"I am a homeschooling mom of three, learning just as much as my kids, if not more! This is a blog where I just blurt out the thoughts that come to me as I journey. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:40:01 -0500 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:40:01 -0500 I am switching my blog to a different site. I am now at http://tschiller.blogspot.com/ Hope to hear from you there! Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/518053/ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:40:01 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/518053/ I am switching my blog to a different site. I am now at http://tschiller.blogspot.com/ Hope to hear from you there! Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/518052/ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:40:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/518052/ Well, since the last time I wrote a lot has changed. We moved back to California. For job reasons we returned to the place we came from. A place we thought we'd never return to. To my surprise, I absolutely am loving it here. Everything is so green and lush right now. I love the atmosphere here! It is so much more relaxed than Colorado. I love colorado, but I am loving California too. We are looking forward to seeing our old friends and have already seen some family. On Friday we went to The Wild Animal Park and had a great time. The kids got to pet a four year old alligator and see a bird show. Our drive out from Colorado was a great learning experience thanks to the "Carschooling" book. We learned about air pressure from a balloon experiment as we changed elevations, figured how far we would travel going a certain speed for a certain amount of time, played story telling games, made "silver sculptures" with foil, played "text twist" on our navigation system, followed our route on the map, etc... We also let them watch a few movies on a dvd player a friend gave us for the trip when we were ready for quiet time. Overall, everyone did great on the road trip. Right now we are looking for a house to rent. I'm hoping to find one soon, as I am ready to set up and not be in-between places. We are staying at my sisters ranch right now which has been great for the kids! They have a trampoline that they spend hours on each day and chickens that chase the kids around. My kids love finding the eggs in the hen house and picking all the wild flowers in the fields. It's so nice to see them playing outdoors since we have been cooped up for months with the winter in colorado. I will post more when we get settled. Right now I have limited internet access. Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/499538/ Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:01:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/499538/ Ok, I know I said I'd finish the whole 12 days of Christmas thing, but...well...I lied. I intended to, but time flies and it's just out of my mind now. So, moving on... Math. This is my one fear and stress in homeschooling. I love to read and write and can see so many ways to inspire my children with it. I believe good readers are usually good writers and spellers, so I don't stress about it. Science and geography are so fun and there are so many things to do with it I don't worry about it either. Foreign language...now that I've given up Italian and am going with Sign Language...so much fun! But math...aghh. I love math, but have a fear that I won't be able to teach it. I also hate math curriculum. I really hate curriculum in general because it's too restricting. So you can see why math haunts me. In praying about this, God spoke to my heart about "Living Math". Math is everywhere and in so many things. Still fear. "I need ideas!" I said. Well, I was told about a great website found at www.livingmath.net . It is great and just what I was looking for. It gives so many resources on how to teach and lead with living math. Check it out! You will be glad you did. If you are in my area...I've placed a lot of holds at the library, so if none of the math readers are available...well, now you know why. Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/463332/ Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:46:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/463332/ Well, I have not written in December because I have been so busy. We got back from California November 27th and then we went into full paced holiday season. It went something like this... On the first day before December, my planner said to me, "You must decorate your Christmas Tree." For Two girls in December, my planner said to me: "Have a glowing birthday party ." For three kids in December, my planner said to me, "Gingerbread houses with your friends."   With four layers of clothing, my planner said to me, "build a snowman with the newly fallen snow." Somewhere in the middle, my planner said to me..."FIVE BIG DEEP BREATHS!" FOUR clothing layers THREE houses TWO birthday girls And a DECORATED CHRISTMAS TREE!!!! to be continued.... Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/448635/ Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:33:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/448635/ If you've ever wanted to start sweetening with maple syrup instead of sugar, here's how: For every one cup sugar, use 3/4 cup maple syrup and ommit 3 tablespoons of liquid from the recipe. Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/436507/ Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:11:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/436507/ Well, we are here in California! (Any bad people who are reading this e-mail thinking this would be a good time to find out where we live and break in, my dad will be there the whole time we are gone and he's a black belt in karate and a powerful hypnotist!) I am happy to be here to see family and friends. I drove by the house I grew up in and hardly recognized it. It was sad. Things have changed so much and I've changed so much. Sometimes change is hard to deal with. It just makes the past so final. It scares me that time passes so quickly and then that's it, there's no turning back, no gaining back those minutes or hours. My only comfort in this is that the Lord is my life. He's my goal and purpose and He is eternal. There is no time with him. If that's the case, then there is no lost time with Him and even if it takes a lifetime (and a bit of eternity) to become completely one with him, there's always time. Anyhow, back to vacation...we've only been here a day and a half and already we've had Vince's Spaghetti, Sammy's breakfast burritos and Juanitas tacos. We are going to come back a lot bigger! (Please don't forward this to Dr. Monk!!!) There's just no good take out in colorado. I'll trade it though. I definitely think colorado has more pro's that cons. Will write more when anything exciting happens, like Thanksgiving and black Friday. tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/430856/ Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:30:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/430856/ Check out this article on a new study out from the UK. It's on whether or not Organic is really healthier for you. Very interesting. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/11/17/it-s-official-organic-really-is-better.aspx Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/428888/ Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:14:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/428888/ I just finished reading "For Women Only" and I think it is an excellent book! It really gave me a better understanding of how men think and showed me how my actions were probably being interpretted. This was an eye opener, but really good. It just showed me how to express my love to my husband in a way that he can receive it. I have always adored him, but now he'll know how much by the way I am sharing it with him. I reccomend this book. Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/425217/ Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:39:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/425217/ I was thinking of looking into digital scrapbooking. Is there anyone out there that can tell me a little about it? Do you do it? Do you like it? What's the cost involved in getting started? Tara http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/425212/ Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:37:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/tschiller/425212/