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Showing posts from July, 2022

Essentials Week 1

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Essentials Tutors,  This is a fun way to practice combinations with Chart A on Week 1 of Essentials.  Instead of having students combine sandwich ingredients, they can combine ice cream flavors, syrups, and toppings.  I found these images on Google, printed them on card stock, and laminated them, etc.  I can easily attach/ detach these from the chart with a loop of painters tape on the back of each item. 

Raising Monarchs

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Our caterpillars are eating and pooping, sleeping and growing. The girls walked down to the pond to get them some fresh leaves today. The tricky part is finding leaves that don't have any eggs on them. If you aren't careful, you can easily bring home leaves with more eggs on them which means more caterpillars that will then require even more fresh leaves that could have even more eggs on them.

No Screen Summers

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There are a few weeks in summer when we make a point of deliberately staying close to home, because there are important things to do here that simply require time.  For instance, I am usually tutoring a Foundations, Essentials, or Challenge class for our Classical Conversations group, so I need to get my academic orientation done and organize and plan for the next homeschool year.  These summer days where we stay close to home start with silent reading like just about every other day at home starts.  I call the girls down from where they are reading in their beds to eat breakfast. They eat and play with our parrot and share bits of their meals with him.  Then they do chores and shower and dress. This chores/ shower/ dressing routine takes at least an hour. They have a lot of daily chores including feeding the bird, watering plants, taking out trashes and recycling, unloading dishes, folding, drying, washing one load of laundry, etc. The work they do is a real part of the required work

God is Faithful to His Children and Their Children, Too

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I had real doubts about my ability to raise kids in the Lord, because I didn't get to grow up in church. With respect to my parents, they really struggled with their faith and in their lives, so I came to Christ as a teenager, and I came into the church with a lot of drama and out of a lot of dysfunction. The enemy made me feel a lot of shame over that, and I truly envied the kids in my youth group who had their parents with them. But God was very faithful to me. He gave me mentors who literally adopted me as their child in the faith. They let me into their ordered hearts and homes. I didn't realize it at the time, but by sharing life with me at church events and outside church, too, they showed me how to live. So when the time came for me to parent my own kids, I knew how to raise kids in the Lord, because I had actually effectively been raised in the Lord by God's people at church. Because of my own painful experiences as an "unchurched" kid, I felt very strongl

Raising Monarchs

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Our eggs hatched! Now we have a few tiny caterpillars eating away at the milkweed leaves. Little holes are starting to appear in the leaves. Tiny pieces of poop are falling to the platter. We've brought out the magnifying glasses and watch with interest several times a day. 

He Who Transplants Sustains

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I wanted to make Norah a handmade gift for her college apartment. I thought and prayed about it. Alot! And the Lord kept bringing the Connecticut state seal to mind, but I wasn't sure. Then in tears one evening, Norah said she felt as if her roots are being torn up and she is being transplanted, and she has said that a few times since, so that was the confirmation I needed that the Lord had given me the right image to send with her to comfort her. The Connecticut state motto is Latin, "Qui transtulit sustinet." It means roughly, "He who transplants sustains." I added the oak leaves and acorns because of the Bible verse, "They shall be oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor," Isaiah 61:3, a verse I have often prayed over my children. And Connecticut has the famous Charter Oak in its history, so that also makes the oak leaves fitting.

Vacation Bible School Cont.

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I'm so thankful for the churches (and the people in those churches) who go to time, trouble, and expense to give local kids Vacation Bible Schools. Even believing kids in believing families like ours benefit from the week of Bible skits, stories, songs, games, and crafts. Not everyone can or even should have to try to afford an expensive Christian summer camp. Adele has learned so much and has been been reminded of God's love and truth. And she's got some amazing crafts to keep and enjoy, too. 

