Our Busy Homeschool

Have You Met Mason?

2012-01-15T08:22:00.001-05:00

In case you’re new to Our Busy Homeschool and missed the news we’ve just had our 7th little blessing and are currently sharing updates on his progress and time in the NICU over at Mason’s Spina Bifida Journal. We’ll get back to posting here at OBH in a few weeks but for now come meet Mason at his blog!

Baby Time–Winter Break

2012-01-08T08:13:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I give birth to my 7th child, Mason. We’ll be spending a few weeks living in the NICU so this blog is officially on winter break until further notice. If you want to stay updated on our first adventures with Mason check out our other blog:

Mason’s Spina Bifida Journal

I’m hoping to use some of his sleeping hours while I sit beside him in the NICU to post updates. That is the plan …but we all know how plans tend to go.

Our Math Choices–Virtual Curriculum Fair

2012-01-08T08:09:00.001-05:00

Math is one of those subjects you may love or hate but you’ve got to do. Arithmetic is a basic need for functional adulthood and higher math is needed in many professions. Our family has tried a few different math programs over the course of our homeschooling journey and there is one we will stick with. This post will share our math choices in a very long-winded fashion. I’ll tell you about the curricula we use, why we love it, how we use it on a daily basis, which of my children are using it. If you’re short on time skim the headings and bold print to find what you want to know!

In the beginning we used Saxon math. It’s a spiral approach. Basically your child has a new lesson every day for close to 12 days. Then they are re-exposed to the first topic from nearly two weeks before, learning a little more before running through the other 11 topics again. This spiral approach gives a child variety, which some love, but it can cause problems for others. In my oldest daughter’s case she simply couldn’t grasp a concept with exposure once every 12 days. She needs to focus on one thing until she gets it mastered. Muddying the waters with other topics meant she remembered nothing.

After 3 years we investigated other math curricula and made the switch to Math U See. My oldest was now in 3rd grade and could not do basic addition, much less anything else. We began with MUS Alpha – the very beginning. Math U See uses a mastery approach that is very effective so long as you’re comfortable not following the exact same schedule as the public schools. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

A few things I love about Math U See:

Each lesson is focused. The lessons are short because you’re focusing on one skill, they’re twaddle free. Short lessons equal better attention from the child.
It is multi-sensory. A child learns by building with the manipulative blocks, writing the problems, and saying it all aloud.
A child is encouraged to prove their mastery of a concept by teaching it back to the parent. This narration is higher involvement – they have to understand why they’re doing something well enough to teach someone else, not just how to do it.
They incorporate real-life word problems applying math skills from the beginning. A child is never left to wonder “when will I ever need to know this?” The same day they learn how to figure averages they’ll do word problems related to figuring average rainfall in a week.
The lessons are taught on DVD. Technically this is for mom to watch, but many let their students watch the dvd lesson. At my house the DVD is for me, while my sister across the country has her son watch the DVD.
Workbooks are used for practice and review. You only use as many pages for a lesson as the child needs, with the option to print more free from the MUS website if the 6 given are not enough.
Each level has a focus. Alpha is addition, Beta is subtraction, and so on. You master the full range of one thing before mixing in another, providing a thorough grounding in each concept.

The thing you’ll find with MUS is that ‘extra’ topics like calendar skills, money, time, and measuring are not covered in a traditional time frame. Fractions are not dealt with until the fifth book, Epsilon, for example. There are two things you can do about this.

First, just be patient and tackle them when they appear in the curriculum. With this option you must recognize a child taking a standardized test will score lower in early grades math because these areas have not been addressed on a public school timeline.
The second option is to just teach these on your own when you want them addressed. We’ve enjoyed the Math Mammoth Blue Topic e-books when a child is interested in a topic before MUS teaches it.

Who Uses Math U See at My House?

Makayla is my 5th grader and she’s working on the Delta level. She has gone through 3 full levels and is into her 4th in 2.5 school years with her late start. She’s now slowed to a comfortable pace and will probably finish about one level per year from here on out. Joseph and Emma are my 1st grader and Kindergartener. Last year they worked through Primer, now they’re working together through Alpha. Daniel is my just turned 4 year old. He’s working through the Primer level because he insists that he 'do math'. I don’t feel children need a math curriculum until they’re 5 or 6, but if they want to do it sooner then it doesn’t hurt to let them begin slowly.

How Do I Teach 3 Different Levels in Real Life?

It’s easy! First, each level only needs one day to be directly taught new material in a typical week to week and a half. I stagger those lessons to different days of the week. My Delta student has direct instruction from me on one day for a new concept while her younger siblings are doing practice pages or tests in their levels. They’re all around the table and I can help younger students as needed. My Alpha students have their direct instruction from me on another day of the week, while my Delta and Primer student are working on practice or test pages. My Primer student gets a new lesson on yet another day when all the older students are practicing their current lesson.

I also have two (soon to be three) younger children ages 2, 1, and ready to be born. We do table time with everyone. These youngest children are seatbelted into booster seats with math manipulatives, toys, puzzles, or other activities. This enables me to rotate around the table helping each child and keeps the little ones within arms reach and out of the toilet, trash can, and other interesting places.

Want to See Math U See in Action?

You can go to their website and watch a series of videos that show you the theory and the lesson structure. It’s right on this page. You’ll get a great look at just how the manipulatives make sense, how the multi-sensory approach of Build it, Write it, Say it helps cement learning, and you may just decide math is not so bad after all. I know I did!

In case you’re wondering – no, I am not affiliated with Math U See in any way. I’m just a mom whose relationship with her daughter was saved by a math curriculum that makes sense.

You can visit the Virtual Curriculum Fair to read more posts this week about Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and some Science.

My Family in Pictures

2012-01-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

I am not as active in using the camera right now but finally took a minute to get updated pictures taken. Here is a peek at my family right now. If you make it to the end you even get to see my before and after haircut picture and what will probably be the last pregnancy picture this time around.Caleb looked like a handsome little man Sunday morning before church. He’s growing so much and it’s hard to believe he’s 13 months old.Oliver was hamming it up when the camera came out. I was lucky to get this picture of Emma and Daniel. They were just too busy playing together to stop for the camera Sunday.Joseph was too close for a good shot, but that’s Joseph – right in your personal space.Makayla was working on the fingering for a Primary song and wouldn’t look up from the piano for a picture. My handsome husband Jason all dressed up and ready for church. It was so nice to have a relaxed Sunday morning together now that we’re meeting at 1:00pm for church. Of course next week he’s back to meetings before church so I won’t see him quite as much.Here’s my hair before and after the cut today. And I suppose if you’ve read this far you might want that pregnancy picture…And me. Today. In all my pregnant glory. Ha! You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you just how much that patterned shirt and the right angle make me look not so pregnant. In reality I measure more around my belly in inches than I am tall. Mason’s totally worth it!

Trust, Wait, Have Faith

2011-12-31T14:03:00.001-05:00

I have never headed into a new year quite like this will be. Most New Year’s Eve’s find my up to my eyeballs in goals, resolutions, and plans. We typically do a mid-school year evaluation in December and get ready to dive into new studies in January.

Instead I find myself waiting.

I can’t begin anything new because it will all be put on hold indefinitely. Nine days from now I meet Mason face to face. I am thrilled. I can’t wait to see him, smell his new baby smell, touch his soft skin, talk to him and look in his eyes, seeing a spirit fresh from heaven.

However my son’s birth launches our new year into unknown territory. I can’t plan for it, I have no idea what impact it will have on our regular, everyday life. I know we will be living at a hospital for a few weeks and then we’ll just have to see what comes next.

God is stretching me so far out of my comfort zone for the new year. I hear the same things over and over in response to my prayers:

Trust me.
Wait patiently.
Have faith.

So those are my goals for 2012. To trust God, wait patiently, and have faith.

What are your goals for 2012?

2011–Looking Back by Month

2011-12-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Last year I did a final post sharing highlights from each month of the year and I’m going to do it again. Mostly this is for me but I hope you enjoy checking out some of the links too!

January

We began 2011 with a 1 month old baby, 1 year old, 3 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, and 9 year old. I shared my thoughts on If It’s Broke Don’t Copy It, explaining why homeschool is different than public school. We mummified an apple in science. I shared my tips for reading aloud.

February

Amidst lots of reviews I blogged about real life things. I shared my heart on why it’s important to go to church even when it’s a struggle with little ones. I blogged a regular old day in a large family. I answered a reader’s question on raising men and women, including gender roles and goals. I also explained year-round homeschooling at our house.

March

I wrote a series of posts on preparing to attend a homeschool convention. Here is part 1, 2, 3, and 4. I shared my family’s secret to getting a houseful of children to church on time each Sunday. I told my Kindle Fairytale. I wrote a post for Latter-Day Homeschooling on Arming our Children for Battle. I also did a visual post on creating a homeschool portfolio.

April

Posts included the Top 10 Ways I Use my Library and seeing a local theater production of Willy Wonka. I shared blessings I received while attending a homeschool convention, including meeting Michelle Duggar, Day One and Day Two. I shared my purchases at convention. I wrote up my notes from the Midwest Homeschool Convention in a series of posts: One, Two, Three, and Four.

May

I blogged the first day of the new school year (yep, we started in May!), we celebrated Star Wars Day for fun, and the review of that first week back to school including my 9 year old’s theatrics over math. This was also the month I went around laughing like a crazy woman at the thought that we were pregnant again.

June

I celebrated 11 wonderful years of marriage by posting a pictures from my wedding day. I shared my thoughts on public school and child labor laws. This poem reminded me to watch my own actions because my children certainly are.

July

I shared summer happiness, we did our first ever standardized test – because we wanted the experience. Caleb joined the ranks of early walkers in my house. We played in the rain and met a furry friend.

August

I shared our curriculum in a nutshell, had nature adventures, took school pictures, and celebrated our traditional Not Back to School Day.

September

We learned that our yet-to-be-born son has spina bifida and other related issues. I started a separate blog just to journal about that. Routines and habits kept our life going on an even keel. I fought the mommy-guilt monster again. Joseph had his yearly allergist appointment and I listed what he’s allergic to.

October

I shared my family’s General Conference experience in bits here, here, here, and here. We flew across the country to visit my sister’s family and only ended up with one broken femur along the way. I posted vacation highlights with pictures. I talked about staying focused on what matters most. I shared the beginning of our journey to better sleep with Oliver and Caleb.

November

A picture post of table time at our house appeared, Oliver started potty training, we made our Memory Work Binder, and we had a day of Greek Mythology fun.

December

Gratitude for the everyday, a post about why Monday nights are special, and seeing the blessings of children featured in posts this month. We’ve prepped schoolwork for when Mason is born, and there has been more sickness than we know what to do with. Baby Mason arrives in less than a week and a half. The first major event of the new year that is on the calendar.

What was your year like?

When Momma is Sick

2011-12-29T15:02:00.001-05:00

I’ve finally succumbed to the virus the children have been sharing for over a month. Sadly it means I’m even more tired than I should be for 9 months pregnant, my head hurts, I’m coughing and congested, and faintly nauseated at the thought of food. Oh, and the coughing means I need to pee even more often due to a large baby pressing on an overworked bladder that has been pummeled by babies for 11 years. Ahem.

Thankfully my children are quite content to play together and enjoy their Christmas presents even longer. Makayla is working on sewing, the bigger boys have been playing the Lego games they got, Emma has been in artist heaven with her easel, Oliver plays golf or football, and Caleb is enjoying blocks and a soft baby hairbrush he found this morning.

What have I been doing? Brace yourself, the list may be overwhelming.

I read my scriptures.
I fed the children with my oldest’s help.
Laundry has been washed and dried.
I’ve laid on the couch and tried to play football and golf with Oliver. I’m getting better at football and he’s content to run after the ball when I miss a catch. Golf doesn’t work as well from a prone position on the couch.
I’ve read books on my Kindle while laying on the couch. I love my Kindle. Right now I’m in the middle of reading Chasing China; A Daughter's Quest for Truth, Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility, and the ever-inspiring Pride and Prejudice.
Snuggled various children while laying on the couch.
I took a nap. Oh yes I did! Quiet time is a priceless part of our day for this very reason. Caleb and Oliver fell asleep right before 1:00pm. I turned on an audio book for the other children and slept for one glorious hour. It refreshed me enough that I’ve typed this post!

Trust me, the day has been more exhausting than it sounds. As a matter of fact, I’m so tired I think I need to go lay on the couch after another trip to the bathroom. Kindle here I come!

Incorporating the 2012 Primary Theme in Family Memory Work

2011-12-28T15:29:00.000-05:00

Our Family Memory Work binder is getting updated for the new year! Until this afternoon it held Christmas related songs but with January a few days away I needed to put in new papers. We always use the yearly Primary theme to give our family songs and scriptures to learn together. The Primary theme for 2012 is:

Choose the Right

The scripture for the year is:

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve; . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” – Joshua 24:15

Each month has a theme with subtopics, a scripture verse, and the first eight months have a song as well.

Here is January’s so you can see what I mean:

Theme: Agency is the Gift to Choose for Ourselves

Scripture: “Wherefore, men are free. . . to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men” – 2 Nephi 2:27

Song: As a Child of God

Subtopics:
      - Agency is the gift to choose for ourselves.
      - In the premortal life, I chose t0 f0llow God’s plan.
      - Jesus Christ created the earth as a place where I can learn to choose the right.

How Do We Incorporate This in Our Day?

First, I created a playlist of this year’s songs on my IPod Touch, in the order we will learn them. Each day we turn on the playlist and sing any songs we have learned up to that point. I also try to play the entire list throughout the year so we become familiar with the songs we will learn in later months.

Second, I printed song flipcharts from JollyJenn and slipped them into our memory work binder. I asked my Primary Chorister what song she chose for months where there was that possibility and in the end Jolly Jenn had flipcharts for all but one of this year’s songs. Each day we sing the current song. In two months we’ll be singing two songs daily for practice, and so on. There are only 8 songs for the year.

Third, I printed a page for each month with the theme and scripture verse. We’ll recite the current month’s page daily. When a new month comes along we’ll recite the new material daily and the old material will move to every other day. I did not include the subtopics. We will use the subtopics as starting points for our Family Home Evening lessons this year. You can see the page I made on the left, plus the next thing I’ll talk about on the right: The last thing we’re working on memorizing are the 13 Articles of Faith. My children know some or all of these already, depending on age. We decided to start with 13 and work backwards, one per month until December, where we’ll learn the last two. The church also has all 13 Articles of Faith as songs, so I’ve made a playlist of them in reverse order to sing. We’ll use this as a reinforcement and sing together. Some of my children learn great through reciting while others learn best when music is involved. I printed each Article of Faith for our binder.

Does your family learn hymns and memorize scripture together? Is there a way that works best for you?

This Blog’s Big Hits for 2011

2011-12-28T03:24:00.000-05:00

Blogger has a fun statistics page attached to each blog account. Most of the time I ignore it, but at the end of the year I thought I would share links to the most-read posts here at Our Busy Homeschool for 2011.

Blogger also tells me other details. Like which pages on the blog get the most traffic outside the home page:

And who in the Blog-O-Sphere has sent me the most traffic (thank you!):

It even tells me that of the more than 177,000 visitors to Our Busy Homeschool this year, most came from these countries:

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Germany
Australia
Russia
South Korea
Brazil

What began as a blog to journal our lives and allow distant family members to see regular updates of the children has grown beyond anything I imagined. I am happy to say that Our Busy Homeschool still does both of those jobs, we just have been blessed to welcome people from around the world into this peek at our life.

Family Scripture Study–Changes for the New Year

2011-12-27T09:27:00.000-05:00

We enjoyed our Christmas ABC’s scripture study in December but now Christmas is over. It’s time to choose a new focus for our family scripture study. We are beginning to study The Book of Mormon. Learn more about The Book of Mormon here. With our children’s range of ages scripture study takes some flexibility, but it is worth the effort!

Some days will find us reading a chapter from Book of Mormon Stories. This reader has artwork and simplified text so it is great for my younger children. It is also right on target if we want Joseph or Emma to read aloud to us. After reading a story we discuss it as a family asking questions of each child beginning with the youngest, who get factual questions about what happened or what they see in the pictures. The older three children get questions that tend more to application of the story. (You can watch, listen to, and read the Book of Mormon Stories reader for free here if you don’t own a print copy.)

I printed up a little chart with 54 boxes, one for every story in the reader. Any time we read one we can mark it off. This also made it easy to begin somewhere other than the beginning for a change! We decided to start reading with chapter 29. We will read from there to 54 and then come back around to chapter 1 and read through 28.

Every day will also find us reading directly from The Book of Mormon. Our goal is 1/2 to 1 chapter per day. As there are 239 chapters we will finish by the end of 2012 even if we do 200 days of half chapters. This makes our reading more flexible to fit the children’s attention span on a particular day. As with the reader we will be discussing what we read as a family and trying to apply it to our lives.

I would love to know how family scripture study works at your house! Are you studying a particular book, do you read at a set time each day? Or is family scripture study something you hope to start doing more consistently for the new year? Leave a comment and share!

Christmas Tree 2011

2011-12-24T06:52:00.001-05:00

Our tree is finally up and the children are enjoying it. Getting a picture of all the children together is always tricky, this was the best we got before bed. Last night they decorated and undecorated the tree depending on age. Oliver’s first words this morning when looking at the lit tree were, “It’s so beautiful!”

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T16:10:00.000-05:00

Pregnancy takes on new meaning for me at Christmas time. I am days away from having my 7th precious gift from Heaven and find myself thinking of Mary carrying her firstborn son. While each child is a miracle Jesus truly was the long-awaited Messiah, our Savior and Redeemer.

How hard it must have been to travel miles from home at the end of pregnancy. How discouraging to find herself ready to deliver her first child with no place to stay and no family to help her through her first labor. How anxious and overwhelmed Joseph must have felt during it all as well.

While the Christian world celebrates our Savior’s birth at the end of the calendar year I always find that this is the beginning. The anticipation of the birth of Jesus is the beginning of the anticipation of celebrating his resurrection at Easter. Christmas is celebrating the beginning of the miracle of the Atonement, but it is not complete or even my favorite part – I can’t wait for Easter!

May our hearts be turned toward the Savior as we remember and celebrate His birth this Christmas!

Prepping Schoolwork for when Mommy is Gone–Pictures included!

