Finally

Middle school graduate! She wore my gown from my Masters  graduation. LOL!

First Grade to Second Grade. 

Service & Big News

We had Entertaining Angels today and had 10 families. Because of Mother's Day weekend, I had forgotten to mail out reminder cards, so it was good to have people come in who were regulars. We also had 3 new families sign up today. They had all been referred by another family that had been serviced in the past. Nice! Tomorrow they have to work at the local food bank.

Big News!!!

Jordan has completed 8th grade!!!!! I have to grade her final report on John Calvin and then she is done! She has had such a great week and a half and worked very hard through the final stretch. Guess what that means.... I will have a High School student in the house.

Progress, Pies and Reborns

Progress reports:

Jordan loves to bake. This week she made a graham cracker crust pudding pie with a cherry fruit topping. Very yummy. 

As an early birthday present, Jordan received a reborn doll. He is a Michelle Fagen Sculpt by the artist, Cindy Sales from the Bountiful Babies Nursery. She loves him so much. She dresses, grooms and changes him several times per day. He goes almost everywhere with us. Last night he had his first photo shoot. She took no less than 70 pictures of him. LOL! Here is 1 of my favorites. The picture with the 3 babies shows my 2 reborns with hers. I have 2 Berenguar Reborns whose artist I cannot remember. They have crazy, wild hair as I did not prepare them for pictures. :)

 

That is what we are doing around here. I am hoping to work on our use-to-be-playroom-that-turned-into-a-storage-room-because-we-had-too-many-toys-room as we are hoping to change it to a schoolroom. 

Have a Great weekend!

Peace!

Mom Cake & January Board

Started back to school today and it was a good day with no tears. 8th grade's computer is still in the shop so she worked on some essays. I must admit that writing is not one of our strong areas here so I try to sneak in as many practice opportunities as possible.

Jordan loves to bake and surprised me with a chocolate cake the other day using some of the cake decorations that she got for Christmas. She wanted me to show it to you all.

I did January's bulletin board in kinda of a boring way, but it got done.

The preschooler starts back up with speech this week. It is somewhat of a joke as he sits in his class and kinda mumbles and parrots the teacher some and then as soon as we start walking back to the car, he starts talking up a storm, freely and about everything, including bossing people around and telling us what he wants and won't do! Little stinker. LOL!

Starting Again

We are getting ready to start our first full week after a wonderful vacation. It was good to be back at church today, although I was uncomfortable with the comments made about going to Nassau.

1st grade opened his unit 4 Lifepacs today in order to get ready for tomorrow. He is always excited to get new booklets. I was using Spelling Connections for 1st grade, but switched to ABC Teach spelling units as I liked the activities that could be done throughout the week for practice. He seems to like the sheets too.

Our home-school group is having the annual Spelling Bee in February.  I think I am putting a hold on everyone's spelling program to focus on Spelling Bee words.

4th and 8th grade have several essay projects coming up in the next few weeks so I think I will make Fridays a project day for them. We have a very old set of encyclopedia's that I would love to replace. I still like them to use reference books for research instead of the internet. We have not had our consistent weekly library trips yet because we have been so busy. I need to get back on track with those as they have yet to fulfill any of their required reading list. So much to do...so little time. LOL!

We were surprised today with a very generouse donation today for our Personal Needs Closet. We are so excited for the opportunity.

Home School Lite

We made it home Sunday, early evening and the kids decided that they missed school enough that they wanted to get back into it. They set up school and got everything ready without me even telling them to. My foster child, Jeanna*, DID NOT WANT to go back to her public school and promised to cry Monday morning. I debated back and forth as to whether to send her or not for the 2 days before Thanksgiving Break and her teacher (who really does not like Jeanna all that much) had suggested that I just keep her home for those 2 days. But school attendance is an issue that I don't want to have problems with, so I sent her on Monday. Luckily the hot lunch for that day was a meal that she liked. It was the only reason she went. Ha Ha!

We are doing just review type work here in Rottie Land. 8th grade did a couple of hours on Monday as well as 1st grade. 4th grade ended up doing a bit more as it is just the nature of his gig. Today is my birthday so we will watch a movie together...my choice even though I will most likely fall asleep and only see the opening and closing credits as usual! LOL!

