First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school. We have been taking "First Day of School" pictures since Elsie was in Kindergarten. Because we homeschool it is important to make a few traditions that mark these wonderful occasions. I also love to look back at their pictures with their signs and see how much they have grown.

You can see from the picture that we have a 9th grader, 7th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader, 1st grader and a Pre-Kindergartener. I am anticipating a busy year, but am also excited to get back into teaching full time. I know that a stay-at-home mom is always teaching, but I am referring to the more structured teaching of homeschool.

My favorite group shot

The classic silly shot

May God bless you and yours as you pursue higher learning, whether it is third grade or graduate work.

Sweet Momma

Calgon, Take Me Away!!!

Have you ever felt in over your head? I seem to be living in such a state lately. =) I am still smiling and it is really not that bad.

I am attempting to prepare for another homeschool year where I will be schooling six children. I have a preschooler up to a freshman in high school. It is our own little one room schoolhouse, but our one room consists of a large home with plenty of room and forced air heating.

I absolutely love schooling my children and I take the responsibility of it very seriously. I plan very carefully and attempt to cover each subject necessary and then some. Each of my students has needs in different areas and these must all be taken into account as I plan out my schedule. This year I hope to help Sunshine become a completely independent reader. Little Buddy refuses to sit by and just play, so he has math, handwriting and age level workbooks to make him feel like the big four year old that he is.

Sweet Pea and Pumpkin will be tackling Sonlight 4, which covers the second half of American history. They will also begin a Latin program this year along with all their other subjects.

M&M is in 7th grade and becoming more independent each day, but still needs quite a lot of guidance. I am hoping to take a good amount of time focusing on character this year. I have a wonderful study called Polished Cornerstones that has hundreds of activities and assignments that help a young lady learn how to be a woman that honors God in all she does.

Elsie is my first high schooler. She will be studying the History of Christianity, Algebra 2, Physical Science, Speech and Debate,etc. Her load is full, but she is very excited. She is taking a class at our co-op called Coffee Shop. I am told that she will learn about how to run a business in this class. I am just hoping that she will be able to make an excellent mocha when she is all done with it. =) She has just recently started a blog that you can check out under my friends list.

Stand-Up Dad and I began teaching our parenting class that runs for 18 weeks last night and we will begin Bible Quizzing practice next week.

Stand-Up Dad often reminds me that we wanted a big family and with many children comes much responsibility. So today, I am thanking God for all the blessings in our home and working at organizing it so that every one of them can grow and learn and thrive!

May God bless you and your family as you prepare for this new school year!
Sweet Momma

TeenPact!

Here is Elsie with all of the students from her Civics class at our homeschool co-op.

They were part of a group of 90 students at TeenPact.

Sweet Momma and all of the siblings went to watch Elsie during a Mock Legislature

and were able to see her graduate from her week of training.

Hi! Elsie here! I just finished an awesome week learning about the government. TeenPact is a Christian homeschool event designed to teach young people how our government works and how we can have an impact on the choices that our leaders make.

To attend TeenPact, there was some homework that I completed. One of the assignments was to write a bill on a serious or funny issue. The first day, we watched a hilarious skit about how a bill becomes a law. Immediately after that, we read our bills and they assigned our bills to committees. Within our committees, we elected a chairman and a secretary. I was elected to secretary in my committee.

In the evenings, we stayed at a camp about fifteen minutes from the capitol. Every night all the students ate dinner together, then had worship and a message. A very special part was when later in the evening we split into small groups to discuss our day.

On the second day, we went on our first field experience, drafted bills in committee, and participated in a Mock Legislature. Field Experiences were when we did prayer walks around the capitol and learned about our government. Soon after, we broke into committees to work on bills during lunch. As the secretary for my committee, I was the one who read all the bills out loud and wrote down all the changes we made. My favorite part of the day was Mock Legislature, where we took the bills we had passed in committee, and debated on them. We used Robert's Rules of Order and voted on every bill.

