Our First Quarter, Third Grade

Here is the curriculum we are using for The Girl's Third Grade Year:



We are using A Beka Book Arithmetic 3 this year. It may not be the latest and greatest that is out there for home schoolers, however it works for us. The work sheets are colorful and easy to understand. We have been using A Beka for our arithmetic since first grade, so there is a familiarity with it. I have heard it said that A Beka is little too heavy on the amount of math there is do in their curriculum. We have not found this to be true in K, 1st or 2nd grade. However, after two weeks of 3rd grade I would have to agree with that statement. The Girl is getting rather frustrated with the amount of math problems she is required to do every day, so I am allowing her to skip some problems, as long as I know she is understanding what she is doing, and completing her work neatly.



For penmanship I have chosen to teach The Girl Italic Cursive by Getty & Dubay this year. I just do not feel that The Girl's fine motor skills is ready for traditional cursive. I decided to teach basic italic this year as an intermediary step before teaching her traditional cursive next year however, after reading the authors arguments for teaching italic over traditional cursive I have become convinced that italic cursive is a better approach for our family. The Girl is using Book D this year. This book reviews basic italic and then teaches cursive italic. I have to admit that my penmanship is improving in teaching this course.



First Language Lesson for the Well Trained Mind, Level 3. I love The Well Trained Mind. This is our first year using a grammar curriculum designed for homeschooling. I love that the dialog and teaching seems so natural with this book. The Girl doesn't seem to quite like repeating definitions over and over. However, I am seeing her retention of grammar rules improving over the past two weeks. If a noun ends in s, ch, sh, x, or z add and es to make it plural. Yes, darling daughter I know you know this, I know we covered it last year. However, now I am seeing you actually apply this rule in the writing you do for other subjects.




This year we are study astronomy with Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Apologia, written my Jeannie Fulbright. My husband, The Engineer is an astronomy buff. He is excited about sharing astronomy with the kids and the kids are excited to finally see Daddy's telescope that they've heard about. I am excited that we're studying something Daddy can help Mommy with. I don't have a real good track record for doing labs and being real excited about science.



Writing Strands for Composition. We will also be participating in a local Young Authors Contest again this year.


We are continuing our history studies with Tapestry of Grace this year. I plan to finish Unit Two of Year One (Redemption to Resurrection). I hope to finish Year One's unit three and four. I am using Story of the World for my spine. I may chose to study a little bit of California and US History/Geography for one quarter this year. This would give The Girl some review and Boy #1 an introduction.





The Girl's studies also include Spelling Power for spelling, and withing the next two weeks Prima Latina for Latin. That's all I can remember for the time being. We also have a lot of other books that we are reading aloud to encompass history, science and other stuff I find important. I will post what Boy #1 is using for 1st grade later.

This Pain in my Heart

It hasn't been the best of days. Tops on the list is the grief I feel for my father. Sometimes it just hits you...like a big steel ball. The house, his house, is now in escrow. The good thing is that the nightmare of paying two mortgages, his and mine, is almost over. The bad thing is that now I have to clean out his garage. That was his space. It hit me this afternoon that I was going to have to go through his things in the garage. I haven't touched anything out there, purposely. I started to inventory in my mind what is in the garage. I thought about his collection of license plates from cars he had owned, his Chilton's Chevy repair manual, and then I thought of his red car ramps. I remember my mom buying those with him. It was when they were running an auto repair shop. I don't need those car ramps, but how can I get rid of his car ramps. Silly. I called his phone number to see if he would answer. He didn't. I was kind of hoping, actually had convinced myself that that maby it really didn't happen. You remember the season of Dallas when Bobby had died and all the really bad things happened. Then the next season starts with him getting out of the shower and the whole past season had been a dream of his wifes. Couldn't that happen in real life. Guess not. I listened to some of his records today with the kids. So many memories. I caught myself crying out, "Why didn't he tell me it would hurt this bad?" He told me he would die. He told me how to bury him. He told me what to do with his things. He didn't tell how bad losing him would hurt. I feel like there is a hole deep down in my inner being. I want the pain to go away, but I don't. This pain that I feel is assures me that he really did exist. He really was important in my life. We really did love one another. Through all of this I have really felt myself grow closer to Christ. I think of him as my high priest who lives to intercede for me. My high priest who knows the pains of this life. Christ knew the heartache I feel in losing my father. He too lost his father and felt the separation that death brings. When the wrath of the father was poured out on the son and the father turned his back on him, he knew what it was like to lose his father and he too was separated from his father because of deaths curse. I truly have a high priest who understands exactly what I am going through. How I praise him and pray, Come Lord Jesus, Come.

