My Educational Gift Ideas

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! We did, but I have to say that I'm ready for break to be over and get back to school. We're not starting back until January 5th, so another whole week. It's crazy how much smoother our days run when we're in school. The kids are stir crazy and all they want to do is play their new video games, eat candy, and run wild! I'm ready for some order back in our lives!

Around Christmas time every year I see tons of posts from homeschool moms asking for educational gift ideas, or gifts that the kids can use for school. My kids own more toys than we know what to do with and while they still ended up with a lot of toys (mostly doll things,) I tried really hard this year to find some gifts that would be useful for school or educational. Here are some of my favorites:

Boo is still struggling to learn to read. She wants to be able to read her Bible so bad, but she's just not there yet. She goes into her room occasionally to "do her devotions." It's so cute, she hangs a sign on the door that says "Do not disturb," I can hear her in there praying and singing songs. She told me she wanted a new Bible for Christmas. I found this Bible by Zonderkids on sale Black Fri and I love it. I wanted to get something that she will be able to read on her own soon and with pictures. The added bonus though was that this bible comes with audio CD's of all the stories. So until Boo is able to read it well on her own she can try to follow along as she listens. I'm hoping this will help her learn to read it quicker. In addition to that it's really cute and girly. The pictures are adorable and it has "sweet thought and words for little girls" thoughout the stories. She loves it! Success!

Keeping Baby Bear busy during school is one of my biggest challenges during this season of life. I'm buying

her her own workbox for school time and my goal is to come up with enough things that I can switch the activities out and put something different in her box everyday.  She ended up with several puzzles, coloring books, and a magnetic doodle board, which is great because she has been known to use 10 sheets of paper in 2 minutes so she can just erase and start over whenever she wants. They're cheap yet keep her entertained for a long time, and she feels like she's doing school with her sisters.

Grandma wanted to get the girls something they could use for school too. So she got them an art easel. This is also going to be good for keeping Baby Bear occupied. We ended up with the Melissa and Doug Deluxe Standing art easel. One of the features I love is that this can easily be adjusted to 3 different heights. It can get taller than Sis or low enough that it's perfect for baby bear. I will keep the messy supplies put away until we need it for a project, but one side has a chalk board and the other a dry erase (for their dry erase crayons.) So, baby bear can play with this during school time. It may seem like this is a gift more for the younger ones. However next year for 5th grade HOD has a year long poetry/art study that Sis is so excited about. Every week we will have a poem to study and a watercolor painting to create that goes with the poem. She will be learning how to use real water colors and is getting her own adult watercolors for this course. She loves art so she can't wait to learn to use them. This new easel has clips at the top to hold her painting paper so she can paint her watercolors like a real artist.

I think the biggest hit this year was MP4 players and headphones. We decided to buy the girls these not only because it was the number one thing they asked for, but they can be useful for school too. Dad already has over 100 songs on his own, so he loaded them up with worship songs that the girls already know. One of my favorite parts of Sis curriculum is the weekly scheduled "Quiet time with God." I'm sure this schedule continues into next school year. Here's a pic of what it's suppose to look like. We do it a little differently. Sis usually goes into her room alone and reads the assigned verses, then she spends a few mins in personal prayer and worship. We don't do the hand motions or CD, she just prays and worships however she wants. She always wishes she has music to listen to though, because we didn't purchase the CD with the curriculum. She doesn't have a place to play music though without distracting Boo from her work (we have a very small house.) Now they can both have something to listen to during their quiet time without bothering everyone else (well unless you're Boo and like to sing at the top of your lungs with headphones on unaware that anyone can hear you!) We got headphones with volume control for kids so they don't go very loud. Also these have plenty of space for audio books and other school related things the girls might need them for. Right now, Sis is listening to The American Girl Rebecca series on audio. This gift was a huge hit and they haven't taken them off in days.


