2011 - 2012 Activity & Field Trip Plans

My sister and I have started putting together our list of ideas for this coming school year.  I asked Abby what her favorite field trip was and she said Schaumburg and Lego Land.  Um, that's not quite a field trip.  That was an extended weekend away!

Here's our calendar so far.  Heather and I still need to go over some things and I'm sure some of the plans will change as the year goes on.  This year, I'm including a donation type of activity each month.  Last year, we did canned goods at Circle of Concern, pet supplies at the Humane Society, etc.

July (school starts July 18)

• Fireworks
• Butterfly House

August

• Cahokia Mounds Archeology Day?
• YMCA Bookfair
• Backpack Attack at our church- this event is held to collect school supplies for children who are in need.
• Not Back To School Party- the public schools start back the 3rd week in August.  We will plan something fun for that day.

September

• Purina Farms Family Day
• Donations to the Humane Society
• 5th Annual Branson Family Vacation

October

• Best of Missouri at the Missouri Botanical Gardens
• Fire Safety Fair at our local fire station
• Pumpkin Patch
• Food donations to Circle of Concern
• Halloween party

November

• Thanksgiving
• Andrew's 3rd birthday
• "Adopt" a family from 100 Neediest Cases 

December

• Christmas Lights display
• Toy collection at our church
• Christmas
• New Year's Eve party

January

• Matthew's 9th birthday
• Science Center?
• Ronald McDonald House donation

February

• Valentine's party
• MO History Museum?
• Donation- TBD

March

• Homeschool Rally at Missouri Capitol
• Homeschool Convention
• Donation- TBD 
• Spring Break

April

• Girl Scouts April Showers donations
• Magic House?
• Easter

May

• Stamp Out Hunger
• Last day of school-  May 18
• Abby's birthday
• End of school party

As you can see, I still need to think of some other donation ideas.  Most likely we will do food donations and Circle of Concern more than once.   What we do is pick a day to take the kids to the store and let them pick out things from the charity's wish list that they would like to give.  We then take them to donate the items.

Depending on the weather, we will add in more field trips; such as the zoo, apple picking, etc.

What kind of field trip plans do you have? 

Isn't it funny how I plan out the field trips before I plan our schedule?  LOL!

Wordless Wednesday

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to:


Go Graham Go
Mom Spotted
Mama to 4 Blessings
Two of a Kind Working on a Full House

Links I Like: 4th of July Fun

I can't believe it's almost July!  My favorite part of July is July 4th.  I love getting together with family, enjoying BBQ and fireworks.

I also like patriotic crafts!  My sister and I got the kids together with red and blue sharpies and had them make July 4th Sharpie Tie Dye shirts as seen on Sun Scholars.  I didn't have my camera with me, but I'll be sure to post pics of them wearing them!

This next idea is really cool:

Patriotic Streamers by Lisa Storm, featured on Be Different Act Normal

A Princess and a Pumpkin made these Popsicle Stick Flags:

To me, they seem so Summer...popsicle sticks AND flags?
Here's another fun, quick idea:

4th of July Pipe Cleaners from Make and Takes

I would love to make one of these:

Patriotic Star from Sassy Sanctuary featured on Ucreate

It would look great with this 4th of July Bunting from Sugar Tot Designs:

Last but not least, I have to include a 4th of July dessert!

Doesn't this look yummy?

All American Fruit Flag Cake from No Biggie

Have a great weekend!  

Wordless Wednesday

Abby surprised me and Dave with this the other day!

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to:

Go Graham Go
Mom Spotted
Mama to 4 Blessings

Links I Like: Homeschool

Come check out my  Great Homeschooling Links post over at The Homeschool Classroom today.





Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday: Lost Tooth!

I had another Wordless Wednesday post ready to go, but tonight Abby lost her first tooth:



Abby was so relieved!  She grabbed her Silverlicious (it's about the tooth fairy) book and read the WHOLE thing to me!

This has taken 5 months!  You can see that the permanent tooth was already waiting behind the baby tooth this entire time.  The incisor next to it also has a tooth waiting behind it.  That one isn't even loose yet. 


For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to:


Go Graham Go
Mom Spotted 
Two of a Kind Working on a Full House

Summer Mantle

I keep forgetting to post pics of my mantle.  I few weeks ago I updated it for Summer.

Here's how it looks now:



Close-up:


These are the built-ins to the left of the mantle:



A close-up of my favorite shelf:



I love that frame I found at Kohl's. Abby found the heart shaped rock on a walk with Dave one day. The drift wood is from our recent trip to Florida. Dave had to saw a few inches off the end to get it to fit in the bottom of our suitcase! I filled a glass vase with shells from our trip and glued some sisal rope around it. You can see in the other pics that I also glued some sisal around a few candles. I found the candles and sisal at the dollar store. The glass vases and jars I find at various thrift stores. They are usually under $1 each.

