Homeschool

The children grow more excited as each day passes.... Subjects are being completed for the year, their school days are much shorter this time of year and they love it {what child wouldn't?}   Our target end date is June 30th... We'll take all of July off, and about half of August, before getting things going again.   It's the curriculum time of year, Rod & Staff offers a little discount on curriculum ordered before June 15; I'll be ordering all the girls needs and a few things for the boys.  We have to order from a different publisher for them this year, R&S only goes up to about 9th grade.  Much of their curriculum will now come from Christian Light Publishers {CLP}.  The past few years we've spent less than $400 a year total for all the curriculum for all four of the children. 

We hope to stay under that level this year, CLP's style is more of a workbook style; we will probably only order one set, then have the boys write their answers on more affordable notebook paper.  That way the workbooks, can be used for all four of the children.  We do have a homeschool consignment store in our area, we tend to sell more items than buy, they have quite a selection, but it's just easier for me to order from the publishers, from home.  The store is a ways away and it's takes time to  sort through their shelves, to maybe not find what we are looking for.      

We are trying to grow a few things in the garden.  Over the Winter, we composted mainly coffee grounds and egg shells in one garden bed- this week when we planted our little sugar pumpkin starts we found the most lush dirt in that bed!  All winter long, the boys were faithful in taking out our little bit of compost, they saw the fruits of their labours this week.  Once the garden begins producing, we will have a lessons in food preservation...  

I have a goal to get the girls sewing on a regular basis, we have a basket full of projects to get through, I've been procrastinating on this one...  I need patience with this, it's hard to sit back and let them sew, mistakes and all...  Yesterday I discovered that the tension is way off  on my  machine, it's been a little off, now it's really bad, it needs to go in for a fix, unless someone out there knows how I might be able to fix it on  my own?

Over the weekend I was able to make {the sewing machine allowed it, ha ha!!!} an apron for myself, using the pattern the Mennonite Girls Can Cook used for their photo shoot.  It's Simplicity #2492; it has sizes for Mommas and for little girls... {This is one thing the girls are excited to sew} It's simple to assemble and it looks great on any body type.