Our School Area

I had to split up the post about our first day and our homeschool area. Here is where we do school.

This is our dining room, you can see our shoe rack in the bottom left (I don't allow shoes inside).

Here is all of our supplies.

Teacher's manuals, our attendance log, and a coloring book.

These all all the papers he will do this year. I was given all the K-4 curriculum from the school I graduated when they decided to no longer do that age group. The pages had already been collated, so in the future I plan to have workbooks. Under the papers are supplement books (I will do another post on what I use to supplement the curriculum).

This is all the paint, crayons, stamps, brads, glue, and other things we will need.

This is the extra collated pages, construction paper, writing tablets, and coloring books.

This is a basket I keep with my things:pens, scissors, hole punch, stickers, chalk, post-it notes, my glasses, and hair ties (for when my hair drives me crazy)

These are all my large flash cards.

Some of our books, these are the easier readers for when he begins to read.

 Puzzles

These are my manipulatives, beans to count, flash cards, blend cards, and fun fact cards.

For now this is what works for us, but as the year goes on I may be moving things around as I discover a better system.

Our First Day

My little man on his first day of K-4

Girl-girl had to have her picture taken too.

"I is for Indian" working on writing our "I"'s and following directions.

Coloring with yellow (he knows his shapes, colors, and how to count. 

Cathy-Belle watching.

Curriculum

Picture of read allowed time. (This was hard to take) we sat on the couch while I nursed the baby, notice the hand by the book, guess she wanted to be in the picture too. "Heidi" is our current book.

School

This is our first official year of Homeschooling. I am a little nervous as we start! I was not homeschooled, only grew of knowing (distantly) maybe a handful of homeschoolers, my step-mom homeschooled for a few years, but other than that I have only read about it. I now have a few friends who homeschool, but I am grateful for these friends who have gone before me (Titus 2 women). 

I was given the ABeka curriculum for K-4 through 5th grade. I have also taught before using this curriculum, so I am comfortable with it. Since this is my first year I figured it would be a good curriculum to use because it is so good about telling you exactly what to do. Over the next couple of years I may try new curriculum, but I may not since I was privileged to have it handed to me.

From my understanding of our state laws the only thing I am required to do is report attendance. I will hopefully be attending some conferences over the next few years to help me find my way. 

We are starting a little early I know, but I read once that it is good to start in the heat of summer, so you can take some time off when the weather is nicer. We will be schooling year round and we will be taking a few vacations as well, plus some time around the holidays.

I am hoping to post all this week about our homeschool, Faithful Christian Academy (just a name we chose, not a requirement to homeschool), here are what I am planning for the rest of the week:

~ Pictures of our first day and our homeschool area

~ Our schedule (which might change once we get into the swing of things)

~ Organization of our Curriculum and supplies

~ An update of how our first week went and a list of field trips we hope to take

Books that my mom read and learned from when she was a child. I enjoyed them when I was little and now my children will enjoy them!

4th of July

This is my favorite holiday. Before anyone judges me  I think we should  celebrates Jesus everyday. Yes certain seasons during the year allow us to focus on His birth or His resurrection, and I serve a risen Savior daily. 

I love the time with family and friends, watermelon, swimming, sparklers, fireworks, and the fact that I was born in America. Yes, the country has flaws, and list seems to be growing more than shrinking, but those of us who have been born here are very fortunate (although other probably feel the same).

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

Sparklers

The best I could do :)

"Battle Rockets" as my son calls them

Desserts- my world famous (only when my siblings are overseas) apple pie and chocolate covered pretzel rods

My 4 year old's plates (minus his corn on the cob), the only thing left was some honeydew and about 1/4 of his hotdog.

My plate, it was a holiday right ;)

Nana (my mother-in-law holding Cathy Belle) and Aunt Beta (her sister Linda)

Papaw (my father-in-law) and the kiddies 

The aftermath... I turned on "A Capitol Fourth" and watched it by myself

Solid foods

My little Belle-Belle, as the other two call her, has just started solids. She is 7 months old. I am going to share why we waited until now, what we started with, and how it is going.

