Homeschool Convention and Where Did My Babies Go?

Had an amazing day at the CHAP Convention yesterday and am gearing up to go again today.


When I go, I have my list of books I must purchase to get ready for next year. My first stop is usually at the Queen Homeschool booth to purchase our Math U See books for next year.


So yesterday, I went up to them and said, "I need a complete set of Alpha, a student book for Epsilon and a complete set of whatever comes after Zeta." The very courteous young man helping me said, "Oh, that would be Pre-Algebra".

(Imagine here the scene from Christmas Story where Ralphie's mom called Schwart's mom and told her that Ralphie heard a bad word from Schwartz. ~ What?! What!? WHAAAAT?!?!?!? That's a little glimpse inside my mind at that moment.)


I was shocked! Pre-Algebra!!! I mean, I should have known because I am familiar with Math U See as we have been using it for a few years now. I started thinking in my mind, "Okay, DD12 will be 13 this summer and she will be 8th grade in the fall, so I guess that's right." All of this happened in about a milli-second. I tried to keep it together and not let this guy know what was going through my head - I wanted to know where in the heck my baby went and that I wanted to leap over the table at him for telling me my firstborn is growing up so fast. But, hey, can't shoot the messenger.


After a quick moment, all I could do was look at this poor young man and say, "I'm not emotionally prepared to make that purchase right now. Give me the Alpha and Epsilon books, but I need time to digest 'Pre-Algebra'."



Whew! They grow up right before your eyes, don't they?

These are the moments I wait for

Little tiny ice pellets are falling from the sky. We have been waiting for the horrific weather that has been forcasted for the last couple of days now. Even though the weather was supposed to start last night, it finally did start around 3 this afternoon. We'll see if we get the 2 to 3 inches of snow they were predicting. Right now, it doesn't look likely.

My plan today was to make homemade playdough. This activity was especially geared toward my 4 year old in an attempt to keep him off "screens" today. (Screens = anything with a screen, TV, computer, video games, etc.)

I knew DD10 would want to make playdough because she very much wants to be 4 again. Much to my surprise, DD11 wanted to make playdough, too. I really wasn't expecting that. To make playdough for all three of them, I had to make one and a half batches. So I made the first batch for the two younger kids and DD11 insisted on making her own. I told her she only should make a half batch, and she simply said, "Yes, mom. I know how to multiply the fractions by 1/2." (Great big cheer inside.) This is the child who has cried more over math than I can even tell you and she has this very matter-of-fact attitude about it today. I guess (in her mind) since it wasn't in a math book, it wasn't anything she needed to cry over. I won't pop her bubble by telling her any different.

And here she is just going to town working with fractions.

Always with a flair for the dramatic - I don't know why this child had to flour her face.

This one is busy working with his "recipe". It smells so good that he had to taste it. Well, it's made with salt and doesn't taste like it smells. Perhaps if we used sugar instead of salt...

We made Kool Aid playdough. It smells so good and requires boiling water. The kids knead it after it cools a bit and they love feeling the warmth on a cold day like today.