I am Thankful

I will be super busy over the next few days getting ready to visit friends out of town for the holiday. I wanted to take a moment and be thankful!First I am so thankful to Jesus Christ who died on the cross so that I could live in heaven forever. I am thankful that He knows my name. He knows everything about me..and still.. HE loves me! I am thankful that I am free to proclaim His name as loud as I can to one and all and I don't have to be worried that those words will be my last because I am breaking a law.

I am thankful for the brave people who came before me. First the ones who founded this great country for religious freedom! The ones who were brave enough to walk into a new land and set up camp so that they would be free to worship the God of the Bible the way they believed He should be worshipped. I can not even imagine the first years of our country. How unbelievably scared and lonely some must have felt. They moved on through those years though and became pioneers of something great! Then, for the ones who fought to free our country from the oppression of England. To give us even more freedom! To the men who died. To the families who suffered. And of course to the men and women who still fight today so that we can keep the freedoms those brave men fought for so long ago!

I am thankful for my husband. OH! I am so thankful for him! When he walks in that door at night my whole day is complete. He makes me laugh. He is strong and brave and protecting and... AMAZING! I am thankful for these beautiful children God has blessed me with. I look at them and can not believe that God loves me enough to bless me so much with them! I am thankful for my mom, my brother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins... I am thankful to be part of a great family where I am loved and accepted and supported. I am thankful that my parents and grandparents have given me a godly heritage. They took me to church. They prayed for me. They raised me up!

I am thankful for my friends. Oh, I could go on and on about what great friends I have. I have my Tuesday chicks! I have my church family. I have my friends who live in other states now. I have my friends from highschool and single days. I am blessed with the best friends. Girls, who know that my DH and kids rank highest and support and understand that. Girls, who understand when I don't call them every day. I love you guys! Thanks for putting up with me!

I am thankful for the friends I have met online. Ladies who are willing to share their wisdom and insight with someone who does not have a clue. I am so grateful for all the ideas you guys put out there. It helps me so much!

All in all I am so blessed! To each of you I want to say..

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Chat by the fire...

If I had my way I would have a fireplace in every room of my house.... of course living in FL that seems silly. :) Anyways, I thought I would just sit down and "chat" with you all about these coming weeks. It could quiet possibly bore you to tears so, pretend the snow is falling softly outside and the logs are crackling. Grab a blanket and snuggle in. If you fall asleep I won't mind.
Tonight Adrian has a t-ball game. It will be freezing but hey, that's why they call it fall ball! Maybe I will make Hot Apple Cider when we get home. Dinner will be corn dogs and cheese fries. Nutritious and delicious. LOL I think we will stop by Walmart on the way home so I can pick up some groceries and a couple of gift cards I need to mail out for Thanksgiving.
Tomorrow Dh will go up to Publix to hand out gift cards with some of the other folks from our church. It's just a community project we have been working on. After that we will head out to see if I can get a battery for my camera, tights and leggings for the girls, and a presser foot for my sewing machine. Mine has disappeared. Then Adrian has his last t-ball game at 3pm. Some friends are coming and we plan on grabbing dinner afterwards.
Sunday the girls are dancing in the morning service and then in the evening they will be going to another church to dance.


Next week promises to be busy as well. We are doing a Bible study on Monday nights with three other couples. Tuesday we have Bible study and the men of the church are getting together that night for their Bible study since it will be the second week of December before they meet again. On Wednesday we are leaving for North Carolina. I'm so excited. I love going up there for Thanksgiving. We won't be back until Sunday evening.

We are then turning around and leaving again on December 13 to go to Atlanta to celebrate our anniversary which will be the 15th. We are taking our kids to redo our honeymoon. How fun! We will visit Lake Lanier, Stone Mountain, The Coca Cola Museum... all sorts of fun things. And the funnest thing of all will be meeting an online friend while we are up there. This is my Christmas, anniversary, and birthday present!

Christmas will be short and happy this year. We have one visit scheduled to the inlaws around Christmas time but I don't know the dates on that. I don't even know what we are getting the kids. Hence the need for a presser foot for my sewing machine. LOL I have lots of fabric and patterns so Im sure I can whip some stuff up with my mom's help.

Well I hope you enjoyed our fireside chat. Oh, your sleeping. I will tuck the blanket around you and grab a book. We can talk more when you wake up! Maybe this time I will even let you talk. :)

Be Blessed!

Homeschooling: What does my day look like?

