Our Creative School Day In Pictues

There is always time for a little Guitar Hero in the day.

A little math with J-E-L-L-O!

Homeschool co-op

I think I've mentioned before that we are in a co-op thru our church. There are about 161 families in this group. I don't even know the number of kids. We have mentor mom's who have traveled this road we are now on. I went to my mentor mom yesterday and told her this thing wasn't going like I thought it would. I told her our background and where we are coming from. I told her what we are doing at home with our work. She basically told me to STOP what I was doing. Today is going much better. She told me I need to unschool them and school them in a way they don't know they are being schooled. I'll share our schedule for today and 2 books I'm reading at our co-op. The books shown above are must reads if your thinking about homeschooling. I read so many books before starting the homeschool thing and none of them helped me like these 2. I'm in the middle of both books.

Our schedule so far today has worked our great.

-devotion

-Sydney copy verse from devotion

-Madison copy 1st paragraph from chapter 3 of Pollyanna (were reading this book)

-Mommy reads Three Young Pilgrims by Cheryl Harness (this books is fantastic)

-Sing 2 Hymns

-Listen to Thanksgiving A Time To Remember Audio Book by Barbara Rainey

-While listening to above they chose a picture from to Pilgrims books to draw and then color.

-play time

-going for walk to get sticks for art project later

-more reading

-playful patters from Discovery Toys

-online math site I found (they think it's fun because it's on the computer)

-project with sticks from walk (I'll be reading Pollyanna while they work on project)

-lunch

-do some jobs around the house

-read about Miles Standish

That is our day. I'll sign back in later with some pics from the day.

WOW!!! Great customer service!

A few weeks ago I placed an order with Library & Educational Services. The mail came yesterday and I was so excited when I saw a package. I opened the package and saw the below set of CD's in the brown case. My happy balloon burst very quickly. I didn't order this set. So I contact customer service.

I tell them what I've just received and what I had actually ordered. She looks into my account and yes they had made a mistake. She informs me that they will send me the below set in pink that I had ordered and to just keep the above set as well. I'm very excited since I wanted Christmas Carol to listen to for the Christmas season. These are produced by Focus On The Family. I just wanted to let you know about some great products and a great customer service.

A very overdue post. SORRY!

I'm going to try and be better about this blog thing. I know some of you want to know more about the homeschooling thing. For now I'll give you a quick update on our life.




The woods next to us are being cut down to make way for more houses. How sad :( . The one good thing is we can find a lot of wood for burning to make S'mores. Yummy!!!! We've already had 2 fires in the last week and are planning one for tomorrow.

We went on our first field trip to The Duke Homestead. Sydney was finding treasures from the past.

These are some of the kids from Madison's class that are learning about the Little House time period.
Here is the Duke's house that was built in 1800's,

After I had posted all the pics I realized Baxter pics got mixed in with the field trip. He is a Cubbies fan and he had to drown himself when they lost. Doesn't he look drunk in the bottom pic.

Now back to the field trip. Tom took the day off and cam along. We had a great picnic lunch and then they ran around wit the kids and played.
We had such a great time and learned about how the Duke's lived and compared it to how the family from the Little House books might have lived. Then at the end of the day they had a fashion show. Sydney looks so cute.

We are also trying to sell our house. Yes we watch the news.

This is the house we want it is on 1/2 and acre. How great would that be.
I thought I'd share with you what our house looks like on wed. afternoons. We pack our lunches for our co-op the next day. They are great in the kitchen. Check out those nice lunch boxes. I decided to give the Tupperware thing a try.

Thanks for checking in again!

Goodbye

I gave my 2 week notice yesterday. We just could take the stress on our home life anymore. My house hasn't been cleaned since I don't know when. Add homeschooling to that. As of right now I'm just going to be doing the home thing. I'll miss about 3 or 4 people and the rest I'm going to rejoice at not seeing anymore. I could go on and on. I'm just glad to get back to the important things in life.

Every week my teacher for my mom class shares some quotes. I have tons and I'll just share 2 of my favorites for today. Have a GREAT day!!!!

Picture your child's heart as a treasure chest that you are filling with the BEST.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Hanna

Today we 3 ladies are a little under the weather. We decided to track Hurricane Hanna. We just didn't have the enrgy for regular school work. We found a sight where you can print out your own tracking maps. We also fit in a little time to play the game of life. We also made a quick trip to the store for some drugs, Dove candy bars and gatorade.

