Florida Virtual School

I was really intimidated having a high schooler last school year.  Wondering if I could teach him everything he would need to know and worried about fulfilling his credit requirements had me considering all of my options.  Having a middle schooler and pre schooler at home,  how would I find the time to give each child the unique learning opportunities they needed?  That's where Florida Virtual School really brought value to our family.

There was a great selection of courses available and the registration process was easy.  After lots of research, we decided on Spanish, English I, Algebra I, Outdoor Education and a Dave Ramsey Personal Finance Class.  

Overall our experience was wonderful.  The teachers were knowledgeable, caring and offered a lot of support.  Our 9th grader had access to a ton of resources and we did everything on our own homeschool schedule (including vacations).  It freed up a lot of time for me to focus on the other children and allowed me to offer a great science and history program scaled to my middle schooler and high schooler.

Looking back on our 2015-2016 school year we all felt very accomplished.

If you are in a similar situation, check out FLVS.  The courses are free and you still maintain your homeschool status.  I have found FLVS easy to use and they work very hard at meeting the unique needs of homeschool families.  Thanks to the success of our 2015-2016  year with FLVS, I'm having my daughter try the online course world with a keyboarding class that is offered for middle school students.

I love having so many resources and options as a homeschooler!

What is your experience with virtual classes?  What do you do to teach mixed ages?

Hi 5 for Friday

Another busy crazy week behind us. 

my little Ava gravy :)

One///I somehow managed to have all three of my children within two weeks of each other (not really by my doing but their doing - this little one came over a month early!!) and did I also mention my husband's birthday is within two weeks of that too? 

This makes July, August and September crazy birthday time!  Factor in the age differences and we're almost always having separate celebrations even though I would love to throw them all into one.  I still haven't figured out the right birthday combo for a 40, 13, 9 and 2 year old I guess! 
Three down and one more to go!




Puss Caterpillar

Two///This horrible dog tail looking caterpillar landed on my chest leaving Target the other day.  I was just minding my business strolling to my car parked in the nice shady spot under the big oak tree when WHAM! this guy and a small nest of baby spiders fell on me.  Luckily, I saw the spot on the news informing the Tampa area of the poisonous nature of the Puss Caterpillar.  No worries though, my son batted him off of me with a frozen loaf of garlic bread as I was screaming and wailing for someone to call 911 and to tell my husband that I loved him!

Three///Cross Country is in full swing which means waking up at 5:00 a.m. for practice 2-3 times per week.  This along with meets almost every Friday have me feeling blah! 

I would like to thank the Florida heat and especially the humidity.  It just wouldn't be the awful same without that rotten humidity. 

Actually, it hasn't been too horrible now that I can get iced pumpkin spice lattes. :)


Four///Getting super excited for our upcoming vacation.  We now have one week before we leave!!!!  We will be gone 10 days, splitting our time between Williamsburg, Va. and Washington D.C.  We are doing a White House tour this time since last time we did the U.S. Capitol Building tour.  We will also be visiting the Bureau of Printing and Engraving $$$.  The kids were so small last time and we went during the cherry blossom bloom season (is that how you say that?) so this will be a totally different experience.  More to come!

 

Five///Fall everything for sale and on sale!  And, yeah pumpkin everything too. Enough said!

Constitution Day

Today is Constitution Day!  I love special days where we can escape our normal everyday course work.  Today we are taking on the Constitution and it's three main parts. 

Are you wondering how I knew it was constitution day?  Well even if you weren't, it is my segue to pointing you in the direction of what I consider a fun resource. :)  The Scholastic.com website has a great teachers section and every month I head over to their site to print out the monthly planning calendar.  It is fantastic and fun and colorful and...!  It tells you some special fact or observance for each day and provides links for printables, lesson plans and more.

Here is a sample of the monthly calendar:

You can find this at the Scholastic website under the planning calendar tab along with other resources.

As you can see on 09/17/2014 it lists Constitution Day with a link to Scholastic.com/constitution.   Today we are using printables and activities from the link to discuss the PREAMBLE, the ARTICLES and the BILL OF RIGHTS. 

Since we will be focusing the greatest on the Bill of Rights, we will take some time to talk about Patrick Henry (my son's fave).  It was this quick tempered delegate from Virginia that helped fight for the Bill of Rights so America wouldn't be ruled by another King.  Thanks to the contributions of Patrick Henry and many others, The Constitution is the ruler of the land and not a king!  Yay Constitution Day!