Menu Monday

Monday- Steak on the grill, baked potato and fresh steamed green beans
Tuesday- Breakfast for dinner. Pancakes and Bacon
Wednesday- Roast in the crock pot with Zesty Italian potato's
Thursday- Tortilla Chicken Casserole
Friday- Turkey wraps with Baked Lays and Fruit
Saturday- Cheesy chicken broccoli and rice, rolls
Sunday- Spaghetti, salad and breadsticks

Getting to know the World's Greatest Artist's

We have begun this art study that we downloaded (for free!!!) from one of my favorite homeschool bloggers, http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/. We have started our study with the very interesting and complex Pablo Picasso. The books we are using for this study are perfect! http://www.amazon.com/Picasso-Getting-Worlds-Greatest-Artists/dp/0516022717. J is loving learning about Picasso's different periods of painting. Picasso was born in Spain and dies in France which he moved to at the age of 19. His Father was an Art teacher and he wanted Picasso to become a great artist. We have learned about his Blue Period that started after his best friend died. Then He met and fell in Love with a girl named Fernande and thus began his Rose Peiod. Then we learned about his Cubism period which was really cool! We have not been instructed yet to do a painting of our own, but J loves to paint, so she just couldn't wait. Here is her first interpretation of a Picasso painting. I think that she did an amazing job!

This is the Boy in Sailor Suit with Butterfly Net.


My husband is the artist in the family, so J loves to draw and paint with him. Here they are drawing one of the pictures from our Picasso book.

New School Year = Fresh start (again) on my blog

Lots of new things going on this school year!
*My girl came home midyear last year, after trying out public high school. She was less than thrilled with her experience, and as happy that I am that she came home, I am glad that she got to experience it. There were a few positives. She really enjoyed her photography class, chorus,some of the teachers and she made the basketball team. Unfortunately, that negative outweighed (by far) the positive for her.
*We have joined a co-op for this upcoming year and we are very excited about it! The co-op is based around using Geography Matters - Trailguide curriculum. We will be using Paths of Settlement this year. I am excited as we are in the planning stages right now. It is a great group of christian moms, all of whom have the same goal which is found in Proverbs 22:6 .... Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. More to come about our experiences!!
*We are also joining an Umbrella School to keep me accountable since I have a high schooler this year.
*As for my blog, I am going to try something new. I struggle with blogging each year. I desperately want to keep a journal of our home/homeschool journey, but I am a terrible writer. I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, get all of the scrambled up thoughts floating around in my head, from point A (my brain) to point B (this blog). So, I have decided to assign each day with its own specific subject. I think that if I approach it this way, I have a better chance of getting a little something written each day.
So here goes:
Monday - Menu Monday (this is mainly for me to keep my menu organized in one place)
Tuesday - What's going on in Trail Guide Tuesday/Sketch Tuesday
Wednesday - Wordless Wednesday
Thursday - World's greatest artist study with pictures
Friday - I am hoping to implement The Homeschool Mother's Journal (if I can figure out how to) =)
So, WE ARE OFF on our journey of another adventurous year...............

Fleming Island Eagles end the year with a 15-1 season!!

So proud of my daughters basketball team. Posting some shots of her throughout the season. Looking forward to next year!!

Sketch Tuesday

Teatime- J did a great job this week on her drawing! She is turning into quite the budding artist.

Our Home Week In Review

Well J started back to her classes this week at O2B kids. She is taking piano, cheer and Karate. She also started back with her all day homeschool class. What was I thinking????? It has been a crazy week. However, I am happy that she is enjoying all of her classes this semester. Last semester her dance class was a disaster and I was ready to call it quits at O2B.


Nichole is doing great at school! She got her second report card and received all A's and B's again!! Phew, it turns out I DIDN'T ruin her by homeschooling her, despite all of the naysayers. =)
We are driving all over the place going from basketball game to basketball game, but the season is coming to an end next week and it has been a great season for the team. They still have a few games to go, but they are 14-0 right now. It has been hard watching N sit on the bench for the most part, but hopefully that will change next year.


