My Little Soapbox Welcome to my little corner of the internet!

determines whether we have internet! We’ve had some good growth on our trees which is affecting our internet. So things will be sparse until we get it sorted out fully. Occasionally we’re up for hours and then sometimes I’ll sit down to work on things and *poof* no internet.

I love the trees though so we’ll figure out what we need to do with the antenna rather than chop, chop our trees.

In other news are school year is off with a “hooray!” and so far so good. (tongue in cheek). I am planning on to dilegently type up my weekly overviews this year and add some videos of things we did/do as well. I’m focusing on MY documentation this year too.

Well time for me to get back to the kiddos as Cyberchase is about over. What’s up for the afternoon should be yummy and fun: Chocolate Zucchini Bread!

Jr. will begin his Year 2 next Monday. This year we have lots to do and hopefully most of it will be fun for both of us. I am almost ready which I suppose is better than not ready at all. Finding time to actively focus on planning is still an issue. And one that must get resolved if we are to get a significant portion of our plans completed this year. Unfortunately without time to plan what falls to the wayside are the fun, big projects that require me to make sure we have stuff on hand. My goal this year is to carve out time to plan and to gather up the necessary materials for the big projects.

The plan may seem ambitious but if last winter was any indicator of what’s to come this year we will have a number of months where we are effectively here, home and hardly anywhere else. Long winter days are perfect for keeping busy with learning fun!

Year 2 Plan

Math: Singapore 2A/2B
We will be continuing with Singapore Math. Jr. is still lightening fast with picking up math concepts and continues to develop his interest in numbers. This program has worked well with keeping him slightly challenged and growing. We will be adding in Challenging Word Problems this year.

Grammar: Growing with Grammar 1st/2nd
I love this program! What’s more so does Jr. The lessons are nutshell lessons that are easy to complete with no frustration from my reluctant writer. The writing is there but not so much that Jr. gets fatigued which is what leads to frustration. We started this late in the year last year so we will not actually hit the 2nd grade pages till closer to November.

Reading: ETC Online, Various Read Aloud Books
Reading is the bane of Jrs. existence. He can read and read well for his age in my opinion. But he loathes reading aloud. So this year we have an assigned books for him to read to one of us (the parents) at varying levels. We’ll be starting out the year with easy books to encourage his confidence in himself and move up as the year progresses. For additional reinforcement of the phonics rules Jr. will use Explode The Code Online.
This is probably the area of I expect the largest adjustment throughout the year.

Handwriting: HWT 2nd Grade
We need to refine some of the technique and then add more writing to the day. Jr. has nice chunky handwriting when he takes his time but does still tend to utilize all uppercase letters when writing. He’ll also be continuing with writing to his pen pal across the pond. And we’ll have copy-work pages to change up from the technique days.

Geography:
I do not have a set resource for Geography as our focus for this year is just exposure. We’ll touch on Oceans, Continents, US Geography and some World Geography. But the main idea of the year will be to make him more aware that there are other places, countries and peoples.

Science: R.E.A.L. Science Life & Earth & Space
Originally I was just planning on working on Life but instead I am going to be combining the two throughout the year. Depending on how it goes this combination may extend into next year as well. Due to the time of year and what is available we actually started this two weeks ago to cover the first two preliminary units so that we could jump ahead to the butterfly unit since we have caterpillars in a jar now. We will focus on life science for August and then switch to the Earth & Space weather units for September while I regroup for Life again in October.

History: History Odyssey Level 1 Middle Ages
The Ancient while fascinating just never grabbed my boys attention. So while we plodded through as much as we could we will not be continuing on Ancients this year. Instead he will move forward to the Middle Ages and return to Ancient times in a couple of years. I will reiterate my love for rotational nature of history in the Classical method. In a fun and interesting twist on history Jr. has already snagged a few of my “to be read” books for History - knights seem to be right up his alley this year.

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So there is our plan well along with some extra curriculars, art projects and field trips. It will be a full year but one that I hope only keeps us pleasantly busy and learning. If it seems to overwhelming I’ll dial back a bit. On paper it looks crazy but when I look at the lessons themselves it evens out to be an engaging, doable year.

