Working Through the Summer

     We finally picked our books back up this week. After a long break from books we are now back on track. We haven't jumped full fledge back in to our books, but we did get some Bible lessons done, along with some reading in our Library Read Aloud, and Literature.
      We are only in to  the third chapter in our Literature of "A Tale of Two Cities" but both children appear to be enjoying it. Earlier this year my daughter was not too fond of the Literature selections brother had chosen so we didn't finish the selection. I think this one will be a go.
     They also worked on their biographical book reports on Charles Dickens this week. Daughter finished hers, but brother still has about one more day of work. Beings daughter wasn't too fond of "The Iliad" we began just reading books about Charles Dickens or by him and turned our Literature in to a study of his life. Maybe next week we can pull in some more of our subjects.
     They both left last night going to a youth service about 4 hours away and will be gone the entire weekend. Happy for time alone with my hubby, but will sure miss my little darlings. That sounds so funny calling them that when one is about to be 14 and the other one 13. Oh well, they will always be my babies.
     I am working on losing weight again and so far it is coming along real well. I weigh in tomorrow for the third week of weighing in.
     Next week my daughter and I are going to sit down and write out her Home Economics requirements  for next year. She will check off each item on the list as it is completed and when all items have been done then she will receive her credit for Home Ec.
     Currently, I am reading lots of books on different diets, grasping nuggets from different one's. So far the one about the three hour diet is probably my favorite. I know that is the one I have been using for an outline of my daily intake and I am losing weight so that gives it a plus for me. I have also gotten encouragement from "The Biggest Loser Ever" diet book.
     I think this about wraps up our week. Not much more is going on around here. Hope all of you are having a great week and have a wonderful weekend.
     Check out some more great blogs over at Weird Unsocialized's weekly wrap up.

Season of Busyness

    This time of the year is so busy, family celebrations, church gathering activities, etc. I promised myself I was going to keep up my blog though. So here is another brief update on our happenings.
     Last week we had program practice getting ready for our Christmas program at church, which was this morning. My children and I were in the program. It turned out great. Sorry to say I did not get any pics.
     tomorrow we have to finish wrapping our gifts. With all that is going on I am tremendously behind on wrapping gifts. As a matter of fact, I don't have not one gift under my tree yet. I've got to get busy. I have wrapped some other gifts that we put under my M-I-L's tree, but not any for mine.
     This coming Friday will begin our Christmas celebrations with our family. I'm excited! My mom has a family gathering with her brothers/sister/their children(her nieces & nephews/and all the great nieces and nephews, about 73 in all. We have chili and shrimp gumbo as the main feast and everyone else brings their favorite dish/Christmas candy. Everyone looks forward to this event. We all get excited, but this one event makes my mom's year. She likes having the entire family together. I have a cousin that has already let us know that her family is not going to get to come in for Christmas (husband is in the military stationed in Kansas) so I know for weeks we will here how she wished Abbie & her family could have been there. It just wasn't right without everyone. If one member misses the event my mom says it just wasn't Christmas. I know that is only because we have always had a very close family and I am so thankful for that. We may not see each other much during the year, but that night you would not be able to tell it. Everyone carry's on as if we were around each other all the time.
     Friday night is just the beginning of our weekend. Saturday will be with another family get together with my great aunt, Sunday will be Christmas with the church, caroling afterwards to our Sr. citizens and the shut-in, Monday morning breakfast at my moms, and Tuesday dinner at my M-I-L's. Busy, busy, busy!
     Hope all of you have some great plans lined up. More later. Happy Homeschooling!

Teen in the House?

      I officially have a teenager in my home now. My daughter turned 13 on Oct. 19th. I just can't hardly believe it. It seems like only yesterday when I recieved her in to this world. She was a beautiful bundle of joy that lit up my life. Time is traveling too fast for me. She is growing up entirely too quick.

      Anyway, let me get on with the rest of this post before I get all teary eyed thinking about my baby growing up. We feel like a child's 13th birthday is a special time in life so we wanted to make her's special for her. We had her a huge party. She chose all of the decorations, ordered them off line, sent out her own invitations, decorated the way she wanted, and decided to make her own cake. There were lots of guests & plenty of food for them all. She went with a horse theme. Here are some pics of preparation & the party.

