Meant To Teach

So we did it...our first lapbook. My oldest daughter loved it! She loved the time we spent together doing it and she loved the artsy part of making it her own. She designed a beautiful cover for her lapbook, too. For vocabulary she learned about "echolation" and a "pod". For spelling, she learned words that have the "ph" sound. You can also see that she did a bar graph comparing dolphins to other whales. She did the anatomy of a dolphin and so much more this week. We've really had fun with this! Lapbooking will certainly be a family favorite. We also put a small one together for my youngest. She had fun with it as well.

I know what you are thinking...lapbooks have been around. Well, I had always heard about them but never knew HOW to do them and where to find what to put on the folders. WELL, I found the site www.homeschoolshare.com and I am in heaven!! I think my oldest daughter will love doing these!!! She can't stand doing "book work". She gets bored too easily and I may have just hit the jackpot. I guess I'll let you know next week how it turns out. She's such an artsy girl, I think this will be right up her alley! We are going on vacation in a month or so...so guess what we are studying for science before we go. ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE OCEAN!! So our unit for next week is DOLPHINS!! Do you ever get that feeling of once you found something that you can't wait to start!! I wish we'd start it today, but I told the girls they could have the day off. I know I'm a nut, but its just so exciting!!

My oldest daughter has been learning standard form, expanded form, and word form in math. So, I printed off some fake checks and she started writing some big fat checks to practice the word form! I love that she knows how she will be using this in real life in the future.

It was our decision and our choice to homeschool. I thank God everyday we have that choice. I often wonder, "WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS FROM THE BEGINNING!?" My husband and I have always thought about homeschooling, even before our kids were old enough to go to school. However, I just didn't know how to get started. It seemed overwhelming. After talking to a friend of our's and her explaining much of the process from laws to textbooks - we realized, "Hey, we can do this." It really was so much easier than I thought it would be. The biggest surprise of it was that you can be a frugal homeschool family. I think I paid more in our "free public education" each year than I will have paid out in homeschooling for a few years. Don't ever let costs discourage you. I promise, you'll be paying more money in public schools for yearbooks, class shirts, fundraisers, book fees, school pictures, book fairs, field trips, etc. I am already saving money and ...

Field day went great! My oldest daughter is so competitive. She won the title of 1st place 3 times with two more awards that were 2nd and 3rd. One of those being the long jump. She jumped at a whopping 6'3"! She's my athletic one. My youngest daughter had fun even with finishing with just two awards of 3rd place. But she got a lot of laughs of the day and that's what she loves to do best! They had a blast and the day was great! It was hot and I got exhausted but was glad to meet some new friends!

I took the girls to the Chattanooga Zoo. I plan to take them to the Knoxville or Atlanta Zoo in the future, but for now - we stayed around. I've never had so much fun learning at the zoo. Before we homeschooled, we'd been before and probably finished the zoo in 30 minutes to an hour. But this time, we took the time to stop and read everything! The girls weren't in any kind of "school class line." So they got to stop and enjoy the animals and learn. They were impressed most with the chimpanzees. I think they could have sat and watched them all day. I had to pull them away to move on to the other exhibits. At the end of the day, my daughters could tell me about so many of the animals and what they learned. I still say their favorites were the chimpanzees. They go to everyone now and let every one know that they aren't monkeys, they are apes. Monkeys have tails and apes do not! They will set you straight on that one. I also brought up the rediculous theory that s...