Chris & Ruth are the proud parents of a healthy baby girl! Isabella, was born October 11th. Happy Birthday!!!!

Please continue to pray for them. Chris, will hopefully be able to see his daughter in January

Please pray for my brother-in-law Chris, who is serving in Iraq. Pray for his safety and that the Lord will comfort him and his wife Ruth who is expecting their first child in October. She is staying with her parents, while Chris is away.

Chris & Ruth

Thank you Chris & Ruth for all you two have sacraficed to keep our country safe. We are lifting you both in prayer daily for the Lord's protection and comfort.

This post will stay at the top of my blogs post. I might change the message every once in a while to update you all on how Chris and his family are doing.

In Him,

Lupe, Linda, Joshua, Annette, Caleb, Brent, Ethan and Lance<><

My sister-in-law Ruth has been helping me with Ethan's schooling. We are using My Father's World K with him.

I'll have to post some pictures of his writing & coloring. Ethan pays a lot of attention to detail when he wants too. If he doesn't want to do school he does not do his best. He gets that way if we are not doing it his way . He could be a pain sometimes when it come to doing school. I am so thankful that my SIL is helping me out with him. She will be leaving in July and I'm going to miss her .

Caleb is doing well with school. Today we were working on problems like 16-10. I was surprised he caught on pretty fast. When I first starting these problems I had to figure out what they were trying to show me, I had to finally ask my Sweets

Caleb's reading is picking up. He still has to sound out a lot of words, but then there are a lot of words that he doesn't have to sound out either .

Lance fell on his face today. When I went to pick him up, I thought I was going to see a bloody nose and some loose teeth. I was surprised that he barely cut his lip. Thank you Lord. Lance has had lots of Dr. visits. He has had three trips to get his blood drawn, three trips to get his knee's x-rayed & 6 trips to the doctors.  About a month ago he was running in the front yard and of all the place with grass he falls on the one piece of cement. The top layer of his skin was gone. It wasn't that big and it wasn't bleeding yet. You know how it takes a while for the blood to show up. I put a bandaid on it. A few days later I changed the band aid after cleaning it. Some how the bandaid moved and the sticky part was over the cut. This caused some puss spots.

A few weeks ago we went camping and he fell on the same knee. I'm not sure if his knee was already swollen (I know bad mama) but it swelled and it hurt for him to walk. Monday we took him to the Dr. and they put him on antibiotics. They said  to come back Wed. to see if it clears up. Wed. it was worse and there was puss coming out of his knee. They had him go for some test. Thursday they wanted to put him in the hospital but decided on more test instead. If the x-ray showed anything, Lance would need to have an MRI done. Everything came up good. Friday the Dr. was happy that the swelling went down and Lance was walking without pain. This Tuesday the swelling hasn't gone completely away so they had more blood drawn & x-rays done. He is supposed to go back next week.

Here is a picture of his knee before it got all pussey and gross.

Here are a few pictures of Brent and his 100th day of school lamb.

I am going to serve the kiddos some watermelon now

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I'm having fun deciding what Caleb will use this Fall. Here are some of my ideas.

For Bible he will use 'Studying God's Word" from Christian Liberty Press. I'm not sure what Bible he will use with it. I have two that would work fine but I have heard so many good things about "The Child Story Bible' that I am tempted

The Bible that I am tempted to get. It is recommended in "Studying God's Word B" but I should save the money and use one of the two that I already own.

For Reading I am going to continue with Reading Pathway's and when Caleb is more fluent with reading I will have him continue to use Rod & Staff Reading 1.

Here is the full R&S Grade 1 Reading. He won't use 'Printing Practice' though.

For Penmanship he is going to use Rod & Staff 2.

Science is from Christian Liberty Press. He will also join in on Brent's Science from My Father's World 1s Grade program.

History is also from Christian Liberty Press and he will also join in on Brent's History from MFW & Annette's & Joshua's. I'll mostly have him sit in on Brent's history time. I wanted Caleb to have a little something of his own, so I purchased History for Little Pilgrims.

Math he will continue with Singapore.

Phonics he will continue Phonics Pathway, Adventures in Phonics & Noah Webster's Reading Handbook.

Spelling I'm not sure how we will continue. Currently he is copying sentences from Phonics Pathway. I also dictate word or a sentence to him. Building Spelling Skills came with Christian Liberty Press curriculum so I'm not sure. Here is a picture of what he is using now.

And if we add in Building Spelling Skills (I think I might just skip it and continue with how we are currently doing spelling)

Music will be combined with what Joshua & Annette are using. Art will be incorporated in with Science. I am going to have him copy pictures from his Science book.

As you can see, I'm still unsure of a few things but I'm sure I'll get it all figured out by September.

So, hope you enjoyed taking a peek into Caleb's 2nd Grade year

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I love Caleb's schooling. I posted about it below this thread. Knowing that I'll have him home at least until 5th grade makes all the difference with teaching him. With Josh I never know and became so stressed about what he is not learning. I forget about how much Josh is learning. But back to Caleb

We worked on Reading Pathways-20 minutes, Noah Phonics-10mintues, dictation-10 minutes, Click N Read-20 minutes  (on the computer) and math 20 minutes (also on the computer). It takes about an hour and a half to complete his schooling. Once we start Rod & Staff Reading again it will take a total of 2hrs. With Caleb I am not rushing him through lessons. He is going at his own pace.Hopefully by the Fall he will read more fluently.

