A few months ago while listening to our local Christian radio station this amazing song came on. I had not heard it before, but instantly I loved it! Its had that awesome guitar I love and a folk rock sound. I could not figure out who sang it or what the name of it was! Finally last month I figured it out! It's called My Lighthouse by Rend Collective, and apparently this band has been around awhile. They originated in Ireland, which may also be why I am drawn to them! Their accents are so cool!! Ireland is on my list of "someday" trips!
If you haven't checked these guys out yet, you totally should!! They are amazing!! I am totally drawn to their style of music, they are Irish folk music combined with worship music! LOVE IT!! Anyway here is a sample of their stuff!
Are they not the coolest!! I love the lyrics to this song as well! I mean how encouraging to think about God being our lighthouse! He is there guiding and directing us no matter how stormy and cloudy our lives might be! I hope you are encouraged by this and check out more of their songs!
Monday, March 30, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Our Homeschool Week In Review
Earlier this week I posted how crazy the last few weeks of life had been for us. School did get done, but not very well! Here a few of the things that my boys have been working on over the past few weeks.
Elijah began Math U See Delta in January, which is Division and some Geometry! UGH!!! Geometry!! I still cringe at that word! So I was a little taken aback when I heard the word parallelogram! My favorite quote from him after a lesson learning the formula for figuring the area of a parallelogram was "I don't get this, its all a bunch of letters with numbers mixed in!" I hear ya kid! I hear ya!!
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| This is him watching his lesson! Looks comfy doesn't it!? |
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| There's those letters and numbers mixing! |
Then there is Noah who began Math U See Alpha a few weeks ago. He loves that he gets to use the blocks and is really excelling. Although last week we were working on writing numbers to 100 and that didn't go over so well! But really any written work for him is a challenge.
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| Ironman is thinking very hard about 2+6! |
Then there is the dreaded cursive handwriting! Elijah really struggles with this! He has horrid penmanship and always has! I just chock it up to being a boy and being left handed. Nonetheless we power on through his A Reason For Handwriting, I just need to enforce the cursive writing more than I do.
And for a little giggle to end this, my little Zach taking selfies with Rocket Raccoon!
Friday, March 27, 2015
It's Preschool Time
Last time I shared a little bit about my background in preschool education. Now I will share a little bit about how our preschool time at home looks.
I love doing units or themes, I think its fun to pull everything together around a certain topic. My favorite places to find preschool units are Carissa at 1+1+1=1 and Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations. They partner together and create awesome units and have a bunch to choose from!
When I think about planning our preschool time, I consider first what my child is interested in. Then I think about what things he needs to work on, and what things I know he really enjoys doing.
So our first week in Preschool we did a Transportation Unit. I know that Zach needs to work on tracing lines, holding a pencil/crayon/marker, and cutting. I also know that he really enjoys puzzles, and painting! So when I found the unit at Homeschool Creations, I saw that she had a good variety of those things in her unit. When I printed it off I just printed what we would use, some of the things in her unit I thought would be to difficult for Zach right now.
I also have adapted a Tot Tray style to set up our units. Below is a run down of our trays by the day. We are currently only going to be doing two days of preschool at home, but this first week we had some sickness so he didn't go to preschool and we did an extra day at home.
I love doing units or themes, I think its fun to pull everything together around a certain topic. My favorite places to find preschool units are Carissa at 1+1+1=1 and Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations. They partner together and create awesome units and have a bunch to choose from!
When I think about planning our preschool time, I consider first what my child is interested in. Then I think about what things he needs to work on, and what things I know he really enjoys doing.
So our first week in Preschool we did a Transportation Unit. I know that Zach needs to work on tracing lines, holding a pencil/crayon/marker, and cutting. I also know that he really enjoys puzzles, and painting! So when I found the unit at Homeschool Creations, I saw that she had a good variety of those things in her unit. When I printed it off I just printed what we would use, some of the things in her unit I thought would be to difficult for Zach right now.
I also have adapted a Tot Tray style to set up our units. Below is a run down of our trays by the day. We are currently only going to be doing two days of preschool at home, but this first week we had some sickness so he didn't go to preschool and we did an extra day at home.
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| Day 1- (Top L to Bottom R) Tracing page, Melissa and Doug Construction Vehicle Puzzle, Number Clip Cards, School Bus Size Sequence |
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| Working on the Construction Puzzles |
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| Working on tracing the lines, I had to help him quite a bit with this. |
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| Tracing the Lines |
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| Counting the Airplane |
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| Number Clip Cards- I found out that this was really hard for him! |
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| Day 2- (Top L to Bottom R) Tracing the Letter B for Bus, I Love Trains Book, Number Clip Cards, Tracing Page |
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| I realized that I didn't get pictures the first day of him doing this and he asked to do it on the second day, so we did. |
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| School Bus Size Sequencing |
As you can see, I didn't get many pictures the second day of our week. Some of the activities were repeats though.
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| Day 3- (Top L to Bottom R) H is for Helicopter, Tracing Page, What Color is the Helicopter, 3 Piece Vehicle Puzzles |
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| He loved these little puzzles. |
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| Working on those 3 piece vehicle Puzzles |
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| What color is the Helicopter? |
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| He had a lot of fun finding the right colors to trace with. |
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| H is for Helicopter writing page, all he did was color the helicopter. He was pretty much done with school at this point. |
On day three I really pushed the writing because he didn't get much of it this week and its an area he really needs work on, not so much the writing part but holding the marker/pencil part. He struggles greatly with fine motor so I am working hard at incorporating that into his school time.
Our preschool time takes place first thing in the morning and lasts at the most about 30 minutes. I plan to continue this theme into next week as well because there were a few activities that we didn't get to that I would like to do.
We also used three books for our school time, Alphabeep, I Love Trains, and I Love Trucks.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Preschool 101
I have mentioned before that my degree is in Early Childhood Education. I worked in a day care setting for almost 10 years. My passion was for children in the 2-5 year old range, so naturally you would think that doing preschool with my own children would come naturally. Actually I have found that the opposite has been true! Preschool at home is so much different than in a class room setting!
I want to start with a little background so you can get an idea where I am coming from. When my first child was born I knew I would positively be going back to work. Not really what I wanted to do but its what I needed to do. I was ok with that and accepted it for what it was. It really wasn't so bad because I worked at the day care and he was in the room right next to me. When he was preschool age (about age 2), I began doing extra stuff with him at home. We would do crafts, shape games, puzzles, and we constantly read to him. Then as he began to progress I would add more things, like workbooks and such, he loved it!
When my second son was born and my oldest was now age 3, I knew that going back to work was going to be really hard. Unfortunately I still needed to work, and so back to work I went. Once again not so bad, because as an infant he was right next door to my room I got to peek in at him all the time and feed him on my breaks. When he was about 3 months old, he got super dehydrated and was in the hospital for about 3 days. It was during this time that I knew I couldn't go back to work! I wanted to be home with my babies! When I finally got back to work after his being in the hospital, things began to change around my workplace and I just knew it was time for me to leave.
So in May of that year, when my second son was 4 months old, I was able to quit my full time outside of the home job and be a full time in the home mom! My oldest son began a 3 year old preschool program that fall and he loved it!! My second son, when he was 3 also went to a preschool program. I loved that they could be somewhere playing and learning other than our house, even though I knew I was perfectly capable of teaching them preschool at home.
When we began homeschooling, my second son was 4, I decided that I would do his preschool at home. How hard could that be, it is my degree after all?! As I soon found out, really hard! We plugged away that year and I think he had fun and learned a little bit. What I found though is that I kept thinking I needed more, and so I would try to add so many unnecessary things just to keep him busy.
Now that our third child is age 3, he is enrolled in a preschool program two days a week. He loves it! His big brothers love it, or should I say they love the quiet house while he is gone. It has worked well for us at this stage of life. But I kept thinking that I should be doing more with him at home. So a few weeks ago I began my search for things to do with him, that would help his fine motor skills and challenge him. Of course I found some great little units to work through with him. We began that this week, and will hopefully continue through out the rest of our school year.
Next time I will share a little bit more about what we will be doing in our home preschool program.
I want to start with a little background so you can get an idea where I am coming from. When my first child was born I knew I would positively be going back to work. Not really what I wanted to do but its what I needed to do. I was ok with that and accepted it for what it was. It really wasn't so bad because I worked at the day care and he was in the room right next to me. When he was preschool age (about age 2), I began doing extra stuff with him at home. We would do crafts, shape games, puzzles, and we constantly read to him. Then as he began to progress I would add more things, like workbooks and such, he loved it!
