The Parlour
We are moving, and I will miss my home terribly. We have sold all of our animals to wonderful new owners and are waiting to see who Yahveh will bring to live in this wonderful old house of ours. This room is beautiful. We have a piano in it and have always loved being able to say "We have a parlour"!
My friend, Jamie, whom we met last summer took this of my Parlour. I know it is dark (and I should have had Jocelyn lighten it!), but I love this view. I do have more photos of my home on another blog.
Have a wonderful and blessed week!!
October Already??
2:28 PM, Thursday, October 1, 2009
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Hi Friends~
Life here at Dixon Homestead goes on... as the weather turns colder and the sun shines less.
We are being cautious to stay as healthy as we can, though it is difficult with the changing weather. Almost all of our children went through colds last week. We are thankful to be over them now! We are keeping them in the sunshine when it come out, because sunshine contains a lot of vitamin D, which kills the influenza virus. That and the other health remedies we are using surely kept their colds from becoming something worse.
We are up to 14 goats now, but we are in the process of selling most of them. (If you are interested and local, email me!)... We will also then have to sell our 1yo LGD, Coconut, a beautiful and sweet Great Pyrenees... Chickens will go next.... downsizing in these last days...
Other than that, we are WELL! We are discovering more and more of Torah and how to fully love and trust in Yehovah, and we are truly blessed!!
May you be blessed of Yehovah and have his Shalom, which is not what the world offers and will keep you content in all you do!
Memo Monday Resources for Home School Moms
2:16 AM, Monday, September 14, 2009
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Homeschooling Boys Website and Yahoo Group
HomeschoolingBoys.com is a site I just found a couple of weeks ago. It is a site for homeschool families with boys and covers topics from homeschool issues to discipline to field trips. There is a Yahoo Group you can Click to join here!
Take A Look:
English and Grammar Curriculum:
English for the Thoughtful Child 1 is an English/Writing for children 'Grades: 3-4'. A Simply Grammar-like course for a younger child following the Charlotte Mason approach from Greenleaf Press. It contains everything you need for language arts - wholesome classic literature excerpts, narration, dictation, memorization, and composition. Lessons are self-contained and the book is very easy to use with short, manageable exercises and assignments. Like Simply Grammar, this volume is also a revision of an older book, complete with quaint, but stimulating, period illustrations.
English for the Thoughtful Child 2 is the English/Writing for children 'Grades: 3-4'. This sequel contains all the distinctive features of the original. It contains nature lessons, oral composition, picture lessons, memory work, and a gentle introduction to grammar, all centered around the development of writing skills.
Simply Grammar by Charlotte Mason and Karen Andreola is an expanded version of Charlotte Mason's First Grammar Lessons. The exercises use Miss Mason's method of narration. Most work is oral, but any of it can be written. One grammar rule is taught per lesson, and all exercises that follow refer to the rule. Your child will learn to create his own sentences, describe pictures, and tell stories using all the important parts of speech. It is nonconsumable, and can be used for a several-year program, and will enhance any language course. For 4th to 8th grade.
Easy Grammar
I used this for my girls in high school. It is actually available for all grades. In the high school workbook, students start by learning a list of prepositions. Then, by identifying and crossing out prepositions and prepositional phrases, students can see the core of each sentence. Concepts are presented in small, understandable increments, followed practice pages. It is a complete grammar course. I had the girls do their worksheets and correct them themselves. We did the pages that they needed to complete what they already knew. The workbook pages and tests are reproducible for families, although you will probably want to purchase the student workbooks because of the sheer volume of copying involved (200-300+ pages). Tests can be reproduced from the teacher book or a test booklet purchased for convenience.
Reading Fiction:
These are some of our favorite reads. I tried to categorize them into the best age groups, but many of them fit into any category, so you will have to see how it fits for you!
