A New Year..........

Here we are it is January 2010! I can not believe that a new decade has begun. Seems like only yesterday we were preparing for Y2K! My family has encountered many trials in the past year and especially since my last post. I will post a poem later that explains it all. Pretty much in a nut shell My Mom had open heart surgery in Oct. and is now doing wonderful! It took several hospitals and ambulance rides to find the problem, but God was right on time. AMEN!

Luke and I have a tough year staying on track with all the distractions. But, all in all we have stayed the course and he is learning so much. Math and Science are still his strong suites while reading continues to be a struggle. He is finally getting it though! Praise the Lord. Many a tear has been shed over this subject and yes even an email sent to a local Christian school. :( The Lord however still is leading in the homeschooling direction. So, we are pressing on.

This week we are doing a creation based unit study from www.homeschoolshare.com. It has been so exciting for both Luke & me. I am learning so much that I was taught to be fact as a child was totally wrong. It amazes me how the school systems refuse to teach all aspects as possibilities and teach a falsehood as complete truth! Anyway here are some of the activities we have done and will be doing in this study.

The books I am using are;
The Bible,
"What Really Happened To The Dinosaurs" by John Morris and Ken Hamm,
"The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible" by Paul S. Taylor,
"Dinosaurs by Design" by Duane T. Gish.
I purchased these off wwww.amazon.com at really good prices.

Subjects and what we have learned:
Bible:
Creation study, and discussed what day the dinosaurs were created
The Behemoth in Job 40: 15-24, Luke took the description and drew a picture of what he may have looked like.
The Fall: Read in Genesis 3, discussed sin and the consequences of sin= separation from God
The Great Flood: Read Genesis 5-8
After The Flood: Genesis 9 "What might have happened to the dinosaurs?"

Science
Animal Classification: Reptiles, discussed the similarities of the Dino's tot he reptiles we know today. Discussed the characteristics of a reptile
Defined Paleontology and Paleontologist: created a small bone yard with a 3D Dino puzzle that Luke had to find and put together.
Discovered the different kinds of dinosaurs and their characteristics. Created a "My Dinosaur Book" filled with the names and pictures of many different kinds of Dino's.
Dinosaur Diets: meat or plant eaters, still some controversy
What are Fossils?
What is Extinction and endangered?
Dinosaur Eggs

Social Studies Components
Dinosaur Time Line
What have Dino bones been found, and what types have been found there.
Review the 7 continents

Language Arts
Tons of new vocabulary and writing all the new words for handwriting practice.
Adjectives and using them to describe the dinosaurs

Just for fun:
Treasure hunts each morning for reading
Make a paper mache' Dino egg
Create fossil prints
Create a Dino diorama
Play a Dino memory game
We will also be watching some Buddy Davis video's about all the dinosaurs ets. They are very clever!

Dino wrap up: We pray that on Sat. we will make it to Orlando with all healthy and to eat at the T-Rex cafe where there are life sized dinosaurs all around, metor showers, and a bone yard to dig for Dino bones! We also hope to visit the Dino dig at Disney's animal kingdom to see real Dino bones, fossils, and dig up even more Dino bones. Oh and of course ride the DINOSAUR ride. Luke said, "Don't worry I know when to close my eyes!"

For math we have continues mastering the addition facts and will move onto subtraction after Disney.
This has been a fun study with tons more activities than we can fit in. I am sure we will be visiting this subject again and again. And again I say what an AMAZING creator!!
Still loving this journey God has called me to called Homeschooling!

October Homeschool Fun!

This month is one of my favorites! We have had an action packed month and it is only the 13Th! We started the month with winding up our leaf study from last week. We did a science experiment that proved that leaf colors are present in the leaf all year around, but it is the changing of the seasons that brings out the change in the colors we see. We have learned that October is national apple month. This is the month when most apples are harvested in the USA. We went to Sky Top to pick apples and have done many apple activities since then. We even made our own applesauce! YUMMY!!

We also did a study Johnny Appleseed separating the facts from the legends. Without this man we would not have such a plenteous supply of apples here in the states. He was said to carry a Bible everywhere he went and had a heart of service and giving. He is a wonderful example of how we need to be. As soon as I can get this blogger to do it I will be posting some pictures of all of our apple adventures.

