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.

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?

Thanksgiving

Another day has dawned ~ well a few hours ago it did!  8) 

I am trying to be consciously aware of things to be thankful for.  It's been hard; it's been a chore in denying my desire to have more and see the blessings of "what is"!  To be grateful for something that isn't exactly right, to be thankful for the act of service that brought something to you.  To be grateful for the gift giver, to receive with joy.

Continuing to count those blessings:

• time to read when boys are sleeping
• cooking breakfast with oldest
• stolen moments with youngest, while waking him up for the day

Audience participation portion of the blog!  Yes, that would be you reader.  Would you share what you like to do to celebrate thanksgiving?  Recipes you love to make?  Traditions? 

For us, there are many different things:

• Kevin's parents would have out paper place mates for the grand kids to decorate (really, it was anytime we got together)
• At my folks, seems like the kitchen table is a battle ground for train dominoes and other games
• At our house, if we're home, we love to watch "The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade"
• Reading of Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry and Wende Devlin (Wonderful book, back in print by Purple House Press, and one of many books rowed in Five in a Row)

Hope you share your traditions and thankfulness.  Thanks for reading!

 

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!!!

HEAV Convention in 3 hours

Think I may have spent more time on the road this year, for the HEAV convention, than I actually did shopping (and no time for speakers!)

First up, given the time I got there, parked, and got my name tag ~ the used curriculum sale.  Fortunately, I brought my wish list from Rainbow Resources and a mental note of new at Math-U-See.  I was finding things, in used and kind of okay condition, for more $$$'s than I could pick up at either place.  Hello?!?!  I can walk down the hall and get it for less.  IF they don't have it, they'll ship it for free.  I did find three hardback books, with dust covers, and spent a whopping $4.72 with tax.  Two, I'd been looking at for awhile to pick up and the third was a FIAR title.  Here's my lovely finds:

 So Kevin didn't even bat an eye lash at me when I said,
"I know we're finished with Volume 1 - 3, but I couldn't pass it up

in really good condition for $1.25".

 No joke, had tried to put it on my Rainbow Resource list

the night before, but they don't carry it.  Amazon had it for over $10.00.

Hello $2.00, you are coming with me!

 Another book I keep checking out and meaning to purchase.

$1.25, no brainer.

Headed over to the vendor hall.  Was a bit confused, this year, my 5th year down, Rainbow Resources and Bread Beckers were not at their usual spot.  These two companies have always been "anchors" either center back or far, right, rear corner as you walk in.  You get your barrings from their locations.  Actually had to look up Rainbow's vendor number to find them.  Anyway, so nice to be able to pull out my wish list and say that this is what I am looking for and can't find.  Was in and out of that section quick.  Not with everything, but free s/h on items not found.  MUS actually didn't bring their stock with them, but offered free s/h.  Well thank you!  I don't need the stuff anytime soon and I now don't have to carry it with me ~ BONUS!!!

Breezed through through the place to find one other booth, grab lunch, and see if I could find an all day parking spot that was inexpensive.  No luck so I headed home.  I so wanted to sit in some of Kathy Kuhl's talks and Bread Beckers, but no luck this year. 

Oh well!  Maybe next year will be better!

 

Planners

We've finished four years of homeschooling and I have yet to find a planner that I like.  Well, the first year we used Sonlight and their Instructors Guide has just about everything laid out.  When we switched to Five in a Row, I began fumbling around for forms that would work for us.  Hoping this year, I've found a collection of forms that will work for me.

Quick glance of the whole year June 2011/May 2012.  Pink are

holidays/vacations I know we'll take.  Yellow are my review and testing week.  I've

already started noting things in pencil to get a feel of the year.

This form is for our unit study titles.  I have the weeks listed

along the left side, starting on Monday.  With this, if I have seasonal studies

I want to put in, I can, then fill in with other titles.  I also note weeks

off and holidays here too.

 

 My colorful, seasonally designed, home made,

monthly calendar.  I have one for each month so I can note things

like co-op, ortho appointments, sports, and other things.

