Each year we go on one or sometimes two (like this year) BIG field trips per year.   This school year, we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium back in the fall, and in January, we went to San Francisco on the Amtrak.  It was a long day (had to be at the train station (20 minutes away from our home) at 5:30 am, and didn’t get back home until after 11 pm that night), but we had a great time!   We rode the amtrak train to Emeryville (at the base of the Bay Bridge, near Oakland), got onto a bus, and the bus took us directly to the Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf area.  We spent about 5 hours walking around the Fisherman’s Wharf area.   We did get to walk up to Ghirardelli Square and have a sundae at the cafe (which is actually closed right now for renovations, so they had an ice cream counter in the candy store at the end of Ghirardelli Square…..unfortunately, the hot fudge just wasn’t as good, it was actually rather disappointing), and walked through the art gallery that has a Dr. Seuss display….that was fun.  We got to see the sea otters at Pier 39 (one of my favorite things) and had sourdough bread bowls with clam chowder for lunch (and bought extra loaves to take with us on the train to snack on on the trip home that night).    It was an exhausting day, but was fun, and we are all already looking forward to next year!

Here are some photo highlights from the day:

The kids at Ghirardelli Square

One of the boats docked near Pier 39 (and you can see some of the sea otters on the pilings)

The skyline of the downtown area from Pier 39

Another skyline photo from Pier 39….this one includes the Coit Tower

Our oldest daughter R is a frosh in high school this year, and she is taking Spanish 2 with several other homeschooled students in our area. Her teacher (who is awesome, by the way! We LOVE her :)) assigned the students to do a report on Paraguay. Well while she was doing her research to answer the questions, she found a lot of additional information. So yesterday, while she was working on this (she spent over an hour on the internet) she was only able to answer a fraction of the questions because she kept finding more interesting information! She was showing it all to me, and I said “well, attach it all to your report” She answered that she had already planned on doing that, but that she didn’t have all of the answers to all of her questions because of getting excited about the additional information she was finding! How’s that for a love of learning

Yay homeschooling!

This is one of the three insects that we found in our kitchen today.      The other two insects were same shape and looked exactly the same, except they didn’t have the red “shields”, they were all the grayish/brown color.    Can you help us identify this bugs?

This is  a statement that D made this morning at breakfast.       You know you’re a homeschooler when…..you find an unidentified insect in your kitchen and rather than killing it, you trap it in a jar to keep it for the kids to identify it.

While we still have no idea what it is….I have caught 2 more in my kitchen this morning…..I think that it is because we have had the windows open so much the past couple of days…..I have two screens (one of which is the sliding glass door in the dining room/kitchen area) that have loose screens.    Anyhow,  D and I got a big laugh out of this this morning!

And the kids spent the morning going through their insect books, science books, and I looked online to see if we could identify these three bugs, but no luck!    The kids are out right now releasing them “in the wild” and they are going to take photos once they are done with that.   Hopefully one of my loyal readers can help identify them for me

Well, school is picking up for us this week…..as long as no one else gets sick :), and we start our Sign Language Class (ASL) today.   One of my friends is deaf and has taught sign language classes and was an ASL interpreter for several years before she lost her hearing (about 2? years ago…..Victoria, how long has it been?).   Anyhow, she is homeschooling her 13 year old son this year, and volunteered to teach an ASL class for the homeschool community.   We are hosting it here at our house so that our family can participate (we are a one car family and D takes the car to work everyday), and the kids and I are really excited about learning sign language!     One of my best friends has been an interpreter for the deaf and hard of hearing before, and she will be so excited to see that I am FINALLY learning “her language”

In addition to the ASL class, R still continues to do fantastically in her Spanish 2 class and she’s LOVING that class!    Next week we will be taking our first big field trip of the year, and it will be a little mini-vacation as well.   We are going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium again this year, and this year we are going to spend the night in Monterey!   We are all excited….we normally make the drive back and forth all in one day (it is about 3 1/2 hours from our front door to the aquarium, and that includes a quick potty break), but this year, since we didn’t get a summer vacation, we are going to spend the night and do some sight seeing there in Monterey…..and possibly hit a California mission (maybe 2?) on the way home.     We are all excited and REALLY looking forward to our little mini-vacation!    Some of the other highlights from this trip will be visiting   Dennis the Menace park , Fisherman’s Wharf (this will be our first time there).   I’m sure we will walk around Cannery Row a little bit (as long as they aren’t doing construction again this year!) and we have promised the kids some time at the beach.     The teacher and history lover in me, wants to try to stop at a California mission or two on the way home…..  we’ll have to see how that goes    I know that we are all REALLY excited about our little trip, and I AM remembering to take car sick pills this year (last year r got sick on the way over ).    And it will be fun to get away, even if it is just for 36 or so hours

