Antigua and Barbuda

If you can imagine the most beautiful place you would love to visit, where would it be?  I have to say Antigua and Barbuda look absolutely amazing.  If you ever follow The Weather Channel during Hurricane Season, then you already know that Antigua and Barbuda are located in the Leeward Islands chain of islands.  One interesting thing I discovered about this country is that you can become a citizen via investment.  Don't worry I am not wealthy enough.  Apparently, you have to be extremely wealthy.  There is a video below just in case you are way more wealthy than me.

Like all the countries I will share, we will pick a local food dish to create.  There will be other activities, as well, I just haven't decided what.  At the rate, I am posting this curriculum won't be ready until she is a Senior, so I have plenty of time to prepare, lol.

I hope you enjoy the video options I chose for you.  There will always be a book option, also.



https://www.artoncapital.com/global-citizen-programs/antigua-and-barbuda/

World History and Geography: Angola

I better start posting faster, or it will take me forever to get through all of the countries in the world, lol.  Today, Angola is the topic.  Another very cool place with a pretty interesting History. 

This post may contain affiliate links.

Menu Choices for First 4 States

As I mentioned in my last post, Caitlin will be cooking this year.  She will choose traditional foods, and recipes for each state, and cook two a week.  She will have a state info sheet for each state to fill out, and read up on the history of the traditional foods.  She will then do a blog post for each.  The first four states, and their menu items are:

Florida:  Gator Smoothies, and Key West Penne, and Key Lime Honey Grilled Chicken

Alabama:  Southern Fried Chicken, and Dill Pickle Potato Salad

Alaska:  Curry Salmon, will use chicken, with broccoli

Arizona:  Chicken and Cheese Quesadillas and Sopapillas

Because of my special diet, these will be tweeked to meet standards for CKD, or I will cook mine separate.  They don't like their meat fried in coconut oil, and while Evo is OK for me, coconut oil is better.  I only bake with coconut oil now, and replace eggs with bananas or applesauce.

With the holidays coming, and since I like to enjoy them, I will be posting recipes for foods and treats to take to parties for the holidays, that comply with CKD.  I love the app from  the National Kidney Foundation called, My Food Coach.  I put my info in, and it tells me exactly how much of the foods I need for the day to meet the requirements for potassium, phosphorus, protein and calcium, oh and sodium too.  Please use with caution with your doctor and dietitian, especially if you are new to CKD, and are unsure how to read labels, analyze and or convert metric units.  This can be very dangerous to you.  Too little and  you can harm yourself, too much and you can harm yourself, it is a very delicate balance not to be taken lightly.  I know for me, having too much sodium makes me feel crappy, so I try very hard to restrict sodium.  I also know the importance of sodium to the body, and Iodine to the thyroid.  My body needs some.

Planning the Next Home School Year

Well the evaluation is done, and time to get ready for next year.  We don't officially start back until September 5th, but I have a lot of work to do before then.  DJ's is easy, he is a senior, and will be doing a lot of online work.  He will be taking the SAT, on the 26th.  Right now he has no interest in doing dual enrollment, unfortunately, but he also knows that means all the school burden is on him.  That means scholarships, grants, and working to pay for his schooling.  He says he is aware.  Caitlin's will take a little more planning, though at least I have the basics of what she, and I want.  I just bought her History/Science curriculum, see details below. Last year I felt very disorganized, which is way out of whack for me.  I will be sure that doesn't happen this year.


DJ Courses for 12th Grade

Chemistry:  This is the second half of his Chemistry class. He opted not to do it over the Summer months.  He will be doing this on FLVS.

Japanese:  This is his second year, required for college, and we will be using Time 4 Learning Languages.  This was the program with the best pricing around at 60 dollars.  He will have access at that price for 6 months.  That should be sufficient to get enough hours to get a full credit.

English 4:  We chose a more formal Language Arts this year.  He will be doing this on FLVS.

Geometry/Math:  He is finishing up Geometry, and hopefully will be done by the time we start.  Whenever he finishes he will sign up for Math for College Readiness.  He opted to not take Algebra 2 knowing he may need Remedial Math his first year of college.  However,  the more he studies, his Math scores on the practice app, continue to go up for SAT.  FLVS

World History:  Though he did some last year, it is my feeling, and he agrees, that it was not enough for a full credit.  I signed him up for the honors program, at FLVS.

I still need to update his full high school portfolio, and just applied to a pet rescue for volunteer hours.  He will do electives the second half of the school year, to meet requirements.  Right now looking at typing, and Psych2, and possibly Religions of the World.


Cailtin:  Grade 8

Math:  Easy Peasy Homeschool middle school level.  She will pick up where she left off, fractions #18.

Science/Weather:  The past two years Caitlin has not had much concentration on Science or History.  This year will be different.  I have saved a ton of resources, to Pinterest, that I will be going through to put together a Weather program for her.  This is interest based learning.  I will do a future post on the sources I decide to use.

