"Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." Ephesians 4:29 (NASB)
"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." Proverbs 31:10-12 (NIV)
"She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness." Proverbs 31:26-27 (NIV)
Good morning to everyone! It's not quite fully daylight outside yet. I woke up early this morning - completely on my own. So I was able to spend some time in Bible study before Sugarplum woke up. We've had some sickness go through the family this past week and half. Everyone is on the mend and I thank the Lord for that!
Our Thanksgiving celebrations went well. We enjoyed our family celebration here at home. Our dinner turned out wonderful! My hubby's turkey was so flavorful and moist! He did a wonderful job! I made the rest of the dishes and they all turned out delicious! Then our time spend at my sister's house with all of my family on Thanksgiving day was wonderful. We enjoyed a meal together and then some of us played cards. I enjoyed that so much! That's kind of a family tradition I'd say. My sister also put in the movie White Christmas. That too is a Thanksgiving day tradition in our family - watching that movie. It was so nice to celebrate with my family after having missed these family celebrations for Thanksgiving for several years. I am so thankful to be living close to my family again!
As far as my goal to get ahead in some school work preparations......well that didn't happen! I totally ended up taking the entire week off from school things. And I think I needed to do that! I spent some time yesterday and was able to get some preparations done for this upcoming week. Tonight, there is supposed to be a show of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter lined up in the sky to be seen by the human eye alone without any telescope. I plan to have the children go outside to see this site as it will probably be a long time before it can be seen again like this without any telescope. Just another wonderful educational opportunity that we can all take advantage of. God's creation is so awesome!
This week, I have some things I want to get accomplished. We may be having some guests come up this weekend to visit. So I want to get some remaining cleaning done as well as some organizing. I also need to do some menu planning for when our guests are here. Also, I'd like to try to get some things done with school preparations if I have time. Over the next few weeks, I have some things I want to get accomplished in preparation for our second term which will begin after the new year. I have plans to incorporate some more subjects and that will require some more advanced planning on my part.
I'm also having to rework our somewhat general routine as Sugarplum has changed her sleeping patterns. Her sleeping patterns began changing last week (maybe the week before as well). So that is requiring us to change how we're doing things throughout the day. Over the Thanksgiving break I was working on trying to find a block of time for me to work on personal Bible study. I am still trying to find that time and will continue to see what could work as our daily routine changes.
It's been a cool and rainy day today. It's been darker outside and a perfect day for dim lighting and candles! We are on Thanksgiving Break all week! I am already thoroughly enjoying the break! I still have plans to work on school things myself to hopefully get ahead before we start back in next Monday. But it will be on my own time. We are doing some good cleaning this week as well. Aside from the cleaning and normal everyday chores that have to be done, we're going to take it easy. Each evening this week one of the channels on TV is airing Christmas movies at 9pm. My older daughter is excited that she gets to stay up this week and watch Christmas movies with Mommy.
We are planning our 2nd official family Thanksgiving for Wednesday. Last year, we began our own family Thanksgiving tradition at home and we are looking forward to that this week! Tomorrow, my husband will be making his favorite fruit salad. My hubby made the turkey last year and it turned out wonderful. So guess who gets to make it this year??? That's right - my hubby. He'll prep the turkey and get it in the oven tomorrow night. Then Wednesday we'll make the rest of the dishes for our meal and have our Thanksgiving feast while watching some of our favorite Christmas movies.
Then Thursday morning, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving together with my whole family. I'm looking forward to it!
Well, I thought I'd work on this post during a commercial. And now the Christmas movie we're watching is back on.
If you're looking for those recipe ideas for tasty treats for the holiday season, you might consider a delightful dessert my husband and I put together yesterday. We're calling them Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars and you can find the recipe on my cooking blog by clicking on the following link:
These are fairly inexpensive to make if you have some of the ingredients already on hand like vanilla extract, sugar, etc. Give them a try. If you're a cheesecake and a chocolate fan, I think you'll like these!
