Aiden :: 8 Years

Happy 8th Birthday, my sweet boy!

My Dearest Aiden,

You have been talking for months about your birthday. Counting down the days, talking about themes, adding to your wishlist...to say that you are excited about your birthday is an understatement :)

Yesterday, when you woke up, I gave you a super long hug and said I was just going to have to hold you all day, since it was your last day of being 7 years old. You laughed, and pulled away, and said, "Mo-om" in that annoyed little boy way, and my heart knew that I couldn't keep you little forever. I have known that for many years now. But because you are my Aiden, you still came back for an extra hug anyway, and my heart was just so grateful for your heart. How you love big and fully. 

You are in that unique transition of being a little boy, wanting to play and be silly and still needing your Mama, but also wanting to grow up and be a big kid and do big kid things. You are still into battles and sports and wrestling and building forts and playing in the dirt. Pooh is still by your side. You say the wildest things sometimes, and make me laugh on a regular basis. I love watching you build your relationship with your brother and your sister. 

I love you, sweet boy, and I have loved celebrating YOU on your birthday! I love your hugs and snuggles, and I am so grateful you are my 8 year old boy!

Love,

Mom

McCullough Schoolhouse :: 4th + 3rd Grade

Today was our first day back to {home}school! Eli and Maddie started 4rd Grade, and Aiden is a 3rd Grader :)

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Year 5! It's hard to believe, but I am grateful for another year of homeschooling. I feel like we are "in deep" at this point haha...I have so many plans for what I want to teach, where I want our schooling to go, and I have us on that trajectory for multiple years in the future. It's mostly exciting, somewhat nerve-wracking, and I just feel so grateful that we get to jump in for another year.

Even with that, I have been "ready" to start for a few weeks...all the curriculum was set, worksheets ready, books in place. But mentally, I probably could have used another couple of weeks before we started. This summer was busy, and I don't necessarily feel rested and ready for a full semester of school. But even getting started this morning, I am grateful for "past me" already doing the prep work so that we could ease into the year. I'm thankful that we have good routines in place, and the kids already know {for the most part} what to expect. I am looking forward to our learning rhythm, and I look forward to seeing another year of growth!

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Here's a look at what we have in store for fourth and third grade this year:

Morning Time: This time will remain fairly consistent from previous years:

• Daily hymn- a selected hymn each week from Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan
• Catechism- we use The New City Catechism for Kids from The Gospel Coalition
• Character Cards- we use the Character Matters Cards from September and Co
• World Prayer- we pray for one country or people group a week from the Window on the World: An Operation World Prayer Resource book. 

Bible: We will continue making our way through Foundations of the Bible by Driven by Grace. We will finish Volume 2: Judges to Jesus and then complete the year with Volume 3: Gospels to Revelation. The kids really enjoyed this curriculum last year, so we are looking forward to finishing out the rest of the volumes.

Language Arts: 

• Spelling- Eli and Maddie will move to Modern Curriculum Press' Spelling Workout D, and Aiden will start with Spelling Workout C.
• Grammar- We will do grammar twice a week, and we will use First Language Lessons- Level Four from the Well Trained Mind. Aiden is still a rockstar, keeping up with Eli and Maddie!
• Writing- We will continue our daily handwriting practice with Zaner-Bloser Handwriting workbooks. Everyone will continue practicing cursive. We will also start Writing with Ease Level 4 for literature and writing skills. When I first started this program, Level 4 was mapped out for 4th grade. They have since revised the program, but I was able to find a copy for us to finish out our 4th year and hopefully give the kids a solid foundation before we move on to a more skilled program. We're still working on the mechanics of our writing, so here's to a year of more growth!
• Reading- This is the year of reading practice for everyone! We have made it through all of our phonics programs, and now we are just working on comprehension {Maddie} and fluency {Eli and Aiden}.  

Family Read Alouds: Over the summer, we started The Green Ember series by S.D. Smith, and the kids have loved it! This year, we also have some more classics lined up:

• The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
• The Swiss Family Robinson by Robinson Crusoe
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton
• Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser

Math: We are continuing with the same curriculum. Eli will be moving forward with Kate Snow's Fourth Grade Math with Confidence, and Maddie and Aiden will complete Third Grade Math with Confidence {which they started last spring}, starting Fourth Grade Math with Confidence next spring. 

History: This year, we will continue making our way through The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and Our Star-Spangled Story from Notgrass History. Because we worked through both last year, and added unit studies on the Constitution and the Presidency, it slowed our pace down, so we will just keep making our way through. We will continue the unit study on the Presidency, and we will add unit studies on Compassionate Americans, Clever Americans, and Creative Americans. We will end the year with a unity study on the U.S. Civil War {all unit studies are from Delightfully Feasting Press}.

We will be supplementing with the following:

• Usborne Book of World History
• The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia
• The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World
• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
• Relevant library books

And for the unit studies:

• The Constitution Decoded
• Basher Civics: Democracy Rules!
• Basher Basics: U.S. Presidents
• Weird But True: Presidents
• The Presidents Visual Encyclopedia
• We the People and the President
• Scholastic Books of Outstanding Americans
• Two Miserable Presidents
• DK Eyewitness: Civil War
• Relevant library books

We will also have a mixture of read alouds and narration, maps/coloring pages, and activities/crafts. 

