Back online soon.... I hope

Raising Real Men Boot Camp

My husband and I are in week 2 of the Raising Real Men Boot Camp. And have found it very helpful so far!!! Here is just a highlight of what we have gotten from both sessions so far:

• It is NORMAL for my 10 year old to be so absent minded.

My Solution: send him off with a note card with short specific tasks to do!! This will HELP him stay focused and when he DOES get sidetracked, encouragingly help refocus him!!!! 

• It is NOT NORMAL to expect him to sit down and just do his work.

My Solution: we are packing up the workbooks for a while!!! And YES this is very hard to do for me and a complete experiment that I P-R-A-Y bears fruit!!!! 

• I should STOP frustrating my 7 year old with penmanship and give his mind and body a chance to develop. 

My Solution: relax and do just as I did with 10yo, when he is ready for cursive then I will focus on penmanship. He is an excellent reader and can write, he just doesn't form the letters correctly. I know this will be a little frustrating when he moves into cursive, it was with 10yo, but not as frustrating as it is to get 7yo to write right now!!!! 

• There is a reason that 4 yo daughter isn't fitting into the mold her brothers made, she's different!!! 

My Solution: Her educational needs and styles are going to be different than the boys and so I should just get that curriculum for K even though "I didn't do that with the boys!!!!"

• Start with the end in mind!

My Solution: Even though my children are only in 5th, 2nd, and Pre-K taking a look at what they will need to complete High School has lifted a huge burden off my shoulders. I can relax now cause it doesn't seem like a never ending path to no where!!!!! 

I can't wait till next week and the good news is you can still join us for the Boot Camp: Raising Real Men. It meets on Monday nights at 8pm EST. I would encourage every parent with a boy, homeschooled or not, to check out the blog Raising Real Men. It will be time well spent!!!!

Water Paints

In preparation for starting our The World's Greatest Artists Unit Study, we made our own water colors!!! It was alot of fun making and we got our recipes from Kids' Crazy Concoctions.

We also tried our hand at finger paint but it didn't turn out so well. We haven't used the water colors yet because I am still waiting for the books I ordered to get here. Seems I sent them all the way across the Pacific Ocean to my old address. Sigh. We are using the "extra" time to get caught up on some fun projects and I look forward to sharing hem with you in the coming weeks!!!! I got side tracked with my geography pages and hope to have those completed by next week, but no promises!!!! Happy Homeschooling!!!!!!

A Year Like No Other

We are enjoying our last week of Christmas Break as well as breaking in a new schedule!!!!

Before 2011 ended , my husband and I sat down to reflect on what we needed to change in our family and how we could do it. Our biggest concern was that we were not reading God's Word daily. Not as individuals and not as a family!!!!!

Since we already had The One Year Bible for Children I decided to alter our schedule for one year and see if this really would be
A Year Like No Other and we could instill in our children the importance and value of God's Word.

Over the next year, our family will be rising up at 7AM Mon-Fri and 730AM Sat & Sun to gather around the kitchen table to read from the Bible. Since my husband wont be able to read with us during the week as he has to leave by 7AM, he will be wake the kids up as I prepare cups of hot cocoa for them to enjoy.

As the cocoa warms their bellies, I pray that God's Word warms their hearts!!