1 Corinthians 14:40, "Let all things be done decently and in order."
I know the verse above is talking about something different, but that verse has really helped me to learn to manage my school a little better.
I do have five children. My youngest is in a very curious, independent, "NO!" place right now. It's something we spend a lot of time during the day working on. I know it's only for a season and that if I stay consistent he will be blessed as will I. Some days are harder than others. But in our family school is not only books and learning, but also teaching and training. I mentioned before that I think to have a successful homeschool you must have discipline for yourself and your children.

In light of that my kids are where I can see and hear them at all times during our school day. But how do I do that when the age range is so huge? Is it really possible to "do" school while a two year old is underfoot? What I am about to say is really working out for our family. It does not mean it will work for yours! The first thing I had to give up was an expectation that my family could look like Joe Homeschool Cool. NOPE! I share this with you for ideas. That's where I get most of my stuff.. other homeschoolers who have tried and erred for me! :)

After breakfast, chores, and either a walk or dancing to praise and worship music, we have circle time. After circle time Karly starts her corrections, Kelsie practice piano, and I begin to work with Tamara and Adrian. It takes about 30m to do math, reading, and HW with them. During this time Jonathan is in his spot. This is a corner of our homeschool room where he has a quilt on the floor. He can play with whatever toys he wants on this quilt as long as he stays on the quilt and plays quietly. It took much training to get him there and he has times where he forgets. But they are less frequent!
After school with the little kids Kelsie works on her corrections, Karly practices piano, Tamara, Adrian, Jonathan, and I read aloud. Right now we are reading through a big A.A. Miline Winnie the Pooh book.

Next I feed Jonathan lunch while Adrian plays with blocks and legos and the girls practice their dance. After Jonathan has lunch he and I will read and play together for a few minutes before he lays down for his nap. Usually I let the other kids have lunch while I'm doing this. Then we do table chores. Next, I pull out playdoh, paint, or markers for Tamara and Adrian and let them CREATE! I go through Karly's school work with her. It takes maybe 15m-30m. She finishes up while I work with Kelsie about 30m-45m. When they are done we do our Bible study and then Tamara and Adrian lay down.

Karly and Kelsie are then free to work on projects of their own choosing for about half an hour then they take books and lay down.

It's quiet in my house for at least an hour every day. I NEED that!

At night after dinner and clean up we usually do either history or science, one of our read alouds, and our Bible study.

And that my friends is our homeschool in a nutshell!

I hope I did not bore everyone to death. Like I said before our homeschool is ever evolving. It may not look like this next year. Who knows?

Be Blessed!

Homeschooling: Learning Together

3 John 1:4, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."
We do a lot of stuff together. In the morning we have something called circle time. During this time we read the Bible, memorize scriptures, poetry and other information, and read a story out loud. We are memorizing Proverbs right now. We are just finishing up chapter 1. Our poems and stories come from the book: The Children's Book of Virtues. In the past we have memorized the books of the Bibles and the names of the disciples. Our Bible reading is in Matthew. I read a short passage and then the children draw a picture to illustrate it.

Most of the time in the afternoon before we rest we will do a Bible study together. Right now we are working through Kay Arthur's How to Study the Bible for Kids and Stormie Omartian's Power of a Praying Kid.

On Wednesday's we will read books on a certain subject together. In October we read books on fall. This month we are reading books about Thanksgiving. After that we will do a craft or as I said before color on pages from Dover's website.

At night we spend time doing either history with the Mystery of History volume 1 or science with Christian Kids Explore Biology. This involves reading books about the lesson for that week, doing any projects or experiments that go with it, and generally just soaking up all we can. Sometimes we will have a Latin lesson, but that' s been on the back burner a bit lately.

Another thing we do at night is read alouds. We read a different book every night. Right now we are reading Dangerous Journey, Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends and books/movies about Martin Luther. After that we read the Bible using Balancing the Sword and pray and the kids are off to bed!

Jesus and Lightening McQueen

This is the picture my 2 year old drew for our Bible time today. We read about Jesus healing. When I asked Jonathan about it he said , "Dedus (Jesus) and Speed, I am Speed" thats what he calls Lightening McQueen.
I just had to share!

