Much to do

Every week I break this down into what we did almost each day. Well, before I get into that I wanted to do a little list about what each child is basically learning right now.

ECJ is plugging away at writing compositions and reports (which is one of his least favorite things to do, write a comic book = great ... write a report for me = frustration), Algebra which he's getting without any issues he's plugging away at his college level Intermediate Algebra and seeming to enjoy it. As for science we're working on the basics again for general Earth science with a splash of chemistry and robotics tossed in. And for history he's learning about Early American History again, no matter how many times we go over it history just isn't one of his strong suits and he doesn't retain it for very long. For civics, along with learning about the presidential elections by watching the news and asking questions, he watches CNN Student News each day just to catch up on what he misses from the regular news (which he finds hard to sit through due to the time it takes, welcome back ADHD tendencies).


YCJ and Peanut are both learning basically the same things, even though they're three grade levels apart! Sometimes it just works like that when using curriculum from the same company for both grades. In Language Arts we're reviewing all the sight words for spelling all the way from Pre-K up to whichever grade each girl is in and then they'll get their own spelling words. This means that YCJ will have a longer review period than Peanut. They're both working through their text books from Seton and covering punctuation right now as well as doing daily copy work from the Bible. YCJ is reading through the Magic Treehouse series and doing some worksheets that go along with each book that I found here. While Peanut is enjoying reviewing and learning from Teach Your Monster to Read, currently it's her favorite part of the day. Both girls are in the review stages of Math so they're doing each day's assignments with no issues. And for History both girls are also doing Early American History starting with the Revolutionary War ... we covered this in part last year as well but plan on delving much deeper into it this year and moving more slowly through the pioneer times. As for Science we're doing another week on the human body this week ... I'd determined that we hadn't quite gotten enough covered about it last week for me to be pleased.

Raichu Pokemon
for ECJ

Ornament

So, what did we do this week? Well, this past weekend we really didn't have anything planned. I crocheted and postponed finishing both girls shrug sweaters for them to wear to church with their pretty dresses.Instead I turned my hook back to Christmas gifts and gifts for friends and family because those little sweaters for the girls weren't exactly what I was looking for. I may still finish them but then again they may just sit there in my forgotten projects pile. ECJ caught up on the math he owed me and his Bible reading paragraphs. Both girls spent nearly every waking hour outside this weekend, the weather was much cooler and they are enjoying being able to run without sweating as much. They also discovered that Peanut's new tablet has mini videos they can access from some of their favorite cartoons, so when they were inside they were watching Sid the Science kid videos and My Little Pony.

Front

Back

Pumpkin Treat bag

Tree ornament

Monday was a drizzly, chilly, Fall day and so once our lessons were done during the morning we spent the rest of the day watching educational movies, playing with electronics, and working on individual hobbies as the fancy struck. I managed to finish a Christmas gift for ECJ over the weekend so I made three new Christmas decorations for the tree and a Halloween pumpkin treat sack (of which I will be making many more, but most likely not giving them out to the nieces and nephews until next year). I also worked on Christmas crochet ornaments this week.

On Tuesday Noni came out and I called off book lessons for the day and even the online lessons. The only learning I required was to watch The Magic School Bus: Human Body and Liberty Kids ... along with daily required reading. Each child has a different amount of time they're required to read for each day: ECJ reads for an hour, YCJ reads for half an hour, and Peanut practices reading for fifteen to twenty minutes each day. Noni and I took the campers for a walk down on the boardwalk here in town and through some small shops. We picked up all three campers Halloween costumes at a consignment shop and checked that item off of the list. We also saw some awesome sidewalk art while we were walking. A quick stop at the dollar store and grabbed a few movies from RedBox and we were back home sipping on some hot coffee or hot chocolate depending on age.

After Noni left I styled both girls hair with items that Noni had given to us when she showed up. And made sure that they were presentable for their first catechism class that began at 5 PM. I also double checked the beef roast and veggies in the crock pot, love that kitchen appliance since it allows us to have a hot meal ready for us after any type of busy day. I can tell that Tuesdays will now be a crock pot night as next week ECJ and I also have religion classes in the evening and we won't be home until after 7:30! Late night dinners mean late morning Wednesdays but that's fine with me. Go with the flow homeschool scheduling!


