Archives for August 2010
Queen Chair Before/After and a Fair Little Brunch
I’ve been wanting to re-upholster this chair since I first bought it on clearance at T.J.Maxx. There was a rip in the upholstery which I disguised for 5 years with a throw. Finally, I painted it (a bright yellow from Valspar, whose name I’ve currently forgotten) and sent it to be recovered with a darling little fabric I found on sale online (bought quite a while back from I’m not sure where). I’ve had it in the bedroom and living room and kitchen. Currently it’s in the kitchen (which unfortunately may never be done) and provides the perfect respite when the coffee is taking too long. I’ll probably move it back to the bedroom but either way, I love it’s new look.
I should also confess to you that I’m taking an online sewing class at the Freckled Nest. I blame this all on Ruthanne, whose life and interests are so like my own. She’s such an overachiever and made eighteen napkins for the first project. Show-off. I’ve made a measly four so far. They extended the sign up until tomorrow so if you feel like you could add one more thing to your life, I highly recommend it. So far, I’ve made a few cloth napkins and a library bag. The girls want to follow along on some of the projects so they’ve made napkins and plan to make bags today.
And one more thing, I’m having a little open house next Friday (kitchen complete or not) which will be combined with a brunch and a CABi party and a bookclub organization party. It’ll be at my house from 10-12 and if you live in the area and can convince me you’re not an axe-murderer, you’re welcome to come. Email me for details.
If all goes as planned, I hope to do a little video tour for you internet lovelies who can’t make it.
Now, you have a happy weekend!
Post Edit: I listened to this segment of Issues Etc on church music and thought you might find it interesting too. Is church music just a matter of personal preference? Hmmmm…. this guy makes me rethink that.
What do you do when your mom is a dork?
You take a video of her, of course.
The girls are memorizing the books of the Old Testament. I happen to have been a first prize Bible drill winner and highly impressed their young strong minds with my mad skillz. Forgive the lack of makeup, the dishoveled left overs of yesterdays’ hair style and the fact that I’m clinging tightly to my morning coffee. Forgive me, I’m a dork, alright. But I challenge you to try to beat my swift 16 second recitation. My kids think I’m a genius. And I was tired of saying it over and over for them, so now they can just push play.
We are easily amused at the Wadsworth household.
Post Edit: Y’all are far too kind about the whole make-up thing but let a southern girl tell ya, it’ll be hard to ever break the make-up habit. And further more, lest you think that’s the natural me, what I meant by ‘no make-up’ was that I only had powder, blush, concealer and brow groomer on. Make-up is to me what hair was to Samson.
Which brings me to my next point. I showed the girls the following video after we studied Samson today. Because I’m not the only parent who is a dork. Amen.
Logos School Curriculum Choices 2010
If you’re new here and visiting from Bring the Rain or from Heart of the Matter, welcome. You can visit more of my homeschool links here or find out why in the world we ever decided to homeschool in the first place here. We use the classical model with a blend of The Well Trained Mind, Charlotte Mason and the Thomas Jefferson Education.
I have an unnatural love for books.
When I moved from my beloved suburban house with the garage turned schoolroom to the lakehouse {with no schoolroom}, the movers commented more than once that they had never moved anyone with so many books. I tried to pare our library down a little but I have a very difficult time parting with books. I want my own copy and I want it in the flesh and I don’t want to get rid of it. Period. It’s makes curriculum shopping my favorite activity of the year. I want to use EVERY possible program and book. I want to try My Father’s World and Tapesty of Grace and Sonlight and Calvert. And I would except that I don’t want someone telling me exactly what to do because I want to decide what books we read and what passages we memorize and how long we spend on The Renaissance. I want to be in charge of the books.
Hello Mr. UPS man, my name is Edie and I love books.
So this year we will continue on our classical homeschooling journey using a mish-mash, a hodge-podge of books and programs. For my own teacher-training, I’ve been reading The Seven Laws of Teaching by Milton. I’ve gleaned a few pearls from it and it has reinforced some things I read in A Thomas Jefferson Education.
