Hot Air Balloons

I am so excited to share with you what we did today.  It was so much fun and such a cool project.  We made hot air balloons!  Okay, not real hot air balloons but I think the ones we made are pretty cool.  First off, a little background information.  I think I have mentioned that we have been working on a unit on Transportation.  Today was actually the last day of this unit and we ended it with a bang. We are excited to start a new unit tomorrow but I wanted to share this project with you while it is so fresh on my mind.

Many of our units have one major project among many smaller lessons and projects and this one was no different.  We studied all sorts of transportation throughout this unit and so many of them were the ones you would expect to study such as trains, boats, cars, etc.  When I saw that a large part of the unit had to do with hot air balloons I was surprised.  It isn't one that normally comes to mind when you think about transportation.  I have to tell you, I actually learned as much as the kids did about hot air balloons and I really enjoyed it!  We read quite a bit about them and looked at a lot of pictures.  Landon has even decided he wants to fly one some day but I am not sure how we will make that happen.....  We definitely want to look into maybe going to the huge hot air balloon festival in New Mexico in the fall though, as it sounds so fun!

After reading about how the balloons work and about all the different parts to them, we actually sewed our own balloons.  I have to say, that this has been one of the most rewarding projects with home schooling thus far.  If the kids were in school outside of the home, this is a project that would have never, ever happened.  For one, it is one I wouldn't have thought of to do, and for two it is one we would have never had the time to do.  Being able to take the time to teach the kids how to sew and to watch them at such young ages of 8 and 9 be able to sew something so nicely and to see the pride they took in the finished product was truly rewarding.

Our goal wasn't to create a balloon that would actually float, but rather to create one that had all the parts and design we had learned about and then to have the opportunity to learn about sewing which even as young men is a skill that could serve them well in the future.  They each picked out the fabric they wanted for their balloons and they cut the patterns out and cut the fabric for the pieces.  Then I helped them with the sewing machine by helping them guide the fabric as they ran the machine and sewed all the sides together.  I sewed on the tops of the balloons which actually was a fairly difficult task, but it luckily ended up looking good.  The kids stuffed the balloons and then they hand sewed the bottoms of the balloons on.  Then I helped them attach the baskets and we had a finished product.  I think they came out cute and the kids did so well on them!  I hope this all doesn't come across as a bragging post but it was just such a neat project and one I will always remember.  I know this is a lot of pictures but I hope you like them!

Valentine's Day!

So, really in time order this post should have been before the Lent post, but that post was on my mind and I needed to type as it came to me.  I don't want to neglect to post this one as well though as it is so fun.  It is about Valentine's Day!!!!!

When we started home schooling in the Fall I started searching for other area home school families.  I was not having the best of luck finding a local group that was established.  I found a family about 20 minutes from us in the next town over off of Facebook and we started corresponding about maybe forming a group.  She said she had heard of another family and we all were going to try to get together.  I was unable to get together with them when they met due to a sick kid or something but they talked and they started a local Facebook group for home schooling which has been wonderful!  As word has gotten around the group has grown.

For many months it was more of an online support group.  A few months back though one of the ladies asked for interest on people coming together once a week for a class.  Many people expressed interest including us.  She gave us the link to the unit that would be covered and I checked into it.  Unfortunately it wasn't a good fit for us as it covered science and creation in a way that wasn't consistent with Catholic teachings but it was still exciting to see people starting to plan physical ways to get together.

As Valentine's Day approached I started to feel a bit sorry for the kids.  I remember fondly the Valentine's Day parties I had in school as a child and I remember how much fun the kids had last year at their parties in public school.  They would miss out on all of that.  I stated talking with my friend who also home schools her kids.  She has become a wonderful friend and we try to get the kids together a few times a month.  I also met her off of Facebook and I am so happy I did!  Anyway, we started to plan a party for all the local home school kids.  We found out the back room at the local library was free to rent.  We posted in the home school group and got a great response for people wanting to attend.  We ended up with 23 kids there ages 18 months to 11 years old!  Each family brought food to share, we had a craft station to decorate Valentine's bags for each kid so they could use them in the card exchange, we had another craft station for a heart craft, we had Valentine's Day bingo and they exchanged cards.  It was so much fun!!!!!  We met a lot of new friends and already have plans for more activities in the future so stay tuned.

I sadly forgot to take any pictures as we were having so much fun.  Valentine's Day was an important day for us for another reason though.  Joe and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary!  We had a babysitter for the first time here and she was wonderful.  Joe was working nights so we just went to lunch at a local restaurant which was nice.  So here is wishing Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband and thoughts of many more to come.  I love you Joe!  Now, for a picture of when we were sooooooooo much younger!

