Big Changes and Little Blessings

Our Family has been through quite a bit since my last post. I feel like life has been on hold as we've eagerly awaited the birth of the baby. On December 15, 2008, our little blessing was born - Josiah Immanuel Walker. He is such a sweet little baby (even if he prefers to sleep all day and look around, make noises, and eat all night.) Well, now I'm mom to 4 boys and a little princess, and big changes are in order.



During the course of this pregnancy, I realized that our homeschooling was really becoming an overwhelming process. It was tough on the kids and tough on me. Getting all those subjects done with all those kids was becoming a task that took more time than we had. The joy of learning was leaving our home. Donald was so busy with his own schoolwork that he couldn't help out much, though he did try. We were all pretty frustrated. I began to look, yet again, into ways to find the homeschool method that fit our family in our situation. I knew that once the baby arrived things would be even more hectic.

What to do? - Well, it's been years since I became aquainted with curriculums like Accelerated Achievement and the Robinson Curriculum. I've loved the idea behind them: allowing the children to take charge of their educations and teach themselves. I've just never had the assurance to go ahead and do it. Another issue has been that I have different texts that I would like to use and I would feel like I was wasting money by buying a curriculum and then using other books for half the subjects. I then came across a great article by Joanne Calderwood in Homeschool Enrichment Magazine I saw a way that the method I had long wanted to try could be compatible with the curriculum I wanted to use.

So with the new semester and the new year we will plunge deeper into an experiment that we started a few weeks ago. The children will be, with my supervision, teaching themselves. Maybe I'll have time to write about it - LOL.

My Brother's Wedding!

Today, August 30, 2008, was very special. My younger brother got married.

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Battle!

(For more pictures click on the link below!!)

http://s392.photobucket.com/albums/pp6/duckyglenn/?action=view&current=2a9969f4.pbw

Google & History, Teaching the Old; Using the New

This year our history classes have been completely revamped. The kids, who have always seemed to like history, are now loving history. And they are retaining more than ever. During our last history session, I got out the camera and documented our class.

We are again using Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World Series for history. The method that we use can be adapted to any curriculum though. With Google and a great text, history has come alive for us like never before.

Here are the steps we take in our sessions:

1. Place globes, maps, atlases, etc on the table for the kids to use.

2. Give the kids paper to be creative on. I like to fold a one inch margin so that they know not to draw or glue anything over that line so that their "book" can be bound when done.

3. Read the text aloud to the children. Whenever a country, river, or geographic feature is mentioned find it on the globe or map. Also perform a google search of the place, landmard, etc. Don't forget to use the "images" feature to get great pictures of the places that you're studying.

4. When ever you come across a person's name, use google images to get a picture of them. This is especially helpful if you are using an older history text that may not have many pictures available. I like to copy and paste some pictures onto a Word Document and then print them out. The kids can cut them out and incorporate them into their books if they want. Let them add notes and text to the pictures and you've got a great record of your history lesson. My kids don't like to color much for some reason (though I do provide markers, crayons, and color pencils each time we do one of these lessons), so their books turn out mostly black and white. (We have a laser printer for these projects. Trying to do this with our color inkjet would be very expensive.) Other kids might enjoy adding splashes of color to their books.

5. At the end of the lesson the one inch binding can be glued together. The pages for subsequent weeks can be glued right behind them, making a great history portfolio for the year. Kids love picking up their books and reading their own writing. They self-review almost automatically.

6. Make sure the kids write their notes in pencil so spelling or grammatical errors can be corrected.

7. HAVE FUN LEARNING HISTORY !!!

NOTES:*If you don't have a filter on your intenet service, you may want to make and print your pictures before the class begins - just incase an image that is not appropriate comes up.

*Pre-Schoolers can use this time to practice cutting and gluing skills. Our little guy was cutting out pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine, Motorcycles, bridges, etc.

Going Beyond with Priscilla Shirer

This weekend I attended the "Going Beyond" women's conference in Hendersonville, TN. WHAT A BLESSING!!!!!!!

A precious friend thought enough of me to pay my way, and I now know it was the Lord Who really designed for me to be there. I am overwhelmingly thankful for the opportunity to have gone. Some of the things that were said spoke directly to my present struggles and situations. I have been refreshed and blessed by attending. And we had so much FUN!! May the LORD strengthen me to apply all that I have learned. May the Lord bless me with faith that I may trust in Him through the coming days.

