tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1049622897763078242024-03-14T02:50:58.992-07:00Path of Life AcademyWe are a homeschooling family with lots of great ideas and too little time, and we just do the best we can. Our school motto is, "You will show me the path of life, In Your presence is Fullness of Joy, At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16:11Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-81384283426532940572014-12-31T10:15:00.002-08:002014-12-31T10:15:53.534-08:00I Guess its TimeAt one time it made sense for me to have a separate homeschooling blog, my kids were young, always doing hands on tasks for learning, there were lots of pictures to post and something to blog about pretty much every day. <br /><br />Well, my kids are older, most of their learning is from books or at co-op, and even when we are doing a hands on experiment or something like that, they balk at having me take photos of it.<br /><br />So, I will still occasionally mention homeschooling, or co-op classes, in my blogging, but it is just not often enough to justify having its own blog. From now on, I will be posting my homeschooling events on my general blog, click <a href="http://thriceblessed-lessofme.blogspot.com/">HERE</a> if you'd like to follow me there.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-83014116909828503352013-03-03T08:56:00.001-08:002013-03-03T09:00:45.989-08:00My Daughter's Birthday PartyMy youngest turned 11 years old last month, however, because we had a lot going on in our family, including (a death and funeral) we didn't celebrate her birthday then. So she had her Birthday party yesterday instead.<br />
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As I observed the children who came to the party, something occurred to me. I've often heard people say that homeschoolers are not exposed to anyone who is different from them in any way. That they are secluded and have only a few select friends, and are not exposed to people of other ethnic backgrounds or social classes or whatever. But as I was observing this party I was struck by the, for lack of a better word, variety of guests.<br />
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First the children, they ranged in age from considerably younger than my daughter, to quite a bit older. The youngest is, I think, in Kindergarten, and she was <i>invited</i> by my daughter, she didn't just tag along with an older sibling. She was asked to come, and her grandma brought her, no older siblings with her at all. The oldest is, I believe, in Junior High or possibly in the first year of High School, I'm not sure... but either way, older than my daughter by at least a few years. In between that were kids closer to my daughter's age, and they all played together nicely, included each other, and celebrated together. The one commonality between all of them was that they were all girls, except for my son, but I know that my daughter <i>did</i> invite a few boys too, they just couldn't make it. As for ethnicity, there were several white, one African American, and one child with a Hispanic/Native American background. There was also a fairly even mix of homeschoolers and publicly schooled children present at the party.<br />
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Now to the adults. There were adult guests, who my daughter invited, who weren't even there with children. They were invited because my daughter considers them to be her friends as much as the children who came. There was quite a bit of diversity there too, including a Messianic Jewish friend, however, the main thing that stuck out to me was that was daughter wanted to invite adults to her party. <br />
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Like most homeschoolers, she is equally comfortable interacting with another 11 year old, or 5 year old, or a 50 year old. She isn't afraid to be seen playing with a Kindergartner, not worried that it won't be considered "cool" or whatever the current term is. She is also quite capable of carrying on a conversation with a 30, 40, or 50 year old and not be shy. She will sit and exchange words and ideas with them like an equal, while still (usually) showing them the respect that a child should show to an adult.<br />
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Now I'm not saying that she is perfect socially. Like <b>all</b> children, she gets in arguments with her friends, and even the occasional physical scuffle. Her closest friend and her often get in arguments, and struggle to get along at times, but all children have those moments. I feel that she interacts naturally with a wider variety of people than <b>most</b> children I've seen though.<br />
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Just my observations!<br />
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Anyway, below are some photos of the party!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Doi0gG0Btb9HPfhPXQBOcRfObz3oULpA6uzqMAwaEKavimpbOGV71-r_4A5V915PFsoOQehD0XRC38jUmo1b4sJ7KP_hMukvCA3OhVtgIhEByFGyXZx0_fKas3zs1r8IFKA4YMLIOBU/s1600/016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Doi0gG0Btb9HPfhPXQBOcRfObz3oULpA6uzqMAwaEKavimpbOGV71-r_4A5V915PFsoOQehD0XRC38jUmo1b4sJ7KP_hMukvCA3OhVtgIhEByFGyXZx0_fKas3zs1r8IFKA4YMLIOBU/s320/016.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bird is one of her presents, his name is fidget.</td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-47593028334810056592013-02-27T00:35:00.002-08:002013-02-27T00:35:49.072-08:00Waking UpMany people will probably remember the ICAD blog challenge my kids and I took part in last June, well it may be long over with, but it woke up the artist in me and she isn't going back to sleep any time soon. I've been busy creating and painting. <br />
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You can see a slide show of most of my finished pieces on the sidebar of this blog. But I thought I'd highlight a few pieces too.<br /><br />"In Spirit and In Truth" was one of the first paintings I did.<br />
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<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/in-spirit-and-in-truth-vicki-maheu.html" size="20"><img alt="Sell Art Online" src="http://fineartamerica.com/displayartwork.html?id=5645871&width=249&height=185" style="border: none;" title="Sell Art Online" /></a><br /><br />And I did "Abstraction of Randomness" for my son-in-law:<br />
<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/abstraction-of-randomness-vicki-maheu.html" size="20"><img alt="Art Prints" src="http://fineartamerica.com/displayartwork.html?id=5648927&width=250&height=200" style="border: none;" title="Art Prints" /></a><br />
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One of my more recent paintings is "Wisdom"<br />
<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/featured/wisdom-vicki-maheu.html" size="20"><img alt="Art Prints" src="http://fineartamerica.com/displayartwork.html?id=6465652&width=249&height=249" style="border: none;" title="Art Prints" /></a><br />
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Now I really need to put my paintings into a gallery somewhere and sell them, because the walls in my house are getting full! I've created much more than the three I showed here, even more than what the slideshow has. I have sold one. Given a way a few. I hope to sell more but it doesn't really matter that much, I just really enjoy painting them! Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-57139832823801072362012-08-25T08:12:00.003-07:002012-08-25T08:36:41.115-07:00So much going on!A lot has been going on in my life lately. I'm still working out, still trying to eat healthier. I haven't lost weight significantly this summer, but haven't gained significantly either, I'm pretty much maintaining, bouncing up and down in the same 7-8 pound range.<br />
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An example of what has gone on recently. My mother-in-law passed on, my oldest daughter got married, I got bitten by the art bug and started painting... and most recently, a dear brother in Christ and his daughter Vanessa became homeless, so my family took them in.<br />
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This has been a real blessing, as I really do love them like family. Vanessa seems to me like my own daughter, she even calls me mom, and I love her like my own. Steve, her dad, is like a dear friend and brother to both me and my husband. My only real concern about the situation is that some day they will of course leave, and I know that I am going to miss them both when that day comes... I'll miss them both, but I know I'll miss Vanessa most. I am sure that it is going to feel like one of my own children leaving. So while on the one hand, while I look forward to them getting back on their feet and receiving the blessing of steady work and their own place, I also selfishly dread the day. Either way though, I know that God will work it out, and He will carry me through whatever feelings I have about the issue. My joy is not dependent on people on this earth, but is dependent upon God, upon Christ, so I will get through this.<br />
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While this has been a blessing in many ways, it has, unfortunately distracted my focus from my weight loss. The workout habit, and healthier eating habit has kept me from regaining all my weight, but my focus is just not that much on losing right now. With three adults, one teenager, and two preteens living in this house, when I cook I tend to think of "feeding the masses", rather than, "keep the calories low". I know I need to get the focus back, and I know I will soon. In the meantime, I am getting some practice on maintenance and letting my metabolism have a break from the weight loss mode. <br />
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I am setting as a goal to redouble my efforts starting in September, when Vanessa starts school and some kind of regular schedule will be imposed on our household in order to get her there. I am also thinking that perhaps I might just need to start making separate meals for myself, pasta for the masses and chicken and veggies for me!<br />
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On the homeschooling front, my planning is not quite finished for the coming year, but it is close to being finished, I will need to focus on that between now and September, so that my family is ready to get started on it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-24034290179802389552012-06-21T08:16:00.000-07:002012-06-22T04:59:00.750-07:00Our ICAD's so far:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">My daughter and I continue to create cards for the I</span><a href="http://daisyyellow.squarespace.com/icad/icad-faq.html" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">ndex Card a Day Challenge</a><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">, and my son even got in on the act once!</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">First the kid's ICAD's so far (posted in the order in which they were created.. I think.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMtkZcHTsM3VUVPsy1cBMwEC7UJq3wOwBe744R2ovXofWibyxtwgVxdwqQ9hxUnNPICXsJv8gs0lb86XYtSlaWPCZMpG9v7nVl0ISGtFn9C4QyzK8KNkudth45R1_Kpz1A11SwR9UY1Y/s1600/003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMtkZcHTsM3VUVPsy1cBMwEC7UJq3wOwBe744R2ovXofWibyxtwgVxdwqQ9hxUnNPICXsJv8gs0lb86XYtSlaWPCZMpG9v7nVl0ISGtFn9C4QyzK8KNkudth45R1_Kpz1A11SwR9UY1Y/s320/003.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHqpk5r4TbFRVkQt6_Go4uuACt22e-HGAwHLEsRKVPIYv0wO5wf7-dd-Md5RyCrzWiWPO7EwkH1lmFlivU8nayQXeNIrKUhM2ur0hVQtycasmnnWtbXpn_JXA7TK3WrcCJMci2iyADoA/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHqpk5r4TbFRVkQt6_Go4uuACt22e-HGAwHLEsRKVPIYv0wO5wf7-dd-Md5RyCrzWiWPO7EwkH1lmFlivU8nayQXeNIrKUhM2ur0hVQtycasmnnWtbXpn_JXA7TK3WrcCJMci2iyADoA/s320/002.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhma9BW5zlpKrx1_hfydpQLaM_0odVC5ahQYx5YwuP9fMXkK5CilgMOlxQXrm0GcCSvY2hx7XhyphenhyphenmONNDPxq639ZMgPav7n1dKBgflApW350iHBcpMcm06VufysWLhRe7MG7hY909uwpKE/s1600/006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhma9BW5zlpKrx1_hfydpQLaM_0odVC5ahQYx5YwuP9fMXkK5CilgMOlxQXrm0GcCSvY2hx7XhyphenhyphenmONNDPxq639ZMgPav7n1dKBgflApW350iHBcpMcm06VufysWLhRe7MG7hY909uwpKE/s320/006.