First Day of School 2012

We started back to school on September 4 after a wonderful family getaway with a group from church. It was great to get away before we started back full force. Our curriculum has not changed for the new school year. We LOVE the stuff we have used the last two years and plan on using it through High School. The kids will be doing school pictures later this week but we managed to get in the "first day of school" picture on the second day of school. 

We got the kids new laptops this year so that they can look up the things our curriculum tells them to but they can do it at the table with me and we can share the information learned right then. Also, I wanted them to be able to do their math (they have a video at the beginning of each lesson) when they were ready and not have to wait for someone to get off the computer. So far, so good. We have been able to do many things for school on them and they enjoy using them in their free time, as well. 

We started reading through the Little House books and are almost finished with book two, Farmer Boy. We have some great books that we will be reading this school year and I look forward to sharing them with you. 

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Trail Guide to Learning Review

We are about to begin our twelfth year of homeschooling. We are super excited and have been for the past three school years. The main reason why is because of our wonderful curriculum. Here is the review I sent them of their product.

I have been homeschooling since 1997. I have four children, 25, 19, 13 and 10. I started out homeschooling my two oldest children who were 5^th grade and Kindergarten at the time. Needless to say, I have used various curriculums over the years and found things I loved and didn’t love. And I found things that worked with one child didn’t work with the second child. We had times of public school and private school for the younger three children in the middle of our homeschooling years. But after a year and a quarter of public school and two years of private school we were back to homeschooling. The first year we used the math they were using in the private school and found we loved it so we still use it (Math U See). We will be beginning our fifth year back to homeschooling this fall. Three years ago I found Trail Guides to Learning and it changed our homeschool experience into something I always hoped it would be, amazing and fun for them and me.

Trail Guides to Learning fit our family just right. I needed something already put together with lesson plans that weren’t overwhelming and easy to follow. The fact that it was based on books instead of text books was an added plus to me. Text books can be so dry but novels come alive when you read them. I loved how you could buy everything all at once without having to go hunt things down. I also love the middle school supplement that is offered with each level. We used the middle school supplement because one of my children is one grade higher than each one said it covered. I loved the extra book for each unit. That became our book we used for dictation and that they read silently each day. We used the other three books for each of us to read aloud to the “class”. My younger child reads the easiest and my older child reads whichever of the other two he chooses while I read the one remaining. We got so many different looks at each period of time.

The middle school supplement had extra work that you could assign to challenge your students. It was easy to understand and the kids were able to complete it in a timely manner. I love how I can teach both of my children from one lesson but give the older one more without it disrupting our flow. In fact, I often give my younger child the same extra assignments if I feel she can handle it. Even though she is two grades below my son, my daughter has excelled and done most of the same extended work he has. Sometimes she is more willing to do the extended work than the older one is.

I have and will continue to recommend this program to any and all who are homeschooling or thinking about it. After seeing the different curriculums for the past 15 years I can honestly say it is the best program for our family and I wish it had been around when I taught my older two children. We have such fun discovering history together. I never had this much fun when I was in school but I am learning along with my children and having fun. We connect what we have learned with so many things we see and do in our everyday lives.

Thanks so much for creating this program and please keep working on the ones for the years to come. We look forward to going through high school with Trail Guides to Learning series!

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Home Based Group Valentine Party

Our group continues to grow. We had about 30 kids for our Valentine party. We had lots of goodies to eat, cupcakes to decorate, plus a game and craft. The kids were very involved in all of them. 

The girls (and boys) were given lots of papers and things to make cards or bookmarks. They really had fun of with all the fun paper. They even made some for their friends right then. 

One of Jenni's friends had a funny sense of humor and cut a piece of paper and wrote book-mark on it instead of decorating  it like a bookmark. 

Most of the boys decided to make a family crest. They turned our really cool. JC ran out of time and had to finish his at home. It is still waiting for him on my desk.

We had a wide range of ages, preschoolers to teens. They all seemed to have a great time working and visiting with each other. 

