One Day at A Time

Mid-Year Ceremony

2012-02-02T04:41:00.001-08:00

Excitement at our house again due to American Heritage Girls.....Our troop's Mid-Year Ceremony was Tuesday evening.

In addition to the girls being awarded any merit badges they have worked on, they received any service stars they have earned. Sweet Baby's unit has worked on the Best Me I Can Be badge, so all the girls who participated received that badge. In addition Sweet Baby had earned the Kid Care and Family Helper badge by working on it at home. She also received service stars for 20 service hours.

Peanut's unit worked on the Bible Basics badge. This is the only merit badge she earned thus far. She has started, and is nearly finished with, the Family Helper badge and the Gardening and Plant Science badge. She should be receiving those at the end of the year. She received service stars for 30 hours of service.

Sissy's unit has been working hard since this fall (when we took the girls camping in the fall) and they earned the Fire Safety and Building badge as well as the Photography badge. Sissy blew everyone away with 75 hours or service ALREADY this year! Many of those hours were earned with rehearsals for the church Christmas play, but a huge amount was also earned doing child care for some friends and not charging, and helping teach a bible class for pre-schoolers at our church this summer.

For the ceremony Sissy led the color guard (the flag procession) by reading through the flag ceremony. She even had to lead prayer twice - in front of about 150 people.

I cannot go on enough about how much we love this program. I have seen my oldest grow into a young lady who has drive and determination to earn awards. I have witnessed her learn demonstrate organizational skills I did not know she had, but most importantly I have seen her spiritual gift laid out time and time again. God has cultivated a gift of service in her. I love watching it grow.

The younger girls are just having fun and solidifying Christian friendships. I'm excited to watch the little girls grow through this program.

Egg Carton Math

2012-01-26T05:04:00.000-08:00

Sweet Baby still struggles with memorizing her math facts. She has all of her 0's, 1's, most 2's and double facts memorized but those are the same facts she had memorized in November. She is getting pretty good about all her +9's but anything else is difficult.

I found this fun math game on Pinterest and it took me all of 5 minutes to make one for her. We call it Egg Carton Math.

In the bottom of each egg section I placed a colored circle with a number on it. I put two buttons in the egg carton. Sweet Baby gives it a shake, opens it up and whatever two numbers are covered by the buttons she needs to add together. For more reinforcement I actually make her write the problem down so she can be writing and looking at it. Of course you can do this with any numbers and any math procedure (addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc).

What made me laugh was hearing Sissy say, "Hey! I want to do egg carton math!" It made me laugh because this girl is in the midst of pre-algebra and doesn't need any help with her math facts - but hey - if an egg carton, some colored circles and some old buttons gets me the Best Moms of the Year Award, she can practice Egg Carton Math as well.

Ancient History Visit

2012-01-25T03:51:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago daddy had a day off of work so we decided to make a trip to Ann Arbor and visit the Natural History Museum and the Archaeological Museum on the campus of the University of Michigan. If you live in the area, these are great museums to visit. They are small enough that no one complained of to much walking or being tired and at no point was anyone bored.

Our first stop was the Archaeological Museum. It was perfect! One of the first things we spotted was a sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy. Since we did Creation to the Greeks last year, we spent a healthy amount of time "in Egypt" and a vast amount of time discussing mummies. The kids thought it was really neat to see an actual "coffin".

Imagine their delight when they rounded the corner and saw an infant mummy! There was also a mummy of a cat.

After exploring the Ancient Egypt section, we found ourselves in an Ancient Rome section. How perfect is that? We have recently finished our study of Ancient Rome. There were all kinds of different relics and carvings but the kids really liked this bust of Augustus Caesar. We spent WEEKS reading a book called Augustus Caesar's World in which we learned all kinds of information about him.

Here is a bust of a "Roman Women". Nothing exceptionally amazing about it except I thought it was really beautiful.

The Natural History Museum was interesting, though none of my photographs turned out very good. There was an entire floor about dinosaurs. The skeletons were amazing, though keep in mind that everywhere we looked there were signs discussing how many billions and millions of years old the dinos were. If, like us, you are trying to teach your kids about a young earth and deal with biblical time lines, it was a bit confusing to them. They also had an exhibit about evolution. Of course we have talked to the girls about this theory....that it is only a theory of some scientists.

It was a great day and I loved being able to see some items from ancient historical times we have studied.

"Everybody's Doing It"

2012-01-20T04:32:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am, 38 years old and unable to heed the advice my mother gave me for years. "Just because everybody's doing it, doesn't mean you should." When choosing the science curriculum we would use for Sissy (7th grade) we went with Apologia General Science because Apologia is such a widely used curriculum in homeschoool circles, it is not workbook based and "everyone does it". When I looked at the book itself, I immediately said to myself, "Self, your girl is sweet, responsible and rarely ever complains about school - BUT she does not exhibit strong skills in the English department. Reading big words is not something she enjoys. I'm thinking this program looks a bit over her head." However, Self did not listen and thought, "Well, everyone else does it. 7th grade is a different set of expectations, maybe she'll rise to those expectations - despite her weaknesses. Maybe she just needs 'some practice'" and she will enjoy it after all." Well, that has not happened yet - and we are half way through the book.

I can feel God working with/on me. He is trying to teach me to things about the abilities of my children and my responsibilities to them. So...I am looking for a new science program for next year. I am looking for something that is quite visual, something quite hands on with not as much reading as Apologia expects. Maybe something with videos?

I have read about Rainbow Science and am interested in finding out more (despite the high price tag - $270). If you have any suggestions of a science program that has really fit for your family, please share your suggestions.

Preparing for Christmas

2012-01-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

The month of December we take school pretty easy. We do math each day until the week before Christmas and we did 2 weeks of History and Bible for the entire month. We spend a lot of our time doing crafts and making memories related to the holiday. I thought I would share some of the things we did together.

I did not take photos of our Christmas Card Day but we still did it. As a Stampin' Up! demonstrator you can imagine that I have oodles of stamps, ink colors, ribbons and card stock sitting around. My girls have watched for years as mom created cards, cut supplies and held classes in our home. A few years ago, Sissy asked if I would hold a "class" for them. So, this is our 3rd year where the girls get to make Christmas cards. Each of them picks 3 friends and we work together getting the job done.

We also enjoy Cookie Day as well. We do Cookie Day at a friend's house with her family and spend the entire day baking and then have dinner together. This year the girls got to decorate cookies twice. Our church was doing an event in which they wanted lovely platters of over 400 cookies available. So, they invited us to decorate one evening.

The girls enjoyed using the array of sprinkles, the pastry bags stuff full of yummy frosting, and hanging out with people from church that we have not gotten to know up to this point (we have about 450 people at our church).

As you can see, Sweet Baby was pretty serious about cookie decorating..she even wore her chef's hat. I love this photo...can you see what happens when mom turns her back for a minute? The end of her icing bag wasn't twisted tight enough and when she laid the bag down, the icing oozed out of the end of the bag!

The girls also tried their hand at making some ornaments using felt and hand stitching.

Each of them made the same ornament. I found the pattern on Pinterest. (I'm sorry that I can't seem to share the link with you...if you leave me a comment, I'll e-mail you the link.) Sissy cut all her pieces out herself, but I did cut the pieces out for the other girls. Some of the pieces were a bit small and it was hard for them to use the giant fabric scissors I have.

What amazed me was how long they all sat working. I tried for years to get Sweet Baby to do lacing cards but she never was interested and never could get the concept down. This was a chore for her and she needed a lot of help, but she just kept plugging along....

Working their fingers to the bone.....

Smiling as they went along....

Isn't it adorable???? The ornament...not the kid. Though, I think she is pretty adorable as well.

We also went Christmas caroling for the first time. We went with 2 other families (making our choir number 17. We all loved it (yes, even the husbands were smiling). It is a shame I didn't take photos. I'll have to take them next year.

We saw our first ever ballet, The Nutcracker. The consensus was that next year just mom and Peanut will be going.

We made "gingerbread" houses (yeah...we used graham crackers).

Sweet Baby made an apartment, while Peanut made a church. .Can you see her cross made from pretzels?

I'm thankful for cameras...after a very rough day of school yesterday - yes, rough enough that the thought "public school" even entered my mind for one of them, I have these photos to look back on and remember how blessed we are to be together each day and make these memories.

Diggin Through Owl Pellets ... It's Not Poop You Know

2012-01-06T04:42:00.000-08:00

I am SOOO behind in posting...I guess that is to be expected during the holidays right? I'll attempt to catch up on some of the activities we did this past month...

First and foremost we began the holiday season as we dug through owl pellets. Peanut LOVES anything owl and has for the last several years. When I heard that one of the classes in our co-op was going to be ordering owl pellets I got in on the deal and ordered 3 for our family to do at home. Sissy had dissected an owl pellet back when she was in 3rd grade and in public school and she always talked about how fun it was.

Sweet Baby continued referring to the pellet as "poop" and Peanut continued to remind her that it was NOT owl poop, but owl vomit. Based on this photo, I think that Sissy's idea of "fun" has changed a bit from 3rd grade to 7th.

Even daddy got in on the act. He was interested as well but his incredible strength got the better of him. These pellets were hard..really hard. We were using tooth picks to dig through them and it was not working well. So, daddy, decided to start poking into the pellets, and then nearly crushing them. Since the girls were hoping to find an intact skull of some rodent, poking and crushing is not the best way to go about it.

Two things amazed me about these little piles of vomit, first, how many tiny bones came out of them! It was amazing to see them. Tons of what we assume are rib bones (you can see several of them in the picture below -top right corner of the paper).

The other thing that amazed me was how much fur came out of them. The majority of the pellet is fur from whatever unlucky rodent was swallowed up by the owl. It probably would have been easier to find all the bones if we had just soaked the pellet in warm water and let the thing fall apart by itself. Either way, it was fun.

Shoes for Orphan Souls

2011-12-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

The second service project AHG has been working on is Shoes for Orphan Souls. We participated in this service project last year at our Christmas party and decided to do the same thing this year. All over the world there are children who have never had a new pair of shoes. Shoes for Orphan Souls strives to provide children all over the world with shoes.

Sissy has really developed a heart for service..I'm seeing it as one of her spiritual gifts. She desired to collect alot of shoes for this project, so she took her desire to the entire church. She hung a couple signs around the building and had announcements made requesting shoes or monetary donations. There happens to be someone at our church who is a manager at a local shoe store and can get shoes that have been marked down at an amazing deal. So, between her and Sissy, they were able to purchase 60 pairs of shoes for this project. Here is a picture of her and some of the 87 pairs of shoe laces she helped collect.

At the Christmas party the girls each drew pictures or wrote notes, stuffed them in a pair of shoes and then prayed over the shoes for the child that would receive them.

I'm not sure what has been more of a blessing to me, knowing how many children will be helped through the two service projects we have taken part in this year as a troop, or seeing my oldest really develop a heart for others who are less fortunate. She is hoping to make it bigger and more successful next year.

A Roman Feast

2011-12-09T04:54:00.000-08:00

We have just finished up our study of Ancient Rome and ended it with a Roman feast. We dined on ham, hard boiled eggs, a salad of greens, peas and carrots with a "wine" dressing, cooked apples in cinnamon and a bread dessert. It was alot of fun putting our feast together.

The girls made a sign for our "dining room" to let dad know that this would be the place we would be eating our dinner that night. Romans usually at around low tables, sitting on the ground or lounging on low couches. We just pushed our two end tables together to make our dining table and dad got the couch. He really enjoyed acting like the emperor! We made him a crown using tinfoil and cardstock.

Just for fun we "dined" on giraffe (the kids found it sad that at some feasts, the Romans would eat giraffe) so we placed one of our stuffed giraffe's under a bowl and revealed it before the meal.

In addition to the meal, the low tables, couch, crown and giraffe, the kids and dad wore togas! (By the time mom got the meal together I forgot the toga!)

Our Roman feast was a fun way to end our study. We are headed into learning about the Muslim faith and where it came from for a couple weeks and then will be headed into the medieval times.

Co-Op Performance

2011-12-08T05:06:00.000-08:00

We finished our first semester of co-op for this year. The girls seemed to enjoy their classes. Here are the classes they took:

Sissy - Book Club (Read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and did a lap book)

Apologia General Science Lab

Babysitting (learned basic first aid, information to collect before parents leave

determining what toys are proper for various ages, etc.)

Gym

Peanut - Gym

Arts and Crafts

Cooking

Lego Robotics

Sweet Baby - Fun with Books

Gym

Beginning Cooking

Ballet

Sweet Baby was so excited for ballet as she has never taken dance before. She seemed to really enjoy it as well. For our last day of co-op we ended the day with a performance by the little ballerinas. They danced for us to Silent Night. It was sweet to see all the girls sharing their new skills.

Blankets for Hope

2011-12-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

The girls have just finished up a couple service projects with American Heritage Girls.

Our first project was making pillowcases and fleece tie blankets for Blankets of Hope - this is an organization in our county who provides pillowcases stuffed with a blanket, book, and small stuffed animal to children who are removed from their homes and placed in foster care. My girls enjoyed being able to choose a favorite fabric from JoAnn's and then were helped by people who actually know how to sew, and made pillowcases.

Here is Peanut at the sewing machine. The two younger girls mainly helped push the foot pedal, but also received instruction on how important it is to keep their fabric straight.

Sissy did much of the sewing herself. Her "teacher" is a dear friend of mine - who incidentally does not have a daughter of her own. This is another thing I love about AHG and having it at our church - we have gotten alot of support there from people who just want to teach the kids how to serve others and be the best young ladies they can.

The finished product...

The fleece tie blankets were perfect! If the girls had no desire to sew, they could easily cut and tie the edges of the blankets. Peanut enjoyed this part most of all. In total, and in about 2 hours, the group completed 34 blankets and 35 pillow cases.

Festive Field Trip

2011-11-12T05:20:00.000-08:00

We had fun on a field trip on Friday. The whole family traveled a bit over an hour to Detroit to tour The Parade Company. The Parade Company is responsible for the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year will be the 81st year that the parade has been running! The field trip allowed us to walk through the HUGE warehouse where the floats are stored and created. I have been watching the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade since I was a kid. Many of the things that I saw yesterday were things I've seen over the years.

These are paper mache "heads" that people wear while walking in the parade. We learned that they weigh up to 100 lbs! In addition when the parade first started, it was run by Mr. Hudson. He employed people to walk in the parade. Now, the parade is full of volunteers. If someone would like to wear one of these heads, THEY actually pay The Parade Company $200 to wear one! My kids think it is crazy to pay that kind of money to walk around balancing a 100 lb head on their shoulders!

Sweet Baby immediately noticed that there was an elephant head, since elephants are her favorite animal, we snapped a picture of her.

I remember seeing these in the parade year after year. People climb into them and walk around with them..FUNNY!

After our introduction and taking a peek at the paper mache heads and ostriches, we went on to see the area where they are creating new floats. We were not allowed to take photos of the floats themselves but I was able to take a picture of this. The artist was sanding down this big piece of foam like stuff to make a piece to a float. The kids really thought that was neat.

Here is the Wizard of Oz float..cute!

Daddy really enjoyed the engineering aspect of the tour. The spent a bit of time telling us the materials that were used in creating the floats. This is a "float" that is powered by a bicycle. You can see that it is going to be a car of some sort. They use steel bars and chicken wire for the frame. The frame is covered with muslin, primed and painted before it is ready to go.

Peanut loved the princess carriage. Apparently the base of the carriage as donated by an Amish family. Our tour guide also mentioned that they rent the carriage out for weddings!

Here Peanut is getting her picture snapped with the carriage.

Here is another piece of the parade that I remember seeing over the years. These are rolled down the street by people dressed as clowns.

Here is a shot of the adorable Sesame Street float. I miss the days that my kids got excited over Elmo and Big Bird. SIGH...

And of course, the exciting part of the parade for little ones...when Santa makes his way down Woodward Avenue. Although the last couple years have me reassessing the whole "Santa" thing, I do adore the images of Santa and his workshop.

This is the float that Santa actually rides in on. Cute huh?

