What I'm thinking: How I am blessed to have my delightful son as it is his birthday today!
What I'm reading: Lord of the Rings - I usually read it once a year, but skipped last year. It is so much better than the movies and I love the movies!
What I'm listening to: My children figuring out who is right. That is so important you know. LOL
What we're learning: Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I, the first book of Samuel
What I'm watching: We are still trying to see Avatar.
What's cooking: Roast chicken at the request of the birthday boy, mashed potatoes, salad and an ice cream cake.
What I'm buying: Birthday presents!
What I'm wearing: The same long flannel nightgown! (I told you it was my favorite winter attire! :+)
What I'm thankful for: The birthday boy!
What I'm creating: Ice cream cake.
What I'm praying: God's will for our lives.
What I'm planning: Wednesday co-op day. I had a funky dream that Wednesday arrived and I had absolutely nothing planned. It wasn't awesome.
What I'm looking forward to: Dinner
A picture to share: The birthday boy on the left and his birthday friend on the right! They are only a few days apart (plus a few years!) Thanks, Charlotte, for the picture! :+)
What I'm thinking: How I could use a cup of coffee and how much this kind of thing is interesting to read on other people's blogs. Hope it is the same here. :+)
What I'm reading: Veritas Press' Omnibus II. I am scheduling Hannah's reading and I really enjoy the essays at the beginning of every book. Frankly, the essays are better than some of the book choices!
What I'm listening to: My children playing a game.
What we're learning: Reformation history, how the Israelites lived during the Judges, Boston Massacre and Tea Party for "Littles History", and how much my children would like to go to the tidepools on the coast.
What I'm watching: We will be going to see Avatar this weekend.
What's cooking: Roast chicken, baked potatoes, broccoli for dinner.
What I'm buying: Absolutely nothing. :+)
What I'm wearing: A long flannel nightgown that graces the floor. It is my favorite winter nightgown made for me by my mother.
What I'm thankful for: Our church. The families' love and prayer; the fellowship and deep teaching.
What I'm creating: Crochet dishcloths. That's about it at the moment!
What I'm praying: God's wisdom and direction for my husband as he continues his job search--and for a job opening just for him.
What I'm planning: My co-op month! Just finished coloring in my sample habitats yesterday. So pretty!
What I'm looking forward to: Co-op this Wednesday. What God will do in the future.
I just love finding things online that I didn't know were there. :D One of my children needs a little extra work to really learn this lesson in her Math U See so I went to the site to see if they had anything that might help. Did they ever! They have a worksheet generator that you can specify for different lessons. So not only does she have fresh problems to work with, I don't have to think them up! It will even generate the answer key if you want it to. What a bonus! Poof, her math lesson is ready for tomorrow! I love MUS!
In our Mystery of History study we have been learning *so* much. The Reformation and the Renaissance are such amazing and heroic times. Right now we are reading a marvelous book about John Calvin. He is one of my heroes. The book is called, The River of Grace: The Story of John Calvin. It begins when he is seven and goes through his early life, his conversion upon examining the scriptures for himself, and his roll in the formation of the reformed church. It never ceases to astound me how little people knew of God and His word in the church at this time. Even the services in the churches were in Latin and the common man could not understand! I praise God for the Reformation. We would not have the light of His word were it not for courageous men and woman during the Reformation! We are very much enjoying it.
My newest review product I am working on is a biology program from Science Shepherd. It is beautifully put together and very thorough. I am excited about it. More on that in the future!
Even in the midst of our crazy winter storms I am starting to think about spring. What will we plant in our EarthBoxes this year? I have purchased a few heirloom seeds as the one bean heirloom from last year worked so wonderfully. (And we harvested the seeds again of course for this year!) The site is a little wonky for finding what you want, but Cherry Gal is where I chose to purchase the seeds I wanted purely because they had English cumcumbers! She has a neat selection and we bought some herbs and a few other veggie seeds. Spring will be fun!
Another year! Time keeps marching on whether I am available for it to do so or not. :+) I am excited about this new year and grateful for every day.
We start our second week back post-break tomorrow and it is going well. I set up a schedule/check-off list for each child right before we started back last week and it has been working remarkably well. So much so that my younger two keep reminding me of the things we have yet to do all day until they are accomplished! This is both wonderful and frustrating all at the same time. LOL I am grateful though, in truth, but it makes for a very busy day. Homeschooling five with all different levels of study is really a challenge, but a good challenge. At the end of last week I thought to myself, wow, this is hard work, but work I want to be involved with. So we work!
