Students Of The Word

Stopped by to say...

2011-01-26T09:00:00.001-08:00

I will have one last post coming.

In it I will wrap up this year (so you can access it on the sidebar) and I will also, *ahem*, post a picture of our school room. LOL!

Don't know exactly when I will get these done, but I just thought I would let you know. ;o)

Thanks again for all of the friendships!!!!

Praying for you all,

Mercy & family

So, I have news...

2011-01-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to come right out and say it....

We are leaving SOW.

Ok, I know what you are thinking.

"You said you NEVER would."

Well...you know the saying - never say never. ;o)

Over the holidays I just kept hearing Jesus whispering in my ear that it was time for a change.

The whole time I didn't quite know what that meant. I just knew it meant...change.

After a lot of prayer, and a little bit of whining -

I have purchased the HEART OF DAKOTA curriculum.

For all of my children.

And, because God said to do it...I am just walking forward and I'm not going to look back until He says it's ok. Because, He said to. I could get into a long, thoughtful discussion about some of the reasons why, but the REAL reason is - He told me to go.

So, I'm not going to sit and pout about it.

I know He knows what is best. ;o)

I fully expect that as we settle, I will (hopefully) see how I can bring some of the things I LOVE so much about SOW into our school day, in some way.

But, right now I am just walking through the door put before me.

I just don't know if I want to keep up on the blog right now. Maybe at some point I might even start a new one (like I've done in the past), but for now I'm just going to settle in.

This lady has a great blog for the kindergarten my daughter will be doing:

http://www.ourfamilyforhisglory.blogspot.com/

And, this lady is doing similar programs as my 11yo & almost 3yo boys are going to do.

http://quietlyrunningtheracehomeschooling.blogspot.com/

So, that will give you an idea of what we are doing, while I'm away.

Thanks for reading our blog!

...Cough...Happy New Year!!..cough, cough...

2011-01-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

Well, not quiet the way I expected this new year to begin. I've been laying in bed for the past few days. Turns out I have influenza A and I have bronchitis. Ugh. I am feeling much better. Praise God! It's been a rough few days. The kids are so great though. Superkid has been a big helper with my very active two year old. My little bear loves to make cards, so I got a few of those and a crown to wear from her. Lol! :o) My sweet husband had to miss some work taking care of me too. He's the VERY best, I'm tellin' you.

School has been math mostly and Christmas presents the kids got, like the drawing book, the robots that have been put together, the piano they are all learning. It was so cute, I overheard little bear talking to Big D the other day and she was showing him how to make an F chord and trying to teach him how to play. Considering she doesn't really quite know how to play...it was really cute!

I'm just thanking God for christmas gifts that I can consider "school" time stuff, you know?

Anyway, I have so much to say.

I just need to find a few minutes.

So, we'll, uh, catch up later, mmm kay?

In the meantime, I'm drinking me some tea and going back to bed!

Christmas in full swing 'round here!

2010-12-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas tree up...check!

House decorated...check!

Christmas cards done...check!

And on it goes, doesn't it?

Is there a check mark to make sure we have the Love of our Lord working in our home? Lol!

Today the kids and I are going to visit a local nursing home. We are going to pass out some candy canes & share the Gospel by handing out tracks too. Jesus put this on my heart last week, so I invited any ladies in the Church that wanted to join us to go too. Hopefully we will have a good turn out. Mostly, I see the need to stretch my children a lil' bit. (Of course, I can always use some stretching too, eh?) So many times it is so easy to live life without really recognizing the needs around us. I just wanted them to have their eyes opened just a bit and hopefully their hearts as well, you know?

Christmas time is a good time to share the Good News and Hope of our Saviour. I wanted to make sure that I took this opportunity and made good use of it. ;o)

Praying that God's blessing and joy is in your home this Christmas season!!

Day one - Christmas Study

2010-11-30T23:06:00.000-08:00

Note:

I am using the Amanda Bennett Christmas Unit Study for the month of December.

So far so good!

I just quickly took a few pics to show ya.

Here is Little Bear's designed notebook:

And...I am beaming here...look at her handwriting!!!!

She did it ALL by herself. I think that's pretty good for a 5 years young little girl, if I do say so. ;o)

This is the list of "WOW Words" for the lower grades for today. Not exactly understanding how those work, but at least it gives them some research skills...

Superkid's handwriting is pretty swell too, don't ya think?

That's all for today.

Oh no! Wait, we started our Jesse Tree again this year. This year though we are using A Holy Experience's Advent Devotional instead. ;o) Can't comment yet since we are only on day two...

Speaking of camera issues

2010-11-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

Well, technically it's not the camera that has issues...

The kids made these really cool origami turkeys for thanksgiving.

They don't have them anymore.

And, guess who didn't take a picture?

Mmmm Hmmm.

If you are interested in them, you can check out the youtube video they used to make them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R0TUM1FIcE

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!!

Bee Hive Field Trip

2010-11-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

So, my friends husband is a bee keeper. Since we were studying pollination & there was a whole section all about bees (which is facinating by the way!), I asked her if we could come check the hives out. I got my camera all charged up, actually remembered to TAKE the camera with me...and totally forgot to take a single picture! Yep.

Anyway, it was really neat & the kids had a great time seeing where bees "do their thing." ;o)

Just thought I would share with you.

Rejoicing this monday!

2010-11-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

Yes!!

School room is together. I will really really try to post up a picture within this next week or two. I need to move out a bookshelf, but the room is done!

Our schedule - is really really finally together!

It is just a finalized version of what we had been loosely doing this year.

Here it is:

6:15 - Wake, sing & pray with Daddy. Personal prayer time.

7:00- Get dressed, clean room, Breakfast. (Thankful journal, Manners, KSV)

8:00- Check-in with kids. Chore Time.

9:00- Bible Time (SOW language arts)

10:00- Break & Outside Play

10:30 - Independent work: Math, Handwriting, English, Spelling or Phonics. Plus any other assignments, like Reports or s/g/h reading, etc.

12:30 - Lunch time

1:00 - Together Time (Daily Lesson) & Check-Out (One on One time with Mom)

2:00 - Done!

This is kind of what we have been doing, but now it has been tweaked to finalization. It feels weird because it is really a hands off kind of approach this year. The kids are working much more independent than last year. I am still directing Bible, but expecting a lot of it to be done on their own. I am working with my 5 year old & I'm available during their independent time, checking on them,etc. It's just very different. But, the exciting part is - it is working!! Which is a miracle for my 10 year old! I think since his sister (at age 5) enjoys working independently, it is motivating him a bit more. This year I really needed to be able to be less tied down though because my 2yo little boy needs a lot of attention. He just has a personality that stays busy, so I need to be available for him. Thank God He knows everything we need before we even ask!!

I have a few other things I am going to discuss here later about curriculum/resource choices & such in some upcoming posts. But, really - my mind is on these upcoming holidays! This is our last week of SOW for the year. Although we are not finished with our Exploring Creation with Botony book, so we will finish reading that through until we are done. But, next week we are off since Daddy will be home all week. Then the following week we will begin our Christmas unit study by Amanda Bennett. I've never done one of her unit studies before, so I'll let you know what we think. Can you believe the holidays are here?!?!?

I'll probably post some fun stuff here coming up. ;o)

Re-arranging...again

2010-11-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, today I am working on BOTH the schedule & the "school room."

I know, I know...

The school room, just seemed too "officey" to me. I wanted it to be more of a play room / kids room. So, I've been thinking about how to re-arrange it to make it more kid friendly.

Yeah, just when I thought it was all together. I should have been taking pictures through this whole process. It has changed so many times since we moved in!!!

I've liked the way that it looked each time, but it just wasn't complete. I think this next one will be perfect! (or as close to perfect as you can get it in an imperfect world, ya know.)

As for the schedule...I've had bits and pieces coming together, but I think we are finally getting close to a Final Draft happening here. LOL! My husband has been doing our "sing/praise/prayer time" with us before he leaves for work, which wakes up the kids - who are incredibly difficult to wake up! And, it starts our day earlier. It's so nice to have him start his day with us too. But, my quiet time is out the window now! So, I need to either wake up extra early...ugh...or figure something out here. So, I'm working on that now. I do have hope in the midst of frustration though. I can see bits and pieces of how to work things out.

After using a schedule now for the past year or so, I can't go back without one! I need that structure to know what & when everything is supposed to happen. It helps us out so much & all of our attitudes are much better. They aren't arguing with me, they argue with the schedule - which is silly of course. Right now, I am cranky mom trying to get everyone do do what *I* want. I CAN'T WAIT until they know it is the schedule talking, not bossy mom. LOL! ;o)

Just wanted to give an update...we will settle in at some point here...really.

Sometimes it just takes trial and error until things are in place, you know?

As far as REAL school stuff goes, we are doing good. I absolutely LOVE the botany book!!!! I cannot believe how much we are learning. Just amazes me how a good book can change your life!

That's it.

I have nothing more to say.

LOL!

Parts of a Seed

2010-11-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

We took apart a bean seed today.

Yep, we learned all about the 5 main parts of a seed.

Lots of fun!

Parts of a leaf

2010-10-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

By Superkid

Egypt Study

2010-10-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

This was an AWESOME resource for studying Egypt!

I am computer illiterate. Or lazy maybe. So just CLICK HERE to go to the book instead.

It came with a DVD that was very interesting. Great arguments about why we should change the traditional dating of Egypt & how he believes the Bible corresponds to Egypt history. Very very neat!!

P.S.

2010-10-21T15:35:00.001-07:00

I'm too chicken to take a picture of the school room now. It's a mess!! LOL!

I'll get it cleaned up a little better & post it up sometime this weekend. ;o)

Shoe Taxonomists

2010-10-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

This is what my 5yo daughter learned today:

And, here was a fun little thing we did today.

We became Shoe Taxonomists!

We separated shoes according to their Kingdom, Phyla, Class & then we were able to get down to their order. We didn't have enough to get all the way down to species & genus. But, the kids really did have a good time. ;o)

So, first you start with a pile of shoes.

Divide.

Kingdoms: Sandals, Dress Shoes, Tennis Shoes

Take the dress shoes & divide.

Phyla: Laces / non-laces

Divide.

Class: boys / girls

Divide again.

Order: Velcro / Slip-On

So, this is what we come up with...

Kingdom: Dress

Phyla: Non-Lace

Class: Girls

Order: Slip-on

Which shoe is that out of that big pile?

Why this one, of course!

So, then we found ourselves classifying everything!

Botany Study

2010-10-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

Exploring Creation With Botany

This is the book we are using this month. We are using it as a backbone for our study and using the text books & encyclopedia for reference. It is supposed to be a whole years worth of science study, but it will work out perfectly for us. We read the Astronomy book the first year of SOW. I really like this series. Right now I have a lot going on & it seems that everything in school I need to be involved in, so I'm having my 10yo read to my 5yo. It's actually a lot of fun to listen to him teach her. :o)

Settling In...

2010-10-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I am finally beginning to feel a LITTLE bit of a settling in our life.

(This is a personal story of how our school room is coming together)

Last week it seemed like things were coming together, we had bought my daughters white desk and I had some beat up ol white bookshelves. My toddler had his little desk. I had put my desk in our bedroom - UGH.

Then, I just decided to get radical and try to see if there was a way to take that desk out of my bedroom and get it down in the "school room." It seems to make a lot more sense. I really am adamant about having rooms cleaned. Maybe I'm weird, but I truly have noticed a difference when MY room is cleaned when I wake up - my whole house seems to follow. I get so discouraged to wake up in a cluttered & dirty room. I feel defeated before I even get out of bed. SO, I prayed for a miracle - that somehow I could get my desk to fit into the school room. And, God is so very faithful! It didn't happen at all how I expected though.

I found a great deal on good ol' craigslist - 5 bookshelves & 2 desks for $95. The problem was the two desks were big...too big for a five year old little girl. So, on the way to visit my parents we saw a garage sale & wouldn't you know - a cute little wooden desk, that matches the set we just bought! $17. Since we are planning to sell all of the other things (and take back the white target desk we had bought for $70!!) - it all worked out great!

Anyway, I don't have a picture right now. But, I just wanted to give you and update. The school room is coming together just fine. ;o)

Our schedule is still a bit rough for us. I'm so glad to say that this - waking up early in the morning to pray- thing, is really really nice! I haven't been getting nap time, because my 2yo nap time is around 11:00 and it seems I'm busy then. Usually around 2:00 or 3:00 - I'm exhausted. Of course, the kids are in full swing then. SO...dr. pepper has become my best friend. LOL!

I promise to keep updating & I'll get a picture up soon of how the school room looks. ;o) Personally, I LOVE pictures - much better than a Long ol' boring story about a school room. LOL!! Thanks for reading!!

More Scheduling & SOW 2A2

2010-10-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's me. ;o)

So yesterday I spent the day from the beginning to the end running around like crazy, trying to do all the things on my "to do list" and snapping at my sweet children. At the end of the day all I could think is...there has got to be a better way!!

Yes, there is.

I sat down & went over the list of all the things I was trying to get done with my hunny bunny. It seemed impossible! Between just keeping my children together and the house together, etc. - school was somehow supposed to fit in here. :o)

I've been here a thousand times and every time it seems God does a miracle somehow as I arrange my priorities. Thank God it happened again last night!!

So, I mentioned before that I wanted to switch the independent time from being in the afternoon to being in the morning, well...I'm still doing that, but I decided what I really needed to do is split our together time up into two parts. AM & PM. A fresh sigh of relief came when I began to see that.

Now after breakfast we go into our morning together time, which flows so naturally.

(Especially since that's how we did it last year) We just do those table time things, like the thankful journal, manners book & the prayer for the countries. This is also when we will do our language arts (aka Bible study). Then I will assign their independent assignments. That was kind of confusing to me how to do a "check-in" with the children each day with the last schedule I wrote up. Problem solved! This gives me the mid-morning - early afternoon to spend getting my 2yo to his nap and having my precious quiet time that I need each day. I usually take about a 15 minute nap, but mostly I pray & or work on a project that needs to be done. That is time I need to spend for my sanity during this crazy season of my life. lol!

After quiet time / independent time then we have lunch and begin into our afternoon together time. This is a check-out time for us and a time to do whatever else needs to be done (sci/his/geo/etc.) We will do our projects and such then as well.