When my second son was born and my oldest was now age 3, I knew that going back to work was going to be really hard. Unfortunately I still needed to work, and so back to work I went. Once again not so bad, because as an infant he was right next door to my room I got to peek in at him all the time and feed him on my breaks. When he was about 3 months old, he got super dehydrated and was in the hospital for about 3 days. It was during this time that I knew I couldn't go back to work! I wanted to be home with my babies! When I finally got back to work after his being in the hospital, things began to change around my workplace and I just knew it was time for me to leave.
So in May of that year, when my second son was 4 months old, I was able to quit my full time outside of the home job and be a full time in the home mom! My oldest son began a 3 year old preschool program that fall and he loved it!! My second son, when he was 3 also went to a preschool program. I loved that they could be somewhere playing and learning other than our house, even though I knew I was perfectly capable of teaching them preschool at home.
When we began homeschooling, my second son was 4, I decided that I would do his preschool at home. How hard could that be, it is my degree after all?! As I soon found out, really hard! We plugged away that year and I think he had fun and learned a little bit. What I found though is that I kept thinking I needed more, and so I would try to add so many unnecessary things just to keep him busy.
Now that our third child is age 3, he is enrolled in a preschool program two days a week. He loves it! His big brothers love it, or should I say they love the quiet house while he is gone. It has worked well for us at this stage of life. But I kept thinking that I should be doing more with him at home. So a few weeks ago I began my search for things to do with him, that would help his fine motor skills and challenge him. Of course I found some great little units to work through with him. We began that this week, and will hopefully continue through out the rest of our school year.
Next time I will share a little bit more about what we will be doing in our home preschool program.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Sometimes Life Gives You Lemons
Do you ever just feel like you can't catch a break? That's how I have been feeling lately. It seems as though we get two steps forward and take 3 steps back. Let me recap a bit here as to what has been going on in our lives over the past 2 weeks.
It all began about 2 and a half weeks ago. My husband began saying that his side hurt and he was worried it was a kidney stone. That went on for a few days and then he said he was feeling better. After another few days he began to complain more and more about how much pain he was in. Finally last Tuesday he came home from work after only an hour and decided he needed to get to the doctor. A visit to the doctor proved what he feared, a kidney stone! That led to him being in bed for 5 days straight in terrible pain! He thought the stone passed on Friday night, but he was still having some pain. He believed it was from the damage that the stone created, but to make sure he called the doctor on Sunday night and they wanted to see him the next day. So on Monday morning we all went to the doctor with him, bringing some school work to do while we were there. After about 2 hours the conclusion is that the stone did not pass and it was still there, actually it was still in the same spot! My poor husband was so frustrated and upset because he is so tired of dealing with this! Thankfully he isn't experiencing too much pain at this point, and after missing work most of last week he was able to return to work on Tuesday.
During that time neither one of us was sleeping well, the house was a disaster, school work barely got completed, and the kids were going a little crazy not being able to play with daddy like they are used to. Needless to say that exhaustion set in pretty bad!
Now lets top off this whole event with poor Elijah waking up at 1:00 in the morning Monday throwing up! YEAH!!! This does not happen often in my house, we just do not get that kind of sick. So the poor kid decided to run to the kitchen (still not sure why!), which he threw up all over the floor. Then I guess he was going to clean that up and went to get a towel and threw up in the towel drawer. Then I suppose he tried to get to the bathroom and use the toilet, and totally missed the toilet! It was the bathroom part that my husband and I finally heard him and realized what was going on. Nothing like getting woken up at 1:00 in the morning to cleaning up throw up all over the house and doing laundry!
Now lets talk about what God showed us during all of this. A week or two before all of this happened we had made some decisions about where we would like to be within the next year or so. We had both been praying about where God might lead us and that he would grant us the desires of our hearts. I can't say definitely right now, but I am pretty sure that we are going to still be in a holding pattern. We are still praying for some changes to come, and hoping that they might happen soon, but we are learning to be content in our current circumstances and to rejoice in all things!
It all began about 2 and a half weeks ago. My husband began saying that his side hurt and he was worried it was a kidney stone. That went on for a few days and then he said he was feeling better. After another few days he began to complain more and more about how much pain he was in. Finally last Tuesday he came home from work after only an hour and decided he needed to get to the doctor. A visit to the doctor proved what he feared, a kidney stone! That led to him being in bed for 5 days straight in terrible pain! He thought the stone passed on Friday night, but he was still having some pain. He believed it was from the damage that the stone created, but to make sure he called the doctor on Sunday night and they wanted to see him the next day. So on Monday morning we all went to the doctor with him, bringing some school work to do while we were there. After about 2 hours the conclusion is that the stone did not pass and it was still there, actually it was still in the same spot! My poor husband was so frustrated and upset because he is so tired of dealing with this! Thankfully he isn't experiencing too much pain at this point, and after missing work most of last week he was able to return to work on Tuesday.
During that time neither one of us was sleeping well, the house was a disaster, school work barely got completed, and the kids were going a little crazy not being able to play with daddy like they are used to. Needless to say that exhaustion set in pretty bad!
Now lets top off this whole event with poor Elijah waking up at 1:00 in the morning Monday throwing up! YEAH!!! This does not happen often in my house, we just do not get that kind of sick. So the poor kid decided to run to the kitchen (still not sure why!), which he threw up all over the floor. Then I guess he was going to clean that up and went to get a towel and threw up in the towel drawer. Then I suppose he tried to get to the bathroom and use the toilet, and totally missed the toilet! It was the bathroom part that my husband and I finally heard him and realized what was going on. Nothing like getting woken up at 1:00 in the morning to cleaning up throw up all over the house and doing laundry!
Now lets talk about what God showed us during all of this. A week or two before all of this happened we had made some decisions about where we would like to be within the next year or so. We had both been praying about where God might lead us and that he would grant us the desires of our hearts. I can't say definitely right now, but I am pretty sure that we are going to still be in a holding pattern. We are still praying for some changes to come, and hoping that they might happen soon, but we are learning to be content in our current circumstances and to rejoice in all things!
Monday, March 23, 2015
My Go To Homemade Laundry Detergent
A while ago when my family was struggling financially, I was using cloth diapers for our little guy. Since you can't use regular laundry detergent on cloth diapers and buying special detergent wasn't an option, I began looking for a homemade detergent. I began with one that I just used on the cloth diapers, so I was making a special detergent for the diapers and then buying one to use on the rest of our clothes. A friend of mine gave me a recipe to use that was safe and good to use on everything. I used that one for the entire length of time we cloth diapered. Then when we were done using cloth diapers I began to look for another homemade detergent that I could use because I wasn't thrilled with having to buy detergent again. After an intensive internet search, and a few that failed, I found one that I have been using for the past 2 and a half years.
The best thing about this detergent is that it makes a huge batch! I can usually get about 6-8 months out of one batch. This is a powdered detergent, I originally was hoping for a liquid one but found that this powder really does a great job and is a little bit easier to mix up and store.
I originally found this recipe at One Good Thing By Jillee. She titles it A Year's Worth of Laundry Detergent for $30, but like I said for my family of 5 we can get about 6-8 months out of it. On her sight she breaks down the cost of each item, and I'd say that I spend about that much depending on the prices of things at the time. I also want to mention that all of these items can be found right in the laundry isle!
Here is what you will need for this recipe:
3 Bars Fels Naptha soap
1 Box 20 Mule Team Borax
1 Box Super Washing Soda
2 Cups Baking Soda
2 Containers Sun Oxygen Cleaner
1-2 Containers Purex fabirc softener chrystals (28 oz) **Optional**
5 Gallon Bucket with Lid to store it in
Cut up the fels naptha soap into cubes and put in food processor, add a little bit of the Sun Oxygen cleaner to help it all come together. I did this in three batches, each bar separately because my food processor is small, but if you have a large one you could do it all in one batch.
Then mix all other ingredients together in the 5 gallon bucket.
Use 2 TBS per load, I use the scoop that comes with the Sun Oxygen Cleaner and make sure its a heaping scoop if you have a top loader. For an HE machine just use 1 TBS per load. This is a low sudsing detergent, so don't worry if you don't see any bubbles while its washing, I promise its doing the job!
