Oh Ya! Sonlight Box Day!

Oh Ya! Sonlight Box Day!

Once again, there's some pretty excited kids stalking waiting patiently for the FEDEX guy!  

If I thought some of my past shipments were fast from Sonlight...this one beats the cake!  This one shipped in one day!  And unknown to me, FEDEX delivers on Saturdays!!  So our weekend will be filled with unboxing and A LOT of reading, and me figuring out where our treasures will be put!

Well Hello Again!

Well hello again!   

I really thought I was done with blogging and this space but I'm feeling the itch to reconnect and talk about the last couple of years.

In a nutshell...I became chronically ill and we had to take a different course for homeschooling but now, were back!  I'm doing slightly better but I've decided that we needed to get back to what we loved which is reading, reading and more reading and...oh ya... and doing art.  Want to know a homeschool secret?  You need to pick what will work for you as well as what works for the kids and the reason I say that is if you dread the day it's not going to work...ever.  Just sayin..


So a couple of weeks ago I pulled out our stored Sonlight C curriculum and we jumped in!  I can now say that it's been the best couple of weeks since we ditched the electronic school and came back to relaxed homeschooling with Sonlgiht that we've had in literally years.  We also started using online Teaching Textbooks which I have resisted for years because everyone said it was behind but, guess what?  The kids do it and they don't complain and that's good enough for me for now.  Our family has two parents who went to college as science majors so we are familiar with what is required for math and I don't see anything wrong with using TT to get there.  Oh and did you see that I said online TT?  That was probably the best part for me because I can fix or watch things on-the-fly as the kids are completing it, or I can wait until the end of the day.  But probably the best part was to have it up and running in literally a couple of minutes and we were done after paying for it in 30 minutes. Instant gratification!

So for the details, as I know some internet friends may want to know, the kids do their reading from the HBL (core) and then do art journals for our history or science, whatever I feel like for that particular day,  then their math and I do our reading from the HBL when daddy is home...cause he wouldn't want to miss on all the fun, right? The kids do their other reading during quiet time after lunch, and that is our day...the rest of the day is theirs for biking, playing, exploring, discovering and just generally being kids.

How To Make Your Literature Based Curriculum MORE FUN!

Well it's no secret that I LOVE literature and so do my kids...but...what can you do to add a little pizzaz without Mommy going nutz?  If you're not notebooking your book here's some ideas....

1. Cook:  Find a recipe from the country that the book is about                                                          
2. Read:  OUTSIDE!!!  or at least not in your regular places...make a reading "fort"
3. Art:  Give them coloring pages, empty pages, water color paints, coloring pencils, crayons, home    made salt dough, real dough, scissors, old magazines, egg cartons....you get the idea.  Ask them to make something about the book.
4. Act:  Let them have the bath towels, clothes pins, hubby's old shirt, your old skirts, scarfs.
5. Map:  Either make a map or download one  or get one and have them coloring, sticker...whatever!
6. Grow:  Definitely grow your food.  Lots of science first hand!  You can even just have a window garden.
7. Craft:  Just let them loose on the recycle pile and see what they can come up with!  Just don't tell them what to do, let them create!
8. Field Trip:  Get out and discover what your reading!  It will do you and the kids good to get out.  This doesn't mean homeschool group stuff, I'm talking about just you and the kids.  Even the grocery store can be a field trip!  Grocery Bingo anyone?  Shapes, money, color...the ideas are limitless.  You can also do scavenger hunts at the grocery store as well based on the same ideas.  Or even math using a worksheet and a clipboard
9. Puppet Show:   This really cements the story and littles LOVE this.  You can have the olders make the puppets and do the show or if you have only littles have them help you make puppets.  The puppets don't have to be elaborate.  They could just be paper bag puppets that they make ;)
10. Coloring Books:  Dover makes all KINDS of coloring books that you can buy about the time period you are studying.

Well I hope you find some fun this week!

Sonlight Reader Box Day!!

