If anyone's following this blog (and I don't think anyone is!) I decided to change the name. Since I couldn't figure out how to change the name on this blog, I just started a new one:
www.homeschoolblogger.com/truthandguidance
DH named our school when Martha graduated from Kindergarten. He chose "Truth & Guidance Home Academy," thus the name of my "new" blog. I copied/pasted the posts from here to the Truth & Guidance blog, but lost the 2 comments that folks had left. I guess that's the price I pay for changing my blog name! Oh, well. 
I plan to let this blog "stagnate." (As if it hadn't stagnated enough over the last 2 years!!) Any new posts will be on the Truth & Guidance blog.
-- Elizabeth
Isn't that the stereotypical first-week-back-at-school writing assignment? (Being homeschooled myself, I never had to complete such a lame assignment... my teacher aka Mom was WITH me as I spent my summer vacation!)
As a mom, summer has a whole new meaning for me. I enjoy the "vacation" more than my children do! Summer is MY time for sewing, scrapbooking, or just plain "lazing" around. For me, "lazing around" means doing things I don't *have* to do. It might be reading books, it might be messing around with new software like Embird, or it might be something as unproductive but fun as watching movies or reading blogs. Note that while I'm watching movies, I'm usually doing something else, like cross-stitching, crocheting, eating a snack or if I'm really desperate, even IRONING! I always make grandiose plans of what I'll sew during the summer, and I usually meet only a small fraction of those goals. :-) I've managed to finish a few "UFO" projects (UnFinished Objects in the sewing world) although I have plenty more still on my list. 
Summer vacation also means getting ready for the next school year. I have several books that I try to read or skim through each summer. I start with the general "philosophy" books, especially books by Catherine Levison (my personal favorte Charlotte Mason-style author) and "Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling." (Even for "veteran" homeschoolers like myself, there's a lot in that book! Yes, my children are young, but surely the 15 years I spent as a homeschooled student & living-at-home graduate count towards "veteran" status!) Then I move to the general overview books for the year. For 2009-10, that includes a U.S. History book & a World History book, plus my KONOS volumes relating to the subjects we plan to study. In our journey through the Bible, we'll start with Moses and The Exodus (not the whole book, but the actual event that the book is named after) and the Law & Tabernacle. Then as time permits, we'll move through Joshua & the judges.... just hitting the best of the judges since some of those people were very sinful and I don't care to introduce my children to those sins just yet. We might even make it to Samuel, Saul, & David this year, although I'd be really surprised if we do! In U.S. history, we'll learn about the early settlers (particularly Jamestown & Plymouth Colony) and then onto the Revolutionary War and the Constitution.
(To be added at a later date.... a photo of my STACKS of "planning" books! DH is asleep in our room, where they're stashed at the moment since we're having company tomorrow.)
As you can see, I have my overall outline ready.... now I need to get more specific with daily lesson plans. I may go with more of a card system this year - choosing maybe 150 days' worth of work in each subject, rather than assigning particular tasks to particular days. That allows more flexibility for sick days, "don't feel good" days, and bad-attitude days. (Mostly on the children's parts.......) It looks like I'll need some more dental work this year - joy, joy - so we'll "lose" about a week of school there. I also hope to keep a "journal" of our school work, using a small notebook that my DH helped my children give me for my birthday last year. I wanted to save it for something special, and this is just the thing! The challenge will be to KEEP UP WITH IT. If I make it a habit to do each day at the end of school, it'll be easy. We'll see how long it lasts. 
My homeschooling journal for 2009-2010:
Each summer we have a few weeks of "Summer Session." (That sounds a lot better than "Summer School!") This year we chose the 6 weeks starting July 13, and ending August 20. We "do school" Monday through Thursday, but only a couple of hours a day. The main goal is to keep Martha's math fresh enough in her mind that we don't waste September reviewing. I also try to do some "fun" stuff like crafts & baking.... I haven't kept up with the "fun" things very well this summer. 
