My DS, age 11, Shalom picked Hanukkah as his monthly report topic. I thought it was an appropriate subject to share with others here as it is Hanukkah time AND it's a homeschooling report. :) I have corrected his rough draft (for spelling, incorrect information, etc) but have not yet looked at his final report. I'm going to read it after I post it. Why, you might ask? Well it is part of an effort to share what his work really looks like as well as an effort to share with others who have kids about that age what kind of work another kid is doing. This is the boy that has just started to really read in the last few months (see previous post about his newly discovered joy of reading). Another reason I posted this is because he wrote with the desire to share it with others. He changed Y'shua to Jesus and Torah to Bible so that others will understand it better. He has given me permission to post his report and has asked that if others have comments to please make them (he likes feedback and constructive criticism as much as I do).

Shalom's Hanukkah Report

Have you ever wondered what Hanukkah is? Hanukkah is the festival of dedication. It dates back to 165 years before the Messiah was born. Hanukkah is a fun holiday to celebrate with games, treats and gifts. I think that all believers should celebrate Hanukkah because its meaning.

The Greek king of the Selucid Empire, named Antiochus, made it illegal to worship God. Antiochus decided that he was god. The Jews that would not compromise got tortoured and killed. Antiochus made it illegal to obey God's commandments. The Greeks went into the temple and stole the menorah, the table of shew bread, the alter of incence and everything that was made of silver or gold. A Greek officer tried to get a priest named Mattathias to eat unclean meat sacrificed to a pagan god. Mattathias refused but another man came up and said ''I will''. Mattathias stuck a sword through the Greek officer and the other man. Most people assume that when Mattathias did this he was in his 80's. After this happened, war broke out between Antiochous's men (or the Greeks) and a small group of Jewish fighters. The war lasted three years. Mattathias was killed during the war and Judah, his third son, took over the little band of fighters. The Greeks brought out their war elephants, something the Jews had never seen before. It was probably very terrifying to see the elephants. Simon, Mattathias's son, died after killing a war elephant when it fell on him and crushed him. After three years the Greeks gave up because God was fighting for the Jews. Mattathias, Judah, and his two brothers became known as the Maccabees, which means Hammerer, because of there motivation to protect there faith. After the war Mattathia's sons and other priests went to the temple to restore it. They cleaned it all up and rededicated it to God. The rededication of the temple lasted for eaght days. It was a great celebration and that is where Hanukkah came from.

There are good reasons to celebrate Hanukkah. the Bible says Jesus celebrated Hanukkah where we find ''at the time of the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem (in the winter) Jesus went to the temple of Solomon" in John 10:22-23. The only time Jesus went to Jerusalem is at the festivals, so it must of been inportant to him. Jesus refers to him self as the light of the world in John 8:12 and Hanukkah is called the festival of lights today. The light is a simble of Gods righteousness so if Jesus is the light of the world then he is like our candel on our Hanukkiah. If there is one candle in a very dark place it is very bright, it shows you where to go. so let the light of Jesus shine thru you to evrybody. There is some very good oportunities to learn about Jesus at Hanukkah.

There are a lot of ways and traditions to celebrate Hanukkah take dreidels for instance. A dreidel is a four sided top with the Hebrew letters; nun, gimmel, hay and shin. The leters mean, a great miracle happened there. To play you have to have money or chocolate and a dreidel. Each player gets ten pices of money or chocolate the rest of the money or chocolate goes into a pot. First you spin the dradle and if it lands on nun you get none of the pot if it lands on gimmel, congratulations you get all the chocolate in the pot! If it lands on hay you get half the pot, if it lands on shin you have to put four chocolates or money in. We play dreidle becuse the when the Greeks came, the Jews had to hide the bible and pretend they wer playing dreidel. During Hanukkah you get lots of treats like; jelly donuts, candy and potato pancakes or latkes. Tradition says that the Jewish women fried latkes and handed them to the Jewish solders when they passed by. Making latkes is simple, all you have to do is grate potatoes and then fry them in oil. Latkes are a very tasty treat. Another tradition is lighting a Hanukkiah. The Hanukkah is a Menorah with two extra branches for a toltel of nine branches. We light one candle every night of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is a holiday that is a good learning experience and a way to get a closer relationship with God by understanding more about Jesus. So next Hanukkah I hope that you will be able to cellebrate it and have a lot of fun.

