The Freedom to Change

Well we are only about 6 weeks into the school year and already I am feeling like things just aren't clicking...I love the idea behind the Morning Time basket and we have enjoyed reading together but I also love hands on stuff. I usually always find myself gravitating towards unit Studies. In fact one of my favorite unit studies is Learning Adventures by Dorian Holt. I used this many, many years ago when our oldest set of kiddos were young. The ages for the main curriculum are 4th-8th grade but I did have a couple of younger ones tag along way back when. Now you can buy a supplement to it for younger kids to do along with the older ones. I did purchase that used this year but as I looked at it I decided to save it for when the kids are a little older. B#6 is plugging away using the main Learning Adventures curriculum and is enjoying her time in Ancient Egypt.

Sooo back to my original discontent with school thus far...I decided to look into My Father's World Adventures in U.S. History. I knew I was really ready to move beyond Ancient cultures and into some U.S. history. We have been talking a lot about U.S. history around here lately with some of my children attending a Project Appleseed event. Anyway, as I looked into My Father's World and read THIS blog I realized that in using MFW I could have a Charlotte Mason style curriculum, keep doing our Morning Time together and have some fun, hands on projects for the kids to do. I am looking forward to getting started and you know, having the freedom to change what we are doing to find something that excites us all is one of the great things about homeschooling.

My Pick for a Laminator

I spent this morning working on some things to keep my Preschooler busy during school time with the older ones. Pinterest, of course, being one of the tools I used today but once I had some things printed out I got our one of my favorite tools...my laminator. I don't know why I love to laminate things but I could just go around the house laminating things if I thought I could get away with it. It seems that every time I read someone's blog about their recommendations for a laminator they always mention the Scotch brand laminator which uses certain size pouches depending on your project. I personally don't want to buy different pouches as I never know what size I might be laminating. A friend introduced me to the Zyron laminator many years ago. This laminator is such a basic machine and so very easy to use that my children all love to help me laminate things. There is no heat involved with it so I don't have to worry about anyone getting burned. The one pictured below is a newer version than what I have but it works the same. You can buy these new or used on Amazon for as low as $8.49. Even if you don't homeschool, having a laminator on hand can be so useful.

In case you have some young ones at home and would like some busy time activities below are some links to some ideas for you. If you have a laminator, have a fun time laminating them to make them last.

 

Little Minds at Work..http://littlemindsatwork.blogspot.ca/2015/08/explore-tubs-freebies.html

Tot School...http://www.totschooling.net/2015/12/cookies-number-matching-printable.html

Math Geek Mama....http://mathgeekmama.com/free-skittles-pattern-cards-printable/

 

Of course there are tons of other freebies on Pinterest that you can print out and laminate for you kiddos. If you have older children in school maybe you want to laminate chore charts, school schedules, or enrichment activities for after school to help keep them off of screen time.

A Few of Our Favorite Scripture Memory Tools

Like most moms I really want my children to be hiding God's Word in their heart and mind. I definitely struggle with memorizing verses so I don't want it to be such a struggle for my children. So I thought I would share a few of our favorite Scripture memory tools

By far my favorite is THIS MOVIE by the Moore family. This is our "go-to" movie when B#12 gets up too early in the morning and needs some snuggle time or when mom needs to get a shower while the big kids do their chores. It is such a simple and sweet movie with no other talking than the Scripture verse of the alphabet featured in each small vignette. It has even helped my 14 and 15 year old with memorizing as they hear it in the background when the littles are watching it.

Another one of my favorites is an oldie in our house. We used to listen to it when my oldest children were young. It is a CD called "Sing the Word A-Z" by the Harrow family. You can find it  HERE.

And then finally we have enjoyed working our way through "My ABC Bible Verses" by Susan Hunt.  I guess you can tell we enjoy tools that take us through the alphabet. It seems to help us with recall better and I have lots of littles so it seems like we are always working on our ABCs. Amazon carries it HERE.

There you have it, a very short post on a few tools to help with hiding God's word in our hearts.

"Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee".  Psalm 119:11

School Is Just Around the Corner

Up here in the Northwest we don't start school till September and we typically school until June. That was difficult for me after growing up in the South. Every year I would complain to my friends in May that I was ready to be finished schooling for the summer since that was what I had grown up experiencing. I have adapted now and I love starting school in September! So we are in our last days of Summer and I am mentally consumed with preparing for a new school year. I have done a few things to physically prepare but most my time so far has been spent reading and thinking about what I want this school year to look like.

