School Days

Another school year is upon us.  Dropped my 5th, 3rd, and 1st grader off this morning and gawked at how grown up they look.

Ahhh, just love 'em.  Good luck today boys

Moses bomb.

Thanks for the cute shirts Queenie.  They love them.  Ashton kept talking about how soft they are.

My five boys

Hunter enters his last year of elementary school.  He has a 4 period day now and rotates teachers.  He still has the same kids in his class for Math and ELA but gets to rotate around with the other kids now which I am happy about.

Hunter- 5th

Ashton also tested into GT this year so he will have the next two years with basically the exact same kids.  He also gets to bring his iPad home this year which he is excited about.

Ashton 3rd

Shepherd also got a really good teacher.  It was one of two that he was hoping for.  She is young, single, pretty, and sweet so Shepherd should do just fine. :)  (Nolan, do you want a meet up?!?!)

Shepherd 1st

Bennett is home with me for one more year before he hits pre-k and I probably head back to work in some capacity.  This year though, I am going to be much more structured with him.  We will have "school" every day using the same curriculum I used for the other three.  I cant say enough about this preschool curriculum.  It is wonderful!!!  It would make a great Sunday School curriculum too.

The material I am using with Bennett... about mid year, I will probably add in Handwriting without Tears as well.

Also, at the beginning of summer, I posted "Books for Boys" which also listed some goals we had for summer reading.  I am pretty pleased with what they accomplished.  Hunter and Ashton read two chapter books a piece and did a comprehension unit on one of them using "Drawn Into the Heart of Reading."  I then read a couple books to them at night as well. Shepherd read one chapter book on his own and then we read 4 of the Stick Dog chapter books together.  More detailed descriptions in the caption below.

1- Stick Dog - Shepherd and I have read the first four books of this series and he we LOVES it.  These were a great find.

2- Bridge to Terabithia- Ashton read this for his first book and Hunter read for his second book.  Ashton used this book to do his comprehension unit on.  I wanted to challenge Ashton a bit and this book was just enough of a challenge without being frustrating.  Though it a bit of stretch for Ashton, it was leveled just right for Hunter to read by himself.
We all watched the movie last week too- it was a pretty good reflection of the book... I recommend.  Shepherd loved the movie too, though now the book will not surprise him.  Warning- if you havent read it, it deals with death so be warned.

3- In Search of Honor- Hunter did his comprehension unit on this Christian Historical Fiction book.  Again, it was probably a step above his comfort reading level but he read a lot of it out loud to me so we could discuss and break it down.

4- The Adventure of Tom Sawyer- This was Ashton's second book.  These readers are great as they take the classics and make them a bit easier.  It was the perfect level for him to read independently.  We have a couple more, Call of the Wild and The Story of Kind Arthur, that the boys will read throughout the school year

5-The Magician's Nephew-  Hunter and I read this one together at the end of the school/ beginning of the summer.  We are anxious to finish the series but we have to finish other things we have started... haha)

6- The Mysterious Mr Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey (book 2).  Hunter, Ashton, and I read this at night over the summer.  Again, we love these books.  We will hopefully start book 3 this winter.

7- City of Orphans-  This is the book H and A and I are reading at night now. This is a new one for me as I knew nothing about it but it is about Newsies and since my family loves the movie, Newsies then I thought we would give it a try.  So far, it is wonderful.  Hunt and Ash both look forward to reading it and always want me to read more.  Hope to finish it in 2 weeks or so and then I am reading Seraphina and the Black Cloak to at least the older 3.

8- Imagination Station- Voyage of the Vikings- Forgot to add this book with the others but Shepherd read this to me for his chapter book.  He did such a good job.  This is a great beginner's chapter book series.  It is Christian based and historically accurate.  We have one more at the house that Shep will read this fall.

And that pretty much wraps up our summer and pushes us into fall.  Chad's football season kicks off Friday night and we are hopeful that things are looking up this season.

To sum it up, I look above and pray....
Jesus, Protect them.  Claim them. Use them.