Almost Unschooling Grama

  For several years I tried to teach my children how to spell. The results were soupy at best. Every year I would get a new “curriculum” and follow it precisely, but nothing worked. Finally came up with my own... 1st day: Find 2 words they don't know how to spell. Have them write those words 7 times. A good source of spelling words is the lists of most commonly used English words you can get on the internet. You can also use words they misspelled in their own writing. 2nd day: Test to see if they know yesterday's words, if they do, add 2 more. If they know one, find another word and have them write that and the one they missed 7 times. Keep adding to the list until there are 20 words, then let your child scratch out the oldest words while always keeping 20 words on the list. Do not start a new list. Just keep this one going. This way the child has to keep a word in his memory for two to three weeks instead of memorizing it for the test on Friday (which tends to be fo...

  Our journey into homeschooling began because I was believing God for a Christian education for my kids. We were extremely poor. We had one car and lived in a house with no toilet at the time. The closest Christian school was more than 30 minutes away. Even if we had been given scholarships, the car situation made the prospect of a Christian school nearly impossible, but with God all things are possible! When my daughter turned 5, I reluctantly sent her off to the local kindergarten for ½ day sessions, since no answer to my prayer was in sight. She did well there and had a ball. The next year I thought my oldest son was ready to learn to read, but the woman who taught kindergarten in town was very wise. She told me, “ I don’t care how smart he is. He is 4 ½ and he’s a boy. He will be bouncing off the walls and he’s not coming into my classroom.” Later I realized she was absolutely right, but at the time I got all in a huff and decided to “see what I could do on my own!” I ordered ...

This is what I have been chewing on all week. Acts 1 3 To whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God:   4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “You have heard from Me.”   5 For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.   8 But you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. I had the question, “Why did they need the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses?” I mean, they were already witnesses. They had walked with Jesus. They had seen His miracles and heard his teachings. They had seen the crucifixion and had seen Him af...

  Introduced the kids to Laura Ingalls Wilder yesterday. We talked about how her family moved in a covered wagon to several Midwestern states, found them on the map, and then made our own covered wagon with pool noodles.

Thought I'd share the notes from a recent study I did on the River of Life for my home church group.  Back Story  My natural family is very academically gifted. Lots of doctors, teachers, and lawyers … Although we went to church, we were very skeptical of the Bible, regarding the miracles as myths. Even though I have seen many miracles sometimes it is still hard for me to let go and believe.  Many years ago, I was in a church service that has impacted me a lot. I don’t remember the whole sermon, but this verse is what I took out of it.  Rev 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.  The minister was explaining that while it is true that we take on the new name of Christ, in ancient cultures when a man takes a wife, he often gives her a n...

Toothless here inspired an impromptu dental unit this week. We made these cute little "fuzzy" teeth and talked about how bacteria grow on our teeth.  I printed out the smaller tooth template from this website:  https://www.printabletreats.com/free-printable-tooth-template/ Then we glued a couple of googly eyes to them and covered them with tiny pieces of cotton. We also made toothbrushes from craft sticks and brown construction paper.  Then we watched this cute little video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGoBFU1q4g0 Come to find out February is actually Dental Health Month. How appropriate!  

  Mighty Red is now pretty much an independent adder. We started out with him on my lap as his sister and I played math games. He would move the pieces while I gave the answers. Then we moved to him copying me as I did the finger math. For the past several weeks, we have been doing the problems on our fingers together, but this week he announced that he could do this and just took off without me! When I was in school, having someone help me like I have helped Mighty Red would have been shameful and "cheating". Go ahead, help your kids "cheat". It works!