Homeschool Mother's Journal ~ 8/17

In my life this week…

I am very thankful that a lot of my stress is gone. I finished my commitments for the magazine and am mailing them out this afternoon! I enjoyed cooler weather this week--but it gave me a hankering for fall!!

In our homeschool this week…

We started our first FULL schedule and it went very very well! Thankfully last week's emotions were gone and we got into a routine. So far, Little Britches really loves what we are doing--especially the new History portion. And he's not complaining about the extra Science. He loves that subject!

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Sunday is our annual big church picnic event. We are headed to a place called Butler Springs Camp where we will spend the day in fellowship and fun. There is a zipline, a rock wall, swimming pool and a host of other activities that can be enjoyed. We are having a bit potluck for the meal--and we are having potluck at church tomorrow--so I have to plan out my food for the next two days today. I'm thinking casserole for tomorrow and crockpot shredded chicken tacos for Sunday! Easy to fix in advance and easy to take!

My favorite thing this week was…

When we were reading our first portion of Story of the World Vol. 1, I stopped reading to finish and Little Britches begged me to keep going. I love it when that happens....but you know that wasn't my most FAVORITE thing. My most favorite thing was looking through a USBORNE book on outer space and then sneaking out with Little Britches after Baby Britches went to bed to go star gazing. THAT was the best part of the week!

What’s working/not working for us…

So far our new schedule is working for us. We'll see how it goes over the upcoming weeks. 

Things I’m working on…

Trying to stick with the mantra--if you put it down, pick it up. If you take it out, put it back. If you make a mess, clean it up. If I can work on just this basic philosophy I'll probably enjoy cleaning the house a lot more! LOL!

I’m reading…

I'm reading book #3 To Know Her By Name of the Rocky Mountain Memories series by Lori Wick...and reading book #2 of the Lighthouse series by Colleen Coble, The Lightkeeper's Bride...AND reading a book by Debra Clopton called Meeting Her Match. Yes. Three books simultaneously. I do it all the time! LOL!

I’m cooking…

As you read above, I've got a lot to cook up today! And don't forget Sabbath dinner tonight! I've already got that planned out though. Grilled Chicken, Garden Fresh Salad, Garden Fresh Corn on the Cob, Red and Baby Yellow Potatoes, Apple Crumble and a bottle of Sparkling Cider!

I’m grateful for…

rain...

I’m praying for…

Self-Discipline

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Psalm 148:1

1st Grade/Tot School~ Week 1

I have decided that this year I will post one to two weeks of homeschool at a time. Sometimes I will post about what's going on in general and sometimes it will be geared toward either 1st grade or Tot School. Today I am sharing what we are did in both for the first two week of school...

*Week 1 (August 7-10)
Little Britches
We started off with school pictures to celebrate the beginning of 1st Grade and Tot School. You can check out those pictures next week during the {Not} Back to School Blog Hop--since it's all about student photos..

This week was all about review. I wanted to go over basic math and spellings and phonics to see how much had been retained since our last week of school back in May. Yes, I know it's a long break, but that was my husband's decision not mine and so that's what we did...

We did our review with reading out loud...

Here Little Britches is working out a new Biscuit book--he likes to read on the floor or on the bean bag and Baby Britches demands a book to "read" too. His reading consists of "boof boof!" every time he sees a picture of Biscuit the dog. (giggle)

I decided to go ahead and start Beginning Geography this week...we have done two of the lessons and we BOTH love this book very much! Now I see why everyone who has used it tends to give it rave reviews! After just the first two units our direction vocabulary has seriously increased--and he's become fascinated with my compass on my car's rearview mirror and shouts out the directions we are going whenever it changes.

 We did some worksheets for math review.

He enjoys math worksheets where you do the problems then use the answers to find the colors for coloring the picture. He did very well on this during the week with very limited errors.

We started his Daily Math Word Problem book--choosing to put the sheets inside our new Dry Erase Pouch...so easy and I'm so glad I bought three of these! They were just $1 a piece at Target...along with the mini dry erase pens and a mini erasers.

