Deployment and homeschooling

So, let's be honest.  Homeschooling and deployment are no joke. 

This week, we took some time to get some projects done.

Eli, checked out a cookbook from the library and has asked for weeks to make cupcakes out of it.  As luck would have it, Colin was learning about the letter C, so it worked out perfectly to finally make them.  I'm pretty sure he's getting too old to sit on the counter...

We also worked on planting a garden.  Eli is supposed to learn about plant life this year and deployment brain made me think we could grow a giant garden.  Why?  Why do I always bite off more than I can chew?  Hello.  Just mowing the lawn is a chore.

The kids were really excited to have their own spot and picked what they wanted to grow.  Eli is growing basil and carrots.

Alison is growing cotton (she got seeds from a cotton gin field trip), tomatoes and peppermint.

This project definitely took much longer than I anticipated, but I have learned a lot and the kids are really enjoying the work and I'm praying that something grows!

Can you see Alison in the tree in this picture?

I had to sneak a picture through my kitchen window.  A lot of learning happened in this tree this week.  She started writing a book about Maya up there and she memorized countless math facts.  That was our school focus this week.  It's been a long road of rebuilding her math foundation, but this week was a turning point.  Y'all, I bribed her.  And it worked.  Maybe bribed is a bad word...gave her incentive.  I told her for every stack of math facts and set of skip counting she memorizes, I'll pay her $1.  She spent hours working hard on memorizing and was SO excited to be working on it.  It gave her a boost of confidence and she said, "Thank you for making math fun!".  Best money I ever spent.

Eli wanted to earn money just like Alison and has also worked hard on memorizing.  Why is he jumping?  Alison had to try different ways to memorize to figure out what worked best for her.  I would have her write the facts she struggled with and say it 3 times, but it wasn't clicking.  In college, I learned the best reading while walking to class, so we tried moving and learning.  I found Eli practicing skip counting on the trampoline one evening, way after school was over.