And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Nine ingredients measured out and all lined up in bowls. Three children anxiously awaiting to see how this was our Bible lesson.

First ingredient. First child. Taste the flour. Is it good? Is it gross? Yeah its gross. It tastes bad all by itself. Tell me something that in your life that is “gross” or hard or bad. Write it down on the card in front of you.

Repeat ingredient. Different kid.

Brown Sugar – Good. Tell me a good thing in your life. Now write it down.

White sugar – good.

Salt – good.

Baking soda – bad.

Vanilla – Really bad.

Chocolate Chips – good.

Eggs – declined to taste, we know they are bad.

Butter – bad.

Out of 9 ingredients – five are bad when they are tasted alone and four are good. {Really it should be 6-3 because salt alone is gross but my kids think otherwise.}

Let’s mix up all the ingredients.

Now let’s taste.

How is it?

Delicious? Yes.

How is it that all of these things – both bad and good – together make something good?

Light bulb (or sugar rush). They got it.

Jesus takes our whole life. All of it – good and bad. He works it together for something fabulously delicious.

Praise Him for that.

*Bible lesson taken and tweaked a bit from Positive Action’s 2nd grade Bible curriculum.

We started off the school year with the main subjects: Language Arts, Bible, and Math. We have now added science, art, and one elective each. Next week, we will be adding the rest of the subjects and will be in the full swing of things. I have to say that I am 100% pleased so far with our curriculum choices. We have a nice eclectic mix of style and intensity and I think it’s going to be a grand year.

My ideas always upstage my funds or the stock in stores to pull off. It’s a sickness. I just wanted to put that out there.

We have added P E. to our subject list this year. After doing a review for Family Time Fitness over at Hip Homeschool Moms, I was initially intrigued by the whole concept. I have always thought that if the kids were active that, that would be fine. However, after reading the information about the curriculum, I have changed my line of thinking. There is a lot more to Physical Education than just staying active. The Wii isn’t going to cut it after all. Totally sort of kidding.

We are not a terribly big sports family and really my kids don’t own many clothes that are suitable for that type of behavior including tennis shoes. We are a Converse, Toms, flip flops, and bare feet type of family. I was a little apprehensive about getting set up to implement PE because of the cost in purchasing curriculum, clothing, shoes, and supplies. However, it has all worked out and we will be off and running in a week or two. We will be doing our PE curriculum two times a week and the Couch to 5k for my older two, three times a week. In addition, my youngest daughter is on a soccer team.

So back to the clothes – my daughter has two dreams for middle school. Lockers and changing for PE. I delivered the lockers and this year I am delivering PE clothes. Yep Yep.

I had grand plans that failed, largely. Thankfully there are 26 letters in the alphabet and somewhere along plan D or E, I have finalized the situation. My kids will be issued PE clothes in about 1-2 weeks. 2 tshirts, 1 sweatshirt, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of sweatpants, and 1 pair of socks. They will be adorned with our fabulous new logo for our school that my husband created. It cost me $30 a student for the above ensemble.

While 50% of the time I think this is perhaps over the top to make my kids change for PE, especially into a uniform. Let me tell you what the other 50% says. First, little things are fun to kids. Lockers, honor roll, school parties, yearbooks, awards, trophies, and about a billion other things including PE clothes, despite their general hideousness.

What is it going to hurt?

Second, there is something to be said about learning to keep track of their things, making sure that the right clothes are clean on the right day, making sure they can get changed and get outside on time, etc. Yeah we are at home, but in my class, if they fail to do so, they are going to drop and give me twenty.

Third, it’s fun.

The end.

My youngest is beginning the Draw Write Now series. She LOVES it.

We are doing it once a week on Thursdays. I did not care for the journal that came along with the book, so I cut up some ruled paper and some plain white paper to glue onto a pretty colored sheet. This way my girl can mess up a jillion times and get it just the way she wants it before she commits. I am saving them all year and will make them into an art book when she completes volume 1.

It has been interesting having a toddler while school is in session. People asked me ALL the time how I was going to “do school” with a newborn in the house. That was a piece of cake compared to this. A piece of double decker chocolate cake with rainbow sprinkles and strawberry filling compared to this.

However, we are falling into a schedule. He knows nothing different and really has no choice but to comply with us!

He plays, struts his fashion sense, and eats. Between those three things, he’s pretty much good. He likes to be right in on the action.

The other day we were running an errand in the morning and my little boy began to shimmy. Serious shoulder shimmying in the stroller going on to some fabulous in store tunes. My oldest says, ” I am so glad we don’t have to leave all day to go to school. I can’t imagine not being able to see him do all these things and be with him. That would be so sad to have to be separated.”

Yeah I melted. No question.

When I began homeschooling I heard one word repeatedly. Apologia. I drank the kool aid last year and I’m a fan. My kids adore science now. Like super adore it. It’s homeschool friendly and it’s tough too. It pushes my kids and they learn. One of my favorite parts? You can order the experiment kits already labeled and ready to go for each lesson. Makes experiments actually doable in my kitchen.

Boy, have I had a fun last week or so on the internet.

First, our classroom was featured at 36th Ave during a weekly link party. Um, fun.

