Summer Reading

Last week we ventured to the library and signed up for the summer reading program. It's a bingo-card looking system - 10 books/activities completed earns them a free book; 20 completions earns them a library tote bag. This year I had one reader and two pre-readers sign up and those little girls were VERY excited to get their own forms this year. (I think this is B's first time to participate.)

When I was looking over their sheets and seeing what we needed to check off, N1's form said that she had to read something from her "school summer reading list." Well, since we homeschool, we don't have a reading list per se, although I always have books that I'm suggesting or stacking beside her bed to tempt her. : ) After seeing that on her library sheet, though, it made me realize that I can assign her some summer reading with a few little incentives on the home front. (I'm sure this is something that lots of other folks have thought of, but it was kind of a "duh" moment for me.) : )

So, last night ... because it was late and I was having a good time arranging my Sharpies ... I made her a little summer reading notice that was placed conveniently by her chair at breakfast this morning.





I realize that the first sentence "You must read two books to read from the list..." is not correct. Oops. Luckily Mama is not being graded. : )

The fine print is as follows:

• She has to read two books from the list. She can pick the books from five choices I gave her.
• The reading of a 3rd book gets her an ice cream date with Dad or Mom, her choice.
• The reading of a 4th book earns her $20 in new book money which she can either spend and an actual, real-live bookstore, real books via Amazon, or digital books via Amazon to be put on my Kindle. (Note: we are considering long and hard about buying her a Kindle for her birthday this year. She has proven to be responsible and really enjoys using mine when I will give it up.)
• The reading all five books earns her a super secret prize (as yet to be determined). : )

The books I chose were mostly just fun books. She worked hard this year and my goal in this is to challenge her to go beyond the easy chapter books and pick up one that is a little bit bigger. She has proven to me that she can read and understand a little older book but feel "safer" with the easier (dare I say fluffier) stories. I want to push her past that and challenge her and also introduce her to some great books.

The books I went with were:

• The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
• The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards (highly recommended to me by my friend Dana and since we LOVED Mandy, this seemed a no-brainer).
• Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (this is where we have ended our read-alouds of this series)
• Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Does your family participate in summer reading programs or do you make your own? I'm excited about her little challenge and am curious to see how much this motivates her. I'll try and remember to report back in a few months! Happy reading!

Monday's To-Do's:

Happy Monday! We are kicking off a busy week of dance camp for the two little girls. Oh my, the excitement this morning. But they were super adorable heading off together in their pink leotards, if I do say so. : ) We have to be out the door early to get them to their camp on time, and if the rest of this week goes as well as today did, we will have it made. Honestly, mama taking time to spend a few minutes with Jesus before little ones were up also made a difference I do believe. : )

Anyway, on my list today:

• write and mail a couple of thank you notes
• the ever present LAUNDRY
• finish any last minute brainstorming and purchasing for T's birthday which is this coming weekend
• write a review of Made to Crave although I know I will not do this book justice. THAT good.
• made an orthodontic consultation appointment for my SEVEN year old. 
• made eye appointments for me and T. I am afraid it's time for bifocals for me. Boo.
• start a list for when/if we travel to see family this summer. I have not traveled with a baby in a while and I know I will forget something!
• insert what I am forgetting right here: ________________. : )

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday. I'm off to feed the baby quickly before we hop back into the car to pick up the girls from dance and hear all about it. Can't wait.

Project Life ::: Weeks 21 & 22

Two more weeks of Project Life!

This is week 21 (so May 15th - 21st, I believe). Another insert on this week since it was our last week of N1's tutorial and lots of great little scraps came home with her. This insert is a 12x12 page with a 6x12 slot on the top and three 4x6 vertical spaces on the bottom. Worked perfectly for this week. I love all the little pieces that we were able to include this week!



