My husband and I visited the middle school youth group tonight. Our daughter will be eligible to begin attending this June, which in and of itself is pretty shocking, but that's another post. We are not ones to send her off to youth group just because that's the thing you do when your kids reach that age. And yes, we have checked out every group at church that she's ever participated in. Even the nursery! So at least we're consistent. We are all for fun and games, as long as there is a purpose to them and as long as that purpose fits in with our family's values.
Anyway, it was interesting! And FUN. Very high energy. There were some things I didn't really care for, one thing I strongly didn't care for, and some things that I really liked. It was insightful to see the children of friends of mine at church that I normally only see in passing, interacting with their peers.
Our middle school youth pastor told us that the middle school youth group has 3 parts to it: Wed nights which are specifically designed for kids in public schools to bring their friends to (christian or not), Sunday mornings where older students teach younger students (training the older ones in leadership), and Sunday evenings where each grade and gender can participate in a small group for Bible study and accountability. These are led by adults. We plan to visit on Wed night several more times, and also on Sunday morning. I'm not sure about the appropriateness of visiting a small group, but I have a much better idea what those are about anyway.
Honestly, while I was observing tonight I had a hard time envisioning our daughter in that setting, but it could partly be that "I can't believe my sweet innocent little girl is old enough for this already!" thing that moms go through. It would definitely be outside her comfort zone, but that is not always bad. In fact, often it is good! The 8th graders just look soooooo much older than the 6th graders. And much bigger. Yikes.
So, we are praying for wisdom and trusting the Lord to guide us. It's such a comfort to know that He loves our daughter even more than we do!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Out of Sync Day
Today was just a little "off" all day long. I struggled with balance today. And I was not a very good mom. I had to do a few MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) things this morning, then we picked our van up from the shop. Then came lunch, and occupational therapy for one of our sons. By the time we were all settled together to do school it was the middle of the afternoon. My kids thrive on routine. And today had no routine. So we all kindof floundered.
How do I demonstrate the importance of service to others without shortchanging my own family? Maybe it's more in my attitude than in my actions. I didn't have the best attitude today. Another factor is that despite the fact that homeschooling allows us to be flexible with our schedule, there is such a thing as being too flexible. Or maybe it was just my attitude again.
On the upside, we figured out a way to pay for our van repair that did not involve a credit card. God is good!
As Scarlett O'Hara would say, "tomorrow is.......another day!"
How do I demonstrate the importance of service to others without shortchanging my own family? Maybe it's more in my attitude than in my actions. I didn't have the best attitude today. Another factor is that despite the fact that homeschooling allows us to be flexible with our schedule, there is such a thing as being too flexible. Or maybe it was just my attitude again.
On the upside, we figured out a way to pay for our van repair that did not involve a credit card. God is good!
As Scarlett O'Hara would say, "tomorrow is.......another day!"
Colonial Times Unit Celebration!!
Last Friday evening we had our unit celebration to mark the end of our studies of the colonial time period. Grandma and Grandpa came over, as well as two families that are good friends of ours. We had a low-key but very fun time.
We had a display table showing some of the things we made during this unit, as well as some of the books we enjoyed reading. There were also several little items we had purchased in Jamestown/Williamsburg last September when we were there during homeschooling week. Then each of the older 4 children shared about some aspect of colonial times and then we ate some colonial desserts (two kinds of cookies made without white sugar - which was very precious in those days and used only for company - and popcorn, which the colonists learned how to make from the indians).
Here are some shots of our display table.
The harpsichord pictured here was something our daughter fell in love with while we were in Williamsburg on vacation last fall. It was the "poor man's piano" during colonial times. We secretly bought her one and saved it for a Christmas gift. While our guests were getting their dessert, our daughter serenaded everyone with lovely harpsichord music!
Our 5 year old son C talked about some of the games colonial children would play. Here he is demonstrating how to play nine pins, the forerunner of our game of bowling.
Our 7 year old son L explained the difference between the flintlock gun and the matchlock gun. He had a picture of each, and was talking about them in this picture.