Geography: We will be doing a U.S. geography study through the National Parks! We will get to learn about the unique culture, historical events, people, and natural wonders of each park, and there are varying activities throughout the study. Delightfully Feasting Press offers 4 volumes to walk through most of the U.S. parks, and I am looking forward to this unique approach to geography. 

Science: Science the last couple of years has been a bit of a flop, so I decided to make a complete pivot. Our evaluator recommended Science Shepherd, so we are going to try Introductory Science. It will give us a good base of a lot of different topics, as we decide if this curriculum is going to work for us. I like that all of the kids can do the core curriculum learning together, but then there is a Level A and Level B workbook, so they can split the course work based on their age/grade level. There is a combination of videos, activities/experiments, and review pages. It also leaves room for additional exploration of topics to dive deeper if we want. So here's to a better year in science!

Foreign Language- Latin: We will continue with our Latin curriculum from last year, moving to Latina Christiana from Memoria Press. I plan to use the videos a lot more than we did last year, {instead of just the audio pronunciation}, so I will be interested to see how the kids enjoy having someone else teach them. Maddie loved Latin, mostly because she is excited to have a "base" language to learn more languages later. The boys...not so much haha.

Typing: Eli and Maddie will continue practicing their typing, and I will start Aiden with the same program in the spring {Typing.com}. 

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Here we go...4th and 3rd grade!

{iPhone Rewind} :: July

Aiden's turban nest. He said, "send that to the president." This kid's got jokes!

We had a long stretch of 100-degree days, and the humidity was stifling. Not our favorite summer days...

4th of July flowers from Mike

Maddie was super excited about the free samples at Trader Joe's :)

A beautiful {double} rainbow after a storm

Lunch and a show {our neighbors were having a tree removed}  :)

Happy 15th Anniversary to us!

I wonder how many days are left of seeing this bear on the stairs...

This little guy spent a lot of time climbing around our living room window, flying into our back door, and hanging out on our patio table. I'm pretty sure he was either a baby learning to fly, or he was hurt and needing to recover. I'm choosing to maintain our Disney backyard aesthetic and believe he eventually gained the strength to fly safely away on his own :)

They're both WAY too big to snuggle on top of Mommy, but where there is a will, there is a way...

 

We ventured into Rainforest Falls for VBS this year! Our Super Sloth, Jumpin' Jaguar, and Amazing Anaconda learned all about the nature of God, and it was a fun week full of praising our all-knowing and faithful Creator!

Aiden accidentally left Pooh Bear at a friend's house...and he took a journey to make it back safely home :)

Our little World Cup junkies haha

One of our missionaries from the Netherlands {same one Mike visited earlier this year} has come back to Virginia for the summer, and he taught a class on the 4 gospels: Four Portraits, One Jesus. I always enjoy learning from him, but was doubly excited for this class, as I prepare for our Luke Bible study this Fall!

After almost 40 years of faithful ministry, Milt and Val said "see you later" to our CBC family. We had a sweet morning hearing Milt's last sermon as our Shepherding Pastor, and then enjoying an all-church picnic with family and friends throughout the years.

These two thought it was hilarious to stuff the Pooh bear costume with blankets and have been carrying it around like an extra person. They have been dancing with it, sleeping with it, and I find it propped up in random places. 

Beach Bums!

We got a chance to return to Fenwick Island this year, and the kids were so excited! Overall, we had great weather, and we were so thankful for the chance to get away for a few days as a family.

We drove into Delaware the first day, dropped our stuff, and headed straight to the beach! The kids enjoyed the afternoon playing in the waves, building sandcastles, and searching for seashells. We learned our lesson from last year and had a solid plan in place to manage the sun so no one would get burnt. And I am so happy to report that we escaped the whole trip with zero sunburns! :)

We got a fun visit from a sweet rabbit family while we were at the beach house. One of the kids spotted a rabbit {fun}, and then noticed a tiny baby rabbit with it {super fun!} But then we started noticing more and more, and in the end, there was an entire family: 2 adult rabbits and 3 tiny babies! We got to watch them run around and play in the yard, and it made everyone's evening. 

Can you see the tiny baby in the pot??

The second day at the beach was the coolest. It was cloudy, so definitely much cooler. Despite everyone being cold, it didn't seem to stop the kids from playing in the waves! Mommy hunkered down under some towels and weathered the wind, but still got to enjoy watching everyone play and listen to an audio book.

We made the drive up to Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk to walk around and check things out. The kids got to try some of the famous Thrasher's fries, and we played a few games at Funland. I will say this: these kids need to stay far away from Vegas haha. We enjoyed dinner at Dalmata Italiano before heading back to the beach house for the night. 

The sun came back out for our last day at the beach, and everyone was grateful! We really love that this particular beach is not crowded, at least at the times that we have come. The kids enjoyed more of the same: playing in the waves, searching for shells. But they also got to enjoy time on the boogie board with Daddy. 

We went in search of ice cream, and ended up at a snow cone place, which was a big hit! Everyone loved it, and we couldn't get over how BIG they were. These were the MINI size! It's a good thing it was vacation :)  The place was outdoor and had a bunch of games to play, which was really fun. It was a great way to round out a fun week.

Not pictured were the board games {they were SUPER excited to play the Star Wars Stratego game again haha!} and movie night. It was a great trip, and we are grateful for the chance to get away and make some more fun family memories.