That's pretty much it. Oh, except - I haven't had a formal morning prayer time in awhile. Jesus has been pressing on me since I moved into this house to rise a bit earlier (when my husband has been going to our Church to pray) and pray then. THIS HAS BEEN SUCH A BLESSING!! I know, I know, I should have been doing this a long time ago... The truth is, it's not that I don't pray in the mornings. I do. It's just more of a "ok, here we go" prayer. I spent my afternoon quiet time as my "formal" prayer time. But, beginning your day in Prayer is really awesome!! So, I am putting prayer first. I am also encouraging my children to pray as well. I am reminding them to talk to God before they come down for breakfast.

In case you skipped all the details & just wanted to see the schedule - here you go:

Wake

Shower (mom)

Get Dressed

Pickup Room

Laundry

Pray

(The kids pickup room, get dressed & pray before breakfast)

Make Breakfast

Eat

Morning Together Time

(Prayer, Bible, Check-in)

Independent Assignments

AM Chores

Free Play

Lunch

Afternoon Together Time

(Check-out, S/G/H, Literature, etc.)

PM Chores

DONE!

Just to give you something to look at...

Here's my 5yo's Outline for Joshua 6-12:

We are floundering...

2010-09-30T12:23:00.001-07:00

Ok, so the last two weeks have been a little difficult for us.

Moving uproots your LIFE in so many ways. Our old schedule just wasn't flying anymore. Most of our books are still packed in the garage. (which is a long sob story...) But, basically, I have been very discouraged about how things have been going. I was crying to God. I've already learned in my walk with God that He is pleased with FAITH, not whining or fear, etc. Yet, here I went complaining and whining to Him. Of course, He is a great God and reminded me that He WANTS to help me, but that I am trying to do this all on my own.

After His reminder, of course, today I have had vision & hope that was completely dead before. Now I actually see a little glimmer of light shining through!!

Jesus told me He is doing a new thing this year and that I need to be prepared to change MY schedule for His. The old way of doing things is not working, so it's time to listen to His plan. ;o)

This morning I just happen to click on "schedules" in the yahoo group. Then again, I just "happened" to click on Joy's. What a blessing! I feel so encouraged to follow her lead. I've read it before, but it really spoke to me in this season I am going through.

Even if I follow this simple rule:

PUT PRAYER FIRST

Then I will have succeeded in our schooling.

This is what God pressed on me today. He gave me a new schedule, which allows each of us to spend quiet time alone with the Lord for as long as we need!! Isn't that amazing & awesome?? Here's what it looks like:

Wake up, Get Dressed, Clean Rooms

Breakfast

Chore Time

Prayer...

Independent Time

Lunch

Check-in /school with mom

(alternating children)

Together Time

(Bible & s/g/h)

Clean-up Time

Daddy Home

That's a simplified version.

Basically, it is backwards from what we used to do. We used to do "together time" in the morning & "independent time" in the afternoon. It just seems to make sense right now to switch it.

I just thought I would check in to give you an idea of how things are going around here. Moving is difficult. Beginning a new school year can be difficult too. Moving & beginning a new year - impossible! LOL! Thank God that I serve a God of miracles!!!!!!!!!!!

1st week of SOW!

2010-09-20T11:57:00.001-07:00

Well, we finished the first official SOW week. It was rough. We are still not put together yet over here. I'm hoping that in the next week or so we will be a little more organized. Hopefully by next month I can give you a good picture of how the school room is coming together. It's sooo neat! I feel very blessed to have a place to let the children spread out a little bit.In the meantime, here's a glimpse of some things we did in 2A1:

Superkid's Spelling -

This is a great book to read along with your bible reading -

These next few we did a lil' project. ;o)

This is our representative of a cylinder for making a sign.

Here are a few pictographs or cuneiform writings from each of the sumerians living here. lol!

(The first one superkid said was a "REAL" sign.)

I had trouble posting all of the various seals & pictographs they made. This gives you an idea though. ;o)

See you next week!!

First Day of School

2010-09-07T09:05:00.001-07:00

So, I wasn't as organized as I wanted to be since we still had bathrooms & bedrooms to put together yesterday. We also spent awhile shopping for a craft desk, which I promised my 5yo daughter we would buy when we got to the new house. It's all my little girl does - constantly doing some sort of a craft. So, instead of having ripped pieces of paper ALL over the house, we decided it would be a good idea to give her a space. Of course, it is for all the children to do crafts at, but we all know who will be there the most!

Anyway, so... I decided to make today a fun day since it is the first OFFICIAL day of school.

8:00 - wake up, make beds, pray & get dressed.

9:00 - Some together time, read bible & discuss the day.

10:00- Head out the door. First stop - Jack in the box for 99 cent breakfast!

10:30- Eat & play at the PARK!! :o)

11:30 - Shopping - getting some school supplies on clearance. ;o)

1:00 - Littles in the pool while Superkid & I pick up the house a bit.

1:30 - Math, handwriting & a few other school things...

3:00 - DONE!!

There is something really nice about rejoicing in our freedom to homeschool! I love taking the kids to the park when no one is there. It's so nice to run around the whole place and not have to fight with the other kids.

Overall, a lot really got done but it was a nice relaxing day. I love to start the year out like that!!!!

Thank You God for homeschooling!

Our First School Room!

2010-09-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

We have never had a real school room before & I'm not sure what to do with myself! I thought I'd show you before pictures. This is before chaos hits, I'm sure!! LOL!

Here ya go!

By the way... everything is all shoved in boxes in the garage right now. I am praying for a miracle that we can begin school on Tuesday! We'll see what happens...

Math Update

2010-08-20T17:17:00.001-07:00

God is so good!

It is true that he really was just bored. Poor guy! I kept holding him back so that he could "master" the concepts. But, he needed to keep moving and to be challenged. Also he does not like to write too much. He would rather just learn audibly than have to do "busy work." So I've been just going through the R&S math book with him orally. Now, before you go and think that I just let my little boy do whatever he likes, I don't. But, I'm helping him to feel confident once again. And - Thank You Jesus! It's working!!!

I can see a sparkle in his eye once again in the math department. That's what I'm looking for! He has been so discouraged that he didn't even LIKE math any more. He won't say that he loves it yet, but he did say that he was glad that I was challenging him. That's enough compliment for me. ;o)

For anyone with a struggling math learner - Give him hard problems & see if he rises to the occasion. Teach him something new. And, it's really ok to just go over math together aloud and not assign all of the pages and pages that the curriculum says to do. ;o)

Rejoicing in Jesus!

Mercy

While I'm here...

2010-08-10T10:08:00.001-07:00

I may as well catch ya up on some other things too.

The biggest is - MATH!

So, I met up the other day with a "veteran homeschooler" and we were chatting and somehow we got on the subject of math & all the struggles I've had with my Superkid. She told me flat out...he's bored! See, I want to stay on the same ol thing until I feel that he has fully mastered it, but she said that he really just wants to be challenged and that in time those lil ol' facts WILL be mastered. (...sigh...) She's probably right.

In the meantime, Superman has taken over in the math department working with Superkid. THANK YOU JESUS!! I really needed some help since this is not just a teaching issue, this is a discipline / character issue. I'm soooo sooo thankful that my hunk of a man is willing to help and be involved!!!

Since both of these things have transpired, and after talking with someone on the SOW group back when I mentioned math on my blog, I have decided to go ahead with Saxon math using the Dive cd's. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to teach Saxon (even though it is highly recommended by EVERYONE). But, knowing that it is challenging (which should... crossing fingers... help motivate my 10 year old boy) and knowing that my hubby is willing to work with him on any questions he might have, I think it just might work!! It is supposedly a self-teaching curriculum and with the dvd it truly should be, which means that Superman shouldn't have to work too much with him, hopefully. (since he has so much on his plate anyway!)

But, with moving and all, it might take a bit for me to get organized in order to buy the math set. In the meantime we are just doing drill work. ;o)

What else...
Oh, phonics for my 5yo. I still haven't had the time or energy to make a decision on this one. Once I'm settled I will take the time to go through what I have and decide whether I will press in with the SOW phonics or use the Pathway set that I got for free. I have a feeling I will do a bit of a mix.

As I mentioned in the last post I was so super organized & prepared for the first few weeks of school and planning the school year, that I am really bummed that I'm set back a whole month.

Here was the old plan:(sorry it's sideways!)

I guess that's how life goes, eh? I'll have to spend some time working out the kinks for this year and figure out how to make up that extra month somehow. We'll see. I envision this next year to be much more challenging, but MUCH more spontaneous. The focus of this next year is on deepening our relationships within our home and with God. That's really it. If that's all we do, I'm really ok with how everything else goes. But, I have a feeling - just focusing on that will cause tremendous growth in other areas as well. ;o)

God is so very good!

What about SCHOOL?!?

2010-08-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

So, when we started this summer I was all super organized and everything. :o)

I had NO IDEA we would be doing THIS:

Needless to say, we have been busy.

Moving takes a lot of energy and focus.

Thankfully we are doing it though the summer.

Sadly, we are a month behind to start school.

We will catch up with you once we get settled...

Sometime in September.

Summer Update!

2010-06-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry we just sort of faded away...

We have had a great start to our summer!!!!

We actually went camping! That was huge, since we have never been as a family. It was a blast!! We're already looking forward to the next camping trip. Superdad was able to take a whole week off & we had such a great time hanging out with him! We went to the park several times, camping (as I mentioned) and we played miniature golf. We're planning to go swimming, bowling and to the library as well next week. We are certainly staying busy!!!!

My 2yo's favorite words are: Park, Camping & Bowling. He repeats these words over and over and over at least several times every single day. He's so funny!

As for "school" time stuff, we are doing a few things here and there just to keep our brains from going to mush. We are trying to stay consistent meeting for "together time" each day. We're basically just praying together & doing a bible study called Sword Fighting. The book is no longer available, which is too bad because it's been one of my kids favorite! You basically memorize a scripture to use as a "sword" in your every day life. Each day you read a bible story of someone who struggled or succeeded in the temptation you are studying. Then there is an activity you can do as well. You have a "sword fight" regularly by asking them... "you are tempted to-----" then they reply with a scripture to combat the temptation. Really cool!

Also, we are doing some math. That's pretty much it. It's been too busy to try to do anything else right now. Maybe later in the summer I'll add in some fun studies, but for now I just throw in a little math here and there (sort of as a "chore"), and I haven't really had any complaints so far.

Just thought I'd check in. We're going to be busy until the end of July. I'll probably get back to you at the beginning of Aug. Which is when we should be starting school back up again. I have a feeling we might have some trouble getting back to normal when the time comes.......

see you then!

Math Reviews

2010-05-13T17:12:00.001-07:00

Well, we have gone through a LOT of math in this home! I know some homeschoolers tend to do this, but frankly it's a bit embarrassing when you write it all down. I really did want to just find one and stick with it, but every single one bothered me in some way or another.

We started out when my son was five with a time and money workbook that I got from walmart or something. Similar to this one. He was doing GREAT! So advanced for a five year old and all. I mean he was counting by twos, fives and tens; he was able to read TIME and he was working with MONEY. These seemed extremely advanced & he was just zipping along in his workbook doing wonderful. Well, I set it to the side for a bit for whatever reason and wouldn't you know - HE FORGOT IT ALL!!! It was one of the more discouraging moments I've had over these teaching years. I was completely baffled. How could we have worked so hard and it didn't mean anything?!? Part of it was, I think, because of the fact that it was just a workbook. There really wasn't any "real life" involved and I think it just didn't mean anything but marking something down in the book. He didn't "get" that he could apply that to his life. And, of course, the biggest reason was probably because... he was only five. But, I learned a lot through that. Just because you teach it, doesn't mean it really is being learned. ;o)

So, after I got over my shock! I went looking for a new math curriculum. I had heard a lot of good things about Saxon math so I looked into that one. This was about the time that they had first introduced the kindergarten program. I found it used and went for it! It was just a little too fussy for me. Too many things to keep track of. I just wanted a simple math program, ya know? We went through about half of that, but it just seemed so repetitive and it was hard to skip over those things he already knew. I mean, he pretty much understood how the calendar worked, patterns seemed so simple, and those little bears were more for playing with than teaching. This was about the time that I purchased SOW (the first go round...in 2005) and I saw that some people used Mastering Mathematics. I liked the idea of this one. But it's a bit fussy too. Really, it is just a lot of work! I even laminated all of the pieces. I never could figure out exactly what all I was supposed to be doing with them all. That one is still in a box somewhere. Of course I felt guilty for awhile about that one, so I think it took me a bit to come around to purchasing another. I was getting discouraged. I mean really discouraged. But, off I went looking for a new curriculum. This time I went with Horizons grade one. We got through that whole book and it worked ok. It was mostly review for him. I really did not like that spiral approach. It was scary because here you would be working on easy peasy stuff, then wham! All of a sudden you were supposed to know how to count by fours - without really having any experience. To be fair, we only had the workbook, not the teachers manual. It probably would have helped, but I was deciding at that point that I just wanted to stay on one thing at a time. I still like that idea best. But, even with that conviction, I went with Singapore math. This was when I was doing My Fathers World and that was what they recommended, so I went with it. As with Horizons, I don't really have a whole lot of complaint. They both seem to be ok. I don't really remember WHY I chose to stop doing Singapore. I have a feeling it had to do with that whole spiral thing, because right around that time I tried to go back to doing Mastering Mathematics, which tends to be focused on one thing at a time. I like that idea. Well, anyway, the next purchase was Math U See. Oh no, actually I used this one too when Superkid was around 6 years old. I borrowed it from a friend who didn't need it anymore. At that time they were spiral bound and I despise spiral binding. Something about it just seemed SO expensive for a SPIRAL BOUND book?!? Sorry, is it showing that bad? It just really bugs me a lot. LOL! There wasn't a whole lot of substance to the Math U See. I wound up going back to MUS when they got a good binding and after doing the entire year, I still felt like it was missing something. Superkid agreed. So, there went that dream of sticking with Math U See till then end. I really have had my heart set on just finding one and "till death do we part...", but it just hasn't really happened that way, sadly.

