Back to School

Last week was our first week back to school. We of course had to take our annual school photos in front of our house. You can just tell that John and Gracie are best friends. It does my heart good to have them love each other so much. They even remembered how we take their photos lying on their bellies. I was done taking their photos when they asked if they could take one lying down. Children just love traditions, don’t they?

This year we added Heart of Dakota (HOD) to our lineup. We have just thoroughly enjoyed our first week with it. We started out reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. We talked about it being a biography and the children each gathered five things that told things about themselves. Gracie of course is our horse lover and so it didn’t surprise me when she brought a horse out.

John’s things were a toy (he loves to play), a Dr. Seuss book (he loves to read), a piece of paper (he loves to write stories and draw pictures), a craft we did in geography last year (he loves to do crafts), and a tape recorder (he loves to record his stories).

In the geography plans, John and Gracie enjoyed hopping, spinning, crawling, and jumping to each of the continents.

For science we were talking about whales including the job of a whale’s blubber. This of course led to a science experiment.

I just love Gracie’s reaction in the photo below. They got to see how our Creator truly gives the us and even the animals everything that they need to live.

The asked me to leave the Crisco out as they wanted Daddy to do the experiment when he got home and being the good daddy that he is, he jumped right in.

One thing I’m really feeling good about is that HOD includes poetry in their daily plans. I really feel like I was not exposed to good poetry like I should have been in school and therefore had a hard time writing poetry when asked to. This won’t be the case for John and Gracie. They loved learning The Storm by Sara Coleridge. HOD suggests allowing the child to add hand motions. To be honest, I was going to leave that part out, but they naturally did it on their own. Can you tell they had fun doing so?

They learned Psalm 4:8, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." It was such a blessing because John admitted that at night he will worry in his bed about things. He said he would worry that our house would catch on fire, etc. He even came to me one night last week and said that he was worrying that his bed was in quicksand. (Can you tell they are listening to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress?) I then quoted him his memory verse and asked if he needed to pray together. He told me no that he was better now. The Lord is so good to give us what we need when we need it. He knew John would need Psalm 4:8 this week. In the photo below Gracie is sharing her memory verse with her stuffed animal.

In history we learned about the pioneers who came to America and how they had to trust in the Lord to keep them safe. Our art project tied in with that. Psalm 28:7 says, “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”

We just had a really great first week with HOD. I love the living books, how the Word of God is tied in, and that it has many hands on activities that are already planned for me and easy to implement.

Gracie is even telling everybody that she loves school!!!! This is coming for a little girl who all last year and even before school started this year said that she just wanted to play all day. Each day she’s gotten up and said, “Let’s get our school work done today.”

My Blessings

21. Anticipating beautiful sunshine
22. Sermon on gentleness preached by my husband
23. Cuddling with my children (who fill my entire lap and arms)
24. Listening to John sing songs he has written
25. Seeing Gracie twirl in her new pretty skirts made for her by a friend
26. Receiving books in the mail from an online friend (Thank you, Debbie.)
27. being able to encourage someone else in homeschooling
28. a successful first playgroup/coop last Friday
29. being able to seek the Lord's guidance even in the small things
30. a new pretty pink hyacinth in my front yard

Psalm 34:1, " I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

I Love Books, Momma!

This morning John read aloud to me for 15 minutes, then it was Gracie's turn. The timer went off and her time was up. They both begged to read more. I told them I was starving and didn't they want to eat?

Gracie's reply was, "I love books, Momma." John then said, "Don't you remember that verse, Man shall not live by bread alone, Momma?" I told him that I did know that verse and quoted it fully for him, explaining that it was talking about God's Word, not just any book. He then told me that reading all these books would prepare them to read God's Word with no problem. Who could argue with that? They each read two more books until my stomach couldn't take it any longer.

This was a blessing to my heart as John was trying to make a practical application of the Word of God. Also one of my goals as a mother was to instill a love of reading into my children. As an adult I've talked with others who have a hard time reading the Bible because they do not enjoy reading in general. Maybe I've accomplished atleast one of my parenting goals.

