Earth Handprint Craft Tutorial

Exploring Countries and Cultures Week 1, Day 2 the art project says to make a John 3:16 poster. Since we already have a cute print of John 3:16 in our schoolroom, I wanted to do something else. I was searching on Pinterest and found a craft similar to this for an Earth Day activity. It appears that site has been taken down and I've had several requests for details on this project, so I wanted to share them here.

I used the top of a container to draw a large circle on a piece of heavy card stock (construction paper would work well too).

We painted the circles blue and let them dry completely. We did this in the morning to allow for drying time.

Then we used green paint for the land masses. Don't worry about making it look exactly like the continents. The older kids might be able to get a general shape of a continent, but perfection isn't the goal here. I did encourage them to make at least one go "off the edge" so that it looks like it was wrapping around the side of the Earth. Again, let it dry completely. We did this just before lunch to allow for dry time.

(Sorry, I didn't get a picture of this step!)

Then we painted our hands black and made a handprint on the Earth. We talked about how God sent Jesus for each of them and he cares about every person on the Earth. Let it dry completely before cutting it out.

Once it's dry, cut out the Earth and glue onto construction paper. We chose black. I also typed up John 3:16 and had them glue it at the bottom. You could opt to have the kids write it on paper and glue it on.

I have these hanging in our window right now and plan to leave them up a while, but when I take them down: I will have them put them in their Exploring Countries and Cultures Notebook.

Happy Homeschool Crafting!

Paula

Back to {Home} School 2013-2014

I can't believe it's here! Time to hit the books again. It seems like I blinked and I suddenly have a 4th grader, a second grader, and a preschooler. Somebody push the pause button, quickly!

With my crate packed for all 36 weeks, new folders purchased and labeled, pencils sharpened, and the school room moved: Monday, August 5 was our big day.

We're setting off on a new adventure this year. We are using My Father's World: Exploring Countries and Cultures. We will be galloping the globe visiting all 7 continents, studying about the people groups and ecosystems that make up our beautiful world! My Father's World does an incredible job of balancing Classical Education, Charlotte Mason, and Unit Studies all within a Biblical worldview. It's the best of all the things I love about these three methods and I know it's what we all need.

Everybody was excited to jump in on our first day for the year. I probably would have waited one more week, but to be completely honest: I knew we needed to start on Monday. We spent 5 weeks of our summer hosting an incredible 12 year old orphan boy from Eastern Europe and we are in the process of adopting him. We painfully put him on the plane on Thursday to head back to his orphanage and I've been devastated since he left. I knew if I did not keep myself busy that all I would do this week is curl up in the bed and cry: which is exactly what I did for the 4 days after he left. It has been a nice distraction and has kept my mind from constantly worrying about him. I did mess up today and set out 4 sets of paints and art supplies today and realized that we only have 3 kids (at home) right now. Those papers and paint along with that empty chair nearly took all the air from my chest as I gasped and teared up right at the table. Clearly, emotions are still a little raw after his departure.

We're having fun so far. We've been studying maps and globes, learning about ecosystems. We labeled what we knew on blank maps and at the end of the year, we'll label those same maps and we'll get to see how much we learned! We loaded our Book Basket up with fun books about children from all over the world, children's atlases, animal books from around the world, and some other fun stuff. We learned a new song that taught us how to say "hello" in 9 languages. The kids have been going around the house singing it constantly and I think it's adorable!

I have to say I think this is going to be our best year yet! As the kids get older, the math gets harder, the reading lists get a little more difficult, and the material gets a little more in depth. I am so thankful to be learning right alongside my children each day. It's hard work, I'm not going to deny that, but it's oh, so worth it! I am thankful for the privilege to get to teach these crazy kids everyday. I am glad that I am the one who gets to be there when that lightbulb go off and they finally get it! It's a sacrifice for our family, but one I'd make a million times over if I had to do it all again.

Here's a peek at what we've done the past couple of days.

Our book basket loaded up with a lot of books about maps, some children's atlases, books about children from all over the globe, and books about animals of the world. 

Monday folders are out and ready to begin the first day of school.

Time to get the crayons out! 

The boys hard at work doing their math on the first day.

We needed a little multiplication review on day one. 

Our Eastern European son (V) has a dino just like this that he took back with him, so I had to get one too. This dino is pretty much part of our daily lives and is a constant reminder of our son. We're having fun on these dino adventures.  Here he is hanging out in the school room on the first day.

I even let Dino help me read stories to the kids. 

He's showing up everywhere throughout the day. The kids can be seen reading on the couch snuggled with him or he can be found sitting on top of Eastern Europe on the globe! This dino is bringing lots of fun and laughter to our school and I'm thankful for it! We all need to focus on the laugher and joy V brings to our home. 

I cannot say enough GREAT things about All About Spelling and All About Reading programs. This is our 4th year of using All about Spelling, and our 2nd year of using All About Reading. I dare say these are THE BEST reading and spelling programs out there. 

