CTG book basket is a bit different than ECC. I don’t want to be disappointed at all but it will take me a little while to get used to. There is a new list of books weekly as opposed to every two weeks (or per country studied). I like to get to every single book since they are all so wonderful and this tends to take me longer than I’d like. It’s also different because the weeks blend from one to the next so I can really hold onto the past week’s books…So just different.

We have slowed down a bit to work on some things we didn’t get to and to really take in what we’re learning. (mostly for the sake of what I’m learning) We are working on “Old Testament” lapbooks from Homeschooling in the Woods. R is especially enjoying each mini book he finishes. I know they will look so nice at the end of the year when they are all put together. We can show them off at the annual project fair. The kiddies made their own shofars out of a party horn and a paper bag. They actually turned out pretty neat. They sound more like what a shofar’s supposed to sound like as opposed to the toot-puff-tooting we were doing on our ram’s horn. We haven’t been blowing them daily as the our book suggests and we’ve sort of lost the continuity and the flow of the High Hoy Days. O and I had gone away on a much needed trip in the middle of it all so it was a little hard to follow the flow. We did come back to do the Tachlich time of going to a creek and emptying our pockets. I filled the kiddies pockets with small stones and encouraged them to remember a certain sin as they throw each stone into the water. We talked about how God casts our sins as far as the east is from the west.

We were also able to get to our science experiments in “Genesis For Kids”. We’re studying science through the days of creation.  We are on Day 1: Light. We talked about how light is white then we used a prism to break it into a rainbow. We discussed light as heat and made fire with the sun and a magnifying glass (against my better judgment of course). They thought that was really cool. We even made a spark by crushing a mint lifesaver. That was pretty cool too.

O is teaching me to take my time and not worry about “getting behind” Funny, I know this is my head and believe it so strongly but I continually need to be reminded of this particular benefit of teaching them at home. So, we went on a field trip. I don’t want to neglect trips as I tend to do just to keep my grid on a Monday through Friday order. I want to relax and enjoy opportunities as something perhaps even ordained by God. So we went Orienteering with the local Orienteering Club and it was amazing! There were a few preparation classes before setting out. One in particular was about compasses and how to orient our maps to North without using the compass. The instructor kept repeating “North never changes, you do.” I couldn’t get over that statement the whole day and discussed with the children how North is like God. When we sin we are the one who turned our hearts…not God. Like North, He never changes. Only when we orient the map of our life to Him are we able to stay on the right path.

And then finally our read aloud, Tanglewood’s Secret by Patricia St. John. I highly recommend it. DD and R seem to really relate to the characters and beg for “One more chapter PLEASE”. We frequently refer to the book throughout the day as certain situations arise. It has all fit together so perfectly with the heart of Rosh-ha-shanah through Yom Kippur as we align or hearts to His, Our Good Shepherd, our North, the Atoning Sacrifice. Moreover I have seen changes in my dear little ones in regard to their hearts toward God. For “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” 3 Jn.1:4

As we set the table, little bug asked, “Are we going to eat Sabba?” I believe our Sabbath celebration made quite an impression…

We gathered at the table and took turns blowing the Shofar. We are fortunate enough to actually have one that a dear friend brought us back from a trip to Israel. They are much trickier to blow than one might think. We had previously listened on the computer to what it’s supposed to sound like and laughed at our attempts. We discussed the purpose of the blowing and talked about the shape and the story behind using the rams horn during this time. The parallels; the story of God providing the ram caught by his horns for a sacrifice for Abraham and the sacrifice of Jesus God’s only son and this time leading up to the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur is again beyond words. I left the shofar on the table with some branches as a reminder.

Now I knew DH would never go for a fish looking up at him from his plate so on top of his nicely filleted and trimmed salmon was placed a paper fish to represent his place as the head of the household.

We ate our apples and passed the honey. Our Challah bread was round representing the fullness of a new year, and a ladder representing our prayers reaching the heart of God.

We tasted some pomegranate as a 1^st fruit, and sang Happy Birthday to the world as we ate our honey cakes. The evening was truly a sweet one and we anticipate the sweet newness to come.

Shanah Tova Um' tukah!

I walked into the kitchen after a busy and somewhat frustrating morning to find I had forgotten to put the grease board away but surprised even more by what I saw written. In a very beautiful script was written the words,

I love Homeschool,

I love Mommy

I'm happy to say the we actually enjoy Mondays as we all anticipate the people and places we'll visit next.

Labor day was spent with family and friends so we official started our unit on Tuesday. I tweaked the grid a bit to fit everything in and it worked out just fine. I love to see how my children are really enjoying learning.

