Pen Pals

For writing class this year, 5th grade has 4 pen pals. During the first full week of school she wrote 4 introduction letters to 4 different little girls whose parents are members of our homeschool group. The letters are checked for grammar, spelling and penmanship, corrected and mailed. She has had so much joy in receiving letters back that she does not even balk at having to do the handwriting piece! And I must say... 10, 11 and 12 year old little girls are a breed of their own. LOL. The letters they write are full of tales of ponies, ruffles and all things pink!

Spelling Pre-Test in the Sun

First grade took his spelling pre-test today... homeschool style!

In the Classroom....

We have just completed our 3rd week of school and things are GREAT! Everyone is pleased with their grades, 5th and 10th grade is ahead of schedule in their classwork and 1st grade is right where he should be in his Lifepacs (and so happy to be home this year.) We love going to the YMCA for gym class because there is absolutely no one else there. We have the whole basketball court, skating rink and skateboard park to ourselves.

Questions about why the kids are not in school during school hours:

We went to one of those stores where things can be purchased for $1 or less (Hee hee hee) to purchase some of our cleaning supplies and my 10th grader ran in to get the items. He has shopped at this store frequently. The cashier upon recognizing him said, "Why are you always in the store during school hours? Don't you go to school?" He reports that he said without missing a beat, "I am in school." (as he accepted his change and receipt) "This is math class!"

That's my boy! LOL

A New Visitor In the Classroom...

My 5th grader has just learned the phrase "Parachute Expert: My Dear Aunt Sally" in her math class. This sentence is used to teach the order of operations: parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. For some reason, she finds the sentence to be so entertaining and keeps talking about her "Dear Aunt Sally", but changing the first part to different phrases such as: poaching eggs, praising excitedly, paper eater... too funny! Dear Aunt Sally is welcome to stay right now as she is making math class fun! When learning is fun...the day is good!

Peace,
:)De

Another Confession...

I am a side-bar shopper. I love to shop along other homeschooler's side bars for informative links and articles. I am also a major web surfer and click from one link to another, opening pages in new windows so that I can get back to where I was. So if your site meter says I have been on your page for over an hour...don't worry... I am just shopping and clicking myself happy!

:)De

Will Read For Food!

We finally received our Book It Reading Incentive Program from Pizza Hut and the crew is excited. As mentioned before, they are highly motivated by pizza and so goals are being set faster than I can write them down. LOL!

Our literature component this year comes by using the literature list from EdHelper.com. Each student was given the list of suggested readings from their grade level and after returning from our local library on Thursdays, they are given a mixed review literature unit packet which include multiple choice questions, spelling review and essay questions for the book they have chosen.

So if you see some Rotties standing on the side of the road with signs that say "Will Read For Food!" have a heart... throw 'em a book.

Peace,
:)De

My First Day Of School

My first day of school was excellent! When I first picked all my classes, I was excited. My first class is Math. In math I have learned about fractions. The second class is Language Arts. In Language Arts I have learned about Jesus. The third class is Bible. In Bible I have learned about Noah, Jonah, Paul, and Mark. The fourth class is Science. In Science I have learned about animals and cells. My sixth class is History and Geography. I have learned about miles. My seventh hour is State History. In State History I have learned about trading. Eighth hour I do health, typing, Spanish or Pen Pal Writing. I wrote to 3 of my pen pals and already got a letter back from one of them. I love school.

Jordan

Please Keep Your Arms & Legs Inside the Ride!

We have started! What a fun morning so far. We are learning our new schedule and my first grader is becoming quite the task master at making sure we know what class period we are in at any given time. We have a new bell system as the students unanimously voted the old bells out. (The Bells Toll No More!) We are now using the Bell Commander system and it is much more accepted as there are choices for which bells to be heard.

Here are some first day pictures:
My beloved dollar store white board.
Googly eyed and ready to learn! LOL!
Serious scholars.

Peace!