May 16, 2008

I spent part of the day yesterday gathering online materials for our first try at summer school. I think I hit the jackpot. I found so many good resources that I decided to share them with you here.

Resources For Music Appreciation:

Ambleside Online Composer Schedule

Music of the Baroque

The Baroque Period From Capistrano School

Classics For Kids

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: The Best of Baroque

Lesson Plans Page: Beethoven and Bach

National Core Knowledge Lesson Plans For Music

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Going for Baroque- a Study of Bach

Resources For Shakespeare:

Teachers First: The Plays of William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library Lesson Plans Archive

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Student Based Oral Reading & Presentation Study of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Ambleside Online Shakespeare Rotation

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, and You!

Core Knowledge Lesson Plan: Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will...Learn!

May 9, 2008

Youngest dear son and I are wrapping up our homeschooling for the regular year. We have decided to do a little summer school this year to catch up on some things that we never seem to have time for during the regular school year. This week, dear son finished his English and math book. I love the fact that we finish textbooks. I attended public school and except for readers, I don't think I ever finished a book...maybe a spelling book.

Regular gas here is $3.70 a gallon now, and groceries are going up every time I go trade. I was just looking at a couple of homeschooling catalogs. I have a winter sale catalog and a spring sale catalog and I couldn't believe how much they have raised. I have been trying to stock up when I catch things on sale, but it never dawned on me to go ahead and buy our books for next year.


I wanted to show you this little stool my mom made and gave to me. The top is made of men's neckties.

I guess that's it for this morning. I need to get my day started. Toodles.

April 16, 2008

There's few things in life better than a good book. One of them is a free good book! Remember my find at our local library? The American art book that weighed four pounds? I found it in the free section and lugged it home to keep. Well...yesterday my oldest dear son called from the campus to say he was bringing me home a surprise. My mind instantly went to something in nature...a bird's nest, flower, rock, etc. When he got home, he had a book with him that he had picked up off the free table at the campus library. The book is Chronicle of the 20th Century and it weighs almost NINE POUNDS! It is a history of the 2oth century written in a brief newspaper style format with tons of pictures. It is like having a huge book of newspaper clippings in chronological order.

Of course, one of the first things I looked up was my birth date. I learned that Castro proclaimed Cuba a socialist nation on this day and abolished elections. I learned that Coca-Cola first arrived in Britain, 14 years after it went on sale in the United States on August 31, 1900. I learned that different blood types were not discovered until November 14, 1900. On December 1, 1959, twelve countries signed a treaty which said that no country would claim any part of Antarctica as its own and established the continent as a preserve for scientific research. Robert Frost, who was asked by President John Kennedy to read a poem at his Inauguration, died on January 29, 1963. You get the idea. The book covers wars, politics, sports, fashion, movies, medicine, etc.

You may be wondering why we have been weighing our books. We are nerdy homeschoolers and nerdy homeschoolers are supposed to do stuff like this.

April 10, 2008

I wanted to start my entry today by saying thanks to everyone who visits my blog and especially to those of you who comment. I love reading blogs. I try to leave comments, but my computer does not always cooperate. I just wanted to mention that here.

We are about to embark on a new adventure. Homeschooling year round. Dear son will be in the 8th grade next year and I am finding it hard to fit everything in that I want him to cover before I have to send him off to college. I know that once he starts college he will be too busy to do anything else. We will still stick to our usual schedule starting in July, taking all our breaks. Then when we get to our summer break, we will do a shorter day still taking breaks here and there. We will cover Shakespeare, art and music appreciation, science experiments that we didn't have time to do during the year, and dear son will continue to read good books. We are both looking forward to it.

I have one pix that I want to share with you today:

This is light from the window coming in on youngest dear son's bed. I just liked how it looked and grabbed the camera for a quick pix. Of course, the bed wasn't made, but I think that's what gives it such a wavy look.

April 8, 2008

Today has went surprisingly well after a couple of rough nights and busy days. Youngest dear son has been sick and when he is sick we have to deal with high blood sugars and ketones. This time, however, he hasn't even had a trace of ketones. We have raised the dosage of the insulin he takes with meals to cover the higher numbers. Now that he is getting better we have to lower the insulin dosage back to what it was before he got sick. The tricky part is knowing when to do this. If you lower it too quickly, he will spike. If you don't lower it soon enough, he will go low. We had lows the past two nights and a nasty low at lunch today, despite lowering the breakfast dose by two units. I went ahead and gave his usual amount for lunch today, hoping that we can get back on track.

