First Day of Homeschool 2015

Today was our first day of school for the 2015-2016 school year! Big Brother is now officially a 3rd grader! Little Brother is officially...a very busy toddler! ;)

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Here is a run down of our day from start to finish:

5:30 a.m. - I am up to nurse Little Brother. By 6 he and I are back in dreamland. Daddy is already gone to work.

7:00 - Big Brother and I get up and get dressed for the day while Little Brother catches a few more Z's.

7:15 - Big Brother puts in his first load of laundry.

7:20 - Breakfast

7:30 - We both grab our Bibles and have our own quiet time with the Lord. I am reading Song of Solomon right now with my Good Morning Girls Group, and Big Brother is currently reading some of Jesus' Parables. Today is the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37.

7:45 - Exercise! This is something I am trying to include early in our day. I am trying to lose weight right now, and Big Brother needs some movement to aid his concentration. Today we spend almost 15 minutes doing some simple aerobics. Then Big Brother switches out the laundry quickly before school.

8:00 - SCHOOL TIME! We start our school day with prayer followed by what we call "Memory Hour." This is a new addition to our schedule this year, and Big Brother loves it! During this hour I introduce some important facts from each subject that he will be studying this week. We repeat these over several times and practice them with fun games. I introduce the Doxology (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow) as the hymn we are learning right now, and we sing it a few times. We start learning the first couple lines from a poem called "Little by Little" with hand motions. We are learning the Books of the Bible starting with the Books of Moses (we are singing them and using hand motions). We are currently memorizing Psalm 139:14 & Psalm 33:12 as they go along with what we are studying in science and history respectively. We also do the first exercise in our Oral Language Exercises book and learn some new words in both Spanish and ASL. Everything during this hour is done aloud (no writing), and we include as many games, songs, and motions as possible to help the information stick.

Sometime during this hour Little Brother wakes up and gets a quick diaper change and some breakfast. :)

9:00 - Big Brother starts working on a page in his cursive book. He works diligently but does not finish before his timer beeps. It gets put back in the workbox to be done as homework.

(Note: We have started a new motivational system this year to try to help Big Brother stay on task. He has his own timer and assignment book. He gets a certain amount of time to finish each assignment. If he beats the timer, he gets to place a sticker in his assignment book beside that assignment. If the timer goes off and he is not finished, he does not get a sticker and the assignment must be finished during homework time. For each sticker he earns 5 minutes of screen time for the day. He also earns an extra 10 minutes for completing his laundry chore for the day. Today, cursive was the only assignment that was left for homework. Big Brother earned 55 minutes to spend watching DVDs.)

9:15 - Big Brother begins his spelling lesson for the week by typing his word list on his laptop. I need to get some dishes done, so I give Little Brother a tray, a muffin pan, and a handful of cottonballs. He spends a good while transferring the cottonballs from the tray to the muffin tins and back again.

9:35 - Big Brother starts the first lesson in his 3rd Grade Rod & Staff Bible Reader. The story picks up where his 2nd Grade reader left off at the death of King Saul. He reads part of the story to himself and part of it aloud to Little Brother who has climbed up into his lap while I am finishing up the dishes. :)

10:00 - Little Brother is no longer interested in the cottonballs, so we put them away and I give him a plastic box full of Play-Doh cans. He plays with the cans of Play-Doh while Big Brother and I go over his English lesson. While Big Brother completes the written part of his assignment, Little Brother and I look at a farm picture book together.

10:30 - Break time. Big Brother does another laundry switch-a-roo then we all grab a snack. I check my emails and quickly sweep the kitchen.

10:45 - Now is Big Brother's independent reading time. He has 30 minutes to spend reading a book that interests him. Today he reads the first 2 chapters of Missionary Stories from Around the World. He enjoys reading about Nate Saint and Jim Elliot who were martyred in the 1950's in South America. While he is reading, Little Brother plays with several plastic balls and fits thim into the muffin pan.

11:15 - Big Brother reads a few pages in his science textbook, and I quiz him orally over what he has read. He is learning about the nervous system. He is fascinated to learn that the right side of his brain controls the left side of his body and vice versa.

12:00 noon - Lunch! I heat up leftover pizza for all of us, and Big Brother and I continue discussing what he learned in science. After eating his pizza, Little Brother is ready to nap. I let him nurse a little, then I put him in his crib and turn on a CD. Soon he is napping, and he sleeps until school is over.

Meanwhile, Big Brother finishes eating, cleans up the table, finishes up his laundry chores, and plays in his room for a few minutes.

