Homeschool Mother's journal: Last week of August

Life this week: Many of you may have noticed an increase in my posts.  I'm trying to bring it back to life, and do some catching up. I have missed sharing life and school. April had her charter school orientation last evening. She is feeling more excited about it now, and she even got issued her own laptop for school use.  I was a bit disappointed that they didn't have her books yet though. I really want to post her curriculum for 9th grade soon.

School this week: I found this box of magna tiles on clearance at Target this week.  I was so excited to find them because I have been wanting a set for a while. These were out a lot this week and even the big kids had fun with them.

Places we went: We went to a pro baseball game with Hubby's work last Saturday.  It started with a picnic dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs. There was tons of smoke in the air so everything looks a little smoky because of all the fires that were around the area.  Besides that we had a lot of fun. The little kids lasted about halfway through the game, and we called it a night. I think the 2 older kids would have lasted for a while though. We decided to stop in at Dairy Queen on the way home for a sweet treat.

Today we had to get some new tires, and they had this race car out front of Discount tires.  The boys thought it was fun.

What we're reading: We got our USborne book order this week, and I purchased the book How Big is a Million for Alex. He really likes it. It's about a penguin who is trying to figure out how much a million really is. I am reading about leadership education in The Phases of Learning.  It has some great ingredients to incorporate into our homeschool life.  Aric's listening to me read Shadow of the Shark to him. Aaron is reading Dear Mr. Henshaw for some required reading, and Aric is listening to that as well.

 

That about wraps up our week. How was your week?

Desiree

Camping at Barview Jetty

I completely forgot to take my camera with me on this camping trip, but I did have the ipad so I got a few shots with it. It is kinda big and awkward to carry around an ipad for pictures, but hey I got something!

We had a campout with our church ward family in mid-August out at the Oregon coast. This campground, Barview Jetty, wasn't our favorite campground. But, the fun was being there with friends. The only time we have experienced rain this summer was this 2 days at the coast!

 We cooked 2 dutch oven meals during this camping trip.  

The first night was lasagna and biscuits.

 All the kids were hungry at this point.

 April brought some fall clothes that she hadn't had a chance to try out yet because it has been so warm in the valley.  It was cool enough on the coast to dress warm!

 We hit up the Tillamook cheese factory on the rainiest Friday morning.

 Of course everybody else visiting the coast did too...

 Our little farmer and cow, aww how cute!

 Watching the cheese being packaged.

 The one picture that I got of the water.

So the next dutch oven dinner was for the potluck that we were supposed to join everyone else from church for.  Well, ours took too long to cook, so none of these ovens ever made it to the potluck.  It was chicken and dumplings, brownies, and rice. Oh well, it all turned out yummy as we ate it after dark.  All the kids came and raided the brownies later though.

This is the chicken and dumplings...

And, the brownies.  Yumm! So fun to have while camping.

It was a fun and fast camp trip.  We hope to make it out to the coast again for another camping trip before bad weather arrives.

Desiree

Junior golf club

Aaron and Aric did the First Tee junior golf club this summer.  They had a good time, but it was mostly hot everytime!  I think Aaron has discovered a new sport that he enjoys.  Aric not so much.

For the last day of golf club the kids were allowed to bring an adult with them to play a round of golf with.  I had the idea to have Aaron ask Grandpa Winz since I knew that Grandpa enjoys golfing, and even has a set of golf clubs!  (Something we didn't have for this club, but they borrowed from others during the classes)

Grandpa came up, and they went early to the driving range to hit a few balls before the round of golf started. I guess they had to wait a while before actually getting to golf...

Aric didn't do the last class, and he decided not to go today for the family night game.  It worked out good since we didn't have a set of clubs for him, and I really don't know anything about golfing unless it's mini-golf at the local family fun center. Golf is definitely not Aric's thing!

I think both boys learned quite a bit though.  Things like, how hot it can be out on a golf course on a summer day. Or, that golf carts can be pretty fun to ride in.

April even got to start learning what it's like to be behind the wheel!

Overall, I don't know if we'll do the golf club again. Maybe for Aaron, and I heard that he borrowed Grandpa's junior set of golf clubs for a while to go hit some balls on his own.

