Through the Bible

It's the beginning of  another year.

Another year to begin again.

Another year to begin challenges.

One challenge we were given was to

read through our Bible this year.

Our older boys have read through the Bible each

year since joining the youth group at our church.

The church gives the teens devotion books

that go through the Bible; each day

giving them the chapters to read with a little

fun lesson, along with some questions.

I check the books each week at church to help

keep the teens accountable.  

Our bookstore at church also sells

the devotional books for kids.

All the books work together.

The adult, teen and kids each read the same chapters.

A friend suggested having the younger kids

listen and follow along to the Bible on CD.

What a great idea!
(Thanks Sam!)

Tim and Luke were excited to get new books but

I thought it might be too much for them.

But following along is perfect.

They're seeing it and hearing it!

The CD's we have are nice because they have a bit

of animation with great sound affects too!
What a fun challenge to do together and start out our
day with!


The devotion books we're using can be
ordered from,

Mercy and Truth Ministries
http://www.heritagebaptistchurch.cc/

Another friend of mine also infomed me
that you can find the Bible being read on Youtube.

Science and Grammar

This is our 14th year of home schooling

our boys.

I can not believe how quickly this time has flown.

It hardly seems that so many years
have passed since I was sitting in our little

school room in Maryland

teaching Jordan to read.

Now Jordan is working full time building

homes with a crew.

This is also the last time I'll teach one of

the boys to read.

He woke up real early and excited to start school!

It's sad but also very fulfilling to know when I hear

them reading, it's from time we spent together.

This year, I wanted to get a science curriculum that

we all enjoyed.  In the past, their science

involved many different experiments and things

we didn't have in the home.

It got frustrating for the boy trying to do the experiment

and for me as I often didn't feel prepared

for the task at hand.

And then, it would be increasingly frustrating

if all the boys had different experiments each week.

So I searched and researched for a science that

we could do together and one that didn't

require too many supplies.

I love this year's course.

I know the boys are enjoying it too and that

makes all the differnce in our day.

When I call them all for their science,  three excited boys come

running to the table (literally!).

I've heard them say it's their favorite subject too,

which brings a smile to my heart.

This project was showing the four seasons.

We glued the "frames" and added four trees.

Each tree was decorated to show the four seasons.

I also use this time to do our grammar together.

I'm sure they're all getting it and the grading

and checking is done together.

I'm doing Tim, Luke and Silas together.

It's a fourth grade course.
I wasn't too sure about Tim getting it as it's a grade above him.

Yesterday I gave them a quiz on the prepostions, subject

and verb of each sentence. 

Tim was the last one done with the quiz

(he's very methodical and pokey),

but he got a perfect score.  I don't really care about the

score but just that is shows he understands so far.

It has been so much nicer to have these two subjects

together.  It's six less individual books I have

to check each day.

But better yet, it's building great times together

and they love this learning time.

I actually hear, "How much longer until

science and grammar, Mom?".

Yarn Along Hat

I haven't gotten nearly as much knitting done lately.

I've been outside more working on things like this:

The lighter colored wood chips is all added garden.

The boys commented that soon the whole front yard will be gardens!

I did manage to finish this last night.

My goal is to make one for each of the boys for Christmas.

One down, eight to go!

I've been reading home-schooling books,  catalogues,

manuals, etc lately.  This is the time of year I get the books for next year.

Next year will be the most we've had in school at once.

Titus will start school and it will be Brendan's last year.

We'll have seven in school!  Wow! 

This is the science I'll be using for four of the boys next year.

I'm real excited about it!

What are you using for science?  I've always lacked in science.

I don't care for any of the curriculums for the younger grades

we've used so far, so I'm hoping this one will be

different!


http://www.gsheller.com/2011/04/yarn-along_13.html

Now Presenting the Letter G

This week is the letter G for Addan ( actually it's been the last two weeks, last week was a shorter week for school so I contiuned it into this week.  God is good!  Addan couldn't seem to get this letter, so the extra week was a huge blessing and it wasn't even planned!). 

Addan is not a quick learner.  We've had a few of those and the extra time to learn the letters always balances out in the long run.  I can just double up or go quicker on other things to get him caught up to his grade.  So many huge blessings of home educating.  I can't imagine how some of our boys would keep up with the quick learners in a large classroom setting.  I was not a quick learner and I remember always being sent to the "dumb" table (as we students called it!).  I couldn't understand how all those other kids knew that a circle with a little tail was an "a".  Of course, I eventually caught up but the humiliation of sitting at that table every day is not forgotten!!!

Brendan was also not quick at learning the letters and their sounds but he's our best reader and you can always find him reading!  So I know once the letters are finally learned and the facination of jumping into a book is caught, my fears can be put aside!

Today Addan made a Gratitude mobile.  I cut some leaves out and had him write things he's grateful for on each leave.

It's so cute seeing the things he's grateful for come out of his little head.

The letter F was fun too!  On Friday we had our Fabulously FUN meal together.  We had finger foods, fruit, and French fries!  What a Fantastic way to spend a Friday as a Family!

