go with the flow

Last night as I read stories to my children before tucking them into bed, they had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. We were reading Cranberry Thanksgiving. It's a lovely book with a fun and surprising ending. My son loves the character Mr. Whiskers and the fact that he is gruff and wants to sing pirate songs instead of hymns.  I think that resonates with his very boyish heart. 

 "Hey, mom,"  my son said.

**Total side note:  Most of my kids' conversations start with either 'Hey, Mom' or the longer version: 'Hey, Mom, guess what?'  Do your kids do that too?  Funny isn't it?**

Back to last night...."Hey, Mom, can we just quit school and do Five in a Row again?"   I was taken aback a bit. I love the phrase "QUIT school'.  I had to smile at them.  'Yeah, mom, can we?' his sisters begged.  Within seconds they had it all planned. Lapbooks, coloring, projects and baking cranberry bread.  'All we really have to do is math and reading for school-school.' 

For you newbies or non-homeschoolers, apparently 'school-school' is the nitty-gritty hard stuff that you do even when you are doing other things.  It's a very official term apparently.

How can I resist?

  But it has been rolling around in my heart that we were not on the right track. You see school this year has not been what I expected, or planned or hoped for.  Financially, we couldn't buy 'the usual' curriculum, so I've made some cheap and almost free deals on most of our books this year. Praise the Lord!! Plus the fact that I don't have to invest in teacher manuals for every grade now goes a long way in saving money. And not allowing our kids to write in their MathUSee workbooks, but in a notebook instead is a HUGE saver!  But it wasn't what I wanted, or even what the kids wanted. We've just had to buckle down and make do. And I get that some years are like that. I really do.  And I'm ok with it...somewhere in my heart I am, really.  Sometimes you can't  have all the bells and whistles, some years you have to focus on academics or character training.  And that is ok too.  They will always be learning something. 

But I have been missing something.  Missing our slow mornings reading stories on the couch, missing their younger years when we made projects and crafts.  Every.Single.Day.  We've been in a just-get-it-done-so-we can-be-done mode all year and it's exhausting.  No fun, no spontenaity, no frills, just nose to the plow, finish your math before dad gets home, boring, boring, boring.  I think because it's so dry, even the fun school work has been drowned out by the rest of it. 

So the fact that they asked to do this isn't all that surprising.  It just made my heart smile.  REALLY BIG. 

So after putting them to bed, I printed off three copies of homeschoolshare.com's lapbook for Cranberry Thanksgiving, dug out my Five in a Row teacher manual, and you can guess what their first question after they woke up this morning was.

"Hey, Mom, are we going to read that book and make a lapbook?" 

"You betcha, sweetie!"

Ah, bliss. This is how we are suppossed to school in our home. 

Those little old ladies in church and your mother and your aunt are so totally right. They grow up right before your eyes and sooner than you expect.  And sometimes, they learn much faster than you think. 

More Virtues and 25% off!!



Patience, Diligence, Honesty....ever wonder how to teach these things to your children?  We all struggle as parents with the *HOW* sometimes.

Or maybe it's just me. I know the end result I want out of my children--I want them to be Honest.  But how do I teach them how to BE honest from the get-go.  Besides 'Lying is wrong' or there's the ol' soap-in-the-mouth stream of thought.  How can I actively teach and engage them into living out Honesty every day? 

VIRTUES!!! 

I was BEYOND blessed last week by two amazing women.  And look what they did:

And you'll never guess what was inside!!!  The Homeschool Kit!!!   Posters, Charts, the FLASHCARDS!!!  I oogled over the teacher manual for a couple hours,--yep, I'm a nerd!-- and couldn't wait to show them to my children.

 Actually I take that back, I didn't really want to show the kids just yet.  I'm anxiously waiting for the Teacher Cards to arrive so I can officially begin instilling character traits that last in our Bible time every day.   

From one mom to another, this curriculum is fantastic.  Heather poured her heart into creating an all encompassing curriculum, from the color backgrounds and hidden pictures to how to implement it into your teaching and family life.  She gives real life examples and her genuineness shines through.   It is so thoughtful and well put together, I just can't say enough good things about it. 

