Hiking the Rock

We have been wanting to hike "The Rock" down in Castle Rock for quite awhile, and we had a co-op  yesterday to do so, which was great. The weather was perfect- it definitely feels like spring. Camille insisted on racing up the mountain- she really, really wanted to be first. It was hard to keep up with her!

STEM Straw Challenge

Today I hosted a co-op where the kids built lots of stuff with straws. First, they had to make a tower to hold a bucket, and then see how much weight it could hold. Then, they build a boat with straws and aluminum foil, and again tested to see how much weight it could hold. Lastly, they had a challenge to build the tallest tower with just straws and tape.

Drama Club

My girls absolutely LOVE putting on plays. Almost once a week they come up with a play to present to us. When they are with their cousins, it's every night they come up with a play.

Audra had a wonderful time in her Snow White play last year.

When we switched our Options program this year, part of the reason I switched was because I was told that Cloverleaf had a drama program. Unfortunately, when we got there this year we realized this wasn't the case. Both Audra and Claire were saddened.

I looked into putting them into a drama program. There's some really great ones in the area. As I looked into them, however, the cheapest one I found was FIVE HUNDRED dollars a person! And, that didn't even guarantee that they might just be a cow in the backfield. NO WAY! I love my girls, but not enough to spend college tuition on a three month drama program.

So, I did what any crazy homeschooling mama who has zero experience with drama would do: I started my own club!

WHAT?!?! So says anybody who knows me.

I sent out an e-mail to my homeschooling groups and pretty much said, "I have zero experience, so you get what you pay for, but if you're interested in a low key drama club where the kids will put on a play, let's get the kids together and see what happens."

Two kids agreed to give this idea a chance. Combined with my two, we were only at 4. I reached out to some wonderful school friends to join- I got 2 more, for a total of 6.

We decided to give it a go.

I checked out a book from the library about how to teach drama. We met together for 7 weeks. The kids played drama games, picked out a play they wanted to do, memorized scripts, picked out costumes, and made sets.

They had such a great time- and, surprisingly, so did I! I really, truly had absolutely no idea how this would go as I have never done anything like this before. But every time the kids got together they had so much fun. They really clicked together. They were so invigorating, and it really invigorated me as well!

Tonight was their performance. I got a room at the library which worked perfectly.

The play was called, "The King's Three Daughters."

(This was in the rehearsal- Camille wasn't in the play, and didn't love all of our rehearsals. She would say, "I HATE drama club!" and get really cuddly during practices. In some ways it was cute. In other ways, not so much.)

One of the moms made these really cute crown cookies.

These pictures are from last weeks rehearsal:

We played a game where the kids had to turn each other into statues. As a teacher, you never know what kids will take to. This was a game they LOVED! It was easily their favorite game that we did:

After the play tonight we went out to dinner:

Overall, an absolutely wonderful night and a wonderful time- and it saved us $1,000! I actually hope to do this again. I'm thinking one play a semester. Now that I kind-of know what I am doing, it doesn't seem nearly as daunting.

Bread, Bread, Bread!

I know I have a problem, but I LOVE good, quality bread! I have been making our own bread for years, and now I found a new blog dedicated solely to bread. It's been fun experimenting with other recipes, and even more fun to have great success with those recipes.

Here's some dark chocolate cherry pull apart bread:

And, some cherry vanilla bagels:

I'm not sure what I'll try next, but I'm excited to give a new recipe a chance!

HERE is the blog- bon apetit!

Murder Mystery

A friend of mine works at our local community college. She posted on FB about the school putting on a murder mystery dinner- for $5/person you get dinner, dessert, and a show.

Our girls have been BEGGING us to take them to a murder mystery dinner, but the problem is that most of these programs are for adults only. I asked my friend if kids could come, she said yes- and it was a match made in heaven! Especially since for only $5, even if the girls had a horrible time and were miserable and we needed to leave early, it was not a large investment.

The girls could not have been more excited about this. Midday today a lot of snow started falling, and we were all very sad at the thought of the event being cancelled. Audra said some prayers that it would stop, and it worked.

The night was a success! Camille wasn't as thrilled and thought it was a little boring, and Audra and Claire got so into it. They were taking notes, asking lots of questions, and really trying to figure out who the murderer was.

And- we guessed who the murderer was correctly! We didn't have enough clues as to why he was the murderer, so we didn't win the grand prize (which is OK- the grand prize was plastic cow pies).

I'm so glad that our girls are really, really good kids. I love that when things come up that sound fun, we can know that our girls will behave, follow directions, and we can have an enjoyable time. Even though Camille didn't have a great time, she was awesome to just come sit on my lap and snuggle. I'm glad that we can take them places!!!

2/3 Complete

It is hard to believe it, but we are already 2/3 of the way done with our school year! We are finishing up a unit on movement and friction and are about ready to start a unit on horses.

On Thursday we got a pretty decent snowstorm, one of only two we have had thus far. Ben had Friday off of work, so while everybody else was at school, Ben took the girls sledding- something they have been craving with the lack of snow. Were they in school, the snow would have been melted by the time they got off. It was nice that they got to enjoy the hills with no other crowds, the powder was untouched (so Ben gave them another quick lesson on friction), and they had a great time spending quality time together. Just one of the perks of  homeschooling.

It's been a great year- with ups and downs, of course- so far. The girls are loving hanging out together and are learning by leaps and bounds.

Which is why it was interesting when on one of my homschooling FB boards a public school mom posted this homework assignment, and the frustration of what the teacher wrote as her kindergarten son was scolded for getting this answer "wrong":

The assignment was to circle the three items in each row that go together.

The mom wrote on the homework: "We said all these go in the house except a fox."

The teachers three notes say: "While I appreciate Bobo's creativity, I also want him to understand that there is sometimes a right and wrong answer to things and you can't always reason your way out of them. If this had been a test his answer would be wrong. If he does something like this in the future- help him understand how to get to the correct answer."

Ummm....WHAT? This is a kindergarten assignment- not the ACT! And his answer was completely acceptable. This question does not have one correct answer, it has several! And, plenty of lawyers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn how to "reason their way" to different answers- how on earth is that a bad skill to have?

But, sadly, this is what teaching has become. Even kindergarter's have to worry about getting the "right" answer- the one the teacher wants, even if there is more than one answer.  This mom was fed up with this particular charter school, as this was not her first issue with them, and is contemplating homeschooling as a result- a very scary proposition.

I realize most teachers are not this ridiculous in kindergarten. This is definitely an extreme example. But I feel like it is one small example of how far our particular school district has fallen, and it reiterates my decision to homeschool. Whenever I start to think about how royally I am possibly screwing my kids up, I just remember that at least my 4th grader doesn't have to spend 6 weeks a year taking meaningless tests. Tests that only have meaning to the teacher because now their paycheck depends on it- thus making it necessary to worry about whether a fan or a fox belongs in the correct row on a kindergarten worksheet, with no room for alternate answers to a flawed question.

Dolls, Dolls, Dolls

Just in case you thought it was possible to have too many dolls...