2 Weeks in and the fun has begun!

The first week of school we celebrated by taking a trip to the zoo.  It was extremely hot but we all had a blast!!  The chimps and monkeys were probably the best.  We ate a picnic lunch outside the zoo and played at the zoo park.  The climbing rock was one of the main attractions for my students.  We can't wait to go again but I think we will wait until it is a little cooler.  I think they said it got to 103 that day.

Excited about the 2009-2010 School Year

I am so excited for this upcoming school year.  Our little school is growing and we are going to have so much fun together.  I will have my daughters who are hitting the high school books pretty hard.  Then I will also have Julian who started coming over twice a week last year and will come over three times a week this year.  My sister is going to start homeschooling this year.  She has 4 daughters, 3 of whom are in school, so she will be homeschooling a 10dd, 9dd, and a 7dd.  They will be coming over to my house to participate in group lessons and activities three times a week.  Also, I will be starting my son, who is 4, on preschool/kindergarten school work.  He has learned so much this summer.  I just love seeing the light bulbs going on in his brain.  I feel so blessed to be a part of those learning moments in my children's lives.

Our curriculum this year will center around Diana Waring's What in the World's Going on Here?  World Empires, Word Missions, World Wars Unit Study book and audio lectures.  I really enjoy her unit studies.  The high school girls are working through Teaching Textbooks Geometry and Algebra 1.  Julian is in Saxon Math.  For science the older kids are doing Apologia Physical Science. (Hannah has already done Biology and loved Apologia).  And for English my teen daughters are using Jensen' Format Writing and Julian is using Daily Grammar.  They will also be concentrating on World and English Literature... Bring on Shakespeare, Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Jean Plaidy, G.A. Henty, etc...  

I am getting organized now cause I know this will be a giant undertaking.  We are going with a plastic crate system this year since there will be kids coming and going and we all us the dining room table pretty extensively.  Last year everyone just left their stuff on the table all year which was bad because our dining room is right off the entry way.  With the crates each child will have their own and can stow their school work in them at the end of the day.  They are stackable also.  Oh, I am so excited.   I also have a great Spanish teacher that I really want to teach my children; I just have to work out the time and place.  We got a family membership to the zoo this year also.  I could go on and on...

Guardian Academy takes on new students

Friday, February 20, 2008

    Recently, We have been blessed to have a new student at our little school.  Phillip comes over two or three days a week now to participate in our school.  He is in 5th grade and I tutor him and he participates in school activities.  Phillip has fit right into our home school and he really seems to be enjoying it.  I am excited to be able to help another student find their passion for learning.  One of my sister’s children, Faith, who is in 1st grade, has also started homeschooling recently.  Her mom brings her over some days to participate with us also.  Joel, our son, will turn four in a little over a week and we have started “schooling” him as well.  They get a real kick out of watching the science experiments.  And I think they enjoy the read-a-loud times as well.  It has been a real challenge to me teaching so many different grades of so many different subjects. My days are full but joyful too.  There is nothing quite as neat as seeing the “lightbulb” of learning in students eyes or hearing them talk excitedly about something they have learned.