Here is one final float that Peanut liked and I thought it was cute as well. It is an "aquarium".

Anyway, what annual traditions do you have for Thanksgiving? Growing up our family tradition included going to my grandparents, watching the Thanksgiving Day parade, eating a wonderful dinner and relaxing.

This Week

2011-11-10T16:23:00.000-08:00

We have just a couple weeks left in our study of Rome. This week we have been studying Acts and Paul's missionary journey and the beginning of the church. As we are winding down our study of Rome, we are supposed to have a Roman Feast. This week the girls wrote We will be having our feast the week after Thanksgiving. Technically we are supposed to have our feast the week of Thanksgiving, but I'm not about to do Thanksgiving at our house AND a Roman feast all in the same week so I'm tweaking things a bit! So, the girls sat down to make a Roman scroll for daddy. I told them that we would see if we could get daddy to dress up in a toga for the feast. Sweet Baby ran with that and added an instruction to hers.....

"Don't frget to be romany"

Of course she meant "forget", but what cracks me up is the word "romany"!

For science, the younger girls and I began talking about flowers and their parts. They enjoyed making models of a flower. Here Peanut is (complete in her pj uniform) coloring some pollen onto the stamen and pistil of her flower (made from pipe cleaners).

Sweet Baby enjoyed making her model - complete in her sister's Laura Ingalls Halloween costume ;)

Peanut wanted to make her flower look like her favorite flower, a tulip, so she closed up the petals a bit. It seems the girls enjoyed this hands on activity....I love smiles like this!

More Delight

2011-10-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have indeed had the most struggle homeschooling my youngest. Sweet Baby has a streak within her that makes her very outspoken, tends to speak before she thinks and seems to enjoy pushing her mother's buttons. However, this year I have discovered the most delight of the last 4 years - our homeschooling years - in my parenting.

Last year this sweet child was unable to master math. One day she would learn about how much a dime was worth and if we did not discuss it each and every day, she would forget its value. Sometimes it took 2 weeks for her to remember the value of a coin. It was so distressing and frustrating - to both of us. Just this past week we revisited coins for the first time since May. What a delight that she remembered the penny and dime, knew what their value was and how we count them! Here she is practicing.

In addition to struggling with money, she was never able to memorize simple addition facts. Sometimes, even at the end of first grade, she would need to do her +1 facts on her hands. It frightened me and made me so sad. Well.....look at her now! In just 2 months of school my Sweet Baby has memorized her 0's, 1's, doubles, 2's and is well on her way to memorizing her doubles +1's. Here is a photo of her accomplishment as she was able to complete the flashcards.

Above anything else I'm amazed at her change in attitude. She does not grumble about math anymore (thank you Saxon!!!) and she works hard, pressing on. I am so proud of this little spitfire and so thankful that God answers prayers. I have prayed hard that he show both of us the joy that we can have in homeschooling - and he has done just that. After managing all these flashcards I told her how thankful I am that I got to see her do it, because if she was at school, I would not have shared in the moment that it all made sense to her. She looked thoughtful and said, "Mom, I still wonder what school would be like in a school building, but I'm glad I am homeschooled too."

Rising to New Heights

2011-10-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

Sissy had a great month with American Heritage Girls. We took the Pioneer unit to a local team building company. The girls were going rock wall climbing, an d she was quite excited. Here she is getting all suited up to get ready to learn how to belay and then climb the wall.

I was shocked and excited that she was the only one out of 3 girls who not only made it a fair amount up the wall, but she made it all the way! The instructor was impressed as well because she asked her if she thought she could turn around and go backward, I was surprised to see that she was able to!

Here she is making it to the top!

I continue to be amazed at all the great things she is learning. I am really enjoying being the unit leader and getting to see what the kids are doing, their reactions to things, and growth.

Discovering Seeds and Germination

2011-10-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

The little girls are in the middle of a science experiment. They are learning about seeds, germination and what it takes to make a seed germinate. We placed seeds in 5 different jars last Monday and are watching them to see what they will do and drawing out our results.

Jar 1 - Damp paper towel, 4 kidney beans, set on windowsill

Jar 2 - Damp paper towel, 4 kidney beans, in refrigerator (cold, no warmth)

Jar 3 - Dry paper towel, 4 kidney beans, on windowsill (no water)

Jar 4- Damp paper towel, 4 kidney beans, set on windowsill, steel wool in jar (steel wool is supposed to eat up the oxygen in the jar)

Jar 5 - Damp paper towel, 4 kidney beans, black construction paper around jar (no light)

The girls were very excited to see that "something is happening".....

God's Design provided us a chart to record our findings on, but knowing Peanut, I knew she would prefer to draw what she saw, rather than fill out a chart, so I drew some very crude jars and made copies of them to record on. Here she is contemplating what she sees.

In addition to watching what the seeds are up to, we soaked some kidney beans and some corn seeds over the weekend. Doing this allowed the girls to dissect the beans and see what the insides look like. Here Sweet Baby is peeling off the seed coat of the kidney bean.

Believe it or not, you could actually see the first little leaves inside the bean. It was really neat. Peanut is recording what she sees on a lapbook piece from the Hands of a Child Plants lapbook. I purchase lapbooks from them whenever they have one that will go along with what we are doing for history or science and when it fits with what we are talking about, we do a lapbook piece and put it all together in the end.

A Sight to Behold

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am remembering back to just 2 short years ago when Sweet Baby was ready to begin kindergarten and my misgivings about teaching her to read. I remember not feeling like I could do it and that a public school could give her a start in kindergarten with her basics and then bring her home for 1st grade. I'm so glad to say I was wrong.

For history/Bible are discussing the Old Testament prophesies of Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection and then looking at the New Testament and seeing where the prophesies were fulfilled. Nothing warms my heart more than having my Sweet Baby looking up her own scriptures and then reading aloud from the Bible.

The Scientific Method in Action

2011-10-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

Sissy is diligently working through Apologia General Science and I'm so proud of her willingness to pick up her books and do her lessons. She just finished Module 2 which had her learning about the Scientific Method. Although we are doing all the experiments at our co-op, we were going to miss last week's class so she did the experiments at home.

She really enjoyed this experiment, which had her implementing the entire Scientific Method. I was supposed to make a flashlight stop working and watch her as she attempted to figure out why it was not working and make it start working again. I chose the "easiest" way to sabotage the flashlight which had me taking the batteries out and placing a small piece of paper between the connectors so it was prohibited from working.

Sissy took it apart...

Noticed the paper, came up with a hypothesis, put the flashlight back together without the paper...

And tested her hypothesis by turning it back on to see if it would work. She did a great job!

Leaves and Arches

2011-10-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

For the first part of the year for science the little girls are doing plants. We are learning about leaves and trees right now (perfect for this time of year). A couple weeks ago we took the dog on a hike to a local park. It was a perfect day for a hike, the sun was out and the leaves are starting to change colors.

I do not think I need to say anything about this picture. Awwwww...

At home the following Monday the girls did leaf rubbings with the leaves we found. They really enjoyed that.

For history we were talking about Roman arches and aqueducts. We discussed how an arch makes structures much stronger. We built a "bridge" using a 4x6 card, some books and pennies. The 4x6 card did not hold many pennies at all before it buckled under the weight.

We added an arch under the bridge to see if it would indeed strengthen the bridge. Sure enough it did. The kids were amazed at how many more pennies the bridge could hold just by adding an arch under the bridge.

First AHG Meeting of the Year

2011-09-28T04:39:00.000-07:00

Last week we had our first co-op of the year and our first AHG meeting. I forgot to take my camera to co-op but I did snap a few of our girls before the AHG meeting.

Here is Sissy all proud of her Pioneer Sash. She'll use the same sash for her remaining 6 years in AHG. Notice her Lewis and Clark Award? That is the red and gold one - she worked very hard for that last year.

Peanut is an Explorer this year. She earned several badges as a Tenderheart, she did not receive them until the year end ceremony and since she has moved to a new level this year, she will not wear them on a vest. She starts all over this year :)

Here is Sweet Baby showing off all the badges she earned last year (there is one more hiding on the other side). She will remain a Tenderheart this year and next.

And, here is a shot of the three of them.

Pioneer Camping with American Heritage Girls

2011-09-27T02:48:00.001-07:00

Another year has begun with American Heritage Girls (AHG). This year I am no longer the coordinator of the group, rather I'm happily the Pioneer leader. This group of girls are 12-14 years old and is comprised of most of our Explorer group from last year. To start our year off we went on our first REAL camping trip. When I say real, I mean that we were not sleeping in dorms like we did at the AHG camporee in May, rather we pitched tents and did not get to take showers!

Our family has owned a tent for a couple years, when my husband and I thought we "might" want to tent camp some day (somewhere other than our backyard). Sissy and I loaded up the van and headed out to D-Bar-A Scout Camp, about 45 minutes from our home. It was a beautiful camp. This is a horse ranch and local Boy Scout camp. We had planned on doing a horse trail ride and boulder wall climbing - imagine our disappointment when we arrived and were told that neither activity was available to us. That is a whole different story that we won't get into. Either way, we encouraged the girls that we were bound to have a great time. Considering that the temperature at night was to get below 40 degrees, the 3 adults were trying to convince themselves of the same thing!

We arrived at camp around 6:30 with 5 twelve year olds and three adults. The setting sun was all the encouragement that we needed to get the tents set up. Sissy and her friend did an excellent job getting the "mom" tent up and ready for us while the other 3 girls worked on the "girls" tent.

It just so happened that my dear friend (who only has boys) is helping with AHG this year and was excited to join us on our camp out. In addition, her sons and husband were camping in the same camp with their Boy Scout troop. We had arranged that some of the boys would come over to our site and walk through the Fire Safety and Building badge with the girls. They were able to finish nearly all of the badge requirements!

The next day the girls delighted in gathering wood. How funny and how "girl" that they should decide to organize their wood into appropriate piles! Keep in mind not only are we talking "girls" but we are also talking about the fact that all of the girls are first born!

The next morning the girls cooked our breakfast on a grill. We had wanted them to do it over an open fire, but the fire pit was SO deep and wide that we didn't have a grate large enough to go over it! They made a yummy bacon, eggs and hashbrown casserole and then washed dishes. So...how many 12 year olds does it take to wash a few dishes anyway????

For Saturday we had a friend (and elder) from our church come out to the camp and talk to the girls about reading topographical maps. He made this amazing 3-d model for the girls so they could "see" it all play out. Really cool.

My husband also joined us on Saturday as he lead the girls through a hike. We discussed several requirements for the Hiking badge and enjoyed a LOVELY hike (about 1.6 miles).

While they were on the hike, the girls looked for hiking sticks. Our visitor from church brought his drill, some twine and beads and a knife so he could help the girls make hiking sticks! How cool!

After our hike the girls headed to the Riflery Range to shoot 4 rounds of 22's. (This means nothing to me, I'm just repeating what I heard the instructor tell the girls!)

My husband had to bring our younger girls with him. Peanut decided to stay back at camp with 2 adults, but Sweet Baby wanted to watch.

Finally a shot of Sissy helping get the campfire started (that is her behind the smoke, in the blue). I love this picture because even I have not successfully started a campfire! She did a great job and learned alot on this campout.

Another Family Day

2011-09-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

We had a busy day today. The day started with us heading to my husband's place of employment. Once a year his company, Nexteer (formerly Delphi) hosts Family Day. It is the biggest family picnic we've ever attended. Lunch is provided as are carnival rides, face painting, and cotton candy.

Both Peanut and Sweet Baby have never been very brave when it comes to carnival rides, but this year they both decided to try the swings and enjoyed them. Here Peanut is as we are waiting to lift off.

While there, they were giving away free balloons and it reminded me of one year in elementary school when our class each wrote notes and attached them to helium filled balloons. We let the balloons go and waited to see if someone would find them and write back to us. We were tracking how far the balloons traveled. I mentioned that to the girls and Sweet Baby asked if we could do that when we got home. So, her and I sat down and wrote her note. She thought she was supposed to write on the balloon itself, she did not understand the directions at first. It was so cute to see her balloon read, "God love you, if you get this, write me back."

Here she is, getting ready for the launch.

And, watching it go..Isn't that a beautiful sky?

After the launch the family sat down to can pears together as we listened to some Adventures in Odyssey. We got LOTS of pears from my father in law's small orchard - as well as apples. We will do applesauce next week, more pears and peaches when they become ripe. We have a couple pear trees, an apple tree and peach tree in our backyard. The whole idea of canning is not my idea. We never canned anything when I was growing up, but my husband's family did canning. Canning is something we have done the last few years. We usually do applesauce and pears. We have done pickles before and this year are doing our first few batches of green beans. I enjoy doing this with our girls because I truly feel this is a lost art. I was thinking of the fact that not to long ago, families did this every year, on a much bigger scale than we are - even though we did 20 quarts of pears and will more than likely do 20 more before we are done!

If nothing else, it just provides more opportunities for us to hang out together as a family.

A Place of Anxiety for This Homeschooling Mom

2011-09-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

Sigh...this post is a post of rambling, that maybe many of you will not be interested in, but I had to get it out.

As much as I know that homeschooling is the best decision for my kids on many levels, I stress constantly about how much I am giving them academically. I know that we are doing alot...but in previous years I have worried if we are doing enough. This year I feel like I'm expecting to much. ACKKK! How on earth do we know what the "right" amount is?

I have a 7th grader who struggles with anything English related. Writing, spelling, vocabulary, etc. I did have all the girls tested this summer by a teacher friend. I just wondered where they fell with their reading. Unfortunately this friend's test only went up to the 5th grade. Sissy took the test and my friend determined that she was probably only a little bit behind 7th grade. But not even a full grade. So, I push Sissy to read books that are "at her grade level" and it drives me nuts when she is constantly found choosing books at the library that are of a 4th or 5th grade reading level. One reason her reading ability concerns me so much is for things like her science this year. She is doing this independently and so far has not gotten any of her questions right. I know this is a whole new ball game - she is older and now has to be thinking differently.

My 4th grader has always excelled at all things English, but the last two years she has struggled with her writing. It hasn't seemed like her writing has progressed much in the last 2 years. Run on sentences abound, capital letters are missing (or present when they shouldn't be), details are hard to get from her, and all of this is not for lack of trying.

Now, for my 2nd grader, things are MARVELOUS this year. Yes, I know we are only on week 3, but the improvement I see is amazing. However, she still complains that she does not want to write anything. She wants to do everything orally because it "makes her hand hurt".

Of course, if they struggle with something my thought it - practice, practice, practice right? But then here I sit feeling like I'm expecting to much. SIGH...this journey is a delightful one but the stress as we trudge on is sometimes very overwhelming. If you know a homeschooling family, please pray for them. Pray that mom is always aware that she is doing God's work and that "it will all be ok", please pray that the kids recognize their responsibilities and most importantly that God is always present in the decision making.

Disclaimer: I know that this is the life I chose. I am not complaining at all, just sharing the struggles of my heart.

Plant Science, Delayed Life Skills and It's On Its Way

2011-09-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Today the little girls were learning about cells. Last year when we discussed human cells, we made a model of a cell and most of its parts. That model was made from jello and various candies. This year as we are learning about plants, we discussed that there are some things that a plant cell contains that a human cell does not. Rather than do the jello model again this year, God's Design for Science had us create a paper model of a plant cell.

Keep in mind that Sissy attended public school from Kindergarten through 3rd grade. When it was time to send her off to school, I made very sure that she knew how to tie her shoes. After all, come winter, she would need to wear boots to school and change her shoes at school. We worked hard and she got it. Peanut attended Kindergarten in public school and so she needed to learn as well. Now, Sweet Baby has been different. She has been different in ALOT of ways. She has never been forced to learn anything. She does it all when SHE wants to. Well, in addition to not NEEDING to learn how to tie her shoes for boot/shoe changing in a public school setting, she has not really wanted to learn. However, her dad and I have determined something....this is the year Sweet Baby, you are going to learn how to tie your shoes. She's 7 now, it is time. Here she is practicing using an Usborne book. I especially love this page as I usually sit in front of her as I tie one shoe, and she mimicks on the other one. It is slow going, but I'm just sure this will be the year!

