Our little homeschool's morning board

Woof!  It looks so ugly in the sparse lighting.

Here's our morning board, as promised.  It isn't the most be-a-utiful picture, but it'll have to do.

I modeled it after Mama Jenn's fine piece of work.  I used all her printables and copied the basic gist of things.  I didn't laminate anything; I don't have a laminator and feel gun-shy of coating everything in plastic.  I know they would probably last longer, but I resist.  I'd rather just use paper and re-print as they eventually get destroyed or wear out.

We used to have an art wire in this area (right outside the kitchen, heading into the living room at the bottom of the stairs), but when a friend gave me a large piece of composite cork-board after remodeling (possibly used as an insulating "sounding board" by the previous owner, I don't know), I knew this exact spot is where I would put our new Calender / Morning Board combo.  It is perfect: right in view of the kitchen table, but not dominating a main living area.

I covered it in extra fabric (thanks Mom . . . recognize it?) with our handy-dandy staple gun (thanks again, Andrenda), got a calendar themed with monthly/seasonal shifts from a school supply company, started gathering up supplies, and proceeded from there.  The empty sections are TBD . . . I figured I might want to add components later on and configured the space to accommodate that.  Overall, I am very pleased with how it turned out.  

Having a morning board is a very nice starting point for the day.  We do it every morning before breakfast: the boys keep track of the weather, days in school, the date, change the shapes card (that's Jamie's job and thank goodness he has one or it would be complete turmoil), and recite the poem we are focusing on for memory work.  I am also very pleased with the daily reference and visual for numbers higher-than-ten in sequence.  I feel like it provides them with a more tangible source to process through this concept.  Working towards an understanding of the calendar year is happening too . . . just this afternoon, out of the blue on the way up to Quiet Time, Diego asked how many months were in a year.

Logistically, I tried to keep everything as high as possible knowing that Señor Destructo AKA little Jamie would be all over it.  He has gone through phases where he loves ripping the weather and "days in school" cards down, and one time completely mangled the poem and the sheath it resides in, but the overall product has not been destroyed.  Knock on wood!

And now . . . let's have a nicer-looking picture in here in kindness to our retinas.

Blaine did a cleansing fast this past weekend, where he ate nothing but fruit and vegetables for two days to gear up, three days of nothing but fresh juice, water, and tea, and then geared back down with another two days of fruit and vegetables.  Complete with morning enemas of lemon juice, then coffee, during the three-day fast.  Such a lovely thought, I know, but they really help with the detox.  He juiced massive quantities of celery, cabbage, carrots, apples, garlic, oranges, and grapefruit (Diego loved helping him).

The boys and I left the house on the first day of the fast, which ended up being the hardest day for Blaine, and ended up at a Mexican restaurant for our evening meal.  It turned out to be one of the wildest and most unpleasant meals I've ever had at a restaurant with the boy-ohs, mostly from their sheer exuberance and the relentless wiggling.  They were literally falling out of the booth.  Most unpleasant.  They weren't necessarily being naughty, just wildly ecstatic and I was completely unable to tame them. 

The fast went very well for Blaine.  The hunger was intense, of course; but he held out.  He was terribly stinky that first day and had a killer headache, but the second and third days felt much more normal (aside from the hunger).  He even went out and skied hard the second morning, feeling the urge to sweat (then skied at a snail's pace with Truen).  It was good.  I hope he makes it a yearly event.  And someday . . . when I'm done having babies, I'll do it too.