It's been awhile since I did a 7 Quick Takes! Not much time for editing, so please excuse my mistakes!
1) We are on Thanksgiving Break! Yes!! I have some cleaning projects to accomplish this week. I also need to finish up the Advent plans.
2) The boys are really enjoying The Mitchell's Five For Victory as a read aloud. They actually request it over reading Redwall. Redwall is an action adventure, so this is a big surprise that melts my heart. I ordered Candian Summer, the second book in the trilogy for a Christmas gift (surprise boys!-Caleb usually reads the blog).
3) I've been pushing, pushing and rushing, rushing with math for both boys. It was causing a lot of anxiety on my end and Caleb said he felt rushed too. Turns out that Tyler is right on schedule and there was no need for the rushing. I think I can try a slower pace with Caleb. Honestly we have a lot to still cover before reaching the goal of Algebra in ninth grade. Yet, pushing too fast causes more problems. A little research told me that in our area kids typically take Algebra I in high school. In homeschool curriculum, many times it has kids taking Algebra I in eighth grade. Caleb is on track for ninth grade which turns out to be the norm for our area. It will still be an everyday push, but not a rush. I feel better now!
4) Christmas gifts are all planned. About half are bought. With some online Thanksgiving weekend shopping will put me very close to done! This was a goal of mine because I didn't want to worry about gift shopping during Advent. I like a small amount of shopping, but I hate crowds, so shopping in-store in December is at the bottom of my to-do list. I won't be doing any shopping on Thanksgiving nor will I will shopping at stores that are open on Thanksgiving Day next weekend. This is in support of a cousin of mine who doesn't get much of a Thanksgiving Holiday because she is forced to work Thanksgiving Day so that the store can open at 8 pm.
5) Did you know when you buy a print book from Amazon that you can get the Kindle version for free? This is also true for cds! At least the ones we bought qualify. Sometimes it's hard to decide which version so I like these options.
6) I'm looking forward to visiting family next week! Caleb is pretty excited too since he missed their last visit while at a scout camp out.
7) Books I'm reading: The Mission of Motherhood has been a delightful read. I highly recommend this book! Of course, I'm not too far in, but this book truly speaks to my heart. I was surprised because I read a homeschooling book from the same author and I wasn't impressed. Little House on Rocky Ridge is one that I was pre-reading and decided to stop and I'll be reading this out loud to the boys this coming spring or next school year to go along with history. I'm a lucky mom with boys that enjoy the Little House series! I just got Beauty in the Word yesterday and I'm really looking forward to starting this book.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Mornings Like These . . . .
. . . . makes starting school work really hard. This play time together is so much more important than anything they could learn from a book. It's completely undervalued in today's society, yet its lack is what's wrong with the world today.
** I was suppose to state that Caleb being the mature almost thirteen old he is didn't pick this activity but wanted to show his brother love by participating as asked by his little brother. You can believe that if you want! ; )
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Living Liturgy
Pam over at Everyday Snapshots is starting a Living Liturgy blog series for all of us to build habits of faith in our domestic churches. The first post on Living Liturgy Area of Focus is already posted. Another post has monthly planning details.
I've decided to jump in and join her on this journey. I feel like we do a good job of teaching the faith to our boys and putting God first in our family, BUT because it's priority number one there is always more than can be done and more to learn. It's a never ending wonderful commitment and we are excited to put forth some extra effort. I'm looking forward to learning from others and getting some new ideas. One thing I'm looking forward to in this journey is working together with my husband. It seems like most of the time I dictate the what, how, and when in this area and I'm looking forward to sharing this task together.
I believe Pam is right on with her areas of focus: Prayer, Keeping Sunday, Education, Liturgical Year. So much so that these will be our area of focus too with one small change; Keeping Sunday will be given less focus (at this time).
Following is some notes on our ideas and goals from our initial brainstorming time. I included things we are currently doing, trying to get started and what we want to be doing. I tend to do most of our domestic church activities during the day and some will now be done in the evenings to include Scott. I'm sure to find more as everyone share their own over at Everyday Snapshots.
Prayer:
-monthly Adoration (the boys and I already have a thirty minute spot at our church)
-morning prayer time before school (happens 2 days during the week-need to get done daily!)
