Cinnamon Germs

This experiment is courtesy of the girl scout handbook. Using cinnamon and vegetable oil you can find the best way to wash your hands and get germs off.

3 people minimum are needed. Take one tablespoon of vegetable oil per person and get it all over your hands. Then take 1 teaspoon of cinnamon per person and rub that all over your oily hands. The cinnamon represents germs which you normally can't see.

Now one person washes their hands in cold water only. One person washes their hands in warm water only. The last person washes their hands in warm water and soap.

here are the before....





and after pictures.

The results were that person who washed in cold only stayed pretty germy. person who washed in warm water only got somewhat clean. Person who washed in warm water with soap got almost completely clean.

A good science experiment and hand washing lesson all in one!

Ski lessons week 4

Week 4 of skiing. It was a nice day, sunny, not windy, probably the warmest it's been so far. Of course I forgot my sunglasses and found the whiteness too much at times. Gotta complain about something, the cold, the wind or even the sun. LOL

Tristan is still in the beginner area, I think he had a breakthrough with his stopping and turning today. I hope he'll get to try one of the larger lifts and slopes next time.



I didn't get to see much of what Colin did today. He was wayyyyy up the mountain a lot of the time.


His first ever ride on a chair lift. These pictures aren't great but I had to try and capture the moment. Colin is in the light green and gray jacket and blue snowpants.


They get on the chair lift one instructor per each kid just in case any kids had trouble.

Up they go, Colin's in the middle.

Higher and Higher

Colin said the chair lift was fun and kinda creepy!

I couldn't go up with him so only got pictures of the bottom of his runs. Seems like he did great though! He is hooked and loves, loves, loves skiing!

Colin was happy that he got to use ski poles this week.

The boys were very tired by the time we went home!

Around The World In A Homeschool Year

Initial planning World Geography Year

A Homeschool Year is however long you need it to be. These times and weeks are appoximate. This assumes the purchase of the following by Carson Delarossa:
A Trip Around The World
Another Trip Around The World
A New Trip Around The World
abreviations for all ATAW

Already Own
Children Just Like Me abrev. CJLM
Usborne Peoples of the World-POTW
Evan-Moor Geography centers

aready own
not scheduled but will use when needed
Kids around the world create
kids around the world celebrate
kids around the world cook

Getting Ahead World Geography DVD- From Library
Standard Deviants World Geography-Netflix
BBC Planet Earth DVDs-Netflix
Country and culture DVD's-Netflix
Country and ulture books and DVD's-Library


Early Summer 2009

Geography Study

week 1- Our neighborhood. Our road, the lake, the woods. Measuring acres, measuring distance, using a compass. Take it to your seat Geography centers- parts of a map section, a map grid section. Make a map grid of our neighborhood.

week 2- read aloud maps and globes. Our town, how far to the center of town from our house? Geography centers - kinds of maps.

week 3- Our State of NH, how far to our state Capitol from our town, How far to the largest city. Differences in our state, small cities- very rural. Mountains, lakes, borders. How far to canadian Border. How far to the Ocean. Which other New England states border NH. Geography centers- landforms.

Week 4- New England region. What are the other New England States

Week 5- Regions of the USA, Geography enters- regions Children Just Like me book pages 18-22 Children in different parts of the USA

Week 6- USA Our 50 States Geography Centers- The 50 States. State Flags Book.

Week 7- Geography Centers- time zones. More 50 State review. ATAW USA

Week 8- water Water Everywhere- Geography centers Bodies of Water. Oceans, names, major lakes and rivers. Library Books about this?

Extras Fun To Solve Map Mysteries

Week 9- North America, Geography Centers- North America Q&A Peoples of the world p12-13

Week 10 Canada - Children Just Like me p23 Peoples of the world p 16-17 ATAW Canada
Library? learn about regions of Canada, canadian recipe

Week 11- Greenland Peoples of the world p 17 maps, recipe

Week- 12- Mexico PofW p 18 CJLM- p 16-17 ATAW Mexico.

