End of the summer field trip

We finished off the summer with one heck of a field trip. Click the links from our family blog to see more. We flew out of Salt Lake City, Utah and landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Here's our trip chronicles:

Salt Lake City

Rehobath Beach, Delaware

Washington, DC, Temple

Our old house

Family History

Visiting grandma

Canada & Niagara Falls

Palmyra, New York

The Site of the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration

Philadelphia-Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and The Betsy Ross Home

Catching up

I certainly haven't done a good job of finishing up our summer with home school posts!

We've done lots of manual labor on our new 82 acre farm. We've pulled weeds, raked leaves, pruned trees, shoveled manure, reinforced the play house, and cleaned sheds out among other things. The kids have swam in the ditch a lot. There are several big ones to choose from. We've also had lots of late night fires at our newly made fire pit. It's been a great experience and they've all worked hard.

The boys have listened to several books on tape. Olivia's been reading quite a bit on her own. I've been studying for my final in American History through BYU. Alex went to Utah with his dad and some friends and climbed King's Peak, the tallest mountain in Utah.

We went to a local ice cave and learned all about volcanoes, lava tubes and ice. The kids enjoyed that.

We've also had lots of doctor and dentist appoints to get current for the new year. Luke was excited to have his last tube in his ear pulled out. Caleb and I now have our asthma and allergies better under control. I can take a deep breath again!

We've really made the most of this summer. We've had just enough activities to stay busy, but we still had lots of down time.

July 6-10, 2009

We are really enjoying summer! I am still working hard on not doing anything but having fun and relaxing in the months of July and August.

This past week we had a Primary Activity Day. The theme was pioneers. The kids learned how to make butter (okay they already new this one), ate homemade bread, learned about taffy, played pioneer games, sang pioneer songs, made their own rope, and pulled a handcart. They had a lot of fun.

They also had their last week of swimming lessons. They did really good and are getting stronger and stronger each year.

We also had a family reunion in Boise for my side of the family. We went to the zoo, a park, had a yummy family dinner, played "career games," saw a late night movie at a local park, went to a state park, had a ping-pong tournament, swam at a lake, rode a water slide all afternoon, had a barbecue, and sang happy birthday to my sister. It was great fun!

Caleb had a birthday! He's 7 now. All he wanted was "real" cowboy clothes, a cowboy hat and spurs.

Luke continues to write stories on the computer. He's also spent a lot of time drawing the characters from his story so we can visualize them with him.

Jared enjoyed swimming a lot and has played hard.

Olivia continues to work on her 4-H horse project. She's also reading a lot, cooking a lot and creating things....

I took a BYU midterm. It was the hardest test I've taken so far. Whew! I've also read 3 more Work and the Glory books and a youth fiction with Olivia.

Alex keeps working hard. He's swam with the kids a lot and been just a GREAT dad.

It was another great summer week. We are so happy.

June 21-26, 2009 Yes, we are alive

So for the rest of the summer I'm just going to do a weekly post. There's not a lot "academic" going on. We are taking July and August off of all our scholar classes, Greek classes, no music lessons, etc.

This past week two of the boys had cub scout day camp. I was "able" (haha) to go with them for the full day. On Friday and Saturday Alex and I went to Youth Conference which was up in the mountains.

Olivia's been working on horse riding and 4-H. The kids have played 30 min of Wii Fitness everyday. They've all really enjoyed it. It's a great program and I recommend it.

We've been listening to Story of the World in the car as well as Spanish.

June 16, 2009 (Tuesday): Work, Work Work

This morning we did LOTS of chores. We worked until lunchtime. Jared had piano lessons this morning though. We decided we'd had enough of working and went playing. We packed a picnic and went out to the river in the desert. We had a great hike. We pretended we were Indians and "tracked" some deer through the desert. When the tracks changed to looking more like a bobcat they decided they were done tracking. (In the pointing picture they are pointing to the tracks). By the time we were back the suburban Jared had decided it was a cougar with young cubs who were just learning how to hunt. Where do they come up with these things?


After being home an hour we ended up going out to the swimming hole to swim with their cousins. The swimming hole has swelled to twice it's size from the rain, thanks to all the rain. The river was too fast and deep to do much swimming, but there was still some mud. They played "mud monsters" and COVERED themselves in the mud. My friend/cousin took pictures. If I get them I'll post them later. We came home just in time to shower and scrub off the caked-on mud. Then we went to Caleb's t-ball game. The older kids weren't playing (so I wasn't coaching) so we were all able to watch Caleb. Luke even got to play because they were short players. (Luke can technically play on either team).


We finished A Wrinkle In Time in the car. Jared is working on Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh again. Another family favorite.


Olivia finished Common Sense by Thomas Paine. She answered the questions for her scholar class tomorrow.


The kids have fought over the new puppy all day long. We are having to set the timer. So fun.


