Long Time Lots to See

 I know it's been forever since I posted. In fact, this may be the longest I've ever gone without a post during a school year, but you must understand that although I haven't posted for two months, I've only done two weeks of normal school....that didn't sound good. Let me explain.

Dustin and I were gone for two weeks (I know...this is not a good start, but stay with me.) We went on a cruise that started in Florida and went to Aruba, Curacao, and Dominican Republic. It was a "Marketer's Cruise" but we signed up for this cruise before the pandemic, and it has been TWO years since then, so Dustin (surprise surprise) is in a new industry in work, and it didn't help his job at all. BUT we did meet some incredible people, and did enjoy some perks from going with a "VIP" group.

It was fabulous. We went to Harry Potter World and I geeked out. Especially during Ollivander's wand experience. We went in a real submarine, went snorkelling in caves, went zip-lining, and slid down waterfalls. I was truly pampered. 

And we didn't take the kids.

The kids, meanwhile, were being loved by all their friends. They slept at our house and were watched by their uncle at night, but then were watched during the day by a handful of beloved friends. I feel so blessed to live in this community where so many care for and love my children.

They also did a couple schooly things while we were gone, including an "Active Learning" group where they do boy scoutish type things at my friend's land. They had a blast.

But the other reason we had so little "normal school" was because we spent three weeks in the States. A little over a week in AZ and a little over a week in UT. I'm SO GLAD we went. Since we are going to be gone for a year, we won't see these people again for a long time. I'm so worried about my mom's health. It was really hard to leave.

This time, we took the whole family, and I took my school supplies as well. No social studies or science was done, but we had a very full schedule. We bought these "pogo-passes" that got us into a lot of things and we planned our time around them. 

We went rock climbing, and rock climbing, and rock climbing...at a different locations. But guess what? My kids LOVE rock climbing now! We did and saw so much. Including going to the new Temple visiter's centre. They loved every minute of it.

They were so excited to go to the desert and took tons of photos of the cacti. 

We went to the zoo and we even went to the Grand Canyon.

But of course, the greatest part was seeing family.

Okay, so I just have to tell you this story: when William sat on Santa's lap, he said "Why is it that your name mixed up spells Satan?" (!!!!) Just look at Santa's face as William's talking!

But actually, he was the best Santa EVER and explained the history of Santa, and all the names he goes by, and he was really sweet (and had a real beard!)

And what a place to spend this time of year! This was the view I had while doing school:

Meanwhile in Cardston, my house's shingles all blew off in a major wind storm.

But did you hear me mention school? because WE DID do it! William even learned his long multiplications. That really stretched his brain:

And Hyrum and Daniel continued with their school. They are so funny. They are always trying to do silly things with their writing books I have for them. Just check out Daniel's 

Just incase you can't read it, it says that you're supposed to write about zoo animals. Daniel said "COVID 19 is a very common zoo animal. It latches on its prey's cells and uses them to make more. COVID 19 is a widely known virus that practically came from nowhere and caused a lot of fear. Because of COVID a lot of lives were lost almost to extinction. Now toilet paper is a rare sight."

They are always being silly like this. I like these workbooks as much as anything else I've used, so I bought some for the whole family, but I'm not impressed with the grade one's. This is from that book:

It has words like "sentence" "picture" "because" and riddle" which my dyslexic boys could never read by the end of grade one. How are they supposed to do this worksheet? Am I supposed to read everything to them? That just frustrates me. I, myself, spelled "sentence" wrong when writing this post, so it's not like it's a super easy word!

Yes I am dyslexic too, so I know what words are hard, which is perfect for my NEW JOB!!! I am a dyslexia consultant for Ensign Peak Academy!!! It's my dream Job!! I've only had one consultation so far, but I hope I'm able to help more people in the future! This is a screen shot of my website they made for me!

So cool, right?

Anyway, after our trip, we were home for the holidays, but half of us were in quarantine. Speaking of, the States were SO FREE! No mask requirements no matter where you went in all the states we went to (MT, ID, UT, AZ) AND we went to so many restaurants, movies, recreational places and didn't have to show them ANY KIND OF PAPERS!!! No vaccine requirements anywhere. So different from here, where you can't go anywhere without papers, not even to another private home without your vaccine passport. 

I honestly got out of habit with masks, and it's a hard transition to being "compliant."

The rules about who had to quarantine and who didn't when we came home did not make any sense. This is not science. This is political science. 

But the younger two were able to see Santa (this one had a fake beard though,) and we were all out of quarantine by Christmas and had a lovely bacon-turkey dinner and I got things for my youtube vlogs I'm doing and Pat gave me these headphones with a unicorn horn on them. I think it's hilarious.

A highlight of Christmas was when Janet came over and gave all my boys blankets. She said to take them with them on our travels and when they feel lonely, to wrap themselves up in the blanket and know that there are people who love them. Seriously, the hardest part of our adventures is leaving friends behind. We are so blessed with such good friends.

So, we DID do two weeks of normal school and in that time, we only did two social studies subjects. We learned about William Penn. He is what every classic American wants to pretend every founding father was like. He was everything that represents the good about the U.S. and I love teaching about him. We made pulled taffy as our activity. I had never succeeded with this before, but I think it worked this time. (It wasn't as slimy as this picture portrays!)

We learned about the Filles Du Roy and while I was teaching the boys I briefly found that when women were sent by the British, they were not treated....very well, so I admire the Filles Du Roy and the way they were presented even more. We made rag dolls as our activity.

For science, one week we learned about sound and vibrations. We made cup telephones as part of this, and I guess this is a photo of that, but really it's of the cute Barrys with their crazy hair!

