Lobster and Maps Discussion and ... Skeletons

Today, while the rest of the homeschool world is making Christmas crafts we made lobsters!  You can follow this link to find some super cute directions for egg carton lobsters.  We studied Maine in our Adventures (My Father's World curriculum).  As I am not one to stick to the "plan" I added this cute lobster craft.  You are supposed to use PAPER egg cartons, but I had the styrofoam ones.  I just went outside and spray painted them red.  Within 10 minutes or less they were dry. 

Also, we discussed directions on the map.  The curriculum says to have the child(ren) find the state that is farthest east on the map.  The problem is that my kids know which way is north at our house, but they had the idea that on the map north changed depending on where the map was at.  Confused me a bit.... so, I thought this would be a good time to try to correct their misunderstanding.  It was quite funny, though.  Great teaching/learning opportunity! 

We might just have to hang those lobsters on the tree....  Hey!  They are red!  I am thinking that they will look very cute alongside our skeletons on the tree.  Well..... I guess I will have to explain that, also.  ;)  A couple weeks ago we started studying Colossians 1:18 for one of our memory verses ("And he is the head of the body, the church...") and the study extends to science and the body some.  I thought it would be great to do a skeleton craft that I saw here and label it with some "members" of the "church" (the people in our immediate family and extended family, church leaders and teachers, etc.... click on the pic to enlarge to see labeling). 

Our Curriculum Choices for our 2010-2011 School Year

Animal Study: "Patches"

Character Training: "Patches"

Life Skills: "Patches"

I just wanted to post a list of the resources we will be using this year. I seem to be seeing this sort of thing all over the blogosphere, so I thought I would share mine. For the most part we use My Father's World and I highly recommend it, but we do alter it to "fit" us and some of our preferences. For instance, they recommend Rod and Staff Spelling for 2nd grade, but after that they recommend switching to Spelling Power from 3rd-12th grade. I like Spelling Power and I almost bought it last year, but we LOVE the Rod and Staff Spelling. So, for now we are sticking with it... maybe later we will change to Spelling Power and only time will tell. No more examples... I'll get on with my list.





Some things we will do together, some things, seperate and I will try to note that clearly.





1st Grade-- for Sierra:

• MFW 1st Grade (minus Drawing With Children; minus the recommend Math book -- for now)


• A Beka K Math that we did not finish, yet. We will zoom through this really because I have it already. Once we finish it up we will get the recommended Math or something else. I kind of forgot this detail this Summer. Shhhhh!! No big deal, because I won't need it right away. ;)

4th Grade-- Savannah:

• MFW Adventures (because we did not finish last year or this Summer as intended. Once we finish this up we will go straight into MFW ECC and it is likely that we will speed up some of Adventures where we can)


• Rod and Staff 4th Grade Spelling


• Primary Language Lessons (1-3 Lessons per day: I confess I was adjusting to homeschooling and this is recommended for 2nd-3rd grade, but we are using it for 4th: once done we will order Intermediate Language Lessons and begin that)


• Rod and Staff 4th & 5th Grade Math (We used A Beka last year and I used it a slower pace, but still Savannah has done most of what is in the R/S 4th & 5th grade books, so I am going to pick and choose what she needs from the two books. She should complete the year ready to start the 6th grade books even though she will only be going into 5th grade level... ??? Confusing, huh?! David Hazell says that if your child knows what grade she is in you are probably doing something wrong... We must be doing something right!)


• Letter Writing.... not a book... we are just going to have Savannah write! We met Amish Pen Pals this Summer and possibly some others.

All Ages-- Together:

• MFW 1st Grade (All will participate in calendar time, Science, Storytime & crafts when possible, and phonics & math games)


• MFW Adventures (All will participat in History & Science when possible)


• Consider God's Creation Science (This is a 2-3 year program, but do-able in 1; I just love it so much that I want to use it even though MFW is VERY complete. We will use this to add to MFW 1st & Adventures and work through the rest of it as time allows. My kids love Science, so I hope it can be a great motivator to get Savannah to focus.)


• Cooking/Sewing/Homemaking-- I do not have a "curriculum' for this, but I want to really train my kids this year to be helpers to one another. We need teamwork and I plan to have them in the kitchen as much as possible, as well as, helping with daily chores that are in need of focus. I want them to leave home one day knowing how a home should function and well equipped to manage their homes and families. To make it fun we will be using two children's cookbooks ("Williams-Sonoma the kid's cookbook" and "Kid's fun & healthy COOKBOOK" by DK).


• Art: We will be continuing with "I Can Do All Things" that is recommended for Adventures; Draw To Learn About Jesus by Notgrass (Had I been thinking I might have bought the one for Proverbs, since you learn Proverbs weekly in MFW 1st); Dover Coloring Books (Sea Life; Exotic Butterflies & Moths; Backyard Nature) & Dover Stain Glass Coloring Book Kits (Wild Animals; Fairies; Butterfly Designs)


• Music Time: I will try to play random music all day (children's music; Bible songs; bluegrass ... my kids want to learn to play fiddle; worship songs); hopefully, violin lessons (online or in person); Violin study using "Violin Primer For Beginners" by Jim Tolles and "A New Tune A Day for Violin: Book 1" by Sarah Pope


• Audio Story Time: This will be used for listening to things such as Jonathon Park CDs, books on tape from the library, etc.


