Kaya:An American Girl Study

As most of my friends now know, we have decided to homeschool a few of our kids next year.  This is not a decision against our sweet Classical school, and Corynne will continue her education there next year.  This is a decision we made to rein our family in, to refocus, to simplify, and to reset our priorities.  I am excited to get to teach Lyndsey and Lauren next year, and I believe we will have a great year together.  

The girls and I started a unit study this month while the big kids were gone to youth camp.  We began reading the Kaya:An American Girl series.  This is actually an introduction to our Time Travelers History Study we will be working through next year.  I am incorporating units with the American Girl from that time period.  Kaya lived in the first time frame New World Explorers.

Shhhhh...the girls did not realize we were doing "school work"!  This was just a fun summer activity to do while Colleen took a nap.  It took us 3 weeks to read all 6 books in the boxed series.  After the first book, I did purchase the set of books for my ipad from Audible.com so that someone else could read to us!!

We have done all kinds of crafts from Kaya's time.  Lyndsey learned to weave.  Lauren has been doing this for a while, but this was the first time Lyndsey has made a potholder.

We stitched together a small "berry bag" that Kaya would use to gather berries and bring them back to camp.

We made bead and leather braided bracelets.

We prepared a few recipes from Kaya's books Dried Fruit Mix and Pemmican.

Then we served a salmon dinner with our recipes.

Our final project was a lapbook of activities to help us learn and put some facts on paper to remember.  Lauren and Lyndsey have enjoyed showing JM little snips of knowledge from these books!

 First section... 

 opened up...

 Second section...

 opened up...

This was a fun study, and the girls are asking who we are studying next.  Actually, it will not be an American Girl.  Next week we are going to dive into a 4th of July/Independence Day Lapbook Study that should use our very hot afternoons more effectively!

Homeschool Curriculum Plan

Since we decided to homeschool our future Kindergartener and 4th grader next year back in February, I have been surfing the internet looking into different homeschool curriculum.  There is so much out there.  It has took me months of research to find the perfect fit for our family and our goals for this coming year.  Finally, I have locked down all our materials and I am organized and ready for the upcoming school year.  Here is a list of what we are going to cover.

Bible

For our Bible curriculum, I have decided to go with Veritas Press study of  Genesis-Joshua.  Each Bible story can easily be adapted to K & 4th grade level.  We will use pieces of this OT lapbook and other resources pulled from Pinterest and homeschool websites to complete a lapbook/notebook for the year long study.

Math

I love the Saxon Math program.  When I homeschooled my son years ago, we used Saxon Math.  I am excited to return to this program.

Lyndsey will complete Saxon Math 1

Lauren will complete Saxon Math 5/4

Language Arts

Phonics/Reading

Lyndsey will continue with Sing, Spell, Read & Write.

Lauren will continue with Pathway Readers just like she was using at the classical school she attended. This will be used when we are between historical novels.

Spelling

Lyndsey's spelling is included in her phonics curriculum.

Lauren will begin the Phonetic Zoo.  I decided on this program because it is self-directed.  She will listen to a CD that calls out the spelling words to her.  It is a work at your own pace program.

Penmanship

Lyndsey will use My Printing Book

Lauren will use Penmanship for Christian Writing

Writing

Lauren will use the Writing with Ease from The Complete Writer program.  

Grammer

Lyndsey's grammer is again included in her phonics curriculum.

Lauren will use Building with Diligence from Rod and Staff Publishers.

Science

For science we are going to do an indepth study of Human Anatomy from Apologia Science.  The girls with use the same text book, but they will have age appropriate journals.

Lauren will use this journal for older elementary students, and Lyndsey will use the Jr. Notebooking Version geared for younger students.  We will also reinforce what we are learning by creating these lapbooks that were designed to go along with the curriculum.

History

In History we are going to use The Time Travelers History Study Series from Homeschool in the Woods.  My goal is to cover the first 4 sections of History--New World Explorers, Colonial Life, The American Revolution, and The Early 19th Century.  With each sections of time, we will also study the American Girl Historical Character that relates to the timeframe.  We have already completed our American Girl Study of Kaya to lead up to our study of New World Explorers, so you can take a look at what we did.  It was FUN!!!

Geography

We are going to work our way through the United States while we learn basic geography.  We will be using Discover America State-by-State Alphabet Series and their teaching guides to learn interesting facts about each state.  We will then complete notebooking pages for each state and we will cook a recipe from each state.  I in NO way intend on covering all 50 states this year!!!  I will focus on the East coast and the original 13 colonies first and if we have time continue moving east.  I have found that The Trail Guide to United States Geography breaks up the states into group/regions so the kids learn a region at a time.  

We will use the following books as a reference in our geography study.

The Children's Illustrated Atlas

Eat Your Way Through the USA

United States Activity Book

Music/Art/Typing

Lauren will continue piano lessons.  I will incorporate many art projects into our science, history and geography lessons, but we will also try to learn a few things from Art with a Purpose.  Lauren has also been working through self guided lessons to learn how to type using Typing Instructor for Kids.

