Week 29 in CTG

I feel like we've been at cruising altitude for a long time. Seems like we've figured out how to do things.

In Bible this week we studied from Sennacherib & Hezekiah to Jeremiah's time. This ties into what is going on in History during this time. Assyria declines (they got too big for their britches), and Babylon becomes the dominant power of the time. We see God's graciousness to Judah, as they survive as a nation longer than Israel does, due to good kings enforcing God's commandments.

We finished up Genesis for Kids this week. We didn't do any of the experiments. But, it was a good ending, and neat to be reminded how God created us and this earth.

On Monday we went ahead and finished The Children's Homer. The story got too exciting and we wanted to find out what happened next. We stopped after each chapter and summarized and read the questions/suggestions in the teacher's manual, but it was fun to finish it ahead of time.

Rabbit decided to do her own story this time for Writing Strands. The text implied to write a story to go along with the author's ideas. Rabbit was not into it and wanted to come up with her own outline. So I agreed. She likes it better when it is her idea, I think, so we get less fighting over it. She has diligently worked on her story.

We should be able to drag out the last few steps in All About Spelling book 4 to finish out our year. Will probably order book 5 and continue through the summer.

We are also about to finish Singapore 3A. Only 6 more lessons to go. We'll be doing 3B through the summer. I'm trying to decide if I should double up on "easy" lessons so we can get through it a little faster. Hopefully we'll get through 4A and 4B next year.

Every thing else seems to be fine. I see a little attitude cropping up every now and then from Rabbit, but if I don't overreact we can usually get through it.

Reward for Your Work

But you, be strong and do not lose courage, for there is a reward for your work. - 2 Chronicles 15:7

This morning I filled up the last page in my journal, so I was flipping through it before going to file it away and found a few 3x5 cards on which I had written verses. I love reading the Old Testament and finding great promises like this.

The above is from when Asa was king over Judah. Asa had removed the foreign alters and high places, tore down the sacred pillars, and all kinds of detestable things. Azariah the prophet came to Asa and was encouraging him. Asa hadn't removed all the abominable idols yet, but after hearing these words, he was encouraged and finished the job.

This is a great promise for us home school moms. It is so easy to lose courage. Our kids have bad attitudes. We don't feel motivated. The house isn't cleaned. The kids won't listen to us. We have so many activities. It goes on and on. And it is easy to just give up and think home schooling isn't God's plan for our family. It is hard work. Then I see this verse and think, "I may not see the fruit now, the days may drag on and on, but there is a reward for this work."

Now, the problem is I too often try to do my work in my own strength. That never works long term. Then I have to remember Philippians 4:13,

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

This constant turning to God and looking to Him for our victories is what carries us through the long haul.

Later on in 2 Chronicles, King Jehoshaphat is having trouble. The Moabites and Ammonites are about to make war on Judah. He is at a loss, and says,

...nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on Thee. - 2 Chronicles 20:12b

We have to keep our eyes on Him. He will show us. We just have to keep ourselves open to Him. It's so easy to tell Him what we want and how we want it given to us. But, maybe He has a slightly different idea of how things should go.

Sure enough, a couple of verses later, God answers and says,

Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. (2 Chronicles 20:15b)

So often we think the battle is ours. It is my fight. But, when we make it our battle, then we lose the unlimited power and resources that God has for us if we just ask Him.

...put your trust in the Lord your God, and you will be established. - 2 Chronicles 20:20b

That promise wasn't just for Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah. That promise is also for us this day. We need to trust that He will give us the answers to our problems and our battles.

When we think of our daily struggles with home schooling, we would do well to remember this is only temporary. This isn't our final home. We are really citizens of heaven.

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. - 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

God's plan is to shape us more into being like Him (see Romans 8:29). How often is parenting and home schooling more about shaping our character than our kid's? Sometimes we think the problems we're having with our kids is about our kids. And sometimes they need to change, probably most of the time. But, I bet almost all the time God is working on some character issue in us and we're the ones that need to change.