One major thing I have accomplished this Summer Session is discovering that Peter is ready for "real math" this year! In less than a week, he learned 1+1=2, 2+2=4, and 3+3=6. I think he understands the *concepts* rather than just parroting back the numbers. He can also count to 10 with "one-to-one correspondence," and can sometimes make it to 15 or 20. That's an exciting start to the new school year!!
One of my many goals for this school year is to keep up with this blog a little better. (It won't take much to do better than I have been......) I still plan to post some more of our "old" lapbooks in all my spare time. In April, I bought a MUCH nicer camera from my sister - so nice that I can take decent photos of the lapbooks and won't have to mess with scanning them! It's MUCH faster to snap a picture than to wait for the scanner to do its thing. I'll even try to post progress photos of our lapbooks & other work through this year.
I love this time of year... and I love January 1. Both times are "fresh start" times - September for our schooling, and January for life in general! I love setting goals & making plans, and these times are wonderful for that..... before "life" (and/or laziness!) gets in the way and I don't quite manage to meet my goals.
Don't faint now.... TWO entries in TWO days!!! LOL I'm fighting a virus right now (not sure how much "fighting" I'm doing as the virus seems to be winning! LOL) so I don't have much energy for anything except computer things.
Here are some scans from our study of the letter F, way back in 2005. It happens that we didn't do a "science" animal that time... guess I just forgot! Anyway, here's our cover: 
Page 1 includes a tracing of Martha's feet.... 3 years later, she *still* loves putting the lapbook on a hard surface (I taught her to do that so she won't bend the lapbook) and compare the size of her feet now! In the little purple pocket are 5 paper loaves and 2 paper fishes. She's always loved stickers, so I let her put sparkly flower stickers in her lapbook.
Page 2 has a flag that we made out of paper, and a mini book with the "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" song. I let her put stickers on the pages to represent the various verses. Then there's the picture of our family "field trip" to the fire station! I didn't put it in her lapbook, but one of the young firemen put on his turnout gear to show us, and even put his mask on so she could see what a fireman would look like during a fire.... and so hopefully she wouldn't be so scared if a fireman ever had to rescue her from a fire. They let her go up into the fire truck cab, although she was a scared of the big truck, so didn't spend much time in there. We really need to do this field trip again, now that our 2 boys are old enough to appreciate the field trip. And yes, both of our boys are in the photo.... can you find the 2nd boy? Post a comment if you think you've found him! How time flies... the boy in my arms is now 4! 
I just let Martha see this blog post, and she pointed out that it's a good thing I put that picture in there, because it's our FAMILY - silly me, I never even thought about FAMILY starting with an F and being in the F lapbook!!
Here's a picture from December 2005, of Martha looking at her F lapbook and singing the "Old MacDonald" song. 
I have scans of our "O" lapbook, too - I'll try to post those soon. Martha found her first lapbook yesterday, the one we did on koalas when she was 2. (It's amazing the treasures one finds when one cleans out one's closet....... and the best thing is that she did it ALL on her own, I didn't have to go in there & clean it for her!! I love having a 6-year-old. ) Maybe I'll scan & post that one next, and then show you some of our more recent lapbooks. I have plenty to choose from.... I just did a quick calculation, and came up with 65 lapbooks we've made - and counting!! Are you getting the impression that lapbooking is an important part of our homeschool life?!
We've been lapbooking since Martha was 2, and she's 6 now! (One year we didn't lapbook, because she was so busy learning to read and go math that we didn't have time for anything else... she was just 4, so I didn't want to be doing school *all* day long!)
Our first lapbook was about koalas, but it seems to be AWOL at the moment.
In the 2005-06 school year, Martha studied Letter of the Week - www.letteroftheweek.com - and we did lapbooks instead of a learning poster. Today I'll post pictures of her "C" lapbook.
This is the cover of her "C" book - I printed clip-art for each "key word," and since her daddy is blind, included the Braille form of each letter so she could start learning those. I didn't scan it, but I also photocopied a hymn for each week, and glued it on the back cover of the file folder. That week's was "Count Your Blessings."
