Preparing for "Not Back to School"

It never ceases to amaze me how looooong winter seems and how lightening fast summer flies by.  We have 1 more week to enjoy summer AND Daddy.  He's off until the 22nd, when we plan on starting our homeschool schedule.

I have all my curriculum together with the exception of a few supplemental materials I hope to order on payday!  So here's what we're using this year:

J-Saurus, age 10  (11 in October):
* MFW CTG (Creation to Greeks)
* First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind
* Writing Strands
* Spelling Power
* A Reason for Handwriting, Cursive
* Singapore Math

M.J., age 8 (9 in October)
* MFW CTG
* First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind
* Spelling Power
* A Reason for Handwriting, Cursive
* Singapore Math

Buster Brown, age 6
* MFW First Grade

On my Wishlist
* Mystery of History

This weekend I hope to get our "classroom" organized and ready for our first day!

I'll share pics ;)

Hanging on to summer

 I can feel it slowly slipping away...summer is coming to an end.  We've been so blessed though to have had perfect swimming weather.  On those super hot days, you could find us at MiMi and Papa's, my parents house.  My dad and husband worked their tails off to build a deck that the kids could jump into the pool off of.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Copper and Pink Heart Necklace

My second completed project!  I'm pleased with how this necklace turned out.  I started playing with some 16 gauge wire and ended up creating the heart.  I just went from there.  I think I'll keep the original copper finish as opposed to antiquing.  Now I need to get a good inventory of art pieces completed and I'll be ready to sell!

Copper Bracelet

I'm so excited to share my first completed piece of jewelry art!  I've dabbled in jewelry making and other crafts over the years, but never found a medium that I felt confident in.  Recently, I began playing with copper wire after finding a book at the library.  One of the pieces in Sharilyn Miller's book, Contemporary Copper Jewelry, inspired this bracelet.

The last photo is my favorite.  I love how it looks in natural light.  I'm playing around with the photography a little bit to see what works best.  I wanted to show what the bracelet looks like on the wrist, but I don't think that photot does it justice.  Each of the links and dangles are handmade.  After assembling the bracelet, I gave it a bath in liver of sulfur to get the color I was after.  I cleaned it up with 000 steel wool and polished it with a jewelry cloth. 

 I've been working on other projects all week, but I've run out of wire!  I can't wait to show you my next creation.

Home Educating Family Publishing

Giveaway!

From Home Educating Family Publishing...

Both Sides of the Barn Giveaway

Enter to Win
1. "A Journey Home" from Franklin Springs Media
2. "Beside Still Waters" by Tricia Goyer
3. Well Planned Day Planner, 2011-2012
4. 1 year subscription to Home Educating Family Magazine

This prize pack has a value of over $70.
Contest Dates: June 23, 2011 through June 30, 2011.

One entry per person unless you share this contest. Fan us on facebook and let us know where you have shared, and we'll give you an additional entry for each share! Be specific so we can verify it for your entry.

Summer School!

After much thought and prayer (and reading other blogs), I've set our schedule for summer school.  If you homeschool, you know that learning never takes a vacation, but as far as any formal learning or following a curriculum goes, school is NOT OUT for summer!

Throughout June, July, and August, we will be doing schoolwork 3x's a week, taking off the week of VBS and the last 2 weeks of August.  I'll use those last weeks in August to finish preparations for the 2011-2012 school year.

Tues., Wed., and Thurs., will be our planned summer school workdays, but we can use Mon. or Fri. if something comes up on the other days.  If Monday is rainy and Tuesday is a perfect day to swim, we'll do our work Mon. and enjoy the weather Tues.  It should only take a few hours to do our work so even though we aren't putting the workbooks away for the summer, we'll ceratinly be enjoying SUMMER!!!

Wildlife Fair

Our local homeschool group hosted a "Wildlife Fair" several weeks ago.  Each child picked an animal to report on using a project board or diorama.  J-saurus put together a power point on the Komodo Dragon ( I didn't get a picture! ), M.J. decorated a 3-panel project board with Cheetah facts,

and Buster Brown constructed an Emperor Penguin diorama ( We also did a lapbook ).

Our group's coordinator invited "Alligator Eric" to show the children some of his animal friends...

J-saurus was in heaven!  He couldn't keep his hands off the alligator, named "Beautiful," and he showed off his knowledge of reptiles answering almost all of Alligator Eric's questions!  Since we are studying biomes and animals from every continent in My Father's World, this event really enhanced our curriculum.  We just finished Africa in ECC and we plan on going to the matinee Friday to see African Cats!

Blessings!

Fact Families

Well, it happens I guess.  You buy a curriculum for one child and it works well and you're all set to use it for the next child and it's not the same experience...because it's not the same child.

Well my 2nd grader, M.J., is struggling with Math.  It just hasn't clicked for her.  We're using Math U See right now, but will most likely be switching here soon.

I searched for some resources to help her really master her addition and subtraction facts and stumbled upon these.  I printed off the +,- set after some copying and resizing.  I'll let you know how it works for us!

Ta~Da! I got a blog makeover!

I have spent entirely too much time giving my blog a makeover, but it was worth it!  I drooled over all the gorgeous designs on this site: http://shabbyblogs.com/.  She has amazing stuff on there and it's all free!  I hope you like the new look and I hope the new design will inspire me to be a better blogger.  Please check back...or better yet FOLLOW me! I have much to share as we travel on our homeschool journey.

Be Blessed!

Rosetta Stone Giveaway!

Now is the perfect time to give your child the gift of possibilities for the holidays with Rosetta Stone Homeschool — and you can WIN a Level 1 Homeschool program, language of your choice (valued at $249)!

Right now Rosetta Stone is having a special Holiday promotion on our Homeschool Edition program and we’d like you to help spread the word! Everyone can save up to $150 on Rosetta Stone Homeschool by visiting our website at http://www.RosettaStone.com/hsw1110.

By helping us spread the word you can win a Rosetta Stone Homeschool Edition Level 1 program, language of your choice, valued at $249.

This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever!

Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students.

To win this program, copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR post about this contest on your facebook page. Then go to the original page at
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