Another First For Us;)

     Did I ever tell you that I am a wee bit over protective of my boys? Since finding my great secular homeschooling group, my boys and I have made some great friends! We have had a lot of great experiences with all our new friends. We are going on our 4th year in this group and I have to say that we have made some great new discoveries along the way. One being that I now have people I can trust around my boys enough to let them spend the night with friends. Yes, I have trust issues I know but they come from a very real place in my childhood. Something that I am always aware of with my boys, and have had some real dilemmas come up over the past that just didn't allow me to "trust" every many people alone with my boys.
   
 Ever since finding a great local support group both boys have had some fun activities that yes didn't include me;)  Alex has been invited to several over night sleep over parties with lots of teens from the group. He really has a great time with them, and it helps my shut in get out and be a teenager with other teens. He has even started going to a great teen night at "gasp" a modern church, that is open to everyone 13 and up. It is chaperoned safe place he can go and hang out with other homeschoolers and kids that go to private and public schools, as well. (disclosure here: it is not at an old fashion type church they are in a commercial building with fun things for the kids to do and NO preaching to the kids!)
   
 Anthony has had his first sleep over as well, first at the neighbors house across the street and yes I was there at 8 am the next morning! Pathetic right? Then he was invited to a friend's house for his FIRST ever camp-out birthday party, and he is having a blast! How do I know? Well his mom is a great friend so she has been putting up pics on Facebook. He has all the friends there,getting to eat hot dogs and make smores, playing Pokemon until the wee hours and oh yes I have called him a time or two, or is it five times?

     Well, maybe I have a bit further to go with the "letting go" a bit, but the boys are loving it and I am loving the fact that they are having fun with their friends. So we are on the right track, heck I even have them signed up for camps this week. Alex gets to finish his camp by sleeping over night at the zoo! So yes I am beginning to find ways to let go a bit and trust thanks to my new secular homeschool group!

Art in Our Life



(These paintings are from my husband's site http://www.shanepierce.com/, he has done some wonderful paintings of the boys. Please note that there are other works on his site, that may not be suitable for all ages.)



Yes I am bragging a little here but I wanted to share with you, the paintings my husband did of the boys. There are more on his website (link above), he has some wonderful paintings and sketches that he did in a matter of minutes or in weeks of working on them. Of course, I am lucky enough to have them on my walls in our home to see everyday.   I can't tell you how much I am inspired by having his artwork all around me. From the very first unicorn pencil drawing that he did for me (well I was 17 and in love!) to his latest new series of paintings, he can always amaze me with what he can do with some brushes,canvas, paints and his imagination. We have some from other artists my husband knows and even one that was done by his grandfather. I even dabbled in painting when I was a child, Anthony has one of my paintings of the ocean up in his room. So our boys had no chance of not having art in their lives.  Just like families that have a science or history back ground, we make art a part of our life every day.

I make it a point to have several online sources for the boys to get onto to learn about art, play some art games, watch videos on how to draw something or even incorporate it into a computer program like Scratch. I thought that I would list a couple here for you to look at if you are at a loss of how to add more art into your kiddos day.

Learninggamesforkids.com ~ has several art games that my boys have played in the past.
Time4art.com~ is part of our Time4learning program, my oldest loved it so much that he did it three times! Even telling us some facts that his dad didn't know!
HelloKids ~ a fun site that can teach kids of all ages how to draw the most popular things.
ActivityTv ~ gives videos on how to draw some fun cartoon animals.
Manga University ~ for any teen interest in drawing manga characters, popular with my oldest!
YouTube Videos~ like this one for drawing Bart Simpson, one of our favorite 10 year old cartoons!
DragonArt.com~ this shows one of our favorites How to draw dinosaurs.
Art History online~ great examples of original master pieces from well known artists.

Along with countless numbers of "How To" books on drawing from Amazon or the local bookstore, which we have a ton of on our bookshelves.

This is, of course, only a few of the many great resources online! Just like I include literature,math ,science and history into our studies, I feel that it is equally as important to add other forgotten or over looked subjects, LIKE ART!

Never to early to start....

 Well summer is almost over and I seem to always be adding something to the list of things that I want to cover with the boys! My newest research project is mostly for Alex and wondering how to start giving him some practice for the SAT tests that he will take in a couple of years.Yes, we are starting to add some of that into the schedule for a couple of reasons.1) for him it takes longer for things to sink in and 2) it doesn't hurt to learn some of things now versus cramming at the last minute!!
I have already found some SAT games online and even some analogies games! I really like the analogies games because the one I found so far has them for every level! Which means that I can give some to Anthony to start with as well! I am wondering if there is enough time in the day to add all the things that I want the boys to learn?? Probably not, but we will get done with what we can!!

