Snow Days!

Does your home school take snow days?

This has been a major hot topic on both my home school boards and facebook. On one hand you have the public schoolers who are out of school, making it difficult to say no. On the other hand you have your fellow home schoolers across the nation who are not experiencing your weather and they are making good use of their winter months.

What is a home school momma to do?
I always strive for my kids to be on schedule. In fact, because we really enjoy taking longer breaks, we began schooling through the summer. This left us plenty of time to take off between now and the end of the traditional school year because we have already fulfilled our state mandatory hours. My heart was yearning for a few play days... but do you realize our public schools were closed here more than 20 days in some districts? That is more time off than I wanted to allow. Without a schedule (even a flexible one like ours) the kids grow antsy and irritated.

So we took 2 additional weeks off from full day schooling and just hit a few subjects a day. Everyone was happy with the compromise, the kids got to see their friends and play a ton out in the snow.

For the first time ever, since moving to Missouri, we had a blizzard. That was both cool AND an opportunity to talk to my kids about the dangers  and make sure we had an emergency preparedness plan. Which we do. Since we study the Red Cross Health books as part of our curriculum. We were ready for what ever life sent to us... We were ready to be with out power for up to 2 weeks.

And instead of having a disaster... we had a sledding day. Isn't it nice how things just work out some times?

Now, sharing this pictures gives me giggles. Here is Amy dressed in my bib overhauls. Yes, I own some. Please don't tell the fashion police. Just 2 days before this picture was taken Amy was in Hot and Balmy South America. She was wearing tank tops and shorts and having many overheated moments.  Talk about a shock!

This is my handsome husband and winter time out of doors enthusiast. He is the one who taught me to love cross country skiing. Look at this toboggan! It is absolutely packed with snow. Looks to me like hubs is covered a good deal as well. I am thankful for Kyle. He  has absolutely no qualms about yanking the kids out of the classroom and spending the day with them sledding.

Up front is Abby. She is not a rookie to this. She has on her ski goggles because the first person always gets the most amount of snow in their faces. This is an 8-10 man toboggan. With Kids the size of ours though... it never seems to hold that many. Next is Nick. He will steer and protect Abby. Behind him hiding is Amy. Behind Amy is JB (our other adopted son) and lastly giving the push off is Aaron.

JB, Aaron and Nick

Abby on the snow board

On her way down

And there she goes!

Aaron playing around with "Uncle Jimmy". I am not sure which one is the bigger kid! Please keep Jimmy in your prayers as he is about to embark on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Good times!

And here is Kyle again.... Looks like he is stuck carrying the sled back up the hill!

It is very important to make sure that you and your kids are well prepared to spend time out side when it is cold like this. One young lady who is on our soccer team got frost bite on her shins. She was not dressed appropriately to be out side for a long time. Be sure to have a couple pair of gloves for each person, Insulated snow or Ski pants, a good pair of Snow boots that have a reflective coating on the inside to maintain your foot temperature and also water wicking materials. Wearing several layers helps a great deal. It's not getting cold that really hurts a person, it's sweating from all the fun and activity and then getting cold~ So if you have layers you can take them off as your body warms up and put them back on as you cool down. Hats are very important when spending the day out in the snow. Your "lid" will keep the heat in. 

When we go out to the base, we see many people ill prepared for this activity. Even here in the midwest. Their kids have no gloves or hats and are in tennis shoes. 15 minutes into the sledding they are crying because they are cold, wet and miserable. Everyone is forced to go home.

Happy sledding my friends and here is to a few more snow days yet this year!