Monday, August 31
Sunday, August 30
Digging Potatoes
"God grow me. God, push me towards You."
I never thought that these simple prayers would result in so much turmoil this year in my heart. The things I've been challenged to leave to God, the things I've wanted to vindicate on my own behalf, the trust of holding my heavenly Father's hand while holding my tongue and realizing His agenda is more important than mine.
Stepping over vines, setting the empty bin on the red garden bench, I survey the plot before me.
My husband likes to say that God doesn't care about our comfort, He cares about our character. I think on these things while digging potatoes in the hot sun, bare footed in the brown earth, shovel pushing down deep, loosening.
Is my character a blessing to my children? Does it enhance my marriage or do it harm? Does it bring glory to God?
"Lord, I want to be like Jesus, in my heart, in my heart. Lord, I want to be like Jesus, in my heart."
I sing the song with my children, ever aware of the desire He places in me to be more like Him and the daily struggles that get in the way of my submitting.
Can I trust a God who uses pain, who allows it, to bring about His character and His will in my life?
Completely.
Do I enjoy the process?
Oh, no.
The brown dirt and straw loosen their hold on the withering potato stalks. I've barely dug a quarter of the plot and my arms and back ache. I'm uncomfortable. The sun is beating down.
I see God calling me daily to trust Him. For our children's salvation, for our family size, for my husband's business, and for all His other plans and purposes for our lives where worry or stress could easily take hold in any mama's life.
One by one the purple, red, yellow and white potatoes roll from the earth. I stop and stand, enjoying a passing breeze, soaking in its coolness, listening to my boys play and remember doing this same potato digging last year. Now, I'm beginning to enjoy the process.
I rest in His peace. This foolish worrywart is no longer such a worrier, all because of Him.
Romans 5 and Romans 12 have been my daily bread. "So far as it depends on you, live at peace....", "tribulation brings about perseverance ; and perseverance, proven character ; and proven character, hope ; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
brings
perseverance"God grow me. God, push me towards You."
It's not a prayer for wimps. Or maybe it is.
Saturday, August 29
What's in the Workbox?
Next to our workboxes is a bookshelf filled with books and resources to rotate through the workboxes. Here are a few of our favorites this year.
Draw. Write. Now. I love these books. Having a boy who doesn't love to write but is fascinated with all things native American, this one in particular has been great. He pulls it out, we read together the copywork, he copies it into his journal and then draws the photo. CBD and Amazon sell these but I got a few great deals off of half.com.
We've been working with these Music in Me piano lesson books. There are several for each level. I love that my daughter can play a simple worship song and sing along. These I bought through CBD.
A friend turned me on to Mad Libs as an grammar tool and I found they come in the math version too. This is everyone's favorite math supplement. Hear a funny story and then solve the problem.
Kumon resources are great for occupying Ella while her older siblings need one on one. These were purchased at Barnes and Noble.
Grammar this year for Annaliese is Wordly Wise, also purchased off of CBD. She is a girl who loves words so it seems this has been a good choice for her.
Aiden's copy of Wordly Wise is brilliant. I absolutely love it. There are story words and cute drawings. I tell the story and he identifies the words in the pictures, which requires some great abstract thinking. Some of the words have been: steep, clear, load, nation, shallow, and wild.
Annaliese has been reading the Elsie Dinsmore books for the last few months. When I saw this online, I did a little happy dance on the inside. Elsie's Life Lessons was purchased on half.com and Annaliese is enjoying going through it. I appreciate that it re-affirms our faith and encourages character growth.
The best spelling resource I have come across for all the grade levels I've taught so far are these green books sold at Barnes and Noble. Even though they are workbooks, my kids like them too. Andrew is doing spelling one which is strengthening his reading skills.
Annaliese has also had baking as an activity and the boys are learning how to knit. Andrew with bamboo needles and wool and Aiden
with the niftiest little hat loom ever. He's been working away on making Andrew a hat for Christmas.
I try to keep the workboxes a blend of necessary learning (reading, writing, arithmetic) and a fun activities that encourage learning without the kids necessarily being aware.
These landmark flashcards were a Target find for $1.
Hating math without practical application growing up has made me search out some visual math for our children. Flip Over Math is great! And inexpensive compared to a lot of other visual math educational resources. We also do things like bean sorting and counting. I think I'll save math visual ideas for another post :)
Draw. Write. Now. I love these books. Having a boy who doesn't love to write but is fascinated with all things native American, this one in particular has been great. He pulls it out, we read together the copywork, he copies it into his journal and then draws the photo. CBD and Amazon sell these but I got a few great deals off of half.com.