Up close: on the date card I stuck a little post-it that B wrote on. She made some really great "B"s and I wanted to save them.
Sunday: a photo of my brother-in-law with our family's 39th birthday mug gag gift. I was happy to pass it on to him. : )
Monday: we took B in for her 4yr well check-up and see was a rockstar at her appointment! She had to get one shot and the girl didn't flinch OR shed a single tear. We were so impressed that we celebrated with Sonic ice cream cones at 10:30 in the morning after her appointment! (Are we wild and crazy or what?!) : )
Tuesday: with the boy's newfound ability to pull up, Daddy took the bassinet tray out of her pack and play. Yet another milestone for the boy. He is delighted at being able to see the girls through the sides of his bed.
Also: in the 4th journaling slot you can see a piece that I cut from a card that Carrie sent me - it was too pretty to throw away! : )



Front of the insert:
Top pocket: holds a certificate from N1's teacher on her oral insect presentation that she did in class.
Bottom left: a little grading sheet from her teacher with a sweet note.
Middle: another copy of the Mother's Day tea picture of me and N1. I really love this picture of us, so I included it twice in the album. : )
Bottom right: journaling card that I made on the computer. (Can't remember what card that I resized and from what digital kit ... I will update when I do.



The back of the insert:
Top pocket: the back of her certificate has a photo of her and her teacher.
Bottom left: another little note from her teacher on the last day of school.
Middle: more journaling.
Bottom right: a photo from her field day when she did the potato sack race - love that we captured her mid-jump!



Page 2 of week 21:
Wednesday: Awana awards night.
Thursday: we found this little shopping cart at the consignment store. At $2.50, it was the best purchase ever.
Friday: a Daddy and B date night.
Saturday: three close girlfriends came over for dinner and we had so much fun catching up and talking. Well worth the lack of sleep. : )



Week 22 (May 22-28):



First page:
Sunday: just a cute pic from Sunday evening when we were playing outside. I put the boy in B's toy car - he's definitely not very stable in there, but it will not be long!
Monday: Dentist day.
Tuesday: this picture didn't photograph well for the blog, but it's a pic of N2 on her top bunk looking at a book with her flashlight. (I don't know if enlarging it in flickr will make it show up better.)
Extra: third journaling card has a lovely picture of a cicada that I snapped in the car as it rode along with us.



Page 2:
Wednesday: a rare group family pic! Everyone went out to see our nephew M play baseball at one of his last games this season.
Thursday: my niece J is out of school for the summer and came over and spent the day with us. The girls love it when she comes over so I think we'll see lots of her this summer.
Friday: the first day that the neighbor girls were out of school so there was LOTS of bike riding and princesses outside today.
Saturday: ANOTHER milestone for the boy as we moved him from the infant seat to a rear-facing toddler seat. (At 20 lbs. in a beat-up infant seat that was about to literally fall apart on us, we went ahead and made the move to keep him safer). Good decision, but he looks like such a big boy!



And there you have it! I know I say this in almost every post, but this has been such a great way of documenting the everyday for us. I can see continuing this on for many years to come. : )

2011-2012 Homeschool Plans

As of last week we wrapped up our 2010-2011 school year and I now have a second grader, a kindergartener and a preschooler/pre-K girl on my hands for this fall! I am always amused that no matter how tired and ready I am for summer break, I also am super excited about what we are doing this fall and the new materials that have been and will be arriving on our doorstep over the next few weeks. For those that our curious, I thought I would share what we are planning on doing for this fall ... remembering that there may need to be some tweaking when we eventually start. Here goes!

N1: 2nd grade, age 7.5 (will turn 8 in October)

• Math: Saxon 2
• Language Arts:
• Explode the Code, books 4 1/2, 5 and 5 1/2 (we struggled a little at the end of the year with dividing syllables so we'll tackle the 4 1/2 book for review before moving on)
• A Reason for Handwriting Transition (from print to cursive) 
• A Reason for Spelling Level D
• First Language Lessons, Level 2
• Writing with Ease, Workbook 2
• Wordly Wise, book 2
• Journaling
• Social Studies: Story of the World, Volume 1, text and workbook
• Science: Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, text, workbook, and lab kit
• Bible: 
• scripture memory through our Awana program at church
• Community Bible Study homeschool program - studying the book of Acts. (I will be participating in the adult version of this study and N1 will have her own student study workbook.)
• Other:
• Fine Arts: Art Friday, a weekly opportunity to create art. Projects will be eclectic, varied, seasonal at times, and/or tied to social studies and science. (More about this when I get to my kindergartener's plan).
• Music: Kids Praise choir 

