Happy Things

It's January, and time for my yearly "Happy Things" post. Just a couple...

A new shower curtain

Mark and I have been in the lengthy process of "redressing" our bedroom - with some minor bathroom renovation to boot. After living for over year with a liner for a curtain, I sprung for this one at Target. I love it! When he saw it, Mark said, "that is what my brain looks like!" And I think he's probably right.

Dangerous Journey - a retelling of The Pilgrim's Progress

Bella reading her literature book to the boys. We use Veritas Press literature guides, and I really love this beautiful book!

Now I saw in my dream that the road, from then on, was named Salvation. Along this road did burdened Christian run. Or should we say, he did his best to run, so far as he could, with that load upon his back. At the foot of a hill, he passed an open tomb. Then up again, upon a little knoll, he found himselfe beneath a wayside cross. And as its shadow fell across him, so suddenly the burden, slipping from his shoulders, fell from off his back. It tumbled down the hill. It tumbled into the mouth of the tomb. It was never seen again.
Christian kept feeling behind his back. He couldn't believe it. For it was very surprising to him that the simple act of gazing at the cross had set him free, and his burden of guilt was gone.
As he stood there in amazement, behold three Shining Ones appeared. The first one said: Your soul is now swept clean of sin.
The second one stripped him of his mud-stained rags, and gave him bright new clothes. The third one handed him a parchment.
Guard it carefully, he said, and surrender it only when you have reached the gate of the Celestial City.
Great dangers lay ahead of him but for the moment he was light as air. So Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing.

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the start of week 5

well, we are 5 weeks in to school now - and moving right along. My new dateless lesson plan system has freed me up to skip a few things here and there - thankfully not many - and although we have added subjects this year we seem to be keeping on track. I think the biggest change we have made this year is adding several activities. Bella and Izaiah are both taking piano once a week, Bella has weekly voice lessons, and all three are taking twice weekly PE classes at the YMCA. Izaiah's starting cub scouts this year, and everyone is participating in 4-H. Mommy is teaching weekly horse lessons, and daddy is coaching everyone in soccer.

If you know me, you'll know that I abhorr shuttling kids to and fro - and I generally think America's children are overscheduled. But for the past several months, the house has been very full, and scheduling 'fun' and healthy activities seems to be one of the better ways I can create some normalcy for the kids. Most of the time, I feel like I am walking a tightrope with them - on one side is total immersion in HFH, and on the other, emotional detachment. We are working towards healthly involvement and sustainability for all of us - and asking God for the grace to do it.
Blessings to you,
Mylissa

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Homeschool 2009/2010

Well, I know I've been absent a while - but not without good cause. We were able to escape Memphis for a full three weeks, thanks to our awesome volunteers and staff here in town! Since we've been home, I've been busy getting school ready for the fall and doing some last minute cleaning and organizing. Also trying to catch up on my sewing projects - have several to finish before I can start on some Christmas projects! So...for any of you who might be interested - here is my FINAL cirriculum list for the upcoming school year. Feel free to stop reading now if you could care less about homeschool! :)

Bella - 4th grade

Bible - Considering God's Word Book B
Critical Thinking - Mind-Benders
Math - Horizons 4
Spelling - Spelling Workout D
Writing - Writing strands 3 (about halfway through this book)
Grammar - Evan-Moor daily language practice 4
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Elementary Child book 2 (Queen Homeschool)
Literature - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dangerous Journey comp guides from Veritas Press
History - Story of the World Middle Ages/Early Modern
Science - Sonlight and Nature Journals

Izaiah - 2nd grade

Bible - Considering God's Word book A
Critical Thinking - Mind-Benders
Math - Horizons 2
Spelling - Spelling Workout B
Grammar - Evan-Moor daily language practice 2
Language Arts - Language Lessons for the Very Young book 2 (Queen)
Literature - Black Ships before Troy comp guide from Veritas Press
History - Same
Science - Same

Sam - Kindergarten

Math - Horizons K
Reading - 100 easy lessons
phonics/spelling - explode the code series
History and Science - same

So what do you think? Overarching? We homeschool moms like to start August off planning on schooling 14 hours a day - but usually by October we have scaled back. I am using a slightly different scheduling format this year, so although this might look heavy, hopefully its attainable. I'd love your thoughts!

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Two of my favorite things: trees and shakespeare

We recently made nature journals with help from Donna Young at http://www.donnayoung.org/. Yesterday, the kids picked leaves and did a page describing a tree. We are pressing the leaves, and will insert them in our journal. When looking for a heavy book to press them in, I decided my Pelican Shakepeare was just the right heft. So we are pressing our leaves in the midst of Julius Ceasar, which we are studying for history. Does this count as a unit study?

