I am sorry to report that I will be moving my blog. I can now be viewed at www.cabininthewoods-diane.blogspot.com. I just needed to go to somewhere that was easier to load pictures. Hope to see you over there.

We had a little car trouble over the past couple of days and had to borrow my dads car yesterday for a little while. This morning our car was back up and running. I went to the other grocery store in town to gets meats, returned some parts to the auto parts store, and went to the pet store for dog and cat food. After yesterday and today we are broke which is sad because we just got paid. I just finished a pound cake for an after church picnic tomorrow and now I am baking some muffins for breakfasts for a couple of days. Normally I just get the premade muffin mix but I am trying my hand at something more cost effective. Last time I tried this particular recipe it came out really dry and not very sweet. So this go around I added some extra sugar and some vanilla. They're baking so we will do a taste test when the come out. I also want to try my hand at cinnamon rolls, but I am kind of scared. I loved to bake but some things I have just never tried. Hubby took dd to the creek to swim because she was bored out of her mind. All friends were doing other things. That is the problem you get in to when you have no siblings to play with. Our pool never cleared up so we are draining it today and taking it down. I hope to get our back yard area and front deck cleaned up over the next couple of days.

So much was planned today I knew there would be no way to get to school. My parents took all of us out to lunch at a B-cue joint called Mickey Pigs that is great. After lunch dd went home with her grandparents for the day and me and hubby headed to a meeting to plan the special effects and sets for our next musical Willy Wonka. Hopefully we have plenty of time to prepare, we won't be performing until December. Dd is so excited she has been practicing her monologue and song for audtions. She wants to play Veruca Salt. I don't think audtions will be until the end of the month. Once we finished with the meeting me and hubby headed off to get big groceries. A huge amount of $156.00 for four people and hopefully that will last us for two weeks. Mostly that was just staples, drinks, and snacks. I still need to go to the other store to get meats. No eating out the rest of the week. We got all the groceries put away then had to cook dinner. Just finished grooming and bathing our toy poodle and now I am completely exhausted.

I wanted to mention that yesterday we visited with a new family that moved to our area that homeschools. They have a daughter the same age as ours. I hope that they will eventually join our support group. They will be visiting our church on Sunday and going to the church picnic with us. It is always nice to meet a new family that has a similar lifestyle as your own. Hopefully we will continue to get closer and spend some more time together.

We are into our second week of school and everything is still going well. If anyone is interested we are still workboxing and it is working so well. Dd is having a little trouble understanding everything that is happening in Mr. Revere and I but we are working through it. I remember last year when we did Ben and Me we had the same trouble. With these two books I tend to have to explain some of it as we go. To in our Zoology book we continued reading and discussing about migrating birds. Here is an interesting fact we learned today:

The bird above is the arctic tern. This bird flys 20,000 miles a year and does it in 8 months. Arctic Terns are considered the champions of migration. They travel from the Arctic Circle to Anartica and back again. Scientists believe that these birds like the cold weather but prefer sunlight. So in the summer they stay in the Arctic Circle and when winter comes they move to Anartica because the days are longer during the summer, hence more sunlight.

Hubby and dd have left for a couple of hours to go to the creek to swim. The best part about this particular creek is that one section of it is about 13 feet deep and very clear. They take their masks and go snorkeling just like in the ocean. They find many neat rocks and fish to observe. This is one of their very favorite outings to do in the summer. When dd gets back we still have math and reading and then she is done for the day. On the flip side, I still have a few things I need to get accomplished before the day ends. Better get on that.

Last night we had two church meetings to attend. Our youth group leaders are leaving for a full time position in another state to start a youth ministry. We are going to miss them terribly but know this is where God is calling them. This opens up a wide hole of volunteeers spaces to fill. The first meeting was about who could step up to the plate and fill those spaces. This has been weighing on my mind since I found out that they would be leaving but I did not express to anyone even my husband. After church and lunch yesterday my husband expressed the same sentiments. So we attended the meeting. Me and another woman from the church have decided to take over the middle school age kids on Wednesday nights. I decided this would be the group for me because we have a child that will be going to that group in another year. I am looking forward to this but it is a huge resonsibility. I already have so much on my plate but I just felt God was leading me to serve again in this way. Up until a couple of years ago I was head of our children's ministry but just burned out on it. It is going to be a very busy year.

