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Over the last 50 years, we’ve had a major shift in the American diet. We’re now consuming more of our calories by drinking them. In fact, the average American is now drinking approximately 400 calories per day!

Soda, fruit juice, energy drinks and sports drinks. My kids ask for them, do yours?

Reach for a healthier alternative: tea. Full of potent antioxidants, studies have proven tea is good for your health. Can any soda say that? Plus, with so many flavorful recipes, you’ll have no problem convincing your family to drink more healthy tea.

Andrea Green from The Greenbacks Gal shares her Homemade Tea Recipes that are sure to become family favorites.

Note: This series is designed as a fun and informative compilation to help you and your family thrive. Each post is the opinion of that particular blogger, not necessarily mine or Positively Real Media’s.

Welcome back to the How to Begin Homeschooling series!

Did you miss Part 1: Getting started with preschool?

Here’s Part 2: Determine your teaching method and your kids’ learning styles.

Subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Coming up:

Part 3: Curriculum planning with multiple kids

Part 4: Homeschooling as a lifestyle

Teaching method is important. If you don’t have a background in teaching, then this will require some prayer, thought, perhaps research.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a jumping off point for you in researching your direction for your family’s homeschool journey.

First, consider your purpose and vision for homeschooling.

Is your purpose primarily for

• academics? {our first reason was academics. Liz has an October birthday and couldn’t start Kindergarten. I was worried she’d be teaching the class or in the office every day that next year!}
• religion? {Homeschooling allows us to educate our children in the Word and not in the worldly values that diminish Him.}
• health? {I know many families who have health issues and homeschooling just makes their lives easier.}
• some other reason? {being military and homeschooling makes transferring during school time a breeze!}

Parents are vision casters.

• You set the stage for success for your children and your homeschool. Set the vision and go after those goals. Win that race.
• What are your goals? {Set a goal and think backwards to determine how to get there.}
• Think positive. {For example, if you’re pulling your kid out of public school due to bullying or poor performance, then don’t make your child feel guilty or put him or her in a social bubble. I’ve noticed that it’s seldom his or her fault.}
• Have a firm foundation. {Pray for direction. Enlist your husband’s support. Find a local or online homeschool support groups.}
• Who gets credit or blame? {You? Jesus? Your children? For years, I was still stuck in the school mindset and anxious about my kids’ progress, grades, accomplishments. But you know what? God fills in the gaps and leads us where He wants us – and it’s so much more peaceful giving Him the control and glory.}

 

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.

Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.

Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.

But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].

~1 Corinthians 9:24-27 AMP

Tori persevered in her 5K and won a medal! She wanted to quit halfway through, but she’s been trained to always try her best. Character development at its finest. She just turned 7 in March.

What methods are you comfortable teaching?

• Explanations of different methods here.
• Other methods explained here.
• Comparisons of methods here.
• Discover the method that’s right for you (and sign up for a freebie)
• How Stuff Works: Homeschooling

What are the learning styles of each of your children?

And there are multiple intelligences to consider (very similar to learning styles) – based on Howard Gardner’s theories.

Most kids have a blend of learning styles and multiple intelligences with a prominence. For instance, my four kids are all different – to keep me on my toes all the time. God is laughing, I’m sure. I am fascinated and horrified at different times.

Elizabeth is an Extrovert, iNuitive, Perceiver (ENP) . She’s an Auditory (aural) learner. Her intelligences: music, verbal, visual. She loves to read and discuss history and she’s highly social (interpersonal). She is very aware of others.

Victoria is an Introvert, Sensor, Judger (ISJ). She’s a Visual learner.  Her intelligences: numbers (logic-math), nature, music. She would like nothing more than to sit quietly and do puzzles – with others nearby for comfort. She is painfully shy.

Katherine is an Extravert, iNtuitive, Perceiver (ENP). She is a Kinesthetic (physical) learner. Her intelligences: self (intrapersonal), nature, body (kinesthetic). She’s always moving and loves to do her own thing. She is very self-aware and meta-cognitive.

Alexander is an Introvert, Thinker, Perceiver (ITP). He’s a Kinesthetic (physical) learner. His intelligences: numbers (logic-math), body (kinesthetic), pictures (visual-spatial). He has a mind of his own and loves to play games. He is aware of others (interpersonal).

