Wrap up of Week 2

We're finishing up week two of school!  Not much to much to mention; it's had it's good moments and it's bad moments; easy moments and difficult moments.  Feels like we're still in a learning curve with one in high school now.

Not many photos to share for school, but here is what we do have:

 Reading "Homer Price" for Beyond Five in a Row.

We had to make donuts!

Was outside the other day and noticed our side yard

The colors amazed me.  Purple Cone Flowers, Butterfly Bush,

and Black Eyed Susans.  Just looked pretty.

~ Staple's Commercial ~

You know the one! A dad pushing a shopping cart through the aisles while you here the Christmas song, "It's the most wonderful time of the year!"  Here's a link, just in case you forgot!

For us, school is a good thing!  The first couple weeks are hard, getting back into a good routine, hitting the books, prioritizing life!  We're half way through our second week.  We've had a few bumps in the road, but we navigated them fairly well, I ThInK!!!

If your curious, here's the line up for our school year:

Both boys:
Notgrass ~ America the Beautiful
Institute for Excellence in Writing ~ Student Writing Intensive Level B
Beyond Five in a Row ~ A few titles that oldest hadn't finished up
Miscellaneous Read alouds
Physical Education (sports, exercising, hiking, biking, and whatever else to get our body moving)
Word Roots

Thing One ~ 8th Grade:
Math-U-See ~ Algebra 1
Apples 2:  Daily Spelling Drills
Daily Grams: 8th Grade
Photography ~ through our co-op
Geography ~ through our co-op

Thing Two ~ 5th Grade:
Math-U-See ~ Epsilon
Spelling Workout ~ Level E
Daily Grams: 5th grade
Guitar ~ through our co-op
Art ~ through our co-op

What I like about a number of our subjects, is there is slight cross over from one thing to the next in grammar and spelling, both areas our boys need a bit of work on.  We'll keep an eye on it, a finger on the pulse, so there isn't to much over lap, leading to burn out.

So far, we're working on math, spelling, grammar, writing, P.E. (always, making it a way of life, not just a class).  Next week we'll probably add it History and more reading (again, this has become a way of life so it's not a hard thing).

What does your school year look like?  What kind of classes are your kids taking & what grade are they in?  Always interesting to see what other kids are learning!

Better late the never! Right?

Wasn't certain we'd get to any sort of Christmas themed activities today. Been a "real" day here. We've all had them, but we just don't talk about them much. These days sort of just exist.

Fortunately, there were some good highlights today.  Here's the run down:

• our Five in a Row (FIAR) book, "Snowflake Bentley" and Beyond FIAR book, "The Saturdays" had a similar lesson ~ snow!  Was able to incorporate both lessons into one time and use a science activity to make snow!    Really like being able to do that!
• got the boys rounded up after dinner and finished chapter one of "The Christmas Carol"!
• Thing Two had his last Wednesday night Christmas Choir practice.  He preforms this coming Sunday!

Unrelated to the above, my little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree has a new pot, new location, and lights!  :)  Kevin's parents have been sending us live wreaths the last few years (very awesome gift!); this years came with a set of lights that are battery powered.  When I read the directions that came with it, it said that do to weather and being outdoors, batteries may only last 7 hours.  Well hello, I'm not going to plow through a bunch of batteries for that.  It fit the little tree nicely and hopefully the batteries will last more than 7 hours.

What are the Christmas happenings at your house?

What does homeschooling look like?

For every family that educates their kids at home, school will look a lot different, from one day to the next and from one family to the next.

At our house (and a few other home schooling families I know), the first day of public school is WAY different than a "normal" day of school, just because we want to emphasize the flexibility of home educating.

Ours looks something like this, for today anyway:

• up to early in the morning, as I had to much going on my mind.  Mostly I wanted to make sure that I had time to make t-shirts for the family.  An idea I had awhile back to make new Thing One and Thing Two outfits for the boys.  The last was done in 2004 around Halloween.  It was time to update the picture on my sidebar!

 October 2004

 September 2012

• Got the shirts finished, washed, dried.  Got myself ready for the day and Thing One and I were out the door for what we thought was 2 & 1/2 hours of therapy.  Due to illness and other unknown reasons, it was only an hour!  Woo Hoo, we got to come home early.
• Oldest was eager to get to NEW math and wanted to watch the related video.  Lucky me!  I misplaced the DVD, but found it after a brief frantic search.  He breezed through math and grammar and almost forgot spelling.  Thing Two did his while we were at therapy.
•  While Thing One was plugging away at his work, life kept moving on.  I spread out at the dining room table to pay bills and such.  Charlotte was in her spot like today was the same as any other day.

• Took some time to go out to lunch and run a few errands.  We decided to go by Cafe Rio as they have $1.50 tacos on Tuesday.  Awesome, inexpensive food and par for the coarse we saw folks we know from church.

