Updates!!! And What's Been Going On With Us!

The biggest update is our adoption is finally final finalize.... yeah I know a few too many words on the FINAL. But this is something that we have been pursuing for almost 3 years now and its nice to finally have that chapter closed. We are able to move forward with our entire lives and not having to back track to a darker time and relive certain things. More me, than Noah and Abigail, but its still nice knowing that its over.
Now that we are back from that trip out of town (it was nice to see family and friends that we haven't seen in a few months), its time to start getting ready for birthdays and holidays. On top of actively searching for a new home. We are planning on having a BIGGER new place in two weeks if everything goes according to plans! This way we can have family and friends to visit for the holidays! Its my favorite time of the year right now and I can't wait to start getting ready for the festivities!!!
On to school because I am getting sidetracked a little bit! Noah is doing wonderfully, we introduced basic geometry to him (well calculating perimeter) and I realized (I had forgotten lol) that you need to know division, in addition to, (haha no pun intended I swear) multiplication in order to calculate geometry. So we decided to spend this week learning division. He is doing pretty good at that and has the basic idea of it down. But I am realizing that he doesn't have his math facts memorized. He can't tell you right off the top of his head that 3x3=9 he has to sit there and count by 3's three times. So I have him reviewing his math facts again. On top of that he is learning his parts of speech, this week it is adjectives. He is learning the different types of adjectives and how they are used in sentences. He picks up on this stuff very well;much like his mother does. Math on the other hand, is my weak subject also lol
Abigail is excelling at math. So she and I and Daddy talked about moving her up to basic multiplication. There's no where but up to go once you can add and subtract. She knows how to count money, she can tell time on an analog clock (most of the time lol), she knows her shapes (both 2d and 3d), so multiplication it is for her. She seems to be grasping it pretty well, but this time when I teach her I am going to make sure she memorizes it, so we don't have to go back and do it again, like with Noah.
Yet again another reason I love homeschooling, if there is something that we need to backtrack and do over again, we can. Abigail told me yesterday that she wants to homeschool forever and doesn't want to leave and go to college. I had to remind her that she can do college at home too, just like I am! It is so nice to see that they are thriving and learning and enjoying it!

Small Space Homeschool!

I have been working on this post for a while now. And I figured now was the time to post it. As you know, we have been living in a hotel room for the past four months now. It has been a challenge considering there are six of us in this room, along with some of our belongings (the rest if divided up between two storage buildings in two different cities, sometimes I think we are gypsies or nomads or something lol) But we have been making the best of it with storage containers/devices. I usually spend Sundays printing out everything we are going to need for the week. And then each kid has a folder and I put their worksheets in their folders. I label each worksheet with a day of the week, so they know which ones to do when. Speaking of worksheets they have been a lifesaver these past couple of months, because all of my stuff that I had spent the beginning of summer planning is in a box in a storage building 5 hours away. So I have had to improvise everything that I was planning on teaching the kids this year, which is okay, because they are still learning no matter how I had planned on teaching them.
Ok back on topic, we have a small table that the older three kids use as an eating table and as their school table (I also use it as my desk, it is extremely multipurposed) The kids have small bookbags to keep their folders and notebooks (with pencils, etc) in. They hang in the closet on a coat hanger so they are out of the way. Also in the closet is where we have a hanging shelf Neatkids 6-Shelf Organizer (Google Affiliate Ad) This is like what we have. And then we have a small metal that the kids keep their books on. It is a little cluttered, but we get it done. Its been a huge learning experience for us, but we have learned a lot from it. Especially the little kids. Jade is picking up on a lot of things from sitting in with the big kids during school, and Braeden is talking so much now. Its almost as if he didn't have a delay. And I honestly feel that being all together in one room has a lot to do with that.
I will try to get some pictures posted of our small space once I get it cleaned up (we just got back from our trip to finalize our adoption - thats another post - and its a mess)!!!

Hectic Week Behind and Ahead!

This past week has been a crazy one. We have been settling into a new schedule (which seems to be working out quite nicely) along with house/apartment hunting. We finally found us a two bedroom apartment that is right across from the beach in our price range! So hopefully if everything works out we will be moving around the 15th of October. School went great this week. Noah is really grasping the parts of speech, he is also writing better. Not his handwriting but his actually writing content. He's starting to build stories instead of just writing a bunch of sentences together. Abigail on the other hand is driving me nuts with her lack of paying attention. I know that it is difficult to focus when everyone is in the same room as you and the little ones are going crazy, but its not always quite out in the world so it is something I feel that she needs to learn how to deal with. Also her handwriting is horrible still. Its legible as compared to when she finished kindergarten, she couldn't even read her handwriting. But she just writes so sloppy because she isn't paying attention. Her excuse for everything is "oops I forgot" and I know the child doesn't have any memory problems, she remembers everything that is important to her. Its the non-important to her things that she conveniently forgets LOL Like not touching things in the grocery store or focusing on her handwriting.
Next week we are taking the week off from school. Its our FALL BREAK!!! With us having to leave out Wednesday afternoon to drive the five hours back to our home town, then all the meetings and seeing family that we have to do between Thursday and Friday on top of court Friday morning for the judge to finalize Scott adopting Noah and Abigail and then the drive back to the home Saturday morning, it is just going to be easy to take the week off. And it wouldn't do any good to try to do any type of school work next week, even if it was just simple worksheets, because the kids are so excited about court that it would be hard for them to focus.
When we do get back and calmed down from our trip, school is going to get kicked right back into session. Noah is wanting to learn geometry so I am trying to figure out how to teach a 3rd grader something I didn't learn til 8th grade lol But he already knows multiplication, so it might not be too hard once I explain the concept and formulas to him.
Abigail is getting ready to move up in math also, I just haven't figured out which direction I want to take her. This trip back to our hometown is going to be helpful, because that is where our storage building of stuff is, which has all my lesson plans in it. So I will be able to start with those once we get back too. Which will help with figuring out what to teach Abigail in math now lol
I think that's it for the update at the moment.

Weekly Wrap Up!

I know, I know, I am slack on posting. This past week has been an adventure. I started a new job, so we are having to readjust our schedules again. Luckily the kids are resilient and can adjust to almost anything. But then, just as we get use to the new schedule, we are going to be leaving for a few days, to go back to our hometown of Gaffney, to finalize Scott adopting Noah and Abigail. The closer it gets the more excited the kids get. They are so excited to go to court and finally become Largents!
Other than that, school has been going pretty good. I have learned more about the kids and what they know and what they don't know.
Abigail is still having problems with ABC order and her handwriting is still horrible. She has moments when it is beautiful, I know she has to potential, but I haven't been able to get her to keep it up. So I am trying to encourage her by telling her that she can learn cursive once she gets her handwriting to legible status lol Her math skills are exceptional, she is very good at math, which is great, because I'm not.
Noah is the master of handwriting though, he taught himself how to write in cursive in three days last year lol He is doing great at math. He has mastered multiplication. We are introducing basic geometry this week, because he wanted to do something more challenging. He is also learning parts of speech. This week it is adverbs. He is catching on pretty quickly to them. (And Daddy is learning with him, which is a cool benefit of all of this)
They are also learning the flower, flag, bird and capitals of all the state. We will put it all into a notebook as soon as we get a bigger place and have room to spread out. Science is our subject that we are having issues with, because we don't have the space to do experiments or anything, but we have been able to do some cool things like observe alligators in their natural habitats, watch sea turtles leave the nest and go to the ocean, and watch what happens as the tide comes in and out and the effects it has on the beach.
Things are coming along wonderfully with school. The kids are enjoying school and absorbing everything like little sponges. Even Jade and Braeden are learning things. Its a beautiful thing to be able to watch.

