Curriculum 2011-2012

In May I attended our big homeschool conference and got most of what we needed for the upcoming school year.Ellie is finishing up Kindergarten and will be starting 1st grade at the beginning of Sept. Emily is over half way done with Raising Rock Star Preschool and will continue working on preschool activities throughout next year. Here is what the girls will be doing

Ellie 1st Grade: (Workboxes Monday-Wed)

Handwriting – A Reason for Handwriting Book B (she will actually be doing this 4x/week)

Reading – Just reading lots and lots to each other.

Spelling – All About Spelling 1

Math – Continue with Math Mammoth. I love that I have found something that she is happy with. I liked MUS but she did not like it at all!!

History – Mystery of History, MOH audio book and MOH coloring sheets

Language Lessons for Little Ones 3

Phonics – Continue with Explode the Code

Piano – Kinderbach (I think)

Art - Artistic Pursuits and Themes to Remember

Critical Thinking – We have several of these books that I will incorporate off and on

Emily Preschool: (Workboxes M-W) because she wants to do the same thing as big sister.

I am filling Emily’s workboxes with games, puzzles, and hands on activities. I have a membership to Kidssoup and ABC Twiggle so I will be giving her printouts and crafts based off a letter a week. I am also going to start her with Handwriting Without Tears Preschool Book. Both girls will be doing a book and a craft a couple of times a week based off the letter that we are working on. I already have most of these planned out.

Thursday – as a family we are doing Confessions of a Homeschoolers Road Trip State Study. You can read more about what we are doing here. Instead of breaking it up a little each day we are doing a state in one day but stretching it out into multiple Thursdays if needed.

Friday – Ellie is taking a science class every other Friday but we will all do science together on the weeks she is not in class.

Both girls start Frontier Girls and AWANA in Sept. as well.

Fun at the Beach

Here are a few pictures from our beach trip.

Enjoying the sand Fun at the aquarium

I think she spilled more ice cream then she ate

 

Ellie found a baby frog

Vacation Activity Bag

We recently got back from the beach and we had such a great time. The older the girls get the more fun we seem to have. It is just so nice to have the uninterrupted family time!! Every year I pack a bag of new activities for the girls to do when we are just relaxing at the beach house. Sometimes the activities last 20 min. and sometimes 1 min. You just never know but this year the girls spent lots of time with the items I brought. Here is what our vacation activity bag consisted of:

Uno Moo: My sister bought this for the girls and it was a big hit

Spot It: A fun game for any age. Each card has a picture that matches a picture on another card. The first one to spot the match keeps the card.

Melissa & Doug Make a Face: This was the biggest hit of all. They both spent so much time playing with this. I will be buying this again for sure!

The rest of the items were found in the $ section at the craft store/

Beach Stickers with Markers to make a picture scene

Paper Dolls

3D Mosaic Animals – I thought they would love this but it wasn’t a big hit

Sun Catchers to paint

Peel and Stick Sand Art – always a hit

New Bubbles

Books of course :)

What do you take with you on vacation to keep the kids busy during down time?

Nourishing Traditions

Remember a few posts back when I said that I was taking a six week cooking class based on the book Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon? You don’t?? Oh well that is OK! Well I recently finished the class and it was so great. Here is a brief overview of the class:

Week 1 – Cultured dairies              Week 2 –Fermented fruits and veggies

Week 3- Homemade broth            Week 4- Soaking Grains

Week 5- Sugars, Oils and Fats        Week 6- Trip to Earthfare, Beverages

First let me back up. Last year about this time I started doing some research on eating healthier because I have always been a low fat eater and I ate pretty healthy or so I thought but I really thought for my age I should just feel better in general. Throughout my research I kept running across information on eating real whole foods. I didn’t know a lot but I knew that I was interested and I poured over Passionate Homemaking and Heavenly Homemakers blogs and watching Food Inc. Some of the ideas seemed very foreign to me. Making most things from scratch and cutting out processed foods seemed like a smart idea but eating full fat foods seemed a little crazy. Then I was introduced to the book Nourishing Traditions and everything it said made so much since to me until I got to the recipes! I was basically like huh????? I didn’t have a clue how to really get started so I just started trying to make snacks from scratch and switch to mostly organics. After a few months the only thing I had to show for my “hard work” and research was an additional 7lbs. I slowly crept back to my old way of life and had slowly started to lose the extra weight that I gained. I still knew that I wanted to make changes but I still didn’t have a clue at how to do it. I happened to see that a class was getting ready to be offered based on Nourishing Traditions just down the street from me. I was so excited and talked a friend into taking it with me. I can’t tell you how great this class was and I am so excited/nervous to start making these changes again. Before when I made changes I was pretty much just eating lots of homemade whole wheat baked goods but that was about it. Now I have lots of new goals and I have already started making some changes. Here are the changes I have made so far:

Switched to raw milk (Emily LOVES this milk)

Switched to coconut oil and dumped canola and vegetable oil

Buying very few processed foods

Buying mostly organic

Buying only grass-fed beef, free-range organic eggs and organic chicken (which we eat a lot less of now b/c it is expensive)

Switched from sugar to Sucanat

Soaking most of my grains – you can read more about that here

I still have a long long way and truthfully I know just enough to know what not to do and not enough of what I should do but I am so excited about this journey. I will share my successes and failures off and on. I will also soon share my “to do soon” list of new things I plan to try making.

More Horses

The girls have been fortunate enough lately to ride horses several times between birthday parties and Ellie’s day at horse camp. They have loved every minute of it!!

