Local Enrichment Plans

These plans have been a long time in the making.  I have reconsidered after the VBS debacle of 2013 and we are taking things slow.

Spitfire's extra curricular activities include:

1. Free time in gymnastics center once a week for an hour and a half.  We did this last year and Spitfire always has fun and tells me about the "new friends" she makes.  This is important to me because I don't want her to be awkward or that weird homeschooled girl!  I considered dropping this because of price (it's not too bad when you pay for the season rate, but money can always be used elsewhere, if ya know what I mean) but felt the social aspect was too important to lose, at least this year.

2. Activities with our local Catholic homeschooling group.  I've been working closely with our leader and we've come up with a rotation of activities so that we have something once a week.  We have previously (I have only been involved the last two years so I'm speaking of those) only met once a month, so this is a big change for our group, and some of our members have not taken to the idea yet.  I say it's only because they haven't seen the fruit of our labor.  The current plan is
     Week 1: Adoration & free play
     Week 2: Daily Mass & free play
     Week 3: Liturgical feast day & free play
     Week 4: Service project or field trip

3. Spitfire will try chorus with a newly formed co-op but widely respected (and fun) teacher!  I offered the other classes in the co-op, art and science, to Spitfire and she seemed too nervous, so I dropped that idea.

4. Separate from the homeschooling community, Spitfire will try Ballet again.  From our final experience with VBS I have some ideas to make her comfortable so she can thrive in her classes.

DIY Whiteboard

Do you like waiting until the last minute?

I do.

Or I don't but I always seem to do it anyway. 

The weekend before "school" started in our home, I told Blazing Inferno that I needed a magnetic whiteboard.  Oh, and I needed him to cut the huge whiteboard in our garage and to also make a wooden frame for said whiteboard out of materials found only in our home.  He wanted to buy MDF, I said no.  I'm pretty mean like that.  I asked if he could buy real wood instead.  Then I asked if he could use the free maple in our garage.  To use the {free} wood in our garage to make our {free} whiteboard, he informed me that he would have a buy a tool.  It was so hard for him to say it and it was even harder for him to get a new tool out of the deal.  We're still saving money because the tool can be used for a number of other things whereas if we had bought new wood, it would have been the frame for the whiteboard and that's it!

Now where did we get such a giant whiteboard?  Friends of ours came into two huge whiteboards from a local college that was getting rid of them.  They took what they wanted from the whiteboard and gave us the rest :)

before...



 after...

 fancy routed (routered?) edges

complete and ready to be used!!!

 

I bet you wish you had a handy dandy husband to turn an ordinary whiteboard into exactly what you need, and make it beautiful in the process!