Great tips for homeschooling moms and just mom's in general!!

http://theten0clockscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/8-habits-of-happy-homeschool-mama.html

RA's feast Day

This had to be one of the busiest feast days yet. We let RA pick all the food for the day. So we started at QDoba for lunch. Then we met my parents (Nana & Blue Truck) at a beautiful and very creative park in downtown C-Springs call America the Beautiful Park. It was a 90 degree day so we took drinks and got ice cream. We think Blue Truck liked the park as much as the kids. We didn't take pictures but here is one I found. They have very creative ideas.
After the park, our dentist (whose kids are in the homeschool co-op with us) had an open house and one of the priests from the Community of St. Jean came to do the blessing. He gave RA a blessing on her feast and gave our family a blessing as well. They had a teenager doing face painting at the open house so the kids had a blast. Blake asked her, "How did you learn this?" She said, "I just picked it up." I'm impressed.

As I said RA chose the food for the day, so it was home to ice a cake and make dinner - breakfast burritos.

A fun and tiring day was had by all, especially the feast day girl!

Our Lady Queen of the Angels, Pray for us!

DG's 7th Birthday and celebration - in pictures

Did we pick the right present or what? LotR Risk, what could be better? Even RA looks excited!
Thanks G& G Helgoth

"It's my best cake yet, mom!" Boy he knows how to lay it on thick.

Mom isn't so sure, but if it makes the birthday boy happy.

Next day, The North Pole with cousins

Now this is hard to see, Blake and kids in back, Blake's cousin Cindy next, the boys next, Blake's Aunt Connie after, and first Cindy's husband Darrin. I'm not sure which cars Cindy and Darrin's girls are in but I think RA is with Blake. PG and I sat this one out.

Blake, RA and PG on a tilt a whirl!

Aunt Connie and the boys on the Tilt-A-Whirl

PG is flying

Cindy's daughter with a bird in the magic show. She dressed especially for the North Pole! What a doll!

Time to blog again

I have not felt very wordy as of late. School got off too a good start and then week three and we are all sick. Ok, RA didn't get sick, but the rest of us did. Blake is doing well but on steroids and fighting hard, at home. That is the best! I guess this time of year is rough. He was sick last year around this time too.
Updates:
DG - Still reading up a storm - later post on his birthday. He did receive some books as presents and polished them off promptly. He is starting cub scouts and seems excited. I think dad may be more excited than him. He has had a rough week with no schedule. Those of you who know DG aren't surprised. I am surprised that it surprised me. I am looking forward to a school week this week to get us back in order.
RA - She starts American Heritage Girls tomorrow and is SOOOOOOOOOO excited. The week before we got sick, we went on a field trip for her Five In A Row book - The Glorious Flight (another blog). She also had a feast day (another blog). (Boy I have more to write than I thought!) She is really enjoying co-op and Little Flowers, which makes me happy since I am teaching it.
PG - Is quite the talker. Wonder where he learned that?! He has enjoyed all of our various day trips and other adventures around Colorado Springs. We see my parents most mornings at daily Mass and he is always excited to see "Blue Truck". My mom got him a block puzzle with a picture on each side of the cubes. He has really been enjoying that.

On another note, my dad's dad (my Papa) had a heart attack last week. He is improving but they have to put in a pacemaker and clean out blocks in his stints. My dad went out to see him this weekend and he and his brother (who is an anesthesiologist and my dad and orthopedist) think their mom may be having some heart issues as well. They need lots of prayers.
That is the news here.

Happy (belated) Birthday

Well, I missed it. Last Thursday the blog turned one. Last week was fantastic. The first week of school. We had a great week but it was not really a blogging week.
A year. A lot has changed, new address, new house, bigger kids, new friends! We are blessed. Thank you all for joining us on this journey!
Totus Tuus!

So what about Kindergarden?

(The picture is just for fun!)

Ok, so a couple a days ago I posted the detailed outline of 2nd grade. Lest anyone thought I forgot what about RA and Kindergarten? I didn't forget; she won't let me. She is counting down the days. T-2 and counting!





