Homeschooling in Texas

is going to be very different than in VA! I went to an information meeting for one of the NUMEROUS homeschool groups around me tonight and was pleased as well as shocked! There were ALOT of ladies there - I think the group has over 270 families and that is just in 1 county! We also joined a group in the county on the other side of us and I am not sure how many families that group has but I am sure it is close to that! Nice to have options!! I am in shock though over the acceptance and ease of homeschooling here. They have homeschool sections at several of the used book stores around, at the Christian Store they have a HUGE homeschool section and they even have a Home Educators Resource store!! It is a different world!

I am still not ready to start but we did start on Monday with our new Daily Board(will show pics later) and some reading and establishing the routine of our day - somewhat! I did add in Quiet Time or Alone Time this year and so far it is the best thing I have done! Everyday from 1-3 the boys are off to their own corners for some alone time! We all just need to be away from each other for a little bit and it is really gonna be good for them to be alone and play,read, listen to books or adventures in odyssey and even just lay on their bed and stare at the ceiling!!

I am really hoping to be able to share what our plans are for this year and show you how we are doing things here sometime this weekend!

I am gonna get to go to a QandA in Frisco with some ladies who have been doing things the Charlotte Mason way for quite a few years and I am excited to be able to pick some brains and ask some questions - especially about high school!!!

AAHHH...School

I am so anxious to get started back with school, get organized and just do it!! All this moving is making me crazy and feel so out of sorts - everything is in boxes! I can't get stuff ready or organized and together to get started and I so want to!!
I also can't cruise thru all my blogs I follow to get ideas from all of you out there and see what you are doing different or the same for this year - I am having to find wifi on the fly as we go places since I had the internet cut off - what was I thinking??? If I sit on my porch in 1 spot I can connect!!
We will be moving on Tuesday and unpacking on sat - YEAH!!! I will have 1 week to get everything ready and organized for school then we are off and running!!!

Convention JOY

I found lots of goodies I needed for Alex at the used curriculum sale and then at the last minute .....guess what I did......big shock for those who know me.....I changed my mind!!! I had fully decided to use Sonlight Core 200 History of God's Kingdom for his 10th grade year - until I got my hands on the Teacher's Manual! It is HUGE and it overwhelmed me from the first time I picked it up! I bought it because I needed it for my plan but after I spent soem time looking it over I canned it! We are a Charlotte Mason family and I am not ready to give up that philosophy just because he is older!! So - back to the drawing board! I did find a Literature program I am pretty excited about. I am starting with the first one in her series because he hasn't had a good intro to lit so I want him to get the info and skills from this book as well as all the rest! I am hoping to do Book 1 & 2 in one year - a bit ambitous I know! I got to spend some time talking to Janice and it was so worth it for me! She had some really good insights and info to share!
He is doing Algebra 2 with Teaching Textbooks and Biology from Apologia. He wants to finish World History so I will be looking for something CM style to go from 1500(where he left off this year) on. We will also do Language Lessons from Queen Homeschool - I think. I spent some time looking at it at convention and I love that it has some elements that he has yet to be introduced to - picture study, narration, copywork, dictation - and these are things I want him to get so....I just need to decide which level to buy for him. I have also found a Bible Study for him thru Simply Charlotte Mason. I like the way it is set up with lots of repitition!

The younger boys didn't really get much that was new except for a new guide for mommy from Simply Charlotte Mason. I bought 2 actually - Genesis thru Dueteronomy and Joshua thru Malachai and Ancient Greece then got home and realized we were much farther along in Dueteronomy than I thought. I also got a science study from them that I am super excited about. I also got to spend some time talking to Sonya Shafer at their booth and she was fantastic!

Being able to talk to these people at their booths is a new discovery for me this year and boy does it help to make decisions and to just get info! I am such a people pleaser I didn't want to 'bother them' in past years but this year I felt more comfortable reaching out and it was so worth it!

Boy do I love convention! Getting ready for next year is gonna be FUN!
The little ones and I are still doing school and will all summer. I like that it gives us focus and the ability to not be so strict(ha!ha! as if) during the school year - it is all the school year! Will write more on that later......

