Oceans of Fun Trip!

We took a little trip to Kansas City to get away before the new school year started. We had a blast!

Here we are at Oceans of Fun!

We also visited Paradise Park! The kids had so much fun.

Here is the Blocks and Construction area.

House Play

Pizza Parlor

Grocery Store

Water Play

Miniatures

Before we left we were able to go see my brother, sister-in-law, and our two nieces. The girls all played and we had a great time visiting and seeing their new home. And, as you can see, I forgot to take pictures!

I love you family!
I am so glad we had this time away together!

Homeschool Work Space and How I plan

Homeschooling planning can be an overwhelming task in itself, but this year I would not only be homeschooling my 1st grader but also teaching Preschool to 8 other children 5 days a week in my home. I knew I had to get really organized or I would not be able to stay on top of things. So, this summer I worked on getting every week of school planned out in detail. I labeled the file folders by week.

After all my folders are labeled by week, I sit down with all of my materials and my lesson plans and sort everything into the appropriate folders. All workbooks (CLE for Math, Reading, and Lang. Arts), worksheets, activity pages, books, etc...go in each week's folder so they are ready to go. (No thinking on my part after the initial planning/organizing.)

Here is a close-up of my lesson plan sheets. I keep them all in a 1/2 inch binder at the front of my file crate.At the end of the week, I move the week's lesson plan to the back of the binder so the top plan is always for the current week. 

Then I place the current week's folder in the binder along with my Well Planned Day Planner.

As the week progresses, I keep ongoing papers and completed work in the weekly folder. I may come up with a new system for this, but for now this works.

In the Well Planned Day planner I write what we actually accomplish each day. This gives me a sense of accomplishment and also gives me a place to write things down that were not in the lesson plan such as a cool internet site or an additional book.

I store my crate, lesson plans, current library books, teacher manuals etc... in the dining room.

Here is a picture of the dining room where we do our homeschooling. The space you see beyond the dining room is my preschool/home childcare room off of the Kitchen. We also use that space throughout the day. I need to take some new pictures of that room as well because I recently rearranged some things.

The corner cabinet on the left side is where I store a lot of supplies we need throughout the week.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my planning and work space and materials.

Sprinkler System Repairs

Well, after the fencing company installed the new fence they informed us that they hit the underground water line for the sprinkler system. They had also burried the broken spots under 2 feet of concrete. How thoughtful of them. So with no rain, no sprinklers, and record high temperatures...the green grass turned a solid straw color in a matter of two weeks! The lawn practically matched our house color!

So, Stan knew a guy who is a handyman and came over to repair it before our hideous lawn brought down the whole neighborhood. HEHEHE!

This is a picture of one of the 4 broken spots in the line. As you can see, the water just poured out as soon as you turned it on.

Running a new section of PVC pipe.

After 8 hours of work, he repaired all of the leaks and the sprinkler system was up and running. It only took about 2 weeks for the grass to green up again! It looks so much better.

2011-2012 Homeschool Curriculum Plans

This year I am participating in the "Not" Back to School Blog Hop  hosted by Heart of the Matter. This week is Curriculum week so I am sharing all of my plans for the upcoming year!

I have completed all of the lesson plans for Amelia's 1st Grade homeschool curriculum for the entire year. I have organized it by week in a file crate so that I will have everything we need (workbooks, worksheets, books etc...) at my fingertips. I don't have a picture yet, but I will post one when I get it done. I also have my library book lists completed and saved on the library website so I can just request all the books I need for the month without any hunting.

Language Arts and Math
For Language Arts and Math we will be using Christian Light Education. I have high hopes for this curriculum choice and hope it will be one we can use for years to come. It is very well laid out and each subject contains 10 workbooks. I have read many reviews and have heard that this curriculum is very organized, thorough, and requires the child to use critical thinking skills. It is also a "back-to-basics" curriculum, so it puts a strong emphasis on memorization of math facts and grammar usage. Beginning in 2nd grade, the workbooks teach directly to the child so they can begin to take responsibility for their own learning with mom close by whenever needed.

Science
In science, we will be doing a year-long study of the human body. I got the plans for this study for free here, and I think it will be a great introduction to the human body for Amelia and Ella and includes weekly topics such as the five senses, cells, lungs, skeletal system, the brain, and many others. The topic will be explored through the following resources along with lots of library books that correlate with the topics:

History
We will be studying Ancient Times following the Story of the World (SOTW) resources pictured below. This volume begins with the earliest nomads and continues to the fall of Rome. This curriculum was written for 1st-4th graders in mind. Each week we will listen to the audio recording of a chapter in the book and participate in various activities throughout the week that go along with it such as coloring sheets, map work, hands-on crafts and activities, and additional picture books.

Geography

We will be going through the Evan Moore 1st grade Geography workbook which includes lots of different mapping experiences including:

• Globes
• Directions
• Map keys
• Physical maps
• Street maps
• Farm, town, city, and state maps
• Park and zoo maps
• Product maps
• Tourist and weather maps
• Political maps of the United States and the world

Have a great school year everyone!

Happy 35th Birthday Stanley!

Happy Birthday!!!!Happy Birthday

We started off the evening with a yummy meal at Abuelos with the whole Family.

Then we surprised him with balloons, a cake, a pie, and lots of great gifts at Celia's house!

Look at ALL THOSE CANDLES!

Happy Birthday to you!!!

Make a wish!

And this wish came true! A new cordless drill set from mom!

And a new riding jacket, some spending cash, a couple of new shirts, and a vegetarian cook book!

We love you Stanley!

Happy 4th of July!

Lighting the Fireworks

And Then...

And Now for the Big Ones...

Run!!!

That was cool!

God Bless America! The Home of the Free!

Children's Garden

Botanica recently opened their new children's garden. It really is amazing! Very well done. Of course, my camera ran out batteries during the visit...

so I will have to post more pictures when my sister-in-law sends them to me.

This is the Butterfly House. It is not part of the children's garden, but it is a really cool part of the gardens. And yes, that is Stan with the hose. He volunteers at Botanica and spends a lot of time in the Butterfly House during its peak season. So even though he was not working, he sprayed down the area so that the butterflies would come out...and they started flying everywhere!

It is really hard to get a good shot, but they really were flying all around us. I got a few close-up shots when they stopped to take a drink or rest on a leaf.

This is the entrance to the Childen's Garden.

A refreshing fountain greets children and welcomes them into this magical place.

The Barn is a classroom that can be used during field trips etc...

And this is just the beginning...and where my camera went dead. I will share more as soon as I get the pictures...I promise.



Baking Bread and Garden Veggies

I will have to write a post on our new grain mill and mixer we have been using to make bread. But for now, I thought I would just show some delicious pictures...

Freshly Baked Whole Wheat Bread

And a few of our vegetables from the garden...