getting ready for valentine's day

I felt the desire to have a Valentine's Day party for the kids and our friends this year. Inspired in part I think, by many creative ideas I come across on other blogs. Like this one at "The Macs" blog. So as part of school the other day, I had the kids help create this garland as part of the party preparations (another school project was having them help create the evite invitation). It was a perfect activity since Brie and Reese can cut hearts and Luke likes to watch me sew, so I enlisted his help in feeding me the hearts. The kids were delighted with the results, especially knowing they directly contributed to the final product.

you've got mail(boxes)

Today I had the kids make some mailboxes as part of schooling. This is partly in anticipation of Valentine's Day and partly as a ruse to encourage Brie and Reese to develop their writing and reading skills. My thought is to write notes to the kids and put them in their mail box and have them write back. I saw an idea like this in Family Fun magazine (GREAT magazine with a ton of ideas) and am finally ready to try it out.

Here's how we made the "boxes":


Started with a large oatmeal container

Got rid of the shiny paper. Provided crafters with assortment of multi-media art supplies and...

...voila!















Didn't Ben do an amazing job with his? The boy's got talent ;)

Now, the only question is where to put them (am hoping I can nail them to the wall, but not sure if Dave will go for it :) )

homeschooling howsitgoing: curriculum review

It's been awhile since I did an update on our homeschooling and I've probably forgotten much of what we've already done. :) So I'll stray from the previous format to do an update based on the materials I currently am using.

Getting to know God: obviously this is not part of traditional curriculum, but it's the most important part for us :). We read a "Little Pilgrim's Progress" and looked up related Bible passages from Sept - Nov and then did an advent reading in Dec. This month, we've started reading a devotional book designed for 5-12 year olds and it happens to be about a fictional family with the same last name as us. Also, the kids have Sunday School and have started attending a Missionettes and Royal Rangers program at Tim & Lauren's church Wednesday evenings.

Spelling (Brianna): We're on our third spelling book already this year because attempts 1 and 2 were not working. Attempt one was with a Christian-based spelling program but I'm not sure the theology behind was all that sound so I scrapped it after week two. Then I tried doing spelling for free through superteacherworksheets.com but that was too time consuming. Thus, we've settle on Building Spelling Skills by Evan-Moore which is working well.

Grammar (Brianna): We're in the Grade 2 book of the Easy Grammar program. I love the format and Brie has gotten accustomed to it so I'll probably stick with this in the upcoming grades

Writing/Language Arts: I've piecemealed this part of our curriculum and recently purchased "Mini Lessons in Trait-based Writing" for grades 2-4. I've dabbled in it here and there, but think if I can actually commit myself to plotting out the lessons, we'll really like it. I've also used "Peak with Books" which is an excellent resource. Although it's geared more for K-1, I think it works fine for grade 2 as well

Reading: I love the McGuffey readers I purchased though I don't use these all the time. I also try to find level/interest appropriate material at the library but this has been a challenge. If you've ever looked at beginner reader books they usually come with a rating system of 1-4. However, it seems each publisher has their own idea as to what words are fit for level 1 so you really have to speed read through the selections to see if the book is a good fit for the reading level of your child. It's also been a challenge to find good reading material for Brie because she can handle a more complex story line but can be intimidated by the number (and length!) of the words that are on the page.

Math: Finishing up the Shiller Math curriculum with Brie and supplementing it with a couple daily workbooks. I tried Shiller with Reese but it didn't suit his learning style so I switched to Singapore Math. While this is an accelerate math program, he's almost through the K curriculum! So I found a couple workbooks to give him extra practice and am anticipating having to find grade one curriculum before we officially start grade one in September.

History: I did Canadian history and geography with the kids for the first couple months and was going to do Mexico for the second half of the year. However, the downside of planning your own curriculum is having to find the time and resources to pull it all together...and I was having a hard time finding the time! So I purchased the "Mystery of History" vol. 1 which I love because it integrates Biblical and secular history. It is a little textbooky for Brie and Reese but there are many activity suggestions and I can use this a launching point for our studies.

Science: We started out the school year with the plan of doing one topic a month and covered insects, trees and weather so far. I quickly discovered that I wanted to give at least two months to a topic because one month didn't allow us to go deep enough since we only do science 2-3 times per week.


And that's our curriculum in a nutshell!

homeschool highlight

Brie has a couple of math workbooks she does daily and they often include patterns of shapes to be completed. In one of her assignments this week she was presented with a completed star and flower pattern and was asked to name it. And so she did. She named it "Angel."

