Summer 2014 Review

I've been a bad blogger! Summer time and homeschooling keeps one very busy! We've had a fun but busy summer swimming, hanging with friends, NOT doing official school! I had plans to do more school over the summer but we were enjoying being lazy! :) And they seem to always be learning, so it works out.

I hope you've had a wonderful summer. I cannot believe it's almost August! Here's a little bit of what we've done this summer so far.

 Throwing water balloons at minecraft drawings.

 Gummy bears in sprite popsicles. (They didn't like it, they said the gummy bears were too hard.)

 Pitiful attempt as a garden. This year I tried an heirloom, organic garden and NOTHING grew except green beans. Sigh. I'm ready to throw in the green thumb towel. We got a few conventional strawberries.

 We watched clouds and let the sunshine warm our faces!

 We picked blueberries finally again. We LOVE doing this. Okay, so maybe more so me than them because it means more Blueberry Vodka Lemonade. (Recipe here.) But they do have fun too and it's a gorgeous place to take photos.

 Fishing at Uncle Marc's. This kid loves fishing. He's dying to go out on the lake and fish. Thank God for Uncle Marc because neither my husband nor I like fishing.

 We fulfilled a long time goal and yarn bombed Aunt Denise's mailbox. Crochet for the win.

 July Fourth again at Aunt Denise and Uncle Marc's. Fun! Hope to make it a yearly tradition! Yummy food, fireworks, playing with the dog, good times!

We also had a Frozen party for some friends, no one's birthday, just because! I didn't take any pics during the party because we were having too much fun!!

So we are wrapping up July and heading into August. That means 2 days a week of school and 3 days to finish enjoying summer. Public school kids start school here around August 7th, so we head out to the parks, pools, museums, etc and enjoy the space! Of course we spend the month praying for no hurricanes also, which is another reason I don't start major school until after Labor Day. It's ridiculous that August is our hottest month, most active hurricane month and we start school here in the beginning of it! Why? So they can have more days to prep for spring tests. Yes, indeed that is an honest answer I received from someone in the know. Sad. But that's another blog post....

So we will ease into school in August, get our feet wet again, brushing up on old skills before we dive head on in September. I sit here in total astonishment that the year is over half over. Seriously. Time dragged as a child...why does it fly by now!?

So here's to an awesome summer and what will be an excellent school year!
~Amy

End of School Year Wrap Up!

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth. I've been a bit busy! Wrapping up the "end" of our first full homeschool year, finishing the homeschool co-op semester, having and going to meetings regarding Common Core, Education advocacy and legislation. I'm ready to relax a bit this summer!

We've had a good year. Busy, stressful, had it's ups and downs, but it was far better than I thought it would be. I'm not going to lie I was deeply concerned about being with my kids 24/7. I was one who really, really, REALLY wanted her break when they were in school. But things change, people adapt and we work it out! We fight, we scuffle, they get punished, I make mistakes along with them, but in the end I think we're doing pretty good! We even finished 95% of the educational things I wanted to do! (Pssst....public school teachers never finish all of the book either.)

So we've had some awesome field trips, great lessons, fun experiments and learned a lot! I learned more from their history book just this year that I probably ever did in school, likely because they generally don't teach ancient history in schools anymore.

So it's been a busy, fun, crazy year but we had a good time overall, learning. We thoroughly enjoyed our homeschool co-op we are part of and can't wait for more!

We will have a little bit of time off for summer break, then do a light summer session, mostly math and a literature unit study on Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe a little Doctor Who unit study. :) My oldest has gotten into Doctor Who with me, and we also enjoy "The Sarah Jane Adventures" we found at our library!

I appreciate you all coming along on our journey this year as I navigated the shift from a small business owner with two kids in school to a homeschooling mother who gave up her business! Phew! It's been a wild year!

Here's to a super fun summer!!

~~Amy

A Day in the Life of Homeschooling

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One of my favorite books about homeschooling is Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families that shows how so very different every homeschooling family is. I enjoyed the book and in talking with other homeschooling families I realize it really is true. So, I thought I'd share our journey with you, periodically!

6:30am: The alarm clock for my husband goes off, I poke him to make sure he's up and heading out the door by 6:45. The dog steals his spot in the bed and we sleep until my alarm goes off at
7:30 am: The beauty of homeschooling is I'm not rushing around, even though it's currently summer, and we wouldn't have a bus to catch, there is simply no rush. I lounge around, roll out of bed, make myself semi-human and emerge from my room around
7:45-8:00: The time is fuzzy on this because I'm pre-coffee. Often I'm awoken by fight and screams but today I find them curled up on the sofa watching Peter Rabbit on Nick. I decide to snuggle with them a few minutes and that seems to make a world of difference. I get a lot of "I Love Yous" and snuggles before making myself get up to start breakfast and most importantly, coffee.