• Video Time: When we left in June on our five week vacation we cancelled or Dish Network. I believe it needed to be done for several reasons: commercials, inappropriate content on even children's programs, personal self control (my husband), & it was waste of our money for the lack of usage other than cartoon channels. Caden was addicted, also... and that is all he was wanting to do. Regarding my husband, what I mean is that he watched very little, but what was drawing him in was not appropriate. He might want to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), but the Spike channel is full of trashy commercials and "bleeped" out words. I think your mind still "imagines" the words and that is as bad as them being on the TV. Back on topic....... I want to still allow my kids some movie time. We still have our own movie collection and I think one every other day or so would not be so bad, especially the ones from Lifeway, etc..


• Exercise & Free Play: Thank God Fall is coming!!! I want to get outdoors. I NEED TO to prepare my body for labor, but have been taking it easy until the end of the first trimester. The kids need exercise to, of course! Gymnastics is still up for consideration, but I just do not know if we can swing it in this "season" of our life.


• Computer time: Games, Learning games, Typing, Spanish, etc.
• 4-H (not sure what we are doing, but "Patches" could get involved
• Co-op classes (For us it is all about friendships and anything they learn is just a "bonus"; Savannah will be taking World History and Gardening 101; Sierra will be taking Missions which includes some geography and cultures and Math Using Learning Through Literature); I am sure we will attend several theatre productions again this year as that is a love of ours and enjoy park day time after co-op.

FOR ANYONE OUT THERE READING THAT MIGHT BE INTIMIDATED BY THIS AND THINK IT IS AMAZING WE WILL BE DOING ALL THIS.... this is a ""plan" and we alter our plans alot! :) Mainly, it is a guideline, but we are not bound by it. Some of these activities are for "busywork"... You know, if "idle" hands are left with nothing to do, they start to get into trouble. If the kids are grumpy are arguing it might be a good time to pull out an "Art Activity", game, puzzle, or do a craft. I want alot on the "plan", so I have a lot to choose from.

As far as our schedule.... I don't have one, but we are jumping in full force Monday with or without one anyway!!! Sink or swim we are diving in!!! A schedule will have to "develop". Ha!!! It'll work out. Last year I fought with the perfect schedule, but by year end we had one that was very variable and it worked for us. This year we will do a similar thing and let life form the schedule.

ENJOY YOUR YEAR!!!

MFW State Studies: How We Are Doing It

I love the principles that are taught in My Father's World Curriculum, but I want to stress that as with any curricula choice that you must find that way that it works for your family. We are doing that now and the last couple of months of homeschooling has been so different for us. We have found what works now and have begun the journey of homeschooling and actually enjoying it. This is a quick overview of our week 12 in Adventures. We are way "behind" because I put the curricula down for a while to really avoid catastophe. I spent some time listening to God and that has made all the difference. He message to me was something like this, "Stop trying to follow someone else's plan and follow Mine (God's). I want you to raise your kids to serve Me. The academics will happen, if you get the Biblical principles right. Teach them and love them. Stop panicking. Stop acting childish. Work on teaching yourself what you did not get taught, so you can be a better mother to guide your children. Follow the kids lead academically and they will enjoy it more and give less struggle. Look at the root of the problems and not the moment."... and the just compact about two months more into that and you get the picture. ;)

Without further ado here is a glimpse of our Week 12:
We started the state studies and bird studies finally! Momma did not want to do it.... but Momma has ended up liking it... Momma felt ill-prepared, but Momma gave up on the library and ordered two great books to use instead that save me time and money. The books are:

Smart About the Fifty States: A Class Report (1)which is written and illustrated by 5 students in "student style". It really shows a good overview for each state and highlights the things that interest the kids in a fun format that we are all enjoying on a two page spread. It is a great example of what a mid-elementary level child would be doing for State Studies.

Our Fifty States (National Geographic) (2) by Bockenhauer & Cunha is gives a more in depth look at the states. Each state gets four pages and has great pictures to look at with a good amount of detail that makes it so that we do not need books for every state. This one covers it all. It covers the history, industry, landmarks, agriculture, and other facts that are interesting to know. Each state has a small photo of the flag, bird, flower, state map, and location on the U. S. map. This book would be appropriate through all their school years.

And Friday my husband came in with a fabulous find! The Young People's Atlas of the United States (3)by Harrison & Van Zandt is an oversized book with a misleading title. When I saw it I thought, "We have several atlases." until I looked at this book and now I can not wait to start using it this week, also. This one is even better in some ways for the mid-elementary age. It has a two page spread for each state with less details, but more small pictures. Each state has a photo of flag, bird, flower, state map, and location on the U. S. map, as well as, the state tree.

Other things we will be using for our State Studies:

We will NOT be using the State coloring book that is recommended. It looked a bit "busy" to me when I looked online at it, so I chose not to order it. We will use the free pages at http://www.crayola.com/ as these are more kid friendly in my opinion. Right on the page they give details about the colors to use for the flag, bird, flower, etc.

We also used the INTERNET for a closer look at map pics, etc. I would find the picture, then hold down the "Ctrl" key while pressing the "+ =" key to zoom in on the pic. Afterwards you do the same to zoom out using the "_ -" key.

We will not be using the library because that is just exhausting to me. Iwill be returning the books we have checked out called Let's Discover the States. Although these books are good, I just do not want to deal with due dates, planning library trips, searching out books, and checking out the appropriate book in this series each week. I would like to say that if I had the series here at home I would use it.

I did order the state stickers, BUT I only ordered one package. Bad move because I need a set for each child. What I think I will do is make a small poster (arghhh.... don't like posters on the wall) and as we study each state we will add the state sticker to it. It just does not seem fair to let Savannah stick a sticker on her page when Sierra is working just as hard.