Sarah's using her cake decorating kit that someone gave her. This was her first cake to decorate and she would not let us help her. We didn't know if she could handle this task by herself, but she had a lot of determination.

Getting closer to finishing her work of art as she runs a bead of icing around the bottom of the cake.

Everything finished but the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH" theme which she decided to let her aunt (a cake decorator) put the theme on the river for her.

My daugther is growing taller than me. We are at the end of the big "13th birthday" party blowout and I'm tired!

Weekly Wrap Up Week 3

     In Our Life This Week: things are about to get caught up from all of the side-tracking that was pitched to us. My children are really working hard on their school work this year, even my reluctant son. Both of them finished their week's work, along with the three days work we missed last week. That's a wa hoo! around here. For those of you that might not be familiar with a wa hoo, that is a thumbs up.

     In Our Homeschooling: Both finished their Saxon Algebra 1/2 lessons. My son does 2 lessons a week & my daughter does 3per week.

Matthew at his desk working on Saxon Algebra 1/2.

     We finished up Module 9 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science on An Introduction of Acceleration. We have felt like detectives in this module trying to determine the speed of different things. Then when we would add velocity (speed & direction) it would seem like a crime scene trying to determine who was going what direction & what speed each person was traveling, we've had a time investigating.

Module 9 experiment: Matthew standing on a step ladder & dropping a ball to be timed with a stopwatch so they can determine the distance from the ceiling to the floor.

     For Literature, we are moving right along in Oliver Twist. Maybe I can get a pic or two of a portion of their outlines to show how well they have picked up on an outline.

     Spelling/Vocabulary went well, except for the day my son informed me that he did not know some of the words I had given him. I laughed and said, "I don't want to give you words you already know. I want your mind to grow & feast on some new words." He did his work, but I don't really believe he like Mommy's answer.

     We began a new book this weekfor our Bible study, that I obtained the title from another HS Mom's list of curriculum, of which I am so greatful, thanks.

     We feel like we are going to enjoy this book. This first week has been slow about getting us into the scriptures, but it looks like next weeks lessons are going to have us digging.

     We only did one Shurley English lesson this week, but we also participated in an online English class through Alpha Omega so that gave us two English lessons for our week. It was our first time participating in one of their online lessons and my children really enjoyed it. They are doing a free class every two weeks on Thursdays, every other week until Dec. Today's lesson was for 7th to 12 grade on clauses and phrases. The next lesson is suppose to be on nouns for elementary grades. The teacher talks, gives examples of sentences. goes over the parts with the children, & then gives a sentence or gets your child to type in a sentence with certain requirements that the teacher has given. If a child puts a sentence on there that does not meet the requirements the teacher goes over it in a very nice way without bringing any kind of shame to the child to show everyone what should have been done. The teacher just uses that sentence for teaching. The class lasts 30 minutes. Although it did go over today about 5 or 10 minutes.

     As for our History this week, we chose not to open a book. We wanted to catch up from last week so we left history off so we wouldn't be so pushed.

     Growth Moments: Mommy has had a couple of sad moments this week. My children's entire school years I have worked on getting them to an independent study level. My daughter has obviously reached that point. She has asked for very little help from me this week (sniff, sniff, my baby's growing up, sniff, sniff). I did not realize how I would feel when they did become independent (sniff, sniff, she's only in the 8th grade, doesn't she need me, sniff, sniff). Here's a pic of Ms. Independent working without Mom, not needing Mom, Mom trying to offer help, but not being accepted;

Sarah working independantly.

Sarah sitting on couch and in deep thought over her schoolwork.

     Pre School Years: Here are some pics of my dear sweet little nephew working on his "cool work" as he calls it:

Daniel's "O, C, L." Not bad for his age. He loves to have school on our dry erase board.

Here he is playing & constructing with giant Lego blocks. His Uncle E had to help him build a big garage for his trucks & cars.

Daniel is studing real hard at the piece in his hand. "Hmmmm, what should I do with it?"

