1, 2, 3 To The Zoo Lapbook

Yesterday for math the girl's made lapbook's for the book 1, 2, 3 To The Zoo by Eric Carle. The book is cute, great illustrations and easy enough for the girl's to read. Well, the only words in the book are actually just numbers so they only had to count.

I found the template for the lapbook here.

Homeschool Memoirs #3

I hope last week’s theme helped you get a bigger view and maybe some ideas about different ways to homeschool or curriculum. There is so much to share and so I hope this helped, especially the new homeschoolers, narrow things down a bit. I am sure some of you are still getting into your homeschool routines. I know some people are very routine oriented while others may be more “day-by-day”, and it all depends on your family and what works best for your life-style. This week please post what your planned homeschool routine is. The theme banner should give you some ideas on how to do that. I had fun making that and adding in real info (except for the times! lol).

Okay, I don't have a nice pretty chart to show what our routine is. We are relaxed this year. I am so anal retentive about thing's being a certain way that it caused way too much stress last year. So this year we have a way better outlook on our school day.

Let me start by saying that we do not have a set in stone schedule. We generally start our school day around 11 am. As time goes on I would like the time to move up earlier but this time works really good for us. That way we are done by 3 pm.

We don't do every subject every day. Here is a basic rundown of our week:

All 3 kids-

PE Mon, Wed, Fri

Monday-Friday

Bible

Language Arts

Math

Anthony-

Science Wed-Fri

History Mon-Fri

Art Thurs-Fri

Writing depends on the lesson, can be 3 days long, can be 9 days long

The Girl's-

Science varies, typically Mon-Tue (weather & temp is everyday)

History Tue-Wed

Art Thurs-Fri

Lapbooks varies because they either match history, science or literature

It seems confusing but it's easy to read in my planner. Aaron and I talked about the idea of having no school on Wednesday's because there are so many activities going on. But for this semester we will have school on Wed.'s. Next semester I am hoping to be in a co-op and Wed. is the day they have their classes.

Here are a couple of pic's of my homeschool planner. It's from the first week of school so it's not completely filled out yet, but it gives you the idea of how I plan it out.

kid free weekend!

So I begged my mom to come and get the girl's for me this weekend. I haven't had a weekend free from them in at least 6 months and I have a ton of stuff to do. Anthony is staying here but since he is capable of taking care of himself, it still counts as a kid free weekend!! woohoo

On my to-do list are:
1. clean the house (including the bathroom, yuck)

2. all of the laundry (including actually putting it on hangers and into the closet hehehe)

3. finish painting the girl's closet

4. clean and organize the girl's room

5. post my article (oh yeah, forgot to tell y'all about that...I will later)

6. plan out next week's school lessons

7. make copies of whatever material's I need for next week

8. maybe go to the library and renew some of the books we still need next week

9. do my bible study homework

10. oh and we are going to church...I forgot about the girl's wanting to go to church too, oh well, they can go next week...they are going to be mad at me though because they love church

So what are your weekend plans? If anyone wants to trade with me, feel free!!!

Our Wednesday

We had a ton of stuff to do yesterday, so here are some picture's from our day.

Here is Sara when she first got up yesterday. She look's sooo wide awake doesn't she? lol

All ready to go out to lunch.

Trying to buy paint at Walmart and Anthony was being his usual dorky self. I am painting the girl's closet. For those of you who have never been to my house, the girl's closet is set up to be a little playhouse.

It's pretty big and fits their play kitchen, washer & dryer and vanity. I am working on transforming it and just wait until I'm done!! It look's awesome already but it won't be ready to be revealed for at least another week. Or two, just depends on how busy I am.

Do you ever wonder why I have so many pictures of Sara? I will tell you...it's because the child never leaves my side!! Seriously, she will take her toys and sit on the floor right beside me wherever I am and play. What can I say? She loves me.

Here is Emma outside the church where her Girl Scout meeting's are. She was really excited to see her friend's again. And they were excited to see her too. One of the girl's yelled out that Emma was there and ran up to her and hugged her. We have an awesome troop and I am so glad that she is a part of it.

Next week I have a meeting to go to so I can sign Sara up for Daisy's. She has been very patient this summer waiting to meet her own friend's.

After Girl Scouts we came home and got ready to go to church. The kid's started Awana's and I started a bible study with the ladie's at church. I found our new church when I took the kid's there for VBS this summer.

They actually went to 3 VBS's but there was just something special about this church. It is smaller and it reminds me of how our old church in East Texas was. Everyone remembered the kid's from VBS and went right up and got them to go to their group's.

