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Back to School: Homeschool Edition Let's just say after a week of being gone and just moving back in last night, everyone was a little bit tired this morning.  Haha, I really did make them get dressed after breakfast. We try to save jammies for snow days when they have to still do school. First day back called for egg in a basket and cinnamon toast rounds, after this, its up to them to get up and make and clean up their own.
Here are our REAL back to school photos: We have a 3rd, 5th, 7th grader & Junior this year!     A little real life science was happening on our porch last night, watching this spider weave her web. We are excited to observe her! Check out her web this am.  Dale has been our main teacher for the past 2 years, but I am hoping this year to be able to come down and help regularly if I can stay ahead with work. He does a wonderful job and I am so so blessed to have him home with us! God is so good!   This is our 6th year of homeschool and loving it as much as the first. I was so scared to begin our HS journey with a 3yo, 5yo, 6yo & 10yo, & so perplexed why, unlike other years, the Lord shut the door on the finances to continue to go to the local Christian school we loved. But He knew what was to come a year later....selling our 30 acres & hitting the road fulltime in our RV. He knew I needed that year of adjustment before the bigger one to come! Praise His name! How cool that our Father knows the details & cares for each of us enough to prepare & equip us for what's ahead. I am so very grateful!❤  We celebrated a successful first day with snow cones, final ones of the season.  The next day we went and helped Nana finish moving in to her new home. Easy dinners that can be repurposed as lunch, are a MUST during back to school. I have to fix them 3 meals a day and right on time so school can go on! Just call me the lunch lady! haha :) Chili Sauce for Everything  Well, that's all I have for you today. The year is off to a wonderful start! I love to watch them learn. :) 
These kids make life so fun....probably because they are giant goofballs a lot of the time! ;) Hugs, T 
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We started back to school again this week! 4 Oaks Academy is now in session! It was a smooooooth transition, thank goodness. We are pretty established in our roles and routines by now, being it is our 5th year of doing it. Time FLIES when you are having fun. :)  My time hop today was of our finished classroom in our Kansas house back in the olden days. Awww! We may not have an actual CLASSROOM anymore, but we still get the job done and maybe even in a more efficient simple way too. :) Let me show you around where we do school when we are at our home base, and in the new RV too! Dale takes a strong lead with school when I am busy with doTERRA, but our favorite is all together as a family. We start the day with Bible and History, then split off for the other subjects.  We are on our 5th year of My Father's World curriculum family cycle, because we LOVE the one room schoolhouse approach to learning, instead of 8 separate subjects for 4 kids. This allows us to school 4 days and week and be done soon after lunch, most days. Leaving Friday for Family Fun Day or a field trip if we are on the road. This curriculum is SO scripture and literature rich, and I adore it! It gets us in the Word, and it gets us hiding it away in our hearts each day. Destiny is in the high school program and now works independently upstairs as of this year. We meet every Friday to discuss what she got done and test or grade her work etc. She says she misses together time, but loves that she can be independent too. She has been a little under the weather, so she is laying low while she does school today.
When we are home, our school books all live down here, under the folding table in the laundry room.  When we go back into the RV for our fall & winter run, all the books will fit nicely in these 4 cabinets. We have a LOT more curriculum to make fit this year! Thank goodness for lots of space to use in our new RV!  We have a Sophomore, 6th grader, 4th grader and 2nd grader! So exciting!  Check out these side by sides of our kids when we started homeschooling 5 years ago, and them now. They sure are growing up!         It is going to be a GREAT year with these goofballs and I am so excited! :)  Hope your school year is off to a GREAT start!
Hugs, T As you know, we love and use My Father's World curriculum for our schooling. We were so honored when they extended an invitation to us to tour their facility and park the RV at their GORGEOUS conference center. Check out this photo from their website: http://www.kabekonahills.com/ Yup, that was our view for the week! VERY nice place. Great place for retreats and events for SURE!  There is our home, across the lake from our tour we took of the conference center.   While we were staying here, we were able to slip out for early morning sunrises, fishing sessions and devotions, while watching the sunrise. Absolutely BREATHTAKING!   One morning, we got to head to the My Father's World offices, as well as the warehouse, the printing press, meet the owners, and see anr office full of shelves and shelves of books. Each section representing the study and literature, that went into each year of curriculum. WOW! Wish I had gotten a photo of that room! The kids even got to help bind some teachers manuals and curriculum books while we were up at the printing shop! All photos are in the slideshow below. And wait till you see the photos of the amazing barn and gorgeous mansion that is converted into a retreat center now. Pretty stinking awesome! I wish I had thought to take my big camera! Check it out! You know you just connect with some people? Todd is who I talk to every year on the phone, when we order our curriculum. He is the reason we ended up choosing doTERRA, because he is the only one from all the companies I called, that offered to pray for us and our decision.  We were blessed to get to meet him and his beautiful family, while we were in the area! Oh my goodness, we had SO much fun with them, it's like we have been friends forever! We had dinner together several times, coffee, crashed a birthday party with them, shared oils with their friends and did an impromtu essential oils class at a local 24 hours McDonalds. We are so excited to help build a team with them and their community in the near future!
