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Day 10 – REALITY – How much do you know?

(Contest Over…..sorry, lazy, good for nothing, busy, taking care of children, not retired (mom and dad) people)

TODAY I decided to have a contest. In 31 Days of Reality let’s see how much you know about this:

Okay all you guys out there in bloggy land (Dad, Marian, Mom, Lyn, Kensley, and the rest of you nuts)

What do each thing on the hat represent?

1.The ocean critters hanging off the hat.

2. The 1636 date.

3. The purple flower.

4. The number 1.

5. The red leaves.

6. The anchor.

7. The flag.

8. The ship, the man and the date kinda go together…..what do they mean?

9. There is a giant blue P you can see in some of the photos….what’s that?

10. What do the cow, the fish and the stick represent? They kinda go together too.

11. The red bird?

12. Finally, what state and capital are represented?

I’m expecting big things from you Marian.

The winner gets a $20 Amazon Gift card so have at it!!!

24 hours and it’s gone! Have fun!

2 Comments

Posted: October 10, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

LearningRX – Training the Brain

We have found the most amazing center to help our kids. It is called LeaarningRx.

They are located in many cities across the US (74 Nationwide). I could try to tell you the science behind it all but I’d fail miserably. So click on the link, watch the video, read the testimonials and then come back and read what I have to say about this answer from God for our family.

I can tell you the progress I’ve seen in my own children.

My 11 (almost 12) year old and my 7 year old are attending now. We go for 1 hour and fifteen minutes 4 days a week. In just 4 weeks I’ve seen my oldest son find school easier, concentration less of a problem and his focus laser sharp (at times). Remember, we are still in process.

We are attending for 12 to 24 weeks. My son recently took a Math Test that in the past would take him about 2 hours to finish and he completed it in about 15 minutes. His grade? 100!!! I was so proud of him and I could tell he was proud of himself. Yesterday when I got up at 6:45 he had already finished his school work. He had gotten up at 5:45 for some reason. Thank you God!!!!!

Yesterday my daughter decided to do “double school work”. We call days the kids can’t concentrate and double up the next day “double school work days.” She read 5 pages from her “My First Bible” to me in the car yesterday and whizzed through 4 pages of Math. She has struggled in the past with adding quarters and dimes, nickels and pennies to find the sum of the coins. Yesterday she wouldn’t even let me help her and did it all on her own getting all of them right. Mama June would be so proud!!! (that’s grandma!)

So what is LearningRX?

From a mom’s perspective it’s an hour+ of having wonderful trainers exercise my children’s brains. They play games, time themselves and then try to beat those times. Each day, each minute is a success for them. Both of my children can now say their presidents forwards and backwards. It’s amazing. My daughter was taught to remember her phone number by making up a funny story with words that rhyme with the numbers (one is sun, zero is hero). They make up these nonsense stories all by themselves and magically (to moms anyway) the numbers stick.

Everyone here at the Jacksonville, FL LEARNINGRX has been super wonderful. They have taught me a lot about cognitive thinking skills and teaching the brain to process information faster, hold on to information longer and how every child can succeed. They work with people who have had brain injuries, early dementia, ADHD, ADD, Dyslexia and kids (and parents who just want to remember grocery lists) or want to use that wonderful muscle called a brain God has given us. So go ahead …. pick up the phone and call. The testing is less than $100 compared to the $800 I spent at the psychologist where I got no help in “what to do next”.

I am thankful for the path that has led us to Learning RX. It’s made me even more thankful for the progress I see in my children.

What can I say…..I love you guys man!!!

(Check out Perfecting Parenthood’s blog here)

To read more LearningRx reviews and stories from other parents visit: http://www.learningrx-reviews.com/

4 Comments

Of Mice and Men…

What does this title have to do with my post today?

Nothing.

It’s just what has been on my heart this morning. I’m not sure what it means. It is Sunday. We had a busy weekend and chose to stay home this am. But my heart follows after my Maker nonetheless. I feel so thankful lately. It’s been a hard year and a half and God has brought us out of the valley towards the mountain top. I breathe a little easier. I remember the biggest lesson I’ve learned. That lesson has been TODAY. That is all we have. When I live in the now I feel Him so close…inside and out. Our new house even with the boxes still awaiting my touch I feel peaceful, not frazzled. This morning the wind is blowing and I type on my screened in back porch. Laura Story is playing on my Ipod. GRACE. I love that song. It reminds me of how tiny I am and how huge my God is. I think of my journey this past year and a half.

