Confession…

I am a homeschool curriculum lover.

I LOVE checking out all the new stuff out there, and was absolutely thrilled when I received a message from the creator of A+ Interactive Math, asking if I would be interested in trying out his online math program! Of course I would!

The founder, Vinod, set our family up with a free three-month family package trial, so we were able to let a few of our family members try it out!

Let me tell you, the thrill of doing schoolwork on my iPad was real. 

😍

As a disclaimer, we had a REALLY busy summer, with one daughter and family visiting from across the country, and another daughter and family visiting every day because HER SISTER WAS HOME. 😍 And there were quite a few small kids running around here. ❤️

However, having company for an extended amount of time did give us a chance to try out several levels of the program! One of my almost-teenage grandsons chose the Pre-Algebra level. He and his older brother will be doing Pre-Algebra this coming school year, and he really enjoyed working through a few lessons. He was able to navigate the system on his own, and really enjoyed the lessons!

My seven year-old grandson also tried out the second grade lessons. He is a new reader, and needed me to sit with him, but he understood the concepts easily and enjoyed completing the online worksheets. He is heading toward second grade this school year, and the content was challenging. He did very well, though, and asked to try it again… and again. ❤️

My oldest son is heading to first grade this year, but the first grade material was a little beyond his comprehension. We did some of the counting and number sense exercises, and mainly focused on the “fun” topics, like graphs and telling time. He is my “hands-on” kid, and likes his math to be very concrete, with lots of manipulative materials… However, there is definitely an element of excitement when he gets to work on my iPad!

All in all, I felt that the A+ Interactive Math program was very thorough, covering a broad range of math topics in each level. The explanations for each lesson were very clear, and the online worksheets were well done. As far as learning styles go, I think it would work well for students that learn best with visual and auditory methods… and it would be a fun way to review concepts for kinesthetic kids that enjoy a bit of computer time!

If you get a chance, go check out A+ Interactive Math for yourself! There are free video lesson samples, ebooks, and trial memberships, so you and your children can get a feel for how the program works!

And thanks so much to A+ Interactive Math for giving us the opportunity to try your math curriculum!

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The idea of multi-tasking has always been a bit of a quandary to me.

To multi-task or not? That is the question.

Back in the 90’s, as a full-time Mama and homeschool teacher, I was constantly in pursuit of the “how to get it all done” goal, reading everything available by Emilie Barnes (who I dearly love, by the way) and The Sidetracked Home Executives (a.k.a. The Slob Sisters, who I secretly felt more akin to). I had thank you notes tucked in my purse for those fifteen minutes in the doctor’s waiting room and an hourly-daily-weekly-monthly-yearly plan on 3″ x 5″ cards. The first time I heard the “Put Your Rocks in the Jar” speech, I was taking notes about which size stones to put in first so I could squeeze in everything that had to be done. And then the punchline…

Put your rocks in first.

Wait, What?!?

That totally blew my mind.

Here I was, trying to schedule everything down to the minute to be more efficient, and someone had to burst my bubble by telling me there are Really Important Things that needed to be established in my daily routine before all the little mundane things choked them out. Of course I knew this deep down, but somewhere in the 90’s the be-all-you-can-be and the get-it-all-done-ness of life had taken over. The Rocks in the Jar speech set me on a new path.

Thank goodness.

I began to see the need to slow down, to live purposefully, to focus. There weren’t fancy names for this idea yet, no coined terms, but I did find a few signs to hang around the house that said “Simplify Simplify Simplify.” Sally Clarkson and Tasha Tudor and Karey Swan were my new mentors… and I still hung on to Emilie Barnes, who really was teaching the importance of balance between organized and calm in her books about “home.” (I was just clinging obsessively to the checklist chapters!) Yes, organization and efficiency was important, but it was the means to an end, not the sum of life. We need to be organized just a bit so we can get to the good stuff. And we need to make sure the good stuff has priority in our days. So, we pared down our outside activities to have more time as a family. Having it together and getting it all done evolved into a few simple routines. Daily schedules turned into “chunks of time” for home keeping, school work, read-aloud (a Very Big Chunk!), food prep, and project time. Life at home transitioned into a relatively peaceful existence for our girls’ school years.