This week are doing a study on "Wonderful Me". Pointing out that God has created each individual differently and that he has a purpose for each one. We will be pointing out and discovering the many wonderful things God has instilled in Luke and doing many activities to point out how he can use these for the Lord. We are reading, "A Hat For Ivan" by Max Lucado that points out the importance on leaning on the master "hat maker" to find your purpose and the hardships of trying to please everyone else. At the end of the week we will have completed a "Wonderful Me" notebook full of the ways Luke is unique and special. Some of the elements of the notebook are; My House, Where I Live, My Address & Phone #, What makes me special, My signature, My Family, My heart belongs to, A few of my favorite things, When I grow up, My helping hands, My Time Line, If I had this much money, Me, myself, and I, Interview of Luke. All courtesy of www.homeschoolshare.com. Other books we will read are; "God Gave Us You", "You Are Special", "Stormy's Hat", and many more that point to this same theme.

For the last 2 weeks in October we will do a unit on Pumpkins. Anything you can think of for this unit we are doing. We will be reading, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable" as our main theme. We will do many pumpkin activities for math, science, reading, writ ting, language arts, and FUN!

The First Week Of Fall!

It is here! Fall, Autumn, my favorite time of the year! I am so excited to have Janie Claire Lambert's fall nature study to remind me of all the wonders God gives us during this time. To kick off this theme of fall and the beginning of the season of Thanksgiving Luke and I will be rowing, "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. This is a study put together by www.homeschoolshare.com. It is a classic story about a boy and his tree that gives to him throughout the years.

For the Bible lessons this week we will we will study the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. We will discuss the fruits and what they mean to a Christian life. The fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. I look forward to sharing and learning about the attributes with Luke.

During our social studies lessons we will discuss the many emotions felt during the stages of the boys life and times when we have felt these same emotions. I will record a dictated a story entitled, Happiness Is" for Luke. I can not wait to see what he comes up with. We will also discover what states apples are grown in as well as which 2 produce the most apples. We will map these on a Untitled States map.

We will begin our nature study for science this week on tree's. We will begin a notebook and document one of the tree's in our yard throughout the seasons. We will learn and create a book on the many useful ways tree's help us. We also learn the parts of a tree paint and diagram these. We will take a nature walk and observe the many different trees that are right around us.

During language arts we will review the short 'a' sound and I will have Luke CLAP every time he hears that sound while reading out story. We will also practice the writing of the capital and lower case A. We will make a list of the many uses of threes and of apples.

For art we will draw a tree in our nature journals and try to use the techniques used in this story. We will also gather leaves to laminate and make place mats to decorate our fall table.

For math we will continue to learn our 9 addition facts and do a comprehensive review of all the lessons up to this point.

For handwriting we will keep learning the appropriate technique for all the magic 'C' letters.

I am extremely excited about this weeks study of tree's and giving. All the lessons will essentially point back to God and His awesome design, order, and incredible creation. This tree study will lead us right into next week for our leaf study! The week after that we will do a study on apples. I am sure there will be many pictures to follow! AMEN!

For the next 2 weeks....

We are dooing a unit study on the Solar Syatem compliments of www.homeschoolshare.com It is amazing to me the vastness of our Creator! The organization and order give testimony to His power and resound to me that He and He alone is worthy of our praise.

Pics from "Who Owns The Sun"

"Who Owns The Sun" by Stacy Chbosky

This week we are rowing the FIAR title, "Who Owns The Sun" by Stacy Chbosky. If you haven't read this one you must try to find it and at least read it even if you do not do Five In A Row. It is so rich in so many ways. My first read through was today and I must tell you that I was all teared up by the end. It gently and tenderly introduces the subject of slavery. Something my innocent child had not learned about until this point. It was so hard for him to understand why others were treated so differently just because of the color of their skin. I did not go into a lot of detail, but just enough for him to understand on his level. Every time I row another book I always say, Oh, this is one of my favorites!" This title is no exception. From what I understand this book is out of print and I was very lucky the other county closest to me had a copy at there library. I contemplated not doing this title, but what a blessing I would have missed by skipping it!! Below I will list some of the enriching areas we will learn about all because of this one book.

Today we did the history portion of the lesson. Here we explored American slavery that eventually led to the Civil War. During Social Studies we discussed human relationships and the devotion the boy had for his father. We compared this to the relationship Luke has with Travis and it was at this point that Luke became teary eyed. He stated he loved his Daddy so much that sometime when he is awake early in the morning and hears him leaving he starts to cry. Then he added, "and it makes me want to cry just thinking about it right now"! This was another wonderful FIAR memory I will always cherish. I love that we get to share our deepest feelings together each day!

