Shaving Cream Spelling

Currently, Sweetie Pea is the only one old enough to have a scheduled spelling list each week.  To add a kinesthetic element to her daily review, I passed out old cookie sheets, squeezed a dollop of shaving cream onto each one, and allowed the kids to use these make-shift "chalk boards" to write out words or pictures.

Sweetie Pea had to use this as a time to practice her week's words.  She was instructed to use her finger as a pencil to write out a word on her list, swipe the board "clean", and write a new word until she had practiced her entire list.

Although Super Boy doesn't have an official list, he was able to practice his phonics skills.  I dictated a simple one-vowel word to him, and he wrote it out phonetically.

The other two Littles enjoyed a bit of free-style time while the older ones worked on their lessons.

Tuesday's Tot Trio #3

Welcome to Tuesday's Tot Trio where I share three tot-friendly school day ideas to keep little hands busy in a CONSTRUCTIVE way!

For this week's trio, Blonde Warrior joined Greased Lightning for some small motor skill development. I set out a bucket of straws that I had purchased at the Dollar Tree some time ago. ( I keep these simply for various school activities and crafts.)

With the addition of an upside-dpwn laundry basket, the boys shot straws into the holes until the bucket was empty and then lifted the basket, retrieved the pile of straws, and started all over again.

String beads are not his favorite activity, but, after a few months of trial and error, Greased Lightning has been able to sit for an extended period of time and make a lengthy string. As he progresses in age, he can use these beads to practice making patterns with colors and shapes.

Board book "picnics" are a daily activity. Although like most kids, he has his favorites, for variety's sake, it helps to pick up a weekly supply of new "reads" at the library and mingle these in with his "must haves."

For the last few months, I have incorporated a "blanket time" for Greased Lightning. I only use this modern-day play pen when I absolutely need 10-15 minutes of stationary fun for him. In the coming weeks I will explain further how and why I've introduced "blanket time."

For a few more Tot friendly ideas, head on over to last week's trio.

Why Do We Homeschool?, Part 3

We Homeschool because we believe it affords the very best possible and most well-rounded educational experience.

In truth, this answer can be broken down into two parts.

First and foremost, homeschooling provides me the opportunity to develop a LIFETIME love of learning within each of my children. As a homeschooling mom, I have such an AWESOME privilege of creating a lesson out of LIFE...not just a textbook and workbook page. My husband and I can incorporate so many more hands-on projects and real-life applications than in any traditional school environment simply because we are not limited by a district-directed time frame or lesson schedule.

Because I am not bound to teach to the "average" so that thirty or more students can keep up, I can skip over those areas that my children have already mastered and have time to focus on that which they have not. Or if I so chose, I can spend additional time on those mastered areas to better cultivate them. My children can spend their time on "learning"...not reviewing content for the fourth or fifth time simply because the person sitting next to them needs the extra review. And on the flip side, they don't need to be pushed onto the next lesson when they have not completely grasped the last one.

If my son becomes fascinated with the details surrounding the Boston Tea Party during our study of the Colonial Era, I can choose to camp there for an extended period of time. I do not have to move on to the next "paragraph" simply because it comes next on the page. I can seize an opportunity to explore a particular area to its fullest in order to establish a thorough knowledge of the subject.

Obviously, this does not mean that I have the license to skip times tables simply because little Sweetie Pea does not necessarily have an inborn passion for them. But, it does mean that I can prioritize my focus throughout the coming years to help bring some of those "inborns" to the forefront while helping to create an enthusiasm for those subjects and tasks that require perseverance...like times tables.

This brings me to the second part of my two-fold answer...

God has uniquely created each one of my children...has given them certain innate strengths and weaknesses that He can, if He sees fit, use for their good and His glory. It is our goal that by the time our children leave our home, they will be fully equipped and prepared to answer ANY calling that God places in their lives. That is not to say that they will know EVERYTHING there is to know about EVERYTHING. But rather, they will have a well-rounded, working knowledge of many things and a desire to learn the things that they do not yet know.

I know many homeschool parents who determine to see their child(ren) become doctors, lawyers, or politicians someday. And while those are all very noble callings, we do not choose to limit our children and their future vocations to what the world views as "success." Although it would bring me much joy to see my daughter become a doctor, it would bring just as much joy to see her choose to be a stay-at-home mom or a secretary or a sales clerk at a local department store...as long as she was obeying the CALLING that God placed in her life.

This is where homeschooling comes into play. One of the many benefits of homeschooling my children is that I can see firsthand the natural talents and abilities that God has given to them, their natural likes and dislikes, or their curiosities for one particular avenue over the next and tailor their education to fertilize those passions and strengths.

