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I know I haven't posted to my blog in a while but things around here have been pretty busy around here. I know everyone has been on edge just wondering what was going on with me. LOL! Back in September we took a trip to Conner Prarie Farm in Fishers, Indiana and I have been meaning to blog about our trip for quite a while. We went on Smithsonian Museum Day so the best thing was our admission was free that day. Even if admission hadn't been free it was well worth the cost of admission. Conner Prarie is a living history museum, where nothing is off limits, and touching the artificats is encouraged. The museum (which is outdoors) is divided into three different areas, a Lenape Indian Camp, 1836 Prarietown, and 1886 Liberty Corner. The kids were able to grind up cornmeal, help with farm chores, and in Liberty Corner one of the ladies had them wash dishes, something they would never do at home! The actors are what made the experiece so great. The storekeeper told Sunshine exactly what she needed to make lye soap and then tried to barter with her for the ingredients she needed. We sat in on a school lesson in the one room school house, and when Little Man picked up a baseball the school teacher explained how the game of "round ball" was played and said he had never heard of baseball. At the Conner homestead the cook asked Skateboarder to pump her some water using the water pump. Sunshine and Little Man learned how to play pick up sticks in the Lenape Camp using twigs from the trees. The kids really enjoyed themselves. Sunshine and Little Man had just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods so they were able to draw together what they saw with what they had been reading. Here are a few pictures of our day:
We tried to get Little Man to milk the cow but he wanted nothing to do with it.
Little Man is grinding corn in the Leanpe Camp.
Little Man and Sunshine checking out the duck in the barn. They also had a chance to pet goats, cows, sheep, and baby chicks in the barn.
The baby piglet we were able to help feed. We ended up spending more time with him than almost any of the other animals. He loved to be rubbed, petted, and loved on.
Bubbles, Skateboarder, and Sunshine getting water. Skateboarder was the only one of the three who was able to get the water pumping.
Sunshine and Bubbles helping to do the dishes. I was floored when they started doing this. While they were doing the dishes the ladie's son taught Little Man and Skateboarder how to spin a wooder top.
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Sunshine celebrated her 8th birthday this past Saturday. I can't believe how big she is getting! Her dad had to work on Saturday so we just spent a relaxing day at home. We bought her the Rose Petal Cottage that she had wanted at Christmas time for her birthday. She got lucky, because we found one brand new in the box on Craigslist, there is no way I would pay the almost $100 for it otherwise.
You have to overlook the dog's head, we kept getting her in our pictures. She just wanted to see what was going on like everyone else. On Sunday we went to the zoo, since that is what she wanted to do for her birthday. It was soo hot that it was miserable, so we did not get to stay as long as we would have liked to. I have been trying to get some sewing done, and I did get Sunshine a shirt made for her to wear for her birthday. I bought the Princess fabric a while back in the scraps bin at Wal-Mart for 76 cents, and didn't know what to do with it. When Sunshine picked out the pattern for this shirt I thought the fabric would be perfect for it.
The only thing I wish I would have done different is the size. I used the size 8 pattern, and it made the bodice too big on her. Next time I will use the size 7 pattern for sure. |
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I have felt from the very beginning that co-op was very educational for my children, they have learned so much in such a short period of time and have got to do so many hands on activities. Well, today proved educational for even mommy. I am a teacher's assistant in Little Man's Literature Class, Sunshine takes the same class only earlier in the day, and today the class dissected owl pellets. I had never heard of owl pellets before today, so as the teacher explained to the class what an owl pellet was I was learning as well. It turns out the owl pellet is the part of the animals such as bones and fur that owls can not digest and which they cough up, much like a hairball from a cat. Each child was given gloves and tweezers with groups of four working together to dissect the pellet. The kids pulled the fur back to reveal bones, teeth, and even skulls. The class I was in had twelve boys ranging in age from Kindergarten through third grade so obviously they enjoyed it, the girls class that Sunshine was in earlier in the day was of course much more squeamish than the boys but Sunshine still found it very interesting. So who knew, even moms can learn from co-op.
