May. 13, 2008 Gracie the Ballerina
So if you read yesterday's post about the challenges of taking photographs in the girl's ballet studio, add to that today that Gracie was standing behind a cement pillar in the middle of the room and I could hardly see her at all. And add to that that Gracie's class had many more students (and bigger ones) than Millie's. It was really hard to get any of her.
Stretching.
I had to shoot into the mirror to get this shot of her doing her arabesque. I couldn't see her otherwise. Her left arm really isn't 3 feet longer than her right. Promise.
So graceful. The little girl in all black in the front is REALLY, REALLY talented!
Doing her chasse arabesque with a partner. (doh! Motion blur!)
At the end of class. They were watching one of the little boys perform on his own.
That's all for now! |
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May. 12, 2008 My Prima Ballerinas
I took pictures of the girls at ballet last week. Now for you photographers out there, here's the set up. These were taken in the dungeon basement of a dance studio. There is an antique shop at ground level above the dance studio. The only light available was from the overhead lights in the studio. I have permission from their teacher to take pictures, but I told her I wouldn't use flash so as not to distract the students. So it makes it a little bit challenging not to get blurred pictures! I have to crank my ISO up to 1600 or 3200 (1600 when they're doing floor exercises & 3200 when they're really moving around a lot), open up my aperture quite a bit (which makes focusing on a moving target difficult) and watch that shutter speed! But I love a challenge. This is what I got.
Millie's class was on Wednesday. Their teacher is very encouraging. Millie, doing her arabesque, while the other little girls look on with great interest.
All lined up (I can't explain the look on Millie's face):
Now look at this one closely. See the little girl in all black? Her nose is completely smooshed on the elbow of the little girl in front of her.
Millie likes to spice things up a bit and throw in some of her own moves. The tossing the head back thing is hers.
I love the concentrated look on Millie's face in this one. She's really trying to copy what her teacher's doing.
Sleeping Beauties. I think Millie's the best fake sleeper in the class. And I don't know if that's such a good thing.
Following teacher's lead:
See Millie trying to make her foot do what teacher's is doing?
I didn't get as many of Gracie but I'll post hers tomorrow. |
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May. 11, 2008 Mission: Organize Toys. Accomplished! (and some other news!)
First I just have to say thank you to Tia for choosing me as Featured Blogger of the Week! I feel very (very!) honored! And if you're new to my blog, just wanted to welcome you! Hi! :)
Okay, so I am nesting. Big time. I have had lots of little projects that have needed to be completed and some big ones. My last smallish project (although it took me an entire day to complete!) was a Flat Stanley project Gracie & I did for her cousin, Amber. It was actually pretty fun! I would've posted it here, but there's too much specific info about where we live. I can email it to you if you want to see it though!
The next thing on my list was to totally organize ALL of the children's toys. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? Ha! Tell my aching hips! I swear, my hips get looser and looser with every pregnancy.
Anyway, so the 3 older children and I, with some occasional help and an occasional set back from the younger two, made one HUGE pile on the floor of the family room of every single toy they own. We went through and sorted out the Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, stuffed animals, dolls and accessories, Legos, plastic cowboys, Indians and army men, other plastic animals/figures, puzzles (lots!), shape sorters (lots!), toy cars, play kitchen items, musical instruments, Playdoh and accessories, dress-up clothes, lacing beads, wooden lacing cards, wooden train tracks and accessories, GeoTrax set, old fashioned wooden toys, Fisher Price barn/nativity/Noah's ark playsets, various games, blocks, puppets and more. We took apart our sectional sofa and found lots of toys under there and got that vacuumed up. Everything has a home now. We threw away a TON of toys- broken toys, toys with missing pieces, McDonald's type toys and toys they no longer play with.
I thought about taking before and after pictures but the before's would've been just too embarrassing to share. Gabriel decided to "fix" our toy box lid one day and then he couldn't get it put back together. Kenton had already repaired the toy box lid several times already so it was just shot. We just left it off and the toys in the toy box were fruitful and multiplied. I don't know how that happened, but it did. It was a mountain 3 feet above the height of the toy box. At least.
We had already purchased a new toy box, we were just waiting until we had the time to do this before we got it put together. So we used the old toy box as a garbage can and when it started to overflow, Alek filled up a couple of garbage bags full of toys and took them out to the garage. Then we filled it up again. I got the new toy box put together. We put the toys that didn't really go into any of the categories into the toy box (and it's only about 1/4 of the way full! YES!), I vacuumed again and we were done! And I am not kidding when I say it took us a good 12 hours to get that done yesterday. We started before noon taking only a break for a (BIG) lunch and finished up at midnight. Then we had cereal for dinner. I know. Bad mom! Bad mom!
