A change has taken place in my thinking, my heart, and in therefore, my actions or my implementation of how we homeschool.

As I was being refreshed and renewed, I didn’t know it at the time, but God was kind of ‘weaning’ me from all that I had read about what others were doing in their homeschool, even from the much of the material I was studying in the Red Books and the NP lesson plans book. All of a sudden I didn’t have a ‘taste’ for any of it and I began to wonder if I was on the right track with the BPA. I even wondered if I should still be homeschooling…but I’ve learned never to make a major decision when emotions are running high and even when I’m experiencing much uncertainty…the answer will come in the calm…I just continued to wait on the Lord, enjoying my rest in not having to do school just enjoy my family and children.

But I had come to the point where I’m tired of doing things my way or in my own wisdom/thinking. I’ve said that before and even when I thought I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do I realize now that I was not. I received very clear instruction from the Lord to go back to doing certain things that I used to do(when homeschooling was a pure joy!!) when my dd was 5(and when I didn’t have to report to the school district). Once she turned 6 and I had to start sending in everything we were doing a war ensued inside of me-wanting to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading but yet somehow feeling like I needed to cater to the districts and always being more concerned with what they’ll think; and the school district’s/worlds expectations won out…and that burned me out.

So God put me in a place where all of those distractions that used to pull at me were non-existent, flushed my insides out from the ‘old wine’ so that He could put in the ‘new wine’ of His revelation/instruction.

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So I’ve returned to using scripture as copywork for our handwriting lessons. That will coincide with our Bible Study.

I’ve decided to accept the fact that I cannot do all the subjects that I had planned in one day…. Now, we do what we can each day (along with my other responsibilities). The way it has been going since we started back last week, we either do ’skills’ lessons(math, handwriting, grammar, spelling, etc) or our unit study…and I’m even praying about if and/or how to incorporate our ’skills’ lessons into our unit study lessons.

I also count time the children spend cleaning their rooms/household chores as school. It goes under life skills.

I’ve gone back to using math add-ons/games on the internet to be a part of my dd’s math curriculum.

In short, I’ve eased up on myself and my children…My lessons have gone back to ’simple’(no less effective, I pray :). I’m learning how to be much more loving to them no matter how far behind I feel we are and basically to accept and be content with where they are in their development and not PUSH them to where I feel their public/private school counterparts are…even the lessons given in the NP are very aggressive and complete and are WONDERFUL in my eyes…I would want my children to attain to ALL of what I read in these lesson plan books but I’ve had to just stop striving to MAKE my children be…rather I’m learning to just LET them be…while teaching and guiding them gently.

I tell you things go sooooo much smoothly. We go to bed now happy with each other and so much less tension in the house since our days are not spent arguing and me fussing and upset and tense and feeling like I’ve failed if we don’t do have a math lesson everyday…so what if we don’t finish the book.

I’m learning to REALLY put my trust in the Lord and in following His way and instruction. My children are fine and will get to where they are supposed to be…God will make sure of that!!! The scripture God brought back to me is this:

Matthew 11:27-31(amplified)

28Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ^[f]ease and relieve and ^[g]refresh ^[h]your souls.]

29Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (^[i]relief and ease and refreshment and ^[j]recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.^(A)

30For My yoke is wholesome (useful, ^[k]good–not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.

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So having said all of that this week we started His Story again and picked up with the 3rd link Jesus Christ-The focal point of History. That was our principle.

For BIBLE/HISTORY I read to my children the bible stories of Jesus getting baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus and the little children, and Jesus choosing 12 disciples. I gave them bible sheets, from Heart of Wisdom site to color as I read these stories. In all of this we would discuss and reason Jesus’ purpose (Principle of Individuality) for coming and referencing that to the Chain of Christianity in showing what God was doing/how His plan was unfolding to bring liberty to America and the world from the beginning…Creation.

It was such a simple lesson, if I wasn’t trusting God with my homeschool I would wonder if my children learned anything from something so simple..I trust that what I shared in this unit that God would put His Super to my natural and bring something Supernatural out of it in the lives of my children.

Today we read about the Last Supper, Jesus’ Resurrection, and His Soon Return.

