Greetings! I am the curriculum developer, lead teacher, and cook at the Atha School for Boys! Come on in and see what we've been up to. We live in the dry Northeast of Brazil where we work with churches and a Christian camp. There's hardly a dull moment! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:44:00 -0600 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:44:00 -0600 November 27, 2009 Every good teacher needs a day off from time to time.  Why not make one for yourself, homeschool mother!  24 hours day in and day out, taking care of all the needs of your family, is work!  I'm thankful for each bit of time spent to nuture my needs so I can be a better teacher and caregiver!  The Friday after Thanksgiving was a day out for me and a pal.  We had a load of fun!  I got my hair done and we both had our nails done! Just like a caregiver for an elderly parent or a sickly spouse, homeschool mothers need time for themselves on a regular basis.  Daily quiet personal time and actual time out of the house and away from the family. I get my devotions in during the morning right after breakfast.  All the boys before we start our school time must read from their Bibles for 15 minutes.  I use that 15 minutes to read, too!  I need it.  I've often used the time to get ready for school, throw a load in the washer, or even do exercises, but I'm finding more and more, I need that time to quietly prepare my self for the day. I take a nap almost every day after lunch.  Not long, mind you!  But it's my time to rest.  And woe be to the boy that wakes me up for no good reason.  For the most part the boys are old enough now to respect this and be glad they don't have to take a nap anymore!  They did, and it wasn't all that long ago that they all got to stop! I put the boys to bed before I put myself.  That gives me a quiet house to get myself in tune for a good night's rest, not to mention a little time to converse in private with my favorite husband! And from time to time, I take a day off.  Sometimes it's a day off for all of us - a sick day if you will.  Sometimes it's a Mother is going to town day and you can't go!  It's a good thing and keeps me rolling along!  I'm already planning my next Mother's Day Out! Take care! p.s.  My day off was also my birthday!  I enjoyed it! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/748538/ Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:44:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/748538/ *Thanksgiving Week Report: *This week I am thankful for a three day school week!  I did not write in the boys' lesson plan books, each has their own this time around, rather I jotted what was to be done for the next three days on a small piece of memo paper.  *Thursday we will travel an hour to the home of our nearest missionary colleagues for a fun day of traditional Thanksgiving food and fellowship.  Looks like we will spend the night and make Friday a shopping day in the Big City.  The teacher needs a nice haircut and manicure/pedicure and hopes to get one that day!  Besides it's got to be a holiday - it's the teacher's birthday!  Yahoo! I am so grateful for our colleagues and for another year of life. *The boys are all moving right along with their work.  We are really liking the DIVE CD's that go with our Saxon Math books.  The two oldest boys are using the CD's which gives me the time to dedicate to the youngest and move between the other two answering any needed questions.  It seems to be working very well.  I am so thankful! *For the most part the boys are remembering their 30 minutes of music each day.  I have to remind them from time to time.  Greyson's keyboard came with our American guest who arrived two weeks ago.  It's not the best keyboard in the world but it will serve our purpose for the time being.  I am working along G  and we are using my old piano theory books.  I never got beyond the first books, so I'm hoping that together we will reach the stage of buying the next lessons!  It will be a while yet.  I remember more than I thought, but have yet to truly memorize the note names and places on the music staff!  I'm going to work on it and G will, too!  We are both enjoying our time together for this and for this I am happy and thankful.  *W is faithful to practice on his guitar.  I hope he can play something at church soon.  D needs a little extra incentive to work with his clarinet and the instrument could use a little professional tweeking.  We hope to take it with us to the Big City and see if someone can give it a little overhaul.  It's gratifying to see them both practice and work on their music. *I am so very thankful for boys who are not afraid of a little hard work.  All the boys went with their Papa and our guest to help with a roof raising of a new church congregation in a neighboring town.  All the boys came back good and dirty and stinky sweaty.  It's great to take a bath when there's really something to wash, you know!  And they all needed good baths!  Poor D fell asleep before his turn came, but he got his first thing the next morning!!! *On another note:  Someone recently asked me if I needed help with homeschooling.  I said, Well, Yes, I do.  Oh, well, what could I do to help?  Fix breakfast, wash the dishes, wash and hang the laundry, sweep the floors and mop them, fix lunch, sweep again, get the laundry in and put away, clean  up the kitchen from lunch and get all the dishes put away, rake the front yard and sweep around the laundry area, iron, fix supper.  I'll do the supper dishes for you, if you can get all that done before you go home.  They didn't give me a response and I haven't heard from them since!  Mmmm... what did I say wrong? Neat article about the Census of Marine Life: Marine Census finds strange creatures never before seen! This morning we read the article and checked out all the neat animals on the COML website.  