Getting Back To Blogging/Schooling/Etc.

Funny

      It has been a while. We got tied up with the holidays & then went straight in to remodeling our house so I haven't had much time for other things. By the time I did my regular household duties, home schooled, & helped with the remodeling not much time was left before I was hunting my bed. We are still not finished with the remodeling, but have slown our pace a bit. It has been very tiresome, but I know I will be so happy in the end. I am already enjoying my new bedroom with a new bedroom suit, (the first new one since we've been married, almost 14 years, yea!).
     As for our schooling we have been studying the Hydrosphere in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science. It has been great! The experiments in the book bring so much enlightment in to our studies. They make things just come to life in our Science class. My daughter doesn't like Science very much, but is doing exceptional in it this year & is enjoying it. That's a plus for Apologia.
     We had made us a Literature list at the beginning of the school year so this month we chose Little Men by Louisa May Alcott to read. We are not on track, a bit behind, but we are trudging along in it. Great book!
     Definitely the curriculum is not running us or setting our pace because we are running quite a bit behind on our Saxon 8/7 math. Not that we don't like it or that the children can't do it, just making us pick up the book and working it is the problem. We would much rather be reading something so why bother with a math book. Help us Lord?
     In the past we haven't done a lot of studying on the government so we are working in a couple of books about the Congress, presidents, & the fifty states. I found a book at our local library titled The U. S. Congress by Don Nardo. The book goes back & shows how most of the government branches dirived from the Greeks, which is pulling in our Ancient History. My children are finding out that the Greeks seemed to have been very intelligent. Other than this one book we are reading, the others are just some fun filled fact books with different puzzles, stories, etc. in them. Enough in them to lay a good foundation to a government study. If any of you have used any great studies dealing with this, I am open to suggestions.
     I have to admit, we haven't done a lot of writing lately other than writing our Science lab reports so our Grammar/English has been put on hold.
     As for our house cleaning, we have been keeping up with all of the routines we were trying to establish, like doing the dishes daily, folding & putting all clothes away as soon as they are finished drying, & are now working on the habit of making beds and sweeping the floors on a daily basis. I am still swishing the bathroom from time to time when I go in to take my shower. This seems to be working great keeping the bath facilities decent. Over all the house is remaining presentable should company show up unexpected.
     I think this about brings us up to date so I can get back to blogging. Hope all of you have been having a wonderful time in your home schooling. I plan to get around to your blogs soon to read them.
Also I am going to have another blog give away. Drop back over and check it out. Linking up with the HMJ.

Is It Christmas Break Already?

Are we suppose to be schooling this week? It's almost as if our Christmas break has already begun. We've been doing some reading & handy crafts. Is that schooling? I hope so because that is all this family has been doing so far this week. Maybe we'll decide we need to do more before Friday, he he he.
I'm working on an afgaan. I am hoping to finish it before Christmas. I will put a pic of it in my Weekly Wrap Up on Friday.
As for my house work this week, I am wanting to get my kitchen cabnets pulled out, wiped down & reorganized. If this is going to happen I am going to have to get these old bones moving.
Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Happy Home Schooling!

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!

Accomplishing House Cleaning Lists

I had several things I wanted to accomplish today, but forgot that I was to have my two little darling nephews who are 2 & 4. When they are here most of my time is devoted to them, especially the two year old. He is learning to talk & he wants to talk to Aunt Traci.
I had plans to dust the top's of the fridge and freezer, clean off my bar, dust the top of the bread box, cover my door so I can put my Wreath up (that I haven't gotten up), & wash the bed covers for all beds. I managed to get the bed covers done & the top of the fridge. My motto is, "Some is better than none," so I'm thankful that something was accomplished. I'll pick back up on my list tomorrow.
As for our schooling, we have been doing lots of reading. Not much of anything else. Just discussing what we have read. Oh, & they have been working out of a new drawing book that we found at the thrift store on Friday. They also worked on addressing some Christmas cards for me today.
Hope all of you are enjoying your Christmas season, we are.

We Did It!

  In the midst of having a sick Mamma we still met our goal. The tree was decorated & the lights were put on the house by Tuesday evening, along with all the presents wrapped. This is a record set. I've never had  my house in this much order that I could just sit back & enjoy the holidays listening to Christmas music, reading great books, spending fun time with my children, etc. The holidays have always been hectic. I'm talking there has been a time in the past when I did not even get my tree up until about 3 or 4 days before Christmas. If it had not been for my small children I would not have even put the thing up.
    At the beginning of this year I began disciplining my self with certain household chores like not being able to use the dryer until the clothes that were in it was folded, hanged, & put away, kitchen has to be cleaned before bed time, rinse the tub before or after I get in or out of it, tidy the bathroom counter & rinse the sink when brushing my teeth, swish the toilet after using it once or twice during the week, making my bed as soon as I get out of it so it is not tempting me to get back in it (ocasionally I have failed to do this one, but I'm still working on it) even have the children doing their beds (not always made up perfect, but looks better than just a wad of cover on the bed), etc. Just little things like this has caused my house to stay in a very managable state & has kept my house half way presentable should company show up unexpected. It also helped me feel like I wasn't having to clean all the time because I was doing all of these things randomly. Thanks to this discipline I did not have to stop & clean before I could get my Christmas things out. I'm so excited about the holidays & spending time with my children! Hope all of you are enjoying your family this holiday season.
  On another note, any Christmas book suggestions for my children & I. This will be the bulk of our schooling between now & the first of the year. We like all of them, children or chapter.

