7 in 7: Day 6

Well, I'm glad this is just a 7 in 7 challenge. I'm barely making it each day. Not that I don't want to write more regularly, but when I have to, it sort of takes the fun and creative out of it. Of course it does build better discipline.

Once again, I'm on my iPad typing up this post totally on the fly and when I'm already tired from the day. I'm sure it'll be great as you read whatever I blather on about tonight. Ha.

End of School Year Reflections

You may remember me mentioning around this time last year (or the year before) that I like to finish the school year with a questionnaire for the kids.  It helps them reflect on everything we've done and I like that it's a bit of a time capsule for them to read about later.  It also helps me see where they are at overall so that I can strive to be a better parent and teacher in the coming years.

I want to share with you some of the answers they provided to this year's reflections.*  Parts in parentheses are my personal comments and/or additions.

1.  Name, date, grade completed.

S - 5/24/13, 12th grade

H - 5/23/13 (they all did it today, someone didn't check his calendar), 7th grade

Z - 5/24/13, 5th grade

J - 5/24/13, 3rd grade

O - 5/24/13, 2nd grade

My Weekend... and Monday

Hello Everybody!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and maybe had the chance to check out the guest posts.  If not, make sure you do, it's a good read and good insight from my wonderful husband, C.

My weekend was quite the mixed bag, so I thought I'd tell you about it and let you know how today is going so far.

But First, Can I Show You a Trick, Mama?

Our kids have all kinds of ways of trying to manipulate and distract me from actually getting the teaching/school parts of the day.  Yesterday, though, O had the best attempt yet.

"It's time for your school, J and O!"

"Okay, Mama, but first, can I show you a trick?" O asked.

I said, "Is it a quick trick?"

Little Things Missed

We stopped into Walgreen's while C was at his doctor's appointment that he nearly missed while we were out getting Windows 8 for super cheap at Best Buy since apparently this is a big shopping and sale day or something?  I don't know.  But anyway, we'd dropped him at his appointment at the last possible minute and then J and O wanted Starbucks hot cocoas and while they drank those, I wanted to run into Walgreen's.

As a bonus, they had Scotch tape on sale for buy one get TWO for free, which is perfect right before Christmas wrapping time.

As we wandered the aisles, O suddenly said, "Mama, it looks like brushes are on sale.  Do you think I could get a brush and a comb for my hair?"

A Couple of Funny Quotes

Yesterday was rich with humor from our youngest two.  If you haven't checked out my Step-by-step post, you can read a lot of good humor there.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't sneak in these quotes somewhere (sorry these are repeats for you, Jessica, since I texted them to you) for record keeping and entertainment.

Step-by-step

I was working with our seven-year-olds in school today and talking about step-by-step processes.  So for fun, I started asking them their idea of step-by-step processes of things they do (then I added in some things they probably had no clue about just to see what they'd come up with) and I made sure to record their answers precisely.

Here are the questions and their step-by-step instructions.  I'd like to recommend you don't actually follow their processes and use a more reputable source if you need instructions.  But it's still fun to read their responses and this survey gives you a little window into our kids' personalities...

Completely Random Costumes

While I was typing up my last blog post, I was interrupted by J and O who have been playing together up in the loft for an hour or so.  They came to show me the new costumes they created.

J was wearing a blindfold and holding one of those big plastic crayon banks (you know, they're like three feet long and from the Dollar Tree).  O had pillows strapped all over his body with belts and he wore a funny jacket and hat over those.

Celebration!

I may not have any good pregnancy or birth stories, but besides kids' birthdays, we get to celebrate their adoptions each year.  Most years, we just go out to eat or make ice cream sundaes; but this year -- also because we owed them anyway -- we went to Cliff's Amusement Park for the day.

Thankfully, we had a half-off ticket deal -- Cliff's is no Disneyland and only worth about half of the ticket price.  It's more like a permanently affixed carnival.  However, it's closer than Disneyland and with our coupon, it was like a quarter of the cost (or less? I forget what Mickey sells tickets for these days).

Table Manners

No matter how many meals we have eaten together as a family, my children's table manners never cease to amaze me.  Or lack of manners is more like it.

