• Apr. 21, 2009
Star Pillows

In our area, Hancock Fabrics had a sale last week where all the simplicity patterns were $1 each.  I took the girls and we bought about 7 patterns including one that has patterns for several different pillows.  I figured that would be a good one to do while my sister was visiting for spring break.  They decided to make a star pillow with a picture frame. 

I found a nice pink fabric in the scrap bin that would work for the frame so I told them to choose whatever fabric they wanted for the pillow as long as it would match the frame.  Tiff chose a green and pink striped pattern and Taylor chose a seersucker Easter print.

Here are some pics of the girls learning how to sew a pillow.  It was their first experience following a pattern from beginning to end.  I helped Taylor a good bit, but Tiff did it all by herself.

Pinning the pattern on the fabric

Cutting it out

Hand sewing the frame

Let me tell you, the frame was TOUGH!  If I'd known it would be as hard as it was, we would have just used some ribbon.  Yikes!  Don't you just love the look though?

Sewing the plastic onto the frame

This was the first part where they got to use the sewing machine.  Tiffany was very nervous, but within a couple minutes she really got the hang of it.  Taylor already loves to use the machine.

Sewing the frame onto the pillow front

Taylor's triumphant shout when her frame was finally attached to her pillow.  They had been working about 8 hours over the course of 2 days by now, so this was a real milestone.  This step is still only as far as Taylor has gone.  She needed a break.

Pinning top and bottom together for the final sew

Tiff's final product after 12 hours of labor. 

Great job Tiffany!  I'm really proud of you!!

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• Apr. 14, 2009
Lapbooking Class Download

I've uploaded a file for a lapbooking class that I'm giving for the moms in my co-op.  This might be handy to you if you are doing a class also or if you would just like to learn more about the basics of lapbooking.  Just click the picture sample and it should take you to the file.  Let me know if you have any trouble.

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• Apr. 14, 2009
Math Update

If you follow my blog at all, you probably know about our math struggles.  We have used a TON of math programs trying to find something that works.  We finally settled on Bob Jones math for a while, but now it's moving into division and I don't feel like Taylor is ready for that.  Honestly, she understands the concepts pretty well, and she has place value down pat.  You can't trip her up- I've tried.

The problem is that she is still so S-L-O-W at her computation.  It would take her literally 5 minutes to do two simple 7+4 or 8-2 type problems.  She understands the concept of multiplication and can figure out the answer to every problem up till the sevens because she has learned skip counting up to her 6's.  But she in no way has the facts memorized.

Right now in my house I have Bob Jones math grades 1,2,3, and 4.  I also have Miquon Math (the whole set), an absolute TON of math manipulatives and various books and games, and most recently I have also bought Mastering Mathmatics.  I probably have more that I've forgotten about.  That is some pretty big bucks spent on math products.

Like I said, my most recent purchase was Mastering Mathematics.  For the week prior to getting it in the mail, I had been doing Miquon starting all the way back at the beginning with the Orange book.  Let me tell you, math has been GREAT!  I'm hearing things like, "Math is the best!  It's my favorite!" or "I love math!"  There are giggles and laughs instead of tears.  She is going through 9-12 pages a day.  I'm setting a timer for 30 minutes and having her do as many pages as she can in that time.  I catch her stopping the timer because she wants to do more.  Is this the same girl??

I am seriously considering letting her finish the series.  When we tried it in 1st grade, she HATED it.  I really liked it, which is why I've kept it these years.  A lot of it is review, but it does cover advanced concepts.  The very first book has some multiplying and dividing.  It seems to me to be right on her level.  Some of the problems challenge her and a lot make her really think, but it's not so hard that she is frustrated.  Isn't that where the learning level should be?  I'm just stressing a bit because it's considered "1st grade level."  John thinks we should stick with what's working.  I don't know why I let these things bug me.  After all, one reason we homeschool at all is so that we're able to tailor a curriculum to meet Taylor's needs and not try to make her fit somebody else's mold.  I guess I just need to know that I'm doing the right thing and that she IS learning.  I need to be reminded sometimes that academics is just one slice of the pie and not the complete product we're working toward.  OK, maybe I just reminded myself.  It can be really helpful to put your thoughts down in writing.