 The kids had so much fun playing around the lake and fire, while we waited for everyone to get off of work and after school program. We played Blind Artist for a while. Have you ever played? You close your eyes and illustrate a story someone is telling you. Pretty hysterical!   Once everyone arrived, we just hung out, ate hot dogs, made S'mores and enjoyed the fire, the company, and the beautiful views. 
Todd's wife, the beautiful Marzetta, made the MOST AMAZING CHOCOLATE CAKE I HAVE EVER HAD. Oh my goodness gracious, my mouth is watering even now. I need the recipe! But I am afraid it's a secret....... ;)   The evening got away from us, and we failed to get a full group photo before dark, so we had to improvise with a self stick and a cell phone in the RV. Hahah! It's all about making memories anyhow, right?! We love this family!   I absolutely cannot WAIT to see what the Lord has in store them in the future! Todd and Marzetta have SUCH a heart for ministry, I know the Lord is going to use doTERRA not only to bless them with health, but healthy finances too.
This has to be my favorite part of my job, meeting precious believers with a heart for the Lord and a hunger for natural living.....and getting to invest in them and in a business designed to bless their finances. Life is all about CHOICES. And financial freedom, brings lots of those! I'd love to help you live financially free too. That's doTERRA's number 1 goal....to be known as the company that gets the most families out of debt. They want you to be free to give, and they are doing it every day. What are you waiting for? There is no better time to move towards a healthier, happier YOU, then right now with Dale and I, and the biggest research and science based, natural essential oil company in the world!!!! :) Hugs, T We spent our final days of summer, in Missouri, hanging out at the pool and the super cool playground at Basswood RV park.
We also had a nice home church, everyone was asked to share a passage and what it meant to them... We utilized the RV parks movie screen as our stage.  Our main objective and mission on the Missouri/Kansas border, was to get the first week of school under our belts. I didn't have any scheduled classes, so we could really focus in on getting it right. We pretty much hid out at the Hillsdale lake all week, focusing on school all morning, swimming all afternoon, and hiding out from the storms every all night. We were in a flash flood warning several times! And BIG ol' thunderstorms, ahh, welcome back to the Midwest!  We started school Monday morning, bright and early. Sophie is always my little school helper, close by at all times.   After school and lunch each day, we pretty much spent the rest of our time here, just fishing, swimming and relaxing...  
 I cooked most of the week, but Thursday night we took the kids out for dinner to celebrate a GREAT first week of school. We went to the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant, Joe's Kansas City. WOW! Yummo.  Have you ever made the Million Dollar Spaghetti that goes through facebook all the time? WOW. Was it ever good! Serve it with a HUGE green salad to make yourself feel better for eating all those amazing dairy fats. Cream cheese, cheese, cottage cheese and BUTTER. 4 main food groups, right? I used this recipe, but did linguini noodles, a lot more seasonings, including seasoning up the cream mixture. Everyone went crazy for it! http://sugarapron.com/2015/10/21/million-dollar-spaghetti/
The highlight of our time in MO/KS, was reconnecting with some friends we made along our journey this past year. Meet the Fercho's.......  So we are in Texas last Spring, waiting for the Midwest to thaw out enough for us to go back home for a while. We are just chilling, enjoying the Texas sunshine and teaching classes. We park for a few days at an RV park and as we awoke, look over to see a family our age, piling out of an RV. Everyone else is in school, so right away, the kids are intrigued. They have kids! They have kids! they shout to us. Dale walked to the bathhouse and noticed they had Kansas tags, and struck up a conversation with the dad, who handed him a cool Meet the Fercho's calling card. Dale looks down at it and says, That's funny, our last name is Ferguson. The conversation proceeds to, my name is Dale. Oh wow, my name is Dawson. What's your wife's name? Tonya. What? My wife's name is Tiffany. Crazy. Turns out, they too, hit the road for a year of Adventure with their 3 children. They too, were road schooling and seeing the United States from the comfort of their RV. WHAT are the odds? We all go about our day, and the next morning, Dawson Fercho, walks up to Dale Ferguson, and says.... OK, what's your middle name? Dale says, Lamar. Dawson, No way! Mine is Lee!!!! DLF meet DLF. Hahahaha!! HOW crazy! :) Our families spent the next 3 hours together talking as fast as we could get words out, before we had to pull out to head to classes in Amarillo. We had so much in common!!!! Their 3 kids, all similar ages to our 4. We found we had so many things alike, even down to their