First Day!

It has been a good, and productive day overall... everything we did was a big hit! We started the day a little late, with delicious smoothies and muffins, then went from there...

Math - They tried out Teaching Textbooks with great success

Language Arts - Cyrus loves his new writing program, and he did a page in Word Roots. Cassia worked in Spelling Workout (SWO) and on Starfall. I am not starting MCP Phonics until we hit lesson 6 in SWO since it is at that point that the lessons match up.

Science - They sketched pictures of onion cells at 100x and 400x. Cyrus filled out his experiment page as well.

History - I read aloud from the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. Cyrus worked on his timeline, and both started making their History Pockets for ancient civilizations.

Literature - We finished chapter 5 in The Wind in the Willows.

Both kids said they are glad to be back to "real homeschooling." We'll see how long the joy lasts!

Wrapping up summer...

It has been a lovely week. I am so glad I took this week off from work to focus on relaxing before the hectic pace of fall.

Sunday...
We attended an airshow, all of us. It is so nice when M gets to go along on our adventures with us! We came back a bit pink from the sun, with tired feet from hours of walking, and sore necks, from so much time spent looking up at the sky. It was a fantastic afternoon! Then we watched Star Wars... you know, the original one, with Luke, and Han Solo, etc. One of our all-time favorite family movies!

Monday...
We went to the beach and met up with a bunch of friends. I walked along, barefoot in the sand, collecting an odd seashell here and there, while Cyrus constructed sand forts against the tide, and Cassia splashed in the water. I got in some great chatty mama time, the kids had a blast with friends, and we returned home full of sand, and a bit worn out!

Tuesday...
A nice day at home. We were invited to a park day, but decided we needed an us day. We lazed around. We read stories, played card games, and we all played in the pool.

Wednesday...
Play date with friends we hadn't seen in quite a while. The kids were beyond thrilled to see their friends again, especially Cyrus. R is his best friend ever - they have been true friends since the first day they met, and I was so happy to see that bond renewed. R's mom and I have promised ourselves, and the kids, that we will make way more effort to get them together more often. I got to hang out with R's mom, which is always nice. We chatted, she gave me fresh kale and chard from the garden, the girls played dress-up, and all had a good time!

After that, I went to my first class. I think it will be an interesting semester. It is a class that teaches us about literary criticism, and how to apply various forms of analysis/criticism to differing works of literature... prep work for the Master's program if I choose to follow that path.

Thursday...
We headed out to Morton's Warm Springs for a hot afternoon of fun, meeting up with a few families from our Friday Park Days. We spent hours in the pool, splashing, swimming, and just having loads of fun! Cyrus learned to do in-the-water handstands and somersaults, and he can dive down to the bottom of the pool now. Cassia, who insisted on a floatie thing when we went just two months ago spent a lot of time swimming. Dog paddle and underwater! With no flotation device! I am so proud of the kids and their newfound swimming skills, and am now much more comfortable with them in water. We returned home happy, worn out, and feeling fantastic.

Friday...
Park Day! I spent the morning doing chores and errands, then we headed out to the park. I got more mom chat time, and the kids saw their friends from every other activity this week. It was a relaxing, casual afternoon... just what we needed to wrap up a fantastic summer week.

Today...
My last day of vacation as I return to work tomorrow. We're hanging out at home today, nothing special on the agenda, except a family friend coming over for dinner. I want to read a bit in the sunshine, weed and deadhead the front garden for a while in the evening, and just relax.

How are you spending the last days of summer?

Egypt Books....

Books on Egypt to supplement our History Odyssey studies...

History: Ancient Egypt
Books
The Book of the Ancient World
Tales of Ancient Egypt
Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris (for Cyrus)
The Egyptology Handbook (mostly for Cyrus)
Egyptology Code-Writing Kit (mostly for Cyrus)
The Egyptian Cinderella (for Cassia)
The Winged Cat (mostly for Cassia)
The Egypt Game (Cyrus)
Maybe: Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
Maybe: The Red Pyramid

Video
Egypt: Engineering an Empire
National Geographic: Egypt: Quest for Eternity
National Geographic: Egypt: Secrets of the Pharaohs
Egyptian Secrets of the Afterlife
Additional selections from Netflix Streaming

Crafts, etc.
120 Step-by-Step History Projects
We'll build a model of the Nile River, with nearby pyramids, growing grass, etc.
Map work with Map Trek: Ancient World

Get ready, get set...

Almost "GO" time! We are just about ready to begin a fresh academic year. To help ease back into things, I ordered a special gift for each of the kids...


I think these little gifts will help us start off right!