2011-12-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

Today is almost the last Friday of the year, can you believe it? 2011 has flown by just like this week has. As three of my children are working their way out of pneumonia this week we did not do much in the way of school. Instead I took time to prepare for Mason’s arrival. I thought I would share pictures from one area of preparation I finished this week.

Schoolwork!

You see, I have learned children thrive on routine and my dear mother agrees. She’ll be watching all my children for the weeks my husband and I are in the NICU with Mason and she asked that I have some schoolwork ready to help fill the mornings in a familiar way. In the front of this filing cabinet drawer you see folders labeled with Day 1, Day 2, and so on. In each day’s folder are work for my four oldest children (ages 4-10). Each child’s work has their initial on it, which you can almost see from the butterfly page above for Daniel.

Their daily assignments are as follows:

Makayla – 1 math page, 1 language arts or critical thinking type page, and 1 book to read and notebook about: There is a different book in each folder for her and they alternate between science and history topics.
Joseph – 1 math page, 1 language arts page, and reading one story from The Runt Pig reader to Grandma or silently.
Emma - 1 math page, 1 language arts page, and reading one story from Run, Bug, Run reader to Grandma or silently.
Daniel – 1 printed page in the folder and any 2 pages from the Preschool BrainQuest workbook. Ideally Daniel’s 2 pages will be in different color sections of the workbook, doing the next empty page in that color. I don’t care what sections he works in and am totally okay with him doing as many pages in this workbook as he wants, he’s my workbook boy some days.

Oliver and Caleb don’t get pages to color as neither really enjoy that right now. Instead I’ve gathered a box of activities they enjoy. There are a mix of activities including:

Pegs and pegboard
File folder games
Dry erase books
Magnetic cars and trucks
Math blocks
Puzzle blocks
Playdoh
Fishing games
Pattern blocks for little ones

My children have seen me printing and preparing the school work and all are excited to start using it. It’s a change of pace from our normal and will be fun for them. Of course none of them wants to wait until January 9th to start using it, but the anticipation is half of the fun!

Have you started thinking ahead to the new year yet? Can you believe it’s almost here? I’ll be posting more about that next week, plus a review of this year’s highlights.

Merry Christmas!

Prayers Answered and Final Countdown

2011-12-22T18:14:00.000-05:00

Mason’s nose and mouth with arms over his eyes.

Today we had our last scheduled ultrasound to check on baby Mason before delivery day. You can read the updates over on Mason’s Spina Bifida Journal here.

Pneumonia Times How Many ?

2011-12-20T08:57:00.000-05:00

We’ve had illness in the house for a month now - they just love to share! It began with Daniel and Caleb - 1 pneumonia and 2 ear infections. Joseph has been sick for about 2.5 weeks and last week we saw the on-call doctor at our pediatrician’s office. She assured us he was fine. Sure, he was coughing non-stop and couldn’t breath, eat, sleep, or anything else, but he was just fine according to her.

Today I took Joseph, Emma, and Oliver in to the pediatrician. Two are coughing so much they throw up to clear out the congestion, the third is not a puker so she just coughs. We got to see our doctor today, thank heaven.

The diagnosis? Three more children with pneumonia. Of course. Three more sets of antibiotics and inhalers have been prescribed, so hopefully we’ll see some improvements by Christmas day. Why is it that some doctors ignore the mom’s experience and knowledge of her children and others don’t? I’m not exactly new at this, I don’t bring my kids in for every little cough, fever, or weird symptom. As a matter of fact I avoid doctors if possible. I’m confident enough after 6 children to tell when they’ve just got a mild cold that will pass and when they’re really sick.

All I want for Christmas is healthy children.
And maybe a little bit of sleep.

If I have to choose between the two
I’ll take healthy children.

Scripture Study–Topic Drop Out!

2011-12-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

Remember the scripture journal I started recently (see this post for pictures)? I have struggled for a few weeks trying to study by topic. I nearly lost the joy of scripture study because flipping around studying by topic is so unpleasant to me. I dread it. Many days I finish and feel no closer to the spirit than before I began. I’ve finally accepted the fact that right now I need the joy in scripture study more than I need to try a new way of studying. I am going back to reading by chapters.

I will still use my scripture journal. If something stands out to me on a topic I’ll flip to the appropriate page to record it. Other times I will flip to one of the blank pages and outline my thoughts on a chapter verse by verse. I imagine there will be times when I get so caught up in the story that I will not even open my scripture journal. I need that too.

How has your scripture study gone lately? Do you have plans to change up what you’re doing in the new year? I’m working on our family scripture study plans – we will finish our Christmas ABCs Sunday. I’ll share more about what’s next for our family study soon!

Saturday Work

2011-12-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

It’s been a busy Saturday so far, but that makes me happy. We’re accomplishing things! So far today we’ve done the following:

Kids played video games – Saturday is the one and only day that happens at our house.
Makayla notified me she all but two of her shirts are too short. She’s so long/tall she now needs 14/16. I picked up 6 new to her shirts at the local children’s resale shop – grand total $14.00. Also checked for a winter coat (she’s outgrown hers). No luck.
I went to the library and spent a blissful hour wandering the stacks finding treasures for my family. Yay for free books!
Wal-Mart shopping for a few groceries and a coat for Makayla.
Big house clean-up: Scrubbing out the refrigerator, cleaning bathrooms, kitchen cabinets, floors, counters, and so on.
Wrapping all the kids’ Christmas presents with my hubby during quiet time.
Laundry – it just never ends. Mason’s baby clothes are all washed and ready to go, plus everything for the regular household laundry.
Making dinner to eat with one set of grandparents – lasagna, garlic bread, salad. Yum!

Now we’re settling in for some family time and scripture study before bed, so I need to get off the computer!

What have you been up to this Saturday?

35 Weeks, Free Games, and more!

2011-12-16T10:41:00.000-05:00

Time to link up Five Things for Friday! Here is my list:

{1}

35 weeks. We’ve made it to 35 weeks pregnant! Six more days until our ultrasound, the one that is likely to send us into the NICU a month early. We’re still praying God has intervened and Mason’s hydrocephalus has not increased so he can stay in the womb for a few more weeks. Either way we’re feeling peaceful because God planned this all out long ago. He’s got it covered, we’re just along for the ride.

{2}

Winter in a large family means weeks on end of sickness. Seriously, no matter how much hand washing, sanitizing, bedding laundering, and doorknob scrubbing I do they share germs. The worst is that instead of all coming down with something at the same time they spread it out. One or two begin to recover from a week of illness and the next one or two get sick, only to be repeated by the rest in the following weeks. Nobody even has to get sick twice and we can cover about two months. It’s exhausting. We haven’t really quit going to church we just refuse to bring our germs and share with the rest of the ward. You’re welcome.

{3}

Homeschool goes wonderfully. I can’t always say that, but this week was great. We’re well into Castle Diary with lots of narrations and notebooking depending upon age. Math has been done. Reading, writing, and so on – all done. Sign language practiced.

It helps that I know we’re winding down for a big break. Whenever baby Mason arrives we take time off, sort of. Confused yet?

I’ve been working the last week to print out a mix of pages for my children to do with Grandma while I’m in the hospital for weeks. She wants to keep the routine going and have something to help fill up some of the morning hours. I’ve searched the depths of my computer files and the internet for fun yet educational pages.

Makayla, for example, will have some critical thinking pages, analogies, and geometry. Joseph and Emma have more of Starfall’s reading and writing journal, mazes, and patterning pages to name a few. Daniel gets letters, shapes, and mazes.

There are also other activities and games, art supplies, and fun. So while official homeschool will cease for at least a month there will still be learning to do. A change is as good as a break, right?

{4}

We’re enjoying our Christmas ABC’s scripture study as a family. We’ll be doing the letter P tonight and have found a routine – instead of telling the children the word for that night they have to listen closely to the scriptures we read to hear it knowing only the letter it starts with. We’ve read a in all sorts of places but the favorite so far was out on the porch one night with the Christmas lights glowing. It was a little chilly, but fun.

{5}

I’ve just found hundreds of free educational online games, activities, quizzes, and articles for kids plus some games free to download for homeschoolers and educators at Sheppard Software. It’s a treasure trove of fun to liven up learning! I need to do a lot more exploring of this site over the weekend.

Messes or Blessings?

2011-12-15T08:21:00.001-05:00

Did we have a small tornado last night? That is what I asked myself this morning when came downstairs. Then I remembered that it was just the usual scattering of toys that missed their place, puzzles and games left on the table to be used again today, and cups from one last drink before bed.

Some mornings while I’m awake before my children I wander around straightening up. Today I just sat quietly and enjoyed the evidence of the little lives who share my home.

I see the magnetic letter under the edge of the couch that belongs on the fridge, but was carried in by the one year old.
I see the toy bowling pin and a small ball from my ever-playing two year old.
The four year old’s reminder is the half-finished fishing game on the table. He ran out of time before bed and wants to finish it this morning.
My six year old can be seen in the art papers stashed on her favorite bookshelf out of reach of little brothers but not put away in her own room.
The sick seven year old left out the zebra striped fleece blanket he snuggled with all evening.
Open piano books are a sign my 10 year old was practicing again before bed just because she wanted to.

Do we see the blessings children really are? It is easy to miss out on the little reminders that God loves us enough the share his children with us, to commit them to our care here on earth. It is easy to see the evidence of joyfully playing little fingers who don’t put things away as just somebody making more work for mommy. The world tells us that children are a burden, that they cost too much, that they stifle their parents’ freedom to be adults.

The world sees the mess and rejects children.

The world misses out on some of God’s greatest treasures.

the sticky kisses
and sleepy hugs
finding wonder in blowing bubbles
whispered confidences at bedtime
worlds of imagination
love
life

Enjoy the messes. Rejoice in the little hands that make them. Thank God for it all!

Castles, Knights, and a Medieval Village Unit

2011-12-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

Today we dived into a new week of school work and I thought I would share some of the resources we’re using for our newest unit study. The children finished up their previous units over the weekend and as those had a science bent I chose a history unit as a follow up. I expect this unit to take a few weeks and am okay with it being interrupted if baby Mason arrives before we’re done. I have a stack of materials we can pull from.

Castles, Knights, and a Medieval Village

GeoPuzzles Europe – This is a fun item that will just give us some exposure to Europe.

Medieval Times Coloring Book – This is from Edupress and I picked it up at the homeschool convention last April.

Blank Notebooking Pages – I created these a while back on my computer. Makayla’s assignment is to write up a whole page each day about something from the unit, be it a narration about the day’s read aloud or something from the other books she’s learned on her own.

Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess by Richard Platt – This is our main read aloud for starters and it’s a great book. We’re enjoying it. While I read the kids color a picture from our Medieval Times coloring book. There is a free unit study for Castle Diary on Homeschool Share if you want more ideas to go with this book.

The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski – A short read aloud set in the time of the crusades.

Days of the Knights: A Tale of Castles and Battles by Christopher Maynard – This is by Eyewitness and focuses on life as a knight.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz – This wonderful book will be our follow up to learning about knights. It tells the stories of those living in a Medieval village and was the 2008 Newbery Medal winner. The book is a series of portraits of the villagers written to be read as monologues.

A Medieval Feast by Aliki – A picture book telling how one Lord and Lady prepare for a visit from the King.

Castle by David Macaulay – This Caldecott Honor book traces in story and visual format the step-by-step planning and construction of a castle and town in the middle ages, with the story continuing on to share how that construction contribute to the defenses of the land.

Medieval Life – This is a non-fiction book in the Eyewitness series. We’ll turn to this for more information.

Castle – Another from the Eyewitness series.

I also have lapbooks from Hands of a Child for this time period written on several levels. Will we use these? Maybe, if the children ask. Makayla has already said she wants to do a notebook instead, but Joseph and Emma may choose to lapbook some of what they learn. We have the following:

If you need more FREE unit studies, lapbooks, or library lists for the Middle Ages you can check out this Connections page at Homeschool Share. We have some of those books as well and may use them if time permits.

I also plan to share parts of the movie A Knight’s Tale with my children. It has some inappropriate parts where clothing is missing so the plan is to cue up the movie to show period clothing, jousting, swordfighting, and other points of interest while skipping the rest. It’s on Netflix.

Our first day was a hit. The children have been sneaking the books to look through in their free time, everyone enjoyed the first day of our read aloud, and they’re asking for more. I think this unit will be a winner.

What are you learning about this week?

Blessings–a song

2011-12-11T08:50:00.000-05:00

Life is not meant to be easy and sometimes it can be downright hard. Recently I heard a song that reminded me God is not willing to give us lesser things and so we pass through experiences that are difficult, that may not get resolved quickly or even happily but are the very things we need to draw us to him. I hope you enjoy the song as much as I did!

Volcano Lapbook Finished

2011-12-10T17:41:00.000-05:00

Today Joseph, Emma, and Daniel gathered the whole family to participate in erupting a homemade volcano, feeling the different textures of lava (flowing like honey and firm like clay), and finished their lapbooks. It’s Saturday and I love that they enjoy learning and choose to do ‘school’ in their free time!

On the lapbooks we ended up putting some flat pieces on the front and back of each folder instead of adding a second folder. All the pieces came from the V is for Volcano project pack from Hands of a Child. The pieces cover the following information:

Volcano vocabulary – words that relate to volcanoes.
Three types of volcano – did you know they come in different shapes and those shapes mean something when it’s eruption time?
States of a Volcano – Are they active, dormant, or extinct?
Basic parts of a volcano – From the crater at the top to the vents and flank.
Hazards and Helps – While I knew volcanoes were hazardous even I learned of three ways volcanoes are helpful!
Textures of Lava – Where they recorded what lava feels like.
Skip counting by 5 and by 10 – A cute double pocket with number and picture cards to practice skip counting to 50. Why 50? Because that is how many volcanoes have erupted in the USA in recorded history.

We had a great time learning about volcanoes this week. I love seeing the little lights go on as they read and listen to books, look at pictures, and watch videos.

Next week we’re dipping into history with some castle studies – unless something else more interesting comes along!

My New Post is Up at Latter-Day Homeschooling!

2011-12-10T06:31:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note this morning before my husband and I head to the temple. I’ve got a new post up at Latter-Day Homeschooling today. You can read my post here. Even better, another of the Latter-Day Homeschooling moms is giving away a copy of one of the books I tell you about. So after you read my post be sure to go to this post to enter the giveaway.

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Five Things for Friday: Lost a Day and More

2011-12-09T12:18:00.001-05:00

I lost a day somewhere this week because today still feels like Thursday, but my calendar assures me it is time for Five Things for Friday. I suppose the day disappeared yesterday, on the real Thursday, when I took two children to the doctor. Caleb has an ear infection. Daniel has pneumonia, and ear infection, and is using an inhaler for breathing treatments every four hours indefinitely. Yes, I’m pretty sure that is the day that disappeared. Here are my 5 things for the week.

{1}

Despite children in various stages of wellness we’ve had a good week in homeschool. We did some fun logic, math, and mapping mystery pages from files hanging out on my computer. We’ve practiced sign language, read more in Ozma of Oz, and dived into new unit studies. The units are a hit, which is always great.

{2}

Games and Legos have been the activity of choice this week. If the children have not been creating worlds complete with chariots, flying machines, pirates, and ships out of Lego then they have been in one room or another playing board games and card games. Some of the games played this week in groups or as a family:

Hi Ho Cherry-O
Monopoly Jr.
Candyland
Righteous
Capture

As I type this they’re upstairs teaching Daniel how to play Monopoly Jr., which means there is yet another player to drag out the game. LOL. I think they’ve play Monopoly Jr. at least twice every day this week and today is the first time Daniel really wanted to try it.

{3}

Pregnancy continues and we’re officially 34 weeks along today. It’s another week closer to full term and every day makes a difference for Mason developmentally. Our next ultrasound is in 13 days and we continue to pray for God to slow Mason’s hydrocephalus so he can make it out of the preemie danger zone before birth

{4}

I’m eternally grateful for the gospel. Having a personal relationship with my Father in Heaven, being able to pray and talk to Him, that is sometimes the only thing that gets me through a day. Having the perspective the gospel brings that this life is not all there is, that families can be eternal, that our lives have purpose – all of this brings peace in the midst of uncertainty. My life is just like everyone else’s – messy, tiring, overwhelming – but the Savior understands me personally and meets me where I am, ready to correct me, lift me, and guide me home.

{5}

I think I’m going to finally finish reading To the Rescue. I borrowed it from a patient friend more than a month ago and after starting it got distracted by other books. Sorry Erin! I promise I’ll get it back to you before Mason is born.

What about you? What are your Five Things for Friday?

Pictures from Yesterday and Two Special Deals

2011-12-08T10:48:00.001-05:00

The children are all enjoying following interests and I thought I would share a few pictures from yesterday’s work. Here are five of the 6 children. Joseph, Emma, and Daniel had just listened to me read The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top and were working on a lapbook piece about extinct, dormant, and active volcanoes. Oliver and Caleb were playing around and under the table this time. Here is a closer shot of Daniel working on his lapbook piece. After coloring each volcano he cut them out, glued on the correct labels, and glued them to a green rectangle.While the volcano fun was going on this is where Makayla was – at my messy desk. She was working through the Tremendous Trees unit. The headphones help her stay focused on what she’s doing and make it easy to listen to the videos in the study.

* * * * *

I also wanted to let my readers know about two special deals that came to my inbox today.

First, and for today only, Amazon has a Melissa and Doug 50% off sale. Click on the Learn More button on that page to see which items are in the sale. This sale only happens once a year and it is wonderful because so many of the sturdy items from Melissa and Doug have an educational twist or will keep little ones happily playing during table time. This year we grabbed the two different pattern block sets (for younger and older children), and the magnetic fishing game set. We already own some of the slicing food, the See and Spell set, and other things we got in last year’s sale. The second deal is going on until the 15th – Amanda Bennett Unit Studies has just released their Elections 2012 unit study and it is 30% off for a short time. This unit is written for elementary through high school with four weeks of daily lessons for the younger and older ages. There is a sample to download if you want a peek inside the unit. Can you believe we’re heading into another election year? We plan to use this unit with our children sometime before the elections and so I just bought my own copy today while it’s on sale!

I’m an affiliate for Amazon and Amanda Bennett Unit Studies by the way. Any purchase you make through my links gives me a small credit. My budget thanks you!