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVodDq0-MiRcuXFYXh6YMg2qEolQSKSrVJyhGtGCuQcvFxdSPKveU-EMKQcsaD6N6713K7EHiA4RRSLAqsJHxnxH6ektvxygWgDod9jmDj5cwHzryOu2_BqVhi-KQRuUkqUe-5m0RPCc/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVodDq0-MiRcuXFYXh6YMg2qEolQSKSrVJyhGtGCuQcvFxdSPKveU-EMKQcsaD6N6713K7EHiA4RRSLAqsJHxnxH6ektvxygWgDod9jmDj5cwHzryOu2_BqVhi-KQRuUkqUe-5m0RPCc/s320/002.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My son Samuel's (age 12) only card so far.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHCyneppEETYLUXmxQvgAeP-Yi6z9BEHL0H7CPVMne5qJxb2rjilLkbsqb4bBBkEYwR_GodD9N7ZcpTTe39sMrR1Df5GdlQf77YTPq1iM4S0JeRYpWLNCtTM38TZyqPb7CVuGYD4p-LI/s1600/008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHCyneppEETYLUXmxQvgAeP-Yi6z9BEHL0H7CPVMne5qJxb2rjilLkbsqb4bBBkEYwR_GodD9N7ZcpTTe39sMrR1Df5GdlQf77YTPq1iM4S0JeRYpWLNCtTM38TZyqPb7CVuGYD4p-LI/s320/008.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFw5KxI982RLb1r9llzx5RLCgFvRY0FP6-Yt1U_I6C6gHevxbGELGR027iKghxq6qXs2FCTKQLqjv9c-db9XMO75XBQ9qRLVJyoX2CdYgsRe7H-anp8I3rtMDEeXLUWLrMzeeChvpciVw/s1600/010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFw5KxI982RLb1r9llzx5RLCgFvRY0FP6-Yt1U_I6C6gHevxbGELGR027iKghxq6qXs2FCTKQLqjv9c-db9XMO75XBQ9qRLVJyoX2CdYgsRe7H-anp8I3rtMDEeXLUWLrMzeeChvpciVw/s320/010.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjjsBIhiY-D_Yii0XB7J8Wsoo_V6NcOtzWQikl6zT-kp4qNyPal54k0Klg0SnC3sAyLMDznhZ2CYJL-O8aM9H6vDTnK-QURPUYx2nwpB3xTHtl_ZKuQyHvPuoudnNzDqWBnU3JGHYYII/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjjsBIhiY-D_Yii0XB7J8Wsoo_V6NcOtzWQikl6zT-kp4qNyPal54k0Klg0SnC3sAyLMDznhZ2CYJL-O8aM9H6vDTnK-QURPUYx2nwpB3xTHtl_ZKuQyHvPuoudnNzDqWBnU3JGHYYII/s320/002.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr9DFaFbGqCBiVvuRx3bXG1CBnxBXMBIJYpbPXNmEoqkp922bk0vVUgLiPHQZbWpXi13dIf2YBKhaJf9UKciW2czzIuUxh1NoeLzrTXV7-HNOd1qDEFBJifmzIPsDEU1AxHawE0HcZVc/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr9DFaFbGqCBiVvuRx3bXG1CBnxBXMBIJYpbPXNmEoqkp922bk0vVUgLiPHQZbWpXi13dIf2YBKhaJf9UKciW2czzIuUxh1NoeLzrTXV7-HNOd1qDEFBJifmzIPsDEU1AxHawE0HcZVc/s320/002.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By my daughter Danielle (age 10)
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Next my cards so far, in the order that they were created in:<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-12772732049206422802012-06-12T20:49:00.001-07:002012-06-13T06:38:02.389-07:00More "Sneaky" Art!Well, having their mom paint sure seem to be awakening a desire to create in my children. Today, while I did my ICAD, both of my children painted as well. <br />
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My daughter made her creation as a gift for someone, so I can't post it or else they'll see the gift before they get it. However, my son created his just for fun, so I am free to share a photo of his painting, I was really impressed with this, especially since he did it without sketching in pencil first.<br />
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And here is my ICAD for the day:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqvNX2fXUTbwh4XSR-QtEWCN84erAiW5j4gQqk1KjC_vqoPEUQHNiHX9NrYEJkM_Y11t8aXOYkx96uwh8ulK4LsnOTEZN8-ZcTmwAu96dmZmceybeisfDRRf_YqJpD3Gb43DjuT2Fy0I/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqvNX2fXUTbwh4XSR-QtEWCN84erAiW5j4gQqk1KjC_vqoPEUQHNiHX9NrYEJkM_Y11t8aXOYkx96uwh8ulK4LsnOTEZN8-ZcTmwAu96dmZmceybeisfDRRf_YqJpD3Gb43DjuT2Fy0I/s320/001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-56733157727248273392012-06-12T00:15:00.001-07:002012-06-18T07:37:39.123-07:00Pansies!<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;">
<span style="font-size: small; line-height: normal;">ICAD #4, painted with my daughter Eliana in mind.</span>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7179308937/" title="ICAD 4"><img alt="ICAD 4 by Thrice Blessed" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8001/7179308937_a5230806b2.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7179308937/">ICAD 4</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/">Thrice Blessed</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-66084623614158702872012-06-10T16:14:00.001-07:002012-06-18T07:38:03.214-07:00Another Index Card!<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;">
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto;">As I mentioned in my last post, I am taking part in the Index Card a Day challenge. This is my third index card.</span>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7174331241/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="ICAD #3"><img alt="ICAD #3 by Thrice Blessed" height="213" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7105/7174331241_41bfa508a0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7174331241/" style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;">ICAD #3</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;">, a photo by </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/" style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;">Thrice Blessed</a><span style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em;"> on Flickr.</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-52812183590792744012012-06-10T08:58:00.001-07:002012-06-10T09:08:10.781-07:00Its Been a WhileWow, its been a long time since I posted. I've been busy, in the time since I posted last, my oldest has graduated and gotten married. My younger two are still being homeschooled. We did a couple of years of mostly doing homeschool on the computer, and in many ways it has met our needs. However, I am desiring more involvement in the kids schooling, and I also think they will benefit from more books and hands on stuff and less screen time, so next year we are delving back into more "traditional" homeschooling, if there is such a thing.<br />
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One thing I've noticed with my kids is that they seem to resist "lessons", even if its something they are interested in. Even trying to get them to do artistic things is often met with resistance. However, I've stumbled recently on something that seems to remedy this. Its called<a href="http://daisyyellow.squarespace.com/icad/icad-faq.html"> ICAD</a>. It stands for Index Card a Day and the idea is that you do something artistic with an index card every single day. Well, I started the challenge for myself, because my perfectionist tendencies make me hesitant to experiment with my art supplies, but I've found it very freeing to be able to tell myself, "hey if you mess up, its just an index card, so it doesn't matter." The challenge started June 1st, and runs to the end of July, I only found out about it the day before yesterday, so I've only done two cards so far:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7353616870/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="004"><img alt="004 by Thrice Blessed" height="266" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8025/7353616870_9ea3209716.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7353616870/">004</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/">Thrice Blessed</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7356620108/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="001"><img alt="001 by Thrice Blessed" height="266" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8026/7356620108_04d7dcc4ce.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/7356620108/">001</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322517@N08/">Thrice Blessed</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
Last night as I was doing my second index card, both kids wandered in, saw my paints, and just wanted to started painting too. So they both created nice images, they didn't use index cards, but that's okay! I'm starting to think of ways of to "sneak in" lessons, for me and them. I could practice a technique, and explain what I'm doing and why, and if they wish they can try it too, if not they could do their own thing!.<br />
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This one was done by daughter Danielle:</div>
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This is another by Danielle, but she tells me its not finished yet.</div>
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This one was by my son, Samuel.</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-67251984949181825562011-02-03T19:48:00.000-08:002011-02-03T19:49:26.694-08:00Heart Dissection Time!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs03DlmlZ9ixAL4nl7ZlQw3Byap9rIVHW5Mp894PIn_CuaGm4eChyphenhyphenhgdXmn4FRzBTdFMr3Ek9Kq6YqlFN1AV8Dz4IZ1Et02rQI8O76LpkWGOKgQTdc5Vu-nAQBn0bfzemgz6U2XuLR36g/s1600/IMG_1274.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>The 3rd-6th grade co-op class I teach has been studying human anatomy, and last week we learned about the structure of the human heart. This week, we are dissecting a sheep heart, because it is very similar, with the same basic shape, same basic blood vessels, and four chambers, very, very much like a human heart.<br />
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My TA took many pictures, but I don't want to post pictures of other people's children online without permission, so here are the photos I could post:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the heart laying on the table, while we examine it and try to determine the left and right ventricles.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF5Bp5i14xWGAhS4_hTP5iSjfyHtR-dAdPagF-54wp5VF2gUGwUInsj41GHmSXtui1JpxbBrsEX3XTOD8W8i1mTM2amr0SR20310EVocQsIMqdBH3xzVH-wCzgWYOfAjjA6GrFFxIq_DQ/s1600/IMG_1250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF5Bp5i14xWGAhS4_hTP5iSjfyHtR-dAdPagF-54wp5VF2gUGwUInsj41GHmSXtui1JpxbBrsEX3XTOD8W8i1mTM2amr0SR20310EVocQsIMqdBH3xzVH-wCzgWYOfAjjA6GrFFxIq_DQ/s400/IMG_1250.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another view of the heart.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here we are examining the left ventricle, atrium, and valves.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I wish I could post all the photos, we passed the heart around at each stage of the dissection so that each child could handle it, pull open the cut sections, and examine the parts.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">These next three show my daughter looking at it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is my son, he took part in the dissection too, but this is the only photo of him that doesn't show other children's faces.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The heart is all cut up, we saw the left and right ventricles, the left and right atriums, the valves, the aorta, and all the other main parts.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My daughter taking one last look.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQb42MyHwtoFaaf-cKE9j4Dih16JVQYKFcQ084edUuEyGITWRDmynoJAbSOufzpbGDLoE8_AAQf5iB2mVRtcljZZtH4UrzrrOCrmmzot1rV1XlfZjkmG8OcSlOEBwQWbDFqIxs_aR9Qc/s1600/IMG_1274.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQb42MyHwtoFaaf-cKE9j4Dih16JVQYKFcQ084edUuEyGITWRDmynoJAbSOufzpbGDLoE8_AAQf5iB2mVRtcljZZtH4UrzrrOCrmmzot1rV1XlfZjkmG8OcSlOEBwQWbDFqIxs_aR9Qc/s320/IMG_1274.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My TA's daughter Isabelle, I know it's okay to post her photo.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICHZv4sCwTWLmJuwzxmmhv3KIwtNriAlCdDeTdsR2PgPQjWBLCVZfZZqsCEUaDPZjsyXo_GAka2jzwhvDtg_jgC4jKh1fXYiJ_zBjeRiPpNvj4n2r9YGmu7R6wjMKdgkGJoZBkRzNBlM/s1600/IMG_1275.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhICHZv4sCwTWLmJuwzxmmhv3KIwtNriAlCdDeTdsR2PgPQjWBLCVZfZZqsCEUaDPZjsyXo_GAka2jzwhvDtg_jgC4jKh1fXYiJ_zBjeRiPpNvj4n2r9YGmu7R6wjMKdgkGJoZBkRzNBlM/s320/IMG_1275.