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This has been an extremely busy week for us, but I kind of knew it would be. As planned we went to the state fair on Monday and it was a blast. We got there early enough to watch the horse show, although I would not have been in quite as big a hurry to get there as I was had I known that the horse show lasted until about 3 in the afternoon. In addition to the horse show we were able to see the Pork Chop Revue, which has been featured on Animal Planet and is quite a cute little show. The bigs were very well trained, and one even sang!
The kids favorite part of the day was the tiger show. As with the pigs, the tigers were very well trained. The tigers have also been featured on Animal Planet. The one tiger, I do believe her name was India, even walked a tight rope. It was quite amazing to see.
Another highlight of the kids day was rock climbing. Skateboarder made it all the way to the top, while Bubbles got scared about half way up. Sunshine wanted to go further up than she got but they wouldn't let her because they were afraid she would get up to high, get scared, and then they would have problems getting her down. Little Man got harnessed up but didn't go too far, he is like his mom, he doesn't like heights.
We didn't get to see too many of the farm animals though. Monday was a change over day, so they had the hall closed for the majority of the day while they moved the animals in and out. We did however get to see a few of the cows early in the morning.
We don't do the rides at the fair for two reasons, one is for safety, I just don't trust them, and the other is because of the cost. Ride tickets were $1.25 a piece this year, and some rides take 2 to 3 tickets, that is just too much if you ask me. We had hoped to stay to see the Newsboys concert but we did not make it. Little Man got tired around 5 PM and started acting up, and that was also about the time Jon's back started really bothering him so it was time to go. That was the first all day adventure we had been on since his wreck, and we were happy that he was able to make it as long as he did. We did however do a lot of sitting during the day. On Tuesday we went on a field trip to the Frazier History Museum. The theme of the day was cowboys, and it was suppose to be designed for children in grades K through 3. The kids had a lot of fun but I however was a little disappointed. Little Man was way too young for the museum and Sunshine was on the verge of being too young. I do believe though that this will be a great educational place for middle to high school students, and that adults would really enjoy it. It's just not a museum for kids. I am glad though that even with it being so over their young heads they still had a good time. We spent Wednesday at home, and in normal homeschool fashion I washed clothes, cooked, and did all of my normal chores all while giving instruction and teaching. Thursday was co-op, and yesterday was another fun filled day at home, although Sunshine was in one of her moods. It was the first bad day she's had in quite a while, and I ended up just letting her go for the day. I tried to get her to work on her copy work but just didn't want that, and I did manage to get her journal entry and math done but that was about it. I figured she was not getting anything out of it at that point. We did work on our nature journal a little today, although we did not write a journal entry I had the kids take a clipboard with their sketch paper and go outside. They were to find something outside to draw and paint. The paintings turned out better than I expected actually.
