A Full Summer

Esme is staying busy this summer. In June she finished up soccer and Daisies, complete with her first Girl Scout camping trip. She has done two weeks of swimming lessons, a Junior Rangers program, Vacation Bible School, and continued with Lego League. She has ten stamps in her park passport and will be getting a couple more this weekend.

In addition to bringing Esme all over the place and being involved in all of her activities, I was also fortunate enough to get to attend a Project Learning Tree workshop. This is a wonderful environmental education program. I left certified to present the K through 8 curriculum. I learned so much in six short hours. I left overwhelmed by all the things I want to learn!! This weekend I will start teaching Esme how to classify and identify different types of trees.

Who says summer is for relaxing?!?

Our First Math Curriculum!!

I am super excited!! This past year we've followed the Massachusetts Frameworks for what we studied in Math, and it went well. I feel Esme was getting the hang of number sense and starting to understand how it all fits together. However, I decided that as she goes forward I would really like something structured for her. I am sure that if I buckled down I could develop my own program for her, but there are already so many out there, already developed, that are just wonderful. I've had the opportunity to look at different curricula through other homeschoolers, but ultimately decided on the one that I am most comfortable with, because it is the one I use at school. The Houghton Mifflin First Grade Math books are on the way to our house now!! I can't wait to get started!

DCR's Park Passport Program

We are so glad we discovered this program! It has inspired our whole family to be excited about visiting our state parks!! We got a park pass for the first time this year, and have already visited several this year. It also works very well with our love of camping and letterboxing. You can get a passport by visiting any state park or by signing up here. Then every time you visit a different state park you unlock the box and stamp the image into your passport. We love the designs chosen for the stamps. We also go to learn about the No Child Left Inside program which is also super cool.