What we spend our days doing

We sure do stay busy... here are the things I have taken time to capture in a picture. The latest game is called "playing bags" :) It is usually very windy here. They take a Walmart bag out into the wind, and let the wind carry it and chase it. Love their imagination! Will have to try and get a pic of that one before we leave.


Riding bikes, although it is not a good place to bike - we have replaced 3 inner tubes so far - too many cactus prickys!


Putting rocks on the chain and spinning the peddles to watch the rocks fly off the other end :)


Doing puzzles - looks like Sammy is trying to help in this one!


That Cinderella one is 300 pieces! Thats the biggest they have ever done, and they did it all on their own.




Making things with clay. this one is a cup, blueberries, peas, corn, jelly beans and a bird sitting on a nest

Typical Landscape where we are

I understand that the landscaping varies alot in NM, but this is what we see where we are at..


I believe these are called yuccas


Prickly pear cactus


And typical roadside view. If we were to live here, I think I would get... whatever you would call the opposite of claustrofobic :) No much for trees thats for sure!

Who says school has to be done at a desk?

Another fun way to make homeschool interesting.... we do it in different locations. Library, RV, park, even at McDonalds. Of couse there is playing time there when school work is done.

Our "home" in New Mexico

Its hard to believe that we only have a few days left here! Time flew even if our home was small. It worked perfect for what we needed - much better than a hotel room! It is a 38 footer with 3 bumpouts, so its actually very roomy.

Kids Korner - Homeschool - Gun Week

Devon chose to learn about guns last week.

Devon
When you shoot a gun the bullut spin's.
I allso learned that a machine gun sits on the grownd,
And the sub-machine gun you hold.
I learned about machine guns,shot guns,rifle.

Kylee
gunsur iuwd. sum gus ur lud. sum guns ur hort. win you hot a gun bliss spin.

Kylees translation:
Guns are loud. Some guns are long. Some guns are short. When you shoot a gun, bullets spin.

Kids Korner - Giraffes

Kylee picked last weeks topic - Giraffes
Devon
I learned about graffs that thay have 2 to 3 feet hearts.
A grone-up graff is 19 feet tall.
A baby graff is 7 feet tall.
Thay can run 35 mph.
Thay live in africa.
Thay spred thare legs out to thar side then put thar neck all the way down to drink.
Thay cant swim.

Kylee is being shy today, so maybe she will write next week :)

Homeschooling

Since we have been on the move from the beginning of January, we decided that homeschool would be the best option for the rest of this year. We had a great start to it as they were quite excited about it. After my short experience with it last year when we went to Arizona, I thought it would be fun to let them alternate weeks to choose a topic that they wanted to learn this time, as Devon quickly got bored with worksheet after worksheet back then. They thought this was a good idea too. But after a few weeks, they decided that it wasn't quite so fun, and they wanted to play rather than work.

So after talking with a few people, we started the "point system" Every day, they each get a point for good attitude towards school, a point for neatness in their printing, and a point for completing everything I had planned for that day. After they each get 30 points (about every 2 weeks) they get a day off school and we do something fun. This has made a world of difference for us! The last time we did it, we went to Carlsbad and did the Riverwalk - 4 miles of path along side the river - they biked and I walked Sammy. There was also a HUGE playground there that they spent hours at. They played in the water... was a great day. We are just about at our next 30 points and they have it all planned out... we are going to go to the desert zoo here, and spend the afternoon on some peddle boats at that same river we were at last time. They love this system and it makes it all so much better for me.

The kids want to start up our Kids Korner again. On Fridays as part of their journal time, they will write on our blog here about what they learned about our topic of the week. This past week we learned about giraffes - I was amazed at the interesting facts that they learned too. This is a fun way of learning!


Homeschool at the park

Trip to New Mexico

So glad Cliff was willing to drive us down. I first had the trailer loaded tongue heavy. The night before we left, Duane decided that we should unload and reload to fix this. So the next morning we pulled most of our trailer (and truck - you wouldn't believe how much I had packed into that truck!!) out onto Duanes driveway and started it all over. We left behind a few of the bigger and heavier stuff. Well, then we ended up with it rear heavy, so it was slow going... if you went over 60 mph the trailer wanted to sway. We left around 11:00 Thursday morning and got into Artesia shortly after lunch on Saturday. All the driving I did was from Harrisville to Flint where I picked up Cliff from the airport - that was about enough of that stress for me!! The kids did very well travelling.


Here we are! Notice the luggage bags on top of the trailer - we were loaded!!


This was quite unusual so had to take a picture of it. It says 44 degrees but its snowing outside (the picture didn't turn out real well and looks like rain, but its snow) Actually I think there was something wrong with the thermometer and it was registering heat from the engine or something) but it made for a good picture :)


Passing the time with clay - thanks to Grandma S!




I think this was eggs in a nest.


Love kids imaginations!! These these are what they decided were phones and they would talk to each other or Cliff or I. Kylees is a snow scraper


And Devons is the phone portion off my fax machine. I had unplugged it earlier so it didn't get caught on something while I packed it in the truck