Posted in Friday show and tell
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Guess where we are going to? Our youngest son (6) was granted a wish through the Sunshine Foundation. This is a wonderful organization that helps adopted and foster children who are still affected by the abuse they recieved in their birth homes. When first asked by the foundation what he wanted for his wish, he said that he wanted to meet God and see all of the animals in His Kingdom.
Could it be a lovely island with waves lapping against the sand?
One of the music capitals of the country?
Perhaps, an animal safari? Tune in next week to find out where we went and all about our adventures! Now where is that to do list? Is the list complete, little ones? Is everything packed?
To see more great Show and Tells go to Canadagirl. Blessings, Dawn |
That wish was a little out of their domain! However, we worked out a great trip and the day has come. I have to admit with the TV reporting the news of economic collapse in the background, that it feels a little crazy going on vacation right now. However, this is when the wish is being granted, so off we go.... The question is where are we going???
We are out of here!!! Have a great weekend everybody!
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This week share your favourite spot to study with your kids. There are many places you can sit down to teach, learn, and work, but where do you prefer and why? You’re welcome to include a photo of your study spot! Looking forward to seeing everyone’s! Our favorite place to do school is the dining room table. We got a new table a month or so ago, and it is proving to be even more of a blessing than I had hoped. We school all over the house but do most art, history, tea time (during which Mom reads aloud), math, science, circle time, writing and board games at the table. My husband says that we eat in the library since our dining room has more books than anything else in it. I like that most of the books we are currently using are within my reach, without having to leave the room. I also love that my table time cabinet is at arm's length, and I can quickly get a little one busy with an activity without leaving an older one's side. Here are a few photos of our favorite study spot:
Where we do most of our schooling.
To see more great homeschool memoirs, go here. Blessings, Dawn |
Our "table time" cabinet.Posted in Friday show and tell
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To see more great Show and Tells get on over to Canadagirl. We really enjoyed our unit study on Italy. The kids worked very hard to get all of their projects done and complete their book reports for International Night. There were about 15 families present from our homeschool support group and lots of great countries to learn about.
The kids studied Masquerade masks which originated in Venice. They decided to dress up like Veniticians during Carnival with their own homemade masks. Even dh (far right) wore an extra mask.
The display table came out nice. I was a little worried that everything would not fit.
Here is a close up view of Flat Stanley (lower right) who made it all the way to Italy and back with my dad and stepmother. My dad took some great shots of Flat Stanley all around Italy. He even got a bit silly and put poor Stanley in a police car. LOL!
The kids made a model of Venice. Their favorite fact about Venice is that there is no sewer system. The waste just goes into the canals and is washed out to sea with the tides. Yuck!
Here are many of the books we used! Tom Sawyer did a book report on The Clown of God and Goldilocks did a book report of Papa Piccolo. The big teen studied The Prince and Leonardo Da Vinci.
We served Italian Meatballs and Italian soft candy for our food contribution. It was a great night. There were lots of great foods to taste and fun fellowship. I was pleased to see how much my kiddos had retained and were able to tell others. The surprise of the night was that my Little Red Ridinghood was the social bug of our family. She stood at the table much of the night showing off our display. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in High school transcripts
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I have had a few people ask me how I decide what to teach my high school student. I am sure that everyone has a different system based on beliefs, child's interests, learning/teaching styles and state requirements. This is what I did. My big teen is now in his Senior year and our system has worked well for us. Many factors went into determining what courses to teach my son. The following was all taken into account.
