September Happenings

For Daniel's birthday this year he said that he wanted a cockatiel.  Our search took us to Fargo where we found two wild birds that bit and wouldn't sit on a finger.  Though we didn't buy either of those birds we had a nice day with Aunt Laura and Whitney.

Then I went online and looked up "birds" in Bismarck and found the Bird House where they raise them.  They are taken from the parent birds at a certain age and hand fed so they are very tame and nice.  No biting and this little guy named Rico already knows a few commands.  Perfect for this bird loving boy.

Of course cats have to be kept away from little birds.  This has to be the nicest cat in the world.  He loves Leah and seems to enjoy being her doll as he was purring the whole time.

About a week ago we got a nice surprise.  My step-dad, Bob, wrote and said that he and Mary were planning to come up our way and spend a few days with us.  Friday was a long day but much worth the wait.

The children have enjoyed the grandparent time.  It looks like Mango, the cat, did too.

After church on Sabbath we had a full house.  Bob and Mary were here as well as my sister-in-law, Laura and our son-in-law, Ryan.  Ryan and Laura both left before we took pictures.  Brandon had brought his friend, Nicole, who we got to meet for the first time.  Leah became fast friends with her as Nicole was very willing to play games with her in the afternoon.  Nicole is working at a day care while going to college.  

The children were both enjoying Angry Birds on people's phones.  I have Angry Birds on my Kindle but don't let them use it.

back row l-r:  Brandon, Whitney, Dustin, Tim, Kimberly front row l-r:  Mary, Daniel, Bob, Leah

I couldn't let the time end without some family photos.

After a few groans everyone was a good sport about taking the photos.

We sure enjoyed having Nicole here.

The two Daniels were joking around.

After dark Granddad brought in a big box of goodies.  Leah and Daniel loved their electric fly swatters.

And Daniel was ecstatic about adding these to his knife collection.

The day was great and I wish it weren't over.  But I still have today to look forward to as Bob and Mary will be here yet.  We have lunch planned and then swimming at the motel pool later in the afternoon.  Tomorrow they plan to leave and travel to Canada going west maybe all the way to the coast.  How exciting for them.

We don't have anything as exciting planned for our tomorrow but have been having great discoveries in our home school.  It's hard to believe that we will start our 7th week already.  But when I look at my teacher's planner I see that indeed it is the 7th week.

Again we have gone with My Father's World's deluxe package this year.  We are in Exploration to 1850 and have been enjoying what we are learning.  In fact for the first time Daniel told me he had a favorite subject, history.  It made my heart glad.  I, too, am enjoying the history this year.  I think it is mainly because it is more about US history though we study what is going on around the world in the same time period.

The read-alouds have been great.  We read Almost Home, a book about a pilgrim girl on the Mayflower.  Now we are reading Amos Fortune, Free Man, which is about a slave brought to Boston in the early 1700's.  Both are wonderful books that give a good picture into these time periods in our nations history.

In science for this semester we are studying animals.  I like the main two books we are using which are both titled, The World of Animals.   One of them is published by Answers in Genesis.  They are both interesting and easy to learn from.

In Bible we are using Boy Have I Got Problems along with memorizing the whole book of James.  We have learned 15 verses so far.  You know who has the easiest time learning and saying the verses?  The youngest person, Leah!  She is just amazing!  And Daniel isn't struggling at all like he did in the past.  He is doing an amazing job at it, too.  Now the teacher has a few more struggles in that department but is getting it with hints from her students.

I will have to write more about what we are doing in school this year but it will have to wait until another time as this post is long enough.

Why we use MFW

This morning while I was reading some of my favorite blogs I came upon this post by Laine.  Laine sets up the MFW blog roll each year where those of us who use MFW curriculum and blog can connect with each other.  It has been great to read about how God is using this great curriculum in many families and to get good ideas from others on how they use it.  I have met a few moms through blogging and now feel like they are friends.