Last week I had a wonderful night out with a dear friend. We started at the Fox and Goose Pub for dinner where I had the *best* fish and chips! It was a wonderful old brick building with very British decor. It was a fun "flash back" to England for me and wonderfully Americanized because there was no smoking! :D Then we headed to the Crest Theater in downtown Sacramento to see the beautifully gifted George Winston. His talent is so multifaceted it simply astounds me. Not only can he play some of the most beautiful piano solos, but he also plays very complicated guitar and harmonica pieces. I did not expect that at this concert. I also did not expect that he would be so unassuming. He wore jeans, a blue Oxford shirt and sox!! Evidently he plays best that way as Diane said that is how she has seen him play twice before--even in a suit! :+) Our seats were unbeatable and his playing superb. Thank you again, my sweet friend, for the glorious evening of time just with you!
We wrapped up our first semester artist study on Raphael. His artwork was unmatched--even today. It brought tears to my eyes a few times while studying it, it was so beautiful. I cannot imagine having that kind of gift. We are now moving on to an American artist, John Singer Sargent. He was, in effect, homeschooled! That was a fascinating discovery. Of course they wouldn't have called it that, but it is how he was educated. His mother, I would hazard a guess, would have been called an unschooler. :+) We are just beginning our study about him from the wonderful and free Ambleside Online art schedule. What a tremendous resource Ambleside is! My dear friend Nancy, is educating us on our new composer, Edward Elgar. I love what she brings out and shares with our family. Dawn is sharing and teaching scripture to the children as well as a study of maps in our geography course, and Charlotte is teaching a hymn this month. A rich time of fellowship and learning!
God is faithful and we are resting in Him. Welcome 2010!
So here we find ourselves again! I love September - the scents, the colors, all things fall. This year we have five children in our homeschool. All five! I have 9th, 7th, 5th, 3rd, and 1st graders this year. (!!) It is the first full year for Emma and this year she will learn to read in earnest. She knows her sounds, but we are working diligently at mastering it. I will be very happy when all my children are reading. It is a milestone of growth and development for me - like potty training! :+)
My two oldest are on the trip of their lives for ten days to Washington DC and Virginia with my mother and her husband. They are seeing places I have never seen before and their trip has been wonderful so far. It has been a joy to talk to them at the end of every day because their excitement and wonder at what they are experiencing is palpable. Today they will visit Colonial Williamsburg. I think it will be one of the highlights of their visit! They both loved Monticello and both purchased things to bring home from there. They chose things totally congruent with their personalities - one chose garden seeds and one chose a book about Jefferson's books. Those of you who know them will know which is which!
We have begun our homeschooling in earnest with the younger three. We are using some new curricula choices this year and so far they have been big hits. Writing Tales II is something John is using for writing and grammar and I am very pleased with the way the program is working thus far. I love the way the author communicates the information to the student and I really like the "Tales" she has chosen. John just finished writing, in his own words, the first one by Aesop, "The Bundle of Sticks." It is a very worthwhile program. John is also going to be using (as soon as it arrives from Rainbow Resource) Building Spelling Skills. This will be a "first try" for us with this program, but I loved the table of contents and I hope we love the book too. :+)
He is also using a cursive handwriting/copywork program from LightHome Publications. Since he is studying animals of the 6th day this year for science, I am having him do their A-Z Exotic Animals. He has really been enjoying it and I am pleased with the wide variety of different animals they chose for this book. The sample at the link gives you a good idea of what is included in the download. I discovered this company some time ago and really do love their handwriting/copywork books. I have used several of them thus far over the last year.
Land Animals of the Sixth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 is the science source we are using for John and Abigail's science. They are making this lapbook to go along with it. We have really loved using Jeannie Fulbright's books--and we learn so much in such an interesting manner! Abigail and John will also be using the intermediate level from Science Excursion. This is the neat curriculum I told you about when I came home from Modesto this July. What a fantastic company!
Math U See is still our staple for early math. Emma began her MUS journey yesterday and we have lots to learn together. She tends to have a fatalistic mindset about school until she sees she *can* do it. I don't even know where that comes from, but by the end of the lesson she was showing me place values and was very happy with herself. :+) That can be a trickly concept to understand, but she is slowly getting it.
