Posted in General Talking
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The most overwhelming thing said by girls thinking about having an abortion is that when they went to find out about possibly having an abortion, they were not given the facts as to exactly what abortion is. Most of the time, when a woman goes into a Planned Parenthood or an abortion clinic she is not only encouraged to terminate her pregnancy but she is bombarded with the reasons she "should" terminate the pregnancy and the ease of having an abortion as though it is just a minor procedure like getting your hair colored. My question to the people working in these clinics is this: "If there is nothing wrong with abortion, why wouldn't you explain all of the facts including the emotional side effects so that each woman can make an informed decision? Are you afraid they might decide NOT to have one? " If the goal is to get as many women to have abortions as possible than we are no longer trying to help women, rather we are trying to push an agenda. If you know someone who is pro choice because they really do have a heart for women, I encourage you to share this video with her. Without any tears or emotional pleas, this video made by Priests for Life, gives a good description of what the doctors do when performing a first trimester abortion. It is not graphic at all but gives a gentle, yet matter-of-fact description using a fetal model and in fact is something you could share with your kids when you are explaining abortion to them. With all the news lately of health care reform, the abortion topic comes up often within the homeschooling community. I hope this will be a help to you. The other fact the abortion clinics don't tell you about is the extremely high rate of deep depression in women who have had abortions. They don't tell you about the women who can't live with themselves and are haunted by nightmares, who turn to alcohol and drugs to mask the pain they go through everyday for years and years afterward. There are thousands and thousands of women like this who regret their decision to abort. If you really want to help women, give them all the facts. |
Posted in Talking About the Family
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He's known as the meanest gunslinger in the west...
He took our family by surprise that day he rolled into town.
My husband tried to save his girls...
But it was no use. That outlaw was too fast for us.
It will never be safe in Dry Gulch until this fast handed desperado has been apprehended... |
Posted in Hands On Carnival
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Welcome to the 14th edition of The Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival. This month we had several submissions relating to preschool and young child activities. We can learn so much from seasoned homeschoolers and the many young families starting out in their homeschool journey. Sometimes when I'm surfing along and I see these wonderful posts for activities to do with the young children I glance by and keep going because I think the preschool activities are just for new homeschoolers. But I can't forget the little ones in our multi-child families. I have a five year old at home and I often have to remind myself to not only include her in our lessons for the older kids, but to also include lessons that are just for her at her level. Just because I have done something before doesn't mean she has! I'm going to start this edition with our preschool submissions so we don't forget these young ones and how fun their school time can be! If you have only older children at home, don't worry! We have lots of hands on ideas for you too!
~ For Our Littles~ Amida presents Journey Into Unschooling: Bead People posted at Journey Into Unschooling. A recipe for Homemade Finger Paint has been posted at Mommy's Life.You'll get to see an adorable video of A Picture of "One" posted at Baby Steps. Rachel says this is a "great way to incorporate masterpiece artworks into a learning activity, that doubles as emergency entertainment when out-and-about. I love this, DIY I Spy Board!" Mini-Whiteboard becomes Animal ?I Spy? posted at quirkymomma.com. Martha presents The Chef-a-nator Working on Fractions posted at Sunrise to Sunset. ~ Moving on to those "older" kids... ~ This month I wanted to share something in the math department. This is Hands On Geometry with my 7yo posted at Talking to Myself. Five in a Row is generally for younger ones but I gotta say my older daughter enjoyed many of our lessons when we did FIAR a few years ago. So don't let this next post fool you, it is a field trip for kids of all ages especially those boys at heart... Dawn presents FIAR Field Trip posted at my4sweetums - Homeschool Blogger. Kris and friends held a Mesopotamia Party and she shared some pics at her blog Science of Relations. Brenda presents Rocks in My Dryer posted at The Tie That Binds Us. There seems to be a rock thing going on this fall. Kris is studying geology too and submits her Saturday Science Challenge #12 on At Home Science. And if you like science, you'll love the new At Home Science Yahoo group.
Rachel presents Try a Shoe Box Journal posted at Minds in Bloom. Barb and her kids do a fabulous artist study and she shares her son's artwork here on her post Jean-Francois Millet Project-Oil Pastels found at Harmony Art Mom. Writing...How do you make writing hands on? Well you could argue that writing is in fact hands on just because of the nature of holding a pencil in your hand. But I'm looking for something more than that. Something that make writing more tangible, something that brings writing out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. This next entry just might get us started in that direction. There's nothing like a contest with funny rules to make writing interesting. Pamela presents It's Almost NaNo Time! posted at Blah, Blah, Blog. Another family with preschoolers running about, this final post doesn't really meet all of the guidelines for our carnival but it was such a great post that I hope will inspire us all in a way of life that will help us to meet our goal of doing more hands on projects with our kids. Adam presents Still No TV? posted at The Faughn Family of Four.
