Andrew Turns 6!!

On December 6, Andrew turned 6! We had a small family gathering at our home. We had cake and ice cream and opened his gifts. It was great, quick and no stress for mommy!! Andrew and Grady will have a big friend party complete with bonfire later in January. I'm sure there will be ample stress then :)

Now, a few words about how awesome Andrew is! Andrew is the sweetest little boy. He loves his family and loves to help around the house. He is our baby and always will be. We are very glad to have him in our family.

Week of Nov 15-20, 2010

This week was kind of a let down. We are so used to having something to do every afternoon/night and those things are coming to an end. We find ourselves with nothing to do and it takes some adjustment to get into a new routine.

As far as school goes, the kids are doing great. We realized this week, after Grady's 5th quiz in teaching Textbooks 7, that he has scored an A on all 5 quizzes. He has an A in math. We are super proud, especially since he's 10 and in the 5th grade doing level 7 math. Madison is doing fantastic with multiplying and dividing. That was a hard on to teach Grady since he's dyslexic and he finds memorizing nearly impossible. It's a relief for me that Madison is doing well with it. Andrew continues to amaze me. Evey time I turn the page in his Singapore 1A math book I think it might be hard for him. I explain it and he does it and gets it right. He is nearing the end of 1A and he's 5. My kids aren't geniuses, just allowed to move ahead or stay behind when needed. Grady really didn't read until 4th grade. Now he's reading at or above his grade level. Another reason we love homeschooling! The kids get the education they need on an individual level.

We are studying Chemistry this year. Right now, we are learning about the elements and the periodic table. In history, we read about India during the middle ages. We learned about the Ajanta Caves where Buddhist Monks used to live. It's a beautiful place and amazing that all of the work was done by hand.

Tuesday, Madison had both Brownies and cheer practice. Jason was home so the boys didn't have to come. Wednesday, we went swimming after school and after swimming, we stopped by the homeschool co-op to pick up the food drive donations and that night both boys had karate and Jason took them. Madison and I stayed home. Thursday we went on a field trip to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History to see their new exhibit, Water. It was well done and informative. Too bad the school kids on field trips made the trip quite annoying. They were loud, rude and ran thru the place like it was an amusement park. I doubt they learned one thing that day. After Fernbank, we ate lunch at The Flying Biscuit Cafe where Andrew said they were the best biscuits he had had in his life!! The food was good and we had a nice lunch :) Thursday night we were expecting to go to cheer practice, but it was canceled at the last minute. I went bday shopping for Andrew by myself that night. On Friday, we usually have Grady's outdoor adventure class, but his last class was last week.

The kids ask everyday, "Where we are going today?". We are used to going and after our last cheer competition today our schedule will change and be more relaxed. We will only have karate and tumbling class every week. I'm sure that with bdays and Christmas we will be busy.

Cheer Fest 2010

Madison's Cheer Video
Madison's team won 1st place yesterday and here's a video I made for those who were not there!

A little of what we've been up to

Cheerleading continues to take up a lot of our time here. Last week, we had 16 hours of practice. I am not kidding. Yes, I think it's too much. I am way too stressed out about the whole thing. No, we will not be doing this again next year. The problem is is that Madison loves cheering. I love watching her work so hard and the competitions are fun. We will have to come up with a solution.

We had our first competition yesterday. Madison did great. The other girls did great. They placed 4th out of 4 teams. Our routine has it's issues and that is all on the coaches. The girls did the best they could do with what they were given. Another reason why we won't do this team next year.

Madison all ready for competition!

We all went on a field trip to Carrollton Agriculture Days last Thursday. We got to see a huge Ox, a old schoolhouse, Native Americans and a bunch of other old things. I have decided that we have been to way too many of these things as we didn't really see anything new. We walked a lot and left early so we could go swim laps. We bought a pass to our local indoor pool to get the kids ready for swim season. The kids and Jason are doing great. I'm doing great for me. I have actually put my head under the water and am swimming the freestyle! I'm pretty good at the backstroke. I don't have to put my head under the water! It's been fun and it's great exercise.