Big brother got a hold of the camera and snapped a pic of this sweet girlie! 

Another pic snapped by my 4th grade budding photographer. I loved this one of Andrew he captured. When I saw it pop up on the computer when I was uploading, I had to literally laugh out loud because this pretty much sums up his personality. I've decided we're raising a future Sheldon Cooper (from Big Bang Theory). 

Learning about Maps and Globes

With our study of maps and globes, and our emphasis on countries and cultures: we started off the year talking about how God created the world and everything (and everyone) in it. Our Bible Verse for the week is John 3:16. The kids have known this one for years, so it was just a quick review of that and a discussion about how God loves all people all over the globe. Our My Father's World lesson plans indicated we were to make a John 3:16 poster today, but I decided to do this instead. We have them hanging in the school room now, but they can go in their notebooks when I take them down. I got the idea from an "Earth Day" activity I saw pinned on Pinterest. It seems that link is no longer working, so I will blog it and re-pin it from my blog. I absolutely LOVE how these turned out and they were fun to make!

It's really been a fun couple of days. We're right where we need to be. We're doing life together: the good, the bad, the hard, the fun, the frustrating, the easy, and the new. And we LOVE it! Can't wait for V to get here and join this crazy zoo crew! When he was here, he asked me specifically if he could do school at home - OF COURSE! We've missed 12 years of his life already, we're not sharing him for 8 hours a day. He's gonna be right here doing school in the nest with this mama bird!

I pray that as you begin your school year that you seek the Lord in your homeschool. I pray that He fill your home with His truth and He would reveal himself not only to your children, but to you mamas out there who are dedicated to doing this thing even on the hard days. I know that's what I've prayed for this year. That the Lord would be in this place daily and that even when I don't feel like it, that He would give me the strength and the grace to keep going.

Blessings,

Paula

School Room Move

We have outgrown the breakfast room and I finally bit the bullet and moved this school to the dining room. We simply needed more space and quite honestly, we don't use the formal dining room enough to justify having a formal dining room, so we thought we'd put this room to better use. 

We're already enjoying our new space! Thankful to have an official place to school and a place we can leave out a project we are working on at the time. 

Changes in Our Homeschool

We're making some changes to our homeschool curriculum for the fall. We've really prayed that God would give us some clarity about what direction we wanted to take our family for this upcoming school year. I sort of came to this change kicking and screaming. Change is hard. We like to stay where we are - because there are a lot of unknowns in change. 

After much thought, prayer, discussion, and research: we've decided that our family needed more together time reading great literature on the couch, exploring in nature to get to know our Creator, doing activities that are fun and includes everyone in our family. We need time to serve others as a family and to explore something a particular child is interested in at the moment. 

I have always loved classical education, but I've also always loved the methods of Charlotte Mason and unit studies too. With the curriculum we've chosen in the past, we've had little time to incorporate Charlotte Mason methods or unit studies into our rigorous school program. I can admit that I allowed myself to get caught up in what my kids 'should be doing' according to this person or that group of people. I've allowed myself to believe that if my child isn't doing this specific program, that my children will not have a proper (read: rigorous or challenging) education. I bought into the lie that if I wanted my children to be successful (high test scores, graduating with college credit, and getting full scholarships): I needed to let others dictate to me what my children should be doing. 

And isn't this the reason that I wanted to homeschool anyway? Didn't I come here four years ago knowing that nobody on this planet knows our children better than we do? Didn't we come here believing that God entrusted us (the parents) with their lives to teach them, guide them, and grow them into the people HE intends them to be? Do I want what the world wants for them and measures as successful or do I want them to be smack-dab in the center of God's will for their lives? I know first-hand that success is not measured by test scores, position, money, or material possessions. No matter where God calls my children, I pray that they follow Him. No matter if He leads them to the mission field in a foreign land or if he wants them to be doctors in Tennessee or anything in between: I want them to follow Him. 

We desire as a family to 1. disciple our children and lead them know their Creator in a personal, life changing way and 2. to provide them a GREAT education. I don't believe that you have to trade one for the other. I want a rigorous/challenging program for my children, but I also want to instill in them a LOVE FOR LEARNING while they're young. I want to give them a great foundation that can take them anywhere, but I don't want to beat it over their heads while they're kicking and screaming and I certainly don't want to hear "are we done yet?" and "this is boring" from my first grader. I can admit we had a lot of that this past school year and I want him to be fully-engaged in what we are doing - not dreading school time and counting down the time until he could play the Wii. I wish I could have a do-over. I wish I had done something different for him this year, but I can't get that time back. I don't have the chance at a do-over. All I can do is start from here. 

I began this blog a few years ago to document the time we spent together as a family in our homeschool, but we've been so engrossed with school that I haven't been able to touch it in more than a year! OY! 