Day 1 = Delaware -- Right away I discovered that it would be best to start them coloring their coloring page and doing the details that were not color specific while I was reading to them or showing them the pictures in the book. I start with book #1, since it is so perfect for their level and read and show the pics, then I move on to the other books. Meanwhile, I pull up the internet pics or lay the book down for them to look at between them as they color. All the while we discuss the state information. For Delaware their was no activity listed other than the coloring page. I felt there should be some sort of "activity" for each state. By "activity" I would mean a special area of study, craft, food sampling, outdoor activity, etc.. I decided that the State Bird would be our "activity" focus. The Blue Hen Chicken is the state bird, so I just found that fascinating. We discussed why and the story that goes with it. In hindsight I would have had Savannah right a brief re-cap writing assignment about that and maybe have Sierra write some words like "blue hen chicken" and possily have them do some art in the form of "chicken scratch" on the writing page. LOL! Darn! I wish I had thought of that then. They would have loved that! Anyway, we just did some discussion and oral question and answer.

Interesting Note: The girls instantly said they want to go there. I think we are going to have to tour the fifty states now!!! And I must say that my kids have been to more states than most at their age and we are planning more soon! .... very soon!

Day 2 = Pennsylvania -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For Delaware we did NOT make the craft suggested in the MFW teacher manual. Instead, I pre-cut some parts out of construction paper for them to assemble a Liberty Bell and had them write the verse from Leviticus on it. Isn't it amazing that our founding fathers put Bible verses on everything!! We also found had some great discussion about Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Crayola Factory in PA. I should have bought some Hershey bars in advance, BUT I have come to the realization that we can discuss it and do it later and that it OKAY!

Day 3 = New Jersey -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For New Jersey there was no activity listed. I had the kids use a decorative paper and I found a couple of food items with Nabisco and Campbell's labels on them. We cut off part of the labels and they taped those to their page. Both of these are major companies in America and I felt it was something very relateable to kids... even if we do not have a great deal of these products in our home. Ritz crackers by Nabisco are a staple here and Campbell's Chicken Noodle or Chicken & Rice soups are, also. So, I had only two labels for each of the kids, but it worked.

Day 4 = Georgia -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For Georgia the teacher's manual suggest making Peach Cobbler. Eeeeekkk! I personally like my fruit simple and my kids do too. And simple is what we need in our lives isn't it. We ate a real peach cut up and that was a much healthier alterantive anyway. The girls especially like the state butterfly on their coloring sheets and we pulled out a couple of books and pulled up a pic on the internet to get a closer look at the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.

We also just took a trip to our local State Park for the day and participate in a bird nest study for kids and then, went on a nature walk that all tied in perfectly with this study. The girls even made their own bird nests.

Interesting kid funny: Immediately, upon tasting the peach the girls called it a "nectarine" because they are used to their momma's preferred version of "non-fuzzy peaches" (nectarines). We eat peaches, too, but they are usually the canned ones. I choose nectarines over peaches in the produce section usually; however, we love both. We have a crew of kids with "food texture issues" and the got it from their momma. ;)

Of course, we did the Bible and bird portions in the study throughout the week... reading and discussion. And that is it! That is how we are making this curriculum work for us. We use it as a base, but we are changing what we want and adding or leaving out some things. And we are loving it that way. The very study I was avoiding has turned out to be the most enjoyable for us ALL. I just had to get my hands on some good books, stop all the library craziness, change up some things, and chill out about it all.

A Glimpse of our Last Two School Weeks

The week before this past one was Spring Break for my husband's school, but the whole family was sick so we stayed home. For Savannah we did 3rd grade Math some and did some light reading. For Sierra we did light reading, a bit of phonics like games and discussing words, and just mostly played when we were feeling up to it. Our biggest venture out was a trip to the Sno Cone stand once. There was a bigger plan, but life happens and we are still recouping from a virus after two weeks.

This past week I had planned to jump back into MFW Adventures, but that did not happen and I just am not going to worry about it. It may take us two years to do this little one year program, but I am more concerned with enjoying it than just getting it done. "Just getting it done" was my focus for a while and I have learned that there is no benefit from that. We are all quite excited to start the state studies and bird study, though. I'll shoot for starting that this coming week. We will be more prepared that way anyway. For Savannah (3rd) we did our Spelling (Rod & Staff) with double lessons. We did a "Review week" lesson and a normal week lesson at the same time. I was confident in Savannah's ability to handle two weeks of study at a time, so I did not feel this was too much for her. She aced her end of week test with a 100. The normal week lesson was with words like cutting and other -ing words and adding suffixes (-ing, -ed, -en). We did four days of math lessons and speed drills (and I still don't get why she is suddenly liking these, but I will go with it... Hehehehe!). We do "math extras", which includes using "wrap ups" and other math toys or flashcards, as well as, writing mulitiplication facts. I hear that using math songs for skip counting works well, but I have failed at implementing it so far. Maybe we will do it sometime. I also, want to start using math games online, etc. more as we just purchased two more computers as part of our school expenditures. We have saved money by borrowing some of our curriculum that has made this possible. God supplies all our needs!! Since Savannah did double lessons in Spelling I only had her do one day of handwriting practice. A normal spelling lesson consists of 16 spelling words (3 review) and the review week consists of five weeks of words (13 words each) totalling 65 words. She had only previously missed one of the 65 words so her testing consisted of the 16 words from the normal list and the one previously missed word. She made a 100. And by the way I "grade like so... all correct = 100... any missed = -1 (etc.). I don't give number grades. I have no concern for grade numbers and I would only move on to the next thing if she really knows the information. I like a Content Mastery approach and a focus on actually learning. I don't want my kids simply memorizing information for a test. Anyway, back to the handwriting... She did one day of writing her spelling words (the 16) in cursive. We usually do one day of a Bible verse, two days of the spelling words, one day of family names , and one day of other random words/sentences/verse. As long as she is writing I do not care what as long as it fills a page and is dated and signed. I had a handwriting curriculum this year for both my girls, but found it to be monotonious..... write " j j j j ..." ... we skipped all that and grabbed the old style writing paper and did what comes naturally. Much more enjoyable! Savannah read library books and some of our books. That was reading!

