Well its that time of year again, starting school back up. Although this is our 3rd week thus far. Started out slowly since we were going from mostly *textbooks* to Ambleside Online. My son really isn't sure what to think, I get the comments of "How many books do we need?" I'm like whatever it takes.........lol.

This is hopefully going to strengthen his reading and comprehension along with language arts. At least I hope.

So this year our list is as follows.

World History ~ Our Island Story

World History ~ Children's HIstory of the World

American History ~ This Country of Ours

Church History ~ Trial and Triumph

History ~ The Little Duke, Joan of Arc

Geography ~ Tree in the Trail, Seabird, Paddle to the Sea along with map work

Nature Study with Handbook of Nature Study book

Natural History ~ The Burgess Animal Book, Pagoo

Literature ~ Tales from Shakespeare, Pilgrims Progress, Understood Betsy, Wind in the Willows, Robin Hood, Parables from Nature

Poetry ~ Walter de la Mare, Eugine Field, James Whitcombe, Christina Rossetti

Artist study ~ Raphael Sanzio, John Singer Sargent & Claude Monet

Composer study ~ Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar, Evard Grieg, Jean Sibelius, Maurice Ravel

Some other stuff along the way is a unit study with Leah's Pony, which is about The Great Depression and Dust bowl or "The Dirty Thirties" as it was called. So there's grasshoppers to discuss along with the economy issues, stock market crash etc.

Five Little Peppers and Hoe They Grew is also on the list to just free read.

Math ~ Saxon 5/4

Copywork goes with the Poetry/memory work and dictation.

Drawing Basics with Thomas Kinkade

Typing with Mavis Beacon(he's also trying his spelling words daily, takes his spelling test on the computer and typing up a page or 2 in random books as we read.

That looks like one heck of a list........lol. Shew. But everything is not done daily we are working out the schedule.

Normally he would take an art class with the homeschooling group but at this time its not going to happen. That could change in the next month or 2.

This is generally the time of year most people are winding their school years down. And normally we would be too. But this year we will be doing stuff through the summer since we are making a switch to AO.

This last Monday we had our last Co-op class so things might go somehwat smoother without rushing around.

Course I'm going fairly slow in the AO stuff as I need some other books so we are just using library books, reading some then I have him draw a photo or 2 about what we read then write a few sentences about the photo. Its not a lot but its better then nothing, and going slower instead of jumping in will be better since this is different for CJ

Well as usual living in Minnesota can give you a lovely change in weather quickly. Yesterday we had 70-80 degree weather and today its maybe 50 degrees, cloudy with a nasty COLD wind. Thankfully I got all the bedding washed and dried yesterday.

Today I'm just going to veg as I have the next 2 days to clean house while the boys will be at work. I need to sit down and read through some Ambleside stuff I printed off and my Charlotte Mason companion book I got. TO get figured out where to start with some stuff.

So I guess I'll just catch up on some DVR'd stuff to get them off the machine, we've got stuff piling up. Just been too busy to catch up. So I'm taking advantage of today's weather to just relax.

Today is such a beautiful day here in north central Minnesota. Its got some wind but not the kind that would make it cold. Its around 70 degrees and overall *hot* outside for us. I know many would say that 70 degrees isn't *hot* LOL. But remember this is minnesota we are in.

Since its such a nice day out I choose today to wash our bedding, this way I get to hang it on the line and it dries quicker then an average day without the breeze. So my house smells like the lovely Gain laundry soap and fabric softner. Not saying they will smell exactly like that when they are brought back in but they will be a nice fresh line dried smell at least. I don't always buy Gain, in the past I've went with cheap stuff or made my own. But I just wanted to splurge this time and smell Gain once again!

This is my first line hanging of the year, I'm sure they could have been hung out sooner just seemed liek they would have taken forever at that time. So here I sit waiting on the next comforter to get finished with all the windows open along with a t-shirt and shorts on! Got to love that. CJ even had to put shorts and a t-shirt on, after he said he was warm!

I also have to sweep and mop the floors along with getting the dishes finished up for the day. And figure out what to make for supper. I had initally wanted chili, but in this kind of weather that doesn't really fit. Maybe we'll just have grilled cheese and fries for supper, its quick and easy besides the fact that it doesn't heat up the house much.

Hoping to get in a walk with hubby later today, unless he's too busy, maybe this evening. We've wanted to start walking each evening when he gets home from work, but all this week he's had stuff going on along with Monday was an icky day weather wise, and he had been to a funeral for our neighbors 16 yr old grandson. ANd I had to have a meeting with the family I took graduation photos for, to get the photo invitations rounded out, which I will work on this weekend when its just me at home, then I can get them ordered and have a small amount of spending money. Which will probably just go towards some other books I need to order for our Ambleside Online. Even though I'd love to order more RAM for my computer so it might be somewhat faster.

