School 4 Princesses

TOG Year 1 Week 21-22

2012-02-10T22:32:00.000-06:00

Princess M - PreToggler
Short and sweet, these weeks were J for Jesus and K for Kite. She rediscovered legos, and built this masterpiece.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This week she are finishing up Explode the Code Book 4. She will do the post test pages next week. Then she will start Primary Language Lessons. I'm planning to take it very slowly. We are almost done with "B is for Betsy" and will be starting "Betsy and Billy" on Tuesday. She is really loving that book. Thursday we hit a milestone. It is one that I find very bittersweet. I caught her reading a chapter book all by herself because she wanted to. Well, she wasn't by herself. She was reading to our cat.

This is bittersweet because while I love the idea of her reading on her own because she wants to, it has also meant that the temptation to read on her own because she wants to will bring about much turmoil. It will mean that she will see a book and forget what she is supposed to do and choose to read it instead. It will mean not hearing me call her when she is reading, and me having to figure out what corner of the house she is curled up in. (This was what I did, too, when I was young.) It will mean sneaking the book she wants to read inside the book that she is supposed to be reading and hoping I don't catch her. (This is a trick learned from her sisters.)

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
Princess S spent the last two weeks trying to make up some missed assignments. She is finally caught up. I will be spending the next few weeks reading her history core assignment with her and helping her to take notes in order to answer the accountability questions with out TOG studies. She finished up lesson 25 in Delta. As part of our new schedule, she is going to get two weeks off from math when she finishes this book. But then both girls are going to be in the same book for a little while. In Latin, she is up to chapter 15. She will be going to chapter 17 and then will get a lengthy break from Latin. I will continue to have her play HeadventureLand and go through her flash cards once a week.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is working steadily through her fraction math drills book. I'm hoping that she will be back on track for Epsilon by March. I'm going to print out some extra workbook pages from the MUS site first though. She has taken the unit two Latin test and needs a little bit more work on the pronouns. So I made a few games for her to play with the printed out charts, and printed some extra practice worksheets and will have her retest to see if she has finally figured them out.

The next month or two is going to be up in the air. My grandmother is nearing the end of her almost 93 year journey. We will most likely be going to ND for her funeral very soon. I figure it will mean a one week break from our lessons, so instead of the spring break we had planned to take, I'm going to simply reschedule it for whichever week we end up needing to go to ND. Please pray that her journey home to her Savior would be as painless as possible, and that all of the plans and traveling that will need to happen would occur safely. It has been a relatively easy winter, and they are certainly due for one big snowstorm up there. I'm praying that it is not the week we will be going.

TOG Year 1 Week 19-20

2012-01-27T15:57:00.000-06:00

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We're still doing lots of reading. We're reading one lesson from Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader each day. Then she is reading either a chapter in a chapter book, or two library picture books each day. Today we started my very most favorite series from my childhood - the Carolyn Haywood Betsy series. We began "B is for Betsy." I always enjoy reading these as some of their first chapter books. She is halfway through lesson ten in Explode the Code book four. We will be finishing this book soon, and I will be deciding what to do next. I have a few options, but since I don't have the money in my budget for book 5, we won't be including that one for now. In math, she is finishing up the +8/8+ facts. I've been having her do the online drill at the Math-U-See site and incorporating all of the facts she has learned so far. When she gets them all correct, she has done so with her fastest time being 100 seconds. It's a little bit longer than their suggested time. However, there is always some hunt and peck time with an online drill, so I'd really like to see her at around 80 seconds.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
The first two weeks of doing the D level history reading have gone okay I guess. However, she is several days behind at this point. I'm not sure what is going on with her, but I have made a big decision that should affect the older two princesses - hopefully for the better. More on that in a minute. History these two weeks has been dealing with the route to a divided kingdom. We saw how the people demanded a king and got Saul, and then everything that Samuel warned them about came to fruition through David and Solomon. After these two kings, the line of kings followed the LORD less and less, until the kingdoms became divided into two separate kingdoms. In math, Princess S has made it to lesson 24. She is beginning week 22 in her Tom Sawyer Fix-It book, and week 13 in her Caesar's English vocabulary. She has begun lesson 13 in Latin, and will be taking a break once she hits lesson 17. I had planned for her to do about half of the book this year. She will continue to play the games at HeadventureLand once a week until she starts up on the second half.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is finding a groove with her math review and is doing very well in Latin now that I have backed her up and given her a new schedule for each lesson. I also made up some forms that I am having her fill out for each new word that forces her to write each possible ending - in both Latin and English - so that she can remember the endings better. She is completing about a lesson every three days or so, so she is all the way up to lesson ten again. She is taking a break from Magic Lens as she is up to the loop lessons. We will be focusing on her vocabulary, Word Within the Word, until she reaches lesson twenty.

The big decision that I have made is that we are switching to a year round school schedule. The two older princesses are just struggling to stay afloat. They are very stressed out because they "think" they have so much more school work than everyone else. Really, they have the same amount that all the other kids have - they just are not able to focus on their work and become discouraged when they don't see any "me" time in sight. But, we aren't homeschooling just to do "school at home" - so we are going to do what is necessary for all of our sanities. I have been working on a staggered schedule for all of our subjects. This will mean that they have fewer assignments on any given day, hopefully allowing them to focus more on each subject rather than rushing to get everything done. It will still require diligence to get their work done, but it will hopefully allow those who need more sleep to get it and those who need more "me" time to get that as well. We will still be taking eight weeks of vacation from school; but they will be staggered throughout the year, rather than coming all together in the summer. This new schedule will begin on February 6.

Princess M School Update

2012-01-27T12:54:00.000-06:00

Princess M is continuing to learn letters and numbers in preschool. We are speeding up a little and trying to do a letter a week from here on out. There are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly, she is really getting good at recognizing all of the letters and saying their sounds - even the letters we haven't officially done yet. I attribute this to her Leap Frog videos and the games she has played on the iPad. Each week we feed Mugs (a character game from IEW's PAL curriculum) all of the letters. She has to tell me the name of the letter and it's sound. She can say probably twenty of them the first time through. The rest she needs either the name or sound prompt to get the other side of the equation. Also, I'd really like to get through all of the letters by the end of May.

This week we finished up letter H for hippo. We did not make puppets for G or H. The little two princesses have decimated my paper bag supply making their own puppets over the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks.

F is for fish

Fish puppet (yes it has two eyes - she just couldn't do only one)

Counting gumballs

G is for goat

H is for house

Princess M Funnies

2012-01-23T20:24:00.003-06:00

Last night, Princess M was having a bit of a problem eating her dinner. She kept telling me she was full. She remained at the table after everyone else was done. I left to go finish folding the laundry I had started to fold before dinner. Princess E, knowing that I had purchased some rainbow sherbet at Aldi's, reminded Princess M that she needed to finish her dinner in order to get dessert. Princess M said, "But my tummy is all filled up." So, Princess E retorted, "But what if there is ice cream for dessert?" And Princess M replied, "Well, my tummy will get all empty for ice cream." Yeah - I bet it will!

TOG Year 1 Week 17-18

2012-01-14T09:43:00.000-06:00

Christmas break was way to short! I think that coming back after Christmas break is much more difficult than coming back after summer break. Usually, they get bored over the summer and having something to do, and a normal schedule, is a welcomed idea when we start back up. However, two weeks off at Christmas is only enough to make everyone - me included - want just a little bit more time off. In the past, I might have accommodated more time off. But since Princess E is doing an online TOG class, we need to stick with that schedule.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We finished up F for fish, and we have started G for gumball. This little one, unlike the others, was antsy to get back to school. She spent much of her Christmas break dancing in her new ballerina clothes - her first that are new rather than very used. I am still trying to decide what to use with her for next year. I have IEW's PAL - but I've also been very intrigued with All About Reading. However, I'm not sure whether I'd need to start her with Pre-Reading or with Level 1. I'm hoping that they will be at our homeschool convention in April so I can get a comparative look at them. I know it's still a ways away, but April is really just around the corner.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We have been doing lots of reading. Sometimes, it's more fun to read to someone other than Mom. So she spent some of her break reading to Nanny. We have started the Hopscotch Hill Series. These are great beginning chapter books that are written by one of the American Girl stories authors. Both Princess E & S enjoyed these books, so we are giving Princess L a chance. She really wants to be able to read the book that goes along with her Kirsten American Girl doll. But she just isn't ready for that yet. The other book we started is Animal Antics, a compilation of chapters from the Little House series that deals with animal encounters. This book is a bit more challenging, but because it doesn't have pictures on every page, it forces her to rely only on the words and not on the pictures. We also started back up on the next MUS chapter. So she is learning the +8 and 8+ facts. They are a bit more challenging than the nines were. I sometimes feel like we're dragging in math, but I made the mistake of allowing Princess E to go too fast in her math. I think she really doesn't know them well to this day, but there is no way she is going to go backwards that far. It just means that she has to take more time with each problem and lesson.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
We are beginning the move to D work. I have decided that from week 19 on, I am going to shift her to the D history books. But, I am going to make it a slow progression as to what I expect of her. The first couple of weeks I will just have her read the D books and continue doing KWOs on them like she has been doing. The next couple of weeks, I will sit with her while she reads and help her go through the accountability questions. I'm hoping that by the last unit, she will have the idea down and we will be able to add the thinking questions. Then for the last few weeks - probably weeks 32-36, I hope to have a discussion time with her. I may also have her listen in on a few of her sister's online classes. In math, Princess S is up to lesson 23. This has been a bit more difficult lesson as it is double digit long division. I know she can do it - she just needs to be able to keep her concentration. That is always the challenge with my SPD/ADD girl. I do think that she will be catching up to Princess E sometime next year. Also, in Latin she is up to chapter 12. In science, she is just not doing very well at all. I think she is bored. She loves to read about scientific topics, but she doesn't like being told what to read. So I am going to have her join Princess E in my newly designed science endeavor.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
After spending much time before break, and during break, contemplating what to do with Princess E, I think I've come up with a plan. For math, we put a small halt on MUS, and I purchased a math fractions drill book through Currclick. She is going to complete ten questions each day until she learns to slow down and look carefully before turning in assignments. She will not be allowed to go back to MUS until she is scoring a 9 or 10 each day. She is going to be required to continue on in math through the summer until she has reached Zeta lesson 10. In Latin, I purchased the official test packet from Classical Academic Press. I told her she would take the unit tests until she was not able to achieve an 85% or higher. Well, she passed the first, and that was all. So we moved back to lesson 6. I told her she would have to continue through the summer until she completed the book. I changed up the order of her assignments and created my own practice worksheets that will force her to think through each word and all it's possible spellings and translations. I told her she would not move on from each lesson until each test is passed with an 85% or higher. In science, I am combining several different programs and one method. I am going to use this method with both Princess E & S, This task card approach will hopefully help them learn how to research the information they need to learn about a topic. They will be going through the Life Science task cards. I also purchased Lyrical Life Science because they both seem to learn really well with music. I cross referenced the LLS lessons with the Task Cards to match them up. I also wanted to add in some lab opportunities as 7th grade science is big using labs. So I found this completely free life science program and once again cross referenced it with the Task Cards. So in a nutshell, they will be taking a task card and will have to research the topic on each card on their own. For every card that there is a corresponding LLS song or Mr Q lab, they will be doing those as well. I purchased several books to keep in a basket so that they have most of the books that can help them to research the topics. To show what they have learned, the task cards have a few different output options. Of course, the expectations of quality output will be higher for Princess E than for Princess S. I am praying that the opportunity to discover information on their own, rather than being told "this is what you must read and what you must do" will click with my two extremely strong-willed princesses. If they enjoy it and take off with it, and if I see that they are really learning with this method, then I am thinking through how I can combine that method with our TOG studies. I do believe it is quite possible, although it might not be possible for me to pull it all together by the fall. It might be something that I look at implementing with the R level of TOG and hold off with it until we do Year 3 starting in the 2013/2014 school year. Anyway, that is what has kept me busy over our Christmas break.

For Unto Us a Child is Born

2011-12-24T23:32:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas from School 4 Princesses!

I have to share a few quick photos. DH's brother stopped by our house on his way into town from St. Louis. He brought his dog, Rocky. The girls just love him!

We have a Santa hat that is traditionally worn by the person who gets to distribute the gifts. However, when it was time for Princess L to put it on, she couldn't find it. So she decided to put a Christmas stocking on her head instead. Isn't she sweet?!

After receiving her gift from her sister (a felt poster with markers from Dollar Tree) Princess M felt the need to give her sister a very sporadic hug. Since it doesn't happen often, it needed to be captured on film.

I couldn't decide which shot was better for the official shot of the kids all dressed up, so here are the best two. I'll let you decide for yourself.

May the LORD bless you and your family this Christmas.

TOG Year 1 Week 15-16

2011-12-15T22:59:00.000-06:00

I think that one of the most difficult times to homeschool is that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We've come off of a one week break, and are looking at a two week break. Not to mention all of the pre-Christmas business that seems to take over our lives during the month of December. This year has been no exception. While some things are working well, others are not at this point. So we are looking at a few changes for our second semester. Technically our second semester doesn't start until mid-January, but for sanity sake we are making some of these changes after Christmas. So here is a brief synopsis of the last two weeks.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
For some reason, I can't seem to find photos for this last week. I may have accidentally deleted them. We have been working on the letter F - for fish. She has really been doing well identifying letters, both capital and lower case, and remembering the sounds for the letters we have already studied. I am trying to decide what we are going to do next year. I am waffling between doing IEW's PAL at a slow pace, or doing All About Reading. We will start on MUS Primer next year, as I already have her book. It will be biter sweet, as it will be the last time through the program. I know it seems early to be contemplating, but I like to have those decisions made before the homeschool convention. I usually take our two week spring break to make a list of everything that I hope to find used, or that I need to purchase new without paying shipping. So really, those decisions need to be made soon.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
These last two weeks have been full of reading. She is still working on her +9 Calculadder facts. She has received a 9 every day this week so far. So, if she gets another one tomorrow, I'm going to call it good and move on. She is usually about ten seconods slow of getting a 10. Here are the photos we took after she finished reading her books. (For any book you see more than once it is because we read half the chapters one day and the other half the next.)

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
SPD issues have been plaguing this princess for a long time. Lately, she has had an even harder time than normal. Part of that might be attributed to allergies during fall and early winter, and part of that is excitement for the holidays. She has been holding her own in math, and has just finished up her Unit Three Test. She will be starting on Lesson 22 after Christmas. She is also holding her own in Latin, though she refuses to ask for help when she doesn't understand something. I keep explaining that it will affect her grade as well as take longer doing things her way. But what do I know, right? She is learning a lot more from her Caesar's English than her grade would reflect, as I hear her using some of the words in conversations. Writing, however, is definitely not her strong suit. She is extremely creative, but following a checklist as is required in IEW is not something she is good at. But we keep on because I am convinced that it will someday become easier.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
What can I say - frustration doesn't begin to cover it. We are going to be making most of the changes we are making because of this princess. I will be praying over the break about how to handle a few issues with her. Ultimately, it is a change of the heart and better choices that are necessary. And those aren't my area of expertise. Those belong to the Father above who created her with such a strong will. He is going to have to do the work in this princess in order to change the direction she is going. It is a spiritual battle that I feel very inadequate to fight. So any additional prayer support is greatly appreciated. About the only subject that she seems to do well at is IEW writing. She is also very creative, and does a bit better with a checklist. It comes down to attitude and choices and her attitude toward writing and her choices to work at it are the least resistant. So I cling to the one positive we have right now.

Kid Funnies - Sort Of

2011-12-14T14:32:00.001-06:00

While doing our reading time today, Princess L decided that she was too itchy in the shirt she was wearing. (Anyone with a kid with SPD issues can understand that one.) So she decided to change into something different. I told her she should just take the sweater that was on the top of her drawer. She said, "But that sweater makes me look fat." I said, "No it doesn't. It makes you look very warm." To which she replied, "Your sweater makes you look really warm, mom."

Homeschool Classifieds

2011-12-12T13:32:00.000-06:00

Due to some second semester changes, I have I'm going to sell in order to order some things I want. So click on the link over there on the right and see I have for sale. If you get this in a blog reader, you'll want to click through to my blog.

TOG Year 1 Week 14

2011-12-02T22:28:00.000-06:00

After a week off for Thanksgiving break, we hit the books again this week. This week we returned to Greek mythology, which is a topic that both my older princesses seem to enjoy. In fact, I think Princess S remembered almost every single Greek god and goddess that she read about from our first time through this several years ago. The little princesses made some Greek food at the activity time with our TOG friends, and brought home some awesome spanakopita. Everyone liked it so well, we decided we needed to make some more soon.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We finished up "d" week. She really enjoyed the "How Do Dinosaurs . . ." series of books by Jane Yolen. Over the past three weeks, her numbers have finally started to stick. I give the credit to the iPad that DH's dad bought. So far, most of the apps she uses are free ones, except for two apps from Leap Frog. Those are the two that are helping her the most. Here she is enjoying her iPad time.

She also had fun with our "d" crafts - a dinosaur and a duck puppet.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This little princess is really enjoying our library time. Here are the books she read this week:

(And no she didn't wear the same outfit two days in a row - we just forgot to take pictures one day.) She is also in lesson three of Explode the Code 4. I decided to wait to incorporate PAL Writing until after Christmas. I'm going to condense some of the first several lessons of the 2nd book as she is doing the copywork portion with another program. But we are going to focus on the story outline elements. We'll do some practice ones, then we'll start using the chart with the books she reads during her library time.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG

This princess is almost done with lesson 20 in Delta. She also is almost done with lesson 9 in Latin for Children. Since she had already read her Lit book for the week, she read through Princess E's book too.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D

Princess E is working on lesson 19 in Epsilon. She is on lesson 15 in Latin. She is continuing to assist Princess L with her piano lessons. They even played a duet of Mary Had a Little Lamb this past week. She is working on Module 8 in science, and then we are going to take a break. She will be starting The Fallacy Detective for the second semester. I have a few ideas for taking science in a different direction with my "not-so-science-minded" child.

Parentalrights.org

2011-11-22T23:14:00.002-06:00

This is a must watch video! Watch it and pass it along.

Rebecca St James

2011-11-19T23:45:00.000-06:00

Tonight we went with some good friends to see Rebecca St. James in concert. We had a blast! It was a mother daughter concert, so it was filled with mothers and daughters. But there were lots of dads there too. It was her Purity and Worship concert, and she sang several songs off her new album. She also talked a lot about the importance of staying pure. She was married back in April, so it was really neat to hear her talk about the benefits and blessings that have come as a result of doing things God's way. I think it's an important message for girls to hear (from someone besides just their own mothers.)

Here are the three girls waiting for the concert to start.

After the concert was over, there was an autograph line. Princess E had brought her book along to get signed. And of course we had to get a photo.

One thing that was very cool about Rebecca is that after every song, she makes it known that all applause belongs to God. She is just a vessel for His words and melodies.

We even managed to get a mother daughter photo. (Of course, it took two tries because some members of our family have a hard time looking normal in photos.)

We had a great night and were so glad to be invited by our friends.

TOG Year 1 Week 13

2011-11-18T22:44:00.000-06:00

This week we began learning about Ancient Greece. Princess S has been waiting for this week so that she could read D'Aulaire's Greek Myths - again.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This week we began the letter D. We read a bunch of dinosaur books. This morning we played the Mugs game from IEW PAL. I was amazed at how many of the letters she was able to say on her own. She had fun playing with our Leap Frog Dominoes that she found in a drawer. We tried matching the colors and shapes, and the colored dots, and she loved them both. Guess we'll have to start playing some more games.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This week she finished up her MUS lesson on +9/9+. I made up a drill sheet with those facts, and she has steadily gotten faster throughout the week. We also started Explode the Code Book 4. But the highlight of her week was graduating from the Discovery cards to the library. So this morning I gave her five books and told her to spend fifteen minutes reading through them herself. Then I went into her room and we settled down on her bed and she read all five books to me. She was very pleased with herself when she was done. I snapped a photo of it.