(She was supposed to identify it as an "ABB" pattern, but this is something we haven't really worked on together. I was so tickled that she gave it her best shot and came up with prettiest name she could think of)

I love you, Brie!

seeking 6-sided snowflakes

Oddly enough, a lesson in spiritual warfare presented itself the other day in my snowflake creating frenzy.

In my first attempt to follow the directions, things went awry and this was the result:

Pretty right? Except that it's not. Right, that is.

You see, snowflakes are six-sided. (It has something do with hexagonal shapes and how they're perfectly suited to help water molecules sticking together - something I learned while homeschooling ;). )  The one pictured above has eight sides.

Then, as I was creating more, anatomically-correct flakes, Brie and Reese kept exclaiming how they loved this one (the eight-sided one). And since we were doing a weather unit for science and snowflakes were one of the things we studied, I tried to explain that although this one was pretty, it wasn't "right."

After arguing back and forth for a few minutes about the acceptability of this pretty snowflake, it finally dawned on me that this is exactly what God warns us against when He said in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light." (NIV) I also like how The Message puts it: "Satan does it all the time, dressing up as a beautiful angel of light."

So I began explaining to them that this is exactly what we need to be on our guard against - things that look pretty and look like the real deal, but upon closer inspection are nothing but a dolled-up sham. And how many examples there are in the world today.

Television shows and books marketed to children are the two which come top of mind and which continually challenge me to look beyond the surface as a parent trying to raise our children in the ways of the Lord. The troubling thing is see how many followers of Christ are taken in by these pretty eight-sided snowflakes. Lest this turn into rant, I'll leave it at that, except for this grace note (and image).

Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:17-18 NIV)

homeschooling howsitgoing

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment.


Overall, a good week, though not as intense with school work. I was excited to get the new materials I ordered - a math curriculum for Reese and a more challenging mult-subject workbook for him. New math practice workbooks for Brie and a preschool activity book for Luke. Luke loved being able to watch his "daddy tape" this week - Dave chose to read Luke's new "Cars" book.

What we accomplished this week:

• Field trip to an apple orchard - we picked a half bushel and enjoyed sampling many varities of apples
• Went on a hike last Saturday and gathered leaves for an upcoming art project
• Brie and Reese went to classes at Tim and Lauren's church. Brie loves her class, Reese was a little disappointed there wasn't a "better" snack
• Brie started ballet last Saturday (it counts as PE ;) )
• Brie attended an author's book club program at our local library where they learned about Mo Willems and did some games and art projects around his books

homeschooling howsitgoing: week ?

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment.


The theme for most of the past two weeks would be: Doubts and Discouragement. Last week was harder than this week as I was questioning the wisdom of doing homeschooling and was toying with the thought that maybe a charter school would be a better choice. I even did a "pro" list to see if one option or the other would rise to the top as the wisest. Both side came out about even.

My conclusion - keep praying for God's guidance on how He would choose to educate our children. For now, I feel like homeschooling continues be the path to follow. I think part of the reason I went through all this doubting was because God wanted me to look at our curriculum and our schedule.

After much praying, I saw that I needed to "step it up" in the math department and adjust my approach in a couple other areas and God revealed how I could carve out two times in the day for one-on-one time with Luke (which had been a concern for me). While I hate doubting myself, but I love how God uses it for His good by keeping me from becoming prideful and thinking I "know it all" when it comes to teaching our children.


On the activity side, here's what we did the past two weeks:

• Completed our study on insects. Went on a hike with friends to find insects - God obliged by sending us a grasshopper, literally right at my feet. We also saw some fuzzy caterpillars, bumblebees, moths and a toad (though not an insect it did provide 5 minutes of amusement for us).
• Started a study on trees for this month. Focused on identifying deciduous vs. evergreen. Went on two separate walks to spot trees and had Brie complete bar graphs representing the tally of d vs. e trees for each walk. Read several books on trees. Watched a Bill Nye DVD on forests. Attended a program on leaves. Did leaf rubbings and bark rubbings.
• Continued studying about Canada by reading books, drawing a chalk map of Canada on the driveway and quizzing the kids on the province and territory locations and checking out Sitka spruce and the Vancouver Island rainforest on the Internet.
• Watched the final stages of demolition of the house next to our church.
• Brie was able to go to work with Dave last Friday and see the Red Jacket Ceremony they do for corps members, got her picture with Cleveland's mayor (okay, so only half of her was showing as she was hiding behind Dave), and helped perform community service at a Cleveland school.
• Brie attended a "Missionettes" class at Lauren's church which she enjoyed and so we're praying about her involvement in the class for the rest of the year.

homeschooling howsitgoing: week 4

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment.


