Phy Ed

I seem to struggle with following through with my own Phy Ed classes, lets face it I'm not athletic in the least and other than walking or playing wii games together we haven't really done much on our own.  I make myself feel better  by enrolling them in classes - my rule is only one thing at a time as not to get too overwhelmed with all the running around.  I also feel better knowing they are getting instructions from, well someone who knows what they're talking about - unlike myself.  Last year M did basketball through park and rec,  gymnastic at the Y and swim club.  In the past we have tried soccer and even did a cheer clinic.  Our newest endeavor - Tae Kwan Do.  This is K's first time actually being in anything so she was beyond excited.  What appealed to me was that they could  both be in class together and that it's 2x per week at 3:30(yeah no rushing around to get dinner made!).

They are so cute to watch and I think it's going to be good for them.  The first lesson they learned about stranger danger and how to get away from a stranger.  They are also learning respect and discipline along with I'm sure a whole lot more.  I think we will keep with it till swim starts and then come back to it in March if that's what the kids would like to do.

 Here they are getting their first yellow stripe on their belts after testing on the first 5 moves.

photo card

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Not Back To School Field Trip

Thursday marked the first day back to school for most of the kids in our area and so as just one of the many bonuses of homeschooling, we finished our book work early and headed to the beach at Council Grounds State Park.  This was the perfect first field trip of the year since temps were in the 80's and there won't be many days like that left around here(today it was almost cold).  We met up with some fellow homeschoolers/dear friends for an enjoyable afternoon.

Sabbath

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

We have been studying old testament and the Jewish tradition of the Sabbath.  We used the book Celebrating Biblical Feast and other instruction from My Father's world to have our own Sabbath. This is a Christian version because there was some new testament verses used in the ceremony, but many parts were very traditional of a Jewish Sabbath.

 after a day of preparation - house cleaning, baking bread, cooking and preparing Saturday's meal as well, we set the table with our finest for a sabbath celebration.

we had challah bread, candlestick salad and chicken matzo soup

we started with a mother's prayer, lighting of the candles(we read in a couple of books the oldest daughter got to help with this so I lit one and M lit one, the father praying over the children, and the husband reciting part of Proverbs 31 to his wife.  M said her favorite part was the blessing from the father, it made her feel special.  I liked it too and want to do that more often.  I also have to say very convicting when your husband praises you with the virtues of Proverbs 31 when I fail so often there.

Then the father prays for the wine and then hand washing which K helped with and then the bread.  We each broke off a piece and said a prayer. After diner we ended with a prayer and then the idea was to rest for the sabbath, not doing any work, just spending time as a family.  Then on Saturday when you see the first 3 stars of the night you have another ceremony.

we lit the candle again(should be a braided candle but this is what we had) and then the father pours wine overflowing to signify the fullness of the week

and then the candle is extinguished in the overflow and then we spell the spice box, we let K hold it for each of us to smell.

I know I am not giving you all the details, but you can see from the pictures it was a very symbolic ceremony.  I highly rec commend that if you are doing Creation to the Greeks you not skip this, but I can say you could simplify if necessary.  I am planning on continuing this in our home about 4 times a year because it really was beautiful and really what family doesn't need to slow down and rest.  I will make some changes however.
What I learned:  You do not have to make everything authentic or completely traditional.
What we will do in the future:  I believe we will have ours begin on a Saturday  in the future so that we can all pitch in and get things ready, clean the house, mow the lawn anything that needs to be done so that we can enter into the sabbath fully prepared.  And so that Sunday would be our day of sabbath since that is when we traditionally worship.
I will scale the meal down/simplify.  I will make the bread - probably a different recipe that makes smaller loaves and make something nice for dinner but something  I make and my family likes, like Lasagna.  For the make ahead meal for the sabbath day I will stick to something simple - maybe even frozen pizza or something were we are not really cooking or working but easy.

