Child Training and Virtue Training Bibles

 

They are finally here.  I am so excited to have these in my home.  This is one of those items that I pinned on Pinterest ages ago and have been wanting to purchase.  I am so glad I finally did.  It will be great to be able to have a quick and easy reference to all those Bible verses that I wish I could remember when I need to to guide one of my children (and maybe even myself)!

 

It will probably take a lot of time to get all the verses highlighted and marked but it will be so worth it in the end. 

 

To see more of what this is about please watch this tutorial.

http://www.childtrainingbible.com/p/tutorial.html

 

Once I have completed this project I will write more about it and how I will be using it in our home.  My girls are already asking what it is and looking at all the pages.

 

 

Am I Weary? Oh yes I am!

I recently loaded the book Hope for the Weary Mom, Where God Meets You in Your Mess by Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin onto my Kindle.  It has been sitting there for a while.  Well this week after a very very long and stressful day with my girls I fell into bed and wanted to read a new book.  I went to this one for the first time and thought.  YEAH I AM WEARY.  Lets see if this is going to make me feel miserable about that or help me.

Chapter 1: Why God Meets Us in Our Mess.  Stacey writes this part and is talking about her mess including the mess inside her heart. The God has used mothering to break and mold us.  His hands are still at work as He isn't finished yet.

I was getting through this chapter pretty well thinking Yeah this sounds a lot like me.  I can relate to so much of it.  Then she had the following prayer in the chapter and as I read and prayed tears began to fall down my cheeks.

Lord,

Today, I want to honestly admit where I am. I am tired beyond the normal.  I am a wary mom who needs a fresh encounter with you. 

Please work in my messy heart.  Make it a place where you love to reside.  Fill it with Your presence and begin working on the inside who you want me to m on the outside.  I believe You want to do more that I can possibly imagine.  I invite You to start right now. 

I know it will not happen overnight.  I might take two steps forward and two steps back. Thank you for walking with me Jesus and being patient with me.  Thank you for making me a mom in the first place.  My prayer is that my family will be the first to see hope at work in me. 

Amen


Wow.  Thanks Stacey for putting this in the book.  I was so blessed by this prayer.

This is just a sampling of the chapter.  If you a a weary mom like me please get this book.

Now onto the tuff stuff the Study Questions at the end of the Chapter

1 Do you ever feel like the older you get, the less organized you become?  What do you think contributes to this phenomenon?

Oh yes this is me.  And I can tell you right now what I think makes this happen.  It is called having 5 daughters.  I get so distracted and loose my train of thought all the time.  I had to get up early before them just to have the quiet I need to organize my thoughts to write this today.

2 What does the mess in your heart look like?

I promised myself I would be very honest in writing this and not hide anything.  Otherwise it would be pointless to go through this process.  My heart is very messy.  I don't even know why God would bother with it to be honest.  It is so messy that I have a hard time finding time for Him.  That doesn't sound right at all but it is true.

3 How does it make you fell to know God cares more about working on your heart that He does changing your circumstances?

Well this is something we all need to reminded of.  But does God really put me in these positions through out me day in order to change me heart.  YES He does!  I always want to think if my kids just behaved better then I would be better.  No the Lord is trying to teach me many things I am sure through these 5 daughters of ours.  They are each very different and bring very different things into our lives.  God is certainly using this to work on my heart.

4 Does it help you to know that Hope for the Weary Mom was written by two moms in the trenches? Not professionals, not moms on the other side of the journey, but moms in the midst of the mess just like you?

Yes it does because after reading some of this book it doesn't make me feel bad it makes me feel like I have a chance to get through this time in my life.  Us moms need this type of support in our live.  The kind where people don't try to hide their messes but are honest about them.  If you feel the same way please comment to me on this post!! 

5 When was the last time you honestly admitted to God how weary you truly are?  How do you think He would handle the news. 

Well I prayed the prayer above during this chapter and felt really bad.  Then as I was praying I began to feel a burden lifted.  Oh forgot to say that at the time I was reading this I was going through my nightly wrestling match with our 2 y.o.  It was late at night as usual and I was exhausted.  But as I read this prayer with tears running down my cheeks she became quiet all of the sudden and fell asleep.  Thank you Lord for that moment of seeing that you are listening to my heart felt prayers.  I think His response is him saying "Dawn it is about time you asked me for help in dealing with these things.  You should have known not to try to do this on your own." 

Well that is all for this first chapter.  As the first of the girls has crept out of bed and is seeking my attention.