Going to Convention

Oh...How I LOVE convention!!! All those books at the used sale - I go through there at least 3 times(probably lots more) and always find treasures!! Then there is the exhibit hall - full of new, old, fun school things I never knew I needed! I could and do spend hours wandering thru there looking, touching, reading, looking some more and sometimes even buying! It is completely overwhelming in every sense but I LOVE IT!!!

We have been so crazy busy these past few months and I miss blogging but I have really been trying to be more purposeful in how I spend my time and trying to actually go to bed at night!!!

Homeschooling in Texas

is gonna be so different than it is here! I have spent many a night these past 2 weeks looking up info about homeschooling high school and just homeschooling in general online. I am in awe of what I have found that is going to be available to us in Texas!
The first biggest shock was finding the Homeschool Sports Athletic Assoc. Yes - it is sports of all types - football,baseball,soccer,track&field,volleyball,basketball - for homeschoolers and it is huge and is in the area where we will be moving!! HooRaa!! Alex is thrilled and so am I - for him!
I have found 2 or 3 possible coops that we could be involved in. I was not looking for a coop because the younger boys have never liked going to coop but I did want to find something for the high schooler we will be adding into the mix next year!! I found a coop that will offer the majority of Alex's classes(so i will not be his teacher - just the nagger) and the choices for the little ones are amazing!!! Stephen can take Lego simple machines, tae kwon do, archery and those are just a couple of the choices!! They are all pretty excited about coop now!!
Coop has never been my thing - I am so not a scheduled person - but if we have to be there for Alex we may as well enjoy what is available - right??? Since it is enjoyable it should be a much pleasanter experience than it has in the past!!!
There are 2 or 3 other organizations for homeschoolers in our area and I am a tad bit excited to get out there and see for myself if it is all as good as it looks online!!!

We are moving.......

....to Texas!!
This is what I just posted on my family blog and i thought I owuld share it with you guys too!! Getting our house ready to move is why you won't hear from me very often over the next few weeks or so....it is probably going to be sporadic for awhile!! Miss me!!!
While we were in Texas for vacation Dan had an interview with Target in the Frisco area for a possible transfer to that area. Well - it seems that God wants us in Texas - they have a position for my hubby in the area where all of our family is living!!! We are not sure exactly what store he will be in yet but we do know he will be in that general area and that is good enough for us! Dan has 3 sisters(and their families), his mom and dad, 2 aunts and 1 cousin and his family and they all live within 20 miles of each other. My sister and her family will be moving to that exact same area this summer also!! Once we found out my sister was moving to that area we immediately started praying about what God has for us here in Harrisonburg and if moving to Texas was something we should pursue or not. We felt he answered with a very sound 'yes' so we started the process of asking for a transfer and it just worked out that Dan was able to interview while we were there on vacation!!
God has definately been guiding this decision and has his hand all over this and we are believing and trusting in him completely(or trying to) to work out all the details to get us there! Selling our house is gonna be the biggie! We are believing in God that it will all work for the good!!
This is a very hard move to make! We have never lived near family and it has been good for us but also bad and sad for us as the kids are getting older. We have been blessed by so many families and people in so many different ways since we moved to the Valley that it has been like having family around us! Every step of the way, thru the good and the bad of our 5 years here in the valley, we have been surrounded with love and support and friends and we are truly going to miss the people that have had such a huge impact in our lives!! We have all grown tremendously, in our faith and our walk with God and our commitment to family, since we moved here that it is easy to look back and see why God brought us to this place when he did!!
It has been hard at times to not have the unconditional support of family that this is exciting for us to be able to move to a place that we will be surrounded by family members!! We are fully aware this can be stressful at times but it will be worth it for my boys to be able to play with any of their 12 cousins that will live within 30 miles of them - any time they want to!!!
We are sad, excited, hopeful and trusting that the things God has in store for us cannot be measured - good and bad!!
God is Good.....All the Time

Life gets in the Way

I am struggling with keeping up with the blogs! I am really trying to be more purposeful in how I spend my time and by doing this I am not finding much time to spend online blogging! I will definately keep posting but they might be fewer and farer(pretty sure that is not a word) between!
We have been having some pretty good discussions about whether or not to bring Alex home and homeschool him for the rest of High School. He is pretty confident he wants to come home so we are gearing up to add him into the mix for next year! He visited Classical Conversations a couple weeks ago and seemed to think it would be okay to do that and I absolutely love their program for the older kids so if he does come home we will be doing Classical Conversations challenge program with him for the rest of his high school.