12:30 p.m. - Big Brother and I sit down together to do a history lesson. This is Big Brother's favorite subject. Today we learn about timelines and begin reading about the life of Christopher Columbus. Big Brother is making a history notebook this year, so he cuts out a picture of Columbus I had found online and pastes it onto the timeline in his notebook. We spend some time finding important continents and countries in his Children's Atlas of God's World as we read. When the reading assignment is done, I give him a quick oral quiz just to double check his comprehension. He still has some time leftover, so he spends it browsing his new history textbook.

1:15 - This is Big Brother's piano practice time. Today he works on some simple finger exercises, Doxology, and Ode to Joy. While he plays, I straighten up the living room and prepare materials for his math lesson.

1:30 - We learned late in the school year last year that Big Brother somehow does better if we save math for the end of the school day. He is excited to see a textbook and notebook instead of math workbooks this year. We start off math class with a 2 minute flashcard drill of 0-10 addition facts. Big Brother does great! He has definitely not lost his math skills over the summer. I take a few minutes to show him how to set up his notebook page and how to copy down the problems from his textbook lesson. Then I assign him 1 1/2 pages in his textbook to complete. He works diligently and finishes with time to spare. I call out the answers and he scores his work. No mistakes today! :)

2:30 - This is homework time today. Big Brother finishes his cursive workbook page from earlier. I give him a few pointers on how to write the cursive "b." He finishes the page quickly, and school is officially over for the day!

2:45 - Big Brother decides he is ready for his screen time now, so we set his timer for 55 minutes. I watch a short Chip & Dale cartoon with him. Then I leave him to enjoy his reward while I take time to mark off today's assignments and reload his workboxes for tomorrow.

3:30 - Daddy is home!! About this time Little Brother wakes up and is very glad to see his daddy!! My husband has offered to grill steaks for supper this evening to celebrate our first day back to school. I am very thankful since I am pretty tired after our full day. He gets the grill fired up while I set the table, make quick salads, wash some fruit, and let Little Brother go ahead and start eating some chopped up cucumbers.

4:15 - Suppertime! Yummy! :) Big Brother enjoys telling Daddy about his day.

4:45 - I clean up the dishes and sweep the kitchen while Daddy tends to Little Brother's dirty diaper. (Have I ever mentioned that I have an exceptionally awesome husband?) Big Brother is now dressed in his cowboy attire and ready to play! He and Little Brother spend the next good while romping about the living room. I love my noisy, messy boys! :)

6:45 - We start getting shoes on to go outside for a while. Meanwhile Daddy cuts up a watermelon and puts the pieces in the fridge for later. (Little Brother sneaks a few bites.)

7:00 - We all head outside for some fun and exercise. Tonight we just walk up and down our street several times. Then both boys enjoy roaming around and playing in the backyard.

8:15 - I come in for a shower. Daddy and the boys stay out little longer.

8:40 - The guys come in and we enjoy some watermelon together. Then the guys take turns getting cleaned up and we all start getting ready for bed.

10:00 p.m. - We finally have everyone clean and in bed! We like to be in bed ealier than this, but that doesn't always happen. I take a few minutes to finish up this post and read some emails and news before I go on to sleep.


This has been a great first day of school! I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our lives today! I am still looking for ways to keep Little Brother busy while I work with Big Brother. Any suggestions for me?? Please feel free to leave your ideas for keeping a 1 1/2 year old boy busy in the comments section!

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2015 Cowboy Camp - Day 2

Day 2 of Cowboy Camp has been another day of fun! Did you miss my post about Day 1? You can find it here!




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Cowboy Camp Day 2 started bright and early! Big Brother was eager for another day of fun and learning.

After breakfast, we all dressed up in cowboy fashion and sang our cowboy songs. Both boys had fun with this!

For today's devotion, we talked about all the different jobs different cowboys had on a cattle drive. We talked about cooks, wranglers, trail bosses, and night herders. All had important jobs to do, and they all had to work together for one goal: to get the herd of cattle safely to market. We read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 and discussed how every Christian has different gifts, different jobs to do, and each of us has an important place in furthering God's Kingdom.

Chorin' Time was next! Today Big Brother took care of the laundry then he and Little Brother cleaned up the living room together.

Once chores were done, we jumped into the lawman section of The Wild West: An Interactive History Adventure. Today Big Brother learned what it would have been like to be a deputy U.S. Marshall in 1876.