The boys continue on with karate. This week they both are testing. It's Grady first test and Andrew's second. They both have gotten a bit bored waiting to test. Hopefully, they will get a little more excited after they get their new belts!

They are all doing fantastic with their school work. Moving along quite nicely. Today, we are working on a Halloween History project for our patch club meeting tomorrow!

As for me, I will be crazy busy making Halloween costumes. One is almost done, two more to go!

Before this week, we had 2 weeks off from school. My husband had vacation from work and technically it was our end of the school year. We took many trips and just relaxed. The kids all have sports and activities that still had to be done, but we managed to enjoy our time off. We rented a boat and enjoyed a day on the lake. We took a trip to Amicalola Falls and climbed 604 stairs to the top of the falls. We went to an apple orchard while we were in Northern Ga. We bought lots of yummy apples, some ice cream and apple pies! We hiked at our favorite local place, Sweetwater Creek State Park. It was a lovely "staycation" :)

This week it was back to work! Madison finished up her LLATL 2 and worked and the last bit of her Singapore math book. Grady continued to work on his TT7. Andrew is progressing nicely through his Singapore 1A and he his reading some first grade readers while we await a huge curriculum order. Both Grady and Madison worked through some spelling lessons. All 3 kids worked on Spanish and Chemistry. In chemistry, we made rubber eggs, super fun!

Tuesday, we went hiking at Red Top Mountain with our new homeschool badge club! We meet with at least 20 other homeschool kids and their families. We took a small hike, observed living things in the lake, did a scavenger hunt and had a lovely picnic lunch. We have known most of these families for 2 years at least and enjoy spending time with them! Now, my boys have the opportunity to earn badges/patches without having to join Boy Scouts. Madison has been in Girl Scouts for 4 years now and I am elated that my boys can have similar experiences without prejudice.

On Fridays, Grady has an Outdoor Adventure Class that he loves. It's with our homeschool group and it's just for him. He gets time away from his siblings and a lot of great knowledge! He also gets to spend time with Sam, a new good friend of his :)

As usual, there was lots of cheerleading and a little karate this week. Next week, Grady tests for his yellow belt!

August 9-13, 2010

We've had a good week here. Since we school year around we are finishing up with some stuff and starting some new stuff.

Grady started reading, The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare. It's his last book of LLATL 4th. He has come such a long way in a year. He has gone from almost not reading at all to reading at or above grade level! Children really do read on their own time. Grady started Teaching Textbooks 7 this week. He completed lessons 1-5. So far, we are all liking it. It's our first time with TT. We have been using Singapore. Singapore's great and we will continuw using it through 4th grade with Andrew and Madison. Math is not my strong suit, so I decided to use TT since it involves little help from me.

Madison is finishing up 2nd grade. She's doing great with LLATL 2nd. She started fractions today in Singapore. Thankfully, she seems to get it. The rest of 2B should go by quickly. I checked out the rest of the lessons and they look pretty easy.

Andrew finished Kindergarten sometime last month. He is waiting on his first grade math to get here. I ordered it, but it hasn't arrived. I need to get his LLATL student workbook ordered. He is enjoying some time off right now.

Both Andrew and Grady started karate classes on Wednesday. I was really impressed with what they were taught. They enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next class. Madison is cheering and we are all looking forward to the first game.

I have been reading out loud the last Harry Potter book in anticipation of the movie coming out in November. We are almost done! Also, we have all been enjoying the last days of summer. We are usually in the pool as we hear the school bus go by. Life is good:)

Our First Alone Vacation

Last weekend Jason and I went on our first vacation without kids, ever. We went to a small town, close to St. Simmons called Darien. Here's a pic of the cottage we stayed at.We visited downtown Darien, which took about 2 minutes :) It's a small fishing village on the intercoastal waterway.That evening, we went to St. Simmons Island. We went to the beach and ate dinner there before heading back to the cottage. We were amazed at the amount of sand. It was low tide and the beach was huge.The next day was spent on Jekyll Island. We first visited Driftwood Beach. I read about it online and it sounded nice. We were surprised to find rocks instead of sand! We did see a lot of dolphins following a shrimp boat. That was nice and the view was certainly beautiful!
We then moved further down the beach and set up for the day. We spent about 4 hours there enjoying the warm, calm water. It was nice to not have to watch 3 kids in the ocean for a change. Who knows when or if we will take a trip without the kids again. We missed them a lot and kept saying. "The kids would love this" and, "We should bring the kids here".