Besides ordering gifts, I have been going through our resources and generating a very loose lesson plan... mostly a plan to go through each lesson as we get to it.... but I have been thumbing through Igniting Your Writing (level 1) and breaking the lessons down into small chunks. There is actually a lot more there than I thought at first glance! I have been able to divide each lesson (Start It Up and Intermediate parts of the lesson) into at least 4 chunks, sometimes more. While I think the program will be a great fit for Cyrus, as the activities are fun and build on themselves, I am breaking it down so he doesn't get overwhelmed - he is a reluctant writer to say the least.

With Cassia, I went through that last minute planning panic again already. I was convinced I had to buy All About Spelling immediately. Even though we don't have any money for this right now. I posted about it on message boards, thought about it, entered two free giveaways (didn't win either), and while I still like the looks of the program, I don't think I need it. All I need with Cassia is consistency (duh.) She likes the look of her (very inexpensive) MCP "Plaid" Phonics so much that she has done work in it of her own accord. And she brought out The Reading Lesson and was re-reading the first stories to herself, and then me. Maybe, just maybe, she is moving past her self-imposed moratorium on reading? Anyhow, I would still love AAS, but not right now.

I also installed Teaching Textbooks on the computer, got all our history books together, and ordered Map Trek: Ancient World from Knowledge Quest. While I don't love downloadable books ( I like holding books in my hands.... the feel of the paper, the weight of the book, illustrations, etc.), I like downloadable, printable items, like worksheets, maps, and that sort of thing. Speaking of which, I need to print off the student pages for our first week of biology, and read through the parent guide. We need a new light bulb for the microscope, and I ordered the program so last minute that I haven't ordered scientific supplies yet, but the author very kindly includes links to online microscope work!

On the table for next week... math, writing/phonics/reading, biology, and history. We'll add in everything else--composer and artist studies, art lessons, The Sentence Family, etc.--bit by bit after the first couple of weeks. That way we're not overwhelmed.

Until then, I'm outta here! We have lots of fun activities still this week, and this evening I have my first class of the semester.

Flyovers...

Today we visited the annual Wings Over Wine Country Air Show. The kids sat in cockpits, checked out a helicopter up close, visited the car show section, watched flyovers, and stopped to ooh and ahh over all the gorgeous planes! Sunny but not too hot, and we remembered ear plugs for the particularly noisy moments. We've gone a couple of times before, but I think this year the kids being a bit older really helped their enjoyment level!

Cyrus noticed some kids in full camouflage, walking the perimeter of the air field, while we were there... so I looked at their badges when I got a chance: Civil Air Patrol. When we got home, Cyrus asked me to look them up, and now he really, really wants to join in a year and a half when he's old enough...

From their website: "While there are many youth oriented programs in America today, CAP's cadet program is unique in that it uses aviation as a cornerstone. Thousands of young people from 12 years through age 21 are introduced to aviation through CAP's cadet program. The program allows young people to progress at their own pace through a 16-step program including aerospace education, leadership training, physical fitness and moral leadership. Cadets compete for academic scholarships to further their studies in fields such as engineering, science, aircraft mechanics, aerospace medicine, meteorology, as well as many others."

And they work well with homeschool families: Homeschooled Cadets

Something to think about!

Projects and more...

Cassia

With her beloved rabbit Daisy

Working in her notebook full of interesting sketches, symbols, letters, and more

A page from the notebook

A butterfly in watercolor

A sculpture of an odd little man

Cyrus

The paper laptop I mentioned in a previous post

It opens up...

And has all the (paper) hardware!

Working on an aluminum mold of a Hot Wheels car

A truly awesome paper car

A hand sculpture

An acrylic painting

And a sketch of his artist's model

Ahhh... a week off...

From work, that is. A week to enjoy summer, get organized for fall homeschooling, have my first college class of the semester, and so on, and so forth.

We have loose plans... a beach trip Monday, date night for M and I after my class on Wednesday, an awesome pool trip on Thursday, and our favorite Park Day on Friday. Maybe a playdate with some friends we haven't seen in a while. And I have plans for getting back into the Couch Potato to 5K running program, getting fully prepped for homeschooling, and daily deep household cleaning.