Blackberry Hollow by Paul Peabody
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Little Faith by Mrs. O.F. Walton A young child on the streets in the last century, the little orphan girl learns to trust people agin.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Oh, the lovely stories of Anne with an e, the little orphan on Prince Edward Island, who finds the real meaning of family.
Jeb Stuart by Gertrude Hecker Winders A true story about a famous American boy in the saddle.
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare The scene is Jerusalem, the time is of Christ, the characters are realistic, and you will love this historical fiction.
Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare A young family in Colonial times must make a choice to leave their young son in Indian country to get their entire family to their new claim in Maine.
Lamb Among the Stars series by Chris Walley Amanda loves with this series. It is a fully realized futuristic sci-fi/fanatasy epic. If you are interested in this series, "One thing about this series is in order to understand what is going on, you have to take yourself out of our sinful world and imagine a place where there is no sin and "The King Reigns"."` Read The Lamb Among Stars Series.
A book for moms or dads that I am reading again... and all the way through this time, is Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family by Steven Maxwell.
Thanks for joining me for this week's Memo Monday.
Have a wonderful week! Blessings!
I Remember Being A New Homeschool Mom
We all start this homeschool journey with preconceived ideas and expectations of how it should go or what we ‘have’ to do to teach our children. We enter into homeschooling, knowing it will set us and our children free from the perils of the public school system, but sometimes those ideas and expectations are like shackles that keep us from teaching and loving our children the way we really want to. It is as if the method is more important than the goal. Which it is not. I have met a lot of new homeschool moms recently through Jocelyn’s meme on the HSBA Post: Homeschool Memoirs Meme and through Cindy Rushton’s Talk-a-Latte I have attended. I remember being a new homeschool mom.
Fifteen years ago, there were not so many resources out there that could be easily found, and considering I did not have the internet or even a computer, I had little in the way of outside encouragement. Add to that the fact that I was a 3yo baby Christian, just learning how to train my children at all. I feel for these new moms who are searching for the ‘best way’ to home school their children. I remember being a new home school mom.
Looking back to when I was a new home school mom, there are a few small things I can think of that would have made such a difference in my homeschooling had I only been told. I think I would have wanted someone to tell me we did NOT have to go into debt buying every complete set of each grade. I would have wished they had introduced me to a Bible-based homeschool method like HOW - Heart of Wisdom. I needed to know that God MUST come first. The WORD truly is our life, and outside of that, there is no wisdom.
Job 28:28
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
Isaiah 33:6
And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure.
We get so caught up in what we learned in the government schools, and some of us just aren’t the ‘break the mold’ type of people. We were bound by society, and we have yet to break free. God is the one who can set our hearts and expectations free so that He is the Leader in our homeschools. If we bring all things through Him, we will not fail. It was He who told us to walk with our children and talk with our children to teach them His ways.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Read all of ‘these words’ of Deuteronomy chapter 6.
As society continues to move towards socialism, it is imperative that we stand firm in teaching our children as they need to learn. They are not cookie-cutter children. They each have their own strengths that we need to recognize and allow them to learn in, according to their bent (training up a child in the way they should go - according to their bent).
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
This is a freedom that will stop the tears and frustration. Some children just won’t read until they are nine. Period. Two of mine didn’t. They are voracious readers now.
The three books I suggest to a new homeschool mom are these: Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach (you can get a free 75 pp. excerpt online), Educating the Wholehearted Child, and Teaching the Trivium. I like Teaching the Trivium mainly for the chapters on teaching the Bible, as the method is not necessarily for everyone. Oh, and also, I found GREAT freedom to educate in high school through the 2004-05 Elijah Co. Resource Guide (get yours now-they are $1!!) and Barb Shelton’s Senior High: A Home- Designed Form+U+la. These last two are are EXCELLENT for the discouraged high school parent who has been relaxed homeschooling their children and feel lost at the high school level.
When we listen to God and see the hearts of our children, recognizing their purpose and needs and walking in that with them, there is a freedom that will take us places that far exceed our original little expectations!
blessings to you on your home school journey,
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