Fall Break.

Okay, I did it. I declared today at least as fall break, probably tomorrow too. I have a some things I need to get done and I'm going to try and get as many as I can done in the next few days.

*This picture is from a couple of years ago, but it this tree looks very much the same right now and I'm too lazy, I mean, um too busy to go out and take another picture. ;-0

Today's Notebooking Pages.

We read about the underground railroad, Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe today and these are the notebooking pages they made. My daughter's is about the 2 Harriets and my son's is of a stop on the underground railroad with a secret door hidden behind a bookcase. I really like notebooking and the kids really seem to be enjoying it too.

Labeling things.

I got a pack of sight word post it notes at Walmart the other day on clearance. I thought maybe they'd help my youngest with his reading. So today, I let him and my daughter go label things around the house as a game/reading lesson. They got creative and started writing their own labels after a while!

Really enjoying this craft book.

This is the craft book my daughter brought home from the library the other day. It has tons of good stuff in it. My daughter made cool marbled paper from the book and my son was making boats from empty soda bottles last night, not beautiful, but they floated. He spent some time floating them in the tub last night. I'm thrilled with anything that encourages this old fashioned kind of play and keeps the kids away from video games and TV.

Monday's Field Trip.

The field trip went well. I don't know if we really learned anything, but we had a good time.

Biting off more than we can chew.

Our homeschool group has planned a bunch of stuff for this month. At first, it was going to be co-op classes, but then we decided to do field trips and other things too, so we've got another field trip tomorrow. We're going to a farm/orchard and the kids will get to pick out a pumpkin. (The picture is of last year's pumpkins.)

Halloween is coming up quickly. We really need to get going on the costumes this year. We usually make homemade costumes, but it looks like we might have to buy them this time because our free time is so scarce. We're trying to put down new flooring in the living room, which isn't going well, because we're also doing foster care classes every Saturday this month and field trips pretty much every Monday. Two days a week of busy-ness thrown into our already busy schedules is kind of tough and then add home remodeling onto that ...

I really would like to get that flooring done before the first homestudy visit but I'm not sure how we'll manage it.

My kids may get their fall break this week so we can get a few things done.

We'll see.

The math we use.

We use Math Mammoth for the younger 2 kids and Key Curriculum Press for the older one. I'm happy with both programs. For the first part of this year, the younger kids had been reviewing multiplication of large numbers and division. This week, we started fractions and went back into the Math Mammoth workbooks. We hadn't been using them since June and when we started using them again, I was impressed all over again with the explanations in this book. They are so good and they make it so that the kids can really understand what they are doing, not just doing the steps. It seems to work really well for both of the younger kids and they actually enjoy it. My daughter, this week, has been saying "Can't we do 1 more page, please!" Can you believe that? You can look at previews of the pages at the homeschool estore. I can't figure out how to link to a product so you'll just have to search for Mammoth Math when you get there.

Trying to Outsmart the Dog.

Our fence finally gave up and fell down in the backyard. We have a new one ready to put up but nobody wants to attempt to dig post holes with the ground being dry and hard as concrete. Anyway, this allows Lucy, our outside dog, access to the back yard, which was previously the cats' domain. She's really taken a liking to cat food and wants to go in the backyard and keep the cats from eating their food. I put it on the patio table for them and she can't reach it, but still, she feels the need to guard it and keep the cats away from it. This morning, I fed the cats on the front window ledge to keep her from getting their food. They make a cute picture don't they?