But it's DONE! And it feels GOOD! And it looks so NICE! Now please just don't ask me how long it will last. I may just break down and cry. I could hardly walk when we were done. Talk about the pregnancy waddle, it was extremely exaggerated and I didn't sleep well last night. All of that squatting, sitting on the floor, getting up and down up and down, bending over a 32 week along belly for 12 hours straight did me in.
Now I'd just like to make labels for all of the containers....
And I just want to wish a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all of you! I hope you've had a wonderful day! My children got me a one hour massage and a deluxe steam (which will have to wait a while) for me! Sounds wonderful about now! |
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May. 9, 2008 Show & Tell Friday: Gracie's Millipede May. 3, 2008 Gabe's 7th (Cowboy) Birthday Party
Gabe's not quite 7 yet (not till the 15th) but due to time constraints mostly, we celebrated his birthday yesterday.
We usually just have birthdays at our house but we did things a bit differently yesterday. The children had co-op in the town next door and this is also where all of the grandparents live. So my mother-in-law offered to have the lunch/BBQ part of the party at her house immediately following co-op. It was SO nice not having to scramble to get everything done the day before, including my house!
It did take a lot of planning though. I brought almost all of the food, down to the burger toppings and condiments. We had a western theme going on. I brought a huge duffle bag with all of the children's changes of clothes (they do PE at co-op- cowboy boots just don't cut it for PE), hair things, etc. I asked the grandpas if they could dress up as cowboyish as they could and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the grandmas dressed up a bit too! I got hammered a bit for being the only one NOT dressed up in Western attire, but I'm sorry, I don't have any western tops to begin with, let alone MATERNITY western tops! I had jeans on? Doesn't that count?
Anyway, there was another reason we wanted to stay in *that* town for the party. We had some tricks up our sleeves. You'll have to read all the way through this long post to find out what that was. I dropped Kenton & the children off at co-op (except Josiah), and headed over to Costco to pick up drinks, buns, chips and some other things. Then I stopped by my in-laws house & unpacked all of our stuff, including Gabe's presents. I had time to saute some mushrooms and brown up some onions for the burgers and then had to go pick everyone up. My mother-in-law finished the rest of the food prep and my father-in-law grilled burgers and hot dogs while I was gone! I was so thankful! Oh, and my mom had some baked beans already made from her recent company, so she just brought those! I tell ya, I got off easy yesterday!
After I got the rest of my family there, I had them change and re-did the girls' hair. I got a group shot of everyone (but me) before we ate. I should just warn you now, I had a little fun processing these pictures, so some may look a little weird to you. I took WAY too many and didn't get any I was impressed with but here's a snapshot of our day.
 Doesn't everyone look cute all dressed up? I wish I'd had a better spot to take this- the background is way too busy, but it was raining at the time (don't get me started on that). See the drops by Gabe's feet?
And then I attempted a group shot with just my children. I didn't get one good one. Here's one where everyone looks good but Josiah:
And then Josiah finally cooperates and no one else (except Gracie) does:
Birthday cowboy:
Believe me, the burgers WERE as good as they looked! Thanks Dad!
Mmmmmm......
My MIL had the table set so cute! She found some of Kenton's old plastic cowboys and set those at the top of Gabe's plate.
So lunch was wonderful. We had BBQ'ed hot dogs and hamburgers with LOTS of fixings for the burgers. We had chips, potato salad and baked beans too. And then it was time to open presents. Here's Gabe waiting patiently for everyone to gather around. Papa was cleaning his glasses for him.
The girls close by for moral support (actually, Gabe's reading the card they gave him). My children declared yesterday that they love giving gifts better than getting. Even after just asking Kenton & I what we liked best when we were children, and we gave them our selfish, honest answer that when we were little, we liked GETTING. Doh.
I love this one of Gracie.
My moms do NOT like me taking their pictures. At least my mother-in-law just gives in and smiles.
This is the only picture (out of 5 or 6) I got of my mom where she's SMILING instead of SCOWLING. The stinker. My parents.