My Little DIY Project

Well if you know me at all then you know that I LOVE DIY projects! We have been on a break from school for over a month now, much longer than we have ever done before. But I felt like we all needed it this year going into for 4th year of homeschooling and with Alex going to be in 9th grade. I just think that we all needed some extra time to prepare, relax and recharge for the next year, which is looking to be a fun year.So since I have some extra time to relax, I started checking out some of my favorite secular homeschooling blogs to see what my fellow homeschoolers were up to;) Most of them are working hard on school, or taking some fun learning vacations and field trips. I on the other hand, am staying home to get things in order and try to recharge for the next year. One way that I do that is with some organizing projects like the one below! I bought one of these great shelves about a year ago at an used store (can't remember which one) and have loved using it for to organize my books on my desk. I decided to make one for each of the boys out of some scrap plywood and 1 by 4s we had left over from other projects. So check out the finished projects and they are not perfect but they work GREAT!

Anthony's Day at the Marbles Museum

Last week, Anthony got to go on a trip to the Marbles Museum with good friends while I was doing a teen event with Alex. Of course, he had a blast hanging out with his friends and going to all the different hands on exhibits at the museum. Like the picture above, where he is trying out his surfing moves, WATCH OUT FOR THAT WAVE!! Phew, he made it! LOL.

See the blur of black and tan? Yep, that's my little man using his super powers of speed to help win the game!

OR my favorite picture that I was sent of him reverting back to his animal instincts!

This is one of the greatest things about homeschooling, finding great friends and educational places to take the boys to so they can get some hands on learning once in a while! I can't say enough about the Marbles Museum in Raleigh, once we went and they had a bank exhibit (hands on of course!) and they boys did all kinds of educational activities that dealt with saving,banking and money. So between the great places all around to take them or just having them get on my favorite spelling site and do unscramble games , we are always learning!

So why not check out a museum near you and let your kiddos learn while you sit back, relax and enjoy them!

Happy Birthday Dino!

Well really we missed his birthday (it was in May) but Anthony got so upset about missing his little doggies birthday that we decided to give him a puppy party On Sunday! So how old is our little terror?? 4 years old in human years and 28 in doggie years;) Anthony decided to buy him one of his favorite toys that he tends to destroy in a matter of hours, ya know one of those long stuffed dogs I even went to try and get a pic of him with it but he has already ripped the stuffing out! Besides the little gift bought by Anthony, we also made some homemade dog biscuits. He did all the work I just supervised, when they were all done we got all three dogs outside and sang Happy Bday to Dino. (very funny singing it to a dog but it was for Anthony, really) Then he handed out most of the treats to the dogs. YUMMY Schultz (our old man) and Dino ate them up faster then Tuffy!!

Here's the recipe for the biscuits just in case you want to make some for your doggie;)

Homemade Dog Treat Recipe Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits from http://www.bullwrinkle.com/Assets/Recipe/Peanut%20Butter%20Dog%20Biscuits.htm ½ cups water(add more water later if required) ½ cup oil 2 eggs 3 tablespoons peanut butter 2 tsp. vanilla 2 cups flour ½ cup cornmeal ½ cup oats Blend wet ingredients together. Whisk dry ingredients together and mix into wet mixture to form a ball of dough. Roll out and shape. Put onto a non-stick cookie tray or lightly greased one. Cook 20 minutes at 400 F. Turn off oven and allow the biscuits to cool in oven until crisp and hard. Store in airtight container.

OMG!! A school any Star Wars loving adult would love to go to!!

Getty Images http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/03/18/star-wars-school/

OK so if you know me at all by now you know that I am a geek/nerd/dork of almost all things sci-fi,superheros,etc. I came across this article when I was looking around to see what was out there for educational unit studies off the Star Wars movies, books, cartoon series. Yes, I do that occasionally for the boys, thought that this one would be fun to do if there was something out there. Ya know, something fun and painless for some summer learning! (I also know that my grammar skills are TERRIBLE but my good friend K is always helping me out with that!) You would be surprised how many times you can slide in some math vocabulary or spelling games into a book that my boys think are fun to read over and over again! LOL, It is always funny when they catch me sneaking something educational into something they thought was going to be pure fun!

I loved the way that this school is doing the same things that I try to accomplish everyday with my boys! They are taking something that is fun and making the kids better people in the long run! If the kiddos are lucky they receive a light saber, how cool is that? A new twist to yoga and Tae-Kwon-Do, me likey A LOT!

Salute the FLAG!! Happy 4th of July!

Well its 4th of July and that means time for our Annual Flag Jello Cake!! ((yummy)) The boys got some help this year saluting the FLAG!! so cute!

Just figured I would share the recipe with you all in case you wanted to make it, flag or just with strawberries and blueberries!

Flag Jello Cake

1 package white or yellow cake mix (for two layers)
1 small package flavored gelatin, any flavor
4 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water (for the cake mix)
1 (12 oz.) container Cool Whip
1 cup water (for gelatin)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare cake, according to package directions, using eggs, oil and water. Bake cake in a 13x9-inch pan for 40 to 45 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for at least 15 minutes.
Poke holes across the entire surface of cake with a fork.
Dissolve the gelatin in 1 cup of boiling water. Pour the warm gelatin slowly over the surface of the cake (gelatin will soak into the cake). Place cake in the refrigerator and chill for about 4 hours.
Spread whipped topping on top of cake before serving. Refrigerate leftover cake. I go a step further and usually sliced strawberries to make a US flag on the top of the whip cream, Strawberries for the stripes and blueberries for the stars

Very yummy even my picky son eats it!