School in Session...well almost

IT's almost time for school to start. We start after labor day. Shek will attend Konos Academy one day a week. We will tackle his math and science at home. Jolie longs to go to Konos too, but she's not old enough. I can't take the kids to two co-op/hybrids so I will do ALL of her school here at home.

I've dusted off all my old Hands of a Child lapbook/unit studies as well as the Konos Curriculum and I have a plan for the whole year. This year we will be doing the American Girls unit study from Hands of a child, we will do a unit on bees, kings and queens, light from Konos as well as a Christmas and Thanksgiving unit study, I'll end the year with a Ocean Unit study, Blueberry sal and probably Bees with a trip to Strawberry patch which also has a bee hive.

We will also use rod and staff Math and Bible Readers.

Looking forward to getting started....after Labor Day

teacher treasures

This past week, I tackled a closet that I have been ignoring for  a while. It was the hall closet and had seemed to become a catch all for everything. I kept the door closed, what is out of sight was out of mind, well sort of ....I knew it was there and needed to quit dreading it and just clean it out. The thing about cleaning out something means there's probably going to be a larger mess before we get to the clean and orderly. AND so it was, it's hard to believe that such a small closet could hold that much stuff. 

I found a lot of junk that needed to go away, but I found an odd little treasure as well. In the bottom of the closet under some boxes and stuff I found  a file folder. I thought that it was something I had used when I sold Southern Living at Home, but I opened it and realized it was my file folder that I used the last year I taught High School Literature. I opened it, to see students' names for each of the files. My oldest, Zach, was one of those students that year. In each folder there was one lone assigment that had not been picked up by the students. It was dated January of '09, so why I still had it was amazing to me. The assignment was called Perfect mate. IT was as assignment given to the students when we were studying Romeo and Juliet. On one side the students described physical and personality traits that they desired in a future mate, They also had a space provided to guess what qualities they thought their parents would desire for them. On the back side, of the page, the parents were asked to do the same. 

This was the last year that I taught high school Literature, so still having these was a treat to find. Many of the students have already found their mate, or they are engaged, and some have children. It was neat to see what they wrote and what their parents wrote all those years ago.
When I read Zach's, I still have the same desires in a mate for him, and he still agrees with what he wrote on his paper back when he was in the 11th grade. 

One of my students said she desired to marry a cowboy, with a job and a truck. I am friends with this former student on facebook, and from what I can tell...she did marry someone with those qualifications. Reading all the qualifications from students and parents alike was so thrilling all these years later.

I am glad that I cleaned out the closet, not only did I clear out some trash, make a garage sale pile, organize my closet, but I was rewarded with this little treasure from my former students. I had the best students of all time back then.

Hitting the trail

This summer has been a very HOT, so we did not hit the trail walking or jogging as much as we should have. Recently, my parents found another local park with the best walking trail around. Most of it is shaded, and there's lots of nature to explore. There is even a babbling brook. It is next door to a small airport, so we see small planes take off and circle the area a lot. Once there were helicopter that seemed to hoover over the trail. I was concerned that possibly they were looking for someone. EEK! They moved on so no bad guys were lurking about.

The Wilderness

Last weekend, my family and I went to Lydia's cd release party. She grew up in the youth group with my oldest kids and has always been singing. Last week she released her awesome cd, The Wilderness, which was produced by Riverstone Music group. My oldest, Zach  and his college roomate Eric, formed Riverstone and produced her cd. She has an inspiring backstory. Check her music out on itunes  purchase it, roll down your car windows, sun roof and turn up the tunes.

stylin'

Karlie has been growing her hair out for years only getting a trim every five weeks and a little hair dye every 10 weeks. Recently, she decided to go for a new look. She had tried layers with out really touching the length, but decided to go for it and cut off about 6 inches. It's still long enough for a pony tail or a braid if she wants one. Cutting off that much hair can make one nervous, but she was excited to see the final look.

Peachtree Road Race

Back on July 4th we participated in the Peachtree Road Race. The largest 10k in the world, I think. It's a big deal. This is the 3rd one that I have had the privledge of participating in. It was also the absolute hottest one I have ever been in. It was EXTREMELY hot. People were dropping like flies. Do flies drop? Maybe people were dropping like raindrops...it was crazy. We stopped for a few minutes ourselves for a break, but we did finish and we have the Tee shirt to prove it.

 I wore my favorite Auburn shirt, even though I went to Mississippi State. Karl wore his Auburn Cap. Auburn peeps are the friendliest, we heard many War Eagle greetings through out the race. 

 Gam and Pop joined us. This was Pop's first road race and Gam's second one. 

 This was Karl's first peachtree as well.

 Shek's second!

 We finished and snapped a photo at the finsh line.Shek had left us in the dust and was waiting on us at park.

 I"m praying for cooler temps next year.

And the shirt was worth it..don't you think.