We're at it again, but dancing to a little different tune.

So seems that I have taken a very EXTENDED hiatus...but with that being said only here on this site. This year we are 4 weeks into our new school year and it has been the best school year yet, hands down! After much contemplation and fighting the "idea of not "really" doing school" if you use a box set or online program, we choose at the end of last year to try Alpha Omega Publications this year. For my three big kids ( grade 7, 9 & 11) we are using Monarch, and we love it! I managed to score a great deal on ASUS Chromebooks this summer in anticipation of our new avenue, and they kids are really enjoying this type of school. Monarch is a online program, that covers 5 subjects to include Math, History, Language Arts, Science, and a Bible Class. We choose to add on a few elective for them, with Family Consumer Science (aka Home Ec), American Lit,  Spanish 1, Introduction to Coding, College Prep, and Art.  This is has been such great gift to our school, the program self grades, except for written problems. Those are the responsibility of the teacher, however they give great teacher keys to aid the grading process. The kids like that they can see what their weighted grade is, and it helps to motivate them to see how their daily works really influences their overall grade. The content is vast, and it is a common occurance for someone to come share with me something that they have learned that blows their mind! So overall so far, we are really happy with Monarch as a curriculum for content, as well as the portablity that is provides with all the material being online. We move often, and this coming year will be yet another move for the Gears, this affords us the ability to move school with us with the utmost ease!

Keep posted, soon I will share what I am doing for my 4th and preschooler this year!!

When Chaos Breeds Wisdom...

Our homeschool year is done, thank goodness. Imagine walking through mud...that is how much of the year felt. Just couldn't seem to get a groove, and unlike any other homeschool mother out there with their well planned year and zero scheduling hiccups to contend with  I was just trying to finish the year the best I could.

So our last big PUSH to just finish it all, ended up being the breeding ground for some awesome homeschool wisdom. History was one subject my oldest just couldn't get whittled down,  which led to her doing two and three chapters in one setting, and the craziest thing happened...she started to learn! She began to see how each event was an effect of some previous occurrence. Having concentrated learning on one subject at a time created a perfect environment for her to not just learn facts but for it to soak in.  So next year we are going to try and break up her curriculum in order to allow for some bulk learning of each subject.
Now this wouldn't work for my son, as he like to have the variety of different subjects. I love how we have the freedom to tweak different aspects in order to accommodate each individual child, but even more I love that if it doesn't work then we can simply change it again!
What started as  a mad dash chaos to the finish line, ended with some great insight that will enrich our homeschool experience!

2015, and were off and running....

RECAP of 2014,
This school year has been a bit of on and off again love affair! We started school really strong...they had company ( that we LOVED having here) so of course we took a SCHEDULED break, which sound wonderful in the time management arena, however it is MUCH harder to get back in the saddle once you have a fun break, but we managed it and took off again....and was doing phenomenal, every test was taken, homework was getting graded, books where getting read,...(you get the point) and then Thanksgiving hit, and although we didn't do anything special or that took great planning, it was a bit of a hiccup in our awesome rhythm, but we hit it again for 2 weeks..which I'm sure it would have been as painful to watch as watching some one stumbling during a marathon...you think they'll pull out of it and make it but...they don't.
Christmas break was great, we did get just enough done prior to break to have a 2 week break so as to have a "guilt" free break. We got to visit some Christmas Markets, and you haven't seen Christmas till you have seen German Christmas, it is awesome there is the Christmas spirit everywhere! We set a steep to do list in order to be able to meet our goal and got it done ( however I wont mention it was because we worked all day the last three days of school till dinner). It was important for all of us ( the gears all voted) to have a clear and concise stopping point!
2015: ( Where we are)
We are back in school and we are still trying to forever "catch up" but it has given us a bit of breathing room to know we are schooling year round. Therefor we don't feel the intense pressure of cutting into summer. My plan is to try and combat the intense subjects ( MATH, Grammar) and get them out of the way so that even it we are schooling during the wonderful summer months, it is the stuff that we can make fun!
I think that one of our biggest obstacles is the lack of sunshine here in Germany, as well as the Darkness. Coming from South Carolina where even if it was winter and cold it was sunny, it is a big change. Waking up at what you think is 6:00am, and rolling over to be 8:00..we do alarms and have morning routines, but I think for now we are just accepting of how it works here, so that we can release some of the angst that comes with getting a "late" start on the day!
The bottom line is we are doing well, and this year has just been a big learning curve;)

