Blustery!

Phew! What a week! The weather has been really spring like and just nice to be out and about it. Today, the wind is HOWLING though. Supposedly (from what I can gather) there is a big storm blowing through. We havent seen much rain from it but the wind is gusting up to 60mph or so.

I think we've finally come to a decision on what we're going to use to home school next year. After several weeks of going back and forth between Sonlight and My Father's World (see this post here) and my poor husband being driven batty by me switching back and forth every other day on my decision, it seems that our choice is going to be neither of them. LOL!!! I have found one named Heart of Dakota (I will have the link to the right if you want to have a looksie). It seems to have best of both worlds of My Father's World and Sonlight. It is Christ centered and completely customizable, even down to the point that you can pick books that are boy and girl interest (also has a "classics" list for both boy and girl). The reading program looks excellent!

The negatives - there's always going to be one or two. So far the curriculum stops at about 8-9th grade. The author (who is very active on their message boards, answering questions) says that she is currently working on 9th grade/high school curriculum. Sean has a ways to go before he will be at that point so I can pray that it will be ready by then. That was a big problem for me, when I was first looking at this curriculum. I originally disregarded it because I didn't want to fall in love with something and then have to begin a search for new curriculum when the boys get to that age.

The other negative is that the boys will need to be on their own program. Technically, they CAN be together. If you look at their curriculum, you'll see each set can cover a broad age range. However, if I were to put them in the same year, I think Ryan would have too many problems next year... there's a bit of a jump academically between those 2 curriculums for his age.

Anyway, go take a look (link Heart of Dakota on the right column of the page just below the About Me section). I'm planning on putting Ryan in "Beyond Little Hearts for his Glory" and Sean in "Bigger Hearts for His Glory" with extensions for 5th grade. I will be using their language program. It looks REALLY good and uses Rod and Staff (another christian homeschool company) but I wont be using their offered math program. I will be using our own Math program for that - again, it's such a plus how customizable this program is!!

They have a preschool one for two year olds as well... but I think Elizabeth has a little while until she needs anything like that... haha! She just has fun pointing at the phonics boards as the boys say them and pretending she's saying them too!

Joy

I thought you might enjoy seeing some old pictures of our JOY. Children are truely a blessing from God!




"...The joy of the LORD is your strength."(Nehemiah 8:10)



"Thou wilt show me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore."(Psalm 16:11)

(May 2003 - Sean 2, Ryan 5mos)


"...Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."(Psalm 30:5)

"Restore unto me they joy of they salvation; and uphold me with they free spirit."(Psalm 51:12)

(Mar 2004 - Sean 3, Ryan 1yr)

"O let the nations be glad and sing for joy; for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah."(Psalm 67:4)


"Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation."(Hebakkuk 3:18)

(April 2005 - Sean 4, Ryan2yrs)


"The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."(Zephaniah 3:17)

(Oct 2006 - Sean 6, Ryan 4yr)

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."(Luke 2:10)

"Likewise, I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."(Luke 15:10)

(Sept 2007 - Sean 7, Ryan 5yr)


"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost."(Romans 15:13)

(May 2008- Sean 7yr, Ryan 5yr)

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."(Galatians 5:22-23)

(Thanksgiving 2009 - Sean 9yr, Ryan6yr)


"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."(Hebrews 12:2)

(Feb 2010 - Ryan 7yr, Elizabeth 1yr )
(No 2010 pictures with all three of them together yet- I'll get to it ;) )

"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (1Peter 1:8)

Funny Elizabeth

Elizabeth is such a funny little girl!

Like most girls, she loves to play dress up.

Whatever she can find around the house, she uses in her little dress-up games.

Here she is with a ring toy. These make great bracelets.

Notice the black thing draped over her shoulder?

Those are some of mommy's stockings that she had found and now she wears them proudly as a... who knows what... a scarf? a shaw?

Whatever she can find, if it looks like cloth or can put on her wrist, it is her new fashionable wear.

Now if I could just get her to keep her barrettes in her hair, we'd be golden!