Here are a few tips I have when making this detergent:
If you read her recipe, she suggests putting it all into a garbage bag and mixing it that way. When I did that I got holes in the bag and it started spilling out onto the floor, even when I double bagged it that still happened. So my suggestion is to put half the ingredients (a little bit of each item) into the bucket and then mix well. Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well, making sure to get everything stirred up. ** I just noticed that she put up a video tutorial and when she mixed it in the bag it worked great for her! So maybe it was just me!
Don't forget to add the sun oxygen cleaner to the fels naptha soap when processing it!! It will get gunky and not blend well! Not that I know this from experience or anything! *wink*
Make sure you store this in an air tight container to avoid it getting clumpy and hard to use.
There you have it! Our cheap, amazing and super easy to make homemade laundry detergent!! Feel free to send me any questions you might have!
The best thing about this detergent is that it makes a huge batch! I can usually get about 6-8 months out of one batch. This is a powdered detergent, I originally was hoping for a liquid one but found that this powder really does a great job and is a little bit easier to mix up and store.
I originally found this recipe at One Good Thing By Jillee. She titles it A Year's Worth of Laundry Detergent for $30, but like I said for my family of 5 we can get about 6-8 months out of it. On her sight she breaks down the cost of each item, and I'd say that I spend about that much depending on the prices of things at the time. I also want to mention that all of these items can be found right in the laundry isle!
Here is what you will need for this recipe:
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| **I forgot to add the Baking Soda when I took this picture** |
3 Bars Fels Naptha soap
1 Box 20 Mule Team Borax
1 Box Super Washing Soda
2 Cups Baking Soda
2 Containers Sun Oxygen Cleaner
1-2 Containers Purex fabirc softener chrystals (28 oz) **Optional**
5 Gallon Bucket with Lid to store it in
Cut up the fels naptha soap into cubes and put in food processor, add a little bit of the Sun Oxygen cleaner to help it all come together. I did this in three batches, each bar separately because my food processor is small, but if you have a large one you could do it all in one batch.
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| Once they are processed I place it in a big bowl until I am ready for it. |
Then mix all other ingredients together in the 5 gallon bucket.
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| This is before mixing the first half of the batch. |
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| Don't forget to enlist the help of the kiddos! They love this part! |
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| This is the finished batch in the 5 gallon bucket. |
Use 2 TBS per load, I use the scoop that comes with the Sun Oxygen Cleaner and make sure its a heaping scoop if you have a top loader. For an HE machine just use 1 TBS per load. This is a low sudsing detergent, so don't worry if you don't see any bubbles while its washing, I promise its doing the job!
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| I put some in a pretty jar on top of the dryer to use. |
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| Here is the heaping scoop I use, one heaping scoop per load. |
Here are a few tips I have when making this detergent:
If you read her recipe, she suggests putting it all into a garbage bag and mixing it that way. When I did that I got holes in the bag and it started spilling out onto the floor, even when I double bagged it that still happened. So my suggestion is to put half the ingredients (a little bit of each item) into the bucket and then mix well. Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well, making sure to get everything stirred up. ** I just noticed that she put up a video tutorial and when she mixed it in the bag it worked great for her! So maybe it was just me!
Don't forget to add the sun oxygen cleaner to the fels naptha soap when processing it!! It will get gunky and not blend well! Not that I know this from experience or anything! *wink*
Make sure you store this in an air tight container to avoid it getting clumpy and hard to use.
There you have it! Our cheap, amazing and super easy to make homemade laundry detergent!! Feel free to send me any questions you might have!
Friday, March 20, 2015
Sanity Saving Advice for Your Homeschool Week
I have found that when I fail to plan for our week things don't happen! School work doesn't get done, housework doesn't get done, and meals don't get cooked! In order for these things to happen I have to plan out our week. I use a homeschool planner, chore charts and a menu to make sure that our life runs smoothly.
The homeschool planner is just merely our lesson plans written out. I made copies of our lesson plans from the teachers manual, that way I can write in extra stuff we do and I can check off what we did accomplish. They are then divided by which child its for, so I have one for Elijah which is Exploring Countries and Cultures and then one for Noah which is his 1st grade work. I also have a yearly schedule printed up and that is where I keep track of our field trips and how many days we have done school. We are not required to keep this information in my state but I still like to have a record of how many days we have done school. I keep all of this in a 3 ring binder. Every Sunday night I get all our papers and things set out for the week and I look over lesson plans. I prefer to do this on Sunday night rather than say on Friday afternoon, because then come Monday morning it's still fresh in my mind of what we are doing for the week.
Our menu board is really simple! Its a small dry erase board that is hanging in our kitchen. I tried other "systems" and never stuck with them, they all seemed too complicated and all I really needed was something simple. I change it out every week. I grocery shop every two weeks, so I meal plan for two weeks at a time. I typically just plan for dinners. Breakfast in our house is either cereal, cereal bars, frozen pancakes/waffles, or Elijah likes to make himself oatmeal in the microwave. For lunches we will either do PB&J or deli meat sandwiches, hot dogs, spaghetti o's, or mac and cheese (I know super not healthy!! I am working on it!!). So when I grocery shop I just know to buy those types of things, along with items needed to make our dinners.
Chore charts are another thing that can be either super complicated or super simple. I have been everywhere on this scale, from boards that we changed out daily to boards that we changed out weekly, and now we are on a set chore schedule. My kids each have a list of items that are their responsibility and items that they are paid to do. For Elijah, age 10, his responsibilities include, making his bed, cleaning his room (including vacuuming), doing his own laundry (wash, dry, put away), taking out the trash in the kitchen, bathrooms, and our school room. His paid chores are vacuuming other rooms, cleaning the bathroom, and doing his brothers laundry (wash, dry and brought upstairs). Noah, age 7, his responsibilities include clean his bedroom, put his clothes away, feed the fish, dust, help load/unload the dishwasher. His chore list consists of doing his laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom. For Zach, age 3, his list is pretty short, his responsibilities are set the table for dinner, put his clothes away, wipe the table after meals, and clean his room. At this point he doesn't get paid to do any chores. I just typed up these lists and Noah and Zach keep theirs on the fridge, Elijah has his hanging in his room. For their chores, they can choose to do them throughout the week to earn extra money, but every Friday they are required to do them.
Implementing these three things has drastically reduced the chaos in our week. The old saying of "Fail to plan, plan to fail" is very accurate!
The homeschool planner is just merely our lesson plans written out. I made copies of our lesson plans from the teachers manual, that way I can write in extra stuff we do and I can check off what we did accomplish. They are then divided by which child its for, so I have one for Elijah which is Exploring Countries and Cultures and then one for Noah which is his 1st grade work. I also have a yearly schedule printed up and that is where I keep track of our field trips and how many days we have done school. We are not required to keep this information in my state but I still like to have a record of how many days we have done school. I keep all of this in a 3 ring binder. Every Sunday night I get all our papers and things set out for the week and I look over lesson plans. I prefer to do this on Sunday night rather than say on Friday afternoon, because then come Monday morning it's still fresh in my mind of what we are doing for the week.
Our menu board is really simple! Its a small dry erase board that is hanging in our kitchen. I tried other "systems" and never stuck with them, they all seemed too complicated and all I really needed was something simple. I change it out every week. I grocery shop every two weeks, so I meal plan for two weeks at a time. I typically just plan for dinners. Breakfast in our house is either cereal, cereal bars, frozen pancakes/waffles, or Elijah likes to make himself oatmeal in the microwave. For lunches we will either do PB&J or deli meat sandwiches, hot dogs, spaghetti o's, or mac and cheese (I know super not healthy!! I am working on it!!). So when I grocery shop I just know to buy those types of things, along with items needed to make our dinners.
Chore charts are another thing that can be either super complicated or super simple. I have been everywhere on this scale, from boards that we changed out daily to boards that we changed out weekly, and now we are on a set chore schedule. My kids each have a list of items that are their responsibility and items that they are paid to do. For Elijah, age 10, his responsibilities include, making his bed, cleaning his room (including vacuuming), doing his own laundry (wash, dry, put away), taking out the trash in the kitchen, bathrooms, and our school room. His paid chores are vacuuming other rooms, cleaning the bathroom, and doing his brothers laundry (wash, dry and brought upstairs). Noah, age 7, his responsibilities include clean his bedroom, put his clothes away, feed the fish, dust, help load/unload the dishwasher. His chore list consists of doing his laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom. For Zach, age 3, his list is pretty short, his responsibilities are set the table for dinner, put his clothes away, wipe the table after meals, and clean his room. At this point he doesn't get paid to do any chores. I just typed up these lists and Noah and Zach keep theirs on the fridge, Elijah has his hanging in his room. For their chores, they can choose to do them throughout the week to earn extra money, but every Friday they are required to do them.