Finally, my #1  favorite of all time choice for educational toys...Lego!  Somehow they never get old! Yes I play them too! At least sometime throughout the day everyday my girls head for the Lego table. They will play with them for hours. Lego is education in so many ways: the building, constructing, following directions, and imaginative play, which is what makes them the perfect educational toy. Plus no matter how many years go by you never out grow them, right? That's what I keep telling myself anyway. Seriously though building Lego bricks is one thing that I like to do with my girls that we can all work together and have fun. I like helping them put the pieces together, they have names for all their little people and know who does what and lives where.We always get excited when we are able to get a new set. It counts as quality time, they're learning and having fun! That's a winner in my book!

Unit 15: Preparing

We made it through Unit 15 of our Preparing Hearts For His Glory curriculum. I can't believe we are almost half way through our school year already! It seems like we just started. It's already time to start planning out next years curriculum, because we always order the beginning of Feb. So I've been busy looking through choices and making decisions. My hardest decision is whether Sis will stick with Heart of Dakota for 5th grade or go back to My Father's World. I'm leaning toward HOD. Sis really has enjoyed this curriculum so far.

History: Our history focus this week was, "Coming into the Golden Age of Greece." We studied the Greek and Persian wars. We went back to look at the time of King Darius in Persia. We learned about the Battle of Marathon. Apparently this is a very well known famous battle, but I had never heard of it! I'm always learning so much right along with my kids. The word "marathon" comes from this battle where a messenger died after running 26 miles to deliver news of the victory. We also learned about Daniel who lived in Persia at the time of Darius (remember he threw him to the lions?) Then about Darius' son Xerxes(2 weeks ago we learned that Xerxes married Ester.) We also learned about the burning of Athens, and then finally the Parthenon and Golden Age of Greece.

Sis had to do a written narration on the "Golden Age of Greece." She doesn't love doing these narrations, but it's good for her to be able to put on paper what she has learned.We also finally finished our Draw and Write Through History book, so no drawings this week. Sis is not happy about that. I might have to add in some drawing assignments on my own soon, because she's going to miss it.

Sis researched a trireme, which is a war ship used in the time of King Darius. Her history project was to make a trireme ship out of cardboard, aluminum foil, and clay. The other girls were really jealous and wanted boats for their Littlest Pet Shops, so they ended up joining in on this project (even though they still have no clue what a trireme is.) The next day they floated their boats and played with them in water. 

 
Reading: We're on book #3 for our fantasy genre. This week I decided to have her read aloud to me instead of on her own. We began reading "Wind in the Willows." I try to have her read as much classic literature, and well written books as I can find. She is also reading "A Cricket in Times Square," on her own for fun, which also is a fantasy.
 






 Science:
We finished up our chapter on nutrition in our anatomy book by learning about minerals. We had a couple projects to finish up our unit. First Sis had to make a food Pyramid and then plan a restaurant dinner menu. She had to use her pyramid, knowledge of nutrients, and cookbooks to come up with 5 healthy meal choices. Then she had to prepare one of the meals. The meal she ended up making was, "baked 5 cheese ravioli, green beans, and french bread with butter. Our meal had nothing from the fruit group, so instead of an unhealthy dessert Sis added mandarin orange fruit cups. She even asked to use our Christmas dinnerware for her meal and set the table for us. She did a great job

Other than that we've enjoyed some after school Christmas movies this week. We have a NO TV or video game rule until after everyone is finished with school in our house. That is usually after 4. So the TV is not turned on at all throughout the day unless it's to watch our math videos. Boo's school work only takes about one hour in the morning, so she and Baby bear are not allowed to watch cartoons while Sis finished school. This way Sis has a quiet house without the distraction of tv, all of their daily TV time is limited, and the younger's are forced to color/ play with toys and find creative ways to use their time. After school everyday they all get TV time before dinner. They either each get to pick a 30 min show or they agree on a movie.

Next week is Christmas!!!! So we will have a short week and then be off until after the new year! 

MFW 1st grade: week 11

Boo moved on to week 11 in My Father's World Learning God's Story. This week she learned to read four new sounds /oo/ /aw/ /a/ as in "walk," and /uh/ as in "was." The one thing I've learned is that the English language is crazy! Why do so many vowels have to say /uh/? Why can't we just stick with the letter "u?" (does, was, the, love, what...and don't even get me started on "banana!") It's so hard to teach and so confusing for poor little kids who want so badly to be able to read! So many times a day I have to say "well this word doesn't obey the rules, it says something different." I guess I shouldn't complain since the Chinese children have to memorize 600 symbols or picture words before being able to read simple sentences. We only have 26 letters to deal with, still it's so frustrating sometimes.

