Beautiful Girls

We had each girl's picture made recently. They were all so good. Here are just a few of the ones we bought.

I don't know how to make these look better since they had to be scanned. But I love the pictures and the girls in the pictures. I'm so glad we had Betsie's picture made pre-haircut. And that is Mary Evelyn's dog Foster with her. Notice he is all dressed up to match her! And Rachel is becoming such a grown up beautiful young lady!

Starting Strong

I know that the real test will be in finishing strong, but for now, I am SO thankful for the way our school year has started. Tomorrow will be day #10 and I am very pleased. Rather than blog about the details of our week (which are pretty similar to week #1 except that I botched a science experiment and had to majorly adapt a craft project), I want to post about why this year seems to be working so much better than previous years.

1. Bribes - There you go. You think I'm kidding? Last Friday the girls had ice cream for LUNCH from Bruster's because they had 5 good school days in a row. Not sure yet what the reward (better word than bribe) might be tomorrow, but if all goes well in the morning, I need to come up with something really soon! Maybe we can just go swimming or something like that.

2. A set start time - We have started each day at approximately 8:45 (with a couple of exceptions) and that has helped tremendously. Consistency always helps but I am not always so great at providing this important element. But we have done well for 2 weeks and I can see how valuable consistency really is!

3. Keeping the girls together for most subjects. This is the biggie for me and it was one of the main reasons I switched to My Father's World. Last year I felt like I was doing two different school times. (I was.) I taught one and then the other. Then I did one level of Five in a Row with one child and another level with the other child (on a good week!). So if I was trying to teach Rachel, I had two other children to possibly interrupt or get into mischief or whatever instead of just one. Keeping the older two together for most subjects means only Betsie has to be directed. And most of the time she is working out of her own little school box. I did remove the scissors from there by the way. I am going to post our general routine at the bottom of this post.

4. Tons of prayer. This should probably be first. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to be nervous about this year. It sure sent me to my knees! And God has been so faithful to allow me to see some fruit already this year!

5. Staying off the computer until the afternoon. And staying off the phone too. My Father's World recommends giving your children your undivided attention in the morning. This seems so obvious, but I confess that I have not always done this. I would get started checking email and then maybe blogs or whatever else. And what were the girls doing during that time? Drawing, collecting bugs, fighting, playing together, watching TV (which they are not supposed to do until after school but who can blame them when I was being such a poor example?). We always got school done, but sometimes not without a fight since I often had to drag them away from something they were enjoying! I think this is one of the essentials to my being a better manager and teacher this year. I blew this the other day (not too bad) and I saw how big of a no no it really is.

Okay, back to #3...I have so far found a few things that have helped me manage to get most of our work done in approximately 2 hours in the mornings. So here is our basic morning routine for school as an FYI to others who may be using My Father's World with two children. It's a routine, not a schedule, so I am just listing the general order that we usually do things.

• Geography. We do this part together.
• Math. This is where I found something that is WONDERFUL! Teaching Textbooks has allowed Rachel to be an independent math student so I can work individually with Mary Evelyn. Mary Evelyn uses Right Start which requires me to be right there with her. It is SO COOL to get math done with both girls in one shot. If one finishes earlier, I have an amazing ability to make her review like crazy until the other is done allowing us to keep going with our little routine.
• Handwriting practice. So far they have just been practicing the letters of the alphabet with Handwriting Without Tears but soon they'll be copying character qualities from Hero Tales.
• Science. We do this together. If there is no science in the schedule for that day, there is usually art or something like that to do together.
• Now I split them up a little. Rachel has book basket time while I do language arts work with Mary Evelyn. Then Mary Evelyn has book basket time while I do language arts work with Rachel. Language arts includes spelling, language lessons, phonics lessons, etc.

All that can be done in about 2 hours. In addition to those two hours, they have some independent reading time in the afternoon. (as in sit somewhere comfy and just READ a book!) And in the evenings we do the Bible lessons/devotions and read chapter books to the girls. That takes quite a bit of time and is a nice way to wrap up the day. But it's all included in the lesson plans.

We have several more weeks before we take a break so I am still praying hard. I really want to be a good steward of the time I have with my kids. So many things easily distract from our school time so I am trying to be very protective of our mornings. I can't wait to see how much more we all learn next week!

Long Overdue Pictures

Maybe you remember this post, where I said that we had pulled the carpet from the big girls' room and put up bunk beds. At the time my camera was not working so I couldn't post pictures. So this post is simply an update. Please overlook some of the messies in the picture. We live in this house!

Jason ripping the carpet out of the closet. There are hardwood floors under there!

Rachel helping

The bunkbeds are here!

And here is where they will go!

All set up!

And here they are a month later. Rachel has created quite a space up there for herself with shelves, memory board, a lamp, and who knows what else!

This is the rug I ordered after we removed the carpet. It is more purple than I expected so it may end up in Betsie's room after her carpet is taken out. (Her walls are purple.) But for now it looks fine and cuts down on the stomping!

