First Lego League

I'll try to blog more about this later, but I wanted to copy this before I forget:

Champion’s Award

The Champion's Award is the most prestigious award that a team can win. It celebrates the ultimate success of the FIRST mission and FLL Core Values. A champion is someone who passionately supports a cause. For FLL, our champions passionately inspire and motivate others about the excitement of science and technology, solving problems, working as a team, and demonstrating respect and Gracious Professionalism.

Ben's team won 2nd place at our area qualifiying tournament! This was a total shock to everyone, a huge blessing, and an exciting evening for us.

Week 3 1/2 of our Year: Caffeine + Me = Early Morning Stress Puppy!

It is 2:35 am. I shouldn't have had that diet coke at 6:30. I'm reaping the consequences now.

Plus, I'm feeling a little stressed about school. Most everything is going well -- good even. But, there were some loose ends that I never fully tied up prior to starting our school year on Aug. 24, and I'm stressing about those right now:

1. Verse Memorization never planned out
2. Poetry Memorization never planned out (using Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization)
3. We've only done 1 week of our ArtPacs lesson (in three weeks)
4. Ben is still reviewing his Latin lesson from last year, but I haven't implemented our chanting... or even figured out what we'd do for it.
5. I forgot (!) to have Luke begin some gentle narration during history/Bible and science. He is loving reading about animals for science right now (and the internet links from Usborne's Word of Animals book have been wonderful), but I'd like to get him used to the idea of summarizing an idea he's learned. And drawing a picture of what we've read about (check off "art" for the day).
6. I want to get a plan for the accountability meetings Ben and I have about our history lessons. This will become very important next week as we begin our Egyptian studies.
7. I never took a first day of school picture of the kids. Bad mommy!
   

I did manage to bang out a couple of these items (#2 and #5) tonight while I'm suffering from caffeine induced insomnia, and I've got some concrete ideas for the others. Ben has Lego League tomorrow night, so I might just sit in the drive way with my notebooks, books and laptop and work through a couple of the issues I've got with the school year.

He's baaaaack!

See this cutie-patootie? He's my first born. He game me the name "Mom." He is my guinea pig. I love him to pieces.

And he's back.

He decided to leave me for 4 1/2 days so he could go to Cub World camp. What could he do there at camp that could possibly be better than what we do here? What's the big deal with archery, BB guns, swimming, Native American village, Fort Friendship and Webelo Woods?

This was the first time any of my children had left me for more than 36 hours. I had practiced crying a week or two before he left, and felt pretty sure that I could hold it in -- until we got in the car to come home without him. In fact (she said, patting herself on the back.) I didn't cry at all when we dropped him off, nor did I cry when we left the camp with one less monster in the back of the van.

And, in fact, Monday didn't feel weird without him. Monday night didn't either. Tuesday was OK, too. But after that, I started to *really* miss him. He's probably my cuddliest kid, and I missed that. I missed hearing his voice and hearing him say, "Hey, Mom, did you know that...." So, Wednesday was *really* hard -- I think that's when I started counting down the hours until Thursday at 5pm.

Picking him up, I was a little nervous as to his reaction to us. Did he miss us enough? Did he have so much fun he wouldn't want to come home? Even Luke and Levi were very excited to see him. We approached his den's tents to find him............

...not there. Just his pack of dirty duds. Thanks.

We grabbed his gear, walked back towards the dining hall, and eventually saw his den....but not him. Even more saddness.

Finally, one of the little boys saw him running into the administrator's office. I started walking over to him, and just a few seconds later he cam out of the office and gave me a big stinkin' hug.

He missed me! He missed us! Yea!

We ate dinner together, he showed us around the facilities, and told us about all the fun he'd had, all the rain they'd endured, and shared with us a bunch of silly songs and jokes he'd learned. His smile was huge. He was very dirty; some say he stank. But I didn't mind. My boy is back.

Acadia National Park

Our first vacation this summer -- over the 4th of July holiday -- took place in Acadia NP. We've been unseasonably wet and cold this summer, but God answered prayer and held the rain for the evening hours.

We were packed to the top with gear. Fortunately, an LL Bean outlet was on our way, so we stopped and picked up a soft-sided Thule car top carrier. This made a huge difference in the comfort level of the van!

We arrived at the campground *really* late, and it had started to drizzle, so we quickly started setting up the tent. Luke and Levi were the Stake Men.

This is our second trip to the top of Cadillac Mountain on our 1st day at Acadia. The first trip was overcast. After a ranger guided hike, the sun came out, so we had our fist view of Desert Island (pronounced "dessert").

Acadia is unique in that it was acquired piece-by-piece by regular (OK, rich industrialists) people who saw the beauty and uniqueness of this part of Maine. It was then turned over the the US government as a gift for future generations. Thank you; it is georgous.

This is called Bubble Rock. It is a natural rock perched on the edge of a precipice. You cannot tell from my smile, but it took a bit of convincing to get me to where you see me in the picture. The older I get, the more I cannot stand heights (not that I liked them a whole lot 20 years ago!).

Here we are on July4th, waiting for the fireworks in Bar Harbor. It was a wonderful evening and we had fun picking out our favorite explosions.

