School Year Adjustments

Well, one and a half weeks into school and Chandler has finished his Handwriting Without Tears book! 

Wow, okay.

I thought that would last at LEAST half the year! 

I picked up a Preschool workbook from Walmart for him to use and I ordered My Best Handwriting:  Book 1 for him to use. 

It looks like I will be be trying to stay ahead of this kid!  I discovered the first day of school that Chandler can already identify all of his alphabet and can count up 25 without any prompting.  So much for planning on spending his Pre-K year teaching him his letters and numbers!

First Day of School 2013!

Claire - 7 years old and starting 2nd Grade!

Chandler - 4 years old and starting Pre-K!

Our plan for the next year:

Bible:  Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland and Bible stories

Math:  Claire will be working quickly through her Horizons Math books (we are a grade behind at the moment).  Chandler will be learning his numbers and doing simple addition with me.

Language Arts:  Claire will be finishing Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and Daily Phonics by Evan-Moor.  If she progresses well I may get Growing with Grammar towards the end of the year.  Chandler will be working on his alphabet.

Handwriting:  Claire will finish her Memoria Press Copybook that she started this summer and then will start New American Cursive.  Chandler's main schoolbook is his Handwriting Without Tears - Get Set for School "My First School Book".

Science:  Apologia Exploring Creation Zoology 3:  Land Animals of the 6th Day with our homeschool co-op.

History:  We will finish Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times and we will also be doing Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages with our homeschool co-op. 

Geography:  Beginning Geography by Evan-Moor and mapping from our science and history combined with World Map Skills with our homeschool co-op. 

Oh, and add in numerous books of course.  Claire will also be taking an art elective through the co-op and plans on a cooking class through 4-H.  Not to mention working on our Home Ec skills and Animal Husbandry - i.e. Chores!  :) 

Looks like a full year!

Preparing for School

I plan on starting our homeschool year on Monday!

So, this past week I turned this post-summer cabinet of chaos:

 

Into a cabinet ready for schooling!

I am getting excited even though Claire is dreading it.  She is starting 2nd grade and I told her that we had to do schoolwork EVERY DAY.  The horror was in her eyes.  We had a light year of Kindergarten and with her sister being born in the middle of the year we ended up having a light 1st Grade.  So, 2nd Grade is going to have to be intense.  I'm psyching myself up.  Eek!

Chickens Growing up!

Our Easter Eggers have gone from this:

To this:

I know - huge!  And if you are familiar with sexing chickens you may notice that of my eight Easter Egger chickens I have ended up with two hens and six, yes, six roosters.  Sigh.  I guess that's the risk when you buy straight run chicks.  We are willing to keep maybe two roosters (we have enough hens) but only nice tempered ones.  I can't have any attacking the children!  Looking forward to seeing who makes the cut!