Week # 9

I came down with a nasty head cold on Tuesday. It really hampered our school efforts this week. We did manage to get a little done. Most of it on Monday and a few little things throughout the week.

English/Language Arts-
Field Trip Summary- the kids wrote about our field trip to Roloff farms and drew a picture of the things we did there.

DD-Workbook #1- page 48-49 + review of previously learned sight words.
Workbook #2- Still working on short vowels.
SPEECH CLASS

SPELLING- DS & DD- Spelling DVD 30 minutes each- new spelling words for both. They are still loving this game and are doing great with spelling!


MATH
DD- Saxxon Math Lesson 25
DS- Saxxon Math Lessons 31 & 32
DD- Math drill - addition and subtraction

GEOGRAPHY
Passport- Entered Belize- traded money for Brazilian real.
Intermediate World Atlas pg 52-55
Geography Game- (South America) By the end of the week, only having played it twice- DD could locate 3 out of 12 countries and DS could locate 7 out of 12!
A trip around the world- Interesting facts about Brazil- Crossword puzzle.
Started Brazil lapbook- Flag, Animals, layers of the rain forest


SCIENCE/NATURE
Tropical Rain forests-
Activity- where the jungles are- found all the rain forests on a world map- colored them, entered them in our World notebook
Wild Places- In the Jungle, Why rainforests are important, River Amazon, Strange Plants
Living World- Amazon, Rain forest plants

We started a potatoe plant experiment on Friday- more about it next week.

Video- Smithsonian National Zoo- Really interesting video- We learned about a lot of different endangered animals from all over the world and about thier conservation efforts. It led to a great discussion!

MUSIC/ART-
No special music this week- my head couldn't take it! We did an art project though. A local bank is hosting a pumpkin decorating contest. The kids worked on thier own pumpkins. They turned out SO cute! Pictures and results listed soon!

READING-
DS- Read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to page 68
I read aloud- 5 Little Monkeys reading in bed. Nate Saint Chapter 3 and Rain Forest.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES
Cheerleading, soccer, Girl Scouts. DS went hunting for the first time with Hubby and Grandpa! Had a great time! DD had her first real sleep over at a friends house. She had a great time. I, on the other hand, did not. She did call me quite a bit which was nice, but it was hard for me to go to bed without tucking her in :( and waking up without her here... It will be a long while before another sleepover happens!

Nature Study- Tree identification field trip

As much as I love it, nature isn't my strongest subject. I have to ask for help a lot when it comes to teaching the kids anything new. Before the leaves fell I wanted to an activity with the kids about the different trees that are native here in Oregon. I was lucky enough to meet a park ranger who was willing to lead an activity for me. I decided the activity was too neat not to share so we invited my Girl Scout troop to come along.
It was such a fun activity. The kids walked around the lake learning how to identify different trees by thier leaves and bark. Afterwards, they did leaf and bark rubs and made a book to take home for reference.
The kids had fun and so did all the parents!

Field Trip to Roloff Farms

Our family ran across the show "Little People Big World" A couple of years ago. I had seen the familiy years before the show appeared on a few talk shows and really admired them. They had been through so much and had persevered through it all with thier heads held high. Anyhow, we began recording the show and watching it every weekend. It opened the door to so many conversations with the kids. The kids became very interested in the subject of dwarfism and we began studying it over the summer. The kids love watching it also for all the references to Oregon, as they live only a couple hours away from us! It also doesn't hurt that one of the sons, Jacob, LOVES soccer and Chandler does as well. (You can guess who his favorite family member is!)
Anyhow after talking about it for the last couple of years we decided to take a trip to thier pumpkin patch this year. I am SO glad that we did!
We had such a great time! We got to meet Amy and Matt, and also Matt's mom and dad. Oh and we can't forget Rocky- Thier dog! They were all so friendly and exactly how we had pictured them to be. We took two different tours of the property and got to see all the neat places we had seen on t.v. After we finished the tours, got a snack to eat, and visited all the other fun little places they had set up around the farm we finally picked our pumpkins! It was an awesome day! We hope to go again next year!
The kids and I with Amy
Matt

Our family with Matt's parents

One of the kids favorite places on the farm!

In the western town

My lil pumpkin with her pumpkin!

Interesting quote

When you follow your passion,
Society's help is gone.
You must be careful.
You're completely on your own.

-Joseph Campbell

Week # 8

It has been hard for me to find time to blog. I am behind in posting this and know that if I wait too much longer I probobally won't do it at all. So here it is...

The week went by smoothly, busy as usual, but no problems.

BIBLE
Greenland
George Muller
Mathew 5:27-42
Memory Verse

LANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISH
Copied Memory Verse
Dicatation of Memory Verse daily
DD- Wkbk#1 Pgs 40-47 with daily review (working on short vowels and sight words)
DD- Wkbk #2 Animal riddles, short vowels
DD- Wkbk #4 Pgs 8-11 Short vowels
DS- Workbook- Reading comprehension 10 pages
DS- Yellowbook Page 38-42
I read to them some about the orgin of pumpkins/ Halloween.
Letter writing- They chose to write to Grandma and Grandpa Abbott this week- thanking them for a care package they sent them earlier in the week.
DD-SPEECH CLASS and homework
DD & DS- Vocabulary- lake and stream, wrote out definitions and added them to our notebooks.
MATH
DD- Saxxon Math Lessons 21-24
DS-Saxxon Math Lesson 30
DS- Math workbook 3 pages (Begining multiplication)
Math Drills-
DD- Addition and subtraction
DS- Division and subtraction