For GEOGRAPHY we looked at and studied maps of Israel and the Middle East Region. My dd had to locate the nation of Israel first She labeled a blank outline map of Israel. She labeled Jerusalem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan River and the surrounding nations of Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Med. sea. These are some of the sites we visited and used in our study
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/ilcolor.htm

http://www.freeworldmaps.net/asia/israel/map.html

http://www.masada2000.org/geography.html

This next site is a WONDERFUL site. You can download interactive maps and map puzzles where your child has to put each state in it’s place(for US map) or each country in it’s respective place on the continent. When we did our Moses link my dd fell in love with this and kept asking (on non-History unit days) if she could do the map puzzle of Africa!

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm

Now, on to ART. I decided to study/introduce my children to the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci since we read about the Last Supper today.

I found a printable here at this site:

http://arthistory.about.com/library/artists/tours/leonardo/n_leo_10.htm

I read a very short biography of Leonardo and gave my dd the printable of his painting and asked her to study it and reproduce it. This is what she did…I thought it was precious so I decided to post it….

I also found more art history at this site…

http://arthistory.about.com/cs/leonardo/a/last_supper.htm

I found these search engines just for kids…

AJKids - AOL@school - Awesome Library - Google - KartOO - KidsClick! - ThinkQuest Library - Yahooligans

I clicked on AJKids and found the following site that gives a biography of Leonardo in simpler language for younger children.

http://www.askforkids.com/fr?u=http%3A%2F%2Flibrary.thinkquest.org%2F3044%2Fnov_over.html&bu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.askforkids.com%2Fweb%3Fq%3D%22da%2Bvinci%2C%2Bleonardo%22%26dm%3Dlang%26page%3D1&q=%22da%2Bvinci%2C%2Bleonardo%22&o=0&l=dir&s=k&dm=lang&qt=0

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So all in all, things are going well…I’m happy and my children are responding so much better to school and just overall. My 5yob can’t seem to stop hugging me and coming up to me laying on my shoulder and he keeps telling me, “Mommy, I love you”. I tell I love him too and I stand in awe at what God is doing in my life and in my family as I determine to trust Him and go with His leading for everyday.

What a fun-time we had in our read aloud time yesterday! I don’t read aloud everyday…I wish I could be consistent enough to do that but we do it when I really feel the inspiration. I blogged the other week about taking a read-aloud/literature book and take as many lessons as we can from that. Well, my children asked me the other day if they could watch the Sword in the Stone movie. I said yes, since we are still on ‘vacation’…and it gave me a thought to go get books on knights, and armor and such. So I consulted the reading list from Teaching the Trivium’s products. The Bluedorns son and daughter has published a list of good read alouds and biographies and such. So I chose to get books by Homer Pyle(fitting with my dc’s desire to watch the Sword in the Stone and medieval times). I got the one entitled Some Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. I was seeking an unabridged version and I think I got one…most of them say “adapted by such and such”.

As I began to read I could tell it was not ‘capturing’ my children’s attention. They were in the room listening but out of obedience, if u know what I mean. Their minds were elsewhere. As I read the scene describing how Robin Hood met Little John and how they had a ‘duel’ fighting with ‘cudgers’ and ‘goose-feathered arrows’ I started to really act out the scenes as I read them and the more I got into they did. I even began to have them act out scenes. I told boy(5) that he would be Robin Hood and girl(7) that she could be Little John and when I got to the part where Robin Hood told his merry men “Three blasts upon the bugle horn I will blow in my hour of need, then come quickly, for I shall want your aid”—-I had boy(5) blow his pretend horn and then had “Little John” run to his aid. We had a blast!!!

The second chapter was the story of how the Sherriff of Nottingham tried to trap Robin in by having a shooting match. As the archers from surrounding towns came to compete — “And now the archers shot, each man in turn, and the good folk never saw such archery as was done that day”–my children went and grabbed their “bow and arrows” they had made out of plastic clothes hangers and my dd’s hair elastic hair bands and used non-sharpened pencils for arrows — they each took their turn at shooting—each other and me.