Truthfully, we have been caught being good a few times and people have come up to us in restaurants to say how well behaved our children are.  It does happen.  Those moments are sheer bliss, though completely shocking to me.  But I do appreciate the feedback.  It helps me relax a bit and realize that they are learning some decency.

Kid Fun

Today's conversations with the kids have been full of humor for me.  I love days like that when I find a lot of joy and entertainment in just being with them.  I thought I'd share some of my favorite moments here...

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Entrepreneurs

For whatever reason, our four youngest kids woke up feeling ready to tackle the neighborhood and earn some money.  The two older boys teamed up with ideas for doing yard work and J and O had plans for earning money by doing dog-related jobs.

Knowing the kids the way I do, I was pretty sure that this was going to end in some kind of catastrophe.  However, I do like encouraging them to be ambitious, creative and industrious (as well as working together), so I didn't want to let on that I was feeling very nervous about the whole plan.

Lizard in the House

Just like the subject line says, we had a lizard in the house today.  You never know what kind of crazy creature is going to seek out the cool air-conditioned carpet here in the desert.  I'm rarely surprised.  Crickets are the norm, but this was our first lizard!

I snapped some pictures of him sunning himself by our back patio door before he casually went back outside (we had the door cracked open for Nova to let herself in and out while we ran errands).

It was O who spotted the long, thin fellow and let me know.  The kids are well-trained in notifying me about any strange occurrence when my camera might come in handy. 

I'm glad Nova didn't find it first!

End of Year Evaluations

After final exams, I finish up each school year with evaluations -- this is usually a series of questions that make the kids think about their school year and their future, so we can record their state of mind about things for posterity.  Fun, right?  This year, I did the same.  I found questions from other teachers online and made up some of my own.  It was fun to sit down with each kid to go through their thoughts and ideas this way (the older kids did theirs on their own, but it's so fun to read).

I don't want to bore you with all of the answers, so I'll just share my favorites here:

1. What is something we did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life?
J: The shark craft using two cups.  Even though mine is wrecked now, I still remember it.

Final Exam Results

Now that the tests have been administered and graded, I thought I would share some of the results.  The kids did great and I'm really proud of them.  It's funny, because their test results not only show me how much they have learned, but they also help me know how effective I've been in teaching them.  I feel good about those results this year, too, but only because the kids did so well.

And More Doctors

So the year of the V is becoming more like the year of the D-R.  Doctors.  Although we have had plenty of vomit this year, there have been a lot of other reasons for visits to the doctor as well.

Fair warning for the squeamish -- this involves a mouth injury.

Year of the V

A Teen-Jeopardy episode the other night reminded me that this is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese culture.  Here in our house, it's been the Year of Something Else.  Something scarier than a dragon.

Third Day

This is the third day in a row of J feeling better.  Hooray and praise the Lord!  Her appetite is going like gang-busters, too.  She actually enjoys tracking it in her food diary, too.  One day, perhaps I'll scan a page or two so you can see how she's doing. 

We told her she can have one more night in our room and tomorrow, she gets to move back to her bed.  I'm not sure if S is excited to have her roommate back or not.  But we'll be glad to reclaim the floor space where she's been sleeping in our room (while sick).

Saturday

I know it's technically Sunday, but I'm posting about what happened Saturday (hence the title).

Tickles of Today

After battling some kind of 24-hour stomach flu that my niece, N, and I shared (but somehow and gratefully, nobody else in either family), I got back to school with the kids today after the weekend.  Yesterday, they had no schooling, unless you count my teaching example of "when you're sick, rest a lot" (Health class?).  I wasn't purposely trying to set that example, I simply had no energy beyond what was required of me to make several trips to the bathroom -- therefore, I laid around a lot.

But in getting back to school following my illness, I felt it was necessary to make up for the day off because, after all, I'd written my lesson plan in advance and once I write it down, I feel like it is then mostly compulsory.  I do try to work in some flexibility, but I struggle with that, too, because once I let some things slide, it's easy to let more slide -- more often.  So, still tired, I charged ahead and pushed everyone (and me) to the brink of exhaustion trying to catch up.