Today it is overcast, drizzly, and cool. I love this time of year! Fall is my all-time favorite season. I enjoy the smell of pumpkin pie spice candles burning brightly, illuminating our home on those overcast days when it's cool outside. I love the crispness in the air that invigorates me after a season of hot weather. I like pulling out the long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts. I enjoy cuddling up under a nice, warm, comfy blanket with a steaming hot cup of coffee. There's nothing like the fall time! The trees are cloaked with an array of colors. I especially enjoy seeing the bright orange, red, and yellow leaves. If we would just take the time to enjoy our surroundings, we can find so much beauty in God's creation no matter what the season is: the blanket of white snow in the winter, the beautiful array of colors in the flowers of spring, the beautiful green leaves of summer, and the color show in the leaves of fall time. Take time out of your day to notice God's beautiful creation. You just might be amazed at how much you'll notice!
Nov. 11, 2008~ A Testimony to Our Mighty, Saving God ~
This year's election day marked a day of thanksgiving for my family. My sister was in a terrible car accident and our God protected her. I feel her story of this needs to be told. Following you will read her words describing the day of the accident and what transpired throughout it all. You will see pictures of her vehicle. There is no other explanation for her survival but that our mighty, powerful God saved her and protected her. Here's her testimony.......
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"All I can say is God carried me through. If I had driven my husband's convertible, if I had gone into the 20-30 foot wooded ravine, if I had flipped a different way......God's hand guided my vehicle through this accident and held me in my seat with the seatbelt and with His hand.
"Here I am travelling from one office to another on election day, thinking I have to get back to my office so I can go vote. In a split second I've hit the trailer on the back of a pick up and I'm flying in the air flipping from side to side then landing in the middle of the lane. Yes, I flipped my car 2 times. As I'm flying through the air, God is there holding me in the seat, keeping me conscious and at peace.
"Any one thing and I would not have survived. The seatbelt bruised and burned me from shoulder to neck yet no broken bone, no whiplash, no concussion. I say thank you God then look for my cell phone - yes I looked for my cell phone. People are coming up to me asking if I'm alright and telling me to stay still help is on the way. I tell them I need my cell phone, I have to call my husband and my work. A lady says what's the number and dials for me. By the time I'm done with talking to work, the EMT's and state police are there asking me questions, assessing the situation. The fire truck shows up and they tell me they're getting the jaws of life out because they can't open the door to get me out. I'm not pinned mind you. God made sure of that. They cover me and say this will be very noisy. One worker reminds another that the airbags haven't gone off yet - be careful. I hear the door open. All they had to do was pop it, no cutting involved and no sudden air bag deployment. I now have a neck brace on of course and they are putting me on a back board to take me to the ambulance. One of the EMT's starts the assessment and ends with "You are one lucky lady - we heard there was a roll over and we knew it was going to be bad - but here you are." All I could say was "luck had nothing to do with it - my God took care of me." I'm not even in the ambulance yet and I have a chance to witness to some stranger that for this very moment is my angel with flesh on. I spend 2 hours in the emergency room, 5 x-rays of my neck, again an opportunity to witness to the x-ray tech saying how lucky I was. The nurses can't believe it. There are no broken bones, no concussion, no gashes needing stitches. Someone was watching out for me I hear someone say. I can do nothing but agree. All the while, God is providing a servant to bring my husband to the hospital to be with me, and God's providing a dear friend (another servant) to pick up our 2 kids and feed them and make sure they are cared for.
"Just a few weeks ago I had been to Seminars4Worship and fell in love with a song that overwhelmed me with the power of God. And if I hadn't already known God was with me, He made sure that this song was on the radio as a loving couple from our church escorted us home from the hospital, just to remind me He's there and in control. I look over at my friend sitting beside me and say, that's my theme song this year and now more than ever. She asks her husband to turn it up and all is quiet as I softly sing along: "Savior, you can move the mountains, My God is Mighty to save, You are mighty to save, Forever, Author of Salvation, You rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave." I'm crying, singing, praising, thanking, worshipping my God who just brought me through what should have been my grave. And yet I'm going home with an ice pack. Yes, I have swelling and bruising but nothing severe.
