Summer break in a nutshell....

Wow....once again. I'm SO behind on blogging. If you were to look at my blog and see all the blogs I have started but aren't quite ready to be published you'd be amazed! I think I probably have about 35. I have LOTS on my mind and I jot down ideas and quickly type things in my blog and save for later but finding the time to actually sit down and proof read them and make sure they make sense to my readers and add pictures is a whole different story.

We've been on summer break. With moving at the end of June (to read blog post about moving CLICK HERE) and a few of our summer birthdays we have been quite busy. We were also able to get away to Gatlinburg and Dollywood for one weekend. A much needed time away. The house is JUST about completely unpacked and in order. There are a few boxes left in our bedroom...i'll get to those someday.

I have been working ALL week on getting our homeschool room ready. I'm So excited to have a school room and I think the kids are excited too. They love having their own desks and their own work space that NO ONE else can use. But they also enjoy having a table that they can all sit at together and work on something together. This week we have done a little bit of school here and there. Just kinda getting our toes wet. Starting Monday we are starting FULL FORCE. We will have a schedule. We will have weekly goals, we will have RULES (my kids just LOVE that one), and we will most importantly have FUN!!!! School will be in session. I have a few little added surprises for my kids. You know...teachery (I honestly don't think that is a word...but i like the way it sounds if you read this outloud.) type stuff. That's the teacher inside me. I did go to college to be a teacher although I've never actually taught children besides my very own. An example. I have name tags for their desks. Now really...we don't need them, do we? I know my kids' names, they know each others names. But it's just SO fun...I just like that type of stuff. And I know my kids will LOVE that as well.
Now lets talk business now. Their curriculum. Once again I've changed the curriculum choice for this year. (i know I know...I thought using bob jones last year was the PERFECT curriculum that I'd stick with forever). It was a nice curriculum choice...but I'm learning what we really need/want for our homeschool. This year we chose to go with A.C.E curriculum.(click here for the website) IT's much simpler but I'm excited because I think it will be easier to get thru and give us more time to do added things to the lesson. I was bombarded with so much information with other types of curriculum that there was NO possible way to do it all that I think I ended up leaving out things that would have been benefitcial to do. I also need something that I can hand my kids (well, mainly Jordan) and ask him to complete a task on his own and then I will go over it with him. THere is just no possible way to do an extensive curriculum (that is really set up for classroom use) with 4 kids at one time and doing 4 different grades at one time. It was almost impossible to get thru it all with only 2. It won't be long and I'll have 3 then 4 kids all working on lessons every day. So I need something that they can work independantly from time to time. I think this will be a good one. I may find something new for next year but for now this is what we chose to go with.

So this is what has been going on in the Beers household for now. Stay tuned...I"m hoping next week to have a blog post with pictures about our first week of school. But for now..here's a few of our summer pictures.