Journey to Excellence

Are you and your family excited about the Olympics and hoping for Victory for the American athletes? We have been looking forward to it all summer and, in fact, planned our first day back to school around it! I knew that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to start school with a unit study on the Olympics. We are easing back into school with studies on the Olympics and math review this week and next. Here are some of the resources we are using: Olympics unit study by SchoolExpress . I received it as a free download a couple of weeks ago as part of their weekly free unit study email. (We have done SEVERAL free unit studies and they are my favorite unit studies to do for my kids.) You can sign up for their weekly e-mail and free unit studies by going HERE . Although the Olympics unit study is no longer free, it can still be purchased for $2.00 . There are, however, some free worksheets that can be downloaded. London: Once, Twice, Three Times ~ an Olympics host city infogra...

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know that this homeschooling journey started for us when Dawson was getting ready to enter the 8th grade. At his request, we brought him home for school. It was something that had never crossed my mind as something I would want to do. We really started out of necessity. But, it quickly became a lifestyle that enriched not only his education, but our relationship, as well. Off and on Dawson has expressed a desire to return to public school. However, sending him back to our huge school, with the same issues as when he left, was just not something I could bring myself to do. I knew in my heart that having him home was what was best for him. And then we received an opportunity to move back to my little childhood hometown in Missouri. It is a small town of less than 3,000 people. The class sizes in the schools are about 40-50. The high school is the one from which I graduated. When Dawson learned we would be moving, I gave him ...

I am behind on my Blogging Through the Alphabet posts. Last week was "T" and recently a commenter asked how I take grades for my students. For Brynne, I don't take grades. I do keep a daily planner where I record everything she is doing. But, I do not assign grades and likely won't until she is in high school. The same goes for Eli this upcoming year. My kids do like to see a 100% written on a paper sometimes, so if it's a math page or something "gradeable", I will do that occasionally. Since Dawson was a freshman last year, I did take grades for him. I used the same style planner page as I used for Brynne and recorded each and every assignment or activity he did (including read-a-louds). Next to each assignment I would use a red pen and assign points earned (including read-a-louds). For instance, if he had a notebooking page, they were typically worth 15 points if he did the required 7-9 sentences. I didn't "grade" them. He just go...

I won't even start the whole socialization debate about homeschooled children except to say that I don't think children in happy homes with siblings need much socialization. In the pioneer days, when family units were the strongest, children worked and played at home with their families. And, it was enough. And for our family, it mostly is. We do get together with pockets of friends from our Co-op. But, for the most part, my kids are happy just being together. And I honestly hope it always stays that way. But what about you, mom? Do you need Socialization? I know many women/moms who do. They crave "girl time". They go out for coffee, or to lunch, or shopping, or to weekend getaways regularly with their girlfriends. These women never go anywhere with their kids that they don't have another mom and her kids with them. I am not one of those women. I have one child who has already left the home and it was just two days ago, it seems, that she was in braid...

I don't know why we started Recycling, except that it was Brynne's idea. She was really excited about it, so I bought three rope-handled tubs to put in our garage for paper, plastic, and aluminum cans. Our method is to put anything recyclable on our counter by the stove, and then a few times a day we take it out and put it in it's proper tub. Once the tubs are full (or overflowing, as is usually the case), we load them up in the back of the Suburban and take them to our Recycling Center in town. It's near the library, so we usually combine it with one of our many weekly library trips. There, we distribute the items in their proper places. It astounds me how much we recycle! This photo shows how much recycling we had in about a two-week time. (The aluminum cans had been being collected in Dawson's Nerd Cave for a few months. He recycles there, too. We don't have this many cans in a couple week period.) The kids are able to help with distri...

And I'm not talking about that infamous college party game. I am talking about the one where you stack as many quarters on your elbow as you can, throw your hand forward and down, and try to catch the quarters. We used to play that game with pennies with my dad when I was a kid. I was pretty good at it. The kids have been practicing catching quarters. It's difficult for children because it requires lots of hand-eye-coordination. It gets me thinking about all of the children's games of days-gone-by, and how much I think kids are missing out on fun times, because they are usually playing video games indoors. I am doing my best to encourage the kids to do outside activities whenever possible, including swinging on the swingset, riding their bikes or scooters and playing hopscotch. And I have been trying to bring out some of my favorite childhood games, like catching quarters, hand clap rhymes, and playing "cat in a cradle" with string. My mom was alwa...