Boo is still working on her "Animal Tales," booklet and practicing her handwriting. She had to write a bunch of /oo/ words to make cards for an activity that is scheduled in a week or so.

 Our memory verse this week was Proverbs 12:22 "The Lord detests lying lips, but delights in men who are truthful." We learned the meaning of the words "detest and delight." Then we talked about God hating sins. We learned that we should always tell the truth, so that we can be trustworthy and God will delight in us.

Something new that we started this week is a weather chart. For four weeks Boo is suppose to look out the window and each day circle either "sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowy" on her chart. I think we will be using the chart for an activity when the four weeks is over.

This week Boo learned to draw a tiger for art.

In math Boo has learned adding her +0,+1, and +2's. This week she is solving for the unknown...? +2=5.
MathUsee introduces algebra problems like these early on because they say it helps with subtraction later on. Boo has done ok with it, but the whole concept confuses her a bit. She still has to count or rely totally on her blocks to find the answers to any of her math problems. The goal is to memorize without having to count, so I think we will slow down with math facts and work on memorizing the ones we've already learned.

We also have a lot of Christmas fun to look forward to this weekend! Sunday all the girls will be singing and participating in their Christmas program at church. We also have our annual Family Christmas baking day.

Unit 14 :Preparing

This week was a short 3 day week for us. We took 2 days off for holiday activities and some time with family. Both our 4th and 1st grade curriculum are only 4 day per week programs anyway. So we doubled up on work one day and managed to do 4 days in 3. This new schedule has made our school week so much less stressful than a 5 day school week. There's more time for things we want to do, extra activities, and most weeks we get a 3 day weekend.

History: I did not love our history this week. It seemed to be disconnected and all over the place, with too much information to remember. There were parts that we enjoyed though. First we looked at India and what was happening in that part of the world during the time period we've been studying. We learned how Buddhism began and about social castes. Then we jumped over to China and learned about the Shang Dynasty, geography, and about Chinese silk and inventions. The next day went back to Greece and we learned about many of the rulers and laws that were made. Finally we looked at Rome in 509 B.C. 

We did enjoy a new book we started reading about a Roman boy and his Greek slave. It's called A Triumph For Flavius. This book paints a picture of what Roman culture was like in those days, but is also a story about compassion.

In her Draw and Write through History Sis drew a silk moth. The Chinese discovered how to make silk from the cocoons of silkworms. For many years they kept their secret of how to make silk hidden and it was coveted by much of the world. She also drew a Chinese panda.

Her history project had 2 parts this week. First was to research the "silk road," and draw a map showing the trading routes that were used to trade silks. The second part was to make a booklet showing the steps to make Chinese silk. 

Reading:
In reading we started our 
fantasy genre! For our kickoff activity we just talked about what makes a book fantasy and what is the difference between a realistic nonfiction book and a fantasy. We pulled a handful of fiction chapter books off of our shelf and discussed whether they qualified as a fantasy or not. Sis read 2 fantasy books this week. The first was small so she read it in one day. It was called "Catwings," and was a story about a family of cats that were born with wings. The second book was called "A Mouse Named Wolf." Sis really liked this book about a tiny mouse who's mother named him after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart thinking a "big important name" would make up for his size. She read both of these books on her own, but next week we will start a 3rd fantasy book that I will have her read aloud to me.





Science: We're still learning about nutrition in science. This week we learned about vitamins. We learned all of the important vitamins that our bodies need, what those vitamins do for us, and where we can get each of these vitamins. We also learned about vitamin deficiencies. We looked at diseases like scurvy and rickets that are cause by not getting enough of the right vitamins. One experiment we did to show how vitamin C is an antioxidant was to crush a Vit C tablet and put it on half of an apple. The other half we left alone. We let our apple pieces sit for 2 hours. Then observed that the vitamin C had kept half of the apple from turning brown.