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Today at co-op I spent quite a bit of time talking with other moms about curriculum. Like I have said before I really like the Charlotte Mason method, and lean heavily toward it, which means we use very little textbooks and workbooks on a regular basis. I had several people ask me what my curriculum is like so I thought it would be a great time to share. All three kids currently use: Mystery of History Volume 1 - Creation Through Christ for History/Social Studies Apologia Astronomy for Science We will begin nature journaling one to two times a week based upon Charlotte Mason methods. For our Foriegn Language I have ordered the game Rummy Roots to help learn Greek and Latin Root Words. We will also begin using Language Tree's Spanish for Kids DVD program. I am not adding this until later because I want to ease into the school year. For Bible Study we will be using the book From Arapesh to Zuni: A Book of Bibleless People studying one country in the book each week. We will also have one missionary a month that we will learn about their country, pray for them, and write to them. For English Bubbles and Sunshine are using English for the Thoughtful Child, again based on Charlotte Mason principles, which means more oral learning than workbook learning. This is suggested for first through third graders but I am using it with Bubbles to help her get a good grasp on the basics of English. Sunshine's schedule includes: For literature we have just begun reading the Little House on the Prarie series. For copywork she will copy basic bible verses, hymns, and poems. As per the Charlotte Mason method, all copywork will come from "living books". During co-op Sunshine will also take classes that include Financial Peace Jr. For Kids which is based upon Dave Ramsey's books for children, US States, Draw Write Now, Music Theory and PE. Bubbles schedule includes: Student Writing Intensive Level A which is developed to help get a good grasp on writing structure and style. We are also beginning a typing program this year which will be the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software. Her co-op classes also include Financial Peace Jr. For Kids, Healthy Cooking, Beginning Quilting, and PE. Based on the Charlotte Mason Curriculum we will also include studies on classic artists and composers. Studying one artist or composer for a month. While Charlotte Mason suggests studying 6 per year, we will only be studying five artists and four composers, as I do not want to overload our schedule too much. Here is the schedule for that: Artists John James Audubon- September Claude Monet - November Mary Cassatt - January Christian Riese Lassen - March Maxfield Parrish - May Composers Bach - October Mozart - December Chopin - February Strauss - April This year instead of doing Girl Scouts we will be participating in Keepers at Home. Not only will we be completing activities with our group we will also be using the book at home. I am going to use this as our Personal Development curriculum. Since Little Man will not be participating in this I have purchased Little Contenders for him, and we will be working on that at home. So now that I have explained my curriculum what are you all doing?
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Today was a very busy day for us as it was our first day of co-op, not just for this school year but ever. The kids were very excited about it as they had already met several of the kids that would be attending and had "friends" that they were looking forward to seeing. I had decided at the last minute to move Little Man into just a handful of K-3 classes while still leaving him in mostly Pre-K classes. The kids had a great day, and are looking forward to next week when they get to go back. We will be doing Thursdays only until September 12th and then we will be doing both Thursdays and Fridays. |
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We are back to school this week, and it seems as if everything hit us at once. We had co-op orientation last Thursday and classes start this week. On Saturday we went to a potluck picnic for the co-op and the kids had a great time. The cool weather made being outside wonderful. Little Man is really excited about going to co-op as he has already made a bunch of friends, every day now he asks "Are we going to co-op today?" We had to find him a new backpack because his backpack that featured the Disney movie Cars was too babyish and "made him look like a dork", which we just could not have. Luckily Skateboarder had an old one in his closet that seemed to fill the bill just nicely. We had planned to go see the movie "Horton Hears a Who" tommorow but we are going to pass, we really need to stay home so that we can get some things done around here. Skateboarder and Bubbles had dentist appointments today for their cleanings, and unfortunately they have two cavities each. The cavities are in the backs of their mouths so I am assuming we are just not brushing the backs of our mouths well enough. Dr. I said Bubbles will be losing several teeth this fall, and showed us on the xrays where her new teeth were already coming in, and the good news is that Skateboarder really does not need braces but the bad news is he will need his wisdom teeth cut out, which Dr. I said is something we can do over next summer when school is out since they are not really a pressing issue at the time. We went to a pediatric dentist for the first time and I really liked it. Little Man, Sunshine and I waited out in the waiting room and there were plenty of things to keep us entertained from the