Of course we just started back to school after Christmas but so far it is going very well. The girlies were excited. Probably because is the first day back. I know it is a lot later than most returned but isn’t that the beauty of home-schooling? Life is allowed to happen as it desires and we get to hang on for the ride?

I was sharing with another homeschooling mom this evening how we had just gotten started and you should have seen her eyeballs pop.  I love not being schedule driven, or tied to someone else’s schedule, a school schedule or even another homeschooling family’s schedule.

We accomplished all I wanted to accomplish today. That makes it a success, right? I even managed to write a “what we’ll do each day” schedule.

As much as I know my loosey-goosey self with a great disdain for all things scheduled, I know I have accomplished the easy part. The hard part will be implementing it.

Here is what our schedule (and I use that term loosely!).

Monday………Homeschool Cooperative Day. This takes all day, and as President of the board I need to be there all day.

Tuesday………This will be our heavy schooling day. We will do Math, handwriting spelling, grammar, history, and Latin.

Wednesday…..Science, Math, Handwriting, review Latin. This is the lightest day because of AWANA in the evening.

Thursday………History color page/map and test, math, review Latin.

Friday……………Fun day. This will be our science experiment day, field trip day, art day and we’ll review Latin. Now the only thing that will happen every Friday is reviewing of Latin. The others will be as they come up.

Can someone help me, I’m trying to think of field trips to go on. We only have one museum in town and the girls have been there a lot already. I’m thinking of a FT to the library, maybe a fast food restaurant. (in non-peak times obviously!) What are some other things? I will be planning a weekend trip to a large city nearby for their wonderful museums. I plan on making it a couple of days worth of museums. I just thought we could tour the police department, sheriffs dept. Fire station.

For science we are going to be watching Planet Earth. I recorded it from The Discovery Channel and just love it. I watched the first on today.  We’ll do it in science tomorrow.  The girls might freak out a bit. They show predators and well they meet with success. I’ll have to explain that part before we get there.

The girls will get to pick an animal from the episode and we’ll study that this week. Next Wednesday we’ll pick a different animal to study. We will look up what we can in our Usborne Science Encyclopedia.  I know the one for tomorrow talks a lot about grass so we’ll learn more about that as well.

I’m excited too.

I thought I would share some scenes from our Christmas.

We had a lot of snow already then it started snowing Christmas Eve around midnight. It turned into a blizzard, and snowed all morning on Christmas day. We have truly been blessed to be inundated with snow.

The girlies in their Christmas Jammies

The girlies are working on the puzzle Beanie (the little one) got for Christmas from Goober, the older. (I can’t remember if I’m using real names or nicknames here…tee hee)

Beanie in the candlelight. I love this picture.

Goober in the candlelight.

Our centerpiece. If you look closely in the back you can see Dear Man’s hand.

One of the best gifts ever given!!!

Is it possible to post videos from photobucket here?

To be sure!

The world and the state of Nebraska was rocked last week when a lone gunman open fired in a crowded Omaha mall. He killed 5 before turning the gun on himself. I heard one report a customer saw a man (either a store employee or a customer I can’t remember which) standing when another person came up to him and stood right next to him. That person was gunned down while the first man was left standing.

The world wept on Sunday when we heard the news of the shootings in Arvada, Colorado and Colorado Springs. Two missionaries and two church members shot before the lone gunman, believed to be responsible for both shootings, was killed. It was originally thought he was killed by an armed security officer, it has since been determined her shots did not kill him, but he turned his own gun on himself and pulled the trigger.

No less tragic is the shooting at a Las Vegas bus stop. It seems there had been a fight in an elementary school and the children decided it wasn’t over yet and one started shooting at the bus stop.

It is all so senseless! But desperate people do desperate things in times of desperation.Christmas is a very desperate time for many people. A time of happiness and joy turns into a time of sadness and death. And it is no wonder. The enemy of our souls wants nothing more than to keep our focus off the babe in a manger and on our own wretchedness.

I have been challenged in reading out of Luke today to be actively looking for random acts of kindness to do in Jesus name. Not my own name. Not to bring glory to me. But to bring glory to Him and maybe just change the outlook and outcome of someone’s day.