Following Their Interests in Homeschool

2011-12-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

If you’ve read my blog for the last few months you know that we spend part of the morning focusing on core subjects (religion, reading, writing, arithmetic) and leave the rest of the day for following our interests. Sometimes this is done randomly, other times there is a bit more organization to it. Yesterday I invited Makayla to choose a new interest to study and took ideas from the younger children before choosing a topic I can do with all of them. I thought I would share what they’re doing, the products that we’re basing our units on, and so forth.Makayla chose to learn more about trees. She works very independent of me (the blessings of a 5th grader!). She is starting by going through the Tremendous Trees Download N Go unit with plans to explore topics more deeply with her Exploring Creation with Botany book. She likes a mix of notebooking, lapbooking, and research. She will also be reading about some specific kinds of trees, including giant redwoods, maples, pine trees, and palm trees. For Joseph, Emma, and Daniel (with Oliver tagging along as he wants to) we’re learning about volcanoes. The basis for their study is V is for Volcano, a lapbook from Hands of a Child. I have some volcano books we’ll read along the way:

I also have the Type It In Template Pack Lapbook from Hands of a Child. This handy e-book allows me to quickly create lapbook pieces for the kids based on things they feel are important from their learning. I imagine we’ll make a piece about volcanologists and one about their tools at the very least. We even have a fun game to play on Scholastic’s Magic School Bus website that will teach us more about volcanoes. And of course there will be the requisite homemade volcano with baking soda and vinegar to erupt. It wouldn’t be a volcano study without some messy fun, right?

What about you? What is something your children are interested in right now? Have you given them books and tools to explore that lately?

Monday Nights are Special–and Some Links

2011-12-05T14:17:00.000-05:00

It’s Monday and for individuals and families throughout the world Mondays are special nights. For decades Church leaders have instructed members to set aside Monday night as “family home evening”, (FHE). FHE is a time to study the gospel together, do activities that strengthen the family spiritually, create memories, and increase unity and love. You can watch a short video about why family home evening is so essential here.

Our family does a variety of things during FHE, though one constant is we have a spiritual lesson. We often include songs, games, or other activities. The church offers a page full of resources for FHE.

Last night my family watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. This hour long program featured music, video, and talks by God’s prophet and two apostles. We turned off the lights and snuggled in to enjoy it. If your family missed it may I suggest watching part or all of the devotional for FHE tonight? You can find the video archive here.

During the Christmas devotional it was priceless to watch my children as they recognized music and scriptures that we have been sharing as a family in the last week. Of course we had the usual wiggles over the course of the hour as well, never fear. My children each found different parts of the program kept their attention best. However, one part kept them all rapt, so let me tell you about it next!

Another wonderful part of the devotional last night was the surprise unveiling of a new online video series: The Life of Christ Bible Videos. May I suggest that these would make wonderful opportunities to invite the spirit into your homes and family home evenings this month? They are short enough that even young children will enjoy watching one or two at a time. The videos are faithful to the biblical account, with scripts based on the King James Version of the Bible. New videos will be added each month.

Right now there are wonderful videos of the beginning of Christ’s life, from the angel’s announcement to Mary through his presentation at the temple and the visit of the wise men. Tonight our family is going to watch The Christ Child is Presented at the Temple.

What are your plans for Family Home Evening tonight?

I’m Guest Posting Today–Check it out!

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today I’m guest posting over at the Homeschool Share Blog! They have a Question and Answer column and one of the questions that came in was a perfect fit for me:

“How do I homeschool multiple children and still get done by a reasonable time?”

Would you like to find out my answer? Click Here to go read the post!

Scripture Study Question for You!

2011-12-04T10:10:00.001-05:00

Having finished rereading The Book of Mormon on Friday I’ve officially cracked open my new set of scriptures, which are my Christmas present. It is so weird to turn through pages and find no markings, notes, highlighting, or colors. I showed you in this post the scripture journal I created full of topics to study. I sat down yesterday and it was so hard to choose a topic and read about it. It is going to take some getting used to. I usually read a few chapters at a time and study those, but this is totally different. I’m not sure I like it. I have a question for you at the end of this post, so keep reading to see what I want to know.

What did I study? Prayer. Something I think we easily underestimate and that there is always more to learn about. I started my study by reading the entry on prayer in the Bible Dictionary. The part that especially stood out to me there was this:

“The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them.”

I can just see God waiting and hoping that we’ll ask Him for blessings. Can you imagine how we live beneath our privileges when we rely on ourselves? It really made me consider what things I might be missing out on simply because I do not think to ask, things my Father is ready and waiting to offer.

From there I went through different verses on prayer throughout the scriptures. I loved reading in Alma 34:17-27 and made a list in my scripture journal of the places we are reminded to pray and the things we are to pray over. It’s a pretty extensive list! Then I ended up over in 3 Nephi 18:18-21 where Christ is teaching the Nephites more about prayer. Verse 21 reinforced what I had been thinking after reading in Alma, that I need to pray more for my family, for the individual members of my family. Today I will continue searching out scriptures about prayer, beginning in Genesis with Adam and Eve.

How do you usually study the scriptures?

I’ve always read a chapter or more to study, often in order from beginning to end. I’ve rarely studied by topic for more than a little while. Sometimes I’ve studied a single person’s life, such as Esther. But I always end up coming back to reading by chapter.

I don’t like reading commentary books by other people alongside my study. I find I learn more from the Spirit if I am not distracted by someone else’s thoughts on what a verse or chapter is about.

On the other hand I do find myself branching out to the words of the prophet and apostles in the General Conference talks. I love to read through those, and sometimes I study those during my scripture study.

Knowing this about myself I knew doing a scripture journal by topics could be challenging. I want to give it a try because I think it will bring a new facet to my study. I can already see that I may start filling in the extra pages in that journal with chapter studies though. A chapter study is where I simply read a passage of scripture and write my thoughts on it verse by verse – my own commentary of sorts. Hopefully I will end up doing a nice mix of both over time.

So what do you usually do in scripture study? What do you sometimes do? What do you almost never do? Inquiring minds want to know!

Five Things for Friday: Christmas, Homeschool, Mason, and More

2011-12-02T14:43:00.001-05:00

The very first Friday in December means that the year is almost over! I can’t believe it has gone so fast. It’s time for another Five Things for Friday so here I go…

{1}

I posted our homeschool plans on Monday and it turns out we followed them pretty well. Between regular progress in the basics and following the children’s interests we had a good week of work. One of the favorite things this week has been reading Ozma of Oz. We’re 1/3 of the way through the book and it’s fun, like all the past Oz books we’ve read. Have you read any Oz books? My children highly recommend them!

{2}

Today I finished reading the Book of Mormon, which I started reading at the beginning of November! It was wonderful to go through at a fairly quick pace and get the broad sweep of history, the rise and fall of nations, the prophets. I think reading straight through like this helps me see themes that are repeated in different generations, both good and bad.

My plan now is to retire my current set of scriptures, which I’ve used and marked up since I was 11 or 12. I have a new set to start fresh and I have a scripture journal set up this time. I plan to do some topical studies for a while.

{3}

This week we also learned Mason has developed hydrocephalus and will most likely face a premature delivery. You can read more about all that in this post. We’re praying and exercising faith that God will protect him and give Mason exactly the right amount of time in the womb to be healthy and ready for surgeries.

{4}

I’m already tired of seeing the many Christmas posts that ignore Christ to focus on books, crafts, and movies about Santa, elves, reindeer, and snowmen. It’s one of my pet peeves, this replacement of the truth of Christmas with these not-as-worthwhile substitutes. Why isn’t the real reason enough? God gave us a priceless gift – his Son. We can’t begin to spend enough time sharing and celebrating that truth with our children. It is an eternal and priceless gift. Why distract our families’ focus in any way with the worldly replacements?

Okay, stepping off my soapbox. And just so you know, I’ve heard all the excuses people offer for keeping Santa and I’m not interested in hearing them again. He’s every bit as unwelcome at my house (and on my blog) as the Easter bunny is. As this is my blog I reserve the right to delete all comments wasting space defending the worldly substitutes for Christmas.

{5}

One of the many things we’re doing this month to bring our Savior to the front of our family’s mind came out of this month’s Friend magazine. Go to this page to print the Christmas ABCs pictured to the left. Each letter has a topic and scriptures to read related to our Savior’s birth and mission.

Grateful for the Everyday Things

2011-12-01T19:08:00.001-05:00

After yesterday’s news my head is full of final baby preparations to do. Most of it is little things like the following:

Get out newborn clothes and wash them.
Move Caleb to the toddler bed in the girls room, move his clothes to something in there. Right now he’s still in the crib in our room.
Make a big grocery trip to stock up on foods (snack foods, staples, and freezer foods) and make a meal plan for while we’re in the hospital to make things easy for grandma.
Reset the infant carseat for a newborn now that Caleb is in a forward facing seat.
Do another ‘deep clean’ of bathrooms and the house in general so that it’s easy to maintain.
Gather all library books and return them.

And still life goes on and the everyday things need to keep going. There are meals to cook, chores to do, children to teach. The daily routines are comforting. Sitting around the table this morning while two children did math, one edited a story, one colored a picture, and two played with math blocks I was able to breathe and relax and just enjoy normal.

The day progressed and I found comfort in reading my scriptures, answering children’s questions, doing loads of laundry. I even took a nap during quiet time.

It’s so easy to take everyday things for granted, but today I noticed things. I’m grateful.

What everyday things are you grateful for?

Updates on Baby Mason are Posted

2011-11-30T18:36:00.001-05:00

I just posted an update about our sweet baby Mason over on his Spina Bifida Journal so click here to read what’s happening now.

As always prayers are appreciated.

Opinions Wanted: What Toys are Worth Holding on To?

2011-11-29T14:37:00.000-05:00

With Christmas approaching and all of our shopping done the only thing left to do at my house is weed out toys we no longer need or want. We do this each year and things fall into a number of groups as we sort:

Broken/Lost pieces (trash)
Outgrown and Unloved (pass along to others)
Outgrown - Pack Away for Younger Children
Keepers (currently being loved and played with)

In my marriage we have one person who loves to let things go to new homes and one who would rather keep everything. It’s hard to see the other person’s perspective, even after 11 years of marriage, but we keep trying. When you add the children’s opinions into the mix it can be overwhelming, to say the least. Again, we have a child or two who will happily let toys move to new homes and a few who cling to every toy – including ones they’ve not played with in months or a year. And stuffed animals? Don’t even get me started!

So here’s where you come in dear readers:

I want you to leave a comment sharing what toys are keepers to you. For example, even when I have no children in the right age range for Little People sets I keep them tucked away in the attic. Little People are durable, classic toys that every one of my children has loved at some point in their lives. Be it the castle set my oldest son loved, the farm set my animal lover treasured, or the pirate ship my current 2 year old adores. We don’t give away Little People.
I want to know what toys you think every family should have for a certain age, if they can.
I want to know the toys you don’t think need to enter a home too – and why! (Barbie tops our list.)
Do you have a limit on the number of toys a child can have? What about a limit on stuffed animals?
I want to know how you choose toys for your family. Do you have any rules or guidelines? (We won’t buy dolls that are immodestly dressed, for example, and we like to invest in toys that will last through more than one child, as well as toys that invite a child to use their imagination.)
Are there any toys on your mental wishlist – ones you w0uld love to invest in if the price were right?

Basically, I want to know all your thoughts on toys for your children, so get sharing!

Homeschool Plans for the Week

2011-11-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

December begins this week and I’m just not quite ready to admit that. Where has the year gone? We have rain and snow in the forecast this week. I’m sharing our homeschool plans for the week today because lists are motivating. I have two doctor’s appointments this week that will throw off the schedule a bit (one ultrasound and one midwife appointment) but this is the goal for each day.

Family Memory Work
We are still memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World and have dived into our Christmas songs for this year. I have some flashcards coming from Signing Time that will be added to the binder for ASL and Spanish. The front of each card shows a picture of what you’re to sign, the back shows how to sign it. We’ll use the front to have younger children practice the signs and older children to practice the Spanish word for that item. Now to wait patiently for the flashcards to arrive… You can learn more about our memory work binder here.

Math
Makayla is working on division by 4 and after that will tackle averages. Joseph and Emma need some more review of the addition facts they’ve learned up to now. I think I’ll pull out the math songs from Math U See to introduce a new way to remember them.

Reading to Mom
Joseph and Emma read to me from a book each day. We’re just practicing and practicing. One of these days fluency will happen. Daniel is also reading to me most days because he wants to.

Writing
The older three children continue their WriteShop levels. Makayla is writing a humorous story this week. She did her brainstorming today and it’s going to be about a girl studying kangaroo rats in Australia. One of the rats is going to grow to the size of a real kangaroo and cause mischief.

Greek Myths or History
As long as interest continues I’ll read a Greek myth to the kids each day, or we’ll study whatever historical subject they’re interested in. This is pretty free-form for now. Last week was pilgrims and Wampanoag indians with Greek myths. Who knows what will catch their fancy this week on our history book shelf?!

Succulents Science
We have a pot of succulent plants and discovered this morning that two are flowering, so we’ll do some plant observations and study. I’ll pull out our botany book so we can learn more about the differences and similarities between succulents and other plants. The girls have been sprouting bean seeds too.

Read Aloud
We really need to start Ozma of Oz if we’re going to have any hope of finishing it before our next book club meeting. Last week I didn’t do any extra reading aloud because my mouth still hurt from dental surgery but today it’s feeling pretty good. I’ll try to get started on this today.

Delight Directed Studies
Pretty much anything else is led by the children’s interests, and history and science are pretty interest driven as well. Emma is usually doing some art project whereas Joseph is building or designing things. He has K’nex out this week. I have no idea how he builds with those things! They’re just out of my league…LOL. Give me plain old blocks any day.

What are your learning plans for the week?

Foreign Language Habits–Plus 40% off Signing Time

2011-11-26T08:01:00.000-05:00

I’ve been thinking about our foreign language studies again. We work on two languages:

American Sign Language
Spanish

We’ve fallen out of the habit of regular practice (gasp!), though I have been working on ASL with Caleb the last two weeks. Before my children lose what they know I’m going to get our practice habits rolling again. I’m working on a way to incorporate our vocabulary for each into our Memory Work binder, with a plan for watching the various DVDs we use as well. I thought I would share what we currently use for each language (with information on the 40% off special happening Sunday and Monday for the ASL materials), as well as some free resources on the internet.

American Sign Language

We began learning ASL years ago when Joseph, who was 2, was completely non-verbal. He didn’t even say DaDa. While he ultimately had other issues that needed resolved through surgery, ASL is what saved our sanity. He had begun having frequent tantrums because he was frustrated by being unable to communicate. Since that time we have used ASL with each child to some degree, especially in the early baby/toddler years before they’re speaking well. Here are some of the reasons we still love learning ASL:

We can communicate with our babies and toddlers.
It lessens frustration and tantrums.
We can discipline and correct quietly in public.
It has become our family's "Secret Language", a bond the kids will remember as they grow up.
It is a hands-on language, it works great for those children who can't sit still and need to move.

We use the DVDs from Signing Time for a fun, interactive way to learn ASL. Over the last 5 years we’ve taken advantage of special sales and generous grandparents to purchase to buy nearly every DVD they offer. I have my own opinions on which are my favorite DVDs from the different series’ and so do my children. I’ve got my own preferences for which DVDs to start with based on the age of the children in a family too.

I wanted to pass along their special sale this weekend, and no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way. I’m planning to use the sale to buy some of their board books and flashcards. You won’t get a better price than this sale. Sunday and Monday Signing Time is offering 40% off orders over $40.00 with only a couple exceptions (gift cards, digital downloads, and a special potty watch they sell).

Spanish

Our Spanish studies are done with the Speekee. A dear grandma bought the DVDs for us after her grandchildren loved the online version. (We did need to pick up a region-free DVD player to handle the European coding format, got it on Amazon.) Originally our family tried out Speekee online as a part of the TOS Homeschool Crew, so you can read my review for that here. A few things we love about Speekee:

It uses language immersion – every word you hear is in Spanish. There are optional english subtitles for parents.
It uses native Spanish speakers – the best people to learn a language from are those who have spoken it from birth.
It is young-child friendly. It fits best my children under age 8, and once Mason is born I’ll have 6 of those. Even Makayla can learn a ton of Spanish from Speekee at age 10. She just notices it’s more ‘little kid’ with the puppet segments and lots of songs.

FREE Resources Around the Web

Please be aware that I’ve not explored every corner of each of these sites. You’ll have to use your own best judgement, and remember, some may also sell products – feel free to ignore that!

ASL University – free online curriculum
iCANsign – some free baby sign resources
Video sign dictionary – from Baby Hands Productions, free video clips for each sign.
The Signing Time website offers free resources your family may enjoy:

SpanishTown.ca has a large Spanish for Kids section on their site. It has materials for grades 1-4 and when you click on the sections for each grade on the page I linked to you’ll find lots more sections divided up into the months of the school year. There are audio tracks with pronunciations, worksheets, and more.
Byki Express is a free software download in many languages including Spanish. They have a paid deluxe version too.
123 Teach Me has a large Spanish for Kids area with videos, flashcards, games, worksheets and more.

Does your family study any foreign languages or want to? How do you fit it into your daily routine so it gets done regularly?

Five Things for Friday: Scripture Journals and More

2011-11-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

We survived another week folks! It’s Friday and that means it’s time to link up to Five Things for Friday. Here are my five things:

{1}

I’ve made it through the week and so far I’m healing well from my dental surgery. I was even able to eat Thanksgiving dinner, which was a good thing because I’m tired of yogurt and other soft foods. I have to say that I just don’t see what’s so hard about making a big meal like Thanksgiving. I saw posts all week about the days and days of baking, cooking, and decorating preparations. We just did everything on Thursday morning and ate a yummy meal at lunch. We even had time that morning to read a bunch of books on Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, and Wampanoag Indians and let the kids do some crafts.

I’ve also managed to stay healthy even with several of my children cycling through little colds, which I’m grateful for. Some have had runny noses, one had a sore throat. Most are on the mend and should be good to go by church on Sunday.

