The Ozmerican Life

School is wrapping up for the "normal" kids who go to a "real" school. Evidently, Quaid is ready to be done for the year too. He makes me laugh. Whenever he didn't want to do a certain assignment I gave him, he would scribble it out like mad until you could hardly see what was written under it. Sometimes he would just make a big "X" over it. Both of those never worked, he always had to do it anyway. But lately he's gotten a little sassy in his protests.




I guess "The end" means he's over it. I had to let him slide this day. He made me laugh and was quite proud of the creative statement he made. He's never minded doing his writing assignments until lately. I could have a battle on my hands next year. Oh well, I'll deal with that next year...until then, we're just going to enjoy our summer!

This was the sight of my kitchen one day last week. To be honest, it's the sight of my kitchen today and well...pretty much every day!


But the great part is it's usually my kids job, not mine :) Except that day.


It was finally nice out. Daddy had just put up the trampoline and the sand was yelling for my kids to come and sink their feet in. And of course the cousins were over. My niece Jacqueline is 11 and is Ava's perfect play mate. Despite Ava being quite the mother hen, when ever there is an older girl around she quite enjoys being mother-henned herself.


So I was happy to let the kids ditch their chores for the day and soak up the beautiful weather with their cousins.

And the boys? I couldn't seem to find cousin Sam, Quaid, and Jentzen. All I know is they went darting out of the house with 3 pocket knives, a screwdriver, and a hammer. I pretended I didn't see that, started humming a happy little tune, and went about my dish duties.

What are you doing today?

And more in the baskets...

And then Ava stole the camera and took a picture of Keira in her "fave dulla" dress...Purple! The back is the new front, haven't you heard?

Me: "What are you guys doing?

Ava: "Watching the clock."

Me: "Why?"

Ava: "We're hungry...Lunch is at 11...we're watching the minutes until 11!"

The end of the school year is coming. I think. I'm not really sure when my school will end or really IF it will end. So I guess this is maybe just a recap of what we have learned and where we are.





Somewhere early along in the year, I ditched my former organization technique (early, like week #2!!) of typed weekly assignment lists with all cooresponding worksheets organized by day. Yeah, that was just too much organizing. Yes, I know....is there such a thing as too organized. In just this one instance, yes there was. Even though I had the best layed out plan...things would come up, or something would take a little longer or shorter time to grasp.

I reorganized the kids work in big binders according to work book or unit of study....way more efficient. Every morning I grab the next page from each subject and make a hand written list of everything the kids need to get done that day.

That simple little list made an entire worlds difference in our day. The kids go right in after breakfast and start working. They know what to expect because they can see it. As they finish, they check things off their little list and then I recheck them as I have made sure they're done properly.



This is where we work. We had a little redesign half way through the year. An organized house is a happy house. It's TRUE! We got a cool calendar and the kids have fun marking off the day and putting up the weather in the morning, and then change it at lunch and then change it again at dinner...we do live in MN afterall!!



We love our whiteboard, especially with Jentzen who started school along with us in January. We write his letters up there and he loves to erase them and match the bigs with the littles.

And another bonus, the kids get to go to school in their jammies if they want. Ava is my little go getter. She runs into the school room in the morning and often times has almost all of her work done before breakfast and before 8am.

I love this little rack from IKEA to keep all our pens, pencils, and markers organized. New desk space was needed to keep the kids focused on what their assignments are instead of their brother's or sister's.

Keira likes to maker herself at home on her chair, doing her "school" too. She really thinks she's at the same level as the others...which is quite cute at times and other times a bit trying on mom who's working on getting the real school work done with the others.
But usually she'll opt for more breakfast over a worksheet :)

All in all, this school year has been a success. I'm pretty sure the kids learned a thing or two and I'm pretty sure I still have some of my hair left!!

Let Summer School begin!!