Wednesday and Thursday we finished our lessons before 11 AM!! So Wednesday we had a movie marathon with the kids. We watched Zootopia, Open Season : Scared Silly, and Paddington! All were great movies! Thursday we did a library run and we home before noon. I picked up several movies to watch next week as part of our History work, several more books about the body (really is going to take about three weeks total to cover what I want to cover, they'll go through it in more detail in middle school levels, and another book or two to read. Daddy built up my bed so we no longer are going to be sleeping on the floor which I LOVE ! And then the rest of the drizzly rainy day we spent watching more movies together as a family. A bunch of them were Goosebumps movies but one was about The Flintstones meets The Jetsons!

So, it's now Thursday night and I'm getting ready for bed. I hope that all of y'all had a great week! I'm also still working on more Christmas decorations, Fall/Halloween treat bags, and Christmas gifts in my crochet ... so, I may be up for an hour or two more while I crochet and relax.

And here's what we'er doing about ECJ's schooling.
And you can check out a day in our life here.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap Up.
And on What's Making Your life Awesome

What to do With ECJ

Oh the horrors of facing the choices for homeschooling high school!

We thought we had a plan to public school at home with ECJ this fall. We thought that it would work because it was all done for us and it was a compromise between us and ECJ who insisted that he wanted to go to public school. We thought we had it all figured out. We thought wrong!

Working with K-12 at home has been an exercise in frustration. Each and every day the schedule they have laid out for him has changed, so one morning we're up at 7:15 for an eight 'o clock class and the next we might not have to be up and ready to go until 11! Each night we've been checking and sometimes, even by morning, the schedule changes again. This is a minor irritant that I could overlook if I were so inclined, but mixed with the other irritations it's just not a good mix.

ECJ does NOT like doing his lessons through K-12. Some of his main complaints are the same as they would be if he'd joined the local brick and mortar high school. He has to get up too early most days, it takes all day long to do his school work, he doesn't like his teachers, the other kids (in chat) are annoying during class because he can't hear the teacher or see their typed instructions ... the list goes on like that. Many of these things were things we told him he wouldn't like about going back to public school. I'm above telling my 14 year old son "I told you so" ... but just between you and I? I told him so!

And even though it's still the beginning of the year, I'm upset that their main assignments are to listen to an hour long lecture and then type a code word into an "exit ticket" to prove that they were paying attention. This irritates me to no end! An hour of a lecture to boil down to one word because it's all on information that they were supposed to learn (and in many cases did learn) last year! UGH! I don't know about you but I can think of better ways to fill his time than that.

So, what are we planning to do about it?

What ECJ does now: K-12 online public schooling, Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.

What's staying: Discovery K12 online free curriculum, Easy Peasy All in one High School online free curriculum, and Intermediate College level Algebra.

That leaves just the K-12 online public schooling that is leaving. Why? Because it's not a good fit for us. Part of his grade is that he participate in each hour long class discussion each day Monday through Friday. We'd been told that he could just watch the videos at his pace and it wasn't required for him to be on at specific times... well that was a half truth. He CAN watch the recordings at his own time and pace BUT he'll sacrifice 10% of his grade in each class for not participating in the hour long discussions each day. He has several appointments every month as well as the fact that we're not home at all on the third of every month and sometimes the fourth as well, top that with the fact that Noni comes every other Tuesday to do something with the children around 10 AM and stays for the entire afternoon and you've got a problem in that he's missing those class times. Yes, we'd have the same issues if he were in public school but it's one of the (minor) reasons why the campers aren't in public school.

It just doesn't fit our family.

That means that eventually I'll have to pick up some ninth grade level curriculum books for ECJ. And over the course of the next couple of months I'll round out his text books to my satisfaction. Do I know which books I'm purchasing yet? No, but I have a general idea of what works for him and what doesn't. In the meantime for Language Arts he'll be reading novels and poems and then giving me compositions and reports based off of his reading. For Mathematics he'll continue working through his Intermediate Algebra on the college level. For History he'll be doing an intense study of America just prior to, during, and directly after the American Revolution. And we'll be following his interests in Science right now, which is centered around robotics and chemistry at the moment. He'll be working through Spanish on both Discovery K12 and EPAiO High School. And for Bible he's got his catechism class every Tuesday evening starting next month and his daily reading of both his Bible and a study book that I assign him. And until the spring he'll be running the local track (weather permitting) twice a week, playing (hanging out) with friends on bikes and skateboards (again weather permitting) each afternoon, and exercising as he chooses because he's attempting to stay fit as his appetite grows ... and I'm counting that as Physical Education.

