First day of school 2011

Well, it's almost a month late, but I had to put our traditional first day of school pics for 2011 here! I love to click on "first day fun" and look back over the years. Crazy.

The annual Diet Coke and Mentos explosion....

Back to school celebration!

Cookie from Grammy and Grandpa.

We kinda like our traditions. :)

Annnnnnd, we're back!

Here are few shots from our first day. Of course we had to explode some diet Coke. And Grammy and Grandpa sent a cookie. Some things never change!

I have plans to post some of what we have going on, some reviews on books I love to use, and some ideas we find helpful.

I also want to share some of our techniques for teaching our big kids. High School is fun! We have a great year ahead so check back!



Garrett saw a diet Coke/Mentos rocket online, so we tried it out.

It shot across the road!


See ya soon!

Our first day 2009

Today was our first day of school for the year. We had a great time, and it was so much fun to get huddled back together and spend the day focused on what our year holds.

Garrett and I started American history. We are so excited about this! We are reading biographies and working our way through important events and people, starting with Columbus.

Riley and Cole are starting Astronomy, which is going to be so much fun with the Apologia book. Lots of cool experiments and projects in there! They are also doing Lentil from Five in a Row this week.

Tyler started some "How stuff works" type science and was typing away on his computer about some discoveries he made. He is also reading a George Washington Carver biography and doing a Beyond Five in a Row unit with that.

We are all going to be doing "Around the World" together this year. We are starting with Italy, and looked at some travel books today. Tomorrow we will explore the life of Leonardo Da Vinci. We will also be reading some Michelangelo and Galileo biographies, doing some authentic Italian cooking, and studying Italian art, history, and architecture. Stay tuned for more on Italy!

And, as always, we did our diet Coke/Mentos experiment. It has become tradition to do this every year on the first day. I guess it's kinda like our version of first day fireworks or something. Honestly, I don't see the getting-doused-with-Diet-Coke thing wearing out anytime soon. Being in the middle of a huge mess just never goes out of style for these particular kids. We did it 6 times.

We don't gots to wear no shirts or shoes in our homeschool. Ain't no dress code here.

Here's what Cole wrote in his journal today. He's right. We do always "Coke experiment."

Grammy and Grandpa had a cookie made to ring in the new school year...

And because clearly we are fans of the traditions, we ended our day by meeting David at Incredible Pizza. Just like our very first year. And second year. And third year.

I seriously can not even believe I get to do this with these kids. I am so very blessed.

Our first day 2008

Today was our first day of school. We spent the day looking at our new stuff and discussing what we would be doing. It was fun just hanging out and talking and getting back into a routine.

We looked through a book about nature journaling, and then went on a nature walk. I love nature walks because they help everyone appreciate the beauty that is around us and they always naturally lead to other lessons.

Does anyone else find this funny? We are in the middle of nature finding all kinds of cool nature things and what do you know, we find a cherry. From our Hi-Ho-Cherrio game.

Riley sketched a couple of things she found. These things led us into a conversation where I introduced her to compound words as she labeled her mushroom. We also talked about past tense and writing -ed when she wrote uprooted. I love the natural progression of learning this way.

Garrett and Tyler were looking at something with a magnifying glass which led to
melting chocolate with a magnifying glass in the sun...

And that led to…you guessed it, lighting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass, which led to a lovely lesson in fire safety and why burning our house down in the name of a science experiment could possibly lead to regret…and how we must try to avoid regret. Anyone feelin' an "If You give a Mouse a Cookie" book comin' on?

We also did our traditional diet coke and mentos experiment that we always do on the first day.

And then we took a break for showers.

We ended our day by meeting David at Incredible Pizza to celebrate the beginning of our school year.

I can not tell you how thankful I feel today that I get to do this with my kids. Sure it is challenging sometimes, but we are smack in the middle of each other’s lives, and I couldn’t be happier. It is truly a blessing.

As we get started on some of our units this week I will be posting what we are doing so stay tuned!

First day of school 2007

We had a great first day! Everyone wanted to do the diet coke and mentos experiment like last year, so we did! Looks like it may be a new tradition. I guess it is kinda like fireworks starting off our new year!

We had lunch at the park, and everyone voted for Incredible Pizza for dinner. Looks like that may become a tradition, too!

Our very first first day 2006

Our very first day of homeschooling! We started with going through supplies, and discussing what we would be doing during the year. Then we read The Gingerbread Man for Riley and Cole. After we read it we made our own gingerbread men and while they were baking, Tyler and Garrett distracted Riley and Cole, I took one of them off of the pan just like in the story. I hid it upstairs and put flour tracks leading to the hiding place. When we pulled the pan out of the oven, they looked so shocked to see one was missing! They had fun finding him.

We did a science experiment with diet coke and mentos, making a huge eruption!

We had a great day and we topped it off with an evening at Incredible Pizza.