{2}

I started making my scripture journal yesterday! This is something I’m very excited about. I’ve read posts here, here, and here plus watched a video about it here. I’ve thought about how I want to approach it (bound journal, 3 ring binder, chapter by chapter or by topics). I chose to use a bound journal and arrange it by topics. Mine is a Markings by C.R. Gibson European Bonded Leather Journal with a flexible cover. I found mine at WalMart for $10.97. The cover measures 7.5" x 10.25" and it has 190 pages (85 sheets). I like the size, I like the flexible cover instead of a hardcover. The pages are a nice thick paper and the lines are not too dark.To set up my journal I used Shannon from The Redheaded Hostess’s instructions, which you can download free at the very bottom of this post. I tweaked it a bit, of course. I skipped one page front and back for my table of contents, then numbered the rest of the pages. On the table of contents page I divided each side into columns and wrote out every page number.

In Shannon’s download she has a list of 80+ topics to use for your first 80+ pages. I used her list as a starting point but crossed off some and added others. One neat resource for ideas was the Study by Topic section of the Church website. I did not include all of those either, and ended up with 111 topic pages. I wrote the topics in my table of contents and each topic on it’s assigned page as well. That leaves pages 112 through 190 empty. As I fill up a page for a topic and need more room to write I’ll simply note “continued on page ___” and use the next empty page after 111. That page will then get it’s topic recorded in the table of contents, with a note on the page where the beginning of the topic is. (That’s another idea from Shannon, by the way).

{3}

I have a book review and giveaway coming next week. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on The No-Cry Picky Eater Solution: Gentle Ways to Encourage Your Child to Eat—and Eat Healthy by Elizabeth Pantley and one of you will win your own copy! Do you have any picky eaters at your house? Our kids are a mix. Each has at least one item they hate (no big deal), but two are a bit more choosy. I’m not one to make separate meals for the picky child – they eat or they don’t – that’s their choice.

{4}

I have officially reached 32 weeks in this pregnancy. Yay! Next Wednesday I have another high level ultrasound to check on baby Mason. We’re praying he still shows no signs of hydrocephalus and that his growth continues to be right where it should. I’ll be talking with the OB who will most likely be delivering me that day too. I’m hoping to get a better idea of when they want to deliver, assuming Mason has no issues crop up that call for early delivery. My guess is around 38 weeks along, which means in less than 7 weeks I’ll be holding my little man!

{5}

It’s quiet time at my house and I’m off to eat some ice cream and read my scriptures. It’s the little things that brighten my day – and quiet time is certainly one of them!

My ABC’s of Thanks

2011-11-23T19:31:00.001-05:00

I’ve decided to join The ABC’s of Thanks today!

{A-E}

Abraham, who we’ve been reading about in family scripture study this week. What a faithful, patient man!
Books. I love reading them for me, reading them for the kids, listening to each child begin to read books.
Caleb, my 6th child and sweet snuggler. He’s curious about the world around him and into comforting from mommy.
Daniel, my 4th child. He’s a bright little boy who keeps me laughing at the things he says.
Emma, my 3rd child. She’s the artist in residence and loves to create.

{F-J}

Freshly ground flour to bake with. I love baking wholesome, homemade treats for my loved ones.
Glue sticks. Really, they’ve saved my sanity with children who always want to make something – no puddles of liquid glue at my house!
Heavenly Father, who has a plan for my life and is working for my good.
Instruction books because I’m just not great at figuring things out without them.
Jason, my husband. I love him more every day and learn so much from him. God gave me my opposite and we rub off each others rough edges making a nice smooth family.
Joseph, my 2nd child. The first boy. His interests lie in building things, outer space, robots, and all those areas I never wanted to learn about, but get to now.

{K-O}

Kids. They bring me joy and keep me humble.
Living in a house – we’re blessed with a roof over our heads.
Mason, my 7th child, who comes in less than 8 weeks. His pregnancy has reminded me that every life is precious, that God’s plan is always the right one, even if it is not the one we would have chosen.
Makayla, my 1st child. Caught on the edge of child and young woman, she’s growing into a delightful helper and second in command. She’s passionate and challenging, but a joy.
Novels. Losing myself in a book is a wonderful way to relax.
Oliver, my 5th child. He’s serious and silly by turns, still willing to snuggle.

{P-T}

Prayer. I know Heavenly Father listens, answers, and comforts me. Prayer gets me through so much.
Quilts to snuggle under. With the cold weather arriving I love seeing all my family bringing quilts downstairs to snuggle up in the evenings.
Reading my scriptures, it’s like a daily injection of the spirit to get through the day.
Savior. Without Jesus I would be lost, life would be miserable.
Temples, the place to make sacred covenants that make it possible for families to be together eternally.

{U-Z}

Unlined paper. It’s so versatile. It can hold lists or letters, or it can become a masterpiece, craft, or paper doll to keep the kids enthralled.
Vehicles, especially a van that seats our whole family.
Weather. Be it mild or wild it all puts me in awe of the Creator.
Xylophones. You know, the little kid ones that toddlers can drag around and ‘play’. Sure, I get a headache, but they bring such simple joy to little ones.
YOU! Thanks for reading my blog, commenting, and sharing a part of my family’s life.
Zippers. They’re faster than buttons!

FHE Idea: Thankful Hunt

2011-11-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

I have a quick and easy Family Home Evening idea to share today for the Thanksgiving season with extra resources to go deeper linked at the bottom.

Go on a “thankful hunt.”

On a piece of paper write the following words:

See
Hear
Taste
Touch
Smell

Take your family around your house or yard and find at least 3 things for each category that you are thankful for. Write the ideas down and then gather everyone with paper and art materials to draw a picture of some things they are thankful for from your thankful hunt.

To take it deeper visit the Gratitude page from the Church. There are many multimedia resources including videos to watch, audio to listen to, and a whole section of study resources. You’ll find coloring pages and games, scriptures, articles, and more!

Resisting the Shopping Mania

2011-11-20T18:04:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is this Thursday. Time seems to move faster some months than others and November has been that way for me. My husband and I finished up our Christmas shopping Saturday morning. We’ve found it makes the big shopping mania of Black Friday through Christmas very easy to resist when we’ve done all our buying before Thanksgiving.

We made a few purchases through the year when we found items on clearance or sale that would be perfect for a child, hiding them away in the attic. Saturday we finished up our shopping by ordering the rest online. Our children know that all shopping is done so no telling us what they want is allowed now.

We stayed right in our budget. There are no credit cards in our house because we learned a long time ago to flee temptation by just not having it available. We’re also right in the middle of birthday season at our house. Between October and February we have 6 birthdays – filling up every month. Needless to say we’ve got a birthday budget too – it’s the only way to survive financially. A budget sets us free!

Do you budget money for Christmas or birthdays? Do you stick to your budget or are you swayed by the glitzy advertizments and ‘deals’ around every corner?

Five Things for Friday

2011-11-18T15:49:00.000-05:00

I’m linking up with Five Things for Friday this week.

{1}

Homeschool spins along beautifully and it’s all God’s doing. We’ve found our groove and we’re enjoying it. Our core subjects get done regularly, all the extras are more interest driven. Everyone is making progress. I love it!

{2}

Caleb’s birthday is Sunday and he’s turning 1. I cannot believe it has been a whole year. He’s a sweet little light in our family. He’ll be a big brother in less than 2 months which also seems amazing to me. When baby Mason is born I will have 3 children under age 3. Again. Life’s never dull!

{3}

My husband was able to fix the dryer for under $20.00. I don’t know how long it will stay fixed but I’m grateful for every load that comes out dry. It’s the little things in life that brighten our day.

{4}

I’m trying to find time to watch this video on scripture journaling. I’m 10 minutes in and hopefully will get to finish it sometime this weekend. I’ve read several posts about scripture journaling and hope to make time to do dive in and begin my own. Right now I’m working on re-reading the Book of Mormon. I’m still on track to be done by the end of December and the spirit has been teaching and testifying of truth every time I read. It’s a wonderful experience as always.

{5}

I’m going out on a date tonight with my husband! Even better, dinner is free – time for the yearly work Christmas party/business meeting. Several hours spent remembering we’re husband and wife and not just mom and dad – yay!

Random Links I’ve Visited This Week

2011-11-17T14:30:00.001-05:00

Today’s moving along and I wanted to share just a few links I’ve come across or revisited this week. There is no theme, so just browse through and check out the ones that sound interesting to you!

How to draw a Thanksgiving turkey – I saw this cute tutorial over on Draw with Rich.
The LDS Media Library’s Image Section – More than 2000 images divided into topics and ready to use for lessons at home and church. I think this will be really handy.
Simplified Primary Music Here and Here – Makayla loves playing piano and is just about to begin level 2A of Alfred’s Premier Piano Course. While the church hymn book is available in easier versions, the Children’s Songbook is not. I found two separate websites full of simplified sheet music of the Primary songs. Makayla is thrilled!
Simply Charlotte Mason’s Blog Series Index – This page is an index to the different series’ of posts that have appeared over the years on Simply Charlotte Mason. I enjoy reading through these!
Free Ancient Greece Unit and Lapbook – Homeschool Share comes through for me again! While I’ve not officially decided to dive into a full-fledged unit on ancient Greece, the booklist gave me some ideas of what to look for.
Amazon.com – It’s a rare week that I don’t check out something on Amazon. This week I’ve been checking out Christmas ideas for the kids, downloading free Kindle books, as well as ordering Makayla’s next set of piano books. Remember that I’m an affiliate for Amazon and if you shop through my link I’ll get a credit for any purchases you make. My budget thanks you!

That’s all for now folks! I’m off to write a grocery list while the kids are busy playing.

We had a Greek Mythology Day

2011-11-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

My children have been enamored with Greek myths after listening to Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I knew they would enjoy a short mythology study and today was the day. I gathered a few resources and we were ready to go. From the Ancient Greece History Pocket book I printed out two activities about the main Greek gods and goddesses. Then we combined the activities into creating their own books! There were 12 pictures to color and cut out. The younger children simply focused on this part of the activity and made picture books from these. As you can see from the pictures I’ve included the second half of the activity was an information box about each god or goddess. The older children were to read it and draw a symbol for that character. They then cut out these pieces and matched them up with the colored figures they had glued in their books earlier.As an extension of the day we started listening to the second Percy Jackson book during quiet time (The Sea of Monsters). It kept the attention of my four oldest children and they begged to stay in bed and keep listening when quiet time was over. Daddy and I said no. Instead we all gathered on the couch with a snack and I read some of D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, a library book. It was so fun to see and hear the children making connections between the book they made earlier in the day, the stories we were reading, and the Percy Jackson book they had been listening to.

I have two other books on Greek mythology from the library right now and Makayla has been reading from those both on her own and to her siblings. They are: Favorite Greek Myths retold by Mary Pope Osbourne and The McElderry Book of Greek Myths retold by Eric A Kimmel. Each book tells stories in their own way, with varying styles of art. I like having the variety to pull from and I imagine over the next week or two we’ll read some more from each of these books.

Have you taken a current interest from your children and made a fun learning day from it lately? If you haven’t then I encourage you to do it – they remember so much more when it’s something they’re already interested in!

Morphology game – A Timberdoodle Review

2011-11-16T14:04:00.000-05:00

My family loves playing games, and some of our favorite games are those that require creativity to play. When Timberdoodle asked if we wanted to review something from their 2011 Gift Collection we were happy receive Morphology to play. Now, I’ll be honest, according to the box Morphology is for ages 13 and up. None of my 6 children have reached that age but I still thought we could make it work – and I was right! Morphology’s box is filled with a variety of materials, more than 60 pieces in all:

Glass beads
Mini popsicle sticks
Small colorful wooden blocks
A thick string
Wooden pawns
and more!

Players divide into teams and choose a colored frog to place on the game board. On your team’s turn the Morphologist of the round draws a card from the 600 possibilities. This card tells them what image they need to create using the materials in the box like a puppeteer would, trying to get your team to guess the word before the timer runs out.

Words range from easy to hard, and here are some examples we created: spider

street light

windmill

The game has a few twists. You see, when a team answers correctly they move their frog to the next lily pad on the board. Some of these lily pads have the word “Roll”. When you are on those you must roll a die and use the chart on the board to determine changes. Possible consequences include:

Building the word with your eyes closed.
Building only with your non-dominant hand.
Building with limited materials, such as only 5 pieces or even only the string.

Remember that I said the game is meant for ages 13 and up? The only real challenges we found when playing with younger children are the short time given for each turn (easy to fix, use the timer twice in a row if needed) and having non-readers (we sent them out of the room with a reading helper to read them the word from their card). We divided into two teams and split the ages evenly with one adult and a mix of younger and older children on each team. Everyone had fun even when there were lots of laughs at our attempts to communicate through building.

The only other thing I noticed that many of the building materials are very small, a choking hazard, so we made sure to watch closely that no materials found their way into little mouths.

All in all, Morphology was a hit at our house!

{Disclaimer: We received this game free to review from Timberdoodle. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Counting Blessings Instead of Trials

2011-11-15T16:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m better off than the pioneers but did my clothes dryer have to break down last night too? I mean, really, it was one of those rotten days yesterday that just kept getting worse. Not only did all this happen yesterday(read #4), plus the dryer quitting with cloth diapers still needing to dry, we spent part of the night in the basement (no, it’s not a nice finished one) listening to the tornado sirens. And yet ----

I am blessed. There is no denying it. In the midst of my pity party I decided to count my blessings, so here we go:

Not only do I live in a free country, I live in a house. During the storms we were dry, relatively warm in the basement, and together. We had no storm damage from wind, lightning, or rain, and no tornado.
I have electricity and running water. I’m not washing clothing by hand and we have heat when it’s cold out.
I have a clothes drying rack that I popped up yesterday evening and hung those cloth diapers on. They’re finally dry now and another batch of laundry is hanging to dry. It’s slow, but it works.
There is money to buy a dryer, and we’ve already finished most of the Christmas shopping, so that won’t be impacted too much. Hubby gets his yearly bonus on Friday. The timing couldn’t be better!
Did I mention the washer is mostly broken too? Yeah, it’s only got one cycle (hot wash/hot rinse), most of the dials are broken. However, that is the one cycle we absolutely have to have with cloth diapers so they get clean and disinfected. Another blessing!
While I’ve got an infected tooth that needs removed I do have access to medical care and medicine. Antibiotics? Check! Painkillers? Check!
My children don’t go to bed hungry. There is plenty of food in the house.
I know that God loves me and He’s taking care of my family’s needs.

There is so much more but right now I have other things to do. I think next up is picking up the toys and blankets strewn across the living room, which are there because my children are healthy enough to play and make messes – another blessing!

What are some blessings you’re grateful for today?

Random Monday–Giveaway winners, potty updates, and more

2011-11-14T18:13:00.000-05:00

Well, this post will be a mishmash of things, including winners for two giveaways.

{1}

The winner of the We Choose Virtues giveaway had to be redrawn as the original winner did not contact me within 48 hours, so the new winner is:

Kristi said...

I think my kiddos (7, 5, 3) struggle equally with being gentle and kind. They are not purposefully mean (most of the time) but have a hard time remembering that teasing is not fun to those being teased and if it's not fun for everyone it's not a considerate and kind activity.

I’ve sent you an email Kristi!

{2}

The winner of the Pick and Draw giveaway is:

Holly said...

I have Our Busy Homeschool in my reader wiegersmama at yahoo dot com

I’ve sent you an email Holly!

In case you didn’t win:

{3}

A Potty Training Update!
I posted here about Oliver’s first day of potty training last week. Day 2 he had a 50% success rate, and by day 3 it was a 90% success rate. At the moment he still needs reminded to stop playing and go potty, but I know in a few weeks that will be a thing of the past too. He gets on there, does his business, and goes back to playing. I’m thrilled. I only have one child in cloth diapers during the daytime now (yes, I realize that will only last until January, but hey, it’s something).

{4}

I’ve got a toothache. It’s a very long story that begins with a filling coming out, a root getting infected, and visits to several dentists and oral surgeons in one day (today). I’m in pain, on antibiotics, and waiting for next week when we can pull the tooth and move on.

With feeling miserable the last few days I’ve spent a lot of time reading. Don’t ask how much, but I’ll just say that I’ve read Crossed and Inheritance both from beginning to end, kept up with my scripture reading, and I’m a good ways into Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief today. All have been read on my Kindle. I love my Kindle (and that all 3 books were free through the library loan system Amazon has with my library).

{5}

My children, however, have been rather miffed that my mouth hurts too much to read aloud to them. I got some child-friendly books on Greek mythology because they listened to the Percy Jackson book I’m currently reading on audio (also free from the library). Makayla has taken it upon herself to do the reading aloud so everyone can enjoy those books. I love that. I think I’m going to capitalize on everyone’s interest and print out some activity pages on ancient Greece and Greek myths tonight for a surprise.

So what randomness is going on in your life right now?

Our Memory Work Binder

2011-11-12T20:54:00.000-05:00

One thing we try to consistently work on in our home is filling our minds with inspiring words from scriptures and hymns. We have gone about this in many ways and find that different things work well for different children. One tool we use is a simple binder filled with page protectors. Inside this binder I place current memory work, printed out from various free places around the internet or from my word processing program.

When it’s time for memory work we gather everyone in the living room and start turning pages as we recite. Then we turn on the music, and start flipping pages as everyone sings. When songs have been learned well we’ve branched out to singing a capella. It is so sweet to hear my children’s voices, though a bit funny to hear the ones who are never quite on the right beat of the song as the rest of us.

Our current memory work is The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Below you see the first two week’s pages:

This weekend it was time to update the songs that are in our binder. With Christmas approaching I’m placing pages for some of the songs we worked on learning last year. For many of my younger children these will seem like entirely new songs. My husband and I narrowed down the list to the following this year:

When Joseph Went to Bethlehem
Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus
Away in a Manger
Silent Night
The Shepherd’s Carol
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Angels We Have Heard on High

I get the song printables free from JollyJenn.com in the flipcharts section if she has them and print my own if she doesn’t.

I have also decided it’s time to edit the binder and add some sections. You see, it is easy to lose what we don’t use regularly. At one point most of my children knew the 13 Articles of Faith thanks to the songs in the Primary Songbook. Now they probably only remember half of those. We’ve learned many scripture verses in the last two years but without regular practice those are fading from memory as well. I adapted the scripture memory box idea I’ve played with in the past to my binder. There are two sections labeled Daily, one for things we recite, one for songs. There are sections labeled Odd days and Even days, and ultimately I’ll add sections for each day of the week (Sun-Sat). Into these sections will go things we’ve learned previously. Every day we will do our current memory work plus the sections that correspond to that day. So today we would sing and recite everything under “Daily”, as well as the song or scripture under “Even Days” because today is the 12th. As we cement things better and increase what we know I will add in a few more sections just like the scripture memory box I linked above.

