Posted in School Time

Here are the pictures that I promised. The kids really had fun with this project! They drew the map, then painted and labeled it. They made little boats and traced Columbus’s journey.

     

Posted in School Time

  

      Wow, a new school year!! Well I certainly owe some people (those who check this blog regularly for updates) an apology. I t has been almost a year since I have put anything in here. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I am going to try to at least put in weekly updates and pictures.

      I am so excited for this school year!! We are going to be studying the states and regions and lots of geography!! After Christmas we are going to work through U.S. history from 1400 forward! Yes, a lot of it will be a review but that’s ok. We are going to have so much fun!

      I am looking forward to sharing it will all of you and also enjoying your blogs too!

     I am praying for a blessed school year for all.

    

Posted in School Time

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE home schooling?

 

Probably not because to tell you the truth I have not exactly felt that way this week. I have not been having very good days and have not been in a very good mood. That is one reason that I have not written recently, also a lack of anything to write about.

I find it amazing how God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. I needed today more than you could know. I packed up our lunches and we took 4 encyclopedias and our notebooks and went to the park! It was such a beautiful day here with the temperature at around 75. So we sat in a beautiful spot overlooking the lake right next to a pretty garden and ate our lunch and discussed sound and molecules, compression and rarefaction, and wave lengths, and the Doppler Effect. It was wonderful! After we finished the kids wanted to rent a boat and go out on the water. I was not too sure about this idea considering I have never been on a little boat much less rowed one around! I was pretty nervous but we did and it was fun!

We were at a nature park that is always taking in animals so while turning in our ores I asked some questions about our turtle that the kids found in the backyard a few months ago. She was sure she could identify it for us if we brought him in so we went home and got Chomper. When we came back with him we were informed that our Chomper is actually “Miss Chomper”! Yes, a little girl! And she is indeed a box turtle. I was informed that male box turtles have red eyes and an indent on their underside back by the tail. She has neither. I also learned of some other food that they enjoy. When we got her back home and settled in I cut up a grape in small pieces and put it in her aquarium and she started “chomping” away at it! She really seems to be enjoying that!

What a wonderful day we had today! I feel so much better about life and home schooling!

Thank you God for always knowing just what we need and what will help rejuvenate us and renew our spirits! 

Posted in School Time

School Schedule:

Well our first week back to school was….ok. The days were pretty jumbled and I was forgetting to add things in that I wanted the kids to do so I decided to make up a schedule that we will attempt to follow. I have also noticed lately that some (not so fun) house hold chores seem to go ummm, overlooked for long (very long) periods of time. So I also created a daily chore schedule. I figure I will assign one big chore to each person, each day (except Sunday of course) and hopefully this will be a big help for keeping up with the “yucky” chores that none of like to do. I have posted these at the end of this entry if you’re interested. I will keep you all updated as to if it is working and what adjustments we have needed to make. Let me know what you think and what has or hasn’t worked for you!

School News:

We are also making some exciting adjustments at school!! We will be joining a virtual co-op!! I am really excited about this because it is my first year using Konos and I will actually get to learn from the “masters” themselves! I think this will be a wonderful year! The co-op will be starting soon. We have enough time to finish up with out patience unit and have a few days to work on the kids’ latest interest (genealogy)! I had really enjoyed working on this a few years ago and am anxious to get back into it.

School Praise:

Bradley is doing really good working on his letters, numbers, colors and shapes. I think he might actually be “having fun”! Ashlynn is doing really good also. She loves Math U See! I will need to find her a new language book though. I bought a “Explode the Code” #6 book and I just don’t think it is challenging. I wish I know the grade levels for each book. I may get her daily grams which Jonathan is also using this year. Speaking of Jonathan, he is enjoying the new curriculum books (daily grams and Math U See). I had moved him back to Delta for MUS and he is just whizzing right through it! I guess it’s time to find the Epsilon book, huh!

School Concerns:

Ashlynn just recently turned 8! Well, she is still mixing up number and letters. If the answer is 58 she says 85, if she writes the word dart it comes out like “bart”. This has me concerned because I thought she would have worked through this by now. I spoke to her ped about it and they put in a referral for to be evaluated. Well when I called to make the appt. for that I was told I didn’t need any appt. I just needed to take her over the local public school. So I questioned the people at the appt. line and I questioned the doc. “Shouldn’t she be evaluated by a doctor?” I continued to ask. With a return of No! every time. So I spent the last two weeks mulling it over in my head, wondering if it would really be worth going to the school. I thought “what can they do for her?” “if they do determine that she is dyslexic then what?” “can they really help me or am I better off to research and find answers for myself?” Well I finally decided to give the school a call and see what they had to say. I figured what do we have to lose. Well the school official called me back; do you know what they said to me??? He said “you will need to have her evaluated by a doctor. Dyslexia is a medical condition. It needs to be determined by the medical field not the education field”. Hmmm, what do ya know! So now I’m saying to myself, “do I really want to argue with this doctor again about who my daughter needs to see?” “grrrr”!

