Last week my husband was on vacation. We spent the first 3 days working on our yard and painting trim, while the kids went to VBS. On Thursday we headed to Portland and were there until Sunday. We visited the Oregon Zoo, went to the Ocean Network Home school Convention, relaxed a bit at the hotel, swam, and visited a few parks including Washington park, and the Rose Garden. I took a bunch of pictures, so I thought a slideshow would be best. Near the end of the slideshow you will see a picture of the things I bought at the convention. You will also see a picture of the boys with Voddie Bauchman, and the girls with Susan K. Marlow, Author of the Circle C Beginnings books. Sweetpea enjoyed the first one we reviewed so much that I bought the whole set at the convention. Susan was so nice and she autographed them all.

Why?

I did not realize how difficult this post would be until I actually began to think about what I would write. I'm so not one to bring up or talk about something that could be controversial or to stir the pot so to speak. I'm going to give this the best effort I can, so here it goes. Why do we home school? Well here are the reasons as best as I can articulate them over the internet:

1. First in foremost in our decision is the examination of scripture, by which we learn that it is the duty and obligation of parents to teach, instruct, and disciple their children in the ways and the admonition of the Lord.
"4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4"

"6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7"

2. Second we believe that it is imperative as parents and guardians of our children for us to be very careful of who we put in authority over our children, since all education is really discipleship. Disciple being derived from the Latin word Discipuli for student.
"A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Luke 6:40"
^"1The fool says in his heart,"There is no God."
   They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
   there is none who does good. Psalms 14:1"
 3. Number three we need to be aware of who we allow our children to congregate with, and therefore who they are influenced by.
"20Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,

but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
21 Disaster pursues sinners,
but the righteous are rewarded with good .Proverbs 13:20-21 "
Not to say that everyone in the public schools is a fool, but we also learn from scripture that:
"15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;
The rod of correction will drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15"
and we all know that discipline and correction in the public school system is sorely lacking today.

4. We desire for our children to receive a high quality and personalized education. How can an education possibly be personalized when you have ratios like 1 to 20 or even 30. Also you do not have to look far to read and find out about how public education is failing our nations children. I just read an article last week about how little 12th graders know about our nations own history.

After much prayer and thought we came to the conclusion that the best way for us to fulfill these commands and goals is by home education. My husband and I are both on the same page about this and 100% behind this decision. Home Education is not something that just occurs between specific hours of our day it is a complete lifestyle for our family. These four reasons are merely the tip of an iceberg for us in our decision.


If you want to join in on this weeks blog hop simply post about Why you home school, and then come back here and add you direct link. Don't forget to link back to this post so others can join in too.

Where is the Why?

I know you are all waiting with baited breath for me to post this weeks blog hop, Why! You will have to wait a bit longer since I'm currently sitting in a hotel room after attending a fantastic home school convention with my family for the last two days. We will be heading home tomorrow and I will be posting the Why post as well as pictures of our vacation.

Where?

Where?

This is the fourth entry of the June Blog Hop I'm doing. Today I'm going to tell you about where in our house we home school. At one point we had a nice little school area in the laundry room, but we have slowly moved into the dining room. The kids do most of their seat work here at the kitchen table. We also have a computer for the kids to use, and a folder full of educational games next to it. One extra thing you might notice is the educational placemats. I'm a geek and think they are super cool.

Right here is our calender. Sweetpea is in charge of marking the days since she is our current K/1st grader.

Here is one of my bookshelf that my husband built me last summer. On this shelf I keep picture books, Dr. Suess books, extra books, easy readers, and some chapter books. On top of it is where I keep paper, art supplies, teacher supplies, pencil sharpener, pencils, scissors, dry erase markers, erasers, hole puncher, stapler, a basket of our school CD's, and DVD's, our All About Spelling board, and a US map. Up above on the wall is a Presidential timeline.

This book shelf is where all of out Heart of Dakota books go(those in use, and those I'm collecting). It also has all of our other school workbooks, art books, music books, science books, state, and president books.
On top of it are all of our math manipulatives, markers, glue sticks, file card boxes, note books, loose worksheets, and my NOOK. Above it is a magnetic dry erase board.

We also use the couch and living room quite a bit especially for read alouds. The little kids, or those who I'm not currently working with tend to play in the living room. It is attached to our dining room.

Other than these two places we use the kids bedroom, and the rest of the wide world as our classroom.

If you want to join me this week simply post a similar blog about Where you home school, and then come back here and link up! Be sure to use a direct link and add a link back to this blog in your post. This linky will be active for 7 days and you can add to it at any time.

Summer/Spring Fun!

We have been on Summer break for almost 2 weeks, and yesterday the nice weather finally kicked in. We have had a very wet and dreary spring here, and literally had 23 days of rain in May, and pretty much the rest of the days were overcast. In light of that last week we had to think of some creative ways to entertain ourselves. Here are some pictures of the fun:

Buttercup loves to dance so she had fun dancing! We all had to join her as well.

Sweetpea Decided we should have a play and everyone dressed up!