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isabelle seems more interested in her fists than than the heart, at least in this photo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-3390408111927794582011-02-02T15:57:00.000-08:002011-02-03T16:16:52.754-08:00Not What I Pictured<div style="text-align: justify;">When I made the decision to homeschool my children, I had many visions in my mind of what it would be like. I envisioned sitting at the table with them, helping them learn math. I imagined us making cookies together and talking about fractions as we measured. I could see us taking time to read the Bible and pray every day, and reinforcing geography by praying for other countries and finding them on the map. I pictured us getting together, and as a family writing letters to a child we sponsored in some other country. I imagined lots of messy art projects and many, many science experiments. One thing I envisioned most of all was me sitting on the couch reading to my children, relaxed, unhurried, and them being interested and engaged in what I was reading to them. Yes, I planned to instill in each of them a love of reading and literature that would surely stay with them for the rest of their lives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I read about many different styles of homeschooling and found things I liked and disliked about all of them. Unschooling had such a promise of freedom and developing a love of learning, but so little structure didn't fit with my "make a list and check it off" personality; the traditional school-at-home out of textbooks sounded safe, but restrictive, and I could never find one publisher who published all subjects in such a way that I liked, I would like their science book, but think the Language Arts series was too boring, or I would like their math, but find their History mind-numbing; the classical method sounded great, but also very difficult for both parent and child; the Charlotte Mason method sounded beautiful and just like the classical method had so much literature, and reading, and copywork, dictation, and narration, but I cringed at the level of perfectionism expected of students. The idea of making my child erase an entire line, or sometimes even an entire page of written work because of one mistake just didn't sit well with me. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, since none of the methods I researched seemed to fit us perfectly, I freely blended what I liked about each one and came up with my own plan. We would do History chronologically, as in the classical method, and would pair it up with lots of literature either from or about the time period we were studying. We would do science in an orderly fashion, as in the classical method, focusing on one discipline at a time, rather than randomly jumping around from topic to topic. Focusing on Biology, Earth and Space, Chemistry, and Physical Science one at time giving a whole year to each, and then starting over with the disciplines, but going more in depth the second and third time around, this idea also came from the classical method. From the Charlotte Mason method I gleaned lots of reading aloud to the child, doing picture studies for Art appreciation, and using copywork and dictation to teach grammar, penmanship, punctuation, and other skills. In some subjects, such as math, I preferred a more structured, textbook like approach. I planned that if my children became interested in a specific topic, we could borrow from the unschoolers and allow them to study it freely, and that whenever what we were doing seemed to get old, we could take time off from our usual routine and do Unit Studies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yes, I had a definite plan in mind, and the best way to describe it would be "eclectic and flexible", knowing that if we tried something and it didn't work, we'd just try something else.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My vision held mostly true for my oldest child. We spent a lot of time sitting on the couch reading together, a lot of time praying together. She was named after the Bolivian child we sponsored, and while there was too big of an age difference for her to really be into writing the child, we did read the child's letters to her, and get her input when we wrote the child. We tried to do the chronological History study, but the series we were using wasn't finished yet, and we got to the point where the next book hadn't been published, so we settled on Textbooks for that subject, my daughter did not have any interest in History anyway, no matter how we studied it, and really struggled to retain any of that information, but she did so well in all her other subjects that I decided not to worry too much about the one weak area. We covered it, we did the work, but I didn't stress over the fact that the next week after the test she remembered nothing. For the most part though, with my oldest we were homeschooling as I pictured. Happy, relaxed, spending time together enjoying learning, and having lots of time left afterward for time together as a family. It was as close to picture perfect homeschooling as any family could hope to have.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, with my second child it was different. He came along six years after my first, and by the time he was two it was clear that something was a little different about him. He didn't speak, or at least not with real words. He would point at things and say, "high" or "bee". That was his vocabulary, we usually could figure out by context what he meant. "High" could mean "outside" or "shoe", "bee" could mean anything else. The doctor did a very basic hearing screen, and told us to wait and see if he caught up. Six months later, he had added one more "word" to his vocabulary, he now said "he-he" for any two syllable word he wanted to say. Once again we headed to the doctor, and this time, the doctor was a little more concerned, and sent us to an audiologist for a more thorough hearing check. We came away from that appointment with the news that his hearing was fine, and that he also seemed to understand spoken language pretty well, he just couldn't talk. We were told to wait a little longer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When he was three years old, he had added the word "Hammy" to his vocabulary, that was his way of saying his name, "Samuel". It was both amusing and heartbreaking at the same time. We went back to the doctor. This time the doctor recommended a speech and language pathologist, and a full work-up by a special education team at our local public school.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The private speech and language pathologist started working with Samuel weekly, doing speech therapy. The school started their testing. The school gave us the results in a short time. Samuel was severely delayed in expressive language skills, and was mildly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_dyspraxia">dyspraxic </a>, which means that he had difficulty with muscle control and coordination. The school told us that this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_dyspraxia">dyspraxia</a> was probably the cause of his speech delay, since speech requires a lot of coordination of fine muscles in the tongue and lips, and coordinating those movements with the correct movement of the vocal chords, at the correct time. It was also, they said, probably the reason he was still not potty trained at all at three years old, again, a certain amount of muscle control is needed for that. The school also had good news though. My three year old son had the receptive language skills (ability to understand language) of a child between 7 and 8 years old, his impairment was not related to his level of intelligence, if anything, his intelligence was a little above average. Not only that, he had a very keen ability to notice small visual details of objects. For example, part of the testing they did was to ask him to draw a face. Now the purpose of the test was because it is a basic developmental measure, a child of a certain age should be able to draw a face with the eyes, nose, and mouth in approximately the correct position. A child a little older than that should probably include hair and possibly ears. It is just a test to see where they are on that scale. Well, my son drew the head with hair and ears, the nose and mouth, just like most kids... but what was different was how he drew the eyes. He leaned in to his paper and worked very carefully, he drew the eye, complete with a pupil and an iris, even the little lines radiating through the iris, he drew an eyelid, eyelashes, and brow. They told me that for a child his age, noticing and drawing that kind of detail was extremely unusual.<br />
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My son attended special needs preschool at the public school for two years, getting occupational, physical, and speech therapy. He also continued private speech therapy. This was what he needed at the time. He improved immensely, and by the time he was five years old, at his last IEP, they declared that he was developmentally right on track, no more delays. He no longer even qualified for special educational services, and could either be sent to regular kindergarten or be homeschooled, whichever I chose.<br />
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Now, in the meantime, while all of this was happening with my son, the homeschooling continued as before with my oldest child, and I had another baby girl, who was as of yet, still to young for formal schooling. I still believed strongly in homeschooling, and had from the start seen my son's time in the public school as a temporary thing to meet a very specific need, I never planned on it continuing past preschool. This conviction was confirmed during the last month of his last year when I saw a bulletin board display in his classroom. The display was about all of the different types of families there are, and without going into details, I will just say that it did not line up with my family's beliefs and values. It was with relief that I finally brought him home again to homeschool him, and I thought we could finally get to doing with him what had worked so well for his older sister.<br />
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Well, he did wonderfully through homeschool kindergarten, he didn't pick up the reading quite as easily as his older sister had, but I didn't worry about it, after all, boys mature more slowly than girls, I figured he just wasn't ready yet.<br />
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By the time his kindergarten year was done, he had made no progress on reading, even though I did the same things with him that had helped his older sister learn to read before she was three. So I got more structured with the first grade, I prayed about what to use, and based on a definite leading from the Holy Spirit, I started Orton Gillingham phonics instruction (Saxon Phonics), it worked. It took almost all of our school time, but it worked. At the end of first grade my boy was able to sound out words like "<span class="hw">antidisestablishmentarianism</span>" (no joke, this was one of the words on his final assessment, and he sounded it out correctly!) Now, words like that were difficult, but he could sound them out, however, he could also read with a fair degree of fluency things written more to his level, such as the little phonics readers that came with the curriculum.<br />
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We took our summer break. I had planned on having him continue to read over the break, but we got busy and he didn't practice as he should. When September rolled around I handed my son a book, and he couldn't read a single word. NOT-ONE-WORD. I pointed at individual letters, he could only name about half of them, and he remembered the sounds of less than half. So we started over. We tried several other methods of phonics, trying to find something that didn't require so much time, but in the end we realized that none of those methods was helping and he was only falling further and further behind. So we went back to Orton Gillingham phonics, and once again my son began to make slow, steady progress.<br />
