Working Through the Summer

     We finally picked our books back up this week. After a long break from books we are now back on track. We haven't jumped full fledge back in to our books, but we did get some Bible lessons done, along with some reading in our Library Read Aloud, and Literature.
      We are only in to  the third chapter in our Literature of "A Tale of Two Cities" but both children appear to be enjoying it. Earlier this year my daughter was not too fond of the Literature selections brother had chosen so we didn't finish the selection. I think this one will be a go.
     They also worked on their biographical book reports on Charles Dickens this week. Daughter finished hers, but brother still has about one more day of work. Beings daughter wasn't too fond of "The Iliad" we began just reading books about Charles Dickens or by him and turned our Literature in to a study of his life. Maybe next week we can pull in some more of our subjects.
     They both left last night going to a youth service about 4 hours away and will be gone the entire weekend. Happy for time alone with my hubby, but will sure miss my little darlings. That sounds so funny calling them that when one is about to be 14 and the other one 13. Oh well, they will always be my babies.
     I am working on losing weight again and so far it is coming along real well. I weigh in tomorrow for the third week of weighing in.
     Next week my daughter and I are going to sit down and write out her Home Economics requirements  for next year. She will check off each item on the list as it is completed and when all items have been done then she will receive her credit for Home Ec.
     Currently, I am reading lots of books on different diets, grasping nuggets from different one's. So far the one about the three hour diet is probably my favorite. I know that is the one I have been using for an outline of my daily intake and I am losing weight so that gives it a plus for me. I have also gotten encouragement from "The Biggest Loser Ever" diet book.
     I think this about wraps up our week. Not much more is going on around here. Hope all of you are having a great week and have a wonderful weekend.
     Check out some more great blogs over at Weird Unsocialized's weekly wrap up.

Season of Busyness

    This time of the year is so busy, family celebrations, church gathering activities, etc. I promised myself I was going to keep up my blog though. So here is another brief update on our happenings.
     Last week we had program practice getting ready for our Christmas program at church, which was this morning. My children and I were in the program. It turned out great. Sorry to say I did not get any pics.
     tomorrow we have to finish wrapping our gifts. With all that is going on I am tremendously behind on wrapping gifts. As a matter of fact, I don't have not one gift under my tree yet. I've got to get busy. I have wrapped some other gifts that we put under my M-I-L's tree, but not any for mine.
     This coming Friday will begin our Christmas celebrations with our family. I'm excited! My mom has a family gathering with her brothers/sister/their children(her nieces & nephews/and all the great nieces and nephews, about 73 in all. We have chili and shrimp gumbo as the main feast and everyone else brings their favorite dish/Christmas candy. Everyone looks forward to this event. We all get excited, but this one event makes my mom's year. She likes having the entire family together. I have a cousin that has already let us know that her family is not going to get to come in for Christmas (husband is in the military stationed in Kansas) so I know for weeks we will here how she wished Abbie & her family could have been there. It just wasn't right without everyone. If one member misses the event my mom says it just wasn't Christmas. I know that is only because we have always had a very close family and I am so thankful for that. We may not see each other much during the year, but that night you would not be able to tell it. Everyone carry's on as if we were around each other all the time.
     Friday night is just the beginning of our weekend. Saturday will be with another family get together with my great aunt, Sunday will be Christmas with the church, caroling afterwards to our Sr. citizens and the shut-in, Monday morning breakfast at my moms, and Tuesday dinner at my M-I-L's. Busy, busy, busy!
     Hope all of you have some great plans lined up. More later. Happy Homeschooling!

Weekly Wrap Up 5 & 6: Fitness, Couponing, & New Job

In Our Life This Week: still trying to adapt to our new schedule with Mama's new job. We could probably get adjusted if we didn't have all sorts of extras tossed up in the midst. I'm sure all will work out in time.

As For Our Schooling: we are accomplishing what we can get to under the pressure of adjustments, Saxon Algebra 1/2, Apologia: Physical Science, Literature (Oliver Twist), Shurley English 7, & some home economic skills.

