Boys, School and Fun....Lots of Fun

Homeschooling in Texas

2010-08-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

is going to be very different than in VA! I went to an information meeting for one of the NUMEROUS homeschool groups around me tonight and was pleased as well as shocked! There were ALOT of ladies there - I think the group has over 270 families and that is just in 1 county! We also joined a group in the county on the other side of us and I am not sure how many families that group has but I am sure it is close to that! Nice to have options!! I am in shock though over the acceptance and ease of homeschooling here. They have homeschool sections at several of the used book stores around, at the Christian Store they have a HUGE homeschool section and they even have a Home Educators Resource store!! It is a different world!

I am still not ready to start but we did start on Monday with our new Daily Board(will show pics later) and some reading and establishing the routine of our day - somewhat! I did add in Quiet Time or Alone Time this year and so far it is the best thing I have done! Everyday from 1-3 the boys are off to their own corners for some alone time! We all just need to be away from each other for a little bit and it is really gonna be good for them to be alone and play,read, listen to books or adventures in odyssey and even just lay on their bed and stare at the ceiling!!

I am really hoping to be able to share what our plans are for this year and show you how we are doing things here sometime this weekend!

I am gonna get to go to a QandA in Frisco with some ladies who have been doing things the Charlotte Mason way for quite a few years and I am excited to be able to pick some brains and ask some questions - especially about high school!!!

AAHHH...School

2010-07-31T21:00:00.001-07:00

I am so anxious to get started back with school, get organized and just do it!! All this moving is making me crazy and feel so out of sorts - everything is in boxes! I can't get stuff ready or organized and together to get started and I so want to!!
I also can't cruise thru all my blogs I follow to get ideas from all of you out there and see what you are doing different or the same for this year - I am having to find wifi on the fly as we go places since I had the internet cut off - what was I thinking??? If I sit on my porch in 1 spot I can connect!!
We will be moving on Tuesday and unpacking on sat - YEAH!!! I will have 1 week to get everything ready and organized for school then we are off and running!!!

Convention JOY

2010-06-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

I found lots of goodies I needed for Alex at the used curriculum sale and then at the last minute .....guess what I did......big shock for those who know me.....I changed my mind!!! I had fully decided to use Sonlight Core 200 History of God's Kingdom for his 10th grade year - until I got my hands on the Teacher's Manual! It is HUGE and it overwhelmed me from the first time I picked it up! I bought it because I needed it for my plan but after I spent soem time looking it over I canned it! We are a Charlotte Mason family and I am not ready to give up that philosophy just because he is older!! So - back to the drawing board! I did find a Literature program I am pretty excited about. I am starting with the first one in her series because he hasn't had a good intro to lit so I want him to get the info and skills from this book as well as all the rest! I am hoping to do Book 1 & 2 in one year - a bit ambitous I know! I got to spend some time talking to Janice and it was so worth it for me! She had some really good insights and info to share!
He is doing Algebra 2 with Teaching Textbooks and Biology from Apologia. He wants to finish World History so I will be looking for something CM style to go from 1500(where he left off this year) on. We will also do Language Lessons from Queen Homeschool - I think. I spent some time looking at it at convention and I love that it has some elements that he has yet to be introduced to - picture study, narration, copywork, dictation - and these are things I want him to get so....I just need to decide which level to buy for him. I have also found a Bible Study for him thru Simply Charlotte Mason. I like the way it is set up with lots of repitition!

The younger boys didn't really get much that was new except for a new guide for mommy from Simply Charlotte Mason. I bought 2 actually - Genesis thru Dueteronomy and Joshua thru Malachai and Ancient Greece then got home and realized we were much farther along in Dueteronomy than I thought. I also got a science study from them that I am super excited about. I also got to spend some time talking to Sonya Shafer at their booth and she was fantastic!

Being able to talk to these people at their booths is a new discovery for me this year and boy does it help to make decisions and to just get info! I am such a people pleaser I didn't want to 'bother them' in past years but this year I felt more comfortable reaching out and it was so worth it!

Boy do I love convention! Getting ready for next year is gonna be FUN!
The little ones and I are still doing school and will all summer. I like that it gives us focus and the ability to not be so strict(ha!ha! as if) during the school year - it is all the school year! Will write more on that later......

Going to Convention

2010-06-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

Oh...How I LOVE convention!!! All those books at the used sale - I go through there at least 3 times(probably lots more) and always find treasures!! Then there is the exhibit hall - full of new, old, fun school things I never knew I needed! I could and do spend hours wandering thru there looking, touching, reading, looking some more and sometimes even buying! It is completely overwhelming in every sense but I LOVE IT!!!

We have been so crazy busy these past few months and I miss blogging but I have really been trying to be more purposeful in how I spend my time and trying to actually go to bed at night!!!

Homeschooling in Texas

2010-04-29T20:19:00.001-07:00

is gonna be so different than it is here! I have spent many a night these past 2 weeks looking up info about homeschooling high school and just homeschooling in general online. I am in awe of what I have found that is going to be available to us in Texas!
The first biggest shock was finding the Homeschool Sports Athletic Assoc. Yes - it is sports of all types - football,baseball,soccer,track&field,volleyball,basketball - for homeschoolers and it is huge and is in the area where we will be moving!! HooRaa!! Alex is thrilled and so am I - for him!
I have found 2 or 3 possible coops that we could be involved in. I was not looking for a coop because the younger boys have never liked going to coop but I did want to find something for the high schooler we will be adding into the mix next year!! I found a coop that will offer the majority of Alex's classes(so i will not be his teacher - just the nagger) and the choices for the little ones are amazing!!! Stephen can take Lego simple machines, tae kwon do, archery and those are just a couple of the choices!! They are all pretty excited about coop now!!
Coop has never been my thing - I am so not a scheduled person - but if we have to be there for Alex we may as well enjoy what is available - right??? Since it is enjoyable it should be a much pleasanter experience than it has in the past!!!
There are 2 or 3 other organizations for homeschoolers in our area and I am a tad bit excited to get out there and see for myself if it is all as good as it looks online!!!

We are moving.......

2010-04-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

....to Texas!!
This is what I just posted on my family blog and i thought I owuld share it with you guys too!! Getting our house ready to move is why you won't hear from me very often over the next few weeks or so....it is probably going to be sporadic for awhile!! Miss me!!!
While we were in Texas for vacation Dan had an interview with Target in the Frisco area for a possible transfer to that area. Well - it seems that God wants us in Texas - they have a position for my hubby in the area where all of our family is living!!! We are not sure exactly what store he will be in yet but we do know he will be in that general area and that is good enough for us! Dan has 3 sisters(and their families), his mom and dad, 2 aunts and 1 cousin and his family and they all live within 20 miles of each other. My sister and her family will be moving to that exact same area this summer also!! Once we found out my sister was moving to that area we immediately started praying about what God has for us here in Harrisonburg and if moving to Texas was something we should pursue or not. We felt he answered with a very sound 'yes' so we started the process of asking for a transfer and it just worked out that Dan was able to interview while we were there on vacation!!
God has definately been guiding this decision and has his hand all over this and we are believing and trusting in him completely(or trying to) to work out all the details to get us there! Selling our house is gonna be the biggie! We are believing in God that it will all work for the good!!
This is a very hard move to make! We have never lived near family and it has been good for us but also bad and sad for us as the kids are getting older. We have been blessed by so many families and people in so many different ways since we moved to the Valley that it has been like having family around us! Every step of the way, thru the good and the bad of our 5 years here in the valley, we have been surrounded with love and support and friends and we are truly going to miss the people that have had such a huge impact in our lives!! We have all grown tremendously, in our faith and our walk with God and our commitment to family, since we moved here that it is easy to look back and see why God brought us to this place when he did!!
It has been hard at times to not have the unconditional support of family that this is exciting for us to be able to move to a place that we will be surrounded by family members!! We are fully aware this can be stressful at times but it will be worth it for my boys to be able to play with any of their 12 cousins that will live within 30 miles of them - any time they want to!!!
We are sad, excited, hopeful and trusting that the things God has in store for us cannot be measured - good and bad!!
God is Good.....All the Time

Life gets in the Way

2010-04-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

I am struggling with keeping up with the blogs! I am really trying to be more purposeful in how I spend my time and by doing this I am not finding much time to spend online blogging! I will definately keep posting but they might be fewer and farer(pretty sure that is not a word) between!
We have been having some pretty good discussions about whether or not to bring Alex home and homeschool him for the rest of High School. He is pretty confident he wants to come home so we are gearing up to add him into the mix for next year! He visited Classical Conversations a couple weeks ago and seemed to think it would be okay to do that and I absolutely love their program for the older kids so if he does come home we will be doing Classical Conversations challenge program with him for the rest of his high school.

I started doing the MFW 1st grade with Ben and I absolutley love the program. the first time I did it was with Stephen and I skipped some of the parts and I am now realizing those parts seemed silly or not important to me but they were and are very foundational to his success! I will not be skipping any parts of this program with ben but we will be doing it double time since we are at the end of his first grade year! Thankfully, for us, it is not a big deal if he is not exactly on track with his age/grade that the school system tells us he should be in.

Kindergarten

2010-03-24T22:54:00.001-07:00

is coming for Thomas next year! It is gonna be interesting to see if his mother can actually pull it off!! For 2 years we have been telling him 'no - you don't have to do school - this is for brothers - go play or sit with us quietly'. Let me just say to all of you with little ones - NEVER EVER say this to your child - it will come back to haunt you! Granted he almost always chose to sit with us(and not quietly I might add) but now that I have started talking about starting school next year - he is retty adamant that he will NOT be doing school!

it is hard to fuss at a child that walks around all day telling me - 'mommy. i love you' constantly and for no reason at all.

i do know that i will be using My Father's World Kindergarten program to teach him to read. I used part of it with Ben and I used part of the 1st grade with Stephen. We are currently using The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading - which I like alot - but every time I pull out this big ol book to do reading/phonics with Ben he goes crazy! Do I have to do that whole book? Not right now just this page today. But that whole book has to be done? Over and Over!
I just recently acquired the MFW 1st Grade TM and student stuff at a local used curriculum sale and so I will be starting that with Ben this week and hopefully he will be a little bit happier with that!
Anyways....all that to say I am a little bit nervous about how Thomas is gonna fit into the scheme of 'school'. he will be doing is own Reading program and math and I am hoping he will just tag along with the rest of the stuff with us - pretty much like he does know. It never seems like we have enough time in the day to get it all done(poor planning or laziness on my part for sure) and we are adding a non reader to the program!

Bendaroos

2010-03-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

When we were in GA we visited a Toys R Us - the boys have never seen one before!! It was quite an experience for all of us - I was overwhlemed by the amount of toys that are available to kids - it is crazy!!
Anyways....I did find these cool things that were on sale and I thought they looked like something the boys could do while I was reading.

Well - it turned into quite the activity. They spent hours building creatures with these things.

These Bendaroos are really cool and fun!! They are sticky and yucky but they don't seem to dry out(so far) and the boys love creatinga nd recreating with them!

This turned into a school day for us!!!

Our Week

2010-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

So often I read these weekly wrap ups from other HS blogs and I wish I took the time to do it for us but I just never do! Alot of the time I feel like we didn't do much that week - which could be true or could not depending on the week.
This is one of those times that I find myself comparing to other HS moms and I get so down on myself about what we are or aren't doing and it frustrates me that i do this to myself!!
It is times like this that I so often get reminded of how amazing it is to just be able to be home with my boys and watch them learn and grow in so many ways - not just what they are learning in school but what they are learning in life!
I love doing school the Charlotte mason way but the plan we have been following didn't have any 'projects' so I borrowed My Father's World Creation to the Greeks from a friend to get some ideas. I love some of the projects they do in their curriculum!

The boys each built a Pyramid from sugar cubes........

I was feeling like the proud teacher when they decided to make small pyramids all around the big one for the wives - since they weren't buried with the Pharaohs!

Daddy was home so he helped Thomas

Stephen picked up on the pattern pretty quick and he was off and running

The finished Pyramids....

How we did it:

*Each boy had 1 box of sugar cubes(the only place we could find them was at Food Lion)

*1 8x8 piece of cardboard

*the bottom of the Pyramid is 8 rows of 8 - it could have been bigger since each boy had their own box of cubes - maybe 10 rows of 10

*the next row is centered on the line of the 2 cubes underneath it

*keep building up until you get to the 1 on top

*you should have enough left over to make small pyramids too!

I can't wait till we get to the Plaques of Egypt.....those will be fun!

Living Math Books

2010-03-06T17:14:00.000-08:00

WOW! I found this list of living math books while on my blog hop and I just had to post this list for my readers and for myself!!! I hope you enjoy it!
I would love to hear if you know anything about any of these books at all???