We started the other two at 4 months old. My son started that early because he was a little chubby piggy who wanted to eat all the time. We spoke with our pediatrician who told us that single grain cereal was fine for his age, and he loved it. I  did the same thing when our first daughter was born, because that is what I had already done. This time around I had heard that introducing solids before the child's digestive system was finished developing could be harmful. Now we had the problem of when was that, some said 4 months some said 6 months, so we tried to research more, but all children are different. We talked, researched, and prayed. 

Finally, we had an answer and it was so simple. For about the past 70-80 years, modern medicine and technology has come a long way, and in that time "folk remedies" and "old-wives tales" were considered ignorant. Up until the past couple of years these things were something "Grandma would say she used to do" people would just roll their eyes. Recently scientists are starting to realize maybe Grandma wasn't as crazy as they once thought. They are realizing that pesticides are not as great as once thought, that antibiotics and vaccines are not as great as once believed (necessary sometimes yes, but not as life or death as once was believed-FYI I am not starting a vaccine debate), and even the once thought necessary interventions during childbirth, I could go on, but that is not the focus. We would wait for her to get her first tooth. We feel that would be her body's way of letting the outside world know that she is ready for food.

Really we could have started with a plethora of things, because she was technically "old enough" (according to medical charts) to have many fruits, vegetables, and grains. My son ate whatever the baby food jars said he could have, you know according to the little pictures on them, "sitter", "crawler", "toddler". When baby #2 was born I did the same thing until she was about 6 months old when I got sick of it and started just mashing up whatever veggie we were eating for her. I did keep a jar or two of baby food for pizza night. Her first official food was carrots, she is still unsure. I started by making a batch of carrots and frozen them in an ice cube tray, but I gave that up quickly. She has been grabbing food from her siblings to try to eat for about a month.

We are currently cutting food into chunks she can mash with her jaws, and that are small enough not to choke her if swallowed whole. She is old enough to feed herself and does well with it. She enjoys banana, carrots, rice, quinoa, and just today we tried "Puffs" ( Gerber snacks). I was a little nervous about choking so I broke it in half. She did well even with a whole one that her brother so sweetly gave her trying to "help".

It is nice not having to worry about bringing food for her if we are out or worrying about what we are going to feed her if we are out too long. She is her happy self eating her food!

Grace

I had originally planned a post about what a horrible sinner I am, and while that will be included in this it will not be the pain point.

I am daily, hourly, minutely (let's just pretend that is a word) grateful that it is "by grace through faith, and not by works" (Eph. 2:8). I fail daily. I did not know, until I was recently convicted, how prideful and judgmental I am. I am a horrible sinner (I warned you)! I constantly think that because I do not live my life a certain way, dress a certain way, or behave a certain way then I must be better than those who do. Shame on me! Thankful again it is not by my works!

My sweet sweet mother-in-law once said when we get to heaven wouldn't it be better to hear "Well done my good and faithful servant" than " Well, at least you made it." It took a while for that wisdom to sink in. I have fallen in love with that thought. I want to live my life to hear "Well done" and let others be judged by God. 

I have found the more I become I become convicted the more I want to point fingers. Isn't that just typical. I find the same thing with my children, when I am scolding one for doing something wrong they are quick to point out what their sibling is doing wrong. Most of the time my response is "We are to finished yet, so don't change the subject." God says He is our judge, and by whatever means we judge others that is how He will judge us, Yikes! 

I have noticed it more now that I have switched to skirts 90% of the time. I somehow feel more "holy", and I know it is wrong to judge others by my standards. We are all at different points and times in out Christian walks and I have to remind myself not everyone shares my convictions. 

Has anyone else had this problem? I find it even worse when you are slightly jealous of the person ( I sin again), sigh. I know I must not be alone. I have been paying for forgiveness daily as God continues to deal with me. I am constantly trying to model my life after Christ's and constantly fall short, but I rejoice in the fact that God has not given up on me! I am reminded of that kids song: 

"He's still workin' on me

To make me what I ought to be,

It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,

The sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars,

O how loving and patient He must be,

He's still workin' on me!"

Please forgive me for my rambling posts, my lack of organization in posts, and my absences because He's still workin' on me! 

Father's Day

Make sure to celebrate the men who sacrifice, provide, and love us. The one who bear the weight of the family on their shoulders. Pray for them daily. Thank you God for my Fathers in my life!