Thinking Out Loud

I don't feel like I'm using my time in the best ways.  I'm always busy but don't seem to accomplish much.  Always moving but not going anywhere.  Spinning my wheels. 

I've been asking the Lord how He would want me to spend my days.  In Isaiah God says the people laid many plans but they were not God's plans.  I don't want that to happen to me.  Yet, that's probably what has been going on lately. 

As I've been praying a few things come to mind....

~Be more intentional in my Bible time with the kids.  I don't want it to seem like just something else to check off the list.  Sadly...that's where it's been.  My favorite children's Bible is Egermeier's Story Bible.  My copy is completely worn out and I don't think my younger kids have ever heard it.  It's on my library list this week. 

~Dictation with our memory verse.  This is a terrific way for my kids to learn and they seem to like it.  Also a good way to teach spelling and vocabulary.   Another thing I haven't been doing. 

~Write to my grandmothers. 

~Show appreciation for the ppl that are investing in our lives every week.  Our TKD teacher, piano teacher, math tutor, the Rileys, Maggie.  A note, a plate of cookies, a loaf of bread....how hard is that? 

~Do the worst first.  That would be writing and listening to my readers.  I tend to gravitate toward those school subjects that I enjoy.  Writing is NOT one of them.  It gets pushed aside and I have this nagging guilty feeling that they'll never be able to write a sensible paragraph and it'll be all my fault. 

~Work with COW in the kitchen.  What happened that I think I need to do all the cooking all of a sudden? 

~Re-visit my Flylady zones and routines.  I have such freedom when I stick with this, why do I stray?  I certainly need a better morning routine and to train my kids in a few cleaning talents. 

~Exercise even when it's cold outside or I don't feel great.  Just something, anything, is better than nothing.

~Work on my baby's scrapbook.  He's 4 1/2 for crying out loud.  It's time. 
I also have a music project for Honey that is important to me.  (I might enlist the kids for this too.)

So there it is.  And I feel better even having some ideas in place!

2 More Days Until Forever

In 2 more days public school starts in my town.  If we didn't homeschool I would only have 2 more days with this beautiful princess of a girl at home.  I can't even imagine!!  And she would only have 2 more days to play and work with her brothers and sisters and momma all day.  And only 2 more days of lunches with Daddy.  Perish the thought!! 

And for that matter I guess it would be 2 more days with this rascal too since he's big enough for PreK. 
But yet so little! 

So you wanna see what these guys are doing this year instead?
They are only 18 months apart so I can do so much of their stuff together. 

Reading -
ZBoy is going through 100 Easy Lessons Book.  He listened in on Mally doing it last year so he's very familiar with it.
Mally is reading her children's Bible.  She finished the 100 Lessons plus the Bob books.  After her Bible we'll move on to some nature stories.

Math -
We use the calendar to learn about the days, weeks, numbers, odd days, even days, seasons
100 chart for skip counting, odd/even numbers
Money (their favorite!) I have a tupperware container full of dollars and coins.  They grab out a handful and count what they have.  They learn value, the names of each one, how to substitute.  Then we put everyone's money together and count that. 
Flash Cards for adding and subtracting. 
They are about to start Saxon Math 1.  Zboy in the beginning of the book and Mally further back. 
Rods for adding and subtracting

Writing -
Mally loves spelling!  Her handwriting is not so great so we do lots of coloring together.  ZBoy does NOT like to color. 
Copy work.  Just letters and numbers. 
Later in the year I will have her start Bible copy work like the rest of her siblings. 
I'm not too concerned with ZBoy's writing at this point. 

All this takes me about an hour.  It's scheduled while the rest of my kids are working on math.  They are in the dining room, we are in the living room.  Everyone is relatively quiet. 

And usually eating popcorn.  That helps!

Thank you God for the freedom to homeschool and be home with my kiddos forever. Or at least until God tells us to do something else.

Spotlight On 2nd Grade

Before.  (See what I mean?)

After.  (Way better!)

