Papers are notarized!

One other thing I got accomplished yesterday...I got our homeschool papers notarized!! Now they are ready to be sent off to the State Department of Education, so we can continue with our exempt school status (permission from the state to homeschool!)

Birthday/ Anniversay Weekend and book shopping

What? Is it really Matt and I's anniversary tomorrow??? Just kidding. :) 

I am still a little bitter that Christian stole our day.

Anyway, we have been hard at work here at the Ruwe house trying to get ready for the big birthday party tomorrow! We have been shopping, cleaning, organizing, getting my rooms put back in order after painting a month ago, finally deciding on curtains, etc.  I have been working at it all week, so hopefully everything will be ready to go by 4 pm tomorrow. (I like having parties later in the afternoon- it gives me a couple more hours to get things done!)

Besides getting ready for the party, I have also been shopping. As in used homeschool books shopping! There was a used homeschool book sale today and of course I had to go! There were probably 25 tables each rented out by moms and dads who wanted to sell their old homeschooling books. Note to self: Next time, take cash. I didn't even think about taking cash until I went in and started to consider buying things. I only had a check book.  I wondered if I was going to write a check out at every table I bought a book at.  After my first purchase, I got back into my car and went to the bank ( I tried to get money out of the ATM, but it wasn't working, so I looked at the door and it said it closed at 12, guess what time it was? 12! I opened the door and ran in quick. I don't think the lady behind the desk was too happy with me!).  After getting some cash and returning to the sale, I was ready to shop!

Along with remembering to take cash, I will also remember to go the last couple of hours to the sale. Over and over, I got told, "These are free, just take them! I don't want to take them home with me!" Or "The sign says 50 per book, but how about I sell them to you for four for a dollar?"  My favorite was, "Just make me an offer! I don't want to carry these books back out to my car!"  People were pretty desparate to get rid of their stuff! I remember one lady saying, "I'm getting space on my bookshelf back." I responded with," I need more bookshelves!"

I went to one table and on the floor was a big bag full of books. The sign said, "$100 Sonlight, 4th grade"  I looked at it again and it was exactly what I would be using for Megan for 4th grade. This was Core E and I am using Core D this coming year.  This would be American history from 1850 to the present.  The lady behind the table said that her friend was selling this set, but there were about 10-15 books missing plus the instructor's guide.  She also had half of a science set included in this bag on the floor.  I asked a couple more questions and told her I would think about it and call her this weekend. I was hesitant to buy it without an instructor's manual.

I keep on looking at more tables and then I get to a table that had a big Sonlight binder on the table. I looked at the title, "American history, Core E, 1850 to present." Is this for real?  Nobody else saw this? One person was selling the books and a completely different person was selling the instructor guides?? I flipped though the binder and it was spotless. There was no writing anywhere and it included all the language arts lessons too! I expressed intrerest in it to the lady behind the table and she said, "Just take it, I don't have a need for it." I looked at her kind of funny because this is probably worth $50-$75!!!  She had a price tag of $10 on it. I replied, "I'll give you something for it." She replied, "Ok, $5." Sold!!  (Do you know how hard it was this year to find a set with language art lesson plans and worksheets that were not written on??)

So I went back to the original lady with all the books and showed her my steal! Now I was really interested in those books. She gave me the list of books that were missing and I wrote down all the books that were in the set.  I didn't want to make such a big purchase on-site, especially without talking to Matt about it (plus my phone was dead, so I couldn't call him) and I did want to make sure the instructor's guide matched up with the books, which I am sure it will.  I told her I would call her by Monday with my decision!  There were probably 30 books in her set.  I talked to Matt about it and he said I could go ahead and get it.  I just need to put it away a year! I am not even going to worry about buying the rest of the books this year.

I also got quite a few books about dinosaurs for Christian, a music book, an art book, a pop-up European cities book, some horse books for Megan, Pocohantas for Courtney, a little song book for Courtney, some early American history activity books, some American history coloring books, and some other various books. I came home with a whole bagful! Most of these were $2 and under!
Too bad they didn't have any books I was actually looking for! Now to get on ebay and order the rest of what I need in the fall. 

One Reason...

Some day I am going to come up with a list of why I love homeschooling. Actually I had one done once and it got deleted and I hadn't taken the time to write it up again.:(

As for now, I will give you one reason why I love homeschooling. It is friendships!