Laine recently spent some time working at the MFW office.  She was able to personally speak with the MFW author, Marie, who gave some insight on why she wrote ECC  (Exploring Countries and Cultures) which we used in Daniel's 3rd grade year.  Marie said, "When I wrote ECC, what I wanted the children to learn most of all was that God loves all people."  I know using it gave me more love and understanding for these different people groups.

Another thing that I like about using MFW is that With MFW profits, God's Word For The Nations is able fund translation work.  When I purchase my MFW package I am also helping fund Bible translation for people groups in their own language.  While I could maybe save a little money going online finding used books I can rest in the knowledge that I can just buy everything in the package and help in this little way.  Plus it is way more convenient and a lot less stressful.

This year we will be using Rome to the Reformation (RtR for short) for Daniel's 5th grade year.  I will have to blog a bit more about this later as I am not ready or prepared to do that right now.  As the title suggests it will be a history study of the Roman time period through the reformation.  All the other major subjects will be mixed in as well.  We have all our books and will be ready to start this week.

Leah started her 1st grade curriculum on Wednesday.  It was suggested we only have two days of school the first week.  Leah has always loved "doing school" and was happy to start.  She already can read quite well so that part of school is easy for her.  We spent some of her school time correctly writing the letters Aa- Ff which was a bit tedious for her but she did need the practice.  It looks to be a good learning year for all of us.

I don't like to think of doing school while it is still summer.  Summer is too short in the area that we live.  But we are planning some major home renovations that are scheduled to begin in September which I feel will be a big distraction to one little boy.  Tim and I felt we needed to get a few weeks of school in before that happens.  I will share more on what we will be doing to our home when we are sure we will have the funds to pay for it.

In the next few posts I will try to blog on what we are doing school wise as I haven't done that for awhile.

Our Week in School

Since I haven't blogged about our school for awhile I thought I would do that today.  I have time to do that as we weren't able to get to church this morning.  The wind blew all day yesterday and plugged the roads in all four directions. 

In CtG Daniel is getting further along in the timeline.  We finished Exodus and Judges.  Yesterday he started in Ruth and read the first two chapters.  In memory work he has learned II Timothy 3:16-17 ("All scripture is inspired by God..."), the old testament books of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and the 23rd Psalms.  He is having an easier time memorizing as his vision improves.

In history we study what is happening in other parts of the world parallel to the time period we are studying in the Bible.  I think we are finished studying Egypt for awhile.  This week we began to study ancient Greece.  By the end of this school year we will have studied up to the time of the Romans.

Daniel is able to do more work in English now.  Before we were doing most of his work orally.  As we are further along in his vision therapy he is able to do more reading and writing.  On Friday he had his semester review.  I was happy he remembered everything on the summary.

A few weeks ago Daniel started Singapore 4B.  So far he is working with decimals and continuing fractions which is good as he needs more practice in fractions.

In Genesis For Kids Daniel is up to Day 5 in creation.  He will be studying sea creatures and birds.  I really like the book.  It is just right for his level.

Daniel still struggles learning to write.  We are using Writing Strands 3.  I try to simplify and help where I can.  I hope this will get easier for him.

In music we have been listening to Bach.  Daniel is getting better at drawing.  In art he has been learning how to use shading.

We finished Treasures in the Snow by Patricia St. John for read aloud.  Both children really liked it.  We will be reading The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum for the next few weeks as well as The Trojan Horse by Emily Little.

In Kindergarten Leah will start week 19 R-r-rock.  We continue to love the work in MFW especially the science portion.  It is just right for a child her age.  We supplement with a bunch of library books mostly fiction on the topic we are studying.  The curriculum has some fun activities we can choose to do.

When we were studying Z-z zebra last week I drew a zebra on paper.  Leah painted the stripes on the zebra.  She usually loves to paint so I appreciate when there are ideas for her to practice that skill.

MFW will have a booth and some workshops at our annual home school convention in March.  I'm hoping I will be able to pick up my curriculum for next year there.  I have what I need for 1st grade but will need to purchase Rome to Reformation for Daniel.  I would like to get a foreign language from them as well.  They sell Rosetta Stone.