We had a fun game of Valentine Conversation Heart Bingo. We brought dollar store prizes for the winners. Then we went and ate all the goodies, some sweets and some veggies and fruit plates. 

I can honestly say that this group has been a highlight in our lives this year even more than before. We have done some really fun stuff. Plus the kids have made friends with LOTS of other homeschool kids their age. 

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Field Trip: George Washington Exhibit

Before Christmas we finished a unit on the American Revolution and George Washington's life. There just happened to be an exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History on George Washington. How exciting for us. We were thrilled that our friends, Cindy and Ryan, have season passes and were able to invite us to go. It really made all we learned come alive and we learned even more.

I hope you enjoy our slide show. This didn't include the whole exhibit but I got what I could.

Make your own slideshow design

What is your favorite field trip your family has done?

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Our Progress

August - December 2011

The first half of this school year has been wonderful. The reason I put a castle for my picture was to represent all the places we have traveled through stories and movies of the year, and the many others we will visit in the years to come. I have managed to blog about most of the really fun and interesting things we have done. We started the school year off in August by finishing up three units from last year's curriculum that we weren't able to finish because of all the preparation for our trip to Kenya in June. We went right into this years material without a pause. We completed two of those units. That makes five units for the first half of our year. 

We had some great projects with our homeschool groups. We did a Dolphin Tale study  and went to the movie on opening day for Home School Day. We made a lap book for Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. The kids played soccer with one of our groups and I was the coach. We had a super missions day for our AAHE October meeting. We had one field trip, to the public library. Because we are part of two groups we are able to do more. Our last group activity of 2011 was our Christmas party, which was a huge success and loads of fun. 

We did a major field trip to Kenya in June/July. That was an experience that our family will never forget. We spent three weeks there. We were on 9 airplanes and it took over 30 hours to reach our final destination each way. Even though that wasn't "during the school year" we felt it was a huge part of our educational experience.  

I rearranged the "school room" twice. This last time was to accommodate the re-opening of our kidcare and preschool.  We have involved the front room and the dinning room. It really looks nice and we have all of our resources readily available when we need them. 

January - May 2012

We started back to school on January 2. We had three weeks off of school in December and were ready to jump back into it. We have some huge plans for this half of the school year. We will do two more units before taking our Spring Break. Then we will do two more units and finish school mid May. They will finish this years Math by spring break. They will be given the option of starting next years math. I purchased their math for the next several years at the book fair last year. 

We are planning a very special Spring Break for the kids to show them we are proud of all their hard work in school this year. We want to make it a tradition each year to do something special, fun and different. They have no idea what we have planned. 

We hope to do a few more field trips for the year. There is an exhibit on George Washington at the local museum that we are going to see next week. They have a special website to go along with the exhibit and enhance your learning experience. We will do more book/movie studies. Our next one will be War Horse. We will read the book, do the study and see the movie in January. 

That is just a glimpse of the next five months. I can't wait to blog the pictures from all the adventures we will have. 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by. 

Homeschool Group Christmas Party

For our homeschool group Christmas party we had a lot of fun. We all brought goodies to eat and one of the moms put together a great craft for the kids. She brought different sizes of spoons and gave them choices on what to make. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. They each had the different colors of paint on their tables and had foil to work on. We had a very large group that day. Everyone had so much fun. They had to wait for directions for the character of their choice. We had a table full of goodies plus cookies for them to decorate. All of the kids enjoyed it, young and old. They had to paint the spoon first before adding any pipe cleaners. They drew on the faces with markers when needed. Then it was time to decorate cookies and eat them. Since we meet in the gym at the church they got to play after we were done. The kids love the new air hockey table.

  

Merry Christmas!

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

                                                                                                    

AAHE Mission Day - The Voice of the Martyrs

AAHE decided that we would focus on Missions in the month of October this year. I personally think that was a GREAT idea. My family focuses on missions every month, since we are missionaries right here in the DFW area. Many families in Arlington are very mission minded. I think one of the reasons is because we have Mission Arlington to help us realize how important it is, even in our own back yards. 