Before I go into Sierra's I want to tell you our schedule. Sick people just don't care..... we rested... we played when we felt like it and sometime in the late afternoon we would start some schooling. I usually started with Sierra this week and let Savannah start her independent work in Spelling or Math. We did school outside, on the couch, in the school area.... whatever felt good at the moment... sick people take a lot to motivate... especially, when it is Momma. Most of our school took place after Daddy arrived home and after dinner. It worked quite well and I would highly recommend it for those that are struggling with juggling all that life offers. I actually plan to use this "schedule" more often. I think it may be the key to getting some of our chaos in order. I can spend my days focusing on guiding my kids to help with chores and our attitudes first and foremost. We can prepare for dinner ahead of time and get more laundry done, etc. The stress of that getting lost in the shuffle greatly governs our day. With that front and center I think the schooling will just fall right into place in a more relaxed way.... even if it is in the evenings. The reality is that we can still do all our school in the same amount of time we used to do on just evening homework. I am seeing that it does not matter what time of the day we do our school. It should just be part of our life whenever it works good to do it.

And on to Sierra's... we started our "Goat Gg Week" in MFW Kindergarten. I actually want to get a bit "caught up" on where we are in lessons, so I look at the coming weeks and see that there are three weeks related to farming (Goats, Cows, Horses). I thought I would combine the Goat week with the Cows, but we were feeling too puney. Monday I finished up some unfinished work from our Insect week and did a little more preparing for the farming weeks. I have really had Sierra do more reading than the lessons call for, so I was happy to see that in the Goat week this week they finally add the first sight word (the). Sierra already knew it, so that was easy and confirmed we are on the right direction with her. She is the first on that I have had to teach to read, so it is really nerve racking sometimes.... but exciting!!! She is doing great! We did an animal matching file folder game and did some animal matching with a wooden hide-n-seek type puzzle that I have. I made some extra animals to go with it. We also used it to sing Old McDonald. I had each of the girls pick five animals and we hide them in the puzzle. As we sang we opened the little doors to see what animal was there and did each one and it's sound. For future reference 10 animals is way to long of a song when you are coughing your head off. ;) We mostly read books this week and worked through the MFW Reading Plan (I leave out some things that Sierra knows well) and did the worksheets. She did great and I am so gald that the worksheets are finally adding sentences for the child to read. The one thing I think this program is really missing..... and I say this lightly because I know it is meant to be a slow and easy approach to teaching reading and I am thankful for that.... I think it is missing little phonics readers. I have found with Sierra that the key to teaching her to read has been to put little phonics readers in her hands. Once she sees she can sound out some of these words phonetically she gets quite excited. I think it is great to write little nonsense story sentences using the words that you are focus on and let the child read those. And example off the top of my head is:

The cat is fat.

The cat is in a hat.

The cat is on a mat.

The cat sat.

The cat sat on the mat.

The cat is red.

The hat is red.

The mat is red.

I don't think we did any crafts... ooops! They did not miss it. Anyway, that was our week! Gotta run to church, again! Later!

Out of Wack Posting... Wacky World!

Crazy title... I know! I am sorting through my thoughts and trying to play catch up with some posting, so for a while my posts might be rather "out of wack" ... meaning, they might be out of order, but in the interest of actually posting I thought I need to start with the here and now. So here goes... and those other posts will just have to sit in the drafts folder a bit longer. LOL!

I mentioned in my previous post that I want to start journaling my days better and sharing what we are doing with MFW. My life is crazy random here, so this is what the last two days have been like... the short story that may not seem so short. :)

