New school year - new goal

So today was the first day of school! *ahem* Notice how I'm totally ignoring the fact that I haven't been here since April *ahem* I can't believe I have THREE school kids now!!!! I haven't taken a coolio picture of all our school materials yet - but I will after the rest of the haul arrives.

We decided to switch gears a bit and not do My Father's World with the older two girls this year. Instead, we are using a mix of things - Mystery of History, Apologia Anatomy, Bob Jones reading, Time4Learning, Lutheran Study Bible and the small cathechism to name a few. Sadey is doing MFW's Kindergarten program though. We're only on day 1, but so far so good.

Day 1 wrap up: Bible, Art, Music and PE for the older two and discussed day 1 of Creation with Sadey. She also learned about the letters Aa and Bb and went on a scavenger hunt for the number 1. She loved that. She started her Creation Book today. I could not convince her that God made light without making the sun even though she knows that He made the sun on day 4....so she added it to her picture. I can see how that would torment her little noodle.

First Day of School 2009- 2010

And we're off!

I can't believe it's already time for school to start. It seems like we just finished up the last year. Oh wait, we did :) We had a short break, but now we are ready to get moving again. We are using My Father's World again this year. We focused on American history last year with Adventures. This year we are using MFW's Exploring Countries and Cultures and working on world geography with a special focus on missions and Bible translations. Here are some of the books we'll be using as the year progresses.


We had our first day on August 3, 2009. The girls were uber excited and were dressed and ready to begin long before I rolled out of bed in the morning. Here they are for our traditional first day of school picture. Cute, aren't they?

Sadey is in Pk4 this year. For those of you who are as clueless about these things as I used to be, that just means that she's a 4 year old preschooler. We'll be using a combination of things, but mainly Before Five in a Row and Letter of the Week. I'll come back later and post links to both of those programs - too lazy to do that right this moment :)


Hard to believe it, but Delaney is officially a 2nd grader! She's doing ECC with Sydney, but she's also working hard at math and language arts this year. We are using Math U See, Primary Language Lessons, Children Liberty Press's Nature Readers and we'll be doing something for spelling. Not quite sure what yet, but definitely something.


Sydney is officially a 5th grader. It's her last year as an elementary student *sniff sniff* She's doing ECC, and will also be using Writing Strands, Intermediate Language Lessons, Math U See and...something for spelling. I should probably choose a curriculum before the year gets away from us.

We have our books and took some pictures - guess we're ready to get this school year started! Stay tuned. I hope to actually post more updates this year.

MFW 1st Grade - Bible Lands drawing

Delaney learned a great story to help her draw a map of the Bible lands.

Piano Lessons

Sydney, Delaney and I started taking piano lessons in mid-February and have been LOVING it. Mr. Luke, a man from our church who is not a "piano teacher" but has been playing the piano since he was 4, is our instructor. He comes to our house on Tuesday afternoons and usually brings his two daughters (ages 4 and 5) along to play with Sadey. It's good for use all.

Sydney and I are working on the 2nd book of the Bastien series. I am not ashamed to say that she is whipping me, but it's been a healthy competition for us both.

Delaney is still working on the first book in that series. Truth be told, she plays just as well and just as many songs as Sydney and I. The thing that's keeping her in that first book is that she can't read the music and has been playing completely by ear. She does a fabulous job, but of course she should probably learn how to read the music before she gets too far into her lessons. She's doing great though and I'm extremely proud of her for sticking with it even when she gets frustrated.

Spelling Bee

So after being accused of having "the longest Halloween in history and then the longest New Year in history" - I thought it might be time to add a bit more life to the blog :) Love ya, Laura *smooches*

Moving on to January 2009...

The kids participated in their first Spelling Bee on 1/9/09. They were extremely nervous, but they both did really well. Delaney placed 3rd in the 1st grade "fun" division.

Sydney's group of 4th graders was quite large, but she ended up in 4th place...and now she'll never forget how to spell the word HARPOON for the rest of her life. Good times.

Great job, girls!!!!!

Delaney loses her first tooth

12/27/08
She couldn't be any happier.