Just a quick post!

I just wanted to share my newest found website. We are utilizing worksheets to the fullest right now until we can get a bigger place and set up our classroom. I was busy searching around on Google today and found www.worksheetworks.com
So far I love them! Go check them out!

Longer post coming later I promise

Alligator Pictures!

I promised I would post some pictures of the alligator that we saw the other day. Well it turns out that while we were at the state park this evening, we saw another one (and this one was HUGE) Scott said about 7 - 8 feet long. Noah decided he wanted a closer looks and started making duck call sounds. Well I guess the gator likes ducks because he started swimming closer and closer to us, until he was about 10 feet away. There was land and some water between us, but he was really big and a little too close for my comfort, so I got my little group peoples together and we left. lol
But here are some pictures. The first two are of the little gator that we saw earlier in the week and the other ones are of the gator in the water. You kind of have to look carefully to see it, but you can see it I promise :-)

***Okay for some reason I am having issues putting pictures into the post. Its more likely me, than Blogger itself lol But the pictures on the bottom are of the little gator and the pictures on top are of the big gator! Enjoy!!!!***

Alligators!!!

Alligators... I never ever thought that I would just be walking along a path and look out to my left and see a 5 foot 'gator... Guess what people?! I did just that Monday afternoon! The days and nights are getting cooler around here and its almost too cold in the water at the beach or the pool (especially for my cold natured self lol) So instead of doing our usual beach outing we rode up the beach to Barefoot Landing. It is an awesome place where there are a lot of shops, different vendors for delicious food and its all situated on lake, with several piers connecting you to each side of the lake. So we are busy walking along one side of the lake looking at the ducks very innocently when all of a sudden Noah and Abigail and spazzing, I mean seriously freaking out over something way cool. Leave it to my silly kids to have a coronary over an alligator. Yes you have read that right, 10-12 feet away from me and my little crew of kids was an alligator. It was a small one, probably 5 feet or so. Noah kept wanting to go pet it. I kept telling him that he could go pet it, but if he came back missing a hand or a foot, I wasn't going to help him LOL And if that wasn't exciting enough, as we were walking on one of the piers there was another alligator in the lake, floating along. All you could see was his eyes and nose and top of his head. Scott said he looked to be about 7 or so feet long. That was enough for me to keep a closer eye on the older kids and tighter grip on the younger kids.
BUT.... as not cool as it was for me, it did turn into a great learning lesson. They got to 'gators in their natural environment (as compared to a zoo). We had an awesome discussion on the way home from there, which involved the other animals we saw there. Those were turtles, fish (carp, koi, and brim), seagulls and pelicans.
Then later on that night, Scott and I were sitting outside and we saw a mama raccoon and her two babies sneak up and attack our trash can. Needless to say even though we are in a big ole city, we feel like we are in the backwoods with all the animals around us. I do enjoy every minute of it, because I am a huge animal lover (although I prefer furry ones to scaley ones lol) and the kids love animals to, so it is always fun to watch them as they see these different animals.
As for the alligator, yes I did get pictures, I just have to get them uploaded. I am hoping to do that this weekend, but things have been so crazy around here the past couple of days that I haven't had the time to focus on the blog. Which I really need to get back into the habit of doing!!!

Sorry for not updating!

This week has been a week for the books. Sunday night I had everything planned and ready to go for Tuesday morning (we took Monday off for the holiday). And then Wednesday came and I was told that I was being let go from my job, because the summer season had ended and they had to cut back on people and I was the one who had to go. Luckily, the guy is willing to keep Scott on to work, so not all is loss. So with that, school kind of got pushed to the side. They did worksheets just to keep going with stuff, but I have been busy looking for another job. The hard part of that, is that it is the end of the season at the beach and well jobs are hard to come by. A lot of the places close for the winter, other places have already hired winter staff, etc. So I'm not sure what is going to happen at the moment. We have been discussing Knoxville again, but I am not sure of the job market there. Chattanooga has come up in conversation. The R.V. conversation is back on the table too. So there are a lot of talks going on between Scott and I and the kids. What we are going to do, I am not exactly sure, but whatever we do will be an awesome learning experience like always.

And I promise to update more next week, because I have to get back to our routine next week!

Sea Turtles!!

Last night we did something really really awesome. Sunday I got a message from lady in our co-op that the state park was doing a turtle nest inventory. We had never been to one, honestly we didn't even know what it was about, but we figured it would be something interesting and possibly informative.
Little did we know that we were going to be watching the people assist baby sea turtles get from their nest to the ocean. I got a couple of pictures. Noah and Abigail (and Daddy) loved watching what was going on. They want to go back when there is another one. They are also talking about becoming volunteers at the state park so they can take part in things like this. My kids love the outdoors so much that I can't seen anything but positives about this! Other than that, things are pretty smooth around here right now. The kids are doing school while I am work, if they need help Scott helps them, then I check over everything when I get home to make sure everything is right! I am planning a week at a time right now and it seems to be working well for us. Its safe to say that we have found our groove!!!!
Okay enough babbling, on to the pictures of baby sea turtles!!

Okay first up ^ this picture is of two turtle eggs. The one on the left is an egg from which a turtle has hatched. On the right is an egg that hasn't hatched. It was really interesting with the eggs, but it was soft and kind of squishy. Which amazed me considering the amount of sand that these little things are buried under.

 

This is the first little turtle that was saved. The workers were so careful with the little guy too. They wore rubber gloves and gently laid him in the bucket and then let everyone take a peek in at him. So tiny compare to how big they get! 

 These are the two turtles that were found in the one nest they were inventorying. The little guy at the bottom had a flipper that didn't seem to be working properly, so they helped him out by putting him directly in the water instead of making him "walk" the beach to the ocean. The other little dude they put him on the beach once everyone had gotten a look at him and let him walk to the ocean. They took great care of making sure that noone moved too close to him, and kept seagulls away from him til he got in the ocean. The last picture here is probably my favorite because it shows the little guy running to the ocean! I hope that he lives a very long life! And all I can keep thinking of right now is of Crush from Nemo talking about how the little dudes make their way back to the ocean all by themselves.

The Week Ahead!

This week starts our in depth school work. We have finally found our groove and now I am adding to their workload. Noah and Abigail will probably hate me after about Tuesday. Oh the joys of being Mama and Teacher! :-)
For Noah this coming week he will be learning about nouns, multiplication facts to 12, different types of lizards and the state of Texas. He will also have his daily calendar sheet that he has do to, he will be starting a journal this week with daily journal topics to write about, then there is P.E. on Mon, Wed, and Fri, which pretty much will consist of getting outside and exercising or going to the beach. On Tues and Thurs, will be art. Since I don't know too much about art and there isn't anyone offering art classes right now that I know about, I will be teaching them the history of artists and letting them examine a specific art piece and then if I can find a coloring sheet of the art piece let them color it their way. (Oh yeah Abigail will also be doing the art stuff and learning about the state of Texas with Noah)
Abigails work load for the week involves a lot of handwriting practice, more addition and subtraction (steadily increasing the number value so she has to borrow and carry her numbers), she is going to be introduced to fossils and what they are, along with P.E. like Noah.
They really seem to be catching on quick and grasping everything that we are throwing at them!
I am really excited that they are enjoying everything, even though things are so crazy around here right now. I feel that us starting school and continuing on like normal, has made things seem more normal for them.