So, now, onto what we are currently using: Professor B. I am really loving Prof. B Math! It is much easier than I thought it would be. I thought I would dread doing it with them each day. But instead it has been like a fun game to play with them! It is really neat because the kids think they are just playing a game, but they are memorizing math facts by using their fingers. Now, they are not COUNTING with their fingers, but memorizing the different ways that you can "make" a number. For instance you can make a two (finger) and three (finger) five or a four (finger) and one (finger) five. So they are learning, automatically that two plus three equals five or four plus one equals five. You don't even have to say it. It just becomes automatic! Then, they move on into subtraction, again, without even knowing it. For instance they see that if you are trying to make eight, two fingers are always down from ten. So, they see that two plus eight equals ten and two taken from ten equals eight. It's a really neat concept! It is a very visual learning aid. There is also pictures of blocks, panda bears, etc. that flash. The game is to see if they can say what the number is really fast as it flashes. They also get their own turn to try to make the numbers on their fingers too. So it is interactive. Also, they match their fingers with a partner to see what number is bigger. One person will put up their hand with six fingers held up to the other persons hand who has seven to see who has more and who has less. It is very natural learning. Gradually you have memorized all of your addition facts as a family. Meaning you learn 7+1=8, 1+7=8, 8-1=7, 8-7=1. You begin by seeing the hand showing the fingers on the screen, but eventually you don't need the hands any more. They are only there to visually teach you. As you go into higher addition facts the methods change a little. For instance, it teaches you to think in terms of ten by making the number ten by borrowing from the number you are adding to. So, in the problem 8+6, eight is trying to be ten so he borrows two from six and it now becomes 10+4, which is of course easier to remember. The program makes the numbers personable by adding smiley and sad faces, which is cute. It also teaches a bit of fractions as well towards the end. I really like it actually. I have been working through this cd with both of my kids (although my 10 year old is WAY beyond the first cd, they recommended I go with it anyway since it is a very different way of learning.) So, we've been working through it fairly quickly for a bit of a review. We are only about halfway through the cd, but I really am (cautiously) planning to stick with this one till the end. I like the way that it seems so natural. I'm not sure exactly where I am going from here with Superkid. We've been sort of working through this CD to take a little break (and as I mentioned to get up to speed on how Prof. B works), and in the meantime I've been looking over the Life Of Fred Math. I also really like these, but not as much as I like Professor B. I worked through the fraction book (all by my self! Aren't you proud of me!?! LOL!) not only so that I could get a little review in my own math skills - I'm telling you, being at home all the time can drain your brain a little... But, I also wanted to see how it worked. I'm not totally as thrilled as I thought I would be. It does present the lesson in a nice way, in order to relate it to "real life." The story pulls you in a bit so that you are anxious to learn, although there are some times where it really isn't helping and you feel like it's a lot of work to learn (or re-learn in my case). I don't think I could just hand this over to Superkid like I had anticipated. Maybe some children (who haven't switched math curriculums a bazillion times!), but even doing the extra problems I didn't feel like it made sense enough for him. It was almost "too" real life like. Meaning, it jumps around a little bit with a new topic introduced every chapter. It wasn't very cut and dry, if you know what I mean. It would be really good to maybe introduce the topic, but I think you would need more instruction than what is given. I found myself looking online for certain questions I had. I'm keeping the books and I'm planning to use them, but just not as the base. They are a nice supplement I guess you would say. So, because I don't feel super confident with Professor B...yet (but I still feel hope...) and because the Life of Fred books didn't turn out to be all that I had hoped, I'm ordering Rod and Staff. :o)

Yes, I did just say I am ordering another math curriculum. Don't judge, mmm k.

What is drawing me to Rod and Staff is the thoroughness of the program. It really covers everything, step by step. I like that. Now, I may get through the prof b cds and decided that my 5 year old doesn't need R&S? We'll see. But, because of where my 10 year old stands, I feel obligated to do whatever I can to help him succeed. We're getting the fourth grade text, even though he'll be going into fifth this next August. I'm planning to keep working on prof. b through the summer along side R&S, so that he feels confident about himself. That's really the most important thing to me, you know.

I'll keep you updated as we work through these & let you know how it works out. ;o)

...edited...

We eventually decided to go with regular ol' Saxon math instead. We are using the DIVE cd's and Superman is teaching. ;o) My Kinder is still going ahead with R&S math. We will update you on how all of this works for us.

Independent Time...

2010-04-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Is working really well around here. It is hard for most people to be self-motivated, really. We are using the time accountability worksheet to help Superkid visually see what he's doing during his day. It's been really good.

In the meantime, I'm spending more time with my little peeps. :o)

So much of our time revolves around SCHOOL that it feels really good to be able to spend time with my "preschoolers" and just PLAY!!!!!

I've gotten almost all of next year planned out. I still need to get our light weeks a little more organized, but I can squeeze in a few projects here and there over the summer. For now, I believe God is telling me it is time to spend some time with my littles.

Playing is discipleship at its best!

As I mentioned before, we're almost done!

2010-04-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

I've been praying about it and I think for the ending of this year I'm going to have my Superkid finish as a fully independent student. I set up a little binder for him to reference from with his assignments to do. I'm also implementing (for the first time) the daily time ledger. I know there is a different name for it, but I can't think of what it is. I am pretty much having him study the world on his own. I'll let him explore as he wants and choose what assignments he likes best to work on. I think he's going to enjoy the freedom to go as fast or slow as he wants. Doing this is going to allow me to finish some of those projects that I began and would like to finish. I'm praying that I will be completely DONE with next year's planning by the end of May, so that starting in June - I can just play & have a full summer off! Wouldn't that be nice...

So, I'm pretty sure you won't hear very much from me in the up and coming weeks. I may pop in to show a report or something else fun, but I'm not going to guarantee it! LOL!

Speaking of next year though...

Oh, I am SOO excited! I can't wait to spend all that time learning about plants & gardens! It just sounds so peaceful. I'll jump in later with our plan, when I'm a little more organized. I'll show you some of the fun resources I got too. :o)

Ok, I'm off to work!

What is SOW?

2010-03-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

SOW stands for Student Of the Word. It is a bible-based curriculum that is unit study based. It includes every subject, except math and is meant to be used for all 12 years of your schooling. It has assignments for a full 6 years and is meant to be repeated after the first 6 years are done. This means that the whole family is working together on the same lessons at the same time, regardless of what age they are or what school year they are in.

The language arts section of the curriculum is essentially an inductive bible study. After reading the Bible passage the children do an outline, draw a setting, learn about a bible character, explore a specific topic on the subjects read, learn the Hebrew or Greek word for vocabulary and finally design their own commentary on what was read. This is used as your family devotional so everyone is digging into God’s word together. It is designed that each week is approximately 10 chapters, some shorter and some longer. Many people use an audio bible for the reading. Throughout the first 6 years you will read through the entire bible, which is repeated again for the last 6 years.

Penmanship, Spelling and English also are Bible based. You will use the key scripture verse for the week as the spelling assignment, penmanship lesson, English lesson and of course as a memory verse for that week.

There are creative writing lessons each week that are meant to draw out the heart of the child on specific topics such as – the existence of God, dangers of astrology, and even writing their own personal testimony!

Each week the children also have a literature assignment. These vary from book reports, short stories, poem studies and biographies. The Author was careful in choosing the books, as many of them will be used throughout the entire 12 years.

Science, Geography and History alternate as approximately 4-week unit studies throughout the year. For the first 5 weeks the units are on the study of creation science. This means their foundation for their schooling is built on the understanding of Who really did make all that they will be studying for their entire schooling. This is an invaluable lesson that is rightly put in the very beginning. The next 3 lessons deal with geology. Following that you study astronomy, weather, water and finally there is an overview of the world. As you can see, the first year is mostly Earth Science. Continuing on you will study each of the continents individually, an overview of world history chronologically based on time periods, life sciences, physical sciences, chemical sciences, Economics. (I think I’m including everything…) Usually a typical assignment for the week will be to read about a topic, draw a diagram of some type and then write a report on what you learned. There are usually some projects or activities to do as well. The author recommends using Christian text books as the resource used. The resources are meant only to be used as reference books, as the main key to the curriculum is to teach the child how to research on their own.

Within the SOW curriculum there are ideas for an elective each week, which is typically some type of art, field trip, project, etc. There are also suggestions for music study, and physical education.

The curriculum also includes a phonics program. There is a list of phonemes and creative ideas to do with each level your child is at. You will need to purchase a reader, skills book and phonics workbook. There are also some preschool skill ideas as well – cutting and pasting, etc.

The overall theme is the discipleship of your children. You will use prayer letters to encourage time with Jesus alone. There are various charts included to help your child grow into a self-reliant individual. Those include a daily schedule, money ledger, time management page, and a reward / consequence chart. Of course, your example is key.

SOW curriculum divides students into two categories: instructional & independent. This is sometimes referred to as K-5 and 6-12, but the author mentions that children don’t always fall into those categories. When you are first beginning the curriculum, expect that regardless of the age of your child you should begin them as instructional. Show them by example how to research the topics & how to do a through report, etc. It may help to use the instructional worksheets as well. They will begin to show you when they are ready to move on by themselves. This may be weeks if your child is older and picks up quickly.

Because SOW is a full curriculum going all the way up until 12^th grade, it may be difficult to find where your child is at in the spectrum. Since high school aged children will obviously be working at a higher level than a kindergartener or 1^st grader, expect to have the challenge of presenting the material within their level. For instance, with younger elementary children, your main focus will be helping them to learn the bible stories, learning to read, write and pick up some fun understanding of God’s world. Remember to keep it fun for this age! You do NOT have to cover everything this time around!

SOW has 24 weeks scheduled for each year, divided into two 12 week parts. Because a typical school year usually is 36 weeks, you will have 12 extra weeks per year. You will need to plan what you’d like to do with those “light weeks.” Some use them to catch up with reading, writing and arithmetic. Others use that time to make up some of the work that was missed during the SOW weeks. Still others will take the time to do some fun activities such as art, music, etc.

I’ve done my best to describe this curriculum, but there are still many faucets I am missing. It is a FULL curriculum, meant to disciple the whole child – not just academically, but spiritually and even physically as well.

If you purchase this curriculum, please ask as many questions as you need. I thank God often for the Yahoo group! The author is full of wisdom and is available for counsel via email whenever needed. I recommend skimming through the manuals one time through (with a pen & paper in hand), then re-reading them once again to fully understand how the curriculum works. I think many times the answer is written if we take time to find it. Personally I have notes written all over the margins of mine!

Finally and most importantly – PRAY! The enemy is not happy when we’ve placed the word of God as the focus of our home. Homeschooling alone is a fight, add to that the battle of using God’s word as the main text and you should expect some doubts and struggles. Pray, pray and pray!!

May God bless you on your endeavor to place His name high within your home.

In Christ’s love,

Mercy

Last four weeks of SOW?!?!?!

2010-03-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. We only have four weeks of SOW and a few light weeks left until SUMMER! Our summer begins the first week of June. WOW! Of course we'll still be working on math and doing prayer journals, etc. I'll let them have a few weeks of complete freedom & liberty, but I'm too afraid their brains will turn to mush and we'll never get them back. LOL!

So, these last few weeks we are studying the end of Numbers and Deuteronomy. There really are a lot of fun stories within these books. We are reading about Balaam this morning.

We are also doing an overview of the world (hist/geo/religions/one other...I can't think of what it is right now. This week is geography. I can't find the worksheet pages I was going to print out for this week... I'll have to look later.

I just thought I'd hop on real quick to rejoice at the fact that the school year is almost OVER! I can't believe it!!

SOW IS JUST A TOOL

2010-03-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

"You MAKE your children do prayer letters and read the Bible for school?? Isn't that going to turn them off to Christianity?"

I've never had someone actually say this, but the devil has whispered it into my ear before. We can use the study of the Bible to be a hard task master or use it to open up the wonders of our Creators words, which have been gifted to us as a guide for our lives here and forever. As Moms our hearts are the true teacher and we can see our heart reflected back to us within our children's lives. God heart is not condemning! He came to give life and life more abundantly. He is the author of hope! He can speak a word and our worst situation is gone. A river will be made in the middle of the desert. Let us thirst for Him ladies! So that we may see our hearts desire fulfilled. May our children be planted and their roots deep within God's word. Let us savor the precious relationship with have with them and our Lord, that our words would be a well of life toward them, to water His word in their hearts. Amen

1B

2010-03-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

This semester we learned so much!

Can you believe we finally made it through a whole YEAR of SOW?!? When I first began I thought I would never get through a year, yet here we are! We learned so much about the tabernacle, God's laws and all about the priest. There are so many amazing miracles within Exodus - Deuteronomy. Studying these books really does give you a deeper understanding to the God that saves!! We also learned about the atmosphere, storms and a lot about water. As you will see the last four weeks we sort of fizzled out since I was trying something new in our home. I am confident though that we will learn much about the world as we continue to study, so I am not too concerned about what we may have missed out on. We are excited to begin a new year in August!

1B1
1B2
1B3
1B4
1B5
1B6

No 1B7, sorry!

1B8

And... I do not have very many updates for the following:

1B9, 1B10, 1B11, 1B12

I tried a type of "independent time" for the last few weeks of school, but I wound up cutting it down to almost nothing just to check some things off. It didn't work as well as I wanted it to. We were able to read through the book of Deuteronomy and discuss some things, but it didn't turn out as planned. Oh well, we know what we need to work on. ;o)

Water Cycle

2010-03-22T15:08:00.001-07:00

Here's Superkid's diagram of the water cycle:

Art

2010-03-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

We made these sand pictures last week. I thought I should share. ;o)

Superkid

Little Bear

Of course, we couldn't forget Big D!

Times Tales

2010-03-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of this AWESOME resource, you are really missing out!

As everyone else says...It REALLY works!!

It only takes an afternoon and they have completely memorized their facts. How amazing & awesome is that?!? This is by far the best homeschooling resource I have ever used. It is quick and easy & the results speak for themselves.

Just buy it! :o)

http://www.timestales.com/

bizy, bizy...

2010-03-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I just wanted to pop in real quick to say sorry for not being around lately. We have been extremely busy and school has been a little different these past few weeks. Partly because I've been trying to organize all 6 years. Yeah. What was I thinking? I just needed to clean out some of the books I have, then I thought it would be a good idea to start working on this huge project. So, there are books everywhere! All of this, when the SOW weeks are a little different. I found it difficult to do an outline for Leviticus and even this week, for the first few chapters of Numbers. They are just laws, feasts, genealogy, etc. Also, the Characters are not really characters either. It's taking a little bit of creativity to handle these things and I'm just not able to put the energy into it right now. (...remember that decision I made about planning in the middle of the school week?!?) Sooo...I've had Superkid doing independent work mostly. We've been discussing all the different topics, but I don't think these past few weeks have been the ones that will stick in our minds the most about this year. If you know what I mean...

Another thing I haven't really mentioned on this blog is that Superkid has joined with the barbershop harmony society this year. He's been singing with the old folks every week & loving it! Although it is only once a week and maybe two times per month (with various shows, etc.) it takes a lot out of us. I hope that boy knows how much we love him! :o) So, he's working hard this week for a major competition that they are having this weekend. Plus, ya know, normal church & family stuff - life just seems extra busy!