Understanding my children’s personalities and intelligences help me to teach them most effectively. I know that math will be easier for Tori and Alex. I can’t get angry with Liz for not “getting” algebra. I shouldn’t get upset with Tori for not liking reading. And Kate and Alex both need to move around a lot to keep their brains stimulated. Tori and Liz both love music and it can help them learn other subjects. I know that one of the best things I can do for Tori and Kate is send them to nature camp in the summer.

Focus on your children’s strengths and pray about the weaknesses that they won’t hinder your child or your relationship with them. {TWEET THIS}

Don’t allow your children to get lazy though. They do need to learn basic math and reading skills to function in society. They must be able to interact politely with other people no matter how shy they feel. There are many activities I don’t particularly enjoy, but character development and life skills are more important. You have to make the call. And there are always appropriate seasons to teach these skills. Don’t traumatize your child because she won’t learn something right now. Pray for God to open your child’s heart and mind and give you peace until then.

note: extravert and introvert have nothing to do with being comfortable socially. It’s how you recharge your batteries. For introverts (me, Tori, and Alex), being in a social environment is exhausting and I have to be alone to refresh my spirit. For extraverts (my husband, Liz, and Kate), being in a social setting is exhilarating and they get spent being alone.

Resources

Personality types play into learning styles. For older kids and adults, you can go here to take a free quiz to learn your Meyers Briggs letters. I am an Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinker, Judger (INTJ).

For detailed explanations of personality types, visit this The Personality Page site.

Knowing your and your children’s spiritual gifts is important too. This can help identify strengths to focus resources. My gifts are teaching and exhortation.

Take the Multiple Intelligences quiz to find strengths and weaknesses. Great explanations here.

Find your child’s learning styles with free quizzes. Kidzmet offers personal play books for your child so you can assist him or her best in individualized learning. There’s even a picture quiz for non-readers. I think they’re amazingly accurate.

Some great freebies here:

There’s a blog roll by teaching style here:

A great homeschool site for all things legal. And here’s a great article about learning styles: HSLDA

Homeschool Buyers Co-op has a cute article on personality and learning styles.

Homeschooling’s #1 Way to Save

Stay tuned for next week’s post: Curriculum Planning with Multiple Kids – multiple age groups.

Linking up here:

We’re reviewing a fun unit study that comes with a spelling component and I thought we’d see how we do with this new thang.

 

I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.

- Mark Twain

They love the idea.

Liz and I are naturally good spellers and drills are just fun for us. I wonder how Tori and Kate will react.

We’ve about conquered reading with Kate. She’s on chapter books now! She still doesn’t write or spell well though.

They have a sheet each day to complete, but I realize that they need extra help in between since this is so new and they have no experience with spelling.

Tori still needs practice reading.

I chose ten words from the recommended list and they wrote them five times each and wrote them each in a sentence. I wrote what they said on the board for the sentences and they copied them.

It’s just not enough for such a new concept. Their pretest was 3/10. But I loved how excited and optimistic Tori was that she got 3 right! That’s the way we should think, eh? Not focusing on getting 7 wrong, but 3 right!

So we multi-tasked on the deck this afternoon. Liz quizzed the girls while they prepped juice for lemonade and limeade. I think the sun was in her eyes or she was mad at me. Not sure what I did!

Tori and Kate loved the squeezing of the limes.

I printed these spelling cards on fun sherbet-colored paper and laminated them. We will practice a few more and re-quiz on Friday.

Download your own Spelling Command Cards linked on this page. I love Montessori spelling.

One of our favorite apps is Montessori Crosswords. I just need to be more intentional about having my girls play it.

Looking to add Spelling City to our repertoire. and other apps and games to make spelling fun…

Alex loves Starfall and apparently, they have an advanced app: Learn to Read.

We’re using All About Reading Level 2 (we’re on the home stretch!) and I’ve heard rave reviews for All About Spelling. Probably a purchase in our future. It’s recommended by IEW.

Liz used Spelling Workout (recommended in The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home) and she liked it well enough. I’m hesitant to go the workbook route right now with Tori and Kate.

I like the idea of notebooking spelling and want to do something more creative and kinesthetic than just workbooks, but if Tori and Kate like workbooks, I’ll get them.

A new adventure with both girls mandated to be in school this coming year.

Linking up:

We can’t express just how much we love Apologia science.

Liz completed General Science this year. She has completed the entire elementary series. And now the girls are working through it! I love everything about it.

General science gives a great overview of all the sciences. Liz especially likes physics and can’t wait for that program {in a few more years}! We’re starting physical science after summer break.

Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, 2 Vol, 2nd Ed.