Monday morning we were supposed to be good homeschoolers, so we got up and everyone got dressed and went to breakfast. That's were the problems started. My children were so cutely having their milk in tiny little wine glasses UNTIL they tasted it. Bleeeeeeeechhhh! It was sour... arghhhh... and still in date. Milk is necessary here! So, I told the kids to get their shoes on and get ready to load up on this very cold and rainy morning with a three year old with fever. {giant fake sarcastic smiles :) } I bribed them with a trip to get donuts if they would make it quick. I can't say it was quick, but they did all get their rain gear on and it was quite cute... UNTIL I had to actually step out in the freezing cold rain to load them all up. Yeah! Off we went to the donut shop aroung the corner. Sorry... I should not whine when I live within minutes of everything I need and especially, a donut shop! I was going to take them all in to the grocery store until the vision of trekking them all in there popped in my head in this yucky weather. I hit the CVS Pharmacy, parked by the front door, ran in, grabbed a gallon of milk at the front, paid, and headed home. By the time we waddled our wet selves in the house and got ready once again to begin schooling it was close to 10:am....partly because I had to stop before leaving the house to feed (nurse) my starving baby that missed breakfast due to the spoiled milk. She was not gonna wait on a trip to the store. By the way, she is supposed to be weaning.... all my others nursed for 13 mo., 12 mo., & 12 mo.... she is 19 months and is old enough to have an opinion about it all. She screams like we are killing her when we refuse nursing. Yikes.... and the main reason I want to wean her is that she is refusing to eat solids many times just so she can nurse. ;) Sweet, but not a good thing in my opinion. And now that you have that little bit of info, back to the story.... So, we start schooling... well the baby gets tired... hmmm... I get her distracted and she runs about playing with her brother. She comes back "digging". Digging in her diaper.... This child seriously thinks she is supposed to do a touch test and I keep saying, "If you've got booty stew, don't touch the booty stew!" She does not get that. So, off we go to wash her hands, change her diaper, and wash our hands, again. Back to schooling..... and then, Caden needs a potty break and for some reason on this day I must be present. Yes, parenting is a joy! So, he goes potty, I wipe him, and he is off running in high gear, again. Back to schooling. My poor Sierra is sitting patiently waiting for me to read her book and looking quite bored, but I am back now. UNTIL Sahara walks past me "digging"... AGAIN!!! Off we go to wash her hands, change her diaper, wash both our hands, AGAIN! And finally, we are back to schooling. Meanwhile Savannah is trying to not be distracted, but being as the child is a poster child for ADD she has had much to keep her from staying on task. Her 3o minute math assignment ends up taking her 1 1/2 hours. Ohh.... and yes, Sierra is still awaiting that book reading time... I sit... I look at the kids and say, "Okay, Momma's gonna freak out a bit, but don't worry. Just let me have a moment." I take the "book" that I am supposed to be reading and beat it on the table about six times pretty hard and get some much needed frustration out. Of course, my kids are looking at me like I am nuts, but slighly comical nuts and we moved on. Finally, I read the book and whizzed through some K schooling while guiding Savannah through some independent work. Sounds fun doesn't it?... I will say this... we DID get most of our school done, but it took WAY TOO LONG and there was way too much time of poor little Sierra sitting and waiting on me. For K we are finishing up some of our W-Water week and starting on our I-Insect week at the same time. We buzzed through most of the W-Water lessons last week in one day (Thursday), but did not do all of the "Reading Plan" portion or any of the worksheets. I just felt the Science lessons were better combined into one day and the kids liked it that way. We had a two sick babies, so we had a wacky week last week. So, today we continued to talk about the ocean (for W-Water) a bit more and introduced the I-Insect lesson. We did the "Reading Plan" activities and the worksheets for both. We did a fabulous insect puzzle. For Savannah, 3rd, she did a devotional lesson, Spelling, handwriting, math worksheet, and two timed math quizzes (oddly, she is liking those). We did not get to any of MFW Adventures like I had planned to be our focus for the day. Savannah did do some reading while I gathered library books and as soon as my husband got home we darted out the door to the library. I confess I camped out there a while with my two older girls enjoying the distraction. Shame on me. My husband thought for sure I died, I think. He called to inquire about HIM cooking dinner. My reply, "Not unless you have learned to cook." ;) I told him not to worry and we have dinner soon. We made a quick grocery store run and at the kids request had corn dogs for dinner. Healthy? NO, but there were no complaints and it was really some great comfort food... and I needed some comfort. All-in-all it was a good day.... really, just a bit on the chaotic side!

Now on to Tuesday.... although my day was not bad yesterday I told my husband that I could not have another day like that one. That thinking lead to a bit of procrastination on my part. My goal.... how to avoid that type of day? I just was not sure, so I focused on other things and decided at some point that it sounded like a good day to try "evening school". I spent the morning making a couple of file folder games, cleaning some problem areas, and letting my kids ENJOY THEIR DAY. Seriously, in all the chaos they had spent way to much time sitting for their schooling yesterday. They played... and the sun shone, although it was still cool and windy. I even let the two little play outside for awhile in the warmest part of the day because Caden was fever free today. Hallelujah! So, this is how we schooled... after dinner we went straight to our calendar time activities. Cody played with the two littles and bbathed them. Savannah began her independent work (devotional, Spelling, handwriting memory verse, quick art) and I began Sierra's K. Sierra finished her writing practice worksheets for W and I, while I talked to her about ants and read some ant books to her. We did all her day 2 activities, but could not set up her ants because we are still awaiting delivery. I dismissed her to play with Daddy after she did her quick art. I froze some water in a pan and she got to write on it with markers (bingo dot markers worked well). We got hers done in one hour! I decided at that point to have Savannah (3rd) skip her math and we did MFW Adventures, but changed up. We did two days of Bible, decided to hold off on Science until tomorrow, and read the history while Savannah's was in the bath tub. Sierra fell asleep listening in my bed nearby. Savannah's schooling was two hours today, since we did not do the math. They also did one of my file folder games.

On that note, my little guy is sooo maturing all of a sudden. He has shown a new interest in books, counting, and colors. Today I was going to let him "play" with the file folder game I made. It is flowers with words in the center (pig, car, ...) and you place the round center on the flower with a matching picture. I was thinking he would randomly place the centers on the flowers and that was all I thought he needed to do, but he surprised me by asking, "What does that say?" I began with, "ppppp-iiiiiii-gggg, pig" and he would place the appropriate picture on. Quite cool to see this from so young. It made me realize that he will be ready to learn and I will know more about how to teach him than I do with my older two and it is going to be more natural, I hope. If you have stuck with this super long post, bless your heart! So, this is just a look at two days in my life and how I am trying to make schooling work for us and us not work so much for schooling. ;)

My Father's World Weekly Posting... or something like that!

