Merry Christmas!

May you and yours be blessed with a wonderful Christmas season. 

Please remember our deployed soldiers in your prayers.  Please also remember their families back home missing their soldier and all the spouses and children that are usually sitting on a military base unable to go home for Christmas....they are missing their soldier and their family.

Peace and joy in 2012!

Weekly wrap up

We took two extra days off this week.  We didn't intend too, but Monkey woke up with a high fever on Thursday and covered in spots.  She wouldn't sleep and finally at 2:30am, I had to wake up Kevin to take her to the Urgent Care center.  I couldn't find my military id and you can't go unless you have it.  He took her and they determined that it was not chicken pox, but a viral infection.  They gave us benadryl to give her.  I slept for about 45 minutes while they were gone and woke up to give her the medicine.  Lucky me, she's one of those kids that gets hyper on benadryl and it was 7:30 before either of us slept.  Thankfully, my big kids shut my door and took care of Little Miss Trouble while I slept for three hours. 

Kevin came home from work at noon and I set out to buy us clothes to wear to his Christmas party that night.  We didn't pack dressy clothes and I'd rather buy than search through a 10x30 foot storage unit that's packed to the ceiling with boxes and furniture.  He's been working 6-7 days a week for 12-14 hours days for the last three weeks, otherwise I would have had this done already.  And, Arby, thanks for the best wishes.  The inspection went pretty well.   I also got a haircut, the first in four months.  I didn't want to go looking like a shaggy dog. 

The party started at 6 with dinner at 7.  This was probably the best food we've ever had at a holiday party.  Dancing and door prizes and I headed home at 10 to put myself and kids to bed.  Thankfully, we're just across the parking lot from the restaurant.  I got home to find that TL had cleaned the entire fifth wheel.  Vaccumed, picked up, and the trash was ready to go out.  I was impressed.  This is not the first time he's done this for us.  I was especially thankful because I was so tired. 

Yesterday, the kids had bowling league and then some friends came over.  We decided to treat ourselves to dinner and then we went to Fresno to Christmas Tree Lane.  It took over an hour sitting in traffic to go down the street and then over an hour to drive down it.  That with a 45 minute drive there and back, it was a long night.  We finally got home at 10:30 and the girls had a sleepover here and TL went to spend the night with his friend.

Woke up this morning and went to the grocery store and then baked 11 dozen cookies for the single sailors.  I'm wiped!!

I don't plan on homeschooling this week.  Unfortunately, I have to still mail out some boxes, get a little shopping done, and do some baking.  I am planning on finishing up the grades for the last six weeks and getting the report cards to the kids.  TL has one more Oregon Trail  class this week on Currclick.  Next session he's going to study Two Towers.  The girls are going to do a class on one of the Little House books.  I've decided to do this because our local homeschooling group is so horrible.  The leaders have high schoolers and the only few activities that are planned are geared for that age group.  I've volunteered and so has several others, to plan stuff for younger ages and its "frowned upon".  They only have two meetings a month and no mother's nights out.  They won't print out a directory so that you could even cold call people with children in your age.  I'm very disappointed.  It wasn't like this when we lived here before.

Anyway, I have lesson plans to work on and some housekeeping homeschooling stuff to do. 

I'm off right now, because Monkey decided to flood the second bath and now I have four loads of sheets and towels to wash.

Have a wonderful week!

Homeschooling high school part 2-Credits

Last time I talked about the possibilities of homeschooling through high school.  I discussed the number of credits needed to graduate.  If your child is thinking of going onto college, the most highly recommended schedule is

3-4 credits of math
4 credits of literature, writing, speech
3 credits of science with 1 lab
2-3 of a foreign language
3-4 credits world history, us history, government
2 credits of physical education
1 credit of music, theater, art
other electives


Now, the big question is, what exactly is a credit?  A credit is any course that is studies over 120 hours for the school year.  If you do school 40 weeks and math for 5 days a week for an hour, that's 200 hours and you get a full credit for it.  If you do physical education twice a week for an hour for 40 weeks, then it counts as 80 hours or half a credit.

I still highly recommend Setting the Records Straight by Lee Binz if your still confused about credits.  She has the easiest explanation that I could find.

Next time I will discuss keeping records and writing class descriptions.

Hello, hello......anyone there?

I should correctly say, "Look, I'm backkkkk!!!"

Sorry, we've been crazy busy and then I had a week without internet.  A week!!  We have a little box in the camper and our time had been used up.  I quickly checked email a few days and turned it off.  It was nice not to be tied to the computer all day.  I felt like I spent more time with the kids and got more done. 

I'm not sure how my computer addiction started.  When my hubby is deployed that's our only way of communicating.  If we're lucky, we are on at the same time and can email each other back and forth, so I've gotten into the habit of checking the computer a few times a day.  Then, I get sidetracked.

So, I've decided to check it in the morning and night and that's it.  After the holidays, I'm moving back to paper lesson planning.  The computer program works great but its too distracting to me to have it open all day long.  I tried printing out each day and then checking it off but I end up with the same amount of paper I was trying to avoid by using the computer.......

Our camper is decorated.  Took about ten minutes.  The four foot tree is up.  Monkey girl keeps taking all the ornaments off.  I didn't buy nice ones at all, because I knew she'd be doing that.  Maybe next year.  We strung up some lights and it looks a little festive in here.  I'm a little sad not to have all my decorations, but its good.  I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to wrap the kids stuff now.  Daddy may have to take them bowling one day!!  lol

The kids have joined the bowling league here on base.  They're having a blast with it.  Little Miss Trouble gets to start after the new year in the bumper bandits league.  It should be really cute.