I know, odd, right? But here is why I think it is so important, especially in a homeschooling situation!

1.  When you go to public school and there are 100 kids in a class and they are divided into 4 classes.  Every year, they mix all the kids up and make up new classes. How can you ever get to make good friends?? You have a friend for 1st grade, then you have to make new ones in 2nd grade, and so forth. How irritating!  With homeschooling, the classes never change!

I am very thankful that my kids (and myself) are starting to develop friendships that will get started now and will last for awhile.  I see my kids starting to make friends and I know that there will never be a situation that should inhibit them from getting together (like changing classes).  I know we will be able to hang around these people for awhile (maybe even years) and get to know them better.  It is so much fun raising your kids alongside another family.

2.  When you are homeschooling, you tend to have your kids with you. If you do anything, your kids are usually along. If you have a playdate or anything, the parents usually stay. This is a great situation! Not only do the kids get to develop relationships, but so do the moms!

3.  It is so neat to start to make friends with people who have the same values and morals in life as you do.  It is nice that they believe the same things you do and you can talk about religion and not get in trouble! Our kids can also talk about religion and not get looked down upon or even be scared to talk about God and Jesus!

4.  It is nice to have other people around who know how hard it is to homeschool, but also know how much of a blessing it is!! They understand what I am going through and are there for encouragement, not discouragement.  We can bounce ideas off of each other and talk about our daily struggles.  We can be open about our thoughts and how we handle certain situations. What a blessing that is!

Getting Ready for next school year.

I kind of have school on my brain all the time. I usually have a thought or two swirling through my brain at any given moment.

This weekend, I got a lot done.

I filled out the homeschooling papers for next year.  I need to get those in by July 15th. You have to have them approved 30 days before you start school, so we need to get them notarized and off to the Nebraska Department of Education soon.  I also need to send along Courtney's birth certificate this year to prove she is of school age. I had to send Megan's there last year.

I was very busy on ebay this weekend. It is amazing what you can find. I was waiting for school to end and for people to put all their old stuff up. 

This is what I got for next year.

1. Sonight Core D American History.  We used this same curriculum for world history this year and loved it.  This includes all Megan's read-aloud books and history.  We will be studying American History until 1850 for third grade and then the rest of American History for 4th grade.

Along with her read-alouds and history, I also got her the Advanced Readers.  This last year, I got her 3rd grade readers, but those were way too easy! She breezed though them pretty quickly.  For Core D, there was an option of regular readers or advanced. I happen to find a Sonlight set with advanced!  The bonus of Core D is that all the readers and read-alouds all relate to what you are studying in history.

I also got Sonlight Language Arts D package with this too.  I did this last year with Megan and honestly, I was not very happy with the phonics or grammar sections, but I loved the writing sections.  They really challenged the kids to be creative and to think outside of their box.  We probably laughed and cried the most at these writing assignments.  (Laughed because we had such a fun time creating stories and essays, cried because I made Megan do them!)
I also get the lesson plans for all these sections plus the student sheets, which are NOT written on! That makes me happy!

As a bonus, I also got the lesson plans, student sheets, and three books from Sonlight's D science program.  If I want to use this program in a couple of years, I just need to get the missing books.

2.  To make up for the fact that Sonlight does not have a lot of grammar or sentence structure activites, I found a teacher's manual and student book from Rod and Staff to make that information up.  This set is usually $27 online and I got it for $10.

3.  I also plan to do Bible together next year. I am not happy with Sonlight's Bible program, so I went and found a different one to use next year. I decided to try Bob Jones University Press for Bible. I ordered a student book, materials, and a test last week off ebay and on Saturday, I got the teacher's manual. Usually this is a $54, but I got it for $6.  They said that it was brand new too! So hopefully it is! I am doing 3rd grade level for this, I think it will be fine for Courtney. I need to order an extra workbook since I will need two of them.

