Physical Education

We always seem to just "wing it" for physical education in our homeschool. I find I can teach them about good nutrition when we make meals at home. We live in an area with a large yard and have been blessed to live in areas which were close to playgrounds which all provide room for free play. All thee of my baby goats love (or loved in the case of our oldest) to climb: trees, old swingsets, basketball poles...Perhaps I have a trio of monkeys instead! But when an opportunity for other activities arises, I do my best to take advantage of it. While there is a martial arts dojo in our local town and both girls are very interested in learning a martial art, our budget does not allow for it at this time.

So, since martial arts is not an option, we are, instead, learning about horses and horseback riding from one of my dad's good friends. I think this is a good skill for anyone to learn and an excellent form of exercise. We are also creating a lapbook (We're using the lapbook available through 'A Journey Through Learning'.) which will help us remember safety tips and information about the care and keeping of horses. We'll even be able to learn a little bit about the different kinds of horses and donkeys. (We are beginning our riding lessons by riding donkeys because they are smaller and a bit less skittish.) Because the lapbook is specific to horses, we'll use books and online resources to learn more about donkeys.

I took a few photos at our first lesson and edited them a bit with my phone. I think the photos came out pretty well and I had fun playing with the textures, actions and frames. I hope you enjoy them, too!

 The above photo shows the girls listening to my dad's friend talk about some horse safety rules.

 Above and below shows each of the girls getting the feel of the donkey's movements while he is being led.

Art and Science

As I mentioned in my last post, we've started a unit study on stars and stargazing. Today we studied a little more about galaxies. I thought it might be fun to let the girls use wire and beads to create an artsy model of a galaxy. This is what we ended up with. Now you can criticize if that makes you happy but we're pretty happy with the end results. :D Hope you enjoy the photos!

Spiral Galaxy and Irregular Galaxy, respectively

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Lazy Autumn Evening?

Do you see the question mark? Here's the story behind it.

Today was such a gorgeous day! I could almost forget the fact that today was a Monday. The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless blue sky while a soft, cool breeze tossed the leaves around in the trees and stirred up my hair. I went in to my part time job, not sure what to expect. (I work with some interesting and generally happy folks. I count myself pretty blessed to know them.) Work went on without a hitch and I'm keeping a close eye on myself so that tomorrow is the same. I came home to find most of my dishes washed and my baby goats ready to work on schoolwork. (Well, OK. School is school and if they have to write anything of length, they're generally not too happy about it but they did their work without complaining too much. Kudos to them!) It just so happens we're starting a unit study on Stars and Stargazing this week. We created Sky Journals and they had a blast filling out the first entry while John took some star trail photos. (Speaking of which, if you'd like to see John's photography and talk to him about it, you can find him at J.D. Kittles Wordpress and J.D. Kittles Photography on facebook.) While the girls wrote about what they observed and drew a photo of the observations, I heated up milk for their hot cocoa and prepped my supplies for working on my next project. I managed to get my to do list all checked off and I still don't feel any more tired than on any other day. This is the reason for the question mark. Today really felt like a lazy day but so many tasks were completed! I'm seriously feeling good about that. :) Just wanted to share it with y'all. I haven't been able to post for quite some time. I blog for our business at Kittles Family Artworks 2012 at Wordpress if you think you might be interested in reading those posts. We post at least one a day on that blog. I hope all the links work. Please let me know if they are not. I hope you've enjoyed this post and that you are enjoying the autumn weather (or current seasonal weather) wherever you are.

Laugh a lot! Remember to breathe...

Science Fun

We love adding extra fun things to our school curriculum. When I discovered Aurora Lipper's free online classes and experiments, I was pleasantly surprised! She speaks clearly, in a way that is easy to understand. If we have questions, there's a nifty chat box available. The chat box also works for class interaction. I have really enjoyed our time spent in those classes and I believe it's been really interesting and fun for the kids, as well. She has a fabulous-sounding science curriculum that I'd love to try. If you would like to check out Supercharged Science, click here. (Again, no one pays me for these opinions. I just write about things I have tried, things I find interesting, and things I like.) Laugh a lot and remember to breathe.