I'm working on The Law by Bastiat. I also did a lot on my lesson for Stake Activity Day's this weekend. I've been doing some indexing again. I was called as stake extraction worker several years back. When I was the Young Women's President they said not to worry about doing anything with it. Now I'm not though so I'm back in the Family History game again. Olivia has been doing some with me too.


Alex was in Boise all day again. He left at 6:30 AM and got home at 10:30 PM. He's gone a lot of nights, but when he's home, he's HOME. He acts like a dad and a husband and gives us tons of quality time. He's the best!


We read scriptures individually and as a family tonight too.

June 1, 2009 (Monday)

Today we officially started summer vacation. Yeah! Last week we just took off, but now we are on our summer schedule. Some days we won't be doing Mom School though, because we have other activities. We look forward to playing and enjoying our friends and family all summer. But our family still needs some structure or we'll go NUTS so we've a modified schedule. Amazingly some of the kids still want to do a lot of "school" things. (My spacing is messed up in this post, I'm unsure why).

Mom School
Pray/Pledge
Song: Beautiful Savior
Theology: Our Heritage: The church opens up Missouri for settlement.
Church History: The Book of Mormon is printed
Friend Articles
Biography/American History: 1 chapter and finished Little House in the Big Woods.
Science Experiment: Delta Science Kit: Energy & Motion Experiment #1
PE: Swimming!
Chores

Setting up for our science experiment.

Olivia
Religion: Read a chapter in the Book of Mormon.
Ensign Article: Read a conference talk.
Research: Prepared a family home evening lesson. She was also assigned to be in charge of the Children's Class at our next Enrichment Meeting. She's been working on her schedule, handouts and lesson for that.
Vocabulary: Peterson's Word of the Day- Mitigate
Literature: Read the last half and finished The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. She also answered the questions that went with it.

Life Skills: Pasta Salad and Brownies
PE: Horse riding lessons today. Played pool and golf.

Jared
Religion: Read a chapter in the Doctrine and Covenants Reader.
Music: Practiced extra long on his piano lesson. He's working hard on a recital piece.
World History/Religion/Read-a-loud: He spent over 3 hours listening to The Kingdom and the Crown #2.

PE: Wii sports

Luke
Religion: Read a chapter in the Book of Mormon.
Music/Computers: Played Music Ace.
Math: Did two math pages
Spelling: 1 spell drill

PE: Wii sports and golfing

Creative Writing: Several hours working on a story on the computer.
Life Skills: Pancakes
Creative Play: Lego's
PE: Golf

Caleb
Religion: Read a long verse in the Book of Mormon.
Music: Played Music Ace.
Reading: Read a phonics reader.
Creative Play: Everyday Caleb has a great core day! He's so happy.
PE: Golf and Pool

Family Home Evening:
Song: Beautiful Savior
Testimonies: Alex, Deanna, Luke and Caleb
Scripture Memorization: 2 Nephi 25:26
Character: Uncommon Courtesy lesson-table manners
Article of Faith: 5th
Proclamation: 4th paragraph
Strength of Youth: Gratitude
Lesson: (Olivia) based on this talk by President Monson.
Activity: Helped a family move.
Visiting: My sister and her family came over for a visit.

To Show Parent Core/Love of Learner/Scholar here are some things we modeled to the children today...
Deanna: Scriptures, journal, word of the day, practiced the piano, read a chapter in my American History Class, read The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, practiced my Greek pronunciation, did a May report for homeschooling and finished my portfolio for my big end of the year presentation for home school!
Alex: Scriptures, church manual reading, word of the day, golfing, went to work, practiced his Greek pronuciation, played Wii Fitness and he's listening to Ender's Shawdow.

Summer plans

My plans for the summer are (per the kid's suggestions):

• Have a short devotional in the morning when we can.
• Do lots of science projects.
• Learn Spanish with the kids. (We have Power Glide, Jr.).
• Do a little math a couple times a week.
• Listen to lots of books on tape while we are driving.
• Have lots of picnics.
• Take swimming lessons.
• Olivia has a horse project for 4-H.
• Have fun.

So that's the plan as of right now. We'll see how life goes....

May 27, 2009 (Wednesday)

Olivia: Read a 100 pages in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, went to her scholar school to discuss the book, and played with a friend for a couple of hours.

Jared: Wrote a book review about Johnny Tremaine, did a geography worksheet, mowed the lawn, vacuumed, played golf outside, and played basketball.

Luke: Wrote a report on Crazy Horse, wrote about why he likes baseball and colored a picture, dumped the trash, cleaned up the playroom, and played golf & basketball.

Caleb: Learned about he life cycle of a butterfly and colored a picture of it, wrote a report about why he liked learning about Indians, colored a picture of the flag, cleaned a bathroom, and played golf and basketball.

Deanna: Scripture reading, worked on my IDEA reports, read Antigone by Sophocles, taught a piano lesson and went to mutual.

Alex: Scripture reading, studying church manuals, went to work, went to the temple, went to the library, and went to mutual.