Our Family

Our Family

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Books We Read in January

I'm trying to keep a log of books we have read.  So I thought a great way to keep track would be to blog about it.  I will not be able to include every single book we read, especially when it comes to picture books that I read to the girls.  I also will not able to record how many times I have read certain books aloud (can I admit that I can't wait for Amelia Bedelia to be due back at the library so I no longer have to read that one), but I am going to do my best to record most of our books books.  I do not read every book before my children read them and you may have different opinions about whether or not some things would be ok for your child to read.  I try to read about every books before Some of these we have just started and will carry over into February


Read Alouds for January:

The Matchlock Gun by Walter D Edmonds
Meriwether Lewis Off the Edge of the Map by Janet and Geoff  Benge

The Green Ember by S.D Smith
Ember Falls by S.D. Smith

Picture Books:

Owl Moon
Amelia Bedelia
Dr. Desoto
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colando
Horton Hears a Who Dr. Suess
Winter
Ballet Star
Pinkalicious
Joseph Had an Overcoat

Lily's Books

Circle C Beginnings by Susan K Marlow (this is a series that she has read before and is rereading)
The Stolen Sapphire A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey
Meet Josefina (American Girl) 
Josefina's Surprise (American Girl)


Christian's Books

Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair C.S. Lewis
 The Last Battle C.S. Lewis
 Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Charlotte's Web E.B. White (school assignment)

Anthony's Books

How to Train Your Dragon How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse by Cressida Cowell
Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle C.S. Lewis
Charlotte's Web (school assignment)



Alex's Books

Brother Band Chronicles Books 1,2, and 3 by John Flanagan



Nick's Books

The Art of War by Sun Tzo (school assignment)

Mom's Books

Beneath a Prairie Moon by Kim Vogel Sawyer
My Heart Remembers by Kim Vogel Sawyer
In Every Heartbeat by Kim Vogel Sawyer
The Mercy Falls Collection (The Lightkeeper's Daughter, The Lightkeeper's Bride, The Lightkeeper's Ball) by Colleen Coble
The View from Rainshadow Bay by Colleen Coble

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 19

A storm, shoes, and another fever.


Arkansas has some crazy weather.  Last week we had a little bit of snow and some very cold temperatures.  Sunday it was really nice outside but we had a chance of storms and severe weather.  A chance that turned into a tornado warning at 10:30 that night.  Ironically my phone did not alert and neither did Art's or Alex's, but Nick's did.  I was awake and watching the weather outside and did not feel like I needed to wake the children.  We did not have any storm damage except for a piece of siding that blew off the house, and one of the rabbits were almost impaled.  A tree branch blew down in such a way that it stuck into the hutch.  The bunny was not hurt and Nick was able to patch the roof of the hutch.


Monday it was still really windy, which made for a great day for kite flying.





Emmie with her broken toe had no shoes that would fit on her feet.  I may have mentioned that she had to wear slippers to church on Sunday.  We went to Walmart looking for something that she could wear and they did not have anything at all.  She was fine wearing slippers in the house, but when we had to go out of the house, she had to be carried and I really, really wanted to find her some shoes.  We went to the shoe store in town in Tuesday and I explained the situation to the lady and she said that her sandals had just started coming in.  She did not have a huge selection, but we were able to find some that could strap on to her feet and by buying a size bigger could accommodate for the swelling.  We were so happy and thankful to find some shoes she could wear!  As the week went on and the swelling went down more, her mobility started to get much better.


Tuesday Lily had gymnastics and Emmie sat and watched Finding Dory on my phone.

Wednesday we had Kid's Club.  We made sock owls in craft because the lesson theme was God Gives Us Wisdom, which interestingly went along with our nature study at home.


Wednesday night, Lily had fever and sore throat.  The fever broke the next morning, but she still had stuffy nose and sore throat.  I did not let her go to piano Thursday (that makes two weeks in a row that we have missed.)  That left me with an hour and a half completely alone in town Thursday afternoon.  It was very strange to be all by myself.  It was a beautiful day so I went to the park and walked a few miles.

Lily was a little bored and excited to get these to review in the mail!



Week 19 in our Homeschool

Bible: We read 5 lessons in Know Who You Are, Live Like it Matters

Read Aloud: We read three chapters of YWAM Publishings Meriwether Lewis Off the Edge of the Map.