Thank you all for sharing your hands on projects here with us at The Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival. I look forward to seeing you next month. If you are reading this and you have never submitted an article of your own, I encourage you to blog about your next educational, hands-on project and share with us here.
Submit your blog article to the next edition of hands on homeschool blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. If you are interested in hosting an upcoming edition of The Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival or you'd like to be on our monthly reminder email list, please send me an email. |
Posted in General Talking
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Have you ever asked, "Why me? I don't deserve this." God is molding you into the person He wants you to be. It is painful. His ways are not our ways. When you proclaim Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you do not all of a sudden become perfect. Yes, when you ask God to forgive you, He will. That is guaranteed. And no we don't deserve that. But many people view Christians as "holier than thou" as though we are supposed to be perfect. We are not. We struggle with all the same things the rest of the world struggles with. And it is painful. When we ask God to take away our imperfections, it often hurts to let go of those things. The difference is, that we have God to lean on while He does the work. We can call on Him to help us through the hard times and He will be there because He loves each and every one of us. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 Yes, He loves YOU too. Wherever you are right now, you too can receive His forgiveness and become born again. Jesus said in John 3:3 ..."I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. " It is really quite simple, but it is a matter of the heart. Accept Jesus Christ, as your Lord and savior. And believe it. He came to this earth and gave his life in a bloody, painful death so that you could do this. He loves you. Confess your sins to God and know that He will forgive you. If you don't know what to do next, I humbly suggest you pick up a Bible. Don't know where to start? I didn't either. Try Romans or John. They are both good books (among many) for a new Christian or an unbeliever to start. The following video was played for us in church today. Our study was on Ephesians 4:17-24 It was an awesome video and I wanted to share it with you today. Humorous and so true. May you be blessed. |
Posted in Homeschool Talk
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My 5yo told me she wanted to paint fall pictures. She wanted to paint colorful leaves and trees and scenes from nature. After a bit it seemed best that I draw a few simple pencil sketches for her to paint because she was having a hard time getting the paint to do what she wanted and was getting quickly frustrated. So we started with some leaves.
Next I drew a tree for her and showed her how she could make the tree have many leaves by just using dots and dabs of paint. First I did up an example and while she painted I pulled out print cards I have of van Gogh's self portrait and a variety of impressionist paintings that use many small strokes like those of Monet and Sisley. We were able to talk a bit about the different types of painting and what started as an innocent child asking to paint turned into a brief introduction to impressionism and pointillism. I love it when lessons come out of nowhere! Here is her finished tree.
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Posted in Homeschool Talk
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My 7yo son loves to play with pattern blocks. So today we focused on geometry using the pattern blocks and a book called 20 Thinking Questions for Pattern Blocks (that I'm embarassed to say, was gifted to me when I started homeschooling a few years ago and I have only just begun to use it this year.) Each question or lesson gives a list of materials needed, a section on how to introduce the question, a box of possible problems that might come up and how to handle them, some examples of what you might see in your student's work, what to look for, discussion questions and then a journal reflection. This book is geared towards 6-8 graders and I could easily see myself doing this with my 8th grader once a week. For now, I have just pulled out the bits that I can do with my younger son. We can't get into the deep detail that the book does, especially in relation to decimals and percents and I don't bother with the journal entries because I don't want to slow him down with tedious writing.
Question #2 asks: How many different triangles can you make? We started by reviewing the names of the shapes and then I made a simple triangle and asked ds to make a few of his own. Once he saw that he could make triangles out of other shapes beside triangles I urged him to make larger, more complex triangles consisting more varied shapes.
Question #11 asks: What patterns do you see? This particular activity requires the child to only use one shape to recreate that shape in a larger size. Once the student can make it using only a few blocks he is challenged to make the next larger size. It took my son a few tries to get the blue parrallelograms right but he figured it out and found it even easier after that to manage the other shapes. After class he had some free time so I let him free play with the hexabits which as is customary with anything ds plays with, he made wheels out of so he could race them and later to play war with.
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Posted in Talking About the Family
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We had company this weekend. A wild dog came tearing through the house like an out of control whirlwind.
Oh right, dh's aunt came too.
She was a little tamer so we let her play with the kids.
;)
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Posted in General Talking
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We had a special treat today when our church welcomed Brothers Forever to take over our Sunday morning service. These guys have awesome vocals and moving testimonies. I was so impressed with their level of professionalism and thankful for their unashamed love and service to our Lord. Now I can't wait to go listen to them again on cd!
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