I loved it and they did too. I stopped after the 1st chapter so that we could clean up the downstairs and my dd says to me “Mommy what about the story of Robin Hood”? I promised her I would read more after we cleaned up and I tended to the baby. Then we read the 2nd chapter.

I decided to try and make a “little” vocabulary lesson to enhance their understanding of what they hear me read. I made up a sheet of vocabulary words b/c this book is written in very similar style as the King James Bible…using words like nay, no harm shall befall him(Robin Hood speaking of LIttle John), guile, etc. so I made a list of 10 vocab. words from the first 2 chapters that me and dd(7) will look up in the dictionary and define.

Here are the words I chose:

• archer
• forest
• skill
• cunning
• yeomen
• outlaw
• bold
• shrewd p. 12
• cudgels p. 13
• 10.Nay p. 14

Part 2 of this assigment is to copy the sentences that these words are used in from the book–exactly as the author wrote it. I think I’ll use these sentences as copywork for our cursive handwriting, vocabulary, grammar/sentence construction, paragraph writing. Here are the passages we will attempt to work on:

Copy each sentence. Underline all vocabulary words.

• No archer ever lived that could speed a gray goose shaft with such skill and cunning as his.
• There lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood.
• Nor were there ever such yeomen as the seven-score merry men that roamed with him through the greenwood shades.
• When Robin was a youth of eighteen, stout of sinew and bold of heart, the Sheriff of Nottingham proclaimed a shooting-match and offered a prize of forty marks to whomsoever should shoot the best shaft in Nottingham.
• So shrewd was the stroke that the stranger came within a hair’s breadth of falling off the bridge.
• I must needs own thou art a brave and a sturdy soul, and, withal, a good stout stroke with the cudgels.”
• Nay, forbear!” cried Robin; “he is a right good man and true, and no harm shall befall him.”

I received in my email a wonderul example of how to teach grammar, spelling, vocab, and penmanship straight from descriptive texts of living books. You can view this article on how to do that here at Trivium Pursuit email list archives.

I would just be sure to add/teach the biblical origin/purpose and the biblical prinicples of each of these subject areas.

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In our last, ‘haphazard’, 3 weeks we had to take a more ‘relaxed’ approach to our homeschooling due to the many events/celebrations that occurred. I purchased some time ago A FAMILY PROGRAM FOR READING ALOUD developed by ROSALIE JUNE SLATER. This has been a wonderful, very rich resource of classic reading selections and how to teach certain categories of literature from the Principle Approach. I decided to go back to the beginning of the book and start there with my read aloud selections. We don’t read aloud as often as I want to..our days seem to get away from us. I guess I feel like Literature is not priority on our list of subjects to study but in the last several weeks we have managed to investigate several of the suggested books in this wonderful resource written by Ms. Slater.

POETRY: We started with THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUNG FOLKS for our poetry introduction. We started with this in July. We are also using Abeka’s spelling workbook and they have a poem assigned for each month for the student to memorize, to use expression when reciting, to practice reading with alternately with Mommy. DD’s favorite poem in THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE is TREE’s by Joyce Kilmer. It goes like this:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A treee that looks a God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

We’ve also recited Robert Blake’s THE LAMB which is the poem in Abeka’s spelling and poetry text.
Little lamb Little Lamb Who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
………..etc.

We worked on this one also in Abeka’s spelling and poetry text…A THANK YOU PRAYER..author unknown
For milk to drink and food to eat;
For eyes and ears and hands and feet;
Thank You God

For mother, father, and their care
For our house and clothes to wear
Thank You God

For friends with whom I run and play
For sun and rain and night and day
Thank You God

For all the things You give to me
Help me to always thankful be
Thank You God.

We will study Psalm 23 as poetry as well as the other literary genre found in the Bible.

PICTURE BOOKS AND STORIES: We got from the library and read the following:

THE RUNAWAY BUNNY
THE GINGERBREAD BOY
**TIME OF WONDER
**THE BIG SNOW
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD
THE VELVETEEN RABBIT
MADELINE-this is turning out to be one of my dc’s favorite. We found a ‘pop-up, 3D’ version of this book’

** we did not read these as they were due back to the library before we any interest was aroused in these books. They were kind of slow moving I think for my dc. TIME OF WONDER was very descriptive(which is good) but at the time I started to read it my dc had blank faces and were not really interested…so back to the library it went..maybe we’ll try again with it later.