So...what is on its way you ask? FALL! Fall is nearly here! I'm excited because it is my favorite time of the year. Yes, I know, "Don't you know what comes after fall?" I know, but the joy I get out of the season of fall far outweighs how I feel in March when the snow is still falling. I love how fall in Michigan smells, looks (oooh, all the colors!) and feels. That need to throw on a sweatshirt

This picture confirms the fact that fall is on the way. We have a maple tree right outside our front window whose leaves turn a beautiful, bright red and this is what I noticed today...

Science For A Big Kid

2011-09-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

Sissy is in the 7th grade now...sigh...

Last year I started giving Sissy more independent work and encouraging her to read through things and try to figure them out on her own. This was difficult for me because she seems to struggle with pronouncing some words as well as understanding what they mean. I did not want to make school MORE of a difficult process for her. She seemed to do well. I still read history and science to her as I was already doing it for the younger girls, but she was in charge of the rest of her work and I had her read some chapter books that I thought she would struggle with, but she did fine.

This year I am giving her a print out each week of what I would like her to do by the end of the week - except for history. We still do this as a group. She has been VERY responsible about it and will even work ahead a day or so on some subjects.

This year she is doing Apologia General Science which is intended to be for a 7th grader. The book looks like a college textbook and honestly I expected to hear some whining about how hard it is, but so far so good.

Yesterday she did her first experiment, which she is supposed to do on her own and then write a lab report about what she did and what she learned. This is much more reading, thinking and then writing (her most difficult subject) than she has done and she is just plugging along. This year she will be taking a class at our co-op in which she will do all the experiments in the class that correspond with the reading. We do not start co-op until September 20 so I wanted to her to do one or two experiments with me at home and work on writing a lab report so we could talk about it. She did a great job.

It is hard for me to see her growing up. She is such a wonderful kid. I genuinely love spending time with her, talking with her, sharing with her. She is responsible, motivated (with most things), caring, focused on God - and I know most of this is due to the fact that she is growing up. However, I find myself preparing for the fact that she is really only going to be a "kid" for 5 more years. Sigh....

Math and Science Fun

2011-08-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sweet Baby continues to enjoy her math this year! I cannot tell you how good it feels to say that! For kindergarten and 1st grade we used Abeka math for Sweet Baby and other than the colorful pages, there really was not to much about it that she liked or that worked for her. After last year, another year of struggles with math and bad attitudes from her about doing math, we decided to try something different. This year we are using Saxon and she seems to really love it. Today she was able to play with some pattern shapes. We talked about the hexagon and trapezoid (in addition to shapes she already knows).

She was especially delighted when I told her to use the blocks to make picture of her own. I left her alone for 5 minutes and when I returned she had created a masterpiece. These are chickens. What the blue things above them? "Blessings" I was told....Awwwwww.

I started science with the little girls today. We are doing plants the first part of our year. Today we discussed how to determine if something is alive or not. The girls were thrilled that they got to go on a Living Things Scavenger Hunt. They hunted around the house (and the yard) and observed various objects to see if they could be classified as "living" or not.

As soon as they walked outside they wanted to classify the black eyed susan's that were sitting out the back door. Peanut was thrilled to see a daddy long leg hanging out on one of the flowers. "HEY! We can see if he is living too and add him on our sheet!" She delighted in pestering at him to make him move, since one of the questions you must ask yourself is "does the item move".

After classifying a rock (I must be doing a great job since they declared that a rock is not living) they walked to the back of the yard and determined that our chickens are alive. Great job girls! ;)

What We Have Learned So Far This Week

We have learned who Julius Caesar was, why the Roman Republic failed, much about Octavius (through the book Caesar Agustus' World) and Cicero, and the various buildings that make up a Roman town

A Fun "Field Trip" Already and New Experiences

2011-08-28T20:47:00.003-07:00

We have already taken a "break"...just for one day. Last year a member of our co-op was able to get the entire co-op signed up for a program through her county that had the kids keep track of how many pages they were reading over the spring. If the kids read a certain amount, they were presented with a waterpark pass to a park in that county. We have done MANY "summer reading programs" over the years but this program takes the cake! What a WONDERFUL way to celebrate their work and celebrate the end of summer.

The park was just about an hour from us, but we enjoyed the ride since we went with some friends of ours. The park had a giant wave pool, 3 waterslides, a lazy river, and a large splash pad. It was a perfect day to go. It was not very busy at all and the weather was just right. We had had some cool days so we were not sure if it would be warm enough, but it warmed up to 85.

The little girls loved the wave pool . I think Sweet Baby was "blowing the waves back" here.

Here Peanut was just relaxing.

I love this picture, they are both having such a great time together.

After spending the day in the sun we went home for dinner and then were back in the car. The girls were all invited to spend the night with the friends we had spent the day with. In the live of a child, this was a great day!

Then on Saturday night we used some MORE passes the girls had earned for some more summertime fun! We took part in our library's summer reading program and Peanut's name was drawn and she won some passes to play putt-putt. The girls had never been putt-putting before. As a kid/teenager, I played alot of putt-putt. It was a family tradition that we would find a place to play at least one on every vacation we went to. The girls all enjoyed themselves and Sissy said she wants to play at least once a summer.

No matter how many times we told Sweet Baby how to correctly hold the club, she just couldn't get it right!

Finally, here is Peanut looking as cute as ever. It was a beautiful night - minus the Michigan mosquitos that came out in droves - and a great weekend enjoying the end of summer.

Making the Day Flow a Bit Better For Us

2011-08-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

I have always thought that narrations are an excellent way to incorporate writing and reinforcement into a school day; however, it seems to take my girls quite a long time to get a narration done. We will do history (which always takes more than 1/2 an hour - unlike the Hazell's schedule in the manual) and then I would ask them to narrate and the girls would spend at least another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes working on their narrations.

In order to speed things up a bit but yet still have them writing a bit, we use alot of lapbooks or lapbook pieces. They are still writing what they have learned but in smaller chunks and it isn't as intimidating for the two who are turned off by writing.

Last year we discovered History Pockets by Evan Moor. We used them for Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. These are different from lapbooking. They are reproducible pages that we usually mount onto an 8 1/2x 11 sheet of cardstock and place in our history binder. Here is what we did yesterday.

We talked about the Punic Wars and rather than ask the kids to narrate about them, the History Pocket book had a sheet with it that told all about the Punic Wars and a second sheet that had a photo of a messagner riding through a Triumphal Arch. The kids were able to color the arch picture and then I asked them to answer just a couple questions about the Punic Wars. They wrote their answer on a small sheeet of paper and glued it under the arch. Here are Sweet Baby's sheets.

Sweet Baby commented to me the other day that, "It sure seems like I have more work to do this year." Of course I said, "Yes, you are in 2nd grade now, you need to do a bit more." She still wishes I would write for her but this year we are going to get out of that habit. So, to make the transition easier for her, I wrote the beginning of the sentence and had her "fill in the blank" on her Punic War page. I don't know if you can see it in the picture but I wrote:

"The Punic Wars were fought by", "They fought because", and "___________ won."

It was another good day here. I hope your day is wonderful as well.

Plugging Along - Day 2

2011-08-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Another good day at the Spencer Homestead. First and foremost it was a beautiful day. We decided to do History and Bible on the screened porch. BEAUTIFUL morning. We had a morning full of history and Bible. We are using a book this year called How the Bible Came to Us. Today was just an introduction. My girls have the books of the Bible memorized due to a song they have learned at church, but we talked about how the books are organized and the fact that the Bible itself was written by so many different people. The girls were labeling the various books of the Bible here.

We spent time reviewing the world map - where the oceans are, where Rome is in relation to other parts of the world and what bodies of water were nearby. Don't you LOVE the place mat world maps Sissy is using?? This is our first year with them. Usually we do History and Bible in the living room. The problem we found last year is that I was trying to show them a map in an atlas and sometimes they did not want to come near the book to look at it. So, this year I realized that My Father's World sells individual, laminated, world maps that are affordable. I think they were $3.50 a piece. This was a great thing for each of the girls to have with them.

We began discussing the Roman Empire and how it began growing. We added our Book Basket time into today. The older girls spend 15 minutes reading through various books in the basket related to what we are studying. Here is Peanut reading See Inside Ancient Rome by Usborne. Usborne has this entire series of books that are lift the flap books full of information on top of and under each flap. They are just fun books that the kids love. Last year we used the Ancient Egypt book.

It was another great day with Saxon! I LOVE this picture. Here Sweet Baby is displaying her birthday graph. We made the graph today and placed friends and family members on it depending on which month their birthdays fell in. Brooke had fun adding people like Audra, her pen pal from AHG. She loved seeing what a graph is and how it helps keep track of information.

The day was virtually done at lunch time. Imagine my sheer delight when Sissy said, "Do you want me to go up and make lunch? I can bring it down." Here she came with a tray and all with lunch for her and her sisters. So sweet and so helpful!

What We Learned

How the Roman Empire began and began growing, differences between noblemen, plebeians, patricians, where Rome is on the map.

First Day Behind Us

2011-08-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

Our first day of the 2011-2012 year is behind us. It was a great day overall. We started on time - which for me is 8:30. We were able to do history, English, math drill for Peanut and math for Sweet Baby. We ordered Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra from the company and are waiting for it to arrive. Here is Peanut with a big ole smile!

Here are both Peanut and Sissy working on their work. I love how Daisy has chosen a spot right under their table. Notice the bathrobe on Peanut? Yep, like I said, we do school in the basement. So, if it is 98 degrees outside, it feels like you want to put the heater on. A great thing in the summer.

I have to share this photo of Sweet Baby. Last year was not an easy year doing school with Sweet Baby. There were MANY days that I considered taking the easy route and sending her to school. She is not a very motivated child which means that any school work that takes any amount of time is met with whining, rolling of the eyes, and complete attitude. If the subject is hard for her, it is magnified. So..she loves reading and doesn't really mind spelling so that would go well. Every other subject was a nightmare, math especially. This year we are trying Saxon math. I realized that not only is she unmotivated, but Abeka just moved to quickly for her, so asking my unmotivated child to work to learn new material to frequently was not working for us.

I had been dreading school starting, mainly because I was not looking forward to a day full of Sweet Baby's attitude. But look!!! This is my precious gift DURING MATH!

Do you see that? A SMILE?? (She was demonstrating to me that she remembers her left from her right by placing her left hand on her ear). Now granted - today math was really easy, but I she happily said, "Math was fun today!"

I also love this photo of her. She is concentrating..do you see it? Look at that face! She was copying from the board the ways to write Roman Numerals. She didn't complain not once that it was "to hard" or "to much work". I'm really looking forward to today.

What We Learned

History- The myth of Romulus and Remus (how Rome was formed), about roman numerals, where Rome is on the map

Math - math fact brush up, began graphing the weather for the month

English - importance of brainstorming, combining sentences

School Room, Ready...

2011-08-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

I had to take a few pictures of our school room. If for no other reason than to prove to myself that yes indeed, it has the potential to be clean - at least once!

A bit of background on this room. First of all it is in our basement, and it is the only place that is finished in our basement. I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator for the last 8 years and needed a room to hold classes in. My husband finished this space for me and it worked wonderfully. Our first year of homeschooling had us doing school in our dining room with merely one bookshelf (the one you can see in this picture with the globe on it). This is a view of the room when you enter and look directly to your right.

The tall bookshelves my husband and dad built last year for us. They are WONDERFUL! They house all of our current curriculum, literature guides, kids books related to science and history, math manipulatives, games and some various other curriculum - not all of which is being used this year.

What I hated about doing school in the dining room was that we NEVER were able to shut down. It seemed like "school" was always looking at me. Yes, I know - we should live our lives to learn and learn in all activities - however, the fact is I did not want school staring at me all the time. In addition I realized that homeschooling brought just a bit more of myself that had to die. What I mean is that my love of stamping had to go on the back burner. There just was no time for that any longer. So, I gave up a large portion of my stamping room for the school room. This year I have given up nearly all of it.

This photo shows all that is left of my "previous life", when you walk into the school room and turn directly to your left. Behind this curtain is 3 floor to ceiling bookshelves full of my stamping stuff. If I am to be completely honest, all the shelves are not mine anymore. I have given up 1 shelf to the kids for their art books too. The black shelving unit is the final space that holds my stamping stuff.

This is the view of the room directly across from the door that enters into our school room. See the shorter bookshelves? My dad made those back when I was a kid. They housed a 1960 something encyclopedia set we owned when I was growing up. They can be stacked on top of each other or side by side like they are. I keep kids story books on there and chapter books. I want them short so all the girls can reach them.

Do you notice the art on the wall? These pieces belong to all the girls. They are from various classes at our co-op. I LOVE them. The reality is that I don't make time for "art" so my kids don't do art with me. I'm so very thankful for our co-op!

Finally, here is our dry erase board and timeline.

If I could change anything about our schoolroom it would be windows. There is not a window anywhere. I would also give it a fresh coat of paint. The color is supposed to be a Certainly Celery green (a Stampin' Up! color), I think I'd do all white and just dress it up with the curtains and the stuff on the walls. I am blessed to have a place we can "do school" and am thankful for how God provides!

What We Are Studying

2011-08-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

Mom is preparing for the start of the 2011-2012 school year. We will begin on Monday..SIGH...goodbye summer!

It occurred to me that I have not yet shared what we will be studying this year.

This will be our third year using the My Father's World curriculum. This year we will be using Rome to the Reformation for history and Bible for all the girls. I had considered skipping this in the cycle and going straight on to Explorers to 1850 because my younger girls had asked about learning about American history. When I asked Sissy what her thoughts were on this, she adamantly declared that she wanted to learn about what was happening in history during the time that Jesus was alive. As a parent, you can't argue with that!

Part of Rome to the Reformation including studying latin roots with English from the Roots Up. Last year we studied Greek roots so the procedure will be familiar to the girls.

We will not be using the Science that My Father's World recommends. The younger girls asked to learn about two very different science subjects. Sweet Baby wanted to learn about plants and Peanut wanted to learn about the planets. Although we really liked Apologia science last year, it takes an entire year to get through one book. We have decided to return to God's Design science so that each of the girls will get to experience the subject they want.

Sissy will be using Apologia's General Science this year. As a 7th grader it is suggested that she begin working rather independently and Apologia's middle-high school programs are used widely with home schooling families. In addition, our co-op will be doing a class that will be doing the experiments that go along with the reading. It should work out really well for us.

For math, the two older girls will be continuing on with Teaching Textbooks. Teaching Textbooks works really well for us. The fact that mom is off the hook from teaching an actual math lesson with this program (the computer does that) and the fact that the girls love using the computer are two things that keep us coming back to this program.

Sweet Baby will be using Saxon math. We used Saxon with the older girls our first year of home schooling, but they both complained that it moved to slow. They seem to "get" math concepts easily. For kindergarten and 1st grade Sweet Baby used Abeka Math. It worked well for our first year, but was moving to quickly for her. So, we'll try Saxon. I am prayerful that the repetitiveness of this program will be just what she needs.

We will be using Tap the Deck for Sissy and Peanut for writing. Sissy used this program last year and really made some good strides in her writing. This program was suggested to us by another home school family. Peanut will also be trying Learning Language Arts Through Literature. This is a program I have been intrigued by for a couple years, so I thought I would let her try it. Sweet Baby will be using Just Write and a bit of Bob Jones English. We'll just try to piece it together.

We will be using Wordly Wise for all of them - as a vocabulary builder. Sweet Baby will continue with Sing, Spell, Read and Write and some Explode the Code to build on her reading skills.

When I look at it all laying out on the table, it sure looks like alot!

A Peek at History

2011-08-18T04:35:00.000-07:00

One of the places our family enjoys visiting is Greenfield Village. If you have never been to Greenfield Village and you like history - even a little bit - you have to plan a trip there. Greenfield Village was created by Henry Ford and it is adjacent to Henry Ford Museum. Both are amazing places with incredible exhibits - the museum houses the chair that Abe Lincoln was shot in , the bus that Rosa Parks would not give up her seat in and so much more!

