Apples, Apples Everywhere!

I think Fall and school starting is often celebrated with apples in many a classroom across the country.  We may be different in almost every way as a home schooling family,  but we are no different in that this year we started out with apples!

This year all three kids are school age.  We have a 4th grader, a 3rd grader and one in Pre-K!  We loved our curriculum last year in the Weaver Unit Studies and plan to use them again this year but I wanted to take a slow start approach to school and a special field trip opportunity gave me just the opportunity.  At the end of last year a field trip group was formed on Facebook that we joined.  They are the ones we went with on the field trip to the Tamale Factory in the Spring.  Anyway, with as busy as the summer was we didn't get a chance to go on any others over the summer with that group.  I was thrilled though to hear they had a field trip scheduled to go to an apple orchard at the end of August.  Not only do we get to learn about what they do there, we get to actually pick apples off the trees!  How fun.  So, for this reason we started out our school year with apples as well.

Public schools around here started on August 24th but we decided to start a week earlier.  The first week of school was a huge success!  We read all about Johnny Appleseed, we painted apple pictures, we learned and labeled the parts of an apple, we made homemade applesauce, and we read lots of books about Apples.  We also did math, spelling and some writing with the older boys and studied the letter A and the color red with my youngest.  For our Bible lessons we talked about Adam and Eve in the garden and original sin and then we talked about the Fruits of the Spirit and made a Spirit Tree.  It was a great start of the school year and really set a good tone.  Tomorrow is the orchard field trip which we are all excited about as well.  I will post pictures afterwards but here are a few from the first week of school.

Praying that all students have a blessed and safe year and that they not only grow in knowledge of school subjects but that they grow in love of God and love for fellow people.  Happy start of school to everybody!

Summer Came and Went

People often ask what sort of summer break a home schooling family has.  The answer for each family will be as different as each family is different.  Some families school year around.  Others take the whole summer off similar to what a public school does.  Everybody else falls somewhere in the middle.

With this last year being our first year of home schooling it was a matter of learning and adapting as we went.  I fully intended to take the whole summer off like a public school but in the end we decided on doing what I refer to as modified school during the summer.  We did this for two reasons.  The first reason is that being from a family with a lot of educators I have heard often how much information students tend to loose over the summer and how teachers have to play catch up and review each fall when school starts again.  They have no choice but to have to do that in the schools who close for the summer but with us having a choice to avoid that it saves a lot of time.  Also, there were some things we didn't get finished during the school year and we needed to finish up over the summer.  While I felt we covered a lot of material and we did well for our first year trying it, there were areas we fell behind that needed to be finished for me to feel comfortable passing the kids on to the next grade.  Luckily we had the summer to accomplish this.

For us our modified school during the summer consisted of doing three summer reading programs with the kids and of doing math and spelling two to three days a week.  It actually worked out great and the kids have been able to fall back into school this Fall more easily and we still had plenty of time for fun during the summer.

There is no way I can go into detail on all the fun things we did this summer because I would be here posting all night but the highlights of the summer included visiting both sets of the kids' grandparents, a pool party for the end of religion classes at church, a hike with the Cubscouts, lots of activities at the library such as game days, zumba classes, and cookie contests, Landon's First Communion and party afterwards, tons of soccer games, a trip to the Science Spectrum for their Critter Fest where we saw all sorts of animals including a reptile show and a tiger show, a trip to Colorado that included miniature golf, go-cats, bumper cars, Tiny Town with a train ride, lots of swimming, Elich's Amusement Park, the Minions Movie, Dart Warz(Nerf Gun Wars), and tons of time with cousins, and a trip to Dallas that included the Dallas Zoo and Six Flags Over Texas and a friend's birthday party that included bowling, laser tag and video games.  We had so much fun!