Good Things Ahead!

Things are looking great these days with the kids! Noah has really began to understand multiplication and I think he understands what prepositions are. So next week we move on to harder multiplication problems and another part of speech. They have enjoyed learning little things about Alaska this week, its off to another state next week! Abigail has adding and subtracting simple math problems down, she can fly right through them. Although sometimes, she forgets to look at which operational sign the problem has and does the opposite (but she gets the problem right so I don't complain too much, just remind her to watch her signs). She also understands alphabetical order now! So its time to move on to more challenging things for her also. I think Miss Jade has mastered tracing lines and shapes, so I am going to move her up to letters and see how those work for her.
I am busy trying to think of a simple science experiment that the kids can do that won't cause a HUGE mess and won't be loud. So off searching for something like that I go. I will most definitely let ya'll know what I find!
Otherwise, on the home front things look great! I have a job interview this afternoon for a part time job, (since hours are getting cut here at the hotel after next week). Still house hunting too, but right now we have learned a lot from each other and about each other being in the hotel room. It's not easy some days, but most days, we have fun being with one another. Maybe everyone should do something like this, as a way to reconnect with their family!

School is Coming Along!

With a brand new pet comes brand new things to learn. So far we have watched our lizard shed his skin, bit Noah numerous times, because Noah won't leave him along. And we figured out that he isn't nocturnal because he sleeps when we sleep. Nice learning lesson it is.
Now as for our actual lessons, Abigail is busy brushing up on her ABC order. She has it down pretty good, but she forgets that if the first letter is the same, then you have to move to the second letter to figure out which comes first. I introduced her to 3 column addition and that really confused her, so we are back down to 2 column and we moved up to three digits in each column. Slowly working our way up. I am hoping to have her learning basic multiplication by the end of the school year. Her handwriting is something else that I am working on with her. It is horrible and I am not sure how to help her improve it. I am busy researching different methods. If I find one that works I will make sure to share with all of you!
Noah on the other hand is doing pretty good. We are learning parts of speech and this week is prepositions and seems to understand it pretty well. He is continuing to work on his multiplication and is steadily improving on it. I am hoping to be ready to introduce him to division by Christmas.
They both have started learning about states for social studies and this week is Alaska. They are learning basic facts about the state (the state flower, flag, bird, etc).
And I am still busy trying to figure out how to go about doing science with them. Right now they are learning about reptiles, mainly lizards considering we have one as a pet :-)
Jade has been improving with her hand writing. I have her tracing lines on a page and she is getting better and better at it. And can now trace shapes. Oh and for a funny story that Scott and I in stitches last night
Jade went to the potty and pooped. She yelled for Scott to come help her and once he got in there, I heard him laughing loudly. So I went to see what was so funny. He had Jade tell me. My two year old proceeds to look at me and say "I pooped my name" Coincidentally, her poop laid in the bottom of the toilet and looked like the letter J, which is what her name starts with. So I will say that she is learning wonderfully, even if it is through her poop !

Finally Friday!

And so wraps up another week! YAY! Weekend is here, beach time, no sleeping in, cartoons in the morning!
This week I learned a lot about what the kids know. I found this awesome site www.scootpad.com and within the first two lessons that each of the kids did, I realized that while they are ahead of the game in a lot of areas, they have difficulty in other areas. For example, Noah has issues understanding possessive pronouns and nouns. And Abigail has issues with when to capitalize a word and when not to. (Awesome little site, that is going to be a great tool for me assessing them, and them not realizing it lol) So now I know what our learning objectives for the next little while needs to be.Extremely helpful, because I was grasping at straws for a minute, because I was basically just reviewing things that they already know, getting back into the routine of things. So now I have to plan out everything for the next couple of weeks over the weekend! (Gonna be busy this weekend!)
Otherwise, everything else is looking great. We are house hunting and found a couple of possibles that we are talking to the owners about renting. So we are just kind of playing it by ear. But most definitely hoping to have a house by the end of the month!

Learning Learning Learning

After taking yesterday off to enjoy everyone (we went shopping, had a car tire changed, went to the pet store just to look at the animals.) And there we saw a HUGE python, a snapping turtle, a couple of puppies, bunnies, hamsters, oh yeah and that thing called a freaking COPPERHEAD (yeah copperhead snake, as in poisonous). Noah was so amazed with it. He was watching it and inspecting every inch of it. I loved watching him watch it. He is so intrigued with reptiles and loves watching tv shows that has them. He loves watching the Crocodile Hunter in the morning and his favorite is Call of the Wildman. His new favorite hobby is catching lizards (I think have already touched on this a little bit lol) but he loves it. So today, we went out and bought him a critter carrier, so he can catch it and put the lizard in it to observe it. He knows that its not for keeps and that he has to let it go back outside, but I think it will be a great learning experience for him. Here's a picture with one that he caught the other day
I think he named him Buddy, or Little Guy, or Fred. I'm not sure. But I do know that he has a gift for being able to catch them and not hurt them and them not hurt him.

Abigail is still trying to find something that she is interested in, but I honestly think its going to be food. That child loves food. Eating it, watching it, cooking it, reading about it. I can't get her to read a book, but she will read recipes. So now I have to figure out how to incorporate that into her learning. This has been a learning challenge for me, because I don't know to do that with cooking. But I'm researching it and figuring it out.

Jade loves airplanes, helicopters, anything that flies. We live a couple of minutes from the airport and we can see them going overhead all day and night, and she has to run and watch them. She is so amazed with them. She even builds them with her blocks! SEE:

As for Braeden, he is finally talking. He has several words that he is saying.  A few of them are
Mama and Daddy (finally)
more, ball, Noah, Abby, awesome, yes, up, out, stinky, diaper, spongebob


I think that's all for right now. I have several posts in the works, one is an update on my grandpa and another is mine and Scott's top 5 reasons why we homeschool! Keep a look out for them!

We were featured on a blog carnival!!!

Richelle over at Under the Golden Apple Tree has featured Largent Learning Academy on her Back to School blog carnival!
http://www.underthegoldenappletree.com/2012/08/carnival-of-homeschooling-back-to-home.html
We are so excited to share this news with our readers! And a big thanks goes out to Richelle!

So go check her out at http://www.underthegoldenappletree.com  Tell her we sent ya!

The Week Ahead

Hopefully this week will be a typical normal week for us. Yet it is already starting off strange, because I was suppose to work today and have tomorrow off and that got switched around and I got today off and have to work tomorrow. But that worked out well, because I fixed my broken printer! It was a small piece of crayon stuck in the printer causing it to jam and not work! Yay for finding crayons in the printer! I really didn't want have to go buy a new one :-)
(You can read about the broken printer here:  http://largentlearningacademy.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-do-you-do-when-printer-dies.html  )
As for this week we have a few things in the works. I am thinking about planning a trip to the aquarium and getting them enrolled in the classes there. Its an awesome thing to be in a town that is semi-homeschool friendly. A lot of the places around here offer 'specials' to homeschoolers, which is so COOL for us! We will be making several trips to the beach, as always, but each trip is so different and something new is always learned.

Here are our learning objectives for this week

Noah:
-math- continue working on multiplication facts and work out word problems
- language arts- story writing; using more descriptive words and making it story format, not just sentences, it needs to mesh together
- science- continue learning about animals, their eating habits and their habitats. (REPTILES MAINLY)
-social studies- start learning about states, and their capitals, interesting facts etc.


