My Science Curriculum is Really Cool!

Wow! Apologia science is awesome! It is written in a younger grade school level of reading, and really captivates the children. Even my preschooler is enjoying the book. We purchased the astronomy book this year, and had so much fun with it. The lunar eclipse this year had a whole new meaning and excitement once it was learned about first. The children enjoyed learning about each planet in the sky, and the sun, moon, and even asteroids! The assignments weren’t very hard to prepare for either. I am not very good at preparing for science experiments. Fortunately this curriculum helped me step out of my box sometimes by simplifying the experiments with things that were around the house. One such experiment had a flashlight and something shaped like a ball. This was to symbolize the earth, and the flashlight was the sun. What a great way to experience the rotation of the sun! My children kept a writing journal to document everything that was learned in each lesson. I liked that idea so much, we also kept a writing journal for each book that was read from the library! We really did build up a better appreciation of the solar system this year. My children retained much information from this experience.

Is Handwriting Necessary in Homeschool?

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are what we know as the three R’s. Is it important to also teach penmanship? I know one homeschool mom who never taught handwriting to her children. I don’t know if they ever learned to sign their name on anything though.

I myself have tried to put off the importance of teaching penmanship to my children, and get embarrassed when other children their same age can sign their names in cursive. Yet there are so many other subjects that are far more important than what a person’s handwriting might look like. I would love my children to be experts in science. Can you tell me one doctor’s handwriting you can read?

I have decided though, that I will make my children proficient in cursive letters, so they can at least sign their names. When I was in grade school, I had to do the constant handwriting drills that never made sense. If I made the letters perfect one day, how could I make them the same the next if I weren’t in a good mood? It takes only one kind of person to write correctly every single time for those drills I had to do. I will never do that to my children.

My favorite handwriting curriculum is the “Draw Write, Now!” series. This is for any grade or any age level. It teaches how to draw first, giving the children an appreciation of perfecting their artwork. Drawing is an art according to this series. The Japanese culture has it right when they have to spend many hours perfecting their art in handwriting. Each lessen with “Draw, Write, Now!” has a few sentences that go with the picture that the student is expected to learn how to draw. Each picture is put into steps on how to draw it. A kindergartener can accomplish this task easily! If you have older children like I do, I grab a cursive handwriting chart and explain to my children to read what is said for each caption to each picture to be drawn, and write it out with cursive handwriting. This worked great with them! My children have finished one book so far, and already built up much confidence in drawing pictures, and I felt better that their handwriting is improving in leaps and bounds. I highly suggest you check this curriculum out. It might really work for you.

Drippy Grape Juice

I want my son to turn out to be the man of God that he is destined to be. When he was first born, I was thrilled that God would give me such a wonderful little baby. Soon I began to realized that I wanted him to be better than anyone else’s child. Little did I know, that God makes us all imperfect. I have learned this by seeing the imperfections in my children everyday. They are noisy, clumsy, unruly, disobedient, and selfish just to name a few.

When my son was just two years old, he began getting into everything! I couldn’t stop him from getting into things. He was everywhere! Have you had this same occurrence? I ran from one thing to the next. One morning before I woke up, my son decided that he was hungry. He opened the refrigerator and spotted the grape juice. I was abruptly woken up to an awful ear-piercing scream. Once I got to him, I saw it. The grape juice dripping down his chin. His pajamas were soaked all the way to his toes! The floor was a puddle mess, and the inside of the refrigerator was all purple. The empty pitcher was forgotten on the floor. How could he make such a mess? I didn’t even know what to do. So I screamed at him. Now I feel guilty for the horrible way I acted. Where do you even start with a mess like this though? I don’t even remember what I did next, but I will never forget the look of fright on his face after I screamed at him.