For years it has been difficult to get our son, Shalom (age 11), to read but he's finally doing it on his own and now I can't stop him! He is an active and busy boy, something in my family heritage. LOL For him to sit still and concentrate has always been like pulling teeth. So getting him to sit still and read hasn't been very successful over the years. Many times I'd get frustrated or concerned about this. I have done many read-aloud books with the children as well as evening Bible reading time and always this precious boy of mine is busy - coloring, playing with blocks, etc. He's listening very well, but he's busy.

I've always had the theory that if one can't read (Shalom could read very well, he just didn't) that the one unable to read wouldn't be behind once he did learn. If a child learns to read at age 8 he starts reading at an 8 year old level and if one starts to read at age 12 he starts to read at a 12 year old level. It's a theory I've had but I have been unable to test it. LOL I have always hoped that this theory would apply to a desire to read in some loose way as well.

So Shalom, my boy, has been a source of concern for me when it comes to reading. NEVER did I ever think that I would have trouble getting him to put a book down! These past two months he's read almost everything in the house! Something clicked! At the moment he has one book up in his bedroom and one in the living room - and one in the van. :-) He can't stop reading. DH commented to me this morning as he was getting ready for work that "I can't believe it. He's sitting on the couch reading when you call us for dinner and he just can't put the book down. He has to tear himself away for dinner then after dinner he's back at the book again. Who is this kid?"

So, those of you who have children and you simply cannot get them to sit still and dive into a book - there is hope. Keep reading to them, keep encouraging them to read themselves. Even if it's a short little baby book, if it's of interest to them let it be. Someday it'll click. It's not only a relief because I want to instill in each of my kids a joy of reading and learning, but it's a pleasure to see this one in particular enjoying his book. (that also means that he's still and quiet for a bit - though he's still tapping or humming or wiggling or something...)

Guess what he's reading right now - the encyclopedia (in the kitchen by his fish tank)! He's reading up about yet another jazz musician that he is wanting to do his public presentation this winter on. READING... Learning... Self-motivated!!!!

Update: After I posted this we had breakfast. After breakfast I noticed Shalom and Reuven, age 10, over at the adult book shelf (yes, I have separate bookshelves, they're even arranged by category...). Shalom was telling Reuven which books in the historical fiction section are good ones to read and where they fit in chronological order and in the Bible, the basic gist of each book and why he thinks Reuven would like to read that one. *contented sigh* Shmuella got irritated that I asked her to pick a book from the kids shelf to read rather than the adult one. LOL So she picked "Don't Know Much About The Pilgrims" from the section that contains the books that go along with what we're currently studying. LOL Yes, I can say "anal about my books". LOL I think I have the heart of a librarian...

An acquaintance of mine wrote a good blog entry at his blog today and I wanted to share it. It's about the value of tradition within society and within families in particular. Visit A Talmid of Messiah if you have a chance, it's worth the read.

What we are teaching our children matters a lot. More is caught than taught.

Sorry for the short entry, but it is busy here at the moment.

Well, it was quite a week at the fair! I was a little nervous about all 7 kids at the fair and the boundaries having to be pulled in for our 5 to suit the boundaries that were in place for the new two - but it worked very well. The whole week was great!

As for show results, I'm so impressed and pleased! My kids did great! DD (child #3, 13 years old) won Grand Champion Meat Ewe with one of her ewes and then went on to win Overall Supreme Ewe for 2006 at this fair! WOW! Between her and her brother that she raises sheep with (SS, child #2, 14 years old) 3 of their ewes placed in the top 4 overall. In Fit & Show they all did well too. The same daughter won Reserve Grand Champion in the Intermediate division and came in 3rd overall. She's been wanting to participate in the Round Robin for years. But this year she missed it by one - and she was okay with that. It's generally the Seniors who participate anyway and she's got one more year of being an Intermediate. But then came the news that the boy who won 2nd place would not be able to participate so she had to take his place! She was SO excited!!! She did great and had such a good time doing it. :~) Then came livestock judging. The same two kids did well again. DD made it to the state livestock judging team last year and has done very well all year long - until this week. Something happened in one of the classes and she got 18 out of 50 points in one class. Other than that, she nailed most of the other classes and for her oral reasons she won the trophy for the highest score in oral reasons! The same son placed FIRST in the senior division in judging but didn't get as high of a score in the oral reasons (obviously). Now, if you've done 4-H or FFA livestock you will understand what all these things mean. They are all quite the achievements! These two did amazing! Todah Rabah!