Giving Thanks

I Thessalonians 5:18, "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

1. My salvation through Christ (not of my own goodness)
2. My husband who loves me more than I deserve
3. John, my firstborn who is a sensitive soul
4. Gracie, my little girl who always has a song of praise on her little lips



5. Convicting sermon Sunday morning on needing revival
6. God's grace (God's Richest At Christ's Expense)
7. Singing with my children on the way to Church
8. Older women who've gone on before me
9. Our warm house when so many in this world don't even have a home
10. My dirty laundry, as it's a sign we've been blessed
11. My dirty dishes, again we're blessed
12. The Holy Spirit that speaks to me in a still small voice
13. Pure white snow, a picture of His forgiveness (Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.)
14. Read-alouds with my children
15. An afghan that reminds me of my grandma
16. Talking with a friend
17. The date with my husband this past Friday (few and far between)
18. Being able to talk to Amos about future schooling plans
19. The Word of God
20. Freedom in our country

Visit Ann at Holy Experience to read what others are thankful for.

Weekly Wrap-Up January 8

This is our first week back since the Holidays. I think the only hiccups we had were it seemed I had to remind Gracie a lot to get busy. By the end of the week, I was really having to remind myself to be gracious, then I realized that it was our first week back and that this probably goes along with not doing school for 2 weeks.

Math- John spent time learning to measure inches and use his ruler. Gracie is just starting with simple addition.

Spell to Write and Read- We all enjoyed a new phonogram game. Daddy even joined us playing, even though he's not familiar with all the different phonograms, but he did a great job.

Unit Study- We just started Galloping the Globe. We weren't enjoying our previous history studies, so I made the switch. Why be miserable the rest of the year? We really enjoyed using Geography Songs to help memorize the continents and oceans. John already knew them, but not Gracie. I'd say by day 3 she had them memorized. To be honest, I didn't know quite where all the oceans were, so this even helped out momma. Super fun. John is really enjoying using this geography book as well. We also learned a ton about Columbus. More than I ever remembered from school. We had fun playing this game as well.

Science- John continued on with his studies on Astronomy.

Read aloud- I read aloud Beautiful Feet Books: Columbus. The pictues in this book are beautiful.

I've been working on inspiring John to want to read more. I don't know. He loves to write his own books, etc. and will read to me whenever asked without complaint, but never just books up a book on his own to read unless it's to do with space and plants. So I've been determined to change that. I've laminated this reading chart and bought this bookmark timer and he's read 8 books in one week. This momma is super happy. Guess I just needed to inspire him some.

We didn't make it to our art and music like I'd hoped, but hopefully next week. Plus the kids have been playing in all the beautiful snow we've gotten and John has been praying for more.

This is our first week joining the Weekly Wrap up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers . It was fun reviewing what we've done.

Winter Fun

Today was on of those winter storm days. It's been snowing since this morning and still is. I love it!!! To be honest, I hate the cold, but I love when we get a lot of snow. It usually means daddy is home shoveling, John and Gracie are outside playing, and I'm inside (after taking photos) making yummy things for my family. Today I tried two new recipes, Mexican Hot Chocolate and Cinnamon Spiced Nuts.

Today I I whipped out John and Gracie's cleaning spray bottles, emptied them, and refilled them with water and some food coloring, so they could decorate the snow and their snow cakes they were making.

John has been waiting all winter to be able to get to a clean, safe icicle to eat. Today his wish was fulfilled.

Gracie was just rolling around and around in the snow. It was crazy. I don't know how she wasn't freezing except that she had 4 layers of clothes on. :)

John was praciticing turning the sled. Later on Amos got out the cornhole boards, and they built ramps at the bottom of the hill and the bottom of the swing set slide. They really had fun, even daddy.

Here's Gracie's snow cake she was hard at work on. They even requested sugar, which momma gave them. Of course it was the white stuff, that's cheap.

The above picture was the other yummy, new recipe that I tried today. Super good!!! It tasted very similar to those expensive almonds we get at the zoo once a year during the Festival of Lights.

Here's the recipe:

Cinnamon Spiced Nuts

1 egg white

2 tbs. water

3 1/2 c. mixed nuts

3/4 c. brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Beat egg white and water. Stir in nuts until moist. Drain. Combine dry ingredients. Stir in nuts until coated. Put nuts on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 250 for 30 minutes. Enjoy!!

Botany and Astronomy Notebooking Journal Giveaway!

Apologia is now producing notebooking journals that accompany each of the elementary science books. Both Botany and Astronomy are now available.

These journals are beautiful spiral bound notebooks that will save you time and money. You won't have to print and keep up with your child's notebook pages, buy and maintain page protectors, or purchase and compile binders...everything that makes notebooking time-consuming and labor intensive for mom. Also, your child will adore having their own notebooking journal.