-meal time prayer (this some how gets missed)
-praying at bedtime and rising (keep reminding boys to do-recently printed some prayer cards for their use-Caleb needs a new prayer book)
-thinking about purchasing Children's Daily Prayer book
-weekly family Rosary (out of habit at the moment-the boys and I were doing this during school time earlier this year)
Education:
-study of Catechism made top priority (getting done, but needs more focus-and this would be good for parents to do too)
-create a monthly book basket with liturgical titles to be done once (or twice) a week during religion time during school hours
-saint study (already being done)
-spend thirty minutes (or more) a day during school hours on religion education (already being done)
Liturgical Year
-Saint Study during school time (already done but needs work)
-Advent preparation (already being done)
-Christmas preparation (needs improvement during the two weeks we are on break from school during this time)
-Lent Preparation (already being done)
-Easter Preparations (needs improvement-need more details)
-daily Gospel reading (need to move to dinner time and be more consistent)
-celebrate Baptism days
-celebrate saint name days
I have really spent the last week working on plans to celebrate the Liturgical year for the remaining of the year. I put together books on Saints for Novemeber and put them in a basket and put two days in the boys school planner to read from the basket. I'm starting to work on Advent preparations and I will do a separate blog post on those.
I've decided to jump in and join her on this journey. I feel like we do a good job of teaching the faith to our boys and putting God first in our family, BUT because it's priority number one there is always more than can be done and more to learn. It's a never ending wonderful commitment and we are excited to put forth some extra effort. I'm looking forward to learning from others and getting some new ideas. One thing I'm looking forward to in this journey is working together with my husband. It seems like most of the time I dictate the what, how, and when in this area and I'm looking forward to sharing this task together.
I believe Pam is right on with her areas of focus: Prayer, Keeping Sunday, Education, Liturgical Year. So much so that these will be our area of focus too with one small change; Keeping Sunday will be given less focus (at this time).
Following is some notes on our ideas and goals from our initial brainstorming time. I included things we are currently doing, trying to get started and what we want to be doing. I tend to do most of our domestic church activities during the day and some will now be done in the evenings to include Scott. I'm sure to find more as everyone share their own over at Everyday Snapshots.
Prayer:
-monthly Adoration (the boys and I already have a thirty minute spot at our church)
-morning prayer time before school (happens 2 days during the week-need to get done daily!)
-meal time prayer (this some how gets missed)
-praying at bedtime and rising (keep reminding boys to do-recently printed some prayer cards for their use-Caleb needs a new prayer book)
-thinking about purchasing Children's Daily Prayer book
-weekly family Rosary (out of habit at the moment-the boys and I were doing this during school time earlier this year)
Education:
-study of Catechism made top priority (getting done, but needs more focus-and this would be good for parents to do too)
-create a monthly book basket with liturgical titles to be done once (or twice) a week during religion time during school hours
-saint study (already being done)
-spend thirty minutes (or more) a day during school hours on religion education (already being done)
Liturgical Year
-Saint Study during school time (already done but needs work)
-Advent preparation (already being done)
-Christmas preparation (needs improvement during the two weeks we are on break from school during this time)
-Lent Preparation (already being done)
-Easter Preparations (needs improvement-need more details)
-daily Gospel reading (need to move to dinner time and be more consistent)
-celebrate Baptism days
-celebrate saint name days
I have really spent the last week working on plans to celebrate the Liturgical year for the remaining of the year. I put together books on Saints for Novemeber and put them in a basket and put two days in the boys school planner to read from the basket. I'm starting to work on Advent preparations and I will do a separate blog post on those.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
The Challenges of Teaching History (and what is working right now)
History has always been a challenge for me to teach. My boys lack interest in this area. I find subjects they like on occasion but usually they lack interest. It has always been a challenge for me to teach history in a manner that appeals to them.
I'm not a big hands on person . . . . well I am, but it's not a fun activity with my boys. I then had to remind myself that I made this statement a few years ago when I had boys that lacked fine motor skills that made a lot of the projects my doing (to hurry up and just get it done).
I have gone back and forth on teaching them together or apart or some combination for history. Teaching apart is really too time consuming for me. I don't have enough time to plan two separate plans and the time to teach at different times even if covering the same time period. The problem we run into when I teach them together is finding material that is at each of their levels (they are three grades apart). When we do a combination of both I just can't keep it all straight. I've spent a lot of time researching materials, looking at blogs to see how other families handle history, and many hours in prayer.