Homeschool Blog Hop

2010-03-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

This is gonna be fun....join in!!! I can't wait to start hopping and meeting some new homeschool moms!

2010-03-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

i had no idea but i am not allowed to share stuff i do on worksheets.com so I am gonna take them off of scribd!! sorry!

Copywork

2010-03-02T22:42:00.001-08:00

I finally started being more regular with our copywork and I love it! Stephen has been writing sentences that I got from Happy Scribe. They have a good selection of copywork books on different topics and you can print them out in different fonts or cursive. Basically each book has 24 pages - each with 1 sentence per page, then a traceable sentence and a couple lines to be able to write the sentence more than once!

I have been struggling with what to do with Ben who is just starting to be comfortable writing. I had some abc printouts and he has been doing 1 letter a day. Now that we are at Z, I started looking for some simple words to have him do and all I could find were sentences, poems and such. I just feel like that is too much to jump to right now. I just want some simple words.

Today I found a website that allows you to make your own copywork worksheets and then save them as a pdf to your computer. I am in hog heaven....I have been making worksheet after worksheet of copywork for the boys!!

I have done - days of the week, months, number words, homonyms, words from the Abeka blend and word book, books of the bible and the ten commandments(since we are getting ready to learn them). Go here to my scribd page and get copies of all the copywork I just made!!

getting back on track

2010-02-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

we went to GA to visit my sister and to get away from the snow - I had had enough! guess where it snowed??? we kept up with school a couple days, the boys had lots of fun playing with their cousins and mommy had a BLAST shopping at the 2 homeschool stores nearby(in their used section).

the boys were glad to come home and get back into our little routine.
Ben made his eggs for breakfast and put whipped cream on them....YUM!!!or GROSS if you asked me

Ben is learning to play Chess at coop. He is learning a new piece each week and only plays with the pieces he has learned. I am loving it because I am learning with him!

The boys actually got into coloring some pics from a dover coloring book about ancient Egypt while I read. Stephen especially was glad to have done such a good job and wanted to make sure he was gonna have a notebook to put his pictures into when he was done!

We had a good week back to school and back at home after our trip. It is always nice to be back into the routine of things.

I did pull a switcheroo with our history just recently. We had been focusing on american history but I realized I needed to get into the 4 year cycle to be able to get thru 1 whole cycle before S starts high school so....Since we have been reading thru the Bible from the beginning and we were only as far as Joseph and he is in Egypt...it made sense to flow right into Ancient Egypt.

The boys are loving it!

2010-01-29T19:54:00.001-08:00

THIS is what happens when you limit the technology......

the imagination gets flowing

the math bears get spread ALL OVER the house and are set up to guard lots of different spaces...

do I scream or laugh?

do I go absolutely CRAZY because there are small pieces of legos, connectagons, bears and whatever else they need for their...whatever....

do I run screaming when I walk into their bedroom???? every single toy they own is on the floor!

OR do I just LOVE the fact that they are not in front of a screen all the time? It was MUCH louder in my house this week and nearly drove me out of my mind but it was worth it!

They really took to this ticket system and were very diligent about using timers and giving me their ticket. It certainly helped that the main computer got attacked by some porn grossness and so the boys are no longer allowed to play internet games! I tried to find more timers at dollar tree but they were all out so they will have to continue to share the 2 that we have until they get them back in stock!

Technology Tickets

2010-01-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the blog world!! It is a tad bit time consuming but I have gotten some really great ideas that work so good for our family that I NEVER EVER would have come up with on my own!!!

I found this true gem a few days ago and it is already in play at our house! I had to do it quick and I didn't get to make it pretty but it is functional and will probably get prettified one of these days!!! I mentioned it to the boys and they were so gung ho to do it that I had to be quick!

I pulled out the hundreds of left over paint chips I have from my adventures this summer!

Each boy has a color(his favorite) that I have been using for him for everything I do! Stephen is green, Ben is orange and Thomas is blue. So I cut apart 12 'tickets' for each boy. And 6 for me(red) to give as rewards or I called them 'Way to Go' tickets when i saw the boys doing something good! I just wrote 1/2 hour on them and hung them up!

I had these little 3M hooks I got after christmas on clearance and they hung perfectly on them so I stuck them to the wall and hung up our Technology Tickets!

I decided to put them up next to our school schedule since we are looking at that so much and are in and out of this room quite often - so I won't forget about using the tickets!

So far - so Good! The only issue I have run into is if they don't use the whole half hour. I only have 2 timers so I couldn't pause the time for one of the boys and I am sure he got more time than he was supposed to but - oh well! I will be going to the dollar tree and getting a timer for each boy so that I can pause their time if they don't use the whole half hour!

I have high hopes for these tickets but as usual it will require me to stay on top of it and be strict about using them so......that is where lots of prayer comes in!!

Schedule

2010-01-17T17:33:00.001-08:00

It took me a couple tries to make a schedule for our week that I liked but it requires me to fill it in each week! I don't mind that part - I just found that I was writing so many of the same things over and over again and we were just going to the next page or chapter that I didn't need to write it down. So - because I got lazy and it wasn't written down I would forget to do it and we ended up where we were last year and that was just doing the basics - which is not what I wanted for our school year. I was so excited when I saw a schedule that was done here and I LOVED IT!!! When I read her post it was like I had written it and I just had to copy her idea!
So - here is what I did.....

I had an old whiteboard sitting in the garage that was not magnetic so I spraypainted it black all over. I was very pleased with how well the spray paint went on over top of the whiteboard - flawless!

after it dried, i used this fabulous glue I have and glued 3 different ribbons to make my 4 days slots. then i hung up the board where the kids and i could reach it!

after i cut, laminated and cut again my subject labels I put a velcro dot on the back of them and hung them up where i wanted them to go each day! I just wrote the days of the week on index cards and velcroed them up too!

The daily subjects are - Bible, Circle Time(verse, calendar and family prayer), Literature(poetry, paddle to the sea, just so stories that we alternate each day or couple of days) phonics, copywork, math & individual reading
Mon & Weds - history, language arts, artist study, composer & timeline
Tues & Thurs - science, spanish, language arts

I put the board in this corner of our school room. It is right next to my desk where all our books and supplies are also kept. The files on my desk are labeled by subject and each file has the books we will need or items we will use for that subject.

I am excited about the boys being able to see what is done and what is left to finish our day!
Now they won't have to keep asking what next? when will we be done?? how much longer??
I am also hoping this will start to initiate soem independence form them. If they can do their copywork they can take down their label and maybe they will do it on their own???

The labels I made are here if you want them!

High School

2010-01-10T22:19:00.000-08:00

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! I am so troubled right now and all I can do is scream - quietly and on paper(or screen) !!! My oldest - who is a freshman in high school has now mentioned that he wants to consider being homeschooled next year and possibly the rest of high school! I am thrilled - I am joyful - I am beside myself that this is coming out of his mouth BUT I am terrified! He is my stepson(he has always been with his dad and since he was 5 he has always also been with me ) and we attempted hs in 7th grade and it was a dismal failure!!! Academically it was a failure. It was my first year of homeschooling and I didnt know what I was doing and didnt have a feel for what we were doing and he wanted me to teach the way he was taught in school and that just wasn't gonna happen! So - it didnt set the bar real high! Now - i will say - it was a huge success in the changes it made in our family life!
Anyways - now I am scared that we will fail again because the pressure is ten times what it was then due to all the college prep, high school transcripts and whatever else goes along with high school and its requirements! I have put off looking into that for fear of getting all excited and caught up in it and then he will change his mind!!! This has to be his decision. I am relaying info to him as i read or find out stuff to keep it in the forefront of his mind but I am also trying to be real subtle and low key about it! For those of you that know me - I don't do low key very well!!!
I do see the huge plus side to this and I am trying to focus on that instead of being scared!
Prayer works!!!! Believe! Faith! These are the three things that keep coming to mind so that is what I am going to focus on!!!

Thanks for listening! Any suggestions or high school info you want to throw my way - bring it on!!!

back to the basics

2009-12-31T23:51:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since we have "done school" that I didn't realize it had been almost a month since I blogged on this blog! I have been doing lots of posts on my family blog - showing off the things I have made, pics of the boys in the snow and I have spent way too much time checking out how people decorated their houses for christmas and things they made as gifts!! I am in awe of the things that people can do and create and I just love that they are so willing to share so I can copy them!!! I have a button to our family blog on the side bar if you want to go see what I have been doing for the past month or so!
Stephen got to show off his geography skills (he has been learning in coop) to grandpa when they visited over the holidays. It was pretty neat to watch them all sit there with my dad and have a conversation about the globe and countries and whatnot! It was one of those "they are learning something" moments and it was pretty amazing!!

So - now that Christmas is over, I no longer have to work, I don't have stuff to make for the store and it feels like we are years behind in school - it is time to get back into gear for the new year!
I wanted to show you the discipline system I have used - just during school time - ever since we started homeschooling. It works REALLY well for us! I got this idea from a fellow HS mom on the internet when I was researching homeschooling and it has been a big motivator for my boys! I wish I knew where I got the idea so I could give her credit!

Each boy has 5 cards. Each card is a different color and represents 5 different things.
Blue - had a good day
Yellow - caution
Green - do an extra chore(usually something gross like toilets or baseboards)
Pink - Lose screen time for the rest of the day
Black - go to bed right after dinner

I just picked the colors at randoma nd made up the discipline that would work for my boys - you could make it anything that will have an effect on your child!
I cut strips of cardstock to fit in the envelope, laminated them and that was it! I wrote on the bottom of the card what that color means because I kept forgetting!

Hanging on the wall in the school room they each have a labeled little envelope for their cards. I am pretty sure I used library pockets as the envelope.

Only one of them has gotten to a green card. they usually get to yellow and they straighten right up! They have never gotten further than a green card!

The biggest decision I have made for this coming year - in regards to school - is that we will only go to friend's houses on fridays. We will not do any visiting during the school week. I have got to be more disciplined in reagrds to our school routine and since I am usually so quick to say 'yes, we will be right over' I am establishing a flat out rule to keep me in check! Now - I am fully aware that there will be exceptions to this rule but at least there is the rule and i am vowing to do my best to follow it! Pray for me - I love to visit with friends as much as the kids love to play! I have a couple of friends houses that i can go to and my kids will disappear with their kids and we can actually visit and enjoy each others company!! Oh it is such a beautiful thing for my kids to get along with my friends kids!! That is a God thing - for sure!!! It might be harder for me than for the kids to stick to this rule!!

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and will have a fantastic New Year!!

How many others are getting geared up to get back into the swing of things?? How many of you never got out of gear with the craziness of the holidays?? I get sidetracked so easy - I need to know how you stay on track!!!

Operation Christmas Child

2009-12-02T21:57:00.001-08:00

We filled 3 shoeboxes this year with all kinds of goodies for Operation Christmas Child. This is a program through Samaritan's Purse that sends all these shoeboxes to kids all over the world. It is truly amazing!
The boys enjoyed filling the boxes and they even wrote a note to put in their box(without complaining) for the little boy their box would go to!

What Joy it brings to a mother's heart to see her boys loving others and wanting to share Jesus with them!!!

Advent

2009-11-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Christmas!! I love the spirit of christmas, I love making my house look as trashy as possible with as many lights as possible, I love christmas music and I love the celebration of Jesus' birth!!
2 years ago I started learning about advent and how people celebrated it and what it menat and was all about. Along this journey I was told about these books below and we absolutely love them!! In each book you follow along with each of these kids on their journey in the time of Jesus' birth. They are amazing stories rich with history and bible truths that will enhance your christmas in so many ways! Go here to read more about each of the books.
You read a chapter of the story each night of advent and at the end of each chapter are scriptures and more details of the truths in each chapter. Last year we read Jotham's Journey every night as family devotions for advent and the boys loved it. This year we will read Bartholomew's Passage and next year we will read Tabitha's Travels. If we haven't found something else we like better - we will start all over again and keep rereading them year after year!

This an out of print book that was shared with me by another family and it is another one that I just LOVE! We will be using this book along with some other crafty ideas for school during December. This book has 28 devotions for advent PLUS 12 more devotions for the 12 day christmas season starting on christmas day. Each devotion has a meditation, a prayer, bible references, some of them have book suggestions and song verses to sing or just read. I just love the way this book is written - it is short and powerful and easy to read and understand and full of info!!!

Last year I was unable to find this book but this year i found it on ebay! L. Schroeder is the author if you want to look for it!

I spent some time this summer and the past 2 months going thru a bunch of advent books I had picked up over the past 2 years looking for ideas on how to celebrate advent! From them - I took the ideas I really liked and want to implement this year into our school day and advent celebration. I will be typing this up in the next day or so - since we will be starting to study christmas and advent in a week or so - and i will be happy to share it with you all once I do!!

