Clock makeover

For a while, I've been trying to find a clock for our school room. I just didn't see anything I liked. We had been using this plain clock.


I decided to paint it to see if that would make it look better. Then I took the glass off and added these circles that I cut out from a piece of scrapbook paper.

A Mom's Separation Anxiety

When people ask me why we homeschool, I can easily came up with many reasons. The one reason I usually don't mention is the one that made me start thinking of homeschooling in the first place seven years ago even though I had never known anyone who homeschooled and it seemed like a strange, crazy thing to me. I was reminded of that reason today as I sat in my van outside the library  The first time I thought about homeschooling was when Colin was 3 years old. His friends started preschool and I just couldn't stand the thought of being away from him and having him with strangers. I thought it would be easier if we waited until he was 5 and ready for kindergarten. As 5 got closer, he still looked so little and I realized that 5 year olds are still babies. Once we decided to homeschool, I assumed it would only be for a few years until he was old enough to take care of himself a little better. Ha Ha! How could I not have seen then that he will always seem like a little boy to me?

So what made me think about all of this? Colin went to a science camp today. It was the first time he's ever went to a class where I dropped him off. Once I was back in the van with the girls, I sat there for about 5 minutes feeling a little sick about leaving him and wondering if I should just go back in. I had considered staying there when I first signed him up, but then I realized that as much as we love the library, 3 hours there is a long time for the girls. Finally, I made myself leave to do the errands I had planned and only checked my phone for the time and to make sure he didn't call once a couple times a few times okay it was a lot of times.

I don't think Molly liked it any more than I did. She kept asking me what time it was. After a while, she finally said that she just wanted to go back and get Colin. The funny thing is this morning she kept talking about Colin being gone like she was looking forward to it.

So we all made it through this milestone. He did great and had fun. Now we get to do it all over again tomorrow. It will be easier the second time, right?

States Visited

I found this on another blog. The girls have been to 20 states and Colin has been to 21. He is the only one that's been to Michigan because it was before the girls were born. They've lived in 7 states.


visited 21 states (42%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

I had only been to 3-4 states when I got married so they seem well traveled to me. I hope we can get to some of the western states in the next couple years. We thought we might get to some of them when we lived in Texas, but we weren't there long enough.

2010-2011 Curriculum

This week in the Not Back to School Blog Hop, everyone is sharing the curriculum they plan to use for the upcoming year.



We will be doing kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 5th grade this year. Here are our plans:

All Together
Five in a Row and Homeschool Share unit studies- I try to match these with what we're studying in history or science if possible.
Exploring Creation with Astronomy
Story of the World II- Middle Ages & Activity Guide
Egermeier's Bible Storybook
Artistic Pursuits, Draw Write Now, & Discovering Great Artists
I'm still trying to decide on a foreign language program. I have Rosetta Stone Chinese so we may try that. Chinese seems a little intimidating to me though so I've been looking at Spanish programs.




5th Grade
Writing Tales 1
Spell to Write and Read
First Language Lessons 4
RightStart Math E - We're a little more than halfway through this. I'm leaning toward doing RightStart Geometry after, but I want to do some more research.
Life of Fred Fractions
Life of Fred Decimals and Percents




2nd Grade
Spell to Write and Read
First Language Lessons 1/2- we need to finish part 1 and then we'll move on to part 2
Cursive First
RightStart Math C




Kindergarten
Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Bob books, Starfall
Handwriting without Tears
RightStart Math A
She's already been doing Five in a Row and other unit studies for a while. This year she will start making her own notebook with lapbooks to go along with the studies. When we do science and history, she can listen in as much as she wants and I'll try to do the read alouds that will interest her first. She usually does pretty well with listening to books, but can start getting fidgety if the subject matter gets difficult. I'm sure she'll want to join us in the projects I've planned to go along with them.

Hershey, Pennslyvania

Chad had to work in PA this week so we tagged along. While he was working, the kids and I visited Hershey, PA. We'd gone there a few years ago, but the girls didn't remember it.

