1st Day of School

Our 1st day adventure! Henry the Explorer.  We have the flags and the map!

 They explored lots of places!

It was a great 1st day!

School Weeks 1 & 2 2011-2012

Dampf Homeschool is back in business!  BTW week 1 was our time at Roxbury. The kids had activities twice a day, every day plus a public music presentation on the last Saturday. That very much counts as school, plus they had nature study, music, physical ed and lots of reading while we were there.

Week 2 is this week. We will be reading lesson 1 from our Zoology 3 book. Usually the first lesson is the longest so I wanted to spend two weeks on it(next week is only a three day week because of labor day and co-op). Both kids are going to be a part of this.

A9 is also going to be starting American history by reading the book Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady.

Something I forgot to add on my planning post for A9 is Life of Fred.  Life of Fred is a different approach to math.  A9 needs all the help she can get with this subject so I went ahead a purchased it.  She is a reader so I hope she is going to enjoy it.  We are going to start with Apples, I also have Butterflies (these are the elementary books, plus Cats and Dogs).  BTW X7 will also be in on this although he has no problems with math whatsoever!  Life of Fred is going to be used as a supplement to Math U See, we will continue to use that as well.

Not sure if I'm going to jump into everything right away, I usually like to start slowly.  We probably won't do any writing or language lessons this week.  She will be doing the spelling. 

X7 is going to be rowing the book Henry the Explorer, last year we read Henry the Castaway and he loved it! So I thought we should start the year with a Henry book!

 X7 will be starting Math U See Beta.  It covers a lot of subtraction, which is not a favorite of his, but hopefully adding Life of Fred will make it a bit more interesting for him.  That and Explode the Code is all we are going to do this week.  Like I said I like to start the year slowly. 

Here we go again!

Before/ After

Before

After

Getting Ready for Our 1st day of School

Today is our last day of summer vacation, come Monday we will be in school mode once again. I had everything ready as far as planning but now everything is ready and waiting for Monday morning!

 The workboxes have been emptied of everything that was leftover from last year and filled with the new. The kids were very excited when I first brought them up.  X7 wanted to start school today! A9 on the other hand said she could wait till Monday :)

I'm trying to see if I can find some type of portable caddy for the color pencils and crayons, it is a bit difficult for the kids to find the color they need in this mess. Or maybe a couple of pencil holders in cute colors.

See you back here Monday morning!!

X7 is 7 Years Old Today!

Happy Birthday X7!

This year X7 did not want a normal b-day cake, he wanted a "cotton candy mini cupcakes" cake! 

It was so good!

Now he has his own DS, no longer needs to borrow it from his sister!

Of course Legos, Legos and more Legos!

Tonight we are all going out for ice cream in honor of his birthday!

Organizing Post II

Last on the organizing list was my linen closet. This proved to be my most difficult project to date. I have tried to organize this thing before and was never very successful.
I tried to follow the advice of this organizing book that I had recently purchased, Organize Now!: A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by Jennifer Berry. Linen closet is on week 39 but I wasn't going to wait that long! Btw this book is excellent!!!

She writes that you really only need two sets of sheets per bed, three if you have a flannel set for winter. Needles to say I have more than three sets. The kids' bed have four sets ea plus two flannel sets ea. I also have extra sets for guest's beds. That's a lot of sheet sets!! Plus blankets and pillows, again for guests. I have a lot of our winter stuff in space bags but that still did not create enough room for everything.

Thank God my very cleverly smart Mother in law suggested I keep the kids' sheets in a plastic storage box in their own rooms. Plus we have an under the bed storage box that we only use for Roxbury, I decided to put all the flannel sheets in that and under A9's bed.

Then I purchased three plastic storage boxes, one for ea of our rooms. I also got rid of a couple of sets that were not being used at all. This is what the linen closet looks like now!I also followed the books advice on putting over the door hooks on every door.

Linen closetCoat closet
A9's door (found them at Target for $2.50)
X7's door
Bathroom door
My bedroom door
Basement door
I'm so happy that we were able to do everything I wanted to get done before school starts this past weekend. We have one more week of summer vacation!!!!

Organizing Post

For the last couple of months I've been taking a break from homeschool planning and instead spent some time organizing my home and my schedule.
I found various organizing blogs that helped me create a planner that suited all of my needs so I don't keep forgetting the things that need to be done and also how to get rid of clutter and hot spots all over my home so that I don't need to spend too much time looking for the things that I need.

My first find was of course Pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where you can "pin" pics of the things that you love. I started by looking at homeschool rooms and from there I kept finding pics of family command centers. That's when my journey into organizing really took off.

Here is a pic of my new family command center. The purpose of the command center is to have a place upstairs where I can keep track of mail, appointments and things. My real command center of course is my desk downstairs, but I found that I needed something upstairs as well.

This is what it looks like now... everything I need upstairs is in here!

Next I found Organized Home.com, where I was able to create my own household notebook planner, blogs like Simple Organized Living and Organizing Your Way also allowed me to make a plan as to how I wanted to organize my home.

I did a lot of purging in the last few weeks, I tackled the basement first, my home office and the kid's desk areas. Here is a look.
Here is DH's side, I was able to give him the smaller desk and we added a shelf above it.
I added a new filing cabinet, a couple of baskets, the phone sits here as well. This is also where I keep my household notebook. I updated my filing system as well...

Here is the pic that inspired my new filing system!(I found it at Pinterest!) Mine is not color coded but it looks pretty similar, I needed two filing cabinets instead of just one.

Next we organized the entry way, we needed more wall hooks so my Dh made me a brand new one using hooks we already had! It is semi homemade! This is the one by the front door.This is another one Dh made me by the back door!My room! I added hooks to hang my bags instead of having them all over the floor.
There is a hook in Dh's side of the room as well for his Club bag to hang nice and neat!
I also decided to organize the bathroom closet. Yes, those are Flylady cleaning equipment right in there!

