Time for testing!

It's the time of year for SBAC testing here in Washington.  That stands for "Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium" - but for the sake of convenience - SBAC for short.

To be perfectly honest, there's nothing convenient about it.  My daughter is in 4th grade, and she has known that the testing was coming for weeks.  The teachers let the kids know that this testing is a BIG DEAL.  When I woke up my daughter for school on the first day of testing, I said "Good morning!" and she said "I'm scared.".  Something is wrong when your gifted and talented child wakes up scared of going to school for fear of not doing well on a test.  I completely understand why the teachers have to impress upon the students that it's important, but to put so much pressure behind it that the students are anxious and scared...seems a little on the counterproductive side.  On the other hand, they have to know the importance of the testing, and I guess there's no happy medium.

I just want to share a few ways that we can help our kiddos out when it comes to these important test days, to help put them at ease, and also to help them do their best.

1) Start with a good night's sleep ~ it's pretty obvious that a tired child will have much more difficulty concentrating and focusing on any given task at hand.  If our children are well rested they are alert, and prepared.

2) Serve up a good breakfast ~ most days we do cereal for breakfast, or a bagel, or english muffin.  Not the healthiest options, but quick nonetheless and the kids appreciate that they can fix their own breakfast (so does Mom).  Test days, I throw in protein.  Bacon and eggs, Paige's favorite.  Milk or juice to round it out and I am left with no doubt that her hunger will be satisfied until lunch.

3) Be encouraging ~ Our children need to know that we are here for them and we believe in them.  They need to know that we have faith in their abilities, and that they can do whatever they set their mind to.  When Paige told me she was scared, I told her that I understood it was a little scary.  I also told her that I knew she would do her very very best and that she has what it takes to knock that test out of the park.  I also wrote her a little note and left it so she'd find it when she got to school.  It said "You've got this girl, just relax and do your best.  I believe in you!! Love, Mom".

These are just three small ways we can help our children succeed in this crazy wild world they're trying to grow up in.  I think we can all agree, they need all the help they can get.

Time for a break, even if just to play!

Things have been busy busy busy around here for the last few weeks.  I've been busy, grumpy, even a little overwhelmed (who me?).  My mood started affecting the kids and that's when I decided it was time to take a break.  Just for one day, to stop stressing about moving and everything that goes along with it.  We needed a day to JUST HAVE FUN!!  

I started by turning fresh blueberries into blueberry pie filling/sauce...later we heated it up and used it as vanilla ice cream topping - YUM!!  It was so much easier than I ever would have thought.  

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After the making of the blueberry sauce we did homemade non-toxic lipstick out of...get this...CRAYONS and coconut oil.  So amazing.  Paige found a video on YouTube by Sofia Styled (awesome DIY videos!).  We did blue, purple, pink, and of course James wanted to get in on the action s he chose...wait for it...black.  This is the blue shimmery one.  Turned out pretty!

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Once we finished up the homemade lipstick, we moved onto sold perfume!  SO COOL!!  All we needed for it was beeswax, coconut oil, and fragrance.  We used essential oils.  It was great fun, and another really easy and enjoyable DIY in the kitchen with my girl!

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This is how we spend our day off...fun in the kitchen, no stressing, no worries.

We need more days like this, I would say.