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.

What Teacher In-Service Looks like!

Today is Thursday of our "first official week"!  I've been trying hard to play catch up on planning.  It has been a rough summer in our house, so school planning has gotten dropped.  Not something I am proud of, but we're getting through the days and I am ahead, a bit.  Here is what it looks like at our house:

 A corkboard in desparate need of updating!

Let's not talk about the subway art to the right,

it is almost back in season :(

 Floor near my desk, as I sort through various

paperwork, create planning pages, books,

and numerous other things.

My desk almost looks normal, but with dust.  Hope

in a couple weeks things will be all straightened out.

As my husband likes to say, "It's a process, one step at a time".  I've got plans for this week; some subjects are easy enough to map out because we've used them so many times, it is second nature by now; other subjects have a shorter time frame and we're working into those.

In the mean time, I'll keep chipping the to do list down, helping the boys learn, and doing other things that need to get done. 

One day at a time, one task at a time!

Post Script:
I've updated various parts of this blog, in small ways and more obvious ways.  Let me know what you think!

First Day of School

Here are our 2014/2015 school year photos:

 First day of 9th and First day of 6th!
Think it is kind of funny that they each wore

their "favorite" color top and black shorts.

 Reading the note on the back of the sign.

 6th grader

 9th grader

 Need Charlotte in the photo too!

First field trip of the year.  Neither kid

wanted to leave the house!  Took a bit

for them to realize we were using money

earned from selling stuff for small milk shakes.

Our first PJ run.  An event I learned about

through Five in a Row!

Simon's Classes:

Biology with lab at Co-op

Art at co-op

Literature

Writing

Algebra 1 and Geometry

Modern History

German

P.E. through various things

Ian's Classes:

Dangerous Boys at Co-op

Cooking at Co-op

Literature

Writing

Spelling

Zeta (not sure what all is taught in this level of MUS)

Modern History

Spanish (his choice)

P.E. through various things

Time to log off.  I am one tired wife, mom, teacher, the whole shebang.

New School Year, New Journey

 We officially start the 2014/2015 school year tomorrow.  This summer has had a lot of ups and downs.  Through it all, blog writing has not been high on my list.  Figured I needed to stop in and at least put in an appearance before school starts. 

Simon will be in 9th grade ~  first year of high school.  Lot more demanding, but think he's up to the challenge.

Ian is starting 6th ~ around here, that is "top dog" in the elementary school.  Yeah, he's the only one in elementary school so it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Lots of new stuff to learn and do.  Tomorrow, I'll share more about the subjects and the obligatory first day photo.

Come back tomorrow, if you care, to see about our school year.

~ 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!

Third Day

As I typed the title out, made me remember the group "Third Day" and thought I'd leave it as is, to make whoever reads this wonder. Wonder what the gist of the post would be about. Am I going to share a Third Day video that I enjoy or am I going to go into some kind of detail about the third day of something ~ like school, which today was.  =}

Originally it was about school and how it seemed to get easily derailed!  Have been dealing with major allergy issues the last couple weeks and had had enough.  Made a doctors appointment to discuss what to do about it.  Got a prescrip for a couple different things that will hopefully do the trick; if not will have a couple very disappointed boys at our house.  A while back we'd promised them kittens; a situation came about where the price was right, but the addition of two more cats seemed to have been to much for me!  Will have to see how a few things pan out!

Third Day - the group!  Took some time to see which videos struck my fancy right now.  This one seemed to be it for me today.

 Enjoy!!

Beautiful Words

There are words that cross your hearing that are just beautiful.  Words spoken by a loved one, a friend, a foe, doesn't matter who, that are radiant to your soul (yes I used a thesaurus!)

Our struggling learner, looked up at me, while doing math today, and said "this math concept is easy, I think I'll do two worksheets! (while smiling and a slight giggle in his voice)"  You "go" kid, knock that math out.

I love having a front row seat to their learning when something that has been difficult becomes easy.

School Pictures

We actually had professional school pictures this year!  With a photographer!  With the usual blue back ground!  (I've had the disc with photo's on it for almost a month and am just getting to this ~ okay, blame my computer issues! ;) )

So, here is our 2011/2012 class:

 Thing Two

Third Grade

Thing One

Sixth Grade

A few days late . . .

in posting pictures of our new school wall.  I really like how it turned out and thankful I finally made the time to work on it.  There's room I may add a few other things, but for now, it's fine.

 Our framed metal board which still has "Happy Birthday Dad"

in plastic magnetic letters.  A picture of Miss C Dog, our school mascot.
The pink picture has a school then and now drawn on it.

 Class pictures; this year we have 6th grade and 3rd grade.

Wooden frame that I'll change out sign, periodically,

for the season.  For now, it is "IN OUR HOUSE".

Close up of letters with wooden button covering the screw,

which the wire wrapped around.  The letters are held on with

mini clothes pins.

The boys wanted a school picture this year.  These are the

sweat shirts I made for them a couple Christmas' ago.  Oldest

has almost out grown his.

Hoping to find a new way of displaying our maps.  These may just lean against this wall.  Lots to ponder!

Thanks for looking,

School is underway . . .

The boys and Charlotte have settled into their favorite spots for when I pull out the books that I read to them.

Thing One seems to enjoy coloring, more than anything else, to keep his hand busy.  Today's art focused on a kids fort with a bunker, no less.  He was proud of his work and asked to take a

photo of it.  

Think it actually took him a couple days to finish it.  He really didn't want to draw or color during non school hours!  LOL funny how any kind of school and kids will avoid a bit of work if they can!

So anyhoot, Thing Two has taken lead from Charlotte and started crawling between the chairs and the wall to get to what he calls his little cave.  Guess he's learning about "man caves" early!  He enjoys this little area and brings all sorts of stuff in there to entertain himself.  The other day it was a deck of cards and he was playing Slap Jack against himself.  I just snickered and rolled my eyes at him.  He was reasonably quiet and listening well enough to answer the questions well.

 A certain somebody trying to be still and have a straight face!

And here is Charlotte's favorite spot, snug up against my legs when I have the Lazy Boy foot rest up.  Doesn't matter if it's stuffy warm or cold in the house she wants to be snug.  I will like this when it starts getting cooler!