GEOGRAPHY
We continued our study on CANADA this week.
Finished our Canada lapbook- climate, religion, major industries, wow facts, people and landscape
Illustrated World Atlas- Nature Farming and Industry
A Trip Around the World- Read about Canada, crossword puzzle
CANADA STORE- Kids spent thier Canadian dollars on fun things from the "Canadian Store"
Canada Quiz- Quiz on everything we had learned the last two weeks. The kids did AWESOME! Both of them answered questions that I didn't really expect for them to get right. (I really didn't think they had been paying attention, but they proved me wrong!)
SCIENCE-
Living World- Living by Rivers and Streams, Water Birds
NATURE Video- Ugliest Animals of the world- A show I found on OPB, the kids LOVED it and learned a lot from it! SO DID I!
We continued on our Frog Lapbooks- Predator, Prey, tadpole, frog. We also continued to learn how to take care of our tadpoles- While still waiting anxiously for thier arrival!
SAHARA Video- Interesting, but too long and the kids lost interest.
Reading Rainbow- Animal Habitats

MUSIC ART
Going over the sea- Canada songs-


READING
I read aloud- The Frog Princess, Night of the Moonjellies, and Nate Saint Chapters 1 and 2.
DS- Read Cats that Roar, Started Tuck Everlasting, then his book request came through so he started Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Chapters 1-5

FIELD TRIP- I arranged for a park ranger to take us out to the lake to identify several different types of trees. I thought it would be fun to share so I invited my Girl Scout troop to come along too! It was really fun! I will post more about it another time.
We also visited ROLOFF FARMS later in the week. We had so much fun! Again, I will have to post more later.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES
Cheerleading, Soccer, Royal Rangers, Bible Study

Still searching for a guitar teacher :(

Week # 7

We had a great week. I was really happy with all we accomplished and by how much quality time we had together. The kids got along so well. It was AMAZING! I swear they are like best friends now. It makes the days so much more fun when they get along like this! DS's attitude towards school work has really improved. We focused a lot on science and nature this week as that is what the kids were really interested in and they were literally begging for more projects! We slacked a bit in our other subjects, ecspecially math. I figured we should focus where the kids wanted to focus hoping they would retain more in the end. Hopefully this thinking will prove correct. The other day we ran in to a friend from public school that we hadn't seen since the end of last year. They asked what kids the teachers had and if they liked him/her. The both started laughing and said they LOVED thier teacher and explained that they were homeschooling. They both went on to tell her all the different reasons that homeschooling was awesome. It was really cute. It was nice to hear in thier own words how they were feeling about our big change!
( I will be adding photos later, I just realized that the camera is at work)

BIBLE-
We read about the Garifuna, although the kids were not very interested and I am not sure much of it will stick.
We also read about William and Catherine Booth (The founders of The Salvation Army) We did some review questions as well.
We read Mathew 5:11-26 this week.
Our memory verse this week was Mathew 5:11. Both the kids found it to be harder than our previous verses but they both got it by the end of the week.


LANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISH

Copied Memory Verse
DS- Worked in Yellow Book- Pages 29-44, He took the first assesment test in the series and did well.
DS read White Stallion, and did written review questions.
DS- Vocabulary words pertaining to the book, looked them up in the dictionary and wrote out the meaning of each word.
DS and DD- Vocabulary- RIVER and RAPIDS
DD- SPEECH class at public school + speech homework
DD and DS- Book Report on Cameron Townsend. I gave them both the same outlines although I didn't expect the same from both. DS did great and DD exceeded my expectations working really hard to sound out words on her own.
DD- Worked in Workbook #1 Pages 36-39 and reviewed previously learned sight words. She is able to identify more than 30 words off hand now. Just two months ago she was able to identify about 5 words!!
DS- Spelling Test
DD and DS- Both did the spelling DVD 4 days each this week. They have so much fun with it that they don't consider it working at all. They beg to play it. It has helped thier spelling so much!

MATH

DD- Saxxon Lesson 19 and 20 We worked really slow on lesson 19. Instead of moving on I decided to stick with it and make sure she really understood. We are working on number sentences and fractions. She is doing great and really enjoys math. She took her second assesment test and passed with flying colors.

DS- Saxxon Lesson 28- 29- We mixed things up this week and decided to try doing math in the afternoon instead of the morning. It would have worked fine but we ended up focusing more on other subjects this week. I myself like doing math in the morning and getting it over with. I am not a fan of math although I do love the program itself.

GEOGRAPHY

Passports- We moved in to CANADA, so the kids got thier passports stamped and exchanged thier American dollars for Canadian dollars. Which they again used to buy thier meals throughout the week. They love this!
Illustrated World Atlas- People and Places of Canada
DS- worked on Geography packet
Video- Discover the World- Canada
Map work- Labeled and colored the provinces
Read Pgs 95 and 99-100 from Trip around the World
We started on Canada Lapbooks. The kids think these are really fun!

SCIENCE/NATURE

We started the week with a hike up a trail near Oakridge that we had never hiked before. We had a great time. We spent about 5 hours out there finding all kinds of neat things! The kids' favorite though was a salamandar. Unfortunatley we only have an insect/spiders field guide, so we were unable to get more information on it. The kids made a journal entry about it in thier NATURE NOTEBOOK.

Living World- Rivers and lakes, Getting oxygen underwater, freshwater plants and animals.
We started a FROG lapbook this week also. We got a lot done with this unit this week as the kids have taken great interest in the subject of frogs. They asked to do more projects, read more books, all through out the week. We are still waiting on the arrival of our tadpoles.


We ended the week with an awesome hike about an hour from home. We introduced the kids to mushroom picking. We went far in to the woods, hiking for almost 6 hours. We picked about 25 pounds of mushrooms.(Chantrell's and Lobsters) It was great family time and the kids both earned $10.00 for thier hardwork when we sold the mushrooms later that evening.(I wish I had remembered to get a picture of all the mushrooms before we sold them!) We had an interesting run in with a bear while high in the mountains. Luckily after a short stare down the bear slunkered off behind some trees and didn't bother us. It was my first run in with a bear, I doubt I will forget it soon!
Here is Chandler's favorite find of the day!

