Thursday, September 30, 2010

Our Family Closet

We started a couple of weeks ago the transformation of our "junk room" into our family closet.  I am so excited and thankful my husband wanted to do this.  He has drywalled the room (well still in the process) and will later lay carpet, hang shelves and clothing bars. 

Here is our plan:
  1. put "all" the hanging clothes in the closet.  You can imagine the amount of clothes we have with seven people. 

This is the wall that will have the hanging bars.  Two, one at top and then one at bottom.  LOTS OF HANGING SPACE!!!


    2.  We will put shelves on the other walls for baskets and totes of clothes.  Will use tote for shoes.

 This wall will have shelves on the left and under the window. On the right will be the hanging clothes.  At the bottom will be totes under the shelves.

   This wall will be shelves too and totes at the bottom.  We will be putting dressers or a table in the middle of the room for more storage and /or an area to fold clothes.

   3.  We will be laying cheap carpet.

   4.  Because of the emptying of my closet we are going to make it a linen closet.  We will be putting shelves      in.  My closet is huge, but not built really well.

    5.  Then the linen closet will then be turned into a new and improved food pantry!!  I am so excited!!

With taking the clothes out of the kids closets they can use them for their toys, crafts and junk.  Their dressers are out of their room too, giving them more room for whatever. 

I will post more once we get more done.  Steve can only work on it when he is off work, so it will take a little longer then we want.  It will be awesome when done.

The 30 Day Mark

We have had 30days of school and it has gone pretty well.  Everyone is getting through their stuff and learning something too!  Honestly, by this time in the school year, yes just 30 days in, I have usually lost my joy.  Things just seem to get hard, I can't seem to keep up with grading papers and doing lesson plans, or we just aren't motivated.  Whatever the reason has been I am really working hard and changing that cycle. 

I have stopped doing lesson plans for a long period of time.  If you don't get everything accomplished you usually feel like a failure.  So, I only do lesson plans for about a week at a time maybe two. It has worked really well.  As for grading, the kids are grading most of their own work which they seem to like to do and their math is graded on the computer. We are staying very motivated and I can contribute that to God.  Batheing our school and family in prayer every night, morning and through out the day has helped us all stay on the right track! 


With things going pretty good right now I need to be armed with the things that will help me stay motivated once we get to day 40, 60, 80.....mark.  So last Thursday I went to the HFHG LIVE meeting and listened to Todd Wilson, The Familyman speak about homeschooling, marriage, family, and life.  It was inspiring.  I left with such a renewed sense of excitement and three new books.  Two for me and one for Steve.   


 



I have started reading both of my and they are great...I am getting so much out of them.  Steve is reading his and really seems to like it too.  It is really nice working to get us both on the same page and not running over him when he tries to help out with school.

Then last Monday night I went to my monthly homschool mom's "meeting" and we enjoyed the teachings of Voddie Baucham  He is awesome I suggest that if you have never heard him you get his DVD on educationing your children.  Children of Caesar  You can watch some of it on Youtube.  He is so passionate about home educating our children and taking them out of the hands of the government.  I ordered two books today that he has written or recommends.  I will update you on those once I have read them. 

I am just thankful that we are able to have a great school year so far.  Praying for continued productivity.








Friday, September 17, 2010

Innocents of a Four Year Old!!!

It is amazing how some people take things so literally!! I know someone who does that ALL THE TIME!! Maybe we are to blame, when I say we I mean my family. We always act like everything he says is exactly what he means.


Who is this literal person? None other than my four year old son, Evan Samuel Britt, aka The Coolest Kid Ever!!!! Have you ever looked up the word literally?? Literally--used to show that a statement is actually true and not exaggerated.

Everything we say to him he believes to be TRUE, nothing exaggerated. I wonder how long that will last. Should I take advantage of this? I’m sure I could find a way.

He loves to brush his teeth and will do it twenty times a day if we will tell him his teeth are really shiny. Not just shiny but “blinding”. You know, “Oh Evan close your mouth your teeth are blinding me.” We all have to do this. Each time he brushes his teeth he will go around to everyone in the house and smile at us. If we don’t flinch when he grins his teeth at us he will chase you around the house. So that one time I said “Oh your teeth are so shiny” and shaded my eyes. He took that literally, that his teeth are blinding me!!! This will help with those dental bills we just paid for the last three fillings he had done!!!

At co-op this week the teacher was teaching about Fairy Tales and this week it was “Jack and The Beanstalk.” Once the story was over she procedded to have each of the preschooler plant two seeds in a jar in order to grow “beanstalks.” Well Evan didn’t want any of that!!! He wanted no part of having a beanstalk in his jar that will result in a giant!!! He was very afraid of the giant. I wonder when she read the story if his eyes were as big as quarters. She had to remind him that Jack killed the giant so he will not come back. Fear isn’t far from a literal kid like Evan!!!

We jokingly call him, “The Coolest Kid Ever” and he believes that he is. Now I believe that he is pretty cool, but he, for some reason believes that when he turns 5 next January his name will change to “The Coolest Kid Ever.”



Boy, gotta love the innocents of a four year old!!! I hope this last a long time!!!!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Adventure Begins.....

Our school year has gotten underway and is going pretty well. I think everyone is in the groove and working really hard!! I will admit I am STILL a little stressed out about Tyler being a freshman.

Tyler is working pretty hard, but he is only doing three classes right now: English PACE's School of TomorrowSaxon Algebra 1 with, DIVE CD  and Biology, Apologia Biology  at CEC . He begins Notgrass World History and Literature , ABEKA Spanish 1 and Apologetics Who Is God and Can I Really Know Him? Biblical Worldview of God and Truth in a week at co-op. He seems to be doing really well, just not always following my directions. Unfortunately he has some of my qualities and the worst one is; laziness. He only wants to do the minimum amount of work. This year will show him how hard he needs to work.

Samantha is in 7th grade and is a hard worker. I just have to give her a list of what she needs to do and she will sit down and gets it done! She is doing English PACE'S School of Tomorrow , 7th Grade Math and Science PACES School of Tomorrow right now. We start Literature reading: Island of the Blue Dolphins next week and she will start Mystery of History Volume 1 , Intro to Spanish and Apologetics at co-op.

Caroline is in 4th grade and is struggling a little bit with her self-esteem. She usually doubts her abilities so she struggles more then she really needs to. She is working on English PACES School of Tomorrow, Creative Writing and Literature PACES School of Tomorrow,  4th grade mathSequential Spelling, and  Critical Thinking Activities . She will start HistoryApologia Swimming Creatures Science and Art Appreciation at Co-op. We will be doing Galloping the Globe Geography with friends in the next couple of weeks too. We will have to work really hard this year building up her self-esteem.

Jack is 2nd grade and doing really well. We have only done a couple weeks of school so far and he isn’t whining too much!! I do take silly bands for whining, I do have a few of his in my jar!! He is working on Phonics Explode the CodeSequential Spelling ,  Rod and Staff reading , Rod and Staff English ,  3rd Grade Math  and his reading and math boxes. He will be doing some science, history, geography and BASIC SEWING (yep, sewing) at co-op. He will be following along with Caroline in her science book and working with Geography.

Looking forward to getting going even more then we already have.....