow. I think it has to do with codes being given out.
• Print and use coupons. I haven't done this yet but probably will. Swagbucks has pages of coupons that you can print out and use on stuff like groceries and services. Once you redeem them, you get 10 Swagbucks for each coupon redeemed.
• Play games. If you're into online games, you can earn Swagbucks by playing their games. I have no experience with this. :)
• Refer friends. Apparently, one of the best ways to earn Swagbucks is to refer your friends and family and get them to sign up through your referral link. When you sign up through my link, I'll get extra points. I'm told that I'll keep getting points whenever you do, too (up to a point)! Score! So. If you haven't signed up for Swagbucks yet and are interested after reading this long post here, lol, won't you pretty please click on my referral link here or on the banner below (yes, I deliberately chose the Star Wars themed banner, lol) and give it a try? Hopefully, we can both earn plenty of Swagbucks and get some sweet prizes!

Thanks! ;) 

(I'm done with my spiel now. Promise. :) Just excited about essentially free Amazon giftcards and thought I'd share, lol. Off to a field trip now...pictures from last week soon!)