Today though is a lazy day. A day to decide on phonics, go through teacher's guides, make up a list of supplies still needed, finish paperwork for my college financial aid, read blogs, and that sort of thing. I should probably do a bit of tidying ;)

Cyrus has a new fascination lately, 3D paper crafts. He found this web site, and I think we print something from it nearly every day. My supply of cardstock is nearly exhausted! I am sloooowly getting together a list of historical paper crafts. And am coming up with projects for history studies, like a model of the Nile River, complete with pyramids, that we can flood and seed... I'm thinking wheatgrass seeds would be an easy one. And henna tattoos when we do ancient India. I did order the book 120 Step-by-Step History Projects. Anyhow, back to the original topic here, I figure with his passion for all things 3D and paper, I might as well take advantage of it! I'll have to get some pictures up... he's made a paper laptop (with motherboard, etc. inside), cars, robots, a TV with rabbit-ear antennae, and more.

Cassia found her MCP Phonics and Spelling books already, and has done work in both of her own accord. She even brought out flashcards I had made and had me go through them with her. Over the next week or so, I plan to have her play around on Starfall to go over the letters she has trouble with. I am planning to order All About Spelling Level 1 for her (Cyrus can use it too if he likes), but have to wait until I have a bit more money. I think the mastery, multisensory approach will work well.

Other bits and pieces from this week...
Charlotte's Web (live action movie)
Lots of watermelon
A simple and delicious new favorite smoothie (Silk's Dark Chocolate Almond Milk, peanut butter, and frozen bananas)
Finished Winnie the Pooh and started The Wind in the Willows
Several games of Old Maid, War, and Go Fish
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Playing in our backyard pool
Numerous art and paper projects all over the house
Lots of time curled up with cats
Homemade popsicles
Pink Panther cartoons and Fractured Fairy Tales

I am looking forward to a week of being able to focus on everything except work!

Awesome Giveaway....

Freely Educate (one of my favorite sites by the way) is hosting an amazing giveaway for All About Spelling. All About Spelling is truthfully a program I would love to own, but it always been a bit out of reach, price-wise.

Anyhow, click on the picture below to find out how to enter the contest!

Thinking...

I keep reading that much of our history studies (history studies in general) focus on "Western Civilization", which is true for the most part. Then I read this post on Small World at Home about how much Sarah (the blog author) loves Sonlight's Core F, which focuses on Eastern civilizations. And it got me thinking that perhaps, after we read about Egypt-Greece-Rome, we ought to read about those Eastern civilizations... Asia (including India), the Middle East, and more of Africa than simply Egypt. I can't buy a Sonlight program, and it's not secular so that wouldn't be suiting, but I could certainly put something together using some of their book recommendations along with other bits and pieces. I wouldn't mind a year'ish of the Far and Middle East! And Cassia has a fascination with all things India... are there any narrative-style histories of the Far/Middle East? I know there is Suzanne Strauss Art's Story of Ancient China, or Chinese History Stories, but then for India?

Or we could easily put off Rome for now, and work in some studies on Ancient China and India. Lots of things to consider, but since I am not really scheduling out the year, we have lots of flexibility. Instead of scheduling, we're just taking it as it goes for history. Everything else just falls into place - Teaching Textbooks only has so many lessons, as do the writing and phonics programs we'll be using, and then Elemental Science is all scheduled for us!

Anyhow, just rambling, and thinking aloud with my fingertips. I threw my upper back out last night, so I'm not doing loads of energetic stuff right now, giving me far too much time to browse book selections! How is your week going?

Moseying along...

While it may not seem we are up to much these days, we've been managing to do some pretty interesting things! For example, we had a field trip to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. It was an awesome tour! We toured much of the facility, saw all the interesting lab equipment, looked at various objects through a high powered microscope, took a short hike up Mount Burdell (next time we'll make it to the top), made ice cream with liquid nitrogen, and best of all, the kids got to feed stem cells! Yes, they got to participate in actual scientific research... they donned sterile gloves, which were then further sterilized; sucked the old food (full of cell waste) out of the petri dishes; and injected fresh food into the dishes, all the while being careful to keep everything within the sterile feeding area. These cells will be made into brain cells for Parkinson's research. Totally cool!

We also finally saw the final Harry Potter movie. I am not ashamed to say there was more than one tear shed during the film. Now we are just waiting for October, when JK Rowling's Pottermore site will be up.

In addition, the kids have been on a painting spree, and there has been a lot of swimming. They have very distinct tan lines now. And park days, the most recent at the beach with M in attendance for once.

We decided to go ahead and wait until the 29th to officially start back up. I ordered a few more odds and ends, and am on vacation from work next week, so we want to really enjoy that week with all the summer fun we can have. I do have classes starting up that week, but only one morning.

In other news, I have actually started applying for jobs again... I do have one currently, but the variable hours and constant threats of layoffs are getting to us as a family. I have a very good lead on an excellent job that I would more than love to have, working with a former coworker. It is a secretarial position, with regular, part-time hours, no weekends, and a few weeks off in the summer. Oh, and good pay! I also have feelers out for a couple of similar positions just in case. We'll see where the world leads me next.

