Update and end of school year!

 

We did it we finished our 2012-2013 school year! I really feel like it was our best year yet but I am excited to have a break. All of the kids worked really hard this year and learned a ton. Buster finished Preparing Hearts For His Glory and he really enjoyed all of the books we/he read. It was really fun for him to be able to show daddy everything he learned about this year by going through his science and history notebooks together. I already packed up Preparing and put out Creation to Christ. I'm excited for Buster to do that in the fall. It looks awesome! Sweetpea finish Beyond Little Hearts and up to Unit 7 day 4 of Bigger Hearts. She will continue with Bigger Hearts all of next year. Buttercup finished her preschool work and up to unit 6 day 2 of Little Hearts. I had her stop at that point because that was the end of the first storytime book. I didn't want her to wait all summer to fins out what happened if we started a new one. She will continue with Little Hearts all of next year. Buddy is really getting into doing his preschool workbooks and he loves that he goes first for storytime. I have been reading to him out of A Child's First Bible and a picture book every day. He loves reading time and listens really well. He will start Little Hands to Heaven in the fall.

 

 

My husband finished Exploring Creation Zoology 2 and started Exploring Creation with Botany. They will continue with that throughout the summer and start Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy in the fall.

The kids made it a little over halfway through memorizing their Catechisms. We will do the second half next year. We read about Bach, and Beethoven and enjoyed their music. We also learned about Degas, Van Gogh, DaVinci, and Raphael. We are up to lesson 37 in Getting Started With Spanish, and I hope to do some review this summer.

 

Sweetpea played soccer this spring and she really enjoyed it. Buttercup is doing swim lessons and finally started swimming really well and she absolutely loves to swim now. Buster is still doing swim team and loving it. He had a meet in May and shaved 19 seconds off his 50 back. He was so excited about that and so were his coaches. This summer Buster will continue swim team, Sweetpea will be doing the top level of swim lessons/pre-swim team, and Buttercup is taking the rest of June off of swim lessons and might do them again in July and August. The times for her lessons changed and there isn't really a good time.

 

Other than swimming we will be enjoying the sun this summer. The kids will continue reading and do a bit of math review and some handwriting practice. We also are working on some home improvement projects this spring/summer. Buster will be going to his first kids camp and we have VBS. I plan to get a post up sometime this summer about our plans for the 2013-2014 school year.

Chaos, Sickness, and a bit of fun!

I really can not believe that it has been over a month since I last posted a blog on here. Let me tell you the last several weeks have been crazy around here. I spent several weeks sick from Whooping Cough, we celebrated our 10th anniversary, Buster took his first standardized test, our plumbing went bad, my husband is completely remodeling our 1 bathroom, Buster joined the swim team, and we have tried to squeeze in some fun and school where we can. I'm very happy that my husband and I decided not to start our next school year until the end of August this year because the rest of our summer is gearing up to be just as crazy. I will spare you all of the details of this crazy month and just say that we are really growing and trying to learn from this crazy life.

We went for a hike on Memorial day weekend! My husband bought me roses for our 10th anniversary!



The girls made us a cake for our anniversary. Sweetpea wanted chocolate and buttercup wanted pink frosting! 

Sweetpea's soccer team won all of their tournament games!

Free fishing day! Buster caught two trout!

I'm no fisher woman. The girls and I could not catch even one.

Buddy with his first fish! Daddy helped a bit!

Summer School Plans!

We finished our school Year last Friday! Buster has completed all of Bigger Hearts, Sweetpea finished Beyond through unit 18, and Buttercup finished through unit 13 of Little Hands! We will not be starting our 2012-2013 School year until the last week of August. For the summer we will be using the following resources.

Buster and Sweetpea will both be using the Singapore Math extra practice book for the levels they completed. We are also doing a world geography study, and they each will be reading daily.

Sweetpea just started this stack of books last week with the Bible!

These are the books Buster is working through currently.

For Spanish they will be using some Spanish computer games we own. Summer school has gone really well this week and I'm trying to keep it short and fun. One way I came up with to make it more fun was to give us an extra theme for each day. Which go as follows:

Math Monday(we will be playing math games together as a group)

Tea Tuesday(Each Tuesday we plan to have a tea party for lunch and read poetry)

Word Wednesday(On this day we are doing fun things like Mad Libs, Grammar Rock, and Ruth Heller books)

Park Thursday(We plan to meet some friends at the park each Thursday and maybe do some nature study)

Fit Friday(I'm hoping to teach the kids some of those things you would normally learn in PE)

This week we had a special guest for Tea Tuesday!