Confession:  Organizational tools make me giddy.  It was actually fun working in my school closet today adding the rest of the kids' school stuff in their boxes.  And you wouldn't believe the difference it's made in the closet.  Before .... huge mess.  After..... Awwww.

This is my 2nd grader's box.  Wanna know what he's doing this year? 

Well for 2nd grade I like to focus on the basics and weak areas.  Science, history, grammar type things take more of a back seat and will get more attention later.  For now, he needs to work on his reading, vocabulary, writing, and math.  He's a fairly strong reader and can do most of his math on his own with me just checking and guiding his work.  I will spend most of my school time with him listening to him read, going over his writing, and helping him with his vocabulary.   Most of the other stuff he will do on his own.

In his folder he has a checklist of all he needs to do everyday.  Nothing fancy, just a list I typed up and divided into 5 for each day of the school week.  I use the same one for all the little boys.   

Bible - We do this all together in the morning.  I read.  And we work on our memory work and/or catechism.  Right now we're reading through John and then we watch that chapter on the Gospel of John movie.  We save them up and watch several chapters at the same time. 

Later they all do some sort of copy work from the Bible.  For the younger kids I print it out on the computer in a larger font that's easier to copy than from their Bibles.  I keep these in a 3 ring binder separated with tab dividers for each book of the Bible.  The thought behind it is that by the time they graduate they'll have the whole Bible in their own handwriting from the time when they are little bitty to when they have pretty penmanship.  With my boys, I'm not sure the pretty penmanship will ever happen.  :-)

History - Lane is teaching all the boys history this year.  She'll take about 30 minutes a day working with them on Abeka history and asking questions or working on projects.

Science - Abeka.  He will do most of this on his own.  Just reading with probably no experiments unless something just catches his eye.   However, he will participate in the Apologia experiments that his brothers are doing. 

Saxon Math- He can do most of this on his own.

Flash cards with Mally and ZBoy.   He'll spend 15 minutes working with his younger siblings teaching them sight words and math. 

Wordly Wise 3000 - vocabulary.  This is new for him and he'll probably need some help at first.

Spelling Power - Everyone does this.  Different words of course.  It takes me about 30 minutes to do 6 spelling tests. 

Various readers - I haven't put together his reading list yet. 

Grammar - We do this all together.  Mostly b/c I HATE grading grammar.  So I use Easy Grammar and copy selected sentences to the white board.  Then I use the question-answer flow from the Shurley method to label all the parts of speech.  A lot of times I will copy the Scripture we're memorizing and do that instead.  Anyway, I don't consider this a big deal in 2nd grade. 

Writing - I don't use a particular writing program but I like using Write Start as a guide.  I have them write whatever they want.   I  check it, correct it, and have them re-write or type it.  They usually choose to write about something fun that happened recently.  If they can't think of anything, I sometimes pick a picture out of a magazine and have them make up a story about it.  This year I'm going to encourage them to mail out their writings to bless others. 

That's it for 2nd grade around here.  Depending on how diligently he works, he ought to finish around lunch time.  I hope.  Diligence is something that we're working on though, so we'll see.

PS:  did you notice I have 2 pictures on here now?  Both from my phone!  I can't take the credit though.  Honey had to show me.   Thank you Dear!

First Day Of School!

OK, before we start let's just pause to be impressed.  I took this pic on my new phone.  But then I didn't know what to do with it.  Like how do I make it go from my phone to my blog?  Well Honey very matter of factly told me that he'd hafta set it up for me.  But nooooo......I want to learn to do it myself.  So guess what ya'll? 

I FIGURED IT OUT!!  I know!  Without help.  None.  Just me. 

What I didn't figure out was how to upload more than one pic at a time to the same post.  Maybe later. 

Ok, back to the First Day Of School!!

Kinda weird b/c we school year round so there's never been an official first day.  Until now.  I got the idea from Teri Maxwell who always starts the new year with new school supply surprises. 

So that's what I did.  I bought everybody stuff they needed plus fun stuff they didn't need.  

I put a big note on the white board announcing that tomorrow (today) would be our First Day Of School.

Of course the kids were surprised.  And confused.  And asked me what it meant.