The village houses buildings from so many different time periods. Many of them are the actual buildings and some are reproductions. One of the places that Peanut must enjoys visiting is Thomas Edison's Menlo Park. His laboratory is there which includes a chair that he actually sat in while at a visit to the Village.

The village is about an hour from us so we packed a lunch and headed down on Monday. The girls enjoyed playing games and toys in the village square. I love that there are many different "actors" wandering the village. they are dressed in period clothing all the way to their toes and the ladies dresses are so beautiful.

I thought the puzzle the girls were trying to do was amazing, so I took a close up.

Here is a photo of all of us girls...

As always each of us chooses a treat while we are there. The kids are always anxious for the time to stop for ice cream or cotton candy.

One of my favorite places to stop is the Cotsworth Cottage. This cottage is from England in the 1600's. It just exudes charm. The gardens surrounding it are amazing as well.

Daddy and I most enjoy visiting the Harvey Firestone working farm. It is truly a working farm and at any time of day you can wander in to wonderful smells of the ladies working in the kitchen. We enjoy wandering through the barn which this visit housed a 3 week old calf and we like looking at the turkeys and different varieties of chickens that are wandering the site.

Monday was wash day so the girls were able to try their hand at a washboard - they all kept commenting on how much fun it was. We must have stayed there more than 10 minutes while they went through the motions.

To end the day we had a surprise tour. As we were walking up the lane to the Firestone house one of the girls said, "I wonder if we'll ever see the upstairs in that house." So, I asked the ladies in the kitchen if they ever open the upstairs for touring. They said that some days in the fall when it is not busy they will, but it is not something that is scheduled. As we were leaving the house, one of the ladies stopped us and quietly ushered us up the back stairs so we could take a peek. One room held photos of when they dismantled the house and then brought it brick by brick to Greenfield Village. It was alot of fun to have that sneak peek of a house we have enjoyed many times.

Summer Getaway - Grand Haven, Michigan

2011-08-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

Since beginning homeschooling 4 years ago we have begun taking our family vacations during the fall. It seems to work really well for a couple of reasons. First, once kids in public school return to school, places are significantly less crowded. Secondly, both daddy and I do not enjoy HOT weather, so if we wait till the end of September or October we get less crowds and cooler temps. However, when everyone around us is headed out of town and then returning with stories of their adventures, the girls and I feel a bit left out.

Some friends of ours camp here in Michigan at Grand Haven State Park every year and have been inviting us for the last couple of years. The problem is that we don't have a camper and mom really does not want to begin experiencing tent camping. So, we have passed each year. This year we decided to give it a try. Daddy had to work so the girls and I headed out for the 2 1/2 hour drive to get away. What a blessing it was! We had planned to stay for just 3 days but added a 4th because we enjoyed ourselves so much. There were 4 families there - 7 adults, 14 kids, sand, sun and fun.

Next year I'm hoping we get the invite to return and daddy can come too!

We enjoyed time at the beach, a walk into town for some yummy ice cream, a trip to the farmers market, good meals and great time with friends. If you ever get the chance to make it to Lake Michigan in the summer, you have to do it. Grand Haven was much fun, we also love Ludington. Both are wonderful places places to visit along Lake Michigan.

Serving This Summer

2011-08-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

As Sissy is going into 7th grade she is approaching her teen years...seriously? SIGH.... One of the good things about that is that she is able to be active with the youth group at our church. We have an amazing youth minister and my husband and I are lucky to say that we see eye to eye with him on several issues like teen dating (not necessary) and entertainment choices (filter, filter, filter). Sissy has been participating in a few youth group activities this summer including Service Tuesdays.

I've been fortunate to attend most of the events because there were so many kids signed up to attend that they needed an extra driver. The kids have served at the local soup kitchen, a food and clothing "closet" that gives food and clothing to people in our area and an elderly care center. Most times I was able to leave the younger girls with someone for a few hours, but the care center was an hour away so I took them with us. What a blessing it was to watch the kids interact with the elderly. Their "service" was to entertain them with a game of kickball. A very energetic game of kickball. Prior to the game they sang some songs to them.

I suggested to my little girls that they take a bag full of books, coloring books and crayons with them to occupy themselves. What a joy it was to look over and see that Sweet Baby had started reading to one of the residents.

Badge Work - A Family Affair

2011-08-02T05:16:00.002-07:00

One of the convenient things about being a homeschooling family in American Heritage Girls is that we seem to do badge work all the time, without even knowing it, for school. The little girls wanted to learn about plants for science this year so I grabbed their handbook and wouldn't you know it - there is a plant science badge.

Daddy is an avid gardener and is always trying to get the rest of us interested in gardening. We have a pretty large garden for the size of our yard. The girls have planted their own mini garden once before but as part of their badge requirement, they needed to plant a garden again.

Daddy let them choose what to plant, helped them work up the soil and make markers so they would know what seeds had been planted and where.

After making their markers the girls and dad headed down to the garden to get started. First Peanut planted hers. She is the one who gets very excited about what is growing in her garden, she will weed, once in awhile, and is really excited to do projects like this.

Here is a picture of Peanut and her Prince. Notice the hat?? World's Greatest Dad - Sissy's Father's Day gift.

Then it was Sweet Baby's turn to plant her garden. I love these pictures...all of them in a row. Mind you that "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman is playing in my house right now....

More Summer Happenings

2011-08-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

This summer the girls and I headed out to Michigan Christian Youth camp (the same camp we attended with American Heritage Girls) for summer camp. The week we were there was a week that many kids from our church and surrounding cities attend. Most of the volunteer counselors are adults from our church. There is such a sense of community at MCYC and I think that I enjoy being there as much as the kids do.

This year was Sissy's 3rd year attending, Peanut's 2nd year and Sweet Baby's first year. Here is Sweet Baby getting her bed all set up.

This year I counseled Peanut and Sweet Baby's group of 9 girls ages 7-10. My co-counselor was a teen from our church. She was wonderful with the kids and had such a great sense of humor. Sissy was in a different group (she likes it that way). She is always in a group with one of her best friends - here they are.

Camp has become a tradition around here the last several years and unless we end up with no way to pay for it, I would never consider having my kids miss it. There are a couple families that we are friendly with that have had to move away in recent years and two of the families even sent their kids back to Michigan so they could go to camp. Here is Peanut and one of her best friends. They recently moved to Minnesota and the both of them were so excited for camp so they could see each other. They did not get to spend a lot of time together since the activities are divided according to gender, but they did see each other at flag pole, meals, games and campfire.

Every year Wednesday night is "Carnival" and "Family Night" so that family comes out and enjoys devotional by the lake and carnival games. Thankfully we are only 1/2 hour from the camp so many of our church friends come out to visit. This year we were blessed to see one of the teens be baptized in the lake. In addition, I snapped this photo of my dear friend from Oklahoma and Sissy sharing a moment as they listened to the devotional. It is moments like this that I am thankful to God for the people he has placed in our lives who love Him and our girls.

Sweet Baby especially enjoyed getting to ride the horses. We were fortunate enough to get three different horse rides for her. Although they did have someone walk her horse; rather than her controlling it, she did not care. She was on a horse and that was all that mattered!

As an adult, my favorite activity to watch is the Low Ropes course. The activities encourage team building, self confidence and determination. Here the younger girls are making their way across the tire swing portion of the course.

It was a great week with the kids learning archery, riflery, swimming, leather crafting and so much more. The weather was great and the girls all learned a lot. Take a look at the bottom of these feet on the last day and you'll get an idea of how much fun they had!

P.S. Peanut took a shower EVERYDAY we were there!

So Much Going On - Highlights

2011-06-15T03:35:00.000-07:00

Golly, I haven't updated my posts in forever! Based on my previous posts it appears like we did very little school the last several months. We finished up school at the end of May, it has been so nice to have a break.

Although I don't have school photos to share, we have had lots going on and I wanted to share.

We celebrated some birthdays around here. Sweet Baby isn't such a baby anymore. She turned 7 and celebrated with a Tangled birthday party. Yes, that cake is my pitiful attempt at making a castle with cupcakes and a sugar cone on top.

Peanut turned 9 and had her first sleepover party with a couple friends. She had an owl themed party.

In my last post I shared that we had to put our dog of 14 years down the Monday after Easter. It was awfully quiet around here, so we added a new member to our family. Daisy joined us at the end of May. Isn't she cute? She is a beagle/lab mix. I had forgotten what it was like to have a puppy around the house. LOTS of energy...lets just leave it at that.

Our dear friends who moved to Oklahoma 3 years ago came out for an extended stay. They were here for 2 months. What a blessing to be able to make memories with them. They are as close to us as family and we enjoyed every opportunity we were able to see them while they were in Michigan. Their daughter is close to all of the girls and I love having photos like these...

And because they are kids, we had to have a photo like this....

Our niece graduated from high school so we were able to spend some time with family at her open house. Here is a photo of Sissy and grandma (my husband's mom).

We spent at day up at grandma's house. Grandma lives literally across the street from Lake Huron. So, we loaded up the kids, the dog and even my husband's youngest brother and headed for the lake.

We discovered that Daisy really likes the water - once we got her in there. When she came out, she kind of resembled a wet rat.

Here the girls are swimming, they had such a great time.

And this is my favorite picture...a photo of Sweet Baby and grandma enjoying a walk together.

That is all I'll share for today. I will be working on another post sharing some more highlights, like summer camp.

American Heritage Girls Camporee

2011-06-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

The girls and I attended our first American Heritage Girls Camporee last month. It was an amazing day! There were close to 160 AHG girls and parents there to share in the fun. We camped at Michigan Christian Youth Camp, one of my favorite places to be. Since all of our girls are Explorers or younger, we were unable to camp in tents, but slept in the dorms, which was just fine by me!

We arrived with dreary but dry weather, set up our stuff and headed down to the campfire.

After some campfire songs and smores, we headed back to the dorms to get some rest. Thankfully the rain held off till around 10 pm, but when it did decide to rain, it poured! It just kept raining all night and into the next day! It was such a wet day! It rained till around 1:00 pm!

We all had breakfast, and then split up into their different groups for activities. All of our girls made no mess tye-dye bandannas. Here is Sweet Baby with hers....

Peanut with hers...

The Tenderhearts and Explorers were able to do Leathercrafts. Here is Sweet Baby as proud as can be to show the project she made for her AHG pen pal. It is a key chain of sorts shaped like a heart and "broken" down the middle. On one side she stamped the word "Pen" and the other side she stamped the word "Pals". As soon as we got home she packaged up one side to send to her pen pal. Too cute!

The Explorers were able to participate in several team building exercises. They really seemed to enjoy themselves. Here is Sissy making her way across the tire swings on the low ropes course. It is amazing to witness than a young girl scared to try something and then seeing her peers cheer her on.

The Tenderhearts were able to participate in a section of the low ropes course as well. Since we spent a year last summer at this camp, Peanut had already done the activities, but Sweet Baby had not. She was TERRIFIED but an even great thing to witness than peers cheering their friends on, is when a child conquers their fear and sees that they CAN do it! I LOVE these photos as you can really see how happy and excited Sweet Baby was as she made it across the ropes.

It was an amazing weekend. Sweet Baby was able to experience her first trip to camp, the girls and parents in our troop were able to bond and make amazing memories and accomplish things they never thought they would!

Busy....

2011-05-16T05:28:00.000-07:00

I realize it has been awhile since I have posted. We have had alot going on the last few weeks.

First... Easter weekend we had to put our sweet dog of 14 years down. She had become sick a couple weeks before and we had hoped it was just a virus or something. After 2 1/2 weeks we took her in to discover that she had liver cancer. It was a very hard thing to do. We found out on Saturday what was wrong and had her put down on Monday. It gave us the entire weekend to say good-bye.

With American Heritage Girls we attended a Sweet Pea Beauty celebration. The girls watched the Veggie Tales movie Sweet Pea Beauty and learned all about where your beauty actually lies - in your heart. We had fun activities, lunch and games.

We ended our year with our co-op. Peanut had a presentation to do in her Inventors class. She chose to research who invented braille and the braille writer after watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie. She learned alot about Louis Braille, made a great display board and did an oral presentation for her class.

Sweet Baby loved her Storybook Art class this semester. The teacher read books to the class and then they created an art project based off of the illustrations in the book. Here she is displaying all of her projects for the semester.

Then Sweet Baby learned something REALLY big...she finally learned how to ride a 2 wheeler! Now if we can just get her to learn to tie her shoes!

We took a bit of a break from our heavy schedule at home to share a unit with some friends about American Indians. A friend recently started homechooling and her mother (who is a retired 3rd grade teacher) wanted to do a unit about American Indians. They invited the girls to come along so we spent 4 weeks enjoying that. What a nice break for mom! I would drop them off twice a week for about an hour and a half. They ended the unit with homemade Indian vests, masks and a lunch of various foods the Indians would have eaten.

This weekend we attended our first American Heritage Girls Camporee. It was amazing! WET, but amazing. It rained all night on Friday and all morning on Saturday. I'll share some pictures and stories about that another day.

Encouragement and A Recharge

2011-04-08T08:00:00.001-07:00

This past weekend was a wonderful one for this homeschooling momma. A week ago Thursday I headed out on the road with 7 homeschooling friends. We had a 5 hour drive ahead of us as we headed to the Midwest Homeschooling Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. What a blessing that trip was!

I have been to the big homeschooling conference here in Michigan for 2 years and I thought that was large. It has NOTHING on the event in Ohio. It was amazing to be with more than 15,000 homeschoolers and listen to some very uplifting and encouraging talks. The seminars ran ALL day starting at about 8:30 am and running till 9:30 pm.

The vendor hall was amazing. What a joy to be able to see curriculums I have heard about and leaf through them. I left the Queen Homeschooling Supplies booth with 2 new literature guides to follow our historical study next year. Here is a photo of about 1/4 of the vendor hall! Can you believe that!!!???

But most exciting to me was to meet Marie Rippel. Marie wrote our spelling program. If someone would have told me 5 years ago that I would be excited to meet the author of a spelling program, I would have laughed in their face! When Sissy was in public school, spelling was a subject that would make her cry almost nightly. She still struggles and is certainly not up to grade level, however, she is doing much better and never complains since we have been working with All About Spelling. As a matter a fact, she said she was "jealous" that I would get to meet her. It was Sissy that asked for a photo of her. So, here it is....

I sat through many seminars about writing and the what to expect at certain ages, how to adore the child in your home that loves to argue, cause trouble, throw fits, etc. :) And, I really enjoyed listening to Michelle Duggar speak to us. YES, Michelle Duggar. The mom with 19 children! She was soft spoken and under control, yet she talked with us about a time when she was not always so "peaceful" in her parenting. It was a talk that I took much from.

I addition to enjoying some wonderful wisdom and advice, I was able to meet Sweet Baby's pen pal from the American Heritage Girls program. Their family lives in Cincinnati and homeschools as well. Her mother and I were able to meet for a few minutes. Imagine my excitement when I realized she had brought her daughter with her. What a cutie!

I'll share more in another post about our trip to the Creation Museum.

Living Books

2011-03-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

In the homeschool world there is the term Charlotte Mason and "living books". We LOOSELY follow Charlotte Mason...very loosely. She was an educator from the 1800's and had some wonderful ideas about how kids learn. Now, for me, I still find myself wondering if my kids are "getting enough" so it is difficult for me to embrace the entire Charlotte Mason idea.

What I LOVE about Charlotte's ideas is here belief that we should teach our children, not through textbooks, but by immersing your kids in great books. Not books like Junie B Jones. No matter how funny those books are, they are just not great models for children to learn how to write well nor do they expose kids to interesting and stimulating ideas. I'm talking great books like Anne of Green Gables, Mr. Popper's Penguins, etc. Books that introduce new vocabulary to children, that are not full of silly dialogue but use descriptive language to really draw you in, books that are interesting to read but teach about history or science at the same time.