They just started a new branch of Awana's for 7th and 8th graders called Trek, aka Leaders in Training. At first they had Anthony in this group but the leaders really need to know their scripture well and Anthony just isn't there yet. So they put him in Truth & Training with the 6th graders. But even though some are in 6th grade, they were 12 (Anthony's age), so it's all good. And when we got home I was able to find Anthony's old Awana's shirt which has the Truth & Training logo on it and still fits! Awesome.

The girl's are both in Sparks but in different groups. When we got there Sara got out of the car and said "I forgot my shoes at home" Ahhh! how the heck do you forget to put shoes on? Sara is still shy when it comes to stuff like this, but hopefully she will come out of her shell this year.

The bible study I joined is on the book Before His Throne: Discovering the Wonder of Intimacy with a Holy God. It should be a good one. But I do hope they will do a Beth Moore study next because I just love her to death!

The first day of Homeschool PE was yesterday too but we are skipping this week. And with the schedule of events for Wednesday's, it looks like the kid's will not have school on Wednesday's at all. Which means Saturday school. Aaron is always working on Saturday's so we are here anyways.

So that was our Wednesday....how was yours?

Happy Birthday Jason

Happy 37th Birthday Jason!

Today is my brother Jason's 37th birthday. Jason passed away in a car accident 12 years ago. I always use this picture of us (taken on my 18th birthday) whenever I post about him and frankly, I'm tired of it! I need to scan more pictures, especially ones from when we were kid's. But for today, this will have to do.

I wrote this poem for Jason. I started writing poetry when I was 10 and my dad passed away. After Jason died I stopped completely. I just had no inspiration. So I'm kind of excited to be able to write again. I feel free. So here it is, my first poem in 12 years.

For Jason

Time stood still.

I held my breath.

I thought that if I let it out

time would rush back in,

and the reality of you gone

would set back in,

and I would have to manage

through it for another day.

All I can do is hold on to

what memories I have left,

maybe a picture or two.

Time steals sounds and smells.

It's sometimes cruel

and twisted,

robbing me of what little I have.

Without you here there is so

little to take.

So I hold my breath

while time stands still.

A forgotten memory rushes back

and I smile,

wishing you were here to reminisce with me.

But I'll take what I can get.

A brief moment

that takes us back.

Then I exhale,

and wake up from my dream.

Homeschool Memoirs #2

THEME
This week’s theme is about sharing your 2008-09 homeschool agendas and plans. You’ve been preparing your plans for sometime and you’re ready to go. Or you’re still in the planning-stage and need some inspiration or tips on what to use. Because many use different curriculum and methods there is always something new to be gleaned from other homeschoolers. So this week I hope you will share what you’re doing this year for your homeschool agenda. Share the different curriculum you’re using. You can also include what age/grade you’re using it for, how long you’ve been using it, and why you like it.

Okay, I actually have the curriculum we are using posted on the right sidebar of my blog. And this is a post I have been looking forward to because I am really excited about the curricula that I have chosen for our school year....but I wish I hadn't of waited until the last minute to post this before tomorrow's assignment. Ahhhh!!!!

Okay, let me start with Anthony. He is in the 7th grade and all of his books are at that level. Let me add that we have not started bible yet. We will not start until October.

• Learning Language Arts Through Literature (green book)- This is our first year using this program and so far it has been great. I have heard good and bad about it, mainly the bad being that it's not quite enough grammar and spelling to be a complete literature unit. Anthony likes that the lesson's are explained thoroughly to him and are short. I will more than likely supplement his spelling with Bob Jones because LLATL's spelling list's aren't long or hard enough for him

• History- Bob Jones Heritage Studies. This is actually a 6th grade book. I got Anthony's Bob Jone's stuff so far into the year last year, he had been doing one history and we switched to Bob Jone's when someone gave it to us. I didn't want to just waste the last chapter's and start 7th grade. Especially since we are starting this year learning about China. But we will also be using Bob Jone's for 7th grade history too.

• Math- Bob Jones 7th grade math. Love the way Bob Jone's explains math to the student. I am horrible in math and they make it so wasy to teach. I plan on using Bob Jone's for math all the way through high school too.

• Writing- Writing Strands 3- I love love love this book. Anthony hates writing and avoids it at all costs. He doesn't mind doing the assignments in this book. The author makes it fun for the kid's and I will continue the Writing Strands series all the way through high school.

• Science- We are doing Life Science through this science teacher that created it for homeschool students. It is simple, easy and only 3 days long every week. Click on the link on my sidebar to check it out. Oh yeah, the best part...it's free. Completely and totally. Next year we are doing the Earth Science he has created and that is $50.

• Art- How to Teach Art to Children. We have not started Art just yet, but this is the book I will be using for all 3 kid's. It teaches the basic's of lines, color's, shapes and then moves on to techniques.