Abigail:
-math- continue working on addition and subtraction with carrying and borrowing
-language arts- reading comprehension and handwriting
-science and social studies- same as Noah

Jade:
- continue working on writing skills, tracing lines etc.


We are most definitely finding our groove and enjoying this as a whole! Its a learning experience as much for me as it is for them! And I love watching them as they figure something out.
For example this morning, Noah was doing multiplication facts. He still has problems with them, but he has been getting better. And today he was doing a worksheet of them, and he slowly started to get them, it finally clicked that multiplication is addition worded differently. So once the lightbulb went off in his head, he was able to do his problems easier. This is something that parents don't get to experience because they aren't there with their children. I am so happy that I get to be a part of this!

Field Trip to the Pier!

 It's picture day! And to start everyone off on a beautiful picture, here is one of Daddy and three of the kids walking along the beach. One of my favorites right now!

Since we couldn't get our printer to work, we took the day off and made it a field trip day. We took the kids to the Apache Pier here in town, in hopes of finding some cool fish being caught, but all we got was blown away by the wind! To prove this, here is a picture of Braeden, sporting the wind blown look:
Yes the wind was that bad, but we didn't let it stop us. We walked the pier, enjoyed the music being played, the kids danced their little hearts away. Did we see any cool fish? Nope, fish weren't biting because of it being so windy, but we had fun!
Here is a link to where we went and enjoyed yesterday afternoon/evening:
http://apachefamilycampground.com/pier.php

And since nothing much is happening today, because of storms blowing through, I figured I would post a couple of pictures. I don't have a whole lot, because I don't have the cord to connect my camera to my computer, but I have gotten a few goods ones from my phone and well here ya go! Pictures of my crazy crew!



This one is very symbolic for me at the moment, especially with everything going on. It is kind of a reminder that even though it's storming like crazy right now, there is always beauty to be found. This was a beauty that the kids found on our way to go grocery shopping one day. It was so bright and beautiful as if to say to me "Just wait, it is almost over!"

 

This is my dapper little dude, enjoying his time at the beach. He is the cutest little beach bum that I have found yet! 

 

 

 Here are the other rugrats on a typical school morning, from left to right you have Abigail, Jade and Noah.They miss having school desks, but I like the idea of having them all at one table. Jade enjoys sitting with the bigger kids and she is picking up on what they are learning to. It definitely goes back to the days where there was only one classroom and the older kids helped with teaching the younger kids. Everyone learned everything together. And honestly, it seems to me children were smarter and more educated during those days, than some children are these days.

What do you do when the printer dies?

Friday is getting off to a wonderful start around here. Usually at night before I go to bed, (after the kids are in bed and its all nice and quiet) I make a list of things the kids need to do for the next day. Set it to the side and print it out first thing in the morning as I have my first cup of coffee. I am on my third cup of coffee and nothing is printed out yet. Why? you ask! Well because my printer has decided to take the day off. I am not sure what the problem is, but it keeps getting jammed up. So we are taking the day off from worksheets and doing some notebook stuff (writing our letters, writing stories and drawing pictures) and then we are taking a spur of the moment field trip to the pier later this afternoon and going to do some investigating.
Hopefully I will be able to get my printer up and running before Monday, because I have a lot of things in the works for the kids next week. I am not looking for to handwriting this worksheets out on notebook paper, but if I have to I guess I will. I guess this is one of the cool things about homeschool, you can always figure out a solution to a problem (whether you like the solution or not is questionable lol) but there is always a way to improvise and make the best of any situation and make it an awesome learning experience.

Starting school!

First of all, things never go according to plan, so to say that the start of our school year has been nothing like I planned it is a complete understatement. Yet we pushed through all of the things that happened over the summer, got settled and started school this week. Since all of our stuff we had started putting together at the end of last school year is in storage, we are mainly doing worksheets. I would like to personally thank the Internet Gods for the ability to search for anything and be able to print it out. Noah is busy learning multiplication (which he can do easier than addition lol), and he loves the little science sheets I have found for animals. One of his favorite things to do here at home is to go outside and look for lizards. They are everywhere around here. We have caught a couple, looked them up online and figured out what kind they are, if they are boy or girl, and then set them free. We might possible getting the stuff together and make a terrarium and see if we can keep one for a couple of days and observe it. Lots of learning going on and they don't even realize it.
Abigail is pretty much reviewing from last year. She is still having problems with handwriting so that is something that we are working on daily. Other wise she is doing worksheets on animals, cooking, etc. She enjoys going to the beach and playing in the sand. We are still working on building a sandcastle, but that is difficult, even for me.
Jade is learning how to write, she is very good at tracing lines and attempting to write the letter J. She likes matching things also.
As for Braeden, we are working on teaching him more signs and getting him to speak more. He has picked up a few more words, but he is still very behind on speech. Yet he understands us very well, we just don't understand him lol Hopefully, with a little more work, he will start talking soon !
Thats about it for today! I got something bouncing around in my head, I just have to figure out how to get it out and into word format.

An Extended Break

       So its been just a few days shy of three months since I last updated. Its been a long three months. Let's start with the small stuff first. In June I received a call for a job in Vermont. I accepted it and we all started making plans to move to Vermont. But as the days grew closer to that, the kids decided they didn't want to move, along with Scott and I having our doubts about it. Yet we pushed past that and encouraged the kids it was going awesome along with encouraging each other. The day came to get the moving truck, pack it up and tell everyone good bye. Yet that didn't happen. The Uhaul place didn't have the right size truck, we were getting  a smaller truck than anticipated, so we gave away a lot of our stuff (kitchen table, microwave, a tv and a couple of other smaller things), then we loaded the truck up. Moving time was here, we had all shed some tears, but otherwise we were looking forward to a new place with new people and friends. Then my van died on me. After that, we took it as a sign that we weren't meant to move to Vermont. (Honestly this was the second time in two years that we had attempted to move to Vermont and it not work out).
      That first night, we split the kids up among family members while Scott and I got a hotel room and talked about everything. We admitted the guy feelings each of us had about it not being the right thing and how everything was working against us. We discussed different things, but we knew that we couldn't go back where we were at, because the gentleman that we were renting our house from, had rented it to someone else. So here we were, all of our stuff loaded in a moving truck and technically homeless. What do we tell the kids? How are we going to be able to move forward? A million questions ran through our minds.
       We finally decided to go to the beach for a few days to relax and regroup with the kids. We put all of our stuff in a storage building and hit the road. We found a nice little hotel to stay at for a couple of days and we found ourselves taking a liking to the beach and the area and the people. (There is most definitely a bigger homeschool group here than from where we were originally at) So on Monday morning, June 26th (just a week after everything went to hell in a hand basket for a move to Vermont) I started job hunting. After a few phone calls, I found a job doing housekeeping at a hotel about two miles from the beach. I started work the next day. The day after that, we moved into a room in the hotel. And two weeks later Scott had a job here at the hotel.
          Flash forward to today: We are still living here in our hotel room, Scott and I both have a job.
Our room is a little crowded with us all loaded in it, but we are making do with it. We have a small kitchen with a full size fridge and apartment sized stove in it, so we get to cook (which makes any place a home to me because I love cooking). We moved one of the beds out and bought a couch to move in, so there is room for the kids to play, they rotate who sleeps in a sleeping bag and who sleeps on the couch. Then there are the 5-7 visits a week to the beach. We are most definitely meant to be beach bums. LOL Being here just feels right, we have made a few friends, joined a great homeschool association and group (impatiently waiting on our first 'field trip' with them! And we are slowly getting back into the groove of school. With all of our stuff being in a storage building 5 hrs away, we are doing lots of worksheets and life skills lessons right now, but I am a firm believer in it doesn't matter how you learn as long as you learn. And we make sure to learn at least one new thing a day!
     Now that we are settled into our new routine I will most definitely get back to updating and blogging more often! I have missed it a lot and can't wait to share our journey through homeschooling and our crazy life with you!