Thanks for journeying through my mind with me!

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• Apr. 8, 2009
Spelling Downloads

Here are two pages I made with ideas to use for Taylor in spelling.  The first sheet is for my use.  It's the 'plan' so to speak.  The 2nd page I printed out on colored paper for Taylor to use when it was time for her to study her words.  You should be able to click on the picture and it will take you to the download page. 

I'm just experimenting right now- trying to find what works best.  Thanks for your patience!

Here's the student sheet.

Remember, Taylor is a right brain learner, so some of these steps that may seem unneccesary to others are crucial to her.

Hmm, these pictures seem really big to me.  Do you think I should make them smaller or do you like the preview before you download?

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• Apr. 8, 2009
New Files to Share!

Thank you to the ladies who gave me ideas about how to share my files with others!

I decided to go with the Homeschool Launch website.  If you want to view my personal page, just click here.

I'm going through my documents to see what I've already made that might be helpful to other homeschoolers.  If you will look to the left at my sidebar, you will see a little black box with direct links to the files that I'm sharing.  It is supposed to update itself as I upload more files.  We'll see how it works!

If you have any requests, let me know.   

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• Apr. 8, 2009
Beanie Bag Fun

Last night Taylor came up to me and asked if her and Isaac could make bean bags.  She calls them beanie bags.  I told them sure, but they had to use old socks, not the brand new ones.  After a few tries, they finally found appropriate socks- although they are quite dirty.  I'm on the phone with a friend and slightly distracted so apparently I'm not thinking clearly when I ask her what she's going to put in the bean bags.  She looks at me like I might just be the dumbest person on the planet and says, "Uh, beans."   Well, OK then.

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• Apr. 8, 2009
How to Share Files

Does anyone know of a way I can share lesson plans, forms, books, etc that I make for our use?  I put quite a bit of time into them and they might be useful to someone else, but I don't know how to make them available easily from my blog.  I prefer something that is free and without any inappropriate advertising.  If you have any ideas, please let me know!

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• Apr. 8, 2009
It's the Craziest Thing

Sunday, the temperature was in the upper 60's and Taylor was outside playing in shorts.  Then Tuesday morning I woke up to this-

It's the most snow we've gotten all year!  Tomorrow is supposed to be in the upper 60's again.  Oh well, at least I haven't planted anything outside yet.  Not to mention the kids had a great time playing in the snow.

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• Apr. 6, 2009
Math Games

Counting Games

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• Mar. 24, 2009
Karate

We signed Taylor up to learn Karate.  This is a video from her 3rd class.  You can tell she's a beginner, but isn't she just too cute in her little karate uniform.

And here's a picture from the end of class where thay are doing a Bible study.  Not only does she have to become physically able to do the moves well to advance to the next belt, she also has to complete her Bible studies and memorize a certain number of scriptures.  Hey, I love anything that gets her more in the Word!

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• Mar. 24, 2009
She did it!

Taylor has been working for about 6 weeks to earn the money for a bicycle.  She washed baseboards, scrubbed walls, picked up a TON of sticks in the yard, and cleaned out the van.  She also made some little bracelets and sold them for a quarter a piece.  She was saving for a bike at walmart that cost $80, but after working so hard and saving $22 she learned the value of buying things used.  So we seached through the local classifieds and found a bike for $20.  I showed Taylor what the Bible had to say about tithing and giving.  She decided to go ahead and give $2.28.

When we met the lady to look at the bike, Taylor asked her if she'd take $10 for it.  Is my girl a barterer or what!  The lady eyed her for a second and said that since Taylor had worked for the money herself that she'd give her the bike for $10.  Taylor was so excited.  A lady from church pointed out to Taylor how God had blessed her.  She had willingly given to the Lord and he gave back to her.  Now she has a new bike and the money to buy a basket for the front of the bike also.  She may even have a few dollars left to buy her brother a b-day present.  What a great lesson to her!