Daniel with a well deserved piece of chicken for a good student. Yum, yum!

     He never puts an "S" on any words that he says with "S". We have to drink milk hakes around hear. And one day they even had to have a herry on them. He can now say cherry. Although, the first time he asked for a herry I had to call his Mom and aske her what he wanted on his milk hake.

     I think that about wraps our week all except for the Park Day we will have tomorrow with our homeschool group.

     Linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up. Happy Homeschooling Everyone.

Weekly Wrap-Up2012, 2013 Week 1 Weekly Wrap Up

     Time and duties just don't always work together. I have been wanting to put a post on my blog, but time has not permitted due to the duties I have had getting school supplies ready to pass out at our church tomorrow (give or take, about 100 bags), home schooling, family life duties, etc. Hopefully, this week things will begin to slow their pace a bit and return to normal, if there is a norm for home schooling life, hehehe.
     Even with my home being bombarded with school supplies on my kitchen table, on my couch, in my living room floor, and all over my bedroom, we have really accomplished a lot this week. My daughter did one Shurley 'English lesson & three Saxon Algebra 1/2 math lessons. My son did two Shurley English lessons & two Saxon Algebra 1/2 math lessons. All other subjects were worked together, four Literature reading settings from Oliver Twist, along with working on outlines with the reading, four Appologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science lessons, two History/Bible lessons coming from The Complete Works of Josephus and the book of Genesis, our daily Spelling exercise, & American Sign Language on Friday. It was a great week to begin our school year. One week down and 35 more to go for the year.
     Here are some pics of our week: (Oh I forgot, I also had three extra children this week, a niece & two nephews) so it really was a productive week because I also had to come up with some lessons for my nephews, who always has to do schooling when they are here and see my children working on school.

Pre-preschool for my sweet little nephews. They are gluing pasta noodles to paper to make the letter "H" after reading the Cats and Hats book.

Boys with their hats on & showing their schoolwork, "H" is for hat!

Matthew at his desk working on his Saxon Math.

Fun time! It's time for experiment 9.1 (the importance of direction) from Apologia.

Getting everything setup for our experiment. Always follow the instructions to get the best results & less mess.

Two eggs traveling one behind the other and touch at the bottom of the ramp when the first eggs speed reduced when it contacted the level surface. Miminal damage is done when the second egg still rolling full speed, taps the first egg with it's decelerated speed. Then we built two ramps facing each other and let an egg roll from both ramps at the same time, not a pretty sight! What a fun way to learn about "speed & velocity!"

Matthew gluing pictures of animals to show some of  "Gods creations" that were named by Adam.

Sarah's great artwork, showing God's handiwork to keep Adam very busy by naming many, many animals.

This is both childrens mini-creation posters.

     That our Weekly Wrap-Up! Now go to Kris's blog to see some more great homeschooling weeks around the world!

Traci

Weekly Wrap-Up "IYC"

Weekly Wrap-Up

International Youth Conference

We just got back from the "IYC" at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries in Baton Rouge, LA. We watch Jimmy Swaggart at "SonLife Broadcasting Network" on the internet.
    The four of us worked hard to prepare for our week long trip. We mowed grass, cleaned house, cleaned & did prevented maintenance on our van.

Teaching our children how to maintain our vehicle by checking all of the fluid levels.

Getting ready for our IYC week!

Our children before church with their IYC choir shirts on.

There was at least 1,200 youth here from all over the USA & beyond.

They even let us "recycled teenagers" come!

The annointed singing was great & the altars were full each night!

Sarah's waiting on us slowpokes while walking from the workshops.

The IYC Youth Choir ready to make a joyful noise.

No that's not red ants up in the choir loft. This place is huge. The balcony is just as big.

Youth praying for one another. Several groups of young people were all around the altars. There were several still praying when we left.

This was a special trip for us being it is our anniversary this week! We met so many people there & some were homeschoolers. Morning service, two workshops and an evening service were very hectic and tiresome because you didn't have much time to go to the hotel or town and eat between the workshops and the services.

    Jimmy Swaggart Ministries did a fantastic job and have a great burden for youth and the lost. Also there is a great Bible College here. Can't wait till next yeat for IYC 2013!

