Pics from our 1st Day of School

This is a little late since we started on 9/10, but I thought I would share anyway!

I didn't get too many pics, but I did way better than last year!

Blogger Friend School Assignment #4

The Internet offers a lot of treasures! It may not be in the form of actual gold, although I’m sure some could find some on the Internet - probably on ebay! Being a Blogger Friend is all about sharing our treasures. The assignment this week is to share your Internet treasures. Below is a list featuring things that homeschooling moms might be looking for : information, support, ideas, or actual items that pertain to our lives. Each one of us holds some or all of these treasures that need to be shared. Take this list and add your “golden” treasured sites so that we may all share the wealth.

Example: Favorite place to blog = answer for some would be HomeschoolBlogger

~A website that you visit everyday

HomeschoolBlogger

~First place you look for a book to buy

I check my library first, then BookCloseouts, Amazon.com (new or used), CBD

~Favorite Homeschool Support Area

HomeschoolBlogger

~Homeschool site full of information that you use regularly

Tapestry of Grace (Links for Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4)

~Site that you buy your new curriculum from

Tapestry of Grace, Rainbow Resource, CBD, CurrClick

~Site that you buy your used curriculum from

Amazon.com (used books and sometimes used curriculum), eBay

~Site that offers frugal tips to save money

Hillbilly Housewife, Living on a Dime, Laine's Letters

~A site that provides good wholesome recipes
The Urban Homemaker, Natalies Recipes, Such Treasures, Cooking with Kids

~An informational site that shows you “how” to
I Google "How to _________"

~A homeschool family website that you purchase from to support them
Rainbow Resource

~A charity website that you support
none online

~Favorite Graphic site to get graphics for your blog or other things
Rajiv's Graphics, Devotional Doodles, Ritva's Gallery, Touch a Memory, Honeybrook Graphics, Home Sweet Home Graphics, Sparky's Creations

~Site that offers an educational calendar listing important historical events and also to keep you informed on upcoming events. (ex: Fire Safey Week)
About.com: Homeschooling Fundays Calendar

~Site that offers Homeschool Freebies
The Homeschool Mom (lists lots of homeschool freebies), Sheppard Software, NotebookingPages.com

~A blog that is always full of humor
Jeneric Jeneralities

~A blog to read that is always full of useful information
Heart of Wisdom

~A blog to visit because it is eye appealing and easy to read
Apples of Gold

~A blog that you read because it inspires you to be a better homeschooling mom Do I have to pick just one?
Heart of Wisdom, Seeking Rest in the Ancient Paths, Under the Sky, With a Taste of Chocolate and many more...

~A site that you would allow your children to visit
HomeschoolBlogger, The Rebelution (older), Peter Rabbit Fun, A Life of Faith

~List any other sites that you would like to share
See my Free Resources category.

After you have shared your gold, please start “panning” for gold by visiting your Blogger Friend Classmates and leaving them a comment. EXTRA: Just add an “*” (asterisk *=10 Classmates) next to your name to indicate how many “Gold Prospector” Classmates you will visit this week!

Blogger Friend School Assignment #3

"* Using the FIRST letter of the Alphabet, describe yourself or things that are important to you. The hard part: use ONLY one word per letter!"

A llyson
B ible
C hristian
D iligent
E mail
F orgiven
G od
H istory
I ce-cream
J ordan
K athryn
L iterature
M other
N athan
O rganized
P urposeful
Q uiet
R obert
S ister
T ea
U ndeserving
V ictorious
W ife
X risto (Greek
for Christ)
Y outh
Z ip-Locs

"* Part 2 - Share another scripture that is upon your heart this week."


Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God  the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who  are perishing. 2 Corinthians 2:14-15

"EXTRA CREDIT FUN: Make a commitment to visit 10 classmates this week! If you make this commitment AND leave them a comment put an “*” (asterisk) by your name when signing Mr. Linky! Visit 20 classmates put TWO “**” by your name."

Done!

Blogger Friend School Assignment #2

“If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.”

Job 36:11 KJV

A. Look at your “dream” place last week and using your creative juices and things in or around your home, CREATE a special place to blog. Most good writers have a location that is a comfort to them and makes their writing time enjoyable and productive. Share some quick ideas!

I have a laptop (courtesy of my wonderful husband), and I usually end up blogging at the kitchen table. My dream places were seasonal, so I looked around our family room to see if I could put together a blog space. I decided on a chair by the window. We have a big round table that I lowered to use as a coffee/school table in the family room. I put some candles on it, added a big red teapot that a good friend bought me (this was for effect, I admit), a cup of hot tea, and some pretty fall flowers and leaves that my daughters gathered from outside.