Princess S - 5th Grade UG
As I mentioned before, Princess S was excited to read Greek Myths again. This week was a better week for this princess, losing her gerbil not withstanding. After a horrible week prior to this one, she seemed to have a better attitude about everything. She is finally beginning to understand long division. I have no idea what happened to make it start to click - I'm just glad that it did. She decided that she wants to participate in the piano festival this year, so she got her first song to begin working on this week. She has made a goal for herself to get five points so that she can earn a trophy. I told her not to put undue pressure, just to work as hard as she can.

Princess E - 7th Grade D
This was also a better week for this princess in that she completed all her work. She received the results of her piano exam and was thrilled to hear she had received highest honors. She, too, is beginning to work on piano festival songs. Unfortunately, she has also come down with a cold which she graciously decided to share with me. So it has also been a week of coughing, sneezing and lots of Kleenex.

Tomorrow I am taking the big two princesses to see Rebecca St. James in concert. I think it should be a lot of fun. If I get any decent pictures, I'll be sure to post them.

TOG Year 1 Week 12

2011-11-12T22:14:00.000-06:00

This week was a special one because my youngest student turned 4! We celebrated on Sunday at Pizza Ranch. Here is a picture with the present we gave her, which has provided hours of fun so far.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This week we finished up the letter C. Since Nanny was in town, the big project was to make cookies.

We decided to make cookies shaped like the letters we had studied so far.

Unfortunately, we forgot how much snickerdoodles spread, so our cookies ended up very fat, and not looking at all like the letters they were shaped like.

But they still tasted awesome!

She made a pom pom caterpiller.

We counted and measured with our caterpillar.

We made a C caterpillar picture.

And finally, our C puppet was a black cat, just like our Oskar cat.

One thing that I have been mixing in with our Letter of the Week curriculum are the letter stories that go with IEW PAL that we are using with Princess L. She LOVES these, and they are helping her to really retain the short sounds of the vowels, and the consonants we've done so far. I work in a review of these letter stories at least once a week. She gives me the nickname for the letter (which is the memory clue to help write the letter,) then it's name, and finally it's short sound. Next week it's on to D for dinosaur!

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This was a busy week for Princess L. She has, officially, one lesson left of IEW PAL reading. She has been working through the discovery cards. She is currently up to pack 20. We will plan to finish them by the end of next week. She also finished up lesson 8 in Math-U-See. We moved on to lesson 9 - which is, incidentally, adding with nines. I have always loved this lesson! Every time they look at what they perceive to be big numbers and say to me, "I won't ever be able to get this." But once they learn the secret to adding nine to any number, it turns out to be easy. And they are so pleased with themselves. It is always an ego boost. That is what happened this week for Princess L with this lesson. Since Calculadder goes in a different sequence than MUS, I ended up making my own drill sheet for this one. She is also finishing up Explode the Code book 3, and we will begin book 4 next week. I like this series because she has reached a point where she can read the directions and do everything almost completely by herself.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
This week in TOG, we studied the ancient Americas. The focus in year one is on the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas. In year two there are other tribes that are studied. These big three tend to be the more violent ones, so we tend to go a bit light on some the details for the more tender-hearted princess of the group. She began lesson 8 in Latin, finished lesson 8 in Caesar's English, and week 13 of Fix-It Grammar. This next week has us beginning Ancient Greece, and this princess has been looking forward to D'Aulaire's Greek Myths. She has read it several times.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E finished up module 6 in science, and lesson 12 in Latin. In The Magic Lens, she is almost to the point where she will begin the first loop. She also prepared for her level three piano exam. She said she felt pretty good about it, so we are anxiously awaiting her scores.

In another month the girls will begin to work on their songs for Festival, which is in February. My how time flies in the music world! Hearing Princess L beginning on piano reminds me of how far Princess E has come in such a relatively short time. Princess L seems to be doing the same thing that Princess E does - play by ear rather than reading the music. It comes naturally to Princess E - a gift really. Perhaps we will see Princess L with this gift as well. Princess S, while she can do some things by ear, seems to follow my footsteps of reading the music well. Praise be to God for their gifts and talents!

TOG Year 1 Weeks 10-11

2011-11-04T21:44:00.000-05:00

We have been visiting Ancient India and Ancient China the last two weeks. It is fun to see how much the girls remember from the first time we went through this year plan. We didn't get a chance to eat Chinese food or Indian food yet, but I plan to do that. Chinese food is common in our house as DH likes to make it himself. But I don't believe they have ever had Indian food.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We have finished up letters A and B. I took photos of letter A but for some reason they aren't on my memory card. I think some little elves - who shall remain nameless - were using my camera. But I do have two photos from letter B. Princess M made a bee and a bear puppet.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
IEW PAL Reading - Today we finished up lesson 74. She started in on the Discovery Cards last Friday and is up to pack 18. I have her do about three a day, and have her review the cards from the previous pack that she was having a hard time with.
Math-U-See - We started back up this week on lesson 8. This is a lesson on solving for the unknown. After a quick refresher, she remembered how to do it. She finished level four in Calculadder, but since the MUS sequence is different, I will have to mix up the order on Calculadder from here on out.
All About Spelling - We finished up step 18. My frustration is that she spells very well during spelling, and during school itself. But when she makes up one of her many books, her spelling is absolutely horrid - even on words she spelled correctly during school. It's like all of the rules she knows just leave her brain on vacation. Not sure how to deal with that as I didn't have that issue with the first two princesses. But then again, they learned how to read a lot faster too.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
In math, Princess S is almost finished with lesson 18. This has been a more difficult one for her. She has this need to cross out her numbers, not sure why, and it is making it difficult for me to read her answer. She also is forgetting about the remainders. So it's been a bit slower of a lesson.
She is working on lesson seven in Latin. She is doing quite well and I have decided to speed her up just a little bit. I had originally planned for her to take two years to do this course, but I think she can handle moving just a bit faster so that we'll finish about 3/4 of it this year.
Ceasar's English One - Though she complains about this course, I can definitely see some improvement in her ability to decode words by their stems.
Science - She is working through the bird unit and is almost done. She is looking forward to moving on as we have studied birds before.
TOG - Because I didn't get the literature book assigned for her level for our Ancient India week, she ended up reading the D level book and doing the SAPs that go with it. She did quite well, so I'm thinking I will switch her over to the D level literature books for the third and fourth units of this year. It will mean that both girls will have to share, but it also means less books to get from the library or purchase.
Other activities - Fix It grammar, Practice Town, Paragraph Town, and IEW Ancient History writing.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D

Princess E is working hard for her piano exam which is next weekend. She is also Princess L's "piano buddy" as they go in for lessons at the same time and she is assigned to sit with Princess L during piano practice time to help her out.
MathUSee - She is almost done with lesson 17. This seemed to be a better lesson for her.
Word Within the Word vocabulary - She studied list five this week.
Magic Lens grammar - She finished the sections on conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs. I am now alternating vocabulary and grammar so that she will move a little bit faster with each book.
TOG - She is enjoying her online class through the Lampstand Learning Center. We continue to work one week ahead of where her class is.
Science - Module six has her doing a lot of lab experiments. Since she is really struggling with this, I have decided to finish out this semester with science, and then finish the book next year. She isn't going to be far enough in math to begin Physical Science next year anyway. So to fill the void I'm looking at a Logic course which will probably be right up her alley since she loves to argue so much.
Other activities - Fix It grammar, Practice Town, Paragraph Town, IEW Ancient History writing.

It's been a busy two weeks and I anticipate that as we move closer to the holidays, the schedule will start filling up more and more. I don't know who is looking forward to our one week break at Thanksgiving time more - the girls or me!

Princess M Funny

2011-11-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

This morning I was trying to get through all the blogs in my blog reader. Princess M was at the table eating breakfast. She asked me for some juice and I told her I'd get some in a minute. (I think she must hear that a lot.) She kept on talking, I assume to me since I was the only one around, and asked several questions that I only half-heartedly listened to. Finally she walked over to the computer, put her hand on my shoulder and said to me, "If you just get me some juice I'll stop talking."

Awana Color Night

2011-10-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Every year our Awana Club has a color night. Our family's tradition is to spray their hair their team color. Thankfully, all three of my Awana girls needed blue.

First Year Cubbie

Second Year Sparky

Third Year TNT

Three Blue-Haired Beauties

New Piano Diva

2011-10-27T22:20:00.000-05:00

Today was Princess L's first day of piano lessons. To say that she was excited is not enough. She is so happy to finally be like her big sisters.

TOG Year 1 Unit One End

2011-10-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

We have finished the first unit of year one! I will do a separate post on the Seder meal that had with our friends. The last two weeks we have accomplished the following:

Princess M - PreTOGGler

We finished up the letter U. Here are our U crafts - an umbrella bird puppet and an umbrella.

She also decided to build "a machine" this week - her words.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG

This little princess is rolling along with IEW PAL reading. We just finished up lesson 63. She is beginning the Discovery portion, which involves decoding ten words on her own and then reading them to me. When she completes all 30 Discovery packs, she will move on to the library. I checked out a whole bunch of books that she can start reading as soon as she moves through Discovery. She really wants to start them, so I have to keep them under wraps for now. She has passed level three in her math drills, and is working on level four. We will be starting back up with Math-U-See in another week. She is almost done with ETC Book 3 as well. With All About Spelling, she has just finished step 15 of level one. But, she is most excited about the fact that she will be starting piano lessons on Thursday.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG

Princess S is working on lesson 17 in Delta, and is anxious to begin long division. Well, not really, but I'm hoping she is. She has also finished lesson five in Latin, which is the first review chapter. She aced her test to boot. She is halfway through the second unit in science which has her learning about birds. In extra curricular news, she is moving right along in her Ultimate Challange Awana book. She is also excited to have a solo in her worship dance group's performance coming up in November. All the fifth graders got a section of the song to choreograph a solo to.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D

Princess E is enjoying her online class through Tapestry's Lampstand Learning Center. She finished up lesson 15 in Epsilon, though I'm not yet confident she totally understands the concept of reducing fractions. She will do well through much of the worksheet, then suddenly miss a bunch of obvious ones. She has finished lesson 9 in Latin and is beginning the second review. She is beginning module 5 in General Science. On the music front, she is preparing for a piano exam on November 12th. She almost has all four songs memorized. She is also going to be sharing her testimony at youth group coming up in November.

Keep Unions Out of Childcare

2011-10-18T08:43:00.000-05:00

I added a button to my sidebar. But I'm going to post about it because if it is happening in my state, it could be happening in yours. Unions like AFSCME and SEIU are going door to door duping home child care workers into signing petitions saying they want to be unionized. They are lying about who they are, their purpose for their visit, and are using thug tactics to scare these home day care providers. The unions are trying to force our governor into signing an executive order declaring all home day care providers as union members, thereby requiring them to pay union dues, which would then raise the cost of day care to everyone. These thugs are going so far as to enter people's homes without knocking during the lunch hour. Here is a video (13 minutes of a 3 hour state senate hearing) which reveals the hideous tactics.

If you live in Minnesota, or if you have friends in any state who are home day care providers, please pass this information along to them. Then check out this website where you can add your name to the petitions against this kind of behavior.

Catching Up

2011-10-13T13:23:00.000-05:00

So - it's been a while. I've been trying to get caught up in entering things into HST+, and figuring out why various programs aren't working. I've got everything back to normal except I can no longer access Pandora on my computer! This is a might bit distressing because I love having it on in the background while doing various tasks at my computer. I'm going to breeze through the last several weeks in an effort to get caught up. I'll start with this slide show of photos (mostly of the little two princesses) of school over the last few weeks.

As you can see, Princess M is moving along. We finished I, O and are about halfway through U. I am amazed at how well she is doing remembering the short sounds of the vowels. The little stories from IEW PAL, combined with the characters from the Leap Frog movie are really helping her a lot. She is having fun with the activities from Letter of the Week.

Princess L went in for vision therapy testing. She is a bit of a different case than what they've seen before. As such, they want her to try a pair of reading glasses for a few weeks to see if we see any difference. If there is a difference, then we will get a pair for her to wear for school and close work for a year and re-test. I haven't really determined if there is a difference yet.

With our TOG studies, we are just finishing up week 8 today. We have been enjoying listening to the Old Testament on audio for our Bible times. Princess S is just going to be starting lesson 17 in MUS Delta. This lesson sets her up to learn long division in the next several lessons. This was where Princess E slowed down, so I'm anticipating that to happen again. Princess E is slowly moving through lesson 15 in Epsilon. She has finished up Module 4 in General Science. I have offered her the chance to retake the first few tests. She did much better on the first one. But, the offer is only good for a week, and she will not be given the chance again. I also am taking away her option to schedule herself for this work. We gave it a quarter and she was not doing a good job. So now she has to follow MY schedule! The same with Latin. She was not making good use of her time and ended up doing a whole bunch of pages on one day. That meant that she kept making the same mistake over and over and getting horrible scores. No more! She will now follow my schedule.

I am really struggling with the lack of drive in my eldest two students. The road to excellence is one that requires a self-will to travel it. Princess E wants to walk the road of excellence with her music - but that is all. I cannot force my students to want to get good grades and do the best work that they possibly can. That has to be something they want for themselves. Apparently, this is not something they want - and it is driving me crazy! I cannot relate to the lack of motivation in that area. And as such, I have no idea how to bring it out of them. If we continue this path, Princess E will be repeating 7th grade. She has a summer birthday so it really will cause no problems to hold her back a year. But she will be madder than a wet hornet. A logical person would reason that this would be enough to motivate a person - but not my stronger-than-diamonds-willed child. Princess S has different, yet equally maddening, issues. Her inability to stay organized throughout the day; her losing of assignments, books and pencil; and her consistent wasting of time throughout the day leaving her to do school ALL.WAKING.HOURS.LONG is draining me of all my energy. But I will keep on keeping on - because that is all I know how to do. That and cling to the promise that God will sustain me.

Computer Repairs

2011-10-05T22:23:00.000-05:00

I got my computer back from a three week visit to the computer repair shop. I'm still working on getting things loaded as they had to completely rebuild it. So I'm hoping to get a few posts up soon. I even have a few pictures. In the meantime, I've got three weeks worth of assignments to get entered into HST Plus which will keep me busy. And I need to go through and make a few changes for the second quarters worth of assignments that will be printed out next week. Busy, busy, busy.

Drama Queen in Training

2011-09-26T22:39:00.000-05:00

I wouldn't have believed it unless I'd heard it with my own ears. This morning I sent Princess M back to her room to clean up the legos she had tossed all over. She fussed about it but walked into her room. After a half minute or so she let out a big sigh and said, "Mom, you're ruining my life." I have no idea where she picked that up from. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing, and then had to compose myself to explain why she really cannot talk to me that way. She really is a drama queen in training.

TOG Year 1 Week 4

2011-09-16T21:27:00.000-05:00

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG

Latin For Children Primer A: Lesson 3 is finished and 4 is started.
Globalmania Geography: Beginning Europe.
Language Arts
Fix-It! Tom Sawyer: Finished through week six.
Grammar Town: She has one week left before starting Paragraph Town.
Practice Town: Finished through sentence 15.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Done through lesson 12.
Caesar's English One: She began lesson 3.
Science - God's Marvelous Works: She is taking her first unit test on Monday.
MUS Delta: She is almost ready for lesson 14 test.
TOG Yr1 Wk 4: This week covered the first ten chapters of Genesis. Last year, our church spent the entire year studying this section of the Bible. And we studied it in depth. So I decided that we would just take this week a bit lightly so that they didn't get bored with the overkill. She began doing important people on Quizlet this week. Reading: Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (UAW) - excerpts, What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers, The True Story of Noah's Ark, On Noah's Ark, Bible - Genesis 1-10.

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Latin For Children Primer B: Lesson 5 and begin Lesson 6
Globalmania Geography: Same as above
Language Arts
Fix-It! Frog Prince: Finished through week six.
The Magic Lens: Working on verbs section.
Practice Town: Same as above
Essay Voyage: She wrote a paragraph on an animal (she choose a chinchilla) and finished the first unit.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Same as above
The Word Within the Word 1 (WWW1): She is working on the third word list.
MUS Epsilon: Lesson 13 - She is having a bit of a time with reducing fractions. I've printed out some extra worksheets so that she can have some more practice before taking the test. I think the big problem is that she is leaving math for the end of the day and is in such a hurry to get done she just isn't thinking straight.
TOG Yr1 Wk 4: She had her second online class this week - and seemed to really enjoy it. Timeline cards were done. AQ/TQs. Reading: Early Times: The Story of Ancient Egypt - excerpts, Tales of Ancient Egypt, Bible - same as above.

Princess L Through Week 6

2011-09-16T16:34:00.000-05:00

Getting in a weekly update is just plain difficult this year! I don't know how it's really going to happen. So I'll just update on everyone when I can. This post will be about Princess L. We have been doing some major reviewing. One problem with switching phonics curriculums as much as I have is that you have to do so much reviewing because each one teaches some things so differently. If you don't start at the beginning, you don't always understand some of the lingo, acronyms or ways of marking words that are used. They aren't all the same! There are definitely some aspects of IEW PAL that I like. At the moment, we are only doing the reading portion. (She knows all her letters - though some are still backwards - so the first writing book was just too slow for her. The story sequence is important, but we're going to hold off on that part until later. The second writing book is mostly copywork, and I decided to get A Reason for Handwriting for her instead. She really needs the starting dots right now as she has a hard time getting her letters a uniform size without that reference.) We are pretty much doing two reading lessons a day. I think she really could do one more, but I generally begin to run out of steam when we get to that point of our day. Today we finished up lessons 28-29.

As part of IEW PAL, she has started All About Spelling Book 1. I really like this program. We aren't using it exactly as written, but she is flying through it. We are already at step 13. Seeing as how both of her older sisters are great spellers, I'm not surprised. However, one of Princess L's favorite past times right now is writing stories. When she writes stories, all her phonics and spelling skills seem to disappear! I'm anticipating that she will move into Book 2 sometime around her birthday in March. Or perhaps we'll have to hold her off until after the MACHE conference to see if I can find it used somewhere.

She is also continuing to do about two pages of Explode the Code Book 3 each day. She does this on her own, for the most part, except for the pages where you read the sentences and match it to the picture. I do those with her. And it is this exercise that has me convinced that she needs vision therapy. She is going to be evaluated for it the beginning of October.

In Math, she has finally passed level two of Calculadder and has moved on to level three. This level corresponds with MUS Alpha lesson 8 which is the +2/2+ facts. When she gets close to passing this level, I will bring the Alpha book back out, as this is where we left off.

Finally, TOG. I say this with a big sigh because although I love TOG - I'm finding it difficult to work into her day. It's not her fault. Really, it the fault of her big sisters, who need to be brought back into focus every few minutes. When I began TOG with the big two, both of them were much better readers than Princess L is right now. So, I only read aloud one or two of the books each week, and they did the rest on their own. By the time I finish school with Princess M, have had meetings with the big two, then have finished all of the above work with Princess L (all the while bringing everyone else back to their tasks, attempting - and usually failing - to do some house chores, and keeping Princess M occupied throughout the day) I'm generally not awake enough, sane enough, or patient enough to sit down to read the TOG books. Since we are in year one, much of the history is written in the Bible. To me, that is really the meat of this year. So every day we have been listening to this. This has been a wonderful addition to our Bible time! The girls usually draw pictures of what is going on each day as we listen. Sometimes we only listen in the morning. Other times we also listen at lunch. It depends how much reading is assigned in that week. This next week we will be listening to 29 chapters, so we'll listen three times most days.

TOG Year 1 Weeks 2-3

2011-09-09T23:02:00.000-05:00

Short and sweet, because I'm pressed for time, here's our accomplishments over the past two weeks.

