"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.  Trust in the Lord forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal."

I have truely enjoyed memorizing this verse and wanted to share it with my friends. 

Enjoy your weekend.  Grace and peace to you.

My 1st grader really dislikes reading.  He's great at phonics (including advanced phonics), he can read the 25 most common sight words in the English language and if I ask him to spell something basic he can usually do so correctly, but hand him a book and he starts yelling and crying and telling me he can't do it, it's too hard.  He's even asked not to go back to his 1st and 2nd grade Sunday school class because they expect him to read "too much".  So today instead of asking him to read the words singing, running, telling, begging, and hopping, I had him write them on the chalk board.  After I explained the rule about doubling the consonant he did great, and there was not one complaint.

My question is this...at what point do I expect him to read, not just do phonics worksheets and spelling words and such?  I do not mind getting creative in getting him to read words but it's not the same as reading a book or even a sentence.  I've been told it's not that uncommon for homeschooled children to read at 4 and I've also been told it's not uncommon for them to not read until they're 7.  Where is the balance?  Any ideas?

Thank you to any and all who respond with a comment or suggestion.  Grace and peace to you!

I'm so excited because they boys and I are about to start a unit study focusing on map skills.  We'll be using a book and workbook combo called, Legends and Legues or Mr. Tardy Goes From Here to There.  It's written for 1st graders (my oldest is in first grade and his little brother is in preschool) and I've been looking at it all year trying to decide if we would like it or not.  Finally, I went ahead and ordered it last week and it arrived in the mail today! 

The more I look at it the more I am convinced that we will all enjoy working through it.  The entire workbook is reproducible for homeschooling families and there are not just worksheets included but also a couple of cut and paste activities and some hands on projects.  Besides instructions on how to use the page or worsheet there is not a lot of reading required so those who are too young or not thrilled about reading should not be overwhelmed.   Veritas Press specializes in  classical Christian educational materials and so there is nothing in this book/workbook set that is in any way inappropriate or questionable.

The only thing I wasn't thrilled about is the book included, while entertaining and informative, it is not a captivating story and I will likely find myself using it for information only.

I'll keep you updated on what we're doing with these materials and how it's going.

In the meantime, how are my friends?  I hope each of you is enjoying the first signs of spring and that God is blessing you and your family!  Lots of love!

Last night, around 6 o'clock, I was reminded how much I enjoy teaching art to my children.  They both love to draw and my big boy is always creating something out of recycled materials so I don't often worry about formal art instruction, I just let them go for it!  But last night my little boy pulled "art lesson" out of the funschool jar, so I dug out one of my many trusted art instruction books and we had a grand time!

The book we used last night is called, "How to Teach Art to Children" and is by Evan-Moor Educational Publishers.  It's written for grades 1-6 and teaches line, shape, color, value, texture, form and space.  I love it because it is very teacher friendly and the projects inside are colorful and fun.  There are lots of pictures, some reproducible worksheets, information on famous artists and even literature suggestions to use with the art lessons.

I guess since we'll all be shopping for next school years materials soon I thought it would be nice if we started sharing information about what's working and why.  So that's my two cents for the day!  Grace and peace to you and yours!

Big boy...

• Bible memory: 1 John 4:14
• Reading: worked on sight words
• Writing: worksheets on nouns and verbs
• Math: addition facts done orally, counting by 2,5,10, & 25 orally, counting change
• Music: piano practice

Little boy...

• Bible memory: Luke 2:30
• Reading: letter sounds
• Writing: practiced writing J's and O's
• Math: counting to 100 with 100 # chart

Both boys together...

• Bible: Dad read in the Bible about John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus
• Literature: Mom read Dr. Suess books
• Fine Art/Drama: Mom read a Star Wars book about the making of "The Phantom Menace"

This has been a light and fun day where school is concerned.  Everyone had a good attitude and so I am counting my blessings!!

Hubby and I are still getting everything ready to open the hair salon in the beginning of April.  There is a lot to do...we are booked every night for the next 3 weeks solid with painting, tearing up tile, laying new tile, moving equipment and furniture, cleaning, etc.  We're doing all the work to cut costs.  It's actually be fun to work together and even the kids have helped.  When this thing is up and running it will truely be something we accomplished together!  I'm so excited!

