Mood:  incredulous

Yes, I've slopped to new low levels and written a teaser for tomorrow's post. Now don't go hog wild on me! There is some truth to this. My kids have been a bit piggy lately! In fact, the reason I've not written this post is because I wanted to get a picture of them acting like little boars. I just haven't been able to pen them in to take one. Well, tune in tomorrow to find out what all of this porker talk is all about. Until then, don't ham it up too much!

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Mood:  happy

I've never been one to write about all of the curriculum we use. Every year, at the beginning of the school year, I always see a bunch of posts about what curriculum all of the other homeschool bloggers are using with their children but I've never decided to participate. Well, this year I thought I would. I don't know why...I'm certainly not more organized...but for some reason I just want to. Maybe its to keep me on task this year. Who knows? But here goes.

Jacob

This is Jacob's first year of homeschooling. In fact, we didn't even register him under our umbrella group this year...SHHHH!Actually we did the same with Joshua. This way, if Jacob doesn't advance much this year, then we can always just register him as a kindergärtner next year. If he does well, then we can just advance him to first grade. A lot of homeschoolers do that. This year Jacob is using...

All About Reading - A great reading program we found at the Midwest Homeschool Conference last year. I've reviewed All About Spelling before, which is from the same company, and liked it, and we really liked what we saw at the convention. Sure enough, he loves it. He's really excelling!

Before Five in a Row - Before Five in a Row is supposed to be a pre-school program, but it is a review item for the TOS Homeschool Crew, and, since we weren't sure how Jacob would do, we thought it would be perfect to try him out with. I'll be reviewing it in a couple of weeks, so we'll let you know how it goes.

Any other TOS Homeschool Crew stuff that comes along - as I hinted before, we are kind of playing this year by ear. With all of the therapies that Jacob goes to, we weren't sure we could commit to a full load anyway, so our goal is a good introduction to reading this year and sprinkle in some science, social studies, and math as it comes along.

Joshua

Joshua is registered for third grade this year, but his curriculum is really kind of all over the board. He's ahead in reading, on grade level with social studies and science, but about a year below on math and grammar. His handwriting is also still lacking, so we really need to concentrate on that this year. Here's a list of what we are using this year. Since it's a long list, I'll try to keep my comments to a minimum .

Considering God's Creation - a great hands-on science curriculum that we reviewed at the end of last year and are just continuing to use this year. 

Math Mammoth - we are about half way through the 2nd grade year on this one but progressing well.

Expedition Earth - another great book that one of last year's TOS Homeschool Crew members wrote and we bought at the homeschool convention. If you read my post about Joshua and flags from different countries a couple of weeks ago, you know why we are using this .

Language Smarts - again, we are about half way through his second grade book but he is learning and doing well. 

Song School Latin - see below

Speekee Spanish - see below

Yes, my 10 year old asperger's child is actually studying two languages at once. Both of them were reviews for the homeschool crew last year, and he really loved them. So, we are continuing with them this year. We are going to alternate them - probably one one week and the other the next week.

Crew Stuff - as usual, we will have a lot of crew stuff to use and review as well. That's really a blessing. I have found a lot of great curriculum that I would have never tried out or never even have heard of without the crew. The crew has been a real blessing for our family. 

John Allen

I can't believe my little baby is going into high school this year. But it will be good for him. No more fooling around (not that we did much of that any way - mind you ). This year we have to stay on schedule. There are certain things that he must cover! Here's the list of what he's doing and what we are using.

Apologia Biology - last year's apologia science didn't go too well, and I thought it was me. Until I talked to a couple of other homeschoolers who said that if the student hasn't had Algebra 1 yet, then the eight grade science can be difficult. *Breath huge sigh of relief*! So, we are moving ahead with Biology, which, thankfully, doesn't have a lot of math in it. I think he'll do well with this.

TenMark Algebra 1 - another review item from last year that John Allen loved. We are continuing with it this year.

Sonlight American History in Depth - Last year we deviated from Sonlight and I will never do it again. John Allen begged to get back with it this year and we did.

