Homeschooling the Solar System

This activity was suggested in the Apologia Astronomy text for 3rd - 6th graders.

We did not get around to repeating this with Scholar when he went through the book the next year.

We gathered all of the supplies (or my sister did - then all of us joined her on their space trip.

A small soccer ball became the SUN, and the kids wrote that beside their ball.

We carefully measured to Mercury, and then Venus.

The kids were awed at how tiny Venus was after such a long way.

Next stop EARTH.

And MARS.

Then something bad happened ... we ran out of church parking lot, and we were only to Mars.

So we changed directions ... and kept going down the street toward home, over 1/4 of a mile.

Here I am standing at Mars .... and way down there ....

THAT is the great Asteroid Belt.

We made a thick salt barrier to show the Asteroid Belt.

Looking back at Mars, the big kids ran and got the sun ... they couldn't find Mercury or Venus, but they did find a smushed Earth!

Next up was a rock named Jupiter ...  we looked back and could barely see the kids who ran back to the Asteroid Belt.

Uranus was even harder to see when we looked back toward Saturn, but we were nearly to our property line.

We walked past both driveways ... and were right past the other property line when we finally stopped for Neptune.

From the Sun to Neptune, we had travelled over 1/4 of a mile.

We decided to push on for Pluto....

and a long time later, we reached the very, very end of the mile road - so Pluto was 3/4 of a mile from Neptune.

We managed to hike back to Neptune, and the kids were exhausted!

2016 - 1017 School Year Plans

This year will be the first year that I'll not have Story and Song to worry about in school, as both girls graduated in May.   It has been a rough 3 years,  but we've managed to survive.

Scholar will be our oldest school child, he'll be doing 6th grade work this year.    Sunshine will be in 1st and 2nd grade books.  We've also been joyed by their 2 best friends (for the 2nd school year).  Steam (think Steam Engine Train) will be in 4th/5th grade levels, while Star will be in 3rd grade.

All of them will be in Rod and Staff curriculum for English, Reading, Spelling, and Math..   I like how thorough the curriculum is, and because it is very affordable, I don't mind assigning just a few problems.   Reading also uses the Bible as the basis for the stories through 4th grade, so they get Bible at the same time.

Bible for the boys will also be with my aunt.  She is using the Plants Grown Up from Doorposts.  This gives them topics to study and they learn to use concordances, study books, dictionaries and other books to help study the Bible on their own.   This is primarily for Scholar, and Steam will be joining in.  Also, they will work on their 5th grade AWANA books.

The girls will use their AWANA books for Bible, along with their reading program, and just so they don't feel left out, Aunt will take them twice a week and to For Instructions In Righteousness also from Doorposts.

For Science, we are using Apologia.  They will all be working through the book Swimming Creatures.  And the boys will also be working on the Flying Creatures.

Song will take them once a week for Art - again an affordable option from Rod and Staff, while branching out whenever it suits her to learn something extra.

Sunshine will be going through the Rod and Staff Health curriculum for 1st and 2nd graders on Fridays.

Steam and Star are only with us 12 days out of the month, not so very much really.  But it is enough to give their mom some extra time to work with their two special needs siblings.  We do 3 weeks of Mon - Thurs, and then they are home a week with assignments.  It has worked well enough this year, and we plan to continue this at least one or two more years.

I almost forgot History.  The girls will be doing a World Geography exploration with me.  We're winging it mostly, but I'm trying to set up Prezi.com to allow them some self study time.   Of course that is the plan, but I'm still working on the one for the first 4 weeks!    The boys are working together on Texas State study, then will return to the State Study that they have both been working on for the past couple of years.  https://www.statehistory.net/   ...  We've been very pleased with this curriculum and have taken time to read extra books and watch movies with each state.   Doing this has given Scholar a good overview of the US history at the same time.  Steam started the curriculum last year, so we've not spent as much time doing extra to catch him up to where Scholar is.  We actually know the family who publishes these books, as her father was our pastor years ago.... small world!

Scholar will also do some extra spelling and vocabulary work on Fridays, as well as writing a blog entry each week ... although plans don't always work out as neatly as planned ... so we'll do our best and trust God for the rest.