Today was a day of errands and fun. Hubby went to a work day at church so it was just me and dd for most of the day. We were headed to The Mall of Georgia which is an hour away. I figured since we were going that far out we might as well stop at the great, big , new library that we love so much. Dd picked out some new books, books about animals for her blog, and three dvds. After leaving the library we stopped for lunch at chikfila. This particular chikfila is somewhat new and every time we stop there we are amazed at how great the staff is. I think I am going to email chikfila and let them know. Once we were throughly full we headed to Petsmart to pick up a dematting comb to help with our toy poodle's ears. Just haven't had the money lately to send her for a professional grooming, so we are trying our hand at it bit by bit. After dd oohed and aahed at all the cute little creatures we were back on the road again to shop at Hobby Lobby. I had not been to a Hobby Lobby in years and was really looking forward to it. When you walk it and look at all the rows of craft supplies it is kind of like hearing angels sing in the background. For this trip we picked up some items to start making Christmas gifts. Dd now has two different types of ornaments to make for gifts and we also got blank note cards and envelopes to make our own cards. Picked up Christmas stickers and such to help with that endeavor. These are not cards that we will mail because postage is simply to expensive now to do that. These note cards will be included with gifts and treats that are baked for neighbors, etc. We had planned to go to the Mall after this and stop at Barnes and Noble so dd could turn in her worksheet for the summer reading program and get her free book. The traffic was awful. I forgot that it is the weekend before school starting and it is a tax free holiday. Big mistake to try and go to the mall for anything. We decided we would make that trip another day during the week. One more great aspect of being a homeschool family. Go whenever you want.

Today was our fourth day back at school and also starting the workbox system. I think overall it has really helped dd get a good start on the school year. For one thing she really doesn't pay attention to what time it is, how long school is taking, or how many items she has to finish for the day. She is just focusing on whats in the next box. Plus for the start of this school year I have instituted a prize box. Right now if she doesn't dwaddle, no back talk, pleasant attitude, etc. she gets to pick a prize out of the bucket at the end of the day. It is only dollar store items, but she loves it. It costs me about 10.00 for two weeks worth of prizes, and it is so worth it if she keeps a good atitude. All things considered this week has gone really well and it has gone by very fast.

Some of the items we have started studying this year are as follows: For history we are reading Paul Revere and I and using the study guide that goes with it from queenhomeschool. The book is a little hard to follow because of alot of big words. We are working our way through it as well as watching the Liberty Kids Series from PBS. We are also studying Georgia History. The program we choose is basically like making a scrapbook. Our group has a geography festival every year and this year ours is in November. I convinced dd to just do Georgia since we are already putting in so much time with this study. We can make everything as we go. In Science so far this week we have been learning about how birds actually fly and why God designed them the way he did.

We have also visited the library a couple of times this week. It is getting harder to find books that dd is interested in and that I approve of. Her passion is science fiction and fantasy but I try to limit these as much as I can. Also if she picks a book up at the library and I haven't read anything about it even if it is in the children's section it doesn't mean I want my child reading it.

 

 

I know that this is only day 2 with the workboxes but I am completely amazed at the change in my dd about wanting to do school. I felt sure that she would balk at having 12 boxes considering in the past school year we only did 6 -9 items each day. It is such a great way to use all those educational items you have laying around the house that you never get to use because of time.Tuesday and Thursday will be our lighter days because of two classes outside the house which will be drama and handicrafts. So today represents a easier day educationally speaking. Here is day 2 of our boxes: Box 1 - Math (our curriculum hasn't come in yet so we used a 4 & 5 digit addition worksheet) Box 2 - Bible read aloud (read about King Uzziah and how he became a leper) Box 3 - Cursive Writing Box 4 - Vocabulary Game Box 5 - Spelling workbook and using scrabble tiles to spell the wordlist Box 6 - Beading Project Box 7 - Grammar Worksheet about common and proper nouns Box 8 - Matchstix Game ( a logic game) Box 9 - Literature (read a chapter from Farmer Boy) Box 10 - Watched an episode of Liberty Kids while doing a color by numbers project Box 11 - Spelling Blaster Game Box 12 - Reading for 30 minutes As you can see, Tuesdays and Thursdays will center around language arts and literature mostly. This afternoon after school and lunch we headed for a visit to grandparents house. My niece and nephew were also over there visiting. This kids played all afternoon and we ended up eating dinner over there also. We are getting some much needed rain today. I think there is a chance every day this week and we really need it after not having rain for about a month. Dd is upstairs playing on freerice.com. Since I interested her to it yesterday she has really gotten hooked.