I started doing the MFW 1st grade with Ben and I absolutley love the program. the first time I did it was with Stephen and I skipped some of the parts and I am now realizing those parts seemed silly or not important to me but they were and are very foundational to his success! I will not be skipping any parts of this program with ben but we will be doing it double time since we are at the end of his first grade year! Thankfully, for us, it is not a big deal if he is not exactly on track with his age/grade that the school system tells us he should be in.

Kindergarten

is coming for Thomas next year! It is gonna be interesting to see if his mother can actually pull it off!! For 2 years we have been telling him 'no - you don't have to do school - this is for brothers - go play or sit with us quietly'. Let me just say to all of you with little ones - NEVER EVER say this to your child - it will come back to haunt you! Granted he almost always chose to sit with us(and not quietly I might add) but now that I have started talking about starting school next year - he is retty adamant that he will NOT be doing school!

it is hard to fuss at a child that walks around all day telling me - 'mommy. i love you' constantly and for no reason at all.

i do know that i will be using My Father's World Kindergarten program to teach him to read. I used part of it with Ben and I used part of the 1st grade with Stephen. We are currently using The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading - which I like alot - but every time I pull out this big ol book to do reading/phonics with Ben he goes crazy! Do I have to do that whole book? Not right now just this page today. But that whole book has to be done? Over and Over!
I just recently acquired the MFW 1st Grade TM and student stuff at a local used curriculum sale and so I will be starting that with Ben this week and hopefully he will be a little bit happier with that!
Anyways....all that to say I am a little bit nervous about how Thomas is gonna fit into the scheme of 'school'. he will be doing is own Reading program and math and I am hoping he will just tag along with the rest of the stuff with us - pretty much like he does know. It never seems like we have enough time in the day to get it all done(poor planning or laziness on my part for sure) and we are adding a non reader to the program!

Bendaroos

When we were in GA we visited a Toys R Us - the boys have never seen one before!! It was quite an experience for all of us - I was overwhlemed by the amount of toys that are available to kids - it is crazy!!
Anyways....I did find these cool things that were on sale and I thought they looked like something the boys could do while I was reading.



Well - it turned into quite the activity. They spent hours building creatures with these things.

These Bendaroos are really cool and fun!! They are sticky and yucky but they don't seem to dry out(so far) and the boys love creatinga nd recreating with them!

This turned into a school day for us!!!

Our Week

So often I read these weekly wrap ups from other HS blogs and I wish I took the time to do it for us but I just never do! Alot of the time I feel like we didn't do much that week - which could be true or could not depending on the week.
This is one of those times that I find myself comparing to other HS moms and I get so down on myself about what we are or aren't doing and it frustrates me that i do this to myself!!
It is times like this that I so often get reminded of how amazing it is to just be able to be home with my boys and watch them learn and grow in so many ways - not just what they are learning in school but what they are learning in life!
I love doing school the Charlotte mason way but the plan we have been following didn't have any 'projects' so I borrowed My Father's World Creation to the Greeks from a friend to get some ideas. I love some of the projects they do in their curriculum!

The boys each built a Pyramid from sugar cubes........

I was feeling like the proud teacher when they decided to make small pyramids all around the big one for the wives - since they weren't buried with the Pharaohs!

Daddy was home so he helped Thomas

Stephen picked up on the pattern pretty quick and he was off and running

The finished Pyramids....

How we did it:

*Each boy had 1 box of sugar cubes(the only place we could find them was at Food Lion)

*1 8x8 piece of cardboard

*the bottom of the Pyramid is 8 rows of 8 - it could have been bigger since each boy had their own box of cubes - maybe 10 rows of 10

*the next row is centered on the line of the 2 cubes underneath it

*keep building up until you get to the 1 on top

*you should have enough left over to make small pyramids too!