Preschool - Leafy Name Pictures

This was a "spin-off" of an idea from the Horizon 4-year-old Preschool Curriculum.


Go to a park or outside .....

1.  Pick out your favorite colored construction paper.

2.  Using a good quality School or Craft Glue, Adult writes their name in glue and a border if wanted or if it is a really short name.

3.  Encourage your child to find items to glue onto their picture.


You could also give your child a bag and take a nature walk.  Then use the collected items to make their pictures.   Help them learn the names of as many items as possible that they find as an extra learning experience.




Here is how the names turned out after the kids worked on them. Mostly without help.

Life Gave Us Some Lemons

I have always enjoyed blogging ... as it gives me an outlet to reach out to others that I don't have otherwise.

But it wasn't until Story pointed it out to me that I realized that I have been mostly missing for over a year.    two and a half years.

Where have I been?

Just surviving.   I had a long post planned out a year or so ago ... but decided it sounded too whiny and never posted it.  So this is a rework on that one.

We were in a major car wreck Thanksgiving 2009, right at the end of our little 1/2 mile road.  It was horrific, and yet we came out fairly well all things considered - but I've always been prone to night mares, and they took their toll on my health and emotions.  Coupled with having just lost my mom that Spring, the Ref being unemployed and having a heart attack, extra kids to watch and other responsibilities.   When my Aunt came to live in my Dad's house, something inside me just quit ... I had been holding things together for so long as the oldest ... grief, exhaustion, and stress just snowballed into me just zoning out into auto-pilot.   To most people, I was functioning just fine, but at home, I would fight sleep all day, and be unable to sleep at night.

There was nothing that hundreds of others haven't survived, and it wasn't really so bad as many have it.  But there was no break, and even a strong rope will fray if rubbed long enough.

So, for about 18 months, I just stopped.

Life is improving.  By bits.  I got one of those fancy Activity Tracker Watches last month. ....  And I started moving.  A lot more.  I'm not seeing much in the weight loss department.  Though some of my shorts are a bit looser.  But I am seeing improvement in my heart rate, and I'm walking farther.  I can usually top 5,000 steps, and most days top 6,000 steps.   Currently my goal is beating 6000 steps a day for a solid month.  Not easy in this summer heat.  Sleep is still weirdly sporadic, especially with the Ref's ever changing McD work schedule.

Just as I planned to start blogging, I insisted a friend let me help her catch two of her kids up in their school work ... which has turned into full time schooling.  We are on a 3 week / 4 day at my house 24/7 and then 1 week and 3 day weekends at home.  Sometimes they have homework at home, sometimes there is a 2 week break - and halfway through we break for Christmas and Summer.   We scramble if anyone gets sick, but with Aunts help, we've managed pretty good.

But I REALLY want to start blogging again.

And I've been researching Fitness Watches ... so I'm going to try to do some reviews on the ones we've purchased so far ... and what I'm looking at for Scholar and later for Sunshine.   I'll try to finish the blog posts that I had been working on ... and round out what I'm doing with school right now.   Maybe with some tenacity and better planning, I can get some stuff done.  Maybe.

In Support of Indie Authors Black Friday Sale!!!

It’s that time of year.

The time for buying presents, making wish lists, and planning New Year’s Resolutions.

If any of those activities involve books for you, Indie Christian Authors has a perfect event for you.

 From Nov 27 through Nov 30th, more than 70 independent Christian books are on sale.

You can find free shipping, $0.99 ebooks, package deals, and more!

And if your budget is depleted from Christmas shopping, they’ve got you covered with some freebies!

 Think 70 books is overwhelming? Narrow it down and find the perfect books for you or someone on your Christmas list by using this quiz to generate a customized book list.

  What awesome reads of 2015 are you grateful for? What books are you looking forward to reading in 2016?

A note on the Ebooks Only page. All books are listed as “Sold Out.” This only refers to paperback copies of these titles. Please click onto the product pages to find descriptions and links to discounted or free ebooks.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Leah E. Good for her work organizing this sale, Gloria Repp for completing the time consuming job of uploading book info to the sale website, and Hannah Mills for her fantastic design work on the website graphics. Hannah can be contacted at hmills(at)omorecollege(dot)edu for more information about her design services.