Erik started back in his classes again. However, he really procrastinated this time and was only able to get two of the classes that he wanted, so he will be spending his summer in school. He is running a 10K this weekend and hoping to PR. He is applying to Flagler College again and hoping to run for them. He applied last year and got in, but decided he didn't want to go and now he is kicking himself!


Well it has been go, go, go all week, but I am thankful and blessed for my amazing family!!!!! One day all of this will slow way down and I know that I will miss all of the craziness!!!

Nichole's Basketball Team

My daughter left our homeschool this year and went to public high school. There are a few reasons that she wanted to go. She has taught herself to play guitar over the last few years, but she has never had formal lessons. The school she is going to offers guitar class for all 4 years. She will only be taking three years though because all freshman are required to take 1 year of PE. She is also in the photojournalism academy taking part in the photography part of the academy. She loves her photography teacher and the class. The biggest reason that she wanted to go was to play basketball. She made the team!!!! However, because she is a freshman, she doesn't get much playing time. Anyway, I wanted to post a picture of her team. We are so proud of her!!! She is the beautiful girl wearing #23.

Wordless Wednesday

Ten Apples Up On Top

This is the latest book we read for our Dr.Seuss Unit Study. This was a fun book to read and the best part was that J could read it herself!!!! Once again, she was able to pick up on the moral of the story on her own. The moral was to not be a bragger and how to work together. Here is some of the activities we did:

Math: We played a game called Knock Out. We each had a strip of numbers from 2-10, we had two dice, and 9 each of little apple (they looked more like cherries) cutouts. We each took turns rolling the dice, adding them up and then knocking out the number. The first one with all of the numbers knocked out is the winner. We played this game over and over and over and over............... It was such a simple game and she loved it!!

Of course, we had to stack apples Up On Top! This takes much concentration.

Still trying.....

Success!!!!!!! (with a little help from mom) =)

To finish off this book, what better snack than apples and peanut butter!!! (forgot to take a picture)

The next book we will be reading......The Foot Book.

Our School Week In Review

Reading- OPGTR- J is doing great with her reading. We finished up through lesson 77 today. This week we worked on  Long U vowel sound, CK to KE, Sight words to, two and too (she did great with this lesson, I was very impressed), The hard and soft sound of C. The rule for hard and soft C is; if there is an e,i or y after the c, then it makes the sound of s. Any other letter after the C, makes it say the sound of K. I am learning all of these rules along with J that I do not remember learning, 

We also added something new to our daily reading. J has started reading lessons in the first McGuffey reader. I made up a chart with lessons 1 - 20 and every time she reads a lesson she gets to put a star on the chart. Once she fills the chart she gets to pick something fun to do. I told her she can choose to have  lunch with mom, a movie, the Jumpzone, etc.... The chart has been a great motivator and her reading has improved so much!

Math- We have been taking a break from Rightstart math. J was having a hard time with money. So, I purchased Singapore Essential Math Kindergarten B. J is really liking this workbook. She has been working on adding on this week. We have also been working on recognition of the coins and their values daily. She has finally mastered them. It took a couple of weeks, but I am glad that we took the break and took our time learning them. We will probably start back with Rightstart next week.

Spelling-AAS - We are loving AAS. I have decided that it has been pretty much a great review of our reading lessons. The lessons have seemed to line up for the most part. J loves to have spelling tests, she is her momma's girl. I loved spelling when I was in school.

Language Arts- We have been having the most fun with L/A this week!!! We are doing a unit study (which I printed off of www.homeschoolshare.com) on Dr. Seuss books and it has been a blast!! We have read three books so far, Wacky Wednesday, The Sneetches and Ten Apples on Top. We read a book a day and then do a few of the activities which have involved turning the house upside down, shaving cream and some really fun games (I have some pictures in previous posts below). I can't wait to continue our study next week!!!

Geography- Evan Moor Grade 1 daily geography practice. We are still working on learning about maps. North, south, east and west, the compass rose and the map key. J has really learned so much with this workbook and she enjoys it.

Science - None this week

ETC- J is just flying through these books. We are just about to finish up Go for the Code. I really need to order the next book.