I can't wait till we get to the Plaques of Egypt.....those will be fun!

Living Math Books

WOW! I found this list of living math books while on my blog hop and I just had to post this list for my readers and for myself!!! I hope you enjoy it!
I would love to hear if you know anything about any of these books at all???

Homeschool Blog Hop

This is gonna be fun....join in!!! I can't wait to start hopping and meeting some new homeschool moms!

i had no idea but i am not allowed to share stuff i do on worksheets.com so I am gonna take them off of scribd!! sorry!

Copywork

I finally started being more regular with our copywork and I love it! Stephen has been writing sentences that I got from Happy Scribe. They have a good selection of copywork books on different topics and you can print them out in different fonts or cursive. Basically each book has 24 pages - each with 1 sentence per page, then a traceable sentence and a couple lines to be able to write the sentence more than once!

I have been struggling with what to do with Ben who is just starting to be comfortable writing. I had some abc printouts and he has been doing 1 letter a day. Now that we are at Z, I started looking for some simple words to have him do and all I could find were sentences, poems and such. I just feel like that is too much to jump to right now. I just want some simple words.

Today I found a website that allows you to make your own copywork worksheets and then save them as a pdf to your computer. I am in hog heaven....I have been making worksheet after worksheet of copywork for the boys!!

I have done - days of the week, months, number words, homonyms, words from the Abeka blend and word book, books of the bible and the ten commandments(since we are getting ready to learn them). Go here to my scribd page and get copies of all the copywork I just made!!

getting back on track

we went to GA to visit my sister and to get away from the snow - I had had enough! guess where it snowed??? we kept up with school a couple days, the boys had lots of fun playing with their cousins and mommy had a BLAST shopping at the 2 homeschool stores nearby(in their used section).

the boys were glad to come home and get back into our little routine.
Ben made his eggs for breakfast and put whipped cream on them....YUM!!!or GROSS if you asked me


Ben is learning to play Chess at coop. He is learning a new piece each week and only plays with the pieces he has learned. I am loving it because I am learning with him!



The boys actually got into coloring some pics from a dover coloring book about ancient Egypt while I read. Stephen especially was glad to have done such a good job and wanted to make sure he was gonna have a notebook to put his pictures into when he was done!

We had a good week back to school and back at home after our trip. It is always nice to be back into the routine of things.

I did pull a switcheroo with our history just recently. We had been focusing on american history but I realized I needed to get into the 4 year cycle to be able to get thru 1 whole cycle before S starts high school so....Since we have been reading thru the Bible from the beginning and we were only as far as Joseph and he is in Egypt...it made sense to flow right into Ancient Egypt.

The boys are loving it!

THIS is what happens when you limit the technology......

the imagination gets flowing



the math bears get spread ALL OVER the house and are set up to guard lots of different spaces...


do I scream or laugh?



do I go absolutely CRAZY because there are small pieces of legos, connectagons, bears and whatever else they need for their...whatever....

do I run screaming when I walk into their bedroom???? every single toy they own is on the floor!

OR do I just LOVE the fact that they are not in front of a screen all the time? It was MUCH louder in my house this week and nearly drove me out of my mind but it was worth it!

They really took to this ticket system and were very diligent about using timers and giving me their ticket. It certainly helped that the main computer got attacked by some porn grossness and so the boys are no longer allowed to play internet games! I tried to find more timers at dollar tree but they were all out so they will have to continue to share the 2 that we have until they get them back in stock!

Technology Tickets

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the blog world!! It is a tad bit time consuming but I have gotten some really great ideas that work so good for our family that I NEVER EVER would have come up with on my own!!!

I found this true gem a few days ago and it is already in play at our house! I had to do it quick and I didn't get to make it pretty but it is functional and will probably get prettified one of these days!!! I mentioned it to the boys and they were so gung ho to do it that I had to be quick!

I pulled out the hundreds of left over paint chips I have from my adventures this summer!


