Back to School!

 In August of last year we tried Masterbooks. After several months of trying to make it work we realized it just was not a good fit. While it was cute, it was not what we were looking for. By February we were doing Abeka Academy with the dvds. We pushed HARD and finished an entire school grade by the last week of July! 

We took off a week and then started the next grade. I am SO impressed with how much they are learning and how well they are doing. One of the reasons we love Abeka is that they have a spiral approach to learning. They build on what they learned on the previous year/years rather than just moving on completely. 

Next year we are planning on moving, so we are trying to do as much as we can in our area before we go. We have had a great many adventures this spring and summer. We took a trip to see the Redwood Forest,  Golden Gate Bridge, went to Yosemite, and went to Mount Rainier. 

We have gone on camping trips, gone hiking, gone on day trips, overnight trips, and just tried to see as much of this side of the USA before we move. 

But now we are back into school and it is going great. The kids are doing a daily journal to help build up their writing skills in addition to the work they do with Abeka.  I think I had one of my biggest homeschooling rewards today... today was the first day that Veronika picked up a book and read it for fun!! She has read many books but they have been books I asked her to read or she has had to read for school. Today however, she picked up a book and when I asked her if she wanted to read it to me, she said, I can read it myself and sat down and started reading!! 

Each day the kids complete a new entry into their journals and draws a picture to go along with it 

Abeka Academy at Home

The pictures below are mostly of our vacations and not really schooling, but we do try to learn as much as we can everywhere we go and we read all the signs when we go places to help build more learning. Sometimes when we go hiking we will take a bag to collect treasures, other times we will take a map, and other times we bring papers to do a scavenger hunt. 

Ex Nihilo Sculpture Park 

Ex Nihilo Sculpture Park 

Lake Selmac in Oregon

California State Mining Museum 

Yosemite

 Air B&B outside of Yosemite

Air B&B near Yosemite 

Redwood Forest

camping in the Redwood Forest

Trees of Mystery really challenged us! We did a lot of things that were scary but we pushed through and everyone was so proud of themselves! We had a great time! 

It might not look that high but it was. According to their website "You’ll walk the aerial netted suspension bridges through these majestic old-growth redwoods at mid canopy level with viewing platforms from 50-100 feet high in the trees. There are 10 platforms, 2 of which are connected by a spiral staircase, and 8 suspension bridges. There are no exit points between the start of the attraction and the end of the attraction."

At the Trees of Mystery, the kids had fun climbing up and on the statues of Paul Bunyan and his faithful blue ox, Babe. Paul Bunyan's eyes moved and his hand waved and there was someone controlling the statue and would talk to the kids as they climbed on him. The kids were so excited to hear him talking to them and commenting on things they were doing. 

Mt Rainier

Moulton Falls

Hiking by Salmon Creek we stopped to watch the ducks and turtles