Implementing these three things has drastically reduced the chaos in our week. The old saying of "Fail to plan, plan to fail" is very accurate!
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Our Daily Schedule
If you know anything about me at all, you should know that I am a schedule girl! I like schedules, I like order! I like to know what is going to happen and when! So of course our school day has a schedule! Keep in mind that even though there are times written, I am also pretty flexible with those times. The times written just give us a good idea as to how we are doing in our day and they help me to stay on task!
Our Homeschool Daily Schedule:
Everyday
6:45-7:30 Mom wakes up, gets ready, Quiet Time/Prayer
6:30-7:30 Boys are up and eating breakfast
7:30-8:30 Mom eats breakfast, cleans up breakfast, begins dinner prep, starts laundry
Monday/ Wednesday
8:30-9:05 Group Time: Missionary Story, Devotion, Memory Verses, Prayer
9:05-9:20 Science
9:20-9:35 Art/Music
9:35-9:50 Latin
9:50-10:05 English (Elijah) Handwriting (Noah)
10:05-10:20 Snack/ Break
10:20-10:40 Math (everyone)
10:40-10:55 Handwriting (Elijah) Bible/History (Noah)
10:55-11:15 Reading (Noah) Free Time (Elijah)
11:15-11:30 Spelling (Elijah) Free Time (Noah)
11:30-12:30 Lunch, prepare Zach for rest time
12:30-12:45 Geography
12:45-1:30 Read Aloud Time
1:30-3:00 Free Time/Quiet Time
3:00 Snack/TV/ Free Time
Tuesday/Thursday
8:30-9:15 Take Zach to Pre-School
9:15-9:30 Science
9:30-9:45 Art/Music
9:45-10:00 English (Elijah) Handwriting (Noah)
10:00-10:15 Snack/Break
10:15-10:30 Math
10:30-10:11 Bible/History, Reading (Noah)
11:00-11:15 Spelling (Elijah)
11:15-11:45 Pick Zach Up from Pre-School
11:45-12:30 Lunch, prepare Zach for rest time
**The afternoon is the same as Monday/Wednesday**
Fridays are our Home Economics days (aka house cleaning day!). I also like to keep this day for making up any work that we missed during the week, or doing special projects that we didn't have time for during the week.
This is a general run down of how I organize our school day, as you can see it looks pretty structured but really it's not too rigid. I let them pick and choose, like sometimes Elijah feels like doing Math before English and that's ok. Sometimes he prefers to do his whole handwriting sheet in one day sometimes he likes to do a little bit everyday. Noah's school day is really short and sometimes I just sit with him for about 30-45 minutes and get it all done at once because he is hard to get to come back once he has left! If you notice I don't have anytime scheduled with Zach, and that's not because I don't spend anytime with him. He joins in our group time, science, music/art, and Latin. When we are doing our other work I have things set out to keep him occupied. He gets to color, paint, cut, use stickers, play with rice, play dough, and puzzles. Also I spend about 20 minutes reading to him before he goes in to his room for rest time. So never fear, he does get attention!
Our Homeschool Daily Schedule:
Everyday
6:45-7:30 Mom wakes up, gets ready, Quiet Time/Prayer
6:30-7:30 Boys are up and eating breakfast
7:30-8:30 Mom eats breakfast, cleans up breakfast, begins dinner prep, starts laundry
Monday/ Wednesday
8:30-9:05 Group Time: Missionary Story, Devotion, Memory Verses, Prayer
9:05-9:20 Science
9:20-9:35 Art/Music
9:35-9:50 Latin
9:50-10:05 English (Elijah) Handwriting (Noah)
10:05-10:20 Snack/ Break
10:20-10:40 Math (everyone)
10:40-10:55 Handwriting (Elijah) Bible/History (Noah)
10:55-11:15 Reading (Noah) Free Time (Elijah)
11:15-11:30 Spelling (Elijah) Free Time (Noah)
11:30-12:30 Lunch, prepare Zach for rest time
12:30-12:45 Geography
12:45-1:30 Read Aloud Time
1:30-3:00 Free Time/Quiet Time
3:00 Snack/TV/ Free Time
Tuesday/Thursday
8:30-9:15 Take Zach to Pre-School
9:15-9:30 Science
9:30-9:45 Art/Music
9:45-10:00 English (Elijah) Handwriting (Noah)
10:00-10:15 Snack/Break
10:15-10:30 Math
10:30-10:11 Bible/History, Reading (Noah)
11:00-11:15 Spelling (Elijah)
11:15-11:45 Pick Zach Up from Pre-School
11:45-12:30 Lunch, prepare Zach for rest time
**The afternoon is the same as Monday/Wednesday**
Fridays are our Home Economics days (aka house cleaning day!). I also like to keep this day for making up any work that we missed during the week, or doing special projects that we didn't have time for during the week.
This is a general run down of how I organize our school day, as you can see it looks pretty structured but really it's not too rigid. I let them pick and choose, like sometimes Elijah feels like doing Math before English and that's ok. Sometimes he prefers to do his whole handwriting sheet in one day sometimes he likes to do a little bit everyday. Noah's school day is really short and sometimes I just sit with him for about 30-45 minutes and get it all done at once because he is hard to get to come back once he has left! If you notice I don't have anytime scheduled with Zach, and that's not because I don't spend anytime with him. He joins in our group time, science, music/art, and Latin. When we are doing our other work I have things set out to keep him occupied. He gets to color, paint, cut, use stickers, play with rice, play dough, and puzzles. Also I spend about 20 minutes reading to him before he goes in to his room for rest time. So never fear, he does get attention!
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Finding Joy in the Mundane
Lately I have been feeling pretty blah! Yes it's winter, yes it's cold! Also add to that feeling stuck inside with wacky, crazy, high energy boys its enough to make a person go nuts!! But you know what? I am still looking for joy in these little blah moments of life. Finding joy in the mundane is not always an easy task. It can be very difficult at times. Today I'd like to share some ways that help me find joy in the everyday tasks of life.
1) Open each day with a Quiet Time in devotions and prayer. This has taken quite some time for me to figure out, but finally I have a good time to get some devotions in. My routine is to get up, shower and get ready and then have my quiet time. I spend anywhere from 15-20 minutes in a devotional book and prayer. I do this all before leaving my bedroom in the morning. I have found that if I come out of my room, then its all over! The kids know that I will be available when I come out. They are getting really good at getting their own breakfast and playing until I am ready. The point though is to make this a priority! We all make time for what is important and for me I had to make this an important task, just like showering!
2) Spending time daily in the Bible. Along with daily quiet times, I also spend time just reading through the Bible. One goal I have set for myself this year is to read chronologically through the Bible. I have never read through the entire Bible before and I thought reading it chronologically would be a good place to start. I spend about 15-30 minutes, 5 days a week reading a section of scripture. I take time in the afternoons after I finish school with my older boys and while Zach is resting to do this. I am following a plan by Jennifer Jernigan at Diving Deeper Ministries.
3) Serving others! For me I have to think of my job as a mom as an act of service or I tend to dwell of the horridness of it all! Yup, I just said that! I HATE doing household chores! So in order to not hate it so much I look at all the dirty clothes, dishes, and toys as wonderful blessings! I am so blessed to be serving my family by cleaning their clothes, washing their dishes and stepping on their toys!
4) Don't dwell on the mess! Finding joy to me means not stressing over dishes in the sink and toys scattered throughout the house. I choose not to let these discourage my attitude. I choose to let them make my heart joyful, for the same reason as above, its an amazing blessing! I always think of this saying "Excuse the mess, my children are making memories!". I know that this season of life is just messy! I have 3 young kids, and I would rather spend my time loving on them than fussing over the cleanliness of my house! YES, I do clean, my house is not filthy its just not spotless and showroom worthy either!
5) Laughing with my family! Lastly, I find joy by just laughing with my family! My kids are super funny and love to laugh! Elijah loves the Peanuts comics, even though I think they are not that funny he thinks they are hilarious! So I choose to laugh along with him! Noah loves to play rough, so I play rough and wrestle with him, that makes him laugh! Zach likes to be tickled and tells amazingly funny tales. Also as a family we love to watch Americas Funniest Home Videos that comes on every Sunday night. As a tradition we make popcorn, I cut up apples and we watch AFV, that is a great family time of laughing together!
