Back to Homeschool and so Much More!

Now on to last week.(the 18-24th) Monday was the first day of school! And of following our new schedule and it went pretty well actually! Elizabeth is doing mostly 2nd-3rd grade work this year. She chose to do Biology for science as she loves learning about plants and animals, and she chose Ancient Times for History as we didn't get much beyond ancient Egypt last year, but she knows more about Egypt and Egyptians than I ever did! Devin is doing preschool with me and starting in September with the developmental preschool. This year I put together both kids curriculum myself and I'm awful proud of that as it was a lot of hard work, research, reading reviews and praying to figure it all out! School is going great and both kids are LOVING it! Our daily schedule goes as follows: get up and dressed, have breakfast, brush teeth, have Devotional(where we sing a primary song, say a prayer, read from the Old Testament Stories, sing and say an article of faith, then say the Pledge of Allegiance) Then Devin goes and plays(usually with "learning toys" or books)Elizabeth does school. We start with our core subject(Mon. and Tue. are Science, Wed. is Geography, Thurs. is History, Friday is Art and Spanish) Then Elizabeth reads a chapter out of a chapter book, we're starting with basal readers, then it's math then spelling, reading comprehension and a page from Language Smarts. Then it's handwriting and I read to her, we're starting with Black Beauty. Even though she could read it herself I feel it's important for me to read aloud to her still. She ends with a critical thinking activity(Mon. is ZooLogic, Tue. is Smart Cookies, Wed. is Q Bits Thurs. is "What's New What's Missing What's Different, and Friday is free choice). After Elizabeth is done with school the kids play outside then have lunch then Devin goes to his room for quiet time while Elizabeth practices her piano and does her chores, then she's free to play. Then they switch Elizabeth goes to her room for quiet time and Devin does school with me. Devin's school goes as follows: Calendar and weather, then review letter, number, color, shape and opposite pair flash cars, then I do a simplified version of the Walk Beside Me preschool, so we sing a song, read a scripture and short "story" about the theme of the week such as A is for Adam...B is for Baptism. Then he sits at the desk and practices writing the letter of the week. Mon. he does activities from a seasonal theme book  and Wed. is an activity from a general seasonal theme, this week the book was "Jamberry" and the theme was "All About Me". Friday he does Science. Then after the activity of the day he does two learning paths on ABC Mouse.com. Then it's "screen time" where they can either play the kindle or watch an educational show on tv. Then we go back outside, and then it's dinner time! The schedule is working out wonderfully so far! So continuing on with this last week Tuesday was Bravo classes, Wednesday and Thursday were just typical school days. Friday was typical except no Spanish as my parents were off RVing. That night we took the kids to Bravo for the parent date night. Tony and I went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with a coupon, then we went grocery shopping. The kids had fun playing inside Bravo as it was raining, but that meant they were able to play in the tumbling room which is lots of fun! They had pizza for dinner(Devin had his packed bread and Pediasure) they made a frog craft then watched some of Princess and the Frog. Saturday one of our home teachers helped Tony put up the other shelf in our storage unit in the morning, then we went to Sams Club(as we've been looking at getting a better swing set for the kids) and noticed that they had their really nice one on clearance, so we went to the customer service desk and asked how many they had in stock and after she checked said that the one we saw was the last one in the valley! Tony asked if that was the lowest price they could offer and when she asked the manager he took an addition 20% off making it an incredibly too good to pass up deal! So we bought it and told them we'd pick it up on Monday. Then after lunch we drove to Tony's brother Matt's house for Tony's parent's 40th wedding anniversary dinner party celebration. Which was very nice, the food was delicious! Sunday was Stake Conference and since our kids can't manage to sit through an hour of sacrament meeting we don't even attempt to make them sit for two hours! We just had a lazy Sunday at home, we did spend some time in the backyard trying to figure out the best way to make everything we have back there fit with the new swing set. Monday Tony took off work and stayed home to work in the backyard, and pick up the swing set. Once again our wonderful home teacher helped us carry the huge tower part and put it in place(we bought the display so it was already assembled they just took the half with the swings off of the tower and took off the ladder and rock wall, so the pieces just had to be put back together) he helped with putting it together as well. The kids then spent hours playing on it, loving it! Oh I nearly forgot Monday afternoon I took Elizabeth out to find new glasses(as the pair she has now are her backup pair and are barely holding together), we ended up getting them from Walmart, they are super cute frames and she's very excited to get them! Tuesday was a typical school day with Bravo classes in the evening. Wednesday we did school in the morning, then in the afternoon we drove down to Bountiful and went to Cookie Cutters and both the kids got their hair cut. Devin's was getting super shaggy looking so he got quite a bit cut off, and then I finally convinced Elizabeth to cut her hair short again(as washing, drying and combing it always brings on fits). She looks sooooo adorable! I must say I absolutely love her with short hair! Both kids look so great! After that we stopped by the Bountiful Cemetery to see the head stones that had been placed on Tuesday. They turned out so beautifully!! Elizabeth asked me to take her picture by Uncle Eric's headstone because she misses him so much, especially his tickles. She really liked the laptop on his head stone cause as she said,"he was always doing stuff with computers!"  And she really loved the butterflies and beautiful angel on Linda Kay's headstone. Both kids admired the Salt Lake Temple on my parents, though Devin was pretty convinced it was a castle. ;) After that we paid a visit to my grandma and grandpa Walker, my Aunt Susan was there as well so we had a good little visit while the kids played with the fun toys, until it was time to go home for dinner. We got home a few minutes before Tony did, let the kids have dinner upstairs with my dad while Tony and I went shopping for what we needed to bring to do dinner Saturday at the Johnston Camp up at the Spruces. Today is a typical school day and I'm just getting things ready to pack us up for our Labor Day camping weekend(though we'll be staying with my parents in their motorhome so it's not bad at all!) And that catches ya up!

Elizabeth's first day of school!!

When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up she told me, "A doctor...but don't write that cause I always put that on the board." ;) So she told me to write this instead!

Then of course Lovey had to have her picture with it too.

This is Elizabeth's curriculum, most of it, she has another science unit and several more chapter books, but this is what we're starting with.

Devin's first day of school!

Did you notice that we have another leftie?!!

When I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up he first told me a sister! LOL Then it was a doggie, then I finally got him to this!

This is Devin's curriculum. Obviously the letter and themes change weekly, but this was his first week's stuff.

 This is my wonderfully silly girl ready to go play outside, I love that she posed for me!

The super fun new swing set!

Good lookin' haircuts at Cookie Cutters!(I was going to snap a pic of Liz's hair down today so you could see how cute it is short but I forgot so just know it's about shoulder length and I'm sure you'll see it in the next post!)

Visiting Uncle Eric and Aunt Linda Kay's graves, to see the new headstones.