I was just thinking that I really want to share what we do in our homeschooling. I had started doing that and then, quickly became overwhelmed. Totally my fault because I thought I should share ALL the details. In this case I think the saying "less is more" may apply! ;) I am going to try to backtrack and post some of our lessons. I am learning very quickly that we are not like all homeschool families. Out of each week I PLAN to school a full five days most of the time, but life just does not work that way here. We have all been very sick this year (nothing major, but enough to change our plans). We do good to have 2 or 3 days to do school with our other obligations. God is teaching me some valuable lessons! Life is going to happen! Can I work with what life gives me? Honestly, for a while I was starting to think the answer to that was, "No!"...{and yes, with the exclamation mark}..., but now I know that God is teaching me some VITAL lessons about how to handle this life. I can do this, but I have got to change ME and MY way of thinking about EVERYTHING in my day to day life. I'll share this example:

Laundry keeps rocking on in this house and the top of washing machine can be a seat and the top of a chest-of-drawers set can be a table for my child to do her Math while I fold and hang clothes. (Savannah, 9) [future post coming about this laundry area]



I thought I could not possibly post here the way our life goes or everyone would see what a failure I am. Well, guess what? That's is the old ME thinking! I want to detail this journey for my children, so they will have it to look at one day. Also, I want to show other new homeschoolers that it is not all easy and to do that I have to be real. I will begin by going back in time to re-cap some of our past lessons. When I get that up to date I will show where we are currently and how I GREATLY MODIFY the lessons and the weeks to make them work for us. I'll tell you what I think about stopping some things to focus on others and what I think about being flexible and how VERY important that is in homeschooling.

MFW Adventures and K: Week 2

I am going to leave out the major details and just hit the highlights or what I most think others would want to see ... or what I think I will want to have captured in a few years. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. Also, if I "add" to a project and you want the file just leave a comment and I will be happy to email you the file.

MFW Kindergarten: Week 2

We did the Creation Numbers a bit different because I wanted to be able to add it to their notebooks rather than have a poster on the wall. I will insert this in a pocket (page protector) in their notebooks. It is four sheets of paper folded in half and taped together. When it folds up it closes like a book; however, this left a blank page at the end and a blank green cover. We just can't have that, so I created a cover page for the kids to color. Also, I added a final page that says, "God Made Me!" and an empty square for the to draw a picture of themselves.

We also stapled our Creation Art Pages to make another book which I titled, "Creation: The First Seven Days, My Artistic Creation by: ______".

This is a sampling of our art for day 1 and day 2... I started to post them all, but you get the point.

MFW Adventures: Week 2

Ooooppss!! I added this photo sideways! I just wanted to show that it is easier for the little ones to form their boat over some sort of mold..... ahem, translation = old bowl, etc.. Some kids may find it frustrating to form a boat without a mold and I suspected that with my oldest (the perfectionist) and ran to find a "mold". It worked so well. We just turned it upside down and pushed the aluminum foil down to take the form. When you remove the bowl you can press the edges inside.

This is Savannah holding an empty bottle under the water to demonstrate that the bottle is not empty as it might appear. It is full of AIR! This experiment is in the Science With Air book.

The Santa Maria, The Nina, and The Pinta successfully sailed the Atlantic Ocean (bathtub) and we continued our Science With Air experiment by blowing our ships around the bathtub to make the AIR move them. I also demonstrated that fanning a sheet of paper with a book will make the paper race across the floor (mentioned in the book). The girls designed the sails all by themselves. I was just about to do that while they formed their aluminum foil boats when I decided that it would be best if I let them have a chance to "design" their sails... and I almost drew the shape of a sail for them, too... but then, I decided that it would be best if I let them have a chance to "design" their sails.... Guess what!! They did a great job with a ALL the details on their own and with me sitting back and saying to just do it how THEY wanted to. Sierra designed the one for the The Santa Maria and Savannah designed the ones for The Nina and The Pinta.

Sahara had a great time watching the ships sail across our ocean!! She got so excited. Poor Caden slept through it all,.... but awoke, found it in the bathtub and played "destroy the ships". He disassembled the sails and stuck them to the floor and continued floating the boats. ???

I had my girls do this part TOGETHER... on the one paper. I think it is great to get them to work together to create even a simple coloring page sometimes. They have to learn to take turns and wait on the other one or move over, etc.. They also learn to share in the design process rather than it all being "their way" only. I highly encourage having siblings do a "Togetherness Project" whether it is big or small.

In my post for the week 1 I mentioned my Posty Note Cheat Sheets that have been so helpful to me. Like I said... nothing fancy... and not totally necessary, but it is extremely helpful too me. Also, I make a copy of the current week's plan page and mark off the things we have accomplished. I am thinking that I will eventually start to make a copy of the current week's plan page and make my notes on that in colored ink or pencil and then, marked that off as we do it. Both systems would work .... anyway, that is my tip of the week. Make it work for you. You have to find those tricks that make things work for you. When I was a secretary (many moons ago) I would place outgoing mail on the floor by my seat. When I would get up to do something I would grab my pile of outgoing mail and take it to the mail room. Those type of things really help me remember to do things. I love to put posty notes on my steering wheel when I am doing errands... Those are the little things that help me survive the chaos! :)

My Father's World Groups

Someone mentioned to me that there were some Yahoo Groups for My Father's World curriculum users. Since I am familiar with and have joined two local Yahoo Groups for homeschoolers I knew already how great it is to have that contact with others, so I decided to check it out. I ended up joining four of the groups!! And I love it... already the I found out that they have a daily detailed lesson plan on the Yahoo Group for Kindergarten (although I have yet to get my computer to cooperate and open the files). After joining the My Father's World Families group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFWFamilies/" I got this via email. It lists all of the Yahoo Groups for MFW! So, I thought I would share it with you all.