There's a link for it in the Yahoo article linked above. p.s. ***Oh, FB people, this was originally posted on www.homeschoolblogger.com/athaschoolforboys , if you wish to see the post in its original form along with pictures and what nots, then go to my HSB blog!*** http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/746837/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:33:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/746837/ I recently happened upon a post on a homeschooling mother's blog that spoke of how glad she was to be dusting her son's desk and knowing he hadn't sat there much over the course of that particular week.  He had apparently been hunting and helping his father with some work around the home.  Her evaluation was that it was good that he was doing real man things and learning how to work.  She also indicated that his school work could wait when things like this popped up and that he would not get behind from the occasional skipped days. I have been thinking about this for about two weeks now, since I happened upon the article.  Just how often should a homeschooled child be allowed to "skip school."  What activities make a school day really "count?"  For which reasons should a child not "do school" on a regular school day?  Should school days be counted at all? First of all let me proclaim, that I count school days.  We complete 200 official school days a year.  We have completed 50 school days as off today.  We've got 150 to go to make this school year complete.  Each year I make a report card and indicate the subjects the boys have studied along with the texts used and their grades as well as how many school days were completed with our school calendar.  Some may think that 200 is too many as many schools now only operate for 180 actual days.  But sticking to the "old school" school calendar gives us some flexibility - some days are more productive than others, some days just don't "count" for much! So what counts as an official day for you? Here's what makes a day count for us: 1.  Having Math. 2.  Working for at least two hours. 3.  Doing at least three subjects. 4.  Official craft day or lapbook day. 5.  At least 2 of the 3 are not sick. Is there a time and place for skipping school?  Yes, I believe there is, but I also believe the dust shouldn't gather on the good old school books! Just my thoughts. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/746366/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:24:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/746366/ Tonight the boys will be sleeping out under the stars to see a meteor shower.  According to National Geographic News tonight will be a good night:  "During the 2009 Leonid meteor shower, you may see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour, depending on whether you're in the right place to see Tuesday's showy peak before dawn, experts predict." This picture above is from before our recent furlough.  Tonight we will see if Papa needs to buy a longer trailer.  All the boys have grown so much over the past year.  They really enjoy crazy things like this.  Papa will tow their "bed" out into the middle of the field in front of our house and leave them there for the night.  We leave the front door unlocked in case anyone needs to come in or just decides to get in their real bed instead.  Usually they make it the whole night.  Even though we live in a nice hot tropical kind of place, often at night with the wind blowing it seems cold - hence the covers and coats.  I don't think there will be much of a problem tonight.  We've been sweating all day long! Here's a link to the above mentioned National Geographic News article about the showers: 2009 Leonid Meteor Showers/ National Geographic ***FB friends this is a post from www.homeschoolblogger.com/athaschoolforboys ***Go there to see a picture of the boys in their truck trailer bed! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/745467/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:49:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/745467/ A 7 cm scorpion!  This is my desk chair in my bedroom.  I brushed by it on my way to my bed with a book as the boys were watching a DVD in another room.  Just as I got comfortable out of the corner of my eye I saw someone run across the top of my chair.  Wow!  When I realized what it was I was shocked.  What in the world was a scorpion doing on top of my chair!  And that big, too!  Seems it must have been on a table which was up against a wall just under a window.  The scorpion must have climbed in waltzed across the table and jumped onto the chair.  Can you imagine my thrill if I'd chosen to sit at my desk for a bit before going to bed? Yikes!  Needless to say I hollared for help!  I wasn't about to get off the bed!  Everyone came with me in my pajamas.  Everyone, husband, sons, houseguest!  They took pictures, measured it, talked about it, and took their own good time trying to decide what to do with it!  What a relief when they, all of them, and the bug were gone and I could get back to my book! Our youngest was bit or stung, I should say, by a slightly smaller scorpion about 3 years ago.  The pain was horrible on the location and his tongue went numb for about an hour.  It was rather scary, but he was fine after a while.  No, there's no where to go to do anything about it, just be happy and do what you can. What fun!  I'm paying more attention to where I step this week! p.s.  We don't have a cat! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/744278/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:54:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/AthaSchoolforBoys/744278/