John has been joining Emma and Elizabeth on one of my "Ah HA!" journeys. Last year I was sharing with a dear friend Nancy, that if I could do it over again, I would do Beautiful Feet's Early American History. She pointed out that I *could* do it over again (so to speak) because I have two little ones! So we are reading almost all the wonderful books in this set and making their beautiful timeline and they are loving it! I am loving it too. So thank you, Nancy, for reminding me that some things can be do-overs. :+)
One of the best parts of our year is our weekly co-op. I am continually blessed by this group! We are studying a variety of subjects that at least our family always seemed to have a hard time getting to in the course of our homeschool life. Art and artists, music and composers, hymns, poetry, scripture, and geography are this year's subjects. You can follow our journey here as well find out all the resources we are using. Many of them are free online and ready to use! Our co-op is a small one, with only four families, but that makes it intimate and the children get to know each other well. I am also blessed to build relationships with the mamas!
Well, that is about all I can do for today. I just wanted to share a bit about our homeschooling this week. I will share more about what we are doing with the others in the future.
I can do no other - I oppose Obama's "Heathcare" scam on the entire population known as The American People--as so oft-quoted that I begin to dislike the phrase. Why does he think he speaks for all of us? He and the congress do not speak for me. Just a few reasons why I do not support it:
"The Democrats want to spend $1.5 trillion over a decade, impose an $800 billion tax increase in the midst of the worst recession in a generation, increase federal borrowing by $239 billion (on top of the $11 trillion the Obama budget already requires us to borrow through 2019), impose costly mandates on employers that will discourage hiring as unemployment nears 10 percent, force individuals to buy one-size-fits-all government defined insurance, and insert the government in countless new ways between doctors and patients. All of that would occur whether or not the plan includes a "public option," which at this point it does include and which will exacerbate all of these problems." (source)
Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans' Admin have proven that actual costs are horribly underestimated—these are examples of “Government Health Care” – Do you want to be cared for by these kinds of organizations? Do you want anything remotely like it?
As evidenced by other countries with socialized medicine, quality of care DOES suffer. Why do Canadians and Britons come here for their care? It is so they will receive the best care in the world. Do we want that to go away? US health care is the benchmark for innovation. Socialized medicine is a lesson in how to stifle innovation and quality of care. Again, I ask you - Why do Canadians and Britons come here for their care?
The only way to control costs in this system is to RATION care – WHO wants their care rationed?? Do you??
This rush to cram legislation down our throats in spite of public outcry against it is irresponsible and downright dangerous. Why is this administration forcing its ideas on a huge number of people who do not want it?? Does he speak for you?? This congress and president should stop forcing their version of the American Dream down our throats. This article details exactly the kind of non-American actions those in Washington are taking. It is wrong wrong wrong! We do not live in a socialist country where the government forces itself upon us!
I may be put on some sort of government list for opposing this change in our land, but I *do* oppose it and I think we should all know what we are getting into. This bill is 1018 pages long. How many of your representatives have even read it? How many different dangerous things could be interjected into that many *pages* of a bill? The Constitution, the founding document of our country, has only 4543 words in the original, unamended Constitution. This includes the signatures!! What are our representatives, led by this president, doing to our country?
There are always - always - other options than this monstrous bill and I oppose it. I hope you do too.
I was poking around the internet looking for something that would demonstrate the hemispheres in a 3-D format and came across the following sites. I am continually amazed at what is out there for free. Truly. Here is the first: PaperCraft from Cannon. There are the most intricate and fascinating paper projects to make all for free download. The second is from the CA Department of Conservation. They offer Earth Science 3D Paper Models and Toys in the form of free downloadable and printable resources. Since we are going camping this week and will be close to the stars with no light around us I printed this out. How cool is that? Happy internet hunting!
These folks sent me an email and I thought it was worth mentioning here. Remnant Books is a neat site that sells used books for some very good prices. I was surprised to find them for $1.50 or $2.00! That is a really good deal!
I just came back from the Valley Home Educators Conference in Modesto. The vibe was not quite the excited one that it was last year, but there was still a good amount of folks there and as always, a fantastic selection of delectable curriculum choices to peruse. I love that part of it. Surprisingly, even amidst my job of being surrounded by new curriculum on a regular basis, it still holds that "new book smell" for me and I love seeing the neat new things out there.
Science Excursion was my favorite discovery of the conference. I was able to bring home the level 4-6 and cannot wait to start it with the children! What a neat neat curriculum that covers all sorts of areas in a very hands-on manner. Check them out!
"To Be One" is the other product that I look forward to viewing. The producer was a very neat young man. This is an unusual take on getting-to-marriage relationships as it does not take one road and make it "God's Plan" for all. I really look forward to seeing it up close.