VBS at Gateway

We had a great time at Kids Camp at Gateway!  This was Colleen's first VBS experience, and she loved it!

Corynne helped in my classroom with 1st grade.

Tyler helped in the Kindergarten class with his special student Lyndsey!

Lauren had a great time with her friends!

This was the highlight of Lyndsey's week...getting to sing on stage!!!

Summer City JV Basketball Tournament

Each day after working at Vacation Bible School at our church, I would run Tyler to school to catch the basketball workouts this week.  They were preparing for the practice tournament held each summer at a local private school.  It is really a great opportunity for the boys to work together as a team and scope out the competition for next year.  It would be even more fun if the gym was air conditioned!!!

Tyler is #33

Can we agree that this Catholic boy has some lift to his jump?

One of Tyler's shots.  You just can not see him!!!

It was a HOT afternoon, but it was so much fun to watch him play!!!

Plan A & Plan B

Plan A for this week was Corynne & Lauren at basketball camp at AUM and Lyndsey at soccer camp. Well, as you read in the prior post, basketball camp was cancelled.  In typical Vermillion form, I decided to cut-and-paste!  I pasted Lauren into soccer camp for the week!  These two girls worked hard in the hot sun every morning this week.  Lyndsey was so excited because she thinks soccer is awesome!

 Lauren was not so excited, but she did have a good time!

Basketball Clinic

Corynne and Lauren were scheduled to go to a basketball camp at AUM next week, but we got a phone call on Thursday that the camp did not make.  The coach told us that Corynne was old enough to participate in the weekend clinic/camp for JV/Varsity girls.  We told him she would come without even running it by her because she is at youth camp.  She arrives home at around 2 pm on Friday and is suppose to be at the AUM gym by 430.

After a temporary emotional breakdown that she was not heading home to sleep away the weekend, she was excited to go to the camp.

 The camp ran from 430-1030 Friday night, 745am-11pm Saturday, and 745-noon on Sunday.  Corynne had a great time with fellow Eastwood players, learned some great ball handling skills, improved her competitive game, and was completely EXHAUSTED Sunday afternoon!

 Her team won the 3-on-3 competition!

Let the Games Begin...

While the big kids were gone to youth camp in Tennessee this week, Lauren and Lyndsey went to VBS at Trinity Presbyterian downtown.  The theme for the week was "Let the Games Begin...!"  Of course, I could not miss an opportunity to play with food.  I decided to make it simple, and I surprised them one morning with olympic ring donuts!  They thought it was really cool, but too sweet!!

 They had an awesome week of fun with friends and came home with some great artwork!!

Boys 14 Win!

Boys 14 - 3rd place
Linda Stewart Memorial Classic
Dothan, AL

Heading Out West

On Thursday, May 31st, the girls and I headed out for Texas.  We left Tyler at home with JM because this weekend is the big Alabama Qualifier Tennis tournament.  We drove all the way to Athens, Texas, on Thursday were we met Grammy and Papa.  On Friday, Grammy and I went to Canton Trade Days to shop while Papa stayed at the hotel with the girls.  He is a good PAPA!!!!!!  I had a great time dragging my mom from shop to shop!  I had to make up for the last five year that I had missed!!!!  Rest assured JM will not let me go back on First Monday Trade Days for 5 more years!!!  

On Saturday, we met my family out at my uncles farm in Jacksonville for a visit with some precious family.  Unfortunately, I guess I did not pull my camera out of the car on Saturday and take any pictures.  The girls had fun playing with cousins and I enjoyed getting to catch up with family.  Why oh why do I not have pictures?!?!?

On Sunday, the girls and I headed to Grapevine.  We made an unexpected stop.  OK.  Honestly, I had the stop factored into our day because I needed something!  Corynne even asked for what I wanted after we got there (without her even knowing I wanted to get it).  Meet the newest additions to our family--Kaya, Rebecca, and Marie-Grace.  We had a great time at American Girl, and we got to eat upstairs in the Bistro.  Tons of girl fun!!!

 Next, we met up with JM's sister and kids at Urban Air.  It is an indoor trampoline park.  The kids had a lot of fun jumping, and jumping, and jumping, and jumping some more!

 We made it to Grammy and Papa's house on Sunday night.  I was so happy to stop driving for a little while!  On Monday, I took the 3 older girls to my mother-in-laws house for the day.  She took them to Frontier Texas in Abilene.  After learning a little Texas history, they took in some bowling and arcade games before heading back to her house for the night.  On Tuesday, Colleen and I joined the girls at Mimi's house for some playtime.  Everyone came back to Grammy and Papa's Tuesday evening for some fun on the farm.

We loaded up the car and started back home on Wednesday afternoon.  This was a FAST mini-vacation/visit.  I wish it could be longer but I have a son who has been home by himself for 3 days now while Dad went back to work!!!  And my son plays in a tennis tournament in 2 days in Dothan that I have to take him to because Dad is working.  And my "youth" leave in 4.5 short days to go to TN for youth camp!!!! I must get home, unpack, wash, and repack!!!  Welcome to my summer!  It really never slows down!!!