Week-13 Puerto Rico ATAW

Week- 14 Cuba ATAW

Week- 15 Central America PofW p 20-21 ATAW Panama

Week-16 Guatamala- ATAW

Week 17- South America PofW 28-33

Week 18- Brazil POTW p-34-35 CJLM p 14-15 ATAW Brazil

Week- 19- Argentina- CJLM-p12-13 ATAW Argentina

Week 20- Chile-ATAW

Week-21- Bolivia-CJLM 10-11

Week-22 Peru-ATAW

Week 23 Venezuela- ATAW Venezuela

Weeks 24-28 Christmas Around The world lapbook and study Approx Dec-Jan

Weeks 29-30 Antarctica ATAW

Week 31 - Europe POTW 38-48 CJLM 24-25

Week 32- England

Week 33- Ireland, Scotland, Wales ATAW United Kingdom

Week 34-France CJLM 32 AtAW- France

Week 35 - The Netherands ATAW Netherlands

Week 36 - Spain ATAW Spain

Week 37-Germany ATAW Germany

Week 38- Italy ATAW Italy

Week 39- Poland CJLM

Week 40 Ukraine CJLM

Week 41- Russia CJLM ATAW

Week 42-Greece ATAW Greece

Week 43- Norway ATAW Norway

week 44- Sweden CJLM

week 45- Finland- CJLM

Week 46- rest of Europe

Week 47- Asia POTW 66-69 CJLM 46-47

Week 48 Russia again POTW 70-71

Week 49 The Middle East POTW 72-73 CJLM ATAW Iraq

Week 50 China ATAW China POTW 74-75 CJLM 48-49

Week 51 India and Pakistan ATAW India CJLM 56-60 POTW 76-77

Week 52- afghanistan ATAW

Week 53- Japan ATAW Japan POTW 79-80 CJLM 52-53

Week 54 Suadia Arabia ATAW

Week 55 Israel ATAW rest of Asia

Week 56 Africa regions POTW 50-63 CJLM 34-35

Week 57 Egypt CJLM 56 ATAW Egypt

Week 58- Morocco ATAW Moroco CJLM 40-41

Week 59- Nigeria ATAW Nigeria

Week 60- Ghana ATAW Ghana CJLM 38-39

Week 61- Kenya ATAW Kenya

Week 62- South Africa ATAW S. Africa CJLM p 37

Week 63 Australasia and Oceania POTW 82-83 COTW 64-75

Week 64-Australia ATAW Australia COTW 76-77 POTW 84-85

Week 65 New Zealand POTW 86-87 CJLM 74-75

Week 66- Papau New Guinea and Oceania POTW 88-91

Week 67- What did we miss? LOTS Find something we missed and study it

Week 68- End of World Study Celebration Sometime near end summer of 2010

homeschool planning progress

I have two categories checked off, yippee. I love it when things fall into place. There are many things to deal with when planning curriculum. Although in many respects it must have been much harder for homeschoolers years ago I expect one area was easier, choosing between the choices! Are we spoiled or what these days with the massive amounts of curriculum to choose from? It's a wonder anyone can choose without getting caught up in all the possibilities. Even I, as a more relaxed homeschooler, have at times given in to curriculum addiction. Thinking, could that one be better or is this one just the thing to make homeschooling perfectly perfect. If only I had a spare $1000 for that fancy program or wow these items cost only $2.00 each, I should get them all. Thankfully I don't seem to bow down to curriculum these days ( not much anyway!) as a long time homeschooler but there is still fun to be had in the searching. It's only fun for awhile though so I'm glad to have two categories checked off.

Math will be:

Math u see pre-algebra, Math u see Algebra and Christian Light Education Sunrise edition.

Trevor will go through MUS pre-algebra after we complete the teaching company's basic math in a month or two. Or I may run them concurrently if late topics in basic math match up with early topics in pre-algebra. Then in the fall Trevor will start in MUS Algebra.

Hayley will continue in the CLE sunrise math but I will also have her sit in on the MUS pre-algebra. I think she can handle it now. Math isn't her favorite thing but she has gained some confidence this year. I will not move her into Algebra in the fall though. She will move to the next level of CLE.

Colin and Tristan will continue CLE Sunrise math. In the elementary grades it's fast moving and the varied topics work very well for my busy boys.

Language Arts will be

Galore Park English.

I feel very content with this choice. The younger boys will be in Junior English 1 and Trevor and Hayley will work through So You Really Want to Learn English 1.

Simple to implement, looks fun, great prices- I like it!

Other categories are up in the air but I feel confident that we will have a blast traveling around the world in the next homeschool year call my world Geography and Cultures plan:

Around The World In A Homeschool Year (and a homeschool year can be as long as it needs to be).

I can conceivably see that topic encompassing Social Studies, Science, Art, Music, Cooking, Bible........

Probably will get something else for science too just because its the kids favorite.

Then I will be available to help with anything the children want to learn or explore on their own.