Annette does most of her work on her own. She is still using Rod & Staff Reading 3,  R&S Phonics 2, Singapore 1B, R&S Spelling 2, & Primary Language Lessons (informal English). I usually have her come to me for math & phonics. If she needs help with anything else she will hunt me down.

Annette is almost done with her spelling book  in another two weeks and she will move on to the next level. She is a pretty good speller, but I'm sure she will get stumped soon. She gets frustrated when she doesn't know something. So far her work has not been too challenging for her. She whizzes right through it. I can see that in the next couple of years she will be challenged more as her work load increases. Currently she is not doing any writing assignments (that starts next year 08/09 school year)

Her penmanship has gone down hill. Especially after seeing her cousins penmanship. While we were in Ca. my niece Ali needed some help with her homework. She was showing me what she was working on and she had to copy a paragraph in cursive. It was beautiful. She goes to Hueneme Christian School that uses Abeka. I'm considering having Brent, Ethan & Lance start cursive first.

Josh, still gets very distracted while doing school. He keeps putting off doing his work. We are working on that. One subject that really needs improvement is his writing. We are still using Intermediate Language Lessons and today he was supposed to write a letter. The lesson gave him two options to write about. He chose the one about a friend who sent him a puppy. We went over how to write a letter yesterday and I reviewed it again today. He sat at the table and looked like he was working hard. I went to my room to make my bed and next thing I know he is right behind me. I told him to go back and finish his assignment. He said he was done. I looked at him in a funny way because it was just minutes ago that I left the kitchen. I looked at his letter and he DIDN'T INDENT!!! All year I have been showing him how a paragraph looks, I have showed him by writing a paragraph, I have gone over the whole indent thing dozens of times. And he FORGOT TO CAPITALIZE the beginning of some sentences. Again we have gone over this one for TWO years NOW! I was ready to pull my hair out but I didn't. I calmly told him to make the corrections.

He did do well in math. We are taking a break from Rod & Staff Math for a while to pick-up with Math-U-See. He has memorized his multiplication for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5's. Well, almost memorized them all. He knows them but sometimes it takes a few seconds for him to remember. He has been working on division up to the 5's too. He understands it but doesn't at the same time. I have explained it but we are getting know where. I went ahead and ordered Math-U-See Delta. Our plan is to work through Gamma & Delta side by side for a while and then go back to Rod & Staff once he has mastered and understands division. So we'll see how it works for a while. I'll keep you updated .

Josh loves Delta because it's yellow. Gamma is pink so he is not too happy about that. When he was working through R&S Math 2nd. I would tear out his math pages from the workbook, so he wouldn't see that it was pink.

I'm embarrassed to mention this but I ordered Little Hands to Heaven for Lance to use this coming year. I didn't purchase the Bible or Devotionals because we have enough to use already and he is using Journey of Imagination/I'm Ready to Learn from WinterPromise which has Bible & Devotions. I did order their cd "The Singing Bible". I know I'm crazy but I like how he will learn about Creation to the Apostle Paul.  There are 33 Units. In my humble opinion it seems more Christ centered than the other two programs & looks easy enough to combine. It's not like he has to finish everything in a year.I'll probably include Ethan with some of it too.

Ahem, did I mention that I also purchased their newest guide "Preparing Hearts for His Glory" The guide looks so simple to use. I didn't buy the whole program, just the guide. I'm going to compare it to My Father's World "Creation to the Greeks" and go from there. But if anything, I love how the guide has ideas for math, it has dictation passages, it schedules in R&S English 4 (which we are going to use) poetry & it includes the reading program that Josh will use next year. So if I don't use it for History, Bible, or Science it's will still be used . I'll have to keep you all posted on that too.

I need to get the kiddos ready for bed.

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I thought I would write a little about how Caleb's schooling is going. I seem to talk more about my two oldest.

Caleb is still learning how to read. He is 7.7yrs. old and in 1st grade. He was using Phonics Pathways but we put that aside for a while. He is not suppose to move on until he can read all his cvc words and some four letter words with ease. He still needs to sound a lot out so I didn't want to continue. I picked up Reading Pathways and he is working on that. Hopefully by the time he reaches page 31 he will be more fluent and then we will continue with Phonics Pathway. Three days a week we do dictation from Reading Pathway or Phonics Pathway. Depends on which book we are using.

After he does Phonics/Reading Pathways I have him read a lesson in his Noah Webster's Reading Handbook. The lesson is short and great review. Once we are done with that he does a page of Adventure in Phonics. This coordinates with the Noah Handbook. Again it is a short lesson.

At the last part of his Language Arts is computer time using Click n' Read. He enjoys it because it's entertaining . I have currently stopped using Rod & Staff Reading 1 for a short time. We will pick it up in a few weeks. I just haven't had the time to sit with him and I figure the above phonics/reading lessons are enough.

As for math he is slowly finishing up Singapore 1A. He does this about three times a week and I also give him some addition & subtraction pages from other left over math books  so he won't forget is facts. He also spends a little time on the computer doing math too. We use BigMathTime.com. Again he enjoys it. After he does his math he get to play a game.

Caleb is coming a long fine. I'm trying my best NOT to rush him. I want him to get a good phonics background and since I know I will have him at home at least until the  5th grade, I don't feel so rushed with his schooling. I can relax a little. Notice I said relax not get lazy. We do about an hour to an hour and a half of school. That does not include Science, History & Geography. Those subjects are too fun to be called school.

