I love homeschooling, being able to do christian homeschooling we can are able to accept poetry like this. Take It All By Super D. As I lay beneath the tree, and I feel the gentle breeze. I really begin to see, all the feelings bottled up inside me.
All the anger that I've had, every thing that's made me sad. All the grudges and the hurt, every time I've been a jerk.
All inside that bottle, the things that make me cry. I've kept it all inside, but now it's time to say goodbye.
I give it all to Him, the one who cleared my sin. He takes it all away, so that I can be saved.
Doing school in different areas of the house has always been normal for us. I know there are some homeschoolers who do school at the table or in a certain room ONLY.
But for us we do school ALL OVER, the most common place for us to do school is on my king size bed. I know strange place but it works. That is not the only place for school work to be done.
This past week we did wall school.
What is wall school? It is when you do school work on the wall of course. I know silly, right? But Honey has been doing so good on her math I wanted her to have some extra fun. She loves to draw, write, doodle (she is her momma's daughter) and what more fun then to write on a big piece of paper. This wall is in my dinning room/living room combo area.
I know of some people who have dry erase boards low for their kids to write on and use for school. In fact we used to have one for Biggun on that used to lean on that exact wall. Not sure what happen to that board. We also have a chalk board on our pantry door, in the kitchen, that has been used for many different things over the years.
Below is what our door look like today. The white square on the bottom is a hole that I covered to keep kids from getting scratched while they use the board.
Here is an example of a chalk board being used in a home of a fellow homeschoolers, TheJoyfulChaos. I would love to do this with a full wall. But not sure where we would put it.
That leads me to think of more alternative ways we might do school through out the day.
Having your child do school work in different ways really can help a child to focus. I have been told by those who homeschool ADD/ADHD child that standing can help them focus. My kids do not have either of those but standing is always an option in our house. Every home has its own homeschool learning styleours is anything works.
Where do you do school work? Do you do school in the same area everyday? Do you sit, stand even lay down? I would love to know, leave a comment and share with me.
After all the rain we had in the past few days. Our back yard is full of mud and anything that can hold water is well... holding it.
People ask me how I teach science in elementary, it is not hard to teach science when you can have the HANDS on exploration like my kids have had this week.
This week we have had aq weather lesson. Watching the rain from all kinds of different places.
We looked at rain up close...
Then when it all stopped and it had collected in different places in our back yard we looked closer at how much water had collected and talked about how much rain had actually fallen.
Then as I had my back turned and my two sweet loving children chose to do their own experiment and well this is what we ended up with....
Yep, a wet muddy puppy.
We also covered dog bathing and grooming. That is a science in it self....
Last Friday I was a total klutz! Yes I said it, a KLUTZ. I lost my balance going out into the garage; down a step that I have walked a million times and fell backwards slamming my calf into the step. This you would think would not be that big of a deal. Get up and go on about your day, right? Well that was not the case. I went to stand up and wow pain shot straight through my leg. I could not put any weight on my foot at all with out major pain.
Imagine a charley horse 10x over. Yeah that is some kind of pain. "OUCH" Every step I took made me want to fall. I could not walk. I ended up driving to Mc Donald's got lunch for the kids and cried the whole time. I got to work and made it to the couch and was crying when my boss came home and she took me to the ER cause the pain was so unbearable.
I came home with this....
No I did not have a broken leg. That is only a half cast to keep my leg stable. The ER doctor thought maybe I tore my calf muscle part or whole.
"Ouch" right?
I got into see a orthopedic doctor on Monday only to be told the same thing.
Not happy!!!!
I was sent for an ultrasound to make sure no blood clots. That came back fine and now I have to wait till tomorrow (Friday) to have the MRI done. The wait for the MRI is due to the insurance took its slow easy time to approve the MRI.
Typical!
So here I sit working with my leg up.
Hating those crutches that sit against the wall mocking me, more and more every day!!!!
What has Biggun been up to? Well the past few weekends have been busy. He has had birthday weekends with a friend, state fair with a friend, then to round off the 3rd weekend he had winter retreat with the youth group of the church we have been going to.
