Posted By ShannonC

M turned 6 last week!  My parents, Mimi and Paw Paw, decided to surprise her by taking her to the American Girl Boutique and Bistro in Dallas.  It was like going to Disney!  M was in awe of all the dolls and the size of the store.  I've read her several of the books and her favorite is Felicity.  My parents decided to buy her Felicity and some of her outfits.  M was over the moon excited!  To top it off, they treated us to dinner at the bistro and the staff brought her a cupcake and sang Happy Birthday to her.  On her actual birthday, Major dad took her iceskating and we went out for pizza.  Mommy and C watched the skating from the side because we do not have that talent!

Posted By jaminacema

So this morning when my 14 year old woke up I had a treasure hunt all set up for him.  We started this "tradition" last year when we had to celebrate the actual day of his birthday without Dad.  (Dad was 1200 miles away at his new job and the rest of us hadn't moved yet.)  I didn't want to give him his gifts without Dad being there. (Dad was there for his party, not his actual b-day.) So I came up with the idea of a treasure hunt.  Well, all 4 kids (including my rent-a-kid) LOVED the idea and we have done a birthday treasure hunt for ALL of their birthdays since.  (Including my rent-a-kid.)

So here is my BIG 14 year old finding his first clue this morning. (Yes, he still LOVES his blankey!  LOL  Another privilege of being homeschooled.  You can still be a blanket boy at 14 and no on teases you! LOL)

Reading the first clue.

Finding his first treausre
There are 14 treasures, one for each year of his life.  I won't make you see pictures of them all!

Okay, you just have to look at one more...
My rent-a-kids in this one, you can't miss this one!

Here are all my kids posing with the bounty of treaures found in the hunt!

My favorite of the treasures I got for him was this framed picture of him and my rent-a-kid.  (aka: his best friend.) 
I of course got one fro my rent-a-kid and me too!  LOL

My rent-a-kid is leaving tomorrow.  :^(  It has been a blast having him here and we CANNOT WAIT until he comes back!  But, I know we will all be sad to say goodbye to him tomorrow.  How blessed we are that he got to come and be here to celebrate my oldest sons B-day!  That was an awesome gift!

Oh, one more thing.  This morning after he opened all his goodies this morning we went out to breakfast.  After breakfast we were walking to the car and my 14 year old was holding my hand.  I said to him "So, now that your 14 your not too old to hold my hand in public?"  And he leaned over and said "Mom, I'll never be too old not to hold your hand."  Ahhhh....I told you he was a great kid!

Posted By ShannonC

When my kids were in preschool, they brought home an odd substance called flubber.  Neither had a recollection of this fun goop, so I decided that it was time to make some.  As a side note,some of my favorite movies as a kid were The Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber starring Fred MacMurray.  My parents always rented those old Disney classics.  They don't make them like they used to!

Here is the basic recipe:

In one bowl, mix 3/4 cup warm water with 1 cup Elmer's glue(about 2 regular bottles) and food coloring of your choice.  Mix well.  In another bowl, mix 2 tsp. borax(found in your laundry aisle) and 1/2 cup warm water.  Mix well and add to first bowl.  Let the magic happen!  It will turn into a slimy, yet surprisingly unmessy goo.  You can drain any excess water from the bowl and as the kids play with it, the wetness on the outside goes away.  You can roll it in a ball,  squish it, bounce it, draw on it with a marker or cut it.  Store in a plastic baggie, it will last a good while.  It doesn't stick to anything, I like it a lot better than other homemade playdough, goo type mixtures.  Have fun!

 

Posted By ShannonC

Yes, I made it through the first week of public school in our town.  All of M's friends were starting Kindergarten or 1st grade.  Everyone we ran into asked if M was starting school this week!  I had to drive by the welcoming signs at the elementary school around the corner.  I saw the buses in the neighborhood.  I received pictures of my nephew with his backpack, lunch box and big smile on his first day of Kindergarten.  I must be honest, I felt a tiny bit of sadness that M is missing all of those firsts.  Now that she is 6, she never will have the opportunity to have Kindergarten memories.  We are past that point now.  Then I come back to reality and know that what we are doing is best for our family and that God called us to do this.  That will surpass any memories of Kindergarten.  We are starting our full time school schedule next week.  We've continued with reading all summer, but have left the rest for the new school year.  We are using MFW 1st grade with some extra stuff added in.  I plan to add a little bit of American history and some more science.  Anyway, I'm proud of myself for not breaking down and running to the school at the last minute.  Not that I really would have done that. 