I'm not really sure what the play was exactly intended to be about but it slowly morphed into a version of Tangled!

Buster trying to be a villain!

So frightening!

Grandpa forgot his hat after game time on Wednesday!

Buster had an idea for the kids to make things out of paper.

I set out paper, cardboard, scissors, glue, tape, and markers. They had a bunch of fun creating.

Buster took this picture of the fort he made!

Sweetpea made a drawing of the family!

Since it was too cold outside the kids did some swimming in the tub with finger paint, and shaving cream.

We ordered some caterpillars in the mail!

The butterflies began hatching last weekend while we were at Busters soccer tournament!

We released them into our yard this week!

Right now the kids are outside enjoying the 70 degree day and it is supposed to be a lovely weekend. We will have to enjoy it from our house since our mini van is in the shop for a little body work.

When?

"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" 
Charlotte Mason
For the third week of my blog hop I'm going to talk about When we home school.

Since learning is a part of our lives everyday you could say that our school is always in session, but as far as book work we school from July-May. In general we take the month of June off, and about 5-6 weeks throughout our year. Right now we are on our June break, and the kids are still required to spend 20 minutes reading daily. So far this month Buster has read one book about King Tut, two about the Titanic, one about Ben Franklin, and now he is reading a book about the Civil War. Other than that I try to allow them time to play, discover, and explore outdoors. They will also have VBS this month. On the 23rd-25th we will be going to our state convention as well as the Zoo, and Science museum.

During our school year we school 5 days a week, and the only holidays we break for are Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If you want to join in simply post a similar blog and come back here and link up! Be sure to add a link back to this post so others can join in too! Stay tuned next Thursday for Where?

This Linky will be active for 7 days! Feel free to join at any time.

What!

What!

This is the second entry for the blog hop I'm doing called Who, What, When Where, Why, and How! What we our using is definitely my favorite topic as I'm totally into researching and picking curricula. So with out further ado I will tell you what each of my children is using for the 2011-2012 school year:

Buster 3rd grade

Bigger Hearts For His Glory, in its entirety. 

With storytime selections: Ben and Me, Snow Treasure, Farmer Boy, Balto and the Great Race, The Indian in the Cupboard, Concord Cunningham, By the Great Horn Spoon, Esperanza Rising, and The Whipping Boy!  

Including Cheerful cursive, Singapore Math 3a/3b, and Rod and Staff Grammar 2.

He will also be using Latin For Children Primer A

All about Spelling level 2(the last few units), and 3.

Draw and Write Through History Pilgrims, Pirates, and Patriots.

Drawn Into the Heart of Reading Level 2/3

Sweetpea K/1st

She has 8 weeks of Little Hearts Left that she will be finishing when we start back up in July.

In September she will start 

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory!

With Singapore Math 1a/1b

Storytime Selections: George Washington, The Twenty-One Balloons, Little House in the Big Woods, The Cricket in Time Square, The Railway Children, If You Sailed on the Mayflower, If you Were A Pioneer On the Prairie, The House At Pooh Corner, All of a Kind Family, and A Children's Book of Virtues!

She will also be using Song School Latin,

A Reason For Handwriting A,

Phonics Pathways, Explode the code,

and All About Spelling 1!

When she is ready she will start the Heart of Dakota Emergent Readers.

Buttercup Preschool:

Little hands to Heaven

  and some Rod and Staff workbooks.

With Daddy:

Apologia Zoology 2 Swimming Creatures of the 5th day, and A Child's Story of America!

We also have a bunch of art and music resources we will take advantage of:

Draw Write Now, Come and Look With Me, Meet the Great Composer's, Artistic Pursuits book 2, Great American Artists for Kids, books on impressionists, art cards, Wee Sing America, and Classical Music!

We will be continuing our State and President study when we get to it with these books: Our Country's Presidents, States, Don't Know Much About the 50 States, Don't Know Much About the Presidents, Yo Millard Fillmore, and Yo Sacramento!

The kids all keep a nature journal, but I pretty much leave them up to their own devices on that. I simply bring them with me when we go on nature walks and let them draw what they choose.

As far as educational games and movies go we use all of the Leap Frog DVD's, Singapore Math games, Reader Rabbit Games, Jumpstart Games, School House Rock, Spanish Games, Planet Earth, Talking Fingers, The Reading Kingdom, Big IQ Kids, Wordy Qwerty, and what ever else we get our hands on or strikes our fancy!

PE:
I really do not think of this a s a subject because it is just part of our life.
The kids do swim lessons, soccer, basketball etc.
At home right now we are using GoTrybe Wii Fit, and Nickelodeon Fit!

If you want to join in simply post on your own blog about what you will be using for next school year and then come back here and add your direct link! Please add a link back to my blog so others can join in too.

This linky will be active for 7 days and you can add at any time!

Update: I decided to drop Latin for now and we are focusing exclusively on Spanish! We are using Speekee, Salsa Spanish Episodes, and two Spanish Curriculum's that I am reviewing.