My School Schedule for 2012-2013

I thought that I would post my school schedule. I know that a few of you who are new to my blog are interested in my schedule. I know that it is important to do have balance in our lives. I am still working on that. I have the type of personality that can get caught up in just one or two things and let the rest of my life fall by the wayside (friends). Sorry about that you know who you are.  Anyways, so here is my schedule because I get crazy about time and staying on track I have decided to not put times by the activity. It has worked better for me. School ends when everything is wiped off of the white board.
 5:00 Mom wakes up (This is the only time)
 1-Dress and Exercise
 2-Make bed, shower, dress
3- Prayer and personal scriptures for me and my two older girls
4- Everyone wakes up and cleans their rooms and gets dressed
5-Chores for kids, mom makes breakfast
6- Eat and clean up breakfast
7-Devotional
    a)Pledge
    b)Songs 3
        -Patriotic
        -Learn new song out of Hymn book
        -Primary song or any song the kids choose*
    c)Prayer
   d)Scriptures
   e)Memorization
   f)Journals
8-School time
9- Lunch and clean up
10-Piano for Sugar and everyone else does their reading or do independent work while I read to the little kids.
11-Then Spice does her piano (this is only until I can find a guitar teacher for her then they will do her lessons at the same time as Sugar.)
Sugar does her independent work and then we go back to family learning.
12-Family learning
13-Kids finish any subjects that need to be completed.
14-Free time, Mom reads a few minutes
15-Dinner
16-Night time routine
  *The kids have their own days. So when it is the child's day they get to lead in the pledge, pick the songs, say the prayer, read first when we do scriptures, etc.
 *Family learning- There are a few subjects that we learn together. The reason is because they all have to know it, and if we do it in rotation then all of the kids get it and we can all learn as a group. This is important because it teaches the children how to listen, how to think and express their thoughts, it will help them form their own oppinion and express it as well as ask questions. It lets me know what they are thinking and what they are retaining, it also lets me know if there is something in a subject that a child wants to know more about, as well as gives me the opportunity to explain words that they might not know.
  Some of the family learning subjects are
 - History (We love The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer)
 - Science (We are useing Exploring Creation by Jeannie K. Fulbright)
 - Literature (Our first read alouds are Swiss Family Robinson, Mr. Poppers Penguins, Red Scarf Girl)
 - Projects and of corse Field Trips (This Friday we are going to The Voices of Civil War at This is the Place.)
 There are a few things that the kids are doing that the schedule wont work for but outside of those few days this is our schedule.
  Just so you know not every day looks like this but my goal is to get it so that most of my days look like this. For the school year.We are still in the process of forming habits.
   "If you don't aspire toward greatness, you cannot achieve greatness."
Chalene Johnson

What I learned today from running.

 I have been learning to go out of my comfort zone when it comes to my physical fitness. I have started running and that has always been hard for me. When I stated running I had the frame of mind   that over time I will get stronger and I will be able to run longer and faster. I can now run for 3 miles at a slow pace and not stop. I realized today that I am in a comfort zone again and that in order to make progress I need to get used to not being in that comfort zone.
  I also thought about the other aspects of my life while I was running. In order for me to progress I need to get used to being out of that zone in all aspects of my life. If I want to become great and accomplish great things in my life I will have to do hard things.
 We are not here to stay comfortable. We are here to progress and learn. The only way that we can do that is to get used to doing hard things and getting out of our personal comfort zones then stand up for those choices.

TJEd My Way. Part 1

I have a dear friend who disagrees with the Thomas Jefferson Education. As I have been thinking about this (because I do TJEd) I had to take a deep look into why it is that I believe that it is good for me and my family. I will give you my take on the 7 keys of great teaching. The first that I think people have problems with is Key number 3 inspire not require. As I was pondering this key, part of me was thinking that it takes more then just inspiring my children to get them to learn. Then I heard another friend say that when you home school it is really your education and your children are along for the ride. That hit me so hard as truth. Yes, we do the three Rs more now with my older then with my younger children. My oldest went to school for a while and she was NOT ready. I have tried to make her learn what the public school kids her age are learning and we both get SOOOO fustrated. By the time we are done there are a lot of tears from the both of us. Through LOTS of prayer and pondering and guidance. She is now ASKING to do math, spelling, typing and other things that interest her. Yes, she is a lot older then most her age from where she is starting but I know that she will catch up because she wants to,and not because I require her. This is truly a blessing that she is ready and wanting to learn on her own! It has taken a long time but now that she is ready I know that she will actually value and understand what she learns. I have learned that when you introduce a subject and try to push it, like I did, that just creates fustration, tears, and broken relationships. I do introduce them to things. This is where I take a few minutes and read or do math or whatever and then tell them about it. Me AND THEM! We also play games and read books and do all sorts of things. It is our job to cultivate what it is our children are interested in. Daniel wants to scuba dive when he gets older and so Steve took him snorkling at Sea Base where he was able to experience swimming with salt water fish. Some of the sea life he was able to experience inclued Nurse Sharks, Stingrays, Angle Fish, Tuna, and a number of other fish. However, if a child is not ready for a concept and we try again at a later date then there will not be the tears and fustration connected with not being ready. When we take the time to learn ourselves then we can show them how it looks and feels to learn about things that interest us. A note about older children. Scholar phase children it is inspire AND require. With younger children they are also required to do some things as well. My children have to all sit through devotional even though my youngest is in and out, they are also required to do family chores. For me it is inspire until they can grasp new concepts. Again, when they are not ready and you force them it only creates fustration. If you mentor and the child sets goals and interest then they are required to follow through with what they said they would do. This is how I see this Key of teaching.

So here I go again! I am going to start eating more raw not all raw. That was to hard but more I can do. I learned how to make my own almond milk. Ya it is way easy and way good. so here is now you make it. Soak 1 1/2 c Almonds in 4 cups of water for a day rinse and refill water do this every night and every morning for 48 hours so 2 days after that rinse and place the almonds and fresh filtered water in a blender and blend for
about 30 seconds then get a strainer. I just have a metal one. repeat till you don't have any chunks. DON'T though away the pulp! If you have a dehydrator flavor the pulp. I put in onion powder. Then place them on your dehydrator sheet and dehydrate at 104f. till completely dry. They taste like crackers but they are crumbly so I am going to put them on my raw cold soups or salads. HA who am I kidding? I think they are so good that I haven't even waited that long. LOL but they would be good that way. : )

I just did this today. Not bad for my first portrait . I am learning from a wonderful website called

http://www.fivepencilmethod.com/tutorials/

I love it!!!!

Hope that you have fun looking. : )