How do you find joy in the mundane?
1) Open each day with a Quiet Time in devotions and prayer. This has taken quite some time for me to figure out, but finally I have a good time to get some devotions in. My routine is to get up, shower and get ready and then have my quiet time. I spend anywhere from 15-20 minutes in a devotional book and prayer. I do this all before leaving my bedroom in the morning. I have found that if I come out of my room, then its all over! The kids know that I will be available when I come out. They are getting really good at getting their own breakfast and playing until I am ready. The point though is to make this a priority! We all make time for what is important and for me I had to make this an important task, just like showering!
4) Don't dwell on the mess! Finding joy to me means not stressing over dishes in the sink and toys scattered throughout the house. I choose not to let these discourage my attitude. I choose to let them make my heart joyful, for the same reason as above, its an amazing blessing! I always think of this saying "Excuse the mess, my children are making memories!". I know that this season of life is just messy! I have 3 young kids, and I would rather spend my time loving on them than fussing over the cleanliness of my house! YES, I do clean, my house is not filthy its just not spotless and showroom worthy either!
5) Laughing with my family! Lastly, I find joy by just laughing with my family! My kids are super funny and love to laugh! Elijah loves the Peanuts comics, even though I think they are not that funny he thinks they are hilarious! So I choose to laugh along with him! Noah loves to play rough, so I play rough and wrestle with him, that makes him laugh! Zach likes to be tickled and tells amazingly funny tales. Also as a family we love to watch Americas Funniest Home Videos that comes on every Sunday night. As a tradition we make popcorn, I cut up apples and we watch AFV, that is a great family time of laughing together!
How do you find joy in the mundane?
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The End is Near
Well here we are with 10 weeks left in our school year! I can't believe we are almost done! Its been such a crazy year for us, I almost didn't think we would actually make it to the end! Over these next few weeks I am excited to see how my kids will have progressed through the year.
So far I have recognized major advances in Noah with both reading and handwriting. At the beginning of the year Noah couldn't read any words, and now he is able to blend sounds to sound out words, and read some short stories! He is also making huge strides with his handwriting, at the beginning of the year I could hardly read his handwriting and now he is able to write legibly. Those were two areas of focus for us this year for him, I am so happy that we are accomplishing our goals, especially considering all of the challenges we have faced this year.
Elijah has also made great strides in his math. At the beginning of the year he was struggling to understand multiple digit multiplication and he is now doing wonderfully with division. Another area that I was wanting to work on this year with him was advancing his reading abilities. I had a whole stack of great literature picked out for him to read this year, he got through about one and a half of those books and began reading The Hobbit. At first I was still going to make him read the books I had picked out, but he wasn't enjoying those, so after a bit I realized that it wasn't a battle worth fighting. I mean come on my fourth grader was reading The Hobbit! He has since finished that and is almost finished with The Fellowship of the Ring. I guess I did accomplish my goal though, he has definitely advanced his reading ability!
A few goals I have set for the rest of our year include Elijah being more independent in his work. Right now he can do Math, Handwriting, and some English on his own. I would like for him to be more independent next year so I will really be pushing him to gain that confidence throughout the rest of this year. For Noah I would like for him to continue to grow his handwriting skills, they are improving but still not great. I would also like to get him to do more copy work and some creative writing. The kid has an amazing imagination and I would like to capture some of that in writing.
Here's to a great next few weeks and finishing up our school year!!
So far I have recognized major advances in Noah with both reading and handwriting. At the beginning of the year Noah couldn't read any words, and now he is able to blend sounds to sound out words, and read some short stories! He is also making huge strides with his handwriting, at the beginning of the year I could hardly read his handwriting and now he is able to write legibly. Those were two areas of focus for us this year for him, I am so happy that we are accomplishing our goals, especially considering all of the challenges we have faced this year.
Elijah has also made great strides in his math. At the beginning of the year he was struggling to understand multiple digit multiplication and he is now doing wonderfully with division. Another area that I was wanting to work on this year with him was advancing his reading abilities. I had a whole stack of great literature picked out for him to read this year, he got through about one and a half of those books and began reading The Hobbit. At first I was still going to make him read the books I had picked out, but he wasn't enjoying those, so after a bit I realized that it wasn't a battle worth fighting. I mean come on my fourth grader was reading The Hobbit! He has since finished that and is almost finished with The Fellowship of the Ring. I guess I did accomplish my goal though, he has definitely advanced his reading ability!
A few goals I have set for the rest of our year include Elijah being more independent in his work. Right now he can do Math, Handwriting, and some English on his own. I would like for him to be more independent next year so I will really be pushing him to gain that confidence throughout the rest of this year. For Noah I would like for him to continue to grow his handwriting skills, they are improving but still not great. I would also like to get him to do more copy work and some creative writing. The kid has an amazing imagination and I would like to capture some of that in writing.
Here's to a great next few weeks and finishing up our school year!!
Monday, March 16, 2015
My Job Description... Full Time Stay-at-Home Homeschool Mom
This morning as I was checking my Facebook page, this article came up on my news feed. Its title piqued my interest and so I began read. The title of this article is "Being a Stay-at-Home Mother Is Not a Job". That right there was enough to get me going! I was so upset by reading this! Are you kidding me!!! Are you seriously saying that what I do 24/7 is NOT a job!! For real!!!
In order to get the full scope of the article I knew I needed to read it all, and not jump to conclusions from the title alone. So I read it, and my conclusion is this... she is really coming at it from the aspect of stay at home moms claiming that this is their "career". Somehow that offends her to the point that her "real career" is diminished because she chose to work outside her home. Well this article makes me feel like my choice to stay at home is diminished and that what I do isn't a "real" job!!
I think though that her point was that full time working outside the home moms still have to do everything that we do as well. They still have to clean their house, cook meals, and do laundry, along with helping with homework and things like that. You know what, I totally get that! I worked outside my home for a time, and it was really hard!!! It was not fun to work all day, come home and cook dinner for my family, then bathe my children and put them to bed barely getting to spend anytime with them. Which is the exact reason that my family sacrifices so that I am able to be home and take care of my children! Its a HARD job!!! And yes I do believe that what I do is a JOB! A career...NO! But a job none the less!
Do I judge working moms, absolutely NOT!! I certainly do not think that they love their children any less because they send them to daycare and go to work! We each make these decisions based on what we feel is best for our own families!!
I guess my reason for wanting to write this post was to make a point of lets not judge each other! We are all moms trying to raise our children to the best of our ability and wouldn't it be so much easier if we all supported each other instead of trying to diminish each others personal choices!!
That is all!!! Thank you! Rant over!
In order to get the full scope of the article I knew I needed to read it all, and not jump to conclusions from the title alone. So I read it, and my conclusion is this... she is really coming at it from the aspect of stay at home moms claiming that this is their "career". Somehow that offends her to the point that her "real career" is diminished because she chose to work outside her home. Well this article makes me feel like my choice to stay at home is diminished and that what I do isn't a "real" job!!
I think though that her point was that full time working outside the home moms still have to do everything that we do as well. They still have to clean their house, cook meals, and do laundry, along with helping with homework and things like that. You know what, I totally get that! I worked outside my home for a time, and it was really hard!!! It was not fun to work all day, come home and cook dinner for my family, then bathe my children and put them to bed barely getting to spend anytime with them. Which is the exact reason that my family sacrifices so that I am able to be home and take care of my children! Its a HARD job!!! And yes I do believe that what I do is a JOB! A career...NO! But a job none the less!
Do I judge working moms, absolutely NOT!! I certainly do not think that they love their children any less because they send them to daycare and go to work! We each make these decisions based on what we feel is best for our own families!!
I guess my reason for wanting to write this post was to make a point of lets not judge each other! We are all moms trying to raise our children to the best of our ability and wouldn't it be so much easier if we all supported each other instead of trying to diminish each others personal choices!!
That is all!!! Thank you! Rant over!
Friday, March 13, 2015
It's Mom School Time
The same thing happens every year! This weekend in March is Hearts at Home time!!! I am so excited about this years theme which is "Unleash Your Superpower!" And lets face it as a mom we all have superpowers!