Geography: This week in Let's Go Geography we learned about Libya.


History: In America's Story we read about the war of 1812.  We also watched an episode of Drive Thru History American History.

Nature Study: We started the topic of owls last week but didn't get to finish it when we lost a school day.  So this week we continued.  I read a book about owls.  I'd love to tell you the title but one of the children has walked off with it.  It is an Usborne book.  I had a coloring sheet for the girls to color while I read.  After I finished reading they worked on a notebooking page writing a paragraph about owls.

Art: We were going to do The Owl from Bali art project from ArtAchieve, but did not make time for it.  I will count the Sahara Desert Scene we did to go along with our geography as our art project for this week.

Lily and Emmie did quite a few projects from one of my art books Monday afternoon.

Math: Christian is working through his Math Mammoth book on multiplication.  The others did 4 lessons in MLFLE.

Language Arts: Lily completed 3 daily grammar lessons and the boys did 4 lessons in Readers in Residence.  It feels like we have been on Charlotte's Web forever!

Spelling/Reading: The boys completed step 26 of AAS Level 4 and Step 1 of AAS Level 5.  Lily completed lesson 18 of AAR Level 4.  I did not have her do the next lesson because she would have needed to read the story aloud and had a sore throat.  Emmie did several lessons in Reading Eggs.


Liam is now crawling and pulling himself up and letting go.  He is only 7 months.  He also got his first tooth.  We did not get to see him last week because of weather and he had a double ear infection. When I saw him on Monday for a little while he was very happy to see me!

And of course when he is here he is surrounded by the children all the time!

Anthony made a robot with his newest Tinker Crate kit on Saturday.


I have no idea why Christian was dressed as Spider Man Saturday night, but he was!

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

 


Friday, January 26, 2018

Review: Beneath a Prairie Moon by Kim Vogel Sawyer



About the Author "KIM VOGEL SAWYER‘s titles have garnered awards including the ACFW Carol Award, the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. Kim lives in central Kansas with her retired military husband Don. She enjoys spending time with her three daughters and a bevy of grandchildren."

About Beneath a Prairie Moon
"Abigail Brantley grew up in affluence and knows exactly how to behave in high society. But when she is cast from the social registers due to her father’s illegal dealings, she finds herself forced into a role she never imagined: tutoring rough Kansas ranchers in the subjects of manners and morals so they can “marry up” with their mail-order brides. Mack Cleveland, whose father was swindled by a mail-order bride, wants no part of the scheme to bring Eastern women to Spiveyville, Kansas, and he’s put off by the snooty airs and fastidious behavior of the “little city gal” in their midst. But as time goes by, his heart goes out to the teacher who tries so diligently to smooth the rough edges from the down-to-earth men. How can he teach her that perfection won’t bring happiness?"

Beneath a Prairie Moon is the newest book by Kim Vogel Sawyer and will be releasing on March 20th.  It is available for pre-order on Amazon.  This is a stand alone novel of around 352 pages.  The paperback is listed for $10.99 and the Kindle edition for $11.99.  It will be available in other locations as well. I make no money from Amazon, it just happens to be where I buy most of my books.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I love Kim Vogel Sawyer.  She is one of my favorite authors.  I have been on her team to promote her books several times but somehow missed out on the application for this book, so I was excited to see it available from another company I review for.  Ms. Sawyer writes contemporary and historical novels.  Beneath a Prairie Moon is a Historical Fiction and like many of her novels takes place in Kansas during the time period when Mail Order Brides were a common occurrence, in the late 1800's.

Beneath a Prairie Moon has all the elements of a great story.  It draws you in right from the beginning.  The descriptions of the characters and the setting are wonderful.  The story will make you laugh (there are definitely some very humorous parts), cry, and leave you in suspense.  There of course is some romance but because it is Christian fiction not anything overly romantic.  I loved the way the townspeople (most of them anyway) made Abigail feel as though she belonged and treated her like one of their own even when she felt herself above the others.  Everyone should live in a town like Spiveyville.  Beneath a Prairie Moon has a great message of hope and love and trusting in God.  It also carries a message of the importance of forgiveness.

