Week of 10/20- 10/28/2014

What a roller coaster of a week!  Last week was filled with anticipation of our friends' pending arrival.  No one could focus on any school work on Monday, so we stopped at lunch time in order to avoid any unnecessary frustration.  What a great time we had playing and catching up with the Nitschke's!  We were sad to see them leave, but excited for them to be reunited with their Marine.

We also learned the frustrations that being a long-distance landlord can bring.  We had a door that needs to be replaced at the old house.  It wasn't that we minded having that taken care of, it was just that being six hundred miles away, we felt helpless on where to even begin.  Thankfully, things are getting taken care of.

I am ashamed to admit that I was mad at God for allowing this to happen, and I let it affect my mood for awhile.  Even though I was happy my friend was seeing her son, I was sad and feeling sorry for myself.  I was lonely because how often does a friend feel that you are important enough to travel six hundred miles to visit?  I wasn't sure the next time I'd see any of my dear friends in person and I just let the poor attitude take over.  Add in the worrying about the expense of the rental repair and I was just plain mad.  Why has God allowed all of this to happen to us?  Haven't we been through enough?  Well, God is sovereign.  He doesn't owe us any explanations on why things happen.  He doesn't guarantee us a life of prosperity and riches, at least not in this life.   Of course, He wants to bless us, but sometimes He allows us to go through things so we can come out better, more able to accomplish the purpose He has for our life.

So by last Wednesday night, I was not in any mood to go to the family night of worship at church.  However, I knew I needed to be there, and it was important to show our kids that we need to worship God no matter the circumstances.  By choosing to be obedient and worship God despite my feelings, I allowed God to minister to my spirit.  We can't always go by our feelings, because those change from day to day.  Sometimes minute to minute.  What we can rely on though, is that God's love in unchanging, unfailing, and unending.

Over the weekend, Matt took Jacob to a bonfire for the middle schoolers.  Funny story- this was called "Fun at the Nunns."  Jacob had been talking about it for awhile.  The whole time I thought they were going to a convent and the nuns were going to make chili and have a bonfire for them...  Well, imagine my surprise when I got the invitation card and realized it was Nunns not nuns.  Can you tell I grew up in a Catholic community?  Jacob had a lot of fun at the bonfire.  They played football, went on a hayride, and ate yummy food...lots of it.  I am so happy that had something fun to do with his church friends.

Here's a summary of what we did in school last week.  I slacked a little on the picture taking.

Jacob has been working on percents in math.  He has been gathering information for his research paper and will be starting on his rough drafts next week.  We finished up our study of ancient Egypt and started reading about Africa long ago.  I really enjoy our history studies.  In science we've been learning about ocean life.

We finished up Charlotte's Web on Friday and had a Charlotte's Web party where we watched the movie and found similarities and differences between the book and movie.

Charlotte and her web

The kids have started reading Stuart Little now,  They seem to be really enjoying it.

Evelyn has been learning about different measurements in math.  She's still working on singular/plural words in language, as well as contractions.  In history she is learning different state locations and reading about George Washington.  We read about the forest community in science.  Evelyn explored the woods beside our house when her friend, Yanna, was visiting.  They found several creatures.

Aiden had the sight words but and she this week.  He worked more on his reading skills.  He measured different objects with a ruler in math.  He even did a fun art project.  As you can see Spiderman also did some school work this week.

graphing our objects after we measured them

letter writing practice

number puzzle

indian vest art project

cutting practice

number writing

counting practice

Claire focused on the letter K.  K is for kite.

letter matching

kite color matching

kite coloring page

kite puzzle

kite pattern blocks

k tracing

kite magnet page

We celebrated letter K with a K party.  We ate kielbasa for lunch and had kit-kats while watching Liberty's Kids (hey, it had a k in it).  

That pretty much sum it up.  Only a few more weeks left until a much needed six week break.  Have a great weekend!

Experiencing God At Home Review

I know I did a post awhile back about something that had struck me in the book Experiencing God At Home by Tom and Richard Blackaby.  I finally finished reading the entire book a couple months ago.  (I know, it took me awhile to finish the whole thing.)  It was not as easy of a read as I had anticipated, but it definitely had many points I needed to read.  There was a lot of advice on raising godly children that was very helpful.  Here was a highlight that really grabbed my attention.

• God loves to act after we pray and just in time.  He is rarely early and never late.  Boy, did I need that one.  We all know God can do anything, but sometimes He wants us to pray and ask.  Is it really that hard?  No.  God loves us.  We are His children and He wants us to communicate our needs to Him.  It is true, God rarely is early.  I wish he were, because it would be easier.  However, His timing is always perfect.  I find that when our situations get desperate, and there is nothing anyone but God can do is when He likes to act.  

If you're raising a family, this book would be a good one to add to your family library.  Here's what the back of the book says: 

    

    "Amidst society's rapid secularization and increasingly anti-Christian stance, there are plenty of 

     parents who sincerely want to raise their children to love and serve God and to experience God's 

     blessing upon their lives.  

