Hoffman Homestead

Crayons and Watercolor!

I've been a big slacker when it comes to art.  Weird considering it's one of my favorite things.  Well we had art day today.  We did one of my favorite simple art projects, crayons and watercolor.  

I used this picture as a cover to my recipe binder.

First you create a scene in crayon.  Color firmly, it makes a better picture.  I did an cool underwater scene way back when I was little.  A#3 and A#2 did a combo underwater/outspace scene and A#1 of course drew a computer.  A#4 tried to eat a crayon.  By the way, white crayon is super fun.  The picture appears in the second step.

In case you can't tell, this is a picture of a meteor hitting the ocean killing lots of fish.  Boys.

Once your crayon scene is complete, choose a background watercolor and paint the whole page over the crayon.  Let dry and display.

A#3 didn't quite get the whole "paint the whole page" thing.  Oh well, it's his art.

A#2 got distracted and didn't finish painting.

A#1 got the idea :-)

And here is mine.

We'll start the bidding at $100.  Any takers?

Nature Walk Day 1

I'm starting a few new things at our little homeschool.  One of them is a daily nature walk.  Winter...nice time to start that, huh?  It'll force me to get them outside even on cold days.  The public school makes the kids go out, why shouldn't I?  

Brrr!

Our focus was on looking at what birds are out.  Birds are smart.  The only birds we saw were high-tailing it south.

And yes, A#4 and I went out with them.  He was probably the toastiest of the bunch.

Proof that it is cold (aside from the snow on the ground).  The river is freezing over!

Another change we've made to school is more reading!  I've been reading about Charlotte Mason's method for homeschooling and love it!  We've been reading a whole bunch of old old books and the boys have been devouring it!

One book that I recommend for everyone to read is Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula.  It is amazing!  Stories of faith, martyrdom, trials and triumphs.  Alex said after reading the first story about Polycarp, "Mom, that really touch my heart."

You can even read it online here (though I think I would like the hard copy):

http://books.google.com

What sold me on the method was one of my favorite books growing up (The Princess and the Gobin) was on the reading list for Alex!  He's reading it now and can hardly put it down.  Good stuff!  

Coffee is my friend.

Gotta love the paradox effect some kids have with Benadryl and caffeine.  I'd be really interested to see a study done on this.  Maybe there is one and I just haven't ran across it yet.  It seems quite a few kids with ADHD or similar autism spectrum disorders have the opposite reaction to Benadryl and caffeine.  Aah, the things you learn by accident as a parent.  So I've got 2 of those (2 that I know of at least).  We've had quite a difficult time getting school done this week.  The maniacal laughter is my first clue that A#1 is out of sorts.  I'm not sure why.  Might be the change of Daddy being gone.  Might be the weather.  Might be combination.  I basically told him he would either drink the coffee (half cream and half coffee) or he might end up with no marbles by the end of the day.

Aah, what a glorious day we ended up having!  My sweet A#1 was back.  He got all of his school work done with absolutely no complaining.  And he did a very good job.  Once school was done, he spent the afternoon building train tracks with Asa and being an all around awesome big brother.  I was blown away.  I have seen before how caffeine affects him but this was night and day.  Beautiful.

A#4 is playing the part of Monster Baby who attacks the train.  Haha!

It's been raining all day and it just feels like the perfect weather for knitting and a movie.  I'm going to browse Netflix now for a good movie.  Salmon for dinner too, one of the boys' favorites.

Well it's 6:30pm and the maniacal laughter is back.  It was good while it lasted.  At least I know how we are going to start tomorrow!

 

Any ol' Wednesday

We had a much better day today than yesterday, thank you Lord!  A#1 was squirrelly at first but calmed down significantly this afternoon.  They got caught up from yesterday and finished before the neighbor kids got home from school.  They even earned extra marbles for good behavior!

If any of you get invites from Big IQ Kids to a Spelling Bee, that is from us and not spam.  Maybe a little competition will encourage A#2 to care about spelling.  I got stuck on pachyderm today (it's age appropriate so he won't be spelling pachyderm yet).  James, you can't do the quiz while on Ambien because you can't spell under the influence.  In fact, you should stay away from the computer completely after taking Ambien whether you feel it's influence or not.  I hear you didn't heed my warning and were on Facebook last night, tsk, tsk, tsk.

A#2 sitting comfortably at the computer doing his spelling.

I finally got a picture of A#3 in his flight suit.  For some reason he gets embarrassed by attention so while he likes the suit, he won't wear it because everyone goes crazy over how cute he is.  So with a completely straight face (hard to hold because he was so darn cute) I just told him that Daddy would like to see a picture of him wearing it.  Phew, it worked.

Ridiculously cute!

We've got Royal Rangers tonight, I'll hit up Walmart for more noodles and we'll call it a day.

Also, I finally found someone to help me return the couches!  I really wish I had sat in them on the showroom floor more before making the decision.  It might be just how I'm shaped but they are so uncomfortable.  After this weekend, we'll be without any furniture until the new stuff comes.  But that should be no problem because we'll be in Minnesota then, hopefully.  Thank you Josh!!!

I've lost my marbles.

Losing your marbles has a whole new meaning in this house!  I have to say I am quite impressed with myself with this idea.  I was getting so tired of having to tell the boys multiple times to do their chores, tired of them not listening to me, tired of the hitting and name calling and tired of bad attitudes period.  In the past I would tape a piece of paper on the cabinet and start subtracting $ from their allowance for various infractions.  It just wasn't working.  I think it was because they didn't really see their allowance going away in a tangible form.  Plus I got tired of doing the math, lazy bones.

Enter the marbles.  I got 3 different types/colors of marbles so each of the boys have their own,  3 glass candle holders, plus 1 mason jar to hold the extra marbles.

Marbles are worth $.25 each.  Every time I have to tell them to do something beyond the first time, they get a marble taken away.  Ouch.  For misbehaviors, they usually get a warning and then marbles get taken away.  To really make my point, if the misbehavior involves harming a brother with words or with hands, the marble goes to the injured party.  Muwahahaha!

Marbles are also for trade.  If one of the boys doesn't want to take the trash out, he can pay his brother to do it for him.

Marbles can also be earned back.  Extra chores earn marbles.  Doing a chore without me having to ask earns a marble.   Above and beyond good behavior earns a marble.   For instance this morning while nursing A#4, I asked A#2 if he would make A#3's breakfast.  He did so without any complaints.  He earned a marble.  Go A#2!

We are on week 2 of the marbles and it's been working magically.  As you can see from the picture, the marble count is quite low.  Today hasn't been one of their best days.  But it would be worse if it weren't for the marbles.  Plus, I can put them to work earning back their lost marbles.

Rainy Day Fun

For some reason a rainy day equals crazy kids.  I suspect it has something to do with barometric pressure so to keep the kiddos busy today, we made a barometer!

Armed with a mason jar, balloon, stick, tape and paper, the boys helped create this super simple device.  They look excited don't they.

My idea is to have the boys mark where the stick is on the paper everyday and compare it to the weather outside.  I'll make a mental note of the craziness factor and see how it relates to the barometric pressure.

As if making a barometer isn't fun enough, we decided to make butter also.  I remember doing this when I was little and really wanted the boys to experience that fun too.

Another mason jar only this time filled with 2 cups of whipping cream.  A#2, A#3 and I sat on the floor and rolled the jar between us (with the lid of super tight of course).  It took a long time but we were persistent and eventually opened it up to see whipped cream.  That gave the boys new energy and a short time later it separated into butter.  We drained off the buttermilk (saving it for a future project), mixed in salt, squeezed into shape and then rinsed it off with cold water.

Of course we had to try it out so we had toast with lots of butter for an afternoon snack.

Now I'm going to knit for a bit and let the boys play some video games.  It's been a good day today.