B. Once you have created that special place…SHARE A PICTURE of where you blog. Remember to be creative! {I REALLY look forward to seeing this creativity. Some of you last week shared some really neat imaginitative posts and I know that this will be a challenge!}

As you can see, I decided to bring nature in to me since there isn't a park bench available (not very practical, I guess). I settled myself near the fireplace (for winter) and a window (spring rainstorms). I think this is going to work out well, except for the lit candles. One of my dogs came up and started sniffing the taper when I was commenting on blogs last night! I am going to try to keep something outdoorsy and seasonal on the table all of the time.

C. Share a verse this week that is upon your heart!

I've been reading 2 Chronicles 5-9, Daniel 9, and out of James and 2 Peter this week. The verse on my heart is:

"'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.'" 2 Chronicles 7:14

EXTRA CREDIT FUN: Make a commitment to visit 10 classmates this week! If you make this commitment AND leave them a comment put an “*” (asterisk) by your name when signing Mr. Linky! Visit 20 classmates put TWO “**” by your name.

Done!

Move Over, Chicken Mummies!

Well, the chicken mummies have lost their place of prominence on the refrigerator (although they are still there).

They now have to share with the current project: salt dough maps of an imaginary land. Tapestry of Grace suggests making these to learn geography terms at the beginning of the year. The kids made them last week. We are letting them dry and will paint them tomorrow or Friday.

For this project, I had Nathan look up all of the suggested geography terms online and find pictures to go with them. He put all of that into a Word document and we printed it out to use as a reference. I think I would suggest using Enchanted Learning's Landforms glossary instead, although it was very helpful to have real photos to look at. Nathan did a great job!

Since we have gone over geography landforms before, I let the kids choose 7-10 landforms to include on their maps. I bought each student a cookie sheet from the Dollar Store that we will reuse. In hindsight, I should have put cardboard down so that we could remove the maps from the cookie sheet. Maybe we'll just take pictures or save one of them for the Unit Celebration instead of keeping them all. You can also use cardboard or heavy paper. I have seen a picture of a map done in a disposable foil baking pan.

The kids made their landforms and labeled them on popsicle sticks. You are supposed to insert toothpicks and make labels out of sticky address labels or paper to stick on them, but I didn't have any toothpicks! The maps take about a week to dry, and then we will paint them with poster paints or tempera paint. I'll add those pictures to this post when we're done.

To do a salt dough map of a specific geographical area (country, continent, etc.), just print out an outline map on card stock and have your child shape the dough using the base map as a guide. You should use an atlas to help locate rivers, oceans, mountains, and other landforms. The student should use the dough to shape these landforms onto the map. Stick toothpicks into the areas of the map to be labeled and add labels to the toothpicks after the map is painted and dried.

Free stuff for this project:

Salt Dough Landforms: This web page has a recipe for the salt dough and explains how to do a similar landform project

Enchanted Learning's Illustrated Glossary: Landforms and Bodies of Water: This is a large list of landforms to teach using this project.


Geography Resources: This is the link to free geography resources that I have posted about. You will find some links to outline maps there.

State and Country Exploration

Update: All of the assignments are finished, but the assignments are still listed on the blog for anyone who would still like to do them.

Did you know that Jocelyndixon is hosting a State and Country Exploration blog for kids? You can read about it at her Lothlorien blog. Most recent State & Country Exploration assignments are stickied at the top of that blog.

Her idea is to encourage regular blogging (and learning at the same time) by assigning a specific blog topic each week (in this case learning and blogging about your state). If you would like to participate, post a comment at Jocelyn's blog - don't forget to let her know what state or country you are doing. Next, go to the State & Country Exploration blog to get the code for your state/country icon. Just look in the sidebar for the post about your state or country and go to the first comment. If it isn't listed yet, be patient and check back.

I think this is such a wonderful idea! I hope Jocelyn gets a great response. I'm looking forward to exploring all of the participants' states and countries.

Blogger Friend School Assignment #1

After some deliberation, I decided to join the Blogger Friend School for 2007-2008. I only hesitated because I'm not sure that I can keep up with it. I tend to be pretty sporadic with blogging. Then I noticed that you don't have to do every assignment, so I decided to join. I read a lot of the posts last year and enjoyed them, so I'm looking forward to this.

Blogger Friend School Assignment #1 “Meme Style”

A. Give a brief introduction paragraph stating how you got started blogging and your personal goals for journaling.

I first learned about HomeschoolBlogger from my friend, Kristie. I knew about blogging before that, but I really didn't look into it until I found out that there was a blogging community for homeschoolers. I signed up for a blog and read some articles about blogging. I have to admit that I had a hard time at first deciding what to write about. I thought I would just log what we were doing in school. I had a difficult time doing any blogging at the time because of an extremely busy schedule. I am slowly becoming more regular in my blogging, and I think my blog is beginning to take on a personality. I try to blog about things that might be helpful to other homeschoolers, and and I am finally adding some pictures to my posts. You will also find occasional "rambles" here also.