I would love to hear what you do to celebrate christmas and advent????

Art Games

2009-11-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

I saw an art 'Go Fish' game in art class at coop and I wanted one. I came home and started searching for one on the internet. These are the only ones I could find and they were about $10 a set.

I didn't want to nor could I afford to buy them so......I made my own!

As I began to make them i realized I would be much happier this way because I could do it by artist not by time period or type of art. We are studying Winslow Homer this semester so I did

him first and then I did Monet and Van Gogh for the rest of the year.

Doing art Charlotte style means we will study the same artist for 12 weeks. It will have been longer for Homer since I was working for htis first part of the year but we will get 2 artists in after christmas till the end of the year!

I found pics of the works by Homer I liked and thought the boys would like. I right clicked ont he pic and saved each one to my pics file. I then printed 2 of each picture in a wallet size. I chose 12 pictures total. I put them on an index card, labeled each picture with the artists name and title of the art piece and then laminated them. I did cut down the index card just a little and I tried my best to make them all the exact size so you could hold them for a game of 'Go fish'.

We now have a set of Homer, set of Monet and a set of Van Gogh cards that we can play 'Go Fish' or 'Matching' with!!

After we finish this year they should be able to mix up the artists and play with them like that too!!

the New School Room

2009-11-11T22:51:00.000-08:00

Last Spring I posted about our School Room and since then I have rearranged again and turned what was our living Room into our School Room. It is right off the kitchen(the old school room) and so all the bookshelves that are along the back wall in the kitchen are still there. I love the look of them and so it will be awhile before I have any thoughts of moving them!

This is what the room looks like when you look in thru the kitchen. The table is not there anymore - it took up too much space and we still do our work at the kitchen table so it is a nice open space the boys are using to build, color and leave their toys all over the place!!

The desktop got moved into this room too. It is nice that it is not in the same room as the tv now. The boys would play games and watch tv at the same time and it made me crazy!

This is our school discipline system. I have used this from the beginning(2 years ago)with the boys and it is only for school times. I got it off the internet or out of a magazine somewhere and I do not remember where so I am sorry i can't guide you to the original idea.

Each boy has an envelope on the wall with all 5 of their cards in it. They start out each day with a Blue card.

Blue - Good Day

Yellow - Caution

Green - Extra Chore

Pink - loose Screen

Black - go to bed early

This system has worked so well for us. It is clear what the consequences are and it is so easy for me to use! They have never gotten to pink and only to green a time or two. It is usually enough to just get yellow and they are good! The extra chore is something gross or time consuming - cleaning all the cabinet doors is my favorite right now!

The inside of the doorway has a bookshelf on either side of it. The alphabet cards are sticky tacked to the inside of the doorway(since it doesn't have an actual door). On the wall I have the calendar and the Family Prayer stuff tacked up. Their is usually a picture of the family members we are praying for where the black is and around it are verses about prayer.

Above that I have posted our Family Rules!

This space has been working really well for us and my hubby is so very happy that the kitchen table is no longer covered in books and projects when we sit down to eat!!!

miss you

2009-09-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

My life has gone from busy to crazy to overwhelming in a matter of days! I started back to working a couple days a week - which will get to be more once nov. gets here and christmas shopping starts full on!
I have really struggled with doing school on the days that i work but I have been able to do 'some' school more often than not and I am okay with that right now. When I work nights it is easier becasue our morning routine doesn't change much. Working mornings and then coming home and trying to do school is hard! The boys are excited for me to be home, they have been playing and want nothing to do with sitting down and doing school! So far I have been able to do little bits and pieces here and there but I am definately not able to get it all done!
Our Sundays have completely been sucked up by helping out at both servcies on Sunday in the Sunday School - which puts us home about 1:00. We then have to turn around and take Alex back to church at 500 for youth group. Because we live 30 minutes from church we stay in town and do groceries or just sit around and do some schoolwork int he car while I wait for him to be done at about 830!
Alex is also busy with stuff at school that doesn't necesarily require us but it is a part of our life!
We have coop every Friday morning which is exhausting for everyone!
Thursday night my husband and I are taking an Alpha class at church - phenomenal class and speaker if you ever have the chance to take it! It is kindof our 'date night'.
I have started selling some of my 'stuff' at a local coffee shop so I have to do some painting for that about once a week.
In between all that foolishness the boys want to play with friends occassionally, meals have to be made, the house has to be cleaned, clothes have to be washed, boys have to be played with, school has to be prepared and hubby has to be loved!
I have no idea how we got ourselves into this craziness but it seems like it always happens to us in the fall - every year! By January things have cooled off a little bit but then sports start....

So... the gist of all this is - don't expect to hear much from me - on a regular basis - for awhile! I do so miss you girls and I miss reading other blogs as well as writing on my own!!

Science

2009-09-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

I thought we would just read and learn about different things from the ton of Science books I have around the house - Magic School Bus & the Lets Read & Find Out books.

I had to change my mind as we started doing this whole CM style of schooling. We do so much reading in all the other areas and the boys do so love to do experiments that I felt we needed to do Real Science instead. I read about the Apologia Elementary books, then borrowed the Flying Creatures from a friend to glance thru and see how the lessons are laid out and I was sold! Jeannie Fulbright writes with a Charlotte Mason style and the lessons seem to be so interesting, simple and fun that I broke down and ordered Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day *cheap*!!

The boys chose the Swimming animals over the Flying or Land animals!

It came tonight while I was at work and I can't wait to look through it - a little bedtime reading for mommy tonight!

I also found out that you can buy lab kits for the apologia sciences here so you don't have to scrounge around looking for that item you thought you had but you can't find and you need it for today's lesson! That will have to be me though because we can't buy the lab kit right now!!

I would love to know if any of you have done this science or have heard anything about it???

off to bed now........

We are Lovin' Charlotte

2009-09-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

We have now had 2 Full weeks the Charlotte Mason way and it has been quite successful and fun. I actually felt good about school and didn't feel like a total failure because I didn't do this workbook page or read that page or finish everything the 'TM' told me to do! We got thru everything in short bits and pieces that really worked and kept the boys on task.

This is what our days have looked like so far:

Bible - read a chap from The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos

we have really enjoyed the story format of this book.

Calendar

Review our Memory Verse - John 15:7

Family Prayer - we are praying for Grandma & Grandpa for 2 weeks

Math - we go to the table in the school room and we are trying to do it together. I sit between them and give them each direction and they can ask questions as they need to or I will help them as needed. Seems to be working! Previously I was working with each one seperately so this is different for us. This is the only place we use worksheets for now!

Phonics - we sit down with the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and do the next lesson. Stephen also has to do read some on his own which he does while I am doing phonics with Ben. This cannot be done together becasue they are both on different lessons and we use the same book for both boys!

Reading - Paddle to the Sea and some geography stuff(I found online) that goes along with the book. We do 2-3 chapters a week so it is not everyday!

History - World History is 2 days and American is 2 days. For world we just got 'A Child's History of the World' by Hillyer and started it this week. We like it so far. The beginning was total evolution so we didn't read it but we talked about why we didn't read it! They know the drill by now - it is kindof cute!

For American we started out using 'This Country of Ours' but I thought it was just too much info and the boys really want to get past the stuff we did last year and move on to the American Revolution.

So we switched to 'A Childs Story of America' and will read thru certain chapters till we get to where we left off last year and then we will slow down and read some Living Books and a mix of CSA to finish out the year. I have a lot of books on the shelf for us to read so we will be quite busy with History till the end of the year!

the Arts - each day is different - composer, artist, hymn & poetry. We have the artists pic and the current picture we are studying up in the kitchen to be seen and looked at all the time as well as the composer's pic that we are studying this term. My hubby is really enjoying the whole classical music aspect of this new way to homeschool. It just means that we have classical on all the time in the background until the teenager gets home and changes it to Toby Mac or Skillet or something completely uneducational like that!

We are studying Aaron Copland for our composer. We just listened to him last week and had him on all the time in the background. This week we actually focused on one song and laid down and listened to it and then talked about it. I also have a book called 'Getting to Know the Composers'which we will read over this term as well.

We will start studying Winslow Homer next week as our artist. We have 1 print in the kitchen that will change every 2 weeks and his pic as well so they are always visible and we are always looking at them and hopefully talking about them! Over the term we will study 6 of his pictures - 1 every 2 weeks.

We had already been listening to Holy, Holy, Holy and learning a bit about that Hymn so we will continue with that one for the rest of the Term and the boys should know it backwards and forwards by the time we are done!

We are also reading a book called 'The Story of the Orchestra' that tells about each instrument in the orchestra!

We will eventually start with Spanish 1 or 2 times a week and we will be doing Science once a week once we get the book. We are going to be doing Exploring Creation with Zoology 2 from Apologia. It is all about swimming animals and we can't wait to start!!!

Thomas is last in my schedule to end the day spendingt ime with him reading and playing a game or two but so far he doesn't want anything to do with me!!So - we will see how far Thomas gets this year!!! No rush!

I love it and I am so excited that God sent me to the places and people I needed to go to to be able to help us find a rythmn for our homeschool. This feels really good so far!!

Charlotte Mason

2009-09-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

I have heard this name quite a bit since we started homeschooling. I have even tried to read a couple of her books at one time or another. I have always been struck by her method of education in which children are taught as whole persons through a wide range of interesting living books, firsthand experiences, and good habits. I couldn't really understand what that meant and visualize how it would work so I just kept doing what we were doing!

This journey of ours into homeschooling has always been such a 'God thing' for us and it has been truly amazing to see the ways that God has led me throughout this journey. He put people into my path to help us to make this decision -people that really spoke to my heart and my desires at that point of time. He has put families in all different stages of homeschooling and all different ways of homeschooling in our path for me to be able to 'see' how they do school and for me to be able to recognize what I DON"T want to do with my boys!! Throughout the past 2 years he has put CM materials into my hands - even though I didn't quite understand all of the philosophy.

Last year I was led to this book called 'Educating the Whole-Hearted Child' by Clay & Sally Clarkson

I loved this book! Some of the scriptures and what she said about them combined with the philosophy of teaching(which I now know is CM - I didn't realize it at the time of reading this book) led us to make the decision to claim Religious Exemption from the state in regards to our household. This has been the best decision we ever made for our family second to homeschooling.

At the end of last year a friend I had known thru different meetings became a really great friend and her and I have spent many hours discussing philosophy, books, schooling and other things too! Through her I started learning about Good Books and we started reading them and the boys just love them(now I know they are Living books). This started me on another journey of questions and answers and after a couple months of reading different emails and info about Charlotte Mason I knew I loved her ideas but I wasn't quite ready to commit to her style whole hog. I still felt as if I needed a curriculum to tell me what to do and say.

So - we started the school year with lots of Good Books and another curriculum. I lasted about 2 weeks and I hated it! Now - you might remember that I had posted about using CM here and I got frustrated and said no way this is not for me! Now - this is where you can really see what a freak I am because I was gonna use this CM curric but then decided I didn't like it and switched to the one I had been looking at that told me exactly what to do and say and now I am going back to the CM curriculum! I had been seeing and reading about Charlotte Mason but I still couldn't quite wrap my head around the WAY it should be done so I bailed on it. Then I read these articles and all of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head and I realized I could do this and that this is what I have wanted for our school from the beginning! I am truly in awe of the path God takes me on to get me back to where he was leading me in the first place - DUH!!!

So - now I have been doing more reading from this AWESOME website which makes it all so simple and even has lesson plans to use!! The more I read the more I understood and the more I really felt the Lord leading us to head this way!!

I have also started reading this book - which also puts her ideals into modern day english!! I will have you know I did read this book about 2 years ago and it didn't speak to me but boy did it this time!!!

We have been doing CM whole hog this week and it has been an amazing week of school!!!

2009-09-06T18:13:00.001-07:00

AMANDA who left me a comment about buying some of the books please email me with your email address si I can hook you up if you want them!! I can't comment on oyur blog for some reason and your comment is as a no-reply so I couldn't email you!!!
Thanks chica!!!