I don't have any pictures from the birthday weekend, but he had a lot of fun helping his friend Lil D, celebrate being 13 years old.
The Florida State Fair was in his words "Awesome." He went with his friend Camo Boy and his family. They enter items into the fair every year and usually end up winning things. This year Camo Boy came in second place for his cookies. That is impressive! While they where there they went out and road some rides with Camo Boy and his big sister, Vet Tec Sis. She is like the big sister Biggun never had. She picks on Biggun like any big sister would do. It is great for him to have someone like her in his life. He gets to experience the older sister time without having an older sister. Here is a perfect example of it.
Oh wait, here is the example of him getting treated like a little brother.
Love that picture. It is so funny.
The third weekend was Winter Retreat with the Pipeline Youth Group.
He was on the "Green Team"
There where 4 teams, pink, green, blue and red. Their theme was...
Philippians 1:20 (NLT) For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die.
They ended up with a different slogan by the end of the retreat. The slogan at the end of the retreat was the above bible verse and the words
"I am NOT ashamed"
They create banners and this was his groups banner.
Each group had to come up with a cheer. I have not seen the cheer but I have received pictures of it, Biggun danced with a bucket on his head and at the end took it off and yelled "I am NOT ashamed"
While they where there the whole Pipeline Youth Group did the Harlem Shack.
Biggun had so much fun and learned so much. I love his youth group.
While Biggun was away working on his dance moves and all, the rest of us just hung out. I have been reviewing elementary homeschool curriculum for the littles andhigh school curriculumfor Biggun. Trying to decide what we are going to do next year.
Well that has been our crazy last couple weekends.
This week has flown by, we are already on Wednesday! I can't believe we are to the middle of February either! Where has the time gone? In my house it has been used to school.
Here is Moose and Honey playing a shape matching game, before we did alphabet flashcards.
Okay most people would think I was going over board w/ this sweet puppy, but she is still a baby. See this sweet baby girl got not only 3 shots yesterday that in the past she has had reactions to her vaccines. Where she whimpers for a day or two after she gets them.
I knew when I dropped her off yesterday to get her vaccines and spayed she would be the same way if not worse. Mommy intuition was right. She has been such a big baby since she got home. She has laid around. She hates the cone of course but when she is awake and out of her kennel I have taken it off. But when she is kenneled I have no control over her going after her stitches.
She whimpered and her eyes watered like she had been crying.
At one point last night she was shivering, again we live in Florida and it was not cold - just a reminder. So she got covered up w/ a blanket stopped shivering and slept soundly. Now I would expect that from other breeds of dogs but from a pit, never would have though she would want to be covered up. But then she had to have her feet out just like Lil Momma.
Here we are this morning and she was so full of energy when she first got up and I think she totally forgot about her tummy. Cause she started whimpering and settled down next to me w/ her blanket of course. She even is trying to help me write my blog.
I am praying when I go to work that Biggun can keep a good eye on her. A great example of unschooling. Learning all about the the spaying process and how to take care of her and her stitches. This is what makes us such open minded homeschoolers. That we can turn almost any situation into a lesson with out it really seeming like one to our children.
I am worried about reactions. That and she is really wanting to go outside in the back yard w/ our other dog Daisy May - 20 month old pit, but the back yard is very sandy from them running around and she can't go out there w/ her stitches just yet. That and Daisy May treats Dixie Anne as her own pup. We have to keep her away from Dixie Anne so she does not lick her like a mommy dog.
Here she is about 2 minutes ago sleeping, something she usually does not do in the morning. She is usually outside playing. But she started shivering and this is how she is resting now.....
Wow, has it been 4 years ago next Tuesday that my sweet little Moose came into our family. He was a big shock but what a blessing along with being a very strong willed child he has been since he has come into our world. I would not change a thing about him. (other then I really wish he would stick to potty training instead of fighting me over it)
Moose 11-15-12
He has had growth spurts, he has really started to talk clearer and he has really showing his own personality. He is funny. Specially when he ask for something and walks away trying to dance and snap his fingers in excitement. What a cute site that is. He loves the dogs and will drive them nuts but will also lay and love them at the same time.