A few ideas:

• Pay for the meal of the car behind you in the drive thru lane. Tell them you’re doing because you love Jesus.
• Pay for the coffee of the next person at Starbucks. Tell the barista “Just tell them Jesus bought their coffee.” You will  not only bless the person you bought coffee for, but the Starbucks employee will also be blessed.
• Shovel the snow for someone you don’t know.
• Leave hot cocoa for your mail man. Tell him “Be warmed on this cold day in the name of Jesus.”
• Let someone go ahead of you in line at the grocery store or WalMart. Do it with a smile!
• Help an older man/woman on the ice. Without being asked.
• Make goodies and deliver to a homeless shelter.

The list could go on and on.

I challenge you as well. Look for random acts of kindness to do for someone else everyday between now and Christmas. Be desperate about it. But don’t stop at just one a day. Do as many as you can.

Because the world is desperate for what we have and they desperately need it.

I was chatting with Beanie this morning over her Barbies choice of attire. Or Beanie’s choice of her Barbies’ attire.  Beanie told me, “Momma, Daddy would not approve of a dress like this for me. But for my barbie it is okay.”

Since when?

Why are we expected to buy clothes for barbies we won’t allow our children to wear? Why is that?

This morning we awoke to not quite an inch of snow on the ground and more falling from the sky. The forecast is for snow all day today, all night and tomorrow.  YIPPEEE!!!

I noticed my across-the-street neighbor out sweeping his sidewalks and another one shoveling. I was quite tempted holler across the street, “I’ll pay you a quarter to do mine.” But thought that might be too cheap.

So instead I hauled the girlies outside for PE. They played while I worked shoveling and sweeping all the snow.

Wasn’t it nice of them to stop playing so I could take pictures?  After the pictures it was inside for hot cocoa and lunch. That of course was followed by spelling tests, math and handwriting.

But now it’s blissfully quiet time.

I was listening to the girls as they played outside and I realized something. You know how children will play pretend with books, movies or whatever. I think my girls watch “If Walls Could Talk” too much or maybe they just do too much history. (and is it any wonder as I love history?) They were pretending to have mysteries around their house and find tombstones. I am sure one was Mike Siegel.

Good night.

I should have seen it coming. I’ve been struggling with Goober with her math. She pleasantly informed me this morning five minus 2 was 7. Her problem was ___ - 2=7. She was convinced the answer was 5. Until I showed it to her as an addition problem.

Believe it or not, she knocked off 5 pages today and did really well.  I was beginning to think I was really something until Beanie showed up at the school desk. Okay so it’s really just the dining room table but….

It was time for her to work on reading. Now, she has read books before. She knows how to read. All she has to do is decide to read and she’s a goner. She could not read the page. I was quite frustrated.  She has now been forbidden from checking out anything at the library until she decides she’ll read.

A fate worse than death or so I thought. I know it would be for me. Her response?

“I don’t care.”

That is until she learned her Millie Keith book on CD would have to be returned to the library.  Maybe it will work. If not, there’s always private schools…

Only half joking. After this week I’m really tempted to send them someplace and let someone else deal with the whole she-bang. But I know I would miss out on so much of their “getting it”.

I am frustrated with myself since I got so frustrated and angry with her. I just know she knows it and is choosing to miss out on so much. I can’t imagine not caring if I couldn’t check out library books. I think I would die without my books.

To top it off, I loaded the dishwasher, closed the door and prepared to start the cycle when I hear a “ping” followed by a muffled thud coming from the belly of the dishwasher. I opened it up, fearing the worst and hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was.  I was hoping it was just my large glass mixing bowl. I’ve been praying it would break.  That bowl was fine.

Of course.

No, it was my worst fear. The carafe on my coffee pot broke. This is the coffee pot I have had since spring, 1995. My chums and guards (3-6th grades) in AWANA gave it to me as a wedding gift.

I  should be happy it broke as now I can get a new coffee pot. But I’m not. I loved that machine!

Not at all. Not one little bit of me likes math. In teaching Goober, I am learning it again and again learning I don’t like it.

When I was in school learning fractions, I wasn’t all that thrilled.  I did fine with 1/2 and 1/4 and so on. But any more than that, I was lost.  Reducing fractions to the lowest common denominators went right over my head.

