The scattered and random thoughts of a Christian homeschooling mom of 9 (so far!) - our journal and our journey. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:34:00 -0500 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:34:00 -0500 She would like some input on this issue.  Thanks!! I am wondering if you would help me.  I have been working on my Girl Scout Silver Award and in the process, I have noticed that many of the elderly people I know are suffering in loneliness.  I want to help them.    On the other hand, the young people that I have seen do not notice the sadness of the elderly because our culture portrays the elderly as unimportant.  The younger generations are missing out on the relationships with distant grandparents and could use the influence of the more experienced generation in their lives.   I would like to help them notice and appreciate each other so that both groups benefit.  I am thinking of starting a Secret Grandparent program, similar to a Secret Sister exchange or I would like to start an Adopt-a-Senior program at my church where kids like me would get together with an “adopted grandparent” and talk, bake, do crafts read and otherwise get to know each other better.    I would appreciate any input and suggestions in dealing with this issue.  Thank you.   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/736984/ Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:34:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/736984/ Well, OK, not quiet exactly, but *shrug* We are finishing up our first block of school.  I think it went pretty well, considering.  Bug (15yos) is coming along in math a bit (dreaded long division!!) and is voraciously reading about WWI.  Occasionally, I see him go through his forensic study.  i need to prod a bit more there.  He started his bowling league this month and is doing well.  He also went on his first local mission trip. Butterfly (13yod) is enjoying our AWOA study of Ancient Egypt and reading better than she thinks she is.  She finished a lapbook on the Titanic and one on Amelia Earhart and is working on one for our Egyptian study as well as a group lapbook on desert animals.  She has been volunteering a lot, as usual, and has earned the Presidential Volunteer Service Award - in gold!! Bunny (11yod) is also working on Ancient Egypt with us and the same 2 lapbooks as her sis.  Playing soccer and reading lots, as usual.  Also doing the "dreaded long division".  Her sugar numbers are giving us fits and she is sick of this whole diabetes thing already.  *sigh*  Hurts my momma's heart to see her have to struggle with this.  OH!  And she has earned a bronze Presidential Volunteer Service Award. Bee (9yod) is playing her first season of soccer (we bumped her up a level to keep her with Bunny) and is doing GREAT!  Really holding her own out there.  She is learning all about space in her free time, and doing AWOA along with the big girls.  All three girls are enjoying Girl Scouts activities and patch requirements.  Bear (6yos) is happily 'Rowing along with Five in a Row this year.  We've worked on 6 titles - The Story About Ping, Lentil, Madeline, A Pair of Red Clogs, The Rag Coat and Who Owns the Sun? and he has loved every one.  He's also doing a lot of Cub Scout activities (he's a Wolf Cub) and was the first in his pack to fill a popcorn order form! Kitty (4yod), Lamb & Puppy (2.5yoTWINs) are doing lapbooking for Letter of the Week and Before Five in a Row.  They are just having a BLAST with the lapbooks and being kids. PoohBear (8mos) is trying to crawl, learning to stand, drooling a lot, and is in general the most contented baby I've ever seen!  He's a PEACH! We were going to put the brakes on the unit after our break next week and have everyone follow their own interests (with my guidance, of course).  But when the girls found out that Ancient Greece was next, and that Ancient Rome was after that, and that... well, anyway, we'll be sticking with AWOA for awhile! LOL  Not sure now how to fit in a lion lapbook and a Beyond FIAR study for Bunny, more space activities and an African animal lapbook for Bee, a study of woman's history with Butterfly... Anyone got more extra hours in their day they want to lend me?? Loving Learning, Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/730269/ Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:09:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/730269/ Almost every night for a couple of weeks now we have heard a noise outside that sounds E-X-A-C-T-L-Y like a squeaky toy!  It happens in the middle of the night mostly, for about 5-10 minutes then fades away as if whatever is making the noise moves off somewhere else. I have found a couple of references online to birds that make a "squeaky-toy" noise, but can't find anything definitive. HELP!  It's driving us crazy!! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/725608/ Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:12:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/725608/ Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of school.  But Butterfly (13yog) had a volunteer opp yesterday from 10:30-1.  Then the girls had a Girl Scout outing from 3-5pm.  And Bee (9yog) almost broke her nose tree climbing and had to spend 2 hrs in emergicare.  Uh, yeah. So TODAY was the first day.  Sort of.  Because FRIDAY, the 3 oldest girls are all going out of town with my mom for the weekend.  And next week, they ALL dc are taking turns sleeping at my moms and doing fun field trips during her vacation.  So... well, life goes on. Yes, I count all of the volunteering and FT as "school", but it was not on my lesson plan.  Guess it was on God's though.  So I don't sweat it. Today was good.  All the dc sat in on the Bible, Social Studies & Science readings from Day 1 of A World of Adventure.  Bunny (11yog) worked on her LA for Day 1 and read for an hour, Butterfly did remedial reading (Starfall.com) and Bear (6yob)  will do The Story About Ping for the second day from Five in a Row in a few minutes.  Bug (15yob) did a lesson from Spelling Made Simple, read his history books & The Book of God, and will do math when I am off of here.  Butterfly will do some "B" school with the littles after naptime, and Bunny will read The Big Green Pocketbook to them and work on Before Five in a Row lessons. Off to do some more "school"! Loving Learning, Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/718497/ Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:07:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/718497/ Sorry this took so long - we were camping! Here we go... SPELLING POWER - Kellie! LIBERTY'S KIDS CD-ROM GAME - Diane and Rebecca! (I have 2 of these to give away) DIANA WARING BOOK - E.M. Ack!  