Remember when...

Do you remember when you were a kid and you just had a vacation day or week? Do you remember what it was like to go back to school? Oh man, do I ever remember! I hated it.

Well, it is the same here, today. Neither my boys nor I really wanted to start school after having 3 days off for Labor Day. Oh the drudgery. However, like every other school day, we started. It was s-l-o-w. Time ticked as we marched though.

Finally, around noon, the boys completed their math tests, grammar, and journal. My oldest son, currently in the sixth grade, has made his first post to his own personal blog. He has titled it “Matthew’s Review.” He intends on writing reviews for books, movies, & games that he has divulged in.

Nikolas set up his blog today, but has not posted to it yet. He hopes to write for his tomorrow.

Basically, my goal is to have my boys just write about stuff they like. Yes, I will edit for punctuation, capitalization, etc…but not for content. I hope it works!

We’ve been studying Pre-American History for this past week. More specifically, we’ve been studying the Renaissance Period and the Reformation of the church. We found that Johann Gutenberg had an important part in the timeline toward our American History. Because of him, we now had the printing press. The printing press plays a big part in the reformation of the church as well. Not only was the Gutenberg Bible printed, but also many other documents that were needed by the Cardinals for the church were printed too.

We had fun carving potatoes to make letters and then using paint as our ‘ink’ to print our initials.


We learned about the struggles between the Catholics and Protestants, and how King Henry VIII established the Church of England. This was a big break from the Catholic Church.

We studied Prince Henry the Navigator who sailed from Portugal to discover a new way to China. His mapmaking and encouragement set the mood for more discovery missions later on. We studied other explorers too, like Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, John Cabot, and Vasco de Gama. It was because of these that we have our country, America.

We had a lot of fun!

Now, for this week we continue our trek through time by studying James VI & I. In case you don’t know, James VI & I was the first-born son of Mary Queen of Scots. He was crowned King of Scotland when he was 13 months old. Thirty-six years later, he was crowned King of England. James VI & I ordered the translation of the Bible from Latin to English. It was the only Bible that was authorized by the King and the only version allowed in the church at that time.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn about the monopolies that England was involved in. Just a subject I am not familiar with… Guess I’d better go study.

One thing we will do for fun tomorrow is to draw a map of England. We were suppose to do that today, but ran out of time. Maybe I’ll post pictures of our maps.

More later.

Curriculum Choices

After making our decision to homeschool, we were now faced with the big decision of what curriculum to use. I have found this to be the dilemma of every homeschool family. We had a lot to think about. We had some questions that we needed to face, such as: Why did we start homeschooling? What do we want the boys to learn? We almost had to ask, what do we want them to be when they grow up?

I have already shared one of my reasons for homeschooling in the previous post. Now, for what I wanted them to learn… well, our number one thought was that we wanted our boys to know God. We wanted to make sure that the Bible was included in whatever their actual curriculum was to be.

My girlfriend and I discussed several alternatives and finally went to a homeschool convention that was held in our area. We knew of two different Unit Studies and we wanted to review them at this convention. One was studies was “Weaver" and the other “KONOS.”

When we looked at “Weaver” we really liked it a lot, but it looked so intimidating. There were five binders that were bundle together and truthfully, this was my first year and I wasn’t ready for something so complex. So together, my friend and I chose “KONOS.”

“KONOS” was an interesting character unit study. I used “KONOS in a Box.” Each box you bought was another character trait that you would study. The box contained all sorts of projects that taught different aspects to the character trait. For instance, we studied Kings and Queens and made crowns. We studied horses and made one out of paper and brads.

The only trouble we had been, understanding how the Bible was tied into all of this. They had a Bible study, but it was disjointed at best from the rest of the unit. I have always said that I don’t have a creative bone in my body… so this was hard for me to put it all together in an understandable method.

The following year, even though my boys loved “KONOS” and all the fun stuff in it, I went to the next homeschoolers convention and my friend and I sat at the Alpha Omega Publisher’s table for two hours or more reviewing the binders of “Weaver.” The AOP representative took time to explain to us how to use the binders. From that moment on, I was sold and I have been using “Weaver” as my main curriculum ever since.