Future Plans

We are still plugging along. Grady and Andrew finished up their math books last week. That makes Andrew officially a 1st grader. He's a full year ahead of where he would be in public school. He picks up everything I show him. Grady finished Singapore 4 and since we are switching curriculum to Teaching Textbooks, I had him take the placement test for it. He placed into TT 7. That's exciting because he can finish all the TT by the end of 10th grade and be ready for college math at 11th grade. Since our plan is to send the kids to college for joint enrollment in 11th, that works out. Madison is working hard and is on schedule to finish by September.

We have vacation next week. We have a lot of local things planned to do like Six Flags and Stone Mountain. Jason and I are going to a cute little cottage in Savannah for 3 days at the end of the week, by OURSELVES! It'll be our first trip without kids. I think we are all ready for it. Jason's bday is July 31 and our anniversary is Aug 8, so it's a nice gift to ourselves :)

At this point, I am planning on taking all of September off from school. We have another week of vacation where we are planning to rent an RV and do some road-tripping. The rest of the time we be full of house projects, maybe a yard sale and just down time. We all could use some. In October, we will be full swing into 1st, 3rd and 5th grades!!

I'm looking forward to it :)

Life is precious

On Tuesday, May 25, 2010, my stepmother, Denise Gunter died. She was 43 years old, mom to my 8 year old brother, Ian. Less than one year ago she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. We will miss you, Denise. We will all take care of your beautiful son.

Vacation! May 17- 23, 2010

Last week, we drove to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It's a 10 hour drive from Atlanta. We spent the first night in a hotel in Raleigh since we knew it was going to be raining that night. The drive was horrible. It was raining pretty hard and there were lots of accidents. When we arrived at the campground and started to set up our tent we were unsure our tent could withstand the winds. Thankfully, Jason was able to stabilize it enough to survive the 20 MPH winds.

We got to visit the NC Aquarium, The Roanoke Island Festival Park,The Wright Brothers Memorial, the beach, and 2 lighthouses. We learned a lot about the Native Americans and some of the first English people to come over to America. The Memorial was awesome! We learned a lot about aviation and about Orville and Wilbur. This was great given that Grady had read a biography about them and this was the inspiration for the whole trip :) We spent 2 days playing in the Atlantic Ocean. The kids are crazy fish and spent a lot of time in the cold water!!

This was the first time we camped without power or water at our campsite. The showers were also cold water only. Thankfully, we planned ahead. We brought solar showers, an electric converter and a big water container. It wasn't bad at all. We were camping on the beach so I was willing to give up some "luxuries".

We had a good time and would consider going back sometime in the future. On the drive home we drove the whole 10 hours home. The kids were fantastic and it was a relatively pleasant drive, thankfully!

Here's a link to some photos of our trip: Outer Bank Photos

May 3-7, 2010

This week, we spent a lot of time at the pool. 4 out of 5 nights. The other night was spent at the gym. One of the 5 nights we were at both the gym and the pool! Daddy's been gone since Tuesday. I hate 5 day trips. 4 days are doable. 5 day trips are insane. I need a break!! Thankfully, it's Saturday and he'll be home later this evening. I plan on relaxing today and finishing up Mother's Day Gifts for the Grandmothers. I hope to cook a nice dinner that isn't rushed. We'll see.

Wednesday was our last co-op day for this year. It was a little sad as I won't be seeing my students every week. I have really enjoyed our time together. My kids loved their classes. Grady will forever love computers. I don't know if he will work with computers. He loves being outside too much to be stuck inside, I think. Who knows? The teacher did say that he tries new things that she wouldn't have thought to try. She did say that he would never be unemployed! That's a good thing. Madison and Andrew both finished up clay class. I have more cute little clay pieces than I know what to do with!