Posted By Tami

This blog will be silent for a period of mourning for the family of Dozer, aka Christian Drews. My heart is simply broken for this lovely family, and I am going to spend the time I would use for blogging in prayer for the Drews family.

Tami

Posted By Martyomenko

Fruitful vines wall decoration giveaway
Check it out! Tanya has some beautiful stuff and  they are giving away one piece by her!

Posted By kympossible in Field Trips, Projects and Pictures

For Show & Tell with CanadaGirl this week, I'm going to jump ahead in my journal about Honduras to show some pictures Harrison took one day. 

 

That great view from our dorms included a rocky hill above the nearby school, and we could see the schoolkids climbing on it during their recess and lunch breaks.  Several of the guys commented that they wanted to climb that mountain before the week was over.  One day, Harrison and Derek did just that, along with four of the Honduran boys as their "tour guides"  Harrison and Derek knew almost no Spanish, and the Honduran boys knew a little English, but they all got along great anyway.  When Harrison told me where they were going, I gave him the camera and told him to take as many pictures as he wanted... 'just don't drop the camera and break it!"  

Here's the hill:

They found these carvings in the rocks.  They were done fairly recently, although no one seems to know much about them.  We suspected that the locals like to take gringos up to show them the "ancient rock carvings"  LOL

 

 

 

 

 

Here's Derek with the local boys:

And Harrison with the boys:

See the "bunny ears?"  What is up with that?  Kids EVERYWHERE do this for some reason.  It is totally universal.  LOL  I bet if you could find a remote tribe somewhere that had never even seen a camera before, it wouldn't take them long before the kids would start doing bunny ears to their friends.  LOL

 

And by the way, I have to say how much I am LOVING the slideshow feature at Photobucket!  Thank you, Mary, for telling me how to use it on my blog!  It's really come in handy for these Honduras entries - of which I have several more to come and I bet even next week's Show & Tell will be Honduras pictures too.

 

For more Show & Tell or to participate, please visit Mary (aka CanadaGirl) 

Posted By homeskoolmom in Thoughts on homeschooling

The last couple of days, I have found a couple of great blogs.  Voddie Baucham linked to his daughter Jasmine's blog.  She is a very beautiful young lady and a gifted writer.  Yesterday my google reader recommended Kevin Swanson's blog (we were so blessed 3 years ago when we visited his church outside of CO Springs).  I have quickly added these 2 blogs to my google reader.  

 So I was reading Pastor Swanson's blog today and found this entry. 

July 7, 2008

Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt?

I am the Executive Director of a large homeschooling organization in Colorado, and our database of home schooling families would be among the largest in the country.

Several months ago, we contracted a single mom who home schools her son, to call a list of a sampling of 1000 families on the database (most of them, on the list for a few years).

Incredibly, she found that 86% of those families who started home schooling their children, have quit!

This means that for 100 families participating in a home school support group somewhere in America, only 14 will capture the vision and continue the mission 3, 5, or 8 years from now. Of the 2.4 million home educated students in America, barely 330,000 will survive. And of the 5,000 that attend a major conference, only 750 will finish the course. This means that the movement has a huge front door and a huge back door, not unlike most churches in a post-modern society. Few people stick around long enough to get a vision. A T-shirt maybe. But a deep-seated, long-standing vision that will actually make an impact on their families for future generations? I don't think so.

As leaders who are fighting valiantly against the massive failure of the national character, academic rigor, family solidarity, and the Christian faith itself, we press for radical change in the thinking and life of families. We want a radical world and life view change. We feel it's the only hope to stem the hemorrhaging flow of blood.

The reality of it, is that most families don't want to make much of a lifestyle change - and so they will just live with the rapidly-declining social, academic, and spiritual trends.