MUSIC/ART
Going over Sea - Song from Canada- the kids both really enjoy this song, we sang it over and over again doing the movements that go along with it. It is really cute!

We made "Inuit soap carvings" using Dove soap. In all reality we made a HUGE mess of soap carvings but they kids had a great time and were really proud of thier soaps!


READING

I read aloud- When I was young in the Mountains, Cameron Townsend, (We finally finished it this week) From Tadpole to Frog, Watch it Grow- Frog, Red Eyed Tree Frog

DS read- White Stallion

Book Basket- Monday and Tuesday- 30 minutes each day.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES
Cheerleading, Soccer, Royal Rangers, Bible Study, Girl Scouts. DS had a friend stay overnight. It was really busy this week, not single night with nothing going on. Hoping it slows down soon! I want some reading time of my own!
I am still trying to locate a Guitar teacher for the kids. I was refered to one in Eugene, but I am holding off because we don't have an open day to get up to Eugene. Too much going on. Finding one locally is the only chance we have of having the time to do it. Hopefully I can locate a teacher soon!

Book Club

The other day while at the library I noticed a flyer for a book club. I was excited to see it was a book club for 9-12 year olds! They have never offered anything for DS's age group before. The book for the month is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All the copies were checked out of course, so we were a little bummed. We are still trying to locate a copy to borrow from someone before the meeting. I am hoping to get my hands on a copy this week so that he will have time to read it. I wish they had publicized the club (in the paper, maybe?) so that we had more notice, but at least we know now! Hopefully this ends up being something DS really enjoys!

Science Unit- Life Cycle of tadpoles

A couple weeks ago we started learning about life cycles. Over the summer the kids had shown interest in tadpoles/frogs. While on vacation we were shopping and ended up coming across a frog habitat on clearance. On the box it said it included a coupon for free tadpoles. I opened it today and it is for ONE free tadpole, $8.99 Shipping and handling AND they won't start mailing them until NOVEMBER :( I was disapointed. I looked all over locally and was unable to find them. The time of year isn't exactly the best for them so I ended up finding them online from another supplier. Anyhow, the kids and I have been reading up on how to care for them and how to set up the right kind of habitat over the summer. We will be going to the library tommorow to find anything "froggy." The kids are really excited for this unit!
I haven't decided exactly how we are going to go about it. I am still looking for fun ideas and projects to go along with the unit. I would love input and ideas!!! I plan on reading a lot of books, informational, and some just silly fun ones. As well as a documentation of the life cycle- having the kids write what is happening and drawing pictures. I have also found interesting news stories to read to the kids that pertain to frogs. Today I found one that is about game wardens seizing almost 200 illegal frogs from Nevada. I plan on using this to teach them about ecosystems, invasive species, ect. This is my first attempt at anything like this- I have never been in to bugs, insects, anything SLIMY... The things we do for our kids! Wish me luck!

Week # 6

September 29- October 5
This was a difficult week for us. We had a lot going on between work and family stuff. By Wednesday we had pretty much given up on doing school work. It was a crazy week. Next week is bound to be better!

BIBLE-

Haiti
Review of Mathew
Memory Verse
Review of previous memory verses

LANGUAGE ARTS/ENGLISH

Copy Memory Verse and add it to journal
DS-Yellow Book pg 25-28
DD- Wbk #2 Pg 14
DD- Wbk #1 pg 32-35 + Review of previously learned sight words
DD- SPEECH + Speech homework

MATH

DD- Saxxon Lesson 18
DS- Saxxon Lesson 27

DRILLS-
DD- Subtraction
DS- Fractions

GEOGRAPHY

A trip Around the World- Pg 3-4
State Puzzle
States Quiz- DD got 10! DS got 26! (Felt so good to know that I had taught them that! And in not much time at all!
DS- Continued Geography packet
Globes and Maps- Finished book
Illustrated World Atlas- Nature, Farming and Industry
Colored a Mexican Flag, wrote what flag represents on the back of it.


SCIENCE/NATURE

Living World- Coping with Dryness
Wild Places- Hunters and the Hunted, Things that come from the desert and making things grow in the desert
DD- We began our series on Seasons- We wrote a story about fall and drew a picture. We chose a tree in our backyard to follow throughout the seasons. (We took a picture of her by it, but my camera was being difficult and none of the pictures really turned out.) We are going to document it through written stories, coloring photos, and taking pictures.

MUSIC/ART

I bought precut puzzles and the kids loved painting thier own scenes on them. They were originally going to make something that had to do with Mexico, but decided just to let them paint whatever they wanted. Niece had fun painting along side them!


READING

I read aloud- MEXICO
DD- Read aloud Big Big Bus
Family read aloud- Cameron Townsend- Chapters 13-16

COOKING
We wanted to do more with this, but as it was a difficult week the dish that we chose from Mexico was salsa. We had hoped to have a fiesta and to have decorated with homeade pinaitas and such but it just didn't happen this week. We made salsa and talked a little about the crops that are grown in Mexico.

SPORTS/EXTRA ACTIVITIES

Cheerleading, soccer, Girl Scouts

Week # 5

This week went much better. I felt like we might finally be finding our groove. We had found workbooks and activities for my neice to occupy her during "school" time and she seemed to really like learning with the kids. It made things a lot easier!

