Rhema= LIFE

go with the flow

2011-11-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

Last night as I read stories to my children before tucking them into bed, they had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. We were reading Cranberry Thanksgiving. It's a lovely book with a fun and surprising ending. My son loves the character Mr. Whiskers and the fact that he is gruff and wants to sing pirate songs instead of hymns. I think that resonates with his very boyish heart.

"Hey, mom," my son said.

**Total side note: Most of my kids' conversations start with either 'Hey, Mom' or the longer version: 'Hey, Mom, guess what?' Do your kids do that too? Funny isn't it?**

Back to last night...."Hey, Mom, can we just quit school and do Five in a Row again?" I was taken aback a bit. I love the phrase "QUIT school'. I had to smile at them. 'Yeah, mom, can we?' his sisters begged. Within seconds they had it all planned. Lapbooks, coloring, projects and baking cranberry bread. 'All we really have to do is math and reading for school-school.'

For you newbies or non-homeschoolers, apparently 'school-school' is the nitty-gritty hard stuff that you do even when you are doing other things. It's a very official term apparently.

How can I resist?

But it has been rolling around in my heart that we were not on the right track. You see school this year has not been what I expected, or planned or hoped for. Financially, we couldn't buy 'the usual' curriculum, so I've made some cheap and almost free deals on most of our books this year. Praise the Lord!! Plus the fact that I don't have to invest in teacher manuals for every grade now goes a long way in saving money. And not allowing our kids to write in their MathUSee workbooks, but in a notebook instead is a HUGE saver! But it wasn't what I wanted, or even what the kids wanted. We've just had to buckle down and make do. And I get that some years are like that. I really do. And I'm ok with it...somewhere in my heart I am, really. Sometimes you can't have all the bells and whistles, some years you have to focus on academics or character training. And that is ok too. They will always be learning something.

But I have been missing something. Missing our slow mornings reading stories on the couch, missing their younger years when we made projects and crafts. Every.Single.Day. We've been in a just-get-it-done-so-we can-be-done mode all year and it's exhausting. No fun, no spontenaity, no frills, just nose to the plow, finish your math before dad gets home, boring, boring, boring. I think because it's so dry, even the fun school work has been drowned out by the rest of it.

So the fact that they asked to do this isn't all that surprising. It just made my heart smile. REALLY BIG.

So after putting them to bed, I printed off three copies of homeschoolshare.com's lapbook for Cranberry Thanksgiving, dug out my Five in a Row teacher manual, and you can guess what their first question after they woke up this morning was.

"Hey, Mom, are we going to read that book and make a lapbook?"

"You betcha, sweetie!"

Ah, bliss. This is how we are suppossed to school in our home.

Those little old ladies in church and your mother and your aunt are so totally right. They grow up right before your eyes and sooner than you expect. And sometimes, they learn much faster than you think.

More Virtues and 25% off!!

2011-09-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Patience, Diligence, Honesty....ever wonder how to teach these things to your children? We all struggle as parents with the *HOW* sometimes.

Or maybe it's just me. I know the end result I want out of my children--I want them to be Honest. But how do I teach them how to BE honest from the get-go. Besides 'Lying is wrong' or there's the ol' soap-in-the-mouth stream of thought. How can I actively teach and engage them into living out Honesty every day?

VIRTUES!!!

I was BEYOND blessed last week by two amazing women. And look what they did:

And you'll never guess what was inside!!! The Homeschool Kit!!! Posters, Charts, the FLASHCARDS!!! I oogled over the teacher manual for a couple hours,--yep, I'm a nerd!-- and couldn't wait to show them to my children.

Actually I take that back, I didn't really want to show the kids just yet. I'm anxiously waiting for the Teacher Cards to arrive so I can officially begin instilling character traits that last in our Bible time every day.

From one mom to another, this curriculum is fantastic. Heather poured her heart into creating an all encompassing curriculum, from the color backgrounds and hidden pictures to how to implement it into your teaching and family life. She gives real life examples and her genuineness shines through. It is so thoughtful and well put together, I just can't say enough good things about it.

My kids love that the visuals are colorful and not too 'babyish' as my SIX year old put it. She's so grown up, at the ripe old age of half-a-dozen! They love the short catchphrase that explains the virtue. I love this too. It gives my older kids a little more to think about *HOW* they can demonstrate the virtue, and it gives my younger child a better picture of what is expected of her. Win-win!!

Since my kids are really visual, they also like their very own Personal Virtue Chart. As we will work on a virute, I will give them a stamp or a sticker every time I catch them using their virtue. After they complete a certain amount, they will get some kind of award or treat.

**I usually don't like behavior modification/ reward type discipline, but now that my kids are older they understand that it's not about the 'treat' but it's about changing your heart. Don't get me wrong, they love to get a prize whether it's a piece of candy or a date night with mom or dad, but we teach them to focus on the journey, not the prize.**

I am so thankful to Heather for using her God-given talents to help families and for creating an inspiring way to teach Virtues to our children.

And right now through September you can get 25% OFF the new Teacher Cards for Families and the Homeschool Kit!!! This is an amazing deal!! And if you click through my blog on the links a tiny portion goes to support my little family as well.

First Day

2011-09-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Our school year began today! I'll be honest with you, I've put off planning this year til the bitter end. Not sure why....maybe because I haven't slept decently in oh...about 8 months and most days I feel like a walking zombie. Hmmm....But that's ok. Who needs sleep when you have a cuddly, snuggly baby to keep you up between 2 and 5 am?

Really, I'm not complaining, I knew what I was getting into; none of my babies were good sleepers. Mentally, I am prepared for this stage, and I know it won't last forever. But the lack of sleep does make me a bit zonkers at times. So if you see me in the grocery store staring intently at a bag of tater tots or something, you'll know why!

...back to our first day at school.....

We started our day off with our verse of the week: Phillipians 2:3 "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others above yourself." UM...YEAH, that is our verse of the week for a very good reason. We are working on alot of CHARACTER issues in our home. It seems to me the heart of most of our sin is selfishness and a 'me first' attitude. I'm really working hard to teach these duckies of mine to be thinking of others before themselves. Especially each other.

Wait, you mean I have to be nice to my brother or sister and put them first??
And of courseI hear--Well, they should be thinking of me first if they want to obey what the Bible says. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, cuz that's what you're doing right now, sweet heart?!!!!!!!!!

*sigh*

It's a work in progress.

Then we worked on our Virtue from We Choose Virtues. I Am Attentive. I thought that was a great one to start with since we are starting school. The kids loved the flashcard and the cute picture on the front. I can tell these are going to be a hit in our home!

Meet the students:

This year, we have a first grader--Sparkle--She is full of life and spunk! She's my little Sparkle! Super excited and full of energy . After a great year doing MFW Kindergarten and some Abeka phonics, she is already reading in her first grade readers.

Next up is our third grader--Hulk--All BOY all the time. He is my little man around the house. Funny, bright and athlete extraordinair in his own right.

And then is our oldest--Sunny--The artist, the dreamer, she's full of creativity and always has an idea to share. She's going into fifth grade officially but we're still polishing up some skills we began working on last year.

Finally, the newest member of our nest--Baby Smiley--ok, that nickname might change. She's just hanging out with us for the fun of it. As she gets a little older, I'll have to get some tot school activities for her, but for now, I'm enjoying her baby days while they last.

Each of the kids got to fill in their own 'Back to School' booklet I bought on currclick.com. . In it they wrote what kind of subjects they liked and about their families and some words to describe themselves. They each did a couple of subjects. Sparkle really wanted to dive into her phonics book and Superman did his first math lesson. Sunny worked on both math and reading comp. I decided to let them pick their subjects for the first few days and since we're starting on a Wednesday, that will work out just dandy. Next week, we'll add more in to make a smooth transition into school.

All in all, it was a smooth easy day. Juggling three different grades is going to be tricky--no doubt about it. I'll post more about our core subjects in my next post. But it's going to be a fun year together.

So how about you? What's on your agenda for this new school year?

We Choose Virtues

2011-09-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited to share some news with you. A lovely new company called We Choose Virtues has invited little ol' me to join in their affiliate program! This company was started by a local family in my new hometown. They have a fabulous Character curriculum for families, schools, and homeschool families as well. I've seen their posters in our church and at friends' houses and kept asking 'What is this Virtues stuff?"

It wasn't long before I found out how great their products really are. I heard testimonials from friends about how these character training resources helped their children in whatever areas they were struggling. Now, I'm a mom of four amazing children, but we all know no child is perfect--well at least mine aren't all the time--ahem! And there are times when we are working with one child or another on specific qualities or character traits. Sometimes knowing exactly what to say or how to convey what we want them to do is tough. Isn't it great when God provides exactly what we need?!!

Coming this month are some freebies on their site--Free coloring pages. Your kids can color and decorate these cool pages to help them remember the virtue they are learning. Hurry on over and get yours. They're Free only from Sept. 5-9th!!!
If you're looking for some great character curriculum check out We Choose Virtues.

New URL

2011-06-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Same blog, just a new URL. Someone asked my what my association was with 'Tree of Life'. Here in the Pacific NW, we have a Christian bookstore called by that name. At the time I started my blog, I hadn't heard of the store, and couldn't think of anything especially inspiring for my blog. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had this picture of homeschooling as a mighty oak tree and an environment of lifestyle learning. Hence 'Tree of Life homeschooling'.

Then the store came along...cute place, great deals. Ahem... So Rhema Academy is the name of our homeschool. I think I even did a post on it way back when. So the shoe fits, we've got a new URL and there ya go. Hope it doesn't cause too much confusion for ya'll. Yeah, all three of you who read this blog!! I heart you all!!

End of the year already?

2011-05-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

So another school year is closing in on me again. As usual, it comes way too quickly and this year, an added bonus of the dreaded word= TESTING.

This is the first year any of our children have to test, so it has been a year of constant review, minor freak outs and endless questions. Questions to all my other homeschooling friends who have tested, from my child to us about the BIG test, questioning myself if I've done enough...you get the idea.

Just to be on the safe side, I picked the VERY last day our tester was available, and we ordered a practice test to...well practice with, of course! In my heart, I'm not too worried, because I know she knows her stuff. but the process of taking a test, being judged by someone else,worrying she won't fill in those tiny bubbles correctly has me up at night sometimes.

Looking towards next year has me wondering what might need tweaking. I know there is no 'perfect' curriculum out there, but I'm seeing some gaps that need filling in with what we're using. So I'm on the lookout for whatever it is I think I'm searching for that will make it all better. And if I can find it for a decent price so much the better. One thing I have learned this year is that even though I can use a little of this and that, or leave some things out that aren't as important, I shouldn't skimp on the things that will make everything flow together. I ended up getting a few things halfway through our year that I really should have bought at the beginning. NOT happening again! So this summer, in order to start fresh and (hopefully) on the right foot, I'm carefully considering what we will be using as our spine and gathering what we need to make it all complete.

Here is door number one:

My Father's World-Creation to the Greeks

It's a complete, Bible based history and science curriculum. We've done MFW for the past two years and loved it. Even though we don't do every activity or read every single book recommended, it's been a great foundation for our kids to learn history from a Godly and Biblical perspective. It's expensive, yes. But worth it? Oh yeah!

Door number two:

The Mystery of History. Simlar to MFW, and I've read great reviews. It looks a little less expensive, but I've heard the projects are alot more intense. Still, I'm hoping to get a hands on look at it at our state homeschool convention to be able to compare the two.

And finally door number three:

Make up my own Bible based history/science lessons. I have a Diana Waring cd set from her Ancinet Civilization curriculum, and I'm looking into adding in some hands on books from places like CBD, currclick.com or Rainbow Resources. How crazy am I for even thinking that?

So what are you planning for next year?

Well Planned Day Give-Away

2011-05-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler is hosting a great give away. She is giving away to one lucky reader a copy of a Well Planned Day Planner. Check out her blog for more info! I love this planner, besides being so, SO pretty, it looks really practical too. I've seen a few sample pages on their website. WOW, lots of great stuff. So go to Erica's blog and enter to win!

Mommy mantra of the Week

2011-05-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

What a week! Ever have one of those? Can't-wait-til-it's-over; where-is-the-weekend? why-is-this- happening-to-me? weeks? Not that anything very bad happened, or that my life fell apart, it was just alot of things compiled into one that by the time it was over I felt like there was not much of me left. OY! Rather than list the details, there is one question that keeps coming back to me through all of the chaos. "Where did *I* go?" As a mom, wife, and especially a homeschool parent, it sometimes is all too easy to get lost in expectations or even in the day-to-day. Before you know it the woman you were before Mt. Washmore, sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and the never ending quest for the perfect curriculum has all but disappeared.

As I wrote an article I had a deadline for, I wrote in a style that is not my own. WHY? Because I had thought the editors wanted something grown-up, something professional, someting...boring. Turned out that I was completely wrong and they went with something very similar to what I would have written if I wasn't so concerned about what I thought they would be interested in. Lesson learned: trying to be someone you're not is never the way to go. So you can bet that won't happen again. But it got me to thinking, where is that girl who used to be bold and not care (too much) what people think? Sure you have to take other people's feelings into consideration and we can't always speak our mind at every moment. I do, however, wish some of that fearlessness would rise back up in me. So, this week's mommy mantra is to never let go of who you really are. Keep those good things that make you YOU. You never know when you'll need them.

Resurrection Week

2011-04-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is Holy Week, so we took a break from school and focused on Jesus and the true meaning of Easter. We do this every year, and I love our collection of games and lapbooks and other items we make for this week. We did a little Passover study too (no pics of that) and we made a paper Sedar plate and added items from the Passover meal.

Then we worked on our Resurrection lapbook. We did a couple of mini-books each day and some crafts to go along. Here is our oldest's lapbook:

And our second grader's

Here is what we used for our main study:

On the left: A Resurrection coloring book, their lapbooks

In the Center: Abeka Bible story cards. My mom gave me hers from when she taught us and I can't tell you what a treasure they are to me. The pictures are like paintings, and they tell the stories from Scripture so beautifully. I love them. We also have our Resurrection eggs we made with our homeschool group a couple of years ago. My kids love getting these out and opening them up to see what is inside. Then a few books we've collected over the years. We have more, but these are the ones we used most this week. One of them came with a cute dvd that has a cartoon of the story. Very cute!

On the right are our games all from Valerie's site christianpreschoolprintables.com. and filefolderfun.com Can I tell you what a blessing she is?!! She makes all kinds of games and printables for kids. I (heart) her!! We played the games several times, and my kindergartener loved them the most. She's so proud that she can do it herself and can read the instructions and game cards....Oh wait did I say read?!! Yep, she's reading now! That's a whole 'nother post ;o)

So that's our week in a nutshell. He is Risen! Hallelujah!!

Baby on Board

2011-03-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Ah the joys of a little one. She's so snuggly, so cute when she smiles, so precious when she sleeps...IF she sleeps. Ah, the joys of colic. Yep, right now my life is spelled C.O.L.I.C. and it sucks.

Imagine if you will, the three older children sitting at the table, books out, pencils ready. They're all fresh, fed and ready for the school day to begin....And me in the living room holding a screaming baby saying:

"OK, Get out your math and do your next lesson."

"But, Mom, I don't want to take a bath!"

