July Holidays

This month I'm out of town, so this will be much shorter than any of my previous months. 

Yep, that's right, I'm on vacation visiting my family.  Yipee!!

As you look through the month you might learn something about me.  In case you didn't already know.  I really like food.  In fact, I love it.

I love an excuse to find a new recipe or make a well-loved family favorite.  While there are food days every month, I was a little surprised at how many there are in July.  Maybe it's because it's in the summer?  Lots of picnics and reunions?  Whatever reason, it's going to be a yummy month.

Did you notice the 15th?  That's for my dad.  He has cows.  He communes with his cows.  Well, not really.  Or at least I haven't caught him at it yet. 

Hope you have a fun month! 

And hey, if I didn't add your favorite holiday, shout it out in the comments.  I'd love to hear about it!

Overwhelming-ville

Guess what I got in the mail yesterday?

Has anybody else every gotten a catalogue from the Rainbow people?  I think I might have gotten one last year...or maybe I requested one late last year and so they sent me one this year. 

Either way, it looks pretty cute, right?  Jam packed with fun things to look through.  Just don't look at it from the side.  I made that mistake.

Holy Moley!!  This thing is bigger than a phone book (does anyone get those anymore?)!  My first impulse was to chuck it because there is just SO MUCH STUFF in it, but I didn't.

It did get me thinking about a friend who's just getting started in homeschooling.  She's feeling overwhelmed and doesn't know where to start. 

When we were talking about it, I asked her if she'd looked into different homeschooling methods and if there was one she liked.  Yes, she'd read a little but wasn't gung ho about any of them (by the way, my favorite quick overview is Lisa Whelchel's, So You're Thinking about Homeschooling).

So, where do you start? 

I would advise (even though the thought of giving advice still strikes me as strange, I'm still learning...does that ever stop?) thinking about what you like.  How organized are you?  Do you love to read classics (or wish you'd read more, like me)?  Do you like history?  Do you love science?  Where do you need structure in your life?  Or do you need any at all?

After talking, my friend loved the idea of her kids reading classics and using history as her spine (this just means that everything except math revolves around whatever period in time you are studying). 

Even after making those decisions, there are still so many options in types of curriculum (or even whether or not to buy "set" curriculum).  In the end, what it all comes down to is just choosing.  Use something as your guide and PICK (Cathy Duffy's 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum would work wonderfully and is a lot less overwhelming than that gargantuan Rainbow Resource catalogue).

I think we'd all like magical bells to chime when we come across that perfect curriculum.  You know, the one that our children and we will both love to work through.  The one that will teach them just what they need to know and will lead our kids to come back to us one day and say, "You were the best teacher ever, I'm so glad you homeschooled me, I couldn't have ever learned/done/been what I am today without you."  Well, I would...but I haven't heard any magic bells yet.  Darn.

Just know, that if homeschooling is what you really want, you can do it.  Just get started.  If something doesn't work, you'll adapt and try again.  And chances are, you'll find tons of amazing curriculum that will help you guide your kids down their (and your) unique paths of learning.

Yes, it sounds a little cheesy but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Sharing Time - June Week 5 - Review

I've decided that five Sunday's are both a blessing and a little difficult.  It can be hard to figure out how to review all the lessons throughout the month in both an entertaining and spiritual way. 

We actually had Stake Conference this month, so the five separate weeks helped us stick to the Sharing Time outline a little better.

For those of you that didn't have time taken out (or who didn't take a Sunday off the normal schedule for Father's Day), I decided to make a Jeopardy game to go along with all our lessons throughout the month.

For each of the four categories, I came up with four questions. 

You can either have all the kids play together, or you can split them up into teams (depending on both your size and which you think fits your primary the best).

And you can either play traditional Jeopardy where you show the answer, letting them guess the question, or you can play ant-Jeopardy and just ask the questions.  Having to answer with a question is sort of hard to grasp (hopefully that's not just me), so I would ask the questions with Junior primary and maybe mix it up with Senior, having them try to figure out the questions. 