Each boy has a color(his favorite) that I have been using for him for everything I do! Stephen is green, Ben is orange and Thomas is blue. So I cut apart 12 'tickets' for each boy. And 6 for me(red) to give as rewards or I called them 'Way to Go' tickets when i saw the boys doing something good! I just wrote 1/2 hour on them and hung them up!

I had these little 3M hooks I got after christmas on clearance and they hung perfectly on them so I stuck them to the wall and hung up our Technology Tickets!

I decided to put them up next to our school schedule since we are looking at that so much and are in and out of this room quite often - so I won't forget about using the tickets!

So far - so Good! The only issue I have run into is if they don't use the whole half hour. I only have 2 timers so I couldn't pause the time for one of the boys and I am sure he got more time than he was supposed to but - oh well! I will be going to the dollar tree and getting a timer for each boy so that I can pause their time if they don't use the whole half hour!

I have high hopes for these tickets but as usual it will require me to stay on top of it and be strict about using them so......that is where lots of prayer comes in!!

Schedule

It took me a couple tries to make a schedule for our week that I liked but it requires me to fill it in each week! I don't mind that part - I just found that I was writing so many of the same things over and over again and we were just going to the next page or chapter that I didn't need to write it down. So - because I got lazy and it wasn't written down I would forget to do it and we ended up where we were last year and that was just doing the basics - which is not what I wanted for our school year. I was so excited when I saw a schedule that was done here and I LOVED IT!!! When I read her post it was like I had written it and I just had to copy her idea!
So - here is what I did.....

I had an old whiteboard sitting in the garage that was not magnetic so I spraypainted it black all over. I was very pleased with how well the spray paint went on over top of the whiteboard - flawless!

after it dried, i used this fabulous glue I have and glued 3 different ribbons to make my 4 days slots. then i hung up the board where the kids and i could reach it!

after i cut, laminated and cut again my subject labels I put a velcro dot on the back of them and hung them up where i wanted them to go each day! I just wrote the days of the week on index cards and velcroed them up too!

The daily subjects are - Bible, Circle Time(verse, calendar and family prayer), Literature(poetry, paddle to the sea, just so stories that we alternate each day or couple of days) phonics, copywork, math & individual reading
Mon & Weds - history, language arts, artist study, composer & timeline
Tues & Thurs - science, spanish, language arts


I put the board in this corner of our school room. It is right next to my desk where all our books and supplies are also kept. The files on my desk are labeled by subject and each file has the books we will need or items we will use for that subject.


I am excited about the boys being able to see what is done and what is left to finish our day!
Now they won't have to keep asking what next? when will we be done?? how much longer??
I am also hoping this will start to initiate soem independence form them. If they can do their copywork they can take down their label and maybe they will do it on their own???

The labels I made are here if you want them!

High School

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! I am so troubled right now and all I can do is scream - quietly and on paper(or screen) !!! My oldest - who is a freshman in high school has now mentioned that he wants to consider being homeschooled next year and possibly the rest of high school! I am thrilled - I am joyful - I am beside myself that this is coming out of his mouth BUT I am terrified! He is my stepson(he has always been with his dad and since he was 5 he has always also been with me ) and we attempted hs in 7th grade and it was a dismal failure!!! Academically it was a failure. It was my first year of homeschooling and I didnt know what I was doing and didnt have a feel for what we were doing and he wanted me to teach the way he was taught in school and that just wasn't gonna happen! So - it didnt set the bar real high! Now - i will say - it was a huge success in the changes it made in our family life!
Anyways - now I am scared that we will fail again because the pressure is ten times what it was then due to all the college prep, high school transcripts and whatever else goes along with high school and its requirements! I have put off looking into that for fear of getting all excited and caught up in it and then he will change his mind!!! This has to be his decision. I am relaying info to him as i read or find out stuff to keep it in the forefront of his mind but I am also trying to be real subtle and low key about it! For those of you that know me - I don't do low key very well!!!
I do see the huge plus side to this and I am trying to focus on that instead of being scared!
Prayer works!!!! Believe! Faith! These are the three things that keep coming to mind so that is what I am going to focus on!!!

Thanks for listening! Any suggestions or high school info you want to throw my way - bring it on!!!