B. Share a “dream” place to blog in picture if you can. Suggestions…..a rock on the beach, under a tree at a park….take or find a picture(s) that would best describe a PLACE that you would LOVE to blog. DREAM!

A dream place to blog. Hmmm... That is a seasonal question in my opinion. For the fall, a quiet park bench would be great!

In the winter, a cozy chair in front of a warm fireplace would be a wonderful place to blog. Spring would find me blogging at a window looking out on a rainstorm, preferably in a country setting. In the summer, I would love to blog in a beautiful garden with lots of shade.

C. Answer some questions to tell us more about you:

1. What time do you usually blog?

Usually early in the morning or in the evening, but it depends on my schedule. I don't blog every day, although I'm trying.

2. What is your favorite drink?

Coffee in the morning and tea and water during the day. I like to drink hot tea and hot chocolate in the winter.

3. What is your favorite book?

My favorite Book is the Bible. Charles Dickens is my favorite author for entertainment. I also enjoy Jane Austen and, more recently, Elizabeth Gaskell. I read as often as I can find the time from a variety of genres, so it's difficult to pinpoint a favorite.

4. What is your favorite dessert?

That's a hard one. I like apple crisp with vanilla ice-cream on top.

5. Share a scripture that has been an inspiration in your growth with Christ.

There are several! I love all of Isaiah 53. There are also many verses in the Gospels and Paul's epistles that have been pivotal to my growth in Christ. Matthew chapters 5-7 are high on my list.

EXTRA CREDIT FUN: This week make a commitment to visit 10 classmates blogs and leave them a comment. If you make this commitment, then put a ” * ” (asterisk) by your name when signing Mr. Linky. I have signed my name as an example.

I'll do this before I add my name to the assignment list this week.

Grading Tapestry of Grace

I feel like all I have been doing this week is sitting in front of my computer going over  assignments and scheduling schoolwork. Well, I guess that's probably because that is about all I've been doing this week.

A couple of my children asked for grades at the end of last year, so I decided I would try to figure out how I want to grade different subjects in Tapestry of Grace. This will be good practice for me for next year, when Nathan begins high school, so I am working hard at it. I know it will be much easier for me to assign credits next year if I "practice" it this year (weird, I know, but that's how I work best). I looked over the high school credit chart for TOG Year 2 to guide my "courses" for the year. I use Homeschool Tracker Plus, which is wonderful! I decided to enter lesson plans for each course because I can reuse them each year. This isn't a big deal for lower and upper grammar, but I know it will be helpful to have lesson plans already available for my future dialectic level students.

I decided on a point system for various activities (the points are pretty arbitrary - I just wanted to start somewhere). I'm not doing any weighted grading right now. Each student will earn points for activities, and grades will be determined by total number of points earned divided by total number of points possible for each course. I am including my point system, but I am an amateur at this grading stuff - I welcome input. I linked to the sample pages from TOG's Ancient Egypt Mini-Unit if anyone is interested.

History (history readings, discussion, timeline, map work)

• 20 points for each weekly history reading assignment
• 10 points for each accountability & thinking question - dialectic level only (some will be written and some will be oral - # of questions vary weekly - these are found in the dialectic and rhetoric levels of the student activity pages)
• 50 points for history discussion - dialectic students only (points earned to be determined by preparation, participation and attitude - also found in the student activity pages - the teacher's notes include the discussion outline guide for me)
• 50 points for map work (scheduled map work by level is found in the student activity pages)
• 25 points for timeline work - dialectic students only (dates are found in the weekly overview)
• 25-50 points for group supplements when scheduled (This Far By Faith Vol. I, What in the World's Going on Here Part 2, That's Why They Call it Grace)

English (literature reading, literature worksheet, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and writing)

• 50 points for the weekly literature reading assignment
• 10 points for each question on the literature worksheet (these are found in the student activity pages - high students advance to literary analysis instead of worksheets, so this will be graded differently next year)
• 20 points for each grammar page done during the week - these will be scheduled as needed for writing assignments (from Easy Grammar)
• 50 points for weekly copywork, dictation, spelling or vocabulary work (copywork for Kathryn, Spelling Wisdom and dictation for Allyson & Jordan, Wordly Wise for Nathan)
• points for writing will be determined for individual writing assignments (I do have WritingAids, and I love it)

Church History (Year 2)

• 50 points for the weekly reading assignment
• 25 points for group discussion

Fine Arts

• 50 points for each weekly reading assignment
• 50 points for hands-on activity

That covers the basics for Tapestry of Grace subjects this year. I welcome any input on grading, as this is new to me. I am guessing that it will change as the year progresses. Hopefully, I'll have it pretty much mastered by next year.

Please note that many Tapestry of Grace links on my blog go through my Lampstand Affiliate link. I get credit for some purchases referred through my links. My affiliate username is andijean (case sensitive). Please consider giving me credit if you purchase TOG curriculum. If you are interested in TOG's Affiliate program, go here to learn more.