The Letter D

This year Addan is learning to read.  I have a love/hate for this time of their lives.  It's so exciting to see them getting it and starting to put words together but the selfish side of me dislikes it because it's so time consuming.  I've only got two more boys to teach to read so it's getting to be more on the love side :)

This year I added another curriculum to Addan's school load.  It's called Heavenly Homemakers.

http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/learn-your-letters-learn-to-serve-complete-curriculum-kit

Each week we work on the a new letter.  The first day, I introduce the letter and it's sound.

Last week was the letter D.   So on Monday I showed him the letter D and said "dddd" over and over to him.  I sang the little song to him.

The letter Dd says ddd

The letter Dd says ddd

Like dog and dad and daffodil

The letter Dd says ddd.

tune is to Farmer in the Dell

Then we start the verses that start with the letter D.  We'll be learning them all week.

The verses were:

Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Ps 37:4

and

Depart from evil and do good.  Ps 34:14

Once I know Addan knows the sound, I ask him for things that start with the ddd sound.  I attempt the draw those things.  This is alway fun!! :)

Then we think of people that start with the ddd sound.  Addan thought of  the Denses (a family in our church), his Uncle David,   David Boynton (his friend in ME), and David Brown ( a teen in our church).  We prayed for these people together.

Next he did his normal part (writing, coloring, tracing, etc). 

The activity for the letter D was to make donuts.  I have never made donuts.  I've always thought they were total junk food so why make them!  This recipe was made from whole wheat flour and I just read a blog that talked about the goodness of lard, so I thought I'd give these donutes a try.  http://trintje.blogspot.com/2010/08/adventures-in-lard.html

We needed to find a donut cutter.  Finally finding one at an Amish type store near by, we attempted the donuts.

This was going to be fun!  Addan was so excited! 

They turned out good.  It was a fun memory together and a fun way to learn the letter D!

Getting ready for school

I started the task of scheduling the boy's school work.  I usually have it done by the end of May.  I'm not quite sure why this year I got so far behind.  This spring when the books came in (they're on sale in April so I order the biggest heft of them then), I neatly tucked the boxes on the school shelf, not even opening them up.  Bad girl! 

After moving all my fabric aside,  I took all the books out, sorted them by boy and wrote out my plans.  This first plan is a very vague one, basically just a list of each boy's book and how many pages he's to do each day.  Then I look over the work load and determine if it's too much or not enough. 

I'm so excited to get started!  Jordan and Brendan are going to be doing the Changed Into His Image series for their Bible.  I also ordered a book and work book for myself to do with them.  Just briefly skimming through this, I can see it's going to be fun learning with them!  My Mom took a counceling course (by the author)  at their church's Bible institute this past year and spoke highly of this series. 

This year Addan will be doing K and 1st grade. (I have found waiting until the child is alittle older than "normal" kindergarten is much easier! It seems to click much quicker than all the drilling when they just don't seem to get it.  Of course, each child is different, but this is just what we do.  I have heard so many parents bragging their child can read by age 3, my feelings... let the child be 3 and play and when they "have" to learn and are ready, we start.  This also prevents so many years of school or graduating so young).  This year is always so much work but always SO rewarding too!  We go from learning/reviewing the letters to reading words and writing words.  What a great feeling listening to all 6 of the older boys read (especially reading God's Word), knowing it's from the time spent teaching them letters and their sounds.

Now that my daily schedule is done, I can neatly stack the boy's books back onto their spot on the school shelf and leave out their first book for each subject.  I can print out all their lessons and do the tedious paper work for records.  By the end of the day, I'll feel so relieved to have it all done and then we can dig up all the potatoes in the garden.  Maybe I'll just dig up a few and do the paperwork tomorrow :)

Penmanship Curriculum

For some reason, it's very important to me that our boys have neat penmanship.  Not just for the normal reasons (so people can read what they're trying to communicate) but for Godly reasons.  The Lord asks us to do things decently and in order; do all to the glory of God!  It's also a testimony of a child being brought up in a Christian home and being trained in the home.  So it reflects our home and our Lord!  

I found a new curriculum for next school year.  I tend to get all our new school books in April as the company I get the biggest bulk from has a big sale in April.  I can relax the rest of the summer, knowing next year's books are all tucked away, waiting for the pencils to begin!   My new penmanship came two days ago.  I opened it and it's just a disc.  No directions, nothing.  Uh-oh, what did I get myself into.  I need directions!  I popped the disc in and waited to see what to do.  I followed the directions and the printer started printing (thankyou Tonya,,, I have used it TONS!).  As the copies for 1st Grade began to come pouring out, I got more and more excited!  I love it!  There are great quotes each lesson from different Presidents.    Here is lesson 32's quote:  Do not pray for easy lives.  Pray to be stronger men.  ~J. F. Kennedy    

The disc has grades first to senior high.  So I can use this disc over and over again for all the boys!  One investment for the rest of  our home schooling days, I like that kind of stuff!!    I got the curriculum from the Boyer's site.  I truly admire the Boyers.  They have a large family (I think 14 kiddos) and have home schooled all of them and their children have "turned out" as they have trained them.  No straying but joy to their hearts.  It can be done and there are families to look up to as examples and learn from and this in one family the Lord has brought into our lives and we're so thankful for that!  There site is thelearningparent.com

