End of the Trail

Today is our homeschool portfolio evaluation for the 2012-2013 school year. We finished up 5 of the 6 unit studies in Trail Guide to Learning: Paths of Exploration. Although it won’t “count” for the state’s purposes, we will work on the final unit (which is mostly review) for the rest of this month.

So, my final impressions of Trail Guide? LOVE IT! In fact, we are going to continue with Paths of Settlement  for the 2013-2014 school year. I am going to make some adjustments for The Boy (I’ll post about that later), but the girls will be going all out on Paths of Settlement.

The best adjustment I made with this curriculum was getting away from the pre-printed notebooking pages. Other than printing up the occasional map and specialty worksheet, this curriculum works beautifully with “homemade” notebooking. That is another thing I love about this curriculum–all the pages you need come on a CD with the main textbooks. This is also a great choice for those who are required to keep a portfolio–it’s built in!

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hemming Drapes

I’m not much of a seamstress. In fact I should be locked up for crimes against sewing machines, but, sometimes a girl needs to make curtains. I pulled out my Janome Jem and went to town on my new favorite fabric: Waverly’s Olana. The top and the sides were fairly simple–just fold over the selvedge, iron, and sew a straight line.

I am so happy with the way they turned out! All that stood in the way of complete window covering success were just two itty, bitty, little hems. No biggie, right?

Not so fast. As the title of the post declares, this is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hemming Drapes.

Disclaimer: this is not a tutorial. This is the actual account of a complete idiot trying to hem some homemade drapes. Enjoy.

Step one: do not remove drapes from the rod to iron the seam.

Step two: Since step one went smoothly, begin to sew the hem without removing the drape from the rod.

Step three: realize that you are making a colossal mistake but meddle through anyway. Make sure that no one ever inspects the hem closely.

Step four: take the second curtain down from the rod. Takes about 39 seconds to do this. Sew the hem in under 2 minutes. Take another 39 seconds to place the curtain back on the rod. Time well spent.

The Gourd Lamp I Never Knew I Always Wanted

I fell in love with this lamp…

Eddie Ross: Before & After – A Lamp in the Making

I have a thing for lamps like other girls have for shoes. However, I’m not typically a fan of gourd lamps, but when I saw this one, I fell head over heels. Of course, this one had to be a one-of-a-kind, installed in a cottage in the Hamptons. All I could do was drool from afar. (If you haven’t already, click on the Eddie Ross link below the picture to see how this lamp came to be. Amazing.) So I started looking at other gourd lamps. None of them could match the “Hamptons Lamp.” But, it just so happened that I had a pair of clear glass lamps from Target that I was about to relegate to The Boy’s room. So armed with a Behr paint sample in “Urban Mist,” I set out to see what I could come up with before they went into no-man’s-land.

Before:

During:

And AFTER!!!!!

 

I love the way the clear glass looks with the paint on the inside. It gives the lamps the depth I loved from the Hampton’s Lamp that was lacking in most ceramic gourd lamps that I have found. I also love the fact that this project only cost me about $6 because I had everything but the paint. So, if you run across these lamps at Target (they are probably on clearance by now), grab them and make them your own!

A Vintage Victory

Who hung a ridiculously heavy vintage mirror using just her knuckles, two nails, a step stool, and an eleven-year-old boy? ME!!!!

We found a vintage cherry bedroom set at one of our favorite consignment shops. After looking at the prices of new, good quality furniture, I was in sticker shock. So I found a look I liked…

…and started scouring the consignment stores again for something similar. I fully intended to paint whatever I found and cobble together odd pieces, but then I saw this…

…and yes. I got the set. A matching set. I am fully aware of the fact that I probably angered almost every decorating guru for buying a matching set, but I don’t regret any mitchy-matchy square inch of it. I also love the warm, country cherry color, so no need for paint! Well, except for the headboard. It’s begging for paint and upholstering. For now, it is leaning against the bed until I can figure out a way to attach it the bed frame. Here it is with my beloved owl lamp on the side table.

My bedroom is finally coming together! Now it just needs some throw pillows, artwork, accessories, a few afghans, a couple of lamps, a bench for the end of the bed, a rug…

“You Matter To Me,” a post from my sister

My sister, one of the people who matters most to me, wrote this beautiful post on her blog, Our Chaotic Quiver. I just had to share it.

 

 

You matter to me…

 Mrs.Stinson, one of the most beautiful people I know, celebrated her seventieth birthday this week. She gave me a job when I was eighteen, but honestly, it was far more than a job. She gave me my education. I remember my first day at Lynchburg Christian Academy’s Early Learning Center. I was so nervous (and um, overweight) that I almost couldn’t make it up the stairs! I remember being introduced to Mrs. Starling and Mrs. Bragg as their “new afternoon girl”. I remember the dark classroom full of napping children. I remember Mrs. Starling showing me the ropes…It was obvious that she ran a tight ship! I remember Mrs. Bragg laugh…and how she became my instant friend. 