"No, dear MATH"

OY! Or how about, "Alright, today we're covering (cue baby crying...mamma rocking and patting baby)Germany, (more baby cries and general fussiness) let's get out our notebooks( Patting, burping fussy baby)and find Germany (Oops, she spit up all over your paper, sweetie, I'm sorry, here's a towel. Big Sister will get you another paper) on the map. Ok, Big Sister, read this page while I go change the baby.

Exit mamma and baby to change a diaper.

Do you think they read the assigned page?!! Not likely!

And so goes our day...Much interrupted, many stops and pauses, and still trying to get the basics done because this mamma is only slightly freaking out that my oldest has to test this year--so we HAVE to keep going!

But the baby IS the lesson. We play with her, change her, feed her. She laughs, coo's and smiles! She really is a little cutie pie. Every day she changes a tiny bit and I think to myself, she'll never be this little again. *sigh* So tiny, so darling. I can't imagine life without her--or any of my children. But when they're so brand new, you just want to enjoy every second of it before they grow up.

Playing Catch Up

2011-03-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

Whew! Where has the time gone? No I didn't fall of the face of the earth. Oh, yes, I had a baby the day after New Years! Things have both slowed down and sped up at the same time. Having a baby sure does crazy things to your schedule! New baby Girl--aka Sunshine--is doing well; growing, sleeping (sometimes), eating. All the things babies should be doing. We are truely blessed! Our older kids love her to pieces and are amazing helpers. So mostly our days are filled with getting as much school done as we can while she snoozes in the morning. Some days that works and others....well, not so much! But we try!

One thing I have switched up for school are these:

Workboxes!

(This image is from: The Duckings which is so funny, because that's what I call my kiddos too! )

Have you heard of them? Have you tried them? WoW! I am so excited about these. While I don't have the space or the money to have the shelf with 12 shoebox size boxes for tree children, I did see and read about using file folder boxes as a great substitute.

For each kid I bought one file folder box and I split up a box of 25 hanging file folers. (I bought the colored ones--they're so much more fun, and we know I'm all about making school FUN, right?!)

Then I printed off some labels for the front of the box from here. I had to create one for my son using a guitar theme, so his is custom made, and it turned out pretty cool. I contact papered one to the front of each box. I put velcro dots on each numbered square and a velcro dot on each file folder. Then I made small numbered squares, one for each folder. The idea is that each kid do their activities in order and when they are done, take the numbered square from the file folder and stick it onto their chart on the front of their box. That way I know what they've done and how much they have left to do. Clear as mud, right? Pictures coming soon!

Right now, my older two --a forth grader and second grader--have 8 folders each and my kindergartener has 6 in her box. Every morning, I switch up what is in each of the kids' boxes. I'm creating a list of ideas for them based on what we already have on hand and using some ideas gleaned from other bloggy moms on the net. Thank God for moms who blog about their homeschooling adventures, ideas and curriculum!!

So far I've got:

File Folder games

Brain Quest books

Geography worksheets from MFW

Science workbook from MFW

Silent reading

Spelling words

Eye Spy books

Reading comprehension books

Their Awana books and CD's

Math U See skip counting cd

Books on Tape

For Kindergarten:

dot-to dot pages

write on wipe off books

A Snip and Glue book

Math counters

Eye Spy bottles

Puzzles

Lapbook components

Books on Tape

Right now it's a learning process for me and the kids. They already know they HAVE to do their math, reading and grammar every day, so I don't put those books in their workboxes. But these boxes have been a HUGE help when I'm busy with Sunshine. I can just tell them to get out their next workbox activity and they can pull it out and get something done on their own without too much help from mom. YAY!!!

Keep the good ideas coming!

MFW K Tt is for Turtle

2010-10-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

We're doing MFW Kindergarten this year. We just finished up Tt is for Turtle. Here's a little lapbook we found at homeschoolshare.com We didn't end up doing every booklet, but I tailored it to what we learned and her favorite turtle facts.

Blink-Startle Response

2010-10-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

Check out this video from The Endowment for Human Development. It's only about 30 seconds long and there are videos for each stage of development. WOW!

Blink-Startle Response

Lunch time!!

2010-08-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

The lunch dilemma:

You've finally started your day. Kids are sitting, pencils are scratching away, if you're lucky, you might have even got your read-aloud in by now...or not. But still it's looking like a good day.

And then it happens.

Someone starts it.

"Moooooooooooooommmmmmmm, I'm getting hungry"

"What, you just ate, like 3 hours ago. As I recall, a bowl of oatmeal, some fruit, and even your left-over pb&j from yesterday. How can you be hungry already?"

More children chime in: "Yeah, me too" "When's lunch?" "What are we having today?"

AAAAAAAAAAAggggghhhhhhhhh

You mean I'm suppossed to plan that too?

So this year, I thought I'd *try*--key word here is TRY, folks. Try to make and stick to some kind of plan/menu/track for lunch. A friend of mine suggested that I make a two week menu and rotate every two weeks. That sounded simple enough to me, but coming up with 10 different ideas that ALL my kids will like, that are (mostly) nutritious, definitely filling, and most of all does not require a ton of thought and time on my part is daunting. Yes, daunting!

Week 1

Monday: a tough day, hard to start the week, so super easy, please-y, mac n' cheese-y with veggies, dip and applesauce.

Tuesday: co-op day calls for quick sandwiches, crackers and fruit

Wednesday: Burritos with salsa and sour cream. Veggies in the burrito count, right?!! YES!!

Thursday: Egg salad sandwiches, carrots and dip.

Friday: Lunchables. My kids love to make their own lunchables. They usually have string cheese, lunchmeat, veggies and fruit with dip, and add crackers, popcorn, or whatever else they feel like. They LOVE to be in charge and make it themselves.

Week 2

Monday: Tuna sandwiches with celery, crackers

Tuesday: Pb&j day--

Wednesday: Spagettii or top ramen. My kids beg for Top Ramen. We call it 'Curly Noodles' in our home.

Thursday: Mini-pizzas on bagels or English muffins (or just plain ol' bread if mamma hasn't made it to the store yet.) Dried fruit mix.

Friday: Lunchable Day!!!

There you go...a two week rotating lunch menu. Now where's my shopping list....

True calling of Motherhood

2010-08-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Nobel Womanhoods facebook page this morning and just loved it.

You see, there is no higher calling, no greater privilege than being a vessel of life and later a teacher of souls which will live for ever. This is a crucial point: These children will live forever, either in Heaven, or in Hell. We not only have the privilege of introducing them to the world, but God has given us the... honor of assisting our husbands in the great work of introducing these little ones to the God Who loves them. No empire, no credential, no golden treasure, no corporate success story can ever rival the glory of this calling.Praying mothers, teaching mothers, faithful mothers – the Church needs you. She needs mothers who will crave children, and love them and bless them to be the warriors of the next generation. Motherhood! Blessed motherhood! The time has come to once again sing the praises of this calling. Though bloodied by the barbs of feminism, Christian motherhood will not be vanquished."

~ Beall Phillips in Verses of Virtue

Over the past two or three years, I've been studying the Mother heart of God. It's an odd concept since we generally see God as our Father, so don't think I've gone crazy or 'new age' or anything. Basically following the thought process that God is everything we need and created women in His image with His unique in their ability to nurture, mother and give life both spiritually and physically, the conclusion is that He has planted in each of us mothers heart after His own to raise our children. Some of us tap into that heart in our relationship with Him, some don't. For me it's been a long journey that will ever-continue as I attempt to cast off the old and put on the new likeness of Christ as a mother to my children. Reminders like this that my daily teaching, training, nurtuing and pouring life into my children may not show immediate rewards or fruit, but in the end the fruit will remain.

Unpacking

2010-07-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Unpacking is hard work. But I have to get it all done because the new kitchen has a huge flaw. RED Walls! I'm talking R-E-D with a cutesy apple border about halfway down. Now I have nothing against the color red, I love red. But when the afternoon sun hits these walls, it has an eerie glow and just looks nasty. And I'm not that into fruit or veggies as kitchen decor. I'm more of a shabby-chic girl myself. Not to mention the previous owners did a poor job painting; you can see the roller-marks and the original white paint shows through in places. These pictures were taken before we moved in--so you can't see my mountains of boxes and how completely un-organized I am right now!

Bring your paint rollers and come on down!

Where in the world is...

2010-06-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Life is busy here. We haven't been doing much schooling the last couple of weeks. June was chock-full of general craziness along with several events, birthdays, and changes. The biggest change for us is that we moved half an hour away from our hometown to a place with a small town feel. We've just gotten settled and still have boxes EVERY-where. The new place had no stove, fridge or washer/dryer, so this week has been more like camping than actual camping--minus the sleeping on the ground!
My computer isn't set up yet, so I'm tapping away on my hubby's laptop. Still not sure how to load pictures on this thing yet, so no photos to post. Right now, my main focus is getting these mountains--ahem--boxes unpacked and things settled in.

The best part about the new place?? I finally have every homeschooling mom's dream--a place for an actual school room!! I am beyond excited to get my new school room set up. You will not believe how MANY of our boxes are marked "Homeschool" or 'School books' and 'School crafts'. I lost count at 15. There's way more sitting in my kitchen and a few stragglers in the garage just waiting to be re-discovered.
For the school room, I have our old kitchen table and my hubby got a really cool desk from his work. His place of business had a silent auction on some leftover furniture and he won two desks, a huge file cabinet and two desk chairs for $5 bucks!! One of the desks is for our office, and the other is for the new school room. Feeling like a kid in a candy store with all the ideas I've got swimming in my head. Visions of chalkboard painted walls and places to hang the kids' artwork keep coming to me. Oh, the possibilities!!

So back to unpacking I go...or maybe for a nap...whew, this is so much more draining than I remember it being.

Kk is for Kite

2010-04-17T08:48:00.001-07:00

Kk is for KITE!!

Spring is finally here and of course with that comes the blustery, windy days just perfect for flying a kite.

(this is from makinglearningfun.com)

I found some really cute tracing pages from Confessionsofahomeschooler

She's got an entire pre-k letter of the week printable curriculum on her blog and we've been blessed to enjoy.

I borrowed this idea from makinglearningfun.com and just made my own kites from colored paper. As you can see, my little preschooler loved clipping on the clothes pins to make tails on her kites.

Ok, I've tried three times to get this the right way, I don't think my computer likes me today....I know I've done this correctly before, but for some reason, it keeps appearing sideways. But this is the inside of her lapbook
She did tracing pages from first-school.ws and I found a couple of cute mini-books with a kite theme. My favorite is the elephant and kite one below. 'The kite in the wind goes Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh...all day long.'

See the elephant book? So cute, right?!! I made a pocket to hold her mini-books and a pocket for her tracing pages and kite counting too. We made the Roll-a-Kite from Confessions of a homeschooler too--BIG HIT!!

Easter Lapbook

2010-03-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

I found a free Easter Lapbook at Al-bright-news.com. She made an amazing lapbook that goes from Palm Sunday through the Assension with printables and lesson plans to go along with it. We're going to use it this week as we go through Holy Week. ** The link is working now, thanks, Susan :) Just scroll down a bit to where it says "Navigation" on her side-bar, and click on lapbooks.**

The kids and I talked about Passover last week and we're also doing an Easter Tree. I really have no idea if there's an 'official' Easter Tree out there, but I printed up the Resurrection eggs printables from Lapbooklessons. After the kids hunted for a few twiggy type branches outside, we placed them in a Mason jar and tied a ribbon around it. Every day we hang one of the printed 'eggs' on our tree. We read the verses that go along with that day's egg and talk about it for our Bible time. It's a visual reminder of what Christ did for us and it helps them digest it in an easier, age-appropriate way.

This time of year is very special in a sacred way to most Believers, and passing those truths and values on to our children is so very important. So how do you pass on your faith in Christ and the glory of His resurrection to your children?

More Mm is for mittens

2010-01-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

Here is the inside of our Mitten lapbook.

From Jan Brett's website: We made a large mitten pocket and the animals to put inside to re-tell the story.

Mm tracing from First-School

She used her blocks to add her mitten math.

I cute out a mitten shape from our plastic canvas so she could practice sewing and lacing.

Remeber those mitten templates I was going to use? Well, here they are! Different colors for a review activity of some of the recent letters we've done. I had her match the capital and lower-case letters and then practice the sound, and say a word or two for each letter.

Mitten Measuring from Hubbards Cupboard

Mitten ABC match. The printable book is from Childcareland.com. I printed it in mini-book size and had my preschooler match the printed alphabet with some ABC stickers I bought at Walmart. One of her favorite activities!

This was alot of fun for my preschooler. You know it's a great learning experience when your little one keeps bringing out her finished lapbook to do the activities over and over again! Now if only it would SNOW!!!!

Mm is for Mittens

2010-01-17T12:22:00.001-08:00

Preschool is such a wonderful time of exploration and discovery. It is my favorite age! The tender love of learning is so easy to squelch by demanding our tiny ones to learn facts, drill, write, read at above age levels all before they are ready. I always urge moms beginning to homeschool their children this age not to be intimidated by other parents who push their own children to be super-geniuses by age four. Take your time and enjoy the sweet moments of cuddling on the couch with a stack of good books or make some playdough together and spend the day creating critters, shapes and 'cookies'.

My preschooler and I are sailing through a letter of the week curriculum that is free at Letter Of the Week. We began at letter Aa and have done several in order. We are taking a little break this week to do a more Five In A Row style study of Jan Brett's The Mitten. I thought it would be a good week to do letter Mm as well.

Here are some free resources for putting together your own Mitten study:

Jan Brett's home page has tons of free printables for the book

Homeschoolshare has a free lapbook and lesson plan page! This will be what I'll use for the bulk of our study

First-school has great letter printables for Mm and on their mitten page, there are a few printables of pairs of mittens that I will use for a couple of different activities--listed below.

Childcare Land has a freebie section with some cute mitten file folder games. You have to scroll down the list to find them, but they are cute and definitely worth it!

I'm going to take one of the printables of a pair of mittens and make lacing cards with them. First print them on card stock, then punch holes around the edges, then have my preschooler lace them up. I also plan on taking another plain mitten pair print out and make a matching game with shapes or colors--maybe both!

Let the Mitten fun begin!

Home-maker's Binder

2010-01-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

We've been working on a homemaking binder as part of our Keepers class for the girls. I started mine about a year ago, and WOW, what a lifesaver it is coming to be.

I've found some really great sites with free printable planners and charts ranging from homeschool planners to auto repair checklists. Mine is still a work in progress and not ready to show any photos yet, but I can show you some amazing binders already put together so you can get a feel for what I'm talking about. I'll put some links at the end of the post.

For my girls, I've got a chore chart and a daily schedule of their school subjects that I made. I print it out on pretty pink paper or whatever their favorite color happens to be that week.

I also made a couple of individual sheets for each topic we study in Keepers like bread-making, tatting, knitting, or even whatever crafty thing they are into. I print the title at the top of the page and have a few lines where they write in what they learned about the topic. That I make with my worksheet generator. It is so super-easy and you can choose to print your worksheet with ruled lines or lines with the dotted line in the center depending on the level of your budding writer.