So Gabe got some really cool gifts from his siblings. He got a tiger Webkinz from Gracie (a first for us), a fun Rubik's Cube game from Emilia, a toy shotgun from Alek, and some sidewalk chalk and Hot Wheels cars from Josiah. And then we rolled out our gift to him. We had all of the children (except Gabe) sit with their backs turned to Kenton with their eyes closed so that nobody would blurt it out before Gabe got to see it first. Gabe got a new bike & helmet! He was SO excited!
So after Gabe got to go outside and try out his new bike for a while, we brought them all back in and told him he had one more gift from us. He didn't look too impressed when I handed him a stick horse I'd picked up at the dollar store, but didn't say much. I told him that cowboys had to have a horse to ride, right? "Yeah." You don't want to ride this one? "It's not real." Oh. Would you rather ride a real horse? "Yeah." Okay, let's go! At this point the children all began squealing. Really? Really, mom? Yes, really! Let's go!
So on to the second half of the birthday party, to a young homeschooled teenager's house who does birthday parties and gives horseback riding lessons for some income. She had a little room all decorated in the barn with tables and chairs, paper plates, party streamers and balloons all ready for us. Her horse, Casper the Friendly White Horse, had been groomed and even had glitter in his mane. This was a hit, I tell ya, and the other children are already asking if we can do that for THEIR birthdays!
Gabe got to walk the horse from the barn to the arena.
Of course Gabe was the first to get to ride.
Clint Eastwood. I mean, my father-in-law.
I don't even know what to say about this little ham.
Hunky Hubby.
Alek's turn on the horse. He got to ride without being led.
I don't know where he gets his silliness.
Josiah even got a couple of turns to ride. He was not a BIT afraid. He smiled almost the whole time.
Gaber.
Wearing the double crown of Egypt. An easy way to hold someone's hat for them.
Even Papa got to ride! Which do you like better?
 
I think my dad was SO excited that a) he didn't eat it while trying to mount the horse, b) he didn't fall off while riding and c) he didn't eat it while dismounting, especially since he knew I was right there to joyfully capture the moment if it'd happened, that he did this when he was safely back on the ground. And in case you're wondering why this is such a feat for him, watch the video in THIS POST:
So tough.
So a little over an hour later, after all of the children had 2 or 3 turns each (and Papa got his turn), we went back to the barn where we had our cake... and ice cream. It was an ice cream cake. Gabe wanted a cowboy cake and since we don't have a REAL bakery around here where we can do special orders and our 2 grocery stores are limited to making only what you see in the books AND they BOTH said their photo cake machine was down (which makes me wonder if they share it), Gracie gave us the idea to get the cake at Baskin Robbins. THEIR machine was NOT down and the lady didn't show me any pre-made cowboy cake pictures, she just asked me what I wanted it to look like. I was SO impressed with her work! Gabe's cake turned out SO cute! Just look:
 Those specks on the edible photo part are frost. It was really yummy!
And then the grandparents gave Gabe their present from them- 4 horseback riding lessons from the same girl who did the party! He is very excited about that. We had a great day yesterday.
From there, we went back to the in-laws, packed up our stuff and followed the parents to a duplex they're thinking about buying. It would be so cool if they did! They're going back to look at it again today. It's only 20 minutes from our house (as compared to 45 minutes), it's in OUR town, it's SUPER SUPER close to our church, we could visit them all at once, it's at the end of the road.... I hope they get it. :) |
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Apr. 30, 2008 Wordless Wednesday: Bubbles. Apr. 25, 2008 Death Of A Girlie-Girl? (be warned- not for the weak stomached)
Gracie loves pink. She loves dresses. She loves tights and bows and fancy shoes. She will sometimes come downstairs to begin homeschool in her Sunday finest, complete with all of the above. She loves princesses, ballet and playing house. She loves babies and great grandmas and everyone in between. She loves snuggling and hugs and kisses and praying for people.
So I was surprised, to say the least, when Gracie ran in to show me the treasures she found in our yard yesterday. Normally, it would be a pretty rock or a freshly picked flower. Not yesterday. Nope.
To my surprise, this is what she presented me with:
A big fat earthworm.
And Millie had to share her worm with me too. At first I thought it was a maggot. But we don't have flies around here. Not until summer anyway, and even then, we don't see much of them. So it must be an earthworm in its pupal or larval stage or something.
Yes, those are my GIRLS' hands. Did you notice Gracie's fingernails? If not, check out this next one. Nasty.
I hope none of you have just eaten. I couldn't finish my breakfast after I pulled these photos off my memory card and took a peek at them.