Our game plan for this year was a state study for Tyler (because I did that with Caleb at this age) and Middle Ages and Renaissance with Caleb. After a ridiculous number of hours later I realized yet again this wasn't going to work. The only changes I had made from previous years was the amount of time I spent planning (much more than normal). I did realize that text books or very thick living books were not going to work for. If you are not a history lover, reading detailed filled books (no matter how enjoyable mom finds them) isn't going to help you gain any interest in history. Keep the reading light and dig deep when an interest is found. Now what do we use to accomplish this? This sent me back to the drawing board.
I become inspired on Jessica's blog, Shower of Roses and I really was intrigued on how she taught history in her home. This made me take a second (or third or fourth, I've lost count) look at Home School in the Woods products. Long story short, I did lots of pondering and figured out how to make these products work for us. I think the biggest obstacle in that decision was the fact that Home School in the Woods products are not Catholic.
After two months we are all happy with our history journey this year!
Want some details? I have combined the boys together and we are using The Middle Ages Passport along with Catholic historical fiction and Saint books. Using Living books is the BIG factor that makes this work for us. The second thing that makes this work for us is that the readings from Middle Ages Passport are living and the length is reasonable and most importantly they keep the boys interested. We do some of the activities suggested. We are also keeping a notebook of the activities. (We won't be doing any lapbooking.) The notebook will come to use when we are finished and need to review over everything we have learned. We have skipped some of the "stops" on subjects that we had a nice living books or topics I just didn't think the boys would care one bit about. We are currently skipping the section on knights just because we have already read so much (from other sources) that it's not necessary to read any more.
I plan to have this finished in the next month. (We may need another month as I was looking at the books I'm still wanting to read.) We will pick up The Renaissance and Reformation after Christmas break in January (looks like February now). Most likely I will use Catholic books to cover the reformation.
After that I hope to spend a few weeks on Missouri history before school ends (standard fourth grade requirement in Missouri-Caleb could use the review). Next year I plan to start where we left off with American History last year using The Early 19th Century and continuing along that path.
No ideas yet on what high school history will look like in our home.
Some books we have enjoyed with the Middle Ages Passport:
Augustine Came to Kent
Favorite Medieval Tales
Saint Benedict
Saint Dominic
Still on our list to read (or just started):
Cathedral
Francis and Clare
The Blue Gonfalon (Emmanual Books has this one.)
Crossbows and Crucifixes
Saint Catherine of Siena
Want some scheduling details? We have been spending two days a week (40 minutes to 1 hour each) on history. The boys also have a "history/science book basket" that they do one day a week in addition. Tyler picked up the Favorite Medieval Tales book to read recently, but Caleb tends to pick science books to read. These books include some random books from the library and some that I purchased but didn't have time to formally assign. Favorites included Ye Castle Stinketh and others in that series. Ones that are still in the basket and not read (and no one seems interested) include The Art of Catapult and Oxford History: The Middle Ages.
I'm planning on doing a post just like this on how science is working for us this year later in the month.
I'm not a big hands on person . . . . well I am, but it's not a fun activity with my boys. I then had to remind myself that I made this statement a few years ago when I had boys that lacked fine motor skills that made a lot of the projects my doing (to hurry up and just get it done).
I have gone back and forth on teaching them together or apart or some combination for history. Teaching apart is really too time consuming for me. I don't have enough time to plan two separate plans and the time to teach at different times even if covering the same time period. The problem we run into when I teach them together is finding material that is at each of their levels (they are three grades apart). When we do a combination of both I just can't keep it all straight. I've spent a lot of time researching materials, looking at blogs to see how other families handle history, and many hours in prayer.
Our game plan for this year was a state study for Tyler (because I did that with Caleb at this age) and Middle Ages and Renaissance with Caleb. After a ridiculous number of hours later I realized yet again this wasn't going to work. The only changes I had made from previous years was the amount of time I spent planning (much more than normal). I did realize that text books or very thick living books were not going to work for. If you are not a history lover, reading detailed filled books (no matter how enjoyable mom finds them) isn't going to help you gain any interest in history. Keep the reading light and dig deep when an interest is found. Now what do we use to accomplish this? This sent me back to the drawing board.