I was contacted by MFW as they want me to work at their booth during the convention.  I am really looking forward to that.  I will only be able to do that on Friday as we don't work on Sabbath but they were okay with that.  The convention is only a month away now.  It is always so nice to meet and visit with other home schoolers, look at all the different curriculum, attend workshops, and get a much needed boost in enthusiasm this time of the year.

My spaghetti sauce is smelling pretty good right now.  Leah is really looking forward to it as spaghetti is one of her favorite meals.  For me it is such a Sabbath smell as my mother almost always made it each Sabbath.  Since the meat and sauce could be made on Friday it requires little preparation on Sabbath.  We will enjoy it, I'm sure.   

 

Surprise!

I got a nice surprise this week.  But I will tell you about that a bit later.

We have had a good week in school and out.  On Sunday I worked at making more tomato sauce out of my ripe tomatoes.  I'm happy to say I only have about 6 gallons of tomatoes left to process.

On Monday we took a break in Daniel's school to go up to town for the home school swim at the YMCA.  The children really enjoyed that.  I had fun watching them have fun.  We had brought Ellyana, our puppy, up to the vet's to have her sutures removed and picked her up after we finished swimming and getting groceries at WalMart.

Tuesday evening we went to a presentation Lisa's brother-in-law, Brad gave at the Rieland Arts Center at JC.  He has been working in Uganda as a missionary.  What an amazing story he shared.  It was pretty convicting. 

It was nice to visit with Lisa a bit and meet her two oldest girls.  I had first met her several years ago when her oldest son and Daniel were taking swimming lessons.  Except for seeing her once at a mutual friend's house for a birthday party I hadn't talked to her in awhile.  But I have been getting to know her and she me through blogging.

Then last (Wednesday) night I got a surprise.  But I will briefly tell you about our home school week. 

In Daniel's school we have been studying about Abraham and his journeys.  Daniel is getting the geography down now and can remember most of the major landmarks.  He finished learning the books of the old testament last week (we review them still as he has trouble with the last 5) and started learning the 10 commandments.  He will learn one commandment a week and learned the first one well.  I'm so glad learning is getting easier for him.  When you link the left and right sides of the brain it works better.

We have had a full week in all his subjects.  In math he has moved on to fractions.  Last week he was having trouble changing the denominators before adding and subtracting and simplifying the answer.  I'm happy to say this week it is much easier.  Yes!  He is getting it!

Leah finished her lesson on N-n-nest yesterday.  Her school is so stress free and fun.  I love doing it.  Along with her regular phonics and math learning we studied different animals and people and their homes.  Mostly we studied birds.  She did several projects related to this.  One project idea was to make a nest.  I knew she wouldn't want to make a mud nest as she doesn't like to get dirty.  I found a neat idea to make an edible nest on the MFW forum under Kindergarten Ideas that I thought she would like better.  Here is a picture of one of her nests.

I guess we won't finish out our school week because of the surprise.  I am totally okay with that.

On Monday Tim told me he was taking the whole family out for supper at Applebee's Wednesday night.  I was a bit suspicious as it seemed it was for something more than he was telling me.  But I didn't press him. 

On Wednesday afternoon I talked with middle son, Brandon on the phone.  He told me he found another good deal.  This time it was on a 1990 Jeep.  He has been wanting to get a 4-wheel drive vehicle before winter.  I told him I was coming up to town early and would stop by and see it.  He made up some lame excuse that he might not be home.

After the children and I went to the library we had a few minutes before the time we had set to meet for supper.  I thought I would stop at Brandon's if he was home.  I noticed all his vehicles were in the driveway and also saw that Tim's pickup was there so I stopped.  We went into the backyard first as I could see the Jeep was back there.  Brandon came out as we all admired his "new" Jeep.

When we went into the house Brandon was really nervous.  Tim came in, too, and seemed "funny."  It was time to leave so we did.  Brandon said he would drive his own car there.  

