Homeschool update

 Hi there!  At the beginning of the school year I thought I'd like to try a new organization system to keep all of our daily work together.  Well, at the beginning of November, I took that system apart and now I'm using the crate system for what really is working.  

We started the year using BJU Press Online Homeschool for Math, English, Science, and History.  The online videos lasted about 4 days.  The worksheets lasted about 2.5 months.  Now, we primarily use only math from BJU.  I'll still pull out worksheets if it goes along with what we're learning about that week, but it's not too often.  We had found a good rhythm for science and history, but I received so much push back nearly every time I'd start a video.  Then we went to only the worksheets and I'd teach.  Now, we're watching videos from PBS, PBS kids, Smithsonian, National Geographic, History Channel, and YouTube.  There are so many good ones to choose from.  And I didn't get one complaint in November.  Winning!

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We're now doing Five in a Row.  It's a book unit study and technically includes all subjects, but I always add in our math from BJU.  It's fun.  We all love it and picture books are still amazing!

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For English we completely ditched BJU.  I didn't feel like it was enough.  We're using Rockin Resources for Writing.  They don't love all the glueing, but we're almost done with that portion, so we're pushing through.  It'll be good when the notebook is set up and we begin writing the big stuff.

I added in root words this year as well.  That's going well, so it's sticking around.

We're using Language Lessons for Today by My Father's World.  It's a quick refresher for them.

In reading we have done a bunch of read alouds.  To make sure they're understanding what they're reading, we use a reading comprehension book as well as book reports.

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In Social Studies, we're focusing on Geography and Who Was/What Was/I am.  It's going really well.

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We're also playing a lot of games.  This is probably one of the key things we've added this year and it's working.  There have been some days where we played for more than 6 hours.  It is amazing!

Race Across the USA is Xander's favorite.  But, he's also my one that loves learning about the different states.

Cooking up Sentences is Sterling's favorite.  She's really good with knowing her parts of speech so whipping up a sentence is fun to her.

We're taking more field trips.  We have two more planned this week and they can't wait!

We're in the kitchen a lot.  They're pastries are getting better too!  They used to come out flat and rubbery.  Now they're coming out fluffy and tasty.  They create their recipe and their ingredient list they want to use and we get to work.  It's fun watching them get better each time they try again.

We're doing more arts and crafts

Reading is a big one for us this year.  We've added it more days than not.

Sterling came up with the idea that they get to be the teacher once a month and she loved every minute of it.  This month Xander will get a turn.

Now that we've taken out most of the complaints, November ended up being a really good month.  Don't get me wrong, we still have some really rough days, but it's mostly from being around each other too much.  Sometimes we just need our own space and that's okay.

Life Lately

In July the kids and I took a trip to the midwest.  We were lucky enough to drag my mom along (I hate driving and it was 22 hours...thanks mom!).  We also got to see my sister and her kids.  It had been SO long since we'd seen them.  Our first stop was to visit with them, so we decided on Sioux Falls, SD.

 

After hanging out with our favorite people for a few days, we headed to Nebraska.

The purpose for our trip was to look for land to build our next home on.  We didn't actually find the piece of land on that trip, but, we did find the perfect neighborhood.  We waited two months for lots to open up so we could pick one.  We are extremely lucky to have such an amazing agent that is making this long distance build not so horrible.

Our future home 🏡💙

 We didn't go to the beach nearly as much as we'd liked to, but the times we did make it we really enjoyed ourselves.

We had a special visitor

We took a trip to Virginia and the kids loved the adventure zip-lining course.  I would show pictures of them hidden in the trees, but, it'd be like finding the needle in a haystack.

We came home from VA and we moved.  We've done a lot of moving in the last year.  We're in our 3rd house (4 if you count our NC home) in less than a year.

Shortly after moving into this house, Nick was approved to retire next year from the Air Force.  We are so excited for the next chapter in our lives.  But mostly to be closer to family 😂

 

 

The kids loved halloween in our new neighborhood.  There are so many kids compared to our last two homes.

We lost our minds one rainy, windy, and chilly night and slept outside in the tent.  Now a story.  Sterling and I set the tent up at 4:30 because it starts to get dark around 5:30.  Around 6:30, Nick asked if I took the tent down.  I thought he was playing a trick, because he's a trickster.  I sent the kids to check and lo and behold, there really wasn't a tent back there.  Because it was dark out, we couldn't see anything.  The four of us went hunting for the tent and found it in the golf course behind our house.  It was funny.  After we got it back in the yard and set up, we decided we better get in it so it doesn't blow away again. It was so windy and rained all night.  Around 4 in the morning, we all went inside because it was wet and cold.  Good times for making memories, ha!

I can't leave these two hooligans out.  Bella turned one on Nov. 2nd.  I think it's safe to say they're best friends finally.  It took Lulu a long time to warm up to Bella.

My next update will be our school update.  Man, is there a lot to update there!

My little girl has a blog you surely won't want to miss out on.  She may be better than me.  

Check it out here: https://inquisitivesg.blogspot.com

Happy Thanksgiving