I got the journal for Liz to keep all her work together. She has organization issues and there’s a handy little schedule in the front that she would just check off each assignment as she completed it.

Exploring Creation with General Science, Second Edition, Student Notebook

Dad’s a scientist. He helped lots this year with Liz and her experiments. He extended some of them to further teach her the concepts well.

Liz liked the simple experiments. Even when they go wrong {or Mama doesn’t have the correct type of toilet bowl cleaner, sigh}

She was much more successful making this DNA strand model out of pipe cleaners.

We still have this baby taking over my kitchen windowsill, sprouting plenteous roots.

Liz enjoyed the anatomy lessons too. And reading sideways on the floor apparently.

The girls are still plugging along with Land Animals and we hope to finish over the summer. I focused more on math and language arts with them since they’re only just turned 6 and 7.

Land Animals of the Sixth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 3

The girls absolutely LOVE these journals. It’s like notebooking and lapbooking all in a great spiral notebook.

Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 Junior Notebooking Journal

We kicked off our school year in science by taking Tori and Kate to the zoo for a special primate event. We had lunch with staff and and special animal guests.

We even got to help the primate keeper with enrichment for the lemurs!

The lemurs get excited with drawings on the windows of their habitats.

Here’s the girls’ recent reaction to learning about rumination (chewing cud). ew

The girls really enjoyed our map work (learning where the animals live in the world) and learning the animals’ footprints at the end of each chapter. We played games and completed most of the experiments or crafts. Kate is rather obsessed with animals and I often find her reading an animal encyclopedia rather than doing what she’s supposed to be doing. Since they’re studying Latin now, they’re fascinated by learning the proper taxonomy names.

While we’re not completely finished with our school “year” and our schooling runs through the summer…here I evaluate what worked and what didn’t.

We typically finish up a majority of curricula in springtime, like science, math, history, and many extras. We spend spring and summer doing “light schooling” – we finish reading and complete history projects. We do lots of art and nature study and spend our mornings watching hummingbirds and playing outside in the sun. We spend the too-hot afternoons watching educational DVDs and shows on Netflix or playing educational apps and computer games. Evenings, we’re back outside to work in the garden, enjoy the cooler air, and watch hummingbirds and bats.

So here’s my evaluation of what worked for us and what needs tweaking this past “year.” I think I’ve finally hit my stride and we were pretty successful. My husband is quite pleased that we’re settling down and are more comfortable with our curriculum choices and not wasting time and money on products that don’t fit.

History

We love Tapestry of Grace. I use this primarily with Elizabeth, who loves history and outgrew Story of the World after one cycle through their 4 books in 4 years. We did Ambleside Online that 5th year since it was a survival year for us. I had Alex and we PCS’ed from Hawaii to Utah. We needed simple and free. I had coveted Tapestry of Grace since we began homeschooling and I knew it was time to take the plunge. Liz needed something with more structure than AO and this keeps us well accountable. We love all the choices and some weeks we do too much and other weeks too little, but it will balance out in the end. We are just finishing up Year 2 with TOG.

Tori and Kate are still really young. They would be just beginning the 1st cycle of history, but to keep my sanity, we’ve tagged along with Liz’s schedule. I have to read everything aloud – it’s time-consuming. Some weeks are more interesting than others for them. I plan to do better next year with maintaining their schedule and helping them to keep their notebooks organized. They began really loving the mapwork just about a month ago. Next fall, I plan to really do a full schedule with them for Year 3.

Language Arts

I won a copy of All About Reading Level 2 and Tori and Kate just loved it. We’re almost finished with the lessons and I read that Level 3 doesn’t come out for a few more months. We may wait and just focus on other things until then. We have journals and plenty of literacy games.

I bought AAR pre-level for Alex and he loves it. Ziggy is his bud!

TOG also has a LA component Writing Aids and we incorporate that into our notebooking work. I am excited to review IEW for Liz next month, who needs a structured writing program. We get lots of grammar practice from our Latin studies.

Math

The girls adore Life of Fred and Singapore and we had wild success with both. Liz finished up the Singapore 6B and focused only on Life of Fred. She also enjoys Kahn Academy and I think they’re filling in a lot of gaps for her. We did lots of games and math journaling.

Science

Apologia is perfect for our family. The girls are completing Land Animals and Liz finished up with General. They love the notebooking journals! We did appropriate nature studies, but had a really hard winter and didn’t get outside as much as I would’ve liked.

