Stay-cation?

G#3 says that he'd prefer a stay-cation instead of trying to get on the plane. But, he's not complaining as he plays with his sister and cousin in Salt Lake City today under Gramma and Papa's guidance. 

G#1 is happy enough to stay-cate at home as he reviews the Star Wars Episode One and keeps up on his yoga with the Wii today. He also started to read The Bronze Bow today after he finished learning about events which take place a little later in history with the Roman Mysteries. 

I'm reading a book along with the daddy for a source of discussion about something besides kids, work and life. Live From Jordan is proving to give us something to discuss that we have in common.  Something to read while we commence our travel tomorrow is helpful also, because we never know how long we'll be in the airport waiting for seats to open up on a plane. 

But for now, no school work is being done.

"Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo

This book was about a family who face tough health experiences and continue to communicate their fears and share their strengths.  Through all the struggles with his sons health over a few short years, this dad relates what his son learned while very ill and near death. 

I wouldn't have picked this book because it seemed so real to loose a kid. I spend 24/7/365 with my kids as a homeschool parent. I'm glad that each of my kids is learning to know, love and serve a risen Savior.  I don't even watch movies based on real life events, so that's why I would not have regularly chosen this book as these parents watched their son slip in and out of a coma.  These parents work hard and do so much to teach/love their children.

But, it did express an idea of hope, which is all I have to glean from it. I received Heaven is for Real via an account at http://booksneeze.com/ and am glad to see others enjoy the book more than I did. 

More Roman Mysteries Today

I wonder if there will be a similar series that these Gs will devour for Medieval Ages next year?  The seventeen books in the Roman Mysteries series brought up wonderful questions about geography, history, Bible, mythology, early medicine & treatment, culture, agriculture, sociology and family bonds.  


This is series that I wouldn't let my kids read until now. I read them and didn't want to expose the kids to harsh realities that existed in the past and, to some extent, still exist today.  After visiting several locations that are mentioned in the series, I am able to relate various issues and discuss why things happened in the stories.  The kids are able to compare what they saw in Rome and Ephesus to what is explained in the books. They are able to relate to the remnants of the Roman empire in Istanbul, London, Bath and places in Germany even better after reading this series.  


After reading about Greek locations in the books, the kids are able to picture Troy, Athens, Crete and Corinth while reviewing from the Story of the World.  We won't use this grammar stage story book again if we re-visit the Ancients in high school, so the mystery series cementing these stories completes our goal.  

TinTin en Francais

We read all these books at a nearby library at home already. We are very ready for the movie release later in December. But, we didn't know that Montreal was a special place for Tin Tin, and we found these books and plaques in French! It was brilliant! 

Camp Out & Reading Roman Mysteries

First night in a tent by themselves AND reading various Roman Mysteries before twilight.

Classical Christian Homeschooling Online Catalog: Orthography of Grammar (1-2 Grades)

As we finish the first chapter of Zoology I Flying Things, I consider that the remaining weeks of the school year leave me no other choice but to plan for next year, not buy - mind you. Just to plan. I'm am reminded by this site Classical Christian Homeschooling Online Catalog: Orthography of Grammar (1-2 Grades) and relieved for some idea of what to look for in language arts materials. Our trip through First Language Lessons will finish for G#1. I don't know much about Lexile ratings or how much he should be reading, but for now, I'm not scared so bad that I should send him back into the classroom. Dictation works, memorization satisfies and composition looms. What to do? I wonder if it's time to pray about it?

Fun Reading leads to Fun Gardening

I was looking for books by J. Arnosky and found this about worms by C. Arnold. It was the perfect read for my two younger kids! I'm ready to garden tomorrow after a visit to the home store for supplies!

The map of state birds showed many insights into bird migration and an introduction to the Zoo I book on flying things. The handwriting example is from our G#2 who, added a nice coloring job to finish if off.

Our little girl reads her first Little Golden Book!

Independent readers are popping up all over the place! Yes, first graders are reading stories and little golden books about a "shy little kitten." I'm pleased as punch and look forward to independent readers. Readers who read away hours of cold Chicagoland nights and days. I pray for time used wisely to explore pages and pages of books.