They seemed to get a kick out of the Greek roots and learning all the English words that come out of them. Biblos: R says, “My sister reads so much I call her a bibliomaniac”. Dinosaurs of Eden is a hit so far. What child isn’t fascinated with those “terrible lizards”…

I’m excited about “God and the History of Art” I have my own art notebook and have committed to doing the lessons right along with DD and R. Our first lesson on Frustration we read about Joni Eareckson Tada and attempted to draw a picture by holding our pencils in our mouths.

There was a lot of slobber to contend with, some loose and some missing teeth, but I think the message was clear. We talked about doing our best with what God has given us. We talked about the gifts and talents God has poured out on all of us and we talked about our choice to use those gifts for God and the blessing that comes not only through us but to us.

As we read throughout the week the account of the Creation they drew each day what God had created. It’s such a neat thing how God met the needs of all the animals and people before He even created them. That just speaks to me in a neat way.

Friday came and the books were put away this was to be a day of preparation for a Sabbath celebration. We cleaned the grease board and put it away. We went from room to room together and cleaned from cobwebs to floors and everything in between. We did an extra load of laundry and actually put the folded clothes away. We started the Golden Yoich and the Challah bread.

By afternoon the house was smelling as R said, “like Thanksgiving Day” We set out the table cloth and set the table with our nicest things, the candlesticks and polished silver.

“Are Gramma and Poppa coming?” “No” “Do we have friends coming? “No”. This special time was just for them. DD’s quiet smile was enough for my heart to hold.

When O came in from work I could sense his delight and pleasure to be welcomed with the sight and scent of it all. There seemed to be an unspeakable excitement and yet peacefulness about the house as we waited for the sun to sink a bit lower in the sky. As it did we gathered at the table in prayer. O did such a great job of explaining what happens next and how it relates to us in Christ. We all slept sweetly with candles aglow and the scent of Cholent cooking through the night.

We knew Saturday wouldn’t be exactly a day of complete rest and time together as our schedules would not permit but we did spend much of the day together and tried to keep that sense of rest and peace in the home. It was a rainy day and the kiddies played outside in the puddles. I realized how difficult it is for me personally to rest. By afternoon I was almost beside myself thinking of a hundred things I could be doing. The dishes, another load of laundry, Make copies, etc. Even in prayer I tend to labor rather than focus on the goodness of God alone and rest in His presence. O made it back in time that evening for our late light dinner. It was too overcast to spot the first three stars of the evening but we gathered again at the table in prayer as darkness began to fall.

We lit the Havdalllah candle, O poured the juice in the Kiddush cup till it overflowed and extinguished the flame in what had spilled over. DD then passed around the Bessamen spice box and we savored the sweetness of our Sabbath. I still have no words to express the power of this moment.

Shabbat Shalom

I love some of the neat things some home schooling families do to start off their new school year, Special breakfasts out, goody bags with new supplies, a special Homeschool T-shirt announcing to the world your children are “unsocialized“( love that one). But us, well, we sort of just ease our way into things slowly and don’t really make much of a fuss about it. I’d like to do those sorts of things and just maybe one of these years I’ll get it together and actually do something fun to mark that official start. Oh, I did get a little silver school bell that DD rung before sitting down at the table… does that count? DD had been asking daily when we’re going to get started again and R was just getting a bit stir crazy (or was that me) so I knew that it was time. So we did some cursive practice, Phonogram review and started a few spelling lessons, Language lessons, and some math. We went to the library and filled our book basket for our unit study. Looks like some really great books as I had expected. I was happy to see DD so excited saying, “Oh Good, we get to do book basket again!!!” We’ve been having fun looking at books on optical illusions and trying out optical tricks on each other as we get ready to study The first day of Creation: light. DD couldn’t help reading “All of a Kind Family” right away and looks forward to having a real Sabbath. We looked through our Creation To the Greeks resources and talked about the different things we’ll be learning this year. R and little J were excited too as I think they realize that our “school year” means spending time learning and doing new things together. It means some work but it also means special time as a family exploring God’s world and making a lifetime of memories.

Happy School Starting Days

to my fellow Homeschooling friends

and blessings on a fruitful year ahead

Box Day: (noun) definition: 1. A traditional celebration of most users of My Father’s World curriculum. 2. The long awaited day in which The Box arrives containing the most wonderful home school resources. This particular day may cause strange and erratic behavior in some anticipating mothers. Ie: Peeking out windows frequently throughout the day, tackling unsuspecting UPS men, etc…

Yes, today is box day. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our Creation to the Greeks Deluxe Package.

Creation to the Greeks follows Exploring Countries and Cultures and begins a four year chronological study of history. This year we will be traveling back in time to Old Testament days to explore ancient history

Reasons I love MFW (edited from MFW‘s web site):

 *Recognizes the Bible, God's truth, to be the foundation of wisdom and education.

