Homeschooling Kennedy

Q&A #2

2010-10-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

Such a great day of learning while having fun. When I did my student teaching, "THE FARM", was my favorite. You had a hot day for this one. Where is this farm?
Yes, it was fun!! I love doing stuff like that with them. I'm much better at hands on stuff than I am with just showing them in a book. I think I get as bored as they do! It WAS hot though! We weren't there as long as we could have been! This farm is in Clarksville off of Highway 12... it's not quite as good as Honeysuckle Hill Farm which is off exit 24 on the way to Springfield, but it was still fun for the little ones.

Okay I know you've dealt with many questions about the kids desks before, but I'm going to ask more :). Kaitlyn does not have a desk. Currently she does homework at the kitchen table. Actually, Natalie does too. Natalie however has a huge desk. I've been thinking of replacing it to give us more room in their bedroom. And especially recently I've been trying to figure out how to make more room in there. So anyways, are the desks big enough for a middle school aged child and beyond?
No, Kass and Kam would look pretty silly in these desks. I would say maybe up to age 7 (for a typically sized child). Check out the website where I got them though, they have all kinds of desks for older kids too at pretty good prices!

Renee, getting a book from another library sent to our library is called an InterLibrary Loan. I saw them happen all the time when I worked in the APSU library. The public library should do something like it too.
Thanks!!! I will definitely try that! I think next week I will need books from there again. :)

I follow your blog and am considering homeschooling my children. I was so sorry to hear about how the school treated Kennedy. I was wondering, are you planning to also homeschool Kellsey when the time comes? I'm guessing she would be in the same exact situation as Kennedy. Just curious!
I'm not sure... right now Kellsey is in a fabulous preschool and I am praying hard that she makes great strides there. Her teacher is very encouraging about what Kellsey is doing and how she is progressing. However, when time for Kindergarten comes, if she's still not talking, I'm not sure that I could homeschool her... Now that being said, I said about 2 years ago that I would NEVER homeschool any of my children because I simply couldn't do it. And well... here we are. Out of necessity. So, we'll see what happens with Kellsey. I've learned to never say never. As it stands right now I don't feel qualified to give her an education, but we have a lot of time before Kindergarten and I know she will change a lot between now and then. But you are right, she would be in the exact situation as Kennedy here in our school system.

Glad for the most part everyone is healthy. Hoping Kennedy continues to improve from her sinus infection. What gave you that food poisoning anyways? No more set backs with that education now, lol.
Sadly, I think it was my favorite Mexican restaurant. It will be awhile before I can eat there again!

Where have we BEEN?!

2010-10-19T13:30:00.001-05:00

Have you been wondering where we've been?! I have! LOL I got struck down with bronchitis and couldn't talk for awhile... a LONG while! This made it very hard for me to talk without coughing up a lung and therefore made it very hard to teach! I threw in a few days here and there where I could, but the last couple weeks, between being sick and then Kass and Kam being on Fall Break, Kennedy and I have basically been on a hiatus.

We were prepared to get back to it full force yesterday and then I got struck down with food poisoning and she woke up in the middle of the night with a 104 temp! I took her to the doctor yesterday and she has a sinus infection. She's on antibiotics now and is still fighting a fever which forced us to cancel therapy and reading clinic, but thankfully we are getting back on track today with school work at least! The good news is we can work on weekends and stuff and catch up. I'm not too worried. :)

SO what are we doing right now?

In Bible we are re-doing our Faith & Trust week. We didn't really get far with that and I think it's so important! Our story this week is Pigs All Around which Kennedy says is "silly"! HA! It is sort of a silly book, but there's lots of challenging words in there for her to learn. She has some spelling words to coordinate with her book. We're also playing catch up with our Raz Kids reading online. We'll be doing a few different stories on there this week. Thankfully this is one of Kennedy's and Keeghan's favorite things to do!

