Last year we chose to buy a complete history program for the first time.
For me, it was a struggle. I have the capability of putting together our own history program and could probably save quite a bit of money using free internet resources and lesson plans and the library. However.... it takes time, a loottt of time, and it seems like such wasted time when you spend hours and hours online looking for things, and secondly we live rural and our library system... is, well, rural.
So, we chose the Beautiful Feet American History I. Really enjoyed it, here and there it was a little over their heads, but all the reading material was excellent, the children loved notebooking, and the Christian basis was something I really liked. It taught the Christian principles and Christian character well. We added some history pockets to add some hands-on and had a great year! The children really retained things so much better through this literature based program than through any history textbook!
Well, there was no option from Beautiful Feet for us to choose from for next year with the children still being young and I also really liked the looks of the Winter Promise curriculum. I ordered it about 2 1/2 weeks ago. So far I have received 1/3 of the materials... and there are a few already that I had to take my marker to, or skip altogether.... I am very disappointed and now feeling very guilty for spending the money... but yet I am not sure if it would be wise to spend all this time setting up our own curriculum. Revising the Winter Promise curriculum still will be much less time consuming... and less time spent on this will free more time for the most important things.... reading the Bible, other good books and singing together with our children praises to Him who sends all blessings to us!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Curriculum Clean Out #3
One more item for today to Clean OUT :) !
I have a new Big Book of Bible Crafts ISBN 0830725733
160 pages of reproducible projects for ages 3 to 12
100 Bible teaching crafts using economical, easy-to-find supplies
Please comment below to enter! Include your email address. For a bonus entry, please follow this blog and comment below that you are a follower. Winner chosen Monday!
Free shipping to U.S. only.
I have a new Big Book of Bible Crafts ISBN 0830725733
160 pages of reproducible projects for ages 3 to 12
100 Bible teaching crafts using economical, easy-to-find supplies
Please comment below to enter! Include your email address. For a bonus entry, please follow this blog and comment below that you are a follower. Winner chosen Monday!
Free shipping to U.S. only.
Curriculum Clean Out #2
A second giveaway for Music books and cds from a 1st to 2nd grade level.
#1 Music and You from Macmillan ISBN 0022933204/2 An older book but lots of songs and things to learn!
#2 K12 Music set. Let's sing songbook volume 1, and two cds still in plastic wrap: Let's sing volume 1, and Let's learn rhythm
#3 BJU Music 1 for Christian Schools book and worktext book
This set of music books as one giveaway. Free shipping to the US.
Please include an email or way to contact you in your comment below as your entry. A bonus entry for following this blog(please add a 2nd comment to let me know you are following!)
Curriculum Clean Out
I hope to post a few give aways. This first give away is for a Greetings from America coloring and activity book handed out by the USPS and a book Spotlight on the United States of America. Having trouble with my pictures here but the ISBN is 0778734528 if you would like to look it up from Crab Tree Books.
Please include your email address in your entry. Winner will be chosen randomly on Monday. Free shipping to US only.
A bonus entry for following (please comment seperately that you are a follower).
Spring and new lives!
Spring always brings new life around here and also a different kind of business. Coops and fences and cages need mending because the little ones will be here soon! Our first set of chicks arrived today - 50 meat chickens. Of course, as usual, I seem to be unprepared. We knew for four weeks they were coming, but time goes too quickly! Heat lamp, check. Extension cord to plug in heat lamp, missing. Base for the waterer, check. Top, missing. And so it has been going so far.
I see Momma cat's belly is hanging low again. Thankful this litter will be arriving in warm weather! Last litter she hung out in our school room with her little ones and it was just a bit of a distraction.
Looks like we will be having the first litter out of our newest dog too... and I can't find her papers.... This is going to be a problem..
A mare we took on in the fall also has been filling out and I've had the pleasure of watching the kicks and movements of the baby inside as I water them ever day. It will be a lot of work when he/she arrives but it is definitely our most exciting arrival.