I really love using a binder because flipping the page protectors while trying to recite or sing is pretty easy. I don’t drop pages and have everything get mixed up. I also don’t have to waste time between each song grabbing the right picture pages. Even my children can take turns leading our memory work time thanks to the binder!

Do you have regular memory work time at your house? Have you found anything that helps you stay organized?

Who’s Your Idol? Talk CD–A Review and Giveaway

2011-11-12T04:55:00.000-05:00

As a teen one of the things my parents were wonderful about sharing with my sister and I was inspirational talks on cassette tape. While cassettes are pretty much a thing of the past inspirational talks are still around on CD and even to download in MP3 format. Deseret Book sent my family Who’s Your Idol? by Carmen Rasmusen to review. Just who is Carmen Rasmusen? She’s an LDS singer who got her start on season 2 of American Idol at age 17. She’s walked red carpets, been in major magazine photo shoots, and walked through all the temptations and worldly pressures that face youth today all while striving to stay true to her gospel foundations of modesty, chastity, and obedience to the Word of Wisdom. Today she is a wife and mother and loving every minute of it.
In this talk aimed at young women Carmen shares stories of how she stuck to her goal of living the gospel standards through her immersion in the entertainment business. She’s honest, funny, and open about the challenges she’s faced, telling just how awkward she sometimes felt, but how obedience brought blessings to her life. I found myself alternately laughing and nodding as I listened to her story.
Carmen asks youth to look at who their role models are. She reminds us that you try to become like those you admire, so it is important to make sure your role models are worthwhile and will help you live the gospel standards. I really enjoyed Who’s Your Idol? and look forward to sharing it with my children as they approach the bumpy waters of adolescence.
Deseret Book is giving away a copy of Who’s Your Idol? right here at Our Busy Homeschool.

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED. Congratulations to Melissa's Life!

There are a few easy ways to enter:

Leave a comment telling me you want to win! Be sure to include your email address in this first entry so I can contact you if you win.
Visit Deseret Book and tell me another product you would love to have in your family.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool and tell me that you do.

Giveaway is open to US residents only and ends on Saturday November 19, 2011 at 6:00am. Winner will be chosen by Random.org.
{Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Who’s Your Idol? to review and one to give away. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Nephi and the Brass Plates DVD–Review and Giveaway

2011-11-11T06:21:00.000-05:00

Families have many different rules for watching television or movies. One of our family’s rules for Sunday is that we will only watch uplifting, gospel-related shows on that day. We’ve got a small variety but are always open to having more in our collection of DVDs. My children were excited when Deseret Book sent us the 25th Anniversary Edition of Nephi and the Brass Plates by Living Scriptures. Not only would they have a new show to watch, it was about one of their favorite scripture heroes, Nephi.
Little did we know that this DVD is part of their Complete Learning System and included some fun extras on the disc:

Adventure Quiz with 3 skill levels – Working as a team my children navigated the quiz, which integrated movie clips from the show they had just watched.
Optional Scripture reference subtitles – This gave us an easy way to explore the story more in depth, as well as to see if we agreed with the presentation by Living Scriptures.
Sing-Along activity – sometimes the best way to learn something is with music, which the Living Scriptures makes full use of.
FHE Lessons and extra content online – The DVD-Rom also gives you access to a whole website of extension activities and coloring books to print and use in your family.

While Deseret Book currently offers this DVD in combination with another here, I’ve got a better offer for you! One reader will win Nephi and the Brass Plates for free!

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED! Congratulations to Shirley!

My friends at Deseret Book are hosting a giveaway here on Our Busy Homeschool and here are the ways you can enter:

Leave a comment telling me one of your favorite scripture stories. Please include your email address in this first comment as contact information in case you win.
Visit Deseret Book online and tell me one other item you would love to have.
Tell me one of your family’s favorite uplifting shows to watch.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool and tell me you do.

This giveaway is open to US residents only and ends on Wednesday November 16, 2011 at 6:00am. Winner will be selected using Random.org and notified by email.
{Disclaimer: I received one free DVD to review and one to give away. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Potty Time Again

2011-11-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

Potty Training. Today I started working with my 5th learner, Oliver. I fully believe he is ready to leave diapers behind for the daytime, but he’s not decided if he agrees with me yet.

Yesterday I re-read The No-Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It was a wonderful reminder that this is a process, not a one day event, and that my attitude and responses will be of utmost importance for the duration. There are chapters full of information for setting up and many options for your potty learning time.

Last night I set up the downstairs ahead of time because I plan to keep Oliver downstairs with me all day to focus on this new activity. Here are the preparations I made:

I put several changes of clothing, wash cloths, and underwear beside the bathroom downstairs.
I put 1 or two towels in each room downstairs to make cleaning up accidents easy.
I put a towel on the couch that is his “spot to sit” so furniture stays dry.
I put a stack of books beside the bathroom so we have lots of reading options when he’s sitting on the potty.

I also took the time to go back in my blog archives to re-read the post about Daniel’s first day of potty training because he was the last child through this stage. That was just a year and 3 months ago! I had forgotten how many accidents he had that first day and got a chuckle remembering that one was while he was standing on the back of my couch. It was also a good reminder that each child is different, and so learning to use the potty will be different each time.

Our morning began with an excited Oliver, happy to sit on the potty (we use a cushioned seat that fits on the regular toilet, with a footstool to climb up). He had me read Brown Bear, Brown Bear 5 times in a row, then a few other books.

As the day has progressed he’s not as excited about sitting, so we make it through 1-2 stories before he’s ready to move on. One of the stories is always Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? He’s happy to be wearing underwear, which is great. He’s thrilled with all the focused attention from mommy. He’s only slightly miffed that I won’t let him go play upstairs.

Oliver accidents today: 6
Successes today: 1

Oh, and I have Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? memorized already. Completely.

Jacob T. Marley–A Deseret Book Review

2011-11-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

There are few classic Christmas stories more well-known than Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Many people the world over know just what you mean when you say someone is ‘a scrooge’, a phrase that reminds us of the selfish, miserly main character of A Christmas Carol. Some have certainly wondered about his mentor, Jacob Marley, who is introduced with the first sentence of A Christmas Carol in the following words: “Marley was dead, to begin with . . .” However no one has taken the time to explore the story of this essential character, until now. R. William Bennett has created what is sure to become a favorite book for those who love A Christmas Carol, titled simply: Jacob T. Marley. In just over 200 pages readers are taken on a journey to learn what this man was like in life, what hand he played in the development of Scrooge’s miserly self, and how Marley came to be a wandering spirit. It explores those seven years between Jacob’s death and his visit to Ebenezer and so much more.

I began reading Jacob T. Marley with high hopes, but wondered just how this book could live up to the expectations laid by Charles Dickens’ original writing. Without spoiling anything let me just say that I truly enjoyed this book! It is quite a little gem, one I will enjoy re-reading during holiday seasons to come. I believe that R. William Bennett has written a story that would make Charles Dickens proud.

{Disclaimer: I received this book free from Deseret Book to review. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Pick and Draw–Review and Giveaway!

2011-11-09T04:23:00.000-05:00

Finding a game that most of my children can play at the same time can be a bit challenging with the wide age range (11 months – 10 years). Honestly, the youngest doesn’t insist he get to play just yet, but his 2, 4, 5, 7, and 10 year old siblings all do. I was excited to receive Pick and Draw because it really is a game they all can play together. The premise is simple. Using the card deck, paper, and pencils you all draw a cartoon face, one feature at a time. The card deck is divided into the following categories:

Face
Nose
Eyes
Mouth
Hair

Everyone in the group uses the same card to determine what to draw, with creative license given to make each feature as large or small, straight or crooked, sideways or upside down as they wish. The end result are totally unique creations that all came from the same set of 5 cards.
The game gets very silly along the way at my house because you find family members trying to make their face move the way the cards show, like this: The game can even be done with just one player, much to my artistic Emma’s delight. She spent nearly an hour one afternoon mixing up the card decks and creating masterpieces. No two pictures ended up the same.
Want to try Pick and Draw yourself? Grab a piece of paper and a pencil and go here. Click on each card on the page to reveal the feature you need to draw. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Wasn’t that fun and easy? Now imagine doing it with your whole family over Thanksgiving – not only is it great for the children but the whole extended family can get in on this game as well. Some of the best family memories are the simplest to create, and I plan to introduce this one to our extended family this year.

Would You Like to Win Your Own?

Owner Rich Davis is offering a giveaway of one Pick and Draw game right here on Our Busy Homeschool for one of my readers. There are several ways to enter, be sure to leave your email address in your first entry so I can contact you if you win:

Go visit Pick and Draw’s website and tell me what color the “How to Order” button is at the top of the screen.
Visit Rich’s drawing blog and tell me you did.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool and tell me you do.
Try out the game here and tell me you did.

This giveaway is open to US residents only and ends Monday Nov. 14th at 6:00am. Winner will be chosen by Random.org and contacted by email.

In case you don’t win:

Now through December you can buy one deck of Pick and Draw for $10.00 and get $2.00 off each additional deck. It makes a great gift! Just add as many decks to your cart as you want, there is no special code needed.

{Disclaimer: I received one deck of Pick and Draw free to review and one to give away. All opinions presented herein are my own. Links in this post include affiliate links.}

Pictures from Table Time Today

2011-11-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share a few quick pictures from today because it was one of those mornings where everyone was productively engaged at the table simultaneously. It reminds me just how much I appreciate the training we’ve done with the little ones on having ‘table time’. Caleb contented himself with this puzzle for about 15 minutes. He can’t actually put the pieces together, but he loves taking them apart, chewing on them, and stacking them in a pile. Throwing them on the floor is pretty fun too, though he’s learned we won’t pick them up for him if he does, so he saves that for the end of puzzle time. Then we move to another activity at the table, and so on. He’s usually happy there for an hour – not bad for an 11 month old!Oliver seems to have lost his interest in coloring, sadly enough. That means I’m pulling out activities with pieces, like these stacking pegs. He has developed an interest in colors at long last, so he spent a good portion of time telling me the color of every peg he used. I’ve tried to convince him to stack matching colors but he’s much more interested in filling every single hole on the board instead. In this picture Daniel is working on a page from Math U See Primer. He likes ‘worksheets’ right now and so he’s always asking for more to do. Underneath is the first page he did about the letter Ii. Emma had a project she wanted to work on this morning first thing. She made cards for various people and we were all expected to be surprised when she gave us our cards. Joseph is working on Math U See Alpha in this picture. The assignment had him solving math problems and then writing the answers in word format in the crossword puzzle. He likes math a lot and so far it seems to come pretty easily to him. I hope that stays true for years to come! Makayla has been reading a book series called Pendragon for a few weeks. Today she started book 6 and one of the things she decided to do is start a notebook of Pendragon Art. Her plan is to draw the different characters and creatures from the many worlds in the Pendragon series.

Lots of school work got done over the morning, as usual. The favorite school part didn’t happen during table time though – it happened on the couch. We practiced our memory work, sang a few songs together, and then read a few more chapters of Peter and the Starcatchers. We are really having fun with this book and I have to admit the kids are not the only ones wanting to find out what happens next.

Don’t forget I’m guest posting about faith over at The More the Merrier today and you can still enter the We Choose Virtues giveaway for a few more days!

Great American Documents for Latter-day Saint Families–A Review

2011-11-08T03:17:00.000-05:00

While shelf space is always at a premium in our house, one thing we strive to do is make room for quality books and resources we can use for years to come. Deseret Book sent my family just such a resource last month – Great American Documents for Latter-day Saint Families. Gathered between the red hardcover are pages upon pages of documents important to the history of our nation with footnotes, timelines, historical explanations of the role a document played, photographs, explanations, and more.

The book covers 18 documents from American history, arranged chronologically:

The Mayflower Compact (1620)
John Winthrop’s Speech: “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)
Common Sense (1776)
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
The Constitution of the United States of America (1787)
The Bill of Rights (1789)
George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)
Thomas Jefferson’s Confidential Letter to Congress (1803)
The Star-Spangled Banner (1814)
The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861)
The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
The Gettysburg Address (1863)
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865)
The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (1920)
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961)
Martin Luther King’s Speech: I Have a Dream (1963)
Ronald Reagan’s Speech: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc (1984)

Each document is introduced, giving your family information about life and current events in America surrounding each document. This is priceless because it gives us a frame of reference. Then you begin to read each document in the original wording. Have you ever sat down to try and read the US Constitution? In all honesty it is a challenging thing to understand as an adult. However Great American Documents makes this and each item completely understandable for the entire family. Let me explain how it does that! On any given page you’ll notice words highlighted in blue, superscript numbers next to ideas, even icons. Each of these clues lead you to look at the bottom half of the page, where words are defined, ideas are explained, questions to ponder are posed, synonyms are offered, and scriptures or words of the prophets and apostles are included. While I found it fascinating to read just for myself, I can just imagine what wonderful opportunities this single volume will offer to our family when we study American history. For my younger children history will be made more interesting simply by the included pictures and definitions, while an older child could use this book as an in-depth study independently, or with a parent as their study partner. Great American Documents for Latter-day Saint Families has earned a place on our shelves for many years to come.

{Disclaimer: I received this book free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Special Posts This Week

2011-11-07T17:25:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to offer my readers a heads-up that this week I decided to have a special week here on the blog. Each day for seven days you’re going to be able to read a product review, and four of those reviews will have giveaways to enter! Come back every day to learn what my family thinks about the following items:

Monday	We Choose Virtues
Tuesday	Great American Documents for Latter-day Saint Families
Wednesday	Pick and Draw card game
Thursday	Jacob T. Marley by R. William Bennett
Friday	Nephi and the Brass Plates DVD – The Living Scriptures
Saturday	Who’s Your Idol? talk on cd by Carmen Rasmusen
Sunday	Morphology game

I will also be guest posting about faith tomorrow at The More the Merrier, posting at Latter-Day Homeschooling on our favorite Thanksgiving book on Thursday, and writing some general posts here at Our Busy Homeschool. It’s a busy week, but I’ve pre-written and scheduled most of the posts.

I hope you all enjoy it!

We Choose Virtues Review and Giveaway

2011-11-07T04:22:00.000-05:00

Our character is the sum of the many daily responses we choose in the situations that confront us. These responses become habits, which become our character. A person who has the characteristic of attentiveness is habitually attentive - paying attention to what goes on around them. A person who has the characteristic of honesty has made it a habit of always telling the truth, no matter the consequences.
My husband and I went looking for a character curriculum that would give us tools to encourage our family to develop positive character qualities. We wanted something fun, child-friendly, and easy to implement. We found We Choose Virtues and sought out the opportunity to review some of their products. We received two products: The Kids Virtue Poster – This poster lists all 12 virtues, with a small picture of the child that represents each virtue, and the helps on what that virtue is and is not. The Teacher Virtue Cards – This set of 12 cards is the heart of what we used. The front of each card is has the virtue you’re focusing on with the child who represents it. One thing we loved right off is that each virtue has both a positive catchphrase defining the virtue and the antonym defining the opposite, both on the front of the card. There is also a scripture verse related to the virtue (The card uses the NIrV, but as we use the King James Version of the Bible we just printed out the verse to hang on the mantle.). The back of each Teacher Card has an inspiring story of how the child character learns the virtue, a Virtue users challenge, teachable moments, "What to say after 'I'm sorry'", and more.

How We’ve Used We Choose Virtues

It’s been simple! We introduce our children to the new virtue by holding up the teacher card and looking over the front first. We read aloud the catchphrase telling us positive ways we demonstrate that virtue. For “I am Gentle” the catchphrase is “I speak quietly and touch softly.” We read the antonym as well “I am NOT…rough, harsh, or loud, and I don’t destroy things or hurt people.” We invite the children to look closely at the child pictured on the card and ask them to tell us what they see. One of the things my little ones saw right away on the card for gentle was that the little girl has an animal peeking out of her pocket. Each virtue child has a special object with them.
That is when we read the child’s story from the back of the teacher card to learn how they relate to the virtue and why they have their special item. Gentle Jill works in a pet store and has learned that her friend the gerbil will only stay in her pocket when she’s quiet and gentle. We talk about why that is, and when we might need to be gentle in our everyday lives.
On subsequent days we use the teachable moments and other ideas from the back of the Teacher Virtue Cards after reviewing the catchphrase and antonym. We also use the poster on a daily basis as we ‘catch’ the children doing a virtue, or as we correct a child who is not remembering a virtue. In both instances they are brought to the poster. If we have caught them being good we praise them for being “gentle like Jill” and specifically telling them what we noticed them doing. If correcting them we ask what virtue they think they were forgetting to use. We point it out and have them repeat the catchphrase and antonym and talk briefly about what part they were having trouble with.

Final Thoughts

We Choose Virtues has give us an easy way to be consistent in our efforts to build positive character traits. It has also helped us define the negative aspects to our children and inspire them to work for the positive. We are seeing progress with our entire family as we are consistent. We’ve enjoyed We Choose Virtues so much that I’m an affiliate. That means I can share the newest coupon codes with you, so here they are:

“family” for $3.00 off the Kids Virtue Poster, no expiration date set
“Virtue15” for 15% off your entire shopping cart, no expiration date set
“ourhouse” for $15.00 off the new Family Kit, November only.

You may use one code per order, but you may just want to wait a bit because I have . . .

A Giveaway for You!

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED.

The generous folks at We Choose Virtues are offering one of my readers the same package we received, the Kids Virtue Poster and Teacher Virtue Cards. There are several ways to enter:

Leave a comment telling me you want to win! Be sure to include your email address in this first comment please.
Visit We Choose Virtues and tell me what animal is next to the company logo at the top of the page.
Leave a comment telling me one virtue your family needs to work on.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool and tell me how you do (email, Google Friend Connect, etc).

Giveaway is open to US residents only and ends on Saturday Nov. 12, 2011 at 6:00am. Winner will be drawn by Random.org.
{Disclaimer: I received these products free in exchange for an honest review, as well as one set to give away. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Week Three of Memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World

2011-11-06T08:24:00.000-05:00

We are heading into our third week of memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World at our house. Week two had wonderful opportunities to learn about the plan of salvation. The children did find the words of week 2’s section to be challenging, so we’re not as solid on it as I had hoped. That’s okay though! Because we say everything we’ve learned every time we recite they’ll get lots more practice as we move on with week 3.