Homeschooling: How do I do it? Part 2

I have got to get a new camera battery and/or go download the pics on my mom's PC. I'm running out of downloaded pictures of my kids. LOL

As I mentioned yesterday I started out all gung ho with WTM. For Karly I had Saxon Math 2, Spelling Workout B, First Language Lessons (we did first and second grade in one year!), Zaner-Bloser HW, and Saxon Phonics 2.
For Kelsie, I had Saxon Math 2, Spelling Workout A, Saxon Phonics K, Zaner-Bloser HW.
I figured I would add in Latin, History, Science,Art, and Music in January. That would give us plenty of time to get settled into homeschooling.
For Tamara and Adrian we were using Letter of the Week and Slow and Steady Get Me Ready.

As I mentioned before that first year was H-A-R-D!
The next year I dropped Zaner-Bloser it was expensive and I really was not impressed. I picked up A Reason For Handwriting. The transition book for Karly and book A for Kelsie. They really enjoyed that! I liked the verses and they like the coloring. Karly just finished the last book and Kelsie is in the T book now. Adrian and Tamara really wanted a HW book this year so I started them in the K book.
I started Karly in R&S Grammar 3 and Kelsie in First Language Lessons. It did not take me long to reevaluate that. Karly did great in FLL, Kelsie not so much. There was a lot of work with Rod and Staff Grammar. We are now using Learning Language Arts Through Literature. The Red book for Kelsie and the Yellow book for Karly. Dh and I discussed it though and while R&S was a lot of work it was a lot more comprehensive. We will be switching back to that next year. I will go ahead and put Kelsie in the 3 book and move Karly to the 4th.
We still use Saxon Math. I heart Saxon math. Tamara and Adrian are working through the 1st grade book. Kelsie is in the 3rd grade book. Karly is in 5/4 which means she does not need hardly any math time with me this year WOOHOO!
I dropped Phonics for both girls. We do a lot of reading. I also added copywork. Kelsie is doing great. I am thinking of picking up Spelling Power for Karly as I have heard some great things about it for kids who struggle with spelling. I am working through Ordinary Parent's Guide to Reading with Tamara and Adrian. I will probably do a year of Saxon Phonics 1 with both of them and Explode the Code just for reinforcement. Then they will move into spelling and copywork.
I am going through Literature Pockets Fiction with Karly right now. It's been a lot of fun and it introduces her to reading comprehension and reports at an easy pace.
Karly is working on cooking through Marmee's Kitchen Primer. I had her copy a lot of stuff out of the front, then she started cooking through the breakfast. When she is done with the breakfasts I am going to put her in charge of breakfasts with a budget and everything. She will also be practicing the lunches.
I will then start Kelsie on the book.

This year I knocked our bookwork down to three days a week. Tuesday we have Bible study and play date and Wednesday is co-op and library day. Sometimes on Wed we will come home and read and then color these really great coloring pages I get off of Dover's website. Sometimes on Wed if we are behind we will do some schoolwork or the girls will have to work on corrections. It all depends on how the week has gone so far.

I plan my year out, but only in the planner, and only in pencil. It never goes as planned and I'm ok with that. I try to plan a week off each month. If all schoolwork is done we do fun things. If not.. well we have to catch up. It's a great motivator.

Someone once told me they take off Nov and Dec instead of the summer. That made a lot of sense to me. I scale back our Nov/Dec schedule or eliminate it completely. I try to make sure we do a lot of reading and maybe some practical math so we don't forget. ;)

Next year I am scaling our book work back to two days a week. Thursday and Friday. Monday will be spent cleaning, cooking, gardening, and crafting. Teaching the kids more practical type things. I'm also hoping this will give us an opportunity to tie some more heart strings. School is still a burden at times for my two older girls and I am hoping this will smooth it out a bit.

All that to say that our homeschool is ever evolving. If I don't like something or the kids are struggling too much with something I change it. I buy a lot of my stuff used or deeply discounted.

I do have five children to teach. Many times people don't know how I do it with so many. The secret is flexibility. I can't do it all. So I do what I can. We do a lot of stuff together. I will talk about that some more tomorrow!

Be Blessed!

As promised...

I said in a previous post I would share links to some sites we have been researching as we prepare to move and/or face a disaster. Like I said before I am so not a sky is falling person. Well, I might be but Dh is not. :) We both agree however that there is nothing wrong with trying to be prepared if anything where to happen. What have we hurt if we have extra food, supplies, water.. whatever?
Here are two of our favorite resources right now.
You don't have to agree with everything they say to glean some wisdom from these people. :)

Survival Blog this is one DH loves. Click around on some of the links for more information. DH says he can take or leave the blog postings.

Mrs. Survival this one is a particular favorite of mine. I like the wisdom from many people.

Be Blessed!