As soon as I can I'll post some pictures of his school stuff. My Sweets hasn't hooked up the camera thing yet.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I went to our apartment complex to help my Sweets with a job. The sewer line was clogged. We went to the back of the apartment. My hubby took of the lid and there was all kinds of disgusting things in there that are from the tenants toilets. I won't go into details of what was floating in there since you all already know what is flushed down toilets. My Sweets did the gross part of shoveling some of it out and putting in the line. All I really did was push the power peddle to keep the line going. Imagine this stuff in 88 degrees. Phew!!! The main problem is the tenants have a habit of flushing baby-wipes down the toilet. He is going to make flyer.Hopefully that will help.

On a nicer note; how many of you are getting ready for the Fall? I am. I have slowly been ordering our stuff. Some new things I am looking into are Bob Jones University for reading. Click here to see. I might use this with Josh, Annette & Caleb. It would be hard to switch from Rod & Staff reading. I love R&S but Josh is tired of reading Bible stories all the time and as you know (if you read my blog regularly) that I switched him to Sonlight Readers. He loves the books, but I need more instruction still . I thought we would finish with Sonlight and move on to BJU.

Annette is doing well with R&S reading but keeps hinting that she wants books like Josh. I'm not sure if we will switch with her. I love how much of the Bible she is learning with R&S. She reads enough other books to keep her interested in reading. If we do switch  Here is what she will use.

Caleb is still learning how to read fluently but once he gets the hang of it I might have him start with this. It looks like something Caleb will enjoy. Still up in the air because as I have mentioned many times. I love Rod & Staff's Bible based reading program. I do think it might be too much for Caleb though.

Another item I am looking at is from Heart of Dakota.  Drawn to the Heart of Reading I like how you don't have to purchase their readers to use this. I can continue using Sonlight readers or Bob Jones.

To help the kids memorize their multiplication I am considering Times Tales or Times Tables.

So those are a few things I am looking at for next year.

In Him,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I need to start working on posting the kids schedule's again. I liked seeing all that we are accomplishing.

I had Joshua & Annette take an online assessment test, so I could see where they are and what we need to work at. The assessment was for High Frequency Words, Word Recognition, Phonics Word Analysis, Spelling, Oral vocabulary & Reading Comprehension.

Annette was either at grade level or above, so she is doing well. She knows how to look at a difficult word and different  strategies to figure out the words.

Josh on the other hand was below grade level on all but his Oral Vocabulary. I think I am going to purchase Unique Reader for him and see if that will help improve his score for next year. Unique Reader takes the scores from his assessment and personalizes the program for him.

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I have been trying to be a little more relaxed while still trying to get our schooling in. I am always in a hurry. I know that the kitchen needs tiding, laundry is waiting to be put in the washer, dryer and taken out of the dryer and put away. Little ones needing attention while the older ones need to finish school etc. etc. etc. You all know the drill.

Because of all thee above I'm sometimes a no-fun-mom. Especially when my little students are taking FOREVER to finish their schoolwork. I am trying to add in more park time or bike riding time. We have been going to the park at least 3x a week. Before I was always too tired to. Another thing I have been working on. Putting my tiredness aside and doing things anyway. I figure I can be tired and have it affect the rest of the family or be tired and have fun with my children. I choose to have some fun.

Isn't it weird that during motherhood (when the kids are home) we are so tired and during our single days we were not. It doesn't make sense. We need our energy NOW!

Well I would blog more today but I want to look into Aleks math & TimesTables before my kiddos notice I'm missing

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Today Brent didn't have any school so we all took the day off. After breakfast I got the kiddos ready to go to the park. Before leaving I put some Marie Calendar's Pot Pies in the oven and put some Dino Nuggets on a cookie sheet. That way when we got home the pies would be done and the nuggets wouldn't take long to cook.

I have learned the hard way about coming home from the park with hungry stomachs. No fun! We are all irritable. Another time after coming home from the park I ordered pizza to be delivered about the time we would be home.

The kiddos had fun at the park. I had them practice dribbling a ball. Then they played on the swings, slides etc. Once I new that they were pretty tired we headed home & had lunch. After lunch Josh & Caleb played outside. Annette, Brent, Ethan & I watched "Reading Rainbow" that we checked out at the Library. The book selection was "Follow the Drinking Gourd" we love that book. One of our favorites is "Sweet Sarah & the Freedom Quilt" I am almost always in tears when I finish the book . Lance & Mathew have been put down for naps.

Now at  2:31pm. I have everyone having quiet time  I need to make the kiddo's school schedule. I usually do this on Friday or Saturday but I forgot . So off I go to get ready for tomorrow.

Blessings,
Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

We had a tornado hit our area at about 4:00am. One in our city that has done minor damage. There are a lot of homes in our neighborhood with trees down, broken fences & shingles missing from their roofs. We were very fortunate to not have had any damages to our house (none that we know of anyway). My SIL in Ca. said she was praying for us.

Today I only had four kiddos home. Joshua & Caleb went with Lupe to one of our rental properties. Annette, Ethan, Lance & the little guy that I watch stayed with me. Felt like a 'light' day. Although the never ending pile of laundry is waiting for me and I need to put my bed back together. Ethan peed in our bed last night.

I was going to write out some plans for next school year but the baby just woke up. Maybe I'll have time tomorrow. I want to visit some blogs too.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I joined the Homeschool Lounge a few days ago. I can't believe I did because I barely have enough time to blog. I was curious to see what it's all about. If you visit me there my 'Nook' is pretty plain. I don't know much about adding things and making it look nice. My sister Cynthia is the one who designed this blog. She has some real talent.

Yesterday, we schooled outside. I took pictures but am having problems with my computer. My Sweets moved our desk and I think he didn't hook something back up, so he is going to look into. He has to finish our taxes first though .

