Homeschool Moms Secret Pals

As homeschool moms we can get burnt out before we realize our flicker became a flame! Sometimes it's hard to stay encouraged especially if you don't have other homeschool moms around you rootin you on. So my sweet friend Kim & I have decided to host a Homeschool Moms Secret Pals group!

All you have to do is fill out the questionnaire below & email it to me. Kim & I will split them up, pray over them, & give each mom her secret pal & the rest is in your hands!

So what's expected of you?

Each month you need to mail your secret pal a note encouraging them, maybe a prayer, inspiring Scripture, & every so often a little happy like a gift card to her favorite fast food place, a coffee cup, her favorite magazine, dry erase markers...it's totally up to you! You don't need to spend a lot of money. As homeschool moms we know that funds can be tight, so don't let this be a burden! 

Pray about whether or not this is something you can be a part of. This session will run from January to May & the last thing you send in May you will reveal your name to your secret pal! If this goes well, we do it again starting in August with new pals! 

When filling out the questionnaire, be sure to be detailed so whomever gets you has a clear picture of who you are & what you like!

Anytime you get a note or a gift, be sure to post it on Instagram with the hashtag #HSmomsSecretPals. 

The last day to enter is Friday, December 19.

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Full name:

IG name:

Mailing address:

Favorites-

Color

Fast food

Restaurant 

Drink

Snack

Shopping store for yourself

Others likes-

Styles: home? Fashion?

Things you collect

Hobbies

How many kids?

Ages/grades

How long have you been homeschooling?

What homeschool style do you use?What curriculum do you like?

When is your birthday?

Anniversary?

Any other random info you want to ad?😄 like books or bible studies you like? Do you do ministry work? Are you a vegetarian? Follow THM? Anything else you want your secret pal to know about you add it! 

Bless you all!!

Summer Schoolin

We have thoroughly enjoyed the summer so far, but we have continued to do some light schooling as well. Rylan is finishing up My Father's World K, without the extra crafts & stuff, & continually works on his math & phonics skills. Brady continues to read whatever books he chooses for fun, reviews multiplication & division skills, & does a reading & language sheet each day. Both boys also play educational games on the iPad & neither have complained about doing any of it. YAY momma! :)

I work with Keller as I can...he just wants to play & that's totally fine by me...after all he's 3! Besides his lack of interest I've been busy with other "life" things, but I am slowly integrating more "school" for him in hopes to do more when we start back full time next month.

Little by little all of our new stuff is trailing in & I feel like a kid at Christmas!! :) I've changed my mind a couple times on what I want us to do, but it's all panning out...I think :)

I hope your summer has been going great too! Blessings!

Back 2 Schoolin

I cannot believe I've been homeschooling for 3 1/2 years! Time has surely flown by! Brady is now a big 3rd grader & my sweet Rylan is a kindergartener! 

This year we using My Father's World as our core (Brady is doing Adventures & Ry is doing K). Both boys are also using Horizon's math & Brady is doing their spelling & vocabulary program while Rylan is using Hooked On Phonics for reading. He was super proud of himself for reading his 1st story!

The night before our 1st day I decorated with balloons & streamers & made the boys' favorite muffins! They were elated the next morning when they woke up! It made our 1st day to a new year extra special!

I like to mix the boys' curriculum so they can do as many fun activities together as possible. Rylan's began with Creation & each day they decorated the number of the day that matched what God had created. Their work turned out extremely cute!

 

After Creation, each following week focuses on a letter with a certain theme. So far we've done S-sun, M-moon, L-leaf, & A-apple. Brady's curriculum also focused on space so I made sure to line it up with the weeks Ry did sun & moon. I made moon dough for sensory play & checked out a space kit from the resource center. They did not want the space unit to end so I extended it a week longer & just reviewed Rylan on all the letters of the alphabet, but focused on the sounds he's been practicing in Speech Therapy.

During our leaf week we didn't do too many activities because I like to save them for our Fall theme we do each October. The little boys did make fall trees using their arm & hands for the trunk & branches & then used Do-A-Dot markers for the leaves.

At the end of our apple theme we bought 6 kinds of apples: kiku, red delicious, golden delicious, honey crisp, Granny Smith & gala. The boys observed the color of the apple 1st, smelled it, then tasted it & then decided if the apple was hard or soft, & sweet, sour, or plain. Their favorites were the honey crisp & the kiku.

