How is everyone doing this week? I hope summer is treating you well! Are you playing this week? Come share your links and give me an excuse to sit infront of my fan and play on the computer today! LOL Wordless: Burg Eltz, the coolest, old, intact castle in Germany Wordfilled: I'm working on a 5 days of free and frugal Homeschooling series.

I scheduled together Story of the World 2 with passport middle ages, and CHOLL with a book list- If anyone is interested and wants to save the leg work, you can download the schedule to use.

I'm glad y'all are here :) I had an emergency root canal yesterday morning and relied on auto post to get everything up :) no links today because I'm still laying in bed LOL but the pictures are up and the link is in the siggy!

Lets see- San Diego, ca, 3 moves, same city Colorado Bay Area California, 2 moves, different cities San Diego, ca South Korea Northern California Central coast ca, 3 moves, very close cities Germany is where I'm at now. Who knows where we'll be in the future. Probably 4 big long distance moves at least stand between us and a forever home.

:) It's fun to see new faces this week! Jilly- that's a beautiful picture. I'm sorry for your loss :(

I'm also looking for a FLL/MCT alternative. Neither jived for us. :) Listening i

Who is playing this week? (don't forget you can totally link up and hop with us if you want to! Grab the linky code to show the hop on your post!) Wordless: The reason my kids are terrified to do our typical nature study this month Word Filled: After a year of tweaking, I finally have the kids time management/schedule problem solved. And, a free printable for you. also happening on the blog if you're into that sort of thing- a motivated moms giveaway. Which is neither here nor there... but I love freebies :P How is the week going for all of you?

Mine is Only Passionate Curiosity We are a military family living in Europe. My kids are 7, 5 and 2- I am teaching third grade and kinder this year. We do some tot school things with the little one. I'm very eclectic. Really, I'm just finding myself and my groove here. Since we're in Europe currently, we travel a lot and school with LIFE. Every friday, I post about our Field Trips around Europe. Curriculum wise, we do a lot of unit studies. I write a lot of reviews, so you'll hear about a lot of different curriculum on the blog. Some of my favorites that we use on a regular basis are Story of the World, Singapore Math, Logic of English. This year, I am trying something a little different, so we're working on Oak Meadow with my older, and Moving Beyond the Page with the younger also. (we really only use currculum 3-4 days a week, so we're all off kilter of what a normal year should look like) Other than that, I love photography and art. I host a wordless wednesday blog hop (originating from this forum). I try and share the little things I make for my kids, like our home library organization and time management cards. :) It's a little bit of everything, and I kind of love doing it. :)

My husband, in his 30s has the most beautiful head of hair. It's thick, black and has a loose curl to it. Kind of like Patrick Dempsey hair, but thicker. Anyways, he's a military guy, so he has to get it cut often, and he wears it a lot like most military guys, very very short on the bottom, and about an inch long on top. So yesterday, he goes for a cut and gets stuck with a new barber, who does the whole cut using thining shears.... and he actually THINNED his hair. It's normally so thick that you can't see the scalp at all, but now, it's thinned so badly, that he has bald spots now on top. We were sitting at dinner yesterday, and I looked over at him, and actually thought he WAS going bald. It's terrible, and hilarious. The poor guy looks like a total doof with his thinned hair. There is no point to this post, other than I have never heard of a man having his hair thinned by a barber. I tried to take a picture but Husband wouldn't let me :P I'll have to pin him down and snap one later! Who else has bad haircut stories?

Hummmm.... you can read aloud Ben and Me, or maybe American Girls Felicity. Make dipped candles, teach cross stitching with those plastic waffle boards and yarn (I'm not sure what they are called!). You can play dress up. Oh, and watch Liberty's Kids! Sounds like fun to me, visiting there is on my bucket list.

Hummmm.... you can read aloud Ben and Me, or maybe American Girls Felicity. Make dipped candles, teach cross stitching with those plastic waffle boards and yarn (I'm not sure what they are called!). You can play dress up. Oh, and watch Liberty's Kids! Sounds like fun to me, visiting there is on my bucket list.

At the bottom of the WW post, there is a note that says something like "you're next!"- when you click on that, it takes you to a submission form. Easy peasy! And, you're welcome :)

Who's playing this week! Wordless: Summer Fun Wordfilled: This is the most fun I have ever had with a blog project- we were sent a box full of color activities! And, link up with the blog hop if you have time! It's been so much fun having a bunch of wordless posts to check out! (and, enter our giveaway with Logic of English if you have time- I am SO stoked they are giving away foundations!)

Look at the nature connection- for about 10 bucks you can get a full year of nature centered science. Google main lesson books, and form drawing. Work on story telling and narration. Wee Folk Art has some good waldorfy ideas, and it's free. Also, look for OM used if you really want it but can't afford it. There is a facebook group (Oak Meadows Families) and a yahoo group that often has used curriculum.

