New Beginnings

It might be time again.
It could be time again.

I believe it is! I'm not a professional writer, by any means. But as I read through some past posts, I realize what I've missed these last many months.

It is time to share again. It is time to record our family history, our family LIVING history.
It's time to write the events of our days and adventures!

I cannot promise to write everyday, nor every week. But I need to chronicle our life for these lovely children of mine. When they are older and when I grow old and eventually am gathered to my people (as stated in the Old Testament), it will be a beautiful thing for them to go back and read "Our Story."

Readers or not, I'm glad to be back.

I'm losing thoughts

I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I have no idea what I am doing. I read about these wonderful homeschooling mothers who are coming up with these wonderful ideas for their schooling. I read these and wonder, why do I try so hard before I read these great ideas? We started 8 weeks ago, and now I want to start all over.

I'm not sure when I'll come back to write on this blog for a while. I might post something about what we've done, but I just don't know what to say anymore.

So, for now, in the words of the oh-so-cute Tigger,

"TTFN"

Pieces of a Puzzle, the Big Portrait

Have you ever been puzzled about the education of your children? I'll tell you right now that I was puzzled by things when our oldest attended kindergarten, and even as I educate them myself, I'm even more puzzled! However, as I make it through Miss Mason's volumes at the pace of a snail, read thoughts on CM websites, some of my questions are gradually being answered.

Here's another question, what is the big picture? What is the end goal of educating our own children? For us, the goal is that our children will be more than well-rounded. We have a desire for our children to have a love of knowledge, more than we ever thought possible! We'd like our children to go to college, but that is their choice. We want our children to have good habits, well in place. There are many more pictures in the grand portrait we've envisioned, but I'll leave it at this for now. When I think about the grand portrait for our children, sometimes it's hard to break it all down into the little pieces that are to be painting that portrait right now. But we take it day by day and pray that God will work in the hearts of these wonderful children and that they will grow into sharp arrows for His kingdom.

Muddy Schedules

We've been back in session for two and a half weeks now. I love school and I love teaching!!! If you asked me that 15 years ago, I would have said NO WAY! But now, oh, it's amazing!
Yes, I know, the title to this one is "Muddy Schedules" but that does not imply at all how the new year is starting off. I have to admit, I was very nervous about adding another student to the mix, not to mention stacking on a whole new group of books to read. This year has been difficult, but today, I believe we had our first real break through. People can't stress enough the importance of schedules! Last night, I sat and made up a mock schedule to try out today and expected to have to make some major changes. I've been stunned! It actually worked! Today flowed so smoothly! We'll have to see how the rest of the week goes and maybe next week too. This is something that brings excitement to my homeschooling heart. I've actually got some semblance of control!

At one point today, it did seem as though, the schedule was all out the door. We headed out doors to spend some time in "recess." Immediately little Peter walked right over to the puddle (that was a complete surprise for the lack of rain we've had). He splashed and I thought it was cute. Big sister followed and had just as much fun. Then Benjamin came in and joined in the fun. My biggest concern, at the time was cuts from the rocks, or burns from the extremely hot concrete. I didn't think that Flopsy would pick up a handful of mud and throw it at her big brother! After he realized that it was harmless, he got her back and it was all over, we ended up with three muddy children taking a bath - and we were 30 minutes behind schedule! I guess that I've been doing this long enough, that my immediate thought was, "I'm so glad they had fun in the mud!" The schedule was great to have and we felt great about how the day was going, we still had half the day to go, but these kids have got it together! Not only did we catch up and have a nice dinner, but they finished working on their handicrafts early!

These are days that make homeschooling totally worth it. I'm looking forward to more prospects of rain coming this week and all the new adventures coming up that God has in-store for us! We are already nearly a quarter of the way through our first term this year. Hopefully, we can stay on track for the rest of the semester.

There is definitely more coming up, we went to the local homeschool convention over the weekend. What we learned was so fabulous. I can't wait to share!
Blessings to you all!
~S

Summer, it's here and it's fun.

We have been enjoying a wonderful summer. Thank you, Arizona, for a nice transition to your heat. They say that temperatures here have been unseasonably low. I believe it because we haven't hit 110 yet. I'm actually surprised! However, with the humidity rarely reaching over 15%, we have been able to take the heat in the 100's. It's been nice. The kids have been riding their bikes a lot. Flopsy learned to ride hers without training wheeles just a few weeks ago, yay! Little Peter learned to peddal that little tryke of his about two months ago. I cannot believe how quickly time passes us by. We've been on vacation to Colorado and had a wonderful time with family. The mountains are so wonderful!

We have been able to take time with friends and go to a couple of local parks and playgrounds. This week, we went to one that had a water park, with the fountains shooting out of the ground. Those are so fun! We've been invited over to swim at another friend's home tomorrow, and there are talks of another invite sometime soon. We don't get out to swim much, but that will become necessary as the temps rise! I'm really curious what August and September are really going to be like. Swim lessons are definitely in our future.

This year, our summer purchases have not been too extravagant. We decided that a home-made ice cream freezer would be quite a deal for us living in Phx. So, we have learned how to make ice cream from scratch! Or as Benjamin would put it (a year or so ago) "We scratch and make ice cream now!" Our next was an upgrade. Grilling is a favorite activity for many. Many people go all out with their grills. We have used charcoal for 10 years. That can get pricey if you grill often, and all the heat that is lost! But, this year, we've upgraded. We found a very affordable gas grill that has been wonderful! It was a Father's Day gift, just a week early. It's so fun to see my husband take such joy in something. It's quite funny to me actually, but he's a man. I guess they all get giddy over cooking meat and making fire flame up! LOL.

