Bitesize Breakfast in the Classroom

since after Christmas, i we have been struggling to get school work done in a reasonable time each day, and after march break, it got even worst.

2 weeks ago, we spent some time in town and the kids had a chance to mingle… i thought it was so good that i was looking forward to an other gym session but look like kids weren’t the only equation in the mingling activity… look like the flue had a blast also. so with runny nose and fever, i had to cancel last week’s gym class.

we were struggling so much with school at the time, i didn’t think we’d make it till the end of school year. but then, Owen asked to do his math first. there was really not many page left in his workbook for him to finish it, so i let him take the initiative.

after he’s done his 3 pages of math, i tell him he has to do his french too. don’t really want to, but i put together a snack in a bowl in bitesizes, and he mannaged to finish around 3 pm… that’s quite good considering he would wait till around 5pm most days for the past while.

of course, with a fever for 2 days, i did not make him work, he slept for a good part of it too. but friday, he was feeling better and wanted to play… if you’re well enough to play like that, you are well enough to do your work, so i cut up a ciabatta(triangular shaped little bread) in bitesize and bribed him with that. he did his work before noon! that was something to celebrate on it’s own, it’s been so long since i seen that.

this morning, i decided not to give him his breakfast and have to wait till lunch time to be able to bribe him with food. my husband just got some raisin/cinnamon bagel, so i cut that up, an apple, and i tossed a pack of bacon in the fry pan. i cut a few slices in bitesize and i had a great bowlful of breakfast bribe. he finished his math on friday so he only had to do his french and it was done by 10 am!!!!!! i must be dreaming.

but since math seem to be his favourite subject, i should order his next workbook and keep trucking. the last lesson in his book was subtractions and i was suspecting he would have a bit more of a hard time with that, but he flew through that too, why stop something that’s going well? right now he’s “playing” with his math again, while chewing on a licorice root.

Long days in town

Yesterday, we went in town for a few appointments, then we went to have supper at my mom’s place. on our way back home i suggested we stop at a home school familly that would not be far out of our way. we though it was on a certain road but in the end it was on the road that was leading there. i reconized the house and surrounding form a picture on her blog and turned around to say hi.

it cooled down while we were there but i’m glad we stopped. the mother is the leader of our home school group and she let me know there was some gym class we could attend the next day. the kids had a blast and then found out there was a presentation at the library in the afternoon, i figured it wouldn’t hurt to go check it, but there was a misunderstanding in the time of the presentation and a lack of communication between us and dear hubby made us spend even more time there then the kids were willing and it was quite a mess. i nearly lost my son who wandered aimlessly in the library, and after finding him and waiting for quite some time, my daughter became distressed that we did not know where daddy was. we all found each other back in the end since i’m back home but we’re quite tired from 2 long days in town.

during our visit at our homeschooling friend yesterday, our daughter found a baseball bat, and our son found the ball. he tried throwing it to her so she could try to hit it but his aim was not stellar and she received it on the side of her left eye, outch! she had a shiner by the time she went to bed.

now it’s going on 10pm and she’s still making a fuss about what pj she doesn’t want to ware. last year, i had bedtime running quite smoothly. i think i will have to reconsider the routine because they are becoming masters in the art of stalling.

sound like a little bit too much talking between the 2 of them again, i guess i’ll have to go put my foot down.

just a little testing

i’ve installed Ubuntu on my old PC about a week ago, and i must admit, i like it, although i’m still not ready to install it on my new PC.

there’s even a package for it called Edubuntu, that is full of educational stuff for kids k/12 and it’s all free! the kids love it

i found a little application that i can use to blog offline and then publish at my convenience. i’m testing it right now hehe. ok, gotta get kids in bed now, if this work, i’ll have to try and make blogging a habit again. if it ever was hehe

March Break?

i’ll start with Sunday…  we went to mass, had soup once we returned home, then i undertook to prepare my first bunny ever.  we raise them so we could eat them, and the only condition my husband agreed to it is that he would have no part what so ever in killing them or else it’s the end of that project.  i understand that very well.  it’s not the most pleasant thing to do but someone had to kill the meat we put in our plate already.  and by not being us and disconnecting ourself from the fact makes us disconnectd with our food on more then one level i think.  i think realising first hand what the animal has to give away to fill our tummy makes us more greatfull and have more respect for what we eat.

