Sunday, August 28, 2016

School Prep update


We completed our first full week of school!!
This year promises to be a good year. I am in my 7th year of homeschooling. 



This year Lee is in 7th grade. He is doing bible, history, science, geography, language arts and civics online with Alpha Omegas Monarch. He is doing his 6th year of Teaching Textbooks Math. He is also going to be doing some "woodshop" classes as I teach him to build goat milking stands and hay feeders. This will be his little business, so he will be learning accounting and business management too.


David is going into 6th grade.  He is going to be doing KONOS this year. I am excited to try this for him. This will cover language arts, science, history and geography. We struggle fiercely with math for him. So as usual I am tossing around several things. He will be doing some "Keys To:" workbooks along with CLE. He has a strong foundation in the basics but just struggles with math.  He is also running his own little calf business so he is learning to be responsible, how to manage his money etc.. He will be helping teach bubbie too. He helps me out with babysitting and is my excellent helper. 


Elizabeth is also in 6th grade and is  doing Alpha Omega's Monarch. She is doing history, science, geography, bible, language arts and Career Exploration. She is in her 6th year of Teaching Textbooks. Yes, I have 2 6th graders working two completely different curricullium. Matia also has her own goat and hopes to start her own goat herd. The girl is ambitious and dreams big! She will be helping teach Bubbie and Nesiah. She does 1/3 of Nesiah's program for me.

Fayth is in 5th grade. She is doing KONOS with David. We are hoping with the hands on learning she will be able to catch up. She is doing CLE math, finishing up from last year. We don't break up her math into school years. We work steadily (with some major battles) year round because she is so far behind. Fayth loves to help with Nesiah. She is not an animal person and does not enjoy going to the barn, so she has been enlisted to help with Nesiah. She hopes to grow up and be a missionary who works with special needs kids. 

 
We attempted circle time.. lol

Nesiah is in 3rd grade. She is doing NACD this year. Yes, I am homeschooling her. My goal is to try some alternatives and see how they work for her. So far she loves being home and we love having her home. She has made some great strides and we are happy with her progress. She does NACD which covers all her therapies, plus she does equine therapy. We also include her in when we do preschool circle time with Bubbie. She does her PT outside and is learning to enjoy being out and about in the community with us. 



Signing Time videos while standing... 

(notice the shoes? He wore them until they were falling off his feet and then he still insisted on wearing them until I hid them!!)

Bubbie, my baby.. He is doing preschool this year. We had fun making a homemade curricilum for him. He is learning a new letter, sound, shape, color and bible verse every week. We are very informal and make it fun for him. He loves having school like the big kids. The big kids take turns doing circle time with the little ones and we all work to point out things as we go through daily life. 


Nesiah loves her horseback riding! She gets all excited when we pull into the farm! Penny is her favorite horse!


I am looking forward to this school year. The kids are on the brink of middle and high school. They are moving into the teen stage. I want to savor these moments. Enjoy the schooling, the parenting and the relationships with my kids in this stage. 




Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Canning

The beginning of summer this is what my can shelves looked like..
I prayed that God would fill them...
Now We all know that God is a God of miracles but he expects us to do our share in the work. So we have been working HARD!!
 But he provided lots and lots of cheap and low cost produce for us!! 





So far, the 2 different neighbors provided us with free corn because..
1. her husband planted too much corn and she did not want it. We were quite blessed by her extra.
Second neighbor, her friend went on vacation and told her to pick the corn. We got another 100 ears.
Then ANOTHER friend offered us some extra of her corn..
We found cheap organic tomatoes from a local farmer, which we made in tomato soup, tomato paste, tomato juice and salsa. Neighbors also brought us some of their extra which I turned into tomato paste.
On Friday we will go pick MORE FREE tomatoes at another friends and turn those into ketchup and barbecue sauce.
We found some expensive peaches, some seconds peaches and have been canning and freezing as we can. I hope to find more seconds at the end of the season.
My garden has over produced cucumbers, so we have lots of pickles and some pickle relish.
Neighbors gave us free green beans and we bought a basket of green beans.
We canned red beets that we bought from an amish farmer.
We had neighbors bring us watermelon and corn on several occassions for fresh eating.

my shelves are slowly filling and overflowing. My freezers are filling.
God is faithful.


Fun Run




Life is busy.. Summer has been grand... We have played hard and worked hard. 





The kids ran in their first Color Run. 


They ran for an organization called  We help Children at  www.wehelpchildren.org






They had a total blast!! 



It was HOT and STICKY!! 



I could not imagine any fun in being covered by this messy, colorful mess!