Keep the Way

Spotlight Review: The Tiptoe Guide to Tracking Fairies by Ammi-Joan Paquette

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:29:00 +0000

Market copy:

Could a tulip be a good place for hide-and-seek? Could a bit of dandelion fluff be a pillow? They could be, if fairies live nearby. This book invites kids to have a backyard adventure searching for the tell tale signs of fairies who might be residing all around them. Not only can children"search" for fairies in the book's unique blend of art and photography, but they will also be encouraged to discover the wonder and magic in nature, whether in a backyard or a local park. The Tiptoe Guide to Tracking Fairies is a perfect title for summer!

I heard about this adorable picture book a few months ago and jumped at the chance of sharing it with my daughters before its paperback release in a few weeks. THE TIPTOE GUIDE TO TRACKING FAIRIES by Ammi-Joan Paquette is filled with gorgeous illustrations, and the story is sweet and whimsical.

As a homeschooling family, nature study is very important to us and an integral part of our children’s education. Now that it is warmer outside, birds are singing, and plants are blooming again, this story was the perfect catalyst for my daughters to go on their first outdoor exploration. We cuddled together, shared the story, and they took off to the backyard, hunting for their own fairies to discover!
While my thirty-year-old Mom’s opinion is helpful, the praise that is most beneficial comes from the author’s intended audience. Here is my children’s honest opinions:

Cali, five years old: That story was awesome! When they found the fairies at the end, it was the best!

Jordan, six years old: I thought the story was great because it had fairies that are very girly. When the fairy found her slipper, it was my favorite part. I also liked it when they found the secret message. Then she turns to her sister and says, Let’s go look for some clues! Let’s go look for fairies!

Need I say more? This story would make a wonderful Easter gift for the children in your life. It is already available in hardcover and the paperback edition will hit the shelves April 15th.

I was granted the opportunity to review this book via NetGalley and Tanglewood Publishers. (paperback publication 4/15/11)

The Pilgrims Have Landed

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:31:00 +0000

It has been another wonderful week of learning this week at the whole Keep the Way Christian Academy household. The main topics of the week were: Jesus the Light of the World, Mayflower and Pilgrims and Stars.

Two weeks ago we went to Austin for an impromptu mini-vacation, and while we were there, we went into a Borders store that was sadly closing. The good news is that we were able to get some good books, including new curriculum for Handwriting and Spelling! If you remember from previous weeks, Spelling has been my all time biggest failure this year, as far as consistency goes. Well that problem is now fixed and we are really loving our new approach!

Here is how the rest of the week broke down:
Breakfast Time Table Talk:

We are still focusing on our first Memory Verse, John 8:12. The girls have had it memorized from week one, but we are following the curriculum as provided in regards to this and just really working on internalizing it.
During Character Training, via the book EVERYDAY GRACES, we read about the life of Louisa May Alcott, poems by Blance Bane Kuder and Florence Bone, and tales from Aesop and Hans Christian Anderson. The theme is Loving Your Home and I just continue to adore this time together. Love love love this book!

School Room Topics:

History:

The Pilgrims have landed! This week we have discussed the Pilgrims in depth, reading through THE STORY OF THE U.S as well as AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS. Their entire history from London, to Holland, through the hard journey across the ocean on the Mayflower, to the rough beginnings once they landed has been discussed and acted out. They also each dictated a summary for their Notebooks.
This is Jordan's notebook page: Once Squanto helped the Pilgrims make plants grow faster by putting a dying fish in the hole next to the seeds. Then when he was dying, he asked everyone to pray so he could go to heaven.
This is Cali's notebook page: Pilgrims came from England on a boat named the Mayflower. When they got to America, they planted corn. They put a dying fish next to the seed. Squanto came and they had a feast.
I should explain the dying fish comment they both made. Apparently they were taught to put a fish next to the seeds while planting, but I am sure it was a regular fish at the time--I don't really know. But both girls faces automatically went a little traumatic at the idea of being buried alive so I told them they were dying and then it was suddenly okay.

Handwriting:

Because of their age, I really wanted to focus on fundamentals and slowing things down a bit here. I think we will go with a curriculum next but for now we are using Kumon workbooks and the girls are loving it. Can't beat them being excited and asking for more pages, right?

Creative Writing:

For Cali, I realized that we had come up with all the parts of her paragraph for her recollection paragraph before on Mississippi, but never actually wrote it. So we started the week doing that, and then moved into our new topic.
This is Cali's paragraph: I had fun being with my family in the woods in Mississippi. I went on the four-wheeler with Paran David and went through a sprinkler. I went through it more than one time! The water got on my head and when I got back, Paran David said I looked like I went into a swimming pool! And I went into the woods with Nanny Donna and saw a bunny. It was light brown, and he stayed with us for awhile by the bush, but then he ran off because he was afraid. During the day, Hayley, Jordan, and I had a pretend camp out! We watched movies and we ate marshmallows! I got to give my family really big hugs. I liked being in Mississippi!
The rest of the week was spent discussing the Parts of a Story (plot, setting, characters, and conflict). As I am sure you know, I loved this lesson and we had fun breaking down The Three Little Pigs together, and then she did Cinderella on her own. This was a lot of fun.
For Jordan, we worked on adding detail to our sentences, in particular in how things move. Examples she came up with was prowling casually, crawling sluggishly, and creeping.
Then Jordan dictated a paragraph to me with the leading line, "I wish I could go to . . ." I was very impressed not only with her three points, but the detail she put into them!
Here is Jordan's paragraph: I wish I could go to a hockey game. The best part of hockey is it has ice skates. The very, very, very super cool part is when they try to get the puck away from the goalie and into the goal! It's like they're trying to get a Princess into a castle and past the ogre! Hockey has action, excitement, and surprise. Action appears when they try to get the puck paste the other team. The excitement is when we can see if they get hurt and fall on their bottom when they are first learners or professionals who win the game. And we don't know who will win, so the surprise appears when we find out who will win. When you go to a hockey game, it's like you are watching a movie, but you are in the movie!
For the record, we've never been to a hockey game, but apparently we need to! Jordan has also been creating more and more poems that we are planning on putting together and putting up on Barnes and Noble's self publishing format.

Spelling:

Woo hoo, no more hiding my head in the sand! Both girls are enjoying their new workbooks. Cali is using Grade One in the Master Skills Series and Jordan is using Spectrum's Grade 2. For Jordan we could have easily gone to Grade 3 but some of the activities they did with the words were a little more advanced considering her age (6) and we wanted to give her some confidence going into this new curriculum. For Cali (age 5), this grade level is perfect. Very happy here!!

Reading:

Jordan finished ahead of schedule reading RIDING THE PONY EXPRESS. She reads on her own, comes to discuss it with me, and comprehends beautifully.
Cali is moving along with reading through the Bible and gaining confidence daily. She reads quite fast and I continue to be impressed.

Read Alouds:

We finished SQUANTO, FRIEND OF THE PILGRIMS this week. The girls loved this story and I loved that it was a great first autobiography and worked so well with our History.

Math:

Since we had hit a wall at this point, the 2 facts, the last time we did this curriculum, I decided to just take a week reviewing what we have done and doing math games. It has been fun and we shall see what next week brings!

Science:

The girls loved learning more about constellations, galaxies, and particular stars this week. Next week we move onto Bread and Yeast experiments.

So that is how our school week went. How about yours?

Have a Great Weekend!

Why I love Homeschooling (aka Week 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:39:00 +0000

Yes, I am aware that it has been three weeks since the last post and only one week in our homeschool curriculum. Isn't homeschooling wonderful? :-)

Two weeks ago the Houston area was below freezing more days than not, and in the middle of our homeschooling week, the energy company decided it would be a great time to do rolling black outs in freezing temperatures. After the 3rd time the power went off in the same hour, we packed some goodies and hiked across the yard to my parent's house with the lovely generator. Now, freezing temperatures, power outages and hanging out at MamaRosie and Crawdaddy's house is just way too exciting to get school work done, so we took the day off. The next day was just as cold and we all started feeling a little icky so we took the next day off.

Last week I (aka the teacher) was sick as a dog. I literally stayed in bed almost all day for most of the week with two wonderful little nurses. Of course, education is a lifestyle for us, so learning moments were constantly being worked in, but we took the week off the curriculum all last week, too.

This week was a half week since our curriculum is set up in 4 day blocks, starting Monday on Day 3 would just confuse everything. So the girls did a lot of reading (and playing Nintendo DS) while I got some writing done, and then we picked things back up on Wednesday.

All that to say, we had another wonderful week in our homeschool, even though there was some lag time in between. :-) And we are all excited to have a belated Valentine's Day Fancy Friday with our homeschool friends tomorrow where we will be doing crafts and having goodies!

Breakfast Time Table Talk:

Bible time had us beginning memorizing our first Memory Verse for the year. John 8:12- "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
We read Exodus 13:21-22 and Nehemiah 9:7-12 where God led His people through the wilderness with a pillar of fire at night, and we discussed how Darkness can never overcome light. Today, we made switch plate covers that say "Jesus is the light of the world."
Our Character Training with the book EVERYDAY GRACES is centering on sibling relationships and the importance of getting along with each other . . . which I am all about! It could be a coincidence but I have seen a marked improvement in their play time in enjoying each other's company more, so thank you Everyday Graces!
Our Manners Devotional is still going well. We've talked more about greeting and what to do when others are handicapped (and I was glad to have this opportunity to talk about sensitivity with this subject) or have a cold and can't shake your hand (very important right about now!).

School Room Topics:

History:

North American Indians has been the theme of the week and we have learned about the various tribes, home styles and hunting habits, along with Native American sign language. We are continuing with our Squanto read aloud and the girls are really engaged in his story. Very, very pleased with My Father's World so far!
We also got some library books on this topic and by far, their favorite was THE ROUGH-FACE GIRL by Rafe Martin, which is a retelling of the Cinderella story. Out of all the retellings we've read, this may be my favorite!

Handwriting:

We have finished the alphabet a letter at a time and I am right now debating on whether to start it back up again for reinforcements, look for handwriting books that break it down more, or continue back with tracing copywork. But they are both doing very well.