If you enjoy historical fiction or Christian fiction, I highly recommend books by Kim Vogel Sawyer!  I loved Beneath a Prairie Moon (I've already read it twice), and cannot wait to see what her next release will be.  

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Blogging for Books for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance to the FTC regulations.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 18

A fever, cold weather, an almost snow day, and a broken toe.  That about sums up my week.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day, so the public school was off, but we did have school.  In the morning after the children completed their morning chores and we started our lessons,  I looked over at Anthony and he looked awful.  When he feels bad he will never say so, but it shows in his face.  I asked him if he felt ok  and he said yes he was fine.  A little while later I asked him again and he said nothing hurt and he felt fine.  I grabbed the thermometer and his temp was 101.5.  He said maybe his head hurt a little. That ended Anthony's school day.  He didn't start feeling back to normal until Thursday.

Monday night they were forecasting some bad weather.  In the south, any amount of snow shuts everything down, and it really is better that way.  It started sleeting around 8:00 Monday night and they closed the public schools for Tuesday.  We did get a bit of snow, but not as much at our house as the people in town got.  It was pretty disappointing for the children who have been hoping for snow, but they did try to sled anyway.  With the schools closed, it also meant no gymnastics or youth that night.  We did have school (except for Anthony.)


 The birds were not excited about the snow.
 Goats didn't seem to mind it.




Wednesday the public schools had a 2 hour delay, but since Nick doesn't go until the end of the day it didn't affect us.

Thursday morning Nick had an eye doctor appointment.  He wore glasses for two years when he was around 7 and has started having trouble with headaches and blurry vision when he reads.  They said his vision is fine and that they believe the issue will resolve itself.  I hope so.  When we got home, the children went out to take care of the animals and get a little fresh air.  I could hear them playing outside the room where I was sitting and all of a sudden I heard Emmie scream and come running. She was crying so hard I couldn't tell what she was saying except that something fell on her foot.  I called one of the boys to grab a washcloth and ice pack while I pulled off her boot and tried to calm her down.  Long story short the children had popped a large block of sand and ice out of the sandbox and were trying to roll it into the shade so it would melt slower.  It was 6 inches thick and very heavy. It was braced on Christian's leg and fell right on to Emmie's big toe.  That ended our school day before it began.  We ended up at the hospital for X-rays.  It is broken. The poor toe is very swollen and bruised.  They said around 4 weeks to heal but since she is young her bones should heal pretty quickly.  She is very worried that she will not be able to start ballet.  She has to wear slippers because we cannot get a shoe on her foot.




We did get some school work accomplished this week, even though it wasn't everything I had planned!

Bible: We read through 4 lessons in Know Who You Are Live Like it Matters.

P.E.: We did not do P.E. this week.  In cold weather animal chores take longer and we just did not have time to fit it in.

Poetry: We are memorizing Shoes by Louis Untermeyer.

Read Aloud: We did not start a new daytime chapter book this week.

Geography: This week our geography study was on South Africa.  I really cannot say enough good things about Let's Go Geography.  This is the first year I have enjoyed studying geography this way.

History: We read 2 chapters in America's Story, one on the Louisiana Purchase and the other on Louis and Clark.  We also watched an episode of Drive Thru History.

Science: We completed lesson 17 on Georges Louis Leclere.


We also froze bubbles.



Nature Study: For this week's themed activity geared towards Emmie, we read Owl Moon.  We listened to some different types of owl calls.  I had some other things planned to go along with this on Thursday, but we didn't get there...

Art: We did the art activity to go along with our geography lesson, An African Big Cat.


Math: Christian is working through his multiplication book from Math Mammoth.  Lily and Emmie did 3 lessons in MLFLE.

Language Arts: Lily completed 3 Daily Grammar lessons.  Christian and Anthony do language arts together so they did not complete any lessons this week.

Spelling/Reading: The boys started Step 26 of AAS Level 4. Emmie completed lessons 32 and 33 of AAR Level and Lily completed lessons 16 and 17 of AAR Level 4.


Other Activities this Week:

Kid's Club on Wednesday was the only activity we had this week.  We did not make it to piano lessons on Thursday.







During the cold weather Christian and Lily played a lot of LEGO.