BIBLE-
Cuba
Discussion of John
Memory Verse + review of previous memory verses

LANGUAGE ARTS/ English-

Copied Memory Verse and added to our journal
Dictation of Memory Verses
DS- Yellow Book pages 14-21
DD- Wkbk# 2 pg 15
Vocabulary- Geography from A-Z badland and butte
DD- True/False
DD-Wbk #1 26-31 + review of previously learned sight words and sounds
DD- Having trouble with b's and d's- Practiced them a lot this week
No letter writing this week


SPEECH-
DD- First session of speech started this week at public school, Tuesday mornings
Speech homework- Review of last years concepts

MATH-

DS- Saxxon Lesson 23-26
DD- Saxxon Lessons 15-17
Drills/ Workbooks
DD- Sums, Number sentences, charts, addition
DS- Wkbk - Graphs and charts


GEOGRAPHY-

Illustrated World Atlas- P 20-21
DS- Continued Geography Packet
Money Exchange- We exchanged a $20 bill (Each) for Pesos- (Using fake money) We used the money throughout the next two weeks to buy our meals and at the end of the two weeks had a "store" the kids could buy things from. It worked great as a math lesson as well.
Intermediate World Atlas- pg 25 46-49
A Trip Around the World pg 5
Worksheet- Mexico-
State Quiz
Episode of "How it works" on landfills in New York- It showed NY's garbage system from inside out- We used it as Geography as NY has to haul thier garbage out of state. After watching it we discussed it in great length and used a map to find where the garbage went from NY.

SCIENCE-

Living World- Coping with desert temps
Wild Places- Birds that Live in the deserts, surviving in the deserts

MUSIC/ART

Pin Pon & Tingalayo and at nieces request Eentsie Weentsie Spider OVER AND OVER AGAIN

READING-
DD- Read aloud- Big Big Bus
DS- Read aloud- Hill of Fire
I read aloud- MEXICO, Cameron Townsend Chapters 11-12

Independent reading time-

DS- Stuart Little (Still can't locate reading log)
Book Basket- 30 mins Monday and Tuesday

Foreign Language-

Spanish DVD Lesson 1 Monday and Wednesday

SPORTS/Extra Activities-

Cheerleading, Soccer- We are unable to meet with the homeschool group until the end of soccer season as the two schedules conflict :( didn't make Bible study this week as I had Girl Scout meetings to attend that night. Would have like to have more outside activities this week.

Week # 4

This week was a little tough, as we were still trying to find a schedule that worked well for us while having to adjust to having a 3 year old in the house. We survived.. barely.

Bible-
Navajo
Discussion of our family tree (Review of our summers activities)
Hero Tales- Harriet Tubman (& review of what we learned about her last year)
Memory Verse + Review of previously learned versus

Language Arts-
Copied memory verse
Dictation of memory verse
DD-Wb #1 pgs 20-25 + Review
DS- Yellow Book Pg 8-11
Geography A-Z Canyon, Gulch
DD Wk #2 Pg 11
Wrote letters to person of choice on Friday - DD chose Nanny DS chose friend Benny, did not send them this time- delivered them.

MATH-

DS- Saxxon Lessons 19-22
DD- Saxxon Lessons 12-14
Drills-
DD- Addition, Subtraction, Sums
DS- Rounding


GEOGRAPHY-

Review of state names
Great States Game
DS- Continued Geography packet
Problem solving challenge- States
Coloring of US Flag- writing what the flags stripes and stars represented on the back
States Puzzle
States Quiz
Illustrated World Atlas- Farming and Industry
Online States Quiz http://www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf

SCIENCE-
Living World- Rain in the Desert
Wild Places- A storm in the Arizona desert, After the rain

MUSIC/ART-

Songs from US- Eentsie Weentsy Spider + review of previously learned songs

READING-
(Read Alouds)-
Mama do you love me?
Papa do you love me?
Cameron Townsend Chapters 7-10

Independent reading time-
DS- Stuart Little (Again unable to locate reading log for that week so unsure of what chapters were read)
DD&DS- 30 min Book Basket- Tue& Thurs

SPORTS/Extra Activities

Cheerleading, Soccer, Girl Scouts, Playdate with the neighbors

Week # 3

September 8-14
This week was overwhelming. It was 3 weeks ago but I remember the feelings well. I went to bed crying more than one night that week.
Things at work were crazy. My three year old niece came to stay with us for an indefinite amount of time. DS was getting frustrated with Math. The only subject he still wanted to do was Bible. DD was doing fine and still eager to learn.

So it was a hard week. We were still trying to figure out what does and doesn't work.

Bible-

Missionary kids
Overview of the Bible
Dwight Moody

Language Arts/HandWriting/Spelling

DS Yellow Book
Watched a documentary on dwarfism- DS then wrote a paper on what he learned, DD drew a picture showing what she learned. (This wasn't something we had planned on doing, saw the show and didn't feel like fighting with DS about Math or anything else at the moment so we made a lesson out of it.)
DD- Phonix Workbooks Pg 10-19 with daily review of previously learned sight words.
Not So long lost Treasure Hunt- I asked DH for help with this assignment and was really excited to see what he had come up with! He made a neighborhood map to scale with a seperate set of directions- It was really impressive. We had some visiting friends that weekend so they joined in too! See http://4twinklingstars.blogspot.com/ for pictures of our FLAT FRIENDS! The kids really enjoyed the hunt and we hope to do another one in the near future!
MATH-
DS- Lessons 16-18
DD-Lessons 8-11
Drills-Workbooks

Geography-
DS began an advanced Geography packet- It is a little tough for him, designed for older students so we are working on it together and very slowly.
Pre Test- Kids were given a US Map, a World Map and maps of the other continents to see what they knew coming in to this assignment. DS could locate the US on the world map. Other than that they were left blank.
Intermediate World Atlas Pg 22-25, 39
Maps and Globes pg 38-42
US Puzzle, worked on it once a day.
Lots of review of the Globe and the States.

Science/ Nature Notebook-
Deserts- What lives in the desert, how the desert changes
We grew our "magic rocks" that they found on thier treasure hunt
The difference between natural and manmade
Identified spiders and insects we found out in the garden and the garage and entered them in our Nature Notebooks. We found a snake skin this week too. The kids thought this was sooo cool! I on the other hand, was not excited to find shed snake skin in the garage right next to where I get in the car!!

