5 months? Whoops!

It's been a few months since I last posted. I guess life has been busy, and I haven't been documenting. But, things have been great and we are all very healthy and happy!! So, I'll attempt to catch up the latest Milligan Family news...

 

This precious boy finished Kindergarten! He had a fantastic year and learned a lot with his friends at Learning Grove. These pics are from the Tour de France that they participated in from March. All the kindergarteners brought their bikes to school and they raced around the church 3 times in 3 different heats. Trent was a beast and came in 1st place the first time. In the second and third race, he came in 2nd place to the girl in the top picture on the HUGE bike! (We questioned the race sponsors as to whether or not her bike met regulations.) ;) haha!

Actually, we were more impressed that Trent beat the girl since her bike wheels were so much bigger than his. Our boy is strong and determined!

Now...On to 1st grade!!!

First day of Learning Grove- 2014

Our beautiful 5th grader

our handsome and cool 3rd grader

Our adorable Kindergartener

my cute boys

my sweet kiddos

On September 2, 2014, we started our 6th year at our homeschool group, Learning Grove. The kids were so excited to put on special outfits, pack lunchboxes and book bags and head off to see their friends.

This is Trent's first year at Learning Grove and so far, he loves it! He hasn't made any friends (his words), but he does like going there. Bradley is really enjoying 3rd grade and has a good group of boys that he enjoys playing with. Rachel loves everything about being in 5th grade and has many little friends (young and old) that she chats with.

This year, I'm working at LG on Tuesdays with the 1st grade class. Basically, I'm an assistant who follows around 16 first graders to each of their classes (Art, Creative Writing, Music and Science) and tries to make teaching easier on the 4 tutors. I sometimes help with a lesson, but my main purpose is to make sure they are on task and behaving while the tutor is teaching. It has been a fun job and a really good group of kids to work with. We are thankful to be part of the Learning Grove family!!

:)

First Day of Milligan Family Homeschool- 2014

We started our 6th year of homeschool on August 25, 2014. :)

 

So far, we are having a great year! Rachel is in 5th grade and rocking along just beautifully. She has such strong reading and comprehension skills. She works hard on everything and is a very independent worker. This year, I've been giving her a list of daily assignments and she writes them in her assignment notebook. She can do most things on her own and I only help her when she asks. We're really concentrating on her writing skills and making sure she knows how to write a solid, descriptive, paragraph so that she can write a strong essay by the end of the school year.

 

Bradley is in the 3rd grade and is doing really well! He began reading like a pro last year, so he's had more fun being able to work independently on some assignments for the first time. Bradley's strength is definitely mathematical concepts, so we're about to start multiplication tables, and I know he's going to knock them out! We're really concentrating on writing our thoughts down without worrying about spelling and punctuation. Brad tends to be a perfectionist, which prevents him from attempting things because he's fearful of doing something wrong or having something misspelled. Our goal is to write complete sentences with correct spelling and punctuation by the end of the year.

 

Trent is in Kindergarten and is a really eager student! Like most things that Trent does, he works REALLY hard and loves to succeed (and does!). He is a very fast learner and remembers things very easily. He has excellent penmanship! He struggles with speech articulation, so our main focus this year is practicing sounds and letter combinations. He loves doing this and loves to be praised for his efforts. :)

 

All 3 kids are still studying North America and "traveling" up the east coast. Recently we learned about North and South Carolina. We are also about to delve into the Middle Ages in History and we've just started learning about Astronomy in Science.

 

We have lots of fun in our homeschool classroom and are so thankful that we get to do this every day. :) 

LG Field Day 2014

Lining up to stretch and follow the leader- Brad is 2nd in line with blue ball cap backwards; Rach is 4th in line with black shorts with white stripe

The boys locking arms, and refusing to let girls separate them...

Passing the hoop without breaking hands/arms

Rachel jumping with a ball between her legs (nice form Rach!)

Trent rolling around on the large soccer ball

Rach keeping the hoop going and not losing her grip

Brad excitedly cheers on his teammates

Getting sprayed! Oh, the joy!!!

Bradley darting under the spray hose, followed by his buddy Ansleigh

Somehow May came and went and I neglected to mention Field Day! It is always such a fun day with our Learning Grove friends! We had lots of cool games and then a super "cool" surprise was the local fire truck spraying down all the kids with their huge hose. The kids thought it was awesome and then got to eat pizza, cookies and play in the shoals nearby. It was a wonderful day for sure!!

The Rodeo

Mellie, Hannah, Rachel and Haleigh

Collie, Brandon, Trent and Bradley

some of the horses resting after the rodeo

A few weeks ago, our homeschool group went to the local Rodeo, put on by the UGA Block and Bridle Club. It was our first experience at the rodeo, and it was LOTS of fun! Since it was a special events rodeo, it was geared towards school groups, so we didn't see or experience all the parts of a rodeo, but we saw plenty. The energy level was high and we were very impressed with the bull riders, horse riders, emcees, rodeo clowns, etc... It was a very fun and unique experience for us!