Moving On after MOVING..getting school moving again

So our school year this year has been odd to state it mildly, we made an international move for the family, and are now living in Germany. It has been a wonderful experience so far, but getting here chewed up our school year and spit it out, as you can imagine. So now that we are settled into our little house in our little German village, we are getting back into the swing of school. On the down side we will be going to school until the 31st of July, however upshot is that it is HOMESCHOOL so we have the flexibility to start next year a little later. I am considering doing a year round school schedule next year, I think that with family visits, field trips, family time, it will allow us a little more breathing room to stay on track. SO with that being said I am very happy to have my school room back and a routine!!!

Rounding the first bend...

We have been busy with school and are 2 days away from completing the first quarter, 9 weeks down and we are finding our stride, but let me start at the beginning. ( mainly because I have some good pictures to share, and who doesn't love a good picture)

So we started school in the end of August and of course I had to start their first day of school with a little bit "Griswald Love" (I have been accused from time to time of becoming one with my inner Clark W.Griswald from National Lampoons Vacation). So I had breakfast ready and waiting and then at each of their desks I had this waiting for them with their appropriate grades. 

 Here are their school pictures.

So this was our beginning. 

We got lucky and had a good reminder of why we homeschool when 2 weeks into our school year Daddy got to take two weeks off and we were able to have some fun with being able to be flexible with our schedule.  We got to go to the beach one day, and go on walks, get haircuts, go to the drive in and run cross country.... it is always fun to hang with Dad.

So our first 9 weeks has been a good start, we'll take a week off for planning and to finish making our Halloween Costumes (future post to come I'm sure), and jump back in for another 9 weeks in November. I am still more thankful than ever than  I choose to homeschool the gears.

Just move the tapes....

When my oldest was my littlest child, about 12-18 months old and into everything as they do at that age I had some VCR tapes....do you remember what those were, did I just date you...or myself?  Well I would keep them on the floor in a nice line on a little shelf and she would always want to play with them. She'd pick them up, the tape would fall out of it's case, and it would make such a mess... and I would get so frustrated and I would no sooner get them all put back and guess where she'd go.... well one day I had a light bulb moment....."MOVE THE TAPES"! I think to date this was my most profound mothering moment!! So I moved the tapes and she stopped playing with them, and I stopped being frustrated.
This story came to mind a few weeks ago as I was asking for the 34, 953,434th time for the shoes to get picked up, and could you help me find the remote, and did you bring down your laundry, does the dog have water, can you unload the dishwasher, ..... Now mind you my children have daily chores, each has one that they are responsible for and of course they work together with me to keep it picked up throughout the day, but on this particular day I knew I was gonna go to be praying my motherhood prayer at bedtime, and if goes like this " Dear Lord, please help me to be a better mother tomorrow than I was today...because today I stunk! Amen"
I'm sure I can safely say that most Mother's don't like to be "that" mom, we want to be the fun mom, the snuggle, cuddle, crafty, good cookin..mom. I do too...but I want to do it in a clean house:)
Ok so in my moments of the Esterline "ask-o-thon" I was visited by the light bulb of years past! So I put my kids on vacation! VACATION???!!!???
That 's right I told my kids that they were on vacation for 2 weeks! This meant no chores, wear what you want, heck don't get dressed at all if you want. Do what you want, read what you want, watch what you want! (All within the boundaries that we have already established of course) The idea was for them to have control for 2 weeks. The only thing was bedtime was still in place and our household/family rules. So of course my sweet husband thought I had gone off my rocker...and I wasn't sure that he wasn't' right, but my thought was we all needed to hit the reset button and this was it!
We are a military family and my husband has been deployed more times that I need to recount however one humanistic thing I realized is that when you are the only one that has to do all of it, it is so much easier than when you do it all and there is someone there to help and doesn't'. So I took on all the chores, and cleaning the house, and folding the laundry and putting it away, and emptying the dishwasher, and taking care of the dog, and finding remotes, and putting away shoes, and...and...and...
AND...
2 things happened. The first is I found my Joy again. I didn't mind doing all the things that I had done before because I wasn't' doing them in frustration. Secondly my kids started to do their chores without being asked...even when I would say "You don't have to do that, you're on vacation" they would reply "Its ok mom, I want to".
Sometimes we just need to hit the reset button, it opened my kids eyes to how they could bless me and be part of our team, and it gave me back my joy!



