It's been one of those.....

So yes, it's been one of those weeks, or week and a half I should say. Nothing bad, nothing major,  just life. Kids. School. Doctor appointments. Dentist. Curriculum searching and ordering time. No one is sleeping since the time changed time. Just all of that kind of stuff.

I have a running list of blog ideas I get so excited about, and then by the time the day is over, school is done, house cleaned up, kids bathed and settled down and I think maybe, just MAYBE I can write now, I realize it's 2 A.M. Therefore there has been a slight lag in posting!

School has been busy because we are going to the beach in around 6 weeks or so and there are certain things I definitely want finished up before then so we are doing a little more than usual in a few areas. My little bean has been making leaps and bounds with his reading suddenly and I am so proud of him. My big boy as I mentioned before, finished up science and is almost done with everything else for his 5th grade year as well. The princess is really enjoying her "school" and flying through it like I figured she would.

As far as the curriculum search I mentioned, most things are decided, because they are what we did last year. There are just a few undecided things I have been researching. For the big boy, we want to add in a little more writing and grammar work and there are a couple programs I am looking at for that. He has also mentioned he is interested in learning Latin. The only thing I am really deciding on for Bean is math, and then for the princess I am just going to see how quickly she goes through this. Or at least I tell my planning obsessed self that! Hopefully this week I can get a few more things done.

Sonlight Science E Review

This year for my oldest son's 5th grade year, I let him choose (from a few of my picks) the topics he got to cover this year. He decided to go with Sonlight's Science E:  Electricity, Magnetism, and Astronomy. 

He has flown through this year in Science, and we finished up weeks ahead of where I had planned, because he wanted to do more every day. Needless to say, science is one of his favorite subjects, and this year he loved it all. I absolutely love that the experiment kits that come with Sonlight's science have EVERYTHING you need. There are over 90 experiments, a cool little DVD that shows all the experiments in case you miss one or just can't figure something out, and lots of great books. He learned about electricity, magnetism, light, color, microscopes, astronomy and space, inventions, chemistry, modern technology, and early American life. I asked him to write a little paper after he finished this week telling me his favorite things, and he couldn't narrow it down, he loved it all. He has had so much fun with the experiments. 

From the teachers perspective, I loved what I love about all sonlight courses - the wonderful, rich, REAL books, the fact that the bible and creation are woven into everything that we read and do, and the wonderful instructors guide! There are a few usborne book titles which are amazing books. While they do have some references to other ways the world began, etc. the instructors guide is sure to make a note of where these references are made and point out that you will want to discuss these things with your children. I know I have talked with some people that are turned off to sonlight because they choose some of these titles, however I think even though we teach things to our children from a Christian viewpoint, that it is important for them to know and understand the other viewpoints that some people may have.

Sample IG page 

Sample IG notes page 

Sample Student sheet and teachers answer sheet 

That all being said, we were so happy with this program this year. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. When I told him last week that this was the last week of it he just looked at me in shock! I have yet to order for next year yet (although I will be within the next few weeks!) and he is anxious to get started on what he has chosen for his 6th grade year. We will definitely be going with Sonlight for Science again - stay tuned to find out which one we choose to use next!

Our new favorite chicken recipe

Switching into my cooking obsessed mode for today's post. So I am a huge huge fan of the Plain Chicken blog. I love her blog and have been trying more and more of her recipes. Have yet to try one that we didn't love! I had pinned this one for Alice Springs Chicken on pinterest awhile back and finally decided to try it out. I had never heard of Alice Springs Chicken, but apparently it's a dish at Outback Steakhouse. Makes sense since I really don't like Outback and never eat there! However - this chicken is AMAZING!!

You can find the awesome Plain Chicken's recipe here. We tweaked it slightly and here is what we did! Definitely make it - soon! 

What you need: 

4 chicken breasts, halved and pounded to make them even (and the hubby decided they grill a lot better this way as well)
Seasoned Salt
Olive Oil
Bacon
Sliced fresh mushrooms
Shredded Colby Jack cheese
Honey Mustard Dressing

After pounding out the chicken breasts, we mixed a little olive oil and seasoned salt and marinated them for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon and then the mushrooms. I use butter and a bit of reserved bacon fat to saute the mushrooms (oh so healthy, I know).