What I Am Praying For This Week: the healing for several people in our church. Many are sick and afflicted in their body. I know Jesus took care of all healing when He took those stripes. So, I claim healing for all of us in Jesus name.

Getting Fit: ok, I've procrastinated long enough this year. I have to buckle down and lose 20 lbs. before the end of the year. That was my goal at the beginning of the year. Time is running out so I had best get on the ball.

Couponing: shelves are beginning to be restocked due to a few weeks of couponing. two or three more weeks and the shelves will look great.

What I'm Thankful For: I thank God that my Mom began couponing and let me see how much we could benefit from it.

Couponing has some work involved in it, but has been such a blessing to our family.

Finances: about to begin on Dave Ramsey's program again to work some bills down.

I think this will about wrap up our week. Hopefully, I will be able to get around to some of your blogs in the next day or two. I miss visiting all of your blogs seeing how you and your families are doing.

Linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up. Drop over and check out some of the other great blogs. You will be blessed. Happy Homeschooling!

Weekly Wrap Up Week 4

     In Our Life This Week: It has been a wonderful productive week. The end of the week has turned out a lot brighter than it began. We began the week thinking we may have a hurricane, but thankfully, for us, it moved over and we didn't receive anything except for a few rain showers. I'm so sorry for those that did get the storm.

     In Our Homeschooling This Week: My son finished 2 Saxon Algebra 1/2 lessons & my daughter finished 2 1/2 lessons. Bible (God's Amazing Creation) and Literature (the reading of Oliver Twist) are moving right on track.

     History consisted of us reading a few more pages in our Josephus book and notebooking some pages to go along side it. As we read the Josephus book, we are reading the book of Genesis from our Bible to see how history lines up with it. This week we learned that the first musical intsrument, Martial arts, & Blacksmiths all came from the descendants of Cain.

     Our school goal this year is to turn in one Current Event per month, so both of them turned in one today. Here's a pic of my son's:

Matthew's current event about a Christian girl under persecution.

 

 

     English was on a light note this week. We did one Shurley English lesson & attended the online class given by Alpha Omega on Thursday.

     Apologia Physical Science has us studying Newton's Laws of Motion. We are learning all about how friction & force affect inertia laws.

Today was a big coupon day so we did not get to our American Sign Language.

Here are a few pics of our Apologia Physical Science experiments for Newtons Law of Motion, 10.1 two inertia experiments: 

 

Here we are spinning a raw egg & a hard boiled egg. the raw egg did not like to spin & when we stop it quickly, then let it go, the raw egg starts moving again because the liquids inside were still moving.

 

We loved the hard boiled egg! It would spin on its side if you spun it slowly, but if you would spin it quickly the egg starts on its side & then it stands up on its own.

 

In this experiment we lay a coin on an index card over a jar. Now we pull it off the jar slowly the first time & the coin moves with the index card. Then we snatch the index card off quickly the second time & the coin stays in the same spot, then drops down.

 

Enrichment: This is what I call any extra work that my children do outside there norm for school.

     This week was the big week for our family developed BrOOK-it Program. Today was the deadline date for them to turn in to me a folder with a title page of the book they had read, an introduction paragraph to the book, 12 vocabulary words with definitions, & a conclusion paragraph to the book. Both were successful with extra in their folder. My son had a page with quotes he had read in his book, and my daughter took it upon her self to just write an essay about her book. I'm proud of the both of them.

My daughter's essay needs some grammar corrections so we plan to let that be her English for next week.

Page 1 - Title page.

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6 - Vocabulary words.

 

 

 

Pics of the BrOOK-it Program:

Matthew showing you his McDonald's Spicy Chicken Bites coupon for a clean room.

Sarah showing you her McDonald's Spicy Chicken Bites coupon for a clean room.

Sarah with her BrOOK-it prize, Little Ceasar's Pizza & breadsticks.

Matthew with his BrOOK-it prize, Little Ceasar's Pizza & breadsticks.

My son has been making models of old war ships this week. Here are some pics of them:

Matthew's replica of a galley ship that "so conveniently" floats in tub water.

