Journey to Excellence

For Brynne's first and second grade year homeschooling (Eli was still in public school) and for the beginning of their third grade year homeschooling together, we used Math Enhancement Programme (MEP) as our math curriculum. Math Enhancement Programme is a FREE online printable math curriculum that uses the Hungarian model of teaching mathematics. Most of it is mental math ... and high level mental math. In fact, it was astonishing to me the math solutions the kids could do in their heads. Hungary is highly ranked in the world in their math performance, even at the primary ages. The model for mathematics is based more on student interactive and whole class teaching. Although the teacher presents the materials and problems, the students work on the solutions as a whole class and discuss the methods for coming up with the solutions. Much of the work is done mentally. It tends to focus on investigating the whys of mathematics instead of just rote memorization of facts. Ph...

We have what is called a "wet basement" in our house. It is completely usable, but the concrete walls leak water when we have a big rain. Because of this, the basement is very humid! Since we do not have central air, it stays moist most of the time. My mom bought us a dehumidifier to keep in the basement to cut down on the humidity. It works great! It runs pretty much non-stop and I have to dump the bucket at least once a day. After a couple of weeks of pouring the water down the drain (at least once a day), it occurred to me that I could actually use that water to water my plants outside! Duh! I could water my plants for free! .. well, partially free. I do spend money on electricity to run the dehumidifier. But at least now I don't pay for electricity and water! I haven't turned on a water faucet to water our plants and flowers since that date. One day my neighbor asked me what I was doing. When I told her she said I should share that information wit...

It's Student Photo Week at iHomeschool Network's {Not} Back-to-School Blog Hop . I would like to introduce to you the 2013/2014 students of Pursuit Academy. We have students here, there, and everywhere. And each year we have homeschooled it has been different. This year we have one starting Cosmetology school in October, one in our public high school, and two homeschooled 3rd/4th graders. Here they are: I'll update this with her 1st day photo once she starts school. Kyndal is our oldest. She is 18 years old and graduated from public high school in May. She is enrolled in cosmetology school and begins her classes on October 1st. She will spend 8 weeks doing all of her classwork and then will move out to the salon for training. Her schooling will be complete in September of 2014. Dawson is our second child. He is 16 years old and is a junior at the public high school where I graduated. This year he is taking Algebra I, U.S. Government, Chemistry, English II...

Two years ago I started posting all about Dawson's (then 9th grade) studies on American History. I had spent the previous summer creating an American History curriculum for him using the dvd series "America: The Story of Us" and some other resources. It was such a great year! Well, this year the little kids and I are embarking on a road trip ... Road Trip USA , that is! I purchased the downloadable curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler, printed out the massive number of pages (because I needed two student workbooks), and put them in individual binders. I purchased a couple of companion books to go with our study. As this is our major unit study for the year ... and we WILL complete the entire thing this year ... I have decided to bring back Study America Saturday and will post all about our American History and Geography lessons from the week. We started our new school year this past Wednesday, and it worked out that we had just enough days to co...

In our regular life this week… We got back into our regular routine. I have to say that I am glad that we are back to school and our school schedule. The kids were B.O.R.E.D. all last week, so school was actually a good thing. On Monday night the public school had their Open Houses so our Scouting leader and I set up an information table. It was during our regular den meeting time so our boys met to make their Emergency Preparedness Notebooks for their Fitness badge. Really, other than our scout meeting and school, we didn't do much of anything the rest of the week. In our homeschool this week… We are back at it full time now! We started our regular school schedule on Wednesday. Typically we do schoolwork from 9:30 a.m. until about 3:30 p.m. The first day of school was a lot of fun starting with our Back-to-School breakfast and then our Exploding Lunch Bag experiment. The rest of the day consisted of a steady progression of our subjects: Bible, grammar, spell...

We had a special first day of school! I rose early in the morning to be sure I had enough time to get ready before Dawson got up so I could make him breakfast burritos before he left for school. I served it to him at our First Day of School table scape. This is how he was really feeling about going back to school. When he saw the table he said, "Impressive." Dawson brought his girlfriend, Taylar, over for pictures, and my niece, Rylee, joined them. Dawson and Rylee are juniors and Taylar is a sophomore. After the kids left for school I had a bit of time to do my Bible study and get pancakes made for the little kids. I woke them up and they ate at the First Day table, as well. After they got ready we took some pictures. My two 4th graders. I can hardly believe it! We stayed outside for a few minutes because I had a fun science experiment to start off our 2013/2014 school year. The experiment was The Exploding Lunch Bag by Science Bo...

Just looking at other's schoolrooms linked up in iHomeschool Network's " {Not} Back-to-School Blog Hop got me motivated to get up with my bum knee and get our area reorganized and ready to go. Good thing, cause we started school today! In Oklahoma, we had a large room upstairs that was empty and perfect for a schoolroom. The problem? We hated doing school there. It was not inspiring and it kept us feeling "trapped". I thought we would need a classroom environment to function well. Boy was I a newbie! It wasn't until we moved everything downstairs to the couch, coffee table, and kitchen did we realize how diverse our learning could be! When we moved to Missouri last year, we more than halved our living space. And even though there was a room that we could have designated as a schoolroom, we decided against it and just stuck to what we knew worked for us. I like to call it Dining Room School. Our dining room is in the center of our house, with ...