Please if you feel the way I do and can relate at all to anything above then you need to get this book.  Follow this blog and lets talk.  I mean real honest talk. 

How to Get Your Kids to Clean Up After Themselves..and Like It! book review.

I am later than I wanted to be in writing this post.  Sometimes things just get away from me as I am sure it does all of you at times.

Today I am going to tell you about an amazing book that I reviewed recently.  Now my husband and I are raising 5 amazing daughters.  They each have a heart for God, are caring sweet young ladies.  People are always commenting on how well behaved they are and for the most part when around others they do behave very well.  I have raised them to know what is expected of them with their manners when out in public.  Now that is not to say that at times correction is not needed for some mis-doing!  As they are just kids and will behave like kids and follow their flesh at times.

So what is the problem you may ask.  Well it is all my fault really and I am on a mission to correct it.  I have failed in an area of my child training and that is teaching them to clean up after themselves.  I have never been a very organized person and hate to clean up as well.  So as I said I am the one to blame when I see that they are being disobedient  in cleaning up. 

I was lost in what to do as I had tried so many things.  Until now.  I feel like I finally found a resource that will help me in training my girls in this area of our lives.  How to Get Your Kids to Clean Up After Themselves... and Like It!  by Kim Crandall. This is written in such a great style.  As letters from Aunt June to her niece Emily.  Oh, Aunt June is so wise and patient in her letters to Emily in how to train her children in cleaning up.  It has so much advice and you can start even with older kids if you have missed this as I have.  I feel like I can take these letters one by one and use them as steps in working with my girls.

She says that "Cleaning up should not drive a wedge between you and your children"  I feel that so far this is what it has been doing to me and my girls. 

Here I think is the main point of this book

"  When we discuss kids and cleaning we are really talking about three separate but overlapping ideas:  training them in the habit of picking up their own messes, teaching life skills that will be necessary in the future (like how to mop a floor or how to prepare a meal, and ensure responsible performance of assigned tasks that benefit the family, those things we usually label "chores".  Since they haven't mastered picking up after themselves yet, it seems that would be a good place to start.''  And so begins the journey through this book.  There is so much help and advice here that you just have to purchase it and see for yourself.

If you are struggling in this area of your household as I am then I highly recommend this book.  If you purchase it please let me know and let me know how it is working for you and your family.  I will be posting about how it is working for us so I hope you follow along with me.

http://www.wholesomechildhood.com/LettersFromAuntJune/

Until August 31st the price for this is $7.  This is an instant download E-book and you get several extras along with it.  These include a cleanup rules reference sheet, motivators to make cleanup fun, favorite kid safe cleaning recipes, and favorite resources and freebies.   This is a wonderful price for all the great help you will receive.

You will learn the following and much more

Why Picking Up is Good for Everyone - and how to get that point across to your kids
How Not to Drive a Wedge between You and Your Children
The Two Most Important Ground Rules
How to Establish Your Routines
Preparing to Hand Off Responsibility
The 5 Step, No-Fail Teaching Method
How to Wisely Handle Chores, Rewards & Consequences
The Value of Preparing Your Children when the Unexpected Happens

You can even download a free preview.  My initial review is in this add as well.

One final note this book is being sold by the wonderful people at Homeschool Freebie of the Day, great free resources for homeschoolers everyday.  I have been signed up with the for many years and it is a great resource to have.  Thanks Erkstine family for all you do.
http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/

Dawn,
Mother in Training

A Great Gem

I just got done writing my first book review.  OH my I have a treasure to pass on.  But I will not be able to until the first part of next week.  It is about how to get your kids to clean up after themselves.  I loved it and can't wait to tell of you more about it!

Hope you are waiting in anticipation because this is going to be good.

Planning The School Year Ahead

Today's project:  I will begin printing out schedule sheets and try to start planning our year. 

What planner do I use?

Well glad you asked.  I have a subscription to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and with the subscription I get this wonderful thing called schoolhouse teacher.  This is a great addition to my subscription.  There is so much on there that I can't believe it. (talk more about that in a later post)  Included are great planners.  There are several levels that you can download moms, special learners, primary, intermediate, high school.  I will be using one for me and one for my oldest daughter so she can be more responsible for her own education and day to day work.

If you are new to homeschooling or don't have a subscription yet to Old Schoolhouse I highly recommend it (it is now an online only subscription with one mailed issue a year)  I read it on my Kindle Fire.

http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/
http://schoolhouseteachers.com/

What is your yearly schedule?

