Well it's Monday again.  That weekend flew by.  I'm trying to move the children right along, everyone has now had breakfast which was yogurt with various toppings (wheat germs, granola, mini choc-chips) and Alexis made a banana, strawberry smoothie which she was kind enough to share with Zarek.
Now everyone is either making beds, brushing teeth, getting dressed and then the learning (or crying) will begin!


Dh is working and he's doing my library run for me today, he's such a sweetie.  Alexis has drama tonight and she told me she wants to quit the classes, they aren't what she wants, she wants something more serious.  So, I think Feb. will be our last month with these drama classes.  My problem is the closest place that has what she wants is a 40 min. drive and I really don't want to drive that.


Well I have a lot to do so I better get going...

Here's Zarek at one of his tennis lessons.  We're up there at least 4-5 times a week.  Right now Jody has taken all the kids and one of Zarek's friends up to the tennis courts at his brother's house for practice.  He's been taking them all to practice at least once a week which is really nice for me.  I get the house to myself for about two hours. 

The weather has been so nice and cool except Tuesday it was 87 so we took off for the beach for a few hours.  We had a great time, the kids played in the sand mostly as the water was pretty cold.  It may have been our last beach visit for this year.  This weekend I need to go through the boxes in the gargage looking for jackets and long pants and shirts.  It was 70 yesterday and it was cold!  I think my blood has already thinned because in CT 70 would be a beautiful warm day. 

School is going well, Zarek is keeping up with his Sonlight core very well and I think he's learning quite a bit and enjoying it for the most part.  He has said all the books so far have only been "OK" but I'm hoping he reads at least a few that he really enjoys.

Children Around the World is going ok, I won't go off on my complaints about the program, of which I have many.  We are still having a good time in spite of it.  We're finishing up our Switzerland/Netherlands week and tomorrow we'll be have a cheese sampling and some Swiss chocolate after lunch and then enjoying raclette for dinner, which is a potato dish with melted cheese on top.  I'll post pictures if I remember to take them :)

Oh I should have brought the camera, but as usual I forgot. I had been good about keeping it in my purse, but of course not today.

The kids had a great time, our homeschool group leader has such a great house for get togethers. The kids love playing ping-pong and carpet ball, swimming, jumping on the trampoline and looking at the alligator that lives in their pond...one of many I'm sure!

They're starting to make some friends and finally Alexis talked to some girls about her age today. She's been the most mopey at homeschool gatherings, claiming no one is her age and no one will talk to her. Of course around the time she was coming out of her shell, it was time to go.
Thursday we have a field trip to a bread factory and Monday we'll be going to a corn maze.
The kids are looking forward to them...but I bet they'll miss doing their school...NOT!

Well 2 weeks down for Sonlight and one week down for WinterPromise and we're still on track.  That's a big deal...it's so easy to not stay on schedule.  Over the weekend I'm going to get a day from this coming week done because we have a field trip this Tuesday to a bread factory.  Mmm-mmm!

I can't wait to smell the bread baking and see how everything gets done.

We also have game day Tuesday but it starts at 2PM so we should be ok.  Lately we're getting most everything done by noon which has been a treat!

I went to the first mom's meeting last night and it was very nice.  I had to bring a snack and was debating about bringing some Chips Ahoy...yeah, the lazy route.  Well then I decided I better make something so I made strawberry bread.  Thank goodness I did because the treats at that meeting were so awesome!  Everything was homemade and looked great!  Can you imagine if I had stepped in there with my bag of store bought cookies?? 

Anyway it was nice and very relaxed, everyone is very friendly.  It was the first time that I've gotten out on my own since we moved!  So that was nice too.

My goal for the weekend is to get all next week's work entered into Homeschool Tracker.

pretty well!  Zarek started on his Core 5 last week and we began the LA over the weekend, skipping some parts from week 1.  Today we started on week 2 in both things and it went well.  He was done with all his work and reading, including Algebra!!! before lunch.  That was really impressive.  Then around 4PM he and I sat down together, went over his work, he answered questions about his reader, mapped the places the book takes place and he did his dictation.  Now after that he said it was a long day and too much work.  Then I reminded him that he's been done since noon and he said "oh yeah" I think it was doing more work with me in the afternoon that made him think his day was longer than it was. 

We started WinterPromise Children Around the World program today with the younger three.  I'm still waiting on some materials to arrive, all will be here by Wednesday except for the map, which is pretty important, but I'm told it will ship this week.  We'll be able to catch up no problem, plus we're using our wonderful Sonlight Mark-It map, so we're ok.  Alexis now knows where all the continents are and the oceans, which she didn't know before.  This is going to be a great year for her.  The kids weren't impressed with today's work as it was mostly the introductions to all the books, but I told them it would get better.  Alexis did two lessons in her Draw Your World book and wanted to do more, but I stopped her.

I'm reading Torches of Joy aloud to Zarek and Alexis, it's kind of a tough read aloud but I hear it's worth it.  With Caitlyn and Brett I'm finishing up the Ramona series, we just have Ramona's World left, then I need to find the next Henry Huggins book, I can't find it, maybe we don't have it...hmmm, I'll just have to buy it.