Now this hand belongs to my 12 year old niece, who'd spent the previous night with us. She was showing me the vast collection of earthworms they'd acquired. Yes, she helped too.
After these pictures were taken, Gracie had to come in and get cleaned up. For what? It was time for ballet. Yes, from pulling slimy worms out of the ground to gracefully performing chasse arabesques in a tutu and ballet slippers across the dance floor, in the matter of an hour.
And I don't think I even want to know what *that* is.
I think I want my girlie-girl back. Maybe this was just a glitch. I hope. |
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Apr. 23, 2008 Wordless Wednesday- Future Tennis Player? Apr. 16, 2008 We're Outta Here!
I am so excited! We are going to an awesome homeschool conference this weekend! And I don't know what I'm more excited about- the conference or the fact that Kenton & I get to go away, by ourselves, for 2, maybe 3, nights! Okay. Yes, I do know what I'm more excited about. But the homeschool conference sure is a nice bonus! Hee-hee! This will be the SECOND time we've gone away for a couple of nights by ourselves since having children- the first being for Kenton's birthday (surprise) in January. The children will be watched by the capable and loving hands of their grandparents- in split shifts.
I love homeschool conferences. I've gone just about every year since Alek was 2. They are so refreshing and encouraging. I would highly encourage you to try and get to one if you've never been. It's also a great time to check out all of that curriculum you've only drooled over in catalogs.
Doug Phillips of Vision Forum is the keynote speaker! It ought to be good.
I hope to see Leigh and Linny again there! :)
While we're there, we're going to do a little shopping (order the children's dressers) and a few other things. We have to take advantage of being in/near a big city when we can. Pray for safe traveling if you think of it! |
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Apr. 14, 2008 An Eclectic Mix Of Pictures From Sunday
I hate to keep harping on our weather here, but you know it's got to be sad if the pastor has to mention the two really nice, sunny days in a row you've had and the congregation applauds and some even whistle. But then he went on to add how he was a bit let down when he looked out the window this morning and saw that it was raining. Again. I actually felt the same way.
Saturday was really, really nice though. It was 63 degrees! That's practically summer weather around here. It felt good to be outside and feel warmth. The children played outside almost all day that day.
But the rain cleared up by the time we got home from church, the children went out to play and I followed with my camera.
This was actually taken Saturday. Alek calls Gracie "Galadriel" after she takes her braids out of her hair. What do you think?
 
Do any of these make you nervous? (trampoline shots)
After the children went inside (and I had nobody else to photograph) I decided to try & get a shot of a hummingbird. They're everywhere- they sound so cool buzzing around the yard. We have a hummingbird feeder on the side of the house, so I was kind of waiting around there. Did a test shot to make sure my exposure and everything looked good so I'd be ready for a hummingbird.
Nooshie was following me around. She knew I had some dog treats in my pocket so we practiced sitting several times.
Although I heard a few hummingbirds, none were headed towards the feeder so I decided to look for signs of spring. I don't know what this is- Kenton thinks it might be huckleberry.
Don't know what these are either. These shrubs line the front of our house under our living room windows.
Can you spot the early bloomer? I think this is a decorative plum. (can you tell I do not have a green thumb?)
Newly emerging leaves from our little Japanese Maple. (now this one I know! Aren't you proud of me?!)
I went back to the tree where the hummingbird feeder resides and was standing RIGHT THERE when I heard a hummingbird coming from the direction of our neighbor's yard. I saw it fly towards me. I slowly raised my camera, excited that I'd get a shot at it, and my ever-so-slight movement must've scared it away. It flew close to the feeder and then buzzed away. I never even got my finger on the shutter release. *sigh* Maybe some other time. Here's what Nooshie thought of the adventure:
And this is something different for me. I processed this with a vintage look and then added a texture- tried to make it look old-fashioned. I should've decreased the texture over Josiah's face a bit more- it's a bit much. This was an unplanned shot otherwise I think a teddy bear would've looked better than a modern toy dog on skates. ;)
We have a busy, busy week, actually 2 weeks, coming up! |
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Apr. 13, 2008 An Actual Post About Homeschooling (our plans for next school year)
My recent prolonged absence wasn't only due to all of the time that went into re-doing a few of our rooms (see the 3 "Home Makeover" posts here, here and here). I was also doing some major planning and organizing for our next school year... or two.... or three.
