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I am looking so forward to starting school next week. The rest of my curriculum came in today from Winter Promise. Now, we are all set. I already have the IG (lesson plans) organized, copies prepared, most craft supplies on hand, my netflix Q set up for the DVD's, and all of the readers organized. I said before I am not naturally organized. This is true, but I am ALWAYS striving. Often, I start out pretty good, then gradually regress back to the "fly by the seat of your pants" girl again. I am determined NOT to do that, with the Lords help. My character word this year is DILIGENCE! I need to apply this principle in many areas of my life. If any of you reading this blog detect any diligence backsliding evidence in my entries, please dont hesitate to SHARPEN me back to my senses. I will receive it with humility and maybe a few tears Keeping our days full of activity and busy is a challange during the summer here in Georgia. It just gets so opressively hot and muggy, that unless your swimming, its better to be inside. Harry doesnt do very well with too much time on his hands. He gets so bored, but he is not a self-motivated kid. He needs ideas and someone sitting with him the entire time. He has never liked even playing alone, and rarely goes off and plays by himself, unless it is a computer game or something. Even then, he wants me to sit and watch! Getting back to our daily school routene will be a good thing for him. He did play alot with his younger cousin over the past 6 weeks and had great fun. They swam alot. Unfortunately though, my brother has moved his family back to New Jersey. It is a great new adventure for them, but very sad for us that they are 500 miles away. Their son, harry's cousin, was his only close friend nearby. Alex (dd,15) is very self motivated. She is always busy doing something. She is an avid reader and often spends much of her time practicing her keyboard. She just got back from a youth trip to Florida. They were very busy doing community work, reaching out and helping homeless ect. it was a good experience for her, but she has been exhausted and trying to catch up on her sleep. Our best buddy, Rocky, who is our american bulldog, has been under the weather for several days. We are hoping its just a passing bug or something. He has been moping around and running to the bathroom. He is pitiful. If he is no better in a couple of days, we will have to take him to his favorite place, the dreaded vet. To make matters a little more interesting, we will be out of town over the next few days. We are going to Jacksonville, Fla. for the homeschool conference. My sister will be looking after our dogs. I am looking forward to posting our Winter Promise adventures and sharing photos. Be back soon! |
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Hello to all of our friends, I am new at this. so please be patient with me and my blogging attempts. You will surely not find a bunch of eloquent verses or anything fancy like that. I warn you ahead of time, I am a rambler and may not be very organized in my presentation of information. You will just read about who we are, what we do, how we think and feel and where we stand on certain issues like homeschooling, church, child rearing, and the like. It surely is not my intention to offend others who hold different beliefs, especially when it comes to issues like church. I know first hand it can be a touchy issue and I respect that. I spent 38 years of my life in institutional pentecostal church. God used it for good, even when it was bad. And we did have some bad experiences. The biggest lesson we have learned through it all is that it is the shepherd of our heart, the Great Shepherd is the One who will lead and guide us into all truth and again, thankfully, He gives that truth in bite size pieces and He is so patient in our assimilation of that truth. He is truly a gentle shepherd, whose soft voice, pure truth and simplicity is often drowned out by compromise, tradition and modern church culture and the extreme pressure those three things can place on the behavior and choices of a human being. My Blog title is "Building Up the Temple for the Lord". I chose this because the Temple is not a building down the street. It is us. We are the dwelling place of the Lord. Our bodies are the Temple of the Lord, and not a building made with hands. We are daily, weekly, monthly and yearly building up the temple. First and foremost, the foundation. We must be sure to use only the materials that God has said. Truth. If there is "wood, hay or stubble" (lies, compromise or false beliefs) in the foundation, the structure will eventually fall no matter how beautiful or successful it looks. We have often asked ourselves, what beliefs or doubts have we built in our children? Do they believe in evolution? Has someone placed any shadow of doubt in them at all that the word of God might not mean exactly what it says? (like the serpant did to Eve) Have they learned that truth can be compromised? This is wood hay and stubble. It will effect the structure being built! Our goal as parents is laying a foundation of a love of truth. Daily putting the unadulterated, unaltered, uncultured truth of Gods Word and principles into our children. To help them to see the origins of lies, the origins of immorality, and the origins of false worldviews so prevelant in our society, and how even much of christianity has compromised with it. Our goal as parents is laying a foundation of prayer for our brothers and sisters and for our country. We seek peace with all men, but can disagree peacefully without compromising our beliefs. Obviously, we homeschool. A huge part of our personal homeschool journey was the public school institutional deprograming. This took a long time. But again, God was good enouph to give it to us in bite size pieces to make it palatable. When God is trying to reveal the wood hay and stubble in your foundation (belief system) it can be rather painful. But those He loves, He corrects (or at least He tries to) The next part of our homeschooling journey was finding the style and methods right for us and our kids. I am the scattered type, so I hate structure, almost as much as I hate liver and onions- EW! However, sometimes things we hate do have some neccessary benefits, and as liver and onions provides a huge dose of much needed iron for the blood, structure to a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of girl offers much needed organization. Something I LACK big time. Here is where I confess my faults. I love unit studies, but for the life of me, cant seem to organize or present one in logical daily tidbits. I would always fall back on the workbook/textbook kind of curriculums like Abeka and School of Tomorrow, which my kids hate. So after years of back and forth, we have finally, PTL, found a workable balance. My 15 year old dd uses Notgrass History. This is an awesome christian worldview history, literature, and bible curriculum. She is just finishing up Exploring World History and will soon begin Exploring American History. We love the way this program is layed out. Simple and logical: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4 and the 5th day is mainly the bible portion of the writing assignment. She is also doing Algebra, Greek and Latin Roots, Abeka science (this will change soon, she hates it) I have to find a good writing program for her. I am leaning towardsJensons Format Writing. Any other suggestions?? My 10 year old ds is another story altogether. We are dealing with dyslexia and hearing loss, which has really effected his comprehension. He inherited my natural lack of organization and this is compounded and expanded upon by the dyslexia that he inherited from his daddy. LOL! He is so fun! He is smart as a whip when it comes to science, his favorite subject. He wants to be an inventor when he grows up. Last night, he sat on the living room floor and made all of the Star Wars ships out of paper. How creative is that!! They are awesome. He is a bundle of creative energy and thrives on hands on activities. This is where Winter Promise comes in. I have finally found a curriculum that offers daily schedules in History and language Arts which we will be starting next week. It will offer daily hands on crafts and activities which we need so bad, but I have not the creative mind or skills to come up with on my own. Harry (ds) is looking forward to studying The American Story 1 with the Native American Focus. I guess I better stop rambling for now. I will update after we start school next week! Blessings, Kim
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