My kids love that the visuals are colorful and not too 'babyish' as my SIX  year old put it.  She's so grown up, at the ripe old age of half-a-dozen!  They love the short catchphrase that explains the virtue. I love this too. It gives my older kids a little more to think about  *HOW* they can demonstrate the virtue, and it gives my younger child a better picture of what is expected of her.  Win-win!! 

Since my kids are really visual, they also like their very own Personal Virtue Chart.  As we will work on a virute, I will give them a stamp or a sticker every time I catch them using their virtue.  After they complete a certain amount, they will get some kind of award or treat.

**I usually don't like behavior modification/ reward type discipline, but now that my kids are older they understand that it's not about the 'treat' but it's about changing your heart.  Don't get me wrong, they love to get a prize whether it's a piece of candy or a date night with mom or dad, but we teach them to focus on the journey, not the prize.**

I am so thankful to Heather for using her God-given talents to help families and for creating an inspiring way to teach Virtues to our children. 

And right now through September you can get 25% OFF the new Teacher Cards for Families and the Homeschool Kit!!!  This is an amazing deal!! And if you click through my blog on the links a tiny portion goes to support my little family as well. 

First Day

Our school year began today! I'll be honest with you, I've put off planning this year til the bitter end. Not sure why....maybe because I haven't slept decently in oh...about 8 months and most days I feel like a walking zombie.  Hmmm....But that's ok. Who needs sleep when you have a cuddly, snuggly baby to keep you up between 2 and 5 am? 

Really, I'm not complaining, I knew what I was getting into; none of my babies were good sleepers. Mentally, I am prepared for this stage, and I know it won't last forever.  But the lack of sleep does make me a bit zonkers at times. So if you see me in the grocery store staring intently at a bag of tater tots or something, you'll know why!

...back to our first day at school.....

We started our day off with our verse of the week: Phillipians 2:3  "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others above yourself."   UM...YEAH, that is our verse of the week for a very good reason. We are working on alot of CHARACTER issues in our home.  It seems to me the heart of most of our sin is selfishness and a 'me first' attitude. I'm really working hard to teach these duckies of mine to be thinking of others before themselves.  Especially each other. 

Wait, you mean I have to be nice to my brother or sister and put them first??
 And of courseI hear--Well, they should be thinking of me first if they want to obey what the Bible says.  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, cuz that's what you're doing right now, sweet heart?!!!!!!!!!

*sigh*

It's a work in progress.

Then we worked on our Virtue from We Choose Virtues. I Am Attentive. I thought that was a great one to start with since we are starting school.  The kids loved the flashcard and the cute picture on the front.  I can tell these are going to be a hit in our home! 

Meet the students:



This year, we have a first grader--Sparkle--She is full of life and spunk! She's my little Sparkle!  Super excited and full of energy . After a great year doing MFW Kindergarten and some Abeka phonics, she is already reading  in her first grade readers.  



Next up is our third grader--Hulk--All BOY all the time. He is my little man around the house.  Funny, bright and athlete extraordinair in his own right.



And then is our oldest--Sunny--The artist, the dreamer, she's full of creativity and always has an idea to share.  She's going into fifth grade officially but we're still polishing up some skills we began working on last year. 



Finally, the newest member of our nest--Baby Smiley--ok, that  nickname might change.  She's just hanging out with us for the fun of it. As she gets a little older, I'll have to get some tot school activities for her, but for now, I'm enjoying her baby days while they last. 





Each of the  kids got to fill in their own 'Back to School' booklet I bought on currclick.com. .  In it they wrote what kind of subjects they liked and about their families and some words to describe themselves.  They each did a couple of subjects. Sparkle really wanted to dive into her phonics book and Superman did his first math lesson.  Sunny worked on both math and reading comp.  I decided to let them pick their subjects for the first few days and since we're starting on a Wednesday, that will work out just dandy. Next week, we'll add more in to make a smooth transition into school. 

All in all, it was a smooth easy day. Juggling three different grades is going to be tricky--no doubt about it.  I'll post more about our core subjects in my next post.  But it's going to be a fun year together. 

So how about you? What's on your agenda for this new school year? 

