A few weeks ago it was finally time to release our butterflies! We used this kit from Insect Lore because it came with 2 cups of caterpillars so that each girl could have their own cup. Every time we have been in a butterfly house, Kenley has had a meltdown and been terrified of the butterflies flying around her. This kid doesn't really freak out about much but butterflies somehow became something that she would freak out about. I am happy to report that she has now conquered her fear of butterflies! We talked a ton about being brave and showed her how to gently pick them up and let them rest on our hands. She is such an animal lover so its no shock that eventually she fell in love with these cool creatures! We definitely plan to do this kit again! When we lived in Las Vegas we did the ladybug kit and that was really fun too! Now we are debating between and ant farm and the praying mantis kit! 

Cycle 1 and Pureflix Match-Up!

Hi Friends!
I want to share something really fun today! This past month we have been doing the 30 day free trial of a new-to-us video platform called PureFlix! I really like that this platform offers faith based kids shows that I can't stream from Netflix or Hulu. They also have a whole page dedicated to homeschool resources!

In our new house we do not have a TV so we rely on watching shows on our laptops. We prefer this because we watch so much less TV than we did before and we can be more intentional with our choices when we choose to watch something. The other day I surprised the girls and set up the their play stand as a snuggly movie nook...

That is Claire's serious movie face. If the music is even mildly thematic she gets a little stressed. Movie watching is serious business! Haha! 

Don't forget the popcorn! 

While browsing options on the homeschool page on Pureflix.com, I had an idea to make a Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Match-up! Some weeks were harder to find something for than others! Some of these choices are a bit more than what my girls are ready for but they would be great for older students! 

Week 1- History: The 10 Commandments
Week 2- History: The 10 Commandments
Week 3- Timeline: Israelite Exodus and Desert Wandering- Moses
              Geography: Hebrew Empire- Nature of the Holy Land
Week 4- History: 7 Wonders- The Great Pyramids 
Week 5- Geography: Egyptian Empire- Egypt
              Science: Invertebrates- Metamorphosis: The Design and Beauty of Butterflies
Week 6- Science: Vertebrates- Creeping Things and Flight: The Genius of Birds
Week 7- History: Hinduism and Buddhism in India- India 
Week 8- Timeline: Augustine of Hippo- Catholic Heroes of the Faith: Augustine
Week 9- Geography: China- The Peoples Republic of China
Week 10- Timeline: East West Schism of the Church: Christian Story
Week 11- Geography: Byzantine Empire- The Travel Guy: Rome and Amalfi  and Athens, Greece
                Geography: Byzantine Empire- Drive Thru History: Ancient 
Week 12- Timeline: Marco Polo's Journey to China- Famous Explorers 
Week 13- Science: Geosphere- Awesome Science 
                Science: Geosphere- Xploration Awesome Planet 
Week 14- Timeline: Protestant Reformation- Martin! God Loves You
Week 15- Timeline: First Great Awakening- Great Awakening 
                 Timeline: Jamestown and Plymouth Colony Founded: Drive Thru History: America
Week 16- Science: Kinds of Volcanos: Fire Mountain: The Eruption and Rebirth of Mt. St. Helens
Week 17- Geography: Madagascar- Madagascar 
Week 18- Timeline: Darwin Published the Origin of Species- Evolution vs. God
                Science: Ocean Floor- Xploration Awesome Planet: Ocean Exploration
Week 19- Science: Ocean Zones- Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin
Week 20- Timeline: Billy Graham- Gathering of Souls: The Billy Graham Crusades
Week 21- Timeline: WW2- Corrie Ten Boom: A Faith Undefeated
Week 22- Timeline: M.L.K Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement-
                 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: A Historical Perspective 
                 Science: Weather Fronts- Xploration Awesome Planet: Extreme Weather
Week 23- Geography: South America (East)- Amazon: Secrets of the Golden River
                 Science: Clouds- Clouds
Week 24- The Presidents- The Presidents: From Politics to Power

Math Weeks 1-9: Learn Your Times Table

I have a dream of taking the girls backpacking in Europe after our last time through Cycle 2 (in 2023 😲) so we want to start learning a bit of French! Everyday Language Series: French 

There are so many options for Science! 

Curiosity Quest

Discover Science 

Do You Know? 

Kids Cooking for Kids

Inside Things

God of Wonders

LifePac: Science Experiments 

NASA: The Complete Story 

The Flood Geology 

PureFlix isn't just for kids! They have lots of movies including October Baby and Beyond the Mask! Beyond the Mask was made by a team of 400 homeschoolers! Check out Robert Bortins (CC's CEO) review of the movie! 

*Please note: It's summer and we are looking forward to Cycle 1 and not currently in it yet, so I have not previewed each of these movies. Please be sure to check that they meet your families entertainment standards and your childrens age appropriateness before watching anything from this list! Some of the videos that I selected are a bit above my girls level. 

You can try Pureflix.com for free for 30 days! 

Summer School

SUMMER!

Morning Time Bible....

Geography map tracing...

Timeline sorting...

Play-doh Geography...

Sometimes Claire chooses to weave instead of finger knit for her handwork time...

Place Value Villages...

Instructing your sister on something...

We are still loving this devotion book! We just grab it every few nights and read a few devotions from it and then search Youtube for videos that correlate with the cool things mentioned. I am all about installing the wonder of God and His creation to the girls and this book helps us to wonder!