8:45: By now some form of breakfast has been started and possibly eaten. They continue to watch TV while I eat breakfast and watch my Golden Girls (shut up, I love that show.) Once coffee is in, I fully intend to get up and get going on cleaning, but I get sidetracked by my iPad. I check emails for my business, fart around on facebook, and check our Homeschool Helper app.

9:00ish: The best friend calls and we talk off and on for a couple of hours, which is not a very common occurrence but somehow my boys were occupied with Legos and leave us to our conversation for quite awhile.

A rainstorm is threatening to take place so I get the lead out and by

11:30: Get our lunch made and eaten so we can get on our way to the library. We need to pick up a book for our  (FIAR) curriculum and they're holding it for us.

12:30: We've gotten our book from the library along with a few more, one Egyptian one since that's what we're studying in history (Story of the World, Volume 1) and one about a Ghost Eye Tree, which works out since our Five in a Row (Five in a Row): Volume 1 FIAR book is Storm in the Night and we are in the midst of thunderstorm season, so this works out perfect! In fact we just beat a storm and get home before it starts pouring.

1:00-3:30: We work on actual school. Both boys do Lesson 11 of Saxon Math (Year 1 and 3) with minimal fussing. I find Saxon to be super easy to follow, instructional enough to ease my math fears but flexible enough for me to skip stuff, or gloss over things they already know.
When I work with one child on math, I send the other to play quietly or in "centers" (shelves set up in the living room with toys, games, educational activities. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, and today it works.

After Math, we work on FIAR and read our storm inspired books, which is great since we are reading them, snuggled on a sofa in front of a stormy window! The boys go off on a tangent about storms, and cats, and hurricanes. Harrison and I have a quick lesson about Italics and Quotation Marks.

I redirect them so we can do History The Story of the World which is a discussion about Egyptians and hieroglyphics. We read the additional library book we picked up and Harrison is intrigued by the stone and clay buildings they lived in. The book suggests making a clay Egyptian home so we do. Eli's quickly turns into a house for Luke Skywalker on Tatoonie, but he's 5 and we let that stuff go. He still absorbed things! Harrison does a little mapwork and a coloring page to go along with the chapter. Eli even asks to do a map page, and apparently paid attention to my directions because he colors the two areas of the map correctly!

Once we get cleaned up from History and our clay houses, we start Science which is Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 1 It's slow going because it is a lot of reading, but I feel it's a very well rounded curriculum with a Christian perspective which is what I want. Harrison has to write down a short review of what he's learned in the chapter, and that's a little tough, as he hates writing. I wonder if letting him read it himself and then discussing it would help him absorb better, I'm still figuring out his learning styles. Since the book focuses on flying creatures, and we started learning about birds, I get out the Audubon coloring pages I have and told him to pick his favorite. He chooses the wild turkey and he colors it while I look up the sounds a wild turkey makes on the iPad. (Ducky Dynasty episodes play in my head at the same time.) I remind them we'll go on a nature scavenger hunt later and I get a mixed review of yeahs and nahs. Oh well, kiddos, it's in the plan and I know you'll have fun once we go!

3:45: We get things cleaned up, grab a snack, turn out the lights and get ready for our Scavenger Hunt! The first nature area I want to go to, I forget is closed on Mondays, so we head off to a nearby town. I again get stuck when they are doing road work and I take the long way around back to our town and the other side of it to an area called the Rigolets near Fort Pike. (Not a great day for limiting my gas consumption, but ya know...). All on the way we look for birds and other things on our list. As we near the Rigolets we find plenty of birds as the storm in the Gulf sends them inland.

We throw rocks in the water, we find birds, a crab and a few bugs. We mark off our findings and only have on misadventure of them being scared of dragonflies (it was a LOT of dragonflies, but come on boys!) But instead of totally falling out that the entire day is ruined, I'm able to redirect my "sky in falling" Harrison to admit he had a blast throwing rocks and finding the crab even if the dragonflies scared him. We bring our findings (rocks, a cicada shell and the feather we found a few days ago) to roost on our window sill in their "collection spot".

5:30: The boys request "alone time" which is pretty much code for tearing up their room, but since I'm peopled out I oblige. They've gotten along quite well for the day with only a few timeouts for potty mouths (REALLY trying to curb mean talk, potty talk or anything of the kind.) and only a few scraps. They play in their room while I am able to start dinner and have an adult beverage. (My blueberry vodka lemonade, find it in my recipes tab.)