Hope all is well with you and yours!   Grace and peace to you in Jesus name!

Hello everybody!  I have missed blogging so much...things have been crazy around here because my hubby and I are trying to open a business.  Whew!  It's a lot of work!

Well things have been ok in our homeschool.  Not much seems to be getting done but I'm trying to embrace the concept that less can be more, and that character development matters just as much if not more than most of the other things on my agenda!

I've been homeschooling for only a few years and to be honest I'm still trying to figure out the most effective and peaceful way to go about it.  Sometimes it seems that just when I think things are going well, it all falls apart and I need to revamp.  Once I do, things are fine again for a while but the cycle repeats itself.  I don't buy new materials each time I just change my approach or my emphasis for a while.

So one of my new ideas is a funschool jar.  This jar is used only once we've completed the three r's.  In the jar are several pieces of paper and on each piece of paper is written an activity that my children enjoy and is educational at the same time.  They take turns pulling out a surprize activity.  For instance, the last one that was picked was the "Who lives here?" game that I posted about before.  My kids LOVE that game so we played it and did all the related activities I could think of until we got tired of it...that was today.  Today, the paper that was pulled had an art project on it, so we did the art project and pulled another piece of paper out, this one had only one word on it...K'nex.  These are a real priveledge in my house.  They are stored in the garage and only come out about once a month so the boys were thrilled and I'm confident that we won't go to the funschool jar again for at least a week.

I don't call it the funschool jar in front of the boys, I'm not sure they would enjoy it as much if they recognized that it was school in disguise.  They know it as the fun activity jar.  So maybe we do geography for a week or more and then don't do it again for a while...but at least it's fun and they're enjoying what they're learning. 

So I'm on the lookout for interesting, fun and educational activities to add to the jar.  Any ideas? 

I have to admit I cheated a lot and I didn't exercise as much as I wanted to...so the fact that I lost no weight this month really is my own fault.  I was doing well until I committed to posting about it.  Weird.  Anyway, I'm not getting down and I'm not giving up.  So, as of today I am still at 188 pounds and wearing a size 16!  I think I'll put one of those weight loss counters on my blog if I can find one.  That way I can keep blogging about it only once a month but update just the counter as the weight loss occurs.  Maybe that will be good motivation.  Grace and peace to you!

My wonderful husband recently reminded me of a geography game we kind of made up that the kids really enjoy, called "Who Lives Here?"  We played "Who Lives Here?" today and it went so well that I thought I'd share it with you, my homeschooling friends. 

All that's required to play the game is a map of the USA.  What we do is name family members and find the state they live in.  For us that's Kansas, Washington, Missouri, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina and Nevada.  Sometimes this is all there is to it but today we really had fun with it by learning the 50 states song (all 50 states in alphabetical order, I learned it in elementary school), putting together a map of the USA puzzle, and writing letters to our family in far away states.   

Anyway, I hear yelling children so I better go.  Grace and peace to you!

My friend cyndiegirl72 has a great homeschool blog she calls Homeschool Fuel, and when my sister (whose children are all in public school) relayed the following story to me on Thursday I thought, "Now that's what I call homeschool fuel!"

My sister's youngest son is the same age as my oldest and is in 1st grade.  He has asthma and was in and out of the hospital several times a year for his first 3 years.  Now his asthma is more under control and he hasn't been to the hospital in a few years but even a cold can spark an asthmatic flare up. 

Wednesday evening my sister noticed that he was coughing a little so on Thursday she called the school and spoke to the nurse, letting her know that she was concerned and was just 10 minutes away if his symptoms got any worse.

When she picked her son up from school that afternoon she assumed that he'd had a good day since she had recieved no calls from the school.  Come to find out he had been in the nurse's office 3 times that day coughing and weezing.  She had to take him straight to the doctor who had to put him on stronger meds for the next 2 weeks to keep him healthy.

I'm just so sad for her and her family that even though she called them they didn't bother to let her know her son was getting worse throughout the day.  For me this is one of many reasons I keep my kids at home!