Tonight after dinner my husband suggested we check out the new ecology walkway  he noticed the other day.  It's just a 1 minute drive up the main road so we pulled in and it's named after John Muir, who we recently heard about when we were studying Teddy Roosevelt. John Muir was a naturalist, so I was excited to see this place was named after him.  The next great thing was this nature path was like a deck, a beautiful wooden walkway with built-in benches every so often and with plaques about the things you could see.  And see a few small things we did...a stick bug

and a spiny orb-weaver spider   were two things we have seen in books but never in real life!  Zarek also found a millipede and we had such a great time watching him and all his many legs.  Caitlyn and Alexis even declared him "cute".

The only thing that was disapointing was that the walk way ended much too soon and I'm hoping they plan on expanding it.  We're planning on going back with snacks,drinks  and nature journals to just sit some time and see what comes along.

Today Zarek taught the kids more about the sun from Apologia's Elem. Astronomy book and they said to try to harness the sun's power with a magnifiying glass.  The experiment was with chocolate, but hearing stories of Dad burning leaves with magnifying glasses when he was a kid, they wanted to try that.  The kids got some dead grass and a few leaves and we did get some smoke!  Personally I think it was hot enough out there to set something on fire without the magnifying glass!  We tried to get an actual flame going, but it never happened. 

 We actually had to use two magnifying glasses together to even get the smoke going.

It was cool, but we didn't have the patience to be outside in the heat long enough to really get it going, in this picture it was smoking but you can't tell.  We all decided we'd never make it on Survivor.

We also learned about sun spots, that are cooler spots on the sun that actually make the sun hotter.  The kids drew a sun with sun spots on it and copied some information from the white board and put the page into their Astronomy notebook.

We read a biography on Hebert Hoover today and another on Franklin D. Roosevelt.  We read in Story of the World about Hilter's Rise to Power.  We're beginning a book called A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt and tomorrow or Thursday we'll get fully into WWII.

Well, it's been a loooong day.  I have a headache...again, still??  Almost everything has been done.  Zarek is still in his room slogging away at this Algebra, he still has an hour of reading to do and 2 President sheets.  Alexis also has her President sheets and some reading left as well.  It's 5:17PM and I'm just tired and want to lay down.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel perkier.

I'm getting very excited (and a bit nervous!) about our new curriculums that we'll be using this fall.

I'm hoping to start October 1st with Zarek, earlier if I can.  Let me tell you what we're doing and why I want to start with Zarek first.

Zarek just turned 13 and will be doing Sonlight's Core 5, Eastern Hemisphere.  I plan that he will be mostly independent with this program, so I need to take a week to show him how to use the World Book CD on the computer, how to find articles and the answers to the EHE.  Also, just going over what he needs to do each day and make sure he knows what and how to do it.  I still will do some of the Read Alouds, but most of the History books and some of the RA's he will read to himself.  He's on the older side for the core and looking it over I know he's not going to have a hard time.  Even the EHE which I hear is difficult for some kids, looks so easy for him, as he is ahead in grade level anyway.   I'm debating right now on buying the Language 5 for him as well.  Part of me wants to since Sonlight has redone their LA's to focus on writing, something all of my children need more of.

With Alexis, Caitlyn and Brett we're doing WinterPromise's Children Around the World.  I had debated on where to place  Alexis, thinking she would do  Core 5 with Zarek,  but looking at CATW, I know she will get a lot from this program and it will be nice to have her help the younger two with some things too, like cooking, making the Travel Around the World Notebook and other activities.  Actually CATW looks over Cait and Brett's heads even though it's supposed to work for children as young as 1st grade.  I can't imagine a 1st grader doing the program with the books and subject matters.  Brett is going into 2nd and Caitlyn into 3rd and I'm going to expect that some of it will just go over their heads.  I may find picture books from the countries we're studying to supplement for them and I'll let them skip listening to some of the RA's if I feel that they are way over their heads.

So, we're all going around the world studying geography and cultures.  I'm really looking forward to it, but worry about juggling two complete programs.  I'm hoping my fear will be unfounded and that Zarek will take most of the responsibility for his program, freeing me up to work with the younger three.

Some of the books from each program I'll read aloud to all of the children, and I'm making Alexis a list of the book from Core 5 that I want her to read to herself, since WP doesn't have any readers scheduled.  I'm not purchasing WP's LA because Caitlyn and  Brett are still working on phonics and Alexis is working through her Easy Grammar and Wordly Wise 3000 and Ignite Your Writing, which is plenty of LA for her.

I'm really praying that I am able to buckle down each day (and have the children buckle down too) so we do not get off schedule.  I feel a rush to make sure this is done in the 36 weeks it's supposed to be done in, because Zarek will be starting high school work next year!  And my plan is to do Sonlight's Alt. 6 with him and Alexis and Alt 2 with Cait and Brett so everyone will be doing World History and after that Zarek will move up through the High School Cores...which ones I'm not entirely sure of, most likely 100, 200 and 400.

IF we stay with Sonlight, which today I plan on, but who knows what tomorrow will bring! 