Camp of All Seasons (11/14 thru 11/16/08)

Just a couple of days after our first parade experience, Sydney, Delaney and I went CAMPING with the Girl Scouts at the camp outside Tallahassee. Our troop was "in charge" - which meant we had to arrive first, leave last and make sure all the meals and activities were planned for the weekend. As a reward for all that effort, we got to sleep in the lodge - which was air conditioned and bug free. Mostly.

I learned that if you ever want/need to entertain a large group of girls - just build a stage in your yard. Goofing around on that thing kept them busy and out of trouble for most of the weekend!


It was a busy weekend of scavenger hunts, camp fires, singing, crafts and your basic Girl Scouty-ness. We came home completely exhausted, but we had fun!

Veteran's Day Parade (11/11/08)

The girls marched in their first parade this year! And no Angie, I'm not counting the lame event that Sydney and Lauren did with the ballet class as a "parade." That was just sad. But I digress...
This was the big Veteran's Day Parade and it really was quite large! I think we were like the 115th group or something like that. Thankfully the weather was nice and the girls were all well-behaved and the whole event afforded a great opportunity to learn about veterans, service to our country and patriotism. Homeschool and Girl Scouts. A perfect marriage.

Awwwww. Aren't they cute?




Here's Delaney with her Daisy troop. They may be small in size, but they are HUGE on energy.

Here is most of the girls' troop posing with their leader (in the green shirt). Sydney (green vest, pig tails) and Delaney (front and center) had so much fun.


I promise that they were more organized when the parade actually began. Here they are trying to figure out where everyone is supposed to stand and practicing their Veteran's Day chant.

I don't have any pictures of Sadey, but she had the luxury of being pushed along the mile long route in her stroller while she and mommy passed out candy. Next year she'll be a Daisy and she WILL be marching :)

Tyndall Air Force Base field trip (11/13/08)

One of the coolest things about living where we do and being involved in the homeschool group we are in is that we are close to the Air Force base and actually know a few of the fighter pilots. One of them was nice (or crazy - you decide) enough, to get us onto the base so we could tour the hangers, check out the fighter jets, visit the control tower and "play" with the flight simulators. The kids had a BLAST!

Because it's an AFB, I couldn't take a lot of pictures, but I did snap a few.

Inside the cockpit of the F-22 Raptor

Delaney LOVED being inside the jets. I don't think I've ever seen her smile bigger. She says she wants to be a pilot when she grows up *eek*


This is a shot of the air field taken from the deck of the control tower. Here's your vision test...See that row of trees? Behind that is East Bay and behind THAT is another row of trees. We live just behind the other row of trees. Can you see our house? :) Seriously though, we do live just across the Bay from the AFB which means we get to see and hear a lot of jets. We LOVE it.

You can tell F-15s from F-22s by looking at the tails. I may be wrong, but I think it's the F-22s that lean while the F-15s stand up straight. I hope I got that right, but it might be the complete opposite!

Here's the family standing on the aforementioned deck of the control tower. Notice Sydney holding on to the bulding for dear life. She has developed her mother's love of high places *ugh* And look how happy B and Sadey are....

That's because Sadey hated nearly every minute of this field trip! She was so freaked out by the loud noises that she cried the whole time.

Thank goodness Dad came along so, between the two of us, we were able to keep her somewhat subdued. But poor B though! He took the day off work for the field trip under the promise of getting to try out the AF flight simulators. Sadly, we ran out of time right before it was his turn!!! He was a trooper though. No temper tantrums from Dad.

MFW 1st Grade ~ ABC scroll

This post is a few weeks late, but we finally got around to making Delaney's ABC scroll from day 12 of her 1st grade curriculum. Not bad considering we did day 22 today!

For those who don't know anything about My Father's World 1st grade...Delaney began the school year reviewing handwriting and letter sounds. Each day she practiced three letters until she worked her way through the alphabet. Each day she copied the letters in her best handwriting and at the end of the alphabet, she taped them together to make a scroll "for the king" - similar to what scribes might have done in Biblical times.