As for the next two kids who raised meat goats, they did well too. Our girl (SD, child #4, 12 years old) and our boy (DS, child #5, 10 years old) tried their hand at goats and did their best together. They have a good model to follow in their older brother & sister. They placed in the middle of their classes in Fit & Show and in the top 5 in Type. DS wants to raise goats again but SD thinks she's done with animals. We were honestly surprised when she said that she wanted to raise a goat last year at the fair. We thought that she'd change her mind (come to her senses) before spring but she still wanted to do it. It was harder for her than she though it would be and she feels that now she's tried it, she knows what it's about, and she realizes that it's not her thing. :~) Good for her for trying and sticking to it all season!

Both DD (13) and DS (10) nailed their public presentations too, and the record books came out with good evaluations even though they were judged weird this year and they got scored much lower than they needed to be. But I'm not going to argue with the judge, they still did great.

We have invitations to the State Fair next month that we need to discuss and invitations to other 4-H clubs too. We have had a lot of trouble with our current club and in all honesty, we should have left that club 5 years ago when we noticed the problems that we were having and the influence that some of the families there were having. But we got sucked into the "missionary" mentality and stayed. It was a bad decision. It is time to leave. Even without that being public knowledge we were invited to join a few other clubs. So we're going to talk about it and see what clubs fit best with our goals before we make any decisions. Still, it's nice to be wanted. That is a VERY different feeling than what we get from our current (or should I say former?) club.

Oh, the two "sheep kids" also bought the Overall Supreme Ram. They intend to breed their ewes with this ram for the next two years and sell the lambs to local club kids for market project animals. They also want to take some of their sheep to other shows and see how they stack up against other animals. We'll see....

So fair went very well. They all did wonderfully well. The whole week was pleasant for the most part, with only a few short "issues" which are to be expected given the circumstances in our family right now.

Our congregation found out yesterday that the Pacific Science Center will be hosting a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit this fall. Dead Sea Scrolls @ the Pacific Science Center I'm working on putting together a "field trip". :~)

This past spring DH and our youngest DS (our 10 year old) went to the Pac. Sci. Ctr. for a Cub Scout Camp-in. They had a blast! The rest of us have never been. We studied the Dead Sea Scrolls a little last winter and our family is really excited about this trip - even if we're the only ones to be able to go. It's an expensive trip, but I think that we can work to scrape up enough to make the trip.

SD (age 12) and I just scheduled our Passport to Purity "weekend" (which will be a Monday/Tuesday instead). She's thrilled, I'm a little nervous. We had given her mother first opportunity to go with her but she's just not interested. If there ever were two people who were so opposite, it would be SD and I! She's a girly girl, I never was. She's sensitive (both emotionally and physically) and I never have been. She whines, I can't stand it. LOL I love her dearly, but I just don't get her at all. So I'm a little nervous about our weekend together.

When DD and I did our PTP weekend last fall, we had a great time. It was so easy to put together for her and it went so well! Even when my jeans ripped at the inside seam while we were horseback riding *blush* we were both able to laugh at it and laugh at my walking through the mall with "holy" jeans looking to find some new pants in a quick hurry. LOL SD wouldn't handle that situation very well. (mental note - make sure I wear clothes that aren't worn out...) The material to cover is not a problem for me, which is a relief. We've discussed modesty and hormones and boys and "stuff" with our kids at age appropriate levels for years. So this won't cover any new territory but it'll be a good event to cement the teachings in a little more - the activities really help illustrate the points so well!

Passport to Purity is a blast of a weekend and both DH and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I think I'm just unsure of what to plan for SD - she wants to go shopping. Huh? I don't do that - I buy my clothes from the local feed store! LOL It'll be quite a stretch for me! Talk about a "labor of love". Any suggestion would be great! I need cheap and girly suggestions that even a tom-boy could pull off. LOL

Now for our newest venture - DD's Bat Mitzvah! We don't have a date planned yet as we're not going to do it on her birthday (unless we hold out till next May). She'll be the first, even though there are two older boys. I think that we'll put it out to our kids that they can choose to have theirs at their birthdays or at one of the three festivals: during Unleavened Bread, Shavuot, or Sukkot. I think these are perfect times to publicly announce their commitment to HaShem and acknowledge their accountability to Him. We may include a baptism in the whole event. One focus will be the child's acknowledgement of their personal responsibility before YHVH to obey Him and to take ownership of their faith in Him, but another focus will be a welcoming into adulthood. For the girls we'll give them hope chests. We're stumped as to what to give the boys as they prepare to be the leaders of their homes and priests of their families.

DD and another girl at our congregation may be doing their Bat Mitzvah's near the same time. They are friends and her mother and I were talking about it this Shabbat. They want to do the same thing and encourage other children in our congregation to do the same.

