This is the story of a homeschooling family from Georgia. I hope you will enjoy reading about our daily endeavors with life, church, school, and family. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Sat, 8 Aug 2009 22:09:00 -0500 Sat, 8 Aug 2009 22:09:00 -0500 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715635/ Sat, 8 Aug 2009 22:09:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715635/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715544/ Sat, 8 Aug 2009 15:41:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715544/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715313/ Fri, 7 Aug 2009 19:22:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/715313/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713864/ Mon, 3 Aug 2009 13:14:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713864/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713788/ Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:32:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713788/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713446/ Sat, 1 Aug 2009 17:42:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/713446/ 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.     http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/712870/ Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:27:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/712870/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/712231/ Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:44:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/712231/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/711862/ Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:14:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/711862/ 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. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/711394/ Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:03:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cabininthewoods/711394/