Our walk this morning...

The kids have all been sick around here for a couple weeks now and this week has been the worst! BUT! We are on the upswing today (I'm praying) and I decided that some fresh air would do them all good, so we packed up and went for a short walk over to some "green" space close to our house!

They were all having fun picking up treasures.

When we got home, everyone had to lay out their treasures... and then the trading began!

and we even brought home a spider...

There was a fight whether to kill it or take it outside... Gradin was trying to pick it up!

Here are some of my own pics...

 Kaeli

 Anna playing hide n' seek with Erika

 one of the trees with every color of leaf!

It was so nice to get outside and get some fresh air! Now, Erika and Kaeli are headed back to pick up some more treasures! (Maybe I will get them to blog later...)

wow! that year went fast.... and another one is soon starting...

WOW! My plans for last year and blogging were huge, but the year is over and another one is ready to start! I can't believe how fast the time goes! Well... our year was crazy, but we got through it and are definitely stronger for it!

Over the last year, Erika finished grade 5 and Kaeli finished grade 2. Erika is an amazing writer! Her spelling is kind of "wonky", but it's getting better! She loves to read and has great understanding! She does great at Math, but isn't her favorite subject. She catches on to things quickly and understands very well, however, she doesn't like to think about anything for long! lol  Kaeli is an amazing speller! She came a long way with her writing this year from being apart of a class at school, Literacy Lift Off. She is also great at Math and enjoys it.

Erika is now going into grade 6 and Kaeli into grade 3. We are planning a bit of a different year this year. For Erika in particular, she will be getting a bit of a break, especially from Grammar. We have used an amazing program and will continue to use it with the others, however, she has come so far and I believe this year will be a great year to scale it back a bit and enjoy some things we haven't been able to!  Kaeli will continue on with our plans, but still get in on our new plans to come!!

Gillian is technically still too young for even kindergarten, however, she is so excited to do school this year! She knows many of her letters, and numbers and knows a lot of sounds too, so I will be doing school with her as she wants!

The twins... Gradin and Anna... well, they will be turning 2 in a few months... which is totally hard to believe all to itself, and they are going to be a handful this year! I will definitely have to have plans for them when I need to be working with the other kids!  They are a lot of fun, but get into a lot of trouble and make a lot of messes!! That will probably be my biggest challenge this year!

We are hoping to get more involved in some outside activities this year, and we will see... this will be updated...

I'm off for now... planning on updating more this year and getting the kids involved in blogging too! It's going to be a great year!

Monday, Sept. 14/09

     Today, we used our bags of fun from our ravine hike....

    First, each of the girls (Erika, Kaeli and Gillian), including myself, sorted out all of their items into different piles that they decided on. After they were done, they each explained why they made the piles they did. We talked about classification and how even within the piles they had made, we could sort even more, ie.the pile of leaves could then be sorted more into colors or shape. After that, we talked about living and non living things and what makes them that way and decided on which of our groups would fit where.

      Then... we made one big poster of all our findings and the different sortings. After that, each of the girls got to make a picture from their findings having something to do with the hike.

Rachelle

Hike in the Ravine- Sun. Sept.13/09

     Well, we went to church in the morning, then had wanted to hit the trails in the ravine for the afternoon with a picnic lunch. We were able to meet up with some great friends to go on our hike and picnic with... the more the merrier =)

     With the twins in the chariot, Bryan carrying the backpack full of food, we were off- all 14 of us! The ravine is so beautiful, especially right now with the leaves changing color! We hiked for a while to find a picnic spot and had some lunch. Then... the fun began. The big boys, took all the kids (minus the twins) down to a stream. We heard a lot of "aaahhhhhh", "ooooooo" and "splaaaaaash"! Must have been lots of fun!

      When they came back "up", I gave each of the kids a paper bag and asked them to collect things... whatever they wanted! They each filled their bags.

    

A few hours of fun later- we headed for home.
Rachelle

School Starts?

     We have started, well, sort of, I guess, for this year. It's always kind of funny to me though when people ask, "When are you starting school?" because my thinking is, "Aren't we always schooling?" We have been trying to teach our kids (and others...lol) that school is learning, school = learning. It's not a certain place you have to be or certain times certain things have to be done, it's simply learning. Our main reason for choosing to educate at home is so that our kids would love to learn and along with that have the desire to learn.

     Now, we do follow curriculum, specifically like Math because the basics are the basics. We believe education is important and we want to give our kids every opprtunity to succeed and with that, being educated is important. Not all we do is conventional though, for example, our Social Studies curriculum follows time, not random topics like in the school system. Although the outline looks different, in the end they will have covered the same material, but making a lot more sense here because it follows a time line.

     We are educating at home for us and our kids- because we believe that it is the best decision that we can make for all of us. In turn, we don't look any differently at anyone else who chooses to educate at home or not, nor do we look differently at what people choose or not choose to teach. That is the joy of living in a free country and for us in Alberta, where the options are numerous! We are thankful we have the option and opportunity to grow alongside our kids in this journey. We are often asked if we will educate at home all the way through grade 12 and our answer is always the same... we take it a year at a time and a child at a time. Each year holds its own challenges and schedules and each child holds within themselves their own interests and needs. We pray that we will always be sensitive to this and do what is always best for our kids and our family (even if not everyone around us agrees). 

     So with this... our journey actually began 6 years ago now- officially when Erika started kindergarten. She is now in grade 5 and Kaeli is starting grade 2 this year. We are excited to share our story... even if it is only for our own portfolio. There will be posts here by each one of us at different times.

Rachelle