That's all for now! What are you planning for the next year? I am hoping to spend some time writing up my list of "will dos" for the next year. What about you?
Oh, and a note about our EarthBox experience--the review. :+)
I want to honor this young man, killed in the prime of his life, by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. I didn't know him, but he was over there fighting on my behalf. He and his family gave all and I wanted to publicly thank them. I cannot thank their son face to face, so I will thank his family in this way. I cannot possibly know your suffering and your sacrifice, but I so very much appreciate it.
1st Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw
1st Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw, 24, of Steilacoom, Wash., died June 25 in Kheyl, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska. (Link)
So I just got back from a wonderful trip to the WHO Conference in beautiful Washington State. I have never been there save for a layover one late night almost 20 years ago. It is really lush and gorgeous. You who live there, enjoy it! The weather was just amazing. As my travelling companion, Nancy, said, "It's weather!" As you might be able to tell, we don't have much of that here in CA. :D
We met some of the nicest folks with some neat products. I keep hearing about WriteShop and it is everything it says it is. I want to buy it for my Abigail because it will not only teach her how to write well, but it will enable me to know how to evaluate her writing. That is the thing I get stuck on and find myself saying, "Hey, that sounds good to me!" I would like some help determining what I might be missing in my grading. I like that.
There were some new companies I met that I found to have worthwhile products. Some were art companies with interesting products that were perfect for the homeschooler and some had really good inexpensive math games. This math game is aptly named; Wonder Number. I mean we kept saying, "Wow!" It is worth watching the video on their site. The Home Scholar is expanding their product line for high school/college prep and I think they have a real niche market worth exploring if you find yourself with high schoolers! :D
We were so blessed to be able to hear Mr. Steve Demme. He is Mr. Math U See, but he was not speaking on math. He is a former pastor and has a real heart for the family. What a blessing it was to hear him encourage moms and dads to love and good deeds towards one another to build their marriages. He offers his talks for free on his site here in the resources section.
I don't know why I never knew this, but I didn't so I thought you might not know it either and I found it really neat. I met the nicest man from Soundforth, BJU's music division. They have all sorts of sheet music for sale of the simple variety for the beginner to the advanced musician. Now my little can play "How Firm a Foundation" because it is in an easier format. It was one of the few things I purchased.
My flights were unexceptional and for that I lift up great praise!! We were blessed with minor turbulence, no dropping 800 feet in the air. (!!!!!!) It was difficult for me to leave and I even wrote a goodbye letter to my children. Can you tell I don't fly much? :D It was good for me to examine all of that though, and in some ways it was an act of faith to get on the plane. It made me realize too, that I find it very easy to pretend that life will go on as-is forever. It may not do that and I should always be taking stock of my life and always treat my children as if it was the last day we had together. I know that some of that will inevitably wear off, but not this week and I am grateful.
My older children were so helpful while I was gone and our backyard pergola over our patio is going up nicely under Mark's direction. John is helping all he can. It is a precious thing to see. Ours will look something like this, but not exactly as it butts up to the house and will throw more shade on the patio. We are planning to have grapes grow over it. Our amazing EarthBoxes are doing spectacularly. I mean WOW! Here are some shots:
We are harvesting a ton of zucchini and a bunch of cucumbers and we have seven cantaloupe on the vine ripening as well as watermelon, bush beans, honeydew, and tomatoes. It is *such* a rewarding way to garden!!
Reading lessons are going well! God is good. This is a hard job some days, this homeschooling thing, but it is so very worth it!
I love to read, I love my husband and children, I love my Savior. I enjoy dark roast coffee with cream and sugar, Earl Grey tea with scones and clotted cream, long walks in forested areas and Redwood trees. I have a mad passion for history, strong sound Reformed theology, and good creation science materials. I have strong opinions, but respect those of others. I am grateful for my life, for every breath, for each day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice in His mercy.
So here we find ourselves again! I love September - the scents, the colors, all things fall. This year we have five children in our homeschool. All five! I have 9th, 7th, 5th, 3rd, and 1st graders this year. (!!) It is the first full year for Emma and this year she will learn to read in earnest. She knows her sounds, but we are working diligently at mastering it. I will be very happy when all my children are reading. It is a milestone of growth and development for me - like potty training! :+)
We have begun our homeschooling in earnest with the younger three. We are using some new curricula choices this year and so far they have been big hits. 
