A Joyful Keeper

Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

Sometimes I think we make life so complicated, at least I know I do! Even with school….. it is so easy to get caught up in all the curriculum that is available and spend a lot of money on things that we sometimes don’t even end up using. I know I have done this. There is often trial and error because I have not been able to look at the item beforehand, ie I’ve bought it on the internet. Not all homeschooling suppliers let you send it back if it is not what you expected. There are some out there that do have that policy, and that is a great help. I don’t mind if I get some things wrong, but I prefer that not to happen too often!

There is also a tendency to think we HAVE to buy things. There are a lot of resources available on the internet for free. Many of these are high quality and I am trying to incorporate them into our homeschool more and more each year. Some of my favorite sites for free homeschooling resources are:

http://amblesideonline.org/

http://oldfashionededucation.com/index.html

http://www.easyfunschool.com/

http://www.splashesfromtheriver.com/spelling/index.htm

http://www.learningpage.com/

I’d like to encourage you to use more of these resources in your homeschool. It will be much easier on your pocket book and your children will still receive a quality education. Oh, and don’t forget to download my Back to School Notebooking Pages Ebook, it is FREE!!!

When Tiany started hosting the Homeschool Open House 2007 , I was so excited to see how many people were giving away freebies to bless other homeschoolers. I wanted in on this too I have started on many ebooks, but not finished any. This Open House really pushed me to actually make a simple ebook and finish it! Thanks Tiany for the motivation!

You can go HERE to download the ebook.

Thanks again to Tiany and all those who participated in the Open House. I have been really blessed by the ones I have read so far (still working on that list!). Can’t wait till next year’s! LOL!

“Beside my cottage door it grows,
The loveliest, daintiest flower that blows,
A sweetbriar rose.

“At dewy morn or twilight’s close,
The rarest perfume from it flows,
This strange wild rose.

“But when the rain-drops on it beat,
Ah, then, its odors grow more sweet,
About my feet.

“Ofttimes with loving tenderness,
Its soft green leaves I gently press,
In sweet caress.

“A still more wondrous fragrance flows
The more my fingers close
And crush the rose.

“Dear Lord, oh, let my life be so
Its perfume when tempests blow,
The sweeter flow.

“And should it be Thy blessed will,
With crushing grief my soul to fill,
Press harder still.

“And while its dying fragrance flows
I’ll whisper low, ‘He loves and knows
His crushed briar rose.’”

~Streams in the Desert by Mrs Charles E. Cowman ~

This is the first time I am joining in on Frugal Friday! What fun!

Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

A few weeks ago I made a bag, and as I went, I dealt with the scraps of fabric.

I started out with this scrap of fabric. I needed a 6″ strip for one part of the bag, so I cut that first:

I still had a scrap of fabric left after that first cut, which normally would end up in the scrap box and maybe “one day” I would use it! Instead I cut another 2″ strip from it:

Then I cut the 2″ strip into 6″ sections and had enough at the end for a 2″ square:

I ended up with:

One 6″ square, seven rectangles of 6″x 2″, and two 2″ squares - all ready to go into a quilt!

I used to just throw the scraps into a scrap box, and think that “someday” I would use them for “something”! Now I do this and it is amazing how soon I get a pile of squares and rectangles that I can turn into a “free quilt”!!

I have piles of strips and squares that are ready to go into a scrap quilt, or in borders, whatever really…. once they are all ready like that, they can be easily used in so many different projects! Try it and soon you will have a shelf full of “ready to go” scraps like I do!

Yesterday we had a great day together. School flowed just nicely, and we all did some work in the kitchen.

We had been given a huge jar of chocolate mousse mix a while ago, and I decided to ask Daniel to work out how to make it. He looked at the instructions on the back and managed to make a HUGE batch of it! LOL! That’s what I get for letting him make it independently Still, it was good because we have enough for a few days of desserts and gave a few servings away too! The kids all decided it was absolutely yummy!

Elizabeth made sugar cookies. She is getting quite good at that. She does it all except put them in and out of the oven. She also taught Matthew how to make Hot Chocolate Mix. Matt’s been asking when he gets to be in charge of a recipe, so I thought this was a good one to start him with. He has to learn to measure, mix and sift ingredients. No chopping or cooking involved He decided it was really hard work! LOL! Wait till he learns a harder recipe!

