A Joyful Noise Unto the Lord Homeschool

LucyLillie is Potty Training

LucyLillie is potty-training. Is that exciting or what? She is 17m old (yesterday), and goes potty all day and wakes up dry. We have been training her for the few past months. Caleb was potty-trained last January and February when he was so sick and all I could do to make him comfortable was give him something to drink and take him potty. That was a constant thing, so he got potty-trained pretty quick.

I am enjoying training Lucy and sitting her on her little potty seat on the big toilet. It has been rather cute. She loves to go on the potty. We give her just enough praise, and she thinks it is great and can even make herself go. If I wake up in the middle of the night for any reason, I go ahead and take her potty too, and she has been dry at night while wearing underwear alone! I am so happy!

You might think that after having 8 children, I would be an expert potty-trainer. Alas, it is not so. Partly due to the fact that I already am potty-trained, and I am really the only one I can absolutely, for-sure control the potty-training with. We do currently have 2 in night diapers, but recently, Caleb and LucyLillie are NOT in nighttime diapers.

Caleb is now a big boy who goes in all by himself and goes potty like a big boy. I do still remind the Littles to go potty whenever they are outside playing or doing something that takes their attention.

See Tips to Potty-Training at Walking Therein

I am thankful for the Lord’s patience and joy during times like this. I used to sweat it. It used to be a big deal to me, but I have learned to look for limitations and reality in times like these. Now, I count it a joy and a time I will look back on and remember when they are older and grown with children of their own. And, oh how time flies. I don’t want to miss it because I am flustered and wishing it over.

James 4:14
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.“

blessings!

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Tags: Caleb, cloth diapers, LucyLillie, potty training

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Week in review

Our second week went very well. Alisha, Seth, Andrew , Nathan and Hannah completed their first week of TOG and our discussion time went well. We ended up spending about 30 minutes in discussion, which I hope to expand as we get used to TOG.

Alisha and Seth are using Chalk Dust pre-algebra and they are settling into a routine and finding a pattern that works for them. They wll watch lesson 1.5 on Monday and do the problems on Tuesday. They are  also both doing Apologia gen science and are moving slowly though the first module. I had planned for them to be done with it by yesterday, but it will probably be Wednesday before they are finished. I am going to work with them on mapping the modules out so they finish each one in two weeks.

Nathan is on lesson 3 in Barton's and has been having a bit of trouble with a few of the sounds so we are spening a few days reviewing before moving on. He has been doing well with his other subjects and his favorite is Apologia's Astronomy.

Hannah enjoyes reading Made Easy and is making progress. She loves sounding out the words and it's so exciting to see it clicking for her.

William has just about finished all his Kumon books and I am going to need to order some more. I love these little books and they keep him occupied so I can work with the older children. They are worth every penny!

Alisha has a sketch book she is working through and she did the picture below, which I think came out wonderful!

Smiling Twice!

I recently received TWO wonderful bloggy awards!  Shanna from Learning at His Feet has passed on the Smile Award to me.  Life is so much happier with smiles, and I'm very glad to know that I've made at least one person smile through this blog!  :o)  And just for the record, Shanna's blog makes me smile, too! 

(The award was created by The Babblings of Mere and you can find the rules and such for the award here.)

And Michele of My Blessings From Above passed on the I Love Your Blog Award.  Well, who doesn't like hearing that??  I think she already knows that I love her blog just as much!

Thanks so much both of you sweet gals!  For both awards, I'm supposed to pass them on to others.  I may find the time to do that very soon, but for the time being, I'm - um - swamped (again!)  Imagine, me being overloaded!  Farm life, a toddler, homeschooling, a toddler, a couple of speaking engagements, a toddler, church responsibilities and.... a toddler are keeping me busy.  Farming is slowing down (thank you, Lord!), so hubby will hopefully be around more to help out with things like....the toddler!  :o)

Establishing Parental Authority

"Author and speaker Josh McDowell expressed an important principle in one single sentence.  He said, "Rules without relationship lead to rebellion."  He is absolutely right.  With all the temptations buzzing around our kids, simply saying no a thousand times creates a spirit of defiance.  We have to build bridges to them from the ground up.  The construction should begin early and include having fun as a family, laughing and joking, playing, running with the dog, talking at bedtime, and doing a thousand other things that tend to cement the generations together.  The tricky part is to establish those friendships while maintaining  parental authority and respect.  It can be done.  It must be done. " - Dr. James Dobson

When I read this, my attitude with my little angel pictured above changed.  Bringing up boys, it was easy to kick the ball around outside or wrestle inside on the carpet - but my little girl doesn't do those things.  So, I have had to find new ways to reach her.  One way I learned how to do this, is to play house.  I LOVE it!!!  I get to show her so many things, and model special things about being a women...  and most of all, I'm able to use this play time to share the Word of God. 

Back to School!!

We have started back to school.  We started on August 25th because we will be taking a trip to Disney in October.  We are looking forward to this trip.  This will be our first time going to Disney.

