Weekly Planning Pages

Here are some more planning pages I hope this will help.  I will put up the daily ones toward the end of each month.  But I thought it would help having the weekly pages sooner : )  I also wanted to add that I have put a Label Tab at the top of the side bar so if you are wanting to just get to the Planning Pages it should be easier to find them : )

First Day of School

We are back in the swing of things.  It was an amazingly cool day its like the weather knew it was time for school to start and the temperature dropped down into the low 70.  Which is my kind of weather : )  I love to wear long sleeves shirts and a sweater.  The leaves have started changing also on some of the trees it has seemed to happen all to fast though.
The day went amazing well considering I didn't get very much sleep last night.  All my planning paid off. : )
We started the Morning off with devotional after breakfast. I would like to include some seasonal poems for the little ones more. Challee and the older boys were able to work independently on their different reading projects.  While I went to work with Loch on his school projects, and I had gotten some wooden blocks out for Emma to play with, she did really well she was either playing with the blocks or drawing with the other children so it worked out!
Here is a picture of Challee's Drawing and Summary of her book she is reading for History:

 Loch and I had a good first day together he wasnt to sure he wanted to start back up doing school but we kept it short and he did really well.  I read with him the story from The Little Garden curriculum for First Grade and then we did our form drawing.  After that we went outside and practiced jumping rope and counting the rocks around my flower garden : )  It really seemed to help having that outside break because he didnt have any trouble coming in and doing some writing which he usually hates.  Here is the picture he drew:

 While Challee was finishing up here drawing and summary.  I worked with Taylor on his math.  We are using Making Math Meaningful and we were trying to figure out how to count using number bases.  We worked in the eight base and it was really challenging but when we were all done Taylor shared that he had really enjoyed our math lesson. That it was the first time he had actally enjoyed doing math.  So Im excited to have him continue using that math program. : )  Challenging but rather fun. : )  I could feel my brain trying to expand : )  It was working hard to understand number bases and actually taylor was helping me learn it.  

So over all it went really well.  Im actually looking forward to tomorrow : ) and the adventure will have together : )

Our Fourth Grade Curriculum for September

We are using the curriculum from The Little Garden Flower for fourth grade.  We did tweak it just a little, as I was reading the main story she has that runs through the whole curriculum it inspired me  to study the countries our Ancesters came from with Challee this year.  To read the legends and myths from these different countries. So September looks like this:

Local History for Geography & History : )
We live in Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley so I found the neatest book at the Library called
A Valley and a Song The Story of the Shenandoah River
Im also hoping to squeeze in The Blue Hill Meadows in also and maybe A Little Maid of Virginia : )
We will also go and visit some of the neat Historical Sites around the area for this month. Im really looking forward to it.
Science:
We will be studying animals
We are using Charles Kovacs The Human Being and the Animal World
I also found this wonderful article called On the Animal Teaching in the Fourth and Fifth classes by L. Francis Edmunds it was really helpful and I have shared some of his ideas to day in our study of the human form.
We are going to study the animals around our area first, and then the animals from each country we visit this year in our studies.
Math: 
I am going to be using mostly the Noble Knights of Knowledge math program and also the math curriculum from the Little Flower Garden.
Writing:
Im going to have Challee keep a journal and write summaries for each chapter she reads in her history books.
Handiwork:
We are going to be learning how to knit and crochet this coming semester.  I sent for the book about Mary Frances Learns to Knit and Crochet.  Im really looking forward to reading this with Challee.  Untill the book comes Im teaching her how to use the niffity knitting loom I have.  She decided to make a hat for Emma. : )
I still need to find a grammar program I might go ahead and use one I already have.
Im not sure if this will help any one but it give you an idea of how we will be doing fourth grade this year
Im going try and get the older boys schedule on here to and also my youngest son who is starting first grade this year.

Birthday fun

I wanted to share a bag I made for my oldest daughters birthday.
I got the idea from the book  The creative family How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Soule
What a great little book it is just chalked full of wonderful ideas, and I really enjoy the way she writes.  She talks about creating an Artist travel bag and so I thought that would be really fun to do for Challee for her Birthday.
Front
All the decorative pieces I crocheted, the flowers on top and the motif on the front and even the trim on the back.  It was fun to have it actually work : )
   Back
Here are the thing that I put into it.
One of the things that I would like to do with this blog is share ideas that I find on ways that are creative but thrifty, really focusing on living more green : )  One of the things I shared with my daughter  is the Dairy of an Edwardian Lady and its a copy that I have had for years but thought it would be fun to pass down now to Challee.  I also had the colored pencils already  I hadn't really used them at all so they were like new.  The smallest set is soft pastels and then the next set is watercolor paints.
That is one thing I really enjoyed about Amanda's book she had such creative ideas for using what you have around you.  A great read I highly recommend it : )
Amanda has another book out  to called:


It looks really good!   I'm really looking forward to getting that one two!!!

Here are the next calender pages!

Here are the rest of the planning pages for September and I will go ahead and post the October and November calender pages also. It might take me a little bit to get all the planning pages up but Ill work on it : )

I have really enjoyed this summer!!! The weather has been beautiful, but it has gone by so fast.
I am looking forward to starting school back up again. September is such a fun month, Michealmas day and then the beginning of Fall, also my youngest sons birthday happens this ins September. Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year! I have been thinking about also adding October planning pages. Would that be helpful? It wouldn't be a problem I have the design that I want to put on the October pages. I have been thinking about doing it for myself and if it would be helpful to others I can post them up this month to. I might could even do November also, at lest the three month calender pages. Let me know what would be best for you. I hope that all of you had a wonderful Summer and are excited to start back into this wonderful school year : )
Jane