dog named Summer and our dog named Sophie. White and big, black and small, but still "S" dog names to match the theme. :) We love how the Lord works to bring people together! Turns out, we had literally been staying at the Florida Sun N Fun RV park the same week, and just never met. Thankfully the Lord brought us together in the Lone Star State! Well, as soon as we pulled out, we knew we had to get the Ferguson's and the Fercho's together again ASAP! Fast forward 5 months, and here we are, within 30 minutes of our new friends home base. We HAD to see them! The kids were shy around each other for like .5 seconds, then went right back to where they left off....... We spent the day at the lake, then the evening having pizza at their place. We stayed way too late, and had way too much fun. We could barely drag the kids apart by the end of it all. Love love love this family, and how the Lord just brings Brothers and Sisters in Christ to encourage and fellowship with each other, in every state we go to. We are already talking about some winter trips, Ferguson-Fercho Style! Love this crew!  Bye friends, see you soon!
Hugs, T It was an AMAZING summer of East Coast, and Northern US travel, but now its time to buckle down again, and get back to school schedule. We are starting a week earlier then usual because we will need to take a week off in September to attend doTERRA's awesome convention! If you used to read our old blog, the 4 little Fergusons, you know we call our school the 4 Oaks Academy based on weeks of praying and asking the Lord to help me name our school something meaningful and from Him. Our goal and desire is not to raise scholars, or athletes, but DISCIPLES for Christ. Placing HIM at the center of our hearts and home, schooling within these RV walls, working always towards meeting this goal and purpose.  This is our 3rd year to Homeschool, except now we call it "Road School" because come on, that is way cooler! ;) We ADORE the curriculum we selected from My Father's World. If you are interested in reading more, head back over to the 4 little Ferguson's blog and search homeschool. You will find a plethera of posts on this subject matter. https://4littlefergusons.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/our-homeschool-curriculum/ I may not have a cute classroom to decorate like when we had our home, but the world is our classroom now, and I am thankful all our curriculum fits neatly in the cupboards above the couch.  I adore doing life with Dale! People always ask if we drive each other crazy being together all the time and the answer is no! We have always enjoyed each others company, we were the sappy couple calling for I love you's several times a day when he used to work outside the home. We are best friends, soul mates, and that only strengthened when we realized the cost of a marriage lost then found, broken and then healed. It really makes you appreciate life together! School is no exception. Dale is WONDERFUL with the kids and is a big help in dividing and conquering. I am so thankful the Lord allowed us this opportunity!  One of the main reasons we picked My Father's World curriculum is because it was "one room schoolhouse style" meaning in the morning we do all the activities together as a group, then divide out for math, science and English etc. Well, when I was home alone with the kids doing this, it took some major work to block out the times to where I could have 2 do independent study, while I worked with the other 2. Now that Dale is here, we do first part all together, then we divide up and he works with bigs and I work with littles. This year Destiny is an 8th grader, Tylan is a 4th grader, Avery is a 2nd grader, and Paxton was supposed to start Kindergarten this year. Funny thing is, he passed it already because he did it 2 years ago with his sister for fun. And last year, he did most of 1st grade with her too. For that reason, he will finish the second half of 1st grade and do a good review this year, while also doing everything possible with his 2nd grade sister. I am finding in homeschool, the actual name grade is not nearly as important as allowing the child to learn at his own pace, even if its ahead of the game a bit maturity wise! :)
We started the school day with a Pinterest Breakfast find from my friend, and fellow homeschooling momma, Monica Hoy.... PB&J Banana Dogs In true Pinterest Failure fashion, the jelly did not squiggle out cute like hers did, rather BLOBBED everywhere. Oh well, kids loved them anyhow!  The kids buckled right down to work.....we always have a few kinks to work out week one, but it really went well overall.   We ended the day with this.......  I adore RV parks with a view! What a sunset from our awesome Creator.
I am working on a post in the days and weeks to come, kind of "a day in the life of" and walk through our morning and school routine a bit more thoroughly! Any other questions or items you'd like to see covered on here on this subject? Happy Back to School, everyone! Hugs, T |
Tonya Ferguson
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