Finally Friday!

This week has been a long difficult week. I started a job on Monday that requires a lot of time (luckily it is a work at home job, message me if you want details) So I have been busy doing web training for that, and finishing up school. It seems like every time I plan a day to finish up the last little bit of school work that the kids need to turn into Connections Academy something comes up and throws it all off track. But we are slowly getting there.
Yesterday, Daddy had his second hip surgery in less than 6 months, so we are all back on that odd schedule again. Luckily Noah and Abigail help out a bunch with Jade and Braeden, while I am busy with Daddy. Hopefully, this is will be the last surgery and everything will work out and be done. I honestly don't know if any of us can handle another one.
Today, Braeden has his follow up appointment with the neurologist. I have been dreading this appointment for some time now because he still isn't walking all the time (at moments it seems like he is just going to take off running and then he stops and doesn't go anywhere) and he still isn't talking. Well he has just started saying mamamama in the past week. But it doesn't seem to be directed towards me, its just something that he is babbling. So I am not sure what that is going to hold for us.
On a more positive note, Daddy and I have been looking into RV's on craigslist in the surrounding areas and we have found some really great ones that are right in our price range. So hopefully we will be able to get us one in the next couple of weeks. Especially if this job I have started turns out to have a good income. Noah and Abigail have been talking about where they want to go and what they want to see, I am actively making plans to go visit friends in Vermont. So we are definitely in the planning stages of being ROAD BOUND!!! :-)

Wordless Wednesday!

Here is finally a proper introduction to the rugrats!!! Noah, Braeden, Jade and Abigail!

Tagging Tuesday!

I figured that I would give a shout out to a couple of the websites and their people that have been so helpful to me in the past few weeks as I have been learning the ins and outs of a blog and how to properly take care of one.
https://twitter.com/#!/HomeschoolBlogs  They always have helpful tips that they have tweeted
http://homeschoolblogging.com  Love their blog and it is so informational!
http://teachingblogaddict.com   A great place to find different ways to teach your children!
I have many different blogs that I follow that are very special to me in one way or another, and always extremely helpful!!

I am currently still working on the RV Roadschooling Blog, it is going to be full of fun information and ideas, why we want to possibly do this, and what the kids think about it! Stay tuned its going to be an awesome one!

Manic Monday

I spent the weekend making plans for this little blog. I want to be a more active part of it, and I am wanting to give the kids active parts. So here we go, I am a little late on getting today's post up and going but it has been a very busy day; as this week is going to be super busy.
Monday (today lol)- I spent most of the day letting the kids play computer games, because it has been a nasty rainy day and I couldn't hold their attention for anything; while I sat through a couple of webinars for a new company that I have started working for. It is a work at home job, so I get to spend all my time with the kids and still get to earn a living for them and myself. (if you want any information, just comment and let me know :-)
Tuesday- early morning it is pre-op doctor visit for Daddy's next hip surgery, then off to look at an R.V. that we are thinking about buying. It has been coming up in conversation to take this family on the road. So we are now trying to make it happen. I will be making a separate post on this with more details later on in the week.
Wednesday- will be spent doing the couple of lessons the kids have to do with Connections Academy this week, along with their Leap Tests that the school requires them to do, the rest of the day will be spent getting ready for Daddy's surgery.
Thrusday- nothing much is going on except Daddy's surgery. We are lucky that it is going to be an outpatient procedure and we are hoping that this gets everything taken care of so Daddy can get back on his feet fully. Thrusday night, I have another webinar/training session with this company.
Friday- is going to be spent helping Daddy and working with the kids and school if there are any lessons left for them to do.
Saturday- we have a pottery show at the museum here in town that we will be going to if Daddy feels up for the trip. If we do go I will be posting pictures. :-)
And Sunday will be our day of rest and reflection and getting ready for the next week!
Its going to be a long week, but everything is going to be great in the end!

Stay tuned for the post about our possible R.V. adventures!!!

Waiting...

That is all Noah and Abigail are doing right now. Waiting... for their pen pals to respond to their letters. Its been two weeks and no response. I hope that they get letters from their pen pals because if not, I am going to have two very upset children. Hopefully they will show up Monday.
Noah is also waiting to see if he gets a pet in the next couple of weeks. He has been a little more bored than usually these past week or so since school work has slacked off and we are looking at summer. So Daddy and I discussed a hamster and we think it is a good choice for him. I am going to print off a couple of things about how to care for a hamster and then I think he and I are going to go to the pet store and get it. We have talked to him about it and he is super excited for it and even has a list of names for it.
Now what do I do for Abigail... because there is no way that child is even remotely ready to be responsible for anything. LOL
That pretty much sums of this week for us. Its been a bit of a lazy, enjoy the wonderful weather week. And next week is going to be the same way. I love my summer months and enjoy the lazy day weather!

Starting the Week!

After a hectic weekend, that involved princesses and a birthday party for Miss Abigail it is time to get back in the swing of things. We are slowly winding down our school year. The kids are busy playing outside right now instead of doing schoolwork. The babies are napping while I am here with my unknown number cup of coffee lol
Today has started off on a good note. Braeden had his well baby check up today and because he isn't talking or walking (well he walk but only a few steps at a time) they have referred him for the whole therapy bundle. Speech, physical and occupational therapies. I am happy they listened to my concerns and also didn't seem to bat an eye when I said I wanted to wait on his next round of vaccinations. I guess I am lucky that his pediatrician is so awesome!
Due to his lack of speech we have been incorporating signing into our daily lives. Right now its just the basics because I am reteaching myself A.S.L. And Jade is picking up on it very quickly. She already knows mama, daddy, thank you, eat, drink, sorry, all done, and more. Braeden is still working on getting the coordination down to make the signs. But he tries at times to sign more and eat. Which is about right for him, he loves to eat! lol
Moving on towards school with Noah and Abigail. Right now it is too sunny and wonderful outside for them to focus, so we have swapped our hours. They play in the mornings and evenings, and we do school during the afternoons! That is one of the greatest things about this homeschooling thing, we can do it whenever we want and we can do whatever we want as long as we are learning!

Reading Eggs!

I was given the awesome opportunity through The Homeschool Lounge to get a free trial at ReadingEggs.com
I have to say that I had to invest in purchasing a membership with the website. All three of my children love the site.
My 8 year old, Noah, loves the fact that as he reads and does the quizzes that come after the story/chapter book he had read, he earns gold eggs (hence the name Reading Eggs). Then he can take his eggs and use them as currency to buy things. He has his own 'apartment' that is decorated his way, with pets, and his own clothes on his avatar. He would stay on this website and play all day every day if I let him. I have had to start limiting his time on the site in order to get other things done.

My 7 year old, Abigail, likes the games that the site has to offer. She enjoys the phonics game that comes with the site, as she is still having difficulty reading at times. There are games that isn't really educated related but it is still something that she can do and learn about at the same time. She also likes earning the eggs and using them in the stores to buy different costumes for her avatar.