DD is studying about Bat Mitzvah's right now and as soon as she's finished with the books she's reading I'll get to read them too and we'll come up with a plan. I'm excited. :~) I think it'll get the older boys excited too and they'll want to have their Bar Mitzvah's at the next holiday, but they will have some studying to do before they can have theirs.

Any suggestions or thoughts on the Bar Mitzvah gift item for boys or ideas for the Bar/Bat Mitzvahs would be great too! Nobody in our congregation has experienced one (not even the Jewish couples - if they have they haven't bothered to say so) and we're not going by the Jewish tradition on this either. We're going to take from the tradition and make a new tradition for our family - one that our congregation might adopt for the whole community as well. Time will tell....

My intent is to write about the Bible timeline we're starting tomorrow. But I have a feeling that the reason I'm hiding in the office on a perfectly nice afternoon while I have TONS of things to do might come up - so let me start with that. I'm tired. Actually, I'm exhausted. Not as bad as last Friday but close. I'm really looking forward to DH getting home and taking over with our new boy (our kids need some sort of name for me to call them, I'll have to work on that). He's doing better this afternoon than he was this morning, but this morning is what took all my energy and now I think he's somewhat contained so I can get a few minutes to unclog my brain over this timeline. :) Boy it's hard to take a 10 year old boy (and his sister) from such an environment as he's been in his whole life and transplant him in out home. But YHVH is good! Oh how He is good! :~)

So, timeline. We're re-starting our chronological Bible reading program. This time I want to take the timeline we started making last time and put it on a series of posters and hang on the wall for all to see. I got several sheets of poster board and got the ones with the "ghostlines" on them so I could utilize the lines for my names and for equal spacing of years (1/2 inch equals 50 years). I have a wall of 84" to use and if I use 70" I should be able to keep it simple. For our new kids, this will be the beginning. We keep to a triennial reading cycle in our congregation and studied Genesis 22 last week. It won't be long before at home we're past where we are on Shabbat with the congregation. But I don't know how much they are getting there on the weekend. It won't hurt to re-do the first half of Genesis. I think that we'll be at the end of Genesis when they go back to school (we'll take fair week off from our reading because nobody could stay awake for it in the evenings).

As for our two regular kids that we homeschool, we're heading into the end of the Apostolic age and the beginning of the time when the church was predominantly gentile. We'll continue this study together when school starts and the other two go back to school. The other three will follow along with us wherever we are and whoever we're working with the most on weekends.

So, this timeline will have to be workable for all sets of our kids - "the beginning" and the early centuries of the Common Era. I'm actually really looking forward to pulling this together. :) I just hope it turns out as well as I have it in my mind.

With that said - if anyone has any suggestions or comments for our timeline, I'd love to hear them. It will go in the living room, above the couch. I bought a package of cheap markers to use with the timeline too so I'll be able to rotate colors and not get each individual confused with other individuals whose lives overlap. Besides, it'll be more exciting to look at if it's colorful rather than black and white. I think the trouble will be trying to keep the kids hands off of it.

Oh, I know! If anyone has any suggestions as to where to find a blank world map, that'd be great! I had a poster size one last time and I forget where I got it from. We used it to draw out the table of nations after the Tower of Babel. We used 3 different colors of pens to somehow resemble skin colors - black, gold, and peach. I'd like to do that again - but I think it'll be "over the heads" of our new ones. It was fun last time and I know that the rest of us would really enjoy doing it again.

Now my brain is off and running - Genesis is so fun! The flood will be a great unit too and I just love the books from ,Answers in Genesis (I have my favorite listed in my book review category).

I am SO looking forward to Shabbat! I am utterly exhausted. I realized yesterday that I just can't keep doing "it all" and expect every base to be covered adequately. DH got home early yesterday as we were getting home from running errands. We all had to jump into the big truck to go pick up another load of hay from the hay field. We have to load the hay ourselves. Well, our older boys were gone. So both days it was 6 of us - girl (8), 2 boys (10), and girl (13). I had to drive and DH bucked the bales with our oldest daughter. The other three tried to help but basically got in the way.

But before we could leave the house everyone had to get ready which meant I had to get the last load of laundry out to the clothes line, get another loaf of bread started, and get dinner in the oven on time-bake so we'd have food when we got home. It was then that I laughed at myself. Here my garden is so terribly overgrown that I can't even find the peppers and my lawn mowers are all in need of repair so my grass is ankle high (and we have a LOT of grass). I'm running like crazy and loving every minute of it - right down to the clothes line and the home made bread. LOL

So tonight I'm really looking forward to finishing our Cover to Cover Bible reading program with the family - we will finish Revelation tonight! Then after that we'll watch Ushpizin together. I think we'll loose the new kids over that one, but that's okay - they can color or go to bed. :) I totally need a day of rest!