I found a lesson on "how to draw cowboy boots" in the Abeka Art Projects 3 book I bought for Big Brother to use for art class this year, and we decided to give it a try next. I am a musician - NOT an artist! But the directions were pretty simple to follow, and we were both rather proud of our completed drawings!

Big Brother's Drawing



My Drawing



To sneak in some math drill today, I had Big Brother play "Quick Draw!" I would call out a math problem and he had to quickly write the answer up on the dry erase board. I have to say that when it comes to math, Big Brother is definitely quick on the draw! ;)

Before we ate lunch, I asked for some help in the "chuckwagon" to prepare for tonight's supper. Big Brother followed my directions and got the roast cooking in the slow cooker.

Throughout the morning, Little Brother (15 months old today!) joined in as much as possible. He loves wearing a hat and toy gun, and he spent a good amount of time playing at his little table with toy horses and cows. He has learned that horses say "neigh" and cows say "moo." He knows the ASL signs for HORSE and COW, and he can say both words very clearly. After lunch, he was ready to go down for his nap.

While Little Brother napped this afternoon, Big Brother and I settled in for some more reading. The first book we read today was Cowboy With a Camera.



This book was fascinating with photos taken by a young cowboy in the early 1900s who wanted to capture all the rugged realities of life on the open range before they disappeared completely.

The book mentioned that very young boys often worked as wranglers, and it mentioned a popular cowboy song called Little Joe the Wrangler. We found it on YouTube and listened to the King of the Cowboys himself, Roy Rogers, sing this sad story about a young wrangler who died trying to stop a stampede.

The next book we read was called B is for Buckaroo: A Cowboy Alphabet. Written in rhyme, this book tells all about cowboy life from A to Z! Big Brother chose a short, fun portion from this book to copy onto notebook paper for his cowboy booklet.

Big Brother and I did some more browsing through DK's Wild West Eyewitness Book for a while. We mostly looked at pictures and read anything that seemed interesting.

Big Brother continued practicing "Home on the Range" today on the piano. He loves that song! :)

Then we played a few more rounds of Wild West Hangman before Big Brother decided make up stories and play with his western LEGO toys for the remainder of the afternoon.

Cowboy Camp has been great so far! Check back tomorrow for more rootin' tootin' fun for Day 3!!

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2015 Cowboy Camp - Day 1

In my last post, I announced that this week has been declared "Cowboy Camp" here at our house as we celebrate our last week of summer vacation!

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Today was Cowboy Camp Day 1, and it has been a BLAST!



To help get in the camp mood, Big Brother slept in a sleeping bag last night. He got up at 7:00 a.m. and Cowboy Camp officially began!

First off, he dressed up in a cowboy hat, bandana, t-shirt, vest, jeans, cowboy boots, toy gun, gun belt, and holster! I joined the fun by wearing braids, a checkered shirt, jean skirt, cowboy hat, and a bandana. Little Brother also wore a cowboy hat for awhile. :)

For this week, we have renamed our kitchen/dining area "the chuckwagon." Big Brother's first duty was to help make scrambled eggs for breakfast. He did a fine job!

After breakfast, we sang some fun songs. We sang "I'm a Little Cowboy," "I'm in the Lord's Army - Cowboy Style," and "Happy Trails." We incorporated fun motions and sound effects for each song, and Little Brother even joined in the fun!

Then we did a simple devotion. We talked about all the things a cowboy wears and the purpose for each part of his gear. Then we read about what God tells Christians to put on in order to do our jobs in Ephesians 6:10-18. After prayer it was time for "chorin'."

We talked about how cowboys had to work hard all day long. Big Brother worked on his daily laundry load and then helped wash up some dishes. (Because, hey, even chores are fun when you are dressed as a cowboy!)

Our next activity was some reading time. We decided to start reading in The Wild West: An Interactive History Adventure. This book is so neat! You choose how you want to learn about the west: as an outlaw, a lawman, or as a fortune seeker. Then throughout the story you make various choices, all with different outcomes. There are real people, places, and facts in the stories; and the maps and pictures are great! Today Big Brother chose to explore the wild west from the perspective of an outlaw. We took turns reading paragraphs, and he loved getting to make choices in the story! He is really looking forward to learning from the perspective of a western lawman tomorrow.

Next it was game time (with some sneaky spelling and vocabulary practice thrown in!). I found this neat little Wild West Hangman magnetic game at Dollar Tree over the weekend.



We both took turns several times choosing words related to our cowboy theme having the other try to guess. It was fun!