You see my heart desires to have a Restful, Lovely, Relaxing school year. I have visions of just being with my kiddos piled up on the floor reading, reading, reading. That is actually what I wanted last year but with the addition of Baby #12 I found myself just sliding back in to my usual ways of listing out on the white board what the kids needed to accomplish each day and fuss at them from the kitchen to stick to their work. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted for our year.

But God in His graciousness allows us to start again fresh, letting go of regrets and refocusing on a new year! One of the things that God has brought to my attention this year is the concept of "Morning Time". Type it in on Pinterest and you will find lots of information about it but basically it is a time to gather everyone together(morning or not) and learn together. Most things that you will read about Morning Time talk about using that together time to focus on Truth, Beauty and Goodness. I just LOVE that. Sometimes I feel like I am just throwing information at my kids without really providing any time for discussion or relating it to anything. There are things I have wanted to do with them that just don't seem to fit in the busyness of the day, like Nature Study, Scripture Memory, Poetry, Character Study, Hymn Study and Art.  History always ended up being hit or miss with my littles so having a time for that and Read Alouds was important to me as well.

I purchased the book "Your Morning Time" by Pam Barnhill. I am working on reading it through for the second time. In the book she walks you through the "Why" of Morning Time, shows you how you can plan your Morning Time and gives some suggestions for resources you can use, although you are free to include whatever you choose.

I am one who likes to use my own things so I scoured my bookshelves to find things I have wanted to read with my children and added them to a shelf to remind me that I want to incorporate them at some point. They were things like Nature Readers that I have collected through the years, some animal books from Usborne and a History audio that I downloaded from Character Concepts. I also purchased a set of Art cards from Usborne books to use as a very light Art study. There are lots of things you can do for Hymn study and Character Study so it is just a matter of choosing what you like.

 

One idea that is mentioned in the book that could be used for anyone, whether you do "Morning Time" or not is the idea of a Loop Schedule. Basically choosing the things that need to be done everyday which for us is Bible, Math, Copywork, and a Read aloud. Then for our Loop Schedule we will do Hymn study and History one day, Nature Study and Poetry the next day. Followed by Character Study and Oral Grammar, then Picture Study and Oral Math the final two days. We will only school 4 days a week and have a fun Co-op day with other families on the 5th day. What I love about this Loop schedule is that instead of assigning days to certain subjects then having our schedule railroaded by doctor appointments or getting the opportunity to go somewhere fun with Daddy, we can just pick up where we left off in the schedule despite what day of the week it is. I am also planning to keep a map in my Morning Time basket to pull out when we get the opportunity to locate somewhere from our reading.

My hope is that by doing a couple of special things each day we can just rest and enjoy our time together in the morning before heading to the table to do our everyday subjects.

I hope that you too may be encouraged to look into using a Morning Time with your children and enjoying searching out things to enjoy together that will inspire Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

I want to give credit to Joy at Artful Homemaking for originally introducing this topic to me. Her post is written so much better than I can explain so be sure to hop on over there and give it a read.

A "Living" and Lovely Education

I am excited about our upcoming school year but I am struggling with the old tug of war in my head of academics versus relaxing and loveliness. I am reading a lot about using a Morning Basket approach which I will probably blog about later but for now I am loving just reading and thinking on THIS post of the Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth blog. Be sure to check out her blog, especially on her Home- Making Mondays link-up.

My Foray into Essential Oils

Not too long ago I signed up for a membership with Young Living Essential oils. I had been reading different books and blogs on essential oils but kept dragging my feet about using anything beyond Lavender. I have been enjoying learning more and even branched out recently into making some essential oil blends in roller bottles. Now I know that some of you have been using oils for a long time but for a newbie like me its the little things that are exciting.

I recently wrote on my Facebook page about the baby having a giant sliver in his toe from our deck. I was really dreading having to hold him down while the hubster dug it out with the man's tool of choice, a needle. Yes, I know you are all shaking your head at the truth of that last statement! Anyway, in my experimenting I had made an Owie Blend, recipe can be found HERE, so I thought slivers definitely count as an Owie. I rolled it on his toe before bed and then again in the morning, then promptly forgot about it but when I remembered later in the day I found it to be gone. Yea! No needle needed.

