Starting a new... Not back to school!

After two weeks of fun, sun, and family at the beach, we are diving into Exploring Countries and Cultures today as our first "official" days of Kindergarten and 3rd grade. Public school started back here today also which made the transition a little easier to take. I will say that I am a little overwhelmed by the increase in the amount of work going on with adding in Hulk, but once we find our rhythm hopefully it will smooth out.

Hulk

Ying in the tree, Yang dressed up and ready to go

We Survived Jellyfish Season!

Ying and Yang atop the Tybee Island Lighthouse

We had tons of fun finding all kinds and marine life around the island. It was high jellyfish season and unfortunately the kiddos had to have first aid lessons in dealing with a lot of stings, but they are troopers and didn't let it get in the way of their fun. We had a great time on our Sift and Seine Adventure with the Tybee Island Marine Science Center. The kids sifted sand to find lots of little creatures and used a huge seine net to catch some fish and a lot of jellies. It was great to have someone along who could identify and tell us about all we found! We also tried our hands at fishing on the back river, but patience is not a virtue we have developed in enough quantity, yet.




We Also visited the Oatland Island Wildlife Sanctuary on a day we needed a break from the beach. Above in a picture of Yang with the Cow in the Early Georgia Farm exhibit and below are Ying and Hulk on the Marshland Overwalk. I was low tide so we saw hundreds of little fiddler crabs, snails and some bigger blue crab.

I can't say our week was without TV..lol We found this TV and couch on the beach one morning.

















Hulk had an injury prone vacation with the doors in our condo. Sad thing is when your Mama is an ER nurse and your not bleeding to death, you tend to get very little sympathy when you cause your own injuries. That's why God made Great Grandmothers and Great Aunts ;).
 We loved the beach and had an amazing 2 weeks! Its so great to get together with far flung family in such a low key setting. No one felt like they had to be everywhere or do everything. Great cousin bonding time, even if in the end you have to have a chart on the wall to figure your out how your related to everyone...lol... This is the kids with their "1st Cousin once removed" from Virginia..lol

July--- Half School/half crazy summer fun

July has been a crazy mix of doing school "lite"(Reading, English, Language arts, and Math for Ying and Yang, and Phonics, sight words, and math for Hulk.) and crazy summer type stuff. We've been to the lake, exploded stuff in the driveaway, and done cool art. Our favorite art  were theses cool "fireworks" shirts we made with a group at our local library the week of the 4th.

First, a clean white shirt and some permanent markers. Draw on the shirt. All the kids did very different things. Some did Dots like Yang's here, & others drew full deigns with flowers, heart & stars. After you have your design, place a plate underneath the design and then slowly drop/splash/pour 70-90% rubbing alcohol on it and watch the magic.

Depending on your design, and technique in applying the alcohol the color will bleed and make a new pattern. Yang found that small drops of alcohol in the middle of group of dots gave her the best "firework" effect. The more alcohol you add the more bleeding you will get and less is more as the bleeding continues for 10-20 min after application until it fully evaporated. Some of the older girls in the group had down very darkly filled flowers and poured the alcohol on and got a water color type effect. We will definitely be experimenting with this again. After the shirts are dry don't forget run them on high in the dryer for 20 min, and the run a hot dry iron over them to fix the color!

Yang modeling her shirt at the fireworks!

We also did a little crazy science too... It all started as making volcanoes, and progressed to making colored cornstarch to throw like at the color runs. Hence the fancy safety goggles. Hulk just like to put his feet in the powder....

Hulk working on phonics, while Ying and Yang trudge through English.....

Curriculum Choices for 2014-2015

 So, the next school "year"is upon us. Time to put our noses back to the grindstone after a great 8 weekish break. We are going to a 3 week ramp up of "School lite" before our beach trip, and then fully dive in at the beginning of August. Hulk will be starting K at home this year, after 3 years at the church preschool. Taz is no longer with us on a daily basis as his mom's out for the summer, and he will be entering public pre-k this fall. Ying & Yang will starting 3rd grade. So, here is this years plan.....