Overall a good week. The kids worked hard Monday through Thursday so we spent the morning outside yesterday on a hike and enjoying the natural environment around us along with the company of friends. Luke started storytime at the library this week and continues to ask for me to do school with him, so hopefully this will lay some good groundwork for when he officially starts Kindergarten in a couple of years.

Curriculum Wrap-up:

• B and R completed little booklets to capture their thoughts and impressions of our trip to D.C. and Gettysburg. On her own initiative, Brie decided to construct a model of the Washington monument out of the wooden blocks we have. I love it when the kids apply what they're learning in new and creative ways!
• B is growing more comfortable with the Easy Grammar workbook which helps boost her confidence level. Thus far, she learned about capitalizing names of people, places, streets, etc., the punctuation marks . ? ! and , , nouns, verbs, subjects of sentences and alphabetizing, and how to combine sentences.
• I think I need to increase the level of difficulty for B in spelling - she does very well sounding out words and can work independently on much of her spelling assignments
• We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar this week as part of Language Arts and it fits nicely with our Insects science theme. I have the kids do a little booklet of the days of the weeks and then a drawing of what the caterpillar ate on each corresponding day. I wrote out the words for Luke and Reese and had Brie write her own. We also read a number of books on insects and caterpillars.
• We read Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt as part of our study of Canada. Was a great book especially as it is based on true events and takes place during the Civil War. In it, a Mennonite family moves from Pennsylvania to Waterloo, ON to avoid persecution during the war. So cool since this ties nicely with our recent trip and since we know a few people in Waterloo. :)
• I made a gameboard for an insect game complete with questions and a few insect facts. We played it this week but I still need to work the bugs out of the rules (pun definitely intended...and so fitting!)
• We're listening to Anne of Green Gables - how can you study Canada without reading this story?! - in the car and the kids seem to be enjoying it. When we were our on trip, I play the AOGG musical tape for them which Mom had dug out. I don't think they quite appreciated the musical genre because they laughed hysterically through the first couple of songs and giggled through the rest, so I guess cultural cultivation is next on our list. ;) However, they have requested encore playings of said tape which I have mixed feelings about because those songs are way too catchy and I end of replaying them repeatedly in my head. Like right now, I have the line, "every Tuesday af-ter-noon" running through my thoughts. Grrrrr.
• Since Friday afternoons will be more relaxed (I go grocery shopping), the kids got to watch a DVD on the outer planets in the solor system and a couple DVDs on insects.

The Attraction (and a bite-sized homeschooling howsitgoing)

We just got back from a great trip to D.C. and Gettysburg and I had to share something that still makes me shake my head in baffled amusement.

I took the kids to a couple of the museums in D.C. on Thursday while Dave was in meetings. As we were walking around looking at the many amazing exhibits, I kept hearing people quietly counting and exclaiming in hushed amazement over the number of children I had in tow (just our four ;) ).

And that amused me...to think we were in a city filled with many wonderful exhibits and memorials and statues and yet, seeing a parent with four children was also something to exclaim over. To me, four children isn't a huge number though having four aged seven and under does create some added craziness that one or two children probably does not bring or even having four children with greater age gaps between each child.

Anyway, it was quite funny.

But the only way I survived this day-in-a-city-without-Dave-to-help-out-and-no-place-to-let-the-kids-nap-in-the-afternoon was because of God and His faithfulness in answering my prayer to help us through the day. He sent some wonderful women to help us find some restrooms in Union Station when the ladies' room was closed for renovation and to help carry our trays from the food stations to the table and then from the table to trash when we were done eating. Plus, He gave Dave the perfect plan for where to park and then make our way to the mall.

And that was our week in homeschooling...listening to books on tape in the car, reading about D.C. and Gettysburg, visiting national monuments and museums, touring battlesights at Gettysburg and eating at a restaurant damaged by bullets. We are so blessed to live within driving distance of these historically and culturally significant places.

homeschool howsitgoing: week 2

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment.

This week was a far from routine with appointments and outings so I still have a lot of figuring out of our schedule to do. One huge blessing...a close friend has invited Luke to come over once or twice a week to play with her son. This may help Luke feel a little less left out as the school weeks continue.

