Dollywood

Grandma and Gramps stopped by and spent a couple of days with us on their way up to Virginia for Jack’s preschool graduation.  Samuel and I went to Dollywood with them for the day.  This year they opened a ropes course called Adventure Mountain.  We had done it before but didn’t get pictures.  This time, Gramps couldn’t go because he wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes so he got to be the photographer.

Samuel on the little ropes course at the bottom

Now, time for the big course… The geyser was not working last time we did this.  It was a little freaky trying to balance on a rope while getting sprayed with a geyser, but it felt good in the heat!

Kindergarten Plans

Hard to believe but Samuel will be starting Kindergarten!  This year is the first year we actually have to report our homeschooling to the school board also so we have to be diligent about getting everything done.  There aren’t too many changes in what we’re doing since Samuel is already doing some Kindergarten work, but here’s the lineup for this year:

• Little Hearts for His Glory – We are continuing working through this at half speed.  We probably won’t finish till December of Samuel’s 1st grade year.  Since this is meant to be a kindergarten or 1st grade program it will work out fine.  We just add in extra library books on whatever science and history topics we are studying each week.
• Singapore Earlybird Math 2A & 2B – This is scheduled in LHFHG and we are just continuing with it.  He will finish this mid-year and we will move on to the 1st grade math.
• A Reason for Handwriting A
• La Clase Divertida 1 – Adam and I have always wanted to learn Spanish, so we thought it would be fun to add it in to our homeschool routine and all learn together.  We actually probably won’t start this for a few more months, but we are looking forward to it.
• Extras – I really like the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling so we are adding in some of her ideas for extras.  We are learning hymns using Passion Hymns for a Kid’s Heart.  There are several books in this series and Samuel really likes them.  We start out by reading the devotional about the hymn and then spend about a week on each verse.  We learn the verse and I make sure he understands what it means.  Then after we’ve done all the verses I have him make a notebook page by drawing a picture of what the hymn means to him.  We also are adding nature study using ideas from http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com  We may add in some kind of artist & composer study if I decide to pull something together.