Big Universe, Small World... ©2013-2020

I often sit back at the end of any day and think I have not accomplished much that day. Today was a homeschooling and work combo day...meaning my homeschool child went to work with me and we did both!! Both before work and after this morning, we went to urgent care about my foot/ankle which has been determined to be sprained, but not in such a manner as to need splinting...so, I get to walk in pain!  We went over some of the homeschool assignments and off to work we went. I felt we had not accomplished much in the development of homeschooling today...but when I write it down, I often find it was quite much more than I was aware...  So, here is our day: 5 units of science completed, with activities and assessments and fun sheets. 6 pages of Anne Frank read and discussed. It does not seem like much in writing to me, either. Albeit, the science text and all activities for the year are now complete. This left me churning in my mind whether to go ahead and order the Physi...

The child built a birdhouse the other day.  He did this while I was on a conference call and when I came to life from the phone, I found he had completed the entire project. I was quite proud of him for this. He did a great job!

Today one of the girls laid what we are sure is a triple yolker...we are used to double yolk eggs by now, as one of the girls seems to do this routinely. Looking at this egg, I am glad the Lord did not design women to lay eggs!!   These are today's eggs. The brown egg layer is typical size for her. The two creamy colored egg layers are smaller egg sizes.  This is the stash from the refrigerator. The far left egg is a double yolker. There are three double yolkers in the back row on the right.  Just for purposes of contrasting the egg sizes...the first is a double yolker. The second egg is from today.  The other three on the left are regular size eggs for our chickies!!  The one from today is a ginormous egg. This is today's egg first - a triple, then a double, then a single.  See how Huge ??

In March of last school year, we made the decision to homeschool the youngest child this year. I heard tales from others of how this would affect every dynamic of your life and forever change you, but I never knew what far reaching impact it would have. Everything is for the better, even on days when it seems for naught. It has been a whirlwind of two days for us. Yesterday began with a trip to a fellow homeschooler's home, where the children went on a desperate hunt for a missing bantam chicken, Peck!!   I do not think it was found before we left the home. The child and I had to make a spiritual journey to return things that belonged elsewhere to where they belonged...cleansing is good for the soul. We went to visit several sights. We tried to call my grandmother. We returned an unneeded item. We went to the library. We went to get medicine at the pharmacy. We went to the grocery store and completed the shopping for the week for $68. Yeah!  We went to an artisan mark...

We are continuing to read along in . Connections made between literacy and the world for the child include noting AF would be the same age as his great grandmother, which tends to place a bit of reality on the reading/listening to the diary. He has connected that our ancestral studies of the family reveal there is some strong Jewish and Hebrew lineage, which affects him in the thought that this could of been people he knew or might have been inadvertently related to, albeit distantly. We have discussed how the laws were stupidly wide-sweeping to the extent that even people of suspected Jewish descent were often sent to concentration camps as well. The threat was real . We discussed pogroms the other night. Tonight our discussions were on the topics of the meaning of the words: scullery, florin, lumbago; the Zionist Movement, the Dutch Underground Resistance Movement, and some other Dutch words we had to decipher in the read aloud. I have to remind him that I was in 4th grade when I...

I have been behind on grading or posting grades to a spreadsheet. I am not sure where the organized person I typically am disappeared to in this homeschooling mommy. I have graded his assignments, but have not posted them or cataloged them. So tonight, as I come to realize we are nearing the end of our first semester...decided to get caught up. Tonight, he officially has spreadsheets for all subject areas for both first and second quarter. I did manage to set up the third quarter spreadsheet for one subject, but no others. All grades are entered for the first semester. Assignments are logged waiting for grades for the few assignments left to complete. As I am completing this, the child realizes how far along we have progressed already and wants to know the accuracy of such a count. I report to him with the completion of 4 more preAlgebra sections and half of the latest Social Studies unit...his semester is complete. He looked amazed and reported about how the public school here loc...

We are starting to read The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank.   Mind you this is not the book of choice of my young son...it is a book I chose for him. We started this year with 12 books on a list I made for him. These were books which I knew as a teacher to be classics, books my husband or I read as children that we know to be part of life skills or classics, books that come and go on the banned list for whatever stupid reason of the day. The goal was to read 8 out of the 12 books minimally, but to aim for all of them. The homeschool association told me we might be biting off a bit much for our first year homeschooling. I figure we only have so many years to cram all these lovely gems of literature into his schooling and we need to get in gear. Thus far we have completed 4 of the books on the list...one of the books was two short stories rolled into one book/literature study. So technically, we are on target to be half-way through the list of books, if we want to have minim...