I have found a way though to work in a little time with Luke to do some workbook activities which he seems to be enjoying.

Curriculum Wrap-up:

• still not satisfied with our morning devotionals but have done different things each day sometimes with prayer, sometimes with song, sometimes with both
•  I think Brie is getting more confident with her reading. This week, she read "Sweet Potatoe Pie" with little help
• we attended a program at the nature center on grasshoppers, included a book, craft and walk along the trails
•  we read "Blueberries for Sal" and are preparing a puppet drama of it for Dad's birthday. We also read other berry books - "Jamberry" and "The Blueberry Shoe"
• I'm still trying to figure out what I want the kids to get from our study of Canada besides knowing the provinces, territories and possibly the capital cities of each. I had the kids color a map and cut out the provinces/territories to make a puzzle. Am not satisfied with the books I've found which are set in Canada. Still on the lookout - especially for one on the Mounties' Musical Ride. Any book suggestions along these lines would be appreciated. :) 
• Dave and I played a board game, "Which Way USA?" with Reese. It's a fun way to learn facts about the states 
• We listen to "Ginger Pye" in the car when we go on trips - nothing like multitasking!
• Brie has taken an interest in trying cursive writing and she did surprisingly well at her first attempt. I think she likes it because it's fancy.
• If I thought hard enough, I could think of some educational applications to attending the fair this past Sunday (see previous post), but I think this one we'll just chalk up there as a fun field trip :)

homeschooling howsitgoing: Week 1

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment. :) This post will be a little longer since I'm including some feedback on the materials I'm using for this year.

Another question/comment I often get is "I don't know how you do it?!!!" One Word: Jesus. (That is, for anything I do reasonably well with a modicum of grace and my sanity somewhat in tact).

• week one started out tensely (on my part) but ended much more relaxed. My tendency to fear failure and not measuring up in God's eyes - or other people's - caused me to have knots in my stomach for several days. Call it challenge #1 of homeschooling - not feeling like a failure if your children aren't as fill-in-the-blank as other children. There's no blaming it on the school system because you are the school system. But then I got a grip and realized God got us through the first year and if I just trusted Him a teensy little bit, He could get us through this year too.
• with having two children in school, I'm realizing how important it is to have a workable schedule. I'd purchased a great resource, "Managers of their Home" which provided great ideas and encouragement on setting a schedule specifically for families who homeschool (though it also has great ideas for families who don't homeschool as well). Currently, my three favorite tips from this book are having "daddy tapes" for the younger children, having consistent chores for each child (along with consistent times for these activities) and changing most activities after 30 minutes. What's a daddy tape, you ask? A recording (sound or video) of the dad reading/talking/singing/praying over/sharing whatever comes to mind to the child. I'm hoping Dave can work up to recording a 30 min tape per week for Luke since he's the one most at loose ends during school time.
• oooh wait, make that four favorite tips - rest time. Schedule a consistent rest time everyday for everybody. Can anyone say "Amen?!" I'd gotten away from this since Brie, Reese AND Luke no longer nap most days. But for almost two weeks now, I have all of us in separate rooms for 30 min. doing quiet activities like reading or sleeping.

Curriculum Wrap-up:

• we start the day with "time with God" - reading something, relating it to the Bible, worship song. Still haven't hit on the perfect reading selection yet, but it's a start.
• next is our walk or other physical activity to get the wiggles out.
• Brie gets 20 minutes of math while Reese does workbook activites (phonics and writing practice). I'm using a Montessori-based program called "Shiller Math" which is great because it addresses 4-5 main learning styles. Reese gets 10 minutes of math while Brie completes her spelling and grammar work.
• I tried a new spelling workbook with Brie this year because the one we used last year (which we both loved) was expensive. I hated the one I purchased after just one week. But, happily, it was very cheap and I found a great online resource at superteacherworksheets.com and it's free!
• Brie starts grammar this year and we're using "Easy Grammar." She thought it was boring and hard at first, but I think she's warming up to it. :) I really like the layout and this was highly recommended by another mom who homeschools.
• our other Language Arts will be a hodge podge of things. This week we read "Brown Bear Brown Bear" which B, R, L all have memorized. :) A book I purchased, "Peak with Books" has all sorts of guided questions and suggested activities for favorite children's stories. For "Brown Bear" we drew a scene where all the animals might be found and I traced, colored and cut out the animals and glued them to popsicle sticks. Then B, R, L put on a play for us and Issy and Dad and Mom using the animals as they recited the book text.  They threw in some improve solo performances as well. I also have B and R doing independent reading from the McGuffey Eclectic Primer and other level-appropriate books. The McGuffey series is one that dates back to the 1800's (it's last revised edition was in the 1870's, I think) and I love the format. The lessons are in short manageable chunks that I think will help B's confidence in reading. I also love that the kids are using the exact same text as children more than 100 years ago were using.
• we're studying insects this month and got "in the field" experience by "encouraging" a grasshopper to hop by gently prodding it with a stick. It finally found refuge in our sedum. :) We also read this great book, "Oddhopper Opera." It's perfect for reading aloud and so much fun that I'm contemplating buying it. Brie drew a picture of a honeybee and Reese did one of a ladybug.
• we eased into things this week and will start our full schedule next week. As much as we accomplished this week, I wish I had more time to spend one on one with each of our children and more fully explore all the things we're learning about.