Back to schooling outside......the kids and I moved our school table and chairs outside yesterday. They ate lunch and snacks outside too. In between subjects they rode their bikes up and down the street. They were playing some imaginary thing. I kept hearing them talk about their orchards, the woods and things like that. The blanket was their house. If you could see our neighborhood you would know that we really have to use our imaginations because the only trees we have are the ones planted in the front yard, our grass is half gone & there are rows of houses, but we have made our neighborhood many things.

One time I was Gladys Aylward and and they were the children (I was only short about 94 kids ) we walked all over our neighborhood pretending we were trying to flee the war in China. As long as you have an imagination you can go to many places. We dream of having a nice big yard with lots of trees, but it doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon.

Caleb has a loose tooth, Lance still loves to wear shoes all the time, Ethan continues to be a messy eater but can make some good instant ice tea.  Just thought I would throw in some little info on my kids and how they are doing for their Auntie MaryEllen in California. They miss her lots and can't wait to see her.

I need to get the kitchen cleaned up, correct some paper, get things ready for school and read my Bible still so I must go. I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit my blogging friends lately. We are pretty busy during the day and in the evenings my Sweets is paying bills, working on taxes, looking at rental properties or researching things so my time on the computer is limited.

I wanted to say thank you for taking the time to comment and let me know how you all are doing.

In Him,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I need to take some time and add some links to my drop down menu's on the left. I have been really lazy about adding and deleting things on my blog.

Here is a link to some math worksheets. They have math worksheets for K-5th grade.

For your preschooler and some preprinting for your little ones

Some free Liberty Kids episodes (thanks to someone on the WP Forum).

I have many more and hopefully will get to share them later.

In Him,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

My kiddos and I have been enjoying the book Mandy

from our curriculum Children Around the World. The kids keep yelling "More! More! More!" and I love to say "That's it, we will read more later." it's been fun  I have sneaked away with it to read ahead

I am using Sonlight Language Arts 3 with Josh. It consist of the Instructors Guide (schedule & activity sheets) and some optional workbooks; Grammar Ace, MCP Phonics C & Worldly Wise.

The Instructor's Guide includes, spelling, phonic rules, writing assignments, copywork & a little grammar. It also has a schedule for the optional workbooks listed above. So far we like it and although it sounds like a lot it really doesn't seem like it. In fact we have continued using Intermediate Language Lesson & in a few weeks will go back to using Writing Strands again.

We let go of Grammar Ace to continue using Intermediate Language Lessons because both Josh & I didn't like it. I'll use it as review for him if needed. Grammar Rock dvd is a hit though and although the kiddos don't seem to learn anything from the cartoon we still watch them. You never know. Maybe they are and I'm not noticing.

When I told Josh that the worksheets I was giving him was his Phonics he looked at me and said, "Phonics is for little kids." so I had to think quick and I let him know that it was 'Big Kid Phonics' and he was okay with that .

I still haven't been too consistent with Joshua's writing. We didn't do any writing last week I meant to but all of a sudden the week was gone. This week we did it twice using Sonlight's "Writing with Diamond Notes" I really like how they use  baseball  diamonds to learn how to write a paragraph. I want him to write more, especially since he will be in 5th grade next year.

I have Writing Jungle (think that's what it's called) I need to take time to read it so maybe it will help me feel more comfortable with this subject.

Josh has been my homeschooling guinea pig child. Poor thing. I feel so stressed out with only his schooling. I look back and wish I could start all over again. I kind of have an idea of what I would like to continue and use with the rest of my children now that I have sampled so many diffrent curriculums , but I always come back feeling guilty about Josh.

My kiddos are waking up.

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I was bummed about loosing my post yesterday  but oh well. Hopefully this one won't get lost in cyber-world.

Today was pretty busy (like most days) I sat down with Annette and we went over all her reading that she has finished this week. I love how much of the Bible she has learned using Rod & Staff. In fact on Easter Sunday her teacher at church commented on how much Josh & Annette new about the Bible. She said "They are pretty smart!"  I need to write & thank Rod & Staff and thank them for their help  along with Sonlight.

We started our schooling using Sonlight Curriculum and the daily Bible reading along with stories about missionaries has really helped my children understand God's Word. Rod & Staff has helped continue laying that foundation. Now with My Father's World we will continue our studies more in depth for the older ones.

My younger ones are just starting their journey; Caleb using R&S Grade one has finished with creation and is moving on to how God wants us to live. Along with "The Child's Story Bible" & "Studying God's Word (Christian Liberty Press). The Children's Story Bible will use in the Fall.

Brent will study the Bible using My Father's World he will get a brief overview from Genesis through Revelations.

Ethan & Lance will start with 101 Favorite Stories from the Bible & Young Learners Bible Storybook. Also while sitting in on some of the older children's Bible time too.

My prayer is that they continue to hide God's Word in their hearts & have a close relationship with their Heavenly Father.

In Him,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Well, I lost my entry and I don't have time to re-post it

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Another week! We have been busy, busy, busy. We are on week 16 of Exploring Countries & Cultures. I am hoping to combine a few weeks so we can start Creation to the Greeks in Sept. I purchased it and it should be here on the 1st of April. I want everything early because I might not have the money later

We are finally all well. Yahoo! No sickies anymore. We are getting back into our regular routine. Brent is still going to school across the street. His teacher is going to tutor him twice a week. She said that he is not behind but wants to make sure he will be ready for 1st grade. I think it's great. It gives us the option to either continue having him go to public school and he will be right on target if he does. Or we can keep him home and jump right into My Father's World 1.