My next victim, I mean opportunity came after B#4 went on a Search and Rescue hike and came back with some bug bites. Amazingly enough I had a "Something Bit Me" roller bottle blend from THIS blog. She tells me that it worked great.

I have also been having her(when she remembers) use some Thieves and Frankincense on a bum toe that she got on the same hike. So far she has managed to steer clear of the doctor's office for it so I think if she remembers to apply it we will have some success there.

My last attempt so far was for some "that time of the month" cramping and although it was only used once so far I was told that it definitely helped. For that blend I used THIS recipe.

So far those have been my only experiments but I feel that they helped us out and hopefully it will encourage and inspire someone else to keep on learning and give essential oils a try.

How about you? What all have you used essential oils for and what are your favorites?

Never too Old to Learn Something New

I recently had the privilege of attending the OCEANetwork Conference in Portland. It was a wonderful two days of speakers who were all so very down to earth. Everyone loves listening to Todd Wilson, http://familymanweb.com/blog/ and http://familymanweb.com/. His wit and true life experiences as a homeschool dad are spot on and his encouragement to homeschool families to stop comparing ourselves to others is so timely for me.

I chose to focus my two days on Child Training workshops. I feel like I am in this funny, starting over phase of my life. Having raised our first set of 6 children to middle school on up to graduation, I am refocusing on training younger ones again with our second set of 6.

The first day I went to a workshop by Vicki Bentley, http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=479057 and https://www.hslda.org/speakers/speaker.asp?s=29 on getting our children to help out at home. Now my kiddos already help out at home, quite a lot actually but as the title of this blog post says we are never too old to learn. Mrs. Bentley had several good things to share. She has some books available for purchase as well. I really love her reminders that we need to teach our children what we expect of them. She talks about having cards made out with all of the steps necessary for our children to clean an area or do a chore the way we want them to do it. I found that to be a wonderful suggestion for my boys. It seems like inevitably when it comes time for them to clean their room they can't remember what needs to be done. So I came home and made up a card for the things they need to do in their room. I won't say that it helps them to stay on track but I can at least go in there and point to the card to see what they need to do next.  I believe that she has cards already made up in one of her books for you to use if you choose to.

She also had a workshop on being a Joyful Mother. I didn't make it to that one but did buy the MP3 of it to listen to. I know that is something I need to work on. I can easily slip into grumpy mother mode whose main focus is the laundry monster that needs to be slain on a daily basis.

I spent the rest of the day roaming through the Exhibit Hall looking at all that the Vendors had to share and spending a bit of money shopping for school items. There was also a Used Curriculum sale where I found a few things. I took the baby and B# 6 with me the first day so I didn't try to cram too much in that day.

The second day I went by myself and thoroughly enjoyed not having to share my hummus with the baby! I chose to go two workshops by the same speaker, Pam Forster who writes and publishes so many good things for child training. One of the workshops was actually called "Child Training Bootcamp". You can peruse her items HERE.

Mrs. Forster also spoke about things that we do that can actually lead our children away from Jesus. What I really took away from that session and the whole conference in general was that as a parent if we are not in God's Word then we do not have anything to pass on to our children. So I am determined, with God's strength, to be in THE Word everyday and find as many ways as possible to pass on to my children what I am learning in Scripture.

So why am I writing all of this to you today? Well, to encourage you to never think you are too old to learn something new or that you know it all already. And to encourage you to check out the OCEANetwork homeschool conference next year. We all need some encouragement.

16 Months

I can't believe I have not blogged in 16 months, almost to the day. As you can tell from my last post 16 months ago brought baby number 12 in to our lives and it has been a wild ride so far. I guess one of the main reasons I haven't blogged has been my health. After having him the high blood pressure that I usually get during pregnancy decided to stick around and plague me. Sleep was very elusive, still is  most days but during that post partum time I was really struggling with insomnia and anxiety. Things have gotten better for the most part but I do sometimes have bad days.

Even after 16 months and weaning him he isn't much of a sleeper so as cute as he is I am usually quite exhausted. However I am hoping to pick up the "pen" again and work at trying to do this blogging thing better. First on the agenda is to figure out why I can't get my photos to work on here...

I have lots of posts floating around in my head so if you think about me check back to see if I have made any progress.