What a busy school year!!!!

Well, gotta say. I haven't done well in keeping up with this at all. We have been so busy this year! I decided to get my degree in commercial photography, so with me being the teacher and the student, it's been incredibly busy!

This year in school is a bit different since there isn't a pre-k little guy coming in 3 days a week! We miss him and hope he has a GREAT kindergarten year!!!!!

Some similarities are that we still do drum lessons...we still do science labs once a week, and we still love the joy of learning all that we can!

We have added "Odyssey of the Mind" group and that should be fun! We've implemented "Field Trip Fridays" if we get the week's worth of work done Mon-Thurs....that's a pretty cool incentive.

Football and baseball are still big deals here and each season has gone or is going strong! I will try and do better with keeping up and keeping ya informed about what we're doing! Just bear with me on it!!! Thanks!

Wow...haven't been good at keeping up!

Well, it's been a good while since I updated. We started off 2009 with Camo breaking his arm (literally on Jan 1st) while snowboarding! He is doing well, after having to be put under a week later to break what had healed and get it re-set. He did get a short cast today, which was a relief to him!

Nonetheless, 

we haven't missed any school! He is re-reading "The 

Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" 

and also reading "The Magical Worlds of Narnia: A Treasury of Myths, Legends, and Fascinating Facts" to supplement the story. We have learned a lot about why certain things are written the way they are. Makes it very interesting!

 We also ordered Turkish Delight so we could completely understand what Edmund was eating from the White Witch. Some of it we liked, some was

 pretty nasty...but fun to learn what it is! (Note, one photo is Camo with the book, doing the workbook and sitting surrounded by boxes of Turkish Delight...other photo is of his first taste!)

We've also worked on prepositions, finding subjects and verbs of sentences and memorizing 40 of the most used prepositions, and locating prepositional phrases and the object of a preposition. (So exciting!)

In math, it's been finding circumference, radius, diameter...working on multiplying with 2 and 3 digit numbers...and also some probability. He is still not really a fan of math.

We did have one day of "fun" and took off for the day to the zoo. The zoo. I mean, what m

ore can you say? A zoo is always fun and you always learn SOMETHING about different species, right?

We've been studying music. Learning about the time signature, clefs, reading what notes are where (every good boy does fine, etc) and basic reading of music. We will be starting history of composers in Feb. and also piano (using "A Chronological History of Music and its Composers" and "The Gift of Music" and "Usborne Story of Music" and "Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers") and I will be teaching him to read music and play piano. However, we will also be continuing his favorite. drums. Camo's had a time playing drums with a cast up to his armpit, but he's been bangin' away. Music is big to him and we spend a lot of time on this one. Plus, you know. It's fractions. Can't beat the reinforcing of that one!

We are finishing up our unit on Egypt. He has really enjoyed this one and we have prolonged it since he was fascinated by it. If he likes it...might as well spoon feed it when he's hungry for it!

I think, think, think that catches us up for January! We're still havin' fun...still workin' hard and I am still feeling SO FORTUNATE every single day that I get to stay home and watch my lil son learn and grow! 

Happy Birthday my sweet boy!

Well, it's been another really fun week that ended with my baby turning 11!

We began the week with an incredibly fun preteen boy day. The boys got together and dressed up in camo and had a military appreciation day! They played games, they shot, they did relays and rode go karts. They had an absolute blast and the moms had fun, too!

We also had a science day at the Museum of Science. The kids had a class where they made ice cream, but, each table had a different type of salt. One table had no salt...each table had a thermometer to record the temp changes and did so every two minutes. Very interesting the temp differences with different salts! Two tables had salt that actually made ice cream!

After the ice cream class, we went ahead and toured the museum, dug for dinosaur bones, played in huge bubbles and had a great day! He learned about plasma, electricity and lightening...for some reason, that was his favorite thing to learn about while strolling the museum.

We finished the book, "The Cay" and he says THIS ONE is his favorite book now! He's also still reading his western book, "The Copelands" and is enjoying that as well.

The new grammar curriculum should be in soon...and we also borrowed a new writing curriculum. It looks promising...I'll keep ya posted.

Well, it's Friday and we're going to enjoy the heck out of the day and celebrate the dude being another year older!

Catchin' up before Thanksgiving!

Since it is a slow school week...I thought I'd go ahead and just share this week.

We went to

 Adventure Camp and absolutely had so much fun! 

Camo raced in canoes with his friends. (It's very hard to get pictures where there aren't a bunch of kids in them, this time!) The canoes were a hit, so were the paddle boats!

Then, they went fishing and three kids caught fish! They caught blue gill, but we threw them back in to swim and live.

Also, a GPS scavenger hunt. The paper had the coordinates and using a GPS, the kids had to find the place and write down the clues. Really funny and more difficult than it sounds! ha!

Then it was off to build a fire. Since Camo is in boy scouts, he thought he was the master! HA! However, all the kids had to work together to build a fire that would also allow them to set a "coffee can" of water on it...to make tea! It was great watching the communication between the kids...they did fantastic! They went to the female cedar trees and picked the leaves and berries and put it in the water to boil, a bit of sugar and VOILA! Cedar Tea!!!  (It was actually really good!) And the kids made toast over the fire and had a snack of toast and tea!

All in all, it was a fantastic Monday! Yesterday and today we did a lot of math and reading. We have begun the book "The Cay" which is a real turn from "Where the Red Fern Grows"! But we're enjoying it so far!

We'll see you after Thanksgiving...have a fantastic holiday...enjoy the food and friends and family and stay safe!

Back to the school stuff!

Well, we've finished the book "Where The Red Fern Grows". This book was a HIT and the first pic is Camo painting his favorite scene from the book. We really enjoyed this book! He's also read, "The Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt", "Truth or Dare", and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" this month. He's about 3/4 of the way through "The Copelands", too, which is a western that he's enjoying!