I would have never thought I’d live where I do…in this community, it’s beautiful. I imagined myself out of town somewhere on a couple acres with some chickens and farm fresh eggs, but I live in a country club. That blows my mind. I’m not a county club girl in any way. I’m a rule breaker. The one who goes against the grain. The green egg in a dozen brown eggs. The one that raises her hands in worship when no one else will. That’s just me. God made me that way. And it’s beautiful when it’s under the control of the Holy Spirit.

I am also in awe of where he has lead our family where school and learning is concerned. Learning RX is an amazing tool he is using in our lives to change the way my children learn. My sweet oldest child took a 24 problem math test on Friday and made a 100 on it. Six months ago that test would have taken him half the day. Friday he did it in about 15 minutes.

(Break)

Now it is Wednesday and I can not believe I started this post Sunday and haven’t finished it yet.

This morning I sit at my desktop eating the yummy, buttery muffin and a huge mug of coffee you see above. My 12 year old woke me up this morning saying, “Mommy, I’m making muffins. Do you want some coffee?”

I think I’ve died and gone to heaven!

Now he wants my computer so he can do his math. Guess I’ll be finishing my thoughts here in my next post. I’m going to try to tell you the story of meeting my birthmom as well as the story of how God led us to the house we now live in.

Ta Ta for now…

1 Comment

Posted: September 21, 2011 by Julie |Category: God Breathed | Homeschooling | Our Family, Our Lives | Tags:

Whether it’s here or there…

Most of you know that we’ve been living in a rental house for over a year now. I was just sure our house in SC (above photo…..oh, not the bird house, just a bird house in our front yard) would sell quickly and we’d be buying a home in FL in no time! But, alas, I was wrong (not surprising).

After 10 years in SC it was difficult to leave the home we loved, the friendships we had formed and the homeschool group we were apart of.

Since moving to FL God has been so gracious to put many interesting people in our path. I’ve met 3 Messianic Jews….I think that is super cool. One was the man at the Oreck store today. He came to know Christ after a major brain surgery in which he could have died had they not performed the surgery within hours.

Last weekend I met a woman on the beach who attends the same church we do, is teaching at Classical Conversations this year (I taught there last year), lives in the neighborhood beside us and is a professional photographer. She homeschools her three children on top of all that!! She was wonderful and I felt it was a God-ordained trip to the beach that day.

We’re anxiously awaiting a close date on our home. Here she is!!

I LLOOVVEE, love, love the kitchen…

We feel it is such a gift from our Father! We all absolutely love it and can not wait to move in.

As we anxiously await God’s timing for moving in I am keenly aware of the journey He has taken us on through the last year.

He’s used the time to help us select a section of this big city we live in. And he’s provided so much for my youngest and oldest children. Last year was a tough homeschool year. One child was diagnosed with ADHD and I fought that tooth and nail. I’ve read books, searched on the computer for answers and have been led by God through a friend to a wonder center Learning Rx. The place is amazing. They retrain the brain to be able to pay greater attention, retain and store what they’ve seen or learned, retrieve that information, process information more quickly and a tremendous amount of other things! Check out their website. We are concentrating on our learning there for the first part of the year and I am so looking forward to what God is going to do with my children through the center. I feel I am setting them up for future success in life and attacking the real issues going on in their brains and not just the symptoms.

I have even found an app for the ITouch that I am going to use to exercise my muscle called “The Brain”. Lumosity also offers an affordable solution if you are interested in exercising your brain online. Take a look at their website too.

After posting a Community Question on Pioneer Woman’s website months ago I have taken an amazing journey to find what I believe is the next step in helping my children succeed in life. The brain is an amazing muscle that needs exercising and even tho I still believe in right brain vs left brain thinking (to a degree) I’m learning more and more about developing cognitive skills and long and short term memory, auditory work memory, working memory, visual processing, logic and reasoning, processing speed, auditory processing and spelling of sounds.

God’s journey is never our own….even tho it is. He just has a different way of bringing us around so we know that we know it’s Him and not us!!!