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He is now eleven years old. He would be in fifth grade if we considered just his age and when he started first grade, but we call him a fourth grader. He reads at a mid-second grade level if he is timed, but if there is no time pressure he can eventually, with much difficulty, figure out and comprehend material written at a fourth or fifth grade level. He still reverses letters when he writes. He has never quite regained the ability to sound out long words like he could at the end of first grade. He still reads "saw" for "was", and still has great difficulty with little high frequency words like "where" and "of". He is able to read such words in isolation on a flash card, but then misreads the same word when it is part of a passage of text. I am sure that he is dyslexic. He had all the signs, the delayed speech, the dyspraxia, the difficulty retaining the ability to read even after he seemed to learn it. Even his amazing ability to notice visual detail is so common in dyslexic children. He has gone through three years of Orton Gillingham, which I found out later is the most highly recommended method to use with dyslexic children. He has made a lot of progress, but struggling for that progress has consumed the rest of our homeschooling, and as a result my younger children didn't often have me sitting down reading leisurely to them, they didn't often get to make cookies with me as part of our schoolwork, they haven't had the experience with writing to learn like their older sister had.<br />
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On top of his learning difficulties, finances have forced me to work outside the home in addition to homeschooling. This means that whatever time we would have left after covering the basics, is now taken up by mom's job. <br />
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We have had to make compromises. The classical and Charlotte Mason methods, with their huge emphasis on reading literature and on writing from dictation, are just a nightmare for a dyslexic child. Not to mention that the reading instruction itself takes so long that there is not a whole lot of time left for that kind of thing. So my son does a computer based curriculum that allows him to use Text-to-Speech technology to cover content based subjects, it would be better if I could read to him, but we just don't have time for me to read everything to him while I am also working. My youngest daughter has receives very little direct instruction in anything. However, she has learned much through osmosis, just being around while my son was taught how to read, and was taught the same information over and over in different ways to utilize all of his senses, has taught her how to read very well, in fact she reads far better than he does.<br />
<br />
Having me work has forced us to accept less than the ideal when it comes to homeschooling. <br />
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<br />
Yesterday, after a particularly exhausting day at work, I was driving home and feeling very down. It was a beautiful day, as I passed the beach on my way home I thought about how pretty everything was, and I thought about stopping to take pictures... but I was too tired, and besides, I had to go to the bank and cash my check, and I wanted to get home to my kids. As I drove by I noticed another photographer getting her camera and tripod out of her trunk. I sighed and continued on.<br />
<br />
After stopping at the bank, I drove home. I pulled up in the driveway and saw my husband and kids outside by our burn pile, it was almost 4:00 in the afternoon, so I figured that since they were outside, all of the schoolwork must be done. I wanted to join them out there, but my feet and back were so tired I just couldn't stand around the fire. So I went inside and lay down.<br />
<br />
After a time I discovered that the homeschool wasn't finished, we finished up after dinner, when it was almost time for bed. I felt so discouraged. This was not what I pictured when I decided to homeschool. I spent a lot of time today and yesterday thinking about this.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do I think my son is getting as high quality of an education as he would get if I could be here every day, all through the day, working with him and reading to him from both his textbooks and from great literature? <u><b>No</b></u>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do I believe that the largely multiple choice and fill in the blank work he does on the computer is as effective as it would be to sit down with him and his books and have him tell me his answers in his own words? <u><b>No</b></u>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do I feel like my younger children are being shortchanged compared to their older sister, who had a stay at home mom through all of her younger years? <u><b>Yes</b></u>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do I wish I could stay home with them and devote all my time to their schooling? <u><b>Yes, without a doubt.</b></u><br />
<br />
Do I think that they would be better off in Public School? <u><b>Absolutely <i>NOT</i></b></u>.<br />
<br />
Even though what we are doing now may not be the best that homeschooling can be, even though it falls so far short of what I'd like to see us doing, it is so much better than what they would get in the public school system. I know there is no way the public school would go to such lengths to spend extra time on my son's reading, it is unlikely they would let him use speech to text to continue learning about content when he can't read the material. He would either be put in special education classes where not much would be expected of him or he would be left to flounder and struggle in mainstream classes. Surely his view of himself would be much affected by constantly being compared to his peers, and he would start to doubt his intelligence.<br />
<br />
Not only that, but my children would be bombarded by worldly values and ideas for six hours a day. They would not be getting an education centered around God and His word, but would instead be learning what is politically correct and popular in today's society. Their faith would be attacked and undermined on a daily basis.<br />
<br />
So, while this is not what I envisioned, while it is not what I really want to see in our homeschool, I am far more content with what we have than I would be with Public School. I am still so thankful to be able to homeschool these kids.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-39911782487695763022011-01-29T20:50:00.000-08:002011-01-29T20:50:30.605-08:00Perfect Blend of Girly-Girl and Rough and Tumble Tom-Boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> My little daughter Danielle is quite amusing with her mix of typical little girl traits and "Tom Boy" traits. Here is the cute little play house she built from legos, typical little girl stuff... well until you look closer:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSmLB8iDZ4yUVau2GtT_Zrkb84Y-L33l3cbEY-lGkHT0aOwnbhb4LJDyLSOSjnXtkVamBijMvuq8nQ_avI8KIQFTUFFpNKL45WtFdImETg3tj2ysa_WzTK0Zpza0e1L3aI1FrzZlxVFA/s1600/IMG_1213.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSmLB8iDZ4yUVau2GtT_Zrkb84Y-L33l3cbEY-lGkHT0aOwnbhb4LJDyLSOSjnXtkVamBijMvuq8nQ_avI8KIQFTUFFpNKL45WtFdImETg3tj2ysa_WzTK0Zpza0e1L3aI1FrzZlxVFA/s400/IMG_1213.JPG" width="400" /> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Her dream home has a missile launcher. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PzDZkJor0IlqsSLYA2gooHmNLmLe5KWGMztoEqAT_wYZcyN5RucaeMtKPVEs5IXqtQOiYYiU9dSoSoKXtcnnps50bq-Gfxcm4Cw3pV9ZWgrD6LNKAJfqhUT9l_e-PkNWgRwoYNo6wj4/s1600/IMG_1214.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PzDZkJor0IlqsSLYA2gooHmNLmLe5KWGMztoEqAT_wYZcyN5RucaeMtKPVEs5IXqtQOiYYiU9dSoSoKXtcnnps50bq-Gfxcm4Cw3pV9ZWgrD6LNKAJfqhUT9l_e-PkNWgRwoYNo6wj4/s400/IMG_1214.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">And the woman of the house drives around armed with a pistol. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiujMFGJ3SYmzR8Hu4BYX-nZGfjojdXjz9XU-hEoqX2t1Zwxtfj8WJsgwHQpDN2mUlX5lPqEN12b-RAhN5utpGl5mKIWBz3H9l8QXXpedIfB1jwdZnxRR-86GgeKN1f9qyMnOx-5HGOkuY/s1600/IMG_1215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiujMFGJ3SYmzR8Hu4BYX-nZGfjojdXjz9XU-hEoqX2t1Zwxtfj8WJsgwHQpDN2mUlX5lPqEN12b-RAhN5utpGl5mKIWBz3H9l8QXXpedIfB1jwdZnxRR-86GgeKN1f9qyMnOx-5HGOkuY/s400/IMG_1215.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"> The man of the house drives a car that is part fighter plane.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UomZ1yd3bTqAKF2isLjohoEwk1S3drelIfqB1Vm0U4A1dInoLzMnWwNZ0hJJ2pZdu6nc1GyHk5DJzn75ioue7lMXB9g4Q8jRVmZYo_i_2-XSAeRgOYivqBetvlo5I0io2fTjM93O8FQ/s1600/IMG_1216.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UomZ1yd3bTqAKF2isLjohoEwk1S3drelIfqB1Vm0U4A1dInoLzMnWwNZ0hJJ2pZdu6nc1GyHk5DJzn75ioue7lMXB9g4Q8jRVmZYo_i_2-XSAeRgOYivqBetvlo5I0io2fTjM93O8FQ/s400/IMG_1216.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-42882021884796580132011-01-18T18:26:00.000-08:002011-01-18T18:26:24.904-08:00This and ThatWell, homeschool has been going pretty well since we started using Switched On Schoolhouse for my son. He still needs a lot of help to stay on task, but having everything laid out for us makes that easier. I am able to point to what is due that day and he knows there is an end in sight, he won't be doing homeschool forever if he stays on task. I only wish I could be home with him more. If I was able to work with him more, we could get him done with the 4th grade level before summer, and he'd be able to have a summer break. As it stands though, we will work the entire summer, just so he will be only a year behind in September. I have decided that once we get him into the fifth grade level, I am not going to push too hard to catch up, he can just be one year behind in everything but math. We'll just call him a 5th grader and not stress about it, and he'll be doing 6th grade math by than, so his test scores should show him ahead in that subject. Later when he is older, if he wants to catch up in order to finish school on time, he can work toward that. <br />
<br />
It is also easier because at times I am able to leave him alone to work, the text-to-speech is certainly not perfect, but it still makes some independence possible for him.<br />
<br />
He is working with the One Minute Reader program I blogged about last time as well, and it really seems that it is going to help him. Of course it is too soon to really judge, but so far it seems to be having some positive effect. If nothing else it is giving him more practice, and because his sister isn't doing the same thing, he isn't feeling like he's being compared to her. He is competing against his OWN best speed, not someone's else.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-75694554900120221582011-01-03T14:48:00.000-08:002011-01-04T16:37:45.956-08:00It's been a While!I haven't posted on this blog for a long time!! I am busy homeschooling, going to work, teaching at co-op, teaching Sunday School, and a billion other things, and I just don't have as much time to write as I would like to have.<br />
<br />
A lot has changed in our school lately, we've abandoned things that weren't working well for us, and picked up things that we hope work better. My son still hasn't been officially tested for dyslexia, but I am more sure than ever that he <b>is </b>dyslexic. Because I work outside the home, I just don't have the time to keep reading to him, but he needs to move beyond his reading level in subject matter like Science and History. So we've started using <a href="http://www.aophomeschooling.com/switched-on-schoolhouse/overview.php">Switched On Schoolhouse</a> for him, he can make use of adaptive technology like "Text-to-Speech" and have the computer read the lessons to him, then he only has to read the questions that come after. However, I do ask him to follow along with the computer while it reads, and I have him read one lesson a day, using the Text to Speech only for individual words he gets stuck on. He is doing 4th grade level, which is about a year behind where he should be, but the reading problem has held him back in the content areas a little, and the fourth grade level covered content that I felt was an important foundation for the later levels, so he'll just have to work year-round until he's at grade level. He is using Switched on Schoolhouse for Bible, Language Arts, Science, and History/Geography.<br />