Learning Language ArtsThrough Literature/Institute for Excellence in Writing/Vocabulary Cartoons - Why three things listed. Well, LLATL is great for grammar and John Allen loves it. IEW is great for writing and John Allen loves it. And VC is great for vocabulary and John Allen loves it. If John Allen likes something that's good for him then we are all four it.

First Form Latin - This was a hard one. John Allen loves Latin, but he really wants to try Spanish. But, since we bought this last year and never used it, I opted for saving the money and using this first. Next year we may attempt Spanish.

Competition Air Rifle Shooting for PE - He needs a PE credit, and he loves to shoot. This counts so we are all for it.

Computer Programming as an elective - We started using this last year until John Allen's computer broke down. So, since he needs so many electives anyway, we decided to start all over with it and use it as an elective credit.

So, that's our curriculum for this year. As you can see we are very eclectic. We add in chores and devotions every morning, and Community Bible Study on Thursday's and therapies for Joshua and Jacob, and it makes for quite a full week. It's going to be a fun year!

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Mood:  a-ok

The other day, out of the blue, Joshua decided to play a flag game with me. He would describe a state or country flag and I would guess where it was from. Joshua, for those of you don't know, is our 10 year old (third grade) asperger's child (on the autism spectrum).

At the beginning he was describing our state flag, the U.S flag, the Canadian flag...flags that he has been exposed to. Then, all of a sudden he described a flag that was white with a red circle - the Japanese flag...I thought, "Hmmm. That's interesting. I didn't know he knew that." Still, the Japanese flag is a fairly familiar flag.

Then, he asked me if I knew what country had a blue flag with a "little England flag" in the corner. I was stumped! First of all, I didn't know he knew what the Flag of England looked like, then, because I couldn't think of the flag he was talking about. I answered "Australia". "Nope". Then I thought "New Zealand?" No again. Both of those are blue with a "little England flag" in the corner but those weren't the one he was thinking of. Finally I gave up. He answered "The flag of Fiji!"

I asked "How in the world do you know what the flag of Fiji looks like?" He said that's where Jimmy Snuka is from. Jimmy Snuka is a professional wrestler. Asperger's kids can get fixated on things and learn all that they can about certain topics. Some folks call them "little professors" because they can be extra knowledgeable about topics that fascinate them. Joshua can tell you all about helicopters and, if he sees one, can tell you the type of helicopter it is, because that was a phase he went through. He's also gone through a football phase and, when he was young, a Thomas the Train phase. Ask him about one of those things and he can tell you all about them  .

Anyway, lately it's been professional wrestling. I never thought I would allow my kids to watch professional wrestling until a little old lady started to come to the mission that we run. She faithfully watches professional wrestling and got my boys interested. So, in order for them to carry on a conversation with dear Miss Glenda, we allow them to watch under our supervision. Well, Joshua got hooked, and, yep, is going through a professional wrestling phase. For Christmas Grandma bought him a professional wrestling encyclopedia that he has devoured. It is literally in pieces. We need to buy him another one. In the encyclopedia they have the flag of the country that a wrestler is from. That's where he learned all of these flags.

Have you ever heard of the phrase "strike while the iron is hot"? This fall we are going to be doing unit studies of the countries where the different wrestlers are from. Should be interesting! You never know where your kids are going to learn things!

The Flag of Fiji
 

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Mood:  a-ok

We took First Place at the 4-H state championships!

John Allen didn't quite fair as well this week as he did last week. He still had great scores, but not good enough to win first place individually. The 4-H BB gun state championship is run a lot differently than the Jaycee BB gun state championship. There were more teams at the 4-H state match, but the Awesome Possums with John Allen anchoring the team still won first place. Joshua had an excellent match. His gun malfunctioned during the prone position and he didn't post a good score, but we switched guns and he really did well (for him) on the other three positions. And, he had a great test score! John Allen also had a great test score and did well in the prone, standing and sitting positions, but had problems with the kneeling position. Kneeling has always been his worst position. Something to work on for the national match. As usual, we had great parents who took lots of pictures. Here's the slide show!

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Mood:  happy

This slideshow pretty much says it all!

John Allen - Shackleford Award for being the top shooter.

John Allen - Second Place all around in the state.

John Allen's team placed first in the state.

John Allen and Joshua both selected to represent Bend of the River at National's.

Here's the slide show!

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