Co-op Craft Day

Instead of the regular homeschool co-op schedule, the kids had a craft day.  They colored pictures, made ornaments, and had a great time with their friends.  After crafts, we enjoyed a carry-in lunch with the other families.  Lots of yummy food and lots of laughs equals a perfect day!

 Emmaline made an ornament with Mommy's help

 Jacob made one too

 And so did Ellie

 Coloring a picture

 Lunch time

Silly faces

Friends:  Elijah, Elliot, Ellie & Emma

Honesty is the best policy!

Every 8 weeks, we have a conference call with Jacob's online teacher. We had a call this week and met in the online classroom. She and I talked for a bit and then she listened to Jacob read and asked him some questions. Then, she started asking him about contractions (not the kind you have when giving birth, but the kind you get when combining two words). This is something we haven't covered yet as it isn't in the curriculum until later this month. Anyway, he started to panic because he didn't know the answers, so I quietly started telling him the answers in the background. Mrs. Daley was impressed that Jacob knew all the answers, so she asked him if he had learned contractions before. His answer, "No, my mommy is telling me the answers!" Of all the times for for him to choose to be honest!!! She and I both got a good laugh out of it!

Pumpkin Day

Today was Pumpkin Day! We scrapped our regular homeschool lessons and celebrated this wonderful fruit of fall!

Reading "From Seed to Pumpkin" with Mimi

"Life cycle of a Pumpkin"

Our Orange-colored Lunch

Drawing what our pumpkins should look like when we carve them

Measuring the pumpkin

Weighing the pumpkin

Cleaning out the pumpkin

Ellie made a Princess Pumpkin

Jacob drew his to look like Frankenstein
Emmaline's was more traditionalRoasting Pumpkin Seeds
Making Pumpkin Bars
Icing Pumpkin Bars
Happy Pumpkin Day!

Testing and an Impromptu Hike

Today, Jacob had his first-ever formal testing done. All 2nd graders in the K12 program took the test today to see what areas they need to concentrate on for the rest of the school year. Someone told me the test would take about 1 hr. WRONG! It took Jacob over two hours to complete and he wasn't even one of the last ones to be finished. Nathan and I didn't bring nearly enough to do and there were no chairs to sit on in the hallway, so our backsides were a tad sore! Besides having to move to another table for talking (no surprise!), Jacob is confident that he did his best.

Mom and Dad watched the girls while we were with Jacob, so we picked them up and went to Marion's for yummy pizza and salad. The weather was so nice out that we decided to take a hike around Hills & Dales Park.

Momma and her kiddos

Mimi, Papaw, and the kids

Ellie and Papaw (on the bridge in the background)

Emmaline playing in the leaves

Back-to-School Picnic

Today was a back-to-school picnic for Jacob's online school. It was held at a local park and we saw a couple of friends from church and the library there. Jacob had a lot of fun meeting some other kids in the same grade as him.

Overall, we are really liking this school (k12.com). One drawback though is that he isn't in class with anyone from our area. Even his teacher lives in Youngstown. It would be nice if they put kids and teachers from the same local area together so they could occasionally meet for outings, etc.

Playing "Charades" with some friends

Ellie on the swings

Mommy and Emmaline eating lunch
(Don't you just love the faces they make when they learn to smile at the camera?!)

Daddy and Ellie at lunch

It Stinks to Be Sick on Your Birthday!

Ellie turned 5 today and, unfortunately, spent the day throwing up (Emmaline had the same thing 2 days ago). She did recover for a small amount of time to open her presents, but other than that, she just laid on the couch and watched movies. Jacob also came down with the same bug, so we had our first official sick day on the third day of school. We're off to a great start! Here's hoping that everyone is well by her party on Saturday!

Ready to open presents

She got lots of neat things!

Now to relax on the couch

Jacob and Emmaline rested on the love seat and played with his DSi

First Day of School

We started school today. Jacob is in 2nd grade, Ellie is in kindergarten, and Emmaline will be working on some preschool stuff. I'm using the same program that I used with Jacob in kindergarten with Ellie (LifePacs). I chose to use the K12 program with Jacob this year. It is mostly online, but has lot of worksheets to reinforce what he learns on the computer. It's also a lot of record keeping for me, but I'm thankful to have someone looking over my shoulder this year to make sure I'm covering everything I need to. Did I mention that this program is FREE?! It is considered a charter school, so our tax dollars pay for it (which I guess doesn't make it truly free, but you get the gist!). They even provide a computer for each student and will pay part of our internet bill.