We have ditched our math curriculum. She had mastered it and was getting really bored with the repetition so we have moved onto addition. We're using Picture Math that someone mailed to me and she is doing really well with it! She already has lots of practice with basic addition anyway thanks to her iPod Touch, but somehow seeing it on paper is always different! She really enjoyed math today which is always good to see! I love watching her catch on to such important concepts like adding!! We're still working on flashcards as well and I'm going to step those up and add in numbers 21-30.

In science, she and Keeghan learned about germs today. We talked about what germs are and how to protect others from catching our germs by using good hand washing, using Kleenex or sneezing into our sleeves. Keeghan, my little OCD boy, was totally grossed out by the whole thing. Haha Kennedy thought it was all pretty interesting though!

The kids favorite part of the morning continues to be calendar time... they love talking about what day it is, the month, the season, going outside to "feel" the weather and pick out the weather card(s) for the day, and then singing our phone number song. Since it was pointed out that it would be pretty dumb of me to post a video of the kids singing our phone number on here (uhhh oh yeah! LOL) I will give you the generic version of our song:

To the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man"
Do you know your phone number?
Your phone number?
Your phone number?
Do you know your phone number?
555-1212.

Cute, right? The kids love it. Of course now if you ever ask them their phone number they're going to sing it instead of say it. Then again, I'll probably sing it now too! haha

Here's a picture of Kennedy in front of our calendar... this was taken a couple weeks ago... Keeghan was at school...

Anyway, that is it for now!! More later this week! :)

Field Trip to the Farm

2010-10-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, we went on a field trip with our homeschool group to Christan Way Farm out in Hopkinsville, KY. A bunch of us met at a rest stop and followed each other to the farm, and I'm SO glad we did because it was WAY off the beaten path! The kids had a great day though! They learned a lot about working on the farm, the animals that live there, different kinds of pumpkins, and they even used a pumpkin to show how God cleans the "yucky stuff" (sin) out of us so Jesus can come in. It was really cool!

Kennedy had a great time grinding the corn, feeding the animals, picking her own pumpkin and of course getting in a little play time with some friends. We had some amazing Fall weather for our day too! It was just perfect! Here are some pictures of our day!

We got to hear a cool story about pumpkins and hear all about the farm!

(Kennedy's on the front row in the pink jacket)

I have to find the perfect pumpkin!

This one is beautiful!!

I'm going to chop up this corn!!!

Here it goes!!

It's hard work!!!

Now I throw the corn in this thing and it makes it all mushy...

Then I get to feed it to the cow!

Play time!!!

This is my stage... do I look like Hannah Montana?!

Can you believe they're making us mow the lawn?! (Just kidding!)

My friend Abby and I were slide racing!!

I'm gonna win!!

Let's just go together this time! :)

My mom and me before we left the farm. It was a fun day! :)

Faith & Trust!

2010-09-27T12:00:00.001-05:00

This week we will be talking about Faith & Trust, which means Believing that God will do what He says and believing in something that you cannot see.

Opposite: Disbelief; not trusting; hopeless

Memory Verse: Luke 1:37 Nothing is impossible for God.

This week we will be talking about the story of David & Goliath, which is one of my favorites! We are going to talk about how David had to have faith and trust God to go fight a big giant like Goliath. He believed that with God's help that he would beat him, even though he was little, and he did! We will probably have a movie night with Dave and the Giant Pickle and then I will teach them the "Only a Boy named David" song. We'll probably throw in a couple fun games as well! :)

More on this later!

Another Week Down...

2010-09-24T21:05:00.002-05:00

I haven't been keeping this blog updated as much as I planned on... we've had a crazy couple weeks! We're still staying mostly on track with Kennedy's school stuff, but we've had some "life" get in the way... a little bit of illness (not with the kids, just with me this time), a lot of car trouble, and just other junk. Thankfully, the good part about homeschooling is that we can play catch up in the evenings and on weekends if we have to, and we can do school just about anywhere... and trust me, we have! HA!

