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School Week of October 20, 2014

Let me apologize for not really writing anything the last couple of weeks. A very dear friend of mine was diagnosed with stage 4 Melanoma cancer back in February. She is a huge part of our home school group, our lives and a sister in Christ. Well these last two weeks were the ending of her life here on earth. As many of you know when you loose someone very dear to you you get into a slump. Well, school was a must do, but typing a blog was not on my must do list. But I managed to get the pictures up there. Anyway, to make this extremely short, Connie passed away on Oct 16th at age 47. It was a very dark couple of weeks while watching her waste away so very quickly over these months but even quicker over the last couple weeks. But I have this new found happiness for her knowing that she is in heaven with a perfect body and completely out of pain!

Along with all that is going on with loosing my friend, my mom is not doing too well. She is suppose to wear her oxygen 24/7 but she is so stubborn and sometimes takes it off. Well, this leads her into episodes where she just cannot breath. I hear her in the next room gasping for air and when I run in she is pale as a ghost and her lips are purple. This is stressful for me, the kids and my hubby. I finally told her she cannot do this to the us. It is one thing to die of natural causes, but it is another thing to suffocate yourself to death. Well, sorry to  be a downer and airing my bad couple weeks. You get the idea. The last few weeks here have been VERY hard and stressful on me. I feel as if I have aged 10 years! So hopefully you understand why I have not written in a couple weeks!

Now on to school. This week we found ourselves in much better spirits with school and willing to do more and wanting to do school. YEA! My kids are starting to do much better in their typing. The free program I got off the computer, Good Typing, is working well for them. My daughter has finally able to go to the next level. I told them both they had to go a full week with no more then 8 mistakes before they could progress to the next levels. The last couple weeks they have both done poorly, but I suppose it is due to the stress in the house with my friend being so sick and my watching my Mom suffocate.

Let me take a quick minute and back up a little in science. If you look back to the last couple of posts where I just posted pictures, you will notice some bones in liquid. Just quickly they are cooked leg bones of a chicken. One in water the other in vinegar. The idea was to see what happens when we do not eat right and the calcium gets drained from out bones instead of feeding our body correctly. We saw that the vinegar bone got very soft and we were able to easily cut it with a pair of scissors. Where as the bone in just water we could barley get a knife through. We actually had to score it and then snap it with our hands. This was a great experiment.

We have moved onto muscles. I always thought the strongest muscle was the tongue, but it is the jaw muscle. Makes sense when you think of what we have to do with our jaws. Also the muscle that never stops is the heart and eyes. Hmmm. And there are three types of muscles. The smooth muscle such as your tummy, the cardiac muscle such as your heart and the skeletal muscles such as your bicep. The kids worked on naming the main muscles in the body ( I doubt they will remember most of them, but they got a few memorized) and then also a word search which was really HARD! I actually had to help them with it.

History is coming along nicely. This week was all about the spreading of slavery. Did you know the first slave owner here in America was a black man. I had no idea! Well anyway, it all really started with the tobacco industry. The colonist were growing tobacco which made England Happy, they were heavy smokers there, because they no longer had to buy from Spain. But since this was such labor intensive work they needed helpers. First there were the indentured servants (work for 6 years then gain freedom), but when that was not enough we got on board with the triangular slave trade coming off of Africa. King James was really ultimately AGAINST this smoking. he thought it was bad for you and stunk! Maybe if he would have gotten his way there would not have been such huge demand and there fore would not have had the slave in America! Side note, take a look at the poster the kids made regarding the no smoking. Great work kiddos!

The Portuguese were at the heart of this trade. They thought that Africa was their very own machine of pumping out slaves. Sad! Anyway, they tried over and over again to take over parts of Africa just to make more slaves, but the leaders there, especially Queen Nzinga wanted nothing to do with it. So they kept fighting. But you know how well that went. And here in America we were trying to get the slaves to “mate” so we could have more slaves for free. I use the word “mate” because Africans were thought of through the triangular trade as nothing more then animals and they were treated as such!  Such a sad mark in world history. Americans get the blame for this tragedy to the Africans, but it all started with the European Triangular Trade and the Portuguese!

Using the Spelling City in conjunction with All About Spelling is working great! I am loving it. I have the lesson for spelling on Monday and then the rest of the week they work on games to help them with their spelling words and on Friday they take the online test. Easy Cheesy and they ask to play the spelling games. YEA!