Snow and snot, but let's read a book

Hey, Alice in Wonderland was fun/ weird, but done and now it's Black Beauty. Got the idea while in Chick Fil a TN where the kid's meal included a condensed version of the same. Number One enjoyed it so much. And I'm a sucker for a horse story anytime any place. It's that whole farm girl thing... So, we're more than half way done with reading for the year and will broach the precipice of same with math. Discussion of reptiles is underway and listening to a kid's story about a private eye named Chet Gecko reinforces my attempts in two ways. A trip to the aquarium is still on the calendar soon. We are getting to some lessons in Story of the World that I'm looking forward to; i.e. Phoenicians, Assyrians and Babylon again. Once we get to Greeks it's all down hill toward summer.

Speaking of summer, Dora gardener in the house helped me plant globe amaranth and two colors of alyssum 2 weeks ago. Those are now ready to transplant into plugs which all three junior gardeners roled from uncolored newsprint. Many other seeds were started yesterday while the three were working on AWANA Pinewood derby entries. AND prior to shopping for the superbowl gorge, Daddy registered little boys for park district soccer.

Tomorrow is a visit to the dentist for a field trip. I keep praying for a kid-friendly family dentist on our dental plan. I've already tried 2 different dentists. This third one should be the charmer. Then a playdate for our little girl. I get to visit with the mom too, so that's cool. More piano lessons for Number One who isn't hating it completely. Doesn't hurt that the family where he takes piano also has a drummer and a huge drum set to mess with each week. Plans are in the works for a late February trip to Utah and a national park or two. We'll see how the wind blows.

Travel Awaits Us

We passed up the trip to nature hike Timber Ridge in order to meet Grampa at the airport and jet off to visit AMSE Oak Ridge TN this week. Well, we've done a little school work what with reading, grammar, spelling (#1 is doing a brilliant job - wonder if it has to do with his voracious reading and great memory???). We've finished listening to the Hobbit and are doing ok to narrate what happens in each chapter while listening to Alice in Wonderland. Math isn't so bad for each and all are familiar with the books of the New Testament now. Again, the oldest has memorized them. But the others will soon. We've done some finishing touches on huge word search exercises that helped test the northern and southern border states and capitols. All that was in preparation for the eastern Tennessee trip. We are continuing the initial year of life science study by reviewing exactly how to classify five types of animal groups. Fish were finished today. It helps to get a big shot of science at the museum this week.

Van wrecks over Thanksgiving travels, a wee bit of cold weather in Chicagoland, Christmas decor digout, listening to "A Christmas Carol," "Treasure Island," "Just so Stories" on audio book AND these books about precocious children enjoying art fill our past week.

Yes, there's been history, English reading, grammar and spelling lessons along with cleaning and cookie making, but math lessons make their way in the mix too.
Another children's book character to explore lately is Nate the Great. These three scholars love those stories. Soon, we may know all the books of the Bible Old Testament. Only time will tell. But we especially enjoyed discussing sleepy grammas with our Utah gramma today. We looked up the origin of "dead as a doornail" from the expressions in "A Christmas Carol" and drew a picture of Scrooge and a door knocker. Even more tomorrow...

Rainy Monday

It's finally raining in Chicagoland! I'm so ready for a change of season. The oven is on and banana bread muffins with blueberries and walnuts are baking. My coffee is done and tea is brewing; the twins are making weather observations, building trains, making up music on a keyboard and drums as well as listening to Wind in the Willows on tape. It's a good day.

Awesome weather

WOW! The Adler Planetarium was wonderful! Much more impressive than the aquarium next door. I printed off the home made field trip guide and set out after the 9AM and 10AM soccer games for DOWNTOWN CHICAGO! It was a beautiful day and the price to the place was free because of a company special day. It included as many shows as we wanted! Too cool. I told the kids that it was like going to the company picnic at the KC zoo where we got to ride the bus/boat/tram/train as much as we wanted too, because they were FREE! We walked along the seawall and found our way to Grant Park and the Buchanan Fountain. Then after dinner near the universities, we walked all the way back to the parking under Soldier Field. Here is a picture into the sun away from the Adler toward the Shedd of my group.

