Our weekend (part 2).

Just a few things. :) 

First. Duplos (yet again) to the rescue! Our toothpick bridges are pretty much done now. We hit a minor glitch when we were trying to figure out how to attach the two sides of each bridge. Brilliantly, I then had an "ah-ha!" moment. Just as Duplo blocks came in handy when we were trying to explain fractions and simplest form, Duplo blocks were the solution to holding our bridge sides up while adding the roadbeds and tops. Like so:

(Pinned the sides to foam board and placed them in our little Duplo holder. Yes, we ended up making more than one holder so more than one boy could work at a time. I guess it's a good thing that we haven't gotten rid of the four big ol' tubs of Duplo blocks that we still have.)

We'll let the bridges "cure" for a bit and test them later this week. I'll take better pics of the finished projects then.

Second. Beyond mowing and toothpick bridges, we managed to sort through all the boys' clothes...switching out cold weather attire for summer duds. (Yes, it's Colorado and I'm sure some of the cold weather clothes will still be needed, lol. No worries. I keep out some pants and sweaters even through the summer.) I'm embarrassed by how many tee shirts and shorts they have (that's what happens when you have three boys and just continue to hand things down, lol), but am proud to say that I weeded out 4 bags of clothes to take to Goodwill or otherwise distribute. Yay!

Third. Noah took this picture:

Just because. ;)

Fourth. It's technically not part of the weekend any more, but Noah started swim team this morning. Sounds like it went pretty well.

Guess we're headed into summer now...  :)

Quote #22.

Hope your Monday is going well...

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. –Helen Keller

Today, on Memorial Day, let's take a moment to remember those who have touched our lives…

(If you have a few minutes, visit my layouts over on the Good Grief Blog and join me in remembering my dad today...)

Our weekend.

What are you all doing for the Memorial Day weekend? Anything exciting? We don't have any grand plans here. Yesterday, Noah mowed the yard for the first time...

Nathan was pretty excited. ;) The younger two boys were, um, not. They don't think it's fair that Noah will get paid for mowing the yard. (They're desperately trying to think up ways to make more money, lol.) For the record, we decided awhile ago that indoor chores like kitchen duties and bathrooms and vacuuming are all included in general household upkeep...which is the responsibility of everyone in the house. So, those are covered and not compensated (unless someone's going to start paying *me* lol). Outdoor things like shoveling snow and mowing the yard...things that we might actually consider hiring a neighborhood kid to do for us...are opportunities to earn some extra money. Unfortunately for the younger two, our mower is simply too much for them to handle. It's not self-propelled and this is the first time Noah's been able to successfully push it (yeah, we tried last summer). As I explained to them, though, sometimes them's the breaks. Sorry. ;) 

Beyond the excitement of mowing the yard (lol), our week's science lesson carried over to the weekend (so as to have Nathan available to help). In reviewing the physics that we covered earlier this year, we're now building model toothpick bridges. It's a bit more involved than I anticipated, but Noah's loving it:

Noah, as you can see, went all out. He made a sketch. He then re-drew it to scale. He's got the foam board and wax paper and sketch (which is sandwiched in between and hard to see here) and is using T-pins to secure the toothpicks before gluing the joints. For simplicity's sake, we limited the boys to under 12 inches long, though Noah's talking about building another just for fun. 

In any case, we finished the two sides for all three bridges (Asher and Micah also had sketches (not drawn to scale, though) and also helped with the same process...but Nathan and I had to step in a bit to help with actually getting them finished). We'll let those dry/cure and see about adding roadbeds and such tomorrow. Noah's talking about testing their load capacity later next week. Don't worry. We'll take pictures of the finished projects before we destroy them. ;) 

And that's pretty much it for our Memorial Day weekend plans. :) Hope yours is going well!

Summer plans.

So. Our local public schools will be finishing up this week. Many of our homeschooling friends are also wrapping up for the academic year. We, since we're sticking with our 3 weeks on/1 week off sort of schedule, will still be doing schoolwork through the summer. I know you're jealous. ;) 

But. While we continue with our schoolwork through the summer, it's not quite business as usual. :) We'll likely lighten the academic load a bit to accommodate the extras that happen in the summer. Here's a quick run down of what else we'll be up to this summer in addition to our normal homeschool schedule:

• Noah has signed up for swim team at our neighborhood gym. We've not done this before but are excited. It'll mean 3-5 practices weekday mornings and 5-6 meets during June and July. If any of you have tips or tricks, I'd love to hear 'em!
• Asher and Micah will be doing another session of swim lessons. We'd started earlier than summer this year because we were unsure whether we'd be able to do the summer sessions (due to scheduling). As it turns out, we'll be able to do the June session, and they're stoked. It's twice a week in the afternoons.
• All three are signed up for another session of archery. Because they just love it. ;) (Nathan and I actually each got a chance recently to go for an hour with the moms and dads in our homeschool group. Yeah. We get why the boys love it. ;) It was so much fun!) So. This will be another 6 week session...one hour a week.
• Asher and Micah continue to do karate twice a week and love it. During the summer, we'll switch to the morning sessions probably (just cooler in the gym/facility in the mornings).
• All three are also still participating in the Healthy Kids program and are looking forward to the upcoming Fun Runs this summer. We have four more before September.
• We've also signed up for a few local offerings and will be taking advantage of them as we can throughout the summer...things like cheap movies at our local theater, free bowling for the boys, and our local library's summer reading program. Yay for local stuff!

And that's that. Busy.

Also. I'm starting to think about what we'll tackle next year already. (To clarify, we consider each academic year to start the day after Labor Day in September for the sake of having a "start" to each year.) Given that, I thought I'd do some curriculum reviews...tell you what we've used this year and what's worked and what hasn't...because, hey, I love reading stuff like that, myself, and am hoping I might possibly help some of you out there in the process. So, stay tuned...

Quote #21.

Enjoying our first Monday without Options for the summer...meanwhile, here's this week's quote:

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent. –Epictetus

As I’m starting to plan our homeschool approach/curriculum for the coming year, I find this quote to be a brilliant reminder. I need to do a better job of embracing and utilizing each boys’ strengths as well as my own. We function better when we do. I know this. 

ETA: I just remembered a book that I read awhile back that touched on this subject. I'm going to re-read it this week as a reminder. If you haven't read it, I seem to remember that it's got some great points. :)