A Heartwarming Movie...

For those of you who have a little girl and have not seen the American Girl movie Kit Kitteridge, you need to see it. I bought it for Poogie today. She got her feelings hurt quite badly and I was trying to cheer her up. That is a story for another day.

Anywho, we watch the movie tonight and it was surprisingly wonderful. We had seen other American Girl movies and loved them, but this one was so heartwarming. Even TT watched and really liked it. It was the first movie my kids had watched that focused on the Great Depression, which was really interesting to them. TT found a lot of similarities between the plight of people during that time and what is happening on the news today. Smart kid.

Poogie doesn't have Kit, she has Julie for her American Girl doll, but I fell in love with Kit tonight and I think Poogie did too.

It's Cold!!

Oh my goodness, it is cold outside! I love the winter months, but I would have liked to have a little bit more fall. It got down in the upper 30's here last night, and we have a freeze warning for tonight. I had to cover all my mums.

It was quite cool last weekend too. TT woke up in the early morning hours Friday with a terrible ear ache. Of course it was just a few short days after my hubby left his good paying job with okay insurance, thus no insurance. So we treated it with home remedies. I think he had water built up in it from swimming at the Y, because when I added some swimmers ear drops it started to clear up. It still hurts a little, but it is much better. I think we may skip the Y tomorrow, no swimming.

I'm all for skipping tomorrow. I have way to much to do here. We have been working through all our lessons quite well. We are focusing more on history right now and less on science, but we will get back to it next month. I hope to post some pics of cute activities I have planned for this week leading up to Halloween.

And they say homeschool kids aren't socialized...

Since we began homeschooling we have only be faced with the dreaded socialization question a few times. And those times were when we first began homeschooling and did not have many social functions.

Now fast forward a year and a half later. We are part of a good size co-op and have found a great group of homeschool friends. Add to that the friends my dd makes at dance class and friends from her year at ps and you have a lot of invites to answer.

For the last month we have had so many social engagements that we have had to be selective and choose just a few so that we can find time to stay home and do things like school and house work.

This past summer was even busy with parties, play dates and invites. My kids have never spent so much time with other kids as they do now. The time they spend now is spent in actual interaction, not just a few minutes a day in line, on a playground or at lunch.

I love that I know the kids and the parents of the kids they are spending time with. The kids come from varied backgrounds so I don't worry about them being just around kids " just like them". They have come to appreciate peoples differences and accept others for who they are.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that for those who think homeschoolers are socialized think again.

Looping schedule update

I wish I could say that everything went so much better using the loop schedule, but I cannot. The week began with a good start. Tuesday was a little rocky trying to get through a few subjects on top of math and reading and get to co-op.

By Wednesday we lost our steam. I don't know if it was just a bump in the road because we took last week off. The first week back is usually awful after any break. Wednesday I had to deal with cranky children, a impatient mother and the fact that my hubby was turning in his notice to quit his job. Yes, he has a new one already but it was still stressful.

To say I was a little stressed might have been putting it lightly. What bothered me about the schedule was that we only got through English, Spelling, and Writing twice, history twice and science once. I still was not able to give history or science my total attention. I am beginning to think I may have to approach them like some fellow teachers did in public school. Some did history for so many weeks, even a whole quarter and then switched to science. This may be the only way to give each subject pure attention.

I decided that we definitely have to do math, reading and spelling each day. I may have to toss the whole thing and try something else. I will work on it tomorrow.

Breaks Over, Back to Work People!

Isn't funny how time flies when you have a week off. It seems like we just finished our last lesson and its time to start again. We had a nice weekend. Saturday we spent at the home of another homeschool family. My kids took their 4 wheeler to ride on their motorcycle track. We all had a great time. Today we spent being lazy. I completed all my school stuff except for entering our spelling words on the Spelling City website. It was down:( I hope to get them entered tonight or tomorrow.


Our fall break was great. The weather was beautiful all but one day. I got a lot done as far as school planning goes. I have our lessons planned up for at least 5 weeks in all subjects. Our new loop schedule is ready to go.


Poogie is finally starting MUS Alpha. Plus, we are going to be reading a new read a loud, Mr. Popper's Penguins. I found a cute literature unit on the Homeschool Helper site. I plan on including lessons about penguins for science with the unit. I think it will be fun.


