Golden Anniversary

This past weekend was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. My sisters and I hosted a reception to celebrate the occasion. We had a great turn out. The decorations were great, the food was good, but the most fun was seeing my parents get to interact and mingle with close friends and relatives. It was a very special occasion that was worth all the planning that went into it. Here are pictures of our family.

Week of Sept. 20th - 24th

Our co-op started on Monday. It was a lot of fun for everyone. We have 20 families and just over 50 kids. Things went very smoothly. Hannah has four classes, a career explorations class, a nature/survival class, an introduction to Spanish class, and health/PE. David has a history through crafts class focusing on pirates, PE, story time, math games class, and an animal classification study class.

Hannah started the third book in Hakim's history series. She read Traitor, the Case of Benedict Arnold. She actually thought it was very boring. She is progressing well in her math and language arts. In science, she made a 100% on her test about genetics. She has found it to be a very interesting subject.

David began studying the American Revolution. He read the Magic Treehouse about it, and has requested more Magic Treehouse books. We read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, as well as a book on his life called A Picture Book of Paul Revere. A funny book he read was John, Paul, George, and Ben by Scholastic.

David is enjoying doing science with our neighbors. We are using Real Science Odyssey, Life Science. The study right now is about the human body. This week we covered the heart and circulation system. We did a lab checking pulse rates after various activities.

The boys enjoyed learning about the components that make up our blood. They made a model of blood using corn syrup, lentils, beans, and Craisins.

Week of Sept 13th - 17th

We are 6 weeks into the school year...only 30 to go! We had a busy week because the co-op I direct starts next week. I've had a lot of emails, phone calls, etc. We actually started our week at the church where we will meet. I went by to set up our storage cabinet and meet parents who wanted to drop off applications and teachers who wanted to see their classrooms. It wasn't a very heavy week academically, mostly just the basics. I tried to plan it that way with co-op stuff going on. I did manage to get an artist study in this week. We read about Edward Hicks and The Peaceable Kingdom.

Hannah is starting a new Bible devotion book by The Navigators, The Life, A Journey With God. I hope she will enjoy it. She finished reading the next book in the Hakim series. She seems to enjoy reading the series. She also read Indian Captive, the Story of Mary Jemison. She did her usual lessons in math and grammar, as well as taking two tests in science and starting another chapter. I had her do a SAT practice essay, timing her for 25 minutes. I think it was a little shocking to her how fast the 25 minutes went by. I am glad to start her practicing now so that she can have it down pat before she has to really do it on a test.

David had lessons in math and grammar, geography, critical thinking. In reading, he read a play about the Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower. In Bible, he learned about God giving the 10 commandments to Moses.

David is learning about Colonial life in history, so we got together with friends to do some projects. We learned about the daily life of the colonists and made a collage of foods the colonists would have eaten in various seasons.



We played a game that I have called Made For Trade. You travel around the colonial village (board) purchasing items from various shops.
We ate pineapple and berry syllabub. Colonists tried to grow pineapples inside, but the plants rarely produced fruit. The berry syllabub was juice mixed with sugar and added to heavy cream, then whipped into a yummy topping.


In science, David is studying about the human body. This week he learned about our skeleton and muscles. He cut out and labeled this skeleton. The "arm" was great at demonstrating how muscles work in pairs and shorten/lengthen as they move.

Week of Sept 6th - 10th

We started our week with Darin home for Labor Day. He and Hannah painted her room and put together the new furniture from IKEA (love, love, love that place!). She paid for almost all of it, so I think she can truly enjoy and appreciate it.


On Tuesday, we went to a nature center for a field trip with our homeschool group. We invited our neighbors to go along. David enjoys playing with his best friend, Ian. Ian came with his mom and siblings, Lucas and Elise.



We saw a lot of great animals there. It is a privately owned nature center, so admission is normally free.

In school we continued our reading of Psalms. This week was Psalm 20-23. I love the 23rd. It is one of my favorites. We also worked in our worldview curriculum, Who Is God?. We read a story that used the idea of brownies not being able to make themselves. We decided to test the idea, and no the brownies could not make themselves, but they were good when we made them.

Hannah continued in her Hakim series and read Amos Fortune, Free Man. She wrote an essay about him living a good life. She worked in math and grammar as usual. She also learned quite a bit and seemed to enjoy her science lessons on genetics. She is enjoying Fallacy Detective. She often reads ahead of her assignment.

David worked in math and grammar as well. He is improving in his speed drills. Subtraction from the teens has been a bit more difficult for him. He really had a breakthrough about writing sentences of his own. He has really been stressed by it, but wrote several this week without "freaking out". Quite a bit of his fear has been spelling words he doesn't know. I've always said he could just ask me, but I think he's a bit of a perfectionist and wants to do things independently and only if things are "right".

In history, he finished up studying the settlement at Plymouth and started learning about life in the colonies. In science, he had to make a folder for the human body study he will have over the next few weeks. He really enjoys his critical thinking workbooks. I have one that is logic puzzles and one that is analogies.

Week of Aug 30th - Sept. 3rd

It has been a very busy two weeks. After my grandmother passed away, we went out of town for the funeral. I decided to take a week's worth of school and spread it out over 2 weeks because I didn't want to be stressed missing days because of the funeral, and I knew I was headed back out of town the very next weekend.

We traveled to Tennessee to stay with my nephew while my sister and brother-in-law went away for their anniversary. I also stayed a couple of days and helped my mother. She had to go in the hospital less than a week after the funeral. She was in several days, but it getting better.

As far as school work goes, the filing system has been a huge help during all this. I just pulled out week 4's folders and was ready to go.

Hannah finished LU's in LA and Math. She read "Stink Alley" in literature. She is still working on a writing assignment over this weekend. She couldn't do her science while we were out of town because we didn't have internet access much at all. She is enjoying reading in the Hakim U.S. history series. I like having the discussions so well laid out for me. She is continuing to work in "The Fallacy Detective". She missed her outside class, so will have to make up work to do there.

David also finished LU's in LA and Math. He read about Billy Sunday in reading and is doing well with the comprehension practice. We started science last week with our neighbor, using REAL Science Odyssey Life science. We went out to a local park to do a plot study and studied cells by looking at an egg. In Bible he is currently working through Abraham's life. We haven't done as much history as I would like the last week, but he did learn about Jamestown and Plymouth. I hope to cover some more of it over the weekend.