Day number three was filled with speakers, elections, and final field experiences. In the morning, Lt. Governor Brad Owen came and spoke to us about respecting our leaders even though we may not agree with them. At TeenPact, we elected a governor, and three representatives. I ran, but did not make it past the primary elections. One boy from my co-op was elected to representative. The elections were very fast-paced and exciting.

The final day was very memorable. We had our final committee meeting, participated in a game to test our knowledge of the Constitution, and finally graduated. Previous to the last day, my committee had been very official. Being official in itself is fine, but it was getting pretty boring. Since it was the last day, we decided that we would have some fun. To begin with, every bill has a clause that reads "All laws or parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed". One of the guys in my group had the brilliant idea to cross out the "in conflict with this act" so that it now read, "All laws or parts of laws are hereby repealed". We knew that if this bill got on the dock in Mock Legislature it would be hilarious. Soon following we played "Constitutional Power Grab" which is a game where they give us a scenario having to do with the government. Then we would have to look up the section in the Constitution that shows why it is unconstitutional. During graduation, parents got to see us participate in Mock Legislature. Surprisingly, my bill that I had written came up on the dock, and I went on stage to speak on it. While I was on stage, people in the audience asked me questions about my bill. If I did not want to answer a question I didn't have to. As we were about to end our TeenPact legislature, they brought up the last bill- the bill that we had changed in my committee. When they read "All laws or parts of laws are hereby repealed", confusion broke out. Everyone was asking questions while my committee sat there laughing. Strangely enough, we did end up passing that bill. Finally, I went up to receive my certificate of completion of TeenPact Leadership Schools.

TeenPact was an amazing experience that shaped my faith in God, my character, and my knowledge of our government. Before gong to TeenPact, I saw government as something that I read about in newspapers or watch on television, but has no real effect on me. I saw it as something in the distance, not meant to be grasped. TeenPact changed that. I now realize that I can and should have an effect on my government, because not only does it affect me, but it is my duty as a Christian to "always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within me".

For more information about TeenPact go to www.teenpact.com

Elsie

Sunshine is Reading in English!!!

We are rejoicing at our house to see Sunshine read her first book in English! When we met her two months ago we learned that she was already reading in Tigrinya. I knew that teaching her to read in English would be easy if she could already read in her language. I never thought it would happen this quickly.

She is so motivated to learn. I started using "Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons." We are only on lesson 11 as I have only been schooling her for three weeks. I thought I would let her try the first Bob Book. You can see the result. I know that she has just begun to read, but this is where all readers begin.

I cried. I always cry when my kids read their first book. Reading opens the door to any possibility. I am thanking God today that Sunshine already has an amazing love of learning. I have everyone that loved her in Ethiopia to thank for that!

Sweet Momma

First Day of School!

Sunshine's First Watercolor

Little Buddy's First Watercolor

Elsie is helping to school her little brother and sister. She is in charge of art, games and puzzles.

After a month long break, we started back to school today with two new students. While in Ethiopia, Sunshine attended a local school for half of the day. I was told that there were about 50 children and one teacher. I was not expecting her to know much in the way of letters and numbers, but I was completely surprised when I met her. She was already reading in Tigrinia and knew all of her letters and numbers in English. She is a smart little cookie. So instead of waiting until next fall to start formal school, we started today.

We had an interpreter explain to Sunshine a few weeks back that I was going to be her teacher. She laughed out loud. And then asked if he was serious. Everything in America is new and different.=)

We took both of them to our home-school co-op at church yesterday. I took them into a preschool class to show them what it was like. The teacher was talking about winter. She read a story about winter and then invited the kids to join her in a snowball fight. (We don't have snow here. The "snow" consisted of about 100 white mesh sponges. So soft, but lots of fun!) They threw snowballs for about 10 minutes and it was time to go. I asked them if they wanted to come back next week and the overwhelming answer was, "Yes!!!"

Today we started school with a new schedule. Yes, I am a 'scheduler.' I love a schedule. I don't think I needed one until the fourth baby came along, but they make me happy. I have my homeschool day planned out in 30 minute segments. The book "Managers of Their Homes" by Steve and Terri Maxwell has been very helpful. The schedule is basically a guide to help everyone move through the day and complete most of their work.