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• Mar. 16, 2009
Cherokee

Here's a little video I compiled from our camping trip in Cherokee last weekend.  This is the coldest weather we've ever camped in, so we got a cabin at the KOA instead of camping in our tent.  It rained quite a bit, but luckily there was an indoor pool and hot tub.

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• Mar. 4, 2009
Molecules and Elements

Would you like to know a secret?  I thought you might, you nosy person you!   OK, here it is.  Up until the last month, we had not done science all year long.  Whew, now that's off my chest.

I was actually talking about science and history with some moms in the new co-op we joined.  Some ladies feel bad because they haven't done anything but basics all year.  Some have only done basics, but are perfectly fine with that.  Me, well lets just say that if it weren't for the "extras" that we can do, Taylor would have been sent to public school long ago.  Science, history, art, and hand crafts keep me sane in our homeschool.  The 3 r's may be necessary, but they certainly aren't fun.  I'm tired of trying to make them fun.  I think I'm to the point where I just say, "Look, I don't care if you like it or not.  You're just going to do it."  Then I can put my energy into the fun stuff and not feel like a failure all the time.  So yes, we do a lot of projects and extra things in school, but it's certainly not because I'm some sort of supermom.  It's simply because if I didn't take the time for that, we would never survive the day.

That being said, I found this great book last year at Goodwill for 50 cents.  It's called Super Science Concoctions and it's full of chemistry experiments and activities.  I wanted to study chemistry this year so we are using this for our base text and also supplementing with the chemistry lapbook from Hands of a Child.  It's going really well so far.  We made these model elements and molecules out of colored marshmellows.  Taylor said, "Hey, I didn't know you could make stuff in science to!"   My poor deprived child has been given so much history that she didn't even know there was a great world of science out there also.

Here's our first molecule.  It's pretty cool how 2 gases put together can make water.

And most impressive is our glucose molecule.  This one's a doozy.

Of course when we were done building, we got to eat some marshmellows too.  Not the used ones of course.  They were all hard and yucky, but the ones in the bag were still perfectly good. 

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• Mar. 3, 2009
Little Girls Love to Dress Up

Yes, little girls do love dress-up.  So does mine.  The problem is, she is not so 'little'.  She's bigger than 95% of all girls her age.  Pretty impressive, huh.  She can't wear the normal dress-up clothes you can buy at Wal-mart and Toys-r-us.  Trust me, she's tried squeezing into dress-up clothes left over form her 2 year old days.

What's a girl to do?

We went to Goodwill and bought a slew of fancy dresses, hats, belts, scarves, sunglasses. and shoes.  It's funny really.  I had intended on the clothes being big on her, like dressing up in grown up clothes should be.  Unfortunately, my little girl is getting big quicker than I could have imagined.  Even the WOMEN's shoes that I bought her fit her almost perfectly- high heels and all.  We also bought a couple of nursing tops, so she could play doctor and veternarian.  Isaac has his own dress-up clothes also- firefighter, police officer, cowboy, pirate, etc.   They have a good time playing together.

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• Feb. 25, 2009
New Furniture

I'm so excited about our new couch and chair.  That may seem a small thing to some, but for me, it was long overdue.  To have the 'full picture' you must first have the 'before picture'.  OK, here goes.  (wince)

Yikes!  Pretty bad shape, huh?

OK, here's the new stuff!

Now that's much better if I do say so myself.  It's amazing how new furniture can make your house look so much cleaner.  This stuff is made out of microfiber and it is so SOFT.  I couldn't believe how well it matched our rug too.  Taylor was on the phone the other day describing the couch and chair to her Papaw.  She said that the couch was sky blue and the chair was dirt brown.  He he! 

Just a head's up- we bought this furniture used off of craigslist.  If you've never heard of craigslist, you need to check it out.  Now beware, there is plenty of stuff on craigslist that you want to stay far away from, but if you click on the safe categories you will be fine.  My personal favorite is the free section!   That's where we are trying to get rid of our old furniture.  Craigslist is worldwide, so check it out for your area.  www.craigslist.com

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• Feb. 19, 2009
I'm Back!!

