Wow! How cool is this?….

Thank you so much Cara!

She is so cute!!

Homeschooled Wiseguy Gets Brighter…

My dear Young Edison(13)  is inordinately attached to the computer screen…it’s more of a moth-light relationship.  It FEELS like I am always struggling to get him to start on his homework when all he really wants to do is find ANYTHING even remotely related to education on the net.  A few days ago, I witnessed this behavior once again after I had asked him to begin some of his more independent studies.

“Young Edison!  Do your Math!”

and he disappeared into his room…

I later came back and saw him with his nose facing the direction of the monitors glow…

“Young Ed-is-on…….DO your MATH!”

and he disappeared into his room…

I came back into the room after hurling laundry into the washer and dryer, carying a baby in my arms that needed a diaper change, and with a 4yo attached to my left leg (also toting her 100 EZ lessons reading book) and pleading with me to sit with her NOW, and the timer on the stove was going off along with a very loud kettle all demanding me to pay attention to them.

Taking a deep breath to steady my temper I gently called out to him…

“EDISON!  Do you KNOW where your MATH book is??!”

He calmly responds, “Of course, Mom.”

I smiled as sweetly as I could between clenched teeth…”Look, I am trying to make the world a better place to live in.  Could you PLEASE, do your Math??”

He calmly responds with a smile, “Of course Mom!”

and he disappears into his room….

Later I asked….

“Did you do your Math?”

He beamed at me, “Yes! I really did!”

“Ok, then.  Do your history!”

wash…rinse…repeat…

Later on that night I was getting ready for bed.  My eldest dd was telling me that she heard of a good story and proceeded to share it with me.  “Mom, Edison told me that there is something he didn’t tell you today…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Umm yes, you see…every time you sent him into his room to do his math…”

“Yes….?”

“He DID it…as a matter of fact, he did 3 DAYS worth of  homework…”

You know something?   If I were not a sane person, moments like these might make me question it a bit.  He had his laugh all day.  Maybe the laugh was on him.  We are ahead of schedule with only 1 day’s worth of frustration to show for it! LOL!

Homeschooled Wiseguy

My 15yo dd was getting the table ready for dinner and she asked her brother Young Edison 13 to “Please, turn on the Sun” which in our house means to turn on the big light.

Young Edison quips,”Who do you think I am?  Apollo??!”

…at least I know he finished his Ancient History homework…<G>

Win a Rosetta Stone Latin Program!

**Rosetta Stone is the fastest way to learn a language and has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while — and you can WIN the *all new* version 3 Rosetta Stone Homeschool LATIN program… FOR FREE! This is the first year you can get Latin in the brand new Version III update.

This is a $259 program (and believe me it’s worth every penny!)This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever! Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress- I love that!), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students.

To win this most excellent Latin program copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR link to the contest from your facebook page and/OR email the information to your homeschool support group – Then go to the original page http://Jeneralities.com and leave a comment saying that you’ve posted about, or have linked to, the contest. Please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post.

Amazing Annunciation Art

Tapestry with the Annunciation, ca. 1410–1430
South Netherlandish

“Seated in a spacious room of the elaborate type first represented in Northern Europe by the illuminator Jean Pucelle, the Virgin Mary looks away from her book on the reading lectern, startled by the sudden entrance of the archangel Gabriel. He holds a scroll with the words “Ave gracia plena” (”Hail [Mary] full of grace”). In the sky, God the Father sends the infant Jesus bearing a cross toward the Virgin, preceded by the dove of the Holy Spirit. They descend in the direction of the Virgin’s ear, as it was believed that her ear (emphasis mine)  was the opening through which she conceived. Other imagery in the tapestry, such as the enclosed garden, emphasizes her virginity, and the single white lily placed in an elaborate pottery jar symbolizes her purity.”

Why I haven’t been posting…..

I am in LOVE!

Oh! I LOVE these!

Take a look at these wonderful Wooden Catholic Dolls! They are made by a homeschooling mom…Tammy these look great!

I could swear that this St. Joseph looks JUST like my brother Joe…

St. Joseph

“Joe, I think this is a SIGN!”

;o)  LOL!

Just when I thought we were invincible…

We made it through the winter without the flu!!!

Until Saturday.

..my 8yo dd got it…then the 4yo dd..then the 10yo ds…who is currently moaning behind me in the chair snuggled in a blanket.

This child is our “class clown”.  His usual chatter  is  laced with  jokes all day long.  Unfortunately, he isn’t one to ever suffer gracefully.  So my 13yo ds hobbled by and observing the uncharacteristic tone in his brother’s’ voice, asked him if he were experiencing sick humor. ..a statement to which my sick son rolled his eyes.

I warned the 13yo that he should watch out…when my sick boy recovers he will surely take matters into his own hands while the 13yo is busy getting sick.   The 13yo seemed surprised that this illness might actually dare to attack him.   I told him that in this house with all these little ones, it is like he is a marked man wearing a shirt with a bulls-eye on his chest.   As he walked out of the room he took his red t-shirt and turned it around backwards while he was still wearing it.  As his voice faded away into his room,  he quipped “Well, IF I am going to get hit with IT, I don’t want to see IT coming!”