Our new boy has pushed every button he could find on me today. We spent 30 minutes in the bathroom in a power struggle over his simply looking at me so I could talk to him. He refused. By that time, lunch time, I was considering calling CPS and putting them in foster care! But I remembered the "evil urge" and decided to pray instead. I knew we'd have rough days and I don't think I'd ever put them in foster care! But you know how you get when you're having a rough day with one of your own kids - these aren't even my own kids! And they come from such a bad and completely different background - some days it's hard. Today was hard with a capital H. But I'm pleased to report that HaShem heard my prayer (doesn't He always?) and worked in his heart. After our bathroom event, he's been a different boy. There is hope...

So, Shabbat Shalom everyone! I'm off to go watch our last cow calve (seriously LATE) and then we'll all come in and sit down to our Shabbat meal. *sigh* Thank you Abba!!

I am not sure just how encouraging this will be to others but it sure encouraged me! So I'll share about it in hopes that it helps others like it's helped me.

We have recently met and made friends with another family with the same number of kids we have. They put their children into school for the first time last fall. They had been living with family to take care of them in their illnesses before they passed away last year. To put it plainly - these children had no schooling at all their whole lives. They took the whole "unschooling approach" to a new level. Mom was so busy with all the other children and the extended family that she seems to have forgotten about the children as far as school is concerned. She will tell you, as well as the rest of the family, that she had not schooled them at all in any way. She feels horribly guilty about that too!

So what's so encouraging about that? LOL This year the girls entered public school for the first time ever and we were all together when their standardized testing results came in the mail recently. The girls were almost sick to their stomachs because they were worried that they had failed horribly. Remember, they'll openly tell you that they never did school before - all they did was take care of sick and dying relatives all the time. These kids scored quite high in their testing results. So what, really. Test scores, schmest scores. Still it shows me that the public school system didn't produce as good of results as "no school ever for your whole life". (is that encouraging to me or discouraging of the school system here?)

What really encouraged me was the level of these kids' ability to compete with schooled children on a regular basis. Yes their math was weak. But the older girl was writing thesis papers and notes would be given to her by the teacher saying things like "This needs to be less than 5 pages. Your content is amazing, but it's just too much. This is college level work and our class just isn't ready for that yet." There wasn't a subject that these kids were struggling in at all - not even math. The older ones were on the honor roll almost all year.

So with my schedule message that I just posted and my concerns as a mother and a teacher, I have to remember that even if I never did anything with my kids as far as "school work" that they'd turn out okay! Somehow it all gets in there even when we're not looking. The school that these kids attended last year were expecting "dumb" kids. Shortly after school started the teachers were quick to reassure the parents that "You did miss a lot in their teaching, but they learned a lot more about things we can't teach in a classroom. Their time has not been wasted." Can you imagine a public school telling an 'unschooling' family this? LOL Wow!

So while we sit at the livestock auction yard tomorrow, I'll try to remember this. That if we don't get to math this week like I have planned, and if we don't get too much writing in and all we accomplish is our Bible reading and discussions - they'll all be okay!

Boy this has been a wild school year! From my grandpa and his health issues this past fall to my in-laws health problems this winter/spring, school has been sort of on the back burner. Not to mention all the extra stuff - extra kids here and there, a teacher strike where my 3 step-kids go to school meaning they spent most of the fall with us, family visiting from out of town, etc. It was a busy year! Oh yes, the ewe that lambed the quads and then died - bottle feeding several times a day for two months. That was the unofficial "end" of school for the winter/spring season. *sigh* All we've been able to stick with is Bible reading, other reading, and studying various countries/peoples that go along with what we're reading in the Bible.

Now with things getting settled with our two new kids and our family members finally all healthy (for the moment) and our family numbers settled (for the moment), we're working our hardest to get back on track! So far, it's working well. Our new boy is a stickler for schedules so whenever we're off schedule he's sure to make sure I am fully aware of it. :) I'll copy/paste our schedule below for those interested. I hope it comes out properly:

7:00 Wake Up - Make beds & get dressed

7:30 Feed & Water Animals

8:00 Breakfast

8:30 Proverbs Daily Reading

9:00 School work (order vaires daily):

9:30 Science

10:00 Math

10:30 Writing

11:00 Social Studies

11:30 Misc.