Oh and the clock is Dave's :)

Does anyone do a Patriotic mantle for July 4th? I like looking at my beach theme too much to change it again, but I bet it would be cute. Before I know it, it will be time for a Fall mantle.

2011 - 2012 Curriculum

I'm still working on our plans for this coming year, but I wanted to share what I have so far.

Math

After using Horizons Math at the beginning of last year and finding out it wasn't a good match for Abby, we moved on to just math workbooks to learn the basics.  For this school year I have purchased:

Math U See Alpha

We have had the blocks for 3 years now, so Abby is already familiar with them.  I'm really looking forward to us starting this curriculum and hoping it helps Abby gain some confidence in math.  

Handwriting

We started with Handwriting Without Tears last year and it didn't go so well.  Tears WERE involved and I finally just ditched it and went with nothing.  Abby does not like handwriting, so I had to find something she'd like.  I've seen several good reviews of A Reason For Handwriting and saw the workbooks in person at the last homeschool convention.  

I just ordered A Reason For Handwriting book B for Abby.  Interestingly, I had printed the sample page and Abby saw it sitting out.  She came over with her nose all screwed up saying, "This isn't for me, is it?  I don't want to do handwriting!"  I told her that it was for her and she wasn't too happy.  Then I showed her how each day she works on a small part of a bible verse and the last day she writes the verse on her own.  She was so excited!  She loves church and she loves "reading" her Bible, so I thought this might work.  I'm so glad it did :)

History

Abby and I both enjoyed Heritage Studies last year, so ordering Heritage Studies 2nd Grade was an easy decision!

Also, my sister uses Heritage Studies for her son and he did 2nd grade last year.  My sister is so awesome to let me use the materials!  I just needed to order the Student Notebook.

Geography

Awhile back, I won Road Trip USA from Erika at Confessions of a Homeschooler. 

I am so excited to use this with Abby this coming school year.  Dave bought me a black and white laser printer for Mother's Day and I'm loving it!  The first thing I did was print this!

I also have MAPS, CHARTS AND GRAPHS, LEVEL C, COMMUNITIES.

Abby completed books A and B last school year and enjoyed them.  They are great to take with you if you are out for the day and the lessons are short.  Some days she did one lesson and other days, she wanted to do several.

Science

Last year, I found two awesome sets of books with teacher's guides at a book sale.  I spent under $4 for all of them.  These included Creative Teaching Press Life Cycles and Creative Teaching Press How and Why.

We finished all of the life cycle books, but still have a few books left in the How and Why series.  We will do one of these books along with the activities in the Teacher's Guide each week.


When those are completed, I also have:

Animals with Backbones, Grades 1-3 

Scholatstic Easy Make and Learn Projects, Human Body

I also just found Evan Moor's Giant Science Resource Book at a used book store for only $12.50.  I had seen Susana at Our Homeschool Fun post about it and I immediately put it on my "must have" list.  

Art

My sister Heather and I bought Artistic Pursuits Book One:  An Introduction to Visual Arts at the last homeschool convention.

Our plan is to take turns doing a lesson every other week.  So the first week, I will do lesson one with the kids at my house.  Then the 3rd week of school, she'll do lesson 2 with the kids at her house.  We think the kids will really enjoy this!

Reading

Abby is reading really well now!  She has enough patience to read Level 1 books, any longer than that and she's too busy for it. 

Last year we focused on sight words and some phonics.  My plan for this year is to continue with Explode The Code.

We have Erudition and Sight Words Bingo, levels 1 and 2.  Abby loves playing games, so this is good reading practice.

I know she will get lots of reading practice with her other schoolwork.

Bible

I have downloaded and printed the Bible Character Studies from Confessions of a Homeschooler. 


I haven't made a schedule yet, but I will post when I have one.  I've found that I don't really stick to schedules, but I like to have some idea of what needs to be done in order to stay caught up.

I will do another post about field trips we plan to take next year as well.

Do you have your curriculum picked out yet?  I still need to sit down and look at it all to make sure I have all of the supplies for everything.

Wordless Wednesday: Princess Night

Monday night, Chick-Fil-A hosted a Princess Night at the mall. Abby put on her Snow White gown from Halloween and we headed out.



It was a fun night.  She got a free kids meal, her nails done and they were doing updos. Abby doesn't have enough hair for an updo, so they just put a few curls in.  She also got a little compact mirror and made her own foam crown!

We love Chick-Fil-A!

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to:

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Sick of Cicadas!

