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.

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.

2009 Flower Garden - part 1

Sydney has been begging to have a flower garden since we first moved into this house in March 2007. We finally got started on it this week.

We are actually planting a little late by Florida standards, but even after being here for 3 years, we are still running on Indiana time. We decided to start from seeds because (1) we're homeschoolers who can't pass up a good learning opportunity and (2) seeds are 20 cents a package whereas a flat of flowers is more like $10. We can do the math.

We did have to splurge on the little Jiffy greenhouse for $6 at WalMart, but it is reusable so it was money well spent.

It was pretty easy. We just had to add water, aerate, plant the seeds, put the lid on and now we are waiting for some growth.

Adventures ~ Week 16

I should apologize for these brief weekly summaries. If I had written them a few months ago when we had actually done the work, they probably would be more interesting. Don't let my poor writing and descriptions discourage you from TOTALLY loving MFW. It is an awesome program and has been a lot of fun for the kids (and for me too!).

On to Week 16!

This week we learned about Jesus as Immanuel/Emmanuel. We studied and memoried the first verse of the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. It's one of my faves and I had fun belting it out, though I think Sydney might have been mortified. Sadly, there's no video to convince you of my wicked awesome voice. Shucks. Anyway, our memory verse this week was Matthew 1:23 "...they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us."

Rhode Island and Vermont were the states we studied this week. We also did some reading in American Pioneers and Patriots and learned about Daniel Boone in Exploring American History.

Our science lessons this week were about air - how it expands, contracts, and rises. we did a couple of experiments to see the effect of temperature on air. I think the girls' favorite was when they made the coin "jump" on top of the bottle.

Adventures ~ Week 15

This week we continued a lot of the things we were working on last week - reading Farmer Boy, learning America the Beautiful, memorizing and understanding John 14:6, studying birds and in social studies we learned about New Hampshire, Virginia, New York and North Carolina.

Our Bible lessons were pretty interesting this week. On Monday we talked about how God does not always lead us the way WE think we should go - but always in the best way. Too bad I often struggle with thinking His way can't possibly be the best way *sigh* Tuesday we went on to learn about the Most Holy Place and what it meant for us when it ripped. Good stuff.

The state study was a lot of fun this week. We reviewed the Jamestown settlement when we studied Virginia, learned about the Statue of Liberty and did some comparative measuring for New York, but I think Sydney enjoyed North Carolina most of all because she got to fly paper airplanes in school. We learned all about the Wright Brothers and then did experiments to see what we could do with paper airplanes.

The Wright Brothers made four flights the first day they got their plane in the air. The first one lasted 12 seconds. The longest flight made it 59 seconds. We've come a long way since then.

Adventures ~ Week 14

Week 13 was a Thanksgiving Unit. We did read the Thanksgiving Story, but skipped most of the planned activities and did things on our own.

This week, Week 14, included the study of four more states -- Connecticut, Massachussetts, Maryland and South Carolina. We continued our bird study in science, started reading Farmer Boy and began listening to and studying The Nutcracker ballet.

We also began learning the words and history behind America The Beautiful. Apparently I was a bad student because I never realized that the song was written by a teacher visiting Pikes Peak. A dear friend of mine actually posted pictures of that area so my girls could see what Katherine Lee Bates was looking at when she wrote the poem that eventually became the song. To me, there's nothing more awe inspiring that those Purple Mountain Majesty (even when Sydney insists that they are blue).

Our Bible lesson verse for the week was John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Amen.

Adventures ~ Week 12

This is the week that we finally began our study of the states. MFW gave us a fact sheet about each state, along with flag stickers and little cards with the state bird and flower. Each time we look at a new state we:

1. Locate it on the big US map
2. Color the state on our personal maps
3. Read over the facts about the state (this includes some info about history of its statehood, famous people from the state, nicknames, state symbols, funny/outdated laws, etc)
4. Complete any listed activities
5. Read library books about the state during Book Basket time.

We are following the order of statehood, so this week we studied Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia. Our activity for Pennsylvania was to make a model of the Liberty Bell and for Georgia we were supposed to make a peach cobbler -- but we didn't because we were overloaded with desserts at the time. We'll probably do it this summer when we can use fresh peaches.

