Our Space

The last few days off work have been spent cleaning and organizing our homeschooling space.  While I am planning to add a few more wall pieces, I can happily say that we are ready to go for Monday's first day of school!

Our schooling area will actually be in the loft, or B's bedroom.  There are a few linen closets that do not get used, so we are taking advantage of them for our supplies.  In one of them, I have dress up clothes on the bottom/floor, children's dvds on the first shelf, children's books/puzzles/color books on the 2nd shelf, games on the 3rd shelf, and grown-up dvds on the 4th shelf (with random things on the very top).

The loft has its own bathroom with a large closet along with a smaller linen closet that also leads into our attic.  My husband and son thought it would be a fun hideout, and have turned it into such.  It still needs to have the framing done around the "door" and I plan to add a floor cushion similar to this one (I have material for both kids to have one).  I had a floor mat from B's baby room decor that fit nicely across one side of the hideout.  We added a lamp for light and there were already shelves so we chose a few of B's favorite books to place on one, a few others for LJ on another, and then put a basket under them that can hold a few more books.  While it is technically B's hideout, he has been very sweet in sharing his area with his little sister.  It will be a space that he can get away and read, color, or just imagine whenever he has free time.  I have to say, I kinda wish I had my own little space like this!

The little door leads into B's room.  See that plaid bag on the other side of it?  Here is what I've got going on over there:

The wall organizer will hold our 100 Chart, bible verse cards, bible flash cards, and badges.  The plaid tote on the floor holds our music books (piano, vocal, ukulele), ukulele, and tuner.  The amp and keyboard stand is for my personal keyboard (currently not pictured due to using it for my band).

Next we have the bookshelf/desk:

The top shelf holds reading books that are collections such as Sesame Street (they were mine as a child), Curious George, Dr. Seuss, etc.  The second shelf holds educational books that can be used for busy work, road trips, or even taken to the grandparent's house when I'm working.  It also has our Etiquette Factory curriculum/place mats and our Apologia Science curriculum (that will be implemented at a later date).  On the left side of the desk top has our file folders for MFW units, labeled "Creation" and #1-#26 with subject focus, and holds each weeks student sheets.  The right side has our cuisinaire rods and MFW books/cd/flash cards.  B's kindergarten book and my teacher's manual is in the middle.  The desk drawers hold old markers/crayons in the top, busy games (from our MFW pre-school package) in middle, and puzzles in the bottom.  The colorful rolling drawers were on sale this week for 50% off at Joann Fabrics (!!-woot!!).  They hold the rest of our school supplies.  I have a snap container to the left of the desk that holds all of our play-dough and toys.  The bag to the right of the desk is currently empty but will be used to take to the library every month to get our reading books.  I'm hoping this will encourage us to keep track of them and can be used to take in/out of the hideout, in the car, in the living room, etc.

I took a panoramic picture of the area, as it looks right now:

I got the calendar, days of the week, and weather stuff from our local Teacher's Aid and had it laminated. I bought a caddy (on the top of half-wall) to hold all of our pieces.

Well, there you have it!  C'mon Monday, we are ready to rock-n-roll!

The Family Farm

Over the last year or more, I have been trying to get my health in better working order.  More on that in a later post, but this past May, my husband mentioned that he'd like to have some chickens.  As in, real.live.chickens.  I had been thinking about this as well but figured he would laugh me off if I mentioned it (which he tends to do whenever I make a suggestion at a healthier lifestyle change...men and all that).  So imagine my surprise when a week later we came home with 6 baby chicks, 4-5 weeks old!  Our goal was/is to have our own egg layers.  People have laughed at us when we bring up the fact that we are now chicken owners, and have make the typical "fried chicken" jokes.  That's okay, though.  Look how cute they were! How could you NOT want to take them home and love them?!

 

 


We are new to chickens, so we have really relied on family that have experience, along with the amazing site: backyardchickens.com.  The first few weeks home they lived in a tub in our garage with a heat lamp.  We made sure to hold each one at least once a day so that they could get used to being "handled."  My son immediately claimed his favorite one, which happens to be the smallest of the group (it's the one in the top right), and named it "Big Wheel."  Big Wheel and Lightening (bottom left pic) are bantams, with Lightening being a Gold Sebright.  We also have 2 Rhode Island Reds (who are currently named "Red" OR "Reba and Rayna" depending on the day) and 2 Brahmas ("Cookies and Cream").  We are pretty convinced that the bantams are both going to be Roosters...which is a bummer because we can only keep one and we've all fallen in love with both.  The other 4 are more than likely hens and should be pretty decent layers.