We've been working with these Music in Me piano lesson books. There are several for each level. I love that my daughter can play a simple worship song and sing along. These I bought through CBD.
A friend turned me on to Mad Libs as an grammar tool and I found they come in the math version too. This is everyone's favorite math supplement. Hear a funny story and then solve the problem.
Kumon resources are great for occupying Ella while her older siblings need one on one. These were purchased at Barnes and Noble.
Grammar this year for Annaliese is Wordly Wise, also purchased off of CBD. She is a girl who loves words so it seems this has been a good choice for her.
Aiden's copy of Wordly Wise is brilliant. I absolutely love it. There are story words and cute drawings. I tell the story and he identifies the words in the pictures, which requires some great abstract thinking. Some of the words have been: steep, clear, load, nation, shallow, and wild.
Annaliese has been reading the Elsie Dinsmore books for the last few months. When I saw this online, I did a little happy dance on the inside. Elsie's Life Lessons was purchased on half.com and Annaliese is enjoying going through it. I appreciate that it re-affirms our faith and encourages character growth.
The best spelling resource I have come across for all the grade levels I've taught so far are these green books sold at Barnes and Noble. Even though they are workbooks, my kids like them too. Andrew is doing spelling one which is strengthening his reading skills.
Annaliese has also had baking as an activity and the boys are learning how to knit. Andrew with bamboo needles and wool and Aiden
with the niftiest little hat loom ever. He's been working away on making Andrew a hat for Christmas.
I try to keep the workboxes a blend of necessary learning (reading, writing, arithmetic) and a fun activities that encourage learning without the kids necessarily being aware.These landmark flashcards were a Target find for $1.
Hating math without practical application growing up has made me search out some visual math for our children. Flip Over Math is great! And inexpensive compared to a lot of other visual math educational resources. We also do things like bean sorting and counting. I think I'll save math visual ideas for another post :)
Friday, August 28
Our workbox System
Four of the kiddos have numbered workboxes. This organization has been working great for our family. In years past I had to stop what I was doing and go check the daily planner to see who needed to do what next.
Our workboxes are six plastic drawer sets from Wally-world. The cute labels are Martha St*wart via Michaels.
After circle time, the kids check their first bin and set to work. I fill them the night before in no set order, just trying to coordinate that all four kids don't need me on a new activity at once.
Want to see what sort of things go in those bins?
Check back tomorrow!
Thursday, August 27
Circle Time
Circle Time is a basic way to get everyone together and begin the day in a happy way.
We just happen to have a circular rug in the living room right now that we sit around. Chase is in training for learning how to sit still for a few minutes and that takes place during circle time, with him on my lap. When he struggles against my arm loosely around his waist or fusses to get up, I quietly tell him, "no" and sit him back down.
The first thing we do is sing songs. The kids take turns choosing favorite fun songs and fingerplays then we sing a worship song or two. After worship, everyone holds hands (this is training for everyone to hold hands nicely!) and prays for the person next to them. I've taught them to thank God for something for that sibling and then offer a request on their behalf. I love hearing what they come up with. This morning Aiden prayed that Ella would "please learn how to read already". She's 3.
At this time, Chase is allowed to get off my lap and have free run. He usually sticks close by and rotates siblings laps or takes advantage of being the tallest one in the room and bops us all on the head with whatever is handy. We're learning gentleness too.
We have a weekly memory verse that we go over together a few times and also say the previous weeks memory verses so they stay fresh in our hearts. I laminated the memory verse cards and keep them in my big precious white binder.
The kids have been learning a simple catechism from this book, Studying God's Word. I love that it gives simple, clear answers to our faith. Each week is built upon the previous week. There are also activities to re-enforce the lesson. I bought ours off of CBD or half.com. CBD has sample pages to see, which was nice. If I recall, Book A was a little too simple for my kids ages.
Our history reading gets done in circle time too. Right now we're hearing the stories of the children of pioneers from different lands. All my kids love these stories.
So that's our circle time in a nutshell. I also recommend ordering some circle time books through your library and looking online for songs and fingerplays.
One of our kiddos struggles with being fearful and his current favorite circle time song is sung to the tune of "Baa, baa, black sheep".
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any fear?
No sir, no sir,
God is near
He always has me in His sight
He'll keep me till the morning light
Baa, baa, black sheep
have you any fear?
No sir, no sir,
God is near.
We just happen to have a circular rug in the living room right now that we sit around. Chase is in training for learning how to sit still for a few minutes and that takes place during circle time, with him on my lap. When he struggles against my arm loosely around his waist or fusses to get up, I quietly tell him, "no" and sit him back down.
