joyfulhomeschooling

Here's a scary thought!!

Its hot here.  About 85, which I know is EXTREMELY not hot and I have no right in complaining.  But because we're in the northwest, there's no air and I'm eight months pregnant.  So now you  understand?

.

What do you think the neighbors would say if I ran down the slip and slide?

lesson planning

I am right now knee deep in lesson plans.  Our box came from Rainbow Resource today and I'm thoroughly enjoying looking through our stuff.  Some are items Trey's used before and I'm just getting the new student text for Hallie and Courtnee.  This year will be really difficult with a newborn, toddler, and three different grade levels, but I'm going to do my best.  To start off, organization is the key to it all.  I'm going through each book and putting my lesson plans into Homeschool Tracker.   I want to be able to just sit down and mindlessly pull out the things to do for the next day, since I'm positive I'll be sleep deprived-at least through October.

I did find a great Chemistry book for Trey.  I just want to do a short Chemistry unit to introduce him to it this year.  It's called Christian Kids Explore Chemistry.  The website is www.brightideaspress.com.  I believe they have two or three other texts-one is biology and one is earth science.  If I remember correctly, I think they have physics too.  Don't quote me on that-I'm pregnant remember and can't recall what happened five minutes ago.

Most of the unpacking is done, just a little organizing left to do.  This weekend our community is having a garage sale and I hope to get rid of our junk stuff we don't use and get a swing for the baby and get some money put aside for a double stroller.  We need to get the crib together and decide on a name for this little one.  We've been preoccupied with the move and haven't taken the time to really discuss names.  Hubby is threatening Montana Gabriella- for Hannah and High School Musical.  Good thing he doesn't ever fill out the birth certificate paperwork!!

Our little Kailyn thinks she's quite the grown up.  She's following the bigger girls all over and wants to play with them at the neighbors.  I was letting her because I was trying to unpack, but now, I'm making her stay with me and she's not liking it!!  I'm such a mean mom.

We've been trying to get her to go to sleep on her own.  Yes, I know she's almost two.  BEfore we left Japan, she was going to sleep all on her own and very nicely.  Then we left Japan, bought a camper, traveled across country and lived in it for four months.  No more crib to keep her in, since she crawled outta bed, we'd lay with her until she fell asleep.  Well, no more of that.  Now she's in a big girl toddler bed, so we've put the gate across the door so she doesn't sneak out and fall down the stairs!  Yesterday, she was so tired at nap time, that she got outta bed (to let me know she didn't want to take a nap), laid down on the floor and fell asleep next to the gate.  It was very cute!! 

I usually wait upstairs until she falls asleep, but today I had a lot to do, so I came downstairs.  Hubby came home and went upstairs to get changed.  He called down because she wasn't in her bed.  I thought, oh, she's on the floor again - nope!!  She'd climbed on top of the changing table and fell asleep there!!! 

Now we need to try to rearrange so she can't get up there again!!  And just when I thought I wasn't going to get anymore gray hairs!

changes already

The school year hasn't even begun yet, and I'm already making adjustments.  Mostly to our science plans. 

We were blessed, while in Japan to be able to take part in a program called WWIdea.  Basically, we received money (and lots of it) to homeschool and only had to really report once a quarter and test at the end of the year.  For Trey and Hallie, I received $2400-$1200 each.  No, no typos here.  Lots and lots of money.

Unfortunately, we couldn't use any of the money towards christian curriculum, so I bought books and lots and lots of science kits and games.

Now, that I'm in a house that I can have a schoolroom and have all of my stuff organized, I've found all of these kits.  I have about four electricity kits, so we'll definitely be doing a unit on electricity.  I have several others on simple machines, solar powered cars, etc.  I'll be using as many of these as I can so that I'm not spending as much this year.  It will be a joy.

I should have my human body lesson plans posted later this week.  I'm waiting for my Rainbow Resource order to arrive to finish some things up.

Arby suggested that I combine the Vikings and Human body unit together-all the slashing and decapitating and all the other stuff.  Although, Trey would really enjoy that I'm not sure the girls would.  I have been thinking though of using a head of lettuce as a head and letting Trey go to town with slashing.  We'll see.

Its that time of year......

Time to start planning out next year, ordering curriculum, buying pencils for 10 cents.   I was giddy this morning when I got an email saying that my Rainbow Resource order was on its way.  I still have a few things to get from either amazon or currclick, whichever is cheaper.  I like currclick, because I can download the book and never have to make copies.  I also have to order Trey's math from Teaching Textbooks.