Our 8 year old son G talked about houses in colonial times. He explained how the early colonists made mud daub houses (we had 4 of them on our display table, made out of shoe boxes with popsicle sticks glued along the sides, painted brown, and grass glued on top for the roofs), and then how they began using bricks. He had several pictures from our trip to Jamestown which he shared.
Our 10 year old daughter G gave a speech on "the starving time" in the Jamestown colony, the winter of 1609-1610. This represented a lot of hard work on her part, as this speech was her writing assignment for several weeks. We started with choosing a topic, then learned how to do research, then wrote out the speech, edited it, rewrote it, and practiced it. Since this was her first speech and I knew she'd be writing/giving others in the future, I gave her the option of not using notecards and instead basically memorizing the speech so that she could give good eye contact to her audience. She gladly chose this option, as the notecards seemed intimidating to her. I was really proud of her, as she was able to look up most of the time, and she even spoke with feeling! (hard for a reserved person to do in front of lots of people)
This last picture shows "pieces of eight" which we purchased in Williamsburg last fall. The colonists were not allowed (by British law) to mint their own money, so they used coins from other countries which they would cut in pieces to represent smaller denominations of money. Eventually the coins were cut into 8 pieces, which is where we get our phrase "two bits" (which equals 25 cents). Isn't that cool to know it dates back to colonial times?!
We had a great time, and have already begun our next unit which deals with the revolutionary war. We love Tapestry of Grace!
We had a display table showing some of the things we made during this unit, as well as some of the books we enjoyed reading. There were also several little items we had purchased in Jamestown/Williamsburg last September when we were there during homeschooling week. Then each of the older 4 children shared about some aspect of colonial times and then we ate some colonial desserts (two kinds of cookies made without white sugar - which was very precious in those days and used only for company - and popcorn, which the colonists learned how to make from the indians).
Here are some shots of our display table.
The harpsichord pictured here was something our daughter fell in love with while we were in Williamsburg on vacation last fall. It was the "poor man's piano" during colonial times. We secretly bought her one and saved it for a Christmas gift. While our guests were getting their dessert, our daughter serenaded everyone with lovely harpsichord music!
Our 5 year old son C talked about some of the games colonial children would play. Here he is demonstrating how to play nine pins, the forerunner of our game of bowling.
Our 7 year old son L explained the difference between the flintlock gun and the matchlock gun. He had a picture of each, and was talking about them in this picture.
Our 8 year old son G talked about houses in colonial times. He explained how the early colonists made mud daub houses (we had 4 of them on our display table, made out of shoe boxes with popsicle sticks glued along the sides, painted brown, and grass glued on top for the roofs), and then how they began using bricks. He had several pictures from our trip to Jamestown which he shared.
Our 10 year old daughter G gave a speech on "the starving time" in the Jamestown colony, the winter of 1609-1610. This represented a lot of hard work on her part, as this speech was her writing assignment for several weeks. We started with choosing a topic, then learned how to do research, then wrote out the speech, edited it, rewrote it, and practiced it. Since this was her first speech and I knew she'd be writing/giving others in the future, I gave her the option of not using notecards and instead basically memorizing the speech so that she could give good eye contact to her audience. She gladly chose this option, as the notecards seemed intimidating to her. I was really proud of her, as she was able to look up most of the time, and she even spoke with feeling! (hard for a reserved person to do in front of lots of people)
This last picture shows "pieces of eight" which we purchased in Williamsburg last fall. The colonists were not allowed (by British law) to mint their own money, so they used coins from other countries which they would cut in pieces to represent smaller denominations of money. Eventually the coins were cut into 8 pieces, which is where we get our phrase "two bits" (which equals 25 cents). Isn't that cool to know it dates back to colonial times?!
We had a great time, and have already begun our next unit which deals with the revolutionary war. We love Tapestry of Grace!Monday, January 28, 2008
I got a webkinz!!!
Our 7 year old son is totally into webkinz now. Huge. Big. He only has one (some of his friends have more than 20) but he takes it with him EVERYWHERE he goes, and loves to play the games at webkinz.com. So he decided that I would love one too, and since my birthday is coming up the end of February, he began saving his money and planning to buy me one.