Fortunately, eight years later, I have learned to respond to situations like this calmly. Dr. James Dobson wrote a wonderful book I refer to quite often when I need more patience with my son: “Bringing up Boys”. In this book it explains the mental differences between boys and girls. It explains some of the reasons why boys act the way they do, and what a parent can do to divert some of the unruly behaviors of little boys. One of my favorites is the constant running around and getting into things that 2-3 year old boys do. Why do they do this? It’s because they are bored. They need their little minds busy doing something constructive. I loved this piece of advice. I can truly say that I have fun with busy boys. It is a challenge to keep up with them, but with a little patience and lots of things to do they can be the sweetest things in the world. Thank you Dr. James Dobson for your great book!

My Favorite Mrs. March Post

My favorite optimist of all time! Mrs. March should be read by everyone. I love her Aunty Manners posts. I myself am a great fan of manners. Why doesn’t everyone know what good manners are? It really irritates me when you are trying to talk with someone, and they know you are talking, and yet don’t even acknowledge that you even said a word. What do you do, repeat yourself knowing that you are being ignored? Or just dismiss yourself and fume for the next few hours? Mrs. March, please save me from this stressful occurance that just recently happened. Can you tell I am still fuming?

Mrs. Hannigan Writes Really Good

Dear Mrs. Hannigan, I love your name, for some reason I want to think of little orphan Annie. Yet, you are nothing like that Mrs. Hannigan. I love your ideas of natural foods. Just this week, I had the crazy idea of getting my juicer out and attempting your vegetable juice. My husband had to humor me and purchase spinach. It was ridiculous. He was at one of those bulk food stores that everyone go’s to. I didn’t get just 1 pound of spinach I tell you. Now, my family is not going to be able to eat all of this before it go’s bad. I feel a little guilty. The vegetable juice was missing the celery that my husband couldn’t find at that bulk food store. I substituted honey instead. Who wouldn’t like honey with vegetables. Besides, my youngest child was helping me make the darn juice, and insisted that I use the honey. Fortunately, the honey was the only good taste to the juice. I will have to get used to drinking that stuff if I want to use up all of the spinach. Luckily, it takes a lot of spinach to make any juice at all from it. I also have a bulk bag of carrots, but having carrot juice by itself isn’t very fun. So, spinach, carrots, garlic, a few grape tomatoes, and honey will be the juice I will try to like for the next few days. Mrs. Hannigan, thank you for the motivation for eating more healthy.

My Friend, Mrs. Pevensie

Have you visited my friend Mrs. Pevensie? Her wardrobe of knowledge is extremely humorous. You will find her to be down to earth, and real. I love her witty humor. Can’t you all relate to her post about distraction? I am constantly being annoyed by distractions. Lets face it they are everywhere. It wasn’t until this year that I learned to put my thoughts on hold, and address the distraction without forgetting my thought I had. That is very hard to do. I really love my children. Often times I use them as reasons why I can’t get anything done. Is this really true, or is it poor management of time on my part? Am I not praying for grace enough, or is it a lack of focusing in my brain?

I love your article Mrs. Pevensie. I do get distracted with people everywhere. When I am well known, it is worse, but I love the attention. Doesn’t everybody? I try not to forget those quiet ones off to the side though. I was there for a very long time. It wasn’t until most recently that I realized I needed to quit isolating myself (which is so easy to do as a homeschool mom). Naturally, I am not very outgoing, yet I’ve learned that in order for me to build confidence in myself, I need to get out of my box and try to participate in activities going on around me. This also helps in contributing to society which we all should be doing in some way or other.

My Friend, The Vertical Challenge

I will be posting comments about my favorite blogs for the next few days. I encourage you to look them up. These blogs are the best. If you have any favorites, let me know, I will check them out. Maybe they will get added into my favorites.

The first blog I will write about is “The Vertical Challenge” She is a dear friend of mine. I love her background. How does she get that music? It must be the blog site she subscribes to. The massive amount of pictures are inspiring. You will soon see many pictures on my site as well. I like the bits of humor you can find on her page. It definately is a vertical challenge at her site.