While we waited for our table to be cleaned and set up Leah and I went back to the restroom.  When we came back to the waiting area the sun was shining in my eyes and I couldn't see very well.  When I got close to where my family was sitting I noticed an extra person.  First I thought Brandon had brought a friend along.  A look of slight displeasure must have crossed my face (I must work on that!) as they told me I got a "funny" look on my face.  Then I realized the extra person was my first born, Dustin, who moved to Arizona in May!

They all had fun seeing the different looks that passed on my face.  The one look must have seemed like I wasn't happy to see Dustin.  But I explained that and they all had a good laugh.  Dustin is here until Sunday so I am going to be enjoying myself greatly.

I think I might have enjoyed knowing about it and looking forward to Dustin's coming more.  But they had fun keeping it from me.  That's why Brandon didn't want me stopping.  He said he pushed Dustin's shoes under the table while I was standing there looking at his parakeet, Hunny.  Everything makes sense now.  And I'm not complaining about being surprised especially when the surprise was one of the best I could ever get!

Here's a picture of Dustin taken a few years ago at the 50th Anniversary party we kids put on for Tim's parents.  I will try to remember to take some pictures while Dustin is here and post them later.

  

I'm planning to make some good food while Dustin is here.  I think I will make knipfle today as it is one of his favorites and I don't think he can get that down in Arizona.

I'm going to go now and get busy on my day.

Another week?

I can hardly believe it has been another week since I have last blogged.  Fall is one of the busiest times for me.  I really wanted to post about what we have been learning in school and find I haven't done much of that.  So that is where I will start today. 

MFW-K is going so well for Leah.  She wants to read so bad and is sounding out words from all over the place.  She would do so well if those vowels wouldn't have so many different sounds to them.  She had already learned her sounds last year in MFW-Preschool so K is easy for her.  But that's okay.  She is a bit of a perfectionist and finds the printing a little difficult.  Though she could do the reading I wouldn't want her to be in first grade as the writing would be too much for her.  We are enjoying the projects and fun things we get to do in her school and she is learning great spiritual truths that are interwoven in the curriculum.

We are on lesson three.  Each lesson is 6 days.  So we don't always start a new lesson on Mondays which was a little difficult for me at first.  Lesson one was S-s-sun.  Lesson two was M-m-moon.  Lesson three is L-l-leaf. 

We have been reading fiction books about trees and leaves that have good information in them.  Our words to remember are "I will live and grow in Jesus."  On day one of this lesson we were to look at one of our house plants and discuss how plants need water to live.  Then I told her that one of the leaves didn't want to stay on the plant anymore and went its own way.  I took the leaf off the plant and asked her what she thought would happen to it.  She guessed correctly.  I explained that the plant is like Jesus and we are the leaves.  If we stay on the plant we get nourished.  If we go our own way we shrivel up.

The next day we went out and gathered some leaves from different trees.  She sorted and counted them when we got inside.  Then we put them between paper towels and are pressing them.  We will be using the pressed leaves tomorrow.

Another day we took leaves, put them under white paper, and colored over the paper with crayons.  The result was very lovely.  On Friday we again took some leaves, put them on top of white paper this time, and painted off the edges onto the paper and had a nice painted outline of our leaves. 

I'm so glad MFW has these activities scheduled as I would never come up with them on my own.  Leah is enjoying her school.  I love the Charlotte Mason approach as it is so gentle.  She hardly knows she is learning yet learns so much.

Each day we have different alphabet, phonics, and math activities that she enjoys doing.  One of her favorite is the blend ladder where she makes different words with her Lauri Letters.

Daniel is doing well in his school, CTG, as well.  In history we started at Genesis 1:1.  He has read through creation, the fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the floods, and the tower of Babel.  Looking ahead to this week he will start studying about ancient Egypt and the pyramids.  I looked in his Pyramids book and saw that he will get to do a neat activity with straws that will demonstrate how a pyramid shape is stronger than a cube shape.

Last week Daniel started learning the books of the Old Testament.  He has learned up to II Chronicles so far.  Then we do an individual sword drill where he looks up a verse and reads it from some of the books of the Bible he has learned so far.  He is so pleased that he can find them.