I'll buy his science, history, and language arts text books over the next couple of months and he'll most likely begin those in January. Sometime in the spring he'll be taking up Karate and that will count towards Physical Education and Health (which we'll discuss on a later post). His credits for this year will be fine and will look close to the following on his transcripts

Bible 1 - 1 credit
Literature and Composition - 1 credit
Early American History - 1 credit
Earth Science with lab - 1 credit
Intermediate Algebra (using college text) - 1 credit
Physical Education - 1 credit
Health - .5 credit
Spanish - 1 credit 
Art Appreciation - .5 credits
Music Appreciation - .5 credits

Total for ninth grade : 8.5 credits 

I think that's plenty for ninth grade ... don't you?

* Instead of doing chemistry this year, he'll tackle it next year but he'll spend a good deal of time this first semester learning the periodic table and how things work and what not. We'll do some simple chemistry experiments this year to fulfill his want to do more chemistry. *

** We're currently living in Michigan it's only required that I inform the school that he's being withdrawn to homeschool. Make sure you check you're state's laws before you begin homeschooling ... a good place to start is at this link. **

A Day in Our Life

I sat here thinking just what could I write about our lives that might interest everyone, what's different about us, what don't I post about each week? Then it occurred to me, y'all haven't worn my shoes and each family dynamic is a little different. So, I decided to break our dynamic down a little bit and pop in some reality to this real life post.

Only three of our campers live at home, two live with their mother (from Daddy's first marriage) and they go to public school only coming here every other weekend. We soak up as much as we can with them before they head back home. There's also another camper who's all grown up and lives across the country with our little bitty baby grand-camper.

ECJ

ECJ is the eldest that lives with us full time, he's 14, and in the ninth grade this year. I keep posting about how he's been adjusting to the K12 curriculum that he wanted to try this year and what we've been doing while we try to decide if we're going to stick with the program for awhile and see if we can all adjust or if we're going to go back to doing our own thing. Anyway, we're going to start our day with ECJ and Mommy (that's me).

Moragon

I wake up at 7:15 AM Monday - Friday and wake ECJ up after turning on the coffee pot as I pass it. Then, as I go back to my room to change for the day and brush my hair, ECJ takes Moragon (Daddy's five year old medical assistant dog) out for her morning ritual. Followed by hand washing and breakfast and finally him getting ready for the day. By 8:00 ECJ is sitting on the floor in front of the couch with his laptop ready for his lessons to begin. His first class connect session begins promptly at eight each morning. While he's listening to the teacher's lecture and responding as necessary, I'm sipping my first cup of coffee and sitting down to my own computer. This is one of my productive times during the day, where I check correspondence and social media ... not to mention when I begin jotting down notes for new blog posts.

YCJ and Lily Cat

Peanut with her security blanket

Sometime around 8:30 AM ECJ (fifth grade) wakes up. She's our little bundle of sunshine each morning, while the rest of the family isn't at our best before noon she always wakes up with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. Just because she's awake doesn't mean that she always comes out of her room right away however. Most mornings she's snuggled in her bed getting her brain in gear by playing her Nintendo DS3, happily in her own little world while Peanut (second grade) sleeps in the bottom bunk. Normally Peanut wakes up around 9 AM and both girls stream down the hallway to quietly get their breakfast and by 9:30 I am joining them at our little table to do our book lessons. YCJ takes just a little longer to do her lessons than Peanut does and the three of us are at the table for at least an hour each morning before Peanut is ready to move on to her computer lessons.

Shadow dog

Around 10:30 AM Shadow (our 15 year old buddy dog) wakes up and tells ECJ that he needs to go outside, giving ECJ a few minutes break away from the computer. By the time ECJ is back at the lap top Peanut is in front of my desk top working on her online lessons through Easy Peasy and Discovery K-12, which are both free and we all enjoy them. The campers find them fun and informative while I like knowing that I'm covered if I forget something every once in awhile. And we're all pretty quiet until around 11 when we know for sure Daddy will be awake, he doesn't sleep well most nights and so doesn't get to bed until almost when I'm waking up!

At 11:30 we have our first read out loud on the couch while ECJ moves to the table to plug in the lap top and keep working. The girls and I sit on the couch and read our science book for the day (gotta love the local library). After I'm done reading to them it's time for the girls to watch whatever DVD we're watching about science that week (usually one of the Magic School Bus episodes that coresponds with what we're learning, a non fiction DVD about our topic for the week from the kids section, or even an educational non fiction DVD from the adult section depending on topic). While they watch that and ECJ finishes up with his morning classes I go sit with Daddy for another cup of coffee and chat. 