"In addition to the group you just joined (MFWFamilies), you may be interested in joining a yahoo group that is specific to the program you are using this year.

Here is MFW's official message board to check out as well
http://board.mfwbooks.com/index.php

Customer run Yahoo Groups for My Father’s World Curriculum MFW Families:

MFW Kindergarten
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyFathersWorldKindergarten/

MFW 1st Grade
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFW1STGRADE/

MFW Adventures
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFWAdventures/

MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

MFW Creation to the Greeks
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

MFW Rome to the Reformation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFWRTR/

MFW Exploration to 1850
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFW_EX1850/

MFW 1850-MOD
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFW_1850MOD/

MFW Curriculum Swap
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mfwcurriculumswap/

MFW High School
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFWHIGHSCHOOL

and if you are using or consider using Workboxes to organize your MFW day, here's a group to see, too
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MFWworkboxes/ "

Let me know if anyof the links do not work for you, please.

It's Going To Take Me Awhile...

It's going to take me awhile to get into posting these weekly My Father's World posts. Life happens in a crazy manner around here. Everyone is well, but we have three days this week that are full of scheduling conflicts! 8l I am finding that some days we have to skip our lessons or do only part of it, but I like that we can squeeze two days in together because the lesson activities go together so well. An example of that would be that today we were supposed to make our ships and sail them, but we had surprise company. So, tomorrow we will do that portion of the lesson along wth the Scinece with Air portion where you use air to blow paper around. We will blow the paper around and then , blow our ships around in the same manner. I love that we have that flexibility!

I am also trying to be very detailed with my posts... partially for my readers... partially as a way of journalling what we do in our homeschooling... partially so when I do these lessons again I will have it to look back on in a few years. Please bear with my over detailing. It won't bother me if you just scan for what is relevant to you! ;) It is all relevant to me, obviously. ;) Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like to see our version of. I will be happy to d a post or answer your questions!

Let the "Adventures" Begin... And "K" (MFW)

Name Art

Pics first, and then you can read about it all...

Savannah, Caden, and Sierra making their Jello for dessert prep.

Sierra being silly with her Red, White, & Blue dessert.... She played with it, but wouldn't eat it even though she thoroughly enjoyed being silly with it and making it.

More of the sillies.... Sierra thought it was hilarious to give her dessert "the bunny ears".


... and more of the sillies... Sierra had band-aid stickers all over her face when her daddy came home from work. On the table you can see they are working on their forever long coloring of the U.S. map. Notice how silly their daddy is! I can't imagine why the kids are so silly, can you!!?

Seriously, I did not realize until this moment how silly they were being and that I uploaded all silly pics! They said this experiment was stinky. I thought they were referring to the eggs... and where just acting silly. They were saying the salt water was stinky... strange children!

And here we have a non-silly pic... because my kids are NOT in it! ;) This is our egg experiment on density. VERY interesting! I might just graduate from elementary school myself!!

This is Savannah's bracelet. Notice the little cross charm to remind them that God guided us in choosing their names.

_____________________________________________________

NOTE: I wrote this post at the end of last week & have not had time to add the pics to it. We are no longer sick... yippeeeee!! ;)

I'm not so sure about that last schedule just, yet. I am starting to think that that finding order may not happen for awhile with my sickly kiddos. And yes, they are sick, again. I say it that way because everyone was fever free as of Monday, so we are having some (Caden & Sahara) with a relapse or possibly a sinus infection... or a different virus. This week was supposed to be our first week using My Father's World Kindergarten and Adventures In My Father's World. I knew at the beginning of the week that we were fever free, but we still had some kiddos that were feeling pretty rough... and a Momma needing more time to prepare and needing rest. :) With all that in mind, I made the decision that we would just wait until next week to begin with My Father's World.

... That was until.... Monday and Tuesday came and went... and I realized how bored the kids were with "just being". I was letting them lay around and rest or move around playing as they felt up to it. They never said they were bored, but it was obvious they were feeling better and needing more to occupy their day. I decided that we would just jump in and start My Father's World K and Adventures and see what we could do. I already knew that next week will likely not be a full schooling week, so I was thinking that we might accomplish one week in that two week time period. So this is what we have done this week:

My Father's World Kindergarten
I found it very helpful to make my self a "daily cheat sheet" for the activities, so I would not need to look at what the book says to do next (nothing fancy... just a handwritten posty note):
1-->Read the days Creation verse
-- Child Retells
-- Briefly Discuss
2-->Cut / Color the Creation # & Glue Up
-- Play "I Spy" for the #
3-->ABC Chart & "ABC Song"
-- Point as you sing
4-->Teach the Letters of the Day using ABC Game Cards
--(We did the whole alphabet because she knows this with few errors)
5-->ABC Chart & Button Games
--(We did the whole alphabet because she knows this with few errors)
6-->ABC Chart & Shuffled ABC Cards for letter name recognition
--(We did the whole alphabet because she knows this with few errors)
7-->Creation Book Page (Art)
8-->Music
--"This Is My Father's World"
(Note: We have already done a similar study of Creation for K this year using A Beka, so I am thinking I will double time this portion as I see fit without losing the "lessons". Also, some of the Alphabet and Numbers learning games are just too simple for Sierra, so we are going add difficulty.)