Kennedy's been doing really well with her math... she's catching on quickly. I'm thinking that I need to change my lesson plans a bit and move us ahead a little bit faster than I had planned. She's getting kind of bored, and so am I! She still seems to have a mental block against recognizing the numbers 11, 12 and 13. I'm not exactly sure why. She will count them when we're counting, but if I write those numbers down or show her those ones on flashcards, she just stares at them like she's never seen them before. If anyone reading this has any ideas on how to help her with that, besides just practice and more practice, let me know!

She has also been doing really well with her reading. Her book this week had a couple of her spelling words in it from previous weeks and I was wondering if she'd remember them and she just read right along! She's picking up on reading words quickly now. She started back up at the Reading Clinic at the Kennedy Center at Vanderbilt again as well. She went this Summer for a month-long intensive program, 4 days a week. This time it's 2 days a week until December. I'm hoping that will give her a little extra boost as well as maybe a little break from just me teaching her ;). In my mind she can never have too much reading practice!!

I haven't been very thrilled with the Social Studies curriculum we've been doing, it's kind of... well... boring. I think I'm going to move on to something else. Our homeschool group is taking a field trip next month to The Homeplace, so I'm looking forward to that! I think she'll enjoy learning all about all the different stuff they have there. I think I'm ready to move on to Science! HA!

Bible has definitely been one of our most fun subjects and I try to incorporate other subjects into our Bible lessons, like reading and math, and P.E. is always in there as we're always playing active games related to our character trait. :) Speaking of P.E., Kennedy started her ballet and tap class up again this week. Her dance studio started a day time class so we're not out late in the evenings which is perfect! She was so excited to get back to it and see some of her same friends from before in her class!

Today we went to our meeting for our homeschool group... Kennedy went off with the Kindergarten through 2nd graders and I went off with all the moms. I kept telling her, "OK I'm going to leave now... but I'll be back..." And she was pushing me out the door like, "GO already!" haha When I got back to pick her up she was running around with new friends and had made a beautiful piece of artwork during craft time! :) She said she had a lot of fun! It was nice for me, too, to talk to other moms and hear what they are doing with their kids. We are going with them next week on a field trip to the pumpkin patch, it should be fun! :)

Anyway, I guess that's about it. I still want to get pictures of our morning routine on here, because I do so enjoy doing that, but honestly, we haven't done it once all week! Kennedy's even asked about it a few times! I am hoping to be back in routine next week and on schedule! I'm loving working with Kennedy and watching her learn. :) It's been more fun than I ever could have imagined!

A Day at the Firehouse!

2010-09-22T21:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Kennedy got to go on a field trip with a bunch of other Kindergarten and First Grade children who are homeschooled in the area. It was a lot of fun! Kennedy is not shy at all and stepped right in with the other children. She told them her name, she handed one of the firemen the thank you card we made for them... and then she politely asked for it back. *ahem* And then we learned all about fire safety and the firehouse and fire trucks. I say "we" because I actually learned a lot too, which I found out later was the sneaky plan of our leader: pretend to teach the kids while secretly teaching the parents as well! Tricky tricky! :) hehe

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our day! It was especially cool because the fire inspector who lead our tour is the husband of one of Kennedy's Early Interventionists! :) It was neat to make the connection... and yes, we DO live in a small town!

Talking about calling 911 and the importance of knowing your address

Explaining the different parts of the fire truck... even the windshield wipers! hehe

Kennedy couldn't STAND it that the door was left open! LOL She fixed it!

In the firemen's bedroom. This was Kenn's favorite part,

though she was disturbed there were no blankets on the beds for the firemen! haha

My so NOT shy daughter!

Explaining the parts of the fire suit and seeing the fireman in gear so the kids

wouldn't be scared if they ever had to see a fireman during a fire.

The fire engine... lights and sirens going... Kennedy said it was "too loud!"

One last picture before we left the firehouse!

