Week One & Two Wrap Up

We finished our first week last Thursday. We had a good week. We once again decided not to do school on Fridays unless we had some makeup work or a big test to take care of. This leaves us Fridays open to take field trips or catch up on chores around the house or just goof off. Once again I am homeschooling three of my children. I have 1 Senior, 1 Sophomore and a 7th grader this year. An eclectic mix to be sure but it works great for us. I'm eager and excited to have begun this school year. I'm not sure why exactly but I am. I just love being with my children :)Roosie and I took a nature walk Saturday morning and did an experiment with persimmon seeds to check the validity of an old wives tale from the Farmer's Almanac. We will share a bit more of that later.
Today we will wrap up our second week. We are on schedule so far even though we took an impromptu field trip Tuesday to North Carolina. It was very fun and I have pictures to share later :) Fall has been sneaking in early this year so we are already seeing color everywhere and it has been quite chilly the last two nights (YAY). Of course we have been enjoying some hot chocolate and cappuccino :) I hope that you have a blessed day today homeschool world! Blessings! ~ Nikki

Clearing Out The Cobwebs....Reviving This Blog

Well, it has been way too long since I posted here. I have been a terrible blog hostess. I'm cleaning up this blog though. I'm dusting off the cobwebs and sprucing the place up. A new school year started...I've got lots to blog about...it IS going to happen this year lol Bear with me ....

Little House Links , Printables and such

Roosie is doing a study on the Little House series. To start off she is reading Little House in the Big Woods (after our break). We will be notebooking and other activities. I thought I would share with you some links where we find our resources. Enjoy!

little house unit study
prairie pages

PDF for Little House In The Big Woods

http://homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/page/2/

Hi All

Time has just flown by with all that has been going on at our house. We are only homeschooling 2 days a week now since I am back in school. Roosie is attending our church school part time while I am in class and Hoopy and Tman are attending full time (their wishes). We do math and some other things at home now while the rest of Rossie's work is done at school. We are getting ready to start a Winter nature study and she has a book report (notebooking style) to do. Posts might be infrequent here but I am planning on trying harder to make sure I get all my blogging done more regularly. I do post a little more often on my main blog. Please check back in from time to time here though. You never know when something new might pop up. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Black Widow Notebooking/Lapbooking Pages

I created some notebooking pages to use for studying Black Widows. You can find them on my file list on my HSLaunch page by using this link Nikki's page or by using the link widget on the right sidebar. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Gearing Up For School

Now that I have a break from Summer classes I am working on the finishing touches for our upcoming school year. I have a love / hate relationship with school planning lol. I love the thought of a new school year but sometimes the details can get very "boggy" and I feel like I'm in a rut. It will pass though; it always does. This year I will have a 6th grader and a 9th grader. My eldest son goes to our church school and my eldest daughter graduated last year. We will be doing lots more nature study per requests of Roosie my 11 year old. I will be posting more links on the pages here for neat sites that I find for all subjects so be sure to check them out.

While working in our flower bed last week we found an interesting  tenant under a flower pot; a black widow spider. So that will be the first subject of our nature studies.I found a great info link here BLACK WIDOWS ; its from our local university. I think you will find it very informative especially if you live in Tennessee. Also the ironweed and goldenrod is already beginning to bloom here so we will do a study on that too. Sometimes we follow the Outdoor Hour Challenge using the Handbook of Nature study but we also kind of go rogue with it sometimes and pick our own thing that catches our eye. We use different websites and things for our info too. I found a great book, ABCs of Nature at our library's book sale for a $1 and it has been a great tool.

Click to buy at Amazon

I try to find some free lapbooks or notebooking pages to use with our studies. If I can't find any ,then I make them. I encourage you as a homeschool family to buy either Microsoft Word or Print Shop software. They are both excellent tools for making worksheets.Worksheets I make I will post on my HSLaunch page. If you are not familiar with that site please go check it out. There are some really great printables there.

Do any of you have any different resources you use for nature study? tell me about them. Blessings! ~ Nikki

Great Giveaway To Use This School Year

Check out this amazing giveaway at Homeschool Creations! I soooo want the Marine Biology course for my DD who is a SHARK FANATIC!!!!