That's a wrap!

mARTch: Update

With the good string of weather, our art projects were put on hold. Plus, I realized it's so much work to try and get everything prepared for the kids to use that the excitement of actually doing the project is severly diminished by the prep and clean up needed.

Here's two projects we did a couple of weeks ago with food. I had grander visions of what these would turn out like, but I think Brie was more intent on getting to eat the art medium instead of creating a masterpiece with it.

First up, trail mix art. Creation 1: A Lesson in Abstract

Creation 2: "Camel"

Another day, another medium: Mini pizza art.

The creation on the left is an abstract piece, the creation on the right is supposed to be a girl with a mushroom head and chicken arms.

mARTch: Day 4: Catch the Rainbow

Thumbs down. That's my rating for today's project. I'm realizing many of these projects sound good on paper, but don't always live up to the high-def color of my imagination.

Since we had a lovely dose of sunshine today, it seemed perfect for capturing a rainbow on paper.

The project was to put a glass or jar in the sun and capture the rainbow of refracted light it made on a piece of paper. Finding the right container was one challenge (a curved glass worked best). Capturing the rainbow before the sun moved position was another. Finally, the rainbows were rather small and the colors close together so it made it difficult to see the difference between orange and yellow. In fact, red, green, blue and purple were the easiest to spot.

Anyway, I attempted to explain the miracle of this "all colors in white light" to Brie, but I'm not sure I did God justice.

Ho hum. On to the next project.

mARTch: Day 3: Boom and Bust

Forgive the long post...the first part is the results and my thoughts from our food coloring project. The second part is about today's project with string.

BUST
Well, here are the results from our first art project. Click here and here if you missed the pics from days 1 & 2. To sum it up, this project was a bust.

What was supposed to happen was that we'd end up with ice sun catchers to hang outside. What did happen was that I couldn't get the cups of water (used to make holes for the string to go through) out, and the sun catcher broke apart. See the picture below where Brie and Reese are holding up the pieces in front of the window.



Click here if you want to see how these were supposed to turn out and for the directions on how, in theory, to make these sun catchers :). I saw the idea in Family Fun magazine. There must be some way for this to work as the magazine people and at least 13 other families (according to the feedback section) had successful results.

I may give this another whirl on my own and experiement with different ways of successfully extracting the cup from the frozen catcher. I'm thinking oil around the cup might work or not using water to weigh the cup down, but use some sort of heavy object instead. Grrrr...I so wanted this to work, especially since it took three days to see the results!

The fun part of this project was teaching the kids about color mixing and they seemed to enjoy adding food coloring to the water. This was a little stressful to do with two boys under the age of 5 however, who are eager to get their hands on things. Stressful, because I had to prevent them from squeezing half the bottle of coloring into the water and from wiping their hands on their clothes.

If you do decide to try this, here are a couple additional thoughts: the directions for this project suggested using ice cube trays, but as you could see from the pictures in our other posts, we used mini muffin tins and plastic cups. Also, you'll want to make sure the pan of water you dump the colored cubes into is partially frozen (chop up the ice bits with a fork). Otherwise, the water melt a lot of the colored cubes and the colors run together).


Now onto today's real art project - string art...which resulted in a BOOM of finished art work.

Here are the three ar-tees-ts calmly working on their string art. See how nicely they are painting and how clean their work stations are. Picture perfect, c'est non?


Luke demonstrates how to paint with string...