Creative Writing:

Cali's assignment this week was on Field Trips. She wanted to write about her field trip to Mississippi where she got to visit her Nanny Donna, Paran David and Taylor and Hayley. Highlights of her paragraph include riding the four wheeler with Nanny Donna and spotting a rabbit, riding with Paran David and going through the sprinkler, pretending to be on a campout with Hayley in Nanny's room, and being able to hug her family. (cute, right?) I am continuing to notice a big jump in Cali's ability to tell complete sentences and thoughts and her creativity, and my goodness does she have a memory on her!
Jordan's writing took another step this week. First we talked about strong vocabulary and using better verbs--a HUGE topic for me with my writing. We talked about how it is "okay" to say you walked to the mailbox to get a package but what else could you say that would be more interesting, and other scenarios. She did excellent with this and came up with "flying to the mailbox," "sleepwalking home" after a boring event, and "racing to a friend's house." Then with paragraph work, we took last week's assignments and first made them into complete sentences. This could have been really easy if I followed directions or even just said "Oh, she's six, let me just write what she says," but I know what she can do so I wanted to challenge her. I taught her how you should mix up your sentences to add variety, not simply have every one be, " I like this because . . ." At first, she gave a little push back but after explaining it a bit more, she started smiling and came up with very exciting, interesting sentences. I was very proud. The next step was putting those sentences into a paragraph. I am enjoying this style of breaking down the paragraphs as I think it makes each step very clear. Very pleased with Sonlight for both girls.

Spelling:

(Hiding head in sand) I have found my weak link. The hard part is that one of them works best on the computer but doing that during school time slows things down with both of them wanting to be online at the same time, and after school I need to be online for my writing. No excuses, this is my failure . . . for the second week in a row. Obviously I have some work to do here!

Reading:

Jordan is a week ahead of schedule, so I let her read on her own this week. She is a very good reader and read Highlights, Animorphs and some Science books on stars this week.
Cali is still loving reading the Bible and one day ended up reading the story about the God leading his people with a pillar of fire at night, so it tied in beautifully!

Read Alouds:

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims is our main read aloud right now during the day and our bedtime book is still Fairies and the Quest for Neverland.

Math:

Another easy, almost review week for the girls where we learned the "zero" addition facts. Now a year and a half or two years ago when I started this curriculum with Jordan, we went about one more week and then hit a wall at the "2 facts." So we shall see what the future brings, but for now, it is going great.

Science:

We got a ton of library books on stars, constellations and the sun and read them this week. The girls have always loved astronomy so this was perfect. Our plan is to go outside on a clear night either tonight or this weekend and star gaze.

So that is how our school week went. How about yours?

Have a Great Weekend!

Another Week Down, Thirty-Three Left To Go :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:24:00 +0000

Week Three is in the books for our mostly-second-grade adventure, and things are still going beautifully. The literature based approach just fits our family dynamic and passions so well, and the books that make up the My Father's World and Sonlight curriculum are not only beautifully written and engaging, but have the girls excited to do school. And I'm sorry, that is just worth the price of admission right there :-)

So, here is this week's Bloggy Breakdown (anyone watch Tosh.o and see his video breakdowns? No? Never mind . . .)

Breakfast Time Table Talk:

Bible time centered on three main topics this week---Jesus Saves, Living Like Jesus and Jesus as a Child. We talked about WWJD (what would Jesus do) in everyday moments and now bring it up throughout the day when problems arise, and our discussions on Jesus as a child blended beautifully with our Character Training this week on obeying our parents (Luke 2:51-52)
Our Character Training with the book EVERYDAY GRACES could not be going any better. They love the literature selections chosen to correspond with the topic and have great discussions afterward. They are getting exposure to classic literature I would normally never read at this age, yet they are grasping the material, and the poetry selections this past week by Jack Prelutsky have even inspired Jordan to write her own poem!

Why is everything so expensive?
Everything looks so nice.
The lolly pop aisle in the corner,
Is only half the price.
And in the other corner,
There's only frozen pizza pies.
Why is everything so expensive?
I simply don't know why!
By Jordan Harris age 6

Ha! She keeps asking about getting published and throwing in all the book biz lingo she's been hearing around the house for the last few months, and it is so cute! Next on my to-do list is to buy a big book of Jack Prelutsky's work!

Our Manners Devotional is still going well and our focus this week was looking people in the eye when they talk and shaking hands properly.

School Room Topics:

History:

The girls are still totally loving both the Pledge of Allegiance and and God Bless America. They make their toys dance along to the CD of the song :-) (in fact, as I am typing this, Cali is singing the song to herself while cleaning up her toys!)
Jamestown and Squanto were the themes of the week! The girls loved learning about Pocahontas and reading the stories of the children of Jamestown in AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS. The plan is to pick up some movies on Pocahontas from the library this afternoon and watch them this weekend

Handwriting:

I decided to skip the copywork selections Sonlight provided this week and work more on the fundamentals of the letters this week. We worked on K-R and I am very happy with their continued effort and improvement. Next week we may just finish out the alphabet before going back to the Sonlight passage and working in letter practice the rest of the week.

Creative Writing:

Cali's assignment this week was on dialogue. Now considering that I wrote my first novel last year and am working on my second--and dialogue is a very important aspect of that--I really enjoyed this lesson. I of course had to tailor it to her level and not point out that they are completely WRONG to keep changing the attribution (using mumbled, muttered, etc instead of just said, which is always preferred unless you avoid the attribution all together and you an action tag instead). Cali wrote about a conversation between her and Jasmine, where Jasmine invites her to a tea party!

"Oh. Hello, Cali," said Jasmine.
"I'm so happy to see you for my very first time," said Cali.
"I'm going to let you come to a tea party in my house," said Jasmine.
"Thank you!"
By Cali Harris, age 5

Jordan's paragraph work took a step this week with introducing "home plate" which is the topic sentence. This has been actually challenging to completely explain and have her do. She keeps wanting to either talk about one aspect in particular or just re-list her three favorites/points for the paragraph. But she is doing a very good job and loves this time . .. and I learned that She Loves Homeschooling because she gets to use all kinds of pens, can be at home and her teacher is in her family and she gets to learn about Columbus, Her Mom Is Great because she is silly, laughs so much and and is beautiful (I promise this was an actual topic Sonlight had, not self created lol), and that Riding The Pony Express, The Magical Ballet Shoes and The Bible are all her favorite books, but that while the first two are ordinary books, The Bible is extraordinary. :-)

Spelling:

Um, yeah, epic fail on this one. Jordan was ahead of schedule, though, and Gregg and I are meeting this weekend to talk about what we want to do with Cali's spelling, so um, yeah, that's okay! (ha!)

Reading:

Jordan is still a week ahead of schedule. She read Keep the Lights Burning Abbie and is half way through Riding the Pony Express, which she is loving.
Cali is still loving reading the Bible and one of the stories she read about was Joseph and his robe. Well this weekend, we are taking the girls to a play --Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat!

Read Alouds:

We have added Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims into this time, so Ella took a bit of a back seat this week--but we are totally picking it back up next week. Bedtime book is still Fairies and the Quest for Neverland.

Math:

Another easy, almost review week where the girls learned the colors of the Math U See blocks, which makes adding easier in the coming weeks, and review of Place Value. Girls loved it and flew through it.

Science:

Ha! I totally thought I was going to have to say I failed again--last Friday's cleaning session for the family coming in town took a lot longer than anticipated, BUT we did all three weeks worth on Wednesday! WOO HOO! We have a few experiments we will do this weekend, but they are all super easy and on air. The girls of course loved doing science this week. I still think I might stick with doing massive Science days on every other Friday, just not when family is coming to town.

So that is how our school week went. How about yours?
Have a Great Weekend!

The Nina, The Pinta, The Sant-a Maria!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Another week down at Keep the Way Christian Academy, and the girls are still loving it. I am loving our curriculum choices for the year and having fun teaching. After our long break (April -December), I was worried it would take a little while to get into a groove and find the enjoyment, but My Father's World and Sonlight have totally come through!

Here is this week's Bloggy Breakdown (anyone watch Tosh.o and see his video breakdowns? No? Never mind . . .)

Breakfast Time Table Talk:

Bible time has had us searching for clues in the Old Testament that point to Jesus. The girls are quickly picking this up and having fun playing detective.
Our Character Training is still a wonderful time and I am constantly being amazed at how the story snippets the author uses to portray Manners at Home (the theme of our current section) tie in beautifully with what we are learning in history! Yeah, I totally planned it that way . . .
Manners Devotional is still going well and this week we practiced having gentleman pull out our chairs and seating us, and smiling when we greet someone.

School Room Topics:

History:

We begin with the girl's enthusiastic Pledge of Allegiance (like REALLY enthusiastic! They spent a lot of time last Friday teaching their friends the Pledge. They think it's totally cool for some reason) and singing along with My Father's World's supplied CD to God Bless America.
This week we learned about Columbus. Since I love ditties, I taught them the one we all know about "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." They sang that over and over again. Then a few days later, for some inexplicable reason, I started saying Columbus's three ship names over and over, sing-song style. "The Nina. The Pinta. The Sant-a Maria." You just have to trust me, it's very catchy. So now, the girls skip around the room singing this over and over again. It was cute . . .the first hundred times. But it all worked because when notebooking time came around, their narrations were wonderful.
Daddy helped the girls make shiny aluminum boats to symbolize the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, which they then played with at bath time.
We read a story about pioneers from Spain who traveled across the Atlantic to establish the first colony in Florida. I must admit that when I first saw one of the books My Father's World uses as a spine, American Pioneers and Patriots, I was nervous. It looked very text booky to me, and I did not want that. But I should've known better. It reads like a story book and the girls fell in love with the children, Catalina and Pedro, and loved hearing about their adventures. Mom even learned some things (like how they cooked on the boat via a box of sand and an open flame).

Handwriting:

The girls both did their copy work on Monday via Sonlight and then worked on mastering a set of letters each day after. This week was C-J. Both girls are doing very well tracing the samples. Jordan should be ready to write on her own in a few weeks but I really want them to trace right now as we work on mechanics. Cali does really really well--sometimes cleaner than Jordan even, despite being younger--but she has a perfectionist attitude and one small mess up can break her heart on the wrong day. We just take a breath, talk about how God doesn't expect us to be perfect but to try our best, and try again.

Creative Writing:

Cali continued working on description but focused on similes this week. We took the descriptive paragraph she wrote last week and turned each description into a simile. I was very impressed with how well she grasped this concept, and how quick she was able to come up with examples.
Jordan is still focusing on grouping 3 main topics for a paragraph, and this week we focused on how the first topic is always the most important, followed by the second and third most important. This week, I found out her favorite subjects are (in order): Science, History, and Creative Writing.