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
IEW-PAL: Writing - I've set the writing part aside for the moment and purchased A Reason for Handwriting First Grade. We're using the first part of the book to review letter formation and then will move to the one week lesson format. To be honest, I just needed to add in some seatwork to begin her day with. I'm usually trying to transition Princess M into a room time after finishing her preschool. So to begin Princess L with some simple copywork that will keep her in her seat became a necessity.
Reading - We're working through two lessons a day and are up to lesson 20. These are really review for her, but she needs the review. I am pretty much convinced she is going to need vision therapy. Having gone through it before with Princess S, I see all the signs when Princess L is reading. I added in the All About Spelling portion and she is already at step 10. I am modifying it slightly in that we do the ten words on the board. If she gets any of them wrong, then I have her write those words on paper as well. Then I give her the Reinforcement words to spell on paper. So far she is doing great.
Math: She finally passed level 2 of Calculadder. So we will do MUS Alpha lesson 7 (+2, 2+) and move to Calculadder level 3. I added these to her flashcard stack at the end of last year, so while she has seen them, it takes her quite a while to get the answers correct. But I have seen some improvement over the last five weeks.
TOG Yr 1 Wk 2-3: Aside from the cookie dough maps, this has really fallen by the wayside. It takes so much time to do school that I just don't have the energy to do these with her. When we began TOG four years ago, Princess S was in 2nd grade. We were doing the same level as Princess L, but Princess S was reading so much better. She would read all the books on her own - even the ones I had told her we were going to do as read alouds. Princess L is just not able to read any of these on her own. I'm trying not to fret over it and will just do what I can. She is listening to the Story of the World on CD with us over lunch, as well as listening to all the Bible readings with us in our morning Bible time. I guess that's the important part anyway.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG

Latin For Children Primer A (LFC-A): Lesson 3 - She fretted again about noun declensions, claiming to not understand them. But when she was willing to settle down and listen, she discovered it was quite easy. Go figure!
Globalmania Geography: This is our last week with the countries in Asia.
Language Arts
Fix-It Tom Sawyer: Finished through week five. This last week we added in identifying quality adjectives. She is finally beginning to understand the difference between to and too.
Grammar Town: She is on the home stretch with this book. She had a fun exercise to complete this week where she had to come up with sentences using the three types of phrases she studied - prepositional phrases, gerund phrases and appositive phrases. She did amazingly well.
Practice Town: Both princesses are rocking at the four part sentence analysis! Too bad they don't seem to be incorporating what they know into their own writing.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Done through lesson 10.
Caesar's English One: She finished lesson 2.
Science - God's Marvelous Works: She is studying for her first unit test.
MUS Delta: Today she aced the lesson 13 test.
TOG Yr1 Wks 2-3: These weeks she was learning about the various gods of Egyptian mythology as well as the beliefs about the afterlife. These are incoporated with a study of the ten plagues that God inflicted a proud Egypt with. It was interesting to see how they line up.
Reading: Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (UAW) - excerpts, What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers, Bible - Exodus 19-40, Maia of Thebes, Pepi and the Secret Names

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Latin For Children Primer B (LFC-B): Lesson 4 and begin lesson 5.
Globalmania Geography: Same as above
Language Arts
Fix-It The Frog Prince: Finished through week five. She is beginning this week to identify one or two of the sentence openers.
The Magic Lens: Finish up section on adjectives.
Practice Town: Same as above
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Same as above
The Word Within the Word 1 (WWW1): She worked on list two and tested on it. She did a lot better on the analogy section this time.
MUS Epsilon: Lesson 12 and begin lesson 13.
TOG Yr1 Wks 2-3: This was to be the first week of her online class, but she ended up missing it. I must have been reading the time difference wrong since the beginning and she ended up logging in to a Rhetoric Literature class. She got out after ten minutes. So she had to listen to a recording of the class.
Reading: Early Times: The Story of Ancient Egypt - excerpts, Science in Ancient Egypt - excerpts, Understanding Jewish Holidays and Customs - excerpts, The Golden Goblet, Tales of Ancient Egypt, Bible - Exodus 19-40.

Princess M Preschool Check In 2

2011-09-09T22:10:00.000-05:00

These first five weeks of school have been very hard. We have had one great-grandmother pass away. The other great-grandmother broke her leg and had major surgery. Nanny came to visit for a week and a half. Princess L was sick for a whole week. Other various issues have plagued us as well. So about a week and a half ago, I was feeling extremely discouraged about preschool. I think it was just another in the litany of spiritual attacks that I have had to weather. I have been lamenting that she just doesn't seem to be cooperating or getting the idea in many areas. So I've been contemplating either dropping preschool completely or going with something a bit less structured. One thing I had been doing is incorporating the letter stories from IEW's PAL curriculum that I'm using with Princess L. The day after my major frustration hit, Princess M was paging through a workbook and pointed to the letter e. She said, "Hey it's the toothy letter!" She then pointed out an i and said, "And that's the sad letter!" She could even tell me the sounds. I was amazed. So, I'm thinking that I just need to loosen up and not expect too much. She will catch on in her own time.

So, we finished up the letter i this week. I had figured to be all done with the vowels by now, but since I'm loosening up, I will not be pushing to finish on any schedule. Here are a few pictures of some things we did.

We made an I iguana.

We made an inchworm.

We made an iguana bag puppet that says - of course - \i\.

We will be starting the letter O next week.

Ancient Egypt Cookie Dough Map

2011-09-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

Today, we had some good friends come over to join us in one of our favorite TOG activities - making cookie dough maps! It was a lot more fun having friends join us. The bigger girls took lots of time making sure that their elevations were just right - only to have them melt away in the oven. But I think they completely understand that Upper Egypt is called that because it is higher in elevation, not because it is on the top of the map. The little girls just had fun putting things on their frosting glaze. Here's the photo of the whole group - acting silly of course!

Here's a slideshow of our afternoon.

Princess L Follies

2011-08-31T15:27:00.000-05:00

Princess L spent about 30 minutes today getting out a tooth. It is the sixth tooth she has lost. She had blood all over her hands, but was happy. Until I told her to go wash her hands. And she just had to take her tooth out of the tooth box over the sink. And the tooth fell out of her wet hands and went down the drain. She was devastated - until I handed her a dollar bill.

TOG Year 1 Week 1

2011-08-27T15:37:00.001-05:00

Did I take a nap - or did the summer just fly by? We've had a very different beginning three weeks than I had anticipated when planning for them at the beginning of the summer. We doubled up some days to have some days off due to a funeral. Princess L got sick and stayed that way for a week. Nanny came for an unexpected visit. And a few tasks that I overlooked this summer meant pushing back some work an extra day or two. But I guess we all need to learn to roll with the punches, right?

Last year I reported on the girls work oldest to youngest. So it's only fair to do youngest to oldest this year.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This princess is enjoying being a preschooler. I'm trying not to have any notions of what I think she should be able to do based on what her older sisters were able to do, and simply go with what she presents. As such, I've been surprised about a few things and looking at changing a few things. Our first three weeks we went through the letters 'a' and 'e'. We did many of the activities listed in Letter of the Week, as well as some other activities I had on hand. While I tried to follow the outline of the plans included with LOTW, we ended up mixing things up based on what she had interest in. Here are a few pictures:

A is for alligator.

A is for apple tree.

Letter E pin poking.

E is for elephant.

Elephant counting with peanut butter chips. (This was one of her favorite activities. I wonder why?)

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
Princess L got a bit behind because of her illness, which we think was Fifth Disease due to the rash. I had hoped to get further in our review than we did.
IEW-PAL: Writing - After beginning book one, I decided it was way too easy for her. She does struggle with a couple of letters, but that is normal. (I'll save what I printed for Princess M for next year.) Book Two is essentially all copywork. I haven't decided yet if I will use the PAL book or use the copywork sheets I have that match what we are doing in TOG. I'm leaning toward the latter. Reading - This one has been more of a struggle to figure out where to put her. She played every single one of the folder games already except the math one, which I didn't put together. They were all very easy for her. Yet, she still has some issues with the sounds that the vowels make. She can always remember the long sound, and often the short sound; but when it makes more than two she struggles with that. So I've decided to begin All About Spelling with her now to cement in the sounds. We will do the first student workbook (because she enjoys the cut and paste and coloring,) but we will be doing two or three lessons a day. We are also going through the Phonetic Farm in the order it is presented. We learned most of the rules presented already, but I really like the way they represent it visually. So far we've finished through lesson eight - though really that was all done in the last couple of days.
Math: We are taking a bit of a break from MUS Alpha at the moment. I had begun the Calculadder drills with her last year. She seems to have completely forgotten how to do them. So every day we are reviewing the math facts she learned last year (+0, +1, +2 and the reverse) as flashcards every day. Then she is doing a level two Calculadder drill sheet (which is all +1s) each day. As soon as she passes to level four, we will begin where we left off with MUS. I will refrain from moving her to the next lesson until she can pass the corresponding Calculadder level.
TOG Yr 1 Wk 1: Due to her illness, we didn't do much with this. We read The Nile River and part of Geography A to Z. I had copywork for her, but due to her illness, she didn't do it.
I don't have pictures of her doing school work, but I do have photos from phy ed/recess time where she is trying to learn how to roller blade. She is great at walking in them, but can't figure out how to get them to roll. The broom was for balance, but it also helped sweep off the driveway.

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
Since I didn't list out the first two weeks assignments before, I'll just mention them in here. For my eldest two princesses, I am trying something new. Since I use HST+, I have all of my lesson plans in the computer. I printed out a list of all the assignments for each individual subject for the entire quarter. They are deciding how much work to assign themselves each week. I have some bare minimums (there must be at least two assignments done for each subject except for math - which has five assignments a week) and they decide how much extra to do. I explained that they have two options if they finish the work in any subject before quarter's end. They can either ask me to print the next quarter's work and start in on it, or they can take a break from that subject for the rest of the quarter. This is a total experiment - we'll see how they do.
Latin For Children Primer A (LFC-A): Lessons 1-2 The first two weeks of school she was saying how much she loved Latin. That changed this last week, mostly because she didn't understand "conjugating" and didn't want to take the time to ask me. However, after a quick lesson from me, she understands it and is back to liking it again.
Globalmania Geography: This princess has discovered how much she loves to play Seterra. We are spending five weeks learning the countries in Asia. I haven't decided if I want them to learn the capital cities yet or not. I'm thinking that we will be repeating this program with them in another year or so and will wait on the Capital Cities until then.
Language Arts:
Fix-It Tom Sawyer: First three weeks are done. We figured out a rhythm that works. She does the sentences on her own each day and we go through them at our half hour meeting. Then on the fifth day, she types up the corrections on the computer and turns them in. I had thought about having her write them but she has a hard time with handwriting, so we're leaving that skill for her copywork alone.
Grammar Town: I have only the teacher's manual for this book. I keep looking for a used student book. She has been reading this on her own and then each week I go through the book and ask her questions (the Socratic method from TOG applied to MCT) about various sentences. She is finished through page 77. Click here to see a fun writing activity she did this week.
Practice Town: These are normally not started until after Grammar Town is over, but since the first few sentences are mostly review we started now. They do one every other day at the beginning of our meeting time. Sentences 1-7 are completed.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: They alternate this book with Practice Town during our meeting time. They are done with the first eight exercises.
Caesar's English One: She completed lesson one and has begun lesson two.
Science - God's Marvelous Works: She completed the first three lessons. This first unit is on insects. She did one experiment floating a greased pin on a piece of tissue in a cup of water.
MUS Delta: She completed lessons 10 and 11 and is almost done with lesson 12. I have the feeling that around the end of the year, she may very well catch up to her sister.
TOG Yr1 Wk1: This week we began our study of the ancient world. As we have studied this before, this week was very much a review for them of the things they remembered from three years ago. Some things we are doing the same with this princess. She is still using Quizlet, but instead of having her go over vocabulary words, I have entered the Important People for each week. i am requiring both princesses to do a Key Word Outline for their History Core readings. Then they have to use those to narrate back to me what they learned. Also, we are only going to be doing some of the geography assignments - the one I deem most important - as we are doing Globalmania with the purpose of learning what countries are where around the whole globe. So this week they reviewed the continents and oceans. Reading: Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (UAW) - excerpts, Maia of Thebes

Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Any dreams I had of this princess suddenly buckling down and hitting the books happily were gone after only one week. We have ongoing issues with her that just never seem to end.
Latin For Children Primer B (LFC-B): Lessons 1, 2 and 3 - However, I discovered that she was not doing her corrections as assigned. I will be giving her a closed book test next week so she must get those done this weekend.
Globalmania Geography: As much as Princess S loves Seterra, Princess E dislikes Seterra. They are very competitive and I think she's gotten frustrated that Princess S is doing better than she is at learning the Asian countries.
Language Arts:
Fix-It The Frog Prince: We are using the same method as we are with Princess S. However, for the first half of the year I told her we will not be identifying the IEW dress ups as I don't feel she's done it long enough to adequately identify them. I hope by the third quarter she will have used it enough that we can add that in. I think identifying them will help her to use them better in her own writing.
The Magic Lens: I knew there would be a learning curve with this book. She hasn't yet established a good rhythm with this book. We are using the book just before the most current re-write, so the whole first part of the book is mostly reading and discussing, which we've not had time to do a good job with yet. She has read the sections on nouns and pronouns.

Practice Town: For my own sanity, I am having both princesses do this level of the practice books. Sentences 1-7 are completed.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Done through exercise eight.
The Word Within the Word 1 (WWW1): She finished the first word list. She had a difficult time with the analogies, so we are going to have to spend more time on them in the next list.
Apologia General Science: While she had a good start, this has not gone well the last two weeks. She was under the impression that she was doing fine. She completed the study guide and told me she was prepared for the test. But she failed the test. I knew that it was going to be a rocky start, but I didn't anticipate it being this rocky. We will keep plugging away at it. The problem comes with her absolute refusal to ask for help when she doesn't understand something. She thinks reading something is enough - but she is learning that it is more than checking off that you've read the pages.
MUS Epsilon: She completed lessons 10 and 11. I'm not thoroughly convinced that she understands division of fractions. She has a hard time remembering the order of things, and has a heck of a time reducing them. Not sure why, except that fractions always bugged me. But I wasn't able to stop where I was until I got it. I can do that - and may very well stop her after lesson 12 and just give her practice pages off the MUS website until she can remember the steps every time.
TOG Yr1 Wk1: Again, this was a review week. She will be doing her discussions via an online class at the Lampstand Learning Center. She had an open house and an online meeting with her class. She is nervous and excited about this class. I think she is going to see very quickly that her method of doing things, and her lack of zeal for excellence (how's that for trying to sound positive) will have her lagging behind in this class. Reading: Early Times: The Story of Ancient Egypt - excerpts, Science in Ancient Egypt - excerpts, The Golden Goblet.

Also, we all listened to the Introduction and Chapter Two of The Story of the World on audiobook.

Noun's Birthday - by Princess S

2011-08-27T15:36:00.000-05:00

Princess S had an assignment in her Grammar Town book. Each character could only speak what they were. Here is what she came up with. I tried to leave in the mistakes, including the most glaring one at the very end.

Noun's Birthday

One day it was Noun's birthday. She invited her three best friends Verb, Interjection, and Adjective.

"Guys!" Noun waved to them and pointed to a three layered cake.

"Run," said Verb when the pinata fell down.

"Cool," squealed Adjective.

"Candy," said Noun.

Soon it was time for games. "Yes!" shouted Noun's mother, also called Interjection, when she won a game of Monopoly.

Then it was time for cake. Noun's mother brought out the chocolate three layered cake. Adjective started drooling. "Chocolate," she said slowly.

"Blow, blow, blow, blow," chanted Verb.

Noun said, "Mom? Candles?"

"Yes, I almost forgot." Noun's mother brought out the candles, and Noun blew on them.

Everyone tried to sing happy birthday, but they couldn't. So they just hummed the song. That, my friends, is the story of noun's birthday.

Well, Now I Know . . .

2011-08-23T20:58:00.000-05:00

that Princess M is allergic to fish. She's had it before - and always spits it out. We always require them to eat at least a bite of everything though. She's never had a reaction. Tonight, however, was different. She broke out in welts and her lower lip swelled up. She started itching her face like crazy. Her nose was stuffed and runny at the same time, and her eyes were so swollen shut she looked Asian. So we made a trip to Urgent Care and now she's flying high from an Epi pen shot and Prednisone. Poor thing - but she was none the worse. She was laughing and silly even while trying to itch her skin off. And Princess L is now very jealous that her little sister no longer has to eat fish.

"Not" Back to School Blog Hop: Day in the Life

2011-08-22T06:51:00.000-05:00

After the past week - I don't know that it's fair to say any day is much like the other. Despite my best efforts, my crew is barely able to keep a schedule. We are trying hard, however. This past week really threw us off - with a funeral and with Princess L being sick all week. But - tomorrow begins another week. And I have high hopes!

Our schedule really isn't the same every day of the week. Mondays we will be doing our two family IEW/TOG co-op and Princess M will have ballet. Wednesdays, Princess E will have her LLC class and we will all have things going on at church in the evening. Thursdays will be piano lessons for Princesses E, S and L. Princess S has a mentor that she meets with once every two weeks, and we've not yet set a time in stone for that. I spent lots of time working on a schedule that we count as our goal - but it is only that - a goal. If we make half the time frames in any given day - I'd call that a good day!

Here is our general layout for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays: (Sorry it's so small - can't get it bigger. I think if you click the image you can get it enlarged.)

3rd 2011_2012 School Daily Schedule

When You Just Don't Understand

2011-08-18T23:01:00.000-05:00

This has been a tough week. We had a funeral for one great-grandmother. The other great-grandmother suffered a badly shattered broken leg and high risk surgery. Princess L has been under the weather for three days. We've had some difficult issues going on in our family. And just tonight I learned some shocking news that makes me want to shout "Why God?! It's not fair, God! What are you thinking, God?"

For me, when I just don't understand, all I seem to be able to do is cling to that which I know from my experience. I'm beginning to think, however, that it is the clinging to what I know through experience that is keeping me from growing. If God were in a nice neat box, and if His plans lined up with mine, and if I were faithful to that which I know I ought to do - perhaps I would understand. But God cannot be contained, and His plans are beyond understanding, and I can never be faithful enough. So I am left with my prayers and questions, and instead of clinging to my experience, I will cling to the Truth - the Word of God. And His promises are new every morning, and His plans are to prosper me (and my family and friends) and not to harm us, and He is the same yesterday as He was today and will be tomorrow. The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away. Blessed be the LORD!

Kid Funnies - Yet Again

2011-08-16T15:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the little two princesses were playing with the 5 year old neighbor boy. They all decided to put on a play (as that is what my big two princesses were doing with his older sister.) So the girls went into their rooms to put on costumes and he ran home to get his super hero costume. For some reason though, he ran back to our house and decided to change in our bathroom rather than just putting it on at home. After a minute I hear the bathroom door open and he walks out - in his birthday suit. Princess M came out of her room at just that moment, took one look at him standing there facing her and said, "He has a toe on his butt!" I think you can gather what she was looking at. I quickly ushered him back into the bathroom and Princess M ran into Princess L's room and repeated, "(Name withheld to protect the guilty) has a toe on his butt!" And Princess L looked at her and said, "Now (Princess M), you know you should not make fun of him like that. You might hurt his feelings!"

Our First Week of 2011/2012

2011-08-11T22:27:00.000-05:00

Well, today we completed the first week of the 2011-2012 school year. My mind is awash with things we need to change! Actually, I knew going in to our schedule there would have to be some changes and I'm surprised we don't have to make more. Here is our first week in pictures (thought I'd amaze some of you that I actually remembered to take pictures!)

Here is Princess M (who gets my time first thing in the day) making her letter of the week - an 'A'.

While I was working with Princess M, Princess S was doing this:

Notice, she isn't using the chair. She has a thing about chairs - either she avoids them or finds ways to sit on them that no one has ever thought of before.

Later, she was doing this:

This was also our first week back to piano after an eight week hiatus.

While Princess S was on the piano, Princess L was working with me.

Meanwhile, Princess M had some room time. She decided to make herself a new bed using a clothes hamper.

Princess E was working independently during these morning hours.

After lunch, Princess M got the idea that the play house needed washing.

Princess L lost another tooth - her fifth.

Also after lunch, Princess E had an open house meeting for her online class. She was learning how to use the software and the headset and microphone.