I have lots more to post.  I have some more high school stuff to share and photos.  I need to get working on that.  Unfortunately, the kids have been going to bed really late and getting up late.  Daddy's got a huge inspection this week (prayers please for it to go well) and he's been going in at 5am and coming home at 8-9pm so the kids are up to see him. 

Take care!!  Enjoy your shopping and Christmas season!!  I finally have my cards done, I'm usually done on Thanksgiving weekend but I procrastinated this year.  Most of my shopping is done and I need to get boxes out this week to mail.  Have a great week everyone!

High School???????? post 1

I am less than one year away from having a high schooler in my home.  Oh boy!!

I've been homeschooling since he was in kindergarten, so I'm not threatened by designing or buying curriculum for high school.  I know many people are intimidated by math or science; I say Bring It On!!

I've been stalking websites, reading books, and looking at whatever information I can get my hands on to determine how to keep the records and make transcripts from all that information.

The best book I've found is Setting the Records Straight by Lee Binz.  She has  broken down the information into manageable bits and with humor that makes it an enjoyable read.  I loved looking not only at her transcripts, but the other examples that she has listed in the back of the book.

One thing that I knew that I needed to do, was to lay out a plan of course of study for the next four years.  I know that things will change as TL firms up his interests, but I wanted to have a set course of action.  The first thing I did was lay out the possible classes and credits that he would earn.  Then I compared my list to the list in her book and it was right on.  I took a college-prep program in high school so I designed my plan according to that.  I also added in computer science, because let's face it, I'm old.  We chiseled our papers into stone.  My one semester class in high school consisted of our teacher boring us to death with information about DOS systems (yeah, I went there).  If it wasn't for Pong that was uploaded to our computers (which probably weighed 100 pounds each) we would have drifted off to sleep.  And yeah, I went there with Pong.  If the kids today could only see what we considered fun and enjoyed hours of entertainment with!

Back to credits.  Most high schools require 19-22 credits to graduate.  WA needs 22.  I looked up CA, since we live here now, and they only need 13!!  Are you kidding me?  Nothing like setting the bar really high!!  And they wonder why CA is in the toilet.  I did call the school liason here on the base and she told me that to graduate to go to college, you needed 9-11 more credits........still not required just to graduate though.

The credits that your child needs to graduate is determined BY YOU as the homeschool parent.  Whether it be 18 or 40, its up to you.  I only compared my plan to the state's because I wanted to see how it compared.  Like I said, its up to you to determine how many credits your child needs to graduate from your school. 

I will be discussing this topic on length, in case anyone cares, and hopefully post information on grading, transcripts, course descriptions, CLEP and honors classes, etc.   If there's anything that you want to discuss, let me know and I'll talk about what I've learned.

Tasty Tuesday

Two new recipes for today!!

Harvest Apple Dip
8 oz softened cream cheese
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together and beat until smooth.  Slice apples and splash with 7up or lemon juice to keep from browing.

Egg Casserole
1 lb sausage, browned and drained
6 slices bread-cubed
2 cups milk
4-6 eggs
1tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz cheddar cheese
1 small onion, chopped
ham-optional-1/3 lb thinly sliced and chopped

Spray 9x13 pan.  Mix all together and put into pan.  Refrigerate overnight or 8 hours.  Bake uncovered for 50 minutes to one hour.

School is going well!

Our second term has just started.  I split our school year up into five terms, anywhere from 6-8 weeks long with a week off in between.  Of course, we do field trips then so we try to keep it educational somewhat....shhhhhh!! Don't tell the kids that!

I also decided to alternate weeks with history and science.  We just weren't focusing enough time on each subject.  I didn't enjoy breezing through the material to move onto the next subject.  I'm also hoping this will give us more time for projects.

TL's Oregon Trail class (from Currclick) is going really well.  He wrote his first journal entry and did really well with it.  This week, they're working on their supply lists.  I remember when we had the Oregon Trail game for the computer....Kevin and I couldn't get out of Independence because our wagon's were too heavy and TL was already in OR.  I think we lost if several moves ago....I'll have to see if I can refind it somewhere.

This past week we ended up taking Wednesday off.  Our time limit for the Navy storing our household goods was up and we had to put it into our own storage.  I'm glad because I was dying to get my bread machine and sewing machine back.  Those movers were fantastic!!  They fit 12,000 pounds of stuff into a 10x30 foot storage space.  Things are stacked up to the ceiling!!  But, I was able to put aside the school books boxes and put them in the front so that I have access to them.  I'm sure I missed a few boxes, but at least they'll be closer to get in to!

The three big kids started the bowling league two weeks ago.  TL did great the first week and not great this past week.  Kevin tried to show him how to put a spin on the ball and it didn't work for him.  Princess improved her average score by 20 points this week.  Bug-a-bug is working hers.  She's used to the bumpers so it will take her a bit.  If she takes her time, she does really well.

That's all on the homefront here.  I have photos to post from when mom was here, but my computer's been so sluggish that I don't want to put them on.  I'm posting to Kevin's external hard drive tonight and I'm also getting a thumb drive!

Take care and have a wonderful week!

All Aboard the Oregon Trail!

TL's taking a class through Currclick.com about the Oregon Trail.  The class started next week and runs for six weeks.  

Each student is assigned a pseudoname with their family and cattle information.  For their first assignment, they had to write about why the joined the trail, describe their family, and tell what they expect along the way. 

Kevin and I decided to do that class because we thought the exposure to another "teacher" would benefit him.  I've talked lately, about his poor attitude doing his schoolwork, and today I saw alot of improvement.  He was excited to write his journal entry and finished not only that but half of his work by lunchtime.  I'm anxious to read his teacher's comments about his journal entry.  He hates to write, especially creative writing so I was happy that he came up with some really good ideas for his entry.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!!  I'll get updated later this week.  I got behind with my mom here!