12:00

12:30 Daily Chores

1:00 Lunch

1:30 Quiet Time (Reading)

2:00 Quiet Time (Journal Writing)

2:30 Finish any unfinished school work

3:00 Prepare for Fair

3:30 After all work and chores are finished:

4:00 you can have free time!

4:30

5:00

5:30 Feed & Water Animals

6:00 Dinner

6:30 ---

7:00 Bible Reading

7:30 Story Reading Together

8:00 S. to bed

8:30 W. & R. to bed

9:00 K. & B. to bed

9:30 J. & C. to bed

10:00 Mom & Dad to bed

With some of our school failures listed this year, I still don't think it was a waste of a year. What have my kids learned other than math and spelling? They've learned that when family or friends need you that you go to them and do what you can, how to love others and share with other children. They've learned that when dad doesn't have work for 3 months that HaShem still provides and that dad can take the tractor completely apart and reassemble it with all the necessary new parts in less than two weeks (even though he's a carpenter and not a mechanic). They've learned how to grieve the loss of a new mama and how to care for her little babies. I think that the biggest lesson that we've worked on this school year has been that people are important, life is important - more important than stuff or schedules or comfort. The second thing we've worked on is faith and holding on to it tight when things seem so hard and impossible. That is not a waste of a school year!

But for now, before the fair (which is in 3 weeks), we are trying to finish our studies on the various systems of the body and how they work together. Our steer will be slaughtered in two weeks and we'll get various "parts" then - a heart, lungs, stomach, etc. to complete our studies this summer. We'll refresh our memories about multiplication and fractions - what they are and how they work and what it means. We'll continue reading - always reading. And we'll work on our penmanship. Other than that, there's a lot to learn in the summer on a farm! Sometimes I forget just how much there is, then when we see things through the new eyes of these new kids of ours - we realize just how much we have here!

My biggest concern is that we've been so scattered this past school year and the previous year we were all building our house together, that if we don't get back on track now we may never get on track again! It's time. We're all more than ready!!

Wait a minute - tomorrow we're taking DD's horse into the auction to sell. She has had good success selling some of her sheep there this season and now she's selling her horse there. I guess that takes our schedule and puts it on hold tomorrow. Maybe we'll just stay at the auction yard till the auction is over for our new kids to see how livestock auctions go. *sigh* Then Thursday I need to be in court for these two new kids. *sigh* Maybe there's a reason we don't do schedules very well anymore....

It has been an interesting few weeks as far as school is concerned. I thought I'd share how HaShem is moving this week!!!

We're working on a body system a day. Today was the nervous system, yesterday was the respiratory system, Friday was the circulatory system, etc. Once we've covered the systems, we'll call the butcher to get some systems for us to get our hands on. The kids are looking forward to that part, being able to see the heart and feel the cartilage around the trachea, seeing what lungs look like, etc. Coloring pages are one thing, and they're interesting and fun. But the real stuff is what they're really waiting for. Good thing at least one of these kids wants to be a vet! LOL

Math is, well, math. 4-H record books are due in mid July, I believe, so we're hard at work keeping 4 record books straight. The animals are a constant source of work to be done - daily needs, hoof triming, shearing, fencing, field rotation, etc. I think DH and DS finally got the chicken pen straightened out so they won't get out. At least they haven't found a way out for the past two days. Hopefully that lasts...

We are memorizing Psalm 119:1 to 16 as a family this summer. This is the daily writing (aside from those record books) and the dictionary words come from there too. Soon they'll start writing their sponsorship letters for their market projects. They'll have to make brochures telling about themselves, their animals, and the Jr. Livestock Auction on the final day of the fair. That's always fun for them to do, they spend months coming up with brochure ideas.

As far as history and Bible go, we're entering the Apostolic age. It feels like we're in a similar situation we were in when we first read through Leviticus as a family years ago - G*d is bringing things to us daily that are helping us understand and grasp what we're studying. Methinks there's something important to be grasped here! Reading through Galatians and 1 & 2 Corinthians was heavy work and so much was revealed that we had never seen before! It's enough to make your head hurt, and to take over an hour to cover 3 chapters. :) But it's absolutely amazing! We've watched Drive Thru History so often since we recorded it from the TV that we could probably recite the shows to you if you really wanted us to, we're still waiting for episode 11 though. They have been quite helpful for us to get a better understanding of the churches that these letters were written to. We've read books like Twice Freed to help us envision life in this era. But what is most exciting is the Didache! I came across this piece of work a while ago but hadn't heard anything about it that I could remember. Then I came across this article that was from Christianity Today Magazine online after I heard someone talking about it on a radio program. So I decided to find a copy of the Didache for myself to read and then go over as a family. I was thrilled to find a treasure trove of writings at Early Christian Writings. Their page on the Didache was great and the various translations were helpful. We read through it yesterday and had a long conversation about the "book". So that sounds all good and well until I go to the mailbox today and my latest copy of Messiah Magazine has arrived complete with "Redefining our Traditions" To understand how the divergence between the Synagogue and the early Church took place, we examine a very early Church document known as the Didache. There seems to be a theme here this week....