My experience with a household binder is that it helps keep me organized. It's a place for all my thoughts, plans, and ideas to at least get put in black and white. I'm definitely not a slave to the binder, my life is a tad too complicated for that. But it is becoming central to keeping my home humming along. I love it!

Here are some great sites with photos to get your interested piqued

Organzied Home

Lizzie's

Eclectic Education's Squidoo lense--with lots more links at the bottom

Donna Young She has lots of printable planners and an entire section on homeschool planners as well.

The Homeschool Mom has lots of great ideas too

Happy planning and organizing!

glitter-graphics.com

Into the swing of things

2010-01-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

Can you believe how fast this year went? It seems like it went faster than usual to me. I guess that's what happens as we get older. That's what I *don't like* about the new year, birthday season is right around the corner. But shhhhhh....don't tell, my kids still think I'm 29!!!!

Tis the season for organizing, cleaning and resolutions. Organizing is always on my to-do list.

The kids' room got cleaned out before Christmas. The toys are thinned out slightly, but what do I do with all the clothes? We have hand-me-downs stacked in the closet for my littles to grow into. I am so thankful for those!! I'm sure you've been there: you're ready to go to playgroup or Bible study, and your realize your son's pants are about 2 inches too short or your little girls' shirt is way to small. Thank God for my good friends who pass kids clothes back and forth with me. And of course, I have yet to take in the too small items to our local re-sale shop or shelter. So the list is growing longer and longer.

So how do you organize for the new year, school, home, everything else?

For our school, I am trying just to figure out a schedule to teach 3 different children who all need my attention and help in most subjects still. We do alot of together school with MFW, but the nitty-gritty of math, LA, reading etc. is still a jumble of swapping seats and videos most of the time. This is the homeschooler's dielma, am I right--teaching multiple ages at the same time. If anyone out there has figured it out, please don't hide your secrets!!

glitter-graphics.com

2009-12-22T10:15:00.000-08:00

Friendly Street Live Nativiy

Phew! Is it me, or are the holidays coming faster and faster each year? I'm bustling around like a mad-woman trying to get everything together in time. Now I know how ol' St. Nick feels, lol.

This year we're doing our Advent calendar again. To see how we put ours together, check out Valerie's blog post. I added some little slips of green paper to each day with an activity to do with the kids. Some days were crafts, baking, special stories and on the weekends I added family craft night and family fun nights! Last weekend we used Confessions of a Homeschooler's Mini-van Express idea. I made golden tickets for each kid and we hopped in the van and drove around town looking at light displays. We played Christmas carols and had little treats for the kids to snack on. So much fun!

This weekend we took the kids downtown to see two Living Nativity displays. One of them was at the church where I used to teach at their school! All of the kids I taught are probably in high school or beyond by now--it was 9+ years ago! But it was really cute to see all the angels and shepherds with Mary and Joseph. It was all kid performers, and they had a cd going that recited the Scriptures of the Birth of Christ. The second one we saw, was a very cool display at another church. This one had people also, and they were more like individual scenes all across the church's front yard. I felt bad for the wise men. Three men in their robes and finery facing the whipping wind and having to hold oh, so, still all night long. My hat is off to them!

Now it's last minute shopping, baking, cleaning and trying to keep the kids focused on the real Reason for the Season.

glitter-grap hics.com

My Father's World week 7

2009-12-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Jamestown Replicas

Roo's

3rd grader's

1st grader's (not a fan of coloring,but the construction part--he was ALL over THAT!)

This was quite a while ago, but finally had some time to sit for more than 30 seconds at the computer to post. These are their Jamestown replicas--a free printable I found online. This was an all day project; getting those little 'fences' to stay glued down was tricky, but we did it!

glitter-graphics.com

Bloggy World

2009-11-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

Just found yet another great blog! This one is a homeschool mom who blogs about her crafts, prek printables--she makes her own and shares them for free--and interestingly enough she schools alot like we do-mixing up curriculums that work for her kids. We even use alot of the same curruculum-Abeka, My Father's World and MUS--how neat is that?!!

Check her out at: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/

glitter-graphics.com

beautiful lyrics

2009-10-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

I love this song and have been singing it in my heart all morning:

Invitacion Fountain (Words and music by Michael J. Pritzl)
All who are weak, All who are weary
Come to the rock, Come to the fountain
All who have sailed, On the rivers of heartache
Come to the sea, Come on be set free

If you lead me Lord I will follow
Where You lead me Lord I will go
Come and heal me Lord, I will follow
Where You lead me Lord, I will go
I will go, I will go

ll who are weak, All who are weary
Come to the rock, Come to the fountain
All who have climbed, On the mountains of heartache
Reach to the stars, Come on give Your life

All who are weak, All who are weary
All who are tired, All who are thirsty
All who have failed, All who have broken
Come to the rock, Come to the fountain

glitter-graphics.co m

My Father's World-Week 5

2009-10-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

We made these cute suncatchers for our Bible time project to emphasize that Jesus is the Light of the World.

First the kids helped shave some yellow and orange crayons. We used an old cheese grater and it was pretty easy.

We made a crayon sandwich by sprinkling the shavings on wax paper and folding the paper over the shavings and then we glued that between two paper plates.

Last, we ironed the crayon shavings at a low temp. to melt the wax--no photo of ironing here, I may be tricky, but I can't to do two things at once!

glitter-graphics.com

My Father's World--week 4

2009-10-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

Here are the teepee's we made for Aventures Week 4. The ones suggested in the book made with paper were a bust, so we tried with sticks and paper bags. The kids had a blast and spent most of the afternoon working on them.

glitter-graphics.com

Pure Joy

2009-09-24T07:15:00.001-07:00

I'm reading this book called Pure Joy by Arther Burke and Crysal Wade. Basically, it is a book of blessings (prayers) to read over your children to bless them and enlarge their spirit in relationship to God. We all have heard God created us body, soul and spirit, but only when we take some time to ponder what exactly those three parts of us are do we start to understand what our spirit is. Our spirit is the part of us that connects to God, it is not the soul which is our will, personality, emotions. Our spirit is the part of us that leaps during worship, grieves during intercession and daily communes with our Savior.
So as I pray these blessings over my children I pray that the eyes of their heart may be opened, that they feel the love of the Father and know who they are in Christ. That they understand the destiny they have in Him as well as their legitimacy in Him. I pray they easily experience His presence and abide in His joy.
What a blessing to abide in His joy! I know I need that joy every day. Not just happiness, but abiding joy that endures through every trial and storm. The joy of His presence, knowing He is my Rock, my Comfort, holding me in the palm of His hand.
Lord, keep me wrapped in your joy today!

glitter-graphics.com

Thrifty finds

2009-08-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

While hunting my local thrift store, I came upon two books that I had really wanted to add to our bookshelf. The first one I'd seen over on Jimmie's blog: onechildpolicy at HSB. She used it as a supplement for her child's math, and made it sound like a great way to cement math concepts in a fun way. Then I found it at our library and decided to try some of the activities. Guess what??!! My kids LOVED them! If math can be fun, I am all over that. So when I saw this staring at me on the shelf for only $1.25, I scrounged up my change, and snatched it up.

I almost missed this one. It was lying on top of a stack of books trying to blend in. This little number has five, count 'em F-I-V-E books in one! Including one of the science books we'll be using in our Adventures in MFW. I was going to just borrow the book --Birds, Nests, and Eggs-- from our library as needed, but now for $2.29, I can read it any day of the week--and no late fees!

Love those deals, don't you?

glitter-graphics.com

And then she was four

2009-08-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Where did the chubby cheeks and dimpled thighs go? How can my baby be hanging upside down from the monkey bars and daring to ride big sister's old two wheeler bike? How can she be four?

How sweet to sit with my baby on my lap. She is always singing, dancing, bringing in the light. Still she is my baby. She loves to cuddle up on the couch and read book after book after book. She will dance whenever and WHEREVER she hears music--be it at home, at church or in the grocery store.

Three is such a magical age. Three is silly, surprising and full of nonsense. Three year olds say things like "mac-a-moni n' cheese", "fwusterbated" and my favorite quote of all, "My foot isn't tired at all, my foot doesn't want to go to bed. My foot wants to stay awake with you." Three is so precious, and now three is over.

And now time marches on to four. FOUR!!?!! What will this new age bring? I've been down this road before, watching my babies grow, change, become. It is an awsome privelege to be a part of the molding and shaping of these amazing children. Continually I am humbled by the task set before me by my Savior to point these arrows to Him. Still such a big leap from one year to the next overnight is hard on mommy's nerves. They quickly sprout , yet still....still I can see their baby-face hiding just below their skin. She will always be my little Roo, my baby-cakes. And I...I will always be here to play some music, read a story and spot her when she's on those dreadful monkey bars, because that's what a mommy does.

Gettng organized...or at least trying

2009-07-27T14:12:00.001-07:00

So, is it me, or is all a homeschooling mom thinks about during the summer is how to organize, plan and strategize next year's school year???

We did do some school during the summer--we have our own schedule and don't follow the school district's schedule anyways. That's what I love about the freedom of educating at home! But gearing up for the new year--new books, a whole new curriculum, teaching a 1st grader and a 3rd grader while keeping our preschooler and the toddler we watch during the week busy is a bit of a challenge.

First we are switching Princess's math. Abeka 2 was just way too fast for her to keep up. The last 6 weeks, we just did review to maintain what she had learned. I didn't want what we had worked on so hard all year to leak out her brain during the summer, so we kept at it most of the summer. I'm switching her to MUS and have her in their Gamma level. She's already excited about it and can't wait to start her new book! YEAH!!!! Gotta enjoy it when your child is excited about math!

Superman will be in first grade and seems to be going with the flow. No new changes except that we're all doing Aventures in MFW together so he'll join in with us too. He's been reading through the summer and finished up his MUS Primer, so now it's on to Alpha.

Also, we're diving into My Father's World this year. I have heard nothing but wonderful things about this program from many mom's who've used it. I scored an Adventures TM and some of the books on their swap group and the rest on ebay. For us it just makes sense to use a mulit-level curriculum like MFW and include all the kids in at their own level. I am excited about starting this new adventure and adding alot of hands on fun into our everyday learning. The Adventures program focuses on American history and fun science all from a Biblical perspective. It even includes Bible time so I won't have to come up with something new this year for that.

And then for keeping the little's busy...always a task since their attention span lasts about 5 seconds before they are into the next thing. I'm incorporating an idea that is similar to activity bags. I purchases a canvas shoe holder to hang in our school supply room (ahem--corner). Inside the pockets I am going to add activities for Roo to do when I can't be doing one-on-one with her. I started this towards the end of last year and didn't keep up on it as I fizzled out by the end. Some of the things I've already got together are:

Lacing buttons

watercolor paint and paper

various puzzles

magnet games

Fisher Price school desk

(obviously won't fit in the shoe holder, but I made index cards for those types of things)

Bingo markers and cardstock

stickers and paper

scissors and paper

bucket of beans and rice with cups

playdoh

eye spy bottles

bubbles

lanyard laces and plastic canvas for sewing

dot-to-dot book

dominoes

stencils and pencils

dance dvd (a cute kids dvd that teaches a few simple steps)

I'll rotate a few things for her to do each day, plus we have a few bigger items like lego's and her doll house that we bring out during school time too. I've got index cards for those too. As for preschool, I'm planning on doing letter of the week with Roo, and am going to attempt to throw in FIAR once in a while too. I love FIAR and hope to add that gentle love of learning and reading to my baby. I snatched up a cute m&m counting book at the CHEF faire for her--in the freebie box, no less! Candy and counting...what could be better?

WHEW!!

So, what are you doing new for school this year? What works? What doesn't? Tips, hints and stories to share are always exciting!

glitter-graphics.com

To the Moon

2009-07-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Did you know this July is the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's landing and walking on the moon?!!

Here are some links for moon-related activities we hope to try out this week.
Printable moon game
Crafts
Phases of the moon
Lots more great ideas at familycrafts

Of course, there are lots of books about the moon including Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (a FIAR favorite at our house). Check out what your library has to offer!

glitter-graphics.com

Journaling

2009-06-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

I will just say this upfront...Consistent journaling is not something I am good at. In fact I stink! Making time to write down things I think are worth writing down is hard for me. I know some people journal during their quiet time with the Lord, and I applaud them. Some make time for it at bedtime or even online in a blog. I, however, snatch a few lines here, jot a couple there. Often not even twice a month! But I read about a journal at aholyexperience.com that just made me want to dive in!

So off I treked to three different book stores in town looking for the perfect jounaling specimen. My criteria was difficult to fill: thicker pages, spiral bound, not too bulky, but not teensy-weensy either. And price, nothing over $15. Ok, yeah, I'm cheap, but seriously, it's paper and more paper. And I'll let you know a little know fact about me: those fancy-schmancy bookstores intimidate me. I feel like a dowdy goofball in my mom jeans, pulling up in a mini-van. But I was inspired and fell in love with the idea so much that I was willing to risk it.

After searching....and searching....Nada!

Nope.

Zip, zero zilch!

There were beautiful notebooks with skimpy, thin pages, there were ginormous sketchbooks that would have taken up half my kitchen table. You'd think in this artsy town there would be something usable. And believe me, I am not what most would call a picky person. I make do with what I have most of the time.

So where does one find 'THE Perfect' journal????

Wal-Mart!

Of course, Wal-Mart. Who would have thought? And really, I go there about once a week to kill time (ahem) shop, so why I never noticed this before is beyond me....Oh wait, it's because I shop with three sometimes four little ones; and as you know Wally-world is like a huge candy store for kids with all the awesome toys, coloring/craft stuff they put out in the middle of the isles. Basically I run in and out of there to grab a gallon of milk or peanut butter as fast as the three-year-olds' legs will carry her.

So, yes I found my journal in the scrapbook section there. Who knew?!! I spent that evening tearing through my old gardening and cottage style magazines looking for pages to add some style and color to my new pet project. It was therapeutic to rip, snip and glue it all together.

I'm off to a good start, don't you think? I leave it in a special nook on our kitchen counter. I write down things the kids do and say, musings of my heart, Scripture, favorite quotes, lists to get me through the day. My husband and I leave each other silly or sweet notes to read. I even will let the kids draw or write a note if they want to. My goal is to create a book of our family's happenings, sayings, dreams; to have something to look back on and have a tangible reminder of our days together. So far, it's been a lot of fun, and the consistency part isn't as hard as I thought ;).

glitter-graphics.com

Ladybug, ladybug...

2009-06-03T10:49:00.001-07:00

I made my preschooler the cutest ladybug lapbook a few weeks ago. This one and the Brown Bear one are her absolute favorites! She brings them out at least 2 or 3 times a week and goes through the little mini-books with me. We keep finding more ladybug projects so of course we add it in!

Here she is making ladybug finger prints...whoa! stamping is fast and furious work, look at that blurry shot!

I made these cute ABC mini-books with printables from homeschoolshare.com.
They have a free ladybug lapbook that you can print out. I used these ABC templates and folded them in half so my preschooler can unfold them and review her capital and lower case alphabet. I glued them on green leafs I cut from construction paper, and I had to make two books--one for each half of the alphabet, whew!

