Homeschool Convention and New Curriculum

I was able to attend the Alberta Homeschool Convention in Red Deer, Alberta a few weeks ago.  Rebekah was able to attend as a teen homeschooler as well. Unfortunately, the topics of the sessions were not really anything we were interested in. But, there were a few that we enjoyed. Rebekah joined in on a few of the youth sessions and I sat in on about 4 sessions over the weekend. I took away 2 huge reminders.

1.  Accept the differences in your spouse.  This was important for me to hear, because Larry and I are EXTREMELY different. I think we are from different planets sometimes.  We just see things from totally different perspectives. BUT, this is not a bad thing. It is a good thing.  She reminded us when we are facing a situation when we really think things should go OUR way, to ask ourselves if this is going to matter in eternity, or next month for that matter.

2.  Our reactions show where Jesus is in our lives.  I tend to be quick to react to my feelings.  But, that doesn't show the love of Jesus to my family. 

Anyway, when we weren't in session, we were SHOPPING!  Actually, it got a little boring, but the boys were in the kids program, so we were kind of held captive by their schedule.  I did find some wonderful deals though and here they are.

I bought a few read alouds.  I was wanting to talk about the First and Second World Wars with the kids and a friend told me about the "My Story" series.  I found some at the convention. They are living history books and I hope we can learn a lot about the wars from them.   I also bought a living Spanish history book and a couple others.  Rebekah has been reading the Elsie series and I found one of them at the used book sale.

 

I found this complete Old World History and Geography by A Beka for $30.  It came totally unused with the textbook, teachers manual and quiz and activity books.  History and geography are Rebekah's favorite subjects and she dove into this right away.

I bought a lot of Rod and Staff Curriculum.  We have been using the grade 3 and 5 English and I really like it.  I like that it uses the bible for sentence examples and it is conservative.  I didn't get anymore English, because I think that is enough. But, I bought grades 4- 8 of spelling.  Which looks so awesome. It teaches root Latin, Greek and french words and it teaches some English.  I also bought grade 2 Socials and grade 4 health for Ben and Jacob.  I bought grade 6 history about Latin America. I only bought that year because I have read that they teach a lot of Mennonite history, which we are not particularly interested in.

I  was able to find Teaching Textbooks Pre - Algebra version 2.0  for Rebekah at the used book store and a home economics workbook on top of all that. So, we are pretty much set for the next 2 years at least and I have to keep reminding myself of that. It's so easy to buy curriculum you don't need.  I'd like to really get rid of everything we don't use, so that we can have just the bare essentials, clutter free and fitting in the cabinet we use for our homeschool books. Some day, maybe:)

 

A Field Trip to the Alamo

We are so blessed with my husband's job.  He really enjoys it and he travels over a lot of the States.  He delivers new vacuum trucks to where they need to go and then he gets flown home.  And another bonus is, he can take someone with him.
It worked out last November that he was going to San Antonio and we knew our daughter, Rebekah, would LOVE to go. She really enjoys American history and knows about the Alamo and has wanted to go there for some time.
They stopped at the Custer Battlefield Museum in Montana along the way and saw some other neat historical sites in San Antonio.
She has finally wrote a post about it on her blog. Please head over there to read about her awesome trip.

Part One
Part Two


This post is linked up to;  Hope in Every Season, Growing Home

Late Readers, No Need to Worry

It's been fun posting Christmas crafts the last little while, but now I want to get back to what's really important to me - that is my family and keeping our home.

I really wanted to share the journey we've had teaching Jacob to read.

I taught Rebekah and Ben to read using, Sing, Read, Spell and it worked great for them.  So, 2 years ago, I set out with the same plan for Jacob. The only thing was, he really wasn't getting it.  I kept it up for a few months with no success at all. So I thought I would try something else.

That's when we started using, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".  This too was not seeming to be able to teach him. At that point I took a few month break from trying. I remembered what Raymond Moore said in his book, "Better Late Than Early".  He said that some kids just aren't ready to learn to read until they're closer to 9 years old and to push them before that would do more harm than good.  If you wait until just the right time, they will learn very easily.

Not wanting to miss "just the right time", I would try every few weeks to see if he might start catching on.  So we went back to, Sing, Read, Spell".  Still nothing. Another break. Try again. Nothing. Another Break and so on.