Right now, I'm putting some lessons in for things that I already have.  Now that we finally have a schoolroom and all of our stuff in one place, I can see all the things that we have that I haven't used.  So, I'm not buying a lot this year.  I only spent $275 for all three kids.  I should be able to do it all for less than $500.  That's not too bad, I guess.

This year, I'm back to my Homeschool Tracker program.  I have to keep records this year for WA, quite different from when we were in Japan.  I really like the homeschool Tracker program.  I paid for the plus edition and its very flexible.  I think it was very reseasonably priced and I really like the fact that the lesson plans save in it so I can use them over and over if I want to.

I'm also back to planning my own science and history units.  Takes a little more work, but I like that its more flexible.  We usually use lapbooks from Hands of a Child-and I will continue to do so, but I'm trying to save some money, so I'm working on my own.  I'm currently working on the Vikings unit study and human body.  The vikings I should have posted in the next two weeks and the human body, by next weekend. 

We're going to be spending two hours a week on history or science.  Of course, this is very flexible to go over as it is the last thing we do during our school day.

Right now, I have Human Body divided into six weeks to include and intro for body systems one day and then two days on each of the following systems:  Digestive (with an extra day to cover nutrition and the food pyramid), muscles, skeletal, respiratory, and circulatory.  I'm looking forward to it.  Its been three years since we've covered this. 

Well, I have to run and unpack some more boxes.  Hubby just returned home from his school and he's limping pretty badly.  Perhaps, this is his way of getting out of unpacking boxes?  hehe

hubby tried to break his leg.....

I told him.  And told him.  The nagging wife.  You;re not as young as you used to be honey.  Be careful honey.  Don't want a trip to the emergency room honey.

All of that fell on deaf ears.

You see, hubby tried to pretend he was 11 again.  I should make the comment that he turned 41 earlier this week.  Maybe this is part of the midlife crisis?

He tried to ride a ripster.  Now he's on the recliner with a bag of ice on his foot-which may very well be broken.  He's got a huge lump on the side of his foot and he can't move some toes. 

He's suffering  and I keep saying those famous words "I TOLD YOU SO!"

They're making tunnels out of the boxes....

We've been in the house now for about five days.  Unpacking, unpacking.  I see boxes in my sleep.  I still about 25 boxes left.  Although you may think that's pretty good, its not.  You see, usually when we move, I'm extremely organized.  I weed and purge and get rid of stuff.  I organize things into piles.  However, since our house in Japan was so small, that didn't work out that way.  I didn't do any of that.  So, I'm forced to go through things now and get rid of junk-and boy did we have a lot of it!!  The other problem was storage in Japan.  I had my scrapbooking stuff in three different places.  So now, I've come across several boxes of stuff that I need to find a place for and organize.

The plus side is that we now have a school room!!  I can't tell you how excited I am about that!!  Dining room table just didn't work for me-especially with school supplies in three different areas.  All in one place now!!  Yeah!! 

I'm hoping to have my photos from our drive across country posted later this week.  We also have some photos of the bald eagles that were living near our campsite.  They are beautiful.  I didn't get any pictures of the whales.  Hopefully, we'll get them soon.

Also, this week, my goal is to order my curriculum.  I need to get lesson plans done for after the little one arrives.  We still haven't settled on a name.  Hopefully, we can narrow that down soon, but right now our focus is unpacking!! 

Have a wonderful day!!

Next year

Hello everyone!!

Had a fantastic time yesterday at the quilt shop hop.  Hit nine stores.  I was exhausted when I got home, but it was a nice exhaustion.  I spent a little bundle, but I haven't shopped in a few years, so I used that as my excuse.  I have enough projects now to keep me busy for a while.  I wrote down twelve that I would like to work on.  Perhaps, sleeping is overrated?  hehe

As far as next year, this is the outline for our curriculum.  I hope to find a chemisty unit for Trey to work on for about two months.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

Trey-sixth grade

Reading-continue reading classics with discussion questions.  continue with his dyslexia workbook.  Also the library skill workbooks

Spelling-I found a great workbook program and can't remember the name of it now

Math-Teaching Textbooks

Grammer and Writing-BJUP and some workbooks on writing

Geography-daily geography and finish up our study of the US.  Maybe start world Geography.  Both of these are from Trail Guide of US or World Geography.  I love their programs

Hallie-second grade

Reading-REaders from Abeka with Explode the code workbooks.  Library skills workbooks

Spelling-that program I can't remember right now

Math-probably BJUP

Grammer and Writing-BJUP and some writing workbooks.

Geography-daily Geography

Courtnee-first grade

Math-BJUP

Spelling-Still can't remember that program

Grammer-First Language Lessons and writing workbooks

Reading-Sing spell read and write

Geography-the daily geography program

.