I got this idea from makinglearningfun.com. I used their cute little ladybugs from one game, cut several out and drew a simple leaf shape on each page. Then my preschooler glued the appropriate number of ladybugs on each leaf. We concentrated on learning up to number 5 in this book. She can count to twenty with some help, but seemed to leave poor little number five out every time :) She traced the numbers herself, mamma is so proud!

I will attempt to straighten this out as time allows, but for now, you can join me in tipping sideways for a second. We added a couple of tracing worksheets from first-school.ws, a cute filefolder game from abcteach.com, a bingo-marker counting sheet from makinglearningfun.com and I made a simple size sorting game for her with red construction paper--an idea I got from lapbooklessons.com, but was again running low on ink, so I had to improvize. Trust me Valerie's are way cuter than my homemade ones!

Here is the lapbook inside. We recited the poem off and on this week. I really didn't pressure her to memorize it at this point, but she can say the first half of it all by herself now. We made a life cycle from lapbooklessons.com and the "L is for..." wheels and counting with ladybugs are from homeschoolshare.com.

Such a fun lapbook to make and watch my little preschooler learn along with. I will be saving this one in the keepsake box when she's done with it for sure.

glitter-graphics.com

Inspiration

2009-05-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

***New***
I just found this link to another blog with a great list of what to add to your own personal journal. Look here. I have yet to find a sketchbook, but it has been a crazy week and I haven't had time to browse around much yet. I'll check Michaels and B&N later in the week. Crossing my fingers!

***************************************************
I was browsing around on Heart of the Matter online and came across this amazingly creative and lyrical storytelling author/blogger. Her name is Ann Voskamp and both my husband and I are completely inspired by her visual homemaking journal. You can read about it here.

Basically, you create a scrapbook/journal to add to each day. Hubby and I are thinking we'll leave it out on our kitchen counter for the entire family to jot notes, draw pictures, keep lists and add quotes from our little duckies each day. What a sweet way to preserve family memories and especially all the little things that slip through our days all too quickly.

glitter-graphics.com

Six years ago today

2009-05-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go?

The day started out uneventful and sunny. I wasn't due for another 4 days, but the anticipation of upcoming labor and the arrival of our son was mounting up. I had a few minor what I thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions off and on, but that was pretty normal.

Everything was as ready as you can get...baby boy clothes washed and folded in his little drawers, a few packages of diapers, his basinette sheets were washed and smelled of baby powder...A few more days and he would be here.

My first child was a week late to the day, so I wasn't expecting any miracles of an early baby. Never mind the fact that I was as big as a whale and all my maternity clothes seemed to be shrinking these last few weeks! I had been taking blue cohosh to help spur things on, but really didn't think it would do anything....

My two year old daughter and I played outside in the sunshine around her 'honey tree'. We had a huge fir tree behind our house at the time. Our little girl loved Winnie-the-Pooh and called it her honey tree. So we spent the day playing outside, eating lunch and chilling til Daddy got home from work.

Later that evening, after taking a walk with my mom around the neighborhood, woeing to her about my whale state and the un-effectiveness of the natural herbs, I keept feeling shooting pains down my leg a bit more often than usual. so I told my husband it might be tonight. Our son might just decide to arrive a few days early and would he please get a bag ready to take to the hospital just in case. He disappears off to 'get ready'. hmmmmm.......

After a couple of hours in the tub and a visit from my mom who would be taking care of our two year old while we were at the hospital, I felt the need to call the midwife and let her know we'd be on our way to the hospital soon. Of course, she said to stay home as long as possible as it might be another loooooong labor like the first time...ugh! My first baby was twenty hours from start to finish.I was certainly not looking forward to going through this part again.

Things start progressing. Any mom who's done this knows the signs. First the contractions are half an hour apart...this stage could go on for what seems like EVER! Then, ten minutes...then five.... You know it's time. So what happens next? I'm obviously in labor, my parents are urging me to get to the hospital before my mom has to deliver the baby herself in my living room, and my husband...where did he diappear off to??? Oh, there he is...SHAVING IN THE BATHROOM!!!! The smell of his shaving cream is enough to make me want to barf. I'm ordering my parents to pack my bag and the baby's bag in the car so we can GO, and he's SHAVING!!!

Finally--here's where it get's good--we're off to the hospital. It's around 12:30pm and it only takes 15 minutes to get there.

Side note: even if you live in a town for 10 years, that doesn't necesarrily mean you know where the entrance to the hospital emergency room is. Well at least your hubby might not.

We circle the block not once, not twice, but 3 times. Finally after some labor induced 'harsh words' directed towards the general direction of the drivers seat, I tell him to pull over. He does. I tell him to find me after he finds a parking spot and I walk straight into the hospital door and admit myself while he finds the parking lot in the wide wide world.

The nurse gets me all settled in my room, hubby has arrive looking very contrite. He is very attentinve and an amazing partner. He keeps me on track and reminds me to stay focused. Of course as soon as I getchecked in, they have to attach every mointor on the planet to my belly. There's wires everywhere and that oh-so-comfortable (hardly!) stretchy band around my tummy. The midwife swoops in and announces that baby is face-up and tells me to look forward to another excruciating and long back-labor.

As the nurse and midwife whisper together, everyone stops in mid-sentance and stares at my stomach. Our son has obviously no time to waste and what looks like something from an alien movie occurs. He rolls and twists. We see elbows and legs poking up inside my abdomen; he's wiggling as he turns himself over. The midwife checks again and he is face down and almost as low as he can go. This boy was not going to waste any time.

For some reason, I never got to the part where you walk the halls or get in the tub. NO, this kid was coming. I order my interthecal about an hour before it's time to push.Fifteen minutes later, he arrives, happy and healthy and ready to nurse. Hubby was able to deliver him with the help of the midwife. A beautiful baby boy! That was six years ago. My how he has grown. We are so blessed to be the parents of a strong, silly, sensitive little boy. I can still see his baby face when I look at him. He's got his daddy's eyes and sense of humor. Having a boy has certainly been an adventure and a great adventure it is!

glitter-graphics.com

If you give a girl a notebook...

2009-05-02T09:59:00.001-07:00

I've been rolling the idea of a nature journal around for a while. My 2nd grader loves to draw and write, and I was inspired by a fellow-blogger to direct that natural borne spark into a learning experience for her. The only reason I was hesitant was because of the weather--rain and cold make it dreary and difficult to want to go outside and sketch; and the fact that if you give this child an entire notebook of blank paper, she will have it filled up with doodles and half sentences in less than a day.

With the weather warming up, and a few gentle reminders that this is a NATURE notebook and she can only use one or two pages a day--seriously, she needs a boundary--she was off to a great start. Every day so far she's been outside-something else she needs to do more (she's a bookworm like her mamma)-looking for birds, bugs, squirrels or whatever else she can find to sketch and then write a sentence or two about it later.

I am really hoping to help her along in her sentence writing. We've been working on the Capitalization rules and writing complete sentences for a few weeks in her grammar book. It's been amazing to watch her come up with little stories or descriptions. Every so often she'll rattle of something and ask me, "Is this a complete sentence, mom?" And guess what?? Most of the time it is! I guess what they say is true, if you give a girl a notebook, she'll fill it up with complete sentences and lovely art!

glitter-graphics.com

New books for me!

2009-04-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

I just got my new books delivered this week:

and

I feel a little behind everybody else. I've always heard of Charlotte Mason, but never delved too deep into what she wrote. I think I've kind of done this in some ways already but didn't know it was an official style of learning. I really like the companion by Karen Andreola. It is easy to read and full of real life examples.

For the Children's Sake is good too. My husband and I were blessed beyond blessed to go through some very intensive training before we even started our family that helped us form a more solid Biblical view on children and family than we had before as Christians. Some of Mrs. Macaulay's thoughts presented echo what we had been taught but in a fresh light. I think it is always good to remind ourselves of our reasons for educating and raising our children with a Biblical worldview and stretch beyond that from time to time. Never stop learning!

Now with this all swimming in my head, the goal is to put it into practice. The CM methods of narration intrigue me. That's about as far as I've got in the Companion. But I love the gentle approach to learning instead of drill, drill, worksheet, drill that can make our school day like pulling teeth. I also love the focus on nature and God's creation. My kids love rocks, critters, bugs, plants --basically nature. So that will be fairly easy (I'm hoping) since we do alot of that already. Sounds like a fun way to learn!

glitter-graphics.com

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

2009-04-07T08:17:00.001-07:00

My preschooler had so much fun working on her Brown Bear tot-book from 1+1+1=1 I also went to a few of her recommended links at makinglearningfun.com.

Here's the whole lapbook. She loved the 'Heads and Tails' from Carissa's blog, and the coloring book too. We did the matching game from makinglearningfun-you match m&m's to the correct colored animal. A BIG HIT!!

From Makinglearningfun, I made some memory game pieces and a trace and color book. She's getting really good at tracing those letters!

She's singing her ABC's with this one. Good for letter recognition and learning capital and small letters.

Here's the cover-not that exciting, maybe we'll add some more clip art. We made an eye spy bottle with mini pics of the animals for her to find. My Kindergartener loved this one too!

glitter-graphics.com

A new blog to check out

2009-03-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

I found a new blog that I am following. It's a homeschool mom who shares what she's doing for school and lots of photos for those of us (me!) who need a visual. She's got 4 kids and so creative, I get inspired just reading.
Read it over at blogshewrote, you'll be glad you did.

glitter-graphics.com

Mysterious Visitor

2009-03-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

We had a mysterious visitor last Tuesday...

He left a note too! Apparently Seamus the leprechan stopped by our home and left a few things for the kids. Besides leaving his green footprints all over our table, we found green milk, juice and green jello in our fridge that morning. He also left each of the kids a shiny new quarter from his pot of *ahem* gold.

Erin Go Braugh!

glitter-graphics.com

Back to life, back to reality

2009-03-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

glitter-graphics.com

The past 3 weeks have been sick days here. It started with Superman on a Tuesday morning. His eyes were red, he slept all day-so not normal for my busy little guy-his throuat hurt, he was just miserable. That afternooon, I told the gal I babysit for, she probably should keep her little guy home since my boy was sick.

The next day, Wednesday was a thrill! My washing machine decided to unplug it's hose-you know the hose that ALL the water drains through. It's a magical hose that mysteriously takes all the water from the washer into never-never land and in the end, my clothes are clean and clinging to the sides of the washer. Well when that hose wriggles free, water goes everywhere! Yes, I had over AN INCH of water from my laundry room right on through to my kitchen and I barely caught it before it seeped into the living room carpet. It took me over 5 hours to sop up all that water, and then wait til hubby was home to re-attach the hose so I could now wash every single towel we owned. Ah the joy! And yes, Superman was still sick, even worse with fever and aches, so that was a tough day.

The following week, both my girls and I caught the terrible flu bug. I was on the couch for 3 days sleeping in and out of conciencness. The girls were pretty much the same. I think we watched every single Veggie Tale and Disney movie we own. My wonderful husband decided I was too incompetent (haha, I jest, I begged him!) to take care of myself and the kids, so he stayed home and nursed us all back to health over the next 5 days. By the next Sunday night I still had a high fever and not fully well, but at least I could move without groaning (what a wimp!). The little one we babysit had issues of his own and developed pink eye and an ear infection, so at least we were all sick at the same time.

Today is Monday, almost a full 3 weeks since it all started. Life is slowly getting back to normal. The little guy is back, no more fevers or sore throats for my own children. School has resumed-although were not getting very far very fast, but at least it's done! And it snowed this morning-just a little bit, but enough to look pretty falling as we watched out the window.

2009-02-16T22:17:00.001-08:00

Is that not cute?!!

glitter-graphics.com

Valentines Day Lapbooks

2009-02-16T21:49:00.000-08:00

Front covers l-r: Miss 2nd grade, Mr. Superman, Little Roo

We were busy this week putting together our Valentines Day lapbooks. They had a blast doing these and we did lots of extra art projects at home to go along with them. Most of our printables came from homeschoolshare.com, and we added a few of our own and a cute mini-book from Christianpreschoolprintables.com. This was mostly just for fun, even though we did end up learning about the history of St. Valentine.

Miss 2nd Grade and Supermans were pretty much the same, we did copywork, Scripture, history, the symbols and some stamp fun. The 1Corinthians 13 idea is from CPP, I just drew my own on colored paper.

Superman's 1Corinthians 13 copywork and his stamp-one for mommy and one for daddy.

Miss 2nd grade's flower book-the meanings of different colored roses.

Little Roo's lapbook-she did some tracing and coloring and I made her an Ll book. I made her a matching game with hearts cut in half and printed ABC's on each half and she matched them up. They were no-where to be found when I took the pic, sorry!

I also made her a cute game with graduating sized hearts and wrote the words to "Jesus Loves Me" on them. I got this idea from Christianpreschoolprintables, and just made mine out of construction paper.

glitter-graphics.com

Side note to my friends...Thank you all for your encouragement this week and for your smiling faces when I needed them most! You are a treasure!

Pocahontas Lapbook

2009-02-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

Front cover-drawn by miss 2nd grade herself.

Our 2nd grader studied Pocahontas this month and she loved every minute of it. She read several children's biographies about Pocahontas and together we scoured the web for info, pictures and history. We compared real life to the Disney movie (which I personally do not like, but oh well) and she was surprised at how different the facts are from the movie. But she's only 7,so it's easy to understand.
Most of our printables came from homeschoolshare.com, even though we were not able to use the book they recommended, we still got alot of great info to fill up the booklets.

We covered Pocahontas' childhood, the fabled rescue of John Smith and made a timeline of her life.

Here we learned where her tribe is from and about some events in her life.

Here we studies about the Powhatan tribe what little we know of it today.

Things I am thankful for

2009-02-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

Little Roo and I read a new Winnie the Pooh story yesterday where the gang made a book of what they were thankful for on a rainy day. Last week had me thinking of spring and sunny days, and now, blech, the rain is here again. At least it's not blizzard weather or anything diasterous, but rain, rain, go away. So the kids and I made our own list of what we're thankful for on rainy days.

Hot Chocolate---number one! of course ;)
watching movies under blankets on the couch
baking cookies and more cookies
watching the birds swoop in and get their worms after the rain stops
puddle jumping
raindrop races on the window
rainbows
building tents in the living room and playing camping
soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch
finger painting

so there you go! There's always something to be thankful for!

Under Construction

2009-01-30T13:06:00.001-08:00

I'm tweaking with some new templates and still working on it, so bear with me. I never have more that a few minutes at a time to spend on the computer--imagine that, 3 kids, a house, school, family, friends, and the lingering question of what's for dinner...so ummm yeah, not alot of time to spend searching for *the perfect* HTML code or whatever. Keep checking and eventually it will all be looking better.

Killer Whale lapbook

2009-01-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

Our 2nd grader did a quick lapbook on killer whales last month. She really fell in love with these amazing animals. We didn't do a whole lot in the way of lapbooking, but we did read tons of books and found some great printouts with notebooking pages at schoolexpress.com. Most of the printables we got from lapbooklessons.com

In progress-Valentines Day lapbook

2009-01-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a Valentines Day lapbook for next month. My hope is to have as many resources as possible to make a fun lapbook. Deciding what to cover is always a challenge. Do I stick to the basics or try to include everything? There are so many different ways to go, so I'm going to try to break it down as I collect information. So here's some links to get you started.