Yesterday I had an appointment and afterwards CJ and I stopped by McD's to grab something to eat. Then headed out to the park where we were duck/swan watching last month. Now there isn't many out there, a couple Canadian Geese, maybe a couple ducks but that's it, compared to the many from before.

But as we were sitting there looking at the river there was a pair of birds coming, I just figured it was a pair of geese, and it ended up being a pair of Loons. CJ's first time seeing Loons. And mine that close. Wished I had taken my camera but of course I didn't have it with me. Would have been hard to get their photo anyway as they were diving and swimming under the water more then up where you can see them easier.

So I decided we'd stop at the library and check out any books on Loons to learn about them a bit. Well we ended up coming home with a pile of books...LOL.

We brought home

The Common Loon

Loon Magic

Eagles of North America

Birds of Prey

Wildlife and Plants of the World

Storms and Hurricanes

Storms! Tales of Extreme Weather Events in Minnesota

The Sun The Center of The Solar System

Mercury The First Planet

Vibrating Colcanoes

Experiment with Weather

And of course many others we will be picking up over time. I'm hoping to get CJ started on notebooking on several of these books in the next few weeks. Today won't be one of them as hubby is off work today so it kinda messes things up but its all good.

Today we will be getting our box from rainbow resources of stuff for our Ambleside Online switchover. I have a few others to buy from amazon.com but that will wait for a week or so. But I'm excited to be getting my box today.

I bought the Charlotte Mason Companion book mainly because the one at  the library had 1 hold on it before me so I figured just buy it so I don't have to worry about getting it back in time. I'm really excited about this change over and taking it slow to help CJ decompress from stuff we've used will be great. And if it doesn't work out the way I hope, I at least already have the stuff we intended to use. But I'm hoping the reading books and notebooking will be something he enjoys.

So this last Saturday my husband and son went to our nephews to help clean up their yard/house area. They just moved in a couple months ago and it needed some work done. So a bunch of the family was helping out. Anyway CJ was helping a lot over there, mainly wanting to drive the 4-wheeler to haul stuff.....LOL. But when neices parents got their with her 2 younger siblings then CJ was playing with them. Neices brother is 8 so he and CJ get along pretty well, but CJ said they were playing tackle football without the football....LMBO.

Anyway yesterday CJ was complaining about his knee, and I'm like oh geez. Because he so tends to try and milk things, or over dramatizes pain. Finally I was tired of hearing about it and looked at his knee, and sure enough it was swollen slitghtly. So he either sprained his knee or twisted in while they were tackling each other. So this time he actually had something legitimate to complain about, he can't fully extend it so he hobbles around. And that was intereting since today we had to grocery shop and I had to wait for him. But it all got done and he still helped unload the Blazer. He's now watching his Indiana Jones movie he checked out from the library yesterday, resting his knee.

Hopfully it feels better by the weekend because he goes to work with his father every other weekend and helps, so getting in and out of the tractor to open and close gates would be a pain if it still hurts like it does now.

Well Saturday I went to Curves to work out in the morning, then came home and started on the school/computer room. There were a few things I wanted to remove and move something else to set up CJ's computer to make it easier for him to use. Well that just started a WHOLE redo of the room. All except my desk that is since mine is attatched to the wall.....LOL.

But it feels so nice and clean in here. I took out a tall kitchen garbage bag of not needed papers. Put some stuff in the closet(which so needs a cleaning itself but that will be this summer sometime)  and eventually moved the desk and it makes the room *feel* larger even though its not....LOL.  The room itself isn't really that large. Something like 8feet x 10 feet or somewhere around there I can't remember.

But here are the after photos, I hadn't taken any before, but if you check out the post on the timeline it gives you a general idea of where some stuff was before.

This is the view from the hallway/doorway

To the left

My desk area

Large wall to the right of the doorway. With out timeline on it

I had an online friend suggest making a timeline for History so that CJ might remember the people better. So that's what we've been doing today.  I have never done this before, and we started out with this small strip of papers. Then I realized that was not going to work. So now its a rather large one. And probably larger then we really need. But I had decided to use a different color of paper for things, so the 1400's are in a light blue, the 1500's are in a red etc. This might also help CJ remember things by having it color coded so to speak. Plus its large enough to add things along the way it its needed.

I certanitly don't recommend making one as big as ours especially if you don't have room...LOL. And I only decided to make it this large to fill in any things along the way that needed to be done, that weren't on the timeline we were looking at in the History book. Since we are going to try Ambleside Online there will be other things to add in.

CJ wanted me to take a pic of the green one, which happens to be the1800's and the longest one. We have the 1900's & 2000's to finish then I can take a photo of it all up on the wall. I told CJ there are others that we don't have anything on that we might have to add in later like the 1200's etc.

There you have it a few photos of the start of our History timeline!