Project Addiction

2009-09-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

I have decided I have a serious problem - I am a Project Addict. I can't seem to just chill and enjoy - I am forever changing things and making them 'new'. Well - this lovely addiction of mine was fine when the boys were younger but now it has crossed over into our homeschool and it is causing problems! Wait until you see the New Classroom( i will post pics in the next day or so) I created for us in what was the living room - it is lovely and my hubby is so happy that school is not ALL OVER the kitchen table, counters and shelves - but did I 'do' school while I was rearranging all the furniture? NO!
Now - i must preface this by saying that I tend to criticize myself heavily due to a low self esteem so I am probably not as bad as i am surely about to lead you to believe!! But maybe I am and that is what the Lord is trying to get through to my hard headed self??
I have had the best time and spent many hours and some dollars we just didn't have creating all sorts of things for the workboxes and then decided not to use them. I spent HOURS poring over curriculum and trying to decide what we wanted to do this year. I even had a friend promise me she would make me stick it out for the whole year and not let me start looking around - I already am by the way! Shhhh! Don't tell! I have made schedules, routines, fun charts to check off, organized all the books on the book shelves but do we DO or use any of it? No! I have created this wonderful place for us to do school - we do prefer the couch but it is hard to do writing and such on the couch! Will it get used the way it should - probably not. Why do I do these PROJECTS but have so much trouble 'doing' school with my boys? I am really feeling like a failure right now that I can put so much time into this foolishness(knowing it is foolishness the whole time I am doing it) but not keep the tv off and stick to our school routine or schedule? I am really good about doing Bible - we have read the creation story so many times the boys have it memorized but we have barely gotten past the Tower of Babel. I don't think we have ever gotten thru a whole day of homeschool - the way I plan it or the curriculum we are using plans it! I love the stuff that our current curric has for us to do for science and some of the history stuff but I NEVER DO IT with them because we never get there!We have read creation so many times I am almost sick of it. We get started and never finish what we are supposed to do or get much done other than me reading to them. We get off the schedule in a matter of seconds and I don't know how to get back on (because nothing is written down anywhere that tells me what to do in this situation) so I ususally end up looking thru my schedules and curric and by then I have totally lost the boys. If they are playing happily I will think to myself that they are playing so well I should just let them! Where do you think i go - a project maybe? Then I get mad at them because they are interrupting what I am doing - what is that?? Hello - I only have this short time with them and God has blessed me with this incredible oppurtunity to teach and love them and I am blowing it!
Now - if I know what I am doing and I know this is not what I want to do why can't I just stop and do things differently? DUH! Praise the lord for a new chance every morning to redeem myself but the fact that I am failing over and over again and not redeeming myself is kicking my butt right now! Why can I feel so strongly about something in my heart and have such a passion and desire for it but not get to it when it is right in front of me? It is all there for me but I don't get it! What is wrong with me??
Sorry about all that but I feel better having put it out there and I truly feel the Lord puts these words into my head to share because I am NOT the only one out there who feels this way!
I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!!

Books For Sale

2009-09-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Cleaning off the bookshelves has been fun. Boy is it a reminder of the fact that I am always looking for the grass to be greener on the other side!!!
All items are postage paid and will be sent via Media Mail

Saxon Math 1 TM $10

Saxon Math 2 TM $10 - this one i 3 hole punched and put in a binder so I will send it to you in the binder!

Horizons Math K TM $10

$6

Considering God's Creation TM and Student Handbook - never used. Both have been 3 hole punched and will be sent in the binder. $20

Learning language Arts thru Literature the Red Book(about 1st-2nd grade). I have the TM which has obviously been used but still works! The student manual is brand new and the first 2 lessons have been done but in pencil so they are erasable. The readers that are used are also included. They have all been spiral bound together into one big book. $20

Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or offers!!

School has begun - for Real

2009-08-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

My oldest headed off to his first day of High School on Tuesday - it was a milestone for sure! he was so excited and could hardly sleep the night before. He is my social butterly who THRIVES on being around people! It is going to be an interesting year around our house. Danny and I are just excited to go to the High School football games - is that wrong? Because Alex is not so excited about us being there!

Mommy and the other 3 Boys had a full day of school also on Tuesday. Tuesdays are a hard day for me because my husband is off and he kindof gives a different atmosphere to our day(nothing bad but different) so it was not as s mooth as I would have liked it to be but it was a good day.

I have been gung-ho about workboxes all summer and very excited about putting them into play but when I was scheduling our day I really struggled with how to use them in our day. I could not figure out how they were going to be helpful for me when we do EVERYTHING together and the boys still need my help for LA and Math. It seemed like I was making more work for myself and the boys. Even though a lot of it would be fun stuff - they still need ME to do most everything so I can't figure out how to fill 12 boxes and split myself 3 ways to be able to help them all. It just seems easier to write the games into my planner and our schedule and we can all do them together. So - even though I have put a lot of energy and time into the workboxes - we are not gonna use them at this point in time!
So far the boys are okay with keeping Thomas happy while I work one on one with the other one! But plans always change around here!!

2009-08-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

I think I was in LaLa Land last week in regards to anything other than schooling!!! We started school and I totally forgot about the Blog Hop - I love to see how others have decorated and do their schooling so I will so be going back and checking them out!!! If you want to see ours - I blogged about it here.

Now...onto the Real Stars of our show.....

Stephen...8years old......3rd Grade

Stephen is my shy, quiet, video game junkie.

Ben.......6 years old.....1st Grade

Ben keeps us full of life with the stuff he comes up with using his imagination - truly amazing and thoughtful!

Thomas......4 years old.....PreK

When Thomas smiles it is all I can do to not give him the world(and he knows it)!

These boys are great friends and brothers who love each other dearly - even when fighting constantly!!! It brings me such Joy to be able to be at home with them and be a part of this life we have been given together as a family!

2 Years ago the Lord challenged me to take on this huge task of schooling my boys at home. It has been the BEST thing that has happened to our family. We have been tremendously blessed through this challenge and I am so thankful for the oppurtunity that we were given!

the First Week

2009-08-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

went pretty good! We got off to a very slow start just doing chores, bible and circle time but it was a good start! The boys were good sports about getting up and doing their chores and NOT playing video games before school! Ben got up early and had his done by the time the rest of us got up!! We didn't get to lunch chores and dinner chores because we left every day right after school to go do other things but we will get those down eventually! Once school starts for all of us we will not be going places so much!

This week I really want to add in some workboxes so I can get a feel for how they are going to fit into our school. I haven't quite got a handle on them so I will be spending some time on Sunday playing around with them and our schedule!! I am anxious to spend some time seeing if others have started using them yet and how they are working for them!!!

Off to a slow start

2009-08-09T19:34:00.001-07:00

Last week I read a post about not jumping into everything at once when we start school and I haven't stopped thinking about it - because that is exactly what i would have done!!! I was planning to start - full force - on Aug. 25(the same day that Alex starts high school) but I have decided to start tomorrow and add a little bit at a time until we are on track!

We will start by getting into the routine of what our morning will look like. Wake up(we do not start at a certain time), chores(using the charts I made earlier this summer), Bible and Circle Time. Bible and Circle Time seem to be an easy transition and since we will start our day with them during school I decided to go ahead and throw them in this week! We need to get out of the habit of playing video games way too much and just being lazy!!! I am so bad with routines and schedules that I need the extra time to make these changes for this year!!

I am most excited about doing Circle Time. I know it is a total 'school' thing to do but I have big plans for our time together in the am. I put felt on a tri fold display board and velcroed the things I am using to the board - hopefully it will hold! I am gonna be adding things to it throughout the year. I plan to use the back for history or science needs. I am going to put up some blackline maps so they can put the name, date and locations of the different battles thoughout american history as we learn about them. I haven't come up with other stuff yet but I am sure I will get loads of ideas from fellow bloggers as we go along!!!

The biggest of these is gonna be Family Prayer. We will be spending time every morning praying for different family members. I plan to pick one family a month(we have no family living near us) and we will pray for the kids individually as well as the parents and other prayers for the family and get to know them a little at the same time. I have put up different verses about prayer and a picture of the family we are praying for will be in the center. I am still trying to decide if I should email the families and let them know we will be praying for them and see if there is anything specific we could be praying for - what do you think???

This week, before we actually start with Family prayer, we will be talking about prayer - what it is, how we do it, why we do it, etc. I Have this great book called 'A Faith to Grow on' by John MacArthur that was written for kids and has some great answers to these questions!

We will do calendar, weather and seasons.

We will be learning the books of the bible so we will start memorizing them thru song. I have them listed on one side of the board.

We will be doing things with the clock and time - I haven't figured out all the details for that one yet! But - I do have this fun little analog clock with movable hands for them to use!

Our Family Rules will be discussed every day until they have them down pat and understand each rule - clearly. Then they will be reviewed once a week!!! I am hoping this reinforcement in a positive way will help them to remember them instead of only hearing them when I am angry because they broke one of them!!!

Bible Time will be spent just reading thru the bible in a year! It might even end up being read at bedtime instead of during school because we are aslo going to be doing bible thru the curriculum I bought!

It will all depend on how the boys are responding and how well it is going how soon and when I will add things to the schedule!!! Ben has already told me he doesnt like being homeschooled and he wants to go back to regular school - whatever! The kid has only been in a preschool classroom - which he hated and I had to leave him crying hysterically every time - and he was only there for 6 months!!

More Workbox Schedule Cards & Numbers

2009-08-04T22:30:00.001-07:00

I needed to change my schedule cards to make them a little smaller and I needed to add some so I ended up changing some of the ones I already did plus adding quite a few more!! Hope you like them!!!
Here they are for the taking if you want them or want to share them!!!

I also made new number cards which I let the boys choose what they wanted on them so I have Thomas the Tank Engine numbers(only 1-6), transformers and lego star wars numbers if you want to print any of them out for yourself!!!

I have to go to bed now - I have been playing with this for way too long!!!

(Not) Back to School Blog-Hop

2009-08-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Are you REALLY ready for school to start?? I think I am but I am fairly certain it will all chnage the minute we actually start school!!

Every Monday this month Life with 3 Boybarians is going to be hosting a weekly meme about Back-to-School!! The link below should take you straight there! This week is all about Curriculum - I can't wait to see what other's are doing this year!!!

Staples Deals - Pass the word on.....

2009-08-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Every week Staples has penny deals! I am not sure for how much longer but take note for next year if you missed it this year!! They are only sun-weds and this week it is loose leaf paper. Here's the best part - I found out today that Teachers can get 25 of some of the penny deals!!! Guess what -we are teachers - at least according to my staples!!!!
Make sure you check at your staples what the limits are before you buy!!!!
Have fun shopping!!!!

Curriculum has been decided.......

2009-07-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

and there is no going back or changing of minds allowed!!! I have really struggled with deciding what to do this year - not because I didn't find something I liked but because I have become a book junkie - lovin' me some yard sales and thrift stores!! I have WAY TOO MANY books on WAY TOO MANY subjects!! At convention a friend helped me to decide that I should just use what I already have, do my own planning and then next year start back with a bought curriculum. I was all gung ho for that and a little bit excited but then I could never sit down and figure out HOW to plan it. It has been a month - if not longer - and I have been in limbo because I didnt know what to do to get started planning! Finally - a friend sent me a blog that uses some of ambleside online but she has tweaked it a little bit and she has it on her blog for anyone to use. So - I got all excited again becuase this gave me some guidelines to follow and I had a lot of the books and I was sure I could find replacements or use the library for the ones I don't have. I got everything in order - made some planning sheets and sat up till all hours of the night and for 3 days did nothing but work on this. By the time I had finished going thru each week, writing it in my planner and rearranging books and stuff I knew there was no way this would work for us!! 3 days - gone!! But.....By going thru each week all the way to the end it really helped me make decisions and know things that I would not have figured out until we had already started! I have a tendency to judge a book by it's cover and the cover of this looked real good and it probably is real good for lots of you but I knew I would not stick with it! It also didn't have enough american history in it for the boys interests at this point! So - I was very frustrated but had a quick solution - I went back to the curriculum that I had gone to convention thinking I was going to use!!!
I also got to know a little bit about myself - there is no way that I will ever, ever again try to attempt to do any planning on my own - NOT FOR ME!!! It also made me realize that every year I AM going to look at everything available to me and make a new choice each year instead of sticking with one company forever. I also was very convicted to get rid of all of the extra books that are just laying around tempting me and making me feel like I need to use them just because they are here. Well - why are they here? Because I was at a yard sale or a thrift store and saw it for a cheap price and thought that someday we might use that or we are studying this topic - maybe I need 1 more book about columbus - it is only 25 cents!!!! TROUBLE I tell you - TROUBLE!!! I have decided that this desire to find something cheap is a serious addiction and I am prayerful that God has broken that in me and that I can now move on to more important things!!!
Now - with all that said - this is what we are going to use this year..........
Stephen - 3rd Grade, Ben - 1st Grade and Thomas - PreSchool

Pre-School with Thomas will be very informal. Totally Tots has some great ideas and we may also follow what my friend over at Homeschool Creations did last year in her Preschool Corner. He will be doing a letter a week at co-op so we will follow along with that in regards to learning his letters.