 

Matthew says, "this one is called a Spanish War Sloop." Believe me they are both tried, tested & water ready!

     As for the hurricane projects that were began this week, they are still a work in progress. I'll post pics of them later. My daughter had to purchase some more supplies for her diorama so she had to put hers on hold until we went to town today.

People I've Been Praying for This Week: everyone that was in the path of Hurricane Isaac.

     This post has been tremendously long so I'll wrap it up. I'm linking up with Kris for the Weekly Wrap Up. Drop over there to see some more great weeks of other families. I know you will be blessed, I have been. Happy Homeschooling!

Watching the Storm

      This afternoon still praying for all of those in the path of Hurricane Isaac. This storm seems to be taking its time about coming on in on land. That scares me because the slower they are travelling, the more strength they can build up.

     In my last post I had mentioned that I had given my children an opportunity to make some extra points in Science. At that time things didn't look as if either of them wanted to earn any extra points. One was on facebook & the other was playing video games. Yesterday I saw them working towards extra points. Here are a couple of pics of what I saw:

Matthew started his painting of Hurricane Issac by drawing the outline of the storm & then painting the swirling cloud formation.

Matthew's Hurricane Issac is nearing completion.

Sarah's designing her diorama of Hurricane Issac.

Sarah painting on the sky blue background & letting it dry overnight.

I'll post pics of the final products when they are finished.

Until next time, Happy Homeschooling!

Monday's Musings

I wasn't too sure how much schooling we would get to do today on Saturday. We had our eyes on Hurricane Isaac. Not knowing which direction he would come in on land, we had to make some preparations. Being the procrastinators we can be sometimes, of course, we didn't do all of them on Saturday. That would mean today we would have to finish them. When we awoke this morning, the reports have it missing us. That allowed us to work on our schooling. I feel the pains for others, but am so thankful it is not coming in on land here. We have been in the path of many major hurricanes and they are not fun to be in. Ok, maybe excited the first time or two, but then reality kicked in and then we realized how dangerous they are. My prayers are going out to the Gulf Coast right now. God help all of us?

I give my children an opportunity to earn extra Science points by making a hurricane project. We will see if either of them takes me up on the offer. As of right now things don't look too promising. My son is on the computer playing video games & my daughter is on Face Book. Extra credit has taken a back burner.

We did enjoy our Science today. We began a new Module and started learning about inertia, force, and friction. Our experiment included an egg again today. I'm amazed at the Science experiments that can be done with eggs. I did not realize there were so many of them. We will be learning about Newton's Laws of Motion in this module.

Enough for now, hope all of you have a great week. Happy Homeschooling!!!

Weekly Wrap Up Week 3

     In Our Life This Week: things are about to get caught up from all of the side-tracking that was pitched to us. My children are really working hard on their school work this year, even my reluctant son. Both of them finished their week's work, along with the three days work we missed last week. That's a wa hoo! around here. For those of you that might not be familiar with a wa hoo, that is a thumbs up.

     In Our Homeschooling: Both finished their Saxon Algebra 1/2 lessons. My son does 2 lessons a week & my daughter does 3per week.

Matthew at his desk working on Saxon Algebra 1/2.

     We finished up Module 9 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science on An Introduction of Acceleration. We have felt like detectives in this module trying to determine the speed of different things. Then when we would add velocity (speed & direction) it would seem like a crime scene trying to determine who was going what direction & what speed each person was traveling, we've had a time investigating.

Module 9 experiment: Matthew standing on a step ladder & dropping a ball to be timed with a stopwatch so they can determine the distance from the ceiling to the floor.

     For Literature, we are moving right along in Oliver Twist. Maybe I can get a pic or two of a portion of their outlines to show how well they have picked up on an outline.

     Spelling/Vocabulary went well, except for the day my son informed me that he did not know some of the words I had given him. I laughed and said, "I don't want to give you words you already know. I want your mind to grow & feast on some new words." He did his work, but I don't really believe he like Mommy's answer.