so i got everything i felt i needed ready and in the process started feeling nervous.  what if i miss?  what if i get too nervous?  at first i read about how to snap the neck  or club them behind the head, and i though the snapping would be simpler, but ended up figuring that i might not have the hand and wrist strenght to do it properly and then i’d have a crying panicke animal that would be even harder to handle.  so i opted for the club.  not my first choice but i’ve seen it done before by my uncle’s neighbor.  i’ve also witnessed the skinning and degutting and it is not something you forget as easily as who was the first person i ever dansed with.  even tho it was about 20 years ago.

i finaly went to pick up the bunny. and i took a while to pet him, hoping to make him feel more comfortable… also to calm myself some.  i will spare the bulk of the detail. it went well overall. just one glitch.  the cord that hold him for the skinning process broke, and we could not find an stronger string in the house.  i cut the meat in pieces a bit like you would a chicken’s leg, breast… and cooked it in a pirex with some onion, celery, carrots and spices.  turned out to look a lot like chicken, tasted like chicken but had more of the texture of beef. i guess next time i’ll try to crockpot it.  but over all it was tasty and the kids liked it too.

since march break started, i find that Owen works better and apply himself with a lot more focus.  yesterday took a bit of bribe, nothing like the past weeks, starting from right after christmass. it seem that the vaccation disturbed his good working habbits and he just couldnt’ get back into it.  until this week?  today, he worked amazingly well,  usualy he can drag a work like this for 3 hours. today he was done in 30 minutes or less and did a fantastic job.  much better hand writing then i can remember in a long time and the pride on his face that he was done!  and in so little time at that.   should i let him have his week off and risk the routine being thrown off again for the rest of the school year?  i think he’d benefit more of working well year round for 1 hour max a day then have vacation here and there and then taking 4 times more time to do the same work every day?   i think it’s more of a vacation when he works well all the time , because overall he has much more time to do other things he likes.

my mother reminded me yesterday that Owen was still just in kindergarden after all and so he should do some crafts too, not just becoming a pen pusher.  so, it is true that it had been a while since we did crafts but the craft book i ordered is so uninspiering that i have a hard time picking someting from it. so yesterday for a change i decided to dig the internet for idea, i already had an idea in mind… that of making an elephant.  and sure enough i found a nice and easy project.  unfortunately, Owen refused to do it.  but Vivian did, and she loved it. she went and stuck it next to the mouse we did as our last project.  only when it was bedtime did Owen demand that he wanted to do his elephant.  nice try at stalling your bed time boy! hehe.  today, i offered him to do it and again, he did not show interrest in doing so.   i guess i’ll keep diggin for interresting projects. my mom also offered to look at the bookstore for nice craft books.  not black and white text with small doodle of what the end project is suposed to look like but with nice colorful images

that website seem to have a lot of similar project with a variety of different animals.  i will keep that site in mind too.

also today after Owen done his work, his reenforcer is a chance to play the Wii for 30 minutes all to himself and i think he beat a few highscores in there.  i’m pretty impressed and i will have to get inthere soon and try to beat those scores again to give him new challenges :p

Drippidy doo!

this morning, while i was getting ready to home school and the kids were doing their physical exercise, i found out that water was dripping from one of our window sill.  i found a plastic container to put on the window ledge to collect the water and since hubby was still sleeping and it’s his first day off after a night shift, i tried not to panic and to keep going as usual from there.  after i was sitting for a little while helping Owen doing his revision fore his last summary in this exercise book, an other window sill started poring out.  woahhhhhh, did i ever run for that second container as fast as i could.  at that point i was a bit more alarmed at the possibility that more could start dripping spontaneously.  so i put the container on the ledge of the window and go back to Owen’s side.  nothing more i can do at that point.

by that time hubby was up and sitting downstairs at his computer trying to wake up from a very short night.  i know from experience he really doesn’t like hearing those kind of news on his first day off after so little sleep but this is not just leaking in the sun room type deal, it’s in the house and could cause more serious damage.  and the roof is not even 3 years old   how frustrating is that?