On our way out, the rescue truck got an emergency call, so we got to see them leave... quickly!

It was a great morning and we hope to see these kids again at future events!! They were all so cute and fun! Thanks Clarksville Fire & Rescue!! We appreciate it! :)

Attentiveness!

2010-09-20T13:00:00.001-05:00

This week's character trait is Attentiveness!
(Or, as we're going to say, "Pay attention!")

Attentiveness means listening by keeping your hands in your lap, mouth closed, ears listening and eyes watching!

Opposite: Distracted; busy; daydreaming

Memory Verse: Psalms 85:8 - I will listen to what God says.

This week we will be talking about paying attention. This is something we talk about constantly anyway. I am always saying, "You need to pay attention" or "You need to use listening ears". Kennedy is easily distracted by... well... just about anything. She has a hard time staying on task unless it's something she really wants to do! We have been working hard all Summer on the importance of listening the first time to mommy, grandma, teachers at church, or whoever else she needs to be listening to at the time, so while this won't be anything new to her, hopefully we can have some fun with it!

This week we will be talking about Samuel and how he heard God calling him, but he had to pay attention to hear Him. We have a fun game and craft to go along with that and will be reading from Samuel 3. We'll also be singing the song, "O Be Careful Little Eyes" which is one of my favorites from when I was little! Of course we'll be going over our memory verse every day and we are also going to play the "Pay Attention" game. I'll be sure to post pics of all that later! It's going to be another fun character filled week!

A Day at the Farm

2010-09-19T15:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday our family went to RiverView Mounds Farm. We used this day as a learning day for Kennedy and Keeghan. We talked about the animals that we saw: how their fur or feathers felt, what sounds they make, what kind of feet they have, if they had horns, and on and on. The kids had a lot of fun learning more about the animals and enjoyed feeding them and petting them (and naming them! haha). We even got to see baby chickens that were SO cute! Here are a few pictures from our day. There are more pictures posted on our family blog right here.

Watching the chickens... We got to hear them cluck.

Petting the goat... his fur was soft.

This was a cool llama

He came over to say hello... upclose and personal! LOL

Feeding the goat. Kennedy said his tongue was "tickley"

A really big turkey... Keeghan said we "can't eat him".

The chickens and rooster kept coming out of the cage!

This goat had big horns!

And a pig... he felt rough, and his nose was cold!

Saying one last goodbye to their goat friends.

Kennedy will be going to a different farm in a week or so with her homeschool group. It will be neat to see if there are any different animals there so we can add to our collection! :)

Lesson on Honesty...

2010-09-16T13:00:00.002-05:00

So yesterday afternoon we had a lesson on Honesty since that is our character trait of the week. This one has been a little harder for Kennedy and Keeghan to grasp than patience was. I don't think they really get what a lie is. We're working on it. We used this experiment to help explain.

The bowl is the world, and I filled it with water and then added pepper to represent people. The Q-Tip represents God.

Here we are showing how God wants all His people to come to Him...

(all the pepper is gathering to the Q-Tip)

But when we tell lies, things that are not true...

we are separated from God. We can't be near Him.

(all the pepper is scattering from the Q-Tip...

this side of the Q-Tip has a dab of dish soap on it, causing the pepper to scatter)

But when we tell the truth and we are honest...

We can come to Him again. And that's good, because we want to be near God.

They thought it was pretty cool and I think maybe have a better grasp of honesty. We talked again about how it's very important to always always always tell the truth!

A special thank you goes out to big sister Kassidy who was our photographer! :)

More later on the rest of the stuff we've been doing this week! It's been a crazy one!

