Monday, September 5, 2011

 I've listed a lot of our old homeschool books on Ebay.  All of my auctions are up tonight.  I hope I make enough to at least cover shipping!  (I have new respect for shipping charges.  I thought I was being fair by reducing some of the charges when it was only 1 book.  HA!  After paying for an envelope, postage and delivery confirmation, oh, and Ebay fees, I made $0.62 on the one book I've shipped so far.)  I've got a few watchers, so I'm hopeful the selling prices will continue to rise.


I've ordered the kids' books for this year.  We are going to try a new math program for Lil'Nathan, "Life of Fred" and I hope it works for him.  He gets so bored with the repetition in Saxon that math is a horrible struggle.  We are also including logic daily for all the kids, puzzles, brain games, and the like.  Lil'Nathan is getting a break from creative writing and will focus this year on handwriting.  Mary is going to be doing creative writing, at her request.  We'll be doing a new science program, "Investigate the Possibilities," and a new approach to social studies (well, really the same as last year, but hopefully I'll be more regular with it) and expanded geography and mapping.  I really do want to get art in there (Sara, wanna help?) and music (thank goodness for CD's).  Trying to go multi-sensory for the boys, we are also getting clay for working letters (Joseph) and integrating where useful ("make a Eiffel Tower" during our France study.)  History will be ABeka's framework in both world and US history, with lots of games and supporting materials.  We'll be sticking with A Beka for language arts.  Joseph wants to learn how to read, so I'll be using "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading," which we used with Mary.  He wants to write, too, so he's got a few writing workbooks.  And for PE, we'll be using jump ropes and skippers.

I had some hopes (though admittedly not high) of my Ebay sales funding much of this, but that doesn't look promising.  Oh, well, maybe it will buy me a new knitting needle.  :)

Okay, now changing subjects:

You've heard, perhaps, of The BlueMan Group?  Well, meet Hot Pink Baby!

Today, after all the hard work of washing, waxing, and vacuuming the van, it was smoothie time.  Joseph wanted to make it, so we let him.  He gathered all the ingredients and dumped them in the VitaMix.  Zoom, zoom, zip, zip.  Smoothie time!  


But, as you might notice, it was a really, really vibrant pink.  We've never achieved that color before.  (It seriously looked like paint, too.) 


Interesting.  What did you put in, Joseph?  He insisted that he only added frozen yogurt, orange juice, milk, peaches, and berries. 


Berries, maybe.  What kind of berries?  One taste instantly told me what kind of "berries" they were.


It appears Charlie is rather fond of smoothies made with beets.

 
And in other views...

Mary and Joseph had their faces painted a little while ago at playgroup.  Joseph is a soccer ball, Mary a butterfly.  Charlie is just cute (and clean).

1 comment:

Becca said...

Oh! We are laughing even harder now. Beet smoothies!