Spelling:

This week Cali continued on the list from week 1 as we are experimenting with finding the best way for her to learn the words. It needs to be fun and very non-pressure-y (yes, I know that is not a word and seems an odd choice in a sentence on spelling but oh well). Next week we may experiment with two nights a week working with Daddy and having it be special one-on-one Daddy time.
Jordan finished two spelling lists this week. The first list she learned and took the test on the same day and only missed one word (she wrote cymball instead of cymbal.) The middle of the week was a little hectic so she got her new list yesterday and took the test the same day again. She scored 100%. At this rate, she will be finished with her curriculum by mid year if not sooner!

Reading:

Jordan read 3 books this week. She was scheduled to read one entire book and one chapter of another. She read The Long Way Westward, Prairie School and Christopher Columbus. The third book was a step-into-reading I had bought one day at a used book store and threw in yesterday so she wouldn't get too far ahead of her curriculum and because it was on topic. She read the whole thing quickly. Then she picked up Cali's beginner's Bible and started reading. And reading. She sat there last night for about 45 minutes reading the Bible (Adam and Eve to Saul). The only reason she stopped was because it was bath time!
Cali has been enjoying reading the Bible and reading ahead as well. I am noticing how fluent she is and how easily she reads the words, especially for her age (she turns 5 on Monday). Watching her sister read the past few years has definitely motivated her!

Read Alouds:

We are reading two books by the talented Gail Carson Levine. At lunch time we are reading ELLA ENCHANTED, which the girls are loving (although the chapters this week had me speaking in gnomic and I had no clue how to say any of it.... the girls loved my gobbly gook language, though) and FAIRIES AND THE QUEST FOR NEVERLAND at night. I am still very pleased with our selections of more contemporary, girly, fun works for this time.

Math:

This week was rather easy--counting and writing to 20--and while I could have skipped it all together (both girls can count to 1000), I went with it to focus on mechanics of writing the numbers. I am not worried about perfection here, due to their age, but it was a great excuse to tie this in. For their tests yesterday, they also had to review place value and they both scored 100%.

Science:

Today, after I take a shower and try to massively clean the house for the influx of relatives coming up from New Orleans for Cali's birthday party, we will have MEGA SCIENCE DAY. We will put together the last two weeks of Science and do them all. Since Fancy Friday is only every other week, I think this will work well going forward. Today's experiments are all about air!

So that is how our school week went. How about yours? Any fun ideas you can share for my five year old's spelling?

Have a Great Weekend!

School Is Back In Session

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:45:00 +0000

School has started again here at Keep The Way Christian Academy. And the usual question begins: What grade are your girls in?

I watched a series of videos from the wonderful Gregg Harris (homeschool dad and author, not my husband! Yes, very weird coincidence.) where he discussed this question. His answer was: "In what subject?" See, you would have to be pretty average to be in the same grade for all of your subjects, right? I'd never thought of it like that before, but it definitely made answering the question easier :-)

So here are the stats (FWI:Jordan turned 6 at the end of November and Cali is turning 5 in exactly ten days):

Bible, Character, Devotional:

For our Bible time in the mornings, we are following along with My Father's World Second Grade's Adventures in My Father's World. This week has been focused on the importance of names, and what our names represent. Gregg and I wrote letters for them, telling them why we named them "Jordan Faith" and "Carolina Grace." What is awesome is that Jordan does have this AMAZING Faith that inspires us, and the name Carolina comes from the name Charles, which means Warrior. Since Cali is known for her spontaneous, EXTREMELY heart-felt prayers, we talked about what it means to be a Prayer Warrior. Later in Handwriting, we had them trace their names and how the attributes associated with their meanings can be used for the glory of God!

After we read from the Bible and discuss, we move onto Character Training, and we are reading through Everyday Graces: Child's Book of Good Manners. Oh my word, I heart this book!! It takes classic children's literature and poetry and uses samples and snippets to correspond with the topic of the chapter. Yesterday we read a piece from The Princess and The Goblin and I think next week we will be reading something from Pinocchio. So cute!

Our Devotional is Manners Made Easy For the Family: 365 Timeless Etiquette Tips for Every Occasion by June Hines Moore. It goes over manners for just about everything you can think of and has a corresponding Bible verse at the bottom. The girls love this!

History and Science:

My Father's World, Adventures In My Father's World, Second Grade. We are looking forward to a wonderful year learning about American History and Geography! We will be learning about all fifty states along with key characters in our nation's history and important things like the Pledge of Allegiance. This week, we've covered map skills, talked about North America in depth and discussed the other continents, and learned about the Vikings. They have done excellent notebooking pages on all of these topics and go around saying the Pledge all day lol!

Science actually didn't happen this week. But it is probably for the best. They LOVE Science, in particular the experiments, and this week's lessons was just short readings in the Encyclopedia that I am sure they've already confiscated and read through anyway. Next week we'll sit down and read for probably an hour all the pages at once and then be able to do an experiment.

Handwriting, Readers, Language Arts/Writing, Spelling:

Handwriting is something we are working on everyday. We purchased Sonlight Language Arts, different levels, for both girls. They only list Copywork on Mondays. So the rest of the week I added other copywork, used the meaning of their names from Bible and then used some suggestions from My Father's World yesterday. How we do this, since they are still so young, is that I write the sample in pencil in a lined handwriting notebook we bought from Walmart, and then they trace over the letters while I watch, correcting for "proper formation." This is going very well and I am very pleased!

For reading, it is almost going too easily. I am waiting for the other shoe to drop as last year, before our huge break from April till now, this time took a good deal longer, even though they both could read and wanted to learn. Now, the time is over in ten minutes . . . if that!! We purchased Sonlight Language Arts 2 for Cali and Level 2 Intermediate for Jordan (she could've gone up even higher but then next year or the year after we'd be dealing with advanced topics for her age that while she could read, would be too heavy for her. Better have her read something she flies through then deal with that). Jordan asked if she could read her samples on her own and we discuss later, using the short list of questions Sonlight provides in the Teacher's Manual to check for comprehension. This week she read Clara and the Book Wagon and The Long Way to a New Land. Yesterday, she read 3 days worth of reading, basically reading an entire reader in one day, so next week she will get to choose a book from her shelf for this time. Cali is reading The Beginner's Bible, one story a day. Well, she is supposed to do that. Apparently she's been grabbing it and reading ahead, so I've been asking her the next day to tell me about the stories she's read secretly and we move on, lol.

Language Arts themselves and Writing is going beautifully. I love Sonlight's curriculum for this reason in particular. Short lessons that cover so many topics and really focus on strengthening creative writing skills which I place a strong importance on. Even more so now that I am writing my own novels. This week Cali worked on description and wrote a cute descriptive paragraph about a crocodile named Louis and Jordan worked on grouping like topics for strong paragraphs.

Spelling has been a learning curve. I discovered Spelling City over a year ago and the girls loved it then, so while I went over their words once with them, I then had them use that program for learning the words by playing the games everyday and yesterday we took the test. Jordan got everything right . . . well actually the game said she got them all wrong because she took the time to put her keyboard skills to use and started each spelling word with a capital letter and the computer didn't recognize them as the same word since I put them in with lower case --I told her that was HOGWASH (a word she giggled at) and wrote 100% on top of the paper with tons of stamps :-) Cali struggled just a bit more, knowing that many of the words had a silent "e" but putting them next to the other vowel instead of at the end of the word. So next week we are goign to keep with the same list and do much more one-on-one spelling with manipulatives and use the computer just for fun reinforcement.

Math:

After much debate and going through our variety of math curriculums--we have MUS Alpha (which Jordan had started over a year ago and we had to stop as it focuses on mastery and she wasn't quite there . . . after all, she had just turned 5 lol.), Horizons K (which the girls had started when Alpha stopped and they loved for awhile and they quickly HATED), and Critical Thinking Press workbooks--we decided to try MUS Alpha again. This time is going very well and both girls got 100% on their Unit 1 tests yesterday. They are actually getting a little cocky with it but right now I am so proud of them, and so glad they are enjoying it, that I am finding it amusing!

Read Alouds:

There are great lists provided in My Father's World and Sonlight has some good ones, but I am doing my own thing this year. They are young and I want to just enjoy this time. Plus, Jordan has developed an obsession for the old series Animorphs and I want to make sure we read lots of books that have appealing topics for them that she will want to pick up instead. So right now we are reading Ella Enchanted. They got so excited the other day when they were watching one of their videos and saw a commercial for the movie! So I guess we'll be renting that this weekend :-)

And finally, today is Fancy Friday:

We get together with our friends Skylar and Emy two Fridays a month for art and music appreciation. While we were winging it and doing our own thing before, today I am going to start teaching out of Artistic Pursuits. We are excited!

So, whew! What is your school year looking like? How was your week? Any new curriculum you're starting? Anyone else out there use the beginning of the calendar year as the beginning of their school year?

Happy Friday!!

Fall: How I love thee . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:57:00 +0000

It is October and Texas FINALLY feels bearable outside. As a result, the A/C has been turned off for most of the day in lieu of open windows, and the family has been spending more time together outside--without getting heat stroke! Woo Hoo!

We are blessed to live in one of those quiet neighborhoods where people walk their dogs and children play outside, but I could never seem to get the timing right to join them.  People seemed to appear right when dinner was going on the table or it was bath time, or even when it was 98 degrees outside which I just CANNOT do. I mean, I love my neighbors and all, but in that heat, I'd prefer to smile and wave from my window. (Ha!) BUT thanks to cooler weather, and a little planning on our part, we've been heading outside for the girls to ride their bikes and play, and for Gregg and I to meet more of our neighbors.

Let them see we aren't JUST that crazy homeschool family down the street. :-)

The girls have also been playing a lot of Wii sports with their Daddy. I join in sometimes, but both girls have already surpassed my abilities (and yes, they are 4 and 5, which just shows how sad I truly am) . . . so I make a really good cheerleader!

I think it is funny to watch how easy they've picked up technology, thinking back to my old sad games on the huge computer in my room when I was little with the green screen and big white blinking boxes. Back when my favorite video games were Ms. Pac Man and Kaboom on Atari. It's kinda scary to think what technological games will be around when they have children.

Finally, I've been so impressed this week with the girls biblical knowledge. Gregg took out one of the bigger, more advanced bibles the other day and started reading it aloud. Jordan immediately cuddled up next to him and kept asking him to read more. Cali still prefers her Veggie Tales Bible, staying up late to read it to herself (but, hello, she is four years old), but she played--mostly quietly--with blocks during the read aloud.