Our current year is going well, I have seen many reasons for this early planning of "next year" and everyone's reasons are different and good. My reason is that "this year" is done whenever spring arrives. This has become a tradition in our house, once it's nice outdoors we are sooo done with anything formal. NH winters are fierce and it's so nice when we get back outdoors. I think I will continue math right through this year though, probably 3x per week, it will save reviewing later.

Cub Scouts Senior Citizen Dinner

It is a tradition for the Webelos cub scouts in our area to put on a dinner for the Senior Citizens. The Webelos are the oldest of the cub scouts ages 9-11 and it's a 1.5 year level. Colin and Tristan are so close in age that we called them both the same grade level when they began scouts so they are both currently Webelos 1. They will both finish cub scouting in just over 1 year and then will be Boy Scouts if they choose to continue. I felt it would be chaotic to have them in two different levels, doing two different sets of activities and events it made sense to combine them since they are very close in age.

Tristan enjoyed the senior dinner, he is very much a people person and loves talking with older people. Colin had a harder time because we are vegetarians and he had to serve meat. He finds it hard to look the other way so to speak and after awhile serving the plates with meat on them made him feel sick. At least he tried, he was originally told that he would not have to serve meat but they changed the way they handed out the dinners and he had no choice since everything was already on the plates together rather than dishes being served individually. He made it through anyway and I've told him that he doesn't have to participate in this particular event next year if it bothers him so much, or he can just help with set up not serving.


Tristan helps get the tables ready before the senior citizens arrive.


Colin and another scout get tables ready.


The seniors seemed very happy with their dinner and thanked the scouts.


After the seniors were served the boys were allowed to eat too, yum!


They liked the food....

...they really liked the desserts! Pies, apple, blueberry or cherry. Colin had a piece of each!

I'm glad the boys have chances to serve and work for others through some of their scout events.

Bedtime Failed

By this age range, 9-14, bedtime is usually pretty straightforward. Tonight I tucked the kids in as usual, said good nights etc....

Back downstairs and I heard much talking and playing between the younger three, mostly Colin and Tristan. I waited a bit to see if they would settle and they did not. Back up the stairs I went. I said to the kids; I guess something went wrong with bedtime tonight, everyone is back out of bed and playing.

Tristan said, bedtime failed.

Colin jumped in with, I guess we better try again.

I replied ok we will try again. I hope bedtime doesn't fail again or we may have no screen time tomorrow (tv, computer, video games, usually much desired on winter weekends).

Colin and Tristan quickly reply, oh it will work this time, we're sure bedtime won't fail again.

Bedtime failed...... that's a new one to me. I wonder if something in the atmosphere causes the failure to be tucked in and stay in, thus bedtime failed.

ski time again

Another Thursday at the mountain. Skiing has become one of the boys favorite things to do. The weather was much warmer this week, 20's rather than -0. Colin and Tristan had their lesson then took an extremely short lunch break before heading back out to practice skiing for a couple hours.

The higher they start, the harder it is to take pictures!


Tristan is doing well.


Colin has moved on to a larger lift area now and I rarely saw him today. He made a friend with another boy in the group and they had races and were all go. Colin reminded me that I don't have to stay nearby he is fine without me. LOL

Hand warmers are Hand-y!

Colin took one fairly big fall from quite a height at quite a speed but he bounced right back up again. Kids! Mainly Colin did very well and was going faster every time I happened to spot him. Tristan hasn't made it out of the beginners area yet but hopefully soon. He gets tired and forgets crucial things like how to stop and how to get up if you fall. I think he's having fun though and that's the main thing!

Homeschool Planning

I've seen homeschool planning posts on a couple blogs this morning and that inspired me to start a rough draft of my own plans for next year.

Trevor

Math-
Algebra- planning a very visual approach for 1-1.5 years
Mus Algebra- purchase
Standard Deviants DVD's- borrow from Netflix
Teaching Company High School Algebra- find used or borrow through Netflix

Language arts-
?

History/Social Studies-

1 year world geography study using various sources not yet determined

Science-

Space and Earth Science (BJU? something I design? Videos?)

and/or

Chemistry ?

