The Hagerman Fossil Beds

We enjoyed a field trip in the Magic Valley Area today (Twin Falls). We went to the Hagerman Fossil Beds Visitor Center and saw the state fossil, "The Hagerman Horse." This was a fun little field trip, but I wouldn't recommend it until spring time at least. Included at the Visitor's Center is all the information that you need to tour the area and see fossil beds, views of the Snake River and the Oregon Trail. The Visitor's Center is free.

While you are in Hagerman stop at the Malad Gorge and enjoy what I consider one of the "7 Wonders of Idaho." They have a lovely park nearby perfect for a picnic. There is a $4 car fee.

This is a great thing to do if you have a 4th grader studying Idaho History. Happy Field Triping!

This Week So Far...

Saturday we went out to Uncle Bill's in Ontario for a family dinner. My second cousin Tara brought her new born baby Mackenzie for everyone to meet. Isn't she cute?!

My own baby Oliver turned 5 on the 17th!! We had a small little party with Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell and his Aunt Heather and cousins. We will take him to Chuck E Cheese this weekend for some extra fun.

We took the boys on a field trip to the Canyon County Historical Society Museum. They had a lovely assortment of displays for such a tiny museum. One of the boys favorite things there were the large model trains on display. 

 

And we all got a kick out of the large mustache tea cup collection- designed to keep those Victorian mustaches high and dry while drinking tea...who knew!

 

Today we headed to Albertson's for a field trip with a group of homeschool families, We got a lovely tour and, ate many samples, and learned all about healthy eating.

It's been a busy week so far and there is lots more on our to-do list. 

It is so nice to have Levi home for the week and do all these fun activities with him! 

Hello Blog

 Hello Dear Blog,
 
I am so sorry I have neglected to write on you this few weeks. I have been so busy actually living life-I haven't the extra time to write about it. I will try harder to make some times to jot my thought down, because blog I miss you dearly. You provide a sort of odd therapy...or perhaps I just love to read myself thinking aloud. Either way I promise to write at least weekly from now on.

Lets see where to begin...first of all I have been working hard with the kids on our habits. When you homeschool it is SO easy to let a lot just go.I am working hard to stick to the lessons I had planned for the week also...sometimes I just push them to the next week-No more!

"Did you make your bed? "
"Ah!No biggie you can do it later."
"Are you dressed for the day?"
"Oh that's ok we don't have any activities outside the house today. "
"Did you do 5 lessons in math this week?"
"4 is -good enough."

Little things like that add up to general sloth likeness-so we are whipping ourselves into shape. 

And I am literally whipping myself into shape. I started running again. See I used to run...and I loved it. I one of those sick individuals. I am an endurance runner and your body never forgets that joy. So I started up running every couple of days just a mile her and mile there. Now I have a partner and she is serious! So we meet to run at 5am and run our little (big) bums off (we hope). You can follow my progress over at the Daily Mile.

On the crazy side, I may be going back to school for a BA in Art Education. I want to go to NNU if they will have me. I need to retake my ACTs in April, make sure my financial aid is in order, apply and GO baby Go! I talked with my best friend and husband about what program they think I should go into for a degree and they both said Art Education without hesitation. So we will see how this all plays out. Yes I still plan on homeschooling...that is where the crazy part comes in. : )

I have also worked on the outline for my novel. I had just been writing to write and realized my plot and events kept changing-so an outline will help me stay on track and get the story done. 

Blog-consider yourself updated....
But wait..

I forgot to mention...

Levi is home!! And he is looking for a local job so he can be home more often then once per month. Wish us luck or pray for a miracle...either one may give us an edge!

Your loving author,
April

Goal Setting

In our home we have kids that sometimes don't want to do anything! I have some boys that can be volatile with their emotions and have break downs when it is time to practice the piano or do a math page for example. After lots of tears (on my part) here is what I've found successful for these kids....

At the beginning of the day before breakfast I have a short interview with the child. They have a clipboard and we structure their whole day. We first put in our plans for the day. For example our day today looked like this:

8:30 breakfast
11:30 Lunch
12:00 Leave for older sister's scholar class and boy's social play while we wait
4:00 mom gone for visiting teaching (which is just me visiting a neighbor)
6:00 dinner
7:00 family reading time (this varies depending on the day, today it's after dinner)

So he had his structure. Then he put in when he wanted to do things. He had the control. He inserted when he would read his scriptures, free reading, when/what he wanted to do for exercise, practice the piano, and do his chores. Then he inserted things he wanted to learn that day. Today he had down wipe board math, wipe board spelling, chess, and blog post to name a few.

He also chooses a reward for the day if he is successful. Today he choose 30 minutes of Wii Olympics. He clearly understands the contract and the reward.

The day does necessitate me being more flexible. At the meeting I've agreed to the "terms" of day. Then is my chance to say, "I can't play a game with you at that time. You'll need to choose a different time. Here is when I could be available."

The magic of the whole thing is that it's his idea. He's responsible for the success of his day. He's planned his day when he's happy and unstressed (before the day really begins). I've seen a lot of success with this. He loves packing his clip board around and checking things off of his list. This child will always be challenged with motivation and emotions. I've tried to create a system that I can guide him though so that as he gets older he can recognize how he can be successful despite any challenges. The skill set will be ingrained.

What things have you done in your home to encourage motivation?

I'm a new contributor....

Hi Everyone! I'm a new contributor to this blog. I've enjoyed reading all your great ideas! We live in the Twin Falls/Magic Valley area of Idaho. We've been homeschooling for over six wonderful years! We have four children. Our oldest is a girl, age 11. We have three rowdy boys ages 10, 9 and 7.

Our homeschooling method involves the Thomas Jefferson Education model. Some of you may be familiar with that. My strength and love is to create systems for success within the home school home. A lot of my posts will be geared toward that end.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your home schooling experience.

Click to view our Leadership Education Blog.

Past Tense

Past Tense

Once upon a time
The future seemed far off in the distance
We listened to them complain
How time flies by so quickly
Then we were there, so suddenly
We hardly knew how we’d gotten here
Couldn’t help but look behind us
Just to check
Where did the time go?
It had been used up so thoroughly
Unchangeable and permanent
We turned around and looked forward
Straight past the horizon
To the new future
We’d be more careful with this one
Plan-Prepare-Organize-Prioritize
Only to realize
What is a future
Without today ?
Only a moment in passing

by April Mitchell
2/2010

Fairy Tales

We're studying the Middle Ages right now and we just finished a mini-unit on fairy tales. We read lots of fairy tales, of course, like these:


and Rapunzel; The White Witch; Jack and The Beanstalk; anything by the Grimm brothers...

The two oldest boys wrote their own fairy tales and words cannot express how proud I am of them. I bought some fairy tale-themed scrapbook paper that one of our sons used to make his into a beautiful 8x8 bound book.

We did the Evan-Moor Pocket Books for Fairy Tales:



Here's a picture of our oldest making his elf for The Elves & The Shoemakers:

Super cute project, by the way, for multiple ages (we had 2 2yr olds, a 4 yr old, a 7 yr old and a 9 yr old make the pocket books. it was a fun family activity daily for a week).

Don't forget to watch some movies, too!