Choir is coming along nicely. As most of you know I teach three choirs now. One at my church and two for Orange Coast Musical Arts. The two younger choirs are doing quite nice and the older one is coming along slowly. I think a couple of the songs that were chosen might be a little too big for these 11-13 year old kids. These are songs you would hear in a high-school (20 people) or adult choir. But they are trying and that says a ton! They are a great group of kids and I am proud of them really going for it!

Piano for my son is going great. I think it was the best thing to have him away from his sister during class. He seems to be doing very well when I hear him practice at home. The only thing is he needs to relax a bit more. He seems to be very uptight about it! Hopefully as he gets better and it gets easier he will relax more. My daughter is doing well at home with it. My son tells us what lesson we are working on and I sit with her and help her through the lesson each week. We are doing the online app for the note reading flash cards daily. And this was a great idea! I am so glad. My daughter no longer needs the cheat sheet. Which is helping her when she sits down to practice her piece for the week. YEA!!!!

We started art back up a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to take pictures the last two weeks. This week we did not have art at all. The home that hosts it was SICK! Stay away for a while. We are almost done with the water coloring. We will be starting in on a free art class I found on the internet. I will keep you updated when we start that and tell you how we like it. It may be something you want to consider too!

Our Bible verse for this week is:

Psalm 9

I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart;
I will tell of all Your [b]wonders.
I will be glad and exult in You;
I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.

When my enemies turn back,
They stumble and perish before You.
For You have maintained [c]my just cause;
You have sat on the throne [d]judging righteously.
You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
[e]The enemy has come to an end in perpetual ruins,
And You have uprooted the cities;
The very memory of them has perished.

But the Lord [f]abides forever;
He has established His throne for judgment,
And He will judge the world in righteousness;
He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.
[g]The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed,
A stronghold in times of trouble;
10 And [h]those who know Your name will put their trust in You,
For You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.

11 Sing praises to the Lord, who dwells in Zion;
Declare among the peoples His deeds.
12 For He who [i]requires blood remembers them;
He does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
13 Be gracious to me, O Lord;
See my affliction from those who hate me,
You who lift me up from the gates of death,
14 That I may tell of all Your praises,
That in the gates of the daughter of Zion
I may rejoice in Your [j]salvation.
15 The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made;
In the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught.
16 The Lord has made Himself known;
He has executed judgment.
In the work of his own hands the wicked is snared. [k]Higgaion [l]Selah.

17 The wicked will [m]return to [n]Sheol,
Even all the nations who forget God.
18 For the needy will not always be forgotten,
Nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever.
19 Arise, O Lord, do not let man prevail;
Let the nations be judged before You.
20 Put them in fear, O Lord;
Let the nations know that they are but men. Selah.

OK, I think that’s about it for this week. I am writing this on Sunday right before I have to go sing for Praise Symphony Orchestra so I gotta run and get ready. I hope you all have a great week and I will catch you on the flip side!

School Week of October 13, 2014

 

See you all on the FLIP side!!!

School Week of October 6, 2014

See you on the flip side!

School Week of September 29, 2014

What a week. Lots of learning going on. We had most fun with science this week. So i think I’ll start there.

Bones. Yes this is what makes us stand and not be a big old jellyfish! The anatomy of a bone is very interesting. We have three layers of bones. the spongy bone, compact bone, and the periostrium. When we look at bones in a museum, for an example, the periosteum is gone. I never new that. I think the more important thing we learned about the bones is about the inside of the bone and how it is the building block to our blood as well as mastering the idea that calcium is a necessity to our bone structure. As a matter of fact next week we will be starting a experiment on that very thing.

We are committing to memory the major bones in our body. Well 24 of of the 206 bones. Everyday we are going through the bones on our skeleton (Bob) and reviewing the names of these bones. Hehehehe, even my hubby didn’t know all of them. Shhh! I forgot a few too!

As you can see by the pictures in honor of our bone learning we have out together a bone book. I think as we go along the body I will try to put muscle and veins etc to go with our books. But we also made a skeleton too. My daughter ended up dressing hers in a skirt and top and my son made a bow tie and top hat. LOL! Too cute, but at least they are learning and having some fun!