Hayley

Math-
CLE -purchase

Language arts-

Galore park- purchase
or
CLE- purchase but not sure it's a good fit we're trying a couple units of it now
or
LLATL Green-already have

History
1 year world Geography- materials TBD

Science
? go down with younger boys or up with Trevor?
some interest led studies too

Colin

Math-
CLE- purchase

LA
CLE or Galore park

History
1 year world geography study- materials TBD

Science

Real Science 4 kids level 1 Chemistry/biology/physics- purchase or find used

Tristan

Math-
CLE

LA-

CLE 2 or Galore Park 1 or 2

History-
1 year world geography study- materials TBD

Science-

RS4K- real science 4 kids chemistry/biology/physics level 1

A very rough outline but it's a start. Things I know I want are Language arts that is all in one, math from CLE for younger three and lots of visuals for Trevor's algebra. To study world geography, which we had planned to do this year but we're studying both US and world history instead. I feel earth and space science goes along with a geography study wonderfully well and could do that for all the kids, I keep wanting to try RS4K too though. We could use two sciences. I'm not sure if we're going to like CLE language arts even though their math is a good fit for us, so I will investigate Galore park English. It's an all in one and it would be fun to have a British made course in our line up.

2008 in review- first post of each month

I saw this on Debbie's blog and thought it looked fun. You take the first sentence of each month from 2008 and post it.

January

It snowed.

February

We have learned about penguins before, even did a science fair project about them.

March

It was Monday homeschool group day again.

April

Last Day of Monday homeschool co-op, what is there to say except we made it!

May

Day at Bounce U. Just fun pictures in no particular order.

June

Busy days of late, wrapping up our homeschool year, basically just getting my paperwork into the school district at this point.

July

Colin went to Grammy's house for 5 days, he wanted Hayley to photograph his tadpoles if any started changing.

August

The big news of the day is that Tristan has passed the level 2 swimming class with flying colors!

September

Most days over the past week or two we've gone to the lake for at least a few hours.

October

A busy week and not many photos it seems.

November

We went to my Mother's house for Halloween as we have some other years.

December

We had a week long power outage.

22 Below

MINUS 22

-22 F

22 BELOW Zero

No matter how it's written temperatures that cold are insane.

That's what the temperature was this morning.

So cold our thermometer, which only registers between -20 and 120 F was not registering anything at all. I had to go online to see what our local temperature was.

It took a long time for the house to warm up even with 3 heat sources attempting it. And even then it wasn't warm just not too cold. Some people had no electricity and I felt very bad for them. Apparently the outages were caused by the contracting of power lines at such cold temperatures.

We made some more pine cone, vegetable shortening and birdseed feeders for the birds. I knew they would be having a hard time in these extreme low temperatures. Lots of birds were eating from the pine cone feeders before I even finished tying them all on the tree.

This is not a great picture but the pine cone feeders are tied onto our Christmas tree which has now been placed outdoors. This is one of our traditions, after we use our Christmas tree we give it to the birds and toss things like popcorn, fruits, breads and seeds onto it. It serves as a good place to hang the pine cone feeders too.

ski lessons week 2

Week two of ski lessons and the temperture is hovering below zero! It was not as bad as I expected on the mountain, mainly because there was no wind. I spent most of my time inside though leaving the bundled up boys in the care of the competent instructors.

Tristan is getting faster and more confident on the turns.

Colin is already at home on a pair of skis.

Being well bundled results in a funny thing happening to ones hair!

Heading home with a hot drink to warm up with.

What is typical and does it work

We've pretty much never kept a "typical" homeschool schedule. When the children were little and even middle ages I tried to go with teachable moments and hit when the attention spans were high or the interest was there. Then we got a little older and co-ops kept the weeks from being the typical Monday-Friday homeschooled, weekends free. We used Saturday as a homeschool day the year and a half we participated in co-ops. During Christmas- New Years time we did some math and watched some educational DVDs on the holiday week and weekend. Then last week we finally had a Monday-Friday week with only a half day skiing as an extra. I have found that the kids and I would both like to try typical weeks now so I decide to start trying to get into that sort of routine. We hadn't had a real weekend before the first Monday of the year though as we'd done some science experiments and reading aloud on Saturday. Soooo, this past weekend after a full week, we took off both weekend days. Saturday morning the kids were asking me if we were going to do any work. I said no it's the weekend. They asked again on Sunday and got the same reply. Then today, Monday, they went straight to the fun stuff and I had to call them back and say we've got some lessons first, it's Monday! We will get used to this, if we decide to stick with a traditional schedule, it just might take some time!

Today didn't go all that well, I don't know why. We felt rushed even though there was no need to rush. I felt rushed anyway. All kids needed a lot of my help having all had something new in math. That doesn't happen too often that everyone has something they have never encountered before all on the same day, as they are all in different levels of math. The math goblins conspired to have it so this day though so I was hopping from kid to kid to kid to kid dealing with perimeters and ordinals and percents to decimals....