  
After day 1 it was apparent that Boo again needed some extra practice with her phonics. We spent the week reviewing Unit 10 instead of moving on. So I will not be writing a post for her work this week.

Why I started dating my husband...

I know this blog is mainly about homeschooling, but occasionally I like to write about family, holidays,
marriage and other things. Ultimately marriage, kids, home life, schooling they all effect one another so they're all related anyway. Right?
So, about six months ago my husband and I started dating! Saying the words sounds a bit silly. We've been married 12 and 1/2 years now. Isn't dating something people do to get to know each other...something single people do? I would say we know each other pretty well by now. We know each other better than anyone else in the world knows us, so why date?

Well, first let me start by saying I love my husband. He is my very best friend.  There is something miraculous that happens when two people get married. The Bible says that they become one flesh. My husband is not just someone I love, he will forever be part of me. God views the marriage relationship as so sacred, that he uses marriage as an example of his relationship with the church (his bride!)

When you're first married and in the honeymoon stages it's so easy. We use to do crazy spontaneous things! One night we got cravings for donuts at midnight and decided to drive to Crispy Cream in the middle of the night. We sat in the parking lot stuffing our faces and laughing. Many times on his day off we would go get breakfast while the rest of the world was just going to bed. About a year after we were married we jumped in the car and decided to drive 3 hours with no plans. We ended up in Niagara falls and spent 3 days there. That's still one of our best memories. We were adventurous, fun, and in love.

Then something happened. Real life happened. Hard years came. Years with hardly any money, layoffs, infertility struggles, tiredness, the loss of a child, times when we didn't know what we were gonna do, and hard decisions. God blessed us with children! Then came the sleepless nights, worry, loudness, endless toys and messes, and schooling...life definitely changes when you have kids. I wouldn't trade it for the world. They are my greatest blessing in life and bring me so much joy. Through it all my husband and I have stayed close, but life is definitely different than it was 12 years ago, not bad, just different. Now we have to be responsible and be grown ups. It's harder to be spontaneous. It's easy to put the kids before time together. It's easy to be so busy and distracted that you forget to be "in love." Sometimes marriages take second seat to work, school, kids, and bills. Having quality time doesn't come as easily as it once did, now it has to be on purpose.

So why did we start dating? Well it started on our 12th anniversary. We always go to eat for our anniversary, although for many years including the previous 2 we've had a baby who we end up having to take along. This year it was just us. We decided to go to a nice restaurant and a movie (it's rare that there is a movie at the theater that we will watch, but there happened to be a good clean one playing.) At dinner all of a sudden it occurred to us that it was really quiet...the quiet was almost scary!!! There was no one throwing food at us or anyone needing to use the bathroom! We talked without screaming over anyone. It was so peaceful! After dinner we held hands. I said "This is the first time I remember holding hands in a long time. We never have a free hand! In fact we never have enough hands, we're out numbered! We enjoyed the movie and we talked about all the fun we use to have together. We even played some games together in the arcade. We were having fun! Then the light bulb went off...We NEED to have fun together! Family fun is not the same as dating fun. We NEED quality grown up time. We NEED to date like we did before we had kids. Our marriage and our sanity NEED a break from the chaos, loudness, and craziness that comes with having a family. One day the girls will be gone and have their own families. Then it will just be the two of us again. We don't want to wait until our best years are gone, to realize that we need each other.  We went home and made a list of ideas for date nights. I made a list of fun expensive dates that I'd hope to be able to do someday, as well as really cheap dates for when we're broke. We made a commitment to at least try to go on a date once a month  from now on...The past 6 months we've tried new food and experiences, played putt-putt golf (something we did a lot of on our honeymoon), we've also just taken long walks and gotten ice-cream. I feel closer since we started this and less stress even with having some quiet  time to look forward to. I believe that this was God speaking to us. He wants us to have strong happy marriage, but that doesn't just happen. Having a strong relationship with someone takes real work and effort. It takes forgiveness and patience. It takes being willing to listen even when you don't like what the other has to say. It takes humility and admitting your mistakes. It takes putting someone else before yourself. It takes purposely making time for your spouse and making them a top priority in your life.

