We had another chrysalis on our play structure for the last couple weeks. It hatched today finally. We have been watching it daily. The kids were so excited to see it before it left today.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Monarch butterful chrysalis?
Found on the basketball this morning in the yard, thus meaning no basketball, but the kids are thrilled anyway. We think it is a monarch? Hopefully we will get to watch for a while and see if we are right.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Picture of our workbox system
Ah, my much neglected blog. Although it is better to have a neglected blog than neglected kids. Life is going well but busy busy. We are doing a workbox system this year. Here is a picture of our workbox system. The top row is for Zach's "boxes," using magazine files. Noah has the same setup. Lily wanted her own stuff so she has the latch boxes. Hers can then hold small pieces/games without any problem if dropped. All are loving their "boxes" system.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
A big change for next year's curriculum
I have been considering it for a while, but I'm finally going to make the break from Sonlight in the fall. In a lot of ways, I will miss it, but we are all ready for something new. As the years have gone by, I have removed bits and pieces here and there (bible section, etc) and added what is a better fit for our family. I became very unhappy with their revised language arts, the new one not being what my oldest child needs at all. So I was down to history and science, and the science jumps all over the place, something that has become less and less tolerable for me, feeling that I'm not providing a sufficiently solid base on which to build. I loved it in the lower cores for sure, such fun memories of those books. I'm even still happy with the history selections, enjoying the nonfiction spine mixed in with tons of historical fiction and nonfiction to really bring history alive. That is truly where Sonlight shines for sure.
So, you ask, what are we doing in the fall? Okay, so maybe you didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway. After trying out one unit of Tapestry of Grace last year (and deciding it was not for me), we are going to just go with the classical education 4-year history cycle, and rely heavily on topics and recommendations in The Well Trained Mind. I have to tell you, it feels rather odd to think of flying along without my humongous binders full of resources and schedules from Sonlight. I don't think I would have felt nearly so grounded as a new homeschooler without those. But I put in my order, and I anxiously await my materials for fall, some of which I have never seen in person due to not being able to find them locally. I have my core subject spines ordered, but I will be adding in lots and lots of the historical fiction we so love here, ala Sonlight style. We will probably be trolling the internet for good recommendations to correlate with our time period being studied (cycle year 4 by the way, modern times). Anyone with good blog recommendations for me? :)
So, you ask, what are we doing in the fall? Okay, so maybe you didn't ask but I'll tell you anyway. After trying out one unit of Tapestry of Grace last year (and deciding it was not for me), we are going to just go with the classical education 4-year history cycle, and rely heavily on topics and recommendations in The Well Trained Mind. I have to tell you, it feels rather odd to think of flying along without my humongous binders full of resources and schedules from Sonlight. I don't think I would have felt nearly so grounded as a new homeschooler without those. But I put in my order, and I anxiously await my materials for fall, some of which I have never seen in person due to not being able to find them locally. I have my core subject spines ordered, but I will be adding in lots and lots of the historical fiction we so love here, ala Sonlight style. We will probably be trolling the internet for good recommendations to correlate with our time period being studied (cycle year 4 by the way, modern times). Anyone with good blog recommendations for me? :)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
My Garden, early in the season
The weather has been so strange this spring, warm and then cold, warm and then cold. My lettuce doesn't know whether to bolt or get frost bitten. But I'm working on it. You can see my nice pak choy bolted - bummer! Then the very next week my new tomatoes got frost. But I'm keeping going and hoping to have a bountiful summer garden.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Snickerdoodles!
I love Snickerdoodle cookies. A month or two back, Krusteaz brand was running lots of promotions on their cookie line mixes, including in store deals and coupons. At Ralphs locally, the store deal with the coupon combined to make the mixes free. So of course I have pantry full of the mixes now, since I love coupon deals. In any case, we are slowly using those mixes up. Thank goodness they are fairly tasty, right? Today I made up another box of them as cookies, but was contemplating just how incredibly much of the cinnamon sugar mix they include in the box to roll the dough in. Seriously, it is 3x the amount needed! We don't eat cinnamon sugar toast or anything that typically uses that kind of mix, and I hated to waste it. It finally occurred to me how best to use up that premixed cinnamon and sugar in our house ... the oatmeal cinnamon bread from TheFrugalGirl we love so much. So today I made 2 loaves of the bread plus the 2 dozen cookies, and that little packet in the boxed mix provided just the right amount of cinnamon sugar mix for all three. I love it.
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