4. Finally today I ordered one last thing. I really want Courtney to have a solid foundation in phonics. Since I'm the one teaching her how to read, this is how I want her to learn :)  Rod and Staff (again) has some great phonics books for the lower levels. I found a set on ebay of course. It had the Pre-K, 1st grade, and 2nd grade phonics books.  This is usually about $68 and I got it for $9.99! Pretty happy! I don't plan on using this every day with Courtney, but just to supplement if I need. I also thought I could go through some of it this summer. I figure for $10, it's worth it to help her understand a little bit more. I am using Sonlight Language Arts with her too (1st grade level), so I will just need to get started and see how it goes.   (Yes, I figure we can skip the kindergarten level since she knows all her letters and sounds and it already putting words together). 

I already have Courtney's Language Arts here and Sonlight Science (kindergarten level here).  Again, both off ebay for discounted prices! I am going to start at kindergarten science with both of them. Megan has not had a lot of science the last 3 years, so I thought I would start at the beginning. It is made for K-2nd graders anyway, so I think it will work out great.  There are lots of hands on activities and lots of cutting and pasting for Courtney. :)

I do need to order Math sometime too for both girls. We are going to do Horizons for kindergarten math and 3rd grade Math. I looked at some different programs, but I couldn't really switch because a lot of what Megan had learned in 2nd grade math, these other programs were starting to teach them in 3rd grade. I don't want Megan going backwards! I was not 100% happy (I was about 98% or so happy) with Horizons last year, but it is a good program!  I think it will give Courtney a good solid start with math!

Last but not least, the state requires us to teach our children health. I used Abeka last year for 2nd grade health and didn't like it. The books were a little outdated, like when talking about using the phone, they had pictures of the old phones with cords in the books and no mention of cell phones! I am going to try Horizons for health this year. I think I can use 3rd grade for both kids. I only plan on doing health once a week. 

Art, music, and PE are also subjects I need to work in there. Megan is going to take dance again and Courtney wants to take gymnastics, so that might be PE. We could have a set music time (me play piano, girls sing and dance), and we can do crafts or buy a simple art book. These can be once a week activities too.

Megan has also requested to learn Greek and Latin roots.  I didn't push spelling or vocabulary with her last year because she is pretty good speller, but she really has an interest in other languages.  We will have to see about this.  I'm going to have plenty of other subjects to cover! I can't wait for all this stuff to come in the mail this week!

Dance Recital!

Megan did a great job at her dance recital last night! It was an awesome night of worshipping God through dance!

I posted many more pictures on my facebook page. Megan did an awesome job!!!

We are all signed up and ready to go again next year! Keep up the good work Megan!

Done with School!!

We are officially done with 2nd grade.

Our first homeschooling year is under our belt.

I would love to reflect on this moment.  This has been a year of transition, but I don't think I would change it for the world.  I absolutely LOVE homeschooling and I think Megan enjoys it too!  We had a very rough start, I will admit, but by about January, we seemed to get on track and get things going.  I am glad I stuck with it and had perserverance. My goal was Christmas and I made it all year.  What a joy it has been!!

We finished up her final book report this afternoon and read the last four chapters in our history book.  We had to cover the Korean and Vietnam War in our study of world history. :)  I couldn't just stop at World War I like our book wanted us to.  I still would like to show Megan and Courtney pictures of the Berlin Wall, we talked about that today too. 

Now what are we going to do?? Or I could just take a break for a little bit....

(Written two days later)
I was putting Megan's school books away today and she grabbed her history book,which is about 400 pages and 91 chapters. She didn't want me to put it on the shelf, she said, "Can I have my favorite book please??" So I gave it to her! Next thing I know, she's laying on her playroom floor reading chapter 1!! Wow, we read that chapter last August! We learned world history from creation until now in one year! What a good basis she has gotten in history! This was the book that we were supposed to stop reading at chapter 84, but she wanted to read the last 8 chapters and finish the book, so we did!  Next stop is American history for the next two years!

Dishes!

I can't believe it. Every single dish in my house is clean. They are either drying on my counter from handwashing them or they are put away. There is not one dish even in my dishwasher! This is definitely a first!

On a side note, it's funny to watch Christian put dishes away. He likes to "help" unload the silverware out of the dishwasher, after I take the sharp knives out of course! He knows where everything goes too. I had to laugh today though, he picked up a big slotted spoon and said, "bubbles."  Why does he associate that spoon with bubbles? Because him and Courtney like to fill up the bathroom sink with water and bubbles and then they play in the bubbles with the slotted spoons! When he pulled a second spoon out, he said, "sissies bubbles!"