Today was not only our first day of school but it was also our first day using workboxes all the way through. Dd was really excited to get started. We had to attend a board meeting this morning so we started school work after lunch. Here was our 12 boxes for today: Box 1 - Bible which I read aloud to her and discussed. Box 2 - Spelling - Copy spelling words for the week and use scrabble tiles to spell out five of the words. Box 3 - Freerice.com for fine arts trivia. Box 4 - Science - Read aloud a few pages in our Zoology Book and notebooked about flying facts for birds. Box 5 - Typing - Lesson from Mavis Beacon. Box 6 - Geography Terms and definitions. Box 7 - Write a card to grandmother and address the envelope. Box 8 - History - Do lesson one from Mr. Revere and I study guide, read first chapter from book and did some mapping skills. Dd read a few pages from If I Lived During the American Revolution. Box 9 - State of Georgi coloring page for geography festival. Box 10 - Georgia State History - Did lesson one about interesting facts in the state of Georgia. Box 11 - Piano - Practice one or two songs for 10 minutes. Box 12 - Independent reading for 30 minutes. Everything went great. Hope each day works out as well as this one did. Yeaaaah, righhhht!!! Always think the best will happen. But all kidding aside, we did have a really great time today. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Yahoo!!!!!!! Who would of thought a year ago I would have made this many entries. As time has gone by I have just felt more and more to make sure I blog everyday. I enjoy it and hopefully someone out there in cyber space is actually reading some of it. Here is what has been going on in the past couple of days:

On Friday we headed to the church for a BBQ dinner and the VBS program. Food was excellent and we had alot of fun too. Ran a bunch of errands during the day for groceries and such and now we are broke again until next payday.

This morning was our annual planning meeting for our support group. We always meet towards the end of July for brunch at someone's house and plan for the entire year. There was fruit, eggs, muffins, bacon, sausage balls, veggies with dip and so much more to munch on while we were plugging away. We planned field trips, annual events such as the biography fair and geography festival, parties, like Valentines and Christmas, co-ops, parent support meetings, and Friday Frolics. Friday Frolics, what is that? Well, on any month that has a fifth Friday in it we meet for food, fellowship, and we work on any projects that we might want to bring. We got alot accomplished today. Once I got home from the meeting I transferred all the information to my computer and put the calender together for our next school year. After that we took my son out for dinner along with 6 other family members to IHOP for a graduation celebration. As I mentioned a few posts back, our son passed his GED. We are very proud of him. Food was great and we all had a good time.

Thursday was our last night a VBS. I think all the kids had a great time. Through their offerrings they rasied $225.00 for our church food pantry. Tonight we go back and the kids will perform, pick up their artwork, and we will have a BBQ Dinner for all the families. VBS is always such a great time for everyone. Lots of fellowship. One thing the kids got to do last night for games was laser tag. Our VBS was a space theme. One of our members has about 40 laser tag sets that he rents out for parties and such.

Today is errand day. Pet store for dog food, grocery store, bank, and dollar tree for some wedding shower decorations. I am also meeting a member from our group that I am selling my Prairie Primer to. Another tough month as far as finances go. Trying to sell any of the books and curriculum that I no longer use or will not be using in the future. I will definitely sell at the used book fair next year at our convention. So this year that means not writing in any of our books except for math.

Just ordered our math curriculum for the year. It has been a tough decision. In a early post I wrote about my trouble with deciding between teaching textbooks, horizons math, and making math meaningful. Will in the end the cheapest won out. I ordered making math meaningful. I also decided to order book 4 instead of 5 after I studied the website alot. Hopefully I haven't made a mistake. With us being a Charlotte Mason family it also fits us. I should receive it in 1 - 2 weeks. We are starting school next week but I have some math worksheets we can work on until it gets here.