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To address the reading separately, we are going to start using <a href="http://oneminutereader.com/">One Minute Reader</a> which is a program designed to build fluency in reading. I figure we have covered all the phonics he needs, and what he needs now is practice, practice, practice. Of course, we continue to cover some phonics through spelling, but really we have been over and over phonics again and again. Research has shown that repeated reading of the same passage, and choral reading are two of the most the effective ways to build fluency in readers, including dyslexics, and since One Minute Reader uses both of these techniques, we are going to give it a shot. My son is so unfluent with reading, that even though he is "supposed to be" in 5th grade, we had to start him with "Level E", the easiest stage, written at a Kindergarten to early First Grade level. Hopefully it will work for him.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.oneminutereader.com/miva/graphics/00000001/E-bundle_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.oneminutereader.com/miva/graphics/00000001/E-bundle_lg.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In addition, he is also reading <a href="http://www.pathwayreading.com/store/pathway-readers">Pathway Readers</a>, he is doing the second grade level of that, and he can figure them out, he just isn't very fluent with them. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.pathwayreading.com/store/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/f/i/file_5_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.pathwayreading.com/store/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/f/i/file_5_2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
For math he is continuing with <a href="http://teachingtextbooks.com/">Teaching Textbooks</a>, it has been great for him so far, and is the only subject he is on grade level with. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://teachingtextbooks.com/v/vspfiles/images/math5/math5answercoversmall.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://teachingtextbooks.com/v/vspfiles/images/math5/math5answercoversmall.gif" /></a></div><br />
My youngest daughter, who is on grade level in all subjects, and in fact a little advanced in reading, is using Learning Language Arts through Literature, The Mystery of History, and reads the Pathways Readers with my son. For science she does a class at our co-op. Next year she will move into Switched On Schoolhouse also, but for now we will use what we have on hand for her, and next years he can use the Switched On Schoolhouse that my son is using now, and he will move into the 5th grade level of it.<br />
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So there is the catching up on the homeschooling. In other areas, the big news is that my husband is getting laid off in June. So I am looking for more clients for my housecleaning business, and my husband is considering further schooling so he can find a decent paying job, while he goes to school he would be able to collect unemployment, and that, along with me working more... will hopefully be enough.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-81188312831050386032010-04-18T20:25:00.000-07:002010-04-18T20:25:17.067-07:00The Sovereign Hand of God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwdYEO4arXlL4adbKM1YM7V5G4Snoe9pHTLo2dNasj3XO-7VrJABsZtqtfiISF_q16Q5wMUKzv0CyCPmCVhtqgXzghWOF6CitHZAbdPYS8DtbOroh_3-SbWpY7OgF3U7er5-A4NQ8L-k/s1600/cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwdYEO4arXlL4adbKM1YM7V5G4Snoe9pHTLo2dNasj3XO-7VrJABsZtqtfiISF_q16Q5wMUKzv0CyCPmCVhtqgXzghWOF6CitHZAbdPYS8DtbOroh_3-SbWpY7OgF3U7er5-A4NQ8L-k/s200/cross.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
God was watching over my kids and me today. You see after church I was going to go shopping for a new camera. I was going to take my kids with me in the van, and take a 45 minute drive, most of which would have been on the freeway at 60 miles an hour. I told the kids to go to use the restroom at church because we would be driving a while, and then suddenly, really without thinking, I changed my mind. I decided it would be much easier to shop if the kids stayed at church with their dad and came home with him when he was ready to leave church. So I took my husbands pickup truck and left him with the van to take the kids home.<br />
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He had many fewer miles to drive, and no freeway driving, but neither of us knew that would be significant.<br />
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After we were both home later we made a grocery list and I was going to take the van to go grocery shopping. My older daughter and I climbed in and drove out of our driveway, we drove about half way down our little country road with no trouble, and then "<b>BUMP-BUMP-BUMP-BUMP!" </b>I wasn't even driving the 25mph hour speed limit, and it was still hard to keep the van going straight.<br />
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I stopped and got out to see what was wrong, and I saw this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XGfDyZUz6o7-8ge9NKeoxz4b51pZjCQ69Q8AC9IJmssQIAa2MVGgNyCawzQTQQmYQJNbx4HgtsHG3BdoBcrTlo9MB2Y84ciaSSBuMDlUK9o8pVUNY2wzbZ1es6TyqW4HBiJXRQ8vkts/s1600/100_2436.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XGfDyZUz6o7-8ge9NKeoxz4b51pZjCQ69Q8AC9IJmssQIAa2MVGgNyCawzQTQQmYQJNbx4HgtsHG3BdoBcrTlo9MB2Y84ciaSSBuMDlUK9o8pVUNY2wzbZ1es6TyqW4HBiJXRQ8vkts/s320/100_2436.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBYCBSbaEj1mGY581HUvVjB_ja69O3rY8Zh7ojz5bCB9-Kiwv2GontBef982_w6ZTpXwJKwpvYbzF6hByYx6YIjoDSnHL54FFU00ERvdZXzG8Irq3xLw71uf7y-NVfi19op_g3VzRIWM/s1600/100_2437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBYCBSbaEj1mGY581HUvVjB_ja69O3rY8Zh7ojz5bCB9-Kiwv2GontBef982_w6ZTpXwJKwpvYbzF6hByYx6YIjoDSnHL54FFU00ERvdZXzG8Irq3xLw71uf7y-NVfi19op_g3VzRIWM/s320/100_2437.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
We turned around and drove slowly back home. I have little doubt that if I had taken the van to go shopping for my camera today, this would have happened at 60 mph, and at that speed would probably have been a total blowout. I don't know why it happened, we didn't add air to the tires recently, but it almost looks like it was over-full. They are Goodyear tires, I think I remember a few years back of a recall? These were on the van when we bought it last spring, I wonder if they were part of the recall.<br />
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At any rate, I am praising God today that He was watching over my kids and me.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-90756761106419974152010-04-17T09:45:00.000-07:002010-04-17T10:40:10.812-07:00Very Frustrated!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjMOHFhzqMo2Mjxne7PystrbTcNu94qIEVQIPcQA0mBfh726PsxzJMM_6TnVCA1zkcJyXKTxqaCD7Y3wWZY253j5VxYGL7S3j7JO2l5Z73Zf-77y2BK2KUuWDnXmlGlPGDMIkHemMVzs/s320/100_2406.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div>About a month ago I called an educational psychologist and made an appointment to get my son officially evaluated for dyslexia. I remember the conversation very well, I asked if it would be covered on my insurance and the doctor wasn't sure, and asked me if I wanted to wait and find out first. I said, "No, because even if its not covered my son needs to be tested, so I'll just set up the appointment now, and if insurance doesn't cover it I'll pay out of pocket." From there the doctor proceeded to set up an appointment with me. 10:30 on April 16.<br />
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So yesterday I got up, got all my kids ready, and went to catch the 9:25 Ferry across Puget Sound to go to this doctors appointment, only to get there and find out that the doctor never put me in the appointment book. I came all that way for nothing.<br />
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That might not seem that big a deal, but the Ferry tickets are not cheap. It cost $11.85 on the way over, because passengers are free going that way and you only pay for car and driver. The way back was a different story, the kids are $5.55 each so that came to $16.65, plus the cost of car and driver again which brings the return trip price to $28.50. So the round trip to go over there and waste my time cost me $40.35. On top of that, there was the gas driving around the city looking for an office that was very hard to find with the directions given me, stopping to get food at lunch time because we didn't have time to pack a lunch (we were concerned about "being late" for our vanishing appointment).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCTOITdJPIDcCwHQamMPHkg5-Np2_jUQe364kVNtHlN-1Q5jy-tZq2LJlmfjykdw9TfabjlJjIgj9Rpj0kWl9wzrfw26KFG3jA8NQRfyUW_jsptEExPJEQ_TwIQ6p0Oc9hnbXYMHuY74/s1600/100_2393.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCTOITdJPIDcCwHQamMPHkg5-Np2_jUQe364kVNtHlN-1Q5jy-tZq2LJlmfjykdw9TfabjlJjIgj9Rpj0kWl9wzrfw26KFG3jA8NQRfyUW_jsptEExPJEQ_TwIQ6p0Oc9hnbXYMHuY74/s320/100_2393.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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The doctor asked if I wanted to reschedule. I said, "No, I'll find someone else."<br />
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So now I have to try to find another psychologist trained in diagnosing learning disabilities. I may have to do another Ferry trip to get it done, and that is okay with me as long as they keep the appointment. It certainly won't be at the same office though, if they aren't competent enough to write down the appointments they make, I don't think I want them being the ones to diagnose my son.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgphx2BYIInQeg9JCfAejbYepyF_lc4Sq9Tts2QKMpW8LvKx-np_x4LK3XagHnScQFPg3zNARgcTGh1X96KO3D0Roiv8KlobPaNXkFdse6RjTZX4l1OrufBggUN60u3gw8zGqALl83ddIk/s1600/100_2394.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgphx2BYIInQeg9JCfAejbYepyF_lc4Sq9Tts2QKMpW8LvKx-np_x4LK3XagHnScQFPg3zNARgcTGh1X96KO3D0Roiv8KlobPaNXkFdse6RjTZX4l1OrufBggUN60u3gw8zGqALl83ddIk/s320/100_2394.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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Since by the time we got home we had wasted our homeschool day, we decided to go to the park for a little while and let the kids play while my older daughter and I took photos. Of all the ones I took, this is my favorite one. The rest are posted <a href="http://vicsglimpsesof2010.blogspot.com/">HERE</a>. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9trvt8zAPOTrUFYPg5pKJFIjHQfxNM30zVXQ3A87ngjIfVVPTe-Q42_labrF127N6b_B4Hbn9sLvc-1f2wc8NjT9hB_Qk-hmEFVI0AESdogW23MDOKFxf92UeUHX-C_3pG-i1RxZ7Xw/s1600/100_2418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9trvt8zAPOTrUFYPg5pKJFIjHQfxNM30zVXQ3A87ngjIfVVPTe-Q42_labrF127N6b_B4Hbn9sLvc-1f2wc8NjT9hB_Qk-hmEFVI0AESdogW23MDOKFxf92UeUHX-C_3pG-i1RxZ7Xw/s320/100_2418.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> After all of that, we still had to drive into Bremerton, which is over 28 miles in the opposite direction of the Ferry, to get my daughter something to wear for the Homeschool High School Formal. So I had a pretty busy day yesterday, and a frustrating one at that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">********************************************* </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-46731257977981262662010-04-06T23:51:00.000-07:002010-04-06T23:51:29.898-07:00"Get -R- Done!" How?Okay, I lead a pretty busy life. I homeschool my three kids, pulling together my curriculum from a wide variety of material, which takes PLANNING. I work up to three days a week outside the home, usually only for half days, but sometimes longer. I teach Sunday School. I teach a class at a homeschool co-op. I am taking a distance education course in Small Engine Mechanics, which requires me to study about 1 hour a day five days a week. I try to work out for about an hour and a half at least five days a week, and I have recently been convicted that I need to set time aside to quiet myself before God and read His word each day.<br />
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So how does this play out in real time? How can I possibly get it done?<br />
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Well, this is what today looked like:<br />
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The alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning, but I hit the snooze button twice, so I got up at 5:30. Then I had a mug of homemade chai, put a status on my church's Facebook page, and one on my own, and then went to my room to read the Bible and pray. I got into what I was reading, and instead of just reading a chapter, I ended up reading seven chapters, this used up most of my time, so the actual time spent praying was kind of short. Oh well, its more important for me to hear from God than for me to tell Him a bunch of things He already knows, simply inviting Him to be with me on my day and asking for His help to walk in obedience is probably all of the prayer I <i>really need. </i>After this<i> </i>worked out on Wii Fit Plus for 41 minutes, 30 minutes of which was spent running in place on "Free Run". Then I took a shower and made myself some oatmeal, and drank another mug of homemade chai. I packed my lunch, put on my makeup, and did my hair. <br />
