Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

The sun rose cool and clear on our first day of the Disney Youth Education Series  Program. Day six in the parks with an 8:15 meeting time? Good morning! Good morning! It's great to stay up late! No problem. We were even early enough to use the wash rooms and plop on the ground to invent our very own version of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.  Do Dalmatians beat fairies? The world may never know. We met our group leader who lead us in to the park and straight for a restroom break (just in case!) and then introduced our merry band of six kids and their adults to Main Street U.S.A as you've never seen her before...  Waving hello to the cast members as they ride down Main Street in the morning quiet. Main Street, U.S.A. slowly wakes up as the cast members call merry greetings in a way that makes the whole "transported to 1900" even more real. The kids searched high and low to fulfill their first mission: to count how many kinds of moving machin...

We all wish to give our children a well-rounded education. In our house this means exposure to Beethoven, Aesop's Fables, the Bible, history, manners, phonics, cursive, reading all manner of classics, learning foreign language at a young age, singing, basics of piano, music theory and video games too.   Which games are worth pulling out of storage and which are better left in the eighties? I grew up right along with the Nintendo. My grandmother gave us the Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas when I was in kindergarten and the Super Nintendo came along when I was eight. The Nintendo 64 came along just in time for high school with the GameCube accompanying my college days. My son's birth fell within months of the premiere of the Wii, ushering in a second generation of console gamers. When kids are increasingly comfortable with Minecraft, surfing Netflix via the PS4 and unlocking the old iPad to play a few rounds of educational apps ( Teach Me! is their curr...

Sonlight is having a monthly blog linkup this year, in honor of their 25th anniversary. Find out how we decided to homeschool in the February hop and my best advice for new homeschoolers in March. April's prompt: Share a day in the life of your family. What does your family’s homeschool schedule look like? What exactly does a day in the life of a homeschooler look like? A day in the life of our first year with Sonlight. That's like asking what a fruit looks like. Sure they're all loaded in fructose and produced through photosynthesis, but like a kiwi and a watermelon, each day has a very different flavor. This year I have a 6 and 8 and a half year old. We just started into our second year of homeschooling in March using Core C, Science C and Language Arts 2 and 3. Here's our plan: Christopher's Weekly Planner Each child has a binder with their math, language arts, handwriting and science worksheets inside for the entire week. The cover has a ki...

I loved starting our homeschool last June (especially since I had the benefit of a few mentors and friends who were happy to lend me a little good advice for a brand new homeschooler). By the end of my first week of homeschool, I had figured out a few things on my own. By the end of our first forty days of homeschool, I could've practically written a book with all the things I learned. In reality, there are only two things you need to know before you jump into homeschooling.  The only two things you need to know before you start homeschooling. If I started afresh tomorrow, I'd send my self a note that said two things: 1.) Murphy's Law-Things Will Go Wrong Sometimes your best laid plans will need to slide for a sick day or a mental health break. It's okay to let the little things go.  Homemade Donuts and Homer Price Once you've picked a curriculum , stocked up on more pencils and crayons than anyone could possibly need and organized to the best o...

After deciding to homeschool last year, we took the time to assemble some desks and bookcases. With a nice little office off of the master bedroom, we pulled together a pretty space for me and the kids to enjoy while we homeschool. What's interesting is although I used it all year, I never really went through and rearranged (and culled) to suit us. We finished up our first year of homeschool (shifted schedule, YAY!) so I took the opportunity to rearrange, cull unused or misplaced items and generally streamline things. Just call it a good thorough spring cleaning, homeschool style. Without further ado, welcome to my new(ish) homeschool room!   Peeking through the French Doors that separate our bedroom from the office. It's nice that we have doors and can shut off the classroom when it isn't in use. With the French doors, we get the mixed blessing of lots of natural light from the bedroom windows and being able to see directly into the classroom after hours. Turn...

In Honor of Throwback Thursday, here's a look at our reading list for the past year... Fun Fact: Kylee loves history. Read Aloud Books Core B Leading Little Ones to God Usborne Book of Peoples of the World Missionary Stories with the Millers Usborne Book of Houses and Homes Charlotte's Web Favorite Poems of Childhood Homer Price Archeologists Dig for Clues Usborne Book of World History A Child's History of the World From Akebu to Zapotec Little Pear Usborne Time Traveler  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Owls in the Family Henry Huggins Tut's Mummy: Lost...And Found The Year of Miss Agnes Understood Betsy Greek Myths The Greek News  Mountain Born It Could Be Worse George Muller The Wheel on the School Gooney Bird Greene The Great Wall of China Roman Diary Mr. Popper's Penguins Detectives in Togas The Case of the Gasping Garbage Science Books The Usborne World of Animals Night Animals The Usborne Book of Science Activities Volume 1 See Ho...

After what passes for alone time on a two kid, one parent trip to Walt Disney World... Ahem. We headed off toward Frontierland for our "afternoon break." Rather than heading straight for Space Mountain like the kids suggested for their rest time, we headed toward the Liberty Belle Riverboat for a lazy afternoon cruise around the Rivers of America. Very relaxing. Between a brief nap on the bench and a long time staring at the paddle wheel, we soon found ourselves on another form of river going vessel, the Becky Thatcher raft to Tom Sawyer island. Fort Langhorn was a big hit. Running in and out of caverns, over barrel bridges and under escape passages and firing rifles at Fort Langhorn and generally whooping it up? Yeah. That's how my kids rest. Watching the Liberty Belle paddle by. Chris and Kylee needed a nice cool snack to cool off from all of the spelunking. That will do quite nicely! Feeling refreshed after their first Dole Whips, off we...