Taking all of these factors into account, I bought 4 lesson plan books that had room for seven subjects each. I then labeled them by grade and put seven subjects in each one. I did leave two subjects blank in 12th grade so there would be room as we went through the years, in case the big teen developed new interests. By doing this, we were afforded a lot more flexibility to fill out subjects as they came along. For example, for the past two years, the big teen has been taking a class with a college professor in World History who teaches homeschoolers. The credit will all count under 11th grade, even though he is using 14 weeks of 12th grade to complete this course. Another example would be P.E. As he had the opportunity to do interesting Physical Education such as Archery, we filled it in. Math courses which are agony for the big teen could be spread out so that he did not have to be so pressured by them. I was very stressed out part of last year (11th grade) that my system was not going to work out. We seemed so far behind, and I was still working out of 4 lesson plan books. However, we are on target and are currently only working out of 11th and 12th grade lesson plan books. Furthermore, two subjects are already completed in 12th grade, and most of the subjects are complete in 11th grade. Another 11th grade course will be completed this week. Yippie. So here are his subjects ~ 9th grade
10th grade
11th grade
12th grade
All of these courses are found at our local high school. The high school also has several different types of diplomas. Our course work is basically following their "work studies" diploma for those who want to enter the work force right after high school. There is only one kind of high school diploma for homeschoolers in North Carolina, but I wanted the transcript to be easily accepted by the city government. I hope this answered some of your questions. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in High school transcripts
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The big teen completed his U.S. History II course in 10th grade. For his core books he used A History of US. We both really enjoyed this 10 volume set. He completed vol. 8, 9, and most of 10 for this course. The big teen studied post civil war to the 1950's. In addition to these books he did in-depth studies of the following famous people; Mark Twain, Jesse James, Norman Rockwell, Theodore Roosevelt, Fredrick Douglas, FDR, and Eleanor Roosevelt. He watched videos on the 1918 flu, Fatal Flood of 1927, Johnstown Flood, Yellow fever, the Massi Affair, the Great Escape and many WWII documentaries. He also studied/read The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt, Night by Elie Wiesel, and In Their own words. He recieved an A for this course. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Friday show and tell
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To see more great entries go to Canadagirl. I wanted to have a timeline when I started Story of the World with my children, but the company did not have one. I looked around at the premade ones and thought they were all very expensive and did not always have the exact characters talked about in our history book. So, I decided to make my own. I found this great site over the summer. MakingFriends.com was created to encourage children to have penpals. However, the paper dolls were so cute that I thought they would make great timeline figures. I printed them out and found that the nativty clothes could be made into great costumes for Ancient civilizations. Yay! For the price of printer ink, glue, and crayons, I have a cute timeline that goes great with our book. The kids stop and talk to the timeline sometimes when they are going up and down the stairs. I love making history come alive.
Sorry this figure is blurry. You get the idea! Please go see my son's show and tell at TKB. He has an important message this week. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in High school transcripts
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I decided about a year ago to put a summary of my big teen's course work on this blog. I want all of his hard work to be in more than one place. This way, if some tragedy happens to our lesson plan book, I will still be able to write his trascript. I hope to have all of 10th grade recorded in the next few days so the lesson plan book can go into the fireproof box. Then I can start getting 11th grade online. I have a friend who lost everything in a fire a few years ago, including all of her children's homeschool records. It took forever to rebuild her records. If you want to see all that I have recorded so far, click on high school transcripts above. Biology~ The big teen's main textbook was Real Science 4 Kids~Biology, and we used my college textbook as a reference guide when we wanted to go deeper. We also did 10 lessons on insects from the Handbook of Nature Study . He also watched numerous shows off of PBS about animals, the human body and water. The big teen did many nature studies at local lakes, streams and creeks on the water and little critters in the water. He also made a ladybug house and grew ladybugs from larvae. This was fun and excellent for our garden as well. The big teen really enjoyed our "field trip" to the ocean where he got to identify many shells and study sand crabs. On that trip, we also got to go to an alligator farm. He always has been a reptile nut. Speaking of reptiles, the big teen learned how to care for a large variety of reptiles at his volunteer job at the nature center. Did you know that snakes in captivity need baths now and again? Yuck! Well, the big teen is a professional snake bather. LOL! The big teen also studied the human body. He made a DNA model, worked on a brain kit, completed a human body kit and learned how to determine the likelihood of passing genetic traits. He covered all the major systems of the body and learned how they work together. The big teen studied 72 slides with his microscope. He also dissected a cow's eye, frog, starfish, and cow's heart. He scored an A for this course. Blessings, Dawn |
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This week I want to invite you to take a moment and post a Summer Photo Essay memoir. Starting from around the official date of Summer to this past week - just give a basic summary of your summer as I know someone of you are photoholics! Haha! Make sure you jot down your memoirs about each photo so everyone can read about your summer. You can do the essay however you want. You can journal a lot or just caption the photo!   What a great summer we had. We spent lots of time outside and really enjoyed our home. The drought was rough on our garden and we had to conserve water, but it was a great learning experience for the children. We are looking forward to Fall! To see more such posts go here. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Friday show and tell
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It is that time again. To see more Show and Tell's go to Canadagirl. We are a few weeks into our out-of-the-home classes and all is going well. We decided that all of the kids would do some kind of sport for their out-of-home class this year. Our smallest dd(4) is taking a combo ballet/tap class this year. This is her second year of dance at this studio and she loves it. We were very blessed to find a dance ministry that teaches the children to glorify God through dance. I love that she is learning to use dancing to bless others. They go to nursing homes several times a year. Here she is in dance class.