My 2 year old, Jade, likes doing school with the older kids. So a lot of times while I am busy helping Abigail with her assignments, Noah will sit at the desk with Jade and do her little lessons with her. She is doing the phonics lessons, where she learns what the letter is, what it looks like and what sound it makes. She is catching on pretty quick and will tell you that T is TA for turtle and B is BA for ball.

I feel very lucky to have been given the change to get a free trial for this website. It has been a headache saver on those days when it seems like everything has gone wrong with our lessons and so to make sure the kids get some learning in for the day, I let them loose on the readingeggs.com website!

The Home School Lounge
Reading Eggs

Weekly Round-up

First things first, I want to say that Miss Jade is well on her way to being potty trained. She hasn't had a pee accident all week and only one poop accident yesterday! Needless to say I am beyond excited at this.
Noah and Abigail are in the homestretch of finishing this school year out. We have 30 (maybe less) days left of school. So we are finishing up and getting ahead with lessons, etc.
And I am going to spend the weekend, finishing up and finalizing the first month's worth of lesson plans. And then loosely set the second month up. This way, I can stay on top of everything!

This week has been quite the hectic on top of all of this going on. Abigail's birthday is tomorrow, and her party is Saturday, so we have been getting the house party ready! And she is bouncing off the walls with excitement. We have been busy practicing our karate, because they have a test to advance to their green and white belts next week. I have a job interview tomorrow, and I have been giving a possible work at home opportunity. So it has most definitely been a busy busy week!

On other topics, Daddy is in the countdown for his next hip surgery. We are hoping this fix all of his problems and he can be well on his way to getting better!

PEN PALS!!!

I finally got all the information back in for the kid's pen pals. Noah has a pen pal that is his age that lives in Delaware, Abigail has a pen pal her age that lives in Northern Oregon and Jade has a pen pal that is a little bit older than her that lives in Southern Oregon! Noah and Abigail wrote letters to their pen pals this morning as part of their school work and I will be assisting Jade with her letter/picture later. I am so excited for them to have this experience, because it is something so awesome for them and it is completely not computer related! Although I found their pen pals from the computer lol
Hopefully they will make a life long friend like this!

Spring Break

Well today is the official start up after spring break! While I enjoyed the break, I like the normalcy of our routines.
Some great things happened over spring break. Jade is well on her way to being potty trained! Yay me! Braeden took his first steps and is slowly becoming a walker, but still isn't talking much. But his babbling has increased over the past few days, so he should be a talker soon also! Abigail has a case of poison oak, she was out back playing with the green leaf stuff growing, making salads and I didn't realize exactly what it was she was playing pretend cooking show with. We get to go out back now and survey everything and start chopping it down! YAY US! Noah has been kind of quite the past week, when schedules change he tends to either shut down a little bit or just become a total brat. Its been a mixture of both sides this week, but now we are on our way to fixing it!
Other than that, nothing much is going on around here. Just finishing out the school year with Connections Academy and I am still working on putting together at least the first few weeks of lesson plans for us doing school on our own! Oh and still job hunting too! Life is always busy with something lol

Playing Catch Up!

We have been behind a couple of lessons for the past couple of weeks. And since Connections Academy follows public school guidelines, they needed all past due assignments turned in today or the kids would be getting zeros. So we have been busy all morning getting the couple of things turned in. Now that Noah has seen there are online 25 lessons left in his Language Arts class and about the same in his other classes he is determined to get school work done for the year through spring break next week. So now we are working on a unit test in L.A.
After lunch, I get to switch kids and do all of Abigail's work with her. Then grocery shopping. WOOHOO!

The Job Hunt Maybe Over!

I think, I think, I think, I might have just found a job. Its at the local Pizza Hut, but its a job and its a start. Now that means I am going to have to work extra hard into finishing up this school year (because Daddy is completely lost on where we are at now lol) and getting stuff put together, worksheets printed out and ready for school when it starts after our summer break! Things just got a lot more exciting for us... I love excitement!!! I will be posting my first week lesson plans by the end of the week!

***On a side note: my grandpa seems to be responding well to the chemotherapy and when he went to the doctor yesterday, the doc said that his tumors were shrinking. He is able to eat again, little things like jello, pudding and ice cream. So things are looking very optimistic for him!***

WooHoo!!

As March comes to an end and April charges in (yeah I know corny lol), I have found myself spending more and more time on building next year's curriculum. I am super duper excited about, as is the kids. They can't wait to get started on what they are calling Mama's school. We've been tossing around school names and I think we have settled on Largent Learning Academy, now to make a sign to hang over the door that comes into our classroom corner. I am still working on getting that set up. I still have a dishwasher where my desk is suppose to go, and then as I was thinking I can move the dishwasher out of the way today, I realized that I don't have a chair for my desk, so now I get to go thrift store hunting for a pretty chair :-)
But on to more exciting things. I have finally finished putting together everything, now I am in the middle of writing out lesson plans and getting worksheets printed for the first month of school. I want everything to be ready to kick off for a great day of school, just in case I have a job and Daddy has to be the teacher!
After lots of thinking, I think its going to be best to put science and history together. Well not together, but teach Noah and Abigail together on the subjects. This way there is really only Math and Language that has to be done separately. Now here is the list of science things we will be exploring
Dinosaur Fossils
Plants and Animals of the Sea
Trees
Types of Trees
Flowers
Edible Flowers
Forest Plants
Eye of the Storm
Hurricanes
Volcanos and Glaciers
Earthquakes
-Thinking of adding in Tornados with Hurricanes, not sure yet-
Simple Machines
Meet the Scientist (gotta choose a scientist or two for this one)
Frog and Butterfly Life Cycles
Animal Babies
Extinct Animals- Dinosaur
More Extinct Animals
Desert Plant and Animal Habitat
Forest "
Ocean"
What is Weather
Seasons
Climate
Water Cycle
Planet Earth
Rocks
Geological Time Scale
Exploring Sun
" Moon
" Stars
Space Explorations
Air and Atmosphere
Magnets and Forces

Exciting isn't it? Now granted this is the exact way its going to be put together, some things are going to be rearranged and then stuff may be taken away or put in, but its a rough sketch. Each topic is going to be broken down into a week's worth of lessons. And I am trying to make sure that either the History topic or Science topic has an art project at the end of the week. Like for dinosaurs, I am going to buy the 3-d wooden puzzles and that is going to be our project for that week!
I am also looking at adding in Sign Language as their extra curricular activity. So now I am looking for resources for that, to teach them along with my two year old and one year old.
A fun fun school year lies ahead of me, and I can't wait!!!

The Move....

I just finally got internet back, it was a rough couple of days with out it and it made for some miserable kids and MAMA lol
But we have finally finished the move across town to a bigger house. With that has come cleaning out a bunch of stuff that we don't need. There is going to be a big donation going to the Goodwill here soon. I have gotten the chance to reorganize all of our school stuff and clean out what we aren't going to use next year and I have started getting the actual supplies ready for next school year. I am still working on getting the rest of their lesson plans laid out. Its been slow moving with that, but now that we are moved its going to go a little bit easier. And once I get my dishwasher installed (its currently sitting on the homeschool corner of the dining room lol) I will have a spot for my very own personal desk, so I won't be spread out all over the kitchen table!!! I am also busy decorating our little homeschool corner. I can't wait to get pictures posted! But first I have to find my camera battery charger LOL
That's about it right now. We are slowly getting back on schedule and getting use to the new house!