Can I just say I am so excited for all of you? I never thought I would be am OM mom.... and then I thought I would supplement OM, and now tonight I am sitting hubby down and trying to rationally explain why I don't want to use all the curriculum I bought before I got OM, and just do OM instead of doing both. I want to do Singapore math with it, and that's IT. Wish me luck! (and also, I bough MBTP 5-7 used for my son, and then found OM 1 used, and I want to buy THAT instead. Gosh, I feel like a total psycho. But we're having SO much fun with OM!) and Halcyon, don't forget to come back and tell us about 4! I *really* want to see it. And Running Mom- I think you made the right choice with OM 3. You can always lighten it up too, if you need to. Its very flexible!

It did help- we had some wonderful adopted Army "family" over and we all played until we couldn't play any more. Its funny how close people can get in situations like these. I'm lucky to have wonderful friends :)

Mine is up! Who else is playing? Wordless: This week was ROUGH, again. I was totally homesick. But- we had a good ole american BBQ, complete with country music, red solo cups, and coolers. It was wonderful, and we only looked a little crazy to all the Germans driving by! Wordfilled: I am kind of stoked about how cool this turned out- learning about the water cycle Also, today I put up the linky again, so feel free to come over, link up, and grab the code for the hop if you want to hop on your blog too! It's been really fun to see new faces and more and more pictures!

LOL on the mixed feelings when you first get OM- A lot of its strength is in its subtlety. A lot of people write it off as light, but once you dig into it, and start using it, you'll see different. Its one you really need to USE to understand. :) (says the girl who still cant believe she loves the box. Sigh. I can't let go of all my supplements either, and at this point, I should. I think. I don't know. But I am loving the OM)

Mine is up! Who's playing this week? Wordless: Nature Walk Wordfilled: I could never homeschool because.... (and other lies we tell ourselves) I've felt totally overwhelmed the last couple weeks, and stunk with commenting. I feel like a bad bloggy friend. Luckily, Hubby gets tomorrow off (first day off in 17 days if you'd believe it... sometimes the military makes me want to scream) so I'm hoping to be able to lock myself away and enjoy some "me" blog reading time. :) How has your week been?

MCT. I can't make it work and don't get why people love it. I have two levels in a box waiting to be sold, but then feel bad that maybe- MAYBE I should give it another try. Ugh. LOL- It makes me think maybe something is wrong with me! :lol:

Hummm..... I haven't seen 4. The independent readers for OM3 are classic stories- like Winnie the pooh and Charlottes web. You don't DO anything with them other than read them. My kiddo is going through them faster, so we add in our own lit selections on top of those. OM3 is deceptive- on first glance I thought maybe it was too light or too easy, but the more time I spent with it, the more I noticed the subtleties. It is more of a framework that is easily adapted to his level, which makes it great for a kid like you described. For example, for language arts, you'll be reading classic folk tales, but they aren't short or uncomplicated- we're talking 2-4 page long detailed stories. He'll then get to sit on it, and think about it over night, and the next day, he'll retell it to you, write a summary (however long/detailed you want to make it) and illustrate it. It gives him room to be creative, and you room to "tweak" it to him. The science and history are much of the same. Lots of stories, lots of drawing, lots of hands on projects. I would think 3 would be the right fit, knowing you may need to supplement the math for level if he already knows his times tables, and knowing you may need to add in extra reading to the books once he finishes them. I wish I could invite you over to see my copy! I was the anti-boxed curriculum gal since we started homeschooling.... but Oak Meadow isn't what I would call a "box". It's a framework and everything I need, but it gives me room and doesn't take forever to get done. Some weeks, when I am tired and busy, all we do is OM, and I know I am getting my kiddo a solid education, but other weeks, I still have time to do unit studies, and we have time to add in Latin, and we just have TIME. It's efficient, it's all there for me, and it's not taking over my life. I wish I had tried it sooner, and I'll be sticking with it (LOL bearing in mind that my eclectic self just HAS to do unit studies on top of it for FUN) Let me know if there is anything else I can answer for you!

Ok, if it wasn't 12:22 here, I would write more.... I have been using OM3 and just did a detailed review and week in the life posts. I can't tell you about the older levels, but can answer general questions and about OM3- link in siggy- there is a giveaway too! Ill check back I'm the AM to see if there are any questions I can answer!

The post is up! :) and the Linky too- Come link up with us! Wordless: I have been daydreaming about Paris- I shared pictures from what the kids enjoyed the most! Word-filled: on why I don't care if you think my homeschooled kids are weird

We live in Germany, and the number 1 way I get called out is my kids. I have three, close in age. In EVERY country we travel, the kids are a dead giveaway. They just don't have this many kids here, and for sure not this close in age. In Italy, my very Italian husband was told by the landlord that they knew he was Italian from the fire in his eyes, but an American because of the fire in his seed. ..... awkward moment there. LOL They thought it was pretty darn funny. Other than that, You can always tell a tourist by the map in their hands :)

My week in the life with oak meadow post is up, if you want to see how we do the main lesson book and what our routine looks like :)