Each of the notebooking journals include:
1. A daily schedule for those who like to have a plan or would like their children to complete the book on their own
2. Templates for written narrations, the notebooking activities and experiments
3. Review Questions
4. Scripture Copywork, with both print and cursive practice
5. Reading lists and additional activities, projects, experiments for each lesson
6. An appendix with beautiful, full-color, lapbook-style Miniature Books
7. Field Trip Sheets to keep a record field trips
8. A Final Review with fifty questions the students can answer either orally or in writing to show off all they remember and know at the end of the course.

See the sample pages for Botany and Astronomy.

Jeannie is giving away four Astronomy Notebooking Journals and four Botany Notebooking Journals to bloggers who post about this on her site. Visit her blog to learn more about this contest.

We personally just ordered the Astronomy Notebook and it is absolutely beautiful. We are super excited to be using this next year. I'm having to hold my son back as he wants to do it right now. He's also wants me to order the Botany book as well as he loves plants.

Hummingbirds

Earlier this week, I determined that we were going to get outside and learn some more things about God's creation especially since we were having nice weather coming up. A couple months ago my mom had bought John some thing to attract hummingbirds and since it was winter time, we just saved them back. When I was trying to come up with something to do I remembered our hummingbird things. John found these things in his workboxes yesterday morning. So we started studying the hummingbird yesterday and then to my surprise in my e-mail today I got a post from Barb saying the next bird she was studying was the hummingbird.



Here John is looking at our Birds of Ohio book and listening to the accompanying CD. We learned the hummingbird doesn't have a call, but they mainly chat at each other.

Gracie bought this book with her own money about birds. We love it! We could hear the humming of their wings on this recording.

Above Gracie is trying to open the feeder and below John is adding water to the hummingbird mixture. When we're out of this, we'll try making out own. Some friends have told us that it's really easy.

Below John has scissors and yarn because the feeder wouldn't hang on our hook so we had to add yarn to it.

LINKS

*Here is a page with facts about a hummingbird honoring the Lord as Creator

*You can find activities and puzzles about hummingbirds here

*We really liked these coloring pages. Just scroll down a bit until you see hummingbird.

*Here's some fun online coloring.

*Beautiful photos of all kinds of hummingbirds

*Here's a yummy looking recipe for a hummingbird cake. We haven't got to make it yet, but we will.

We are really hoping we'll see some hummingbirds at our feeder soon. Don't forget to head to Barb's blog for some other links. The children and I really enjoyed the video of the hummingbirds that she posted plus she'll give you ideas of other things to read to find out more about hummingbirds.

Kathie Morrisey- My Convention Notes

We were able to attend the homeschool convention this past week and had a good time, but exhausting time as well. I would say the most influencial session for me was done by Kathie Morrissey. It wasn't that I've never heard some of these things. It was just this is what the Lord has really been working on my heart about for me and my children. The one thing I loved is that she kept talking about how much work it was and even how you have to die to self to do this. I feel like in life I struggle with the constant work and dying to the flesh. It's just nice to know that I'm normal.

The following notes are both mine and a sheet Kathie had available.

Training Character Into Your Children

How Kids Learn Character:
1. Example or social exposure-As parents we need to expose them to Godly role models and protect them from bad character
2. Discipline- Rather than looking at it as a disturbance, look at it as an opportunity to train in Godly character
3. Positive constructive teaching-We can't leave it to chance. We must have a plan.

Setting up a plan:
1. Start early with a lifestyle designed with purpose. What are we trying to accomplish? Set goals. If you aim at nothing;you'll hit it.
II Peter 1:5-8 says, "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Teach your kids to think God's thoughts-Memorize Scripture, sing Scripture, correct with Scripture and read God's Word.
3. Choose specific traits to focus on. I need to start on what's frustrating me the most.
4. Focus on that trait for a week (longer if needed).
5. Pray that you will exemplify this trait. Our kids become what we are.
6. Correct consistently with Scripture. Don't slack even when we're tired and discouraged. Say, "I know you love God and want to please Him, so we need to work on ________."
7. Measure and check progress. Our children then can see their progress and be encouraged.
8. Encourage often. This is very important. We need to encourage more than talking about the negative.
9. Don't expect everything at once. It's a process. It usually gets worse before it gets better. Why? The devil.
10. Keep yourself motivated, encouraged, and focused with good books and tapes.

That's the end of my notes. I did purchase two books from Kathie. I'm very excited about implementing them in our home. I've already been using Proverbs for Parenting and it's been a huge blessing already. I'll post about that later.

The two resources I got were: Proverbs for Parenting (scroll down some) and Character Building for Families, Volume 1.