 Here is my "Extras for the Year" form.  Something new for me as

I want to intentionally add some fun things to the school year and can plan 

ahead as I find stuff or make a notes to call about an event.

"Books we've read, videos we've watched, field trips" with a space

at the top for title of book, author, and illustrator for the book we're doing

a unit study on.  I'm hoping to use this as a way to figure out what books we'd

like to find at the library and then include it in the boys notebooks.

Here is my modified (I used a smaller version last year) weekly calendar.

The top line says "week of:" followed by two bigger blocks for the boys individual

unit studies.  I'll write the title of the book in the gray shaded line and then the

topic to be studied by the letter M, T, W, T, or F.  I'm using two blocks because the boys

are not always doing the same unit study.  The remaining boxes are for

grammar, MoH, MuS, geography, spelling.  Some of these we'll do together, others

that are separated just take a note of lesson number and I'll code those lines with colored pencils.

As for keeping it all together ~ 3 ring binder.  In the front will be my over view pages (Year at a Glance, Unit Studies Overview, and Extras), then behind monthly tabs will be the monthly calendar and relevant weekly lesson plan.

Now it's time to pull it all together, sharpen the colored pencils, and write some things out.  At least after my geography book comes in.

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.

It's a new week

for school; I'm trying to plan. Feels a bit difficult after a pretty weekend and a relaxed Sunday. In the long run, it's easier to do now than Monday morning. Thing one is still working in "Boxcar Children" and Thing Two will be reading "Gramma's Walk". We've been continuing Math U See and the boys have enjoyed Mystery of History.

And it snows again!!

This round began after midnight today. As of this posting, we've gotten about 3 inches of snow, slush, rain, and more snow. The wind is blowing pretty hard and sounds pretty eerie.

Thing One peeking over one of
the mounds of snow along our pipe stem.

Thing Two near a short mound.

This is a short video from our front porch. The wind wasn't howling when I took this as it is now. May take another video later.

On a cool school note, Thing Two wished "Katy" was here. That would be the Katy from Virginia Lee Burton's book "Katy and the Big Snow".

Is it the end

or is it the beginning? Of the week that is!!

Just realized I hadn't posted much about school this week. Well, practically nothing other than my intro to "Owl Moon" last Sunday and our mad lib this past Monday.

Hope to wrap up a couple fun things today for "Owl Moon", dissecting owl pellets and making owls, and then lesson plan for next week. It's been a crazy week with extra activities, kicking the kids outside to play as we had a day in the 60's, followed by late nights, all day activities being canceled by snow half way through, and trying to catch up on sleep.

This coming week maybe a bit more calm!

Beginning of the week

It's a rainy Monday morning as I type out the first blog of the school week. Coffee is ready, boys are still sleeping (although Thing One may be up before I am finished), chores are started (Kevin started the dishwasher ~ Thank You!!!!), and I'm just getting to introducing our school week. Madlib Monday will still be here, just later today.

We are reading and rowing "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen, illustrated John Schoenherr this week. It's another winter favorite of ours. To begin our study of owls, we went to a local county park Friday night for an "Owl Pondering". We got a quick introduction to Owls, dissected an Owl pellet (good starter for me as we have two for each boy here), went on a hike "to see" nocternal animals. Unsuccessfully I might add.

At Hidden Pond Nature Center, there is a barn and garage for office space and garage type stuff. There, an Owl usually likes to hang out. The staff a few live mice, that they would throw onto the garage roof, so the owl would come and get it. Very cool to see it swoop in and hear the talons scrap the roof. The birds are very quiet. Neat opportunity for the boys.

Well, we've had a number of rainy, above freezing days lately. It got me thinking that prior to when we left, that boots would definitely be in order for the hike. My thought proved wise. The boys and my boots after hiking:

There is a lot more fun stuff to come, this go around of Owl Moon. I'm not sure who will enjoy the book more, the boys or me. Guess we'll find out on Friday!!


P.S. Our oldest is still asleep, at 7 AM, as I get ready to post.