So now just 2 years after we started this journey, I went back to "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".  This  time Jacob seems to be getting it. He can actually sound out the words. Such as; rock, meet, ram, this, eat....  But, he will read a word and then just 2 words later come across the same word and not recognize it at all. I'm thinking he might not be entirely ready, but I can see the hope that he WILL get it. 

I used to call Jacob a struggling reader, but I don't think that's right. Just because he didn't get it right away like his brother and sister, doesn't mean he's struggling.  He is just a late reader. He will get it and I don't want to push him.  I love that about homeschooling. He might have been over looked at a public school, or made fun of because his brain isn't quite ready to learn to read.

I think we're ready for another break. Maybe until after Christmas.  So, I'm just saying, all kids learn at different speeds and it can be frustrating to have such differences in our children, but in the end it will all work out:)

This post is linked up to; Raising Arrows Hope in Every Season Learning Table Raising Homemakers A Mama's Story

County Fair Results

This has been a hectic week! We had decided not to enter anything in our fair this year because they have raised the prices so much that we aren't going to the fair. BUT, the bench show is at a different building and we just decided a week ago to enter our work.  Rebekah entered 26 items, Jacob - 9, Ben - 4 and I entered 27.

So, we have just returned from seeing how we did and our family really did well!

Here are some highlights.

Rebekah received High Point in the Junior Division 2 and Runner Up High Point for the Ag Division.

In the following pictures, everything you see is basically all Rebekah's work and all 1st places.

Everything along the back is  Rebekah's (From the left: Christmas card, button bouquet, clay crab, painted rock, painted ceramics, ruffled scarf, perler bead balloon, bottle necklace and cross stitch picture))

Rebekah's Jam, muffins, cookies, bread and fruit

Rebekah also entered items into the adult divisions. She won 2nd against me for the Fleischmann's Yeast competition. Benjamin won first for his Robin Hood Brownies and I won 1st Robin Hood Ginger cookies and 2nd for my Certo strawberry jam.

Here are just a few more highlights.

I made runner up in the Culinary Arts Division



My Peas at the top won 1st. (It's about the only thing I grew this year)

Ben won 2nd for coloring a picture from VBS and Jacob won 1st

Jacob won 1st for his clay animals and stocking he sewed

The boys made this catapults at VBS and Jacob won 1st and Ben won 2nd

So, there is the short version! Ha Ha. Now, we are going to watch the old Disney "Swiss Family Robinson" movie and eat popcorn.

Homeschool Conference 2013 With Voddie Baucham

Larry and I finally attended our local Homeschool Conference this past weekend. We have missed the last 5 years and missed some really great speakers. such as Ken Ham a couple years ago.

When I found out Voddie Baucham was going to be the key note speaker, I jumped at the chance to go.

 Larry and I learned SO MUCH from this man.  His lessons were;

Don't Let Home Education Destroy Your Marriage!
Teaching Your Children with Your Grandchildren in Mind
Biblical Manhood in the Home
Bible Study Basics: How to Study and Teach the Bible at Home
Biblical Womanhood in the Home
Culture Wars

We learned the most from the session on Bible Study Basics. It was really eye opening. Of course I learned a lot from Biblical Womanhood in the Home. These were all truths that we Christian woman already know, but it is so good to hear them again.

You can search YouTube for audio and video segments of his preaching.  Also, you can check out Grace Family Baptist Church where he is the Pastor of Preaching to hear some of his sermons or check out his books, DVDs and Cd's for sale. You can also purchase Voddie's merchandise from Vision Forum.

I am now looking forward to our next year's conference where Doug Phillips from Vision Forum will be the key note speaker.

Behold, Jesus is at The Door - A Lesson in Attentiveness

I finally made a craft that I had thought of years ago while teaching Junior Church.  Jacob was still a baby and we were using lots of Costco brand baby wipes. They have the plastic closure on top where you pull out the baby wipes.  It hit me one day that you could use that as a door. Then Revelation 3:20 came to mind right away.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me."  Revelation 3:20

We are learning about "Attentiveness" for our Bible Character Quality Study right now and I thought Revelation 3:20 would be a perfect memory verse for it.