But I told them to wait and see. 

This morning I set out all the surprises at their places at the table and called them out.  SURPRISE!!!

I would like to show you everybody's happy faces but I haven't figured it out.  Didn't I already talk about that?

Well trust me, it was fun. 

Some of the new things....

~rubbermaid boxes for the younger kids to keep all their school stuff contained.  Last year I used laundry baskets.  Big mess always.  Too much space and the holes in the basket let pencils escape. 

~color coded folders, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, everything for the boys.  This way we'll always know whose is whose.  And if you lose your pencils or break them or sharpen them too much you can buy a pencil from mom for a quarter.  Can you tell that we had pencil issues last year? 

~flip flops for Eldest.  What could I get her?  Her scholarship pays for all her stuff and I didn't wanna leave her out.  (I have better ideas for next year though!)

~Josh has his own calculator to check his math work.  Happy boy!

~Socks and underwear.  Zboy is thrilled with his Lightening McQueens.

~A few school books that they haven't seen yet. 

And after all that we didn't even use them.  I told them today was like "registration" day and we'd just look at the new stuff and talk about our plans for the upcoming year.  Even that was fun b/c they weren't expecting new plans!

The Maxwells

A couple of weeks ago, my homeschool group hosted the Maxwell family for the second time.
I have followed their ministry for many years and have benefited from many of their books. It was a treat to sit under Mrs. Maxwell's teaching again. The first time was several years ago and I was at a different place in my homeschooling.

I've been reading over my notes and reading my new books. The Maxwells send out a monthly e-mail that I always enjoy reading. And for some reason Mrs. Maxwell's words seem to stick for me. She speaks the truth in love and says it in a way that hits home. So I'll remember something she said forever ago, want to go back and re-read it, but can't remember the date or the title and I'm too impatient to search the archives.

But at the conference I bought both the books that contain all the e-mail articles. Now every one of them is at my fingertips! Love it!

Mrs. Maxwell is my scheduling guru. Most everything I've learned about scheduling has come from her and another speaker I heard years ago. If you need any help with scheduling, encouragement with homeschooling and family life, or just an uplifting word, check out their ministry here.

And to all my FSM friends who were there, I encourage you to send a word of thanks their way. I sent her an e-mail on the Contact Us link and she responded personally right away. So thoughtful!

Who's First?

Nifty huh?  But what is it?  Glad you asked.... Little numbered flags so that when my kids have a question with their school work and I'm busy with someone/something else, they can grab a flag and keep working on something independently.  Then when I come back to the table I can see at a glance who is first, second, and so on. 

I got the idea from this book.  (Great read btw.) 

I made them with skewers stabbed into playdoh tubs.  We've used these for a couple of weeks now and it's working wonderfully.

A Season For Everything

Isn't he cute?  This is a frosting clown that LB learned to make in cake decorating class.  He is entirely made of frosting except for the plastic head. 

Isaiah 54:13 says "And your sons will be taught by the Lord."   I have seen this over and over in my years of homeschooling.  Right now it is very apparent in LB's life. 

She has become very interested in cooking and sewing.   Now I can cook but I can NOT sew.   And I can't make anything cute out of frosting.  But it doesn't matter.  My friend Becky has been very sweet to take LB under her wing now and then and spend the afternoon sewing with her.   And then there is FYI (craft day) at church that usually centers around either cooking or sewing.  We know that on this day we will all get to glean from Leola's wisdom and craftiness.  She is taking 2 different cooking classes in co-op this semester and she is also blessed with grandmothers on both sides that are very talented seamstresses.  Yep, it skipped a generation. 

I thought today about how perfectly timely this is.  There was a season not too far back when there would've been no way I could've allowed LB to participate in these things.  There were too many diapers and nap times to juggle.  But it didn't matter.  She didn't need it then.  But now, at just the time she does God has sent the people into our lives as well as provided the time to do it. 

I'm so thankful. 

Field Trip Friday

Our homeschool group had a scheduled field trip to the fire station on Friday. 

It was ok for a fire station, I guess.  We didn't get to go through the smoke house and there wasn't a pole. 