If any meaningful change will ever come about, it will come by the commitment of a principled few. The majority sits on the fulcrum of social change, while those who are most committed on the wrong side or the right side produce the real influence that changes society. It is always the 14% that bears the majority of the influence, and shifts the direction of social systems as human history unfolds. Therefore, the focus in our conferences, our support groups, our news magazines, and our radio broadcasts is not to water down the message for the 86% who are going to quit. We want to encourage the committed, and solidify the base of faithful men and women who embrace the vision, and will ensure a generational continuity that will yield even more fruit in future years.

Folks, this is a terrible trend.   Many of the blogs here at HSB are people that started homeschooling and didn't get the vision, because one of if not all of their children are back in government school. 

I see or hear of homeschooling families quite often who have children that are not trained up in the way they should go.  And they are scratching their head as to why said children are not in submission to them, why they are running off with boys, or why they are dealing with issues of rebellion. 

Here's my theory:  These parents have the government school mentality.  They have not taken Deuteronomy 6 to heart.  They are not training their children in the way they should go.  They are giving them guidelines and letting these children "follow their heart" just as the government schools do.  No training going on there. Oh, maybe I should say it's the wrong kind of training going on there only selfish, humanistic, evolutionary stupidity.  I should say no heart training going on there...

Oh us homeschoolers are all worried about academics.  And we forget the real reason why we should be homeschooling.  Yes, some of our children may be Called to go to college, but what if they aren't?  I was just reading someone else's blog (sorry I can't remember who's,please comment and tell me if it was you) that had the statement that only 4 of the 18 world billionaires have college degrees. 

What is the true measure of success??

Yes, the children need to know the 3 R's, but really what is more important?  That they've taken Algebra 3, Biochemistry and started taking classes at the local community college by the time they're 12 (okay, I'm exaggerating here) or that they are God-fearing, Bible-believing, Truth-loving Christians???????? 

  Getting down off my soapbox now 

 

 

 

Posted By Karie

Thurs was a pretty boring day, the kind of day I like after having several in row of going here and there.  I was considering doing school, but by the time dh left for work, it just wasn't worth it. Our morning started out with dh getting up at 7 and needing to use this computer to do some work.  So I got up and started to relax on the couch nearby.  After a few min I realized that my stomach was growling so into the kitchen I went to get me some homemade bread and chocolate milk.  Sat down in the school room  near dh and ate my breakfast. By 7:30 I was done so I just sat back and relaxed and doozed.  Waking only for a bit every once in awhile. By 8:15 I realized that none of the kids were up so off I went to wake the bunch.

Ds was the easiest since all I had to tell him was it was after 8 and he decided he needed to get up. Dd S had woken up earlier in the morning with one of dh's phone calls from work and came in to cuddle. Dd N was still in bed and a bit harder to wake.  She always is. I'm thinking next Sun evening I'm going to have all the kids head to bed a bit earlier since all the public school kids will be starting Tues.  Eventually dd N woke and started stretching in bed so I headed to my room to wake dd S up. After a couple of min of giving her small cuddles I suggested she might be interested in some chocolate milk. Boy the grin on her face lol. By this time ds R was up and headed downstairs. Dd N was up as well. So we all headed down the stairs. Dh was still doing work stuff so I told the kids to be quiet and the girls watched some pbs shows.  Ds R went online and I went back to the couch to snooze a bit.

By 10 am dh was ready to head to work.  By this time the girls were up and playing upstairs so I gathered them together to say bye to daddy.  Then I said my goodbyes and walked him to the door.  I then told the kids that we would have our devotional in a few min. They pleaded to have me wait until 10:30. Well what's 30 min more. So I said fine.

After the devotional, it was almost close to lunch time. Did a bit of cleaning up, but not much. Had ds R work on our homeschool groups website. The calendar hasn't been working so I had him fix it.  I told him I wanted what we had the last time. So he reinstalled the last calendar that had been there.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with me getting laundry settled and the dishes getting washed. We actually had run out of big plates that were usable and on Wed I had the kids using paper plates. Normally we run out of cups but not this time.