We will be starting back on August 20th with a four day week, taking Friday off for our Homeschool Group's "Back to School" Beach Day.

I'm really wanting to finish up what we've been doing this year, we got behind due to me switching curriculum in October, from SL Core 4 to MFW 1850-Modern.  Then we lost more time during our move at the end of  February-beginning of March and of course time off to get settled.

We've tried to make up some of the time this summer by only taking 4 weeks off, and I'm hoping we'll be done by the end of September, but that may be just wishful thinking!

Here's our plans for the rest of August and beginning of September, I'm not putting dates by anything because something always happens and we get behind.  I've just listed what we need to do in order.

~Calvin Coolidge President sheet and bio.

~Herbert Hoover President sheet and bio.

~Story of the World ch. 26- Black Tuesday and  New Deal, complete outline and map

~FDR President sheet and bio.

~Read Aloud:  A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt

~Read Aloud: The Great Depression

~Read Aloud: Out of the Dust

~Read Ch. 11 in DK's Children's Encyclopedia of American History (over the course of a few days)

~SOTW ch. 26 part 2- Hitler's Rise to Power, complete outline and map

~Read Only SOTW Ch. 27

~SOTW Ch. 28- The Three-War War, complete outline and map

~SOTW Ch. 28 part 2-The Holocaust

~Read Ch. 12 in Children's Encyclopedia of American History, a few pages a day

~Begin reading historical literature set during WWII, these are the books we will read:

               The Winged Watchman

               Snow Treasure

              The Little Riders

              Journey to America

              Twenty and Ten

              Escape from Warsaw

             The Cay

              Number the Stars

              Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot

~Watch 1940's House DVD's

~Harry S. Truman President sheet and bio.

~SOTW Ch. 29-The End of WWII, complete outline and map

~SOTW Ch. 29 part 2-The Atom Bomb, complete outline and map

~Read Only SOTW Ch's 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34 (not doing outlines and maps or any additional reading on these chapters because they are focusing more on non-European countries and I'm trying to focus on America and Europe's history...only to get us through quicker. 

~SOTW Ch. 25- The Cold War, The Space Race

~Read Aloud The Cold War

~Read Ch. 13 in CEOAH over the week

~Dwight D. Eisenhower President sheet and bio.

Whew, ok, that's as far ahead as I'm thinking right now.  If it takes a month, that will still be good.

The children also are doing their math, grammar, phonics and writing daily on their own. 

Zarek has taken over doing the Apologia Elem. Science-Astronomy, teaching the 3 younger children.  He is a science nut and knows much more than the book even teaches.  He started last week and Wow!  He did an awesome job!  He even thought up games for the kids to play, about the planets and the sun, they had a ball and I think he takes pride in knowing he is helping to teach them. 

We do nature study as much as we can and I try to have the children make a couple of entries a week, but sometimes that doesn't always happen.

Current events and music have been neglected this year (and most every other year)

I play classical music for the children but I need to start to do more with this, but I'm not sure if I will be able to begin those studies for our coming year.  I think we're going to be VERY busy with our Around the World year of studying geography and cultures.

Ok, that's it for tonight!

Today is the start of our last summer break.  I told them this morning I want to read our two read alouds and hopefully get them finished during these two weeks.  We are reading Little Town on the Prairie, which we started this morning and we will begin Father and I Were Ranchers from the Little Britches series soon.  Depending on how much I can read, I'm really anxious to finish the Little House series, I've never read them myself and I'm wanting to see how the books end up, I'm really enjoying reading them aloud to the children.  I think Zarek is losing interest, but he draws while I read them and so he's occupied enough where he will sit and listen.

We got an Amazon order today, the first Nancy Drew book for Alexis, she's never read any of them.  We also got a book about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1940's House DVD, which all the children are excited to watch. I'm just getting my resources ready, we still have to go through the Great Depression first.  Last week we scooted quickly through the rest of the 20's, talked about the Jazz Age and all that went with it.  I'm really liking the DK Children's Encyclopedia of American History, it has great pictures in it and it touches on things I would forget to mention.  Although I have peeked forward and saw some topiocs we won't be talking about, so I'll have to remember to skip the pages where those topics are mentioned.

Well we are off to the pool for the afternoon.  I hope everyone else is enjoying these last few weeks of summer!

We are wrapping up WWI and will be moving into the 20's as soon as our break is over.  Tomorrow is our last day, and then we are having another two week break.

Zarek has been reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to himself and Alexis is still working on the Bunnicula series. 

Caitlyn and Brett have been wonderful about doing their math and phonics every day, Caitlyn is reading a story or two out of her A Beka reader to me every day.  I've been reading a lot of picture books to them each day, and our theme has mostly been the beach and sea animals.  Brett is still showing no signs of wanting to read, which is worrying me, but he's doing well in his explode the code book 1 and he's smart as a whip in math, so I'll try not to worry.

It's raining hard here, I'm glad I took the children to the pool yesterday, we had a great time.

Sunday Zarek is going to a water park for one of his friend's birthday.  I'm worried to let him go.  All three of his new friends will be going, so I know he'll have fun.  I'll be doing a lot of praying that he will be safe while he's gone.