As we lucubrate our brains with history this week we are touching on the New World. The King of France was desiring the find a passage to Asia so he sent Samuel Champlain to find it. He ended up building a colony in Kebec, Canada. Then came along Henry Hudson who had a similar quest as Champlain. He had two failed attempts. One through North Pole and the other that went around Russia. He ended up once again in Canada and there after some long journey, he ended up having a bay named after him. As you ca see form our history mapping we were able to trace the routes that these two explorers made.

This week we trying to improve our knowledge of the states. This weeks state was Washington!  Some fun facts you may not know…..

  1. Microsoft Corporation is located in Redmond.
  2. Washington is the only state to be named after a United States president.
  3. Washington state has more glaciers than the other 47 contiguous states combined.
  4. Three ships of the United States Navy, including two battleships, have been named USS Washington in honor of the state.

Psalm  4 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!You have relieved me in my distress; Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O sons of men, how long will my honor become a  reproach? How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception? Selah. But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for Himself; The Lord hears when I call to Him. Tremble, and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And trust in the LordMany are saying, “Who will show us any good?” Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O LordYou have put gladness in my heart, More than when their grain and new wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep, For You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.  Psalm  5 Give ear to my words, O Lord, Consider my groaning. Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, For to You I pray. In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. But as for me, by Your abundant loving kindness I will enter Your house, At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You. O Lord, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes; Make Your way straight before me. There is nothing reliable in what they say; Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue. 10 Hold them guilty, O God; By their own devices let them fall! In the multitude of their transgressions thrust them out, For they are rebellious against You. 11 But let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You. 12 For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield.

I know this is a shorten version of my normal posts, but it is a BUSY weekend and well, my brain is exhausted already. So I am going to stop there for this week. I’ll pick up next week on my regular posts.

Have a great week and I will catch you on the flip side! God bless!

School Week of September 22, 2014

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School the week of Sept 15, 2014

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Continue reading School the week of Sept 15, 2014

Our First Week of School in 2014

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A New school year is ready to start

Well for the last couple weeks I have been cleaning out and getting rid of thing. I ordered all my books months ago and got them but they have been sitting in a corner waiting and waiting for me to organized my schoolroom. So it is a new year and my son is going into

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CURRICULUM SALE : Rod and Staff

It is that time of year. Out with the old and in with the new. My little girl is now old enough that I can start selling some of my old curriculum. I am going to do several blog posts here as well as posting to a few other sights. BTW, we live in a

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School Week 6-9 thru 6-13-2014

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School Week of 6-2 thru 6-6-2014

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School Week of 5-26 thru 5-30-2014

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School Week of 5-19 thru 5-23-2014

Ruminant animals. Yea, the first thing we all think of is a cow. but as we learned this week, ruminants are not just cows. It is you bovine order that are all cud chewers. So just to name a handful, Gazelles and Antelope and Impalas, Bison, Buffalo, Wilder beast Caprines, Deer, Giraffe, are all ruminant

Continue reading School Week of 5-19 thru 5-23-2014

School Week of 5-12 through 5-16-2014

 

Our week continues in learning about those adorable ungulates. Horses, Giraffes, cows, camels, llamas, deer, rhinos, pigs and many, many more. This week you many have noticed we learned about ungulates that had hooves. We read how to tell a horse who has shoes from a non shoe horse. To be honest, not sure

Continue reading School Week of 5-12 through 5-16-2014

School Week of 5-5 through 5-9

Another week gone by and here we are again. We are narrowing down the weeks until the end of the school year. I am looking forward to everything just stopping for a little bit. I love homeschooling, I love teaching choir, but I also need a break!!!!

This week we moved from the European and

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School Week of 4-28 through 5-2-14

First let me start off by saying May will be EXTREMELY busy for me. I have something going every weekend. I won’t even have time to stop and celebrate my birthday on the 9th. I have concerts that i am singing in and concerts that my children’s choirs I teach are singing in. Whew, I

Continue reading School Week of 4-28 through 5-2-14

School Week of 4-21 through 4-25-14

Well we finished up our week in science with a great experiment. We have been learning about Rodents ad their kind or not so kind for the past couple weeks. Very interesting stuff. I have a greater appreciation for Beavers now. Not that I never had an appreciation for them before. But to see how

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Week of 4-7 through 4-11 2014

Our week of school right before Easter!