Now I was going to do Language Art's different for each girl. Emma is in 1st grade and Sara in Kindergarten. But Sara has done very well so far keeping up with Emma and her 1st grade Language Arts, so both girl's are pretty much doing the same thing. The exception is math. They have their own grade level math books.

• History- Evan-Moor History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations. We are only doing history twice a week so I picked the History Pockets to be our guide. We are reading library books and supplementing with lapbooks. I love Evan-Moor products and the history pockets give a lot of good information and the crafts are fun.
• Here is an example of how we are using it...the first people we are studying are the Ancient Egyptians. One of the activities in the history pocket is a trip down the Nile. You pretend to be a crocodile going down the Nile and checking out the different ways the Egyptians used it. So we are branching off a little and doing a lapbook about crocodile's.

• Geography- I'm still fine tuning that. We are using Evan-Moor's Beginning Geography as a guide and we will be studying a different country every month. For now we are learning basic directions and how to read a map and globe. Next month the country studies will pick up with Greece (or is it Rome?)

• Science- Again, Evan-Moor books as guides. We do science two days a week and right now we are studying weather. We are in the middle of doing a really cool lapbook for the book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". I will post pics when we are done. Next month we are learning about our bodies and how to take care of them.

• Math- we are actually using workbooks from Walmart right now. We are catching up on basics and then we will move onto harder books. I haven't decided which ones yet.

• Phonics- Explode the Code books. These are mainly for Sara. Emma breezes right through the lesson. I love them. They really do a good job making it fun to learn the letter sounds.

• Learning Language Arts Through Literature (blue book)- This is perfect for the girl's. The lesson's are short and they are really retaining the information they are learning. There are several book studies (12 or 13 of them), but the set comes with a ton of beginning reader books. The point of the curriculum is to teach reading with some grammar and spelling thrown in. It really is one of those open and go books and I like that.

• Lapbooks- Okay this isn't really a subject, but I am more excited about our lapbooks this year than anything else. Not only are we using them to branch off of history, but we are using them in science and language arts as well. If I can find a lapbook for it, we are doing it!! I am also trying to do them according to what we are doing for field trips. This month we are going apple picking, so I have chosen to do a lapbook on the book The Apple Pie Tree. I just really love lapbook's because you really get to go more in-depth on a subject that is presented in a fun and exciting way. Check out Homeschool Share for tons of lapbook templates!

Here is a basic rundown of our plans for the year.

September
History- Ancient Egypt
Science- weather
Geography- maps & globe
Lapbooks- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 123 to the zoo, The Apple Pie Tree, Honey Bees

October
History- Ancient Greece
Science- My Body
Geography- Greece
Lapbooks- My body, Food Pyarmid/Food Groups

November
History- Ancient Rome
Science- the Earth
Geography- Italy
Lapbooks- Goody O' Grumpity

December
History- no history
Science- water
Geography- no geography
Lapbooks- water cycle

January
History- Ancient China
Science- animal habitats
Geography- China
Lapbooks- China, House for Hermit Crab

February
History- Aztecs
Science- animals
Geography- Mexico
Lapbooks- not sure yet

March
History- Explorers
Science- plants
Geography- Spain
Lapbooks- explorer's, Munch Muncha Muncha

April
History- Life in teh Plymouth Colony
Science- life cycles, butterflies, ladybug's
Geography- Germany
Lapbooks- Grouchy Ladybug

May
History- Colonial America
Science- Exploring Space
Geography- France
Lapbooks- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Name letter books

Today in Language Arts the girl's made little books about things that start with the first letter of their names. I had the hardest time thinking of stuff that starts with an E. It drove me crazy and I even tried to Google some but that was no help.

I came up with:

1. Elephant
2. Egg
3. Ear
4. Eye
5. Eat
6. Eagle

That was it. If you can think of more, let me know and we can make some more books. For Sara we came up with:

1. Sailboat
2. Sad
3. Star
4. Shark
5. Snake
6. Sun

Again, let me know some more S's. Thanks!!!!!

headless horse

When Sara woke up this morning, this is how she found one of their play horses. Emma was still asleep and I couldn't help but want to put just the head in bed with her just like in The Godfather. But I figured since she know's nothing of the movie, the joke would be lost on her. Oh well.

more Hannah Montana

My mom bought Emma some cute Hannah Montana pants the other day. She actually already has the pair on the right but my mom got these on clearance for $2 a pair so she couldn't pass them up!

Labor Day at the lake

We went out to Lewisville Lake yesterday for Labor Day. All of our friend's showed up and cooked out. Anthony and Emma went to my mom's, so it was just me, Aaron and Sara. Right before sunset everyone got a balloon to release to Heaven for Will.