Today we took a walk around our neighborhood to see nature all around us.. and bugs! We found a few interesting critters .... I got to use the flower setting on my camera...awesome pics!!
Praying Mantis about to eat a ladybug...we think!
A beautiful butterfly on a butterfly bush...we have a few of those in our street!
Grasshopper hiding in the grass!
We have a bird nest in one of our bushes!
This Fall nature study is going to be a weekly part of our homeschool... thanks to FIAR for their digital nature study.
The Five in a Row Digital Nature Studies are not just a list of activities of things to do in each season. Rather they are an encouragement for you and your children to begin a life style of becoming more observant about each season, and noticing and learning throughout the year more about the nature around you.
This past Friday we had our first nature study day. I have them schedule for every two weeks till the 1st week of fall, after that every Friday!
We went to Memorial Park, we got to walk around looking for signs of Summer and a few signs that Fall was right around the corner. Since we are learning about flying creatures this year, we paid close attention to birds and insects at the park.
Our Nature Study Club members: X6, A8 and M6!
We found a caterpillar which one day soon will become a butterfly.. or a moth...
We found a cicada... she was very much alive but had no problems letting the kids pick her up.. thanks cicada!! I still think you are creepy...
Not sure this is a flying bug, it had wings... earwig?? NASTY
Acorns!! we saw lots of squirrels after these!!
Another sign fall is around the corner!!
I forgot my camera so I had to take pics with my cell phone, which is why the pics are not as nice as they could've been. This won't happen our next time out! The kids have a nature journal where they get to draw the things they saw at the park, older kids will get to write in it as well.
Today is A8's first day of 3rd grade!! Last week she had three days of review, math and copywork, we also had our first Nature Study Friday... more on that on another post.
This week A8 will be rowing the FIAR Vol 4 book Roxaboxen.
It is a story about a treasured place: a child's imaginary town named Roxaboxen.
X5 started school last week, this week will be rowing the book Storm in the Night. A story of a young black boy, his grandfather, and their cat during a fearsome thunder storm.
Summer is over, everybody is starting school today, not just my kids... What a great summer this was... lots of adventures, lots of lazy summer days by the pool or in the backyard... I am going to miss them. I'm also looking forward to what this school year is going to bring... I'm hoping for more field trips, that is one thing I'm going to be more intentional about this year. Also, a lot more projects... thanks to Apologia science! I will keep you posted!!
Today is X6's first day of school. A8 had a whole week of music camp which counts toward school, because of that she is not starting till the 30th, X6 however had to start today(yesterday was his birthday).
We are reading the book Fireflies. He has a few activities with the book but we will be covering fireflies in the Apologia book later in the year, so I kept it light.
He is also doing review work, his letter, numbers, cut and paste... etc.
Another school year begins!
This weekend was X6's birthday party, his actual birthday was on Monday! Here's a few pics of the party and the gifts he got!
How to train your dragon cake!!
Kids eating cake and ice cream!
Toothless!!!
Legos!!!
We are home and back into the swing of things. I t only took me a day to wash Roxbury out of us :) Our clothes all smelled like smoke from the camp fires every night! Everything is back in it's place!
We are starting to work on this years Kids Club for our Church. The schedule has been made and approved. I need to order t shirts and curriculum. We made the decision not to teach a class this year. In the last two years we've been coordinators and class leaders, this year we need to put our energy into doing one thing. Coordinators have the job of overseeing Clubs, being available for emergencies and pretty much keeping and eye out during club meetings. Having a class did not allow us to these things.
We loved our class but we can't do two things at the same time. We were being pulled in two directions every week and it was getting tiring and some things were slipping through the cracks.
We are having our first club meetin this Sunday after Church, hopefully we'll get enough people to volunteer to help with Clubs.
Another update, I have decided to start school with X5 on the 24th which is a Tuesday since X5's birthday is on the 23rd. We will do story time and handwriting reviews for 4 days. The following week(3oth) A8 will start school( she already has 11 days of school).
We are back from Roxbury Holiness Camp. We spent 10 days there... well, 9 since we skipped Wednesday so Dh could work one day and only have to take 4 days vacation.
We had a great time with friends and church family. We had great speakers this year!! The kids did great this year! The really enjoyed themselves and made lots of new friends!
I have so many pics of our time there. I will post a few so you can get a feel for what all we did there!
This was our street, our family unit is on the left where Dh's red car is.
There's our cabin... L9. A8 and her friends!
Inside the cabin! Yes, all the kids got to play in our cabin... everyday:)
This is our hangout, our little community tent!
The camp provides breakfast, lunch and dinner! and all the bread you could possible eat! ha ha! You can eat inside or outside.. you can pretty much eat where ever you want!
Sunbeam center for the kids... they had two sessions a day, one at 10:30, the other at 1:30
A8 and X5 heading to Sunbeam!
Inside Sunbeam! A8 & X5 had a great time in there!
X5 hanging out at our community tent!
This is the path X5 always took on his bike to visit his friend Isaac! They had a trailer.
A8 and X5 hanging out by the creek, no I did not let them go in the creek. Only when they are old enough that I don't need to be there watching them will they be allowed go in.... maybe:)
All the kids from Sunbeam had a musical presentation during Saturday's morning session at the Tabernacle. X5 did very good for the first 5 minutes, after that he started to cry and I had to go get him.. he sat with us the rest of the time.
Here's a peek at A8.. she was towards the back.
