Fizzle Fizzle Crash Boom Boom

Where has the time gone? You'd think I ran off to my homeschool conference in the beginning of April and never returned! Boy life has been busy.  I'll try to sum up what has been shakin' , what's been going on in the past few weeks with our garden, our homeschool, places we've been, things we've learned, etc... (Linking this to this week's Homeschool Mother's Journal, Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up and the Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge.)

Homeschool Conference - Every year I go, there is so much to learn. Every year I'm surprised and something speaks to me. This year I was surprised to find the classes that spoke to my heart the most were the ones that talked about how we are called to homeschool, Convictional Faith, another on raising Godly children in a pagan world and one more on strong knit family units.  I was blown away by some of the ideas. I think my focus has always been the teaching or curriculum classes. This year I was blessed by others.

Cruise - I ran off on a cruise with my mother on April 15th. I dragged another homeschool mom with us and we traveled around the Caribbean for 8 days. Oh to be able to do that all the time! But I'm thankful for the free cruise as I could probably never afford it otherwise. The countries I visited took my breath away. You can see my posts with pics here: Caribbean Cruise on my other blog.While I was gone the little one was homeschooled by the other mom's husband. Surprisingly the little one completed everything!

Garden - The garden has had its problems. Seeds we potted, most wilted and died. Seeds in the garden, only half came up (you can see some blank spots in the pic). We've replanted and are seeing more growth. We need to buy tomato plants. I've learned that while going organic is a nice idea, keeping bugs and animals away is another story (still being organic though.) Hubby put up a rabbit fence because our rabbit neighbors thought the plants were their own breakfast buffet. All the rain we've been having has made it a very stress free garden so far with no watering. Time to weed today though. We've been eating lettuce, spinach and kale left and right because there is so much of it. In fact, the other morning I woke up thinking about the wilting bowl of the three in the fridge so I looked up a recipe for a smoothie I could make. Here is what I found: Lettuce Smoothie and it was good! I modified it and used strawberries, blueberries, 1/2 a banana, splenda and 2 big handfuls of the lettuce mix.

Road Trip - A couple weeks ago the child and I went on an impromptu road trip with mom to Atlanta. We spent 10 days in their house they still haven't sold. Fixed up several things and put it back on the market. We also took in the new Coca-Cola Museum and the Atlanta Aquarium. Since they don't live there, there was no TV or internet. We visited the library several times and read many books. I really liked that slow pace. I need to do that more. I've been reading my way through books that continue the Sherlock Holmes series: The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I recommend it highly. The child was interested in reading Sherlock Holmes but much of it is still older reading so the librarian found us a kid's Sherlock Holmes series that she is enjoying: Enola Holmes Mystery series. 

Forgot to mention we drove through the Memphis area and saw the devastating flooding. At one point in Alabama (near Birmingham I think?) we came over the hill and stumbled upon the path of where a tornado had ripped through. You know, you see it on TV and are stunned but it's even more shocking in real life. We took a few pictures. Just amazing the power of the wind. Praying for both those areas.

Chicken Update - Unfortunately we have not bought our chicks yet. It is still on our horizon but seeing as we've been out of town off and on for 2 months, it really wasn't the best time. We plan to be home all summer so we will get them soon. On our road trip we were driving down the highway in Arkansas and at a light saw chicken trailers! We immediately pulled into this little craft shop that also sold sheds. They had one trailer. While we were there ohhing and ahhing at the $600 house, the builder of the coop drove up dropping off another coop. It was fun to talk with the people about the construction. We reluctantly left them there. We couldn't see ourselves dragging it all across the country and back or paying that much. But it did give us ideas... Oh,and we've discovered that a sorta neighbor around the corner has chickens. So each Sunday on the way home from church we ask dad to 'slow down' so we can see 'our chickens'.

Homeschool - As the title of this post states, Fizzle. just once I'd like a definite END to our homeschool year. Have a party, celebrate packing away the books and the beginning of summer. It never happens that way. We get busy or tired and just... fizzle out. We plan to do reading and Latin this summer but I haven't scheduled it out yet so this week we've been reading and playing Monopoly on PS3. Yes, very educational.  Oh yes, and hiding out in the basement...We have been watching the tornado coverage extensively, discussing how and why they form, watching footage of them and being shocked over the devastation. The one that ripped across Joplin was only 2 1/2 hours away. Yesterday we spent almost 2 hours in our basement because of sirens going off and the teen watched one touch down near her work. I hate tornado season. For those in tornado alley. Stay safe!

I'll be back soon with more about our schooling, garden and chickens. Have you ended your school year yet?

Homeschool Conference with Open Eyes

So I've already signed up for the local homeschool conference. For quite a while I did not go, thinking, 'I know what I'm doing, it's just basically a big SELL fest.' But last year, since I was wrapping up and graduating a teen and would be back to having only one child to teach, I thought it might be prudent to attend again.

I also made the decision to stay up by the conference. Even though it was only 20  minutes away, hubby thought it was a good idea and I could get a couple nights away by myself. So that's what I am doing again this year. I've already booked my nice room. A local friend stays up there every year as well so I invited her to share my room if she wants. It should be a fun time. No kids, nobody to take care of but myself, NO COOKING!

I'm looking forward to classes. This year we tried to embrace the Charlotte Mason way of doing things and we did well for several months. But in the interest of getting more work done (catching up for our less than stellar month of December), we went back to longer times of schooling for each subject. I have still managed to keep in some of the subjects we picked up during our months of CM. We're still enjoying Latin and scripture memory. Writing is doing well. I need more structure in it though so we're learning key grammar things. Basically I just go let her write on her story. 

Last year my favorite speaker was Andrew Pudewa (he has great YouTube Videos here). He was amazing and made me think of homeschool and teaching writing and spelling in a whole new way. I was not able to purchase his writing program but I learned so much from him. I need to pull out last year's notes and relearn what he taught. If you get a chance to hear him, GO! P.S. Just looked up his website and remembered that he reminded me a lot of John Cleese! lol)

I'm hoping this year to see classes on Charlotte Mason and maybe a Grammar/Writing class that isn't all about worksheets and boring assignments. That works for some people, but not us. Plus the little one will be moving into 7th grade schooling. Middle school. I might cry, she is growing up so fast. Not sure what subjects we need to cover or how that will work. So I'm heading to the homeschool conference with open eyes. Looking for new ideas...

I wonder if others attend homeschool conferences still. What do you hope to get out of it?

NOTE: This post is linked up with Golden Grasses' post about Conferences.