Busy Day

Yesterday was a busy day and there are no pictures to even show how busy. In the morning we had our homeschool co-op s.e.e.k: spiritually and educationally enhancing knowledge. We got on the waiting list back in June and found out about 2 weeks ago that we got in. They said that they added 52 new families this year. There are over 500 kids. We started off with a rockin' High School led asseembly. Then we went off to our classes. Sydney is taking a P.E. type class and the Magic School Bus Animal Adventure. Madison is taking a class on Laura Ingalls Wilder and the book Little House In The Big Woods. The other class she chose is about slavery. They had a great time. I also get to go to a class for the first hour and it is taught by a homeschooling Mom. Her son's are 22 and 27 college graduates and she shares all of knowledge. The 2nd hour I help in a class and you will never guess what type of class it is. I didn't get to choose this class I was just told here is where you'll help. Drum roll: The class is called Memory Keepers. I'm helping in a Creative Memories class woooohoooo. The only draw back I guess is that they are junior high to high school aged girls (drama) and one boy. The boy isn't too happy about the class. When you join the co-op you get to number your classes for first choice to last choice. They tell you they can't promise you'll get your first choice and I think that is what happend to that poor boy. Maybe he'll love it by the end. We all had a GREAT time!

I also added a tupperware party to the end of my day. I had a party with only 3 people and had sales over $450. Free tupperware for me!!!! Madison thinks I should sell tupperware and she would go and help me with parties. Hmmmmm, I guess I'll have to think about it.

Today we are just doing school and then I've got to work the next 4 days. Yuck! Have a great weekend! Happy Labor Day!

Hey Chicago What Do You Say? Cub's Are Gonna Win Today!

The girls ready to head to a Chicago Cub's game. This was their first game.
Thomas at the game. Notice how high up our seats are. It was raining and we still had hope for a game.
Chicago Cubs vs. Atlanta Braves
Go home there is too much rain. Come back tomorrow at 1 pm for a double header. What we are suppose to go home in the morning. We can't come to another game.
No game.

We went to the mall for some Dairy Queen to make us all feel better.
We came back for the 1 pm game. We are young we can drive home in the dark. The stadium was maybe only half full if that. Tom's sister asked an usher if we could sit in the home run area and she said sure. Now if you remember the pic from earlier our seats were up high. Now we were like 8 rows from center field.
A shot of the pitchers. Tom too Madison over to see them and they would even look over. I took Sydney over to say hi and we got pitcher Kerry Wood's to wave. I yelled a hi Kerry and said thank you.
Here is a happy Syd.

Thomas decided to do a little wandering and see how close he could get to the Cub's dugout. He called me on the cell phone and said get over here I have 5 seats right behind the dugout. Yeah!! The people had already left the game. I guess they must have been Braves fans.
Cubbies win 10-2. Here they are at the end of the game going back into the dugout. When we came home I looked at our counter on the camera we have 165 pics of just the Cub's game. I know we went crazy. I've had a hard time just picking the ones for this post.
Notice the player with the ball in his hand and see how is looking at us. He is the Cubbies pitcher that ended the game.
The ball now belongs to the Krause House.
Cubbies won all 3 games they played against the Braves that week. Now Madison and Sydney will love the Cubbies forevere. I was nervous about going to the Braves stadium being a Cub's fan. When we got the parking lot of the stadium all I kept seeing were Cub's fan's everywhere. One news report said that 75% of the crowd were for the Cubbies. It was a GREAT ending to our trip.

Baxter

He loves to sleep on his back.

Baxter has been here for 1 week now. We have fell in love with this little guy. More Atlanta pics to come later in the day. The best part of the trip.

Happy Birthday Madison

Madison turned 9 yrs. old while we were in Atlanta. She chose to go to Carrabba's for her b-day dinner. Tom's sister was able to spend some time with us. During the day we went and got Madison's ears pierced. She got to pick out the perfect pair and chose her birth stone. In the evening we went to a Chicago Cubs game against the Atlanta Braves.

Before
During
After
No tears. She was so brave. Her ears are doing good now. They started to get bad and we changed cleaners and everything looks good.