After talking things over with Kenton, we decided that instead of stopping our school year on May 30th as planned, we'll keep going for 3 more weeks, extending our last day of school to June 20th. Why? Well, the baby is due July 3rd, which in my pregnancy language, means the end of June. I want to ENJOY this baby without the added responsibility of homeschooling for as long as I can. I figure that if we start our next school year in June, we could start back up September 15th (which would give me 2.5 months off with the baby), take a week off at Thanksgiving, 3 weeks off in December and still finish by May 29th of 2009.
Of course, I do realize that I may need to be flexible, but as of now, our next school year is completely planned out.
I have all of the children's assignments put into Homeschool Tracker (I L-O-V-E that program- have used it for years now!), which believe me, is a very time-consuming chore because I sometimes get pretty detailed in the directions for assignments. I figure the more detailed I am, the less the children will have to ask me what they're supposed to be doing. Anyway, I love this program because by putting in all of the assignments the children do on their own, it accomplishes 3 things for me:
- An easy way to input grades All I have to do, since I assign certain assignments a grade point value, is click on the "points earned" box, input a number & mark it as "complete." I don't even have to open up each assignment individually; I can just go down the list of assignments for the week and click in a number into the points earned field. I try and do this weekly and it only takes about a minute or two for each child. Voila! Grades are up-to-date!
- Attendance calendar is a breeze We have to keep up-to-date attendance records here in WA. There is an option in HST that if checked, when you mark an assignment as complete, it will automatically mark the attendance calendar for that child as "present" for that day. As long as I keep up with inputting grades each week, my attendance calendar is also up to date each week.
- Makes a nice checklist for the children By putting in all of the assignments my children will be doing on their own, I have the option of printing out a weekly checklist for each of them. It makes it so much easier on all of us if I can just run down their list and see what they need to be doing for the day and what they've already done (so I can look over their work.) They check off their assignments as they go and know what they have to do for the day at a glance. Here is a screen shot of one of Alek's Mondays (his heaviest school day). If you'd noticed that I allow him to check his work on his own, he is the only one that has this privilege as he has proven himself to be completely honest and responsible in doing so. Also, his Monday assignments are two pages long- this is just the first page (if you were wondering why he didn't have to do math).
Last year, if you remember, I spent half of my summer planning out this school year. That was a bummer. There is a link to the schedule I came up with here that you can download if you'd like. That one is in Word format or click here for the PDF version (be sure to read the very last page to understand my abbreviations). The colored dots you see next to some reading assignments are my cue to check my teacher's notes (which are separate from the schedule). Our scripture memory plan can be found here. And just FYI, we never did do Picture This!- a draw your way through the bible type program. It was one of the first things that got cut due to time.
Anyway, I have since found Winter Promise. They use Mystery of History as their spine for history as I did this year. I think someone here may have suggested to look into them back then, and I did, but the age span for their Ancient World program was listed as for 4th to 6th graders, and I was hoping to use it with a 1st, 3rd and 5th grader. Well, looking back, this program would've easily worked out for us. It's actually not a whole lot different than what I'd planned anyway, and Gabe (my first grader) has had no problem keeping up with us.
So sometime early in this school year, when I realized that Winter Promise (WP) would've worked just fine for us, I planned on using it for our 2008-2009 school year, thus saving me 1.5 months of my summer planning it out myself. (thank you Lord!) I went ahead and ordered WP's Quest for the Middle Ages at the beginning of February. It looks absolutely wonderful! We have REALLY enjoyed Mystery of History 1 this year so I am happy to continue into the next volume next year.
Well, then I got to thinking. I had planned to use QMA with my older 3 and then use Sonlight K, which we already own, with Millie. However, out of all of the years we used Sonlight (PreK to 3), K was my least favorite. The last time I used it (when Gracie was in K), I remember having to replace a bunch of the books I didn't care for/thought would be over Gracie's head, with ones I thought we'd like better. That ended up being more work and I don't care to go through that again. I decided to look into some of WP's other programs for younger children and thought the Animals and Their Worlds program looked pretty fun. I thought it would be a nice change of pace- a science oriented study rather than history-oriented. I talked it over with Kenton & then went ahead and ordered it.