Our church added a Wednesday morning prayer meeting that I am excited about as I never get to go to the evening one (bedtime conflicts), so we will get to attend that tomorrow morning before Entertaining Angels. We have also decided to give out meals to any families that come for personal needs on Wednesday. We will be giving out a small chicken, a bag of potatoes and a can good. Just a small meal for hard times.

Thursday we look forward to our traditional grilled cheese and french fries Thanksgiving dinner.

To my Sister-girlfriend: You know I love ya! We are making arrangements.

*My foster daughter's blog name

They Came!!!

The little kid's passports came. Whew!!! I was worried. So I am officially packing for 5 and my foster daughter is happy to see her clothes being packed with ours instead of in a different suitcase like last year when she had to go to respite care. It was not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

The dog is leaving tomorrow. 8th grade is very sad and worried that her "baby" won't make it back safely. He is going out of town with extended family. Last year we came back to a $430 vet bill for boarding. I could not do that again, so my Auntie offered to keep him.

School is wrapping up nicely. I don't think I mentioned it, but my lovelies were fooling around and knocked my laptop off of my desk, breaking the cord, so I have not been able to record grades or attendance for 2 days and have not been able to print out the vacation homework as it was downloaded to the big laptop which has all my school stuff on it. (I am blessed to have and be currently using my Mini) I did find a replacement cord on E-bay for under $8. I called HP to price a replacement and the guy told me $117. I burst out laughing on the phone and thanked him very much for his time. My new cord should be here tomorrow or Friday. Jordan was so cute as she offered me 1 dollar right away. She said, "Sorry, Mommy. I will help replace it, but all I have is this $1 right now." I told her that I would put it on her tab. LOL!

Peace!

Schedules, Homework and School on Vacation

Schedules

When I first started homeschooling, I used a very detailed schedule as my oldest (who was the only student for the first 2 years) really needed that type of setting. Over the years, while we still use a schedule, it's a more relaxed situation where the 2 older grades can do whatever class they want during whatever period they choose as long as they complete assignments on time. Since I actively teach 1st grade, he does not have that option. One of the helpful parts of the schedule is that I can stagger classes that people are more likely to have difficulty in, such as math, so that I am more available to help. So if science is your difficult class, then it is easier to have my full attention as it has been scheduled during everyone else's free reading or something like that.

This is an example of what our schedules look like:

This year we are using a binder system in which the kids keep their attendance calendar, school and homework schedules, supplies needed to do school in the car and on the run and whatever book they are reading at the time. It has been the best system ever as the binders are smaller than lugging around backpacks and if some particular classwork does not get done, they they can just stick it in their binder for homework.


The great homework debate.

My kids have homework. I use it as a time for them to work independently, we used it as school work if we have to run errands and we use it for vacation. I also believe, and this may sound morbid,  that if something happens to me, the single parent, my kids will most likely have to back to school, so they may as well know how to manage their time to include homework.

These are our homework schedules.

Vacation

Every year I have to decide how much schoolwork to take with us on vacation. This is especially important if we are going to be gone for 4 weeks or more. In order to take time off at Christmas, for spring break and to still get out for a summer break at the end of May, we just can't take off 3-4 weeks of school.  Eighth grade has been working super hard to complete assignments through December dates so that she does not have to take her laptop and only do "vacation school work". Fourth grade is ahead in one class, but he always ends up taking his laptop with him because if he gets behind, it is very overwhelming for him. First grade is ahead in all classes, so he will only have to do "vacation school work".

This year they will be doing a unit study on the Solar System and then their regular vacation assignment of interviewing someone from another county to learn more about other places around the world. We will take spelling and some math word problems and also reading. We have not decided on the family read for this year.

13 days.


No passport yet... ~sign~

For the Record

Busy week coming up.

8 th grade Monday doctor appointment, Tuesday morning appointment, and Friday morning out-of-town dermatologist appointment for preschool. School hours will be short this week, but we are pretty much on target for all grades.

"That'll Be 3 Cents Please"

Off*ce M*x has their lined paper on sale for 1 cents a pack (limit 3 per person). So each kid got three pennies and in they tromped to get our 15 packs of paper. We will go back again tomorrow and we should be set for the year.  I am in a slight software crises. I totally did not shop early to get our curriculum and am now in a race to get 8th grade's software. I was able to get 1st grade's stuff early for a really great price, but I keep getting outbid for 8th grade.