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This all sounds like I was moving incredibly fast, but in reality, it was almost 10:00 before I left for work, and the only things I had accomplished was my quiet time, breakfast, workout, and getting ready for the day. Fortunately, my husband got the kids to do their math lessons, and had them do their daily reading out loud, so there wouldn't be as much homeschool when I got home from work.<br />
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I started work at 10:20, and finished at 1:30. It was a short day, only three hours. I usually work around four hours at least. It was 2:00 when I got home. I was tired so I sat down at the computer to rest, and ended up wasting an hour. Then, just as I was about to get started on the homeshooling, my oldest daughter reminded me that I needed to reinstall virus protection on her laptop, which had been reformatted after encountering some problems. I had to get on the phone with Norton and have them help. They took remote access of the computer and installed it, but I still had to sit at the desk with a phone to my ear for another thirty or forty minutes. I also remembered I needed to back up my computer, so I started before I left the computer area.<br />
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Finally I started the younger kids on their Phonics lesson. It took a long time, but its vital for my son that we don't skimp on this area. He needs the review of all the information. After Phonics, the kids were tired so I let them have a short break. Then we did Learning Language Arts through Literature. While the kids did their copy work, I studied my small engine repair course. When they finished the copywork part of their lesson, I put my studies aside to help them with the rest. Then when we finished their lesson, I let them take another break while I finished studying the section I was on. When I finished it was around 8:00 at night, and we hadn't had dinner. Fortunately my husband had started a soup in the crock pot before he left for work. So we ate dinner, and I read to the kids from their History book and asked them questions about it while they ate.<br />
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After dinner, I studied a bit more. When Lost came on I <i><b>had </b></i>to watch it, the younger kids were sent into their room to watch kids shows and my older daughter and I watched Lost. For the first half of the show I sat down and watched, and studied on commercials. Then during the last half of the show I did Free Step on the Wii Fit Plus while I watched. When Lost was done, put the kids to bed and did my daily exercises for bad knees.<br />
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Then I updated my weight loss blog with my daily exercise and calorie information. And now, at 11:50 I am writing this, and tomorrow I will get up between 5:30 and 6:00, and start it all again. Except that tomorrow, I also need to get the kids to Awana and my oldest to Youth Group!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-83204780306262448962010-04-04T06:02:00.000-07:002010-04-04T06:02:06.594-07:00HE IS RISEN!!!<div style="text-align: center;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z3kc1jDahU4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z3kc1jDahU4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-73986592250954057122010-03-19T16:37:00.000-07:002010-03-19T16:38:08.314-07:00What the Eye Doctor Said<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today our family went to the eye doctor to evaluate my son's vision. </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">Sure enough my son has eye trouble. He is slightly nearsighted, but not enough to need glasses. However, there are three issues with his eyes that do require attention. The first is his eye tracking ability, eye tracking refers to the eye's ability to follow a moving object, and to move easily and smoothly from side to side, as is required to read a line of text. Children usually develop this ability on their own as they play, and by the time they try to learn to read, their eyes can move smoothly across a line of text, or follow a butterfly fluttering about the room. My son's eyes did not develop this ability. They move side to side in a halting, jerking, movement. They also move slightly up and down as they attempt to move side to side. The next issue is his convergence ability, that is the ability of both eyes to focus on the same spot in space. With concentrated focus and effort, he <b>can</b> make his eyes do this, but he has to work very hard to get them to, and it is not supposed to be hard. It is supposed to be automatic. The third problem with his eyes is that when he focuses on something near him, and then tries to focus further away, his eyes take too long to relax and refocus, this is probably the cause of his slight nearsightedness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">The good news is that all of these problems are treatable through vision therapy. It is possible that our medical insurance will cover it, we are still waiting to find that out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;">The doctor suggested that we get him tested for Dyslexia as well, and, as I shared in an earlier post, we have already made an appointment for that. If he has Dyslexia, the vision therapy won't fix that, but by removing the visual obstacles, so that he only has the obstacle of Dyslexia still in his way, we will make learning much easier for him.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-83474137199075402132010-03-17T08:54:00.000-07:002010-03-17T11:56:39.400-07:00Oooh Nooo!<a href="http://thriceblessed-lessofme.blogspot.com/2010/03/food-and-exercise-journal-for-march-16.html">Yesterday</a> when I woke up the day looked beautiful. I got ready for work and it was still beautiful. I arrived at work and it was still beautiful.<br />
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Then as I was working I heard some noise, it sounded like a lot of wind. I looked out the window, and sure enough, the wind was blowing... hard. Hard enough to bend the tops of the tall pines into shape of a bow. Around here, that kind of windstorm means one thing... widespread power failure. The people I clean house for have a generator that automatically kicks in when the power goes out, so it didn't effect my ability to finish the job. I sent my oldest daughter a text, asking if the power was out yet. She texted back "LOL, Yes."<br />
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When I left the client's house, I was a little surprised at the condition of the roads. The storm was worse than I'd thought. Tree limbs lay everywhere, I weaved in and out among them all the way home. In one spot a tree had fallen across the road, fortunately before I got there a guy did who happened to have a chain saw in his truck. He was just finishing up when I arrived on the spot. So I was able to continue on home. The road I live on was no better. One neighbor's fence was broken down by a fallen tree. When I got to my driveway, I had to get out and clear some large limbs out of the way before I could continue home.<br />
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Once I got home, I saw that the power was still out. This meant a cold lunch, it was already 3:00 in the afternoon so I was famished and in no mood to search too much for healthy options. My diet bread was frozen, so I had to use regular, and eat lunch meat and cheese. After my sandwich I was sill hungry so I ate some of the lunch meat and cheese plain. Finally I had an apple and a yogurt. Then I started homeschooling my kids, my oldest works independently, so I focused my attention on the younger two.<br />
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We did Phonics, I read them a chapter from their new History book, and then we finished reading a chapter of <i>Little House in the Big Woods</i>. They had done their Math while I was at work, and they do most of their science at co-op, so I decided to call that enough for the day. The power was still out.<br />
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I decided I'd better go get our generator out of the garage and hook it up before it got too dark to see. So I walked around behind our house to open the garage door. Usually we use an automatic garage door opener, so I had to disconnect that in order to open it manually. Then, to get the generator out, I had to move a bunch of boxes that had been placed in the path. Finally I got the generator out of the garage and started pulling it up the steep hill to the spot near our door where we usually put it. It was heavy and difficult to get up the hill. I could feel the stress on my ab muscles and on all the edges of the hernia patch, but I had to have the generator so I kept pulling. My son jumped in to help me and started pushing, that made it a lot easier and we got it in place.<br />
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Next, I tried to start it. It has a long complicated starting procedure that involves three levers being in correct positions, and for some reason, the manufacturer didn't find it necessary to put a sticker on it explaining the correct procedure. So I had to try a multitude of variations, and pull the cord many times before finally getting it started. Next time I mush remember that the gas switch needs to be in the "Off" position to start, that makes no sense to me, which is why it took so long for me to hit on that variation.<br />
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Anyway, we finally had the generator running and the first thing we did was make dinner. I plugged in the fridge to keep it cold for a while, and plugged the microwave in to heat things in. I didn't pay as much attention to portions as I should have, which resulted in my calories for the day being higher than they should have been, but I was honestly hungry every time I ate, none of it was just eating for the sake of eating.<br />
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After dinner we unhooked the fridge and microwave and tried hooking up both of our convection heaters to the generator. The heaters were too much of a drain and it triggered the circuit breaker. We decided to go without heat for a while, wear coats, and just hook up our TV and a lamp and watch LOST. I also hooked up the Wii so I could do Free Step as I watched. That was one good decision I made, I didn't skip my exercise. By the time Lost was over I still needed to do about 40 minutes more on Wii Fit Plus to reach my total calorie burn. So my oldest put the younger kids to bed and I stayed up exercising. After I was done, my husband arrived home and we hooked up one heater and put it in the hall near all of our bedrooms, and went to bed.<br />
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This morning when I woke up the power was still out, the generator had run out of gas, and the house was cold, so I just went back to sleep for a while. Later I woke up to find it still out. My husband and I decided we might as well get the generator going again so we could start our day. Just as he was about to go get the gas can and fill it up, the lights came on. (Yippee!)<br />
