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.

Time to say good-bye

My grandmother passed away today. She has been an integral part of my whole life. I am one of only three grandchildren, all of us sisters. Needless to say, that allowed us to be very close to her. She was a great woman who loved us all so much. She was a wonderful grandmother who really took time to show us how she cared.

She would have been 89 in November. Until last summer, she lived by herself and still drove. She began having some falls, and through a course of events, we found out she had a brain tumor. She had a stroke and some mini-strokes last fall which lead to her being bed-ridden. She has been at home with my mother caring for her, with some help, too.

She was fiesty and fun. She loved shoes, and at one time had a pair to match every purse she owned. She loved taking us girls shopping for clothes, too. I remember when I was young that she would rub my ear when she talked with me. It was so loving and sweet.

I will miss her smile and sometimes mischievous laugh. I'll miss going by her house as I traveled to see other family or go home. I'll miss her cooking, too. She made great chicken and broccoli casseroles. Her hamburgers and french fries were so yummy. I'll miss getting the Hershey's Kisses she always had out for anyone who came by.

Goodbye, Mom! I love you and will see you someday. I know you are at peace.

Week of Aug. 9th - 13th

We had a great second week of school. The filing system has made things so easy. I'm so glad I did it. The kids have really done well getting back into doing school full time. We read Psalms 6-10 this week. In Who is God?, we learned 7 ways to build your life on the Rock, God. They are study and learn the Bible; know, think, and follow truth; care for your body and use it the right way; worship God faithfully and joyfully; pray to God always; stand against and resist Satan; put God first, not things or money.

Hannah read Peace Child, a missionary story. She is reading through Why Pray in her Sonlight Bible books. She will be reading every week in a Hakim US History volume. In science she learned about cell structure. We have a small microscope for her to use, but I'm hoping to ask a friend who has a better one if we might could borrow it or come over to use it. She did well with her math this week, and is learning quite a bit in her grammar and vocabulary class. She is working through The Fallacy Detective and is finding it challenging.

David learned about Noah's ark, including the size of the ark, and we did some map work to learn about where the ark probably came to rest. He learned subtraction with borrowing this week in math. He understood it very quickly. He made A's on both quizzes in math and language arts. He enjoys the critical thinking workbooks, especially the Perplexors logic puzzles. In our history study, he enjoyed a game online about the Vikings. He also read more about Christopher Columbus, did a map of his journeys, and a narration page about him. He learned about the Spanish explorers, too, including Ponce de Leon. We went to St. Augustine this summer, so it was good to study him. David is going to do the musical theater group our homeschool group is offering. The group is learning a patriotic program with lots of marching and other types of choreography. It should be interesting.

Both will have some additional subjects added in the next few weeks. I like to ease back into school and not hit it all at once. I will be adding poetry reading and art/music studies with both of them. I may have them both do some piano lessons with me as well. It would just be review for Hannah, but David hasn't done any. Hannah will add IEW's Student Writing Intensive. She will do about one lesson every other week. David will add science week after next. He will be doing REAL Science Odyssey Life Science. We are going to do some of the experiments with our neighbor. I think it will be fun.

Week of August 2nd - 6th

We had a great first week to our new school year. We began each day reading in the Psalms and prayer. We will read through the entire book this year. We also did "Who Is God?" by Apologia two days. This is a Christian worldview curriculum designed for family use. It is great!

To celebrate our first day, we went out to IHOP for breakfast with my best friend, Jenny, and her kids. Then we went to the dollar theater to see "How To Train Your Dragons". David and Jenny's two youngest kids were going to be studying Vikings this week, so we figured it worked! We did some school work before and after our outing.

Hannah read about the life and work of Cameron Townsend, learned about early life in North America, worked on a digital bug collection, studied cells, did math and grammar, as well as started "The Fallacy Detective", a logic study. She also attended a free vocabulary class offered by a retired English teacher.

David did study Vikings, which he really enjoyed. He got to listen to a story about Vikings and do a craft with Jenny's kids. We did a 3D Map of the Vikings' exploration to North America.
He also started his BJU Bible curricula, did some geography, did math and grammar, as well as some story narration. He did some logic puzzles and did some drawing. David attended a music class offered by the above mentioned English teacher's wife. She is putting together a patriotic musical performance as a salute to our soldiers and veterans. He enjoyed it and will continue weekly.

Both kids have really taken an interest in drawing in the last couple of weeks. Here are some pictures.

My Filing System

After reading much of the huge filing thread on The Well Trained Mind forums, I decided to take the plunge this year. After our first week of school, I can truly say I'm glad I did it. It was so nice to just take out Week 1 folder and go. I am planning David's history this year all on my own, so I'm glad that each week, I'll only have that planning to do.

Here are some pictures and details.

I had bought these file boxes a few months ago. The price was only $5 each, plus there are lids and stacking slots on top of the lids. I had not decided what I was going to do with these until the filing thread.

Each child has a file box. In the file boxes, I put monthly folders and 36 weekly folders. The monthly folders will be for supply lists, library books to pick up, etc. The weekly folders contain workbook pages and notes about specific assignments for the week.

Hannah, in 8th grade, is doing Sonlight Core 100 this year. I took the schedules and copied them, highlighting the portions she is to do. I also took apart the IG pages to place the appropriate discussion guides in the appropriate week. We are tweaking the schedule and having her do a novel a week, rather than a couple of novels over a couple or few weeks. She prefers to read this way, and it made the filing easier, too!
These are the file boxes I used last year for workboxes. It will be similar this year, but there will not be a schedule grid. I take the week's work from the big filing box and spread out by subject the work for this week. Some books are on shelves, but those that can fit will go in the box.
Instead of a schedule grid, I got these planners from http://www.goodnewsplanners.com/. I love the 2 page format and the little check off boxes in the upper right of each subject corner. This is where I will be keeping grades.

July is already gone!

This summer has been fun and eventful. In June, I sprained my foot rather badly. It's doing well now, though. In early July we went to visit Darin's 96 year old grandfather. He is amazing. He lives with a son, but is still able to be home alone all day. We enjoyed 4th of July fireworks with my best friend's family. My sister and nephew came for a few days before we headed off to Ohio to see Darin's family.

While we were there we went to a water park. It stormed most of the day so we got rainchecks to go back the next day. We went to Ikea to purchase Hannah some new furniture for her bedroom makeover she is planning. That afternoon, we went back to the water park. As we were entering the park a lady's baby stroller got away from her down a steep hill. Darin took off after the stroller and fell, breaking his arm. The stroller was stopped by a pole, and the baby was fine. He was banged up pretty badly, but he broke a bone that is the best bone to break--no cast!

We spend the rest of July relaxing, seeing the doctor, enjoying tomatoes from our garden, and getting ready for the start of our school year. Speaking of tomatoes, I made spaghetti sauce completely from scratch with our abundance of tomatoes. It was YUMMY!

Darin has a new principal who is seeming to be good for the school. Time will tell! Summers are short here following Darin's school schedule, but we like all the time off during the year, too.