I explained to my kids that when we are attentive, our eyes are OPEN, our ears are OPEN and our mouths our CLOSED. In the verse it says, "If anyone HEARS My voice...."  So, we need to be listening for Jesus. He is waiting to have sweet fellowship with us.

And if we need salvation, all we have to do is "open the door of our heart" and let Jesus in. We believe that we are sinners, that Jesus is God, that He died on the cross as payment for our sins and rose again to have the victory over death. It is good to think of such things with Easter coming up.  This year I will not be putting out Easter baskets. I will give the kids a little treat on Saturday, but Sunday we want to focus on what Christ did for us on the cross.

Anyhoo, here are the instructions for this craft.

You will need;
the plastic closure from Costco brand baby wipes (door)
popsicle sticks
a picture of Jesus (you could have your children draw one)
brown paint
scissors
glue
paper to glue this on to

We started by cutting the picture of Jesus to fit behind the "door". Then glue that down to your paper.

Next we glued popsicle sticks to cover the door.

After we glued on the popsicle sticks (and a trip to Tim Horton's for coffee), we painted the door brown and added "cross beams" that were painted before they glued them on. (refer to picture)

This is what it looks like finished.  This one is Rebekah's. Notice the, "knock, knock, knock"?

And here is the open view. This one is Ben's.

They turned out exactly as I imagined they would. ONLY, please don't be like me and put them right into a notebook. I was so excited to be finally making these, that I didn't think about how thick they would be and had the kids glue into their Bible Memory Verse books!

This post is linked up to; Raising Homemakers, Hope in Every Season, Growing Home, A Wise Woman Link Up Mama's Moments

Homemade Window Clingers

This is an old post from 2011, but I wanted to repost it, because it is such a great idea. This is an inexpensive, fun way to decorate your house for all the holidays and seasons.

I'm sorry that the picture is so dark. We made snowflake window clingers for a winter lapbook we were doing. You can find the original post with instructions here.

Have fun and be creative!

Living History Books

In our home, we have a daughter who can not read enough history books! Rebekah prefers American history, because it's a little more exciting than Canadian history.  She also likes biblical history.
So, I have found that buying all these books is really starting to add up.  I bought her the first 5 of the Heroes of History by Janet and Geoff Benge.

 

 

These books are great! And Rebekah can remember most all of the facts she reads, but there are so many and it would cost a fortune to buy them all.

 

I thought it would be nice to have some Living History books. Living History books are books written in a story format about real people or events. That makes them easier to relate to and remember and maybe a little more interesting than a biography book.

 

So, we set out to some thrift stores.  We were blessed at the first thrift store. We found a Signature Book about "The Story of Edith Cavell" for $ 0.50.  These books are out of print, but can be found on Amazon, Ebay, or at thrift stores or library book sales.  Rebekah and I both read it and it was very good.  We looked up the Signature Biography Series and found out they have 51 titles.

 



I had also read that Landmark Books are very good and have many titles. So, I headed off to a local used book store. You would not believe what was sitting on top of a box just as I walked in.  The Clara Barton Landmark Book!  The owner hadn't put it on a shelf yet, because he didn't know what section to put it in. Which makes me think he doesn't get a lot of those types of books in.  He charged me, I think $1.50.

I see now, we just have to make more of an effort to look at the thrift stores and used book stores for these books so that we don't spend all of our homeschool funding on history books! We might even find some "Heroes of History" if God wills and Rebekah can read until her heart's content.

PS: If you check out Rebekah's blog, Country God Girl, you will see she has a whole section on history posts.

This post is linked up to Thrifty Thursday

Super Easy Peasy Crocheted Flowers

I forgot to do a post for the crocheted flowers that went with my knitted slippers.

  Actually, I won't give instructions, just this YouTube video. It was so easy and well explained, that ANYBODY could crochet these flowers.

 

 

I haven't crocheted in over 20 years and I was able to pick up my hook and go.  I like to sew a clasping pin to the back, so that you can put it on anything. Such as, a toque, slippers, a purse, sweater, headband .......