“Weaver” has the lessons all laid out for me with the Bible lesson tied right into the whole Science, Social Studies, Creative Writing, Art, etc. thing. It is so much fun for all of us. Even I am learning stuff I never knew or considered.

We are now working on our fourth year using “Weaver” and we’re still going!

Our Homeschooling Decision

I am the proud mother of two very special boys. First there is Matthew, whose name means "Gift of God." Let me tell you, he is a Gift of God to us. Secondly, there is Nikolas, whose name means "Victorious Spirit." He too, is a gift from God, but with an extra ounce of "spirit."

I have always wanted children and dreamt of staying home to raise them. I expected to be the "Block Mom" where my kids would come home from school and bring their friends home to swarm my refrigerator and rampage my home. My kids would hear how neat their mom and dad were to just let them come and crash the place. My kids would feel safe and know their friends were too. Of course, my house would always be fun to be in and clean all the time! O.K. wake up! I don't clean house!

Sometimes, change is hard for me to deal with and hearing constant noise, screaming, loud T.V, well, I don't handle that well either. Ha-ha-ha! I think God knew I wouldn't be able to deal with that kind of a lifestyle. What am I saying??? Of course He knew!! He formed me in my mother's womb, right?!?!

When Matthew turned 5 years old, we put him into public school. He went to preschool and loved it, so, naturally, kindergarten was the next step. Watching him walk to the school around the corner was the hardest thing for me to do. I volunteered what time I could to his classroom, but with Nikolas in Preschool, it was difficult.

During that year, we found that Matthew excelled a lot. He learned to read on his own. He was quick to learn everything. There was no stopping him. The teacher saw what he was doing, and along with two other students, he gained permission to go to the library on his own to get new books while the rest of the class worked on other things. She understood that her class was developing into 3 different levels and she wanted to work with each student to the best of her ability. In my opinion, if every teacher were like her, I would have no trouble sending my boys to public school.

The next year, Matthew went to a different school in the same district. His first grade teacher really didn't know how to deal with above average students. She was excellent with the grade level students, and she knew where to send the below average, but what do you do with above average, but not "gifted and talented?" I did my best, again, to volunteer in his class. She treated me like I didn't know squat about teaching. I was her paper pusher. She would get flustered with Matthew because he would finish his work ahead of everyone else and then distract the other students.

Finally, I got frustrated with it all. So, I went to the Principal and explained to her my frustration. Boy, did I feel like I was talking to a wall! We finally agreed to test Matthew and find out where he actually was, academically. (I pushed for the test.) The school psychologist gave us the report of his scores and told us that Matthew was in the top 18% of the first grade. This was not high enough for the “Gifted & Talented” program; your child has to be the top 2% to qualify. She told us basically not to worry, Matthew would slow down and the rest of his class would catch up to him. So, I looked at her and said, “Why should he slow down? Why should he be bored for whatever amount of time it would take for him to "Slow Down?"” I mean, isn't that how we end up with kids on drugs or with kids in trouble with the law? That was not good enough for us!

During this time, I met a woman with four children. She had a heart for the Lord and, her children, although very high strung, were very well behaved and polite. Her oldest is 6 months older than Matthew, so they were both in the same grade. She convinced me that home schooling was the only way to go, because God gives us as parents a directive. He made our children our responsibility. My friend gave me oodles of scripture to back up the fact that we needed to pray about teaching my own children. So, we prayed! And, believe it or not God answered! My husband, in full support, sent me on a mission to train our children.

Oh Man! This is NOT what I wanted to do either. I mean, I was looking forward to sending both my boys on the school bus and having some ME time! Well, that isn't God's plan for me. That wasn't and still isn't God's plan for my boys either. So, in 2000, I pulled Matthew out of public school and began teaching both our boys at home. It was a hard decision for me because I only have 21 college credits under my belt and a Cosmetology license. I didn't think I could do it. However, God has other plans!