August 30, 2011

Our New Friends

We brought home some new friends from the beach. The kids are very excited about them.

Bryannas is on the left and BWs is on the right!

August 29, 2011

Irene

Last week we went on vacation to the beach of North Carolina. Had a great time together. Yes Hurricane Irene forced a mandatory evacuation on us. Of course kids were upset we had to leave and cut our time short there but we came home and made the best of our vacation we had left.

While at the beach the ocean was rough in fact the ocean decided to eat one of BW's water shoes and didnt give it back...hahaha. Poor BW couldnt hardly stand up the waves kept knocking him down but he would get up and go back to it, he had a blast. The kids had so much fun with their daddy and getting to hear them have so much fun just makes this mommy smile.

Hope to have some beach pictures up sometime this week. But for now we have to get back into our routines, work and school and all that comes in between.

August 16, 2011

Pancakes!

This year we started using Total Language Plus for Bryanna. So far we love it! Although she is able to read much harder books I decided to start with something easier to make sure we will like this currriculum. So we picked Pippi Longstocking, and no she has not read this before and I thought she would love this book. Not only does TLP have all the spelling, vocabulary and grammar together together but it also includes projects to do as well.. Also during the course of the study she will be working on writing a tall tale.

Now the projects are great and I can include my son in some of them. The first one we did was flipping pancakes. Yeah after I said we would do it I thought I am crazy this is going to get everywhere. The thought of pancakes on the ceiling and floor crossed my mind. But I love to let my kids cook with me and let me tell you the results were great. BW (my 6 year old) flipped better pancakes than me. They both really did good and believe it or not there was no mess to clean up other than dirty dishes.






August 10, 2011

Butterflies

This year we are studying geography. For the first couple of weeks we have been focused on the World in general. Looking at the continents, oceans, explorers and some different animals of the world. One animal we are talking about was the butterfly. I thought it would be great if the kids could see the how a catepillar forms into a beautiful butterfly. So I went out and bought us a butterfly habitat and ordered our catepillars and we now have Painted Lady Butterflies. These pictures are of the chrysalis and butterflies. If you look closely at the 2nd and 3rd picture you will see one emerging from its chrysalis. Out of six we were able to see one emerge, very neat process. The kids have been very excited about their butterflies and watching them each day.


 

 



August 3, 2011

NOT BACK TO SCHOOL BLOG HOP

Not Back to School Blog HopI am participating in the Not Back To School Blog Hop this week. We started school on July 11th but wow the summer has gone by so fast. We have had so much to come up since we started that this week is actually going to be our first full week of school. As I have posted before last year I felt as if school was not that great, we really didnt enjoy it at all. But can I say so far so good this year. Kids are really enjoying school, and are asking to do it everyday! Can you say happy mommy....

So for our curriculum choices we decided to do some stuff together this year and it is working out great. We are doing science and history together. 7th grader has a few harder things to do but the two work together great.

1st grade:
History--Galloping the Globe
Math--Finishing Abeka K math and then on to either Abeka 1st or Math U See
Science--Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy
Phonics--Explode the Code
Reading--Still working on Bob Books

7th Grade:
History--Trail Guide to World Geography
Math--Math U See Zeta
Science--Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy
English--Total Language Plus(love this has spelling, vocabulary, grammar and reading all in one)

I have a typing software program that I will add to 7th grader soon. Looking to add Bible.. any suggestions?

Of course we are part of a homeschool group and the kids enjoy their time with them too!