TV playing the movie Surf's Up to a shelf full of books and games. Bubbles said that the dental chairs have televisions above them so that you can watch cartoons while they clean your teeth. Little Man and Sunshine go the beginning of September to get their teeth cleaned, but we have it scheduled on a Monday so that Daddy can go to help as I am sure we are going to have trouble getting them to sit still. I filled out the paperwork for the two little ones today and made sure they understood that they could not mention anything tasting like bubble gum to Sunshine, as she totally despises gum. She is constantly telling us how disgusting it is, how much it stinks, and if someone even mentions something tasting like bubble gum that is the end of her tasting it, her pediatrician quickly learned not to claim that any medicine that tastes like bubble gum. After we got back from the Dentist we worked on our first Mystery of History lessons where we learned about the creation and Adam and Eve. Tommorow we will talk about Jubal and Tubal-Cain. I spent yesterday getting our timeline ready, which I will talk about more in a later post, and I am really excited about this study. Next week we will be studying Noah and the Ark, The Ice Age, and dinosaurs. We have already touched a little on dinosaurs and it just blows the kids mind that dinosaurs were included on the ark. I would love to take the kids to the Creation Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky so that they can see this more in depth. A friend of mine is from Bowling Green and she sent me an email about Bowling Green's Homecoming Celebration in October. She has heard Little Man talk about wanting to go to Dino World, and they will be having $1 admission that weekend. I don't know if we could work it out but that would be a great weekend for us to go. Next week is another busy week for us as we have two field trips to go on. On Monday we will be visiting the Kentucky state fair where we have a tour of the Abraham Lincoln exhibit scheduled, they encouraged homeschool groups to schedule field trips to the exhibit on Monday which works out great for us since that is Jon's day off work. We studied Abraham Lincoln last year, and Sunshine was really amazed by him, so much so that we will probably study him some more this year. We plan to arrive early Monday so that we can catch the 9 AM free horse show. Sunshine is sooo in love with horses and this will probably be the highlight of her day. I ordered the Amanda Bennett Horse Unit Study over the summer when it was on sale, and I hope to work it into our curriculum this year for her. I know there is no way we can devote an entire month to just studying horses but I believe we can spread it out into smaller bite-sized pieces over several months. The Newsboys are hosting a free concert at the fair that night which I would like to attend but we may not make it there. It all depends on how tired everyone is, how Jon is feeling (he has yet to make through an all day event like this yet), and how late it gets. Skateboarder has school the next day and the three little ones have another field trip the next day which I did not realize how tight our schedule was going to be until just now when I was writing this out. On Tuesday we will be going with one of our homeschool groups to the Frazier History Museum where we will be participating in an educational program on cowboys. Which is just right up Little Man's alley. After lunch we get to explore the museum on our own which is very exciting for us because we have been dying to visit the Survivor Jamestown exhibit. Jamestown was yet another one of our studies from last year, and it was one that really stuck with the girls. Sunshine is always quoting John Smith "Those who do not work shall not eat" when someone is trying to get out of doing a job, which is funny because she is usually the hardest one to get work out of. I also just realized that I had almost made it through an entire post without adding any pictures. Since I can't let that happen here are a couple of pictures.
The dirt bike actually belongs to Skateboarder, even though it is Little Man leaning up against it. About 3 years ago Sunshine got a battery operated car (similar to a Power Wheel) for Christmas, it was a Toys R Us exclusive and came with an extended warranty. About ten months after she got it the steering servo (still not sure what that means) went out of it and Toys R Us replaced it with a brand new one. The second one was only ridden a handful of times because she did not have much of a place to ride it. She has been begging to sell it and get something she can use but we have not really been wanting to get rid of it because we were afraid we would end up having to give it away. Yesterday one of our neighbors mentioned he had a dirt bike that he would like to trade for it, thinking the bike was smaller than it actually was Jon talked to her, and yes she wanted to see about trading. Well, when they got back with the dirt bike it was obviously too big for her, and that was when Skateboarder stepped into the deal because he wanted the dirt bike. To make a long story short he bought the car from her using his lawn cutting money plus he still owes her a little more, and then traded for the bike. In the end they all ended up happy, Skateboarder got the dirt bike, Sunshine got her money to buy her something else, and Little Man is happy because he thinks he is going to get to ride the dirt bike. The seat on the dirt bike is ripped but that is the only thing on it that needs repairing, and Skateboarder is already talking about how he needs to buy a new seat.