The dogs have not taken a liking to them.  Well, unless you count the obvious desire to chased them down, pull them out of the coop, and gobble them right up?  I think they'd be better if we had them out in a controlled environment, but until our main coop and run are in working order, they get zero visitation.

Daily chicken life is pretty fun and easy.  It didn't take long for them to out grow the garage tub....or to stink it up.  My husband works odd hours and has been building them a coop when he has had time.  It's almost done, but we still have to put the run together.  As a temporary fix, we have put them in a little tykes playhouse with chicken wire over the windows.

Every day we change water and food (they LOVE to ruffle their feathers and make the pine shavings go in the water bowl multiple times a day) and try to let them out to roam and eat the grass.  They're so cute when they get "outside time."  They take off running, flying, chirping and squawking like there's no tomorrow.  You can feel their excitement as they eat the clovers and bugs.

The Brahmas have been the friendliest and will climb right up your arm or leg and perch on your shoulder.  No joke.  They like to cuddle!  And at about 10 weeks old, they have really gotten big.  The kids have a great time playing with them.  B helps feed, water, and clean their coop.  LJ follows them around, waving and talking to them like they are her BFF's (well, other than her brother, of course).

They won't start laying for about another 10 weeks or so, but we are having the best time with them.  It's a fun, family adventure and educational at the same time!  We are learning about responsibility, caring for God's creatures, providing healthy food choices (non-gmo feed/eggs) for our family, finding out how nature provides resources such as food for us (even in the grass, cloves, weeds that the chickens chow down on), recycling our food scraps, and so much more.  We have lovingly decided to name our coop: Creekside Manor (thanks to living along a local creek).

As we are all learning together, I am finding these are some of the best days of my life so far and I am looking forward to more.

A Week to Go!

While we've done pre-k stuff and relaxed learning in the past, we will be officially homeschooling beginning Monday, June 16th!  To say I'm excited is an understatement.  I've been going over the curriculum and working on organizing.  I am a bit overwhelmed at all of the things that are included with the lessons.  Not that they are too much to accomplish, because a lot of it is "do as much/little as you want."  However, the possible activities are very abundant and I LOVE IT!  Once we get started and into a good groove with MFW, we will slowly add in our music lessons and our super-cool-catchy-fun-etiquette factory lessons (seriously, we've already got the CD memorized and haven't even started the actual "curriculum" yet!).

So with my handy life planner (yeah, completely worth the $$, btw, and so customizable!), I am filling in our daily schedule while leaving room for flexibility.  This includes soccer, co-ops, band practice (for moi), work, playdates, etc.  The first 10 days of MFW is all about setting a foundation.  So we will actually start our units after that.  Each unit is actually 6 days which is encouraging due to my wonky schedule.  The 10 days of foundation are about Creation.  Here is an example of our first 2 weeks:

MONDAY 
Lessons: (Day 1-Day and Night)
Bible Lesson
Math-Creation Numbers
ABC Song
Letter names
Review Names
Creation Book
Songs
Activity

TUESDAY
Same as above (Day 2-Sky)
REACH (co-op play group) 1430-1630

WEDNESDAY
Same lessons (Day 3-Land and Plants)
PEACE (co-op play and field trip group) 1200-1500

THURSDAY
Rest day (Work away from home)

FRIDAY
Same lessons (Day 4-Sun, Moon, and Stars)

SATURDAY
Rest day (work away from home)

SUNDAY
Park Day! (yes, this is actually in the curriculum!)

MONDAY
Same lessons (Day 5-Birds and Fish)

TUESDAY
Same lessons (Day 6-Animals and People)
REACH co-op 1430-1630
First soccer practice for the WCSL 1830

WEDNESDAY
Rest Day (work away from home)

THURSDAY
Same lessons (Day 7-God Rested)
PEACE co-op 1200-1500

FRIDAY
Review Day

SATURDAY
Park/Zoo Day (weather permitting)

So, there you have it.  I'll post a more detailed lesson plan at a later time (hopefully with some pictures).  My plan this week is to finish putting the lessons together in file folders and gather our supply list items.  Woot woot!