Year 2, Day 75: Friends are Distracting!

I was going to write that title because it affected our school day today, but actually, it rings true for all of us in lots of ways.  But, is it a good or bad or indifferent thing?  Hm,...something to ponder.  First, let me explain why we had a day full of distracting friends....

I asked Justin to do a little bit of schoolwork this morning because I didn't want him to focus just on electronics with his friend Bryce.  Well, when Justin (or Benaiah) gets around his friends, he gets louder and more scattered.  And I'm convinced pre teens are already scatter brained on so many levels.  Here's the little story: Justin watched his video about his new math lesson on circumference of a circle, and I, from the other room, heard his friend Bryce say something about Pi.  So, I assumed it was area of a circle, i.e. Pi times radius squared.  So I yelled that from the other room.  But Justin wasn't understanding it, so I went into the room and realized it was the perimeter, or rather Pi times Radius times 2.  Oh, and that Mr. Demme, uses 22/7 instead of 3.14 in this book because he only teaches fractions in this book and the kids don't know about decimals yet. Ok, then, no problem.  Well, with Bryce trying to help Justin and I trying to explain the difference, Justin just wasn't "getting" it.  So, I said, nope, put it away, we can't do it today, I have other things to do and I just explained it the best I know how 3 times to you.  So, we'll tackle it tomorrow.  So, you could consider that a bad friend distraction, but at the same time, having a day off from school here and there breaks up the monotony we all face sometimes (although I don't think learning is monotony if you are constantly learning something new!) and it reminded me that Justin will indeed finish his math book a month early anyway, so why push it today when he only gets to see his friend every few months?  That's the blessing of homeschool!  And I know Justin.  He will look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow and we'll work it through together just fine.  So, I let them play video games while I got everyone ready to go to the library.

So, Justin had apparently ordered over 50 Pokemon comic books and strategy books!  Oh my goodness! Bryce, Justin and Keturah sat in the "hold" section of the Irvington branch of our library, sorting out the books into different categories like "black and white" and "red and blue (or something like that), etc.  Goodness!  Thankfully, the library only sends out 1 notification per day when holds have come in and not one for each individual hold.  Plus, we thankfully, had brought in 3 books to carry library books out in, just in case.  We used each of them to the max!  And thank goodness Bryce was there to help take all the hold tags out and place date due cards in the pockets.  And for once, I didn't have a single history book to pick up!  Then, on our way out, the librarian said, wait, I've got two more for you!  Good grief!  So when we got home, I printed out a list of all the ones we had checked out and asked Justin to make sure all the books we have in our hands are on the printout.  If not, then we've walked out of the library without checking it out and we'll have to go back.  That's tomorrow's project.  Now, I am guilty of ordering 50 books at a time for school related stuff, at least when I was on PEI.  But I got smart and have ordered a lot less books here as we go along AND because a lot of the history we are studying are Bible stories and so there isn't a lot of other books we need AND history didn't change so fast and there weren't as many civilizations and things happening all at once.  That's why you spend 1 year on ALL of the BC era and 1 year on just the 20th Century.

Next person to be distracted was Abishai.  So, I took the 3 youngest to my friends' house, the Wagars, for the afternoon so I could go to an appointment.  It was during Abishai's naptime, so he fell asleep on the way there and the way back.  But, while he was there, he was so distracted by their 8 kids and 1 puppy, that he wouldn't slow down enough to rest anymore.  He was so jazzed up when I got back it was nuts to see!  He kept bouncing from one bed to another in one of the boys' room.  He kept going over to the doggy's cage to talk about her.  He imitated all the kids that he could and ran away up the stairs because he didn't want to go home.  But he was exhausted!  So, I'm sure we'll do it again!  Especially since the Wagars are some of our favorite people in the world!  Thanks, friends!

