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Our first official week is almost over.  It's been tough in some places but we're getting through.  I am going to have to tweak the schedule some as dd is struggling to finish everything in the time alloted for school.  I know it's an awful lot but I know she can do it.  She had a really good time working on her history outline but it took a lot of time.  The younger students are bored with their work and are very distracting.  We're going to keep plugging along and get through this!  It's going to take a lot of discipline and hard work though!

Posted in Grace Academy

I'm about halfway through putting in all of my oldest dd's assignments into homeschool tracker.  It's very time consuming, especially since I have the free version.  I've got all of her math assignments in through the end of her current book.  I'll enter the assignments for next book when I get it.  I'm also finished putting in all of her writeshop assignments.  I've made a good start on the history assignments but I have quite a ways to go.  I need to finish assigning all of the state notebooking and the reading for the literature component.  I also need to enter her science, Latin and Greek roots assignments and some vocabulary.  I can't find the book I was going to use for vocabulary so I need to do some digging.  I'm not planning on doing this kind of in depth record keeping for the younger two.  I'll just record what they've done each day in a journal type format.   That should save me some time.  I think I have just about everything I need to get started on the school year.  I will need some materials in the middle of the year as the dc complete their current math books.  After I finish entering all of this info.  I'll need to start typing up all of the copywork assigments, printing off the root notebooking pages and the state notebooking pages.   Phew!  It's a lot of work but I think this will make the year run much more smoother.

Posted in Grace Academy

Yesterday was our first gym coop of the year.  It is the biggest activity that our home school support group does each year.  We meet twice a month Sept. - May for games and sports.  It really signals the end of summer for our family, more so then anything else.  Grace Academy continues to meet in the dining room but our official start date for the new school year will be the first Monday in Oct.  Meanwhile, they keep working through their current books.  I decided to do this so that we can really start the school year out organized and ready.  Since dh is finishing up the last of his school stuff there hasn't been time or resources to begin the new school year the Tues. after Labor day like we normally do.  I've been setting up a planner, getting a list of the remaining resources we need, setting up a cleaning routine and organizing our materials.  Once he's done with school I can finish gathering the materials I don't have yet and we can get a great start to our new school year.  We always school through the summer so we'll get our legally required instructional hours in with no problem.

Posted in Grace Academy

Our support group held it's annual Get acquainted/back to school picnic today.  There were two new families at the picnic.  We had a wonderful time of fellowship while our children played.  I guess this means that the new school year is about to begin.  It also means that this is my last week of summer child care as the Denver schools are back in session starting next Monday.  I've been happy to earn the extra money and help out a single mom by caring for an extra child all summer but it will be nice to go back to our routine.  Our new school year officially begins the day after Labor day so we will spend the rest of August finishing up the loose ends from this school year.   The summer was less productive then I'd hoped but we did get some things accomplished and I've seen some real growth in all of my children.  I'm looking forward to starting a new school year that will be our best ever!

Posted in Grace Academy

Has anyone noticed how much difficulty children have with pencils??  Finding them, sharpening them, finding one with an eraser.  It's a daily trial here.  I finally gave up and used what was left on an old Target gift card to buy them each their own mechanical pencil.  They then proceeded to break them, lose the eraser, run out of lead, etc. etc.  I miss having a decent pencil sharpener.  After 4 years of faithful service, ours broke last spring.   I bought a new one at Mardels and it broke within a week of getting it.  I couldn't return it because the toddler destroyed the box and they are rather particular about these things.  Something as simple as a pencil can change the tone of an entire school day.

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Last week was the county fair and here are dd's results!  We're so proud of all of her hard work.  Next year will be even better now that she's gone through it once.  She won 2nd place for her cake.  She received a red ribbon for her skirt.  Here are some pictures!!  Isn't her cake beautiful??

Here's her finished skirt, complete with ribbon!

Posted in Grace Academy

I wanted to share the pictures of my dd's 4-H project! It's a little rough but she did a pretty good job.  We might try making another one for the fair. 

Here's the jeans before she got started:

 

Here's a back view of the finished product:

Here's the front view, notice her custom made label, lol! Some day when she's a famous fashion designer you can say that you "knew" her when.

Posted in Grace Academy

Yum, this one's chocolate.  It is a 9" square.  She used hershey's miniatures and kisses, 4 raspberries and some green sugar to decorate it.  She used a tiny amount of peanut oil to make the chocolate candy shiny.  She is mostly self taught. I did teach her how to frost a cake when she was little but the rest is all her.  She did a beautiful job.  She is so creative. This cake looks worthy of a special occasion.

Posted in Grace Academy

This is the result of her first effort at following the rules!  She's been baking and decorating cakes for several years but now she has rules to follow. She came up with this idea all by herself.

Posted in Grace Academy

Saturday was the annual education fair that our support group holds. It's like a science fair but the displays cover things like biograpy and geography, etc. in addition to science. We never did make it to the library so my poor dc had to do all of their research online. They received high praise from the evaluators and they all learned something new so I'm calling it a success. Someone kick me if I ever wait until the last week to have them get started! Their projects were: oldest dd (14) Ronald Reagan, ds (11) crocodilia (that is the order which includes crocodiles, alligators and some other things) and dd (7) Helen Keller. My oldest read through pages of speeches and was fascinated by all of the things she read. Ds loves reptiles and wants to be a herpatologist when he grows up so he already knew a lot but he learned more. Dd got excited about braille. The thing that I loved the most was ds's answer to one of the evaluation questions. He said that he wants to study reptiles when he grows up and show everyone that they were made by our Creator and that they didn't evolve and arrive by accident. Proud mommy moment! I'm also watching my oldest begin to establish political opinions and hone her ability to decide on issues on her own. I worked hard to show her where mistakes have been made and challenge her to have a reason for her beliefs. I'm proud to say that she's becoming quite the conservative, lol. This next week we will recover from the fair and get things in order around here. Dh goes back to school on the 3rd.

Posted in Grace Academy

I set up a chore system a few weeks ago and it has had mixed results.  Some of the dc are doing more to help around the house but I'm still having to remind them a lot. Also, my charts aren't very good for keeping track of the points accumulated and they don't have anyplace to note chores that are done more then once in a day. I need to modify the system but I'm really struggling with it. I'm not really sure how to acheive the changes that I think are needed. I think I would like to use an envelope system instead of a chart. I was considering putting cards in envelopes on a poster. I'd like to use envelopes like the ones the libraries used to put in books back in the dark ages, before computers. I'm too cheap to buy them though. I'm going to have to find a pattern for them.

Posted in Grace Academy

After homeschooling for 9 yrs. I finally decided that our school needed a name last summer. I chose Grace Academy. I chose that for several reasons. I wanted something that wouldn't scream "HOMESCHOOL" on the first reading. I also wanted something that reflects our faith and my educational philosophy. Alone I'm a failure but by God's grace I can succeed. We've had a lot of rough times over the years and yet God's grace has continued. Since this is my first entry on this subject I'll share what we're using this year for school.

Math-Math U See, I love this and the new edition is even better.

Language arts-Easy Grammar Plus, Spelling Power, Getty Dubay Italics, the oldest will begin Writeshop as soon as I receive it

Bible-a memory verse print out each week. I use the Startwrite software to print it out and they trace and copy it everyday. I want them to hide His word in their hearts. I memorized very little scripture as a child and I regret that.

Science-my oldest is doing Apologia General Science, the others may begin Science in the Creation Week later this month.

History-We're beginning Beautiful Feet Early American History this week

Misc.-ds is a 2nd year Webelo and the girls are in 4-H

So there it is, my curriculum. It's not fancy but I pray that it works.