We Choose Virtues

I'm really excited to share some news with you. A lovely new company called We Choose Virtues has invited little ol' me to join in their affiliate program!  This company was started by a local family in my new hometown. They have a fabulous Character curriculum for families, schools, and homeschool families as well. I've seen their posters in our church and at friends' houses and kept asking 'What is this Virtues stuff?" 

It wasn't long before I found out how great their products really are. I heard testimonials from friends about how these character training resources helped their children in whatever areas they were struggling. Now, I'm a mom of four amazing children, but we all know no child is perfect--well  at least mine aren't all the time--ahem!  And there are times when we are working with one child or another on specific qualities or character traits. Sometimes knowing exactly what to say or how to convey what we want them to do is tough.  Isn't it great when God provides exactly what we need?!!

Coming this month are some freebies on their site--Free coloring pages. Your kids can color and decorate these cool pages to help them remember the virtue they are learning.  Hurry on over and get yours.  They're Free only from Sept. 5-9th!!!
If you're looking for some great character curriculum check out We Choose Virtues. 

New URL

Same blog, just a new URL. Someone asked my what my association was with 'Tree of Life'. Here in the Pacific NW, we have a Christian bookstore called by that name. At the time I started my blog, I hadn't heard of the store, and couldn't think of anything especially inspiring for my blog. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had this picture of homeschooling as a mighty oak tree and an environment of lifestyle learning. Hence 'Tree of Life homeschooling'. 

Then the store came along...cute place, great deals. Ahem... So Rhema Academy is the name of our homeschool. I think I even did a post on it way back when.  So the shoe fits, we've got a new URL and there ya go.  Hope it doesn't cause too much confusion for ya'll. Yeah, all three of you who read this blog!!  I heart you all!!

End of the year already?

So another school year is closing in on me again. As usual, it comes way too quickly and this year, an added bonus of the dreaded word= TESTING.

This is the first year any of our children have to test, so it has been a year of constant review, minor freak outs and endless questions. Questions to all my other homeschooling friends who have tested, from my child to us about the BIG test, questioning myself if I've done enough...you get the idea.

Just to be on the safe side, I picked the VERY last day our tester was available, and we ordered a practice test to...well practice with, of course! In my heart, I'm not too worried, because I know she knows her stuff. but the process of taking a test, being judged by someone else,worrying she won't fill in those tiny bubbles correctly has me up at night sometimes. 

Looking towards next year has me wondering what  might need tweaking. I know there is no 'perfect' curriculum out there, but I'm seeing some gaps that need filling in with what we're using. So I'm on the lookout for whatever it is I think I'm searching for that will make it all better.  And if I can find it for a decent price so much the better.  One thing I have learned this year is that even though I can use a little of this and that, or leave some things out that aren't as important, I shouldn't skimp on the things that will make everything flow together.  I ended up getting a few things halfway through our year that I really should have bought at the beginning. NOT happening again! So this summer, in order to start fresh and (hopefully) on the right foot, I'm carefully considering what we will be using as our spine and gathering what we need to make it all complete. 

Here is door number one: 

My Father's World-Creation to the Greeks

It's a complete, Bible based history and science curriculum. We've done MFW for the past two years and loved it.  Even though we don't do every activity or read every single book recommended, it's been a great foundation for our kids to learn history from a Godly and Biblical perspective. It's expensive, yes. But worth it?  Oh yeah!

Door number two:

The Mystery of History.  Simlar to MFW, and I've read great reviews. It looks a little less expensive, but I've heard the projects are alot more intense.  Still, I'm hoping to get a hands on look at it at our state homeschool convention to be able to compare the two.

And finally door number three:

Make up my own Bible based history/science lessons.  I have a Diana Waring cd set from her Ancinet Civilization curriculum, and I'm looking into adding in some hands on books from places like CBD, currclick.com or Rainbow Resources. How crazy am I for even thinking that? 

So what are you planning for next year?

Well Planned Day Give-Away

Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler is hosting a great give away. She is giving away to one lucky reader a copy of a Well Planned Day Planner. Check out her blog for more info!  I love this planner, besides being so, SO pretty, it looks really practical too. I've seen a few sample pages on their website. WOW, lots of great stuff. So go to Erica's blog and enter to win!