Grill the chicken until done. Turn oven to broil. Place chicken on a parchment lined baking sheet. Spread honey mustard on the top (the more the better in my opinion!), then top with bacon, mushrooms and finally cheese. Here again - and almost everything I cook - there is never any such thing as too much cheese!

This is seriously so yummy and moist and delicious. Also great for my picky eaters - the princess likes it with everything except mushrooms, so we make a special piece for her, and the bean likes nothing but chicken and bacon so he gets his own special piece as well!

The wonderful world of Sonlight Curriculum

This will be the first of MANY posts about Sonlight and how much we love using this curriculum. I had someone ask me the other day if I worked for them...no, we just honestly love their curriculum that much. So much that I could honestly talk about it all day, every day! When we first began homeschooling, although it was something I had thought about for quite awhile, the actual moment we pulled our oldest out of school was kind of a sudden decision and I thought "oh no, what do we do now?" Then, and even the whole first year after that was a struggle in finding a curriculum that was a good fit. We went through MANY different ones. Some we liked a little, some had him in tears, some had us both in tears! Sonlight was one that I kept looking at and looking at but couldn't decide. It was scary to think about taking that plunge to a whole different type of learning. Charlotte Mason based, literature based, living books, no textbooks, no grades, no tests....what on earth did all this mean? After MUCH research I began to see it was something that I thought might really work for us. Another factor holding me back was cost - it is definitely one of the higher priced curriculums out there. Once I looked more into exactly what all you were getting, I understood why. Even knowing what is included still doesn't prepare you for the awesomeness of box day - it's SO exciting opening those huge boxes of books! There is SO much there. Every single thing you need. To me the convenience of having everything come to you in one box is well beyond the price.

This year for first grade we are using Sonlight's core A - Intro to the World: Cultures -  which includes the awesome instructors guide, history, geography, bible, and read-alouds. You choose the level of readers and language arts you want to use, we are using grade 1 readers and language arts. For language arts at this level there are some optional resources scheduled into the instructors guide and we get them to use as well, they include handwriting without tears 1, and explode the code books 1, 2, and 3. These are great little phonics workbooks and he really enjoys them. For Math we use Horizons 1 which is also sold through sonlight which is great, because we can order it all together. Then for Science we have been using Sonlight Science A - Biology, Botany, and Physics. It has been a great first year of science for him, it includes a little of everything and the books are all so great. One thing I LOVE about their science are the experiment supply kits. I never imagined that seriously, EVERYTHING you need is included! I am talking down to masking tape, tin foil, a toothpick even! It is so nice to open up that little box and find everything you need each week. 

1st grade box day! 

For fifth grade this year we have been using Sonlight's core D - Intro to American History (year 1 of 2). It includes history, geography, bible, read-alouds, readers and language arts. We add in the optional sequential spelling and wordly wise. For math we use teaching textbooks (another big love of ours) which we are able to order through sonlight as well. This year for science he chose to do Sonlight science E - electricity, magnetism, and astronomy. He is actually finishing the last day of it tomorrow (early - he loves science and flew through it!) and I will be doing a more in depth review of it soon. He has really enjoyed it. A lot of it has about been over mom's head with the electricity experiments and things like that. Very neat stuff. 

Box day for the big boy at the beginning of 5th grade :) 

So as you can tell, we really love this curriculum. The kids ask to do extra reading, they love doing their work, especially everything about the core. I don't see us switching curriculums anytime in the near future, or ever unless something big happens. I have a good feeling this is more than likely what we will use from here on out. We love the way you get to learn. It is so fun and interesting. In school I always though I hated history. Mainly because we were taught from a boring textbook and were taught basically to answer a test. Reading these living books about history I have learned as much if not more than the kids have! It is also so Christ-centered. We love the bible portions and discussions. We love how they use the timeline and it helps the kids to see that these events in the bible were taking place at the same time things we read about in history were taking place as well, instead of looking at them as two separate things. My oldest that use to literally cry if you tried to make him read a book is weeks ahead of schedule with his readers because he just wants to read more and more. 
The sonlight website is full of tons of great information, and you can order a free catalog as well. I will be doing a lot more reviews about the different cores, more in depth about each of them. If you ever decide to order anything please think about using my rewards ID code! If you enter it when you make an account you get $5 off your first order over $50 and I get points as well! My rewards ID code is :  BC20342519 