Well, he couldn't wait until February. That money was just burning a hole in his pocket! So he and my hubby went out on Saturday and purchased one, and he gave it to me yesterday after church. It's a beagle dog and it's really cute! I did not discourage him from spending this money on me ($13) but instead am tickled that he wants to share his favorite thing with his mom.
I named the dog Maxi. I realized later that it sounds like a feminine product, but that was not my reason for naming it so! So if any of my friends have their own webkin also, let me know your username and I'll put you on my friends list! :-)
Well, he couldn't wait until February. That money was just burning a hole in his pocket! So he and my hubby went out on Saturday and purchased one, and he gave it to me yesterday after church. It's a beagle dog and it's really cute! I did not discourage him from spending this money on me ($13) but instead am tickled that he wants to share his favorite thing with his mom.
I named the dog Maxi. I realized later that it sounds like a feminine product, but that was not my reason for naming it so! So if any of my friends have their own webkin also, let me know your username and I'll put you on my friends list! :-)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Dare I say it??
If I say that potty training is going well, does that jinx it??
Little man stayed dry ALL DAY yesterday! Yes, even through nap. He wore the same pull-up all day and was able to just keep it on for bed. And today he was dry all afternoon and evening. I think he would've been dry all morning too except I was teaching classes at co-op and couldn't take him at the right times.
Not to mention the 45 minutes we sat on the shoulder of the highway waiting for my knight in shining armor to come rescue us when our van began smoking (no, not cigarettes) on the way to co-op this morning. That was a long wait for a little man who hadn't "gone" yet today.
So the good news is that our little man is doing GREAT with potty training so far. I am so ready for an easy one.
The bad news is that our van is in the shop and we have no idea how to pay for a repair right now. If it had happened next Friday that would have been so much more convenient. Why didn't the van ask me first???
Little man stayed dry ALL DAY yesterday! Yes, even through nap. He wore the same pull-up all day and was able to just keep it on for bed. And today he was dry all afternoon and evening. I think he would've been dry all morning too except I was teaching classes at co-op and couldn't take him at the right times.
Not to mention the 45 minutes we sat on the shoulder of the highway waiting for my knight in shining armor to come rescue us when our van began smoking (no, not cigarettes) on the way to co-op this morning. That was a long wait for a little man who hadn't "gone" yet today.
So the good news is that our little man is doing GREAT with potty training so far. I am so ready for an easy one.
The bad news is that our van is in the shop and we have no idea how to pay for a repair right now. If it had happened next Friday that would have been so much more convenient. Why didn't the van ask me first???
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Colonial Lapbooks are finished!!
The colonial lapbooks are finished! The older 3 children did a great job on them. For those of you who may not know, lapbooks are "books" made out of file folders with small fold-it booklets glued inside. Each smaller fold-it will have some specific information in it on what the children have learned on a certain topic. This has been a wonderful way for our kids to "show what they know" and for me to use as an evaluation tool as well (how much they are retaining). We typically make one or two fold-its per week and then put them all together in the file folder at the very end of each unit.
The fold-its for these lapbooks were primarily taken from the colonial lapbook CD that Knowledge Box Central sells. But we didn't use all the ones included on the CD and we made up a few of our own. We went through a few super busy weeks where we made no fold-its, so our finished products are just one full file folder in size, with half a file folder cut and taped along one side to make a large fold out page. In other words, a total of 3 pages.
It would be over-kill to show pictures of every child's lapbook, so I've included detailed photos of just our oldest child's lapbook. She is very particular in how she likes things, so she put all the fold-its in where she wanted them, even if they weren't in chronological order. :-) She is 10 years old and in the fifth grade. I required her to fill every page of every fold-it with as much information as she could fit on it. Our 8 year old had to write at least two sentences on each fold-it, and our 7 year old had to write just one. If there was more than one sentence worth of pertinent information, I did the rest of the writing for him.
Here is her cover, finished except for the coloring.