Yesterday, I took the time to go to the library. I picked up a couple of books on Shakespeare. I have finally gotten my courage up and this summer we are going to study some of Shakespeare's plays, starting with Twelfth Night. I also picked up Anne of Avonlea for youngest son and me to read, along with three books by Lois Lowry that I hadn't read. I read one of them, Gossamer, yesterday and I loved it. I really like her books. They are very easy for me to get into and read. She has a wonderful imagination. I will never forget reading The Giver for the first time. It is one of my favorite books. I may let youngest dear son read it soon.

On my way out I noticed that there was only one book in the "give away" stack that you usually find at the front door of the library. I figured that no one wanted it because it was so heavy. It weighs four pounds. Youngest dear son weighed it for me. The name of the book is Three Hundred Years of American Painting. The first painting in the book is dated 1690; the last is dated 1956. I thought it was truly a treasure to find a book like this, so of course I swooped it up and took it home. The whole family has enjoyed looking through it. It made me wonder if there are any famous American painters painting now. Anyone? Anyone?

I know it is a little late for this pix, but it is a long and boring story. Speaking of late, we woke up Sunday morning to discover that our VCRs had reset themselves forward one hour. We reset all the clocks in the house for Daylight Savings back in March. I guess someone forgot to tell the VCRs that it had been moved up a month. Still, they showed good effort and I like that in an electronic device.

April 4, 2008

Joy! Rapture! On my quest to relocate some of My Favorites, I remembered a wonderful online book that I had saved. I remembered that it was a wonderful book. I remembered how I felt when I read the first story in the book. I remembered wanting to share my find with the rest of the world. What I couldn't remember was the name of the book or the author. I did remember the site that it was on so I tried to search there. I had no idea where to look. Then I remembered that I had copied one of the stories and read it to my family as a devotion. I dug through the window seat for my big black three ring binder of all my treasures I have discovered on the internet and there was my story along with the title of the book and the author's name! The book is Parables from Nature by Mrs. Alfred Gatty. It is a real gem! Do not miss this one. Go right now and read the first story...I'll wait on you to get back.

While I am waiting, I will also let you know that you can read Understood Betsy and even Anne of Green Gables online. I know it is not the same as actually holding a book in your hand and curling up in your favorite reading spot, but isn't it breathtaking to know that someone has taken the time to see that these treasures are available for anyone that has internet service. Thank you. Whoever you are.

And now I will leave you with a question that has been puzzling me for quite some time now. Just what is "fancy" ketchup anyhow?

April 3, 2008

If you have ever watched Kentucky Wildcat basketball in the time that I have been on this earth, you have seen Bill Keightley. He had been the Wildcat's equipment manager since 1961. He passed away this week at the age of 81. He had served under six coaches starting way back with Adolph Rupp. My family did not watch a ballgame without looking for Mr. Keightley on the bench. You can read more about it here.

I am beginning to think that our computer is headed for another crash. Things just haven't been the same since we had a new hard drive installed. It is slower than it had been and I am not even talking about internet connections. I am talking about opening and closing windows, pages loading, the whole thing seems much slower and glitchy. It may be time for a new computer.

Since our computer crashed, I have been trying to relocate some sites that I had in My Favorites. Out of everything we lost, I miss My Favorites the most. Here are some of the better homeschool sites that I have saved:

Ambleside Online

Paula's Archives of Homeschool Advice

Donna Young

Garden of Praise

I work with a group of children at church and we recently started a boys club and girls club. I meet with them once a month for a character lesson and an activity. I met with the boys this week. I asked them what kind of activities they would like to do. Here are some of their ideas:

1. Make bacon. Evidently, boys really like bacon.
2. Forge sword blades out of steel. I don't think so.
3. Make model cars. OK, this is doable.
4. Bring light sabers and have a reenactments of scenes from Star Wars movies. Their grandmother vetoed this idea.

So next month, after our lesson, we will make bacon and model cars. They will be in hog heaven.

That's it for today. Toodles.

A New Year

2007 is gone and I survived. That is the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about blogging about the upcoming new year. We as a family survived another year of dealing with Type 1 diabetes. Youngest dear son had good reports at all of his doctor's visits this year. Dear husband made it through another year of working in the coal mines without an accident or injury. I praise God for that. Oldest dear son finished up his next to last semester of college with good grades. He will graduate this May and I am happy to say that we did not have to go into debt to pay for his education. He was blessed to receive two scholarships and he worked out most of the rest.

In 2007 I lost a total of 28 pounds which was a major accomplishment for me. I still have a few more pounds to go. We are now trying to eat healthier as a family so I am hoping that my good eating habits have rubbed off on my guys. I still need to work on getting more exercise.