One night after Gregg finished reading and we'd tucked the girls into bed, Jordan came out of her room asking to borrow the bible. She'd found a devotional written more for the middle school grades called Sticky Situations, where they give a scenario with several choices on the best outcome, along with a bible verse to help you choose how God's word tells us to handle the particular predicament.

This was cool on many levels:

First, she was choosing to read a devotional at night instead of the many "fun" options she had to choose from.

Second, she is five years old and it is written for 8-12 year olds but she was fully immersed in the problems and wanting to figure out the best answer.

And finally, when she asked for the bible, she said she needed to read "Proverbs Chapter 3 verses 5 and 6." But of course, it had been written like this in the devotional: Proverbs 3:5-6. The girl is FIVE YEARS OLD! I remember sitting in my eighth grade classroom in my Catholic School and having them explain how to read verses to us. It just blows me away how much more they know about their faith then I did at their age. . . and how important it is to them.   Both of them inspire me daily.

Speaking of which, tomorrow all four of us are heading to our church for our first Taking It To The Streets Mission Day. We are going to be putting together care packages for Operation Archangel (serving our military) and Sparrow's Nest (a ministry for human trafficking victims) as well as food packages for Kids Meals of Houston.   The girls are really excited to wear their bright yellow church shirts and do something to help others and let them know God loves them.

The faith of a child, huh?

And this week on my writing blog The Ending Unplanned, a lot has happened in the past two weeks. I've done a ton of book reviews/spotlights, updated my current work in progress, talked about writing tips, why I'm a dork, and talked about how I'm putting my homeschool knowledge to use crafting my own educational writing plan.

Have a wonderful weekend with your own families!!

A Family of Words

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:24:00 +0000

I recently changed my "About Me" section on this blog to better reflect our current view of education. For my email subscribers--which is the majority of my readership--I will restate here part of that view:

I am passionate about instilling a love of learning in my children. We are a "words" family and value literature, writing and communication of all kinds.

We've always valued literature in our family and homeschool. I remember Jordan as young as 10 months old flipping through pages of Dr. Seuss and a variety of board books for l-o-n-g stretches of time. Both of our children were treated to bedtime stories from BIRTH. I am not kidding either. Looking back, I think some of our relatives thought we were quite strange, rocking and reading Bernstein bears to a one month old, but it was important to both of us to establish the habit of reading--for both ourselves and for them. For them to get used to the cadence of words and see us always picking up books. Really, is it any wonder that both of our girls started reading their own books before the age of 5?

Now that I am writing my own novel, and learning so much about the writing process, the value placed on words in our family has increased. As has the enjoyment. I have journaled how I fell in love with reading all over again this summer when I rediscovered YA literature. I have read over 120 something books since April--I was averaging about 5 books a week prior to starting my own writing, and now that I am actively writing (over 1/3 of the way through my manuscript) it has dropped to about 2-3 novels a week. But all that reading has really been a wonderful model for my children.

No wonder Cali taught herself how to read past the lessons we ended in April and now stays up at night reading Bernstein Bears, Magic School Bus and Highlights magazine. No wonder Jordan stays up reading Magic Tree House, Animorphs, and various Roald Dahl books.

No wonder both of my children are creating their own story books and picture books. I am constantly being asked to staple pages together for their stories. No wonder I'm asked to lend a tape recorder for them to story tell into, or to video them act out their stories.

The name of my writing blog is The Ending Unplanned. It was inspired by a song by Natasha Bedingfield called "Unwritten" that is actually my main character's theme song . . . BUT it has also become the theme song for me and my girls. The song is basically about how our lives are a story and only we can tell it. Only we can determine the ending to our lives.

My girls LOVE to put this on and JAM OUT! They know all the words, too, and we sing and dance to it at least once a week! Have you heard the song? Here is the beginning:

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

I don't know if I have a huge point here except to show you where we are in our educational journey. We are 'drenching ourselves in words.'

Where are you in your educational journey?

In other news, at my writing blog, The Ending Unplanned, this week I wrote about the importance of Strong Verbs, answered 5 Random Questions in my About Me Truthful Tuesday post, shared where I was in my current Work In Progress--and have an awesome YouTube video for I'd Come For You by Nickleback in my soundtrack section. You must watch this video! It was meant for my soundtrack as the theme song for the friendship between my two main characters BUT the video applies it to a Father/Daughter relationship and I got all misty eyed, and yesterday I Reviewed Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt.

My mother-in-law and husband's grandmother are driving up for a visit this weekend (Woo Hoo!), they have informed us they are watching the girls while we go to the movies tomorrow (Social Network, again Woo Hoo!) and there will be more football to watch -- So I know my weekend will ROCK! I hope your weekend is wonderful, blessed, and filled with enjoyable, cooler weather as we ease into October!

Have a Great Weekend!

Short and Sweet

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Apparently, my mind is mush. I know this week was FULL of wonderful memory-making moments, life-affirming anecdotes, and tickle-your-funny-bone hilarity . . . but, alas, I cannot recall a thing.

Some school was done. Books were read. The Saints won. Who Dat. Mom, Dad, and Tootsie (wonderful hubby's equally wonderful grandmother) all celebrated another Year of Life. Happy Birthday. Delicious meals were consumed.

Um, yeah. Is thirty too young to be losing your memory?

In other news, on my personal writing blog, The Ending Unplanned, this week I wrote about Pulling A Rachel, my current work in progress notes, a wonderful series on writing a pitch, and book reviews on two of my favorite books. I'd love it if you checked it out!

What about you? Do you remember this week? Do you ever end an entire week asking yourself, What in the world happened? Please let me know I'm not alone!

Have a great weekend!!

School has now become a Reward--Wow!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:50:00 +0000

Um, yeah, my brilliant children have decided that school is now fun and a reward for cleaning up their toys and listening!!

See, we took a break from "formal learning" in April after going pretty much non-stop for 2 1/2 years. We still read books together and had discussions about things, but no workbooks or lapbooks or formal anything. It was good, too, because I had been starting to get a little bit of pushback. They wanted to play and groaned a bit, and that is not what I wanted.

Well they are over that, now! It started Thursday night during the Saints game. Jordan brought down her History and Science binders (His Story--America's History and Wonderfully Made) that we put their work in, along with her workbooks for Math and Language Arts. She laid them out on the sofa between me and my husband and said, "Okay, I'm ready to learn and do school."

I said, "Great! That sounds fun." And I turned back to the game.

Apparently, what she wanted was for me to teach her. . . in the middle of the Saints kicking Viking butt. Not gonna happen! As much as I love their desire to learn and what to fan the flame of loving to learn, I have my limits and in the middle of a Saints game at 7pm is one of them. :-)

But this week, when we got back from Mississippi, we started school. The mornings have been best for me to get my writing done, and they get to play outside or upstairs. After lunch, I walk on our newly bought treadmill (loving it!) while they do water colors or art projects. BUT after that, if they clean up their mess while I shower, we GET to do school! And that makes them all excited!! They start busting butt to clean up so we can get school in! I used to have to bribe with a dum-dum sucker but I like this approach much better, ha!

So everyday we have been sitting on the coach and all working together. Cali is working through Language Lessons for Little Ones 2 and Critical Thinking Press Math Reasoning A. Jordan is working through Critical Thinking Press Language Lessons first grade and Math Reasoning B.

Both their language lessons are review for them mainly. Cali made a huge leap on her own this summer in teaching herself to read, so she is kinda beyond these lessons now, but I think it is good to reinforce what she knows and to let her see how far she has come. These lessons go really quickly. And for Jordan, even though she is on a 3rd grade level, I got the first grade level on purpose to make sure we lay a good foundation. And the way they present the material is fun and engaging so she doesn't mind. Math for both of them has been surprising--since we took so many months away from adding and subtracting, as well as the thinking skills they present in these books, I thought it would be slow going at first. But they picked up right where they left off.

What is working well is that we sit on the sofa and take turns--one day I start with Cali's language arts, then we do Jordan's, then Cali's Math, then Jordan's. I used to think I had to keep them occupied while the other did her work, but it has been amazing to see them be as engaged watching their sister to their work. Cali is seeing advanced concepts--and picking many of them up!--and Jordan is getting review and also being a good role model for her sister.

And then, if they do all that well, they get super excited because then they get to choose what two page spread in the Science Encyclopedia we read for the day. They are still obsessed with the Human Body so we are going through that one . . . again.

In family news, we spent the weekend in Mississippi and loved it. Their house is smack dab in the middle of a zillion acres and all I saw was green everywhere. I read two books (Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles and The Duff by Kody Keplinger), worked on my outline for my manuscript, had MANY wonderful talks, and had MANY amazing meals.

On The Ending Unplanned, this week I reviewed The Duff and I shared how my current project is going. There is also a link to one of Cali's favorite songs of my story soundtrack, Mean Girls by Sugarland.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Family Filled Holiday

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:04:00 +0000

This week has been, and will continue to be, all about family!

Saturday brought Gregg's dad, stepmom and stepsister's son, Guy, up for a three day visit. Guy is two weeks older than Jordan and has the same energy level as Cali, so the kids always have a blast when they are together. It isn't exactly quiet around here during visits, but they are fun.

We also had some excitement--apparently something is in the water over here because Guy lost his first tooth while he was here and his second fell out the day he got back, ha!

My mother-in-law made us a yummy shrimp creole and we watched a lot of football (Geaux Tigers! Who Dat!) It was a nice, noise-filled, high energy visit and the girls are already asking when Poppy and Mamere are coming back again.

Tonight, after the Saints kick some Viking butt, we leave for Mississippi to visit more family. While the 9 hour drive is a bit of a hassle, it's pure relaxation once we get there. Their house is amazing--it's completely surrounded by trees with the closest house a car drive away.

The girls can't wait to ride the four-wheeler and the Rhino around their extensive property . . . oh, and see Nanny Donna, Paran David and Hayley, too :-) Mommy can't wait to visit with family, to relax and gets lots of reading and writing done.

This week around the house, the girls have made countless water color paintings and self-made books (Jordan's latest was on bugs). We finished reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and have begun Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of Nimh. Along with that nightly read aloud, the girls have read a ton on their own (along with the usual favorites of Berenstain Bears and Animorphs, both girls are loving reading through Veggie Tales Bible Storybook).

