Our Mission Statement

Our Mission Statement
Teach the
heart to love, the mind to learn, and the soul to live - for now and eternity - through Christ-centered education.

9.16.2009

Lily Can Read!!!

Lily has learned one letter each week for the past six weeks. She learns the name and sound of each letter, and how to write the capital and lower case. Since she had learned enough letters to put together a few short words I thought we'd give reading a try today... and she read 4 words!



I know I sound absolutely pathetic in the video and that's because I am. I found out on Monday night that I have the flu - type A - and I was informed by my friend, Kristy, that there is a 97% chance that it is H1N1. Lovely. It is no fun. This is the worst I've felt in a very long while! So the rest of you out there need to stay healthy - take your vitamins and wash those hands :)

9.13.2009

Random Blessings

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends in our lives. I truly do not believe in coincidences, but instead I think that God puts people in our paths for certain reasons. One special person we have known for a short while is Barbie. She is a mom that I met at playgroup who is a very sweet soul. We have had so much fun getting to know her and her son in the past year. Little did I know when we met that she has a tremendous gift - art! Not only is she talented at creating things, but she also has a wealth of knowledge in it's history and a love for teaching children. She is also generous enough to volunteer an afternoon of her time each month to teach Zora some art & art history. This past week we went to her house for our first lesson.

First we talked about the who, where & why art was started. Then Zora made a "cave drawing" of her own...

Then, they explored many different aspects of Egyptian art from hieroglyphs (this is Zora's name in hieroglyphs!)...

...to pyramids...

...and finally a clay creation (Zora chose to make a little bowl for her jewelry)...

All in all she learned a lot and had a lot of things reinforced that we've been studying about ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.

As I mentioned in the last post, Lily is learning by leaps and bounds. She is doing much more right now than I originally intended for her to do, especially in writing. She loves to try to write letters all by herself. Not only does she write her name, but she is writing almost her whole name! I only have to help her with s, u & e in our last name. She also surprised me a couple of days ago when she said, "Mommy, I just wrote your name." I looked at the page not expecting to see anything that actually resembled my name (because she didn't even ask me how to spell it) and I saw...

She actually wrote it, just from right to left instead of left to right. With a little bit of instruction she tried again and got it perfect :)I'm so thrilled that she loves to learn!

Lily also has a fashion statement all her own. I now understand why there are children at Walmart sometimes with the craziest things on... sometimes clothing is just not worth a battle. Anyhow, Lily loves to pick out her clothes every morning. Sometimes she does a pretty good job and sometimes it's hilarious. If we have somewhere important to go I do enforce an outfit change, but if we're not really doing anything I usually let it go. I recently got down some boots from the attic that used to be Zora's that Lily is now old enough to wear. They were an instant hit. She loved them so much that at bedtime while she was getting ready for bed she just couldn't hardly bear to take them off...
That's all my random thoughts for now :)

9.03.2009

Back to School!

So we've been "back to school" now for 4 weeks! We have been having a lot of fun so far. Zora's favorite subject is History & Geography. We just finished a unit on ancient Mesopotamia and this week we started a unit on ancient Egypt. She also still loves to read, read, read! She got so many new wonderful books for her birthday and she is very excited about them. The Wingerter family got her some Magic Tree House books which she loves and the Voss family got her several Boxcar Children books. As soon as she finishes one book she picks out another one to start.

Lily has also started school with us this year. In the past we always did school work while Lily napped, but now that she has outgrown her nap we have work for her to do too! Our main goals for her this year are to learn to recognize all the letters of the alphabet, their sounds, and hopefully begin reading some small words. We are also working on our numbers, introducing tiny bits of Spanish, and coloring within the lines. So far she is doing a great job! Her attention span is very short so she does a little work, then plays a little, then comes back for more "homework". She's so cute because every day she gets so excited and begs for "more homework, Mommy". Today she wrote her name completely by herself!!!

We have also started a very exciting new adventure with our homeschooling... we've joined a co-op! Zora is now in classes with 7 other homeschooled children, and the moms are taking turns teaching different extra-curricular subjects. We have completed two weeks so far and Zora is loving it! Right now she is taking Speech, Psychology and Computer Programming. In October the classes with be Spanish, Art and Science Lab.

And speaking of art, I have to brag about Zora just a bit... she has two pieces of artwork on display at Gilcrease Museum! She made this one out of watercolor and sponges...

The Windmill


This one is colored pencil... The Fishing Boat
Her artwork was put on display August 18th and will be there until September 13th.

Another change in our school schedule this year is their extra-curricular activity. As much as they loved ballet and tap dancing, they decided to try something new - gymnastics! They had their first lesson on Monday and did a fantastic job!

Ready to start

Practicing "the big finish" pose

Cartwheels!
Backward on the balance beam
Lily learns "the scoop" on the balance beam
These last two pics aren't school related, but I just have to post them because the girls love it so much! Joel has been slowly building a 4 wheeler and he's got it running. He gave them a few rides on it around the yard, but I wouldn't let him take them in the street or very far until they got helmets. He bought them the cutest pink camo helmet! It makes me laugh to see them in it because it squeezes their chubby little cheeks and makes their heads look huge compared to the rest of their bodies! Their my own personal little bobble-heads :)

Lily rides with Daddy

Zora rides with Daddy

I'll leave you with this thought. My friend Elisabeth got me a little plaque for my birthday that I absolutely love because it says exactly what I feel about our homeschool.

"While we teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about."