So here are some plans for next year for my younger students.

Caleb will use Christian Liberty Press 1st grade and listen in on Creation to the Greeks when possible.

Brent will use My Father's World 1st Grade and listen in during read aloud time with Ethan & Lance

Ethan will continue with My Father's World K and I want to add in some extra fun stuff so we will also use from WinterPromise 'I'm Ready to Learn' it's suppose to have games to learn math & phonics and crafts. It includes science and has themes like Farm, Pond etc. I also purchased from WP Journey's of Imagination to add a scheduled read aloud time.

Lance will use the two programs from WinterPromise that I mentioned above along with My Father's World PreK.  MFW-PreK  has no workbooks or reading. They do puzzles, lacing and tracing. So I think between the two curriculum's it will be a fun preschool year.

It hit me like a speeding train that my two little ones won't be little forever and they are my last two. I wanted to do something fun with them. I'm always concentrating on my older ones academics and leave the little ones to fend for themselves. So this year I plan to do some fun stuff. I am working on getting Josh & Annette a little more independent so I will have more time for my Pre-k students this year.

And then there are the two middle students that I want to make sure I don't overload them like I did my two older students. So it will be an interesting year.

For my two middle students (Caleb & Brent) I wanted to get WinterPromise's new program called Hideaways in History so they will have their own programs and this program is geared to 1st graders and look great, but...........I decided not to. Besided Christian Liberty Press has a history read aloud. I didn't want to overload with us using

1. My Father's World Creation to the Greeks
2. My Father's World K
3. My Father's World 1st Grade
4. Winterpromise Journey of Imagination
5. Winterpromise I'm Ready to Learn

As you can see, schooling a 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, K & Pre-k, it will make for an interesting year

In Him,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

It has been forever since I have been able to sit and blog. Actually right now I should be napping instead of blogging

We have been slowly working through our school year. This week Brent is off for Easter vacation (Sprint Break) but not the rest of us. We took our Easter Vacation early when we went to  Ca.

Lots of changes has been going on. You know what a curriculum junkie I am . This time it wasn't me who wanted to change it was Josh. He has been using Rod & Staff's reading program (which I love by the way). Before we left to Ca. he mentioned that he doesn't like the workbook or the readers. I was a bit shocked about him not liking the reader because he loves learning about God. (The readers are Bible stories) but as we talked he was just tired of reading so many Bible stories. He reads at Sunday School, homeschool, bible time etc. He wanted something else for reading. I can understand that. He is not big on reading like Annette. She reads off "school" hours so she gets a variety of books. Where Josh mainly reads only when he has to for school.

I was trying to figure out what reading program to get him and I settled on Sonlight Language Arts 3. I already have all the readers, so I just had to order the Instructors Guide, MCP Phonics C & Grammar Ace. The only thing; SL is a whole LA's package program and Josh had just started Intermediate Language Lessons & Writing Strands from My Father's World.  I don't want him doing both programs but Josh really liked Intermediate Language Lessons so we might do them twice a week. Not sure about Writing Strands though. I liked Writing Strands though so we'll see.

Annette is still doing the same curriculum. She wants to switch to SL though because of the books, but I'm going to hold off on this. She doesn't complain about R&S reading so I want her to continue as long as we can with that. I love the that the Reader is bible stories and the workbook reinforces what they read. Wish I could have been schooled using Rod & Staff.

Caleb is still working through Rod & Staff 1. He is almost done with Unit 1. We are being more consistent with his schooling . He doesn't like Pathway Phonics but we do them at least 4 times a week anyway. He wants to learn how to read but he doesn't want to do the work.

For Caleb's 2nd grade year I will have him continue with R&S Reading but the rest of his schooling is going to be from Christian Liberty Press their 1st grade package. You can take a peek here. I chose to go with their grade one program because of Caleb's reading level. The only thing that he will not use is Liberty Mathematics Level A. I plan to have Brent use it and continue to use Singapore/MUSee with Caleb.

Here is a picture of all the cousins in Ca.

Sarah, Grandpa Lupe, Ruth, Ali, Annette, Jamie, Caleb, Josh, Marcus, Ethan, Joel, Lance, Jacki, Brent & Zack. I color coded the siblings.

Here is our newest cousin, Isabella

Another picture of the cousins

Well the kiddos are waking up

Blessings,

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Well, the stomach virus has visited us. Not very fun. This has been the most expensive winter with all of us having to go to the doctor's, hospital stay & buying medicine. Praise the Lord that's it nothing major though. Makes me very thankful for our health.

We are still alive here and trying to get some schooling done. We are on week 14 of ECC. We will take another break though (YIKES!) because we are headed out to CA soon. My dh uncle is with Jesus.

Hopefully I'll get to post an update on us before we leave. So much going on. Please keep us in prayer to keep up with school. We took two weeks of in Dec. another week off in Jan. plus we have all been sick since CHRISTmas and now we will be gone for two more weeks. Looks like we will school through summer to catch up.

Chris got sick too. He will leave for Iraq on the 14th of this month. Will post more later.

Gotta go.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Just a quick note; Chris arrived safe. Grandparents are still here & Chris's parents will be here also. So for the next few weeks we will be pretty busy (what's new).

Kiddos are doing very little school. Only math .