Illness Hits Mommy :-(

So in great timing, I decided to get sick Friday and Saturday. I literally laid on the couch all day Saturday running a fever off and on. Sunday, I finally felt up to eating a little bit of something. And then yesterday, I was back to normal. I don't know what happened, but it literally whooped my tail for a couple of days. And now I am busy playing catch up. Catch that involves cleaning up the house we are still living in, finish packing up and moving in the next couple of days, and then getting caught up on our school work. We are a little bit behind because of everything that has occurred in the past couple of weeks.
And I am still putting together next year's school stuff. I want to have it all put together by the end of next month and in a notebook so that way if Daddy needs to fill in one day, it will all be there ready for him to use and not be confusing at all.
Not much going on, just the usual lol

I have been busy....

In between school for me, school for Noah and Abigail, cleaning and painting the new house and several job interviews (still needing a job LOL), I found the time to put together the basics to our history curriculum. I have also decided (as previously stated) we will school year round. Connections Academy ends school on June 1st, and I am planning on letting them de-public/virtual school for three weeks and restart school on June 25th.
So now into what we will be learning about in the next school year:
Miss Jade will be learning her ABC's and possibly her numbers depending on how well she takes to structured lessons. Granted she is only 2 1/2, so I am not expecting too much, but I still want to include her in school!
Noah and Abigail will be doing History together. I have combined both 2nd grade and 3rd grade lessons for them into what I feel is going to be an awesome thing. For History they have:
Asian Civilization
Cultures of Japan
Cultures of India
History of Cars
History of Water traveling
History of Flying
History of the Railroad
The Postal System
Inventors
Women in Medical History
The United States
The Great Lakes
Ancient Egypt
Hieroglyphics (I am looking forward to this one myself lol)
Pyramids
Mummies
 Archeology
Fun and Games in Ancient Greece
Greek Myths
Greek Art and Architecture
Theodore Roosevelt
Neil Armstrong
Great Rivers of the World
Timelines
Ancient Rome
Roman Army
Changes in the Roman Empire
Life in Ancient Rome
Roman Art and Architecture

Each topic is at least a week long, some extend into other topics and last two or three weeks.

I am thinking that I will combine Science also. And then they will have separate language and math lessons. But I see a lot of library trips in our future! To be perfectly honest, it excites me. I think I am as impatient about this as they are. :-)

Today has been Productive!

Today has been very very busy. I still have a bunch of packing to do. I am hoping we are done with the painting between today and tomorrow and then we can start moving our belongings into the house. But I have been searching for stuff, so I can start building my school stuff for next school-year. We plan on schooling year round, so I need to get a jump start on that, since the last day of school with Connections Academy will be June 1st of this year. And considering I have not one but two job interviews tomorrow, plus I am waiting a call back on another job, and I have decided to double up on classes with my school; getting a jumping head start might be the best thing for me to do. This way Daddy will know what to do with the kids each day!
Other than that, the weather is beautiful, can't wait for summer to officially be here. I have lots of outdoor activities lined up for the rugrats!

This blogging thing is hard... :-)

As I try to keep up with all of this, I have been faced with a lot of other things, we are currently moving to a bigger house to hold all of us, while we deal with what possibly make happen with my grandpa, and while rearranging our plans for a move to Knoxville. The past week has been spent cleaning the "new" house, painting it, and getting it ready for us to move our stuff into over the weekend. With this move comes an official spot to do homeschool, the house is all one level, so we are moving Jade into a room with Abigail. Which is going to prove to be difficult at night time. LOL I am also focusing on my school a little more, with a change in majors and doubling up on classes. Once we are moved, I am going to spend some time, putting together our summer school lessons (which is going to include tornados, hurricanes, and Egypt). Then I have to put together next school's years curriculum. So the next few weeks is going to be extremely hectic for me.
Oh did I mention, that this getting into a blogging routine is kind of hard lol I find myself forgetting about it at times. As I have in the past two weeks, and I do apologize. Hopefully with a clean, more organized, better planned out day in the 'new' house, I will be able to do this a lot more than I have. And get it more focused on what I want it to be able instead of mindless ramblings right now. :-)

Hurdles... and Jumping Them!

Just when you think you have everything planned out for a minute and starting working towards making that plan reality. This time last week we were finishing up a vacation, talking to the kids about moving to Knoxville and putting that into motion to happen in 6-8 months. Today, all those plans have gone out the window. Yesterday, we found out that my grandpa has stage 4 throat cancer, and with that Daddy and I made the decision to not go anywhere. Honestly, after my grandpa is gone, it will be the rugrats that keep my grandma moving on. I can't take that away from her. Yet at the same time, I feel like we are throwing away a chance at complete and total happiness by not moving. I feel like our lives will be so much richer in a bigger city with more options at different things. But if we leave, I feel like we will have let our family down especially in this time of need. I am not sure exactly where this is going, just needing to get it out somewhere.

Vacation Wrap-Up

So we did it, we finally took a family vacation. Well it was a honeymoon, vacation, big ole field trip all rolled into one. We had a blast, the kids had a blast, and it was just nice to get away. Where did we go? We went to Knoxville. We wanted to take the kids there so they could see it, before we made that definite decision to move. It has been made we will be moved to Knoxville before the end of the year. It was so nice there, and in the week we were there, I met a fellow homeschooling mom and found out where all the cool homeschool kids hang out. Would you believe that it is at the library? :-)
My grandma drove up from Chattanooga for the day on Saturday and we went to the zoo. It was a nice zoo with a variety of animals. Jade loved all the animals and knew most of them by name and had to tell them hello and goodbye all the while never letting go of my grandma's hand. (I enjoyed watching my grandma more than the kids, because it was her first time going to a zoo. The kids were teaching her about the animals instead of the other way around, made me happy and proud)
Then we did a lot of site seeing, there is just a over abundance of stuff to do it that town. They have an awesome book store that sells used books (McKay's of Knoxville, or Chattanooga, or Nashville). I picked up a book full of 3rd grade worksheets for just 10 dollars. Plus a book of brain teasers for 3 dollars. We left with three bags of books and only paid 29 dollars. And most of those books came out of the free bin!!! Free is always awesome.
Next was a trip to the children's museum. Once again, this was a first time trip for Jade who was in love with the life size doll house and cried when it was time to leave. And when I mean cried, the poor thing cried the entire 20 mins it took us to get from the museum to the resturant for lunch. She was pitiful.
Noah and Abigail loved the zoo and the museum but the highlight of their trip was visiting Daddy's friends. Daddy's friends have kids that are around their ages and they were able to go just crazy and act like monkeys that had just escaped the zoo LOL
Daddy and I got a night to ourselves at Books A Million (we both had homework to do and the Wi-Fi at the hotel wasn't cutting it). So we did homework over a cup of coffee!
All in all it was a very productive and relaxing trip, noone wanted to come home when it was time. And we are counting down the days til we get to move there!
Until then, back to the day to day around here!!! WooHoo!!!

Valentine's Day

Tomorrow marks another shopping manufactured holiday that everyone is going crazy over. For my family, tomorrow is just another day. We will eventually learn about the actual events surrounding Valentine's Day. Until then, we will probably have crafts and make valentines for the grandparents and maybe their Karate instructor.
So what about Daddy and I? Well we won't get anything special for each other, because our philosophy is we don't need just one day a year to show each other how much we love each other. We do little things through the year to show that. (Whether its him grabbing a cup of coffee for me, or me getting him a Reese's cup lol)
Right now the kids are more interested in when we are going to Knoxville and what we are going to do when we get there. Actually, that is all I am concerned about too. I need to get away from everything. We are taking our spring break from school early and I can't wait.

