SCHOOL DAYS

SIMPLIFYING AGAIN
After having counters on all our blogs, it seems that it would be better for me to just post everything on one blog. So, I am going back to one blog and I thought I would update the look every month based on the season or the months event. So, this month being the beginning of a new school year, I will have a school theme. I guess this is where the scrapbooker comes out in me. I want to creat new cute pages. The following enteries came from our School Days blog. So some of the it you may have read and some you may not have.

STARTING SCHOOL ON TUESDAY (from 8/30/08)
During the last two years, or has it been longer, we have done a co-op with some good friends the Davenports. Due to a difficult pregnancy and being on bed rest, we will not be doing a co-op this year. But, since we are trying to cram a lot more school into a shorter period of time, this could be good for us. We are wanting to finish school by the end of March because we are moving to Mexico as full time missionaries in April. Jonathan will miss not seeing Adam and Joe every week though.

This year we are trying out new curriculum. Because we are moving to Mexico, I won't have the advantage of the local homeschool curriculum store any more so we are trying Alpha Omega Life Pacs and Switched on Schoolhouse. I have used these before so I am familiar with both of them. I have also talked to one of the mom's in Mexico where we will be living and it is the curriculum that some of the other homeschoolers use there. We will be doing the basic Bible, Math, Language, Science and History and then also we will be doing Spanish. Needless to say, our days will be full.

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL (from 9/2/08)
We just finished our first day of school for this year. It started out rather well, turned a bit rough and then got better. But, we finished all our work for today which is very good since we are doing extra work these first couple months. I hope everyone else had a good first day if you started today.

HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE (from 9/4/08)



Erin had a science experiment to do for her school work today. She was not aware that I had science equipment like a microscope, beakers, test tubes, etc. Both her and Jonathan were very excited to see. The experiment she needed to do involved a microscope which was fun but then they decided to do some of their own experiments. Jonathan said he wanted to do something with baking soda and water. Of course, I knew what he was wanting to do and I knew that the water would not work. But when we tried vinegar, there were shouts and screams of excitement!

We tried to video tape it but I am not having success with YouTube today. The kids tried to see if regular white vinegar and apple cider vinegar worked the same and they found out that they do.

ADJUSTING OUR SCHEDULE (from 9-8-08)
Well, with our first week of school finished we are now entering our second week. I am discovering that starting the kids with double work in the first week of school is not always the wisest thing to do. By the end of the week, last week, I was discouraged and so were the kids. So, we are slowing down a bit and trying to do some things together which makes school so much more enjoyable. We are also making use of a timer which really helps in accomplishing things in a timely manner. No pun intended. We set a timer for 20 minutes and they work on a subject until the timer goes off and then get a short break. This helps me too, since if they are on a time limit, they don't fool around as much. It keeps them focused and gives me a few minutes without nagging to fold some laundry or do some dishes. So, that's where we are right now.