Some of our friends are close to finishing up their school year or are done already. I have been very jealous of them this week. We school year round. We are far from through with math and reading. We are done with everything else. My husband likes to remind me that we took a month long beach vacation when everyone else was in school. Yes, I know that and it was great, but now I want to be done teaching and play! Thankfully, we have another beach vacation in a week and we will all get a much deserved break and hopefully come back renewed.

The kids are doing great work and are learning, as usual. Progress is being made. Grady is learning how to write a research paper. His topic is the state of Georgia. We are learning some interesting things about GA as we do our research. He picked out a book to read on his own and he finished it in 2 hours! That's probably the best thing that happened this week. Grady just didn't read before this year, his 4th grade year. He's dyslexic and it took a while to figure out what works for him. I'm so thankful that he's reading on grade level. He's so intelligent I didn't want reading to hold him back.

I know I haven't said much about Madison and Andrew yet. They are both doing well. Andrew's halfway through Singapore KB. He's reading well. He continues to amaze me daily with what he can handle. Madison's learning mental math in Singapore 2B and is getting it. It's something I wasn't taught, so it's cool seeing Madison do it.

Next week holds packing for vacation and getting ready for a Saturday swim meet. Grady's 3rd and Madison's 1st!!

Weekly Update April 4-11, 2010

Sunday, was Madison's 8th birthday. Yes, it was also Easter this year. Since she had her bday sleepover last week, we had a family dinner on Sunday. Madison decided to embrace the Easter theme. We had ham for dinner and a Easter egg hunt! She's such a sweet girl!

waiting to open the gifts!

This week was Spring Break for most of the kids in the area. Not us. We had a whole month of beach vacation from mid-August to mid-September. We really needed to continue our lessons, so we did. We are planning a trip the end of May, so don't feel sorry for us:)

Madison finished up her Singapore 2A and will move into 2B on Monday. She's about half way through LLATL 2. She'd doing great and reading well. She also had 2 cheer practices, a tumble class and a horse riding lesson this week. Next weekend, she has her first individual cheer competition!!!

Grady is almost done with his autobiography on the Wright Brothers. He has one chapter left!! That's amazing for him. He's dyslexic and has made huge strides this year. He is reading on grade level!! We are so excited :) I started looking for his next reading book and soon found out that it is not in print anymore and it was only printed in a small printing. This book is hard to find and about $20 for a soft copy! CRAZY! He is progressing well in math. Decimals are easy for him. He'll be done with Singapore 4B in a flash!

This week, both Grady and Madison started Sequential Spelling. We are all loving it. They are exicited to learn how to spell big words! Next week, we will begin our Egypt studies and finish it up with a trip to a local museum with Egyptian artifacts.

Andrew's doing great in his Singapore KB math book. He's adding problems like 2+5, etc. Not bad for a child who would be in pre-k this year, if in public school. He's also reading simple books,
like those on starfall.com. It's amazing! So far, he's been the easiest to teach. He just seems to get it. I'm sure that's because he has 2 older siblings whom he has grown up watching learn.

I have been busy with yard work, planning our vacation to the Outer Banks, cleaning, sewing, cooking, you know, the usual :) Daddy was gone most of the week, flying. We had a good week and a beautiful Saturday with most of it spent outside in our backyard as a family:)

Update

I haven't posted in a while because I have been busy.

Grady was sick all last week. He had some virus that caused the lymph nodes in his neck to swell pretty badly. He didn't get to swim at all last week. He also didn't do too much school as he couldn't talk. He's much better this week:)

Madison had her birthday sleepover last Friday. She turns 8 on Sunday, Easter Sunday. I thought that sharing her bday with Easter would be a downer, but she has risen to the occasion. We are having a traditional Easter dinner with family and egg hunt, per her request :) She really is the sweetest girl ever!

Madison and Jason went to their first Father/Daughter Dance with the Brownies last weekend. Jason has always had to work, but this year they were able to go. They had fun and finished the evening with dinner at a Sushi restaurant.

As far as school goes, we finished up our Life Science book today! Grady and Madison decided to study Chemistry next year. I'll order this soon as the curriculum is 25% off in April. Madison is nearing the end of her math book. She's working on division right now. Grady is almost done reading his book about the Wright Brothers. He's working on decimals right now in Math and finding them very easy, too easy. I would like to skip it, but he needs to go over to make sure he can handle it later in life.