Weekly Report, Week 1

Our first week went great, but boy am I tired. Everything went so smoothly and I am so surprised/pleased. Last year I was not very disciplined on what time the kids woke up at and what time school started. My goal for this year was to change that. Breakfast is at 7am and school starts at 8am. The Girl, my late riser, has done amazing with getting up early this week. She is up at 6:20am every morning. How have I accomplished this? Easy-Television. We don't watch very much television in our home, especially during the school year, so I made a deal with the kids that they could watch 30 mins. of television in the morning before breakfast and that seems to have worked. Monday and Tuesday I started with one routine for school and learned that it wouldn't work for our family so on Wednesday we began a different routine that I think will work much better for us. Having Boy#2, who is only 2, makes for a complicated school day. My desire was to sit down with The Girl and Boy #1 and just work with them on the same school subjects at the same time and get our school day done quickly while Boy #2 played by himself or had Barney Time. This just didn't work. Boy #1 can not sit still or concentrate for long periods of time...Why, oh why are boys just so darn different than girls! Last year I had read Managers of Their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell, and one of the ideas I really liked in it is that children can really only play well with one another, without arguing for around 30 minutes. They also recommend that siblings should have a dedicated one on one play time with each other without any other siblings. We had incorporated this for our school time last year and it worked great, so this is what we began again for this school year. Another idea I incorporated into our school routine last year is the concept of tutoring my children, not "teaching" my children. Here's how the last two concepts work in our daily school routine: We come together as a family for our bible time first, after bible time Boy #1 goes upstairs with Boy #2 for the private boys play time. Thats when I sit down with The Girl and we go over her days school work and I explain anything that is new and do her Grammer lesson with her. After her 30 mins. of tutoring are up we switch. The Girl goes upstairs and has her 30 mins. of private playtime with Boy #2 while I tutor Boy #1. After Boy #1's tutoring time we all go outside for "recess". After recess, Boy #1 and The Girl do their desk work while I play/teach Boy #2 and or he gets to have Barney Time (Nice way of saying watch a Barney Video.) After the desk work is finished we have lunch. Boy #2 goes down for his nap and we do our read alouds, science, and history.

The above is the greatest thing I have bought for school this year, best $15 spent. Scratch and Sniff stickers for school work. They are coveted, getting one to put your penmanship books is the best thing in the world...and if you don't get one for your school work that day, the world will end. I never thought the stickers would be that big of a motivator. The Girl had a complete meltdown watching me put a sticker on her brothers work. I had to reassure her that he was net getting more stickers that she had, I just hadn't graded her work yet.

This is our daily work binders. Each child has a binder with the weeks school work organized by day.
Thursdays are our running around errand day. Starting in September we will have our bible study in the mornings. Then we have piano lessons at 12:30. In September we will also have an afternoon park day. This week we went to the Library and got haircuts. Boy #1 shows off his new cut.
The Girl had her hair cut and was treated to french braids.

Afterwards a very tired mom treated the kids to happy meals. Boy #2 loves his french fries.
Week 1 down only 35 to go!

The First Day

It is now 3:30 and the the first day of school is complete. The Girl was up at 6:15 and fully dressed. She wasn't eager to start school one bit. School started at 8:10, 10 minutes late but sooner than I had expected. It went pretty well. The first thing we do on the first day of school is take a picture of the kids by the front door. We have done this since The Girl's first day of preschool.It is really neat to see how the kids have changed each year. They loved goofing off this year.