In the Renewing Covenants section there are actually five questions, but you won't use them all.  One question works if you are asking the questions and the other works if you are letting the kids come up with the questions like traditional Jeopardy.

Here's a cheet sheet that show's all my questions and answers for each week.

I also have everything on it's own individual sheet and I turned it all into a pdf so you could just print it out and stick them on a bulletin board on Sunday, I love simple.  I uploaded it to google docs, you can click on over and download it there if you'd like to use it!

If you did want to add a few more questions (or change out a few for your own), I used the syncopate font.  If you happen to have it, you could make it all match (I really like things to match...I'm sort of crazy about it actually).

Don't forget to share your testimony of these many wonderful gospel truths as you work your way through the game!

Hope you all have a wonderful 5th Sunday!!

How will you use your beauty?

I finished up a book a week or so ago where the author relates a personal story when she visited a homeschool prom. She was curious how it might differ from recollections of her own prom night. Although she spent much of her time disparaging the girls modest attire, the dancing a foot apart and how very polite everyone was to each other, she related one conversation that stuck with me.

The conversation went contrary to the point she seemed to be making (which is part of the reason why I remember it so vividly) and it was also kind of awesome. She was in the girls restroom when a group of girls came in to fix their makeup and she started asking them questions. After discovering that one of the girls had recently attended a public school prom, the author asked her which she liked better.

The girl said the homeschool prom and when prodded to further explain her reasoning, she mentioned a few reason.  First, there was a lot more dancing at this prom which was more fun. And second, the boys treated her nicer and, in a whisper, she said that she felt like a lady (I don't have the book in front of me, it was a library book that I've since returned, but this is accurate to the best of my recollection).

She felt like a lady. That seemed to echo through my head as I read it. What was it that made her feel like a lady?

Then a few days ago, I came across this video on Facebook.



I love it.  I love the statistics and I love her journey of discovery that led to designing her own line of swim suits.  There are a few wonderful lines in it (well, more than a few, but these are my favorites).  First, "Modesty is about revealing our dignity" and second, "How will you use your beauty?"

I'm not 100% positive that this was the reason for the prom girl feeling like a lady at the more modest prom (in dress, action and probably music), but I would guess that it was. 

What do you think?

Growing, Growing, Growing

I'm having more fun documenting my garden that I thought I would.  It's pretty awesome to watch it grow (even though it's getting a little weed-ey...I've been working in other parts of my yard and neglecting my portions of the garden a little).

This is the first year I've planed my corn in stages.  I've wanted to for a while, but I was always afraid I'd plant some and never get around the planting the rest.  But I did it!  There are four sections and they're all planted about a week and a half apart.

The section above shows how much my beans have grown (I can't wait to eat some) and my tomatoes.  The one in the farthest cage is doing pretty good, but the closest one isn't.  I can't figure out why.  I've watered and told it how pretty it is and how much I'm looking forward to eating it's tomatoes (just like the other plants) and it still doesn't seem to want to grow.  Darn it.

This front section is my kids (that's why it's better weeded...mostly).  They love to come out and check how their fruit and vegetables are doing and excitedly want to show me any changes...all the time.  I should have given them their own plots a long time ago.

If you want, you can check out the progression of my garden in some previous posts.  This is when I just got started and this is a few weeks ago.

Happy gardening!

Homeschool Planning & Tracking

After finishing up my second year of homeschooling, I've come to a realization.  I need to be more organized.

Now, I'm a really organized person.  I plot and plan and then triple check everything and no, I'm not crazy...well, maybe sometimes.

So, this begs the question, why in the world would I need to be MORE organized?!

Part way through last year I was finally comfortable enough with every one's curriculum and our daily routines to start adding in bigger projects.  I'm not a project-ey person by nature, I like things to be the same everyday and projects intimidatingly disrupt my normalcy.  But, I found to my surprise, I really liked doing them with my kids and, no surprise, they liked doing them too.  Even though I liked them, I didn't like how I was doing them.  It ended up being sort of haphazard, forgetting about holidays until they'd passed and not really knowing when things (like book reports) should be "due."

