Archives for April 2006

Yippee!

Today we used the Phonics materials I downloaded from Montessori Inspired Homeschool for the first time. Here's my 6 year old working on three letter words with a's and e's. After he put the words together we wrote them on paper. Next he'll try the words without the key and when he can spell all the pink cards we'll move on to the next color coded ones.

These are the words we worked on.

Here he is spelling the words using the key as needed.

A close up.

And here are the letters I downloaded, cut and laminated with this wonderful Xyron Clear Laminate Roll I found on sale at Stuffmart. I love that stuff! No machine needed. It's like a giant roll of duct tape. (notice the vowels are red and the consenants are blue and yes the d is missing. gotta get them in there!)

Go check out The Sellers Family Homeschool blog. She's got a lot of wonderful ideas especially if you like hands on Montessori type stuff.

I downloaded some activities for my 4 year old too and he loves them. We're working on the Smiley Face Matching right now.

Have fun!
Julie

6 Comments

Posted: April 28, 2006 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

just in case you think things aren't REAL around here….

i thought i'd share the day with you….

7 year old threw fit. kept him home from montessori school and in his pj's in the bed all day as consequence.
2 year old spent entire morning saying “no mama”
left poor hubbie with 7 year old meltdown and 2 year old screaming as i trudged off to yoga
had to call the montessori school to let them know why dear 7 year old wasn't at school
spent almost 2 hours in the dentist's office getting 7,6,4 year old's teeth clean (me too). only one cavity in 7 year old.
handled new mousey with much success today (all of us did) but got pooped on too.

and overall a good day! no broken bones, only two bloody body parts requiring bandaids on 4 year old, hubbie made most of our dinner and it's 10pm and i'm in the bed.

so nighty night.
sleep tight.
julie

4 Comments

Posted: April 27, 2006 by Julie |Category: Other Happenings | Tags:

Yep, the older I get…

…the less I know.

OreoSouza and Maureen's post just remind me of this. The more I learn about God the less I know.

A beautiful friend of mine just lost her precious little one after just a few weeks of life.

Another precious friend is battling health problems that threaten her life.

Why? I don't know.

What I do know is that there is a God who loves me (us) more than I can ever begin to understand. Oh how like Peter we are.
“Lord, I will go to prison, even death for you.” (Luke 22:31-34)
then after Jesus is arrested the same Peter says…
” Jesus? (WHO??) I do not know him!” (Luke 22:54-69)
and he says it three times.
So what does Jesus do?
After his resurrection He restores Peter to the leader God has called him to be.
“Do you love me Peter?” Jesus asks three times. (John 21:15-19) To me he's asking “Look in your heart? Do you really really love me?” Maybe Peter is humbled realizing he does love Jesus but not like he thought he did.

So, Jesus restores Peter after he publicly denies HIM, after he claims he'll follow Jesus anywhere, after he fails miserably.

And Peter's restoration changes him. In Acts chapter 2 vs 14-41 Peter's sermon brings 3000 people to know Jesus at Pentecost. And in chapter 4 of Acts (vs 4) 2000 more are added.

All by a man who failed Jesus in Jesus' weakest hour. This failure of a man was used by God to bring over 5,000 people to know Jesus.

Maureen, God used Peter.
God will use you.
He'll use me.
He'll use all of us.
With our shortcomings, our failures, our doubt, our disbelief.

Praise HIM!!! Thankfully none of what He does through me is because of me. It's in spite of me. It all comes from a man, a God who's walked the path before me.

Jesus, make me love you more.
Julie

6 Comments

Posted: April 26, 2006 by Julie |Category: Happenings | Tags:

The older you get…

Do you also realize the older you get the less you know? Did you read my cactus story? There's proof right there!

Things like that convince me that I know less and less with each passing year. You know, when I was 16 I knew everything!! Why am I getting dumber?

There are things I don't understand…

My daughter isn't even two yet and already she doesn't want one stitch of clothing on her babies. Why?
Why is true surrender and submission sometimes easy and sometimes like knives in my heart?
Is there still One perfect will from the Father or are there just sometimes choices He gives us to make because He loves us and we're His kids.
If so, why does HE think I have any idea whatsoever what will truly make me happy?
Why do boys seem to always want to beat the living daylights out of one another? Even when they are brothers!
Can Jesus come back now? I'm ready.

These are things I ponder. Like the cactus seeds….so small, so tiny and yet I see pumpkins.

Wondering in HIM tonight…
Julie

4 Comments

Posted: April 25, 2006 by Julie |Category: Other Happenings | Tags:

Lapbooks

Here's our first attempt at lapbooks. My 6 year old and my 4 year old did them today. We had fun. Tomorrow we are adding the acrostic of our names and our family trees. All thanks to this homeschool mom. I love stealing ideas!!!!

3 Comments

Posted: April 25, 2006 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

Mickey the Mouse Part II

Well, all is well in the Worthy household. Mickey Jr. has made it safely from the Montessori school to our tank and is nestled in the toilet paper safe and sound. When I get a chance I'll take a photo of our newest addition. He just looks SO different (yea right!!).
Thanks for all the comments and prayers.
Grace abounded!!!
IN HIM
julie
(just for you guys on my mailing list you never get pictures with the email so just click on www.homeschoolblogger.com/juliestew)

1 Comment

Posted: April 24, 2006 by Julie |Category: Happenings | Tags:

Mickey the Mouse Tragedy

Well, we experienced our first mouse tragedy. The 6 year old squeezed him too tight while trying to pick him up this morning and he's dead. At first, he wouldn't tell me what happened but I could tell that he'd done something so after a little gentle proding he confessed.

So hopefully there are more left for us to get another one and also his older brother will extend the grace needed.

IN HIM
julie

7 Comments

Posted: April 24, 2006 by Julie |Category: Happenings | Tags:

Awesome article

Another homeschool mom referred me to this article. Check it out. It's wonderful.

2 Comments

Posted: April 23, 2006 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

Check out that cactus!!

Recently I purchased a cute little 6 pot cactus kit complete with dirt and a small plastic greenhouse. Having 3 boys I thought it'd be cool to have them see who's cactus would grow the fastest. They would each have 2 pots and I put their names on each one. We were all set for the cactus growing contest.

Until someone knocked over the pots/greenhouse and the dirt spilled. As best I could I got the dirt back into the pots with no idea where the seeds were. The directions had said to place them just below the surface of the soil.

Like any good homeschool mom I say, “Oh well!” and ended up putting all the soil and whatever seeds were left into two larger pots we already owned. One pot had been used for planting acorns this past fall but they'd been watered to the point of rotting. So I dumped out most of the soil and added the cactus seed/soil mixture that was left.

About 3 days after I noticed something breaking through the soil and I thought “Wow! I'm the cactus growing queen of the world. (insert soundtrack from The Titanic) Check me out.”

On the fourth day I began to suspect something was a little unusual but was still holding onto my “queen” concept.

By day five I knew something had to be going on. I mean, these things were huge! Either I'd bought gi-normous cactus plants (and they'd all gotten into one pot) or something else was happening.

Well, here's the pictures of Pot #1 and Pot #2

Don't you think there's something a little unusual going on?

Me too!! It took me a while to figure it out but when I saw this rather large light brown seed attached to one of the leaves I figured it out. The brown pot has pumpkin seeds in it… thanks to my 6 year old!! Pumpkin seeds!!! And I thought they were cactuses (is that a word?)

Pot with pumpkin seeds