*Utilizes hands-on, unit studies with daily lesson plans that are easy-to-teach.

*Enables families and multi-age groups to learn together.

*Combines the best of Charlotte Mason's ideas and classical education with a Biblical   worldview, an international focus and observations of how children learn.

*Provides easy-to-teach, integrated curriculum that is enjoyable, academically strong, and focused on character development.

*Is committed to the Lord of All, who tenderly searches for people from every tribe and language. A portion of the profits helps support mission work overseas, especially Bible translation projects. The Hazell’s heart's desire is that someday soon all people would be able to read of God's love in their own language.

It has been a God send, a perfect fit for our family, and all that I have in my heart to teach these little ones. I’m excited to get started and for all that God has in store for us to learn this academic year. But oh, what’s that? I think I hear the UPS truck…

For our Homeschool project fair the kiddies made country lapbooks. They each chose a country out of those we studied. DD chose France and made the Eiffel Tower out of Knex. R chose Canada and made an igloo.

This was our first time doing lapbooks. I printed out all the templates from free sites on the web. I think they came out great! The kiddies are very proud of them too. If I had known how easy and beneficial lap booking could be, I probably would have added it to our year earlier.

For the History portion of the fair, children are encouraged to research a character , write a short report on that person and dress like them. The other children will try to guess who they are. In years past I’ve always given my help, suggestions, correction, etc, as is expected of the perfectionist parent that I am. This year I didn’t even read what DD had written. She chose to present Anastasia Romanov.

I was so surprised and impressed. She did a wonderful job! She sat with an easel and pretended to paint as she spoke because Anastasia loved to paint as a child. How creative! She then showed a picture of a replica she had drawn from one of Anastasia‘s paintings. It really looked just like it!

Amazing to find what they are capable of doing when we just let go.

Something that was fascinating to us while visiting Oz was the “School of the Air, Australia’s solution to long-distance education. Through the use of two-way radios, School of the Air teachers conduct classes each day with Australian children who are scattered far and wide across immense distances. There are several Schools of the Air around Australia including one in Alice Springs, the original home of the School. Some students live over 600 miles away.

With the help of a tutor (usually a parent), students complete their radio and written lessons and then mail their homework in to their teacher on a regular basis. So, I don't think an excuse like "The dog ate my homework" works too well in Australia, either -- although "The dingo ate my homework" might. Anyway, when they’re not on the radio, teachers grade the written work and mail it back, sometimes via RFDS planes, and at least once a year, each teacher hops into a 4-wheel drive and heads across the Outback to visit their students. In addition, all the kids come into town a few times each year to meet the other children in their radio “classroom,” which is the only time during the year that some of the kids interact with other children… or visit a town.”

So We dug out the Walkie-Talkies and had a go.

The kiddies had fun with the Australian lingo. It was amazing how much information we learned from the little picture book, Max in Australia. We made play dough marsupials, and had a kangaroo jumping contest. We also read a cute book called This is the Coral Reef and learned about The Great Barrier Reef. The kiddies made boomerangs. The only way we could get them to come back was to throw them straight up. Oh well…a lesson in gravity will work. You Tube has some cool videos of people playing the didgeridoo. We watched a painted Aboriginal man in particular make the most eerie and odd sounds.

We made our own Muesli for breakfast, DD made Damper Bread, pumpkin soup and Sunshine salad for dinner. Oh, and lots of kiwi in between.

My initial idea (or excuse) for going to Florida for vacation was to visit EPCOT in Orlando. A “Field Trip” as it ties in so perfectly with our “Exploring Countries and Cultures”. So after the kiddies and I had enjoyed nearly 3 weeks of letterboxing, swimming, beach combing, Kite-flying and spending time with Grandma and Uncle J….

…Daddy arrived and we made our way to Disney.

We decided to go to The Magic Kingdom first. So many people wait until their children are “old enough to remember it”. But I tell you, I so enjoyed the awe and delight in my little one’s eyes. She loved “It’s a Small World” and The Dumbo ride. She waved to all the princesses so enthusiastically and looked for “Tingy Bell” at every turn. It was simply precious.

We then took 2 days to see EPCOT. The first day we went to Future World.

We spent a lot of time at ”Sea”. Which tied in perfectly to our unit’s biome. We loved having a real conversation with Crush and were able to observe up close all kinds of sea life.

We also had lots of fun on “Land” learning about recycling. Our family worked as a team on the process that takes our trash through various centers of recycling and land filling. We took a ride through a greenhouse and saw familiar and not so familiar things growing. DD and I were fascinated by the hydroponic section and the huge tomato tree. I wish I had gotten a picture of it.

We all loved “Soarin” and got to ride it twice without a wait.