For our meeting we asked a representative from The Voice of the Martyrs to come and share with us about their ministry. Our guest speaker was Bob Sweely. He had a slide show with pictures of martyrs across the world and explained their story. I think it was great for all of us, young and old, to see these pictures and make it real for us that there are those out there that suffer greatly because of their love for the Lord. We all KNOW that but we don't really THINK about it in a way that it hits home sometimes.

Bob shared with us the many ministry avenues that VoM has. It is amazing. One of the ministry avenues is the Action Pack bags. The vacuum bags are filled by people like us and sent to Christians in restricted nations who have been ostracized by their family, friends, and village because of their faith. Those items are a welcome expression of Christ's love and yours. The items that are needed to fill the bags are everyday things like shirts, socks,hats, foam balls, bars of soap, a blanket, toys, school supplies, etc.

If you would like more information on The Voice of the Martyrs you can check out these different resources.

http://www.persecution.com            http://www.kidsofcourage.com/     

Telephone: (918)337-8015   

Orders or contributions: (800)747-0085

Ministry information: (877)337-0302

E-mail: thevoice@vom-usa.org

Bob Sweely, Area Representative

(972)255-3628

sweely@juno.com

If you want to have him visit your group, give him a call. He is a wonderful man to talk to with a heart for Christ. This ministry is one of the best out there. Support them where you can.

That is our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Dolphin Tale Unit Study Part Two

We spent a major amount of time today in parent discussion because we had a new mom with questions. And after all, that is what we are here for, to help each other, give support and suggestions on what might work. AND to be an ear just to listen. As moms we need that time to share what is on our hearts. I love this group for that very reason. We are there for each other. We all have different teaching styles and curriculum but we all respect each other and don't think one is doing it wrong just because it isn't the way we are doing it. We learn so much from each other each time we meet. 

 

This week we had eleven kids that were able to come and stay for our craft time. We didn't have a large amount of time for the craft so we didn't do a lot of background on the Anglerfish like we did the Jellyfish. But it is my hope that it will spark an interest in looking into it further. I also printed off some extra stuff for them to do while they were there or at home. 

JC, as always, is being silly and Ryan thinks he is funny. The kids really seemed to have a good time making them. They used egg cartons, pipe cleaners, construction paper to cut out teeth, feathers for the tail and a bead on the end of the pipe cleaner for the "light".  Those two boys seem to really love the idea of the feathers for the tail. I just love the expressions on their faces!

They got to do it all by themselves except for when they asked for our help. It was a pretty easy craft but fun at the same time. They drew eyes and fins on the body with a marker. Each child got to pick from a bag of different color feathers and beads. They got really creative with the eyes and how they decorated them.

The younger AND older kids seemed to enjoy our time working together. Then the older ones had a Winter (that's the dolphin's name) word search and the young ones had a dolphin coloring picture to work on. We are so thankful for the mom's who were there helping us with the crafts, too. It makes it wonderful to have everyone working together. 

I told them if they would take a serious group picture they could do a silly group picture. As you can see, we had some happy kids who were more than willing to take a silly picture as a group. I am so pleased because they all told me how much fun they had and they were full of smiles. THAT is why I love bringing things for them to do. THAT is why I homeschool. THAT is why I love working with kids. Their smiles! 

We have one more week of the Dolphin Tale Unit Study. That will be two weeks from today. There is much more to the study than we have done or will be able to do in the short amount of time we are able to get together. Make sure you take the time to do some of the other activities at home with your kids and share how it turned out with the group. We would love to hear about it.

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Book Reviews: Guest Bloggers

Guest blogger is Jennifer Lynne will share her review of Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry.

What the Story was about: A horse called Phantom and two kids, Paul and Maureen who lived with their grandparents. Also, Phantom's colt, Misty.

What I thought about the story: I thought it was interesting. You can learn a lot from it. You can learn how to care for horses. The kids in the story worked really hard. Once you read the first chapter you can't stop reading. 

We bought the movie for my birthday party. It was good. The book was better than the movie.

I also read the other three books in the series. I love books about horses.