The Early Learning Center was a haven for me…. Every school day, the “afternoon girls” met with Mrs. Stinson for prayer and a devotion before we went to our assigned classes. She took the time to really get to know us, but more importantly, she discipled us. I have to say that any person who has had the privilege to work for Dawna Stinson, is better for it. Her standards were high, but for everything she expected, she invested even more. Where would I be without her?

Those college years were hard ones. Away from family and all things familiar, I had to face some tough realities and I struggled to make good choices. One day in particular, I was walking down the ELC hallway, my face puffy and tear-stained, when Mrs. Stinson spotted me from the office. She steered me into a chair next to her desk and listened to me as I spilled out my broken heart. She comforted me with Scripture and led me in prayer. It was on this day that my life turned a corner.

Mrs. Stinson has held her post as director of the ELC for over thirty years and I was not the first “afternoon girl” to seek her counsel. 

But I mattered to her.

Dozens and dozens of us have mattered to her. 

God bless you, Mrs. Stinson. Thank you for seeing “me”. Thank you for teaching me how to teach children. I learned more in those three years from you, Patsy, Linda, Sandra and all the other wonderful women, than from any class or ministry I’ve been apart of.

A child may not remember what you said; but he will always remember the way you made him feel.

These days….

My life revolves around six people. Morning, noon and night. 

Do they know how much they matter to me?

Do I take the time, often enough, to reach them individually?

Wayne, you matter to me.

Ethan, you matter to me. 

Sam, you matter to me.

Annie, you matter to me.

Phoebe, you matter to me.

Ruby, you matter to me. 

These past few years, God has shown me that this family of ours is my work, it is my ministry, it is my calling. I’m weak and I fumble. There are days where I would hide from myself if I could…. But more often than not, joy bubbles over at the dinner table. And it’s my prayer that these five children know that they don’t just matter to mama, they matter to Him!

It’s so important to know that you matter. 

Last Saturday night, we were pulling out of the Kroger shopping center when we saw her standing in the freezing rain holding up a cardboard sign. The sign said something about FAMILY but honestly, I didn’t really want to read the rest of it. Both of us noticed the pain on her face. After we’d gone by Wayne said, “I’ve got ten bucks in my wallet, let’s turn around and go back.” 

I almost did. 

But what if she does have a family and giving her ten bucks just takes her further away from them?

Ten bucks is ten bucks. Just turn around and give her the ten bucks. 

We battled it out for ten minutes going down the interstate. 

What is the right thing to do?

How can we really help?

By now it was getting dark and we knew she wouldn’t be standing out there much longer. I finally pulled into a Dollar General and went inside and bought as much as I could with $15.00.  We headed back up the interstate and spotted her just as she was folding up her sign. Wayne rolled down his window and handed her the bags. She sobbed. 

Her name is Heather and it doesn’t matter why she was out there. She was out there. 

I didn’t feel any sense of satisfaction. Our gift was pretty meager. 

It’s plagued my thoughts and prayers all week. Because, I know that we are expected to do something. Just what?

And then on the radio this morning, the DJ was speaking about his experience on the streets for two nights, digging in the trash for food, recycling a used water bottle, asking for help…. and feeling  completely isolated. He said that 99% of the people who passed him refused to make eye contact…. 

Don’t we though?

The DJ went on to say, “In whatever way you feel led to help, make the effort to let these people know that they matter…. that they matter to you.” 

Words from heaven direct to my heart. 

You matter to Me.

And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my Brethren, you did it to Me.  Matthew 25:40

dear mom who feels like she wants to quit.

dear mom who feels like she wants to quit..

 

Excellent post for all Moms to read. Moms matter.

A Homeschool Day in the Life of…

(Click on the image above to link to SimpleHomeschool.net)

A Day in our Homeschooling Life: 7-year-old, 10-year-old, 11-year-old, and a 15-year-old nephew

Breakfast and Before:

A typical day for me starts anywhere from 7am-8am. I try to get up, showered, and dressed at least an hour before the kids get up. Sometimes it actually works. I head downstairs to make coffee, and while it is brewing I open the drapes, unload the dishwasher, and straighten up a little. After I have my cup of necessity and cream beside me, I settle in for my daily devotions. Right now I’m reading through The Love Dare Day by Day: A Year of Devotions for Couples on my phone. (I love the app version because the Bible passages are linked right in with the reading.) This is my daily reminder to be a more loving person, not just to my spouse, but to everyone. Great book. About the time I’m finished with my quiet time, I hear Lemony pattering into the kitchen. After some snuggles, she goes back upstairs to get her brother and sister, and they all get dressed and eat breakfast. I head back upstairs to put in a load of laundry and begin the long process of getting my 15-year-old nephew out of bed. I head back downstairs, get a little breakfast for myself, and wrangle the kids to the table to start school. To use my step-dad’s favorite expression, it’s like herding cats.