I also never knew how long we'd been in school.  We work our way through our curriculum and do plenty of school, but I wanted to know when quarters were over.  I wanted to be able to tell (more easily) if we were on track with our curriculum.

So, I began my search for the "perfect" planning calendar.

Unfortunately, I soon came to the conclusion there is no such thing.  I found a lot of really cool calendars with all sorts of different planning options, but none that fit all my needs.

I also found that the more I looked, the more I wanted to stick in my planning calendar.  Cool things that hadn't occurred to me, but should have.

So, I've come up with a list of things that I need (want) to keep track of and do for next year.

Attendance
To help keep track of how long we've been in school, I've come across a few ideas.  One is an out and out attendance sheet that I would use to mark each child on a graph each specific date we have school.  The other is just a sheet full of numbered circles where you fill one in each day you're in school.

I think we'll start out with both, I'll take dated attendance and have my kids fill in a bubble for each day they are "in" school.  I'll be able to keep track of quarters and curriculum progression and they'll be able to see the days add up (plus, we'll know when we get to the 100th day, there are so many fun things to do!).

Project Scheduler
I'm thinking it would be best to use a monthly calendar to keep track of projects.  I can write in holidays we want to celebrate, figure out how many book and research reports the kids are going to do and space them out throughout the year.  To keep who's doing what separate, I'm thinking I'll write each child's projects in different colored pens (I've been looking for an excuse to buy some fun pens for myself).

Field Trip Planner
I'm not sure if this should go on the same calendar as the projects, or somewhere different.  I'm worried about having too much stuff on one calendar and about having too many different papers...so I'm torn about how to go about it.  I'll probably try it all on one calendar and then adjust if I need to.  Or maybe stick it on the one calendar, but also have a separate sheet with all planned field trips for the year.  Sort of a year at a glance sheet for field trips.  Shoot, I still can't decide.

Goal Setting
I want my kids to set goals specific to our school time.  I'm a big fan of goals and so I'm surprised this never occurred to me, but it didn't.  I'm not sure what these will look like, so I think I'll leave it up to my kids.  We'll brainstorm together in the beginning our our school year and then I'll give them some time to write out their own goals. 

I also think goals should be malleable, changing with us, and so we'll review our goals setting new ones at least every quarter (see, I need to keep track of how long we've been in school!).

Vision Statement
This is sort of related to goal setting, except they will be goals for everyone.  For our school as a whole.  I've actually been thinking about this for a while and I have a seed of an idea. 

Last year my kids made their own coat of arms for a history project. 

Each coat of arms represents each of my kids and as I watched them come together, I started to think it would be fun to make a coat of arms for our Homeschool.  We could talk about what we want for our school time and then figure out ways to symbolize that with pictures.  After we're done, we can stick it on the wall to remind us of the direction we've chosen to head together.

Reading Log
I found a reading log I LOVE (Tina's Dynamic, link below).  We tried to keep a log at the beginning of last year and failed miserably.  It wasn't fun for anyone, but I plan to use these logs to keep track of assigned books (the ones that go along with our history and language arts curriculum).  I'll write when they should be starting and finishing each book and they can figure out how many chapters or pages they'll have to read everyday day/week, marking them off as they go.  Then, at a glance, we can both see if they're staying on track.

Supply List
Another item I desperately need is a list of supplies for our various curriculum.  These are usually for History and Art projects and Science experiments.  While I do purchase some supplies at the beginning of the year, I collect others throughout and need a way to track exactly when I'll need what.  I hate getting all ready for the day and realizing I'm missing one part to a planned (not well, sadly) project.

Daily/Weekly Planner
This is actually the one thing I don't need and am so glad I already have.  I made a checklist for Ben part way through our first year of homeschooling and it was a real life saver.  Seriously. 

I made one for both James and Makenna this last year and it saved my bacon.  Or my sanity.  Maybe both.

For the upcoming year, I've thought about ways to give Makenna complete control of her schedule with her own planner, but I love the checklists too much.  Although, I know it's good for her to learn to make out her own schedule (and how to stick to it), so I'm thinking I'll give her a new schedule and a planner a few weeks before school to let her figure out how she wants to keep track of her schoolwork.  I know, I'm still doing part of it for her...baby steps. 

