Journey to Excellence

In my ongoing contribution to the Schoolhouse Review Crew's Homeschooling Essentials Blog Hop , I am sharing with you today the third item that our homeschool could not do without. Well, maybe we would survive, but things would be more difficult! We conduct the majority of our school day at our dining room table. It has a rough tile surface so it is impossible to do worksheets and written assignments on it without tearing the paper and writing all scribbly. The kids also like to do some of their worksheets while sitting comfortably on the couch and in the comfy chair. A couple of years ago we started using clipboards to do all of our writing work. Each kid has their own and they grab it first thing in the morning for their first assignment. As we do worksheets throughout the day, I just add them to their clipboard. If they have to do schoolwork at grandma's or on the road, for some reason, I can just load up their clipboards with all of their assignments an...

Do you ever have an immediate reaction to something, instead of a calm response? Are you like me and does that typically not make you proud? I mean, the other person is probably asking for it, but doing it really doesn't do anybody any good and it still doesn't make it right. It also doesn't change the facts or circumstances. It just makes the already failed relationship worse. I know for me that a build up of frustration, stress, anger and resentment can cause a reaction that I would rather have not had. Instead, I wish that I would have stopped, prayed for strength (because I sure as heck needed it), and then remembered my favorite Bible verse (and maybe said it over and over and over and over) … "God will fight for you. You need only to be still." ~ Exodus 14:14. Be still, Nicole … Be still!!! If you are reading this, and if you are the praying kind, would you so kindly be praying for me over the next three weeks? They are going to be stressful ones for...

Yesterday I told you about how we cannot operate in our homeschool without "A" Plan . Today I am going to share with you the number one essential tool we use all day, every day, and absolutely could not operate without it ….. It's our "B"oard … our white board to be exact. We are eclectic homeschoolers in the materials we teach our children. But, I teach in a very classic way. We sit together at our dining room table and discuss our subject matter. Then I hop up and write and draw illustrations on the white board. I can honestly say that we use it for every subject every day. We use it in various ways: I write examples, spell difficult words, diagram sentences, and draw illustrations. We use it for brainstorming our writing ideas. Sometimes instead of each of the kids writing answers on paper, individually, we do assignments together and write the answers on the board. The kids diagram sentences on the board and do math problems. And, sometimes, they j...

This entire week the Schoolhouse Review Crew members will be sharing posts on Homeschooling Essentials in our first Blog Hop of 2014. Our little homeschool has a few key elements that make our days a success . Without these things, we would never make it! This week I will be sharing five of our Must-Haves for homeschooling. It is the ABC's (and D and E) of our Homeschooling Success . I hope that you will join me each day this week to see what things we can't live without. The definition of essential is "Absolutely necessary; extremely important." And the first absolutely necessary and extremely important item we use in our homeschool is "A" Plan. We are not unschoolers … far from it. I am not someone who can willy, nilly go through my day. I have a plan for my Bible study, for when I work on teaching my college course, for exercising, and housework, our meals planned out on my calendar, as well as proposed unit studies we will do in the fut...

When I think of Iowa and Kansas, I do not get excited. However, the kids and I had an exciting trip through both states with our Road Trip USA unit study. Iowa We completed our Iowa notebook page and read   Iowa: Facts and Symbols by Elaine A. Kule We learned that the geode is Iowa's state rock. When we were visiting Jacob's Cave in Missouri with our friends this summer as a part of Lake School , we got to watch a geode get cut open. It was neat to see and we received some great information from the lady who worked there. That led us to the book  Rock On!: A Look at Geology's Groovy Gems by Christine Peterson. We also did the coolest experiment! We used our new science notebooking skills that we have been doing on our study of colors and rainbows. It was a very exciting and enriching experiment! Kansas We completed our notebooking page on Kansas and then moved onto some interesting and fun activities. Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas. ...

In our regular life this week… Temps have been all of the place this week! We hit 60 one day and Rick and I took the kids on a long bike ride, and we rode our bikes again on Monday over to grandma's for lunch because it was still fairly nice. The wind really picked up on Thursday and it got colder and today it is only supposed to be a high of 30 … and then close to 60 on Sunday. That's Missouri weather for you. On Tuesday I had to make a trip to Springfield for a mandatory class for my child support case, so that had me away from home for the entire evening. Wednesday night we were back at church for handbell choir practice. And Brynne had basketball practice last night. Rick and Collin will be here this evening and I am looking forward to putting on a movie and chilling with the family. In our homeschool this week… We had a great first week back to school! After a long break, I was worried about what kind of attitudes we would all have (especially me). But we sta...

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