Last year I shared about the Pumpkin Prayer, which has become a special tradition in our family even though we seem to change it up a bit each year. Last week we came across another version of “The Pumpkin Prayer” (author unknown) that we used for carving our pumpkin this year. We also fine-tuned a […]
Multiplication Drill Sheet {Printable}
A few weeks ago, we came across a simple timed multiplication drill for students of different abilities where each student works on a specific fact family as needed. In this case, our eleven-year-old practiced his x 12 facts (pictured above) while our 8-year-old practiced his x 2 facts. Both filled in the left side of […]
U.S. History & Book of Virtues Correlation (Cycle 3)
As I prepared our reading plan for American History, it didn’t occur to me that the price of William Bennett’s Children’s Treasury of Virtues might increase. Evidently, it’s out of print, so the price didn’t increase by just a little bit. It went up almost ten-fold! But, as is the nature with Amazon and supply-and-demand, the price […]
Of God and Country: Hymns of America
Do you ever feel like you miss the boat on something? That’s me right now. Last year our family embarked on hymn study for the first time, and now I realize how much we’ve missed it. How could I forget something so obvious, especially when founding truths can be so simply etched upon our hearts […]
Studying the Early 1800s
Howdy, friends! We’ve been a-takin’ a step back in time to the early 1800s, learnin’ about such thangs as the War of 1812, the Oregon Trail, the Underground Railroad, and the California Gold Rush. I reckon we oughtta tell ya a bit about it, so listen up now. Here’s a glimpse of what we’ve been […]
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!
Today marks day 31 without husband home. When we wake up we’ll scramble to the arrivals section of the airport. My heart sings. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, My, oh my, what a wonderful day! My marvelous husband is headin’ my way! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay! I’m so excited! I even cleared off the counters, which at one time looked […]
Nihil, or what I felt we accomplished this week…
Have you ever had weeks like this? Weeks where you feel you accomplished nothing-zilch-nada (or, in Latin, nihil)? That would be the kind of week we had. Not only that, but it’s taken me almost an entire week to write about it. The reality is that we did accomplish some stuff, even in a week […]
Blacklight Puppet Ministry
This year marks Stephen’s second year as a member of our church’s blacklight puppet team… Above:Stephen operates the head of a 7-foot-tall puppet manipulated by two team members! In February 2010, as we adjusted from a city of millions to a county of about 20,000 people, we were excited to find a puppet ministry like this here […]
Comic Illustration Pages {Free Notebooking Printables}
As we incorporate a few new notebooking techniques into our studies, we wanted to share our comic illustration pages in hopes that they’re a helpful tool for other comic-crazed children (or parents). I’ve found this to be more motivating for our children than our typical copywork… These pages can be used for just about […]