The girls got their hair cut, and the girls and I drove through a Tropical Storm to get it done! Apparently I need to watch the news more because I figured it was just a little storm that wouldn't last long--I hate driving in rain--but that wasn't the case. Once we got to the mall, I also discovered that the umbrella had been taken out of the van and we were a good way away from the entrance . . . and it was a complete downpour outside! We made the best of it, laughing and walking very fast, and dried off just in time to get wet again when it was time to leave (after hair cuts and a ride on the carousel in the food court, of course).

In Mommy News: This week on The Ending Unplanned I wrote about getting to know the characters in the story I'm writing, My Embarrassing First Date, how my work in progress is going (gotta check out the youtube video for the glee song I chose for my soundtrack) and a book review on Jennifer Echols' Forget You.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Quick Clarification

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:16:00 +0000

We are still a homeschooling family! I may not have been clear when I said we took a break as of Mid-April. That just means we are taking more of an unstructured approach to education. But never fear, we still love homeschooling around here :-)

Have a great weekend!

What we did (are doing) on our summer vacation. . .

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:53:00 +0000

HELLO!

It has been a fantabulous summer. My wonderful husband got me a new laptop for my birthday so I guess I should've been on here blogging, but there was no school going on.

Around mid-April we decided to take a break from homeschooling. . .

Of course, my 4 year old started reading during this break and now stays up at night reading all my old Berenstain Bears and Dr. Seuss books.

Of course, my 5 year old wrote several stories and made various picture books that she reads to her little sister.

Of course, my 5 year old started staying up at night reading books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and the Animorph series her cousin Desiree gave her.

Of course, my 4 year old's handwriting improved by leaps and bounds, as well as her drawing skills.

Of course, my 5 year old lost 3 teeth -- what, that's not academic? Hogwash, it is a momentous occasion!

Of course, my 4 year old won a First Place Blue Ribbon at a Rodeo event for riding a horse -- again, it was a momentous occasion!

And finally, of course, we have had TONS of discussions about story plots, characterization, dialogue and setting.

Why, you ask?

Well, glad you asked! It's because during this time, Mama has been taking all those 'learning tools' she researched to use on the youngin's and putting them to use for herself -- in learning how to write a novel!

It started in April when my awesome husband bought me the Twilight series. I admit I felt guilty at first . . . this wasn't Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen. But, you know what? I loved it! It helped me to remember that reading can be a FUN experience, too. It can be for pure pleasure sometimes, although that is not what happened with Twilight.

You see, it inspired me. I started reading a ton of YA books ( I would say I've averaged almost a book a day since that mid-April day--that's a lot of books!) and decided that I wanted to try it. I've always had a passion for writing stories. I have so many written in my various diaries and journals, and wrote many for my classes. Somewhere along the way, I stopped. I don't know what happened. . . oh wait, yes I do. Boys. Boys happened. Oh well.

Flash forward 10-12 years and the passion has been awakened. I joined a local YA/MG (young adult/middle grade) writer's group, made a few local writerly friends and exchanged our work for critique, and have now started a blog about the process: The Ending Unplanned. My current Work in Progress (WIP) is around 20k words! (by the way, you can subscribe there to follow my journey!)

Will I still be here at Keep The Way? Of course! This is our family homeschooling blog. I do need to get back to updating, which will probably happen on Fridays from now on, but rest assured I will still be writing here, letting you know about family happenings and our learning adventures.

So, what did you do on your summer vacation?

Our Advanced K Year -- Week One Review

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:44:00 +0000

(sorry in advance for lack of pictures. I am using my mother's computer as our two laptops were stolen yesterday- and our desktop is not working again - and I just wanted to get our memories down for record keeping as soon as possible)

With the girls being only 4 and 5, we decided to call it Advanced K, even though they did finish a full K year program with Sonlight. This week has been like a dream!! I can only assume that it won't always be this good, but I am definitely grateful for this wonderful week.

We began each day with Bible time, with the girls really living with the story of Jesus in the Temple. We read from 5 different versions but my favorite was Catherine Vos' The Child's Storybook Bible that my mom bought us last year. After our Bible reading, we have been using Manners Made Easy by June Hines Moore as our devotional. This has been a lot of fun, as we act out what we are learning - and being able to tie it back to God's Word --and it is something all 3 of us can use :-) Manners is also reinforced at Tea Time in the afternoon with Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners that uses living book stories to teach manners. (this is a gem I learned about at the MomHeart conference and is a great resource)

Both girls have given awesome oral narrations from our History reading, which we are using with our lapbook templates. Even though the concept of history and living long ago can be difficult to grasp at a young age, both of them are easily identifying differences in Josephina's life (who lived in 1824) and their own!

Copywork was unbelievable! I use Worksheet Works to make my own copywork and have them trace the writing for this age. I expected Jordan to take 2 days, as it was a long selection, but I was impressed with her attitude towards it. . . this is often an area that she doesn't try her best, getting bored easily. This week she did a lot more each day than I expected! And Cali??? I expected the same passage to take all week, and she finished with Jordan! She kept asking to do a little more till she was done -- and both girls did a very neat and clean job. :-)

Asking "to do a little more" wasn't limited to copywork, either. They were the same way with their Science notebooking. I planned on only doing a few templates per day, and they asked "can we do a little more, please!" To quote Cali, "Yeah! I love learning about our bodies!! This is fun!!"

The same thing happened with their new Language Arts and Math books! Cali did only 1 lesson per day in her Queen's Language Lessons, even though she wanted more, as I really wanted to stick with the set up they have of short lessons with a variety of topics, but what she did was channel that energy for more into doing a very good and detailed job in the work I gave her. Her attention span was 100%, she had wonderful insight into the picture study, her creative story based on the painting included dialog, was longer than her stories used to be, related really well to the painting and had wonderful descriptions, she really listened to the poetry selection to make her own observations and her picture narration from the poem was wonderful! In Math, however, she definitely went beyond what I expected of her -- I had 2 pages a day planned and on Thursday, Cali did 9 pages on her own!!! To quote Cali again, "Mama, I like doing school. I wanna do some more!"

Jordan was a BRAND NEW CHILD with her Language Smarts lessons from Critical Thinking Company. While she is enjoying her math book from the same company, and doing a great job with it, it was Language Smarts that was the big winner here! She LOVES it!! I went back and forth on what level to get as she completed Sonlight LA 2nd grade this past year, but we decided to go with CTC's first grade Language Smarts book since she is still young, the company does add in advanced topics in all of their books, and because while we loved the "natural approach" to Language Arts that Sonlight used, I wanted to make sure she had a good foundation without any confusing holes for her. Well, the choice was a good one! The colorful pages and fun and varied exercises has my handwriting phobic daughter wanting to do every bit of writing included, even when I offered to let her skip some of the writing portions because we had done copywork earlier that day. She would tell her Daddy at night about her language lessons and it was the first thing she wanted to show him Thursday night at our Daddy Presentation. To quote Jordan, "This is so much fun!!"

(side note memory: Cali is growing in leaps and bounds in reading, constantly reading words to us that she sees. She also obviously has a good foundation, as she has been helping Jordan!! Jordan had to look at a set of words in an exercise, cross out the word with the long vowel sound and replace it with a short vowel word. While she quickly and easily identifies the vowel sounds, for some reason it was a challenge for her to come up with new additional words. . . But Cali could in an instant and kept telling Jordan answers! It was a strange turn of events to have to tell just turned 4 Cali Bug to go play with blocks so Jordan can do her own work without help -- something I normally have to tell Jordan daily!)

Both girls have also LOVED our Math Games! We have played Sum Swamp almost daily for the past few weeks -- and always by them asking -- and we played a variety of games from the book Games for Math by Peggy Kaye this week. I HUGELY recommend both of these resources!!

Jordan has also had huge growth in her effort during Independent Reading Time. While she will easily read a book of her own choosing from cover to cover on her own, we have often taken turns reading pages when it came to books I bring for school time (even though she would end up reading much more per day than expected with this method, she felt reading a whole chapter herself was overwhelming before). However, this week, with The Josephina Story Quilt, she kept Shushing me every time I went to read, wanting to read each chapter to Cali and I by herself! She loved this story.

Both girls memorized the entire 4 Seasons poem this week, even though I had 2 weeks scheduled for it. They loved performing this for Daddy, complete with drama movements of course :-)

AND -- all of the above happened while they each had a stomach bug this week!!!!

This week was full of joy, sweet moments cuddled up with good stories, creative projects, fun videos and great memories. Watching them show their work to Daddy Thursday night, and seeing the joy and pride they had in their work made me smile.

And now to make your heart smile. I leave you with an adorable -- and very enlightened -- prayer that Cali said spontaneously the other day. Blessings!!

Dear God, help me to have a good day today.

I know I can't do it without your help.

I love you God.

In Jesus' Name,

Amen.

Thanks for a GREAT Year, Sonlight!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:24:00 +0000

We have finished our "K" year with Sonlight, and it was a wonderful year! Even though we decided to go our own route this coming year (that started on Monday -- more on that later!), we will definitely be coming back to Sonlight throughout the years for subjects, supplementals, and maybe even complete cores.

The first blessing with Sonlight was the schedule. Not only was it laid out in such an easy format, but it actually taught me how to make a weekly planner I like (my own for this current year is very similar). It also freed me from almost all planning. I opened and went for the most part, although I did look ahead each 6 week block to get an idea of what was ahead and get occasional supplemental materials. It was just what I needed to transition from the complete self created unit studies I was doing before that was very labor intensive.

What I learned about myself is that I can stick to a laid out schedule and still feel freedom to follow a few rabbit trails Before, I was changing my plans so often that I couldn't plan for more than a few weeks at a time, as I wanted to do every new unit heard of! That did give me some anxiety for the future as I thought I would always be so "flaky" and I knew we had certain goals for our homeschool that I didn't think we could meet if we flew around completely haphazardly. With Sonlight, I was able to do what Robin Sampson talked about in The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach, follow delights within a set framework. Toward the end, we finished the last 12 weeks in about 6 weeks due to delight and interests, and feeling more freedom to leave out a few things and replace with others. I know that I will feel even more freedom with a year framework that I designed myself, to be able to change a bit as needed.

The second blessing was THE BOOKS!!! Sonlight definitely picked some winners that I never would have heard of, or tried at this age! While there were a few that we are saving for later because the girls weren't interested (Apple and Arrow, Family Under the Bridge, and surprisingly Dr. Doolittle) the winners were HUGE hits!