Wow, you ask some great questions.  While in previous years we followed the same schedule as public school we are trying something new this year.  We will be doing a year round schedule this year.  Why would I do this?  Well everyone, including me, gets burned out throughout the year.  This is a great thing about homeschooling, FLEXIBILITY.  We can take a break when we want, not when someone else tells us we can.  We get to vacation and visit places when it is not so crowded with other vacationers.

Here are 3 options for year round schooling

Option 1:

School     Sept, Oct, Nov
Break       Dec
School      Jan, Feb, March
Break       April
School      May, June, July
Break       August

Option 2:

School for tree weeks and break for one week, year round.

Option 3:

School      September through mid-October
Break       Week off
School      Late October until Thanksgiving
Break       Week Off
School      Early December
Break       Three weeks off for Christmas and New Year's
School      Mid-January until late February or early March
Break       Two weeks (Everyone gets tired of school by late February!)
School      March, April
Break        Two weeks off
School      Late April, May, on through summer
Breaks      Anytime during the summer, whenever you're vacationing, visiting, entertaining, etc.

(taken from The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, love this book)

Which one are we doing?  Well option 3 more than likely, still praying on this, maybe option 2.

How do you know how much time to schedule?  Well if your math curriculum has 140 days to complete then you need to schedule that many days into your year, plus days for tests.  Our schooling is 4 days Monday to Thursday with Friday as a catch up or field trip day.

What do you do on weeks off?

Another great question.  We will use this time off to take day trips or vacations as a family.  We will also use some of this time to do week long unit studies, so the kids are still learning something great but taking a break from the normal curriculum. 

So this is a look into my planning for this year.  I will talk some other time about our actual daily schedule (or what I try to make into a daily routine)

Quote for the day:  A curriculum that gets done is superior, to a superior curriculum that doesn't get done.  (it took me a few years to learn that this is so true)

 

OK I finally began ordering curriculum to get this year started.  Here is what we will be doing this year.

Sydney:
Math: Saxon Algebra 1/2
English: Rod and Staff
Writing: Writing Strands
Vocab:  Vocabulary from Classical Roots
Science: Chemistry: using Christian Kids Explore (since I already have it)
History:  Mystery of History Vol 3 (we love this history)
Critical Thinking: Art of Argument (still hoping to purchase)

Josie and Mazzy:
Math: Miquon workbooks
Reading: 100 Easy Lessons (already part way through)
Language:  First Language Lessons
Writing: Writing With Ease
(they will sit in on history and do some chemistry experiments with Syd)
Handwriting: I will use online sources for worksheets and copywork.  I will share some pf these sites in a later post.

Addie:
Reading: begin 100 Easy lessons
I have K4 and Letter of The Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler: http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/
 
She is having a giveaway right now for this curriculum!!!!

Ruby:  Anything to keep her busy!

Art: Using Artist study from Confessions of a Homeschooler (its free and free is good)
Lots of crafts and fun stuff

Music: Composer study from Confessions of a Homeschooler (very low price)
Listen to lots of different music!
Going to teach several of the girls how to play the mountain dulcimer this year. Yipee!

Read LOTS AND LOTS of good Living Books!!!  If you don't know what that means let me know.

Well you get the idea of what books will be laying around my house this year.  Let me know if you are using any of this same material!

Still Growing Strong

I just got done reading my very first post on here from June 2010.  Had to make a slight change to it on the end!  Wow still feel the same way I did back then and those two trees are still growing good and strong standing next to each other.

Homeshool Planning 2012 The Beginning

OK so here comes another year of homeschooling just around the corner.  I am trying to plan out what curriculum I will use this year.  Looking at what I have and what is still needed.  I have always been a follower of the Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling.  That being said I recently read the book A Well Trained Mind.  I have actually read the parts that apply to my kids twice.  I found it to be very interesting.  Prior to reading it I felt very intimidated by what I saw being sold as Classical Curriculum.  So this year I will be combining the two approached a little bit.

After homeschooling for a while my two favorite things are Mystery of History and Apologia Science. My children love them both and any time we havn't used them during a school year things just didn't go as well. So why mess with a good thing!?

I will post soon my exact curriculum plan for each child and post how thing go through out the year.

Another goal of mine for this year is to read the kids books of the book lists from Honey For A Childs Heart.  I loved this book.  I am hoping to purchase Honey for a Teen Heart and Honey for a Moms Heart soon. 