I am so grateful that during their latter years of homeschooling, my in-laws recognized the natural desire within the Hubs to work with his hands. Wisely, they chose to cultivate this innate skill and sought out a blue-collar apprenticeship program for him. Since, as homeschoolers they could adjust his school day to fit the needs of this new venture, he could work a full-time day while still completing his school responsibilities in the evening. For the final few years of his schooling journey, the Hubs was able to learn a very useful trade that although never became his life vocation, has helped to provide a supplemental income during difficult financial times.

I have a friend who homeschools her children, most of which are in their teens. She, too, has determined to use homeschooling as an opportunity to develop the natural calling in her children's lives. One of her daughters has shown a long-standing interest in missions. A flexible homeschooling schedule has allowed her to send her daughter on numerous extended foreign mission trips to get some practical training in the field. Her son, on the other hand, shows an aptitude for mechanics and has been able to use this learning time as an opportunity to minister to others as he gains hands-on experience by servicing the vehicles of church members and neighborhood friends.

I hope that as my children near those same adolescent years, I, too, will be able to see some of their natural bents and provide them with numerous opportunities to develop them.

For the rest of the story...

Why We Choose to Homeschool

1. We homeschool because we were CALLED to homeschooling by God. 
2. We homeschool because we see it clearly AFFIRMED in Scripture. 
3. We homeschool because we believe it affords the very best possible and most-well rounded educational experience.
4. We Homeschool because we believe it provides the most accurate picture of true socialization...that's right...SOCIALIZATION!

Book Club Co-op: Mailing May & Valentine's Party

I am always amazed at the creativity of the other three moms in our homeschool co-op.  And this last meeting was NO exception.  Although everyone headed over here to the Unlikely Homeschool, it was the Radio Announcer's wife's turn to teach the lesson.  Her assignment:  Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell, the delightful true story of Charlotte May Pierstorff who was "mailed" via the United States Post Office to visit her grandmother in 1914.  

After reading the book together, we talked a little bit about how postal regulations have changed over the years.  We logged onto www.usps.com, chose three of the kiddos, and used the on-line calculation program to determine how much it would cost for us to mail a small, medium, and large-sized child across the state of Idaho (May's route.)

First, we went around the room and gave estimates as to what we each thought the three kids would cost...loosely based on the fact that it cost May's family $.53 cents to mail her.  Next, we had to incorporate some math skills to determine the type of parcel we would need to mail a person, the weight of each "package," 

the height, width, and girth, 

until we eventually determined the price of each child.  Just as the story depicted, the Announcer's wife wrote the amount on a card and pinned it to each "package." 

If our calculations were correct, it would cost me $60.94 to mail Sweetie Pea.

Mailing May coincidentally just happened to fall on the same day that we had planned to have our annual Valentine's exchange.  The Announcer's wife used this as an opportunity to demonstrate proper mail delivery.  She made up green "city" signs using the last names of each of our families.  Each sign was complete with the "population" of that city...just like the real things found on the side of the highway.  Each "city" (family) had to take their city sign somewhere in my house to set up "residence."  The kids frantically raced to claim just the right locale.  

Once spots were claimed and signs were "hung," one of the residents had to come back to the living room which was designated as the central post office to be a central mail deliverer.  ALL the Valentine's cards were dumped into a communal pile for the central postal workers to sort out by "city."

Once they had gathered a small handful of mail for their city, they delivered it to their smaller city postal office.  Sweetie Pea made a very efficient central mail carrier.

One or two of their siblings were the designated city postal worker.  It was his/her job to take all the city mail and deliver it to individual houses (pre-made Valentine's bags for each child.)  Super Boy and Blonde Warrior volunteered to be the local postal workers to deliver the mail for Unlikelyhomeschoolville, population 6, soon to be 7.

Snack time was next, and although I knew the kids would receive more than their share of sweet somethings in their Valentine bags, I made these peppermint bark hearts from some mini candy canes I had purchased on an after-Christmas sale.  

Even the youngest book-clubbers enjoyed our little party.

After snack, we put together a quick time-line of the United States Postal System.  The Announcer's wife had printed off a map-style time line that had short clues describing different delivery styles, from tall ships and stage coaches to delivery trucks and jet planes.  She read each clue and let the kids choose from a handful of replica stamps depicting those particular delivery methods.  Once the correct stamp was located, it was taped onto the clue and onto the map.

We took some extra time to briefly discuss one of the most adventuresome delivery methods, the pony express.  She showed a replica of a "wanted" poster that advertised for young, brave, and wiry boys to deliver the US mail at lightening speed.