Pre-Lunch School Time:

We start with Bible time, copy work, and then our read-alouds. We are using Trail Guide to Learning, Paths of Exploration which we love. (See this post.) This week, I’ve started a new sequence to keep the doers and the dawdlers on the same page in group work. (The picture below, sans Beanie, tells the whole story–someone is always in the bathroom around here!)

We do our Bible time together, and then we used to start on copywork and memory verse writing just after. But, with bathroom breaks and other dawdly type nonsense, the doers were sitting around getting antsy, and the dawdlers were, well, still in the bathroom. So, now we go straight from our Bible time to our read-alouds, which we take turns reading. After that, we launch into our word study, vocabulary, and/or reflective writing assignments. Lemony, my 2nd-ish grader, does abridged versions of these assignments, but she also works in her Abeka workbooks–Letters and Sounds and Language 2–daily. I let the kids finish this work while I list any pre-lunch assignments on the board, such as copywork, spelling, memory verses, and math:

Once each child is finished with those assignments, they are free for lunch. And here’s where the new sequence is working brilliantly: the doers can eat lunch then play in the basement until a certain time and the dawdlers either have to buckle-down and finish or forego any playtime. (This is not a situation where a child is struggling or frustrated. Just dawdling, dreaming, etc.) I use this time to use the computer, make some calls, start dinner/think about starting dinner, switch out the laundry, and/or make bread.

Dawdler strikes again. Notice the doers doing and the dawdler, well…? ;o)

Somewhere during all this time, the teen emerges from his bat-cave, showers, eats breakfast, meanders a bit, and starts on his work. I have the same basic schedule lined up for him each day, each week. He seems to do well with a concrete plan. Bible study, MathUSee Algebra I, Biology via ACE, grammar on M/W/F, writing and reading assignments to work towards his term paper on T/TH, 20th century history readings and summarization, and hopefully soon, Spanish. He will ask questions when he needs direction or information, and we usually do the math together. But for the most part, he is autonomous. It’s a beautiful thing. (It hasn’t always worked this well, but I am thankful that we finally found a schedule and curriculum that works for him.) He breaks for lunch when he’s hungry, and grazes the rest of the time.

Post-Lunch School Time:

This when we get back together to do another round of group learning from Trail Guide–geography, science, art, etc. When this is completed, the girls and I have tea and all three do their personal reading and update their book logs. This is typically when I find the teen chuckling somewhere, iPhone in hand, YouTube open and redirect him to the less amusing world of grammar or history or biology. Then the kids do their personal reading while I straighten up the kitchen, then we start putting away the school stuff. The kids have some free time until 3:30-ish.

Post-School, Pre-Dinner:

It’s now chore time. I’m going to admit something: I pay my children to clean the house. This is more than the usual “pick up your room” stuff. On Mondays and Fridays, we deep clean the downstairs. Each child has a room to clean, dust, vacuum/mop, then they all converge on the powder room, hall, and stairs. (I always keep the kitchen as my chore room.) On Wednesdays, we clean the upstairs, including the bathrooms. Since I’m paying for their services, I am very, very picky. ;oP

Here’s the powder room checklist that I posted on the back of cabinet door as an example:

(Yes, I realize that there isn’t a tub in the powder room, and yes, it bugs me that my sign clearly suggests a tub. And yes, I thought about taking it down and, retyping it before I took this picture. No, I am not quite that nuts, but close.) This is a total win-win. My house is clean! The kids have their own money to spend at the store! I didn’t have to do it all! My house is clean! (Sorry, said that already, didn’t I?) I hope this is teaching the kids how to keep house and learn the most important fact: the house doesn’t clean itself. They are proud of the job they are doing–I can tell that by the way they bounce up and down and beg me to come “inspect” their work while they grin from ear-to-ear. They are also taking greater care of the house in between cleanings.

Now it is time to get dinner started and wind down our day. Whew. I’m kinda tired…in a good way!

Baby Steps and Homemade Bread

Store-bought bread. It’s so soft! So convenient! So colorfully packaged! So perfectly sliced for individual sandwiches! So full of…28 ingredients, most of which I can’t even pronounce. Twenty-eight. And that was from a “healthy” loaf of store-bought bread. I have tremendous amounts of guilt and mental anguish when I buy it.

But, I still buy it.

I also bought a bread machine a while back. The sandwich bread recipe that was included was edible, but that was about it. It didn’t taste good enough to sway my bread-a-vours over to homemade bread on their own, and making my family suffer through it wasn’t a hill I was willing to die on. Also, I’ll fess up here. We are white-bread eaters. Maybe some day I can transition everyone over to spelt or whole wheat, but this post is about baby steps and getting started making bread at home.