DD enjoyed watching the artists in the Gallery sketching Disney characters and was able to get a few pointers on her own artwork. She was happy to have them keep some of her own works of art in their archives. We were able to see and have pictures taken with many of the real characters at the “Photo Spot”.

We didn’t stay late and felt good not having to rush through the park having to see it all in one day.

Our next day at EPCOT was the “World Showcase”. How wonderful it was to see DD and Reece responding to little details of the countries we have studied.

In Mexico, they were excited to find Metopec Sun faces. D.D pretended to shop in the marketplace.

In Norway there was a mural with reindeer, sleds and Sami color patterns. They loved the Maelstrom adventure cruise and understood why there were trolls along the way. We got to see the Stave church and a real Viking ship.

We stopped in France for lunch. I finally got to try the Salad Nicois.  We were too full for crepes. We had to save room for Pretzels in Germany, Icees in Japan, and Gelato in Italy.

Did you know the People in France say "Cheese" when your taking their picture too?

We took a walk around the perfume garden while in France and browsed the soap shop before getting a special kiss from princess Aurora.

In China we stood on the Great Wall and we were able to look all around at the people and places in the Chinese culture. Then we watched the young acrobats Jumping flipping and balancing with ease.

The US had an incredible show that brought me to tears a few times.

We recognized the mountains and evergreen forest of Canada

And then couldn’t wait to see Mary Poppins in England.

We stayed later in the evening for the incredible fireworks show.

And so with aching feet, a filled belly, and a song in our hearts we Thank our God for this amazing World, His blessings on us and Homeschool field Trips!

We rode by camel only part of the way, and then we boarded a train, being it is a most common means of travel for China.

DD got a beautiful red Kimono and some Chinese checkers or “Tiaoqi” for her Birthday. She was thrilled! She so enjoys jumping into character.

She made a wonderful Chinese crab and corn soup and served it up with rice crackers and tea. I enjoy using my Wok to cook so we had stir-fry veggies and shrimp, chop suey with cashews, sesame chicken, egg rolls, lots of rice and of course we practiced using our chop sticks.

We found a neat book at the library I think it was Look What Came From China by Miles Harvey (I’ll have to check to make sure) It had some really neat simple projects in it. Every time I turned around DD was flipping through it. She made wall scrolls and a big butterfly kite in her free time. We also enjoyed the book, ”Grandfather Tang’s Story” Ann Tompert. We made our own Tangrams out of card stock. DD and R acted out the 2 foxes, making tangram animals as they followed along. I think R especially enjoyed the picture books this past few weeks. We had fun evenings cuddled up with them.

When we made our Chinese flags we talked about The meaning of the stars: The largest of them representing Communism. DD and I watched the movie, ”China Cry” I hadn’t watched it in a long time. It really brought us both to a better understanding as to what was really going on when Communism came into play, the reality of persecution that took place, and the incredible testimony of being unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We also talked about the flag’s 4 smaller stars representing the 4 classes of people. We just happened to watch the movie High School Musical ( I was actually impressed ) D and R were able to see how even in our own culture there is this division of people; The classes of China, the cast system in India, and the clicks and prejudices right here in America.

 Not even our Lord Jesus was above taking off His outer garment to wash the feet of the disciples to show us how to truly love one another.

Saris, bangles, and forehead dots… So much to do in India. Here are just a few that we got to; We made Diwali Lanterns. Diwali is a “festival of Lights”. The Hindus light their homes during this festival to welcome their goddess (Lakshimi) of wealth and prosperity. We discussed how our God provides all our needs and how He is ever present and The Light of the World. 

DD decorated our front stoop with her own version of Rangoli art.

We watched a documentary of one particular festival in India. It was amazing the things these people do to try to win the favor of their gods. The more painful their sacrifice, the more they feel their god will be pleased with them. It breaks our hearts to see their striving knowing that God bore all suffering so that we wouldn’t have to. He so desires us only to ask Him to be in our hearts

We made Chapatis and dipped them in melted butter and Curry. Ahm Phul (which is basically a mango smoothy) is a new favorite, and Chai Tea an old favorite on a cold night.

DD and I are enjoying the story of Amy Carmichael in the evenings. What an incredible woman of humility and servanhood.

We took our No-Ruz centerpiece to the creek. (Yes, I actually emerged from the house) We ate lunch and as we threw our young seedlings into the water we thanked God for His goodness to us, for keeping us in His care through the winter. We prayed for His blessing in the newness of the spring and warmer days to come and that as we watch all things come into bloom and grow that he would also grow in our hearts... perhaps another tradition we will adopt in our family. Our cheery display box is still on the table. We are using it to collect flower seeds and spring planting ideas.

I believe we've decided to travel by camel to China...

Diwali Lanterns

Rangoli Art

No-Ruz Sprouted Centerpiece

Lunch at the creek 

Ringing in the spring