The 40 Days of Lent

One of the best things about home schooling is that we are able to put such a focus on our faith and our religion.  Even when the kids were in public school we tried to teach them as much about our faith at home as we could, but now we are able to incorporate Bible lessons and faith into our school days as well as our off time which is doubly wonderful.

Lent is such a wonderful time in our Catholic Church and is a great time of reflection, prayer and change.  As the kids get older it becomes more and more of a joy to see them be excited to participate in Lent and to grow stronger in their own faith.  This year is especially meaningful for Landon as he is in religion class for his First Communion in June.  He has grown so much in his faith and his knowledge and understanding of the Church which is great.

The kids have been contemplating what they would like to give up for Lent this year.  While Daniel is too young still to understand, my hope is that he will give up diapers.......  He actually has been working on potty training and is doing remarkably well so fingers crossed!  I know that has nothing really to do with Lent but I still hope it happens.  : )

Epi went back and forth on what he wanted to give up.  It came down to him deciding between tacos and fried eggs.  Let me tell you, both are actually big sacrifices for him.  While he has come a long way in trying new foods the last few years, he is still a kid that gets in a food rut and has certain foods he will eat every time when given a choice.  I always cook a variety of meals for dinners but when it comes to lunch I allow them to eat leftovers or a variety of easy lunch foods typically.  He has always, always had a favorite food of cheese which is ironic given his slight intolerance of dairy.  For about two years his go to lunch was quesadillas.  I honestly didn't think we would ever grow out of that one!  While he still will have one every once in a while he has moved on.  Now his favorite thing for lunch is a taco.  He loves them with taco meat but when that isn't available he eats taco shells with shredded cheese and taco sauce in them and calls them a taco as well, haha.  He was really leaning toward giving up tacos for Lent but in the end he went with fried eggs.  He has never been a big breakfast lover and while he likes cereal or pancakes okay, his favorite thing for breakfast has become fried eggs.  He will eat two or three of them each morning.  I am proud of him for choosing something that he likes so much.

Landon was really lost on what he wanted to choose but Epi helped him decide.  While Epi does fried eggs every morning for breakfast, Landon will typically scramble eggs and do breakfast burritos.  So when he heard what Epi was going for, he decided to do the same and gave up breakfast burritos.  It is a good thing I stocked up on cereal at the store the other day!

While I am so excited to see them decide on those individual things, I am even more excited about what we are doing as a family.  A few years ago I was part of a Catholic forum on the internet.  It wasn't very active which I why I don't really visit it any more, but one of the wonderful things I got from it was the idea for 40 Bags in 40 Days.  This is a wonderful Lent project and one that I would highly recommend.  The idea is that the less clutter we all have in our lives, the less distraction we will have that may keep us from getting closer to the Lord.  So, for the 40 days of Lent you get rid of one bag of clutter for each day.  This can be a bag of things to donate to charity, bags of garbage(not your regular everyday household trash but extra trash), bags of things to be recycled, etc.  They bag size can vary depending on what you are getting rid of.  When I did this for Lent a few years back it was so nice to get rid of clutter and concentrate more on God.  This year I am even more excited because the kids are old enough to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it.

Lent is such a holy time and as it starts today my prayer is that each of the kids, as well as Joe and I, grow closer to God during this time and grow closer as a family.  I have the same prayer for each of you as well who might be reading this.  If you aren't Catholic or do not know much about Lent I encourage you to ask questions and learn about it because even for those who are not Catholic it can be a wonderful time to learn more about God and grow closer to Him.  May God be with each and every one of you.

What is school?

Most of my posts lately have been pure information about what we have been up to as I was so far behind.  Now that I am caught up I hope to sometimes post more insightful looks into what home schooling is really like though because I want not only for our family, friends and other readers to know what we are up to, but I want them to really know what it is all like for us.  Hopefully it isn't too boring!

I need to be honest, when we first pulled our oldest son from school we were completely lost as to what to do next.  We knew the school subjects but had no clue how to implement them so we did what I think a lot of people do and we tried to re-create the public school in our home.  We gave the same sort of assignments, had set time periods for each subject, did our school day from 8:00 to 3:00 etc.  While it worked for the month we did it just fine, it was simply a way to get by until the summer break.  Over the summer break though, I started to research, to talk to other home schooling families, to look around at all the possibilities.

