Winding Down???

For many PS kids, the school year, as they call it, is about to end. Not so for most homeschoolers. Since we have such flexibility, many of us school through summer. Kids tend to lose less learning, they work better within structured days, and what else will you do when it is 104 outside anyway??? So even though we have a technical 2 weeks left, learning will continue into June and July. In large part because we haven't finished our books. We have several weeks of language arts, and math to go for most. And some of my kids are on a Jan-Dec schedule, so a long break is not reasonable. But we will not school during camps, VBS and holidays. Summer also has more filming and get togethers and swimming and bowling and skating and a ton of birthdays so that will be necessary interference.

But, I am proud to say that we have "graduated" a kindergartener and an eighth grader this year.....never really celebrated those things before and won't this year, but just thought I'd make the announcement.

So, I am off to start another day with my precious kids and to savor the moments before they slip thru my fingers and leave me with only memories.

Praises!!!!

Well, this week has been extremely busy with appointments and such, so school has been modified to fit life. But the most wonerful thing happened. Our oldest son was baptized into Christ and his sins are now forgiven! He is a Christian and is now saved! Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3, Mark 16:16, 1 Peter 3:21...God is good.
In other family news, our oldest daughter got her full lower braces, and our middle daughter has been learning to cook. Our youngest is learning to have more self control and our youngest son has been growing in kindness.
All these add up to a great mother's day gift for me (which is Sunday). I need nothing more for life is truly blessed.

What is our life like?

With homeschooling, our days are constantly changing as the kids grow and the curriculum changes to fit them. So today I decided to share our day...not particularly typical.
First, our menu of the week:\
Breakfasts: cereal with peanut butter, turkey bacon sandwiches, baked oatmeal, eggs and toast, pancakes
Lunches: fish sticks with macaroni, meatballs with potatoes, sandwiches with pretzels and hummus, tortilla roll sandwiches with fruit and dip, cream cheese dip with crackers and fruit and pretzels
Dinners: church food, beans and fries, chicken fried steak with potatoes and veggie, egg rolls and rice, ravioli casserole with bread and salad

So here is a sort of typical day.....is there such a thing???
we wake at around 7:15 and make coffee and watch spongebob. Around 8am we walk the dogs and then eat breakfast around 8:25, then make beds and brush teeth and be ready for devotional time by 8:50. After devo we get the days announcements and the two oldest go work on their assignments at their pace, while I work with the youngest three. I have to keep some separated for focus reasons. They do math and language arts and bible with breaks between each subject. Around noon we all eat lunch and the kids usually help with lunch prep. Then we just take a break until almost 1pm. About 1pm we read a story and start chores and cleaning. That is done around 1:45, then we go out for PE and exercises until 2:30. After that we do science, history, art, spanish, music stuff and depending on what day of the week it is and what extracurricular dance or piano classes we have, the youngest two must nap by 3 or 4pm for at least an hour. We have: Monday- library at 4:30 and dance at 5:15 and sometimes MNFTM at 6, Tuesday-dance from 5-7:30, Wednesday-every other week piano at 2, Friday-co-op 8 weeks per semester from 9-12 and dance from 5-6.
Dinner on dance nights is something quick, crockpot, or delay bake in oven and breadmachine. I check the older kids work to make sure it is done correctly and grade tests. If work isnt done well, they redo and miss activity. Motivation.... We hang out as a fmaily inevenings, frequently walking and visiting with neighbors or riding bikes. Then we try to get in bed by 10....
Typical day at our house.
As for schooling, the K/1 kid uses LLATL blue, saxon math 1, HW without tears,....the 2nd grader uses HW without tears, LLATL red, saxon math 2, spelling workout, DrawWrite Now ......the 4th grader uses LLATL orange, teaching textbooks 4, HW without tears and spelling workout and writing strands...the 6th grader uses LLATL tan, teaching textbooks 7, writing strands and sonlight reading list...the 8th grader uses LLATL grey, Life of Fred and Saxon math, sonlight history and lit and bible supplement and Apologia science.
The youngest 4 use SOTW history, Apologia and other science including Inquisikids, Mathtacular dvds, atelier art and art adventures at home. The oldest two use rosetta stone spanish and youngest three use La Classe Divertida. We do online keyboarding skills and other internet supplements.
Of course, we are about at the end of this "school year" though that means little to us, so things will be different come August for some.

But that, in a nutshell is a glimpse of our days. They looked so different just a few short years ago...time changes things...but the journey continues!

Long Time SInce and Update

So life has been moving at lightning speed. Such is life this time of the year. Around our house we are learning, planning for summer (5 going to camp this year---ouch!), planning for dance camps, dance recitals, piano recital, filming, graduations and get togethers, field trips, birthdays, VBS and ortho appointments. Never a dull moment, but as mentioned in the previous posts, we have had some behavior kinks. After prayer and research and strategy changes, we are getting better control through this phase of life.
I still have some planning sketches for summer, to complete and a fairly large school order to place, but since it involves dissection samples, i am going to hold off until the last possible moment. The summer will also contain homeschooling. No, we do not take summer break in the traditional sense. We keep going until we complete our work and then move to the next thing. That is a necessity since we have 5 kids at 5 different places in their work. Long breaks tend to cause too much memory loss.
So for now that is all. i have someone wanting to listen, yet again, to The Saga Begins, on youtube.
Oh, went to my first midnight movie premiere last night with Jacob. We saw Avengers. Loved it!

