America!

We love America in this house.  We say the pledge in front of our huge flag every day!  (It's on a wall in the Noodle's room.)  As a mom you always wonder if anything you are trying to teach your children is actually sinking in.  Then the moment comes along that makes you think that maybe you are doing ok.

My All American Girl!!!

What are you up too?

We have been learning about the sun in school and it has been so great.  I have learned things like thermonuclear fusion and that if you compared the sun to the earth, in a way that we can fathom it, the sun would be the size of a basketball and the earth would be the size of a peppercorn.  How amazing that seems.

 Our experiment this time was melting chocolate with a magnifying glass.  The magnifying glass represents our eye, because they work in approx. the same way.  Our eye is a curved lens like a magnifying glass.

That is why you should not stare at the sun.  Just like when you focus a small beam of sunshine with a magnifying glass, you eye will focus a small beam on the back of your retina.  When we did this little experiment I thought it would just melt the chocolate.  I was wrong.  It burned the chocolate.  Notice the burn mark on the front square.  (We had to go with cadbury.  It's my favorite, and we wouldn't want it to go to waste, just because it tasted bad.)

T-Bug loves his car seat.  It's what he naps in, sleeps in at night, and sort of just chills in.  He is so portable this way.

Seriously???

 We got to visit a pioneer town for MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers).  It was so fun.  They have recreated and fixed old buildings to make this little town.  My Grandma C.  would love it!

Noodle doing his time.

The Diva taking her turn.

Working in the blacksmith shop.

This was the all time favorite for my boys.  They spun around so fast, I was sick.

On top of the chuck wagon.

Sometimes I wonder if I need a shot of this.  

Nope, things are already crazy without it.

Solar System

This year for science we are learning about astronomy.  We have had a lot of fun learning about the solar system, as well as constellations, and other things.  Our first project was to make a solar system out of balloons.  We had so much fun.  The balloons are are about the real size they would be if we shrunk the solar system.  Except for the sun.  We couldn't fit the sun in the classroom, so we just blew the yellow balloon up as big as we could.

 Noodle hanging up Mercury.

 Chief and Venus

 Jupiter

 Saturn

 Pluto

Here is what it looks like.  My favorite was Saturn.  Nothing finer than a pink planet with pink rings.
We got to come up with our own mneumonic sentence to help us remember the planets.

Moose's Very Excited Muffin Just Spanked Uncle's New Puppy

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto

Can't wait for our next project!

It's Official!

I went to the mailbox today, and there was a big manila envelope.  Inside was the document stating that we are good to go with homeschool this year.  Woot!  I was a bit nervous about hearing back.  We weren't expecting it for a couple more weeks, so I couldn't count the things we have been doing over the summer. As of today, anything we do will count!
I was nervous about hearing back because we have to write down the curriculum you are going to use, and for health I didn't get anything.  I figured having the kids help me plan healthy menus and cook them would be good.  As well as sports fundamentals, and other physical activities.  They must have thought that would work, because - Houston, we are a go!!!

Venture into Homeschooling

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was thinking about homeschooling the boys this year.  Well, the Supremo and I decided to take the plunge and do it.  I spent weeks and weeks researching online and at the library to see if it was going to work for us.  With a new baby on the way, right when school is supposed to start, I wasn't sure.  After lots of prayer and fasting we felt good about it.

The reasoning behind this decision.  First off - The Noodle-.  While he enjoyed getting to spend time playing with friends; recess was the only thing he mentioned he liked about school.  We had a few times that he came home with a fever, just to find out that he had an anxiety attack and it was gone by the time we got home.  Lots and lots of fighting over having to finish homework.  I didn't blame him on this one.  Who wants to spend 7 hours a day doing work, only to have to do more when you got home.  There was no time to be a kid.  I was also not enjoying my son.  I felt terrible.  While I missed him when he was gone, I would almost dread picking him up from school.  He was always so tired, and we just seemed to not like each other much.  There were also some other issues he had.  Which I won't mention here because I don't want him to look back on this and be mad at me.

#2 - Chief-.  He is one smart cookie.  He was placed in an advanced reading group when we first moved to this area, and then was moved up again.  Not that that is a bad thing.  Why I didn't like it...  They did it without getting my permission to do so, and when he got moved up he would come home with an hour of homework.  HE WAS IN KINDERGARTEN!!!!  It wasn't cutting and pasting or simple math equations.  It wasn't even sight words.  It was writing in complete sentences and answering questions from a book.  I slowly watching this boy who couldn't keep his hands off books to a boy that didn't want to be read to or even go to the library. We started the fighting just like his older brother.  Not fun.

#3 - B.WO.A.N- (Baby WithOut A Nickname)  Like I mentioned earlier.  We will have a new addition right about when school starts.  I know this might seem lazy, but I didn't want to have to get everyone ready to be out the door by 7:35.  It was making me feel stress and we still had another month left.

That is why we are going to homeschool this year.  Yes, I said this year.  When we are done we will evaluate and see what we think.  It may be the best thing of our lives, or we may never do it again.
This summer has been spent practicing a shortened homeschool day, and I have loved it.  The boys penmanship has come a long way, and I am actually learning a new way to do math.  So cool.  Best of all I am enjoying my kids!  I will keep updates of how things are going here on this blog.  Until the next update... Happy Schooling!