We Have Moved!

Hello!  If you are stopping by, we have moved to Homeschoolers Journey.  Please stop by and visit us over at homeschoolersjourney.com we would love to have you!

Time for School and Something New

My oh my what a summer this has been!! So very busy but it sure was fun. We really didn't travel to some great and wonderful location but we visited grandparents and had a great time. We spent a lot of time with friends at the pool, going to camp and VBS and swim lessons. Lots of big steps and fun memories made this summer.

Now it is time for school. Wow. I am ready mentally but I'm sad summer is already gone. I have high hopes for this year. I hope for a little growth in a certain little person (not so little anymore...) so that school won't be quite as difficult as it was last year. I know it will be tougher but I think he will enjoy learning the things he will learn this year.  I hope that the lazy streak I experienced in him last year is not quite as long....or wide. :-)

I had posted earlier what curriculum we were using and there are a few adjustments I needed to make.  We are taking a short break from the Apologia science and Mystery of History this fall.  We will start them back up in January.  We will be studying Abeka science, and in doing so we will approach it from a different stand point.  He will learn about our senses for the first 16 lesssons and then he will learn about different ecosystems and the plant and animal life that live in each one.

Then for History we will also be using Abeka American history.  He will learn about Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, Helen Keller and many more people who were important in American History.

I didn't really set out to make those changes in our curriculum but as I looked through them out of curiosity, I felt lead to change things up a little.  So we will see how it goes.  We will do Science two days and History two days, leaving Thursday afternoon (our Coop day) as a time to catch up on anything we need to.  I hope tomorrow is a peaceful day and that all goes smoothly....

On to another subject, I am moving!!  You might think oh good for you!  But I am hoping you will go with me....


See, I have decided to move my blog to Wordpress.  I have debated back and forth for a long time now and after much discussion with my hubby and prayer I think this is the best thing for me to do.   I have found that it is easy to work with and I really like the format.  I also needed a new header on my old blog so this helped with that problem!  We bought the domain, http://www.homeschoolersjourney.com/.

You will find all the old posts there and you will find Google friend connect where you can join my blog.  I feel like I have gotten to know each of you and consider you my blogging buddies!  I still want to keep up with you and would love for you to follow us on our homeschooler's journey so please click on the link above and join me over at http://www.homeschoolersjourney.com/.  Hope to see you there!

Snap Shots of Summer

Such sweet little faces

My Easter Lillie's bloomed a little late this year but still beautiful

Our first harvest - thank you Lord

Happy 4th of July!

Our Curriculum

Since I was on a search today for some of our curriculum for next year, I thought I would share what we are using.

Math:  We use Abeka Arithmetic.  We do math just about everyday.  We might miss a day here and there due to field trips or incidentals like that but we try to get some math in everyday.  During the summer, we have managed to do some math about once or twice a week since the beginning of June.  I had intended to do a little more, maybe two to three times a week but once or twice has worked out ok so far.

Language:  We use Abeka for this as well.  As with math we try to do Language everyday. We have not done any language during the month of June.  We will start back up in August.  We also use Abeka for reading, spelling and handwriting.

History:  We have really enjoyed The Mystery of History volume 1.  the nice aspect to me of this curriculum is that it starts with Creation and moves chronologically through both Biblical and world history.  Tying them together and showing the student (and teacher! :-)) what was going in Bible History and in the world at the same time!  The activities that go with the lesson can be geared toward appropriate ages and making the time line is fun, that is one of Riley's favorite parts.

Science:  We are using the Apologia Exploring Creation series.  Right now we are in Exploring Creation with Zoology, Fifth Day the Flying Creatures.   We have also done some of Botany and Astronomy.  What can I say about this curriculum?  Well, the things I have learned about God's creation is amazing!  Jeannie Fulbright has covered several aspects of all of the elements of Creation and has done a great job at showing the student why God created somethings the way He did.  There is a reason for everything.  The text is very informative and easy to read.  The experiments can be done on many levels of age groups and are easy to do with easy to acquire materials. 

Music:  Is done through piano lessons which I am teaching Riley right now.  Later on he will take from someone else.  I don't play well enough to continue on past a certain level.

Art:  He is getting through our COOP classes right now.

We will also occasionally do a unit study depending on what is going on.  We might do one on a holiday or a person (that is all we've done so far).  We recently completed a unit study/lapbook on Dr. Martin Luther King.  We also found a free Knights and Castles lapbook at homeschoolshare.com which I hope to complete this summer.

That is our curriculum for Third grade.  We have not made a lot of changes over the past three years or so.  We used the Weaver Interlock curriculum at age 4 and had a lot of fun with that.  We started out in Math U See in Kindergarten and Riley really did not like it.  We changed to Abeka and that worked for us, Riley still doesn't like math but it isn't as much of a battle as it was then.    Other than those two changes we have stuck with what you see above.  Time will tell if we need to make other changes later on down the road.

What are you using?  Have you stuck with the same things each year or have you changed up your curriculum choices?  Was it easy for you to decide?  Let me know, I would love to hear from you!

What a Day!