BUT, I struggle knowing what constitutes a "living book". I mean, you can tell by looking at Junie B Jones books that they are not "living books". But I have a hard time knowing what IS a living book. Well, we found one. Thankfully Charlotte Mason lovers are all over the homeschooling world so that means that there are more and more book guides that are being written by families who have discovered great living books.

A friend who did Creation to the Greeks last year passed me the book Theras and His Town and said that her 5th grader did the book and a study guide to go along with it when they did the program. Now that we have hit the Greek civilization in our studies, I passed the book and guide to Sissy and let her know that was her next assigned reading. She is really enjoying this book and is enjoying the study guide. The Study Guide is by Queen Homeschool says "Learning History Through Living Books". That tag line really helped me know that this book would fit into the "living book" category!

Sissy was telling her dad and I about the book at dinner and Peanut said, "I'd like to do that book too mom." So today she was able to catch up with Sissy and they are going to do the project together. The idea is for them to read it together, taking turns aloud and then work on the guide itself. It is a sweet moment when you see your children truly enjoying reading together.

The study guide goes chapter by chapter (or lumps two chapters together) and rather than having a bunch of question/answer items, it has things like:

1. Research the Acropolis and write a description of it.

2. Begin a list of Greek Gods and Goddesses and write what they were known for next to their name.

3. Find a copy of the Greek alphabet and copy it into your notebook.

4. Look up the word "himation" and define it.

I love that they have brief topics to research that go along with the book. This is one company's guides that I'll be using again.

Birthday Treat and Another Badge in the Books

2011-03-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was my birthday and I had to share what Sissy and a friend of mine did to make it special for me....

My BFF has two sons and loves spending time with Sissy, so much so that she has been working with her and helping her to earn the Cake Decorating badge for American Heritage Girls. Their final project was a 2 layer cake. Both of them know me well enough to know that I love all things chocolate (except chocolate cake), so the inside was white cake and lovely chocolate frosting. Sissy learned to frost the 2 layer cake and even did her own shell border. What a wonderful treat!!

Great Early Classics and the Smarties

2011-02-28T10:22:00.001-08:00

Not Smartie candies, but my smarty girls. The girls have never had eye exams. I guess I just didn't realize a problem, so it did not occur to me to take them in. However, Sweet Baby was complaining of seeing the board in our school room this fall so I got them in about 2 weeks ago. It turned out that Sissy was fine and needed no glasses but Sweet Baby needed a slight prescription to "sharpen things up". Peanut on the other hand apparently has been struggling with seeing things at a distance. I had no idea! Thankfully they were both thrilled to get glasses and had fun picking them out.

They look older and smarter to me, its funny how glasses can make someone look so scholarly. As for the growing up, it is hard to see your kids change and grow. As exciting as it can be, it is also a sad thing to realize that someday, they will not be our babies anymore.

For those of you looking for a way to get your readers started on classic books, I wanted to share a series with you that Peanut and I have discovered. Our library carries many titles in this series like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Little Women, and Pollyanna. I know that I have also seen these books at Barnes and Noble. What I like about this series is that it gets her focused on the storyline in the book rather than worried about muddling through some vocabulary or verbage she might not be able to understand.

Keep in mind that Peanut is in the third grade and she can easily read 5th grade level books - except for some vocabulary that she would need help with. These books have held her interest and she speeds through them in a week or so. I would not place them at 5th grade level though. I would say they are maybe 4th grade level books. She started with Little Women, moved on to A Little Princess, Secret Garden and is now reading Anne of Green Gables. She is loving Anne so much that I'm excited to start reading the series with her!

Snow Storms, Valentines, Brains and Nerves Oh My...

2011-02-23T03:56:00.000-08:00

Just a bit of what we have been up to lately....

We have had 2 REALLY good snow storms over the last 3 weeks. Here is a picture of how deep the snow was from the first storm.

Valentines Day came and went with some fun for the kids. We went to two Valentines Day parties with homeschool friends and we made chocolates for friends and neighbors. We made suckers and heart candies with some candy molds I had laying around, the girls had a lot of fun using the molds for the first time.

We are now studying the nervous and endocrine systems in science. First stop, the brain. We discussed the three main parts to the brain and then the girls used clay to make a model of the brain. Here Sissy shows off her creation. She showed the cerebellum, cerebrum and brain stem.

After discussing the main parts of the brain, and their functions, we went on to nerves. Here Peanut is showing her creation. Looks kind of like a flower doesn't it?

I'm a Winner!

2011-01-31T04:48:00.000-08:00

I had to share my excitement!! Our girls really enjoy lapbooking and our favorite lapbooks are those that are made by Hands of a Child. A year or so ago I was lucky enough to help the company out at a local homeschool conference. In doing so, they gave me a super membership for an entire year.

What is a "super membership" you ask? Each month the ladies at Hand of a Child (HOAC) develop 2 new lapbooks (generally on one topic and they do a lapbook for the younger children and the older children), if you have a super membership you are able to download both lapbooks for free. When they are released to the public they are about $15 a piece. We used several of the lapbooks that we received during the time we had the membership, but this past year we decided to save a bit and skip the super membership.

Well, this morning I ordered their weekly $5 lapbook which is all about Ancient Rome (we will be studying this next year when we do Rome to the Reformation with My Fathers World). Apparently the girls at HOAC are having a big anniversary celebration and they are doing give-a-ways right now. Lucky me that the $5 Rome lapbook was their 100th sale for the day because we won a year Super Membership! YIPEE!!

We LOVE Hands of a Child!

Mr. Popper's Penguins Read Aloud

2011-01-28T02:55:00.000-08:00

How can a person go their entire childhood having not read a book like Mr. Popper's Penguins? SIGH...well, I sure did and thanks to the suggestion of a friend, that was the read-a-loud that we just finished.

We started reading Mr. Popper's Penguins and was finished in about a week! Every time I would read a couple chapters and get ready to stop, all of the girls would say, "NO! Keep reading!" It has been hard to find books that all three of them (spanning ages 6-11) are engaged in that much!

Mr. Poppers Penguins has EVERYTHING that I have been looking for in a book:

1) Great story line that keeps all of my kids interested.

2) Not to "fluffy". You know those books, the ones that have very little new vocabulary in them. My girls love to read the "Rainbow Magic Fairy" books. They are fine little books for fun but the books are filled with silly dialogue and no real vocabulary in them for the girls to learn.

3) Wonderfully descriptive sentences. I have one child that does not excel in anything "English" related. She will read for fun but again, the books are usually below her grade level and really "fluffy". She also dislikes writing. Another of mine loves to write but has a hard time getting her story started. I LOVE finding books that use a lot of descriptive words and paragraphs so I can point out to the kids how much better it makes the story.

If you are looking for a great read-a-loud for your family, you really should not miss this one. Plus, if your children are anything like mine, you'll be done reading in about a weeks time!

We are on to Dr. Dolittle now. The girls are enjoying this one just as much!

Bible Bowl

2011-01-24T06:35:00.000-08:00

Last year as Sissy's first year on the church Bible Bowl team. She enjoyed it and did really well even helping her team to the state finals and winning a trophy and medal there. This year both Sissy and Peanut are involved.

The kids are studying the book of John this year. Yesterday was their first competition and the kids did really well. Sissy is now in the Junior High division. Their team did not place in the top 4 teams this time but Sissy only missed 2 out of 20 questions.

This year there are only 3 Primary Divison teams for our area. On Peanut's team 2 of the 4 kids are brand new this year. They all did so well placing 1st out of the 3 teams! Peanut did awesome herself and only missed 1 out of 20 questions! The kids all share the trophy (each child taking it home for one week) until the next competition. Peanut was excited to get to take the trophy home first!

Graham Crackers are Good for Your Heart

2011-01-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

For science we have been studying the heart. The girls have learned about the structure of the heart and the flow of blood to and from the heart. Apologia had us make a model of the heart using tinted frosting (red for oxygenated blood and blue for un-oxygenated blood), graham crackers to represent the atriums and ventricles and marshmallows to represent the aorta and pulmonary veins. The kids really looked forward to working on their models a bit everyday.

AHG Pen Pal Program is a Hit!

2011-01-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things the girls wanted take part in with American Heritage Girls was their Pen Pal program. The AHG Pen Pal program takes your daughter and matches her up with another AHG of the same age so they can be pen pal's for one year. The girls are required to write one letter a month to their pen pal. I LOVE this idea as I remember having 2 specific pen pals when I was a child and I have fond memories of the relationships we built via snail mail.

The girls received their notices about who their pen pals were about a week ago. Sissy had a letter written and in the mail within 2 days! Sweet Baby and Peanut sat down on Wednesday to write letters to their pen pals. I have to say that it was so wonderful seeing Sweet Baby write her letter! Not only did she work very diligently to use good handwriting (which is a struggle for her), she also wrote ALOT for her and did it with a smile on her face the entire time. What a joy to watch!

In addition to writing letters, the girls received a "fun badge" for the program, to place on the back of their vest. Sissy was in Girl Scouts for 3 years before AHG so for the last 4 years I have been sewing badges to her vest (I don't like ironing them on), but with 3 girls in the program, that is ALOT of badges to sew on. It seemed to me that Sissy should be old enough to learn to sew her own badges on. Here she is sewing her first badge. She did great!

Creating the Tabernacle

2011-01-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

For history we are wandering in the desert. Well, we aren't but Moses is. We have finally watched him lead the Israelites out of Egypt and we are now learning about their time in the desert. This week we were supposed to spend the entire week making different pieces of the Tabernacle and building it from milk cartons. Rather than do it this way, a friend had a file that she gathered offline where we just needed to print the pieces, cut them out and assemble them. It took us about an hour to do it and it was alot of fun.

As we progress through our week we will be learning the specifics about the different items in the tabernacle. This will be a great model to have to look at while we do it.

Making Blood

2011-01-06T03:49:00.000-08:00

It sounds weird doesn't it? Making blood. But that is what we did on Monday when we said goodbye to a rejuvenating holiday break and said hello to the remainder of the school year.

Just before break we ended our study of the blood. We discussed what blood actually does and the components of blood. We were to make a model of blood using corn syrup, candy red hots, a white jellybean (or gumdrop since that is what we had in the house) and candy sprinkles.

The corn syrup represents plasma, red hots represent red blood cells, the white gumdrop is a white blood cell, and the candy sprinkles are platelets. The kids had fun with this and so did mom. An easy model to make with very little mess and it did not take alot of time either.

Busy Holiday

2010-12-22T04:03:00.000-08:00

We have had a busy last couple of weeks. I think that is pretty standard. I say busy, but yet not crazy. It has been a great month. Here are some highlights....

Our Church Christmas Play - The Pirate's Christmas Treasure

All of the girls and mom were in it this year

Michigan State University Graduation

The girls uncle graduated from my alma matter. A fun day spent with family.

Enjoying the Michigan Snow With Friends

American Heritage Girls Christmas Party

We did our first service project, which was collecting new shoes to donate to Shoes for Orphan Souls.

Cookie Day 2010

We baked and decorated cookies all day with friends. A great day of playing games and even dinner afterward.

2nd Annual Gift Wrapping

2010-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Last year I shared pictures about taking the girls to a mission, Carriage Town, not far from our town to wrap Christmas gifts for the children who are staying there. We went with our co-op and had such a wonderful time. Thankfully we were able to go again this year and it was equally as lovely.

Sissy has been talking about our return trip since the day after our trip last year! Once we started school this fall she started asking, "Did they schedule the Carriage Town trip yet?"

For fun I appliqued matching t-shirts and jeans for the girls and off we went!

It was run the same way as last year. The mission was able to purchase gifts for the children and they put them on long tables according to gender - boys on one side, girls on the other. The gifts

were then arranged according to age. We were given sheets that listed the children in a particular family, their ages and their "wishes" for Christmas. Sissy wanted to work with a friend so the two older girls worked together and wrapped gifts for 4 families.

Peanut, Sweet Baby and I wrapped gifts for 3 different families. The girls were most excited when they were able to give a child the exact gift that was on their wish list.

Another day in the books...We still have 14 days till Christmas, but our family has had the most fun already this season as we are working to share with others. I hope that as my children grow older and look back on their Christmas memories, they aren't filled with thoughts of the gifts they got, but rather they remember the fun ways that we tried to help others, the family and friends that returned to Michigan (you know who you are!) and the way that we tried to bury Jesus deep into their souls.

Science - Apologia Anatomy

2010-12-10T04:47:00.002-08:00

This year we are not following the science recommendations of My Father's World, rather we are doing our own thing and decided to take a look at Apologia. Apologia Science is widely used and loved by homeschoolers, but this is our first year using it. We decided to use their brand new Anatomy study and we have really been enjoying it. Sweet Baby has decided that looking at the pictures and talking about "all the blood and stuff inside me freaks me out", so her and I are doing a ladybug unit right now.

The textbook itself is beautiful and the content is more than complete. One concern I had about using Apologia is the narration. Sissy is not a strong writer and it takes her some time to get a decent couple paragraphs down. Aplogia works on the narration aspect of learning - the child reads (or is read to) and then they are expected to write about what they just learned. I knew that if we did narration our days would be LONG and wold be fraught with tears. Rather than do narration in the traditional sense, a friend suggested mini books from Live and Learn Press. This has been a perfect option for our family!

The mini books that were designed by the ladies at Live and Learn correspond to each lesson in the book. These books are just like mini books that you place in lapbooks but we place them in a 3-ring binder. The kids enjoy cutting them out and gluing them together when the lesson is completed. What I like is that each book has a topic with specific questions for the children to answer. This really helps them zero in on a particular topic and pull it together.

It does take the girls some time to do all of the books for each lesson, but if we were doing narration, I still think it would take longer. Just giving them an open ended question about a topic would prove difficult for Sissy. In terms of writing the narration, I would expect the girls to write a rough draft and then finalize it which would take even longer. With the mini books they are guided with exact questions to answer. I do not expect perfection in the books (we do correct spelling though) and the kids like the graphics on most of the books.

Right now we are studying the blood - the difference between veins and arteries, functions of blood, etc . Here we were looking at veins...under the tongue.....

and in your eyes. YUCK!

Operation Christmas Child - Part II

2010-11-22T03:41:00.000-08:00

After church yesterday we went to drop off the girls shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. I had not intended to take my camera but it was in my purse from the day before. What fun they had! The time we dropped off, they were the only children there and they had fun watching their boxes packed inside larger cases like these.

We were told that Samaritan's Purse sent 450 cases to this distribution center. Each case can hold approximately 14 shoe boxes...for those of you who are curious - that is 6, 300 shoe boxes! As we were talking with one of the volunteers, another volunteer asked the girls if they wanted to help pack a couple cases. The kids were very eager to do that!

What an experience! It was wonderful to work on this project with the kids, amazing to see all the boxes that were being collected, and a great way to end the entire process - the kids helping pack a couple cases. The only thing that could make this better would be to go along as a distributor....maybe some day.

Operation Christmas Child - Preparing Their Hearts

2010-11-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

The last couple of years have seen HUGE faith growths in our family. My dear husband has grown in ways I would never have expected and it has been amazing to watch. The last year or so God has grown him immensely in the area of financial giving. We have been looking for ways to involve our children in the act of giving and understanding what it means to give without reluctance. After church last night we enjoyed the watching the process of giving unfold for our children. As parents we really enjoyed preparing their hearts for what we hope will be a lifetime of compassion and generosity.

Years ago, while I the girls and I were involved in MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) we were introduced to Operation Christmas Child. Operation Christmas Child is run by Samaritans Purse and at Christmas families are able to fill shoebox sized boxes with goodies that will be shipped to needy children. We have not been in MOPS for a few years and have not taken part in the process since the kids were little, but there is a local church that is a drop off point for the boxes, so we decided to participate.

Each of the girls were able to do their own box and choose the gender and age of the child they wanted to buy for. Each of them chose girls. Sissy and Sweet Baby chose the 2-4 year old group and Peanut chose the 5-9 year old group. Before we left for shopping we encouraged the girls to realize that some of these children may have never had soap, tooth paste, and things that we take for granted here. While we wanted them to share "toys" and the fun things of being a child, we suggested some of these "necessities". It was BEAUTIFUL to see the two oldest girls being so thoughtful about what the children may need.