So Monday is Poetry, Phonics, Handwriting, Religion, Art, Literature, Math and Music.


Tuesday is Poetry, Phonics, Handwriting, Religion, Math, Literature, and Music.


Wednesday is Poetry, Phonics, Handwriting, Religion, Math, Literature, Art and Music.


Thursday is Poetry, Phonics, Handwriting, Religion, Math, Literature, and Music.





Poetry: She will (just like DG) listen to, repeat, memorize, and recite her poems. Then she will dictate them to me to put in a book. Then she will illustrate them. The poems she is to learn this year include: Rain, Bed in Summer, The Cow, The Moon, At the Seaside, My Shadow which are all by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Turtle by Vachel Lindsey.





Phonics: We have decided to use the same phonics program we are using with DG. She will use the Little Angel Readers for reading time but this way we can do phonics together at least to begin with. If this doesn't work, we will return to using the Little Angel readers with the teacher's guides. Handwriting is covered in the Phonics program. She loves to write and is so meticulous this is fun for her.





Religion in Kindergarten in great. One day I will read her part of a children's Bible. The next day, she retells the story (dictates it) and then illustrates it. At the end of the year, she will have written "her own" Bible. She will also join DG in continuing to learn the Bible timeline and listening to St. Patrick's Summer.





This year, like her brother RA is doing first grade math. No DG is not doing 1st grade math. They are both skipping a year. Why you ask? Quite simply because she has already met the objectives for Kindergarten math. They are Motor Control, Number recognition and writing, number value, counting, number sequencing, and simple addition. So on to first grade math.





Art for RA is really interesting. She will be using pairs of paintings by Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Fra Angelico, Degas and O'Keefe. These pairs are the same painting for matching skills. The she will have pairs of different paintings with the same artists to match style. The artists she will use are Van Gogh landscapes, Michealangelo busts, Picasso children, Renoir dancing couples, Monet gardens, and Cezanne still life. The last set are 4 different artists with 4 similar subjects to again match artists. The artists here are Giotto, Bougereau (she has one of his paintings in her room), Degas (all girls love ballerinas), and Di Vinci. She will also be using the art book DG is using to make her own art with styles of famous artists and art types.





Music: RA will attempt music appreciation this year that never worked for DG. But she loves to sing and learn songs so I think she will like this. The book is called 36 Traditional Catholic Hymns. It comes with a CD and the book is sheet music. So she listens to the song, learns the words and then sings with the music. They are wonderful hymns that are often forgotten.





Literature is read aloud time every day. But for this we are going to use the Five In A Row program. This is where you read the same (usually award winning) picture book 5 days in a row and do projects that go with it. This year, we will also incorporate saint books and other books that match the liturgical year or books/stories of virtue.





It should be a fantastic Kindergarten year!

Another Suprise Blessing

At the beginning of June, our homeschool co-op here in the Colorado Springs diocese hosted their first Childrens' Holy Hour with the promise of more to come. As a side note, the holy hours are being done at my grandmother's parish, the parish my parents were married in, and the parish Blake was baptized in. It is really neat as DG has asked me all about the stain glass windows there and I remember as little girl when I would come to my grandma's house and go to mass that I would be fixated on those same windows.

Anyway, they cancelled July because the first friday of the month was 4th of July week-end. So we were looking forward to August. Well sometime in July we got an email that Fr. Antoine Thomas of the Community of St. Jean was coming to host a holy hour for children. He is the one who began doing this across the country. He cam today and had a family retreat for all the homeschool families and anyone else in the community who wanted to come. It was fantastic. We had Mass and a holy hour and then went to the Garden of the Gods for a picnic lunch. On the way home, we saw a herd of (20ish) big horn sheep very close to the road. When we moved to Monument, I was so excited to be coming home to Colorado though I must admit, I probably wouldn't have choosen the diocese or the parish that we live in. That having been said, we have been truely blessed here and it just proves, God's ways are not ours. Thanks to Fr. Antoine and all who planned the day for such a beautiful way to start a school year.