Our Morning

This morning, I had a surprise for the gang...frozen fruit smoothies! I made them smoothies yesterday so I just made extra and froze them in molds. The boys have had a bit of a sore throat this week, so I had intended to give it to them yesterday evening as an after-dinner treat, but, um, I forgot ;) So they had them this morning as an addition to breakfast :) They were NOT complaining!

I use Kefir, one of the sweetened ones like strawberry, banana, then frozen fruit semi-thawed to make them nice and slushy. The kids gobble them up!

I sent them outside to eat them (mess!) and since it was so nice this morning, we moved out there for school :) Our back deck is shaded all morning so it's perfect this time of year.

Like my mostly dead impatiens in the background? I couldn't keep up with the watering this year. So stinkin' hot :(

I was afraid being outside for school would be too distracting for them, but they did pretty good! I'm so glad we did this! It was the perfect solution to our blahs.  I think we just might have to move most of our school out there this fall!

Our Classroom

We have a new classroom! This is our tenth year homeschooling and we finally have a room I'm excited about! We tried setting up in the basement several years ago. Since it's finished, it seemed like the perfect place! Put the mess downstairs! However, I'd forgotten how much I really hate being somewhere that has no windows; no sunshine. I'm a sunshine junkie ;) We lasted two months down there. After that, we moved back into the dining room. Our dining  room table is big and we could put our books in the bottom of the hutch. This worked for a while, but we quickly out-grew the hutch. Every year, we added another little bookshelf of some sort to try to contain our stuff. Eventually, it didn't look much like a dining room, it just looked like a mess!

All along the perfect room was right beside us :) Our living room! Part of my reasoning was that we didn't really have anything in the living room that resembled living room furniture but we do have dining room furniture. So we removed the sad couch that was in there and moved in!

Part of my inspiration came from these:

My mom is cleaning out her house and gave me these two bookshelves! Yippee!! Thanks, Mom!

Several coats of paint later:

There's still alot of work to do in here. The picture is left over from when it was a living room ;) It's on it's way out to make room for a calendar, some file holders, and a couple of maps. The bookshelves in the middle were moved in from the dining room for now, but I'd like to have a long table there for a couple of computers. All in good time! For now, it's perfect! I'm able to have most of what I need right there and there's lots of room to move around and lots of sunshine streaming in! I think we'll be very happy here :)

Let the Chaos Begin!

We started school this week and it has been going very well! I'm actually not getting alot of complaints..... yet ;) Brandon has reached the...age? maturity? when he realizes that if he works hard in the morning (we are very much morning people here) he can be done or almost done by lunch and he is really loving that. And so am I! Nicholas' takes a little longer but he's hanging in there. Megan will be upping her amount of work at some point this year, but I'm not rushing ;)

Today we started co-op. It was not my original plan to start school and co-op in the same week but it just worked that way when we had to postpone our vacation. Let me tell you, it won't happen that way again ;) It's nice to have at least a week to get rolling before we start adding stuff! Anyway, it went very well. From a board member stand point, there were only a few things to tweak/watch; from a teacher stand point, my classes went much better than I was anticipating which was a great surprise; from a parent stand point, our kids loved all their classes!

Brandon is taking Chess Club, Latin, WWI, Art, and Around the World. Nicholas is taking Music, Seasons, Art, Around the World, and Gym (his gym teacher is his favorite teacher ;)). Megan is taking Montessori preschool, Preschool Play, and Gym. Her first two classes are longer than the boys so even though she has less classes she still goes a full day missing only an hour in the afternoon. She's pooped! I think I'll be talking her daddy into picking her up tonight at soccer practice and putting her to bed early ;)

I loved getting a chance to chat a little with all my mommy friends! I think I look forward to that part as much as the kids!

So here is their first day of co-op picture!
Yes Megan is crying. Why? Because I made her leave her beloved Bionicle at home. Yes she loves them too and even knows several of their names. In hindight, I should have let her bring it in the car, but I was afraid she would throw her fit in the parking lot at church so I decided to deal with it at home :)

A Little Treat

Today, I went shopping for some school books...with just Kristen! I actually had the opportunity to look at books! I had books spread out all over the floor at Barnes and Noble trying to choose the right Language books. I'm changing some things this year (ugh) and that means lots of research.