Each of the girls chose soap, and a toothbrush and toothpaste, a coloring book, stickers, crayons, mittens, socks and candy. As Peanut was walking through the store she found some small cups and wanted to add that to her box. We found a set of 3 so each of the girls was able to add a drinking cup to their box.

Sissy was certainly the most visibly impacted by our experience. She wanted to carry her own shopping basket and literally clung to it. She was so thoughtful as she was thinking about what a 2 year old would like and what they would need. She was so quiet on the way home (which is not like her). When we arrived home it was getting late so we told the kids to get ready for bed and we would pack the boxes in the morning. Sissy took care of getting ready, came to me and said, "Mom, I don't want anything for Christmas." With tears in her eyes we had a talk about her realization that we have so much and some people don't have simple things. She said it wasn't fair that she was asking for a camera when some kids did not even have socks. This was one of those moments I'll remember forever. The tears in her eyes led me straight to her heart.

The other two girls were so excited to pack their boxes that the could not fall asleep and had goofy grins on their faces as soon as they woke up this morning. You'll notice that they didn't even brush their hair!

Peanut had fun customizing her box with things that she herself likes: a horse statute, My Little Pony coloring book, Tinkerbell stickers and she even parted with a stuffed horse that she bought with her own money not long ago (it still looked new). This was pretty big for her since she LOVES stuffed animals more than any kid I know!

Finally, Peanut suggested that the girls put pictures of themselves in their boxes, she was so excited to share a photo of herself for her new "friend". How I wish that we could be present the day that these boxes are delivered and see the joy in the eyes of the children who receive them.

American Heritage Girls

2010-11-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned a couple of times a new program that I am helping get off the ground at our church. I am the coordinator for a new troop here in Michigan and last night we just finished our 3rd meeting. I thought I would share some photos of the girls in their uniforms. American Heritage Girls is a Christian based program that works very similar to Girl Scouts. The difference? It has Christ at the center - after having Sissy involved in Girl Scouts for the last 4 years, it became evident to me that Girl Scouts is very far removed from the program I believe it was intended to be at its inception.

One very convenient thing for parents is that the program covers girls ages 5-18 and all ages meet the same evening in the same building. I love that I can take all the girls to the meeting the same night. Here is a photo of all the girls before our meeting last night.

Sissy is in the Explorer Unit and Peanut and Sweet Baby are both Tenderhearts. Last month the Explorers got to run the flag ceremony, this month it was the Tenderhearts turn. Both of our Tenderhearts got to play a role. Here is Sweet Baby as part of the Color Guard saluting the flag before her group walked it to the front.

Peanut got to be the one who announced the ceremony and instructed the girls in the Color Guard as to what they should be doing. Here she is at the podium.

Finally, I had to share this picture of Sweet Baby...a friend makes hairbows and although none of my girls have really been into hairbows Sweet Baby has asked for a pair. The hairbows are HUGE to say the least but she really wanted a pair. We recently held a raffle fundraiser and Sweet Baby was able to choose a prize as being part of a top selling family, it didn't surprise me that she chose the donated hairbows!

Small Intestine...Really?

2010-10-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has been an entire month since I have posted about our school days. We HAVE been doing school I guess I just haven't been taking photos of what we have been up to.

In Science we have made our way through the history of medicine, the skeletal system, the muscular system and have just finished the digestive system. While working on the digestive system we learned an amazing fact that I did not know..our small intestines are 20 feet long?!?! REALLY? Here is a picture of of Peanut and Sissy measuring out exactly how long 20 feet is - amazing!

In the weeks to come Sweet Baby and I will be doing a Ladybug unit. I was noticing that every time we would all sit down to do science, she would lay her head on her table and "check out". After a couple weeks of this I finally took her aside and asked her why it was that she was not trying to enjoy science. She ended up crying and said, "Mom, it scares me to think of all that stuff in my body. My bones, my blood, it is scary to me. I just don't like human body science. I want to do bugs not this scary stuff." Sweet Baby has a tendency to really pour it on and I can tell when she is faking fear or sadness. This time she was being very honest and I was feeling bad for her. She is just 6, so I can understand why it might be frightening to her. So, we'll be doing a ladybug lapbook together.

Ancient History Really Can Be Fun

2010-09-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

I've not posted for a couple weeks and wanted to share a few of the things we have been doing. I need to also share that when I discovered that we would be studying ancient history this year, I had a bad attitude. I really didn't have an interest in ancient history. I LOVE history - American History. Who wants to know about the Egyptians and Greeks anyway? I sure didn't. I spent a bit of the summer in prayer. Prayer that my attitude would change and I would have some sort of excitement for what I was going to be sharing with the girls. Can I say that I am really enjoying history this year!

We just entered the world of Ancient Egypt. We talked about ancient writing - cuneiform. One day we made cuneiform sugar cookies. Here Sissy is writing on her "tablet".

We have been learning about how important the Nile River is to the people of Egypt. Here the kids are making a page to go into their history notebook. We are using some History Pocket pages from a History Pocket book we have. They created the river and then added information the banks of the river.

Yesterday we discussed Upper and Lower Egypt (I didn't know they were ever separate!), King Menes, the different crowns that the kings wore and how he was the one to unite the two Egypts to one. Here Sissy is as King Menes and his white crown.

The other two girls made red crowns to symbolize the King of Lower Egypt (the things on the front are cobras that Sweet Baby made).

Here is Sissy after they dramatized King Menes overthrowing Lower Egypt...see how the "King" combined the crowns to demonstrate unity?

Monday, a Busy Day Full of Fun

2010-09-14T04:13:00.000-07:00

We had a busy day yesterday with school, but the kids enjoyed it. The girls did their first timeline piece (Adam and Eve) and we did a couple of science activities.

We spent last week learning about cells and what makes up a cell. We had a fun activity to do that the kids really enjoyed. We created our own cells using jello for the cytoplasm and various candies for the organelles. Today was the day that we built our cells!

The funny thing is, after the cells were done, the girls could have eaten them. They were all excited about doing that - but after a couple bites, they decided that it was gross tasting and didn't want to eat them. I'm certain it was because they enjoyed "just a bit" of the candy before the cells were finished and had already had to much sugar!

This week we are learning about the skeletal system and we discussed the fact that bones have many different functions, including protecting organs. The kids really enjoyed the activity today which had us put an egg into a container, close the lid and jump around with it. What happened? Well, it broke all over! Then we put a new egg in the container, filled it with water and did the same thing. The egg was protected from the liquid - just as God provides us with liquid between our brain and skull to protect it.

Finally, I just wanted to share a sweet picture of Sweet Baby. She continues to amaze me how well she is doing with reading. We are not using My Father's World 1st grade this year, we are just having her sit in on all of the history and science with the big girls. But a friend has the MFW 1st grader reader so we are borrowing that for her own Bible Reading Time. Here she is all cuddled up on the floor reading to me about Adam and Eve. I love these moments.

Our Sabbath Dinner

2010-09-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

For history this year we are studying the Old Testament and many of the traditional Jewish feasts. I am really excited to learn about the history of our people along with my girls. Our first feast was the Sabbath feast. Our family takes part in our own sabbath of sorts each Sunday but it isn't really as meaningful as the sabbath that we SHOULD be doing each week. We title Sundays "Family Day" and we devote that time to family. We don't have neighbor kids over to play, we don't do work (mom doesn't even cook - we eat cereal!) I decided to bake the Challah bread, Sissy learned how to cross stitch and made a Challah cover, we had candles on the table (we used candle sticks that I have never taken out of the box and they have been in my house for about 3 years!).

Now, in all honesty, I cheated on the bread. I used the bread maker to whip up some bread dough and then after it went through its cycle we kneaded it a bit and then I braided it up. I know I should have done it all by hand, but I just didn't have the time. Here Sissy is kneading the bread and she told me she was praying the entire time she was kneading.

And Peanut was really enjoying herself!

Isn't this the yummiest looking loaf of bread? It was so good and can you believe we ate the entire thing! That was alot of bread!

Here is a shot of our Sabbath table. Notice the Challah cover - Sissy cross stitched the word "Sabbath" on it. Also, I'm sure you'll notice the orange juice on the table. After doing all my running around on Friday and gathering things I needed, I forgot the grape juice - so we substituted!

Our Timeline

2010-09-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share how our family is doing our timeline for this year. I wanted each of the girls to be able to do their own timeline so they could color their own pieces and place them themselves and then I wanted one to be permanent on our school room wall. So, the kids will be doing their own timeline which I made by using simple white cardstock and scotch taping the sheets together horizontally. It folds up accordion style so it stores nicely in the pocket on their history notebook.

For our permanent timeline I opted for a section on our wall that measures about 5 feet by 4 feet. I used push pins and then strung fishing line between the push pins to create the "line". My Father's World has timeline pieces in the curriculum that are able to be colored by the student. For our permanent timeline I colored the pieces, cut them out and then laminated each one. Using mini clothespins (you can get them at any craft store) we will be hanging the timeline piece on the line so they can easily be moved around if we need to. The girls all seem to like the idea of doing our timeline in this way. No fighting about who is going to color the next piece and hang it up - this way, everyone does their own AND we have a big one that is always hanging up.

Week 1

2010-09-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Week one of our year has been completed. We had alot of fun with our new science program. We are using Apologia Anatomy and Physiology. This week we spent time discussing the history of anatomy and philosophers like Aristotle, Galen, and early European professors who discovered things like using lenses to explore the world of anatomy up close. This is our first year using Apologia. The Apologia science curriculum is one that is loved by many homeschool families each year, but this is the first year we have chosen to use it. The textbooks look very much like college level texts. Lots of writing and beautiful color pictures. However, these things are things that kept me from using it the previous 2 years. I felt there was no way an elementary age child could understand it. However, I decided to give it a try. I knew I wanted to spend this year doing anatomy and I was able to get a look at the new book at a conference this spring. So, far, I'm glad I've made the switch.

I read a section to the girls and usually there is a "Try This" section that gives them a little hands on experience with the information we just discussed. Here the girls are looking at a Try This. We discussed how lenses help magnify things. The word "Jesus" was printed very small, using a piece of plastic we put a couple drops of water on the plastic and the girls were able to see how the word was magnified when the light rays are bent.

Apologia works on a Charlotte Mason principle that says you should read, discuss and observe and then have your children "narrate" or write back what they have learned to help the learning process. Sissy struggles so much with writing. We will be doing narration with our history as well and I was a bit afraid of how daunting this year would be for her if she had to do writing for English, history AND science. A friend who is also using the same science this year happened to find wonderful mini books by Live and Learn Press, that go along with each lesson in our science program. She will still be writing, but much smaller chunks. The books are similar to what you would put in a lapbook.

For history we completed talking about the different days of creation. I promised to show you what the girls were making for each day when they were finished. Here is a sample of different days from each of the girls. Sissy chose to draw the things God created on each day, while the other girls decorated their numbers.

Here is what they placed on their numbers:

Day 1 - Half of the number is black (dark) and half is yellow (light)

Day 2 - Cotton balls for clouds and blue glitter to make waves for the sea

Day 3 - Flower eyelets from my scrapbooking stash, cardstock to make trees, grass

Day 4 - Colored Foil stars, cardstock to cut out a moon and sun

Day 5 - Stickers I found at the dollar store of birds and fish (you could use stamps as well)

Day 6 - Animal stickers and drawing of people

Day 7 - Simply said "Rest"

This coming week we will only be doing science, English and math. We have family coming in from out of state for labor day and we aren't sure how much time we will be spending with them, so I didn't schedule all of our work.

If you start school this coming week, good luck!

Summer...It's Over

2010-08-31T11:46:00.000-07:00

Well, it was a wonderful summer...For us though, it is over. We started school yesterday. As much as I love being with the girls, I'm not that typical homeschool mom who looks forward to the structure of school. For me, selfishly, I enjoy our freedom and the ability to do nothing all day or to run to the store or library on a whim. You don't get to do that when you start school back up.

We ended our summer with our only summer vacation. We drove to the other side of the state and enjoyed 5 days in Ludington, Michigan. If you have never been to Ludington, it is beautiful. It is right on Lake Michigan, which is the prettiest of the great lakes. It was a wonderful relaxing time. Here is a photo of the girls just before we were leaving.

This year we will be using My Father's World Creation to the Greeks for our history and bible curriculum. We are swapping our science and using the new Apologia Anatomy and Physiology. We are also using MFW's suggested art appreciation study God and the History of Art.

We are beginning our history study with the literal beginning of time. This week we are focusing on the days of creation. The girls all have learned a fun song from church that they sing the days of creation to but I still thought it would be fun to do a craft to help them remember the days even more. The 3 year old bible teacher at our church did a similar craft with her bible class when the girls were 3, but they didn't remember doing it, so the younger two are doing it at home. Here Sweet Baby is decorating her day number 2. I went to our local school district and used their die cut machines and cut large numbers 1-7 (to represent the different days). The girls are decorating the numbers to represent what God created on those days. Here for day 2, Sweet Baby used cotton balls to represent the sky and blue glitter made to look like waves for the seas. I'll share a photo of all of them when we have finished at the end of the week.

For our history study we are focusing on the history of the Israelite people, Egyptians and Greeks. The exciting part for me is to learn the biblical history that I am unaware of. We are going to be doing a sabbath meal this weekend as we discuss the traditions of the Jewish faith. Here Sissy is trying her hand at cross stitch. We are going to make a very simple challah covering for our bread (yes, I am going to attempt to bake my own bread, no bread maker either. We do fresh bread in our bread maker weekly, but I've never kneaded my own bread.) I took a piece of cross stitch fabric and just simply wrote "Sabbath" across it - the plan is for Sissy to do most of the stitching, but I'll show Peanut a bit as well. When it is done I'll sew it onto a scrap of fabric I have and we'll have our covering for the bread.

Here peanut is doing their first art lesson. The art lessons are meant for those children 10 and older, but Peanut loves drawing and art so I figured she could join in. The girls had to copy a picture using nothing but their mouths! There was a story about a woman who had become paralyzed but later found a love of drawing. Because Peanut can be a perfectionist with somethings (specifically her art) she was not thrilled to do this exercise. But, she needed to get the point of the lesson - first that art can be frustrating and second that we need to be mindful and thankful for all that we have (usually she can use her hands to draw and not have to use her mouth).

Last school year Sissy began using Teaching Textbooks for math. She LOVED it. She loved it so much she would ask to do math. ASK to do math?!? It is a wonderful program. Thankfully they have a 4th grade program so we decided to switch Peanut to it for math this year. Here she is working...She loves it too. She had done the first 3 lessons before we even officially started school!

Here is a photo of the screen. The program teaches your child the lesson and it is done so well. If you go to their website, you can see a sample lesson. The one thing that I had heard about TT before purchasing it was that it tended to run a bit slow in comparison to other math programs. And I have found this to be true. Peanut is actually in 3rd grade but is doing the 4th grade program and Sissy is in 6th grade doing the 7th grade program. So, if you are thinking about TT, be sure to have your child do their placement test.

More from Camp

2010-07-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

Peanut has always been relatively fearful. She does not ride many amusement park rides because she is "scared", she did not walk to the top of the lighthouse in Ludington, Michigan when she was 4 because she was "scared", at Disney World she hated the 3-D movies because she was "scared", get the picture? So, as excited as I was for her to experience a week at summer camp, I was thinking that things like the low ropes course and even horseback riding would scare her and she would sit out on several of the activities. The morning of our scheduled low ropes activity I chose not to even tell her what the low ropes course was.

Surprisingly, when we arrived at the course she was excited to jump on and give it a try. She even discovered that she really liked it!

She enjoyed climbing to the top of the net and was the first one to give it a try.

When we made our way through a grove of trees and I saw all of these tires hanging, I thought that this was going to be the course that she would sit out on. More surprises though, because she climbed up the platform and made it all the way across!

Each night we attended chapel (which was held in the woods and was beautiful) where we did fun camp songs and then the kids listened to a lesson about different biblical characters who were once lost but they eventually found the Lord, we headed out to some sort of game with the entire camp. It was fun to be able to see Sissy at meal times, campfire, swimming and game time. Here she is getting ready for the musical beach towel game.