Planning for school.

We are in the throes of the rainiest summer I can remember, which has severely limited our outside time. So when we don't have days like this.....

then we do alot of this.....

and I do a lot

of this.....

Check out www.sandlappersewing.blogspot.com to see the spoils of this rainy summer!

So I have been busy getting busy to get ready to plan our next school year. :) I have 90% of our year planned, or at least curriculum picked out. The only one that is still up in the air is Willow for first grade. We used My Father's World last year for Kindergarten and although it was a good curriculum I felt like it was missing something for us. So I'm currently researching piecing together her 1st grade. The rest of the kids are set. Hannahlee is doing a literature curriculum from BJU that I think will be challenging, 

and she is also going to be attacking General Science along with Pre Algebra. It will prove to be a challenging year for her mainly due to the fact that a lot of her subjects will require her to do a lot of independent study work, but I know that she will secretly love it!

 Megan and Briar will be doing Astronomy together for science. Megan has progressed to Math 5 which is AWESOME since it proves to me that letting her redo the fundamentals with Briar this year in Math 3 was a good choice. Briar is gonna go on the Math 4. 

I am also choosing to do Shurley  English with Hannahlee, Megan,and Briar together, as well as our American History which I love, I will have to see if we want to switch gears the next year as we will be in Germany then and we may want to do some world history, so we can have some really phenomenal field trips! 

Now for the 3 older kids, I also have them do daily spelling with Christian Liberty Press, vocabulary with Vocabu-Lit ( which is wonderful because it pulls the weekly vocabulary words from excerpts of literature), and this year we are going to add a Word Study curriculum with MCP, and IWE (Institute for Excellence in Writing) for our writing course.  

I have two extracurricular activities I want to try and work into our routined schedule is German asa foreign   language, which should be fun since my goal is for it to be a family class not to mention in about 9 months very necessary :) the other one I would like to add is a Typing curriculum, and even though my kids are pretty good at typing  from practice, I think it would be a good skill to hone. 

I am excited about this school year and all the fun things we will learn. The next step is to try and write up lessons plans. I would love to ideally have all year rough drafted, but I will measure it successful to do the first 9 weeks. 

Stay tuned and I will share what I have decided for Willow for 1st grade.

June is done....

So June is done, here I sit on July 2nd and I wonder who hit fast forward on summer? We did manage to tackle one of our To-Do list items before June got out the door. We went to the South Carolina State Farmers market and grabbed some cantaloupe, watermelon, zucchini, yellow squash,  cucumbers and some WONDERFUL South Carolina peaches. Little known fact South Carolina peaches are MUCH better than Georgia peaches.  We also grabbed some fresh tomatoes seeing as how I was only able to coax my tomato plant into giving me one...

                               

July is here now! The free lunches at the school have started and it's always fun to walk up and let the kids eat. Thatcher gets to eat this year and he walked in like a boss.

       

We have Willow's 6th birthday, 4th of July, and a whole week of leave for Curtis, so I'm sure that we will knock a few more adventures off of our list. So stay tuned;)

While were in the Good Ole Days....

Upon watching the season finale of The Office, Andy made a great quote that has resinated with me more and more as the days go by:

  

                                              

As we prepare to leave South Carolina, a place that has grown to feel like home, this quote makes me think that we need to enjoy the Good Old Days, because although we will move on to another adventure next Spring we haven't left yet. So the gears and I have sat down and made a list of the things we want to do, places we want to see, and places we want to eat before we leave the South. It ought to be quite the ride so stay tuned for some GREAT old days!!

And Done.....

So we are officially DONE our first year of Homeschooling, and it was an amazing year. I would like to share with you some "random things" that I learned, realized, accepted!

