Starting school, animals and fun at the lake...

I wanted to start school a little earlier than normal for here. We needed some structure and some staying home and I wanted to get a head start so we can slack a bit at the end of the year. We are doing a curriculum with a calendar and so I want some leeway since this is new to us. We came up with a schedule sorts. Nothing is set in stone because that is too much pressure. But we have been pretty good at being around these times. 

All our school stuff laid out the night before. 

Our traditional pancakes for the first day of school. We have done them ever since Mac first started preschool. They are in the shape of their initial and the grade they are in. 

Oak wanted to write her own sign completely. I thought it was cute. 

And of course a picture with their teacher. 

The flies have been terrible. This one was huge!

We were leaving the house to go to swim lessons and Oak went to get in the car and started screaming. We don't know what happened to this poor jack rabbit but it was dead as a door nail. 

One of the only days school went well. The kids are struggling a bit with the new schedule for the curriculum. Mac doesn't like to be forced at learning and Oak can participate but is bringing way too much chaos and not helping. 

Daddy was gone for the evening and after swim lessons we decided to pick up dinner and head to the park since it was so nice out. 

 Mac getting his reading done while Oak had her horse back riding lessons. She hasn't wanted to get back on the horse since she fell off. So her teacher was teaching her to lead and groom. 

We haven't had any frogs here because it's so dry but found one in dad's bucket he is growing a tomato plant in. The kids were so excited. 

Oak loved the frog and was sad all day after she had to let it go. 

Mister had his work family bbq. It was at the other partners lake cabin. It was so much fun and beautiful and the kids had a blast. 

Fishing with a net. 

This is their dock. One of Mister's employees brought these cool tubes for the kids to play in. They were a hit. Only one of his employees has little kids and they have three girls who also homeschool and are about our kids' ages. They had so much fun together. 

Mac decided to try out the kayak and he ended up figuring it out and loved it so much. 

They were all lined up trying to catch fish with a net. They played hard for six hours. 

Sunday 35

Oak got sick the night before from eating too much junk and just eating too much and she threw up so daddy stayed home from church with her just to be on the safe side. But she felt much better after she threw it all up. 

school shopping and boom boxes...

There are massive spiderwebs every where here and giant spiders to along with them. I think this is an orb spider. They are HUGE.

The kids have really LOVED their boom boxes. They actually enjoy staying in their rooms listening to audio books for hours at a time. 

The kids started swim lessons again. 

We drove over to Medford for school clothes shopping. When we got home the kids had fun doing a fashion show for us. 

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I loved that they found props for their runway debut.

Cute kids in their favorite picks. 

Just being a goofball. We need to get this boy a bunk bed for his room. Hoping to do that in the next year. 

Oak started listening to Anne of Green Gables on her boom box and loved it! She would run out every little bit and tell me what happened.

My Mister fell and hurt his shoulder a while ago. He has pretty much been in constant pain for months. We have tried everything. Here he was trying some exercises to help it and Mac joined in. 

Oak's birthmom painted this canvas for her birthday. We found a good spot for it and got it hung. 

Sunday 34

Getting ready for homeschooling...

We are about to start out 4th year of homeschooling. That is crazy to me. When I started homeschooling I never imagined myself still homeschooling at this point. We love it! It is HARD, but we love it. This year Mac will be in 3rd grade and Oak will be in 1st grade. We are still using the homeschool center in one of the school districts here. We get a substantial stipend and large selection of curriculum to choose from. This year Mac will be doing the Bookshark curriculum. It is a literature based all in one curriculum. I am really excited about it although a little worried as we have mostly been unschooling up until now. Mac will also do his math through Khan Academy online for now. I had gotten him Singapore math and I really liked it but he didn't like the workbook part and so I thought doing math online would be great for him. 

For Oak we will just practice reading some more and play lots of math games and she can be included in some of the stuff that I will be doing with Mac. 

These are almost all of the books we will be using to learn through Bookshark. I had already pulled the books we will use for the first week of school.

This is the big binder that holds the schedule for the entire year. Seems so overwhelming to look at bu its all layed out and I love that. 

Some other things I plan on using this year is having Mac and Oak use these math wrap ups when I am working with the other kid. They are pretty fun. 

I am also really excited that I was able to get this. I have heard great things about it. 

I also will have some bins for Oak to choose something from everyday to do while I am working with Mac. 

Oak loves anything ancient egypt so I ordered some things for her to do this year. 

Mac has been really into rocks so I got these for him to do. 

I got this reading program for Oak and I forgot to order a crucial part of it and I am not sure I will be able to order now. We will see how that goes. 

I think I will work through these with Oak.

I tried uploading these picture three separate times and no matter what I did they still would load sideways. Frustrating! I got these books to for Oak to practice reading. 

I got these for Oak for math. We may or may not use them. She likes using Khan academy to. We might do a little of each. 

The kids have been really interested in all things Native American so I got them these. 

I got these to use when we are reading the Little House books. 

This is what Mac will be using with Bookshark just the first week and some of it a bit longer. 

School supply shopping! I love it all!  I always buy a full box of spiral notebooks for .17 cents. 

I always replenish our Crayola markers because the kids are rough on them. 

I think the boombox is my favorite purchase. I got it so the kids can use it to listen to audio books while I am working with the other kid. The kids were loving it so much that I went and bought a second one. I also always love the Scholastic learning games in a bag they have every year in the school supply section at Walmart. We use them a ton. And these ones will be great for Oak this year. Also some bins for organizing my closet. 

We plan to start this coming monday and I am excited! We have been practicing going to bed earlier this week and have struggled with getting up earlier and getting our chores done in a decent time. 

Some other things we will be doing this year is implementing a devotional to start out school day with. I found this 36 months of FHE lesson plans CD in my stuff. I have no clue where it came from. But it has four weeks for every topic and stuff to go along with it. I think I will simplify it for my kids and do one topic a week for four days. And we will add a five minute personal scripture reading time in there. 

I had this amazing thing come to my mind the other day after a few rough days with the kids. The kids will each get an assigned night that they will get to stay up a little later (maybe an hour or so) to do an activity with mom and dad. I think this will help with my worry about early bed time and not having enough time as a family once daddy is home. And will help with behavior because they will be getting some alone mommy and daddy time.