(Could be the time change thing too? Maybe??)

Anyway, just thought I'd update you a little.

I'll be back later with some pix.

Glady's Aylward Biography (Part 2)

2010-03-05T23:48:00.001-08:00

Here is the final draft:

I had Superkid go through and underline all of the misspelled words he knew of. Then, he corrected his capitalization & punctuation. After he looked up the misspelled words he rewrote the whole page in his best handwriting.

I did give him a few hints, telling him that there were more words misspelled, etc. Altogether though he pretty much edited the whole thing himself. There are a few things here and there that I'll have to point out to him still, but considering I haven't given him very much help at all - I think he did a great job for a 4th grader.

(Certainly much better than the first draft!)

Nature walk

2010-03-01T16:24:00.000-08:00

Our nature walk went all the way to the park today!

Thanks to our *NEW* wagon!

Glady's Aylward Biography

2010-03-01T11:37:00.001-08:00

Superkid's rough draft. I think he did pretty good. Lots of misspelling and missing capitol letters, but he said he didn't think I was looking at that. So, he's going back through and fixing all of his mistakes. I'll try to post his final draft, before I correct it. ;o)

The Making of an Ephod

2010-03-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Here's Superkid

And, there's Little Bear

The Ten Commandments

2010-03-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

So Moses (aka Superman) went up to talk with God and here are the tablets he got.

Then, can you believe... when he came down the mountain he found THIS?!?

By the way, the kids were cracking up in this picture!

It was really funny!!

Pictures!!

2010-02-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

Last week was really good. We studied the tabernacle & the articles. After drawing the articles, I looked over and they were (on their own, at playtime!) building a model of the tabernacle!

YYyeeesss!!!

2010-02-24T15:06:00.000-08:00

So, we got a new computer. I got a new camera around Christmas time, but my computer was not working very well. That's why I haven't been able to post pictures.

I am SOOOOO excited to start posting pictures again!

Just thought I'd let you know.

1st day back

2010-02-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

The list of what we needed to do was MUCH larger than the time we had today!
(My head was swirling with to do's & I really wasn't planned for the day today.)

Superkid prayed and read this morning in his closet!!! YES!

Lots of cleaning up to do today (from the weekend, etc.)

9:30 - Breakfast (went over ksv, manners, and thankful journal)

The kids worked well together with their *New* Math. YAY!

Superkid read about weather in the 1950's text book I picked up the other day. It's a neat little book with lots of different science subjects. He read about 25 pages in it today.

Litte Bear did phonics with me

12:15 - Lunch

Listen to bible while sorting laundry
(Write Outline on board)

Read Step By Step: "I Saw God Wash The World"

2:15 - Play outside with Bubbles!

3:00 Superkid is working on his report right now on the different types of storms. He probably won't finish today, because we need to get ready for the evening. I'm making pizza for dinner (we pick up the dough from Winco & usually chop some chicken & throw some veggies on there) Mmmm, I'm getting hungry thinking about it! LOL!

We really didn't do a super heavy school day today. Honestly I think it's expected, since it's almost like coming back from a sumer break or something. Plus, I hadn't really wrote a "To Do List" for the day. Usually I plan the night before to see what all we need to accomplish (school & otherwise) for the day. I was kinda "winging it." By the way, I call "heavy days" days that I teach them. Otherwise, it is more of an "independent day" to me.

I just thought it would be fun to let you peek into a day of our school. :o)

Hope your day was blessed in Jesus!

{...Deep Sigh...} I feel VERY refreshed!

2010-02-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

I am so thanking God for these past few weeks. I could not have done SOW along side everything that has been going on. I feel so good too, knowing that I have been actually accomplishing some things on the side. Misc. projects, some school related, some not.

One of which is my "new" school area. Actually, it's not new at all. I just got a new bulletin board & my sweet husband painted the whiteboard and calendar black to match. Everything looks so nice! We have a new schedule in place. Well, actually that's not really new either, just more refined. ;o) Speaking of which, I highly recommend the Managers books! I wasn't sure if I really needed to buy the scheduling book, since we've sort of had a loose one in place. But, I learned a few things along the way. Like, duh, my home revolves around the littlest one! So, he should be in the schedule. It feels really good rotating our life around him, actually. I now know that he is doing something productive, instead of rolling the toilet paper down the hall, putting lotion on our bathroom handles, sitting bare naked on our stove-top, or any of the other things that he's been doing this week. Hmmm...maybe the schedule won't solve all of our problems, but hey, I think it helps a little. And, yes, I was serious about all of those!

ANYway...

Back to school. Oooh, I can't wait to get back to SOW! We've been doing light stuff, as I've been working on those various projects. Got the rest of SOW in the mail, years II-VI, and I'm so excited to get it all organized. I've gotten the first four weeks planned out. It will be so nice to just have everything all ready, all we have to do is learn!

Let's see, still waiting on the math to come. Maybe tomorrow?

Said all of this to say, we'll be starting back on Monday.

And, I am READY to go!!
See you then!

Reading R'iting & R'thmetic

2010-02-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

That's it again this week. And maybe (probably) next week. We've got quite a bit going on. Every single night last week we were gone, the same has been for this week. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Even Sunday, we had planned to just take it easy (you know - rest!) but when we invited someone out to eat they wanted us to go to "the big city," so before we knew it - the day was GONE again! Life is just a bit busy. So, we're doing light work.

On a positive note, this week we should be getting some things in the mail:

Finally getting SOW volumes II-IV!!

Titus2.com, Managers of their homes, chores, school & the meek & quiet spirit book (whatever the name of it is). It was a bundle, so next week I'll be working those out trying to see if we can get our schedule, etc. nailed down. That's partly why I'm making next week light too.

Professor B math - praying it will help my oldest not hate math anymore

Handwriting for both my ker and 4th grader, Masterypublications.com - happy handwriting & cheerful cursive.

And, I also bought a unit study by Amanda Bennett for Christmas. She was having a good sale $6 including shipping, so I couldn't resist. I've never done any of her unit studies before, but we'll try it out. I like to have a loose plan for our christmas month.

I've also found some good deals at the thrift stores around here. I LOVE LOVE LOVE buying books at the thrift store! I can find so many really good books for cheap! I got a book called "The Everyday English Handbook" for our English. It looks like it will work instead of buying R&S's.

I'll try to give a review on some of these after we've used them for a bit. I might chime in and do a review of some of the things I've used if I get some quiet time sometime here too.

We'll be back by the 15th of February for sure!
See ya!

I should have known...

2010-01-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

After homeschooling for a few years now, I know when we do best & what times during the year we struggle. We do better in the warmer months than we do in these colder ones. I don't know whether it is the holiday's or what, but we are distracted much more. I started an extra week early, which was helpful. I think I also put in an extra week in February too. My point is, we're going light week this week. My brain is swirling with so many things that are going on all over the place & I need to just take time to do the important things.

There are a few things hindering us in the school department too. I need to put the firefighter bible on our mp3 so that it is easier to get to. We are also (surprise, surprise!) behind on some of those projects. Problem with this is that we tend to get only half of the supplies so they hang over me. Oh well...I'm sure that we will get to them. Superman has been working on the side to help with some of them, but I get anxious & want to stay on schedule...so, we'll wait. ;o)

In the meantime, we're doing light work: Phonics, Math, Bible, Prayer & Misc. Study

By the way, April & June are all scheduled as "light days." So, it doesn't put us behind in SOW, it just confuses my plan a little bit. Next year I will expect to have more light days in Jan / Feb.

For some reason there is just a lot going on & I'm just trying to take in that this is the year 2010 now!! Also, it's tax return time. We tend to buy new school supplies so I'm thinking & planning that out. It happens every year, I just get into shock I think & something in me gets all confused about what I'm doing. I need time to get my mind in order and yet, life keeps moving. So, I'll just have to get back to you after a bit when my head stops spinning...

1B2 & 1B3

2010-01-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Just thought I'd stop in real quick & fill you in.

I'm so glad that we started back early because these last two weeks have taken a bit longer. Last week was a tough one. By Thursday I should have known to take it a little more easy - tensions were high. By Friday, my son was hiding...thankfully we threw in the towel & decided to have lighter day instead. We'll be finishing up 1B2 tomorrow & starting into 1B3. As usual we're lagging in the project department. Superman has been busy, but we have a few plans so that we can get some of these fun things done this month. ;o)

Today we did the poem study called "A Little Brother Follows Me." Earlier in the day Superkid had a conversation with his little sister saying telling her that she shouldn't act like him since he was having a rough time dealing with a situation. Then, here we study this poem that talks about how this little brother looks up to his bigger brother & wants to act just like him. It was a little ironic. ;o) We all decided that we needed to follow Jesus & walk in like Him.

Interestingly enough we have been studying Moses & for the past few weeks at Church our Pastor has been doing a series from the book of Exodus! It has been awesome how timely these have been. God continually amazes me how He meets us every step of the way.

We also have been studying the weather. I have really learned so much this year. I'm sure if I'm learning they must be too, right? :o) I vaguely remembered some the names of the types of clouds, but we all are very fluent in cloud reading now. LOL! It's so fun to name the types of clouds & to know that if we see a cumulonimbus cloud we're in for a storm. Speaking of storm, it's always nice when you're studying weather that you get all different types. It has been sunny, windy & it's rained & snowed all this week. They're working on a two week weather chart right now, tracking this crazy weather.

That's about it. I re-ordered their notebooks and put all of their work into page protectors. After seeing some of the hard work they put into some of these reports I decided that it is probably a good idea to begin to protect them a little better. They will now be able to show their grandkids their work. Oh and I ordered them by subject now. I just think it makes more sense.

We also did a few science activities the other night, just for fun. First (and less scary!) we put a golf ball into a jar with rice in it. When you shake it up, the ball pops right up. It's pretty cool! Then, (and you just know that Superman was involved in this one...) we soaked a dollar bill in alcohol and lit it on fire. Yep. It doesn't burn up. And they did it A LOT. It was pretty fascinating. I guess we could tie that into our lesson about the burning bush, eh. Oh well, it was fun anyway!

ok, now that's it.
See ya next time!

1B1

2009-12-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

Well, we started back to school yesterday. We took off a few weeks in December, so it was time. We used the firefighter site to listen to the 15 chapters that we were to read! I am so thankful for that website! We actually got more than just reading done too. We learned about the layers of the atmosphere & we illustrated them. We also started on our outline and did some math.

I'll be back later in the week to fill you in on how it all goes.

By the way, we have some fun stuff happening in school coming up this month. All of which are going to require a little budget planning (if you know what I mean.) I started a week ahead so that gives me a little buffer to get the things we need to do these things. Hopefully it all works out the way I hope it does. I'll have some fun pix if it does!

See you after awhile!

We're DONE!!!!!!

2009-12-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

Wow. It feels so good to be DONE with 1A!! I just can't believe we got here. I know you are laughing at me, but it just feels so good to see that we are doing SOW the way it was meant to be done!! We'll be taking these last two weeks before Christmas off to do a few crafts and we'll use Simple Homeschool's Christmas school stuff probably too. Can you believe it's Christmas time? Wow! Time is sure moving fast.

Recap of 1A12...

Let's see, we learned about Joseph as I mentioned in the last post. My son did the creative writing assignment, which was really neat to see. He wrote a letter to a man named Bob about why he was in prison & what it was like.

Here it is:

Dear Bob,

I am in because I told Saul about God. The prison is very old. I get a roll, potato, greens & plenty of water. My body hurts the way I sleep. God is helping me though.

Write back.

Love, Superkid

P.S. Here is a verse that helped me. Psalm 55:17 - Evening and morning and noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.

Cute wasn't it? I thought so. There were a few misspelled words and several non capitalized sentences or missing punctuation marks, but we worked through those. I didn't think he did too bad though. ;o)

Anyway, this past month was a little rough on time and resources, so we weren't able to do the field trips and experiments like I wanted. Oh well. I have a few pictures I'd like to post, but it's just not happening. We did get a new camera, but now I am having issues with the USB ports on my laptop. Sorry guys!

Oh, we watched a video about the moon that we got from the library. We did chart the moons phases & quizzed ourselves on them. Also, we have been charting what the moon looks like this month. This month it is hard to remember to look at the moon though, since there are so many other things on our mind! Maybe I should post the calendar page up by their bed so that they remember before they go to sleep.

Well, I guess that's it. I'll see you next year!

(Unless of course we do something really fun in the meantime that I just have to share...)

First day of 1A12

2009-11-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

We had such a nice week off. It felt like a month! It was so refreshing to have NO SCHOOL at all. ;o) Lots of playing, enjoying life & hanging out with Super Dad. Eventhough we have our "light days," I think we still get a little burnt out. It felt really good to just relax and be Mom again.

This week we're hitting the books again though.

We started today by reading our scripture & that took MUCH longer than I expected. Thankfully I didn't read it. I planned on using the audio bible I mentioned in the last post, but it wasn't working for some reason. So I did a search and found the audio gateway bible. That worked ok, but it was kind of slow. The other bible we have used tends to talk faster so it doesn't take as long. It took hours (ok, I don't know how long exactly but it felt like a long time since we had to start and stop in between so many times because of interruptions.) While we were listening we would stop it also to make sure that everyone was following and to write our notes about the outline. That's what we usually do, then pick the most important 4 to draw. So, we did that.

AND...that's all we got done.
Yep.

Ok, Superkid did some independent work too, but the reading alone took so long that I just said, "Let's put away our school books & go play outside!"

I am so thankful for these precious times I have to enjoy my children. That I am able to slow down and enjoy the quiet moments and the not so quiet ones as well. LOL!

Done with 1A11!

2009-11-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of 1A11.

We have been learning so much in so many areas! This weeks Bible got a little confusing since there were so many names (then Jacob's name is changed to Israel...), but I think we're getting them all down. I have to say, it's interesting how the Holy Ghost seems to make sure that there is always something mentioned in the sermons at church about what we've been learning. The kids always look at me and wisper "I know that story" That's a good sign that we're doing the right thing!

Otherwise we have learned about each of the planets and a few constellations. I hope we'll learn a few more before we end for the year. That way it will stick with us better. I told the kids this morning that we will have a campout under the stars in our backyard when the weather gets warmer. We'll take our star charts & just lay under the stars. Now that is schooling at it's best!!

Next week is thanksgiving so we're taking the week off. The first week in December we will finnish the last week of 1A and then just enjoy the rest of the month!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

See you in December...

I declare today a PLAY day!!!

2009-11-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just need a day to laugh!
Today is just one of those days.

