I'm still here!

Sorry for the lack of posts.  We've been crazy busy and have had internet issues again.  The sprint wifi box we  had wouldn't work anymore and they wanted us to pay $35 to replace it, but it wasn't even 6 months old so we cancelled it.

We're now trying to make hubby's cellphone into a wifi spot, but we couldnt figure it out yesterday.  This morning I'm at Starbucks because I have to finish my class discussions.  I tried McDonalds but their internet was down.  I really hate coffee so the smell is getting to me!!  I guess I'd better get off and try to finish up my homework.  Have a wonderful week everyone!

Military spouses blog hop

Hi!!  My name is Michelle and I'm originally from WNY, y'know lots of snow and the superbowl losers for four years in a row.  But, we do have great chicken wings, bison chip dip, and beef on weck.

I moved to VA in 1993 and  met my hubby, who was stationed there in 1995.  We married in 1996.  Since then, we've had five kids and moved five times.  Our first move wasn't until 2002.  We went to Japan for 10  months, moved to Lemoore, CA for 2 years, back to Japan for three years, over to Whidbey Island, WA for 2.5 years and now we're back in Lemoore.

My hubby is Navy and going on 24 years of service this year.  He is a surface rate.  He actually is the Maintanence Master Chief of one of the fighter squadrons here.  He does deploy to air craft carriers.  We've done nine deployments together.  Some lasted only three months, most were six, a few were almost eight.  I can't even count the number of workups he's done.  Workups are "getting ready for deployment"  and they generally last one week to six. 

Today is Military Spouses Appreciation Day.  I have to say, without my fellow sisters/spouses, these absences from my husband would have been very difficult.  For the most part, we've never been around family; we're usually overseas or on the other side of the continent.  To all my wonderful friends, and all the other military spouses, have a wonderful day!!!

We have five kiddos.  I can't download any current photos (I just realized the ones on the sidebar are almost two years old now) because my laptop doesn't seem to want to start up.  TL is the only boy and the oldest.  He turns 14 soon.  Princess is 11, Bug-a-bug will be 9 soon, Little Miss Trouble is 4, and the Monkey is 2. 

We do homeschool our kids.  When we got orders back here to Lemoore, I'll be honest I wasn't thrilled.  Its way too hot here for this northern chick.  We have been on the west coast or overseas for years and because of it, I haven't been home much.  Our deal was to upgrade our travel trailer to our fifth wheel and live in it. You can see our home here.http://www.eagleeyeacademy.blogspot.com/2011/05/heritage-history.html The kids and I will travel during the summer.  This year, we leave in  July to head back up to WA to visit some friends.  I think we're going to head back through MT, WY, and CO since I've never been there.  Next summer we're leaving in May and traveling across the country and seeing everything we can along the way.

I am currently finishing my bachelor's degree.  I will be done in December!!  Yeah!  I love to read, quilt, and do genealogy research.  I have a quilting and genealogy blog but I rarely have time to update them.  I also like to scrapbook, although can't do that here, so I'm switching to digital scrapbooking. 

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Please leave a message so I know who you are and where you're from.

Do you schedule your day?

I used to but I got away from it.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps the move, perhaps my laziness.

All I know is that the last few weeks have been hectic.  It seems that everyone does their independent work at the same time and then they all clamor for my attention to work with them. 

This weekend, I made a schedule.  Although the times don't always mesh out (we're usually done before the time alloted), things are going much much smoother.  I don't feel as crazy as I did the last few weeks, which is good.  Its been in the 90s here already and its miserable.  The kids spend most of their day inside because whoever decided to design this rv park really messed up.  Usually your "hookups" are on one side....electric, water, cable, and waste.  The other side of your camper is where the door is.  Our door, and everyone else who lives here, opens up into the sun ALL DAY LONG.  It is so hot.  There's no shade to speak of and you can't even go outside later and sit when it cools down because you're still sitting in the sun. 

Oh, well.  We leave July 20th for two months.  Hopefully, the heat will not be bad until then, but we had a really  mild winter so they are predicting an extremely hot summer.  Oh, and they don't open the pool until Labor Day.

Changes for next year already......

What a busy week this has been and will continue to be.  Monday night is gymnastics, karate, and boy scouts.  Tonight is a makeup gymnastics class.  Wednesday night is gymnastics again with TL going to karate.  We're also hooking up that night and driving to Bakersfield to get the fifth wheel looked at.  They are taking care of some things that are covered under warranty.  I hope that they are able to fix the fridge.  Its been over a month of not having one and I'm quite over it.  They are also going to look at the front A/C again.  Its making nasty noises when you turn it on again.  They fixed it once already so I hope that they will be able to take care of it correctly this time.  I don't really like the drive back.

So, the girls have told me that the don't want to do Teaching Textbooks next year.  They want to go back to Saxon.  And I'm still trying to decide what to do for science with them.  I may switch them to Switched on Schoolhouse to take some of the teaching pressure and planning off of me.  With Miss Trouble staring kindergarten next year, I need to make sure I make time for her, which means the big girls need to be a little more independent.

Have a wonderful and blessed week!

History and Science weekly wrap up

Its been a busy week here.  For science, the girls split up and decided to study different things.  Bug-a-bug is studying birds and then trees.  Princess decided she wanted to learn abut the ocean.  I downloaded two really nice units from Currclick: Simple Schooling: Birds and Simple Schooling:Oceans to start off our study.  Both were only $5 each.  They worked on several units and really learned alot.  It was aot of fun.

