Apples, apples, apples

cooking the apples down

no photos of the applesauce...sorry

I thought I had lost these photos...

We ordered a bushel (or was it more?) of apples last year and got right to work canning the mess out of them.

I made appleasuce, applebutter and apple pie filling.

These jars are a lovely sight!

Oh, the good old newspaper

I don't know why these turned out so blurry.

For a while we were newspaper subscribers - my kids loved getting the newspaper....they loved the comics of course.

It seems Liv loved the business section.

I loved to read about what was going on. It was awesome. We even used the newspaper to launch homeschool discussion - like living history in our classroom.

School's In!

Waiting for pictures from the camera......

Just thought I'd let you know that school is officially on for our family.
We started this week - it was a great week!!
The weather was so perfect at the beginning that we had windows open and really felt as though the world was "at peace". :) That is until Olivia painted my floors with nail polish. Hmmm.

Still waiting for pictures from the camera.....

What are we using this year for curriculum???
Glad you asked! I'll tell ya....

As a family, we are studying:
Ancient History using the "Living History" books by Dan Hunter as our guide (we are starting at the VERY beginning - heaven - Adam and Eve, etc--in fact, for history today we watched a video on the Garden of Eden and finished with Cain and Able...awesome!).
Apologia Elementary Science (with expectation to heavily edit the creationist beliefs found therein) - Thanks, Sister Gosseling!
Classical Music ("Classical Music for Dummies")
Latin (yes, Latin)
Sequential Spelling (thanks, Christine!) - I have both boys on the same spelling lesson each day. This program is so amazing!! My 6-year old is already spelling words like - disagreeing, beginner, beginning - and it's only been a week!!!

The boys are each using Bob Jones for English (LOVING it so far!)
Calvin is using Singapore math and is already quite good at Order of Operations (thanks, Sarah!) Josh is in Bob Jones math

Of course they still have their reading books from Pathway Readers (thanks, Jolinn!). These books are simply the best. I thought my boys would tire of the stories quickly...I was wrong. They love the books - and so do I. For those who know Lois, you'll appreciate these books more when I tell you that Lois grew up reading these books!!

Since we are studying so much as a family this year, I am able to focus more on the core subjects that each boy has. I am excited about the curriculum I have put together this year - hopefully I won't feel as "sapped" as quickly as I did last year ... planning two curriculum for two different grades was a LOT for me. This year looks good so far.

Pictures.....where are you???