Caffeinated Homeschooler

Our last week of our August  Mother Goose Time Superheroes theme has been extremely inspiring for my kids. They know about comic book superheroes already and all their amazing powers and abilities but I think it was eye opening to learn about people that are doing real life superhero jobs. This week we learned about firefighters, police officers, peace keepers, volunteers, and being a good neighbor. They were able to see that there are wonderful people in the world that are doing hero type jobs, and then realizing that they could be superheroes too. We actually combined two of the days together this week since I was a little behind and I really want to start Septembers theme on time. I thought the Peacekeepers and the Volunteer days would go together nicely. We started of the morning watching a student news station I found for my daughter that tells all the major world news in easy to understand stories for younger audiences. It was great because they talked about the military and t

I always love the beginning of a new school year. Even though we basically do school year round I feel like each season brings something new. Winter is a great time to cuddle indoors and read lots of books and catch up on math lessons. Spring is perfect for starting to get outdoors a little more and appreciating everything in nature coming back to life, its the perfect time to start a nature study or science unit and get the garden going. Summer is our fun exploring the outdoors time while the weather is nice, we spend lots of time at the park, swimming, and taking little trips. Fall however is a great time for fresh starts and trying something new. I usually take the last few weeks of summer to go through all my things. I like to keep things simple and clutter free as possible. If we didn't use it all year then it is most likely going. Once that is finished I clean and dust all my shelves, and reorganize if I need to. I feel like this is essential to our homeschool environment. If

This has been a very unproductive week. I think I am stuck in this weird middle ground. I know that summer is almost over and I am trying to cling to it, yet I am ready to get into planning mode and start the school year as well. The weather is starting to get a little cooler and some of the leaves are even changing colors already. I know we have about a month left before fall is officially here, but I feel like summer is slowly starting to make its exit. We don't really ever stop learning here but the schedule has been a lot more relaxed and in just a few short weeks we will officially be going back to our version of school. So this week I have been cleaning everything and going through every shelf of books, curriculum, and school supplies. I like to get a fresh start before we go back. I have also been doing some long range planning for the year and setting up my new  Mother Goose Time supplies. I received the September school bus box a few days ago and I am really excited to se

Superhero training continued this week and we focused on Superpowers. We learned about Invisibility, Super Speed, Flight, Super Strength, and Super Breath.  Doing our regular schedule of school wasnt easy this week though. It was unusually hot here and because of fires North of us in Canada our air was and still is in unhealthy ranges. So when the air was clear we spent as much time outside as we could, and when the winds changed and it was unhealthy again we stayed inside with the windows closed, the fan on and a constant flow of homemade popsicles. We might have watched a little more TV then normal as well, but since a lot of the shows we watched had superheroes in them we will say it was research! The great thing about the  Mother Goose Time themes and activities is that we can do them anywhere. We pretended to use our superpowers at the park, the grocery store, and out in the grassy area near our house. So even though we weren't super active with school this week we were still

Superhero training officially started on Tuesday August 01 for us when we started our last month of the summer curriculum from Mother Goose Time . I always love starting a new month, everything is new and exciting, and there is so much to be discovered. When we start a new month I usually take a few days towards the end of the previous month to get things set up. I make sure that all supplemental books have been pulled off our shelves or checked out from the library and set up on our school shelf. Then I gather any materials I will need out of the bags in the curriculum box. I make sure I have the calendar numbers, manipulatives, music, theme poster, coloring pages, and anything else I might need and then I put them in an easily accessible place. I also take this time to pre write any holidays, birthday, or fun trips on our blank calendar. The kids really like seeing what is coming up for the month. I also make sure that I take a quick look at the included gathering list to s