I will be trying to sell some curriculum and books that I know I wont use so that we can stay on a tight budget for books to be used this year.  OH I wish I owned a money tree.  There are so many great things out there that I would love to have for my kids to read, look at, and play with.  By the way The Old Schoolhouse Magazine had some great articles this month on how to homeschool on a budget.  Great stuff and just what I needed to read!

So what are some of your wants or needs for this homeschool year?  I would love to hear?  What do you use that you absolutely love and would not change?

Happy Planning!

Need More Me Time

Wow, has it really been since November since my last post.  That really needs to change.  I love to write and really need some more me time so I will try to post more. 

Some topics for the future.

Our Garden:  We moved last spring and didnt have the time for a garden (too busy settling in and giving birth to a baby)  Now thanks to my hubby and father-in-law a new garden space has been tilled up so I will keep up on that project.

Homeschooling:  Had some curriculum changes in mid year which was hard but well worth it.

Raising Girls:   HMMM where do I begin!!!!!!

Well that should get the creative writing juices flowing!

Hubby just got home early so that it all for today.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

I just finished reading the book The Art Of Racing In The Rain and novel by Garth Stein.  It was so great. I loved this book.  A great story about human life and human behavior as only a dog could tell.  I loved Enzo so much by the end of this story.  I will never look and any dog in the same way again.  Especially my older dog Belle.  I must say when I first received this book from my mom I didnt think I would like it.  Was I ever wrong.  This book was so well written.  I would recommend this book to anyone, especially to those that have a dog in their life.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0061537969/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

Fish and Mushrooms. What to do?

Thanks to my wonderful dad I have been the recipient of many, many pounds of fish over the summer.  I LOVE fish and if it were not for him I wouldnt get any, as my husband is not a fisherman.  We have had several fish fries but with so much fish still in the freezer it was time to get pickling!  Yes that is right, I said pickling.  I pickle fish and it is wonderful.  So I now have the bottom of my fridge lined with several jars that will be read for us to enjoy this weekend.  I hope to eventually share the recipe with you all.

Now on to the mushrooms.  My dad called recently and asked if I wanted some wild mushrooms.  Well duhhhh, of course I want mushrooms.  My dad is not only a good fisherman he is great at seeking out edible mushrooms.  So I figured he would stop by and drop of a few.  I was shocked when he walked in my house with a cooler full of mushrooms.  It took my husband and I over an our to get them all prepared and in bags to freeze.  Some when right in our meals this week and I still have a few in the fridge. 
Here are some pics so you can get a better idea of what I was dealing with. Not that I am complaining one bit.

Volcanoes

Last week we learned about volcanoes for science here at our homeschool.  After reading several good books about volcanoes with them I decided to have them build one themselves. 

First we made a dough using flour, salt, and water. 

Second I had them each draw some pictures of houses and landscape to put around the inside of the box, we wanted this to look as real as possible of course.  The empty soup can in the middle will be the center of the volcano.

Then it was time to add the clay.  We realized we added a little to much water because the clay just kept sliding down the can.

But that didn't stop my girls from having fun.

So once the construction was complete we waited for dad to get home from work and then I began filming with my camera.  What happened was unexpected.  I didnt realize what was going on in my 4 year olds mind as I was reading about volcanoes and what happens when one erupts.  In her mind this little volcano we had made was very scary as you will see from this video.

OK I can not figure out how to flip this video but it is too cute not to share so just get over it and tip your head OK.  Thanks.  Oh, did you notice the matchbox cars the girls added for extra effect.





Learning about Inuit and Arctic Living

This week in class the girls learnend about living in the Arctic.  One of the projects for my 3 oldest girls was for them to build an Igloo out sugar cubes.  We used frosting to hold it all together.  It kept wanting to collapse so we used a small drinking cup inside to keep it from falling in.  The girls had lots of fun.

The only bad thing about making something like this is, as you can imagine, them wanting to eat it.

It is a good thing we also talked about resisting temptation this week.

Getting Ready for School

I am still working of preparing for school this year.  Here is what I have planned so far.

I will be using Christian Cottage unit studies for the bulk of our class time.  This will be the first time I have used this program.  Looking it over it looks great.

I purchased Letter of the Week and K4 from http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/  I will use these with my 6, 5, and 3 year old to help them with what they are still lacking.  The 6 year old is beyond some of this but still needs help with reading skills and math.  It should be fun for all of them.

Ordered Stitches and Pins to do with my oldest daughter and myself.  I never learned how to sew well and cant wait to do this with her.  With 5 daughters I am sure there will be plenty of use for any new skills I learn along the way.

Will be using Foundations Bible Study and Building Christian Character as part of our bible study time.