1. Homeschooling has been more beneficial to MY family than my Kids.....our family time has become more pure and unadulterated.
2.We manage our Time, our time does not manage us!
3.My kids are Smart!!
4. Having shoes on in school really does make your mind work better!!
5. Chores are important to the sanity of the teacher....enlist the kids to do chores before school starts and your house stays put together!
6.School work outside is the BEST!!
7.Being a good Organizer makes you much more fun!
8. Kids like for things to be organized.
9. Don't get hung up on Grade Levels, although it is important, learning happens at all grade levels for all students.
10. For a successful school year you must master the balance between all school all the time and Free days.

It really has been an enjoying ride, and I look forward to next year and all that it brings.

Geared to Maintain

Geared to Maintain

Week January 14, 2013

• In my life this week… I was down for a day with a bug, and since I rarely get ill this threw my family for a loop, but I was very impressed with how well they adjusted fire and completed mission.
• In our homeschool this week… we have been busy wrapping up our 2^nd quarter. Since all my kids have known prior to homeschooling is public school I decided to stick with quarters and grade cards pretty closely and  have tried this year to keep run parallel with that system, although we are being more lenient on our time schedule the structure is much the same. It has really worked well for the kids as it not only gives them a good grasp on how they are progressing, it helps provide "mile markers" for our year.
• Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…taking the time to create a quarterly lesson plan for all our subjects have been such a blessing.  Yes I will admit it was a daunting task before I began, but has made each week run so smoothly, and once I started it maintaining it has been relatively easy.
• Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…We got to start back to PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) this week here on Fort Jackson after the Christmas Break. The kids love going to see their friends in the homeschool room, and I enjoy being able to fellowship with some amazing Christian women. I choose a applicable bible study that uses Proverbs 31 to increase your organization of your home. I think that this will be a great tool to help me turn this “project” of streamlining my life that I have been working on the last few months and into a “lifestyle” change.
• My favorite thing this week was…This sign that I found on our white board from my little gears while I was sick! I am blessed!

                          

• My kiddos favorite thing this week was…Wednesday when I took the gears to the Fort Jackson Main Post Library and had them complete a scavenger hunt that I created for them! It was so fun, even my little Willow got to play. I just Goggled library scavenger hunts for kids and found one on the ALA (American Library Association) website, I did tweak it a bit to fit our learning needs but Great fun and especially for a cold or wet school day!
• Things I’m working on…are being Faithful with sticking with our routine.  It has been such a gift to finally see everything fall into place. I am also working on trying to regulate my blogging as I really enjoy it because it gives my brain a little breathing room after I download my thoughts!
• I’m cooking…Red beans and Rice with Turkey sausage in the Slow cooker, which has fast become my Favorite kitchen appliance (no pun intended). That makes me feel old just saying that, but the truth is the time that my slow cooker saves me allows me the extra time to be Young and do fun things! I even have created a Pinterest board with some great slow cooker meals for those schooldays you can check it out here, and follow me as I am always on the hunt for yummy healthy meals for my Crock pot.
• I’m grateful for… Hands down my family! They really pulled it together this week when I went down. My sweet husband was amazing at taking care of me and our gears, and my oldest for really pulling everyone together. We are geared to Maintain!

Time4Learning Review!

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Here's to a NEW year! ( and 1/2)

And 1/2;) I found this draft that I must have saved from the 1st of the year, and just wanted to share it because it had some good stuff. 

Happy 2013! This year has started out to be an outstanding year! I truly believe that homeschooling is  an art of refinement. This year started out with gusto as we had a clear set plan for our school work, organization has  been one of the working parts of this new refinement movement.  Toward the end of 2012 I begin to put together a home management binder, where I could have a hard copy of the plan. Meal plan, daily schedule, cleaning schedule, it is amazing how much can be accomplished just by having somewhere to look when you get sidetracked, something to help you stay the course.  It has made all the difference.
 The other change we made is to the kids electronics. Not only the usage, but the availiablity as well. We have established a charging station where all electronics are signed in and out on a clipboard. This one thing has amazed me on how much the usage has decreased since the start of this, as time has gone by the kids have begun to realize how much other stuff there is to do.

As an update,

we are 6 months in and we still do the home management notebook and the electronic sign in, and it has been two of the most enlightening  things that I have done for my family, and I would encourage any family who hasn't thought to limit the electronic in their home to try it. It has really had the desired effect on my kids! Happy Home-ing ;)

Better late than never...Flavor of the Week

 

Gear Stew ~Flavor of the Week

 Week of Jan 7-11th.