We took a pause to play a quick relay game to determine which pony express "team" (boys vs. girls) would make the fastest delivery.

Each team member had to run through the house carrying a "package" (a small baton), touch her hand, and race back to the next rider on his/her route.  

To round out a very fun morning, we played a Valentine's version of Bingo with conversation heart markers.

ABC Book: Letter V

Admittedly, the letter "V" is a difficult letter to illustrate in an ABC book.  For this reason, I purposely planned to introduce V shortly after Valentine's Day.  Blonde Warrior was able to use some of the Valentine's cards that he received from friends to decorate his letter V.  

"V" is for Valentine!


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Repurposed Puzzle-Math Review

One of the kids was given a Valentine's-themed puzzle from one of their teachers at church.  Although it made for a few moments of fun, it was not a puzzle that was going to hold up and last for too much longer. 

So instead of just tossing it in the "circular file", I took just a few moments to repurpose it into a quick math review game for Sweetie Pea.  She is, currently, knee-deep in multiplication and division, so I chose a handful of multiplication facts and wrote one on the back of each piece.  

I, then, wrote the answer on the lower-right side of the front of the corresponding piece.  The next day during her math review time, I set out all the pieces face-down.  She chose a piece, said the answer out loud to herself, and then turned the piece over to check her accuracy.  

If she answered correctly, she got to put that piece in its proper place.  If not, she had to turn it back over to try that fact again in an upcoming turn.

This review worked so well, that I will keep it in mind the next time my children are given a Dollar Store puzzle from the dentist or Sunday School teacher.

Tuesday's Tot Trio #2

Here are three more tot-friendly school ideas...

Every year, I pick up some FREE paint chip samples at the local hardware store. This year, I just happened to score some Disney-themed ones in the shape of Mickey Mouse. I make sure to grab two of each color that I select.

Although we use these paint samples for numerous schooling activities, Greased Lightning enjoys playing a simple match game with them. Sometimes, I have him match up the colors all by himself. But, occasionally, when one of the older kids is not working on a school project, I will ask him/her to be the "color caller". This time, Super Boy and Blonde Warrior jumped in to play with their younger brother. They each took turns calling out colors for Greased Lightening to find and match. As he gets older, Greased Lightening will be able to play a Memory-style match game with these, but for now, a simple "face up" game will do.

I keep a Tupperware filled with beans in my pantry. With the addition of some spoons, a funnel, and few bowls, Greased Lightning has the makings of a morning of fun. I always remind him to keep the beans in the containers and reinforce this by putting the bean bucket away at the first "dump" all over the floor. After a few times of having his fun packed up, Greased Lightning has learned to keep the mess to a minimum.

Our school hutch has a drawer filled with stickers that are just for the kiddos. Most of them are leftovers from craft projects and parties but some are the simple freebies from direct mailers or the doctor's "you survived" stash. Greased Lightening loves to fill the back sides of junk mail or the pages from the scrap box with his own colorful creations.

Here are three more Tot School Ideas in last week's Tot Trio.

President's Day 2012

In celebration of President's Day, we veered from our traditional plans in Bible and History to do a few extra projects.  To start our day, we each took turns looking up and reading from a few Bible verses that show how all governmental authorities, including the presidents, are Providentially put in place by God and that we are to obey them and respect them...whether we agree with them or not!  Although this is certainly not an exhaustive list of all that Scripture has to say about our national leaders, it was a good start for us...Romans 13:1, Daniel 2:21, and I Peter 2:13.

In order to set the stage for the morning's activities and to explain to the littlest two kiddos why we celebrate and who we honor on President's Day, we watched a quirky video on youtube about Washington and Lincoln.

We had done some very extensive reading on the lives of Washington and Lincoln in the previous two years of Truthquest American History, but I thought it might be nice to do a quick recap by reading 

Let's Read About George Washington and Let's Read About Abraham Lincoln, two very simple picture book biographies put out by Scholastic Books.  I let Sweetie Pea and Super Boy each pick which book they'd like to read in order to gather at least 10 basic facts about the life of that particular president to display on a pictorial timeline.  Since Super Boy is still in the "learning to read" phase, I read his chosen book to him and wrote down some notes of the things that he thought would be important to include in a timeline.  Sweetie Pea read and researched on her own.

I glued two large art sheets together, drew a master line across the glued sheets, and then encouraged the kids to use the info that he/she read in their book to create a pictorial view of the important events of the lives of Washington and Lincoln.  They also included major dates and short captions.