This is incredibly exciting for us. You see, when we first started homeschooling and had reached Leviticus as a family, it seemed that every day HaShem brought something to us that went along with what we were studying. He had something important to teach us and we needed to sit up and take notice! He's doing it again and we're thrilled! There have been more 'little things' recently and a lot of conversations but the bottom line is we're thrilled to see what He's revealing to us and exactly how it'll change our lives!

As far as our two new additions go, they're doing well. They're at camp this week while we prepare to go to a family reunion in Chicago. After camp they'll stay with their family until we return. They are going to be fully incorporated into our "school system" after we all get home and get settled, since they just got out of school a little bit ago (we wanted to give them a break and they've been with their family for a big chunk of that time too). I'm off to see the court facilitator this afternoon to get some papers filed. It's in His hands...

I forgot to add our science for the summer in my May Update.

We are studying the life cycle of plants right now. It fits perfectly since we’re in the process of planting our vegetable garden and watching our other plants come to life again. We’ll study a bit about pollination too as we watch the bees and other bugs on the strawberry flowers right now. These aren’t new lessons to the kids so with each year we go a little further in depth. This year we’ll learn about the plant systems and plant cells and how the photosynthesis works in the cells. It should be fun. Today we had a field trip to a local nursery where the kids got to make their own hanging baskets after a tour of their facility. It was quite interesting to see how they sprout their seeds compared to how we do it. It sure is an involved system they have! From the watering systems to the heated floors and their automated greenhouses - WOW!

After we’re finished with our plant studies we’ll move on to animals. With the kids having their project animals every year and our raising other animals - there’s a lot of science to be learned around here. From breeding and the genetics conversations that come up when you breed a red cow to a black bull and “What do you think the calf will look like?” to the conversations about genetic traits “This cow has a nice hindquarter but a small shoulder. The bull has a good hindquarter and a large shoulder. What do you think will be passed on to the calf? Do you think all the calves will have large shoulders too?” But our focus will stem from our plant studies (LOL). We’ll study animal cells and systems and how they work together.

So this summer will be full of cells, circulatory systems, respritory systems, etc. It should be a ton of fun!! I loved science as a kid and on a farm it is so incredibly easy to teach science.

This isn't a new revelation to me, but it's one that I cling to a lot and thought I'd share it.

As parents, we're teachers. We're created to be our child's primary teacher and all parents are whether they realize it or not, homeschooling or not, believers or not. That's just how G*d created things. Sometimes that feels like a heavy load. But as we read Scripture we find that G*d gave specific unit studies and lessons for parents to teach their children. He outlined specific lessons for parents to teach their children and He even said when to be teaching them - "when you walk along the road, as you sit in your home, when you rise in the morning and when you go to bed at night". He set aside specific holidays and seasons for parents to teach their children everything from Scripture to history to social studies to geography and math, life skills such as homemaking and farming to Pappa's career. It's all in there. He gave us unit studies and theme lessons as well as "unschooling" and routine/schedule based teaching. Even the Master employed all of these teaching strategies with His students (disciple should be more accurately translated "student". the Latin word is translated that way, so why isn't it translated like that in our English Bibles I wonder? hhmm....). He always taught His students with everything He did, nothing was wasted. There's always a "teaching moment" happening ("teaching moment", does that imply that there's ever a moment(s) where we cannot teach or someone cannot learn? hhmm...). He gave us an incredible model to follow and learn from. He used all the teaching/learning styles and adapted them for every sense and language we have - sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing, emotions, actions, contemplative, etc.

He is our Teacher and we need to be His students - sometimes we forget that part too. We have not outgrown our place as student, we never will. He has so much to teach us, if we'll only listen and obey. He still teaches us in the same ways today - with theme studies and unit studies to 'unschooling' and routine/schedule based teachings. :) I'll bet that if you look at your life today you'll see Him working in every one of those areas to teach you.

He created each of us to be teachers, to some extent. He also created each of us to be students. He gave us amazing models in His Word for us to learn and teach our children so they can teach their children and their children and their children... Not only that, but we can use those same techniques and apply them to other lessons as well. He does all things well. We're so blessed to have His model as we teach our own children. :~)

Well, I can't believe it's May already! DD turns 13 this month too. Boy, time flies!