Our Homeschool Classroom

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Here are several images of our homeschool classroom.    Years and years and years of stuff and gifts and crafts and fine arts projects are collecting in this space. It's starting to look a little cluttered, but I can't bring myself to get rid of anything; It all brings me delight.  We're currently attempting to dry mint for tea, so that's hanging with the recent watercolors. This is where Adele keeps all her sketch pads and various binders she has adopted for the books she's writing, etc. As long as it all stays here, I just try not to see it.  Many items in this room, like these pencil holders, were made at our homeschool co-op when the girls were very young. They're useful, of course, but they also have sentimental value to me. They represent hours of loving-kindness shown to my children by the other moms in my group, so they always inspire me to give thanks.  That crate is where my youngest keeps her school books and materials.  Audio books and VBS soundtrack

Homeschool Closet Organization

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In the summer, I'll take an hour or two one afternoon to organize my homeschool closet for the coming year.  I've trained my kids to keep things neat as they pull supplies out of the closet and put them back in, but once a year, the closet still needs some TLC from me.   The arrangement and contents tend to change with the homeschool season we are going into.  At one point, an entire shelf and most of the floor was taken up with science lab supplies! That was when my oldest was in Challenge 3 and I was directing for her class and we were doing Chemistry labs every week. But now, with the oldest graduated from Challenge 4 and off to college this fall, another daughter only in Challenge B, and my youngest in Foundations and Essentials, I won't be doing lab science for at least another year, so those supplies have been sold to another director to be put to good use.  This year, I'm teaching Foundations and Essentials, so I brought some of the materials I need for review ga
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It's mid-July in Connecticut, when the upstairs is far too hot for sleeping comfortably, so there are happy sleep-overs in the few air conditioned spaces. The trees scream all afternoon with the insects keeping time with waves of heat. No baking. No way.  The only cooking that happens happens on the stove top or grill. But the Queen Anne's Lace are brilliantly wrought, and compete with the ever-darkening, widening, multiplying bruises of hydrangeas. And our wine berries are ripe and this year, quite flavorful.  

How to Raise Monarch Butterflies

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Watching caterpillar become butterflies is one of the most wonderful, awe-inspiring things you can do with your kids.  If you want to raise monarchs, first, you have to locate a batch of milkweed near you (or cultivate some in your yard.)  Study photos of the plants in books and online so that you can begin to identify milkweed near you. Over time, I have gotten so good at identifying milkweed that I can see it from several yards away as we fly by on the highway.  And I've been looking for so many years that I know several places where I am likely to find it growing.  But we have some milkweed growing wild near our pond only a few minutes from home, so that's where we usually go to collect the eggs and leaves.  The milkweed patch needs to be close enough to your home (or work or church, etc.) for you to return to it on a regular basis throughout the process of raising caterpillars, because once the eggs hatch, the caterpillars start eating, and will need to keep eating, so you

Vacation Bible School, Take 2

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Adele is attending another Vacation Bible School at another church every evening this week. Several of our friends are members there, and quite a few of the kids and their parents are in our various homeschool co-ops.  It's a special church filled with people who obviously love one another. I'm grateful for these unique opportunities for Adele to grow in her faith. 

A Fish of Clay

I long for God to order my thoughts So that I may order my words So that I may order my actions So that I may order my feelings.   The Spirit of God hovers over the chaos of my mind And God says, “Let there be Light!” Christ is with God is in me is working. Through Him, another Creation, I can be made new.   God divides the darkness from me. He kindly holds back the waters that surround. He provides solid ground where I can stand,  Even places all manner of gifts under, into my hands.   He’ll scoop me up, press me, smooth me, And I come alive just in time to die again. He blows His breath into me. Out goes all my life. He empties me of the poison wherein I swim.   I go gasping like a fish pulled out of natural place, Eyes wide, flailing, foolish, but I can see Heaven for a glimpse Till I flip myself, fall away, and dip in native Chaos again. How long, Oh Lord? Will I long like this and slip and long away?    "Peace." He whispers. A wonder, He stoops to answer a fish of clay. 