On the first page she has a colonial quilt, a map labeling the 13 colonies, a picture of a ship with the names of the 3 ships who brought the original colonists to Jamestown written on its sail, and a "who were the Puritans?" fold-it.
The fold-its for these lapbooks were primarily taken from the colonial lapbook CD that Knowledge Box Central sells. But we didn't use all the ones included on the CD and we made up a few of our own. We went through a few super busy weeks where we made no fold-its, so our finished products are just one full file folder in size, with half a file folder cut and taped along one side to make a large fold out page. In other words, a total of 3 pages.
It would be over-kill to show pictures of every child's lapbook, so I've included detailed photos of just our oldest child's lapbook. She is very particular in how she likes things, so she put all the fold-its in where she wanted them, even if they weren't in chronological order. :-) She is 10 years old and in the fifth grade. I required her to fill every page of every fold-it with as much information as she could fit on it. Our 8 year old had to write at least two sentences on each fold-it, and our 7 year old had to write just one. If there was more than one sentence worth of pertinent information, I did the rest of the writing for him.
Here is her cover, finished except for the coloring.
When you open it up, you see the flap of the extra page on the right side.
Here it is with the extra flap opened up, so you can see all 3 pages of fold-its.
On the first page she has a colonial quilt, a map labeling the 13 colonies, a picture of a ship with the names of the 3 ships who brought the original colonists to Jamestown written on its sail, and a "who were the Puritans?" fold-it.
This is the quilt fold-it, opened up.
And the map fold-it, opened up. It shows the northern colonies, middle colonies, and southern colonies in different colors.
This is the 3rd page, the extra fold out page. It has a colonial jobs matching game, and 2 of our home-made flap books, one describing each of the middle colonies and the other describing each of the southern colonies.
This is the matching game up close, with the cards showing.
And this shows two pages of her middle colonies flap book, one on New York (on the top) and the other on New Jersey (on the bottom).
Here is the middle, or second page of the lapbook. It has a fold-it on William Penn, a small fold-it telling where the first Pilgrims landed, a Pocahontas flap book, and our third home-made flapbook on the northern colonies.
Here is the Pocahontas flap book opened up. She wrote out Pocahontas's life story in the form of a cartoon strip, so there are small numbers written above the text in certain places that correspond to one of the boxed pictures on the bottom of the flap. There are 3 pages to this flap-book and each one is chock full! This was a project totally self-directed and which she loved.
And last but not least, here is a page from our 7 year old's flap-book on the southern colonies. It illustrates our rule of thumb for one sentence of his writing, and the rest written by me.
I am so glad these are DONE! They are fun to look at and are great tools for remembering all we have studied since September. They will be proudly on display at our unit celebration tomorrow!
And the map fold-it, opened up. It shows the northern colonies, middle colonies, and southern colonies in different colors.
This is the 3rd page, the extra fold out page. It has a colonial jobs matching game, and 2 of our home-made flap books, one describing each of the middle colonies and the other describing each of the southern colonies.
This is the matching game up close, with the cards showing.
And this shows two pages of her middle colonies flap book, one on New York (on the top) and the other on New Jersey (on the bottom).
Here is the middle, or second page of the lapbook. It has a fold-it on William Penn, a small fold-it telling where the first Pilgrims landed, a Pocahontas flap book, and our third home-made flapbook on the northern colonies.
Here is the Pocahontas flap book opened up. She wrote out Pocahontas's life story in the form of a cartoon strip, so there are small numbers written above the text in certain places that correspond to one of the boxed pictures on the bottom of the flap. There are 3 pages to this flap-book and each one is chock full! This was a project totally self-directed and which she loved.
And last but not least, here is a page from our 7 year old's flap-book on the southern colonies. It illustrates our rule of thumb for one sentence of his writing, and the rest written by me.
I am so glad these are DONE! They are fun to look at and are great tools for remembering all we have studied since September. They will be proudly on display at our unit celebration tomorrow! Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Good Day!