In Grandma's Attic was pure fun and we loved the look back at simpler times. Twenty and Ten was a BIG hit that led to many afternoons acting out the story, even though it had what I consider to be a pretty advanced topic (French children having to hide ten Jewish children from Nazi soldiers during WWII). A Grain of Rice was loved by us all, and also led to fun games. I had never heard of that Chinese fairy tale, but I know we will be rereading it time and again. The biography Johnny Appleseed was a fun read aloud, and since biographies are something my husband and I want to focus a lot on in History, it was a pleasure to read one that was perfect for their ages. 5 True Dog Stories and James Herriot's Treasury for Children were beautiful tales for my animal lovers.

The missionary stories, in particular, were a big blessing. Hero Tales, Mary on Horseback, and Granny Han's Breakfast all led to wonderful discussions about faith and how to live our lives as witnesses, and truly being His hands and feet. Jordan has told me she wants to "go teach other people in other countries who don't know about the one true God." After telling her that we will take her when she gets a bit older, she told me that she has a voice and can tell them now!! I told her that she was absolutely right, she could, but some places aren't safe for little girls. She counter offered a few times, and we are currently agreeing on the age of 10 for going on a mission trip :-). We will see what the future holds, but thank you, Sonlight, for touching and inspiring her heart like that!!

Finally, Sonlight blessed me by teaching me more than any Charlotte Mason book I read about choosing copywork and being able to apply it for natural grammar instruction. Their Language Arts was a perfect fit this past year, including all the wonderful readers (The Beginners' Bible Book, Frog and Toad Treasury, Greg's Microscope, Hill of Fire, Daniel's Duck and The Firecat)!

So thank you for a year of wonderful memories, Sonlight!!

Thoughts on The Ministry of Motherhood - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:01:00 +0000

I know I said that my Science plans would be the next post but I just had to share something.

I am reading Sally Clarkson's Ministry of Motherhood. I knew it would be good -- but I had no clue how good!

I chose to read this book first, over her others, because this one dealt with the GIFTS that she talks about in Educating the Wholehearted Child. That is one section of that book that I just didn't really understand or grabbed onto as I would have liked.

Ministry of Motherhood is totally inspiring me, and it has me diving into His Word so much -- and I am only in the Introduction!!! At the end of each section there are Study Notes and Questions, and they are so rich that I have had to take only one question a day!!! Yesterday I took 5 pages in my journal to answer the many parts to Question 1. Today was 3 1/2 pages for Question 2.

I want to share with you my insights into Question 2. The question was stated like this:

"Read Psalm 127:3 - if possible, in more than one translation. What does this verse imply about the Ministry of Motherhood?"

I grabbed 4 versions that I had closest to me (NIV, NLT, NRSV, and a New Translation of the Hebrew Text Torah that we picked up at our library book sale for an additional resource for the Old Testament), along with The Bible Knowledge Commentary Old Testament and Eedrmann's Bible Dictionary.

Here is what I found (emphasis mine):

NIV - Sons are a heritage from the LORD; children a reward from him.

NLT - Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him.

NRSV - Sons are indeed a heritage from the LORD; the fruit of the womb a reward.

Tanakh/Torah - Sons are the provision/heritage of the LORD; the fruit of the womb, His reward.

Bible Knowledge Commentary OT - Children are evidence of God's providence. Children are some of the Lord's providential blessings. They are a reward from the LORD.

Eedrmann's Bible Dictionary defines reward- The idea of God's reward being given in response to the faithfulness of his people is explicitly stated as early as the Abrahamic covenant. But already there it is made clear by the context that the reward is not deserved from God, but is rather an expression of God's grace toward the human covenant partner whom God has chosen. The reward is intended, nonetheless, as a motivation to faithfulness.

Old Testament examples:
- Ruth rewarded for joining herself to Israel (Ruth 2:12)
- Saul hoped David might be rewarded for being faithful and sparing his life (1 Sam 24:19)
- People of God rewarded for keeping God's laws (Ps 19:11, Prov 13:13) and for righteousness (Ps 18:20, 58:11, Prov 11:18)
- Where nature of the reward is specified it is most often prosperity and security in the land. (Exod 20:12, Lev 25:18-19, 26:3-12)

In New Testament contexts, the reward intended is simply God's gift of eternal salvation (Matt 25:34, Rev 11:18)

*** I believe God is showing us that children are VERY important to Him! They are the next generation; they are open and willing vessels that will be filled - either by us with His Word and love OR with what the world says!

Children are:
- His heritage -- and ours!
- His reward -- and ours!
- A sign/proof/evidence of His provision -- a gift, like grace, we cannot/do not earn or deserve!
- A motivation for faithfulness to Him - for the true, wonderful blessing He has bestowed on us - for counting us as worthy to bring them up in Him and for Him.
- Children are listed as a reward in all of the translations I studied. What I found to be the most interesting is that in the Old Testament, reward is most commonly linked to prosperity and security in the land (something that no one would dispute is important and a blessing) and in the New Testament, it is most commonly linked to God's gift of eternal salvation -- there is nothing better or more of a blessing!!
- God lists children in His Holy Word as being worthy of the same description -- reward -- as prosperity, security and salvation!

WOW!!!

Is there a higher calling than ours, a Ministry of Motherhood?

What other calling could possibly be more important to God than raising up the next generation, and doing so with due reverence, intelligence, prayer and grace??? I am not saying other callings aren't equal to this calling. . . I am just proving its significance and importance for Kingdom Work! It is so easy for the role of Motherhood to be downplayed, especially in today's world.

I believe that God's Word is telling us that the role of Motherhood, the role of Fatherhood -- any role that influences children -- is very important to Him, and is indeed, a Ministry. :-)

Unit Plans for Cells – the Building Blocks of Life (Fearfully and Wonderfully Made Science)

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:24:00 +0000

As I mentioned in this post, we are going to be starting our 36 week block on the Human Body, which I entitled Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, with Cells - The Building Blocks of Life.

For our first 6 week block, we will be studying Introduction to the Human Body, Cells, Genes, Germs and our Immune System. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, for the first 5 weeks, we will be reading from a variety books on the topic, and doing various activities including narrations, copywork, lapbooks, online games, and coloring sheets. Week 6 will be our Project Week that will tie it all together and focus on more experiments.

I got my ideas for this unit from Amazon searches and a few different resources, most notably The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach by Robin Sampson, and Little Otter's Homeschool Science Curriculum: The Human Body .

Week 1

- We will be reading Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie and Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body as well as watching the videos for both.

- We will have copywork that they will either trace and decorate, or just decorate, that says, "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well." Psalm 139:14

- Homeschool Share has two lapbooks that we will be pulling pieces from throughout our 36 week study -- Human Body and My Body. This week we will be using the Fearfully and Wonderfully Made template.

- I also found a Human Body Systems template on another blog somewhere that is really good that we will be using throughout the study, as we study each system. This week we will do the Cells - Nerves, Blood and Eggs piece.

- Our Big Activity -- Field Trip to the Houston Health Museum!

Week 2

- We will read from Usborne's First Encyclopedia of the Human Body, pages 4 and 5, on Tuesday and Thursday we will look at DK Guide to the Human Body, pages 4 and 5.

- For supplemental reading, if desired, we will check out I Know How My Cells Make Me Grow (Sam's Science)

- Activities this week include a Crayola Coloring Page (Color a Human Cell) and The Body Book Printable from Scholastic's Easy Make and Learn Projects: Human Body (this was a free sample/excerpt that I found somewhere online), as well as looking online at any Usborne Internet Links.

Week 3

- On Tuesday, we will read The First Encyclopedia of the Human Body pages 42 and 43, and checking out the Internet links on Usborne's site. Thursday we will look at and discuss DK Guide to the Human Body pages 58 and 59 (Genes and Chromosomes page).

- Activities this week include printing the Usborne Quicklink image of Organs, and coloring the Body Organs template from Homeschoolshare.

Week 4

- We will be reading The First Encyclopedia of the Human Body on Germs page 52 and 53, as well as pages 48 and 49 on staying healthy. Thursday we will be reading Germs by Ross Collins.

- Activities will include looking at Internet Links and doing the Germ layer template.

Week 5

- We will read First Encyclopedia of The Human Body pages 54-55, and 58-59, look through DK Human Body pages 38 and 39 on body defenses, and read Germs Make Me Sick - Let's Read and Find out Science 2.

- Activities include the Internet links on Usborne's site, and watching the Internet movie Your Immune System

Week 6

This is PROJECT WEEK so we will be doing different projects on cells and germs and watching videos (Germinators: Immune Systems by Moody Science and Cell-a-bration Cytology by Newtons Workshop if I can get them).

I am eager to start -- I really like the new set up of doing History two days a week and Science two days, as I think it will lead to more relaxed, in depth studies. I also think the girls are going to love the book selections and activities!

Happy Homeschooling!

Darn that Delight-Directed Education. . . :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:56:00 +0000

I have gone back and forth, since deciding to flip flop our schedule for history, whether or not to start science from the beginning (meaning week 1 of my already nicely printed schedule) or from the second semester (week 19) that lined up on the page with the history lessons. I had pretty much decided to start from the second half, meaning Respiratory and Circulatory Systems, Reproduction, and Digestion/Nutrition, to make it easy on myself -- until our door bell rang yesterday. . .

Darn that Delight Directed Education! (LOL) Out of my huge list of books I ordered from Amazon, one lonesome book arrived yesterday - Germs by Ross Collins. This book was on a list or two, and it received tons of stars on Amazon, but it almost didn't make the budget cut. . . I threw it back into my cart at the last second. And I am SO GLAD I did!

The girls immediately asked me to read it and I started to tell them "No, that is a book for Science and we will have to wait till we get to it in our schedule," before I realized how RIDICULOUS that would be, so I sat down and read it. And then Jordan read it. And read it. And read it some more. I lost count with how many times she read that book to me, herself, Cali, the air. . . and I did get some awesome videos that I will try to upload once I figure out how to do that. (Videos that totally captured their personalities, too -- Jordan being studious and reading, explaining and expanding on the story in the book with her own version, and Cali jumping in front of the camera, making her silly faces and trying to make me laugh.)

So, I put it up for a vote this morning -- Should we start with Respiration and Circulation and learn about our heart, blood and lungs or Cells and learn about our bodies cells and germs. It took a nanosecond for them to scream "GERMS!" so I guess we have our winner.

