Summer School

One of the great things about homeschooling is that almost anything can be a teaching opportunity.  This summer, we've taken advantage of a lot of local farms that have Upick berries.  In the spring we picked strawberries, which we've done quite a bit.

Last month we got to pick blueberries, which is something we've never done before.  We've had lots of fun learning about seeds and sun how things grow. 

The really great part is that everyone gets to do it together.  Jadon picked about a quart of blueberries himself.

Chloe did great, she picked more than half a gallon!  What a champ!

Even Isaac got in on the fun, riding along on Momma's back.

Micah got a little distracted, but still managed to get quite a few berries in his bucket!

Camp Akita!!

One of the great things about homeschooling my kids is that I get to spend so much time with them.  But one of the hardest things for them is how much time they spend with me.  Don't get me wrong, they spend lots of time with friends and cousins, but sometimes they just need a fun day with other kids.  So that's what we did today. 


Camp Akita is just a little over 30 minutes away from us and they have opened up their camp to our homeschooling coop for free once a month.  Today was our first day out there and we had a blast!!  It was a little cold and wet, so we spent several hours out there at the lodge doing crafts and playing games.  Look what a great time we had!

Petra supplied a craft for all the kids to do together.  Even Micah enjoyed that and he doesn't usually like to stay in one place for too long. 

Jody organized games for the kids.  Relay races are always fun! 

This game was a big hit.  I can't remember what she called it but we used to call it "the blob"!

Who says you have to group kids together by age?  We had 15 kids ranging from one month to 13 years old.  While I don't think Isaac actually had any strong opinions, the rest of them seemed to have a great time together despite their age differences.  And how great is it to see the big kids playing with the little kids? 

I love this girl!

I love homeschooling Chloe. Despite the fact that we have not been so great with the schedule lately, we're really having a great time together. It's so much fun to be such an integral part of her learning experience. Chloe's reading has been great ever since we started, but reading for fun has, for the most part, been only preschool books or reading to her little brothers, Jadon in particular. I do love that she enjoys spending that time with JJ, but I so want her to enjoy reading for pleasure. Compounding her lack of pleasure with reading has been the headaches she seems to get from reading for long periods of time. Over the last few weeks, she has learned to recognize the onset of the headaches before they get too bad, and that has definitely helped her a lot. Yesterday, we picked these up to help with the headaches too. Aren't they sweet! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that maybe neither of us was really doing a good job of picking out fun chapter books for her to read. So I spent about 1 and a half hours online, trying to come up with a reading list for her, mostly from Sonlight. She started with Felicity, from the American Girl series, and loved it. Anyone who knows my girl, knows that a good horse story can get her into anything.

From there I gave her a "Little House" book, written as an early reader. She actually threw a fit. So I told her she was to think of it as schoolwork if she had to. Apparently, despite my great pick with Felicity, my book judgement was not to be trusted. So, during our drive to Jadon's ENT, she read the first two chapters as required and then asked to read a "Little Critter" book. I proceeded to agree, but first ask a few questions about the book. After a couple of minutes a question stumped her. She had not gotten that far in the book yet. I asked didn't she want to find out. "No," she says, and puts the book down. She had barely picked up the other book, when she said, "Or maybe yes." That was it. She was hooked.

She finished the planned readers so quickly, that we had not made it back to the library for more yet. I had only intended read-alouds remaining. What else is a girl to do but try those too? So she finished The Boxcar Children in about 3 days. Now she's onto the real "Little House" books. I may have created a monster, but I love to see it!

Back to Work

We've taken the last couple of weeks off from school, but yesterday, on the way to church, I told the kids it would be back to school today. You should have heard the cheers! It's so great to know that my kids love school so much! Even Jadon likes to get in on the action, coloring and clapping and singing along with the big kids.

Homeschoolers at Work

This doesn't violate some sort of child labor law, does it?

Seriously, we did other things for school today. And they'll even tell you that this was fun. I promise. Maybe that's what people mean when they say homeschoolers are weird.