Summer Plans

I love the flexibility that homeschooling allows us and to help keep our schedule flexible during the school year, we continue to school through the summer. Our schooling though, during the summer, looks a lot different than the rest of the year. Our primary focus is Math and Reading, not just reviewing the past year but, moving ahead to new concepts.

So, this summer our plan is to continue working through our Horizons Math Workbooks. Devin is going to continue memorizing his multiplication tables and Lexi is going to work hard on getting a good understanding of money and time. I really hit the jackpot at the Used Curriculum Sale I attended when I scored a ton of used books and readers for the kids' summer reading list.

We will also continue our Nature Study this summer. Our focus being vegetable gardening. For the most part we are container gardening but, we are also planting two blueberry bushes, that already have blueberries on them.

Of course, we will also have fun lazy days at our pool and the kids are signed up for several camps that they are looking forward to -- so all in all I think we will have a nice balance. I am looking forward to a change of pace! I don't think summer can get here soon enough.

End of the Year

All of our End of Year excitement has begun. This past week all three kids had their last choir performances and Friday was our last day of classes at JFBC. As we wind down our year, with just a few lessons left in each of our books, I am beginning to plan for summer. More on our summer plan in another post.

Here are a few pictures from our week ...

Above: Lexi performing with her choir.
Above: Ava Mae performing with her choir.
Above: Close-up of Devin on stage for Camp Wallaballa.
Above: Lexi with her two wonderful teachers from this past year - Mrs. Brooks and Mrs. Woyce.

So much fun ... and much more excitement to come in the weeks ahead, including, Devin's RA Awards Night, Devin's last baseball game and awards and, the girls' Dance Recital.

Bunny Excitement

The kids were so excited when we rescued this adorable little bunny last night from a feral cat. Thankfully, it only had a small puncture wound to its leg and the rehab clinic feels it will make a full recovery and be able to be returned to the wild.

Of course, the kids had a hard time understanding why we could not make our new rabbit friend into a pet.

Spring Also Means Dance Recitals

Yesterday and today were recital pictures at our ballet school. This is one of the girls favorite times of the year. Neither Lexi, nor Ava Mae, can get enough of dressing up in their recital costumes. They also enjoy counting down the classes until dress rehearsal and recital. Such a fun time of year!

Spring Means Baseball and Planting

Today was a typical Spring Saturday ... Devin had a baseball game, my husband coaches the team, so the girls and I go to cheer on Devin and the team. This year one of the family's from our church, who we are close to, have their son on the team. It is fun to have friends at the games! Win or lose we always have a great time.


This afternoon we began our planting for the Spring. We missed out on planting our container garden last year, when I had emergency surgery at the beginning of April and was out of commission until May. This year it was high on my priority list of things we needed to get done. Today we planted tomatoes and sweet peppers along with a couple of containers of flowers. Ava Mae added her own touch to her flower pot and included some stray flowers which had fallen from their bush at the garden center we were shopping at.


I just love Spring! Cool mornings ... Warm afternoons ... Baseball ... Flowers ...

Impromptu Nature Study

Last night, while my two girls were playing in our backyard they discovered an injured moth. Lexi is convinced that a bird had gotten it and eaten part of the moth's wing. So, the moth has been living inside a bug cage since last night. It even went on a fieldtrip today to Lexi's Friday school class. I don't think it will make it much longer but, Lexi is doing everything in her power to help her injured moth including feeding it fresh flowers and sugar water.

Edited to add: We turned our moth loose last night. He was still doing well and we placed him on an azalea bush in our front yard.

Planning

I love planning, which is probably why I loved being an Event Planner, in my former life, before kids. :) This time of year is always so exciting to me. I begin to plan what my kids will study next year and what classes they will take.

Yesterday, one of the homeschool suport groups in the area had a Used Curriculum and Book Sale. So, after reviewing my list one more time as to what we would be doing in the Fall, I shopped ... and shopped. I found a couple of items I needed for our curriculum next year, at a great price, and tons of readers for the kids. I also found the complete set of books written by Charlotte Mason on her philosphies. All of this for under $70, a really good bargain!

Easter

We had a glorious Easter celebration yesterday - church, followed by lunch with some church family, and an Easter Egg Hunt. The day was so beautiful, so fitting for a day where we celebrate the day our Savior rose again. It was a great ending to a fun filled Spring Break Week!

On Friday, we enjoyed reading Benjamin's Box and going through our Resurrection Eggs. That is such a great teaching tool and one I know we will use year after year.


Saturday we dyed Easter Eggs. Using only three colors we were able to come up with several different color combinations. The kids worked through what colors they needed to combine to come up with a color they wanted for their egg.

Spring Break in Asheville

We spent a few fun days in Asheville, North Carolina. We had a wonderful visit with family and enjoyed a great local BBQ joint with live Bluegrass Music and an early Easter Dinner. We even added some educational fieldtrips to the mix. Here are a few pictures from our fieldtrips ...

Trolley Tour of Asheville - we learned lots of history and visited such landmarks as The Grove Park Inn, RiverArts Warehouse District, and Biltmore Village.
My Mom with the girls visiting the WNC Farmer's Market. It was a slow day and early in the season so the vendors had time to visit with us.
Exploring the Creek at the WNC Arboretum. We hiked along the banks of the creek for about 3 miles. The kids enjoyed looking for rocks and finding snails in the creek.

Palm Sunday

A favorite tradition of our family ... Palm Sunday at our church with the processional of kids waving palm branches while singing Hosanna.

Open the gates ... here comes the King of Glory ...

Lift up your voice and sing!

Surprise!

Yesterday, we attended a surprise engagement party for my sister, Betsy. It was so fun to see her look of surprise when she walked into her apartment to see most of our family and her fiancee's family standing in her living room.


It was such a perfect day, with beautiful weather, fun with family, and great food!

Week In Review

This week brought lots of rain, again. We took advantage of the days we had sunshine and shortened our lessons to spend more time outside. My girls love looking and trying hard not to pick all the blooming trees, shrubs and plants in our yard. Spring has sprung!!

This week we have continued our Bird Study using The Outdoor Hour's suggestions. This week we studied the Cardinal. We always see Cardinals at our birdfeeder, males and females always arrive together.

Ava Mae has surprised me with her requests for doing schoolwork everyday this week. I found a great workbook to go through with her back in the Fall. I thought it would be a starting point for her and help me assess where we needed to focus. Little did I know I would open the workbook and Ava Mae would show me she already knew all of her letters and numbers. I guess she has been paying more attention than I thought while playing in the room while we are doing schoolwork.

Next week we are on Spring Break. Heading to Asheville, North Carolina where it appears we will have snow. It will not be a really warm Spring Break but, we have some great fieldtrips planned, mostly indoor. ;) The kids cannot wait to leave but, we have one important event to attend before heading out of town. I will post more on that tonight ... it is a surprise.

We arrive back in town on Thursday and our plan is to do some fun Easter studies - including Ressurection Eggs to be done along with the book Benjamin's Box, making Ressurection Cookies, and, of course, dying Easter Eggs.

Wordless Wednesday

A woodpecker who finds our birdfeeder a great source of food and visits daily now.