9/30/09 Wed = Week 1, Day 1 & 2 (double lesson sessions)
We followed the 8 Step plan above and we did two lesson sessions. I read the verse and we discussed it. As they do the Creation # and the Creation Day art page we are continually discussing the verses further, so that works out well. We really do not do too much of the "I Spy the #" game because Sierra has known her numbers for a couple of years. The focus for her with the numbers is ordinal (1st, 2nd, 3rd....). We are doing Steps 3 through 6 to reinforce what Sierra already knows and to test the ABCs that she is still stumbling with (t, g, h, m, n). We add our own hand motions to the music, so they really focus on what they are singing about and not just memorizing the words. For snacks today we had Oreo cookies to represent that God divided the light from the darkness on day one. Thank you to all you MFW bloggers out there for that tip. We also had water to drink to represent that God divided the water above and below the sky on day two (and having water was easy).
10/1/09 Thu = Week 1, Day 3 & 4 (double lesson sessions)
It went pretty much the same as the previous day. Again, we doubled up and did two days sessions. We included fresh apples and oranges in our lunch to represent the fruit that God created for us to enjoy.
10/2/09 Fri = Week 1, Day 5 (one lesson session)

Pretty much the same, again. We slowed down to one session today, because this momma is tired from the two little ones having fever, again. I also thought the Day 5 lesson could stand to get a little more attention. We spent more time with the art portions.

Note: Caden participated in some of this with us, but the little guy was feeling yucky and has a very short attention span. He did enjoy some art, but was much happier to lay in bed mostly in the bedroom next to us.

<---- I will post some pics for this next week when we have finished the Creation Week lesson.--->

Adventures In My Father's World

I am really getting into my little posty note "cheat sheets"! I tend to re-read things over and over as if I am going to miss something, so making myself a little mini-outline on a posty note is working well for me.

9/30/09 Wed thru 10/2/09 Fri = Week 1

This week I am going to journal "Adventures" a little differently than I did "K". We were working with a 3 day time frame, but we did get most of it squeezed in. I rearranged some of the activities to suit our crazy week (i.e. staying up to write the kid's a letter happened later in the week rather than at the beginning).

We talked about Savannah and Sierra's names, but this is a discussion that we have had often in our home. There is no Biblical significance in our choosing our children's first names, so this was something I really had to think hard on how to adapt for my children. Also, I have written a lot to my children in their baby books and I write in a journal occassionally for each of my children. I did not really feel I need to repeat the same information in this letter. I do like the idea of presenting them with a letter from Momma, though. So, I started the letter like the book's example and adding to it:

"When you meet someone new, one of the first things you learn is their name. Everyone has a name and names are very special. Names have meanings. Some parents choose their child's name strictly for the meaning and some parrents choose a name for other reasons. Either way, I believe God leads us in naming our children and He guides us in choosing just the right name. This is what I wrote in your baby book about your name....."

I went on to write the reason we liked each of their names and the story about how God gave their names to us. I also included various meanings/origins and a little personal story of some nicknames from their baby days. We wrote their names using a name art tracing technique and we made the name bracelets. We added a tiny little cross charm to their bracelets to remind them that God guided us in choosing their names. These little charms can be purchased at Wal-Mart (dz. for approx $3). I made and colored the timeline pieces ahead of time and we added the figures each day as we did our history. We started placing all our papers in their notebooks, but we still need to cutesy up the notebooks... we can do that throughout the year. I have already explained the Pledge to the kids, but it was nice to break it down a little more and reinforce what they have already learned. They really enjoyed making jello parfaits for dessert for lunch. I choose this version of the red, white, and blue snack idea because it would be so easy for the kids to completely make. We made the jello around 10:am and had it for lunch at noon. We did a lot of map tracking when we talked about the Vikings and Leif Ericsson. And on that topic... Boy, does it take a lot of time to color those maps!! I think I would have liked to have just colored the water and our individual state and then have the kids color the other states as they are studied later on. I am really liking the idea of reading the history lesson and having the kids use narration and dictation (Sierra just listened in on this part). My kids L~O~V~E sceince, so the egg experiment was a big hit... and I was pretty happy that this experiment did not involve anything but floating the egg. The girls were totally understanding this and predicting what would happen. Savannah knows that I check eggs in a glass of water to make sure they are not spoiled, if they are past the date on the carton. They will float if they are bad, so that was her first thought when we started the experiment and when the one egg was floating. It was fun to show her that that was not why it was floating by switching the two eggs. The same egg that was floating was now sinking and vice versa. ... and then, we stuck those eggs in fresh water and boiled them on the stove for dinner. ;) For the name thing I had planned to write the letters of their names on Ritz crackers with "squeeze cheese" and for a dessert write their names in marshmallow creme on graham crackers, but we just ran out of time (and energy ...and concern). :) I'll try to be better next week!

With all our sicklies this week there were some things that got totally left out, but all in all I think it went well for what we had to work with. The things that got total skipped were: 1)handwriting practice, but they do that when they write for other things; 2)Book Basket because I was not going to give the librarians and others the flu and we read some other stuff; 3)Nature Walk and Art, but we did drive around to yard sales on Saturday... does that count? No, well... we got more learning games, etc... so it's not all bad and we did get OUT of the house and had a chance to breathe fresh air!!! Works for me!!