In case you haven't heard of Hearts at Home before I'll share a little bit about it. Hearts at Home was founded by Jill Savage, who has a huge heart for taking care of all moms in this journey that we travel together. The Hearts at Home conference was started way back in 1994 with an expected 400 moms to attend, and well 1100 showed up!!! It has grown every year since! The national conference is held in Normal, IL on the campus of Illinois State University, which just so happens to be pretty close to my hometown. They have also recently added a second conference that is held in November up in Rochester, MN.
In case you haven't heard of Hearts at Home before I'll share a little bit about it. Hearts at Home was founded by Jill Savage, who has a huge heart for taking care of all moms in this journey that we travel together. The Hearts at Home conference was started way back in 1994 with an expected 400 moms to attend, and well 1100 showed up!!! It has grown every year since! The national conference is held in Normal, IL on the campus of Illinois State University, which just so happens to be pretty close to my hometown. They have also recently added a second conference that is held in November up in Rochester, MN.
I began attending the conference in 2006, I believe, and I haven't missed a year yet! Basically what takes place is an entire weekend that is full of key note speakers, workshops, and of course shopping! Every year I come home with a brain full of knowledge, a heart that is refreshed and a soul that is calm! I come away with new ideas and challenges for the year ahead. I love this conference so much and I look forward to it every year.
You can choose to attend either Friday or Saturday or both days!! They also offer a Moms Night Out that is held on Friday night after the conference. I haven't been able to attend this before but look forward to going some day. I usually only attend one day of the conference, but I have done both days before.
Tomorrow is the day!!! The day that I wait for all year long!!! I get to drive away from my home at about 6:30 in the morning and not come home until about 8:30 that evening! My husband is always so willing to allow me to attend, because he sees how my heart is different and refreshed every year when I come home!
If you have never attended a Hearts at Home conference I strongly urge you to begin saving and plan to attend next year! You will not regret it!! Here is a little promo video provided by Hearts at Home to give you a glimpse into a convention weekend! Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
How I Encouraged my Struggling Reader
When we began Kindergarten last year with my second son, I knew that reading would be a big struggle for him. He has a January birthday, so he was 5.5 years old when we began. He is a very active little boy and a traditional schooling program would be difficult for him to mold to. As we got further into our reading lessons, he just was not getting it!! I struggled with the idea of just letting it go and picking it up at a later date.
Reading through many blogs and talking to many seasoned homeschool moms, I realized that putting it down and picking it later would be a great idea. So about 3 months into Kindergarten we stopped reading lessons altogether! We still worked on letter sounds, writing, and letter recognition, but as far as blending sounds and phonics we didn't do anything.
Then in about February of last year, we picked up the lessons again. He was now 6 years old and still struggling greatly! Really all aspects of schooling was a struggle, he couldn't sit still and he couldn't focus. His school day ran from about 12:30 till 1:00 every day. We did active games and limited the seat work portion of his day. The highlight of his day was math! The kid loves numbers and he just gets it! Number make sense to him, letters not so much!
My oldest son was using the All About Spelling program and we LOVED it!!! I kept looking at the All About Reading program but really struggled with whether or not to buy it, its pretty pricy! I didn't want to waste our money on a program that wouldn't work for my son. Eventually I gave in and bought it, but not until about April of last year! We took a few weeks to complete the first few lessons and only got about 4 lessons in before we stopped school for the summer.
When we picked it back up in the fall, I was really discouraged because he still was struggling! I felt like giving it up, but I knew he was to the point of readiness, it was more of an attitude issue. So we have plugged away and are now on lesson 33 (out of 49). Just this week it seems as though the light bulb has went on and he is just soaring with it!! Up until this point he was still struggling with blending sounds at the beginning of words, such as the fl, pl, and sm. Yesterday was we were reviewing some words from a while ago, he got through like 10 words in less than a minute!! I'm telling you, that NEVER has happened before! It usually takes about 5 minutes to get through the review because he struggles, he gets agitated and frustrated when he can't get it the first time.
The All About Reading program is a multi sensory program which is perfect for a little guy who prefers to use touch and sound, as opposed to just sight. There are cards and tiles he can manipulate, books to read through that he is constantly flipping the pages, and games to play.
If you have a struggling reader I strongly suggest this program!! It truly does work and I have seen the beauty of a struggling reader actually get it! His words to me today were "Mom, I can actually hear you saying the sounds!" It makes me think that up until now, he wasn't able to make that distinction. Hallelujah!!!
I also made up this little game board, not very fancy but it helped in reinforcing the words in a non schooly way. He loved it! Especially since we used Batman figures as our game pieces. The rules were pretty simple, he had to pick a card and read the word, if he got it right he was allowed to roll the dice and move that many spaces. I also let my 4th grader play but he had to spell his words from his current All About Spelling lesson, that didn't go so well! He was mad because his brother just had to read and he had to spell! They had fun anyway though!
Do you have a struggling reader? What have you done to encourage your child in reading?
Reading through many blogs and talking to many seasoned homeschool moms, I realized that putting it down and picking it later would be a great idea. So about 3 months into Kindergarten we stopped reading lessons altogether! We still worked on letter sounds, writing, and letter recognition, but as far as blending sounds and phonics we didn't do anything.
Then in about February of last year, we picked up the lessons again. He was now 6 years old and still struggling greatly! Really all aspects of schooling was a struggle, he couldn't sit still and he couldn't focus. His school day ran from about 12:30 till 1:00 every day. We did active games and limited the seat work portion of his day. The highlight of his day was math! The kid loves numbers and he just gets it! Number make sense to him, letters not so much!
My oldest son was using the All About Spelling program and we LOVED it!!! I kept looking at the All About Reading program but really struggled with whether or not to buy it, its pretty pricy! I didn't want to waste our money on a program that wouldn't work for my son. Eventually I gave in and bought it, but not until about April of last year! We took a few weeks to complete the first few lessons and only got about 4 lessons in before we stopped school for the summer.
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| My little creative guy! This is his robot monster he created using our magnetic pattern blocks. |
When we picked it back up in the fall, I was really discouraged because he still was struggling! I felt like giving it up, but I knew he was to the point of readiness, it was more of an attitude issue. So we have plugged away and are now on lesson 33 (out of 49). Just this week it seems as though the light bulb has went on and he is just soaring with it!! Up until this point he was still struggling with blending sounds at the beginning of words, such as the fl, pl, and sm. Yesterday was we were reviewing some words from a while ago, he got through like 10 words in less than a minute!! I'm telling you, that NEVER has happened before! It usually takes about 5 minutes to get through the review because he struggles, he gets agitated and frustrated when he can't get it the first time.
The All About Reading program is a multi sensory program which is perfect for a little guy who prefers to use touch and sound, as opposed to just sight. There are cards and tiles he can manipulate, books to read through that he is constantly flipping the pages, and games to play.
If you have a struggling reader I strongly suggest this program!! It truly does work and I have seen the beauty of a struggling reader actually get it! His words to me today were "Mom, I can actually hear you saying the sounds!" It makes me think that up until now, he wasn't able to make that distinction. Hallelujah!!!
I also made up this little game board, not very fancy but it helped in reinforcing the words in a non schooly way. He loved it! Especially since we used Batman figures as our game pieces. The rules were pretty simple, he had to pick a card and read the word, if he got it right he was allowed to roll the dice and move that many spaces. I also let my 4th grader play but he had to spell his words from his current All About Spelling lesson, that didn't go so well! He was mad because his brother just had to read and he had to spell! They had fun anyway though!
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| Very simple board game that I created to reinforce his reading skills. |
Do you have a struggling reader? What have you done to encourage your child in reading?
** This is not a sponsored post! I do not have any affiliation with All About Learning Press, I just love their stuff and use it and want to share!**
Friday, March 6, 2015
Back to Homeschooling
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming! I took a little bit of a break from blogging about homeschool things because I felt the need to switch it up a bit! I tend to get bored easily!
This week has been our "spring break". I didn't really have any particular things planned this week, and it has shown! We have been BORED!!! We got some snow on Sunday, Monday was just blah, Tuesday we got about 1 inch of ice, Wednesday and Thursday were just bitter COLD! My husband took Friday off and we planned a family day to a children's museum, which is always a good time.
In the future I realize I really need to plan activities other wise we wind up watching movies and not getting out of our jammies! Not totally a bad thing, but can get a bit tiresome.
My boys did work on a few creative thing though. We recently began learning about stop motion movies. They have had fun working on those. Here is one that Elijah worked on, there is no sound, like I said we are still playing abound with it. And yes it's sideways, not sure how to adjust that!