I loved that all of the games were "team" games. Here Peanut is working with her team to get across the "lava" (grass) using only a handful of Frisbees. No one could step on anything but the Frisbees. If their foot came off the Frisbee and touched the grass, they all had to go back and start their quest to reach the pineapples in the middle of the circle all over again.

I'll end with archery for today. This is the one activity that Peanut says she did not like. It was difficult for her to pull the string back and make the arrow actually go anywhere without help from the adult or teen that was helping the kids.

Summer Camp

2010-07-13T02:30:00.000-07:00

The summer is quickly speeding by. One of the big events of this summer for us has been waiting for summer camp. Last year Sissy went away to church camp for 6 days - the longest she had ever been away from the family - and she just loved it. This year, Peanut was old enough to attend; however, I was not really ready to drop my 8 year old off for nearly a week (and I'm quite sure she would not have lasted that long away from home on her own either). A friend suggested her and I counsel together at camp. Honsestly this was not my idea of a great way to spend a week of my summer! A bunch of cranky kids in HOT cabins with no air conditioning anywhere, getting up at 7 am and not getting to bed till 11 or 11:30 every night - does that sound like fun to you? Well, I am SO glad I went! What a blessing! The first night and day was hot but everyday after that, the weather was perfect. The children in our cabin were wonderfully well behaved and I watched as my Peanut strengthened Christian friendships, learned new skills and conqured fears.

By the middle of the first day I told my friend that I could not wait for next year!

Here Peanut is at the archery range learning how to shoot at targets. She really enjoyed this activity.

Christian sister pictures!! I love these!

I'll share more pictures of things like horseback riding, arts and crafts, and camp songs another day.

Summer Fun - Strawberry Picking

2010-07-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

3 weeks ago we decided to go strawberry picking. It was the end of the season here in Michigan (for U-Pick farms) and we happened to go the very last day. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, not to hot at all and a beautiful breeze.

In all honesty I don't believe I've ever been strawberry picking. We have taken the kids blueberry picking before but never strawberries. The first thing I noticed was the smell of the breeze as we rode the wagon out to the field. YUMMM! I told the girls it must be what Strawberry Shortcake Land smells like. The other thing I noticed was how much the kids enjoyed it. Of course it could have been the fact that they knew they would get to eat yummy strawberries at the end of the day!

Hair Donation at Relay for Life

2010-06-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

As our first girl, I had big plans for Sissy the moment I found out she was a girl. Those plans included Disney Princesses, fairies, dresses, long hair with bows and braids...you get the idea. Then she was born. At about 2 years old she made it very clear that she did not want long hair, she hated the color pink, she adored her Buzz Lightyear pj's and socks and very much disliked dresses. She kept her hair at a bob length from about age 2 to the end of 2nd grade she she declared that she wanted to grow her hair longer. In about 3rd grade she decided she wanted to grow her hair to donate it to make wigs for cancer patients. So, here we are the summer after 5th grade and she had plenty of hair to give.

She has felt compelled to donate her hair not only because we have a few family and friends who have fought the battle of cancer but because it is only hair right? Well, as she was ready to go on stage to get the ponytail cut she was getting nervous. The long hair had really become a part of

her.

After the cutting of the ponytail, she was grinning from ear to ear and said, "It is still plenty long mom, lets go get it trimmed up."

When we got to the chair to get it trimmed by the stylists, there was someone getting her hair cut pretty short, but it was really cute. It was stacked in the back with the top layer being the shortest and then graduating down to the bottom layer. Sissy asked if they could do that to her hair but keep it at her shoulders. As the stylist was cutting, it kept getting a bit shorter and shorter. When it was all said and done, she felt it was a bit to short. She said she really misses her long hair. At least she was able to donate with a friend who cut about as many inches off as Sissy had removed.

Today, after living 24 hours with the new hair-do, she is really starting to like it!

Enjoying Watercoloring

2010-06-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

All of the girls have celebrated birthdays over the last 3 months. I had such fun surprising Peanuts with gifts she did not ask for, but I thought she would like. She is our little artist. She loves anything creative. Give her a pencil and paper and she may be found writing a story. BUT, she doesn't stop at writing, she also insists on illustrating. Or, she may be found drawing her own coloring book, making stick puppets, etc.

One of her gifts was real watercolor paints in tubes, a painters palette and nice paint brushes. Dear friends of ours have a son who loves drawing and painting. So, we spent a few hours at their house yesterday while he showed her how to paint with watercolors. She just LOVED it!

The next art project we'll work on is making clay animals with the clay and book she received as one of her other gifts. I'm not sure which she will enjoy more - painting or sculpting.

Beautiful Morning Watching Things Grow

2010-06-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick picture and some thoughts....one of the biggest reasons I started this blog is so that I have a place to record thoughts I have about raising our girls and share pictures. Especially for those days that are "bad" days when I feel like I have no idea what I am doing being a parent. I needed a place to record things that make my heart sing. This is one of those moments.

It is a beautiful Michigan early summer morning - the sun is shining, slight breeze, nearly no humidity, the garden is in full shade early in the morning - so, I decided to do some weeding for my husband. (The garden is his baby, I'm not much of a fan of getting dirt under my fingernails - I know, I'm a priss.) We are doing 2 different Summer Reading Programs and Sweet Baby is constantly wanting to read to me, since she is just finishing up kindergarten she really needs to read aloud to get help on the words she does not know. It was sweet to be sitting there working while she sat in her chair reading Biscuit and Strawberry Shortcake books to me. I love listening to her read to me, it has been amazing watching her grow and listening to her reading skills improve. Again, I remain in awe of what the Lord has given me.

Chicken Coop Is Nearly Done

2010-06-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

You will recall that we got 6 chicks in April. They were to small to regulate their own body temps so we needed to keep them under a heat lamp for about 6 weeks so they were living in a large container in our back livingroom. As they grew (and grow they have!) I've been anxious to get them out of myhouse. The last 2 weeks it has been warm enough that they did not need the lamp so they have been in the garage at night and in the dog's old dog crate during the day while my husband worked on designing and building their coop.

He did an awesome job and has been diligently working on it each evening after work and on Saturdays. They finally are sleeping in the "big house" . This weekend we will have the run completed so they can move about freely between their coop and their fenced in run.

Once all the sawing was done he was able to use our help in getting things put together. Here is daddy and Sissy working on the roof. I LOVE pictures like this...

Sissy enjoyed hammering the nails.

Ahhhh, Time to Relax

2010-06-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

We officially finished school about a week and a half ago. Ahhh...it feels so nice to be done for a bit. We will be doing lots of reading this summer and all around just hanging out. You would think the girls would be excited to not have to think about school, but the day after we declared that school was closed, I snapped these shots.

The funniest thing is that these "school days" were occurring at exactly the same time in 2 different rooms of the house.

Sweet Sisterly Moments

2010-05-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Sissy earned herself a punishment that consisted of weeding the strawberry patch. Of course she had been putting it off until the last minute and today her minute was up. Apparently she asked Peanut if she wanted to come outside and play while she was working. Peanut agreed (because she is the agreeable one in the bunch) and proceeded to walk out back with books in one hand an a blanket in the other. As I was cleaning in the kitchen and looked out the window I saw this scene from the house.

I decided to creep closer and see what was going on. The closer I got, I realized that I was witnessing a wonderful moment of sisterhood. Peanut was reading aloud to Sissy as she was doing her work. Isn't that the sweetest thing you have ever seen?

Just after snapping this picture the girls noticed me "eavesdropping". So, I asked Sissy to come on over so I could get a picture of the two of them together. This is what I captured. I'm so thankful for cameras! Pictures like these are the things that home school days are made of.

YUCK..Snakes!

2010-05-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

For the record, I'm terrified of snakes. Not just a little scared, not just a bit squeamish, but full fledged fetal position - rocking in the corner kind of terrified. I nearly lost it yesterday when my husband yelled, "I've got a baby gardener snake if anyone wants to come see it!" My initial thought was, "What?!? Why would anyone want to come see it?" That is when I heard Peanut say, "OOOH, how cute, a baby snake!" CUTE?!? Seriously? YUCK!

Well, the girls got to check it out in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. I tried to walk close and check it out, I did see it but just the sight of it made my skin crawl and I felt sick. Needless to say, this next picture was not taken by me and it makes me nauseated just posting it!

My point (really, I didn't post this just to share with you how much of a baby I am) is that I LOVE moments like this! I love seeing them all together exploring together. Ahhhh....

New Family Members

2010-05-09T05:11:00.000-07:00

Awwwww, look what we got!

Yep, 6 sweet little chicks. Aren't they cute? A few years ago my husband announced that he wanted a few chickens and I thought he was nuts! I have never had a desire to have any farmish animals. A dog is just fine for me. But, we have dear friends who have chickens and whenever they go out of town for vacation we drive over and take care of their birds. Chickens are just the sweetest things. So, we thought we would try it this year. We ordered 2 Buff Orpingtons (the yellow ones), a couple Silver Wyandottes, a Black Australorp and one Araucana which believe it or not, lay colored eggs!

The girls have already chosen "their chicks" and named them. Sweet Baby and Sissy chose the Orpingtons. Sissy is the only one who has named hers and she chose Yellow Daisy for its name. Last year we spent some time talking about birds and their feathers. They are already losing their downy feathers and you can see their flight feathers are coming in as well as tail feathers! What fun.

Break for the Artists

2010-05-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

Our last co-op meeting for this school year was Tuesday. As much as we enjoy co-op, it will be nice to have a break for the last month of school. The kids always get gym and art through our co-op and they all really enjoyed art this year.

Sissy and Peanut didDiscovering Great Artists . This is a great program that takes various artists, explains a bit about them and their style of art and then the children try to create art in a similar medium. They experimented with paint, ink chalks,

Sweet Baby was lucky enough to do Storybook Art in which the teacher reads a children's storybook to the kids and then they create a picture using similar mediums as the illustrator did in the book. You can see that Sweet Baby is holding up her rendition of a caterpillar from The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. This particular program is so sweet that the kindergartners and first graders will be doing it again next year!

Easter Pictures

2010-05-07T04:44:00.000-07:00

I have realized that I have been very negligent in updating our blog over the last couple weeks. I never even shared Easter pictures with you! So, here are a few of everyone dressed for church.

Sweet Baby looking not so much like a baby anymore (sniff, sniff)...

Peanut...

Sissy...

Great Bible for Young Readers

2010-05-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

I was recently at a used curriculum sale and happened to spot a Bible that was in really good condition for only $4. Peanut is a really great reader and has been since kindergarten but of course just because she can read the words does not mean she can comprehend it all. To be fair, there are many of us adults who can read the Bible and cannot understand it all! She has a Bible of her own, but I never see her reading it because she doesn't understand it. When I found this one at the sale it looked like it would be a good one for a young reader so I brought it home.

I have been delighted to find Peanut reading her new Bible whenever the mood strikes her. She can often be found reading it aloud to all her stuffed animals! If you have been looking for a good Bible for a child who is reading at least at the 2nd-3rd grade level, this might be a good fit for your family - The Adventure Bible For Young Readers by Zonderkidz. In addition to being a full translation of the Bible it has interesting little text boxes throughout that give extra information about people in the Bible, particular scriptures that are short enough to do as memory work, illustrations and a "Let's Live It" section that is a short devotional based on the scriptures that have been read. I have a few more used curriculum sales to go to this season. I'll be keeping my eyes open for another good price on a Bible just like this one for Sweet Baby.

Sadako and the Paper Cranes

2010-04-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

A couple days after finishing Homeless Bird we picked up a My Father's World recommended book called Sadako and the Paper Cranes. This was a small chapter book that we started and finished all within about 45 minutes. The girls would not let me put it down.

Sadako and the Paper Cranes is set in Japan and is a touching story about a young girl who has leukemia from fallout from the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. This is the story of her belief in a tradition that says if a sick person folds 1,000 origami paper cranes they will become well. It is a simple story that is an easy read (I believe the grade level on this book is 2nd-6th grade) and made me shed a few tears at the end.

Writing in Chinese

2010-04-07T04:41:00.000-07:00

We finished talking about China last week and to finish it off I was able to find a website that would take your name and print it out in Chinese. What fun! So I entered all the girls names and they were able to try their hand at printing their name in Chinese characters.

Homeless Bird

2010-04-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Last week we finished another read aloud. The book we read, which is a National Book Award recipient, was called "Homeless Bird" by Gloria Whelan. We started reading this book while we were studying India. WONDERFUL book. I wondered if it was going to be too "old" for the younger children but they both enjoyed it.

This book is just loaded with true facts about the Indian culture and if you have daughters it will give them a pretty honest look at what life as a Brahamin girl would look like. Kohly is just 13 when her marriage is arranged and she is forced to become married to Hari. As if marrying at the age of 13 is not enough, she must reside with the groom's family and shortly discovers that her husband is very sickly. Hari is so sick that Koly is quickly made a widow and must continue living with his family. Eventually her father in law passes away making her "Sass" a widow as well. The two widows travel together to live with the brother of Sass. During their travels they must stop in the city of Vrindavan, the city of widows, where Koly is left alone on the streets.

This book is a sweet story of hardship, relationship conflicts, achievement and perseverance. There was only one small part of the book (literally 2 pages at most) that I chose to skip over. Koly gets mixed up with a girl who does drugs. Although my 11 year old would be at the age to hear about a topic like that, my 7 year old and 5 year old are not, so I just omitted it and it did not alter the story for them.

All of my girls liked this book, as did their mom! While searching for a photo for this entry I discovered a site about the author, Gloria Whelan, which provides information about the inspiration of the story and factual information that would be useful if you have no knowledge about the Indian customs. In addition, I discovered a free study guide for the book. Of course I discovered it AFTER we completed the book.

Salt Water Experiment - Hmmm...

2010-04-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

One thing I have really enjoyed about home schooling is how much I am learning along with the girls. We are currently edging our way into talking about ocean ecosystems. We started by talking about the differences between salt water and fresh water.

For example, I guess I didn't realize that things float easier in salt water than fresh water. We did an experiment which had us trying to float an egg in salt water and also in fresh water. Here the girls are counting out tablespoons of salt and adding it to one of our bowls of water.

After filling up our bowl of saltwater, we were to take an egg and place one egg in our saltwater and one egg in our freshwater to see if salt water is indeed dense enough to float an egg. And what do you know? It worked. The girls were really impressed by this! The white bowl was our freshwater and the egg sunk right to the bottom. The silver bowl was our saltwater and the egg just kept bobbing around, never sinking completely to the bottom.

We were able to talk about experiments and how you need to make everything exactly the same (or as close as you can) for an experiment to work. Sissy thought maybe the egg in the freshwater bowl was just heavier than the one in the fresh water bowl. When she realized that was not the case, she thought this was a really neat experiment.

Exciting News For The Flint, Michigan Area!

2010-04-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to share something with you! Since early last fall I have been working with a few other ladies in the community to get a Christian girls scouting troop started in our area. Currently the nearest one is an hours drive away.

Our oldest has been in Girl Scouts for the last 4 years, but since some leadership training that I took part in a few years ago, I have been reluctantly allowing her to continue attending. There were several things said at the training meeting that made it very clear that the Girl Scouts of today is NOT the Girl Scouts of days gone by. There are some VERY non-Christian themes running through and this was something that made me very unsure of her participation. Since I knew her leader and expressed my fears, she was allowed to remain.

Now the younger girls are ready for scouting and have been desiring a scouting troop of their own. Rather than allow them to join a troop, after much prayer, and God placing the right people in my path, it has been decided that we need to bring the girls Christian scouting group, American Heritage Girls to our area.

We will be having an informational meeting at Bristol Road Church of Christ, in Flint, Michigan on Tuesday, April 6th at 6:30. If you are local to our area and interested, we would LOVE to have you join us! It just so happens that all of the adults on the board are home schooling mamas!

