My homeschool weekly journal: July 27, 2013

In my life this week...now that we are back on the homeschool track I've got to figure out what we are going to do for curriculum for the coming school year.  I'm thinking I might do an online school for April, and possibly Aaron.  I'm taking it slow though.  I'm not going to rush, I just want to let things sink in for a while, and take the time to research all the options. 

In our homeschool this week...I have decided that for the remainder of the summer all we are going to worry about is math, reading, and a little science (nature studies, impromptu experiments) because those are the ones that need the most catching up (and we enjoy science).  We will also pursue whatever subjects interest the children.  So much of our curriculum is outdated for the each child.  They've used it all up, or grown out of it.

Aaron has taken an interest in Magic Tree house books again.  He spent quite a bit of time over the last week playing at the Magic Tree house website.   We also finished another Magic Tree House book, "Abe Lincoln at last!"

A snapshot of Aaron's tree house on-line.

 

We were able to get math time in 2 days this week.  Aric is flying through his K horizons math book.  He'll be ready for part 2 by the fall probably.  Aaron finished his first Life of Fred book!  He will be moving onto Butterflies as soon as we go pick it up from Exodus books.

Aric showing me his page that he completed

Some science from Aaron's astronomy book.  He made this sun collage, and we finally finished reading about the sun.

Aaron's sun collage

Aric's sun collage

Aric wanted to make a sun collage too.  He was way more interested in this project than Aaron.  He had fun looking through the magazines for pictures.

We received Hearts and Trees Bubbles and Lavender kit that I ordered.  April was very excited to learn about lavender and do some of the projects in it.  For our science time I had her color this page about Lavender from her Medicinal plants coloring book.  We had that book from an American Girl study last year.  I was happy to put it to use again.

April's lavender coloring page

We started some Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see? activities.  We'll do a lot more next week.  As I was cleaning out our school room I discovered that I had the printables for this book and thought we should spend a week doing activities that go with the book.

Places we're going and people we are seeing...Saturday we had to cancel Aric's birthday party, so today we had a little celebration at our homeschool playgroup for him.  He was happy to play with all his friends, and they all had a good time.  We had cupcakes and gave all the kids some bubbles that were awesome (found the idea for them here).

My favorite thing this week was...feeling excited and happy about homeschooling again.

Things I'm working on... getting organized.  Reading more.  Enjoying fun summer days with my kids.  The big one is probably getting organized.  I spent a day this week getting our school room a little more in order.

I'm cooking...I made sausage and peppers rustica (like the dish you find at Olive Garden) one night this week.  It's a pretty yummy dinner!  It's one of Hubby's favorites.

I'm grateful for...my van that is fixed!  Air conditioners that make it so nice to be inside while it's super hot outside.  Great homeschool friends.  I'm thankful for cupcakes, and the joy it can bring to a 5 year old to share them with his friends.  I'm thankful for the things that have been brought to my attention that made me realize that homeschooling is where I want to be.  A Daddy takes the boys fishing as much as he can.

I'm praying for... the strength to be the homeschooling Momma I know I can be.  To not get discouraged.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

A friend of mine took our family pictures last weekend, and it was tough!  The 2 year old didn't want to cooperate at all.  The 7 year old just wanted to make funny faces, and the 5 year old was trying to smile too hard (he was so good though).  This is pretty much all she could get.  In all the pictures at least one kid was looking off or odd or something.  So, here is one of the candid ones she gave me.  It makes me laugh.  So, here you have it, our family!



To see other homeschool journal entries visit so you call yourself a homeschooler?

Desiree

Homemade edible floam

Update:  My friend Lisa that taught me how to make this has posted a recipe for this on her blog.  She explains exactly how to pop the amaranth which is very helpful.  You can find her recipe at her blog The Pratt Family.

Yes, we are back!  And, the kids won't be going off to school in the fall after all.  It's a long story that I might write about in another post...someday.  But, for now all is well, and I'm happy to say that we'll still be homeschooling.

