Letter K and Happy Birthday 7-11!!!

This morning the little kids played with Littlest Pet Shop stuff for a long time while the older kids watched the recording of the last Space Shuttle Launch.  We missed it last Friday since we had summer movies, so I recorded it and we watched it today. The whole idea of the last ever launch seemed to be lost on them. Or at least they weren't that bugged by it. They were just more interested in seeing it take off, and then they were done. Oh well.

After that I started cutting out some K's for a Letter K collage, and Flossie said, "We're doing Letter K again?!"  Well, we haven't really been able to do too much with it, so I asked her, "Well, if you can tell me what starts with K, then maybe we can be done with it. What starts with K?"  Silence. "Really?  Just tell me ONE thing that starts with K."  Silence. "SEE! We're not ready to be done with K yet!"  So I put her on the Starfall Letter K website and she loved it! She went through all the letter K activities over and over. Then Freddie had to have his turn. He got bored more quickly and wanted to try some of the other letters. After that, they both could tell me several things that started with K. We just haven't spent enough time on it for them to know yet. Still need printer ink to do more activities with K!!

 

I have been trying something new lately. It has been working with varying success. I need to get on a better schedule/routine with so many kids and all with different levels/needs. So I made up a schedule on the white board both for the kids and for myself to keep track of what everyone is supposed to be doing at each time block during the day. During one point I also have the little kids doing a "Workbox" which is just a box of various school materials that they can do on their own without needing much help from me. That is time I can work with the older kids during the morning after I'm done doing preschool. Sometimes it works great and sometimes not so much. The past few days I have had a horrible time getting the boys to focus on school. They used to be so good about getting right to their school in the morning and getting thins done. Lately they are really having a hard time keeping on task and I am continually dragging  them back to their work. I am sure it is just summer fun, but when I have let them just take the time off, the day dissolves into arguing and chaos. Keeping them busy seems to be better, but school isn't what they necessarily want to be doing. Unfortunately, for my kids, they don't have a lot of choice until they finish up some of their year's curriculum. Dill also has his summer packet to complete. So in the meantime, we will plug along, and I'll try to mix in some fun projects too. 

 

Did have some fun today! It was 7-11-11 today, 7-11's birthday! So free Slurpee day!  We stopped on the way home from picking up Bella at work. The kids were way excited and no one spilled in the car - yay!

The day ended with a nice water gun fight!