The room closets were organized as well, all closets throughout the house! I'm sad to say this is the end of the organizing projects for now, school is starting next week and Clubs is starting in two weeks and so is co-op. I need to focus on those things now. I do have one last project, my bedroom night lamps.
I will be going to Ikea (YYYYYYAAAAAAYYYYYY) in the next couple of weeks to buy them.... Hopefully all these changes will make this coming year a lot easier to manage, that is after all the point of organizing!

Our Upcoming School Year 2011 Edition Part 2

For this coming school year the focus will once again be on teaching X7 how to read. He has been doing very well with the phonic readers we started using at the end of last year, so we are just going to build on from there.

Also, I'm going to be separating them during school... she is becoming a bit more independent and he still needs me there all the time.
I got the downstairs ready for her and I will be working with him more upstairs. She gets too distracted sitting by the doors in the dinning room and he gets too distracted downstairs.

Here is what I have planned for X7 for the upcoming school year.

Five in a Row: One book a week, he will be doing a lapbook which will include geography, copywork and art from ea book.
Henry the Explorer
Madeline's Rescue
Andy and the Lion
Amber on the Mountain
Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair
Climbing Kansas Mountains
Christopher Columbus
The Red Little Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge
The Wild Horses of Sweetbrier
How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World
Cranberry Thanksgiving
Gramma's Walk
The Clown of God
A Farmer Boy Birthday
Warm as Wool
Very Last First Time
Daniel's Duck
A Pair of Red Clogs
The Glorious Flight
The Rag Coat
Three Names
Bearymored
Mirette on the High wire
Chicken Sunday
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny
Zarafa: The Giraffe Who Walked to the King
Miss Rumphius
Dory Story
Down, Down the Mountain
Isla

Math
Math U See Beta

Writing
Handwriting without Tears: Printing Power
Writing with Ease 1

Phonics
Explode the Code

Co op
Reading List(3)
Flat Stanley

Geography- Around the World in 180 Days
Health- Abeka
Science- experiments from Zoology 3

History- The Mystery of History Vol 1

Music- Tin whistle

Art

I can't believe I got this post done! I will try and post about our new setup downstairs and all the organizing I've been doing!

Our Upcoming School Year 2011 Edition Part 1

Here we are again about to start our fifth year of homeschooling! This has been a very interesting summer, usually I take the summer months to plan for the upcoming school year. This summer however was very different. I took time off from homeschool planning and spent more time organizing my home and my life for that matter... Now I not only have a homeschool planner but a life planner as well! believe me that was a good thing. I'm hoping to find some time to blog about that, but for now let's stick with school.

Our school year is 36 weeks, in the past I've been able to schedule one book a week and go from there.... this year is not that easy, at least not for A9.

We are done with Five in a Row. We are now entering chapter books land and is not as easy to schedule.

1st Semester
American History: We are going to continue to do American history using the Dear America books just like last year. These books will be read a loud by me. There is a notebooking journal that I created to go along with all the books.

Turn of the Century(1900-1920)
Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, 1912
When Christmas Comes Again: The World War I Diary of Simone Spencer, 1917
A Time for Courage: The Suffrage Diary of Kathleen Bowen, 1917

The Great Depression(1930-1939)
Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift, 1932
One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping: The Diary of Julie Weiss, 1938

World War II (1939-1945)
Early Sunday Morning: The Pearl Harbor Diary of Amber Billows, 1941
My Secret War: The World War II Diary of Madeline Beck, 1941

These Dear America books are double the size of the My America books from last year, so instead of reading them in one week it will probably take us two to two and a half weeks each.

Biographies- These books will go along with the Dear America books.
Who Was Amelia Earhart?
Who Was Franklin Roosevelt?
Susan B Anthony: Fighter for Women's Rights
The Story of Ann Frank

Science
Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day & Notebooking Journal

Math
Math U See Gamma (lessons 21-30)
Math U See Delta (lessons 1-21)

Language Arts
Primary Language Lessons
Writing with Ease
Learning to Spell Through Copywork Book B
Handwriting practice both cursive and print
Little House books for independent reading
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy

Co op (28 weeks)
Geography: Around the World in 180 Days
Health: Abeka
Editor in Chief Beginnings
Reading List (3)
The Littles
Music: Tin whistle
Art

Languages
Spanish
Prima Latina

2nd Semester

History
The Mystery of History Vol 1
History related read a loud & independent readers;
Trojan Horse
Book of Greek Myths
Adam and His Kin
Tales from the Odyssey
The Five Chinese Brothers

Science
Nature Studies

Language Arts
Beyond Five in a Row Reading List- Read a loud books.
Fiction
The Cricket in Times Square
Homer Price

Biographies
Betsy Ross
Heller Keller

Sonlight Reading List for 4th graders- independent reading time
The Hundred Dresses
Strawberry Girl
Mr. Popper's Penguins
My Father's Dragon
Ginger Pye
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Charlotte's Web
The Twenty One Balloons
The Story of Dr. Doolittle

Vocabulary
Vocabulary from Classical Roots

The reading lists are not set in stone, it all depends on how fast she can read all of these books. We may end up reading more or less, there is a lot of flexibility in this area. She will be doing oral narrations for some of the books and written narrations for others.
The Latin curriculum is another thing not set in stone. If it works out great, if it doesn't we stop doing it.

We will also be doing artists studies, probably Mozart and Da Vinci and she will be doing a typing program this year as well.

Our Time at Roxbury

It was that time of the year again, Roxbury time! We had a great time, even though it rained... a lot!
I truly miss the sense of community we have while we are there!

 See you next year Roxbury!