However, the years since our girls finished homeschooling and flew the coop have been quite a change for us. With extra time on my hands and less dirt being tracked in, the “Now what?” quickly turned into overly full calendars. Craft shows and orders and college classes and volunteering took precedence over housework. Our schedule was crazy, because since we  weren’t tied to a schedule anymore we had more free time to fill. And fill, it did. With good things, but maybe not always the best. I was busy, busy, terribly busy (think Veggie Tales, you Moms from the 90’s) and I didn’t like it one bit. And so the quest began once again for peace and home and all things unhurried.

Since then, we have waxed and waned in our quest for a calm life since then, and some days we wonder if we’re headed in the right direction. (This summer, in particular!) Sometimes the house and the schedule are very full, but I do think we’re learning how to balance the hectic with the calm, and just go with the flow. And, it is so refreshing to see young moms seeking this same balance of living intentionally while embracing the craziness of little children. They are so open and honest with their insights on making a home for their families and appreciating this season of their lives. If you’d like a little inspiration or help, check out Mary Beth’s Steady Days posts, or Kate’s Get It Together posts, or Jordan’s Little Happy Things posts.

And… I’m still taking notes… from the young moms, who have fresh perspective about simple ways of multi-tasking and establishing simple routines so when life does get suddenly hectic the world (and the house!) doesn’t fall apart.

Many times when we’re doing a project, I forget to take “Before” pictures. Mostly because we jump right in and tear things apart before I remember to grab the camera, and sometimes because the “Before” is really not camera-worthy. At least it’s not a photo I’d like to put out on the internet for the world to see. However, sometimes we have a few “Mid-Remodel” pictures, where the worst of the dust has been swept away. This kitchen project is taking a while, so I snapped a couple of shots to share. First, let me present…

The Hole in my Floor

This may very well be the only picture I have of our old kitchen. Hubby built the cupboards when we built the house, and now we’ve stolen the “bar” section to use in the new kitchen. (We also stole the drawers, as you can see, to repurpose as an add-on to the cabinet we moved.) The good thing about being able to move this huge section of cabinets is that within a day I had a cabinet in the new kitchen to move lots of essentials into. Didn’t have to wait for Hubby to build a whole new one… Plus I still get to enjoy the original cabinets he built! The bad thing is that it left a cabinet-sized hole in the floor of one of the main rooms in our house, which then quickly turned into a room-sized hole when Hubby cleaned up the rest of the tile and leveled the subfloor. Another good thing about the Hole in the Floor was that it provided a temporary “art” space while we had kiddos visiting that I didn’t need to worry about messes! Shoes were mandatory, however, to avoid splinters. Hopefully, Some Day Very Soon, there will be a wall around the hole, creating a laundry hallway, and a new room that will either be a second full bathroom or a small art room to hide my creative messes. Still up in the air on that decision. My mind changes daily.

Important Note:
When laying ceramic tile, be sure to buy and keep several extra
boxes of the tile just in case you decide to remove a kitchen cabinet. The Hole in my Floor could have been avoided, had we thought of doing that when we tiled 8 years ago.

Another item of interest in this “Mid-Remodel” picture is the scale hanging in the middle of the walkway. I left it there to test our agility. And the Worm Bin, hiding under the high chair. We ordered a new batch of earthworms while our little friends were here, and let me tell you, 500 Red Wigglers in your kitchen is extremely interesting to a 3 year-old boy!