Heart of Dakota - Bigger Hearts for his Glory
I love the way this is set up and laid out. I have not been able to get my hands on it so when it comes next week I am sure I will spend days devouring it and getting to know it a little better. It seems very easy to use so that all I have to do is get everything we will need together for each day, open the TM and go! I am all over that - I need someone to tell me what to do and how to do it so I can just skip that step altogether in my life! The boys will devour the history and I am excited about the other things that are included - The books for storytime are from nine different genres, Bible is focusing on character traits, Science uses these fabulous books called One Small Square, in Music we are going to learn about the history behind some of our beloved Hymns and we will touch on a little bit of geography each week. Can you tell I am excited????

Horizons Math - we didn't finish our books last year because we spent some time focusing on our addition and subtraction facts and playing games so we will work through our books some and add in some more games!

The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading - I learned about this at convention and listened to her speak and then was able to chat with her a little bit. I will use the same book for all 3 boys they just will be at different spots in the book. It seems like a great program so I will keep you updated as we work thru it!

Spanish - I found a beginner spanish kit by Hooked on Phonics at Ollie's for dirt cheap and so we will be starting with that this year. It is just the basics and seems like a good a place as any to get started!

Spelling - I am going to start using All about Spelling with Stephen after we establish where he is with his reading. My friend has written up a fantastic review of this spelling program.

Art - we will study an artist or two this year but I don't know who yet. I am gonna check out ambleside online when I get home to make that decision!

We will be doing the workbox system this year to keep our day on track! I have everything all set up and ready to go for that....just need school to get started!!!!

We will be doing co-op on Fridays that will fill in all the gaps(I hope) and provide a little bit more to our week!

I am really excited about our year and looking forward to hearing what others are using and reading reviews and updates from your year!!!

Vacation....Again

2009-07-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Well - tomorrow we are off to go camping for a week with my family. My sister's family and my parents and us are all going to be staying in cabins at Hungry Mother State Park for the next week!!! The boys are soooo excited - they can't wait to be camping and to be able to hang out with their cousins for a whole week!
I will be off the net for a week - I think - so I will have lots to share when we get back!!!

Homeschool Share - New Stuff

2009-07-22T21:14:00.001-07:00

I am not sure if you are familiar with Homeschool Share or not. They are a fantastic website with loads of free lapbooks, unit studies, notebooking stuff and they have added a section called Workboxables!!!!! They have just come out with a whole lot of new goodies that I highly recommend you stopping by and checking it out! Take a browse thru all the goodies and to find the workboxables i went to what's new and scrolled down the page a little and there it was!!!!

The BIG Curriculum Clean-Out

2009-07-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

My friend - over at Homeschool Creations is hosting this wonderful blog carnival. Go check it out and see what it is all about! Maybe i will see you guys there!!!

Getting Ready

2009-07-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

I have been working on our NEW and Improved schedules and charts for school and life to keep mommy and the boys on track!! I have borrowed ideas from different blogs and other websites I have found to create something that I am hoping will work for our family. I am a Very visual person so if I don't see it it probably won't happen or will be forgotten about! It also has to be easy to follow because I get sidetracked so easily and I have a lot of trouble following routines and schedules. I have been trying to reduce the amount of stuff and get better organized.

First I came up with my daily task chart......

I am hoping that a visual reminder of what my day should look like will help to keep me on track!! I put one upstairs in my bathroom so I would see it first thing in the morning and there is one on the frig!

Next, I worked on what I wanted the boys day to look like and what habits and routines I felt were a priority in our day! This is what I came up with........

Each boy has a chore in the morning and a meal chore each day. They will keep these specific chores for at least 3 months so they get familiar with them and know how to do them well.

Habits we need to master - eating every meal together, brushing teeth, putting their dishes in the dishwasher and cleaning up every day before daddy gets home. These are the things I feel like we need to focus on for quite a few months to get started creating good habits and routines in our house!!!

The black dots are velcro and I have made big check marks with velcro on the back of them that the boys put up after they have done each chore. The check marks are in a bucket next to the frig within easy reach!

I created a few extras for Saturday. Cleaning rooms, scooping poop out of the yard and cleaning out the van.

I have uploaded the charts to scribd if anyone wants to go get one! I put stickers on them with the boys name and I hand wrote the verses on them so these would be easy to just print out and use if you wanted to! The saturday one is a little bit more personalized but you could easily change the pics and jobs in each box!

This is a chart from Doorposts that i found at the thrift store! I did have to modify just a smidge. All the verses were King James version and so I started out rewriting them in NIV so the boys could better understand them but then I got out my favorite book - Creative Correction by Lisa Welchel - and found some different verses on the same topic that I liked a little better!!! The first column is the bad behavior, the middle column is the verse and the empty column is the consequence for the behavior. I haven't figured out the consequences yet but we are working on that!!!

School & WorkBoxes

2009-07-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago we discovered workboxes. I am so excited to use them and I have lots of grand plans but I am getting nervous that by the time we actually start school I will have forgotten all the things I wanted to do and my excitement will have waned!!! Every day i look at those boxes on the shelf and I get a tad bit nervous about filling them every day!!! Can I really keep up with this?? Is it really gonna work for us - we tried it for a couple of days here and there and it worked and i totally bought into the system and now that the excitement has worn off and I haven't been reading so much about them I am getting nervous that I will not be able to pull it off on a daily basis! I desperately want to start school so I can get past this initial hurdle of nervousness and move forward with the workboxes and my school plans but I can't......
We have 1 more week of vacation, a week of poetry camp for Stephen and then Alex comes home to get ready for his school. So now I have the dilemma of deciding if we should start when Alex starts or should we try to start before that with him home all day??
I am so ready to start and mostly just becasue I want to get using the workboxes and get a feel for how it is going to work for us!!!! I am very impatient - it is a pain to wait!!!!

nothing but Mess

2009-07-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to clean off the counter and kitchen table ever since we came home and I just can't seem to get anywhere with it! Take a look at what our house normally looks like.......

kindof embarrassing to share but isn't that what blogging is all about??? I must have at least 5 different things I am trying to get done and ready for school in that mess along with all the other clutter, toys and whatnot that sits around the house!! It is neverending and it drives my hubby crazy!! he just doesn't understand this part of homeschooling - I wonder why not???

i am struggling with how to keep the messes i make contained since we are always in the main part of the house....any suggestions??

Homeschool Burnout

2009-07-10T13:24:00.001-07:00

Homeschool Burnout

I recently read an article in The Old Schoolhouse(spring 2009 issue) titled 10 Burnout Busters for Homeschool Burnout. I found myself applying each of the ‘busters’ to myself and my way of thinking and I thought it would be fun to share my interpretation. I should mention that some of my responses to her ‘busters’ had nothing to do with what she was referring to!

Don’t subscribe to the grass is greener syndrome. I just started laughing at this one because the grass is soooo brown at our house! I love to read blogs, magazine articles, talk to other homeschool moms and just listen to what people say and feel and do in regards to their homeschool. Now – I am able to discern that some of it is just not for us but more often than not I find myself trying to figure out How to make it Work for Us. So I really have prayed and been talking to God about sticking with my system and actually seeing if it will work for us and then changing it or not changing it at all! I absolutely will not allow (or will try to very hard) myself to look at other curriculum until we are done with this one or until I am failing completely!
Bookend each day with Prayer. I love this idea – she says to greet the day with a “Hello, Lord – what do you have for me and my children today?” I would love to be able to do this without fear and with complete and total faith of what he is going to hand me each day! She also suggests to end the day with praise for what the Lord has done that day. I have heard before to make a point of praising each of the kids for something that happened that day in our nighttime prayers. I really want to do this. Can you imagine what a blessing it would be for each kid to hear his name being praised at the end of every day to the Lord??? I know it would fill me up so I can only imagine how it will make them feel!
Each day, after school is over, spend a few minutes assessing the day and planning for the next day. This is where workboxes will come into play for me. My plan is to get them loaded and ready to go, all my supplies ready and clean up from this day at the end of each school day. I know that if I leave it till night(after the kids go to bed) I won’t do it because I will have moved into “my time” !
Open several Bibles around the house so that you can glean from the word as you go about your day. This is now the third or fourth time I have heard this and we definitely have enough Bibles so maybe I should do it?? Here is my problem – where in the world do you put them so that little ones are not messing with them? I don’t want to get into a verse or passage, get called away or not able to finish it and come back and the pages have been flipped or the bible is simply gone! That would stink because it is highly unlikely that I would even remember where I was reading! If I put them where they aren’t going to mess with them then they will be in places that I am not going to look. But if I put them in an obvious spot they will be in the way and they are going to get messed with by little hands!! What I have done is put verses, sayings and prayers on index cards and posted them in different spots around the house – bathroom mirrors, above the kitchen sink, inside kitchen cabinets, by my bed. The one problem with this is you have to change them every once in awhile to be refreshed and so you don’t just ignore them because you are so used to reading the same old thing and that is where I fail in doing this! I think that if I made a couple sets at a time and had them ready to switch out – that might work. If there was then a specific issue or verse I wanted to pray over I would have to make one or two for that as an extra! The other thing I do is have a devotional or prayer book in each bathroom for those times when you are in there a little longer than usual!
Work toward establishing order in your life. I am completely and totally OCD so this is no problem in our house! It is stopping it that is the problem! I always come up with new ways to organize and keep things in the place they belong but since I am always changing things no one – except me – knows where anything goes!! God and I have been talking about this one a lot and I am convicted that he is going to keep me on track this year and help me to stop changing things – unless they are so completely failing! I keep telling myself once I do it this way I won’t do it again and I do do it again and again and again. God and I will spend a lot of time together in regards to this and I know he will change my heart and my desires to be so project minded.
Create a rhythm in your day. This one makes me just roll on the floor with laughter. I cannot even tell you how many times I have tried to make a schedule, a plan, a routine and how many times I end up off in LaLa Land doing nothing that even looks like that schedule! I am somewhat good about following a routine for school - if we actually do school that day - but in regards to chores, paying attention to screen time and the fact that hours have gone by and Stephen is still on the computer, cleaning on a regular basis, bedtime routines, etc I am horrible at staying on top of things! I did read(again) and listen to a wonderful speaker and author, Carol Barnier, at convention who reminded me of the fact that I am what you would call “Highly Distractable” and she gave me some great ways to combat some of my symptoms! I am hoping that the other areas God is working on in me will help this area to be able to follow charts and schedules a little better because I am going to try again!! For my kiddos!
Take a few minutes to plan your meals. A few minutes my butt! If you do not enjoy cooking and cannot look at a recipe and go – yeah, I can make that – without pictures, it is a huge imposition and pain in the behind to do this! I can buy snack foods like a mad woman but when it comes to planning , shopping and keeping the shelves stocked I have failed - beyond miserably. I can cook some things and I am not a bad cook I just do not enjoy it!! When we first got married I bought a lot of prepackaged things and that was how I cooked but over the years(these past 3 in particular) I have begun to care more about what we are eating and putting into our bodies so I try not to buy a lot of processed foods(except nuggets and hot dogs), bring in more fruits and veggies, we are making our own bread(that was a big hit) but it is still hard for a non cook to put it all together!! I started doing meal plans right before summer and since we have been gone and home and gone again I haven’t bothered to even buy that many groceries for the week we are home. But after the summer is over we will be meal planning( as much as it pains me) but I can guarantee you it will not take a few minutes – more like a few hours(until I get the hang of it – I hope!)!!

My sister has shared a couple of coupon websites which I can’t wait to be home long enough to start using – coupon mom and southern savers. Southern savers is so user friendly and fantastic – they list the specials by store(they don’t have all stores – it is based in the southern states) and with each list they have what the store special is and if you should have a manufacturer coupon for that item from the Sunday paper and then what the price of that item will now be. Apparently you can use a manufacturers coupon on top of a store sale which means more savings and if you have a store that does double coupons…It is a great place to start when doing your meal planning for the week – which is my plan. I think we will have to start getting the paper with the coupons in it but that is small if this can save us some serious grocery money!! The boys are starting to eat more and more and each year it is just gonna get worse! Maybe finding good food deals is gonna have to be my new project instead of frequenting the thrift stores for good deals on books and things to paint?? I already really miss the thrift stores but it is sooo worth it!