In Adventures we studied about Vikings & it was one of my favorite days! They colored Viking masks & once they had them on they were in full character!!! I was in tears from laughing at them! 

Lately we've been learning about early American pioneers & Native Americans. I'll post those pics the next time I update.

I often get asked what I do with Keller while the big boys do school. Most of the time he plays on his own or he sits at the table with them coloring or playing with learning toys. There are times where I'll work one on one with him on counting, colors, or shapes, but it's always done through play. There are days when I'll put on an educational show for him or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. :) A momma's gotta do what a momma' gotta do!

Here he is "helping" Rylan paste!

Everyday is different, no set schedule, but a pretty solid routine. With nursing Chapel, some days simply have to follow her lead...well, her nap times :). Here's a cute pic I captured of all 4 blessings at the table.

I really am thankful The Lord has called me to this! Even on the days my patience is thin, they're wild, & I've had little sleep, being with them is still a blessing I try not to take for granted. My purpose each day is to love them, serve them, teach them & enjoy them!

Have a blessed week friends!!

Field Trip-Ag Museum

It's was such a beautiful morning & the perfect way to kick off the beginning of fall! The sun was out, the temperature was in the low 70s, & we were surrounded by our sweet homeschool friends! 

 

We kicked things off with a train ride to scope out the scene. The Agriculture Museum is like going back in time! All the old buildings & materials are so much fun to look at & make you even more happy you for modern conveniences!! If you're ever in MS I highly recommend checking it out, especially in October or November when they have the cotton gin & saw mill going! During that time they also have a blacksmith working & free, yummy biscuits with syrup! 

After walking around we stopped at the old General Store for a break complete with glass bottled cokes & roasted, salted pecans. They were incredibly delicious! The kiddos enjoyed playing checkers with the bottle caps on the porch...though I don't think they really knew what they were doing! 

The petting zoo ignited my boys desire for country living! Every animal we saw they asked if they could get one when we moved! Not sure how their daddy will feel about that! Ha! If you look at the cow in the pic in the top left you'll notice him nuzzling the horse. He was the only cow amongst about 4-5 horses & he kept kissing & licking them! He even tried to mount a pony! Thankfully the kids didn't notice so we didn't have to explain anything. Us moms, however, had a great laugh!

The kids were amazed that cars used to not have seat belts & that the back door opened the opposite way. One of our little  friends even asked where the DVD player was! :)

My boys' favorite part was the train room! There were a TON of motorized trains & models of small towns. They were mesmerized by it all! Brady begged for a room like that, but I had to explain that room was bigger than our house!! They were even more thrilled when they found a little Thomas train zooming back & forth!

Sweet Chapel just hung out in the carrier I was wearing & napped most of the time. She is such a good baby!!!

Below is a picture of my sweet Rylan & his BFF Thomas.

Somewhere I have a picture of myself in this same, giant rocking chair when I was about 12 or so.

We had such a fun time! I almost talked myself out of not going because I was super sleepy that morning & this was my first major outing with all four kiddos without my awesome Mr. Thankfully they were well behaved & our homeschool group is fabulous! We all look out for each others' kids like they all belong to us. 

Have a blessed day sweet readers!

 

A Break For Me! Hallelujah!!!

 This sweet lil guy LOVES school! After 2 weeks of finishing 1st grade he begged & begged & begged to start up 2nd grade. I really did NOT want to, I needed a break! This past year was a whirlwind adventure in opening up about my past & the Lord opened many doors for me to travel & speak. As if being a full-time homeschooling momma didn't keep me busy enough, I was off doing events & press conferences a LOT! 

Now I completely loved every bit of it, even when it was hard, & depressing, because I know the Lord had me doing exactly what He had called me to do. But I'm tired. Worn out. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, & mentally exhausted! I had prayed & asked God to give me a break, some rest to regroup, refocus, & just be. Then my precious Brady comes begging & begging to do school again & I caved in. We started a little, but things kept coming up, knocking us off track & then he & his middle brother got very sick for almost 2 weeks. 

So in the midst of my tiredness & wanting a chance to relax I overloaded myself with more schoolin, not fully prepared & then stuck in the house with sick kiddos. I was at a breaking point. I cried out to God to show me what to do, where to go & He gave me peace, stillness, time to reflect. I asked Brady if we could please hold off on 2nd grade, Momma needed a break. And his reply?

