Nov. 8, 2009 - Censorship

   I find it amazing, that blog entries get pulled because the powers that be "think" it is offensive.  What happened to free speech?  The posting I am refering is a jab at the government, but nothing hateful.  There is no malice in the post.  There are no threats in the post.  It is merely an opinion.  Have we really gotten to the point where we have to have sensitivity police?  If the post I am refering to was an harsh attack on our government, then I might understand.  If the person posting was filled with hate, then, yes, perhaps they should take their hate elsewhere.  But to just block a post because the picture refers to the stupidity of the government????  Wow!   In our history, didn't the government give less than what was promised to Indians, or, Native Americans for those needing PC lingo?  Doesn't our government have a history of promising much and giving little?  Facts are facts and sometimes it helps to deal with those facts by poking a little fun or making a joke. 

It is the liberal, touchy-feely, everyone has to get along and be equal kind of attitude that put the current admministration in place.  Everybody play nice and don't say anything...that way you won't offend. 

    Hello, socialism......here we come full steam ahead!

I find myself weary of people that want to dictate everything others do and say.  I miss the America of old.

Nov. 6, 2009 - Weekly Wrap-up

I hope you all had a good and productive week. We are 3 weeks away from our Christmas break and doing well.

We did weight and measurements this week and Zach had fun. Here is Zach measuring the wall with his hand.


Here he is measuring the desk using a pen:

Here he is measuring his truck with blocks:

Spelling, I had held back in doing it, because of all the writing involved, but surprisingly on Monday Zach wanted to do spelling, so, we had a nice spelling session using a board and markers. I forgot to take a picture of that. Hopefully he will do it again next week and I will remember to take a pic.

This week we have moved on to a different topic in our FLL: Sentences. That`s exiting. We love FFL but sometimes it tends to get repetitive, which in itself is good but  . . . Anyway, this week was a bit more exiting.

Here he is putting some sentences in order


I had also forgotten to mention that since we came back from our vacation 2 months ago, we have started doing Daily Geography once a week, and Zach has been enjoying it very much.




As for Joho he has been doing his reading with dad as well as his regular math games, as shown here, and this week he also did some sight word matching, which you can see here.

Last week I mentioned that the boys have been into firefighting these days. Here is a pic of them rescuing a house (that they built).

Another thing that happened this week was on Monday when Johann was hanging on my arm as usual while I was getting a dish out of the fridge, and blam, on the floor it went with the freshly, as of the night before, baked apple crisp. I let out a shout, of course, but by God's grace, and only His grace, managed to keep it together. My husband reminded of how this would be a perfect chance for me to demonstrate forgiveness and so I did. This was one of those dishes that goes both in the oven and on the stove. Both my husband and I loooved it. Anyway, today, my husband brought home a cast iron dutch oven (we've never owned one before). Thank you hubby!



And that's it. For more weekly wrap-up hop on over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Have a great day,

Nov. 4, 2009 - What we have been adding to our homeschool

Asia, Africa, Antartica,
Australia and Europe too,
North America, South America
These are the seven continents

And here is our latest addition:
The idea came from Pumpkin Patch, a blog that definitely deserves a visit. You will find the template and the instructions there. The boys were really happy to see this clock when they woke up this morning. Hopefully they will know how to tell time in no time.

Have a great day,

Nov. 4, 2009 - Wordless wednesday - Brothers

Nov. 3, 2009 - Free Holiday Digital Supplement

Nov. 8, 2009 - Sunday Hymn

Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song
the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue
thy free grace alone from the first to the last 
hath won my affection and bound my soul fast

Without thy sweet mercy I could not live here
sin would reduce me to utter despair
but through thy free goodness my spirits revived
and he that first made me so keeps me alive

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart
which wonders to feel it's heartless depart
dissolved by thy goodness I fall to the ground
and weep for the praise of the mercy I've found

Great father of mercies,thy goodness I own
and the covenant love of thy crucified son
all praise to the spirit whose whisper divine
seals mercy and pardon and righteousness mine

Nov. 1, 2009 - Sunday Hymn

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God's mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heaven's peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shall be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me,
Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting,
As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless,
Drawing out my heart to Thee.

Nov. 7, 2009 - Link treasures

Oct. 30, 2009 - Weekly Wrap-Up

Another week is is done. We had a pretty nice week mixed with school and some fun activities. Monday night we went to one of the boys' playdate friend birthday party, and they had their regular playdate on Wednesday as well.

For school, we are still trodding along in our Math. We were able to cover the shape chapter in 4 days, leaving today a Math free day.

FLL is going well as well. We are at our 5th poem memorization and Zachary is doing very well with it (it is a 3 stanzas one). It is called Mr. Nobody. I particularly liked today's lesson about dates, as I think Zach needed that one.

In science, we finished our biome unit with the aquatic biome. I have been lagging with the science experiments. Hopefully I will still do them before moving on to the next unit (or may be not, we'll see. . .) I did start on the lapbook on this unit, but I can't say when that is going to be done . . .

History is going ok as well. Nothing special to report here.

We all enjoyed our outing out in the leaves on Monday. You can check that post here.

Last night we had fun doing a little bridge experiment.

From trains to trucks and construction, Zach has adopted a new thing now: firefighting. So he did a lot of that on his free time this week. Sorry no picture for that, but they will be coming soon.

And that's it. I hope you all had a good week as well, and have a good wee-end.

For more weekly wrap-up be sure to visit Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Have a great day,

Oct. 29, 2009 - Tot School

Here are a few of our recent activities within our Tot School!

My youngest children enjoyed matching numbers using this Scarecrow File Folder activity.

We read Goodnight Moon with our FIAR Club. Here is a paper we did with that.

It was a coloring picture. They colored in the items in the room in crayons then to make the room green. They used green watercolor paints. (They love painting!)

We also did a few fun Tot Tray activities. I was organizing the Tot activity cabinet and these activites my youngest wanted to work on.

This one is just placing marbles on the suction cups of a patterned bath mat piece. I found some fish shaped ones. This is a fine motor skills activity.

This one is a color sorting activity. The ice cream bowls and scoops I found inexpensively. I put those three colors (blue, green, & Yellow) of pompoms in a container. They had to take the color ice cream scoop they wanted and use it to sort those colored pompom balls into the matching bowl.

The picture below shows two other things (characters) my little Tot is currently enjoying:

If you want to see what others are doing in their Tot Schools, check out 1+1+1=1 blog.