So that there was less noise in the room while Princess E was online, I had Princess S go through some math review flashcards with Princess L.

Finally, Princess E had to do three science experiments this week. The first, the top photo, was testing density. The bottom photos are to show what a chemical reaction is. She was really enjoying them - but her clean up left a bit to be desired.

We only did half of our subjects. We will not be doing TOG for another two weeks. So we are easing into school. But, I think it was a good first week. Now we're gearing up for the second.

"Not" Back to School Blog Hop - School Room Week

2011-08-07T21:24:00.000-05:00

I've posted photos of our room last year, and to be honest not much has changed. I purchased a three level book shelf to put next to my desk. I've had to add baskets to my Ikea Billy bookshelf in order to accommodate more books. I've moved around a few posters. The biggest change really has been lowering our desk tables and using regular chairs instead of stools.

Here is the front half of the room.

A close up of my desk area.

Another addition this year is milk crates. Each princess has a milk crate that contains every thing that they will need for school (Princesses E & S) or that I will need to do school with them (Princesses L & M.) The two pictured here are for Princess L and Princess M. It is next to our library book basket. Also in the shot is a bin with file folders and page protectors, our file bin that has all of our TOG student sheets divided out by week and level, and our Math-U-See blocks.

A close up of the book shelf and Accountable Kids boards.

Moving around the room, we have our couch for reading (or napping.)

(I have no idea why the above picture won't center on the page.) Our second book shelf is mostly for notebooks.

Next we have our desk tables. Yes - there are only two of them. For now, Princess L and Princess M will only be working at the kitchen table with me. Princess E and Princess S use these desk tables - some of the time. In reality, they are all over the house - which is one reason for the milk crates. I have no idea how I'm going to work this room out when we have need of four desks.

(You will notice the other two milk crates under the table. Princess S was on a red kick - and has picked out red everything this year. At least we'll know which stuff is hers!) Finally we have our piano. I got rid of the shoe rack that used to hold our workboxes. It became badly needed as it's primary job - as a shoe rack in our coat closet. So I moved this wheeled plastic file cabinet out of my bedroom and filled it with learning toys and activities that I can pull out and let Princess M do when she gets bored.

Truth be told, we school anywhere in the house that we can. I've got a few princesses that have to sing while they work, a princess that cannot have any noise when she works, and all of them seem to be unable to do any work at all in their bedrooms. So it is always a compromise for someone whether we have it quiet or have singing going on. Thanks for taking a peak at our little slice of the world!

2011/2012 Curriculum Choices

2011-08-04T14:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I sorta jumped the gun in order to join this blog hop. I've been posting these plans over several weeks. So I figured I'd just link up to my posts.

I have four girls:

Princess E is 12 and going into 7th grade. Plans for Princess E are found here.
Princess S is 10 1/2 and going into 5th grade. Plans for Princess S are found here.
Princess L is 6 1/2 and going into 1st grade. Plans for Princess L are found here.
Princess M is almost 4 and going into preschool. Plans for Princess M are found here.

For anyone who doesn't want to take the time to click through for details, you can click the Curriculum tab up at the top.

Homemade Student Planner

2011-08-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

I searched and searched for the perfect planner. Or at least, for the planner that I had in my head. And I just couldn't find it. So I decided to create my own student planner for my eldest two princesses. Here's what I did:

Had to stick with a patriotic theme. It's one of my favorites.

The first page lists her computer information for sites she needs for school. It lists the daily meeting agenda we will follow. I found some neat plastic dividers with folders on each side.

The first section is an annual calendar and monthly calendars that are specific to our schedule. I got these from The Old Schoolhouse Planner. I bought the e-book version that is editable. Yet even with all the choices, I still had to create my own pages!

The next section has our individual lesson plans to schedule from. I still use HST+ to schedule from. But because my goal, which is described in the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, is that they will be able to schedule their own work, I am trying something new this first quarter. I printed out the list of assignments that they have for the first quarter. They can decide how much of each subject to schedule each week. They can follow my suggestion which will give them an even amount of work each week, or they can go hog wild with one subject and finish the quarter's assignments in four weeks and have five weeks off if they so desire! As I said, it's an experiment - so I'll let you know how that goes.

The next section has the pages they will use to fill in their schedule. Each page is individualized to what they will be using this year. Our week begins on Friday, and I included a column for the weekend in case they decide to schedule some work on the weekend. (I know, I know - a homeschool mom can dream, can't she?)

The next section is for their Grammar program to check off the sentences as they complete them and correct them.

The last section is an informational section that I thought might be helpful to them. It is again from The Old Schoolhouse Planner.

They are actually quite excited to begin using these. This will be a second year for Princess E in having her own planner and scheduling her own work. Princess S will be learning this skill this year. My prayer is that it will help them both to be a bit more organized, and that I will be able to focus more time on my younger students as a result.

The Best Ideas Come in the Middle of the Night

2011-08-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

So because it came to me in the middle of the night, the other day I had to act on it. So take a look at what I ordered to come as a notepad.

Bathroom Cleaning Checklist

I ordered these from Vistaprint. Princess E and I got a good laugh when, after I placed my order, they conveniently offered me my design on a t-shirt. And while we laughed about it, I seriously considered it. Because you know they are going to misplace the notepads.

I ordered two fifty sheet notepads, one for each bathroom, and I will attach a pen on a string to the back of the notepad. Then when they do their bathroom cleaning chores each morning, they can check off each chore as they do it. No more excuses for not "remembering" all of the steps.

I'm considering designing one for cleaning each room of the house.

A Must Watch Video

2011-07-30T23:57:00.000-05:00

This is the best explanation of what is truly going on in Washington. I've included the text below for your convenience. It's 14 minutes - but you need to see it and send it out to everyone you know.

“Thank you, Mr. President.
I rise here on the Senate floor today to speak on the tremendous issue that’s captivated, and rightfully so, the attention of our country.
Let me start by saying that I do not enjoy nor relish the partisan role of attack dog. I never found any fun in that. I don’t think it’s constructive. I don’t intend to become that here in the Senate.
I also have only been here for seven months, which means I haven‘t been here long enough to think any of the stuff that’s going on is normal. And I certainly don’t think any of the stuff that goes on around here too often is normal. So I think the fact that I’ve been here seven months has served me well in that regard.
Let me begin if I can. One of the things that I’ve noticed this week is that Washington is full of people from all over the world and all over the country that have traveled here this week to come and watch their government at work and see the monuments of the city and found themselves in the middle of this debate.
So I think it’s important to remind people what we’re debating because although it is a difficult and important issue, it is not a complicated one to understand. It’s pretty straight forward.
And here’s the way I would describe it the United States of America more or less — these are rough numbers but they’re accurate – spends about $300 billion a month. It has $180 billion a month that comes to the federal government through taxes and other sources of revenue and that means that in order to meet its bills at the end of every month it needs to borrow $120 billion.
Now, for much of the history of this country, there have been increases in the debt limit and the ability to borrow money. But what has happened over the last few years is that it’s no longer a routine vote because the people who give us our credit rating are saying too much of the money that you spend every month is borrowed and we want you to show us how over the next ten years you are going to borrow less as a percentage of what you spend.
And so that’s why, for years, where the debt limit was routine vote, it no longer can be. It’s not something that was made up in some conservative think tank. But the reality that we cannot continue to borrow 40% to 41% of every penny that the government spends has brought us to this point.
So you would think that seeing that, our government and our leaders here in both parties would react to that immediately and work on it.
And I’ve heard lot of talk today about delaying tactics and delaying votes. I would argue to you that this issue has been delayed at least for the last two and a half years.
In the two years before I even came here, this chamber neither proposed nor passed a budget. It is a startling figure that for the last two years this government has operated without a budget. So think about that. Two years have gone by without a budget. The first two years that the President was the president, no budgets.
Some people would say, well, that’s because of partisanship in Washington. Well, that’s not true. In the two years before I got here, both the House and Senate were controlled by members of the Democratic Party, which are the President’s party. In fact, in this chamber for at least one of those two years, 60 votes, 60 out of the 100 members here caucused with the Democrats. And as you recall, on Christmas Eve of the year 2009, they were able to pass a health care bill that was very controversial because they had the 60 votes in the President’s party.
Over two years, no budget. In fact you know how long it has been since this chamber proposed a budget? Forget passed a budget, proposed a budget? 822 days. That’s a long time. A lot of things have happened in the last 822 days, but proposing a budget is not one of them out of this chamber.
So then I got here – and we got here in January, seven months have passed, still no budget. Again, not budget passed, proposed, offered. Here’s our budget. Still no budget. 822 Days and every single day that I’ve been here.
Now, in the last seven days on this debt debate, we have finally seen a proposal from the esteemed senator from Nevada, the majority leader. You would think, has he brought it to the floor to vote? Not until last night. So, again, offered a proposal over the weekend and still for six days we sat around and what did we do around here? Nothing. It was never brought to a vote.
You would think these issues would have been worked on in January, February, March — nothing. This chamber has done nothing. You talk about delay tactics? They’ve been delaying for two and a half years.
Now the President doesn’t have the luxury of some of these things. He has to propose a budget by law, and he did. Let me tell you how ridiculous the budget was. Not a single member of this Senate voted for it, including the Democrats. It is a budget that didn’t lead with the debt limit; in fact, it increased the debt. That’s how absurd the budget was.
Where is the President plan? We haven’t seen it. We haven’t seen it. Here‘s the President’s plan: a blank sheet of paper. He doesn’t have a plan. He hasn’t offered a plan. Again, if this were a Republican president, I would say the same thing.
I do not understand how an issue of this magnitude, of generational importance, the President of the United States has not offered a plan. If someone has seen the president’s plan, please send it to me because no one else has seen it. It does not exist.
So this has been the plan all along, by the way. The plan all along was not to take a position, to let the days count down until we got to this point with 72 hours to go and then force a vote on something that they wanted. I believe that that has been the plan the entire time. And you can see it carrying itself out.
You want to know why people all across America get grossed out about politics? It’s by watching this kind of stuff happen.
And instead let me tell you what we’ve seen for the last few days. First of all, for today and for much of this time I have heard all these attacks and name-calling. If we had $1 billion for every time I heard the words “tea party extremist,” we could solve this debt problem.
So all this name-calling, so I said let me read some quotes about this debt limit and I found some pretty extremist quotes.
Here’s one.
It says, “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.” A quote from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16 of 2006 from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
I found another extremist quote. This one says, “Because this massive of accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against a debt limit increase.” Well, that must be from a tea party extremist member of the House, right? No. This is March 16, 2006, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.
And last but not least, here’s a quote from September 27 of 2007. It says, “I find it distasteful and disturbing to increase the debt limit yet again. Clearly we need to change course and this debt limit bill is just another reminder of that.” And that is from the distinguished Senator from Nevada, the majority leader. On that date in 2007.
And yet now these same quotes in this context, what we’re talking about raising the debt limit more than has ever been raised in one vote, is extremism? This name-calling is absurd and it sets this process back.
The other thing I hear — oh, it is not reasonable. This is a waste of time. This bill can’t pass the Senate when they talk about the House bill. So now it disqualifies the bill the fact that it can’t pass in the Senate.
Well, guess what? The Senate bill can’t pass in the Senate — the Senate bill can’t pass in the Senate.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): “Will the Senator yield for a question?”
Sen. Rubio: “Yes, I’ll yield.”
Sen. John Kerry: “I thank the Senator for doing that. That’s become somewhat unusual in the Senate today. So I truly appreciate it.
I would ask the Senator, as ironic as it may be that on occasion people in the past have indeed voted against a debt limit — both Republicans and Democrats alike — is it not true that in those situations those votes did not hold the nation hostage, did not come at a moment of enormous economic fragility as we are in today, and did not run the risk of default because it was going to pass overwhelmingly every time?
Is that not true?”
Sen. Rubio: “To the Senator from Massachusetts, I would say two things.
The first is that those votes — put it to you this way. If the Senator from Illinois at the time, Senator Obama, had had his way, we’d be in the same position we are in now. Because he had voted against the debt – and I recognize the President has now said that the debt limit is — he made a mistake and he wouldn’t have said that were he here today.
My point, I would say to the Senator from Massachusetts, is that rhetoric two years ago was not considered extremist language and now that rhetoric, which by the way I have not found. I think it is a myth. There may be a handful of people in the building both in the House and Senate perhaps that believe that the nation doesn’t have to raise the debt limit. But by and large everyone recognizes that something must be done about the debt limit.
What we have also said – I speak for myself. Let me not speak for any other member of this chamber or the next.
What I have also said is that it would be a terrible mistake to lose this opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt. And that the debt limit gives us an opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt, because the crisis that America faces is not one that I have defined.
But one that has been defined by the rating houses and rating agencies who have said if you do not get your spending in order, we don’t care whether you raise your debt limit or not, we will downgrade you.
And what that means for every American is an increase in their interest payments.”
Sen. John Kerry: “Will the Senator further yield for a question?”
Sen. Rubio: “Yes.”
Sen. Kerry: “Mr. President I appreciate what the Senator is saying. I would just say first of all that everybody understands the danger of the rating agencies right now.
The problem is, we got to reach across the aisle and negotiate. We’ve got to come to agreement. Right now there’s not a lot of negotiating going on.
I would ask the Senator, if he doesn’t agree that there is an enormous difference between — the Senator a moment ago said if he had gotten his way. But the whole point is, everybody knew he wasn’t about to get his way. That was a truly symbolic vote.
Today, however, is it not true we are on the brink of a default and the absence of negotiation or the absence of a settlement presents us with a far more serious consequence to the unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling today?”
Sen. Rubio: “To the Senator from Massachusetts I would say it‘s impossible to negotiate with someone who doesn’t offer a plan. How do you negotiate with someone who will not offer a plan and will not put it on the table?
But the finger pointing of who has a plan and who doesn’t have a plan is relevant, but it’s not the central issue here.
I would also say that in March of this year, March 30 to be exact of this year, I wrote an op-ed piece that ran in The Wall Street Journal and it outlined the things I was looking for to be a part of this debate. And I was told on March of this year that we didn’t have enough time to do all those things. Although later on we found out perhaps we did, this grand bargain and I am prepared, as I stand here today, if there is a meeting going on right after this, I’d love to be a part of it.
I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That’s one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we’ll able to pay our bills down the road.
And that is a combination of things that I have outlined very clearly, not just on March of this year in The Wall Street Journal, but in repeated speeches on this floor.
And those are the things, we need to do two things.
Number one is we need to grow our economy because while the debt is the biggest issue in Washington, jobs are the biggest issue facing America. And if we could get more people back to work, we would have more people paying taxes, and if we had more people paying taxes, we’d have more revenue for government.
And so that is the first thing we need to do, is figure out how to create jobs in America and I think there is bipartisan agreement on things we can do to do that.
The President himself mentioned regulatory reform as a necessity in the State of the Union. Let’s do it.
We’ve all talked about tax reform. Flattening and simplifying our tax code. And if there are things in that tax code that do not belong there because they are the product of good lobbying instead of good policy, then let’s go after those things. We’ve talked about that. Let’s talk about that.
I think we all agree that there has to be some changes in discretionary spending, but we also agree that doesn’t solve the problem. That’s a small piece of our overall budget. That we have to save Medicare because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is. That we have to save Medicaid because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is.
And I can tell you that history will back up what I’m about to say and that is that there is no government run by conservatives, Republicans, put whoever you want there, if you give government the opportunity to spend more money than it has, it will do it. It will do it every time.
That‘s why I believe there are at least 20 members of the Senate in the other party who have supported some version of the balanced budget amendment and yet it’s something we cannot even get a vote on much less discuss in the Senate.
So I believe there can be compromise on those outlines but here’s the last thing I would say.
I believe my time is about to expire so let me close with this.
Compromise is fantastic.
I would love nothing more than to leave this building tomorrow night having said the republic still works. I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with people from states far from mine with views different from mine but who love their country so much that we were able to come together and save it when it faced this catastrophe.
I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that’s not a solution is a waste of time.
If my house was on fire, I can‘t compromise about which part of the house I’m going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down.
We either save this country or we do not.
And to save it, we must seek solutions.”

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess E

2011-07-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

Tonight, Princess S said that she wished school started on Monday! I wish I'd been recording her, because I can guarantee you that by September 1 she will be quoting the opposite.

Here is the curriculum Princess E will use this year:

Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1: We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography. I plan to incorporate more narration this year. Also, she will be doing her history and church history discussions through the Lampstand Learning Center. I will be having Princess S do some of the D level literature books this year, so she will join us for discussion for those books. I also am going to attempt to read all the literature books myself before they are assigned. I've got the first one read already.

Math-U-See Epsilon: She will continue where she left off, and then move on to Zeta.

Latin for Children Primer B: I debated whether to move her on to Latin Alive. But since I have all the other girls behind her, I decided to stick with this series for now. She will still have time to complete Primer C and all three Latin Alive books.

Apologia General Science: I have the entire curriculum on a computer CD. If this doesn't work to do on the computer, then I will be borrowing the book from a friend. I'm quite nervous about this. I think it's going to be a lot of work for my non-science minded or interested princess. But it is important for her to have it.

Globalmania: As mentioned in my post about Princess S's curriculum, I'm hoping for a better global mind in respect to where things are located in the world.

As I said before, I'm a language arts fiend. So we have a lot of overlapping, multi-textured stuff going on. With the MCT, I'm using his level 4 materials over two years, so what's listed may seem a lot, but we're going slow and only doing half the book this year. As listed in Princess S's curriculum, she will be using Practice Town, McCall-Crabbs Book B, and Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons from IEW, and Fix-It Grammar - though she will be doing The Frog Prince instead of Tom Sawyer.
The Magic Lens Volume One: This is intense but fun grammar. We'll do the first half of the book this year.
The Word Within the Word Volume One: This vocabulary program should put her in good form for the eventual college required standardized tests.
Essay Voyage: Instead of going with the level four writing (especially since we're doing the IEW writing besides) I am having her do level three. This is such a rich program that we are going to take it slow and easy.

That's it for our curriculum tour for the year. Wouldn't you know it, I've already had to change our daily schedule that I posted earlier as I realized I forgot about piano lesson day. So I had to make some minor changes. I put together milk crates for each princess today with their school stuff all nicely squeezed into a crate. Each has a different color, and they should be able to move the crates around to wherever they end up doing their schoolwork. I'm also working on cleaning out the school room and when I have it all spruced up I'll post some photos.

Princess M (Endearment)

2011-07-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

** Normally, I would title posts like these Princess M Funnies, but as this contains the words of a prayer, I thought endearment a better term. **

Princess M's lunchtime prayer today:

Dear Jesus,
I love you when we go to church but (aside - this is how all of her prayers start) today we didn't go to church. We didn't go anywhere - we stayed at home. And tonight we'll stay at home because it's cold outside, even though there's no snow.
Amen

** Reader's Note - It's been in the triple digit heat index for the past several days. Not sure where she's getting the cold idea. **

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess S

2011-07-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

It's only eleven days until we begin our school year. I need to finish my curriculum posts so I can get ready for the new year. Here is what Princess S will be using for next year.

Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1: We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography. I plan to incorporate more narration and copywork for her this year. She will be completing the UG level for most of the year, but I plan to begin the transition to D level part way through. I will have her reading a few of the D level literature books this year and including her in our discussion times for it.

Math-U-See Delta: She will continue on from where she ended the year. I anticipate she will be moving on to Epsilon about halfway through the year.

Latin for Children Primer A: This will be her first year with Latin. I'm hoping we get through this in one year, but I am going to be flexible. I'd rather go for mastery than finishing a book in a year. In fact, I really think we will only get about 2/3 of the way through. Last year, I had all the pages in page protectors for Princess E and she wrote on them with an ultra-fine permanent marker. I used an Expo board doctor to get that off. However, because I had waited until the end of the year it took a long time and lots of elbow grease. I finally gave up and threw away about 40 page protectors. This year we will use wet erase markers. I also purchased the activity book used, so that will give some more variety in the assignments.