Music/Art
American Indian song- The crooked Path- (follow the leader, I was impressed at how fast the kids picked up the words. It was much more difficult for me to do so!) I really want to find a foreign language class for them.

Reading-

Journeys- A book about a dog sled race. The kids loved it and were wanting to learn all they could about snow dogs. They took a special interest since our Kona is a Samoyed and often refered to as a snow dog herself.
We watched a movie that weekend that went with the theme, For the life of me I can't remember the name of it, but it was really good and the kids enjoyed it. (It had John Cusak in it and was probobally near 10 years old. I could be wrong..) Afterwards we discussed it as a family and made comparrisions/ contrasts to the book that we had read all week and the movie.
DS continued to read Stuart Little on his own. Can't find his reading log at the moment so I don't know how far he got that week.

Cameron Townsend Chapters 3-6

Sports/ Extra Activities -
Cheer continues, We had our first official meeting with our newly established Homeschool group. There was a great turn out and I was excited to see two other families that we knew from school with children in each of my kids' grade levels. We came up with a group name, took a group photo, made frames for our photos, played at the playground and had an ice cream party. This meeting was really for everyone to get to know each other. DD had a great time, DS had an ok time, playing with his two buddies that he already knows from church and when those boys were off doing something else he would come hide behind me... He has never had an easy time in group settings. Hopefully this becomes easier for him soon. We attended Bible study as usual, which is a play date for the kids who spend the evening running around with all thier friends and eating goodies
We got a guitar for $20.00 from another family at homeschool group! We were really excited about this!

Week # 2

Trying to do a lot of this from memory.. Might be tough...

September 1-7

Bible- Animism, Buddhism, Hinduisn, Islam, Judaism

Handwriting-
Copied memory verse from last week. Wrote and revised letters to family.

Math-
DD- Saxxon- Lessons 1-7
DS- Saxxon- Essons 12-15
Drills- Addition, subtraction
DD- Workbook -Graphs

Spelling-
DD- Spelling DVD game
DS- Yellow Book- Spelling list- Test on Friday %100

Langauge Arts/ English-
DD- Workbooks
DS- Yellow Book

Nature Journal-
Played in the backyard and found habitats of the different animals and insects that live there. Drew pictures of these habitats in our journals.

Geography-
Lattitude and Longitude, activities and worksheets
elevation and depth
physical and political maps
Learning names of oceans and continents
Globe Puzzle
Local Map- identify where we are and how to get other places.
Made maps of our neighborhood, and maps of our house
Grid activity

Cooking/ Math / Geography-
Kids made cakes that resembled maps. They loved this!

Science-
Living World 12-17
Cycles in Nature
Plant Life
Celery experiment
Watched Oregon Field Guide- lamprey and Aquarium divers

Music/Art
Hello to All the Children of the World- Practiced and learned hello in different languages

History-

Added to our book of centuries

Reading-
DS- Lord of the Fleas + Review Questions
DD- Sight word Test
DD- Peter's Dream
DD- Teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons 1-2

Independent Reading Time-
DS- Stuart Little Chapter 1-4


Family Reading time-
Grandfathers Journey, Cameron Townsend Chapter 1-2

Foreign Language- Spanish DVD - Learning the basics of communication, hello, my name is.. ect.

SPORTS/Extra Activities-
Cheerleading and Girl Scouts Registered for fall soccer, playdates with other homeschoolers, Bible Study Group


This week went well. Trying to find a routine that works for us all. DD has shown interest in learning to play the guitar for over a year now, going to look in to getting an inexpensive one.

Summer Schedule

We had a really busy summer that included three trips to different parts of California, a trip to Nevada, and a trip to Washington. We didn't do much formal work during the summer. We visited a few water parks, Hot August Nights, saw Great Grandparents and Great Great Grandparents, among many other things.

We used our road trips as Geography lessons. Frequently using a map and showing the kids where we were and how we got there. While in Nevada we spent a lot of time just talking about the landscape there and how it differed from Oregon and other states they had been to. We started learning about deserts and what animals and plants can survive in them.

We also visited Willows, California where some of my relatives live. My Great Granparents home was just sold to the city. The city has plans to tear it down. So we went down to document the history of the house and of my family. We ended up learning so much about my family that I never knew. It was a very emotional, worth while trip. I began showing the kids how family trees work and they made thier own trees with what they knew about our family.



We also visited Ocean World in Crescent City, California. It was one of my favorite things we did the entire summer. We almost didn't go, as we have been to many aquariaums and this one was really small, and we didn't think the kids would see anything they hadn't seen a hundred times before. So glad we did!

They have a guided tour that goes through and we all learned lots of interesting facts that we hadn't known from all of our previous visits to other aquariums.
We got to pet a shark. We all loved that! We learned the difference between seals and sea lions, and they put on a fun show for us! We all walked away with so much new knowledge, it was exciting. We are still talking about the things we learned on that trip!




We ended the summer with a chartered fishing trip on the ocean. The boys went out on the boat while DD and I walked the beaches finding interesting shells, hermit crabs, animal bones, and other interesting sea finds. It was a very busy summer, but it was great fun.

We came home and had 2 days before public school was back in session. We had previously decided we were going to try to stick to the public school's calendar as best we could to keep on scehdule.


video of the seal/sea lion show at Ocean World.

And so it begins- Week #1

From the beginning: JUNE 2008
The kids and I were very excited to get started and try to get a feel for how things were going to be in the upcoming year. Well, by kids, I should say DD was excited, DS was convinced he could get all the work done for the year in a few weeks then be done with school for they year.
So we started in on week one:

It was the beginning of the summer so I am already having a hard time recalling exactly what we did (Case in point why I have decided that blogging would be a great idea!)

