I need to schedule the boys’ end of year testing, but this is all I can think of tonight……..
I think I will wait on scheduling testing until April……..
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This is a picture of Ben from last summer. It is one of my favorite pics of him. I was standing away from him trying to take his picture, and he decided to aim right at me.
OOPS! Not the squirrel.
Here are their “scared” faces recently at the Catawba Science Center.
Remember the old nursery rhyme,
“A diller, a dollar, a ten-o’clock scholar……..”
Here are 4 of my ten-o’clock scholars:
This school year I have 5 boys in our homeschool. I have an 11th grader, 7th grader, 5th grader, 3rd grader, and kindergartner. The high schooler is on his own track in his lessons. He is doing world history, chemistry, consumer math, language arts, and some electives tailored for him. The middle schooler is doing Saxon math 8/7, langauge arts, Mystery of History Volume 2, The Rainbow Science (physics and chemistry), and other fun stuff. The 5th grader, 3rd grader, and kindergartner are using Considering God’s Creation and following along with their older brother in the Mystery of History. Each of them has the correct grade level equivalent in Saxon math and language arts. We also participate in a weekly co-op and do field trips when we get a chance. Here are a few of our favorite chemistry pics:
Have you ever felt like you lived a lifetime in a short amount of time? That is how I feel my life has been since my last blog post. Since my last post, both of my in laws have gone to their heavenly home. My daughter graduated college. My baby started kindergarten in our homeschool. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree. Maybe now it’s time to start blogging regularly again.
It’s good to be back.
Since this blog is about our life as a whole and not just our homeschool experience, I am takin a little detour from the education posts today. You may or may not know that our family has suffered tremendous loss in the past few years. It has been a very difficult time for us to say the least. The grief has effected every area of our lives. Most especially my writing has been very difficult to sit down and just do. In some ways, I do not want to be so raw and negative as I have worked through my grief. I also did not want to open myself to unkind comments, since I have had a few “virtual” non-friends who made life difficult for me to share any deep feelings.
Since January of this year, we have been dealing with health crisis (plural) with both of my in laws. This has been on the heals of losing many more family members for us. It has been a blessing for us to help my in laws, and it has also been emotionally draining for us. We are still working together through our grief as a family. The children have processed their grief in different ways. Our 6-yr-old (who will be 7 tomorrow!) has a favorite song that we sing at church. It’s called, “I’ll Live Again.” You can see a video of it here:
Our hope in the journey that we are on is that we will love again with Jesus one day in heaven. Isn’t that a glorious promise to all who call on the name of Jesus and believe.
(If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Saviour, email me. I will be glad to share with you.)
Until next time.
I thought I would share a fun little game that I use to teach my children what an adjective is. Since we know that an adjective is a word that describes a noun, I wanted to put this into action for my hands-on learners. I took some Post-It notes and wrote a descriptive word on each paper. I used words like “sticky”, “fuzzy”, “cold”, etc. Then I sent the boys around the house to put a sticky note on an item that was “sticky”, “fuzzy”, “cold”, etc.
I got this idea from Jessica Hulcy’s KONOS Volume 1 several years ago.
Until next time,
HELLO, Friday! And it is the end of our third week of school. Ah, what a nice closure to the end of the school week. The boys and I did our school work this morning. I can truly say that I love being with my children and teaching them. It brings me great joy. It also allows me to know them better than anyone else knows them. Most of all I am allowed to teach them what I want to teach them in the way that I want to teach them.
Many years ago, the way children learned was from their parents. Somehow, we got away from that way of teaching. While I know that not every family can homeschool, I do know that it has been the best for my family. We started homeschooling 10 years ago when we had 3 children. Now, that we have doubled the number of students in our school, I am so content with my life. Even when I know that I have a 4-yr-old and have a long time left in this journey of teaching at home, I would not want to be doing anything else.
During the past ten years, our family has grown, and we have said good-bye to family. I am so glad my children had the chance to get to know my grandparents well. We miss them both so much. I am glad my children have had the time to see my in laws. Both of my in laws are very ill, and I am glad that we have had the time to help them when we could.
Time with family is treasured time.
Until next time,
Since I had some responses to my last blog entry, I am inspired to write again tonight. School went well for the boys today. We seem to have remembered those math facts that we tried hard to forget over summer break. And with the Bible curriculum that we use, the boys are using reading skills, comprehension skills, and writing skills all while learning more about the Bible. That’s a win-win for me. We will review some of our grammar rules in the coming days. Grammar is important when all you want to do is play and chase bugs outside, right? Life with boys is certainly entertaining. I think they definitely understand what a VERB is.
I was reflecting over what we accomplished last year. One of the boys read three science textbooks last year. He was very interested in his science readings each day, and I had a hard time keeping him in reading materials. We have spent years doing science with textbooks and hands-on projects. And we have done the same with history. I think we have all developed a love and appreciate for science and history by reading and doing activities. Would you say that is true for you? I remember my schooling years, and history and science were not my favorite subjects. But once I started learning alongside my children, I found that hands-on activities really bring the fun out of science and history.
One more school day this week for the boys. Unfortunately, that is not the case for their mamma.
Until next time,