Here are just a few pictures that I have taken lately!
That's a little bit about what we have been up to. Hopefully I will begin to post more regular updates on our homeschooling journey in the near future. So stay tuned!
This week has been our "spring break". I didn't really have any particular things planned this week, and it has shown! We have been BORED!!! We got some snow on Sunday, Monday was just blah, Tuesday we got about 1 inch of ice, Wednesday and Thursday were just bitter COLD! My husband took Friday off and we planned a family day to a children's museum, which is always a good time.
In the future I realize I really need to plan activities other wise we wind up watching movies and not getting out of our jammies! Not totally a bad thing, but can get a bit tiresome.
My boys did work on a few creative thing though. We recently began learning about stop motion movies. They have had fun working on those. Here is one that Elijah worked on, there is no sound, like I said we are still playing abound with it. And yes it's sideways, not sure how to adjust that!
Here are just a few pictures that I have taken lately!
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| The African Savanna |
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| Silly Big lips boy! |
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| He had Circus week at Preschool! |
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| Building a fortress out of Math U See blocks. |
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| Practicing guitar with his brothers help. |
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| Chocolate chip pancake mouth! |
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| Me and my little guy! |
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Living on a Dental Floss Budget: You know, one that is smaller than a shoe string!
Yesterday I finished up talking about our story of becoming debt free. Today I'll discuss some of my favorite tips when living on a shoe string dental floss budget!
2) Determine a Budget- Finding a budget that works for your family is key! Emphasis on working for your family! If you look at another family and try to determine what you should be spending you will not stick to it. It has to work for your lifestyle and paycheck.
3) Stick to that Budget- Once that budget is in place, you may need to make some tweaks every so often. I suggest giving yourselves a few months before you really nail it down and put it in stone. Even now for us, we need to adjust it every so often. Recently we had to up our grocery budget, because apparently these boys of mine like to eat!
4) Bargain Shop- I know you have heard this before but I'll say it again! Shop thrift stores, ask around to friends, clearance sales, off season sales, and garage sales are your best friend! There are somethings I refuse to buy second hand, like shoes and fabric covered furniture, but that is just me! We have found some great things by just asking our friends if they have it to get rid of. Sometimes they might not even think they want to sell it, but when you ask they are more than willing to get rid of it!
5) Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make it Last or Do Without- One year that was my motto! I had to just keep repeating it to myself. Along with "we are going to live like our grandparent did", meaning we were not going to waste and we were going to get creative about saving money. This little motto took us a LONG way! It took us to giving up paper towels, napkins, clorox wipes, and paper plates. When I realized how much I spent on just paper towels and napkins, I was really shocked! And we buy generic! So we switched to cloth napkins and pieces of scrap fabric from my husbands old sock and t-shirts for paper towel use. That shaved at least $20 a month off of our budget.
There you have it my 5 tips for living on a budget! I know there are so many other things that could be added but I wanted to give a precise and easy list to get you started!
Do you have any other tips that have worked for you? I'd love to hear them!
Here are my top 5 picks for building and sticking to a budget:
1) Record Every Penny- If you are just beginning to budget and have never had to keep track of anything, this could be really hard. It's so worth it though! The insight that it provides is invaluable. You suddenly see, that you spent $15 on coffee this week! Or that you spend $80 taking the family out to eat this month. Wow! What insight!2) Determine a Budget- Finding a budget that works for your family is key! Emphasis on working for your family! If you look at another family and try to determine what you should be spending you will not stick to it. It has to work for your lifestyle and paycheck.
3) Stick to that Budget- Once that budget is in place, you may need to make some tweaks every so often. I suggest giving yourselves a few months before you really nail it down and put it in stone. Even now for us, we need to adjust it every so often. Recently we had to up our grocery budget, because apparently these boys of mine like to eat!
4) Bargain Shop- I know you have heard this before but I'll say it again! Shop thrift stores, ask around to friends, clearance sales, off season sales, and garage sales are your best friend! There are somethings I refuse to buy second hand, like shoes and fabric covered furniture, but that is just me! We have found some great things by just asking our friends if they have it to get rid of. Sometimes they might not even think they want to sell it, but when you ask they are more than willing to get rid of it!
5) Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make it Last or Do Without- One year that was my motto! I had to just keep repeating it to myself. Along with "we are going to live like our grandparent did", meaning we were not going to waste and we were going to get creative about saving money. This little motto took us a LONG way! It took us to giving up paper towels, napkins, clorox wipes, and paper plates. When I realized how much I spent on just paper towels and napkins, I was really shocked! And we buy generic! So we switched to cloth napkins and pieces of scrap fabric from my husbands old sock and t-shirts for paper towel use. That shaved at least $20 a month off of our budget.
There you have it my 5 tips for living on a budget! I know there are so many other things that could be added but I wanted to give a precise and easy list to get you started!
Do you have any other tips that have worked for you? I'd love to hear them!
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Debt Free Living Part 2
Last time I gave a little background history on our families financial issues. We began our married life with zero debt but quickly spiraled down hill.
I really think our problems began when we totally lacked a good knowledge as to how much money we were bringing in. We paid our bills on time, we bought groceries, we bought clothes when we needed them. The only problem was that we didn't pay any attention to how much we spent on each of those things. So at the end of the month we had no idea where our money went. We continued on that path for about 5 years!!
In that 5 year period, my husband was working part time jobs in between looking for a full time job, we had a second child and bought a house. Once my husband found a good job and had been then about 2 years and shortly after our second child was born, we made the decision for me to stay home full time. It was where my heart was and my job was drastically draining on me! Here is where another problem came in, we still spent money like I was working.
We finally hit rock bottom in the summer of 2010, we had recently found out I was expecting our third child. We knew we had a great deal of debt but had been working to pay that off, and we didn't want to wait until the debt was paid off to "finish" our family. Well that pregnancy ended with a miscarriage. A few weeks later we began getting the medical bills for that miscarriage, and we began to realize that we had no money to pay these bills! We were anticipating insurance to cover a pregnancy but in the end most of the bills for our miscarriage were not covered!
My husband got paid on a Friday and by that Sunday we literally had $27 in our bank account! That was after paying bills and buying groceries. That $27 was to last us another 2 weeks until we got paid again, when the same thing would probably happen! At this point we began talking and realizing that we need to get some help! Our adult Sunday school teacher at the time was a very good business man and we contacted him to see if he knew anyone that could offer to give us some financial counseling. He said he knew some people but that he would be willing to meet with us and help us out.
We began meeting with him every few weeks at first, he really helped us dig into our budget and figure out where we were going wrong. His first step was to find extra money that we could begin to snowball our debt. We had a 5 year getting out of debt plan. We met with him for about 6 months and in that six month time we were able to establish a working budget and begin to snow ball that debt!
Now lets talk about our present day situation! We met our goal!! It took some creativeness on our part and we were gifted some money along the way. Now we are debt free except for our home! It is so freeing to not have to worry about every single penny! And let me tell you there were many, many times in Wal-Mart that I had tears!! Our budget was so tight that I literally had to calculate every single item, and at the end of my trip sometimes things had to be put back! Hard decisions had to be made, do I buy another pound of beef or buy the cheaper bag of pasta instead??!
Next time I will share some of our budgeting tips and how we managed to get that debt down!
I really think our problems began when we totally lacked a good knowledge as to how much money we were bringing in. We paid our bills on time, we bought groceries, we bought clothes when we needed them. The only problem was that we didn't pay any attention to how much we spent on each of those things. So at the end of the month we had no idea where our money went. We continued on that path for about 5 years!!
In that 5 year period, my husband was working part time jobs in between looking for a full time job, we had a second child and bought a house. Once my husband found a good job and had been then about 2 years and shortly after our second child was born, we made the decision for me to stay home full time. It was where my heart was and my job was drastically draining on me! Here is where another problem came in, we still spent money like I was working.
We finally hit rock bottom in the summer of 2010, we had recently found out I was expecting our third child. We knew we had a great deal of debt but had been working to pay that off, and we didn't want to wait until the debt was paid off to "finish" our family. Well that pregnancy ended with a miscarriage. A few weeks later we began getting the medical bills for that miscarriage, and we began to realize that we had no money to pay these bills! We were anticipating insurance to cover a pregnancy but in the end most of the bills for our miscarriage were not covered!