This month we will revisit our study of US geography. We try to, every summer, spend our social studies time on our own country. Well, we did spend months on the Civil War last year so it's not just the summer months that we spend on the US. We'll begin today with a blank map of the US and see how much of the map the kids can fill in today. There are several states they should be able to get quite easily. Then we'll focus on Illinois for May. We will be going to a family reunion just outside of Chicago in late June and early July so learning about that state will be fun. While we're away, we'll go visit our closest friends who recently moved to Wisconsin. Wisconsin will be our state of study in June. We're excited about our trip. It was about 3 years ago that we attended the last family reunion which was in Minnesota, we had a great time. We're looking forward to the upcoming family reunion and special time with our friends.

We will continue with our Cover to Cover reading, we're at the end of the Gospels right now. I'm undecided if I want to begin the study of church history this summer or wait till after fair season has passed and start that study in the fall. I want to take the early church history from the days of the Apostles (which means an intense study of the Apostolic Scriptures and the cultures that the letters were written to) and slowly move on from there. I want to be able to learn more about the cause and effect of the great divorce between Judaism and Christianity. I also want the kids to be able to understand what happened and why, and how in these days G*d is restoring things as He said He would - even through Moshe. We may just study the cities the letters were written to this summer to get a better understanding of those places and life in those cities so the letters themselves will make more sense. After that we may begin with early church history. We'll see...

The kids finished their ITBS testing yesterday which is nice to have finished. It's never a difficult process for them and they always seem confident after their testing that they did well, they usually do too. But like anyone else, they do stress a little about the whole issue of testing and making sure they fill in the right circle and such. I think it's good for them to do this for a lot of reasons, but I also realize that a lot of other parents abhor the testing processes. I like being able to see their progress year to year with the testing results and it gives me concrete evidence that they are learning and progressing on those days when I feel like a failure at teaching them anything at all. :~) We all have those days. Besides, they have been an incredible boost of confidence to the kids. When they feel like they are terrible at a subject then see their scores, they realize that they aren't so terrible at all. In fact, DD in one year went from a math level a year below her grade to a math level 3 years ahead of where she was. That's quite an impressive jump! I cannot begin to tell you about the boost of self confidence she still has from that, even 4 years later.

The kids will spend the summers keeping their 4-H record books current, writing letters to invite people to the Jr. Livestock Auction at the fair in August where they will sell their project animals. This is where they make their money for the next years projects. They'll be keeping track of the rate of gain in their animals, the incremental feed increases for each animal, the money they spend on their animals for feed and other needs - there's a lot of practical math going on there! I say we do school year round but that it changes in the spring/summer months. In the fall/winter we focus on math books and reports and such. In the summer we focus on their 4-H projects and the record keeping that goes along with them. It really can be a lot of work and a lot of practical learning. This year they've got their vegetable gardens, their sheep/goats, a building project (last year DD built her sheep barn, this year DS is designing a chicken barn and DD and DH are designing a horse shelter for the field near the house), they each have a yearling calf that they picked to put halters on for next years projects - a steer and a heiffer - a lot of work, as well as community service projects.

Next week the kids fly down to my mom's house for a week. It's nerve wracking to send them alone on the plane and be away from them for so long, we've NEVER done that before. But I know that they'll be okay with my mom and they'll have a great time together. I also know that they'll be okay on the plane. Still.... Aren't mom's designed to worry? ;-) I had thought that I could get so much done that week - get my office organized, get the bookkeeping updated, paint some trim on the house, finish my veg. garden planting, read, and read, and read some more. BUT FIL is having his knee replaced and my dad is having surgery on his leg as well next week. DH is a bit behind on his current job so I'll be spending time at work with him too, after hospital visits I'm sure. And my Grandpa needs my help to go through a stack of boxes in his office. *sigh* I won't even be home the week the kids are gone! Oh well, it all works out in the end somehow. :~)

I think this is all of the May update. The kids are continuing reading their assigned books right now and next the books are their choice. They still have their journals to write in but they'll be doing a ton of letter writing this summer again so the journals might stay on the shelf for a bit. I don't think we'll do so much Saxon math in the summer, we never do though I always say we will. Their 4-H stuff has a lot of math in it and it's practical learning skills so they can apply what they've learned. Cover to Cover in the evening and our Torah reading during the week as well. That covers reading, writing, math, 4-H, Bible, and practical skills. The first fair they'll be going to is in early June. I need to remember to get the registration papers in....