We started Saxxon math for DS (DD's had not arrived yet and was still on backorder)
Lessons 1-5

Language Arts- (DS)
Yellow Book Lesson 1

Geography/Life Skills
Applied for our passports , filling out forms and learning how to adress and mail a letter from start to finish.
Became Familiar with a globe, and a wall map
Practiced distance and scales
Maps and Globes Book- learned about the Equator, hemispheres, The function of a compass and a legend.

Bible-
Discussed JOHN, located Greece and Korea on map, Worked on coordinating worksheets.
Memory Verse ohn 3:16
DS stayed interested and was very excited and fast to learn his memory verse. He takes a special interest in the Bible, and has mentioned becoming a missionary several times.

Read Aloud-
Family reading time before bed every night- Because of Winn Dixie

Music-
Hello to all the Children of the World- A fun song that teaches different ways of saying hello in different languages. DS was not thrilled. DD loved it and wanted to continue singing and dancing to it all day.

I felt that we were taking a slow aproach but looking back on it I realize we accomplished a lot!

Our Cirriculum for 2008-2009

So after a lot of thought and lots of talks, I decided to go with a pre-planned cirriculum for the year. I looked through and researched quite a few until I was introduced to My Father's World. I fell in love with it instantly. The program I picked is a 4th grade level, but I feel confident that DS (3rd Grade) And DD (1st grade) are both more than capable of doing the work. It is based on taking an imaginary trip around the world. With a passport, converting money, eating foods from each country, among many of the fun activities. It is really hands on and I know both my kids will enjoy it as will I! I plan to take it slow and use the cirriculum planner as more of an outline rather than a "must do" Adding my own activities where I see fit and scrapping ones that I don't. I added Saxxon Math at each of thier grade levels. Hooked on Phonix, and Teach your Child to read in 100 easy Lessons for DD. Yellow Book for Language Arts (DS) as well as a hodgepodge of other interesting books that were given to me or that I had come across. We are keeping a Nature Journal and a Centuries book as well.
The following are just a few of them:

Our Journey to homeschooling-Part 4

After a lot of brainstorming, praying, talking to my SIL, and finding out that a few of the kids friends from church (Awesome, well mannered, friendly kids) were homeschooled, I brought the subject of homeschooling up to DH again. This time I had proof that homeschooled kids weren't unsociable wierdos- He knew our niece wasn't a wierdo, nor the kids from church, not only were they not wierd they were some of the neatest kids we knew. He also knew that no matter what decision we made I was not budging on the fact that I would not send the kids back to that school.

I went to the library and checked out every book on homeschooling I could find. I read them all in a matter of a few weeks. I spoke to my SIL and my friend from church and bombarded them with questions. I presented all the info to DH and he was finally convinced that homeschooling wouldn't turn the kids in to wierdos who wore underwear on thier heads. (I later found out from SIL that they had known a rather odd family growing up that homeschooled, and after further discussion we all agreed that some people are wierd no matter where they go to school!)

In the end it was a family decision. Both the kids were excited about the idea. Although neither really knew what homeschooling really was other than they didn't have to go back to the public school. We decided to take it on a one year basis and view it as whether it worked out or not we would have gained a whole year with our kids.


I had reservations though. As much as I knew I was doing the right thing I dealt with guilt. Guilt that I would be unable to work full time at the family business as was formerly assumed since both the kids would be in school full time. DH was already having a hard time picking up the slack for me since I had been spending most of my time at the school rather than at work. I also worried that I wouldn't know enough to teach them, or that I wouldn't have the patience. I also wondered how I was going to do it all. I was already overcommited and over stressed.

Through out all my doubting myself and my worries and fears. I felt in my heart that I was doing what was best for our family and so our homeschooling journey begins...

Our Journey to homeschooling-Part 3

The summer went by fast. The whole summer I felt anxious about sending him back to school. He didn't want to go back either. But I felt trapped. Not knowing of any other options (Private schools were way too far out of our price range to even consider, we had just opened a business in January.) The word "Homeschool" came back in to our vocabulary as my DH's sister had made the decision to homeschool her daughter. DS began 2nd grade and DD began Kindergarten (With the same teacher DS had)A few months went by before we noticed things getting even worse. His teacher this year wouldn't allow parents in the classroom. He said it was a distraction and he didn't need the help. He was always bothered to talk about how DS was doing, never seemed to have the time. Wouldn't return phone calls.
DS spent more time moping. Crying over studying spelling words, worried he was going to fail his upcoming tests. I contacted the school councilor who started to see him for his anxiety. We again stopped doing our extra work. I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do to help him.
I asked his teacher to meet with me and he did so telling me that he was really disapointed in DS because he was a good boy capable of more than he was giving. That he hurried through his work just to be done with it. So I asked him to send fresh copies of everything he found unacceptable and that I would have DS work on them on the weekends. That first week his teacher sent home an entire packet of work for him to redo. The next week nothing came home. I would have loved to think that the lesson worked so well that he had learned instantly but I decided to ask the teacher about it. He told me he didn't have time to do this for every student who was struggling and would no longer be able to do it. I was really upset, one week and he gave up. Back to the workbooks at home.
Among some of the other issues, Every time I "popped in" the teacher was constantly disciplining some one. I spent a lot of time there and honestly only remember three or four times walking in to him teaching. I asked him about this and he told me that he had the roughest class he had ever had in his entire teaching career. There was a group of 5 boys that constantly caused major disruption. By the end of the year 3 of those boys had been put on permanent in school suspension.
The neighbor boy came over one day and asked if DS was ok- Confused I said "yeah, why?" Finding out that DS had been crying at school because the teacher had yelled at him making him feel silly about asking a math question. Come to find out this wasn't an isolated event. After many more talks with the teacher I found out that DS would often ask questions after the teacher had said "Any question ask Now" The teacher didn't stop to take in to account that DS is extremley shy and terribly afraid of failing. He didn't want to raise his hand in front of everyone. He was afraid of people thinking he wasn't smart enough. And he figured because no one else had asked the questions that he wanted to ask, that maybe he wasn't as smart as the rest of them. So he would wait until everyone was busy with thier work to ask. Or he wouldn't ask at all and end up not knowing how to do the assignment.
Meanwhile DD is in kindergarten and loving it. Doing great, only trouble is talking a little too much.
One day while helping in DD's class I see DS rush out to the hallway. Face bright red and crying terribly. Long story short, one of the "trouble" boys had punched him in the face and threatened to kill him in the middle of the classroom! I followed him and the other boy to the principles office where she told the boy to apologize and go on his merry way. I was outraged. I was not suggesting that you throw the kid to the alligators but the kid physically hit another person! And he gets told " next time be a self manager" If he were an adult and had punched another adult he would have been carted off to jail. Yet in school it is normal to shrug it off as part of "the school experience" I went and got DD and took them both home. I called DH and told him and he too thought this was normal and not such a big deal. I still stand unconvinced that someone else putting their hands on another person is "no big deal"
In first grade my son was knocked unconcious, recieved a concussion, dragged across the school yard, had someone sitting on his chest with thier hands on his mouth, In second grade he is punched in the face in the middle of his classroom. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen in third grade and the following years when the angry kids were even angrier and bigger kids were even stronger...