The boys have been unloading the dishwasher for years now, as on of their daily morning chores. Yesterday I started teaching Elizabeth to load it. I rinsed and showed her where to put the dishes. She was pleased that she was helping me out in the kitchen.

Our children often like to help us out, especially the younger ones. When they get older they might be less willing to help out. Little ones love to follow us around and copy us. We need to take advantage of this eagerness! I know I haven’t taken advantage of it enough in the past. Often it was just much quicker for me to do something than to train one of my children. And yet now I can see the training is paying off as the children are able to do more and more things on their own. I want to build on that training slowly, because I know there are way more things they can do to help around the house.

I don’t just want to train them for my sake, but also for their own. It is part of their education. They need to have practical skills as well as academic ones.

I’d love to hear about how you train your children in your home. If you have any blog entries or articles you have written, please leave a comment and a link to them. I’d love to read them and I’m sure others would too

Mama Duke has tagged me, and I am finally getting around to it…!!!

Rules: 8 random facts or habits about me.

1. I have lived in 7 countries.
2. I would love to live in a country that has snow at Christmas time - and lots of it!!!
3. When I eat M&M’s I have to eat two at a time and they must be the same color
4. I read The Chronicles of Narnia and the Little House on the Prairie books right through once a year.
5. I love cats.
6. My ancestors were Protestants who fled from persecution in France, to Holland, in the 1500’s.
7. My favorite color is blue.
8. When I went to High School I ate the same thing everyday for lunch: two slices of bread with cheese spread (I was skinny then, maybe I should do this again!!).

We went to church this morning. We’ve been to church three times since we got back, … which means that we’ve been to church three times in the past 3 years! Not very good attendance, I’m afraid! Seriously though, we are looking for a church now that we’re back from the Middle East and want to take our time. We won’t ever find a “perfect” church, because there isn’t one! But we need to find one where we can fit it as a family.

There are a few funny things about church after not having gone for so long. First of all you don’t know any of the songs. Except for the one during the children’s talk which is “Jesus Loves the Little Children”….and which your eldest son is too embarrassed to sing because it is a little kids one (yes, he’s at that age…!) Then it is all the “rituals” which were once so familiar and normal, and you now look at with different eyes. At the last church service our youngest son wanted to know what the bags were for that they were passing around Uh oh, we’re bringing our kids up as heathens! Thankfully we will get back into the swing of things and get to know people and the customs again. It is almost like adapting to a different culture.

When we were overseas we adapted to the culture there as much as we could. We were patient with things that we thought were silly. We were willing to learn. When we come back to our own culture, we often think it will be easy, we’ll just slot back in. But no… things have changed while we were gone. Someone is sitting in our spot at church! Not just that, but they have changed the seating arrangement. The songs are new! The worship is done differently! Why are they reading out the prayers instead of just praying ad lib? I can’t find the toilet anymore!! How easy it would be to criticize.

We need to treat our re-entry into our home country with as much patience as we treated our adaptation into the new culture we just came from. After a while we will no longer look confused when we walk into a shop and see the huge variety of choices. After a while we will no longer look confused at church when we sing and partake of the Lord’s Supper (do we eat and drink together, do we wait…?). After a while we will no longer look at the money and wonder what the 20 coin looks like. After a while we will learn the songs. After a while we will make new friends. After a while we might even dress like everyone else And then the culture that we adopted over the past years will slowly fade away…..

Tiany’s Homeschool Open House is going sooooo well! She has more than 100 people participating! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking at lots of blogs and leaving as many comments as I can! This is so much fun!

I just love to hear about how other homeschoolers plan their year. I love to pick up ideas from them. That is the best part of this Open House. Just at a click of my mouse, I can have a peek into over 100 homeschools and see what God is doing in their lives. I’ve already picked up quite a few ideas that I want to try. I keep telling myself to write down where I got the ideas from, but of course I’ve looked at so many blogs the past few days that I have forgotten! Oops!

I’ve also had confirmation of what we are doing…. that we are not the only ones with our particular style of learning! It is always nice to know that you are not alone in this world! LOL!

Thanks to all of you who have visited my blog in the last couple of days, I’m so glad you were able to drop in! Thanks to all of you who left comments. If you asked questions, I answered in the comments section. And thanks again to Tiany for hosting this wonderful event!!! Oh - and if you haven’t joined in yet, you still can!!! The Homeschool Open House is still on till the 15th!