Guest blogger, Jonathan Cole will share his review of Night of the Cossack by Tom Blubaugh. 

What the story was about: An interesting fictional account of a young boy facing a series of tough life-or-death decisions when forced into a life of a Cossack soldier. 

What I thought about the story: I thought it was a great story. There were many hardships in Nathan's life. I was intrigued by the choices that he had to make through the early years in his life. I was surprised by an important relationship in his life turning out to be false. 

The best part about reading books my mom has read is getting to talk about the book with her. We both get excited about the things the characters go through and the choices they make.  

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercolor Art Class

We finished up our Paths of Exploration study last Friday. This week we started our first of six units in the Paths of Settlement study. This is going to be an exciting school year. We are doing the highest level in the main book, which is sixth grade, along with the middle school supplement. That puts us in 7/8 grade work for both kids. Both kids have done really well the last two school years doing the hardest levels together. I am very proud of them for their efforts.

One of the things we are learning in art is watercolor painting. We are using a book called Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered. Since we started our new unit Monday, we read the introduction of that book telling us about watercolor painting and how to use the brush and what kind of paper. Then they did a beginner painting exercise. They practiced using the brush with lots and little water to see how the paint went on the paper. They did wavy lines and short lines. In other words, they just had fun.  Here are some pictures of them painting.

They both helped me set up the table with newspaper to keep the table clean. We got a cup of water to share and they took turns getting clean water from time to time. They were allowed to paint whatever they wanted. Mostly just to see how the paints worked. Watercolors are very different from other types of paints. 

Their finished products were very close to this picture. Jenni did a watermelon on a table. JC did a heart and some other abstract shapes. 

The table was a huge success with this activity. They had enough room to each work and at the same time were able to share the paints and water. They had fun and didn't make a mess. That is always a success in my opinion! 

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Dolphin Tale Unit Study Part One

After watching videos about the movie Dolphin Tale, we couldn't help but want to see the movie as a family. We are a big supporter of family friendly entertainment options. When I found out there was a unit study, being a homeschool mom, I was super excited. I love to turn anything that could be school into a fun time as well as learning new things. I see life as a big school room that we can learn and have fun at the same time. The study has five lessons but I am breaking it into three parts because we meet every other Thursday. We take from an hour to an hour and a half to complete some of the experiments and crafts while learning some neat marine biology. 

We did a science experiment called Sink or Swim. We made our own water column. Water columns are used or observed to better understand aquatic phenomena. We tested different items, such as a cork, grape, rock and dab of solid shortening. We learned that the difference in density of an object is called buoyancy or the ability to float. We had a pitcher of water and added syrup and oil. The syrup sunk below the water and the oil rose above the water. Then we tested each object and recorded where they fell in the water column. We also learned what sea creatures lived where in the oceans water column and made charts for our notebooks.

Our craft for that day was a Jellyfish.  Jellyfish are amazing creatures. They have no complex body organs, but they are able to survive quite well in the ocean. They are not able to swim against the currents of the ocean. They are called planktonic creatures. They have muscle-like fibers in their two layers of skin. They use those to pulse their bodies and move their long tentacles to help them stay afloat in the water. They use their tentacles to capture prey. 

After we learned some things about the jellyfish we made one out of the end of a plastic bottle and yarn. You cut the end off about 2 1/2 inches from the end. They picked yarn from a variety of colors. You need to have 10 long strands of thick yarn and 20 strands of thin yarn a couple of inches shorter than the long ones. Cut card stock the size of your plastic container. Staple the think strands to the middle and the thin strands in twos all the way around the outside. Then tape the card stock circle to the container. Attach fishing line to the top to hang the jellyfish with.

Not all the kids could stay for the group pictures because we did take a bit of time, due to the fact that I didn't bring more than one stapler so we had to share. That was a process that took the longest. I plan on being more prepared with supplies next time. We had a great time and as you can see, they turned out pretty neat! Stay tuned to see the neat things we do the next two weeks of our study during the month of October.

That's our progress report for today. Thanks for stopping by.