Monday, September 12, 2011

Another School Year Starts

Another school year has started and we are off and running. Full plates this year!
Bryce as a senior in high school (heaven only knows how that is possible)
Tyler is a sophomore. Alex in 4th grade and Andy in 2nd. Of course this family can't do anything easy so we have 2 in Texas going to school, Alex in Heartland Christian and Andy homeschooled.

Alex and Andy are in 4-H this year. With Alex doing an art project and Andy doing a show rabbit project. Alex is running for president of their club and I can't wait to hear his speech and see how the vote goes. Should be interesting. 4-H is a whole lot more involved than I thought it would be but I think it will be good for the kids.

Andy is homeschooled so that means lesson plans for me, which I am not good at at all. We really wanted to go with Bigger Hearts for His Glory this year and were totally excited about it but finances got in the way and we pulled out the one we already had. I was quite proud of myself for getting the whole year all note booked out and lesson plans done through Nov. Even without the lesson plans I have the whole year planned out and ready to go. At the end of the year the notebook will be his portfolio and I won't have to do any extra work for that! Hooray!

One of the many things I really love about homeschool is the fabulous field trips we go on. Public school goes on field trips but the homeschool ones are just awesome! The kids had their first field trip of the year last Thursday (the 1st one I've ever missed and boy it was not one to miss). I'll take an excerpt from our homeschool group pres. blog (Our Beautiful Mess) about what they did on the field trip.

Our homeschool group had an island adventure with the Nature’s Academy on the Gulf Coast. We got to explore God’s creatures through a nature walk  as well as dip netting into a sea grass bed.

We licked the mangrove leaves, saltiness and learned how healthy these trees made the estuary for the sea creatures.  We ate a “salt wart” leaf….salty and lettuce like.  The birds were perched on the boardwalk.  The herrings seemed to be fine with our nature hike with our binoculars exploring as quietly as K-4th graders could!  The fiddler crabs dug perfect circular holes moving quickly in the sand.  We kicked seeds into the water saving those mangroves and continuing the circle of life in the Gulf.

We continued our tour with a shark dissection learning the parts of a shark.  We felt the spine of the shark (hence vertebrates) and discovered how small their hearts really are.
After we got on our water shoes we dug into the seabeds with nets bringing up 20 different sea creatures from the bottom, confirming that indeed this was a healthy place.
Our day was finished as we picked up 45 pounds of trash in about the length of half a football field in less than 15 minutes!  This was disappointing but the kids and adults could not believe how little time it took to clean up God’s Creation.

This was an amazing trip with the Nature’s Academy.  Dana Pounds was such a blessing to our group as she had lost her leg to cancer and has a prosthetic leg.  She explained her relation with Winter the Dolphin as they share the same gel that is used for Winter’s tail.
What a great Homeschool Day!!

This is just a few of our homeschool group kids.

How awesome does that sound. It was a day I'm sure Andy won't forget anytime soon and I'm personally glad he got the chance to delve deep into God's creation for a moment to see just how AWESOME he really is.

I must say that I am extremely grateful for the chance to be a homeschool mom. My life has been so enriched by it. Not only by being able to watch closely as my child is learning and spending precious moments with him, as he is growing up way too fast, but also the privilege of getting to know the other kids, moms and dads that make up our group. These are some fantastic people that I am growing to love more with each passing event and social.

2 comments:

  1. wow. I'm tired just reading your blog. How do you keep up? working full time and homeschooling

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  2. it's harder than i thought it would be that is for sure!

    ReplyDelete