The first thing we do is sing songs. The kids take turns choosing favorite fun songs and fingerplays then we sing a worship song or two. After worship, everyone holds hands (this is training for everyone to hold hands nicely!) and prays for the person next to them. I've taught them to thank God for something for that sibling and then offer a request on their behalf. I love hearing what they come up with. This morning Aiden prayed that Ella would "please learn how to read already". She's 3.
At this time, Chase is allowed to get off my lap and have free run. He usually sticks close by and rotates siblings laps or takes advantage of being the tallest one in the room and bops us all on the head with whatever is handy. We're learning gentleness too.
We have a weekly memory verse that we go over together a few times and also say the previous weeks memory verses so they stay fresh in our hearts. I laminated the memory verse cards and keep them in my big precious white binder.
The kids have been learning a simple catechism from this book, Studying God's Word. I love that it gives simple, clear answers to our faith. Each week is built upon the previous week. There are also activities to re-enforce the lesson. I bought ours off of CBD or half.com. CBD has sample pages to see, which was nice. If I recall, Book A was a little too simple for my kids ages.
Our history reading gets done in circle time too. Right now we're hearing the stories of the children of pioneers from different lands. All my kids love these stories.
So that's our circle time in a nutshell. I also recommend ordering some circle time books through your library and looking online for songs and fingerplays.One of our kiddos struggles with being fearful and his current favorite circle time song is sung to the tune of "Baa, baa, black sheep".
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any fear?
No sir, no sir,
God is near
He always has me in His sight
He'll keep me till the morning light
Baa, baa, black sheep
have you any fear?
No sir, no sir,
God is near.
Wednesday, August 26
Organization for Home Schooling
I'm very often amazed at how having a large family, a household to run, and children to educate have forced my scatterbrained, artistic thinking sort of self into being an organized thinker and organized do-er. It gives me a little smile.
Kendra's seasoned advice is to prepare the whole year's studies before you begin. A somewhat daunting task for the part of me that wants to unschool as much as possible. Since we don't know what the year holds in store for us as far as fostering and court dates and visitation, the wisdom behind having something solid at hand to loosely lead our way won me over.
I spent a few nights ordering resources, tagging free online ones, and looking through the books we already own. It was beginning to feel like Christmas. I love books.
Then I sent my family away. Well, almost all of them. Little guy is still attached. Sean took the older four up to the cabin for a sleepover. Surrounded by fun new books, a scanner, printer and laminator, I was in nerdom bliss.
This is the result:
Not the cheesy cover art, but the notebook itself. If our house is on fire, this would be right up there on the list of things to grab.
In years previous I have bought a separate daily planner to use for keeping track of the kids work for the school district. This year I had the delayed genius idea to look for free planner pages online. Of course they have them, which saved me $10.
Each day has lessons for the three oldest kids. Annaliese is in fourth grade, Andrew is in second and Aiden is in kindergarten. Miss smarty pants Ella basically does what Aiden does just because she wants to. If I tell her to play, she bawls.
Behind each daily planner page are all the printed resources needed for the week, cursive copywork, coloring pages, memory verses, etc.
The feeling of not having to scramble on Sunday nights to put together lessons is a lovely one.
Kendra's seasoned advice is to prepare the whole year's studies before you begin. A somewhat daunting task for the part of me that wants to unschool as much as possible. Since we don't know what the year holds in store for us as far as fostering and court dates and visitation, the wisdom behind having something solid at hand to loosely lead our way won me over.
I spent a few nights ordering resources, tagging free online ones, and looking through the books we already own. It was beginning to feel like Christmas. I love books.
Then I sent my family away. Well, almost all of them. Little guy is still attached. Sean took the older four up to the cabin for a sleepover. Surrounded by fun new books, a scanner, printer and laminator, I was in nerdom bliss.
This is the result:
Not the cheesy cover art, but the notebook itself. If our house is on fire, this would be right up there on the list of things to grab.
In years previous I have bought a separate daily planner to use for keeping track of the kids work for the school district. This year I had the delayed genius idea to look for free planner pages online. Of course they have them, which saved me $10.
Each day has lessons for the three oldest kids. Annaliese is in fourth grade, Andrew is in second and Aiden is in kindergarten. Miss smarty pants Ella basically does what Aiden does just because she wants to. If I tell her to play, she bawls.Behind each daily planner page are all the printed resources needed for the week, cursive copywork, coloring pages, memory verses, etc.
The feeling of not having to scramble on Sunday nights to put together lessons is a lovely one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)