Bear scouts

I just got the position of Bear scout leader and today is our first Den meeting. I'm excited for the next year of planned activities. Here are a couple of great websites for any of you in the scouting program.
http://www.boyscoutingtrail.com/
http://www.scouting.org/

The Pinewood Derby race was last week. Thanks to his Father and his Aunt, he had a great experience creating his first Derby car.

Date night!

Last month while our boy had a whole day with his Dad, the girls and I had a "all stuff girls" day too. So, tonight is date night with my boy and the girls get to spend a few hours with their Dad. We are going to dinner and the movie Lorax. The kids get so excited when they get this one-on-one time with a parent. They choose the activites and we make it happen. Happiness to all!!!

Super Croc

My son was still interested in doing more work on "Super Croc" from last weeks library experience. After reading his Ready Freddy chapter book we found fun sites on crocs for him to visit where he could gather up facts for his poster. Fun with Croc's!

GEODES

My sister showed up for a science experiment last week on making your own Geodes.
1. Save some egg shells and rinse them out.
2. In a glass bowl have kids pour epsom salt into 2 cups warm water. (I didn't use enough salt so be generous).
3. Add food coloring if you would like (2 drops)
4. Pour into egg shells and wait.
After the water has dissolved, after about three days the crystals will start to form.
HAVE FUN!!!

Life at Pioneer Park: curriculum

http://www.sonlight.com/

http://www.rainbowresource.com/

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/

curriculum

I spent a lot of time researching, reading blogs etc. etc. before deciding which curriculum I wanted to implement being it my first year home educating. There are so many resources for us out there and although wonderful, can be A LOT  of info to thumb through. It first depends on what type of home education you want for your family, for instance, eclectic home educators choose not to follow curricula at all but instead make daily activities lessons. I needed something a little more "organized" for my brain to follow. There are also options of Christian based curriculum, District curriculum etc. I finally narrowed it down to Sonlight. I have the website on the right hand side of my favorite websites visited. I chose a Christian based curriculum and because I was a little nervous for my first year, we spent a little more money and chose the newcomer package. The teacher guide takes you through the lessons weekly right down to the questions you would ask your child after reading a chapter or two in his or her chapter book. You can choose obviously how much or little you want to use and if your week is a four or five day plan. I found myself going off course adding things here and there, letting my kids explore topics of their choice and so on. I did appreciate the raw and truthful history of America and the chapter books were very interesting to my son and daughter being four years apart in age.
I would recommend Teaching Textbooks for Math. There is a lesson plan and worksheet to follow. Teaching Textbooks also offer computer work following that particular lesson with a teacher grade book so their progress can be tracked and the both of you can then work on the problems missed.
Although I have become a believer that home education should be an interesting exploratory experience for our children and that we are simply guiding them to the resources they need, there are some subjects (like Math) where some workbooks are beneficial.
Each child is  different, obviously with their own personality, interests and ways of retaining information. When they can explore what interests them, they will in turn retain more and continue learning and teaching themselves on that particular subject. Getting away from the public school mentality of memorize memorize and shove, the brain is only being filled with info for which most will be forgotten. Let us take on the challenges of parenting our own children which is also giving them the guidance for education.

Dinosaurs

My son has always been fascinated with Dinosaurs! By his choice, we went exploring that fascinating time in history again! Our local library happened to be having "croc" week and had displayed a Deinosuchus hatcheri skull. This crocodillian is one of the biggest ever found from the Dinosaur era stretching up to 40 feet long!The library is such a great free resource for us to use and lets the kids out of the house! Going along with the weekly theme of dinos, not only did we spend more time learning of the Deinosuchus but we checked out six books on the subject and stumbled across a fun informational website for a third grader kidsdinos.com where you can find facts and games. If you have a "dino kid" like me, you might have fun exploring the site.