Next week, we will start a spelling curriculum and a study on ancient Egypt that we will conclude with a trip to the Carlos Museum.

Andrew is doing great. He's flying through his math book and is learning short vowel sounds. He has only one more to learn on Monday.

Both Madison and Andrew painted the clay pieces they made in clay class on Wed. they got to bring them home! We are now the proud owners of 2 clay bird feeders, 2 clay frogs, 2 clay maracas and various other pieces:) I will try to take a pic for you all soon. They are too cute.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all for now.

March 7-12, 2010

Grady had his first swim meet on Saturday. He did a fantastic job and we are all proud of him. It was a learning experience for us all! A long day with a lot of fun :)

In math this week, Grady started on Singapore 4B. Madison is finishing up 2A and Andrew started Singapore Kindergarten B. Everyone's making good progress and mastering thier lessons.

In language arts, Grady started reading a book about the Wright Brothers. We are hoping to plan a trip to the Wright Muesuem in Kitty Hawk, NC. I did some research and it's 10 hours from here. I'm not sure if we'll drive or fly, but we are hoping to visit soon. Madison and Andrew are plugging along in thier work as well.

We started learning about cells this week. G&M are fascinated and are begging to learn more. We studied organelles and colored animal cells today. I love biology, so Mama's happy :)

Spanish continues. We are working on plurals on Live Mocha. We are all enjoying it. It's getting harder, but still manageable. I'm wondering how far we will get before it's too hard. I guess will see!

Wednesday, our session 4 started at our homeschool enrichment program. I'm contuining to teach pre-k. Madison and Andrew are taking a clay class together and Grady is in his second session of computer game design class. I was so proud of Andrew. The clay class is his first class without me. He did so well and listened to his teacher!! Proud mommy moment:)

That's all for now!

March1-5, 2010

This week we had more snow. No one was excited. I think we are all ready for Spring. We watched the snow fall, but we didn't go outside to play in it. The snow was really wet and it had been raining before the snow started, so it was really not good snow to play in. Jason took this picture of a bird sitting in a tree outside of the window while the snow fell. It was the only picture we took of that snowfall. I guess we are over the snow this year!


We had the week off from Robert's school and it was nice to not have to get out in the cold and snow on Wednesday morning :) On Thursday, we took a field trip to a rock quarry. It was pretty entertaining. We even got to be there while they blasted some rock. This only happens 3 times a week so we got really lucky. This quarry mines granite mainly for landscaping. Here are some pics of that:

Just the tires on this truck were taller that any of the dads!


A huge pile of rocks!

All the children got to collect rocks!

A look into the quarry.

Friday, we had a productive school day. Grady and Madison are finishing up their math books. Thankfully, I ordered the next books for them already! We finished up a unit study on the human body today as well. G&M know a lot about this subject! They really enjoyed it and are looking forward to our study of cells :) We press on in Spanish. They are doing awesome. I didn't know how it would go, but so far so good! Andrew is working on finishing up his Kindergarten work. He is waiting on his next math book to arrive and we are going over the letters he still doesn't know. At this point he's not missing many, so that's good. He's even starting to read 3 and 4 letter words! Grady and Madison also did a lesson in their LLATL 2 and 4 language arts books. Grady's new reading book, "Wilbur and Orville Wright," made it here today, so we will get started on it soon.

After our schooltime, Madison had her horse riding lesson. This was her thrid lesson and she is improving. She did a lot of trotting today and learned how to clean the horse's hooves. She was looking forward to the nail part, so we were both glad she got to do that!

Tomorrow is Grady's first swim meet!! We are all excited, despite having to get up very early :)

Feb 20- Feb 27, 2010

On Monday we went to Fernbank. They have a new exhibit about natural disasters. It was the perfect day to go. There was hardly anyone there and the exhibit was great. We all enjoyed it and learned a lot!