     We began a new book this weekfor our Bible study, that I obtained the title from another HS Mom's list of curriculum, of which I am so greatful, thanks.

     We feel like we are going to enjoy this book. This first week has been slow about getting us into the scriptures, but it looks like next weeks lessons are going to have us digging.

     We only did one Shurley English lesson this week, but we also participated in an online English class through Alpha Omega so that gave us two English lessons for our week. It was our first time participating in one of their online lessons and my children really enjoyed it. They are doing a free class every two weeks on Thursdays, every other week until Dec. Today's lesson was for 7th to 12 grade on clauses and phrases. The next lesson is suppose to be on nouns for elementary grades. The teacher talks, gives examples of sentences. goes over the parts with the children, & then gives a sentence or gets your child to type in a sentence with certain requirements that the teacher has given. If a child puts a sentence on there that does not meet the requirements the teacher goes over it in a very nice way without bringing any kind of shame to the child to show everyone what should have been done. The teacher just uses that sentence for teaching. The class lasts 30 minutes. Although it did go over today about 5 or 10 minutes.

     As for our History this week, we chose not to open a book. We wanted to catch up from last week so we left history off so we wouldn't be so pushed.

     Growth Moments: Mommy has had a couple of sad moments this week. My children's entire school years I have worked on getting them to an independent study level. My daughter has obviously reached that point. She has asked for very little help from me this week (sniff, sniff, my baby's growing up, sniff, sniff). I did not realize how I would feel when they did become independent (sniff, sniff, she's only in the 8th grade, doesn't she need me, sniff, sniff). Here's a pic of Ms. Independent working without Mom, not needing Mom, Mom trying to offer help, but not being accepted;

Sarah working independantly.

Sarah sitting on couch and in deep thought over her schoolwork.

     Pre School Years: Here are some pics of my dear sweet little nephew working on his "cool work" as he calls it:

Daniel's "O, C, L." Not bad for his age. He loves to have school on our dry erase board.

Here he is playing & constructing with giant Lego blocks. His Uncle E had to help him build a big garage for his trucks & cars.

Daniel is studing real hard at the piece in his hand. "Hmmmm, what should I do with it?"

Daniel with a well deserved piece of chicken for a good student. Yum, yum!

     He never puts an "S" on any words that he says with "S". We have to drink milk hakes around hear. And one day they even had to have a herry on them. He can now say cherry. Although, the first time he asked for a herry I had to call his Mom and aske her what he wanted on his milk hake.

     I think that about wraps our week all except for the Park Day we will have tomorrow with our homeschool group.

     Linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up. Happy Homeschooling Everyone.

Weekly Wrap-Up2012, 2013 Week 1 Weekly Wrap Up

     Time and duties just don't always work together. I have been wanting to put a post on my blog, but time has not permitted due to the duties I have had getting school supplies ready to pass out at our church tomorrow (give or take, about 100 bags), home schooling, family life duties, etc. Hopefully, this week things will begin to slow their pace a bit and return to normal, if there is a norm for home schooling life, hehehe.
     Even with my home being bombarded with school supplies on my kitchen table, on my couch, in my living room floor, and all over my bedroom, we have really accomplished a lot this week. My daughter did one Shurley 'English lesson & three Saxon Algebra 1/2 math lessons. My son did two Shurley English lessons & two Saxon Algebra 1/2 math lessons. All other subjects were worked together, four Literature reading settings from Oliver Twist, along with working on outlines with the reading, four Appologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science lessons, two History/Bible lessons coming from The Complete Works of Josephus and the book of Genesis, our daily Spelling exercise, & American Sign Language on Friday. It was a great week to begin our school year. One week down and 35 more to go for the year.
     Here are some pics of our week: (Oh I forgot, I also had three extra children this week, a niece & two nephews) so it really was a productive week because I also had to come up with some lessons for my nephews, who always has to do schooling when they are here and see my children working on school.

Pre-preschool for my sweet little nephews. They are gluing pasta noodles to paper to make the letter "H" after reading the Cats and Hats book.

