100%

So excited to report that Nate earned a 100% on an incredibly hard science test.  We are SO proud of him.  He studied hard for it and earned every bit of that grade!

My Fabulous Husband

I am SO blessed.  God gave me a FABULOUS man.  :)

So Sweet

September

Augh!  All of September I kept saying to myself "I need to write this stuff down and blog later.  After that one more thing I'm going to go sit down and blog."  And now, September has come and gone.  We did accomplish much and have a few pictures to prove it :)

Watching a Caterpillar

Trying to Put a Puzzle Together w/out Their Opposable Thumbs

First Day of American Heritage Girls with Their All About Me Posters 

Morning Activities

Harper's 10th Birthday!!!

Doing Schoolwork Outside Because It Was Just a BEAUTIFUL Day 

Beautiful Day - Beautiful Girl

BSA Fall Festival - About to go Canoeing

Everything is More Fun Outdoors!

Sonora's Music Teacher was SO Impressed that Sonora Knew Her Note Names 

Eurasian Eagle Owl at the BSA Fall Festival

Beautiful Hawk Ben & I Saw at the Reservoir

Totally Terrific Tuesday

I love days like this one.  School work finished, meals cooked, laundry is caught up, AND we made cookies that we decorated.  Not exactly sure how all that happened, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.  Praise God for a Totally Terrific Tuesday.

Diligence = Awesomeness

OOOOooooo...a closer view.

Look Judah!

Are they finished yet?

How much longer?

Finally finished!

The fun stuff!

I love this one.

YUUUUMMMM!

And just to top it all off, I found this in my grading pile today.  I especially like number 10.  Funny :)

Plus, the boys went canoeing again tonight, and when they came home, the younger kids got a chance to test out Zoology Experiment #2 on Dad.  Jello testing:  Right up his alley.  We learned that humans, unlike dogs, depend upon their sight equally as well or even greater than their sense of smell.  Great ending to a fun day.

Smiling Tonight :)

Mapping Caniforms

Good Times

Last night Ben gave Sonora and Nate a guitar lesson.  It was Sonora's first.

Sonora's First Lesson

We had an unexpected visitor this afternoon.  Judah was SO pleased.  Later this afternoon Judah's Bible Verse said "A friend loves at all times."

Working hard

Almost got it!

Later on this afternoon I played Dog Lotto with Judah.  I told him to say BINGO after he covered his board.  Every time I would hand him a new card he said something new.  The first time it was "Bingo!"  Then, "BingDing!"  And Finally, he said "DingDong!" when he got the last one.  Harper and I laughed and laughed.

Yikes!

Good times.

Yep, it's Monday

Well, it's our third week in and we have finally added in everything that we planned on adding this year.    It was not without bumps in the road, but we made it through and even thought to stop and snap ONE photo today.

Sweet Sweet Sonora doing English this AM 

First Day of HHE

I wish I had stopped to take more pictures.  It was a flurry of planning, packing, loading, unloading, and gearing up to get us ready and out the door for our first day of co-op.  I'm not going to lie, it was tiring, but I think it was TOTALLY worth it.  All the kids enjoyed their first day and the boys came home saying that Writing was their favorite class.  Praise God!  That is a HUGE praise!  As we get used to everything I will take more pictures to add on here along with class descriptions, but for now, I am just INCREDIBLY thankful to have this new co-op!

I did manage to snap this ONE picture toward the end of the day.  It is no coincidence that this is the Drama room.

He said that he was teaching about Jesus.  ~LOVE. 

M&M Selection

Apologia Land Animals Chapter 1 Experiment


They look so innocent, these three.  But, in reality, they are fierce predators about to go on an M&M hunt.   First, they had to stop and write a list of all the materials they needed.

Gathering of M&M 'animals'

Next, they gathered all the M&M's to be sorted and counted.

Sorting into 'species'

Then, they built the M&M's a colorful habitat where some 'species' could hide.

Building the habitat

I'm SO hungry!

Finally, the hunt is on.  A timed hunt where the predators had to LOOK for their prey.

Run, M&M's, RUN!

Afterward, it was discovered that certain species are more likely to survive in the construction paper habitat.  Natural selection had made it's choice.  Goodbye red M&M's, your species won't last long according to our experiment.  Yellow and orange were GREAT at camouflaging themselves so they will probably be around for awhile.  

Kids had a great time and I think they learned a few things :)

Whew! Finally!

Today, Sonora lost a tooth that had been dangling for weeks.  I thought it might just hang there forever!  She's so cute but I had trouble getting her to smile :)

Love you Sonora Sonora!