    That's it for our week, Traci.

Waiting For Dates Now

I've been working on our school plans for next year most of the week. I haven't had much interruption beings my children are at my M-I-L's for Bible School this week. The plans are done and we are just waiting for the date to start them. We don't officially begin school until August 6.
  We have plans to go to IYC (International Youth Camp) at Jimmy Swaggart ministries next week. We will not be back home until July 30 so I figured we'd just take the other few days off beings we are going on a field trip on that Friday any way. I like to have full weeks if I can.
    This about sums up my week, other than me getting to have my dear sweet hubby to MYSELF all week. It has been great! Our anniversary is next Tuesday so this week was like a honeymoon. 14 years and we are still in love. He's still my best friend and the love of my life, and the one that I like to spend all my time with. If he's not there, I'm lost.
    Hope everyone is having a great summer.

Weekly Wrap UP

     In Our Life This Week: We/the children have had a blast. We had cousins over from Friday until Tuesday evening. The cousins were out of Public school Mon. & Tues. & thought it was time to come spend some time with us. A lot of basketball was played, along with jumping on the the trampoline, to just getting out in nature. All of them enjoyed each other's company.

     We also still have the puppy. My nephew is suppose to pick him up tomorrow. I think we might miss the little fellow.

Here are a few pics of the children having a great time:

     I managed to get to my lesson plans on Wednesday. That means two days will be pushed forward because we only schooled three days this week. Well, I say that two days will get pushed forward, actually, my children have done some of the work off of those two days, just not all of it.

     Our Schooling for the Week: Saxon 8/7, three lessons this week, yea. We also pretended like we went shopping at the store (even though it was just in our pantry/freezer) to reinforce what we were learning in our math book, Unit Price, Rate, & Sales Tax. Here's a couple of pics of our pretend shopping trip.

 

     I gave each child a certain amount of money to purchase their items with. My daughter was surprised when she reached the register and was $ 3.67 short of what she needed to pay for her items.
It was rather funny. She just went to the pantry and began to grab, not figuring. I told her that is why you always figure your bill BEFORE you go to the register. She immediately decided the dogs would not eat this week, or at least not dog food, so she returned the dog food back to the shelf so she would have enough of money. Lesson learned, learning to figure Unit Prices, Rates, & Sales Taxes in our math is something I will need in life.

     Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science: We began Module 7, Factors That Affect Earth's Weather. We began the weather experiment & will be doing our observation of the weather for the next four weeks. Also, we watched some weather videos. I'll put a link to the web site in case any of you need a site that has lots of videos to use for school. It has videos for all subjects.

     History: still reading The Summer of 1787, wondering if we may toss it. Had good reviews given to us on this book, but we just can't seem to get into this book. We are about to be on chapter 6 & still just haven't took a liking to it. Usually, by the time we are this far in a book we are captivated or at least interested enough to talk about it & discuss it. But not much talk has been going on about it. We are finishing up If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution by Elizabeth Levy today.
English/Literature: Yea! we did English this week. The children wrote their book reports on Little Men. We have decided that our next Literature selection will be Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. This is a book that we wanted to read so we decided that we would read it while we are studying the Constitution so we would be along the same time frame.

     Helpful Home School Tip/Resource: the link where we have been watching videos from, http://www.watchknowlearn.org/ There are a few videos that we have clicked on that would request payment, but many, many, many that we have enjoyed are free. Videos for all subjects. Check it out if you like integrating videos in with your schooling. I'm talking a few thousand videos.

What I'm Reading: rereading Things We Wish We'd Known by Diana Waring.

     My Most Favorite Thing This Week: watching my children battle out a debate in our Science over when the northern hemisphere is at its Aphelion point or Perihelion point. This was my favorite thing because remember my daughter has not been a Science fan until this year. After the debate, I would say she's on the Science wagon now. Even though one of them was wrong, I am proud of both of them because of the way they both were trying to prove their points.

     I think this about wraps up our week. I'm linking up with the HMJ & the Weekly Wrap UP..
If you'd like to read about some more great weeks, drop over to one of them & visit some more great blogs.