We also have ‘zoo-billion’ other picture books, easy readers, and easy chapter books on the children’s shelves and also in our schoolroom that have been given to us(free! Praise God!!) by other parents and such…some were going to be THROWN out by the school my dh works for…some of these were BRAND NEW, STILL IN THE PLASTIC books that my dh found in the ‘throw away’ pile at his school so God has blessed us to have a home library already. I just need to make MORE use of these books, i.e. take the time to look thru them myself b/c the dc choose the same ones over and over and when dd is feeling lazy she’ll choose one with as few words a possible

So that is the beginning ’smathering’ of our read-aloud program. Sometimes I wish we could do all of study from one literature book..I guess you would call that a literature unit. I wonder if somehow I could teach reading, spelling, grammar, history, geog, science, etc. from one classic novel. This is kind of burning in my heart to do this so I think I will look into how to write lessons for these subject areas after choosing a children’s classic…just something very basic but still cover the important areas.

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I was so excited and blessed by our lesson this morning I posted about it as soon as we were done with that segment of our studies. Now I guess I need to complete the day.

After swim break(physical ed), and lunch we continued our lessons:

Bible(from NPL Grade 1):
Principle: Jesus is the promised Savior
Leading Idea: Jesus’ brith, death, and resurrection was foretold 400 years before He was born

Scripture reference: Is 9:6, Deut 18:18-22, Acts 13, 15, 21

This lesson was a beautiful one(all because I love talking about and sharing about the God I love and serve!!) Our discussion focused mainly on what a prophet is, what he does, whose he is, and what words he is supposed to speak. I had a poster of The Books of the Bible divided into Old and New Test. and then further divisions in the Old of The Law, History, Wisdom, Prophets….we lingered on this one. We spent a good 20-30 minutes (if not more) on this lesson. The children were engaged and I had their attention…there was no wandering of the thoughts. They asked questions and I answered and then we read more scriptures. We(dd read 1 page for her oral reading practice and I read the other) read in our Children’s Book of the Bible 2 pages on The Power of the Prophets.

She will read in her primary bible reader(from Abeka) p. 101-104 on the birth of the Savior.

Handwriting(cursive)- I “lightly” touched on:
Principle: Obedience or Self-Government
Leading Question: Why is it important to write neatly and clearly?
(No scripture reference today-we discussed last week Ex. 24:4-the biblical origin)

DD reasoned that we need to write neatly and do our best in our handwriting so that others will be able to read what we write.

She completed her handwriting lesson for the day…lower case o and connecting t,e,a,o, and u together.

Literature:
I introduced the Bible as Literature…it was a very ‘light’ overview(as I need to understand more myself to present it better)

We began our poetry reading today. We recited together A Thank You Prayer…author unknown.

She’ll read more poetry of her choice (during her independent reading time tonight) from these resources I got from the library..

The Home Book of Verse for Young Folks.- This is a wonderful book. It was recommended in the NP Lit Guide. I wish I could keep this(I guess I”ll have to buy it) b/c we’ll never go thru all of this in the time I have it from the library. It has the poetry arranged in categories such as poems about:

• In The Nursery
• The Duty of Children
• Rhymes of Childhood
• Just Nonsense
• Fairyland
• The Glad Evangel
• This Wonderful World-I’m pulling poems from this category to go with our ‘creation’ theme
• Stories in Rhyme
• My Country(poems of American history)
• The Happy Warrior
• Life Lessons
• A Garland of Gold

This is a keeper.

Another one I found in the library is:
The Oxford Book of Christian Verse
and
The Family Book of Verse

Both of these are good too.

So for homework later she’ll do arithmetic seatwork, handwriting, independent reading(in bible and poetry),

It was a good day. Although we did not do phonics, language, or spelling today I feel like we did a lot. It seemed like it took us forever to get done…we started about 11:30 and finished at about 5:00pm.

I’m pleased with our progress, nonetheless!!!!