Our school choices for the year...

We are so close to beginning school and I am SO excited!  Our first day will be August 5th and it will be a short day for the kids to browse through their books and folders and do a couple fun projects (like apply for their "passports") relating to what we will be studying this year. Our core curriculum is going to be My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. This is a year long geography adventure throught many different countries. They will learn facts about each country, where they are located, try foods from each culture, do country related art projects, and hear stories of missionaries from the different countries. They will also be studying the book of Matthew for Bible and about ecosysyems for science. A few extra things we are doing include Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek, Typing Instructor for Kids, Praising God on the Piano, Guitar Worship DVD lessons, gymnastics for Siara, and most likely basketball for the boys later on during the winter. I think this year is going to be so much better than last.  I have spent many hours in preparing our school room, activities for centers (including a school computer - yay!), and beginning tomorrow I will spend the remainder of time lesson planning including pre-planned field trips and scheduled breaks!  I must take a second to say how thankful we are for such wonderful grandparents who have provided the opportunity for us to have so many wonderful and fun things, from books to the extras!  The Lord has once again met our needs and blessed us with more.


Lessons from the Little School House Academy...
Ok, it's not really lessons we have learned just yet but it will be for those who enjoy reading schoolish things like organizing, activities and such. Feel free to skip over these posts in the future if they bore you! : ) I have almost completed our calendar wall except for months and birthdays.  I decided we will include family birthdays for this so we will be able to cover more months.  The younger two will have calendar folders to complete each morning with weather chart, number of school days, etc.  Our huge chalkboard is looking amazing, can't wait to try it out. We have to wait until Wednesday when it must be conditioned and then it will be ready to go. What an invention!  I love the look of chalkboards and have seen the effects of dry erase marker mishaps all over walls so it was a no brainer that we would choose chalkboards but they are both pricey not to mention the holes it would put in walls for us to repair upon our departure of our rental home.  It cost us about $15 for the paint and foam roller and about 30 minutes each for the 3 coats it took!  Compare that to anywhere from $50-100 if we had bought a hanging chalkboard in the size I wanted. 


I became a huge fan of spray paint this last week!  I never realized how much fun I could have with it!  The two colors I chose to use on things I wanted to change are rustoleum's lime green and brilliant blue. I have done buckets, a basket, magazine holders, and eventually the desk chairs will be these colors.  About those school desks...well, let's just say they have been a pain or at least caused pain!  My sweet husband did the rust disolver for me since I had such a horrible allergic reaction to them.  It began shortly after I cleaned them up and the next day I was miserable.  My arms and face were covered with tiny little bumps that itched worse than any bug bite ever.  This lasted from Tuesday until I finally began feeling better Sunday!  I could not sleep at night because when I would get still I noticed the itching even more and even woke up from sleep many times due to the itching.  It never occured to me that my allergy to at least nickel that I know of would cause this.  As I read up on it sweating can intensify your reaction to chrome/metal/whatever!  Since it was above 90 degrees the day I worked on the desks outside you might say I perspired a little!  I am thankful it seems so much better and that Troy finished them for me.  I was able to paint them - without touching them! - and now we are just waiting for him to have the time to work on the chairs.  That's all for now but there's so much more to share and I will add pictures of our room as soon as I get another memory card for the camera!

I am itching just looking at these things!  Above is asfter cleaning and below after painting.

We spent some time in the water sprinkler last Friday after playing with friends!  Warning: Hayden has grown at least two inches this month! I'm not kidding! I need to check his height.

Project: School Desks Day 1

Today I began the project of cleaning up and restoring our bargain school desks. This is going to be a bigger task than I had planned but it will be well worth it in the end! The desks had probably sat in a storage building for many years. So, I began with wiping off all the dirt and webs on and in the desks then I used a wire brush to scrape off loose rust. I even used a drill (after Troy did the first one!) to take off the wooden desktops so that I am able to get to the inside more easily. Some of them will take a little more work than the others but I am so thankful for this great blessing! It definitely is not something that was necessary for us to do school but will make it more enjoyable and provide everyone with their "own" desk. Today's job took over 2 hours in the 90 degree heat and who knows how high the humidity was so I decided to wait until tomorrow to use the rust dissolver. I can't wait to get these done!

Here are some of the desks in our garage after we unloaded them a couple days ago...

Here are a couple of them today with the tops off and after I had cleaned and scrubbed them...

In other things related to school Troy and I discussed picking out school colors and I think I have chosen a name for our school. I like "Little School House". If you know me at all you know very well that I would love to live on a farm and have 15 kids running around and playing. Better yet, I would love to go back in time and live across the creek from Laura Ingalls! I prefer a simple life, would love to grow our own food, and have lots of land for the kids to explore. It is such a joy to have the opportunity to have our kids at home and to be able to give them a biblically centered education. I've always desired to be a teacher but never would have dreamed it would become a reality in this way!

Blah. Blah. Blog?

Ok, so I realize this has become a very dull blog over the last couple months but we are in preparation mode for school so it's about to be a busy place! The summer has been pretty busy for us as we took a long trip to visit all of our family! It was so much fun to see everyone. I'll post some pictures later of our fun trip. For now here are the most recent happenings around here.

Troy and I celebrated 11 years of joy on July 10! I am undoubtedly the most blessed wife in the world to have a husband who loves me unconditionally, faults and all. While we were in Tennessee Troy's mom watched our kiddos so we could have an early anniversary lunch at our absolute favorite restaurant, Casa Vieja. We had not been there since last December and it was just as delicious as we remembered. The kids and I traveled home on the 10th from TN and Troy had to work late that night but when he came home he brought me some beautiful flowers! This picture does NO justice to how pretty they were since I took it a few days later and apparently my green thumb is lacking lately (did I ever have one?)! The gorgeous petals were sprinkled with sparkling glitter.

Yesterday and today I have been bargain shopping as I work towards starting school. I had heard of a local dollar store that was closing and had most things 50% off. The kids and I took off to find it and what a deal we found! My addiction to the three Bs (baskets, buckets, and bins) of any sort was happily satisfied as I found various sizes, shapes and colors for...you guessed it - fifty cents each! The little yellow baskets you'll see came in a 2-pack so they were only a quarter each. I had to control myself because I could have easily just grabbed up all they had left! We got craft supplies such as pipe cleaners, beads, paint trays and more! I can't wait to show how I have used them in the re-organization of our supply closet!

Today I found one of the most incredible bargains! I really wanted to have desks for the kids to use this year so that we can utilize our basement more as a school room and each child could have their own space. I've seen some on a homeschool email group here for around $20 or so off and on and some that were even more. I asked yesterday if anyone had any not really expecting I would find any we could afford but a kind lady replied. She told of a Wesleyan camp about 10 minutes from us that was closing down and having a yard sale today and that they had school desks there. She said they may be rusty but would be cheap. So off we go to find this camp and see what that had, still not knowing that I would be able to get 3. The people there were so sweet and the lady helping me said she was asking $3 a piece but would do them for $2 each. It was the exact style I was looking for with a desk and separate chair! She said I could pick out that best ones in their collection outside and then go in and pick chairs. We ended up cramming our van full with the kids, FIVE desks, and me! I got 4 of the desk and chair type and Hayden liked the style for older kids that is a chair with the desktop attached so we got one of those too! All of this for a whopping $18! They will take a good cleaning and paint but they will make excellent school desks for us! I can't wait to show before and after pictures soon!