My dd (7) and ds (6) are taking swimming lessons this year. I am very excited about this because it was very hard taking 3 non- swimmers to the pool last summer by myself. Drowning mommy is just not a good idea.
Goldilocks is enjoying her swimming lessons, too. She has already made it to level two. We are very proud of her. In the past, she would not have been able to make it in a class because of behavior and distractions. Here she is in her class getting jumping off the diving board!
(Ahhh! Digital cameras are great, but they are hard to get the timing right! The splash is Goldilocks!) The big teen is taking a Fencing class. He has wanted to try Fencing for a long time, and he is very excited that we found a class just a few miles from our home. Here they are learning how to hold their weapon (a foil) for the first time. He is the one in the grey.
Dawn |
Blessings,|
Since I’ve been making you work really hard on the previous Memoir themes I decided to take a little break and do something fun! This week I want to invite you to share a few of your favourite things. Wow! This could be a really long list! However, I will try to keep it to my favorite homeschool sites... Here are a few great sites in no particular order.
Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Friday show and tell
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To see more great Show and Tells go to canadagirl. I didn't think I had anything to Show and Tell today. Then something amazing happened. Well, amazing to me. Here is some history first. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about what character traits were weak in my children and what to do about it. One of my children has a real problem with being grateful. This child tends to think of the worst instead of the best. Even when good things happen, this child can miss them or lack to show proper appreciation. I decided to start a daily Grateful Heart Chart where we write out something that each of us is grateful for on sticky notes (heart shaped) and place our sticky notes on the chart. All the children and I do it so that no one will be singled out. Also, it sets a great example for the one. Wow! The first week was rough. This child cried everytime I asked what made him happy or grateful. The first day it took 5 minutes for this child to come up with something. Sheesh! I knew we had a problem but how bad could it be. Each day has gotten a little easier, and I have started to see gratitude flow more into daily life with this child. THEN THIS MORNING ~ It was this child's turn and he listed off 10 things to be grateful for!!!! When I remarked how wonderful it was that he had thought of so many things, he told me that he could think of more if I liked!!! WooHoo. I think we have a break through.
I don't think this is over, since it seems to be a real character trait of this child. However, I am overjoyed that something so easy is having an impact. Blessings, Dawn |
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My kids refuse to have school vacations... In memory of September 11th, I decided that we would review our unit study from a few weeks ago. We really enjoyed our unit study on Fireboat by Maira Kalman. This is a wonderful book that deals with September 11th and honors our fallen citizens and heros while still presenting the horrors of that day in a kid-friendly way.
To review the unit study we read the book this morning and then looked at the lapbook the kids had made.
(An example of the kids's collage fireboat art work.) I think it is important when you are remembering a horror such as September 11th that you teach the children how to cope with it. I fear that, if the children were simply told about the horror of that day without additional teaching, they would be more likely to allow fear to turn to hate in their hearts. After we reviewed the "Good Samaritan" story, we talked about loving everyone, not just our friends and family. Jesus said, ": Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even scoundrels do that much. If you are friendly only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even the heathen do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." ( Matthew 5:43-48). We discussed ways to show tolerance to those who are not like us and pray for those who do evil. Later this afternoon after tea time I plan on having each child say a pray for a person who has wronged them and lighting a candle for that person. I want my children to know that by living their lives with love and tolerance, they can have a profoundly positive impact on the world. Update~ We did a balloon release with our prayers for the world today.
Oops! First it got caught in a tree.
There she blows! Blessings, Dawn |
This is supposed to be our week off from school for the most part. We had so many doctor appointments and a new Tomatis Loop....so I thought we would skip school ... Well, this morning the kiddos revolted. Watch a video while mommy blogged? No way .... TEACH US SOMETHING!!! Yipes ...
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I really wanted to get into world history with my little ones this year and decided to go with Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. It was important to me that history be taught in an easy to understand way but not dumbed down, and in chronological order, as well as with lots of hands-on acitivities. Story of the World provided all of this for us. The stories are short and clear so that any child who has been trained to sit still and listen for 10 to 20 minutes can make it through a lesson. I highly recommend buying the activity book that goes with the story book. It is chock filled with ideas to make history come to life through hands-on acitivities. The activity book is also filled with mapwork and coloring pages. My children enjoy coloring the pages while I read. We then review the geography with the mapwork and do an activity that goes with the story. The kids LOVE it, and I know that they are really grasping what they are learning. That makes for a very happy mommy! Here are some of our activities that we have done so far...