Men in my life!  Kevin has "Parent 1", I have

"Parent 2".

• We came home very full and still had Mystery of History, Five in a Row (Roxaboxen), and Beyond Five in a Row (Cricket in Times Square) to read through.  This is how the boys entertain themselves while I read, a Klutz Lego set.  Definitely worth the money.  This set is only brought out during school

• Now we are transitioning to afternoon events and divide and conquer.  Errands for Co-op on Thursday and baseball practice for Thing Two and TKD and Scouts for Thing One.  I may go crash and burn for a few minutes.

This, like I mentioned, is a rough sketch of a day in the life.  Hope your day has been wonderful.

Curriculum - to many choices?

Even though we have officially begun the 2012/13 school year, even though this is our 6th year homeschooling, even though many things, making the right or best choice for curriculum seems to induce a panic attack to some extent.

Fortunately, we've been at it long enough that we've figured out what works on most subjects.  Some subjects, boys have requested the next level, so no extra thought there.

This year is a tad bit different, we have a 7th grader.  He'll be in high school before we know it.  He'll be wanting to look at colleges and start applying before we know it.  Need to start prepping now, so that the stress of high school level isn't as great.

Many blessings though, through this transition.

1. Have heard many good things about Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) first hand.  Some negative first hand too, but it wasn't a nasty type review, more of a "don't get why we need to add this sort of word so many times!"  I can work with comments like that!!!!
2. Rainbow Resource staff has been very helpful in exchanging items and making recommendations for a new foreign language.
3. Thankful for many home school friends who've used specific subjects and can share insight as well as know our kids a bit and can weigh in with a valid opinion.
4. Having a co-op to go to so I don't have to teach every subject.  Both kids are getting science outside of the house as well as a fun class.

The line up for class this year is as follows:

• both boys:  Mystery of History Volume 3 (their mutual agreement that we needed to finish the series before doing something else), foreign language of some sort, physical education
• Thing One:  Pre-Algebra (MUS), Apples Daily Spelling Drills, Daily Grams 7th grade, IEW B, Beyond Five in a Row, Science, Robotics, Life Skills, Electives (Boy Scout Merit Badges and Requirements)
• Thing Two:  Delta (MUS), Spelling Workout, Daily Grams 4th grade, Five in a Row Volume 4, Science, Builders, Life Skills

What are your children studying this school year?  Are they excited?  Hope so.  =)
 

First Day of 2012/13

First day of school at Oak Creek Academy has come to a close; we're winding down with an episode of Star Trek Voyager!  Here is some glimpses into our day!

 One of many different "First Day of School" treats I'd

seen on Pinterest; also one of the easiest to make.

 Had seen these Cheeze its while picking up

other things for our first day.  Let the creative

juices flowing for the wording.

 Hello dollar bin at Wal-mart!  Lots of candy labeling posting

at Pinterest so it was easy to make something for candy.

 Here is most of Thing One's "new school day" loot!

He tends to get stuff in blue.

 The green version for Thing Two.

 Total impulse purchase!  Green and blue, how could I say

no to these!  Boys seemed to enjoy them too.

 Close up of shirts for physical educations!  The boys

were shocked that it didn't say Oak Creek Academy.

 Thing One's close up.  His sign says,

Oak Creek Academy

2012/13 School Year

Well Hello 7th grade

I'm ready to build a great year!

Thing Two:

Oak Creek Academy

2012/13 School Year

Watch out 4th grade ~

I'm ready to knock it out of the park!!

 Really getting tired of the photos and

ready for school.

 One more close up!

The day itself went fairly well.  They breezed through math, got through grammar and spelling (both a little shocked that we're doing formal spelling again!  Oh well kids get over it!).  Probably the best portion for both boys was mentioning it was time for Five in a Row and Beyond Five in a Row.  I didn't quite get to letting them ordering which books were first, second and so on like I'd planned, however it all worked out.  When I told Thing Two we were rowing "Roxaboxen", he was totally excited.  As always, he said it was his "favorite" and went off to get the book and manual for me.  He enjoyed doing some map work of the Southeast.  When it was Thing One's turn, I gave him a choice of the three books we had not covered in Volume Three of Beyond.  He was excited to row "Cricket in Time Square"; we read it about 5 years ago for a different curriculum and he was eager to read it again.  We spent about half an hour "exploring" some aspects of New York City.  He was excited by all this enough, he wants to write a report at the end of the week.  We'll see on this one.  Thing One even asked for more school.  UGH is all I thought, it's one day down and I already want a break (didn't sleep well last night and felt very exhausted after covering the basics).

The fall out from a crazy day and crazy school day when

no "margin" was planned for.  REALLY need to remember

that one later.  It's not such a good thing to have things stacked

that we can't clean up afterward.