Today started early with loading Riley, Lady and myself up in the car.  We went to the John Deer dealer to have the lawn mower blade sharpened, then we headed to church to drop Riley off at Camp Crazy.  After that, Lady and I headed to the vet to get a shot.  On our way, my sister called and wanted to meet me to give me something.  Thankfully she came to me... :-) Lady got her shot and we headed home so I could drop her off and pick up some snack food for me, almonds and cranberries and a water!  Mmmmm!  I called my Mom and as I talked to her I repotted some cuttings from a plant my sister gave me.  I did walk out to the shed to check on the baby birds, but could not find them anywhere so they must have flown into the woods behind our property.

About 30 minutes later I hit the road again to go to Creative Learning Connection in search of curriculum.  I was able to get just about all of our readers for reading and our Bible lesson plans.  Crossing things off that list is good!

I left there to go get dinner and to the grocery store.  Picked up a few items and a pizza (knowing I would not have much time to cook today...).  I ran them home, let Lady out, grabbed some lunch and hit the road again to run to my sisters house to look through her curriculum with her.  Of course while I was there I had to get my baby fix with my sweet little chunk of a nephew who is 4 months old and weighs 18.5  lbs and is 27" long!  What a sweet boy!

I left there about an hour later to go get Riley at Camp Crazy.  He had fun again today!  Woohoo!  We left there and picked up the lawn mower blade and headed home.  We met Chris coming in the door and picked up ball and glove and ran back out the the door leaving Chris and Lady to their own at home.  We headed to our friends house where Riley went swimming, got stung by a hornet, played baseball while I talked with some new friends, was in awe over a garden, had fun meeting some chickens and learned about the busy life on a growing farm! Thankfully Chris put the pizza in the oven and had dinner ready when we came home.

I don't know how you would feel but I feel like I have done just about everything a person could possibly do in one day!!  So on that note, I'm pooped and will call it a day (and a half!).  Till next time, blessings!

Up to My Ears in Blackberries and Baby Birds!

Today was a good Monday!  Riley went to Day camp through the church we are currently visiting.  (Camp Crazy - I have to admit, the name did worry me a little bit... :-))  I dropped him off this morning fighting off tears (me not him) and praying a whole lot!  He went in with a look of determination on his face to make new friends and came out this afternoon with a grin on his face!  He had a good day,he made several new friends and even saw a friend of his from COOP!  He's ready to go back tomorrow!  Woohoo!

While he was at camp I spent the day reclaiming my home from a week of business and a weekend of travel.  Doing laundry, unpacking suitcases, cleaning the kitchen etc. Then I ventured out back to see what type of work awaited me there.  Tomatoes to pick, a few banana peppers, one grape tomato :-) and tons of blackberries!

 As I picked the blackberries my mind started thinking on what I could do with them.  Last year I froze a bunch and made some cobblers.  So this year I thought how about some blackberry jam!  MMMmmmm.....
Today I tried a recipe from Southern Living that seemed simple enough, it is a microwavable recipe, that didn't call for pectin.  Hmmm...  I tried it without the pectin at first but soon realized that you have to have the pectin.  Once I added it, the jam soon thickened up, I put it in jars and will refrigerate them.  I found another microwave recipe from Cooks.com that I'll try with the next batch.  Do any of you have a good recipe for blackberry jam that you would like to share?

The recipe made two jars and about two servings.  

Just before dinner I went out to water some plants, everything was so thirsty after our absence this weekend.  I love our backyard, it is so big, lots of flowers, our gardens and some trees and then our shed.  Our lovely, useful, ugly tin shed that is such an eyesore... See, our shed door fell off...a while back.  It was so heavy and so high off the ground that it just rotted off and we took our sweet time to get it fixed!  Doesn't that sound so hillbilly-ish?  We had finally got around to ordering a new door and found out that a mother Carolina Wren had made a nest inside a box on a shelf and laid 5 eggs.  Well, we very well couldn't put the new door on now could we??  So we wait.  Today I noticed a baby bird sitting on the ladder hanging in the shed, I went in to check it out and this is what I found.  When I came inside the shed she flew to some pots.

 Then upon further investigation I found this...

 

Aren't they cute????  And no, that isn't a real bug, it is on the bag.

So now we just have to make sure Lady doesn't find them....fun stuff though to find such cute little babies in our shed.  The door will just have to wait a little longer.  

Tomorrow while Riley is in Camp Crazy, I will take Lady to get a kennel cough shot so she can board soon.  Then I will head to our local homeschool resource center in search of some used curriculum.  Creative Learning Connection is a great place to get used curriculum, teaching aids, books, videos and games at decent prices.  If you live in the Huntsville area, go check them out!

   

This is Who I Am

Ok, so I know it has been a while since I posted something, how do I say, BUSY!!!  VBS, Baseball, Gardening, swimming, whew!  Things are starting to slow down some and I finally had a moment to sit down and blog something.  Well, my blogging buddy Lynnette had a great idea to post pictures of yourself that represent YOU, so I thought that would be easy and fun, so here goes.

I love my family!

 Our "Lady Bug"

We love to camp, hike and explore.

I love to teach Riley.  Most days he loves being homeschooled!  :-)

I love to Garden

I love my big beautiful family!

The only other part of me that you can't really put in a picture is that I am a daughter of the King!  I love my Lord Jesus and He has set me free!

This is me in a blog post of pictures.  Enjoy!