Lest I leave you with the impression that Dave and I have somehow been blessed with children always follow directions and always keep their paint colors separated and never, ever get their area messy, here's a look at the kitchen after our art lesson. Notice, especially, the pictures on the floor, which were decidely not painted with string, but rather, with fingers, hands and paint brushes.

A pic of one of Brie's masterpieces and one of mine (created by gluing string onto paper and then painting the string).

Reese likes to immerse himself in his art and mix all his colors together:

Luke is more of a minimalist:

All in all, this was a great project for all the kids and washable paints make it a little less stressful for all the paint that gets on the fingers, arms, table, clothes, wall, etc.

mARTch: Day 2: Fun with Food Coloring, Pt 2

For the first part of this project, click here.

I thought I would be able to show you the results of our project (along with my comments on it) today, but it looks like it will need to wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some pics of what we did with our project today. See if you can guess what we might be making...

mARTch: Day 1: Extra Credit :)

Since we've had a good amount of snow and it was of right consistency for making some snow creations, I decided to do an impromtu "extra credit" art project.

Here's a pic of Brie sitting astride our snow lion:



And, here are Brie and Reese creating a more free form sculpture which we decided kind of looked like a tree:

mARTch: Day 1: Fun with Food Coloring

Today we did part one of a two-part art project. I'll share the steps, the results and my thoughts on how the project went for our 3 1/2 - 6 1/2-year-old age range. But, until then, here's a picture of what we did today...

Note: I was also going to do a bubble printing project with the kids using food coloring, dishsoap, and water (color dishsoap/water, blow some bubbles, put paper over it to capture the bubble prints) but couldn't get much of any color to show up on the paper. Not sure what went wrong, so if any one has ever tried bubble printing and gotten it to work, please share your tips. :)

Homeschooling: Websites

Here are some good websites Dave and I have come across which can help with reading and math skills. They are ones with little advertising or extras to distract from the actual website content. I like using these to supplement what I'm doing with Brie (though Reese and Luke also get enjoyment out of them) in the afternoons. I have yet to check out the geography one but it looks fun. If you have any other websites that you've found to be helpful for helping with learning for K-2 grades, please share. :)

http://pbskids.org/electriccompany/
http://www.starfall.com/
http://www.softschools.com/math/games/
http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/worldquiz.html

March is Art Month

In connection with this post, here's a glimpse of what we'll be doing next month...what I'll now refer to as mARTch. Sometimes I work better in themes. :)

Most days of mARTch, we'll be doing some sort of craft - ones that I hope the boys also will find interesting and easy to do. I will attempt to take pictures and post our finished projects in case you also want to give them a try. Some days will simply be coloring on paper. We'll also look at famous and maybe some not-so-famous paintings and talk about what is going on in the picture. We might make our own versions of these paintings and sell them as cheap knock offs.

Just kidding...sort of. You see, depending on how this goes and what our finished projects look like, we may really try to sell them and raise money for "the least of these" among us - especially children. Brianna often says she wants to sell her pictures to people who don't have any or to people who have no food. Which causes me to explain that usually these people don't have money to buy these things so maybe it would be better to sell pictures and raise money so that we can give them food.

I figured if I could get Dad and Mom to buy my cotton ball pictures for 1 cent and 5 cents respectively when I was somewhere around Brie's age, then with the rate of inflation being what it is, any pictures we come up with should be worth...well, I'm not sure what they would be worth since math is not a strong point.

mARTch - here we come!

Ugh.

That's how I feel right now. Worn out and washed up.

Maybe it's because homeschooling has been particularly challenging this week...EVERYTHING seemed to take a bazillion times longer that I had anticipated. Much of the time was focus less on teaching the three RRR's and more on teaching about the importance of focusing, listening to instruction, respecting what I say, the priveledge of being taught and what happens if we didn't do school at home or at a school building, why we don't play with toys once the school day starts. All important lessons, but the striving has drained me physically and emotionally.

And then, there's "THE HOUSE." Yes, God has blessed us with this opportunity to fix up a rental property and great progress was made last week. And then, this week happened. And nothing happened. And I want to scream, "Why is it taking so long?!!!" But screaming doesn't help and patience is a virtue and God uses these trials to grow us. And I think it's the enemy again, trying to beat us down, convincing us we don't even have the energy to pray about the situation, much less get any work done. And now I need to pray that God would give me the mustard seed because I don't even feel I have that. And I'm probably going to cringe at everything I've written in this post if I look back on it even a few months from now.

Enough griping for now.

Jesus lift us up!