After math and LA I was glad to put on the next video lesson in the Teaching Company world history course and take a breather. I have reviewed our USA history course for this year but not yet the world history, I will get to that at some point. The basis for the older kids is the TC high school level world history (it does seem to be suitable for middle school ages too with some extra explanations).

Only a couple kids had specific science for today so we had time before I had to cook lunch. I played the first "Getting Ahead Primary Science" DVD for the kids. It was about animal babies with some info about habitats and adaptations. It was super cute but there was one thing I didn't like at all! The narrator was speaking in a jokey tone, probably meant to appeal to young kids as these are geared towards ages 7-10, and he used the words stupid and another not so nice word (forgot now it may have been dumb or idiot!) a few times. Such as pretending to be a young fox he said I will catch that stupid rabbit he isn't camouflaged very well. In all I think I counted only 3-4 instances of these words but still there was no need. These are geared to a young audience and are meant to be educational. I will carry on with viewing this series since none of the other science topics would likely lend themselves to this type of narration. I do want to point it out though. I felt these few words took away from the professionalism of these DVDs. It just wasn't something I expected in a "school" type DVD.

I heard about a monthly art class and mentioned it to the children, they all shouted a resounding NOOOOOO. Some people need to de-school, we need to de-co-op before they will want to take any classes they perceive as school like again.

The rest of the day was lunchtime, our big meal of the day, bringing in wood, fighting with the wood stove. Bobby altered it this weekend by adding a grate and I don't think it works very well now. I'm not sure if he's going to try something else. He was trying to make it easier to clean out the ashes but the wood doesn't seem to burn as well up on a grate with all the ashes and still glowing embers dropping through. Then I had to hand wash some shirts which is a major pain. The washing machine is STILL not working. We have trouble with water using appliances in the winter since our kitchen and the cellar underneath is the coldest part of the house, things freeze up. Wayyyyy back before Christmas and even before the power outage something went wrong with the washing machine after the plumbing had frozen. Unfortunately we still haven't figured out what is wrong and why the washer isn't working right. It won't drain or spin even when we make sure nothing is frozen on it. So now I'm stuck hand washing items and drying them near the wood stove. I really do not like doing this at all! I would never make it as a pioneer.

So there was the afternoon gone. The kids are working on pinewood derby cars since it's almost that time again. We did animal care and watched the Suite Life On Deck, which is a funny TV show. It's terribly cold outdoors, nobody wanted to play in the snow. It did snow quite a bit more over the weekend about a foot of new snow I think.

First day of Ski Lessons

The big day is finally here. Colin and Tristan started ski lessons! They've been anticipating this day for a couple months. The day lived up to their expectations and they can't wait to go back to the mountain and ski again!

First stop, getting fitted for ski's and boots.

Ready and waiting for the rest of our group.

The red level, where beginners start. Only one other child from our group was in this level. Made it nice to have a small group and plenty of attention.

The first part of the lesson was making A's and H's with ski's so they know how to stop and go.

Next they head up the easiest lift, the little magic carpet.

First trip down the hill.

Tristan falls

and can't figure out how to get up

Someone helps him learn how to get up


Here comes Colin on his first run and Tristan is up again.

Near the bottom


and up they go again. Tristan fell getting on the lift the first half dozen times until he finally got it.

It is starting to snow heavily at this point and I am FREEZING!

Colin and Tristan continue to have fun and ski for a couple hours after their lesson.

They go faster each time down the hill.

Both boys loved skiing and can't wait to go back! Colin was seen trying to climb the mountain higher than the magic carpet and tow rope lifts could go. He loves it already and wants to go higher...faster!

Tristan liked getting a lift on a truck between the beginners area and the lodge.


Hot chocolate for cold kids!

Rosy cheeks and very happy.

Tristan is very tired by the time we head home. Hayley gave him a lift for the last little bit of the walk.

Our USA history 2008-2009- a mid year review

A funny thing happened on the way to my curriculum plan this year. I had planned to study Geography with the kids but we ended up studying world history AND USA history and government instead. Hopefully this makes up for all the years we did double science and marginal history!

