treasures

every once in awhile i find some hidden treasure that just makes my day. i am not a pirate but i get very excited when i happen to stumble upon something that seems so perfect for our family. well at least it is exciting to me. as a homeschooling mom i get very excited to find something i can add to the childrens learning. this past week a friend of mine posted a link called puritans pick. the caption read " like netflix for christians". the word puritan had my attention from the start but after reading the caption i had to find out what this was! the site is just what it says "like netflix for christians". there is a wide variety of films on the site. they range from cartoons that teach bible accounts, books made into movies, documentaries about conservative christian topics, life stories of church fathers and missionaries, and many videos about church history and debates. do you see now why this homeschooling mom is very excited. and every movie is screened and filtered through there very conservative values. another caption read that the movies were so wholesome that " the puritans could watch them". the packages range depending on how many movies you can rent a month and how many you can hold to at a time. but they are very low cost. as we speak i am waiting for my first video to arrive in the mail! i cant wait!!

becoming a homebody

i have learned something i never knew about myself over the last couple of weeks. i kind of like being a homebody. of course i have always loved being a stay home mom ( there are trying days i wonder why though) but these last couple of weeks have been unusually mellow around here. i have been able to accomplish muc needed cleaning around the house. i love walking into a house smelling like bleach ;) i have been able to do things with my children i dont normally do. for example play board games and watch movies. my favorite part has been not rushing to get things done. because im an ocd personality i need to have my house in order before i leave. so that means getting up early and rushing through my chores before we go out for the day. i have very much enjoyed not rushing! i think the childrens favorite part has been staying in their jammies all day! something we have been doing in the evenings before dinner is read through the bible as a family but being home has allowed me to add reading through the proverbs with the children before breakfast. i know that soon we will have to get back to reality but i must admit this has shown me that i need to add more home into my stay at home mothering and we need to add more home to our homeschooling.

semester

well we are only a couple of weeks away from christmas break. and that means the end of our first semester and about half way done with our school year. some exciting things going on in the vanclan homeschool. a few of the children have finished up some books they have been working on since last school year. we put some extra hard work into getting them done this year before christmas so we could move on. some have finished up books they just started at the beginning of this semester. i try to make a big deal out of it for them. sometimes i announce it for everyone to hear and all the other children will clap. i love these simple ways to encourage my children. we are all looking foward to a nice big break. although i use that time to get all of my deep cleaning done, i still look foward to having the time to do it. we enjoy the break from our extra curricular activities. recitals and concerts are over and we can spend a couple of weeks not rushing here and there and just stay home as a family. i think daddy likes it alot. i think he likes not coming home to an empty house a couple nights a week. but like always at the end of the break we are read to get back to our regularly scheduled program. jonah has a pen pal now. this is very exciting for him. i think it will encourage him to work on his handwriting and reading. hes getting better and better with his speech therapy. praying for the day he graduates from that. we love miss judy but it will be a huge relief to be done with that!


reason # 4 why i love homeschooling....being together as a family

well after a nice relaxing 4 day weekend we are back to our regularly scheduled show. it is nice to have a break like that to recharge. our extra curricular activites started again this week too. and its that time of year that we are preparing for many recitals. always praying they do not overlap! so these next couple of weeks are so important for the children. everything they have been working on up to this point will come to fruition. those moments make me cry everytime!!! i think i get more nervous than they do. afterall i work hard taking them to all of the practices and rehearsals right?? and i love it when they get to perform for daddy. hes at work usually when we are at lessons so its all a surprise to him. having the grandparents and godparents and aunts and uncles come is so nice as well. my children have been performing since they were very little. im not even sure they get nervous anymore.

reason #3 why i love homeschooling....life skills!!!

homeschool

this has been a fun week of homeschooling. it was so nice not to have any activities to drive to. we have been home all day getting alot of schoolwork and baking done. definately a home economics kind of week. there has been a very peaceful atmosphere here this week. we have been doing alot of studying this week about pilgrims. the children have really enjoyed the pilgrim stories we have been reading out loud. today is a day off...technically. but we are going to do some school. its nice when we are home to get ahead a little so when we have those busy days full of doctors and dentst appointments we can relax a little. another fun book i have added to our group reading is a character first book. right now we are reading about responsibility. i think these lessons are more important than some of the required lessons we have. we are looking foward to having the next 4 days off though!!
reason #2 why i love homeschooling....flexability!

homeschool wednesday

i find it kind of ironic that wednesdays are homeschool write up day. wednesdays we do anything but "homeschool". we could change the name to "car school". monday we had another ethnic night for dinner. savanah just got done studying ancient greece. so we had a yummy, simple dinner of cheese, bread, olive oil, fish, apples and honey. boy, are the ancient foods so much alike. which is fine with me. im enjoying the simplicity of it. we have also been having alot of fun reading stories about the pilgrims. i enjoy reading out loud to the children. and i enjoy being able to teach them this all at once. and the little guys can even get in on the learning. i am blessed to have been passed so many fun books. and so many christian books. this saturday is our first jr high science olympiad meeting. im really excited to see whats in store for this year. it seems like our team has grown a bit from last year. jr and emily have some homeschooling news. they both completed their cpr classes and are now certified! this is an accomplishment we are all very proud of. and its that time of year again....recitals! the children are all practicing hard for upcoming recitals in piano, guitar, ballet and choir. this is one of my favorite times of year. as nervous as i am that someones recital will overlap with someone elses i get so excited to see them display what they have been working so hard on up to this point. i also love seeing the family come together to cheer them on.
reason #1 why i love homeschooling....having time for a well rounded education!

holiday teachings

there are so many holidays coming up this time of year. i always think about doing fun teachings with the children but the holiday will come and go and i miss it. something we started yesterday was a holiday journal. our first entry was reformation day. i read to the children out of the church history book about martin luther and we watched a video from the movie luther. then i had the chidren make a journal entry. the bigs wrote a summary of what luther did. the littles drew a picture. yesterday i started reading to them out of a book called pilgrims of plimoth. it is told from the point of view of a pilgrim. our journal project for this book is to pretend you are a pilgrim keeping a journal. after each reading the children journal about their adventure. i love teaching like this. my plans for 2012 are to celebrate the jewish holidays for the whole year. i have wanted to do this before but never got started. hopefully i will stick to it this coming year. what a fun homeschool adventure. first we will study the holiday and then celebrate it the best we can. and then of course i will blog about each one :)

ethnic night

we love cooking and baking in our house. anytime the children study something that has to do with food we love to turn it into a homeschool lesson. its such a fun hands on way of learning and experiencing. since savanah has been studying ancient civilizations we have made this into a tradition. anytime she finishes up a unit we celebrate by researching the food they ate and having it for dinner. and it has to be ancient not what they eat for today. for example the jewish eat bagels today but they didnt in ancient judiasm. we try to do this the best we can.sometimes it is hard so we try to find something to represent something they ate. so far we have had ancient egyptian night, ancient china night, and ancient jewish night. most of the foods are very similar. alot of fish, flatbreads, nuts and fruits. i had apples and honey for the first time together last night and it was so yummy! it reminded me of apple cider or a caramel apple. today roger jr. is going to be making indian pudding to go along with his study of colonial america. next up for savanah is ancient greece. i cant wait for that night! maybe for thanksgiving we should plan a traditional pilgrim dinner....hmmmm i feel a lesson brewing :)