Get outside. This one is huge for me because my hobbies all revolve around being inside the house. Painting, crafts, scrapbooking, decorating – they have nothing to do with being outside! I do enjoy being outside but I have gotten into the habit of sending the kids out so I can do my own thing(which has got to stop – I miss my kids). I go out to hang laundry, sand something down or spray paint something , play in the pool or if they beg and plead with me to come outside on the trampoline with them. I am thinking I need to get outside a little more??
Take time to be alone. No problem! I have gotten into the habit of doing my thing after the little ones go to bed but I now have a teenager who stays up later so I really should spend that time with him or around him instead of off doing my own thing. This means it is going to be harder to find some time for myself but my hubby is really good about letting me have time so I will get it but it just won’t be every night!!! I love to go to movies so I will go to the movies alone to get away and I do have some girlfriends that like to get away too so I can hang out with them! But my absolute favorite time is when I am alone in my house – my husband will take the boys camping or to Blue Hole for the day and it is the most fabulous time!!! I must admit that since I have been convicted to homeschool I really do enjoy my family much more than I did! We have fun together and do things as a family and I haven’t wanted or needed to get away as much as I used to! It is such a good feeling to be home with the family!
Don’t forget to laugh! This is sometimes very hard to do but if I keep all the other areas in check this one should come naturally!!! It is easy to laugh with the kids and my friends but sometimes it is not so easy with my hubby as we are both stressed and don’t get that time together when we aren’t stressed and we can be more relaxed together – just us! I also think the TV plays into this one because we watch too much of it and don’t get enough time to just hang out together and find ways to laugh as a family!!!

I Painted....

2009-07-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

go see what I did at our family blog

Planning

2009-07-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have yet to do any official planning since we have been homeschooling. The first two years I have used My Father's World and all I had to do was open the TM and it told me exactly what to do for each subject - except LA and math - and if I didn't want to do it we just skipped over it! This year, since I have decided to use some of the stuff I have already around the house, I am going to have to do the planning! I have no idea where to start. Do I plan weekly for all subjects? Do I do an entire plan for the whole year and then adjust it as we go along as needed? Do I really need to plan out math since all we do is go from page to page until we finish the book? What to do?? Where to start?
Thankfully we are going on vacation tomorrow so I don't have to think about it for a few days!

What do you think??

2009-06-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

i spent way too much time playing around with this tonight but it was fun to put in cute tags, a new background and of course I had to then put new pics of the boys and myself on here!!!
Thank you shabby blogs - you girls rock with some super cute stuff for FREE!!!

I love my new header!

2009-06-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

Prasie the Lord for friends who have a way with technology because I am clueless!!! My dear friend was so sweet to make my creation into a header for my blog!!! I did the scrapbooking to make it pretty and she did all the hard work to get it on there and the right size!!! YEAH!!!
I am off to find a new background that goes a little better!!!!

2009-06-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

I have been having a love - hate relationship with Yahoo Groups and Blogs! I love them because you get such a wide variety of advice, responses and chatter in regards to a certain topic or curriculum. I love knowing about people's personal experiences - real life experiences - with a curriculum or program before I buy it or while I am using it. I love having the advice from someone who has been there, done that! I love that we can all share ideas and things we have created or planned to go along with whatever it is we are in a group about!
I hate it because I want to and have to read every single daily digest or post that gets sent out - just in case there is a great idea, something free, a craft, a way to store this or that, a planning suggestion, how to do pg.123 as a file folder game, etc...... There are so many good ideas I am afraid I might miss one but I am also the freak who wants to do them all! I get sucked into all the ideas and suggestions and whatnot and start rethinking everything I have been doing, am going to do or want to do because these ideas sound so good. I then start rearranging, making or buying these wonderful games or suggested items, stopping everything and redoing it all!! Do you think we get anywhere doing all this foolishness - NO!! Now - it is not their fault I feel like I have to do it all - right now. But it is a huge struggle for me! I am the queen of making stuff, organizing it just so and then not doing it that way or not using it! I will spend days making a game or reorganizing for school and spend no time doing school!
I just edited my profile of the most recent yahoo group I was getting to 'no email' because for me it is all or nothing and it has to be nothing right now. I am already having withdrawals! I keep thinking about what ideas might possibly be posting today and should I just check to see if there is something better than the gazillion games I have already created for that exact subject?? I feel like it is a sickness and I just can't get over it - what is wrong with me?? I always have to have a 'project' going on. I can't just be sitting around with the boys or my hubby and enjoying the moment - I feel like I always have to be doing something and projects are great to do in front of the tv or while the boys are doing their thing. The problem is I don't know when or how to stop - I find myself doing the 'project' constantly and not spending any time with my family , staying up late and being grouchy, desperatley needing a nap(which is a waste of more time).
I have got to fight this and get past it so I can be the Homeschool Mom I want & need to be. The Homeschool mom God has called me to be for my boys! The mom God has called me to be for my boys. I need to focus my energy on them. I need to make my boys my 'project', my husband my 'project', my house my 'project'. I really want to and have tried to - lots of different times and lots of different ways but there is somethinga bout the way a 'project' fills me up! Making a meal plan, cleaning the house, shopping wisely, having a good day of school - those things just don't fill me up the way a 'project' does!
People are always asking me 'how do you get it all done'. It is because my priorities are all screwed up and I will work hard to do a 'project' and then get mad at myself, depressed & self loathing because I haven't trained my boys to do this or that, all I do is yell at them, we aren't where we should be with school, with chore training, with a routine to our day, I let them watch way too much Tv and play way too many video games, we forgot to pray because I was in such a rush to get done so I could work on my 'project'.Where does it end? How does it end? I know I have to start with Prayer and the word of God but of course that is another area that falls to the wayside and gets neglected because I was up late, slept in and now we are in a rush to get our day going and I can't figure out how to fit it in after that or I don't stop long enough to enjoy His word and presence in my life! It is a vicious cycle that I have got to change or it is going to drown me!AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

WOW! I was feeling that burden on my shoulders - it was quite heavy!

Plan or Paint???

2009-06-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

I love to craft and paint and I have been pouring a lot of energy into getting school stuff together for August and now for that matter! So...the dilemma is that I think my mother in law is going to take the boys on Monday and we will be meeting them in Canada on Friday after we pick up Alex for vacation. That will leave me with 2 1/2 days to myself!!! What do I do?? Do I do the actual planning for next year and get it all done so I dont have to worry and stress over it while on vacation? and we will be ready to go when we get back from the next trip at the end of july?? or do I paint and craft??? I have alot of ideas to do in my head and some started but not finished projects that i would love to work on!!! What to do - what to do?? I am hoping I can do both but since i hav enever actually done the physical planning for our school year I have no idea how long it will take me???
Decisions...Decisions.....Decisions....

Pizza Hut Book It Program

2009-06-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to sign up your Homeschooling family for the Pizza Hut Book It Program!! Free pizza for the kiddos when they read!!
http://www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment_online/homeschoolform.asp

Tidbits from Convention

2009-06-15T21:24:00.001-07:00

The Homeschool Convention was AWESOME!!! I got to visit with some of my Girls that I don't see very much during the year and we laughed ourselves silly! It always fascinates me how we go together and then we all end up alone for the majority of the day! We all have different agendas, different styles of schooling and different things we want to look for so we meet for lunch or a speaker and then we are off again to do our thing - there is no pressure to do this or that from anyone!! At the end of the day we all show off our goodies and share what we learned - much FUN, very encouraging and filling to get me ready for the next school year!
I don't go to alot of the speakers because we always buy the cd's so I can listen to them over and over again throughout the year. I went to 2 this year - the first one was Jessie Wise from the Well Trained Mind talking about reading. She talked about how she taught her kids to read and how to use her book The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I was sold and ran back to the used curriculum hall to see if I could find it - I did!!! I found the book, the magnet board with letters and the flashcards that are used with the program for $15 - it was quite a find!!! I am excited to use this to catch up the older 2 and to start with Thomas. It is very basic and systematic and all you use is the book. She talked about how you only teach reading when they are just learning - you don't also teach them writing at the same time. I had been using Explode the Code which does teach reading and have you doing writing at the same time and it is very hard and frustrating for the boys - they hate it actually! I am excited to can those workbooks and use this book and some beginning readers and games to continue teaching them to read. The idea just makes sense and I think the boys will respond to it! I would love to hear from any of you that might have used or be using this book??
The other speaker I went to was Carol Barnier. She has written a great book that gives you hands on ideas to teach the highly distractable kid called How to get your Child off the Refrigerator and onto Learning and a book for highly distractable moms called If I am Diapering a Watermelon, Where did I leave the Baby? She now has a new book called The Big What Now book of learning Styles. I bought it and can't wait to read it!! I love this lady and have read her first 2 books so I am very anxious to read the new one!! I was so excited to see that she was going to be at our convnetion. I read her books about a year and a half ago and have been using some of her ideas to school this year and they are fabulous! Her books are loaded with hands on, practical ways to teach kids with games and other tips to make it easier for kids to learn without having to write all the time and lots of other ideas - I mean Lots!!! I would HIGHLY recommend her books! I am sure I will be showing off some her ideas soon!!!
I found lots of goodies in the used curriculum hall which meant I didn't have to spend much on new stuff!! I did thoroughly enjoy walking around and around the Exhibit Hall and checking out the new books and all the booths and ideas that are available to us!!! I think that so many moms and teachers could benefit from the convnetion and some of the things that we get to take advantage of as Homeschoolers - books - good books,manipulatives, art projects!
When I left for convention I had just been turned on to the company heart of dakota and since I knew they were not going to be at my convention I was really hoping to get my hands on a used copy of the Bigger Hearts for His Glory book for the boys for next year. I couldn't find it anywhere and I was frustrated and sad because I didn't know what I was going to use now. Without having a chance to get my hands on the book I wanted to use I wasn't prepared to make a decision! I was so sure I would find it!! So - I prayed and talked to God about it that night and when I woke up I was okay with not finding it! The Lord convinced me that I needed to use ALL or MOST of the books I already own!! I have an obsession with thrift stores and yard sales and buying something becasue it is a good deal so I have lots of American History, Science and Bible books that I can easily(maybe) plan myself for the year!! So - we will be doing a slight review of American History to the American Revolution and then continuing on and finishing up what we didn't finish this year from that point on! The boys want to learn about the wars and such so we will!! We will be using the Let's Read and Find out Science books that I have accumulated on all sorts of different topics as well as some Magic School Bus books with some experiments thrown in here and there! We have lots of Bible devotionals. We will stay with Horizons Math and we will start our new reading program for LA. I am looking forward to doing the planning for us - I think!!! It will be a challenge but I really feel like this is what God has called me to do this year so I know he will give me the ability to succeed - as long as I stay on task with Him!!!

I LOVE Convention

2009-06-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

No - not because I get away from the kids for 3 days!!! I can still remember my first convention - I must have gone back to the Exhibit Hall over and over again. I was glassy eyed and could barely stand but I just kept walking around and looking! I was a mess - I am sure of it! Last year I kept going back to the used hall - I knew what I was looking for(kindof;at least a little better than my first year) and so I was looking for deals! I have a serious addiciton to buying stuff that is cheap!! This year I am praying HARD that God will keep my addiction in check and that I will not be overcome by the cheapness(not a word - i know) of a book!! Convention for me is a time of pure Joy - I just love to look at all the choices that are out there and all the cool things I cant have but am told I need!!! But it is also a time of great stress - I am overwhelmed by all the people and the stuff! There are so many options for us as Homeschoolers these days. Sometimes I wish it was just the basics as the pioneers of Homeschooling used and we were more focused on God than what curriculum we were going to buy - even if it is a good bible based curriculum! I am torn because I love it - I love the thrill of the hunt, finding that book I really needed(ok wanted) for dirt cheap, looking at all the things other homeschool moms have used that have worked great for them and they are now selling to all of us, all the cool science kits, games and fun stuff and all the BOOKS!!! But the chaos of it is overwhelming at times and definately outweighs the Love of it all!!! But do I stop and say enough...just go back to the room and relax and enjoy the time or go listen to a speaker - there are some awesome ones here...NO I buy the speakers and listen to them throughout the year and head over to the next booth...I might miss something if I leave!!!!
Only 2 more days till convention.........

More Games and New Workboxes

2009-06-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

Workboxes have taken over and I am ever so thankful for Sue Patrick for writing a book about the concept!!! I do love them!! They have been so easy for us to use and just throw into our school day and make it better!!! I go to convention next week and she is going to be there - I am excited to see what she has in her booth on display and the possibility of beinga ble to chat with her a little!!!
Anyways - I did have to switch up our boxes to magazine files so that we could use 12 and I need them to fit on the 2 bookshelves, hence the magazine box versus the show box. Thomas will still only have 6 but he has a whole shelf to choose from that houses his stuff!!!

I had thought we would only use 6 or 9 but I have gotten so many ideas from other blogs and the yahoo group and just going through my stuff and the stuff I want to do with them that I decided we would use 12! I got these great number tags and I am so sorry that I can't remember where I got them(if any of you know and wouldnt passing along her blog so I can give her credit I would appreciate it) because they are so cute and the boys like them much better than just the plain ol' number!!

I think this will be the way that I put the cards in their boxes for the things we do together. If I put it into the box - they will think their box is empty and we wouldn't want them to think that!!