God's Marvelous Works Book One: The last two years we have done science together. This year we are trying science separately. So Princess S will be working on this book. I plan to incorporate narration and notebooking with this subject. She will do the reading and answer the questions. I entered the vocabulary words on Quizlet so she can study them there. I also bought the test booklet.

Globalmania: We are going to add in this program for our geography studies. My hope with this is that they will be able to have a better grasp of where things are in the world. We will be setting aside a little bit of time each week to work on this adventure.

Language Arts - I am a language arts fiend! I was an English major and this is my love and comfort zone. But finding something that works for all my princesses is difficult. These choices below may seem like a lot, but Princess S really needs repetition as well as variety in order for concepts to sink in. She also needs lots of hands on practice. So I am blending a variety of programs together. We won't be doing all these each day, but we will be working with each thing at least twice a week. Most of these I purchased used.
Caesar's English 1: This will be our first year using MCT for vocabulary. This is an intense program. We are going to take it slow, but hopefully finish in one year.
Grammar Town: This is the next book that follows Grammar Island, which we did this past year. They enjoyed the story aspect of learning grammar, so I'm hoping this will be the same. As per MCT recommendations, we will be "front loading" this program. She will complete the book in five weeks.
Paragraph Town: She will use this after she completes Grammar Town. There are so many different activities to choose from with this one. We will be choosing those that look the most fun and the most helpful. (Yes - this might overlap some with IEW - but the approaches are different and like I said, she needs the constant review.)
Practice Town: Last year I purchased the student books for each princess. This year, I am going to be including this exercise during our meeting times. I only purchased the teacher's manual and will be dictating the sentence to them. Then they will be working through the four level analysis.
Fix It! Grammar - Tom Sawyer: This will be an additional grammar exercise. Princess S is a very good writer as far as creativity - but her mechanics and usage need some real work. I am hoping that this will help her become more conscious these aspects in her own writing.
McCall Crabbs Book B: We will be continuing this exercise this year. They will complete it during our half hour meeting time. They will be alternating between this and Practice Town. We may need to double up for about three weeks spread out through the year in order to finish.
Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons (IEW): This will be done with a friend's sixth grader. I will be teaching my oldest two princesses along with her third DD, and she will take my youngest two princesses with her youngest DD to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a craft. I really like the looks of this program and am hoping that Princess D will spur my two princesses to excellence. Princess D really enjoys writing and it's one of her favorite subjects I'm told.

Well, there you have it. Princess S's school year in a nutshell. I'm actually getting quite excited for it.

Breathless

2011-07-17T15:41:00.000-05:00

This morning, Princess E performed a song she wrote for the offertory special music at church. It's not the best recording from the vantage point I had, but I think it gives you an idea of the gift God has blessed her with at such a young age.

Princess E's Extreme Room Makeover

2011-07-16T22:32:00.000-05:00

Last year, my mom (known to the princesses as "Nanny") decided that she wanted to gift the eldest two princesses with an extreme room makeover. Part of the reason was because she knew they wanted a more grown up looking room, but another part was that we hoped they would be spurred on to want to keep their rooms clean and neat. Here is what the room looked like when they started.

So in June, Nanny helped Princess E with her extreme room makeover. They painted, decluttered, and replaced old furniture with much nicer old furniture. Almost all of the things that were purchased were second hand, except for her new bedding, and a picture and frame over her bed. Princess E is so pleased with how it turned out. Check it out!

(This is a dresser and dressing table in one. As we have four girls, we anticipate that the older they get, the more difficult it is going to be to find bathroom time. So having a dressing table in their room is a must.)

Princess E picked out this comforter set. She thought it looked more sophisticated than the other choices. The picture they found matches one of the flowers on the bed spread, but brings other colors into the mix.

Finally, Princess E wanted a music corner so that she could work on her music writing. She has her keyboard and guitar set up there. She received a new CD player for her birthday (which isn't in the photo as she hadn't received it yet) that is setting on the ledge. Also missing from the picture are the new curtains that we hung the next day.

The last thing that Nanny did was to have Princess E sign a contract. Since she had put a lot of time, money and love into the room makeover, she wanted Princess E to agree to some rules that had been decided upon ahead of time. So she drew up a contract and had her sign it. Then Nanny made a scrapbook of the whole thing and gave it to Princess E for her birthday. What a wonderful gift! In a few weeks, I'll show you the transformation of Princess S's room.

Princess L Funnies

2011-07-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I told Princesses S, L and M I would take them to Dollar Tree to pick out birthday gifts for Princess E. Princess L got really excited thinking about what she could get. Then she stopped short and said, "Wait, I don't have any money. (Princess E) you need to give me a dollar so I can get you a birthday present."

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess L

2011-07-06T15:13:00.000-05:00

Princess L will be in first grade already. (Insert sad sounding yiddish fiddle music.) Where has the time gone?

I have had a difficult time figuring out what to do with this little one next year. Some things were no brainers: continue Math-U-See Alpha for math, begin Tapestry of Grace LG level for our humanities rotation, and Awana Sparks for Bible memory work. But I've been flummoxed (I just had to get that word in there) about what to do for Language Arts. (I will continue to have her work on the Explode the Code workbooks as they are a good seat work activity that she can do on her own. I can hand it to her to do while I am correcting her work, or if I am unavoidably needed during her schooling by one of her sisters.) Because of the speech issues that she has been working through this year, she is a little bit behind where her sisters were in reading ability. At the same time, I have learned through experience that just because you can read a book (or a list of words) to get a graded reading level, it doesn't mean that you can comprehend or remember what you've read. This has been an ongoing problem with my eldest two princesses. I have come to embrace Charlotte Mason's ideas of narration and dictation as a method for training kids toward the stage of dialectic thinking. I didn't really do much with that with my eldest two princesses, and as a result, moving up to the dialectic level in our Tapestry studies has been a bigger challenge than it should be.

So what to do? When I first heard that IEW was going to be coming out with curriculum for the K-2nd grade set, I was excited. As an English major, I really like their method for training kids to write well. What held me back at the homeschool convention is that I didn't know where she'd be by the end of the year. I decided to spring for it because even if the reading lessons will be a bit easy for her - it will be a good review of the things that she has learned. And most importantly, I can use it the following year with Princess M. The writing lessons, however, are going to be right up our alley. This will allow us to work in the narration and dictation that I missed with my older girls at this stage. And it will set her up for a wonderful transition to be able to complete SWI-A in her third grade year.

When she is done with PAL-Reading, I am going to have Princess L begin Primary Language Lessons. I like the outlay of this version of the book. You can print it however you want - color, B&W, one sided, two sided, etc. And it can be done either orally or written down. The original version of the book would require separate paper to complete any written portions. When my elder girls tried this, they would either lose their place in the book or on the paper making the assignment take forever, or things would get skipped as they moved back and forth. This version allows them to write their answer immediately below the question.

I've already posted our master schedule, but here is a closer look at what Princess L's personal schedule will look like:

Princess L Schedule

This is what we will start with, anyway. It seems like the more the plans seem set in stone, the more things come up that require changes. I believe that's called "Murphy's Law"? You'll notice our schedule will be different on Mondays. That's because a friend and I will be kid swapping and team teaching on those days. I will take her 6th grader with E & S to do IEW's Ancient History Writing Lessons, and she will take L & M with her 2nd grader to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a hands-on craft or experiment. I'm really excited about it, though I enjoy the hands-on stuff myself, I think it will be good for L to have the opportunity to learn from someone other than me. One other thing on the schedule that is new for her is piano. She will begin her lessons in October. She is so excited and cannot wait to be like her big sisters. I have scheduled her a 15 minute practice session for this year. Those beginning lessons can get a little bit too much for me to listen to for half an hour. And it's also too much time for them to fill. Until her lessons actually begin, I will have her review Awana verses, as much of the first part of each book is a review of the previous year anyway.

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess M

2011-07-05T22:39:00.000-05:00

This will be Princess M's first official year as a student in our homeschool. She will be a pre-K student. We will be using the Letter of the Week curriculum. While you can get all the downloads free from the site, it is well worth the $10 to download everything zipped and organized. I also purchased the K4 expansion pack a while back. I do not know how much of it we will use with Princess M this year, but I can also use it with Princess L for a fun review. I have decided that, although I'd love to print everything out in color on heavy weight cardstock and then laminate it, it really was not cost effective to do that. Princess M is my last student, so that would be a big investment. If I still had one more behind, I would most certainly spend the money to make things last. So I went through the list of activities and decided which ones really would be best in color, and which ones I could get by with B&W. Princess M can color some of them in before we cut them out to play with. I'm printing out all the activities I plan to use, a letter a day, until I have all that I need. I've also gone through the list of suggested books and marked which ones I have available at our library. I will be working with Princess M immediately after breakfast in the morning. I plan to have some activities she can do with me and some that she will learn to do on her own for a few minutes. She is very excited about being an official student, something that her sisters find very funny. (I remind them that they were once excited about school as well.) Princess M will also be a first year Cubbie at Awana this year. I think she is most excited about that fact. It has been a long wait for her to join in on the Wednesday night fun. I will try to remember to take some photos of the activities and post them on a regular basis. (I have such a hard time remembering to take pictures.)

Entrepreneurship

2011-06-30T13:28:00.000-05:00

What can we do to teach this to our kids? Wait until you have a day that is 95 degrees with a heat index reading of 105. Then let them have a lemonade stand with the neighbor kid.

Princess M Funnies

2011-06-24T08:59:00.000-05:00

In a statement made as she was rushing to the bathroom, "Mom my tummy water is swishing."

Planning for 2011/2012

2011-06-23T22:34:00.000-05:00

While most of my planning for next year has been done, there are still a few things remaining. One of those has been a daily schedule. Schedules have been the bane of my homeschool existence. My princesses just don't function well with schedules. But I remain convinced that if we can stick to one, the rest of life will flow a lot better. So I have spent much time over the last week thinking about how to make things work for us. I will be adding Princess M in to our homeschool next year as a preschooler. Princess L will be a first grader. But she will still require me to work with her for almost the entire time. Princess S will be a fifth grader. I need to begin to mover her toward the dialectic level. However, I'm not sure yet how to get her there. Princess E will be a seventh grader. She will be a second year dialectic student, but last year was very difficult as she fought the work load tooth and nail. Despite the training I did to help her, she is my strong willed child who has to do everything her way - even if she can see without a shadow of doubt that her way will take longer, be more difficult and result in inaccurate results. So, I still have much work to do with her. Needless to say, it is going to require a strict schedule in order for everyone to get the piece of my time that they will need.

I decided that Princess S needs a very strict schedule. I filled in for her when she is to do each subject. I haven't done that before. There were certain times for group work, but I generally let her decide what order to do her assignments in. She can make school last a lifetime, with both ADD and SPD playing their parts to keep her distracted as well as being a distraction. I decided to give her a finite amount of time for each subject, and to list in what order she will do each subject. I'm going to set my alarm on my wrist watch to make sure that all transitions happen as scheduled. My prayer is that by mid-year, she would be beginning to finish subjects early and either use the time as quiet free time (reading a book or drawing) or else working ahead. Any assignments for the day that are not finished will be considered "homework" and she will have to complete them before being allowed free time. For Princess E, I took all her blocks of time that she wasn't doing something with the rest of us and called them "independent work" times. She will continue to schedule out her week as she did last year, and will be able to decide what order to do things in each day. However, I told her that I reserved the right to make changes to her schedule if it is causing problems. One problem she had last year is that she scheduled her reading assignments very light the first day, and then didn't do her outlines the way she was instructed, and therefore would have to re-read everything the day she tried to do her AQ/TQ's. She would get behind and not have them done, and everything would get pushed back. This year I told her that she will be assigning all of her TOG reading assignments the first two days and will be doing KWO's a la IEW with her History Core and History In-Depth reading. She will be working each day until 3:15pm, and if she finished what she had assigned for herself early, she is to work ahead on the next day's work. If she didn't finish all the work assigned for the day by then, she too will have "homework".

Another thing I did was to schedule in two 15 minute quick clean sessions - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning one will hopefully allow them to catch up on any morning chores that weren't completed or do some other cleaning that they can potentially earn commission for. The morning cleaning will be followed by a 15 minute snack time. The afternoon snack will be at 3:15 with a fifteen minute cleaning following it.

For Princess L, I have assigned her a play time with Princess M, as well as a time for her to read to Princess M. She will have some scheduled free times. I have decided to break up her time with me into three half hour slots. We will spend 45 minutes on language arts, 30 minutes on math, and 15 minutes on TOG related activities. Princess L and Princess M will also be assigned to help with lunch prep. Yep - I'm crazy!

Princess M will have a one hour preschool time with me broken up into a 45 minute time slot and a 15 minute time slot. These will be early in the morning. One of the seminars I attended at our homeschool convention years ago was by David Hazell of My Father's World. He talked about the importance of giving the youngest students the first time. Once they get their time with mom, they are usually more willing and able to play by themselves for a while. So, after her preschool time she will have a half hour learning video (one of many I have on hand) and then after our snack time she will have a 45 minute room time. This will be challenging to begin with, but I plan to keep her Leapster away at other times and let her have it during her room time. For now, I am scheduling a nap time in the afternoon. It is a shorter time than she usually takes right now. But generally when they turn 4, I am less concerned that the nap happens. It will probably turn into an extended afternoon room time by the end of the year - but who knows. Princess S would have continued taking naps at 4 if she wasn't sharing a room with Princess E at the time. Finally, the youngest two princesses will have a half hour TV time at the end of our scheduled time so that I can work on dinner.

I have schedule myself a half hour meeting time with both of the older princesses each day. This time will be to go over the previous day's work, doing some narrations (which will be new to us,) and going over any new questions that come up. I also have some assigned some "office hours" for myself. These will be specific times that the older two princesses can count on me to be willing and able to interrupt what I'm doing to answer questions or help. This has been one of their complaints - that I'm not available when they need help. (I would counter that by saying that neither of them generally asks for help - just do the work and cross it off and worry about corrections later - and when they do it is after having wasted a lot of time and right before I need to be doing something important.)

So without further ado, here is our daily schedule goal for next year:

2011_2012 Daily Schedule

What You Don't Expect to Hear From a Princess

2011-06-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

* Allow me to preface this by saying this is a princess who has an overly active nose - such as her momma had during her four pregnancies with hyperemesis gravidarum. *

"But Mom, I can't go potty cuz I smell something in my butt. And it's making me sick."

Name withheld to protect the guilty.

The Ice Cream Volcano

2011-06-10T08:32:00.000-05:00

Since we learned about volcanoes in our last weeks of school, we decided that this suggested activity would be a fun one. We choose to wait until Nanny was visiting. We allowed some ice cream to soften and then formed it into a volcano shape. We set it back into the freezer for several hours. Then I poured some cupcake flavored Magic Shell over the top. It went back into the freezer for another two hours. Finally, we took it out and added chocolate syrup and crushed cookies. We talked about how a volcano is formed, and what the land could look like before and after the volcano erupted. Of course, eating it was the most fun part of the project!

MMTA Convention

2011-06-10T08:23:00.000-05:00

Princess E was blessed to be able to play at the MMTA Convention this past week. She participated in a program called Music Bridges. The purpose of the program is as follows: "Music Bridges offers teachers the freedom and flexibility to design a program to fit each individual student, at any age, and at any level of ability. In addition to repertoire performance, a student's program may include an original composition, dance, drama or visual art." Therefore, Princess E played a piece of music which her teacher chose called "A Little Flower" by Cornelius Gurlitt. Based on the song, she composed a poem, also called "A Little Flower." She played "Lost Toy" by Christopher Norton. She also composed two of her own songs, "Angry Clouds" and "Clear." She sang on "Clear" while she played. She received a perfect score when she did the program back in April. The organizers decided to have a class on the Music Bridges program at the convention. The judge was asked to choose two students who could best represent the idea of the program who could perform their program again. Princess E was one of those chosen.

We had to be up there by 7:45am. Princess E was the first to perform, and ended up doing her whole program twice through. She also was asked a lot of questions about her songs, and how she went about writing and composing. One funny point was when she was asked about the overarching theme in all of her pieces. She replied, "Well, I'd tell you if I knew what it was." So the judge asked the audience and one man volunteered that it was about becoming comfortable with who you were and what your talents were. I thought that was pretty good. The practice judge brought out the fact that she thought that all of the pieces greatly reflected Princess E's faith. That was quite the compliment! Here are two pictures from the event.

Princess L - God's Praising Princess

2011-05-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

This past year, Princess L has been attending a princess ballet class. Her wonderful teacher, Miss Karen Wilde-Berry (isn't that a great name?), has taken her love of ballet and her love for the LORD and designed her classes around the idea that we are Children of the King of Kings. Her classes are all about praising King Jesus with dancing, songs, poems, and laughter. Princess L has gone through all five of the princess levels. At the end of each level, the girls receive a piece of princess costume. Last Tuesday was the final recital of the year, and the girls earned their princess gown. Here's the story in pictures . . .

Here is Princess L waiting to begin.

After a short processional and quick dance, the girls were presented with their princess gowns.

I love how Princess L couldn't stop looking at her gown. She said it made her feel like a princess.

All lined up for the second processional.

The princesses curtsey. You'll notice the blue dresses. The older class received the blue gowns.

Bowing down to King Jesus.

Another aspect that Miss Karen works in is public speaking. For the younger girls class, she always asks them a question and they are to answer in a complete sentence for the whole crowd to hear.

Here's the beginning of a demi-plie.

The group shots.

Another group shot with Miss Karen.

Princess L and Miss Karen. Thanks Miss Karen for a wonderful year of dancing and praising King Jesus. May He bless you richly with His love and grace.

What I've Learned From 3 Years of Tapestry of Grace

2011-05-28T08:27:00.000-05:00

I just finished my third year of TOG. I did year one during the 2008/2009 school year. Princess E was UG, Princess S was LG (though she did read many things on her own), Princess L was three turning four and Princess M was one year old. I only glanced at the Teacher's Notes most week, preferring to get what I needed to know from reading many of the girls books a week before they did. It was just more interesting and easier that way. We did maps the easy way - I gave them the teacher map and they copied in the answers. They didn't color the maps unless it was necessary for understanding. We did several cookie dough maps, several hands on projects and that was all I could handle. During the 2009/2010 year, I started Princess L in preschool (which was really MFW K done over two weeks per lesson) and that made me busier. We did year two. The big changes were few. We added in The Story of the World, which I purchased the audio CDs for and we listened to them over lunch. Because I was busier with Princess L, Princess S did the LG reading on her own. Princess E did three units at the UG level and then transitioned to some D level work that last unit. We did a few hands on projects, not as many as I would have liked, and called it good. I began to see how unprepared Princess E was for the D level. I began to see some skills that needed to be built up.

For the 2010/2011 year, I decided to skip year three in order to join a TOG co-op that was a half hour away. Princess E did full time D level, Princess S did UG level work, and though I intended to do some LG with Princess L, I just didn't have time. Princess L did MFW 1st Grade. Princess E and I struggled, all year long, with the Socratic Discussions that are done at the D level. She fought the work load - whining that she couldn't find the answers in her reading and not reading for understanding but reading to get Mom off my back and have her free time. I grew weary of the argument. Needless to say, I realize that I've got some more work to do in order to get Princess S ready to transition to D in another year.

Next year we will again be doing year one. Both Princess E and Princess S seem to remember many of the facts they learned the first year. Actually, I'm kind of surprised by that. It tells me that they were probably reading and understanding more than they let on. One thing I did then, that I am planning to continue now, is something I learned from MFW. That is the concept of the book basket. When I went to the library to pick up the books I had reserved, I would look at the call numbers and go to those sections. I would pick up other books in those sections that looked interesting. Then I kept them in the library basket. I didn't assign those books, but inevitably, the girls would pick them up and read them. I think the majority of their learning came from the reading they didn't have to do. But, since the books had the facts that were deemed important on the Threads pages, I was fine with that.

