Nature Hunt

(can you tell my camera is broken.. Stole this picture from here)

Keeping with our theme of "Trees" for the week. We went on a nature hunt in our back and front yard. It was fun. We found different color leaves and different shaped leaves. We added flowers also.

After we gathered our findings, we came inside and laminated them. We are going to use them as bookmarks! We then discussed leaves in more details and talked about Chlorophyll.

Fun and easy! Adding these fun things into our school day is making school so much more fun for the girls, and me!!

More Crafts Please!!!

School has official started again. Though, we only took a week and 1/2 off. I've changed a bunch of the things around in schooling. So I thought I'd give myself a break long enough to get some planning done. Since the schools here official started on Monday, we decided that was our official day too.

To start the school year off (and to celebrate my hubby's birthday) we went to the zoo.
Today, was our first academic day. It went great!

Each day we are going to do some basics. These include reading, math, calendar/weather, and Emily's daily language practice.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Emily does her history book, then we all do a craft or fun activity around the history subject. This way Hannah gets a little bit of history in as well. Then we do science. We have a weekly theme that I have planned out. On Mondays and Fridays we'll learn about the subject. On Wednesday I have a cooking project to go with the subject. This week is trees/leave. On Wednesday we are going to make tree shaped cookies. We also do spelling on these days. We do the worksheet on Monday. Hannah does tracing the words on Wednesday while Emily writes sentences using the words. Then on Friday, Hannah plays memory with the words, and Emily is tested on the words. We are using sight words right now. However I did get a spelling book for Emily that we'll add to the sight words for her spelling list, when it comes in.

On Tuesday and Fridays we do geography, read from our anatomy book, and do a craft. I'm also going to add other daily living stuff into it. I'm hoping to do things like shoe tying and such (can't think of more examples, but I do have a list).

I also decided that it would be fun to add a sport theme each month. That way on Tuesday and Thursdays we can learn about that sport and play games about it. It'll be more about learning things like catching and throwing then facts about the sport. I think we're going to start with baseball. We'll play different catch games and we'll learn how to catch and throw better. This my hubby will be able to help a lot more with. Which will be good for all of us!

That's kind of how our year is outline. I'm excited with the idea of more crafts, because we all love them a ton. Today we learned about the statue of liberty for Emily's history. And we made the cute paper plate crowns shown in the picture at the top. Got the great idea from here.

Why I want to homeschool?

Yesterday we were at the doctor's office for Abigail. We were waiting for her to get her x-rays done (born with DDH, and needs x-rays once a year). Hannah was looking around and saw a sign and read "bone dens" She couldn't figure out the rest of it, it was "bone density." I wanted to scream, I was so happy! That's a hard word, and we're not to silent e's yet. It was one of the moments that made me thing "she's getting it!"

Then we were reading scriptures. We let each girl read one scripture with help. Emily normally does pretty well. Hannah struggles, because she isn't quite at reading scripture level. However she surprised me and read "brethren" herself. Another moment I just want to shout with joy!

Can you imagine having someone else getting to share these moments with your kids? I'm glad I get to be her teacher. Yes, it's hard sometimes. But the success moments are totally worth it!

Official

So, I'm starting to get nervous yet excited.

I officially withdrew the registration we had filled out in May. We are officially not putting Emily in kindergarten.

I don't know why making it official seems so scary to me. We know it's the right thing for our family.

So. Now that that is out of the way... I'm excited about the things I have planned. I have a good amount of schooling planned out. It's still going to be trial and error for a while but I have high hopes for the things were doing to turn out awesome. I have planned a ton of crafts to go along with Emily's history. Which makes me even more excited!

There are some stuff I still haven't planned out even. I really want to make sure to include a lot more fun stuff during our day. I just need to get everything set up in a routine better and get things going. There's just so many ideas I have, and I need to put them out on paper!!