Acts of Kindness.....Random?

One of my resolutions this year was to do many acts of kindness. Random is my style. I follow a great blog at Pitter Patter Art and she and her kids did random acts of kindness for the Advent season. It was rather inspiring. She had just lost her mother very suddenly and is in the middle of an adoption. Yet, all season she and her husband and their three small children did all sorts of great things. So it was part of my resolve, more kindness. I've been stockpiling small gifts cards every time we visit somewhere. Lots of Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. I, myself, don't drink coffee, but it's right next to the yummy fries of Chick-fil-A. So with a wallet full of gift cards we have set out.

So here's the thing. I have the kids do it. I love the idea of them giving out the cards. I watch from the truck. Don't worry, I'm park really close and they don't go up to cars. I have no problem paying for the customer behind me in line at Wendy's or paying someone's toll at the bridge, but I can't just walk up to someone and hand them a gift card. I don't know why. My boys, however, my boys love it. They fly out of the car like some sort of superheroes. The run across the lot and surprise someone. Today's man fist bump them all. So for all the awkwardness that is their mother, they aren't the least bit shy. May they always stay willing to jump out of a car to be kind to a stranger.

Cells for supper?

Our first week back went really well. Lots of learning. Little complaining. Today we finished up the week with an edible cell. Well in theory it was supposed to be edible, it looked gross to me. They ate the nucleus though (the gumball) and they labeled all the parts of the cell. Jackson even one uped me. I asked what we needed to turn the animal cell into a plant cell. He said "it already is" I argued that it was missing the cell wall. He said "the cup is the cell wall, it's hard and around the cell membrane." Score one for Jackson.

Daydreaming out the window.

I sometimes worry about Sam :)

Edible Cell Experiment. 

Nucleus

Adding nucleus to the cell membrane

Cell!

Not a good one of all three....

Day 3----I love collages.

Learning more about animals. Sam was making a collage with animal pictures. I love collages, I wish my kids liked them more.

Shane doing his spelling words with a collage.

Another collage.

The filing is finally over!

Sam's collage.

Have I mentioned I love Explode the Code?

Spelling word collage.

Aquasarus Attack

My parents bought Jackson an Aquasarus kit for Christmas. I was weary of it. Jackson sat patiently with my mom on the kitchen floor and read the instructions (it was really cute, wish I had a picture). They set the tank up, dropped in the eggs, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. 2-4 days turned into about 7. Then kaboom and explosion of sea creatures. Okay, they're really cool, but truth be told it FREAKS ME OUT. How many other pets and sent to you freeze dried, in a envelope, in a box that sat on a shelf of Toys 'r Us for who knows how long. Then they are dumped into water and then boom, creature. They grow to two inches long and breathe through their 140 legs, that means they are zooming around upside down half the time. We have a few big ones and lots of tiny ones. Jackson is in awe. I'm afraid to they will take over the earth.  Oh, I forgot to mention, they have three eyes. What does a freeze dried animal need three eyes for anyway!!!!! I think I can finally sympathize with Anya and her fear of bunnies (10 points if you know what I'm talking about)

This is not ours, but they look just like this.

                                   Just in case you were wondering about the bunnies.

Day 2

Day 2 went even better than day 1!!!! I was looking for a workbook for Sam and stumbled upon an animal workbook. The kids each read and answered the questions. Shane even asked to do a second page! It's funny, Jackson was doing handwriting and whining about 'it's hard' but when it was answering questions about animals, he wrote long sentences all on his own!

Explode the Code!

Learning about the walrus.

Counting oranges.

We're learning about cells this week, I love when they are interested in what they're learning. They had a great time coloring the parts of a cells and labeling. We learned the largest single cell is the yolk of an ostrich egg. Did you know that?

Watching a video of people cracking an ostrich egg!

Using a drill to open the egg

Sam's cell, turned into a person.

I did a lot of work on the school room over break, but somehow I forgot about this giant pile of papers that need filed. At least they are dated and graded.

This is my best clearance find this school year.

First Day Back.

 We had a very long school break for most of December. We enjoyed our time off, but getting back into our groove made the morning so much easier. The kids did much better than I expected. Leading up to our break we were focusing on science and history, but today we did all subjects. There were very few complaints.

Thank God this child isn't in school, he'd never sit still. This is how he learns.

Handwriting

Homemade Lunchables.

Just for utter cuteness. Box o' Fun.

My Laughter...

My hubby is sick. His voice is gone. I haven't heard him utter more than two sentences. I miss him. He makes me laugh. Like a lot. His sense of humor makes my day. Every day. I'm hopeful the medicine will bring his voice back by tomorrow! I want my laughter back!