Losing School Time, But Gaining Relationships

How good is this? I sit & make lesson plans on Saturday when all the rain is going on, all excited for school today & what do you know, we don't even have school today.
Cousins came Friday to spend the weekend with us, Mom was to pick them up on Sunday, & come Sunday they decide to stay until Tuesday beings they are out of school. That being the case, I knew I would not get much schooling out of my children. So, instead of fighting, I joined the party. They have been having a blast. From playing basketball, to jumping on the trampoline, to riding bikes, running & playing in the field of green grass, to hiking in the woods, oh, & how could I forget, to baking brownies, they have been enjoying each other's company. Family is great!
Beings they will still be here tomorrow, I suppose there will be no school around here then either. Hope all of you are having a nice school week.

Weekly Wrap Up

    In My Life This Week: We've had the norm of a week, not anything spectacular. School work was done, house was cleaned, cooked, & took care of pets.
    We did have one extra pet this week. My nephew had a sick puppy that he brought over for us to take care of while he was at school & work. All of the dog training & puppy taking care of skills that we studied a while back were put in to action. This little guy was a sick pup when he was brought to us. He's doing great now. Here's a pic of the little fellow.

    I did have one accomplishment this week. I finished an afghan this week.

    I should have already finished it, but I just haven't worked on it. I enjoy crocheting. That is my pass time while I am sitting with the children while they work on some of their school work. I crochet while they are working a math problem, answer a question in their Science, etc. I'm not just sitting idle.
House Work/De Clutter: Normal house work, laundry, dishes, bathroom, made beds, floors, & then did some dusting and cleaned my entire desk. My desk was much in the need for some attention. It looks great now.
    Home Schooling For the Week: We finished Module 6 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science on the Lithosphere. I really wanted to study a little more on the earth's magnetic field, but haven't found any books yet to take it in to a deeper study. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
    There are a couple of experiments we have skipped in the past 2 Modules. I think we are going to take an experiment day & just do all of them.
    Saxon 8/7 has been a breeze this week. There were several lessons on division & decimals so we were able to just move right through them. My children love working with decimals. So math was not a subject I had to beg & plead with this week.
    Our great Literature read comes to an end. We finished up Little Men this week. My children have enjoyed this book so much. I suppose it was due to the character Jo, they felt like they knew her already from Little Women. They did find some favorite characters in this book also. That's one of the great privileges of reading great Literature, you feel like you know the characters by the time you reach the end of the book. In some way you just feel connected to them in the end.
    Still no English. Oh, I've got to get with the program.
    For our History this week we have been reading a library book titled If You Were there When They Signed The Constitution by Elizabeth Levy. We have also been reading another library book titled The Summer of 1787, which we will be reading for the next few weeks.
    In reading these books we've been learning why the Articles of Confederation would not work for a permanent government, causing the Constitution to be written. We also learned that people think that Shay's Rebellion had something to do with the writing of the constitution.
    Shay's Rebellion was new to my children. We have not studied this in the past.
Here's a few links to some videos we watched this week on the Articles of Confederation & the Constitution;
     The Background of United States Constitution
     The Articles of Confederation
      Benjamin Franklin Biography
     John Hanson Our First President
     The Articles of Confederation 1781

    What I'm Cooking: We are trying a recipe from another home school mom that we ran across this week, Taco Chicken. I'll let you all know how we like it. Probably will be a big hit with my family. My bunch loves some Mexican foods, also Italian.
    Helpful Hint for the Week: REMEMBER, we don't have to finish the entire book in one year & we can pick & choose what we want our students to learn. We are the teacher. The Curriculum should never be the driver. So, beings we are the driver, we can choose the speed we travel.
    Goals for Next Week: Hope to get my kitchen cabinets pulled out & shop-vac. I like to do this to keep my cabinets organized.
    Pic/Video: Just a quick pic of one of my Valentine cards I received. I think it is so pretty. My hubby knows I like butterflies so this card was perfect.

    I suppose this will about wrap us up for the week. To read about more great weeks drop over to the HMJ & Weekly Wrap Up to read some other great blogs.