One of the most helpful pieces of advice I have ever been given in regards to home schooling is that it is not simply school(as defined by the tradition public school setting) at home and that in order to really thrive home schooling I would have to put all pre-conceived notions of what "school" is aside.  This was hard at first but as time has gone by it makes more and more sense.  Now my way of thinking and the advice I give to other people thinking about home schooling is that home schooling is not school in your home, but is learning in your home and in the world.  There is a huge difference.  This is not to say that kids in a school setting such as a public school or private school do not learn by any means.  There are wonderful public and private schools out there and wonderful public and private school teachers out there.  As any one of those teachers can attest to though, just because a student attends school doesn't mean they will learn anything.  They have to not only have the opportunity presented by the school to learn, but they have to take that opportunity and make the most of it and apply themselves.

The same is true in a home school setting.  Not only does the parent need to provide the child with the opportunity to learn new things, but they child has to take advantage of that and learn what is being taught.  There is one huge advantage that I have as a home school parent though that a traditional school doesn't have.  I am able to make learning an interactive experience and change things for each day, each activity, even on the spur of the moment if I would like, in order to help maximize the learning experience.  It is hard to do this with 25 students in a classroom even though there are wonderful teachers who do a great job of doing it as much as possible at many schools.  It is easier for me to do then them for sure though as I have only three students and the ability to drive anywhere or go anywhere at any time.

So, what is "school" for us?  I started out this year with a very scheduled school day and a very set idea of what we would do each day.  As the year has gone by though, I have become more comfortable and my definition of what a "school" day looks like for us has changed greatly.  We still have plenty of days that resemble a traditional scheduled school day in some ways.  These are the days we do our Bible lessons, our Social Studies or Science lessons, our Math lessons, our Grammar lessons, our Writing and our Reading all as you would expect to see.  You don't see us at our desks for very long even on those days though.  We are at our desks doing writing, sitting on the couch or the porch swing doing reading, in the front yard doing science, etc.  The flexibility we have in our school setting really help us do so many hands on activities and we have found the kids retain it so much more then doing worksheets.  They love the hands on activities and beg for more of them.

Another huge advantage that we have is that the world becomes our classroom.  There are plenty of days that can be considered a "school" day where we never touch a book or a pencil.  We take field trips to museums, we go to historical sites, and we do other field trips with home school groups.  Activities we do for Cub Scouts are often educational and while many other scouts in the dens have a lot of achievements left to do before they will get their badges, we are almost done as we get to do so many of the things in lots of depth as school projects.  Even more important in some ways, then the planned activities we do, are the random learning opportunities that come up that we have the ability to take advantage of.  Just the other day a water well truck pulled up at a property near ours.  Joe was able to go talk to the workers and they were fine with the kids and Joe going out and watching them pull a well.  Simply by watching that and listening to what they were doing and why, the kids learned more then any text book could have taught about machines, ground water, etc. and it is something we can learn more about in actual lessons and refer back to in lessons.

Any learning opportunity has become school for us.  Whether it is a traditional learning activity by doing a math lesson at the table and having them work in the work book or whether it is watching a water well being pulled, home schooling has opened up a world of opportunities for us and redefined school for us.  Now for us it isn't so much about what school should look like, but about how much learning is taking place and we are loving discovering each day how that takes shape.

January Always Brings New Things

January started out with frozen pipes and no water.  We were supposed to leave for another trip to Colorado on January 2nd but with frozen pipes it was not a good time to leave so we postponed our trip hoping for a quick thaw.  No such luck though.  It took about 3 or 4 days to thaw and once it did we discovered it had broken a switch and some other things in the pump house.  After about a week with no water all finally got fixed but Joe's vacation from work was drawing to a close and we didn't get to go North.  My wonderful parents came for a visit though and we enjoyed seeing them and we did some fun shopping and Joe and I even got a lunch date!  Thanks Mom and Dad!  The kids absolutely love their grandparents and enjoyed playing games with them and spending time with them.  We had a bit of snow that came along with the cold front and the kids enjoyed that too although they said it was nothing like Colorado snow!

We planned to get back to school full time after my parents left but as soon as they left everybody got a stomach virus!  Our youngest got it the worst and it has taken a full three weeks for him to finally get better.  The other two boys fared better though and after only a few days were back on track.  We discovered a leak in the pipes in the wall and didn't have water again for about three days but that is fixed as well, lol.