But it was free and something that the littles hadn't gotten to do yet. 

Our favorite snow cone place closes for the season in 7 days.  Sniff...

So on the way home I decided to stop and make the last family snow cone run of the year. 

Cheers all around!!

Then something wonderful happened. 

Since nobody else was there (weird) she invited us in for our own private field trip!

Explaining the process.  She has been doing this for 17 years.  No wonder!!  And the ice has to freeze for 15 hours.  If they run out of ice, they have to borrow more from other snow cone places or close for the day. Side note:  This is the only one in town that ever has to borrow!

 A demonstration.  The rainbow snow cone always starts upside down. 

Look at all of us crammed in there!

She let my son make one and he says it's harder than it looks.

Ta Da!  A sour apple that we took up to Honey's office. 



A Sweet Story

The morning routine is always the same.  It hasn't changed in a long time. 

Room and groom done by 7:30
Chores done by 8am and at the table for breakfast
Breakfast, teeth, school

Everybody's familiar with it.  But on Wednesday a couple of guys acted as if they had never even heard of such a thing.  And even though it was school time, I had 2 little boys in the living room standing on their heads, wrestling, and goofing off. 

Wednesday is story time at the library so I simply told them that if their math wasn't done, they wouldn't be able to go. 

Panic!! 

"ALL of our math?!" 

Yep.

Tears and despair. 

But they set to work.  Jes worked quickly and seriously.  Nate was still not convinced that I was serious.  He whined and tried to negotiate before finally getting busy.   This took some time.

When he finally settled in, LB asked..."Mom, remember how Abraham interceded for Lot?  Can I intercede for Nathan?" 
Then I heard his big brother whispering to him cheering him on. 
"Come on...you can do it!"
"You're doing good...keep at it!"
"Hurry, you're almost there!"

He had his own cheering squad.  I puttered around the house until the last possible minute to leave before being late.  I really didn't think he would make it.  But then!  He set down his pencil and declared himself DONE! And he was.

At that, there were cheers all around! 

And one little boy that felt quite loved.

Take A Look

My new homeschooling blog is up and running.  I'm still working on it but stop by and tell me what you think.  Really, I want to know.  How can I make it better??

Back To The Drawing Board

I love the flexibility that comes with summer.  And even though we are still schooling most days, I find that summer brings lots of opportunity for better things to do.  My friends are free and it's a good time to get together.  I hope to get lots of canning done in the coming weeks...even if it's not from my own garden.  Swimming, snow cones, park days, fun fun. 

It's also my time to reorganize and plan.  To look at school books and buy new school supplies....I love that!  And to think of how I want things to look for the fall. 

Here's the verse I've been pondering the past few days.....

"Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives."  Titus 3:14

Devoting myself to doing good, providing for daily necessities, and living productively is right up my alley of thinking.  But how?  What do I need to change?  How can I do better?

School is one.  And my schedule has too many loose ends.  That's another. 
Working alongside my kids is one.   I need some fresh ideas of how to include them in the daily doings. 
Menuing is right up there too.  And a new budget that comes with the new job Honey starts Tuesday.  Maybe a new cleaning routine as well?  Lots of things swirling around my head. 

So I've been praying.

But b/c I don't have the time or energy to figure it all out (plus it'd be wrong anyway) I pray and ask the Lord to show me. Oswald Chambers puts it like this, "Don't calculate without God."

"Commit thy way to the Lord; trust also in Him ; and He shall bring it to pass."  Ps 37:5

Every time I turn around I am being brought to Psalm 37.  Thinking maybe I should memorize it.

Graduation Part 3

Here she is!

There's not a lot of pix from the actual ceremony.  Each graduate had a slide show with pictures from their lives from babyhood to now set to a special song that they picked.  

There were a couple of songs the seniors preformed in between.  This was one musical group!  And Meg played keyboard. 

Then each graduate's parents walked up with their graduate to turn the tassel and present their diploma. 

Me and my baby girl! We did it!

At the reception....