Around noon ECJ makes himself a quick lunch, typically a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or left overs from the fridge, knowing he only has about an hour and a half before his next class and he likes to do his course work. If he's caught up with his regular course work he hops on Easy Peasy Highschool or Discovery K12 and does that day's assignments. And around 12:30 Peanut goes and has some individual play time either on her tablet or off in by herself in the bedroom while YCJ jumps on the desk top to do her Easy Peasy and Discovery K12 assignments. (Honestly most days doing both of the web sites assignments take each child no more than 45 minutes which is why I don't have them doing them to the exclusion of other work.)

By 1:30 PM ECJ is back to his main assignments on the lap top and both girls are done with their lessons for the day. YCJ typically makes noodles or sandwiches for herself and Peanut while I hop online really quickly to check my email and other correspondence. After the girls have started eating I make lunch for Daddy and myself. Everyone is usually done eating by 2 PM and both girls trot off to their bedroom to straighten it up and then play together for awhile while ECJ finishes up with his lessons for the day. Sometimes he's still at his lessons until 4 PM because he's also working through an Intermediate Algebra college level text book on top of everything else he's chosen to take on this year. But, by 4, everyone is outside enjoying the weather and fresh air.

Currently dinner is around 5:30 PM followed by more time outside, Peanut's evening medicine, and some evening hugs. Around 7:30 it's independent reading time after showers or baths and at 8 I read the girls their Bible study stories before tucking them into bed. Daddy and I go to bed around 10:30 every evening and ECJ soon follows us now that he must get up each morning. He no longer has a set bedtime so if he's tired in the morning it's a natural consequence of him staying up too late the night before. 

Our evenings will change beginning this week because Tuesday nights we have catechism and RCIA classes through our local parish. Second semester will bring more changes as we'll be adding ballet classes for the girls and martial arts for ECJ. 

* This is a typical day in our house now. It by no means shows what happens every day in our house, there's appointments and other things that tend to happen right in the middle of lessons. We tend to go with the flow. Since we homeschool year round which means if we don't get everything done during the typical school year that's OK we'll get around to it eventually. *

Delicious Menu

There's a lot of things that I make in my crock pot this time of year. This menu reflects some of them.

Saturday - Baked ham, fried potatoes, and green beans
Sunday - Fend for yourself leftovers
Monday - Split pea and ham soup with bread
Tuesday - Beef roast with potatoes and green beans
Wednesday - Chicken thighs, corn, and fried potatoes
Thursday - Fend for yourself leftovers
Friday - Spinach spaghetti

Spinach Spaghetti

In crock pot place two jars of spaghetti sauce, two cans of spinach (fresh spinach can be used with no change), can of mushrooms, can of diced tomatoes, and seasonings to taste. I add salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and sugar. Give a good stir and turn on low for one hour (two hours if using fresh spinach). Then turn down to keep warm until ready to eat. Make spaghetti noodles ten minutes before you're ready to eat. Top with parmasian cheese.

Linked up with Organizing Junkie's Menu Monday

Where's Everything Else?

Due to my long lapse in blogging I began this new blog ... but everything else from Homeschool Camper is still up and able to be seen! All you need do is click on this little link right here and you can find everything I wrote for just about two years (I think, it could have been longer).

I know it's slightly a pain in the rear end and while I love my previous blog it was time to start a little fresh and turn a new chapter. Much of what you'll find here will be the same as what you used to be able to find on the old blog. 

Recipes
Curriculum
Reviews
Weekly Wrap Ups

You name it and I write it. But, I just wanted to clear up that little bit of confusion just in case any of you were wondering what the heck happened to all the stuff that I had already blogged about.