This week's science lessons were all about birds. We spent some time discussing mammals, reptiles and birds and learned about warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals. We then Googled all the state birds that we studied this week so we could see them "live" and hear their calls. Both Sydney and Delaney love to find birds in the yard, so we also got out the binoculars and wandered around the yard to see what we could find.

Ous Bible lessons this week also related to birds.

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!!!!!

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.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10 science

This week we decided to have one science day instead of trying to fit the week 10 experiments into our already busy days. So on Wednesday we did fairly quick math and language arts lessons and then devoted the rest of the day to "Science in the Kitchen".

The first couple of experiments were from the 'Soaked Through' lessons and dealt with absorption. Since Sydney is a 4th grader, we took some time talking about the scientific method and made sure to take good notes about our experiments. We aren't using the correct vocabulary for the method at this point. I'm more concerned with her learning the steps of scientific observation and testing and then later we'll go back and learn how to take "proper" notes for our experiments. We talked about ways to set up charts to record our results and how to form a hypothesis and write a conclusion.

In our first experiment, we tested to see how well various objects soaked up a set amount of water. We discussed how to make the test "fair" - by using the same-sized materials, the same amount of water and drying the wet surface after each trial. We went over our procedure several times to make certain that we would not make any mistakes. Then we recorded our
guesses, performed the experiment, recorded the test results, discussed and then reached our conclusion: Thicker, porous materials will soak up more water than thinner, porous products because there is more area for the water to "stick" too.

Our second experiment was to see what would happen to dots of ink when soaked in water. The girls thought the first trial was uber cool....

Unfortunately Mommy forgot that we were using washable markers so the only result was that the ink washed right off the cut strips of coffee filters. Pretty? Yes. Informative? Not so much.

Take 2. This time we used permanent markers, but not all that much happened. However the girls did notice that the yellow was seeping out of the green dot. We'll try this experiment again. After I get better markers!

Our final experiment dealt with evaporation. We discussed the water cycle, how and why water forms on the bathroom mirror during a shower and talked about how dew forms on the grass. Then we took two dish towels and got them equally damp. We sealed one in a plastic bag and left the other out to air dry. The girls guessed which would dry the most and why and then we put them on the dryer until this afternoon.

Both girls correctly guessed that the towel left out of the bag would by the dryer of the two and even Delaney understood that the other one was still wet because the water had no where to go once it evaporated off the towel.

Ahhhhh. An excellent day of science.

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10

Still working on week 10. There are a lot of activities this week!!!

We are reading about the Declaration of Independence this week and how Thomas Jefferson painstakingly wrote and re-wrote it until it was perfect in his (and his committee's) eyes. And then how he had to re-re-write it after the Continental Congress changed a few things. To get an idea of what a process that must have been for poor Mr. Jefferson, we made our own quill pens and berry ink.

Again, it was a simple recipe - crush some berries, save the juice and add some vinegar and salt. Simple enough.

The kids were amazed at (1) how easy it was to extract the juice (2) how many berries it takes to make such a small amount of ink and (3) how little ink you really need to write.

We cut the tip off a store-bought feather, hollowed out the end and snipped a cut on one side to control the ink flow. Then we were off and running. It took a bit to get the hang of it...

But before long we figured it out.

I wonder how long it took Thomas Jefferson to make his perfect copy?!?

Adventures in MFW ~ Week 10

We are still working on week 10, but here are the pictures from our great Hasty pudding experiment. Hasty pudding is what the colonists ate because it was quick to make (hence the name), nutritious and didn't require many ingredients. They would cook it in the morning, add some sweetener and eat it like oatmeal. In the evenings they would fry up the leftovers and dip it in gravy. It was a fairly versatile meal.

It's a simple recipe - cornmeal, milk, salt and butter.

Stir forever and a day - until super duper thick.

Delaney learned how much fun cleaning up sticky dishes can be and how much easier it is if you rinse them off right after you are done using them.

We thought it tasted like biscuit dough when eaten right off the stove and more like uncooked French toast when we added maple syrup. It really wasn't bad though. Delaney liked it both ways and Sydney preferred it plain. Sadey wouldn't eat it, but she did want to pose for the picture. We put some in the fridge and will fry it up on Monday to see how it tastes with gravy.