I was going to add pics of my dc drawing names but my computer is giving me fits!!  Congratulations to the winners!  I will email you ASAP for your info. Loving Learning, Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/718129/ Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:37:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/718129/ If you would like to join in on the Curriculum Clean-Out! and have fun giving away the excess on your shelves, now is the time!   Just go HERE to sign up! I just found a gently used OLD copy of Diana Waring's Ancient Civilizations and the Bible: Creation to Christ Activity Book for K-4!   (COVER IS DIFFERENT) You can earn up to 2 entries by doing the following: 1. Leave a comment on this post. Be sure to leave adequate contact information. 2. Twitter or blog about this contest and then leave an additional comment. DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009 AT 11:59 PM MOUNTAIN TIME! Good Luck! - Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/716247/ Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:31:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/716247/ If you would like to join in on the Curriculum Clean-Out! and have fun giving away the excess on your shelves, now is the time!   Just go HERE to sign up! I'm also giving away an unboxed Liberty's Kids CD-ROM. You can earn up to 2 entries by doing the following: 1. Leave a comment on this post. Be sure to leave adequate contact information. 2. Twitter or blog about this contest and then leave an additional comment. DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009 AT 11:59 PM MOUNTAIN TIME! Good Luck! - Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/716080/ Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:53:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/716080/ If you would like to join in on the Curriculum Clean-Out! and have fun giving away the excess on your shelves, now is the time!   Just go HERE to sign up! I'm giving away a complete-but-very-well-used (as in some pages are loose) copy of Spelling Power.   You can earn up to 2 entries by doing the following: 1. Leave a comment on this post. Be sure to leave adequate contact information. 2. Twitter or blog about this contest and then leave an additional comment. DEADLINE FOR ENTRY IS SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009 AT 11:59 PM MOUNTAIN TIME! Good Luck! - Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/715969/ Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:33:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/715969/ We never did get back to Creation Camp - though I still plan to.  Instead, we've gone off on a bit of a tangent using a wonderful resource from Teacher Book Bag! We have thoroughly enjoyed the activities in the August Book Bag for 1st through 3rd grade!  I love the fact that all of the components tie in together, but each subject can also stand alone.  My kids had a terrific time learning about graphing with the worksheets included.  And when it was time to make an "object graph", we tied it in to our chores and sorted the laundry as we folded it!  Some of the questions on the worksheets were a bit beyond my new 1st grader, so we skipped those particular questions.  My "graduated" 3rd grader had fun working the problems though.  We graphed the ingredints in our trail mix snack and made a bar graph, plus compared our numbers on a line graph. We also worked on the Language Arts portion.  Both children thought that making sentences out of the provided fragments was "cool".  They loved the file folder games and both now have a great grasp on simple punctuation. The World Discoveries section ties in perfectly with our current study of animals from our Creation Camp.  I especially appreciated that the information provided was just enough to complete the project, but that websites were included for further study.  Each of my children did pick an animal to research and the websites were informative. All in all, we completely enjoyed our August Book Bag and can't wait until September! They have a lot of great resources, and they are very reasonable.  Check it out! Loving Learning, Katie http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/714339/ Tue, 4 Aug 2009 17:39:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/714339/ We have been attending VBS this week.  The kids are having a great time, but our trip to the fair last Wednesday derailed our Creation Camp.  I'm planning to finish it this weekend. The Bigs are back from camp (YEAY!) and all had a wonderful time!  Em had only one low blood sugar (55 at 3am!!) the night before she came home, and 2 highs (200's).  The rest of her numbers were PERFECT!  Of course now that she is home, she has been running in the 200's and even 300's all week.  Except 2 normals.  Have I said yet that I HATE the "honeymoon" period??  AHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!  School planning continues.  We're planning to start up 8/17, although they have been reading voraciously, working on lapbooks, doing math workbook pages FOR FUN!! and studying various other things.  So far, it looks like this: High Schooler (1) Various Bible studies, Teaching Textbooks 6, Spelling Made Simple, lots of history reading, computer Forensics class, some free online highschool classes, teaching science experiments with the PreK and 1st grader, writing a report on SOMETHING each week, menu planning/meal prep once a week Middle Schoolers (2) Various Bible/Character studies, Learning Adventures - A World of Adventure (Ancient History), Teaching Textbooks 6, Timz Attack, Girl Scout badgework, teaching Before Five in a Row and Letter of the Week to the Littles, remedial reading for the one who needs it, lapbooks, weekly reports on SOMETHING, menu planning/meal prep once a week (each) Upper Elementary (1) Various Bible/Character studies, Learning Adventures - A World of Adventure (Ancient History), math workbooks, Timz Attack, Girl Scout badgework, remedial reading, lapbooks, weekly reports on SOMETHING, menu planning/meal prep once a week Elementary (1) Five in a Row, Starfall, Family Math, Cub scout badgework, lapbooks, daily writing, menu planning/meal prep once a week, science experiment with Bug (15yo) once a week PreK (3) Before Five in a Row, Letter of the Week, Starfall, LOTS of fun PreK activities (Play Doh, Bubbles, Lacing Cards, Puzzles, etc) Baby (1) Brightly Beaming Babies  and LOTS of cuddles I think I'm going to be VERY busy! LOL Loving Learning, Katie  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/712650/ Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:45:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/COMamabear/712650/