"Many instances have and are presenting themselves to me for witnessing to people since the accident only 1 week from this writing. From the EMT at the scene, to the emergency room, to the wife of the junkyard owner seeing my angel pin on the sun visor, to people where I work, to the nurses and doctors at the follow up clinic appointments, and even the people I worship with every week. This coming Sunday I get to sing my theme song with another dear friend of mine who has been a servant to me through this. And I get to publicly thank Him for saving me.
"My favorite scripture verse for several years now has been Jeremiah 29:11 which is visible at the end of all of my e-mails. No matter what happens ever, God is in control and He has a plan for everyone. He is mighty to save and is in control!
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
**The above testimony is posted with permission from my sister, who wrote it.**
The vocabulary binder is working!!! In my last school highlights post, I told you about my new idea of starting a vocabulary binder. Well, I started it with my teen. My Mom was telling me the other day that she's noticed he has been using bigger words (more vocabulary) in conversation and using them correctly. Isn't that awesome??? That just tickles me. I hope to get a vocabulary binder made for my 6th grader soon.
We also had some good discussion with his material for Mere Christianity. This is an excellent book and one that I highly recommend. Interestingly enough, as we were doing our family devotion yesterday, there were a couple of times we talked about things that C.S. Lewis had discussed in Mere Christianity and we were able to point that out. Our son remembered some of the material too! That just tickled me so much!
Also, the children went on a field trip on Monday. When they came back, I had them do narrations. My son had to do a written narration of what he remembered from the field trip and it had to be one page long. When he turned his written narration in, his handwriting was much neater that in times past when I'd have him write something for me. I praised him for having such neat handwriting!
6th Grader
Our 6th grader did a wonderful job on her dictation this week. As I dictated the passage to her and watched her writing, I delighted in seeing her take her time to form her letters correctly. She would make the letters, look at them, and then correct any ones that didn't look like they were formed well. I was also tickled to see her put punctuation marks such as commas, semi-colons, and periods in the right places as I dictated each phrase. She didn't have to wait for me to go back and read the entire passage at the end to listen for the pauses and so forth in the text. She knew where to put them as we went through it phrase by phrase. It just made me feel really good to see that! I did things a little different this week with her dictation passage. For the first one or two dictation passages we did, I went over the passage and any difficult words with her. I then gave her the responsibility to study it on her own without me actually having to tell her to study it. She still did wonderfully well with her dictations. But they were easier selections with not many punctuation marks to remember. I chose a more challenging selection this week. So we went over it when I gave it to her and discussed any difficult words I thought she might have trouble with. I then had her do the passage for her copywork. I also modeled how I wanted her to read it aloud when she practiced it and then had her read it out loud to me. I told her that I wanted her to read it out loud that particular way and then write it while looking at it (copying it) throughout that day at different times. I told her that I would tell her when I wanted her to do this. In addition, the next day I told her she was to read it out loud at different times throughout the day and this time she would try to write it without looking at it (and then check it). So for those two days at different times throughout the day I would tell her to study her dictation passage and she would do what I asked her to do. I think this approach really worked well and made a difference with studying a more difficult passage. On the third day, we did the dictation. Here's her paper:
My scan didn't come out as clearly as I'd have liked but I think you can see it well enough. I was really proud of her work!
Another wonderful school moment occurred this week with our 6th grader. I was having her fill out a chart where she had to put the prefixes, what they meant, and some example words that used each of the prefixes. As she was working on that she asked that, when she was done, if she could write down some of the words using those prefixes and look them up because she wanted to learn how to spell them and what they meant. Are you kidding me???? OF COURSE!!!! Wow - that was one of those school moments that just warm your heart and make you feel so good!!! So when she finished her work, she went about writing down a list of the words she wanted to learn how to spell and then utilized the dictionary as well as an online dictionary to look up what each word meant. She then wanted to quiz her dad on the words to see if he knew what they meant! And get this - we talked about the voting and election process this week. Well, Friday night when we were at my parent's house for dinner and fellowship, she pulled out a paper that she had questions on and started asking us all questions from the material in her little booklet that I had given her on the voting and election process! She had taken that little booklet that I had given her and wrote out questions with their answers totally on her own! Woohoo!!! That's grasping the love of learning! I absolutely LOVE it!!!