Remember my post on our unit study of The Lorax ? At the end of that post I told you that we had joined The Arbor Day Foundation for $10. We were to receive 10 trees (we chose the Wild Bird Variety) in exchange for our membership fee. I wanted Brynne to experience how planting these tiny "twigs" could make such a huge difference in our world. Those trees arrived a few weeks ago, and we planted them in several places in our yard. We received the following varieties of trees: Two Arrowwood Viburnums ~ "provides food, cover, and nesting sites for birds, larval food for butterflies and moths." Bur Oak ~ "provides food and shelter for a wide variety of birds and animal life." Gray Dogwood ~ "provides food, cover, and nesting sites for birds and squirrels." Northern Red Oak River Birch Sargent Crabapple ~ "Birds love the fruit." Tuliptree ~ "Squirrel and birds eat the seeds. The flowers are a ...

I've noticed something lately. The kids and I are stopping several times a day to Observe things around us.  I look out the window and see Brynne observing a squirrel in the garden. Another day I see Eli sitting on the back porch observing the rain. We recently observed baby birds growing up and leaving the nest. And then immediately observed another mama "borrowing" some coco liner to build a new nest and start the process over. Spending time to observe butterflies this year has been a real treat. There have been thousands, and so many varieties! Even fallen tree branches have given us something interesting to observe ... When days are full of activity, I find that we have less and less time to just stop and look around us. Taking some time to just rest at home has certainly opened up the time to observe . And stresses seem to decrease at the same rate we take the time to observe God's beautiful creation. Toni...

The past week has been an incredibly difficult one for me in my personal life. I have been depressed, anxious, testy, withdrawn, physically ailed, and on an organization mission (to work off emotions). But what I have found myself doing several times a day, is stepping outside to water plants, pull weeds, observe my garden, nurture our new trees, look at the new mama in her nest, watch for hummingbirds, smile at the butterflies, and sometimes just wander around. And it SOOTHES me! And I feel a small amount of strength to continue on. Recently, Nature has become a hot topic for me. It's important! It's necessary! It's being lost in this world of uber-electronics. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had come across the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and that I was considering doing a book study. Well, it's a go. And it will start this Friday, June 1st. I have read the first couple of chapters and I am drawn into it's truth. It is ins...

Blogging through the Alphabet with Marcy at Ben and Me continues, even though it is now technically summer break for us. Of course the kids have lots of plans this summer. Eli will have Boys Club. Brynne will have Girls Club. Our little Co-op small group will meet twice a month to do activities and earn badges from Keepers at Home . Eli and Brynne will have Amazing Athletes camp. They will bowl, go to the library, swim, go to the water park, go to the zoo, play video games, and just have fun. Dawson will switch to the night shift, where he stays up late with his friends playing video games and sleeps half the day. It's great to be a teenage boy. But wait ... now he has a summer job, so his summer of luxury won't be quite as luxurious as he had planned! (btw ... he made $16.50 an HOUR with tips yesterday working at the carwash ... whoa whoa whoa ..) I hope today isn't a preview of how our summer will go. On this FIRST DAY OF SUMMER BREAK, Brynne was up at 6:3...

One week from today, we will be on Summer Break! Yippee!!! And, of course, I am already Looking Ahead to next year. That's because our "next year" will be starting earlier than normal. We have decided to go to school 6 days a week and begin on July 23rd. That's what the little kids will be doing anyway. Dawson has chosen to continue his schooling on the public school schedule. This makes sense because he likes to be out of school at the same time as his friends for maximum hang-out time. Our start date will be upon us quickly because I have four trips scheduled in the months of June and July, and my sister will be having a baby around that time. I will be getting home from one of those trips two days before we start school. So, Looking Ahead and being prepared is a necessity! And, remember. We will be bringing Eli home starting next year, which will bring a whole new component to our schooling. Schedule. I mentioned that we would be doing school 6 days a...