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Reading

Reading

Reading

Raquel’s African mask for History

Raquel’s African mask for History

Vincent’s African mask for HistoryVincent’s African mask for History

Vincent’s African mask for History

the making of the masks

working hard on the masks

History

History

History

History

History

History

History

History

History

Geography

Geography

English

English

Creative Writing

Creative Writing

Copywork

Weeks and weeks

OMgosh! I realized I had not posted our week of school in over a month. Bad me. Life just got so busy here. I have so many different hats I am wearing and interests that I am perusing. Right now I have been focusing on choral conducting, nutrition and vegan cooking. I have been taking

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School Week of 2-10-14

What a week. It is the first week that I have felt healthy in 3 months. I had more energy and get up and go then I thought I could have. This made school a lot more fun and exciting for us too. The last few months have really been hit or miss with my

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Why do I Keep Homeschooling?

You know every time I go somewhere and the kids are with me or even if they are not and school comes up, I do not hide the fact that I homeschool. I tell them as if it is an everyday occurrence. Well, I guess it really is, for me! Well, let me tell you

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School Week 1-27-14

So this week I have decided to get my little boy back into copy work. We have not done that for a while. But the other day I was trying to read something he had written and it was not legible. So it got me thinking, why not get some wonderful Christian Character poems and

Continue reading School Week 1-27-14

school Week 1-20-14

 

 

Well, what a week. I know last week I did not write anything. These past couple of weeks has been extremely busy for us here and I don;t seem to be home enough to spend time in front of the computer to actually write anything. So this is going to be very

Continue reading school Week 1-20-14

School Week 1-13-14

Continue reading School Week 1-13-14

School Week of 1-6-14

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 

Oh man, Back from Christmas vacation. I have to admit it has not been easy to get back on the band wagon. You see I have been sick since Thanksgiving. I first got struck with an everyday cold which turned into laryngitis. Then after a week of that I got the

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School Week of 12-9-13

Hey ya all! What a great week of school. Even though we are busy, busy, busy with the holidays and so forth we are having a wonderful week. This week we made a ton of gifts for our family and friends. You know things are financially TIGHT right now for our family, as many families

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School Week of 12-2-13

Wow, it is almost Christmas. Seems like it was just yesterday that I was gathering the supplies for school to start and now here we are putting up decorations and getting ready for the holiday season. Last week was Thanksgiving so as you might have noted there was not a post for school. We took

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School Week of 11-18-13

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School Week of 11-11-13

While learning the bible this week the children picked up a ton about the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Unfortunately we did not do a lot of notebooking bible this week. We did more reading and oral discussion. The children have such a better understanding of what the trinity means and how the

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School Week of 10-28-13

 

What another amazing week of school. First off it was Halloween week which is always fun. We decorated the house for fall. Now mind you we don’t have any real Halloween decoration so my kids talked me into some mini glow in the dark skeletons and the fake cob webs. It was fun to

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Another Week of (10-21-13) School

What a week. I always get amazed at how much we really learn each week. Well I have to start with art this week. We are learning so much this year. We are using the Gluck method of training. So far the pictures we are drawing are just beautiful. This past week we drew, using

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School Week 10-14-13

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Bible coloring page

Daughter’s geography Term: Prairie

Son’s geography Term: Prairie

Son’s Korea, China and Japan mapping

Son’s History coloring page for China

History Pages for China

Daughter’s Spelling

Son’s Bible Notebooking

Daughter’s Bible Notebooking

Bible coloring page

 

School Week of 10-7-13

Ahh, Another week of school down. Have I mentioned how much I love being home with my kids every day? Although, yes, I admit that there are times I am glad to get out for a couple of hours either by myself or with friends, but overall I love teaching them and I adore learning

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School Week of 9-30-13

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Daughter start to glossory of words for Lesson 3

Daughters Bible Notebook page

Son’s Bible Foundation Building

Sons Bible Notebook Page

Sn’s Glossory of words for Bible

Daughter’s Englsih Page

Daughter’s Englsih Page

Daughter’s Englsih Page

Son’s composition writing

Daughter’s Englsih Page

Son’s Englsih Page

Son’s Englsih Page

Son’s Englsih Page

Son’s Englsih Page

Son’s Englsih Page

Daughter’s mapping of North America

Here is her completed insert for Geography

What a great flag of Canada. She did a good job

My son’s really loves when we do our geography terms pages. Plateau was this week topic

My son’s outline map of North America

My son did a great job with teh Canada flag

Plateau was this weeks geo term. Here is my daughters idea of that!