I have seen my kids blossom in the past year more then I could have imagined.  Looking back at this time last year my oldest was sad and somewhat broken from all the bullying, my middle son was worried about not returning to public school and not sure what home schooling would really mean and my youngest was just along for the ride.  Watching how much they have grown in the past year and the true joy they have with life and the excitement they have now is astonishing.  I now have a super confident son in my oldest who really has his feet on the ground with his faith, knew massive amounts of information and really took his First Communion seriously, and is now an altar server at church.  My middle son is thriving in the home school environment and many of the gaps he came in with in his education from the public schools have been filled and he actually really enjoys lessons at times with our schooling.  My youngest has really developed a personality of his own and is excited to try new things daily.  We have been blessed the last year in ways we couldn't even imagine with this choice to home school and I am so thankful God led us to this decision.  I am looking forward to this school year more then ever!

There are too many pictures to even begin knowing that to post so I will leave you with just one as this was by far the most important event that happened all summer.   Congratulations on your First Communion Landon!  We are so proud of you.

Then there was May

You would think I would be able to at least manage to post once a month but alas, here we are again where I missed a whole month.  It was a jam packed month to say the least!  I know the month of May is traditionally very busy for most people with school ending.  I thought that with us home schooling it would make it a little more laid back but that was not to be the case!  It was a lot of fun though and well worth it.

After studying famine, the water cycle, water life, and then plants it only made sense that our next unit was on animals.  This was our last unit of this school year and it was a great one to end the year on as it was of course fun and something the kids are very interested in.  We of course talked about the benefits of animals to man, the benefits of man to animals, and how animals help each other and interact.  We studied mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds.  My kids are blessed that they actually have a lot of exposure to animals on a daily basis so they already had a very good base for the studies.  We have horses, dogs and cats currently but have also had rabbits and chinchillas in the past.  We have family members who have had other pets as well.  Living out on the country in West Texas we also see plenty of wild critters including snakes, lizards, prairie dogs, rabbits, gophers, owls and all sorts of birds.  Coming from Colorado they are already very used to seeing deer, elk, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, and even a mountain lion or two.  We also have a lot of farm and ranch friends so cattle, pigs, donkeys, chickens, goats, as well as many others are part of the kids' lives often.  They loved learning more about these animals we have seen as well as many others that we have yet to see in person.  We had fun looking up all sorts of information about animals in books and doing a lot of comparison.

We wanted to celebrate completing our first year of home schooling.  Other schools often have large end of the year parties and we wanted to as well so together with the help of a few other local moms, we planned an end of the year party for a bunch of area home schooling kids.  We had it at a large local park and we rented the party house they have there.  Everybody brought their own lunches but we all brought snacks to share.  We also had the playground as well as a lot of toys and bikes people brought.  To round it out we brought a pinata which was fun!  I only got a few pictures but I don't want to share them with other peoples' kids in them.  It was really a fun time though!

At the end of the month we also went on a group field trip with the group out of Lubbock.  We toured a tamale factory in Lubbock and it was so neat!  We were able to learn how they made the tamales from start to finish.  The kids were really interested.  At the end of the tour they gave us some free samples and because of how careful they are in their factory with allergens, Daniel was even able to have some!  Then it was so cool because we went to a local grocery store and were able to buy the same brand right off the shelf so the kids could see it really from start to finish.  It was a great time and the tamales were pretty good as well.

When you add soccer starting, a trip to see Grandma who had back surgery, more gardening and end of the year Cub Scout events we kept busy.  This is going to have to be a post with no pictures though as they are all saved in another device.  I am happy to say though that we survived the first year home schooling and both boys passed to the next grade!

April Flew By!

Somehow April is already gone.  I really thought with switching to home schooling we would have things at a slower pace but if anything we are actually busier then before.  We may not be doing too many more activities but as my mom pointed out, we are now responsible for planning each of them and implementing them so they take more time.  Don't get me wrong, I am not wanting to complain at all, we are thoroughly enjoying it.  We will on the other hand be happy to have things slow down over the summer a bit.