Trying Espanol

This past weekend I went through the girls clothing to take out all of the summer items and replace all the shorts with pants since the weather is supposed to stay cool, with the highest temperatures in the high 70's for the rest of the month. I love the Summer but I love Fall even more! With cooler temperatures, wonderful decorations (both natural, like the leaves, and man made), and cider mills being in full swing Fall can easily be considered my favorite season. Saturday we took a ride up to the local library to get some more reading material for our individual reading and for science. Right now I'm having the girls work through some of The Magic School Bus DVDs for science, picking a different subject every week, and taking some worksheets off of the internet when I can find them. I also made sure that YCJ got a Magic Tree House book to work through for part of her Language Arts, using the information I find here. She owns some of the later books but we're working through the earlier ones right now. We do a chapter a day Mon. through Fri. and work on the reading maps that I print off of the website. There's lesson plans for most of the books and some even include math which would be a good way to do an entire year of unit studies using this one site for both language arts and math. There's even special education information for most of the books! The rest of the day was spent inside with DVDs, books, and games due to the almost all day rainy drizzle.

Sunday we spent most of the day outside. The weather was wonderful and even I didn't want to be stuck inside of the house. Each year we try to reach a goal of 1000 hours spent outside. We've been doing this a couple of years now, usually going from Labor Day to Labor Day, because I like doing the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge. This way I can try to balance screen time with outside time. Being that we're living in Michigan again I know for sure the hours during the Winter are going to be limited so I try to make up for that during the other three seasons. We take a lot of walks, garden, do a lot of experiments that are just better done outside (thinking of the mess a lot of them make), and nature hikes. 

I did manage to finish one of my crochet projects for Christmas gifts on Sunday, including washing and drying it. It's a blanket for my father in law so that both he and my mother in law no longer will fight over who gets the blanket that I'd originally made for my husband but somehow ended up at their house in the last year and a half or so.

During the week we had a pretty ordinary week. I don't think you want me to give a day by day run down every week. We began working through the alphabet mini lesson from Spanish for you on Monday. I found this YouTube video of the Spanish alphabet song to go along with that and then discovered shortly thereafter that Discovery K12 also offers a year long Spanish course through their extra curriculars for all levels as well. I like using Discovery K12 and Easy Peasy to supplement what we're already learning just to make sure that the lessons actually sink in all the way. I did a post earlier this week about Spanish for You and hopefully I'll be able to do a full review in the months to come after I actually fit it into my budget (really it's rather affordable, just not in the budget for the next month or two). Here's a link to the post that I wrote earlier this week about our Espanol (Spanish).

ECJ's new blanket for Christmas that I finished Monday night.
(Yes, he knows he's getting it for Christmas lol.)

Wednesday I had an appointment with my psychologist (I'll be posting about this another time, not to worry) and the girls hadn't slept well the night before. So, while ECJ and I got up at 7:15 AM and began his school day, the girls were still sleeping at 9:30. The joys of homeschooling means that if I have an appointment, or one of the campers does, we can just do our lessons later in the day or before our appointment depending on what time it is. Since my appointment was for 11 and I wouldn't be home until around noon, I let the girls sleep. When they woke up around 10 I made them scrambled eggs and asked if they'd like to do lessons after I got back from my appointment or if they'd rather either double lessons Thursday or lessons on Saturday. They opted for double lessons Thursday. Wednesday was also International World Peace day and so we touched lightly on what World Peace would mean and our hopes for it to happen within our lifetimes. 

First day of Fall

Eating Watermelon

Thursday I had another appointment (this time at 12:30) and so we did lessons in the morning before I had to go to it. All of our book work was done by 11 and both girls were able to do some things online before I had to leave. When I got back we went down to visit Grandma and Papa for a little while. I love that we can do this in the middle of the week without having to wait until school lets out. Even with double book lessons we nailed it! The weather was a little warm for the first day of Fall being that it was in the 80s but that was fine with the campers! Any excuse to play outside is a good one. So, when we got home they played outside with all of the neighborhood children.

Thursday night walk by the
bridge to Canada in
Port Huron, MI

Let's debunk a little homeschool myth shall we? I hear often that dreaded question, "What about socialization? Don't they miss kids their own ages by not going to real school?" Well, just as a quick example, there are close to ten other children right around the campers ages who live on our street alone. Most afternoons, and every weekend, my yard seems to fill up with all of those children at once because they've come over to play or hang out. I seem to have the gathering spot. My children seem to be popular with every one of the kids on the street and they're the only homeschooled kids! Wow! I think that's socialization don't you? *Ahem* Just had to add that in here for the curious. And no, I'm not going to add pictures of the entire crowd because I haven't asked all of the parents if they mind (and I'm sure some would, this is the internet after all). You'll just have to take my word on it.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap Up.