Next, both this year’s classroom and last year’s classroom were featured on a post about inspiring homework and learning spaces at the TLC website, Parentables. Pinch me, please.

Then, I wake up Sunday morning to find that Centsational Girl featured my classroom in her monthly best of the blogoshpere post. Um wow. My unicorn just flew right in on a rainbow and fed me gumdrops. SO FUN!

It’s like I won employee of the month really. Only without my own parking space or feature on the bulletin board in the lunch room. It’s a whole lotta fun, I tell ya. I feel very grateful.

Back to real life, the laundry is screaming at me!

Happy Wednesday to you all!

and p.s. I lit my pumpkin candle this morning. It’s officially the most wonderful time of the year.

If you have seen Martha Stewart’s line of office supplies at Staples you may just understand that it is almost entirely necessary to make up some reason to use it, even if none truly exists. Fortunately, I had an actual need. I have been experimenting with different ways to organize my lesson plans for the past three years of school. For the first time, I am actually super excited about my lesson planner.

You know why?

I am not ashamed to admit that it is in part because the whole thing is black/white and aqua. It is also true that I swear I can’t stop petting my binder {do not write me off as crazy because of this unless you have gone to Staples and petted one of her binders yourself}. However, more importantly, everything school related is in one place. It makes sense to my brain. I made it up and I think it has to be this way. No one perfect planner exists and sometimes you just need to take matters into your own hands.

Here is the tour. Five stops. Five dividers. Buckle your seat belts please.

1. Calendar

Within this tab there are several different things. I didn’t want more than 5 dividers in the binder overall, so I combined some things in this section. I used Martha’s coordinating little mini post it notes to separate them to make it easier.

Calendar at a glance.

This is a one page quick look of what our school year looks like. I have checked our state requirements for attendance and planned accordingly. We have a four day work work with a fifth day of independent work (180 days). You can download this sheet for free here. I have taken a highlighter to our school days. We have one week off at Thanksgiving, three weeks at Christmas, one week at Easter, and a few misc president’s days, etc.

I plan our year in weeks, thirty six of them. It really is the backbone for how our whole year is laid out.

* I only highlight the days of in the classroom learning. The fifth day each week is independent work and can be completed at any point over the weekend. Therefore, I do not schedule it on this calendar. I think it is important for all my kids, even my second grader, to learn to manage their time and be able to complete assignments on their own.

Monthly calendar.

I use this calendar for school related functions only, not personal household planning. I have labeled the 36 weeks of school, our breaks, our science classes, and our days off. I will include our field trips (once I get those planned). I use this calendar often for planning out curriculum, etc. I chose this one for several reasons. First, it is Martha Stewart and part of this line. Yes, that IS a valid reason. Next, it is aqua. It has big huge boxes (lots of room to write in). Finally, it provides me with constant laughter. Oh yes, because in typical Martha fashion, she offers household and seasonal year round tips. For example, on March 22nd, please check and stock your first aid kit. Uh, huh….that’ll happen. The below month is October. Check out the 29th.

Curriculum Overview.

This is new for me this year and I love it. If you would have asked me any of my past three years of homeschooling, what we were learning, I would have said oh Abeka, or oh Sonlight {the company rather than the content}. This year, I made up a sheet and I spent a few hours going through each subject to figure out a bird’s eye view of what we are learning for each week of the school year. Now I can tell you that on week 17 we will be covering Indians, God’s truthfulness, Venezuela, and qu words. Magical, ey? Best part is now when I find all those crazy fun projects on Pinterest, I will be able to pin them and do them at a time that really makes sense with our studies.

I use one set for Emma (2nd grade) and one set for Taylor (7th grade) and Cameron (8th grade) combined.

2. Daily Lesson Plans- Emma

This sheet I splurged a little and had printed on a creamy ivory cotton linen (it’s petable too). This is where I plan the details for our day to day, including the page numbers, specific assignments, etc. This will be filled out a month in advance, maybe six weeks. I would like to do this weekly, but it just isn’t realistic for me. I do better taking a chunk of time to plan for 4-6 weeks. Then on Sunday night or over the weekend, I can simply review what is coming up for the week and gather the necessary supplies.

3. Daily Lesson Plans- Cameron & Taylor

Same as above. They have their own sheet.

4. Project list.

I am very hands on with the kid’s curriculum. The more projects and experiments, the better. It has been hard to find a really tangible system that works to make sure I have all the necessary supplies in order to make this happen. I have experienced all too often sitting down to do an experiment and not having cabbage or an egg or something else. During my daily lesson planning that I do 4-6 weeks at a time- I take one sheet per week and make a list of supplies I will need to purchase for that week at the store.

The greatest thing about these papers in this section is that they are perforated. I can just rip off the shopping list and take it to the store with me to prepare for the upcoming week. The other side of the paper is left in the binder, so that I can see the notes I have made regarding those projects. Rad, huh? Yes, I just said rad.

5. Grades.

I have chosen a single subject grade sheet by Donna Young. You can download it here for free. It’ll work beautifully.

There you have it!

It’s a good thing, as Martha would say!

More school related posts including our new classroom reveal, our new school name, how I handle all those worksheets, and plenty more….coming soon.

Here’s to happy school planning!