Handwriting- HWT - We are half way through My Printing Book and J's handwriting is just beautiful. She loves these workbooks and she really takes her time and it is just amazing how much her handwriting has improved this year.

Art- We are still participating in Harmony Art Mom's Sketch Tuesday. This week the theme was "something yellow". I posted a picture below. J LOVES going to the website on Monday mornings and watching the slideshow that H.A.M. puts up. She gets all giddy every time she she her drawing. Of course, she thinks that she is a famous artist. =)

It has been a great first week back to school after the holiday's!!!!

More shaving cream fun!!

The shaving cream fun lasted all day with J's big brother Erik and her friend S.

The Sneetches

Well, I know that yesterday I said that we were going to read Green Eggs and Ham today for our Dr. Seuss unit study, but I forgot to go to the store and pick up the ham . So, today we read The Sneetches. What a fun book! J loved it and I was so excited that she picked up the moral of the story on her own. The story was about the fact that nobody should feel that they are better than anybody! We had lots of fun with the activities for this book. We did a little math, played  a sorting game with food cards and then we had some fun playing slam the star with shaving cream. I printed out the stars and laminated them. Then I used a dry erase marker to wrote some words on the stars. I told her to go into another room, so she had no idea that there was shaving cream under the words. When she came back into the room she was very excited because she knew that I was up to something. I told her that she had to read the word on the star and if she got it right then she could smash the star.


At first she was a little apprehensive:

Then she found out that it was shaving cream....

And the smashing began!!!

Of course we had to play in it after. =)

We are loving this unit study!!

Wacky Wednesday

We started our unit study on Dr. Seuss. We started with the very funny book Wacky Wednesday! We read it at bedtime last night. J loves this book and we have read it 100 times and she never gets tired of trying to find all of the wacky things. I decided that since today was indeed Wednesday (not planned) that I would create our own Wacky Wednesday. J had so much fun running around the house finding all of the wacky things.

There were shoes on the ceiling fan

A chair and fishbowl on the table

A closer look at The Cat in the Hat. Our fish was a little freaked out. =)

A tree on the table (My almost 15 yr old said that when she first came out that she thought I had that on there as a decoration. She said she was thinking, that does not look good at all, what is my mom thinking. Then she noticed the rest of the house and she was really confused. hahaha)

The piano was upside down

and of course, there was a pan of musical instruments cooking on the stove.

This picture is blurry, but she was very excited when she saw all of the wackiness!!!

She also made up names for the other days of the week:
Savior Sunday
Monkey Monday
Toot Tuesday
Wacky Wednesday (of course)
Thinking Thursday
Freaky Friday
Seahorse Saturday


I am so excited about this Unit Study. I got everything off of the homeschoolshare.com website. Tomorrow we will read Green Eggs and Ham. Guess what we will be making.......... =)

Recognizing coins

We had a breakthrough today!!! I am very excited. We had to take a short break recently from Rightstart Math. J was having a hard time recognizing the penny, nickel, dime and quarter. We started back today with math after our short Christmas break. When we sat down, I said to J, let's see if you remember the names of the coins. I did not think that she would because she was still a little rusty when we took our school break. However, not only did she know the names, she also knew all of their values. I was shocked, but very excited!! Tomorrow, we will start back with our Rightstart. We are also supplementing with Singapore's Essential Math Kindergarten B and we are both enjoying it!

Sketch Tuesdayt

Sketch Tuesday is something J has been doing since she was 3 yrs. old. I do not know how to get her button on my page yet, but this is from Harmony Art Mom's blog. Every Tuesday morning H.A.M posts a theme to draw and then on the following Monday she posts a slide show of all the pictures that she receives. I will be posting J's drawings every Tuesday. Here are the last few she has done.

New Year, New Blog Resolutions

Here I go again, I am going to give this blogging thing another try. I am a blogger wanna-be!! I have great intentions of keeping this blog up to date in order to keep records of our homeschool. However, I can never seem to find the time. So, I am making a resolution to take at least 15 min a day to post something about our day. I have got a lot to learn about blogging. There is so much I want to learn and I have no idea where to start. I need a blogging for dummy's course. Any ideas???