And then I got to thinking again. Gabe has followed along with Alek & Gracie since he was in K. He has probably had more history than most 1st grade children will have by their 3rd grade year. I thought it would be fine if he skipped a year with a history oriented unit and decided to let him choose if he wanted to follow along with Millie or Alek and Gracie. I KNEW what he'd choose because he's more into animals than any of my other children. It was a no-brainer for him- he will be doing Animals and Their Worlds along with Millie next year. I really think he's going to enjoy it. There are a couple of books that they use that teach children to draw animals. He is my most artistic child so this will be good for him. An added bonus to this will be there will be no more fights as to who gets the coveted spot next to mom during reading. I will have 2 children in each program.
I did have to alter the reading schedule in QMA for Alek though. Using WP's reading schedule (the books the children read on their own), Alek & Gracie would be reading the same books at the same pace. Well, they are NOT at the same reading level- Alek needs to be challenged a lot more than that. Gracie will be reading 9 books next year per WP's schedule, which will be challenging enough for her, and I believe I have scheduled out 19 books for Alek to read. I lightened up his Friday load a bit since we usually have homeschool co-op on those days anyway. He will have read 20 books by the end of this school year.
I also planned out all of their memory verses for the year. This sounds easy but it took me an entire day to do this! We have songs that go with all of their verses and I even made the CD already. The first 2 verses they will be learning are sung in a lullaby. I want them to learn this before the baby arrives so they can sing it to her. :) It's the 3rd track on the Hide 'Em In Your Heart lullaby CD and is really sweet (you can listen to a short clip of it on Amazon). Gracie wanted me to print off the words and has it pinned on her bulletin board in her room. I think she knows it already.
We love to read poetry and WP only has 1 poem scheduled per week in the Animals and Their Worlds (AW) program. I have a few poetry books just about animals so I scheduled out a poem to read every day that goes with the animal we're studying. I'll read one a day to Alek & Gracie too but don't need to schedule that out as we'll just go through an entire book.
I also decided that I wanted to do Bible with all of my children together. I am also hoping that we can make this the first thing we do in our day. We will be reading through Leading Little Ones to God. This is a book Sonlight uses in, I believe, grade 1, so Alek & Gracie have already read through it. However, it's a wonderful book and it's been long enough for them that I believe it will be beneficial for them to listen to it again. I also wanted to continue to read about missionaries or people of great faith. We will read two YWAM books, about a chapter each Monday throughout the year. We will be reading about Eric Liddell our first semester (the Chariots of Fire guy) and Corrie Ten Boom the second. We will top off each book with a movie night about each of them. We will also be reading from two other types of books: one called Polite Moments (an awesome little book of manners), and a (very) short moral story with books mostly from the Building on the Rock series. This may sound like a lot, but will only take about 15-20 minutes to do at the most (I did a trial run with our schedule). Here's a screen shot of a typical bible reading week:
This school year I printed off a bible reading schedule for Alek & Gracie. They check off the passages they read as they go. Their instructions for bible reading are to pray first, then read the Word. It's funny how much they enjoy this- on Fridays when we have homeschool co-op, I will let them skip several assignments (mostly all but reading and math) but they do NOT want to skip their bible reading! I am hoping to instill a lifelong habit in them. This was not on Gabe's assignment list, but he decided he wanted to read the bible every day too- so he has been lately!
Not only do I want them to read the bible, I also want them to know how to apply it to their lives. I've kept an eye out for devotional books for them to do on their own and found one for each of them that I think is going to be awesome!
Gabe will be going through a book called God's Mighty Warrior Devotional Bible. Gracie will be going through it's counterpart, God's Little Princess Devotional Bible. They are both written by Sheila Walsh and are geared for 4-8 year olds. The devotions are short and sweet, easy to read and easy to understand. I think they will be perfect for those two. I read through most of the lessons and I am just really impressed. They will do a devotion out of their books on Mondays and Wednesdays (which includes reading a portion of scripture out of the devotional book) and reading the bible on their own following a reading list on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
I have been on the lookout for something to use with Alek for a couple of years now. I found two devotional books at Plain Path Publishers for him that I am SO excited about! I really hope and pray he takes these lessons to heart because they are so meaty- there is so much to be gleaned from them! They could really make a difference in a child that takes them seriously. I purchased both Christian Manhood and Christian Character. They are both geared for 10-14 year olds, but I think they could be used for advanced 9 year olds to young men older than 14 easily. I had Kenton look them over and he thought Alek should go through the Christian Character book first. Check out the links I added above to view sample chapters of these studies. I think you'll be impressed!