I added Sunshine and Little Buddy to the schedule and made adjustments with some of the other kids to fit everything in. I think it went pretty well. Sunshine was quite confused for most of the morning. She explained to me that at school in Ethiopia everyone did the same thing. If the teacher said to write "A", "everyone wrote A." She did not understand why I did some school with her and Little Buddy, and then other school with Sweet Pea and Pumpkin. It was very hard to explain to her that each of her brothers and sisters do different levels of work. I think that this is another area that will be OK in time.

My favorite part of our day was prayer time tonight. I rock each of the little ones in a rocking chair before bed. We sing a song and pray together. I usually pray first and give them an opportunity to pray. Sunshine prays in Tigrinia each night. I love listening to her lift her voice to the Lord in her own language. I love that God hears our prayers in every language on this big planet.

This past week I started praying for Sunshine and Little Buddy's siblings in Ethiopia during our prayer time. I don't know why I had not done this before. I definitely pray for them during my private prayer time. Sunshine was so pleased and I heard the names of her siblings in her prayer as well. Since that day, she has prayed for each one.

Tonight when she began her prayers, I heard my name and Stand-Up Dad and all of her American siblings too. I started to cry. It overwhelmed me. It may seem silly, but I have been praying for this little girl even before I knew her name. Tonight, she prayed for me. God is good!

Sweet Momma

Celebrate Good Times C'mon!

Hallelujah, we have finished another homeschool year and it is time to CELEBRATE! I am so proud of all four of my kiddos. They have worked extremely hard and have learned a lot. It is so amazing to see their progress from year to year. The best part for me is that I get to see that progress first hand all through the year.

Elsie has just completed 7th grade, M&M is done with 5th, Sweet Pea has completed 2nd, and Pumpkin is all done with Kindergarten. I am so happy to see how God is working in each of their lives and I look forward to what the next school year will bring.

For the last several years we have had a Homeschool Graduation Celebration with my brother and his family. They also homeschool their four children. We hand out Achievement Certificates and give the kids a chance to share a few of the things they learned or enjoyed over the past year. We BBQ, have water play and always compete in an obstacle course. It is tons of fun and a great way to end the year.

Summer fun, here we come!

Sweet Momma

Ohop Indian Village Field Trip

Here is Sweet Pea and her "Sweetest" friend dressed in their Indian finest!

Elsie is practicing weaving.

Sweet Pea is learning how to boil vegetables by using hot rocks from the fire.

Pumpkin tries to hit the target with his bow and arrow.

M&M has added cedar dust to her cheeks to show that she is friendly, and that she truly is!

Last Friday I took the kids on a field trip, with 40 other kids from our homeschool co-op. We went to a Pioneer Farm that also had another area devoted to celebrating the Ohop Indians and their way of life.

We were all amazed at how they lived on so little and how they used everything they could to make what they needed. They even soaked the bark from cedar trees and pounded it down into thread-like pieces to make doilies.

Experiences like this are so much fun, but they always leave me humbled by how much I have. God placed me in a country where I want for little. He placed me in a home that knows the Lord and worships Him. He gave me an amazing husband and children, a warm home and more food than many people see in months. I have so much to be grateful for.

I know that my children may have difficulty seeing all of this. It is my job to continue to point their hearts to Christ first, then to others, and then to their own needs. It is a lifelong process for us all.

Science anyone?

We are a homeschooling family that is part of a weekly co-op at our church. Each year around this time there is a science fair where your child can present their discoveries to all the other families who might be interested. All the information is taken down and then pasted to one of those tri-fold display boards. When complete, it is a wonder to behold. The process to completion is another story. Moms and Dads, you know what I mean.

This year we answered these two questions: Does weight affect gravity? Does water conduct electricity?

Fun was had by all and we learned some things too.

To find out the answers to these questions, you will have to track down my kids. I want them to use that knowledge gained and work on presentation skills in the process. Thank you for the help with their education.

Sweet Momma