Matthew's birthday was in August and all we gave him was a piece of paper. It was actually a handmade certificate which stated: "This certificate entitles you to attend Moorpark." For most 15 year olds, this probably wouldn't be very exciting. However, Matthew has been looking forward to this since his birthday!

Moorpark holds a Civil War reenactment in November which we had heard has a great battlefield. They also recreate actual battles from the Civil War. We decided that a trip down to this reenactment would be a great birthday gift for Matthew. I don't think he was disappointed.

Here are a few photos from this past weekend:

Once again, we packed up our vehicle to head to another Civil War Reenactment:

In the first battle of the day, Matthew proudly protected the Union colors:

The gentleman in the middle needs some period correct clothing:

Wait, what is this? Matthew switching places with a Rebel soldier?

Can you believe he actually went off marching with the Rebel soldiers?

Meanwhile, Kelsey and her friend were learning more civilized tasks. This is vintage rug hooking:

Now that the battle season is over (well, one more that Matthew will be participating in next month), the stuff is all packed away until next year. Let more sewing begin!

I have resisted for years making a daily schedule. I have always felt that it would be too restrictive and I would be setting myself up to fail if I was unable to accomplish everything in the schedule.

Last year, I created lesson plans for Matthew each quarter, but didn't date them. I was very happy with how well the lesson plans worked that I did Matthew's lesson plans for the whole year already for this school year.

So, I decided to do up a daily schedule. However, similar to the lesson plans, I did not put times on our daily schedule.

Here is our daily schedule:

Mama

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Prarie Primer w/Kelsey

Additional chores

Lunch

Reading

Sewing

Photos

Update school work

Free time

Dinner prep

Dinner

Matthew

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Individual Work

Lunch

Reading

Individual Work if needed

Guitar practice

Free time

Dinner

Kelsey

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Prarie Primer

Individual Work

Lunch

Reading

Individual Work if needed

Piano/fiddle practice

Free time

Dinner

For PE, we have been walking one mile, three times a week. I am hoping we can increase this as the weeks go by. My favorite time of the day so far is our quiet reading time after lunch. It has been really nice to slow down a little after lunch before we go into the rest of our day. So far, the schedule has been working out nicely.

We were suppose to start our book work today, but an opportunity came up for us to go listen to Ranger Bruce talk about the Pony Express and the one room schoolhouse up in Old Sacramento. I was excited to see that Old Sacramento was still celebrating Gold Rush Days, so this was an added bonus to the day since both kids will be studying mid 19th century history this year.

I was going to add some photos to this entry, but I decided to let the kids do the talking on this one. (I couldn't figure out how to rotate the video in Photobucket, so just turn your computer screen sideways! ) Here is Kelsey's report:

And here is Matthew's report:

On the way home, we stopped at Ghiradelli for hot fudge sundaes as a special treat for the day. Now I am trying to get last minute details hammered out so we can really get to the book work tomorrow!

Well, all the public school kids started school last week here. Most of the charter school kids started today. When are we starting school this year? I am still not really sure. That is one of the benefits of private homeschooling.

One of the reasons we are not starting yet is that I think it is still too early in August to start school. The other reason is I am still hammering out lesson plans and just today, was able to get some computer issues resolved.

Some great advice that I read before Matthew started high school was to plan lessons, but don't date them. Boy did this relieve stress in my life! Life happens and there are just some days when book work does not get done. I use Donna Young's high school forms to plan out Matthew's lessons now. I use the 36 week quarter planner. And I only plan out 8 weeks out of each quarter. This gives us some elbow room for field trips and other things that may come up (and they do!)

I also want to re-vamp our daily schedule and menus for the week. After listening to an organization talk, I am really feeling like applying more order to our days. Maybe in a couple of weeks, I will have more things together and we will be ready to start school!

Before today, I don't think I had ever read The American Creed, let alone knew that we even had a creed. Of course being a continual student, I had to come home and learn more about what we read  today.

I found this web site that has great information about the

History of The American Creed

We just might need to add  this to our copywork for next year!

The American's Creed

by William Tyler Page

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

–Written 1917, accepted by the United States House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

Years ago I made cherry jam. I did not have a cherry pitter so the whole process took a very long time.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a cherry pitter. This worked out well since a friend of mine has cherry trees. We were able to go over today to pick cherries and we picked quite a few!

After lunch, the kids helped to get cherries ready for jam making.

Matthew kept pitting cherries so we could put some in the freezer.

Once the jam was made, we had a special treat with some of the leftover jam.

...to earn money for an American Girl doll??

Kelsey, with the help of Matthew, has been inspired to start earning some money. Last week, Matthew helped her create flyers and a price list for a baking business. They took some flyers around to a couple of neighbors and came back with orders for three apple pies, a loaf of banana bread, and a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies!! Then when they went to deliver one of the pies tonight, they got another order for another apple pie!!

Since neither one of them have had a lot of experience making pie dough, we decided that maybe they need to cut back on their menu a little until they have had some more experience baking some of these things they want to offer. Tonight, they did just about everything for the banana bread all by themselves, even the dishes and clean up!!

Here are a couple of pictures:

We use an Emeril Lagasse recipe for banana bread that is very yummy! 

For a while now, I have wanted to move things around in the school/craft room. The kids have been at two rather short tables with even shorter chairs. Matthew's long legs just don't fit under the table like they used to. And with the new bookcase that Kev has been putting together, we will be able to transfer some of the books to the living room.

I have been searching Craigslist this week, trying to find a table or a desk that might work and didn't really find anything. The kids and I needed to run errands today, so we thought we would see if we could find something while we were out. BigLots had a student desk that would have worked, but they didn't have anymore in stock. We had no luck at Goodwill, OfficeMax, or Target. We needed to get a few things at Wal-Mart, so that was our next stop.

While we were there, we didn't really find anything that would work either. But standing in the aisle with the tables, we remembered a 6 foot long table that we still have in the garage. After some discussion, we decided we needed to go ahead and use the table we already had, we just needed a couple of chairs. I was going to go with the $17 chairs with the padded seats, but Matthew suggested the $8 metal chairs. I told the kids if that worked for them, I could make them pads for the chairs to make them more comfortable. Because we were 'saving' money this way, we decided to buy an $8 floor lamp to add a little more light to the room. Overall, we spent less on these items than the price of the desk they didn't have at BigLots!

The kids were ready to get started on the re-arrangement when we got home. Here is what we started with:

We moved my sewing machine a little bit, moved my desk, moved all three bookcases (one won't be staying in the room), moved the file cabinet, swept the floor over and over and over as we moved things, and brought in the table from the garage. Things are not done, but here is where we are at now:

The kids have already made themselves at home at the table and at least we will be ready to do school work on Monday. Not sure where everything else is going just now, but I do like the change. Maybe I will post new photos once it is a little more 'presentable'.

Tomorrow is our annual homeschool Valentine Party. We have one lady at our church who loves to put together crafts at our homeschool parties. The rest of us moms get to bring treats to share with everyone.

I was trying to figure out what to bring tomorrow. Chocolate is always a great treat, so I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. I made the cookies in a pan instead of individual cookies. Once the cookies were cool, I cut them into squares. Then I made frosting to decorate them for Valentine's Day.

Kelsey decided to give the decorating a try:

Looks like we will be doing some cake decorating lessons in the future. Could be a really fun class!