Week One Exploring Countries and Cultures in My Father's World

We had a great first week of school. We went a little light on the three R's and will hit those a little harder next week. I wanted the girls to enjoy their first week back so we focused on the fun stuff. We did still do math, spelling, handwriting, reading, etc...just not in heavy doses and a lot of it was review.

We started our week last Sunday night with the first Bible lesson. We talked about how God made and loves ALL people all over the world. And we began learning John 3:16 (which was new to Mary Evelyn but review for Rachel). On Monday morning we prayed together and went on a prayer walk around our neighborhood. I wanted the girls to see that God loves the people all over the world AND right next door too! Plus I learned from our experience with occupational therapy that some kids learn better after some physical activity. (We always start Mary Evelyn's math lesson by counting to 100 while she swings as high as she can on the swingset!)

Our curriculum is My Father's World and we are doing year one in their five year History cycle. It is called Exploring Countries and Cultures. It is a year long geography course which serves as a great basis for learning history in the coming years as well as giving children and parents an appetite for world missions. (Those of you at North Hills know this goes perfectly with our summer World View curriculum for kids...so cool!)

These first two weeks are an introduction. We are learning about maps in general as well as learning the names of the continents and oceans. We talked about hemispheres, the poles, directions, and the equator. The cool part is that both girls memorized the names of the continents (thanks to a catchy little tune!) and can locate them on the map!

One of our fun activities was making the poster pictured above. Rachel wrote John 3:16 out for us and the girls cut out pictures of people from National Geographic magazines. They also put a small picture of our family on there. This poster will be displayed above our world map in the school room for the whole year...it's the theme of the year.

The girls also enjoyed our science this week. Probably because they got to draw, one of their absolute favorite things to do! Three days this week, I read them a couple of pages from the Usborne Living World Encyclopedia. Then they got to illustrate something they learned and write some sentences about it. I have heard some complain that there are not enough science experiments in Exploring Countries and Cultures, but I was never great at that anyway so this is just the right pace for us. There are SOME experiments (we have one or two next week actually) and the geography is very hands on, so we are happy as can be. With all of that and science at our TWO co-ops, I think drawing is just perfect...and about all I can handle! Their science drawings get filed into the science section of their notebooks. We'll also have a nature journal, which we will work on weekly.

This is Mary Evelyn's picture of a gecko from one of the science lessons. She dictated her sentences to me.

A world map that Rachel labeled with the oceans and continents. We'll add to it next week.

There was more but those are the highlights. I joined the My Father's World blogring so I will try my best to blog about our school year. If you prayed for us last week, THANK YOU! I was a little anxious, but it went so well.

Stay tuned this weekend for updated pictures of Betsie and the haircut that takes your breath away!

How Can A Little Girl Break Her Mommy's Heart?

By giving herself a haircut! All three of mine have done this. And now Bestie has done it twice. But tonight's is by far the worst of all. Time is the only thing that can repair this hack job I'm afraid. You can laugh, but not too hard. And we have a family reunion AND an adoption travel group reunion coming up! Big heavy sigh...

Doesn't she look awfully proud of herself?

(I considered using my prayer request and for sale tags for this post...)

First Day of School

It went well! We will add in a few more subjects as the week goes on, but this was a nice start.

Tagged - How I am Feeling

My friend Heather tagged me. I am supposed to share 6 words to describe my feelings. Okay, I'll try! But like you, Heather, it might take a few more than 6 words!

1. Dirty - Our hot water heater isn't working. I'd really like a shower. Hey...you asked!

2. Excited - We start a new school year in a week. I just pulled copies of activities we will need for week #1. I also hung the big wall map. On day one the girls will have their pictures made and apply for their pretend passports. I hope they enjoy this curriculum...I think it looks great!

3. Frustrated - Goes back to the no hot water thing. And is it just me or do a lot of my posts deal with something being broken around here?

4. Loved - A long weekend with my husband was just what I needed after a pretty hard week last week.

5. Relieved - Betsie is sleeping pretty well in her big girl bed. The transition from the crib to the toddler bed was a bit of a nightmare. I was dreading the move to the real bed. But she has slept pretty well the last few nights and I am SO relieved! As much as I love the little darling, come bed time, I really want to say nighty night and not see her again until the next morning. (Now if she could just figure out part 2 of potty training.)

6. Nervous - I really want to have a good school year with my girls this year. Last year was such a challenge. If the first few weeks go well, it would be SO encouraging to me. So I am a little nervous, but at least I am sure that the girls are where they belong for another year. (Prayed pretty hard about it for this school year...wasn't so sure there for a while) So if you think of us next week, we'd be thankful for any prayers for our first week!

*update: We have hot water! Got it last night around 7pm and didn't even have to replace the hot water heater...although that happening soon is a real possibility since ours has outlived its life expectancy. But we're all squeaky clean! Yippee!

No Camera=No Blog

Seems like everything I want to blog about needs a photo. I'm realizing that without pictures, my blog is pretty bland! Sorry! Hopefully I'll have that remedied soon.