Here are some of my learned strategies. First, the LG level is all about the fun. I'm planning to make sure I get to the History Core book each week. I plan to read it with Princess L and have her narrate back to me - a la Charlotte Mason - and do one of the LG Response Pages for the book. I have the History Scribe books, and I will pick out one or two that go with the threads for the week to have her copy and draw a picture for. If I have the History In Depth book, or if it looks interesting to me and our library has it, I may add that in if we have a lighter week. I want to make sure to get in at least one hands on project every other week with Princess L and Princess M. And instead of doing the paper maps at this stage, we're going to do one cookie dough map per unit. I also have a map skills workbook that I purchased from Sam's Club years ago that I will be using with Princess L.

Second, for Princess S, this will be her last year at the UG level. I have identified some skills that I want to build up so that she is able to transition to the D level by the end of the year. I plan to have her do a KWO - a la IEW - for her History Core book each week. She is going to fight this - but I think that it is a skill that will help her to find the important facts in her reading. She has had great trouble with that this past year. She will narrate from her KWO what she has learned. For the History In Depth books, I will not require the KWO, but I will require her to narrate the book to me, and complete some type of response page. I will be using the History Scribe pages for her as well, more for the fact that she needs the handwriting practice, but she might as well practice on something that has meaning. I am considering having her do some of the D level literature books. She certainly can read at that level, and I think she would have an easier time transitioning in this area than learning to do the AQ/TQ questions and discussions. That would give us less to have to deal with next year. I won't have her do all of them, but I will have her do at least two D level books per unit.

For Princess E, this will be her second full year at the D level. Next year, she will be doing the LLC for her history discussion. For the moment, I am planning on being one week ahead of the LLC for our reading. That way she is assured of getting her reading done. We run our TOG week from Friday to Thursday. Her online discussion day will be Wednesday. So she will have time on the weekend to catch up on anything that she is missing. If that proves to difficult for her, we can switch things up easily. I will be requiring her to do a KWO for her History Core as well. She will have to read the History In Depth, as there are often AQ/TQ questions from those as well. I'm debating whether to require the KWO for that as well, or just to have her narrate them to me. I will have her turn in her written AQ/TQs to me and look them over. She usually does these on her netbook as she can type much faster than she can handwrite. She won't have to do any copywork, but I will be adding in some dictation for both my elder princesses, as I have determined that their ability to listen and put down what they heard on paper is sorely lacking.

I have come to the conclusion that Charlotte Mason's idea of Reading, Narrating, Copywork and Dictation are all skills that my eldest two have been lacking. We are going to use her ideas at a much higher level next year. And I know how to focus my efforts with my little two in the future.

I've come to embrace the idea that TOG is a smorgasbord. There is so much there, but I just don't have time to do it all. I need to use the TOG materials as a springboard to build up the skills that my kids need, and how I use it will be determined by what skills they need. I also will worry a lot less about getting every thing in at the early years, and even with my older two, and instead focus on the Threads pages. If they can understand the two or three concepts I think are most important, I'll call it good. I'll worry less about whether we've completed all the SAPs we can, or whether we've read every book. Instead, I'm going to focus on their listening skills, and their ability to comprehend what they read and communicate it back to others.

Ending the 2010/2011 Year

2011-05-27T11:35:00.000-05:00

Today is our last day for this school year. Princess L finished up on Monday. We finished the Old Testament in her MFW Bible Reader. We will probably read this once or twice a week over the summer break and do the notebooking.

For Princess E and Princess S, it has been a very busy week. We spent last week and this week focusing on our science and IEW. We completed our science book - Our Planet Earth - from the God's Design for Heaven and Earth series. We skipped many of the lengthier experiments but will be building a life-size volcano out of ice cream, crushed oreos and chocolate syrup. Okay - maybe not life-size - but we will be building a small volcano yet. It will be an activity we decided to wait to do when Nanny comes to visit sometime next week. They also finished their IEW writing course - Student Writing Intensive Level A. It was a lot of writing in a short amount of time, but we got through it. I debated doing the SICC-A next year. I decided it was just two pricey for us right now. So we're going to be doing the Ancient History Writing Lessons to go along with Tapestry of Grace Year One.

Today we are doing our last school activity for the year - our CAT testing. Princesses L & M are over at a friend's house and we are doing all six tests in one sitting. Then they are officially on summer break. More on how we will spend our summer later.

Princess L Funnies

2011-05-27T11:21:00.000-05:00

Today, we were driving past a cemetery. There were workers mowing the lawn and trimming around all the headstones. Princess L was watching and said, "Look, Mom! Is that a flower park? Can we walk around and look at all the flowers?"

TOG Year 4 Week 36

2011-05-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

We have one week left of this school year. I think I blinked - it's gone already. I have been working hard to get most of next year's stuff ready so that I can have some summer days where I'm not doing school-related work. Most everything is done other than printing. I usually print off all the student pages I will be using for TOG, three hole punch them, and put them in file folders by weeks. I may do this by unit this year, as I'm not yet sure to what extent I will be including Princess L, and am not sure yet how or when I will transition Princess S up to the D level. I've been toying with the idea of switching her for Literature first. She can certainly handle the amount of reading and the depth of the reading. It's the literature elements that she needs the work on. But moving her up to Lit first I think would be easier than moving her up in both history and lit as I did with Princess E. So, I think I may do my printing a unit at a time.

I have tentatively sold several things that I have decided against using with Princess M. I have buyers that need to wait until the end of the month when they get paid. Then I plan to make a few small purchases for Princess L for next year. I am leaning towards doing the Letter of the Week Curriculum with Princess M next year. It will mean quite a bit of printing and laminating with contact paper. I don't know if I will print out all the activities in color. That might get a bit pricey. I may print some in black and white and let the girls color some of them for Princess M before I laminate them.

Here's what we did this week:

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Contined working on a review sheet I put together to study for the year four D level exam. She's taking her own sweet time - but she's going to have to speed up.
Science: Lessons 17-26. Took a quiz on Rocks and Minerals.
IEW: We completed lesson 11 on taking notes from different sources. They each completed three individual paragraphs. We began lesson 12 - which is a continuation of lesson 11. They each had to pick three sources and make a list of possible topics. Then they had to make a KWO for three topics. They will take these three topics and write a three paragraph essay.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 8.8 - Chapter 8 review
Science and IEW: same as above

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 117-123. (We will complete lesson 124 on Monday and end for the year. She will have read through the OT in her Bible Reader.)
Calculadder: Book 1 Level 3
Explode the Code Book Two: Finished the book

TOG Year 4 Week 35

2011-05-13T23:16:00.000-05:00

This was our last formal week of our Tapestry Studies. Week 36 is, for the most part, a review of the year (for Princess E) and a review of the unit (for Princess S). We are supposed to read Revelations, but we are going to hold off on that for now. We have to do our annual CAT testing on the 27th - which will be our last official day for the 2010-2011 school year.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Done
Math-U-See Epsilon: She finally finished lesson 8 and lesson 9 seemed to go better. She will take the test for that and then the Unit test that I realized I forgot to give her after lesson 8 (blush.)
IEW: We will be finishing the last few lessons over the next two week.
Foundations 1: Done
MCT Language Arts: Done
Practice Island: Finished the last 10 sentences - Done
McCrabbs: Done
Science: See IEW above
TOG Yr4 Wk35: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Mao Zedong's china; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; The Making of Modern Africa; Raising Dragons.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 8.5-8.7
Math-U-See Delta: Lesson 9
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk35: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People; Countries of the Middle East; Falling Up.
Princess S has a few lessons of Grammar left and a literature SAP. Then she is done except for science and IEW.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 110-116.
Math-U-See Alpha: She is going to do the online drill a couple times a week through the summer but I decided just to stop before lesson 8.
Calculadder: Book 1 Level 2 was just passed on Wednesday and she started Level 3.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 10
I haven't decided yet where we will end. I'm thinking we will go one more week. I knew when I switched curriculum after the first quarter that we wouldn't make it through, but I'm happy with the progress that has been made so far.

Princess M - PreTOGger
I think Princess M is quite excited for us all to end for the summer because it will give her sisters more free time to play with her.

Kid Funnies

2011-05-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

Princess S: Hey Mom, can animals get sickness? You know - like fevers or dyslexia?

Me: Do you know what dyslexia is? It has to do with not being able to read normally. Animals can't read, so they can't get dyslexia.

Princess S: Oh yeah.

Field Trip

2011-05-07T23:05:00.000-05:00

Seeing as how this week's topic is the presidency of Barak Obama, I thought the opportunity we had today was too good to pass up. There was a tax rally on the steps of the capitol in my state. There were many speakers, but the highlight was listening to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Though she is not our direct representative - we choose to lay claim to here just the same as she does represent our state. She is a breath of fresh air to listen to. Both of the princesses seemed rather bored and said they didn't understand much of what was going on, we did have a good conversation on the way home about why we went. We talked about how our freedom in America comes with responsibility; and that in order to preserve that freedom for themselves in the future, they need to pay attention to what is going on in the government and peaceably speak out when it is in the wrong. We acknowledged that without changes in the way that our government is functioning, they will perhaps experience some of the atrocities we have read about this year.

TOG Year 4 Week 34

2011-05-07T22:56:00.000-05:00

It really is a weird coincidence that we were studying the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency. Hoopla of this past week has made this week's studies much closer to home. Princess E and S were so young when 9/11 happened. Yet, they have been impacted by it as all of us have been. No matter what your stance is on how things went down, or whether there is closure given in photographic form, the truth is that God has orchestrated all things to come together for His purposes. And we rejoice that His plans have included a modicum of retribution for those directly affected by 9/11.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: She has finished this book and I am getting it ready to be used next year with Princess S
Math-U-See Epsilon: Working on lesson 8 - still. It's a matter of not rushing through for her. It's been a busy week and she's been in a hurry to finish, but that doesn't get you out of corrections, as this princess is learning.
IEW: We are going to take a break from this to finish our TOG studies, then take the last two weeks of May to finish our IEW, MCT and science.
Foundations 1: -ED (dropped e)
MCT Language Arts: See IEW above
Practice Island: Sentence 86-90
McCrabbs: We have now finished book A. We will not start book B until next fall.
Science: See IEW above
TOG Yr4 Wk34: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The War in Iraq; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelo; . Read Aloud - SOTW 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 8.2-8.4
Math-U-See Delta: Lesson 8
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk32: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People; Countries of the Middle East; September 11, 2001; Falling Up. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 103-109.
Math-U-See Alpha: Continue lesson 7 +2 - We added in the online drill at Math-U-See.
Calculadder: Book 1 Level 2
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 9

Princess M - PreTOGger
One of Princess M's favorite shows to watch is Little Einsteins. She knows the theme song by heart and is so funny to watch when it is on. I like this show because it combines art and music throughout the show. But she also still has an affinity for "Monkey George" as she calls him. She usually gets to watch one half hour show while I work on the first part of Princess L's school.

Kid Funnies

2011-04-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

Since my house is full of princesses, you'd have thought we'd rise early in the morning to watch the prince get married. Not so - for we value our sleep more than our British royalty. However, this morning DH sat down at the computer and pulled up the ceremony on YouTube to let Princess L watch some of it. After the lengthy processional by all the others, the big moment finally arrives. You know - the part where the bride walks down the aisle. After watching for quite some time, and commenting on some of the hats on the guests, Princess L points to the new Dutchess on the screen and says, "What's that lady doing in the front?" I guess she didn't realize she was the bride.

MFW 1st Grade

2011-04-29T16:48:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post a little bit about how we've been using MFW 1st Grade with Princess L. First, we haven't been using all of it. We like Math-U-See, so I choose to use that instead of the math activities listed in the teacher's guide. Second, although I really like all that they use for the Bible portions, it is enough work for us with the Awana verses to learn. Third, Princess L is the third child and we just don't have time for science. We have a few science videos and many live action videos about animals. We have tons of books about scientific subjects. For me, that is enough at this stage.

What we have used is all of the reading and writing activities. One thing that I really like about this program is the Bible reader and notebooking. The Bible has been simplified for these beginning readers based on the phonics rules that have been worked on during the week. They alternate between a phonics lesson and Bible reading and notebooking. After Princess L works through the Bible reading, she narrates the story back to me in her own words. Then we try to come up with a sentence or two that gives the main point of the story. Her favorite part is making a picture to go with it. I am including a slide show with her work so far.

TOG Year 4 Week 33

2011-04-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

This week we learned about the eight years of life during Clinton's presidency. One thing that I noticed is that, although I read through the teacher's notes that TOG provides, I really didn't have any "I didn't know that" moments like I have in the past. Perhaps that is because these were the years that I really started paying attention to what was going on in the world and made a serious attempt to understand it. These were the years when I graduated from college, looked for my first full time job, worked a full time job (and a part time job), lived completely at my own expense for the first time, got married and had my first child. All the while, I began to realize that the sheltered little world I had created for myself really didn't exist. So, I was forced to grow up, become an adult, and decide once and for all if the things my parents, schooling, church and personal faith taught me were true. Amazing that the things I learned from my parents and from the Bible have been the thing that were true and have served me the best. (I know you always said it would be true, Mom. You were right!)

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finishing lesson 32 - just the last page of the book.
Math-U-See Epsilon: Working on lesson 8 - this is adding more than one set of fractions - and she's had a time with it. We've done the first three worksheets, but I'm not satisfied that she knows yet what she's doing. She knows the right steps, but is either being very careless, or just working too fast.
IEW: We are going to take a break from this to finish our TOG studies, then take the last two weeks of May to finish our IEW, MCT and science.
Foundations 1: Finish IN-
MCT Language Arts: See IEW above
Practice Island: Sentence 81-85
McCrabbs: We have now finished book A. We will not start book B until next fall.
Science: See IEW above
TOG Yr4 Wk33: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Joni: An Unforgettable Story; Understanding Jewish Holidays and Customs. Read Aloud - none.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 7.11-8.1
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 7
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk32: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People; Countries of the Middle East; The 19902: From the Persian Gulf to Y2K; The Indian in the Cupboard. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 98-102.
Math-U-See Alpha: Continue lesson 7 +2 - We added in the online drill at Math-U-See. The other thing we are going to start is Calculadder. I forgot I had a CD with the first three books on it. So far, she has just done the first level which is writing the numbers 0-9 ten times each, correctly, in under two minutes.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 8

Princess M - PreTOGger
This little one is so excited to become a Cubbie next year. We have one week of Awana yet, and her big sisters are telling her that she can consider herself a Cubbie after the closing ceremonies. And of course, they are practicing being a Cubbie with her. She is going to show up in September on the first day knowing the song, the key verse and the verses for the brochure.

TOG Year 4 Week 32

2011-04-24T21:58:00.000-05:00

Ahh, the memories. This week we studied the presidency of George H. W. Bush. I remember much from his presidency. I was a junior in high school when he took office. I was not yet paying attention to the world going on around me at that age. But, my senior year the Berlin Wall came down, and I do remember that. I was a freshman in college when Operation Desert Storm was launched, but was visiting home when I heard about it on the radio. And my sophomore year of college, the president came to a nearby town on a whistle stop train tour of Wisconsin. A bunch of friends and I piled into cars and drove to the depot. We all went through metal detectors and climbed up the temporary bleachers that had been moved in for the event. As the train passed by, we could see the president and first lady on the end of the caboose waving to the crowd. We were so far away they looked tiny, but the loudspeakers were great. That is the closest I have come to a president. This was the first election that I was able to vote in, so it was definitely a memorable event. These were memories I was able to share this week with my princesses.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: working on lesson 32
Math-U-See Epsilon: working on lesson 7
IEW: We are going to take a break from this to finish our TOG studies, then take the last two weeks of May to finish our IEW, MCT and science.
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -LESS, begin prefix IN-
MCT Language Arts: See IEW above
Practice Island: Sentence 77-80
McCrabbs: 76-78 - We have now finished book A. We will not start book B until next fall.
Science: See IEW above
TOG Yr4 Wk32: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Joni: An Unforgettable Story; Tensions in the Gulf; Understanding Jewish Holidays and Customs. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl (which we finally finished).

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 7.8-7.10
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 6
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk32: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East; The Cold War, The Indian in the Cupboard. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 90-97.
Math-U-See Alpha: Begin lesson 7 +2 She went all through the workbook pages, but she is still counting out the answers. She is nodding her head twice as she counts in her mind. So we're going to do some flashcards and a few extra worksheets before giving her the test
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 67

Princess M - PreTOGger
I'm going to be planning out what to do with this little one as soon as we finish our TOG studies. We will have a bit lighter of a load for the last two weeks of May, so I'm going to look at what I have on hand and what I'd like to accomplish with her next year. Since she has a November birthday, it is a little bit iffy as to whether we can do a K4 curriculum, or keep with a preschool type curriculum. If I go with a K4, I will be slowing it down - more for myself than for her.

I Know That My Redeemer Lives

2011-04-24T07:20:00.000-05:00

It's Easter! The grave is empty! His work is done!

And our work is to let everyone know.

Matthew 28: 19-20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

I am comforted by the last words. There are days, when I look at the direction of our country, and of the world as a whole, when I feel despair. But then I remember His promise, and remember that the end of the book is already written. I have no reason to despair because my redeemer lives! The grave is empty - the stone has been rolled away - and I am free at last.

May our Savior, Jesus Christ, give you the assurance of His grace and mercy on this blessed Easter morning. May He wash you clean in His blood. May He give you true freedom.

Princess M Funnies

2011-04-22T15:49:00.000-05:00

Last night, DH was hiding in Princess M's closet when we went in to get her pjs on for bed. I saw him rather quickly, as I was facing him. But Princess M was facing away. He got the giggles before she saw him. She turned around to see what the noise was, saw him hiding in the closet and said, "You're freaking me out, Dad."

Music Bridges

2011-04-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

Princess E has been working hard for her Music Bridges exam which took place this past Saturday. We are still awaiting her scores, but she feels good about them. DH took her there as I was up at our MACHE convention. But I was praying and getting jittery for her as her assigned time approached. For this exam, Princess E memorized the song A Little Flower by Gurlitt. She then wrote a poem based on her emotions from the song. She also wrote two songs of her own, Angry Clouds and Clear. She sang on Clear while playing. DH snapped this photo of her as she was dressed up and ready to go. (She is hoping to record these songs, as well as about 12 others that she has written in the last several months. When she does I'll post links.)

As I look at this photo, I'm wanting to break out in Yiddish songs. I realize that she is growing up faster than I am wanting her too. Where does the time go?

TOG Year 4 Week 31

2011-04-17T22:22:00.000-05:00

I have waited to get to this week all year long. As a Reagan conservative, I am a big fan of this era of history. I also spent the portions of my childhood that were most memorable during the 80s. So remembering the events from this week, and being able to contribute first hand to the narrative was a lot of fun.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 31 and begin lesson 32
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish Lesson 6 and begin lesson 7
IEW: Skipped this week
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -LIKE, begin suffix -LESS
MCT Language Arts: None this week
Practice Island: Sentence 73-76
McCrabbs: 76-78 - We have now finished book A. We will not start book B until next fall.
Science: None this week. We will be doing two extra weeks of science the end of May to make up for our missed time.
TOG Yr4 Wk31: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Tasting the Sky; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Joni: An Unforgettable Story; Tensions in the Gulf; Understanding Jewish Holidays and Customs. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 7.4-7.7
Math-U-See Delta: Begin lesson 6
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East; The Cold War, The Breadwinner. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 86-89.
Math-U-See Alpha: Begin lesson 7 +2
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 6

Princess M - PreTOGger
Princess M did lots of coloring this week. She also made some tea parties for her dolls and bears, and decided that her favorite movie was Tangled, which two of her sisters went together to purchase.