 

 

A New Experience

Today we had the pleasure of watching our 2 violin students participate in a "Fiddler's Jamboree".  Rebekah and Jacob did an excellent job playing their song.  I didn't know what to expect, not being the the music circles before, but we thought that all the performers did really well.

Here is Jacob, introducing himself and Rebekah finding her spot.

Here is Jacob, staying right close to his teacher



Rebekah is on the left side and Jacob is on the right side of this video.

The song they are playing is called, "The Ladybug Reel".  I can't believe how much children can learn in such a short time. Rebekah and Jacob have only been taking lessons for 2 months. Larry and I are just so proud of them.

 

How We Do Bible in Our Home School

First of all, Happy New Year to all. We have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and New Year's and now we are getting back into the flow of our routine.
So for lack of nothing else to post about, I thought I would share our Bible program with you.

We have been working through the 49 Bible Character Qualities, which I got from the Duggars and we also have been going through Balancing the Sword.  I bought Balancing the Sword from Vision Forum.

So, we learn a new character quality every 3 weeks or so.  We learn 2 memory verses to support that particular quality and read bible stories that help illustrate it.  I give Rebekah vocabulary words from the memory verses, that she writes the definitions for as well.  So far we have learned about;  Truthfulness, Self-control, Wisdom, Orderliness, Alertness, Obedience and Resourcefulness.

Right now, we are learning about Hospitality.  Our 2 memory verses are;

"Do not forget to entertain strangers. For by doing so, some have unknowingly entertained angels." Hebrew 13:2

"Be hospitable to one another without grumbling."  1 Peter 4:9

They write each memory verse in a notebook. Which is great copy work.

We have the half lined/half blank notebooks, so they colour a picture on the top part and write the character quality.  Which is great for art.

To start bible time each morning, we recite the current memory verse and sometimes have review. Then we open in prayer before reading the chapter of the bible we are on.  Balancing the Sword is a bible study book, that asks questions for each book of the bible. Right now we are reading 2 Samuel. 

After we answer the questions, we all say one thing we are thankful to God for and say our prayer requests. We then pray for these things.  Lately, I have been trying to remember to sing a hymn to close our bible time.

Homeschool Christmas Choir

This weekend we enjoyed watching The Central Alberta Homeschool Christmas Choir, directed by Debbie Zepick, which Rebekah was singing in.  They were performing in 3 different locations in central Alberta and were raising money for a boys orphanage in Mwanza, Tanzania. They were able to purchase 6 acres of land last year and should be able to build an orphanage this year.  All the boys and the couple in charge have been living in a rented house. If you would like to know more about Project Mwanza, click here.

The choir was accompanied by an orchestra.  They have been practicing since the beginning of September, for 2 hours a week and much more practicing this last week.

It was so beautiful and we were so proud of all the homeschoolers. Especially the little ones because that was a lot of standing and waiting for their parts.  There was 120 homeschool students in the choir and 30 more in the orchestra.

This was at their last performance in Stettler Sunday afternoon.

I was able to take a video of the choir singing, "Angels are Making Their Rounds" in Red Deer.  I was sitting too close and couldn't get the orchestra or all 120 choir members in the picture. Plus, my camera has not very good sound. But it will give all the grandparents an idea of what Rebekah has been up to. 

 

 

Rebekah was sad it was over, but she only has to wait 9 months to begin practicing again!

Wacky Wednesday

Today I am participating in Country God Girl's Wacky Wednesday link up. Thanks Rebekah for hosting!

This morning, while doing school, I guess Ben got hungry.  He had Larry make him some toast. While he was eating his toast, I just reminded him that he still had to do math. His response to me was this;

"My stomach doesn't want to do math right now."

Now I think I've heard every excuse to not do school work!

Easy, Easy Knitted Slippers - A Tutorial

My mom taught me how to make these slippers many years ago and I have been teaching Rebekah and some girls how to knit them the last few weeks. They are SO easy and you only need to know 2 stitches - knit and purl.  These would be great for Christmas presents too. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to finish a pair in a day.

This pattern is for regular width feet, you would have to reduce the amount you cast on for children's feet or maybe add more for men's feet.

PATTERN

 

Using 2 balls of 4 ply yarn (they can be the same or different colours) and size 10 (6mm) needles, cast on 29, leaving about a 12 inch yarn tail.