So, what do you think?  Am I missing anything crucial?  What is your very favorite planning or calendaring tool?

Oh, and just in case you would like to check them out, this is where I've found my favorite bits and pieces that I plan to use to make up my own planner thing-ey.

Weekly Homeschool Planner - not free, but you can look at a sample before buying
Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus - this is AWESOME (and free)!!
Living Well Spending Less - free
Confessions of a Homeschooler - not free, but adorable

Sharing Time - June Week 4 - Repentance & Forgiveness

The topic for this week is "When I repent I can be forgiven." 

There are a few different (but very similar) object lessons involving how sin can get us dirty and how when we repent we can be forgiven and made clean again.

One involves sticking dots (or maybe splotches) on yourself or someone else as you talk about sins we might make.  The second is to use a picture of a person (like the one found on Parenting in the Latter-days), making smears on it with peanut butter, frosting or something else gooey.  And the third is to use a volunteer hand and some syrup.  As you talk about the sins, squirt a little more syrup over the hands until they're covered (you'll need a bowl to catch the overflow). 

I like the splotch-ey dot idea best (I made them different colors because there are all sorts of different sins out there...).  Whichever idea you use, I like another idea from Little LDS Ideas to finish out and explain the object lesson.  Print out the phrase, "When I repent I can be forgiven" in a large font and then cut each individual word apart. 

Hide the words around the primary room underneath random chairs.  After affixing the dots (or covering something/one in goo) tell the children to look under their chairs to help figure out what can help you get clean again.  Have the kids bring them up, figure out the correct word order and read the sentence to the rest of the primary.

Next, we need to delve a little more deeply into what it means to repent.  I found a catchy idea on another post from Little LDS Ideas that talks about the ABCD's of repentance.  I always learn (and remember, this is the important part) new information better when I am taught some sort of trick.  This works perfect for that! 

While I really like the one I found, I ended up making my own because I wanted to change the letter C just a little bit.  It's important to talk about how we must do our best to make reparations for or "fix" our mistakes.  We can't always, but we should always try.

You could cover up each line (or cut them apart and put them up one at a time), but it might be fun, especially with senior primary, to see if they can guess what each letter stands for before telling them.  As you go through each step, make sure they understand what it means.

To help them remember, I would go over each letter each time you uncover one.  Then at the end, cover them up (one at a time again, or all at once) and see if they can remember what each letter stands for. 

To test their knowledge of the steps and how to use them in everyday life, I found a pyramid game on lds dot org.  Read a situation (or re talk about the situations you used earlier to add your splotches/syrup/peanut butter) and then roll the pyramid.  Ask the child who rolled to tell you what they should do in the situation for the step that is facing them.  Or you could do the step that's facing down if figuring out which side is facing them seems too hard.  The steps on lds dot org match up pretty well, but not exactly, so I adapted the pyramid for our ABCD's.

Simply right click to save it as a picture, print it out, cut, fold and glue where it tells you.

In closing, read the scripture mentioned in the Sharing Time outline, Mosiah 26:30 which says,

"Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me." 

If you didn't take the opportunity while going through the steps, make sure you talk about how Heavenly Father will forgive each time we sincerely ask for forgiveness (we have to MEAN IT).  Even after we've promised never to do it again.  We all make the same mistakes over and over, and as long as are truly sorry, we can be forgiven over and over.

Did you know there's a Forgiveness Day? Well, now you do and it happens to be this month (on the 26th)! I think it's very important that as we teach about seeking forgiveness for ourselves, we teach the importance of forgiving others. Kids need this lesson a lot less that we adults do, but it's good to mention that as we are trying to be like God, we need to work hard to forgive like Him.  In fact, we need to forgive everyone, not just those that ask our forgiveness! 

Challenge all our kids (and the teachers, too!) to think of anyone who's made them upset and to pray for help in forgiving for Forgiveness Day.  As we forgive, we feel more peace and joy in our lives.  I am always amazed at how following the commandments brings such abundant blessings!

Hope you have a wonderful week!!