Recently we have been VERY busy.
We've had a lot going on in every area.

Woke up and that's when it hit me...
My anniversary this next week - no gift yet.
THANKSGIVING next week - not really sure what is really going on.
AND since thanksgiving is here...CHRISTMAS is not far away!!!!!!

AHHHH!!! How did this all sneak up on me so quickly?

Add to alll of that stress the fact that my oldest son has been going through a lot. He's been working through a few "character issues" lately. Stuff that causes a mom to get on her knees, if you know what I mean.

That's why I decided to just have a bonding day.
I just wanted to laugh and have a good time.

It has been a really nice day. We had a good breakfast, cleaned up and went outside to play for a few hours. We're planning to watch a movie on space and hopefully play a board game this afternoon too.

Notice how I snuck a little school in there. Hee hee hee. I didn't mention that this morning we spent time looking over some of the space books from our book basket. See we're still studying, but it's not forced. We actually took out our mini planetarium that we have. (It's like a globe that shines the stars on the ceiling) and started to set that up too. We couldn't find the 5 aaa batteries that we needed though. OH well.

It has just been a nice day!

1A

2009-11-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of the first half of the first years posts:

Our first school year of SOW (2008-2009) we only got through 1A5. There were a number of reasons why. This is one reason why I started this blog. I think people need to have a visual sometimes of what is supposed to be done. It's hard to SOW when you don't SEE how to. I'm hoping that this will somehow help another person to understand what to do. (So that they don't stumble through like I did.)

Starting the next school year (Sept. 2009), we talked to the author and somehow everything just clicked with how to use SOW for our family. After that, we started to really move through the weeks the way they were meant to be done.

I try to write in every week, but I tend to forget. So you will see duplicate posts within the weeks. Also, I love pictures & try very hard to incorporate them into the posts, but we've had some camera / computer issues.

If you have any questions, just let me know!

Thanks for traveling with us during this semester!!!!!!!!!!

"Intro Week"

1A1

1A2

1A3

1A4

1A5

1A6

1A7

1A8

1A9

1A10

1A11

1A12

Beginning 2010...

2009-11-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it is 2010 almost?!?!?!?

Seriously! Time is going fast.

Anyway, I just wanted to spend a minute writing about the upcoming plans for the end of the year and the beginning of next. We're planning to finish up 1A by the 1st or 2nd week of December. Then just enjoy Christmas time! We might do some "schooly type stuff" and call it school. We'll see. But, then beginning January 1st we'll start into 1B. I honestly can't believe we are actually doing SOW the way it is supposed to be done!!

I like how Michele (on the yahoo group) organizes her year and I'll probably do the same. We will start 1B somewhere around January 1st. Hopefully finishing SOW by April. Knowing us it will be June...but, anyway...

Like I mentioned in the last post, we will be going through 4 books of the Bible in the same time that it has taken us to get through Genesis. So things are going to start moving much faster!
We're planning to use: http://www.ffmp3.com/kjv/projects/firefighters/kjv_web/index.htm
That will help us get through the chapters quicker. Then I figure while we listen to the whole book of Leviticus we can stay busy - maybe we'll paint the house. LOL! Just kidding. I don't know what we'll do, but at least I won't have to sit and read!!!

Then the rest of the year we're studying: Weather & Water, then we'll do a little bit of world geography / history. We're also doing (since we're reading the Law books) an extensive study of the feasts and learning about the misc. articles, tablets, etc. This is going to stretch me just a bit. But, hopefully we'll learn something in the process of it all. :o)

That's about it. I'm just sort of thinking aloud. I'm sure there is more that I wanted to add, so if I think of them later I'll add it here.

1A11

2009-11-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

Wow. Can you believe we've gotten this far????

I thought we'd never get out of Genesis!!!!!!!!!
Yet, here we are - next week we're done.

WOW.

Ok...where was I?

Oh yeah - 1A11.
Sheesh. We are really staying on track here. I'm just amazed. We just started 1A11 today and all we did was read & do science. The reading took us a longer than an hour I think with all of the starts and stops. Probably more. I'm going to have to figure out how to work that out since starting in 1B we'll be going through several books - and Leviticus in ONE week! I'm still brainstorming on how to present that book to them.

Later I'll make a post on some of the upcoming plans explaining what's happening after Christmas. For now I just wanted to check in to say that we're on track and things are going really well. We picked up this Skywatching book (one of the books in the set) from Good Will the other day for $2.99. No, my favorite sister in law - we haven't gone to the BIG one yet. :o) When you come to visit we'll go...don't take too long or we'll have to go without ya. Anyway, it's a perfect book! We're having such a good time learning about the evening sky! This book recommends buying a pair of good binoculars first before buying a telescope. I'm so glad that I read that because I think that it is such a great idea! Binoculars are much more diverse - you can use them for a lot of things, so I could justify the expense.

We also have this book coming in the mail. I LOVE this book. We got this from the library awhile back and it is a MUST have if you are trying to learn the constellations! It is written by the guy who created Curious George. I bought this book (along with a few others...) from Linda's Used Books. Love the idea of an online bookstore with thrift store prices! ;o)

Anyway, I'd better get back to our school time. Superkid is reading A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 aloud to me right now. I'm only half listening, but it's ok - I think he's only reading aloud so that he can focus and ask questions when he needs to.

Hope everyone is having a fantastic day in Jesus!!!!!

1A9 & 1A10

2009-11-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

Last week was good. We began into Astronomy and learned a little about Lot. This was a tough one since some of the things that happened were yucky. (ie: Lots daughters, etc.) But, we made it through. We didn't stay too long discussing those things. We just focused on the main topics. We have a video of Sodom & Gomorrah that we still haven't watched. Actually, we did a "make-up" day on Monday (yesterday) to finish some of the things we missed from last week. That worked out really well. Sunday night I looked at the week and realized that we didn't get a whole lot done, so I just crammed a bit on Monday. I think what happens is I tend to think if we just get our regular routine done (including prayer journal, etc.) and the kids work on their independent work - I call it good for the day. So, we skip some of the SOW learning. Then, I look (like I did on Sunday) at the week and wonder what in the world we did! Oh well. Overall they have learned so much! I tend to think I have to get EVERY SINGLE THING done or I've done a terrible job. But, the point is to learn - not to cram lessons & projects down until we can't take it anymore. Right? Right!

The way I see it is we are just beginning our study of Astronomy. We'll be on this topic the whole month. Hopefully in that time we will be able to visit the Planetarium and shoot a rocket off - they will remember what they learned about those things when we get to that point. :oD

Ok, so today we started learning about Issac. Don't you just think it is SOO cool that we are studying the stars while we learn about the first of all of Abraham's descendants? I think that is really cool! It's just really amazing how things are laid out and my kids REALLY do learn so much.

By the way, there are meteor showers going on all through the month of November. Isn't that really timely too? I love also that we are studying the stars just as it gets dark earlier. That worked out perfectly!

Speaking of...I've been meaning to take the kids out to just stare at the stars & now would be the perfect time. Guess we'll go bundle up and look at the sky.

Good night to ya!

Resources I find are the most important:

2009-11-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Bible - I suggest the Life Application as it has character studies and mapsbuilt right in. I also would suggest having an extra atlas and character study resource though too. Strongs Concordance is an absolute must.

English you will need an english handbook -or- if you are doing phonics you purchase a skill book, work book and reader per year.

Literature there is about 9-12 books (depending on the age of your children) to purchase this first year, most of which do repeat throughout the years. It is not necessary to use the SOW books suggested though. You can use whichever books you choose.

There are also a few books intermixed into the lessons that would be helpful.For instance in creative writing when they are comparing Jesus to a shepherd andus as the sheep, it is suggested to read "A Shepherd Looks At The 23rd Psalm."It isn't necessary, but hey it would enhance it.

The rest of the resources are for sci/hist/geo. These vary each month basically.(Every four weeks) The easiest way to do that would be to purchase a library card and world book encyclopedia. I also purchased (as suggested) the Earth Science text book. (Either BJU or Abeka would do). The first four weeks you arestudying creation science, so those are not going to be found in a library. Since you will need to buy Christian resources to study creation science, this turns out to be the most expensive year. But, these resources and this studyhave been invaluable to our home!

I was overwhelmed with the amount of resources to buy at first. It is really a simple list though. Most of these you probably already have. I think the hardpart I had was there are SOO many books I COULD have, that sure would "help." I have to remind myself to be happy with what I do have to work with and use it. Also not to add anymore books to the curriculum than necessary. I kept trying to add things in and it just complicated our school to the point I wasn't even focusing on God's word anymore!

It's November!!

2009-11-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

Time is going fast, isn't it?

This is how we finished up October:

Here it is in the dark:

October was a real struggle for us in so many ways. Every week in October we had either someone show up unexpectedly, call or in one case we invited them. (All of these on Monday!!) Monday's seem to set the tone of our week, so we were "out of it" the rest of the week each time. Along side all of this, we have all been battling sickness. Colds - coughing, sore throats, runny noses all that icky stuff. I think we're mostly through it now, but it lingered all month long. Not to mention the black widow who took over my laundry area and made me really behind for awhile. It's dead now, but it's still hard to go out there. ugh.

So, as for school, we didn't do all that I had planned this month. That's life. I'm not going to stress on this. We're doing our best and we're really doing ok.

Here's the hard part. I feel like we should just move on - keep going onto 1A9. But, I can't. I have a hard time letting go of what didn't get done. I'm not ready to move forward!!! The struggles in life, ya know. ;o) I know me though - this month and next I have a very hard time getting everything done. My mind gets a little hijacked during the holidays and I'm just trying to keep joy in my heart. I have four weeks left until I'm done with 1A. My plan is to be totally done with it by the end of the year. Should happen, if I stay on track. I actually have some Christmas stuff planned and I like to keep that month very light.

Ok. After talking to my husband, I have decided to just move on. We'll come back later to these things that we missed. Hopefully this will help us get a jump start so that we are able to get though everything before Christmas.

If you feel led, pray for us as we battle through these trials.

We can't do it without God!!

We're "Rock'n"

2009-10-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

MAKING CRYSTALS:

We got the "recipe" from - Mrs. Steward's Bluing Salt Crystal Garden. We started them today. We'll see how it turns out.

And here's a shot I took of my 9yo identifying some rocks & minerals from a kit I got from a teacher awhile back.

We've had a lot of things happening this week. We had an unexpected visitor on Monday and on Friday we'll be out all day. Today was spent almost all day looking at this box of rocks. Hey, we we're having fun! But, we didn't get some of the other stuff done. So, after looking at it today I think we'll break up this week and make it two. (Well, technically three since last week we didn't get much done.) So our "off" week will be spent doing make-up work. That's ok, that's partly why they are there. ;o)

Anyway, I'll check back in later & let you know what else we've done.

Until then...

Rock on! ;o)

PS: Anyone know what kind of rocks /minerals these are?

Wow. Has it been THREE weeks already?

2009-10-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Updating this blog is a little bit time consuming sometimes. Sorry about that.

Ok, week one (1A6):

The first day went great. Tuesday went fine until the evening hit and I came down with a really yucky sickness. I was frozen, curled up on the couch with a blanket and apple cider. I wasn't planning to have school Wednesday, but we pushed through and we really had a blast! Learning about Noah and how the flood affected the earth at the same time is really cool!

If you followed my old blogs (with MFW) you will know that projects always seem to get put off until the end of the week. Little Bear and I worked on Noah's ark all by ourselves Thursday night - all the boys were busy. We worked on cutting out and gluing all of the animals. She just about did the whole thing almost all by herself! It was a good hour she cut and glued. Over the weekend the kids finished the ark totally.

And...here are the fossils:

LOL! I'm just not good at these projects.

Last week (1A7):

Speaking of projects - we also got halfway through making our volcano this past weekend, but our little d got into it and broke our mountain. Everyone was really bummed. We'll probably try to patch it up just do a makeshift type just to show the "explosion."

Otherwise, I am beginning to see how SOW is supposed to work. (Please don't ask me why I didn't "get" it before, because I don't know.) But, I honestly believe that SOW is THE best curriculum out there.

I keep telling my husband that I feel like I've gone back to school, because I am learning so much! In my spare time I am reading books so that I know what I'm going to teach my kids. It's so fun!

Here's what the whiteboard that is hanging up in my dining room usually looks like:

I had a friend over for lunch the other day. She is a newer convert. While we were sitting in the dining room, she got quiet and asked me WHY exactly I had the word "Nimrod" written up there. LOL! She'd only heard it used as a bad word. (Not that it isn't - he was pretty wicked from what we do know about him.) It was just really funny!

I did switch the schedule around a little bit. I forgot to add "share work" on there and I wanted to add in a time for cleaning up & brushing teeth. Also, as expected, we now go for a walk AFTER we eat. I know, I should have just started that way...

Now, week 3 (1A8)

We are studying Abram and rocks. This last week was a little bit of a rough week, so we're extending it until next week. After this week I'm planning to take a light week. During this non-sow week we will catchup on some of the independent work and read few fun read alouds just for fun.

We're going on our walks, collecting rocks. We'll be doing a chart and growing crystals here soon. Hopefully we can also finish some of these other projects that we're in the middle of.

I really want to update weekly, but it just seems like if it's not one thing it's another! I'll just try to keep updating when I can.

After this week we'll be traveling into space & learning more about Abraham who was promised as many children as the stars!

3...2...1...BLAST OFF!!

Back to SOWing!!!

2009-09-28T14:22:00.001-07:00

I know this is going to be our best school year ever! The foundation that has been laid is really perfect and having my daughter with us is so much fun.

We actually started on Friday when most of the books came. (still waiting on others, but it's ok.) Friday we did the reading and outline and read Noah's Ark fictional story (In The Days Of Noah - part 1). The kids could have gone on doing school all day long, but I had to get going! LOL! I find that it's taking us until about 1:30 stopping only to have lunch. (Well that includes breakfast, walk, cleanup, etc. too) I'd say a total of 2 - 3 full hours working together. Then they have their independent work in the afternoon. (Little Bear doesn't have any right now until she gets her reading books and math book). She's VERY VERY excited to begin, but in the meantime she's just happy to be involved SOWing.

Speaking of, she really liked doing the outline. Today we worked on the Vocab/Topic and I think I decided that I'm not going to do that page each week with her. It's just a little too much. I was glad we were able to talk about it today and we did the sheet together, but it was just over her head to do all the time. I might even skip it for Superkid, we'll see. Oh, then we learned about Polystrate Fossils and drew our own pictures of them.