We've continued to work on his pyramid for Egypt and have decided to also put the inner workings into it. Chambers, etc. will be added to the inside, thanks to my genius friend, Heather, giving me the idea!

We still have the tadpoles and this week, we did an experiment to see how they breathe underwater. We put food coloring right in front of the face of one and watched as he breathed it in, and then it came out his gills! FASCINATING! If you look in the photo of the tadpole, you can see the ripples of color coming out his sides.

In math, we've been working on lines, angles, segments, polygons, and fractions. Math is really coming along and Camo is growing in leaps and bounds in math!

I did just order a new grammar curriculum after spotting one too many mistakes in the last one. ugh. So that should be in soon and we'll continue with the parts of speech and diagramming sentences!

In OTHER news...(ha)...basketball season has begun AND Camo had his first campout with the scouts! SO MUCH FUN! Except for those 27 degree nights... sorry, Camo!

A RANT...for Joy on "The View"

So Joy said on "The View" that homeschoolers were demented, didn't know how to talk to people, and never left their homes.

I can only speak for what WE do at home...but want to educate mouthy Joy on what it's like to learn from home.

We do learn here. We sit and do grammar, writing and math here. We build models and do projects here. We read and discuss...all right here. We grow tadpoles here and learn the life-cycle of frogs here. Here is where we talk, learn, bond and grow.

However; once a week, we leave to take a homeschool art class. He learns about an artist and recreates that artist's style. He left to take an oil painting class for a day.

He left once a week to get with a group of 11 kids to dissect, one "thing" a week, a heart, lungs, kidney, brain, eyeball, long bone (femur) and knuckle. He also did a weekly oral presentation and either showcased a model he'd made, or did a report on a related topic to that week. For example: he did an oral report on alzheimer's when he learned about the brain; presented clay models of 4 types of joints; and showcased a DNA model when learning about cells.

He plays basketball, baseball and football. (So depending on the sport, we leave 2-4 times a week.) He is a boyscout. (another at least once a week that he leaves the house) He has friends from public schools, private schools and homeschools. He has learned that all people are not the same. He's become more accepting of all people. 

We're learning world religions. He can tell you about several already. He's learned tolerance for all beliefs. He's learning how they all connect and that all faiths are good at the core. We have scheduled field trips for each religion we study.

Is he too sheltered? Maybe so. I am with him to teach everything. I'm with him on boy outings and field trips to adventure camp, museums and co-op classes. When he plays sports, my husband coaches. When he camps out or goes to boy scouts, my husband is with him. He isn't turned loose. After things, we all talk about them. We're all involved. The entire family.

Too sheltered? Sheltered from what, I ask.  He'll be 11 soon and is more interested in how to build a fire, make a shelter, make a touchdown or score a home run than he is in who's making fun of him at school. More interested in learning and experiencing all life has to offer than who's cool and who's a geek. More interested in LEARNING about Egypt and being able to see King Tut with his family and friends than being concerned about his grade or who he'll sit by on the bus.

Can he talk to people? Well, he talks sports with his sports buddies. He talks rock music, drums, bass and guitar with his music buddies. He talks survival skills with his boy scout buddies. He talks skateboarding and BMX with those friends. Pretty normal, huh?

My child DID go to public school. From 1st grade until 4th grade. This year at home, I had to teach him his multiplication facts. I taught him what a complete sentence was. I taught him prepositional phrases and adverbs and how to know what part of speech words are. I teach him to think. I teach him that opinions and "what do you think about this?" questions are valid, too.  I teach him about people. He's written reports on Gandhi, Mother Teresa, George Washington, King Tut and several others. His biography reports reflect what HE FELT these people contributed to the world. These things had not been done effectively for him in "normal" school.

His confidence is soaring now. He is free to inquire, make suggestions, ask questions, be stuck on a lesson until it's learned, or shoot ahead if it's easy.

So, I go back. Demented? Really? Not here. Locked in the house? Really? Not here. Can't talk to people? Well, he can talk about more subjects now than before. He's broadened his friendships. He's made new friends, gained new interests, and is more confident in who he is and what he likes.

I am absolutely not anti-public school. I think there are great teachers out there. We've had some of them. I think that there are inspirational teachers that cannot inspire because of the laws and curriculums that don't give them the freedom. I think there is good and bad in everything...even homeschooling. I think each kid needs to be where it's best for them. Be open. Be accepting. This is the smart way to be. You cannot make sweeping generalizations about home schools any more than you can about public schools.

So, Joy...my answer to you is this:

Come on over. Spend a week here. Bring your cameras and all of your gusto and arguments. Talk to me, my husband and my son. Watch what we do and follow us for a week. Gain some perspective and THEN...if you still believe your statements, then and only then, are they a valid opinion. Right now, it's ignorance.

November. So far...

We continued in November with the unit on Egypt. We've begun building a big model of a pyramid! The only photo so far is the base and the pieces in the floor, so bear with us! HA!

We also took a fantastic field trip to a museum in McKinney that let the kids touch artifacts and do a scavenger hunt while learning about Texas history. They also had everything set up to see what a general store was like, a house was like, it really showed what the early pioneers to Texas lived like!  It was so well done! Camo had a blast and learned a lot!

In math, we're continuing with fractions, angles, lines, segments, etc. Adding fractions with uncommon denominators is always tricky, but we're getting there!

He is continuing with creative drawing class...begins boy scouts today (fingers crossed on that one!!!! We hope he loves it!) and basketball starts in another week. I've also been in contact with the local 4H clubs to begin work with that! The other exciting thing is that he's THIS CLOSE to getting a new drum set, which will mean DRUM LESSONS!!!! WOO HOOO!!!!!!