Today we finished reading the book of Mark. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment, as it is the first ENTIRE book of the Bible I have read outloud to our kids. Now just 65 to go and they will have "read" the whole Bible! Seriously, I don't think anything else we have done so far in our homeschooling journey has given me quite this sense of accomplishment and contentment. I am so thankful for God's inspiration last summer when I was wondering what Bible curriculum to use this year, to just read the Bible. Now I am praying about which book to read next.
The last few chapters of Mark, as in all the gospels, detail Jesus' arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. As I was reading in Mark 14 about Jesus' arrest, our son G was anticipating the part when Peter takes his sword and cuts off the ear of a servant of the high priest, and then Jesus puts it back on. He had heard that detail in Sunday School and kept saying to his younger brother C, "you are gonna love this part!" Well, when we got to that part, it did not say that Jesus put his ear back on. Our son G was quite mystified as to why that detail was not in there. So I had a chance to explain that all 4 gospels give an account of the same events from a slightly different perspective, so to get the big picture we really have to read them all. So we did! We read about Jesus' arrest in all 4 gospels, and we discovered that the book of John is the only place where the healing of the ear is mentioned. I was glad for this brief exposure to the idea of comparative study. It was a wonderful teachable moment!!
Here is a recent page from the older 4 kids' bible journals. I love how each one is different, yet they pull from the text the important things they want to draw. This first one shows Jesus' arrest. It is 5 year old C's journal, but is mostly drawn by me.
This image of Jesus' trial before Pilate is in 10 year old G's journal. I love her use of perspective in this picture!
The last few chapters of Mark, as in all the gospels, detail Jesus' arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. As I was reading in Mark 14 about Jesus' arrest, our son G was anticipating the part when Peter takes his sword and cuts off the ear of a servant of the high priest, and then Jesus puts it back on. He had heard that detail in Sunday School and kept saying to his younger brother C, "you are gonna love this part!" Well, when we got to that part, it did not say that Jesus put his ear back on. Our son G was quite mystified as to why that detail was not in there. So I had a chance to explain that all 4 gospels give an account of the same events from a slightly different perspective, so to get the big picture we really have to read them all. So we did! We read about Jesus' arrest in all 4 gospels, and we discovered that the book of John is the only place where the healing of the ear is mentioned. I was glad for this brief exposure to the idea of comparative study. It was a wonderful teachable moment!!
Here is a recent page from the older 4 kids' bible journals. I love how each one is different, yet they pull from the text the important things they want to draw. This first one shows Jesus' arrest. It is 5 year old C's journal, but is mostly drawn by me.
This image of Jesus' trial before Pilate is in 10 year old G's journal. I love her use of perspective in this picture!
8 year old G depicted Jesus being taken off the cross and buried by Joseph of Arimathea. You can see Joseph inside the tomb in the lower part of the picture, holding a torch. Jesus's body is wrapped in cloths and lying on a stone shelf inside the tomb. He drew rock outcroppings on the side of the hill to make it look like a skull (since Golgotha means "the place of the skull").
Finally, 7 year old L drew Jesus' resurrection just today! Here the angel is announcing to the women who have come to put spices on Jesus' body that Jesus is not here, He has risen!
I pray fervently that the truth of God's Word would take root in their hearts and minds and completely captivate them.
Finally, 7 year old L drew Jesus' resurrection just today! Here the angel is announcing to the women who have come to put spices on Jesus' body that Jesus is not here, He has risen!
I pray fervently that the truth of God's Word would take root in their hearts and minds and completely captivate them.After the momentous morning of finishing Mark, we did move on to other subjects. In history we have finished our study of colonial times and are about to move on to the Revolutionary War. Before doing that however, we are planning a unit celebration for this Friday evening. Whoo-Hooo!!! It will be a fun time of remembering what we have learned, and sharing snippets of colonial life with a few of our friends. We are so excited. Today we put the finishing touches on our colonial "lapbooks" we have been making. Each of the older 4 children tried their hand at writing with a quill pen. It's much harder than it looks. These quill pen writings were later glued inside their lapbooks and will be on display this Friday at our celebration.
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