On New Year's eve, we all stayed up, or got back up, and toasted in the new year with a bottle of cheap champagne. We do not drink and the last time we had a drink was in 2000 when we bought our first bottle of cheap champagne to ring in the new year. Blek. We rode with dear husband to the wet part of town this year and he bought the most expensive bottle he could find which was...............twelve whole dollars and seventy-five cents. Blek. Either cheap champagne is really bad or we just do not like champagne. Either way, it was fun and we all laughed as we sipped our champagne out of punch cups that belonged to dear husband's mom. Youngest dear son was not allowed the pleasure, so he sipped on Diet Rite Cola. It was fine with him. We hugged and kissed and shouted Happy New Year. We watched Dick Clark on ABC. Then we went to bed.

So today is a new day of a new year. A brand new start. A fresh start. We pulled out the books this morning and started our second semester of homeschooling. Youngest dear son prayed a magnificent prayer and we sang This Is The Day That The Lord Hath Made. Then I read the second chapter of Proverbs which turned out to be very appropriate for the start of a new semester.

I made a few resolutions...more like a continuation of the ones I made last year. I would love to eliminate all sugar and white stuff from my diet. I have already cut down a lot in 2007. I need to exercise more and tone. I also would like to have a quiet time each day. A real quiet time, not just after everybody goes to bed. I am too tired to think by that time and I can't really function early in the morning to plan it then. I need a quiet time during the day when my brain will cooperate. Just some time set aside for thought and not worry. Constructive thought. A time that I could plan goals and meditate on my blessings. I have never been able to do this. Maybe this will be the year it does. I'll let you know. It hasn't happened so far today.

Random Ramblings

Snow Birds and Snow
Wednesday night we had a thunderstorm with lightning and strong winds. It was very warm and we even ran our ceiling fans. I heard the heat kick on around 7:30 that morning and by noon it was snowing!

The Friday before, I had watched a Dark-eyed Junco on the pump house roof. The minute I saw the bird, I knew we would be getting snow. We have been bird watching for years, and I have never seen a Junco without seeing snow. I know that sounds hard to believe, but it is true. They always bring snow. We only see them in winter. I think this one paid us an early visit.

Putting The Books Away

Today is our last day of school until January. We have already finished our first semester and it feels good to have it behind us. When we first started homeschooling, we followed the county school's schedule. Then, after a couple of years I decided to make out a schedule that would fit our needs better and prevent burnout. It is the single greatest decision I have made in making our homeschool experience a success.

Now, we start the week after the Fourth. It is so hot and buggy here that we are inside during the hottest part of the day anyway. We take a week long fall break. We go nine more weeks and then put the books away for Thanksgiving and don't start back until after the first of the year. This gives me the whole month of December to shop, decorate, bake, wrap gifts and really enjoy it. I am not in a rush because we have set aside this time to be with family and friends. Any school we would do during this time would just be rushed and half-done. We still get out around the second week of May. We also take off all days that dear husband is off from work. Below is a sample of our schedule. I color code each quarter and leave blank all days off. This is the easiest way I have found to keep up with my schedule with just a glance. Here's a sample of my School Calendar:

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Brownies From A Box

I have never been able to make brownies from a box. They always end up hard as a brick on the edges and soft or even raw in the middle. I was looking for a little something sweet to put in dear husband's dinner bucket this week and picked up a box of brownies. Guess how they turned out?.........Perfect! They are delicious and the texture is perfect. Fudgy from one end of the pan to the other. They were Duncan Hines brand and I think they were called Chocolate Chunk. I followed the directions for "cake-like" brownies, but they are very fudgy and "brownie-like". I baked them in an 8x8 disposable pan. Just had to share this in case there is another person out there who is brownie challenged like me. :-)

I guess that's it for now. Toodles.

The Land At Eden's Gate

There's a garden God is tending, where the fields are green and deep
With a harvest never-ending there, by waters cool and sweet
There a man can lay his burdens down, there a man can live in grace, oh,
I hope I see before I die, The Land at Eden's Gate.

Oh, the morning sky has broken, like the dawn at Eden's birth
And it lights the pine and meadowlark, and shines on God's great work
Oh, I'm leaving now and won't be back, won't you come with me this day, oh,
I hope I see before I die, The Land at Eden's Gate.
Oh, The Land at Eden's Gate.

May the children of your children, see the wild, rare primrose grow
Hear the gentle rain a-falling down, among these ancient groves
Oh, may angels watch it evermore, and protect its perfect state, oh
I pray they see before they die, The Land at Eden's Gate
I pray they see before they die, The Land at Eden's Gate.

To hear this beautiful song click here , then scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Homeschoolers, for An Instructional Guide For Music And Diaries From The Oregon Trail click here .