Getting Ready for Book Club

This Monday, we are going to a book club hosted at a local church. We participated in the book club last year and had a great time. My friend and her sixth grade daughter are hosting the club this time, and the theme is circus books. Our local library is so helpful to homeschoolers, and we have gotten to know the librarians quite well, so we went and asked them to pull everything they had about the circus.

My eight year old is reading a Nancy Drew mystery, "The Ring Master's Secret".

She has just started the book today, and I will have her make a blog entry about it when she finishes. It seems that a Nancy Drew obsession may be on the horizon, because Anna just finished another Nancy Drew mystery last week.

The other books that we decided to focus on are "Cam Jansen: The Mystery of the Circus Clown" (a book which we just finished and both my five and eight year old enjoyed)

and "Circus Caps for Sale" (geared more toward my five year old).

As I was reading this last book a lot of ideas starting popping into my head for math extensions and all kinds of fun things. I did a little research on the book and what a great resource at the Slobodkina foundation. Here there are printable worksheets for counting, matching, doing mazes, and lots of other fun things! This kind of find really excites me. For instance, did you know that Esphyr Slobodkina, the author of "Circus Caps for Sale" pioneered the technique of collage illustration in American storybooks?

Perhaps Monday I will print some of the math sheets for my son and let him paint one of the printables, and my daughter can paint as well as discuss collage illustration with me. I love the new things I can learn through homeschooling. I am getting an education at the same time I am education my children. This is such a gift!

There is also a site for Cam Jansen lovers that I may choose to investigate at a later date. I get a lot of good ideas swirling in my head, but know myself well enough to just choose one idea at a time to pursue. If I choose them all I get confused and NOTHING gets done!

I'll let you know how book club goes!

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Looking Back on the Fourth

The Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. I have my parents to thank for this. They are extremely patriotic and always instilled in me a respect for my country and a sense of thankfulness for all the freedoms in my life.

Here is one of my favorite Fourth photos.... taken eight years ago.

This one is high on my list, too! I think it was taken at a minor league baseball game in Ft. Myers, FL.

Many Fourth of July holidays have been spent at my mom and dad's house in Florida - as you can see, my mom likes to go all out!

Getting a little more current with the pictures (this one is a CLASSIC!)

And this one is just sweet:

Finally - something a little more current! I love how this picture is smoky from the fireworks we had been setting off.

Looking back at all of these happy memories makes me extremely thankful for my blessings. This year I am particularly grateful for the freedom to homeschool my children as I see fit, without interference from the government. I'm not sure how much longer I will have that freedom, but that I shall save for another post!

Our family has a fun and busy weekend planned - many celebrations. Tonight, we are surprising our kids with a trip to see The Atlanta Braves play the Florida Marlins, which also includes a fireworks display afterwards. We can't wait to see the looks on their faces when we show up at the stadium - they think we are going to have a picnic with friends of ours that live in Atlanta. Now that our children are a bit older (8 and 5), doing things like this are actually fun - not work!

Tomorrow we will have a family fourth of July afternoon of swimming and grilling at my sister-in-law's house who lives very close to us. Then, on the fourth of July we are having friends come over for Nachos on the Grill (thank you Bobby Flay!) and a few fireworks we will shoot off in the backyard. I am a happy tired just thinking about the next few days.

My sweet husband, who has been working incredibly long hours for the past few months, has the next FIVE days off! As I sit here and type, he has taken the kids to swim at the YMCA so I can get some work done around the house.

Today I plan to get a book to read/sing with my children all about the Star Spangled Banner. I really like this series of books/CDs from The Smithsonian. I think they are well worth the investment. Children now just don't know enough folk and patriotic music. Come to think of it, I also have the same type of book with the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" - we may have to spend some time laying around with our CD player this afternoon!

Happy Fourth of July!

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Guest contributor: Miss B and her book review of "The Book of Story Beginnings"

About a week ago, I read "The Book of Story Beginnings" by Kristen Kladstrup. When I first glanced at the cover in the library, I thought it was going to be a book of story beginnings. But when I started reading it I found out that it was a science fiction book.

The main characters were Aunt Lavonne, Lucy Martin, Oscar Martin, Shel (Lucy's dad), Jean (Lucy's mom), Aunt Helen, and Uncle Brian. Oscar wrote a story beginning in the book of story beginnings. The story came true. There was a huge ocean around his farm in Iowa. There was a rowboat sitting on the sidewalk. Oscar climbed in and rode away. His sister, Lavonne, tried to stop him, and he said something to her, but she never knew what he said.

Oscar disappeared until a hundred years later when Lucy and her family (who are living in a city apartment) move to Iowa; Lucy looks at all the clues which are in Oscar's composition books. In the end, Lucy finds Oscar and they go on an adventure and all of the story beginnings in the book come true.

I like this book because I like mysteries. If you love mysteries I think you should read this book. The endings of the chapters are in very wrong places because it always makes you want to read more! I think this book is a page turner. What do you think?

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