If any of you wonderfully smart people in the “educational field” know anything about dyslexia that might be of help to me could you please let me know?

School-astic:

I finally called the scholastic company and requested the catalogues. I can’t wait to get them!

School fun:

We are planning to take the kids to either Busch Gardens or Water Country on September 5^th, the day that PS starts here! I think it will be a blast.

I have to apologize. I can’t figure out how to post a document on here. I will try to learn how so that I can post the schedules.

Let's try this...

Time	Jonathan	Ashlynn	Bradley	Mom
6:30 AM	Time to get up	Time to get up	Time to get up	Time to get up
6:45	Breakfast/Bible	Breakfast/Bible	Breakfast/Bible	Breakfast/Bible
7:15	Chores	Chores	Chores	Chores
7:45 AM	Teeth & Dressed	Teeth & Dressed	Teeth & Dressed	Teeth & Dressed
8:00 AM	Typing	Silent Reading	Letter work/tracing	Time with Bradley
8:20 AM	Work-out	Work-out	Work-out	Work-out
9:50 AM	Snack/Daddy Time	Snack/Daddy Time	Snack/Daddy Time	Shower
10:40 AM	Math	Typing	Coloring	Time with Jonathan
11:00 AM	Silent Reading	Math	Free Time	Time with Ashlynn
11:20 PM	Language/Spelling	Language/Spelling	Tracing	Check Progress
12:00 PM	Recess	Recess	Recess	Break Time
12:20 PM	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
1:00 PM	Sign Language	Sign Language	Sign Language	Sign Language
1:20 PM	Konos Project	Konos Project	Konos Project	Konos Project
2:45 PM	Snack/Song Time	Snack/ Song Time	Snack/Song Time	Snack/Song Time
3:00 PM	Konos Reading	Konos Reading	Konos Reading	Konos Reading
3:30 PM	Computer Time	Music Time	Quiet Time	Helping around
3:50 PM	Music Time	Quiet Time	Computer Time	Helping around
4:10 PM	Quiet Time	Computer Time	Music Time	Helping around
4:30 PM	Free Time	Free Time	Free Time	Prepare Dinner
5:30 PM	Dinner/Clean up	Dinner/Clean up	Dinner/ Clean up	Dinner/Clean up
6:30 PM	Free Time	Free Time	Free Time	Free Time
7:00 PM	Reading	Reading	Reading	Bible Study
7:45 PM	Teeth & Jammies	Teeth & Jammies	Teeth & Jammies
8:00 PM	Relax	Relax	Relax	Relax
9:00 PM	Bedtime	Bedtime	Bedtime

and here is the house keeping schedule too

       

                                                                                                   

Sunday: Rest and Relax

 

Monday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, vacuum upstairs, scrub bathrooms

 

Tuesday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, vacuum downstairs, scrub my bathroom

 

Wednesday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, mop upstairs, dust downstairs, mop downstairs

 

Thursday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, vacuum downstairs, scrub bathrooms

 

Friday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, dust upstairs, vacuum upstairs

 

Saturday:

Laundry, Dishwasher load/unload, vacuum downstairs, front porch, back porch

 

          

Posted in School Time

Well ok, it’s more of a slow tiptoe… 

 

We got back on the horse last week! Or back to school! It has been a bit of a slow start but honestly I think we are all relieved to be back at it. We are really struggling to get into a routine. I know we will get there it’s just going to take some time. Bradley is sitting in with us this year. He has really amazed me with his eagerness to learn and willingness to sit for longer periods of time.

Here are a few pictures of the kids getting their work done yesterday!

 

Bradley really enjoyed gluing the noodles!! Incase you couldn't tell!!

 

Jonathan finished up early so he took some time to read his current selection, “Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring”!

Ashlynn is happy to be almost done. Although she is thoroughly enjoying her new math program! (Math U See) 

Have you started back to school yet? Have you already settled back into a routine? How is the start of the year going for you?

Posted in School Time

Well we are in the “human birth and development” section of the patience unit. So I decided today was the day…I sat down with the kids *a bit nervous* and had the dreadful talk. Yes, that one. The birds and the bees! Oh my goodness, I have been stressing (and praying) over this for months. I have always answered these questions in a round about way as to avoid any further questioning.

I finally did it, and you know what? It went so good! God is so GOOD! I used a book, and just read through. We would pause as the kids had questions or when it talked about how many inches the baby was at what stages we would measure out twizzlers to “see” how small! I used a body book called Babies by Anna Sandeman. It took us all the way through the process from making a baby (egg and sperm), and what happens to make twins. It compared human development to animal development (how fast it happens). It showed the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and how the egg continues to divide after it’s been fertilized. Then it went on to show the babies growth at 1 month, 2 months, 4 months, and so on all the way through the pregnancy. It discussed how and why you look like your parents. The book also described how a baby’s muscles, senses, and body control develop. The book was great and really didn’t leave much for the kids to have questions about.