The spine for everyone we will be Exploring Countries and Cultures (ECC) by My Father's World. This will provide our Bible, Geography, and partial Science, music, and art.
*denotes co-op classes starting in Aug

For Hulk  (k/1):
Bible: ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers.
Math: Flash Kids Math K
Reading/Phonics/handwriting: First Start Reading by Memoria Press (got this at an amazing price @ our local used curriculum sale)
Dolch sight words pre-primer and primer list.
*Storybook cooking 1 & 2
Science: *Adventures in Space/ Wacky Weather, tag along with ECC science
Music: *Music for Young Mozarts 1&2
PE: Soccer 2 nights per week, Continue 1 mile training
Fine Motor/math/sci: *Lego Free Building/ Lego Early Simple Machines

For Ying "My Logic child" (3rd):
Bible:  ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers
Math: Teaching textbooks. 2nd half of  Math 3, and moving on to Math 4 when ready.
Handwriting: Cursive Writing: around the World in 26 Letters
LA: A combo of Flash Kids  Reading Skills/Language Arts/Writing Skills 3, *Lego Story Starter 1 & 2
Reading: Assigned and self chosen novels/bookbasket
Science: ECC & *Earth Science 1 & 2
Music: ECC & * Beginning Cello
Art: Global art from ECC
PE: *Choi Kwang Do, Soccer 3 nights a week, continue 5K training
electives: *Lego stop animation movie making

For Yang " My artsy social butterfly" (3rd):
Bible:  ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers
Math: Teaching textbooks. 2nd half of  Math 3, and moving on to Math 4 when ready.
Handwriting: Cursive Writing: around the World in 26 Letters
LA: A combo of Flash Kids  Reading Skills/Language Arts/Writing Skills 3,
Reading: Assigned and self chosen novels/bookbasket
Science: ECC & *Earth Science 1 & 2
Music: ECC & * Beginning Cello
Art: Global Art and *Art exploration through mixed media
PE: *Choi Kwang Do, Soccer 3 nights a week, continue 5K training
electives: * Loom knitting for beginners 

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

This weekend the kids participated in some activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. http://battleofkennesawmountain150.com/
We spent quite of bit of Adventures time this past school year on the Civil War because it is very much a part of the history of our area. We pass memorials and markers everyday as we run errands that remind us of the War between the States. We've had a lot of conversations about why in our area there are very few building much older then the 1870's, while a few hours south in my husband's hometown of Savannah there are building dating back to the 1600's. It was fun for them to  get to see some of the living history they pass everyday...

They had several exhibits set up about life in Cobb County in the 1860's. The area was very poor, made up mainly of small farms. Most of the confederate soldiers who fought at the battle did not own slaves and came from "dirt farms" where they barely scraped by day to day. For crafts the girls made corn husk dolls with scraps of fabric and yarn. After the crafts and camp area, came the part they kids really enjoyed. They joined in the children's reenactment of the charge of Big Kennesaw. The kids chose to be a part of the union charge instead of being "dug in" on the the Confederate side. Yang dramatically died seven times to the delight of one small boy on the other side..lol.. They had a great time. I think they  came away with a better understanding of how much war changes things in an area, and how both sides are human.

Yang "dying" in the corner, Ying in the black t-shirt holding the line.

Ying and Yang charge.....

Rocking though history... Girl Scout Camp style...

Hulk and the pixies

Craziness that ensues when teen girls give up being cool. Pals leading camp songs after skits on the last day.

This week all three kiddos and I went to Girl Scout Camp. It was a sweaty, dirty, crazy week that even Hulk enjoyed. I was the camp nurse for the week so I didn't get tons of pictures because I wasn't with the kids the whole time but when  I did catch a peek smiles were ear to ear. Our theme was Music through the Decades and we rocked it out.... My favorite part of camp is watching the older girls stop caring if they are cool just to make a younger girl smile.

Pal prank on the Admin staff.. Sara Wrapped golf cart

The boys eating doughnuts on a string.

Brownies at Flag.

Let's get Weird.....

 This week our church hosted 265 kids preschool to 5th grade for VBS. We did the Weird Animals theme by Group Publishing and it was a great success. We raised over $700 for home missions,  a lot of cans of food for the local pantry and we had 49 kids confess their belief in Christ for the first time.  The days were long for the volunteers, but it was so much fun! I am most proud of our special needs team. We successfully helped get two of our autistic boys through the entire week! Such a success especially since last year one of them couldn't even come into Sunday worship! God truly does work miracles!!!! All my pics are from our prep time as I was  busy during.