We've had a good time learning more about our own country. For the younger set we made a quick trip through Heart Of Dakota's Bigger Hearts for his Glory. This was a fun USA history curriculum. We didn't use it to full advantage since my kids are older but it did the trick for my younger boys. They needed more background in US history and they got it with the history readings and activities in Bigger Hearts. We didn't use much of the science component since I was already using the One Small Square series (which Heart of Dakota also uses) in my homeschool co-op classes, with my own children trying out the activities before co-op each week. Also we'd already read through A Pioneer Sampler a year ago so I didn't feel a need to use it again. Having said that, this was the history we needed this year and the reading in HOD's Bigger Hearts were perfect, not too short and not too long. My boys particularly liked the "Journeys Through Time" book and also "The Wright Brothers and Their Sister". It was a nice co-incidence that when the kids were assigned scientists to do a report on through co-op, Tristan happened to get the Wright Brothers. We skipped ahead to that unit in Bigger Hearts... and got all the info we needed for him to do his report. I love the way the TM is set up in the HOD guides too, it is very different than other teachers manuals I've seen. If you are interested in this curriculum you can look at a full week sample of any of the guides on the Heart Of Dakota website linked above.

For the older set I used a DVD course which was available through the library. The name of this set is Getting Ahead- US history.

It's a 4 disc set with each DVD being about 2 hours long. The first part of each DVD was a section about Our Presidents in History. Then there were several "We the people" segments which gave an overview of major historical happenings of the time period. We just finished the 4th DVD in this set and it was a BIG winner with my older two kids. This is suggested for ages 10-14 but I would say 12 and up would be better. My 9 and 10 year olds were bored by the first DVD so I let them sit this one out and decided it was just for the big kids. I learned a lot with these videos too and they were a God-send for my son with an autism spectrum disorder. He is highly visual and can not retain very much from long readings, read alouds or writing. To have a full USA history overview course brought to life on DVD's for him was perfect. In the first Getting Ahead-History DVD there is not much action type video because of course long ago there was no tv, video cameras or even still cameras to tape history as it unfolded. Still paintings and representations are used heavily for the early years of USA history. In the later DVD's there is more action.

To fill this out to a full course we added some books and a lot of conversations, watching and discussing the election coverage this past fall and studying the election process, reading Top Story a current events newspaper for grades 6-9 from God's World News, a Presidents lapbook and a few other select American history movies and educational DVD's. I will not hesitate to call this a 9th grade high school history and civics/government credit for this year after we complete a few more extras and finish the Presidents lapbook. With The Getting Ahead DVD's as a spine I was able to make this a full course that my child could retain rather than just something which is listed as a 9th grade course but is not composed of materials which would work for my son such as textbooks or high school length living books.

The Presidents lapbook we're making is from Homeschool Share I am using with all four kids. I can't even say how well the Presidents sections of the Getting Ahead DVD's go along with this Presidents lapbook, especially for a 6-9th grade level child. It's a very good combination.

Finally we are reading selections from The DK book Presidents,

and the DK children's encyclopedia of American History.

Book of these books are filled with not only information but also many pictures. Again ideal for the highly visual child.

We are not a history minded family but we have learned a lot and had fun with this combination of materials. For the second part of the year we'll be looking more closely at some of the wars in US history as per the boys' wishes!

Changes and Growing Up

I chose to transition to a new blog now because we've outgrown the theme of the old one. Also I was up to 75% photo space taken and I eventually want to post some old things on there and back date them.

We are still us, a family who likes to walk in the woods, spend time at the lake and care for any creature that finds its way to us, a family who values freedom and differences. I'm still a Mom who believes the main work of childhood is play and much time should be spent in the out of doors and without any agenda. Yet the children are growing and changing and our homeschool style as well as my parenting need to change right along with them. I feel that we've had an awkward in between year finding our way to what is right for Big Kids and Young Adults in our family. It's a funny transition. My kids are not spread out enough in age that this transition went in stages. There is less than 5 years from oldest to youngest, so it kind of came all at once, this growing up thing.

In 2009

My baby will turn 10.

My oldest child will start high school work.

The kids will be given more freedom and also more structure in their homeschooling, if that makes any sense...it does to me!

Half of my children are teenagers.

The "little boys" currently ages 9 and 10, turning 10 and 11 this year will learn to ski, can I still call them "the little boys", I wonder?

all my children will be in double digits.

Many of our pets are in double digits.


Some childhood and growing up quotes and sayings which I like.

Childhood is a journey not a race.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing- Winnie the Pooh

The work of childhood is play

A little dirt never hurt

Living is learning and when kids are living fully and energetically and happily they are learning a lot, even if we don't always know what it is. - John Holt

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.- W. B. Yeats

I'm a Big Kid now- Huggies pull ups, LOL when you are 10 you are a Big Kid in our house.