Meet MacyJade~

SO.... school in June is just not panning out like I had planned 

but the things happening are way more important in my opinion.

On Tuesday evening Scott and I surprised the kids with a new puppy

MacyJade~

 Now THIS is a subject we are ALL interested in and she has been a perfect addition.

EK, SJ, and I took her to the vet which could be considered a field trip, right?~

I had been reading the kids a book called A Dog's Life for read aloud which they love

and the vet suggested we read The Puppy Primer~

 Yesterday I walked in on EK reading to Macy about dog breeds

and today while Macy is sleeping close by~

I find EK reading our read aloud to herself SO...

maybe June is turning out BETTER than I had planned.

Sometimes unplanned is a better plan.

Thankful for our sweet MacyJade!!!

Pet Schooling~

Shiloh, our new pet turtle that Hayden found us, has stolen the show for the last couple of days

so what do but bring her in to help school the kids~

 We made observations~

 And read lots of books~

It was a good Pet Schooling morning!

Lazy Days of Summer~

I will have to say we aren't staying very scheduled each day but

Hayden found the kids a turtle~

which has gone right along with our Science book we are trying to finish by end of June!

EK named her Shiloh:)

We are also beginning the Character study from Beautiful Feet and began

A Time to Wonder today~

The lunch table seems to be a captive spot!

Gardening~

Our garden is growing so well with all the rain we have had and we are picking everyday~

We have been reading all the Beatrix Potter's stories and had a drawing lesson~

LOVE that SJ is willing to read to her younger sibs when they ask~

They adore her!!!

A Summer Schedule~

With a year round school philosophy,

we are free to go on trips or appts with no concern for school days

plus take a more relaxed approach to our summer work time.

We are beginning our summer schedule with a shorter morning work time

and way more play time~

They even made up their own corn hole game with bean bags and hula hoops~

A great first day back to the new Summer Schedule!

Beach Schooling~

Since we school year round, I wasn't too concerned with getting much done

but I did bring our journals and a few ocean books~

 One of our favorite books was Seashells by the Seashore

and it had this really cool shell card we could take out for shell collecting~

There was always something to look up with all the creatures EK found~

There was a lot of learning going on even with no plan...

and can I just say they were teaching ME. 

(not the other way around :)

Summer Schedule~ {FIAR: The Bee Tree}

We have two college girls already home for the summer

and it just made sense that we would embrace a summer schedule as well.

Year round school works for our family and children because...

1. we thrive on a schedule

2. allows us time off whenever needed

3. learning never stops anyway!!!

Our summer schedule started this week with a three days (Tues, Wed, & Thurs) on

and two days for free choice learning (well four if you count the weekend).

I am learning I am a rabbit trail kind of homeschooler with a twist of Charlotte Mason and smidge of unschooling as well.

What all that means is I am very likely to take something happening in real life

and twist our learning all the way around it with lots of idea spinoffs...

Thus The Bee Tree!

This week we embraced all things honeybee as a spinoff from our field trip

to Blue Haven Bee Company last week~

It just made sense for us to learn as much about the amazing honeybee as possible

and to do that we read

The Bee Tree by Patricia Polaco~

 We loved reading about honey even in the Bible!

How sweet are Your words to my taste,

Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

Two sources I gather ideas from is the FIAR manual and a website Homeschooling Share 

and both suggested we study Michigan since that is where the story takes place.

We did using this 50 States book and then compared to our state of Georgia~

 We LOVED learning the Honeybee is OUR state insect!!!

That called for a honey video, life cycle study, and honey snack of course~

 We finished this day of schooling out on our breezeway and ended up lunching out as well~

The next day we watched our story read via YouTube and also a piece about Polaco as well~

Loved using Google Earth to zoom in on some favorite places near us!

 Our lesson was All About Georgia (unit from my teaching days)

where we traced the outline, labeled famous sites, and discovered landforms~

Today we enjoyed a wonderful math lesson.

I found this hexagon sheet @ Homeschool Share along with color blocks.

I had them cut the hexagons out and glue into their journal~

 I made up a game where they rolled a dice and had to create a hexagon with that number of shapes.

If they had already used an amount, they rolled again until 1-6 was complete.

I was pleasantly surprised how fast they caught on and wanted to play over and over~

 I thought this might go right over the bitty girls' heads but Evie left the room

and came back with one of our Magformers and said, "I found another hexagon!"

Bam! Living her learning!!!~

 Once they had created with real pattern blocks, we used paper ones to glue down~

 The whole reason for this lesson is quite amazing...

God gave honeybees the knowledge to make their cells in the form of a hexaagon~

Isn't God SO amazing!!!!!