Q&A #1

2010-09-14T15:00:00.003-05:00

BTW, this blog is looking just adorable! :-)
Thank you!!! A HUGE thank you goes out to my friend Rebecca for sprucing it up for me! She makes all my blogs look so pretty! :)

Ummmm are you really going to post a video of her singing her phone number...on your public blog???? ROFL
Hmmm OK yeah, maybe not! LOL But it's a REALLY cute song! haha Guess we'll have to find some other song for her to sing on video! LOL

Do you mind if I use some of your links on my blog? I am planning a Directory of Supplemental & Homeschool Education Websites next month. Don't know what I'm going to name it, but Starfall will be there, Dream English, DSFOC, and I would love to include these sites - with credit to you and Kennedy, of course!
Please! Feel free!!!

I have come to the conclusion that I simply cannot teach my children handwriting. I think even if I do it exactly how it's done by their teachers or the worksheets show it that it's just going to look different because I'm left handed and they are all right handed. Do you have that problem with any of your kids? Do any of them write with a different hand than you do?
LOL Yep!!! I'm left handed too and Kennedy is right handed! It's a pain in the butt! We're backwards from each other and I hold my pencil differently than she does. Drives me (and her) crazy!

How did you hear about all these things? Do you know someone in your area that already home schooled? Just wondering. I have been really thinking about trying this for at least Sam.
Thanks Renee!
I joined a yahoo group for homeschool families in our area. It has over 300 families on it! I've gotten a lot of information and stuff from it. It's been GREAT! From there I found a smaller group meets regularly and does all kinds of field trips and fun events together... even Mom's Night Out! I'm so excited to start going to these events!! :)

Are you using a phonics based reading curriculum or are you doing your own thing? Just curious...
We are kind of doing our own thing... we have an Abeka reading program that we're doing right now and then I just bought a phonics book that I'm going to integrate soon. We are also going to start doing a letter of the week. She knows all her letters and letter sounds, but we'll reinforce those and then work on blending sounds. I don't think she knows any of those, but I could be wrong. We haven't worked on them at all yet. We'll see!

is it me or not, kennedy seems a bit taller?
YES! She IS taller!!! She has grown about an inch and a half over the Summer! I'm curious to see what's going to happen when the weather cools down because she hasn't grown in width so I know that 4T pants are going to be WAY too big around, but I'm thinking her 3T pants from last year might be too short. I guess we'll find out before too much longer. Thank goodness for adjustable waists in most kids clothes, I guess! ;)

p.s. where did you get that desk? LOVE it!
We got it right here. We got one for Keeghan too. It was one of the best purchases we've ever made! There's lots of storage in it for all the books we're working on during the week, she keeps her glasses in there and then both kids have their own pencil boxes with crayons, scissors, pencils, glue sticks and of course chalk because the top of the desk is a chalk board! We only let them use it for school time though... That way they know when they sit there it's time to work, not play.

Not sure if this is true in TN, but I don't see why it would be different. If you are having a hard time finding a book in your local library, but you can find it in another library in the state (by looking online usually) then you can get it shipped to the local library. Do you ask the library if any other libraries have these books? I've been able to get books my library doesn't have shipped from other libraries at no cost to me so you should be able to do the same.
I haven't asked... but I will start and see what they say!! :)

Honesty!

2010-09-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

This week's character trait is Honesty!

Honesty means telling the whole truth.
Opposite: Lying.

Memory verse: Psalm 34:13 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.

This week we will be talking about honesty and what it means to tell the truth. We will play the true vs. not true game. I will make statements and Kennedy and Keeghan will have to tell me whether or not they are true. For example I will say, "The sky is red." And they will have to say, "Not true!" Then I will say, "We see with our eyes." And (hopefully) they will say, "True!" We also have one other game involving a Q-Tip and pepper, but I'll have to post about that later with pictures.

We will be reading a couple stories this week... I had two planned, but couldn't find either one at our library (which is becoming a common problem!) so I will look for more. Hopefully they will understand that it is very important to always tell the truth!

Finishing up our week...