The Value of Marriage

    Valentine's Day is next week. What is Valentine's Day? Who is Valentine's Day for? Most people connect Valentine's Day with the four letter word, "LOVE." Then they say it is for sweethearts. I say this year let's us homeschool moms say it is for married couples, showing that marriage is a good thing. Let's promote making marriage stronger & showing that it is a commitment by making a special week for your spouse, showinbg your children that marriage is a commitment & you have to keep working at it on a daily basis to keep true to the vows that we've taken. I intend on doing this by doing something special for my husband every day this week. I want my children to know that marriage is a special thing between two people that love each other, a role that is not to be taken lightly, that marriage vows are made for the good times & the bad times. I also want my children to know that spouses should always consider the other spouse special and hold them in high respect.
    Today most people revolve their family life around the children. Everything has to be planned/scheduled around the children's lives/schedules. That was not God's plan. He put marriage first & that is what should come first in a home. As I home school my children I plan to instill this in my children, "Your marriage relationship is the most important thing in keeping your family running in the right direction."
    I read this over in an article about marriage & I like it, "What I tell couples is simple: put your marriage first, and your children second. Make your marriage the sun, and think of your children as the planets that revolve around you, benefiting from your love and the solidity and strength of your relationship." This was written by Marty Friedman. To read his full article click on the title: Becoming Marriage Warriors. I think more couples should get back to God's original plan of a family & line up with God's plan, God, marriage, & then children.
    If we take the time to put some effort in to our marriage all it can do is strengthen it & in the mean time show our children the importance of making marriage work in a world that makes it too easy to let your marriage go.
    Let your children see this week how special daddy is to mommy this week. Do some little gestures/gifts in honor of your love & devotion to him.
Go for it!

Reading Our Way Through The Season

In My Life This Week:
     I managed to get all of the things on my list done for house cleaning. My hubby dusted the top of the fridge & freezer, cleaned off my bar, & the top of the bread box. I washed all of the bed covers, along with keeping my clothes washed, dried, & folded, & the dishes done every day. Oh, between my hubby, my son & I, we also got my front door covered so we could put the wreath up.
     Our Christmas program at church was yesterday. This year our church chose not to go with the Christmas story (Nativity). We dedicated our program to our Senior Citizens this year & titled it Please Don't Throw Us Away? It was great! We did it with an old poarch scene with several of our Senior citizens sitting on it just talking. They went in to how the government wants to get rid of our elders, how the new generations need the elders to teach them the old paths of prayer & trusting God, oh, it was just great. Then our angels came out & sang Christmas carols. It was simple, but good.

In Our Home School This Week:
     We are still reading through The Secrets of Vesuvius for history. For Literature we finished the version of Robinson Crusoe that we were reading. We have another version in the Great Illustrated Classics so now my children want to read it & do a comparison. The Great Illustrated Classic version looks like it may go in to more detail than the first version we read.

     I'm a firm believer that the more my children read the better their spelling will be. With that in mind we are concentrating on quite a bit of reading during this season. We read two short books this week titled: A Very Marley Christmas by John Grogan & The Miracle Tree by Christobel Mattingley. We also started a Hank The Cow Dog book titled: The Wounded Buzzard On Christmas Eve. My children love reading these books. They always bring lots of laughter into our home.

     No math or English was accomplished this week other than their own writing & counting their own money when shopping.

     That's good though. Life skills have to be learned. We have also been using The Power of a Christmas Prayer to lead us in our family devotions each day & to study the birth of Jesus.

Helpful Home School Tip Of the Week Or Advice:
     Don't stress yourself out during this season over all of the fast living. Accomplish what you can & enjoy the season, especially your family.

My Favorite Thing This Week:
    Was when we saw the power of God come down in our church service & my friend got healed. It was marvelous.

What I'm Reading:
     I finished the first book of the Thomas Kinkade series, Cape Light Novel, I was reading & have started the second one, Home Song.

     I think that about wraps up our week If there is more my mind just isn't thinking of it right now. For more great weeks drop over to the HMJ & check out the fellow bloggers that have joined up. I know you will be blessed by reading about their weeks.
Everyone have a wonderful week!