"Sure. I just wanted to be in 2nd grade so I could be in class at church with my 2nd grade friends before they went to 3rd grade. But my teacher told me I couldn't change until August."

I died out laughing! So now, praise the Lord, I get a break! We are still practicing his math facts & reading of course & doing fun stuff with Rylan because I'm still doing preschool stuff with him. I must say I am so relieved! This summer we have a lot of fun stuff planned with VBS, play dates, & this will be Brady's 1st year to go to church camp! Lots of fun adventures await us.

I pray you all have a great summer as well!!

By the way, please come on over & visit us at  Schoolin The Boys!

First Grade Finale

Homeschooling has been shut down for 2 weeks now & this momma is GLAD for a break :) Head on over to our homeschool blog to see my recap of Brady's first grade year!

Letters O & T with addition

Last week we reviewed the letter O & made some super cute Owls! Rylan joined in the fun this time!

They painted their O's added a triangle with 2 green circles for the eyes. This was also an opportunity to teach Rylan some colors & shapes, though he didn't care for it as much as he did the painting! I had to pry the paint brush out of his hand!

Our O food was an orange of course! Brady wasn't too keen on trying an Olive! We talked a lot about the Ocean & our vacation to the beach when saw a lot of different sea creatures up close! Too close for me! A baby shark swam 5 feet away from were we were! We also looked in books & talked about the different animals that live in the Ocean. After we made our Owls we learned a new word: NOCTURNAL because most Owls sleep in the day & hunt for food at night. Another new word was OAR. It was in his dictionary & he couldn't understand why they put a paddle under the O because paddle starts with P! He cracks me up sometimes with his simple logical sense of things.



Brady also reviewed the letter T & made a cute Tree in the shape of a T.

He colored the Trunk & branches, then used a sponge to paint green leaves on it & before the paint could dry, he added fake grass we bought a while back to add some Texture!

Brady came up with a Ton of T words! As you can see by his list some of his VERY favorite Things start with T. Trains Thomas & Toby made the list & Brady wasn't too happy I ran out of room to write Tow Mater from Disney's Cars :) Our story came from the Bible, we Talked about the Trees in the Garden of Eden & the 1st sin. Brady remembered most of it which makes me happy! We also Talked a lot about Trust & Telling the Truth. Our T food was his favorite vegetable, a Tomato! I had considered working on Telling Time for math, but I didn't want to interrupt our addition that we had already started.

As you can see he did VERY well on his on. I like to buy the $1 workbooks to assist with our Singapore book we typically use. Brady likes it too because as he says, "I get to work with my friends." Meaning his favorite characters. :)

He also uses his Cuisinaire Rods to help count the numbers & then add them all together. I'm amazed at how quick he caught on. I'm hoping he's good at math & likes it. I never did! One of my main goals in homeschooling is to make learning fun so here's to praying I can find fun ways to teach the stuff I don't like so much.

Letters N & L

I know I'm late on this post but last was CRAZY! I had my 1st sinus migraine and I pray it was my last! :/

On the home school front we reviewed the letters N & L.

For the letter in our focus was Numbers. We went on a number hunt at Walmart and Brady wrote down all the Numbers he saw in his little Notebook. We worked on skip counting by 10s and 5s and worked on some early addition skills too. Our N food was Nachos (my favorite) and we talked about different ways we can be Nice to others and Not be Naughty.

The Letter L represented Letters. Brady is almost finished with his Kindergarten reading book! So we've used the last couple of weeks to review. Our verse was Luke 10:27 "Jesus answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Which also tied into our "Nice" lesson. His L food was a Lollipop, but thought it was "SO COOL" to eat ABC's & 123's because it had Letters and Numbers in it. :) The Little things that kids Like LoL...and speaking of LoL...we also talked about things that make us Laugh...my favorite was my kiddos, Brady's was Tom & Jerry.

For our craft I cut many Numbers and Letters out of newspaper and Brady had to sort them and glue the Numbers to the Letter N and the Letters on the L.



Pictures were taken on my phone so the quality isnt too great. This week we're taking off to the great state of Texas to visit my mom & sister! have a blessed week!!!