2010-09-12T15:00:00.013-05:00

We are done with another week of homeschool! Kennedy is getting more and more confident with her math worksheets that we are doing. We just started a new set of pages where she has to color in the right number of circles to correspond with the number on the left... for example, there will be ten empty circles and the number on the left will say 7. So she will have to count out 7 circles and color them in. This reinforces counting, identifying numbers, following directions, coloring inside the lines, and she got to pick her own color crayon for each page. She already knows her colors, but it's still good reinforcement!

She was able to do this pretty much on her own, which is good! I don't want to have to always be right next to her, urging her on. I kind of walked away today and let her be just to see what would happen. She did her page all right, but I was surprised to see that she didn't color all the circles right in a row for some of the numbers. She just picked 7 random circles to color. Shows creativity, I think! Here's a picture of her doing her math.

We finished up the book I Can! this week. I have to say, I might miss it a little. It was very encouraging! haha We'll move on to another book on Monday with a new set of spelling words. She also read three books this week on Raz-Kids. She's really enjoying these little interactive books. For each book she reads, she earns points and she can redeem them at an online store... we haven't done that yet, but we will soon! :)

We'll have a new character trait next week too, for Bible. To finish up this week's trait of Patience, we read the story of Abraham and Sarah and how they waited and waited and waited for a baby. God told them to be patient and He would give them one. Sure enough they were given baby Isaac when they were very, very, very old. :) (To which Keeghan asked, "Old like YOU, Mommy?!"... uhhh... sure. LOL)

Then we had some fun... I set a timer for 30 seconds and told the kids we had to sit quietly and be patient until it rang. We all sat with our hands in our laps and didn't say a word. And let me tell you, it felt like forever! haha After that we played the "Wait and Go" game (aka Red Light, Green Light). Keeghan and Kennedy both got a kick out of it. When I said, "Wait" they had to stop and be patient. I made them wait for quite awhile sometimes too! ;) I think we had a lot of fun learning about patience this week! Here's a picture of them playing "Wait and Go". They were waiting here! haha

Be sure to check back in next week for more fun stuff. I'm going to try to remember to take pictures of our morning weather time routine! It's lots of fun! :)

Mission Craft Day!

2010-09-11T15:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we went to our first event with our new homeschool group! They had a Mission Craft Day at the church here who sponsors them. There were a lot of kids there of all ages and they all seemed to be having a lot of fun! :) Kennedy had a BLAST! She got to paint, color, stamp, decorate, fill bags and run around with new friends. Here are a few pictures of her... none of the other kids though because I don't have permission to post them.

Painting a sun catcher for one of the retirement homes in town

Isn't it a cute fish?!

Making thank you cards for the preschool child care workers

Decorating bags which she then filled with items to be handed out to the homeless

She also decorated a hat which will be sent to missionaries in Africa, but somehow I missed getting a picture of that. Keeghan had a great time in the preschool area too! He didn't want to leave, in fact! LOL We look forward to our next meeting with them in a couple weeks. :)

Sinking in!

2010-09-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

I'm loving watching things sink in with Kennedy and Keeghan that we're working on this week!! In math we've been doing flashcards for the numbers 1-20 every day. The cards have the number and then the word written below. Kennedy knows 1-10 and Keeghan knows 1-8 but after that it was a free-for-all for both kids. Yesterday and today though, something "clicked" with Kennedy that the 1 in front of most of the other numbers means you add a "teen" to the end. She was SO excited today when she got 14, 16, 17, 18 and 19 right every time! :) She even got 20 right once! I really wish whoever named the numbers could have just been consistent. How hard would it have been to have a twoteen, threeteen and fiveteen huh?! Sheesh! ;) She's been doing well with her counting past 11 as well too... we still have some work to do, but we're getting there!