     

     Still, the statistics are sobering.  Rising divorce rates, the bullying epidemic, multiplying online 

     distractions, and dangerous cyber addictions have our kids facing temptations and pressures we

     never imagined at their age.

     The challenges are many, but solutions are available.

     In fact, the Bible has shown us the darker things get, the more determined God is to use Christian 

     families as lights on a hill.  God is just as interested in working through your family today to

     extend His kingdom as He was with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Mary, and Joseph.  

     

     Experiencing God at Home gives you the tools that will help your family be God-centered,

     God-directed, and God-blessed despite a world increasingly secular.

     Ask God to open your heart as you open your home to His guidance and blessings."

Week of 10/10- 10/17/2014

Ever have one of those weeks that just seems to go so slowly?  That's how this past week felt.  Not necessarily in a bad way, it was just slow.  Sunday we went to Red Top Mountain State Park for a picnic with our Sunday school class.  The weather was overcast, but we had a nice time.  We definitely prefer the view at Fort Mountain State Park though. 

When you're on a tight budget, board games are a great source of family fun.  If you knew how many times a week my family plays Monopoly, you would think we're nuts.  Someone has finally decided that he is big enough to join in on the fun.

 

Today we did a huge monthly grocery trip.  While we were in Rome, we tried out a different restaurant called Cookout.   They have burgers, dogs, chicken sandwiches and BBQ pork.  The prices were SO reasonable and the food was really good.  We fed all six of us for $20...and we got a TON of food.  After we were done in Aldi, we saw part of an airshow.   The kids enjoyed seeing the planes that looked like they were falling from the sky.  On the way home, we noticed that a few leaves are finally starting to change their color around here.  Hopefully we can make a trip to Fort Mountain to see the beautiful colors soon.

AWANA has been going great.  One of my students was very excited to share that he received Christ as his Savior last weekend.  That made my heart so happy.  I love sharing the gospel with them each week.

This week I got word that my grandma was lifeflighted because she had some medical complications.  She will be in Iowa for about five more weeks.  She has been through so much this year.  I am praying she makes a speedy recovery.  I hope to visit her if we are able to make it up at Thanksgiving.

We had a pretty good week of school.  Miss Claire finished the letter J.  J is for JESUS!  She and Aiden both learned some J Spanish words and said their J Bible verses.  

Jesus letter match

Baby Jesus cut and paste

do-a-dot

Lion coloring paper (We were working on neatness.  Lately she's become a little sloppy in order to get done quicker.)

Our daily learning notebooks.  They trace the day of the week and color in a bubble with the date.  They also write the number of the week, and write it.  We fill in a square to chart how many days of school we've completed.  We've done 60 so far.  One the next page is the number of the week that they have to trace and the last page is the shape of the week which they also trace.  In the front pocket of our binders we also have a chart we fill in each day to chart the weather.  They were excited because Tuesday was the first rainy day that they got to fill in. (It has rained since we started in July, just not at the time we do the weather.)  There is also a calendar page where they write the date in the square.

Lacing beads

J color match

J magnet page

Aiden had the sight words was & the this week.  He has really been improving in his ability to sound words out.  He gets so excited when he figures it out.  I love it!  No way would I want someone else to have the joy of teaching him that.  I've been trying to throw in some extra fall themed worksheets to change things up. 

graphing pumpkins

sight word practice

beginning sound recognition

ABC connect the dot

cutting practice  (Aiden cut out combs and he and Evelyn were combing their hair.)

color by sight word (like color by number)

Jacob and Evelyn studied VanGogh's painting Sunflowers.  They also listened to a classical piece by Johannes Brahms.  We played music bingo to see which instruments we heard in the piece.  We're getting closer and closer to finishing Charlotte's Web in literature. 

I introduced Evelyn to the world of equations this week.  It's basically simple algebra.  She was not as excited about it as I was, but she is getting the hang of it.  We've been discussing the meaning of singular and plural in Language Arts and how to make certain words plural.  We're reading about William Penn in history and finished up reading about pond life in science.  

Jacob just started a unit on the ocean in science.  We also just started a unit on Africa in history.  We've been reading about ancient Egypt.  It's been a blast.  Jacob has also memorized the Preamble to the Constitution and is now moving on to the first amendment.  We've been continuing researching Operation Desert Storm for his research report.  We're working on percentages in math.  

Working on flashcards while I help Aiden graph his pumpkins

We finished up this week with a J party.  We had jambalaya while watching Tom and Jerry.  

I will not have typical post next week as we are not doing a full week of school.  We are having friends from Ohio stay with us for a couple days, so we are going to enjoy visiting with them.  I may do a book review post though since I have finished a couple of them recently.  Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Week of 10/2- 10/9/2014

We've had a great week around here.  The temperatures are wonderful- upper 70's to mid- 80's.  We did have some crazy storms roll through this past week though.  On Monday afternoon, we had a pretty big hailstorm.  It only lasted about two minutes, but the hail was nickel-sized so it made plenty of noise.  Praise God there was no damage!  One minute it was sunny, and the next minute there was a big flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, followed by the hail.