Learning Grove End of Year Program

Well, the pictures aren't too good but we had such a wonderful time at the kid's end of year celebration for Learning Grove a few weeks ago! Unfortunately I didn't get a good pic of either of my kids, and they sure did look cute! The program involved lots of beautiful singing and many, many precious, heart-felt solos. The most beautiful solo was performed by our own sweet Rachel. Her voice was beautiful, sweet, sincere and pitch-perfect as she sang a line from "I will follow" by Chris Tomlin. Bradley's group sang a couple of songs, but everyone's favorite was "Happy" by Pharrell. It's all the rage right now in the world and I admit it is very catchy, fun and happy!  I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check throughout the entire program. We are so blessed to be part of such a wonderful group of families and I feel especially thankful that I am able to homeschool my joys.
Till next school year...

Skating their hearts out!

 

My cute little skaters!

 

Once a month our local skating rink hosts a homeschool skate day. In February, they made it a combined Valentine's party and kids brought decorated valentines boxes to be filled with valentines. It was very fun and the kids got more valentines and candy than ever before!

 

 Rachel is quite the little skater, with her own pair of skates and her "skating outfit" that she picked out just for the occasion. Brad and Trent are learning to skate and falling down a lot, but they both hang in there for quite awhile! It's definitely a fun thing to do once a month! :)

 

Learning Grove Christmas Party

Brad's group: 2nd and 3rd grade

my sweet Rach

Rachel's group: 4th, 5th and 6th

Daddy and Trenty

the whole gang singing together

This week, we had our Christmas party and program at Learning Grove. It's always a very fun time of year as we wrap up the first half of the year and take a break (from going to our group) until January. We have a new Music Tutor this year, who is fantastic! She taught the kids some wonderful new songs and they all sang a really rocking and exciting version of Jingle Bells. All the kids were super excited and enthusiastic about singing that one. :) After they sang some songs, we had snacks and played some games. We are so thankful for our homeschool group and all the wonderful families we have met thru homeschooling.
Merry Christmas!!

Virginia's Chess Pie

During our study of Virginia, we learned so much about this cool "Mother of Presidents" state. It's chock full of presidential history. It was super fun to visit there too! Rachel found a recipe for a chocolate chess pie in one of our books, so that's what we made in honor of Virginia. The pie was DELICIOUS! Juju was over when we happened to have all our necessary ingredients, so she and Rach each made one. This pie was one of my faves for sure! Can't wait to see what yummy recipe we make from our study of Tennessee!

No Dress Code, No problem!

Rach loves to wear her loud pants with her cowgirl boots! She loves bright, bold prints and fun designs.

Trent loves to spike his hair with as much hair gel as possible and he is very particular about what he wears!

Brad dresses for comfort...seriously he is least likely to care what he wears...but he does love his Mohawk!

 

We are always happy that we can wear whatever we want. We get to experiment with our different styles. We are blissfully unaware of the latest trends. We set our own. We are homeschoolers. :)



Georgia Peach

Rach eating a crunchy, un-ripe peach, with our canned peach pie...almost ready to bake!

My pretty girl with her pretty peach pie!

A warm piece of peach pie with melty vanilla ice cream! Yum!!

This year, we have decided to study the USA! We want to know a little bit more about each of our great states. So, of course we started with the best one: Georgia! In our studying, we are learning the state's geographic location in the USA, the state bird, state tree, state flower, state fruit, state crop and of course state capital. And we are learning the major waterways (if any) and important cities in our state's history.
One of the books we checked out from the library had a recipe for Peach Pie, and Rachel thought we should make one...so we did! Unfortunately, we didn't let our fresh peaches ripen before we wanted to make the pie (oops...I forgot about that part!), so we had to use canned peaches (not as tasty!!). However, the pie was fun to make, yummy to eat, and a really special treat! Now Rachel's talking about making all kinds of other pies! We'll have to see what the state fruit is for Tennessee and Virginia (our next states to study, since we're going on vacation there next month!). Rach wants to make a recipe for each state based on what they are known for producing.

Hooray for the U-S-of-A! We are proud to be Americans! God Bless the USA!

Show-n-Tell

Rach shows off her special BF necklace from Juj

Bradley shows us a Lego Chima figure

Trent shows us a Lego vehicle that Brad built for him

We have started doing show-n-tell this year for the benefit of Trent, our sweet Pre-K child. Rachel and Bradley got to experience this when they went to Pre-K at our church and we wanted Trent to enjoy the same fun! (Rachel's idea!) So, every day, all 3 kids pick out something that they want to share and they tell a little bit about it. Obviously, we've all seen each other's toys, but it's still neat to have them explain why they like it, play with it, why it's special, etc... Trent really loves showing off his stuff, of course. I'm even bringing something to show and telling the kids about a memory from childhood (my album full of polaroid camera pics and my awesome photography skills) or mine and Nick's HS class rings...so they know how neat it is to get a class ring when they graduate from HS and/or college. Anyway, school is still going really well, even though we have had some bad attitudes that have needed re-adjusting. Hooray for Pre-K and all the fun that it brings to our day!!

1st Day of Homeschool, 2013

Today was our first day of homeschool and IT WAS GREAT!!

Trent learned all about the letter "T"

Rach is such an independent worker

Brad works hard drawing a picture to go along with his sentence.




We started school this past week. We kinda had school fever after seeing all of our friends start back, so we started back too. At first, Trent did NOT want to do school. He said he hates school and didn't want to do anything. But, once we got into our "school room" he was fine and he LOVED learning! He did a great job too! Brad and Rach have both had a great first week and have worked very hard at whatever task I have given them. I know that every day won't go perfectly, but it was a nice beginning to our 5th year of homeschooling! Happy Homeschooling!