My daughter’s History mapping of the Spread of Islam

My daughter’s History Coloring pages

Our project this wee for history

Shes doing a very careful and colorful job

Here it is. What is it? Am snake of course

So I had to get into the coloring of the snakes

Cutting it out

My son’s History mapping of the Spread of Islam

My daughter’s coloring page for History

The start of the snake

My son finishing the color on his snake

My son’s snale

Here are all our snakes hanging. Just like the snakes in the story of Sinbad the Sailor

Math!

More MAth

So we are learning about Carnivorous animals. And the first one is DOGS!

Howling! Coloring page for science

The start of our science on Dogs. YEA!

Notebooking page for Science

SPELLING

Week 9-23-13 of School

 

 

 

Can you believe that September is almost over? Holy cow! It seems as if it just started. All the stores have their Halloween decoration and some even have started to put their Christmas decorations out. UUGGHH! This is going Waaaaaay too fast for me. Anyhow, this week was a hard week for

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Week 9-16-13 of School

What a whirl wind of a week. First off the end of the week was just hard. We had a main pipe break to the sewer system. Ugghh! Luckily enough none of the sewer backed up into the house. The flood we did have in the house was all clean water. Praise GOD! Anyway, let’s

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Week of 9-9-13 School

 

What a wonderful week this week has been. Now as you may have guessed since there was not a post last week we decided to take the entire week off from school, sleep in and just relax. Why? Well, this week was a big bang into the school year. Not only did we start

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Week 8-26-13 of School

Well, this week we added in to our schedule, English. I decided to hold back on teaching formal English to my kids (Charlotte Mason style) until they were a bit older and the concepts could stick better. It has worked very well for my son and is working for my daughter too. My daughter is

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Week 8-19-13 of School

Well, as I had posted last week, this past week we decided to add into our summer schedule some history. This is a great way of entering into the new school year without it feeling like we went form 0 to 80 in 10 seconds flat. I feel like we are gradually accelerating into the

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Time To Get Started

I know, it has been a while since I have posted anything on here. As a matter of fact I did not even post the last couple weeks of school. Things got so beat up around here right around then with medical appointments etc that the last thing on my mind was taking time to

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2012-2013 School Year: Week 22

For history we finished up our projects on the ancient Americas . So as I said last week we were learning about the Ancient Americas and one of the things we took a long look at was the Nazca drawing in South America and how they were probably actually done. Math and the stars is

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2012-2013 School Year: Week 21

Well, we do not have a ton of picture this week, but even so we still had a great week.

Last week if you will recall, we placed 2 carrots in water. One was colored water and the other was just plain water. The idea was to see how this root vegetable sucks up the

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2012-2013 School Year: Week 20

This week was a short week for us., We took off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to my son's 11th birthday and my husbands birthday. We had a great time on Monday. We went to Chuck E Cheese during the day. I remember when my son was very young we would do that and it

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2012-2013 School Year: Week 19

What a week. All week long I just did not get enough sleep. Have you ever had one of those weeks. Yea, this week was mine! When I get depressed or really tired or sick (not throwing up sick), I eat. Yea, I am one of those emotional eaters. I have been eating like a

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2013-2013 School Year: Week 18

A much better week this week. Last week was not bad, but it felt like I was not organized and put together. Everyday was just another day. You know what I mean? But this week we had a great time.

First off is our Piano class both kids really did well. They both practices more

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2013-2013 School Year: Week 17

Very interesting week we had. First off I am posting this post a week late. I totally realized today that I am a week behind in my posting and I do not know how I did that. Oh well, such is life! The fact that I get it posted is much more important then when.