Two complete lapbooks based on two stories is at homeschoolshare.com. One is on Cranberry Valentines and the other is on Jan Brett's Valentine Bears. I plan on using a few templates from both of these as the main part of our lapbook, and add in whatever else fits in with what we're learning.

ChristianPreschoolPrintables.com also has several Valentines day games, crafts and copywork you can add to your lapbook.

Some fun worksheets:

Math:
Makinglearningfun.com
Patterns
Counting
Memory game

Phonics and Literacy:
Makinglearningfun.com
ABCTeach freebie page has both writing, reading and some math worksheets.
Kaboose
Homeschoolhelperonline

Art:
ActivityVillage, TeacherHelp, and EnchantedLearning all have a great section of free crafts, games, mazes and color sheets.

Science:
At least over here, when we think of Valentines day, we think of ladybugs. So here are just a few ladybug links:
A theme page with just about all links you can think of is at AtoZ Teacherstuff
Childcareland has some free ladybug games geared for prek-1st.
Free crafts are at EnchantedLearning
A free printable life cycle and here is a great color photo to check out.

Social Studies:
If you are learning about the post office, stamps and letters, there's a cute craft here. Just scroll down to the Mail Carrier heading.
EverythingPreschool has a great post office theme page, just click their links to find art, games and activities. We plan on adding an extra big pocket to store our valentines in our lapbook.

Whew! That will keep us busy for now, Happy Lapping!

A whole lotta nothin'

2009-01-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe December came and went already! Family and friends, love and blessings. We are so thankful for all the Lord has done for us.

We took time off for Christmas and New Years and were so blessed that Daddy got to spend most of those days at home with us. We even got a little snow that hung around for a few days--which doesn't happen to often here in the valley. Eventually we got back to school and everyone's back on schedule for now.

This year poses some new challenges and changes for our little nest. I know the Lord has us in His hands, and whatever course he steers us in will be exactly what we need.

6666666666666666

November WIP

2008-11-05T15:38:00.000-08:00

For school this month I'm trying to get back into lapbooking. We've done only one lapbook since school started, and now that it's finished, I think we're ready to jump right back in. Sugarplum just finished her Jonny Appleseed l.b. today. I hope to get some pics up later in the next week--my camera's card is full right now, so I need to put *developing those pics* on my to-do list as well.
We've had a plodding pace since we've started school, so I thought I'd jump-start our yearning for learning with some new ideas to grow on. Now that the weather has definately turned to fall--in our neck of the woods fall =rain, wind, cold--anyways, since we're cooped up inside more I've got to fill that time with something new and exciting for the kiddos, so it might as well be educational too.
For starters, Childcareland.com has an entire page of monthly themed printables *FREE* for early learners. I printed out a few turkey and pilgrim activities for Lil' Roo to keep busy with while the big kids are doing their workbooks. There's FFG's, matching, ABC's, numbers, shapes, etc. *Bonus* you can print in either color or b&w. I usually opt for b&w and have the kids color them.
Next Littlegiraffes.com has a theme page as well. Scroll down to November and pick up some cute ideas, songs, activities for Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Native Americans.
The kids decided they wanted to try to make an American Indian lapbook this year. Last year, we focused on the Pilgrims, so it's time to switch things up, I guess :o) So we're checking out Mellissa's page on Squido along with using our own History Pockets of Native Americans by Evan Moore I snagged at a thrift store last fall. The History Pockets was a bit over their heads last year, but I think they're ready for it now.
We're also eeking our way into a nature notebook. I've spotted it on some of the other homeschooling mom's blogs and really wanted to give it a try. It says to start with the first 5 challenges and then jump in with the current challenge. We havent' started yet because our computer has been having *issues* and this is the first time I've been able to stay online for more than a few minutes without it freezing up and crashing. (crossing my fingers) I know, I know, starting a nature notebook in the rainy fall weather...what is up with that?!! But it will give us (er, me!) some motivation to get outside hopefully.

Whew, that's quite alot. I hope it keeps us busy for the next few weeks ;o)

FireProof-go see it!

2008-10-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeLL5nLTCkk--for an interview with Kirk Cameron

This is an excellent movie about faith, marriage, love, honor and salvation. My husband and I saw it last weekend and were so impressed. Even though our marriage is nowhere near the breaking point shown in the movie, it showed us things and impressed on our hearts how much more we could express our love for each other and our family. I highly recommend it!

wrapping up this week

2008-10-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we're nearing the end of another week of school. Although we didn't get a whole lot done yesterday, my poor Sugarplum was sick with the flu. This morning she woke up feeling much better and so took our time with school today.

We had our U.S. states co-op this week. One mom is reading Flat Stanely to the kids-a little bit each class. So this week, she brought some butcher paper and each kid got to make their own 'Flat Self'. That was a blast. The kids took turns drawing the outlines of each other and then they each colored themselves in. Our Superman even drew his little belly-button. Cute! The moms who were teaching this week gave us some info on the states we're studying too. We did some notebooking and lapbooking at home on Delaware and Pennsylvania this week, so I hope to wrap that up. The next class will be my turn to teach. Yikes! I have a bingo game with all the states that the older kids might like, but I'm not sure what I'm going to plan for the younger crowd. I hope my creative mind comes back to me, I seem to have lost it somewhere...

I do have to brag--ahem--mention the deal of the week I made. While perusing the mall for some local postcards for our U.S. states co-op class, we stopped at an outlet Christian book store. They had a few shelves of homeschool material (!!) so I kindly asked my husband to entertain the kiddos in the children's section so I could peruse through the shelves. There it was, the corner a little bent, but still intact; the cover only slightly crased in said corner. IT was the teacher's manual to our science curriculum this year! For $2.49!!!!. It sells from the publisher for nearly $30.00, and one on ebay was going for $15.00 but I was hesitant weighing it out. Now I know why! My husband was definately not as thrilled as I was as I did a itsy-bitsy happy dance in the store and nearly giggled with glee. He gave me the 'can-we-go now-before-the-kids-drive-me-crazy' look after the 'what-the-heck-is-so-exciting-about-a-book?' look during my silent happy dance. As I hurried to the cash register, my heart thankful to God for the bargains he sends me from time to time I noticed it even has the CD inside with all the cute little songs to go along with the lessons. Praise the Lord for all he does. Even tiny miracles.

Tomorrow is our pumpkin patch field trip-weather permitting-- I'm not that excited about tromping with my littles through the mud in the rain with a stroller besides. Please, Lord, let it be nice.
Happy Fall!

Underground History of Education

2008-09-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education. Let me first say, WOW, this guy is amazing. I have to get the dictionary out every so often to look up a word or 2. He certainly is stretching my reading-which is a good thing. I love to learn and am inspired by his writing style, in addition to the topic of the book. It feels good to be putting knowledge in on a different level, but it certainly is making my brain hurt sometimes, :).

This book is deffinatly opening my eyes to what the public school system is all about; it's very foundation and the scope of it's mission of how it is designed to take over the minds of the people for it's own purposes, not merly education. Education in the average American public schools, we all know isn't the greatest, but the lack of actual education isn't why we homeschool. This book gets to the deeper core of why schools were started and who--you'd be so surprised on the WHO--funds, shapes and endorses them. It exposes the true drive for what's behind the schools and how they want to control the minds of the people and create a country that are God-less, following sheep that bow to the state and gives all control of their own thinking to the government. hmmmmm....sounds like socialism to me, or worse.

I think every pastor, parent, Christian and Christian school teacher should read this book and those similar to it to understand the truth of what is driving our society, starting at the earliest ages at kindergarten, by confining our children in a system whose main goal is to produce a new society molded in their image.

You can read the book online for free HERE

I will Survive-- a homeschool mom version

2008-09-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

LIttle House in the Big Woods

2008-09-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

We've bee reading our way through the first book in the Little House series. Even our Kindergartener likes it. He's really all about the adventure and why Pa has a gun and if there are going to be any more bears. Our second grader is getting into the stories themselves and we've been watching the tv series of Little House on the Prarie with Daddy in the evenings too.

I picked up a Little House craft book at our local library and the first project is to make a corncob doll, which of course our second grader was more than excited to try out. Just so happened that we made corn on the cob that very night. After drying the corncob out a day or two in the sun, we were ready to make it. It turned out pretty cute, even though we used yarn for hair instead of corn silk as the book suggested. Honestly I didn't want corn silk all over my house, it seems to wander into the corners of the farthest room every time we make corn anyways--magic or is it the 3 year old??!! hmmm.....

Secret confession of a homeschool mom: I could spend the entire year focusing on the Little House series and forget about everything else. They are so lovely, so full of wonderful life lessons, character and faith. I'm just not sure I could pull it off and be sure to include all the other stuff like math or science. My hubby is afraid I'll start wearing bonnets and making my own cheese if I go too deep, LOL!!

First week or two

2008-09-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

We're on a roll for school. The excitement is still fresh in the air. Now that the neighborhood children are in school, there is alot less distraction and we are settling in to a schedule. Still a few tweaks needed here and there, but it's going well so far.

Our 2nd grader is still in the review phase in phonics, which is good because it gives our kindergartener more time to learn along with us. We've been using Abeka phonics. I grew up on Abeka, so it's a familiar feel for me. I really do think they're phonics program is superb. I try to incorporate as many of the charts and games as I can. The kids love to play 'On the Farm', "In the Meadow' and 'Dress the Bear'. Just cute little games to reinforce what they're learning. And they have fun, and shouldn't learning be fun?!!

Math-U-See is working out great for our kindergartener. He asks to 'Do math with Steve' every day. Even if we watch the same lesson a couple of days in a row, he's still learning. I let him use the blocks to build with while I had some one-on-one with our 2nd grader this week. He went right to work building a rocket--I think it had something to do with our solar system study that we're still slowly working on ;o) It kept him busy while I worked on our 2nd grader's math facts.

We started our Considering God's Creation last week. We're doing the first lesson on Creation which is where I start every school year in Bible, so it's coordinating right along for now. I found a CGC yahoo group online yesterday and I'm hoping that will help me as we venture in farther. The group has some awesome templates that go along with the book for lapbooking or notebooking-right up our alley!

I was panning on studying history using statehistory.net, but our h.s group is forming a co-op on the 50 states! Talk about timing, right? We're going to get together and learn about 2 states a class starting with Delaware and go through the states in order of statehood. I think our family will make a lapbook with some notebooking pages for each state and put it all together in a binder. Fun!

I'm still looking for inspiration to keep me--The mom and The teacher--organized and on top of everything. Sometimes it seems like there are so many things we want to cover or learn about that I don't know where to fit them all in? Anyone else have that issue? At our home we've got a continuing study of knights, trucks, gardens, faries, animals, art, drawing, worship, the list goes on. It's hard to fit it all in with phonics charts and math flashcards :). Where does it fit? Any ideas are welcome!

Blessings

Frist Day of our new school year

2008-08-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yep, this time of year everyone is posting about their FIRST DAY!! Including me. The beginning of the school year is like opening a present-- or if you're like me a new, freshly ground bag of coffee ;o). That's right, I said coffee! You open the bag after you get home, or maybe hubby brings it home after work-even better!, and you just can't wait to make a nice, hot, tasty cup o' joe, no matter if it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon--it smells that good.

But before you think I'm exhausted from all that school work (hardly) and jittery from all the delicious coffee (I only had 2 cups this morning), our first day was a good one. Actually it was so good and so precious that I'll keep it close to my heart. For us, our day is usually met with those little things I like to call pit-stops all along the way. You know what I'm talking about, right?Someone losing their prize pencil, or spilling their water on the table-- which turns Mom into The Flash lifting the books off the table and coving it with towels in one fell swoop( lots of practice), the baby stealing someone's favorite smelly markers and turning her nose red and blue and brown, or a toilet overflowing because someone flushed an entire roll of tp because they forgot how much they're supposed to use. You know the stuff of life that seems to eek into every day causing a 20 minute lesson take two hours. Pit stops. They make life interesting. It probably never happens at your house, but here, it seems to pop up alot.

Today was a total break from the pit stops. First, the youngest went back to bed to snuggle right as the olders woke up. If you homeschool with a toddler or 2 in the house, you know how exciting they make life when everyone is focused on learning the books of the Bible or the names of the planets when you realize things are just way too quiet in that particular corner. We had nearly 2 hours of school under our belt before little sunshine peeked out from the bedroom.

After breakfast I let the older kids check out their new books for the year. I purchased a 3 drawer rolling cart at Walmart. Each kid gets a drawer for their books while I have my teacher books, charts and flashcards in my file box that sits nicely on top of the cart. The olders were so excited about their new books, pencil boxes and super-cool flexible rulers. Who knew measuring was so cool?! We did our phonics together and the kids read out loud taking turns and even helping each other out. They did their worksheets in peace-no stolen pencils, no fighting over which chair was mine first, or my page isn't a pretty as their page. Our Kindergartener did spill the entire box of colored pencils on the floor, but a harsh word was nowhere to be heard. After their worksheets were done, they each took a turn reading to Daddy on the couch. After that they ventured outside and picked blackberries which we added to our morning snack. They rode bikes in the backyard and climbed the apple tree looking for spiders. We compared leaves and noticed the beginnings of color-changes and temperature changes outside. Math was a little slower going today. I think our 2nd grader was a bit nervous about her new book. But we made it through and even learned a couple of new things.

Besides the usual chores, read alouds and day-to-day filling of their growing minds, we are easing into our first week. No big assignments, no science projects or book reports. Their Uncle came by for a visit, so he and Daddy took the kids to the park so Mommy could catch up and get a bit of mommy reading in.

All in all it was a sweet, peaceful beginning. Tomorrow is another adventure!

Rhema Academy

2008-08-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

With the beginning of the official new school year just around the corner, there seems to be a buzz going on about naming your homeschool. I love reading and hearing what other families name their homeschool and the reasons behind it. It really is fascinating to me to peer inside these families as they open up about what their homeschool is all about. It is incredible the amount of research and thought that they put into their homeschool name.

Growing up in California some 25 (gasp!!) years ago, my parents legally had to have a name for our homeschool. Christs' Way is My Way. That was our name. It stood for our dedication to follow the Way of the Master in everything we did-life, school, family. As I got older, it never fit on any financial aid application or life history form, sheesh! It stood out with our Lord's name first, there was no mistaking we were Christians. I didn't always live up to that name either. Nobody is perfect, but it was a declaration to myself and the world that we were set apart.

Now life has come to one of it's full circles and my husband and I are teaching our children at home with the same dedication to our Savior and our family that my parents passed on to us.

Our homeschool is Rhema Academy. Rhema: God-Breathed, Living and Active Word that speaks to one's spirit for direction or guidance. We depend on the life-giving Word of God to direct our every day. He is the source we draw life and light from. Without His life-giving Word, there is no life. God is always Life and Light and Love. Not to sound new-age at all. I'm talking about the true source of Life, the rhema word God spoke when He created the world, the rhema word that is living and active penetrating both bone and marrow, soul and spirit. (Heb. 4:12)We go to the Word every day and ask for the Lord to give us the rhema we need for each day: the life, the strength, the light, His Love.