For the LOTW lapbooks, we just did 2 inside pages, the 2 that are normally in a file folder. I made a tri-fold "book" for each week's "science" animal, and just tried to include a variety of activities for the other words. She loved (and loves!) to color, so it'd be easy for every activity to be coloring.... so I tried to do different things!
Page 1, with Hickory Dickory Dock, a castle, the camel "science" book, and trains with star stickers on the cabooses. 
Here's the camel book, with 2 pages showing... don't laugh at my artwork, I did my best but I'm no artist!!! LOL
Here is page 2, with a record of our "Hungry Caterpillar" meal, and the Creation book. I shared my scrapbooking stickers with Martha, and let her decorate the days of Creation with them. For example, the Day Five page has stickers of birds & fish, and Day Six has LOTS of animals and a sticker of a child. The "Hungry Caterpillar" meal featured foods that start with C.... funny how many desserts start with C. 
Next time, I'll post pictures of her "F" lapbook. I also have scans of the "O" lapbook - and plenty more choices for lapbooks to scan!!
Last summer, Martha started wearing contact lenses. Why is that a big deal? Try inserting contacts into a scrunched-up, teary-wet 4-year-old eye... then lather, rinse, and repeat for the other eye! Some days it took ALL MORNING to put the little buggers in. There went my plans for a few weeks of school review in the summertime! Martha did eventually get used to the contacts insertion, and now it takes about 2 minutes every morning... and that time includes me washing my hands. That fall, it was a full month before she caught back up to where she was the previous May.
This year, I determined that the summer would go differently. So far, it has! The Monday after our church's Vacation Bible School, we started our 7-week Summer Session. We're doing school just 4 days a week, and nothing is as involved as it was last school year or will be this coming year. Each day, Martha does a few pages in a reading workbook, a few pages in a math workbook, and a math review sheet from last year's Christ-Centered Curriculum. She reads a couple of children's books - until yesterday, they counted for the library's summer reading program. From here on, they'll just be for fun and for reading practice. She also reads 4-5 pages from "Little House in the Big Woods," by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She's working on memorizing Psalm 23... she's up to verses 1-3 this week. We're also learning the hymn, "Lord of All Hopefulness," a hymn that our principal (aka Daddy) chose for us. Then comes the FUN part.... each day we TRY to do something fun.... it doesn't always happen, depending on how busy I am, but we've done more "fun" stuff this summer than we usually get to do. We play a game together, make doll clothes (theoretically.... this is one that I haven't had much time to do!), make a costume together (I like to sew, and have plenty of fabric, so why not?!), make a Christmas ornament (theoretically!), or make a picture/collage together.
It's hard to believe that it's only 4 full weeks until our "real" school year starts. I have LOTS of great plans for this year.... we'll see how well they turn out!!! Martha wants to learn EVERYTHING! Of course she'll continue learning math - this year we're starting with Math-U-See at the Beta level. She's DONE with phonics instruction! We'll continue our unit studies through the Old Testament.... Mommy still needs to finish planning all of that. 
For "extra" stuff, she wants to learn to play the piano, read Braille, speak Spanish, and I want her to start "Music Appreciation" and "Art Appreciation." We'll do just one "extra" thing each school day. Maybe piano lesson on Monday, Braille on Tuesday, music appreciation on Wednesday, etc.
I also plan to continue preschool with Peter, and even start a simple preschool program with David. The boys' school shouldn't take more than 45 minutes a day for both of them. We'll be combining the Letter of the Week and LOTW Prep curriculums for the boys.
All of that should keep me VERY busy, especially since I want to continue some sewing and "fun" stuff for me!
Speaking of busy... we have friends coming over shortly, so I need to finish cleaning and straightening up the house. My goal is to have the house "company ready" at all times...... so far that hasn't happened!!
This is why I was reluctant to get into blogging at all.... the time it takes to keep it updated!!