My cousin is visiting for her brothers graduation and she joined us for tea. I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the tea party. It was very lovely.

Other than these school plans we hope to enjoy as much time outdoors as we can, enjoy family, and go crazy with all the parties and weddings. Buster is joining our local swim team for the summer and the girls will be continuing swimming lessons.

Weekly Wrap Up!

I can't believe it has been three weeks since I posted one of these. The last time I posted we were about to start a vacation week, which turned out to be not much of a vacation. We had plans to get some stuff done around the house but were only able to do anything for 2 days of that week. My husband ended up getting a nasty cold followed by a back ache, and a stomach flu. The girls were both also sick with a stomach bug during that week. The next week after that we were back to school full force, and it turned out to be a really good school week. This week also went well! So September comes to a close with 3 weeks of school accomplished, 1 week of not so much vacation, 2 niece birthday parties, a bunch of football practices and two games, and the start of fall co-op. I can't believe tomorrow is October! Sweetpea will be starting her 1st grade work in about 1.5 weeks, and she will be 6 on October 31st. She is super excited and already planning her Flower Fairy birthday. She also will be moving up to the 6 and up swim classes starting Tuesday. Her instructor wanted her to move up even though she isn't 6 yet because she had mastered all of the 4-5 year old classes.

Buster loves flag football!

Waiting for pictures, he's number 8!

Buttercup making a D!

We had some fun with tape on the floor this week!

Shapes

Hopscotch!

Doing his daily independent story problem!

Meet Lady Liberty!

Sweetpea loved this activity!

I signed up for a free two month trial of Kinderbach!

The kids love it and have done it everyday this week.

I started putting together a fall play bucket!

Hours of entertainment here!

For more weekly Wrap Ups visit http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/

Weekly Wrap up!

I just want to start this weekly wrap up by saying we have had the soggiest spring that I can remember in recent years. Due to that and the fact we are kinda on break the kids have spent far to much time indoor, and in front of the TV. Here is a break down of our week:

Monday: I started the day out with a run in with the kids over cleaning their room, because of that I decided it was time for a media fast. Also I needed to get back to telling the kids once and expecting a response the first time. Once we got through that the day went well actually. Monday was actually a decent day weather wise. The kids spent a bunch of time playing outdoors. The Cicadas were out and we found one that Buster attempted to catch. After that failed I told the kids to pick a flower they wanted to draw. I think they did an excellent job. Other than that Buster read from Owl at Home to me, and the kids played with Cuisenaire rods while I read Jungle book.

Buster's drawing

Sweetpea's

Tuesday: Buster woke me up by reading the rest of Owl at Home to me in bed, since he couldn't watch TV. We spent quite a bit of time outdoors between raindrops, and in raindrops. We also did some fun math together using the new dry erase board I bought. I read some more Jungle Book, and the kids took turns reading. Tuesday evening the kids started swimming, which means we all had to spend about 2hrs at the YMCA.

Wednesday: My sister and her kids came over to play. Buster has been trying to catch snakes all week, and he had to show his cousins their hiding spots.
Thursday: We had another great math session. The kids continued to play outside, and with all their army toys. I found Sweetpea outside chasing Buster around with a greater than less than sign trying to eat him. Gotta love MEP. Buster finally caught a Cicada and got to look closer at it. Once again we had swimming. Sweatpea's class is first, and she swam the width of the pool. Between classes we went to the park for a bit. Then came back for Buster's lessons. Daddy and Buster almost finished Zoology 3. I'm told they will be done tonight.

Friday: Well so far nothing much except playing :)



Be sure and head over to http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/ for more wrap ups

Swimming Lessons!

The kids had their first swimming lessons today. Sweetpea had to have someone in the water with her, so my hubby went with her today. Buster had to go with just his teachers. I was a little nervous when I had to have him sit beside the pool and leave him. The parents are supposed to watch from an observation area. I went up to it feeling a little worried for him, but he did great. He wasn't scared at all and he followed instruction very well. I'm really excited about it and I hope he actually learns alot :)