April consisted of studying plants.  After finishing our study on famine and water, it only made sense to look at plants.  I love all of our units but this one was especially enjoyable in that it was able to be taught with so many life lessons and not as much book work.  We bought a large number of seeds and looked at the differences between each kind.  We studied the parts of plants and the purpose of each part.  We talked about all the uses of plants and how we use them in so many areas of our lives! It is such a blessing to be able to incorporate God and His wonder into all of our home school lessons and obviously this was a wonderful unit to accomplish that.  We looked at many places in the Bible where plants were used as a teaching tool.  Our favorite to look at was the parable of the sower with the seed that fell on all the different kinds of soil.  I went looking on YouTube to find a video to illustrate it, and low and behold, there was a Lego video on it!  While it was a bit of a different way to look at the story, the boys loved it and because it was Lego, I guarantee it is one of the Bible lessons they have learned the most from this year and will remember!

We made an all seed dinner one night.  A few of the items were a bit of a stretch for being complete seeds but I needed them to have enough choices to actually eat a whole meal.  We had green beans, popcorn, sunflower seed butter(similar to peanut butter but allergy friendly with our youngest son), whole wheat bread, granola bars, refried beans and tortillas.  We also had soy milk to drink.  The kids enjoyed the strange meal and it helped them be more aware of what food was made of seeds.

Along with our seed dinner we also ate avocados which obviously are not a seed.  We needed the seeds from them though!  We are trying to sprout three of them.  Everything I have read says 2 to 6 weeks for sprouting so fingers crossed at least one will take.  We did succeed though in sprouting a lemon seed for a lemon tree which is really exciting!   We also started tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers from seeds.  My wonderful husband worked with the boys to lay out a garden bed.  We have yet to transplant any of the seedlings into it because of some crazy rain the last few weeks but we hope to later this week.

This will be my first garden ever.  I have successfully killed every plant I have ever had.  How I have kept three kids and dozens of pets alive and not a few plants is beyond me but I am trying to overcome my curse and we really, really want this garden to work!  We are planning on planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, carrots, lettuce, strawberries, watermelon, pumpkins and a few herbs.  We also are going to do a few flowers to finish up a Cub Scouts Requirement.  I will keep you updated on if I succeed or if the garden suffers the same fate as the other plants I have had!

Speaking of Cub Scouts, we had the big Blue and Gold Banquet in April.  Landon earned his Bear Badge and 3 Arrow Points and Epi earned his Wolf Badge and 3 Arrow Points.  They worked so hard this year and with it being their first year ever doing it I am so proud.  They have enjoyed it and we will continue with any summer activities they have and then next year Landon will be in Weblos and Epi will be in Bears which I will lead.  I am excited to try it out!  They also kept busy with the scouts in April by doing a few flag ceremonies to open up the high school baseball games.

Tying nicely into our plant study, we did a wonderful art class towards the end of the month.  I have to be fully honest when I say art is not either of our strong points.  Crafts I am good at, but actual art techniques and skills came from my dad and not my mom for me!  For this reason any outside opportunity to let the kids learn art skills is wonderful for us.  We had the opportunity to go with a group of other home school kids to a painting class.  Each child had a canvas and the teacher went through step by step what to paint to come out with a final painting of an apple tree.  The kids loved it and it was great to see what they did.  The most fun though was watching Daniel.  This was the first time he has ever been in a classroom type situation and he loved it and had the two instructors almost in tears laughing at his comments and his desire to do this painting on his own.  He would only let one of the instructors help him, not Joe or myself and it was so cute.  He is really proud of his painting!