Spanish Que Espanol

So, I've been wanting to teach the kids Spanish for a couple of years. I'd research and drool over all the different things one can use to teach Spanish. This year I decided that one way or another I'd teach the kids Spanish. I started this year out with good intentions, I went to the library and was thrilled to find two levels of Spanish instructional DVDs on the shelves, and so I checked out the first level. I brought it home and showed the kids and we turned on the DVD player during that first week of school.

Utter failure! Boy, did they dread having to watch that DVD. Mind you they'll watch all kinds of other educational DVDs with no issue. They simply really didn't like this one at all. Big let down for me since I'd thought I'd found a way to introduce Spanish in a fairly painless way that they might actually enjoy. Nope. Nada. Not going to happen. Back to the drawing board. I was not, am not, and will not give up on teaching them Spanish. And since I haven't spoken Spanish since I took it in high school I'm not prepared to teach it from my memory. I can barely remember the super basics like how to introduce myself and ask for a bathroom for goodness sakes!

Since one of our supplemental resources around here has always been Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool I went there first. They don't offer Spanish for elementary and middle school years but they do for High School! Awesome score! ECJ began during the second week of school to do the Spanish 1 in the high school courses!

That just left the girls for me to find something that would work for them ... I just didn't have any money at all to spend on a curriculum for it yet. I found a wonderful curriculum for elementary and middle school levels called Spanish for You which was really reasonably priced. But, again my pockets were empty and I drooled over the curriculum that I wanted but would have to wait to buy. Showing it to my husband and talking about it daily even though I knew it could be a month or two before I had the extra, non budgeted, money to purchase my new dream Spanish curriculum no matter how reasonably priced it was.

Daddy had a wonderful idea and asked me if there were any sample lessons on the site for free that I could use to begin the lessons and test out how we liked the curriculum. I didn't know so I went searching and viola! I found  free mini lessons  and free worksheets ! Joy! Again I became excited! There were more than enough mini lessons and corresponding worksheets to carry us through until I could purchase the curriculum of choice. 

Only one last problem faced my over excited and anxious to get started self... I was out of printer paper! Having planned a shopping trip on Peanut's birthday I didn't freak out. I'd spend the rest of week two planning how to use the mini lessons and worksheets, printing off the pages I'd need, and getting ready then we'd hit week three running!!!

And that first day we did actual Spanish lessons using this new resource? Success!!! We're only one day in but it's working!!

Through the Mirror

I thought long and hard about what to post this week for the Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. This week is Through the Eyes of the Student and I decided that instead of laying an entire blog post at the feet of just one of my children I would ask them each to tell me what they think about homeschooling and what their favorite memory of it is. We've been doing this awhile now so I was sure I'd get different responses from each child and I certainly did!

First a quick introduction to the youngest members of the blogging staff here at Homeschool Campers at Home:

ECJ (Elder Cracker Jack) is our fourteen year old, tech minded, happily goofy, young man. His hobbies include flying his mini drone, reading graphic comics (along with vampire novels), and playing games on his tablet with his sister who lives in Colorado (long distance bonding at it's best for these two). He's not at all sports minded but if allowed to sit with his uncle will watch just about any sports game out there just for the quality time involved. He's built two robots in his life time and is interested in building a battle bot eventually. His goal in life is to become a multi-trillionaire and he's not ashamed to tell everyone that he intends to do so. Currently the plan for becoming a multi-trillionaire includes finishing high school, signing up for the Air Force (hopefully getting a desk/tech job as he'd really like to be the one in control of drones and missiles), attending college once out of the Air Force for "something tech related", and building his fortune. He's not letting ADHD hold him back!


YCJ (Younger Cracker Jack) is eleven and a small bundle of sunshine each and every day! Her favorite things include penguins, small dogs, Nintendo DS3, and computers. She's completely in her element outside where she can run around and even play in the dirt, this is one girl that's not afraid to get dirty! Willing to work on cars with her Dad, cook in the kitchen with Mom, entertain her little sister, or work on her reading skills quietly by herself... YCJ has a heart that keeps on giving. Currently her future goals include joining the Marine Corps, becoming a Drill Instructor at Paris Island, retiring after 30 years and becoming a civilian military consultant. She fully intends to one day get married (in her own words) "if for no other reason than to have ONE kid" but she's not in a rush. Currently she enjoys reading Michigan Chillers and the Magic Tree House series, having discovered that both series have short enough chapters that she doesn't feel like she's reading chapter books and they don't make her stress out as many other books do (YCJ battles with her Dyslexia daily, it's a battle she's proven each day that she can win with determination and grace.).