During Language Arts today we made lists of the qualities of Big Jim, the character in the story that is the slave and father to this little boy. We also listed things that are to wonderful to be owned. Luke nearly remembered everyone of them stated in the book. We will draw pictures of these tomorrow to further drive home this point. Tomorrow we will continue out LA lesson and discover new words such as, squinted, windmill, wanderer, and continue. We will also have a lesson on and activity to learn the appropriate use of a period or a question mark at the end of a sentence. We will continue our writing lessons from our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. (HWT) What fun this has been! It is a multi-sensory approach to handwriting. Tomorrow we will write the lower case "v" and do the "Alphabet Boogie!" (One of my personal favorites! :) We are even making up our own dance to this one!! LOL!

On Wed. we will also embark on the Art portion for this week. We will view and discuss each picture in the book. We will discuss what medium was used and discover new colors that the illustrator used throughout the book and learn there names. We will also pick a picture and try to replicate it with paint.

For the applied math in this story we will choose the many different items throughout the books illustrations and count each of them. I can not wait to see how many flowers there are! We will also continue our studies in Math U See. (MUS) We are clicking right along with addition and he has nearly mastered all of his 0, 1, and 2 addition facts. On Wed. we will also introduce solving for the unknown.

Our Bible lesson we will study the uniqueness of God's most wonderful creation, US! We will read Matthew 6:26 (one of my favorites hence the blog site name) and Genesis 1:26. We will talk about The Creator and how we are made in HIS image and this is the one reason we can be so creative. For, there was never one more creative than our God!

For Science on Fri. we will review the seasons and what months go with these. We will also experiment with the 5 senses and how they teach us about the world. We will read the descriptions throughout this book that describe the beautiful ways we can use our senses. We have a book to create on the 5 senses as well. We will take a nature walk and observe the many things we can see, hear, smell, possibly taste, and the many different textures we can feel. A nature walk is always a great time.

Other elective type areas are soccer, music, Lego's, and computer time.
For our physical fitness Luke has begun the fall soccer league at church. We have been practicing each day as a family and he had his first official team practice on Monday night. We have also been listening to and memorizing the Kid's Choir Christmas musical. He hums or sings it throughout the day. It is precious! His Bible verse memorization is going great so far as well. I think he is up to 6 and this is the 5Th week of school. I am really proud of him for that.

It is a fun filled action packed week, but what a blessing it is to hold my little boy in my lap and teach him each and everyday. It is not always so easy, but it is always so worth it! I praise the Lord for the sweet times we share. I thank Him for this curriculum that allows us so much time together learning to love each other and to love learning!! And for the dear sisters who encourage me in this journey, my fellow homeschooling Mom's!
Amen!

5 Weeks In!

Here we are already 5 weeks into the school year! I can not believe how quickly this Summer is moving! We have had many adventures so far. Rowing titles such as, "Truman's Aunt Farm", "Lentil", "Paul Revere's Ride", and this week is "Andy and the Lion". I can not tell you which has been our favorite thus far. I just LOVE all the Five In A Row titles! (FIAR) We have explored everything from homonyms to the Revolutionary War. I have implemented Sue Patrick's work box system, as many other homeschool Mom's have. I for one love the system and it keeps me organized. I have also found that all the review has benefited Luke greatly. He is getting used to the idea and likes looking and seeing just how much work he has done and is still to be done. The system is working out well.

There are many stories I could share at this point, but the one that warms my heart most happened last Thursday during our Bible time. In the box with our Bible lesson for the day I placed a candle and a lighter. (child safe of course). He was so inquisitive when he opened this box. In an earlier lesson we had read about Gideon. How God's army had used torches in their battle to defeat the Midianites. I took him the darkest room in the house and shut the doors. I told him how the smallest light can light up even the darkest of places. I lit the candle and the room lit so brightly and warmly. The look on his face was priceless. I shared the verse from Matthew 5:16 that says, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Then we squatted and sang, "This little light of mine". Luke sang with all of his heart and had the sweetest most contented look on his face with the candle light reflecting it so sweetly. I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me and whisper, "This is why you home school my child, for moments like this when you are teaching my truths, the most important lessons of all!" I left the candle burning the rest of the day in the bathroom to remind us that we are supposed to be a light to this world, Amen!