Christmas Break!!

This was the best Christmas we've had in a long time! I dreaded it this year, with concrete floors and all the mess, but I guess I found out how much Christmas is NOT about decorations or presents, or anything else but Jesus and family and kindness and love!


Christmas morning at our house:

Abby bought and wrapped her own presents this year! She was very proud of herself and very giving.

She couldn't wait to try on her new tights and slippers from Grandma Davis:

And she got an EasyBake oven this year!

After our morning with just the four of us, we went over and had Christmas with Marmi and Pappi:

Later that evening, we went to Nana and Papa's house for another family gathering. Abby adored her ballerina dress:

This is my all-time favorite picture:




We stopped by our house in the middle of the day, to let the dog out and have some fun on the new bikes.

Over Thanksgiving Break

We had a whole lot of fun over Thanksgiving break. The only school we did was keeping up with readers. Daddy built them a cardboard playhouse out of the big box we had sitting in the garage. Abby and Abram LOVED it!

Abby made the cheese ball this year for Thanksgiving. Mama only helped a little. She also helped me make the Green Bean Cassarole. She was delighted with herself.

We put the cheeseballs in a dipping bowl--so they weren't exactly balls, but were still just as yummy!

Today Abby read her Fun Tales book up on the kitchen counter while I fixed lunch. Abram wanted to be up there, too, and it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. They were occupied with something instead of bugging me about when lunch would be done, and I was able to listen to Abby in a more relaxed setting. She really enjoyed doing her readers this way, so I think it might stick with us. I'll start planning on her Readers being during kitchen time, whether cooking or cleaning. On another note, she is almost all the way finished with Fun Tales!! I am requiring her to read each 5 times in any order she wants. She's up to reading 5 different Fun Tales in a row and will finish in the next few days with what I'm requiring. She is already beginning her 1st grade readers at a different time each day and is doing very well on them also.

School as a Part of Life

My favorite part of homeschooling is when I really see learning and life combine in a sort of free dance. There are always times when school seems 'school-y', but the most rewarding part is when it flows together. The last few days have really been like this for us! Saturday, we visited the Science Museum and were able to see the special Dinosaur exhibit. The children really enjoyed this time--the Houston museum has really taken extra effort lately to make the exhibits child-friendly (they even had a sand pit where the children could 'uncover' dinosaur bones).

At home that night, the kids sat with Daddy at the computer playing ABC games on starfall.com. They stayed up a little later enjoying the game after shedding clothes here and there around the house for me to pick up later.



This morning while I was cooking breakfast, Abby and Abram sat at the table working on math. Abram's putting the numbers in order with Abby's help, and Abby's working on some workbook pages in her Singapore math workbook. This work continued even during breakfast as they ate toast and eggs. Learning and life really do smear together very nicely.

Then, later that day, after reading about the clothes that people in Medieval times wore, we watched a movie that portrayed the clothes nicely. We ate lunch during that time, and afterward Abby and Abram dressed up to match the movie the best they could find. How Fun!!!

Not all school that we do ends up this fun and natural, but when it does flow this nicely, I realize why I do this--why I will stick with it to the end! My hope is that when they grow up, they will not separate learning from life, but see life as a continual process of learning, a gift from God to us.

I thank God for the wonderful days that He's given me to encourage me in my efforts to please Him!

Art "lesson"

We have a book that teaches young children to draw very basic pictures using shapes. It's called Draw Write Now, and Abby's loving it. I don't actually have time to work with her on it, so I just hand her the book and let her do what she wants in the book while I'm reading poetry or some other 'light' material. This has been her masterpeice thus far!!!! Isn't it great?!! I thought she did awsome. Just wanted to show her work off a little.

Map Work

Abby loves map-work this year. Every history story, some bible stories, and even some of the Read-Alouds have maps that go with them. I make a copy of this map (allowed under Sonlight's IG copywrite), and let her color it with markers. First, before she free-colors, we identify the state, country, etc. that is a part of the reading. She colors that in red, and then freely colors the rest of the map as she wishes. She does this while I'm reading the story to her, looking up every now and then for a picture. This is one of her favorite activities right now.

The maps we have completed so far are:

The life of Martin Luther

The life of William Tyndale

The life of William Tell, The Apple and the Arrow

The life of John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed

Abby's 6th Birthday Party

Abigail's Birthday Party was a BEAUTIFUL day! We all had a wonderful time enjoying the early fall weather outside. Abby had several friends come to the party and she had a blast!! What a great party!



Here's my little 6 year old, helping prepare to make cupcakes. She helped to make them and ice them too, although we didn't get any pics of that:

As you can tell, we had a Barbie themed party this year. We saved quite a bit of money making our own creative cake and buying all of the decor, including mylar balloons at the Dollar Tree! We were giving her a BIG present this year, so we HAD to be thrifty.



And her BIG gift was???????

Daddy thought ahead and bought a grey one, and added plastic stick-on flowers, so that we she outgrows her truck, Abram will also be able to enjoy it. She really loves it!! Her and her friends had a great time driving it around Nana and Papa's back yard, taking turns on who got to drive and ride along, etc.

Time to blow out the candle. Happy Birthday, SweetyGirl!!!! She really enjoyed being surrounded by friends to open her gifts. She loved them all and was excited about each and every one. She even got a new ballerina barbie that I bought especially for her cake.

And now, at home, she enjoyes dressing in her new shirt, and "flying" her new butterfly barbie around everywhere. That barbie was the biggest hit this year, doubtless.

Language Arts 1

Our Language Arts and Reading 1 package arrived yesterday! I stayed up until almost 1:00a.m. absorbing the material and what it requires. Where the K program was just too easy, I can see that this years material will be a good challenge. We will be taking it at her pace, so I'm not worried about it taking more than a year to complete. There are still a few remnants of the K program left before I can say she's graduated from L.A. K (like there are still a few more short stories and poems to be read, half of her very last Go For the Code workbook, etc), but she has finished all level based parts of the curriculum, like the copywork. I feel free to go ahead and start L.A. 1 at a slow pace while completing the last bits of L.A. K--kind of a rounding the corner thing.

I am so excited about what I see ahead in the Language Arts 1 program. Flipping through it, I'm drawn to the logical way in which it's organized. It keeps with basic phonetics, while still allowing for memorized "sight" words where phonetics doesn't help. It incorportates spelling that matches the level of reading that week. Copywork matches with the reading material and fun games and activities round out everything to mix and match hard work with fun learning. I really LOVE what I see. I am truly looking forward to experiencing this Language Arts 'year', or however long it takes her.

I can't hardly believe my little girl is becoming so grown up. This program goes all the way from cvc words (consonant, vowel, consonant words), which she is very familiar with, to reading short chapter books. We're in to new territory now, and I'm nervous and excited all at once to see how it goes.