Boys with their hats on & showing their schoolwork, "H" is for hat!

Matthew at his desk working on his Saxon Math.

Fun time! It's time for experiment 9.1 (the importance of direction) from Apologia.

Getting everything setup for our experiment. Always follow the instructions to get the best results & less mess.

Two eggs traveling one behind the other and touch at the bottom of the ramp when the first eggs speed reduced when it contacted the level surface. Miminal damage is done when the second egg still rolling full speed, taps the first egg with it's decelerated speed. Then we built two ramps facing each other and let an egg roll from both ramps at the same time, not a pretty sight! What a fun way to learn about "speed & velocity!"

Matthew gluing pictures of animals to show some of  "Gods creations" that were named by Adam.

Sarah's great artwork, showing God's handiwork to keep Adam very busy by naming many, many animals.

This is both childrens mini-creation posters.

     That our Weekly Wrap-Up! Now go to Kris's blog to see some more great homeschooling weeks around the world!

Traci

2012,2013 School Curriculum

Ok, for now this is what our 2012, 2013 curriculum looks like for the year. I say for now because things are subject to change.

I have a 7th & 8th grader, but they will be using the same books. They are only 13 months apart so we have always just worked them side by side. After my daughter graduates we will just plan my son a Senior year schedule.

Science: Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science

We did not finish our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science last year so we are going to pick it back up this year. Not exactly sure where we will go from there.

Math: Saxon Algebra 1/2 An Incremental Development

English: Shurley Method: English Made Easy Level 7 &

Language Network: Grammar, Writing, & Communication 9

Literature: Great Books chosen by my children

We will do Outlines & Composition Essays on these books

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (audio)

The Illiad by Homer (audio)

The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens (audio)

The Odyssey by Homer (audio)

The Aeneid by Virgil (audio)

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (audio)

I realize these books are a little high leveled for my children, but they want to read them so I will not dumb them down. I'll just see how much they grasp from them.

Biographical Study: Charles Dickens & Homer

Videos, Encyclopedia Information, Articles, Pictures, etc.

History: A variety of great books/Videos

Josephus: The Complete Works (This will be our spine for the next 2 years.)

Genesis (KJV) & Jimmy Swaggart's Commentary

Gilgamesh (Answers in Genesis site)

Job (KJV) & Jimmy Swaggart's Commentary

The Trojan War & the Adventures of Odysseus by Padraic Colun (audio)

Men of Athens by Olivia E. Coolidge (audio)

History of the Persian Wars by Herodotus

The Spartans: The World of the Warrior Heroes of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge (audio)

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians & Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War by Victor Davis Hanson (audio)

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydies (audio)

I know this list is extensive also, but again, I will see how well they are retainning the information. I honestly don't see them having a problem with it, beings history has always been the #1 subject in this house. We will make our way as far down this list as we can & pick up with it the next school term. We'll add more books the next school season.

We will read and make our own personal notebooks along side the books. Our notebooks will have divider tabs with People, Government, Religion, Map Skills, Vocabulary, Notes & Narration sections in them.

Current Events: Presentation once a month of one Current Event

Music: Both will be in guitar, daughter will have piano

Foreign Language: The Joy of Signing by Lottie L. Riekehof

I know this is not the typical foreign language, but to people that does not know sign language it does seem foreign.

With me being blind, I want my children to learn Sign Language & Braille. I consider these very special foreign languages. Not many people consider these languages unless they have a family member concerning them. (They will learn to sight read braille.)

Spelling/Vocabulary: A specific list guided for 6 to 8th graders

Monday: Write words 10 times each

Tuesday: Definitions (Dictionary Skills)

Wednesday: Sentence Structure (Create sentence with word)

Thursday: Alphabetize & Sylabetize words

Friday: Test

This is our personal Spelling program. By the end of the week they have written the word 15 times each (without noticing it) and tend to have no problem spelling it on their test, or later.

This is our plan for the 2012, 2013 school year.
Now you can go to Kris's blog and see what's new with her and take a look at the all the other 40+ blogs.