26th September, 2008
More Grammar and Novena
Ever since I found the google book search I have been obsessed with looking at books. 
I found another Grammar book today, this one I’m going to use. There are three books in the series and the first book starts in about third grade. I like this one because it has dictation, poetry, composition and grammar all in one book. It seems gentle and yet more meaningful than the other Grammar we used. I can place my children where they are and easily keep up with them. I like this one Introductory Lessons in English Grammar by W.M. H. Maxwell.
Today is the third day of the Novena to St. Theresa
Little Flower Novena
Prayers to be said each day:
Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of divine love.
V. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created.
R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray: O God, who have instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit; grant that by the gift of the same Spirit, we may be ever truly wise and rejoice in His consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Acts of Faith, Hope, and Love: O my God! I believe in Thee: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in Thee: do Thou secure them. I love Thee: teach me to love Thee daily more and more.
The Act of Contrition: O my God! I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance , and to amend my life. Amen.
Fourth Day
Dear Little Flower of Carmel, bearing so patiently the disappointments and delays allowed by God, and preserving in the depths of your soul an unchanging peace because you sought only God’s will, ask for me complete conformity to that adorable Will in all the trials and disappointments of life. If the favors I am asking during this Novena are pleasing to God, obtain them for me. If not, it is true I shall feel the refusal keenly, but I too wish only God’s Will, and pray in the words you used, that I “may ever be perfectly fulfilled in me.”
Intercede for us all the days of our life, but especially during this Novena and obtain for us from God the graces and favors we ask through your intercession. Amen.
Dear Little Flower, make all things lead me to heaven and God, Whether I look at the sun, the moon, the stars and the vast expanse in which they float, or whether I look at the flowers of the field, the trees of the forest, the beauties of the earth so full of color and so glorious, may they speak to me of the love and power of God; may they all sing His praises in my ear. Like you may I daily love Him more and more in return for His gifts. Teach me often to deny myself in my dealings with others, that I may offer to Jesus many little sacrifices.
Intercede for us all the days of our life, but especially during this Novena and obtain for us from God the graces and favors we ask through your intercession. Amen.
Concluding Prayer Prayed Each Day:
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.
Posted at 8:41 pm | Comment (1)
1st September, 2008
Crochet Kitchen Scrubbie and Dishcloths
I love to use seasonal kitchen accessories and thought to use some of my free time this weekend to crochet some kitchen scrubbies and dishcloths.
I didn’t use a pattern but made one up as I went along. I’ll share here how I did it.
Crochet Kitchen Scrubbie
1 yard of nylon netting, cut into one and half inch strips. I rolled mine up, like a paper towel roll and then cut it into strips. To attach the nylon as I crochet, I just “yarn” over the needle and work the ends in.
size N crochet hook
Chain 4 and slip stitch to form ring.
Double crochet into ring to form at least 11 double crochet, sometimes I did more. Just double crochet until you like the look of the ring. Join in the top of the first double crochet to form row 1.
Chain 2 and double crochet into the top of each double crochet in round 1, all the way around. Slip stitch to form row 2 and tie off.
Make another circle of crochet. Attach the two circle together by slip stitching around the two of them. This is like sewing them together. Sometimes I used extra nylon bits to stuff the scrubbie, other times not. Work in loose ends by tying and cutting off.
Crochet Kitchen Dishcloths
Cotton Yarn
Size G or smaller crochet hook
Chain as long as you would like the dishcloth, I chained 23.
Double crochet across, turn, chain 2 and double crochet across again to form rows for as long as you want the dishcloth. Slip stitch around the dishcloth when done to form a neat edge.
I’d love to see some of your fall crafts for the home.
P.S. I know my camera is really fuzzy, I asked DH to get me another and he agreed and will research and get me one. He said the other night, he thinks he decided on one. I am not technical at all and never do this kind of research or purchasing. I’m better with curtain choices or bathroom carpet decisions.