Friends!! This is about the time I realized that I left chickens in the oven that had been cooking since 10am.  It's like 5pm now!  PANIC!  So Pam, Jen, and Rommel ran home to turn them off.  whew!

Family!

Meg and Ethan

Sisters

Meg's Table

All the graduates decorated a card table with special things from their lives.

What a wonderful time it all was.  And it was just fun to plan and to get to work with all the 17 families who participated.  Sweet to see all the slide shows and remember when these kids were about 5.  I'm so thankful Meg got to graduate with her class and with the friends she's known since she was little. 

Thank you to everyone who helped make this day so special for her.

Almost There!

Just one more day!

Last night was rehearsal and setting up the tables.  I LOVE everyone's tables and how expressive they are of them.  The girls tables are full of pictures and frills and cutsie little tidbits.  The boys tables are mostly done by their moms.   I think having a girl graduate is much different than a boy.  Meg has taken hold of this herself to decorate and have things just so.  The boys are just there to get it done and be finished.

Tomorrow will be a fun day.  A BIG day!  And a day that was forever somewhere in the distance.  But now it is here.  And that sweet baby girl that used to read Hop On Pop to me is already finished with high school. 

I wish all mommas would realize what they are missing when they send their kids off to school all day every day.  I've had 18 years with her and most moms have only had 5.  I'm SOOOO blessed and thankful and can't even imagine who I would be today without her influence.   And as I was chatting with the moms at rehearsal last night that was the common theme of conversation.  None of us were sorry with the time that we invested.  We have received much more than we have given. 

Isn't this a good looking group?!

Andrew Has A Purple Hat

We were memorizing Luke 6:12-16, names of the disciples. 

I found these cute Bible paper dolls and printed off all sorts of accessories for them. 

We colored them, cut them out, and glued them to construction paper to make a book.  Sometimes it's easier to memorize if you have a visual. 

The big kids giggled and rolled their eyes at this.  The littles thought it was great fun. 

Do you think that John would mind that we gave him blue undies?

Science Fair Update

After weeks of agonizing, our first science fair turned out to be a bit of fun afterall.  

The day started out with Mr. R giving a demonstration where he dimmed the lights, lit a candle, let it burn awhile, then blew it out.  He had the kids write down the steps and retell it.  Then to everyone's surprise, he took a bite out of the candle!  Turns out it wasn't a candle at all, but a potato with a pecan on top.  (Pecans contain oil that burns.)  He then gave a brief but appropriate lesson on deception and how Satan loves to deceive us.

The judges were wonderful!  They seemed genuinely interested in each child's work and took plenty of time with each one. 

Optical Illusions....

This is what CT and Lane worked on together after his plasma idea didn't work out.   With only 3 entries, they brought in 3rd place.  

Jes and Nate talking to the judge.... 

All the K-2 kids got ribbons so they all think they won 1st place.  Cute!

JMT talking to his judges.  The competition was a bit more fierce in this age division.  He was surprised happy to pull in 3rd place on this one. 

It was NOT easy.  But it was a good learning opportunity for all of us.  Being on the other side, I look back and see that the time was very well spent...and not just for science.  I can't tell you the many character issues that surfaced while working on these projects. 

Misunderstandings, tears, disappointments.... 

One of my kids had a hard time talking to the judges.  This was a huge surprise to me because I've always thought him to be able to converse well with adults.   We had practiced at home and I felt sure that he understood what was expected of him.  But when the time came and questions were asked that he did not expect, he was flustered.  

And just when I said I'd never do it again, I've decided that we should.   When something is hard, that means you need more practice right?   I don't want to set an example of giving up just b/c it's painful.    And I'm especially thankful for all the "extras" that the Lord showed us through doing this. 

Sooo, we're already thinking about what to do next year.....

What We've Learned During Science Fair

#1.  Science fair is for people who have too much time on their hands.

#2.  Nobody cares what floats and what doesn't.

#3. Nobody cares how much grease is in a one ounce serving of potato chips. Who eats a one ounce serving anyway?

#4.  An experiment is not the same as a demonstration.  One is science fair worthy and one is not.

#5.  When people put an old microwave in the trash, there was a good reason.