Looky What I Got

Look what my wonderful hubby surprised me with for my birthday!!!!!!

This is not just any blender but it is the Vita-Mix that I have been drooling over for a little over a year! I LOVE it and I have several recipes that I will be trying soon and if I don’t ruin them I will share them with you:)

State Study

The girls and I are going to continue to do school through the summer but it is going to be very light. Ellie will continue with a little writing and math and a lot of reading and Emily will wrap up Raising Rock Stars Preschool lessons but together we are going to start our State Study. I am so excited and have had a lot of fun planning:) I bought Confessions of a Homeschoolers Road Trip USA curriculum for the main part but I am changing and adding a few things. I am using The Little Man In the Map

which is such a great book using rhyme and visual clues to help you remember the states and locations. I am also using this atlas that is recommended in Road Trip USA.

We are going to start with the Midwest states which ties into the pioneer theme from the Little House on the Prairie books we are enjoying right now. I got the girls each a passport book with the 50 state flag stickers from Rainbow Resources 

and this cool map for them to color each time we finish a state.

I also bought the girls each a Dover Coloring Book of the State Flowers and Birds to color.

Other than a few books from the library and a few puzzles that I have collected over the years I will get the rest of the information from Road Trip USA. Each state has fun facts, great recipes and craft ideas! Our plan is for both girls to make a big notebook of our activities so they can go back and look at all of the fun stuff we did.

First stop…….Minnesota!

Woodworking

Chris wanted to do some sort of class with the girls once a week since he doesn’t get to be a part of our morning school activities. He was thinking about doing science but decided on woodworking. The girls were so excited!!! Chris took them to the hardware store and they each got a tool box and their own set of tools:

Hammer, screwdrivers, screws, nails, pliers, safety glasses, tape measure, and a level

The first few weeks they talked about each of the tools, tool safety and how to properly use them. They were very interested in this but Emily was a little disappointed that she couldn’t use her tools anytime she wanted. Can you imagine…..I would have holes all in the walls, gauges in the floor and who knows what else.

 

The first project they have been working on is a fairy house to keep outside. It is coming along quite nicely! Ellie is getting really good with her tools. The other day her Leapster batteries died so she went and got her screwdriver and replaced the batteries and didn’t need any help except explaining which way to put the batteries in. I love that he is teaching them life skills!

What’s Happening??

It has been a very busy couple of weeks at our house so I thought I would just do a random post of some of the things that we have been up too.

Chris turned 40! That means that we have officially been together for half of his life:) I had a wonderful day of adventure planned for the two of us including kayaking, zip lining etc. but it rained all day on his birthday and was unseasonably cold but we didn’t let it ruin our day. We regrouped and spent a wonderful relaxing day together. He really is the most amazing, loving, giving person and I am not just saying that because he will probably read this:) Happy Birthday babe!

We had a crazy Easter! Just kidding….It was a wonderful day! The weather was gorgeous and we were able to spend the day with family. I have to say though that I remember spending the entire day hiding and finding eggs with my siblings when I was younger. We would take turns hiding eggs over and over but my girls just don’t do that. They looked for eggs twice and were done.  

The girls spent a wonderful weekend with their dad at Grandpa’s which means……. I was home alone. This doesn’t happen often but when it does I take advantage of it! It was such a great weekend of shopping, eating, a little exercise, pedicure/manicure and lots of sleeping but I was so ready to see the girls and Chris! It is great to have a break but even better to get to see everyone after 2 1/2 days of down time.

We recently went to Great Wolf Lodge and had such an awesome time!!! I couldn’t believe how big the water park was for an indoor water facility. I love that you can swim a little and then head to your room for a break and a snack and then walk back downstairs and swim some more. The lodge gave a great great rate for homeschoolers and I really hope they will do that again because we would love to go back! Can you believe that I didn’t bring my camera?? I’m good like that:)

A friend and I are taking a cooking class based on the book Nourishing Traditions. We just finished our 2nd class out of 6. I have already learned so much! I will be writing more on this soon!

I am in school planning mode (aren’t I always) because I will be going to a Homeschool Convention soon. I am going to be purchasing Ellie’s curriculum for 1st grade and a preschool program for Emily because she will be done with RRSP by this fall.

OK if anyone is still reading that just about wraps up our last couple of weeks!

Snakes

My mom is petrified of snakes and I do mean petrified!!!! I don’t like them one bit either. They make my skin crawl and give me major ebee jeebee’s (what? that is a word) but I am no where near as scared of them as my mom is. I have tried very hard not to show my fear of snakes around the girls especially since we can’t seem to go outside without seeing one:( Unfortunately, Ellie has had several run ins and is actually more scared them I am. Once she was riding her bike at the greenway and a snake ran across the path in front of her. Next thing I know she is off her bike and running towards us and screaming like a crazy person. More recently we were at the museum and she wouldn’t even walk down the aisle with the snakes in it.

Emily on the other hand doesn’t seem the least bit phased by them. We have talked about how we shouldn’t pick up anything insect/animal that we find outside (except for caterpillars, ladybugs etc.) but I guess she didn’t realize snakes were included in this because the other day she picked up a snake in the front yard like it was no big deal. All she said was “Ewww, snake.” Luckily it was a brown snake and it was dead and thank goodness my poor mom wasn’t here!!!!! The really funny this is she can see a little ant on the ground and run and scream like it the scariest thing in the world. Go figure!