This is a common picture you will see at night. With both dogs sound a sleep on the couch and Moose laying right there with them. It is like they are segmenting the couch to their own areas. It is too cute.
Normally Moose is a healthy kid but our whole family got sick along w/ a friends family too. All 5 of ours and 4 of our friends family ended up with Pharyngitis and Moose got croup to add to his sickness. We ended up in the ER one night cause he could not breath. After a breathing treatment and a steroid he was sent home and all was well. Seeing him like that makes me really think how can my baby moose be 4 years old next Tuesday.
He will be starting his early child education through Time4learning.com's preschool program soon. He has watched Honey work on her program and wants his own. He is so eager to do school. I LOVE IT.
Living and Non Living is what we worked on this week in Kindergarten Science. On time4learning.com of course. (big smile) I love how they explained it. The octopus was cute that they have on there. I love how we are eclectic homeschoolers. We go with what ever works at the time. After we where done w/ school that day we made our own living octopus hand prints.
If you use time4learning.com do you take your lessons and add on to them w/ fun activities?
Our summer is coming to an end. (Insert MOM crying here, I mean Kids crying here) We are one of those strange homeschool families that this year we chose to wait till after Labor Day to start up school officially. Even though our public school has been in for about 2 weeks now. With us starting after Labor Day it works out great cause we also will be starting co-op the week after we start school. So it will slide right into our schedule.
Honey is excited about co-op. this is her first year to get to go. She will be in the kindergarden class. They do not switch classes, but have the same teacher all day and do all kinds of fun educational things. Honey is also going to be using time4learning.com kindergarden level along with work books. We are going to take a laid back kindergarden year. I don't want to make some of the same mistakes I made w/ Biggun. We will be going w/ the flow.
Biggun will be taking at co-op
Beginner Sign Language, (I have tried to teach this but have not had any luck so hoping this will stick.)
Chosen Choir - He has wanted to sing at church but has not been able to.
Writing Sentence by Sentence - He can always use any extra help in writing.
US Geography - It will be interesting what new things he learns about the US Geography.
American Mysteries - This class sounded like it was going to so much fun.
He had wanted a PE class but I over ruled that one. Maybe next semester. We will be using a lot of PACE's for our curriculum along with some websites. His evaluator says he needs to work on fraction lessons and spelling list by grade to catch up with his grade.
As our days count down and we are almost to where we have to buckle down it seems to rain every day. That is just not right for Florida is it? We are hoping to get something fun in this weekend with the whole family.
Here is to the end of summer and beginning of our school year.! (insert mom crying again)
Yep, I sent in my letter of intent to Homeschool Honey for Kindergarden. I am excited and scared all at the same time. We will be using all kinds of things to help us get through our school year. She is excited. Of course we are not starting till after Labor Day. I have to much on my plate to start up full time before then. We will hopefully go into schooling year round again. The scariest thing for me is her learning to read. I had such a hard time w/ Biggun. But we will be using time4learning.com, co-op once a week, lots of books, and a few lighthouse workbooks. Along with what ever else we can through in to make it a fun Kindergarden year!
This past week I decided I needed to be surrounded by more Godly people to help with my depression. So instead of a bible study group, none in our church going on right now. I made arrangements to have a girl scout do service hours to watch my kid choir during practice. Well then my husband said he could handle the kids instead of getting an extra hour of sleep. What ever works for him. I am hoping I was able to talk my girl scout friend into joining choir. Cause that 14 year old can sing.
So I joined choir last week and it was pretty good. We are trying to figure out how to get Biggun to join and make it work with his Boy Scout schedule. Biggun likes to sing too. It might help with his reading fluency. Having to follow the music and the books might improve his reading vocabulary also.
So not only is Choir helping me w/ my depression but it can also help my kid w/ his reading skills
