It's been awhile and some major changes

Well if you haven't heard we are ending our homeschool journey. The boys start school August 26th at the local public school. So many factors played a role in this decision and I hope things go well. I'm positive at this time school is the right decision for the kids. I never thought I'd feel like I hated my kids and once that feeling stuck for more than a few hours I knew something had to change. There was a lot of prayer, fasting, scripture reading, soul searching, late night discussions, and so on about this decision. Wish us luck on our new journey.

Lazy

I've been lazy with the blog again. I've been so stinking busy I just haven't had much time to anything let alone keep up on the blog.
Let's see:
Started going to church again.
Called to be an assistant cub master.
Planning commission member for my city.
Taught Relief Society a few times.
Book group with ladies from church.
Training to run a 1k at Thanksgiving. Yea too chicken to do a 5k.
Baptism for a child.
Homeschooling 3 kids.
Helping a neighbor who decided to homeschool.
Dealing with an adult neighborhood bully.
Trying to get house clean.
Cleaning up the yard in preparation for winter.
Helping an elderly neighbor to move into assistant living.
Helping my mentally slow neighbors with everyday life.
Playing those dang iphone games late at night to destress.
Watching Gilmore Girls and The Closer later at night in an effort to destress.
Starting cooking lessons for half the ladies in the ward.
Taking dinner every night to a friend who is not in a good place right now.
Canning, baking, and just overall cooking for my family.

Man I've tired myself out just thinking of what I do.

2 Weeks and counting

I finally decided we were going to follow, for the most part, the local school district's schedule. So school will be starting the day after Labor Day. We are giving it 4 weeks. If things just don't seem to be working out for us the kids will be heading off to public school. I hate to do it but maybe it's what they need. Anyway I'm being positive and looking forward to what I hope is a fun filled year.

I've been busy planning things and getting things ready. I really need to get pictures of the school room even if it's not perfect. I've decided on a schedule of when we will do things and I think it will work.

This year we are focusing on science. I have one child who LOVES anything and everything science. He may not be liking science by the time we are done this year. 3 days a week we will be using a "school" textbook and working our way from 1st grade through 4th in those. I'll be adding in readers and loads of science experiments along with vocabulary words. Also one day a week we will focus on physics. I have loads of fun things for physics so that should be a hit and the other day we will focus on chemistry. What's not to love about chemistry? Potions and such it should be a hit. And one day will have a focus on nature. I want my kids to start being aware of nature.

We are also focusing on USA geography this year along with the 3rd year of k12 history. I love k12 history and I just can't give it up. Also Nathan will be learning Utah history.

New this year is Game Day Friday. We will get a few things out of the way and spend the rest of the day playing educational games. Hopefully it will work out perfectly for us.

Instead of having grammar daily and everyone getting upset over it we will only do two days a week with grammar and I have some fun things planned for grammar.

If you look back over some older posts you will see a lot of my ideas and plans. I just wanted another post confirming what we are doing. Feel free to ask any questions.

Privacy Concerns

Due to a problem with a mentally unstable neighbor I am being forced to take this blog private. Feel free to ask for an invitation and I will provide you with one. If you know someone who wants to have access please tell me and I'll be more than happy to provide them the info to follow this blog. This blog will be going private in 48 hours. Thanks for understanding.

Free stuff

So I have been posting a lot of stuff that costs money. Well here is the freebie's time to shine. Hopefully there will be a few you haven't seen before.

Ambleside Online a Charlotte Mason based program that uses books available for free online

Math Worksheet Generator

Novel Study Guides

Spelling Worksheets

Handwriting Worksheets

Spelling City

Grammar and Writing

Guest Hollow American History

Discover America State by State the lesson ideas are free. You'd still have to find the books at the library or buy them

Time for Kids

Otter's Science

Dance Mat Typing

Touch Typing

Take a Field Trip

Meet me at the corner field trips

Math Games

Nature Study book

different subjects

MEP Math

Science

American History

Ancient history

history

geography

timeline figures

more timeline figures

history books

reading

science

geography

history and science

American history

reading comprehension

k-3 curriculum

vocabulary

science

nature 

nature study

Pinterest

I love this place. It's seriously addicting so I limit my time there. However the ideas I have discovered are too great not to use the boards.

Now if your already using pinterest skip a few paragraphs. this is to explain to someone what it is. Pinterest is like a clipboard to pin things you'd normally bookmark and then forget about or can't find in your bookmarks when you need it. Pinterest can be as simple or as complicated as you want. You can make albums for everything your heart desires and then some. When I first started I had three boards. Cooking, homeschool, and clothes. However I soon discovered I was overwhelmed when going back to look for something so I expanded my albums. I believe I now have close to 50 albums but here is a sampling of how I broke them down. I still have a general cooking album, chicken, beef, breakfast, lunch, dinner, pork, sandwiches, salad, pasta etc. For homeschooling I now have a general homeschool album, homeschool science, language arts, art, math, and history.

You can follow your facebook friends, strangers, or just about anyone who has an account. Several homeschool boards have threads where people post their pinterest page so you can go in and follow them. You can choose to follow just certain albums from someone or all of their albums. Then when you go to pinterest you'll see all the latest things your friends have pinned. If you want to search for some on your own you'll see at the top a place to either do a search or click on various subjects they have listed.

So you may ask what cool things have I found via pinterest. In the interest of keeping this homeschool related I'm going to link to a few fun ideas I have discovered via pinterest.

Teaching Art Headquarters Some fun ideas for teaching art.
Books about Fine Art If you wonder how I found some of those great books I posted about art well here you go.
Map Activities for kids
Lewis and Clark Unit Study
Continent Bags
10 best online Language Arts games for homeschoolers
Math in Children's Literature
Discovery Bottles


Here is a link to me on pinterest. I hope to see you there soon.

Dry Erase Boards

One nice thing about homeschooling is the ability to adjust to the child. I have three kids that scream, kick, and will kill not to actually do any writing if possible. One day I gave each of them an 8x11 inch dry erase board and let them do their lessons on the board. World of difference! They loved writing on the dry erase board. We got in the habit of using the dry erase board for spelling and vocabulary. Sometimes for math lessons and for handwriting practice. They are a hit and something we will continue to use. Utah Idaho School Supply has dry erase paddles on sale. I bought some and intend to use them for review games and the likes. At about $2.50 a pop you can't go wrong with the paddles.

Another way to bring the concept of dry erase to workbooks and the likes are to use some thick sheet protectors (if you didn't stumble across the dry erase pockets Target had a few months ago in the $1 ssection). Slip the worksheet in the protector and now the worksheet is fun because you can use dry erase markers.

Seriously this has been one of the best finds and purchases I have ever made. If your not using dry erase boards in your homeschool I highly suggest you run and buy some.