Tag: homeschool

Long time no post

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, homeschooling, kids, life, mini-farm

Hello! Happy May.

It has been about 2 years since I have posted. I currently have a 4 year old and a 5.5 year old. Both very active and very smart. Life is busy. I am home full time with the kids and we are homeschooling.

Recently we moved to a smaller town about 30 minutes from where we were living and are even outside that small town. We have just over 2 beautiful acres that feels like paradise…..the house, not so much. But you can’t have everything can you?

This is my view while I type.

I am hoping to start blogging regularly again. I will still be mostly a lifestyle blog. I will still talk about health and fitness; especially my fitness journey (nothing new there). After having 2 children less than 18 months apart the weight never really came back off. Currently, I am, deep breath, 185 lbs. and I am only 5’4″. I got really sick during my pregnancies, so it was always more just about eating than worrying about weight gain. Though I did gain weight. Since then it has been survival mode. Since having kids I have run 2 half marathons but have never managed to outrun my diet hahahaha. I am working on that. I did do a chest and triceps workout this morning and even resting my arms on the table to type this is starting to hurt.

Part 2 of the blog will be our life and anything that may encompass; travel, gardening, what I am reading, mom encouragement, and who knows what else.

Last, but by no means least, our homeschool journey! We just finished out first year with Classical Conversations and I love it. I will do a whole blog talking all about it. I will also talk about the homeschool philosophies I sort of adhere too and anything homeschool under the sun. We are done with our co-op for the summer but in the fall I will post about our weeks each week. I am working on a summer rhythm for us right now and once I have that nailed down I will tell you all about it.

If you are still here from before I hope this continuing and new content interests you; and if you stumble upon this blog now HI!

My daughters birthday party this past weekend. We have been reading Little House in the Big Woods and that is the theme she chose.

What a week

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, school/studying

In the span of 10 days we had upper respiratory infections, stomach bugs, an ear infection, a stolen truck, and delayed flights.

My husband was out of town for work when this little man went down.

Then my little girl went down
When my husband was supposed to fly home it turned out he didn’t have a ticket! That was fun.

Then we found out the truck was stolen and towed

Got to spend a day going to the tow yard and police station and talking to insurance
Off and on recovery but we finished little man’s pre-reading program
Had some fun outside time sprinkled in
And went strawberry picking!

Homeschool curriculum pt 6

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, school/studying

Science!!!!!!

We mix Blossom and Root’s nature study with The Good and The Beautiful’s little hearts and hands science Wind and Waves and Fields and Flowers. I try and pair them loosely to the seasons and things we might see or experience.

My oldest is a smidge young for both but if I find a good connecting book or something he really gets into it. My youngest is just a long for the ride at this point hahaha.

For example we just did the water cycle. I found a great library book that my son loved about a drop of water going through the water cycle and that brought it alive for him.

Water cycle experiment

Homeschool Curriculum Pt 4

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, Uncategorized

For math we started with The Good and the Beautiful level K and weren’t doing too bad but I did not feel like he was getting any mastery from it.

After thinking that, I decided to check eBay for a used copy of right start math to hopefully add some mastery in. Now we are switching back and forth between the two curriculums to go back and review some instead of continuing on.

Homeschool Curriculum Pt 3

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, Uncategorized

This curriculum is about our grade level for sure but I am using it as an introduction to geography and other cultures. Basically we just find the country on the map, watch a few YouTube videos, read a few books from the country and make a recipe from there and try and do a simple paper craft.

We do one country every few weeks. No rush for us to get through it.

Homeschool Curriculum Pt 2

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, Uncategorized

This is another curriculum I use with both kids

This curriculum has

A seasonal song that we don’t do- the kids just weren’t feeling it

An emotional intelligence section that I really like. You never think about needing to teach kids to identify their feelings and the feelings of others.

Weekly inquiry – this is a short section on something in nature that they say you can feel free to explore further at the library. I try and find a few simple picture books each week on this at the library that we can read through

Literature, Literacy & Poetry- there is a weekly book to read with a question or two to ask in response to the book, an excerpt out of a seasonal poetry book ( i did the poetry at first but the kids weren’t into it so I stopped) and a letter to study from a book called doodling dragons but we already have a pre-reading curriculum we use so I didn’t get that book.

Art- some of the projects from the art book are really cool but they are a little advanced for my kids. I have the art book but don’t really use it. I do like a lot of the projects though so I think in a year or two we will start working our way through it as an extra fun thing to add into our weeks.

There is a math curriculum they suggest but we use a different one I’ll tell you about in another post

Science – they use the ‘look I’m a scientist’ and ‘look I’m a ln engineer’ books which I have but I only sort of like them. Some of the experiments are a bit older for my kids and some just seem like a waste of time.

Connections project – each week there is a little something to do to connect to the week’s theme and reading.

They also suggest some videos you might like and some supplemental reading on the main subject

Homeschool curriculum 1

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, Uncategorized

I am constantly adding, subtracting and adjusting our schooling to work best for our family. I also pull from a lot of different sources and curriculums so each week I will tell you a little about what we are currently doing/using for our 2024 pre-k/super early preschool with my 3 yrs old and my 21 month old. Almost everything I do is with both kids because my youngest wants to be included in everything so I just bring her along.

I use this with both kids

This is a 36 week curriculum. Each week there is a section for Nature study, math and science (which is anything from counting blocks to talking about sunscreen safety and use.), art, music, community/kindness, literature/read together and kitchen classroom.

We usually at least touch on the nature ( we have other nature curriculums), the math and science are hit or miss for us sometimes we do it and sometimes we don’t (we have other math and science curriculums).

I love the art and music sections. This is broken down into 4 week chunks and in each chunk you learn about a different artist and musician.

Community/kindness is hit and miss for me. Most of them we don’t do. I enjoy the literature selections and we cook together anyways, I wish the kitchen classroom gave you suggestions.

Book Review – Call of the Wild + Free

by Ariana Peters, posted in books, homeschooling, kids, life

This book was great. It was a slower read because there was just so much wonderful information.

Whether you homeschool or not this is a great read to get you reclaiming your kids’ childhood. It was so great in reminding me that kids are only kids for a short time, and they (and you) deserve to enjoy every minute of it.

Getting back at it

by Ariana Peters, posted in homeschooling, kids, life, Uncategorized

Getting back to school and routine after the holiday chaos

This was our first full week back.

Monday

We got to an outdoor ‘farmschool’ preschool 1 day a week mostly for socialization and new experiences

Tuesday

We did a pond study

They are loving their sticker books

Thursday – we studied spiderwebs

We read Eric Carl’s ‘The Very Busy Spider ‘ and made a giant spiderweb.

Friday

Art. These were circle collages
We made a rabbit burrow. I was a fox and chased my little rabbits around trying to eat them hahahaha.

There was also gymnastics, a trip to the library, letter recognition, a little math and so much more thrown in.

The week went much smoother than I thought it would. We did have normal young kid tantrums and issues like that but the school part went great!