 

I know we homeschool. Why do we need to do back to school shopping? I really couldn't think of anything else to call it. Granny wanted to take dd shopping today and get her anything she needed. Dd will be taking two fine arts classes at a classical private school and they require uniforms. Dd needed skorts to wear with her school shirts. Granny to the rescue! Today Granny bought dd two skorts, two shirts, a new pair of tennis shoes, nice flip flops to wear with dresses to church, a over the shoulder, and a purse/backpack. Yeah for Grandmothers!!!! She also took us to Red Lobster for lunch. It was a great girls day out.

Originally I had thought I would start school in July just like last year, but we were having so much fun doing so many other things that we decided to wait and start the first Monday of August. So a week from today will be our first day. The only item I don't have is her math curriculum, but I plan on ordering that this Friday. Just had to wait for the funds to arrive. This year as recommended by Simply Charlotte Mason we are breaking the year down into terms. We will have 3 -4 terms through out the year. There was so much that I wanted to do this year we just couldn't do it all every week. So the information I am sharing today will be for our first term which will last August - November. ?

Curriculum

Bible - Continue reading through The Child's Story Bible by Katherine Voss. Very detailed and quite wonderful.

Science - Zoology 1 by Jeannie Fulbright.

History - Starting with the Revolutionary War and seeing how far we can go through living books, biographies, and lapbooks.

Geography - The study of the state of Georgia.

Typing - Mavis Beacon

Artist and Composer Study - Through a twice a month co-op.

Spelling - Spelling Through Copywork

Writing - Written Narration from our reading in history and literature.

Math - Horizons Math.

Cursive and Grammar - queenhomeschool materials.

Literature - Finish reading all the Little House books.

This is How it will all play out during the week:

Monday

Bible, Spelling, Science, Writing, History, Geography, Typing, Independent Reading, Artist and Composer Study twice a month.

Tuesday

Drama Class, Handicrafts Class, Math, Cursive, Reading, Spelling, Grammar, and Literature.

Wednesday

Bible, Spelling, Science, Math, History, Geography, Typing, and Reading.

Thursday

Drama Class, Handicrafts Class, Math, Writing, Reading, Spelling, Grammar, and Literature.

Friday

Bible, Spelling, Science, Math, History, Geography, Typing, and Reading.

Last night our church started with our week long VBS program. Operation Space through Answers in Gensis. This year I just helped with decorations and registration each night. Dd had a great time and can't wait to go back tonight. We had about 50 kids last night and that is a good number for a church that only averages about 140 each Sunday including adults and children. VBS is always such a fun week. Gettings to see all your friends 6 nights in a row and the fellowship that comes from it.

Today ended the summer reading programs at one of the library's we attend. They had a pizza party and handed out prizes for various things. I forgot that I needed to turn ini dd's timesheet in order for her name to get on the list for a reading prize. She was pretty upset. But she won something else. This year's theme was all about being creative. Dd's strength is art, especially drawing. The library handed out a piece of paper at the beginning of the summer with extra things you could do to earn more tickets. Dd drew a great pickture of a horse very early on. The library brought in women from an art guild to judge all the drawings. Well, dd was surprised to find out that she won first place in her age group. Yeah!! She won a prize that consisted of a free pizza coupon, a fuzzy art poster, a puzzle, and a badge. She was so excited. I am so proud of her. This is the second award she has won this summer for her art. This afternoon we watched the first episode of The Liberty Kids by PBS about The Boston Tea Party. I explained to dd why the Tea Party happened and why now they are having Tea Parties again. We are watching these to get us ready for our study of Paul Revere and his part he play in the revolution. Right now she is in her room putting together her new horse puzzle.

Yesterday we found out that her drama group will be doing a musical of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She is thrilled. This is one of her all time favorites. Me and hubby will be meeting with the director in the beginning of August to come up with ideas for the set which my husband will be helping build. Dd is hoping to audtion for one of the kids that visits the factory with Charlie.