My Sweets & I are still trying to get over our colds. My Sweets has this cough that won't go away. I want him to go to the doctor's to get it checked. I'm still getting over my Strep Throat. Please keep us in prayer.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I get to meet my niece today. Ruth and Isabella are flying in and will be staying with us until Chris returns. I'm so excited =)

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

We are from California and we are freezing here in Texas. It's 28 degrees but feels like 17. My house has very high ceiling so we are never warm unless I put the heater up to 74 degrees, but then our electric or is it gas  bill will be too high. So here we are with scarfs and blankets trying to get through our school day. The kids keep saying "It's too cold. We can't think mom."

All we want to do it crawl under the covers and sleep. LOL. Will be back later to blog. If we are still alive.

Blessings,
Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

If you would like to join in on Wordless Wednesday please click HERE 

Waiting for dinner

I have recently reread A Charlotte Mason Companion and it encouraged me to start listening to a composers again. I was doing well a year ago but stopped. Now we are listening to one a month. I was going to listen to one for three months but it seemed a bit long. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I got 11 cd's and 7 cassettes at Christianbook for under $30.00. The cd's were .99 to $1.99 each. I normally don't buy cassettes anymore but for 10 cents each I thought I would add some as well. That way if Josh is listening to a cd in his room Annette can listen to the same composer in her room. I should have just bought double of the cd's since they were so inexpensive

The kiddos have been working so hard on improving themselves. Annette with her body language. Caleb with his whining. Brent with hitting. Josh with remembering to do his chores on his own. Ethan with whining & Lance with communicating properly.

We took them to the candy store at the mall. Josh picked these. I thought they were neat and something to post about. Hee hee.

And this picture is for Auntie Reff (MaryEllen)

Blessings,
Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

There was a post on one of the forums that I frequently visit. It was about how this mom felt like a CM failure. I remember myself feeling the same way before. I couldn't figure out how one women could do so much and here I couldn't even fit in a 10 minute picture study or a nature walk.

It finally dawned on me that CM didn't have laundry, diapers, meals to cook and so forth. Once I realized this it lifted a burden off my back that I was carrying. Feeling discouraged and defeated in this area. I sometimes felt that my dc were missing out on a great education that I could not give them because I couldn't do all that CM could.

Another poster also added to my light-bulb moment when she at one time felt discouraged when she came to realize that CM was writing to Victorian English upper class moms who had nannies and housekeepers. Of course they could take their kiddos out when ever they wanted for those nature walks. They didn't have to prepare supper or make the beds.

One thing I have learned is there are so many styles and ways to school. When I first started homeschooling I was a Ruth Beechick homeschooler. Until I realized I wasn't very good at remembering to ask one of my kiddos "How many forks do we need for dinner, oh wait dad won't be home so take one away how much is that?" I remember reading all her little books (forgot the name of them) and really wanted to follow her philosophy but it didn't happen.

Then there was the classical style. I was going all the way. Latin, Hebrew everything from Memoria Press. Well the Latin programs are still on the shelf and Famous Men of Rome didn't catch my little ones interest. Plus I was not that disciplined. In my opinion the Classical Education is wonder but hard.

I won't go on about how I tried The Well Trained Mind...................

Now that I am done having my pity parties because I couldn't keep up with any of them I finally decided to pull stuff from each. Latin ( we will start with Latin Roots though) & chronological History  = Classical. Lots of great books = Literature. Composer's, picture studies, copywork = Charlotte Mason. Workbooks = Traditional School.

As you can see I'm a little bit here & there but I like to call it "The Beltran Way"

Blessings,
Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Here is a 10% off coupon for www.christianbook.com. Promotion Code 251479FF expires Feb. 15, 2008.

That's all folks, gotta get back to school

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

My oldest son Josh takes FOREVER to do his school work. He doesn't have all that much to do but yet it takes him all day. It is so hard for him to stay on task and finish. His reading takes the longest. Today just to give him a clean slate we did the last three uncompleted lessons from last week orally.

We use Rod & Staff reading. I have him read the story to me because he still struggles a little bit then I have him answer the questions in his workbook. It's usually 2 or 3 pages but some of them are putting the events in order by labeling them with 1, 2, 3, etc. Once in a while there will be a lot of writing but for the most part there is not.

I don't want to chuck the workbook because it is really good. I have thought about just having him read the story and narrate it back to me but the workbooks has lots of great questions and my dh would like to see a little bit more of a paper trail with him.

Annette is the opposite. I tell her what needs to be done and she will do it. She finishes one subject and she will start another. Today she had lots of math because she didn't do math on Friday. She sat at my desk and did it. She didn't move until she was done.

It's 7:35pm and Caleb is finishing his school work. My dad came to visit today. It's hard to get anything done when grandpa is around. My dad is going through a lot with my little brother and his problems and he is lonely without my mom so I don't want to ask him to leave. He works nights so again he visits during the day.

I started after schooling Brent today. We went over his sight words, did a lesson in Pathway Phonics and a lesson in Language Lessons for Little Ones Vol. 2. I'll see how consistent I am with this. Yikes!

I'm thinking of using MFK with him too. I have an extra set of worksheets. Just thinking out loud again ;)

Ethan is learning his 's' sound. I have to admit that I haven't been doing this daily. Hopefully tomorrow we'll work on it some more.

It has been a busy day so I must get off the computer. My house is a mess. I haven't done any laundry today so I am going to put a load in right now and finish cleaning the kitchen. I wanted to read to the kiddos before they went to bed, so I let our evening chores go undone . I also was working with Brent, Caleb & Josh in the kitchen trying to get the last of their schooling in. Sometimes when things slow down a bit I can get some school in. It's rare but it happens. It is now 10:00pm. and all the kids are tucked in. Thank you Lord for another day with my children.

