CTG and MFW 1st Weeks 1 & 2 and

Our not back to school celebration on the 1 st day of public school here.

 We are loving Creation to the Greeks  so far. The first 2 weeks have been so smooth compared to last year's start. I think they kids were really ready for some routine. They have also responded really well to the move to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I have already decided I am going to give myself grace this year when it comes to some of the hands on projects and feasts.  I couldn't manage the actual Sabbath feast the first week. Between school,work, doctors appointments, and home health visits, I don't get the time needed. Not sure how I'll handle the next one, but we did take a Sabbath school day...lol. I would love to really do them up, but I am just not sure we'll get to the feasts. So far we've studied the 7 days of Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah. I have been floored at the kids notebooking pages so far. They've made huge leaps in writing. I am getting entire paragraphs and adjectives!!!!! Best of all NO TEARS!!!!!! Even Hulk is not complaining about his writing exercises! He told me the other day that it had gotten much easier to write. So its an understatement to say I am one happy Mommy!

We are veering away from Dinosaurs of Eden.  We are more Old Earth Creationist. Also  we've already been through the discussion with the kids that the age of the earth is debated based on varying evidence and the thing to realize is we really don't know all the details of what happened. God didn't feel we needed all the details, and he is slowly giving us glimpses all the time. We watched a very cool documentary on  the T- Rex . It explained  how over the last 50 years pretty much everything we thought we knew about it  has been proven was pretty much wrong. What I wanted the kids to get from it was that theories are just that theories, humans guessing at the divine. And humans are always reworking theories and learning more.

Science in the Beginning has been awesome so far. The lessons have been great. Short and sweet with a great hands on angle. Even Hulk has gotten a lot of the lessons. I really appreciate all the work done by the ladies previously on the notebooking sheets. So far all of the experiments have been simple, and worked ( or quickly modified to make it work). Our only one that didn't "work" was the day we were supposed to light paper on fire with a magnifying glass. The sun was just not cooperating enough to get the white paper to burn, but we did manage to get some dry leaves and a black peice to light up. We just talked about why the leaves and black paper were easier to burn.

Math we are continuing on with Teaching Textbooks 4. the girls are already a 1/3 through and its going alright. We are having issues with attention errors. I am trying to figure out if its just too easy and they are rushing due to boredom or what. When asked to correct the errors they can fix them in less than a min. Its almost always tiny calculation errors or they skip 4 problems. Only time will tell.


 Hulk is flying through the phonics in MFW 1st, and Saxon 1 math. Dude just gets Math. He listening in on the girls lessons too and picking stuff up. I am going to be in trouble early with this dude..lol

While we celebrated our " Not Back to School Day" we did a little Chalk bombing. Our first year homeschooling my nephew Taz was with us pretty much full time as a 3 year old ( Including 4 days of  the Atlanta Snowmagedon). Taz started Kindergarten in the public school where his mother is a teacher this year, so we decided to surprise him and celebrate the occasion. The kids plotted and planned. We chalked the driveway, left balloons and a big poster. The neighbors must have thought we were crazy, but Taz will never have the "get off the bus" big welcome home that many of his classmate get. So, we wanted him to feel special and loved even though he's not with us daily anymore. Per his mother it was a huge hit, and she was very thankful for the positive encouragement. She is due with #3 in just a few months and was really happy to shine some light on her oldest before the big day.