Here is what we’ll be memorizing this week:

“Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.

The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. “

I love talking about the temple with my children. If things work out this week we will take a trip up to the Columbus Ohio Temple with the children to walk about the grounds and feel the spirit there. We’ve pulled out our wedding day pictures and will talk with the children about how we felt that day at the temple.

We’ll talk about what a blessing it is to have children whenever God sends them, as well. It has become more obvious to my little ones that the world does not value children like God does as they hear the increasing comments on our family size with this 7th baby.

It has also been an interesting pregnancy as relates to my oldest, Makayla. She’s about ten and a half and very aware this time of the less than easy aspects of pregnancy like morning sickness that stretches on for 4 months, difficulty holding the current baby and toddler with my expanding belly, the many trips to the bathroom. She has also had some very deep conversations with us related to what a precious gift we know Mason will be, even though the doctors and the world in general see his spina bifida and other challenges as a bad thing. We know, and so does she, that God makes no mistakes. He created Mason’s body exactly the way it is for a purpose, and He is sending Mason to our family on purpose.

There are many resources that can be used this week relating to the temple, so I thought I would link up a few of them here for you if you want some lessons to build from. There are a lot more, just search the church website for temples, eternal marriage, and so on.

Temples – This is the church’s page about why we build temples, a great place to begin!
My Family Can Be Together Forever (from the Nursery manual)
Questions and Answers About Temples for Children – from the October 2009 Friend magazine.
The Blessings of the Temple (Young Women’s manual)
Temple Marriage (Young Women’s manual)
The Mountain of the Lord dvd – We’ll watch this again, it’s about the building of the Salt Lake Temple – which took 40 years!
Preparing Now for Temple Marriage (Young Men’s manual)

In case you want to find the free printables I made for memorizing the Proclamation or to follow our journey here are the links:

How are your family’s memorization efforts going, whether you're memorizing the Proclamation with us or something else all together? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Saturday Morning Family Field Trip–COSI

2011-11-05T16:57:00.001-04:00

I just have a minute to share some pictures. Today we made a family trip to COSI, the science center in the big city nearby. We last went a few months ago. Today happened to be Get Fit Family Day and we were so busy playing and keeping track of children that I really did not get many pictures taken, and the ones I took are not all that great. Oh well! In the new Dora and Diego play area my little ones had fun and my big ones helped keep track of their little siblings by playing with them. It’s a hard life, but somebody’s gotta live it…LOL! This is hard to see but as the kids put stars in the wall they lit up and made constellations. Caleb tried to help Oliver, then got distracted by other things. Up in the two galleries for the Get Fit Family Day there were activities everywhere. The kids tried all the following that I remember:

Kicking soccer balls, some of the time with the Colulmbus Crew.
Hitting baseballs.
Throwing footballs.
Basketball.
A mini-hockey game.
Bikes to ride even for Oliver and Daniel’s size.
An inflatable bounce house/obstacle course.

Emma was watching where her soccer ball went and quite excited about it! There were also science stations to learn more about our bodies up here. This one was about sugar and starch in foods. The boys also put together a life size skeleton. Everyone but Mommy and Caleb ended up participating in the Incredible Human Machine show as well. This picture shows Daddy, who was being ‘x-rayed’ as we learned about body systems.

We visited other exhibits while we were there today but I really didn’t get any pictures. We finished our visit off with the Ocean area and I think all the kids were wet from playing with the different water activities.

What did you do with your Saturday morning?

My Five Things for Friday {Homeschool, Sleep, Pregnancy, Scriptures, and More}

2011-11-04T12:54:00.001-04:00

{1}

We’ve settled into a great routine for homeschool to take us from now through Christmas. The focus is on the basics, which we knock out each morning fairly easily. Basics for us are scriptures and memory work, math, reading, writing. Then I am trying to be more intentional about following the children’s lead for learning the rest of the day. For example, yesterday Makayla wanted to play Scrabble Junior. That game has two sides to the board. One has the words written on it and you simply match letter tiles and get points for finishing a word (great to play even with Daniel and Oliver, who can match letters!). The other side is a blank Scrabble grid with word ideas along the outside border. It was the first time she wanted to use the blank side. It makes me excited that I will have a real scrabble partner someday soon!

Another day this week Emma wanted to do use a magnifying glass to study things, Joseph chose to learn more about robots, and Makayla was researching information about specific plants because she’s already planning her garden for this spring. Several of the children have been birdwatching as well.

I have a goal to grab different materials out to explore in the afternoons when nobody has a pressing desire to learn about something specific. It may be art materials and one of our Artistic Pursuits books for some art history as well, puzzles, games, a history book, or one of our science kits. Some of the science stuff we have on hand right now are:

Owl pellets to dissect.
Chemistry kit.
Crystals kit.
Snap Circuits – electricity kit.
Simple machines set.
Flight exploration kit.

{2}

Sleep habits are progressing for Oliver and Caleb. Caleb is waking 1-2 times a night and once even slept through the night this week. He is also more willing to drink out of a sippy cup, not excited about it, but at least willing, and the pacifier is only used when he’s going to sleep. It should disappear completely by Thanksgiving. Oliver is still going to bed ‘like the big kids’. He and Daniel have some nights where they have a hard time staying in bed quietly, but we’re getting there. Oliver is about to tackle potty training. I’ve picked up some underware and just need to choose a day to begin.

{3}

My belly seems to have grown a lot this week. Nope, I’m not sharing a picture, you’ll just have to trust me. It’s getting in the way when I cook, Oliver and Caleb can stand under my belly now without being seen, and I just seem to have popped out even more. It’s crazy. At least my weight gain isn’t out of the ordinary. Looking back at my last recorded weight before this pregnancy (194 lbs.) tells me I’ve only gained 11 lbs. That’s darn near amazing considering my usual gain approaches or passes 50 lbs. Less than 11 weeks to go means that even if I gain a pound a week I’m still going to be under a 25 lb. gain for the whole pregnancy. It’s a small miracle, but I’ll take it!

Of course the hormones seem to grow with the belly. I cry over random things, I grouch over random things, I’m a regular old mess. Some days I have tons of energy and others find me falling asleep before the kids bedtime. I’m even losing sleep, which I explained over on Mason’s Spina Bifida Journal this morning.

{4}

I started re-reading the Book of Mormon on Tuesday. My goal is to finish it by the end of December. I’ve printed out a bookmark that lists all the chapters because I’m giving myself the freedom to skip around when I want. For example, after I read all 22 chapters of 1 Nephi I skipped ahead and read Enos, Jarom, Omni, and Words of Mormon. I’m enjoying it a lot, as always.

I also have a half-formed idea in my mind. I’ve had the set of scriptures I’m using since about age 11 or 12. I remember picking them out when my family went to the Washington D.C. temple to be sealed. I’ve used them through seminary, institute classes, and beyond. They’re familiar, with notes in the margin, highlighting, underlining, and more. The good part is all of that brings back memories of past lessons learned. And yet I am thinking seriously about buying a new set of scriptures to begin using in January as a Christmas present. I want to start out fresh an not be distracted by past notes. I want to have a specific plan in mind for highlighting/underlining in a color-coded, non-random way. What do you think? Will I be able to let go of my old, familiar set and start anew? Would you?

{5}

I have several reviews coming in the next two weeks, so be prepared! I will share about books, a drawing/card game, a DVD, and a character curriculum. Several giveaways will be happening too. On that note, the winner of the It’s Christmas Time CD by Eclipse, drawn by Random.org is:

momof7 said...

Thanks Tristan,
My e-mail is itsallboys@yahoo.com
I LOVE CHRISTMAS and it is only 55 days away!!! I would love to find a way to keep the feelings of Christmas all year round. Thanks for introducing me to this beautiful Christmas music.
Shelly

Congratulations Shelly!!

That’s all for my Friday. Be sure to check out Five Things for Friday and the Weekly Wrap-Up, which I’ve linked up to.

Writing Changes are a Hit So Far

2011-11-03T13:36:00.000-04:00

Recently Joseph(just turned 7) and Emma(about to turn 6) began using WriteShop Primary Level A. We went that route for several reasons, which generally boiled down to “they asked and God nudged”. The curriculum mixes hands-on fun with guided writing (step by step help from mommy) that results in their own stories to use for copywork. The final product is finished off with a crafty way to publish their work, which we’ll begin next week for the first time. Here is a sample of Emma’s work so far: There are several suggested schedules when using Write Shop Primary that have you completing a lesson in 1, 2, or 3 weeks based on the age/ability of your child . There are 10 lessons per level, so one level may last 30 weeks for younger children while you may be able to complete the first 3 levels in a single year if beginning with a child on the older end of the range. They even share scheduling possibilities for using more than one WriteShop level in the family. Joseph and Emma both fit Level A, another plus for me.

You can find the scope and sequence of Write Shop Primary (A, B, and C), look at a placement guide, and download a sample lesson from each level.

Each lesson:

Has a theme, such as animals or trains, with book suggestions to go along for reading together.
Teaches a new writing skill, for example constructing a beginning, middle, and end.
Is broken into 8 activity sets, which we generally do at a pace of 1 per day, 3-4 days per week. The activity sets give a predictable routine to the entire unit. Some examples are Guided Writing, Pre-writing Activities, and Publishing. These include games as well.
Gives suggestions to adapt the material to fit your child’s abilities.

Both children seem to enjoy the process with WriteShop. We simply take a few minutes to sit together at the table, with one child on either side of me and do the activity. For writing days I have a lined dry erase board, they each have lined paper printed with our StartWrite software. Here is a sample of Joseph’s work:The first theme is animals and we have had fun writing about pets we’ve had, animals that would make strange pets, our favorite animals, and more. We’ve read books about animals at the suggestion of the lesson to get more ideas rolling. Best of all it makes writing seem like play.

The only drawback to WriteShop is also one of it’s benefits. It takes mom’s time. You are a key part of the lessons and must be able to sit down and have this special time with your writers. The perk on the flip side is that once I’ve prepared all the activity sets for a lesson writing really is grab-and-go for a few weeks (depending on the schedule we choose). Not only that, the creativity and crafty fun is already planned in for me. That’s a great help because in all honesty I’m not that creative/crafty on a day to day basis.

Some of you may remember me mention that this year Makayla, my 10 year old, has decided that math is not so bad while writing is ‘the worst subject ever’. It’s a great trade off for me because I was really tired of the math battles. We did IEW’s Story Quest over the summer with some friends and lately have been using IEW’s All Things Fun and Fascinating. Makayla likes the predictable aspect of having a checklist to know exactly what she had to do to get writing over with. Sadly writing was still drudgery to be endured, not enjoyed. Last week I got an email that WriteShop was ready to release the first level of their WriteShop Junior program (Level D, for 3rd-5th graders). I downloaded the free sample lesson, poured through it, prayed about it, counseled with my husband, and even checked with Makayla. While it requires more of my time it is full of games, projects, and fun – everything that her current program is missing.

The verdict: Buy it. We even got the special pre-order price with a free Time Saver Pack being mailed to us and no shipping costs, saving us about $30.00 for the level. Oh, and I chose e-book format, which means it’s reusable for the rest of my kiddos when they’re ready.

Here is a project she’s already done this week, while learning about the parts of a letter of invitation: WriteShop Junior is laid out similarly to the Primary level with 8 activity sets in each lesson. It incorporates grammar for each lesson, and offers specific ideas for tweaking the writing project difficulty to fit your child. Here is a peek at the punctuation Fold-N-Learn for this lesson’s grammar:Level D’s lessons cover the following writing styles/forms:

Letter of Invitation
Humor
Adventure
Science Fiction
Mystery
Poetry/Haiku
Folktales
Historical Fiction
Personal Narrative
Expository Writing: Factual Article

Again there are several schedule possibilities included in the teacher’s manual to complete each lesson in varying amounts of time, as well as schedules to combine children in multiple levels. For the moment we’re simply doing one activity set per day, getting into the swing of things. The first lesson is on writing a letter of invitation. Here are some pre-writing and journal activities she’s done so far:

What does Makayla think after looking through the upcoming lessons and activities?

“I like that I spend time writing with you mom and I like the activities and games. I think writing is more fun this way.”

Yay! I’m hoping that new attitude sticks around for a while.

What do you use for writing with your children? Have you got any reluctant writers like my Makayla? Have you ever tried WriteShop’s products?

Free Around the Web

2011-11-01T14:34:00.000-04:00

Homeschooling can be as expensive or frugal a venture as you want to make it.

I’ve learned over the years that there are seasons when money is in short supply and so I spend my time finding or making homeschooling materials. There have also been seasons when time has been in shorter supply and we choose to spend money on homeschooling materials instead. When we make purchases one thing we look at is being able to reuse the item for more than one child. There is no one right way, and most often we use a combination of the two.

I thought today I would share some free things I’ve found around the internet that can be used in homeschooling, ones I don’t think I’ve mentioned recently. Enjoy!

Homeschool Share, which is one of my favorite free websites full of unit studies and lapbooks, has just opened a blog today. They already have two calendars available to download that link you to units on Homeschool Share that fit with themes or special days in each month. October and November are available. I’m saving these for future planning, and getting fun ideas for now as well!
Printables for Math U See have been shared at Homeschooling by the Yard. These are just right for my littler ones to have fun using the manipulatives!
Math U See’s official site also offers freebies on their website, including a worksheet generator, online drill game, and free activity pages to go with the Primer level.
With changing seasons there will be new weather to observe. We had a hailstorm yesterday! We love to look through Weather Wiz Kids to learn more about our weather questions and even play a few games.
EdHeads.org has free educational online games we’ve used before (look for the green Choose and Activity tab on the upper right). Everything from a virtual hip replacement to simple machines is here.
Making Friends paper dolls is a site that gives you many dolls to print for both boys and girls.
Crayola has a collection of free coloring pages both fun and educational, as well as crafts and other ideas. Be sure to explore each tab on the left!
SchoolSparks has kindergarten worksheets for many topics, which makes Daniel happy – he loves to feel involved in table time.
SuperTeacherWorksheets is a great site to find worksheets for all my children’s ages! They have math pages on topics from addition to division, probability, and even symmetry. The Language Arts section has everything from alphabet to grammar pages, writing prompts and punctuation practice, and more. Great for some extra practice on a specific concept! They even have science, social studies, and logic pages to print.

This barely scratches the surface but my computer time is up. Feel free to leave a comment sharing some of your favorite free homeschool finds from the internet!

Miscellany Monday–Random Things

2011-10-31T16:01:00.000-04:00

Today is a perfect day to participate in Miscellany Monday, so that’s just what I’m going to do!

lowercase letters" vspace="none" src="http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt255/ElvishAuthoress/MMbutton3.png">

~1~

Our Family Home Evening lesson on The Plan of Salvation went well. During the lessons everyone helped put together this poster I had colored and cut pieces out for ahead of time.Then they got to work on creating their own. Some don’t really like to color but love the gluing together part. Others love to color. And cut out. And make faces while working.It takes all kinds, right?

~2~

Today’s homeschooling is done and went rather well for a Monday morning. Everyone worked cheerfully, new lessons were begun in math and writing, and Caleb was content to play in the dining room while we worked. We also read two more chapters in Peter and the Starcatchers – it’s really good!

~3~

I have officially decided time needs to slow down. Tomorrow is November! I am NOT ready for Caleb to turn 1 in November. It doesn’t seem like a whole year has passed since he looked like this:But now he looks like this:And to think I’ll have another little man born in less than 12 weeks is a bit daunting. Where does the time go?

~4~

I love my Kindle. Really, who doesn’t love a great big library shrunk down into one itty bitty device that is as thin as a pencil? Now if only it were inexpensive to replace some of the regular books I have on my shelves with the Kindle format. For example, I love The Work and the Glory series enough that the books are falling to pieces quite literally. To replace the whole set (9 books) will cost me almost $90.00 ($9.99 a book). Sigh. I think for Christmas I’ll be replacing some that are in the worst shape, but not all of them. There are several with no spine that are also missing a front or back hardcover as well. They’ll be first on my list.

~5~

Dinner needs cooked soon and unfortunately that means I need to go wash up the muffin pans from lunch. Corralling children to unload the dishwasher is also in order, so it’s time to get moving.

What miscellaneous things are on your mind this Monday?

Week 2 of Memorizing The Family Proclamation Begins

2011-10-30T03:24:00.000-04:00

Did you miss it? Last week I shared free printables to help families memorize The Family: A Proclamation to the World. I broke the Proclamation down into 10 weeks with generally 3 sentences to learn per week. I promised to post our progress each week, so here’s the first report!
Week 1 had us learning the following portion:

“We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.
All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.”

Several times each day we gather the family together to repeat after mommy, daddy, or big sister. The first day we did a family home evening activity on the blessing it is to have bodies. We also took time to discuss the doctrines from this section throughout the week.
By the end of the week we also started ‘taking the reciting challenge’. Anyone who felt ready could recite all by themselves. Anyone who was feeling feisty could also challenge someone else to recite, usually poor daddy, who is not quite as handy at memorization as the children are.
Today we add week 2’s portion to our reciting. One of the keys to really learning and retaining the whole piece is that we recite everything we’ve learned every time. So this week we’ll say week 1’s portion immediately followed by the new material for week 2. It really helps to cement the entire piece.
Week 2’s sentences are as follows:

“Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.
In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave.”

We plan to have a family home evening lesson on the plan of salvation, beginning especially with a focus on our premortal existence with our Father in Heaven. We’ll be using a combination of three Primary manual lessons. I’ve linked them below and you can go read them or even download the lessons with links from each page:

Heavenly Father Has a Plan for Me from Behold Your Little Ones nursery manual – This has a simple lesson for our littlest ones centered around the song I am a Child of God. It also includes a craft page to make a little mobile with words and pictures to go with the lesson.
Heavenly Father’s Plan for Us from Primary 6 Old Testament manual – This lesson, aimed at my older children, gives us scriptures to read and discuss as we use included printed pieces to put together God’s plan visually.
Jesus Christ Was Chosen to be Our Savior from Primary 6 Old Testament manual – This lessons goes more in depth on the account in Moses 4:1-4 and Abraham 3:27-28 of Jesus Christ being chosen in the premortal life to be our Savior, our acceptance of Heavenly Father’s plan, and the War in Heaven where Lucifer(Satan) rebelled.

