planning for next year

This is what homeschooling 4 kids looks like in books...
I am missing one of my math levels and handwriting from this stack, plus the workbooks that I have for Lu to do, but otherwise this is our school for the fall.

Here is the breakdown:

Everyone will be participating in Classical Conversations Foundations program this fall. If you aren't familiar with it you can read more here.

As a supplement to CC we will all be going through Volume 2 of Story of the World. I did not buy the book, just the CD's and the Activity Book.

I also ordered the new Science Cards that go along with the science facts that we will be learning in CC.

We will also be doing a character study using this book and other resources as we go along. I am thinking we will cover one character trait a month.

Regan

Math:
Math U See Gamma

Language Arts:
First Language Lessons Level 3
Writing with Ease Level 3
All About Spelling Levels 2 and 3
All About Homophones

Handwriting:
Cursive First

Reading:
We are going to start with the rest of the "Little House on Rocky Ridge" series.

Foreign Language:
Rosetta Stone French

Micah

Math:
Math U See Beta

Language Arts:
First Language Lessons Level 3
Writing with Ease Level 2
All About Spelling Levels 2 and 3
All About Homophones

Handwriting:
Cursive First

Reading:
I've got a list of classics I am hoping Micah will enjoy like The Jungle Book, Watership Down and Hiawatha.

Foreign Language:
Rosetta Stone French

Max

Math:
Math U See Primer

Language Arts and Reading:
All About Spelling Levels 1 with the Beehive Readers
All About Homophones

Handwriting:
Cursive First

Tallulah

Since she will only be 4 I won't be doing anything official with her outside of CC and the History and Science we will all be doing together, but I do have some fun workbooks for her to work through.

There it all is! This year is going to be a stretch for me. The past 3 years I have just had Regan and Micah to teach and most of what they did was the same, except for Math, now I will have to teach 3 different levels in Math and LA. Anyone out there teaching multiple levels have any advise on how to keep the other kids focused while I am working with one?

a little sweet giveaway

check out a little sweetness for a great give away- I absolutely LOVE her designs!

keeping busy

doing a little sewing

check out the tutorial for this here

sorting through toys- the yard sale pile grows

reading through these while Regan is away- can we really be ready to talk about this stuff already?

thinking about Tallulah's birthday party in two weeks

Oh, and check out this fabric I found at the thrift store yesterday! I think it will make perfect fairy skirts for the party... and yes- it is that florescent and obnoxious in real life- Tallulah loves it :)
Time for a Sonic break- drinks are half price from 2-4pm -then back to that pile in the middle of my living room :)

too big too fast

I am not sure how this happened, but this morning my little camper loaded her stuff in the car,

and we dropped her off here...where she will stay...until Friday.I think I'm going to go have a good cry now.

new skirt photo shoot

I think I've found my new favorite (free) skirt pattern! Of course it took a bit longer to make then my standard lazy day skirt, but it turned out so cute!
I made my pockets different than Dana's tutorial, a bit more like this, only re-sized to fit the skirt.

uh oh, looks like this photo shoot is over! :)
Next up? Purple sparkles!

creative chaos

I am enjoying the creative chaos this evening as we sit around the table and listen to Mr. Bach Comes to Call. Regan and Micah are sewing and Max is making a fort under the desk behind me.
This is my project. This is Larissa's tutorial for Skip to my Lou Craft Camp. Totally intended for kids, but I just had to make my own when I saw them :)

Owl's seem to be a theme around here these days. Here are the two projects from the hand sewing class I am teaching right now. We finished up the owls last week and start embroidering our t-shirts on Friday. Micah is actually sewing up his very own owl right now, since I would not let him join all the girls in the sewing class :)

it's about time!

I finally added a baby to the back of our car, now our stick figure family is complete :) I am off to run some errands (kids free!) while Phil power washes the house. And hopefully I will find a few quiet hours today to finish my book or sew a bit- how I love weekends! Happy Saturday to you all!

i'm still here

I know I have been MIA the last week- first we had family in town and then we went out of town to visit other family. We just got back tonight and I may need a few days to recoup, but I thought I would pop in and say "hi" and share a couple pictures from our trip to the zoo last week, they are just to good not to post!

cut, stacked and ready to sew

one of the blessings of the 5th child...

The ability to sleep anywhere, through anything!The kids have been saving up and putting money in a jar to get a family membership to the zoo and we just got our passes in the mail, so we are off to monkey around at the Zoo for the morning!

lazy days of summer

It's been a full week since we finished school but today is the first day that has finally felt like one of those lazy days of summer we all love so much!
Regan's been locked in her room since lunch time listening to audio books, the boys playing nicely in the living room, Addie dozing in the chair beside me and Tallulah and I have played quite a few games of Pet Shop Go Fish while I folded paper to make these.

I've got a long list of things to do, but it's Friday and my wall were calling out for just a bit of color. Who knows if they will stay there, but at least it is something, for now!Happy Friday to you all!

rainbow brite

At about 9am today (a day that I knew was to be filled with shuffling kids to Dr. appointments and attempting to make our house presentable for bible study) I decided I need to make this.
I've been seeing the cake all over the Internet for a year now and admiring it's beautiful colors and today I just couldn't wait any longer, I had to make the rainbow cake.
I really only eat chocolate cake, so making this was purely for aesthetic pleasure, but it sure was satisfying! (I did eat a piece, because I could not make a cake and not at least taste it! But that will be the only piece I eat, I will save the rest for those sugar loving kids to devour tomorrow.)
Oh, and I used this recipe for the cake, but cheated on the frosting and used Duncan Hines, whipped white frosting.

clean slate

Phil had recently mentioned that he would like our bedroom to be a lighter color, but it was not until we actually started painting this weekend that I learned that he NEVER liked the color of our bedroom! So, for nearly 5 years he has silently suffered- well, suffer no more! We are starting over (5 coats later) with a clean (white) slate! This was quite a risk for this color girl! If you've been in my house, or read my blog for very long you know that our house is like the rainbow- colors are bright and plentiful! But I am taking a risk and going for that eclectic cottage style with white walls and colorful accessories. The first being the quilt that I am hoping to complete this summer.

I think this is after two coats
almost there...

So, here it is before...

and after.
It looks a bit sterile right now, but I'm excited to see the space come alive as I start adding bits of color here and there.
I bought a can of spray paint today to paint the bed frame- that will the next project.