Since I have encountered many things about this decision this year...it seemed like a great thing to blog about... Christ centered: 1. God entrusted me to care for this child and guide his growth...I am therefore entrusted as well to educate and develop his mind. 2.  I want my child away from secular-minded education as much as possible. My family did not evolve from primates. I was formed by my Lord from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life of the Spirit into my lungs by the Lord. My world did not spring forth magically by a huge explosion. My world and universe were carefully planned and created by a loving Father in 6 days and on the seventh day He rested. I know from whence I came. I know where my soul and spirit shall go when I depart. Any thoughts or educational theory that departs from the teaching is not to be imparted any longer upon my child. 3.  Education should enhance the Word, not detract from it. Less Anxiety and worry: 1. No meds for...

We often wonder what to get the nieces and nephews for Christmas...and with the addition of the fifth shortly after Christmas...I know next year we will wonder this more.  I guess I should not say that we wonder about these things...as it is me who does the shopping and what not. So, I found this on another blog I read and I love it...the girls are getting tutus...I do not know what the boys are getting it...but the girls are now taken care of (after I make these that is!!)...

The name of this post is self-explanatory!!  I am not sure when we discovered the puppy loved to eat corn, but she does! This is my son's therapy dog and of course, one of the most important members of our family!

And for final laughs...one of mom in the tunnel slide...the expression says it all...no further explanation needed!!  Fun afternoon, overall!!

Okay - let me start this post by stating...we do not do halloween in my my household.  I get that this will follow with a barrage of emails, as it does usually when I post anything of the above, about how and why, etc. This is a personal decision made many years ago for my family when I became saved. As a Christian, it is important to me that my children do not celebrate a pagan ritual or celebration. Many people will say that most of the Christian holidays are done at the same time on the Gregorian calendar as the original scheduled yearly pagan festivals and such. My content to this is that it is not as important when we celebrate the important points in the life of Christ, as so much that we recognize the importance of their contribution in society, world order, and our lives and respect the significance of such on whatever day it is revered. That being stated...we do not do halloween in my house. And no, I did not accidentally not capitalize the 'h' in halloween. It is a ...

Tonight in the world of mathematics     ...it seems as though we will remain on the lovely fraction chapter for a little while more. The child mastered how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators the other day...as long as they were solid fractions and not mixed numbers and involved no regrouping for subtraction. Oh my, did that throw a monkey wrench in the entire equation (haha!!)... Who knew...???  So, today and tonight we spent time subtracting mixed number fractions with regrouping and multiplying mixed number fractions. Mind you, he can do anything on that blooming magical calculator.  But, I want him to understand the concept behind the buttons he is pressing. I want him to know the mental computation behind what he is writing on the paper.  Let's also add to the mix that he seems to have never heard of cross reducing when multiplying     ...can you imagine what will happen when we get to eliminating multiple e...

Interesting day today... Worked at SCAIHS for awhile today...had the child in tow...love being able to take him to work with me. :) I worked and he sat on the other side of the desk and did his homeschool studies...at least some of them today!  He accomplished completion of three lessons of spelling and vocabulary studies, 2 grammar lessons, and made a map outline of the original thirteen colonies. We plan to use this to make a graphic relief map from a flour paste mixture this weekend. We went to the nutritionist after this, as the pediatrician is concerned about the child's weight. In discussing what we currently eat, as contrasted to what we used to eat, it was interesting to note some of the looks or comments from the nutritionist. :)  She liked that we grow some of the vegetables we eat or get the fresh from the market each week or trade friends for their vegetables. She liked that we have the chickens for fresh eggs every day.   She asked whe...

This is not my puppy, but it looks just like my puppy...had to share!!

Homeschool rocks my socks!                         And, it makes me sad and MmAaDd!! We are progressing well. The child has completed about a third of one year. We are into the section in PreAlgebra now where he is reviewing adding and subtracting fractions mith mixed denominators. He can do lowest common multiples mentally. He looks at the numbers and just calls out the LCM within seconds. I am so amazed by how his brain works and how well he picks up things. The thing is, he could not add and subtract the unlike denominator fractions. He asked if we could slow down in math about a week ago and spend some more time on these sections. Of course, we can!!  He was concerned that we would have to keep moving forward. He discussed how in school it did not matter before if he had understood or not, because they always just kept moving forward. He thought I would ...