We finished our homeschool year on May 29, complete with a Kindergarten graduation ceremony! We ordered a cap, gown, tassel, & diploma from Rhyme University. We went with a white cap-gown, and Martha chose a PURPLE tassel of course!! She's blessed with a Daddy who can play anything on the piano, so he played Pomp & Circumstance while she came into the living room. We'd practiced the little graduate step thing, and she did better than many high school or college graduates at it. I "spoke" for a few minutes, giving a very-brief summary of her school work this past year. Then "Daddy" gave a short speech, we presented her diploma, and she got to change her own tassel. 
We flew to North Carolina 2 days later to visit my family. The next Tuesday, June 3, my "baby" sister graduated from high school. Becca has never attended a day of "real" school in her life - she's been homeschooled since *before* she was born! My mom asked me to plan the order of her graduation, so it was similar to Martha's graduation, with the exception of the graduate playing a hymn on her violin, and a "congregational" singing of her favorite hymn. My dad gave an excellent charge to her about following God's will for her life. After her ceremony at home, my parents gave a reception at their church. They counted up later, and as far as they can remember folks, about 85 people came. Unfortunately I never took a picture of the teacher with the graduate, but here's a photo of Becca & her principal (aka Dad) during the graduation ceremony. 
It's hard to believe this was the same baby girl I first saw through the glass door of the C-section recovery room back in 1990! Sara & I (ages 10 & 12 at the time) had to hang out in the waiting room during the surgery. We didn't know "what" she was going to be, so when we saw Dad and the baby through the window, he pointed at her pink hat so we'd know it was a girl! I helped teach her to read, but those were the years I was starting to do more things outside the home (like ministry trips and working) so I didn't quite get the privilege of actually teaching her to read.
Now it's summertime, and I'm enjoying a break from homeschooling! So far I've made a couple of birthday gifts for my baby boy who's now 2... although if you ask him, he'll say he's 1, then change his mind and inform you that "I four!" I've also gotten to work a little bit on long-term projects like copying our home videos to DVD, catching up on photo albums, and even a little bit of quilting and sewing. I certainly have enough sewing/quilting projects on my list to keep me busy for this summer and several more to come!
We plan to start "summer school" after our church's VBS in July. I'll make sure that Martha reviews last year's math so she doesn't forget it all, and she can practice her reading by continuing through "Little House in the Big Woods." We started that book near the end of May, knowing we wouldn't finish during the school year. Otherwise, we'll do "fun" stuff like cooking or baking together, science experiments from "Mudpies to Magnets," acting out stories, and hopefully some fun outings. We'll school for just 4 days a week through the summer, and perhaps 1-2 hours a day, so it will still give me extra time for sewing.... and planning next year's school!
That's it for today. Another day maybe I'll write about our plans for next school year. I'm excited about it, but not quite ready for it to start yet - I still have too much sewing to do with this amazing and rare stuff called "free time!"
I was able to cross several things off my to-do list today... always a nice feeling! We did most of our schooling this morning (need to finish Martha's math soon!), and so far I've put away 1 load of laundry, dried 1 (our dryer takes several cycles to get the clothes dry, so it takes a while) and 1 washed. Hmm, guess I need to get that 2nd load put away, and the 3rd drying. I caught up on DH's ironing (I think it was 8 long-sleeved and 5 short-sleeved white dress shirts) and on Martha's! I still have to iron a few items of the boys... and all of mine.
The best thing about today was getting to start on Christmas gifts! Actually, I didn't work on gifts today, but I did "practice" on something for myself. Each item takes about 15 minutes, and I have 24 more to do.... so this should keep me busy for a while! After that, I have a couple of large embroidery designs to stitch, David's name for his backpack, and it seems like there was something else I was going to embroider while I had the embroidery arm attached.... all of that should keep me busy for well over a week! Then there are the other gifts I want to make for Christmas, that don't involve machine embroidery.... I don't have time to be bored in the next month!
My neighbor & friend called this morning to say they've almost decided to homeschool their daughter!! They put her in a Christian school this year, and they still think it was God's will for that time.... but now they think it's time to bring her home again! It's always great to have more Christians joining the ranks of homeschoolers, especially when it's my 2-doors-down neighbor, good friend, and church member. Our husbands both work for our church.