Music

The girls still love the Musiq Homeschool lessons. Liz plays around with it, but takes formal lessons from a neighbor. She just had her recital last month and it was flawless. We do composer studies as a family with TOG. I hope to start back up with guitar from Schoolhouse Teachers.

Art

We did artist studies along with TOG. We occasionally did extra unit studies if we had time to fit it in or it had extra cross-curricular significance.

Latin

We love Memoria Press Latin. Liz is finishing up Second Form and the girls are beginning with Prima Latina. They love it so much. I love listening to them learning derivatives and grammar. A review is coming up soon!

Practical

Liz is the cupcake queen. She enjoys baking and I hope to encourage her more, but we don’t need all the sweets in our diet. I hope to find an outlet for her creations. Any takers?

Liz has quite a successful babysitting service to our pastor’s preschool-aged grandchildren. Having such a flexible schedule has allowed her to attend them whenever needed. The boy is deaf and autistic and the girl has ADHD from FAS. I am sure this experience will be invaluable in the future. They love her and Liz adores them and works very well with them.

The kids are learning to use essential oils along with me. They are fascinated by how quickly effective they can be to change our feelings or owies.

All the children are learning how to be servant leaders. We’ve been focusing on relationships.

Bible

All the kids and I love The Dig for Kids. Alex is working on Raising Rock Starts Preschool. Tori and Kate read and did copywork with Hero Tales. Liz completed Who Is God? and  Who Am I? from Apologia.

We <3 We Choose Virtues! Use Code: MOMTIME15 for 15% off all orders through the end of MAY and every order comes with a lovely VIRTUE MOM pin.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve grown with God this past year. I am so different than I was even a few months ago. He has changed my heart and our family is so much more successful for the Kingdom and on the righter path.

Other

Tori ran two 5K’s with her Dad. For this last one, she got 3rd place for her age group, after two 10 year olds! She was the youngest female in the race at age 7.

Liz is working towards promotion in Civil Air Patrol. She flew a plane from Provo to Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. She loved it.

Conclusion

When I look back at all we’ve accomplished, I feel good. I see how much progress we’ve made! The bad days {read: weeks, months} seem far away and the overall picture is success. I look forward to some downtime and planning for next year. We’re not changing much. Things are too good right now.

Click to see what others have to say. {linky will be live on Friday}

This week at BundleoftheWeek.com, add five Kitchen Stewardship ebooks to your library at a fraction of their regular price!

Whether you’re already a fan of the talented Katie Kimball or just hearing about these eBooks for the first time, this collection of real food eBooks includes not just recipes but plenty of information to empower you on your real food journey — and it’s available at almost 80% off retail this week only.

Plus, purchasers will receive a special coupon code to purchase Katie’s latest eBook,

Better Than a Box, at just 50%! From soaking grains and using beans to stretch your budget to dozens of snack recipes for busy families on the go and tasty desserts that won’t leave you feeling deprived, Katie’s eBooks offer recipes and kitchen tips for every meal of the day. P.S. Even if you’ve already got one or two of these eBooks in your collection, this collection offers a great value for the remaining books. And you’re welcome to pass on your duplicates to a friend or family member to encourage them in their real food journey as well!

Healthy Snacks to Go (2nd Edition) by Katie Kimball With over 45 healthy snack recipes and ideas including traditional granola bars, iron-packed Popeye bars, and a dozen “Lara bar” style variations, Healthy Snacks To Go is the resource you need for healthy snack ideas. Complete with time-saving tips, frugal options and allergy notes, plus diaper-bag friendly snacks that are toddler-approved, this will become your “go-to” cookbook to keep your cupboards filled with nourishing yet quick choices.

The Everything Beans Book by Katie Kimball This comprehensive resource explaining everything you want to know about beans and legumes. In The Everything Beans Book, you’ll find recipes for homemade beans and rice, refried beans, wraps, Mexican fare, soups, pasta dishes, and even a dessert, plus frugal tips and substitution ideas! Beyond recipes, this eBook also offers over 20 pages of information to facilitate your new love of beans and make sure you can cook with dry beans without any stress.

Smart Sweets by Katie Kimball Katie’s goal with Smart Sweets: 30 Desserts to Indulge Your Sweet Tooth is to give you options that are way better for you than you’ll find in the grocery store, usually better for you than another homemade version, and sometimes downright good for you. You’ll find less sugar, healthier sweeteners, whole grains, soaked and sprouted grains, no grains, probiotics and even some vegetables in these desserts recipes, without sacrificing taste or enjoyment!