For the last two years I have committed myself to saying "no" to extra leadership opportunities in any area. I have really felt that I needed to find our groove with home schooling and I needed to try to keep my life as stress free as I could. I guess God has decided that that 2 year "break" is over as I transition as the coordinator for American Heritage Girls Troop 3130.

Local Impressionist Art

2010-03-30T04:03:00.000-07:00

Last year we spent a couple weeks talking about Impressionist artists and their art. Peanut was the only one of the girls that seemed the least bit interested, but that should not have surprised me because she loves anything that has to do with art.

My husband mentioned to me that he thought he had heard that the Flint Institute of Arts had a new traveling impressionist exhibit. Since I was a teenager I have enjoyed impressionist art and thought it would be a fabulous thing to see. In addition, on Saturdays there is no entrance fee to the museum because all Saturdays are sponsored by Target stores. Sounded like a great, inexpensive day out to me! Since Peanut was the only one of the girls that was impressed by our art discussions last year, I decided we would make the trip a "date day", just her and mom. We had such a nice time!

Peanut amazed me....She stopped at EVERY single painting and talked about what she saw in the picture, how the light looked, how the water or trees looked, she kept saying, "Mom, I love this!" After we had looked at each painting she even went back through and showed me which painting was her favorite in each hall. Here she is in front of one of her favorites. I remember it is called At the Fair, by Henri Cross. It was a really colorful, a much different piece than the stereotypical impressionist painting, but it was great to see it there because it certainly showed the range of art that fits into that category.

Here she is in front of a painting by Mary Cassat. When discussing this art last year we specifically spent some time talking about Cassat so it was awesome to see a piece by her!

When she approached this painting and I pointed out the artist, her jaw dropped. Yes, it is by Monet. There were approximately 3 of them there. Last year she took after her mother and declared that Monet was her favorite artist.

After we were done with this exhibit we moved on throughout the museum. We entered a room that happened to have a beautiful painting of the Taj Mahal hanging on the wall. Since we just finished studying India Peanut had no trouble recognizing the building. It was a really beautiful piece of art.

Finally, we entered "The Renaissance Room" which captivated Peanut. The tapestries were gigantic and she just loved looking at them and talking about what she thought was happening in the picture. She enjoyed this room so much we had to go back and look a 2nd time.

We had such a great time and plan on returning to peek at the impressionist paintings again, before the exhibit moves on.

Field Trip - Musical Petting Zoo

2010-03-26T05:09:00.001-07:00

Musical Petting Zoo? You read it right. This week we were able to attend a great field trip with a couple families from our co-op. We went to the Flint Institute of Music and got to learn about various instruments and the kids even got to try them out. It was a small group of kids and Sissy was the oldest there, but she did not seem to mind. Each of the girls enjoyed handling the various instruments and even trying to play them.

Sweet Baby fell in love with the xylophone right away! Several times when I would look to see what she was up to, I found her standing at this exact spot with a huge grin on her face.

Peanut really enjoyed the brass instruments. She tried the flute, trumpet and saxophone. She enjoyed the trumpet so much that she asked, "Can I have a trumpet for my birthday?"

Not surprisingly to me, Sissy enjoyed the electric guitar. She must have sat in this chair for more than 20 minutes plucking at the strings. I believe she only got up because she wanted to let someone else try.

It was a morning that the girls really enjoyed and although my little band was formed and having a great time, the trip was over and it was time to head home for a full day of school.

On To China

2010-03-26T04:41:00.000-07:00

We have finished up our study of India, though we have a couple lose ends to tie up. We need to finish our read aloud and the girls were given a project to do that needs to be completed. I'll share about those at a later time.

The bulk of our study has moved on. We are now studying China and then we will move on to Japan. One of the things that I had planned for the younger girls when we reached this these countries was to read the book, A Pair of Red Clogs. If you have never read this book, it is an adorable story about a young Japanese girl, her lovely new clogs, and the choice she has to make about whether to lie to her mother or not.

In addition to reading this book, I had decided to do a lapbook from my favorite lapbooking company, Hands of a Child. The lapbook is for grades K-2 so Sissy will not be doing it, but since she was headed to a play at one of the local colleges yesterday, I decided this would be the best time to start the lapbook.

In this story Mako purchases a new pair of red clogs. She is so proud of how pretty and new they are; however, during an outing with some friends she partakes in playing "the weather game". The Weather Game requires the children to kick their clogs high into the air and examine how the clogs land - resulting in a crack in her new clogs. They way the clogs land is a prediction of what the weather will be like the following day.

When I announced to the girls that they too were going to go outside wearing their "clogs" (flip flops) and play The Weather Game they couldn't wait. (See...they didn't even get dressed!)

When their "clogs" landed, we had two different predictions...Peanut's clog told us we would get rain today and Sweet Baby's said we were in for a lovely day.

We will be playing this game for then next 5 days and recording the predictions of the "clogs" and then what actually happens. After we were done with the Weather Game we headed inside to start our lapbook. We spent some time looking at where Japan is in relation to Michigan, we talked about the fact that Japan is actually a string of 4 islands and we determined the names of each island. After our discussion the girls got started on various pieces of their lapbook including their map, labeling the islands and more. I'm hoping to get some mural sized paper next week so we can paint our own chinese dragon. If that pans out, I'll let you know!

Math Woes, But Oh So Cute

2010-03-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

We are using Abeka Math for both Sweet Baby (K) and Peanut (2nd) this year. It seems to be working just fine for both of the girls though the Kindergarten program seems to be picking up speed (moving to telling time on the half hour which seems a bit fast for Kindergarten, but if she can do it, we'll keep with it). Sweet Baby is having trouble with her math facts but that is fine, we try a new one everyday and just run with it. I remind her of some of the facts throughout the day and don't stress over it - after all, she is just in Kindergarten.

One math concept Sweet Baby is struggling with is the concept or "how many more". She can look at a tower or pile of cubes and tell you which one has more but when you say, "How many more are there here, than over here?", she has no idea what to do. Today, I had built a tower of 7 cubes and compared it to a tower of 2. I asked her, "How many more does this one have than that one?" Her response???? "A lot!"

Woodworking at Co-Op

2010-03-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had co-op again and I was with Sweet Baby's group. It was pajama day so the kids got to wear their p.j.'s. Not only were the younger girls excited to wear their p.j.'s, but Sweet Baby was excited to go to woodworking. I enjoy watching her in this class so much, the reason is two fold.

1) She gets to be in her favorite class, not because she likes working with wood, but because her friend "Mr. Tom" is the teacher. Mr. Tom is a family friend, who is like an uncle to her. The last two vacations our family took included Mr. Tom's family, we see them every week at church and often in between, since they live about 4 miles from us. She loves Mr. Tom and he loves her.

2) It cracks me up how nervous she can be. For some reason she is my most nervous and neurotic child it is usually annoying, but lately I have been trying to take a step back and remind myself that she is only 5. Sometimes I forget that 5 is still a baby. She still has SO much to learn, all my kids do.

Here Sweet Baby is trying her hand at using the square to make a straight line on the wood. She looked so cute in her safety glasses. They would not stay up on her nose, so she had to hold them onto her face most of the time.

Here she is using the saw. Her paranoia in class today was that she would cut herself. But it was sweet because when she got home, she told daddy that she did just fine because "Mr. Tom kept my hand safe". After they cut a section of the wood, they practiced the hand sanding skills they learned a couple of weeks ago.

Here she is making "rhythm sticks". Great idea from the head teacher...something for them to bring home and bang all over to make noise.

Some Days...and a Funny Discussion

2010-03-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

Some days you want to file away in your memory bank and remember for a long time. I had one of those days last week. We had another day where it snowed most of the day. My husband had a few things to do after work so I decided I'd get a head start on shoveling the driveway. Peanut decided to come out and play so while I was out. She is our most imaginative child and is lately has been found digging around outside looking for "treasures" in the snow and....

....searching for some "firewood" to continue building this huge "fire" that you see...

I stopped to look at her face. Do you forget to do that sometimes? Really stop and study your child's face, watch their eyes, look at their dimples, see how their smile looks? It seems lately I'd stopped doing that. I've gotten into the daily habit of just pushing through school, then chores, refereeing arguments, etc. that I have not slowed down to just admire and appreciate my girls. Maybe it is because they are always together and the whirlwind of talking, bickering and movement makes it virtually impossible to focus on any one person. While Peanut was outside with me I was noticing some of these things. I was noticing how tall she is getting.

I was enjoying the joy on her face when she would find a 'piece of wood for her fire'.

I was really enjoying the way her eyes crinkle underneath when she smiles. Her smile has always taken up her whole face, since she was tiny, I love that. And her dimple! It is hard to see it in this photo, but she has the cutest dimple on her right cheek. I was really appreciating the two gaps on the top row of teeth were she lost two awhile ago and nothing has filled them in. It makes her look older too. I love my kids.

Now, as for the funny discussion...while she was digging in the snow I said, "Peanut, you look like an archaeologist digging over there." She said, "What is an archaeologist?" So I explained that it was a scientist who digs in the dirt to find clues to the past. I reminded her about our trip to Jamestown and the dig site we went to. As she continued digging she said, "I am like a dirty-ologist!"

The Treasures of Weatherby

2010-02-24T04:35:00.000-08:00

Books...Ever since I was a young girl, I have loved a good book. My girls have always loved being read to. I have several photos of Sissy as a toddler with PILES of books around her sitting on the floor leafing through the pages. As Sissy has gotten older she has not been really good about reading books to herself that are her age level. She consistently chooses books that are below her grade level and I think a lot of that is her reading confidence. This year for school I have been requiring her to read books that I leaf through and determine if they are at her level. One book she read was "The Great Escape" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. She really enjoyed it, so she asked me to get her another by the same author. That is when I found "The Treasures of Weatherby".

When Sissy sat down to read it she said it was "too hard" (which I will admit FOR HER, there were some words that she would not be able to read on her own, but this does not mean that would be so for all 5th graders, she seems to be a bit behind in reading). I thought it sounded like a good book so I decided to do it as a read aloud with all the girls. We are just about done (just 2 chapters left) and the girls LOVE it! It is really a great book.

I have found that many newer authors are writing books about topics that I do not would think are appropriate for my kids to read. I really want to stay away from topics dealing with witchcraft, ghosts, occults, bad language, etc. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a book review site that is similar to the great movie review site, screenit.com. So, I thought I'd start by reviewing some of the books we read together. Sadly, I am not really great at finishing read alouds. We get distracted and the book sits for so long we end up giving up (like The Cricket in Times Square that we started this summer).

It is my goal to be better about read alouds. Especially since my girls have been captivated by the last two that I have finished. BUT, here is the catch. If you have any great book titles to suggest for me, please leave a comment so as to help me find some appropriate books to read to my 5th, 2nd and kindergartners. I'll review them if we finish them and hopefully together we can help other parents find some GREAT, age appropriate books for their children to read to themselves or to read aloud together.

*****

The Treasures of Weatherby follows a home schooled 12 year old (Harleigh the Fourth) through an adventure to prevent a thief from stealing the family treasure. The family treasure is hidden somewhere in the HUGE family home that was built generations ago. Harleigh is wandering the grounds outside the mansion when he meets a friend, Allegra, who proves to bring adventure to Harleigh's otherwise boring life.

This book had my children captivated. I would read a couple chapters and say, "Ok, time to stop" and it was almost always met with, "NO! One more please?" Even by the kindergartners! The author uses great descriptions and my 2nd grader frequently said, "I can see it happening in my head". Great use of vocabulary was used as well. At one point a character does say, "Oh my G*d".

On my quest to find another book by the author I noticed quite a list! While reading through many of the titles and descriptions the books are fantasy books dealing with ghosts, the occult, magic so I'm passing on many of them but there were a couple that did not seem to follow that route. I'm sure virtually any child would enjoy The Treasures of Weatherby.

Girl Scout Cookie...Bar Graph??

2010-02-15T20:53:00.000-08:00

Sissy has been in Girl Scouts since 1st grade and she really seems to enjoy it. She especially likes seeing her friends from her elementary school a couple times a month. Every year she sells cookies like crazy. As we began bringing the cookies in, I started stacking the cases with likes cases and when I stood back, I thought... bar graph! (It is amazing how as a homeschool parent you begin looking at EVERYTHING and thinking "school"!) Of course when I pointed the "bar graph" out to Sissy, she said, "Oh geesh mom!" As much as she enjoys selling cookies, this will be her last year. I (and several other moms in the community) am currently in the beginning stages of starting an American Heritage Girls troop at our church. American Heritage Girls is a Christ centered scouting group that has many similarities to Girl Scouts except that this program actually holds Christ up as the center of the group and holds the girls and volunteers up to christian standards. This is a group that I have LONG wished we had in our community. The nearest troop is more than an hour away - just not practical - so...I guess we'll be starting one for our family and many girls in our area.

The younger girls have asked to be in Girl Scouts many times over the last couple years but we were just really uncomfortable with not knowing the leaders personally and several of the national beliefs of Girl Scouts have my husband and I concerned. Due to our concerns the younger girls have missed out on the scouting experience up until now. We'll have our first American Heritage Girls meetings this fall and all of my girls are looking forward to a christian scouting experience!

Finished France With Madeline

2010-02-03T04:36:00.001-08:00

Well, we have finished our tour through Europe. We spent a few weeks in Norway, a few in France and then a couple in Germany. While in France I read Madeline to the girls several times, and to conclude the study the younger girls did a Madeline lapbook that we purchased from Hands of a Child. I love lapbooks, and the girls do too. Last year we did several lapbooks for history but this year our curriculum has kept us so busy that we have not been able to fit any in.

Lapbooks are WONDERFUL if you want your children to have hands on craft type fun (cutting, gluing, coloring) without having to drag out a ton of supplies. In addition, instead of having another "craft" laying around that doesn't get any use, your child has a sweet example of all they have learned that they can (and sometimes do) look back on and refresh their memory.

This particular lapbook was geared for grades K-2. It was perfect for the younger two but much to young for Sissy. She didn't seem to mind not working on one when I told her that she will be doing a Zebra lapbook during our study of Africa. When Sweet Baby finished her lapbook, she ran right over to Sissy and said, "Look what I did! Can I show you?"

Here is Peanut proudly showing off her cover....

And here is a peak inside. The girls learned about the appendix (Madeline has hers taken out in the story), the Eiffel Tower, there is a story sequencing activity, rhyming page, a map of France and more. They really had fun completing these.

Now...onto Africa!

How Do Salamander's Hear With No Ears?

2010-01-22T21:07:00.000-08:00

In science we are currently talking about freshwater rivers, lakes and ponds. We have been talking about the wildlife that grows and lives around these areas. This week we talked about how some animals (specifically salamanders) do not have external ears to hear with. Of course the girls had no idea how it was that they would be able to hear an approaching predator. So, our science experiment had us take a tin tray (which was our ground) and turn it upside down, pour some salt on top and then demonstrate what would happen when the tray were hit with a spoon (which acted as our predator). The girls immediately recognized the vibrations as the salt particles jumped and moved. Of course, the experiment wasn't complete without having a Littlest Pet Shop join us!

How Do You Keep One Busy While Working With Another?

2010-01-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

When we decided to keep Sweet Baby home this year, one of the things that had me concerned was how on earth was I going to keep her learning while I dealt with the older girls? Of course we have had to figure things out as we go, but one thing that has been a wonderful addition to Sweet Baby's day, is the use of our Learning Palette from Usborne Books and More. The Learning Palette is a wonderful way for children to practice skills they are learning and be independent doing so!

The child has a certain skill they are practicing (in this case Sweet Baby is practicing her letter blends.) If you take a look at the upper right hand side of the palette, she needed to know that the "sp" says "sp" and be able to match that sound with a picture that contains that sound. By finding that the "spider" has a yellow circle with a hole in the middle, she places that chip next to the "sp". When she has completed the entire disk, she turns the disk over and.........

the disk allows her to self check. See the colors along the sides of the disk? If they match with the chips she placed, she has them all right! Sweet Baby gets to practice her skills for a couple minutes - quietly - while I work with a big sister. It is great for both of us! And, if your child wears her princess Belle dress to school, she'll feel like a real princess when she gets all of her answers correct too!