Benaiah's distraction also comes from friends, but mainly from electronics.  Again, yes, I will always advocated that electronics have their good and ugly sides.  They are good for letting us relax and staying connected or people like me who have to schedule things and share things and learn things just to stay ahead of the curve.  But boy oh boy, are they distracting as well.  Benaiah puts his earbuds in his ears and then we have to repeat ourselves several times before he responds.  I hear everything that's going on, but I sometimes don't get up to address a situation before it escalates.  Even Jared can be staring at his phone more than I think he should.  But, sometimes we need that distraction after a long, hard day of in your face social interaction.  Sometimes, we just need to think about something else for a little while so we don't feel so overwhelmed and then we can go back to what was overwhelming us and deal with it.  So, screen time can be a good distraction, sometimes.

Keturah doesn't get too distracted by her friends yet.  But I know she will eventually.  She's still distracted by electronics of course.  Or her cute baby brother.  Or butterflies and rainbows or redecorating or room or making an art project, etc.  All good stuff, by the way.

And then, I played this video from an older homeschooling mom that was the one who put out the concept of "tea time and poetry" and different ways of going about writing in her blog called Bravewriter.  She had some great things to share about slowing down and not worrying so much about doing it all, say at a museum, but focusing on just 3 paintings and going back another time to study more, kind of like we decided to do at the Children's Museum.  I encourage you to watch it, but I'll warn you that it is 30 minutes long.  I do like the pace of her speech and her tone of voice.  I don't always like certain bloggers when they post a video, but this one works for me.  Enjoy!

The Value of Wasting Time by Bravewriter

My weekly logic puzzle coincides with our history lessons about Greece and Rome!

We go to the library to check out books.  Abishai, however, checks out cars.

And he checks out the fake fireplace at the library too.  I think he was thinking it was really hot like our fireplace at home.

Yes, we checked out that "book" on the bottom shelf.  I didn't realize he was hiding behind his hands when I took the picture though!  He thinks we can't see him if he hides his eyes.  Every time there's an empty shelf....he finds it and gets in!

Thanks Wagars for wearing this kid out!

What do you do when the baby falls asleep in the car?  You ask the others to get out quietly so you can take some cute sleeping pictures because otherwise this toddler never stops!

Baby hands!  Ok, toddler hands!

Toddler toes! And very white, pasty legs that hopefully will get more sun this summer than last summer.

Baby eye lashes.  His hair will probably get darker based on his darker eyelashes.

Before I got out of bed, the boys started working on making Swedish pancakes!  Jared was on his way out the door, so he helped them get started.  They seemed to have it handled, so I slowly got out of bed to finish making the pancakes while they ate.  Abishai wasn't sure of all the powdered sugar on it and that it was rolled up.

Powdered sugar instead of maple syrup!  I wouldn't have minded if they had used my PEI maple syrup because Aldi's had some Canadian maple syrup on sale last week, so I have a replacement.  Otherwise, I hoard the good stuff!  We don't have the light corn syrup or fake maple syrup in our house.

Swedish pancakes are pretty thin, like crepes.  I think I remember my mom saying something about Finnish pancakes being like that.  And they didn't use up the whole box, so they can make more!

Looks yummy!  Smells yummy!  But it has the 3 big bad guys in it: gluten, egg, and dairy, so it's a no go for me.

I just love it when I don't have to fix the kids their lunches!  One of the benefits of being so sick trying to figure out medicines to combat the fibromyalgia was that Benaiah had to learn how to make lunch for his younger siblings when he was 6, and we've continued that tradition since.

He literally said, "Yeah!" indicating that he did it!  Did what?  Lined up his bowl, his raisins and his fork of course!  He spent more time putting the raisins in and out of the bowl than he did putting them in his mouth.  Great practice time on fine motor skills!

Aw, Abishai's so tired that he actually laid pretty still in Jared's lap.  We can't remember the last time he did that!  But Abishai is slowly outgrowing Jared's lap!  

Abishai, one month old.  So tiny!  And yes, he's still tiny for his age, just like Justin was.