In reading and spelling I have coordinated Kennedy's words so her spelling words come right out of this week's story. As we're reading the story, whenever she comes to a spelling word, she'll stop and say, "That's a word on the board!" Yep!!! And then we'll stop the story and spell the word. We look for those words out in real life, too. She's so excited whenever we manage to find one. She also spells them every day as she traces them... she doesn't like the tracing part so much, but she enjoys the spelling! :)

As you know, we're talking about patience this week in Bible. Tonight at dinner, Keeghan asked for some milk and I told him he would have to wait until everyone's food was served and then I would get him some. He said, "OK Mommy, I'll be patient... that means I'll wait quietly and not whine!" And then he did it! I was thinking, "woohooo!" When I finally gave him his milk, I thanked him for waiting so patiently and told him that I was so proud of him and so was God!

At least I know they're absorbing something I say! :) We are looking forward to going to her first 4H meeting tomorrow. I bet it's going to be a lot of fun!

Just for the Record

2010-09-07T17:25:00.001-05:00

Anonymous comments will not be published or addressed on this blog. Even if you do not have a google account or anything else required to sign in, you can still leave a name. I'm done with anonymous negative comments and will no longer be dealing with them. Have a nice day. :)

Our calendar is filling up!

2010-09-07T12:00:00.001-05:00

So, I am putting this here more for my benefit than anything else so I can come back and look on it when I forget! ;) But our homeschool calendar is filling up fast! Clarksville really has a very active homeschool community and we are so excited to be getting plugged in! :) There are lots of opportunities here for Kennedy to make friends and get involved in different things. Here's what we have coming up in this month.

Every Thursday at 10:30 our library has a homeschool story hour. We look forward to trying this out next week. We missed last week because Kameron was home sick, and we already have an appointment this week.

On September 9th (This Thursday) is the first monthly meeting for the 4H Cloverbuds which is a homeschool group for kids Kindergarten - 3rd grade who want to participate in 4H. They won't be showing animals or anything, this is all educational. I think this month they are learning about apples. They do crafts, have a snack and learn a lesson each month.

On September 10 (This Friday), we will be going to a Missions Craft Day where the kids will be making suncatchers for Montgomery Care and Rehabilitation Center residents. We will be decorating ball caps to send to Kenya missionaries and we will also be packing bags for the homeless as well as thank you goodie bags for our childcare workers.

On September 21st We will be going on a field trip to the Fire Station to learn about fire safety and see all the cool stuff there. I have heard there is a big group of young kids going to this, so I know Kennedy's going to have a great time!

On September 29th We will be going to Christian Way Farm where we will learn about the animals there and the crops, the kids will get a pumpkin and learn a Bible story. They also have a corn maze and other fun stuff to do. We've never been to this one before so I'm excited to check it out! :)

Anyway, that's about it! We are having a good week so far, we did school yesterday even though the other 4 had the day off, but we have some lost time to make up for, so this will help! Kennedy is working on writing (tracing) her spelling words right now and then we're going to do her reading story and then... lunch time! YAY! :) Hope you're all having a good day!

Patience!

2010-09-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

This week in Bible we are learning about Patience! I am forever saying to my children, especially Keeghan and Kennedy, "Patience grasshopper!" (Not sure where that came from, but I've been saying it for years! LOL) When my kids want something, they want it now! (But don't we all?!)

Patience means waiting quietly and not whining.
Opposite: Impatient, not waiting.

Bible verse for the week: Ephesians 4:2 Be patient bearing with one another in love.

Each day we will go over our memory verse. Then we will talk about what patience means, how we can show patience to others by taking turns and waiting our turn. We will play games that require taking turns and waiting nicely.

We will read the story in Genesis of Sarah and Abraham and how they waited for so long for God to give them a baby that they wanted so badly and we will sing one of my favorite Be Patient songs from when I was a kid... it goes like this:

"Be patient
Be patient
Don't be in such a hurry
When you get impatient
You only start to worry
Remember, remember
That God is patient too
So think of all the times that others
Have to wait on YOU!"

Check back next week for our next character trait! :)

Make your own worksheets!