Looking Forward...

I had scheduled us to start afresh August 29th. However, since I am on vacation from work the week before (and starting back to college), Cassia asked if they could start the same week I do, and so we have a new start date of August 22! Our books are starting to pour in... math over the last couple of weeks, Cyrus's writing and spelling/vocabulary programs yesterday, and all the rest over the next week. I've been looking through everything as it comes in, and I am delighted with it all! Of course, there is always that tiny seed of doubt in the back of my mind... should be using something else? Studying something else?

Still, I am excited about and looking forward to being in Ancient Egypt -- and the surrounding areas -- for a while. I looked, and looked, and looked a bit more, for a suitable text for this. Something I could read aloud, that both children would enjoy, that would be thorough without being overwhelming. Neither child likes Story of the World (they find it a bit condescending truthfully), and I wanted something a little more challenging. I thought of Gombrich's A Little History of the World, which is a truly delightful narrative, but though I love it, it is too brief. Finally, I found a book from I think the 1920's: Dorothy Mills' Book of the Ancient World. I read aloud a section from Google books. The kids were enthralled! M and I were impressed! I plan to follow it with the Ancient Greeks book by the same author. I ordered my copy from Memoria Press, which supposedly added in additional maps and illustrations. I did not order the student text or any of that, just the main book.

The Well Trained Mind recommends outlining, timeline-keeping, and more for a student Cyrus's age. I already have the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, and so am considering this. I may also have both kids keep some sort of a Book of Centuries. And I know Cyrus would love Horrible Histories: Awful Egyptians for a little bit of additional education.

Overall, I didn't end up buying that much this year, since I went through everything we owned and found that I already had a lot of things we could use this year. And what I did buy I can reuse (or sell) in the future. Teaching Textbooks 5 will eventually be handed down to Cassia. I am thrilled to think that after next year, I will only have to buy one math text a year! By the way, I love what I have seen in Teaching Textbooks so far. I love the grade book, the clarity of the lectures, the student help, everything! and the kids have looked at the workbooks and are happy too. The first portion of the year will be review, but I am a firm believer that more review in math, not less, is a good thing.

Now there is only one part of our plan that is up in the air... additional science for Cyrus. As a family, we'll be doing nature studies, which I think is plenty for Cassia, but Cyrus has specifically requested more science for himself. I bought the History of Science from Beautiful Feet some time back (just the guide and some materials, not the books which I can get at the library), and have since then purchased Aristotle Leads the Way and the Student Quest Guide. I plan to have him look at both programs, and I will continue to look at both. Side note: if he did BF's History of Science, he would do only the section on ancients this year to go with history. Any opinions? This is a child who will sit and read voraciously from the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, so I am thinking the Hakim book may be very suitable.

After an awesome lab trip yesterday, in which the kids actually got to feed stem cells, I have decided on a science program for both... Elemental Science Biology (Logic Stage.) I love the samples, and it will be a very solid program. The author even gives a full layout of how to add in a child not yet old enough for the full program (Cassia) so I am very excited! We'll blend Aristotle Leads the Way into our history readings, and we'll still try for some nature studies, but this biology program will be our scientific backbone.

In the meantime, we are watching the rest of America: The Story of US, to give everyone a sense of the flow of American history. We finished The Search for Delicious (great book!) and now are reading the original Winnie-the-Pooh, my old and battered childhood copy. Cyrus got ahead of his reading list for the year already, and is a third of the way through The Egypt Game. And we're playing lots of games, the kids swim a lot, we're eating loads of fresh tomatoes from the garden, and just enjoying life!

Flowers, fruit, and curtains...

My white dahlias

The yarrow has come back nicely

Cassia's fairy foxgloves

The lavender bushes are probably four feet across right now

Loads of fresh strawberries this year

A melon blossom

A baby Meyer lemon

My white marigolds (though I would call them more ivory than white)

Our state flower, of which we have plenty

Cyrus's dahlias are in full bloom

The hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers

As are the abultilon

Someday this will be a lemon too

And last but not least, my lovely new living room curtains! I need to take them down and iron them, but had to see how they looked. The old ones, that came with the house, were brown kind-of-tweedy-wanna-be looking stuff.

Not Back-to-School Blog Hop

Come on over to Heart of the Matter and join in the blog hop fun! It is always intriguing (at least for me) to see what other people are planning for the upcoming year - this week's topic. Next week School Rooms (or maybe the lack thereof) will be the focus, then kid pictures, and finally Day-in-the-Life. So come on over and join the fun!