TOG Year 4 Week 30

2011-04-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

Week 30 is an interesting week because much of what happened during the Carter administration mirrors situations of today. We talked about the Camp David Accords, and talked about how they are coming to an end today. We talked about the energy crisis and the high cost of energy. We talked about the hostage crisis. That was one of my first historical memories as a child. I remember watching the whole thing on TV - not really understanding what was going on - but realizing that it was something important.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Begin lesson 31
Math-U-See Epsilon: Lesson 6 - this lesson has been a bit more difficult. I'm not sure if it is just rushing to get through, or if it is that she doesn't understand. She can tell me what to do, so I'm assuming it's the former.
IEW: Begin lesson 11
Foundations 1:Assessment 4 and begin suffix -LIKE
MCT Language Arts: Princess E is working on her final draft of a poem to be used next weekend in a piano festival.
Practice Island: Sentence 68-72
McCrabbs: 76-78 - We have now finished book A. We will not start book B until next fall.
Science: We didn't get to science this week due some warm weather (finally) and used the time to get some fresh air for a change. We will be doing two extra weeks of science the end of May to make up for our missed time.
TOG Yr4 Wk30: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Tasting the Sky; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Teresa of Calcutta. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 7.1-7.3
Math-U-See Delta: Begin lesson 5
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East; The Cold War, The Breadwinner. Read Aloud - same as above.
Princess S completed her first piano exam and this week we got the score. She received a 91 out of 99! We are so proud of her. She practiced hard and was happy with how she did.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 79-85.
Math-U-See Alpha: Finish lesson 6
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 5

Princess M - PreTOGger
This little one is very happy to have warmer weather again to play outside. It has seemed like a long winter. I'm still on the fence about what to do with her next year but have several options. I'm not going to firm anything up until after our MACHE conference for sure.

Well Said, Ms. Kelly, Well Said

2011-04-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

This little video clip brought me some sunshine. Funny if you've been there - and educational for everyone else.

Planning for Next Year

2011-03-23T16:42:00.002-05:00

I'm a great planner! I can plan with the best of them. It's the implementing my plans that I always have the issues with. So, that's why I know that all the work I've done so far on next year can only be termed "preliminary". These are my preliminary plans for next year. I decided that it would do me some good to have an at a glance schedule for just in case the computer goes down. I use HST+ and I love it. But I've had issues with the computer in the past and had to bring it in. Then we were stuck without the lesson plans. All of my TOG stuff is printed where I can get to it. But everything else is always scheduled in HST+ waiting for me to print out. This way, I have everything scheduled at a glance. Now, printed out, this is quite small to read. But, if something happens, I don't need to panic because I have it all in writing. I don't have math on here, as that is always just - do the next page. I also don't have Princess L's work on here. That's mostly because I don't know exactly how far we'll get this year to be able to plan for next year.

2011_2012 School 4 Princesses Calendar

Photo Catch Up

2011-03-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, the eldest two princesses received certificates for finishing their Awana books. Princess E has finished her fourth T&T book. She is looking forward to the trophy at the end of the year. Princess S finished her second book.

Next, you can see what happens in snowy states once the calendar tells us it's spring.

Finally, just one of Princess S "cheesing" for the camera.

Dad School

2011-03-22T22:19:00.000-05:00

There's one area in our school that is left in the hands of our principal. I took piano for many years, and I can read about any piece of music you put in front of me. But, I am not very good at playing by ear or "jamming" as my hubby calls it. That is his gift - and one which he shares with our two eldest girls. After about a half hour of talking about blues rifts, they ended up with this.

You can hear the hubby on his electric guitar in the background. Princess E took the melody, which is actually a song in one of her books. Princess S is rounding out the trio with the high notes.

Princess S turns 10!

2011-03-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

She'll never again be a single digit. And now I have two kids in the double digits. I'm not sure who feels older today.

Princess S turned ten today! We celebrated as a family on Monday night though. We all couldn't wait. DH took several photos of her with her birthday cupcake (I didn't make cake because I'm making it for her party) and this is the best one.

Princess E had purchased a gift for her a few weeks ago. I took her to Target and she spent half an hour picking out something she thought Princess S would like. Princess S LOVES her stuffed animals. And she loves stuffed dogs. So Princess E thought she would like one of the ZhuZhu dogs. So she picked out what she thought was a cute Zhu Zhu dog and a hot dog cart. Isn't it cute?

However, when Princess S looked a bit more closely at it, she discovered this...

Yep - that's right - the dog wasn't included. So, Princess S now has a small plastic hot dog cart. We laughed so hard I thought I was going to permanently damage my lungs.

This princess has added so much to our family. She is a comedienne. She is very talented at drawing. She has a sensitive, sweet spirit. She can be wild and crazy and spontaneous (which I have a difficult time doing - so that trait must come from dad.) But, she also has my love of reading (we can't keep enough books in the house.) May the LORD continue to bless you, Princess S, as He directs your path and continues to shape you into the young woman He has designed you to become. We love you!

TOG Year 4 Week 29

2011-03-17T20:35:00.000-05:00

Spring Break! I don't know who's been looking forward to it more - the princesses or me! Of course, like always, I have made several goals for my time during this break. I have scheduled every type of doctor's appointment imaginable. And I have big plans to attempt to get about 2/3 of next year's work scheduled in HST+. Last year I learned a lot of tips to make things go a lot faster.

This past week we looked at Gerald Ford's presidency. While I was alive during his presidency, I cannot honestly say I remember it at all. I was surprised to learn that his name (at birth anyway) was not Gerald but Leslie. Princess E was appalled that someone gave him a girl's name, until I explained that there were some famous "male" Leslies as well. We also learned about the end of Mao's reign in China, and we talked about whether Mao's terror was outside of God's control (it was not).

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 30
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 5 and begin lesson 6
IEW: skipped due to illness
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -ING as a doubler and begin suffix -ER/-OR as an agent of a verb
MCT Language Arts: This was skipped this week due to illness.
Practice Island: Sentence 65-67
McCrabbs: 71-75
Science: skipped due to illness
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Have Space Suit Will Travel; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Teresa of Calcutta; 10,000 Days of Thunder. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.9 to Chapter 6 Review
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 4
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk29: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East; The Cold War, James Herriot's Treasury for Children. Read Aloud - same as above.
Princess S was down and out for several days with low grade fevers, constant croupy coughing and general tiredness. She spent much time on the couch. She did manage to finish all of her individual work, but we skipped all of our group work so that she can rest. After two weeks of missing group work, I have determined that we will be stretching out our group work beyond our TOG work. The princesses have no idea what schedule I have on paper, so it really won't affect them. And we'll still be done two weeks before the local public schools.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 74-78.
Math-U-See Alpha: Lesson 6 - counting and writing numbers from 0 to 100. We are still having issues with number reversals. I'm telling myself not to be concerned. But there is no rhyme or reason to how she reverses. She even wrote the number 33 with one three backwards.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 4

Princess M - PreTOGger
This morning, after having her hair done, Princess M looked at herself and said, "I the cutestest!" And she is the humblestest too! Princess M is in what I call the jellybean people stage of drawing. You know, where everyone looks like Larry the cucumber? She has been giving lots more detail on her pictures now. They tend to have eyelashes and teeth. I wish I had one to scan and post, but she gave her recent one to Nanny who was visiting for a few days before her trip to Hawaii.

TOG Year 4 Week 28

2011-03-13T21:30:00.000-05:00

This was another best laid plans week. Princess S was under the weather a couple of days this week, and running a fever on one of them. So the first thing we knock off in those situations is our group work. She was sick again today, so I don't know what this next week will bring either.

We have officially started our last unit of year four! Wow - where did this year go? We are coming up on the period of history that I can actually remember and provide my own memories on. For that I am excited. I have a few memories from childhood that I want to share with them. I was looking through a box of stuff my mom saved and then gave to me a few years ago. One of the things I found was a paper that I wrote for our class newspaper that was written the day after President Reagan was shot.

This week we talked about the Watergate scandal and President Nixon's resignation, and the subsequent pardon by President Ford. There are lots of lessons in reaping what you sow, and in the power of forgiveness.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 9
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 4 and part of lesson 5
IEW: We finished lesson 10.
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -ING as a noun and begin suffix -ING as a doubler.
MCT Language Arts: This was skipped this week due to illness.
Practice Island: Sentence 60-64
McCrabbs: 66-70
Science: Lesson 16 - Mineral identification. We borrowed some rock and mineral samples from some friends at church, though we didn't have the ones needed for the worksheet.
TOG Yr4 Wk28: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Have Space Suit Will Travel; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; A Dream of Freedom; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Teresa of Calcutta; 10,000 Days of Thunder. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4, and Red Scarf Girl.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.6 to 6.8
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 3 and begin lesson 4.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk28: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Countries of the Middle East, The Cold War, James Herriot's Treasury for Children. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 70-73.
Math-U-See Alpha: Lesson 5 - this was the 1+ and +1 facts. These were a cinch for her and we mostly focused on the word problems. I'm having her read them herself out loud - double duty lessons - gotta love em!
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 3
(She got one day off this past week for her birthday.)

Princess M - PreTOGger
Princess M found a new favorite book this week. It is one of the many, many books that my mom saved from my childhood and passed on down to us. It is called Mimi the Merry-Go-Round Cat by Dorothy Haas. I looked it up on BookFinder.com to see if I could find a link and was shocked to see it listed used for $38 to $52 dollars! I have a ton of these old books - and now I'm wondering if I'm sitting on a gold mine! CHA-CHING! Of course, the emotional attachment to some of these books is worth at least that much. My mom was very diligent in listing whose book it was, how old we were when we received it and what the occasion was. So, I will have to hang on to some of them.

Birthday Princess

2011-03-09T11:14:00.000-06:00

Today Princess L turns 6! Where has the time gone? I remember it like it was yesterday. Perhaps most notable to me, she was born on a Wednesday. And when her older sisters were brought to see her, Princess S just couldn't believe she was the baby she'd been talking to through my tummy for so long. Princess S went to Cubbies at church later that night and kept exclaiming, "She really came out! There really was a baby in Mommy's tummy!"

We did the family birthday celebration last night, because we have Awana tonight. Princess E made a birthday cake - chocolate of course. (Princess S wanted to help, but since she was running a fever yesterday, she was only allowed to put sprinkles on the frosting.) We brought home Little Caesar's pizza for dinner. Princess L took about seven breaths to blow out six candles. Then she choose to watch an episode of The Cosby Show. Today I am giving her the day off of school. We will be on spring break during Princess S's birthday in two weeks, and Princess E has a summer birthday. So I figured this was a great compromise.

We are so blessed to have this little princess in our family. She is naturally funny, has a giggle that is beyond compare, and her dimples just melt the heart.

Princess M Funnies

2011-03-07T16:23:00.000-06:00

Most days when she wakes from her nap, I ask Princess M if she had any dreams while she was sleeping. Most days, she tells me she dreamt about Jesus. Today I asked her what Jesus was doing in her dream. "Jesus was sleeping."

Later, I picked her up to carry her into the kitchen. I figure I won't be able to carry her much longer - at least not without some serious repercussions to my back. She said to me, "I your baby." I said, "You'll always be my baby, even when you're as big as me." She looked at me funny and said, "I don't want to be as big as you - I want to be as big as (Princess L)."

St. Stephan's Men's Shelter Meals

2011-03-05T16:45:00.000-06:00

Every first Saturday of the month, our family goes to the Rohr's house. They graciously open their home to a host of families who come together to prepare a meal to serve and goodie bags to distribute to the men at St. Stephan's Men's Shelter in Minneapolis. This is such a fun way to teach our girls about serving the LORD by serving others. And we get to have such fun doing it! These pictures were taken by my friend, Tara. I'm so glad she sent them to me so that I can share them all.

Some of you might notice the girls from Our Family for His Glory. Princess L was so glad that her friends were able to join her. If you haven't checked out Jessica's blog, be sure to click over there.

Handwriting

2011-03-04T21:39:00.001-06:00

My three oldest princesses are right-handed. All three of them hold a pencil in a very unique way. (That's a nice way of saying I don't know how the heck they can write that way!) My DH has a pencil grip very much like Princess E's grip. Her's looks like this:

She can write beautifully IF she writes slowly. You can't really flow very well with a grip like that. I tried to correct it, but when I realized that she holds it like her Dad, I figured there was nothing I could do - that it was an inherited tendency.

Then there is Princess S. Princess S - I believe - has some SPD issues. She has a hard time writing anything. She loves to draw, however, and is quite talented at it. But her pencil grip is very ugly. And it's no wonder that her hand gets tired after only writing one sentence. Get a load of this:

She very much dislikes her writing. It is the epitome of chicken scratch. And I know her grip is part of the problem. But fixing it is near impossible. Any suggestions?

I have put a specialized pencil grip on Princess L's pencils in an effort to force her to use a correct grip. But if left to herself, then she has a grip like Princess E's. I'm not sure how picky to get with her during school when she goes back to her own way the rest of the day.

Princess M is a lefty. And she holds a pencil correctly. Go figure.

TOG Year 4 Week 27

2011-03-04T21:28:00.000-06:00

This was the last week of unit three! Holy cow - we're 3/4 done with our school year! It's going by very fast. I've started working on plans for next year. I was very blessed to be able to find several of the things I need for next year on some used curriculum boards. So far I've saved at $45-$50. I have a few more things I'd like to get.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 28 and begin lesson 29
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 3 and part of lesson 4
IEW: We continued lesson 10.
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -ING and begin suffix -ING on a noun
MCT Language Arts: The Music of the Hemispheres: Read pages 80-102. We were learning about meter. We talked about the foot - iambs, trochees, anapests and dactyls. We talked about the length of the line with regard to the foot monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter and so on.
Practice Island: Sentence 56-59
McCrabbs: 61-65
Science: Lesson 14 & 15 - Metamorphic Rocks and Minerals
TOG Yr4 Wk27: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Lilies of the Field; Homeland: The Illustrated History of Israel; A Dream of Freedom; Idiot's Guide; Mao Zedong's China; Brother Andrew: God's Secret Agent; 10,000 Days of Thunder. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 6.3 to 6.5
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 2 and begin lesson 3.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk27: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Martin Luther King Jr, The Cold War, Water Buffalo Days. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 64-69.
Math-U-See Alpha: Finish lesson 4 - Again, this lesson was all review as she learned her +0 and 0+ facts last year. But, I have started having her read the story problems at the bottom of the page herself.
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson 2

Princess M - PreTOGger
This little one was running a fever on Tuesday. So she spent much of the day on the couch. After she had been sleeping for a little while, Princess E decided she looked lonely and decided to give her some stuffed animals. And then this happened.

This was a site I hadn't seen since she was a baby. After a while I made Princess E take them all off because she got way too warm. When she woke up, we told her what happened and she didn't believe us. So I had to show her this picture. Thankfully, the low grade fever was the only symptom, and she was fine after that.

TOG Year 4 Week 26

2011-02-25T23:15:00.000-06:00

This week we studied Johnson's idea of a Great Society. Once again, I was a bit unhappy about the resources that we were assigned to read in that there were several facts about the Civil Rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s that were missing in the books we read. I spent some time looking for some alternate sources, but did not find many that were at the proper reading level. So I tried to just connect a few dots in our discussion time and decided that the next time we go through this year plan we can read more then.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 27 and begin lesson 28
Math-U-See Epsilon: Finish lesson 2 and part of lesson 3
IEW: We continued lesson 10.
Foundations 1: Finish suffix -ED and begin suffix -ING
MCT Language Arts: The Music of the Hemispheres: Read pages 64-79 We were learning about alliteration and the importance of letter sounds and cluster sounds that evoke the sounds of the subject.
Practice Island: Sentence 52-55
McCrabbs: 56-60
Science: Lesson 12 & 13 - Fossils and Fossil Fuels
TOG Yr4 Wk26: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Lilies of the Field; A Dream of Freedom; Idiot's Guide; Brother Andrew: God's Secret Agent; 10,000 Days of Thunder. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 5.12 to 6.2
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 1 and begin lesson 2.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk26: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Martin Luther King Jr, The Cold War, Water Buffalo Days. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 57-63.
Math-U-See Alpha: Lesson 3 - This lesson was for all review as she learned the blocks and their colors in Primer. We speed through and began lesson 4. Since we started flashcards earlier this year, she already knows her 0+ and +0 facts.
Explode the Code Book One: finish book
Explode the Code Book Two: Lesson one

Princess M - PreTOGger
Nothing much to report with this little one. She had her best friend over for a few hours this morning for a play day. Her sister's choir concert was today so her mom asked me if she could drop her off. They had great fun playing with our Fischer Price Little People sets. We have all the pieces from when I was a kid that my mom saved, as well as some of the more more modern sets. When they get them all out they fill up the family room.

Princess Poetry

2011-02-19T23:11:00.002-06:00

With The Music of the Hemispheres, we talked about rhyme schemes. We talked about end rhyme, internal rhyme, and eye rhyme. So they had four minutes to make a list of rhyming words - as many as they could. Then they were instructed to use these to help them write a poem where they experimented with different rhyme schemes. I'll put Princess S's poem first.

Pat And Mat

Pat has a hat. So does Mat.

Pat and Mat are cats.

Pat and Mat sat.

Deep in wonder, they wander away.

They see roses, oh so pretty.

They see a thistlebush, what a pitty.

They see a plate.

They see a rat.

SPLAT!

They ate.

I thought this was a great poem that showcases the different types of rhyme. And of course, her sense of humor has to show through.

Sleeping Maiden

She dances into moonlight

holding up her heavy head.

Twirling out of sight,

and tumbling into bed.

The maiden spots a starry line

as they twinkle, while she finds

that counting stars instead of

sheep will maybe help her find

some sleep.

One star, two star, three star, four,

five star, six! Hundreds more!

Her eyes they fall,

they flutter and twitch

A sleeping maiden,

beautiful to all, has fallen

into dreaming calls.

Princess E has been waiting impatiently for us to get to this book. She believes it will help her with her song writing. As you can see she has a way with words. The ending is a little wonky, but other than that, she did great. She experimented mostly with end rhyme patterns, but there are a few spots with internal rhyme.

TOG Year 4 Week 25

2011-02-19T22:55:00.000-06:00

This week we looked at the last year of JFK's presidency. We learned about the March on Washington and why it was significant. Princess E looked at how the fight for civil rights in certain African countries was similar to the fight in the United States. Princess S has started a project for co-op on the Apollo missions. Princess L took an audiology screening this week to rule out a hearing loss. She passed with flying colors. Based on that, she will have one more week of speech therapy and then we will take a break to see if a little maturation will solve the remaining issues.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 26 and begin lesson 27
Math-U-See Epsilon: Lesson 1 and part of lesson 2
IEW: We began lesson 10.
Foundations 1: Suffix -ED
MCT Language Arts: The Music of the Hemispheres: Read pages 49-63 (learning about rhyming schemes) and did the writing exercise. I'll do another post with the poems that they wrote.
Practice Island: Sentence 47-51
McCrabbs: 51-55
Science: Lesson 11 - Learning about Igneous Rocks
TOG Yr4 Wk23: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes, A Dream of Freedom, Idiot's Guide, Brother Andrew: God's Secret Agent, 10,000 Days of Thunder, The Making of Modern Africa. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 5.9 to 5.11
Math-U-See Delta: Lesson 1 - I made the same deal with her for that I made with Princess E. If she can get 100% on her choice of the A,B or C sheets, then she can move straight to the review sheets. She must do all of those. If she is getting the new information wrong, then she will be doing the other sheets.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk25: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Martin Luther King Jr, The Cold War, The Phantom Tollbooth. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 50-56.
Math-U-See Alpha: Lesson 2 - this lesson has her practicing writing her numbers through 20. It is frustrating that she still does numbers backwards. If it were the same one all the time, that would be understandable, but she does random numbers backwards throughout the page. Since Alpha stresses mastery, I'm waffling with whether or not to move on, but I probably will. I think she'll get frustrated by doing the same writing every day.
Explode the Code: pgs. 90-92

Princess M - PreTOGger
I've come out of denial about this little one being a southpaw. For a while she would switch back and forth, and sometimes will eat right handed. But give her a pencil or crayon, and it will be put in her left hand. I know the saying goes that lefties tend to be more creative - so I'm clinging to that. I'm on a mission to learn more about how to teach a leftie to write.

Awesome Giveaway at Keeper of the Home

2011-02-18T08:32:00.000-06:00

There is an awesome giveaway right now over at Keeper of the Home. I've always wanted a better water filter. We use a Brita which is kept in our fridge. We use it for drinking water and when we make some kind of drink mix (Crystal Light or reconstituted 100% juice). I do not use it for cooking. But I'd love to win this. Go here to find out more.

