Journey to Excellence

Welcome to another week of school with the Taulmans! Whoa, doggy, things have really picked up around here! It seems as though we are just running from one thing to the next these days. A couple of days a week we are having to start school about an hour and a half earlier than the norm. I leave my house in a mess more often than I would like and find myself having to reconstruct it at night before I go to bed. I am having to really schedule our days so that we get everything done and somehow manage to have dinner before we run out for our nightly activities. It's the busy season! But things are good. This week we started reading Little House on the Prairie and doing the Prairie Primer activities associated with Chapters 1-6. Conestoga Wagons We learned all about covered wagons, most particularly Conestoga wagons, by reading Conestoga Wagons by Richard Ammon and making covered wagons of our own. A couple of interesting facts: The modern day Teamsters Union for truc

1. Fall t.v. is here! Parenthood, Criminal Minds, Survivor, Law and Order: SVU, Big Bang Theory and a few new ones I am trying out. 2. How do you handle a really poor coach in a sport that your child loves, especially when playing on that team is the only available option? It's trying at its best and excruciating at its worse. 3. I am so glad it's the weekend and there is nothing on our schedule until Sunday. I seriously might get into my pjs at about 4:00 this afternoon and not get out of them until Sunday morning. Extra responsibilities have made this week an exhausting one! 4. Dawson told me that, after some thought, he has decided that he might go to school to be a teacher. He is particularly interested in history. Knowing his personality .... how he loves to dig into subjects and also how great he is with kids, especially special needs kids, I think he would be a great teacher. I have always secretly hoped he would come to that conclusion on his own. I am excited

This week's theme for Wednesday Hodgepodge is all about Fall! It is most definitely my favorite season! It's fall, Y'all . My favorite season of the year! What's something you love to do this time of year that makes you feel it's officially fall? And unrelated to that, do you ever say "ya'll"? I burn those pumpkin spice candles and make lots of pumpkin muffins, breads and cookies. I also break out the boots. I love to wear boots!! We aren't big "ya'll" speakers here in Missouri, but I do catch myself saying it every once in a while. Must be all those years of living in Oklahoma. When did you last have a "falling out" with someone? Has it been resolved? In 2009 I had a falling out with my best friend in Oklahoma. I felt betrayed by her during one of the most difficult times of my life. We parted ways. I ran into her a year or so later and she wanted to pick back up with our friendship. But I just didn't thin

This past Saturday my mom and I took the kids to Mansfield, Missouri, to Rocky Ridge Farm and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum to celebrate Wilder Days. Brynne wore her new prairie dress and bonnet and Eli wore a straw hat. (I couldn't talk him into wearing overalls.) We got to go through the museum and tour the home where Almanzo, Laura, and Rose lived when Rose was a baby until Almanzo and Laura's deaths. This home was where Laura wrote the Little House books. I was so surprised at how interested Brynne was in all of the facts surrounding Laura Ingalls Wilder. She read every single thing in the museum that she could and just soaked it all in. She was truly in awe. We learned a lot of things about Rose Wilder Lane, also, that we did not know. She was a fascinating woman! The home that Almanzo and Laura shared in Mansfield was adorable. I wish that we were allowed to take pictures inside it, but we were not. I would move into that house in a heartbeat! We even g

That's what my planner looked like this week. Scribbles. Prairie Primer was set up so that this would be a catch-up week, which was perfect. That's a really nice touch to the curriculum because, of course, we got behind but still wanted to complete more of the fun lessons. And we did some of that. But every day past Monday seemed to have a life interruption of some kind. Tuesday: Oh, we have Kyndal's graduation in the afternoon. We can't do that or that. ** Scribble** Wednesday: Kyndal and Brynne aren't going to be back as early as they thought from their out-of-town errand they had to run. We can't get to that or that. We'll do it Thursday.  **Scribble** Thursday: We still have things to get done from Tuesday, and we need to get to gardening class, but we can't pull ourselves away from watching Winter on the Webcam. We'll just put that and that off until Friday.  **Scribble** Friday: Art class is cancelled and the kids are so disappointed,

This week I have found myself being obsessed with some things ... Obsession #1: The cool spider webs popping up around our house. Obsession #2: Revenge . Trying to get caught up before the new season starts on the 28th. Obsession #3: Watching Winter on the live webcam at Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Here she is doing physical therapy with her prosthetic fin. Obsession #4: I have had chili for lunch every day this week .. with shredded cheese and sour cream, on hot dogs, wrapped by a tortilla. Obsession #5: The cool temps at night make sleeping fantastic! I snuggle up in my warm pjs and pile on an extra blanket. It's been amazing!!

I love to plan. It's in my blood. I love a good checklist where I can mark off each thing as we get it accomplished. I am not, however, a digital planner kind of girl! I need good ol' paper and pencil. When it was time to plan homeschool lessons I had my husband create for me a blank printable lesson plan page that I can fill in each week as I plan lessons. It's simple and effective. Brynne is also a planner and loves a list. So when we had the opportunity to review My Student Logbook , I knew she would love it! And she did! She chose the undated My Student Logbook with the horse cover art . My Student Logbook is a paper planner that can be customized to your child's specific needs. It is extremely easy to set up . Basically you just tear out one of the list pages and tape it around the week you are working on. That way you do not have to rewrite the list each week. Although the kids are not to the point where they receive their work to do independently, I

From This Side of the Pond had these questions to ponder this week on Wednesday Hodgepodge: I'm celebrating a birthday this week so a question relating to aging feels appropriate. Douglas MacArthur is quoted as saying, "You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair." Would you agree? If not, why not? Doubt, fear and despair weigh you down. Those emotions suck so much energy and make you feel so tired and old! Faith, self-confidence, and hope lift you up and make you feel light and young, like you can conquer anything. What remarkable feat, interesting piece of trivia, or historical event, occurred on your birth day and month? Not necessarily in your birth year, just the same date/same month. It was a musical day on August 1, 1960 .... Aretha Franklin had her first recording session and Chubby Checker released "The Twist". (But let's be