Preschool Days for the Princess

Although we have been doing plenty of tot school and preschool activities and learning things with the princess, as I mentioned yesterday I think she is ready for more structured learning. After a lot of research and searching we decided to use Horizons Preschool for Three's Curriculum by AOP. I debated between their preschool for three's (which is a newer program) and their regular preschool program which is a little more advanced. I think this program will actually be a little too easy for her, but I didn't want to make it too hard and frustrate her, and I want to make sure we cover all the bases. I think this will be a nice, gentle introduction to school. We will be going through this at her speed, which may mean covering things a lot faster than they are intended to be covered, but these will mainly be things she already knows.

We received the program this weekend, thanks to some super fast shipping by AOP! The princess was so excited and ready to start it. We had some appointments this morning so we had to do afternoon school today, and she was more than ready to do her "new schoolwork".  The curriculum set includes a teachers guide, student workbook, student workbook companion, and a bible story reader. All are super cute. There are 40 lessons and they recommend covering one a week, and have suggestions on doing it in 2, 3, or 5 days a week. As I said we are going to let her go at her own pace, and she finished a little over half of the work for the first lesson today.

I LOVE the teachers guide. There is a supply list, lots of notes on each section, and lots of extra suggested ideas and activities. We read the bible story, went over the memory verse (which she sounds so adorable saying), and went over the poem God Made the Animals which she loved because it had included actions. The boys never liked stuff like that so I am excited that she does! There are 5 worksheets and she did 3 of them in no time, they were really easy for her. There are even some suggested gentle math activities which we practiced using our counting animals. We have these counting animals and love them. For each lesson there is also a suggested color and shape theme. Since she knows most all of her colors and shapes we just talked about these quickly. 

I have to say so far I am very excited about this little curriculum for her and really glad we chose it. Along with this we are also using an adorable devotions for preschoolers book I picked up on amazon. It's perfect for this age and she loves reading it each day. We do a lot of read alouds as well, most from the Sonlight reading lists, as we are huge Sonlight fans in this family. (Keep an eye out for many Sonlight posts soon!) That is what most all of the boys curriculum consists of, and I assume hers will in the future, but for now we wanted to add in a little something else for her as well.

We are looking forward to another exciting day of preschool (along with 1st and 5th grades!) tomorrow. 

Well....here goes nothing!!

I have been told by many people, many times that I need to start a blog. I either give them a recipe, talk to them about homeschooling and some of the things we do, or they read a status about something crazy my kids have done on facebook and that leads them to comment about how I should start a blog.  I figured I might as well try it out, right?

So a quick background about things around here. I am a mom to three (ages 3, 6, and 11) of the most wonderful kids I have ever met, and have been married to the most awesome guy for 12 years now. We live in a tiny town in west Tennessee. I am so blessed and thankful that my husband works as hard as he can so I can stay home and homeschool the kids. It was a decision we didn't take lightly and one that we went back and forth on for awhile and it has turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to all of us. I can't imagine it any other way. Do I have days where I would love to pull my hair out? Yes. Do I have days where I hide in the bathroom and cry? Yes. However, the days when I get to see the excitement in my 1st graders eyes as he finishes reading a new book, when my 3 year old writes a perfect letter A, or when my 5th grader tells me something about science that I had no clue about - those days FAR outweigh the bad.

Homeschooling three at three completely different levels definitely takes up quite a bit of time. However, finally finding a good groove in the way they all learn, and finding curriculum choices that we love and that work so well for us has definitely made it a lot easier. We school pretty much year round so we are able to take off whenever we need a break. We love doing it this way.

In the mix of homeschool days I love to cook and bake and love trying new recipes. I am trying to do healthier things lately, but the fact that I love trying new sweets and cupcake recipes doesn't go very well with that at times....but hey we will figure out a good mix one of these days, right? I am also slightly obsessed with fashion for - not me - but for my daughter. It's funny since I am usually in yoga pants and a t-shirt, but I admit I have a lot of fun dressing her. There are a few clothing companies that I am in love with and could talk about all day.

So for now that gives you a little insight into all the crazy happenings in our household. Stay tuned for more!