He enjoys these daily problems...week #1 was all about seals. I love how they use real facts to create these math problems--so it's like mini science lessons too!

Baby Britches
Baby Britches and I started working with colors and sorting. I use these fabulous big gems I bought at our Dollar Tree. They are all different sizes and had 3 colors in a bag. I found a bag of green ones stashed away and added them to the mix. We sorted them by color together. I have him repeat the colors to me...of course he doesn't talk yet, but I always get a response! LOL! Then after we have our time of sorting, I let him play with them. I found some plastic shot glasses at W@lm@rt and he likes to use those to pour, cover, fill, and scoop these gems.

After about 10 minutes of this, he decides to throw them...at which point we call it done! LOL! I was happy to note that after 3 days he was finding the colors I asked for much quicker and was starting to sort! Woot! He and I also read some books together and Little Britches read some Biscuit books to him.

It was an easy first week, but a good way to get back into the swing of sitting still and getting up earlier!

Our School Space~ (Not) Back to School Blog Hop 2012

I've been very blessed to have a nice school space for our work. It's not exactly what I want since we have to share the space with our office and my craft desk, but it works great for now!

 We have a great bulletin board for our daily calendar work. My husband snagged it out of a school that his work was demolishing. The calendar and days of the week came from the $1 bins at Target. I printed off the calendar numbers--have a different set for each month. I have sets for every month of the year. There is a clock for our daily time and the blue folder like thing at the bottom is one of the Dry Erase pockets I found in the $1 bin at Target the last time I went. It has any daily worksheets in it.

 This is on the back of the closet door in the room. I used an old over the door rack I wasn't using anymore. I have all our flash cards and laminated printed pages hanging from it. It so so much easier to keep track of all our flashcards since I hole punched them and put them on rings! The rings I used here were my "brilliant" idea I mentioned in this post. LOL!

 My pride and joy of the classroom is this full size white board! Yes, it IS FULL SIZED! My husband snagged this too from the school they were demolishing and was quite proud of this find! You can see it even has the World and US maps to go on it too! Talk about fantastic for world events and geography! I love that these boards are magnetic too, so I laminate and then add magnets to the back of things like posters and put them on the board.

 Our desks for the boys...another find from that school! We have a third desk out in the barn...just in case. (wink). These face the white board...the boys love their desks. Baby Britches has much better behavior since we moved in his desk.
(ETA: Now that we are heading into our first year of "official" pre-school he is eager to have "real school" at his desk!)

 Inside the closet I have a plastic drawer set with my craft supplies, and other supplies. Not necessarily neat and tidy, but hey, that's why I keep the door shut! LOL!

(ETA: Since I took this picture I HAVE rearranged some things so it's not as messy...notice I said "not AS"...LOL. I still keep the door closed!)

 My nice big cabinet. Love this thing. I keep our curriculum paperwork, art supplies, files, soooooo much in this! And then I use the side of it for sight words. I laminated 3 x 5 cards and added magnets to the back. So when we have new words we can write them and keep them in sight...then once it's been learned, wipe it off and add a new one.

 Here is our music room! LOL! We have piano lessons for Little Britches on Monday's...

And here is our other classroom...110 acres of a God created school for exploration!

At some point we are going to build onto our house and the new room will be bigger then this one and will be almost entirely used for our classroom. Sigh. I can't wait! I will actually have bookshelves in my classroom then! Now I have to keep all our reading books either in the cabinet or out in the living room on the beautiful bookshelves my husband made me.

But I'm very very grateful for the space we have now and the blessings of the school furniture we have. Having a school like setting really works for our family, but we do regularly move to the big kitchen table AND like to go outside for class too!

Feel free to check out what our 2012-2013 Curriculum will be HERE.
You can see our 2013-2014 curriculum HERE.
I will be sharing our 2014-2015 this week (Aug 18-22)!