Missing my Blog!

Wow! I miss my blog! I'm not sure how this has happened--having absolutely NO time to post anything! How do you all do it?! I will not promise anything right now. Just know that I miss my blog community.

That being said, things have been happening here at mach speed! Wow! An incredible summer full of adventure, memory making and FUN, 3 weeks into a new school year,another new soccer team, Abby increasing her time at gymnastics, Micah starting kindergarten...WOW!

This past weekend, and what is foremost on my mind this week, was a break from the craziness...a time to refresh my soul and renew my spirit. I hosted the Beth Moore simulcast from Living Proof Ministries and had a group of 17 women for the day at the event. It was so awesome! We shared worship, truth, tears, and great food! Two of the things that stand out most in my mind this week as I reflect on the days' teachings are 1) Being filled to over-flowing with the Spirit of God and 2) Becoming unrecognizable as you lose your life and let Christ take over more and more. Beth focused on 1 Kings 4 and the contrast between the two women. We were reminded that we all have jars...and they can be filled...the Lord wants to fill them to overflowing. Don't stand and wait, don't stand and watch others live a full life of faith. Step out and participate in the fullness of life God has for you! I have been feeling so...spiritually dull lately...this was a call to renewed faith and the kick in the pants I needed!

2 Corinthians 4 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

For number 2, I was thinking big, as I usually do.  Become unrecognizable--living in faith, being bold with faith, trusting in the Lord.  What is it that I need to step out and do for God?  Serve the needy in my own community more--that is always on my heart, organize more women's ministry events for my church--another pull on my heart... Then I began thinking about my own family, my own home.  I need to become unrecognizable to my own family.  I need a renewal of faith in my own home!  I need to love and serve my children and husband more.  I struggle with having joy, being filled with joy, being nice, respecting my children as I want them to respect me and others.

1 Corinthians 4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

I am very thankful for this great time of encouragement that I was able to have.

Encouragement from Titus

Now, Titus is not usually a book in the Bible that I turn to for encouragement! But, somehow I found myself reading Titus last week and it was so great!

Titus 2: 11-14

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Titus 3: 1-8

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

I just found these verses to speak to my soul last week, it was like a nice, tall glass of refreshing water on a hot and dry day. I love it when the Word comes alive.

Reading through Luke with the kids at Bible time has been wonderful too. We were all convicted when we read about remembering the poor and how we are not doing very much right now to give to the poor. It is so wonderful to see their hearts touched by the Word of God.

The other day at co-op, Micah looked at me and said, "Mom, I believe in Jesus....What does that mean?" :) How precious! I was so excited to tell him that it meant that he was forgiven of his sins and could go to heaven and be with Jeus forever. He is almost five, and I think all my kids had this type of conversation at this age. Something in their soul must start longing....

Psalm 42:2

My sould thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

School Days

We have been doing school around here, if any one is wondering!

HISTORY

We just finished up a couple of weeks on Vikings and we are deep into the Middle Ages now. I have decided to deviate from our curriculum for the next couple of weeks and use a few activity books on the Middle Ages that I've picked up here and there. I wanted to slow it down and spend more time on different projects from these books. The list of history reading over the next few weeks looked a little daunting for each day--I think we'll all be happier taking it a bit slower, although we may be doing history until July this year!!!! And I am cutting out all vocab and art lessons right now. Just too much! Oh, and we just aren't ready for the reproductive discussion in science right now, so we are doing a couple weeks on nutrition before transitioning to Space. I have one child very curious to "learn about babies", so I will have a private discussion with that one to quench the curiousity there. :)

We are plugging along with Spelling, Reading, English and Math for everyone.

MATH

My mother-in-law gave me a big stack of "the daily half-dozen" for 5th graders, and I feel like that is really helping Zeke get in some repetition on the basics--adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions. I really like this addition and it is super quick for him to do, so not much complaining! I had to purchase a bunch of work books for Eli since he was doing all his school work for the entire day in about...20 minutes! I think some of the books I selected offer new challenges for him. They are mostly FlashKids workbooks and a Kumon workbook.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

I am also trying to be more consistent with Zeke and Eli on Rosetta Stone Spanish. Abby has given up for now; she has some speech issues that make it very difficult for her to pronounce the spanish correctly enough for the program to accept it. She winds up in tears almost every time she tries it. I have not played around enough yet with her course to find one that fits for her.