Today

The first meeting of CHEER (Christian Home Educators Encouragement Resource) is tonight and I somehow found myself on the greeting team.  Sooooo not my thing, and it is going to be a long night so I thought I would blog before I forgot.

Just some shots/thoughts from today:

Working my way out of a job :)

Quinn begs to be the science teacher.  I must say, he's very good at it.  I stayed in the room to make sure things went smoothly and everything that I wanted taught got covered, but he did a FABULOUS job!

Totally staged.

Once I started snapping pictures they decided to pose for this one.

Experiment #3

General Science Module 1 Experiment 3

Experiment #3 part 2.

I think Nate is really enjoying the experiments, and I am incredibly impressed with his independent attitude.  Good on you Nate!

Oh, and Harper, you are sitting here as I write this and I am SOOOO PROUD of you! (Just in case you think I don't tell you enough ;)

Well, I'm off to say hello, shake hands, and smile until my face falls off. :))))))))))

Apologia Science

I LOVE Apologia Science.  This is our third year to use their Elementary series and our first for their Middle/High School books.  I am SO impressed.  They not only teach everything from a VERY Creationist viewpoint, they also teach the kids to use this knowledge to defend their faith.  Preparing them to give an answer for the HOPE that lies within them.  LOVE APOLOGIA.

That said, this semester we have chosen Zoology 3 - Land Animals of the Sixth Day.  We did our first lesson today.  It was basically just an introduction to what all they will be learning.  The books look like textbooks but Jeannie Fulbright writes directly to the students, even giving personal examples for the topics she is covering.  It reads like a story.  LOVE APOLOGIA.

Sidenote:  Today while I was reading, Sonora was doing a coloring page from the Junior Notebooking Journal.  Hard to see, but it's just a picture of a Prairie Dog with Genesis 8:17 below it.  What impressed me however, was the fact that Sonora identified the hills in the background as The Badlands.  My heart SOARED.  She remembered that we had seen white Prairie Dogs in The Badlands and made her picture reflect her memory and even colored them correctly.  Ahhhh...Sweet sigh.  Vacation was worth it.  For many reasons.

Back to science:  The girls and I discussed predator/prey relationships and how it wasn't always this way.  Also, how it won't be this way forever.  1 Corinthians 15:26 says that the last enemy that will be abolished is death. We talked about how this applied to animals and used passages in Isaiah to show that the wolf will dwell with the lamb.  Harper was SO excited and said when Jesus comes back she's getting a pet cheetah.  The passage in Isaiah says that "the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den".  We discussed and Judah overheard us.  He piped in (LOUDLY as always) and said, "I don't like snakes.  I like caterpillars."

On a different note: Years ago, we had the privilege of hearing Jay Wile speak at a homeschooling conference.  We were so inspired by his lecture that we KNEW when our children were older we would be using his textbooks.  He also speaks directly to the reader which I personally love.  Nate is using his Exploring Creation with General Science this year.  It's Nate's first year to do all the reading, experiments, and lab reports on his own.  So far, I am impressed with his effort and with what he is learning.  We are on week 2 and he takes his first test on Module 1 soon.  The grades are weighted with the tests making up two thirds of his grade so I am holding my breath.  Today, I did see the following in the front of the teacher's manual:

"Finally, I must tell you that this course is user-friendly and reasonably understandable.  At the same time, however, it is Not EASY.  It is a tough course.  Thus, a letter grade of "C" would represent the score of the average student who will most likely be college bound."

Whew.  We're up for a challenge.

LOVE Apologia.

Busyness

Well, the first weekend after our first full week of school turned out to be a busy one.  The Boys and Ben went on their first scout trip along with their Grandpa.

Judah was NOT happy to be left behind.

The boys ready to go & Nate ready for me to STOP taking pictures! 

I am being promised a blog post by Ben on the entire trip, so more pictures/details to come!

I took Harper to her first book club meeting with her friends Saturday morning, and The Girls, Judah, my brother, and I went to a Drillers baseball game Saturday night.  

The littles with the Library Mascot during the Drillers Library Night Baseball Game. 

With Hornsby the Driller mascot.

We even threw in Square Dancing Lessons on Sunday afternoon for good measure.

Sweet picture of Grandma teaching the girls to line dance.  

I think all the kids had a fabulous time over the weekend, but I know when this evening came and we (being Ben and I) had to finish planning/grading to get ready for the upcoming week, we were T.I.R.E.D.  However, come tomorrow morning, we will be glad we did!

~Blessed beyond measure.