(mummy, pyramid, and cuniform tablet)
(the Nile River model) To see more entries here. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Friday show and tell
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It is that time again! To see more Show and Tells go to Canadagirl. This week I am going to show what my wonderful husband built for the children. He spent last weekend building them a tree house. The kids have wanted a tree house for a long time. We have a huge Southern Magnolia tree in our front yard that the kids love to climb. It provides such wonderful shade that the kiddos do not need sunscreen in the summer if they play under it. My dh mostly used left over wood from the basement! Yeah!! This was a win-win situation. I got the basement a bit more cleaned out, my dh got to work with his hands after a long week of paperwork, and the kids got a new secret world to make up a hundred stories in. The tree house is a platform 63 inches off the ground with railings and homemade ladder. All 4 kids can play up in it at the same time.
Tom Sawyer is in heaven up there!
Two man duck duck goose in the tree house.
The view when on your back looking up in the tree house. Blessings, Dawn |
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One of the important things to me about doing this project is getting back to basic simple pleasures. So instead of running off and spending money, we are going to enjoy the simple pleasures in life today. The kids are going to enjoy the view from their new tree house, and I am going to enjoy the $12 to $15 I saved in my bank account by staying home. (Hubby built the kids a new tree house for the grand total of $18 dollars the weekend before Not Buying Month.) Here is the view while laying on one's back in the new tree house (Southern Magnolia) ~
Blessings, Dawn |
This morning I am resisting running off to the state fair. It is "free" today for students. As with many things, "free" is not really free. I, alas, am not a student and would have to pay my entry fee. Also, I suspect that my kids would be disappointed with not being allowed to go on the rides because those cost extra. Oh and the 30 miles worth of gas to get us there and back. Then there is the question of cotton candy! You see, during the July 4th celebration downtown we discovered that some of our dear children had never had cotton candy. Can you imagine? LOL! We stood in a very long line to get them some cotton candy, and it sold out right before we got to the counter. 
So how would I pass up the rows of cotton candy just sitting there for some outrageous fee if we went to the fair? |
Owlhaven is doing an amazing challenge that I am really excited about doing. It is the 30 days of NOTHING challenge. The rules state that you are to find ways to spend less in the month of September. You make the rules apply to your family the way you see fit. My reasons for wanting to do this challenge is to save money for our October vacation, teach my children how to live a more frugal lifestyle, and work on all of our sense of entitlement. I have seen too many entitlement issues in my children and, on closer inspection, in myself as well. My family had a family meeting and everyone has agreed to take the challenge for this month. Here is what we plan on doing.
Here is what we will NOT be doing ~
This month will be especially challenging because of our Tomatis loop, which starts on September 8. It is too far to go home during the 2 hour appointment, so I have to kill the time doing something else. We got used to wandering around that next door shopping center, which ended up costing us a few dollars each time. The waiting room is very small and often crowded. Blessedly, the three children that get Tomatis will be treated together most of the 10 days of the loop. This means that I only have one child to entertain. It also is getting cooler so parks are more of an option. There is also a library within a short drive. Well, here we go. I will keep you updated on our progress. If you want to see more great people taking the challenge, go to Owlhaven. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Homeschooling
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Here is an outline of our September school plans. It is time to get ready for our homeschool support group's Geography night. It is at the end of September. My kids love doing this each year and it is really a fun event. We have decided to do Italy this year since my father and step-mother went there this summer. The littles have a list of things they will present. First, our Flat Stanley Project has returned from Italy safe and sound. He had an exciting journey and the kids are looking forward to making a display about his adventures. They will map out his journey and make a scrapbook of his adventures. The littles will also be studying Leonardo Da Vinci and doing a report on him. We have several kid friendly books that are great on this artist. Additionally, they will be making a flag, diorama of Venice and Italian finger food. Lastly, they will narrate book reports from Papa Piccolo and The Clown of God. Both of these FIAR books were studied by the littles last year and are set in Italy. They will be a nice review. The big teen's contribution to the project will be a report on an Italian artist and a general report on art in Italy. He will also hopefully make an example of Fresco artwork. This will count toward his Art History course. He will also be doing a report on Religion in Italy for his World Religion course. In addition, he will do an essay on The Prince by Machiavelli which he is reading for World Literature. All of the reports will count for Creative Writing. Now I just have to figure out the kids' costumes and what food we will be taking. I think I am as excited about this study as the kids are. LOL! The big teen will continue his usual lessons. I am putting FIAR and SOTW on the back burner for the little ones this month. We will have our hands full with circle time, tea time stories, reading and math lessons on top of our unit study of Italy. We also have another Tomatis loop that starts on September 8 so we will be super busy. Blessings, Dawn |