EXTRAS

Our co-op is in full-swing right now. I am only helping out with one class right now, but have some good ideas for classes I'd like to teach for next year! We have 3 more weeks of a homeschool gym class and 2 more art classes for Abby and Eli. Abby gets to start gymnastics up again this week after recovering from her broken arm. She is excited! Zeke and Eli are also enjoying their Upward basketball seasons.

February 2012

I can hardly believe another month has come and gone! Here's what fun we had in February!

New art projects:

Valentine's Day:
FINALLY!!!! A little bit of snow to play in!

I wouldn't mess with this pirate!

January Update

Here's a look at what we've been doing!

Eating BIG breakfasts!




Losing Teeth!
Working hard at our piano lessons.

Starting art classes

Attending tea parties (well, just one...) with American Girl Dolls

Healing one injury, only to add another one....

Lots of science...

Having the time of our (10 year old) life at our first middle school retreat!

And other random things...

Roman Feast

Welcome (back) to Rome...

We held our Roman Feast tonight and had a very fun time. Technically, it was supposed to be at the end of last week, but it worked out just fine fitting it in today. It was great to show daddy all that we have been learning about Rome, the Romans verses we memorized, piano songs the kids have been practicing

Here we are in our Togas...

Hailing Caesar

Welcome to the Triclinium...
Lounging in the Triclinium...


And entertaining...
Another view of the Triclinium :)
Abby sips some wine (aka sparking grape juice)
Dessert Platter...

Extra Roman Notebooking project....

No, I did not allow bones to be thrown on our living room floor, but we decorated the floor to be in the spirit :)

If you are curious, here was our menu, and I was able to get everything together in 45 minutes after school, before feast time began, at 4. I made the hard-boiled eggs in the morning and threw the chicken in the oven at 2, salad was already made the day before too.

First Course:

Salad

Hard-Boiled eggs

Grapes

Artichokes and Hearts of Palm, assorted Olives

Main Course:

Whole Roasted chicken

Green Beans

Crescent Rolls (just comfort food for the kids)

Dessert:

Fig Newtons

Fruit tray (grapes, strawberries, kiwi, mango, pineapple, pomegranate)

From Founding to the Fall ... of Rome

Since I did not do much blogging at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, I thought I would lump a whole lot of review of Rome to the Reformation all together! I know I always appreciate seeing the work other homeschooling families are doing--knowing that I'm not alone, that there ARE others out there doing the same thing I am, especially with the same curriculum! It is so re-assuring for me; I hope these pictures and homeschooling posts are helpful to others as well!

NOTEBOOKS:

Sometimes, I completely forget about the notebook component of My Father's World curricula! Luckily, they provide some sheets for us to include in our notebooks, but I often find myself wishing after the fact that I had had the kids draw a picture of a certain topic for their notebooks, or feeling like we need to write an extra summary of a topic for it to really sink in...This year, I'm trying to remember their notebooks more often and grab the random times an idea for a notebook page flits through my mind. These are a few samples from our notebooks. They include history pages, map work, Bible time pages...the sample pages are produced by either a 5th grader, 3rd grader, or 1st grader...

ART: sample lesson pages from God and the History of Art

SCIENCE:

My 3rd and 1st grader are going through the Body Book and the Human Body for Every Kid while my 5th grader is doing the Apologia Human Anatomy textbook and notebook (he had done the Body Book in a co-op class last year)

These are our digestive models we designed this week:

And of course, we all have the totally random things we through in, like this trip to see the Animal Guy, where we got to see and touch a 3-banded armadillo, a 300+ lb python, a fruit bat, a chinchilla, a baby female king vulture, scorpions, and a kinkachu :)

And of course, we are plugging along with English and Math for everyone! I'm thinking about a big change for next year: seperate curriculum for everyone! I've never done this, but I feel like my youngest really needs his own thing and I need it all laid out for me so I can just pick up the TM and go....I already know that my 4th and 2nd grader will be doing Adventures in my Father's World while I continue on the 5 year cycle with my 6th grader, maybe overlapping a little for my 4th grader....looking forward to planning for that already!