Thankful for honeybees and the yummy honey they make!

Week done and that's a wrap.

Painting our Work~

For the past week, Evie hasn't really been excited to learn about honeybees

and it has been a struggle to keep her 'entertained'.

I saw this idea of name painting on IG and both girls LOVED it~

'Others' showed watercolor envy SO we all pulled out our watercolors

and painted whatever we were working on!

After all, Explode the Code can be pretty boring day after day with only

a pencil, crayons, or markers.

Turned into a pretty colorful day!!!

A Day @ the Park~

Today we took school to the park.

We got there, spread our blanket, and read aloud for a little while

and spent the rest of the time~

 Playing...

 Walking and even saw Amy, Addie, & Slate~

 Came home for a picnic lunch, afternoon of swimming,

 and the mosquitoes are SO bad, the bandit had to smoke them out.

We will see if it helps!

From Shapes/Colors to Fractions~

This time of year we love reading all of Eric Carle's beautiful books

especially The Very Hungry Caterpillar for many reasons...

~ beautiful art projects

~ learning about insects

~ repetitive text for young readers, etc...

While reading, we noticed lots of colors and shapes in the illustrations 

so we pulled a couple of other books to read

then made our own books {Like Amelia} to be just like Eric Carle~

Two super cute books Picture Pie and 2 really gave us great ideas

and a jumping off point for working on fractions again.

The books turned out adorable and SJ worked on her book all morning long~

Now all these materials are in the art drawers for free choice whenever they want to make more books.

Learning Areas Around the House~

Learning happens all day all around our house and making them assessable is key.

I also love a tidy house so modeling organization and keeping areas neat is important too.

{Everything has a home so put it back where it lives.}

Here are the areas set up around now with new ones to be changed out at any time.

Reading Basket: Houses our main read alouds and can be used anytime

New DVD Player: Gift from memommy for watching storybooks on DVD

Learning Materials: Caddies of work, Tag books, Stories on tape

Math, Puzzles, and Games: In family room cabinet

Playdough, Kinetic Sand, Salt boxes: Messy is kept in kitchen cabinet

Art Drawers: Dot painters, Smelly markers, paper, paper punches

Center Baskets: One for boys and one for boys

Library Shelves: All of children's books and scrapbooks in one place

School Closet: Everything else we have for learning is kept here

The FAV: IPads, IPods, and OSMO {ALL which have strict time limits}

That's a wrap and hope it helps.

Would love to know areas you have set up around your house...

please share!

Waiting until they are ready~ {Boys}

Boys in general bloom a little later than girls and I have witnessed it over and over through my years teaching in public schools. 

The concern then...

 I had no choice but to push them through the lessons and skills chasing a test looming out there in the future. {always getting ready for the next thing}

I am thankful for the time learning at home affords us when my children need time to bloom on their own time table.

WP came home at 3 and PC at almost 5 putting them far behind boys of their same age having grown up with natural families and no trauma. I didn't let all that keep me from introducing them both to books, letters, numbers, art, music, puzzles, tons of outside time among a million other things.

I will admit I worried over their slow learning and progression compared to the pace of other children and I did want to push them BUT for what? There was no reason to accelerate them. TIME when learning at home is one of the sweetest gifts we are given! 

All that being said, I have used several different methods in teaching the boys letters, numbers, writing, and reading. One of the most effective has been writing in a journal every single day as well as free choice games/centers offered to them. We have worked through A, B, and C books of Explode the Code as well as some emergent readers to learn the first few sight words. 

Really it just comes down to waiting until they are ready...

Last week I pulled out the BOB books and have taken two weeks with the first book... (time is on my side) and guess what? They GET it!!!

They are looking for 'at' hiding in words everywhere!

It has been so wonderful watching it happen~

They love our new white board and I love that it is magnetic.

I ordered magnetic letters with vowels being red and they are learning most words have to have a red letter in it. :)

The first day, I made the words with them and they read then wrote.

The next day, I made them a word family book with the 'at' family words inside~

They read them, built them, and wrote them.

I gave them their new book today and they were all over it!

I'm pretty sure they are READY now!!! PTL!

The ABC Bunny~ BFIAR

Today Evie pulled The ABC Bunny off the shelf and wanted me to read to her.

I didn't think she would really like it but she did and I pulled together a few activities.

On the second reading, both girls worked on finding ABCs and placing in the correct place~

Next they moved to the dry erase board to write as many as they wanted~

Then I wrote each letter in pencil and the girls traced with smelly markers~

and went back over each with watercolor paints.

They loved their ABC activities!!!