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2013-2013 School Year: Week 16

You know, I found out this week that using a balloon for a helmet may not be the best thing in the world. Wait till you see the pictures below. Anyhow, the kids had a blast making a paper mache helmet even if it was like a hallow basketball on their heads. LOL!!! The whole

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2012-2013 School Year: Week 15

Well, this week on Friday I had a scare. My blood pressure was well over 190/90. Now for one day that would not be bad, but this lasted 4 days. I ended up in ER on Friday and well, from there we figured it was stress that is the culprit. Figures. I guess I do

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2012-2013 School Year week: 14

OM Gosh, was it hard to get back into the swing of thing. I was kind of talked into taking 3 weeks off for the holiday season. Well, both choirs I teach were taking three weeks off from the program and several of my friends were doing the same, so

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2012-2013 School Year: Week #12

Can you believe it has been 12 weeks of school already? We are almost at 100 days of school. Just 40 more days left. I guess I better start figuring out what we are going to do for school that day. Anyway, this week was a good week. Getting back from a week off of

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2012-2013 School Year: Week #11

Well, another short week this week, but at least not due to illness. We are taking half of this week off and a couple days next week for Thanksgiving. Speaking of, how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was perfecto. Being a vegetarian, and a new one at that (9 months), I was wondering how this was

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2012-2013 School Year: Week #10

This was not the best of weeks. Both the kids were sick. But we did manage to get a few things done this week. We finished up learning about the New Kingdom of Egypt and spent some time reading abut King Tut and a few others from that time period. We also found some great

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2012-2013 School Year: Week #9

For some reason I was having such a hard time this week doing school. I think because we had such a big weather change from about 78-80 to now dropping to 69 or so and drizzling, it just made me tired. Overall we got everything done we were supposed to.

In Art this week we

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Chuck E Cheese Coupons

Hey, just a very quick note for all my readers. I saw these really good coupons for Chuck E Cheese and I know a lot of us spend some time there because for $10 you can have a few hours of fun. I rarely get food, but for the cost of 100 tokens you

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2012-2013 School Year: Week #8

Week 7 already? Man o man it seems like just yesterday we sat down for our first day of school. However, I feel like we have learned so darn much so far, Especially in History. For instance learning about ancient India and ancient China has been very interesting. I never

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School 2012-2013 Week#7

Art this week was rather a fun subject. Learning to draw all the aspects of a Merry go round can be tricky. There is so much going on there and to put that all down in a drawing. Well, I think we each did a great job! We all had some sort of animal that

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School 2012-2013: Weekly 6

You know, there are so many stories about Joseph in the Bible. I think our favorite has been, this week, the story of how Joseph was favored then he is sold into Slavery (by his family), becomes famous (so to speak) then is humbled and drawn back down into despair and then raised once again

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School 2012-2013: Week 5

Sorry, I got really busy over the weekend last week and just did not get to posting my week in review. Anyhow, we had a lovely week. We read about Esau and the deception that went down for stealing the blessing away. I think this is a very sad story and not a great father

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School 2012-2013: Week 4

This week for Bible we read about Sodom and Lot and his family. I was waiting for a question or two about what exactly was going on there, but not a one. Whew! We then went on to learn about Ishmael and Isaac as well as Rebekah. I really love the pictures they are drawing.

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School 2012-2013 Week 3

School so far is going great. This week for Bible we have learned the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael as well as Isaac and all of the stories that go along with them. As you can see by their sweet drawings they are understanding our history. I still always get a giggle at the

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School 2012-2013 Week 2

Well, another week down. I can not believe it has been two weeks already into the school year. Wow, how time flies. Anyhow, we had another good week. My son and I did have a couple migraines this week each that made school a bit tough, but I am use to it by now and

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School 2012 Week 1

We had a wonderful first week of school. We were all a little tired after school each day due to the extra brain power we were putting out, but other then that my schedule and timing for each subject was spot on. I guess after doing this for 6 years I have become a pro

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Ready, Set Go!

Well it is that time of year once again. We are all clamoring to get our books, clean out old school stuff, decorate our school rooms and get ourselves geared up to get school started. It was hard for me this year to decide on what I was going to do. I REALLY wanted to

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VBS Day 5 (Last Day)

Today was Karate day. OMGosh, we had everything from sumo costumes, to traditional karate gear to Kung Fu Panda. It was a ton of fun. The best part was we actually had some real life karate world champions that are members of our church that did a demonstration for us. You will get to see

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VBS Day 4

Ahh, another day at VBS.  I have to admit, I am getting a bit tired, but as soon as I get on the church campus it seems that my energy level soars. Seeing all those sweet faces just waiting to hear about God just gets me going. The Theme of today was surf. So you

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VBS Day 3

I can not believe that 3 days have gone by already. I enjoy VBS so much. I help to lead worship for all the children. It is a great job and I love it soooo very much. We get the children ready for the day by warming them up before they go to their classes

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VBS Day 2

Well, day 2 of VBS is over. Yesterday the children learned "No matter who you are, Trust God!"  But today our costume theme today was Fairytale and they learned that "No matter how you feel , Trust in God!" This is good because for some people they can stray away from God when things are good and

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VBS Day 1

VBS is different at all churches. Some are just Bible stories, some include some crafts while others go all out. We happen to go to Calvary Church of Santa Ana, CA and they go all out. One of the reason is because our church is filled with so many people that have performing arts gifts

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Summer Vacation is Over?

