School Time’s A Comin’ Part 2

Yesterday I talked about school for my little ones but things are changing for my older boys as well. At the end of last year we decided that my oldest son needed more attention. Not because he wasn’t doing well in school, just because he was feeling a little left out. I was working with his brother through almost all of his subjects and I never sit down with Jordan during the day.

So this year I’m moving the boys away from their desks and we’ll be doing school at the kitchen table. 

I purchased these crates, one for each of them and and a pink one for me. We’ll keep all of our daily books and supplies in them and bring them to the table each morning.

These are no where near full. Some of the stuff in there now are review products that were started in the middle of the last school year. We’ll continue working through those this year. I just purchased our remaining homeschool books this week, so we’ll hopefully be ready by August!

I’ve created a schedule that I’m going to slide into a page protector. Each day we’ll be able to check off as we work through it. I’ve also fixed it so I can adjust the times once we get started because I really wasn’t sure how much time some of our subjects would take.

School Time’s a Comin’

And I’m getting ready!!  My older boys and husband have been out of the house this week so I’ve used the time to get all of my school planning done. I have worked day and night but it’s been fun.
Lucas and I stayed up together a couple nights.  Believe it or not we made some pretty sweet memories working together.


Shiloh stayed up with me last night….and it shows, lol

I really wanted to be ready to start school by the first week in August and I had two full weeks coming up, so I knew I would need to get it all done this week. I spent the first two days buying some supplies and cleaning out our library/computer/homeschool room.

I must admit, it looks quiet nice (I really should have taken a before picture).I know it won’t stay that way though, lol.     
                            

We don’t actually do school in this room (we did once upon a time) but I do have an area for Jordan to do his Phonetic Zoo and Bible work.

We cleaned a shelf off of this bookcase to make room for our Sonlight Core E!!! I also have to make room for some Heart of Dakota books that I loaned a friend last year. Not sure where I’ll put those but I’ll figure it out.
My 5 year old son will be starting kindergarten this year and his 4yr old sister will be doing it right along side him. I wanted to make it special for them so I have a few things planned to make learning fun and easy (I hope!).

I’ve set up an area in my kitchen for us to do their school. In the past I’ve tried to do it in different areas of the house but we always seem to end up back in the kitchen. So this year the kitchen and dining room will be our main school areas except for when we’re doing our reading (SONLIGHT!!) That’ll be done on the couch as always.


So for the little ones, I moved their small bookcase and filled it with some of the books I want us to read this year.


They each have a cubby bin to hold their glue, crayons, scissors, etc. and another bin to hold their workbooks and papers. We bought stickers and I decorated one bin and they decorated the other.
I also created a morning board (although it may not get done in the morning…just depends). The idea came when one of my blogging friends (Rusheika, at Island Mama's Adventures) introduced me to the idea and directed me to 1+1+1=1 and Mama Jean.  I used Hubbard's Corner to help me determine what I wanted them to cover this year. I made a list and as soon as they cover a few of the items on the board, I’ll redo it and add new stuff. At least that’s my plan…things often don’t go the way I plan…we may totally hate this morning board thing. Goodness I hope not.

Our Morning Board

So there’s part of our school plan.  Tomorrow I’m going to blog about the older boys and the changes we’ve made for them.

HEY YOU GUUUYYYSS!!!!!!!!!!

 

The Old Homeschool Magazine is offering a great deal. Here’s what you can get for $25:

• SEVEN different TOS back issues
• Homeschooling with Heart tote bag (even the Duggars have a couple of these bags!)
• Surprise bonus gifts (some of these gifts sound really nice…like Wiki Sticks…just ordered those yesterday!!)
• Free shipping!!!

Check it out

Jane Austen Challenge

 

Last January I took the Jane Austen Challenge to read all of her books in 2011, knowing that I might quite possibly only read half (or even less).  But still I thought this was a more obtainable goal for me (compared to the other challenges to read 52 books in a year!). So here we are six months later and I’m finally getting around to checking in with this challenge.

So far I’ve read Sense and Sensibility. This was very good, as you might expect. I enjoyed it very much. I love the two main characters and the fact that they were such opposites, unlike the sisters in Pride and Prejudice.

Speaking of Pride and Prejudice, that was next on my short list. It was a very good book, and did not disappoint. I’m currently watching the 1980’s version of the movie. Very good adaptation, in my opinion.