Supplies Tape, Crayons, Scissors, Paper, String and a odd leftover pool part
Add in one four year old

What you get is a floor covered with paper bits and a happily creating boy who is busy long enough for you the mom to get something done and snap some quick photos of your busy little bee.

Writing a letter to a friend across the pond.

Enjoying a butterfly friend visiting our science lab

Our lab wasn’t about butterflies (or rather moths as I think this one was) but we were delighted with the opportunity this little friend gave to us. As we were working on our lab questions from our outdoor lab Jr. felt something on his leg. When he looked down he saw this moth/butterfly. Who very graciously allowed us to hold him and watch as wings flexed, proboscis tasted and little tiny feet clung to fingers. Finally in a fit of natures wonder the little moth/butterfly came back and let us take some pictures!

I am making some random notes for the memory box.

Jr. has an old man tooth. His second front tooth is crooked as all get out but not actually that loose. Thus far he’s not been bothered by it though yesterday when Lil’B smucked him in the mouth we had tears for a bit.
Lil’B is afraid of thunder. This has made for long nights for we parents and the little man himself. He’s fine once he snuggles with us but then he’s snuggling with us. And to be honest he’s not that small anymore. Also he likes to sleep with his arms in strange locations like poking into my back just under my shoulder bone making me quite uncomfortable.

The boys saw the Chipmunk movie - two actually the new one and an classic chipmunk movie. They like the music especially the updated version of witch doctor. This tickles me because we (my siblings and I) used to dance like nuts to the classic witch doctor. And I remember how proud/excited we were to finally get all the words down.

Harley is being a chewy puppy again. Tonight he murdered a poor stuffed parrot. I had parrot fluff guts all over my living room. That I don’t care about. What I do care about is that the rotten mutt some how got a hold of my favorite purple pen and chomped it to bits?! Why he eats things like that when the floor is filled with lots of Harley toys I don’t know! Strange rotten mutt….

ob·fus·cate /??bf??ske?t, ?b?f?ske?t/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ob-fuh-skeyt, ob-fuhs-keyt] –verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.

Nothing tickles me more when reading through my emails than finding new word. I’m going to try very hard to work it into a sentence today - for no other reason than to have a chance to say it. Where did I find this one? In an email about email cloaking on websites.

Words have been having an interesting place in the mind of my dear Jr. lately too. Specifically he’s been asking me about why things are called such or where did they decide that a “A” made an “ay” sound. Which has been fun for me because although I don’t know the answers off the top of my head. I do know enough bits an pieces about where words come from to entice him along while we find the answer.

Which brings me to my next thought:Latin. I’ve been seriously toying with the idea of introducing the boys to latin. I know many will say it is a “dead” language but my mother’s four years of latin was wondrous help in her Nursing studies. And I’m not necessarily wanting fluency - just exposure. Well actually I’m completely hoping that they will have an ear for language similar to their uncle. That they too will be hardwired to pick up languages with interest and ease. I like words and find languages beautiful to listen to but I do not soak them up like the sponge my brother can be with language.

Surely some of that genetic “spongeness” is in me too right?!

It is almost that time to officially fill out paperwork and to begin our new school year. I am busily putting some polishing touches on our upcoming year at the same time I completely rearrange the science units to accommodate the things we can do right now.

I’ve got most of Jr.’s things mapped out and ready to play that wonderful fun game of “school chess” where the pieces get moved around to hopefully end up in a decent completed order by the end of the year! And I’ve mapped out some things to keep darling Lil’B busy. He’s very cute when he grabs “his school” out of his basket. I never know exactly what he’ll come back with - lately it has just been paper and crayons. He’s my budding little artist. And it never fails to amaze me how well he can already create things. I’m not the artsy type though I do sometimes try. But let’s face it my main and best “art” are stick people! I draw a damn fine stick person!