He came, saw the dripping, was not too happy but went in the attic and confirmed it was coming from the roof.  he went to check on the roof and push some snow off, called the roofer, but the roofer had 35 years of experience when we hired him and was talking about his retirement. he’s also hard of hearing and sound quite grumpy a lot of time.  so hubby did not have a productive conversation with him.  maybe 15 minutes later, i found the courage to call him again.  we had a little chat and he explained to me that there are several reason why it might be leaking. that the roof was done properly, there was an ice/water shield put in place but that it’s only good for the first 3 feet, if there’s a lot of snow on the roof and some ice on the edge, the water might reflow from higher.  with the high snow and high wind storm we just had, the snow could have came into the attic from the soffits venting holes…

so i went to talk again with hubby and he went back up on the roof with a hatchet and chipped away at the ice so the slushy water that was trapped on the roof could drain away, and it stopped dripping in the window sills.

i guess in a way it makes hubby feel better that a professional job is leaking due to these winter conditions. if a pro’s job still get that, his own job on the sun room’s roof might not be all that bad either after all.

this summer we’ll look into installing some heat tracks to prevent ice from forming and trapping water on the roof.

the rest of  the day went relatively uneventfully.

Happy Fat Tuesday!!!

Snowy Snow

yesterday, yes again one day behind…  but yesterday, just like i said we had a respectable snow storm.  one that i warned my husband the night before as he was in town for work, was gonna be something to keep an eye for, if he wanted to be able to drive back home.  since it’s slow at work they’re allowed to take the Sunday night off.  but he wanted to stay till 5 am, that was his goal, to leave 2 hour early.  i suggested he keep an eye on the storm and if it got too bad, he could always go crash at my mom’s place.  did he take me seriously?  i guess not, because man had seen worst storm before Christmas and made it home no problem…

at 5:45 am, while i was soundly sleeping, i get a phone call.  “i’m stuck can you get me the phone number of the tow truck?”  totaly sleepy and not thinking to much, i gave him the guy’s home number.  he call me back maybe 30 minutes later to get the business number.  it was bad enough that the tow truck couldnt’ pull him out and just drove him home without the minivan.   the plow had not gone by yet and there was too much snow on the road for him to get a good traction, he was sliding from side to side.  so he said he could try again once the plow had gone by.  show you how bad it was because the van wasn’t even all that far of the road, just the passenger’s front wheel was off the road really.

Hubby got home somewhat chilled after spending over 2 hours stuck on the side of the road, only starting the van for short spurt to warm up some.  a little later after i got out of bed, the towing guy called asking if i was ready to go get it. and i had just pondered the fact that my driveway was still full of snow and there was a good snow bank left by the plow to make it impossible to drive the van it what so ever.  i really did not feel like trying to shovel it out, it could’ve taken me tow days to dig it.  so i told him i would have to wait till our snow removal guy showed up.

after i hung up, i decided to call our snow removal guy to see if he could come sooner then later. because i did not feel comfortable with the idea that our van could stay on the side of the road a good part of the day.  what if an other car rammed into it?  so our snow removal man came not long after and inquired about our van.  i told him it was just a few km up the road and he said he would go take a look at it to see if he could pull it out himself.  after all, a pick up truck that has a snow blade in the front has to have some descent power to sustain the use he’s putting it through and he would save me the $50 that a tow truck charges.  he came back and went to plow our neighbor while i finished getting dressed to go with him.  when i got in the van to start it to let it warm up a bit while i put it in neutral for him to pull it out, i found out i would need a boost too.  the 4 way hazard light had sucked the battery.  good thing he had booster cable with him.

i realised after that it was a good thing he was the one who pulled us out because had it been the tow truck, it would have been extra for the boost.  he told me that if we ever get stuck again like that, to just call him.  we have such a good snow removal man.

after i finished teaching school. yes terrible me,  no snow day for the homeschool boy.  but after he was done his work, i let them play some more Wii after they came back from helping their dad shovel some snow.  our snow removal man is great but he doesn’t do sidewalk.

today i heard the announcer on the radio say we just had our 11th snow storm.  we paid the season fee but we’re getting very close to the per shot fee and the winter is not over yet. it’s the second winter we have someone removing our snow for us and i love it. (last year there was so many snow storm that we got well our money’s worth) our driveway is much longer then what we used to have in town, i really can’t see us doing it all with just a shovel and a scoop.