School days

I'm in the process of posting about the last couple weeks of school, but in the meantime, here are a few pics of what we've been working on.

This year we are studying the colonization of America and spent the last few weeks reviewing where the first, non-native, Americans came from. Sadey loves the pointing stick. Above, she was showing us where she thought Jesus walked.

Sydney has taken over responsibility for choosing our "book basket" books. Those are library books that relate to the weekly topic that the kids can read at their leisure. They are not required reading, but since Sydney gets to pick them out and because she loves to read just about anything, you can usually find her looking through the book basket in her spare time. In the picture above, Sydney is reading a book with short biographies about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. (And yes, the couch IS ridiculously ugly - but it grows on you once you're over the initial shock.)

Delaney is a 1st grader this year!!! I keep saying it over and over because it seems hard to believe. At first, she struggled with the responsibility of having to read and write more on her own, but she's settling in and has made great improvements in both areas. In the picture above, she is copying her weekly memory verse. Nothing like knocking out Bible, memory work and handwriting in one easy assignment.

MFW 1st grade ~ Weeks 1 & 2

Delaney has been hard at work now that she's an official 1st grader. I had originally intended to lump her into Adventures with Sydney, but after lengthy discussion and prayers, we've decided to use My Father's World's 1st grade program with her. We have only done the first 8 days, but so far she seems to enjoy it. I must also confess that the one on one time we are getting by doing school this way has also been good for our mother/daughter relationship...which just can't be a bad thing.

So for the first 8 days, we have been following a very similar routine. We start our day with a Bible lesson. Right now she is learning some verses from the book of Proverbs. We started with Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." We spent quite a bit of time talking about what fear of the Lord means and how God wants us to revere Him - not to actually be afraid. That was a toughie to explain! Our newest verse is Proverbs 10:5 "He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son." You know, it can be hard to explain Proverbs to a city kid!

After Bible study, we move on to math. I am trying to combine MFW math with Math U See so it ought to be an interesting year. Right now D is studying patterns and learning about place value. I haven't been overly thrilled with the directions given in the math section of MFW, but I'm trying to be open-minded about it. D fills out a "Number of the Day" sheet each school day on which she practices writing the number and does a few math equations (0+___ = ____, ___-1=____, etc).

The best part of their math, in my opinon, is the hands on approach to learning place value and money. She gets a new bean to put in a cup each day and when she amasses 10 of them, she'll glue them to a popsicle stick to make a base 10 stick. We did something similar with the MUS blocks last year, but I think this will be even more concrete for her. For money, she gets a penny every day and when she has 5 she can exchange them for a nickel and 2 nickels can be exchanged for a dime. We won't be using quarters this year, but I'm sure we'll trade up for a dollar when the time comes. D loves doing the worksheets from The Complete Book of Math. I think that's been her favorite part of school.

So far her language arts studies have all been review. We are starting with practicing all the letter sounds and working on handwriting. I'm not sure how we missed it, but last year we didn't spend much time learning how to write lower case letters, so this exercise has been very good for her. Each day she practices writing 3 letters and then practices blending the new consonants with the vowels. When she's done with the alphabet, we'll turn all her papers into a scroll. We talked about how the Bible was first written on a scroll and only available to very rich people, so she's decided that she's making her scroll for the king (Dad).

She really seems to like all the hands-on activities that come with this program, but I'm not surprised since she's a hands-on kinda' girl :) One of her first projects was a pottery jar. I read that the recipe printed in the 1st grade manual was a bit of a flop, so we decided to make the jar with Crayola air drying clay instead.

She did a great job!

She also made a Jewish calendar and we talked a bit about the differences between our calendar and the one she made. She was very interested to learn about the Jewish names for the months.

In science we learned about bugs and creepy crawlies and then got to go outside and pick up all sorts of boards and leaves and sticks to see if there was anything living under there. She still does this every time she goes outside *eek* We also had a lesson on the seasons. I think her favorite part of that was when we acted out the earth and sun and I orbited around her to demonstrate the change of seasons. She was a bit disappointed that I didn't rotate on my axis as I orbited her - but there's only so much spinning a mom can take!