History:  This actually will be multi focused.  I just bought today, from an Etsy seller, Blaze New Trails.  I bought the student book, the fun kit, and the Prairie Life units.  This is a multi subject curriculum, for History, Science and Literature.  My evaluator had it yesterday, and I loved it.  Caitlin loved it too, which is why I was willing to pay the price for it.  She will also be doing Cooking Across America, which is a made up course by me using various resources.  She will be required to cook at least twice a week, and will include Geography as well.  I will do a post later on with the links for this class.

Language Arts/Writing:  This year will again have a focus of good writing skills.  I am scouring my Pinterest board to decide what I want to use.  Might be multiple websites.  I know we agreed that she wants to write about wolves.  She loves wolves~

French:  Caitlin has decided to move from Spanish to French.  Since she is still in middle school, we will probably just have this as an adjunct class, where she uses an app to learn as much as she can, for free.

My Oldest Applied for His First Real Job Today

This is a huge milestone for him, and if he gets it, it will go along way in getting scholarships.  He has done here and there jobs to earn money for camp, and that went very well.  But, this is a real job, with taxes and paychecks and such.  I think he was real nervous, but my husband went with him, and he filled out the papers and was fine.  He had to ask my husband if he had ever been convicted of a felony.  LOL, apparently we need to cover some Criminal Justice topics.  I am so proud of the young man he is becoming.  Oh, and hallelujah he finished the first half of Chemistry, on FLVS with a B, yay!!  Chemistry, according to people we have talked to, is one if not the hardest course FLVS offers.  He worked his butt off to get that B.  He will take the second half in the Fall, and take a break from it over the Summer.  He will be finishing Geometry over the Summer, but now that Chemistry is over, he can do 2 lessons a day, unless it is something really demanding for Geometry.

My daughter is doing very well on Easy Peasy Homeschool Middle School  Math.  She was just not progressing with the textbooks, or work books and I had to make a change.  She picked Easy Peasy, not me, and it seems to be working.  We also switched to PBS media learning for Science, and History and that has replaced the workbooks.  She is at least happy now, and learning.  She still has Language Arts and Bible workbooks, with at least two writing assignments a week.  I need to find a more structured, but fun Writing curriculum for her next year.

We have started our 4th quarter, and the end is in sight for this school year.

Coursera World History Modern Times and The Crusades

My son will be taking the World History CLEP exam, some time at the end of the school year.  We have been using a modge podge of resources to learn the information needed without spending a fortune.  Right now we are watching a Youtube video on The Crusades, that is very eye opening, and educational.

While doing some research, I came across a class on Coursera, covering World History Modern Times, and it is a college level course.  You can purchase the certificate course, but I am not sure if they are eligible for actual college credits, like taking the CLEP would be.  We will be doing the free version, both parts, or he will,  I don't think I will do it as my daughter needs me to concentrate on her too.  Check out Coursera if you are having a hard time finding affordable resources for High School level classes.

As a hands on activity, I will be having him create a timeline of World History.  I might let him do it on his blog, as he has not had time to blog in a real long time.  

Free or Frugal Homeschool Friday: Art Lessons

Today, I am focusing on Art for Free or Frugal Friday.  I believe I only saved free ones, but some may have the option to purchase more lessons or supplies.  I already downloaded a free Drawing Curriculum, but I can no longer share it, because the giveaway has expired.  I may use that one, but there are several others I found that I like more, or just as much as the one I downloaded.  So, I am still undecided.  Kinderart, and Math Art Projects look to be two that I am definitely leaning towards.  But, I also want them to learn the Masters as well.  Maybe we will do the Masters another year.  You can always make your own Art Curriculum, but that does take a quite a bit of time.  There are quite a few links, so be sure and look through them carefully.  The book at the bottom, Draw and Write Through History, I am considering getting for my youngest child.  There are six books in the series.  She enjoys these kinds of books.

http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/2014/05/math-art-projects-kids.html
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum-online
http://artinspired.pbworks.com/w/page/13819585/FrontPage
https://cdaltonkhs.pbworks.com/w/page/57753036/Mr%20Dalton%20Knightdale%20HS
http://panthers.k12.ar.us/high_school/departments/art/art_web_pages/lessons/syllabus/Art_1_Syllabus.htm
http://www.donnayoung.org/art/index.htm
http://kinderart.com/artlessonsbygrade/highschool.shtml
http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators/lesson-plans
http://www.teachartathome.com/lessons.html
http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/high/highlessons.html
http://homeschoolarts.com/main.htm

Photo Editing With Picasa

For DJ's FLVS Photography class, he had to take five pictures he took and edit them using whichever software he wanted. Since I upload most of our images to Picasa, he used that one. The first set of images are the originals. You can see the striking difference once they were edited. I was amazed at the difference. We don't generally edit our pictures. I try to get him to learn to take good pictures naturally, but wow what a difference! I have been adding watermarks to his images, the really good ones, that he wants to save. But, it is very time consuming. These images belong to DJ. No one is authorized to borrow or use them for any reason. Do you edit your photos? Which program do you use?