Tabernacle... during the week there was a morning and night session, on the weekends there are three sessions, but we only went to the morning and night ones.
Inside the Tabernacle... this was our own little spot! FABIC's corner!! We always sat here for all the sessions everyday!
See you next year Roxbury!!!!!
We are still at Roxbury, had to come home so Dh could go work one day this week. Going right back to Roxbury later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. I saw this on a blog and loved it!
Matt Chandler (Pastor of Village Church in Dallas)Sermon Jam.
Enjoy!
We are back from our trip to the Zoo. We had a great time in NYC. A8 was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see the big buildings of New York City since we avoided downtown altogether. She did have a great time at the Zoo.
The weather was pretty good.... sunny, hot but lots of places with shade. I had water with me at all times! My Mom took a lot more pics than I did, hopefully she will post them on facebook SOON!!! ha ha!!
A8 at the entrance of the Bronx Zoo!
A8 and my nephew J5 on a camel ride!!
The "king" of the jungle and his family! he would not turn his head around...
King Julian... ha ha!! the Madagascar exhibit...
Here's a couple of clips from A8's performance at Stage Odyssey_Rhythm of Life! We are going to Grandmas tonight to get ready for the Bronx Zoo tomorrow... we leave nice and early!! See you Sunday with lots of pics!!
This week I signed A8 up for this Rhythm movement class at CVSM, the same place she takes piano lessons. She gets to go with her friend and her friends Mom will be taking her to class every morning and dropping her off at noon. The class is 3 hours, 9 AM to 12 PM, for the whole week! Yes, it does count towards school! By the time we start normal school in August we will have 11 days of school in the bag!!
We long decided, Dh and I, that we were going to try and limit the kids' activities to one per kid. However, since X5 is not involved in anything right now we are going to sign A8 up for Ballet this Fall. It starts right after Labor day and goes till May. It is an hour class once a week, and there is a recital at the end of May.
As for X5, we are waiting till he is a bit older to sign him up for either soccer or football.. although I'm hoping for soccer!
At the end of this week we are taking a field trip to the Bronx zoo with Grandma! X5 will be staying with Daddy this weekend. Dh is going to plan something for the two of them to do!
Next week we start packing for Roxbury! We need to find somebody to take care of our dogs....
Last year was really the first year I had to homeschool both my kids. It took a while to find our rhythm, I made some changes and then ended up going back to my original plan. This coming year I feel a bit more relax.
For X5 this year is all about learning to read. When I started homeschooling with A8 she had all of my attention, this is not the case with X5. He has to share me with his sister. I am going to try to give the kids different table times. A8 is at a point where she can do her table time activities with little help from me. Which frees me up to work with X5 on reading and phonics.... we will see how this plays out....
Here's the planned lineup for our upcoming year(X5):
Five in a Row
Story time will be first on the list with X5. Only FIAR books will have lapbooks, for the other books we will have coloring pages, crafts and the like. FIAR books all include lessons in Social studies, language arts, science and art.
Now that I'm done with all the planning, gathering and printing... I can go ahead and post what our school year is going to look like come Fall.
I have 36 weeks of school scheduled, that is 180 days. I always start the school year at Roxbury Holiness Camp. We spend 10 days there(1st week of August) but I only count Monday through Friday, 5 days.
The kids are on a schedule at Roxbury, breakfast, lunch and dinner are always at the same time everyday(when the kids hear the bell, they know exactly what to do). They have Sunbeam(K through 6th) in the mornings and afternoons, two sessions everyday. They get to hear Bible stories, do activities, crafts, songs and memorize scripture. Not to mention nature study and lots of playing time with friends.
A8 is going on a field trip to the Bronx Zoo, that is day 6! That leaves 174 days of school.
Normal school will start the 3rd week of August and end the 3rd week of May. God willing of course!!
Here's the planned lineup for our upcoming year(A8):
Five in a Row
We are doing Vol 4 this year, FIAR includes Reading, Social Studies, Language Arts, Science & Art. We are going to focus more on the Social studies part of it this year, geography, culture etc.
Here is our FIAR book list for this coming year:
So here we are... it's July already!! Summer is going much too fast. I have been purging my house of all things unnecessary. Summer is a great time to get rid of all those things that have been gathering dust during the long winter months.
I was able to donate a big box of books, workbooks and the like to the local used books store..I have two more boxes to give them. Out with the old and in with the new!
Homeschooling requires a lot of books around, but even that can get out of hand sometimes if you are not careful.
Speaking of homeschooling, I'm done making the folders for each week for each kid for next year. I have A8s notebooking journal done for American history and I have X5s Jr notebooking journal for science. The last thing I need to do this month is plan the workbox schedule for each kid.
I'm making some changes to the boxes this coming fall. X5 had the more traditional boxes, with the shoe rack and 9 individual boxes. That is about to change! After talking to him about it, he would rather use the Iris 6-Drawer Mobile Chest that his sister has been using.
He told me he likes it better than having to bring the box with him to the table, he would rather get the stuff he needs from each drawer and then when done just put it back in the box.
This works for me since I was going to go from 9 boxes to 6 for him this coming year anyways.
He wants the black and clear model.
This weekend we are having Nina and Grandpa coming over to celebrate the Fourth of July! We have burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob and sausages ready for the weekend, and hopefully we'll get to watch a little movie called Eclipse while the kids stay with Nina and Grandpa!
Happy 4th everyone!!!