 So, I wanted to share this to encourage you to DATE YOUR SPOUSE! I know everyone is at different place in their relationship. No matter how many years you've been married, no matter how much money you have, or even if your marriage is struggling...try dating your spouse. If you can't find a babysitter or are at a place in life where you can't afford to go out...try putting  the kids to bed early and have a date night at home. Make time for each other!

 

Unit 13: Preparing

This week we were able to finish our school work and get all of our Christmas decorating done! We put up our tree, village, and hung our stockings. We also started our advent calendar and welcomed our elf on the shelf back. We spent the first day of school catching up on things that we skipped last week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. It's always hard for me during the holidays. We have the freedom to take off as much time as we want for holiday breaks, but at the same time I hate skipping things so we usually end up spending extra time going back to things we missed!

History: Our history left off last week with Babylon conquering Judah and God's people going into captivity. This week's focus was what happened in Babylon and then Babylon being taken over by the Medes and Persians. We stared out looking at King Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the statue and what Daniel prophesied to come in the future. Sis colored and labeled a picture of the statue from his dream. The printable of the statue we used can be found here... Nebuchadnezzars dream coloring page.   
We read about the fiery furnace and Neb's golden statue he set up. We then learned that Daniel also interpreted the writing on the wall to King Belshazzar. The words came true that very night and Babylon was taken over by the Medes and Persians.We learned about King Cyrus and King Darius, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and finally we ended the week learning about Queen Esther( one of my favorite stories!) These units are moving through history pretty fast, but I think Sis is understanding and remembering pretty well. Our timeline really helps with that too. This week we added "Fall of Babylon and Esther becomes queen of Persia."

For Sis' history project she made her own invisible ink and used it to write the words that were written on the wall by the hand that God sent to King Belshazzar. She also made a picture of the story with invisible ink. On day 2 after it dried all 3 girls used blue food coloring and water to paint and reveal the hidden messages that Sis made.

Language: Sis had her big unit test in spelling this week. She got all 51 out of 51 words correct! I'm so proud of her!

Reading: We finished our mystery genre. Sis is flying through these reading books. According to our schedule we were suppose to be starting "mystery" this week and finishing in 3 weeks instead she is finishing it now! I decided to just let her keep going. That means we will finish our reading studies for the year very early, but I'm ok with that because there are so many books Sis wants to read for free time. This just means she'll be able to fit more in. For her end of the unit mystery project she had to make a character mask and an acrostic poem. Our mystery book was "The Doll People." So Sis chose the main character, Annabelle Doll, for her project.
 
 



 Science: We're still learning about nutrition in science. This week we learned about carbs, protein, fats, and calories. We did an experiment to see how much fat is in different foods. We put food samples on pieces of brown paper bags for two hours. After the 2 hours we looked at the paper to observe the grease spots. Peanut butter had the biggest spot (most fat) and bread had the least. Our cheese paper might have had a bigger spot, but Baby Bear snuck into the room and ate it half way through our project. Have you ever heard of the dog eating your homework? Well we have a baby sister eating our science project!

We also looked at food labels. Sis had to guess which had the most fats, carbs, protein, etc.

In math Sis is finding the area of trapezoids...I got asked the famous question "Mom why do I even have to know this?" My answer... well I don't have one. I've never in my adult life needed to know how to find the area of a trapezoid. I told her that God wants her to try her best in school even if we don't understand why sometimes. We're looking forward to next week. Tue is no school for us!!Instead I'm surprising the girls with a special holiday field trip and fun day out! I love so much that we don't have to wait until the weekends for special family outings and can avoid the holiday crowds!

MFW 1st grade: Week 10

We finally moved on to week 10!! After a ton of practice I decided that Boo was finally ready to move forward with her reading. She's shown a lot of improvement over the last 3 weeks and she starting to remember all her new sounds more easily.

This week we learned the /ay/ sound and the /igh/ sound. She did pretty well with these 2 new sounds. She also started making another "Animal Tales booklet," which comes with the student sheets. She has to read a sentence containing her new sounds, copy it into her book and draw a picture.