Homeschooling is a day-to-day adventure. Sure, we plan our days, weeks and even an entire year with curriculum and activities, but daily listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit and tuning in to His plan is even more important. We submit our plans to Him and are blessed by following it. God is so good, He is full of honor and he blesses those who honor Him. We want to live in His blessings and bring honor to Him.

So, Rhema Academy is our homeschool name. Reminding us to daily go to our source of life and daily follow His leading.

Your turn, what's your homeschool name and why? I can't wait to hear about it.

Almost back to normal

2008-08-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks, I've been doing some daycare for my s-i-l. It really wasn't all that surprising when she called me last month and asked me to watch her 2 kids due to an (ahem...) freak-out by her regular nanny-type person (her mother).

At the end of May or so, I heard the whisper of the Lord telling me that I'd be watching my niece and nephew for a while. I really didn't pay too much attention to it as I knew m-i-l had them every day. But when sis did call asking if I'd watch the kids, the Holy Spirit reminded me about His whispering earlier. I knew I should have taken it seriously, but He had been preparing me all along. I had said "no" to watching a girlfriends' children at the beginning of summer; we had planned for a busy summer and I just wanted to hang with my kids and watch the clouds roll by. At around that time, I began to hear the Lord whisper to me about my neice and nephew.

When they started coming to our home for day-care, I asked the Lord what His plan was. Their family life, rules, expectations are alot different than ours, so I knew it would be a challenge to mesh our lifestyle with what they were used to. I heard the Lord saying, 'Just show them Jesus and plant the seed'. So I talked to my kids about sharing Jesus with them, showing kindness, forgiveness and God's love. My kids were excited about seeing their cousins more often and having more kids to play with, and they caught on to the plan the Lord had for us to share His love with them. I always do Jesus Time with my kids in the morning whether we're officially doing school or not. We read the Bible, pray, sing, memorize our Scripture verses, etc. So we just added their cousins to the mix. They seemed to know at least the name of Jesus, and we taught them some new songs, much to the begrunttleness of my niece. I could tell she was already not that enthused at the old age of 5(!!!) about learning about the Lord's love for her. My little nephew-almost 3- was ready and happy to listen to stories and new songs.

One day we talked about God's love and how He can fill our hearts every day with His love. His love fills us so we can show love to others, remind us to lean on Him, and keep us on the path He has for us. At prayer time, I asked the kids if they wanted to ask God to fill their own little hearts with His Love. My kids, naturally, jumped right in with me. My neice, however, SCREAMED, "NOOOOOO I DON'T WANT GOD'S LOVE". My heart was shocked and at the same time, not so. My spirit discerned that she wasn't just rebelling against following directions, but that there was a deeper root at work. Not forcing her, but just letting everyone else pray--maybe taking some of the fear of it away--she listened without being distracting. After everyone else--even her little brother--had asked for God to fill them with His love, she said, " I want to pray too." Victory in Jesus sang in my heart! So she did, her little hands folded in her lap and asked Jesus to fill up her heart with love. So precious! From that day on, both of them prayed at Jesus time with us and I think a little of the light of the Father was beginning to break through their hearts.

So, I pray we planted the seed. S-i-l called last night and said her mom is going to watch her kids again. I knew our day-to-day time with them would be brief. The Lord always has a plan. We don't see them that often, so this felt important to me to show them how much we love them and how much our Heavenly Father loves them.

Honey Bee Lapbook

2008-07-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

We had alot of fun with this one. We used a mix of HOAC and a honeybee mini-book set that was a freebie on Curr-click a while back. We see alot of bees in the spring-time, so this helped alleviate some of the fear the kids had of them. Our son had been stung by a bee almost 2 years ago and it is still fresh in his mind every spring.

Here's the cover of our 1st grader's bee l.b.

Inside we did a life cycle, parts of a bee, how they help us, a who's who--we labeled the different bees according to their specific job in the colony. and of course the bee dance. Our little princess was all about the queen bee, so that became the focus of most of our lessons, and there was a mini- book for that very thing.

Sunflower lapbook photos

2008-07-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

We worked on Sunflower lapbooks in May, so I'm super slow at getting these pics loaded up, but finally I had a few minutes.

This is the inside of my pre-k's --blurry, but from the top we attached notebooking pages to the center of the lb. with brads. We also added his lifecycle circle there too. Inside we kept a journal of the sunflowers we planted (only one sruvived thanks to the birds and cats, :(. ) We discovered what the seeds are used for besides eating (!!), the pollination process as well as some crafts from preschoolpost.com. He did some short vowel sounds petal books and wrote the words inside each petal. His handwriting is really coming along as well as reading skills.

And the inside of my 1st grader's. Some of the same as above with the life cylce. journal and crafts. She just did more writing in her journal and learned more about the parts of a sunflower.

And the cover of my 1st grader's

And the back of hers as well with some notebooking pages attached with brads to the folder itself. She wrote a short story, some freebie worksheets we found online and this cute acrostic poem frm enchantedlearning.com

Another Summer

2008-06-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Another summer is quickly approaching. Here in the great Northwest, I always tell myself that summer doesn't officially start til the 4th of July--and even then it can be a cool day. At least then I don't get too surprised when it's cold outside and the end of June...or something like that. The kids are itching to go outside at 8am, and I'm just not prepared to face the outdoors at that hour lately.

I think I've hit the end of the year exhaustion that homeschool moms talk about. I've got headaches, allergies and I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning. Not complaining, really, just reality. I cant remember when I've just wanted to sleep...and sleep...and sleep-except maybe after my youngest was born, but that's kind of natural, I think. I keep thinking I'll snap out of it at some point. I love summer! I love being outside early in the morning, weeding my plants, hearing the birds, feeling the cool air before it gets hot outside. Maybe if I could just sleep for a few days/nights in a row, I'd get my energy back and be ready for the days ahead.

I have been mulling over next year though. I know we're going to keep doing school for a few days a week, taking breaks when we need to, but next year looms large ahead of me in just a few short months. It seems every where I turn, I read about or hear about how to plan for your new school year! I've got a rough idea of where we're headed, and since I'm a 'paper girl' at heart, I know I've got to get it all typed out and printed before I forget everything that's swimming in my head.

So far I've got almost everything curriculum-wise for the basics.

Our basic plan for 2008-09:

For Bible, we go through the Bible every year starting in Genesis. We round it out by adding lapbooks, timelines, and just going a little deeper each year. We do our Bible time together with all the kids. That's where most of our character lessons come in as well. We memorize Scripture too; right now we're finishing up our ABC verses-1 verse beginning with each letter of the alphabet. No special curriculum is needed for that. woohoo! The kids all got their first Bibles from Nana and Papa for Christmas and are enjoying having their own to read along with (or some just pretend, but it's still good practice ;o) )

For my Preschooler:

*Acitvity Bags. I am so excited about this. We already do this at home,-- I'm a former pre-k and daycare teacher,-- but I'm hoping this will give me some fresh ideas to help the little one keep busy and entertained.

*Carissa at 1+1+1 has made some fantastic tot-lapbooks that I know will be a hit at our home as well.

*Little Hands to Heaven. I found this on sale somewhere and hope to implement it in with our Bible study for the little one's level as well as begin some fun learning.

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For my Kindergartener:

*Math U See Primer

*Still need to order Letters and Sounds K next month

*A Reason for Writing - K

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For my 2nd grader:

*Abeka 2 Math

*Abeka 2 Language, Spelling and Letters and Sounds

*A Reason for Writing -T

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For everyone:

*Various reading books at everyone's levels. We have quite a collection growing in our home--doesn't every homeschooler? I've been lucky to find either the entire series or piece them together bit by bit thanks to thrift store shopping.
This year we started reading the Little House books for our read-aloud time. I think we'll trade off between those and Narnia as my duckies are getting old enough to be interested in those stories.

*Considering God's Creation will be our core science curriculum this year. I am really excited about it. I found it at our local curriculum faire this year for a HUGE discount--woohoo! It will be easy to create lapbooks or notebooks as we go along to add to the kids' learning experience.

*For History we're going to try statehistory.net to learn about our state. It's a really neat looking program that all the kids can do together. It's a notebooking style study that has all kinds of fun activities for the kids to put together. I think we'll start with that and study the people of our state history along with it such as Lewis and Clark, the Whitmans, Pocahontas, etc. As usual, we'll add in lapbooks especially with history and science.

I'm still deciding on a character curriculum. I like Pearables, but I also found out that IHOP has a children's curriculum focusing on praise and prayer that fits with our style of worship and prayer. A friend in my local h.s. group is trying out IHOP, so I might ask her what age level their program is geared for. I can always do one this year and the other next year.

*I also have in the works a modesty/princess/manners & chivlary/manners notebook for each of my older children. I hope to have most of the kinks worked out by September.

Sounds like fun to me!

springtime

2008-05-31T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've been successful this season with my flowers. I long for a green thumb, but mine is somewhat tainted. We started a few flowers for our front yard about 6 weeks ago and they're still doing well. I'm a container gardener for the most part, at least with my flowers in the front yard. I tried the first two years we lived here to grow them in the flower bed, but they never turned out very well. So containers it is!

I did manage to weed out most of the lemon balm in our backyard's flower bed this spring and transform it into a little veggie garden. Woohoo! Growing up we always had a garden, it is just part of life for me. Nothing feels as good as getting down in the dirt, digging in the cool morning and smelling the tangy tomatoes or sweet, spicy peppers or the earthy lettuce. mmmm....

I did save some of the lemon balm (aka Melissa) in one little spot. That stuff takes over every where, but it smells so good. In the summer, our yard is lemony fresh the natural way.

Anyways, I was playing around with my new camera and tried a few floral shots. I'm a people snapper myself, but I'm trying to stretch and get more creative. Here's a shot in color:

And in black & white:

Lifestyle of Learning

2008-05-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Last year at our local curriculum faire I was introduced to a wonderful method of homeschooling called "Lifestyle of Learning". Something inside of me clicked! "Why haven't I heard of this? This is exactly what I have been trying to find! This is what it's called", I thought. Now, I have been in the homeschool setting my entire life. My mother taught my brother and I from birth through graduation, as well as several other children through the years. I always knew, without a doubt that I would educate our children at home.

I spent several years(before having any children of our own) teaching in a Christian school setting and taking educational classes-mostly from a worldy point of view, but practical, none-the-less. Along the way, I think my vision of what homeschooling should consist of became askew by being in a system of grades, tests, behavior issues, school politics and the like. But somehow I wanted it to be more than textbooks, tests, or even making sure my children were 10 grade levels above their age. I knew there was a way of shaping and nurturing our children in a loving, fun and still educational way. But I had no idea what that looked like or how to weave it into learning math facts or grammar rules. Then I heard Barb Shelton speak. WOW, a lifestyle of learning...what in the world does that mean??

In a nutshell its about your family, your child, their individual learning styles. Teaching to their particular bent. I'm sure you've heard it, maybe even from your pastor, that the verse in Proverbs that says "Train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it" is literally meaning according to their particular bent. Train your child according to how she/he learns, what they are interested in, what excites them, moves them sparks their imagination. Most of all be HOLY SPIRIT-led.

Every day I ask the Holy Spirit where He wants me to go that day. I ask Him to fill me with everything I am going to need for that day so I can pour it back out to my children. I ask Him for peace to stay above the chaos--hey I have 3 children-- one of them is a potty-training toddler, there is an abundance of chaos going on here ;o). I ask Him what areas we need to develop in each child. I'm not talking math or handwriting, but attitudes, heart issues, the things that will last for years after they forget how to diagram a sentence. Building a foundation solidly planted in the Lord is what matters. And I love how faithful He is. Every day! Now I'm not perfect, believe me, not even close. But He is always making room for me to recover from my mistakes and sow love into my children's hearts.

For more about a Lifestyle of learning check out this article by Marilyn Howshall

Lakeland, Florida

2008-05-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

I know I'm putting myself on the map here. I've no interest in offending anyone or starting any debates. I am however, excited beyond excited that God's power is pouring out in the same way it always has. It just isn't recognizeable to those of us who haven't seen it before. You can see the live stream from here at God.tv

God is awesome, all powerful and full of Glory.

What grade am I in?

2008-05-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

I found this link to a cute mini-book for homeschool children. It is for primary age focusing on the benefits of being educated at home.

Check it out here Mini-book

Little Laplinks: May Flowers

2008-05-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

This month's meme for LITTLE LAPLINKS is flowers. We focused on sunflowers this month to narrow down the flower theme for L.L. We are mainly focusing on the life cycle of the flower and how to grow them. We started some seeds in our kitchen and have just this week transplanted them outside. Hopefully by the end of the summer, we will have some beautiful sunflowers to enjoy!

spring vowels worksheet

A flower acrostic poem

Enchanted learning's flower theme page

Everything you need for a sunflower study is HERE

An entire lesson plan

on growing sunflowers.

Parts of a sunflower

The story of the sunflower
part one and part two

A cute sunflower pattern
for craft time

The books we used for our study are:
One Little Seed by Elaine GreensteinSunflowers A Lerner Natural Science BookHow a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan1 is One by Tasha Tudor a Caldecott Honor bookA Gardener's Alphabet by Mary Azarian

Deborah Company

2008-04-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

My mom and I started a new Bible study based on the book by Jane Hamon called The Deborah Company. This book is so amazing! I can not express how life changing this study is already. It is about becoming a woman of God-totally breaking the mold of the false perception that women are weak or less or can't function as part of the Body of Christ in ministry. But it does not go above the role and surpass God's divine order or try to usurp power from others. It's not man-bashing at all, but a calling to destiny, to using the gifts God planted inside each one of us to walk the path with Christ.

It's empowering, and it feels like a calling to destiny. Are you walking the path the Lord has laid out for you in power and authority? Are you the woman of valor, honor, destiny that you know you are called to be? Are your gifts redeemed and are you using them for Godly purposes? Are you in harmony with the vibration of Heaven and the Holy Spirit? These are the answers this points to.

Keepers-crochet

2008-04-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

We finished our classes on knitting at our Keepers of the Faith club and now we're on to crocheting. Sugarplum had a hard time figuring it out, oh, wait, that was me! I've never crocheted in my life, so I guess it's a good thing to be learning something new.

Sugarplum wasn't as thrilled with crocheting as she is with knitting. She's been going to town making what she hopes will be a small blanket for Roo. Her first try was with very small sized needles, so we got her some 13s and things are going much smoother. Can you believe she's only in first grade and can knit!?! And here I am a grown up and just learning how, pretty funny. We're working on counting our stitches so she can stay even.. that seems to be a bit daunting for her. Once she's on a roll, there's hardly any stopping her. It'll come and she's just so content to sit and knit on and off throughout the day, I'm not going to stop her.

Ode to a Homeschool Mother

2008-04-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

A friend passed on a link to a wonderful poem written by Teri Ann Berg Olsen. I found it encouraging and uplifting. Check it out here: POEM

The Homeschool Kids who Don't do Anything

2008-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

"We Are the Homeschool Kids Who Can't Do Anything"

- sung to the tune of theVeggie Tales "Pirates" song.

Chorus
We are the homeschool kids who can't do anything
We just stay at home and do our work
And if you ask us to do anything
We'll just tell you we can't do anything!