The house was left as above, we got ready to zip out for Monday's therapy, briefly filled Kevin in on thoughts for dinner, and headed out.  Got home almost three hours later to a house smelling of dinner!  Thankful for a husband that likes to cook!

Feet are up, winding down, and looking forward to a better nights sleep.  Bring on day 2!!!

Daily Scheduling

I've been busy, busy, busy.  Printing things for school, making wish lists for when we attend the HEAV Convention, and about to print more blank weekly lesson sheets.  Yes, it may be a bit early, but given we will have a couple weeks of school in June, I want to get an idea of how school may look with some of the new subjects we are adding this year.

For 2011/2012 school year, I am hoping to add:

• typing
• Spanish vocabulary using Rosetta Stone Latin America
• Phys. Ed.
• Nature Studies (been meaning to do this and have neglected it greatly)
• more art, but through our Unit Studies, Geography, and History
• A Child's Geography written by Ann Voskamp

 Most of these may only be 2 or 3 days a week and may need to be shuffled some once we have fall activities figured out.  This is in addition to Five in a Row, Beyond Five in a Row, Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies,  Mystery of History, Math-U-See, and Language Lessons from Queens Homeschool Supplies.  These we've used in the past few years with a lot of success, so we're continuing with them.

Next Years Curriculum

We're on the home stretch of having all the things we want for next school year. So far, we have the following, which includes some things we haven't finished up from last year:

• Math-U-See - we'll wrap up Alpha and Delta, then move onto Beta and Epsilon
• Five in a Row and Beyond Five in a Row
• Chronicles of Narnia Bible Study and will add in other things from Home School Share
• The Testimony of Charlie Coulson - a unit study for Civil War times which we'll due prior to going to Battle Cedar Creek Reenactment
• Language Lessons for the Elementary Child 2
• Language Lessons for Little Ones 3
• An Honorable Boy - A Bible Study for Elementary Aged Boys (one for each boy)
• Thanksgiving Unit Study from Amanda Bennett
• My Nature Journal
• Sequential Spelling
• Mystery of History
  

The following things came from Queens Homeschool Supply, should you be interested: both of the Language Lesson books, The Testimony of Charlie Coulson, and An Honorable Boy. We're also working on creating some copy work for the boys. Still being considered is Excellence in Writing.

As an aside, copy work can be a great thing for a few reasons, following are a few:

1. kids are reading things that demonstrate good grammar
2. when copy work is chosen that is a level or two above where the child is currently reading, they slow down their work to focus on spacing, punctuation, spelling
3. it also helps them with penmanship
4. they are introduced to wonderful poems, prose, quotes, etc.
5. it can be used as a "warm-up" so to speak for a writing assignment, a way to get the mind working when trying to create a paragraph, essay, or outline
6. we'll also be using copy work as a way to reinforce math facts and the direction of numbers, both items the boys need a bit of help on

So, our days will be busy with school, bible study, being outside, and hopefully a bit more fun.

Year End!!

The boys and I are ready for the year to be over. It's been a great year; we've grown, we've learned, we've had fun.

Earlier today we wrapped up most of our testing for the year. Just a couple more tests on Monday, for Thing One, then head out to the post office to mail them off. To me, the year isn't over until the tests are packaged up, have the proper postage and left at the Post Office. THEN, we'll have some sort of year end party

Already looking forward to next year, though. I really enjoy looking at new stuff, dreaming of fun stuff to do, and the planning doesn't frighten me like it did two years ago. So, here's what's shaping up for next year:

Thing One:

• Finish up Volume 4 of Five in a Row
• Volume 1 of Beyond Five in a Row
• Math U See (last bit of Gamma and on to Delta)
• Sequential Spelling
• Either Analytical Grammar or Simply Grammar

Thing Two:

• Various books from Five in a Row beginning with Volume 1 and ending with Volume 3 (however far we get is how far we get)
• Math U See Alpha
• Possibly Sequential Spelling as well or just homemade spellings of relevant words or word families (yes, similar to Sequential Spelling)
• English for the Thoughtful Child

It's my desire to expose them to more Art, Nature, Science, and Spanish. Whatever kind of bunny trails happen as a result of learning will explored as fully as possible.

Testimony to Five in a Row

In Language Arts today, Thing One worked on letter writing. One he choose to write, was a thank you note to Steve and Jane Lambert, as well as their daughter Becky Jane, author's of Five in a Row (Becky wrote Beyond FIAR). He is just so excited about FIAR. He really enjoys being read to, the lessons are enjoyable and hands on. For an ADHD child, it's a wonderful unit study, with a lot of topics covered in different ways. This is done, in such a way, that it's not boring or obviously "We just did this last week!" type thing.

Thank you Lambert family for sharing your lesson plans with the rest of us!