After Foster completed a week of WW1 camp, his teacher coordinated a field trip to the home of Sgt. York. Chris took Foster, Katie and Theodore. When I asked them what their favorite part of the day was they all said “the swinging bridge”.
Category Archives: homeschooling
10 reasons I can’t wait for the school year to start
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I get so excited about the start of a new school year! Here are my top ten reasons why I am looking forward to starting our 2012-2013 school year.
1. A clean slate! Sometimes at the end of the school year, or on other extended breaks, our daily routine gets lazy. We start to watch too many movies and our attitudes get ugly. The start of a new daily routine is just what we need to jumpstart the new school year.
2. A new daily schedule! Since we began homeschooling in 2008, no two school years have looked the same at the beginning. When we began Foster was a pre-schooler, Katie a toddler and Theodore was still a baby! Each new school year our daily schedule has had to change to work around all the littles and when they nap, etc. Now that Foster and Katie are big kids at 8 1/2 and almost 7, I hope to be able to utilize their babysitting skills and pair them up with Parker (3) or Jonah (9 mos.) while I do one-on-one work with Theodore or whoever. I will post that when I figure it out!
3. A new stack of books! Oh Sonlight, Oh how I love thee, let me count thy ways…I received my new Core in the mail the other day. I have no idea why unpacking that box is such a joyful experience but it really is! And then to see the awesome free gift I got, the new Core tips CD, the changes to the Instructor Guide! I even paid for the new Sonlight binder and it was so worth it!
4. A new Kindergartner! There is just something special about the Kindergarten year. Theodore is all boy and moves to the beat of his own drum. It will be exciting to see how he learns and grasps new concepts this year. I am thankful that Foster and Katie were my guinea pigs on what a true Kindergarten year should look like. I am sure that I stressed too much about what they did or didn’t know. No more. Theodore will do this at his own pace and I will just be coming along side to help him out.
5. A change of scenery! We are house hunting! So at any time we may have to pack our little Grubb Christian Academy in some boxes and move on down the road. We have been renting for the past 5 years and we are ready to have a house of our own.
6. A change of perspective! I’ve been reading many articles and post about relaxing the way we “do” school. I have felt a sense of freedom set in as I realize that the whole reason we homeschool is to instill a love of learning in our children. If I try to have “school-at-home” then I am not allowing that natural love of learning to flourish and grow.
7. A new planner! Ok, so I don’t actually have this yet, but when I get it (soon) I will be excited about mapping out the year.
8. Adding more field trips! This is a big one for me. I feel like because I have been either nursing or pregnant the whole time we’ve homeschooled, I haven’t taken the kids on as many field trips as I would have liked. I am hoping to change that this year and be more intentional about participating in the field trips that are offered through our co-op.
9. Adding more exercise (kids included)! This morning when I took the kids to the park to play, instead of sitting on a bench I walked the path around the playground and before I knew it they were walking with me, doing the stretches I did and giving me ideas (“Let’s do 10 jumping jacks Mommy!”) If we incorporate exercise into our homeschool days now then hopefully it won’t be something they balk at when they get older. Mentally and physically I need it and so do they!
10. Asking Daddy to co-teach more! My husband works very hard, is in the Air National Guard and will be starting back to school himself this August. Because of that, I tend not to ask him to take on teaching the kids. But one thing they love for daddy to do is read to them at night and do hands-on-science experiments with them, so hopefully we can incorporate that in on a regular basis.
Linked up today with Many Little Blessings for Top Ten Tuesday!
this and that
What a mess Parker makes EVERY time he eats!
Foster’s baby brother getting a little help.
My baby brother with his new toy.
Theodore’s showing his karate stance.
Using everything not nailed down to create a fort.
Katie after her first softball game.
Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember.
The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.
Link up with Homeschool Creations and share your moments!
"I gotta big one!"
These are a few of my Moments to Remember this week.
Homeschooling allows a boy to fish with his Daddy during a “school” day.
We huntin’ us some bears…
One of my favorite memories from the week…
On our nature hike, Parker, Theodore and Theodore’s best friend picked up some sticks to pretend they were hunting bears in the woods. This was awesome to see because of the chain of events.
First, Foster said “Mommy take a picture of me – I’m Davy Crockett!”
Then Theodore and his friend had to find their own “guns”.
Then Parker joined the hunting expedition.
A case for not testing…
Homeschoolers have their own opinions about whether or not their children will take standardized tests. We haven’t had to come to a final conclusion on this issue yet because of the ages of our children and the laws here in Tennessee.
Today this conversation with my 8 year old, 2nd grade boy took place.
Foster: “Mommy, does D R then a dot stand for doctor?”
Me: “Yes. But it’s not a dot, it’s a period.”
Foster: “I like to call it a dot.”
Me: “But it’s called a period and a comma is not a curve.”
Foster: “It is a curve. You draw a curve. I like to call it a curve.”
Me: “Get back to work.”
We do 2 different types of grammar curriculum and write letters often.
As you can see, Foster would possibly get the identification of a period and comma wrong on one of those fill-in-the-bubble tests.
Unless it looked like this:
Q: What do you call the punctuation mark used at the end of a statement?
A) a question mark
B) a period
C) a comma
D) whatever you want to call it
Nature Study–Part 2
We took a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park today! It was a wonderful experience. Even though Parker and Jonah are still so young, it was worth the work to go on this field trip. We picked up some Junior Ranger workbooks that will help us focus on certain aspects and areas of the park. We are blessed to be this close to one of the most beautiful places in America.
Nature Study
This week for our science co-op we
accomplished Outdoor Hour Challenge #1!
accomplished Outdoor Hour Challenge #1!
It was nice just walking and observing with the kids. I noticed things in our yard and neighbor’s yards that we usually pass by without paying attention. We talked about the birds we heard and they were excited to find some mushrooms at the base of one of the trees. We were all asking each other questions and they made notes and drawings of their observations.
“In nature-study the work begins with any plant or
creature which chances to interest the pupil.”
-Anna Botsford Comstock
Plants: Part 2
The little boys colored this maze of a bee flying to a flower. We briefly talked to them about how the bees help with pollination. Then they were off to get dirty and be pre-schoolers…
We’ve been using The Handbook of Nature Study and The Young Naturalist as our resources. Today we printed out this Venn diagram and had the older kids walk around outside and observe and record the differences between flowering and non-flowering plants. It was interesting because Foster thought that the if the flower just had a bud that hadn’t bloomed it would be categorized as non-flowering. I explained the difference and helped them find a bush in our neighbor’s yard that was a true non-flowering plant.
We also planted flower seeds in clear plastic cups. Our experiment is to put each cup (3 per family) in different locations in our house to observe how the different amounts of light effect their growth.
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| In full sun – plant #1 |
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| In partial sun – plant #2 |
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| No sun – plant #3 |
It may take a week or more for the seeds to sprout but we will keep checking and observe and record their progress.
First day of Spring
We started a new science unit with our friends today. After coloring and labeling basic plant parts, the kids had fun potting a plant, planting new flowers in the front flower bed and watering random plants around the yard.
A first day of Spring filled with dirt, flowers, running through the water.
Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!” ~Robin Williams
All the Little Grubbs 