Anywho, it was a whole lot of stress for really no reason! The part in the book about genes really sparked the kids’ interests in heredity. They want to work on our family tree! I think that’s wonderful, it will be a lot of fun!

Posted in School Time

Some Egg Fun

 

Well for a few weeks we have been studying animal birth and growth. A large part of our studies have involved eggs. We reenacted “Humpty Dumpty”! Before we started I asked the kids about the story of “humpty dumpty” and if they thought he was a raw egg or boiled. After some thought they decided he must have been raw.

One child got a boiled egg and one got a raw egg.

  They stood at the edge of the table and when we reached “had a great fall” they rolled the eggs off the table. SPLAT!!! Well, it was unanimous, Humpty was not boiled.

Once we had a broken egg on the floor I took advantage of this moment to state an analogy. The kids have been asking a lot of questions about how God and Jesus can be the same person? My husband and I have been trying to explain but not making much headway. If there is anyone else out there faced with this “hard to explain” question, here is a more visual way of approaching it. The egg is 3 parts (shell, yolk, and albumen) just as God is one being with three persons. I think it may have helped.

While we are focused on eggs we decided to color a lot of hard-boiled eggs, peel the shells and make an egg shell mosaic!

       

With this unit we have also focused heavily on butterflies so that’s the colorful image we formed!

We have learned a lot and had fun with this unit. Tomorrow we will finish it up with some green eggs and ham for breakfast! Mmmmm!! LOL!

Posted in School Time

               Lots of catching up to do

 

Well, it has been too long since I’ve posted anything we have been doing. So now there are lots of things I want to say and show. First being a couple pictures of my angels dressed and ready for Sunday school last week.

 

 You may remember me mentioning that we ordered some caterpillars a few weeks ago… Well, we now have 3 beautiful Painted Lady butterflies!! There transformation was a bit soon. We wished they would have waited just a few more days because we will be starting our “animal birth and growth” unit tomorrow. Oh, it’s ok because we are learning a lot.

 

We are currently studying patience. Our first sub-unit was “plant growth and gardening”. Here are some recent pictures of the kids’ garden. We planted it about a month ago. It is doing pretty good I think.

           Sunflowers

           Carrots

           Garlic and Chives

           Catnip

           Radishes

          Green beans

 

The last two weeks we have studied “grain/bread/yeast” as our sub-unit. We have spent plenty of time in the kitchen and the kids love it. In fact, we *just* finished making corn bread to go with our navy bean and ham hock soup tonight. I have not got them uploaded just yet so I will post that later. We have cooked together before but I have always done the cleaning up (I guess because it’s easier than standing there and explaining what needs done and how to do it). So, I have used this opportunity to teach the kids that cooking is fun, but with all cooking projects come cleaning. I decided to allow them to do everything. I overlooked and “managed” production. LOL!! Here are some pictures of the kids making pretzels. We all had fun.

          Preparing the dough

          Shaping the Pretzels

          It’s about impossible to bake in our house and not play with the flour… 

         And of course the finished product

 

There are a few other things we have done lately that I will try to get posted later. Yesterday we went to the Pirate Festival here. Great fun and history lesson all about Black beard (who was hunted down and killed and his head on a stick right here in the Hampton harbor). The family really enjoyed that. I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend, and have a great upcoming week!!

 

 

Posted in School Time

                         Wow! It has been a crazy week 

 

I had decided to take this last week off so that I could get some of our planning for Konos done. Well, the week got so busy I hardly got anything done.

On Tuesday we took the kids to the beach. We all had a wonderful time.

We found an oyster shell only partially open with the oyster still inside. We thought we would bring it home to get a closer look. Well when we got home and took a look this is what we found

Yep a little crab hiding inside. We put him in a fish bowl with the oyster but the poor thing didn’t make it long.

 

Wednesday, the kids were playing in the yard and found this….

After some research we are pretty sure he is a box turtle, and not very old at all. We went and bought him an aquarium and some food and this and that…. $150.00 later…Yikes. Well turns out he doesn’t like the food we bought or lettuce but he loves earthworms lol. He has an injury to one arm but he seems to be doing ok. We will continue to research and take care of him. He sure is a cutie.

 

Thursday we received our live caterpillars in the mail. Yea!! How exciting. This is the day we got them 

And here are some pics from today.

Wow they are growing fast… this is only two days later.

 

Friday I got my sewing machine in the mail!! Yippy!!

I can start sewing my very first quilt. I can’t wait. I think Ashlynn might even be more excited than me. She is very intrigued by sewing! I think it will be a blast learning with her.

 

So, that was my crazy week. Now you can see why I didn’t get much planning done. That’s okay though, overall it was a good week and we all learned a lot.

Posted in School Time

We had fun today. We took leaves from our nature walk and arranged them on a 11x17 piece of paper, spray painted it lightly then rearranged them and lightly sprayed them another color.

Here are a few pics…

 

Well here is one because I can’t get them to resize properly. So I will post the other later.