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I have often wondered if I am being a bad homeschooling mom because we do not participate in any of the above. I keep thinking that the kids need to be in sports or a co-op. I am wondering if they are 'socializing' with other kids enough.

Than I think that they go to Sunday School for two hours and AWANA for another two hours. That's four hours of being with children their own age. Is it enough, I still ask myself. At least when we were in California they had their grandparents & cousins.

My kids do not have a best friend or hang out with the neighborhood kids (not that we see any kids around here ) 

The more I ponder this and take it to the Lord wondering if my kiddos are going to be normal. God again comforts me in my time of doubt. He has let me know that they do not need any of the above. He has shown me that my Sweets and I are all they need at this time. We are to be their only influence right now.

I am so glad because I don't have to worry about my kids asking if they could go to so & so's house. I don't have to worry about others influencing. My kids don't have to deal with peer pressure. Because even around other Christians there still is clicks, peer pressure and value differences.

We are not running around town dropping kids off here and there. Our life is exactly what I want it to be right now. The kids and I are home 5 days a week. We have a schedule. We don't have a hectic week. We do go to AWANA and getting them ready takes a lot of energy. I can't imagine doing this during the day or more than our AWANA night.

My heart is telling me that keeping them home is what is right for our family. I don't know how to explain it but as our family continues to draw near to Him it seems so right.

I also keep thinking about how not so long ago people farmed. Their children where with them all day. They were kept busy helping run the farm, they worked and didn't have to be entertained. I say that because a lot of things we put our children in our for their glory. I don't mean to offend anyone. What I'm expressing here is for 'my' family. I have a deep desire for my children to put their time & energy into something that will further the kingdom of God. I know they are young right now and these activities would be lots of fun for them, but I don't want them to think that that fun is about self. I want fun to be helping an elderly neighbor rake her leaves or go down town and pass out some lunches.

Lately I feel like our family has been at a stand-still. Not to long ago the Lord has shown me that it's because he is ready for us to take the next step with the kids in serving others. They have wonderful loving hearts and are very selfless compared to how I was at their age, but I have noticed that we have not been growing in this are. I have read tons of missionary books to my children, books on other children around the world and teaching about how thankful we should be for what we have. Now I think the Lord is showing us to go out and serve.

If we were too busy with co-ops, music & sports right now our Saturdays would be full and leaving us too busy to take the next step that God want us as a family to take.

I'm still seeking Him in this area because I'm not sure what we are to do but I know God will show us.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I can't believe I only have one toddler left. At one time I had 3 toddlers a baby and two kids  hee hee. Well anyway, Lance is 3.5 yrs and my last toddler. It's kind of sad but in a way I'm looking forward to having no diapers, bottles, sippy cups and being able to understand what they are saying. I have had all my kids one year after another that when Lance hit a year old, it felt weird not having a baby.

Sometimes I just stare at Lance because I'm not going to have another 3 yr old ever. Before every year I would have at least one 1yr, 2yr, 3yr etc. but now it's all ending.

As much as being done with having babies is sad and it has taken me 3yrs to finally accept this. I think I'm finally seeing that 6 is our number. I love having 6 children and I honestly do not think I can handle more. I would love to have more but I don't think it would be a good idea for me. It seems at times I can barely handle what's on my plate right now. I'm embarresed to write that but it's true. Having six kiddos is hard work. My Sweets and I are responsible for these wonderful children and to keep up with them isn't always easy. Providing the roof over their heads and food to eat is the easy part but I'm talking about their emotions, training, spirtual well being, keeping their heart etc. and we don't even have teens yet. Yikes!

Now if God decided to give us another child, I would be on cloud nine. Especially since I can't have anymore.

Well, I need to get off the computer, I have tons of laundry to get done  and my little blessings are going to be up from their naps an minute.

Blessings,

Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

Click Here to read about other homeschoolers days

I thought I would share how a day of schooling goes for us. I won't bore you with all the details of diapers, arguing etc. because I don't have time. The kiddos are watching a 30 minute David & Goliath cartoon

I wake up at 6:00am. The kiddos have their alarm clocks set for 7:00am if they wake up earlier they  start brushing their teeth and picking up their rooms. They are not allowed to come downstairs before 7:00am.

At 7:00am the kids have an hour to get their morning chores done & eat. They have to be in the schoolroom at 8:15am. This gives me time to drop Brent off at school.

8:15-8:30am we start with Bible from My Father's World. My two youngest might join in or might not.

8:30-8:45am on Monday they will copy the Bible verse for that week. On Tuesday the two older ones will write it from dictation. I put any hard words on the board. Caleb doesn't do this. He practices his penmanship.

8:45-9:45am. Josh & Annette do math. If I need to work with one child, than the other will do cursive or spelling. For instance; today Josh needed help, so while I helped him Annette worked on her cursive. If Annette doesn't need help with Math than she will start immediately at 8:45am. While they do math I work with Caleb. Usually this will be enough time to do reading & phonics with Caleb.

9:45-10:00am. Spelling for Josh & Annette. I'll work with Annette while Joshua copies his spelling words.

10:00-10:20am. Annette does Primary Language Lessons, Josh does Intermediate Language Lessons & Caleb does Language Lessons for Little ones. Sometimes this will take more than 20 minutes if I'm needed by more than one child.

10:20-10:55am. Geography. They will have a snack by this time. It's something that they can eat in the schoolroom. Carrots, granola bar or a dinner roll.

10:55-12:00 Reading. Annette can pretty much do her reading on her own. I usually listen to Josh read because he still needs help. Caleb already did reading and he will start math.