• In my life this week… I have been busy keeping things in our newly formed routine as I love how it is shaping school, home, health, and relationships this year.
• In our homeschool this week…I discovered the joys of homeschooling as I was able to scratch the fractions unit for my 7th grader, and start over which has made all the difference in her understanding of fractions.
• Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Friday was Free Friday at the Zoo, so we went with another Homeschooling family. It was a real treat to be out of the classroom, but still in a excellent learning environment.
• My favorite thing this week was…Having ALL my laundry done (we are a family of 7 this is an exceptional feat in itself).
• My kiddos favorite thing this week was… Being Blessed with beautiful weather in South Carolina, we went on a ABC photo scavenger hunt!

 

• Things I’m working on… I am typically a dreamer and I get caught up in finding a million things I want to do, learn, read, watch....so this year my goal is to live intentionally. So think of a big RED umbrella, that is my relationship with God, and then under it are Husband, Kids, Esterline Center of Excellence (school), Health, Home, and since I still want to devote some time to refine me, there is Blogging, and Photography.  If it doesn't fit into these categories then I need to save it for another time, but God above ALL!
• I’m cooking… A lot of slow cooker meals, and have been on a quest for healthy, low fat, clean crock pot meals.
• I’m grateful for… I have been falling in love with my family all over again! I really have underestimated how much I would love homeschooling.
• I’m praying for… The motivation to keep on this path, as everything seems to run so much smoother when there is some order.
• I rewarded my kids this week by…Movie night with Mom and Dad!
• Something I am ogling or have my eye on…I have been looking at Turbo Jam, I think I may want to invest in it as there are ton of good review out there.

 

Oh Christmas Tree oh Christmas tree

How many strands of 12ft lights would take to cover you if your circumference was ........

Yep you guessed it we are still deep into school, with a holiday flare at least! Our second quarter has gone a bit smoother than the first, thanks to the teacher finally figuring out how helpful it is to have a daily schedule, and lesson plans to go with it!
We are reading Charles Dickens Christmas Carol as a group, which has been really eye opening as my 3rd grader is understanding much more of it than I anticipated!  I think it helps that it is a widely played Christmas movie.
We also started doing Vocabulary, and Spelling on a daily basis which has been another smooth transition, they kids find vocab to be challenging but I tell them words are like roads, without many choices your destination is limited! Willow has now begin blending sounds....which is REALLY REALLY REALLY close to reading!! SO excited for her to be able to read, as we are reading family and she is so excited to join the fun! Briar got his Whittling Chip for Cub scouts which allows him to carry a pocket knife. The really cool thing about this was that he worked towards this goal completely independent, as he found it in his book, and shared his desire with his Dad, and went toward his goal! Hannahlee is enjoying the break from track, but is working hard on her school work as my girl loves a challenge! Megan has her Band and Choir concert tonight, I am so thankful to be able to offer that to her through the public school, although it is no fun getting up and driving her to 7am band practice! Lastly, we just celebrated Thatcher's first birthday! Can't believe how fast the time has flown by. I am so blessed with him, he is a wonderful baby and a great source of joy in the Esterline's life!
Stay tuned for some more...gonna try and be more intentionally with sharing on here!

And then...

And then...I got super busy and kept thinking I would love to write for a few mins, and then life happened. School has been good, but with all this wonderful weather I have been horrible about staying on track, it is crazy how much of a balancing act that this thing called homeschooling is, it seems if we lean towards the "it's ok we homeschool, that is one of the perks of homeschooling, we'll catch up tomorrow" we go get soooo relaxed that we are almost unschooling, but when we try and over correct we end up on the "school will start at 0800, we have got to catch up because we are two weeks behind, it's 4pm and Iguess we can stop for the day" which goes over like a lead balloon with the kids. We went on a field trip to Williamsburg/Jamestown and had a terrific time, and we can't wait for our next fieldtrip.

Float like a Butterfly....