Finding our groove...

It is funny to think that it took me almost a full year of homeschooling to figure out what to do with the kids. I have gotten slightly "lazy" the past couple of weeks and gave up the "formal" schooling approach. We have done school sitting on the couch in the living room with everyone else. We dropped workbooks and just focused on learning what was presented to us that day (we are currently using Connections Academy). Right now there is just so much going on for the kids to hold focus through workbooks, lessons and assessments. But I noticed that they enjoy sitting on the couch, with me and the laptop, we can pull up their textbooks online, so they get to read their stories and see the workbook problems in their math books. We can work on everything and be comfy.
While this works for us right now, it isn't going to be the normal (I don't think so anyways). I am hoping that we find a bigger house in the next couple of months and then we will have an actual formal classroom that isn't in the dining room, with the dining room being in the classroom. I have so many ideas for a classroom and how I want to teach them, but right now, we are so crammed in our little house, that its going to have to wait.
On a different note, right now, we are trying out a trial run of Readingeggs.com. I plan on giving a complete and total review of this in a couple of weeks once we have worked on it some. This is also going along with us planning a trip to Knoxville to see friends. I am working on a very productive itinerary for this too. There are so many things in the area that I want to take in while we are there. Oh did I mention that we are going as job/housing scouts. We are thinking about moving there. I can't wait to get there and enjoy it. I have heard such wonderful things about it. The kids are looking forward to it, they can't wait to go back to play with their friends that they have there.
Oh well, that's us at Largent Learning Academy today. lol

Egypt Here We Come....

Today, I started researching our Egypt unit study for the summer (I can feel the warmth of summer already lol) And I am in amazement at the wealth of information on Egypt and the fun things that I have found in just an hour or so of playing around on Google. I have bookmarked several pages and will be putting together a lesson plan for it all. I am in the process of deciding if I should put it up here for all to see and use. I am a firm believer in sharing with everyone, so I might just share with ya'll :-)
Today, we have finally gotten all of our schoolwork caught up and are now back on track from where Daddy had surgery almost three weeks ago. Speaking of Daddy he is recovering very well and is completely back on his feet! We have also been talking about moving to a more homeschool accepting city and Knoxville keeps coming up. Does anyone live in Knoxville? How is the crowd there? I have never lived there, but Daddy did for a few years and loved it and misses it greatly.
Nothing else going on! Just a quick update!

Life Lessons Turned into School Lessons!

This all started last night when a friend called and said "Hey let's go to the tanning bed!" Okay, I'm all for a few minutes of me time away from the kids (what mama isn't?) I didn't take the time remember that it had been almost 10 years since I had stepped into a tanning bed. So I jump in all lathered up in lotion and fall asleep for 15 mins. Great relaxing 15 mins, next time I'm taking my MP3 player with me lol
I felt great until 4 this morning when I rolled over and felt like I had been set on fire. Yep thats right, bright smart intelligent me, is tanning bed burnt.... crispy, like a tomato with hair lol
Now this morning, the kids wake up and start asking questions, like why i am sitting in the deep freezer (not literally) and why my face is so red. So I pull my shirt up and show them my stomach and back. My 8 year old looks at me and says "It wasn't hot yesterday, so why are you sunburnt?" Smart little booger he is. So I had to explain to them vanity (lol) lack of judgement and what a tanning bed really is. I think we are off to a great start this today, as long as I can get out of the freezer.

Things are finally looking up...

It is starting to look like 2012 will be so much better than 2011. With Daddy losing his job at the end of 2009, we have spent the past 2 years struggling with unemployment, little odd jobs, and both of us found a job last year, but neither one lasted longer than two months, because of issues with our bosses (and for once, it was out of our control). So now that Daddy's hip is on the mend from surgery, he has had some inquiries about jobs (he runs his own construction business) and just this morning I had an interview for an office assistant with a property management company. Hopefully things are turning around for us. We most definitely need it.
Now comes the shuffling of schedules for us. If I get this job, Daddy gets to do the majority of the schooling (which might be best, since Abigail responds better with him teaching). So this is also on my list of things to do in the next week or so. But right now my focus has to be on  my school stuff. I have gotten behind the past couple of weeks and really need to get caught up.
Speaking of getting caught up, the kids are finally getting caught up after taking a two week break after Daddy had his hip surgery. I am still amazed at how quickly they pick up things. In a matter of minutes Abigail picked up the tens and ones make numbers (2 tens + 5 ones = 25) then we took it a step further and within a few more minutes she figured out that (1 ten + 15 ones = 25 and 0 tens + 25 ones = 25 also) It so awesome to get to watch their faces at they finally figure something out! That is the biggest reward with homeschooling!

Saturday Fun! :-)

Today was my baby's first birthday party. Today was the last first birthday party I will ever put together :-(
Today marked the beginning of a newness for me. I no longer have a baby in the house, by age standards. Yet, he is still a mama's baby, lol. He hasn't started walking yet (getting braver, but not ready to let go), he isn't verbal yet. His favorite word is 'nom nom' and that's because he likes to eat ALOT. But he can stack blocks on top of each other, he can feed himself finger foods, he can turn pages in a book, play peek a boo, clap his hands, and loves to dance. He has an appointment, for his one year check up, Tuesday, so we will see what the doc says about his development. I think he's developing wonderfully :-)
From baby boy to baby girl; there are some days, I think Miss Jade is way too smart for her own good. She can count in three different languages (thank you Dora and Ki-Lan lol), she can recite her ABC's most of them are understandable, she knows basic colors (and knows the verde means green), and knows basic shapes. She can write a smiley face and a circle and intersecting lines. I am putting together a little bit of a summer program for her to introduce her ABC's to her in more than just looking at a book or watching Dora. But like I was saying there are days when I think she is genius intelligent, and then there are days like today where she decides to lick the dog's nose lol Not once, but 5 times, says Ewww nasty after each lick!
As for the two older ones, we are working on getting back on schedule after taking a two week break because Daddy had a hip replacement. Now that Daddy is back on his feet, I can focus all my attention back to the kids and it will be alot easy to focus on school work. So Monday morning bright and early, we get started again. So I will have an update on them in a couple of days. I
Other than that, I am getting ready to get started on the Egypt/Mummy summer study! I am so excited about this (especially after watching The Mummy two nights ago lol) I am still actively searching for a museum that has a mummy exhibit that isn't going to cost an arm and a leg to see.

Until next time,
Ashley

Starting Over...

So I have decided that I didn't like the way this blog was going (with all 6 entries) and the fact that nothing had been done to it in almost 6 months, I deleted everything and we are starting over. I plan on keeping with it this time, hopefully to be updating it at least once a day.
First things first, this will be mostly about homeschooling the rugrats. After using a virtual academy since August, we have decided that it isn't the way we want to go. Now we are researching different curriculum  and exploring our options. Right now we have chosen www.lessonpathways.com as our beginning spot for education. We have started putting together a summer unit study for Egypt and the mummies and pyramids. I am currently on the looking for a local (and by local I mean within a two or so hours driving distance) museum that is doing an Egyptian exhibit to go along with our summer studies.
Right now at this moment, this blog is going to be more of a place for me to put my thoughts down (whether its a to-do list for tomorrow or thoughts about a product/thing/item I want to try out), along with progress updates of the kids, what works for their learning style and what doesn't.
So enjoy reading what life holds in store for me and mine!