Journey to Excellence

I instantly knew what I wanted to write about today when the Blogging Through the Alphabet letter of the week at Ben and Me was the Letter "C" .... our homeschool CO-OP. Are you involved in a Homeschool Co-op? We have the absolute BEST Co-op in our town. Brynne, and even Dawson, absolutely love it! And, so do I! There are so many different kinds of Co-ops, and I always enjoy reading about what others are doing. There are some that teach classes, some that have literature, science and other fairs, and some that are strictly social. We have all types here. Our Co-op is a little of all of that combined, but is primarily a Social Co-op. It is designed to get like-minded and like-aged children together regularly to have fun and learn together. It is also designed to give the moms a chance to socialize with others making the same sacrifices they are making for their families. It can be isolating to be a home educator. Your social life revolves around your kids. Our Co-...

"To ensure a fair selection, you all get the same test. You must all climb that tree." Yesterday when I picked Eli up from school, I ran in to talk to his teacher for a bit. She was expressing her stress over the fact that she had realized that day that they only had three weeks until their "big math test" (standardized test). She was worried because they haven't learned measurements yet, and they are still working on time, etc., and she was stressed! As I looked around the room, I saw books lying on students' desks, a table full of homemade weather vanes, lots of literacy bags. Last week Eli was so excited about all his class was learning about weather. They read books, watched some fun videos (he loves Bill Nye The Science Guy so much that I checked out some from the library for him to watch), and were making weather vanes. He was telling me many, many facts about hurricanes and tornadoes. My thought was ... his teacher is going to have to cut ...

Last year I planted two potted tulips, that were on clearance at Walmart (after Easter) and an Easter Lily, in my favorite little spot in our backyard. Everything I read said that these would not come back up this year! I know you cannot see it well, but hidden in the midst of all those weeds are all three flowers fully sprouting! I almost cried when I saw them! Brynne and I are starting a unit on The Secret Garden today. We are planning to cover this unit until the end of April. I got this idea when I read that our local community theatre was doing auditions for "The Secret Garden", a play that will take place that month. That got my wheels turning! I bought the book on cd, by Classic Starts: The Secret Garden . We are going to listen to it and then do TONS of activities! We will do a plant study, build an earthworm habitat , do balloon botany, do flower poundings, make pretties for our garden, plant lots of things, make stone plant labels, make a twig trellis,...

The TOS Cruisers are answering the following question this week: What is your favorite Science Resource? There are SO many different resources out there! But, what if you have a budding high school student and science is your weak area, or just an area of which you are not passionate? What if your student HATES textbooks, and I mean HATES them (like wanting to chuck Apologia right out the window?) Well, you build your own curriculum anyway, and you break out in a cold sweat each Sunday afternoon when you are planning that week's lessons. At least that's what you do on the difficult subjects. Like when it was time to study DNA and Genetics. Clue.less. Sure, I could read along with him in his The Way Life Works book, digesting the material, dissecting the diagrams. But when it came to making sure he REALLY understood what he was reading and seeing, I had to look elsewhere. And to the rescue came Learn.Genetics from the Genetics Science Learning Center at the Univers...

Here we are on Episode 4: Division already! But it was here that we SLOWED DOWN! The slavery portion of history of our country is so deep and so rich and so disturbing that we couldn't seem to move on.  We spent five weeks on this unit. Our book for this unit was Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Obviously, this is a book for mature students. It wasn't nearly as violent as I was expecting. But, it was definitely moving. Again, Dawson was not impressed with Uncle Tom's Cabin . (Hard to please teenager!) I still think it is a necessary piece of literature for this era. We watched the entire Episode 4, did the discussion questions/video quiz for the episode and vocabulary words. These can be printed by going here . The Episode Guides are down the left hand column on the site. All "notebooking pages" are printed from Advanced World History Vol. 2 from Hold that Thought! All "America's Heritage" references are materials print...

My husband told me today that he was looking at this blog the other day and was overwhelmed! He said, "Now I know what you do all day!" I told him I understood, because many times when I sit down to do my Weekly Wrap-up I feel like we haven't accomplished anything. Then I'll type it and think, "Dang! No wonder Dawson was complaining all week about how hard I have worked him." Brynne enjoyed her Green Week learning about and celebrating St. Patrick's Day. 1. She read many books about St. Patrick, Ireland, shamrocks, and four-leaf clovers. 2. We cut the stems of some daisies and added green food coloring to the water to make Green Daisies. 3. There was a lot of art going on, including a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end (coins using our Do-a-Dot markers), and four-leaf clovers using potato print stamps in the shapes of hearts. She copied the Irish Blessing for copywork one day, and we attached it to the potato print page to send to her great g...

I'll be linking up with Friday Fun School this week, because we had a little too much fun with our homemade flubber. Brynne has been studying all things St. Patrick's Day this week, and one of our activities was making green flubber. Here is the recipe: Step 1: In a large container combine and mix: 1 1/2 cups very warm water 2 cups Elmer's white glue A few drops of food coloring Step 2: in a small container combine and mix: 1 1/3 cups very warm water 2 level tsp 20 Mule Team Borax (adults please do this step) The Borax must be completely dissolved. Step 3: Combine the glue and Borax mixtures: Mix well using your hands until all the liquid is absorbed. You may need to squish, mix, and break up the flubber to get it fully combined. Store the flubber in a plastic, air-tight container at room temperature. For best results, measure precisely and mix well as noted above. If kept in an airtight container, the flubber will keep for up to 2 weeks. Makes enough for 6 chi...