For the first part of the year though, since we will be studying Saul/Paul, the apostles and the early church, Alek will be reading through the book of Acts and doing a study guide put out by the Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek folks. It's called I Can Study Acts, Alone With God. They also have sample pages you can view on their website. It looks great too. It will take him 2 school years to get through all 3 of these books.
I have all of our school books for next year in two tubs- one for the AW program and one for the QMA program. My teacher's binders are put together and completely organized. I still have a few things I could do to make life easier once we start school, but are not completely necessary. For the most part, if we had to start our next school year tomorrow, I am completely ready to go! And as you homeschoolin' mamas can imagine, that is a time-consuming accomplishment! But BOY, does it feel good to be DONE with that!
Oh, and I already have a good idea of what we're going to use for our 2009-2010 (S&S for the boys and CAW for the s Sonlight preK for Josiah) and 2010-2011 (QRR for A & Gr- and maybe Ga & E too if WP comes out with one for their age, Josiah??) school years... Crazy, huh?
So there's a peek at what we'll be doing next school year! |
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Apr. 12, 2008 Physicals and Sunshine
We've gotten a little behind on getting physicals for the children. I wanted to get them all in before the baby gets here (I'm 28 weeks along now!) as life is just going to get crazier... in a good way. A *really* good way. I'm getting very eager for her arrival.
Anyway. So I've had all 5 children scheduled for physicals this month. When I called and was scheduling Gabe's appointment, they asked when he was in last & I thought sometime early last year. Well, they checked and he hasn't been to the doctor since 2006! Oops! He did see his eye doctor though. So it was definitely time to get them in. The girls went in last week and today I took Josiah & Alek. Gabe goes in towards the end of this month.
Here are the stats so far on their percentiles:
Height Weight
Alek 75-90th 50th
Gracie 50th 25th (this has been her norm since she was born practically!)
Emilia 50th 50th
Josiah 25th 50th (his height percentile surprised me but Dr. said last time he was in the 10th percentile for height!)
So far, everything's checking out okay with everyone. Healthy children.
It was actually WARM in the van on the way home from the doctor's office. We actually had the VENT turned on to cool! Both boys said they wanted to play outside as soon as their feet hit the ground and the rest of the siblings joined them.... and their mom followed them around with her camera. ;) It was a beautiful day. You can definitely see signs of spring around town- grass is getting greener and thicker, the trees are starting to blossom... ah, a change in the weather will be nice.
So here are some snaps from today. I LOVE this one of Gabe- probably because he RARELY lets me take pics of him- but I just love it!
Nooshie (awful composition, I know):
Millie was Miss Take-A-Picture-Of-Me today. I got a ton of her, but this was my fave:
From that to this in 4.2 seconds:
Alek swinging:
Alek?? not sure what he's looking at:
Sisters:
Gracie:
And because my husband reads my blog sometimes and will wonder why I have a pic of Nooshie and not Ceph, here you go honey. Here's your big, bad, black dawg.
Edited to add: And for my first commenter (I don't know who you are- you didn't sign in or sign your name!), here are two of Josiah (I just thought I'd posted an awful lot of pictures of him lately. ;)
Can you just hear the airplane noises he was making?
And Josiah swinging. Fiercely.
Busy week coming up for us! |
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Apr. 11, 2008 Why We Homeschool, Issue # 7
11. Spontaneous sibling moments such as this.
 (if you're wondering about the look on Gabe's face- Alek took the tract he was reading from him but at the same moment, something in Gracie's book caught his eye. In the next frame, Gabe's completely absorbed in Gracie's book, forgetting all about the tract he was reading)
Before we even started homeschooling, I noticed how well homeschooled siblings got along. That amazed me- actually more than that. Because I can vividly remember going to my first homeschool conference. Alek was just 2 years old at the time, so it was still just a thought- I was in the information gathering stage. But at this homeschool conference, I remember walking by a booth and seeing two young children (the children of the folks running the booth) calmly, peacefully and even ENJOYING playing a game together back in a corner. They were probably 8 and 10 years old. It made a lasting impression, to say the least. I knew right then that I wanted that for my children. Maybe that doesn't sound unusual to you seeing siblings get along like that, but that was completely foreign to me. My brother and I, well, let's just say you'd never see a moment between us like that. And that's the type of sibling relationship *I* knew.
Now my children do not get along with each other 24/7, but I would say most of the time they do get along. They are very close and good buddies, and while I'd like to think they'd be like this no matter which schooling route we choose, the fact is, one reason they ARE so close is the amount of time they get to spend together. They've had time to bond with their younger siblings and the youngers get to see the olders (obviously) more often than they would had they been sent to school. They *know* each other because of the time spent together.
