Nebraska State Fair 2016!!

One of our kiddos favorite things to do is go to the Nebraska State Fair! If you live in Nebraska and have never been, you should check it out at least once! We always have so much fun! It always starts the weekend before Labor Day and concludes on Labor Day.

This year we broke up our visit into 3 major trips and then 2 concerts. You could really do the entire fair in one day, but with the baby and different friends joining us for various things, we did it this way.

This post is a major picture overloaded post!

We always start off our day at the Nebraska Game and Parks exhibit. My kids love this area...we could probably spend an entire day playing here.

 

The Omaha's Children Museum signed a three year contract with the fair...this year they had a dinosaur exhibit!

Of course our kids had to shoot archery and bb guns!

The girls got all blue ribbons for their 4-H entries. Kate had a painting that made it and Joc had a cherry coffee cake and painting.

The petting zoo is always fun!

Our first show was a flying circus type show. Every year there are new shows!

Landon loved all of the shows!

The kids love the birthing center. Lots of new babies this week!

Free

Free ice cream!

Landon made a new friend...the fire hydrant...he later discovered his new friend was also in our front yard....

Lots of street entertainers!

The kids were digging for prizes

Jessica was at the Edgerton booth and had some fun interactive stations!

We always try to sit and chat with Bobbie--the lady on the stick!

End of day one!

Sean and I waiting for thr Cam and Lady Antebellum concert!

Day 2: checking out the onsite hay bales. Many local businesses decorate hay bales around town!

BMX stunt riders. I guarantee my boys learned some new bike tricks!

The boys rode on the combines around the race track!

Lumbrjills show!

White Tiger show!

Joc, Landon, and I could not get into the monkeys riding a dog show, so we visited the horses...darn old timers...they flooded the shows the day we devoted for show day...next year we will know not to go on old timers day!

Kate was a cheerleader for our section at the pig races!

More street entertainers.

We joined some friends and did the rides on Thursday afternoon.

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Girls and I met my friend Michelle and her daughter at the Chris Tomlin concert. It was so much fun!!

The count down begins for next year!!

 

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The start of a new school year!

**Disclaimer--every child learns at their own pace...and each homeschool or child's education is VERY different! Just because my kids are doing something does not mean your kids should be doing the same. A few friends have asked what we do in our homeschool...so here it is.**

I love summer! Love it! But all good things must come to an end....just kidding! I also love teaching and I love being able to homeschool our kiddos! Do not get me wrong...our kids sometimes drive me nuts. A little extra free time for just me would be nice. Our house is a bit messier on days that we school. I am pretty much always with our kids. I don't get to take the going off to school pictures with me jumping up leaping for excitement that my kids are out of my hair and my sanity can return.

We are on day two of our official homeschool year. Granted, it seems like we are always learning something new, but I like to have an official start and end date. I am now teaching a 6th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, and a kindergartener. I also have a little tike running around and getting into everything...thank goodness for naps in the morning and afternoon!

My two oldest girls do the exact same thing as each other everyday. You can call it sixth grade you can call it preschool. Haha. We keep grades for activity purposes, but we just go with the flow at their learning abilitiies. Thank gooness we do not have to teach towards a test. I am sure our kids would be ahead in some areas and behind in others as I tend to stagger some subjects on a yearly basis.

I decided over the summer that we needed to have a more relaxed schedule and get out more. I don't want to stress about getting thru a book, but dive deeper into the books that we do use. What is the point at skimming the surface if they aren't retaining it?

I am using a rotating type schedule where we do some of the same subjects everyday and then others we do every 4th day of school. No days are attached as we do take a lot of time off for other things such as field trips, co-ops, and various other classes and activities.

My girls have the same schedule. Easton our 2nd grader and Weston our Kindergartner, do a few things with us like Bible time, prayer, working out, some Science, and writing. Easton is doing cursive with the girls and Weston is just continuing to practice his writing of letters and words from his reading.

What curriculum do I use?

For the girls' Science we use 6th Grade Abeka. Math we use 6th grade Bob Jones. The girls have no Spelling curriculum as we are pulling words from their writing. For writing we are using Write Source. We are using Story of the World 2 for History.

For the girls Math, I plan on teaching them one lesson on Monday and have them write their weekly assignments down. They will have to pace themselves to get their assignments completed by a deadline.

For Easton, I use 3rd grade Math from Bob Jones, Geography from Evan Moore, and the Bible reader from Abeka.

Weston's reading and spelling comes from Hooked on Phonics and he does the same Geography as Easton. I do my own math and he is just adding, subtracting, and doing easy things.

My goal this year is to go outside for school more and get out of the house more. So we shall see!

We are reading more as a group. I am going through the book "Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends." Sometimes my kids fight like cats and dogs...so maybe this will help as it is given from a Biblical perspective. We are also reading in the afternoon together.

Some fun things planned for this week such as doing Science in the woods and heading to the lake one afternoon for school...and to Omaha to see my parents!!

Here are a few pics from our first two days!

Starting off with prayer because it works!

All smiles! My kids even said they were excited to start back!

Cursive! Fun times!

And this is snack??

Geography!

Spelling!

The girls were supposed to make Roman Pillars...but apparently they missed that part in the directions....

Day 2!

We made it thru the 1st day!

Our rotations

 

 

 

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Jocelyn is 11 today!

Jocelyn Rene turned 11 today! She is my easy going, extremely helpful little, big girl. Yikes! She is a few years away from being a teenager! She loves anything that has to do with art, archery, dancing, gymnastics, friends, and her American Girl dolls.

We aren't doing parties for the kids this year, because we are hoping to have a big one for Landon when he turns one, so her birthday was low key. This past week we met a few friends at the pool and I took her out to lunch with my sister. Sean took both of the girls out to a hibachi grill for lunch for a nicer combo lunch.

She decorated her own birthday cake with a few friends and got her dream gift--a retired Kanani American Girl doll. This hopefully completes their collection of recent girl of the years....ugh.

On her actual birthday (today) we are shooting in an archery tournament and going to a back to school picnic with ohr homeschool group! Can't wait to see her continue to grow!

She had a few friends from church come over.

 

 

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