Giving up already?

NO WAY!!!  : )  So....I've only done 1 blog post.  Not a great way to start things off, but boy have we been busy!  The Holiday season is in full swing and with the boys both in Cub Scouts it gets super busy this time of year.  My husband and I are Scout Den Leaders and my husband is our Pack's Cub Master.  Every year we participate in the big Nashville Christmas Parade downtown.  The boys in our Pack build a parade float with the help of the parents, and this year's float is one of our best yet.  We went with a recycling theme and made a full size Christmas tree out of recycled plastic bottles.  We also wrote "Salute To Scouting" on both sides of the float using bottle caps.  One of our Scout dads does concert lighting and is loaning some AMAZING professional grade can lights to light up our giant plastic tree.  People will see us coming for a mile down the parade route!!

Our oldest! <3

My hubby! <3

Now onto our homeschool update - It will be no surprise to those of you who are veterans at this homeschool thing, that I've already had to completely revise my plan for how this whole thing is going to work.  Originally my plan was to have the boys focus on one subject per day, doing unit studies, etc.  This ended up being waaaaay more stressful than I imagined.  So I spent our Thanksgiving holiday trying to figure out a new plan, and what I found was a wonderful company called Complete Curriculum.  This find was an absolute blessing!  I had looked at many other online textbook-type curriculum, but they were all far too expensive for us.  Complete Curriculum is just $30 and gives you access to grades Kindergarten through 12th grade!  They cover all state standards for Science, Math, Language Arts & Social Studies.  They combine standard textbook and worksheet activities with things such as fun games, art activities, and plenty of opportunities for creativity.  It's really an unbelievable product for the price.  I love it because it helps give our days some direction, but leaves plenty of time for adding your own ideas and allows room to skip through lessons if the child is ready. 

Since it would take way more time than I have currently, I'm not going to write about everything we studied over the past couple of weeks.  I will, however, include a few pictures from our homeschool adventures so far!


 Such a silly boy!

 Math Blaster...

 A little typing practice...

The boys LOVED this game!  Gobble Bump Addition













Does diaper laundry ever end???

Some little girl is loving having her big brothers home!!

Our homemade butter came out

deeeelicious!

And so our journey begins...

Our day started off with great anticipation.  The boys had a spark in their eye, and for the first time in....I can't remember....they were asking questions about what they were going to learn today.  It was nice to see them wake up well rested, peaceful, happy, relaxed and full of eagerness to learn something new.

 

Hailey woke first (as is the norm) at 8:00am, this was her second time waking up this morning and her second nursing of the day already.  I didn't sleep all that well last night.  I kept going over everything in my head and couldn't help that dreaded nagging feeling of "Maybe I should've downloaded just one more worksheet, or planned one more game....".  Nonetheless, Hailey was ready to wake up and after nursing in bed cuddled beside me for about 15 minutes it was time to get up and start breakfast before the boys woke up. 

Into the Bumbo went Hailey so I could get the coffee going (I needed it...bad) and get some oatmeal cooking for the boys.  No sooner had I put the oatmeal into bowls, into the kitchen came the boys, draped in their blankets.  I quickly informed them that our first school day wouldn't be spent wrapped in a blanket, and it was time to go get dressed.  : )

I've decided to go the Unit Study approach and this week's unit was all about the first Thanksgiving and the events surrounding.  Instead of trying to cram 5 or 6 subjects into one day, we'll be breaking it up by doing just 1 subject per day.  Today we focused on History/Social Studies and we also combined some of our Language Arts/Reading lesson into today since we won't be having any school work on Thursday.  We started out by making a KWL chart (what you think you know, what you want to learn, and what you've learned).  Their responses surprised me, they knew a lot more about the first Thanksgiving than I thought they did!  We sat together at the kitchen table and began watching the first video in the History Channel series "America: The Story Of Us".  It is very well done and it really kept the boys' interest.   

They boys then split up and while Hunter worked on the computer doing the "You're The Historian" activity on the website:  www.plimoth.org, Grayson worked on a worksheet entitled "What I'm Thankful For...".  This gave a little twist on this pretty typical activity, though, because it gave specifics you had to go by.  Example:  What are you thankful for that is round?  Grayson's answer: pie, Hunter's answer: wheels.  : )  I highly recommend the historian activity on the plimoth.org website!  They boys absolutely loved it and there was a ton of really fantastic information!  Some of the reading was a little difficult for Grayson since the interactive is geared more for the Middle School grades, but with me sitting with him and reading the words he had trouble with, he did great.  At the end of the computer interactive (it takes about 45 minutes to work through the entire activity) it gives you the opportunity to set up an exhibit, giving you several different paintings depicting the first Thanksgiving, and a blank label where you write your own description about what you want people to know about the first Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

They had a look of surprise and absolute delight when they finished the online activity and asked me, "Ok, now what??"  And my response?  "Get your shoes on and go outside.  Get some fresh air and exercise."  "What??  Really??", they said.  They went on outside and it was time once again to nurse Miss Hailey, although she had just downed some toast with apricot jam just a couple hours earlier.  This girl likes to eat I tell ya! 

 

I called the boys back in and they were wide awake, refreshed and ready to sit down for some more work.  They watched a video on BrainPOP, and then took the accompanying quiz.  Then they did their vocabulary work worksheets and their review sheets over the BrainPOP video.  They both did very well on these!

 

  All in all we ended up doing school work for around 4-4.5 hours, and I feel like they learned so much and actually absorbed the information.  So far, so good.  Tomorrow is Math day, so that might not be as well received.  Thank goodness for the Math games I have planned!

 

All in all I would say that Day 1 was a huge success, and I will sleep MUCH better tonight!