It's time to finish up Martha's math, and those 2 loads of laundry.... then I can cross even more things off my list!
Thanksgiving morning..... the perfect time for floods & power outages!
Our "new" house has 2 bathrooms.... but also some plumbing that doesn't quite want to work right. We've been living here 5 weeks & 2 days, and we've had a plumber here 3 times to clear clogs. A major repair has been approved, but hasn't been done yet. (Another reason we're VERY glad to be renters... that repair will cost around $2000!) Tuesday when I showered, I heard the toilet bubbling... a sure sign that a clog was forming down in the system somewhere. We wanted to limp through until after Thanksgiving, because it wasn't really bad. Until this morning!!
The brand-new, water-saving toilet in the master bath has a few little quirks... one being that it doesn't always stop filling. I don't know the official name of the thing, but it's the little seal that lets the tank fill after a flush. Well, apparently this morning it decided to pull that trick on us. Normally, that extra water just drains out of the bowl as it's coming in the top, and all that happens is that you've wasted some water. BUT if your plumbing isn't draining.... there's nowhere for that extra water to drain. Our shower filled up (thankfully with "clean" water!!!!) and so did the toilet bowl.... and so did the floor in our bathroom! I'd put the turkey in the oven, fed the kiddos their breakfast, and went back into our room to read my Bible. I heard the toilet running, so went to jiggle the handle. Squish... went my bare feet on the shower mat! Thankfully it only got the edge of our bedroom carpet wet, and I've dried that out first with a towel, then with a fan blowing on it.
About an hour later, our power went out - for over a minute! Normal power outages are a second or less! I was thinking through what we'd need to do.... get the hot turkey pan back out of the oven, take it over to the church, up the elevator to the 3rd floor fellowship hall, try to figure out how to use the ovens there, then come back for the rest of the fixings.... thankfully about then the power came back on! Now the bread machine's running... I sure hope the power manages to stay on, because I don't have time to finish the bread by hand! Oh, and we have 2 college guys coming over at noon....
Things are looking up now, though... my husband went to the "old" house, and there is water, and hot water there! So he is showering over there. I've packed up my stuff, so when he gets home, I can go shower there, too. Fortunately for us, that house is still vacant, and we still have a key! Both that house and this one are owned by my husband's employer, our church - so we still have the "authorization" to go in there if we want/need to. Too bad there's no washing machine over there now... but there is one at the church, if I can find a key to open the door to that room.
So in summary... we're VERY glad to be renters, because we don't have to pay to have the plumbing fixed! We're glad to have hot water still at our "old" house. We're thankful to live close enough to the church to walk there when nature calls... although it's a chilly walk today.... and believe it or not, I'm thankful that Peter isn't potty-trained yet! This way, only 3 of us have to go to the church, not 4.
My name's Elizabeth.... in case you couldn't guess that already. I'm 30 years old, although I only feel about 24. I enjoy sewing, quilting, and a number of handwork crafts. I'm about 17 months behind in my Creative Memories photo albums, but will try to "catch up" soon! We moved in October - just around the corner from our "old" house, but still with all the work of packing boxes... and now UNpacking those boxes!! I don't even have curtains up yet... but most of our "necessities" are findable.
I've been married for just over 8 years. My husband works at our church, as "Music Assistant." He has an almost-doctorate in Piano Performance... he did all but the dissertation, but received all the training. He plays the piano at our church, and accompanies most of the special music. He also arranges quite a bit of music, and in 2006, he wrote a Christmas cantata for our church's choir! He teaches "Applied Piano" (individual lessons) at a local Bible College - he has 18 students this semester - and also teaches 2 classes there. By the way, he's blind... and has been since he was 9, due to glaucoma.
