Long Time, No Write.....
It has been way too long since I updated this blog. You might think that we are on summer break, but no such luck. We have been busy attending homeschool conferences and vendor conventions. In fact three weekends in a row in June found us at different conferences.
June 2nd found me in Salt Lake City, Utah, presenting at the LDS-NHA conference. The next weekend found me running our WALDSFE conference here in Redmond, and the next weekend our family was down in Puyallup running Steve's booth at the WHO conference. We didn't get much book learning down in those three weeks nor the two or three leading up, but we did learn many great things.
First, Kray decided to try to sell his jewelry and learned that it takes a few "broken eggs" and a lot of work to get an inventory ready to sell. He has learned the value of money as well, now that he is indebted to his parents at a great sum of money. He also is learning how to sell his wares, how to put a website together and how to make costumers happy. (You can view some of his pieces by going here http://www.waldsfe.org/kray/beads.htm )
Second, we don't like doing conferences back, to back, to back, but we know it can be done. This schedule was brutal for family life, but we also learned that we can do it when we all pull together and pick up the slack when it happens.
Lastly, we love each other and like to be around each other. While I was in Utah, I didn't have my children or husband with me and I missed them terrible. I was barely gone more than 36 hours but I did miss them. It was a nice break, but I have a hard time looking at the world around me without thinking about them. As I looked at the beautiful flowers around Temple Square, I couldn't help but think how much my little girl would love to run up and smell the roses. The fountains would have had their water disturbed by my children's fingers both little and big. They would have loved to seen the movies I saw while there and they would have loved the art work on the wall if only for the air conditioning inside the building.
I have to say I have a hard time not thinking about my children and about learning where ever I go…I guess our mantra "Life is school and school if life" has more truth to it than fiction.
But back to the schooling it seems we haven't had while my fingers have been absent from this blog. We have started a new system for the summer. Each Monday I give each child a contract with the list of things they are to accomplish by Friday 5pm. Some items never change (bedroom, clothes, chores, hug and kiss for mom, etc) and other do depending on the week (math, science, spelling, typing lessons etc.). They look over their week and the assignments given and they tell me what days they will have them accomplished. We then agree and both sign the contract. There is no free time until they have completed their contract for the day. We have done it now for three weeks and so far it is working like a charm. It takes about an hour on Sunday for me to get the assignments all set up (I do have six children), but it is well worth my time.
We didn't do it for the week with the Fourth of July and it was an awful week. We also missed the next week since I was at cub camp all week with Matt and the kids didn't do a thing. I can't wait to get them back out next week and start the process all over. I really like the non argumentative style of the contracts.
June 2nd found me in Salt Lake City, Utah, presenting at the LDS-NHA conference. The next weekend found me running our WALDSFE conference here in Redmond, and the next weekend our family was down in Puyallup running Steve's booth at the WHO conference. We didn't get much book learning down in those three weeks nor the two or three leading up, but we did learn many great things.
First, Kray decided to try to sell his jewelry and learned that it takes a few "broken eggs" and a lot of work to get an inventory ready to sell. He has learned the value of money as well, now that he is indebted to his parents at a great sum of money. He also is learning how to sell his wares, how to put a website together and how to make costumers happy. (You can view some of his pieces by going here http://www.waldsfe.org/kray/beads.htm )
Second, we don't like doing conferences back, to back, to back, but we know it can be done. This schedule was brutal for family life, but we also learned that we can do it when we all pull together and pick up the slack when it happens.
Lastly, we love each other and like to be around each other. While I was in Utah, I didn't have my children or husband with me and I missed them terrible. I was barely gone more than 36 hours but I did miss them. It was a nice break, but I have a hard time looking at the world around me without thinking about them. As I looked at the beautiful flowers around Temple Square, I couldn't help but think how much my little girl would love to run up and smell the roses. The fountains would have had their water disturbed by my children's fingers both little and big. They would have loved to seen the movies I saw while there and they would have loved the art work on the wall if only for the air conditioning inside the building.
I have to say I have a hard time not thinking about my children and about learning where ever I go…I guess our mantra "Life is school and school if life" has more truth to it than fiction.
But back to the schooling it seems we haven't had while my fingers have been absent from this blog. We have started a new system for the summer. Each Monday I give each child a contract with the list of things they are to accomplish by Friday 5pm. Some items never change (bedroom, clothes, chores, hug and kiss for mom, etc) and other do depending on the week (math, science, spelling, typing lessons etc.). They look over their week and the assignments given and they tell me what days they will have them accomplished. We then agree and both sign the contract. There is no free time until they have completed their contract for the day. We have done it now for three weeks and so far it is working like a charm. It takes about an hour on Sunday for me to get the assignments all set up (I do have six children), but it is well worth my time.
We didn't do it for the week with the Fourth of July and it was an awful week. We also missed the next week since I was at cub camp all week with Matt and the kids didn't do a thing. I can't wait to get them back out next week and start the process all over. I really like the non argumentative style of the contracts.
posted by Doreen @ 3:15 PM
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