Posted at 10:14 am | Comment (0)
25th August, 2008
Learning Log 8-25-08
This is our fourth week of lessons for the 2008-09 school year and today we started a new unit called Into a New Land. I’m logging what we do each day after lessons to keep a learning log instead of a planner.
Formal School 10:oo am to 3:00 pm
History
Everyone looked at pictures of a Jamestown village and worked on painting the base and bottom of their Jamestown village model. They also painted straw on two pieces of water color paper.
Religion
I finished reading the first chapter in St. Patrick’s Summer and talked about what the Holy Trinity is.
Language Arts
The children identified the parts of a book: Title page, Copyright page, Table of Contents and Summary. We talked about what a preface is and how pre means before and thought of other words with pre in them: preview and preoccupied.
I read out loud about the life of Armstrong Perry.
We talked about how our new read aloud, Call it Courage was published in 1941, before Nana was born, and how it won the Newbery Medal. We talked about what the Newbery Medal is and other books we have read that are Newbery Medal Winners and Honor books.
I read aloud from Call it Courage through page 13. We talked about where the story takes place, the main character’s animal friends and his problem.
Everyone wrote an essay in their journal. dd8 wrote about a book she writing, dd10 wrote about her Wave skateboard and ds11 wrote about making bugs on a log.
Poetry
I read a poem called Nature from The Random House Book of Poetry. This was particularly fitting as in St. Patrick’s Summer, St. Patrick talked about how nature has two meanings, human nature and nature study.
History
We read about what happened in the world that caused people to want to come to the new world. We talked about what courage is.
Geography
Everyone located Polynesia on the globe. We talked about how it’s a group of islands and what an island and islet are. Everyone located Hikueru and we talked about the meaning of reef, barrier reef, frigate , current, crest, fledgling and lagoon.
Science
We made bugs on a log and ate them and drank some milk for lunch. I read aloud about insects from Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. We played a game where you have to look at pictures and identify if it’s an insect or not. We talked about how bug has two meanings, don’t let the bugs in and don’t bug me.
Everyone did handwriting (They all use Abeka Handwriting at different levels).
Independent Reading
Everyone started reading their independent readers.
dd8 chose Squanto Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla
dd10 chose If You Lived in Colonial Times by Ann McGovern.
ds11 chose A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla.
Mom Notes
It seemed to go smoothly. I am of course going at our own pace, leaving out, adding in and adjusting. Dh was saying how he made a pueblo out of sugar cubes when he was in elementary school and I remember making a scene from the revolutionary war.
Freebie
I’m using this form I made up to record our days after we do them. It’s my learning log form. This is what I’m using instead of a planner. The form has four pages, two for homeschool and two for home use. It’s in pdf.
Posted at 3:13 pm | Comment (1)
20th August, 2008
Book It Sign Ups
The Pizza Hut Book it program is taking sign ups for their K-6 reading incentive program. Homeschoolers can participate. Sign up here:
http://www.bookitprogram.com/enrollment/
Posted at 9:41 am | Comment (0)
6th August, 2008
Spelling and Poetry
I use spelling lists each year for my kids. Yes, I have tried copy work and dictation and making lists from words misspelled in their writing, I like spelling lists better. The books we use are from Abeka and they are by grade and include poetry for the children to memorize.
Each Spelling and Poetry Book contains 34 lists of words for the kids to learn to spell and monthly poems for the children to memorize. The spelling lists have things to do with the words so that on each two page spread are not only the words but activities.
I divide the spelling lists into five words a day and do the same for the activities. So that by the time my child has learned to spell all 30 to 40 words on the list he/she has also completed all the activities. This sometimes takes more than a week, but we school 40 weeks so 34 weeks of lists is just fine. I go ahead and use dictation for the other weeks if we run out of word lists before our year is over.