We've been camping annually since Luke was in utero, and I can tell the difference between camping with a baby and camping with The Boys. No diapers, Pack-n-Plays, strollers, etc. While these trips have always been fun, it is getting enjoyable now that we are over the baby/toddler hump. I am looking forward to more trips to new destinations that we can explore together.

Peanuts & Cracker Jack

Tonight, all five of us enjoyed a few hours at the legendary Fenway Park (sorry for the stock photo; I forgot my camera). The Cape Cod League All-Stars played tonight, and for $10 a person, we just couldn't pass up such a budget-friendly night.

The drizzly night saw only the requisite four and half innings, but we filled our bellies with Kayem Fenway Franks, Cracker Jack, soda and Sour Patch Kids. The kids helped pass the wave around the stadium, watched for home runs and pop-ups, and enjoyed people watching.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Curriculum Resources 2009-2010

It's time for my annual post that lays out all the homeschool resources we'll be using in the coming year. I'll have a FIFTH and FIRST grader and FOUR YEAR OLD (yes, I did yell out those grades -- I cannot believe my babies are getting big!). I write this all out in case someone stumbles across the blog who is curious to know what we're using, as well as a record for me. I also use this as my "to do" list so that I can remember what I've entered into Homeschool Tracker.

Together:
History (B & L) - Tapestry of Grace Year 1 (this is my affiliate link)
Literature (B & L) - Tapestry of Grace Year 1
Bible (B & L) - Tapestry of Grace Year 1
Geography (B & L) - Tapestry of Grace Year 1
Art Appreciation (B & L) - Tapestry of Grace Year 1
I have one boy reading Upper Grammar books and one boy using Lower Grammar books. Much of Ben's work will be done on his own, with weekly accountability meetings with me and then a weekly test ( I wrote about how we decided to do this and what it involves here)

Ben (10):
Grammar - Growing with Grammar 5, editing workbooks
Writing - Institute for Excellence in Writing Ancient History based themed writing lessons.
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise 3000 Book 5.
Math - Singapore Math 4B & Intensive Practice workbooks; moving on as mastery occurs
Latin - Lively Latin Big Book 1 (We've been using this for 1 1/2 years -- I don't know if we'll *ever* finish this.)
Critical Thinking - Building Thinking Skills, Reading Detective, Revenge of the Riddle Spiders (something we had this year, but I didn't remember to use it).
Science - Sonlight Science 4

Luke (6-7):
Phonics - All About Spelling, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
Grammar: I am going to hold off on grammar for the first part of the year; Luke really needs to spend time getting reading down, so that is where our energies will be spent. After that, we can consider First Language Lessons.
Writing/Handwriting: Reason for Handwriting & copywork
Math: Singapore Math 1A
Critical Thinking: I cannot remember what I have for Luke....but I have something in my stash.
Science - Sonlight Science 1

Levi (3-4):
I have a variety of workbooks for him. He is the best colorer in the world (my world at least), and he loves to cut paper, too. He wants to do his own science experiments ("Mom, I wan to do a science esperiment with a rubber band and a string. Can we do this now?"), so I know he'll enjoy sitting in with us when we do both Luke's projects.

Comments: I have received the new SL sciences and love the look of them. It has been a *long time* since we've used SL for science and I'm happy to be able to rely completely on their schedule and well selected books this year. My thoughts on science have evolved over the past four years (Ben's grammar year rotation), and I am at peace with the fact that the experiments for Luke do not coordinate with readings. Rather, I'm pleased that he is going to be exposed to a variety of topics and materials and am looking forward to the joy of the discovery of God's world with both boys.

Back to Blogging

One of the reasons I blog is because I have purchased an unknown number of cute journals or notebooks in which I had intended to use as a journal of our homeschool journey -- and just life in general -- but never did. The idea of snuggling under a blanket and writing about our homeschool journey is ideal -- and just doesn't fit into my life right now. Blogging is faster and I don't get writer's cramp (carpel tunnel syndrome, perhaps, bt not writer's cramp).

This year I did a horrible job of documenting our school year. It was far too hard to remember what we'd done each week. And, in all honesty, I didn't get done all I'd wanted to do for each child, and didn't want that glaring reality staring me in the face each week. There I said it. I feel better.

So now it is summer time and time to prepare for the coming school year. I want to get back into the habit of journaling about our journey. Mostly for me. But if someone happens upon a post that helps them to think, "I'm not the only one!" or "Wow, I can do this way better than this chick!" then that will be a good thing.

We've been on summer break since May 29th. The first week we had guests, and this week we've been getting adjusted to a less scheduled life. The boys do have educational goals for the summer. Ben is going to practice math, with math worksheets and Key to Fractions for review. Luke is going to work on reading. This week we went through our All About Spelling words from Level 1, which he completed a while ago. I thought this would be a gentle re-introduction to reading. I also plan on using The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading to help us move along. I'm pleased to see that Luke is still remembering the silent -e rule! Yea!

We have also been insanely busy with baseball this week, and I feel like today was the first day I've been able to come up for air. Although Ben had practice, it wasn't until the end of the day. We actually sat down together at the dining room table and ate an entire meal together that was cooked here at home. It was won.der.ful. No hotdogs or fries were allowed.