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So my calories for the day were 2053, instead of 1600 like they should have been. I hope that the hard day at work, moving all those boxes, hauling the generator up the hill, pulling the start cord over and over, and then still going on to complete my workout made up for the extra calories! I won't depend on that though, I was 453 calories over, so for the next few days I'll try to come in under to make up the difference.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-43494720410873119342010-03-15T22:40:00.000-07:002010-03-15T23:08:44.515-07:00Its Been so Long!<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Its been so long since I've updated. It seems that lately I am too busy homeschooling to have much time to blog about it. My son's dyslexia evaluation is scheduled for next month, which was the earliest they could get him in. The test is a formality though. I've already been told based on questions I answered that it is 90% sure that he is dyslexic.</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Meanwhile, he is plugging away with his reading. We are past the halfway mark for Saxon Phonics 2, and I swear this curriculum is exactly what he needs. I wrote a review about it <a href="http://www.homeschoolreviews.com/reviews/curriculum/reviews.aspx?id=325">HERE</a>. For those who don't know, my screen name on most sites is Thrice Blessed.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU6ONBewvo1eA_cYo66w8DqoEZUSL5vvos-GCTlmRzEuO8OCQj59192zlW_pJIXotao5MkOPlrB9v1ZnZgIbE4Z0fAbEXlHLLRq_CWQgFDuk0B9JGMTy1sWfNiE761xPuzfqbeaaaBiiY/s1600-h/saxon+phonics2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU6ONBewvo1eA_cYo66w8DqoEZUSL5vvos-GCTlmRzEuO8OCQj59192zlW_pJIXotao5MkOPlrB9v1ZnZgIbE4Z0fAbEXlHLLRq_CWQgFDuk0B9JGMTy1sWfNiE761xPuzfqbeaaaBiiY/s320/saxon+phonics2.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">On Friday my son is seeing a developmental ophthalmologist who will thoroughly test his eyes, this is because often visual tracking, and binocular vision difficulties accompany dyslexia, and can make it even harder to overcome. The vision difficulties are usually reversible, leaving the child to only deal with the brain/processing problem of dyslexia, rather than continuing to struggle with both processing difficulties and vision difficulties.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">On another note, since my son's reading is improving with the Saxon Phonics, I've decided we should now begin to try to catch up in other areas of academics, areas that have been somewhat neglected as we focused so much time and energy trying to get him reading. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">One of those areas is Language Arts, things like writing, grammar, and reading good literature, which have, in my mind, always been important elements of "education". So to address this we are going to start using <a href="http://www.commonsensepress.com/covers.htm">Learning Language Arts Through Literature</a>. </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-_AYthAwdbjG3_kgNmHZUg5qPhYMHxb2U9tL7SGZV8wwGlqxEOtarhX4SoSgNCgnWdeII3VlgIpqzUrpfpLpSAosOagry1n-0ai7KH_0QvK9KGRE_rFQPAKfQK3CfQLWw79-f0WYwhg/s1600-h/LLATLyellow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR-_AYthAwdbjG3_kgNmHZUg5qPhYMHxb2U9tL7SGZV8wwGlqxEOtarhX4SoSgNCgnWdeII3VlgIpqzUrpfpLpSAosOagry1n-0ai7KH_0QvK9KGRE_rFQPAKfQK3CfQLWw79-f0WYwhg/s320/LLATLyellow.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">We will be starting with the <a href="http://www.commonsensepress.com/yellow.htm">Yellow Book</a>. The Yellow Book covers third grade skills, and my son is in fourth grade approaching fifth grade. I would love to be able to skip this level, and put him in the fourth grade book, but he still needs so many of the skills in the yellow book, we are going to work through the summer, and once we finish Saxon Phonics, we are going to try to do two days worth each day in order to catch up. In the Yellow Book, my son will learn third grade grammar and punctuation, will practice some spelling patterns, will review some principles of phonics, will read and study some quality children's literature, and will learn cursive handwriting. My youngest daughter will do it right along with him, I know she is capable. In fact, I think she could probably handle the fourth grade level, even though she is in second grade.</span></span><br />
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</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">We are also going to start doing some history, which we have been neglecting this year. We will go through <a href="http://www.christianlibertypress.com/proddetail.asp?prod=CLP79945&cat=64">This Book</a> together. </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHQVEOMUZ_t3PVLa9ExYhKLKmnQeJ-Sg3FNsnnfWEb3vVd6D8L0NTG9dL00Sq5gb8qhpkmmsYENqg8ypPattYI4Rr_eqzH_zp86TbtKFrqAlOEkpcgvkkhObXgrgzFsDunj6UdtQo55I/s1600-h/Child's+Story+of+America.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHQVEOMUZ_t3PVLa9ExYhKLKmnQeJ-Sg3FNsnnfWEb3vVd6D8L0NTG9dL00Sq5gb8qhpkmmsYENqg8ypPattYI4Rr_eqzH_zp86TbtKFrqAlOEkpcgvkkhObXgrgzFsDunj6UdtQo55I/s320/Child's+Story+of+America.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I plan to do most, if not all of the reading on this one. There are review questions at the end of each chapter, which we will discuss. I won't be testing my kids on them. Again, my daughter will do this with us. I hope to finish the History book before summer, so that during summer all we have to do is Language Arts. Then next year, I would like to do <a href="http://www.themysteryofhistory.com/volumeI.shtml">Mystery of History, Volume 1</a>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fX0ipAXiz7ghwBONOGEmCs8mnk4ERAjuu6Fz5vfmPn9mcuDinjHwNjRA55AqXVPlMLA_UIpRe51XYV0KhMZraN-CZRjaqIDa9FNWgxSMn666x3wrWER-G9dk4cKHvSr46_fJi6oDHdg/s1600-h/Mystery+of+History.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fX0ipAXiz7ghwBONOGEmCs8mnk4ERAjuu6Fz5vfmPn9mcuDinjHwNjRA55AqXVPlMLA_UIpRe51XYV0KhMZraN-CZRjaqIDa9FNWgxSMn666x3wrWER-G9dk4cKHvSr46_fJi6oDHdg/s320/Mystery+of+History.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">For Science, we may or may not start something this year. The children are both taking science at the co-op, so we don't really need to do it. However, I am considering <a href="http://www.timberdoodle.com/Christian_Kids_Explore_Biology_p/088-088.htm">THIS</a> for next year. </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09cBFiI2TQyP13db1FQQfuRma0gd-SQCE8gM9wUOZ-s2h-Pm1KjfV-oWMveAVRfIif769LLjP8cSKBx0Y_9kDZmrIerWkK1O_HMrywAvzdnDLG43JOkIYXrKzDH3OhCRURB5_2nvOTHw/s1600-h/Christian+kids+explore+biology.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09cBFiI2TQyP13db1FQQfuRma0gd-SQCE8gM9wUOZ-s2h-Pm1KjfV-oWMveAVRfIif769LLjP8cSKBx0Y_9kDZmrIerWkK1O_HMrywAvzdnDLG43JOkIYXrKzDH3OhCRURB5_2nvOTHw/s320/Christian+kids+explore+biology.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am considering teaching it at the co-op, which is just once a week, and then also using <a href="http://www.eagleswingsed.com/products/cgc.html">THIS</a> at home. </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm1fKZo3eK-JC0EfPCTWFDje1bDhjMD21qf2Y5ReNv0ORt4_g_6t_GfPzLM53WFvjYWXNnieWMtDaBkr1m6j890DS0b_ppZQzRFUsFQz_i2GI8PaCtoGulnZ6bOlL6HVzEukhAFQ5KVM/s1600-h/Considering+God%27s+Creation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm1fKZo3eK-JC0EfPCTWFDje1bDhjMD21qf2Y5ReNv0ORt4_g_6t_GfPzLM53WFvjYWXNnieWMtDaBkr1m6j890DS0b_ppZQzRFUsFQz_i2GI8PaCtoGulnZ6bOlL6HVzEukhAFQ5KVM/s320/Considering+God%27s+Creation.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I know that is two science programs, but I think we can handle it, and the plus is that we already own both! The "Considering God's Creation" one will review earth and space science, and since it been almost two years since we covered that, I think the review is good. It will also add depth to the Biology that we will study once a week at co-op.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Well, I hope to post again soon, for now I have to get to bed, because tomorrow I work and the come home to homeschool the kids.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-366875624640444102010-02-15T08:06:00.000-08:002010-02-15T08:06:05.556-08:00So Much Conflicting Information!<div style="text-align: justify;">I have written before about my son who is (most likely) Dyslexic, I say most likely because he has all the symptoms on the list, he has developed the strategies that dyslexics usually develop to try to cope with or hide their disability, and I've had a reading specialist tell me that they are about 99% sure he has dyslexia, but he hasn't been formally tested yet, so there is still a very small chance that it is something else. The only people who can actually give a formal diagnosis are developmental psychologists, and as of yet we haven't seen one. We will be seeing one soon, I plan to call for an appointment this month, but in the mean time I have been doing a lot of my own research.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What I have found is that "experts" don't even agree exactly what dyslexia is, let alone how to treat it, however <i>most </i>of the experts agree that there is more than one type of dyslexia, for some children it is primarily a distortion of letters on the page, something in the visual processing area of their brain mixes things up, and they don't really "see" the print correctly, for others it primarily an auditory processing problem, the brain must use its auditory center along with its visual center in order to sound out words, and for some children this is more difficult than for others, so it takes them much longer to recall the sounds of the phonemes they see on the page, even if they do see them correctly. For other children it is a basic language difficulty, these children typically had trouble learning to speak, and seem to have difficulty with language in general, including written language. Then from those three basic types of dyslexia, children can suffer from widely varying degrees of difficulty, a few have such severe problems they never become functionally literate, but most can obtain literacy eventually. Not only are there widely varying degrees of the disability, and at least three separate processing problems that can cause it, but it seems that many children have a combination of two or more of these types of dyslexia. Some of the children also have a lot of problems with memorization in any subject, which effects their ability to learn sight words and phonemes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All of that makes me understand why the approaches used to teach dyslexics often differ from child to child. Depending on the exact mix of processing problems, some dyslexic children will do best with intensive phonics, some need to get a large number of sight words under their belt, some need to improve their eye tracking ability, some need to work on general language skills by being read to and answering questions, engaging in conversation, writing and dictation, and other activities like that. Some children need to learn to use their hands on the page to help their eyes and brain determine directionality of the print. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While I am not an expert special education teacher, I do know my son. I know that his problems seem to touch all of those areas to a degree. He struggles some with distortions on the page and with eye tracking, but is usually able to overcome those problems just by keeping a finger on the page. He did have a language delay, and needed two years of speech and occupational therapy before he was speaking on an age appropriate level. The auditory processing seems a little slow, but not too severe, and he has really improved his phonemic awareness since we started intensive phonics instruction. Rote memorization takes him more time than it does most kids, which is why the phonics program we use is so good, it reviews everything daily, so he gets the practice he needs in order to memorize what sound each phoneme makes, and which sight word is which.