2010-09-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

The Internet is full of all kinds of wonderful resources. Kennedy is struggling the most with her handwriting. I know a bunch of you are going to suggest Handwriting Without Tears, but I'm just not a big fan of that program. I've tried it and it just doesn't seem to work for us. I'm not sure what is going to work for us yet, so right now, it's just trial and error. I found this great worksheet maker online where you can plug in any word(s) you want and you can make your own worksheets for kids to trace. Best of all, it's FREE! I made some with Kennedy's first name, her first and last name, and then pages with her spelling words for each week all for writing practice... and then of course it will help when it comes to spelling test time as well! I'm hoping this will help her in a bunch of different areas. We'll see! :)

Here's another great site for making your own flashcards and they also have handwriting practice from printing all the way to cursive! This site is free as well, be sure to check it out! There's a lot on here for older kids too!

Finally!

2010-09-01T13:00:00.001-05:00

Well this blog has been sitting here begging for me to write on it, but life has been getting in the way! Kassidy and Kameron started school almost a month ago... hard to believe that much time has flown already! They started on August 6th. Kellsey started full time in her preschool the following Monday and Keeghan started Mother's Day Out the following Tuesday.

Kennedy and I took that first week to get ourselves organized. We set up our school area, got library cards, ran to the teacher store a few times to get things I still wanted but hadn't had a chance to buy yet, and just took some time to breathe while the other kids got used to the chaos of school. At night while the kids were sleeping, I started formulating my lesson plans and getting ready. That took a little longer than I expected! HA! I finally got enrolled in an umbrella school, we are going with Home Life Academy. I have several friends going through them and they have been very happy there. I got my lesson plans done through the end of October, and then my grandfather passed away somewhat unexpectedly, so that threw us off a bit again. Kennedy and I flew out to California to be at his memorial service. I did take some work with us and we got a few days worth done there, but now we are finally ready to get going full time, and I'm excited! :)

Clarksville has a HUGE homeschool population and we are slowly getting plugged into the social stuff. Tomorrow we will be going to the Library for story hour for children who homeschool. There is also a local church here who has a lot of activities that I am looking forward to getting her plugged into. 4H also meets once a month and I think she will enjoy that as well. She will still be doing dance, too, of course.

Today we did some review on math, she is working on number books which get progressively harder as the weeks go on. This week's was really easy... basic counting. She breezed right through it, but that's ok! And we're working on flashcards 1-20 everyday. She knows 1-11, but after that she gets a little fuzzy, especially with 12-15 for some reason. She'll have it down before long though.

In writing this week she's doing letters A-E, one letter every day. In reading she is doing the book What Can I See? which is a Scholastic Reader and online through Raz-kids she did the story My Family today and she'll do another story on Friday. These are interactive books much like the accelerated reader program she had at school last year. She was really excited to do these! :)

Her spelling words this week are: "see, ant, bee, one & me" which coordinate with her reading story. I will give her a verbal test on Friday. In Social Studies we are doing a book called Can You Find Me and it is all about reasoning and making good choices and building thinking skills. She's doing really well with it! We only do Social Studies twice a week. We're not doing Bible this week since it's a short week due to just getting back from California, but I'll talk more about that next week. :)

Every morning we look at our big calendar and talk about the month, the date, the day of the week, the season and then we go outside and talk about the weather. Silly girl insisted it was snowing today. She was giggling though so I knew she was just trying to pull my leg! Hopefully we won't have to put up our "snowing" picture too many days this year! ;) Then we sing our "phone number song" before we start our day. Once she gets it down I will be sure to get that on here for you all to hear! :)

Anyway, that's about it for now. I will take some pictures and video of our time together in the future. I think we are going to have a fabulous year!

Welcome to school!

2010-07-31T23:40:00.000-05:00

As you know, Kennedy and I are about to embark on our homeschool journey together! I thought it would be a good idea to create a separate blog to chronicle our adventures together. I plan on posting pictures and videos and just information about what we're up to at different times. We hope you will follow along, it's going to be a lot of fun! :) See you on the first day of school! :)