Peanut is the youngest of our little family. Her favorite color is pink, she likes cats and ponies best, and she's always got a kind word for anyone upset. Peanut battles Autism, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Attention Deficite Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She's a bundle of energy and strength that inspires the rest of the family every day. She's constantly putting together odd objects to make something new and beautiful as gifts for each member of the family. Her current plans for the future include: joining the Army for just four year period and then going to college, never moving out from Mom and Dad's house (other than while in the Army - "It'll be like a really long vacation, Mommy!", adopting one child, building her own house on property that she's sure we'll own by the time she's grown up so that she can also build herself a small barn to house all of the animals that she intends to rescue when she's older, and finally to become a farm animal vet. She's only just turned eight years old but this girl has the world in the palm of her hand and she knows it!

Okay, now that you know a little about Peanut and the Cracker Jacks, it's time to get a peak inside of their heads and discover what each of them think about homeschooling and what their favorite memories of it are!!! We'll go oldest to youngest again...


ECJ's thoughts on homeschooling: "My favorite thing about homeschooling is that I can learn just about any language that I take a liking too. My least favorite thing about homeschooling is that I have to do a lot of lessons because my parents expect so much from me. And my favorite memory from homeschooling is when we did the Oozing Pumpkin experiment and I'm excited that we're going to do it again this year!"



YCJ's thoughts on homeschooling: "My favorite subject is math and I don't really care about the other subjects because they all have reading and words in them and I think that's hard. I like that we can go with our Noni places during the school week because we're not in a building being taught by strangers. I also like that since we've been homeschooling, and not in public school, that I don't get bullied anymore. My favorite memory about homeschooling is when we went to the movies with Noni during a school day."


Peanut's thoughts on homeschooling: "My favorite thing about homeschooling is just about everything. English is my favorite subject. But, I don't like when it's time to do my workbooks because that means that it's nearly time to be finished with learning from books that day. My favorite memory from homeschooling is when we were traveling in our camper and having so much fun. The best thing ever is being able to go to a park without having to deal with crowds when it's school time."


As for my favorite part of homeschooling, I'd have to say getting to see those "ah-ha" moments. I see far more of them with the children being home than I'd ever see if they were still attending public or private school. I get to be part of those "ah-ha" moments as well ... and that alone is worth more to me than any amount of money.

Linking up with the Back to Homeschool blog hop.

The Maybe Menu

Okay, this week the menu is what we'll be eating "maybe" ... meaning that I'm not really sure if this is what we're going to be eating but it sounds good right now....


Saturday: Daddy's homemade chili
Sunday: Chicken quesadillas
Monday: Pork chops and rice with mushroom gravy
Tuesday: Potato soup and crackers
Wednesday: Meatloaf with corn and mashed potatoes on the side
Thursday: Leftover night (usually done on Sundays but this week I'll have plenty of leftovers)
Friday: Baked talapia with green beans and rice on the side

Potato Soup Recipe:
6-8 good sized potatoes cubed into small pieces
1 med. onion, diced
butter
instant mashed potatoes
milk
water (to cover potatoes)
chicken seasoning
salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder to taste

Put diced onion and butter into soup pot and sautee onions until nearly translucent. Turn off heat and add in cubed potatoes, water, and seasonings. Turn heat back on to high until comes to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Let simmer for one hour. Add instant mashed potatoes and milk until it's the thickness that you want (some people like super thick and others like relatively thin potato soup, my family likes it thick enough that the youngest calls it "Mashed Potato Soup:")

Linked up with Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday

A Birthday Week

The campers with happy meals!

The Weekend: On Saturday we had a pretty laid back kind of day. We took a quick trip to the library to get this week's science books and DVDs for the girls, a few books to tide these readers over the week, and several of the children's DVDs for entertainment (We don't have cable at the house and refuse to get it in the future. Between antenna TV, Netflix, and YouTube we have more than enough to watch when bolstered by the occasional DVD.) The campers all earned a free happy meal from McDonald's through the library and we took advantage of that since they don't often eat fast food. While the girls finished eating theirs ECJ learned about drywall work with his father who was repairing some drywall under the window of ECJ's bedroom. (Putting new carpeting down and repainting will wait for the moment since we're moving the mobile home we live in sometime after Christmas.) Because it was drizzly and icky most of the afternoon we didn't get our outside time in like we like too. Starting last week we began our new year of the 1000 Hours Outside challenge and due to rain we only have about 15 hours in since we restart for our family every Labor Day.