TT will be starting Write Shop for writing. I have read through much of the teacher's manual and it appears to be a great program. He will also be adding geography lessons on the 50 states. I purchased a workbook series from Highlights, one workbook and a map for each state. My plan is for him to work through one workbook every two weeks.


We are also starting our unit on elections. I purchased a great lapbook on Curric click. It starts with the government and goes through elections. I am going to cut it down for Poogie, but I have reading selections for both of them. I found a great lesson to accompany the book The Ballot Box Battle by Emily A. McCully.

I hope that this new schedule takes some of the stress out of the day, I guess we will see.
Have a great week.

Not much to report.

I would like to say I have something new and interesting to report, but alas I do not. It seems like all at once there are a dozen activities that have come about to be part of. But isn't that how it seems to be, nothing to do for a while and then BAM! everyone wants to do something.

I have just decided to do what would be fun and interesting and let the other stuff go. With everything else going on in the world and our lives I have to hold to my priorities or I will loose it.

Shout Out to....

My new friend, I will call her A (but she will know who I am talking about when she reads this), and her sweet daughter. They decided to begin their homeschooling journey again. I know it will be as rewarding as my experience has been with Poogie and TT.

It is a brave and hard step to take when you decide to take your child or children out of the school system be it public or private. It is heart wrenching to watch them "deal" with school, but not really enjoy it. I went through this for 5 months before pulling TT out. After the fact it has been the best thing I ever did for my children.

Good luck and God Bless A you will be an awesome homeschool mom!

Fall Break, Yeah!

We decided to take fall break this week. After 10 weeks of school a break is due. Our weekend was fun and relaxing.



My hubby finally painted the floor of our front porch. It turned out lovely. I ended up purchasing a few mums and pumpkins to decorate the area because it looked so darn good.



Saturday night my hubby took me out on a date. He took me to Outback to eat. Believe it or not I had never really eaten there. I went for drinks and appetizers years ago, but did not eat a meal. We enjoyed steak and fried crawfish appetizers. It was a wonderful meal. Then, he took me to see the movie Eagle Eye. I had been wanting to see it so badly. It was an awesome thrill ride.



Sunday I scrapbooked and worked around the house. We went to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then to Wally World for necessities for the upcoming week.



My goal for this week is to work out the kinks with our homeschooling schedule and curriculum. The first thing I addressed today was to make a schedule that allows me to spend equal time with both kids and address all subjects. It seems like Poogie is always pushed to the side for TT because he has so much to do. Plus, several subjects like history, science and foreign language get overlooked due to the lack of time.



I found what I hope will allow me to address all these issues on the Well Trained Mind forums board, the loop. I can't explain it very well as it took me sometime to understand the concept myself. However, I believe it offers us a day that will be more productive and less stressful.

I used today to work on new science lesson plans for TT. I decided to use the Horrible Science books I purchased at the beginning of the school year. I read several of the stories today in them, they are great. I will supplement the reading with activities from The Complete Book of Science 5-6, The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, and worksheets from Enchanted Learning.

I am going to continue with SOTW Volume 4 for TT, but we will complete a 4 week unit on elections first. I purchased a lapbook unit and will be adding reading selections and some great web sites to supplement. I will post that unit sometime this week.

I think that is quite enough for one day. Now off to bed to curl up with a good book and my hubby.

Is it Friday yet?

Whew, what a week. We are one day from completing our 10th week of homeschooling this year and I need a break. Things have begun to get to me. I have been evaluating things about our homeschool curriculum that are working and things that are not. What I have found is that for TT most of the curriculum is working, but not all. Writing, history and science are not working well.

The writing program is not structured enough for us. TT really needs good guidelines and instruction and Wordsmith just doesn't offer that. I have been doing some detective work and found a program I really like. One of the moms from our co-op brought her books to me today to look at and I was impressed. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. The program is called Write Shop and it is used at the local tutorial. Many of the moms have found it to be quite effective with reluctant writers like my son. I found it on ebay pretty cheap, I just have to bid on it.

Our history is also not working. We are doing SOTW volume 4. TT likes it okay, but it just doesn't offer enough info on the material. I think I will start doing unit studies again and using SOTW as a supplement. The activities in volume 4 are not that great either.

Finally, our science is dry. We need some spicing up. So I will be working on that also. We will be taking fall break next week and I hope to work out some of the kinks. We will see.