(This is my own drawing on the white board...yes, I know...and yes, they do get worse!)

That's about it so far. Tomorrow (or maybe tonight with Daddy!) we'll be doing either a model of Noah's ark and/or making our very own fossils!! The kids will really like that. We also have a few library books about geology to read.

We're working hard on 1A6 and I think maybe, just maybe...we'll be getting it totally done with in a WEEK! Oh, the joy of actually figuring out what it is I'm doing over here is beautiful!! Seriously.

Check in later with more pictures...

PICTURES!!

2009-09-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

Oh, it is SOOO nice to have my camera working again! It's not a great one, but it sure beats nothing!!

Anyway, here's a few pictures from our walk this morning.

This is right up our street. Isn't it a just cozy little place?

This is a close up picture of the birds that visit there.

Usually we have to leave them alone so that they can eat their breakfast.

And here's a little friend we found this morning.

Anyway, we're still walking. The weather has been beautiful! I plan to continue to walk even when the weather gets colder. We'll just bundle up a little more.

More pictures coming up soon!

Daily & Weekly Schedules

2009-09-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

Daily Schedule

Get Ready
(Get Dressed, Clean Room)

Eat Breakfast
Thankful Journal
Manners book
KSV
(review orally)

Clean-up / Brush Teeth

Go for a walk

Sing song
Praise God

Pray:
Personal Requests
(option to share yesterday's journal)
Prayer Box
(people around us)
For Country
(new one each week)
Pray over children

Prayer Journals

Share Yesterday's Work
(Discussion Questions)

Language arts/Devotional
(see weekly schedule)

Daily Studies
(Sci/Hist/Geo/Writing/Electives)

Outside play

Lunch

Independent Study
(Phonics/Math)

Free-play

Chores
(see list)

Daddy Home!!

Weekly Schedule

Monday
Devotional: Read Story & Discuss / Outline
Daily Studies: Read Text book / Discuss Questions (TE) /Diagram

Tuesday
Devotional: Discuss Topic / Setting
Other Studies: Creative Writing
Extra: Project, Elective, etc.

Note: I assign the vocabulary worksheet to oldest for indpendent work. Since we have already discussed the topic together, this is fairly easy for him to complete on his own.

Wednesday
Devotional:Character
Other Studies: Literature
Library books or Other Resources
Extra: Watch Video

Thursday
Devotional: Commentary
Other Studies: Report
Extra: Project, Elective, etc.

Friday
Devotional: None
Other Studies: Makeup Day

You can see the original posts here and here.

Weekly Schedule

2009-09-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

I posted our new daily schedule in the last post, which I have to say has been the best schedule we have ever had! It's working really well for us.

Now I just wanted to post our weekly schedule for SOW...

Monday:
Devotional: Read Story & Discuss /Outline
Daily Studies: Read Text book / Discuss Questions (TE) /Diagram

Tuesday:
Devotional: Vocabulary
Other Studies: Literature
Extra: Project, Elective, etc.

Wednesday:
Devotional:Character
Other Studies: Library books or Other Resources
Extra: Watch Video

Thursday:
Devotional: Setting
Other Studies: Report
Extra: Project, Elective, etc.

Friday:
Devotional: Commentary
Other Studies: Makeup Day

Looks like it's going to work out really good. We might actually be able to do a SOW week, within an actual week!! What a concept!

By the way, by God's amazing provision we were able to buy almost everything we need to start SOWing. I'm just waiting for the books to come in the mail now. Which is the hardest part! LOL!

Oh, and I re-arranged the daily schedule a little bit since we've been doing it. First I made sure to add in a point that we share our work from the day before. We also do the devotional discussion questions then too. The other thing I changed was our prayer/singing time. I find that the kids are (naturally) very hungry when we get back from the walk. I don't want to walk after we eat, because honestly we need to do it right away otherwise I will put it off and won't do it. So, we do our praying and singing before the walk. That way when we get back we can just eat. I also try to prep the food so that it's all almost done & we don't have to wait too long to eat. Breakfast is one of our main meals around here, so we usually do things like eggs & toast, breakfast burritos, hammy potatoes, etc.

* I added these two changes into the last post that had the daily schedule.

I feel so blessed to spend these special days with my children. There is nothing better than those quiet moments on a walk when your daughter says, "Mom, I've been stepping on all of the price tags for the houses." (...those little painted boxes with the address on the sidewalk.) Such sweet and very precious moments I'm so grateful to be a part of.

Anyway, I hope someone out there benefits from me sharing my schedule. I think it's going to turn out to be a wonderful rhythm in our lives. There really is a beauty knowing what comes next in life. It makes the spontaneous that much more exciting!

God's blessing to you today...

Refreshed in perspective

2009-09-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I know, it's been awhile since I've said hi.
Let me just fill you in a little bit...

A few weeks ago, I went though (what I now know as) my yearly freakout. I realize now that every time we start school up again I start thinking maybe, just maybe I'm not doing what I should be. I freakout, then I pray. God is always so faithful to bring a fresh perspective on our schooling.

In this case I came again to the yahoo group. I'm so thankful for this group!! I wish I had others around me who were using the SOW curriculum (or even friends within my church that would homeschool for that matter!) But, that's not the case. So, I am very very grateful for the ability to talk things out with like minded people online. Anyway...

After a few posts, Merle the author of the SOW curriculum wrote to me. Let me just repeat that, she wrote to me. Then, she took time out of her day to give me a call. And oh my! The wisdom this woman has is incredible!! I'm so so thankful for that conversation. I just wish I could have recorded the conversation so that I could go back over all that was said. I was doing all I could to take in every word. She reminded me once again that it's not just about the education of our children, it's the nurturing of every part of them. She gave me a wealth of ideas and encouragement, then she prayed for me. God is soo good!!

So, since then I've been reordering my life a bit here and there in different ways. I am very excited about this school year.

First of all, I need to say that we are really struggling financially. I have picked one of the most inexpensive curriculums there are out there, yet at this point we aren't able to get those things to make it work. It's really going to be ok. I have narrowed it down to the very basics - phonics, math, and a few small things. I think the total is somewhere around $100. So, it shouldn't be too long of a wait until we can really begin. In the meantime I'm doing the best I can. ;o) I promise I'm not complaining - God has provided in amazing ways!!!!!! He is always always always always faithful and He knows what He is doing. I trust that His plan is best.

Anyway, in the meantime I'm taking time to get organized. Made a schedule, organizing the bookshelf, oh and I made little mini notebooks for each of the subjects (language arts/prayer/daily studies/english).

Here's the new schedule we'll be implementing as soon as we can.

Daily Schedule

Get Ready
(Get Dressed, Clean Room)

Sing song
Praise God

Pray:
Personal Requests
(option to share yesterday's journal)
Prayer Box
(people around us)
For Country
(new one each week)
Pray over children

Go for a walk

Eat Breakfast

Thankful Journal
Manners book
Prayer Journals

Share Yesterday's Work
(Discussion Questions)

Language arts/Devotional
(see weekly schedule)

Daily Studies
(Sci/Hist/Geo/Writing/Electives)

Outside play

Lunch

Independent Study
(Phonics/Math)

Free-play

Chores
(see list)

Daddy Home!!

This schedule is much different than we've ever done before. I like that we actually get out of the house in the morning. I like that we're putting the important stuff first. I like that my afternoons are totally free, yet everything is getting done that needs to be done. (school, chores, playtime) In the morning we'll all be working together. I think this will strengthen our school time together. Before it was a little bit hit and miss when we'd get together. This seems to flow very naturally. The most fun out of all of this is I've decided to bring in my Little Bear to SOW with us. She is VERY excited. It's going to add such a neat dynamic to our school. What's funny is she will have almost the same work as Superkid, but it will be on her level and she will work more with me versus independently.

Right now we have been doing a mini table time for school. After breakfast we do the following: sing, pray (together, over kids and for the country of the week), thankful list, manners book and then we just read a chapter from the new testament. Eventually we will just start into our SOW at that point.

Anyway, that's the latest in our home.
Check back later for more updates...

Jeffery Dahmer and evolution

2009-08-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Wow! Since we've been learning about evolution and I've talked about the importance of teaching our children, I thought this might be appropriate here.

Apparently he got saved...

It's been fun...

2009-07-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

I think one month is perfect for a summer break! It was enough time for us to have a great time - lots of swimming, park trips and even a day camp for a few days. Lots of DS playing, reading books and playing with one another. Not to mention all the time playing outside and the fact that Papa even stayed with them for a whole week! :o) One month really is plenty long. I think we're all ready to get back to the books. Really.

So, I'm all planned up. The first six weeks we're not doing any SOW...for several reasons. A big one is that we don't have money for new books yet. Another is that we still have some books that need to be finished. So, I figure while we're waiting for the funds to get the new books we'll go ahead and finish the old ones. Makes sense, eh?

For the month of August and maybe into Sept a little it will mostly be the following daily:
Math, English, Spelling and Art.

Superkid didn't get a lot of phonics when he learned to read. I'm finding now that phonics is pretty important to help learn to spell. His spelling isn't so hot. He can sometimes spell some really difficult words, but some of these really easy ones he struggles with. I think it's because he needs some work decoding instead of just doing it by sight. So, we'll be working with that this year a lot.

I can't believe he's going into 4th grade!!! He's growing up so fast. ;o)

Little bear will continue working with Little Hands to Heaven until we finish the book. Well, we'll probably stretch it out until January. That's going to be a big time. I'm expecting that we will spend that much time from Sept/Oct time until Christmas on Geology in SOW. Then in January we will switch into Astronomy. I'm planning to bring Little bear in to begin SOWing with us then too. She will almost be 5 (in April) and so I figure we can start a little phonics with her then. I'm going to do the phonics thing with her - now that I've learned my lesson with my first. Live and learn, eh?

So, that's the short long term plan. We'll be continuing to take SOW slower than it says, especially since I'm adding a spelling program. I think I'll be able to do the SOW spelling program with Little bear when it comes time, but since Superkid didn't do the phonics program I'm going to do a little remedial work with him.

I probably won't update much during August since it's going to be a busy month for us and school is just the boring books stuff. I figure sometime in September I'll be back to give a report on some things.

See ya then!
All of us SOWers

1A5 Done & SUMMER TIME!!!!

2009-06-22T13:23:00.001-07:00

Hi all...
I know it's been awhile since I've been here, but I thought I'd jump on to say that we are just finishing up 1A5 this week. Then...we're taking off for SUMMER!!! YAY!!! I know, we're a little later than some, but we had quite a few breaks this year with moving & having a baby in the house & such. Originally I had planned to just work right through summer, but on second thought...we need a good break to play!! So, I just decided to spend the time making sure we hit a good place to break before we took off some time to enjoy the weather. Next year we're aiming for an entire summer off. I'm not totally thrilled with the idea ( I've never thought that a whole summer off is smart, but...) Superkid really wants a real summer break so, we'll go ahead and do it this next year.

I PROMISE THIS WILL BE THE VERY LAST MENTION OF HOW LONG IT"S TAKING US TO DO SCHOOL AROUND HERE....

But, I wanted to say...it took us an entire month to do 1A5. So, I guess that's just the speed we'll be taking it. Whatever. I can see though a little better now that we've gotten more organized what the problem is. Superkid can only do 4 to 5 things per day. Five is really pushing it! I've learned just how much is too much for him. That includes the everyday stuff like prayer letter, memory verse stuff, math, etc. The reports can sometimes take all day long, depending. He tends to spend hours on details sometimes, totally forgetting that it means he'll be really behind on his other work. I'm am SOOOO thankful that I homeschool! I often wonder how he would do with the workload in PS. He's a great student, just spacey like his mama. ;o)

ANYWAY...we're doing really good over here. We've got a dinosaur diorama done, we've learned about how light works (even made several rainbows!) We're finishing up our study of "theology" and learning about evolution vs creation. Which I have to say that EVERYONE should take time to study this!! Especially children - with every book they read there are those subtle thoughts of evolution and its with that lie that satan is deceiving people in so many ways. Building our children strong in the understanding that the world was made by God (they are made by God!) they will not waiver in their faith as easily. Just thought I'd throw that in there. ;o)

As for other things, we'll be moving into the study of Geology next. We'll still be studying it from the understanding that this is where a lot of creationists and evolution scientists disagree. So, we're still learning similar stuff. Superkid is really glad about his new math (Math U See) He's whipping through it really quick! I was contemplating switching to saxon, but I think I'll just stick with what is working. HA! What a concept!

We will have absolutely NO SCHOOL WORK for the entire month of July. I think it will be really refreshing and Superkid will start into 4th grade sometime in August. (He wants to start early so that he could have an even longer summer next year...we'll see...)

By the way, we have new camera batteries coming in the mail so coming "next" year we will be able to actually take pictures once again. It's a bummer not having a camera of your own!!

We'll see you "next year!!"

HAVE A GOOD SUMMER EVERYONE!!!

Good news/Bad news

2009-05-28T09:39:00.001-07:00

Good news...I got my curriculum back last night! YAY!!!!

I guess I didn't really need it. We had done everything, but it still feels good to hold it in my hands again.

Bad news...I really thought I was going to have at least one picture this morning. I was able to take a few pictures when Superkid made his diorama, so I was expecting that today I could post those. The problem is my new laptop doesn't have a slot for the card, so I need a card reader. Technical problems...all over again. We're still having trouble with our camera. We had borrowed my parents for a little while (which is where some of the pictures are...at their house) and now we have this old one I found once by the river. It works at least a little bit.

Anyway, we're back on track. On to 1A5...

Lots going on...

2009-05-19T11:18:00.001-07:00

Still no SOW. I haven't gotten my curriculum back from my friend. I would go get it, but we're out a car...again. Oh well...

We're catching up on math, which is good. That's the main thing we're working on actually. I didn't mention, but last month I finally broke down and got Math U See. I don't know why I stayed away for so long. Maybe it was the initial cost which seemed so high or it could have been that I really didn't like those comb binding books. (especially when you are paying good money!) Anyway, we finally did it. I may have bought too easy, but that way Supekid gets used to the curriculum and he gets some extra drill practice in the meantime. I'm really ok with that. I'm making him do all of the worksheets. Basically he is doing a lesson in two days (3 worksheets per day.) Considering there are only 30 lessons, I figure we should be done with the book by the end of summer. That's my goal.

Anyway, I'll let you know when I get back to SOW. I'm anxious, but I don't want to move ahead until we have the curriculum back. Whenever that is...

It works out, because May has been VERY busy and June is looking the same.