On our first day, we visited Zoo America where we got rained on a little.


After lunch, I had planned to go to Chocolate World, but the regular parking lots were already full and they were taking people by tram from another one. I guess the rain caused people to go there since it's inside so we decided to wait until the next day and hope it wasn't as crowded. Instead, we went to a neat toy store called Toys on the Square.

The next morning, we headed to Chocolate World first thing and found no crowds. We did the Hershey's Chocolate tour first with no wait. The kids liked seeing all the things that have to be done to make the chocolate. Last year when we studied the rainforest, we talked about how chocolate comes from cocoa beans and they remembered some stuff from that. Of course their favorite part was the candy bar they give you at the end.




After that, we saw the Hershey Kiss and just had to go get a picture.


Later while the kids were deciding what they should buy to take back to Chad, we spotted the Reese Cup.


Then they decided we needed to go on the tour again. I think it was mostly to get another candy bar. After having already seen it once, I guess they were looking closer this time. Caleigh said, "Hey, those are mirrors. I don't even think they're doing the things they say in there. Do they actually even make chocolate in this place?"

After that, the kids became factory workers at the Kisses Packaging place.

When my kids watch a show or something, they always seem to pick a character that they say is them. As soon as we got to Chocolate World and saw the sign out front, they decided that Caleigh was the Kiss, Colin the Reese Cup, and Molly the Hershey Bar. So when they saw stuffed toys of them, they thought they just had to have them.


I thought it was better than these giant candies they had asked for first so I agreed.


Once we left there, I was going to take them to the outlets, but as we were about to pass Zoo America, they all started yelling that they wanted to go back there. We have a membership card that gets us into zoos free so we went again.

Here's a picture of the street where you can see the Hershey kiss lights.


And here is my little Hershey Kiss:

Beach Days

The only thing the kids seemed concerned about when they found out we were moving away from Charleston was missing the beach. We're still only 2 hours from the beach so it's not too far. Chad has a lot of meetings near there so we've been able to get in quite a few beach days this summer.

I don't get too many pictures because Chad and the kids spend most of their time in the water and I try to avoid the water if I can. Here are a few from the different trips.

4th of July & Joel Lane Museum House

We visited the Joel Lane Museum House, where they were having special events for the Fourth of July. This house was built in the early 1770's. They had re-enactors, crafts, demonstrations, and much more. The kids got to try writing with quill pens.




Making rag dolls


Finished dolls


They had a spot where you could play with toys from that time period.


Tin punching ornaments


Here are their finished ornaments:


Churning butter







Colin is putting in the wick for a beeswax candle.


Here is the cake the kids think we have to have every 4th of July. It's pound cake, then a layer of jello, and then cool whip. Caleigh put on the strawberry stripes and Molly did the blueberry stars.

How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A.

One of our favorite picture books is How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, so I decided we would use the newer book, How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A. to go along with studying Independence Day. In this book, the girl has all her ingredients, but she needs the equipment (bowl, rolling pin, pot holders, etc.). As in the first book, the store is closed (this time because it's the 4th of July) so she has to travel to find the natural resources needed to make what she needs.

We used our map to follow along to all the states she visits. We colored in each of those states on the map in our notebook. We discussed what she made from each of the things she gathered and how some of the processes work. During her travels, we see many landmarks that we read more about. From there, we discussed the Fourth of July, what it means, the American Revolution, George Washington, the American flag, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and John Hancock. Using Draw Write Now, they drew the Statue of Liberty.






I printed out this street scene, cut them out, and had the kids glue them to the bags so they could have their own similar to the one in the book. As you can see, they've already added some people and vehicles to it.

NC Aquarium- Fort Fisher

We spent the weekend at the beach. While there, we decided to check out the aquarium that is nearby.
It was small, but the kids enjoyed it.

Father's Day

Colin made breakfast.


There were cards and presents.


Out for lunch


Colin made a cake.


Happy Father's Day to my wonderful hubby!