We started a unit on Transportation.  We are still currently in that unit but so far we have read all about boats and trains, looked into transportation throughout history and how it has changed, learned about reasons for mass moves from a place like in the Bible when the early Christians all dispersed due to persecution in Jerusalem and mass moves to a place such as during the California Gold Rush, learned about friction and objects that float and started out major project of sewing hot air balloons.  This is our first sewing project and we still have a lot to do on it but it is a great learning experience for the kids.  I don't have pictures of it yet but will later in February.  We got lucky that the current Cubscout event is getting ready for the Pinewood Derby Race so with that we have been looking at how car design makes it faster and at friction.  That race is coming up soon so fingers crossed!

The older two boys signed up to play basketball here in town and so far have had three clinics for skill training.  We should hear back soon as to what teams they will be on.  This year they are in two different age brackets so they will not be on the same team like last year but they are looking forward to it nonetheless.

We went with the Cubscouts to the local newspaper office and learned all about how they format the paper and looked at old editions of the paper from when the kids were born.  They enjoyed it a lot.  They were able to ask a lot of questions and although it was after our unit ended it fit nicely into what we had learned about communication.

Last but not least, January was the month Epi turned 8 years old.  We took the day off school for his birthday but he started off the day at the doctors with terrible asthma.  He still managed to have fun opening his presents though and we had tacos for dinner and cake.  A week later we had his party at a cool place in Lubbock with a pizza buffet and tons of arcade games and bumper cars.  He was allowed to invite one friend and that friend also spent the night which they all enjoyed.  Overall it was a hit.

A December to Remember?

Maybe every December is to remember so this one was no different.  It had its ups, but it also had its downs.  We finished up our communication unit at the beginning of the month.  We also had a Christmas Parade for the Cubscouts where we used our truck and trailer for the float and it was so fun.  The float was How the Grinch Stole Christmas themed and the kids enjoyed decorating it.  Home schooling worked to our advantage because they decorated the float during a school day so our kids were the only kids who got to help and they enjoyed being part of it.

The we took a trip further South in Texas to visit relatives.  We had a nice time there and did some work on our flatbed trailer and enjoyed seeing family.  We also got to attend our oldest niece's graduation from college and we are so proud of her!  Congratulations Bethany!

The last day we were there though, a few of us had a bit of a sore throat.  We got home and things went down hill fast.  I scheduled doctor's appointments for all three kids and it turns out two of the three tested positive for the flu and the third wasn't far behind.  Poor Daddy was sick with it too.  They all four got Tamiflu and although they were as sick as dogs for about a week they got better much faster with the Tamiflu and the doctor said that the fact that we had all had flu shots in the fall, helped them not get it as bad as they could have.  Somehow I escaped getting it knock on wood!

After they were all finally feeling better we were getting close to Christmas and I didn't want to start a whole new unit just to have to stop in the middle so we continued on with our math lessons, grammar lessons, spelling lessons and we decided to do Christmas activities as well.  We went on an amazing field trip to a church in Lubbock with just our family.  They had hundreds and hundreds of Nativity scenes set up from all over the world.  They had a scavenger hunt sheet that the kids did to find certain ones with certain features and it was so fun and so amazing to see all of them.  I took a ton of pictures and obviously can't share all of them but I will pick a few of our favorites.  My favorite is the one with the three cute little shepherds.......

We also made ornaments.  We made some that we printed off and colored and then laminated of the religious symbols of Christmas and then we found these cool peppermint ones with a recipe to make them on Pinterest and we tried them and they were so fun!  We had to get a new tree this year and it is beautiful and we had a great time decorating it with ornaments both new and old.

We finished out the year with the older two and I playing Horse-opoly until Midnight on New Year's Eve and having a great time.  We also finished out the year with our pipes freezing which led us into an eventful start to 2015.

Getting Settled In November

November involved a lot of unpacking and settling in.  You know you are a home school parent when after you move the first room unpacked and set up is the school room!  With so much unpacking and getting things back on track it was a rather quiet month relatively speaking.  We finished up our unit on history and family history with making some timelines and collecting the rest of the surveys that people had done for us.  Then we started on a new unit on Communication.  We learned about sound and how it travels, listened to star pulses online, learned about Helen Keller and about sign language and Braille, made tin can phones, read about Koko the Gorilla and how she learned sign language, watched a documentary on bats and talked about how technology has aided in communication.   I am going to have to fully admit I have NO photos of any of that!

