Finalized Plan for 09/10

I "Planned My CM Education" and had decided that our first official day of school would be on September 1. I did that to wait on the baby, but I've since gone back on that and decided to go ahead and start August 3rd. He's not due til the end of the month and there's no sense in NOT counting the days we school up until he's born. Right? :)

School starts on Monday and here's the plan:

ALL CHILDREN:
MFW Creation to the Greeks ~ Bible, History, Science, Literature
Vivaldi, Bach, Handel ~ Composer Study in CtG, but will be making it a little more in depth
Art Adventures at Home ~ Art Instruction
A Child's History of Art ~ Art Appreciation
Hymns for a Kid's Heart ~ Hymn Study

*B* & *C* TOGETHER:
English From the Roots Up ~ Greek Roots as per CtG
Latin's Not So Tough 2, Matin Latin 1, Minimus ~ Latin
Ecoutez, Parlez! ~ French
Greek Alphabet Code Cracker, MUS Demo ~ Greek Alphabet
Dance Mat Typing ~ Typing

*B* 4th Grade:
Singapore PM 3A/B (hopefully 4A) ~ Math
LLATL Orange (Original Edition) ~ Language Arts/Grammar
Writing Strands 3, Imitation in Writing Aesop ~ Writing/Composition
Upper Grammar Literature Book 1 ~ Literature Study

*C* 3rd Grade:
Singapore PM 2A/B (probably 3A) ~ Math
LLATL Yellow (Original Edition) ~ Language Arts/Grammar
Spectrum Spelling 3, Natural Speller ~ Spelling
Beginning Literature Book II ~ Literature Study

*T* 1st Grade:
R&S Beginning Arithmetic, Singapore PM 1A ~ Math
LLATL Blue (Original Edition) ~ Language Arts/Phonics/Literature

I have Keepers at Home and Contenders for the Faith and would like to incorporate those eventually.

Copywork (cursive or manuscript, depending on level) will probably be done mostly with our Bible Memory Verses. I'll probably write out the models. I'd like to buy Educational Fontware and use BJU's Cursive font. I'll be using BJU's Precursive Font for *T* to copy manuscript.

Ripley's Aquarium ~ Gatlinburg

My mom and memaw came in town for a visit. They brought my adopted sister (9.5) and 2 nephews (6 & 5). My mom had 2 beanie babies for each kid... even the baby.



Yesterday (July 29) we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. We had so much fun! And as a side note: Homeschool Admission Price is $7 per person.

Here's the gang! Back row: Me, *L*, Mike, Memaw, Mom (aka Nana)
Front row: *T*, *B*, 5yo nephew, *C*, 6yo nephew, and *O* my little sis.



And some more pictures:



This was so neat, it looks like the US Flag.



They had a moving conveyor belt floor that went through a glass tunnel where you could see all of the fish.



Can you see the scratches? They're from a shark attack!



I was pushing Memaw in the wheelchair, while she was holding *L*.



Awesome pictures that Mike took:





... and a little boy who couldn't make it through his lollipop.

New Shoes for Bigfoot

So, here's the little guys new shoes. He picked them out himself and he LOVES them! Guess what size they are!?! Remember, he's 2 1/2 years old... give up? Size 9! I told my husband that we were going to have to call the tabloids and report our sighting of Bigfoot!



And now that he's going potty (YAY!!) this is his favorite outfit:

Home Sewn Baby Sling

First I have to get the technicals out of the way... I got the pattern and all of the instructions from here:


I bought my rings from Sing Rings, and my fabric from JoAnn Online. Hmm, it seems they are out of the fabric I bought, but the link takes you to the Snuggle Flannel, which is what I used.

Ok, the fun part! Here are some pics of my sling. :)

I wasn't using *my* machine, so I'll blame the ugly stitches on that. I put in 1 straight stitch and 3 zig zag stitches. I wanted to make sure it was NOT going to come apart.



I used gold thread for sewing jeans. I wanted it to be extra strong. I did run out of thread though, I had no idea that I would use an entire spool! So the very bottom hem is dark brown.



Here is me wearing it. I know it's not threaded right, and the rings should be closer to my shoulder. I just put it on to model it for Mike and then he didn't believe that I could use it for *L*... if I wanted to.

Ranger Kids Field Day

The boys went up to Hillsville, VA for the Field Day. They had a blast!! Mostly they swam, but they also had water slides, paddle boats and a few other activities. They were fed lunch and at the end of the day they got to make tie dye t-shirts. (I'll insert pics of those in a day or so.)

Our Pastor has been involved in Royal Rangers for 34 years now. He really wanted to go with the boys, but because of the recent stroke he wasn't able to go. The boys made a t-shirt for Pastor Jim and presented it to him at church Sunday night.

Update July 10

As of today, we officially have 179 of the required 180 days for the 2008/2009 school year.

I had originally planned to officially start our next school year in September, but realized that it would really work better for us to keep it at August 1. We're in a "school mode" right now and even though I'm 7 weeks away from BABY DAY, I would hate to miss counting those days toward next year.

If you remember, last week I planned out the 2009/2010 School Year. In those plans I expected that *B* would finish Singapore 2B, *C* would get to Review 2 in 2A, and Latin's Not So Tough 1 would be completed. So, that's what we've been working on.

LNST 1:
Pages 73-80 (ui, review, bs, bt)

*C* PM 2A: Exercises 8-16

*B* PM 2B:
I mixed up her schedule a bit. I didn't want to bombard her with all of the "hard" stuff at once. (Mainly multiplication facts.) So, over the next few weeks she's doing a little multiplication every day and the rest of the book out of order. This week she did - Review 1 & exercises 13-16, 24-31, 40-45. (x4, money, fractions)

I've also discovered Timez Attack! It's a free video/computer game that teaches the multiplication facts 2-12. We don't have/play video games so this was a BIG treat. They begged every single day to play it.

*T* got jealous so I checked into

and he thinks it's God's gift to children. :)

Beautiful Sunset

Freedom Festival 2009

Our church sponsors an event every July 4th. We're situated on a pretty busy street in town, so lots of people saw what was going on!

We love Rick Strickland, so we were super excited that he came! He even took the kids on a parade around the yard.

*L* with his "adopted" Mamaw. He loves her so much!

Planning My CM Education

I bought the Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education ebook a while ago. Just this week I started to really get down to business with it. I just have to say that it really really helped me break the year up and set some goals. Even if you're not planning a CMish school year, it would still be an invaluable resource.

I'm not going to go into great detail (since that would give away the whole book) but I'll tell a little about what I did.

From the Table of Contents:
Step 1: Big Picture
Step 2: Your Year
Step 3: Your Term
Step 4: Your Week
Step 5: Your Day

BIG PICTURE: This helped me put everything into perspective. I laid everything out that was required for graduation, or that was just important to me.

YOUR YEAR: First of all, I had to find a calendar that I really liked. (Why do I have to be so picky?) So after a while of searching I made my own.
eta: I've had a few requests for the calendar...
Blank Calendars: Aug 2009 - Jul 2010 or Sep 2009 - Aug 2010



The orange boxes are scheduled days off. I used this chart to make sure that our year was a more balanced, year round approach.

YOUR TERM: I broke the year and curricula into terms/quarters/semesters.

YOUR WEEK: Basically used the info on the website, but a little more in depth.

YOUR DAY: I just recently (also this week) put together my MOTH schedule, so I already knew which hours I would do school. All I had left to do was schedule those 4 hours.

I highly recommend this book!