All this translates into my children studying and spelling only five words a day and doing one to five activities with the word list each day. The whole process takes about 20 minutes or less. On Friday I have a spelling bee for our school where I use words from each child’s list and just play can you spell this word. It’s fun. We do it after they do spelling for Friday and no one yet finds it tiresome, they all love spelling bee day.
For the daily spelling test I use a form I made. I put a bunch of these forms printed front and back in a section in their notebooks called spelling and poetry. The spelling and poetry section has the spelling forms first and lined paper second. For poetry each day the children read through the poem they are to memorize first silently, then to me and write one sentence from the poem on the lined paper in their notebook. By the end of the month or sooner they can recite the poem. Amazing. And the poems are good choices for kids. I really like this approach to spelling and poetry, it works for us.
Here is the form I use for testing in Spelling. There are two columns, one for spelling the word in writing and the other for making a correction, if needed. I just hand the kids the spelling book after I test them, they check with the list in the book to see if they spelled the word correctly and they write out the correct spelling on the form if they need to.
Spelling form in pdf.
Look for coming posts about teaching reading, reading comprehension and highlights and lowlights of the first week of school.
Posted at 9:22 pm | Comments (4)
4th August, 2008
Weekly Agenda: How to Use It
One school I taught in issued the children agendas. This was a spiral notebook with dates, spaces for assignments in each subject and a spot for home work. Us teachers had an in-service day to learn how the school wanted the children to use the agendas. The children were to write in them daily and all teachers were to put information on the board for children to copy into their agenda. Each night the parents had to sign off on the agenda. The school wanted to help the students become more organized and successful and they felt the agendas would do that. Of course there were always littles who didn’t get theirs signed or who lost theirs or forgot them or just plain ole didn’t want to fill them out, but generally the agendas worked.
I decided to use an agenda in my home school. Only I wrote out the subjects and other things I wanted the kids to do each day, like chores, brush teeth, shower, take vitamins and made a space for a check off. I printed off these agenda’s on back and front and placed them first in the kids notebooks. Before they are allowed to be done with lessons for the day, they have to check off what they have done in their agenda. It really helps them to see what they need to do each day and keeps me on track as well. Here is a copy of the agenda I made for the kids this year in pdf.
Next time I’ll write about our first day of school this year, that’s today ! Look for a spelling post as well, as I’d like to share how I use our spelling lists.
Posted at 10:02 am | Comment (0)
11th July, 2008
Binder Cover: How To
My mind is all about planning for the new school year .
First on my planning to do list was to cover the three ring binder I use for my planner. Click on any of the pictures below to make them larger.
I gathered my supplies:
My three binder
Quilt batting
Material to cover the binder, about 1/2 a yard, I used cotton flannel
Scissors
Glue, I used modge podge since I couldn’t find my spray adhesive
a paint brush for spreading glue
a magic marker
fabric protector, this is a spray on product. My planner takes a lot of abuse during the year, coffee spills, water splashes, jelly stains that kind of thing. . .
The last supplies I got together were dividers and my planning pages more about that in another post.
Step Two
I traced around my quilt batting and cut it out to fit the binder as near as to exact as I could.
Step Three
Spread glue all over one side of your binder. Attach the quilt batting by laying it flat over the glue, glue some more, attach some more until you have the whole binder covered in quilt batting.
Step Four
Cut out the fabric just about a half inch bigger than the binder. You can always cut more off later so don’t cut to close yet. I used pinking shears, those are the scissors that make little half triangles or zig zags with your fabric, but regular scissors will work just fine.
Step Five
Glue the fabric onto the quilt backing and on to the edges of the notebook. You need to trim a bit here to fold the fabric over the edges of the notebook and you might need to gently force the fabric under the three ring holder. The trick here is to cut the fabric but not too much.
Step Six
I sprayed the fabric protector all over the outside of my planner and now I have a planner to use for school that is decorated just the way I like it !
Posted at 10:41 pm | Comment (1)
