Homeschool Agenda's

This weeks homeschooling meme from Homeschool Memoirs is obviously agenda’s. So what is our agenda one might ask? Do we even have an agenda? What do you need an agenda for? i mean after all we dont’ have to follow what the public school’s teach so why is it important

Forgive my above sense of humor. Yes, we do need a an agenda in order to stay on track. I’m sure that everyone who reads this blog will agree to homeschooling their children for excellence and that means having an agenda. Loose though it may be.

Our agenda looks like this: get up between 7-8 (mostly 7 but today I’m allowing the boys to sleep in to 8 )   🙂 the boys eat breakfast while I read the bible chapter to them; we are currently reading the book of John. Then I might read poetry or something to them while do their handwriting. After handwriting it is off to math, which takes us a bit of time. On mondays and weds. I leave about that time so the boys have to finish up what they are doing with dad. The rest of the week, I”m home until almost lunch time so we finish most of the work before I leave, except for history and occasionally science. We are still struggling to get every thing done every day. Hopefully soon we will be in a rhythm. Here is what we are using curriculum wise for the moment

The Ark 5th grade:

Math, he is finishing up Saxon Math 65 and will move onto 76

MCP Plaid Word Study D and then will move onto Word Study E (we have found that this series really helps with his dyslexia and word attack skills)

We added in Writing Strands 2 this year for writing practice

Spelling power which we love, it is quick and easy for him

We are reading Story of the World 3 & 4 instead of what Sonlight uses. But we will be using their read alouds, other history books as well as the reader’s themselves. Adrien is doing SOW as well.

Science we bought Sonlight’s science but are studying Botany and Astronomy from Apologia’s Elementary Science series. I hope to start Zoo 1 by Feb. Both boys are doing this.

For art we are using Artistic Pursuits and a drawing book. Poetry is covered from Sonlight.

As for phys. ed, the boys both swam all summer, the Ark on swim team and Adrien in swim lessons. The Ark will play basketball this winter for 3 months. Ace is a year too young yet but next year. I’m hoping at some point to take the boys up to the college to swim with me once in a while. We have a basketball hoop and the boys ride their bikes almost daily.

Ace (aka Adrien)

Horizons Math

FLL

Veritas Press Phonics Museum

A Reason for Handwriting

Artistic Pursuits

Camryn

Veritas Press Phonics Museum

Horizons Math

Can You Find Me? Kindergarten

Artistic Pursuits

First Book of Nature

Living Long Ago

we have file folder games for her to do as well as puzzles and making her draw for us.

Soon we will be adding in swimming lessons for Camryn at a rec. about 20 minutes away. They are cheap and my friend Jenny teaches there. As well as getting Kendra to church weds. nights for confirmation. We will also be back to the church followed by sunday school routine. Life can be much to full for me and it is right now but with God’s grace I’m sure everything will fall into place.

Intensity level is showing already

I have to laugh as my math prof. gave us homework so I did that but i knew that i had homework problems online to get done by Sept. 08, so I figured oh, let’s take a look at them, so I started them and wondered a bit why some of them were harder than I expected as I had read and done 1.1 with little to no trouble. Well, once I was finished I looked and I had done the problems for 1.1 AND 1.2. I had barely started 1.2 *shakes head * oh well, I only had 5 problems that I had to do a similar problem to get the credit for so right now I have a 100% on my math. She hasn’t even lectured on this stuff yet. I think I will read the rest of 1.2 tonight so I am ready for lecture tomorrow.

I really like my classes this semester as well as my teachers. Such a nice change from spring semester. Tomorrow I will be swimming, then running and I do mean running to math only to run to asl. My classes are only 10 minutes apart and fairly far apart although not as far as they could be. We had to sign today ‘my name is *insert name* for the class, of course that extra i that I have in Michielle threw everyone for a loop and I had to do it again. Which made me nervous. after they guessed my name, I explained about the extra i and  why they were a bit confused. Psy. is ok, I need to finish reading the first chapter, and answering questions.

Will check in soon, I keep all of yu in my prayers and hope to be able to stop by and leave you a note soon.

My last day of freedom

Was spent……….cleaning off the table yet again….it clutters up quickly when homeschooling there. Picking up Kendra, stopping at Office Max for a binder for Camryn. I bought the kids 3′ heavy duty binders and color coded them…..Pink for the Princess of course, Blue for Noah, Green for Ace. I finally got the paperwork ready for the Board of Ed. the husband will drop it off  for me tomorrow. We are slowly getting caught up on the laundry which is going to be great. I’m trying to get my underwater mp3 player to work…..I can’t find the manual for it at the moment, it seems to have a low battery although it plays if you hook it up to the computer *go figure*. Yesterday I bought new shoes for Noah and myself.