The Cycle Begins Anew

As usual, it's been a while since I posted here. Time always seems to slip away so quickly! Since I last posted, many things have happened. We started school this past week. I'm finding that schedules are a must. With a written schedule, I can see who needs my help in what subject and who can work on seat work while I'm helping the child who needs guidance. It worked pretty well for this first week and I feel a great sense of relief. So while I hate schedules in general, they are going to be a life saver this school year. Before we started school, our kids went to stay with their nanna for a week. They had a lot of fun and I know that Nanna really enjoyed her time with them. When we went to pick them up, we stayed for a week and did a little sight-seeing around the area. McDonough, GA has some really neat places to see if you're on a budget. For one thing, it's pleasant to walk the town square during the morning hours when everyone is at school or work. It harks back to the time when McDonough was a smaller town. We discovered that Grits, a local eatery on the square, is a great place to get fried apples and peach cobbler. Their sweet iced tea is good, too! When you're done with that super cool iced tea, take a stroll around the corner to the Bell, Book & Candle used book store. They have something for every taste and it's always a bargain. On the other side of town you'll find the Henry County Veteran's Museum and War Memorial. They do not have an entry fee but donations are accepted. It's a great place to go with your kids, as long as they aren't interested in touching the displays that are not behind glass. I'm very proud of my kids, who followed the directions given to them by the museum volunteers! All the memorabilia is donated to the museum and there's a good bit of memorabilia. It's wonderfully put together and a great way to teach our kids about our veterans and the things our country went through over the years. History is really important. Why? Well, we need to know where we came from. We need to know why things were done in a certain way. We need to see where we went wrong so that maybe next time we can get it right. History is so very important. The memorial itself is situated on a small hill outside the museum building. As we read some of the quotes made by famous people such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc., I thought about my relatives who had fought for this country. I thought about the one relative of mine who fought and died for this country. I cried thinking about all those things, thinking about the amount of casualties in each successive war, thinking about how people who fought then had a love for their country that cannot be found in the civilian of today's United States of America. I also thought about how so much more than lives was lost each time we fought in a war. In everything there is balance. Sometimes the balance is scary. "If you wish for peace, prepare for war." McDonough has quite a few interesting stores closer to the interstate, as well. We got to visit a Summit store for the first time in McDonough, GA. I'm pretty sure if you asked any of us, we'd say it was a pretty neat experience. My husband walked away with a brand new t-shirt and I got a nifty-difty suspension coil. I'm pretty sure I can do something pretty awesome with it and there might be a future blog post concerning the creation of it. The anime store was kinda neat. It's fairly new (within the last 3 or so years, maybe) and they had some interesting and varied merchandise. The comic book store was a lot of fun. I found some cool buttons to buy. I passed them out to the kids when we got in the car. TheRo got 'compassion' because it is most like her. TheShi got 'hope' because she is the most hopeful of our children. And Nojo got 'will power' because he is the most determined. :) I think it worked out well. :) In Locust Grove, GA, there is a wonderful place called Noah's Ark where they are "bringing children and animals together." In the dead of summer, it can be a pretty hot walk. Thankfully, there are also a lot of shade trees along the route! We saw different kinds of reptiles, ostriches, emus, tigers, bears, a wolf, a jaguar and lots of other animals. It's not really a zoo. It's more like an animal preserve, I guess, since their animals are all rescue animals. It's a non-profit organization, so it doesn't cost to get in but donations are happily accepted. Can you imagine what it must cost to take care of over 1,200 animals? A picnic area is provided but we didn't visit until after lunch. I highly recommend this as an educational outing, especially if you are trying to stay within budget. It's a great place to visit! We made one last stop on our way home from Georgia. We visited Middle Earth, a self-sustaining farm in Citronelle, AL. What a wonderful place! It's a peaceful place, a welcoming place, perfect for catching your breath in today's fast-paced lifestyle. While we were there, our friends, the Kalloch's, let us stay in their barn apartment where we got to experience solar power, fresh and clean (by using reverse osmosis) water from their rain barrels and a composting potty. If you've never used one of those before, let me tell you! It's fabulous! I want to transfer all my toilets over to composting toilets since there is no danger of bursting or leaking pipes. It saves water, too! No more toilets 'running through' and running up the water bill. We were able to watch Craig and Lisa remove honey from the hive, along with two helpers, Lori and Ken (I believe that was his name. I hope he'll forgive me if I got it wrong!) Then Nojo, theShi and my husband got to help run the extractor that slings the honey out of the frames. For their efforts, we got to bring home a bit of raw, natural honey! We'd love to make another trip out to Citronelle sometime in the near future since there is so much we can learn from them. This concludes today's extremely long post. I hope you find something you like, maybe even visit one of these places someday. We had a great little mini vacation and got to spend time with family and friends. What could be better? Laugh a Lot!

Whee! Here we go!