I have a small basket on top of the bookshelf for them to put their cards and numbers in when they have finished that box. They didn't seem to care about putting it on a schedule - they liked that it was off the box. If that is enough for them - it is enough for me!!!

File Folder Games Rock.........

I do love Games and I have gone a little crazy making file folder games and other games with paint chips these past weeks!! I think these will be the end of it but who knows!! Over at The Snail's Trail she keeps giving me some FANTASTIC ideas to do so very cheaply - practically free and I get so excited I start making them again!!! Most of these are ideas I got from Momma Snail - I thought I would show off because I sure had fun making them and am ever so thankful for the sharing of ideas out here in blogland!!!

The number words are written out on the folder and they will have to match the dot and the numeral to the word. I only did 1-10 for now and will do 11-20 later on when Thomas is ready to move past these!

Thomas is going to love doing this one. In the envelope are each of the letters in his name and he has to match them to the top to learn how to spell his name! I used a library pocket as the envelope. I cut open the front of it, folded it over and used some velcro to keep it closed and I put packing tape on the top edge so it won't rip as he opens and shuts it!

This is another number matching where he has to match the dots to the numeral.

These are the dots and I used the same library pocket to put the dot cards in.

You can't see the numbers but each 2 square spot has a number on it 1-10. I put packing tape(didn't have anything else around the house, it works and it was late so...) over the numbers so he can use dry erase markers to color them in, practice writing them and he can trace them with his finger! I put a piece of writing strip on the bottom so if he wants to try to write the number without tracing it - he can! Again - it is covered in packing tape so we can use this over and over with a dry erase marker!

In the little baggie velcroed to the folder are pictures of a word that begins with each letter of the alphabet. He will have to match the beginning sound to the proper letter.

This is one of my favorites from Momma Snail. I love the idea of using the preschool workbooks to make games. She also had a rhyming words one which I will get around to doing one of these days. This one is sequences. I got hte pics from a couple of old preschool workbooks.

I was thinking about using this same format to do greater than and less than, before and after with #'s, maybe opposites???

Games, Bees and Life

2009-06-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

I have been busy this past week rearranging, making games, tweaking the workboxes, I painted a room that has been waiting to be painted for quite some time, we did some school, and Life has continued around me whether I wanted it to or not!!!!

These are the completed file folder games I showed you in the making in this post

In this one they will have to match upper and lower case letters

This one is a simple matching game for Thomas!

I saw this book storage idea and it has been eating at me to do for quite a few months now!!! I looked all over for cheap magazine boxes to copy her idea and I couldn't find ANY!!! She got hers from Ikea and the closest one to us is 2 hours away - aarrgghhh!!! I hate it when I can't get an idea out of my head and it consumes me because I so want to do it!!!! So - I was halfway to Ikea last week and I just kept driving!!! I bought the boxes - painted them black with some spray paint(who knew you could do that - I tried it - it worked and so I was off and running) and put them on my shelves!!! I love that I can label the boxes with what is in them and it makes it a lot easier to find books when looking! Now - not all the books are in boxes but a lot of them are!!!

I also wanted to use magazine boxes for workboxes since our space is limited and that was my other push to go get them! I am now able to get 12 boxes on the 2 shelves. We will not use all 12 during the summer but I am getting some great ideas to use in the boxes and it is going to be easy to fill them all when we start back in the Fall! I am not done with them yet but will post some pics when I am!!
My OCD is happy for now!!!

We found a BeeHive in a tree in our backyard!! So - we are about to start a Bee LapBook that I got from CurrClick for free!! I am a little scared becasue I dont want the boys to make them angry and they are right near where they play but they are as excited as I am to watch them make their hive and learn about them so.....I am going to brave it!!!
How cool is this........

There are a lot of bees in there - it is a little scary but it sure is neat!!!

Timeline

2009-05-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

The timeline is now up!! I used my front entryway(we are not afraid to admit we homeschool and use it as our decor) to make a wall timeline for us! I love it!! I am such a visual person that it makes so much more sense to me when it is all right there like this - I hope this will work for the boys too!!!

Using 4 different colors of painters tape(in case I need to take it down the wall will be okay) and I sectioned off the different time periods. I got the idea from Homeschool in the Woods . Purple-Ancient, Darker Blue-Medieval, Green-Renaissance, Blue-Modern. I used return address labels to put up the dates - I just wrote on them with sharpie and stuck them to the tape.

I found another use for paint chips and glued the timeline pieces we used this year(i just took them off our old timeline) to the paint chips to make them a little sturdier and you know how I love me some color!!! I then used sticky tack to put up the pieces. I thought about laminating the pieces but decided not to - too much work!

I am Guest posting at Today's Housewife today

2009-05-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Please go over and check it out http://todayshousewife.blogspot.com/. They have some great posts with lots of info on their blog - go on over and visit!!!

Paint Chips are Fun

2009-05-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

You have to go over to visit Momma Snail and see what she is doing with paint chips - great ideas, fun colors and they are free!! I have made a couple of my own games and thought I would share those.....

I found these stickers in the dollar spot at Michael's - they have an upper case/lower case letter and a pic on each sticker. I bought 2 sets of stickers and made 2 sets of cards to use as a matching game. I want to teach Thomas upper and lower together so these were perfect for me to use with Thomas. I couldnt figure out a good way to keep the cards and then it dawned on me to make it into a file folder game so I am still working on that! I will have to cut the chips down a little to get 26 of them into a file folder but it will be worth it!

The stickers above were packaged just like these ones - in case you go looking. These ones were also in the dollar spot at Michaels. I found some smaller individual paint chips at Home Depot today and I am going to make these into a file folder matching game as well. I am going to put a capital on one chip and a lower case on the other chip. I am planning to use these with Ben and reinforce the letter sounds while we are at it!!!

I have also found some great animal and bug pics in the clip art at microsoft.com that i will print out and put onto the chips to make a matching game for Thomas as well!!! This could be done with stickers as well!!

I would love to hear some of your ideas for paint chips......or games!!!!

More workbox Stuff

2009-05-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

I made some cards today that I am hoping will help eliminate my concerns about how to put something in each box when we all do everything except math and LA together! I made them in microsoft word, printed them, put them on an index card, cut them to fit the laminating page size I was using and then ran them through the laminator. I made one for snack, recess - 10 minutes(the boys wanted it to say recess instead o f break), read - your choice 15 minutes, art, science, history, bible and calendar. I made 3 of each so I would have 1 for each boys box. I think this will help me to remember to do things - like calendar - since the card is in their box they have to do it so they can take the number off the box! I have my own box that has all the stuff I need for our together things!!

For tomorrow I put the bible card in everyone's box 1, the calendar card in everyones box 2, the history card in everyones box 3 - we are going to do just a smidge about what is memorial day and what we are celebrating and then we are doing a craft together!
Now - tomorrow is off because we are doing everything together since it is a holiday and w eare just doing a little bit of stuff!

I will be more than happy to email you a copy of the cards I made - just comment with your email and I will send it your way! I am also going to post it on the yahoo groups for workboxes if you want to head over there and grab it!!

Cooking

2009-05-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

The other day the boys and I were discussing school and what we were going to be doing this summer and both Stephen and Ben piped up that they were very glad they didn't have to go to 'normal' school - they like being Homeschooled!!! PRAISE GOD!!! Stephen has come a long way for him to say that - he has hated it for the past year and a half so God is doing something good in our house with these drastic attitude changes!!!
Anyways - part of the conversation then was about how they would be able to learn things here at home that they wouldn't learn at school - like cooking. Well - they went crazy and were so excited that they were going to learn to cook becasue they wanted to know how to cook eggs!

So....we learned how to make scrambled eggs and cook them......

YUMMY!!!

Needless to say - we have eaten alot of eggs this week!!!!

other Blogs using Workboxes

2009-05-22T10:06:00.001-07:00

When I linked up to this linky I forgot to mention it here at my blog so anyone who visits me can also visit The Work of Childhood and visit other blogs for their ideas using the workboxes!!!
Go...take a look....there are some really neat ideas floating around out there!!

Games

2009-05-21T00:48:00.000-07:00

I found this website - Games to Make - and went a little crazy! Over at The Homeschool Classroom she has it listed as one of the top 25 websites you should have bookmarked! There are some great games and so I decided to make a few(really - almost all) of them!! Anyone who knows me knows I am just a little bit OCD and so once I got this idea in my head - it had to be done(and is still being done)! I have literally spent the past 3 days copying, cutting, laminating, cutting again and organizing(any suggestions on how to keep all these wonderful games once they are made??) game after game for reading at all 3levels we are at and some math but mostly reading. I am thinking these will be great to use this summer instead of the workbook pages we usually use(Explode the Code mostly) so the boys dont get too bent out of shape about doing school over the summer!! I am also thinking the games will travel very nicely(so as not to have to lug a few workbooky things around) for all the trips we are making!!
Any good games you like to use for school???

Books

2009-05-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

I love these books!! They are full of info and hands on detail stuff that is just perfect for the boys!! They are done by Candle discovery Series.

Living in Bible Times has these awesome detailed pics of the inside of an egyptian pyramid, the desert tent temple, houses of bible times, herod's temple, the great theatre in greece and a roman trading ship

Journey through Bible Lands has detailed maps of abrahams travels, moses' escape, canaan, jesus traveling to palestine, jesus' last week in Jerusalem and Paul's travels for jesus

Each 2 page spread is info on one page and this cool pull out map on the other page!

I just got the Roman Ship Model one and I couldn't stop looking at it - I was so excited when it arrived!! It has info about the first boats, egyptian boats, the sea people, ships in the bible, roman ships and lots of details about paul's voyage and his shipwreck. In the back is a cardboard model of a roman ship for us to build - totally cool!!!

I got all 3 of mine from Library and Educational Services. You have to join but it is soooo worth it and it is free!!!

The first Day of Work Boxes

2009-05-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

I must say it went a little smoother than I thought it would considering i got a little frazzled thinking of how to do the combo stuff last night!!! It did just dawn on me that we will only be doing the bare minimum this summer - just to catch up - so I won't have to worry too much about that right now but it will come into play in the fall. This sytem is going to mean i have to be on my toes and organized about what we are doing each day and it will be more work than I was doing but I think it will be worth it in the end run!! Even if we just use it this summer to establish a routine for ourselves it will be worth it!
I have been prepping the boys for a couple days about the boxes and how they will work so they were ready this morning when I said it was time for school. The boxes didn't eliminate the complaining and the negotiating but they did give the boys an end in sight and a motivation to get done!! I was pleased with how well they did with them - they just got their box - did the work and then put the number on the schedule so they knew when they were done! Now - Ben did complain during phonics and Stephen negotitated his way out of doing ALL the math sheet but all in all it was a good start considering our school year has been so sporadic!!

We started off by doing Bible together. I have abunch of different devotional books and since we will be studying the bible in history I picked one that was about animals! It is called Glow in the Dark Fish and we loved it! It really sparked some cool conversations! Todays was about how God created patterns in his creation and how this is evidence of our creator's work! We also learned about Fibornacci numbers - that was cool! I can't wait to see what tomorrow's is about!!

Stephen had his Bible reader in his Box #1 so he grabbed his box and headed to the couch - not a peep out of him until he was done! Stephen is all about doing everything on the couch during school so that is where he curls up and gets to work!! Stephen has not wanted to read or have anything to do with until a few months ago and ever since he decided he was ready he has taken off and is just moving right along! I am so glad I didn't push him and that I was able to let him set the pace and do it in his time - it has made such a difference for him!! That was probably the best advice that I ever got when we first started homeschooling!! he loves the Bible so he was especially happy when I brought home an easy reader Bible - anything to get him to read!!!

Ben needed a little bit more direction but once he got going he was gone!!! He loves school so he was okay until I pulled out this new phonics program(Alpha-Phonics) that was recommended to us by a friend - never hurts to try!! We have been using Explode the Code and will now use both of them together.

Do NOT let this cute little face fool you - he cried and fussed all morning long and he is NOT doing the work that mommy put in his baskets!! He got thru #2 and that was after he cried and fussed for quite awhile because I would not put on Indiana Jones for him until after school. He loves Indiana Jones - it is just too cute to hear him playing Indiana Jones!!! Please know that I did not make him do any work or boxes - he could do whatever he wanted - he chose to cry and fuss right next to us all morning long!! This lasted for a few minutes and then he was off again.....

Aren't they cute??? This is the first time they have ever worked side by side without bothering each other!! It was a good day and we will be using these boxes for as long as they are successful!! The main problem today was that Box #3 was a book I was reading to both of them so Ben had to wait around for Stephen to finish his math to get to #3. Ben went ahead and did #4 while he waited but next time I will put all together stuff at the end or at the beginning so as not to make them each have to wait around for the other one!
We did play a game together at the end which they enjoyed and seems like a good way to end the day!!!