The calves continue to come. Some with more difficulty than others. With dairying it is a year round process but they sure seem to come in spurts! We had 9 so far in the last two days and the vet is here now trying to untangle a pair of twins. One set of twins yesterday arrived dead also. We never like to see twins around here. They take too much out of their Momma's and yesterday's was a prime example of it. With mom and both babies dead 8 days before she was due. One minute up fine, bright-eyed and eating, next minute down and before the vet arrives, dead. Very disappointing but yet, we were blessed with several more healthy calves and then we have to be thankful and say that the Lord is good in everything He does!
Speaking of little ones.... our little one is growing too quickly. At 95th percentile for height and weights she is quickly growing out of her clothes and has lost the newborn look.... I'm praying for the strength to handle all the little ones with the coming good weather and ..... yes, it seems like my back injury continues to be aggravated with just my regular daily work and I'm not sure how I'm going to get the garden planted, but yet, we have to! The prices in the stores have us tighter than tight!
I see Momma cat's belly is hanging low again. Thankful this litter will be arriving in warm weather! Last litter she hung out in our school room with her little ones and it was just a bit of a distraction.
Looks like we will be having the first litter out of our newest dog too... and I can't find her papers.... This is going to be a problem..
A mare we took on in the fall also has been filling out and I've had the pleasure of watching the kicks and movements of the baby inside as I water them ever day. It will be a lot of work when he/she arrives but it is definitely our most exciting arrival.
The calves continue to come. Some with more difficulty than others. With dairying it is a year round process but they sure seem to come in spurts! We had 9 so far in the last two days and the vet is here now trying to untangle a pair of twins. One set of twins yesterday arrived dead also. We never like to see twins around here. They take too much out of their Momma's and yesterday's was a prime example of it. With mom and both babies dead 8 days before she was due. One minute up fine, bright-eyed and eating, next minute down and before the vet arrives, dead. Very disappointing but yet, we were blessed with several more healthy calves and then we have to be thankful and say that the Lord is good in everything He does!
Speaking of little ones.... our little one is growing too quickly. At 95th percentile for height and weights she is quickly growing out of her clothes and has lost the newborn look.... I'm praying for the strength to handle all the little ones with the coming good weather and ..... yes, it seems like my back injury continues to be aggravated with just my regular daily work and I'm not sure how I'm going to get the garden planted, but yet, we have to! The prices in the stores have us tighter than tight!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Back to School
Well, we started back to school yesterday after the two weeks we took off for our precious new arrival. She is such a sweetheart and every time I hold her I can't believe she is here! I didn't ever think I would even hold her, I was so sure that something was going to go wrong on delivery day and not only was I blessed with holding her, both of our lives were spared and we are now home together with no more complications.
I am slowly regaining strength after the massive blood loss. The doctor did not give me a transfusion since that many time has its downside and resting and building up my own blood is a better option but I sure have felt it! Thankfully I had prepared for the worst and had a whole 6 weeks of meals in the freezer. The children already regularly are in charge of the kitchen, dining room, living room and their bedrooms so the only parts of the house that are suffering are the bathrooms, garage, halls, mudroom, and our master bedroom. Oh well, it will come.
Of course a salesman had to come walk in through the garage this morning and knock on the back door. Why? I'm not sure. Must've known I had piles of laundry all over the floor waiting to wash since the washing machine started leaking badly and I had to stop doing laundry....
Feeling sluggish about getting back to schoolwork. It is definitely a little more trying having so many little ones asking for attention as well as trying to keep the older ones focused. Yesterday we only made it through workbooks and Bible class but today it looks like we'll be able to enjoy our social studies and science classes also.
We are using Beautiful Feet Books for social studies this year and Noeo Science. Loving them! Next year I hope to get the Winter Promise curriculum (www.winterpromise.com) for social studies if we can afford it.... I have most of the curriculum finished for next year and most of the books ordered. Just need to swallow the big Winter Promise package yet :)
Well, the little one is calling to be fed again so I will go!