April also marked the end of basketball season for both the older boys.  They really enjoyed playing basketball and I hope it is a sport they can do for a few more years at least.  We run into an interesting sports situation in Texas with home schooling.  In some states home school children are allowed to participate in sports teams at local public schools.  Texas is not one of those states.  There is a proposition in front of the state government to implement what they call the "Tim Tebow Law" which would allow Texas home schoolers to compete in public school sports.  At first I was all for it but after much research we have actually decided it might create issues for home schoolers in Texas if passed because of the way home schooling is set up in Texas and the issues created would outweigh the benefits.  For this reason we are not in support of the bill but realize that means we need to accept that the kids may not have as many sports opportunities or may not have them for as long.  With that being said though, we will continue as long as we can and if the kids are still wanting more we will cross that bridge when we get there.  This brings us to our next sport....... soccer.  We have them all signed up and they will start practices later this month and participate most of the summer.  There are a few reasons we are really excited for soccer.  One is that the soccer league here goes all the way to age 18 so it is one sport they could continue regardless of home schooling.  Another reason is that it has both summer and fall leagues so it is something they can do multiple times a year.  The kids haven't played it in probably 4 years so it will take awhile to catch up but they are so excited!

This is the point in the blog where we will see if my husband ever actually reads the blog.  He turned 40 years old in April!  We are so blessed to have him and he is a wonderful man, husband, father and provider.  Home schooling would not even be remotely possible without his support.  We love you Joe and thank you for all you do!

Easter, He is Risen!

We made it through Lent and Easter was wonderful!  One of the most wonderful things about home schooling is the ability to tailor our school day and lessons around what is going on in our lives.  We finished our famine/water unit right before Holy Week so it was a perfect time to take a break from our normal curriculum and concentrate on our faith.  We still did Math, Spelling, Grammar and Reading but in place of Social Studies and Science we concentrated on Holy Week.  We made a large poster with each day of the week written on it starting with Palm Sunday and each day we filled in the importance of that day and scripture references and drew pictures.  We also did a huge Stations of the Cross project where we talked about each station and printed them out and made books out of them.  Landon needed to hand his in for his First Communion class so he also wrote what each station meant to him and how each made him feel.  Somehow I don't have pictures of any of that......

Speaking of projects though, we undertook a large project in honor of Easter that was a lot of fun but also a lot of work!  We have talked a lot with the kids about how one of our callings from the Lord is to show others our love of God.  What better time to do that then at Easter?  We made an Easter craft with our friends who home school as well.  Then we went to the local nursing home and hand delivered them to each resident.  It was fun to make the craft but it took awhile as there are 60 residents!  The kids loved handing them out though and the residents loved having them bring the craft to them.  We have decided we will definitely do that again, possibly even for Mother's Day next month.

While we place a large emphasis on Easter as a holy day, we also enjoy letting the kids do other Easter activities so we went to an Easter Egg hunt at the nursing home the week before Easter and they had so much fun.  They also dyed eggs here at home.  That was actually a big thing, as with Daniel's allergies to eggs we have never allowed him to dye eggs.  We were very careful though and he had no reaction and he had so much fun!  They enjoyed their Easter baskets on Easter morning and they looked so handsome for Mass that day.

Last but not least, we made Resurrection Rolls for Easter.  They were fun.  You just use crescent rolls and Peep Chicks and the kids wrap the rolls around the chicks but when you bake them the chicks disappear like the empty tomb.  They were yummy and fun to make.

Closing Out March

I honest to goodness cannot believe March has already come and gone.  Time is flying by with all the fun we have I guess.  Speaking of time flying, we had a happy event in March but one that is always bitter sweet.  I am referring to Daniel's birthday.  I am still in shock my baby is 4 years old now!  He has brought such joy to our lives and while I love watching him grow, I also wish I could keep him a baby just a little longer.

For his 4th birthday we decided to keep it all a bit low key. We had just returned from our trip to the rattlesnake round-up so we decided to have a simple party here at the house.  We invited a home school family that we have become wonderful friends with and our former landlords who are awesome people and who we are blessed to have in our lives.  They all came over for spaghetti and cake and the kids had a blast playing with the new wagon we got Daniel for his birthday.  It was a fun day for sure.