Well, summer is almost over. Can you believe it? I took all of July off from blogging and doing much of anything.  Yes, we did do a bit of schooling here and there, but nothing huge. This coming week is VBS at our home church so once that week is over it is back to

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Social Media

Even as home schooler's we like to help spread the word and use social media but gosh darn it, it can get a little complicated.  We're open to your ideas.

Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 32

Uuggh! Hard week this week. We were so out and about this week I felt as if we never had time for anything and that we were pushing all week to finish school early! Oh well, that is OK. We got it done and that is what matters. This week we finished the Wright Brothers

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 31

Well, we are still reading about the Wright Brother's and their sister. Once again, we are really enjoying that book! I have to admit these last couple weeks we have put off doing our story-time, bad Mama. The book we are suppose to be doing is Esperanza Rising. So my plan is to start reading

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 30

OMGosh! There is only 4 weeks left of school. I am not sure if I am happy or sad. I love teaching the kids so much, but I am ready for a little break.

Well, anyway, this week was a good week. We got all our stuff done plus we had time to do a

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 29

Well week 29 is over and we start if all off with our continued reading about the Wright Brothers. They really were very interesting people. Both the kids and myself have really enjoyed learning about all their activities and how they were so happy inventing things.

Our geography lesson this week was to learn about

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 28

Oh my, I think I have short timers’ syndrome. There is only 5 more weeks left of school and even though I enjoy school so much I am so ready for summer. I am sure there are several of you out there like that too. Well, anyway, Unit 28 was just as good

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Soybeans; What’s New and Beneficial About Soybeans

With my recent studies on a healthy lifestyle and eating for optimal health, I have had a transition to become a Ovo-Lacto vegetarian. I have been doing tons of research about protein, vegetarianism, soybeans, eating of God's bountiful earth pre-flood etc. And when I came across this article about soybeans I figured it would be a

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 27

 There is only a few weeks left of school. I still cannot believe we are on week 27. This week we learned about John Muir. OK, I say this every once in a while, I had no idea who he was. He was kind of like Audubon, but he did not kill the animals to

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California Homeschool Convention in Long Beach

Just a reminder of the upcoming Homeschool Convention coming this month.  There is also the CHEA convention in July which I post on that in a few short weeks. Meanwhile, here is another opportunity to learn more about homeschooling or to just get geared up for fall or even to just take a break

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Homeschool Library Builder

I am sure a ton of you have heard of the website Homeschool Library Builder. Well, I get many of my books form there as well as Amazon. They have a good selection and their prices are great, but when they have a sale it is even better. They even have penny sales too. If

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 26

This week we finally were able to learn about one of most beloved Presidents, Abraham Lincoln. I happen to have a few books at home specifically about him so I had my son read these out loud to us. He was really a very incredible President and Man!

Anyhow, this week was as good as

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California Vaccination Waiver Threatened

AB 2109: Vaccination Waiver Threatened—Calls Needed

Call now to protect parental rights. HSLDA President Mike Smith has been an advocate of homeschooling for more than 30 years. Read more >>

Joint Legislative Action Alert—April 26, 2012

From: Roy Hanson—Family Protection Ministries and Mike Smith—HSLDA

Bill: AB

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America’s Obituary

I know politics is one of those subjects you just don't address, but I am going to try it! We will see what happens!

OK, so I got this chain email as I am sure a ton of you did. And I am not truly sure if the numbers are accurate or not, but

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 25

OK, I know you all are asking why I got this post out so late!  I just got real lazy this weekend and did not feel like typing or anything. Truth is, as most of my longtime readers know, I have migraines and this week was just a real bad week for them. I had

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 24

Well, it was nice to have a break for Easter. I hemmed and Hawed over taking a break since we just had a week off due to illness. But I decided "I" needed the break. Anyway, this week was a great week learning about several different people

Our first journey was geography. Hey this activity

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Webcast – Spreading The Homeschool Message

 

 

 

 

I just got this email this morning, so I thought I would post it right away. Hopefully some of you will be able to take advantage of thiswebcast TODAY!