And the other week we learned about the different kinds of energy, but mostly kinetic and potential energy. As part of this, we had film canisters (I feel so old that no one knows what film canisters are anymore!) and filled them with denture cleaners (which work like alka seltzer tablets with fizzing in water) and they blew up like rockets and they LOVED that. 

As far as other things going on in the educational department, MAXWELL GOT AN "A" ON HIS UNIVERSITY CLASS!!!! It was a CAD class. In fact, he had a 99.99% until his final. He got caught up on one question on his final and spent forever on it, and didn't end up finishing his final. It didn't hurt his percentage too bad and he's able to take the test in a week again because it is a certificate that mechanical engineers need (I think.) I think that was a good learning experience for him. He'll always move on during a test from now on (I should hope!) 

I did not help him AT ALL with this class, and Dustin only helped him with software problems. So proud of him! Next semester he's taking math and english. He melted into a puddle begging me not to take english, but then I reminded him that he had to do English no matter what, so would he like to do it when he's left our house or when I can help him, and then he sucked it up.

I took a psychology class from BYUI too, and I really liked it, but I just don't know what the internet situation is going to be like next semester, but we're moving forward anyway!

Maxwell has also been doing a small business of making and selling freeze dried candies on Facebook. It's been good for him.

And Abraham and I are getting so close to finishing his book. I was hoping to have this done by the end of summer....uhhh oops.

Halloween!!!

 It's Halloween! I absolutely love that our town celebrates halloween on Saturday when it lands on Sunday. Although, there was two feet of SNOW! That didn't stop my kids, who mostly made their own costumes. Abraham just used the costume he made from last year (the jack-o-lantern ghost.) William was the cat he's was two years ago. 

But Maxwell made a Steve head. Hyrum changed Maxwell's shark onesie into a walrus onesie, and Daniel, DANIEL out did us all! He made a "wither" skeleton with three heads!! I was quite impressed.

And we did some halloweeny things for Social Studies, so let's get on with that:

First, we learned about Jamestown and Pocahontas. The REAL story of Pocahontas which actually seems to deviate from one source to another. But then, for our activity, we made Kachina dolls (which didn't turn out as cute as imagined) while watching the Disney movie, which by then they knew was wildly inaccurate. 

Then we learned about small pox's (and other diseases) effects on the indigenous peoples. Did you know that there are only two documents that say there was intentional spread of small pox to the indigenous people? I'm just saying I thought there was a lot more evidence. 

We made beaded necklaces as our activity. I bought some beads off the internet, and I got A LOT of beads, but they had so many fun beads, that I don't regret it!

Then we learned about the pilgrims and the Wampanoag. I love this story, and we had the boys "plant" candy corn in "dirt" with fishy crackers as our activity. This is always a hit.

But then, sadly, we learned about King Philip's war, which undid all the good from the Pilgrim/Wampanoag story. Such a sad ending to a good story. No activity.

Then we learned about the start of slavery in the Americas. We focused on the shipping of slaves. (I have actually been to the main port where slaves were shipped away from in Benin, Africa, and it was the saddest, evilest thing I have ever felt. I'm so glad I had that tour. It changed me.) We had the boys cram into a container while being chained for our activity. They had smiles, but I think it's hard for kids to understand horrible concepts, and maybe that's okay.

Then we learned about pirates! We learned all about Blackbeard and all the real pirates. I didn't talk about modern pirates, because that scares me since we're planning to go SAILING!! 

By the way, I made a Youtube channel about our sailing adventure, so here is a link to that:

And Daniel did a treasure hunt for us all, and he was super cute about it and hid the treasure box in the snow. 

And then, we learned about WITCHES (can you get more halloweeny?) We learned all about the Salem witch trials and how it was happening around the world too. For our activity, we did a couple Halloweeny activities like blowing spiders across the floor and eating cotton candy with vampire fangs.

See how Halloweeny our school has been? But wait, there's more! We went to the corn maze as a homeschool group. It was a bit colder than last year, but it was still super fun. I love it there.

I sure love our homeschool group. We've had a couple surprise parties lately, and it's just so touching to see how much all these kids love each other. 

And just so you know, our homeschool group is GROWING! It was crazy! One day, there were about 24 littles in my class! I've NEVER had a class that big, and it seemed like so many things went wrong, and I was a bit frazzled. We were learning about pressure, and one of the funnest experiments we did was to walk on eggs. Not one was broken during the littles, but some did with the olders. 

By the time I had the older's class, I had gone home and gotten some supplies I had forgotten, and the olders were just about 13 kids, and they were the steady kids I've known forever, so I calmed right down, and it was a good experience. 

We had an emergency mom's meeting after that, and talked about how to accommodate all these kids. I am now teaching THREE science classes, and for the littles, they are shorter classes (which I'm not sure I love, but I think works.) Cayleen really is the backbone to this whole thing, and I just love how she was wearing a name tag with "William McKay" on it last Monday.

The groups were still pretty big, even though they were split up. Here's a pitcure of some of my crew to give you a bit of an idea of our "smaller classes."

The next week we learned about Newton's three laws of motion. as part of this, we learned about centripetal force, and if you can't tell because it's a blur, Daniel is swinging a cup of water in a circle with out the water spilling out.

And that's it for science, but while we were at the Alternate school, I just happened to look at the town's newspaper and my family was on the front cover! (The backs of my family) it was of the Orange shirt day ceremony.

And in other news, I love Rightstart. Abraham started doing multiplication, and it was so easy for him because of the excellent foundation that they give. Then William started doing percents, and same thing. easy transition to knew learning. LOVE IT!

And lastly, Maxwell and I did our courses for First Aid training! We learned a lot and I read about half of the online stuff with Daniel and Hyrum too, and I plan to complete that with them.