After completing their timelines, they had to share them with the rest of the family.  Since no one else had read the books on Washington and Lincoln, it was a nice way for the older two kiddos to be able to tell a few facts about these great leaders.  (I thought it was kind of compelling that Sweetie Pea included the fact that George Washington was homeschooled on her timeline!)

We rounded out our celebration by writing letters to President Obama, telling him that our family prays regularly for him and that we hope that God will help him to make wise, God-honoring decisions for our country.

Letters to the President can be mailed to:

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

*This post contains affiliate links.

Service Saturday

A year or so ago, the Hubs and I really began to examine what the "big picture" was suppose to be in our house. One of our greatest desires is that our children learn to love God and love others. We hope that they will learn to have a ministry-mindset whether God calls them to "THE Ministry" or not. One key element to beginning to love others the way that God would have us love them is to begin seeing that there is more to life than just ourselves...to begin to see service to others as an opportunity to serve Christ...because in truth, it's about Him, not us.

Perhaps because we both came from very "old-school" style churches or because it was difficult for us to think outside the box...when the Hubs and I were newly married, we fell into the trap of believing that "service" meant volunteering for church nursery, having the youth group over for a bonfire, or being a chaperone on the church van. And it is...but it is also SO MUCH MORE! When you limit your "service" to just the church or even to just the church body, you miss out on so many opportunities to share God's love with those who need it most. It's true what Matt. 5:47 speaks of...if Christians are friendly to only our friends (other Christians), how are we any different from anyone else?

It took us a while, but we both started to see our everyday skills/passions as ways to love others. I truly believe that in most situations, you can't meet the need in a person's heart until you can first meet the need in their hand. Christ was the perfect example of "outreaching." More often than not, he provided for a person's physical needs before He ever attempted to provide for their Spiritual ones.

That being said, we definitely have felt a call in the last year to begin sharing this new-found notion with our children. We want this home to be a greenhouse for our little ones to find their passions, talents, and gifts and begin molding them and growing them in an environment where they can receive due-praise when they succeed and much-needed encouragement when they fail. In the realm of service, we wanted to be able to provide ample opportunity for our children to get their feet wet in many different areas of service...to begin thinking outside the four walls of our church to be able to share God's love and to find their own unique way of doing it.

That brings us to our newest form of "family fun", Service Saturday. We have determined that, to the best of our ability, we will set aside one Saturday a month to serve someone(s) that God has brought into our lives.  We quickly decided that our service mornings won't be a permanent standard on a "particular" Saturday each month, because we want it to be a natural leading of God in our hearts and in the hearts of our little ones. We also don't want to sign up for an on-going service project since one of our main goals is to provide examples of all different kinds of service so that each of our children can consider/learn how God can use their own individual giftedness and talents for His glory.  In short, we pray that these small efforts will begin growing a passion in our children to see beyond themselves to the bigger picture of why God has them here on earth...to live a life that leads others to the truth of God's love.

Last fall was our first attempt...

God had been laying our local librarians on my heart for several weeks. My "world" is very small and consists of our immediate neighbors and the couple of places outside of church and home that the kids and I frequent...the library being the top of that small list. The librarians know that we are homeschoolers for "religious reasons" and they know us by name. We frequent their little spot at LEAST once a week and they serve us well. When I began thinking and praying about who God would have us "love on" first, I immediately thought of the librarians who have seen us at both our best and our worst of days. Women who we have begun to develop friendships with. Women who know us by our "religion", but not necessarily by our FAITH.

For just about an hour one crisp, fall morning, we spent our time helping these ladies with some of their grunt work. And although we did some of the jobs that THEY least enjoy...re-sorting the picture book bins and organizing the puzzle area...the CHILDREN couldn't have loved it more. It was amazing to see their faces when they realized they were doing something that TRULY helped someone else, not just "helped" someone else. They were doing jobs that they could ACTUALLY do all by themselves and have the privilege of sincerely being blessed by blessing others. Even little Blonde Warrior and Greased Lightening...while the older two were putting their ABC skills to good use re-sorting/re-shelving books, the little ones helped gather all the wayward legos that were strewn about the children's area. We left the library that morning with the three older ones all saying, "Who do we get to serve next?" They had grins from ear to ear and couldn't wait until the next time we could all go and have fun serving together as a family.

Since that introductory day, we have had several other opportunities to serve the people in our community and beyond.  We make every effort to ensure that the "service" is something that each one of our Littles is able to do ALL BY HIM/HERSELF. 

In the coming months, I look forward to sharing some more of our Saturday Service opportunities.

In the meantime, are there any fun service projects that you and your family have been apart of...I'm always looking for great ideas.