Some things heard in the kitchen this afternoon in regards to math……

“I think that we need to go back to a monetary system of beads and furs so that we don’t have to do math”

“I think that  if people weren’t so greedy and selfish, we wouldn’t need math”

“Math came after sin entered the world”

“I think I’ll be a youth pastor or a missionary so that I don’t have to learn math”

All heard from the mouth of our 14 year old! :)  (Can you tell math is NOT her favorite subject?)

Last night was our local homeschool community’s used curriculum sale.  It was MUCH MUCH smaller than normal, but I did find some great buys!   I was very happy with my finds

And for a better looksie…

 And two monkeys that found there way into the action….

Hi all,

I was just wondering, what is on your and your children’s summer reading lists for this summer?    We are officially done with school on Friday of this week (even though R has one more week of Spanish) and I really would like to get the kids started on doing some summer reading…..we often do more recreational reading during the summer months, but I really want to have a plan this year

Personally, on MY list for reading for me:
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
Desiring God by John Piper
Romancing Your Child’s Heart by Monte Swan
(and if I can lay my hands on it…..)
Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt

For Read Aloud, I’d like to read:
The Hobbit
Tom Sawyer
Trumpet of the Swan

Generally I let the kids select their own reading materials for recreational reading, and I will continue to do this, but would love some recommendations on books that your children have read and enjoyed that they might recommend to my children…….they are completing 1st grade, 3rd grade, 5th grade and 8th grade.

What is on your summer reading list?

Well, we did it!  We made it through Jr. High with our oldest daughter.   We have homeschooled a total of 9 years, and have really enjoyed it….we all have definitely had our days where we all were wondering “is it worth it?”   DEFINITELY!   And here’s why…..

This past Friday night we got to celebrate R’s 8th grade graduation with 5 other homeschool families.   It was a sweet sweet time of fellowship, celebration, and honoring our student.   It was such a blessing to be able to present R with her “diploma”, and to pray a special blessing over her (along with another friend from church that was actually there as a guest as the other young lady that was graduating, but she came and prayed with us over R).   The students all were asked to present something special that they had learned in their years of homeschooling……the other young lady that was involved sang, one young man did a Tae Kwon Do demonstration, one young man played on the piano, one young man read from a “Little Bear” Wheeler book and then talked about the historic significance of the story that he read, another young man made a movie and played a DVD of it, and R recited a portion of scripture that she had memorized this year.    The students also were able to display some of their memories/work that they wanted to.   Here are some photos from the evening (if you are a close friend or family member, please forgive us for not inviting you, R was really unsure of herself and didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of anyone she knew and loved……. please know that we do love you, and that we did want you there…but R was scared to death…and you will see lots of tears in these pictures).

These are the other graduates…

R and her two best friends…

R and Mrs. S….a friend from church (she is the one that came and prayed with us for R)

Mom and Dad sharing about our girl….

Well, I have decided on next year’s curriculum for R (for high school….and we are going to stick with this curriculum choice for all 4 years!!!!!!), and have decided that I”m going to go ahead and use this year as a year of transitioning everyone…..we are going to be using Sonlight Curriculum.   I’m VERY excited about it….I know that all 3 girls will love it and thrive on it, but M may possibly be a different story.   But it is a solid curriculum, and I think that if he will give it some time, he will learn to love it…..I mean who wouldn’t love reading about sword fights, war, conquering leaders, etc…..no granted, he will also be reading about other things that aren’t quite as exciting, but I’m praying that he will see the good.

The two little girls are going to be working together on Sonlight Core 2, and M will be doing Core 6 and R will be doing 100.

R will also be using Saxon for math (I need to have her do another placement test….need to see if we should do Alg. 1/2 or Alg. 1), and she will continue in her Spanish class with other local homeschoolers for Spanish 2.   We are working on another elective….probably something either music or art related….just not quite sure yet.

Have you started making your curriculum decisions for next year?  Have you started looking for used resources?