Well we can't pass notes in math class
and we've never bought a school lunch
and we've never had our homework eaten by the family dog
and we've never had a hall pass
and we've never owned a locker
and we've never had detention after school

Chorus

Well we've never been suspended
and we've never missed the school bus
and we've never got a fat lip from the bully down the hall
we've never seen the school nurse
and we've never slapped erasers
and we've never had detention after school

Chorus

we've never changed for P.E.
and we've never had a swirlie
and we've never had a teacher that we didn't like at all
and we've never had supply lists
and we've never answered roll call
and we've never had detention after school

Chorus

But we've often taken field trips
and we go to school in pj's
and we often do our work while sitting on our favorite couch
and we finish school by lunchtime
and we find our books on ebay
and we don't have any homework after school

Chorus

The author is Zac G. and the original words can be found here<http://dpenguin.com/blog/?p=498> .

Keeping the little ones busy

2008-04-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

Isn't that always the question we're asking?? What, and more importantly, HOW, do I keep my toddlers and even preschoolers busy, occupied and basiclly entertained (without turning on the t.v.) while I'm teaching my older kids? I'll admit it, lately my 2yo is distracting everyone with potty-training, stealing big brother's cars, legos; getting into big sister's chapstick, puzzle pieces...can you see where I'm going (loonytown, LOL!)
As always, salvation is where I least expect it--in this case the internet. I don't know how my mother survived without being able to click-click-click, dowload books, print worksheets, take a tour of China, order next years school books, write to grandma, all in 1/2 hour without leaving home!
So in this case, I found a site bursting full of ideas to keep my littles busy. Here it is free for anyone who can take a little time and maybe a trip to the $$dollar store$$ for a few supplies, but most of it you probably already have at home.
http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/preschool_activities.htm
Enjoy!

Easter 08

2008-03-20T23:16:00.001-07:00

Is it me, or is this year already flying by? I have no idea where the time is going, I only know that every day I think to myself, "What is today? Is it March already?" I think I get so busy in teaching the kids and the day to day of teaching, directing and re-directing, discipline, cleaning, laundry;... oh, no this child fell down and needs a band-aid, this child is asking for some glue, that child is thirsty... it all goes round and round.

Now it is almost Easter and I am nowhere near ready. Well I have some of the duckies' baskets stuff together, and I think I have some cute clothes picked out for everyone on Sunday, but that's about it.

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Every morning I read to the kids this week a part of the Easter story. Today was the part when Christ carries his cross to Golgotha and how the crowd was chanting, "Crucify Him" over and over. We talked about how His disciples must have felt and how his mother, Mary, must have hurt for her son to be going through so much pain. We talked about how Jesus was thinking of us when He was dying. I was in tears before the end. I love my Savior so much and in this season of reflection and remembering His passion (suffering) for us, for me...is so humbling. My children asked my why I was crying, all I could say was because I love Jesus and what He did for me and for them.

I truely think of the season of Easter as Holy Week. For me it is a time of deep reflection on the passion of Chirst for us His bride. As I commune with my Savior in the quietmoments of my day, I can only drink in His love and offer my life back to Him. He is the reason for me, without Him, I am lost.

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What does Easter mean to you? How do you celebrate? Any family traditions?

For us, obviously, it's a deeply personal time. In the day-to-day, we endeavor to teach our children the Scriptures. We take communion with them at home and at church, we focus on the Resurrection and the Salvation message.

During school time, we've done Resurrection crafts, put together Resurrection eggs, and done some games we found online.

Our traditions for Easter so far are dying eggs the night before, egg hunts on Easter, big family dinner after church. I am on the lookout for adding to our tradition list, so if there are any ideas out there, let me know!

Leave a comment and share your Easter traditions!

HSLDA Alert

2008-03-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

From the HSLDA E-lert Service...============ ========= ========= ========= ========= ========= =========

Dear HSLDA Members and Friends:

In what could be one of the most important homeschooling related broadcasts in 25 years, James Dobson interviews HSLDA Chairman Michael Farris on the developing situation in California.We encourage all homeschoolers to listen to this broadcast, and ask you to forward this information to anyone who is concerned about homeschool freedom, parental rights and the direction of our courts.

Broadcast: Focus on the Family daily radio broadcast with Dr. James Dobson.Program Title: California's Threat to Homeschooling Families.Airdate: Friday, March 7, 2008.Since the broadcast is aired on stations across the country at different times, please visit ----

http://listen. family.org/ findastation/ and search for "Daily Focus on the Family Broadcast" to find the station that covers your area.

You can help stop this threat to homeschooling by signing an online petition to depublish the Court of Appeal opinion at http://hslda. org/elink. asp?ID=4831

Sincerely,Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations

Tooth Fairy

2008-03-05T12:32:00.001-08:00

Well big news in our home, our oldest dd lost another tooth. This makes #5 for her. To her, the tooth fairy is a BIG DEAL, and we definately believe in the tooth fairy. Our dd always draws a picture and leaves it with her tooth. The next morning along with a bag of coins, is a note from the tooth fairy (aka daddy-yep, you read right, daddy is a big believer too).

What do you do when your child looses a tooth? Leave a comment here and share your family traditions :)

READ BETWEEN THE LINES

2008-02-23T15:17:00.001-08:00

Only an 8th Grade Education

2008-02-23T14:59:00.000-08:00

Only an 8th Grade EducationWhat it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that theyonly had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any ofus have passed the 8th grade in 1895? This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas ,USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the SmokeyValley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted bythe Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have nomodifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal partsof "lie,""play," and "run."
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein thatyou understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How manybushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessarylevy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have$104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at$20 per meter?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance ofwhich is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus .
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
.5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas .
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln,Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800,1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)[Do we even know what this is??]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography,etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph,subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
.4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.
'5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name twoexceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word:bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, andname the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd,cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane,fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicatepronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America .
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver,Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco .
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the samelatitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns tothe sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of theearth

.Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.Gives the saying "he only had an 8th grade education" a whole newmeaning, doesn't it?!

Finished Washington lapbook

2008-02-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

We finally finished our George Washington lapbook! Just in time for his birthday too. We've been trying to stay on track with our regular schoolwork, so lapbooking has taken a back seat for the past few weeks. The kids have just been DONE by lunchtime, and it's been warmer and dryer this week, so we've gone outside a bunch. But here are a few snaps I took while the camera was having a good moment.

Free George Washington Lapbook

2008-02-09T13:30:00.000-08:00

George Washington Lapbook

check it out and let me know what you think :)

George Washington

2008-02-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a George Washington lapbook for the kids. It's basically all my own work-ideas, art and even some games. I feel so tricky, LOL. I'm still working on getting it all finished and ironing out the things that need tweaking. But, I think it will turn out cute. When I get it all polished up, I'll post a link so anyone can download it for free!

Money Lapbook

2008-01-25T14:20:00.000-08:00

We're working on money in math for both Sugarplum and Superman, so we borrowed Carrissa's ideas for a very cute money lapbook. The kids had fun counting money and cutting (SCISSORS are a hit lately!) their little mini books out and putting them together. We'll finish them up this weekend, since daddy is working. As soon as my camera gets itself fixed, *L* I'll try to put up the pics of our finished lapbooks :). My duckies work so hard and they end up looking so adorable.

Fairy Lapbook

2008-01-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

I made a cute fairy lapbook for my dd. Here it is for your little fanciful ones to enjoy. Fairy Lapbook

Organized....what's that?

2008-01-20T15:07:00.000-08:00

I've been trying, ever since Christmas, trying to get back into a groove of staying organized and keeping up on school, housework. projects, etc, etc, etc...It seems like an overwhelming task lately and I was beginning to think I should throw in the towel and be one of those folks who just don't give a darn about the sink full of smelly, dirty dishes, the piles of laundry- both dirty and clean and in need of folding or putting away, the layers of dust on just about everything...oh, dear, I've just given myself away!

Thankfully, the Lord has calmed my messy and somewhat cluttered mind and given me a peace in the midst of the chaos. I don't know, but sometimes I feel like the only one who seriously feels like I'm going crazy if my house is a disaster. Does anyone else feel that way?

After talking with a VERY good friend, and after giving my issues to the Lord, the peace He sent was so, well, peaceful. I looked online and found some great resources on organizing school, home and life. I'm sure there are more out there, so please feel free to share.

Joanne has a great blog with great photos of her homemaking journal. WOW, she's got it together and it is so inspiring.

Donna Young has great schedules and planners you can print.

The Homeschool Mom has great ideas, schedules, articles, menus... They'll even email you weekly menus.

Flylady is perfect for just starting to organize and clean your home, and she's so real and funny, I just love her site.

Saving Dinner Leanne Ely's book Saving Dinner inspired me to be more consistent with menu planning and shopping.

Then after doing research, taking notes and getting myself all organized in my head-and on paper; I am slowly beginning to get back to my old organized self. Now, I am nowhere near orgnaized like these ladies, but in my own little corner of life, I am beginning to get an overall sense of how to keep the balance between chaos and peace--at least as far as clutter, dishes and the like are concerned,*L*.

Lapbook Heaven

2008-01-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, our h.s group leader hosted a workshop on lapbooking and notebooking. What perfect timing! It was very inspiring and our leader is awesome! She showed us some great ideas and tricks.

I've been really excited about lapbooking with the kids and we've done several this year and even got to show some of the other mom's at the workshop a few of the kids' lapbooks! On my other blog www.jasmines.lapbooklessons.com I've got some great links to different lapbooks and even a link to a free lapbook I am making with my kids on manners that I 've put together myself. Here's the link to the manners lapbook : Manners

Happy Lapping!

P-C-C=Post-Christmas-crazyness

2007-12-28T13:10:00.000-08:00

Whew, Chirstmas is over! Sad and yet I sigh a sigh of relief. We had a quiet Christmas, but it is still chaotic and wild with my duckies stuck in the house due to the freezing weather and constant rain. It DID snow a teensy-weensy bit on Christmas day, and that was very exciting. The kids have been going a bit stir crazy from not going outside much in the last couple of weeks.

Wednesday there was a break in the weather and Sugarplum got to try out her new roller skates and Superman tested his new skateboard down at the park near our home. Little E. rode along on her trike she got for her B-day. We were only there about a half-hour before the cold got to them--well to me anyways. Little E.'s fingers, nose and chubby cheeks were bright red and both the kids's pants had got wet from minor spills off their new wheels. So we headed home for hot chocolate and a treat from our stash. ***side note: We received a HUGE amount of cookies, brownies and other treats from several friends. If you are in the neighborhood and need a fix for your sweet tooth, come on over!**

Today we dabbled in our Advent/Christmas lapbooks. Sugarplum went to town on an ABC Advent coloring page that we turned into a cute calendar. The littles basically colored a bit and pleaded with big sis to share her new art set with them. Which she eventually did after a little chat about sharing. I hope to have thier lapbooks finished tomorrow so I can load up the pics here and on the new lapbook blog....Seems like so much to do!

I still have not fully moved over to the new blog... and not sure if I will. I think it's mainly for lapbooks, resources etc, and not for blogging or rambling--do I ramble?!?! I'll figure it out. Ah, well, that's me, so much to figure out, never enough time to do it in.

31 days of praying for your husband

2007-12-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

I received this from my h.s. group leader. I believe it is from the book Power of a Praying Wife It is a wonderful reminder to pray for our husbands who daily put their life out there for their families, both physically and spiritually.

1
Praying for Your Husband

“She does him good….” Proverbs 31:12a
Bless your husband by praying for him!

The Apostle Paul instructed all Christians to pray for one another (Ephesians 6:18). This
includes wives’ responsibility and privilege to pray for their husbands. Earnest prayer for your
husband is good for him, for you and the spiritual health of your home (Proverbs 31:11-12).
Satan desires to destroy your husband, especially his character and his leadership in your
relationship. Trust God through prayer as you daily surrender your husband and marriage to the
Lord’s wise, loving care.

31 Days of Prayer

Day 1
Pray that your husband will grow spiritually and consider his accountability before the Lord.
Pray that he will guard his heart by developing spiritual disciplines—Bible reading and study,
prayer, meditation, scripture memorization, etc. (2 Peter 3:18; Prov. 4:23)

Day 2
Pray that your husband’s relationship with God and His Word will bear fruit in his life. Pray that
he will be a man of wisdom and understanding, fearing the Lord. (Prov. 3:7, 9:10; Ps. 112:1)

Day 3
Pray that your husband will be humble and quick to agree with God about his sin. Pray that his
heart will be tender toward the voice of the Lord. (Ps. 51:2-4; Micah 6:8)

Day 4
Pray that your husband will grow in leadership skills in your relationship— protecting and
providing for you. Pray that he will lead you wisely and love you sacrificially, so that God will
be glorified in your marriage. (Eph. 5:25-29; Col. 3:19)

Day 5
Pray that your husband will be faithful to his wedding vows. Pray that he will have a desire to
cultivate your relationship as a sign of his loyalty and commitment to you, and as a picture of
Christ’s love for the Church. (Prov. 20:6; Gen. 2:24)

Day 6
Pray that your husband will love righteousness and hate wickedness, especially the evils of the
culture. Pray that he will recognize and avoid wickedness in his own life, and if necessary, take a
clear, strong stand against evil. (Prov. 27:12; John 17:15; 1 Cor. 10:12-13)

Day 7
Pray that your husband will safeguard his heart against inappropriate relationships with the
opposite sex. Pray that his heart will be pure and undivided in his commitment to you. (Prov.
6:23-24, 26; Rom. 13:14)

Day 8
Pray that your husband will work hard to provide for your family, to the best of his ability. Pray
that the character qualities necessary for a successful career and ministry will be a growing part
of his character – persistence, decisiveness, strength, an analytical mind, organizational skills,
positive relationships with people, determination, etc. (Rom. 12:11; 1 Cor. 15:58)

Day 9
Pray that your husband handle finances wisely, will have discernment concerning budgeting and
investments, and will be a good steward of his money in regard to giving to the Lord’s work.
Pray that money will not become a source of discord in your family. (Prov. 23:4-5; Rom. 12:13;
Heb. 13:5)

Day 10
Pray that your husband will cultivate strong integrity, and not compromise his convictions. Pray
that his testimony will be genuine, that he will be honest in his business dealings, and will never
do anything that he needs to hide from others. (Prov. 20:7; 1 Tim. 1:5, 3:7; Eph. 6:10-12)

Day 11
Pray that your husband will have a humble, teachable spirit and a servant’s heart before the Lord.
Pray that he will listen to God and desire to do His will. (Prov. 15:33; Eph. 6:6)

Day 12
Pray that your husband will yield his sexual drive to the Lord and practice self control. Pray that
your sexual intimacy together will be fresh, positive, and a reflection of selfless love. (Prov.
5:15, 18; 1 Cor. 7:3; Song of Solomon 7:10)

Day 13
Pray that your husband use practical skills to build your family and make wise decisions for your
welfare. Pray that he will serve unselfishly. (Gal. 5:13; Phil. 2:3-4)

Day 14
Pray that your husband will speak words that build you and your family, and reflect a heart of
love. Pray that he will not use filthy language. (Prov. 18:21; Eph. 4:29)

Day 15
Pray that your husband will choose his friends wisely. Pray that God will bring him men who
will encourage his accountability before God, and will not lead him into sin. (Prov. 13:20; Prov.
27:17)