New copy work…

Yesterday my eldest dd and I copied and pasted a quote into an email then got up from the computer and went into the kitchen to make dinner.  We overheard some excitement coming from the computer…Sunshine boy (5) was exclaiming in a loud voice,  “I finished my copy work! See?  I signed it…”

sure enough …he had opened up a word document to have a little fun and hit the paste option and the quote that my dd and I had ‘copied’ was on the screen with the ending “BY SUNSHINE BOY”.

“Phew!” he exclaimed.  “THAT was HARD work!  And I thought I would not get all my lessons done today!  God sure works in mysterious ways!!”

LOL…and so he proclaimed the ending to yet another long school day.  I know we are getting more into technology but this is rediculous!

Building character with St. John Neumann

Virtue building is a very important mission for me as of late and I do feel compelled to step that job up a bit. We have fallen a bit lax on such things since the children smell weakness and life can feel at its weakest when mamma is hugely pregnant or with a newborn nursing babe in her lap. That perceived weakness can lead to building bad habits and I really need to take on building back good ones to take the place of the bad. I feel like I am using a magician’s slight of hand trick so not to draw too much attention to the bad habit. Rather, I am trying to focus on the good and shed more light on that so it outshines the bad in their perceptions of things.

I really felt overwhelmed for quite some time but I knew that the only one that could help me with this was the Holy Spirit Himself. I was looking over the planners that we are using this year and came across an idea of using the fruits of the Holy Spirit to use as a spiritual flashlight project. I then thought this idea of using a word to direct our mission would be just the idea to punctuate our days. I am headed to Michaels for the letters I need to sand and paint in RED for this project.   These letters will stand on the window ledge of the accent window that is just above our dining room table…a perfect place to eyeball a purpose!

A fruit a month is what I will concentrate on as a visual reminder but I will cover all of the fruits as they come up in our reading selections which mostly follow the feasts of the liturgical year. I will place reminders in our Liturgical year notebooks beind the appropriately labeled dividers.

So, that being said…we covered Persistence today. Persistence in not only our reading but in our daily conversation…it does come in handy when you try to explain to an older child why it is still important to clean your room when the goops come out of the hidden recesses of the room and wreck it for example. I highlighted that discussion with the word of persistence and the idea of meaningful work.  Meaningful work ideas show up regularly.  The monks had meaningful work copying the book of Kells…yours just happens to be your room at the moment…all for the Glory of God my dear!

I have tried to use my prolific nursing times to gather my little ones around me as often as I can and read all kinds of things with them. I have been trying to have them draw a picture while I read to have them be calm and focused and let the information sink in. Sometimes they are just constructing with legos or kinex or molding things with clay, but the idea is to keep them calm and as thoughtful as possible. Most especially I am trying to concentrate on stories that build character and virtue. If they do create any pictures, I place these pictures, including any copywork, quotes or religious clip art into their liturgical year notebooks which has been dedicated to St Paul this year (using this cover) . (I use the quotes for quick reminders and the stories to give them a framework of reference.)

We were discussing today’s saint St. John Neumann  and read a bit of his biography while the little ones found the places he visited on a large map. I then took the 3rd and 4th graders and read Thomas Finds a Treasure from Ecce Homo Press which is a story of his life. They discussed his unique life and mission with each other and told me that they agreed he had to be persistent to accomplish his very meaningful work. He had to use the tools that God gave him to get that work done!

I gave the following quote to the older ones for copywork with just the highlighted section for the younger ones:

~ From the Diary of St. John Henry Newman

Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work.

We are not sent into this world for nothing;

we are not born at random; we are not here, that we may go to bed at night, and get up in the morning, toil for our bread, eat and drink, laugh and joke, sin when we have a mind, and reform when we are tired of sinning, rear a family and die. God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, . . . for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him. As Christ has His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also.

~ Sermon: “God’s Will the End of Life,” from Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, 1849, in Daniel M. O’Connell, Favorite Newman Sermons, NY: The America Press, 2nd ed., 1940, pp. 177-178

feast: Jan.5th

and this:

Once on a visit to Germany, he came back to the house he was staying in soaked by rain. When his host suggested he change his shoes, John remarked,

“The only way I could change my shoes is by putting the left one on the right foot and the right one on the left foot. This is the only pair I own.”

_ok, so it’s not a meaningful work quote…

but! you always need good humor doing the job God has given….using the equipment God entrustedyou with!

Reading the story The Wise King in Catholic Children’s Treasure Box book 7 works well with this point…it isn’t so much the tools you use, but what thought and persistence you use them with! Persistence is necessary! I told them that it would be good to think of themselves as God’s tool and use their time and gifts wisely. They can measure their own successes against God’s will for them.

As seen on a billboard of a Lutheran Church:

“Failure is the path of least persistence.”

and

“Consider the postage stamp:

Its usefulness consists in the ability

to stick to one thing till it gets there.”

~ Josh Billings, humorist

So there it is in an unedited nutshell…I am trying to throw my thoughts out there in a clear way as I nurse at the keyboard and have limited use of my typing fingers…so e’scuse the errors-k? ;o)