6:30: Daddy is home!! Dinner is ready and waiting on the table (NOT a common occurrence!) We eat a fairly whine free dinner. After dinner I start the dinner dishes while they do chores from their Choreganizers, which I LOVE. They get things a bit spiffier and spend time with Daddy. After dishes are done and leftovers put away, I sneak off to work on an order from my Etsy shop and sit down to write this piece out!(which takes awhile!) While I write this piece, Daddy gives them baths and they play/watch TV in the front. Bedtime snack, brush teeth, book, prayers and bedtime!

This is just ONE day. For our summer session we really only do school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because Tuesdays/Thursdays/Sundays, I go work out with the BFF and if the weather cooperates we go swimming. (What a tortured life they lead!) There are also days of errands, visiting grandparents, playdates, parks, and more. The home in homeschooling is a bit of a myth I'm afraid.

Our work load isn't terribly much now either because I'm not doing it "all". Come Labor Day when we pick up fall session, we will add Phonics for Eli; Geography for both; Grammar for Harrison; more handwriting for Eli with emphasis on fine motor activities; Spelling for both; and a general 'theme' every two weeks for added things like music, art and crafts. Will we get it all done? I'm quite sure not. Will we have fun trying? I hope so!

Once upon a time, I enjoyed teaching! I feel like homeschooling is bringing back that part of me that I used to be fairly good at!

There are various reasons why I'm homeschooling but I am definitely accepting it more and enjoying it more. I'm not as frustrated, tired and DONE at the end of the day as I thought I'd be!

And trust me, I do not just sit down and DO these things! I sit down, once a week and plan everything out, making sure I have the right books, papers copied, the math lessons prepped, etc. I double check the night before that I've gotten it all ready. I'm intrigued by the unschoolers of the world because my brain just doesn't compute that!

So this was just one day in our world, hope you enjoyed the ride!
~~Amy

A Little Bit Country...

We got to spend an afternoon in the country with a friend on a Sabbath recently. The kids were enamored with the creek, forest and little farm.I wish we could have a little piece of land like that ourselves, but we are suburban folks for now.

Isn't God's handiwork just beautiful?? Many are His blessings!!
~~amy

Water Balloons and Popsicles

We've been working our way through our Summer Bucket List.

We've crossed off several including water balloons and making popsicles.

 I love that I caught the splash of the balloon popping!!

 And the balloon about to hit Harrison!

Cherry-Limeade popsicles, Yes Kool-Aid, as much as I try to avoid food dyes, sometimes you just gotta do a little something!

Hope we can cross them all off by September!

~~Amy

To the Fair

Recently we went to the fair with Grandpa and they had a good time, especially Eli as he was very brave and went on rides I never imagined he'd go on!

 Eli made me ride the ferris wheel with him, which I didn't love, because I hate the height!

 Eli enjoying the smaller roller coaster.

 They love that super slide thing.

 This is the big coaster Eli and I went on, three times! He LOVED it. I couldn't believe he wasn't scared.

 Harrison refused to go on the big coaster, maybe next year!

 I lost count of how many times they went on the slide.

 NO one went on this ride, Harrison said he did it last year with Grandpa and it is INSANE how it goes round and round and then goes backwards....insanely fast! No thank you, I don't enjoy throwing up.

The obligatory swing photograph.

They were still grumpy throughout the day and on the way home (God forbid they drive an hour without a screen!! THE HORROR!) But I know they had a blast and would love to go again. Who doesn't love the fair??

~~Amy

Summer Bucket List!

First off, if you are on Instagram, feel free to find me and follow our shenanigans! My IG username is "mamaslittlemonkeys" of course :)

I was inspired by Pinterest of course to create a Summer Bucket List. We've checked off a few things already since I took this pic!

We've definitely gone swimming plenty, been to The Peacebaker for some yummy Gluten Free goodies,

had playdates, because sometimes Angry Birds just need a tea party...

and broke a pinata!

 CANDY!!!!!

And yet my boys complain of being bored!! I've warned them if they keep up the complaining I would show them what bored REALLY is! But since we only have two weeks left of our "real" summer vacation, I think they'll survive. We start summer session for homeschool June 24th, and I suspect they will wishing they'd been a little bored over their break!! I'm looking forward to August when public school starts again and we will take a month break and enjoy the pool at the gym to ourselves!!!

Not much is "planned" the next two weeks, which is how I like it. We'll definitely go swimming and continue to knock stuff off our Bucket List. The boys have enjoyed it, and I will carry it through all summer, so we don't feel a pressure to finish stuff. Hang out with friends, sleepovers, indoor camping, these kids have no clue how good they have it!

What's on your summer bucket list??
~~Amy