I can't believe our summer is over. The kids got up at 6:30 this morning, wasn't sure that was possible, and have begun their day. In many ways I'm glad this day is here, the anticipation and waiting was becoming all consuming. I will, however, miss this summer. As important as education is, there is a value to lazy days with no agenda but to simply be.

Right now I'm immersed in Biology. I'm planning a 10th grade honors course for my daughter. I wanted to take a moment and share a resource that has been an amazing help in the planning of my course, CK-12.

Our year is over and our website is being updated. We are currently archiving all of this years pages under Teacher resources. Over the next few weeks we'll be adding pages for the upcoming year.

I am truly loving this application. One of the many challenges of homeschool, is that I'm not always available when the kids are ready to go over an assignment. With this valuable tool, there's a way to fix this. I love it for editing papers and working out problems.

When reading Moon Shot I learned about the selection of the astronauts. They had to have flying experience and an academic degree. Also, the had to be under 40 years old and couldn't be taller the 5'11. Reading this showed me how tough it was to become the first astronauts. In the book I was introduced to two pilots.

In the China Study I learned how people get Cancer. In the book the author explained it like growing grass. Planting the seed, letting the seed grow into grass, and the progression of the grass going out of control and taking control of your yard. This example was very helpful to me and I was able to picture it very clearly. So now I understand the process of Cancer much better.

No matter how well something is working, the time comes when a change is needed. Brent is ready to move on to something new. Probably inspired by his sister's planning for High School. We spent a few productive hours at the coffee shop today and came up with a new plan.

Sounds so official, guess I could call them - What I Did All Day Logs. The kids fill them out with the details of what they did and when. Why is this necessary? Well, despite being home most of the day and working with them regularly, they are experts at looking busy and I have a lot to do. It's difficult when you find out late in the day that they haven't actually done much. We've simply had too many days in the past where they've just not done enough to count it as a day. This record keeps them accountable.

Our schedule seems to be falling into place. Callie has math in the morning, Brent in the afternoon. We use Math-U-See and this prevents them from needing to watch a DVD at the same time.

This morning we watched King on the History Channel. It was narrated by Tom Brokaw. I thought it was very good and the kids enjoyed it as well. After, they both wrote a narrative response using the discussion questions in the study guide provided by History.com

I'm exhausted.  We took a little extra time off this winter because I just couldn't teach with all the paint around, we did three rooms in three weeks.  Pictures should be up soon on What I'm Learning Now.  I spent this weekend putting together our 2nd semester.

First, Callie will no longer be taking art classes from the local middle school.  This is her choice, but I'm so glad she made it.  It was a learning experience for her and as is the case with most learning experiences, there was good and bad.  She had some wonderful experiences with her teachers, whom I have nothing but praise for, and some good experiences with her classmates.  She also had some bad experiences with the several members of the administration and most of her classmates.  Her final statement on the whole thing, "If this is what the middle school is like, I don't want to see the high school."  Me either.

Now on to the fun stuff.  I guess years of practice are starting to pay off.  I'm getting pretty good at this home school thing.  I'm doing both the kids almost completely different, excluding PE and Spanish.

Callie, who is my liberal arts, unstructured learner, will be embracing the Charlotte Mason Method.  To help improve her writing skills, which are in need of some attention, most of her narrations will be written.  I love this method.  Nothing is better than a good book.  She will be reading some great books this semester, including The Jungle, Macbeth, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Animal Farm and Narrative of Sojourner Truth.  She will also be participating in a local Science Fair.  We will be continuing our math using Math U See.

Brent, who hasn't met a checklist he didn't immediately fall in love with, will be doing thematic studies using three books from Teacher Created Resources.  We have used these before and he loves them.  He will be studying from Our Country, Electricity and Oceans.  These are literature based thematic units.  He will also be using Math U See as well.

Both kids will be learning Spanish using Rosetta Stone.  For PE we are going to participate in the President's Challenge.  I'm super excited about this.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr Day on Monday, we will be spending the day learning about the man and his movement.  Here are some great links:  The Learning Network MLK Resources, The King Center, King Institute, Text and Video of the speech, and History.com.