Benjamin will go to camp for the first time next month. He's excited. I'm excited as well. This is a camp that I went to as a young'un. The other two and I will be at Camp Mimi's! It promises to be fun. There are talks of a train ride, and pony rides as well! But, I'd better keep quiet, those plans are not solidified yet. Tee hee!

Once we return from the week of camp, we will begin our first days of school. We will begin mid July and take the whole month of December off. This summer has been a nice, peaceful break. I've had time to read, (sort of) and time to play with my children! It sure has been a whirlwind though.

I sure hope all of you are enjoying nice summers as well!

Zoom!!!

Has time really gone this fast?! It seems like we were just beginning this term a few weeks ago. We have condensed four weeks down to two, but still. We are in the last week of Year 1. Next week, we will be doing the exams. Benjamin says that's pretty much a week off. Goodness! I cannot believe how quickly this term has gone. I'm so proud of my children! They have all learned so much this year.

I just wanted to give a quick update. We'll be taking time off till mid-June and then we'll be back into school again. There are several things that we have decided taking a long break from would not be a good idea. Things like math are at a critical learning stage and too much time away could cause a dip in next year. Also, some of our books are continuing on next year and we don't want to forget the stories!

Hopefully, I will be able to take more time to read CM's Vol. 1 and For The Children's Sake. I will read a few more blogs and write a few more of my own. It is just so unbelievable how much time we really don't have.
Blessings to all of my dear friends who are coming to the end of their schooling years as well!

So Much, So Much Has Been!

I cannot believe how much time has passed since I last wrote! We have been one busy family with one busy school! As I write this we are in the beginning of our 6th week of term 3 in year 1! We have six weeks left! Six weeks! Unbelievable! It is "quiet time" in the house right now, so I will attempt to write all that I can in a short amount of time.

Let me think back. We started experiments about four weeks ago. Those have gone okay. The first, and main, one has by far, been the best. We planted beans in four different types of soil. It's been quite obvious what the answer is going to be. However, we also have four different things happening with this one. For another experiment, we were thankfully able to use the bean plant to prove this point - the leaves turn toward the light. The other two experiments have kinda gone to the wayside. He gets the point that plants need water and not too much. Also, he can tell quite well that plants need light. But, we have six weeks left, we just might get to those other two experiments after all.

We have been on some great Nature walks in the past month. One, we went with our CM homeschool group to a river preserve. That was fantastic! All of the kids sat down to draw in their journals and so my kids got to see that other people participate in this too. That has actually been helpful in their attmepts at nature journalling. Little Flopsy has just taken off with her journal. She asks several times to draw in her journal and I never tell her no. I feel that it is important to allow her to express and draw what she wants. Some times, the pictures have been tiny and other times, they have been a good size and filled with color. Benjamin has done pretty much what I expected, doing good enough to get by, but he's getting better. After the river preserve, even little Peter Rabbit has started getting into the whole idea! That excites me the most. Occassionally I have taken some time to draw in my own and I'm making some progress toward better drawing. In part of our nature books, we are doing something along the lines of lapbooking. By the time the semester is over, they will have pressed flowers, pictures they have drawn, and lots of little tid-bits about flowers and plants and their parts and the life-cycle of them! It's so fun!

The kids are enjoying the composer study this term with Maurice Ravel. So far, the favorite song is Bolero. Flopsy said that it made her think of Egypt. Benjamin said that it sounded like Spanish music. He was pretty close!

We have also started a book for Benjamin to keep after school. It will be sort of like a lapbook, but our own compilation of it. We are printing out pictures about different things from the Buffalo Bill book. That has been a fun one. Today, he asked me when we are going to go to the Register Cliff and when we will see Ft. Laramie. He has the impression that we are going to go! I love that! What a field trip that would be! I might just have to mention that to my DH and figure out if we can plan for this some time. After studying Tree in the Trail next year, I'm sure that a trip including parts of the Organ and Santa Fe trails would be quite in order!

Oh, on another note for nature studies: During Easter weekend, we were at the home of a friend of ours. During the egg hunt, I found a nest with white eggs in it. It was my favorite find of the whole weekend! Flopsy actually asked if she could take those as Easter eggs! Silly girl! Today (hopefully) we plan to go back and see what bird it could be and if there has been any activity. I think I'm going to have the children draw in their nature journals, despite the fact that this is not pertaining to flowers or plants. It's still so cool! And we have gone on one more nature walk.

There are a few families in our church congregation that are homeschooling or definitely will be soon (on the account that their children are still very young)! A group of us got together and went on a hike in one of the mountains around here. It definitely was not on the scale of nature walk that we normally take, but it was so great to have those families with us! This brings me to my next personal journey. I'm going to start a homeschool group with our church. I've mentioned the idea to a few moms and they like the idea. After getting this group together, I knew this was something I need to do. I've felt the urge to do this for some time now. Since several of the families are still young yet, I'm letting the idea ruminate for the next several months. I'm still going to plan field trips, nature hikes, and zoo trips for everyone. However, by next spring, we are going to begin the planning stages! And by next fall, we will be a full fledged group of some kind. My personal hopes are that we will have a co-op. Hopefully more words about this little adventure in homeschool groups will come later on.