On Tuesday, Jason was TDY'd to DC. That means he had to fly to DC and sit in a hotel until they needed him. He was gone for 5 days. Thankfully, he had a trip assigned so that he could get out of the hotel. Our life went on as normal, but we all missed Daddy.

Wednesday was our last class of session 3 at the Roberts school. Grady's class will continue into session 4. Madison and Andrew will take a clay class together after our Pre-K/K class.

Saturday, Madison had a cookie booth sale. It was an adventure getting her there. After a week on my own, I guess my brain was a little tired. I drove to the wrong place and then couldn't find the right one for a while. We finally got there about 10 minutes late. I really dislike being late! After the cookie sale we went home and Daddy called and said he was on his way home :) Madison had a sleepover at the zoo that night, so we left the boys at home and I drove Madison to the zoo. On Sunday, we picked Madison up and walked around the zoo for about 2 hours. Madison told us what she learned and we saw lots of animals.

We have been doing well in our school lessons. I ordered some curriculum to finish out the year. Now, we just wait on it and finish up what we are working on. Everything's going well and the kids are learning lots :)

Feb 13 - Feb 19, 2010

Last week, Grady started on a swim team. He loves it. He went to practice 4 times this week! It's amazing to Jason and me how much he enjoys the water :) His first meet is on March 6 in Anniston, AL. We are all excited!!

On the 14th, I woke up to a heart shaped breakfast made by my wonderful husband. He also made the same breakfast for Madison when she woke up. Madison and I woke up early to attend my sister, Savannah's cheer competition. After the competition we came home and we made a Valentine's dinner together. We tried to make it special for everyone with candle and China plates. The kids love when we eat on our wedding China!

Most of last week was dedicated to Grady and Madison's first science fair projects. Grady tested whether or not the number of folds affect a paper airplane's flight. Madison tested the best shipping material for crackers. They both did awesome and we are super proud of them:)

Grady's display
Grady presenting his project.

Madison's displayMadison presenting her project.

On Saturday, Madison and I went to International Thinking Day with her Brownie Troop. Each troop in the service unit presents a different country. The Girl Scouts get to travel the world in 2 hours. Each country has food to try, facts to learn and swaps to collect. We had a lot of fun! Madison's troop had China. All the girl's wore chopsticks in the hair and had Chinese fans to use during the day. I have pictures, but need to upload them. I'll do that soon, but for now, it's time for life science!

Feb 6- Feb 12

This week we went to the Smyrna Recycling Center.The kids learned how important recycling is. They watched a demonstration on how paper is recycled. We also got to see a big truck big up a dumpster and then return it. Each child got to peek into the recycling bins. Then, we had Mexican for lunch with some of our friends.


In school, we dissected a cow eyeball. We learned about the human eye last week in life science and we watched a dissection online. Grady wasn't all that interested in doing the dissection when I ordered the eyeball, but he ended up enjoying it. Andrew even got into it. Madison loved it. It was very educational for us!

On Friday, Atlanta was lucky enough to get about 4 inches of snow. It was really nice, snowman making snow. We all enjoyed how beautiful it was. The kids were able to play in the snow both Friday and Saturday!

Jan 30 thru Feb 5, 2010

On Monday we did our school work and Madison went to tumbling practice in the evening. She had not been to practice in 3 weeks due to the evil stomach virus that ripped thru our family. She had fun and did a great job. While we were there another girl was practicing her individual routine. Madison saw this and asked if she could compete in individual too. So, now she is going to work on an individual routine. I'm really proud that she wants to get up in front of thousands of people and compete!

On Tuesday, Madison went to Brownies. Her troop is collecting pennies for Haiti. She has been very good about collecting the pennies. She loves to help others :)

Wednesday is our Robert's school day. Grady LOVES his computer game design class. He gets so excited about it!! Madison is enjoying her fashion illustration class. We all love the social time.

The kids have been doing really well with their school work. Grady has been writing!! I can't believe how well he is doing. I really thought, that given his dyslexia, he would hate writing. He does it without complaint and enjoys learning the rules.

This week, I found a swim team for Grady. I have to schedule an evaluation for him and then hopefully, he will be on the team! He is a good swimmer so, I don't think it'll be a problem. We are excited about it as he isn't really into sports, but we feel it's important to be active. Swim team will definitely be active!