Most likely we will cover these over several afternoons or evenings throughout the week. I also have a file folder game where the children can practice putting the Plan of Salvation pieces in order.

How is your memorization going? It’s not too late to join us, just start with week 1 and get to work!

I'm also linking this post up at Miss MOE's Memory Monday!

It’s Christmas Time CD by Eclipse–Review & Giveaway

2011-10-29T04:52:00.000-04:00

Christmas is coming and my family loves to begin listening to Christmas music well in advance. Imagine the excitement when we received a new CD to review: It’s Christmas Time by Eclipse, a six member a cappella group, features ten new arrangements of Christmas music for a wide variety of styles. The tracks are as follows:
1. I Saw Three Ships
2. Come All Ye Faithful
3. Shake Up Christmas
4. O Holy Night
5. Need a Little Christmas
6. Christmas as a Child
7. Do You Hear What I Hear?
8. Christmastime
9. Let It Snow
10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
It is simply amazing to hear these gentlemen sing. I can hardly believe there are no instruments, but it’s true. It’s Christmas Time is a joy to listen to! You can go here to listen to previews of each song to see just what I mean.
The wonderful people at Deseret Book are offering one of my readers a free copy of It’s Christmas Time. There are several ways to enter, leave a separate comment for each one you choose to do:

Leave me a comment telling me you want to win! Please include your email address in this first comment so I can reach you if you win.
Go listen to a song preview here and tell me which you listened to.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool via Google Friend Connect, Email, etc. and tell me you do.

This giveaway ends Friday Nov. 4, 2011 at 9:00am Eastern and is open to US residents only. Winner will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner will be drawn.
{Disclaimer: I received a copy of It's Christmas Time free to review from Deseret Book, as well as one to give away. All opinions are my own.}

Heritage History Young Readers Curriculum–A Review

2011-10-28T15:24:00.000-04:00

There are many ways to study history- from textbooks that feed children bites of information and facts to original documents and everything in between. Reading living books that put our family in the time period is what works at my house. When Heritage History offered to let our family review their Young Readers Curriculum, which focuses on the use of living books in electronic format for computer, Kindle, and other e-readers, or to print yourself, we were happy to accept.When our package arrived we found a packet of papers already hole punched called the Study Guide (to place into a binder) and a CD with the Young Reader’s Library – more than 80 books in digital format. Technically, the Study Guide is on the CD, making a printed version optional. The CD holds several file formats for each book enabling us to add each book to any and all of our e-reading devices (computers, laptops, IPod Touch, Kindle) or to print them.

The Study Guide has the following sections:

The Young Readers Teachers’ Guide – This explains the contents of the Young Readers Library, the philosophy behind the Heritage program, historical divisions of books, timeline overviews, and more.
Accountability Forms – A few different forms for keeping track of what your children read each week, or what you read to them.
The Curriculum User Guide – Explains the entire Heritage Curriculum from the earliest ages through high school, what you’ll find in study guides for older ages, and recommended course sequences.
The Electronic Text User Guide – This covers e-readers, how to get the books from the CD onto your e-reader, or how to print out the library and bind it if that is your desire, along with copyright information.

The Young Readers course is organized around five categories:

American History
European History
Ancient History
Bible Stories
Legends and Folklore

Unlike the older student courses, which focus on one civilization per course, young readers are encouraged to begin their acquaintance with characters and civilizations across time. The recommended plan is to read one or more books from each category during your study, and with over 80 books you can continue this exploration of history for several years! The books in the Young Readers Library were all written by children’s authors who loved their subjects and wrote for children – making the books interesting and engaging.

While good readers can work independently and narrate to their parent about what they read, the books also work well as read-alouds. That is the direction our family went for the review period, though I also read some of the books on my own to get a broader view of the contents. We’re using our Kindle to read the books.

One key feature I loved on the CD library was a summary of each book and each series. I actually printed these out and added them to my binder, divided by category. The title of a book does not always give you a great idea of its contents, but a summary does. As I wanted to fit our reading in with our existing history studies this was priceless. I’ll share just a few examples of what we’ve read so far.From the European History section we are currently reading The Story of Captain Cook by John Lang. Looking in the Teacher’s Guide I was able to see that this book, if printed, would take 34 sheets of paper, which makes a story just under 70 pages long. All of my children are enjoying this biography because it is written with children in mind. It begins by introducing us to James Cook as a boy, taking us through his early life and learning before we discover the man he was to become. In the Ancient History category we couldn’t resist reading Milo Winter’s Aesop for Children. Being familiar with several of Aesop’s fables, my children were delighted to discover new-to-them fables that included illustrations from the original book. The fables are also a short and easy read to slip into our day, which was fun.

Having just finished our study of Vikings when the Young Readers Curriculum arrived at our house, we took a few days to read portions from several related titles. My 10 year old Makayla especially enjoys biographies. There were times when we would read about someone in our regular history curriculum and she would ask if I had any more books about them. Often, thanks to Heritage History, I did.

Final Thoughts

I really think that for the price you can’t really beat Heritage History’s Young Readers curriculum as a choice to start out a child’s first acquaintance with history! If you’re willing to forgo buying a printed version of the Study Guide (since it is on the CD already) you will only spend $24.99 for 86 books. Those books will give you enough material to last well over a year if you’re following Charlotte Mason’s guidelines to read and savor each living book, giving your child time to live in the story.

I love that it is all centered around stories! There is not a better way for a young child to connect with the facts of history than to have it pulled together into a story. The books included are well-written and we’ve enjoyed every one we’ve read so far.

If you’re wanting a gentle history curriculum for your young readers or wanting a library of quality living books check out Heritage History!

{Disclaimer: I received this product free to review. I was not required to write a positive review, I just really like it. All opinions presented herein are my own.}

Five Things for Friday–Homeschool, life, details

2011-10-28T12:31:00.000-04:00

I love Fridays because they signal the end of the school week, the end of my husband’s work week, and the beginning of concentrated family time all weekend long! I also love taking time to look back over the week and record what we did, or did not, accomplish.

{1}

In homeschool this week we’ve pretty much accomplished all our goals from this post. Makayla did not go on to chapter 7 in math because there was a unit test after her chapter 6 test, but she’ll be ready for it next week. She’s working on her typing and I caught a picture of her working on a final draft for writing. Joseph and Emma are working really hard in their reading to me and I’m seeing Joseph really take a step ahead of Emma in this area. Emma has been spending every spare minute doing art this week, drawing drawing and more drawing. She is definitely my crafty girl. Daniel’s favorite activity this week has been his letter pages from Starfall. He writes and draws and then colors everything he possibly can on each page. Oliver has been coloring and playing. Of course, Caleb just wants to be where the action is. If mommy is in the kitchen so is he. If daddy walks past and heads to the bathroom Caleb follows. When big brothers tromp past with toys in hand he follows. He’s been loving the 3D Feel and Find puzzles we reviewed last June, and here you can see Joseph trying to teach Caleb about the color red.

The children ended up choosing Mary Poppins as our new audiobook. Have you checked your local library for audio books? Mine even offers them in a downloadable format from home – very convenient! I think I need to find the sequels before we finish this one because they’re going to want them. We also started another read aloud book as a family – Peter and the Starcatchers. Wonderfully fun!

{2}

Sleep changes are happening and it makes me so excited. Oliver’s big change is that he goes to bed with the rest of the big kids right into his bed. No more staying downstairs to fall asleep on the couch. I didn’t really have to do anything for this one though – he insisted he wanted to go upstairs with the big kids one night at bedtime, climbed in his toddler bed, and went to sleep. He’s done it every night since. It’s heavenly! Now to tackle naptime…

Caleb’s sleep changes are slower. I’m still hammering out the details of our sleep plan for him (read more here about his sleep). What we’ve started with has been simple:

We make sure to feed him real food shortly before bedtime, not just a bottle.
When he wakes up at night his bottle is only 2 ounces, and only if he insists he wants one. So far he insists (cries and takes out his pacifier to throw it on the floor, looks for his bottle). This will be switched to water in the next week or so to see if we can discourage him even further from wanting a bottle at night.
Put him in his crib really sleepy, but not totally out, giving him the opportunity to settle himself. This is more successful in the middle of the night than during any other time.

What we’re seeing is slow but steady progress. He is waking up less often (twice every night but last night, where he only woke once!). He does still need a diaper change when he wakes, and that is really what is waking him. He’s in cloth diapers and there’s no pretending he’s dry when there aren’t chemicals in the diaper to soak up liquid through a barrier. I’m going to dig out some hemp liners from the basement diaper stash this weekend to see if that helps at all for bedtime diapers.

{3}

I’m so thankful for friends and family who will watch my children when I have doctor’s appointments. Some appointments I just bring along the children. On Tuesday I had a checkup with my midwife and my glucola test for gestational diabetes. The children were well behaved, enjoyed hearing Mason’s heartbeat on dopplar, and were interested or grossed out by the needles and blood draw process. They got to ask questions about machines in the blood lab. An hour and a half appointment was doable with six children, especially when it’s only a few minutes from home.

On Thursday dear friends came over with their three children to watch my six. I had to travel into the neighboring big city for the ultrasound appointment with the perinatologist(see pictures of Mason from that appointment here). Spending nearly an hour laying down for an ultrasound wouldn’t work with six little children along, so leaving them at home is a must.

{4}

Remember that we’re using We Choose Virtues at our house right now? And that I’m an affiliate? That means I can share the newest coupon codes with you, so here they are:

“family” for $3.00 off the Kids Virtue Poster, no expiration date set
“Virtue15” for 15% off your entire shopping cart, no expiration date set
“ourhouse” for $15.00 off the new Family Kit, October and November only

You may use one code per order. In case you’re wondering, yes, I really will be sharing a review of We Choose Virtues in November, which begins next week. Where does the time go?

{5}

There is still a little bit of time to enter my Hillary Weeks CD giveaway – you’ve got until tomorrow morning so go enter! I’ve got another CD review coming up soon to get you in the Christmas spirit. Keep an eye out for it because it will include a giveaway as well.

* * *

That’s all for this Friday. I’m linking up to Five Things for Friday and the Weekly Wrap-Up or at least to their host blogs as they’ve not got their posts up just yet!

Updates and Pictures of Baby Mason

2011-10-27T16:23:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note today to invite you to come visit my newest post about baby Mason on my other blog. Today was ultrasound day and I have some pictures related to his spina bifida and clubfeet to share that help me explain what’s going on with the little guy. Click on Mason’s picture at the top of this post to go directly to that new entry, or click on Mason’s Spina Bifida Journal.

Talking about Books –Book Club

2011-10-26T16:19:00.000-04:00

Book Club rolled around again today – our picture book week this month. My children were thrilled to see their friends as we were in Washington during the last Book Club meeting. It was my turn to bring one of the picture books and I chose Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. In case you’re wondering, no, the book is not like the movie of the same name. It’s better. Books always are, right?

While there were so many different activities that could have come from reading this book, I went with simple this time. Near the end of the book the people of ChewandSwallow use stale bread and food to build boats and sail away from their town, where the weather has become downright destructive. Landing upon a distant shore they use those food boats to build their new homes. The children’s assignment was to draw a ship or a home made out of some of their favorite foods. They worked very hard and no two houses or boats were the same. The second book today was about favorites. It told the story of three bear siblings whose parents assure them they are ALL favorites. The family who brought that book had the children write down one of their favorite things on a slip of paper and we played a guessing game to see who we thought had written each item down. It was fun and funny to hear what some of the children came up with.

After a full morning of play and learning with friends we came home and ate lunch. Not too long afterwards Oliver was quite happy to lay down for a nap: You can just make out his stuffed tarantula behind his head. It’s his favorite toy to sleep with. He picked it out once upon a time at the zoo, when he was not a lot bigger than Caleb is now. He’s had other short term favorites along the way and lately has been trying to confiscate stuffed animals from his siblings’ beds. Daddy and I decided he should get a new stuffed friend for Christmas this year – and we were able to find one that matches a longstanding favorite topic of his – pirates! Want a peek? Cute, cuddly, and pirate-y!

Speaking of pirates, we started a new read aloud today. We’re trying out Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. So far the kids are hooked and so am I.

What are you reading aloud with your children right now?

Some Links to Current Homeschool Materials

2011-10-26T05:58:00.000-04:00

I thought I would share links to some of the materials we’re currently using in our homeschool. We do a mix of things and sometimes readers email to ask where they can find a product I mention, so here goes.

Math U See – Currently we’re using Primer (Daniel), Alpha (Joseph and Emma), and Delta (Makayla).WriteShop Primary A – Just started this with Joseph and Emma and love it! I’ll do a post soon sharing how it not only is for writing, but provides them with personalized copywork of their stories, games, and fun ways to publish their writing – yay!All Things Fun and Fascinating – This writing book from Institute for Excellence in Writing is written for students in 3rd-5th grade and works well for my reluctant writer. She’s currently learning about using a who/which clause while reading and rewriting a portion from the classic The Pilgrim’s Progress. You can watch an introduction to this book here or download a sample here.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World memory work – You can get my free printables for this one here.We Choose Virtues – We’re doing character lessons with this. I’ll have a review and giveaway in November, but until then check out my introductory post here for links.

Young Readers Curriculum – This history set is from Heritage History and I’ll be posting my review late this week or early next. I love that it centers on reading aloud and that it fits in well with our regular history curriculum, which I’ll share next.Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, & Epistles – This is our regular history curriculum from Simply Charlotte Mason. We read living books set in the time periods and it’s so much fun!

Starfall Reading and Writing Journals – This is a freebie Joseph and Emma are using from the free reading website Starfall.com. They’re starting with the Level I book and doing 2 pages per day generally, then we’ll move to level II.

Starfall ABC Printouts – Daniel is using the Level K ABC Printouts that are also free from Starfall.com. You can’t beat free!Typing Instructor for Kids Platinum 5.0 – Makayla has been all the way through this program once. After a nice break of several months she’s tackling it again using a more challenging goal. I linked the title to the site we purchased ours over a year ago because it has wonderful screen shots and descriptions of the entire program, but last I checked you can get it for $5.00 less on Amazon.

I think that covers all the items I’ve mentioned recently that we’re using. If you have questions about any of these, or anything else we use in our homeschool just leave a comment!

First Sleep Logs for Oliver and Caleb

2011-10-25T13:43:00.000-04:00

Did you know that health professionals consider sleeping through the night to be a stretch of 5 hours without waking?

As I mentioned recently we are beginning to focus on some sleep issues at our house. What we have is minor. I remember when Oliver was the baby and Daniel was the toddler - waking 6 times a night between the two was normal life. Things are not nearly that exhausting now.

The issues we’re hoping to change:

Caleb still wakes 2-3 times per night. He also doesn’t go to sleep unless he’s in someone’s arms.
Oliver doesn’t fall asleep in his bed for nap or bedtime. He lays down on the couch and goes to sleep (usually easily). Then I have a 33 pound toddler to carry up to bed at night.

See, like I said, nothing major but still inconvenient. I’ve got a few pages left to read in The No-Cry Sleep Solution, then I’ll be going through The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers as well as a new-to-me book also by the same author – The No-Cry Nap Solution. I love her books for several reasons:

They’re informative. There is a lot of medical knowledge out there related to sleep, she puts it in one place in easy-to-read format.
The approach is gentle and respectful of the child and the parent.
There are many solutions to choose from when making an individualized plan for your child’s individual needs.

Yesterday and last night I did sleep logs for Oliver and Caleb both. I thought I would share them here because then I’ll be able to find them later and see how things are improving.

Oliver is 2 years 8 months old. He woke yesterday morning at 8:30am and then went down for a nap on the couch with his pillow, blanket, and stuffed tarantula at 1:40pm. He slept for 1 h. 35 m. and woke up on his own at 3:15pm. He fell asleep on the couch at 9:25pm. I moved him upstairs to his toddler bed, where he slept until 7:50am today, a 10 hour 25 minute stretch.
Total sleep for the day: 12 hours.
Recommended total sleep for his age: 12-13.5 hours.

Caleb is 11 months old. He woke yesterday morning at8:30am and went down in my arms for his nap at 12:46pm with a bottle and pacifier. I put him in his crib where he slept peacefully for 2 hours and 50 minutes, until 3:35pm. He went to bed in my arms (with a bottle and pacifier) at 7:50pm. Caleb slept for 2 hours 8 minutes before waking at 9:58pm. A diaper change, bottle, and pacifier had him asleep in 9 minutes. He then slept for 3 hours 28 minutes until 1:35am. Repeated the same diaper change, bottle, pacifier routine and he was asleep in 10 minutes. His longest stretch of sleep happened – 4 whole hours – and he woke up at 5:45am for another diaper change, bottle, and pacifier(awake for 10 minutes). 2 hours and 45 minutes later he woke up for the day at 8:30am.
Total night sleep: 12 hours 21 minutes.
Total sleep for the day: 15 hours and 11 minutes.
Recommended total sleep for his age: 13-14 hours.

When you look at it like that you see that neither of my boys is especially lacking in sleep. Even Caleb, with all the night waking, is getting plenty of sleep. In all honesty, I know that as we address his sleep association with the bottle he will begin waking less for the simple fact that he won’t wake up with so many wet diapers. Now seems to be an ideal time to address it as he’s about to say goodbye to bottles all together, and I’m currently in the semi-energetic middle of pregnancy months.

I’m sitting down with my husband this evening to write out our sleep plan for each child. Wish me luck!

Are there any sleep issues bothering your house right now? Have you ever read any of Elizabeth Pantley’s books? She’s got titles on sleep, discipline, and even picky eaters – some of which I hope to read soon.

Every Step -Hillary Weeks CD Review & Giveaway

2011-10-25T04:14:00.000-04:00

Hillary Weeks is one of the artists I love to listen to and today she is releasing a new CD – Every Step. This album features songs written to lift others’ spirits. There are eleven inspirational tracks that remind us we’re not alone on this journey in mortality, even when our path leads us to places we never expected. God is there in the rain and fear and doubt, waiting for us to let Him in. The songs are:

That's Who I Am
Find Me
Right Here
Beautiful Heartbreak
Living Proof
Stand Still
I Will
This Is Not Your Home
Dancing in the Rain
Past the Point
All My Days

You can listen to four of these songs right now here. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Aren’t they great? Well so are the lovely people at Deseret Book who are offering a free copy of Every Step to one of my readers!