Posted in Friday show and tell
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It is time for another Canadagirl Show and tell. To see more great Show and Tells go here. This past weekend we went to a moving sale up the street from us. I really didn't think we would find anything since it was a moving sale of a single man in our neighborhood. Well, wouldn't you know, something I have wanted for a long time was waiting for me to come and get it. I found a wonderful solid oak table that has two leaves and seats 10 comfortably!!!!! He offered the table and the six chairs to me for $150!! It even has locks underneath so that the table will not seperate and let food get in the cracks! WooHoo!!!! My old table had been bought at a thrift shop and was functional but not so lovely when I got it. Over the years and with the heavy use that our homeschool family had put that table through, it was a wreck. It shook when you cleaned it and the chairs got caught under it all the time. Furthermore, we were running out of room when all the kids' school work was spread out on it. We won't even mention how crazy it was when guests were over. So here is my new table set up for 8 with one of the leaves in it. I have two more chairs in the basement for when we have lots of company. Everyone has plenty of elbow room now! Nobody is complaining that so and so's book is touching them or that the lefty child is elbowing them while he writes. YEAH! Grandma came to dinner the other night and we all got to sit around the table together with all the dishes on the table. Well, as you can see I am just beyond excited about this purchase!
Dawn |
Blessings,Posted in Homeschooling
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For more schedules go here. During my reflection time on how last school year went, one thing stood out as the problem area. Last year our out-of-the- home schedule was out of control. We were at one appointment or another every day of the week. So after much prayer and thinking, I decided that we had to be home as many days as possible this year. That is not to say that we are not going to continue to take classes and do doctor/therapy appointments. However, I am hoping to find a balance this year. Here is what is important to me...
So this is what I have so far.... Monday~
Tuesday~
W/Th/Fri.~
Saturday~
Sunday~
So what is left ~ not much thankfully... I still have to set up Tom Sawyer's private swimming lessons. He really likes his current teacher and we are waiting to hear her new schedule. It looks like it will be at night but that is ok since my dh will be able to take him. Also, I will be signing us up for a theater production or two with our homeschool support group for the group discount. Secondly, I belong to 5 support groups in the area. Each meets once a month at night. I am considering taking a break from our main homeschool group, since I get lots of support online and from our homeschool group for special needs kids. We will continue on with our homeschool special needs support group, FASD support group and RAD support group. We also will continue with our adoption play group. Lastly, I am trying to start up a homeschool special needs co-op with my special needs support group. If I have to do it all by myself, we will only get together once every other month; but hopefully, I will get some volunteers that will help so that we can get together every month. I am thinking of doing a FIAR book, activity, social time and potluck. I see a real need for a co-op that would be a "safe haven" of sorts for those with special needs. This is not to say that local homeschoolers and co-ops have been unwelcoming. However, our special kids are sometimes disruptive with their behaviors and often aren't able to do the level of academics that is expected in normal co-ops. Sheesh, this post got much longer that I thought. Thanks for hanging in there. Blessings, Dawn |
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This sounds like a really fun meme. It will be held every week. I am not sure I can keep up but think I will give it a go. If you would like to get to know more homeschoolers go here. This week's theme is "All About You". I am a blessed homeschool mom of 10 years and am married to my college sweetheart. We have 4 imaginative and creative children, two homemade and two sewn into our hearts and lives through adoption. Our children are in 12th grade, 2nd grade, 1st grade, and Kindergarten. Three of our children have a variety of special needs which keeps us hopping from appointment to appointment. Some weeks it feels like we carschool more than homeschool, but we are finding a balance. We decided to homeschool when our oldest was in third grade. He is very learning challenged and has many developmental delays. He is also pacemaker dependent and suffers from lung issues. We had tried public and private schools in two different states and were continuely unhappy with the schools. The final straw was the bullying our son had to deal with every time he stepped out of his medically fragile classroom and that he still could not read at the end of third grade. The teachers felt that he was unable to learn, and I just could not believe that. In addition, I was working in his school and could not believe what I was seeing (way too much to go into here). Anyway, we pulled him out and began homeschooling the next year. We repeated third grade and he was reading before our first year was complete. We also saw his love of learning come back to life. We have never looked back and love homeschooling more and more with each passing year.
This picture is from last Christmas. However, it was the only picture of the 4 kiddos I could find quickly. Blessings, Dawn |