This week is going well and the kids are getting ready for their first spelling test. They have the first 26 phonics cards from the Road to Reading packet and I will pick 6 for them to write down. They are reading the 100 lessons to teaching your child book well. We've finished listening to Little House on the Prairie and moved on to Wind in the Willows. I hope to apply some life science to that story in order to work in a science journal component. We received the Math U See book and may get the Saxon book for comparison to see how Kindergarten math is taught in a homeschool setting. They are only counting and graphing, as well as setting up patterns for math now. They liked sorting the candy from a company outing. They also enjoyed discovering the shell group today. One day at a time though is our motto. It's time to collected the oldest.

My vocabulary is expanding...*sigh*

http://classical-homeschooling.org/grammar/grammar.html
Orthography is the study of the elementary sounds, letters, and syllables of our language. Therefore phonics is a branch of orthography, as is penmanship. Spelling is also considered a part of orthography.

We're enjoying a good week and I wanted to get a few tidbits out there before closing for a very busy weekend of soccer and planetarium visits etc. The good week included "Horton hears a who," beginning of "Story of the World" with the fertile crescent exersize AND discussion of Ohio outline map including a story about Columbus (since the capitol city of Ohio is named for somebody too). We listened more "Little House in the Big woods" and began listening to "Little House on the Prairie." Questions about how cream is made were very important when we made a microwave lemon cake that included whipped cream. Ma in the stories skimmed the cream and this fact resonated with my pupils. We listened to a story about Archimedes and one story with the older brother about Junie B Jones. We survived phonics & copy work of the second commandment several times this week which might make it easier to do more next week (she said with a wicked, tortuous tone).

The old hard yucky morning vitamins are gone and the new chewable gummy vitamins are being consumed on a regular basis. The home-made planetarium guide for our visit tomorrow is printed and ideas for next week are set up. Let the weekend come - and cooler breezes for the bees.

Busy bees love the breeze

It's either that or "the nose knows radar" lately. We've enjoyed organizing the garage in order to fill the new back yard storage corner; more soccer for all three children; dinners with another kindergartener and her folks, as well as a fellow Kansan at school in Wheaton college; meet/greet other homeschool families in Wheaton and maybe a few in Elk Grove too; a beginning to cubscouts for #1; Heidi and then Jungle Book on audio books for the twins and me; AND a birthday party for 1st graders at a glow-in-the-dark putt putt.

Today was a grand push of the envelop for the twins' kindergarten day. They began regularly, but I decided to try a new website called kidanswers and we found a 15" reading of Pilgrim's progress first section. I'm not sure how much they absorbed, but I enjoyed it immensely. They continued phonics, copy work of the 2nd commandment. I read a book called George Washington's Breakfast by Jean Fritz. We discussed the persistence with which the main character uses to determine what our first president ate for breakfast. You should ask the twins some time and see if they remember. They checked the weather as usual and continued studying the northern border states with Wisconsin. Can't say as I've expressed very well what country is to the north of these border states, but maybe some day they will get a handle on it. Cookie time was next as you may see in the picture. Later, they sorted colored chips and graphed the answers, had play time while I painted the ceilings of two bathrooms in transition and closed out the school day completing the journal requests from PDL while listening to a story about Archimedes and the Golden Crown.

Busy times

Labor Day weekend became the get-everything-done time when we got ceiling fans in all four bedrooms, all bathrooms got plug-ins wired for gfci to function properly, one bathroom got a new light/fan kit wired, new garage work table plug-ins installed so that the deep freeze won't loose power when the cord is stretched too far AND we got time to run to IKEA to introduce the cousins and aunt to amazing idealand. Due to the handy work of the dremel, Daddy and I got the junction boxes in the ceilings for our handy uncle to run conduit after fishing down to the light switches in the wall. A true feat of skill indeed. All children are practicing soccer with the new district teams and will have games this Saturday through the end of October. Praise God none of the games are at the same time AND not far away sites when right after each other. Boy scouts starts for #1 soon too.