My husband got paid on a Friday and by that Sunday we literally had $27 in our bank account! That was after paying bills and buying groceries. That $27 was to last us another 2 weeks until we got paid again, when the same thing would probably happen! At this point we began talking and realizing that we need to get some help! Our adult Sunday school teacher at the time was a very good business man and we contacted him to see if he knew anyone that could offer to give us some financial counseling. He said he knew some people but that he would be willing to meet with us and help us out.
We began meeting with him every few weeks at first, he really helped us dig into our budget and figure out where we were going wrong. His first step was to find extra money that we could begin to snowball our debt. We had a 5 year getting out of debt plan. We met with him for about 6 months and in that six month time we were able to establish a working budget and begin to snow ball that debt!
Now lets talk about our present day situation! We met our goal!! It took some creativeness on our part and we were gifted some money along the way. Now we are debt free except for our home! It is so freeing to not have to worry about every single penny! And let me tell you there were many, many times in Wal-Mart that I had tears!! Our budget was so tight that I literally had to calculate every single item, and at the end of my trip sometimes things had to be put back! Hard decisions had to be made, do I buy another pound of beef or buy the cheaper bag of pasta instead??!
Next time I will share some of our budgeting tips and how we managed to get that debt down!
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Debt Free Living
Lets discuss the pain of debt for a bit! My family went through some difficult financial years that caused lots of pain for every one involved! I am going to begin a series here that will focus on debt free living! But before I begin that I would like to share our story and what it looks like to be deeply in debt and then to finally get out of that pit!
When my husband and I got married, neither one of us had ever lived on our own. Although we were both working and earning money, we both still lived with our parents. Both of us came form totally different financial backgrounds. I came from a family that was constantly in debt, but always made it through. When my parents wanted something they just charged it, when they wanted a new vehicle they just bought it. That's is just how things worked. Both my parents worked, my father made good money and my mom worked in the home running her own beauty salon. Growing up we were not spoiled children, we knew how to work for things we wanted. From the time I was 14 I was working. When I got my drivers license, the deal was that I would work to pay for the insurance on my car, my parents paid for the car. So I got a job, I really didn't mind it, because when I wanted to go to a movie with fiends or out to eat, I didn't have to ask my parents for money I could just go. When I wanted new clothes, I could just buy them. It was a great sense of freedom and independence! So going into marriage, I didn't have any debt, no student loans or anything.
My husband grew up in a family was very careful with their money. They paid cash for cars, they drove those cars until they literally fell into the ground! Both his parents worked, his mom was a surgical nurse making good money and his dad worked in a retail store. My husband was basically an only child who got pretty much anything he ever wanted. He wasn't spoiled and rotten but he also didn't have siblings around to share with. He never had chores to do and was never expected to do much work around the house. He also came into our marriage with zero debt, no student loans, and a car that was paid for.
So where did we go wrong?? That is an excellent question! We began our married life with me working at a day care center, and my husband was an office manager at a local christian camp. We were required to raise support for that job. We were doing really well, living in a little cheap apartment. I think our problems came when after a year my husband stopped working at the camp and took up any kind of work he could find. So we went from a two income family, to basically a minimum wage income. We also had zero knowledge of budgeting or anything like that. We paid our bills and spent the rest! Not a good idea!!
Next time I will talk about where having no budget took us from bad to worse!
For the rest of this series check out these posts:
1) Debt Free Living Part 2
2) Living on a Dental Floss Budget: You know the One that is Smaller than a Shoe string!
When my husband and I got married, neither one of us had ever lived on our own. Although we were both working and earning money, we both still lived with our parents. Both of us came form totally different financial backgrounds. I came from a family that was constantly in debt, but always made it through. When my parents wanted something they just charged it, when they wanted a new vehicle they just bought it. That's is just how things worked. Both my parents worked, my father made good money and my mom worked in the home running her own beauty salon. Growing up we were not spoiled children, we knew how to work for things we wanted. From the time I was 14 I was working. When I got my drivers license, the deal was that I would work to pay for the insurance on my car, my parents paid for the car. So I got a job, I really didn't mind it, because when I wanted to go to a movie with fiends or out to eat, I didn't have to ask my parents for money I could just go. When I wanted new clothes, I could just buy them. It was a great sense of freedom and independence! So going into marriage, I didn't have any debt, no student loans or anything.
My husband grew up in a family was very careful with their money. They paid cash for cars, they drove those cars until they literally fell into the ground! Both his parents worked, his mom was a surgical nurse making good money and his dad worked in a retail store. My husband was basically an only child who got pretty much anything he ever wanted. He wasn't spoiled and rotten but he also didn't have siblings around to share with. He never had chores to do and was never expected to do much work around the house. He also came into our marriage with zero debt, no student loans, and a car that was paid for.
So where did we go wrong?? That is an excellent question! We began our married life with me working at a day care center, and my husband was an office manager at a local christian camp. We were required to raise support for that job. We were doing really well, living in a little cheap apartment. I think our problems came when after a year my husband stopped working at the camp and took up any kind of work he could find. So we went from a two income family, to basically a minimum wage income. We also had zero knowledge of budgeting or anything like that. We paid our bills and spent the rest! Not a good idea!!
Next time I will talk about where having no budget took us from bad to worse!
For the rest of this series check out these posts:
1) Debt Free Living Part 2
2) Living on a Dental Floss Budget: You know the One that is Smaller than a Shoe string!
Monday, March 2, 2015
Homeschooling as an Introvert
Today I'm going to venture into my personality type a bit more. The other day I shared about my teaching style, which is a Perfect Paula type, meaning I like order and a schedule. My personality is more on the introverted side. Although I do like to be social and love getting together with friends, I am more comfortable in smaller groups. This also means that I thrive on down time and quiet time.
So how do I fit that into my busy homeschooling day with three crazy little boys? Well I'm glad you asked! I am going to share a few little tips that really help me feel as though I can function a bit more kindly and compassionately with my boys and hubby.
First, quiet time/rest time is scheduled into our day (Perfect Paula coming out!). Every single day my family has a rest period in the afternoon right after lunch. This has looked different in different stages of our life. Right now our quiet time is quite a bit different than it was when we only had a toddler and baby. We still have nap time for Zach, he is required to stay in his room and play for a certain period of time, right now its usually from 12:00-3:00 but somedays he doesn't fall asleep until about 3:00 so I let him sleep until 4:00. During this time I finish up school with the older two boys, we do our read aloud time and then by about 1:30 or 2:00 they are playing quietly by themselves. They can play games, read, do puzzles, legos, or whatever as long as they stay in our family room. This is the time of day that I take to do my quiet time, Bible reading, and then just chill out!
Second, I make time to go out with girlfriends at least once a month. I have a few different sets that I go out with. That just ensures that I get time to be a woman, and not just a mom! This really helps my mental state of being! It also helps that I have an amazing husband who understands my need to get out and be by myself or with friends.
Third, I almost always do the grocery shopping by myself! Not that I really enjoy shopping for groceries, but it lends me about 2 hours every other week to just be in my own little world by myself!
Those are just a few ways that I find help my little introverted self function better! Any other tips that you have I would love to hear them!
So how do I fit that into my busy homeschooling day with three crazy little boys? Well I'm glad you asked! I am going to share a few little tips that really help me feel as though I can function a bit more kindly and compassionately with my boys and hubby.
First, quiet time/rest time is scheduled into our day (Perfect Paula coming out!). Every single day my family has a rest period in the afternoon right after lunch. This has looked different in different stages of our life. Right now our quiet time is quite a bit different than it was when we only had a toddler and baby. We still have nap time for Zach, he is required to stay in his room and play for a certain period of time, right now its usually from 12:00-3:00 but somedays he doesn't fall asleep until about 3:00 so I let him sleep until 4:00. During this time I finish up school with the older two boys, we do our read aloud time and then by about 1:30 or 2:00 they are playing quietly by themselves. They can play games, read, do puzzles, legos, or whatever as long as they stay in our family room. This is the time of day that I take to do my quiet time, Bible reading, and then just chill out!
Second, I make time to go out with girlfriends at least once a month. I have a few different sets that I go out with. That just ensures that I get time to be a woman, and not just a mom! This really helps my mental state of being! It also helps that I have an amazing husband who understands my need to get out and be by myself or with friends.
Third, I almost always do the grocery shopping by myself! Not that I really enjoy shopping for groceries, but it lends me about 2 hours every other week to just be in my own little world by myself!
Those are just a few ways that I find help my little introverted self function better! Any other tips that you have I would love to hear them!
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