In case you're wondering, yes, we'll be working through the summer. I like to do that anyway since we can do school at the park and such. It's much more fun to be outside while working, don't you think?

Taking Breaks

2009-05-13T09:14:00.001-07:00

Something that I learned (not only from the SOW teachers manual, but through SOW users via the yahoo group.) is that breaks are vital to SOWing. I really understand why, but I have had trouble sticking to the plans I've made. We certainly took a lot longer than I really expected. For our home (and just for Year 1) I expected us to be slow and really slower than average. I still expect that, but I'm trying to learn how to anticipate when our breaks should be. By making goals I feel like I am better on track when I can actually accomplish them. :o)

So, I am expecting that 1 week should take roughly 3 weeks for us. Then, we'll probably take a week off. (And, by "taking it off" I don't mean no school, I mean do something different for school.) For instance, this week we had finished 1A4, but life happens. I had loaned out my SOW notebook to someone looking into homeschooling, so I don't have it to look at. Which means I'm not feeling confident moving on. We also have had a lot going on this week & it's been busy. But, it just so happens I have a lot of dinosaur resources, including a mini unit study. So, we've been looking through those things & kind of doing a "catch-up" or more in depth study of sorts. What I'm trying to say is even though we are breaking from SOW, we are still on track. It helps to give us a little breather from the more "heavy" schooling, if that makes any sense.

It's always said that the curriculum is not your master, but that you have to make it your own. That's how I feel about it. As I've mentioned we are slower, but it's because we take time to soak it all in. We're in this for the long-haul. The kids will learn exactly what they need. I figure Superkid will get to go through it one time thoroughly and then we'll do an apprenticeship of some kind in high school along with a individualized education to whatever he's interested in. My other two (especially little bear) I figure she'll be able to go through it two times & by then I'll have the whole thing down! ;o) All of this depends, of course, if Jesus still hasn't come &/or if the Lord wills. My job is just to try to plan & be open to be led.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention the importance of breaks.
...stay tuned. I'm going to try to post some pictures here again soon.

We are really on track!

2009-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

I think I've finally found our "niche" with SOW. We have a routine that is being put in place. That was something that was bothering me about SOW. It seemed that even though my son was in the word of God almost daily with all the different assignments, we (as a family) didn't seem to be working together and things were a little scattered.

So, here's how things are working.

Our daily schedule:
Wake (Mommy time to pray, then wakes kids)
5 min. room pickup (all of us!)
Breakfast (bye to Daddy)
Read Bible (we're just reading straight through so that we can be faithful to "just read." We started in the new test. and we're almost done with Matthew.)
Pray for the world. (using Windows on the World - we're doing a country per month.)
Then I have a little system to assign daily work. (I'll explain in a minute)
If there is any reading to be done aloud, we do it here.
Superkid does his independent work while I do preschool with little bear.
Then...we go to the park!!! We've been doing this almost every day since the weather has been so nice. It provides a nice breather for the afternoon.

That's it in a nutshell.

I want to explain our new system for assigning independent work. Within his binder I have placed a folder with pockets on both sides. The first side is where I put his worksheets (including math) and a little note with his list of what to do that day. I will put any explanations if I need to there too. So far I have been able to talk it over with him each day, but if I happen to have a really crazy day it will be there for him to get started on without me. It only takes a few minutes for me to set up each day and that way we're all ready. I call it "doing my homework." He laughs at me when I say that. Anyway, when he is finished with his assignments he just puts them on the other side for me to check. Once they have been stamped by me I'll put them back in the folder and the next day he puts them in his binder where they belong. Isn't that neat? It is working really well for us.

I am thankful that we finally found a system that I think will work for us for a long time! Like I said, I think that was part of my hesitation with SOW. Now, the problem is resolved!!! YAY!

Oh, and obviously this new system is working really well for us - we're on to 1A5 now! That went much quicker and smoother than it had been. Before the "system" I was filling in misc. non-sow school because I couldn't get SOW down. I think we'll start going much faster now that I kind of know better what it is I am doing. I'm renewed!

Wish my camera was working better.
I want to share all of the fun stuff we're doing around here.

1A4 and We are Renewed to SOW!

2009-05-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

We are going WAY tooooo slow around here. We moved in January, so that's part of it. We're also usually a little slower normally. Like I've mentioned SOW isn't exactly organized like my brain thinks. It's been hard for me to "get it" for some reason. (I know I am very slow here...) I feel bad because I find myself coming here to vent and you can see plainly the struggles I've had trying to implement it. I tend to have a difficult time with faithfulness if you can't tell. We've switched curriculums several times on a whim and it has been by miracle that I've stuck through this. But, I can see that we are finally getting to a point that we understand how it works are REALLY seeing fruit from it. It is so fun to show others what we've been learning. Each time that I question whether we are doing the right thing or not, I am renewed in my decision to SOW.

I have to tell you what happened. I got several books (including streams of civilization and Mystery of History) so I think that's where some of the confusion is coming from. I was thinking maybe I should JUST do that (because I couldn't figure out how to mix it with SOW)...big mistake! Here's the funny part. I asked my son what HE thought of SOW. He said he thought it was fun and that he was learning a lot. Almost sarcastically I asked him to name three things he'd learned. I was blown away by his answers...

1. He's learned to see all sides of things. (researching!)
2. He's learned a lot about God. He said that it was really neat that you learn what God says AND what others say about things.
3. History! Ha! Here I am thinking that I have to somehow mix in this history, but as my son proved we have been learning soo much about Israel and Genesis itself IS history!!!

I am just so ashamed. I know you all get tired of hearing from me as I battle out all of these doubts and confusions I'm facing. But, I just want to share them in case there are others out there who may be similar to me, but are a little more quiet.

-----
Just want to mention that we have been having a blast in school. (isn't it weird how the doubts come even when things are happening?!?) My computer is dead, so I haven't been able to update with all of the fun stuff that's been going on. We took a trip to the newspaper site the other day and had a great time learning about how newspapers are made. Then we came home and researched a little more in our encyclopedia. (That thing has been SUCH a blessing!!) What else...we've been reading lots of good books on dinosaurs, scientists, and some older fiction from the 1800's. We have some projects coming up, but I don't know if I'll be able to post. I think I'll be getting a new computer soon so if that's the case I'll have more time to post more here.

Thanks for checking in!!
We're still here and things are still happening!

Field Trip - Green House Garden Center and State Museum

2009-03-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Obviously, this post was one of those "doubting moments" I've had. Thank God that I stayed the course. I think that SOW done "as is" is a wonderful curriclum and I'm sorry for all of the waivering you've gotten through this blog. :0

------------------------------------------------------

I have pictures, but I'm having trouble with my camera (not to mention my computer is a little confused too!)

Anyway, I just wanted to update. We're starting on 1A4 this week. But, we are changing things around a little bit. I really liked when we did SOW a little more "relaxed" before we really began. Keeping the units together is just not working for us. I'm finding myself more concerned about the other subjects and our prayer and bible study time is falling by the wayside. So, we're going to go back to the old style that we did it. And I think Tammy (4himkids.com) does SOW in a similar way. We're basically not matching the bible with the sci/his part. That way we can be faithful to prayer and bible reading every day together. Hard to explain, but when we were sticking to SOW as is I found we were really IN God's word the first few weeks then as we dwindle down and all we have left is sci/history (art projects or what have you...since projects are always put off until the end around here) we weren't even really reading the bible or praying towards the end of the "week."

I guess everybody's home works differently.

So, we'll have a new schedule. As I work it out, I'll post it here. But, basically we're just separating the Bible so that we can be more consistent since we're taking SOW at a little slower pace. So each day we'll be praying & reading then moving on to whatever else we have for the day.

ANYWAY...
We've been having fun in the meantime!

We took a trip to the local nursery to checkout the plants and talk about how greenhouses work. (and how the theory that world in Eden's time could very well have been a greenhouse!) We got lots of fun pictures there - just having a good time.

Then we took a trip to the museum because they have a great display of weapons throughout the ages. Since we were learning about the weapons that we use (spiritually and physically) it went really well with the unit.

I guess that's it. I know there is more. I haven't been doing well keeping up with this, but I think as we get settled (remember we just moved!) I'll be able to update more often.

Have a great day in Jesus!

Hello.

2009-03-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I'm not updating very often here. I've been taking pictures and have had intentions of posting, but it's just not happening. We are having trouble with our computer and we really need a new camera. Both of those working together plus LIFE = one boring blog...soo soo sorry.

Eventually I'll be posting more about what's going on around here, but in the meantime I'll leave you with a few video links.

First a serious one:
Parental Rights Video

(Click here to go to their website.)

Now, some fun:
Horse Race

Till next time!

SOW vs MFW

2009-03-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

This was a letter written to someone who asked me to compare SOW and MFW. I thought it would be good to post so that others can see.

First let me explain SOW a little. I think SOW is basically a big picture of education in general. It is a really great "skeleton" for a homeschooling family. But, many of the details are left to you. This is such a great bonus, but on the other hand it can be challenging! Although SOW gives you a large list of resources it can be difficult to find the "right" one and you may spend more money than you'd like. The first year is very expensive as you have to find all of the books that would go along with the units. I'm finding that I need time to plan out my year, so we're taking things VERY slow. That's ok with me though, because I'm planning to stick with SOW until the end. If it takes me a few years to get organized (and in the meantime I'm working on our family dynamics and implementing only some of the SOW curriculum...) we're doing just fine.

There are some WONDERFUL parts to SOW that are more than worth the entire price of the curriculum (even if you're not going to do the whole thing!) The bible study/language arts section is amazing! I would highly recommend buying SOW even if it's just for some foundational understanding of discipling your children and keeping the Word first.

It can be frustrating because the outlines are a little unpredictable. For instance in some cases you are reading just one chapter, then a few "weeks" later you are studying 12 chapters or in one case the whole book of Leviticus. This is because the author wanted to keep "stories" together I think. You might take one "week" to study Joseph and another week you are studying Cain. Obviously there are more chapters on Joseph than Cain.

The science kind of relates to what you are studying each week. (I see a correlation at least.) As a whole though it is one subject for four weeks, but each week it is broken into different parts of that subject, with ideas of what to do each week. You could go beyond or even do less. I'm struggling with the projects since we just moved right now.

Now, when I say "week" I mean...something else. Well, they could be a week for some, but I'm finding that they are taking MUCH longer. (That could be what I mentioned earlier about resources though?)

Speaking of resources, SOW really is VERY economical! Really! If you stick with it you don't need to buy anything really after the first year. Again, the first year is the hardest because not only are you buying all of the foundational materials, but it just happens to be the year where you are studying creation science - that stuff is hard to come by! You can't just pick up any book, since there are not THAT many books out there for kids. So, be prepared when you buy it since the resources are important and they can really add up.

I'm working on getting us organized in a way that if someone would be interested in EXACTLY what our home used and how we did it, I could help guide them. I know the author is coming out with something really similar here soon, so that should help newbies out. I suggest you contact them to find out more about that before you buy it.

The pros for SOW would be:
1. That God is leading your home. It keeps you focused on not just school, but on Him.
2. Because your goal is discipling your whole child, you see that there is more to teaching your children than just academics.
3. The foundation of teaching creation from a biblical perspective is AMAZING!!! It guides the rest of their education, since they really understand that God is the maker. They really "get" it, so there is no doubt when all the other books say "millions of years ago...there was a big bang" they are grounded already and it doesn't move them.
4. SOW teaches the student how to think for themselves. You are not teaching them, God is. They draw out from their hearts and minds what THEY think and know. This is such a great part of SOW that not many curriculums can match.

As you can see, the main part of SOW is teaching your children how to have a relationship with our Lord. Nothing compares to that!
---------------------------------------------
Ok, now for MFW.

Can I begin by saying that I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED MFW?!?!

It was really really really neat! Can I just be honest and say my favorite part was how completely organized it was. I didn't have to think too much and it was laid out in such a way that it was pretty close to perfect! You found yourself studying just enough that it made you want to learn more. You weren't over learning until you were tired of hearing about the subject, but it beautifully made you WANT to do school! We did Adventures and ECC. Both were perfectly tailored to the age of the child. The authors really understand where children are and what they need at every age. Something most of us parents really struggle with. I find myself expecting too much sometimes and other times too little, so I miss that part of mfw. I loved ECC! It really gave you a heart for the mission field.

MFW was just about perfect. No exaggeration here. I really like it a lot. Why then did I change???? Well, because God said to. ;o) Sometimes the harder road is best in the long run. I wanted our focus to be on Christ and I knew SOW would do that. That's the best answer I can really give. Well, the other thing that bothered me with MFW was the study of other gods and religions. It was really bothering me. Some people don't seem to have that conviction, but I want my children to focus on how to serve God not how others served their gods. Oh and some of their choices for books kind of bugged me (like the purpose driven church) among others. That was just personal decisions that made me think a little.

I've been tempted a few times to go back to mfw, but when I pray fervently God always reminds me why I took the path I did. ;o)

Hope that helps!
~Mercy

P.S. If you'd like to see more on "Why SOW" click on "SOW Stuff" under the labels. ;o)

p.p.s. I was in such a hurry (as I always am when writing) so I'm sure I missed things and wrote terribly. If you have any questions, please ask!

In case you don't see us for awhile...

2009-03-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

Our computer is really sick. It isn't working very well and it needs to see a doctor soon. So, if we're not around you'll understand.
~all of the students of the Word

Yes, we're moved and yes we're doing school...

2009-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

In fact, not only did our house move but my husband's work and our church also moved - all in the same month. Just maybe God's telling us we got a little too comfortable, eh?

There is something a little familiar about school. So, before I even unpacked the kitchen (ahem, the kitchen is STILL not really unpacked but don't tell anyone) um, anyway we started up school. I mean, right away. I needed some sort of stability during all these changes.

So, I made a list (these are things we've always done, but it's worked well to have a little chart sorta thingy to check off everyday.)

Here's 9yo's list:
Brush Teeth
Get Dressed
Shower -MWFS

Pray
(sometimes prayer letter, but usually he just sits in his closet for awhile)
Read Bible
(he just picks a chapter...if we're starting a new lesson he'll read that, otherwise it's his choice.)
Math
Scripture memory
(which is penmanship/spelling)
Check SOW list - I write a list daily for him.
(this usually includes time with me, a few worksheets, etc. I usually try to keep it less than an hours worth of work truthfully.)

Clean Room
Take Out Trash
Dishes or Pickup living room
Keep Table Cleared

Pickup poop - MWF

I have to mention that he helps out a lot with misc. stuff throughout the day. With 1yo and 3yo he will play with them when I need him to,or get a snack for them or...whatever.