And this is our school room ready and waiting:

Boy 1 did really well. He was actually able to sit and listen to me read, he even answered questions with nearly correct answers. Thank goodness for Star Wars Legos. We have finally found something that holds his interest long enough to sit and hear Mommy read our study books aloud. The Girl did great with her studies today. She was disappointed that I hadn't planned out her Latin so she could start today. We only had one emotional outburst from her. She was frustrated and cried because the boys were loud and distracting while she was trying to do her dictation exercises. All in all a good day was had and I am very happy to be back homeschooling my three little monkeys.

One Step Closer

Tomorrow we will get one step closer to a normal existence. Our world went Topsy, turvy around the first of April. We went on a week long road trip to central California. A road trip of any length with three kids can turn anyones life upside down. After coming home and unpacking and getting back into a groove I went away on our church's womans retreat for a weekend. Then my Dad passed away the first of May. Since then life has been extremely chaotic. The burial, paperwork, sorting through his things, cleaning his house, getting it ready to sell, finally getting it on the market, oh yeah and don't forget the office remodel we undertook at our home. Needless to say our last school year came to an abrupt end and read-alouds, piano practice and math facts practice went on the back burner. As TheGirl says, "This has been the worst summer ever!" Let me tell you , it sure has been. Last summer we laid around the pool and read all the books we wanted, not so much this summer. This summer has been the summer of the Nintendo DS and Netflix while Mommy works on other stuff. But tomorrow...glorious tomorrow me life gets back to somewhat normal, we start school. I am as ready as I can be at this point in time. The Daily work notebooks have been prepped and the school room has been cleaned. I am really looking forward to spending time with my kids learning. And to make things even better I am hoping for an offer on my Dad's house tomorrow. The only thing that will never be normal is not having a Dad anymore.

It's almost time...

It's almost time for school. I feel so unprepared compared to last year. Last year, I had the whole year planned and in weekly file folders a month before school started. We actually started a week earlier than planned. Not this year. My house is still in disarray from the two week office remodel (Not going there, do not get me started.) My school room has been moonlighting as the catchall room. Between packing, sorting, and preparing my Dad's house for selling I haven't had the time I needed to prepare and organize our school stuff for the entire year as I would have liked to. Anyhow, August 18th it is! The girl will start third grade and Boy 1 will start first grade. Today we prepared and decorated our daily work folders for the upcoming year. My kids were all sitting at the school table working on a project. It was heart warming to see that. A reminder that life goes on...our life will go on, and return to somewhat of a normal existence.

Long Time...

It's been a long time since I posted to this blog. I tried several times but I just couldn't put my thoughts down. Somehow it just seemed that if I wrote about it, it would be a confirmation, an admission that it really did happen. My Dad died. That was such a hard sentence to type. It really did happen. May 2, 2008 my life forever changed. Sandwiched between the marshmallows and cans of tuna at Stater Brothers I received one of the worst phone calls I have ever received. The first being the call from the hospital informing my father that my mother's heart was stopping and did we want to let her go, the second phone call, this phone call was from my husband informing me that my father had passed away. It has been three months since I lost him. This post makes it real. There you go world, I am admitting it, it really did happen - My father EFC died, and my life has forever been changed. I miss him terribly. I think of him often during my days. However it is in the still, quite moments of the night, when the house is all quite that my thoughts turn to tears, and my tears turn to pains of longing. What is it that I am longing for? You see, I will be reunited with my father one day. We will dance on the streets that are golden before the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Savior. That word takes on such a whole new, intensified meaning for me now. Jesus Christ was my father's savior. He died and paid the price for my father's wretched sins. My father was saved from death's grasp and eternal condemnation in the pit of fire. He was saved by grace, not by his own works, but by God's grace. Pretty graphic but it is true. Pretty awesome...My Dad Was Saved!! Our story is not over, it's just on pause for a little while. But still....I miss him.