Starting the Portfolio's

Since we are moving in a few weeks I’m trying to get things into the boys portfolio so that in May i’m not a crazy woman trying to find their work for the teacher. We may be behind in our school as far as book work but I’m amazed at all we have done since last June. Here is a brief synopsis.

1. June 2007~ Noah went to camp, boys took swimming lessons, went to see a play about Rachel Carson. Went to the zoo and saw the Dinosaur exhibit with friends, as well as the animal show there.
   
2. July ~ 4th of July parade, and fireworks, more swim lessons, cook outs at the park almost every week, hike the O & E Canal lock 39. Saw the “Stinky Plant” at the Rain Forest.
   
3. August~Swim lessons, Upwards Soccer Camp, Bug Fest, finish the summer reading club for church, painting Grandma’s upstairs hallway. Did some botany experiments and graphing.
4. Sept. ~ Took a few nature walks, started back to sunday school. Did our yearly visit to squire’s castle.
   
5. October ~ more hikes, Boo at the Zoo, celebrating the 5 October birthdays.
   
6. November~ getting ready for the holidays, helping out at church with dad, spending time with Grandma E. Celebrated Dad’s birthday.
7. December~ Noah, playing basketball. Singing in the Children’s Choir for Christmas Eve, started house hunting, visiting with the Godparents, celebrating my birthday. Putting up trees in our church sanctuary.
8. January ~ Welcoming in the New Year, a trip to the zoo on a crazy warm day 1/8/08, bought a house,
9. February~ Celebrated V-Day, picked out colors for rooms in our new house. Went to the Car Show. Saw Tetelestai at our church.
   
10. March~ will see us celebrating Noah’s first communion and moving into our new home. As well as Easter.
    
11. April~ hopefully will see us planning a garden for May. Hoping to get to the Art Museum.
    
12. May~ getting ready for Noah to go to camp, seeing the teacher, signing up for swim team and lessons for Adrien and Camryn. Mom is taking the summer off from college.
    

This was just a quick look at our year and what the next few months will look like. I have to get Adrien a scrapbook and start scrapping their photos for the teacher. I think I will order him a book asap and then work on it a bit during spring break in between packing. If I get the time, with these classes I’m taking.

So what are you doing to get ready for the end of the year?

Homeschooling Must Have's?????

I saw this on another blog somewhere in my travels of researching for next year and was wondering what your must haves are? Please link back to me so I can read your must haves.

• Books from Sonlight
• a computer
  
• patience and lots of love and understanding for those not so easy days
• a printer
• money for extra’s like swim lessons, zoo membership, camp etc
• a great library,* we are blessed with one*
• laughter
• a house and a yard are on my list this year, God willing we will get one.
  
• art supplies,
• a camera
• a place to take nature walks, again we are blessed with some good ones.

So tell me…… inquiring minds want to know.

Our First Day of School

So today went well, however none of us wanted to get up and get moving. Gee, I wonder why? could be we all stayed up to late and then were not quite ready for the early morning. We started with bible, while the boys were eating breakfast and then went right into our day.

Noah did really well with all of his subjects, he still gets stressed by spelling but once he saw that there was no pressure, he calmed down quickly. We stayed pretty much on track, if the boys aren’t done with an assignment before the time is up, then it becomes homework for them as I need to cover as much as possible before I leave for my class every day. I’m very happy with his work today. Less fighting and less stress for both of us.

Adrien had the worst time today, he still has a bit of trouble focusing and sitting still especially while reading. He has math for homework tonight. The husband will be helping him I think.

Camryn, was allowed to sleep in since her work really only takes about 30 minutes. She did it well and with a great attitude as well.

We took the kids swimming for only 1 session, the water was ice cold and with the breeze forget it. Hopefully it will be warmer tomorrow. Our pools close this saturday and I want to get in as much swimming as possible.

We still need to cover science but the boys friend is over so we will do that reading tonight. It is only a few pages. I want them to have time to play with their friends as well as do schoolwork.

All in all it was a productive day and I hope the next two weeks go this smoothly, actually I hope the whole year goes this smoothly.

Swim lessons~ edit

Well, Adrien could have moved onto level 5 except he just needs some endurance and a bit of balance or perhaps a bit of control. His teacher today Valerie 2x had to jump in the pool to help him do the strokes and go the right way. It was kind of comical actually. Noah on the other hand is doing well, he missed a week of lessons while in camp. So Valerie tested him yesterday and she moved him into level 6. He needs to do laps I guess and level 6 does lots of them. I haven’t had time to talk to Valerie about it but I trust her judgement. I am hoping that she comes back next year and teaches so that Camryn will have her. I asked Noah how it went today and he said it was ok but hard. They had to place something between their legs and just use their arm ms for the laps. But he liked it and seemed excited about it. I’m sure he will be in level 6 through the rest of this summer. But that is ok as next summer I plan to put him into the swim team for our city. So Tommy took the kids swimming today and Mike and Valerie were in the pool. They just love our kids. They were playing with them and they come over to talk to them. I know that once Adrien tried to cheat at Marco polo and Valerie caught him and made him get back in the pool. Mike stopped and asked Noah what level he was in for swim class. We don’t have great city services but our pools are great as is the lifeguards/swim teachers.

Upward Camps

so my friend Trudy, gave me some info about Upward camps. So i will be having Noah and Ace go to soccer camp for a week for free. I’m so happy if i can just get a hold of the lady to register them. It looks really good. They had one last week at Parma Hts. Baptist but I didn’t know about the program. Ii would love to see our church host a camp for a week. I’m going to run it by Pastor Doug and then order the information. I am hoping to see our church add in more youth things in the future and this would be a good thing to add.