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This year we will be studying Apologia's Exploring Creation With Astronomy for our Science Curriculum. I am really excited about this, and our co-op is also using this curriculum for one of their classes, so it is sure to be a big hit with the kids. I had originally planned for only Sunshine and Bubbles to use it but Little Man has shown such an interest in it as well. He has sat and looked at the book everyday, while at night he asks me to teach him about the stars. So I have decided that he too will be involved in our study and I have asked about moving him into the K-3rd grade Astronomy class at the co-op, which the director said will be fine as long as there is an opening. A few weeks ago I sent off for a free trial shipment from Brighter Vision Learning Adventures, and we received it in the mail. The most exciting thing about receiving it was that it is all about Astronomy and Outer Space! The kit came with the book Planets by Ellen Hasbrouck and it is the perfect supplement to the Apologia Astronomy curriculum. The book is a rhyming book that talks about the order of the planets and gives a little bit of information about each planet. It is very sing-song and is perfect for a younger child. A workbook also came with the kit and it is called Space and the Planets. It has a lot of great activities that involve phonics, simple addition and subtraction, reasoning skills, putting events in order, and handwriting practice. In addition to the book and workbook the kit also included stickers, a craft activity where students get to make cosmic zipper pulls, and a space cube puzzle. By signing up with Brighter Vision you are sent a new kit each month which you can choose to keep or send back. After seeing this first kit I am looking forward to seeing what will come next month, and that will help me determine whether or not I am thrilled with their products or if I am just happy that this first kit was all about Astronomy. I had considered purchasing the lapbook kit from Knowledge Box Central that goes along with the Apologia Astronomy curriculum but I have decided against it. I am going to design my own lapbook activities as we go but we are going to do it a little different than normal lapbooks since this is a year long course. We are going to do somewhat of a mixture of lapbooking and notebooking. I quess it could most accurately be described as a scrapbook. We will buy an album and add lapbook/scrapbook components as we go. I am really looking forward to it, and will be sure to post some pictures as we get on our way.
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It has been a busy few weeks around here. Our garden is producing quite well, and we have been happily dealing with cucumbers and green beans, although we still have yet to get a red tomato. We have also enjoyed a large amount of wild blackberries, and were able to get fourty-one pounds of apples. So far we have canned 12 pints of bread and butter pickles, 6 quarts of dill pickles, 12 pints of whole blackberries, 8 half-pint jars of blackberry jam, 15 quarts of apple pie filling, 5 quarts of applesauce, and 12 quarts of green beans. The only thing that was a lot of work were the apples. I spent three days peeling and slicing apples. Not only did I can them I also made an apple crisp, and an apple upside down cake. By the time I was finished I was so sick of apples I could scream! I know that fall isn't even here yet but I don't care if I get another apple this year or not! Sunshine and Little Man were very happy with the apples though and they helped me to pack them into jars for the apple pie filling.
I put the sliced apples in a mixture of lemon juice and water like I read to keep them from turning brown but I still had a few that turned a little brown. We have less than a week before our school year starts and Skateboarder starts back to public school. So I have been letting them take last week and this week off as a break. In an effort to get them to play more though I took the video game limit from two and a half hours a week to completely off. Needless to say this has not made me very popular but it has worked out well. I caught Little Man on his bed playing with his laptop computer though but I did not interrupt him, at least it was an educational game. Although according to Sunshine that isn't fair because a video game is a video game. So I had to expand on my rule to appease her making it no games that require a tv all other games are fine. Here is a picture of him I took when he didn't know I was watching him.
You will notice his sheet is off his mattress, I can't keep it on and he doesn't even try to help me. His bed is set up like a bunk bed, even though it doesn't have a bed under it and I can't keep the sheet on, I quess it is from him climbing up and down on it all day. I have even bought some of those clips that are suppose to help but still no luck! I think I might have mentioned before that we have loads of frogs in our yard, and find them in our flowers quite often. Sunshine and Little Man found a white frog last night which we found very interesting since we hadn't seen one before. We think maybe all of the rain brought him out. He doesn't show up quite as white in the pictures but he sure was an odd looking frog. We let him go and are watching out for him to see if we see him again.
