A True Bibliophile

September 21, 2008

We went to our favorite garage sale this morning. Three older ladies who are also good friends get together once a year and have a sale where the prices are good and the merchandise fun!

I’ve picked up the most amazing things there over the years! I always wonder where they find these treasures? Maybe they are just digging them out of the basement a box at a time- like layers of an onion.

This year we found books! Box after box after box of vintage books. Hard cover Henty’s, Gene Stratton Porter, and Zane Grey just to name a few.

I started salivating and making piles. There were just many to choose from! They all looked interesting and I wanted them all!

So I got them. All of them. I filled the back of the van and brought my treasures home.

Yes, we did negotiate a price for the entire lot and most of the books will be researched and sold on Amazon or eBay.

But some of the choicest, the nicest, the most wonderful books will find a place of honor on our personal bookshelves.

We believe, like Henry Ward Beecher, that,

“A little library growing every year is an honorable part of a man’s history. It is a man’s duty to have books.”

and like Thomas Jefferson who said,

“I cannot live without books.”

Amen.

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Math Time Saver

September 11, 2008

For some reason, in my home school, math is the subject that we spend the most time on everyday.

It’s not that my kids need extra work on math.  For the most part, they are pretty good students. But math is the one subject that they can really waste time on.

They tend to day dream and doodle all over their math work. They start giggling and passing notes to their siblings around the table. Someone will start telling a story and they all collapse on the floor laughing.

Then I picked up a great tip at our state home school conference from David Hazell of My Father’s World Curriculum.

He suggested going over the lesson with your student, then giving them 5 minutes to answer orally any question on the lesson. Then your student only has to write out the answers to the ones that are left.

We use Saxon Math and everyday, after they’ve done a speed drill, I sit down with each child and do the mental math.  Then we read over the lesson and do the practice problems.

Then I set the timer for 5 minutes, grab the answer book, a piece of paper and a pen, and let them go! They need to say the problem and the answer. If they get it correct, I write it down.

At the end of 5 minutes, whatever problems they didn’t do orally become their assignment.

It is amazing how hard they work to get those problems done in 5 minutes! Some of children can cut their written work down by half. (This doesn’t work as well as the math gets harder.)

It’s helped with their mental math abilities and keeps everybody on task, at least most of the time anyway!

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

First Day of School

September 4, 2008

I can’t believe the summer is gone and we just had our first day of school.

I can’t believe this is the first year I don’t have someone in Alpha-Phonics learning to read.

I can’t believe that I have 2 kids in high school. When did that happen?!

It is amazing how quickly the years click by. I have now been home schooling for 10 years. Wow! It seems like just yesterday I was crying my way through my first year feeling like a total failure.

I was actually kinda proud of my kiddos as I watched them work. They were on task and quite independent. Well they were on task and independent once they figured out what they were doing.

We had several conversations that went something like this:

“Mom! What do I do for science?”

“It’s the book called ‘science’ on your shelf, dear.”

“Mom! What do I for math?”

“Umm…try page one in your math book! Remember, it’s the one we put on your shelf last week.”

But my favorite questions were the ones asking for a new book to read for literature. I am thrilled when I see all of children sitting around the house with a book in hand, carried away by a story.

Now that is the heart of my home school.

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Potato Cannon: Exploding Fun!

August 2, 2008

Things got a little loud around here last night!

Pedro and dad finished making his potato cannon and then had a blast (literally) testing it!

The plans came from the book Backyard Ballistics, which Pedro received for his birthday and I highly recommend!

The parts were all easy to find at a hardware store or Wal-Mart, and putting it together went really fast.

But the best part was hearing the explosion and seeing that potato fly!

They had a few misfires and a few duds, but even more “blow it out of the ballpark” explosions which sent the younger two kiddos into the hay field to find the potato! (Yes, mom was cheap enough to make them find the same potato and shoot it until it was obliterated!)

What a great way to learn a little science!

I think Dad had as much fun as the boys!

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Thoughts From the Home School Conference

June 10, 2008

We had a wonderful weekend at the NICHE Home School Conference! As always, the Lord sent just the things we needed to hear to encourage and motivate us.

Here’s just a small sampling:

  • Todd Wilson: Be real. Show the chinks in your armor and be understanding when others do the same. There is no “perfect home school family”, every one has their share of trouble.
  • Zan Tyler: Kids have to talk. Conversation builds tissues in the brains. My home should be bursting with language.
  • Todd Wilson: If a plant loses some leaves, it can still grow, but if the stem of a plant is broken, the plant will die. My marriage is the stem. I need to cultivate it and be careful with it. Almost everything else (curriculum, money, houses, even home schooling) are leaves, there are just not that important.
  • Zan Tyler: “Fold them the way they’re bent”. I need to adapt the training of my children to the way that God created them, their natural abilities and interests.
  • Sarah Mally: Five goals for our home school: 1. Godliness 2. Wisdom 3. Knowledge 4. Skills 5. Ministry. Spiritual goals always come first!
  • Sonya Shafer: Habits take up 1/3 of education. “The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.” ~Charlotte Mason
  • Jan Bloom: Great books help your children to practice emotions. They should nourish the mind and the hearts. They should broaden our understanding and develop our imagination.

It was just the weekend that both my husband and I needed!

By Country Gal | Posted in Home School | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)