Homeschooling A Houseful

We started meeting with 2 other local homeschool families, to sing to the residents of the care center. Our first time was in December, we thought Christmas Caroling to the residents would be fun. The older children also memorized different scriptures. It was good. At first the kids were somewhat nervous and scared. However we decided to continue this every month since, and it has become a joy. Not only to the kids, at least I know my A's love and look forward to it, but also the residents. They are so cute there, and excited to see us. I am only saying this because it doesn't take much. You don't have to do a huge presentation. The simplicity of having us come, makes their day!!!! So how do we do it? The three mom's involved rotate turns of planning. Planning is simple, we choose 3-4 common children's songs, religious songs, or hymns. These are for our group to sing together. Then during the week before we go, we email the person in charge what each of our families...

Something in the "planning stages" around here, is a family religious unit study. I am uncertain, how this will all be played out. I am sure I will have my way, and then quietly I will hear HIS voice sneaking it and telling me how to do it! I have had a very strong feeling that we need to work with the fruits of the spirit, here. I was thinking over the A's and my attitudes lately, and feel a little more fruit will do our attitudes good! Originally I was thinking of doing about one unit a month and working with the unit either daily or a few times a week. However after searching and finding so many great resources, I am thinking of doing a unit on the fruits of the spirit in general, and then spending a month on each individual fruit. Ponder and Pray, that's what I will be doing a lot of the rest of this week, into the weekend. I want it all finalized and ready to go by July, to jump start our July studies, but again it's all in HIS hands. I will let you know more...

Papa Bear and I have been experimenting with the Peanut Butter cookie recipe we love! At the end of the recipe, you can see a few alterations we have made to them.

A lady on a HS yahoo group I joined, has actually seen this speech in person! And it IS ALL done by MEMORY!!!! very inspiring!

Carissa from 1+1+1=1 mentioned Multiplication.com , awhile ago. I looked at it, and well was overwhelmed by the site! I put it on the "to do later list" You know the one, the one you always forget about!!! Well she wrote a post about this site, and explained what her family loves about the site.... with that help, I now and very impressed too!!! We will definitely be adding this to our daily studies, for VIRTUE, CHARITY, VALIANT, and PEACEFUL. They are all still working on their math facts and this site, will aid in that a lot! I will be adding these timed self correction drills to their daily work. Not only is there multiplication, but also addition, subtraction, and division. You can print these, or do them online. To do them online, you push the start to begin. This begins your time and then finish when completed. It will then correct it for you. Tell you the time, amount wrong and right, and the date!!! Love it when technology, helps the teacher out a bit!!! Carissa als...

I have mentioned here a time of two that we are year round schoolers. {I thought I already did a whole post on it, but well I don't think I did} I don't really have a schedule like others do, making year round manageable. I do have somewhat of a routine, and that works for us so far. Sept, Oct, Nov, and typically the first 2 weeks of Dec, we school. Usually somewhere in there we take off a few days, and I try to keep it to a minimum of a week. Then end of Dec, usually 1-1.5 weeks before Christmas we take off. Also during the entire month of Dec we have started doing Christmas School. Usually I just read a few different CHRISTmas stories, we do different advents together, and we have been the last few years making {most} all of our Christmas Ornaments. However this never goes as well as it's planned in my head, so I have never really spent the time to blog about it. Plus during the month of December, I don't typically have extra blogging time!! Usually around the 2-3 of ...

The homeschool village's discussion this week, is refreshment. What do you homeschool mom's do to refresh? Since we are back to a year around school schedule, I don't take an extended time off. However we take our breaks, breathers, and refreshers as needed. We take part in many different activities and outings throughout the year, school and summer, to keep us refreshed and recharged. For me personally whenever we take a break, it seems it's harder to keep the peace. We like our routine, and it works nicely to just keep it going. A few other things I've heard others do that I am considering, pondering, and praying about... Is to do school 4 days, and use the 5th day as a project, family day. I like this idea, but at the same time, we do many of these types of things everyday!! Another thought is to school 3 or 4 weeks on and take one week off again as a project week. Again not sure about it, will have to see what way the Lord directs our ways. For us, we use our br...