Namely, that you can’t teach anyone anything.
You can only motivate and inspire them to learn. I pray I’ll do more inspiring and less requiring this year.
My 8 and 9 year old are both doing 4th-ish grade and we’re in our third year of following the basic outline laid out in The Well-Trained Mind. I have tweaked our program every year to find what works perfect for us. I finally feel like I kinda-sorta know what I’m doing. Kinda. Sorta.
Here’s what we’re using:
New for Us:
1. Writing–Institute for Excellence in Writing by Andrew Pudewa
I bought the parent CD’s and am about half way through them. I love this program already. And I especially love that we will use the content for writing from our history and science and literature books, which will just enforce the things we’re already learning. Although we don’t start our formal lessons until next week, we practiced the key word outline a few days ago and my reluctant writer said, “I love writing now mom.” Wow. I hope that continues.
2. Apologia Science Exploring Creation
We tried out the Astronomy book last semester and loved it. We’re doing chapter one of the Human Anatomy book (cell structure and function) and then moving on to Zoology I—Flying Creatures of the 5th day. We also plan to memorize Psalm 104 which goes along well with the learning about God’s creation.
3. Bible—A Bible History by Concordia Publishing House
We have previously used Veritas Press and have completed Genesis Through Joshua and the Life of Jesus. This year we plan to do Judges through Malachi from the Bible History book and then memorize Luther’s small catechism for the Lord’s prayer. We will listen together to teaching on the articles of the Lord’s Prayer beginning with the first petition on IssuesEtc. We also will memorize the books of the Old Testament and possibly the baptism catechism. In preparation for teaching my girls from this portion of the Old Testament, I’m working my way through this series of wonderful lectures from iTunes university. For any christian interested in a Christ centered Old Testament class, this one is phenomenal and of course, you can listen at your leisure. I highly recommend it. You can find it by opening iTunes university {from the main menu of iTunes} and searching “Concordia Old Testament”. It consists of video lectures that span Genesis to Malachi.
What we’re still using:
4. Saxon 4/5
We have a few lessons to finish from book 3 and we’ve been working on flash cards for multiplication. I bought the DIVE CD and hope my girls can learn to be a bit more independent with math. Neither of my girls is math minded so we will continue to look for ways to make math come alive. We’re currently accepting any and all suggestions.
5. History–Story of the World 3 Early Modern Times
We have about 6 weeks of Story of the World 2 to finish beginning with The Reformation/Renaissance. I love Story of the World. Susan Wise Bauer inspires me and has been my constant companion during my homeschooling journey whether from her history books or her books on education. I recently came across these set of videos from her own homeschool and they were so comforting to me. She’s washing the dishes while she does dictation with her son or she’s making mac and cheese before she sends her teenagers off to rest time. I know, amazing isn’t it? She requires ‘rest’ time even for her teens. I consider her my mentor, my teacher—-the master of all things homeschooling—and her school doesn’t look that different from mine. At least at a glance. I really appreciated that look into her world.
6. Grammar–Rod and Staff 4
We switched from Shurley Grammar to Rod and Staff during the middle of last year. I like it so much better and I’m hoping that this new writing program will help apply more of what we’re learning.
7. Memory Work
We will memorize:
A portion of Martin Luther’s speech at the Diet of Worms, A Bird Came Walking Down the Walk by Emily Dickinson, There is No Frigate Like a Book by Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson, Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (thank you Mrs. Brown), Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury (thank you blog friend), the preambles to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence , Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the presidents of the United States, a history catechism, Psalm 104, portion of the Sermon on the Mount, Luke 12:22-32.
We will also continue to review all the memory work from the past two years which is a quite a thick stack of poetry and scripture.
I’ve written about my thoughts on memory work and how important I think it is. It’s also deeply gratifying to have some ‘tangible’ evidence of your learning. There are so many benefits to memorization and it’s one of my favorite aspects of home schooling.