 

Like to share homeschooling with others? Join Melanie Hexter for "Spreading the Home School Message." Here is a friendly

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Mandatory Kindergarten (CA) Bill Delayed

Mandatory Kindergarten??

 

Please be prepared to take action against AB 2203. HSLDA President Mike Smith has been an advocate of homeschooling for more than 30 years. Read more >>

From: Roy Hanson—Family Protection Ministries and Mike Smith—HSLDA

Bill: AB 2203 (as introduced 2/23/12)—5-Year-Old Compulsory Education

Author:

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God and doG

I just saw the greatest video. You know our dogs love us unconditionally. They are patient with us, forgive us when we are unkind, wait for us to come home and most of all can make us happy when we are down. Hmmmm, sounds like God!

Heart of Dakota: Bigger week 23

Well, I have to say this week was not the most fun week. I guess because I was coming off of being very sick last week and having to push our Easter break back a couple weeks. And to top it all off, I did not prepare for this week. You see I usually on

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God Bless You!

As graduation ceremonies were under way, there was a stern warning that this class would NOT pray during the commencements, not by choice, but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it however…

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Oppose Expansion of Government Control over Education

Oppose Expansion of Government Control over Education

Act now to oppose AB 2203. HSLDA President Mike Smith has been an advocate of homeschooling for more than 30 years. Read more >> From: Roy Hanson’s Family Protection Ministries and Mike Smith’s HSLDA   Bill: AB 2203 (as

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 22

Boy this week went fast. It seemed like I woke up and it was Friday. This week seemed that it was an easier week for school. Hmmm, well, easier may not be the right word. More like a simple than normal week.   Our week started with learning more information about John Audubon. Most of

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TV Series Mocks Christians, Undermines Liberty

ABC-TV has decided that it can take direct aim at Christians with what amounts to hate speech. This is the premise of its new program GCB (which stands for Good Christian B*****es). We need to fight back.

This program ridicules Christians, Christianity, the Bible, and Christian symbols in ways that would be unthinkable if aimed

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 21

OK, you all know what my first words are going to be. This was a great week as usual. We started off learning about our 7th President, Andrew Jackson. So one of the things I did was to do flash cards for the first 5 Presidents. I happen to have had these for some years

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 20

This week was cut a bit short. Yesterday afternoon both my kids and the entire household came down with fevers. So needless to say we only completed 4 days of the 5 days for week 20. That is OK, we will just do Friday on Monday and then combine unit

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Heart of Dakota:Bigger Week 19

OK, OK, here are those famous words once again. We had a great week. Actually it was short. I actually combined Friday's material to Thursday so I could have Friday off. You see my son's is turning 10 tomorrow (2-25) and I wanted to have Friday to get everything ready for his little party at

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FREE Curriculm and FREE Resources

  I want to make very sure that it is well known that not all of these sites I have posted are Christian, so please visit them first to make sure you approve of them before you send your children there. I have not seen anything myself that was completely wrong or offensive or even

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Heart of Dakota: Bigger Week 18 Update

So I say it every week, another good week. I think it is about time to come up with a new opening line to my HOD updates. But it really is true. This week was not only good in school, but my voice is back so I was able to sing while I was teaching

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Homeschooler Buyers Co-op

So I realized there are many homeschoolers who have not heard of Homeschool Buyers Co-op. Just in my small Park Day group only a couple of us have ever heard of this web site. So I figured I have thousands of readers and there has to be many of you who have not heard of it

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HSLDA High School Teacher Training Programs

This post is really only for those living in the Virginia area or who really want to travel to Virginia. It is also for those who have or are approaching High School time. HSLDA (which you should all be a member of) is having a live seminar for those approaching the high school days of

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Blackline Maps and the 50 States

I love using maps in my homeschooling. I know I am using Heart of Dakota and they pretty much have everything outlined for me in geography, but I still like to add in map skills whenever I can. I found a couple of sites that has some really great black-line maps for FREE and they print

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