For history we'll be doing units on the vikings, middle ages, renaissance, explorers, and American Indians

Science we'll do some units together and some seperate.  Together, we'll do human body, plants, and earth science.  Trey will do a unit on chemisty and dinosaurs.  The girls will work on a unit on bubbleoloy and habitats. 

I think that's the general outline.  I will probably change my mind at some point.  I have a lot of stuff to do most of the science stuff already which is why I chose those topics.  I'm trying to "be smart" and use what we have already instead of buying alot.  I plan on trying to find the workbooks that I like on currclick so that I can download them.  I can probably find them a little cheaper somewhere else, but the download allows me to print as many times as I want.

How's your new year shaping up?  I'd love to hear what your doing!

Oh my!!

Has it really been a month since I blogged!!  Shame on me. 

In my defense, we do not have a computer with internet access.   I have to wait until hubby gets home and run to the base library to check email, pay bills, etc.  I rarely get more than a half  hour. 

I could run to the real library, however, I'd have to chase around a toddler-still not getting any blogging done.

We are still in our camper.  We get housing on July 6th.  Our stuff arrives the 7-9th.  Then the unpacking nightmare begins.  Yuck.  My least favorite part.   We'll stay in the camper for probably the first two days until we get enough unpacked that we can find the sheets and stuff.

Kids are doing great.  Trey's been active in Boy Scouts the last few weeks and has his first campout this weekend.  He's very excited-mom doesn't like him leaving but I'll get over it I guess.  The oldest three are all doing Taekwondo.  We've been watching alot of Walker, Texas Ranger-which the kids love and its and awesome show.  They love their classes. 

The pregnancy is going well.  Although, we still do not have a name for our  new little girl.  I didn't want to fork out $12 for a baby name book-I'm too cheap and haven't had time to check out some names online.

Life in the camper is going well.  Its small-but very easy to clean.  Its only rained one day-who told me it rained alot in WA?  The grass is brown here because of lack of rain.  We see rabbits, deer, and have been watching a bald eagle that flies over our camper.  And since the ocean is a mere 50 yards away, we are constantly whale watching.  I think I saw a grey whale the other day, but I couldn't be certain.  Yes, life is rough for us.

I managed to hit the homeschool convention in Puyullap, WA last weekend.  I've been homeschooling for 6 years and this is the first one I've gone too.  I really enjoyed it.  Daddy stayed home with the kids since our friend was visiting from Japan.  It was a nice day.

Tomorrow, I"m going on a quilt shop hop with two other campers and am very excited.  It will be nice to get out for a little bit!!

Take care!!  I can't wait to hear your curriculum plans for next year!!

Hello from WA!!

Hello everyone!!

The kids and I made it okay to MT and picked up Kevin.   After two days of driving, he said that he didn't know how I had driven from VA to MT with the kids all by myself, because he was pooped after two days.  (put on my superhero mom cape here)

We enjoyed the drive, somewhat.  No dvd player, ours broke.  We listened to some books on tape, which was nice, but a dvd would have been nice every now and then to break up the trip for the kids.  They did well, but we were all a little squirrely by the time we got here.

Our campsite is nice, about 100 feet from the ocean.  Its cool and windy here-probably in the 50s during the day.  Its been nice for the kids to run around and play.

We picked up some ticks in IA, and unfortunately, have been dealing with that.  Only been finding one a day, but still drives me crazy. 

I'm off for now.  The internet cafe closes in  a few minutes.  I'll check back in a few days and post of our adventures!!

Take care and God Bless!

summertime

Well, we arrived in Va Beach, exhausted from our long haul from Japan.  The kids did pretty well on the trip.  Although, too excited to see Grandpa, they did not want to sleep.  I finally got them to sleep for about four hours.  I however, did not fair so well as no one slept at the same time.

The day after I arrived I went shopping for some maternity clothes.  Huge mistake.  Exhausted and completely overwhelmed by the selection, I went home with just a few things to tide me over.  Our selection in Japan is so small that walking into a huge store is just intimidating.  In fact, three days after arriving I took the kids to the book store.  Poor Hallie was almost in tears because she couldn't find a book.  It was just too overwhelming for her.

We have several things to do to get ready for the wedding.  Trey need pants altered, I need shoes, but all is going well.  The kids are enjoying time with their Grandpa.  This weekend, we venture up to Williamsburg to see my brother-in-law and his family, also my inlaws are flying in to spend time with us.  This next week will be busy with wedding activity but it will be fun to see everyone.

We're enjoying the start of a wonderful summer