We had two fun Cubscout events in November though.  With Veteran's Day falling in that month the Cubscouts were asked to do the flag ceremony for the Veteran's Day Ceremony at the local school.  It was the first time I have been in the new gym building at the school there and let me tell you, it is huge and impressive.  The ceremony was in one of the smaller gyms off the main one and it was a nice ceremony where all local Veteran's were invited and there were speeches and songs and videos honoring them.  The kids enjoyed it and after the ceremony they went and shook hands with each and every Veteran there.  In a similar event, not long after that, the Cubscouts and Girlscouts joined together and put on a dinner for the local police, firefighters, and EMT departments.  We helped make Fall themed decorations and we helped serve the food and clean up.  They boys did the opening flag ceremony for it again and did a few skits and dances for entertainment during the dinner.

October Was Just Plain Scary!

Okay, so maybe not scary but it was a bit of a crazy month for us.  We were finally in a good grove with school and we had a trip planned to Colorado to see our family there.  Then we got a call from a great friend saying that his mother-in-law was looking to rent out her house in the town we lived in and that he had thought of us.  In case anybody noticed from the pictures of our school room I posted at the beginning of the year we were renting a tiny single wide trailer due to issues with selling our house before we moved to Texas.  While I have nothing against living in a trailer, it was small for three kids, two parents and a home school classroom, not to mention all of our pets!  We didn't have a whole lot of choice though because there was literally NOTHING to rent in our area.  When we heard about our this new possibility we RAN to go see it.  It was awesome!  A nice brick home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big sun room to use as the school room, a huge shop, two other storage sheds and 40 fenced in acres for the horses!  Needless to say we signed a lease right away to move the end of the month.

While we were thrilled to be moving, it also meant we needed to get packing right away.  We didn't want to cancel our trip to Colorado either so we had less packing time then we would have had and it was a bit crazy and stressful but so worth it.  We are loving having so much more space and we have settled in nicely here.  God truly dropped this opportunity in our laps and we are so thankful to have more space to live, more space to learn and more space to play.  You will have to forgive he mess in the pictures but here is the new school room!

It is probably 3 or 4 times bigger then the last one and we love having it.

We were working on a unit on history and how we can learn from the past and how important the past is to us.  We obviously were studying a lot about important events and figures from history such as the Revolutionary War, George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, the Pilgrims, etc., as well as a lot of Biblical History including things about Noah and his line.  Our major project though for the unit was about family history and we made a Memory Book.  This was a wonderful project but very time intensive for us as well as for the family members who did participate.  We used a set of questions provided in our curriculum and sent it out to each Grandparent, Aunt and Uncle of the kids.  We were also able to get a lot of information about their Great Grandparents as well.  We made sections in the Memory Book for each family and then for each person in our immediate family and included all sorts of things.  We are still hoping in time to get even more of the surveys back  as we have really enjoyed reading them and learning our family history.

Alright, on to our trip to Colorado in October.  We had so much fun!!!!!!!  The timing of the trip was perfect with our Memory Book being assembled as we were able to directly ask many of the questions to one set of Grandparents and hear their stories first hand and we were able to visit the only remaining Great Grandmother of the kids and here some wonderful stories from her as well.  Those are memories the kids will always cherish.  We also were able to visit two museums while we were there.  We went to the Denver Children's Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  We had a wonderful time at each of them.  At the Children's Museum we were able to play on a real Denver Fire Truck, paint pictures, build with recycled materials, explore simple machines with balls and play in a fake vet's office.  I do think they were three of the cutest firemen I have ever seen and I have seen a lot!  At the Science Museum we were able to explore rocks and minerals to complete our study from Unit 1, explore lots about Native Americans to complete our study of different dwellings, learn about space and of course see the dinosaur bones.  There is so much at the museum that we in no way had time to explore it all and will definitely go back at a later date.

This post is already really long(I told you it was a busy month!) so I will just really quick touch on the rest of the highlights.  Of course we had Halloween in there which was fun.  We went to some of the local businesses in our town, we went to a carnival at the high school and we went Trick-or-treating with some of our home school friends in the next town over.  We also had a fun field trip to a corn maze and pumpkin patch with a local home school group that was so much fun!  The kids had what is called a Rain Gutter Regata for Cubscouts where they made boats that they raced.  They both did very well and had fun and even our youngest son got to race!  We got two new kittens on Halloween and named them Kit Kat and Tootsie Roll.  The last thing to mention actually happened at the beginning of the month and that is that we finished out our lesson on architecture by making some models of some great types of houses from around the world and studying the different types of dwellings and why they were made the way they were.  It was a great lesson and they learned tons from it.  They then had to present what the learned to us which was fun.