Ah, it has been very good these last few weeks. We started school on the 9th and things have been going fairly well. I can hardly believe we've gotten three weeks done! At least, the girls have gotten 3 weeks in. Our son started yesterday and it was so nice to see him start with a smile on his face. I'm so glad we decided to use the college books his father kept. Those will definitely challenge him. I think that's exactly what he needed. He told me today that he likes his new books. I could hardly believe it! And my youngest is reading (READING) this year! I'm so glad that I didn't push her too fast. She's really enjoying it. So overall, the first few weeks of school get an A. :)

On the crafting front, I haven't been up to much of anything. I did manage to scrapbook the children's play and part of the photos from the first play we did back in the spring. I don't have an album yet but the pages are looking fun and creative.

We are coming to my favorite time of year. I love the autumn months. No matter where I am, things just seem lighter and full of hope. It could be that most of the fun holidays are coming up. It could be that the autumn colors are my favorite colors. I really don't know what exactly causes it to be so. It just is. Where we live, we don't see much 'fall color' in our trees. The air changes, though, and it becomes cooler, much like a breath of fresh air that blows away the heat and humidity. Having said that, I /hate/ Louisiana winters. They are wet, cold and generally nasty. There isn't much playing outside that goes on during the Louisiana winter.

Our Redwall Feast will be coming up soon and I just love preparing for it. I can't wait to plan and send out invitations! Should be lots of fun since we have new people to invite this year.

I have several costumes to make. Last year, theShi asked me to make her a San costume (the heroine from the movie Princess Mononoke). I've been gathering the materials to make it for some time but it's coming together...slowly. LOL TheRo asked me for a Merle costume (from the anime Escaflowne) and that one should be a bit easier. We'll see. This month, I'm going to try to get some of the few things I have to buy to complete it. Thankfully, I have almost everything I'll need. My one worry is 'fur'. That kind of material is usually pricey and I'll probably need about 2 yards, if not more. We shall indeed see...

On the garden front, our citrus trees are producing pretty well. In a few months, we should have pink grapefruits, lemons and oranges and probably in amounts that will be too bountiful for our needs. I think the people of the church will probably be blessed with some. I'm looking forward to fermenting the lemons and I hope to make some orange marmalade and some grapefruit jelly. Our efforts with last year's crop yielded some very pleasing results!

Well, I guess that's enough for now. I really am trying to get better about posting more often. I don't worry too much about doing 'extra' stuff on a regular basis. I'd much rather get into the habit of doing the necessary things on a regular basis...like dusting and mopping... Well, we do what we can. Talk to y'all soon! Laugh a Lot!

What a week!

It's been a whirlwind week! Our kids just finished up a play this week called "Humpty Dumpty Is Missing". If you've never seen it, it's a hoot! They had a lot of fun and considering there was a cast of 25 children ranging in age from 7-14, not a whole lot of altercations. My son was the oldest and of course, he always knows best so there was bound to be /some/ trouble. Turns out, there was only one kid he had real problems with. And his main beef with this kid was that he held up practices with his bratty behavior and inability (or lack of desire) to memorize his lines. Anyway, thankfully the play was over before any real physical harm was caused, except for this kid stepping on my son's foot. I wonder if he knew my son has an ingrown toenail on that foot. The world may never know. I tried to upload a couple of photos but it's not working for me. Maybe I can load some later.

So all week long, we were rushing to get the kids to the play. Friday night was the last night of the play and tonight we had a birthday party to go to. A friend of ours (we met through the first play we were involved with) had a BIG birthday party for her little girl who turned 3 this year. It was a princess party and all the girls were to dress up as princesses. My two went as Indian (as in the country India) princesses. They were gorgeous! I know. I'm biased. :) They had a lot of fun and really enjoyed being a part of it all. Well, I know it's short but I have to get some sleep. My weekend is almost over before I even began it! LOL Hmmm...and my birthday is coming up soon. I better get started planning something for that...

Creative Energies! Aw, rats! LOL

If you thought you'd be reading a blog that worked with clock-like regular postings, you were mistaken. Did I ever mention that I have a problem with focus? :) I stay pretty busy with little nothings and many times nothing really gets completely finished. Sometimes that frustrates me to the core but most of the time, I just ignore it and move on.