So it was back to the drawing-board. With my Bible open to Proverbs and my journal in my hand, I set out to find where it was that God wanted us to go. Where did He want to lead us? I didn't know, but I knew I wanted to find it. Once I started to get confirmation about what direction He was taking us, I found myself still trying to hold on to the one or two things that I thought we 'should' be doing. Isn't it just like that with our sin? We say 'Okay, Jesus, I'll follow You.', but we're still holding on to those one or two sins because we love them (or we think we do) and they make us feel safe and secure? Please do not hear me saying that if you are doing _____ program you are sinning. I just know God was leading ME and MY FAMILY down a different path and I was grasping at straws to keep things the same because I was still more interested in following what other people said we should be doing than what God said we should be doing. That is sinful and it's yucky and it is NOT a place I want to be.

So we've made some much needed changes and while I've shed some tears over what we're losing (change is HARD!): I am looking forward to what God has ahead for us! I know He's got this and I know I can trust Him with my life and with the lives of our children. Those first steps of obedience are the hardest, but we've had so much confirmation that we're right where He wants us. That is my prayer for myself, for our family, and for each of our children. 

Michael and I have spent so much time talking and praying for this and we're both excited where we're going as a family and in our homeschool endeavors. 

So for the 2013-2014 school year we have chosen to go with My Father's World: Exploring Countries and Cultures as our core curriculum. We're beyond excited to grab our passports and gallop the globe together as a family through fun activities, books, music, and more to make our learning come alive! 

With My Father's World, you add your own Language Arts and Math. They offer suggestions, but we are going with what has proven to work for our kiddos and I love the freedom to do what I feel is best for each of them. I love that Zoe (3) will be included in our homeschool and not shooed away and told to "go play, get out of here, we're doing school!", but she'll be invited to join in and be a part of our activities. This is just what our family needed. 

In addition to Exploring Countries and Cultures, here's what we'll be doing over here next year:

Robert

• First Language Lessons (Grammar)
• Writing With Ease 
• Sequential Spelling  
• Saxon Math 5/4 
• Classically Cursive (handwriting)

and he's praying about what foreign language he wants to study!

Andrew

• First Language Lessons (Grammar)
• Writing With Ease 
• All About Spelling  
• All About Reading Level 2
• Saxon Math 2 
• Handwriting Without Tears 

Zoe

• My Father's World Toddler Package
• Letter of the Week Activities
• Kumon book of tracing

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.  
~Proverbs 3:5-6

~ Paula

Get Organized!

I've had several people ask me about my "folder system", so I wanted to take a minute to explain it. It's really simple and just requires a little planning!

This bucket holds 6 folders in each of the following colors: red (together), blue (Andrew), and green (Robert).

Each folder is labeled by 6 weeks (Weeks 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24, 25-30, 31-36). I put all their handouts in their folders ahead of time. I paper clip each week's work in there together by the week. For example, in the first folder I will have 6 "bunches" of papers (for weeks 1-6).

Each child also has 5 daily folders (different colors for each day) with their name and the day of the week (Monday - Friday). I have found it's easier to have each day be the same color for all children (Monday is yellow in our house). Every Friday afternoon when we are done with school, I take their empty folders and I pull out the folders that contain the following week's work and I put them in and they're ready to go! It's that simple!

In the folders is always their math work, history (Story of the World), geography (Road Trip USA), letter of the week (for Andrew) and anything extra that I might add in.

Some subjects we keep in their "workbooks". The Apologia Notebooking Journals are nicely spiral-bound and I find it's easier to just leave them as they are. The Shurley English workbook is also nicely organized, so I leave it in-tact too. We also leave their handwriting workbooks in-tact.

For History (Story of the World), we are making a "History Notebook", so when we finish an activity/assignment, we put those in the 3 ring binder. Yep, those are color-coded too. Robert has the green one and Andrew has the blue. We are also making a US Geography Notebook. We are using Road Trip USA; I got this as a download from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I love it.

All other "loose" papers get filed away once they are graded and recorded.

I hope I explained this well. My brain has sort of turned to mush this week. It's been a busy one! I hope this helps some of you as you are planning or just starting your school year.

~Paula

The First Day of School

Sloan Academy began school for the year on August 1, 2011. We had a great first day together! I can't believe my boys are in Kindergarten and 2nd Grade!

A little morning playtime

First day of second grade

First day of kindergarten

brothers, best buddies and double-trouble

Morning meeting

The Pledge of Allegiance

Singing their Spanish colors

A fun morning together

Zoe decided to wake up and join us.

Sticker Activity for the letter A!

Apple number activity

Math

Taking a Walk

This girl loves her a book!

Taking a break to watch "Word Factory"

Playdough while Robert did English

History Notebook activities

Mummifying Apples - Apologia Science

It was a great first day! Thank you, Lord for my little blessings and busy days.

~Paula