Andrew continues his gymnastics class on Thursdays. He is doing Kindergarten work and I realized it isn't challenging enough for him. This lead to me looking for more curriculum for him. I believe that I will use Moving Beyond the Page ages 5-7 for him next year. He seems to be very intelligent and ready for most anything! We will continue to work on letter sounds this year and maybe some adding.

Grady and Madison studied eyes and seeing on Friday. We watched a cow eye dissection online and Madison really wanted to do it herself, so I ordered one! I dissected one in high school, along with a few other things :) I'm so excited to share this with them. I LOVE science!

They continue to do well learning Spanish. I've been really impressed with the program and how useful it it. We are using MochaLive, completely free and online, prefect!

While looking for curriculum for Andrew I found a terrific math program called Teaching Textbooks. It starts with 4th grade and continues thru high school. I am not terrific at Math and this curriculum has cds that teach the student. It's interactive, funny and educational. It's also great for dyslexics as the teacher speaks all the written words. Although Grady has improved his reading by leaps and bounds this year, it's nice to focus on the math for math and not to have to read so much. We are going to use this for Grady next year and maybe Madison. It's such a relief to me to have found this!!

This weekend, we will make our Valentine's and get ready for our class on Wed. And of course, Jason will be smoking some yummy food for the Super Bowl!

Jan 22-29, 2010

The last couple of weeks, one of us has been sick with a stomach flu. This week was been no different. I have been spared so far, but I have a horrible allergic reaction to clothes detergent. I have been an itchy mess for the past 2 weeks. It seems to be getting better, but I"m going insane! However, we did manage to get a lot done this week :)

Last Friday, Madison had her first horse riding lesson. She loved it! Not much happened during the weekend. School went good. I started teaching each child individually instead of all 3 together. They seem to like the individual attention better. I thought it would take longer, but so far it hasn't. Madison and Grady do thier math and language arts with me. Andrew works on his Kindergarten workbook, one subject at a time, with me. Together we do biology and spanish.

Wednesday we went to our homeschool classes. Madison is loving her fashion illustration class. Grady can't wait for Wednesday to come. He's taking a computer game design class. I teach Andrew's pre-k class. This week we studied the polar regions and learned about polar bears.

On Thursday, Andrew went to his gymnastics class. He loves his Coach Haley!! I love watching him have so much fun!

I decided on Friday that after we finish up biology, we will study spelling. Neither Grady nor Madison has had a formal spelling curriculum yet. They have spelling lists that they memorize for the week, but I want them to know how to spell words. We will be using AVKO Sequential Spelling. I think the multi-sensory lessons will work well for us.

Today is lots of laundry and tomorrow we ar going to a cousin's 2nd bday party. Have a good weekend!

It's been awhile.....

Sometimes life gets in the way, you know? I'm going to do weekly updates from now on, mostly for myself, but you are welcome to read :)

First, we have to catch up. My last post was just before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving this year was it's usual crazy self. We had 2 dinners. One at Jason's parents and one at my parents. Then, Andrew has his 5th bday on December 6th. We had his party at home and it was a car/plane/trains theme. He had a blast, of course! Then on Dec 18th, I celebrated my 33rd birthday. I had a lovely day with lots of thoughtful gifts and yummy food. The kids spent the night at Granny and Papa's and Jason and I spent the night at a lovely hotel :) Christmas came and went. Right after Christmas, the kids and I took a trip to Gainesville, Fl to see Dad, Denise, Ian, Aunt Susan and Nanny. It was a short trip, but we are all glad we went. Then it was on to Grady's 10th birthday! I really can't believe he's 10! We held his party at home as well. It was a science party and the kids had great fun making messy experiments!All the while, we have been homeschooling and attending classes at the Robert's school. I have been teaching a pre-k class that Andrew attends. Grady and Madison have enjoyed Lego class, Fashion Design, game design and acting. The kids are doing fantastic and Grady's reading is coming along by leaps and bounds!!

That's it, all caught up. I'll see you soon. Look out for my weekly update!!