Am I working him too hard?

He does really well with the work work, but with school he tends to space out or get distracted easily. I am an advocate of teaching children to work hard, but I'm not one to push schooling hard. I'd rather have a son who can be quick to do what needs to be done physically, but mentally I guess I allow him to grow as life teaches him. Yikes. But, he is doing much better than I ever think he should be at any given time. I'll scan in (with my new scanner I got for Christmas) his creative writing from yesterday so you can see...

Ooops, yesterday's had all the kids names all over it. Hmm...how about Monday's? Ok, here ya go. Well...that's not working either. It says "internal error" so I'll have to figure that out and get back to ya.

Anyway, we're here and we're having fun. Really, we are having fun. Superkid is learning about weapons. What young man is not happy to learn about weapons??? Ha Ha.

I'll check back in later when I can.

tty'a later..........................

This is what we've been up to:

2009-01-13T11:27:00.000-08:00

We're living out of boxes right now.

We'll be back later!

And a...

2009-01-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We wish you a...

2008-12-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two days left!

2008-12-23T18:03:00.001-08:00

Yay!! I'm excited for Christmas.

Tonight we are having our sleep-out by the tree as a family. The kids have done it several times, but it's totally different having Mom & Dad too. I figure we can sing carols while we lay by the tree tonight.

Hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm just checking off a To Do List here. These are things we all decided on as a family we wanted to do, so we're working towards our goals.

Anyway, today we did our Gingerbread House, but it didn't quite turn out like a house.

Well...the house part broke, so we just decorated pieces of gingerbread cookie.

cute, eh?

What else??

Well...we found a house!

We didn't expect to be looking during Christmas time, so focus has been hard around here. We didn't get pictures out and we're not doing anything fun for Church. Usually we do an ornament or some crafty something or other. But, nope. Not this year.

We are still planning to go ice skating, but I think it will be sometime after Christmas.

Hmmm...

We got a bit behind on our Jesse Tree, so we need to do a some catch-up with that. Oh, part of the reason why we haven't watched Christmas movies is our DVD drive is broken. :0( We did watch one at Church, so I think I'll cross it off.

I think that's it.

Soo much going on. I just don't want to miss out on "talking" about some of the fun stuff we've done. ;0)

Hope your Christmas time is filled with Christ!

6 Days left?!?

2008-12-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

{Blink} Where did Christmas go?

Boy, you just blink for a second and there it goes.

We have not been doing very good on our list, sadly. Actually, we are just a little caught up in WAY too many things this month to even recognize Christmas is here. Yeah. That's really how bad it is. We didn't even do pictures - which for us is a really bad sign.

BUT...we have been making sure to listen to Christmas music and look at the shimmering Christmas tree. And, best of all we've been pretty faithful to keeping up with our Jesse Tree. We've also snuck a few Christmasy things in without even realizing it. Superkid has been doing Cub Scouts and Little Bear went with him last week, so they BOTH got to make the cutest little snowflakes out of plastic knives for the tree. Unfortunately, Superkid's was destroyed in a few different ways, but here's a picture of Little Bears glimmering flake...oops, nevermind it's also been destroyed. OOooh well....it sure was cute while it lasted. I guess I don't recommend that project the glue just seems to slide right off!!

And they even were able to play in the snow (twice technically since Superkid went snowboarding for his birthday!) So, we're not doing too bad. The kids are excited about Christmas and really, that's all that matters - right??

One reason why we haven't done a whole lot is Baby Bear was really sick for a few days. Last Wed-Sun she had a huge temperature we were fighting through. She was up to 103, which is so sad. She's feeling much better now.

This week we are missing our car. Which means we can't go anywhere...at all. We're stuck. I am going to be SOOOO happy when it's back and fixed (for good!) - let me tell you. We have a family of 5 trying to squeeze into a truck with 3 seats, which just doesn't work. So, that's been a bit of a hindrance. I think we're renting a car tonight until ours is fixed, so that will help a little bit.

And (last but not least), yet another part of why we're so distracted is we are moving. Yep. Which just throws life out the window for a little bit. And, it certainly takes your mind from all of those important things if you let it.

Just to mention it (and add to the complaint list) I have to say I've been through 3 counters on this blog for Christmas. I'm not sure why but they kept disappearing, so I had to keep finding new ones. I don't like this one very much, but hey - it does the trick!

On a positive note - we're going tonight to see "The Christmas Sweater" and we're all excited about it. I turn on Glenn Beck just about every morning, so my kids have been hearing about this book/show for awhile and it just seems fitting for our family to go.

Here we are and we're going to squeeze as much into these last 6 days as we possibly can, because these are the "good ol' days" and I'm bound to make them good! LOL!

In the meantime...Merry Christmas to ya!!

[By the way, I just want to mention that Superkid's arm is doing great! It wasn't broken, he's still having trouble lifting things, but it's healing up really well. Praise God!!]

Happy 9th Birthday!!

2008-12-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

See what Superkid did for his birthday this weekend?

Had a great time...until...he (possibly) broke his arm.

Yeah. No kidding.

Our Jesse Tree

2008-12-06T09:28:00.000-08:00

Here's how we've been keeping our eyes focused during this Christmas season. Each night we read a bible story that tells how God's promise of a King came true. Then, we place an ornament on the tree that has a picture of that bible story we read. It has been really neat.

This first picture is a few days ago before we had lights on it. And as you can see from the second picture, we've been adding our ornaments every day!

If you're interested in buying the kit that we have you can find it at: http://jesse-trees.com/. They also have patterns for those of you who sew out there. :0)

School can happen without ME!

2008-12-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Funny how God seems to put a desire on my son's heart to do something without him even knowing that he's actually learning about something he's supposed to. :0) He went searching for this the other day (I don't think he's used it since he was 5!) It happens to be all about dinosaurs, which just happens to be part of what we are learning about in school. Coincidence? I don't think so!

My 3yo "School"

2008-12-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't been keeping you updated on my little girl's school. So, I thought I'd take a moment to do that. She's been asking almost every day to do her school. I really don't know what to do with her, honestly. There are only so many worksheets to do with her. I decided not to go with the abc booklet idea (located on the side). I had planned to do K with her early(taking two years to complete it) and would love to start now, but we're going to have to wait until after Christmas. I've shown her what we are planning to do, which you can see right HERE. It's from My Fathers World and I think we're going to have a blast!! She's excited. I wish I could do it now. Oh well. I told her we'll be able to start it after Christmas and she's ok with that.

Anyway, in the meantime here's what she's been up to. Just a little bit of this and that...

(The first one is a scorpion. Isn't that neat?)

>>>UPDATED<<<

How could I forget THIS picture??

Baby Bear is doing an apprenticeship, learning to work on dishwashers with her Daddy. Isn't that sweet?

Look what we did today!

2008-12-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

We wanted to make sure the birds survive through the winter, so we put together a few bird feeders.

Hello there.

2008-11-30T22:41:00.000-08:00

So, where are we?

We've been working on 1A3 for awhile now & are doing great! We're actually about halfway through already.

My original plan was to take the holiday's off, specifically December actually. I'm going to stick with that plan, even though we aren't where I expected to be. No biggy. We're going to keep working on math & do some writing here and there, but this month is going to be mostly focused on Christmas!

I made a list of all the fun stuff we're planning to do. Wanna see it?

Ok.

Green means we missed it and we'll try again next year...
Red means we're planning to get this done before the 25th!
Fun things we can do this
Christmas!!
~~Put up Christmas tree~~
~~Decorate tree~~
~~Decorate house~~
Take Christmas pictures
Make Salt Dough ornaments
Give ornaments away
Caroling at nursing home
Watch Christmas movies
~~Drink hot cocoa & play games~~
pray for Christmas card givers
~~Drive to look at Christmas lights~~
family slumber party by the tree
learn about Christmas celebrations around the world
~~read Christmas books~~
Make Christmas snowflakes
sing Christmas carols by the tree
ice skate
~~play in the snow~~
learn the history of Santa
gingerbread house
take picture of family by the tree
make a paper mache snowman
string popcorn for the tree
have a birthday party for Jesus
Send gifts to troops or foster family
Pick out Christmas gifts for each other
gift wrap extravaganza

Celebrate Christmas here...
...then go visit our family and have Christmas all over again!

Actually there is a lot more, but I've only hand written them in yet so they're not included in this list still. I'm really trying to emphasize what we are DOING for Christmas, instead of what they are GETTING for Christmas.

Oh...I wanted to mention how God is working in our school. Did I tell you we FINISHED Pilgrims Progress??? But, what was really cool was how we walked into Church a week after we were done and our Pastor showed the movie!!! And - he's doing a study off of it about spiritual warfare, which of course is what we are studying in 1A3!!!

Isn't that amazing how the Lord worked all of that out?
I thought so.

Anyway, I'll be back soon and I'll try to include you in all of our projects and outings.
Can you believe it's December 1st already???

2008-11-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I TOTALLY FORGOT TO POST THIS PICTURE. AREN'T THESE CUTE? THIS IS WHAT KEPT THE KIDS BUSY WHILE THEY WERE WAITING TO EAT.

Finishing 1A2

2008-11-18T12:45:00.001-08:00

I made up this page first page. The middle page is a map of Eden. The last page is the questions Superkid would ask in an interview. We haven't done the interview yet though.

That's just a sampling of some of the fun things we've been doing around here.

We're on to 1A3!

More pictures coming...

2008-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

My camera battery died. So you will have to wait on the rest. We are finishing up our last "worksheet" for the week. We will be starting on 1A3 within this week. Although I wanted to be further, it's really ok. We are doing just fine. I keep in mind that it's the relationships that matter most, because in the end that's all that really matters!

Check back later for more!

Fight the good fight!

2008-11-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say that I have had such a difficult time moving ahead with the curriculum. Twice now within the past month or so, I have come very close to posting to the Yahoo group to ask for some encouragement to stay with what God has told me to do. I knew it would be hard to stick it through, but boy...it's really been a struggle. That's how you know I really am on the right track! I have had some HUGE attacks (I believe have been from the enemy) where I was so distressed and thought I needed to go back to what I was doing - despite the fact that things have been SO much better since I began (with regard to relationship with family & God).
I want to just encourage those who may just be beginning with SOW to keep going, even when it seems hard. Each time I began to freeze up and feel like I wasn't doing what I should, I just began praying fervently for God's peace and guidance. He is SO faithful! I am very thankful that I have made my list of WHY I am SOWing, so that I can reference it when I start freaking out.
Maybe you think I am strange, but this has been a battle. I am actually struggling in the same spot that I stopped the first go round in 2005. (kind of interesting, eh?)

Anyway, be encouraged. If God has called you to SOW - then...SOW! :0)

Thanks for being there everyone!!
~Mercy

Field Trip - Pizza Factory

2008-11-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

We met up with one of our homeschool groups and went on a field trip. They gave the kids a tour of how the pizza was made, then the kids got to "make" their own pizza's. Basically, they put the pepperoni & olives on. But, they had a great time!

Here they are going in...

And, here they are coming out!

pictures!

2008-11-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

Big Bang VS Creation Experiment:

First, get your supplies. What? You don't own a flower hammer? I guess your husband doesn't love you enough to buy YOU one for your anniversary. :0)

Second, you intimidate the rock. (nevermind the dog tail...)

Third, the rock starts putting you down. (ok, the rock didn't actually SAY anything, but I thought it looked like it in this picture.)

Forth, you tell the rock you're not going to take any of that...and WACK. He's crumbles.

Here's the evidence. Which actually proves, things do not "explode" into order.

...For the second half of the experiment...

We got to play in the dirt!

And it was proved in order to create something, you need a Creator.

We really are alive.

2008-09-23T14:16:00.001-07:00

Just in case you're wondering.

We're still schooling too.
But, I'm just not finding the time to write.

Let's see...we're learning about Eve and Marriage and the big bang. :0) That's it in a nutshell. We've been steadily doing 1-3 "worksheets" per day. They are worksheets, but they are more like outlets to express your thoughts.

We are doing an experiment which I'll try to post pictures of. I'm thinking we'll do it later today, but don't hold me to a post later today.

I also set up "prayer & reading" notebooks for each of us. It's cute to see Pickles...I'm thinking we might change her nickname to "little bear" because that's what she's being called around here lately. :0)

Anyway, the notebooks have been really neat. Superkid is using his daily and I told him if he does that he doesn't need to do his prayer letters. I also told him I won't look so it can be a special place for him to talk to God. So, everyday I just ask him in trust whether he's writing or not. Thankfully he's an honest young man.

That's about it. Sorry I don't have pictures. I'm just trying to keep up on writing, though I love to have pictures it takes some time to get those up.

Next time, ok?

The Banner

2008-09-15T17:33:00.001-07:00

We had a little accident that included baby food & a dog...

So, please don't mind the splatters. ;0}

Today was nice!

2008-09-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

We are still finishing up 1A1 around here.

Starting with the banner, which turned out GREAT!!!!!! (But, I don't have pictures yet since I can't find my sd card.) I'll get it up as soon as I can.

He also did a report to prove why "it couldn't just happen." Superkid did a super job researching and writing his report. It was pretty tough, really. He kept saying things that he hadn't studied yet, like why the fossils prove it. He hasn't learned that yet, but he's read it. SO, he knew enough to know that it could be an answer, but didn't know specifics yet. Considering that, I think he did GREAT!!

I will be back later with a picture of the banner later...

see ya then!

The Plan:

2008-09-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to feel like we're ready to get back into the swing of things.

It's about focus, in the midst of doing what we need to do. I just need to keep in mind what's truly important - my beautiful kids! And, showing them who Jesus is.

So, we'll continue to work for this week on the "sword fighting" book, millers, etc. then start next week back with SOW. I think this occasional break is actually really good. We'll probably take a week or two every once in awhile doing this same schedule. The truth is, we still get to the three r's. Reading (psalms), Writing (the memory verse), Arithmetic (We're in the process of doing Mastering Mathematics). So, even when we're breaking, we're still schooling. Don't tell the kids that though. LOL.

Just thought I'd let you know, we're planning to get back to the original plan here soon. It HAS been refreshing. We'll be doing this more often, I'm sure.

In the meantime, I have been keeping up on that blog: A Holy Experience. She has a great perspective. I remember a LONG time ago stumbling across this blog thinking it was just too deep for me...maybe things have changed? Like, possibly -my heart?? My husband says she's too emotional (I can see that), but either way there are some great gems in there.

Unless something worth writing about happens, I'll probably wait until next week to check in.

See you then!