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED.
Congratulations to commentor #15:

The Alchemist said...

Thanks for sharing. I'd love to win this CD.

jennebeker at gmail dot com

October 26, 2011 12:25 PM

There are several ways to enter, leave a separate comment for each one you choose to do:

Leave me a comment telling me you want to win! Please include your email address in this first comment so I can reach you if you win.
Go listen to one of the songs I linked above and tell me which you listened to.
Follow Our Busy Homeschool via Google Friend Connect, Email, etc. and tell me you do.

This giveaway ends Saturday at 9:00am Eastern and is open to US residents only. Winner will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner will be drawn.
{Disclaimer: I received a copy of Every Step free to review from Deseret Book, as well as one to give away. All opinions are my own.}

Parenting Questions Answered

2011-10-24T18:34:00.000-04:00

A friend emailed me two questions a few weeks ago that I am just now getting around to answering. Her questions relate to children who should be sleeping, and a little boy acting out.

“4 yo son and 2 yo son share a room, both take naps but 4yo will literally play and hassle with the 2yo instead. He also gets up and plays and then will come out of his room before I go get him, and then wakes up his brother. How do you get your kids to not bother the ones sleeping?”

Our boy bedroom currently has the 7, 4, and 2 year old, while the 10 and almost 6yo girl share the other bedroom and the 11 month old is in mommy and daddy’s bedroom. At naptime the current routine is to divide and conquer – the 7yo and 4yo go into their beds, the 2yo falls asleep on the couch downstairs. {Prior to this we had my 7yo in my bed so his now 4yo brother could nap. As Daniel(4) is napping less we’re putting them together.}

Our rules are as follows:

You must stay on your bed. Period. I will confiscate any toy you get out of bed to play with – locked away for a week or longer. If you get up out of quiet time you go to bed earlier by 5 minutes for each infraction (or you can add time onto how long they must stay in bed for quiet time).
You may have a stack of books to look at, these must be grabbed before getting on your bed at the beginning of quiet time.
After the 2yo has fallen asleep I will turn on an audio book in the hall for other children to listen to. This helps tremendously for the non-readers.

My suggestions for your situation would be to try to divide and conquer. Give the 4yo a separate place to begin (the couch, your bed, a blanket on the floor in the hall) and when his little brother is asleep move the 4yo into his bed. An audio book with headphones may help if he likes listening to books. When Joseph was the little guy he needed a clock in his room to see the time, with the number written that he needed to get to before quiet time was over.

Kris’ other question is somewhat related:

“My oldest son will be 5 in January & has recently started acting out more. He has also started getting up and waking up his siblings around 5AM … my 2yo is really missing sleep here. I guess overall I wanted to know if there is anything you could suggest I do? We have tried redirecting him, and I do allow him books in bed, I don’t allow TV.”

Let me start by saying he sounds like a normal 4 year old boy. Not too comforting, I know. He’s right on the edge of preschooler and little boy. Some days he acts like a 3 year old, other days he’s trying on 5yo boy ways. It’s exhausting for him - and you! Things you wouldn’t blink at him doing if he were still 3 are suddenly more frustrating simply because he’s ‘almost 5’.

What I would do is set up specific expectations and consequences. We have an early riser and he has learned he must stay in his bed until the clock says 7:00am. No lights on, no waking others. Like you, we don’t want to just let him go watch tv until others are ready to get up. He is allowed to look out his window, lay there, or sleep. Consequences for waking a sibling before 7am at our house would depend on the child – what is important to them? For one child it is Legos, so he would lose Legos that day if he had climbed onto the sibling’s bed and woke them. For another they might earn an extra quiet time, extra chores, etc.

Are you awake before 7am or whatever time you think the 2yo needs to be sleeping to? If so then you could also let your son come downstairs where you are with books when you are already up. I do this for Joseph. If he sees the light on downstairs before 7am it means I’m up and he can come down (he may not wake me up though). He can lay on the couch, read a book, etc. He must stay quiet because this is MY quiet time reading scriptures and waking up. If he isn’t quiet he goes back to bed until 7am.

Other reasons for the acting out:

Is he needing more mom time/attention? Sometimes it’s easy to spend the majority of my time tending little ones or those who fuss. All of a sudden one of my normally quiet kids will start acting out because they’re needing my attention and the ‘squeaky wheel’ is what gets the attention. Try making a point to have some positive time with him, just a snuggle here, and book there, an invitation to be mom’s helper for a specific chore. It’s not all play but it is all time with you and your attention.
Is he getting enough exercise/movement in his day? With wet/cold weather it gets easy to end up stuck in the house all day telling kids to ‘stop running’ and ‘play quietly’. God made us for motion and children truly need to run and play and use those muscles every day. They need physical work, be it jumping on an indoor trampoline or running circles or helping lift and carry laundry for mom. When they don’t get enough energy out it gets redirected in less desirable ways (acting out).

I’m right there with you in the boy department, as you know. My boys right now are 7, 4, 2, and almost 1. They have far more energy than a nuclear reactor. The only other thing I really recommend is having a routine to your days. It gives everyone a rut to run in, predictability. Try planning specific active times, quieter activities, food, and so on.

Oh, and enjoy every moment. They don’t stay little forever, even if it seems like it right now. Soon enough they’ll go to bed and sleep without fuss, you’ll have to drag them out of bed in the morning, and things will be different – still good, but different.

Do you have questions for me? I love sharing with others what works and what doesn’t at my house. I’m happy to field parenting, homeschooling, or large family questions – simply leave a comment on this post or email me at tdrowlee@yahoo.com .

Learning Plans for the Week

2011-10-24T04:55:00.000-04:00

It’s Monday again and we’re ready for a new week of homeschool and life. Around an ultrasound to check on baby Mason, an appointment with my midwife, and book club day we’ve got some regular learning planned. I always do better when I write down the goals so here is what we’re hoping to accomplish this week.

Family

Daily scripture study – We continue in the Old Testament meeting Abraham this week.

Hymns – Practicing some of our recently learned hymns before we start learning new ones.

Memory Work – We’re memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World. We started week one yesterday. You can learn more here and even download the free printables I made to join us each week.

We Choose Virtues – We’ve done three virtues so far and want to spend another week practicing these before we begin another area. We’re currently practicing being gentle, obedient, and kind.

Read Alouds – We’re reading many of the works of Beatrix Potter for book club this month. They’re listening to some audio books (just finished The Lightning Thief and choosing a new book tomorrow).

History – One more week reading aloud with the Young Reader’s Curriculum from Heritage History. I hope to share my review by the end of the week.

5th Grade

Math – Makayla will be taking the test for chapter 6 in MUS Delta and moving on to chapter 7.

Writing/Language Arts – She’ll do the next chapter in IEW’s All Things Fun and Fascinating. It has her reading an allegory, writing a one paragraph version of the story, and focusing on using quality adjectives, strong verbs, and alliteration. She’s also going to start her typing program over to see if she can improve her WPM and accuracy.

1st Grade/Kindergarten

Math – Joseph and Emma begin lesson 11 in MUS Alpha this week.

Writing/Language Arts – They begin WriteShop A this week with mommy. They’ve discovered the joy of the free Starfall Reading and Writing Journals I downloaded, so they’ll do a few more pages in those. They’re also reading to me daily with phonics practice in areas where they need it.

Preschool

Math – Daniel has been doing MUS Primer for fun each day. Honestly, he begs to do math and loves it. Oliver is working on counting past 10 and practicing colors.

Writing/Language Arts – Daniel will be using the free alphabet pages from Starfall.com and reading to me from some of our early readers. Oliver is playing alphabet games with some letter manipulatives we have.

* * * *

That’s the plan for the kids. My learning this week is all about sleep. I’m re-reading The No-Cry Sleep Solution and The No-Cry Sleep Solution for toddlers and preschoolers – both by Elizabeth Pantley. Caleb will be transitioning to a toddler bed in the girls’ bedroom and saying goodbye to his pacifier. Oliver will be learning to lay down in his bed to go to sleep instead of drifting off on the couch and having mommy carry him up to bed each night.

I also have two books to read and review: Jacob T. Marley by R. William Bennett and Great American Documents for Latter-Day Saint Families. I haven’t decided which one I’ll begin first, and if I don’t hurry Makayla may steal Jacob T. Marley off my desk and read it first.

What are you reading or learning about this week?

Memorize The Family: A Proclamation to the World with Us!

2011-10-23T03:35:00.000-04:00

It’s time for some memory work! Would you like to join us? Read all the way to the bottom for a free file to print with bite-size sections!

I have a testimony of the blessings and importance of families. They are God’s chosen pattern for His children’s happiness and growth. Families come in all shapes and sizes, through many different circumstances. Satan is attacking our families like never before. The Family: A Proclamation to the World was written by inspired prophets and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ to give us direction in how to strengthen and protect our families.

I know that the doctrines taught in this Proclamation, when acted upon diligently, will bring us happiness now and in eternity. Memorizing these inspired words will offer us a continual reminder of ways to combat Satan’s attacks on our families, of ways to develop our relationships for eternity.

Join my family in memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The plan is simple. I have divided the Proclamation into 10 weeks with generally 3 sentences to learn each week. At our house we’ve found the simplest way to memorize anything is to read it out loud together, with mom or dad saying a phrase at a time and waiting for everyone else to repeat it. Even non-readers can do this! We try to recite several times each day, such as at every meal and before bed. Just those four practices per day will have us all repeating the new material 28 times in one week. Usually everyone is able to say the memory work in unison at that point.

When a new week comes around we keep saying the part we’ve learned and start adding on the new section. Again, just keep saying it together and by the end of the week you’ll have said the material from week one 56 times and the material from week two 28 times. Can you see where we’re going with this? In 10 weeks you will have said some portions of the Proclamation over 250 times! Do you think you’ll know it by then? Oh yes!

To make it easy for everyone I’ve prepared some simple free printables, which you can download at the bottom of this post. Page 2 of this file is the entire Proclamation on one page. Pages 3-12 contain the Proclamation broken down into 10 weeks of memorization bites. Pages 13-19 have the Proclamation separated into sentences. We plan to cut each sentence apart and let the children practice putting the Proclamation in order, adding in new sentences each week to the game.

I hope you find this file helpful, but let me just say this – DOWNLOAD the .doc format! For some reason when Scribd converts this to a pdf is messes up the alignment and words end up shifting to the wrong page. Grr. Remember, the easiest way to eat an elephant (or memorize a long passage) is a bite at a time. I will post our progress each Sunday on and would love to hear your progress! Go start Week 1!

Memorize the Family Proclamation

Happy Memorizing!

Five Things for Friday–Christmas, New Stages, Writing, and more!

2011-10-21T16:02:00.001-04:00

{1}

Christmas planning has commenced. We’re partway done with Christmas shopping for the kids - easy when we only buy a few gifts each. We’re deciding what special books will be read in December. Christmas with the Prophets has made our list so far for sure. We’re picking the Christmas hymns we’ll be practicing – here is last year’s list. Most likely we’ll stick with some of those, but I do want to see which ones Makayla is working on in piano as well, she can get extra practice accompanying us.

{2}

It’s time to start moving little guys into new stages. Caleb is 11 months old so we’re hoping to say goodbye to bottles and his pacifier in the next 4 weeks. Oliver is 2 years 8 months old and he’ll be potty training in the next 4 weeks as well. I’m going to re-read my favorite potty book first – The No-Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I really love all her books. As a matter of fact it is probably time to re-read her sleep books because Caleb is running out of time sleeping in the crib in mommy and daddy’s bedroom. Mason will need it. Caleb will join his 3 big brothers in the boy’s room and sleeping through the night would make that easier.

{3}

I’m grateful for a dry day today. It’s not sunny, but it finally stopped raining. All we’ve seen for two and a half days is rain, rain, rain. I had hoped to leave all that behind in Washington at my sister’s house, but she tells me they’ve gotten our sunshine instead. It figures.

{4}

I’ve been reading through the WriteShop blog the last few days. Their blog has been active for several years and contains lots of fun ideas. Remember how I mentioned here that God gives me directions unexpectedly? Joseph and Emma have been asking to do “writing lessons” like Makayla does with her IEW materials. I don’t think little ones need writing lessons – they need books read aloud, narration, and copywork for now – so I kept putting them off. God finally gave me the nudge to look at WriteShop Primary A. Lo and behold it uses narration, copywork, reading books, games, crafts for publishing the children’s writing, and is very gentle and fun. I bought it this week (less than $30.00 for the ebook version) and hope to have our writing center all ready to roll out Monday morning. It’s so easy that I may even let Makayla take a turn ‘teaching’ once a week. She enjoys that and so do her siblings.

{5}

I think nesting is setting in early. Everywhere I look I see things I want to rearrange, donate to Goodwill, or throw in the trash. I think I need to set time aside on Tuesdays to work on it because trash day is Wednesdays. I could keep a box on the porch for items to donate too. Hmm. I wonder if I can convince the kids it’s time to go through their toys again? Now would also be a great time to work on organizing the attic storage because it’s no longer 100 degrees up there.

Well, those are my Five Things for Friday. I’m linking up with Heather over at Women in the Scriptures, why don’t you come on over and join me?

Ten Weeks to 2012

2011-10-21T11:03:00.000-04:00

Autumn seems short and I realized that as of Saturday we have 10 weeks left in 2011! That is the official point where Mason is no longer considered preterm. Our current goal is staying pregnant at least until then. I go next week for another Level 2 ultrasound to check his growth. Hopefully we’ll see no signs of hydrocephalus yet,(fluid backing up in the brain), which is the one big thing that would push us into an early delivery.

All of these realizations have also pushed to the front of my mind the fact that I need to evaluate where we’re at in homeschool and where we hope to be at the end of these 10 weeks. Once Mason is here school will be on hold indefinitely. We just don’t know how long his hospital stay will be, if there will be complications, and how long it will take to adjust to having a seventh child (who happens to have special needs).

One of the blessings of homeschooling is the flexible schedule, which we plan to take full advantage of. Our year doesn’t always end June 1st and begin September 1st. As a matter of fact, most years is doesn’t. I am trying to decide what ‘learning things’ I can prepare ahead so that school becomes grab and go once we’re home and settled with Mason, but I can’t really decide all that until I know where we’ll be in 10 weeks with current academics.

So what am I doing to figure that out?

1. Praying – That’s right, my #1 tool right now is prayer. I’m seeking the Lord’s guidance in where we need to focus our efforts for the next 10 weeks, what goals to reach for. I know that if I set my own goals we’re bound to fail. God’s plan is always the one that works best.

2. Evaluating where we’re at in current curricula – How many lessons into math books are we? Have we mastered that material? How are my beginning readers doing? What is the next step on that path? You get the idea….

3. Making the most of our time – As the answers to prayer begin to come line upon line I’m acting on them, instead of waiting around to have the whole picture laid out first. This is one of the harder things for me to do. I like to know the plan in full before I step out on a path. I don’t like uncertainty, surprises, or partial explanations. Yet God seems to delight in giving me directions without explanations, sometimes at the oddest moments, when I’m not actively thinking about homeschool or goals.

Can you believe there are only 10 weeks left in the year?

Read-Aloud Thursday–Beatrix Potter Time!

2011-10-20T07:51:00.000-04:00

I thought I would join Amy at Hope is the Word today for Read-Aloud Thursday. Reading aloud is something we love to do at our house and right now we’re just beginning some new fun. You see, we finally finished Pollyanna yesterday, which was wonderful. (Really, if you’ve never read it please do!) Many of our read aloud books are dictated by the choices we made with our book club friends, and this time is no exception.The next four weeks we’re doing Beatrix Potter month! I’ve read many of her 23 stories over the years with various children. We even own The Beatrix Potter Collection DVD and love it. Last night we began reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit right before bed. Our goal for book club was simple – read The Tale of Peter Rabbit and then any of her other stories we wish in the next four weeks. I don’t have a favorite Beatrix Potter story yet. I can’t wait to find out which ones my children decide are their favorites. I think we’ll grab a children’s biography of Beatrix Potter to read from the library too. I even have some lapbooks handy in case someone decides they need one. The nice thing is that if you don’t have access to her books in printed format they’re available free online. You can get them from Amazon in Kindle format for free without illustrations(and there’s a free Kindle app to read them with if you don’t have a Kindle), or you can find a lot of them with or without illustrations on Project Gutenberg.

What have you been reading aloud lately?

Family Scripture Study Right Now

2011-10-19T19:05:00.001-04:00

“Never let a day go by without holding family prayer and family scripture study. Put this, the Lord’s program, to the test; and see if it does not bless your home with greater peace, hope, love, and faith.” – Elder L. Tom Perry

One of my essential priorities I mentioned yesterday is studying the scriptures as a family. We’re like any other family with lots of young children who find that it’s not always easy to gather everyone in one spot and it’s not always reverent once we’re together. Sometimes it is hard to feel the spirit while wrestling the 2 year old off his big brother, keeping the 10 month old from eating the pages of the scriptures, and having an attitude from the 10 year old who was in the middle of “a really good part in my book, mom”. It’s still worth the effort!

Over the years we’ve done family scripture study many different ways including:

Reading children’s scripture readers.
Reading directly from the scriptures.
Telling the story while looking at related pictures from the Gospel Art Book.
Acting out the stories as we read.
Drawing the stories while listening to mom or dad read.

We have recently started reading through the Bible with our children, beginning in Genesis. While reading every word is a great goal, it’s just not realistic with four of our six children age five or younger. We’re using The Storied Scriptures plan available for free here instead. It focuses on reading the most memorable stories directly from the scriptures in manageable portions.

I printed out the Old Testament chart and each day we read and talk about the next section. Everyone takes a turn reading at least one verse, repeating after an older helper if needed. We take time to ask questions, to define words, and to really understand the day’s reading.

One helpful thing we’ve done is gather everyone’s scriptures into a crate that lives in the main room of our home. There is no waiting for everyone to track down their scriptures, we just grab the crate. A pencil and the reading chart are kept in the crate as well. I think tonight I’ll be adding in some crayons and paper on clipboards to give little hands a place to draw what we’re reading if they’re having trouble sitting still.

What works for your family in scripture study?

Any favorite tips for getting it done with little ones in the mix? I’m all ears!