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In both my research, and in speaking with other mothers with dyslexic children, I have found that there is a lot of disagreement. Some people insist that phonics is the ONLY approach that works, while others insist that dyslexic children can NOT learn phonics an must memorize sight words to the exclusion of phonics. Others insist that you must use a combination of approaches. My intuition and my experience with my son tells me that the last group of people are the ones who correct, at least in regards to my own son's reading difficulties. My son needs the phonics instruction in order to be able to figure out new words, but he also needs to see those words repeatedly, over and over again, until he begins to recognize them by sight. Even with words that are phonetically regular, he needs to have enough repetition so that he does not have to continue sounding them out every time he encounters them. The <a href="http://www.christianbook.com/saxon-phonics-2-home-study-kit/9781565771949/pd/994X?item_code=WW&netp_id=133856&event=ESRCN&view=details">intensive phonics we have been using </a>has greatly increased his accuracy and decoding skills, but has done little to improve his fluency. He still sounds out almost every single word letter by letter. So I know that we need to also start using repetitive books to help him start to recognize common words without sounding them out letter by letter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have some repetitive books, and I am also going to start working with him on learning Dr. Fry's 3000 instant words. This is a word list compiled of the most common English words used in print, the 220 dolch sight words are part of the list, and those words alone make up about 50% of written text that children encounter, these words, along with the rest of the 3000 instant words make up about 90% of written text that any English speaking person will encounter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So my son is going to continue learning his phonics, he is also going to start practicing his reading with some repetitive books, he is going to do some reader's theater to practice reading with expression, and we are going to start adding the words from Dr. Fry's list to my son's weekly spelling list, and also start practice reading those words off a list or from flash cards each day. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the 3000 instant words, we will be using <a href="http://www.christianbook.com/dr-frys-spelling-book-levels-6/edward-fry/9781576907504/pd/31985?item_code=WW&netp_id=200324&event=ESRCN&view=details">THIS BOOK</a>. As you can see, we don't try to get the 3000 words memorized in one year, instead we have weekly lists, which the child can learn to spell, and can also practice reading. Any that give my son difficulty after a week's time will be carried over into the next week until he masters them. However, I won't teach the phonetically regular ones as pure sight words, I will introduce them first while pointing out the phonetic elements and helping my son to sound them out, but thereafter will have him practice them until he recognizes them quickly, by sight.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-35519018273295469122010-01-07T22:39:00.000-08:002010-01-07T22:40:13.881-08:00Wow! What a Day!Today we went to co-op. That means that we got up really early in order to be driving away no later than 8:30. This morning we had a problem though, we couldn't find my son's book bag anywhere. The last time we saw it was before holiday break, which started the week before Thanksgiving. So we ended up going to co-op without it, and guess what? When we got there, we found the book bag!<br />
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I would make such a horrible public school mom, even with only doing a "school" once a week, I can't remember to check my kids bags and find out if they homework. I am so used to being the one who decides what they are doing, I just can't seem to get used to someone else calling the shots!<br />
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Well after co-op, we came home and I relaxed (read Facebooked) for a little while. Then we had dinner. After dinner I started my workout, but after a half hour I realized I still needed to do phonics with the kids, so I stopped and did their phonics with them. By the time we were done it was amost 9:00 PM, so the kids got to play for a few minutes and then go to bed. I finished my workout while watching Super Nanny and Pinks All Outakes.<br />
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Now I am ready for bed too!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-43023551881772304882010-01-06T17:16:00.000-08:002010-04-18T22:34:16.880-07:00Getting Going Again and a Product RecommendationWell, we hadn't planned on taking a very long holiday break from homeschooling, we were only going to take about three days off, but over the holidays we had a lot of other things going on, such as a death in the family, so we ended up stopping for over two weeks after all.<br />
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Yesterday we started up again, its hard to get going after a break, especially since I work and have to do a lot of the homeschooling after I get home. The kids are more reluctant to do homeschool at night, and I'm tired as well. But we got it done yesterday anyway.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2KsPt-B4klWP__1JjvEM9WTdQMQvv67B_oMTyeDf8FcqOYZybGznSjoTDXTU5JMw-aDYqKHG8oNPejhVNFvIIgilIuy1WUl7l_8n4_Y0sq1C8rPrPNVsTUo4nLdhc3KBsj0jEuA8XUs/s1600-h/100_2162.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2KsPt-B4klWP__1JjvEM9WTdQMQvv67B_oMTyeDf8FcqOYZybGznSjoTDXTU5JMw-aDYqKHG8oNPejhVNFvIIgilIuy1WUl7l_8n4_Y0sq1C8rPrPNVsTUo4nLdhc3KBsj0jEuA8XUs/s400/100_2162.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I took this photo yesterday for my Project 365 blog, you can see that its already dark outside that window. In this picture we are doing Saxon Phonics. My son struggles a lot with reading, and we used this program for first grade, he did really well with it, but it was really time consuming so we switched to another program, then another, then another... and he grew more confused with each one rather than advancing he was regressing. He went from being able to read multisyllabic words to struggling with words like "dog". We suspect he might be dyslexic, but we aren't sure. At any rate we are finally back to what works best for him, Saxon Phonics, and I am seeing some improvement. Its funny, but it isn't that time consuming anymore. I think it was only so time consuming in first grade because of my son's age and personality. He likes to stop and talk about everything as he does it, and it slows him down. Now that he's older though, he is learning the art of staying on task a little better.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I really like the review included with Saxon Phonics, we are doing the second grade level right now, and I didn't have to worry at all about the fact that it had been three years since my son had done grade one Saxon. Grade two Saxon reviews EVERYTHING that was in grade one, plus adds new information. Also, everything the kids learn is reviewed every day. First there are the "Letter Cards", which have letters, or phonetic groupings of letters on each card, each time we learn a new letter or group, it is added to the deck, and the kids have to say the name of the letter or group when they see it. For example when I show the card that has "ch" on it, they say, "digraph c-h". Then there is the picture card deck, each card has a picture of the keyword that we use to help us remember the phonetic sound, along with the letters and phonetic coding. For example, the digraph ch has three picture cards, one has a picture of cheese, one has a picture of a chef, and one has a picture of musical notation for a chord. The child sees the cards and says the appropriate word based on the picture, followed by the sound the letter or group makes in that word, for example "Cheese /ch/". Another deck is the spelling sound deck, which the kids don't actually look at, the teacher does. The teacher looks at the card and makes the sound, then the child echos the sound and writes the letters used to make that sound. There are also sight word cards, and once a sight word is introduced it is reviewed every day, in fact everything is reviewed every day, and phonics sounds are reviewed both by sight with the picture cards, orally when the kid echos and tells you what they will write, and then kinesthetically when the child writes the letters for the sounds. There are other review decks also, but the ones I think are most helpful are the ones I described. Here is a picture of some of them:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8_zv_bP2P3R7cexuLWaKmATpVBnlH6tGvWxB-FHdL1B-JGSMnkzv2YNI_LximJlDK8U5QSq2u8xBVx9zFlDOLM8Yacb2JF6Wsf5aUHX8-x7A_jYSu7tSkmGAONq2rQWbpAP7pBv8OJg/s1600-h/100_2169.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8_zv_bP2P3R7cexuLWaKmATpVBnlH6tGvWxB-FHdL1B-JGSMnkzv2YNI_LximJlDK8U5QSq2u8xBVx9zFlDOLM8Yacb2JF6Wsf5aUHX8-x7A_jYSu7tSkmGAONq2rQWbpAP7pBv8OJg/s400/100_2169.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So you might be wondering how my son is doing now that we've started this. Well, he still struggles with reading, but much <b><i>less than before!</i></b><i> </i> He is doing much better, and I expect that he'll continue to improve.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I know there is a point in the curriculum where you start "retiring" cards that the student has mastered, but even after retiring them you still review them once a week. The kids also practice their skills on worksheets, and by reading little books, along with whatever supplemental reading you wish to assign. The program comes with various literature suggestions, but this is the one part I can't really claim to like. The suggested literature is not really the sort of reading my family does. There are references to the occult and other things my family does not like, so we look for our own supplemental reading, often Bible stories or character building stories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My only regret is that I ever stopped using this program in the first place. I had prayed for God to lead me in picking out the right program, and he did, then <i><b>I</b></i> decided to use something else, how foolish of me! My son should be in fourth grade, but because his reading is so delayed the only subject he performs on grade level with is math. So we are calling him a third grader. He doesn't know the difference, he thinks he is "supposed to be" a third grader, so it doesn't upset him at all, he just thinks he is extra good at math!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eventually we might decide to let him "skip a grade" and get back where he would have been, but that will depend on his skill level, he needs to work at the level he is able to learn at. I think once he finishes this second grade phonics, he will advance fairly quickly, because its only his reading skills that are holding him back.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I guess I am recommending Saxon Phonics to anyone who has a child who struggles to read and doesn't do well with other programs, any child who thrives on constant (literally redundant) review of concepts, and who needs to have everything directly taught, rather than being able to infer or gather information about reading by intuition. I have not been paid, hired, or commissioned by Saxon or by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I am not doing this for any other reason than that I am a a satisfied user of this product.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My son is doing so much better, how could I not be satisfied with this product!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-104962289776307824.post-63913851289412885362009-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:002009-12-31T19:00:33.999-08:00The Last Day of this Year, and this Decade...So this decade is coming to a close, its been a tough year for me, but also a year full of growth. I don't have a lot of New Years resolutions this year, except to be consistent with my children's phonics and math instruction, whether I feel like doing it or not, and to start having my son do more copywork and dictation, I am thinking that since we try to help him memorize bible verses for his Awana book, those might be good starting points for copywork. He is getting older, and dyslexic or not sooner or later he has to develop the ability to write legibly, to read better, and even to compose his own written messages. We did copywork consistently for awhile, and it really helped him a lot, so I know we need to start it up again.<br />
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I am thinking I may also have him do some copywork from "Little House in the Big Woods", since we will be reading it together as a family.<br />
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I wish you all a happy New Year!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07797632287709387153noreply@blogger.com0