Is Your Flour Wet? by Katie Kimball In Is Your Flour Wet? Soaked, Sprouted, or Soured: Grains Recipes from Our Kitchens to Yours, Katie offers a basic introduction to soaking, sprouting and sourdough, plenty of how-to tutorials and more than 45 recipes from a variety of real food bloggers, including breads, snacks, pancakes and waffles, oatmeal, cakes and more!

The Family Camping Handbook by Katie Kimball If you’ve always wanted to try camping as a frugal family vacation but are nervous because you have little ones, The Family Camping Handbook will show you how to survive and even thrive out in the woods with young children. You’ll find an overview to help you get started camping, packing and to-do lists and, of course, real food adaptations to standard camping fare. This eBook includes a total of 36 camping recipes and techniques, including paleo/primal/grain-free adaptations.

The Kitchen Stewardship bundle is only available through 8am EST on Monday, 5/27. Get yours today:

Freebies!

Free Download from Kitchen Stewardship – Apple Crisp Recipe

Free Download {Printable Chart} Real Food Substitutions

Kitchen Stewardship Free Download – No Bake Granola Recipe

Kitchen Stewardship Free Download – Pasta with White Bean Sauce Recipe

{Free Download} Recipe: Creamy Stovetop Stuffing Chicken Casserole with No Stovetop!

Welcome back to the Raising Health Families series, join us each week as we take a look at different ways to keep your family healthy and vibrant in a not-so-healthy world.

read more about positively real media here

Written by Sara from Your Thriving Family

Many of us are trying to eat real food and get back to natural products, for what we believe to be the best for our families.  The wall we sometimes hit, unfortunately, can be our well-meaning and loving extended family.

How do you continue along your journey and keep the peace with the extended family?  Natural Living in a Regular Family, is about finding the balance and putting relationships first.  Click on over for finding the grace in what goes in and on your family.

Next week is learning about the power of tea and some great homemade recipes.

Note: This series is designed as a fun and informative compilation to help you and your family thrive. Each post is the opinion of that particular blogger, not necessarily mine or Positively Real Media’s.

Mother’s Day weekend is seldom a holiday. For me, it’s race weekend and Kate’s birthday.

On Saturday, we all piled in the van to go up to Ogden Nature Center. Way too early.

Tori ran a 5K with her dad. She’s our athlete.

It’s a statue. Honestly, I stared at it waiting for it to move. sigh.

There’s a great bird sanctuary at the center.

These lovely ladies were cheering on the runners.

My big boy!

Kate turned 6 years old!

Liz’s attitude has improved tremendously lately. Prayer really works. And we just don’t fall for that whole western tween/teen mentality at all. More on that later.

Tori was hurting and didn’t want to finish the second lap.

Perseverance paid off. She was the youngest female in the 5K and got 3rd place for her age group of 1-12 {after 2 10 year olds}!

And she got the coolest raffle prize – this little binocular, magnifier, compass thing. I was in the gift shop looking at these to buy one for her when I heard her name called for the raffle. God cares even about the little things.

In the nature center, they have a new teaching beehive. Super cool. Scroll really quick if you don’t want to see them up close.

Pretty shiny golden darlings. Making yummy honey.

The coolest nature sensory evarrrr! I want it. I want Aaron to make me one. Imbedded with mirrors and magnifiers.

Alex thought the snakeskins were cool.

It was a lovely day.

and we grabbed a nature camp brochure. Alex is in from when he went last year. aw

Some lovely readers on Facebook asked me to list my suggestions to beginning homeschool, so here’s a post. I probably need to make it a series so it’s not overwhelming. I have so much to say.

Here’s what the topics will be:

Subscribe so you don’t miss one!

Part 1: Getting started with preschool

Part 2: Determine your teaching method and your kids’ learning styles

Part 3: Curriculum planning with multiple kids

Part 4: Homeschooling as a lifestyle

Many readers didn’t know where to begin. Let me share my story. I never planned to homeschool.

I was lost when I realized that God was slamming every door in. my. face. and forcing me to homeschool Elizabeth. I had been a public school teacher. All my in-laws were public school teachers.

We moved out-of-state – and I couldn’t find a job – and I couldn’t find a school for Liz – and I was pregnant with Tori -I didn’t know what to do!

Elizabeth has an October birthday. The school wouldn’t accept her for another year for Kindergarten. I knew in the back of my mind that Liz would be turning 6 about a month into that school year. She would be bored out of her mind and be a behavior problem. She had corrected her preschool teacher! I worried about her future success in school.