Care to wager a guess what Goober is learning in math right now?

Fractions!!!

She has crazy problems like 9/8 x 8  =?  And 3/2 x 8 =?  If 2/2 equals one whole, how can you possibly have 3/2? I know I know. reduce. But to what?

Why can’t we just go back to multiplication and division? That is easy. I am too old for this stuff.

Last week, Goober and I were working our way through some Miquon Math pages. On those pages we were working on learning “The Pattern Of….” And she was getting it. I was thrilled. I knew this math program was the best around because she was getting it. I was able to ask her, “What is 7×7?” And she would answer “49″.

Life was grand. I bragged on her one evening to Daddy. I remember telling him previously to that night that I thought she was merely filling out number blanks and didn’t have a clue what she was really doing.  Needless to say, most of my bragging was that she was not doing that, but was actually getting it.

That, I’ve discovered, was  my first mistake. You see the next morning she couldn’t add 7+3, much less multiply 7×3.  I dunno, maybe I’m expecting too much, but after three years of teaching this child math I would hope she could, when asked what 7+3 is, answer “10″ quickly without thinking it over for a few moments.

I spent two days with this type of math.  On the pattern of five and pattern of 10, I told her, “All you really need to do here is count by fives.(tens)” I would ask her “10 times 8 is?” And she would have no clue.

Ai yi yi.

Then we move on to the Prime Numbers. I’ve been out of school for a few million years and I have no recollection at all of learning prime numbers. None. I maintain I never learned them. A teacher/principle friend of mine told me I did learn them, but deemed them unnecessary to life and so disregarded the whole issue.

I read in the teacher’s manual what prime numbers are and how you know if a number is prime or not. So I was ready for her to complete the page. Until I came to number 1. According to her book, one is not a prime number. I was puzzled. “Why isn’t one a prime number?” It seemed to fit the criteria for one, but nope.

I know now. It takes too unique numbers. So while you can take 1×1 and get 1, that doesn’t make it prime. Ahhh. My teacher/principle friend, C, told me this and then told, “Make sure you teach her not to divide by zero.”

Duh! If you have nothing you can’t divide it. C promptly looked at me and said, “So what is zero divided by zero?”

“Uhhh. Zero. Everyone knows if you have none and divide it you still have none.”

“Yeah, but you just divided by zero.”

Our pastor was a math major in college. He has been a teacher, principle and school administrator. I received an email from him today, in response to one about prime numbers. He closed his email with, “don’t you love math!” I replied, “Oh yeah. Math is grand. It’s my non-mathematical  brain that causes problems.”

Today we did not do any math. Tomorrow we will. I have been having Goober spend 15-20 minutes a day reading over her “pattern of…” pages. Out loud. 1×1=1. etc.

Beanie thinks if you have 10 and don’t get any more you have none. She also thinks if have 13 and don’t get any more you have 17. Now I know at not quite 5 she is really just filling out blanks with numbers. But she is kept occupied, enjoys it and thinks she is really doing something (which she is) and maybe just maybe she’ll learn something.

I do not like bugs. Not at all. I am for a bug-free America.  My slogan: Bug Free! The Only Way To Be!!

Our girlies have a few adopted grandparents that live in our area. Its great. One of them called a few days ago with a worm they wanted to pass on to the girlies.

This worm was as big around as my index finger and was bright green.  “Sure.” I told “Grandpa L”, “You can help girlies disect it.”

He turned a bit green and said, “Well I thought they could take it for show and tell.”

Grandma C piped up, “L, they homeschool.”

“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You do?”

“Yes, now about that disection…”

and they left me.

I am beginning to wonder what exactly is the point of making my oldest do spelling. On Tuesdays she completes the lesson. On Wednesday (some weeks Thursday) she just copies the words. On Friday she has a test.

Now, according to the book she is supposed to have a “pre-test”. I’ve done those, only to discover there is no need for the actual spelling test.

We are using Spelling workout. We are in the second grade book. I hate to jump ahead to the third grade book because of expense and I’m afraid she’ll miss something in the second grade book. But she doesn’t technically need to complete any part of spelling at all.

Maybe in January we will stop spelling and start Latin.