So, what does it take to make that transition a happy time? A great recipe. And here it is!

First off, I made rolls for dinner. I got 20 rolls to a 9×13 pan. They…were…delicious! Then I made a loaf for sandwiches. I used the dough function on my bread machine to mix the dough and let it rise, then I popped the dough into a loaf pan and baked it in my oven. (I think bread bakes up much better in the oven, and I didn’t have to fish out the bread machine paddles from the innards of my bread.) The recipe itself is very simple–not counting water it has just 6 ingredients. I did not need the additional water called for, but other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. It is a sweeter tasting bread, so today I’m trying it with half the amount of sugar–I’ll update how that goes.

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Update: Made today’s batch with 1/2 the sugar and olive oil instead of vegetable oil–PERFECT sandwich bread!

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Aren’t they pretty?

Trail Guide to Learning: The Half-way Point

We started Volume 2 in Paths of Exploration this week. Here we are at the halfway point in this curriculum. So, how’s it going, you ask?

We still love it!

Our days have a pleasant rhythm to them with this curriculum. While we are doing things in the same general order every day–copywork, read-aloud, etc.–it is far from mundane. The books are wonderful! Initially, I was hesitant to put all three kids (2nd, 4th, and 6th graders) in POE. Beanie and The Boy had already completed the first half of American History through Sonlight’s Core D a few years ago, and both curriculums have books in common. I am so glad we made the decision to put all of them in POE. First of all, this is much more than American history, as the countries that gave rise to these explorers are studied as well. Second, the in-depth study of Christopher Columbus, the Jamestown Settlement, and the Pilgrims allowed us to flesh out these topics in a way I have never given time to before.  For anyone looking at this curriculum and thinking, “We’ve already studied that,” I urge you to pick it up and try it. You will find something new! Third, I have been able to adapt POE and its Middle School Supplement to fit our family, especially in reading.

Here are some ways we have adapted the reading. Each unit has two main reading books–a lighter/easy reader and a more advanced reader. I have my 2nd grader read the easy reader assignments aloud to us all. Then I have my 4th and 6th graders take turns reading the more advanced book aloud.  The assigned reading does not take long, and after we read those, I have my 6th grader take turns with me reading aloud the assigned reader from the Middle School Supplement. We didn’t start out reading the MSS books aloud. I wish we had started this from the beginning because we missed out on reading aloud Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, one of my all-time favorite stories.* Starting with the Pilgrim unit, we began reading these together, and they add another layer of depth and information to our studies. And, they are just great books to share with everyone. Middle schoolers shouldn’t have these all to themselves!

There is a big difference in the work load from Vol. 1 to Vol. 2. The first volume seems to have a lighter, more gentle pace. The second volume steps things up. I like that! The kids are ready for new challenges, especially at this point in our school year when the winter doldrums are at their worst. (I think we are all praying for summer!) There is a greater emphasis on writing across all subjects. (So, if you are worried about the writing part, and you are still in Volume 1–don’t fear! It is coming! It is effective! Stay the course!) I also love the way reflective writing is incorporated into the geography in this volume.

There are some glitches in this curriculum, such as some of the readings don’t align with assignments at times and one book, Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, that is assigned in the text is not available from Geography Matters. (GeoMatters replaced it with Squanto’s Journey, and the corrected assignments are available online.) In our case, I just ordered the correct book from Amazon and read both Squanto books to the kids. A win-win! The writers also maintain a yahoo group that supplies many of the corrections and offers suggestions and additional information. This is a relatively new curriculum, and I’m sure these minor issues will be corrected in upcoming printings. In the meantime, I don’t feel they are bothersome enough to stop me from going forward with Trail Guide.

To sum it up–we made the right choice for our family this year. Once we have completed this first unit in Vol. 2, I’ll update again.

 

 

*I wasn’t crazy about the book chosen for the Jamestown unit (Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac). The Boy and I read this independently, and so far that is the only book on the list that I don’t love.

The Hutch Re-Do

Remember the hutch? Here it is before the milk paint incident.

This picture makes it look like a warm, rosy wood color. Don’t be fooled–it looked like poo. Not to mention that it had been chewed on in various spots by a dog or critter of unknown origin. But, it was solid and just needed a make-over to make it beautiful for the first time again.

The RESULT! I just love it! Here it is tricked out as Homeschool Central. It makes my heart happy to lovely books lined up in rows.

Lemony helped style the table. I think the owl adds a certain…uh…je ne sais quoi.  (I had the word “pas” here. Just found out that means why, not what. I thought it looked weird. LOL)

Even the left-out/left-over doors were put to good use, thanks to a great suggestion from my new friend at Simplified by Bobbie. Now I’m just waiting for some chalk pens to arrive a la Amazon!