I become inspired on Jessica's blog, Shower of Roses and I really was intrigued on how she taught history in her home. This made me take a second (or third or fourth, I've lost count) look at Home School in the Woods products. Long story short, I did lots of pondering and figured out how to make these products work for us. I think the biggest obstacle in that decision was the fact that Home School in the Woods products are not Catholic.
After two months we are all happy with our history journey this year!
Want some details? I have combined the boys together and we are using The Middle Ages Passport along with Catholic historical fiction and Saint books. Using Living books is the BIG factor that makes this work for us. The second thing that makes this work for us is that the readings from Middle Ages Passport are living and the length is reasonable and most importantly they keep the boys interested. We do some of the activities suggested. We are also keeping a notebook of the activities. (We won't be doing any lapbooking.) The notebook will come to use when we are finished and need to review over everything we have learned. We have skipped some of the "stops" on subjects that we had a nice living books or topics I just didn't think the boys would care one bit about. We are currently skipping the section on knights just because we have already read so much (from other sources) that it's not necessary to read any more.
I plan to have this finished in the next month. (We may need another month as I was looking at the books I'm still wanting to read.) We will pick up The Renaissance and Reformation after Christmas break in January (looks like February now). Most likely I will use Catholic books to cover the reformation.
After that I hope to spend a few weeks on Missouri history before school ends (standard fourth grade requirement in Missouri-Caleb could use the review). Next year I plan to start where we left off with American History last year using The Early 19th Century and continuing along that path.
No ideas yet on what high school history will look like in our home.
Some books we have enjoyed with the Middle Ages Passport:
Augustine Came to Kent
Favorite Medieval Tales
Saint Benedict
Saint Dominic
Still on our list to read (or just started):
Cathedral
Francis and Clare
The Blue Gonfalon (Emmanual Books has this one.)
Crossbows and Crucifixes
Saint Catherine of Siena
Want some scheduling details? We have been spending two days a week (40 minutes to 1 hour each) on history. The boys also have a "history/science book basket" that they do one day a week in addition. Tyler picked up the Favorite Medieval Tales book to read recently, but Caleb tends to pick science books to read. These books include some random books from the library and some that I purchased but didn't have time to formally assign. Favorites included Ye Castle Stinketh and others in that series. Ones that are still in the basket and not read (and no one seems interested) include The Art of Catapult and Oxford History: The Middle Ages.
I'm planning on doing a post just like this on how science is working for us this year later in the month.
One of My Favorite Bloggers is Hosting a Giveaway for the Feast of St. Andrew!
Sarah over at Amongst Lovely Things is one of my favorite bloggers. We have a lot of things in common and lots of stuff not so much in common. I find her writings inspiring and her insight on many topics get me thinking.
Right now she is hosting a giveaway for a St. Andrew Christmas Novena Bracelet or Chaplet from Loreto Rosaries. Be sure to go over and check it out!
Be warned that I'm feeling betterlucky blessed lately and I'm planning on winning this! ; )
Right now she is hosting a giveaway for a St. Andrew Christmas Novena Bracelet or Chaplet from Loreto Rosaries. Be sure to go over and check it out!
Be warned that I'm feeling better
Saturday, November 2, 2013
All Saint's Day 2013
We decided to celebrate All Saint's Day with a small family party. (Scott missed the party after deciding not to take off work early due to already planned days off in the near future.)
Surprisingly just the three of us had fun. The party started with prayer and the Litany of the Saints. Asking all the Saints to pray for you brings a wonderful amount of peace and was a great start to the party. The boys made cupcakes as the first task. We read about what today was about and then read about how a saint becomes a Saint. Then we played several rounds of Saint Bingo thanks to Jessica at Shower of Roses and her All Saints Bingo cards. We then made crafts. You can never be too old for lunch bag puppets! We used Lacy's Saint Puppet Templates. Well worth $3! I'm sure we will make more in the future seeing that I'm well stocked on brown lunch bags and Tyler enjoys them. While each of us made a puppet (yes, even I made one-St. Francis!) we listened to our Glory Story CD on St. Therese of Lisieux. Next we had a Saint Relay Race. I got this idea from another blog (I can't find my bookmark to let you know where) and this was the hit of the party. The boys had to do the Corporal Works of mercy like the Saints do and I timed them. Caleb beat Tyler by thirty seconds.
