Last day of co-op

Woo-hoo! We are done with co-op classes today. Funny how we are so excited when they start, but so glad to see them end. Only 9 weeks (1-day a week) of them each semester. Not so bad. The lady that has been in charge stepped down this year. And surprise of all...no one has volunteered to take it up.

Tomorrow night we are having our End of School party. All the kids in the co-op have been practicing on a play. Memorial Day is the theme. All the kids love this idea of being in a play, except for one. Of course it had to be one of my kids. DS2 refused to participate and his is happy as a clam. The kid doesn't like people to look at him and especially hates going up in front of people. Claims he has stage fright. *rolls eyes* Yeah, whatever.

All in all, its been a pretty good school year for everyone. We are all tired and can't wait til summer vacation.

Almost done

Haven't had time to post much on here as I used to do. We get up early, kids do their book work (usually math, grammar, vocabulary, and spelling), and we work together on the two unit studies that we are finishing up on. Science and History.

Cleaned out our book shelves this weekend and have gathered up all the curriculum we had bought in hopes that they'd be the 'one' we'd stick with. Unit studies have been working a lot better for us than anything boring old book did. When my kids read, what they read never sunk in. With the unit studies, we do a lot of hands on and interaction...they remember and can tell me stuff I forgot we read. hehe

Can't wait til June. No more school and the kids are going to help me deep clean the house. It needs it badly. Kids want to camp. Might let them camp in the back yard a few times. Friends of ours at church invited us to camp with them. My back is already yelling at me for even thinking about it. "What?? Are you crazy!?!? Woman, I'll cramp up on you so darn fast...." Yes, my body talks to me. Yesterday my shoulder was tell me to quit laying on my right side so much. *sigh*

Baseball season is upon us too. Get to spend a few nights a week at the ball park.

And we are building our garden this weekend. This is going to be a summer school project for the kids. When we start our botany unit study this fall for science, they should be able to tell me a lot about what they learned with our garden. At least, that is my hope.

Count down

Spring is here and its beautiful. In the last few weeks, the kids would rather spend their time outside playing, than studying. Wouldn't we all! LOL School count down has begun. We have until the end of May to get this done. The boys have agreed to double up on a few days to get caught up, a day off here or there hurts us when we realize that we'll be having school til Jun.

Surprisingly the kids are getting up early every morning. Before 8 am is unheard of here, yet they get me up now. Breakfast and chores are done quickly. School started, checked, reworked if needed, and finally the unit study we are working on is started. By the time we are done its 12 noon, lunch time. They have the rest of the day to play or read or talk me into a bike ride.

DS2 loves to do laundry. Thinking of hiring this kid out. hehe He just found a new love, hanging clothes on the line. I have to fight him to do it. Especially if he is suppose to be working on math or other subject. DS3 loves to ride his bike or play sports. DS1 would rather read and not do anything physical. Must be a teenage boy thing, he's going to get over that quickly if he doesn't want momma bear to get mad.

All in all, I think this summer is going to be loads of fun. Got plans to make a big garden, plant flowers out front, and rent cabins in the park for mini vacations. Nothing grand this year. Want to pay off some debt we have looming over our heads. Can't teach the kids good stewardship if we don't practice it ourselves.

Learning to make my own unit studies

I've been searching on how to make a unit study. Lots of info out there, but they all have links to sites that are dead links. Sites are no longer there. Makes it hard to find the info I need. So I'm on the look on how to make them. Others things I've found want you to buy them from them. I can understand that, but when I do buy them the pages are blank and you kids are expected to fill them out. BIG DEAL! I want something written out that tells me how to teach my kids this subject.

Because of this lack of completed unit studies out there, I decided to create my own. So far I've come up with a template of sorts to start me off. I don't want them to be totally focused on just internet links either. Those come and go. Books don't. Maybe I might create something that others may want to buy. Its worth looking into though.

Support Group

There are two homeschool support groups in my area. Today, we joined the other one. We'll get newsletters, monthly meetings, etc. from this group. Plus meet other moms that I wouldn't normally get to meet in the area. Hoping this will just give us more options to network than I had before. The other group is filled with some really nice ladies, but they just don't support you the way I want/need.

As for the one we originally have been members of. We will probably stay members with, but will not be as involved. Wait and see. Just wait and see.