Beautiful day

What a beautiful day it was today! I had all the windows open, the sun was shining, birds were chirping... well maybe not the birds, I think I heard a crow caw earlier if that counts. It was beautiful out today though, a whole 8 degrees celsius! woo hoo! lol After all the dreary weather we've had this year, this is a nice break. We got done with school as fast as we could and spent the rest of the afternoon outside.

On a totally unrelated note, I found my USB cable so here are a few pictures that have been hibernating on my camera. Some of them most of you have already seen, I managed to get them off my camera before the move, but I know not everyone has seen them so I'm posting them on here again. Others are brand new to all.

These were taken before the move (and probably old ones for most of you all) but I love these pictures:

This was taken just before we moved. Aunt Pam sent Elizabeth the cutest little tutu outfit. I was able to snap up a picture of her before we left for church (and before she ripped that bow out of her hair).

Now we're here in the new house and Elizabeth has started standing up all on her own. She has this little play corner set up in the living room behind our chair. I caught her in this moment playing and talking to her stuffed animals.

Then not too much later, I had to quickly grab my camera when I noticed her cuddling with Bear (from in the Big Blue House). AWWWWWWWWWWW!!

Let's not forget the boys! Here I caught them at their favorite past time, destroying their room.

Last but not least, mope-dog (ie Copper). You cant tell in the picture but he's actually wagging his tail about a million miles and hour waiting to attack my camera.

The Search Begins...

I know I said something about coming back with pictures last time I wrote, but that's been postponed for a bit. LOL I will have pictures to share soon, the biggest hiccup has been finding that elusive USB cable to download the pictures from my camera. But that's not the "search" I was referring to in the subject title...

I'm beginning the search for next year's curriculum for homeschool. I'm starting now so that I can be prepared to buy by spring. I noticed last year some "early" bird sales began to show up around that time. Now, I know you're asking, "dont you already have a curriculum you're using?" Yes, we are using Abeka this year, though, it's really good, it's not exactly what I have in mind for homeschool - after working this year with the children and learning more about "learning". It was really good for the boys to have had Abeka year though. It was a good transition from going to public school to homeschool - in my opinion. It's a lot like the work they did in school, it's made for schools: teacher instructs, student does workbook pages, read text book, rinse, repeat.

What I would like envision for us is more of a Charlotte Mason style of home school (see the links list I have to the side on Charlotte Mason if you want to see what I mean). In a nutshell, it uses, what it calls, "living books" to learn instead of text books, and nature walks (or field trips). So, instead of reading the dry facts in a textbook about the Revolutionary war, the boys might read (or be read to) a story about a boy who lived through the war and what he experienced. I've noticed they retain the facts better this way. For instance, when learning about the Pioneers and settlers, I got glazed over eyes reading from the text book but as soon as we read a story about Daniel Boone... click! They understood!

That being said, Abeka isnt being completely thrown to the wind. Most of these curriculum you need to substitute in a math and grammar/phonics program so I will be still using Abeka for that... and more than likely their Bible program as well - I love it so!

Some of the curriculum I've been looking at have been Sonlight, My Father's World, a new one called Illuminations by Bright Ideas Press, just to name a few.(I will have links to them on the side too.) I havent settled on any one of them yet but, so far, the one I'm leaning more towards is My Father's World. Sonlight, is a super duper popular one, I've read a lot of good things about them - but negatives are price and more importantly (to me) is their content. Some of the books they have, I dont like (though, those can be substituted - but I dont want to buy them) and it doesnt look to be Christ-centered as I want. They are a Christian curriculum, but when compared to My Father's World, or even Illuminations, from what I've read, they are better choices. On the positive side, their collection of books is enormous! I might use them for a book idea list, if nothing else.

Illuminations looks great, but it's a brand new creation... just started this school year. The books look wonderful but they dont have a "statement of faith" posted (I'm not sure on what they believe... other than saying their Christian). Another big factor, is they're new. I'm still new too, I'm not so sure if it would be wise to use a new curriculum that might still need some perfecting.

I know, it looks like I've already made my decision on My Father's World. I still have some thinking and praying to do over it. I'm concerned with its difficulty level (is it too difficult? not enough?). Then of course, there's the possibility of curriculum I havent come across yet, or even combining a few of them together.

Thanks for hearing me out, I just needed to get some thoughts on "paper". Enjoy looking at those links!