I am slowly regaining strength after the massive blood loss. The doctor did not give me a transfusion since that many time has its downside and resting and building up my own blood is a better option but I sure have felt it! Thankfully I had prepared for the worst and had a whole 6 weeks of meals in the freezer. The children already regularly are in charge of the kitchen, dining room, living room and their bedrooms so the only parts of the house that are suffering are the bathrooms, garage, halls, mudroom, and our master bedroom. Oh well, it will come.
Of course a salesman had to come walk in through the garage this morning and knock on the back door. Why? I'm not sure. Must've known I had piles of laundry all over the floor waiting to wash since the washing machine started leaking badly and I had to stop doing laundry....
Feeling sluggish about getting back to schoolwork. It is definitely a little more trying having so many little ones asking for attention as well as trying to keep the older ones focused. Yesterday we only made it through workbooks and Bible class but today it looks like we'll be able to enjoy our social studies and science classes also.
We are using Beautiful Feet Books for social studies this year and Noeo Science. Loving them! Next year I hope to get the Winter Promise curriculum (www.winterpromise.com) for social studies if we can afford it.... I have most of the curriculum finished for next year and most of the books ordered. Just need to swallow the big Winter Promise package yet :)
Well, the little one is calling to be fed again so I will go!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Starting Up
I have many times thought of starting a blog, hopefully to encourage other moms and to receive feedback from my readers, but everything seems to take up so much of my time already. Everything seems to become a distraction to pull me away from reading my Bible, from spending time meditating and praying to the Lord. Yet, in the recent past I have had several things happen to me that I want to share with others and/or receive feedback on me. Please bear with me. I have never blogged before :o)
A little about my family and I. We belong to a conservative Christian denomination which I will not name but it is based on a Calvinistic belief of salvation, election and justification. We are dairy farmers and we homeschool our children. We have 6 children, ages 1 week to 8 years old.
I have struggled many times over the state of my soul and this will come up throughout. I sometimes think I am just a doubting Thomas and I need more faith and other times I think I am like one of the "pilgrims" in John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress who came down the easy side path or over the wall and I need to go back and find the wicket gate again. Is it the devil talking? Trying to make me think nothing is real? Or wasn't it real? Did I base my salvation on mere experiences? Sometimes it is so dark and hard and cold inside I think it is just as it was when I was a rebellious teenager and I have never really changed. But yet, in the past week, when I was facing death as I was hemorraghing after giving birth to our sweet new baby girl, I could hold on to a promise the Lord gave me that morning in one of the Psalms, and which our children had been learning the Psalter on "God is our refuge and our strength, our ever present aid, and therefore though the earth remove, we will not be afraid...." This song played over and over in my head as the doctor fought to save my life and my future possibilties of having more children. What a comfort it was!
A little about my family and I. We belong to a conservative Christian denomination which I will not name but it is based on a Calvinistic belief of salvation, election and justification. We are dairy farmers and we homeschool our children. We have 6 children, ages 1 week to 8 years old.
I have struggled many times over the state of my soul and this will come up throughout. I sometimes think I am just a doubting Thomas and I need more faith and other times I think I am like one of the "pilgrims" in John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress who came down the easy side path or over the wall and I need to go back and find the wicket gate again. Is it the devil talking? Trying to make me think nothing is real? Or wasn't it real? Did I base my salvation on mere experiences? Sometimes it is so dark and hard and cold inside I think it is just as it was when I was a rebellious teenager and I have never really changed. But yet, in the past week, when I was facing death as I was hemorraghing after giving birth to our sweet new baby girl, I could hold on to a promise the Lord gave me that morning in one of the Psalms, and which our children had been learning the Psalter on "God is our refuge and our strength, our ever present aid, and therefore though the earth remove, we will not be afraid...." This song played over and over in my head as the doctor fought to save my life and my future possibilties of having more children. What a comfort it was!
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