I have also ordered other miscellaneous things to make our learning more fun.  I will write about those when they come in.

RUBY JANE HAS ARRIVED

Our newest little bundle Ruby Jane arrived on July 22 at 4:30pm. She weighed 6lb 14oz and was 19" long. She looks just like her 4 older sisters. A week later Bill and I still cant get over the fact that she is now here and that we have 5 daughters. Bill said to her "another one that is going to break daddies heart" you can tell he truely adores his little girls. This baby is getting tons of lovin from her big sisters as well. She is not wanting for attention and someone is always available to hold her.

Ruby Janes arrival into the world went very, very well. She was born here at home with the help of a midwife, her assistant, and of course daddy right by mommies side. The Lord surely did bless me with an easy delivery and I am greatful.

Planning The New Homeschool Year

I have decided to use my blog to track my adventures with homeschooling. I prayed a lot about what to use this year for our curriculum. I have decided to try Christian Cottage unit studies, I have been a fan of unit studies since I began homeschooling. I was going to plan out everything on my own but with a new baby in the house this year I decided this was the best option. I will also implement a lot of Charlotte Mason ideas. I have ordered the Christian Cottage study and am waiting for its arrival in the mail, hopefully it holds up to my expectations.

As I plan what resources I will be using I will post them and let you know how things go.

For my younger children I will also be using some resources from 1+1+1=1 1plus1plus1equals1.com and confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Planning

New Baby Soon

So I have 3 days left till my due date. I cant wait for this baby to enter the world. I have been trying to take it easy but I feel like I have so much I should be doing. Guess I need to find a happy medium until the big day.

Too Long

It has been way too long since I have posted anything on this site. I don't know why as I really do enjoy doing this. So now to get caught up a little (or a lot) So much has happened these many months.

I am about 3 weeks away from having baby #5. This pregnancy has gone so fast!! I am anxious to find out what it is and so is the rest of our family. The girls are hoping for a baby boy to finally join the family. We shall see. I have been feeling pretty good as far as energy, but now I have begun having ligament and back pain. I was having really bad leg cramps during the night but I am now making sure I taking calcium befor bed and that has helped out a lot. So I will have to keep up to date with this excitement.

We also moved recently. We are no longer caretakers of a nature preserve. It is a big relief for the entire family, we seem to spend much more family time together and my hubby seems so much more relaxed as he can do things on his own time. We are living in a farm house with huge barns on 3 acres. Lots of potential for the future. We thought we would miss the nature preserve but I honestly do not!!

I have been working really hard lately on planning out my girls school curriculum already. I want to be more prepared with the new baby on the way so we can have a productive school year despite the distractions that I know will occur with a baby in the house. I am looking forward to what I have planned so far.

Well that is all for now in my limited time.

Butchering Freedom Rangers

WARNING! If you are squeamish about seeing animals being butchered then please skip this post.

So the day finally came when our Freedom Ranger Chickens were big enough to be butchered. I will take you through most of the process in this post.

This is one of 3 cages loaded with our chickens.

My husband said "We picked them up in a little box and it takes a trailer to take them to be butchered."

Why are the looking at me like that?

They really were not hard to butcher for they did not have the personality of my laying hens and roosters. If you raise chickens you understand what I mean by personality when it comes to a chicken.

This is the killing cones. You put the chickens in head first and slit their necks letting them bleed out till dead. I did not photograph this part of the process because, well this was the hardest part for me to watch.

This is the scalding tank. It is made from a water heater and runs on propane. I forgot to take a picture of all the gauges on the back. Anyway it heats the water to 149 degrees.


Then we dunk the chickens in two at a time until their feathers pull out easily.

This is the inside of the chicken plucker. This was so amazing to me how fast it pulled the feathers from the chickens.

The chickens were put in and with the plucker running and as it spun some water was sprayed in and wa-lah, featherless chickens.

The chickens were then taken to the butchering table. I did not photograph the step by step process at this stage. Maybe that can be an idea for a future post.

Oh that was a good size rooster.

My husband is the one facing the camera.

After the guys butchered them they gave them a good rinse and then I took them and packaged then in plastic wrap and freezer bags.

In the end, on this day, we put 33 chickens in our freezer.

Thank you to Rick for letting us use all of your great butchering equipment. Thank you to Shad for all of your help. Thanks to my hubby for putting up with these not so bright chickens, I know we will appreciate it the winter when we have roasted chicken or chicken noodle soup. By the way the term homemade chicken noodle soup will have way more meaning for us now.