Now for the point of this post! Barnes and Noble has a new teachers section! Holcombs, our local teacher supply store, is reportedly closing. Barnes and Noble has it covered! There were tons of hands-on teaching/learning things for young ones. And a whole bookshelf designated to homeschooling books! Even some homeschool curricula like First Language Lessons and The Story of the World. I was really impressed! And, if you don't already know, Barnes and Noble offers a 20% teachers discount to homeschoolers. Just take in your letter from the school district.

Also, they have a new section of eco-friendly art supplies! Some very nice, PVC-free regular and colored pencils and erasers...and they're cute! The water color pencils are most definitely on my list :)
Just thought I'd pass it along :)

Getting a Little Bored?

We spent some time yesterday running errands then in the afternoon we relaxed with some playing and some reading. The funny thing is, I think my kids are actually kinda missing school! Especially Megan since all her schoolwork is fun stuff anyway ;) She pulled out this alphabet/numbers book and found some pages to work on. She called it her "math book". It was cracking me up!
Thsi is a page of connect-the-dots that she did. Of course it's a cat!

Last Showcase

As I posted earlier, tonight was Kristen's last showcase. It's always a great show. There's a couple of theater performances and lots of songs that the sign language classes perform which is the most beautiful thing! It was bittersweet for both of us as I, too, will miss some people. But we had a great time! There's always an "after-party" so, for tonight, one of the co-op parents had arranged for CiCi's pizza to stay open late for us!

The choir is the only thing Kristen does that performs. She's been in it since we started four years ago and has loved every minute! The teacher is magnificent and the choir is huge so getting up in front of people is less intimidating that way ;) Here's my baby:
I cropped it so you all can find her ;) She in a light blue dress with a white sweater:
With some friends waiting:
The natives were restless:
Megan is playing her "air piano". She's REALLY good ;)

After with Grandma Diana:
And with some of the rest of us:
Best friends:

Her BIGGEST fans:
We love you, Kristen!

School?

We had another great day outside today! This weather is just being so cooperative that we've moved our school outdoors!

I took the kids (all of them! yay!) to the park today for a little scavenger hunt. Thank you, Jenny, for your post on this! You know I can never come up with anything on my own! We tweaked it a little since ours was in the woods and away we went! All of us had a great time finding the things on the list and just taking our time walking through the woods. It was so relaxing and actually very educational! Since the boys are studying habitiats in science (actually Brandon is done with his science book but he could do science things every day of his life!) one of the things on my list was to list all the habitats you see. There are actually many different little environments, ecosystems, habitats... whatever you want to call them...in the woods and we had fun talking about them.

Some pics from our walk:
Leading Kristen


We saw a swamp early in our walk and there were all kinds of little things swimming in and on the water there so at the end of our walk we went back over to see if we could get some pictures and one of the naturalists was there! She was getting samples of the critters to take back to the nature center so we had a little private lesson on the names of some of those little squiggly things! So fun!
In her little aquarium she had a very large orange mite (very rare), a leech (eww), and a few other little crawlies that I can't remember the names of.
We were particularly interested in all the tadpoles swimming around so she netted one for us to get a picture of!

I was trying so hard to get a good picture of all the little things in the swamp I'm surprised I didn't fall in! lol
In that picture are fairy shrimp!

No park trip would be complete without a stop by the nature center:
These little turtles were a big hit! Even Kristen wants one!

We left the nature center and drove over to the goldfish pond on the way out of the park and guess what we saw?? The biggest tadpole ever! I finally was able to get a picture!

Again we had a great time just looking around for things. Poor Meggie was getting hot and tired but she was a trooper!
Do you think he's hot?
Brandon the Science Guy
After the pond, we headed home for a fruit smoothie and an indoor craft which I will post later! What a great day! I'm not looking forward to the return of our normal temperatures at all!

Maybe for the next scavenger hunt we'll round up some friends and head over to Inniswoods. I think there are lots of things to "find" in the Secret Garden! :)

Some Resources

I have a few homeschooling resources to share. As some of you know, we use Apologia science books and we absolutely love them! In order to get the very most out of each lesson, I searched the internet for ideas and found this . What a wealth of ebooks! My favorite part about ebooks is that I get them immediately (I know that patience is a fruit of the Spirit, but He's still working on me with that one ;)). Just click to buy, then click to download and it's all mine! I then print it off, put it in a three-ring binder and make copies as I need to of the consumable pages. You can sign up on their website to receive their weekly newletter which also features a free ebook each week!