Since we were both home, I told my husband we would just homeschool for a few years. That sealed the deal and there was no turning back. She was reading and doing work several grade levels ahead in six months. She was tested at the end of that first year and her reading level was above 3rd grade. The family got off my back after that.

So, what did I do that first year?

I gathered all these great materials and we did Kindergarten workbooks and readers and an old math book from my mother-in-law. Liz completed Kindergarten in 6 months.

Now what?

I read The Well-Trained Mind cover to cover. I have no idea how I first came across it. I got Story of the World and followed the plan for 1st grade to the letter. Liz loved First Language Lessons.  She loved all the activities in Story of the World. She loved copywork. She loved recitation and dictation and narration. She was a model homeschool child. She had used A Beka in preschool, so we continued with some of their workbooks since she loved them so much.

I joined all the homeschool groups. In our town, there were many and they had park days on various days of the week. We signed up for amazing art lessons at this little local place. Lessons were completed easily in a couple hours each morning. We went to the library for story time and on field trips. She was just a small 5-year-old, so we blended in with the preschoolers. {until she opened her mouth, that is.}

When Tori came into our lives, we incorporated tot school when she was old enough to do play. Then Kate and Alex joined our family and we continued to do tot school and preschool and Montessori activities.

Next year will be our first official school year with Kate! I plan to go classical style with Tori and Kate, similar to what I did with Liz in the beginning, but some changes, because every child learns differently. {More info on that in the next post.}

So, here are my recommendations about where to begin…

Research. Pray. Ask friends, acquaintances, bloggers {like me!} how they homeschool. Realize they’re not you. Pray with your husband and children for direction. Go to homeschool conventions to see what’s out there. Pray some more. Go to the library and get books on homeschooling and education.

Read some articles on Ambleside Online about beginning school – and great reading lists! They offer an entire K-12 curriculum free on public domain. It’s very advanced.

You can homeschool virtually free – especially in the primary years. Many of the sites listed have free or very inexpensive printables. {More on this in part 3!}

Some of my favorite Tot School and Preschool blogs:

They’re taking a break, but you can browse past posts. They are amazing!

Great article about where to begin.

Printables all organized in ABC order.

I love the Story Art!

Great Bible printables at the sites found here: The Crafty Classroom

Preschoolers and Peace

Montessori MOMents

They’re on a blog break, but you can browse for some great Montessori ideas.

Click the apple for the Top 100 Homeschooling Blogs. {I am number 59 out of 176 listed!}

These aren’t homeschooling blogs, but they’re awesome. Great themed printables and activities.

PreKinders

Making Learning Fun

I renew my membership at abcteach every year because the printables are so great. Lots of Montessori and preschool pages. They often have deals through Homeschool Buyers Co-op.

Get a FREE Homeschool ID Card!

Stay tuned for my next post on determining your teaching style and your kids’ learning styles. It will be paramount to how to have homeschool success.

Linking up here:

Leah A. Highfill writes her testimony of her frightening pregnancy causing a grave illness and her road to recovery in childbirth – and God’s grace throughout.

Expecting Grace:

The Miraculous Survival Story of a

Hyperemesis Gravidarum Pregnancy

by Leah A. Highfill

Most of us moms have pregnancy and birth stories we love to share. Others, maybe not so much.

But this isn’t about me or you.

This is Leah’s pregnancy story. It’s unbelievable.

This is an amazing testimony of God’s grace and redemption through childbirth. a mother’s story of loving her children more than herself, even while they’re in the womb, even through life threatening and widely misunderstood illness. This story needs to be read! It needs to be told. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

I had heard about women with this illness, Hyperemesis gravidarum. I never realized how it must be for a pregnant lady to experience. I know that nausea is the worst feeling in the world and I cannot imagine going through it to that extent for an entire pregnancy – or ever allowing myself to become pregnant again.

I commend Leah for her story of God’s grace and for loving her children so much to struggle through those pregnancies – not once, but twice.

This is an eye-opening testimony of the lack of knowledge of some doctors and how our “conversation” can change lives. I love that Leah’s fortitude and attitude helped that one doctor realize God was with her. She planted a seed in his heart.

This book also helped me to realize that there are needs out there that I didn’t even know existed. I’ve never been one to ask for help. So perhaps I can open my eyes and heart a little more to realize the needs of others, pregnant or not.

Get a glimpse into the miracle here.

Learn more about HG here.

Join Leah on Facebook.

Purchase the book, for only $3.99: