Nature Calls During Science

Warning:

This is a story about poop!


During school hours our littlest Rottie sits in his seat and sleeps until about 10:45 am at which time he is ready for a feeding and a diaper change. When I started to change his diaper, there was just a bit of poop, I wiped him and well...that opened a floodgate! All reading ceased....pencils were stopped in mid-stroke, looks of disgust, amazement and curiosity were all around. It was a gargantuan amount that matched none other. I kept thinking, "Man, there is no way that newborn sized diaper would have held all of that!" But I kept that thought to myself. The silence was only broken by the 4 year old that said: "Wow! That baby has a lot of poop!"

Indeed!

And so.... we had a great discussion on the digestive system from beginning to the end.

The Story Writer

First grade is learning to write stories that have a title, a beginning, a middle and an end. Here is a cute one that started off talking about a baseball game, but then had them running down the court and the picture ended up being a basketball picture. Very funny kid.





Check out the final score! LOL!

Career Day

10th grade has a request: career info.

10th Grade Big Dawgs

"I have a dream that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."


Martin Luther King, Jr.

My four rotties: Jeffrey, Jordan, James & Jackson

A New Start

Today we start our 2nd semester of the school year. I have been homeschooling for 5 years now and I am so blessed to be able to do this.

And on we go.

Report Cards

I just want to take a moment to tell my beautiful children that I am so proud of them and pleased to see them work so hard on their studies. We have made such progress in our little school.


Congratulations 10th grade. I know it is hard for you sometimes, but this year you have really made a turn-around in your school work.
5th grade, You Go Pretty Princess!!

1st grade, they said you would not, but you have proven yourself to be the hardest working 1st grader that I have ever known.

Preschool: What a fun 10 weeks. Nice Job

Here is a summary of the weekly themes from Brightly Beaming Steps to Reading Program Preparatory Curriculum :
Week 1 - cows, Week 2 - jungle, Week 3 - kittens, Week 4 - eyes, Week 5 - lighthouses, Week 6 - rainbows, Week 7 - stars, Week 8 - sun, Week 9 - cookies, and Week 10 - trains

Prayer Needed

A very dear blog buddy had this on her blog and I wanted to pass it on. I am copying and pasting from A Purpose Driven Life.

"A tragic situation is going on over at A Place Called Simplicity. This amazing family just brought home 2 children from Uganda and are in the process of bringing home a special needs daughter from China. This morning their house burned to the ground. Thankfully all the children got out in time... praise the Lord!!Please keep them in your prayers, Linn and her family needs the support of the adoption community now more than ever. For updates and to help this family, visit Lori's blog.(Thanks Stefanie- I copied and pasted this from your blog although I had heard about this from another friend first)PS- please copy this and paste it on your blogs if you have them! Let's get the body of Christ moving for these people! They have lost everything but each other and with six children still at home and one little one still waiting to come to their family from China...there will be much to replace. Please please say an extra prayer for the two newest family members from Uganda that this scary experience will not impair their bonding."

Origami

Today we did origami art.

Goldfish and Salt cellars.

Half-Way Point

January 16 is our half-way mark; the end of first semester. I used to do quarters, but find this much easier. Actually, everyone grades are very good this year even though I am putting less emphasis on grades and more on the importance of learning to connect all of our subjects.

We are having a good year and thank you to so many of you who have showed me that it's okay to chill out some.

Socialization, Racism Plus 8 lbs, 1oz

I joined a local homeschool group last year to give my kids an opportunity to meet other homeschooled kids. It was not like we anticipated as the families were very stand-offish and the other children would not talk much to my kids. My kids were put off and no longer wanted to go to the functions. I told them we were going to try again and we did; we went bowling and ice skating and roller skating. My daughter would make friends, but my teen would not make any connections.


When it was time to renew our membership, let's just say the kids were less than enthusiastic, but I wanted to still be able to have the benefits of membership.


Yesterday we went roller skating with our homeschool group.

I love using teachable moments with my children, but there are some lessons I wish I could avoid. Yesterday, my daughter made a friend right away and the girls skated and giggled together for about 30 minutes. Then my daughter came to me with moist eyes and told me the her friend said she could not skate with her anymore because her grandmother did not like us. I explained that this was apart of life and we need to make sure that we never treat other people like that and so on and so forth. But I was led to approach the grandmother. I explained to her that my child was sad that she could no longer skate with her grandchild and ask if it was because of our race or because of my size. (I am a very large woman.) she hemmed and hawed and got very flustered and said she did not mean it like that and would talk to her grandchild. Five minutes later the child came back over and said she could skate with her now.


While I felt protective of my child, I could only feel sad for the little girl that would be taught the lesson that should be erased from all curriculum.


Anyway... here is a short video.




Oh, and that 8lbs, 1oz.... Well when we got home, we got a call from the agency that they had a 4 week old baby boy that needed placement. He is a cutie and such a peanut.

And on we go!

Money

1st grade started a lesson on counting pennies and dimes this week and he caught on so fast that he finished the entire lesson in 3 days. This is his quiz for the lesson.

(I just realized that I dated his quiz 1/9/09... guess I am trying to rush the week. LOL!)

Easy Monday

We decided to ease back into class. For language arts there was a good game of scrabble happening:
and for math class they played The Allowance game.
They also played Bible verse hangman which led to many hanged men LOL! Gotta work on that!

5th and 10th grade begin a writing assignment where they will be writing a short story. They started with character development today as well as deciding on important scenes that will be relevant to the story. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

Up Up and Away

We start back to school in the morning and it is under much protest. I can't even blame them as I am not overly excited to start up again yet either, but I am looking forward to being back on more of schedule. Our semester ends in 2 weeks, so I will be doing progress reports to let the students know where they are with their grades.

I found a new math site with free printable drill sheets. I try not to use them too often, but they are good if a student needs a little reinforcement in an area.

Peace,
:)De

"Me A Heart Too!"

My 4 year old is very delayed in speech. In the year that he has been home with us, his speech has improved a great deal. He has many words now, but struggles to put them together in order.

Today he was not feeling well: runny nose, scratchy throat, so we have just been lying around and snuggling. He was laying with his ear on my chest and sat up quickly and said, "What dat mama?"
Me:"What baby?"
Him: "In dere." (pointing to my chest) "Boom, boom, boom?"
Me: "Oh, that's mama's heart you hear."

I ask my oldest to grab the stethoscope and I put it in his ears. I let him hear mine first and then his. His eyes lit up so big.

Him: "ME A HEART TOO!!!"
Me: " Yes, baby, you have a heart too."