Another neat thing is that we are studying about the Feasts of the Lord.  It was extra special this week as we built a booth or tabernacle to help celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles.  This Feast of the Lord is one of the most joyous occasions for His people as they celebrate His goodness to them at the end of their harvest and is a week long celebration.  It so happened this year that according to the Creator's calendar it coincided with our Harvest of Thanks celebration at church this past Sabbath.

His people are commanded to build a booth (Sukkot or tabernacle) out of wood and branches and live in it for a week.  We won't be living in ours as it would be too cold (and small).  But we plan to have some meals in there.  I will take some pictures and post them.

Once I start writing about school I feel I could go on and on.  But I want to share a few other things as well.

We had such a blessed time with our special services at church.  It started Thursday night.  We had a pastor from Arkansas share about the Resurrection.  On Thursday night he spoke about the God of Abraham, Friday night the God of Isaac, and Sabbath the God of Jacob.  Each message was so convicting.  After sharing a noon meal on Sabbath we got to listen to many musical blessings in the afternoon.  Then there was another meal and an evening of fellowship at the old Alfred schoolhouse.

A few years back my cousin, Karol and her husband, Brad from South Dakota bought the old school house and have been renovating it.  I remember looking at it last year at this time when they were just starting.  They have done such a great job. They invited the whole church over for a "fun night" of games, bonn-fire, fellowship, and food, and fun it was!

But today was a work day.  I like to get as much done as I can on Sundays as I don't want to stress myself out on school days.  I washed, dried, and ironed clothes.  I made a batch each of whole wheat bread and Carla's Grandma's white buns.  I processed 5 gallons of tomatoes into tomato sauce.  Daniel helped me by vacuuming and sweeping.  We all went out into the garden and pulled up the tomato plants.  I picked off 4 more 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes.  The rest went into the compost pile with the plants. 

I had so many tomatoes that were eaten on by worms.  The ones I picked today were completely hole free.  I've got 30 gallons of tomatoes yet to process into sauce which will cook down into about 30 quarts of sauce.  I use 3 quarts of sauce and 1 quart of tomatoes when I make spaghetti sauce.  So that's 10 spaghetti meals.  Just a little Kimberly trivia there.

Tonight I am so tired and sore.  I can hardly wait to go to bed.  But I do want to go out and look at the beautiful orange moon again tonight as it just comes up over the eastern horizon.  I got to see it last night right after it came up.  It was big and shining on the Alfred lake, what a sight!  I missed seeing it rise.  So I had best get this posted and check the moon rise time.

First Day of School

On Monday I started Leah's school.  As you probably know we are using My Father's World From A to Z   which is a kindergarten curriculum.  She was pretty excited to start and we had a great first day.


On Sunday the school room and the other upstairs rooms got a thorough cleaning.  Then I finished the last few things I needed to do to feel ready for school.  After I covered them with clear contact paper I cut out the ABC Bingo cards with my handy dandy cutter.

Then I cut out the ABC cards.

Monday morning Leah couldn't wait for me to come up to the school room and had already started working in one of her preschool books she has that she loves.

She was all dressed up.

After we studied about the 1st day of creation, made the first page of her creation book, and cut out the number 1 and glued it onto the poster she is making we played an ABC game.  Leah knew all the names of her letters and even said, "This is capital B.  This is lowercase b."  She remembered the sounds of the letters, too.

While Leah was learning Daniel had to play quietly.  They both enjoyed the change.  Here he is doing an alphabet page with the wooden blocks.

Then he did a cursive handwriting page.  I had him do the addition math facts page.  He got 100% on that.  And he read to us a portion from his Bible.

While he was doing that Leah was having fun making a flower out of the wooden blocks.

When we finished upstairs we went outside.  We dug some potatoes for lunch, picked some green beans, ripe tomatoes, yellow zucchini, and lettuce.  I got a meatloaf in the oven and was working on washing the lettuce.  I noticed some hard black things on the leaves.  I was hoping it wasn't butterfly eggs.  It was!  I found 2 caterpillars before I threw all the lettuce out.  I saved this guy as well as his sister and put them with some lettuce into our butterfly garden.  I suspect they will turn into white butterflies.