And lastly I read Persuasion. Again, this was a good story, however none of Jane Austen’s books are too suspenseful and after reading one or two you tend to see where things are going even if you’re not exactly sure how they’ll get there. And with that thought in mind, I have decided to put this challenge on the shelf for a bit. There are a couple of books on hold for me at the library and I want to be sure I’m ‘available’ to read them when they come in.

The challenge actually included ALL things Austen, meaning any books or movies about her. I have watched EMMA, Loved, Loved, Loved it. And when I finish Pride and Prejudice I have Persuasion waiting to be watched. I also have a shorter version of Pride and Prejudice that I’m planning to watch and once I’ve watched all of these, I’m going to get my hands on the Kiera Knightly version of P&P. I should be all Austened out by then.

Read Aloud Challenge June 23

For our reading aloud this week it still just consisted of reading through the Bible as a family, and reading picture books with my little ones. The older boys are also reading their own books. That will be what we do until August probably. I blogged yesterday about our curriculum choice for next year….Sonlight core E. I’m very excited about this and can’t wait to get started. This will produce a lot of read aloud time…we have missed it so much this year!! Did I mention that I’m very excited about this?
We did finish Exodus this week! YAY! But the sad part is now we’re in Leviticus…I’m sorry but it’s just not my favorite book. I’ll confess, when I’m reading through the Bible to the kids, I skip and skim through these law chapters. I want them to grasp the idea that there was A LOT of law, and that the law was very very detailed. But I can get that point across without reading every.single.law.

So, head over to Footprints in the Butter and see what everyone else is reading on these lazy summer days!

Missing School (a little)

 

Am I crazy? I think I might be! But life just works better with a schedule. Right now we’re just being lazy and that gets old after awhile (yeah it really does). The rest of the summer we have things planned every week, except the week before the beach, so it won’t be so bad.

I’m also getting excited because I have decided to purchase my first Sonlight core!!! I haven’t took the plunge yet but I have worked it into my budget (I think. HOPE!). This excites me greatly!!! We didn’t finish our part two of American History this year. I couldn’t find half the books we needed so I was very sad about that. I was going to just go ahead to the reformation period (world history) and use Mystery of History but as I started looking at Sonlight I decided it would be a good great idea to go back and finish up that American History. I also missed the family reading time this year. We didn’t do nearly as much of that and we all love that part of schooling, not to mention it’s so beneficial for my kids that are learning to read.

I’m also thinking I’ll start school a little earlier this year so we can be free to take some time off when we open our new business (more excitement!) I also would like to add a week here an there to break up the school year and still get out by the end of May.

 

This is where the building will be for the new business

The past couple years we’ve been at the beach in Sept and I didn’t want to start school until we returned so we had to work hard to finish by May. Talk about burnout! I don’t want that anymore. The first week of summer break was so relaxing and the thought of having a couple of those during the year makes me giddy. I think the kids need it too.

The way I figure it, if I start August 15 we can have a week off in October, 2 off in December, 1 off in February, and 1 off in April (that’s a break every other month) and still have 36 weeks in by the end of May. This is as close to year round school as I’ve ever gotten. We may end up doing that at some point.

I’m actually thinking about starting a week before the beach and just doing a light week to see how it goes. Then we’ll know if our schedule is going to work. I know the boys will probably balk at this but Mark and I had already decided we needed to start earlier this year so we’d be free to take some time off during the opening of our business.  Hopefully with him behind me they won’t balk too much.

Review: TJ and the Time Stumblers

 

We recently received Bill Myers’ book entitled New Kid Catastrophes: TJ and the Time Stumblers. This is a 182 page paperback book that my 11 year old son read. It’s the first in the Time Stumblers series and is classified as Juvenile/Christian/Fiction.  The cost of this book is $6.99 and can be purchased from Tyndale.

The main character is TJ Finkelstein and she just moved to a new town and school. She has trouble fitting in and encounters some other “misfits” who help her as she navigates though 7th grade at a new school. The odd thing about these new friends is, they are from the future and they’re studying her. The funny part about it is only TJ can see them. This causes lots of funny catastrophes for the new kid (hence the name).

My son’s overall opinion was it’s a good book and would like to read more in this series.

**Disclaimer: This book was provided in exchange for my honest opinion. No further compensation was given.