On a side note...we got our vacation confirmation e-mails today and my mom suggested looking at all the passports to make sure they are all set. Oh My Goodness!!! Jordan's passport expires next month!!!!  So we rushed to the post office and applied for a renewal. I am so glad we noticed that. We would have been so much in trouble at the airport.

This week: completing paperwork, updating portfolio files and getting joint subjects all together.  We are taking music, art, foreign language  and PE all together.

Screeech....Changing Lanes Again

We made changes to the start dates to stagger each grade a bit more. Orientation is still on for tomorrow even though our new school shirts won't be here for 2 more weeks. I kinda went shirt shopping crazy because the Mart of Wals had such a great sale on school polos with free to home shipping and then I ordered the new shirts with our school emblem as the other shirts are over 3 years old.

Old school emblem

New school emblem on navy polos

Fourth Grade still starts Monday, August 15th. James is excited.

First Grade will now start Monday, August 22nd. Jackson says he is happy and is very excited to get to his new Lifepacs. My foster daughter will start with him on the same date as Public School does not start until September 6th. She does not state how she feels about going back to school, but if I were to let him start and not her, she would cry and say she wants to come to school too, so I take that as a sign that she likes to be a part of things.

Eighth Grade will start Wednesday, September 7th. Jordan has been offered an invitation to take part in a small class offering group piano lessons, but I am not sure if she will be able to take it as our November vacation would cause he to miss so many classes. She is not looking forward to school, but is kinda excited about her new math curriculum (we are changing to Life of Fred.)

Pre-School. I am back to having a pre-schooler. My foster son will be 3 yrs old next week and he is already learning so much that we have decided to let him join in slowly. When Jackson first came home, I thought it would be good to start him at a preschool level to give him a chance to bond and mature. Jordan basically taught him and has offered to teach this level again. We use the Brightly Beaming Letter of the Week and I think my 3 year old will enjoy many of the activities. Anyway, he will start September 15th.

 

Summer School

The troop is outside for class today. Notice the dog upside down scratching his back in the grass behind the teeter totter.

Summer school is going well. We do 2 classes together and then they break for their skills. For devotions we are reading Hind's Feet on High Places  (thank Christie for the recommendations) and they really like the story and groan when I come to a stopping place. We are also doing Draw Write Now, Book 1 (thanks Christine for the idea)  which is so funny  because we have had some very interesting farm animals drawn so far.

For individual skills the 1st graders and the 4th grader are doing Summer Skills Daily Activity Workbook and 8th grade is doing Life of Fred - Fractions . She loves it and I think it might be closer to her learning style than what we ususally learn.

She's Certified!

7th   oh I guess that's 8th grade now! took a babysitting course this Saturday that gave her first aid skills as well as allowed her to earn certification in infant and child CPR!  I am so proud of her and was so excited as I waited for her to come out from class. It was a 6 hour training. She also learned information on age-appropriate discipline, redirection and important tips for keeping children safe and entertained. She said she was one of the few girls that already had experience in diaper changing and that when some of the girls opened the diaper on their anatomically correct dolls that they "kinda freaked out" when some of the dolls turned out to be baby boys! LOL! 

While she was in class, the little kids and I went to a real working drive-in restaurant where you pull up to the speakers with the menus on them, order and the waitress brings your food to the car. No roller skates though! The sandwiches that we ordered were so big, that I ended up cutting 1 of them into 4's for the kids. Good thing I only ordered 3 sandwiches which I was going to split between the 6 of us. We ended up bringing home enough to have another meal. We also went to a really neat park that was wheelchair accessible so it had some really neat toys, ramps and platform swings that was anew experience for my kids.

I am still doing respite care. So many thoughts on that....

Had fun swimming this evening, even though the pool was really full. It was kinda funny because there were 3 young couples with really young children that met up at the Y and they were being so silly and goofy...they were worse than the kids. They kept getting in trouble by the lifeguards for horsing around, running and throwing balls at each other.

While we are officially on beginning summer break, we still have to get up and out daily as our respite kid is still in school, but we hope to leave for a now shortened vacation at the end of the week.