A month of updates! Part 1

Yikes!  It's been a month since I've posted!  We've been so busy, blogging has been the last thing on my To Do list... and quite frankly, I never make it to the bottom of that list!  But I thought tonight I should move blogging up on my list - or maybe I'm procrastinating cleaning up my kitchen, oh my! - so here we go.  A month in summary:

 Music with Jessica is going great!  Adeline looks forward to this time all week.  

She's learning to read music and play the rhythm sticks.  She's started writing her own music, too.  We even got a cute "love" song to her friend Titus.  

 We worked on left and right, which was mostly for the benefit of Braxton.

 This was Adeline's word list a month ago.  It's doubled now!  She's doing such a great job learning to read!

 This poor caterpillar was captured by the kids.  So we tried to figure out what he liked to eat and I spent some time researching caterpillars and how to keep them overwinter... just in case he decided to make a cocoon.

 Some more of our decorated alphabet.

 Sometimes lessons just arrive in your window well!

More letters!  The kids LOVE using the liquid watercolor.

 And alas!  The caterpillar DID make a cocoon.  Now we have to wait for Spring to see what he will become.

We took a trip to Colorado to visit family.  What a great time!  We did our school work in the van and had a couple of field trips while we were there.  One trip was to the Mountain Man Nut & Fruit Company where we got to see how they make their goodies and sample some fresh-off-the-line chocolate!  Yum!!  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures during our visit.  After our tour, we hopped over to Monkey Business and spent a few hours playing.  The kids love it there!

There's Part 1!  More to come...

A question answered

I've known for a few days now that this is a post I want to and need to write, but now as I sit to do it, I seem to be lacking direction in my thoughts.  Maybe it's God telling me now is not the time or maybe it's Satan trying to keep me from saying it.  Or maybe it's 10:45 p.m. and I'm just plain tired.  I don't know.  Bear with me, though.  This might be going some place good.  :)

A question I get almost every time I leave the house is, "How is homeschool going?"  I generally answer with something along the lines of "Oh it's good.  Some days are better than others, but for the most part everyone is enjoying it."  (Which is the truth.)  To which nearly every person replies, "I don't know how you do it.  There is no way I could homeschool."  At that point I give an uneasy chuckle, say something about not knowing if I can really do this either and then follow up with an example of a day gone bad.

But that's not what I'm thinking.  I'm thinking, there is absolutely no way I can do this.  Not on my own power - no way, no how.  This homeschooling business, at least at my house, is 100% God-powered.  I take no credit.  My flesh and bones would have thrown in the towel after week 1.  But praise God, each day He has given me new energy and focus and strength to run this marathon.  But I have to ask for it.  So before I even roll out of bed in the morning, I'm praying for energy (yeah, the baby still doesn't sleep through the night and I'm still not a fan of morning!).  When I'm in the shower, I'm praying that the kids will be able to focus, that I will teach what they need to learn, and that I might have patience.  And more patience.  And a little more patience!  When half way through our day Sadie is screaming, Braxton is pushing every one of my buttons and Adeline has no desire to do her work, I retreat to my bedroom, lay on the bed and cry out to God for help.  And He answers.  He calms my spirit and gives me a new perspective.  And then I can continue with the day.  You see, there is no way I could do this on my own.  

I'm 5 weeks into the Beth Moore "David: Seeking a Heart Like His" Bible study.  LOVE IT!  It has forced me to ground myself in the Word of God and surround myself with fellow believers.  Every single day of homework has spoken something to me that I needed to hear that day - absolute truth.  This morning when I met with my Bible study group to watch the weekly video, Beth made some points I want to share.  The first comes from 1 Samuel 7:10-12.  I'll let you look it up yourself, but it ends with Samuel saying, "Thus far has the Lord helped us."  I don't know what challenges tomorrow will bring.  I'm certain that there will be some.  But what I do know is that thus far, the Lord has helped me.  And I feel quite certain that He will continue to do so in the future.

Farther along, in 2 Samuel 7:18 we hear David crying out, "Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that you have brought me this far?"  Who am I that you have chosen to do such good things for me and my family?  Who am I that you have chosen to bring me this far?  We've moved from "thus far" to "this far."

According to Beth, there are 3 beliefs that keep us moving forward.  2 Samuel 7:28 says,  "O Sovereign Lord, you are God!  Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised good things to your servant."  

Here are the notes from the video.  The * is my addition to the published notes:

1. "You are God!"  We can know we've come "so far" when we can make the shift from our plans for God to God's plans for us.  *We have to relinquish the control.

2.  "Your words are trustworthy."  We can know we've come "so far" when we begin to want most what God has already offered us.  *We need to KNOW God's words - the specifics!

3.  You have promised "good things" to me.  We know we've come "so far" when we grow convinced that God only does us good.

*So, you ask, does God do us good?  Take a moment to look up these verses.

God's will for us is good.  Romans 12:2
God's purpose for us is good.  Phil. 2:13
God's work in us is good.  Phil 1:6
The hope God has given us is good.  2 Thess. 2:16
The works God created us for are good.  Eph. 2:10
The fight God called us to win is good.  1 Tim. 1:18-19
The fruit God produces in us is good.  Jas. 3:17
The gifts God gives us are good.  Jas. 1:16
God equips us with everything good.  Heb. 13:21
God works all things together in our lives for good.  Romans 8:28

AMEN!!