Later in the afternoon I had the kids go outside for a bit. They had been inside all morning mostly being good, but I felt they needed some fresh air. The weather lately has been somewhat eratic meaning in the morning somewhat chilly and by mid to late afternoon it's been in the high 80's.  So in the mornings we've been sticking one of our square  fans into the window facing outward so the air inside gets blown outside. Then we've had a fan between the dining room and school room blowing in and the door in the frontroom open so the cooler air outside gets blown in.  It makes more sense if you saw how our house was laid out.

Pretty soon the kids are wanting back inside so I said fine.  I kept waiting for dh to come home somewhat early since he had worked many more hours since coming home yesterday. But he ended up coming home regular hours.  But he must have been busy because I had emailed him several things yesterday and had gotten no response. One of the emails was askind dh if we could have the free pool our friends were giving away. They are moving and trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible before the move. I had told my friend that dh was very busy, and that if she didn't hear back from me by 9pm to give to the next person. She apparently knows I really want it because she's willing to give me this weekend to get a chance to ask. Also,her move date went from this Wed to another week due to the other house not being ready yet.  So hopefully dh will have a more settled day tomorrow (or today) and I can approach him again.

Well, as I'm looking at the title of my post, I'm chuckling because apparently some things must have happened. lol So anyway, dh comes home just as I'm getting dinner settled. He greets everyone then heads upstairs to rest for awhile. The kids and I eat dinner alone, which is mostly have we do it lately. I then remind the kids that in a bit I will be doing some visiting teaching with my companion that evening so ds R and dd N need to watch dd S while I'm gone.

My companion comes a bit after our scheduled time. She ran into snags downtown. There's a biker party going on this weekend and most of downtown(which is relatively small) is closed to 4 wheel traffic. Glad I don't need the car the rest of the week. So anyway my friend and I go out and visit with one of our sisters. We arrive home a bit later than I said, but that seems to be the norm when I go out visiting.

I get the kids all settled and watching a video. Then prayer time and bedtime. This night dd S is having a hard time getting to sleep.  Must be the warm evening we are having. Well, after several times of dd N coming down to say dd S wants me, ds R decides to have a talk with dd S and she settles. I surely appreciate ds R.

Eventually bedtime comes. So ready.

Karie

Kariesplace

Posted By Gena Suarez, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Public schools and homeschoolers have two very different ways of looking at reading.

 

Most public schools tend to believe that reading is an important skill to have but that it doesn’t really matter what you read – just as long as you do. So, why is it important? Maybe so you can read the warnings on your prescriptions or the clauses in your healthcare plans or the terms of employment on your contract so a greedy employer can’t take advantage of you. Then there are the street and restroom signs – and the menu, of course.

 

Homeschoolers, on the other hand, tend to believe reading is a means to an end. That end is wisdom, which means that what we read is of the utmost importance. What we put into our minds comes out in our attitudes and behavior. That’s not to say that we can’t read for relaxation or entertainment, but homeschoolers understand that even this is important – that entertainment reading does not have to be vacuous reading, that what we consider fun and funny is also a reflection of the sort of people we are and want to grow into.

 

What we read is critical because it shapes our worldview, and our worldview determines how we will respond to life’s trials and triumphs, how we will treat others, how we will conduct ourselves every moment of every day in every situation.

 

Here are some quotations to fuel your thinking about reading…

 

“Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensations and cheap appeals.” - G. M. Trevelyan

 

“I read my eyes out and can't read half enough. The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” - John Adams

 

“When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.” - Harold S. Geneen

 

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” – Henry David Thoreau

 

“Few are sufficiently sensible of the importance of that economy in reading which selects, almost exclusively, the very first order of books. Why, except for some special reason, read an inferior book, at the very time you might be reading one of the highest order?” - John W. Foster

 

“Read good, big important things." - Peggy Noonan

 

“Live always in the best company when you read." - Sydney Smith

 

“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." - Mortimer J. Adler

 

Tammy Drennan homeschooled her sons from 1985 through 2003. She now works as a writer and tutor and maintains several web sites and blogs, including www.educationconversation.wordpress.com and www.homeschoolstarter.com