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I always love it when I can use real life situations to teach the kids. Now that I am homeschooling I have found so many of those AHA! moments that I can turn into teaching moments. This past week we had one of those moments, although sadly, it is one time when I wish it wasn't a hands on lesson. Back in April the girls and I studied Dr. Seuss' The Lorax using the lesson plans from Homeschool Share. During that study we learned about how we treat the environment impacts everything around us, we talked about recycling, pollution, endangered animals, and the importance of trees. It is one study that seemed to really sink into the girls heads, especially Sunshine's. There is a lot of logging going on in the area, and we discussed the impact of logging on the environment at the time. Last week my husband thought he saw someone in our woods, so he walked down to take a look around. About twenty feet into our woods he saw something that literally made us sick to our stomachs. Someone had come in from the back of our property with a small bulldozer and logged hardwood trees from our woods. He came back to the house to tell me what was going on, and we left the kids at the house walking into the woods to see the extent of the damage. It was heartbreaking to see how they destroyed everything. They plowed down our fence, broke large rocks, and tore down trees standing in their way, they left their sawdust shavings on the ground, and total destruction everywhere. It was not soo much that they took trees that belonged to us that we could have logged it was the fact that they so carelessly destroyed everything. We had been noticing that we were not seeing as many deer and wild animals as we had been seeing and figure that this is to blame. After seeing the devestation for myself and seeing that whoever had done it was gone I decided I wanted the kids to see it as well. It was a great eye opener for them and really got across what logging does to the environment. Little Man's remark about the situation though was the best. We have a lot of thorn trees on our property that we are constantly battling. He said to tell them "Next time take the thorn trees only, leave the good trees alone." I wish it really was that simple. Here are some of the pictures that we took of the damage:
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I have been busy preparing for the upcoming school year, and I am really concerned about the path I want to take with Little Man. I thought that maybe the best thing I could do was to sit down and come up with some goals for his preschool year. So here our our goals for the upcoming school year. I think it will be fun to see how long it takes him to acheive these and to see what he does well in. 1. Be able to recognize and say his ABC's. 2. Be able to cout to 20 and recognize the numbers. 3. Know basic phonic sounds. 4. Recognize words that have the same beginning sounds. 5. Recognize and print his name. 6. Identify penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. 7. Have the ability to continue simple patterns, match pairs, and sort objects. 8. Know basic shapes and colors. 9. Have the ability to memorize and repeat basic scripture verses. During the upcoming year we will continue to learn through the use of literature based studies and lapbooks. |
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Has anyone else ever used Homeschool Share? I really love their website, they offer a large number of free literature based unit studies and lapbooks. If you have never checked them out before or it has been a while since you have visited them I highly encourage you to do so. They have just completed their "Blast" contest where they were searching for new unit studies and have added a large number of new studies that look wonderful. I am soo excited about some of the new studies they have added and I am already making out my new list of books that I need. One of my favorite units is on Amish life and uses books such as Just Plain Fancy, Just Like Mama, and Raising Yoder's Barn. My kids intrests have really been peaked about Amish life due to the large Amish population in our area. We have just recently moved here, and they had never been exposed to the Amish culture before now. We often pass Amish families on the road, or even see them in local stores. It amazes the kids how the local grocery store has a hitching post at the far end of the parking lot for them to tie their horses to. This past spring we were considering raising chickens (which is still an option for us) and we went in search of fertilized eggs to incubate, our search led us to an Amish farm where the family led us around their farm showing us their animals, and the kids were quite suprised to find that they had running water that was pumped in from an underground spring by a windmill. They were also intriqued by the use of their own language, Pennsylvania Dutch, and their dress. I can't wait to share this study with the kids so that they can learn more about the Amish culture.