Being Thankful and Getting Ready For Spring Break

   We did it! Or, I should say they did it! The results to the S. A. T. came in yesterday, something I've been extremely nervous about. But thank the Lord we can all relax now. My children did exceptionally well. They scored a bit lower than I thought they would in Math, but other than that, for their ages, they aced the test, yea! Right on track with everything, or ABOVE. Just have to work on the Math a little more.
   I was so nervous because we haven't had any formal English lessons since my children were 7 &8 years old. They had some grammar before we discovered the Charlotte Mason style of education. They will be 11 & 12 this year and scored right at an eighth grade level or higher in all subjects, except Math. It was around the sixth grade level so I am over joyed.
   My children are off to the beach on Monday with their aunt for spring break. After receiving our test results and seeing how well they did on them, I'd say that they well deserve their spring break trip.
I used this statement in my last post, "The proof is in the pudding." Our pudding sure was sweet when we received our test results. Charlotte Mason's method proved out for our family.
   We have three more weeks of our school year left when they return. Surprisingly, we have almost finished up everything I had wanted to do before the end of the year. I didn't think we were going to get anywhere near what I wanted done accomplished. But, my children worked very hard and are almost finished with it all. (Of course, they had an incentive to urge them forward, the beach.)
   While they are gone to the beach next week dad & mom have some wonderful quality time together, hurray! I'm not sure how exciting my dear hubby is going to think it is when we are organizing my library, and I do mean library. We have dropped in our local thrift store so many times just to SEE what books they might have. All of those drop ins have developed in to a library. We have found some treasures though, if I do say so myself.
   Organizing my books and cleaning my closet area is how we plan to spend our quality time together next week. Hope my sweetheart is up for it.

Weekly Rap Up

Our week was thrown off coarse a bit, but we still accomplished much. Let's see, my daughter reinforced her home management skills by rearranging her bedroom and cleaning it, washed, dried, and put away her clothes,and served us breakfast two mornings. One morning she cooked us some delicious strawberry cheesecake muffins and another morning she cooked and served us with tasty blueberry muffins. (Wonderful job Sarah Grace) My son also rearranged his room and cleaned it and washed, dried, and put away his clothes. (Washing their clothes is not part of their normal chores, but I do require them to do this every now and then to be sure that they could do it if in a place that they would have to.) We did two math lessons, two Simply Grammar lessons, a Proof Reading and Editing lesson,read from The Bronze Bow and The Greatest Story Ever Told, began a nature essay using our cameras to capture the nature photos that will be in the essay, did four geography lessons, worked on two Physics lessons, and for our grand finale we read, narrated, and rewrote our own version of The Three Little Pigs.
I feel like we had a productive week. I plan to put my children's Three Little Pigs stories on my blog one day next week, Lord's willing. Other than a park day with our local home school group, I think that was our week.
It's late and I have church in the morning so I'll post more later. Until next time, Happy homeschooling.

Our House

     Our house has a new look. We did some deep cleaning last week. It looks so good now. I have been enjoying the wonderful feeling of the neatness. I don't know how to explain it, just the joy of knowing that we did do the deep cleaning makes everything feel so refreshing. Maybe it's all in my head. What ever it is, I have been so much more relaxed.
     We scrubbed base boards, closets, some walls, cabnets, etc. How nice it feels.
     Needless to say, schooling was slow, other than home management skills. We did an occasional math lesson or some reading, but our main focus was our house. Just one more room to go and the entire house will be decluttered. I'm so excited! This has been a goal that I have desired for a while and it is finally coming to pass, thanks be to God. I have wanted my home to be in the place to where we could spend about 30 minutes or maybe an hour in the morning and we are totally clean again. Then we can focus on our schooling without having to wonder how we are going to fit it all in the day.
     In the midst of this cleaning, we have also just about logged all of our books on the computer and shelved them so that our home library is taking shape. We now will know what we have to work with and what we don't have. Oh, how great things are looking. Did I say how excited I am, oh, I did didn't I. I just can't help myself. I am bubbling over.
     I suppose I had better let this joy bubble over some more later before this post becomes extremely long. I'll give more updates later. Hope everyone has been having a wonderful time homeschooling your children. Let's count our blessings again for that freedom, praise God. Happy homeschooling, Traci

Too Much Animal Science Can Be Embarrassing

     Today we had a busy day. First was dental appointments. Second to the library. And last was to purchase school supplies. Over all, it was a lovely day.

     While we were at the library my DC pulled poetry books from the shelf and copied a poem in their Copy Work composition books. This was their first Copy Work for the new year. They did their Copy Work page a bit different than we did them last year. Last year we just copied them on regular notebook paper or printed us some notebooking pages with pretty pictures on them. Today they chose to do their own art work on the page. We had bought them some colored gel pens so they wanted to try their hands in pen and ink drawing. I was so proud of their work. It really was good. Our Copy Work books will be very personalized this year if they keep this up.

     O.K. now for my title. While we were out shopping for supplies my DD decides she has to go to the restroom. I don't know that she decides this. So I ask my DS where she was. (Let me remind you, we are in a store where there are people within hearing distance.) And this was my DS's answer to my question. "She had to go scat." I immediately told him to hush, hoping no one had heard him. At some point and time in the midst of this my DD had walked back up and just fell right in the conversation by saying, "Don't worry Mama, I didn't leave any tracks." I knew then we had studied tracking animals just a little too much because I could have crawled under something. I can only imagine what others thought if they heard them. We joke around all the time at home about things we have learned, but that was not the time nor the place. I guess I should look on the bright side of things, they are definitely learning, many things.

More excitement or embarrassment later, Traci