Scarlett and Leon in School

For almost a month now Scarlett and Leon have been going to public school.  I love homeschooling and eventually plan to homschool them again.  But right now I just don't feel like I have enough time to teach them all.  This whole thing kind of started because Scarlett got behind in reading.  I wanted her to get extra help from school for just reading, but the school was not willing to let her (even though it is in the DODEA policy that they will).  I decided to go ahead and enroll her so she can get caught up in reading.  I also enrolled Leon for a couple of reasons, I didn't want to send Scarlett alone, Leon is the only one who has never been to public school, and because it is more time consuming for me to teach the children who cannot read well.

Leon is in first grade and is loving it.  I had a parent teacher conference with his teacher and wasn't surprised one bit.  He is right on track and doing great and he has even made friends.  Leon was great at homeschool and in general he is pretty easy to parent.  I knew school would be a breeze for him.

Scarlett is having a little bit of a harder time.  But she is also doing just as I expected.  She struggled with school at home and she struggles with it at school.  She just really doesn't like reading...yet (I'm determined to change that).  She is also very tired all the time.  We have to leave for the bus at 6:45.  That is super early for us.  Scarlett used to not wake up until 7:15.  It is honestly hard to send her to school everyday and then she comes home really tired and grumpy and I'm supposed to get her to do homework. 

Scarlett does like her teacher though and I know that she does have fun at school. Sometimes she says that it is terrible, but I think that she enjoys her school day for about 75% of the time.  It is just easy to fixate on the hard times.  Here she is after school showing me the spoon and ketchup she scored from the cafeteria. 

 We took a couple selfies waiting for the bus on Halloween.

 The bus is the worst part about it.  School doesn't start until 8am but they get on the bus at 6:45.  It is normally a 20 minute drive to their school, but morning traffic adds to that.  Then after the kids arrive at school they sit on the bus for over 30 minutes!  It is horrible.  Basically they use one bus for all the kids in our area.  So they ride with high school and middle school kids who's school starts 30 minutes earlier. Then after dropping the older kids off the elementary kids just sit on the bus.  I think it is crazy that that is allowed.  Another major issue I have with the school is that there is only one recess!  The elementary school is gigantic.  It has about 1,200 students.  I think there are 10 first grade classes this year.

 Both kids got to go on a field trip Mikan picking.  They really enjoyed it.

Last Day of School

Monday was Penelope and Scarlett's last day of school.  Tucker officially ended school last week.  Wohoo I'm so happy it is summer!  I'm pretty sure everyone in my family was really excited for school to end.  The kids had a great year, I'm just ready for a schedule break.

I wanted to get some pictures of their last walk to school... kind of.  We actually are planning on walking to the school a lot this summer to use their playground/library/free lunches.  But this felt different.  We usually drove to school in the mornings but it was nice out so I wanted to walk them on their last day.  I always walk to pick them up after school, rain or shine.

Over all it is a pretty nice break to get out of the house every day and get some fresh air.  I wanted to get a picture of my walking buddies.  Tucker usually comes too.

The girls both really liked their teacher.  Scarlett had Mrs. Chinnock, who was a lot of fun.  Scarlett said she was going to miss her.

Penelope had Mrs. Sherry who she really liked.  Mrs. Sherry was a little more strict but I could tell she cared a lot about her class.  She is actually going to China to teach a bilingual class for the next two years.

I'm grateful for all the school teachers!  That has got to be one hard job!

Muffins With Moms

Last week the girls school had their annual Muffins with Moms day where we got to come and read with them while eating muffins.  I was thinking of how easy it was for me to go because I don't have work to take off from or a napping baby to worry about... yet.  I was kind of excited, when in the past I haven't looked forward to these things because I usually disrupts nap time.  I just brought Tucker and Leon with me and they did great!  Tucker sat and read a book that he brought from home and Leon was quiet also and sat with me.

 We first went to Scarlett's classroom because it was the first one we walked by.  She showed me her desk and classroom.  All of which I've seen before but she was very excited that I was there and she got to show me.  Then I signed her out and we went and hung out in Penelope's classroom.  She read a few books to us and then we did a little Easter project on the computer.  Both girls have laptops in their classroom that they are expected to use and they almost have enough where they barely even have to share.  Pretty different than my kindergarten experience.

 It only lasted about 45 minutes but it was a nice way to end the school week.

School Night

The local elementary school won an improvement award so they invited the families out to celebrate.  We ate pizza and decorated tiles.  I'm not sure where the tiles are going to go up but the kids thought it was pretty cool.  I'm glad that the school is getting better but at the same time I wish they went to a school that was already better, if that makes any sense.

The tiles were supposed to be related to the school so Penelope choose to do the playground and Scarlett wanted to draw the lunch.  Bob and I helped with the pictures.

Last Day of School

Yesterday was Penelope's last day of school.  I think she enjoyed school even though she didn't ever want to go.  She really wanted to homeschool, but I felt like she needed to go to school.  Looking back I think we made the right decision.  The whole setting of going away from me with a big group of strangers was extremely hard for her.  We had weeks of her crying begging me to stay.  She grew so much throughout the year.  I thing going through that challenge was a big learning experience for her.  I'm not saying she won't be scared next time, but now she knows that she can do it.

Here she is with her amazing teacher!

The week before school got out they had dress up days.  This was another challenge for her.  She would talk about what she wanted the night before and then in the morning say she didn't want to wear it.  Each day I had to almost force her to dress up, but every time she came home from school she told me she was happy she did it.  The first day was career day and I missed the picture.  She dressed up as a ballerina.

Next was Cowboy vs Pirate day.  We had cowboys and girls at our house.

Scarlett was so nice to let Penelope borrow one of her new dress up outfits.