One place I can't allow that to happen is in my schoolroom. Sometimes I have to really MAKE myself focus on what needs to be accomplished for the day. And thankfully, it works more often than not. We've been doing well with our lessons since we started a new year and we were doing pretty well before the last one ended. I will now pause for a smile. :)

I woke up this morning feeling really good. I mean I felt really good, at peace with myself and my surroundings and just really good. I was ready to jump through hoops this morning! Then my 5 yr. old (The Ro) decided to pitch a major fit. Her brother (NoJo) tried to help her with something she was trying to do. She was making a watery mess. He saved her behind, really. But that was just so totally unacceptable to her so she started screeching at him. I was unable to attend to the situation just right at that moment and my husband was at the college taking care of his classes for the day so he couldn't really help out either. So I yell at them to just be quiet and I'll take care of it when I can get there. The Ro can't wait to tattle on NoJo since she is truly convinced he's wronged her in the extreme. She comes to meet me and I have to get her to look me in the eye. It was quite a job convincing her that her method was fallible and her brother had done nothing wrong. And I still think she wasn't totally convinced I was right. She went right back to telling him to apologize. He replied, "For helping you?" I really do think he was quite confused this time. He's 13 and pretty practical for his age.

"What did she do?" you may be asking. She had wet a washcloth and was washing her whiteboard with it. This doesn't sound really awful, does it? Except she was washing her whiteboard in my living room on my carpet. :) NoJo realized this was a very bad thing. He took the washcloth away from her and brought it back to the kitchen. That's it. That's all he did. Oh! And he tried to explain that she was getting water everywhere and making everything soaking wet. What she didn't realize was that she should've been worshiping at his feet since he'd saved her from 'the wrath of the mom-demon'.

So after that long, drawn-out, dramatic episode, I was /really/ in the mood to enjoy school. We did school and got that done for the day. I got a quick shower, washed a load of dishes and cleaned the hall bathroom. I taught a piano lesson after all that. Here's a bright note. I have one new student and 3 more interested. This is indeed a very bright note. :)

On days like today, I just feel like I need to do something really energetic like planting a garden or herding sheep. Why the snicker? If you knew me really well, you'd know how awful I am at growing anything except bulbs and I'm not really an animal person. They are OK if they live outside and can take care of themselves or if they are behind fences at the zoo. They are just a bit too unpredictable for me. I might do alright herding sheep but I'm really not sure. Anyone else ever feel like the first sentence of this paragraph?

Right now I'm listening to one of my favorite songs by the Newsboys: "Lead Me To The Cross" and I know what some of you may be thinking. But really, it is a great song beautifully written with very lovely lyrics and it really speaks to me. That last bit is what won me over. :) Before that Sting and the Chieftains were singing "Mo Ghile Mear (Our Hero)". As you can see, my taste in music ranges wildly all over the place. That has also been a great topic of conversation with several of our friends and it is really a help when you have friends that only like a certain genre.

Well, I will try to post more often for you, my two faithful followers. LOL And I hope to be able to keep my posts honest and down to earth...OK, well honest. Talk to you soon.

Laugh a Lot

Ridiculous Rising Costs of Education

The astronomical cost of college is so out of sight that if my children don't get scholarships, they simply won't go. In my mind, it's much better to just learn a trade and go with it. We shelled out more than $500 bucks just for books for my husband to go back this semester. And don't even get me started on that! I'm sorry. When your school requires you to buy a book just because it has the school name on it, there is something extremely wrong about that!

I was pricing high school curriculum for my son and it's outrageously high. I couldn't believe how much the writers and publishers prize their work! So much so that people who subsist on a fixed income can't homeschool their kids with those "special" curricula. I'm sorry but if they were truly concerned about putting out a curriculum that would help families, they'd put one out there with the information our children need at a price anyone could afford. I mean, let's face it. Not all of us have a good handle on our finances and a good many of us have fallen on hard times with the economy the way it is. I don't want to leave my child in the hands of the state concerning their education. Truly, I live in LA, the state which vies for last place on the education rating scale with MS! Why should my children suffer through a 4th rate education, just because I can't get the well written and in depth curriculum? And I don't mean I want them to offer some cheesy credit plan. I want Christians, or at least those who profess to be Christians, to stand up and practice what they preach. Would it be so awful for them to offer those items in such a way that it covers the cost of producing it and just a small mark up for them to make some profit? Apparently it's just too much to ask. Take Rosetta Stone, for instance. I'd love to learn as many languages as I can. But the asking price of a Rosetta Stone program is over $600 for all five levels. That's ridiculous! If they'd cut that price in half, they'd still be making a really good profit. Usually eBay is the way to go when a product has a high price tag but Rosetta Stone has their product fixed in such a way that it won't work if someone other than the orignal buyer uses it, if I'm not mistaken. (I haven't researched this yet, but I plan to do so and post my findings. Please do not quote me on this!) A Beka is another company that I both love and hate. Their curriculum is fascinating. I love the books because they keep your child interested and the enrichment activities are possible to do with things you usually keep around the house. But the initial cost is so astronomical, the only alternative for me is to purchased used curriculum on eBay! That would be fine, except there are people out there who let their kids write in the workbooks. So those are hard to find in a used condition.