Remember, be strong and don't lose courage, there is a reward for your work. Turn your eyes to God for your help. He will fight your battles. This is only temporary.

Abeka Kindergarten Progress

Tigger and Pooh are doing pretty well. I really like that Abeka as consonant blend practice. And you do it a lot. But, now that we're hitting a few vowel teams, they're struggling a little. The vowel teams covered so far: /ay/, /ar/, /or/, and /ou/. They've got /ay/ down pretty well. But the last three are new. So, tomorrow, we're going to play a little phonics bingo.

I made blank Bingo cards in Photoshop Elements. Then I printed them on card stock and laminated them. Now, I can write different consonant blends and vowel teams in the blanks, and play bingo with the boys. I made little tiles earlier this year for the different consonant blends that Abeka teaches, and I grabbed the vowel teams from our All-About-Spelling board, and put those in a cup. I'll have to see if that helps the boys any.

The nice thing about the blank bingo cards is I can use them again. Just wipe off the dry erase marker and put different things (maybe math drill answers or something) on the blanks. Just use low-odor dry erase markers.

Week 28 in CTG

Okay, this will get us caught up...

This week we read Jonah and a little of Isaiah to tie in with our 2 Kings readings. In History, we read about the Assyrians. It's funny, because many of the history readings say "Advanced" but Rabbit enjoys them, so we read them anyway. It is fascinating to learn about these things. There were several notebook pages this week to work on, so that was good.

We didn't do any of the science. We read the book, discussed them. But, I'm just not letting my child stay up all night. She feels the effects of lack of sleep, so she gets it. In fact, since reading that page, she's been trying to get to bed earlier.

It's been fun continuing on in The Children's Homer. It's been tempting to just go ahead and finish it, but each day we've had other things that have needed to get done, so we haven't.

I don't know if this is a bad idea or not... But, since we've been doing mostly review in Singapore (times and divide by 6, 7, 8 and 9 - all things we covered in Math-U-See Delta) I've only had Rabbit do the Review pages in the Textbook (unless it is just a totally new concept). She gets a lot of practice with the single digit into multiple digit number division. We're getting toward the end of 3A, and I suspect we'll do 3B over the summer.

The rest of it has been going fine. In writing, we're working on writing a story. She didn't want to do the idea in the book, so she made up her own list and is writing her own story. We went a couple of rounds of discussion about the story, but she got frustrated with me, so I told her she could write whatever she wanted. I'm sure it will be fine, but she gets so complicated in her stories. She wants to add so much detail rather than just scratch the surface.

Week 27 in CTG

Sorry, I'm a bit behind... We'll get all caught up real quick here...

This week covers Elisha for Bible. Bible is also essentially History for this week. I already wrote my entry about Elisha's servant seeing the town surrounded by the Syrians and how Elisha prayed for God to show his servant the heavenly host surrounding the Syrians. I love how that all tied together with what I was reading in my quiet time.

We stared memorizing a passage from Isaiah 40 this week. I love this passage. I love the assumption in this passage - it assumes a Creator. And it talks about His sovereignty.

We didn't do the Barley Cake activity.

In Science, we didn't do the support project with the fettuccine noodles nor the hyacinth project. But, we did measure how many pennies spaghetti noodles could hold. First, we counted out how many the paper cup would hold. Then we just tried one spaghetti noodle and saw how many pennies before it would break. Then we did two spaghetti noodles, and I guessed it would hold twice as many pennies. It did plus one. So then, using that, we figured how many noodles it would take to hold the hold cup (in our case, 8). Sure enough, eight was enough. We tried 7 noodles. and the broke instantly. We had to use stacks of nickles on each side of the spaghetti noodles to keep them from rolling around on the chair until we got a few more pennies in the cup. Here's a picture - you can see how much the spaghetti noodles bent:


We're continuing on in The Children's Homer. It is kind of nice to find out what has been happening to Odysseus.

Otherwise, school has been going well. Although, keeping motivated through the end of the year is a challenge.