Kindergarteners continue with handwriting (A Reason For Handwriting, Kindergarten: by Carol Ann Retzer and Rob Harrell), phonics, literature, math and reading (Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann, et.al.). Our verse for this week comes from the catechism and is The first commandment: You shall have no other gods. History and geography found it's way into the mix with the beginning of the northern border states of the USA. I read from the Grolier Online provided by our local library online about Washington, his namesake state and Idaho this week. All three children are enjoying The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay for introductory lessons on science. More hands on work is done later Bubbles, Rainbows and Worms: Science Experiments for Preschool Children as well as Project Wild or Project Wet lessons. We have our good times and our bad times, but I don't regret their spending more time home for a little longer. How else would we have enjoyed the Morton Arboretum visit during the day last Thursday. Splashing and building dams in the water as well as climbing among the tree tops on rope ladders. Audio books are helping me with my reading times too. We've enjoyed stories about The little house in the big woods and will continue to follow along on that series while we look forward to Herriot stories soon too. YIPPEE!

Challenging - but, I can do all things...

Chapel for the first time with #1 - which was rewarding for me. Little boy twin was having an "I can't do it" day. He enjoyed the reading times and the weather recording times, but was challenged today. Little girl had fun drawing her favorite character from "Pup and Hound Catch a Thief" and listening to the call of a magpie who ended up the culprit in the story. She drew a butterfly and thought about what the first question was that she might as God upon arriving in Heaven (PDL Children's journal). Heading out to the library and then p/u #1. Breakfast for dinner will have to work it's way around #1 soccer practice tonite. Twins start soccer tomorrow night. September should be quite a soccer month. October will be travel month...

Tuesday with apple butter fixins

Firstly, email if you're interested in the kids' audio responses to the Turkish Cultural Fair a Navy Pier on Saturday. I'll send them to you. Secondly, Monday was a wonderful adventure in continuing to establish our routine. I snuck in a bike ride to check the weather as P.E. THis week they are listening to Beethoven in the background. We'll see if it sinks in as an awareness to the foundations of music. Each of the twins enjoyed helping me measure out the ingredients for zucchini-choc.chip-almond chocolate pudding/ german chocolate bundt cake/muffins. The letters c and d are much easier for them to write and the problem/ solution in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom story is brilliantly represented in their artwork.

Thirdly, Today is a wonderful experiment in preparing apple butter in the crock pot for canning this evening. George Washington is part of our lessons this week. I will continue to ask them why he is special. I just have to keep reminding myself that it wasn't an apple tree, but a cherry tree that he cut down. More important is the fact that the state of Washington is named for him and begins our travels across the nation's northern border states. Later today, we get to take turns studying the piano lesson book or writing words down from the Magic School bus dinosaur cd-rom. But for now, it's play time. Let's finish lunch and create some magnificent train track or tea party table.

I'll finish by also shining the spotlight on #1 child who put up with me in his classroom yesterday following up on my job to clean the desktops each Monday after school. He had some fun showing his siblings all the stuff in the classroom, enticing them. He also did a brilliant job last night carrying his part of the first soccer practice for our park district team. He is looking forward to the twins starting their soccer practice soon so that his brother doesn't spend so much time trying to play soccer on "his" field. Each day is a blessing, enjoy it with us :- )

Kindergarten, first day

Dropped 1st grader, returned to pray and pledge in the garage (that's where the flag is hanging over the freezer), organized our desks and set to reading Genesis 1:1. The twins already had a clue what sounds the a, c, d, f made, so phonics was easier than it could've been. Except those silly d and b appearances. The literature exercise found us reading "If you give a mouse a cookie" and retelling the story to me with help from an drawing from the website. Math found them writing their numbers on special lined paper & my introducing the idea that the top line was the top of a tree house, middle line was the area where the leaves stopped, the bottom line was the grass and the letters that hook under the ground find roots in the dirt. It was time to check the meteorological conditions and record those on our calendars - clear and windy. They had to check all the way around the house several times because conditions changed rapidly on the first day. Stickers for everyone (on their right writing hands)! I read a story about how the hymn "Amazing Grace" was written and a story about George Washington. They colored in a picture of George while Amazing Grace played on the speakers. They practiced a little handwriting exercise that meant drawing a circle from a point at 2 o'clock counterclockwise and that's when the boy threw the pencil and was sent to his room without a reward. Girl finished that and then closed out our time with a child's journal day from "40 Days of Purpose" to receive a reward (temp tatoo on her left hand). Boy came down later and finished the child's journal page too, but no tatoo for him.