All in all it was a great day!  Leah is ready to start another one so I had best get ready as well.

I leave you with a short video of Leah.

A Good Find

The curriculum MFW that we use for our home school "Combine the best of Charlotte Mason, classical education, and unit studies with a Biblical worldview and international focus."  The Charlotte Mason method of teaching uses what is called "living books" to teach rather than textbooks.  I have tried to do this in our home school even before I knew about Charlotte Mason. 

The deluxe package that I order from MFW includes some of these "living books."  In the back of my teacher's manual is a list of additional books organized by week of study that I can get from my local library.  This is what we call "book basket."  The children can look through them.  They are not required to read them all.  They might just read part of some or look at the pictures.  They are like the icing on a cake.

Karen Andreola has much to say about living books on her website if you are interested.  In our family we love the library.  Now it is so much easier to find the books.  I can go online, find out what books my library has, look for others not on the list, save the ones I want to a list, and then print out a list of the books I want which makes my actual trip to the library much easier.

One thing that is not easy is carrying all those books, and we check out a lot at a time, to and from my van.  On the message board on MFW's website I read that some parents have bought a portable cart from Staples to make this job easier.  I checked online and found they don't have a Staples in Fargo.  But they did have an Office Max which also carries the cart.

So I consider this my "good find."

The cart holds more books than the plastic crate I have been using that I got at WalMart for $5.  And it is sturdier than the cardboard box I used before that.  There are handholds on the side that I can use to lift into the back of the van.  It is easy to fold out and back in.  Daniel and I found it works good to transport grocery bags from the van to the house as well.  You can fit quite a few in there at a time.

The sales people at Office Max were so helpful as well.  I was looking for the cart when a salesman came up and asked if I needed help.  He led the way to the spot where the carts were.  He took one out of the package and showed me how it works.  That is so different than a lot of other stores where I search for help only to have them tell me, "It's over there" as they point in a vague direction.  Many stores need to train their employees better.

While at Office Max I remembered that I needed a box for 4 x 6 note cards.  Daniel will be using English From the Roots Up this year as well as next that requires these cards and a box to store them.  I had already looked at WalMart and couldn't find one there.  Another sales lady showed me where I could find the boxes as well as the cards.

Hopefully the cart will hold up to all the use it will get.   

Convention

Guess what I saw this morning? The sun!!! I almost didn't recognize it. It sure does lift ones spirits.

This weekend is our state's annual Home School Convention. We are planning to leave here on Thursday and have reservations for Thursday - Saturday nights to stay at the convention site. We all are so looking forward to getting away. Then yesterday I got an email from NDHSA saying that my favorite curriculum, My Father's World, will have a booth at the convention. I am so excited. This is a first for them.

I haven't ordered my curriculum for next year, yet. So I will get to look at it but not buy it as I won't have the funds until April. It will be neat to be able to talk with the staff and look at the different year's curriculum. I'm hoping that they will have a lot of people buy and use their curriculum. It is the easiest (for the teacher at least) most interesting curriculum I have found in my 14 years of home schooling. I love the Charlotte Mason approach to learning. That and the classical style is what MFW uses.

This year I when we fill out our evaluation forms at the end of the convention I will ask for some workshops from MFW. In the past I have put MFW on the sheet. Who knows maybe that helped get them to come to Fargo.

I just want to say thank you, Andrew, for your computer advice. I haven't had a chance to try it yet. But I will. Necessity has made me a little more computer savvy, not much, but a little!

In school we are finishing up our week on China. We only did three days of school last week. One day was Friday from the week before. Then we did Monday and Tuesday in my teacher planner. Yesterday we did Wednesday and will finish Friday's work on Wednesday. Do I have you confused? Sorry! My schedule has a Monday - Friday week of school. Since Daniel was ill we didn't do school every day the last two weeks. We just picked up where we left off on the planner.

Speaking of school...I had best get my students upstairs and started on their work.