Black and White

Preston is funny. He absolutely loves homeschool. I gave him red and yellow finger paints today. He was excited to discover that they turned to orange. He surprises me all the time with words that he can read. I'll ask him who taught him that word? He will say, "I taught myself." I gave Preston black construction paper and chalk. This is how our conversation went.

Me: Do you think white chalk will show up on this black paper?

Preston: It's just like it's inverted. Did you know white inverted is black and black inverted is white?

Me: Who are you? Stockton?

Preston: (confused) No, I'm Preston.

Man that kid is priceless. I am already dreading next year.

School is FUN!

Preston LOVED his first day of homeschool. He didn't want to start. He was crying and saying school was boring and he didn't want to go. Once we started he had a change of heart. He said, "Why does Stockton think school is boring?" Then he said, "School is fun on your first day when you don't know anything, then it gets boring." I tried to convince him not to be influenced by Stockton's opinions. When I was taking a picture of Preston holding his kite he made he yelled, "School is fun!"

When we opened Preston's Rainbows book, he pointed to the top and read "Up and Down". I looked at him and said, "You can read that?" He laughed and pointed lower in the page and read, "The swing". I was quite impressed with him. He had a grin from ear to ear. Quite darling.

Preston

Mike and Preston made a puppy box tonight. Preston loved it. They went to the craft store and picked out what they wanted to use. He loves the googlie eyes.

When I was putting Preston to bed I said, "Get some good sleep because you have school in the morning." He said, "I don't want school. Only the first day is fun, the rest of the days are boring." Thanks Stockton.

'Homeschool' for the Boy

We got a package for Preston in the mail today! It is his "homeschool" stuff. Hopefully we can start on that tomorrow. I did the Calvert kindergarten curriculum for the girls. It was such a fun, bonding experience. (I did it a little with Stockton, but he was bored to tears, so we scratched that.....he was able to read from chapter books when he was four anyway - he taught himself.) Anyway, I'm looking to having some fun one-on-one time with Preston. I know I get one-on-one time with him everyday now, but this is somehow different. Hopefully he will love it as much as the girls. We shall see..... For my other three kids, I bought the curriculum. I remember it being expensive, but not more than a couple of months of preschool. This time when I looked it up it was crazy expensive! Something like $675. I'm not positive, but it was over $600. I know there is no way I spent that much money before. I was quite sad because I had planned on doing this with Preston, but I really didn't want to pay that much. On a whim I checked e-bay. Someone was selling the entire curriculum for $275. Thank goodness! I know I won't be able to use the computer parts of the program, but I don't care about that. All I wanted was the math and reading anyway. It comes with science and art.... oh how I love science and art.

Last Day of Homeschool

Today was a pretty great day. I finished homeschool with the kids. Bittersweet. I am going to miss all the time I was able to spend with them. I absolutely loved it. Hopefully Maysen and Stockton did too.

I got a call from the middle school today. Maysen was able to get into Honors English. I was worried for awhile because when I registered her, the class was full. Luckily the admissions lady, Kim, was my mom's best friend when they lived in the trailer park. She went to bat for me and got Maysen in. Kathy Leatherwood (my mom's best friend while I was growing up...aka my second mom) works at the school as well. She also talked to the teacher about Maysen. I am so thankful they were able to do this. It is nice knowing there are two adults that will look out for Maysen when she goes back to school.

Kim called and told me they squeezed Maysen into the English class. She also asked me if I would go to the school and pick up a packet that would be left up front for me. When I got there, they actually wanted me to go talk to the teacher. I was just in a t-shirt and sweats. When I got back to the car I realized I still had a random hair clip on the top of my head that I had put there while cleaning. It was on the counter in the kitchen, so my plan was to put it in the bathroom the next time I walked by. Seriously embarrassing. When I told Mike what happened he said, "That's my wife!" True.

We also got our new couch today! I'll have to take a picture tomorrow. The kids love it and it is so comfortable. We watched Prince of Egypt tonight. I was wondering if it was longer than the Ten Commandments. So hard to stay awake.

Stockton started his diving at our pool down the street. Needless to say, his coach was impressed. I think Stockton is going to have a lot of fun this summer.

Science and Art

I have absolutely loved doing homeschool with Maysen and Stockton. It does take all my time, but I have enjoyed it so much. I do have a problem though. I hate science and art. Hate might be an understatement. I feel bad because I'm sure my hatred of science has rubbed off on Maysen. She is really good at science, even scored a perfect on the CRCT, but claims she hates it. She says, "Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I like it." and "Why am I good at all the things I hate?" Although if I used this reasoning she would hate art too. If I would have to choose, I would pick science over art. I really hate art or anything crafty....unless someone is standing by my side guiding me through the whole process - that I can tolerate, but just barely.

Anyway, the entire point of the above paragraph is, the kids are behind on their math and science. Grades come out next week and I need to get them caught up. We did a whole lot of science today. After work, Mike did a whole lot of art with them at the new house. Tomorrow will probably be pretty much the same. Curse my procrastination skills!

It's About Time!

Maysen and Stockton's homeschool classes finally were loaded around 9 pm today. Finally. I don't think they have the information from Georgia yet, hopefully that will come. They better not have to retake the scantron tests, that would just be dumb. I don't have the proper materials anymore, but at least I can get somewhere....and have their hours start adding up. In Georgia, Stockton only needed five hours a day. Here in Utah he needs 5 1/2. He's not going to like that. He's also not going to like the fact that I am going to make him start tomorrow.