8. Literature
Our curriculum is centered around history and we try to correlate some of our literature to that. We will start this year by reading a biography on Martin Luther and a historical fiction work about the Mona Lisa (we’ll be studying daVinci first in art) called The Second Mrs. Giaconda. Some of our other books include The Princess and the Goblin, King of the Wind, At the Back of the North Wind, Just David, Stories of Don Quixote, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, The Enchanted Castle, English Fairy Tales, poetry of George Herbert, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Paradise Lost. I use Ambleside Online as a resource for good literature and have recently been visiting the Tapestry of Grace website to find additional classic literature. We also will continue to read an abridged Shakespeare play per week by Charles and Mary Lamb and will also continue to work our way slowly through the unabridged Pilgrim’s Progress. The girls will be reading books on their own during rest time and free time and having just finished the Harry Potter series, we’re starting the Chronicles of Narnia. {we’ve never read them all in order.} The Narnia series will be our leisure read-aloud which we tend to read while having breakfast, after lunch, and at bedtime.
The importance of literature and in particular reading aloud to children has been recently reinforced again. In my prep for the writing course, I’ve heard Andrew Pudewa say several times that the single most important thing we can do for our kids is read aloud to them and to continue doing so long after they are old enough to read to themselves. I hope to continue our habit of spending 2-3 hours a day reading various books and passages aloud.
9. Languages
We are hoping and praying that we’ll have our wonderful Latin/Spanish tutor again this year, Mrs. Harms. We used Latin for Children towards the end of the school year and will continue to do so.
10. Fine Arts
The girls take about 7 hours of ballet instruction each week and will again be taking piano lessons. We will be studying Chopin and Handel in music history and Leonardo daVinci, Michealangelo and Rembrandt in art history.
11. Spelling
We’ve been using Spelling Workout but I’m not sure it’s the right program for us. I’ve been looking into Spelling Zoo and All About Spelling. I think we need something more auditory. For now, we’ll finish up our Spelling Workout books and try recording the words on a tape recorder and using that audio recording to help us practice the words. Any thoughts?
Whew! Now if we get through all that, it’ll be nothing short of a miracle.
Wish us luck, we start tomorrow!
If you homeschool and would like to share your curriculum resources or would like to find out what others are using, visit the Heart of the Matter blog hop or Angie at Bring the Rain.
Christ Have Mercy
Our Father in heaven is merciful.
By His good grace, Jamie came to visit us here in Tennessee and to check on her dying father. He’s been in a miserable condition for quite some time and has nearly begged to die. His children have watched him lose his dignity and even his very will to live. She visited him on Friday, they had ice cream together and she told him how much she loved him. She told me later that she prayed that night that if at all possible, God would take him to heaven soon so that his suffering would finally be over.
He died in his sleep that night.
We have spent the week crying, remembering, laughing, grieving, cooking, cleaning, loving and all the while being thankful that we have shared these fleeting and precious moments together. My sainted sister has hosted us all for many days and has taken care of us like only sisters do. The time with family has been such a gift. We say goodbye with heavy hearts and count our blessings that Our Father in heaven knows what we need before we ask.
Our hope is in Him, whose resurrection has freed us from death.
from the Lutheran prayer book:
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Merciful Father, You know how difficult these days are for me. In Your holy Word, You have promised to hear those who cry unto You in the day of trouble. Listen to my cries for mercy and send help from the sanctuary of Your grace.
Preserve me from bitterness of spirit, and rescue me from every temptation to despair. Calm my frustrations with the knowledge that my life is secure in Your redeeming love, for I am baptized into the death and resurrection of Your Son. Draw me out of self centered worry, which stifles faith, and cause me to take comfort in the Gospel. Sustain and strengthen me under every cross and affliction, that Your grace might be made perfect in my weakness.
Give me confidence to pray without losing heart and to trust in Your mighty deliverance according to Your good and gracious will.
Father, into Your hands I commend myself. Hear me, for the sake of Your Son, who alone is my Brother and Savior.
Amen.
{Comments closed. Jamie and her brother appreciate your prayers.}