My favorite publisher on CurrClick is Knowledge Box Central so these days I usually check them out first if I'm looking for something. She has great sales and coupon days and her products are so easy to use :) That right there makes me a fan. I hate when I have to do more reading on how to use something than we actually spend doing it ;) She also has a blog where she posts upcoming sales and some funny things at Redheaded Rambler . I hope you all enjoy the links!

A Little Learning Never Killed Anyone...

I had been dreading this year all summer. Not only is this Kristen's last year, which has been emotional let me just say; but it is Nicholas' first year. He is the kind of boy that can't sit still so I was really anxious about how in the world I was going to teach him anything! Not to mention I haven't really taught first grade stuff yet! Brandon pretty much skipped most of it. He was reading, so beginning phonics were redundant (and skipped ;)) and he had been adding and subtracting for quite some time so his math book (second grade level) was just honing his skills.

Nicholas, however, would need to be taught all this stuff. He practiced his letters and numbers in kindergarten and he thought I was torturing him. The one thing he liked, and always has, is to be read to. He loves books! So we read...lots. It was the very best way to get him to sit still for a minute and maybe learn something!

As you know, I love teaching my kids. One of my favorite parts is learning something about them in the process. I love seeing what they liked and disliked about the year. It tells me a little more about them and helps me choose for the next year. I take mental notes all year long.

One thing that has emerged as a favorite of Nicholas' is phonics! Never in a million years would I have guessed it! I have always heard about kids hating phonics, so I was really, really surprised one day when I had set up his phonics cards, called him over and he exclaimed that he loved that part! It was his favorite!

Here are some pictures of his favorite :)
We're using Learning Language Arts Through Literature and he loves it! I've used it in the past a few times for Kristen and Brandon and neither of them cared for it much, but after searching all summer for a good phonics program, this one just kept jumping out at me, so I bought it. It has been just challenging enough to keep him interested but not so much that he is overwhelmed. There's just enough grammar sprinkled in there that he's getting the basics of capitalization and punctuation, nouns and such, but the emphasis is mostly on learning to read. And he finds the readers hilarious! That cracks me up! Who likes readers?!?

Math Fun

Some days we call this math ;)
He did have patterns for some of those, but do you see the little man? He's fishing and he's an original creation by Nicholas :)

I guess I know what he'd rather be doing instead of math ;)

Maple Syrup Madness

Earlier this month, we went on a field trip to Dawes Arboretum for some info on maple syruping. It was fantastic! The trip was originally scheduled for a day that was bitter cold; so, thankfully, it was rescheduled :) (thank you Angi!). The rescheduled day so so much nicer, we could actually tolerate being outside!

The tour starts by the parking lot and winds through the woods where you can see some tapped trees, but also some great props. It was very interesting to see how things were 100+ years ago and how they've changed.
The purple area on the map is the only place that produces maple syrup. All the syrup in the world comes from this small area!
Since sap is mostly water, it has to be boiled for a long time to get syrup. Back in pioneer times (and even longer) the sap was boiled outside in a large kettle over an open fire because there is so much steam. It takes 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup!

This is a "tree cookie" with tons of information about tapping. The taps only go in a little ways since the sap runs through the tree close to the bark.
Here you can see a scar left from a tap.
So curious!

These popular brands all had tags on them with numbers. The numbers were the percentage of real maple syrup ;) Aunt Jemima was the lowest there...I think her number was 1 (I might be wrong it was weeks ago! But really I couldn't believe how low those numbers were!).
Mmmm samples of REAL maple syrup!
We also learned that sometimes they would cook the syrup too long on purpose and call"It's sugaring!" then everyone would grab containers from the house and they would pour the quickly hardening syrup in the containers. It would then solidify and they would use it as sugar! They could just scrap some off and put it in whatever they needed!
More modern boiling method. See the vents in the ceiling:

It was a great day and such an informative field trip! This place is really huge (1400 acres?) and filled with all kinds of trees and flowers that grow in Ohio. They also offer so many conservation and horticulture programs; I know we'll be back there soon!