CREW: Excellence in Literature

I have to admit, this is a tough review for us... but it's not because of the product...it's my kids!  Well, not really my kids, but their age.  Excellence in Literature is a program that is geared toward 8th-12th grade. Since we are only 6th grade, this was a bit above their level.  We did attempt the first short story lessons and I do think it will be an awesome thing for us - in a couple of years!  I will be hanging on to it and we will revisit it when they are older.
I love the way the classics are used. I love that it is a student led program. I love that it breaks down the steps in writing & I love that it gets them, not just reading great books, but writing in that mindset. I also love that it has an honors part of the program, for those that are real go-getters when it comes to literature!
Introduction to Literature is available on Excellence in Literature's website in ebook for for $27. 
Please visit the Crew blog and check out what my crewmates have to say about this product as well...



*Disclaimer: My family was given this product free of charge to use and form our own opinion of and share with our readers.  The thoughts and opinions expressed about this item are strictly opinions of myself or my children.*

Wilson's Creek Battlefield

Since we have been studying the Civil War this year, we decided to head to Springfield and visit Wilson's Creek Battlefield.  

In addition to the 4.9 mile battlefield tour, there was also a pretty neat museum.  Here are few pics from the trip there:

Pumpkin patch & Corn Maze

Roger took off work and we headed out with our homeschool group to one of the local Pumpkin Patches and Corn Mazes ~ too much FUN!! The place is called Schaeffer & Collin's Pumpkin Patch & Farm.  It is a large farm with a nice play area, a picnic area, a petting zoo & great places for photos! (It was cold, so I didn't get many pics!).  There is a hayride out to the patch where there are tons of pumpkins to choose from!

After the trip out to the pumpkin patch, we let the kiddos just roam around the play area.  The adults stood around and chatted & then, after lunch and some play time, we headed to Schaeffer's Corn Maze across the dirt road...

(me and one of my new found great friends!)

There was no one there but our group, so we let the kiddos run loose and the adults just strolled and chatted!  We had such a relaxed day ~ loved it SO much ~ cannot wait to do it again next year!!

Fall is in the air!!

Crew Blog Hop ~ Bringing in the Sheaves!

Fall is my favorite time of year! When I taught preK, and even up until the past year or so with my kiddos, fall was my favorite teaching time!! Fall is the BEST time for unit studies!! Once you get past the beginning of the school year, the days are packed with learning.

 I always started the beginning of September with apples! So much you can do with apples. Start with a trip to the apple orchard and learn about the various types of apples. Once you get a big bag of them to take home, the possibilities are endless, cooking with them, painting with them, graphing, taste test - the list is truly endless. (don't believe me? Google apple lesson plans!)

From apples, we go to pumpkins. Same thing with all the pumpkin options... pumpkin patch field trip, pumpkin cooking (just search pinterest right now - FULL of pumpkin recipes), art with pumpkins and pumpkin seeds, various types of pumpkins and gourds!  IF you celebrate (well, celebrate is not really the right word - maybe take part?) If you take part in Halloween activities - there is another few days of stuff - carving the pumpkins, along with any other Halloween items that you want to learn about.

If you skip over the Halloween,  there are still a few things Halloween related that are not *scary*, but fallish - bats are fall, lots of things to learn about bats.  Scarecrows are a fun fall thing as well.  From pumpkins/Halloween, we next flow into fall leaves.  Lots of art activities with fall leaves, plus SCIENCE galore!!

From leaves, we go into Thanksgiving... I haven't gotten to that part of our planning and processing for this year yet, but I know that there are tons of learning activities for this as well!  The one thing that I do have down to do this year- Scholastic's virtual tour.  We watched some of this last year and it was pretty cool... plus they have tons of other things on their website for Thanksgiving!

Don't forget when you start planning, to hit the library - we always have a variety of related books spread out on the coffee table.  Even though the kiddos are older, I still put out some of the easy readers - mainly ones we own, I don't check out too many of those anymore!

More *critter science* from the backyard...

For the past few years, we have had a trio of box turtles - Alvin, Simon and Theodore - that hang out in the back yard.  They were found and brought to the backyard, and the way the fence is, they are *stuck* here with us.  We usually find them each spring and relabel them with their initials (red fingernail polish- usually lasts long enough for us to tell who is who).  We didn't see much of them this year though.  

Roger finally was able to get around to the burn pile today, and this is what he found:

My hand, a nickel, a quarter and a baby box turtle....

Sadly, I know turtles lay more than one egg & this was the only one we found.  He is in a small terrarium on the table now, waiting for spring and to be labeled and released into the back yard.

We also found three baby garter snakes, but they are not as cute.  We have them in a terrarium as well...