7 Quick Takes: April 30, 2010 (Vol. 39)

~ 1 ~

I continue to feel like I am falling behind in just about everything.  I anxiously await some summer vacation to get caught back up, and hopefully to come up with a better plan for next year.

In the midst of being behind and thinking that I could work on some of those things on my to-do list tonight, I stopped working on them.  I went outside with my family in the beautiful windy weather and we broke open the box of Ultra Stomp Rockets (for the first time) that we had given Jack for Christmas.

Holy heck!  That was a crazy amount of fun for less than $11.  The kids were eager to take turns, and so were Eric and I.  (When Eric and I did a couple of shots of doing it as hard as we could, we both managed to launch it hard enough that it sailed up over the house and landed in our front yard.)

Whew — crazy fun!

~ 2 ~

We then went from Stomp Rockets to a game that I now call Roof Ball.  Again with the crazy fun.

A couple of our Stomp Rockets made their way onto the roof of the house.  Eric went up to get them a few times.  When we were finally ready to be done, there were two rockets on the roof.  (The first one was an accident, the second one was shot up by Noah, trying to get down the first one.)  I decided that we should try to throw a ball up on the room to knock them down.

In the end, we had three balls going (playground-sized balls) and were wildly throwing them up on the roof at the stomp rockets.  It was so much fun!

And, for the record, I rock at Roof Ball.

~ 3 ~

This week wasn’t all Stomp Rockets and Roof Ball, I have also been busy writing in a variety of places:

Evaluating Your School Year – The Homeschool Classroom

Utilizing a Small Space as a Craft Room – Blissfully Domestic

Wordly Wise 3000 Review – Curriculum Choice

~ 4 ~

photo by beta karel

The old saying, “It’s just like riding a bike” as a way to describe something that you have learned in the past and should be able to do again much later, even after a long hiatus, is apparently an aptly coined phrase.  I hadn’t ridden a bike for over ten year (either had Eric).  We just got our bikes out of his parents garage a couple of months ago.  Eric cleaned them up, and we each took a spin around the neighborhood.

I will admit – as soon as I was about to ride it, I had a sudden panic and thought I wouldn’t have any idea how to ride a bike anymore.  Well, apparently it truly is the kind of thing you just don’t forget.

~ 5 ~

I had my yearly check up on my kidney stones this week.  If you are a long time reader and you have a really excellent memory for all things kidney, you might remember when I ended up in the ER (and an overnight hospital stay) with kidney stones, as well as when I had surgery for them.

Apparently there is one still in there, but I already knew that (though I had forgotten).  I know this because I had the same set of X-rays that I’ve had six times over the past two years.  Everything is fine though (as long as it doesn’t try to go anywhere), and I’m schedule for round number seven of the X-rays next April.

~ 6 ~

My good friend Kris, from Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers published her very first e-book this week!  I haven’t read it yet, but I do have my own copy already and I can’t wait to dig into it.  It’s called Get Your Hands On Learning and it has 11 projects with how-to steps (including pictures), amongst other features.

I have been a fan of Kris’ blog for a few years now, and I am always amazed at what she does with her kids.  If you are interested in hands on learning ideas, definitely go check it out!

~ 7 ~

If you have a Home Depot nearby and also have kids ages 5 – 12 years old, make sure to check out this weekend’s Kids Workshop at Home Depot.  This month’s project is a Picket Fence Planter.  (You don’t even have to register ahead of time — just show up.  I would make sure to not wait until the end of the time though, as the location closest to us always seems to run out.)

We just love doing these projects, and I’ve really seen an increase in what my kids can do independently the more we’ve gone to their workshops.

This post is linked to 7 Quick Takes Friday and Weekly Wrap Up.

No related posts.