Getting away from specific publishers... In general, and all prices guesstimations, by the time you've purchased a student text for $24, a student workbook for $24 (that you will never use again if the student is allowed to write in it), a test and quiz book for $10, a teachers guide for $50 (because they figure you'll use that more than once), you have spent a grand total of $110 for one subject and that doesn't count shipping, which has gone up several times during the past year. And do they even consider offering free shipping? Heck, no! Sure, I could go to my local school and rent books from them in order to teach my child. But am I really saving money by doing that? And who is getting my money? Is the school system getting my money? And why should they? My child doesn't even attend the public school!

This blog post has been brewing in my mind for some time now. It just strikes me as utterly ridiculous that we pay all these exhorbitant sums to attend college and get a college degree so we can get a job that has absolutely nothing to do with said degree. My sister graduated college back in Dec. of 2007, I think. She's still working at the job she had before she finished school because she couldn't find a job using her degree! And did that degree help her in the job she's in now? Maybe, but not concerning her pay! She spent all kinds of money going to school because we're all taught now that college is the way to go so you can get a good job, get paid more, and have a good life. But then reality hits after college is over. Another relative of ours can't find a job in the computer biz! Can you believe that?? I can't! He's even in an area in which this type of expertise is highly prized. Utterly ridiculous. Honestly, I'd have to say, I'd rather apprentice my child to someone I trust for them to gain on the job training than to send them off to some college where they'll get a "dumbed-down" "education" and end up without a job after all their trouble.

Shiller Math is an awesome product and I wish more companies would take a leaf out of their book. Check them out at www.shillermath.com or call them at 888-556-6284. You can buy 2 sets that will cover your child's math education at least through 6th grade. Grand total cost was about $650 when I purchased mine back in August 2005. And if you are like me, you'll have your kids writing their work in notebooks instead of in the books themselves. This way you can use it for more than one child. Another website worth mentioning in a positive light is www.enchantedlearning.com . You can print worksheets for Pre-K all the way to 5th grade. Some of the worksheets are only accessible to members but a membership is only about $25/year. It's well worth that money for me. I haven't been able to renew this year but I'm hoping to do so in the future. You can still print any of the public accessible worksheets but they will have ads on them. You can either cut the ads off or just ignore them, like I do. The two websites I mentioned are only a couple of the good ones. It's unfortunate that you really have to dig to find them but I believe I prefer that to having them charge monthly membership fees or pay for the "privelage" of using their worksheets. Here's a cool website I found through a Yahoo search http://homeschooling.about.com/ and you can also get a few free printable worksheets here. They also offer tips and tricks for homeschooling families. This site is totally free and so are the worksheets.

I guess having said all that, I'm done...for now. Bwah ha ha ha ha!
Until next time, remember to breathe when you are laughing a lot!

Here We Go

I'm pretty amazed at how things occur and, in my own opinion, how God works. I am most satisfied when I find I can truly be of help to someone. It was nice to be able to offer help to someone this week...and it's only Monday!

So I'm sitting here watching the clouds roll in and rain down and roll out again and again. I am just hoping this posts. My internet has been awfully intermittent b/c of the cloud cover. I took the girls through their first day of school today. My husbands does the math with them. That helps a lot. We had a pretty productive day. When my youngest was finished and my middle child was working on her homework (Yes! You still have to do homework in homeschool.) I was busy putting the yearly special things together. I'm hunting up a few places to visit for field trips and fun projects to do throughout the year. My son starts tomorrow. We worked out a deal which will allow him to work on the farm with my dad on Mondays. Since my dad works nights (through the weekend), this is the only day Noah would be able to help him. He'll do a Tuesday thru Saturday schedule. This will be the first time we've tried it. I hope it works. I know how much he really enjoys working with my dad. Well, I'm hopeful that this year will be a fabulous year. For all those out there who school their children at home, have a great year! For all those who send your children off to school, have a great year! Shuckin's! For EVERYONE, have a great year!
Laugh a Lot!