Planning and Winning!

We are meeting Friday with several local families who want to start a home school play group. I am very excited about it! It will be some of the families that met off and on over the spring and summer and some new ones as well. Since we aren't doing the big co-op this fall I want to be sure to get plenty of play time and our group looks like it will have around 16-18 kids, which is perfect! Our first big venture will hopefully be to visit an apple orchard in September. I wanted to do that last year but time got away from me, so looking forward to that for this year!


I recently entered a contest and WON! I WON a scholarship to the "Free to be me! Bloggers Retreat 2009" in Florida! The retreat is a chance for Christian women who blog to meet and fellowship and learn more about how to minister to others through blogging. I heard about it from my mother-in-law who also entered but sadly did not win. They will be giving away more scholarships so hopefully she will win one also and we can go together! It will be the weekend of Oct. 23rd. If you are a Christian lady and you blog, you should also consider entering one of their contests or signing up to attend. It is only $100 and includes all your meals and lodging for the weekend! Click on the picture to read all about it! (AND if you live in GA we could always carpool!!!!!!)

That's all for now. We completed day 23 of school today. We are taking our "week" break (originally scheduled for the last week of the month) as a few days spread out here and there as needed...I think I like it!

School Days

A photo of our classroom at the beginning of last school year.

I have a tentative starting date for our school year 09-10. July 13, 2009.

We should have the rest of our supplies by that date, so why not? It is too miserably hot to go outdoors. We don't have a pool. The kids are bored. Our classroom is in the nice cool basement....

We went yesterday to a materials display where we ordered the rest of our materials and I was told it would take 2-3 weeks for them to come in. I guess over the next couple of weeks I will be clearing out and scheduling and getting ready for day 1.

We will be using Abeka this year for most everything. I came to the realization that while I enjoy using "real living literature" as they say for teaching science, social studies, etc, I really dislike the non-organized structure of that method. While some can make it structured enough for their family, I can't handle being given an inch of disorganization...I take 10 miles every time! So, we have our "workbooks" which will give us a timeline and scope/sequence and I will add to it with literature and projects.

We used Sonlight last year, which was a complete literature perspective. All the lesson plans were done for you. What I did not like about it was being stuck with those lesson plans. It was also difficult to find a happy medium between their Language and Reading levels. If I put Katie in the 1st grade material then the reading was entirely too easy. If I jumped to the 2nd grade material then the language portion was too advanced. I was able to look at the entire year of 1st grade reading/language from Abeka at the materials display and it seems to hit exactly what we need. The reading portion is challenging without being too difficult with the language and spelling.

Katie will be doing first grade this year with Abeka, and Noah will be doing K5. I know this seems like the same exact grade they did last year, but it really isn't because Abeka averages about one year more advanced than any other curriculum. The Kindergarten Abeka that Noah will be doing is pretty much similar to everyone else's "first grade" material.

I even ordered an Abeka math workbook for each of them, though I will use all my other resources to teach the concepts, just using the workbook for practice.

The only thing I will not have ready for the very beginning of school is our art. I love learning about and doing art projects/pieces with the kids and they love it too, but that is next on the wishlist and will wait until later. Maybe we will try to start it for the second half of the year. I kind of plan to do a year round schedule anyway, so we can throw it in whenever.

I am really excited about starting fresh! It will be nice to have almost four months of school done before our trip. Then, after that, who knows what exciting projects we will have on the horizon ;)

Winter School....

Here are some photos of our winter school program. Ha!

(click to view larger)
In the top photo they are using pattern blocks to design a picture then draw it.
In the bottom photos they are writing/drawing in their journal.

Our classroom is in the basement. We have a vent run to the room, but it really is not very affective. Most of the year, especially in Georgia, it isn't that big of a deal. The summer and fall and spring are comfortable and the most we ever need is a fan in the corner. As it gets cold, however, it becomes very difficult. We have a space heater that we have been turning on about an hour before we head down in the mornings, but today I didn't even try! It was down in the teens last night and our high tomorrow will be 32 degrees, so we will just move school upstairs for the time being. I love our classroom...moving things upstairs isn't a HUGE deal, it just strews things out more....I now have a living room covered with workbooks, crayons, markers, notebooks, etc. I know that 32 degree weather doesn't sound bad compared to some of the frigid below zero temps in other areas, but if we had that kind of weather here, then we would definitely have that room hooked up with some HEAT! ha. As it is, here, we only have this cold of weather for a couple of weeks, then it will be back to using the heater, and then, by April, I bet we will have the fan on already!! Ah, the joys of living in GA with totally crazy weather year round! (last year we actually had snow during this time....hoping!!!!) (click for a trip down memory lane)