Pray that this is a good school year for all of us. Jacob is probably the one that needs the most prayer. He is super smart, but doesn't like when he has to do school work. It's not that he isn't capable of doing the work, he just doesn't WANT to do it. We butt heads a lot over this issue, so praying for patience for me would be good as well.

Emmaline likes to color and read books while I work with the older two

My big kindergartener

I told Jacob to wear something nice so I could take his picture.
Didn't he do a great job of picking out his outfit?!

Our New School Room

I am embarrassed to post the above picture, but it helps you truly appreciate what the basement school room looks like now. It took several weeks to get everything cleaned and organized. A big thank you goes out to my dad for installing and wiring new lights and outlets so we could get rid of the extension cords that were strewn everywhere. I am excited to have a place reserved just for school and can't wait to get the new school year started.

My corner with all of the workbooks and extra supplies

The computer desk

New Desks - Ellie's is purple and Jacob's is green
These desks were ones that Nathan and I used in elementary school at Dayton Christian. I taught there for 4 years before we had kids and the school replaced them while I was working there. I took 4 home with me. 1 resides in our dining room, 2 are in the basement now, and 1 is left in my parents' garage. They have graciously stored them for us all these years.

The School Room

First Day of School

We started our second year of homeschooling. Jacob is in first grade now. He really surprised me today when he was sounding out words during reading time. I am amazed at how much he remembered from kindergarten last year. Ellie is working on her letters and numbers this year. I switched to Sonlight curriculum and am really pleased so far. Jacob isn't a worksheet kid (we did a lot of those with Lifepacs...fit my personality perfectly, but not his), so I decided on one that is more hands on. Sonlight is A LOT of reading, but it teaches almost all of the subjects through picture and chapter books. Today we read a Magic Schoolbus book for science (Jacob's favorite) and started on Charlotte's Web during read-aloud time. It also does a good job of integrating Bible throughout the different subjects. Somedays I'm ready to pack up the kids and send them off to school, but I know that I would miss those "A-HA" moments when they learn something new. Overall, I really enjoy homeschooling and can't wait to see how much they grow and change over this next school year.

Gabrielle (with her baby doll)

Jacob (he posed himself)

Ellie practices her name

Jacob works on handwriting

Can we say school supplies?!

While shopping in Wal-mart today, I happened upon an awesome deal on school supplies. I haven't even looked at our homeschool curriculum to see what we need, so I just got the basics.

Here's what I bought:

20 spiral notebooks: 5 cents each = $1
2 boxes 12-count colored pencils: 88 cents each = $1.76
8 boxes 24-count crayons: 22 cents each = $1.76
2 2-pack glue sticks: 22 cents each = $.44
3 boxes 24-count pencils: 92 cents each = $2.76
1 pkg. pencil-top erasers: $.97
3 2-pack pink erasers: 97 cents each = $2.91
2 boxes 10-count markers = 88 cents each = $1.76

Grand total: $13.36

This should last us awhile!

Jacob's Last Day of School

Today was Jacob's last day of kindergarten and I'm happy to report that we survived our first year of homeschooling. He did really well and is amazing us daily with the things he has learned. There were some day when I wasn't sure he learned anything, but then he would surprise me with some tidbit of knowledge that let me know he really was paying attention. All of our school days were not good ones this past year, but we had enough that we are looking forward to homeschooling again next year.

To celebrate our family went to the movies to see "Kung Fu Panda" with my dad. The movie was really cute and it was so fun to here the kids giggling during the silly parts. Unfortunately, Nathan didn't get to see the whole thing because Emmaline wouldn't be quiet (she always goes to the movies with us and will usually nap, but not today), so he walked across to the mall to bide their time. Afterwards, we met mom at Subway, where Andy now works, for dinner. It was a good conclusion to our school year.