N2: Kindergarten, will be 5.5 when we start school

• Math: Saxon K
• Language Arts:
• Explode the Code, books 1 and 1 1/2
• A Reason for Handwriting K (finishing from this year) and A 
• Wordly Wise, K (I didn't do this with N1, but am contemplating it for N2)
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
• Social Studies: Story of the World, Volume 1 (listening along with N1)
• Science: Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day (listening along with N1)
• Bible: 
• scripture memory through our Awana program at church
• Community Bible Study homeschool program - studying the book of Acts. 
• Other:
• Fine Arts: Art Friday, a weekly opportunity to create art. Projects will be eclectic, varied, seasonal at times, and/or tied to social studies and science. We will be using this time to tie in with our Five in a Row studies as we can - coming up with a craft to tie with our book of the week, however I'm leaving this very open to what I think we can accomplish each week.
• Music: Kids Praise choir 
• Five in a Row: as I did with N1, N2 and I will spend time each week with a story book - reading and discussing different aspects of it. I will be using suggestions of activities from Five in a Row Volumes 1 and 2, as well as several of the free lapbook materials that are available on Homeschool Share which we love to put together.

Other resources as they fit:

• Download N Go studies: I've amassed quite a collection of these from my own purchases and through reviews so I'm sure we will be pulled some of them out as they line up with our studies.

B: pre-K, will be almost 4.5 when we start school.

I really have no expectations about what I will accomplish with B for this year. She is such a busy (BUSY!) girl that I don't know how ready she will be to do much table work. And she can spend HOURS in imaginative play with her little dolls/figures that she plays with and I don't want that to end sooner than it has to. That said, I will probably purchase for her the same books that I bought for N2 last year and she can work on them as she wants. I found that by February/March, N2 was much more eager to pull out her books and wanted to work on them at the table with us and I was glad I already had a few things set aside for her. I'll pick up:

• Explode the Code's Get Ready for the Code, Get Set for the Code, Go for the Code
• A Reason for Handwriting K

... and that's really it besides lots of new crayons, (washable!) markers, coloring books and white paper. I have to say I love this planning time of year. : ) Whether or not we get all of this accomplished over the next school year will remain to be seen ... especially as this is my first year to homeschool two students and I will have a active 1-year old to keep and eye on as well. 

If you homeschool, have you made your plans for this fall yet?

I'm linking up with the 2011 Curriculum Fair over at Simple Homeschool today.

Elementary Reading

Of late, most of my fiction reading is actually pre-reading for N1. Truthfully, I love reading kid fiction so this is no hardship for me. She is more than ready to move beyond some of the beginning chapter books so I'm on the hunt for age appropriate storylines that are a bit longer. I just finished two that I am happy to pass on to her!

 The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley is not your ordinary fairy tale. This is the story of the Sisters Grimm, decendents from those long-ago Brothers Grimm (the ones that wrote down the famous fairy tales). Only they weren't really fairy tales ... they were real people and the stories really happened. Over time, however, the fairy tale characters needed a bit more supervision as the world became more populated. The Grimm family took on the task of corralling the Everafters (as they are called) into a small town called Ferryport Landing. This is the story of how two sisters, Sabrina and Daphne, discover their heritage into the Grimm family and learn about the Everafters and their responsibilities. N1 is currently reading this first book, and I just finished book 2, The Unusual Suspects. A very original story and series that I am looking forward to reading more of myself.

Secondly, thanks to a dose of non-drowsy cough medicine at about midnight last night, I was able to finish another book that I spotted from Melissa at Here in the Bonny Glen - The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood. Loved this book! The book chronicles the story of Miss Penelope Lumley, a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females. She is offered the position of governess at Ashton Place, a very large estate out in the country. Her students are three children that the Lord of the estate found in the woods having been raised by wolves! Penelope (with all the gumption that one would find in a character like Anne Shirley) takes on the challenge of training these children. In the process, she works towards unraveling the mystery of their past and the strange behavior of the Lord and Lady of the estate towards the children. I have book 2 in this series on hold at the library and can't wait to continue on with these characters.

Have a great Wednesday. : )