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We are taking an easy day off today as we are getting ready for next week. During the summer we are taking it easy, and doing some fun units. Next week Bubbles and Sunshine will continue reading the Kit's Story Collection from American Girl in anticipation of seeing the new American Girl movie about Kit. As we are reading the book we will be learning about the depression, as well as what it takes to be a journalist. While they are busy with that Little Man will be reading Corduroy by Don Freeman. We will be using the Before Five in a Row lesson plans, and will complete the Corduroy lapbook that is posted on Homeschool Share, which can be found here. Is anybody else having school or are you all still on summer break? We will be taking our summer break the last week of July and first week of August. |
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After my husband's wreck several of the women in Little Man's playgroup arranged to bring us dinner for the first couple of weeks when we came home from the hospital. My husband is a very picky eater, he is a meat and potatoes person and has very little interest in trying new vegetables and fruit. I don't know if it was the medicine or just the fact that he had been eating hospital food for so long I managed to get him to try a Razzleberry pie that had been brought to us. He was hooked, and he has asked me repeatedly to make the pie since then. A few days ago when we were looking for our puppy who ran into the woods I discovered we had bushes and bushes of blackberry and raspberry growing in our woods. After researching to make sure that was what we had and that they were safe to eat the kids and I went raspberry picking today. There weren't as many ripe raspberries as I had hoped for but we were able to get enough to make a pie. The good news is there are tons of raspberries and blackberries available to pick once they are ripe. While we were on our adventure this afternoon we discovered three different turtles in three different areas. Skateboarder stepped on two of them, and Bubbles discovered the other one. Here are some pictures we took of them. We aren't sure what type they are, Skateboarder had planned on Googling them to try to figure out what they are but he hasn't done that yet.
This is just a picture of a flower that I saw that I thought was pretty. I find it so ironic that something so pretty can have thorns.
And here is a picture of our great hunter making sure that the woods are clear for us. In the past two weeks the great hunter has killed a fox and a possum. (Yes he has had his rabies shots.)
Oh, and how did the raspberry pie turn out? Once we got in the house we discovered we were out of sugar! So no raspberry pie today, maybe tommorow.
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Okay, so as usual I am a day late but I still hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We did in spite of the rain. Jon was off work this year on the 3rd instead of the 4th which turned out great with all of the rain yesterday. On Thursday we took the kids down to Waterfront Park to see the fireworks. We didn't know if we would be able to go since it was raining early Thursday but everything cleared around 8 PM so we decided to go on to the park. Fortunately it wasn't very crowded, so we were able to park and find a spot to sit with no problems. We also got there in time to see Gary Allan perform. Which was nice, I am not really a huge fan of his, and he is not really much of a performer but the kids seemed to enjoy hearing him.
On Friday Jon had to go to work so the kids and I went to my grandmothers for a cookout. My dad and stepmom were in from Florida and since we only get to see them once a year if that often it was nice to visit with them. We did not have fireworks to shoot off ourselves, my grandmother is afraid of them, but the entire neighborhood around us had fireworks going on so we stayed out on the porch enjoying the view. It did rain a little here and there but it was just a nice summer shower with no thunder or lightning so I let the kids run and play in the rain.
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It's been a long weekend for us, but it was quite an enjoyable one even though not too much went on. I took the kids to church on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning like we usually do because we had made plans to go to the 1700's Days Festival at Squire Boone Caverns. For some reason I really enjoy the Saturday night service a lot better than I do the Sunday morning service, it may be because it is less crowded or that I just don't have to rush to get there. I don't really know. Since we had gone to church on Saturday night we got up early on Sunday and headed out to Squire Boone Caverns for the festival. Unfortunately, the weather all weekend had been pretty nasty, and since it looked like it could rain at any minute most of the festival exhibitors were packing up to leave. It seems the weather had kept most people from coming, and the turn out just wasn't what they expected. Since it seemed the festival was closing up we decided not to pay the parking fee to stay, and just headed back towards the house. On the way home we passed Hayswood Nature Reserve and decided to stop. The park was quite nice with several picnic areas, a fishing lake, and two or three seperate playgrounds. We let the kids play for about two hours and they had a ball. They all enjoyed swinging on the swings but unfortunately daddy overused his bad shoulder pushing them, and he was in pain for the rest of the day.