After several games of Wild West Hangman, it was time to go outside for awhile. While we were outside we had a gun fight...a squirt-gun fight, that is! I cannot think of a better way to cool off and have fun on a hot day!

Little Brother got nice and messy (and tired) playing outside, so when we came in he was ready for a bath and a nap.

After lunch, I challenged Big Brother with the following word problem I had written on the dry erase board:

You are a trail boss on a cattle drive. You are 100 miles from the rail head, and you have 10 days left to get the cattle there. How many miles do you need to move your herd each day to get to the rail head on time?

(It took him about 5 seconds to come up with the correct answer: 10 miles per day! That actually would have been about the fastest a cattle drive could have travelled.)

After our easy little math challenge, we sat on the couch and I read the book Cowboys and the Wild West aloud to Big Brother. It was very interesting with quotes from real cowboys and plenty of great pictures. We consulted our US Map anytime places were mentioned for a quick geography lesson. We spent well over an hour absorbed in this little book.

In our reading, we came across a part of a poem about the life of a cowboy, and Big Brother copied it down on notebook paper to put in a little booklet we are making about cowboys.

For his piano practice today, Big Brother played "Home on the Range," and we sang it together.

He spent the rest of the afternoon either browsing DK's Wild West Eyewitness Book or playing and making up stories with his cowboy LEGO pieces!



Little Brother LOVES horses and cows right now; so he was pretty happy looking at pictures of them in our books, riding his rocking horse, and playing with his Little People Farm set!

And that was Day 1 of Cowboy Camp! What do you think? Big Brother told Daddy that he had lots of fun, so I guess that means it was a success! Stay tuned for Day 2!

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KY Homeschools - Annual Letter of Intent

Here in Kentucky, homeschoolers (for now, at least!) enjoy a good amount of freedom under the law. While home education is legal in some form in all 50 states, Kentuckians have nowhere near as many regulations or "hoops" to jump through as homeschoolers in some other states. We have no testing requirements, no mandatory inspections or yearly evaluations, no teacher qualifications, and no waiting for government approval to start homeschooling. We are supposed to keep attendance records and to teach basic subjects for a minimum number of days per year.



The biggest requirement we have to fulfill each year is to send a letter of intent to our local school board. This letter is supposed be sent within 2 weeks of the starting of the public school year if your child(ren) is (are) between the ages of 6 and 18. Your letter has to state the name(s) and age(s) of your child(ren) (again, only those between the ages of 6 and 18 must be listed) along with the address of your homeschool. No more; no less!

Last year when Big Brother was 6 at the beginning of the school year was the first time I had to send our letter of intent to the local school board. This year's letter is ready to go to the post office on my next trip to town tomorrow! My letter is short, cordial, and straight to the point. :)

You can type up a simple letter of your own (there is a sample on the CHEK website) or if your family is a member of HSLDA (you should be!!) they have a form you may use.

Remember, the purpose of this letter is to simply notify the local board that your child(ren) will be homeschooled this year. You are NOT requesting "permission" to homeschool (it is a constitutional right in KY!), nor are you "registering" your homeschool (what exactly would be the purpose of that anyway??) Many new folks get confused about this, so I just wanted to make that clear.

Some school boards are naturally friendlier toward homeschoolers than others; and some may push the limits, ask for more information than is required by law, or even threaten legal action against homeschoolers. But HSLDA lawyers are always able to clear up these "misunderstandings" pretty quickly, so again, make sure you are members!!

I recommend sending your letter Certified Mail and request a Return Receipt. Yes it costs a little extra and is a little more hassle at the post office; but this way someone at the school board office has to sign for the letter, and you get the receipt back as proof that your letter was sent and received. Keep this receipt stapled to a copy of your letter in your records.

I DO NOT recommend going personally into the school board office and delivering your letter. I have known of homeschoolers ending up with problems this way because the board supposedly lost or claimed to have never received their letter (and the family had no proof.) Some school board staff may also try to overstep their legal bounds (request more information than required, etc.) if you go to their office.

Even if you have friends on the school board or who work in the office, be careful. Many public school officials and teachers have not been properly educated on the laws that govern homeschooling, so just be aware of that and do not be swayed! (Again, join HSLDA!! They are not paying me anything to tell you this!)

If you do not live in Kentucky, please follow the laws in your state. If you are unsure exactly what the law requires of homeschoolers in your state, visit HSLDA to learn.

How about you? Have you fulfilled your homeschool-related legal duties for this year yet? I know it is still summer, but don't let it slip! I pray we all have a blessed, peaceful 2015-2016 school year!

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