#6.  When you take an old microwave apart it makes a big mess in the garage.

#7.  A big mess in the garage makes Dad cranky.

#8.  If your science fair experiment fails, you can just team up with your sister and call her experiment "ours".

#9.  Science fair junk costs money. 

#10.  Science fair makes Momma cranky.

Not Counting The Cost

Oh why oh why did I do it??

Co-op AND science fair all in the same month.  Really really bad idea.  For me. 

Science fair sounded like a good idea.  So did co-op.  But now as I look at my upcoming week I wanna
un-sign up for it all. 

Confession.  I've never even been to a science fair much less participated in one!  What kind of homeschool mom am I anyway? 

An unscientific one.

Our School Schedule

Ever wonder what a day at the Tagg's usually looks like?  Probably not.  But I just finished our new schedule and I'm gonna show you anyway.   Besides, it keeps me from doing the grammar work I should be doing before tomorrow but really don't want to. 

I'm always tweaking it and rearranging things but here's the latest version.  To tell you the truth, it's almost always the same.  There haven't been any major changes in a long time.  But even a minor adjustment makes me feel like we've stepped out into the land of improvement.

~Everybody up, roomed and groomed, and to the table with chores done by 7:30.

~Breakfast, Bible, memory work, and a talk about what's happening in the day. 

~Breakfast dishes and teeth.  Watch The Gospel of John for about 10 minutes.  I'm reading this at the table and then we watch the corresponding chapters on the dvd.  Laundry folding while watching.

~Nate takes the babies (Mally and Zboy...don't tell them I called them babies) to his room to do flash cards while I do spelling tests with everyone else.  I use Spelling Power.

After spelling, I have them write out the verse we're memorizing (dictation) and we break it down with grammar exercises.  (Crossing out prep phrases, finding parts of speech, etc.)  I also check their spelling in this verse and make corrections.

~By this time the babies are tired of Nate and ready to do something else.  Mally reads to me from the 100 Easy Lessons book and ZBoy listens or plays with blocks.  Usually he tries to read it too and gets a sticker when the lesson is done.

Meanwhile, Lane takes the 3 little boys for a math lesson.  They count money, work with manipulatives, fractions, calendar, etc.  The older kids are working independently.

~I read with Nate from his children's Bible while the babies play with something I have assigned in front of me.  I switch out toys for this.   They can not play with anything else or get up.  (About 15 min.)

~The babies help me get snacks b/c by now it's about 10am.  Lane's class is done and everyone is back at the table.  This keeps the babies occupied for some time b/c of all the little pieces in the snack mix.

I help anybody with any questions or check whatever has been finished.

~Here is where Meg, CT, and LB switch off classes with the 3 boys.  Meg teaches writing, CT teaches geography (Geography songs), and LB does science (just reading to them from a science book and doing simple experiments sometimes).

Meanwhile, I read and play with the babies and help any big kids when needed.  Today we played bowling with the jumbo bowling set they got for Christmas.  I'm not a fan of free play during school time unless it's outside.  I want them to be quiet and the best way to do that is to keep them with me and keep them busy.   If I'm needed for something particularly time consuming with the older kids, I will sometimes pull another kid to do a "baby shift".  There's no movies or electronic gaming... the older kid is the servant to love on them and come up with something creative to do. 

~Everyone is working independently or doing classes until lunch.  The babies help with lunch. 

~Lunch and cleanup.  This always takes way more time than I'd like.  Ideally, I'd rather everyone just work through lunch and finish up.  They think it's a wonderful break.  They win. 

~After lunch I read to the babies and put them in their rooms for quiet time/nap. 
I read with J & J and we do a page of Daily Grams orally.

~When these guys are finished with all their school work (their buddy checks it all and it is completely cleaned up), they can play Building Thinking Skills on the computer while the older kids are still working.  After that they must play quietly if they can't go outside. 

~At this point, I'm almost done with school.  I help big kids, check math, answer questions, but the bulk is finished. 

I work on our tea snack and dinner prep. 