Today we made floam.  Homemade, edible floam.  It was a lot of fun.  My Amaranth was old, so I'm not sure it really "popped" right.  The kids played with it for a while.  They took one nibble and said it tastes like their favorite cookies.  But the amaranth was too crunchy.  I've got to figure out how to cook it right.

I can't take credit for this, but it's made from peanut butter, honey, and amaranth.  I don't really know the measurements.  We just added a few big scoops of pb, and probably about a half cup of honey.  I think it needed more pb to be a bit sticker, but it seemed about right.  A good friend of mine that we knew several years ago taught me how to make this when we went over to their house to play.  It was in our first year of homeschooling.  I couldn't believe how clever she was.  I have to admit that I haven't seen this anywhere else on-line.  I don't know if she made it up, or where it came from.  But I am always thankful to her for showing me this.



Let me know if you try to make it!

 Desiree

My weekly journal: June 19, 2013

 

In my life this week...I have to admit as this week progressed I started having second thoughts about public school for my children.  I have such a heart for homeschooling, but I think we need to still go through with it.  I really need some time to figure things out, and I need to see how each child does in a classroom.  I tell ya though, I was ready to scrap the plan yesterday.  It has made me very unsure about anything right now.

Our learning this week...Aaron did some bridge building with his Amazing bridges kit.  He also made a volcano with a Smithsonian giant volcano kit that he got for Christmas.  The volcano came out pretty neat since it was from a kit.  It was also relatively easy (I love kits!).  We also read 2 Magic Tree House books together.  I think he's getting excited about that series again.  I took all the books out to put on a more visible shelf for him to find them, and he decided to organize them and put them in alphabetical order.  He also wrote down the book numbers that we're missing so we can buy those to add to our collection eventually.  Then we discovered the Magic Tree house website for some more fun.  These books may be the key to his liking reading!  He needs any encouragement in reading.  I was very happy to hear him say he would like to read through all the books.  We also watched 2 documentaries we checked out from the library on volcanoes.  Aaron was enthralled, and has now decided that it might be cool to be a volcanologist (which fits in right along with his love for rocks).  I found the National Geographic  one (pictured above) very interesting to watch as well.

  Places we went this week...We finally made it to the library on Thursday (sometmes hard to do during the summer for us).  We joined the homeschool playgroup for a park day on Friday morning.  On Wednesday we headed up to inflatable kingdom with some friends.  Tuesday we went back to school shopping, and Monday we went registered for school.  Oh, and April also went to her first Young Women's activity.  She loved it, and can hardly wait for girls camp now.  That was silly, I kinda went backwards, and out of order!  Oh well you get the picture.

Our fun at inflatable kingdom.

My favorite thing this week... Sunday stations.  I am always trying to find a way to help the kids focus on keeping the sabbath day holy, and activities that prepare them for church.  So, this last Sunday I finally tried out an idea I found on this blog called Sunday stations.  It was a pretty good success.  Most kids did at least 2 out of 5 stations that I set up.  I loved that it gave them a chance to choose something to focus on.  I might start trying to do Sunday stations once a month or so.  The stations I had set up are: Sunday craft and story, articles of faith puzzles, read a church magazine (friend, ensign, or new era magazine), church/gospel games online (lds.org), or journal writing.  Even the youngest loved doing a few of them.

Alex was playing the "match the Prophets" game with me in the top left corner, and the story is The Berenstain Bears say their Prayers.  The craft was an outline of hands and on each finger was written something that the children could pray for with a picture of praying hands glued into the middle.

Now it's time for me to go figure out dinner today!  Yikes, it's almost 5!

 

P is for pizza

My Hubby has become quite the pizza chef these days!  For a while he was making homemade pizza every Sunday, and we would look forward to it because it is so yummy.  Well, after a little break in our Sunday pizzas he finally made some again this past Sunday for our dinner.  It didn't disappoint!  It was as good as we remembered it, and it always disappears fast.