Another precious friend took all 4 kids Friday morning for a sleepover. She just called and asked if they could stay another night. I don't know what to do with myself, and it is such a blessing. God is Good.

The Role of Video Games in our Homeschool Family

This is a topic that comes up a lot in homeschool circles. It is hotly debated among some. Many believe that kids should have no television, and video games are a waste of time. Some parents don't have any restrictions whatsoever on the amount of time their kids spend on "screen-based" entertainment.

I guess our family falls somewhere in the middle. At the moment our television doesn't get good reception at all. Nobody seems to care much. I am wanting to watch the Olympic Games with the kids; maybe we'll schedule some time at Grandma's for the events that we really want to see.

Video games, however, are a real favorite here. All four kids and their parents enjoy them (though my husband and I haven't picked up a controller to play in months - no time). Do they have any value? Serve any purpose? Have any redeeming qualities at all? I would say that they can (if they are handled in a certain way), and here's why we continue to allow video games in our home.

1. Video Games can teach self-control - If you whine about video games in our home, your video game time is over. If you think it's your turn and try to argue about it with your sibling, your video game time is over. If you display a disrespectful attitude when told your game time is over, your game time is over for tomorrow as well. If you want to continue to play the games (and they do), you will learn how to calmly talk it over with your sibling and work it out without tattling, whining, or angry/disruptive behavior.
2. Video Games can teach logic and puzzle solving skills - Today's video games are not like the Pong or Space Invaders of old. They have intricate plots and challenging puzzles that require memory of the story line and deductive logic skills to solve. If you choose carefully, you can avoid mindless games and actually have your kids thinking....hard.
3. Video Games can motivate - In our home, video game time is AFTER...all school work is done, an hour of piano practice, your room is clean, your chores are done. During the school year, you buy your video game time with writing. (This is extra writing that has nothing to do with your schoolwork.) You get 5 minutes of game time for each well written sentence that you create. You can write whatever you like: a story, a summary of what you learned in history or science, a journal entry; it's up to you. BUT, the writing must be evaluated and corrected before your playtime begins, so it is to your advantage to pay attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Our 4 year old has great hand-eye coordination and is great at gaming. He will not be old enough to start kindergarten this year, yet he reads on a solid 2nd grade level and is doing well in a 1st grade math course (Saxon). His motivation....video games. He knows he has to do his work, and do it well and without complaining, to be able to play. (He doesn't have to write sentences though.) It seems to inspire him to do more than he would have otherwise.
4. Video Games are FUN!! - When I was a kid, my younger brother and I pooled our money and bought a Nintendo. The next several years we played games together. Can you imagine a teen-aged brother and sister actually having fun being with each other? We are in our 30's now, and still talk about those special days. He recently came over with his fiance to play a few games of bowling on the Wii. The house was filled with laughter. The kids had so much fun with their uncle and soon-to-be aunt. -- My kids love to play together. They play board games, made up games, outside games, and even video games. It can be great fun. It can build great memories.

(the game our 4 year old is playing in the picture is TRANSFORMERS. It is one of the fairly mindless games. We did not purchase it for him, but since it came with our Wii (which we bought used), we allowed him to try it out. It has cars (which he loves) and explosions (which he also loves). Just look at that smile.

Boys will be Boys.....Men will be boys, too.

This year for history we studied the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. So the boys had to ..........

have numerous sword battles. Of course, my husband took this shot - And in the FRONT YARD too. (It was my understanding that we got them wooden swords for mock battles and steel swords for display, but just let me leave the house for a few minutes......) Anyway, my husband is the biggest kid in the house. What a blessing to have a husband who loves spending time with his kids. He works a lot of overtime hours, but he diligently endeavors to make moments like these commonplace. May God richly bless him. (And may God protect the children :o)

Welcome to the Walker Homeschool !!!!

Our homeschool days sometimes leave me in a daze -

but we are all learning, growing closer to each other, and growing closer to our Lord.

I love the idea of scrapbooking, but I am not crafty or organized. All of my pictures for the past 5 years are contained on SD cards. I have very little time to work on projects - by the time I got all my scrapbooking supplies out and organized, it would be time to put it all up again and do something else.

My solution - Attempt a BLOG!!

We'll see how it goes.