Just a note-  I actually wrote this entry on Feb 4th in hopes that I could get it posted before now.  Obviously, I didn't. 

Hey folks!  Have you missed me in the blogoshere?  Life has been happening at an incredible speed.  Here is the rundown.  Our first full time fostering experience was for 2 little girls (ages 5 and 6).  They stayed with us for 2 months and left around Thanksgiving.  I still think of them most every day.  Every once in a while we will run into something that the girls left behind and I will start missing them all over again.  Also, Taylor picked up one of their words-toodle.  Toodle is a nicer sounding word for that great gust of air expulsion that comes out the backside.  J

Since the girls left we haven’t had any more foster kids.  Although we have plans to do respite for 3 siblings soon.  We will be a family of 7 for seven days!  I wonder what that will be like.

On to the next subject-  John was out of work for a while, and jobs were just not to be found.  God really provided for our needs though.  One time in particular was really memorable.  Our electricity was scheduled to be turned off and we had absolutely no way of keeping it on.  God worked in the life of a friend and brought their family some completely unexpected money.  That was awesome in itself, but then they paid off our electric bill.  Not just enough to keep the lights on, but absolutely every penny that we owed!  How amazing is that?

We no longer have our home phone or internet (which is another reason I haven’t been posting), but I’ve learned amazingly that I can live without them.  Who’d have thunk?  So for now I will try to write my blog posts in Word and then copy them to the blog whenever I’m somewhere with a signal.

School is still school.  Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad.  Math is still our struggle.  We were moving into division, but Taylor still struggles with addition and subtraction.  Not that she can’t do it; it just takes her forever.  So we backtracked and we’re spending more time memorizing math facts.  I’m doing it every way I can think of.  Flash cards, calculadder, wrap-ups, addition rap, and board games are a big part of school every day.  I think she’s improving.  We are continuing to drill multiplication also.  Our pastor’s wife gave us a big bag of chicklets (those little square pieces of gum).  So for every 3 flashcards she can get right in less than 10 seconds, she gets 1 piece of gum.  The first day I did this I told her that she could have 1 piece for every card she got.  She ended up with 19 pieces of gum so I had to put the kibosh on that.  J  She also gets a little reward for each level of calculadder she passes.  She’s on level five right now which is plus 3’s and review.  She almost beats it every day lately so hopefully she’ll pass it soon.

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• Oct. 27, 2008
Fostering

Our 1st fostering experience is going really well thus far.  We've run into a couple of things I wasn't sure about, so I've had to call our case manager several times.  I suppose I will get used to all the legalities as time goes on.  It's so hard to remember that the foster kids are not mine and I can't make decisions for them like I would for Taylor and Isaac.  A (our foster daughter)  ended up coming a day early.  Thankfully John had already put the bunk beds up!  We still haven't gotten an extra mattress, so we put Isaac's mattress on A's bed and blew up the air mattress for Isaac.  We put a big, thick comforter on it also and it's actually very comfy.  Isaac wants it for his bed forever.  Our Pastor's wife gave us 2 really nice bed sets complete with pillows.  One set is for a boy and one set is for a girl.  So we are good on bedding now

Church went really well on Sunday and A ended up knowing our Pastor's son, so he sat with us and helped her to feel welcome.  All in all it was a very good day.  At the end I was very tired and so I slept really well last nigh!

It sure is strange to have to get up in the morning and take a youngun to school.  Taylor was NOT very happy about having to get up so early.  He he!  On the positive side, we came straight home and got on our schoolwork, so we should be done well before lunch.  That will be nice, maybe I'll get to read some this afternoon when Isaac lays down!

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• Oct. 22, 2008
Jokes

1.  How do you scare a unique rabbit?

      Unique up on him.

2.  How do you scare a tame rabbit?

      Tame way.

3.  What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?

      A stick!

4.  What do you call cheese that isn't yours?

     Nacho Cheese.

5.  What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand?

     Quatro Sinko.

6.  What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?

     Anyone can roast beef.  (I know- Ewww)

7.  Where do you find a dog with no legs?

     Right where you left him.

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