Jan. 24, 2008 - projects and history lessons
This week was a full week of projects and learning. We have been tying up some loose ends in our Weaver volume 2 studies and with that was some extensive history lessons on New World Explorers. I choose to use the Homeschool in the Woods "New World Explorers" series that gives loads of items to use for lapbooking or notebooking.
The older two students are doing notebooking and the younger 4 are working together to complete lapbooks. As soon as I can wrap up Numbers and Deut. Bible studies we will move on to volume 3. I have to say I am really excited to move on but I do just need to buckle down and get this present volume completed. Volume 3 starts off with some more history but soon moves into Science again.
As an added bonus to our Bible studies and as a part of our Lords day fellowship the children (and adults) memorize scripture to be recited during our sharing of the word. Someone from another group sent me a nice selection of sign language books and included in them was a book on bible verses in sign. I have to say we have had so much fun with this that I will be really sad when we finally finish it.
Looking forward to another full week next week as we find out what learning the Lord has in store for us.
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Jan. 16, 2008 - With Gods help I made it!
I am finally back from a long but much needed break. The holidays were tough this year as Tom (dh) was needed to work the big ice storm in Oklahoma. He actually worked right in Broken Arrow were our weaver pal Kelly lives! He was gone 2 weeks right before Christmas and was home the Saturday before. I am usually a very independent person but this time it was tough. I had a really large load on my plate as I teach foster parent training classes 3 sessions a year and I was in the middle of CASA classes and we had our own home reevaluation for foster/adoptive care all during these two weeks. Dh felt so bad to leave me during such a high stress time but it just couldn't be helped. It was a great reminding time for me to lean even more on my saviour. God helped every bit of the way making each trial an easy task. I decided to take an extra week off just to enjoy and we have been back in the swing of things for over a week now.
Destini is doing so well with her reading and I look forward to summer when I feel she will be fairly independent with it. We are finally finished with volume 2 of our Weaver unit studies and are ready to head full swing into volume 3. This week and next we are finishing up some history projects from the Time Travelers series which has been sooo much fun. I want to finish up our one man ship from a cardboard box, complete with flag and captains log. Today it was explorer profiles and journaling in our captain log homemade books. It is learning like this that makes me love homeschool so much.
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Dec. 6, 2007 - snow days make me silly
Yesterday was our first real snow day here. I still almost always have school on snow days because we are mostly finished by lunch and what a better way to send out the children than after lunch with full stomachs and proper potty breaks! Soooo..... we complete our studies, eat a lunch of sandwiches and everyone races to me to help then get ready for outside.
Now this is were it gets just plain funny. If I was as organized as I would really like to be (and most of my friends think I am super organized) I would have taken the time in the fall to see who needed new boots, snow pants, snow coats, mittens... you get the picture here. But no.... I wait till the first snowfall every year to remind myself that I should have went through the gear. For most families I am sure this would not be a daunting task but when you do foster care you just never know who and what size you might end up with come winter. Such was the case yesterday. After recruiting much help from my 14 yo dear son, and 18 yo dear daughter, we managed to get each of the 7 little ones dressed in coat, snow pants, gloves (which is always funny to get them to spread their little fingers out so that only 1 finger goes into each hole), hat, scarf and boots. I really start to get hysterical in laughter after about the last one goes out the door as I know that just did about an hours worth of work for about and hour of outside time. What makes me laugh is that I always think for some strange reason that their time outside will allow me to do something inside that I have needed to catch up on, sewing, extra quiet time, reading etc. but before I know it I am out to the kitchen putting on the kettle for a pot of tea or making hot cocoa for them. I usually get to enjoy a cup of something hot before the first ones comes inside with a red nose and wet fingers because of a lost glove. What can I say except that snow days just make me laugh till I'm silly!
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Nov. 30, 2007 - What a way to finish out the week
Just where do start with this....hmmmm. My back is feeling much better thanks to one great God and one talented chiropractor. I co-facilitate a foster/adoptive parent training program and I found out this week that we will have a re-evaluation of our home this coming Wednesday. Usually I never mind those things but one, we are in the middle of remodeling our upstairs bathroom and changing over rooms (which includes painting) and... the home finder doing the re-evaluation is different that who we expected and she is much tougher. Sigh. I guess the Lord wanted me even closer to Him this week!
As for school we are attempting to finish out volume 2 of our Weaver unit studies and I admit we seem to be dragging. I am usually not one to drag much but this is one of those white page chapters and with 7 of our school age children under the age of 11 I have had to use some extra sources to help me better explain the Bible end. We are having a blast using the New World Explorers cd from Homeschool in The Woods. The projects included are super and the children are having a blast being "limeys" eating hard tack, and learning all about life as a sailor. Next week I will hopefully find a very large cardboard box to make our ship. The oldest dd-18 make our flag and we have been journaling in our captians logs faithfully with our real ink pens and ink. Quite messy but worth the effort! I plan to post pictures over the weekend so everyone can see what we are up to.
In big family life I did manage to make the ironing pile half the size it was and hopefully it will dissappear altogether tommorrow. We will not be hosting church services here on Lords day so I will have extra time tommorrow to devote to operation organize. I really do not have much to do just some little things and painting as I already mentioned. Hopefully I will have time to sew as the mending pile is increasing rapidly
We are looking to start our Christmas break in two weeks so I really want to wrap up regular schooling and switch gears to advent fun and cookie making.
Speaking of advent it starts this Sunday and I hope everyone is as excited as I am. This is one of my most favorite times of the year. Come on now with a name like Holly what did you expect? I will start reading Tabitha's Travels as our advent book this year. The children are so excited since this is the third book in that series. Most of the books are out of print now and very hard to find, I feel very blessed to have them all.
Being that it is 10:35 pm Eastern I need to tuck my little self into bed. I almost hate to as the house is particularly quiet tonight but I do have a busy day ahead.
Praising God in the advent season!
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Nov. 28, 2007 - In the beginning.....
My first entry on my newly established blog because as a mom of 10 ,yes that is TEN blessings, I obviously have so much time on my hands that I added blogging to my life. It really is something I have wanted to do simply because there are so many moms out there that just need some encouragement just as much as I do and I can't think of a better way to reach them and to help each other.
As I type I am leaning against a heating pad as I somehow managed to pull a large muscle in my back and am feeling quit guilty just sitting here but the older children have already cleaned up for the night and my dearest hubby is tucking in the little ones. I am skipping story time tonight in hopes that the extra rest and heat will help the recovery time less.
You will also see my posting on the Unofficial Weaver blog as Kelly has asked me to be a contributing author. I love my Weaver unit studies and sharing about it will just be all the more joyful.
I often read Beth Moore's books and I will leave with a quote she has in one of them. "perhaps the most profound miracle of all is living through something that we thought would kill us" So as we all daily live for our Saviour and our many trials let us all see the miracles in it all.
