After months of technical difficulties I moved to a new site

http://heartfeltacademy.blogspot.com/

I may decide to move back here.

We had a fabulous time at the park yesterday for our first Cloverbud meeting.   The children enjoyed a meet and greet pet day.  We were introduced to Nellie, the rat, Tigger the cat, a ferret, rabbit, unusual looking hen, guinnea pig, and a stuffed animal dog : )   We took our pet hen, Goldie. 

The children enjoyed each other's company so much and the leadership of this group is SUPERB!   After showing their pets off they played pin the tail on the donkey, then enjoyed a snack of "dog treats"  Even though Cutie Pie is not official Cloverbud age, he was welcomed in the group along with all the other younger siblings : )

While driving home, Sweetness asked, 'Mama is Katie homeschooled?"   Katie is a sweet little girl that we just watched in a play last weekend.   "Yes, she is homeschooled.  Every child you seen at the park today was homeschooled."       "WOW!  That is a lot mom!" replied sweetness with great big eyes.   It means a lot to know you're not the only one in the world.  As a matter of a fact,  public schooled kids in our area are turning into the minority.

Thank  you Lord for the opportunity and blessings of homeschooling.

Remember when I said, just a few entries down, "I have decided not to do co-op this year?"   Well, that was BEFORE I went to a mom's night out and got to know some of the ladies in our homeschool group.  It was such a delight to be in the company of like-minded Christian moms.   I am truly feeling allienated out here in the wild blue yonder with no neighbors in sight.  I am becoming such a recluse that I was feeling uncomfortable around people.  So I really think * I * need to socialize more.  It is time for me to put my reservations, and excuses aside and go out and make a network of friends.

I attended the co-op meeting and was so enthused by the classes that other moms were willing to teach.  We all voted unanimously for the follwing classes. This is what Heartfelt will be doing every Monday for 6 weeks beginning Oct 8.

Sweetness:     Spanish; Choir; Science Experiments

Cutie Pie:    Storytime and craft; Choir; Science Experiments

Each class is 45 mins. w/ a break in-between.  Every parent has to help or teach two classes then have one class free to *socialize*.  I will be doing storytime and science experiments with Cutie Pie's age group.   I will be meeting with one of the mom's tomorrow who is teaming with me in this adventure, to brainstorm ideas.  We will be using some ideas from this awesome site  http://www.eric-carle.com/catexchange.html

I look forward to posting updates on the successes and curves in the co-op path we will be traveling this fall.

Seems I have been out of the habit of just journaling our Heartfelt days.  I love to write and my family are perfect subjects.  My grammar may need polishing, but my spelling is pretty good.  So without further intimidations I will write about us.

Cutie Pie cames dashing out of his room with camcorder, battery charger, and  cord adapter in tow.  "Wook mama, it works, it works!"   I am thinking, 'What do you mean it works?  I gave these things to you because they're broken and I just spent $$$ on a new camera.'  He then demonstrates how the battery charger plugs into the wall, then one end of the cord adapter plugs in to the charger, the other end into the camera.   POWER!  LIGHTS! ACTION!  This kid gets a charge out of plugging something in and it lights up or makes a sound.  "I can see I can see!" he exclaims.   What he could see was his own reflection in the camera.   "YES!  that's amazing!"  I agree.   What I found amazing is that he figured out how to plug it all in.

You see, Cutie Pie was about 18 months old when he pulled the cord out from the baby monitor and stuck it into his mouth, all the while it is plugged into the wall.  He got a *charge* that day that made him cry, but has been thrilling him ever since.  Sweetness will fuss about his menagerie of cords, gadgets, and whatnots, but I tell her to leave him alone, he may be the next Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison. 

Sweetness is learning to whistle.  Her *concentration* is so intense. She holds her mouth with a slight pucker and blows puffs of air and once in a while she hits a high note and she exclaims, "Did you hear it?"   I think she may be ready for formal piano lessons.  I showed her the C position on the piano and she practices that daily.  She constantly hums Bethoven's 9th symphony and declares she wants to play the piano as well as Bethoven.

Now picture this scene in our front yard.  Blacky the snake shimmies up tree to have him a sup of baby squirrells.   Mama squirrell comes dashing home at the sound of her distressed babies.  Mama squirrell darts into the nest, attacks black snake holds him in her mouth dangling him down the tree from the entrance of the nest, then drops him down, down, down to his fate.   Blacky's fate?  Treasure Hunter bagged the snake.  She was a real beauty.  Blacky the snake has been re-located several miles from our home, near a creek, in memory of Steve Erwin : 0 )

I am looking forward to next week's Heartfelt highlights.

Heartfelt has been steady with the 3 r's the past few weeks.  We have good days and bad days and I will never pretend to be the family on the cover of HomeSchool Weekly.  We have added http://www.clicknkids.com and http://www.starfall.com to our daily reading digest.   This has helped Sweetness tremendously and Cutie Pie is just getting his feet wet with phonics.

I have been inclined to try unit studies with my children.  So I am pulling together resources to expound on the following events and will center it around the frontier/pioneer era that Sweetness is so intrigued with:

We will be going to the beach in a few weeks and hope to visit a ship museum while we are there. 

In October we will attend an apple/pumpkin picking field trip that will include a hayride and tour of the apple processing plant.  I can hardly wait to bite into a freshly picked apple!

In November we plan to visit the American Frontier Culture Museum.  This museum has 3 original homes from English, Irish and German Families.  The homes are occupied by re-enactors who will discuss their daily life with us. 

Then hopefully we will have another Mock Thanksgiving dinner with our homeschool group.  I think my kids can still wear their costumes from last year.  Hopefully Treasure Hunter will build us another Indian Long House.

Soon it will be Christmas.  I would like to decorate with more lights this year.  December is the darkest month of the year.   God is so good to give us the Light of the World on the darkest day of the year.