Creation to the Greeks Week 1

A few of the books we used this week.  We read the All-Of-A-Kind Family  a chapter book about a Jewish family in NY and it goes through a year and all the celebrations they have.  This was a great book to read at the beginning of the year to get M interested in the celebrations we will partake in this school year.  When we finished the book Friday M said it was the best book we have read so far since we began homeschooling. Now I don't know if that's my opinion, but we did enjoy it and I'm very glad she did.  We also spent time reading through the days of creation from Genesis and then Molly had to draw them for her History Notebook (oops I forgot to take a picture).  Molly loves to draw so she has also been drawing along with Draw and Write Through History she has drawn plants, trees, a dinosaur, and Adam so far(again I need to take a picture to share).  We have also started reading through Dinosaurs of Eden.

We put up our time line and started with current pictures of the girls, it's convenient that we have it on the chalk board so we can write any dates or information in we feel like. 

In our God and the History of Art we did an activity in frustration.

We spent some time making supplies for our Sabbath Celebration, using Celebrating Biblical Feasts and the Jewish Holiday Crafts book from above.

for reading we are using Heart of Dakota's Drawn Into the Heart of Reading and studied biographies and then M chose a biography to read.  She is reading Emilia Earhart and on this day was assigned to complete a collage to reflect the character in her book.

My goal is to have Home Ecc once a week with M, this week she helped with K's Zucchini cake on Wednesday and then helped me with the challah bread.  We needed together and prayed for family members.

my addition of M's notebook page and her draw and write through history

Preschool week 1 Obedience

We are using Character Concepts for Preschoolers from The Learning Parent this year with K.  After the first couple of days I realized I was going to have to spend some time scheduling(putting it on a weekly grid) what we are to do for each day.  It's really not much at all, but being blessed by MFW and the handy guide, I prefer to be able to look at one page for the week and check things off as we complete them.  So I have a little work to do there but then things should be super easy from there on out. Our Main Studies this week have been obedience - doing what is expected of me, cheerfully, immediately and thoroughly.  We spend time with flash cards to drill alphabet and our character/definition and a bible verse.  We also played a fun game outside where we ran around listening for directions and being obedient to do what they were told.  Crawl, jump, roll, run, you get the idea.

A lot of K's school time is spent playing with puzzles, games, play doh and whatever else I throw at her while I work with M.

Once a week we will bake together.  Now you can see how we like to eat our vegetables.  Someone gave us some zucchini and we were having company for dinner so a chocolate chip zucchini cake was called for.

we are reading a book about seashores and then we made a wave jar with water and oil.

more Mind Blowing Science.

Our Fist Week (week 0)

Well I'm calling this week 0 since we didn't really begin our main studies, but I needed to share about our first day and the following day.  We started our day out with our yearly photo shoot in front of the tree(I already posted those pictures).  Then the girls requested that we pretend to drive to school, so we all hoped into the van (bare foot of course) and pretended to drive to school.  We then had breakfast.

A most nutritious breakfast of french toast bake and chocolate milk.  This was M's request, I did make it with whole wheat bread, but that's  the only thing good about it lol.  Next they went downstairs to the schoolroom to see what surprises I had for the first day.

 For M a new NIV bible, I also bought tabs, we are working on adding them.  She was using an early reader version, so she can hand that down to K.

For K Hot Dots Jr, she love them!

Then we did some basic stuff, Spelling, English, coloring of our time line pieces, some reading and then the FUN STUFF - we did 2 of the experiments from our mind blowing science, the picture is of color changing water.

Then some art.  We did the first assignment from Keely's book The Way They See, Artistic Pursuits If you can see K's picture it's of a pregnant lady.  At first she said she's fat cause she's having a baby.  I had to correcter her and tell her it's not fat it's pregnant and she better not refer to it in those terms lol.

The next lesson was from M's book Artistic pursuits book 1that we are finishing up from last year.  It was on sculptures and so we were making them from construction paper.  Here's K's that I helped with some - it's Duke our friend's great dane.