6 Comments

Posted: August 9, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Photography and Tips | Tags: family, homeschooling

Grace like rain…

Today is one of the days I needed grace like rain.

It was a hard day. In fact, it was a hard week. As I continue to struggle with my struggling learner I question all that is right and normal. I watch my family struggle with the one God has given us to love, teach and raise. I’m searching for answers because I have none. I asked God if I could have this child healed for my birthday. ” Can you do that for me God? I promise I will never ask for another thing.”

Don’t you love the bargaining stage? It’s when I know something needs to shift. Whether it be my focus or my routine or my faith or……

Something must change. These are the days I realize remember the definition of insanity as it was once told to me….”It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

“Lord, am I insane?”

It is during times like these I question myself as the devil begins to throw his darts at me. I think someone else certainly could do a better job of this than me. Anyone. Even the cat.

But I cling to the hope of the next moment, the next day, the next life where there will be no more tears or struggles.

The chocolate? I hide it in the closet so I can eat it alone. Something just for me. One little slice of life that is predictable. I eat and I gain a few ounces. Predictable. I think I like that word right now. It’s a comfortable word.

Trusting Him…

3 Comments

Posted: March 19, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Our Family, Our Lives | Tags:

Missing in action…

Hello there all of you who have had the time to visit blog land lately.

Yes, I admit it. I’ve been missing in action. We’ve been busy with school and then a trip back home to SC and then school again and…well, life, and…and….you get the idea.

We only have 4 weeks left in our homeschool co-op. Yippee! Then life slows down to a crawl compared to what it looks like now. I wanted to thank everyone who took the time to comment on The Pioneer Woman’s blog here. I have been floored and humbled by the wonderful advice and thoughtful words of encouragement. It’s so wonderful to have a forum for reaching more people than my humble blog reaches. I have OMSH to thank for publishing my comment and taking the time to understand what I was asking and the information I was seeking. For those of you who did not read her blog that day here was my question:

“I have a struggling learner who is 12. He’s in the 6th grade. I’ve done some brain integration therapy with him and read the books. He’s definitely right brain and has auditory blocks we are working through. My daughter who is 6 is exhibiting the same signs of behavior but I’m recognizing them at an early age. My middle two sons are fairly easy going and I feel that because I have to spend so much time on the other two these easy kids get shorted. I need some help, some direction, some other mom that might have a struggling learner and some hope to offer.”

If you can identify with this question in any way click on over to Ree’s blog and read some of the amazing comments.

Seth…one of our rough drafts

I realized after posting my key word outline of Seth that I duplicated one of the photos. Hope to fix that when I can get to my photos. Sorry!!!

Rough Draft with emphasis on rough so you get the idea of where you start and where you end:

I. Intro: (yet to be completed)

II My friend Seth has a great personality and is hilarious. He is kind, fun loving and does not argue, hit and is just plain nice. His family are Christians and have the same family values as ours. We enjoy spending time together. He makes us laugh until our stomachs hurt and he makes great movies. I think he might be a producer one day. Seth, well, he’s pretty awesome and we love him like he loves us. Our friendship has continued since I was 6 years old. As you can see Seth’s personality is wonderful!

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III. Overnighting is so much fun. So Seth is a pretty awesome guy to have sleep over at our house. My brothers stay up all night with Seth. My youngest brother and Seth usually sleep in the den on the couch. We also like to play a game we invented called The Scare Game. Junk food is one of the things we like to eat during our overnighters. We rejoice when spending time with Seth. This is why we like overnighters with Seth so much.

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IV. We definitely have several favorite things to do with Seth. The scare game is a game we play with all the lights off in the basement of our house. Someone is chosen as “it”. Then we basically run and scream and scream. It drives my mom nuts. We also have wars with our Nerf swords, go on field trips together and swim at his house because he has a pool. We also play laser tag at night. These are some of our favorite things to do.

V. Conclusion (yet to be written)

So…. from here we will reword, remove any banned words, add quality adjectives, varying sentence openers, strong verbs and write both an introduction and a conclusion. I hope to have the final papers up next week. See you then.

1 Comment

Posted: February 25, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

Right Brain/Left Brain

I am a left brain learner most of the time. God has gifted me with two right brain learners. He has a sense of humor that way. The right brain stores long term memory, pictures, music, colors and humor, option and math concepts (or the big picture) and a more unstructured approach to learning. Those of us who are left brain thinkers are more concerned with the details, short term memory, thinking, logic, structure, language and short term memory.