 

My daughter has been bugging me for ages to start her own blog, but I wanted it to be educational in some way also. Other than just writing of course. She loves animals. So the two fit together nicely. Her website has some of the information that she has learned from her study with the Zoology books from Jeannie Fulbright. If you have a chance please visit her website and maybe send her a comment. www.homeschoolblogger.com/theworldofanimals.

Yesterday I went to a used curriculum sale with some friends from our support group. I didn't have anything to sell but they did. After we set their stuff up we had to leave the room until the sale started. Unfortunately they did not have the math tht I needed so I am definitely going to have to order it next week. We will probably be starting school without a math but that is okay. There was alot of people buying alot of things but there really wasn't anything there that I needed. I did find a few fictional books about Ancient Egypt that I will need in a couple of years and decided to go ahead and buy those., Even though I didn't find much it was a good day. I got to go to lunch with friends and discuss some about our upcoming planning meeting for the year.

And I found a book that I am going to purchase a study guide from Queen Homeschool to go with it.

I also found a History Pocket for my friend that was only 50 cents.

History Pockets about Colonial America.

 

I have noticed many things this summer about my daughter. I have also read many blogs, articles, etc. about unschooling and how children will simply gravitate toward learning even if you don't shove it in their face everyday. This summer has kind of proven that to me. Don't get me wrong I won't be going down the unschooling path, just because I am to much of a type A personality. But I do think if you and your child have the right personality it would be a great way to go with schooling. This summer dd has done many different things that would constitute schooling. She has attended all of the library programs, which included, felting, scrapbooking, pottery, comic book illistrating, puppet making and paper beading. She has read more books this summer than ever before. Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Spiderwick Chronicles, Sisters Grimm Series, and A to Z Mysteries. We have gone to two vbs programs and one week of art camp were she studied art, story telling, and dance. Dd has had many hours on her own making crafts and drawing. Because of the pool in the backyard she has swam many hours also. Hubby has taken her on nature walks to collect items for his art projects. She has started a blog to record information about all her favorite animals and has started a couple of fictional stories that she has yet to finish. My point is, this is school and I didn't even have to ask or plan or set up. Funny how that just kind of works out on its own. It has been  great summer. Only one more week then we start back to school. I will still plan our days and she will have a loose schedule to follow but I think I will take this year in a much more relaxed manner.

Many nice things have happened today. Dd finished up her week at EdenArt Camp today. Each day they studied about God's creation and did many hands on activities. Today they served us lunch and did a small presentation of what they had learned through the week.

Our New Big Lots openned today. For a small town like ours that is a big deal. We visited for a few minutes but didn't buy anything. On a tight budget for the next two weeks.

A very pleasant surprise awaited me in the mail when we got home. My son's GED scores and he passed. Yeah!!!!!!!  This is a very big deal for him and us. Ds was never a school kid. He was in public school until 11th grade, then I brought him home to try and finish out. But still he was not interested. It took him until he turned 18 to really start wanting it and possible to further his education in some way in college or a trade school. He did all the preparation on his own and paid for the testing. He is now 19 and I know he is glad to get this part behind him so he can move on with his life. And he has been working full time for the past year for a good company, so he has not been sitting around on his laurels (? spelling). We are very proud of him.

I saw this on higher education's blog and thought it was hilarious!

Dd started Eden Art Camp today. This is a cross between a VBS and a art camp. They are concentrating on Creation and looking for God in everything that is out in Nature, etc. She will be attending until Thursday. Alot of her friends from our homeschool group are going to this also. She is looking forward to going again tomorrow.

I have decided to go back on the diet wagon. I will try to get the eating under control and then work on the exercise. I just cannot get motivated to do the exercise. Maybe if a I loose a few pounds it will motivate me more. I have decided to go with the low carb diet. It is just easier for me to do this than counting calories. I really only need to loose about 10-15 pounds so I won't start with the induction plan but with the next step up which will let me have 30 grams of carbs a day. The one thing I will miss the most is my milk. I have always drank skim but I am going to have to look for something different with less carbs. I will try to write daily about how it is going. I need to get some batteries for the scale so I can keep it accurately. Mostly I am doing this because hardly any of my clothes are fitting and I just can't afford to go out and buy more. Pray for me, I really need to keep strong and vigilant.