Dh is back to work and school now himself.  Yesterday was his first day back to both work and school.  It was a long day for him.  His foot was a bit swollen when he came home.  He is doing much better and walking without crutches. 

Our school schedule is very busy this year.  Dd has alot on her plate for this school year.  She is going to need to work hard to accomplish all our goals for this year.

This is what we are using with dd this year:

History~Streams of Civilization-Book 2

Math~Saxon Algebra 2 with DIVE cd

English~Learning Language Arts Through Literature,  Hot Words for Sat I

Science~Christian Liberty Press-Biology

Foreign Language~Berlitz New Basic French

There are also extras that we work on together for Bible and additional reading.

This is what we are using with ds this year:

History~Our Christian Heritage

Math~Saxon 7/6

English~Learning Language Arts Through Literature

Science~Bright Ideas Press Earth in Science with some additional books from Answers in Genesis

We will be working on art and music more this year.  We will use How Great Thou Art art curriculum.  I am not sure what we will be using for music yet.  We are hoping to take a Charlotte Mason approach to these subjects.  This year we have the opportunity to participate in coop classes with our homeschool group and we are very excited about that.  It will be on Thursdays from 9am-12pm.  They will both attend a history, timeline, science, writing/public speaking classes.  I will be there to help with the classes.  I am excited at this first time opportunity.

I am hoping to post updates of how we are doing with each of our curriculum choices throughout the school year.

End Of Summer Surprise

Homeschool Routines

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I'm still a little nervous about making a schedule routine and keeping to it this year.  We're using a new homeschool program which includes new school curriculum and I'm just not sure how it will effect our normal routine.  It's going to be a challenging year for my boys and for me.  The need for teacher/parent involvement during school will be lessened now with this new program, but my job as a babysitter has reached new limits with my now two year old-one nap-get into everything little girl.  Anyway, here is what I think my homeschool routine will look like:


6:30am - Mom's Bible Study Time
7:30 - 8:00am - Wake Up Time/Breakfast For Children
8:30am - Chores.  I throw a wash in at this time
9:00am - Bible Devotion for Kids
9:30am - School Begins
11:30 - 12:00pm - Lunch Break, write e-mails and blog comments
12:30pm - Put baby down for nap
2:00pm - School Out.  I fold the laundry at this time and catch up on blogging.
5:00pm - Dinner.  I usually plan for the week on Sunday and do my shopping then. I don't do any preparation during the week, but I do make sure I know what we are having.  The boys get to pick out two meals for the week and the other are up to me. 
8:00/8:30pm - Bedtime For Children

**On Wednesdays, we will have our weekly park day with other Homeschool mom's that I have met throughout the years (we always meet at the same park).  My oldest son also does his own laundry on this day.**

***On Thursdays, we will gather up our books and head to the library to do some work there while my baby girl attends Mother Goose story hour***

Washers In Space!

One load done; three or four on the laundry room floor.  The progress in this affair is rather like climbing a sand dune!

Post Intelligence

Washer Hypothesis

The walls are painted, so now I can tell the next chapter of the washing machine story.

My daughter came to me last week and asked where her work uniform had been washed.  Since she started working at Canadian Tire she has to differentiate between that uniform and her cadet uniform.

“It’s in the wash,” I said.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth we looked at each other in the sudden realization of what being “in the wash” meant.  The clothes were in the washing machine.  They were with the load that had been started, and stopped with the F20 error message.

“I need them tonight.”  She was working that evening.  Good grief.

So I said we’d try the load again.  I put it on, using only cold water of course since the hot had been disconnected due to the valve not working, and checked back every 5 minutes or so to see if it was still going.  I had to see how far into the cycle it got before shutting off so that I would know if the load was washed enough to just put it on another rinse and be done.

The wash load went by unhindered.  I fully expected it to stop at some point during the rinse.  I wanted to know how far into the rinse cycle it got so that I would know if it needed an extra rinse afterwards or not.  So, as it moved on into the rinse cycle I decided to just stay in the laundry room and wait.  I got a hot cup of tea and a stool and sat down and waited.  And waited.  And waited.

35 minutes later the cycle was complete.  The load had gone through the whole thing without any trouble.  A watched pot may never boil, but a watched washer does wash.  However, it does not wash every time.

Since then we have put several more loads on and some have gone through and others have stopped somewhere during the cycle, giving the F20 error message.  My brilliant engineer has a theory about this.  He hypothesized that the washer, with only the cold tap to draw water from, may not have enough water pressure to complete the load if someone uses cold water elsewhere in the house.  So we are trying this theory out and hopefully if we refrain from flushing toilets or using large amounts of cold water during the wash cycle we’ll be able to take a dent out of the mound of laundry that has been building this past week.

Meanwhile, my kitchen and library walls are now a beautiful “silver leaf” green, and we will be spending the better part of today putting the rooms back together again.  And there is talk of painting the living room (and connected areas) yet this fall!