I will post our plans for this unit in the next post :-)

Unit Plans for Early 1800s and Pioneer America (Welcome to American History)

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:21:00 +0000

The countdown to kick off for our Welcome to American History block is on! All books have been ordered, and while they are trickling in ever so slowly, I wanted to share with you what we will be doing for our first unit. :-)

Remember, we will be doing a flip flop and studying our second semester plans first due to the fun Homeschool Day at a nearby historical living farm in May for this time period. At the end of the semester (1800s - 1940s), we will then begin with the beginning (Columbus - American Revolution).

The lineup for the first 5 week block (on our schedule, weeks 19 -23) includes 2 weeks studying the Early 1800s, focusing on the Meet Josefina American Girl book, and 2 weeks studying Pioneer America, focusing on Meet Kirsten. Week 5 caps off our study with a Project Week, which I will post more about later.

Early 1800s:

- Weeks 1 and 2 has us reading Meet Josefina (American Girl book) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. After reading, we will complete an activity. We will be using the American Girl l apbook templates from Homeschool Share, completing the Who is Josephina, Josefina's favorites, Living in 1824, Spanish Words, and What Changes Josefina's Life? templates

- Copywork for week 1 will be broken down into pieces each day for Cali -- Jordan should be able to complete in a day or two. We will discuss metaphor and descriptive writing. The selection is from Meet Josefina.

It seemed to Josefina that the dancers flew around the room with as much ease as their shadows had. They whirled by in a blur of bright colors.

- Our Read Aloud for weeks 1 and 2 is Tom Sawyer. I found Junior Scholastic Editions of a few of my favorite books that the girls have seen me read and on our shelves, that we will now be able to read together. At first I wasn't sure about reading these adaptions, but I was impressed with how they actually used the original author's words, just taking out parts that would either be boring or inappropriate for this age. I think it is perfect for them!

- Copywork for week 2 will be broken down in the same way as week 1, and comes from our Read Aloud.

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

- Our Readers for the girls will be The Josefina Story Quilt for week 1 and Next Spring An Oriole for week 2.

- For Bible, our topic for week 1 will be Jesus as a boy found in the temple and week 2 will be John the Baptist. While we read through the Bible with Sonlight, toward the end I started following topics that I thought were important. One week the only thing we studied was Esther, but we read the story in all of the various children's bibles we have, as well as watch the Nest Video and Veggie Tales video (and discussed the liberties taken with the story!). The girls loved this! They really lived with Esther for the week and it helped the story come alive for them. What I chose to do for the next 36 weeks is take 36 episodes or stories from the Bible that I really want to focus on, and assigned one per week. We will read the story from the different Bibles, watch any videos we have, and do some activities.

- We will also be memorizing 12 poems throughout the 36 week block. I chose them based on interests, language, popularity and a few to reinforce topics we will be discussing in other subjects. Our first poem, which we will begin memorizing next week and finish at the end of these two weeks, was chosen based on the adjectives and descriptive language, which reinforces what we will be discussing in our copywork.

It is Four Seasons Author Unknown:

Spring is showery, flowery, bowery

Summer: hoppy, choppy, poppy.

Autumn: wheezy, sneezy, freezy.

Winter: slippy, drippy, nippy.

At the end of week 2, the girls will perform/recite this poem for Daddy!

- For our Fancy Fridays with our friends Skylar and Emy, we will be introducing Mary Cassatt for picture study and Introduction to the Orchestra for music. Our creative writing topics will be to Draw a picture of your favorite thing (toy or object you play or sleep with) for Week 1, and If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you want to live? for Week 2.

Pioneer America:

- Weeks 3 and 4 has us reading Meet Kirsten (American Girl book) on Monday and Wednesday. After reading, we will complete an activity. We will be using the American Girl lapbook templates from Homeschool Share, completing the Who is Kirsten, Kirsten's favorites, Living in 1884, and the fashion templates.

- Our Read Aloud for weeks 3 and 4 is Little Women which is also the Junior Scholastic Edition. ** I want to add here that I know this doesn't fit the time period... we already read Little House in the Big Woods and I am saving the rest of the Little House series for next year, but I am sure that would fit wonderfully here. The reason for Little Women here is because our next unit is Civil War, in which the book is set, so this serves as an introduction. . . also because this is really the only place it fit in my schedule LOL! **

- Copywork for week 3 will be broken down into pieces each day for Cali -- Jordan should be able to complete in a day or two. The selection comes from our Read Aloud for weeks 3 and 4

Give them all my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day and pray for them by night. I know they will be loving children and will do their duty faithfully.

- Copywork for week 4 will be broken down in the same way as week 1, and is taken from Meet Kirsten.

"Since you live here now, you must have a place in our fort just for your doll," Lisbeth said.

- Our Readers for the girls will be Marmee's Surprise: A Little Women Story Step 3 for week 3 and week 4 will be open for a FREE CHOICE :-)

- For Bible, week 3 our topic will be The Lord's Prayer and week 4 will be The Good Samaritan. We will read the stories from the different Bibles, watch any videos we have, and do some activities.

- We will begin our second poem during this unit.

Tumbling:
In jumping and tumbling

We spend the whole day,

Till night by arriving

Has finished our play.

What then? One and all,

There's no more to be said.

As we tumbled all day,

So we tumble to bed.

We will be working on this for several weeks before the girls will perform/recite this poem for Daddy.

- For our Fancy Fridays with our friends Skylar and Emy, we will be continuing our study of Mary Cassatt week 3 and have a Nature Day week 4. Our creative writing topics will be an entry in our Gratitude Journal for Week 3, and an entry in our Feelings Journal for week 4.

I will be choosing all of our Project Ideas for Week 5 as we progress in the unit, capitalizing on what they find the most interesting. I will be pulling ideas from Kirsten's Craft Book, Kirsten's Cook Book, and Kirsten's Theater Kit.

I am really looking forward to diving into this unit with the girls, I know they are really going to like the new format. Happy Homeschooling!!!

Pictures of my girls

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:25:00 +0000

Since I have a ton of pictures that would be cute to share with family -- and not enough ideas for posts to share them in -- here is a post of a few recent pics of my beautiful girls :-) Enjoy!

The girls had fun playing dress up with Daddy's MBA cap and gown :-)

Jordan, my girlie girl, right before her "Locks of Love" hair cut.

Cali girl posing in her fancy dress before her tea party.

The kick off Tea Party of "Fancy Fridays" with best friends Skylar and Emy. More posts on this soon!

Look, I'm here, too!

I love that they truly are best friends!!

And finally, my two hams in action:

Cali on stage at the Vince Vance concert -- she is so shy, can't you tell? :-)

Jordan in her Drama class. Right after this scene, they performed a play called "The Octopus" in which Jordan was the lead character! I think one of the moms is going to put the video on Youtube, so I will try to link soon!

HAPPY MONDAY!

Cali the Prayer Warrior

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Cali, better known as Cali Bug around these parts, is our goober girl. She lives to make other people laugh. She is constantly making funny faces (most frequently involving crossed eyes and her tongue out), doing funny dances, attempting to tell jokes (that actually aren't jokes at all but gotta love the effort), laughing and saying, "Get it?!?"

But don't let that spirited, spunky, silly exterior fool you. And don't be tempted to see the occasional rule pushing and look at the just-turned-four-baby-of-the-family-so-I-whine-to-get-attention personality trait (although Mommy and Daddy are working hard on that, as it recently has reared its oh so pleasant head again) and assume she doesn't have powerful spiritual insight to share. My little fireball has a huge spiritual gift of prayer!

Whenever she makes the wrong choice, she says an impromptu prayer asking for forgiveness almost immediately (or whenever she realizes it is the wrong choice). When she wants something really bad, she prays to God for it. When she sees someone hurting, she prays for them. Sometimes she prays for the silliest things that I know just makes God giggle (I tell my girls that the highest form of joy is a giggle and since God IS joy, that He giggles whenever He sees them doing something that really touches His heart!) -- such as her favorite famous prayer, "Dear God, I want to play a game. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

A sweet memory I think I will always carry with me is Ms. Kelly, the Preschool Director at our church, coming up to me a few weeks ago. Gregg and I serve there, so we know her pretty well. That day they were having a special time with the children, making cards and praying for Little Bekah who is a 3 year old who already lost an eye to cancer and is still battling for her life.

Ms. Kelly came up to me and told me that she had to hold back tears while praying with Cali. She said that she was able to pray with several of the children as she went around the rooms, and most of the children didn't really understand what they were doing, or it didn't really touch their hearts -- but that Cali GOT IT! She said her little prayer was so heartfelt and full of love, and that she could tell that Cali prays a lot. Ms. Kelly said that it really touched her heart, and as her Mama, I must say I beamed extra bright at the wonderful compliment she bestowed upon my "sweet potato girl".

Cali is a tough cookie who can be feisty and isn't afraid to let her desires known -- sometimes VERY strongly -- but that girl does have a soft heart full of gold, and better still, full of God's love. I try to remember to turn to prayer often in life's events, and I try as often as possible to model that out loud, but I must admit that she has taught me (and reminded me) to do it at times I hadn't thought about.

I love you, Cali girl!

Jordan 12:20

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:01:00 +0000

This week has been so full - and exhausting! We have been doing a lot more spontaneous reading cuddled in various locations throughout the house, we have played a different game each day (I am really leaning towards relying heavily on games for math this coming year, so we have played Yahtzee, Uno and Battle so far), and we have had a lot of outdoor time.

With all of that going on, I have also started nap/quiet time again, where we gather in Mama's bed, read a chapter from a book -- currently Winnie the Pooh -- and then we all close our eyes. The rule is that you must be quiet, still and have your eyes closed for twenty minutes (Mama too!) and if after that time you aren't asleep, you can then play quietly in your room until the hour is up. Cali has fallen asleep everyday, and Jordan has even taken a nap half the time. Yesterday was not one of those days, however.

After the 20 minutes was up, and I could tell she was getting restless, I told her to go to her room and play quietly. She wasn't supposed to come out until 4:00, when the hour was up, unless it was to go to the bathroom. She came out after a few minutes, and I normally would have promptly reminded her of the rules (since this is a new thing we are starting) and sent her back in -- but for some reason I held my tongue.

She quickly asked for materials to make a Scripture Verse. See, early last year we used a curriculum for Preschool called Bright Beginnings and in it, we had a memory verse each week. We decided to make a big poster for each one and hang it on our wall in the Living Room. We ended up with around 13 huge posters around the room (no mistaking our beliefs the second you walked in the house!), and they stayed up until about 3-4 months ago when I finally took them down.