Run Wii Run, Owen Won’t Stop!

yesterday, was second day with Wii Fit in the house.  Owen discovered and enjoy joggin around the Wii Fit island.   Usualy, Owen has a long and big breakfast,  he eats and eats and ask what else he can eat, and it can go on for over 1 hour.  yesterday, he had one pancake, and insisted he was full and wanted to play Wii Fit.  he played a few other games here and there but most of it was spent doing laps of joggin.  around lunch time, he was getting frustrated, upset in a strange way, insisting that he must run very fast.  i’m happy that it’s going to help him get more active but this is a little too obsessive.  i had to stop him and make him realise he was hungry and needed to stop and relax some until meal is ready.

he wanted to run some more after lunch, but i felt it best not to let him play all day, they need to have some non virtual play time too.  then after supper, he wanted to play some Wii Fit again, and i said, after they ate and had their showers, i would let them play a bit since we were having supper fairly early.

they find it a bit more difficult then Wii Sport or Wii Play because with those, they can play together, the Wii Fit only allow for one person to play at a time, so we have to make an amount of time decision and take turns.

i’m glad the Wii Fit does have a fitness test that monitor the weigh dailly,  i should be able to see quickly if he overdoes it and start loosing weight.  otherwise, if that’s the energy he has to spend, better spend it then try to keep it under cap.

Wiiiiii, My Mom Did it Again

For christmas we got a Wii, for therapeutic purpose.  when we found out it was nearly impossible to find one, i commissionned my mom to hunt for one and she did!  at that time i was under the impression it was only the console that was rare, and that the other games and accessories were always in stocks, so a few months later, i decide it would be nice to supplement with the Wii Fit board… oups, that is also rare and hard to get!  moooooom!!! can you?

she did not have quite as much motivation to hunt this time around but after a few reminders, she did an other round of call around and she scored one this morning, yay  for mom, she did great

18 weeks!

that’s what’s left in Owen’s french program.  and i realized that if we do 3 pages of math 3 times a week, he’ll be done in just about 6 weeks.

at first i felt like we were almost done, then i realized that 18 weeks is just 2 weeks past half mark hehe

we’ve been homebound a lot with the cold and the snow and i’m looking forward to warmer weather, so we can get out more and see the world.

Leave it to a 3 years old…

…to mess up the whole year on the first day

but first, i want to wish you all a Happy New years, blessed with Joy!

this morning we started the first day of the year by going to mass.  we had a bit of snow and a generous amount of wind, so we took our time driving to church and back.  after our return, Andy reminded me, it was time to crack our new tangram calendar open so the kids can start trying to figure out the puzzle of the day.  after some times, Vivian ended up having the thing to herself, she’s the  puzzle adept of the house.  she can do 48 pieces puzzles all to herself at 3 years old so what’s the problem with leaving her with a 7 piece one?  i wasn’t too worried about leaving her on the main floor while we were downstairs and Owen was trekking the tricycle around the basement, until i heard “Owen don’t roll over the Tangram!!!”  *wide eyes*  part of the year and the puzzle piece was scattered on the floor at the bottom of the steps.

i picked up everything and went back to sit on the couch upstairs so i could put the year all back in order.  dear hubby said, she can’t have mixed it up that bad, 2/3 of the days were still in the box!  but would you believe it, even those were mixed up, back to back, front to front, upside down and a real jumble.  there might have been 2 months in the whole thing that were still together.  i think it took me half an hour to reorganize the days, but it would’ve been an hour, i don’t know, i think i lost track of time.   let see if we can keep it together for the rest of the year now.

also found out that one of our computer has strange behaviour, when you click to open Paint, it’s the Internet browser that opens up.  now how did that happen  and what else can a 3 and a 5 years old do to a computer?  who knows, life is full of surprise!