They did some excavating outside during the warmer weather.
 Emmie visited Marshmallow.  She said she must've missed her.


I hope you had a great week!

 Happy Homeschooling!


Freezing Bubbles

With the cold temperatures we have been having, I thought it would be fun to try to freeze some bubbles.  I had seen this on Facebook, but had never had a chance to try it before.

The temperature has to be below 32 degrees to try this experiment out.  We actually had one morning this week that it was only 5! That has to be some sort of record for SW Arkansas.

Homemade bubbles are supposed to work best.  The recipe we used was:

3 cups Water

1 cup of dish soap ( I read Dawn was supposed to work best but we used Gain and it was fine.)

1/2 cup light corn syrup (some recipes use glycerin instead)


You need to try it on a day that is not windy or in a place that is protected from the wind.  We went into our shop building because it was very windy on the day we tried this experiment.


All you need to do is blow some bubbles, and wait a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the temperature. We blew some and caught them on the wand but the ones we let gently fall to the concrete floor worked the best.


In only a minute or two we could see the bubble starting to freeze!










It was a really cook experiment!  We only lasted out there a little while though before we started to freeze too!

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 17

I'd love to write a post saying that we had a wonderful first week of the new semester, but it wasn't.  Honestly, we had a great first day back.  With our new schedule we have to finish all of our work by 12, and I wasn't quite sure how that would all work out.  But Monday morning everyone was up and our school day went great.  It was wonderful.  The rest of the week was not like that.  Tuesday and Wednesday were rough days all around, but Thursday was better.  Some days (weeks) are like that, even in Australia.  Anyway....some great things happened this week, and I like to focus on the positive.

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 17

P.E.: We did two days of yoga and one day of Family Time Fitness.

Poetry: We started working on the poem Shoes by Louis Untermeyer.

Read Aloud: We started and finished The Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmunds.

Bible: We started going through a devotional by Tim Tebow called Know Who You, Live Like it Matters.  It is set up to read a lesson a week, but we are doing a lesson a day.  I think this will be good especially for my older two. 

Geography: This week in Let's Go Geography we learned about Hungary.  The craft for the lesson was to use water color paints to paint Hungarian Folk Art cards.  The girls really enjoyed this craft and did several of these this week.


History: In America's Story we read through chapter 18 Looking West.

Science: In Science in the Age of Reason we did lesson 16 on Pieter van Musschenbroek.

Art: As part of my goal to do at least one themed hands on activity with Emmie, we picked up some picture books from the library on winter. We read the book Snow by Uri Shulevitz and then for an art project drew and colored a winter scene using chalk pastels.









Math: Christian did one lesson in MLFLE and then his Math Mammoth book on multiplication arrived and he worked through several pages of it the rest of the week.  The others did 4 lessons in their books.

Language Arts: Lily started the daily grammar lessons and did 3 lessons this week on capitalization of nouns. Christian and Anthony jumped right back into Readers in Residence reading through and answering questions on Charlotte's Web.

Spelling/Reading: Emmie finished Map 5 of Reading Eggs.  She completed lessons 30 and 31 in AAR Level 1.  Lily completed lessons 14 and 15 in AAR Level 4.  The boys completed Step 26 of AAS Level 4.

Nick has to take one class in public school to be eligible to play soccer.  He was signed up for track which he wasn't very excited about, but choices are limited for 4th block classes.  He went to track the first day and texted me 30 minutes in to ask if there was a way we could change him to something else.  He did not want to spend 1.5 hours running in track and then 2 hours running after school when soccer starts.  So we got him switched and he is taking psychology for 9 weeks and sociology for 9 weeks.  I'm not overly excited about these classes but we will see how it goes.

Tuesday the girls had gymnastics and Nick had youth.

Wednesday we had Kid's Club.


Thursday Lily had piano.


Friday Nick had a birthday!

Saturday we went to Texarkana for bowling and laser tag to celebrate Nick's birthday.



This handsome guy was hanging out with his Uncle Alex while we were checking out at Walmart Friday.  He is now crawling.

 I used my Instant Pot for the first time to make French Dip sandwiches.  It was easier then I thought it would be and they turned out so good! 



Walmart had some fabric on sale last week so we have a whole bolt of flamingo fleece.  The girls are making fleece tie blankets.




I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!