Grading Sister’s papers yesterday I came across this math question?
“Which would you rather have, 95 pennies or 9 dimes?”
Sister had very artistically circled the latter so I broke out my seldom used red teacher pen and marked “Really?” in the margin. Today Sister reviewed her work and upon reading my note remarked, “Yes, really. Who the heck wants to carry around 95 pennies just so they can have an extra 5 cents?”
Clearly the girl has a grasp on reality. 
Melissa Wiley on her blog Here in the Bonny Glen recommended a poetry blog today. She writes:
“Her name is Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, and she had the best coat at the convention, and she kept me in stitches with her stories. She’s a poet and a writing teacher, and her blog, The Poem Farm, is kind of incredible because Amy writes and posts a new poem every day. She’s on day 210 now. Two hundred and ten original poems in as many days! I’m in awe.
Homeschooling moms and teachers take note: what Amy does on her blog is really unique. Besides sharing her poems, she writes about the process—what sparks the idea, what stages the poem goes through along the way. “
Anyway, on that note I skipped over to see what it was all about and I think I’ll definitely be weaving this one into our lesson plans and thought some of you might like to as well.
As for Melissa Wiley, she is the author of several companion books to the Little House series and a great source of book recommendations for our family. We would have never heard of Betsy-Tacy without her.
And since we’re talking about poetry here’s a narrative verse Sister wrote last week. So far we’ve studied several types of poetry (including limericks and haikus ~ her favorites) and for each type I have her write her own. She complains greatly at the beginning but is so proud each time she finishes.
In the past I’ve planned some fairly elaborate birthday parties for Sister. She would pick a theme and we would spend a month or so gathering supplies and thinking of every detail but this year I was/am tired. Fortunately, all Sister really wanted was a sleepover with her friends. So we ordered in pizza and let the girlies do their thing … no decorating, minimal cleanup. Love it.
(Brother is a pirate here in case your wondering about his strange expression … Aargh!)
We did manage to throw in a little something special the following morning when we took the group of giggling girls to a local salon to have their nails done
and afterwards to a nearby specialty bakery for some sweet birthday treats.
Happy Birthday, Sister!
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Brother asked to pray the prayer at supper this evening.
“Dear Lord, thank you for this food. Thank you that we had a good day at school today. Help us to be sharable people and to love You most of all. Amen”
So sweet. I laughed a little to myself at the “sharable people” part but as I reflected upon it more I realized how inspired his request was. Tonight is not the first time this week such an idea has knocked at my door.
Our church is reading the book Primal together. I’m not certain where everyone else is but I’ve finally made it past Chapter 3 where the author talks about money. “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also” and all that. I am convicted. Will and I have always been givers. Since our marriage began we have never not tithed and I truly believe that simple decision is directly responsible for the blessing we experience now. But I am convicted nonetheless because several years ago we discussed reaching what Mark Batterson calls a “income ceiling”. We concluded that if our income ever reached what seemed at the time an unattainably high number that would be all we’d need. Everything beyond it we would probably just give to missions or something. I am convicted because our income is now almost twice that number but we don’t give half of it to “missions or something” … not even close. To be fair, our family has more than doubled since our original discussion so, of course, expenses have increased but the real question is not about the logistics of the matter. The real question is about my heart. Is it a sharable one? Really? Because if a sharable heart is one that is chasing after God and His desires then I don’t want to just share. I want to share outrageously. And I’m not … yet.
But my prayer tonight is this: that God will not only show me ways to cut our expenses so that money can be redirected to Kingdom causes but also to help me re-align my priorities to match His desires instead of my own.
Dear Lord, help me to be a sharable person and to love You most of all. Amen
It’s October and you know what that means … pumpkin time.
Our homeschool coop met for a regular Friday meeting and then decided to travel on together to a local pumpkin patch for a picnic (try saying that three times fast) Good conversation, fresh air and fun for the kiddos.
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When making meringue the egg whites should be whipped to a very thick consistency. So thick one should be able to turn the bowl upside down. Let’s test that theory, shall we?
Loving this book for our science explorations this year.
Beyond outings with my kids, I’ve never set up a field trip before but in our local homeschool group the moms take turns finding interesting places to visit so I nabbed a September spot and set about looking for someplace …. well, interesting. A local metal recycling facility seemed to fit the bill. Every time we travel into the city my kids point to their big cranes as we pass, “Look, Mom, look!” So I called just to see. The worst they could do was say “no”, right? But they didn’t instead they were very enthusiastic about our coming.
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One of the things I like best about homeschooling is the ability to take my kids to popular destinations when they are not so popular. Brother and Sister really pitched in last week to help me with some much needed deep cleaning so I offered to take them somewhere as a thank you. They chose the zoo. This is what the parking lot looked like when we arrived on a Tuesday morning about a half hour after opening time.
This is what the train looked like when we finally got around to riding it …. almost 4 hours after opening.
The day was cool but sunny with just a bit of breeze ~ a perfect day to own a zoo.
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Brother’s been learning about the Vikings this past week and as one of our projects we made a toy cauldron as described in “The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago”. Cousin E happened to be around that day so she got in on the action too.
I loved that they made “fire” by cutting up some yellow paper and that Brother brought out some Lego mini-figures to do a little cooking. Not quite historically accurate but so creative.