These are mine….they are very comfortable and go nicely with jeans or my skirts and capri’s. I also picked up  my pink calculator and a pink, gray, and black backpack since I will now be at the college a bit more.

I also took Cami for her xray, we will see when Dr. Glenn gets the report what is going on. She is a bit straighter, and much more flexible. I can’t wait until she is swimming 2x a week, I think we will see more improvement then. The campus bookstore sold me the wrong psy. book, so yesterday I had to return mine and get the correct one. Boy am I glad, as the new one is much easier to read and retain. I have already read half of the first chapter but really needed a break. I’m hoping to get back to it in a little while. I am starting back with America on the Move to try and increase my steps tomorrow. They will also give you credit for other exercises, so my swimming will be converted over to steps. I’m also hoping to get back to strength training, I think I”m going to split up my normal 3 day workouts into 6 days, alternating arms and legs every other day. It is less time and that might keep me motivated to continue again.

Well, I still have things to do and I”m getting tired so I’m off of here to get them done. I will try to check in tomorrow and let you know how the first day of school went.

Homeschool Memoirs

I saw this at my friend Elaine’s blog and had to do this to help me focus on why I’m homeschooling.

So what can I really tell you about me? I have 11 children, 5 girls and 6 boys. They range in age from 28-3 yrs old. I’ve been divorced and finally married a good christian man. I’ve gone back to college to pursue a degree in psychology counseling. I love college it is stressful to do it all but it has been good for us and is setting a good example for my children.

What I love about my life the most is that I can see a bit of my dreams that I’ve always had for my children coming to fruit in my younger set. What are those dreams? Simple ~that they would love the Lord even more than I do. That they wouldn’t have to struggle in sin before they realized that the Lord loves them. How does one do this? First marrying a christian man really helps, even if they are new in their faith, they will catch up with help and prayer. Going to church and being involved is another big issue that helps, praying with and for your children, reading them the bible, talking to them about God. And in my opinion: homeschooling them using a Christian based curriculum is important. I must point out that without modeling Christian behavior though none of these things except for the prayer really seems to be effective on their own though.

We use a mix of Sonlight and the Well Trained Mind. Although this year we have stepped away from Sonlight’s science in favor of Apologia’ Elementary series and are studying Botany and Astronomy this year and will move onto Zoology 1 in Feb.

I think for us homeschooling my younger ones have given them the time to grow in the Lord and not be confronted with constant decisions that mean trying to make the right choices. There will be plenty of time for them to learn to make choices in their lives but for now, I choose to protect them as much as possible. Now, that certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t have non Christian friends or even friends of other faiths. After all we don’t live in a vacuum or on a deserted island. unfortunately for me my older children don’t always make the right choices as adults and my younger ones see that all to well.

I’ve been homeschooling for many years with a short 3 year break between my divorce and subsequent remarriage. Even with my older children I saw great transformations, when my 2nd. daughter struggled with her reading and then got perfect scores on the reading portions of a standardized test. When my older children had to go to public schools and did very well with the adjustment. Now I have to say I’m in awe with how much The Ark (aka Noah) loves the Lord, how sometimes he gets in depth concepts of faith, that I seldom give thought to. He is dyslexic and is improving all the time with his reading skills and we are working on his comprehension, but I know that will come when he no longer struggles with word attack as much. I see my ACE (aka Adrien) learning to focus in spite of his sensory integration disorder. He still needs lots of help but I can see a bit of improvement in him and can’t wait to see how much better it gets as he ages. Our resident Princess Camryn, well she speeds through her schoolwork as long as my granddaughters aren’t here to distract her. Our youngest son, Caedmon is our joyful mischief maker at the moment. The other day we were doing school with the light on as it was dark and dreary that morning, he was giggling and jumping around; I asked him what he was doing and he said “playing”. He had found his shadow and was playing with it, just having a blast. It was precious and so renewing to me. I want my children to find joy in simple things. To have simple values, to realize that money is not everything, nor what it can buy. I want them to listen to the Lord and follow his leadings, so that they might have the faith that I came to later in life early in life.

I’m not sure that this is where I thought this post would go but it sums me up for the moment.

Is it Christmas yet?

