Saturday, January 31, 2009

Lincoln




Here's some recent photos of our little guy. He is such a sweet heart. He's even sleeping great at night. Last night he did 8 hours! Yeah!

Teaching kids to work

I was reading on a friend's blog how she tries to balance teaching her older kids to work without making them feel like they are ALWAYS cleaning up after the younger ones in a big family.

I thought I would post what we do. My boys do quite a bit of cleaning, Ryan sometimes complains, but Tyler just jumps in and does it. Usually 10 minutes before breakfast/school, 10 minutes before lunch, then about 5-20 minutes at the most before dad comes home/dinner. There's a scripture (2 Thessalonians 2: 10) that says you must work or not eat, and since it's in the scriptures, they don't argue. :)

We tie it to their allowance. They get $1 per year of age on the first fast Sunday of the month minus some if they didn't do their jobs good-- they tell me how much to subtract. We switch jobs then if needed too. They pay tithing and then can save it or spend it over the next bit. They can't buy candy at the store, but I keep candy bars and Gatorade here that they can buy for $1 or sometimes they buy other treats-- yes, I inflate the prices on those too. But if they choose to buy something healthy, I will split the cost with them if they agree to share it. Last week Ryan bought a big thing of pretzel mix, Tyler bought a bag of rolls (white bread is a treat), and Jeanisha bought a bag of pears. They are really good at sharing with each other too. I think half the fun is that they get to "control" the sharing. Jeanisha has me cut one pear at a time for her to divvy out and loves to remind the boys that SHE bought it.

They rarely ask for me to buy them something because they know the answer will be, you can buy it with your allowance, and they usually don't want it if THEY have to pay for it. They also know that if they wear out their clothes by mistreating them-- like running around outside with just socks on, they have to buy replacements, because mom only pays for things once. I don't think they thought I was serious, until I bought a bag, figured out the cost per pair, and charged them. They haven't even had to buy all the pairs in that package yet and are being much more careful-- and reminding each other. As Ryan puts it, "Mom pays for needs, we pay for wants."


Oh, we also pay them interest on what they save at the rate of 10% per month until they turn 10, then I'll have to reevaluate. Ryan is starting to become a pretty good saver. His goal is to earn more each month through interest then his allowance. :)

Our system works pretty good. Tyler just asked if he could be responsible for picking up the 3 main rooms (kitchen, living room, and family room) and vacuuming the whole house--his favorite job and he is very meticulous about it. He wants to do the work of a 7 year old, so he can earn more even though he's not 7 until April. I was fine with that. :)

Ryan puts away the clean dishes, cleans the bathrooms (his choice because they don't get as messy as the rooms Tyler chooses. Tyler doesn't want them because they are the "gross" job, so it works out great), takes out the trash, and puts away folded laundry. He also picks up the kids bedroom which doesn't have much because they don't have any toys or clothes in there. Their clothes dresser is in the living room and the toys are in the family room or in bins in the storage room, so most of the time there is only one bin out in the bedroom.

I would love to see what jobs your kids do. So if you read this and write on your blog, post a comment and let me know.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Homeschool Reviews

I thought I would put a note about my homeschool reviews site: http://simplyschoolingreviews.blogspot.com/

I've done about 25 reviews now and been introduced to some awesome products! I'm working on putting some "quick links" at the top for my favorites.

Ryan went from hating spelling to loving it with All About Spelling. Tyler learned the 50 states with The Little Man in the Map. And Jeanisha is starting to read with Rocket Phonics.

This is what Ryan (remember, he's 8) reported to his dad after watching part of the Algebra 2 MathTutor DVD's I was sent to review:

Dad: "What did you learn today?"
Ryan: "I learned algebra. Well, actually Algebra 2. And it was easy."

He then had me write him some equations, like y=4X-6, so he could demonstrate how to graph a line.

Then, Ryan: "And there's only 15 parts on the movie, so I'll learn all the rest in, oh, about 2 weeks."

We just had to smile at his confidence!

Adam's baby

Adam refers to Lincoln as "MY baby."

I'll say, "my baby" and he says "No, MINE."

But then he will usually agree to share.

Last night at pack meeting, one of the kids in my primary class was sitting in front of us and kept reaching back to rock the baby in the car seat. Adam was quite concerned. He got down off my lap and stood by the baby. Whenever the boy reached over, Adam would push his hand away. Of course, the scouts sitting right around us thought that was funny and started watching. It happened 3-4 times and then Adam stood up and walked around the car seat so he was between Lincoln and the boy and GROWLED at him. ARRRGRRRRRRR!!! The scouts all thought that was REALLY funny!!!

So I moved Lincoln back over away from the boys and Adam was content to sit on my lap again.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

January pictures

Lincoln had a well child check today and I got to take 5 kids to the doctor all by myself!!! They did really well, sitting there playing rock, paper, scissors and I spy. Lincoln is doing good, he weighs 13 lbs 2 oz. and is 23.875 inches long. He got his first bunch of shots too.

Here are several pictures of the kids earlier this month. It was nice and warm-- mid 40's and we had got lots of snow the night before so I went out and helped them make snowmen. Stephen took pictures when he came home. They were all bundled up while we were working on them, but somehow Adam managed to slip out for pictures without his coat. Whoops. Don't you just love the mismatched gloves though?































This is Jeanish's Christmas dress. It has glitter on the bottom part, so she leaves silver sparkles wherever she goes! She loves being a Sunbeam and is constantly telling me things Sunbeams can do. Like read, cut their own apples, go to bed late. . . But I can use it too. Sunbeams always obey the first time, stay in bed good, and always clean their bedroom, right?






These are at the Boise Zoo. The kids favorite part it the giraffe slide! It was a fairly warm day and I wore Lincoln in the wrap, and pushed Jeanisha and Adam in the stroller. It was nice because there was practically no one there-- so I didn't have to have the "you sure have your hands full" and "are they all yours" comments that I seem to get whenever it just me and the kids.















School today

We started a new science book today about Physics by Real Science 4 Kids. We talked about motion and physical laws and the scientific method. Then for the experiment part, the kids talked about their observations when you throw (or shoot) a ball, drew hypothesis trajectories on the chalkboard, then took their Nerf guns outside to test their hypotheses. Now they are recording their results and marking off the ones that didn't work (mostly ones I added). Fun stuff. :)

Friday, January 2, 2009

Lincoln


I've always thought the newborn pictures were so cute, but never got them taken with the other kids. Here is Lincoln at 2 weeks. Isn't he cute? He is such a good baby, so easy-going and sweet and calm. He puts up with a lot of loving from his siblings. None of the kids can get enough of him. They are always asking to hold him or lay by him and he is picked up by someone at the slightest whimper.

Poor baby has a staph infection right now though and has a rash all over his face. I have it too and it is itchy, itchy, itchy!!!! Little blisters from my knees to my ankles and from my wrists to my elbows. But we are both on antibiotics now, so hopefully we can get rid of it. (Things like this always happen over holidays too when it is impossible to see a doctor!)