~(Here's the minor adjustment I was talking about.) At 3pm all school must be off the table and cleaned up.  Babies are up. Tea is served and I read from whatever book we're reading aloud.  Whoever is not finished with school must finish in their own room after clean up. 

Clean up and free time until Daddy comes home around 4:30. 

Then, of course, the FUN begins!!

In With The New

Here's some new things I'm working on this week....

~I've adopted Tracy's 30 second rule. "If it takes less than 30 seconds, do it now." And I added, "Do it yourself." But, true to my nature, I've taken it to the extreme. So I find myself evaluating just exactly how long everything will take. It takes less than 30 seconds to put away the brown sugar. But that pile of folded laundry on my dresser? Well surely that'll take longer than 30 seconds so I better just leave it there.

~Mail Day Wednesday. This is something I've tried in the past but have not been diligent to stick with it. Everyone loves getting something in the mailbox that is special for them. My goal is to have my kids (and me) write a note to someone to bless them once a week. This starts with each person making a list of people that would like to hear from them. As something neat or funny happens in the week, you can choose who on your list would enjoy hearing about it. Mom checks the rough draft. A final copy is made. The envelope is carefully addressed (with help if needed) and taken to the mailbox to raise the red flag.

~My friend, Andie, helped me to see that I was not utilizing the library w/my older children as I should. My little kids love story time and the small library by my house is quite charming. So Wed is library day. While my little ones are at story time, my big ones will be working on research projects. This week's projects....

*Write a synopsis of each of the three Punic Wars.

*In the Apocrypha, look up 1 Maccabees 4:52-59 & 11 Maccabees 10:6 to follow the story of Hanukkah.

*Historical map work - Find Carthage, Find the boundaries of the Han dynasty, Mark the route of the Silk Road.

I am trying to be careful to keep my expectations in check on this one!

~This is not really new as we've been doing it for a few weeks now. But I wanted to give it a good try before I blogged about it. This site explains our new memorization program. It's cheap, homemade, versatile, and easy to follow.

This week's Scripture is Psalm 51:10-12... "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit with in me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me."


~I would like to have some sort of play day once a week....depending on how the week goes. Lately that's been easy as my older kids are paired up with friends to do a writing project for their Creative Writing class. This, of course, would be dependent on how diligently we worked on school and how many other things were going on in the week. This week we are doing a field trip with our homeschool group.

~Honey used to come home every day for lunch when we lived in CO. Now that we're back, he can't do that....and we miss him. So Friday is lunch with Dad day. The kids love taking their lunch boxes out!

~Since we've moved, our regular tea time has fallen by the wayside. We are working to resurrect our afternoon tea. This takes planning but it's worth it.

Today's tea.... blueberry muffins that Meg made for us last night. Thank you Sweetie!!

~My final new experiment is to try to have breakfast foods made the night before. This always saves time in the morning but I'm usually tired at night and not in the mood to cook anymore. Again, planning comes into play as I'll need to work on this earlier in the day.

Anything new at your house?

Counting The Cost

I have a tendency to forge ahead without counting the cost beforehand. Today was another example. There was a fun field trip planned with my homeschool group and we were planning to go. I had a plan for dinner and Lane was going to stay home with the napping babies. I thought I had it pretty much mapped out.

Wrong. First of all the morning was rough. Late start, miscellaneous frustrations, sick kid, etc. The field trip wasn't scheduled until noon but I was never able to redeem the lost time of the morning chaos.

The place was in Boulder about an hour away. The tour took longer than I expected. My dinner plans fell through. By the time I got home, Honey was already here and everyone was hungry. Soccer practice tonight and we still needed to move furniture b/c we have new stuff coming in the morning. We ate and it was time to go again.

I feel like I wasted an entire day of my little kids' lives. They were too little to go on the trip. It was too cold to take them to practice. I missed most of their day.

And while it looked like I had a good plan in the beginning, I see now some major things I missed....

What did I give up in order to go on this field trip?
Time with my little kids.
Time to make a good dinner.
Time to clean and work on school.
The margin of rest in the day.

I want to work on being not so short sighted in the future.