Today is the last day of school for our two children who attend a local Christian school.  Here at home we’ll take a break too.  Ahh….Christmas break.  Shopping is done and so we’ll fill our days with "who knows what".  Hopefully we’ll get some baking in.  It’s nice to know we’ve got several weeks of nothing!
Yippee!
Julie

I have to admit I’m a paper pusher.  Homeschooling for us has always been on paper…lesson plans, school work, counting days etc.  But this year God is getting me more and more organized.  I bought the BusyBodyBook Planner and have used that faithfully.  But knowing I’ll have two more grizzly bears at home next year has driven me deeper into the woods and onto a quest for better & better planning. 
I asked the question earlier today about Lesson Plan Software and Amy Beth at My Smokey Mountian Homeschool had a great suggestion:  Homeschool Tracker.  I love it!  The interface is great.  It’s easy to navigate around and it appears to be a wonderful solution to all I will have to keep track of next school year.  And the best part???  IT"S FREE!!  I only have one at home now who is homeschooling but next year we’ll have a 4th grader, a 3rd grader and a 1st grader at home.  Baby girl will be off to her K4 1/2 day class I’m sure she’ll love!
I tried a couple other lesson planning software packages today and Homeschool Tracker is by far my favorite!  I hope this helps someone else out there on the road to better organization!  And thanks Amy Beth!!
Julie

Does anyone out there use your computer for your lesson plans?  I’m looking for software that I can enter my lesson plans into and then if something happens and we miss a day or a subject it will automatically forward things to the next day.
Any help???

Some of you may remember the Wolf Howl we attended at the Western NC Nature Center at the beginning of November.  It was so wonderful.  We learned about the difference between the red wolf, the gray wolf and the coyote. They had wolf pelts there for us to feel, a skull, something in a jar. (eek!) Then after a cool lecture, slide show and talk we ventured outside to see some real live wolves!  We never got to see the red wolf but did get to see the grey wolf.  They are huge.  The Nature Center has one older female and two younger gray wolves.  They would howl back at us as we raised our voices to the moon.  Really cool!!!  We learned that the gray wolf has the deepest howl, the red wolf a medium pitched howl and the coyote has a shrill high pitched howl. 

My best friend, Andrea and my daughter dressed as a wolf…. 

One of our slides.  Can you believe how few red wolves there are???

I’m not feeling my best today so coming up with a Freaky Friday Foto was just too much today.  So here’s a Not So Freaky Friday Foto.

On Monday we drove to the mountains to the Apple Orchard.
We had the best time.  The weather was just perfect.  Here are some pictures from our day.

Here we are before our educational talk on apples and apple trees.

Silly boys on the hay ride without any hay…

It was quite cold when we arrived and everyone wore their winter coats…

Our Middle son…

Our oldest helping baby girl ring the bell…

Here they are feeding the very aggressive and hungry ducks…

The scenery as we were walking into the bamboo forest maze…

Here I am with our youngest son….

And me with baby girl…

And me with the oldest two monkeys…

I’m excited because I’ve been planning field trips for the last two days.  Congaree National Swamp near Columbia SC has an OWL Walk on Friday nights from 7:30-9:30pm.  Does that sound cool or what???  That’s scheduled for sometime in October.
I think we may visit Stone Mountain, Georgia for my youngest son’s birthday and check out the lazer show they have after dark.  It sounds like a fun trip and we may even be able to swing a night in a hotel room too.  My kids love that!!!
Then, we have the Apple Orchard trip planned for the end of October and a Wolf Howl (in the NC mountains) for the first of November! 
Hey, you guys want to come too???
We’re going to have fun!!
Julie

Today several of my homeschool mom friends and I took our kids to the local scrapbook store, Main Street Memories, for a fun field day trip to make Paperbag Scrapbooks (lunch bag size).  Have you seen these before?  We had so much fun!  Here are pictures from today…
My friend Marian working with her daughter Malerie

My friend DeDe working with her daughter Claire

The proud scrapbooker!

The older boys really got into it too!!

And the younger ones were quite content with puzzles after they got tired of scrapbooking.

My little fashion bug showing off her ballerina stickers on her scrapbook.

Here is the end result.  This is my son’s scrapbook!

And in the open end of the paper bag there is room for a tag.  It’s pictured here.  Cool, huh?

And on the end of the bag where the bottom fold is there’s place to do a little flap work.

Here’s some of the pictures my son added to his album.

If any of you want to know how to do the entire craft it’s simple.  Take 3-4 lunch bag size paper bags, punch holes in the middle of them where you can run a ribbon to use as the spine of the scrapbook.  Paper size is cut at 5.5 by 5.5 and fit well on each page.  You can theme the pages or do each one seperately.  The tabs that go inside the open part of the paper bags are just a bit smaller and can have a simple die cut or ribbon added onto them so that you can easily pull them from their protective pocket.  Add stickers, diecuts or ribbon to embellish the book.  Oh, they are such great fun!  And you can do them at home!!!!

This year we are using A Beka.  It’s our first year using it.  Last year we used My Father’s World.
I’m looking forward to getting our new things.  Here’s what I ordered for my 3rd Grader.  We will also be using Singapore Math, which we used last year.  Oh, and of course, GeeArt16

 	   READ & THINK 3                          
           LANGUAGE 3                             
           SPELLING/POETRY 3                      
           CURSIVE WRITING SKILLBOOK                  
           EXPLORING GODs WORLD                       
           OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE   

What are you guys using?? 
Julie