And that, my friend, is the answer to "How do you do it?"

Through God alone.

Good night.

Tuesday

Today was a fun day, so I thought I'd post it right away instead of waiting for the weekly review.  Plus, I'm procrastinating housework.  :)

I realized yesterday that I haven't said much about our Bible time.  I think it's because I'm too involved during that time to take pictures and I tend to only write about the things I have pictures of.  Our Bible time follows the same format every day.  We have one school verse that we memorize each week.  We practice it first.  Then we do AWANA homework and practice AWANA verses.  Next we have a Bible lesson from our Bible Truths curriculum.  Today's lesson was about Joshua leading the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  We pray, then sing a song.  Sometimes I let the kids pick, sometimes I chose one I want them to learn.  We've sang everything from Father Abraham (complete with the right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, nod your head, turn around, jump up and down actions) to VBS songs to the doxology.  It's a really fun time and a great way to start our day!  

Each lesson has a poster that goes with it.  This was from today:

We colored our letters with chalk.

Practiced tally marks.

Read through Reader #6

And did some journaling.

Rolled out play-doh numbers.

And concluded the day with a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom snack, complete with coconut milk!  Braxton and Sadie really liked the milk.  Adeline liked it at first, then decided she'd rather have water.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the P pancakes this morning didn't look fabulous, but they were legible and tasty!  Please Pass the Pancakes!  :)

Another week!

"The days are long, but the years are short."  Isn't that the truth?  Here we are, another week into homeschooling and beginning the month of October.  Wasn't it just July?  Shouldn't we still be at the pool?  Well, here we go.  The highlights of our week:  

Jessica came on Thursday for Adeline's music lesson.  Adeline LOVES it.  Some of the activities can involve all the kids (mine + 2 of Jessica's) and some are just for Adeline.  They played lots of games this week with starting and stopping on cue.  This was a start and stop coloring activity.  

Boardwork from Adeline's one-on-one time:

We began our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom unit last week.  For this activity, Braxton and Adeline took turns drawing letters out of a bucket and naming them.  Then Adeline put them in order.  Turns out, we're missing the "U."  Oops!

Big sister helped Braxton sort the pompoms.  He didn't actually need the help, but he likes her working with him.  Teamwork is an important skill, right?

Then my little miss creative decided to make some flowers.

We started talking about different kinds of books.  We began with cookbooks.  Adeline had a great time looking through a couple of my cookbooks, then I let her make Jello (almost) all by herself.  She was so proud!  She drew a picture of herself as a monkey making Jello.  I don't have an explanation for that one.

Another one of our Chicka Chicka activities is to decorate the entire alphabet.  We're doing 3 letters a day - one for Adeline, Braxton, and me!  Each day we're using a different medium.  This day was crayons.  We started out making the letters look like people, then decided that was just too silly.  :)

The next type of book we talked about was How-To books.  We practiced drawing fish from a how-to-draw book, then made these pretty fish with coffee filters and liquid watercolor in spray bottles.  Adeline's is the orange fish.  She did it all by herself.  Braxton's is the blue one.  He painted and glittered it by himself, then I helped cut it out and draw on the face.  They are hanging next to a vent, so every once in a while we catch them "swimming."

Day 2 of letters.  This time we used tempera paint.

A lesson on using periods and exclamation points.  Adeline got to read each sentence, then decide the appropriate punctuation.  By the way, Tip is a cat.  :)

Our finished weather graph for September.  Clearly we didn't get each day charted, but we did several!  Adeline did a great job reading the graph and comparing the days.

Today we played with magnets.  The kids thought that was a fun activity.

We experimented with objects in our classroom - crayons, scissors, erasers, paper clips, safety pins, and books.  Afterwards, Braxton and Adeline went on a hunt for things that would stick to their magnets.  Adeline found the lamp right away.

Braxton thought it was neat to stick the magnet to the wall, but was confused about why it would stick in some places, but not others.  The corners have metal reinforcement... just in case you are confused, too.  :)

It took teamwork to try to pick up a spoon.  And even then, it quickly fell to the ground!

 One more spot!

Another Chicka Chicka activity.  Adeline colored, cut out and assembled a coconut tree.  Then she wrote the alphabet on the tree.

Meanwhile, Braxton worked diligently on a Dd poke page.

TaDa!  Finished project!

I love Unifix cubes.  We have been working on counting to 30 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's.  Adeline has 1's and 10's down.  5's are coming along and 2's are going to take some more work.

We practiced ordinals with Mrs. Brown and her ten sheep.

Day 3 letters - glitter.

Adeline can read enough words now that we have moved into the Level 1 books at the library!  She and I read this book together every day this past week.

Today's final activity was the favorite by far.  The kids got to make a "shopping list."  They cut out pictures from coupon leaflets and glued them on their lists.

Adeline was very thoughtful.  She included deodorant for both mom and dad, as well as food for her cat.  She picked out three things from her list that she really wanted me to get at the grocery store - Hamburger Helper, Lucky Charms marshmallow treats and Strudels.  She will be surprised in the morning to find them in the cupboard.  :)

She had to use both sides of her paper.

I forgot to ask Braxton what he wanted off his list.  Next time, Buddy!

And there's the past week!  Now this mama needs to get busy prepping tomorrow.  With any luck, the day will begin with "P" shaped p-p-pancakes.  :)