I’ve learned as of late there are also auditory and visual processing glitches. So I’m thinking….”Ah great, add that to the soup I’m making and I’m getting a little unsure of the recipe.”

I’ve done a lot of reading lately in Diane Craft’s Brain Integration Therapy Manual. It’s intense but makes a lot of sense. I think the feeling of intensity is only because I feel overwhelmed with the daunting task set before me. Teach two right brain thinkers to “do school.” Lovely.

I remind myself daily that God has given me only what He knows I can handle. He has given me my right brain thinkers for a reason. That lovely iron sharpening iron thing that is so pleasant to think about.

I thought I would list some common characteristics from Dianne Craft’s book.

Common Characteristics of a Left Brain Learner:

Tends to seek structure in his or her day
Memorizes best by repetition (auditory or writing)
Likes to know the plan for each day, week, etc.
Tends to work well independently.
Likes to make lists and check them off as tasks are completed.
Thinks things through with multiple pieces of evidence before coming to a conclusion.
Tends to find math interesting ans is very good at it.
Likes the predictability and conciseness of workbooks.
Can do well with self-paced and computer curriculum.

Common Characteristics of a Right Brain Learner

Likes spontaneous events, versus planned events each day. Seeks change
Memorizes best by using meaning, color, pictures, story, and/or emotion in material
Does not plan ahead regularly.
Prefers much involvement with parent while doing school lessons.
Does not do items sequentially, but skips around in his or her work.
Makes quantum leaps when learning. Figures things out from scanty evidence.
Finds math quite repetitive and somewhat boring.
Prefers projects and discussions rather than workbook learning.
Does not do well with self-paced or computer curriculum, but rather one that requires more parent and teacher involvement, such as unit studies, or any curriculum that is more hands-on and interactive with the adult.

Of course we can usually see ourselves in both category but we often tend towards one. Which are you?

If you want more information a good site is http://www.diannecraft.org/

Anything anyone else has to offer out there would be much appreciated!! Blessings…..

4 Comments

Posted: February 16, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags: brain integration therapy, dianne craft, left brain, right brain, struggling learner

Seth…

We’re practicing key word outlining in Language. I want my boys to have it down pat so we’re thinking of fun topics (from our brains) to key word outline. The day before yesterday we did 1. toothbrushes and 2. poop, separately NOT together because that would be…..well…..gross.

Today we picked another favorite topic and Monday we will write our paper about this topic. I want this to be a surprise to one of my readers so here are the photos:

Our TOPIC and our brainstorming:

We decided to combine two of our ideas and crossed off the one they were least interested in writing about so here is our key word outlining for our first paragraph:

Second paragraph: pictures are free and do not count in our 3 word maximum so we use them quite a bit in our outlines of course the arrow means up!

Third paragraph: Four words are allowed occasionally as you may have noticed in our first paragraph.

Here is our entire white board:

And here is Son #1 copying it onto a piece of notebook paper in preparation for writing.

For those of you who are not familiar with key word outlining it is the process of picking out three important or interesting facts and using those facts to make a paragraph. We normally keyword outline from a source text but my boys think picking information about a topic from our brains is more fun so we’re practicing it this way for now.

We then write a rough draft, add dress-ups (-ly words, strong verbs, quality adjectives, prepositional openers, -ing openers, VSS (very short sentences)) to make our papers interesting.

We then write a final draft with a introductory and conclusion paragraph. The introductory paragraph introduces you to the paper and the conclusion tells you the best thing about the topic we are writing about. Sound hard? It’s really not! This outline (because the boys love it) took about 10 minutes. My youngest son and daughter were even involved in the process.

When we finish out papers we will deliver them to “the topic”.

What are you doing in school today?

1 Comment

Posted: February 11, 2011 by Julie |Category: Homeschooling | Tags:

Making it work

Homeschooling 4 kiddos is a challenge to say the least. I know there are moms out there who homeschool many more. God knew four was all I could handle. Their grades are 6,5,3,1.

I wanted my youngest to have a Daily Lesson Plan and since we are still working on our reading I made this over the weekend. I think it turned out well!!