Well apparently, Jordan was either reading a book about an angel in her room, or she was playing pretend, but she came out saying that her and this angel were talking, and she wanted to make her own Scripture Verse. I helped her get out the large white paper and crayons, and she sat down on the other side of the room. She asked for help with the word "destroy" and then asked how to spell "Evil" to make sure she had it right. She was about to ask how to write the number 12 again (occasionally she writes the second number first like 21) but then she remembered our learning poster that has the numbers so she looked up instead. I was very curious which verse she could be writing -- she knows quite a lot at this point, but nothing that seemed to have all of those elements.

After adding a smiley face at the bottom of the paper (something her Daddy always did with the others. . . one to be cute, but mostly to cover up a dark spot that appeared at the bottom of all the papers) she announced that it was ready to be put on the wall. I walked over and just smiled.

The poster reads:

Jordan 12:20

SONGS OF GOD DESTROY EVIL

I knew she made it up herself, but that made me smile all the more. She didn't worry that her verse wasn't actually from the Bible. She believed she had a message about God and His power that was important to share -- and I agree.

We know that speaking the Word of God does destroy the darkness and evil, and that praising God by singing His Word is just one way of brandishing that 'Sword of the Spirit,' which is the word of God. We do a lot of singing around here -- me with my off-key self and all :-)

I have no idea where she got the "Address" part, and it might not technically be in the Bible, but I think this is one verse I may keep on my wall for awhile. . . and it is already one that I have memorized!

"It isn't YOU speaking, it is God speaking in you"

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:34:00 +0000

WOW! These are the words that my five year old, Jordan, told me yesterday. We were cuddling on the sofa, reading Max Lucado's The Way Home. I was explaining to them how it symbolizes our relationship with God. How, like Anna in the story, we are His Princesses and how the King in the story symbolized Jesus, coming down to the Lowerlands to give up His life to save us.

Out of nowhere, Jordan interrupted me, saying, "God is speaking."

I was a little surprised by this interruption, so I muttered the very eloquent question, "Huh?"

Her beautiful blue eyes then turned to me and she said, "What you are saying is the Word of God. If it is the Word of God, then it isn't YOU speaking, it is God speaking in you."

" . . . . . " (blink blink)

After a moment, I was able to speak again and I told her how insightful and intelligent that was, and how she was right.

The interesting thing is that I have been raised hearing a version of this all my life. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us and we are His vessel. Praying often that it is His words, not mine, that speak in times of comfort or discipline. That Jesus is the Word. That the Bible is His word, and He speaks to us through it. YES, I have heard all of that before, but I have NEVER had it put like that before.

I told my husband later that night and he had the same reaction. It is truth, but neither of us had thought of it that way. Isn't a child's faith amazing? They can see Biblical truths so simply, while we can over complicate things in an instant.

OH Jesus, give me the faith of a child!!

Me - Renewed

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:16:00 +0000

I am just getting back online after an AMAZING weekend with Sally Clarkson. I went to her Dallas MomHeart Conference and it was a complete blessing!!

I have been to like 9 or so different homeschool conferences in the past three years (counting online conferences) and while they have all encouraged me in some way or gave me new information on the schooling aspect, NONE have touched my heart as a mother more. . . and none of them have renewed me, empowered me or rejuvenated me like this one.

Not only hearing Sally speak, but being able to see her wonderful, beautiful children -- the fruit of her homeschooling efforts, and living proof that the 'Wholehearted Child' educational philosophy works -- in person was a real treat!

I walked away with so many ideas of ways that I can grow in my relationship with Christ, infuse even more joy and laughter into our family, how to make even more memories, how to make reading aloud not only enjoyable but potentially life changing, how to discipline more effectively (and truly get to their heart), how to inspire them, how to pray more passionately and effectively. . . I could go on and on!

While the conference itself was amazing, equally wonderful was staying in the beautiful hotel room ALL. BY. MYSELF!!! It was so. . . clean. . . . and white. . . and quiet! :-) Right away I was able to put all of my belongings away and even laid out every piece of my makeup on the counter in the cute little tumblers they provided, and I did not have to worry about finding a child covered with lipstick. I did not touch the television remote the entire weekend either. I read, prayed, slept, listened to my own thoughts (sigh). It was heaven! And, getting a beautiful flower arrangement from my wonderful thoughtful husband was icing on the cake.

I also highly recommend Sarah Clarkson's new Book, Read For the Heart. I am about half way through this HUGE book and loving every word. After I finish that, I move onto finally reading The Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson that I picked up this weekend. I can't believe it has taken this long to finally read these other books of hers, considering that my personal mission is to "Encourage Moms To Experience Joy in the Ministry of Motherhood." After I finish this book, I will move to reading her Mission of Motherhood book, and then Dancing With My Father, which is about living with joy.

I have also begun rereading Just Give Me Jesus by Anne Graham Lotz. I read this with a small group of women in our church a few years ago and it really blessed me then. It goes through the entire book of John. While I was on this mini-retreat of mine, I realized that while I have been watching Joyce Meyer everyday, and reading tons of devotionals, and watching Life Today, and all that, I was lacking in my personal relationship with Jesus. How can I possibly be the Christian, Wife and Mother that I want to be, need to be, without Him??

I am going to be playing around with my schedule a bit to find time to blog (not only to keep family updated on the girls, but also to try to start writing again) without being online during the day itself very often. I want to set the example of media time being a treat, not a time zapper like it can be and has been for all of us in the past.

Off to dance with my girls -- Have a BLESSED day!

Our Language Arts Adventures

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Harris) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I have shared what we are going to be doing for History and Science in earlier posts, so I wanted to share our thoughts on Language Arts, but I thought it would also be helpful to share what we have used and loved so far, as well as F-L-O-P-S!

We have explored many different products and methods in regards to Language Arts over the past few years. We have had some big winners and we have had complete duds. One of the best parts about homeschooling is that you can tailor the education to the child. . . no cookie cutter, one size fits all approach here!

Jordan learned to read using a variety of sources. Leap Frog videos, Starfall.com, letter games, flashcards and reading with Mom and Dad are the main ways she learned. I actually often say that she taught herself! I think PBS shows like Super Why, World World and Between the Lions helped a lot, too. We supplemented with Zoo Phonics and Explode the Code, as well, but I don't really know how much this taught her as just reinforced what she already knew. Looking back, she was much more of the whole word approach rather than phonics, but we are working on the phonics as well to help her with spelling and fluency. But we plan on stopping ETC after this workbook.

Cali is learning to read using a variety of sources, too, but completely different. While she loved watching the videos with her sister when she was little, and it is how she learned her letter sounds at 18 months, she actually doesn't like to watch the videos now. It is really strange, I don't know where she changed but she refuses to watch them with her sister when Jordan asks to watch them! She did the Zoo Phonics with us last year so she was exposed to the idea that letter sounds can be in the beginning, middle and end and was good at sounding out 3 letter words by the age of 3, but while she wanted to learn how to read like her sister so badly, she got frustrated very very easily. The Sonlight Readers did not work --- Bob books did. Sonlight LA did not really work at all for her actually. What worked for her was a combination of songs for word families, some letter games, and mostly using workbooks -- in particular Queens Language Lessons for the Very Young 2 and to a somewhat lesser extent, Explode the Code. She loves these and we may continue throughout with these resources (meanwhile Jordan doesn't like Queens Language Lessons!)

For Spelling words, Jordan being a visual learner has made things interesting. In the beginning what worked best was writing the words with colorful markers on the big white board. After that got old, I didn't understand why using the hands on methods that would work wonderfully for Cali (magnet letters and stamps) wasn't working for her, so I admit I got a little frustrated. Luckily, I stumbled across the idea of using flashcards but tracing the different sounds in different colors so she could visually see the word in her mind, broken down into sounds which helped her in spelling. For instance the word tighten would be broken down where "t" is purple, "igh" is blue, "t" is red, and "en" is green. This helped her tremendously!! And now that our computer is working again, Spellingcity.com has been amazing! She learned two weeks of words within 3 days using that!

For creative writing, I love to have the girls tell me stories while I copy them down word for word, and this does work for the most part. . . but we also use a tape recorder for the girls to tell their stories, I listen and keyboard, then we discuss (and correct if we are using as an assignment). I love the idea of also keeping these tapes for them to listen to when they are older -- I have a couple from my childhood that the girls get a huge kick out of listening to! The only problem I have found with this is that for Jordan at least, her stories tend to be more concise and to the topic when I have to stop her occasionally to write it down, where when she uses a tape recorder it can follow a few rabbit trails being more free form, but it is still an excellent tool.

Finally a favorite idea that we have done in the final months of our K year for Jordan has been to abandon the LA program we were using (besides Spelling and ETC) and have been working on a story for the PBS Story Contest. Using it as a way to wrap up all we learned this year about similes/metaphors, dialog, adjectives, varying sentence structure, etc has been a lot of fun and a great way to review. The idea was to also use this as copywork as well, and her art could be the illustrations. The only problem is that we started somewhat late on this and I need to play with how I broke it out as she is now at the illustrating part and is kinda "over it." LOL But we will definitely do this again next year!

So that is our look at Language Arts over the years. Going forward Cali will be continuing Queens Language Lessons for the Very Young (moving on to level 3) as well as Explode the Code (finishing Book 3 and going at her own pace from there). I will be using the Spelling words from Sonlight LA 2, using SpellingCity to learn as well as magnets to build the words. For Creative Writing, we will be focusing on journaling and Queen Language Lesson writing prompts.

Jordan will be using Critical Thinking Company's Language Smarts. While she used Sonlight LA 2 this year, we will be using Grade 1 just to reinforce what we have learned and fill any holes. She LOVES the colorful look of the workbook so I think it will be a lot of fun! I will be using a Spelling List I got from our homeschool group for the K-3 National Spelling Bee, putting it into SpellingCity and also a new product I will be reviewing soon, SpellQuizzer. We will be working a bit on vocabulary using Worldy Wise 3000 Book 2 (although we won't be buying the book yet. . . They actually have games online that teach the words and have a few activities! I plan to use this to see if she likes it and then may buy the book later in the year or next year). For Creative Writing we will focus on journaling and story starters, along with self created stories.

Finally for Handwriting, we will continue to either have them trace my handwriting (via Walmart tablets) or worksheets here using Copywork. When I post our unit plans, I will post the copywork that I chose for each week -- mostly focusing on either facts of the time period or great writing samples from the Literature we are using.

Have a great weekend!