Okay, on to school stuff.  We finished up our water unit with finishing the study of the water cycle, ponds, rivers, lakes and oceans.  We checked out a ton of books at the library on what lives in each place and explored the differences and the importance of each to our lives and the lives of people all over.  The boys then each made a mural of ocean life and made sure to include the different depths of the ocean and what lives in each.  They then did an oral presentation on their mural and what they had learned, for Joe and I as well as Joe's sister who was here visiting.  They really did well and we are proud of them.

Lastly, I wanted to share a couple of photos I took at the end of March of a sunset.  I have to admit that the move to Texas wasn't the easiest thing for me.  It is not that I didn't want to move but it was a huge change from EVERYTHING I knew.  It was shocking to me how different things were in the two states.  Not that things were any better in one or the other, just different.  I am not even talking about the weather and scenery, just the difference in people, ways things are done, etc.  Anyway, it was a huge adjustment for me and I have often wondered if I would ever feel "at home".  Over about the last 4 months though, I have noticed that I have felt more and more at home.  Part of it was getting a longer term lease and finally having a house and being able to unpack all of our things.  Another part though has been just doing the things we love again like riding the horses and roping, taking the family trips, feeling like a part of the church and different groups and loving home schooling more then I thought I ever could.  I still love Colorado and always will, but I am loving where we are and finding beauty in new places and I can only thank God for helping me get to such a good place.

Facing My Snake Fears

First and foremost here is a disclaimer.  There will be pictures of snakes in this post.  So if you are my sister Shannon, or any other person who is afraid of pictures of snakes, you might want to skip this one!

Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but my husband doesn't like bears much.  I don't know if I would say he is frightened of them but he isn't really comfortable with them.  Maybe it is because there aren't a lot of bears in West Texas where he grew up?  I am a big believer in the fact that many times what creates fear in people is what the don't understand or aren't familiar with.  This is the case I believe with me and snakes.  Growing up in the mountains of Colorado we had no rattlesnakes around for sure and I believe maybe twice in all my time growing up I saw a small harmless snake there.  Needless to say, I have had zero experience with snakes which might not be a good thing living in Texas.

When we moved to Texas a year and a half ago we moved to a place in town so we never saw a snake.  Then we moved out in the country a year ago but as of yet have not seen one.  I know that day will come though and I don't look forward to it.  In an effort to keep my fear at bay though, I decided when my husband told me about a large snake event near us, that I needed to learn what I could.  So, we packed up the truck and traveled 4 hours to Sweetwater, TX for the annual Rattlesnake Round-up.  We decided to make a fun trip out of it and stayed in a hotel overnight and headed to the place early in the morning.  Boy am I glad we got there early.  By lunch time it was so crowded we couldn't even move which worked out fine as we were ready to go get some food and head home.  While we were there though, it was actually quite educational and really very interesting.

There were two pit areas where they did presentations.  There was one where they were milking the venom from the snakes and while it looked very interesting we actually didn't get a chance to learn a lot there as it was pretty crowded.  The other pit area though was where we learned the most.  They did a presentation on the snakes talking all about them from how many babies they have to how big they get, etc.  The man who did it had about 8 snakes on the ground in the pit with him but had protective boots on and they basically left him alone as long as he left them alone.  He did pick up one with a pole though and showed us the teeth and talked all about it.  He put it on the table and showed us how it would strike by getting it to strike at a balloon.  It didn't actually pop the balloon but it was still cool.  The kids got to ask him questions and we learned a lot.  They also got to pet a different kind of snake that wasn't poisonous.

There was another area where they were skinning the snakes and then they had a place where they cooked and sold the fried meat.  It was way crowded there though so we didn't get to do that this time.  We did get to watch them skin them though.  The last area was a pit where there were hundreds of rattlesnakes all in it just rattling non-stop.  While I was so glad I went and learned about the snakes I decided that was a bit much for me so I let Joe and the kids look at it and I just glanced, took a picture of the kids and moved back.  Overall, though, I am so glad we went and when the boys are bigger we may do one of the hunts that they do along with the round-up.  Our boys are in the bright orange hats in these pictures.