Quick update in pictures....

Ok, so since LTC we have been busy catching up with schooling and working diligently on our character issues, which have been somewhat numerous with the youngers. This has been an odd year for them with teens in the house. Their sleep schedule is not good. They do not like to sleep alone, but the older kids don't want to go to bed at 9pm. So the little stay up and get super grouchy and irritable. So we had to reinstate mandatory naptimes. Hate to do that but life can be unbearable without it.
We also had to research some creative parenting techniques with our "spankings make me even angrier" kids. So far so good.
We let the kids have a Pirates of the Caribbean movie party on Saturday as a reward for good behavior and just for fun. We LOVE those movies so we all watched Dead Man's Chest and ate lots of snacks and entertained each other. it was so much fun we must do it again to watch At World's End!
That is about all we have done. Short and sweet.

LTC was great

Genesis is a very familiar book to most of us, but with 50 chapters, it can be overwhelming to learn. there is just so much detail there. My LTC kides have been studying and reading Genesis every Wednesday night in class, and during bible time at home for 3 months. We also read through it over the summer and spent the past week really studying. So I am not surprised they got a gold, silver and bronze in competition. I am proud of them. I was a judge for bible bowl and could not answer all the questions myself. But no matter how many they missed, i know they came out knowing more than they did when they began and knowledge of the bible is a precious thing to have.
Jacob was a first time song leader and very nervous and unsure of himself, but he earned a gold. Made me smile for him! The scripts were really great for drama and puppets this year and all got gold. And the chorus Emily sang with sounded just gorgeous and they earned a gold, too.
But I was also happy that all three earned a gold on their art. Art is so subjective. Everyone has a different amount of talent and a different interpretation. What is great to one person may be awful to the next. Especially for Lizzy it was a HUGE boost . Having a learning issue and the ensuing things that go along with it, she really needed the gold.
The hotel was nice as always and we were not on the atrium, where the rooms are awfully loud. So it was a busy crazy weekend and they are excited to study for next year! How many people can say that one of their kids favorite activities is bible related??? Actually, any activity relating to church, from class, to CBH, to MNFTM, to LTC, to youth group all rank high for all my kids.
So now we shall rest...sort of.

Easter weekend is coming

What an eventful week it has been! We had LTC dress rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, which was also the start of our gospel meeting. Just before evening service, our youngest, age 5, did a flip outside and landed on her neck and couldn't look up. We left, got some food and almost ended up in the ER. She did go to the doctor the next day to find her neck was out of joint and needed some massage. Today is Thursday and she is still unable to fully lean her head back, but it is much better.
For homeschool this week we decided to take it easy on math, skip language arts, other than reading time and handwriting, and concentrate on our LTC text of Genesis. 50 chapters is ALOT to remember! But we have worked daily to learn it. Most is common, but there are some parts that are just confusing, especially if you are asked for specific wording and geneaology things. We also did more backtracking with the oldest as he is having difficulty with pre-algebra. We put him in Life of Fred this week to solidify concepts, and he loves it. It is helping a lot, so I bought the next 3 books to help him through algebra!
We worked on art for LTC and finished those projects today. We got chorus clothing and had dance and piano lessons. But by far our biggest event was the weather.
Apparently we do not watch tv enough because I had no idea we had storms coming for Tuesday. I knew it seemed cooler and windier after lunch that day, though. Around 2:30 I checked facebook and saw lots of people posting about tornadoes in Dallas! Yikes! Decided it was time to watch the news, and sure enough we had some terrible spring storms coming through! We got out the weather radio, charged the cell, and got radar on the laptops while watching NOAA on tv. About 4pm a line was moving right for us and shear markers were appearing in a cluster a few miles from us. Not good. We had a tornado warning and a watch. Meaning they could develop AND one had been spotted. So we cleared out an interior closet, put helmets on the kids, got in with dogs, cell and laptop and barred the door with a mattress. Texted husband to take cover at work since spotted tornado was heading toward his building. We prayed without ceasing that the Lord in His great power could take the tornadoes back up into the clouds and keep us and all our friends safe in the storms. He answered us and took the storms back up into the clouds. Some may think it is a coincidence, but I believe it was God's work. He didn't have to do that, but I believe He did. We prayed and sang for over 20 minutes until we heard it was safe to come out. Our area had 13 official tornadoes that day. One almost touched down less than 2 miles from our home and one within 5 miles of husband's work. So scary! Unfortunately the antenna on the weather radio broke as we entered the closet so i am looking for a new antenna. Spring in Texas is not over, and it is often violent.
So, we have weekend competition and other stuff going on. Busy, busy...but all for Him. Blessings to all of you!