After two long depressing years I knew that I had to find a better way. I felt alone. All the moms I talked to from the school told me of thier similar experiences but had the " But what can ya do?" attitude. Since there was only a couple weeks left in school I decided to let them finish the year out. That may have been my biggest mistake yet.

While surfing the internet in the computer lab (I was completley unaware they were even allowed to Google!) DS and his two friends searched the word "poop" After clicking on the first few links, which included poop freezing spray claiming to make dog poop easier to pick up (they thought that was pretty funny so decided to look on)
The next link they clicked on was a naked man pooping in a naked womans mouth. Now, the have Pokemon, and Nickelodeon blocked there but somehow this slipped through thier filter system!! DS didn't tell us immediatley. It came out after two weeks of odd behavior. He wouldn't talk to us, would go to his room and just sit. It finally came out on a Friday night while flipping through channels. A commercial for the poop freezing spray came on. DH and I were laughing about the silliness of it. Then the story slowly came out as he cried. Needless to say he was confused. Traumatized, and his innocence was stolen. Once again I had not trusted my instincts and I had failed my son miserably for yet another year that we could never get back.

Our Journey to homeschooling-Part 2

Time for first grade. So much happened, It was a terrible, long, depressing year. But to sum it up. DS's son was incredibly disorganized. I would get notes about events that had happened weeks before. I was designated room parent and never got notice about one meeting before it happened! She did allow me to "help" in class once a week. During that time I noticed her harsh attitude and the way she related to the kids. 5 kids were taken out of her class within the first 3 months and transferred to other classrooms. She just didn't seem to relate well and it was obvious she didn't like her job. 3 days in to the school year I wanted to pull him from the class but he begged me not to his reason being that our neighbor boy was in the same class. (He later told me that he hadn't wanted to hurt his teachers feelings) I went against my instincts and kept him in the class.

During that year many things happened. I noticed the work coming home seemed inadequate for his grade level. Most of the papers came home with big stars on the top or "GREAT JOB!" written on the top and I would look through the work and finding frequent mistakes that were not corrected. We began our workbooks at home again. DS began to withdraw rather quickly. He became even more quiet and wouldn't tell me about his day. He would simply say "It was good" What did you learn? "Nothing." He would reply (And looking at the work sent home that answer didn't seem far from the truth.

Every weekend would start out the same, he would be quiet and subdued for the most part, then come Sunday afternoon he would be more himself, laughing, joking (He has an awesome sense of humor, and is really quick witted) Sunday night at bedtime often he would cry (He is far from a crier, only crying if he is deeply upset or hurt badly) He did not want to return to school. He mentioned homeschooling and it got blown off. At that time, I hadn't thought about it in years and we were extremley busy preparing to open a business. I felt like I was losing him. I didn't know what he did for the majority of the day and when we were together we had to do homework and daily chores, sports, dinner and then off to bed. Things felt hopeless. I was sad, He was sad. Our entire family was suffering.

I could go on and on about all the different things that happened that year, the pointless assemblies, the propoganda, the principle running her own agenda, the way I saw and heard these "social" kids at recess. But I will get down to the clinchers. The things that made me feel scared to leave my son at school.
#1- The phone call I got from the secretary telling me that my son was found lying on the cement outside uncouncious. I later found out that he was pushed off the top of the slide repeatedly until he finally fell and hit his head HARD. No one knows how long he layed there uncounsious. He was found by a friend who had to alert the recess attendants who were chatting under the awning. He got a serious concussion from that one.
#2- This one is a long one so I will sum it up. DS was attacked on the playground. Repeatedly. (I have to note that he was not a victim of bullying, that these were seperate kids and this sort of thing happens reguarly, as tends to be the case when you leave hundreds of kids in the hands of two incapable chatty moms posing as school employees) Trying to make this as short as possible~ A boy that was not even supposed to be on the same playground as the rest of the kids was pulling flowers out of the garden area. DS saw him and told him to stop or he would tell. Ds started to run off and the boy jumped on him, Ds gets up the boy jumps on him again, this happened over and over again until the boy finally pinned DS to the ground, Sat on his stomach and held his hands over DS's mouth. Telling DS that if he told on him that he would kill him. At the same time a girl sees this going on and pushes the boy of of DS. The boy pulls the girls shirt up over her head and runs off.
DS and the girl run to the recess aides who tell them to go to the principles office.