TL is working on finishing up his Survival Skills notebooking unit that I got from Hands of a Child.  He's enjoying learning about surviving in different types of weather conditions.

For History this week, we worked on a quick review of the first three presidents on our start into the first decade of 1800.  We watched the Presidents video from the History Channel and then I downloaded President information sheets and President layer books.  They are located on the same link as above, just a little further down.  I opted not to make them as books, but use them as a notebooking page. 

On Thursday, we started discussing the French Revolution.  I make an information page for TL to fill in after reading the information on the Hands of a Child unit.  The girls did the lapbooking books.  We covered about six of the topics on the French Revolution.  Next week, we'll finish up the French Revolution and discuss the Louisiana Purchase; moving forward into our study of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

I hope to place some of my order for next year this week.  How's your  next year coming along?

The one with the Big Foot..

Hubby's been working the last two days.  It isn't fairing well for his foot.  Its just a little swollen:

I'm not posting the other pick of the side of his foot.  Its dark purple, green, and yellow from severe bruising.  It looks awful.

In my own supportive way, I suggested that we break the other foot so that the swelling matches and he could go into the woods to make Big Foot footprints.  That was a no go.

I also suggested that we take a pin to see if we could "pop" the foot and relieve some pressure.  Also a no go.

Its a good thing, he still has a good sense of humor! 

I think I finally talked him into staying home today.  He's had is foot up but everytime he stands up (with crutches of course), the pain is unbearable from all the blood rushing down to his foot.

Please pray for a speedy recovery!

School year 2012-2013

So here's what books I've planned so far for next year:

Little Miss Trouble-kindergarten
Sing Spell Read and Write
All About Spelling Level one
Bob Jones Kindergarten math
little unit studies for history and science

Bug-a-bug-Fourth Grade and Princess Fifth Grade
English:
All about Spelling
Growing with Grammer-Grade 4 and Grade 5
Student Writing Intensive Level A-IEW
Poetry Memorization
Library Skills grade 4 and 5
Literature to include: Boxcar Children, Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry, Pippi Longstocking, Heidi, Charlotte's Web, and Long Winter

Art:
Meet the Masters

Math:
Teaching Textbooks Grade 4, Grade 5

Geography:
Daily Geography Grade 4, 5
Passport Club

Bible:
Awana
Positive Action Grade 4, 5


Science for Fourth and Fifth Grade
Unit studies to include: animal classification, weather, space, plants, owls, and the food pyramid.  Will be using some units from Hands of a Child, free unit studies from Homeschool Share and lots of books.

History for all
Lessons, readings, and projects to include chronological history from Civil War to current times.

TL-Ninth Grade

English:
Student Writing Intensive Continutation Course
SAT Vocabulary flashcards
English from the Roots Up
Study Strategies Made Easy
Discover what your Best at
Teaching the Classics
Introduction to Poetry
Shakespeare, Yes You Can
Reading Selections:  short stories from Great American Short Stories, The Hobbit, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Sawyer, Christmas Carol, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Taming of the Shrew, and Midsummer Nights Dream video

Math:
Saxon Algebra with CD teacher

Spanish
Tell me More Level One

Bible:
Switched on Schoolhouse Grade nine

Art:
Artistic Pursuits

Science:
Saxon Biology

Computer:
Lifepacs on Word, Windows, Powerpoint and Excel
Typing skills

Government:
American Government text from Power Basic
Are you liberal? Conservative? or thoroughly confused


So, how's your planning going?

Planning next year....already?

If your anything like I am, you've probably been outlining in your mind what you plan on doing in your homeschool next year as soon as this year began.  Next year, I will have four different school ages and a preschooler to contend with.  TL will be entering high school and its just going to be crazy around here.  I'm still planning on doing history together as a family.  TL will be adding in some extra classes, such as computer and spanish.  I have to find time to teach the soon to be 5 year old to read.   So, I've decided to change our schedules.  First, we'll have Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays which will be the days we do the most important subjects: writing, grammer, spelling, reading, bible, and math.  Tuesdays and Thursdays we'll dive into nice long history, science, and art lessons.  TL will also be doing his computer classes on those days.  He'll also be doing a government class for a 1/2 credit but I haven't figured that out yet.

So, his ninth grade looks like this:

Math
English
Spanish
Bible
Computer
Art
Science
History
Government

I also decided to change our school year around.  We're going to do six weeks on and one week off.  Here's how it looks so far:

August 20th-September 28th

(Labor Day off)

October 8th-November 16th

(the week off is Thanksgiving week, yeah)

November 26th-Jan 18th

(we will probably take close to two weeks off for Christmas because my dad will be here during that time.  This will also be the end of the first semester)

January 28th-March 8th

(off for President's day)

March 18th-April 26th

May 6th-June 14th

(memorial day off)

I think I've calculated 177 school days for the year.  This of course, does not include any field trips we may take on our weeks off. 

I've picked out all the curriculum for next year too, although I'm too tired to type that up tonight.  Did I mention, I have to give hubby pain meds every four hours?  Oh, and my laptop seems to have died and it looks like the air conditioning has gone out in my truck (its 95 here this weekend)

Have a wonderful week everyone!