Our New School Year

Evan forming his clay pot.

Yes!!!  April 2, 2012 marked the start of a new school year for us.  We school year around, and so that is why Evan is advancing on to First Grade!

We have made some changes in curriculum.  For Kindergarten, we used Heart of Dakota's guide Little Hearts for His Glory.  We had fun, and Evan grew academically by leaps and bounds, but the Lord lead us back to My Father's World First Grade.  Ethan's first year of homeschool was first grade, and we used My Father's World. 

As I glance through the teacher's manual and Evan's workbooks and the storybooks we read with Ethan, it brings back fond memories of 2009-2010 when we were blessed by using My Father's World.  Ethan learned how to read so well with the solid phonics and reading program that is integrated within this beautiful program!

Day 1 MFW:  Excellent!  Evan didn't complain about the review (writing upper and lower case letters).  The day went smoothly and quickly.  We had so much time to go outside and explore and do some P.E. too!  Evan decided to make a house out of the pattern blocks. 

Day 2:  Interesting, to say the least!  We became totally distracted by a rattlesnake prowling in the pomegranate tree that literally touches our house!  Anyway, we would have been doing our MFW at around 0830, however, little man and I got into a discussion about trees and had a little debate about two of them in our backyard.  Of course, this caused us to go out back and look at the trees (little man totally outsmarted momma on both of the trees indeed being Southern Hackberry even though they look nothing alike--he was correct!).  While out there, Evan yells, "Mommy, there's a rattlesnake in the tree!"  Of course, I run away from the direction he is pointing at and scream.  For the life of me I cannot see that slithery sucker anywhere, and Evan keeps saying THERE, RIGHT THERE!  Well this not so keen eye- sighted momma can't see it RIGHT THERE!!! We go inside and Evan has an idea:  we should go to his bedroom and look out his window that is right by the pomegranate tree in which he spotted the snake.  We go to his room and I keep looking and looking and...oh yeah, right there wrapped around a branch is what looks to be a baby Western Diamondback!  YIKES!!!

Daddy comes home to the rescue to rid us of the crazy thing, but he slithered off somewhere and couldn't be found.  Hence, we are on "alert" around here.  There is hope that perhaps it was just a Kingsnake and not a rattler...hope!

Anyway, after Daddy left, we were on to our second day of MFW.  Another smooth day, and then we got to make our clay pots for our scrolls!  This brought back fond memories of making them back in 2009. 

You will see that I included pictures of yesterday and today, and pictures back from August of 2009. 

Ethan forming his clay pot back in 2009.  I miss you!

UPDATE:  We took off a lot more of the summer than we had anticipated due to a really awesome road trip we took up north to the Dakotas.  We started back a couple of weeks ago, and have slowly gotten into a pretty solid routine.  We are getting ready to plant a fall garden with seed from Baker Creek.  Fall gardening will be a huge part of our science this year, and will our Spring garden.

We are still using My Father's World first grade, and I will be adding in some extra projects.  One book we will be adding is The Young Man's HandyBook--Preparing Your Son on the Homefront by Mrs. Gail Kappenman and Mrs. Martha Greene.  This book is super neat, and truly is a book I think all mommas should complete with their sons (some project do require daddy's help).  I'm really excited to share the experiences with Evan.

Our extracurricular activities are still undecided.  We are going to continue with swim lessons, and perhaps do homeschool soccer or Cub scouts.  But I think with church and swim and school and gardening and field trips and chores...we will keep busy!  Happy school year to all out there, whether you homeschool or your children go to public or private school!

The boys working hard on their clay pots--2009.

Evan, only 3.5 at the time!  He has grown so much!

Evan today, growing so fast!