Our oldest child is "Martha." (Names changed to protect the innocent.... or guilty, as the case may be!) She is 5 years old, and LOVES homeschooling! Actually, she loves almost anything... except green beans, jumpy dogs, and spiders. She especially likes Pooh, ladybugs, merry-go-rounds, kitties, bunnies, coloring/drawing, math, butterflies, playing outside, Patch the Pirate, and a bunch of other things. She's doing the 2nd-grade (Level C) of Christ-Centered Curriculum for phonics, and Level B in math. We're doing a unit study on Creation for science/social studies/etc. She learns quickly... which makes teaching her a lot of fun for Mommy! She also loves doing "girl things" with me, such as Creative Memories albums, sewing, cross-stitching, and shopping for fabric or other necessities of life.
Martha was born with cataracts - rare in infants, but it does happen. Her daddy had cataracts as a baby, and apparently she inherited them from him. Hers were so dense that her pupils looked white instead of black! Both cataracts were removed when she was 4 1/2 weeks old, and began wearing glasses when she was 7 1/2 weeks old. This summer, she began wearing contacts as well. With contacts, her glasses can be MUCH thinner, so they look more "normal." Her distance vision is around 20/40 (might be good enough to drive someday.... if Mommy's brave enough!!!) and her close-up is around 20/25.
"Peter" turned 3 yesterday. (I almost wrote that he's 2... guess he's not the only one that has to get used to his new age!) He's a typical boy.... loves cars, balls, wrestling/tickling, and making lots of noise. He doesn't like loud noises that other people or things make... like fireworks. He finally started talking last spring, at almost 2 1/2 years of age, but he's quickly made up for lost time in that area. I'm using Letter of the Week with him, and he also sits in on our Creation study. I think he'll be a slower learner academically... which is fine of course, since that's how God made him! So far he can recognize between 10 and 14 letters... it varies depending on which day it is.
"David" is 17 months, and got his first black eye yesterday!! He was walking in the living room, and tripped over something (perhaps his own feet?) and hit his cheekbone on a chair. It's quite impressive-looking, but doesn't seem to hurt him now. It makes him look a little bit like Patch the Pirate! He was a rather late walker - he took his first step at 15 1/2 months, and started "really" walking just 2 days before the 16-month milestone. However, he's an early talker, with a much larger vocabulary than either of his siblings had at this age. He can say Mommy (his first word was "maa-maa" which meant Mama), "baby" (blanket), "Daddy," "no," "car," "puppy-woof-woof" (which is applied to any animal he sees), ba-puh (diaper), "boom" (when he falls), "cackuh" (cracker), "dere" (there) and some others that I can't remember at the moment. He attends "playpen school" - he plays in the playpen in the same room as we do school.
I have a busy day planned. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.... in case you Americans hadn't noticed.... so I have plenty to do to get ready. With Peter's party yesterday, I couldn't concentrate on Thanksgiving until today. I've already bought our turkey, and "he" is thawing in the fridge already. Today I want to assemble the side dishes as much as possible, and even get the turkey ready to toss in the oven tomorrow morning. We're having a couple of my husband's students from the college over for lunch. We have the normal homeschooling to do today, and grocery shopping for Thanksgiving and the next week's meals, and church tonight.
For the curious... we'll have turkey as our main course. I'll make twice-baked potatoes, corn casserole, bread in our bread machine, and we'll just heat up canned green beans. (Sorry, Martha! At least it's not Green Bean Casserole, which she CANNOT make herself eat, although she tried very hard last Christmas!) I'll also make gravy & dressing from purchased mixes. Dessert will be homemade ice cream (another thing I need to make today) and Apple Crisp. This is my first "feast" to cook in just 1 oven... I've had 2 until now - very handy for meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but it was nice for other times, too.
After Thanksgiving, I need to start on Christmas gifts. I plan to make good use of my embroidery machine.... but I can't say much more, in case any of my gift recipients end up reading this blog. 
I hope to do some shopping on Friday.... later in the day, of course!! I don't do 5 AM, unless it's for travel or a C-section, and NEVER for shopping!!! My husband will be off work Thursday through Saturday, and he's already said he'll watch some or all of the children.
Surely this is long enough for now..... I can be "chatty" sometimes, but of course my first blog entry will be the longest, as I introduce you to our family. I'd love to hear from anyone who reads this, so please leave a comment even if it's just "hi!"