So when I saw all five spontaneously snuggled up on the couch and absorbed in their books, I had to capture the moment. They don't stay put for long. |
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Apr. 10, 2008 Homeschooling Tool You Can't Live Without?
Is there something you use in your homeschool that you couldn't live without? (or would be greatly inconvenienced if you tried?) If so, I want to hear about it!
There are several things I could list as far as our homeschooling must-haves: my computer (along with Homeschool Tracker), the 3 hole paper puncher, electric pencil sharpener, etc. But the one I want to talk about is our unique dictionary.
We have been plagued with a dictionary problem. We have all kinds of dictionaries around here. We have Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary. I love that dictionary, however, it was an expensive book and it takes up a LOT of space. We don't keep it with the school books (no room on the shelves) so that one sits on a bookcase upstairs, rarely used. I can see this one getting more use when the children are older to compare how word meanings have changed over the years. They'll be more gentle with books by then too (I hope.)
Then there are children's dictionaries. We have somehow built up quite a collection of children's dictionaries. We have found these to be pretty much useless. Alek is usually the one who needs to look a word up in a dictionary, and without fail, the word he has to look up is NOT included in a children's dictionary. It got to be extremely annoying.
And then we have the well worn Merriam-Webster pocket dictionary. This has served a purpose in a pinch but because of its size, it seemed to be lacking something- not as many definitions per word and the definitions seemed abbreviated. Plus it's falling apart.
And then we found Franklin Electronics Merriam Webster's Speaking Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus. Shew. Long name. But bascially, it's not much bigger than a checkbook, it contains over 200,000 words and it will even SAY the word for you.
Now the "speaking" part may not be a big deal to many of you. However, a lot of what we're learning in history is new to me & I have a hard time pronouncing a lot of these ancient names and cities- and I *hate* to mispronounce words. All you have to do is type in the word & press the speaker icon and it will say the word for you. LOVE that feature. It's also nice when the children (mainly Alek) have to look up a word- they can also hear how it is pronounced.
A few weeks ago, when Kenton was reading to the children, he mispronounced Ashurbanipal. He rarely ever mispronounces words (he's a smartie). I had had to check this one in my little dictionary a day or two before, so I actually knew how to pronounce it correctly. I got out the little dictionary & played the word for him... and Mr. Funny Guy went on to pronounce all of the remaining "Ashurbanipal's" in the story in the computer-like voice of the talking dictionary.
We have not ONCE had the problem of a word not being in this little dictionary. It takes up hardly any space. There are a lot more features to it that we don't even use- games, SAT spelling bee, grammar guide, etc. And you can also purchase extra cartridges to expand your dictionary, like a Spanish-English dictionary. Cool, huh?
Anyway, this is NOT one of those "paid to post" posts (in fact, NONE of my posts are) nor do I get any sort of commission if you click on the Amazon link I posted above. I just love this little dictionary so much that I wanted to share about it in case someone else has had a dictionary problem too.
Also, if you DO follow the Amazon link, my model is actually the 1870A. The link is for model number 1870. I think mine has been discontinued. I did not pay over $100 for my dictionary- it seems like I paid $79 and I believe I bought it on Amazon. I'd have a hard time paying the price they have listed for this thing.... so shop around if you want a better price! And if you do get one, let me know how YOU like it!
All in all, this has been one of those "I'm glad we splurged a little" purchases. It has been quite a useful tool around here. |
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Apr. 9, 2008 Walk Down Our Road
I hate to admit this, but since becoming pregnant, the number of walks we've been on has dramatically decreased. (sorry, honey) I'm tired, we're busy.... life happens! Hopefully this will start to change a bit as I have more energy these days and a lot of our big projects are done.
Last week we went on a short walk down our road. It felt good to get out, even if for just a little bit! I took my camera, which has been quite neglected lately (I didn't take a single pic the first three weeks in March!), with us. It was getting late though so I didn't get very many, but here are a few I liked.
Stopping to oogle over the neighbor's horses:
My family, who walks at a much quicker pace than I these days.....
My belated fraternal twins. And I know that makes no sense because fraternal twins can look quite different from each other... but since Gracie's a girl and Josiah's a boy, I can think of no better way to describe how much I think these two look alike. So there. Belated fraternal twins.
That's all! |
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