Looks like with all the excitement around here I'll be posting things a bit out of order.  You see, we already had our Box Day but I needed the advanced readers.  I placed an order on Dec. 31.  Yes you read that right, Dec. 31, and we got them on Jan 7!  Which I think is pretty impressive considering there was a holiday in there!  So this is what a smaller Sonlight Box Day looks like and in the next couple of days I'll post what a "reusing" Box Day looks like.

The moment of happiness has arrived!  Sadly, I missed when "The Fed EX Guy" came to the door because my phone was OFF!  I have no idea why so I had to turn it on pronto for the pics.  

I have no idea why he chose to put his foot on it but it gives a good size comparison.  This is where the begging began for one of them to be able to have the honor of opening it. I decided that would not be a good idea just "in case" there were books close to the seam.

This is what you first see...oh the anticipation!

and then the free for all of raiding the box.  Unfortunately it happened so fast that the shots are fuzzy.  

and a favorite was picked.

and the realization that THIS was the book I've been waiting for!  Since it's fuzzy it's Henry and Ribsy.

Because a box makes a swank hat apparently.

and the stack of goodies!

And then it was mayhem as I got the orange labels attached and the realization that I was NOT going to let them start reading them until next week.  They didn't know the reader they were reading on the kindle WAS this weeks book!  It's now the end of the week and my younger son exclaimed on the last page of his reader, "I READ ALL OF IT!!".  Oh the sweet joy of reading!

Guess What's Coming

Oh Ya! Box Day!

There's some pretty excited kids stalking waiting patiently for the FEDEX guy!  And on top of it it's FREEZING outside!  Check out this weather report:

Happy New Year!! 2015

Happy New Year!  May this year be a blessing to you!

New Year's Eve started with a bang when I realized I sort of had a throat-sinus thing starting.  I immediately starting drinking water with 2 drops of lemon essential oil every hour and by lunch I felt well enough to drive to the city to go shopping.  We enjoyed a great day of shopping and eating pizza at our favorite health store, Lucky's, (the best pizza...really!)  and pick up crazy cheap fruit and veggies.  They were out of our favorite donuts but we managed to get chocolate covered bacon donuts....yes...you read that right.  I forgot to get a pic of these and honestly I wasn't up to eating the bacon but my sons say they were good.  A certain mama who will remain anonymous peeled off the  chocolate bacon and ate the  chocolate covered donut when no one was looking.

 Last night the kids decided they wanted to stay up until midnight.  I suspect this was brought on by no less than 3 people asking the kids while we were grocery shopping if they were were staying up.  Normally I wouldn't be game for this but I was feeling pretty good after my lemon essential oil protocol so...I let them....sort of.  Honesty by 11 I was toast and they could have made it until 12 but I let them watch the ball go down in Times Square on the internet and called it good.  The short people were asleep within 10 minutes of bed, I know this because I wasn't far behind and I checked on them.

Though I think resolutions are kind of goofy ours is:  we will DECLUTTER!

Really, I mean it this year.  We've already started on the garage and gasp!  It's almost done which is amazing considering the awful condition it was in.  We moved in when #1 son was 3 and #2 son was 18 months.  They are 9 and 7 respectfully and I had yet to declutter the garage which had become the dumping zone for all things kids.  We are approximately 1/2 done and if my health will hold out I *think* we may be done by Saturday. Yay us!   I will post the before and after's when were done because I'm not brave enough to show just the before without the clean after.

And for a laugh here's what #1 son says he wants:  Lederhosen!  He has asked me for a couple of weeks but I thought after they stopped watching Richard Scarry's Busy Town it would stop but I just overhead some play with legos going on and the lego dude is apparently wanting a pair of lederhosen.  As of course is common, they were not in stock according to how the play went....

I'm still laughing over that one.

They are now carpet skating because it's 20 degrees outside and no snow.  Perhaps I'll skate with them and then start the dinner?

Another Week Gone...

This is suppose to be where I tell you about how our week has gone in pics but it's really the month.  

 Sun bread AFTER the eye was taken by the daddy for the winter solstice

Bowling!!

Daddy showing good form..check out the groovy planet thing above the lanes!

Oldest rolling throwing the ball..the lane didn't break thankfully!

And THIS...but that's for another blog post