our Curriculum Choices

The Summer surely is approaching fast and I'm so excited to proudly announce that my little cheetah racer is officially signed up for kindergarten for the following Semester !! He is learning how to read for quiet some time now and anyway with our home schooled Leap Creature in 1st grade it's almost silly saying that my Kindergardener  "starts" classes this fall. But anyway it's official and I'm SO excited. We picked up school material for both of the boys and then the big scrambling will start about putting lesson plans together etc. Can't wait !!


Also do I have no idea about how to teach two boys since one alone is already very time consuming but.. all I know is.. that I'm excited. We always pick our school materials before the summer holidays so the funny thing is, right when it's time to actually wind down and go into relaxing mode, I see all the new school material for the next school year and feel like: How can we just not study now having all the new exciting books etc. !! haha.. well we all do need a break but I doubt that it'll really last more than about a month.

Great Homeschool Convention California

I received an email from one of Leap Creature's school friends kind mom about the California Homeschool Convention and I thought to myself that I'd really like to go but my husband would never agree to drive all the way to Long Beach for a day, with the kids and the traffic etc. and his first answer sure enough was: LONG BEACH? on MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND?! and I went on saying yes, yes I know I know.. just thought I'd share that there is a great convention up there this weekend.. 

Still on Planet Earth

I feel like I've been on some other planet for the last month or longer.. Definitely not on blogger.com !! What have I been doing? I love to sew, so I caught up with some orders I had. I decided to finally, after years pick up on drawing again. It's been over 8 or so years !!! Yes, we,ve been homeschooling too haha.. But more a bit finishing, rounding up what we've started. Doing small day by day lessons and last but not least we're currently enjoying my stepdad's visit. Last time I saw him my Leapcreature was almost one and now he's 7.. You do the math.. To make a long story short I believe I did a couple of things that make me happy to be able to keep doing what I have to on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong I'm very happy, just trying to have "me" not going under amongst the homeschooling, housework, teaching, disciplining etc etc mom!! Get the picture? Knew you would. Some people ask me how do you find time to do all these things next to everything you have to do?! Well I am absolutely selfish enough to make time for me being ME!!

Myriam

 ps: the absolutely stunning picture was taken by my uncle, you can find more of his work over at http://www.africawild.com/

Our Weekly Wrap Up April #1 "Back to School"

Our week of Spring Break was fabulous, loved it. And so was our first week of school. As I am writing Our Weekly WrapUps I realize that most of the time I'm leaving a positive feedback.. *smile* which is great because about 6 months ago I soo wanted to throw in the towel !! Our Highlight this Week was Monday, yep that's right Monday! Early morning I decided we'd start with a Field Trip to La Jolla in search of Tide Pools, our new Theme. It was a great first day and Leap Creature was asking me if we could always start our first monday after holidays with a Field Trip. I hope I can fulfill my promise but I said that: why not. I think the first monday is always a bit slow, might as well enjoy it to the fullest. Other than that we reviewed numbers up to 9000 (left) and even added some of these very big numbers. (right)

For Language Arts Leap Creature read Magic Treehouse books, took Quizzes at the Book adventure webpage. We started spelling Checks and continued his Cursive Practice which he's doing a real fantastic job with. On friday he was again looking forward for his school day for he saw his friends again, so I'll say it again, GREAT WEEK !!

Wishing all a great Weekend,

Myriam 

Tide Pool Field Trip

It is Monday morning and we started off with a Field Trip to La Jolla Beach in search of some Tide Pools for our new Science Theme. I couldn't have thought of a better way to start school after our fantastic week of Spring Break. Of course the attention span was minimal. (can you blame them?) We did get to a look at quiet a few Tide Pools though and they're magic with all their little creatures.

Science Festival & Spring Break

The science Festival last Saturday was great, we all saw a lot, held, felt and walked a lot. The weather was perfect we couldn't have asked for anything more. Of course we went to see the Art Project "Volcano a-Go-Go" Leap Creature was working on together with all of their Art Teacher's Students. The boys collected solar beads, held snakes, lizards, raced cars and took pictures with a humongous Sid the Science Kid *smile*. At the end of the day after dinner Leap Creature realized we didn't do any school today and states: Mommy we didn't even learn nothing today! I reassured him that even though it might didn't feel like it that he learned TONS today!!

Which Curriculum did NOT work for us

This Weeks' Link Up Topic on hsclassroom is "What curriculum or resource just didn't work for your family? When reading the topic I almost started laughing out hysterically. Why? Because I'm still trying to figure out what actually works for us !! Kindergarten came and went and was really neat to teach. Most of the Subjects came with unit studies where there was a booklet with worksheets, suggested activities related to the topic where it was so simple to just add whatever we felt like learning and however long we wanted to stick to that topic. We all enjoyed the time together, I loved getting to know my boys from another perspective, I started to really LOVE teaching, specially preparing fun lessons (which I had no idea I'd have within me) and it helped me big time to have more patience, tolerance with all my boys on a daily basis.