In other news in partial preparation for this year but mostly in a bid to get my sanity back I’ve set up my email accounts differently. Don’t worry if you are reading this it probably doesn’t actually affect you. Mostly it affects me. I love the groups that I belong to but I can’t get through all the email they send. It is daunting and I’m actually only really paying attention to three yahoogroups/elists. They are just prolific!

So I set them up with a separate address. That worked a bit but I was still getting tons of mail to my email client which would snag me when I checked my regular email. So I went a step further and set that email address in a different email client! Yep to get the messages I have to actually open a second program. It is fabulous!

It has also made me aware of how much superfluous email I get and how much of a time sucker my loops are to my day. My regular inbox is quiet and gets a handful of emails a day. Occasionally I get a couple dozen but its not hundreds. And I’m even whittling those down. My big loops are still available but I’m checking them every couple of days instead of lots of times each day. Do I miss out on threads - sort of but better late to the conversation than to feel muddled by all that clutter in my day.

I’m back to my quick loop around the internet which is very necessary if I’m going to keep the boys focused in directions I prefer like those that don’t get them into trouble. For instance I was “busy” and missed them dumping three bottles of paint into the sandbox. What exactly I was “busy” with I’m not sure and I do remember them asking something about paint. My only hope is that I was “busy” cooking or something more acceptable than tinkering on my computer LOL

One of my favorite times of the day right now is after the hustle and bustle of breakfast when I have my morning coffee while the boys have their morning playtime. For some reason we’ve fallen into what I’ve begun to love a quiet, easing into our day. I’m letting them choose how to play but they are consistently choosing to start with some quiet building or action figure play. Me - well I’m sipping my coffee, checking my blogs, catching up on emails and looking out my window.

Today the boys were playing quietly building structures with legos. When it happened that I was glancing out the window while gathering my thoughts on wording for a sentence (working on a website update).  I suddenly caught by a quick flicker of movement. I was then delighted with the view of my ruby-throated hummingbird visiting my hosta flowers. I immediately wished for my camera but I knew it was to far away. So I just stopped. I just stopped and watched my pretty flying friend.

And I enjoyed the view out of my window.

Some of our treasures from the past week’s projects. We have been kept quite busy with several outdoor projects. My chickens are the proud little owners of a new fenced run. The deer will soon learn that the fence we are putting around the garden is for them! (electric :D) Harvest is now upon me in many small ways. I lost out on my strawberries with the move of the bed and I left the rhubarb - because I couldn’t think of anything to do with it sans strawberries! Enjoy our photo bounty (yay batteries!)

Interesting Rock found while Jr. was helping Granpda dig post holes for garden fence.

Currants 2008 - currently turning in to Jelly

Cherry Harvest 2008

My camera has dead batteries again! But my cupboard looks very nice full of cherry pie filling! And my fruit crisp that I made with some of my “extra” cherries is already gone. Super Yum!

Anyway just a quick not to make note that I’m still here.

This week I’ve done lots of laundry.
Cleaned the kitchen a billion times - we’re doing an experiment if cleaning directly after a meal helps keep it “clean”. It does but it also takes a little more of my time.
Got my new computer half set up - wow have I forgotten what a huge pain in the ass it is to switch computers. Then again my dear, darling husband should be celebrating because that means I’ve had my last PC long enough to have forgotten what a PITA it is. Seven years people - seven years with the same pc. Granted its had some work done so its not really going away just being retired down a notch in our families computer hierarchy. Do you ever wonder if your old computer is just a little sad to be forgotten in that dusty corner of the basement? Weird - - no WALL-E.

Speaking of WALL-E I am looking at fast food drinking cups too - or rather when I get one I immediately flash to the scene in the movie about the “cupcake in a cup!”. Strange I know.

I like my new computer and I’m sure its only a short time before I get it all configured and most importantly all my settings transferred. You don’t even want to know how long and how many times I tried to login to my blog before I finally got the combination of user name and password right. *boo hoo* Does anyone else get overwhelmed with the number of passwords they have and how many are “need a special character” or “can’t have a special character” and what is up with those “you used that one six months ago please choose a new one!” GAH!!

Anyway that’s the short news from our end. More soon!