365 ~ 2015: Day 303

Happy Halloween!

365 ~ 2015: Day 302

Presenting: Master Chief, Ant-Man and Thor!  I think we'll be safe in our house for at least Halloween!

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Tonight we had the annual Harvest Fest at David's school.  Here are the boys decorating their giant cookies.  It's the favorite activity of the whole night!

365 ~ 2015: Day 300

Last night the boys school hosted a "Parent Academy" on the new math curriculum.  The idea was to help parents understand WHY math is being taught different from how we were taught.  We learned some of the basic concepts of the curriculum and were given tools and tips on how to help our children solve the problems in their homework.  The idea is to avoid parents becoming frustrating and saying things like, "this is dumb do it MY way!", and then having the kids missing the point of the lesson because we as parents don't get it.

It's no secret that Charlie is the math genius in the house and I've been lucky that he has taken on the roll of "homework helper" in this house.  But I was still curious about the new curriculum.  It's scary!  My kids are coming home talking about number bonds and pulling out all these parts to a number, making it appear to be 3 times more complicated, to add them up and in my mind I'm wondering why they didn't just line the two numbers up and add them like "normal people".

What I walked away with from this presentation is that the math might look complicated on paper but it's actually quite simple.  They are doing that addition in their heads very quickly by making numbers into base 10s.  The reason you see all those lines and numbers is because they are now being asked to SHOW how they arrived at their answer, not just memorize the facts.

I'm honestly amazed at how quickly the boys are adding complicated numbers in their heads because of this system.  And if you are so "annoyed" by the new math and thing it's "dumb".  I suggest that you go to your school administration and ask them to put on a math curriculum night for parents and see for yourself.  Get your questions answered and become educated.  Just because it's different than what you're used to, doesn't mean that it's dumb or wrong!

Here is my Kindergartner excited to try using the number bonds his brother is using in his math!  He was working on finding the parts to various numbers.  The number bond insert and plastic sheet was compliments of the curriculum night.

365 ~ 2015: Day 299

I love when they create things to play.  They are obsessed with golf...and creating golf courses is a favorite.

365 ~ 2015: Day 298

Evan got some practice at Family Center cleaning out a pumpkin and so when it was time to do our own, he said he was an "expert!".

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Another Fall bucket list item checked off!  Kicking off Halloween week with a little pumpkin carving!

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Taking a break from his leaf pile work!

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First piano recital of the year! So impressed by how far they have both come!

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How the littlest enjoys his ice cream treat.  Down to the very last drop!

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Having fun at Family Pizza Night at the boys school tonight!

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Brotherly love!

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Now we just wait for the offical word for braces.  It's only a matter of time!

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Yesterday we met up with some of Evan's friends for some Halloween fun at Charmingfare Farm!  What a fun place.  And the Lindt chocolates they passed out were the icing on the cake!

365 ~ 2015: Day 289

Today we dropped David off in the morning where he spent all day signing for the New Hampshire Master Choral Childrens Chorus Festival.  At the end of the day they put on a concert with the pieces they had worked hard on learning and memorizing!  It was a great experience for him and he had a lot of fun.  Seeing him up there on stage brought me back to my own music festival days!

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Can't get enough of these guys!  I took one last year in the same spot.  It will be fun to compare the two.

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I know I'm biased, but those are some wicked hansome boys!

365 ~ 2015: Day 286

Yesterday we headed to the apple orchard for our Family Center field trip.  Radar didn't show any rain and so we were not prepared for the clouds to open up on us, but we still had fun and got some giant cortlands to make some apple pie with!

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4 Boys and a little lady!

365 ~ 2015: Day 284

Practicing family portraits with some friends!  A wise photographer once told me that when photographing kids (and this would also apply to pets), if you can get them all looking and smiling, you call it a win!  Never mind if the posing isn't just right!

365 ~ 2015: Day 283

It is Race Day!! Another gorgeous day for a race, but there was a black cloud over us this year.  First Charlie lost his race bib.  He tore the house up looking and no luck...my guess is that it got tossed, accidently, into the recyling bin.  So because of that we had to drop him off even earlier so he could get a new race bib, and since they upped the start of the race time to 8am, we had to dorp him off at 7am.

Without his official race bib, we were not able to get the text messages that kept us up to date on his wherabouts.  We had an idea bout what time he would finish so we headed over to the finish line and because we had arrived so much earlier this year we decided try and catch the start of the race and walked over to mile 1.  We saw Charlie and yelled!  He was surprised to see us so early!

We watched for him at the time we thought and didn't see him.  He was behind his normal time but it had been a year since his last race, so I figured that must be why he was behind, but it turns out he injured himself on mile 9.  He finished the last 4 miles with a pulled hamstring.

So while it wasn't his best race, and he is now sporting an injury, he still finsihed with, in my opinion, a great time.  It's too bad he got hurt, because he was on pace to beat his best overall time of 1 hr 19 minutes.

We are still waiting for the official results, but it looks like his time will be around 1 hr 24 minutes.  We are still so proud!  And the boys were happy to get their high fives!

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My art!  Up on a wall.  In a gallery show!

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The very talented middle school and high school students, from the Voices of the 603 festival, preforming a mashup arrangment of Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon and Geronimo by Sheppard.  I was honored to be asked back to document this great show, which helps to promote the Arts in our schools!

365 ~ 2015: Day 280

Another school Walk-A-Thon in the books!  The kids have so much fun going on a Nature Walk to raise money for the PTA!

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My PTA mascots helping me out with some Walk-A-Thon set up!

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Omi going old school with the boys and teaching them the game of Parcheesi!

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The first picture in a while without one of us being pregnant!  I think we're all pretty happy about that...though I can really only speak for myself!  Ha!

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10 years in the making!

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We had a fun day at the Deerfield Fair!  The boys were especially excited to see JP the Clown and the Flying Walendas!  It's one of our must sees at the Fair and they never disappoint.  We crossed off quite a few items off the Fall bucket list and I was happy I got my giant glazed donut!

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Shaun is getting in his 15 minutes of reading time in before bed tonight!  He started reading the Magic Tree House series at the beginning of summer and is now finishing up book 8.

365 ~ 2015: Day 273

My last ones, last year of Family Center.  I'll try not to be emotional about it!