This morning, I opened the blinds to our living room window and saw such a beautiful sight. The sun had not fully risen yet. The sky was painted with an array of colors. Picture a really light blue that blends into a pale yellow. The yellow blends into a light orangish yellow then blends from an orange to a pink back to bluish gray. The bluish gray blends into a final darker bluish gray. Gorgeous! Absolutely gorgeous. The colors are so blended that you can't find the end of one and the beginning of another. Isn't our God amazing? He paints the colors of the sky and gives us such beauty to behold! Let's welcome this day by saying "Lord, this is the day that You have made! I will rejoice and be glad in it!"
Our 10th grader continued in his readings of the book of John, Psalms, and Mere Christianity. We had some really good discussions from his Mere Christianity readings. Among our discussions was the topic of morality. C.S. Lewis tells us that morality is concerned with the following three things:
(1) "...fair play and harmony between individuals." (p. 71)
(2) "...what might be called tidying up or harmonising the things inside each individual." (p. 71)
(3) "...the general purpose of human life as a whole; what man was made for..." (p. 71)
*Above quotations are from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Each can be found on the page number noted in the parenthesis after each quote.
We really had some great discussions concerning these things.
Our teen continued in his readings of Ivanhoe, Watership Downs, Age of Chivalry, Plutarch as well as The Birth of Britain for world history. More great topics for discussion were brought up in this weeks St. Bede reading. Other things were done among which was some mapwork to correspond with my son's Plutarch reading. I had him label a map of modern Turkey. In addition, he labeled a world map so that he could see where Turkey is in relation to the United States. He also had math, science, and more.
6th Grader
This week our 6th grader continued in her readings of Old Testament stories. She also read some of Aesop's fables. She finished The Peterkin Papers. At first, she didn't much care for this book. However, when she finished it this week, she said that she actually liked it. It's a fun and light book. We also continued with our readings from Age of Fable, This Country of Ours (American History), and Robinson Crusoe. This week we read The Winter's Tale from Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. We both really enjoyed this story.
With our 6th grader, we do several of our books as read-alouds. I read to her and then she does some narrating throughout our readings so I can make sure she's understanding AND listening. :)
I love it when I hear her say she can't wait to do our Shakespeare reading...music to my ears! She also really enjoys our American history selection, This Country of Ours. This week we began talking about Christopher Columbus. She also did math, geography, and more.
Something New One new thing I began this week with my 10th grader is a vocabulary notebook. I plan on beginning one with my 6th grader probably this week. I constructed the vocabulary notebook on my own. As I prepared for our son's lessons this past week, I noted any words I thought he would not know the meanings of and drafted vocabulary lists for him. I will be doing this each week. I will give him his lists before the day of the particular reading that the list corresponds to so that he will have time to look them up before he reads the material. I'll show you a picture of the notebook first and then tell you the materials used, how I put it together, and what I require for each definition.
I took white copy/printer paper and cut out same-sized strips of paper to use as my tab dividers. I cut several inches off one end so that they wouldn't be sticking out of the binder. I then cut out the strips. Each strip was taped to individual pieces of notebook paper. On the end of the strips I put each of the letters of the alphabet. The following pictures will hopefully show you how I alternated the strips on the notebook paper so that the tabs would be spaced out like tab dividers. I also punched a hole on one end of each strip so that they could line up with the holes on the notebook paper. Be sure to tape these strips onto the paper. If you don't, they'll move all around.
I hope everyone has had a great week of school! Have a great weekend!
The ultimate goal of Christian home education is to train children to impact the world for God. We want our children to not only hear and learn God's Word, but also be doers of God's Word. Therefore, we strive to teach them:
SERVICE - How to serve God and others
ACHIEVEMENT - To do the best they can in all they do from academic subjects to chores to serving others and more
LOVE - To love God and one another
TRUTH - To live their lives based on the absolute Truth of God
The name of this blog is the acronym for these four areas that we strive to teach our children:
S.A.L.T. - Service, Achievement, Love, Truth