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Anne of Green Gables

Confession: Book Reports (notice the capitals) scare me. I've never really determined their use in homeschooling - maybe I'm an idiot, but since my kids insist on recounting EVERY book they've read while we are folding laundry (or more commonly, when I am trying to send HFH emails), I sort of figured we were OK. We also do a fair amount of narration and copywork, so I've hoped we were covering our bases.
And then today in Bella's non-homeschool Barnes-and-Noble-on-sale grammar workbook, she had to write a book report. I figured I would let her have at it - and this is what we've got.

Anne of Avonlea

The book Anne of Green Gables is written by a great author named Lucy Maud Montgomery. It's a great book about Anne Shirley whose parents died when she was four. She then gets to stay at someone's house for a few years, then when she turns eleven she goes to an orphanage. She stays there for three months. Then the Cuthberts adopt her! Anne is a very lively girl and is always getting herself into scrapes. Once a little girl named Minnie May got very sick; Anne knew exactly what to do and saved her life! When Anne turned 14 she went to Queens (which is where she learned to teach school). Read this book and share it with a friend.

Not bad! A few homophone issues and puctuation errors in the first draft, but I think she's got it.

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long time no chat

I know it's been quite some time since I wrote a post! I tend to get so far behind that I don't know where to begin. Well...since we have been schooling regularly since early January, I will share a story that Bella wrote. Moms, this is her second draft - just to be clear :)

I once was in a hurricane! That was when I was little (about three or four). We lived in Florida at the time and we had nowhere to hide in our house. So about two weeks before the storm we went to a condo. It had a big closet in the bathroom. Alot of people could fit in it. My baby brother wasn't born yet but my other brother was (he's my little brother). My family came, my grandparents came, and two of my cousins who were older. When the storm hit, we all went in the closet, and all we could do was play cards and eat bread and drink apple juice! Our house got pretty damaged! All the water fell in, the ceiling fell in, and the garage door door got blown in! We were in teh condo for almost two months!


we'll deal with her 'expressive' writing style later. I love getting the chance to see how the kids' memory works - for example, we went to the condo the morning that the hurricane was blowing in, her baby brother was actually about three months old, and i think we were there nearly till Christmas! I remember just wishing to be back in our house for the holidays. And thankfully she doesn't remember things that were really hard for mom and dad; her chemo shipment being held up in the Fedex warehouse, or the fact that she and mommy wound up with lice (EEEEWWWW!!!!) while we were staying in that condo. First and only time, praise Jesus.

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Happy New Year

Some of you have received our New Year's card by now, and so I thought I would put a little update on the beginning of 2009 if you are checking in. Since we have been home from New York, we have welcomed a new team member to Habitat for Hope, reconnected after the holidays with some of our families and with Andy and Ginny, and had a short visit from my parents. Mark has been in the process of getting ready to lead us on our very first staff retreat in a few weekends. We will travel to Mt Ida, Arkansas with our two other staff couples and the Waggoners, who will come with to enjoy the trip and help the the kiddos. It should be a good time! We are looking forward to it. The kids have started back to school and are honoring me by pressing forward. The promise of lots of new Christmas toys to play with certainly helps. We are doing some renovation and deep cleaning to the house - we have a family from Ecuador moving in next week - and are restocking and prettying up our downtown apartments as well. We have a new family whose two oldest children stay here in the evenings with us; they are from Bolivia. Their youngest sister relapsed recently with ALL. They are precious people and we have really enjoyed getting to know them!
In February, Mark and I will head down to Greenwood, MS to cash in his Christmas present - the kids and I gave him a cooking session at the Viking Cooking School. He's decided to take me along and have a little overnight toghether. I am looking forward to it! The kids are all playing basketball, which has been...a sight to see. They are enjoying it, which is the important thing. Hope January is treating you well!

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Fun sentences from Izaiah

Izaiah has just started a new spelling program - he has graduated out of Explode the Code and into Spelling Workout B. In this program, he has to write a sentence using his list words. Today, I found this in his book.

All bad guys must brush there teeth.

I love it! We will deal with homonyms later.

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Bella's Poetry

Last week, Bella had to write two Limericks for her language arts work. It wasn't the easiest thing for her, but she was quite proud of these when finished:

There was an old man from New York
Who was quite a cork.
He was as angry as a witch
That's why he got a twitch!
He stabbed someone with a fork.

There once was a funny old bird
Who would never utter a word.
When he went to his nest,
He would often rest
As he thought about all he had heard.

-Isabel Rose Horrocks, age 8

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TOUCHDOWN!!!

The first day of school has OFFICIALLY been completed! I should have taken a picture, but words will have to do. We got through our "we love our siblings" scripture pages (tongue in cheek), grammar, reading, math, history and science with little fuss. In a week or two, we will start English from the Roots Up - memorization of Greek and Latin roots. Bella has started a writing program this year - Writing Strands - and I think we are going to enjoy it! She loves to write stories, but usually lacks a antagonist. Come on, whats a good story without some conflict?

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