We have lunch and than science afterwards. From there we have quiet time. By 3:00pm Brent is picked up. Start getting dinner ready etc.

I usually read to them in the evening. I use to read a lot through out the day about three years ago but back then my kids ages were baby, 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 so I had the time. Now that they are older and need to 'do' school it has taken a lot of my reading time away. I do try to read 2 picture books and 1 chapter of a chapter book a day. Some days I'll get more reading in and other days I will not.

If you count our science time as reading than that would add to our reading time.

In the evening I will do some school with Ethan.

Well that's a day at Homeschooling6 Academy  Joshua named our school because he was tired of people asking where he went to school. So now he can say "Homeschoolin6 Academy" Yikes! Wonder what people will think. Hopefully they won't ask him anymore questions after that. He doesn't like it because it's so different than what other kids answer. It usually bothers in Sept. when they are all promoted in Sunday School & AWANA. That's the first question the teachers seem to ask the kiddos in their class. sigh.

Blessings,
Linda<><

Since dropping a lot of our workbooks, school seems more fun. Today we were supposed to do a writing assignment though but I forgot to look through  Writing Strands yesterday. I didn't want to start without reading what we are supposed to do. I'll have to take a look at it tonight so Josh can start tomorrow.

I might start Annette with some writing too. Not sure yet. She was doing Excellence in Writing pretty well. I'm thinking of starting her with Igniting Your Writing and move her on to Writing Strands next year. She is in 2nd grade but she is an older 2nd grader (8yrs.). Tonight I will take a look at both programs and see. Igniting Your Writing! looks fun.

Caleb is slowly working his way through Phonics Pathway. He is on page 44. He is reading short vowel word.  He can read some long vowel words with 'ck', 'sh', 'ch' etc. which starts on pages 90+ but the book said if he can't read the words by just looking at it NOT to move forward. So we have been working on page 44 this week. He still has to sound out the words. Once he can read them without sounding them out than we can move on. It seems so slow but I don't want to rush him like I did Josh. Thankfully Caleb has a Sept. B-day so he is in first grade. Even though grades have nothing to do with reading it still make me feel better knowing that if I say he is in first grade that people wouln't expect too much from him, but if I were to say he is in 2nd grade people would comment that he is behind.

For reading Joshua is using Rod & Staff 3 and today we read about Queen Ester. I love how R&S uses Bible stories for reading. Right now he uses the workbook that goes along with it but I'm thinking that maybe we will drop it. Not sure yet because I really do like the workbook. I was wondering if I should just have him narrate it back to me. Naaa......I think I'll keep the workbook. As I was writing this I was thinking how he could use some practice with writing complete sentences & discipline himself to sit and do his work. His mind is always wondering (that's another post) Reading is the subject that takes the longest and is the hardest for me to sit with him. I like to sit with him still because he is not a strong reader. He is improving but I don't feel comfortable just handing him his reading book. Hopefully next year he can do this more independently. For now though he still reads to me and needs help with some words.

First day of AWANA is tonight so I'm going to lay down for a bit.

Blessings,
Linda<><

Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.

I'm so tired right now that I want to just lie down and take a nap, but I'm too scared too. What if I sleep past 3:00pm. My worst nightmare is to miss picking up Brent. So instead I made a nice hot cup of decaf and decided to blog a little.

The kiddos finished with school early today. At least most of their schooling. Annette & Josh still need to finish reading and that's about it. They both did really well with their dictation today. I dictated Mathew 5:44. I did write enemies on the bored though. When we would have dictation using Calvert last year they would have us put a word that was hard on the board so the child could look if they had too and that worked well, so I thought I would try it with our memory verses. I like that idea and am glad I remembered it.

They both practiced the word "enemies" until they could spell it on their own. I'll have to see if they can spell it tomorrow still.

This is our second day using MFW schedule and so far I really like it. We did Geography again. Both Josh & Annette have learned 17 countries for Europe. We need to go back and practice North & South America. They almost know all of North America but we really need to practice South America. I lost our game for South America and have been too lazy to make a new one. I am hoping that I'll find it but I think this weekend I will have to make a new one.

Joshua loves his new spelling program 'Pathway Phonics' and he can do it all on his own. Annette is excited to finally start cursive. She has slowly been working through her Transition book from A Reason for Handwriting. Those books are so thick that I finally decided that we do not need them. When I was ordering a few things from MFW I decided to buy their cursive program. They are nice and thin and to the point & less expensive than continuing with A Reason for Handwriting. You can buy them here you need to scroll down to the bottom.

It's windy and cold outside today. When Brent gets home we are going to watch The Christmas Shoes. I think that's the name of the movie.

Speaking of movies, we finally canceled our Blockbuster account to support a Christian move rental place. If you would like to take a peek it's Christian Cinema. They are not as fast as Blockbuster and their site is not as easy to navigate but I don't mind the extra work & time. It's worth it to support a movie rental place that is a lot closer to our values concerning what we watch. I love it because they have Adventures in Odyssey, Story Keepers and so much more. There were many movies that I couldn't watch with Blockbuster because they didn't carry them.

We figure if we want a movie with a little more action we can always rent one from Blockbuster but at least we are not supporting them more than $5.00 a month. We are actually trying to stay away from movies that the kiddos can't walk in on while we are watching it anyway.

The Wii hasn't taken us over. We are not connecting it to the internet and to my surprise the kiddos don't even ask for it everyday. At first I thought it was going to be another "no" for me all the time. We don't plan on buying tons of games for it either. I want to keep it simple. We will see how long 'simple' last . In fact the kiddos can go days with out it. Yahoo!