Tucker had fun leaning up against walls all day with his hat over his face.  A teacher took this and emailed it to me.  We were there waiting for Penelope to come out.

Next was Hawaiian day.  This was the easiest one to get her to wear.

And lastly was wacky day.  She did not want to dress up wacky.  But she had been talking about doing cupcake hair for months since she saw a picture of it online.  So we gave it a try.

I'm glad school is over too.  It is going to be so nice not to homeschool or walk Penelope back and forth from school for a few months.

Big Bad Wolf

Penelope's class went on a field trip to see a play titled "Big Bad Wolf."  I went along as a chaperone.  I wasn't sure if I would because I have all the other kids at home, but Bob decided to take the day off work and be a stay-at-home dad for a day so I could go.

Penelope and I decided to dress matching for the occasion.  It was fun and a lot of people noticed.  I was only slightly embarrassed when another adult asked who's idea it was and I had to admit that it was mine.

I had four kids in my group; two girls and two boys.  They did pretty good.  The boys kind of played together and the girls did too.  So it wasn't like four excited kids being crazy.  The only time when it felt a bit crazy was when we had to walk on the sidewalk for a couple blocks to the theatre and half of them ran ahead.  

I made sure to have the kids clean out the car before the field trip.  I've learned from past experience that anything left in the car from our family will be something the school kids laugh and giggle about.  Somehow Scarlett still left a sock in the car, so they kept saying it was stinky and things like that.

The actual play was very cute.  It was a different Big Bad Wolf story that I hadn't heard before and I liked it.  The actors did a good job too.  I could tell that the kids were all excited about it and very into it.  Until one of them had to go to the bathroom for the last ten minutes of the play so I missed the end.  Penelope filled me in though.

Once the play finished we headed to the park for lunch and to play.

We lucked out and had a sunny day.

The kids had a blast.

Once we got back to school Penelope really wanted me to take her home with me.  They still had 2 and a half hours left of school so I wanted her to stay.  She ended up sitting on the carpet crying her eyes out while I was in the back watching, and hoping she would calm down so I could leave.  The kids kept telling the teacher that Penelope was crying.  I felt a little bad for her but I mostly felt bad for the teacher because of the big distraction she was causing.  So I pulled her out and took her home.  She of course stopped crying and smiled.  I didn't want her to think I was just giving in because she was crying so I made her do extra school work at home.  I also told her that I changed my mine, not because she was crying, but because I didn't want to come back to school and pick her up in two hours.

I'm glad that I got to go with Penelope.  Now that she is in school all day I feel like I don't get to spend very much time with her.  And it is always nice to see how they act in school and around their friends.

Tucker's First Day of School

Tucker's first day of school went really well.  We are tying out homeschooling this year so I really didn't know what to expect.  I read a few books on different techniques and I had picked out our curriculum and had an idea of what I wanted to do but I wasn't sure how it would work out.  It was actually very low key and laid back.

After we took Penelope to school and Scarlett to preschool we came back and did his language lesson.  Then he had a little snack and did writing.  Next we were going to do math but our math books haven't arrived in the mail yet so we read part of a history book.  All that only took about an hour and I told him that if we have extra time then that is when we will learn about what he chooses.

He wanted to learn about Harry Houdini so we read a book about him, then watched a couple youtube videos of his escapes.  Next we learned two magic tricks.  And it was time to get Scarlett from preschool.  Then we do lunch and afterward while Leon and Scarlett nap he has free time to practice piano, read, draw, do legos, k'nex, play outside, basically anything he wants to quietly do without my help is great, as long as it doesn't involve a screen.  If all goes well I let him watch one show just before nap time ends and then we go pick up Penelope.

I can tell he is really starting to look older.

I'm excited to get to spend more time with Tucker!  Hopefully we won't drive each other crazy.

Class of 2028 2029 Shirt Tutorial

When Tucker started kindergarten I made him a large Class of 2025 shirt and I have him wear it every year on the first day to take pictures.  After three years I can already see a big difference in how much he has grown.  Now that Penelope's first day of kindergarten is coming up I wanted to make her a Class of 2028 shirt to wear every year and grow into.  And while I was at it I went ahead and made Scarlett a Class of 2029 shirt to wear on her first day of preschool.

First day of school pictures are a big deal.  I remember being a kid and my mom always took them in front of the same rock outside our house.  Now I love taking them of my kids.  For a different first day of school picture idea, try these first day of school shirts!

When I made Tucker's I spray painted the shirt, you can find that tutorial here.

This year I hand painted them on.  It is a cleaner look and I think I prefer it better.

Materials Needed:

Large Shirt (joanns $3)

Freezer Paper

Fabric or even Craft Paint

1) The first thing I did was open up photoshop and make the text look how I wanted.  Lucky for you if you like mine all you have to do is click on it and print it on freezer paper or and zoom in or out on your computer until it is the size you want.

2) I didn't even print it out.  You can print on the freezer paper, but I don't have a printer and the computer makes a great lightbox.  I just zoomed in until it was the size I wanted and then turned up the brightness on my computer and taped my freezer paper up to the screen.  I then traced it.  Make sure to trace on the dull side.  I went with the outside lines, but you can do either you like.

3) The next step is to use an exacto knife and cut out the letters.  This is the most time consuming step.  Make sure to save your middle pieces.  I did it on top of a cardboard box.

4) Now lay the paper shiny side down onto your shirt and iron it on.  Here is where you need the middle pieces.

5)  Now for the fun part.  Paint your letters.  I used fabric paint because I had it.  But I've used craft paint before and it works fine too.

6) Once it is dry peal off the freezer paper and you are done!

I'm going to redo these creative first day of school pictures on the actual first day of school, but I wanted to get this tutorial out for everyone who is starting now.