Piano Festival

2011-02-17T22:14:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday, Princess E performed in her fifth MFMC piano festival. She performed two songs - Pagoda Bells by Rejino was the required song and her chosen song was Scherzo by Haydn. For the fifth year in a row she received a Superior score. This is the top score (five points) that one can receive. She earned a trophy after 15 points, and is looking to earn the next trophy. Princess M did not prepare for the festival this year, but is working to take her first piano exam in May. She has the songs almost memorized and is working on rhythmics and dynamics. She also is still working hard on the theory that is required for her level. Princess E has learned about another program called Bridges which will allow her to perform some required songs in addition to some of the songs she has written herself. She has to have a written score, however, and is trying to get her music put into Noteflight so that she can print it out nicely. It is a little difficult to do on a netbook because the screen is so small. I'm happy about her dedication to it, however she has used some of her school time to do it. Now she is quite behind for this week.

Am I Too Old For This?

2011-02-15T21:16:00.000-06:00

Today I did something I have not done in thirteen years. I used to do it quite a lot in my youth, and a few times as an adult. For my kids it was their first time, and they enjoyed it. For me, I enjoyed it, but it makes me ask myself if I'm too old for it.

The it in question would be downhill skiing. We had the opportunity to go skiing today, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The last time I went skiing, I has not yet a parent. And I was a bit lighter back then, too. Princess E and Princess S came along with us and were given a lesson. They caught on pretty quickly. Princess S was a bit more cautious and wanted to stick with the smallest hill most of the time. Princess E just enjoyed shooting down the hill without any poles and (sometimes) crashing at the bottom.

As for me, it was like riding a bike. Once I went down the first hill it all seemed to come back to me. I did have one wipe out. Of course, it was right in front of the girls. I was slowing way down, but not stopping, and trying to look behind me to see where the hubby was. Then I ran right over my own pole and found myself on my back in seconds. The girls thought it was pretty funny. While it didn't hurt, getting up was not nearly as easy as it used to be. I had to straighten out and then wait for the hubs to help me up.

However, I will admit that I am dreading having to get up out of bed tomorrow morning. I think my thighs will be in sorry shape, and my feet are quite sore already. So I ask again, am I too old for this?

Accountable Kids - Second Check In

2011-02-14T10:47:00.000-06:00

I figured I should report on how this is continuing to work. One problem is that while I don't have to remind them of each and every chore, I do have to remind them that they are to be working on their cards. I have to say to them about every 15 minutes, "Do you have free time yet? Are you done with your yellow chores? Your red chores?" That hasn't gone away yet.

The other issue that I've come across is that they are forgetting to flip their cards over when a chore is completed and then I don't check it. If I don't check it then they cannot earn a ticket. It's difficult to check if the bathroom quick clean was done in the morning when it is 4:00 in the afternoon. I'm not sure yet how to combat this other than to remind them to flip over the chores when they are done.

The final issue is that they are not completing any of the chores that they can earn money for. So this fix is easy and will be rolled out sometime later this week. From now on I will be assigning one of these chores to the bigger three girls each day, and they will not be earning money for them. The opportunity to earn money will still be there as I'll only put one chore on for each day, but the other chores will continue to be hanging as an opportunity. My hope is that eventually they will come to see that it is much more desirable to earn money for doing the chore than to simply have it assigned.

TOG Year 4 Week 24

2011-02-14T10:39:00.000-06:00

This past week was a busy week. We learned about the first year of JFK's presidency and about the freedom rides. We learned about the Bay of Pigs incident, and about the beginning of the moon flights. But, because Nanny was with us this week, we focused only on our Tapestry studies and our individual work. Group work was set aside for time with Nanny. She was a big help and took the lead in doing some early spring cleaning with the big two girls in their bedrooms. She also got me started on a weighted blanket for Princess S. I have a plan now to hopefully have it finished by the time spring break roles around in a few weeks.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 25 and begin lesson 26
Math-U-See Epsilon: After spending some time during her free week watching the DVD myself, I made a deal with Princess E, as I believe that this book is going to be a bit on the easy side for her. I told her that after watching the video and playing with the manipulatives, she can choose which worksheet - A,B or C - she wants to do. If she can get 100% (not 99.5%) on that sheet, then she can go straight do the review sheets for the lesson. She must do all of those as they often contain word problems which I think are so essential. If she doesn't get at least 85% on the test, then she has to go back and do the other two remaining worksheets.
IEW: skipped due to Nanny's visit
Foundations 1: Prefix FORE-
MCT Language Arts: skipped due to Nanny's visit
Practice Island: Sentence 43-46
McCrabbs: 46-50
Science: skipped due to Nanny's visit
TOG Yr4 Wk23: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Onion John, A Dream of Freedom, Idiot's Guide, Jim Elliot, The Making of Modern Africa. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 5.6 to 5.8
Math-U-See Delta: She enjoyed her week off from math and will begin Delta on Monday.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk22: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, Martin Luther King Jr, Nate Saint; The Phantom Tollbooth. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 45-49.
Math-U-See Alpha: Lesson 1 - this was all review, technically, but we're working on saying the "teen" numbers correctly. She always gets these confused with the "t" numbers - for example seventeen with seventy, so we spent a bit more time on that. Also we're trying to focus on writing the numbers a little better. Instead of making a snowman for "8", she is working on making an "s" with a straight line.
Explode the Code: pgs. 85-89 We haven't used this in a while but I decided to go back and finish this one and move on to the next. Though these are quite easy for her, I think she needs the pencil practice and it is nice for her to have something that she perceives as being easy to make her feel smart.

Princess M - PreTOGger
She spent a lot of time with Nanny coloring pictures and reading books.

The girls also got to pick out a box of Valentines from Target and spent some time figuring out who to give each one. They will give them to kids from their Sunday School classes and their Awana book groups.

TOG Year 4 Week 23

2011-02-04T22:04:00.000-06:00

The best laid plans. That is the theme for this week. I had big plans - God had other ones. Princess M came down with a nasty cold over the last weekend and gave us some temper tantrums. Then Princess E and I ended up with the same thing. We spent the last two days of this week of school tired, cranky and skipping anything unnecessary.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Begin lesson 25
Math-U-See Epsilon: Princess E just enjoyed her week off from math and is ready to begin Epsilon on Monday.
IEW: Final drafts are being worked on, but due to our illness on our IEW day, we didn't finish.
Foundations 1: Suffix -NESS
MCT Language Arts: The Music of the Hemispheres - we wrote a poem where we focused on using words in which the letter sounds sounded like our subject.
Practice Island: Sentence 39-42
McCrabbs: 41-45
Science: Our Planet Earth - Lessons 9 and 10 - We learned about how rocks are formed.
TOG Yr4 Wk23: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Onion John, A Dream of Freedom, Mao Zedong's China, Idiot's Guide, Jim Elliot, The Making of Modern Africa. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4; So Far From the Bamboo Grove.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 5.3 to 5.5
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish Lesson 30 and Unit test and End of book test. She will get one week off and begin on Delta the following week.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk22: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, The Cold War, Martin Luther King Jr, Nate Saint; The Hardy Boys - The Tower Treasure. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 40-44.
Math-U-See Alpha: She enjoyed her week off from math and will begin in Alpha on Monday.
We have reached a block in the road that is tying in speech therapy and reading. Princess L's speech therapist wants us to have her tested with an audiologist for hearing loss. Not that she cannot hear sounds - she can do that fine, but that she is not interpreting those sounds as they are. If it was only her speaking certain sounds incorrectly, I'd say no big deal - she'll grow out of that. But it is causing problems with her reading and spelling also. So we do need to look at what is going on. I'm not sure what to hope for. In all honest, I just want the quick fix. But, God will show us the way through this in His time. I just need to learn patience.

Princess M - PreTOGger
As I said, this little one had a bad cold. Every few minutes someone would have to chase her down to wipe her nose before she wiped it on her sleeve. It left her cranky and tired. (I know that because I got the same cold and I feel the same way.)

This next week will have my mom visiting us from NC. We are still doing school, though the princesses are going to try to get as much done over the weekend as they can.

TOG Year 4 Week 22

2011-01-29T23:08:00.000-06:00

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 24
Math-U-See Delta: Finished the book and took Lesson 30 test, Unit 4 test and final book test. So now she will get one week off before starting in on Epsilon.
IEW: We did not finish this week, but we are working on our final drafts for lesson 8.
Foundations 1: Suffix -HOOD
MCT Language Arts: We will continue to work on The Music of the Hemispheres book next week.
Practice Island: Sentence 35-38
McCrabbs: 36-40
Science: Our Planet Earth. We took a week off as Dad came home from work early on our science day.
TOG Yr4 Wk22: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - My Side of the Mountain, 10,000 Days of Thunder, A Dream of Freedom, Mao Zedong's China, Idiot's Guide, Jim Elliot. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4; So Far From the Bamboo Grove.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 4 review to Chapter 5.2
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish Lesson 29 and start lesson 30.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk22: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, The Cold War, Martin Luther King Jr, Nate Saint; The Hardy Boys - The Tower Treasure. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 34-39.
Math-U-See Primer: We have a Primer graduate! We finished this up this week. I'm a little disgruntled that she is still writing numbers backwards on occasion, but guess it is normal.

She will get one week off and then we will start in on Alpha. There are some chapters that she is going to fly through. There are some others we will camp out on. But I'm determined this time through that she will not move on to the next lesson until she really does have the facts down. I think I moved her sisters on a little two quickly with a few chapters.

Princess M - PreTOGger
We're going to have a montage of what has kept this little one busy for the last few weeks. First, it's taken me a while to post these. Princess L brought a black permanent marker into Princess M's room one day, unbeknownst to me. So when I put her down for her nap, the marker was on her bed. This is what happens in my house when girls find markers.

Now, the border that's missing - that was done a long time ago. She started ripping away at that when she was still in her crib. But we had decided that once she was old enough to stop doing that, we would simply get a wider border to put over the top. This presented new challenge to that idea. When my other princesses have done things like this in the past, I have never had the wherewithall to remember to snap a picture. This time I did. And right after snapping the photo I spent an hour scrubbing it all off with a Magic Eraser. It took all the marker off the wall paper, but it still remains on the torn border areas.

On any given day, you may find Princess M dressed in one of her many costumes and putting on a show. Like this.

The show of choice these days is the song that she sang for her Sunday School Christmas program. Here are the words:

Glory Glory Angels Sang - On the night when Jesus came
He smiled sweetly on that day - Baby Jesus in the hay
Glory to God, Glory to God, Glory to God
And peace to man on earth

And I finally got it on camera.

She's How Old?

2011-01-28T07:45:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, Princess L brought me a picture that she drew. It had two females holding hands. She told me it was her and Nanny (my mom.) She had written her name and "5" after it - obviously her age. Next to the other picture she had written "Nany 2010". I asked her what the 2010 was and she said that was how old Nanny was. I asked her why she thought that and she said, "Because when Nanny was here last time she drew a picture and wrote 2010 at the bottom. So that tells me how old she was when she drew the picture." After a good laugh, I explained that it was the year that she drew the picture in and we corrected it in her picture.

Also, this morning Princess M insisted, for the second day in a row, on wearing a dress. Usually dresses are reserved for Sundays around here. So I asked her why she wanted to wear dresses all of a sudden. I fully expected to hear something along the lines of, "Because (Princess L) wears them." But instead she said, "Jesus wears dresses. But, his dresses are too big." Well - she does have a point.

TOG Year 4 Week 21

2011-01-23T14:10:00.001-06:00

This week we studied Truman's second term, the Korean War, and the Red Scare. I was very much displeased with how Princess S's book dealt with Joe McCarthy. To be honest, I felt like it was a bunch of childish name calling. So I decided to include her in part of my discussion time with Princess E this week. I won't get into all the details of our discussion, because I don't have the time. Suffice it to say that it has been proven that McCarthy was correct in his assertion that there have been, and I would argue still are, Communists embedded in our government payrolls. (That is not to say that his tactics at proving it were the best, nor were his communication skills effective.) The books assigned to both girls have been written or rewritten since those facts have become known, albeit not published by the Main Street Media, and neither books mentioned that fact one iota. They left it as McCarthy's assertions were false, and he was simply an evil liar. That is why I felt it necessary to insert my own set of gathered facts and opinions on the issue.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 23 and begin lesson 24
Math-U-See Delta: Continue lesson 30 - went back through as there are several correcctions for the last two lessons that I discovered she didn't make.
IEW: I had the best intentions to do the final draft for lesson 8, but we had an opportunity to go to a local amusement park for free on the day we usually do IEW. So it didn't happen.
Foundations 1: Prefix SUB-
MCT Language Arts: We didn't do any this week as the two older princesses have been getting ready for a piano recital. They were required to do some extra practice during our usual time slot for MCT.
Practice Island: Sentence 31-34
McCrabbs: 31-35
Science: Our Planet Earth. Lesson seven and took the first unit quiz.
TOG Yr4 Wk21: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - My Side of the Mountain, Joseph StalinL Dictator of the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, Idiot's Guide, Jacob DeShazer. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4; So Far From the Bamboo Grove (we got a little behind so we still need to finish two chapters.)

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: 4.12-4.15
Math-U-See Gamma: Lesson 29 - we still have some corrections and a test to take.
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk21: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - All the People, The Cold War, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts; her literature book didn't come in from the library in time. So she got a week off. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 30-33. (I edited this the morning after posting because I realize I forgot to change this. We got four lessons in - I was not feeling well on Monday and since Dad was home due to MLK day he took Princess L and Princess M to the zoo instead.)
Math-U-See Primer: Lesson 29 - begin lesson 30. We are finishing this up next week. I may give her a week or two off before starting on Alpha. I discovered that I already had the first edition of Alpha stored away, and I had bought the second edition of Alpha last year at MACHE. So I have to decide which way to go with this. I know they are all the same info, so really it doesn't matter.
Princess L started back to ballet this week and was pleased as punch. She really loves her God's Praising Princesses class and her teacher Miss Karen. She can be found often during the day teaching her little sister, or her dolls, or her stuffed animals, or thin air - how to dance and twirl and sing to King Jesus.

Princess M - PreTOGger
Princess M is obsessed with loose teeth. Since Princess L lost her second top tooth (and fourth tooth overall) right before Christmas, she has to tell me several times a day that she has a loose tooth. Then she has to wiggle every one to try to find a loose one. But she also seems to have picked up a habit, when we have our storytimes before her nap, of sucking her pointer finger. There is a part of me that thinks it's cute and since she's my last baby to let her continue. At the same time, I don't want to let her get into the bad habit.

TOG Year 4 Week 20

2011-01-17T21:50:00.000-06:00

This week we looked at China. We learned about the end of the dynastic period and the beginning of the Chinese revolution. We learned about how Mao Zedong came to power.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Test 22 and begin lesson 23
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 29 and begin lesson 30.
IEW: We did a rough draft for lesson 8.
Foundations 1: Prefix SUPER- and took a test on the first half of the book.
MCT Language Arts: Begin The Music of the Hemispheres. We took a pretest and read pages 5-48.
Practice Island: Sentence 27-30
McCrabbs: 27-30
Science: Our Planet Earth. Lesson six.
TOG Yr4 Wk20: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Gift of Music; Jacob DeShazer: Forgive Your Enemies; Mao Zedong's China; Homeless Bird. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4; So Far From the Bamboo Grove.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: 4.10-4.11
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish Lesson 28 and begin lesson 29
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk20: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - People's Republic of China; Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts; The House of Sixty Fathers. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: Lessons 23-29.
Math-U-See Primer: Lesson 28 - working on telling time with both hours and minutes.

Princess M - PreTOGger
We are now having a half hour dedicated story time before her nap. I realized that I just have not been reading to her as much as I'd like. So now I lay down with her before her nap time and we read through a stack of books.

TOG Year 4 Week 19

2011-01-08T22:47:00.000-06:00

Wow! What a hard week this was! One of my princesses was just not ready to be done with Christmas break, apparently. She finally finished her work today, Saturday.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Lesson 22
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 28 and begin lesson 29
IEW: We finished lesson 7 and did a KWO for lesson 8.
Foundations 1: Week off
MCT Language Arts: Read Sentence Island pgs 227-256. We also completed a writing exercise. Practice Island week off.
McCrabbs: Week off.
Science: Our Planet Earth. Lessons five.
TOG Yr4 Wk19: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - The Gift of Music; Jacob DeShazer: Forgive Your Enemies; Ghandi, Great Soul; Homeless Bird. Read Aloud - The Story of the World, Volume 4; So Far From the Bamboo Grove.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Week off
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish Lesson 27 and begin lesson 28
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk19: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - India: The People; Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts; The House of Sixty Feathers. Read Aloud - same as above.

Princess L - K - LG
Speech Therapy: This princess has been doing speech therapy for about four months. When we began, she had problems saying -ING and -ONG words, as well as R and L sounds at the beginning and ends of words. At this point the only remaining issue (besides S and SH sounds with two missing front teeth) is really the R. But I'm thinking that I will end these, because really, if we lived on the NE coast she would fit right in. It's only because we are midwesterners that it is considered a speech issue.
MFW First Grade: Lessons 17-22.
Math-U-See Primer: Week off.

Princess M - PreTOGger
I've been thinking about what I to do with this little princess for next year. Right now I am thinking that I will do MFW K at half pace, and mix in with it the Letter of the Week curriculum. Instead of starting her on Math-U-See Primer, I think I will just do the math activities in these two curriculums.

I cannot believe that our year is half over. I am beginning my planning for next year. We will continue with most of our curriculum. So it's mostly a matter of price comparison and seeing what I can find used. But I like to have figured out what will be needed before our homeschool convention rolls around in April. So I have to work on it now. I spent part of our two week break working on skeleton plans for TOG Year 1 for HST+. Basically, skeleton plans do not include anything that is considered copyrighted information. So there is still some work involved for anyone that wants to use them. If you are on the TOG Year One Yahoo group they are posted there.

TOG Year 4 Week 18

2011-01-02T16:39:00.001-06:00

(I have started this post without finishing it several times over the last two weeks. Today is the day I will finish it!)

We have gone through two units of modern history and are finishing up with the forming of the current state of Israel. We will be studying Jewish holidays at our next co-op meeting.

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
Latin for Children Primer A: Finish lesson 21
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 27 - Lesson 28 through D
IEW: I had great intentions of finishing lesson 7, but alas, our weather before Christmas got in the way. We will finish this up next week.
Foundations 1: RE- + -ED
MCT Language Arts: Read Sentence Island pgs 189-213 We also completed a writing exercise. Practice Island 22-26.
McCrabbs: We started back to doing these a while ago and I just realized I've forgotten to post them. We are up to lesson 26 in Book A.
Science: Our Planet Earth. Lessons three and four.
TOG Yr4 Wk12-13: Timeline; SAPs; AQ/TQs; Reading - Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Idiot's Guide, Usborne Intro to the Second World War, Tortured For Christ (because I couldn't get the assigned book and our Pastor loaned us this one), The Gift of Music, The Little Prince. As this was the unit end, she took the dialectic level unit quiz covering history and timeline. I didn't give the map or literature quiz.

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
Growing With Grammar 4: Chapter 4.6 to 4.9
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish Lesson 26 and Lesson 27 to E
IEW, MCT Language Arts, McCrabbs and Science: same as above
TOG Yr4 Wk11: Quizlet vocab; important people; SAPs; Reading - War, Peace and All That Jazz, Pippi Longstockings, All the People.

She also took the unit end quiz and did quite well. The only ones she got wrong were because she misunderstood the question.

Princess L - K - LG
MFW First Grade: We are done through lesson 16. We are going at a very fast pace, two lessons per day, because so far it is all review. I am not doing the science, and I decided not to do the math, as we are doing the MUS.
Math-U-See Primer: Finish Lesson 26.

Princess M - PreTOGger
She successfully mastered the song she had to learn for the Christmas program and wants to sing it ALL THE TIME! Oh well! I toyed with the idea of beginning some type of formal preschool activities with her, then laughed at myself. I think that the more children one has, the more they begin to embrace the "better late than early" theories of the Moores.