All of our current school stuff is in these colored bins...
Left to Right:
Geography: Maps, tracing paper and pencil box with dry erase markers, pencils, and markers
 Math: Math Books, Manipulatives
Narration: Main Lesson Books and Waldorf Essentials Grade 2 book
(Which we use for our narrations)
 Morning Time Supplies: Bible, Children's Story Bible, The Feelings Book for Girls, and our American Girl Caroline book

Kenley had to do end of year testing required by our state this year. Thankfully my sweet husband took over the task of test master. Thanks Brian!!

We found some better containers for our Place Value Villages. The mason jars were clunky to store and move around. We already had 2 sizes of these ziploc containers and just had to purchase the small ones...

Making our own CC board games...

 

Summer is my favorite season. For me, summer stretches from when CC ends in April until we start CC back up again mid September. I realize that we only "go to school" 1 day a week, but wow, the schedule feels 80 times more open during the summer months! 

Since CC only meets for 24 weeks that's not quite enough time for us to get all of our schooling done. This year we have decided to move to a year round schooling schedule. So far I am absolutely loving it! The pressure is off to "finish" curriculums and we are free to work at whatever pace fits us best at the time. Also, we all seem to function a little better when we have the routine of school to frame out our days. 

For me, summer is a great time to evaluate the last year of home school and decide what works and what doesn't work for our family. It is also a great time for me to read lots of books! I have also been working on customizing my own ultimate life, homeschool, CC Director, meal planning, grocery list, etc. planner. I'm pretty excited about that thing! The base will be the Peaceful Planner from Jennifer Pepito at the Peaceful Press.

I have been in the past and will always be an eclectic homeschooler. We use Classical Conversations as our spine and then add in from there. This summer we are switching Language Arts and Math curriculums. In the past we have used a few different Waldorf Curriculums and while I REALLY love Waldorf for early childhood, I felt like it wasn't preparing us well for when Kenley hits Essentials next year (2019-2020). Though I am an eclectic homeschooler, I also have a huge fear of gaps occurring due to curriculum changes! Because of this I have decided for us to start our new math curriculum at level 1 and then go through it fairly quickly to hopefully be back to "grade" levelish by Autumn!

We are using Math Lessons for a Living Education and I can not speak highly enough of it! We are absolutely loving it! Kenley is flying through level 1 and I will be ordering level 2 really soon! Since we are enjoying it so much, we are switching over to Language Lessons for a Living Education for our Language Arts too! Master Books is currently rebranding their Language Arts so that it can all fall under the Lessons for a Living Education name. I ordered Foundations Phonics for Claire and Basic Language Skills for Kenley. Basic Language Skills  also requires that you purchase Not Too Small at All by Stephanie Townsend which is a cute book about a mouse who lived during the time of Noah and Charlie and Trike in the Grand Canyon Adventure (The Green Notebook Series) by Ken Ham. I think I ordered them each a level too far below where they are but like with math we plan to fly through the easy stuff and use it as a time to review the concepts that we already know. 

So that's a little update on some of the materials we are using in our homeschool! 

* Links are Amazon affiliate links. Thank you for supporting our homeschool! 

Exploring Deception Pass

On Saturday we woke up, checked out of our hotel in Anacortes, ate breakfast at Calico Cupboard, and then went to explore Deception Pass...

All the rocks Mommy wouldn't let them bring home...

Anacortes Getaway

This past week we went to Anacortes to attend a 3 day Classical Conversations Practicum. Anacortes isn't really that far away for us drive to each day, but I thought it would be really fun for the us to get a hotel with a pool and stay in Anacortes during the Practicum! Two of our CC friends also stayed at the same hotel! 

This years Practicum theme was Latin Grammar. Which I must confess is still a little bit over my head. I tend to view it as one of those things that I will tackle once we get there in the Challenge (Middle and High School) years. 

On our first day we were eating lunch outside and saw the most amazing rainbow that I have ever seen! The photos just don't do it justice! It actually had a double rainbow portion too! 

At bedtime our first night we read from our current read aloud (The Wind in the Willows), read a few devotions from Indescribable: 100 Devotions for kids about God and Science, then watched Youtube videos about some of the cool creatures and things mentioned like the Mantis Shrimp, Blob Fish, Corpse Flower, the biggest flower in the world, and videos about baby sloths getting potty trained. It was a really sweet night with my girls that ended in independent reading time by flashlight. 

Pool time! The second day of Practicum the Agnew girls came back to our hotel to swim in the pool! 

After pool time we headed to dinner with the Siedenburgs to a yummy Seafood and Chowder restaurant...

After dinner we drove out to Cap Sante Point to let the kiddos burn off some energy! The view is so gorgeous and the kids loved climbing on the rocks... 

Okay everyone look directly at the sun and smile! 🤣🤣🤣

They saw an eagle...

This was by far the smallest Practicum that I have ever attended. It gives me hope that next year I can plan one for our city! I always thought they had to be hosted by huge churches! 

The girls loved this surprise left by the hotel... 

 I also want to add that while our hotel was not fancy nor was their continental breakfast fancy, they did offer homemade granola and homemade overnight oats parfaits that were topped with that granola and were super delicious! 

Bookstore time at Practicum is my favorite. I love this sweet little homeschooling book called Lily Stays for School. Claire LOVE LOVES it and has read it to me over and over again! I wish we had this book when we first started our homeschool journey! 

Day three the campers come in and show all of us parents what they learned over the week! 

The evening of day 3, Daddy came to stay in the hotel with us! We loved Cap Sante Point so much the night before that we had to take him there to do some more exploring with us!