The repaired drywall before mudding.

Shadow dog (15 years old!)

Moragon is now 5!

Sunday was another laid back kind of day with mass at our local parish church in the morning and an afternoon of playing outside. Nothing fancy or exciting much happens on the weekends for us unless we plan it well in advance. I spent the majority of my afternoon with hook in hand working on crocheted Christmas gifts for the family. I have a TON of them left to do but have made sure to give myself enough time this year to do them. I always make something for each child in the entire family and usually a few gifts for Daddy's parents and my mom. This year I'm adding my sister-in-laws and their husbands as well, though they'll get a gift per couple and the men probably won't use the items as much as those precious sisters.

The week: I scheduled a four day school week for the second week in a row because Peanut had a birthday this week! Monday was a typical school day for us with book work in the morning for the girls, followed by an afternoon of DVDs and read a louds, topped with independant reading and Bible story reading right before bed. ECJ is still attempting to get used to his new online curriculum and we're still considering switching him to a different online system, so this week he's actually doing both the K-12 (which is what we're really not liking so far) and Discovery K12 which is also free but not public school based and that we enjoy a lot more. Both YCJ amd Peanut are also working with Easy Peasy (another free online curriculum) to round out their days, about half an hour or so a day right now mainly for the subjects like health that I don't have a set curriculum set up for just yet. ECJ does lessons on Easy Peasy Highschool as well because he enjoys the program and has for a couple of years. If you haven't checked it out yet I would recommend it, use it alone or as supplemental work, it's welled laid out and easy to use.

8 birthday candles.

Tuesday was Peanut's 8th birthday! I can't believe my little girl is already eight years old!!! We didn't do lessons on Tuesday because we decided to spend the birthday with Noni and then having a quiet evening with brownies at home! Noni showed up around 10 AM and we headed to the park for some lunch and fresh air (love being at the park when local schools are in session we get the whole place to ourselves!). After that was a trip to Walmart to buy all of Peanut's gifts from Noni and then a dash back home for cake and ice cream before Noni had to leave.

Grumpy ECJ

History lesson

Wednesday was a typical homeschooling day for us. Book lessons took less than two hours, the online lessons for the girls took less than an hour each even with the worksheets I'd printed out, and ECJ had his face in the laptop screen most of the day with his online lessons. Really it doesn't take him that long to do his work, it's because participation in daily online classrooms counts towards your grades and so he attends all that he can every day. He's still not enjoying it and I'm not enjoying waking up much earlier than normal to make sure he's up to work on it. We're moving from this program to using the online options that we've always known were out there. Beginning next week we'll be shipping back the materials the program sent to us as I'll be unenrolling him from the program. That means that the laptop will be sent back, but between my desk top and his tablet the other online programs can be handled easily enough without having to stop for the campers to switch on and off the main computer. Maybe come Christmas we'll purchase another lap top, we'll see. It rained off and on most of the day making for an icky gray day all the way around. This meant that the campers really didn't get outside much and when their friends from public school got home they didn't get a chance to play with them.

YCJ & math

Speaking of tablets, Peanut got a new child's tablet from Noni for her birthday. I had it all set up Tuesday night and she got to play with it on Wednesday. She's absolutely in love with it and feels very grown up. YCJ is considering asking for a tablet for Christmas so that she'll have one too, what she really wants is her own lap top but that's just not going to happen just yet. I love having electronics on hand to help keep boredom away on rainy gray days, it keeps the campers from fighting as often as they used to. With two campers on tablets and one on her brand new Nintendo DS3 I barely heard a peep from them during their afternoon free time.

Thursday was pretty much a repeat of Wednesday, although the weather was much better and we were able to get outside for a good portion of the day. This improved everyone's moods and kept us all happy and content since the weather was in the 70's. Rooms were cleaned and before we knew it it was bedtime. Which is why I'm sitting here currently writing this post. We have nothing special planned for tomorrow, just more awesome homeschooling and next week is our first five day week since we started our fall lessons. Time for this mama to go lesson plan for next week!

I have one more quick thing to mention although I have a post coming up next week about this very subject: we're going to start some free mini lessons from Spanish for You! with the girls next week! I've been looking into this curriculum for over a year and now seems like the perfect time to implement it.

Joined up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up

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