 

Row 2 - knit 9, purl 1, knit 9, purl 1, knit 9

 

Row 1 - knit all across

 

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until slipper is about 3 inches shorter than your foot.  End on row 1.

 

 

Toe;

 

Row 1 - knit 1, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1, repeat across the row.

 

Row 2 - purl 1, knit 1, purl 1, knit 1, repeat across the row.

 

Repeat rows 1 and 2 for 2 1/2 inches.

 

Cut yarn about a foot long and thread through a big needle.

 

Thread yarn back through all the stitches on the needle.

 

 

 

 

 

Then take the slipper off the needle.

 

 

 

Now, pull the yarn as tight as you can to close the toe and sew up to the end of the toe section, or just a bit further.

 

 

 

 

Fold the slipper in half, lining up the ridges and using the yarn from the heel, sew the heel up.

 

Now just enjoy your warm, toasty feet! Or, crochet flowers to attach to your slippers, which I will share later.

End Note: If you want to change the width of these slippers, you need to change it to a number by increments of 6 starting with 29. It has to be an odd number so that the toe pattern works. You can lower it or raise it (23,29,35).  So if you start by casting on 23, your row 2 would be knit 7, purl 1, knit 7, purl 1, knit 7.

 

 

 This post is linked up to - The Modest Mom, The Better Mom, A Mama's Story Homestead Revival Growing Home Thankful Homemaker Raising Homemakers The Ivy Cottage Blog

 

Knitting With The Girls

For the last 3 weeks, on Tuesdays nights, we have been getting together with some homeschool girls to learn to knit slippers.  I used to knit these when I was a teenager and was going to teach Rebekah. Then, I thought, why not invite the homeschool girls to join us. We have had lots of fun and the girls are all doing a great job!

 

 

Here are some of them hard at work.

And everyone else.

 

These are the slippers we are knitting. They are so EASY!

And next week, we will learn how to crochet these  awesome flowers to attach to our slippers and anything else we want ot put them on. I sewed a clasp pin on the back of the one below and attached it to my new cardigan sweater.

 

 

I will post the pattern for these soon.

Homeschool Family Camp

I must say that when I was looking into changing school boards (for the 4th time) last year, it was because of this family camp that I choose Wisdom Homeschooling.  I was really wanting to bring our family together, instead of dividing. Which is what alot of school boards do. They have so many activities for this age, or that age, or just girls or boys or whatever. Our school board's activities are all family orientated.  So, needless to say we were really looking forward to this camp and it didn't disappoint.  We had our own 2 bedroom cabin, right across from the washrooms and kitchen and right on the lake.  It was located at Moose Lake Bible Camp in Alberta and it was beautiful.  We canoed, kayaked, peddle boated (is this a verb?), tried to catch minnows, swam, enjoyed nightly campfires, played mini golf and just enjoyed the beauty of it all.

This is Jacob on the kayak and Rebekah and Larry in the peddle boat

                      

Jacob watching the minnows

Jacob trying to catch minnows

Ben and Jacob playing mini golf

Our cabin

The kitchen in our cabin

The view from our cabin

We were very blessed to have a survivor from the Japanese war against Indonesia in the 40's staying at the camp. She was so kind to share with us the last night around campfire. I'm afraid I don't know much about that war, but Rebekah and I will be looking into it.  Anyway, Indonesia was a dutch settlement back then, she said, and her father worked in the bank. When the Japanese came, they took her and her baby brother and mother to a concentration camp and took her father to build a famous bridge, that I can't remember the name of. Well, her mother had such strong faith in God, that it really got her and her 2 children through that awful time. They saw women getting kicked to death because they didn't show enough respect to the Japanese commandant. Every time something bad was happening, her mother told her, "Just pray". God was there with them. Even when her father died while in captivity with the Japanese, her mother never lost her faith and knew God was in control and was with them. She said the bible verses her father had left with them the day before the Japanese invaded were these;

"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!  Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

Philippians 4:4-6

They took great solace in these verses and lived them out, even while living through a nightmare. She was so encouraging and I really am so happy that we could listen to this piece of history first hand from someone who was there before it is too late.

This weekend was definitely great and we are grateful to the Lord for his blessings.

God bless you.