Day 16
Pray that your husband will choose healthy, God-honoring activities. Pray that he will not live in
bondage to any questionable habits or hobbies, but that he will experience freedom in holiness as
he yields to the Spirit’s control. (1 Cor. 6:12, 10:31; 2 Tim. 2:4)

Day 17
Pray that your husband will enjoy his manliness as he patterns his life after Christ and strong
men in the faith. Pray for his physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual strength. (Eph.
3:16; 1 Peter 2:21; 1 Cor. 10:11)

Day 18
Pray that your husband will have an eternal perspective—living in light of eternity. Pray that he
will reject materialism and temporal values and put God first in his life. (Matt. 6:33; Deut. 6:5;
Eph. 5:16; Ps. 90:12)

Day 19
Pray that your husband will be patient and a man of peace. Pray that he will not give in to anger,
but will allow the Holy Spirit to control his responses. (Rom. 14:19; Ps. 34:14)

Day 20
Pray that your husband will yield his mind and thoughts to the Lord. Pray that he will not
entertain immoral or impure thoughts, and that he will resist the temptation to indulge in
pornography. (Prov. 27:12; 2 Cor. 10:5)

Day 21
Pray that your husband will learn how to relax in the Lord and, in his greatest times of stress,
find joy and peace in his relationship with God. Pray that he will submit his schedule to the Lord.
(Neh. 8:10; Prov. 17:22; Ps. 16:11)

Day 22
Pray that your husband will practice forgiveness in your relationship and with others. Pray that
he will recognize any roots of bitterness, and yield any resentment and unforgiving attitudes to
the Lord. (Eph. 4:32; Heb. 12:15)

Day 23
Pray that your husband will be a good father—disciplining his children wisely and loving them
unconditionally. If he is not a father, pray that he will find a young man to mentor in the things
of the Lord. (Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21; 2 Tim. 2:1-2)

Day 24
Pray that your husband will have a balanced life—that he will balance work and play. Pray that
he will fear God, but also gain favor with people he knows at work and church. (Luke 2:52;
Prov. 13:15)

Day 25
Pray that your husband will be courageous in his stand against evil and injustice, and that he will
stand for the truth. Pray that he will protect you and your family from Satan’s attacks. (Ps.
31:24; Eph. 6:13; Ps. 27:14)

Day 26
Pray that your husband will discover and live his God-given purpose. Pray that he will offer all
his dreams to the Lord, and pursue only those goals that will bring God glory and count for
eternity. (Jer. 29:11; 1 Cor. 10:31)

Day 27
Pray that your husband will understand the importance of taking care of his body—the temple of
the Holy Spirit—for the glory of God. Pray that he will practice self-control by making wise
food choices, and get sufficient exercise to stay healthy. (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 6:19-20, 9:27)

Day 28
Pray that your husband will be a man of prayer. Pray that he will seek and pursue God in
purposeful quiet times. (1 Thess. 5:17; Luke 22:46; James 5:16)

Day 29
Pray that your husband will surrender his time and talents to the Lord. Pray that his spiritual gifts
will be manifest in his career, at church, and in your home. (Eph. 5:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:4, 7)

Day 30
Pray that your husband will serve God and others with pure motives. Pray that he will obey the
Lord from his heart, and glorify Him in everything. (1 Cor. 10:13; John 7:17-18; Col. 3:23-24)

Day 31
Pray that your husband will recognize the lies of the Enemy in his life. Pray that his attitudes and
actions will be guided by the truth as he brings his thoughts into captivity to the Word of God.
(John 8:44; 2 Cor. 10:4-5)

Print off a nice page from here:
http://www.reviveou rhearts.com/ pdf/prayingforyo urhusband. pdf

------------ --------- --------- ---

I'm moving

2007-12-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

I'm moving this blog over to a new one with my friend Valerie from ChristianPreschoolPrintables.com and many other sites that she has. Please come over and see us at Lapbooklessons.com and my new blog jasmines.lapbooklessons.com.
Blessings!

Advent

2007-11-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

This year we'll be trying something new in our home. I've found some great links on Advent and Jesse Tree's that I think are worthwhile.
Over on Jen's blog she has done a ton of research on links that I plan on checking out. Thanks, Jen, for sharing!

http://photojenic.wordpress.com/

Here's a free download you can print out. It's an Advent calendar you put together. It's 4 pages (I think!), and I'm going to glue the bottom pages onto cardboard - an empty cereal box works great!. And then I'll cut the windows out on the top pages and attach them to the bottom pages. Once you open the link, you'll see how it all fits together!

http://janbrett.com/christmas_treasury_advent_calendar.htm

Other than that, it's been a busy week. I'm still new at the whole blogging thing, and not very consistent, but spare time is not in my vocaulary lately :) Schooling is my MAIN priority, and it takes so much planning and discipline to stay on top of everything...WHEW! Plus the daily training of my children seems to be an every second of every minute of every hour of every day task. Double WHEW!!

Speaking of...Duty calls...

Leave a note for me if you liked the links!! :)

Sugarplum's Thanksgiving lapbook

2007-11-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here's our Sugarplum's lapbook, we mostly studied the history of the Pilgrims and the Mayflower. We colored a map of the Mayflower's voyage, and we did Valerie from CPP's 'What they brought' layered book, and her Bible verse cards.

Our big girl, 6 worked a little on vocabulary words

She listed her blessings, and compared Pilgrim children with children today...

We learned a little about the Wompanoag nation and what the first Thanksgiving was like.

She even made her own version of the 'Pilgrim, Pilgrim' mini-book by using the words from the poem and adding her own artwork. We used Draw, Write Now! book 2 for the pictures she drew.

Superman's Thanksgiving lapbook

2007-11-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

Our little guy did his own lapbook. He's 4 and really not into coloring/writing yet :) He did one of the mini-books from enchanted learning and did his 5 senses turkey book. We did Valerie's layered book on what the Pilgrim's brought. And at the bottom is his handprint turkey.

What a mom says in one day

2007-11-13T21:49:00.001-08:00

My philosophy

2007-11-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

I love to see parents with a heart for their children-not just their education, but their well being, their morals, their spirit life, all the parts that get clouded by the world. As one wise pioneer homeschool mom said:
"If all you do is disciple your children, your worst day homeschooling isbetter than the best day at government or private school away from you."
Academics are important but not the *most* important. Without a properworld-view and a spiritual foundation, education/academics just make a "moreclever devil" (I think that is C. S. Lewis' term, not mine).

Thanksgiving Lapbook

2007-11-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

So this is my first time doing this, and I'm not sure it's working, but here goes. I can't get the links to do their thing today--ah, the challenges of the not-so-techy!

Over at http://www.christianpreschoolprintables.com/, Valerie has started a meme on Pilgrims which is fantastic because that is exactly what I was searching for for our next lapbook. I love this site and the work she puts into it is amazing!

For this month, we're going to break it down into 4 weeks. Each week, I plan on focusing on a different part of our theme.

Week 1-The Mayflower- http://www.plimoth.org/ Has some tons of info!
A site where you can sign up to receive emails from a pilgrim child and a Native American child - http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/letters.asp

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/thanksgiving/map/ also has a map and a Mayflower craft.

Week 2- We'll learn about life in the new World for the Seperatist (Pilgrim) children http://www.plimoth.org/ for more on that.

This site has a pilgrim page, and a Thanksgiving page and a Native page visit http://www.littlegiraffes.com/pilgrimpage.html

Week 3-We'll study some Native American Culture

Week 4-Thanksgiving Icons:
Cornacopia
Corn
Turkey

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/thanksgiving/index.html for a bunch of free printables and ideas.

A breath of fresh air

2007-08-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Well a new school year is on the horizon and I am slowly getting it together. I have been getting my year plan organized in my head and now that I have a couple of weeks off of daycare, I'll be able to relax and put everything onto paper. I'm a paper person, if it's not on paper, it isn't real, going to happen or able to stop floating around in my head. I already have the first week planned out, but I'd like to create a school planner or buy one if I can find one I like so I can keep it all organized in one place.

The hard part-well one of the hard parts-- of this year is trying to forsee how everything will fit together. Like, will I do notebooks or lapbooks for Bible time, or just have them read the Bible? How will I fit Five in a Row into everything else we have going on? Will I be able to schedule any of our h.s. co-op classes into our week? I am not the kind of person who can just fly by the seat of my pants; I need a plan, a yes or no answer, plan A and plan B...Ah the grid-like mind can sometimes drive me crazy, lol. I know it will all come together eventually.

I need a breath of fresh air before I begin, before we begin. So we are going to be doing that tomorrow. Get away from everything, everyone, every family drama, every worry and care of school, work, money, house, etc., etc, etc. IT will be good, no great to set everything aside and just BE for the day. We all need a breath of fresh air to clear our minds, settle our spirit, come back to our center, and regain our perspective and focus on the ONE who really matters.

a post from me :)

2007-07-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

Just a post from me. A couple of friends have wondered why *I* haven't posted anything here yet,just put up some good articles. LIke I said, I'm just starting this blog and I wanted to get some good reads up. Plus, I really don't have tons and tons of free time to dream up interesting things to say, lol.

I'm not perfect, nor do I aim to be. I don't think I have to be 'perfect' to be a homeschooler, or a mother for that matter. I just live in the grace and mercy of a loving Heavenly Father, who I daily run to warts and all crying for forgiveness, mercy and strength. I cannot be responsible for anyone's reaction to the call on my life. I can only hear what my Father tells me and only by His grace do I attempt to live on the path He calls me to. The tender Holy Spirit is my guide and friend as I put my trust in Him.

I know not everyone feels the same way, so no flaming here *K*!! All posts will be moderated.

When inspiration hits me, I'll be sure to post it here. Today is not that day. After an almost sleepless night due to heat and restless babies, and a day of non-stop action with my kids plus a few extras, I feel my brain is draining(an inside joke of me and Gabe). I still have an appointment later today and the rest of life's details to take care of. Glug, glug, there goes the last of my energy.

TTFN!

10 Habits of a Happy Homeschool MOM (or any mom :) )

2007-07-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didn't write this, but it's a great idea list for any mom out there, and no, I haven't quite got all of these down in my own life, but I like the ideas presented.

As I’ve reflected over the last ten years of teaching my children, a few habits we have developed over time have come to mind that have helped our home to be a happy place of learning.

1. I rise before my children and have at least ½ hour to myself and I dress and make my bed first thing and greet each child with a ‘good morning’ and a smile. This doesn’t come natural for me because my dad was a night owl and I followed in his footsteps. The change was not easy, but has been very rewarding.

2. We have a general routine that gives my children a map for their day. They feel secure and happy knowing the day’s general plan and their duties.

3. Every afternoon I have one hour to myself. No interruptions allowed (unless a child is bleeding to death!). My children are required to be on their beds at this time reading or writing what they wish, but no noise allowed. We’ve done this since they were toddlers and call it Quiet time.

4. I continue to educate myself as well as keep up a hobby. I consider this very important for ALL mothers.

5. I keep four books going at all times by my bedside and read ½ hour before bed, choosing whatever book I am in the mood for at the time. (fiction, spiritual, nonfiction and a child’s book I am proofreading)

6. I purpose not to yell and try to be pleasant when correcting, remaining firm, but kind. I am still learning to do this, but see the improvement and it makes everyone’s day go well since mom sets the tone for the day. What a great and wonderful responsibility given to mothers!

7. The children play outside at least two hours a day whether they want to or not. We also sharply limit unattended playtime with other children. The TV is in our bedroom so is virtually unused except for news and the occasional carefully chosen video or DVD.

8. We eat supper together in the evenings and we speak of worthy subjects. Often the children narrate to dad stories from the day’s lessons. It is a happy time.

9. We have a bedtime routine that includes mom or dad talking and praying with the children before bed and we make sure that they are not sad or angry while drifting off to sleep.

10. One evening a week is reserved for Family Fun Night -- even if it means saying ‘no’ to invitations elsewhere and one evening a week is Date Night for mom and dad -- even if it means staying at home and putting the children to bed early.

Lastly and most importantly, I have allowed myself to dream (or shall I say I have been given a vision?) and I’ve made all decisions in light of it, even when ridiculed. This has required the development of a thick skin. But history has shown us that anyone who blazed their own trail, who heard the beat of a different drummer and who challenged the status quo, faced similar obstacles --- They also changed the world.

By: Linda fay

Homeschool Freedom By Ellen Davis of Elijah Co.

2007-07-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

Freedom: Frightening and Unfamiliar Territory

by Ellyn Davis of Elijah Company

I want to let you in on THE big secret about home schooling. Home schooling is either the easiest thing you’ve ever done, or the hardest, depending on how stressful it is for you to trust God, trust yourself, and trust your kids and how comfortable you are with freedom of choice. Once, at a home school convention, a lady spoke to Chris and she hit the nail right on the head. She said, “You know why home schooling is so hard? It’s because of the FREEDOM we have.”

And underlying all the other reasons we might have chosen to home school, is the desire to have the FREEDOM to direct and nurture the course of our children’s lives and their education.

Freedom is scary. It makes us want boundaries, rules and regulations so we always know exactly what to do and exactly where our kids stand compared to everybody else’s kids.

It’s like being a Christian, isn’t it? As a Christian we can choose rules or a relationship. Being legalistic is easy, because we know what we have to do to be “acceptable” to God and we can gauge whether we are doing better or worse than we are “supposed” to do. But living out of a true relationship with God can be very hard because we’re not in charge of the standards any more. Only God’s opinion matters, and He tends to judge by the spirit of the law, not the letter.

Because it’s always easier to rely on external measurements in order to know if we are doing things “right,” home schooling parents tend to gradually drift toward some imitation of the public or private (let us say “institutional” ) school, just like a Christian will always tend to drift toward some form of legalism. We like the safety of having a system as well as the security of knowing where we stand at all times. Plus, it’s always easier to have someone else figure things out for us, whether that someone else is our pastor or a curriculum publisher.

So, what’s the point of this article? A gripe session? No. I want to commend all of you who are teaching your children at home. I want everyone who reads this article to know that I understand how scary and hard home schooling can be. First, it goes against every experience we have regarding what education is. Second, it opens us up to a lot of criticism from family and friends. Third, we feel insecure about our ability to pull it off and fourth, we are uncomfortable about using our children as “guinea pigs” while we figure out what we are doing.

Just to attempt home schooling requires a huge leap of faith. In fact, if we are unable to home school “in faith” we might as well send our children to the government (or Church) school.

But I also want you to know that it IS possible to home school in “freedom.” We haven’t done everything perfectly (by earthly standards), but home schooled for over 20 years with our three boys and God has blessed us beyond our wildest hopes. They may not know all the names and dates our minds were crammed full of in public school, but they are responsible, productive, on-fire for God, interesting people who love their families.

This doesn’t mean you can’t assign grade levels (we didn’t). This doesn’t mean you can’t have a plan (we did). What it means is that you recognize the whole manmade industry of institutional “schooling” for what it is: a lie.

John Gatto says (and we agree with him), “School was a lie from the beginning. It continues to be a lie.”

Don’t buy into the lie just because it’s harder not to. For some reason, God has placed in your heart a desire to home school your children. YOU find out why. YOU find out how. Be FREE to do what you find out.