 For art Boo learned to draw a hen.

This week our manual said to "make a Bible times costume!" I love all the fun things that My Father's World comes up with. I try to do at least some of the fun things, even though it would be so much easier to skip them and just do the basics. The fun things really make this curriculum great though. Now that she's getting all of these phonics down and learning to read on her own, Boo will soon be introduced to her own bible reader with daily reading assignments and a bible journal that she will will be starting. This week's project was to introduce the fact that people in the bible days dressed and lived differently than we do today (of course Baby bear had to try it on too.)

Christmas Advent Calendar and Nativity Reviews

For years now, ever since our first child was little we have done a Christmas countdown of some kind. We've made our own out of construction paper, we've done chain links, the store bought candy ones, a wooden one with little boxes to fill with candy, etc. last year we used our elf. He brought candy and a card with a number counting down each morning.


I wanted to share two things I'm excited to be using this year: The first is a wooden Nativity Advent calendar from Family Christian Stores. These large wooden calendars can get expensive (definitely more than a disposable cardboard one or a home made one, but I think it's worth the $$ esp if you can find one on after Christmas clearance) Here's why I love this calendar. I got this calendar last year and used it in my classroom at church, but this is the first year I will be using it at home with my girls. I love that it is sturdy and well made, not like some of the cardboard store bought ones. It will last for years to come so you get your moneys worth. I also like that it hangs nicely on the wall. I can hang it up high enough that baby bear can't get onto it. So how it works is real simple. There is a little booklet that goes with the calendar. It has a very short paragraph of the Christmas story to read each day. Inside of the boxes are cute little wooden ornaments that go along with the paragraph. The girls take turns and each day one of them gets to open the box for that day and hang the ornament on the nativity scene. In the past we had a wooden church advent with little boxes, but you had to fill the tiny boxes with treats. It was really hard trying to find something that was small enough to fit, plus cost extra $$ for candy.I like that I don't have to buy tons of Christmas candy, but they are just as excited to open the next box. Plus they get to hear the Christmas story rather than just finding a piece of candy. Advent calendar time has become the highlight of our school day this past week. I don't know if they still sell this exact calendar in stores, but I definitely recommend investing in this type of calendar.

An added bonus is that this nativity also has a sturdy wooden shelf that is perfect for sitting our elf on so this is his home during the day time!

Secondly, I am so excited to be using "What God Wants For Christmas" this year with my girls. It's just so stinkin cute to me and perfect especially for younger ones. This isn't a month long advent calendar. Its an interactive retelling of the nativity story that takes only 7 days.

 

Basically it's a story book that tells the Christmas story and a nativity scene with little ceramic figurines. There are 7 gift boxes to be opened, one a day for 7 days and 1 start box. The starter box reads " Pull out this box to begin an adventure, one that's foretold in God's Holy Scripture." Inside that box are 2 plastic corner pieces that holds the nativity scene together and allows it to stand on its own, plus 2 rubber bracelets that say "What God Wants for Christmas." (the bracelets are actually a spoiler and have the answer on them so I would wait until day 7 to give them to the kids)

Inside the other 7 boxes are the figurines to be added to the nativity.

Each day as the story is read anticipation is built and it ends asking the question what does God want for Christmas?  The whole week the kids are guessing what could God possibly want for Christmas? Some of the answers I've gotten "nothing, because God already has everything." "maybe the world?" "love?" It keeps them guessing and thinking about it all week.

On day 6 the nativity scene is complete and finally on day 7 they get to open the 7th box that answers the question "What does God want for Christmas." The inside of that box is a mirror and the answer is God wants you!

A quote form the book reads "Me?" you ask. "Why is this so? I can not wrap me and put on a bow!" "No you cannot: but what you can give are the choices you make and the life that you live." Then it goes on about how God wants you to know Him, worship him. and choose everyday to live your life for Him. I love this so much! The back of the booklet has scriptures to use on leading a child to Christ. What God Wants For Christmas can be found at Family Christian Stores for $15-$20 and the newer version comes with an audio Cd too!