This picture of Evelyn holding the hail made it on the Atlanta news.  She thought that was awesome.

My sister sent me some ultrasound pictures.  It was great to catch a glimpse of my niece/nephew!!  I can't wait to see my sister's baby bump if we make it back up for Thanksgiving.  

I have been enjoying teaching my third grade AWANA class about sin and salvation.  I love hearing them recite their verses to me each week.  This week we did an experiment about sin and how God cleanses it from our life when we accept Him into our lives.  I put some iodine in a jar.  I added a penny to show that we can't buy salvation.  I added a Bible verse card so show that going to church won't save us.  Then I added a spoon to show that doing good works like helping your mom with the dishes won't take the sin away.  The only way to be cleansed from our sin is through God.  I used bleach to represent God. Immediately once I added the bleach to the jar, the water cleared up.  no sign of sin anywhere.  They really enjoyed that visual.  

Our kids must have been super focused during school this week, because we got done earlier than normal most days, which fine by me because the weather was so great.  In our group studies, we're still reading Charlotte's Web.  After the skewer/ string web-making debacle, we decided to draw our webs this time.  The kids each chose a word to write in them just like Charlotte did in the book.  Jacob and Evelyn got to paint their own version of one of VanGogh's famous paintings.  

The original is in the middle.  Jacob wanted me to notify everyone that he did his very best, but he is not an artist.  I just think he doesn't have the patience for painting, and that's ok.  

Jacob started working on ratios and percentages in math this week.  he seems to be doing well with them.  He has started his research for his Language Arts research report.  He chose the topic: Operation Desert Storm.  We ordered a couple books for him to read since our local library is closed all month for remodeling.  I think learning about the Middle East in history a while back may have helped him become interested in the Persian Gulf War.  We just finished up our unit on Asia today.  Jacob scored a 96% on his test!!  This past week we read about China and the far east.  He is now able to identify those countries on a map along with their capitals.  We're finished up our study of rocks, minerals, and fossils in science and reviewing for a test this coming Monday.  We read about different accounts of dinosaurs in the Bible.  Adam, Noah, and Job were just a few of the men who saw dinosaurs.  We also learned that the Bible mentions dragons.  I always thought they were a mythical creature that never existed.  I learned something new too!

Evelyn just finished up a science unit on oceans, and is starting a new one on ponds.  Today we compared oceans and ponds.  I never knew there was such a thing as pondweed.  It's like seaweed, but it grows in freshwater.  We have been reading about William Penn in history, and today we learned the locations of eleven of the United States.  In Language Arts we have been studying possessives, and today we introduced the topic of plurals and possessives.  She also did a little creative writing as well.  She has been continuing to work on her long division in math, as well as memorize the six multiplication family.  

Aiden has been breezing right through his kindergarten lessons.  I am thinking of adding a few more things just to bulk up the curriculum and challenge him more.  He's been working on counting to 100, learning his sight words (So and me were this week's words.)  I was very proud of him for memorizing this week's Bible verse.  Here's a few of the other things he worked on this week:

Mazes- this kid LOVES mazes.  These ones are part of his curriculum, but I think they are too easy since he did more challenging ones last year.

He completed his final shape in his shape book.

Working on simple picture addition

Number puzzle

practiced writing his sight words

Telling time worksheet

cutting activity

He wanted me to take a picture of the trains he cut out.

Counting money worksheet

This week was Letter H week in preschool.  Miss Claire had lots of fun doing all her hippo activities.  She also memorized her Bible verse, along with her AWANA verse.  I love being able to instill the Word of God in their hearts.  

Hippo lacing

Hippo size sort

Letter matching

Hippo building- she had to copy the pattern

Bambino Luk puzzle- Aiden had these in his preschool curriculum last year and Claire always liked watching him do those, so I pulled them out for her.  She spends lots of time doing different ones.  It has a self check on the back (which is pictured).  If all dots match, then the puzzle is correct.

Do-a-dot

Things that start with H: Hat and horse

Color match

H Poke page

Horse sticker activity (had these left from her horse birthday party last year, and thought they would work for letter H week)

H alpha pattern blocks

H cutting practice

Hippo cut and paste

Hippo graphing

magnet page

Of course, we ended today with a letter H party.  We ate Homemade potato soup and Hot cocoa.  I had to get creative and make do with what we had, thus the homemade acting as our H.  The kids didn't care.  After dinner they watched Handy Manny.  

I tried a new recipe for potato soup and of course, put my own spin on it.  Turned out pretty good. 

I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to be able to bring up our children in the ways of the Lord.  It's such a blessing to be able to give them a good, godly education, while having them home with us.   I don't take it for granted at all!!