1998:  The year I graduated high school and  the year of our last 13 year cicada outbreak.  We were "lucky" that year as to also have the 17 year cicada at the same time.

After 13 years, the cicada is back in St. Louis.  I don't know about you, but I could do without them! 

They are all over the place and are so ugly.  Plus, they are really huge and dive bomb you as soon as you walk outside.  One flew into my leg the other day and I'm still recovering from that panic.

Did I mention they are LOUD?  I mean really, really loud! Click here to hear them if you are interested.

Here are some disgusting facts about cicadas:

• They spend most of their life, sucking tree juices from roots underground.
• On the 13th year, they climb to the surface and up to the nearest branch or leaf.
• They then molt their exoskeletons.
• Now they are ready to mate.  The loud sounds you hear are from the males trying to attract the females.  This is 100 decibels!
• The females then cut slits into a tree and deposit their eggs.
• A female can lay 400 to 600 eggs!
• These remain on the tree for 6 to 10 weeks before hatching and burrowing back into the ground to start the process over again.

The purpose of the cicada?

They aid their host trees by aerating the soil when they emerge, as well as trimming weaker branches then they lay their eggs. They also form a vital link in the food chain between trees and literally hundreds of carnivores and omnivores, including: squirrels, birds, toads, raccoons, possums, other insects, people, and even fungi!

I am happy to report that after some research, I found this map:

 Broods of the Periodical Cicada.

It looks like we should be good until the 17 year cicada returns in 2015.  After that, we are free until 2024.  Whew!

Now the scary part:  Abby will be 20 when the 13 year cicada returns!  I can't even imagine that.  

Are you in Cicada land too?  I'm looking forward to them dying off in a few weeks.  Can you tell I'm not really an insect fan?

Dave's Birthday Surprise

This past Thursday was Dave's birthday.  I posted how I had a surprise planned and I wanted to share how it turned out.

Dave LOVES meat:  brats, bacon, ribs, you name it!  My plan was to surprise him with a road trip to Burger's Smokehouse.  I had seen it listed in my Kids Love Missouri book I bought at the homeschool convention.  I had never heard of it before and Dave had never mentioned it, so I thought it would be fun.   So Wednesday night after Abby and Dave were asleep, I packed our stuff for a surprise getaway!

Thursday morning, we jumped in the car and headed out to Burger's Smokehouse.  Boy did it seem to take FOREVER to get there.  Dave was totally surprised and had never heard of the place either.  We had a nice deli sandwich there and did a little meat shopping:


Dave picked up some ham (which is what they are known for), snack sticks, summer sausage and bacon. 


The next surprise was the Styrofoam cooler I had packed, because we weren't going straight home.  I had made hotel reservations in Columbia, MO.  I knew we wouldn't want to drive the 3 hours back home and Abby loves to swim, so it was perfect. 

We first stopped at the Candy Factory in Columbia.  This is such a cute little store. 




We didn't buy any candy, but Abby had to get a little monkey lovey.


Our next stop was the hotel, where Abby and Dave swam for about an hour.  I was being a good wife and Mom and actually tried to get in the pool, but it was too cold.  I ended up falling asleep on one of the lounge chairs.  LOL!

We then went out for Shakespeare's Pizza.  YUM!  We followed that with some ice cream from a place called Sparky's, but it wasn't very good.  Why did I pass the Cold Stone Creamery up for that? 

The next morning, we enjoyed the yummy free breakfast at the hotel and we were on the road again.  I was able to go to one of my favorite stores:  Apple Wagon Antiques and Home Decor.  I wish it wasn't so far away, it's so much fun!



Don't they have fun stuff?  We only left with the clock, but I just love their selection.  Do you see all of that Fiesta Ware behind Abby?

Our last stop was Swiss Meats. 



This is Dave's all time favorite place for brats.  Mine too!  My favorite are the cheddar brats.  We stocked up on brats and a few other things and headed home. 

We all enjoyed the trip.  Dave was very surprised about all of it and Abby was so happy to spend the night somewhere and get to swim. 

I'll have to plan more fun surprise getaways in the future!

Do you have favorite quick getaways?

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Deer

The other morning, Dave called me and Abby into the kitchen to see these baby deer.



The smallest one, we think had just been born.  He was still wet and was having trouble walking.  It was so cute.  His little legs kept getting folded together when he tried to stand up.  We watched them for about 10 minutes before the headed back to the woods and by then the little one was starting to get along pretty well!


These pictures are really cropped in, because I was standing at the 2nd story (atrium ranch) when I took them.  Why didn't I think to go downstairs and look out the window directly underneath us?  The shots would have been much better!

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, head to:

Go Graham Go
Mom Spotted
Two of a Kind Working on a Full House