He even got creative for the last pizza...

Mmmm...now that'sa good pizza!

 If you want to know how he learned to make such a great pizza, it's all here in Alton Brown's Good Eats "Flat is Beautiful (pizza)" episode.  We all love Alton Brown over here.  Hubby has all 3 of his cookbooks, but the episodes are so fun to watch.  They even have some great science and history wrapped into a cooking show!  The kids even love to watch it. 

Enjoy!


 

O is for Opportunity

Some of you may or may not know that my kiddos will be going to public school this Fall.  I love homeschooling, but I have felt it a huge burden this year.  Not my children, they are not the burden!  The burden being that I have to do everything, pretty much, on my own.  I have felt for the past few months that for the sake of my sanity, and more opportunities for my children that they needed to go to school.  After I finally decided that the kids should go to school next year, I felt this huge relief!  I felt as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulder.  Most of all I have felt peace.

Well, they are all registered to go to school, and I'm super excited for them.  They are excited too.  Although every day is a different level of excitement.  Some days they ask if school is starting soon, and other days Aric tells me he's scared to go to school.  He'll be okay though.  I know he's going to love it.

I can hardly wait.  But, not because I want them to go away, but because I am excited for them to have this experience.  To go to school.  I'm excited for the opportunities they'll have.  Opportunities...that's one of the biggest reasons I really want them to go to school.  I feel like they miss out on the opportunities for sports, or music, or clubs.  I hope and pray that this will be a great year for them!  Bring on Fall, we are ready!



 

p.s. Oh, and I still plan to do much learning at home with them after school. We are still going to homeschool--after school, and on weekends, and vacations, etc.

funny balloon faces

 This was a fun impromptu summer activitiy.  My boys were bored one day and decided to start blowing up balloons.  Then they got the idea that it would be fun to draw faces on them.  That reminded me about our game Pick and draw where you pick a part of the face and then draw what's on the card.  They had fun with that for quite a while!

 

Beach pictures

We went camping over 4th of July week at Fort Stevens again.  It was nice, but I'm pretty sure I'd like to stay home next 4th of July for the holiday itself.  I didn't take pictures really except for one day at the beach before my battery was too low to take anymore.

It was a beautiful day both days we went out on the beach.  We love being able to drive the truck out on the sand!  It makes it nice for bringing lots of stuff, toys, food, etc.  We don't have to carry it all down to the beach.

 Some pictures from the first day at the beach...

 

Miscelany Monday

Before we head out for a whole week I wanted to leave with some miscellaneous thoughts and happenings here.

~We are leaving tomorrow to go camping for the 4th of July.  I have only 2 out of 6 bags packed, and a whole trailer to load still.  I don't like packing much, and it doesn't help that my motivation is lacking today.  I know I'll be happy once we get out there though!



~My 2012 blog book came in the mail today.  It has a random picture of somebody else's kid in it.  I went back to the original post to see if there was really a picture of someone's kid that I don't know, and it turns out that it was a button to someone else's blog.  Somehow it grabbed the picture of their girl instead of the button.  Thought that was pretty funny.  Love getting blog books though!



~It has been HOT here since last Friday.  On Friday it was 86 inside our house for most of the day.  We were miserable!  We had only one air conditioner in our room so we could escape to a cool room for a bit, but hadn't gotten around to putting the one up in the main part of the house.  On Friday after Hubby got home we got right to it.  So thankful for air conditioners!  We pretty much didn't go anywhere all weekend.  Our house stayed comfy and cool.




 ~Michele made this cute little Chuggington hat for little Alex.  He loves his new hat.  He also loves Chuggington.  He asks to watch it everyday.  Between that and Thomas this kid watches a lot of trains.  He notices trains and train tracks everywhere.  If he sees a train track he says "where train?".  It's so cute.  This kid loves trains!

See you in a while!  Happy 4th of July!!