The other change around here is that I have began a “Run amile in 4 weeks” program, and have been running with Curtis and the kids 3 nights a week, and on top of that began the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I am on day two of the shred and for someone completely out of shape and with NO history of being athletic or working out The Shred has definitely made itself known today, but it is a good sore means that under this I have muscles that know how to work! I'm on week 2 of the running, but am sticking with the week 1 requirements, but have a goal  to go to week 2  on Friday. I am excited to see how the shred affects my run…my goal is to Float like a Butterfly, but I'd settle with simply Airborne! I’ll keep you posted on how it is all progressing, school, body, and work!

 

Changing "Gears" with Homeschooling...

 

One thing that I am loving about homeschooling is how if something just doesn't work well you can change "Gears" and find something that does. Although I am sure we will have days when I may want to Change "MY GEARS" I am not talking about getting rid of my kids aka Gears but changing up how we are doing things in ECoE

.We have made some big curriculum changes , not being very excited about Tapestry of Grace and how it works the kids wanted to focus on American History, and since doing our Apologia Science we all agreed we like having the "Mom read and we all discuss” process , so we decided to go with All American History Vol. 1, even though Hannah has covered some of the information in past years, we all agreed that it works so well when we can all work together and it gives us an opportunity to have some peer tutoring with Hannah helping out the younger kids. We also started Vocabu-Lit which I also love so far, it has excerpts of classic literature and then focuses on 10-15 words form the story to build on their vocabulary. Vocabulary is so important; I want my children to be able express themselves with great detail.  The only thing I found troubling is that it is difficult to find the Vocabu-lit for the younger grades; only place I have found them is the publisher.  I have been busy putting together objectives for each kid and goals for them to reach, as well as weekly lesson plans and subject planners. I am more than happy to share my process with anyone who wants to know. I was lucky to win a year subscription to My Well Planned Day and am trying to figure out how to us it. I think once I master it, it will be a wonderful asset to have.

Labor Day weekend provided us with a perfect opportunity to do our first science project with Daddy as well. I love that we are able to include him in the things that we are learning, really creates a whole family learning environment

"Which is heavier cold water or Warm water?"

Hammin it up

THAT'S AMAZING!!!!!

 

We did have our first field trip of sorts over the Lake Murray Dam, after learning about Dams in Science. We got to walk across it, about 1/2 way of the 1.7 miles and then turned back. It was fun to do something both educational and fun that Daddy got to go with us was just a huge added HURRAY!!              


Lake Murray Dam

 

 

And then...

            Well looks as if time has flew by again! Wanted to check in and give an update of our last few weeks.  In the past month we have had orders to PCS to Hawaii, resigned from PWOC president in order to prepare for our move, lost orders to go to Hawaii (boo), had to put our sweet kitty of 13 years to sleep, received word that we are here in South Carolina till 2014, work on adjusting to not being president of PWOC and what God has in store for me and my family, and got a new car. Seems that we are now in the habit of  the "and then...".  I know that God has a plan for us, for me, for our time here in Fort Jackson, SC. and although I don't know what it is I will have faith that 

"And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Philippians 1:6

 Lots of ups and downs, but seems that for now things are righting themselves and my head is back in the game of Homeschooling at ECoE!

McArthur "Mac"  1999-2012

 

First week; First Impressions

Our first week is complete, and it has left an impression. Here are some of my discoveries:

• I love that I am doing this for my children and my family!
• Homeschooling multiple grades is challenging, but not impossible.
• Don't ignore Baby Thatcher's schedule, it makes for a crazy school day.
• If something doesn't stimulate your kids, don't be afraid to change it up!
• I have 'talked' to my children more in 4 days about school stuff than I think I did in the first 9 weeks of school.
• I am amazed at how VERY smart my kids are!!
• They are funny!
• Cheese Nip bingo is the Bomb!
• There is nothing better than learning 'WITH' your children
• Smooth sailing Homeschool days are better than Chocolate!
• The family time that this afford us is priceless.

Appealing to the schedule of Baby T allows for nap time to work wonderfully with our schedule, and is SOOOO much better than Chocolate ( but not much better than a chocolate Lab)!!

Realizing that you can do your "reading"homework in the back room was yet another perk that Hannah stumbled upon!!

Matching "baby" letters with their "Momma" is a fun review

Cheese Nip prepositional Bingo is a Good Time for All!!