Desiree

Aric's 2nd grade curriculum choices

Aric is 7 years old, 2nd grade

It's that time of year again!  Time to lay out a little of what we will be working on this year for our school choices.  I say a little because I'm sure some things will change throughout the year, and some things will be added.  It's always that way.  I am also trying to keep things simple, so I'm just laying out the basic subjects here.

It really helps me to see what people are doing in their own homeschool for curriculum, and learning choices, so now I am sharing too!

Language arts:

He will be working on Language Smarts Level B for language arts (from last year), Daily 6-trait writing (from last year, that's why it's grade 1), and Star Wars 2nd grade writing.  These are just the formal workbooks I have for him.  I will give him lots of other opportunities for writing through journaling and copywork.
 

Reading:

All about reading Level 2 will be started after he finishes All about Reading level 1.  He is excited to start this!

Math:

He really wanted to do Teaching Textbooks, and I was almost going to do it, but I felt like Saxon math 3 might be a better fit for him this year. We have already started it, and I think it is!  He says he really likes the meeting part, and that's exactly why I was thinking this would be good for him.  It leads to some great hands-on math time.

Science:

Exploring Creation with Botany will be our main spine for science this year.  I'm sure I'll just end up picking and choosing chapters to do out of this book because we seem to never have time for the whole thing. With science I like to explore some interests too, so we end up doing a lot of stuff the boys are interested in.

I love having the notebooking journals to go along with them, this will be Aric's.

As a supplement to other science subjects that are not botany related we will work through some of this: Evan Moore, skill sharpeners grade 2. This is to give us some other activities and ideas of other areas of science to explore.

I have the science kit for Sonlight science level B, so we have stuff for all kinds of experiments we never got to. Since we aren't doing the sonlight this year, I thought it would be fun to just do all the experiments in the discover and do DVD we have.  It might be a Friday fun thing or something for us.

Art:

I have 2 art choices for him. We love to do art around here, so I want lots to choose from!

The first is Home art studio second grade DVD, and I got the Holiday arts and crafts free since I bought the 2nd and 4th grade DVD's. So he will work through these.

The next choice is ARTistic pursuits. This is an ongoing book for him, he started this book last year, and I want to continue it this year.

Geography and history:

 We are going to make our way through the states for geography and history this year.  I hope to use these highlights which way usa books I've collected, and other resources.  I love the state maps that came with these Highlights books! I think we will try to study some US history along the way. We may also still pick up Story of the World volume 1, but I'm not sure it's going to be more study than just reading the book or listening to the CD's.

I think that wraps up the more formal part of his focus this year. We of course include many more  types of learning opportunities like nature studies, co-op and group activities, games and playing.

Coming soon: Preschool, 4th grade, and 9th grade curriculum choices.

Desiree

July wrap up

July came and went in a flash! It was a hot, busy month.  We had a lot going on, and I only have a few pictures to really show for all we did.

We went to a few farmer's markets, and even participated in one with our co-op.  But first here's the picture of the boys playing a giant Jenga game at the Wilsonville farmer's market.  It was pretty fun, and a neat farmer's market in an area of Wilsonville that we hadn't discovered yet.

Here is our Salem Life academy farmer's market that we had for the kids to sell their "goods."  Aaron sold cinnamon rolls that he made, and Aric sold Gluten free cupcakes, and fruit cups.  It was a lot of fun, and great for the kids to see what it might be like to have their own little "business."  Aaron made pretty good on those cinnamon rolls. The market was called "home grown smiles."

It was a hot Friday evening, 100* out, but these boys stuck it out.  It was a fun evening.

We made it to OMSI one day.

We squeezed in a few reading lessons. Here is Alex working on the letter D, and he started learning to rhyme words. He is starting to understand rhyming a bit better now. Now after the lesson he has started trying to figure out which words rhyme, and he'll ask me when he thinks something rhymes.

Alex sorted our transportation manipulatives one day.  He is my first boy to really love sorting.

April had her 8th grade testing done...

 We "rowed" Blueberries for Sal, and did some "blueberry" painting...

 We found a Perplexus at Goodwill, and have been enjoying having that around.  I even have fun trying to figure it out!

 Aaron had a blast at cub camp for 4 days...

The theme was cubstruction, and he was in the shovels group.

Some other activities in July that aren't pictured are swimming (lots of it to keep cool), Aric's birthday, girls camp for April, golf club for Aric and Aaron, playing with cousins at the beach and lots of other fun places, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Hoping to post more in August!

Desiree