We don't have school on Tuesdays becasue daddy is home so I will have all day tomorrow to play around with the boxes and some ideas for weds morning school!!! Actually we will do school Tuesday night since we are playing catch up but the boys will be okay with that because they will have had all day to play with Daddy and new stuff in their boxes!!

Typical Ben

2009-05-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Today we started using a program called Alpha-Phonics with Ben and the first thing he did was put two sounds together to make a word. Well - the first letter was a and the second letter was s - do you see where I am going with this??? My sweet little ben was thrilled that he got to say the "a" word over and over again!!!! Only Ben!!!!
I have pics to share later!!!

The boxes are ready

2009-05-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

I got the work boxes filled for tomorrow - as best as I could! I only did 6 for each of the boys and I had originally only done 3 for Thomas but he needed 6 like his brothers had 6 so he now has 6 as well!! Since it is summer and we are playing catch up I didn't want to go crazy with school work. In the fall they will only have 9 boxes because that is all that fits on my shelves and I dont feel the need to buy a new shelving unit!!!

I hit a snag that I worked around for tomorrow but I am hoping to see if anyone else has this issue as I search around other blogs......Thomas's(preschool) box I had absolutely no trouble filling and I can fill his for months to come with all the stuff I have gotten free off the internet and that I have collected from thrift stores and from use with the other 2! I did print off a whole bunch of the free stuff last night and I am in the process of 3 hole punching it and putting it in a binder so it is right at my fingertips when planning for each day and week! I really do not think about going to the computer(unless i am looking for something special) to look for things but I will pull a binder off the shelf and use what is in it when planning!

My problem is with Stephen(2nd) and Ben(K/1st). We do everything together except language arts and math. How do I fill their boxes with the same thing for those subjects?? They are both still learning to read so they don't do alot of independent work - which is one reason why I am using this system is in hopes of fostering some more independence in their school work - so I can't set them loose - they need me to help them read directions and whatnot?? Do I put a note in one boys box and the book or activity in the other box? Do I not even put that work in the boxes and just do all the boxes then do the together work?? but that defeats the purpose of the system eliminating the 'when will be done' questions all morning?? I am confused!!! I was so excited and then tonight when I started filling their boxes I was stumped as to how to do this.....I so need help!!!

I have got to go to bed - do you realize it is 1am?? Once again I am up late and will be tired and grouchy tomorrow - I have got to stop this pattern - it is making us all crazy!!!

Work Boxes

2009-05-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you have seen these but I follow a couple blogs that are using this idea and so after being up until 2:00 last night looking around at all the ideas and whatnot I have decided to adventure into the land of work boxes!!! I absolutely cannot afford the book so I am going to try it from reading what others have done - I feel guilty not buying the book but it is just not affordable for us right now and I think the idea will soooo help the boys and me with schooling that I think it is worth trying!! I am aiming for the book after convention or maybe at convention!!
I went to dollar tree and exchanged some boxes I had previously bought for a different project for ones that will work for this idea! I didn't buy the clear ones because they just aren't colorful enough for me and they are too wide for the shelves I already own to use for them!! I also only bought 6 for S & B and 3 for T. It is summer and since we are playing catch up I don't want to do as much as we would during the year and I am going to add in games and group things to their schedules that they won't need as box for anyways! I am off to rearrange some books on my bookshelves so I can make room for the work boxes!!! I am sure I will post pics after I get it all set up and to let you guys know how it is working for us!!!
I am really excited about this idea especially after reading how it has worked for so many other ladies!!!

Lending Library

2009-05-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

I have been busy doing nothing that pertains to actually schooling my children but one thing does pertain to homeschool and I wnat to share my ideas and what I have been up to for the past weeks in regards to thi sidea of mine!!!
About a year ago I started thinking about what it would be like for homeschoolers to have their own Library they could use. We would be able to check out books, games, dvd's - whatever the library was stocked with - for a whole semester - not just the 2 weeks the library gives you! I don't know about you guys but I end up going slower than I anticipated and have already returned the book by the time I need it or I want to reference back to the book but it is at the library!! This year I tried to buy more books so I wouldn't be giving most of my hubby's salary to the library for overdue fees and i probably spent way more than I should have but it was nice to have the book on my shelf and be able to pull it out when needed!! I have also already found out that not every book the curriculum recommends is necessarily right for us and so I have now bought a book that we will never use - how many of us have done that a gazillion times???? So it was my big idea to figure out a way to create a library for homeschooler's with copies of curriculum that could be looked at and tried out before bought, filled with living books that we might use, missionary stories, resource books for homeschoolers, christian fiction and much much more!!! Well - the idea was squashed for a time but it has been brought back out again and is being brought to fruition - in my garage for now(alot of cleaning was happening last week for that to happen)!!! I already have my first box of donated books, I get to peruse the donated books at convention, I am going to be getting the word out for fellow homeschoolers to donate books that they might want to see in the library and a friend's hubby ha svolunteered to make bookshelves for me!! God squashed the idea for a little bit but he brought it back with his hands all over it and I am so stinkin excited to see it all come together!! It is definately a work in progress but what an awesome work it is going to be when it is done and on it's way!!!

Now - I am off to read up on this workbox system everyone is blogging about - maybe it will keep me alittle more organized in my day and on track??????

FREE...FREE....FREE

2009-05-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

I found about this and wanted to pass it along ......This website Learning A-Z has a bunch of freebies all week long - all oyu have to do is register!! I have just been looking through it and going crazy downloading stuff.....Have Fun and pass it along!!!

Decisions....Decisions

2009-05-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

This year we used My Father's World Adventures in My Father's World for school. It is a quick overview of American History specifically geared for the younger ones. I love the way MFW is laid out and she tells you exactly what to say and do each day and there are a lot of hands on fun activites - which the boys need right now at their ages!!! I also love their philosophy and the way they have set up their curriculum in the 5 year cycle of history but.....I am a curriculum junkie and love to try new things and I get excited about lots of stuff that is available and it is sooooo hard for me to make decisions!!! We didnt finish the whole curriculum this year because of my work and because they went more into state studies and the boys really want to learn more about the wars and such so we will spend this summer reading books that we have about the people and places of american history - they like that and it will work for the summer to keep us doing something!

I am very anxious to start studying History from creation on and so I have been looking at a couple of different things for next year to get us started on the cycle(which to my understanding means that we will do history from creation to modern thru a couple of times over the yearas and they will learn more and more each cycle). I always go to MFW first because I love it and I had decided on Creation to the Greeks even though it is geared towards older kids - I can easily dumb it down and leave stuff out. I looked at Mystery of History as well and those were the two I was struggling to decide between. I was able to get my hands on both of the Teacher's books for these curriculums and read thru them and loved them both but decided on MFW because I really liked the idea of all the bible history that it goes thru! So - i jumped the gun and decided we would get started now - why not??? We lasted a week - there is way too much Bible(i know I probably shouldn't be saying that since I do want them and myself to learn history from a biblical view) but it was too slow and we were talking about things we have focused on alot in Bible so I was back to square one and stumped......

Then....the Winter Promise catalog came in the mail!! Have you guys ever seen WP?? It is incredible!! We did Animals and their Worlds the first year we homeschooled and I loved it but was totally overwhelmed by the TM - they have it laid out good but it was too many choices for a first year homeschooler who couldn't discern what to do and what not to do so we canned it after a couple months - I will be doing it again though sometime along the way!! I started looking into their program called Hideaways in History. I was up all night looking it over and looking at all the books online and I love it!!! It is totally geared towards Boys and just looks like such a fun way to learn about bits and pieces of History without overwhelming them just yet!! So I decided that they are still young and there is no reason we can't have more fun along the way and that we are soooo gonna use this next year!!! They will build forts, castles, battling arenas and such with cardboard boxes(which I have already started collecting)!! I can't wait to start school next year and knowing me - if i get all the books at convention - I just might start it this summer!!!

Reading is such Fun

2009-04-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

unless you are one of my children!! They have no desire to learn to read if it interrupts with their playtime! I ran into a friend last week and she told me she pays her kids to read - what a concept??? I never thought of that but let me tell you....I am all over it!! They dont get paid for chores as is but they are always begging for money so....... I want them to read and they want money so they will now be reading for money. They are completely stoked!! The deal is 10cents per Bob book, 25 cents per easy reader with a cap of $1 a day. We could go broke real quick without a cap! They will have a tracker sheet and will only get paid once a week. We are going to make piggy banks for them to seperate tithe, savings and spending !

I am gonna have some serious readers....wooohooo!!!

our ClassRoom

2009-04-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is also my journal of our Homeschooling journey - I thought it would be fun to take a tour of our classroom - aka the kitchen! It has taken me awhile to give up my ideas of what my house should look like(I absolutely love to take garage sale/thrift items and make them my own and am constantly redecorating my house) and turn it over to what is, by far, more important...the learning place for my children! I am learning to love the schooly things incorporated into the decor - it is so fun to look around and see what we are learning/doing in school!

So - after all that rambling - here goes.............

This is our school table and book shelves loaded down with all our books from years past and years to come!! We have only been HSing for 2 years but I do love to collect books to use for school and I have already spread onto the living room shelves and will be needing more after this year!!! I think I can fit a couple more on the kitchen wall!!

can you see the couch in the living room - that is where we do most of our reading. the alphabet is on the inside of the doorway for added helps - if needed!

since the calendar wasn't visible I thought I would enlarge it for you and show off my LACK of teaching........notice the month??the date??? pitiful!!!

I do love to paint and make things bright and colorful and fun around our house and I couldn't help but add a few touches to the bookshelves....I bought the book ends at michaels on clearance for .49cents(for 2), painted them and added the little plaques - too cute!! But I keep adding so many books there isn't going to be any space fro my cutesie things!!

the hallway is where we are currently adding parts to our bodies. When we are done with this the plaques(they spell pasiecznik) will be moved to another spot and the wall will be turned into a timeline for the rest of our journey. I don't know how yet but I will have fun searching blogs for ideas!

in the baskets I keep math and language arts stuff, Thomas's school stuff and whatever Science stuff we are using so it is all right at hand for me to get at when we do independent work and science reading or projects! the Lizard just got moved to a new spot becasue every time he got watered it was dripping onto my Grandma's hutch!! I am going to add a whiteboard above this hutch - I think! Notice the cheese ball that jumped in at the last minute???

we got rid of the stools at the counter - they just used them as climbing aparatuses anyways - and put this hutch under it for art stuff!!

we have this great pantry in the kitchen and I use the outside of the door for our schedules, our reading charts, the rules and whatever else I feel like needs to be put on the outside for us to see or read on a regular basis!

on the inside i have a see thru shoe holder with flashcards, markers, pencils, erasers, sharpeners and other daily necessities. I really like the see thru holder so I can look and see exactly what I need! I did use empty frosting containers(they are the perfect size) inside the different spots to put the erasers, pencils, markers and stuff that needed to be contained!

the Story of Easter

2009-04-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

We have been reading this book - the Story of Easter - for Bible during school the past couple of weeks and I love it! It is a very simple retelling of the events leading up to the cross and the resurrection with the verses for each event written across the top of the page. So - there were a couple days I wanted to go deeper and I had the boys bible with us and we read the verses from that as well as reading the pages in the book. The way it was laid out each event was a 2 page spread that we read each day or every couple of days. The boys and I learned alot and enjoyed reading this up to Easter. Follow the link and check it out!!

wOrdLesS WedNesDaY

2009-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

nuff said.........

To see more of Wordless Wednesday posts head on over to 5 Minutes for Moms!

I Love Homeschooling

2009-04-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

I was always the mom who was going to have this exciting life of doing projects(my most favorite thing in the whole world), crafts and volunteering while my kids were in school all day. My house would be clean, I would exercise and have quiet time after the kids were off to school, I would make fun snacks to welcome them home from school, dinner would be ready and on the table when daddy got home from work, we would have family devotions and off to bed. Ha!Ha!
God had some seriously different plans for my life!!!! And now we HomeSchool and I wouldn't have it any other way. God so knew what he was doing by calling me to this and I am ever grateful for the influence it has had and will continue to have on our family. We are a much better family since our mindset changed and we became a HomeSchooling family. Our whole lifestyle has changed(for the better of course) and I am truly excited for the changes that will continue to happen, for the boys growth and our growth as a family and in our relationship with the Lord our Savior!

I am starting this blog that is just about our Homeschooling Journey and all the fun we have along the way! I have been blogging at http://justalittlehouse.blogspot.com/ about everything going on in my life, schooling, my projects and my random thoughts and I decided I wanted to have a spot to share my homeschool journey, the boys journey and anything else to do with HomeSchooling.
Here we go.....Enjoy the ride........