Movie Night

Last night our Small Group decided to have a movie night as a nice break. We went to see Night at the Museum 2. When we got there, there was like two whole rows of people from our Church, it was so much fun!
By the time everybody was there I think we had like six rows full of our people!

It's so nice to be able to do things like that. We have a downtown movie theater that's pretty much consider a family theater because they only show family friendly movies. On Thursday nights they only charge $3 a person. It's a great deal if you have little kids and don't get to go to the movies as much.

The movie was fun, really funny for the kids! A_7 kept laughing through the whole movie. She got to sit with one of her best buds!


X_4 got to sit right between his posse..ha ha! But he ended up in Daddy's lap by the middle of the movie.
By the end he was back with his little friends.
We are now waiting for the theater to show Disney's Up! So we can all go see it as a family.

Summer Plans & Beyond

Starting in June the kids are going to be spending about an hour, three to four days a week , reviewing some of the things they learned in school this past year.

A_7 will be practicing her reading, writing and math facts, while X_4 will be practicing his name, numbers, colors and shapes.
I have these really simple phonics readers for A_7 to read this summer plus she'll be finishing her printing book. I also have a practice sheet for her to practice the unknown number that was giving her a little bit of trouble in the last few weeks of math u see.

I have been working on a new system of school for us. More on the organization end of school anyways. It is called the Workbox system. Here is the website where I found out all about it.
I went ahead and purchased the book. It has so many great ideas on how to organize your school so that you get to use all of those wonderful things homeschoolers buy for their kids and never get around to using.
Here is what is going to look like for A_7. She has 10 folders. Everyday she will go through each folder and get her work done that way. Some folders have a "work with mom" label, that means she will need my help with whatever is in that folder. Other folders she'll be able to work on independently. That way I will have more time to spend with X_4 since he is really going to need me for K.
This is what the workbox system really looks like and this is how I'm going to be using it with X_4.

• One wire shoe rack
• Between 6 and 12 clear plastic shoe boxes, which you can find at Walmart or Target for less than a dollar. I'm only using 9 boxes with X_4 for now.
  
• Velcro dots
  
• Schedule cards

Here is the schedule cards for both kids. it pretty much shows which boxes they are to do, when to take a break, or any other activity that is not found in boxes. Things like piano practice, games or computer time.

It also has a log in/log out of school pocket, I'm not sure if we'll even remember to do this, but it's fun to have nonetheless!
I have a few things in the workboxes for the kids to do during the summer, hopefully by the time we start school in the Fall this will be second nature to us!

If you purchase the book, you'll have access to all the downloads to print out the schedule cards and other labels.

Weekend Camp Out

Every year at the end of the Club year, we take the kids to a Camp out. This year we went to Cove Valley camp. We had around 40 kids and 20 adults helping out.

I'm so thankful that so many adults decided to come and help with the kids. We pretty much knew where each kid was at all times, nobody got hurt, although there were a few scrapes here and there.
This was A7 and X4s first time going camping. By the time Saturday evening came around they were both exhausted! They both took a nice nap on Saturday. We had a great time, the weather was gorgeous and the pool was freezing! Didn't keep us from swimming thought!

The food was delicious, we had pancakes, sausages, eggs and bacon for breakfast. For lunch we had spaghetti, sloppy joes, soup and for dinner we had baked chicken breast and mashed potatoes and mac and cheese! There was more than enough food for all and we even had seconds every time!! I'm sure no food was wasted!
On Saturday night we had s'mores, I wasn't around for that...one of my children was taking a nap at the time. The cabins were very nice, they had heat/ac, bathrooms with showers and a nice long table in the middle of the cabin.
Next year, if we do this again we are going back to Cove Valley for our Camp out!!

This Wednesday is the 4-5yr olds picnic. Since the camp out is only for kids 1st thru 6th grade we always have a picnic for the little ones as a way of saying thank you for coming to Clubs.
After this Wednesday we are done with Clubs for the summer!! All of the leaders and helpers so need the break!! See you back in September kids!!!!

Piano Recital

A7 had her last piano recital of the semester last night. This recital was not only for piano but violin, cello and even singing. It was a lot of fun since we knew a lot of the performers.
A7 did a great job, she was the youngest performer there!
We are going to continue to send A7 to piano lessons through out the summer. It will only be 7 sessions, just so that she will continue to practice and not lose everything she's learned so far.
Then in the Fall she will start her regular piano lessons.

Let me see if I can get the video to load...

End of School

We are done with school! Last week was another busy one, making sure everything got done. I decided to get an evaluation even though we don't need to do that for 1st grade. In PA the age a child must start school is 8 years old, anything before that is not really required.

Of course I wanted to know what to look forward to with these evaluations so I went ahead and got one done. A dear friend from Church just happens to be a certified evaluator or whatever the term is so she did it.

She looked at all the curricula we used this year, she looked at all the lapbooks, workbooks and projects we did. She was very pleased with everything! Finally she asked A7 to read from any book she wanted. A7 picked The Runaway Bunny, one of her favorites! She read the whole book!
Once again our evaluator was very happy with what she heard, called her a "fluent reader"!

She did give me some tips of things I need to show for future evaluations and for when I need to start handing this in to the local school district.

• A book list of both, school required reading books and additional just for fun books.
  
• Curriculum list
• Unit study list
• Field trip list
• calendar showing days we did school(180 days)

It was good to know I don't need to hand in a record of what we did for school every one of those 180 days like I've been doing.

I'll still keep a record of what we do everyday, but it's for me to know what we've covered and when. I don't need to let the district know that stuff.

I'll post soon about what we are doing this week and what my plans are for June and next Fall.

Theology also known as the study of God

"I think any time we gain some new theological knowledge, we should keep it to ourselves for a while. Study it more, read more about it, listen to opposing viewpoints, and just sit on it. See if it sticks. See if it’s more than a passing fad or thought. Don’t be so quick to jump on the train. And don’t be so slow to throw it away if we need to."
Wade Phillips

I agree with Wade on this one...