I recieve a note home that day saying that DS was being punished for running on the playground which is against school rules. DS was in tears, hysterical about having been sent to the principles office. He was filthy, with dirt all down the front of him and a whole in the knee of his jeans. When DS calmed down enough to talk he told me what had happened. (No mention of DS being attacked in the letter at all) I called the principle right away and was told she was not told that the boy had put his hands on DS. That it really wasn't a big deal and that it was just a regular recess problem and now that DS knew he shouldn't run on recess that all would be fine. Later that night I learned of the little girl involved. I happened to know where she lived as we noticed them frequently on our trips to the park. The girls mom and I got to talking ( She had received the same letter as DS) and I found out the the girl had indeed told the principle that the boy had hit DS. (I hadn't doubted DS hadn't told the principle his side as he was really upset and it is hard to get things from him even when he isn't upset)
First thing in the morning I went to visit the principle and asked her why she had lied to me about knowing that DS had been attacked. She talked circles. No real answer for anything. She told me that the boy that had done this had problems at home and that he needed our support rather than punishment. (He was and is a constant offender at school and can be found in the office often throughout the day) I was upset for the simple fact that I felt like she was doing so much to protect this boy that was hurting all these kids and causing so many disruptions during the day (Even going so far as to lie for him!) and nothing was being done to protect all the children that were just trying to learn! There is more but this is too long as it is. I went to the school board several times. Wrote many letters and had many more visits with the principle. No progress was made. The only thing that came of it was that it was made known that if my kids needed to be in the principles office for ANY reason that I was to be called first so I could be there as well. The principle stopped making eye contact in the hallways and it became well known that I was the nosey mom in school who wouldn't let things go.
DS finished the year miserable, we all did.

Our Journey to homeschooling- Part 1

It took us a long time to come to the decision to homeschool. Before our kids were even old enough to go to school I had brought the subject up to hubby that I wanted to seriously consider homeschooling. Hubby was flat out against it. His reasons being that homeschooled kids were "wierd" and didn't know how to act around other kids (Socialization problems.) There was no discussing it with him at the time. time flew by and it became time for preschool. Being a first time parent I was concerned about doing everything right and preschool was on that unwritten "How to be a Perfect Mom and do everything right" list. We enrolled DS in the local Christian Preschool. To be honest, I spent most of my time loitering in the halls or sitting in the parking lot. I thought sending him to preschool was what I was supposed to do but I really felt in my heart he was to be young to be away from us and it seemed rather unneccesary. He didn't seem to be ready and didn't look forward to his time at school. On top of that I felt that everything he was learning were things I was capable of teaching him at home. So after a short two weeks we pulled him out of school and I began to work with him on the basics, letters, writing his name and such. (I later found out that the preschool teachers at that school were not certified teachers and were using a homeschool program in the classroom.)

It was soon time for kindergarten. The homeschooling subject was still dead in the water with hubby. I was really nervous to send him to school for many reasons, one of the top being that I had heard horror stories of the security in the school. (I graduated high school the same year as the Thurston High shooting which was/is 15 minutes from us) which affected me deeply and plays a roll in my lack of trust in the safety at school. Another top reason being that we had always heard that the school district here was horrible. (We moved here when the kids were babies and only intended on staying two years.... We ended up falling in love with the community and 10 years later and we are still here) Not knowing an alternative (or the fact that kids aren't even required by law to be registered as a schooler until age 7) I enrolled him in to the local public school.
I was not thrilled and spent a lot of time in his classroom. (Everyone kept telling me, "Just wait before long you will be so happy that he is off and you have some ME time" I kept waiting for that day to come. It never did. I know it sounds like I am totally crazy. Maybe I am. But I wanted to know what he was doing. What he was learning. He was exploring new things and I wanted to see what he liked and didn't like. He was only 5 and a young 5 at that. It still felt too soon for him to be gone for so long.
We did luck out and got an awesome teacher and she didn't seem to mind that I was crazy about my son. She welcomed me in the classroom and always kept me informed. DS liked school. He could live with out it, but he didn't cry about going and it was obvious he loved his teacher. He was having trouble in some areas though. He was very quiet and would stay to himself most of the time. He didn't interact with other kids much. By the middle of the year it came to my attention that he had major test anxiety. He went in to school knowing his ABC's, how to write his name, all the basic stuff. A few weeks in to school he was tested on these skills. I still remember the day his teacher called me in to talk about the test results. I was shocked at what I heard. According to her test he could only identify a few letters of the alphabet and a few sounds and could not write his name! I cried right there on the spot, I was confused. I knew he could do all of those things! I had taught him myself! I went home confused but remained vigilent on our after school work. I bought every phonix book out there and worked continuously with him afternoons and weekends.
It soon became time for the next semesters testing. Again his teacher called me in and gave me the same news. This time though, she knew for herself that he had mastered these skills as she had seen it in his daily work and he had been in school now for several months. It finally clicked for both of us that it was test anxiety. I instantly took the blame thinking that I had put too much pressure on him with the extra work we did at home. I quit working with him at home for the rest of the school year (other than our night reading time and his homework) thinking that it would help. Last test came around- Same results, no changes. He finished the kindergarten year with compliments from every teacher that worked with him that he was one of the sweetest most gentle people they had ever worked with.

Jumping on the blogging bandwagon...

So here is my first attempt at blogging. I have been thinking about it for a while and finally decided to do so as an attempt to keep record of our homeschooling journey. I don't really know how to work this site or how to blog in general so this is a learning experience for me... I have spent the past few hours trying to get the basics down. (Thanks for your help Eva!) This is going to take me a little bit to get familiar with. My goal is to use this site to keep a log of our homeschooling journey for my own reference and also to keep friends and family up to date on what is going on in our life. Hopefully I can keep up on it!