AO Term 1 Exams

I am so excited and pleased! We just finished our first term with Ambleside Online. This week all of the boys did their exams, and let me tell you, I think I was more nervous than they were. I am so proud of them! They really did awesome on their exams. There were a couple of questions that they missed, but overall, I really was amazed at how much they had retained. And all three of them are determined to do even better at the end of the next term. :)

Just another day in Mexico

In the midst of all the drama with our melted crayons, my neighbor came to my door. "Check your back yard!" she says. "There is something dead back there."  At this point, I am praying that it isn't one of our dogs. Thankfully, the boys were occupied, so I slip to the back yard and sure enough, there is a dead animal. Thank you Jesus, I could see instantly that our dogs were fine. It was a cat. A big cat, that had obviously been dead for a few days. Here is the problem.........the cat wasn't back there an hour before. And then all of a sudden, BAM! In the middle of the yard, dead cat and at least 50 HUGE vultures. My dogs were going nuts trying to get the vultures and I was trying to get the dogs chained up before they messed with the dead cat or the vultures messed with them. I must confess, for a moment, I was a little worried that our female (she is only 6 months) might get carried off. I mean, these are big birds! Anyway, I got the boys to help me tie the dogs up in the hopes that the vultures would carry off the dead cat. On a side note, my kids got an interesting show of nature. They proceeded to sit on the back steps and watch the birds fight over and eventually carry away the carcass. Too much info? Sorry. This is just another day in Mexico.

Melted Crayons??

Well, after seeing so many posts and article about melted crayons and all the things that you can do with them, my children and I decided to do a simple project today. Yeah.......we thought.

We got out all of our old crayons, since N (6 yrs.) doesn't like crayons but prefers pen, and peeled all of the wrapping off of them. Then we broke them up and put them into the cookie cutters like we read. Um....dummy me, I didn't think about how that OBVIOUSLY wasn't going to work the way we read it would. So after the requisite 7 min at 275 degrees, we pulled out our baking sheet.....and....yeah, you guessed it.......melted crayon everywhere. Just a full baking sheet of melted colors. Oh, did I mention that it broke through a part of the tin foil (I lined my pan) and so my entire baking sheet has a thin layer of crayon now? Yes.......not my idea of fun.

As if this wasn't enough drama for the day, I had the great idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, I could save our project. So I waited until the crayons cooled, put some coffee filters in my muffin tin (since I don't have muffin holders), broke the cooled crayons up into pieces and tried it again. ::sigh:: It did NOT work!!! Now, I have TWO pan with melted crayons stuck in the bottoms. I must say.....this will be our last attempt with melted crayons. Right about now, I'm thinking we were insane for trying this. Not to mention the fact that my kids are all feeling like it was a major waste of their time.

On a better (hopefully) note, we have another project planned for tomorrow. Lets hope that this one turns out right! I'll keep y'all posted!

A Drop of Water

Well, just the other day we did our first science experiment. S has "A Drop of Water" for science. Our first experiment with this book was about surface tension. You have to take a bowl of water and a needle. Without breaking the surface tension of the water, you have to get the needle to float on the surface. It is even trickier than it sounds, trust me! If you don't do it just right, the needle sinks. We finally figured out that if you will use a bent paper clip to gently slide the needle onto the surface of the water, it won't sink. S was thrilled when he finally succeeded. Of course, then E and N also wanted to do the experiment. It turned into a 45 min session and everyone wanted to be videoed. I've never been big on science experiments, but this was great fun!


A Drop of Water

A New Page

We turned over a new leaf this year! After using boxed curriculums for the first few years of my sons schooling, I came to the realization that my children were not getting the education that I wanted for them. So....I spent a RIDICULOUS amount of time researching and decided to make my own curriculum for 2015. My first choice of school was just too big of a jump for us coming from where we were coming from. So last year we tried to make up as much as we could and in January (2016) we started fresh with Ambleside Online. For anyone that doesn't know about it, Ambleside Online uses Charlotte Mason's teachings. You can learn more at www.amblesideonline.org
This was my first choice when I started researching different homeschool material but we would never have been able to make the switch and place where I wanted to without a gap year. So..........my oldest son, whom we will call S, is starting AO in year 3. My second oldest, whom we will call E is in year 2 and my youngest, dear little N is starting with year 1. So far, we are finishing up week 2 (the school year is divided into 3 terms and then broken into weeks) and we are all really loving it!! I can see so much improvement and a love of learning that is developing in their hearts. This was my number one reason for switching. My goal is for them to never stop learning. Too many people now days think that a diploma or degree means that you are finished learning. Far from it!!!! You should always be furthering yourself in whatever it is that interests you! Okay, stepping down off my soapbox now. :)

I am so excited! I have long anticipated starting a blog but finally decided to take the plunge. So here is the background story. My husband and I are missionaries in Mexico. We have three sons (I'll be writing more about them later) that I homeschool using a mixture of Charlotte Mason and Classical methods. Jesus bless y'all!