I know that to many of  you that is a silly question but I’m longing for that time of the year. One because I’m so tired right now and my classes start on monday…….two because I love Christmas with a passion and always come away from the season renewed in God’s love for us, three I love to decorate the house for the season and this will be our first Christmas here in the house that God graciously gave us, four this semester will be behind me and I will know how I did……;

Ok, future thoughts aside, I picked up my books from the bookstore and have been reading  ahead in psy.or doing the math problems. The psy. book is very dry but what is one to do?  I love the math book, it is easy to understand and gives me hope that I can maintain the A I need. I haven’t opened the ASL books as it looked as if the class would get cancelled but they did assign a Professor to it and we are up to 12 students although I’m praying that we get at least a couple more

My little Caedmon is still sick and whiny, wants to be held most of the time which is wearing on me.  My Camryn needs an xray to see what is going on with her spine, we are thinking “idiopathic scoliosis”  but will wait to see the results of the xray,  * please pray that  it will correct itself easily. We will be treating it with chiropractic as well as exercises and swimming.

I would like to say there is something exciting going on other than my return to college but it is pretty dull around here if busy with day to day living things. It is going to be hot for the next few days but that is normal for NE Ohio at this time of year. I’m hoping for a slight cool down though as I feel so much better when it is cool but not cold.

I have a running list of things still needed for me for college: a graphing calculator* I found a pink one at Target, I hope they still have them on Saturday when I go buy one, it is a whooping $108. ON SALE yet……but the Prof. assured me that I would be able to get through all of my math classes with it and that is what is important to me in the long run. * I wonder if I should lojack it?*  I still need slides of some sort so I don’t get athletes foot again with swimming, a new watch, a backpack, nuts, chocolate and propel packs for those tough days.

I’m off to watch some of the Olympics with the kids and give Caedmon some motrin so I can sleep tonight……

Field Trip

Since we had to take Camryn to our chiro, we decide to take a brief field trip to Marblehead Lighthouse with our 4 children and my 2 granddaughters as well. It was an incredibly beautiful day off of Lake Erie. not to hot or cold, a bit breezy so one could really smell the fresh air coming off the lake. So I took many pictures to share with all of you.

You can take a tour up to the top however it is a very steep climb and with 2 three year olds, a 5 yr old and a 6 yr old with health issues , we decided not this time.

I love this house, I’ve often wished I had been the lighthouse keeper and lived here.

It was a bit hazy but so peaceful even with all the tourists.

rock climbing for the kids, they love doing this but mom’s heart is in her throat at all times.

The kids love the roots that are so tangled up and above ground.

The girls being girls and having a blast modeling for me.

The brothers having a bonding moment, *they get along pretty well but there are days with them as Noah reaches puberty……need I say more?

I hope you enjoyed our field trip, it was a very long day for us but very much worth the time, gas money and trouble.

My Champion Swimmer

noah-swim-team-08

This is a powerpoint slide show of Noah’s summer on the swim team. I hope you enjoy it. I really want a laptop so that I can show his teacher these things……maybe next year.

Honey…..I’m alive and well!!!!

Good Morning Everyone,

I certainly missed writing to you all this week. We had a fabulous time at Upwards Camp. The kids learned a great deal but also had time to learn more about God. On sunday we are going to the party, where they will get their basketballs and pom-poms.

Noah’s fun night for swim team was terrific!!! We got to swim, eat and then he got his awards, to finish out the night we had a cone from East Coast Custard. Noah received two trophies, one for first year swimmer and 1 for most improved swimmer this season. Let me tell you he is so excited, not to mention he has a total of 18 ribbons, a few for just participating but there were a few for heat winner, 2nd, 3rd etc. My favorite? The ones he won for being a heat winner in the championships last saturday. His team took second place in the championships and that is terrific.

We have done lots of running around but things are getting done here at home, very slowly but done all the same. The husband caught a cold and is feeling a bit miserable, I hope he feels better quickly.

If you get a chance please pray for my friend Sherry and her family, her daughter Marie went to be with the Lord tuesday night. Please also pray for a MOPS mom who aunt is in a coma at the moment.

Cami is a bit straighter but still needs some work, we will be seeing my chiro next weds and continue to do exercises for her. My hip is bothering me, I hope that my swimming class doesn’t get canceled I think I really need to be swimming to strengthen it.

I have still so much to do over the next few days but i find I’m running on low energy for it. I guess I will work in short spurts and see if that helps me any. I have lots I would say but am tired and needing to do some things around here.

Have a wonderful weekend.