They feed the hungry like St. Elizabeth of Hungary by putting icing on the cupcakes we baked. They help build the Church like St. Francis with their legos. They prayed for the living and the dead like St. Cyprian by leading us in prayer. They clothed the naked like St. Martin de Tours by dressing a stuffed animal. They filled cups of water to give drink to the thirsty. They gave to the poor like St. Nicholas by throwing socks full of pennies into our bean bag game. Finally they taught the faith like St. Patrick by reading a question and answer out of the catechism. It was a long game, but much enjoyed.
We ended the afternoon with saint presentations. Each boy gave an oral narration on their favorite saint. Caleb choose St. Nicholas and Tyler picked St. Michael.
We ended the day with evening Mass and the boys got to be servers.
Surprisingly just the three of us had fun. The party started with prayer and the Litany of the Saints. Asking all the Saints to pray for you brings a wonderful amount of peace and was a great start to the party. The boys made cupcakes as the first task. We read about what today was about and then read about how a saint becomes a Saint. Then we played several rounds of Saint Bingo thanks to Jessica at Shower of Roses and her All Saints Bingo cards. We then made crafts. You can never be too old for lunch bag puppets! We used Lacy's Saint Puppet Templates. Well worth $3! I'm sure we will make more in the future seeing that I'm well stocked on brown lunch bags and Tyler enjoys them. While each of us made a puppet (yes, even I made one-St. Francis!) we listened to our Glory Story CD on St. Therese of Lisieux. Next we had a Saint Relay Race. I got this idea from another blog (I can't find my bookmark to let you know where) and this was the hit of the party. The boys had to do the Corporal Works of mercy like the Saints do and I timed them. Caleb beat Tyler by thirty seconds.
They feed the hungry like St. Elizabeth of Hungary by putting icing on the cupcakes we baked. They help build the Church like St. Francis with their legos. They prayed for the living and the dead like St. Cyprian by leading us in prayer. They clothed the naked like St. Martin de Tours by dressing a stuffed animal. They filled cups of water to give drink to the thirsty. They gave to the poor like St. Nicholas by throwing socks full of pennies into our bean bag game. Finally they taught the faith like St. Patrick by reading a question and answer out of the catechism. It was a long game, but much enjoyed.
 | |||||
| Caleb feeding the hungry. |
 | |||
| Tyler building the Church. |
 |
| Caleb building the Church. |
 |
| Tyler clothing the naked. |
 |
| Caleb clothing the naked. |
We ended the afternoon with saint presentations. Each boy gave an oral narration on their favorite saint. Caleb choose St. Nicholas and Tyler picked St. Michael.
 |
| We did have a big mess to clean up afterwards! |
We ended the day with evening Mass and the boys got to be servers.
Weekend Checklist
1) Tyler first time deer hunting-CHECK but no deer (yet)
2) Caleb deer hunting-CHECK (out right now)
3) Clean Tyler's closet-CHECK (cough, cough)
4) Reorganize scrapbooking supplies-CHECK
5) Make room in hall closet and new stuff to fill the space-CHECK
6) Tyler's Room cleaned- finishing up right now
7) Lots of random things done all day to avoid spending more than 5 minutes at a time in Tyler's room-CHECK (this was a last minute add on)
It's just been one of those days. One project leads to many! I have an even longer list a little task that I need to get done this weekend and really should have been done first, but that has been delayed!
What are you accomplishing this weekend? (Maybe I'll accomplish our All Saint's Day party post too.)
2) Caleb deer hunting-CHECK (out right now)
3) Clean Tyler's closet-CHECK (cough, cough)
4) Reorganize scrapbooking supplies-CHECK
5) Make room in hall closet and new stuff to fill the space-CHECK
6) Tyler's Room cleaned- finishing up right now
7) Lots of random things done all day to avoid spending more than 5 minutes at a time in Tyler's room-CHECK (this was a last minute add on)
It's just been one of those days. One project leads to many! I have an even longer list a little task that I need to get done this weekend and really should have been done first, but that has been delayed!
What are you accomplishing this weekend? (Maybe I'll accomplish our All Saint's Day party post too.)
 |
| Caleb and Tyler on Halloween. Same from last year! This is what happens when you go to buy the costumes they picked out two days before Halloween. My checkbook liked it though! I'm not for scary on Halloween and this is beyond what I normally allow which is probably why they didn't mind wearing them two year in a row. (And yes, Dad, that is your shirt. Mom said it was ok to destroy-sorry!) |
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