Vacation Bible School

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The younger girls attended Vacation Bible School at our church last week while I was in South Carolina.  Actually, Avril did not attend as a camper; she was a teen volunteer.  But volunteering is definitely an age-appropriate way for her to still "attend." She still got to be a part of all the fun, hear the stories, learn the songs, and get all the spiritual and social and physical benefits, only she was also able to grow in virtue as a helper to the people around her.  Adele, still in grade school, was just a regular camper.  Dwayne purchased the CD of songs, and we've already listened to it once since VBS ended.  VBS has been a very important part of my kids's spiritual lives, because we've always made it a priority and we've continued to listen to the songs, so the Truth in them will remain with the girls their entire lives.  We have almost a dozen CDs from the Vacation Bible Schools the girls have attended through the years, and we still listen to them all

Trip to South Carolina

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Norah and I attended the Circe National Conference in downtown Charleston together again this year. My mom and sister live nearby (in Summerville), so we stayed with my mom. The conference was Thursday-Saturday, but we came early, arriving Monday, in order to have some quality time with my family before the conference began and we'd be too busy to see much of them.  Monday, we flew in and arrived in time to have dinner and visit for a few hours till bedtime.  Tuesday, we slept in and Mom made biscuits and gravy for brunch. Then I ran some brief errands for her.  (My daughter is still talking about those biscuits a week later, and I'll admit, I'm still thinking about them. They were delicious.) We spent the largest part of the day with my sister at Mom's pool drinking ice-cold wine coolers and beers and talking (and getting a sunburn.)  We also had outstanding naps and some gourmet pizza that day.  It was just a nice time with family without any commitments.  Wednesday,
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Our neighbors must be two of the most hospitable and generous people on planet earth, so we are very blessed, and we know it, and thank God for it. They often invite us over to use their pool on warm days. We spent a few hours there one warm late afternoon/ evening. I captured this one image to remember the occasion. I was swimming or floating or basking or wrestling the watermelon ball away from the girls or diving for toys most of the time. Swimming on a warm summer evening as the sun goes down is one of the most delightful things a human can do. 

Homeschooling in Summer- Silent Reading

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The girls have to read silently for at least one hour every single day of summer vacation. At the beginning of summer, I assign them a stack of books.  They usually get to choose which book to read next from the stack, unless there is a book I want them to read first for some reason in which case, I will tell them, "Read this next."  They have to read from a book on the stack for the first hour of the day.  They often read more than one hour by choice.  (In fact, Avril has been downstairs reading for the last two hours.)  But after the first hour, they can read any book of their choice.  (Case in point- Avril is reading a Warriors book- not at all something in her assigned stack.) Avril will be in Challenge B next year, so her stack of books has all the Challenge B titles like "The Phantom Tollbooth" and "Defeating Darwinism," things she will be assigned to work with next school year.   She'll reread the same books again in a few months, but she'll

Josh Gibbs Conference

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I have been enjoying the content of Josh Gibbs's recent online conference .  I have had the privilege of hearing Gibbs speak live at a few Circe National Conferences, and there, I have always enjoyed his presentations the most.  Josh Gibbs obviously puts a lot of work into thinking deeply and organizing and then delivering his ideas. His work is always precise and polished.  The topics he speaks on are particularly relevant to me as a Classical, Christian educator. Albeit, I'm a homeschooler/ part-time parent-tutor at our co-op, and not a professional teacher at a full-time private school, but his insights are practical and keen nevertheless. I often find myself laughing out loud at some well-worded critique or well-timed jab, even when the jest or criticism actually hits quite close to home and makes me uncomfortable.  I find that I only benefit from reading and hearing a number of voices as I grow as a Classical educator and a Christian. And as a lover of essay as a form, I a

Progress in Kayaking and Swimming

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When you ask literary kids to label their sandwiches, funny things happen.  The girls are old enough to take the kayaks out without me now. So they've been exploring the pond together, each in their own boat, while I get even more reading done on shore. It's lovely that they are good enough swimmers and old enough to be trusted to do some exploring on their own.  The other day, I saw that they were bent over, intently watching something happen on the surface of the water or on their boats for over half an hour; I couldn't tell what they were watching from where I was on shore. But, they paddled over to the shore and showed me, they were watching a dragonfly nymph emerge from the pond and come out of its skin and lengthen and dry until it was ready to fly. They were astonished and enchanted.  After two weeks of swim lessons and practice every single day, the girls have progressed to swim level four. They know freestyle, backstroke, elementary backstroke, and breaststroke. Th

Life Together by Bonhoeffer

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Norah was assigned this for college, so her dad and I bought a copy for ourselves to read. I’ve only read a portion and it is already one of the most life-changing books I’ve ever read about how to think about and treat the other Christians God has placed in my life.