Now for the “Mid-Remodel” photo of the new kitchen…

Six feet of ready-made (almost) cabinetry let me move the Most Important Kitchen Stuff into the new kitchen right away! Ignore the multi-color aspect. It will get worse before it gets better… I need to paint the drawer fronts so I can put the knobs back on so the drawers are easier to open. Hubby is also going to make brand new doors, since the 20+ year-old hard-as-nails-oil-based-paint is super difficult to sand off the nooks and crannies of the old doors, but we’ll leave the funky brown ones on until that happens to conceal all the Important Kitchen Stuff inside. There will be upper cabinets as well, so also ignore all the random stuff on the countertop. They’re going to be extra tall to make use of the 10-foot ceilings in the new kitchen. My hope is that the cabinet section will look more like a step-back hutch than kitchen cabinets.

Mid-Remodel Disclaimer: I’m still in the “what in the world was
I thinking when I thought I wanted a new kitchen” phase of the remodel…Really hoping it starts looking like the vision I had in my head very soon!

Additional items of interest include the Play-Doh on the counter (used multiple times the past few weeks) and the kitschy vinyl tablecloth on the extreme left of the photo (which protected the as-yet-unsealed new butcher block tabletop from said Play-Doh). Oh, and the teapot sitting in a colander on the other counter.

So, our work is pretty much cut out for us for the next few weeks as we finish up this big change! It’s been a challenge to have everything in the “Betwixt and Between” phase while we had company, but I think it added a little thrill to our lives. And before I go, I read through my last post and realized I missed a few Very Important Things that we experienced during The Last Six Weeks…

LOTS of giggles and laughter.

LOTS of kisses and hugs, including
Fish kisses and Eskimo kisses,
and Bear Hugs and Bedtime Snuggles.

LOTS of silly songs, silly stories,
and general all-around silly-ness.

LOTS of Together Time getting to know
(and now miss!) a bunch of little people.

Now how could I have forgotten to write about all that?

🙂

There will be no photos directly relating to the title of this post.

You’re welcome.

🙂

My Mom and I have started walking in the mornings again. This is the time of year when we always start walking, and we make a valiant effort until it gets Really Hot. And then we quit walking until there’s a chill in the air. But this year, we have a couple extra ladies in the Clarksville Walking Committee, so I’m hoping we stick it out a bit longer due to the incentive of extra company!

Not meaning to be gory or anything, but the other day, while walking on the gravel road, I noticed a Dead Flat Frog. Whenever I see one, it is absolutely necessary to point it out and mention that there is a Dead Flat Frog, thanks to a little girl I met about twenty years ago. Many moons ago, I volunteered to teach a 4-H Cloverbuds group during our homeschool support group meetings, and found myself trying to round up and contain a small mob of five through seven year-olds in about a 10′ x 10′ space at the end of a hallway. It was rather challenging. I found that the best thing to do was arrange everybody in a circle, which was about two kids deep in most places. (It got a little complicated when we had to color or draw.) And in that circle, EVERY SINGLE CHILD had something they wanted to tell me before we got started with our lesson. It was quite interesting, actually, and sometimes we even had a few minutes left at the end to do some 4-H stuff!

🙂

At one Cloverbud meeting, this sweet five year old, who was (and still is)
full of energy and excitement, could not wait to tell me what was new with her that week…

“Miss Kim! Miss Kim! Miss Kim! I saw a DEAD FLAT FROG!”

Evidently, a poor amphibian had met its demise in her
driveway,and with the help of moving vehicles and the
warmth of the sun, had become a Dead Flat Frog.

I wasn’t quite sure how to show the proper amount of excitement about her discovery, but one thing I knew… She had been spending enough time out-of-doors to be observant of nature. She had time to poke around, look for rocks, ponder insects, get her hands and knees dirty, and discover the Dead Flat Frog. And that’s important for kids. Probably for us grown-ups too. 19th century educator Charlotte Mason wrote much about the importance of time out-of-doors, where children can experience nature first hand, and she encouraged families to do this on a daily basis, and then to grab a journal and draw what they saw or jot down notes about the day’s expedition.

So… as you look forward to the lazy days of Summer, plan to go outside…

… Get up close and personal with nature…

… Spend some quiet moments with your sketchbook…

… And take a bit of nature back with you for later…

… Just maybe not any Dead Flat Frogs.