And Little Man really showed us how strong he was by climbing to the top of the rock wall. He was so proud of himself. Heights really bother him, and I hope he outgrows this because I feel like my fear of heights really holds me back at times. I do try REALLY, REALLY hard not to let my fears to not rub off on my kids.
Since Jon is off work on Sundays and Mondays we typically consider Monday to be a part of our weekend. This Monday we decided to stay home and catch up on some of the things we needed to do around the house. We ended up washing and waxing Jon's car, he changed the oil in his car, worked on the rotitiller, added another section to my clothesline, I did three loads of laundry, and we weeded the garden. We accomplished quite a bit of work in one day. While we were busy working the kids spent the majority of their day playing in their sandbox. The main project of the day it seemed was to bury Little Man in the sand.
I don't see how he stood it, I would have been so claustrophobic! |
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This week has really just flown by, there were so many things that I wanted to get done this week that I just didn't get around to doing, and next week seems just as busy. I have been really nervous about Little Man starting kindergarten this year. I have never homeschooled a child from the beginning, Sunshine was in 1st grade and Bubbles was in 3rd grade so they had the basics down by the time I started teaching them. I have decided that this will be a trial period for Little Man, here children are not required to start school until they reach the age of seven so I am going to begin working with Little Man now, if it seems that homeschooling is not going to work for him than I will put him in kindergarten in the public school next year. Well this was the first week I really tried to work with him and it went really well. We are going to see Veggie Tales The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything movie next week at The Great Escape's free kids film festival so I thought a pirate themed unit would be a great place to start. I looked around and found quite a few great free pirate units but they all seemed to old for him so I decided upon In The Hands of a Child's Ahoy, Matey project pack. I also added in a few handwriting worksheets on the letter "P" and did a letter "P" mini-book, which I plan to use in an alphabet book that we will be making this year as we study each of the letters of the alphabet. We have finished all but two of the activities in the project pack but today Little Man just had no interest in working so we called an end to learning and I just let him go on his way. I don't want to push him right now, as I want him to think of learning as fun, and I figure we can finish everything up tommorow. Sunshine and Bubbles have been working on the unit with us and while Sunshine has enjoyed the unit as much as Little Man it is just too simplified for Bubbles. I'll post a few pictures of our Pirate lapbooks once we have them finished.
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I have wanted to start a homeschool blog for some time now but have not gotten around to doing it before now. I keep thinking it will be a great way for family and friends to participate in what we are learning and to see what our days consist of but I just have not found the time to start one before now. I for one love looking through the blogs of other homeschool moms to see what they are doing with their children, to see how they handle the stresses of homeschooling, and to get inspiration for a new study. Now would probably be the perfect time to introduce my family, my husband Jon and I have been married for nine years, and have four children. We live in a rural part of Southern Indiana, and enjoy life on five acres partially surrounded by woods. We are still new to homeschooling as we have only been homeschooling since January. Our oldest son, Skateboarder, is fourteen. He does not homeschool but instead attends the local public school. Bubbles is our ten year old daughter, she is bubbly and full of personality. She is big for her age and is often mistaken for being much older than ten. Sunshine is our seven year old daughter, and believes the sun truly rises and sets around her. (Which it does doesn't it?) She is very outgoing, musically inclined, and loves to be the center of attention. Little Man is our five year old son, he is the baby of the family, and is often spoiled. While at times he thrives in being "grown up" he still enjoys being babied. I have a hard time classifying our learning style into a paticular category. While I sometimes lean towards Charlotte Mason's techniques and a classical education, I still enjoy the flexiblity of child-directed learning. While I could never truly unschool the idea intriques me. We tend to focus our curriculum around unit studies, and love to lapbook.
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