Marble Breakfast

During the school year, we started giving marbles as a reward.  I asked my friends on Facebook for suggestions on motivating students.  I especially wanted help with motivating Luke with his penmanship.  Luke is VERY busy and has a VERY short attention span!  He'd rather get the penmanship done and go outside than have his work look neat.  Well, that wasn't working for me!  So, one friend suggested putting a marble in a jar each day his penmanship is neat.  Tim also wanted to join so I gave him a marble if his work was done by noon.  He's our pokey fella (just like Jordan was at his age).  :)    All school year we've been doing this.  On some Monday's, I'd announce it was double marble day and they'd get 2.  One time I even gave 5 if they got them all correct on their spelling test.  Whoo-hooo!    The reward was going to be breakfast at Beemans.  (A local family restaurant that has a great breakfast buffet).  

Well, today was the Saturday I picked to go since I got tired of being reminded their jars were full.  Mark, Jordan, Brendan and Hunter had to go do a house's windows and then go to softball practice, so I took the youngest 5.  

We were seated at a very big round table.  As I was getting Titus seated, a couple behind us asked if they were ALL my boys.  Many things went through my head,, "Do you know how many times I'm asked that?" or "No, they're not all mine"  not a lie since ALL mine weren't with me :)  or "Do you think I'd take this many boys out if they weren't mine?"  but they seemed sincere in their interest and rather nice.  (I've gotten many snotty comments about how many we have!!!)  So, I said "Yes, but these aren't all mine, 3 more are with my husband."   "Are those boys too???" the wife asked.    I smiled and said "yes."   They commented on how well behaved they were and such nice boys. I explained how we home school and told them briefly of the marble reward.    We got our MANY plates of food (I think Luke ate 13 sausages!!!) as I could hear the couple commenting about the boys.  

After we were finally done, the waitress came over said our bill was covered and to have a good day!  That couple behind us had already left and I saw the man speaking to the waitress before he left, so I am assuming it was them.  What a wonderfully kind couple!  The boys were so impressed and pleased that someone was being so kind to us!  What a neat time and memory.  Made the sad ending of being done, nice as we were surprised by not having to pay!  

Schooling choices

I'm so thankful for the freedom to still choose in our country how we educate our children.  I pray these freedoms still remain for our boys!  

The home school catalogues are beginning to come in the mail, getting me thinking and praying about next year's school year.  Next year Jordan will be a senior, making this our 13th year of schooling!  Wow, has time flown.  I remember when we were first married and knew a little child would be joining our family, we began discussing how we were going to educate him.  Mark was really opposed to the idea of home schooling especially since he'd be teaching in a school.  After a short time of teaching, he was all for us home schooling.  Not that the school he was teaching in had anything "wrong" but he saw the flaws with class room settings.  (One child gets the lesson and has to wait for the others to "get it" and many other reasons).  So this began the long process of picking out the curriculum that we thought "best" for us.  

I guess the reasons for home schooling and philosophy of learning will influence your choice.  I've never been a quick learner and growing up, had the types of text books with the word I had to learn in bold print.  So I began cramming those words into my brain and tried to pass the tests that way.  I knew I didn't want that type of education for the boys!  I call that BORING text book learning :)    I just got cheap-o letter and number books for Jordan (and whatever my Mom passed on from schooling my sister Ruthie).  Then once Jordan learned to read, I began using Rod and Staff for his reading and math.  I tried another reading when Hunter came time to school.  For the rest after Hunter, we went back to Rod and Staff (I asked Jordan and Brendan what curriculum  they liked best and they said they learned the MOST Bible from their Rod and Staff readers so I figured that is what I needed to go back to, they both read well and are so knowledgeable in their Bible). I switched Hunter back to Rod and Staff too :)   

We now use Rod and Staff for beginning reading, spelling and phonics.  Horizons math for the elementary grades, Keys to Math for the older boys, Bob Jones  English, Alpha and Omega science and history, Explode the Code for added reading and other books supplemented in for the older grades.  This is what has worked for our family.  I have  never been a huge fan of sitting the boys in front of a video of a classroom and calling it homeschooling.  I guess that goes back to your philosophy of schooling,, example: are you home schooling because there is no Christian school available?   Mark had to monitor a video class and it drove him nuts watching the kids in his room watching the video and the ones who were getting it, sitting there wasting time while the others tried to get  it.  There's NO personal interaction either.  I love knowing that the boys reading is from ME teaching them, not a Mrs So-in-so from some video!   Now for older education, a few videos may be ok but I just haven't had a need for it yet (thank the Lord).    This, of course, is all my opinion and each family has to decide before the Lord what is best for them with their philosophy of education.  We've always tried to praise character over achievement.  Some things are just plain learning that has to be done (times tables, neat penmanship,  nouns, pronouns, etc) but with home schooling, we can work their schooling around their bend in life's interests.  I'm so thankful for this freedom we enjoy right now in our country! Christians, keep praying that it stays that way!